Dear Internet,

Hey there Internet,

It’s me, Torrygirl.
You and I, we’ve known each other for a while now. You know me pretty well I think. I’ve always been able to turn to you when I’ve had a problem at work or socially, or if I had a question that needed answering. I guess I’d say that you and I are pretty close. You’re someone I can confide in.

Lately, I’ve been pretty busy at work, so I’ve been neglecting you a little, and I’m sorry about that. It’s been tough though, working the long hours and still trying to make time to keep in touch. And I know that’s no excuse, but this written word medium that we use to keep in contact takes a bit of time and effort, and I’ve been a bit short on both lately.

This week, KJ has been pretty sick and I’m sure it’s from the stress of work. I’ve been feeling it myself too, and I guess that’s why I’m writing this.
I’ve done something, Internet. I’ve done something crazy. Something so incredibly outrageous, that I know you won’t believe it when I tell you. And I’m hoping that given our history, you won’t judge me. Even though what I’m about to tell you goes against everything you know about me.

So here it is, Internet. I’m just going to say it.

Last Monday, I did exercise. On purpose! And I know it sounds crazy, and it goes against everything I’ve ever told you about myself, but I did it; and then yesterday, I did it AGAIN.

I feel so ashamed. I’m a fraud! Here I am telling you how much I hate to exercise, and I find myself suddenly giving in and doing it! And Internet, it wasn’t just sneaky, on-my-own exercise. I went to a class. There were other people there and I even knew some of them! I wore runners!

Oh the shame!

Forgive me Internet. Forgive me for changing. Forgive me for going against my beliefs. Forgive me because I’m not going to stop - even though today my body feels like I pulled out all my muscles, stretched them out by hand and popped them back in again. Even though my knees ache like I’m a weather-beaten old man claiming that I can feel a storm a’comin’. Even though I swore I didn’t believe in running unless I was being chased.

Forgive me Internet. I hope we can still be friends.

Yours regretfully,

Torrygirl

Being Anti-Stalked

I like Facebook. It keeps me amused when work is slow. It feeds my scrabble addiction. It lets my best friend show me what her new boyfriend is like before I meet him.

What I don’t like about it is the school yard politics of it all. The controversy of deleting or rejecting a ‘friend’. The things that people post that they seem to think the rest of the world can’t see. The light-weight stalking that can go on.


I think I am being anti Facebook stalked. There is a girl who is a Facebook ‘friend’ who has added every single one of my friends that she has met for more than 15 seconds to her friends list. Now she is sending them all public wall posts, trying to make plans to go out with them. Without me. On Facebook. Where I can see.

It’s like the opposite of Facebook stalking. Instead of stalking me, she’s stalking all my friends and making it very clear that she is specifically not stalking me. Which in a lot of ways is more irritating than actual stalking. Because it’s hurtful rather than obsessive.


To be honest, I think she’s gone slightly crazy. She dated a friend of mine, and because of that, she thought we were best mates. She would ring me all the time and make plans to catch up without her boyfriend - which seemed slightly odd at the time, but I put it down to her just wanting to get along with his friends.

Then for a little while, she suddenly stopped calling or texting me. I didn’t think much of it, until I found out later that she was angry at me because I didn’t invite her to be a bridesmaid in my wedding. Because apparently you’re supposed to invite people you hardly know to be a part of stuff like that.


Then she and my friend broke up. That’s when the weirdness started. She rang my phone at 2am one morning and with barely a hello, demanded to speak to KJ. She demanded that he go and get all of her stuff from our friend’s place, and harass him for some money. When KJ said he couldn’t, she demanded to know why, as though he owed her an explanation for not jumping when she asked him to do something.
The next day she called me again, and when I told her that I didn’t think the phone call was appropriate, I got accused of being a bad friend. She said a lot of really mean things, and then she told me that I should be on her side. As if I want to take sides in someone’s relationship breakup!


And now the Facebook weirdness is starting. I’d like to just de-friend her, but I’ve said it before - I’m no good with confrontation. I would feel guilty about it for months.


