Being a grown-up is also great because...

You can have cake and wine for dinner and no one tells you off.

Being a grown-up is great because...

You can eat cake for dinner and no one tells you off.

A Different Kind of Cake

Today I ate a mint that tasted like what I imagine an un-used urinal cake would taste like if someone was stupid enough to eat it.

Not that I spend a lot of time imagining those sorts of things, but the texture and the medical flavour just had a certain kind of quality about them that said ‘when I grow up, I want to be a urinal cake’.

Afterwards, I felt as sick as I imagine you would feel if you really had eaten a urinal cake.

To summarise:
Very bad mint.
Don't eat urinal cakes.

My Natural Selection

On the weekend, while channel surfing, I came across a documentary with one of those boring, garden-gnome-bearded scientists pontificating about natural selection. One of the points he was discussing was whether modern medicine constitutes an interference to natural selection, or whether it should be considered as part of the natural selection process.

It got me thinking about the times that I’ve relied on medicine, and how my life would be different without it. And I realised that if it weren’t for modern medicine, I’d already be dead. If natural selection is really being hindered by modern medicine, then I have already been picked off by nature. Which is disappointing, because I always thought I was stronger than that. And to add insult to injury, not only have I been sick enough before to have died without medical intervention, I’ve been that sick twice. Does that mean the universe is trying to tell me something?


When I was about 18, I got glandular fever. While that’s pretty common for people around that age, and not lethal, it sent something out of whack in my inner ear, and I got so dizzy that I couldn’t even blink without throwing up. I was so dehydrated and malnourished that they had to cart me off to hospital. I was stuck there for a week until I was well enough to be able to go home, where it took me a good 3 or 4 months to get better. Natural selection averted.

Then earlier this year, I got really sick. What I initially thought was the flu turned out to be a virus that attacked my thyroid, and it made me so freaking sick that I felt like I was on my way to a slow and excruciating death. When it was finally diagnosed (after 3 separate visits to the doctor), I had to take a total of 12 pills a day for over a month to get better. In the middle of my illness, I had a resting heart rate of around 120-130bpm. A heart attack in the making, I’m sure. But modern medicine managed to avert a bit of natural selection there too.


Courtesy of that shitty illness, every day of my life I now use modern medicine to keep me alive, because the virus damaged my thyroid quite badly and now I have to take a pill every day to stop me from getting sick again. Fun times.


So I think I’m going to side with the people who say that modern medicine is a part of natural selection, just helping the weaker links to become stronger. And I’ll always be grateful that I live in the 21st century where I didn’t have to croak just because of some stupid random virus. Or from something that is commonly referred to as the ‘Kissing Disease’. That would just be embarrassing.

The things I don't know

Sometimes I’m surprised by the things that I don't know. It’s interesting that you can live for 28 years and not know about simple things that other people consider common knowledge.

For instance:
I am a total caffeine addict. I can’t function after 9am unless I’ve had my morning coffee, and a 3pm coffee gets me through those last, slow two hours of work. It’s been like that since I was about 18. So if we do a little bit of nerdy maths, we can estimate that I’ve drunk roughly 7300 cups of coffee in the last 10 years. About half of those would have been instant coffee, the other half barista made coffee.

And yet, after 7300 cups of coffee, I only discovered the existence of this nifty little doo-dad today:

It plugs up the hole in your coffee cup lid so that you don’t spill coffee all over your car! How is it that in 10 years of solid coffee drinking, I’ve never come across this before? And why is it that every single person I’ve told about it alredy knew they existed?

It amazes me. It also makes me wonder what other things everyone else knows that I don’t.

Thesaurus

I'd just like to give myself a big pat on the back for using the word 'eschew' in yesterday's post. Normally I can't use words that obscure unless I've had a couple of beers. It's one of many strange words that I've managed to use in regular conversation in the past week, including 'ergo', 'judicious' and 'fervent'.

I think my brain is stuck in thesaurus mode.

Fast Food Filosophy

Why do places like McDonald's, Hungry Jacks and KFC have dining rooms in their stores? When it comes to eating fast food in place of a real meal, I have a very firm 'Fast Food Filosophy'* that to me, seems to make these dining rooms defunct.

