somebody to love

I first saw him at Grange. A cricketer, strong, broad and made of plastic. He had a fine moustache like a virile walrus, and it was love at first sight.
I took him home with me.
His instructions told me to put him directly in front of the television. But he wasn't happy there. He didn't say a word until I put him in my bedroom.
He was a bit of a chauvinist. He didn't talk unless he wanted something. The something was usually VB. Otherwise, he'd ask me to either turn on the cricket, make him nachos or find his thongs.
He had no apparent receiver device. John at my local bottle shop said Boonie should live in a box in a dark corner of the shed, because he was obviously a government spying device.
But Boonie and I got along OK.
Then Boonie began to change.
First he began to slur his speech. I just thought he'd had too much VB.
Then, Boonie started to speak in a satanic whisper... He had evolved his own language.
He would wake me in the night, slurring and crackling like an evil alien.
But I stayed with Boonie, in memory of what had been.

Captain Woot

I just went to myspace (Yes! I'm a whore!) I was going through the bands section (as you do when you're a sad wannabe groupie) and there is a band called Captain Woot. I mean, how cool is that! what kind of a genius thinks of a name like that! Its like a woot captain beefheart!
So I'm thinking, band names.

Snatchtastic and Spy Lobsters are genius band names, obviously.
But to help those other people out there who might be great musicians but SUCK at thinking of band names (you know who you are)

So, I've invented

The really pretentious pseudo prog band name generator.

First you think of the colour of your tackiest ever garment, and make it a nuanced colour like tangerine, it can't just be orange. Then, your favourite animal, again make it exotic. If you're feeling creative, include the name of your first fluffy toy. Maybe then the name of a place. Last of all, you need a very, like 'explosion' , obviously depending what sort of band you are. You have to make sure you put "the" on the front, and make the last word plural.

so your boring band becomes

the tangerine snake cactus Willingham explosion.

and you have to INSIST that no one capitalises the 'the' or any of the other words.

If you want a short snappy post rock sort of name, just pick the two best words generated.

Snatchtastic Fantastic

There's a little part of me that thinks it would be fun to be emo. I've almost got the hair and I could probably bleed on my guitar if I wanted to. It would be pretty easy to go to an op shop and buy an all black wardrobe (although I wouldn't want to get confused with my evil sister).
The crowning glory of my imaginary emo world would be my myspace site.
I'm thinking, it would be so fun to have a fake band and put it on myspace.
I'm so inspired.
I think Snatchtastic and spylobsters have a photo shoot coming up!!!

why we blog

I always thought blogging was about telling the world how cool you are and how witty your writing is. But apparently, people blog for all kinds of crazy reasons.

People like to sell stuff like viagra and weight loss 'solutions'. There seems to be a whole genre of break-up blogs, where people tell the internet community how they are SO over someone they have to write a blog about it. There are whacko religious blogs.

But what freaks me out even more are medical blogs. There is a whole blog about skin diseases. I'm sure somewhere there's a blog about the health benefits of drinking urine.

So, what happens is that I have finished my marxist polemic of the day, and think 'I'll go look at a random blog today". And before I know it, I am staring at psoriasis. Yuk... If I wanted to look at psoriasis I would go read a med journal.

bloody christians

I went to this blog

the address was

http://horsgal360.blogspot.com/

and the profile said:

I'm like this "normal" girl from this like "normal" island, Tasmania, and I am a full-time christian, ITS THE BEST!!

what the?

Neo-Liberalism: Its Your Choice

Free choice is a patriarchal lie based on the fiction that humans are somehow rational beings. Solid, serious, evidence based research shows that this is not the case. If Australians are rational, why did they vote for John Howard?

hair: the bane of my life.

In its natural state, it's dishwater blonde.
In its current state (dyed dark brown) it gets roots in about two weeks. Yukky, dishwater blonde roots.
When boys run their fingers through my hair, they say things like "you have such thin hair", scarring me for life.
The hairdresser I go to charges $79 for a haircut.
No other hairdresser has the ability to cut my hair properly, so I can't go to a cheaper salon.
I am singlehandedly making the hole in the ozone layer bigger, but I need to use lots of hairspray or it clings limply to my head.
Ditto volumising mousse, hairdresser shampoo, conditioning treatments, shine spray, defining product and leave in conditioner.
Some would say I am really gullible for buying the products recommended to me. But they do appear to make my hairstyling routine less challenging.
All I want is for the colour and the style to look OK in between haircuts. Is that really so much to ask?

fifi-belle knows heaps of daggy stuff

When I was looking through family photo albums as a child, I was always fascinated by one of the captions. It was a picture of a convent in Wagga Wagga, and the note in my Grandfather's writing was
"a nun, sister Ligouri, caused a scandal when she escaped from this convent".
I thought this was pretty cool. I though it had to be some sort of sexy scandal, in which some rebellious nun got influenced by 20's flapper culture and decided to join the big bad world.
So today I googled the phrase, hoping to get the dirt on Sister Ligouri.
Sadly, there was no sex involved. Poor old Sister L had a fight with her mother superior over a broom and decided to run away with some protestant activists, who helped her sue the bishop of Wagga. Although she did accuse the convent of trying to poison her. So really, it was all about Irish nationalist politics.

leaked internal memo from the ministry of silly walks

John Cleese can't do silly walks any more, because he has arthritis. I was at the pub with some Scottish blokes last night and neither of them knew about Mogwai the band. Everything about the world is wrong, plain wrong. Apparently this is called apocalyptic nihilism, not to be confused with ni-ism, which is an intense feeling of desire for shrubberies.