I can’t understand people who cling to petty arguments or hold grudges for juvenile reasons. I’ve come across a few people like that in the past couple of years and I just can’t deal with them. They’re high on drama all the time. I don’t like drama ever really. I might be a little tightly wound at times, but never dramatic. And I don’t have time for people who want to turn everything into a big production.
But I always come back to this problem where once they’re in my life I can’t just cut them out, because the guilt slowly eats away at me until I feel sick from it.
I’d like to just go on with life only knowing people who are so laid back they’re almost horizontal. Instead I keep coming across these people who make everything into what feels like the script of a bad sitcom.

I think my best bet is to employ a front man - like the corporate face of Torrygirl. Someone to have all the awkward and angry confrontations for me, so that I’m just kept in the dark. That way, I can be crazy person and guilt free.

Dear Internet,

I need to tell you a secret, but you have to swear that you won’t tell anyone. At all. This has to just be between you and me. Do you promise not to tell? Ok, well here goes then.

You know how I really hate exercise? How I like to drive everywhere instead of walk? How I prefer to watch TV than go to the gym? How I loathe running unless I’m being chased (and even then I would only be running if it was life or death)?

Well.



I’m thinking about doing some exercise.



I know! It’s horrible! It’s terrible! It’s an awful guilty secret that’s been eating away at me inside for a while now, and I don’t know what to do! It just sort of sprung up on me in the last day or two. I blame the first sunny day we’ve had in forever. I blame finally waking up feeling good again for the first time since May. I blame the weird dream I had in which I went for an early morning jog with the guy from the TV show ‘Chuck’ (who freaks me out a little because he has the exact same hair as my brother. It’s like he stole his scalp). In the dream I was jogging and it felt good, and it made me happy.

I don’t jog! And it’s not just because of the dislike of exercise; it’s because of my other exercise related secret. What? You want to know that one too? Oh well, I’ve come this far, I may as well get it all out there.


I have a spazzy run.


No, that’s not a typo. I don’t mean that I have a snazzy run. I truly mean that I have the most uncoordinated looking run you’ll ever see. It’s like my arms and my legs get confused at having to all work at the same time, so my legs take over and there’s not enough coordination left to keep my arms from flailing around wildly. It’s a lot like when you see a kid trying to run after having a massive growth spurt, and they’re not sure how to cope with all the extra length in their body.

It’s genetic, I think. My sister runs the exact same way. I’ve never seen my Mum run, but I can only assume that’s because the run came from her and she’s avoiding running so no one will know.


That’s one of many reasons that I’ve avoided exercise, but now I have this strange, restless feeling that is telling me I need to do something. I’m not sure what to do about it. Exercise just for the sake of exercise isn’t something I’m interested in, because basically...well... it’s dull. If I’m going to get suckered into some form of physical movement, it has to have a secondary purpose so that I don’t feel as if I’ve given in to something that I really don’t enjoy. But what can I do? I can't go back to dancing, although I would still like to take swing dancing classes. Obviously we can count out anything that involves running - or even very brisk walking. So what does that leave?

I need your help internet. What can I do? Or even better, how can I make this weird urge to exercise go away?

Yours sincerely,
Torrygirl.

Not Cool

Technology, specifically the internet, has made the world a much smaller place. It's not uncommon for people on opposite sides of the world to chat regularly, and romances spanning tens of thousands of miles are no longer a rare occurrence. Video web chat means that you can now look someone in another continent in the eye when you speak to them. The internet has created a virtual world which is practically borderless. I adore this virtual internet world that lets me buy foreign products, avoid supermarket chaos and indulge my scrabble obsession with other people the world over.


So why the hell is it that when I find something online that I really want, I can't bridge a mere 13,000kms to the USA to get it!? Outrageous!

I want these:

NINJABREAD MEN™
they’re cut out for action

But there isn't a single place in Australia that has them, or a single place in the USA that will ship the stupid things to me. Damn you international postage and you internet retailers too lazy to use it!



I feel a little let down. This tiny little world has suddenly become very vast and isolated. And it’s not just the cookie cutters that I have been denied by my beloved internet.

For the last month I’ve been counting down the days until the release of a new album by a band I like. August 16th arrived, and it was with immense excitement that I logged into iTunes and typed the name of the band into the search box.

Nothing. No new album. Confused, I went to the band’s website – yep, new album released today. I clicked through to iTunes to buy it and what did I get?! An arrogant little popup that told me I can’t buy the album because I don’t live in the UK!

