Geeky is the new Sexy

I’m not sure why it is, perhaps because I’ve been on my own for awhile, or that I’ve been watching too much Big Bang Theory, but I’ve noticed that my taste in gentleman has had a dramatic shift.

No longer am I lusting after handsome strapping manly men, tradesman with big sweaty muscles.

I am now lusting after smart men, men who are passionate about something other than sport and boobs. 

Apart from my faithful obsession with the incredibly sexy Scottish sex god Gerard Butler.. even my taste in celebrities is shifting from the suave and handsome to the awkward looking youngsters such as R-Patz.

And after spending a weekend watching DVDs I now have a rather big crush on BBT’s Leonard Hofsteder. Not overly attractive, nasal voice but lovely, sweet and would do anything for the girl he fancies.

Such a nice idea.

But really – I MUST stop forming romantic attachments to fictional characters.

The iPad vs The Book

One of my esteemed colleague's iPad arrived today and the office 
population were all wetting themselves with excitement, cradling it 
like a newborn.

I'll admit I was impressed with its capabilities and it was kind of 
cool, however I still don't quite get it.

I'm not a technophobe, I enjoy new developments, but I also like 
tradition, and I figure why change what it is already awesome? Some deem the iPad the future of publishing.  I strongly disagree. And here are my (Purely from a Book/Magazine reading perspective)
reasonings:

1. Books are awesome

2. I don't see a lot of people being able to afford a $600 piece of 
equipment in order to read a story that they could purchase for $14.95 or borrow from the library for free.  YES it will come down in price as the technology improves and the innovators move on to the next best thing since sliced bread, but its still a significant lump sum of cash to pay.

3. The battery never dies on a book

4. You can't pass an iPad down generation to generation like you can a book.  My Grandfather passed on a leather-bound set of books to me, that look stunning on my shelf, that were my Great Grandfathers, and I'll pass it on to my offspring eventually as well if I have any.

5. It takes the fun out of gift giving.  Books are a favourite gift to 
give, for all ages. You can't write a personal message on the cover of a digital book, wrap it up and give it to someone.  I love opening up to the first page and seeing a note in their from a loved one, or when you find a book in a second hand store with a message of love to a stranger. One of the books that my Pa gave me has a note to him written from my Gran, on the occasion of his 21st birthday.  A digital book won't be passed through the generations because the technology will become obsolete.

6. I'm on a safari, staying in campsites where there is no 
electricity.  I want to read a story... how am I going to charge my 
iPad?

7. I'm reading a particularly thrilling adventure story.. it's 
suspenseful.. then all of a sudden Snape Avada Kedavra's Dumbledore. I slammed the book shut and threw it across the room in horror - If I had been reading this on an iPad I surely would have broken it.

8. I've finished reading my book and decide I don't want to keep it… 
I can't take an iPad book to the Op Shop or the book exchange to 
receive credit on a new book.. I can't give my old book to my 
neighbour to borrow or swap it with a traveller on the road.

9. I am in general a clumsy person.  I drop things a lot and spill 
things even more.  Technology breaks. As my lap top found out.

10.  You can't get an author to sign your digital book.

11. I like to read magazines in the bath, I take my iPad in with me in the bath, my hand are slippery, I drop it into the bubbles, my iPad is destroyed. I drop my magazine, I'm only out $5.95

12. I'm at the bus stop waiting for a bus, so I pull at my iPad to 
while away some time. A gang of hooded youths see me flash my fancy technology and think "she is of above average means".  Next thing you know I am on my bottom in the gutter whilst they run off with my 
handbag.

13. I have an intruder in my house.. I'm in bed and the closest object is my iPad (which is not heavy) I throw it at the intruder, it bounces off him.  I throw the Hardback copy of Harry Potter & The Order of The Phoenix or War and Peace at them, I startle them long enough to get away.  I throw the shorter Oxford English Dictionary at them and I kill them. 

14. I enjoy online shopping, but I don’t get nearly the same satisfaction as when I walk into a book store and discover something new.

So there you have it.. 14 reasons why I think the iPad will never replace the book. 

Pac Man Munching Up The Workforces Time

I was enchanted with Google's recent Pac Man playable logo.  I spent much time on it, as did many millions of other people.

In fact, apparently we all spent 4,819,352 HOURS playing it causing $120,483,800 in productivity.*

I can see how it would ad up.  My general dissatisfaction with my job means that any distraction, no matter how minor is a highlight to my day. An email funny, text message from a boy, one of the upstairs staff walking downstairs carrying something.. it's all enough to have me drop what I am doing and spend 5-10 minutes happily interacting with whatever it is that distracted me.