My 'Filosophy' is that if I'm feeling too lazy to cook myself a meal or even microwave myself something from the freezer, then I'm definitely too lazy to park the car, walk into the restaurant and stand around waiting for my food to be ready. Why do all that when I can get the same end result from the climate controlled comfort of my car?

It seems like a pretty sound Philosophy to me. Long live the Drive-Thru**!



* that's Philosophy with an 'F', because everyone knows that when it comes to big brand marketing, you're able to use phonetic spelling to make things seem cooler to younger generations.

** Another excellent example of embracing bad spelling.

Digging A Hole

Every day on the way to and from work, I drive past two really unpleasant things. The first of those is a wholesale compost place. So basically every morning while I’m still struggling to come to terms with being awake, I get to breathe in the lovely, heady aroma of animal crap and rotting dirt. The scent is particularly unpleasant on a cold, wet morning. On those days you can often see the mounds of compost steaming in the crisp morning air, and the pungent aroma of organic poo burns your nostrils as you drive past. Then after a hard day at the office, I get to have the entire experience all over again on the way home.


The second place is a tip/quarry. It’s not as stench-o-rific as the compost place, but it’s dirty and dusty and there are often stray bits of plastic bag or paper floating around.


The thing that really stumps me about a tip is that no one has yet come up with a better idea for waste disposal. Despite all the amazing leaps and bounds that are being made in every scientific field, not a single person has come up with a better idea for rubbish disposal than digging a great big hole and chucking the trash in there. That’s right, a hole. It might be a very big and impressive hole, but it’s still just a hole. Surgeons have been able to transplant entire faces onto other people. A man has walked on the freaking moon, and yet we still can’t come up with a better idea than digging a great big hole and turfing all our junk into it?


I think the problem is that claiming that you’ve invented a way to dispose of rubbish isn’t nearly as impressive as claiming that you’ve cloned a sheep, or that you’ve invented a bionic eye. And because of that, a dirty big hole in the ground has been deemed sufficient as a means of rubbish disposal. Instead of coming up with a better idea, we just call it 'landfill', as though taking out all the dirt and filling the hole back up with dirty nappies, plastic bags and coffee cups is actually a good solution. I can almost imagine the person who first filled an old quarry up with trash giving themselves a pat on the back and saying "Well done! We've killed two birds with one stone with this! We've filled up a hole and we've disposed of our trash!"


I think our scientists need to re-prioritise.


And I'm not saying all this because I'm a hippy, greeny type person. I'm just a regular person who thinks a hole is a very unoriginal and un-inventive way of getting rid of rubbish. In fact, the idea of digging holes and hiding things in them was something I came up with on my own when I was about three.
That's all I'm saying.

Phone Etiquette

Just a little something that I want to put out there for anyone who should happen to google the words "Phone Etiquette".
When dialling a wrong phone number, the correct procedure is not to wait until the person says 'Hello' then say 'Oh FUCK!' and slam the phone down in their ear.

That is all.

Random Thought

If you go to a party or something where there is a bit of a bonfire going, you’ll wake up the next day to find that your clothes as well as your hair are infused with a horrible smoky smell that only thorough washing can get rid of.

If you’re a guy with a moustache, does the same thing happen? Do you wake up to find that all you can smell is a terrible day-old smoke smell, only to discover that it’s because your moustache hairs are infused with the scent of last night’s bonfire?

I like to think so, but without the ability to grow my own moustache, I may never know for certain.

The price of a haircut

I had a haircut last Thursday. It’s a pretty long process, but it’s a routine that I don’t think too much about because it’s one of those things that has always taken a long time, so I never really think it through too carefully.
Basically, I spend three hours sitting in a chair, during which my hair is fondled, coloured, foiled, washed, trimmed, dried, straightened, fondled some more and then trimmed again. For this amazing experience, I get to fork out around about $110. It’s a massive amount of money for a haircut. But I’ve had a lot of bad haircuts in my life, so now that I’ve found somewhere that leaves me walking out feeling like I’m starring in a Pantene ad every single time, I don’t question it.