Noooooooo!

What happened to the amazing, practically borderless virtual world that I have come to love so much? You’ve let me down, internet. I’m so disappointed. I thought you were cool, but you’re not – you’re just telling people what they want to hear so they’ll like you, and now you’ve been caught out in your lies. I love you a little less today because of it.

And don’t point out the irony of me writing about my disappointment with you on my Weblog, because no one likes a smart arse.

Long Weekend

Over the long weekend, we went down to KJ’s family beach house. It’s a fair way away from home – probably about a two and a half hour drive. I absolutely hate car travel with a passion. The second someone invents a teleport device I will be their first customer, no matter what the expense. If I could afford it, I would buy a helicopter and fly everywhere - I hate car travel that much.


Two and a half hours is pretty much my limit for being in a car non-stop. I used to be able to go a lot longer, but then we decided one year that driving to Queensland would be a good idea. By Dubbo I was so car sick that I still felt like I was still in the car even when I was out of it. I even felt car sick while I was driving, which is a pretty impressive feat. By the time we reached Redcliffe, I couldn’t go on. We stopped by the side of the road while I attempted to systematically throw up all of my internal organs in alphabetical order, and after that I didn’t really feel like going any further. I managed to make it back to Surfer’s Paradise eventually, where I lay in a pathetic heap for a week and then I flew home. Not exactly the holiday I had dreamt of.

That trip ruined me for car travel. So I don’t particularly relish the idea of travelling to the beach house for the weekend, although I do enjoy my time there once we arrive. The next hardest thing, after the car travel, is the fact that there is no internet access. If you have an iPhone or something similar you can get a very poor internet connection by holding the phone up to the highest point on the window while carefully balanced on one foot on the fireplace hearth, but that’s not exactly ideal.

Now, I have access to the internet pretty much 24/7. I’m online all day at work, then permanently at home. I’m a massive internet nerd. It’s my go-to place for everything. Don’t know the answer to a question? Google it. Don’t know where a town is? Look it up on an online map. Want to know what’s going on in the rest of the world? Read the news online.

So three days without any access to the internet was absolute torture. I had to let such questions as “Can dogs lose their sense of smell?” and “If your eyeball was hanging out of the socket, could you still see out of it?” go unanswered. (I have a Dr. Karl podcast to thank for that last one).

Life is hard for a nerd without the internet. So I’m happy to be home and back to my constant connection to the big, wonderful worldwide web.

The Height of Romance

I caught up with some old friends on the weekend – they’re one of the couples that I know who met online. They don’t tell a lot of people how they met, because they’ve been together since before internet dating was the norm, so they still have that residual nerdy embarrassment about meeting on the internet that they find hard to let go of.


The first thing you notice about this couple when you meet them is that he is a hell of a lot taller than she is –about a foot and a half taller. Which is fine, of course – but it got me thinking. There seems to be some sort of unwritten rule that says that the man must be the same height or any amount taller than his wife/partner, and never the other way around. How often do you see a couple where the man is shorter than the woman?

It must be a throwback to all those old-fashioned traditions in which the man is the dominant partner. Maybe it’s because men are supposed to be the hunter-gatherer, and how can you be the provider and protector for the family if the ‘homemaker’ of the couple makes you look like a midget?


The reason I got thinking about this is that this couple didn’t meet through a dating site or anything; they just met randomly on a chat site. So when they first started to get to know each other, they had that magical internet blindness which means that he could just as easily have been a foot and a half shorter than her rather than a foot and a half taller. What then? Does that sort of thing come up in conversation? Or is everyone like me and imagines that everyone they talk to online is the exact same height as them and has an Australian accent? (I also imagine everyone as a brunette, but I’m not sure that that’s entirely relevant here. Or normal.)

Could you get all the way to the point of falling in love and flying across the country/world to meet up only to find that your future wife is so tall that you have to shield your eyes from sun glare when looking into her eyes? Or is there some deep inborn sixth sense that means that you can never fall in love if you’re taller than the man you’re getting to know?