I think it's one of the reasons I enjoy making tea so much.. it gets me away from my desk and into the lovely land of the kitchen where there is food and magazines.  And I venture a guess that I am not the only one who feels this way.

So I totally understand when Google, a site that many can legitimately go on at work without a warning being sent to HR creates a fun game that the global working population drops their press releases, statistics, sales analysis or marketing presentations and spends 5 minutes munching up dots and being chased by little monsters.

Bliss.
http://mashable.com/2010/05/25/google-pac-man/

A Winter’s Truth

Winter is upon us (well us antipodeans anyway) and as a single woman this means one thing and one thing only.

My legs are hairy.

As far as I can see there are only three reasons to shave your legs. 1) If your legs are on display through short skirts, shorts etc. (no one likes seeing a hairy girl – this goes for armpits too) 2) If there is a man in your life who is likely to be touching them. 3) You are going out with the expectation that the evening will end in coitus.

As it is cold, my legs are no longer on display.  If I’m wearing a short skirt, I am wearing practical and warm tights, stockings or leggings.  I am not one of these foolish Queensland girls who prance around in July in short shorts and thongs.  Also, there is no man in my life at present to worry about pleasing and I stopped whoring around long ago, so there will be no unexpected fornication any time soon either.

As I showered this morning I looked down and realised that it had been at least 3 weeks since I had removed the hair on my legs.

And quite frankly, I don’t give a damn.  

Ouch

An injury I think is worse than an illness.

When you are ill, you feel hopeless and can lie around listless. You don’t care that you haven’t showered, or that you are staying in bed all day doing nothing. In fact that is all you want to do.

An injury is different. I can’t do anything, I can’t work, yet I’m not sick so therefore am BORED out of my freaking mind!  My back is killing me so can’t sit down for too long, therefore can’t be at work.  I have to keep walking around, but yet can’t go anywhere interesting.

Not only that I can’t believe that my injury was caused by a sneeze.  Which is nearly as embarrassing as the time I broke my finger playing with a balloon. 

Not some interesting injury cause by a dangerous position on a sex swing.  Or by swinging on a trapeze.  No, by SNEEZING.  How very very dull and embarrassing.

And for everyone who knows me, they won’t be surprised at all.  Which is in fact even sadder.

Follow Me

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http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Secret-Life-of-Ginger/115353435167794

Young Jessica Watson

Australia has once again proven to be its fickle self.  7 months ago we were all branding young Jessica Watson a stupid teenager, and now she is our new national hero.

I’m sorry but whilst she has done something rather remarkable, I don’t get it. 

For starters, she is not a hero.  As previously mentioned a hero is someone who saves drowning backpackers and small children for fires. Miss Watson is not a hero, she is an adventurer. 

History has seen many great adventurers such as Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Everest, Scott in the Antarctic, Burke and Wills and even Jeremy Clarkson & James May – the first men to DRIVE to the North Pole. Jessica Watson is not the first person to sail solo around the world though.  Granted she is the youngest, but she is still walking in the footsteps (or rather sailing the waves) of explorers of ye olde days.  

Not only that, she’s only 16 bless her. What the hell is she going to do with herself now?  To have achieved your goal in life by the time your 16 leaves a whole lot of life ahead of you.  History has proven that the only place you can go from the top is down.  The TV special, articles in Woman’s Day and New Idea and the inevitable book accounting her adventure that we are bound to see in the next month will surely put a bit of cash in the bank.  Then she has the profits from the sale of baseball caps that she is promoting on her website.  But then what?

Will she go the way of so many child prodigies and stars before her and go down the path of drugs and promiscuity (after all her Mother did let her go gallivanting AROUND THE WORLD on a tiny boat on her own for 7 months.. hardly the strictest of parents) or will she surprise us all?

Time will only tell. 

Time Machine

When 17 Again came out I blogged about what I would do with my do-over. And I haven’t really thought about it again until I was blessed to see the hilarious and quality movie Hot Tub Time Machine (which btw was hilarious and a quality piece of cinema because one of my oldest friends worked on it).

The premise is – middle age mediocre men decide to take a weekend away and get obscenely drunk in a Hot Tub, spilling some Soviet energy drink in the electrics transporting them back to 1986. Where they of course fix their lives and end up being incredibly happy and rich (Lougle.. hee hee).