Life Choices

I've just had an idea for a great reality TV show. Its beautifully simple, and it would be incredibly cheap to make.
I would find a wealthy family, and challenge them to live on a Centrelink income.
It would have to be for a longish period, like maybe three months. I probably would have no trouble finding the family, because many people like to deny the existence of poverty in Australia, and believe it is the result of nothing but poor budgeting. I'm sure they would love a chance to try and prove the crypto commie lefty whingers wrong.
I would make the conditions as realistic as possible. They would not be allowed to bring any of their own possessions, not even their underwear.
At the beginning of the period they would be sent to Goodwill with vouchers allowing them to pick clothes for themselves, according to the number of items a family in need would normally be allowed to pick for themselves: two pairs of pants, two jumpers etc per person.
Then, they would have to find somewhere to live. Low income people are far more likely to be renting privately than living in public housing, although they are given a small payment for rent assistance.
Then they would have to spend the next three months living in the house, in whatever area they had 'chosen' to live, knowing the amount of money available. On their income of probably about $200 per week, they would have to feed themselves, run an old car if they had 'chosen' to buy it, entertain themselves if they 'chose' to, and pay any bills that came in if they 'chose' to get the electricity connected or use heating. They would have to pay any medical or pharmaceutical expenses that arose if they 'chose' to get sick.
Because life's all about choices these days.
Of course, nothing could really give them the depressed mental state that comes from the drudgery of living in poverty. They would know that this was just an experiment, and that they could go back to their old lives and their high income at the end of the period, which would be a cheering thought unthinkable for a real family living in these circumstances.
What the reality TV show would do, is answer the question about whether or not poverty in Australia is really due to poor financial management, or the inadequacy of our social welfare system.

more about me

Fifi-belle is a PhD candidate at ___ . Her research interests are sleeping, eating and watching Oprah. She came to the centre after working at Centrelink, where she hatched an elaborate plan to pretend she had been doing an Honours degree. She was never really an undergraduate, but she went to all the lectures except the ones that were too early in the morning. Before this, she had a brief career as a failed Pirate, serving several years in jail for robbery on the High Seas. She has also been convicted for selling shares in a non existent Papua New Guinea gold mine. She had a child, but she accidentally left it at the supermarket.

dj sydneytripp vs Jefferson Airplane

So I had the most boring day of my entire life. I spent 2 goddamn hours waiting at Adelaide airport because my budget aeroplane was delayed. Then I sat in an aeroplane and wanted to retch the whole trip. Ryan, I hope you've been reading Cleo this month because there's a great article about women who get off on tiny doorknob shaped "wieners". They have an internet community and everything. When I was on the plane there was a russian woman in front of me yelling at people. She didn't want them to use the overhead locker because her clothes were in there. Like, have you heard of a suitcase? I got on the airport train. The ticket machine sold me a student ticket, which was nice of it. I refuse to pay full fare on the airport line, who am I, kerry packer? Then I got off at Hosworthy (doesn't that just sound like a place there would be gorgeous skinny English boys with long hair and anoraks?). Finally, I had arrived at my destination, which was 1958, aka my grandfather's house. Help help I'm a prisoner in 1958! Let me ooooout!!!

when I am king

when I am king of the world, I am going to ban fashion. I am going to make everyone wear hypercolour overalls. Because.

Internet saddo

I just realised I've been blogging for five months now. Thats actually longer than my longest ever relationship. Like that relationship, I have also broken up with my blog from time to time, called it rude words, and OH SHIT
do you know that 67% of Australians aged from 20-29 identify with Christianity?
what is going through these people's minds? do they also believe in aliens?

Dirty 3 are playing with cat power. They are two of my favourite musical acts of all time. They are playing in Adelaide when we are in Melbourne, and in Melbourne when we are in Adelaide.

I hate my life
I hate my lie
I hate my life

I can only resolve this evil dilemma if I go see their Melbourne show, so I think I’ll be going to Melbourne. I will definitely go to Melbourne.

Speaking of music, I would like to report the results of my research to the world. The "pink floyd" version of House of the Rising Sun is actually by a 70s Detroit band called Frijid Pink. Thats right, Frijid, not Fridgid. Its a great song, although I have read that its popularity destroyed them as a band.

everything is freaking me out today

I think I may have been drinking too much caffeine. I didn't get much sleep last night. Its all Adelaide's fault. You know how, if you live in Sydney (where I'm from) and you have 2 friends, they will never, ever meet each other unless you introduce them?
Not like that here.
Here, random acquaintances you moan about your stupid crushes to, turn out to be going out with one of said crush's friends!

it sucks to be me.

List of things that are freaking me out today:

• the weird english accent woman on the payphone behind the cafeteria, saying "can you explain to me why you think that"
• the woman in the cafeteria, who looked a bit like Deborah Mailman, but wasn't.
• the fact that the cafereria is called magoo's.

I think I'll stay in my office and not go to the cafeteria again.

Hey Sheriff, You Forgot Your Pants

I have to write my PhD now, but the internet is sooooo good. I heart broadband. I heart Ryan's blog. And going to random blogs and yelling out hey sheriff, you forgot your pants!!

questions from a luddite to a computer swami

why does my email signature have weird line breaks I didn't put there?
Why, everytime I try to add music files to my media player, does the bloody thing just made duplicates of everything, even though I did everything in the instructions?