I’ve actually had a bit of experience with this height issue thing. I once dated a guy who was a hell of a lot shorter than me – probably about an entire foot shorter. He was a pretty muscled up kinda guy who was training to be in the armed forces, so I never felt like I was the huge giant who could overpower him, but it was still kinda weird. And I could never wear heels when we went out, which I hated and which was possibly the downfall of our entire relationship. Wearing heels makes you feel hot and makes you want to dance more. But dancing is kind of weird when the person leading is shorter than you are.

I couldn’t have gone the rest of my life wearing flats everywhere and sitting by watching other people dancing. I mean, there are lots of songs with lyrics like ‘You make me feel like dancing’, but not a whole lot like ‘you make me feel like dancing but I can’t because you also make me self conscious about my height.’ Besides being overly wordy, if that were a song it wouldn’t be a peppy love song, it would be a tragic country song.


This brings up other questions too – like what about gay couples? Is it weird for one of the guys being shorter than his partner? And what about people with dwarfism? Does male versus female height matter when you’re both shorter than most other people already?


Is it really only possible to fall in love with a man that is taller than you are? And could an internet romance be ruined just by finding out that you were taller than he is? I have to wonder if my friends would still be together if the height difference was reversed. I‘d like to think that it wouldn’t matter, but to be honest, I would be miserable if KJ weren’t so much taller than me that I can wear heels and still be the shorter of the two of us.

Dilemma

Is it inappropriate, while playing scrabble against your Mother, to play the word 'orgasm'?

Q & A time

To answer a few email questions I got about my last post:
Yes, I genuinely would use this as a profile. No point meeting someone without a sense of humour. I read it over and asked myself if KJ would have responded to a profile like that, and when I decided he would, I figured I was on the right track.

Yes, 42 seems like a pretty random number. Actually, it should probably have been 43 since I'm turning 28 in a couple of weeks. I have a theory on age differences - they don't matter at all until you start to approach the kind of age difference where the person could just as easily have been your father/mother. I figure this change for being about 18 years, so 15 years difference is where I would draw the line. Also most of my friends are at the higher end of the 15 year bracket. Either I'm more mature than most people my own age, or my friends are more immature than people their age. The jury is still out on that one.

No, 45 is too far and even if it wasn't, I'm not interested. Thanks for your kind, if slightly pervy offer.

---

You know what I think is cool about internet dating? You get all the awkward stuff out of the way before you even meet. There's no awkward third date where you realise that he wants kids and you don't or that she has 15 cats and you're allergic. It would save a lot of time.
I have two friends who have broken up a couple of times over the past 3 or 4 years because they found out they wanted different things. Basically, he doesn't want to get married or have kids and she does (in fact he tried to get a vasectomy when he was 23 without telling her, but that's a whole other story). But because they were already so deep into their relationship when they found this out, they haven't been able to bring themselves to split up for good. Now they live together. Can you imagine what will happen in a few years when she's ready to start having kids? If only they'd met on a dating website, they wouldn't have this problem. And I wouldn't have the problem of consoling them both on their annual break up only to have them get back together again the next day.

Internet Dating

After my old lady experience this week, I was looking forward to Saturday night where my best friend and I were planning to undo all of my very old-lady-like behaviours with copious amounts of cocktails. Ok, in all truthfulness, because I don't drink that often any more she would probably have had copious amounts of cocktails and I would probably have two or three and then spend the rest of the evening drunkenly telling the couch how much I've appreciated it's faithful service over the years then getting upset when it didn't respond.


However it would have ended up, Saturday night was going to be my young person night. Crap, that sounds like something an old lady would call it. Well, you get the drift. I was going to be silly and care free and kill some brain cells with brightly coloured liquids in margarita glasses.


Sadly, at 11am on Saturday morning, my best friend called to say she had to cancel. It was for this reason that tonight I find myself debating whether or not a solo trip to the local pub is worth it.

The thing is, when you go to a pub on your own on a Saturday night, two things are guaranteed to happen. 1 – you'll get drunk and talk to anyone who will listen, and 2 – you will get hit on. You are pretty much guaranteed to be chatted up by some guy, because really, why would you be at a pub alone on a Saturday night if you weren't looking to meet people?
Since I'm not looking to pick up and KJ is away all weekend, I decided against the pub and instead am spending the night at home painting the house.