It’s very strange. Somedays I think that a do-over would be fabulous. I could go back and reverse all those incredibly dumb decisions I have made in the past few years. I could have worked harder at my job, been nicer to my friends, be more pleasant to my family. 

But then, I wouldn’t have learnt some incredibly valuable lessons about the value of money, or that people, in fact, don’t often change for the better. 

What I would like to do however, is to go back in time and stop myself from watching the following films:

A Very Brady Sequel, Contact, The Wicker Man, The Matrix, The Matrix Revolutions, Star Wars Phantom Menace, Dark City, Red Planet, 10,000 BC, Legally Blonde 2, The Ring, Vanilla Sky, The Cell, Me, Myself & Irene, Final Destination, Babe:Pig in the City, Lost In Space, Memoirs of a Geisha, Boat Trip and countless stupid movies The Ex forced upon me.    

That’s a few days of my life I could have spend doing something way more productive. Like re-watching Friends or That 70s Show.

Starving...

For the first time in my life I am on a proper diet.  I’ve reached that unfortunate age where my metabolism has slowed down and I can now no longer eat what I like.

Devastation.  Even more devastation when I realise that I can no longer zip up the majority of my jeans. So on a diet I have gone.

I’m not coping very well.  I’m tired, irritable and have had a headache for four days (although this is more likely due to my neck being out).  I’m dreaming about food.  Not only that but I have felt that I am likely to burst into tears at any given moment over the littlest things.  Like getting pen on my hands or my banana having a spot on it.

What I wouldn’t give right now for some Chicken McNuggets, or a Big Mac, a meat pie, a sausage roll, a croissant with ham and cheese, a cinnamon scroll or a packet of Twisties.  Instead I have been eating salads and low fat yoghurts and FRUIT (which by the way turns out is FULL of calories! Deceitful bastard of a banana).

Am hoping that eventually it may be all worth it, cause no man is going to fancy a girl with a bottom the size of Mongolia and a stomach that looks like it is gestating a foetus.  But honestly, the way I’m feeling right now I almost feel like I’d rather be a little bit fat.

Assessement Positive

Today I received back my first assignment feedback from the writing course I am doing by distance education.

Having been out of school and university for so long (10 years since High School, 7 since University) I have forgotten the sheer elation that one gets when you receive positive feedback on your work.  Sure, I get praise from my boss from time to time, however this is not as satisfying as I'm PAID to do a good job and quite frankly if it wasn't praise worthy I would be dissapointed in myself. 

This however is much different.  This is something I have written for myself, that a respected journalist has praised. Quite frankly I am as pleased as punch. In fact I am nearly as elated as when my favourite romance novelist posted on her Facebook page that my blog was a "Great Column".  

What is even better is that it is marked in far less red pen than the copy that I write for work is.  As mentioned before, I work with former teachers, who seem to find it their duty to find things wrong with your work and write all over it in red pen.  The first few times this happened I felt like I did during my first semester at university when my tutor gave me back my assignment scribbled all over with "acceptable" written on the front.  This, I might add was the first time in my life I had ever received a grade less than "Above Average" and this made me VERY irritable indeed. 

So dear readers, my positive grade is making me feel positive about life again and my potential career as a columnist.  However far into the future that may be.  

My Online Experience

Loyal readers will know well of my dabbles with online dating.

Last week I had a typical online dating experience.  To be honest I didn’t really want to go on it, I knew I didn’t like him all that much but my friends convinced me that I can’t wait around for the guy you fancy to decide he really fancies you back.

We met for a drink after work. To start with he admits he was always late to everything and incapable of being on time. He therefore continually interrupted me halfway through conversation with unrelated things.  He seemed uninterested in what I had to say, but was interested in making some rather racist comments about South Africans.

The next 45 minutes dragged on and I found myself wishing I was anywhere else but there. The icing on the cake was when he admitted that he frequently checked out 15 years old girls (this was the point where I heard Hawkeye’s voice telling me that only weirdo’s go online)

It was such a relief to get home, drink chocolate milk and watch DVD’s.  Online dating is such a horrific experience and I’ve come to realise, in a small town like this one that the people on there are single for a reason.

Frequently you hear stories about how people met the love of their lives on the internet.  In fact, one of my old friends met her current live-in-boyfriend via Facebook.  I however have had no such luck.

Lots of online conversations, 3 dates (this one by far the worst, seconded by the guy who turned out to be about a foot and a half shorter than me) and many blogs later I think that perhaps this online business has had its day for me.

Sigh. 

Postscript

I succumbed to society and purchased flowers at the supermarket. I am now of course in the good books.

Well done me.