But on Thursday, being that I was pretty bored and extremely tired from a very busy week, rather than reading to pass the time I stared blankly at my reflection in the mirror and pondered my hairdressing experiences.

I get my hair cut once every seven weeks. I know it’s always exactly seven weeks, because I’m lazy and useless at making appointments for things, so I always book my next appointment while I’m there. That means that I get approximately 7.5 haircuts per year. So on average, I’m spending about $825 a year just on my hair.

Kj, on the other hand, has his hair cut about once every 10 weeks. His haircut costs him about $18. That means he spends about $93 a year on his hair. That’s less than one trip to the hairdresser costs me. Granted, it takes him a hell of a lot less time than it takes me to have a haircut, but still! It would take him around 7 years of haircuts to work up to what it costs me for 1 year.

Truly unfair.


The other thing that I find weird about getting a haircut is that for three solid hours you stare at yourself in the mirror. It’s quite vain really. I never look at myself that much at any other time. Even when I do my own hair at home I probably don’t look at myself for more than a few fleeting seconds just to make sure everything is in place.

The other thing is that my hairdresser is a guy. He’s not one of those overly effeminate male hairdressers – he’s a kind of ¼ goth, ½ emo, ¼ nerd combination. Having a haircut is pretty much one of the few times that you can have a guy running his hands through your hair and have your husband be ok with that.


I’m not really sure what I’m getting at with all of this. I guess I’m just pointing out that it’s kind of crazy that I can spend $800 a year on haircuts when KJ can get away with a great haircut for about an eight of the price. And getting a haircut is actually an odd kind of experience, if you really think it though.

Leftovers

Why do leftovers always taste better than the original meal?
If you could make an original meal taste as good as leftovers, what would the leftovers of that meal taste like?

1985

This morning I woke up to a bad hair day. Which isn’t really that unusual – I have hair that requires a lot of maintenance in order to keep it looking presentable. I like to call it 80’s hair, because I can capture that fantastic fluffy 80’s look simply by waking up. My morning hair basically epitomises the pinnacle of 80’s hair styling.

My whole body was born for the 80’s really. I could carry off the whole fluffy hair, bra-less, leg-warmer look without even trying. And I’m an awesome 80’s dancer – I have the shoulder action down pat.


The trouble is that it’s not the 80’s any more. It’s the 00’s (or is it the 10's now?). And because of that, it means that every day is a massive effort of preparation that I could totally avoid if it were, say, 1985.

I have to straighten my hair so that it’s smooth and shiny instead of fluffy and fly-away. My awesome 80’s moves have to be toned down so that I don’t look like an extra in the Wedding Singer movie. I’m cool with the removal of the bra-less style aspect of 80’s fashion, because if you walked around now looking like you had no bra on, people would spend all day staring at your chest instead of getting on with life. Honestly, between the bra-less look and the whole bustier/underwear on the outside thing, it’s a wonder anyone could concentrate in the 80’s. Although maybe that explains the rest of 80’s fashion – everyone was too distracted to pay attention to what they were wearing.

It’s a shame, really, that the only aspects of 80’s fashion that have made a come-back are the stupid ones. Bring back 80’s hair, I say. I know there are a hell of a lot of women who’d be grateful for that.

The greatest addition to a car in automotive history

Some people might call this statement silly or frivolous, but I’m going to go way out there and state that I think that the cup holder is possibly the greatest addition to the car in automotive history.

I know that car buffs around the world will argue with this and say that things like the automatic transmission or fuel injection are much more impressive, but I disagree. You can drive a car without an automatic transmission. You can drive a car with a carburettor if you don’t have fuel injection. But you absolutely cannot drive a car if you’re holding two large cokes or two scalding hot cups of coffee.

In my opinion, the person who thought to first include cup holders in the car was a truly great thinker.

Having said that, I’ve since discovered that in some countries (well, mainly just the US but I was trying not to point any fingers) cup holders are installed in buses and trains. Now that’s just lazy. Unless you don’t have a seat, in which case – genius. It's a fine line.