Score check:
Young Torrygirl: 0
Old Lady Torrygirl: 2


The whole situation got me to thinking about what I would be doing right now if I were single. I would probably go to the pub; although to be honest, being such a nerd I think that if I was looking to meet someone, I would be more inclined to give online dating a go.


I feel kind of ripped off that I never had the opportunity to use internet dating. It's only really become a regular way to meet people over the last 5-10 years or so. Before that it was a bit taboo. I know couples who met online back when it was considered an unusual way to meet people, and they still won't tell most people how they met. The embarrassment is too deeply ingrained.
But nowadays it's completely normal and not even mildly embarrassing. I feel ripped off that my dating days were done before I had the opportunity to embrace my nerdiness and meet people in a way that I'm comfortable with. I think back to all those nights in bars and clubs trying to start up conversations with strange men and I realise that life would have been so much easier with the ability to just meet people online.


Thinking about all this made me wonder what I would put in my online dating profile if I were to need one. What do people put in them now? How much information is too much information?

With a whole lot of spare time on my hands tonight, I decided to browse around, see what the norm is, and have a go at writing my own. Everything I found seemed to have 3 sections. The first was a spiel about yourself and what you're doing on a dating website. The second was a basic profile, and the third was a section listing your interests and what you're looking for.
I omitted writing a big intro spiel about myself, because it would only seem false and stupid, since I have no real intention of internet dating, but I came up with my basic profile, and a list of interests.

So here it is, the online dating profile that will never be...

Profile
	My details	My ideal partner
Gender	Female	Male
Age	27 years old	27 yrs - 42 yrs old.
Location	Melbourne	Earth
Body type	Slim-ish.	Preferably not morbidly obese or skinnier than I am.
Smoking	Non-Smoker with a slight passive smoking addiction	-
Relationship status	Single	Single
Has kids	No	No
Want kids	Maybe	Maybe
Personality	Socially retarded. Expect me to say stupid things, but know that there is no malice behind them	Must have one.
Eye colour	Brown. Feel free to call it Hazel or Coffee if it makes me sound more alluring.	-
Hair colour	Dark Brown	It doesn't matter, but while filling this in I realised that I have never dated a blonde. It wasn't on purpose. Blondes are perfectly acceptable.
Zodiac Sign	Aries	-
Lifestyle
Drinking habits	Mostly socially, but also on Fridays for no real reason.	If you have more drinks every night than there are days in the week, then we just weren't meant to be.
Have pets	No	Preferably not, unless they're the kind that require no feeding, cleaning or attention
Education level	A bit of this, a bit of that.	Must be able to spell properly. No text speak. Don't say LOL unless you're actually laughing out loud. And if you say RFLMAO, you better have the carpet burns to prove it.
Career industry	Design	No jobless bums

WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
A PC user who detests Mac smuggity.
Someone who will make me laugh and who values family.
Someone who puts the toilet seat down after using it without having to be asked – it's the little things that count, you know.

MY INTERESTS
Music
I'll listen to pretty much anything except grunge and thrash metal. I like something I can sing along to in the car/shower.
Reading
Anything and everything except politics.
Movies & TV
I'm a TV series addict. I love Lost, Alias, Northern Exposure, MASH, The Office, Brothers & Sisters (don't judge me, Sally fields was allegedly hot once so you probably love it too) and a heap more.
I'll watch pretty much any movie although I'm not a huge fan of horror. I can't start watching a movie and not see it through to the end – the only film I've never finished watching was 'Old Dogs' and to be honest, I'm not sure why I started watching it in the first place. Big Mistake.
Sport
No thanks. I don't run unless something is chasing me.
Other interests
I am an internet nerd, a blogger and I really like to dance, although I find that having a few beers first tends to improve my skill.



Now add to that a suitably saucy username and my profile is complete! I could just sit back and wait for the emails to pour in.

LOL SOS

Today someone actually said “L-O-L” to me after something amusing, as if an acronym is a real word.

Immediately I lost all respect for them. You know, because I’m bitter and judgemental like that.

But then I had the chance to think about it a bit more, and I realised that the use of acronyms in everyday life isn’t exactly a new thing. I mean, how often does someone say ‘FYI’ or ‘ASAP’? And no one ever thinks that’s weird. Unless someone says ‘Ay-Sap’ instead of ‘A-S-A-P’. That’s kinda stupid.