Mother’s Day Guilt Trip

You may have noticed that today is Mother’s Day.

How you could have missed it is beyond me.  Retailers have been pressuring us all into spending hundreds of dollars on our mothers.. Just because.  Mother’s Day is the second biggest retail day after Christmas.

To say I dissapproved would be an understatement.  I hate the retailers have decided that I am a bad person if I don’t buy my mother new slippers and a dressing gown, or chocolate and soap.  I don’t want to spend my money on this rubbish.  

Please don’t get me wrong, I love my mother, but we fight a lot and annoy the crap out of each other.  If perhaps she stopped telling me that I’m fat or that my clothes look rubbish on me, and that big bottomed girls shouldn’t wear skinny jean, or refrained from asking me when she is getting grandchildren, or when I am going to get married and move out then perhaps I would be more inclined to spend my money on frivolous nonsense. And unfortunately today, on Mother’s Day I don’t remember the countless nice things she has done to me. What I do remember is her telling me when I was 16 that I wasn’t pretty enough to be an actress (the only thing I ever wanted to do), or her telling me that my blog was ridiculous and “who would ever want to read such things”, and her snickering every time I tell her of one of my aspirations to travel to far flung places.

That is the sad truth of it. On the whole she is a good person and I love her, but I have come to accept that in this family, there are mother daughter issues that are long to be resolved.

But I will try and behave today and be nice because society tells me to. And my Father will kill me if I do not.

Forced Social Interaction

Gone are the days when your lunchbreak was yours alone.  I work for a company where we are all forced to sit down and have morning tea together. Taking up a grand total of 30 minutes of our designated 1 hour break in the day.


Whilst sometimes I enjoy this, I do for the most find it a rather forced affair.  It is not that I do not like my colleagues because I do, rather that I would rather spend my break time doing what I like (such as blogging or facebooking), rather than sitting in a circle talking about other people’s children, grandchildren, what people watched on telly last night or even worse, when the conversation dries up and everyone sits looking into their coffee mugs.

Whilst it is an “Optional” affair people do tend to look at you strangely when you don’t go.  Which I also think is a little unfair and makes me feel like the world’s biggest bitch. The fact of the matter is, unless I am in the mood for people, I enjoy my solitude.  Because other people’s trivialities (unless they are a very close friend) annoy the crap out of me and frequently put me in a bad mood.

But today I suppose I better be diplomatic and go pretend to be interested.

Sigh.

Dreaming of a Nap

I’ve now had two rather big weekends away from home, catching up with friends, eating food, enjoying life, putting on my gladrags and dressing up (gladrags – that’s a word we don’t use enough in everyday conversation and am contemplating trying to bring it back into vogue).

To tell you the truth I am exhausted.  Completely and utterly exhausted. I’m looking forward to a weekend where I can do not very much indeed, and have naps. And stay in.

When did I get so old?  I mean I have long accepted that my body does not recover the way it used to, but when did I start looking forward to doing nothing but tidying up my room and reading my book?  I’m single and 26! I should be out enjoying life to the max, drinking cocktails and having adventures a’la Carrie Bradshaw and the SATC girls.

But no, I want to put on my Bonds trackies, my “Jane Austen is my Homegirl” hoodie and just do nothing.  This is not like me.  I do not want to get old.  I think I have to inject some No-Doz into my life. 

Yo Ho Ho & A Bottle of Wine.. A City Life For Me

I have discovered that I am a city girl.

I was recently in Sydney for a weekend away, and found myself almost frothing at the mouth at the excitement, dirtiness, shopping, people and general hustle and bustle of a big city.

I realised how very much I have missed endless starbucks, popping into the shops on your lunch break, and the small thrill you get fighting for a seat on the train with the morning commuters and the elation when you beat the immaculately dressed woman in Louboutins to the last seat on the carriage – forcing her to stand for 40 minutes in painful heels.

But what’s a girl to do?  Financially I have to stay put for the time being. I will soon be debt free, which gives me more options but then what?  After being out of work for so long, for credibility’s sake I must stay with my job for at least a year. Which is fine, it’s a good job and pays well – however it’s based in the house in the middle of nowheresville which is just a little bit dull.

I feel that perhaps I am one of those people for whom the grass will always be greener.  I need to put down some roots somewhere, but nowhere seems quite right. Add to that the pressure that my parents are putting on me to buy a house, or to just DO SOMETHING and I’m heading towards Grumpy Town.

There’s nothing much to do I suppose but Keep Calm and Carry On, drink more wine and buy more shoes.