Although I can honestly say that I can’t ever recall using an acronym like it was a regular word myself. It just feels kinda weird, in the same way that it feels weird calling your mum by her given name.

A little while back I was in the changing rooms of a clothing store, and a girl in the next cubicle had tried on a top* and was modelling it for her friend, who was um-ing and ah-ing over it.
“Yeah” said the girl with the top “there’s something NQR about it, isn’t there?”
“What’s NQR?” asked her friend, at which the other girl proceeded into a 5 minute long explanation of how it really meant not quite right. Which kind of defeated the purpose of using an acronym.

So who is the bigger idiot in this circumstance? The girl who attempted to use an acronym in regular conversation, or the girl who couldn’t work out what NQR meant? Maybe the least idiotic thing would be for the girls to know what the acronym meant, but not be so sad as to try to use it in a conversation.

It also made me wonder if people say other acronyms like they’re real words? In particular, stuff that is used in online chat to describe actions that the other person can’t see – like ‘ROFLMAO’. And if you say that as a word, does that cancel out the need to actually roll around on the floor, laughing your ass off? Or do you just writhe around on the ground for a bit before choking out ‘R-O-F-L-M-A-O’?

I’m going to add LOL to my list of things that people have said out loud to me that I don’t consider to be real words, along with ‘Woot’, ‘Supposably’, ‘O-M-G’ and ‘Droll’.

That last one is on there because I think it sounds like it should mean the opposite of what it actually does.



*If you’re a male, feel free to imagine that they were trying on skimpy underwear instead of clothing. It’ll make what is essentially a pretty dull story seem a lot more fun.

Internet Withdrawl

My internet connection at work has been dropping in and out for the last two days, and when it is working, it’s super slow. This is a very bad thing. The days are incredibly long when I don’t have the wonder of the internet to entertain me while I wait for my computer to complete processor-heavy tasks.
I don’t even have solitaire on my computer, so every 10 minutes or so, I find myself staring blankly at the screen while I wait.

I notice lots of little things that I didn’t before. For example, the guy who sits opposite me clears his throat at least 15 times per minute. The guy who sits next to me has a mouse that clicks really really loudly. The guy sitting opposite me often sings along with the radio at a volume which I’m pretty sure he thinks no one else can hear, but which allows me to hear that he’s bordering on tone-deaf.

These are all things I’ve blocked out by using the internet to distract me. The big question is, once the internet is working again, will I be able to go back to ignoring these things? Or am I doomed to slowly and surely go crazy from the constant “Ahem, click-click, La-la-la”?

And even more importantly, what the hell can I do to keep me amused without the internet?!

The New Rocking Chair for the 00's

For Christmas KJ gave me one of these – an iPod touch. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a PC kind of girl, and I’ve skilfully avoided getting an iPhone, even though not having one seems to be a big social no-no these days. However, the iPod touch seems to be like an iPhone in disguise. It does pretty much everything the iPhone does, except make calls. And you can even do that if you’re connected to a Wi-Fi connection and have Skype installed. So now I’ve really been dragged over to the dark side. At least the dark side lets me listen to my favourite music.

The thing that I’ve noticed most about the iPods/iPhones is that while they’re a good ‘social networking’ tool (dorkiest phrase ever) they are completely and totally anti-social when both you and your partner are using them. KJ and I were both sitting on the couch yesterday playing with our iPods in complete silence and it was ever so slightly weird. Somehow, it seemed much more anti-social than sitting and reading in silence.

So now I believe 100% that Apple products will be the new old-people’s rocking chair. When we’re old and grey and have been with our partners for years and years and have exhausted the necessity of conversation, we won’t rock in our chairs on our porches without talking to each other. Instead, we’ll all have our faces glued to our iPods and iPhones and be playing scrabble and crossword apps.

That's not such a big transition from what I use it for now, so at least the slide into old age should be a bit smoother for me. And it's better than rocking back and forwards all day - I get motion sick too easily.

Coincidence & Sharing

Coincidence is a weird thing. How weird is it that of all the blogs that I could be reading worldwide, one that I read regularly and happened to be reading on the weekend is about the same totally random TV series that I had just started watching that exact same weekend? Freaky. Ok, maybe not that freaky, but it was still kind of surprising to me to see someone else talking about an almost 20 year old TV series that I thought everyone except me had forgotten. You have to admit that’s kind of a weird coincidence.


Life is full of odd little coincidences like this, where you discover that some completely random thing that you like and think that no one else could possibly like too is an interest shared by someone you never would have expected.

I recently discovered that an acquaintance of mine shares a similar and equally sad passion for Arnie Movies - in particular ‘True Lies’, which I have seen a very embarrassing number of times. This led to him lending me ‘Pumping Iron’ which I had never seen before. And despite the fact that I probably won't ever watch it again, if we hadn't discovered a common interest i would never have even known it existed. Body building is a sport that no matter how frequently and fondly I hear it described in that fantastic Austrian accent, I will never understand.


Maybe these kinds of things happen more often than we realise. Maybe secretly, everyone is a big Arnie fan or loves watching Northern Exposure but everyone is just too embarrassed to talk about it, because they think they’re alone in the world. We might be missing out on all sorts of cool stuff because we never told anyone that we liked out-of-the-ordinary things.

Having said that, I’d like to encourage everyone to share a random interest this week on their blogs or maybe in their everyday lives, because you might find out something interesting about someone you know. Tomorrow I’ll share something completely random about myself. That’s not a promise that it will be very interesting, of course, but it will most definitely be random.
And possibly embarrassing.

The Soppiness Machine

Super-Facebook-Soppiness makes me want to vomit into my handbag and mail it to the guilty party with a note that says “since we’re sharing...”

How do people not understand that Facebook is a public space, not a private place for them to spew fountains of gushiness at their loved one?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-affection – everyone gets a little gooey like that on occasion (whether they’ll admit it or not). It’s just that I very firmly believe that it’s a private thing between you and the one you love – not you and the 400 people you’ve added as friends because you might have brushed past them in the hallway of a random building somewhere once back in 1972.

I have one particular friend whose girlfriend churns this stuff out as if she were a purpose built sop-machine. No matter how obscure and unrelated to her my friends status updates may be, she invariably comments in some way about how much she loves him and misses him and wants to kiss him.
If he comments on the football, she tells him she loves football as much as she loves him. If he comments about being tired, she gives a long winded speech about how she hates it when he leaves her in bed and that she’s cold and lonely and wants him to come back and hug her. And everything is followed by xxxooo – as if she can’t string a sentence together if it doesn’t have a big line of hugs and kisses trailing off the end.

Someone really needs to explain to her that Facebook’s real purpose is to keep you amused and distracted when you should be working and to give you the tiniest sense of satisfaction when you ignore a friend request from some girl who was an evil bitch to you in high school.

It's here!

Finally, Finally, FINALLY after years of waiting I have it! Fast internet at home. Those of you who scoff and say that fast internet isn’t especially exciting – you have never had to pause a download so that it doesn’t kill your regular internet browsing. You have never had to wait half an hour to receive all of your emails. You have never had to go and make a cup of coffee and still have time to bake a cake to have with it while you wait for a YouTube video to load.

Now after 3 years of messing around, we are now in the fast lane instead of driving in the emergency lane like a confused old lady who can’t see the road ahead of her. I don’t know what to do with myself. Where to start? The internet is a vast and magical place filled with large files waiting for me to download them. It is a wondrous place filled with videos to stream and games to play.

Where to begin...?

A Rant and a Bludge

Warning: Minor ranting ahead.

Some daft twit has organised our 10 year reunion and has made it $20 per head. Why the hell would I want to pay $20 for something we could do just as easily for FREE?! Ok, now i realise this might sound like a crazy tight-arse rant, but I should clarify - we’re having it at a pub. It’s not like they’ve booked some fancy function room somewhere. Last time I checked, my local pub didn’t have a $20 cover charge, especially if you were going to show up with about 100 people to drink their booze (at regular bar prices.) And it’s not just $20 for KJ and I to go along. It’s $20 EACH. That means if we want to catch up with old friends, we have to pay $40 for the privilege.

Okay, end rant. I’m done with complaining now.

I’m really just killing time before 5pm when I can head home for the day. I’m absolutely swamped at work at the moment, but I’ve hit a wall for the day and instead I’m counting the minutes until I can go home. This is what I get for working through lunch. I need a 25 minute distraction. These kinds of distractions are a lot easier to come by now that I sit with my back to a wall instead of a door - It’s amazing what wonderful distractions the internet can provide when you don’t have to be sneaky about finding them!

Actually I might be able to combine work and internet. I need to find a 10kg block of chocolate for a work promo. Browsing for that should kill a good 20 minutes or so wouldn’t you say?

A Serious Question

Is it possible to think about a person so much that you inadvertently draw them into your life? How is it that after not thinking about someone for over 2 months and hoping that they were out of your life they can suddenly re-appear? It’s like the second I let her slip into my thoughts her evil little mind heard her name and materialised to continue wreaking havoc.

Ok, whingeing about evil women aside, I have a serious question:

Why is my spam always in Russian? How am I supposed to know what means of increasing my manhood are available if it’s in a foreign language? How am I supposed to understand the pleas of the Russian diplomat who wants me to help him transfer millions of dollar if I can’t tell what it is that he is saying? If I can’t read it, then it really is just junk and as such, the junk email folder is living up to its name in ways that it never really did before.

An EBay Experience

I had my first EBay experience last week. Despite my super nerdiness, I’ve always resisted the urge to purchase on EBay - firstly because I am an addict by nature and I know that if I start, I’ll find it hard to stop; Secondly, because I’m spoilt and I like there to be a newness to my purchases. I like to be able to open an item and know that it has never been used before. That’s not to say that I’m opposed to second hand items, because I’m not. I just like the experience of unwrapping something new. It’s like a birthday present that I’ve bought for myself, but it can happen any time during the year. What can I say? I’m a big child. I LOVE birthdays.

The reason that I moved past these reasons and finally made a purchase was because I wanted to purchase something that has a totally unrealistic retail value. My new car has a USB connection and I wanted the manufacturer’s iPod cable so that I can control the iPod menu using my stereo buttons. Sadly, this tiny little cable retails for over $100. For a cable. Crazy! I wasn’t really keen on the idea of forking out that much money for a piece of wire, so I searched around to see if I could find somewhere else to purchase from, and eBay was the only result I came up with.

The fact that this item isn’t going to be purchased new is ok with me now, because I came to a realisation that negates all of the second-handed-ness.
This item will come in the mail. And not just the regular mail, but international mail. And if there is one thing as exciting as a present on an un-birthday, it’s opening the mail box to find a package that has travelled 12,000Km to reach me.

Chief Suspect: Laziness

Laziness broke my coffee table. I was trying to collect all of the junk (mostly coffee cups) from it without having to make two trips to the kitchen, and I dropped a mug on it, which bounced and shattered the glass tabletop. So really laziness and a mug broke my coffee table. I, on the other hand, am totally innocent.

I've been trying to buy some stuff from America and the annoying lady who runs the store told me that I wasn't ordering enough for it to be profitable for her to put the work into mailing it internationally. Since when is $700 cheap, and since when is it hard to stick some stuff in a box and take it to the post office? It's not like I was asking her to pay the postage - I have to pay nearly $100 for that too, so I don't really get how much work is involved in taking a box to a post office and handing over someone else's $100 to send it off.

Honestly, how lazy can one person be? I think she's just slack because when she ships within the USA, the company that makes the product ships direct to her customers, so she doesn't have to actually move at all. It's possible that she hasn't left the house in years, and has forgotten where the post office is and how to use her legs to walk there. I bet she has one of those electronic wheelchair things and she scoots around the house in that so she doesn't have to even put any effort into the day to day menial tasks.
Actually, that's not a bad idea - i might have to invest in one of those. If I had one, I could have filled up the little wire basket at the front with my coffee mug, and it wouldn't have broken the coffee table. Although that doesn't discount laziness from the equation, and who knows what could have happened as a result of laziness that severe...

Bald Mouse

I think I'm about to end up with a bald spot on my index finger. Bald of fingerprints, that is.

I've been using my laptop computer non-stop for the past few days and the stupid mousepad is wearing away the tip of my finger. It's actually beginning to cause me some serious discomfort. And now that I've noticed it, it seems even worse.

Damn you, laptop!!!! Why is this inter-web thingy so addictive?!!!