I was very much reminded of Steph's latest post this afternoon when I was queueing for the bus, only to have another of the bus regulars barge in front of me and plonk her arse directly into my seat. Grr! After all the minutes we've spent together at the bus stop, looking at our watches and tutting, this is how she repays me? I sat behind her and glared at her perfect hair the whole way home. Bus karma was not being my friend, and this was made evident when out of all of the free seats, a girl walked up to the one next to me and sat herself down, straight on top of the loaf of bread I'd just purchased.

On top of THIS, the seat I'd chosen was one of those dodgy shit seats which sort of steps up, so your legs are all hunched up and around your neck and you look bloody stupid. Ooh!

My only consolation during this whole debacle was watching the wench in front of me shivering from the freezing cold jet of air-conditioning. Yes! There is a reason I sit in that fantastic seat besides it giving me enough leg room to dance the Highland Fling. Obviously I am WAY HARDCORE and she is just not cut out for that Punk Rock Seat Action.

Ha!

There's not too much going on at the moment. Well, there's quite a bit of Brain Business going on, what with the thinking and the pondering and the mulling, but nothing that can be committed to blog post yet and may never be, because let's face it, I sure do come up with an awful lot of utter shit.

I am going to South America in three weeks, and the only Spanish I have learnt is how to say "Can I have a ham sandwich, please?" I am a lazy shit. But I figure that as long as there's a lot of ham sandwiches in Peru and Bolivia, I should be ok. Yeah?

LOVIN' ON:

Tops with v-backs. I tried to find an image of this for about twenty minutes before realising, hey, I could've just gotten fricking changed and taken a picture of myself in about five, and by that point I just could not be arsed doing anything, but I am sure you know what I mean, anyway. I am all, "Hey! Check out my pasty back cleavage, people!"

The Instant Messaging system at work. Oh, how I love thee! Not only can I ask questions without leaving my seat, I can deliver my terrible jokes and don't have to see people rolling their eyes in response! I have discovered the perfect method of comic delivery. How long has this IM business been around, and why have I not married it yet?

Pretending it is 1988. But rather than being five years old, I am twenty-three! Walking around in Chuck Taylors and scowling at the emo kids. Quoting John Hughes' movies and almost wetting my pants from excitement when Rage decides to play Cyndi Lauper. "It's the song from The Goonies! Good enough for me-e, ai-yi-yi-yi-yi-yiii!"

HATIN' ON:

This shitting shitty shitearse weather. Waking up every night in a pool of my own sweat. Walking to work in the early morning, fooled by the cool breeze, and turning up completely drenched because of the stupid arsing humidity. I am THIS close to moving to Iceland. Or Alaska. Or Antarctica with the pingus.

The impending announcement. Yes, I will soon have to tell my work that I am pissing off for four weeks. Oh, yes, sorry I forgot to mention this when I took the job, but I really wanted to work here and you wouldn't have hired me if I'd told you. Terribly, terribly sorry. But I've been kissing arse so monumentally that you won't mind? Surely?

The effing RSI. I seem to have developed this after a whole two months of the new job. I asked for a mouse mat, hoping for one of those anti-RSI gel things, only to be given one of those flat, scratchy bits of foamy shit. I think that action needs to be taken, before my wrist seizes up altogether and my hand becomes permanently set in a mouse-holding position. And then everyone will laugh at the girl with the mouse hand and I will sniffle.

Happy Long Weekend, and all that.

Now with even MORE BPA (Bullet Point Action)! Yeah!

• Don't you hate it when you buy a chocolate bar or a drink (etc.) which promises you a CHANCE TO WIN! and then you open it to discover 'For your chance to win, dial this number/post this wrapper!' I'm sorry? You offer me a chance to win and then want me to go out of my way to discover if I've won? HELL NO. You tell me right now if I've won. On this wrapper. TELL ME. I am not going to take my mangy, slimy chocolate wrapper to the post office and slide its greasy arse into an envelope, with everyone looking at me and thinking 'Can you believe she goes to the post office to send a WRAPPER?' This riles me up.
• Do you live in Brisbane? Tell me, is there ANYWHERE in Brisbane that plays decent music on a Friday night? And by decent, I mean something I can dance to, something that will make me say 'I LOVE this song', something that will make me bob my head, wiggle my arse and look altogether ridiculous. Please tell me. Because if I have to listen to a remix of Alice Cooper's Poison one more time, as sung by a twenty-something stock-standard bint with an average voice, I will CRY/DIE/PIE in the SKY in my EYE.
• Woah! Random. Sorry.
• As a super duper quiet person, I'm often wary of coming across as snooty, because the girl who doesn't talk to anyone might seem a bit up herself, right? So I was giving this some thought and realised that I think that most people are wankers. The people who can't do their jobs properly, the people who walk too slow when I'm in a hurry, the people who push the button at the pedestrian crossing when there's already thirty people waiting, WANKERS. And generally speaking, I don't think of myself as a wanker. Therefore, I must think that I am better than them, THEREFORE I am a snooty cow. Now is this beer making things unnecessarily introspective, or do I need a punch in the face?
• A million hugs, kisses and sexual favours to everyone who fed my Eighties Craving in the comments of the last post. I love you muchly. It was time to return last week's DVD's so I wrote down every single movie you suggested that I either hadn't seen before or hadn't seen in years (i.e. most of them) and was extremely chuffed at the thought of having an idea of what I wanted before I walked into Blockbuster. Then, I left the list AT HOME. Me = git. I fortunately managed to remember quite a few of them, and then was appalled to discover that Blockbuster isn't actually all that great when it comes to choice of movies, because they didn't seem to have many of them at all. Though I saw about six movies starring Keira Knightley. What is wrong with the world today?
  
• Are you really going to punch me in the face? Come on now. Hey. We're buddies, yeah?
• If you couldn't tell from my music rant earlier, I went out on the town last night. I managed to bump into not one but THREE ex-co-workers from the shitty insurance place, in three separate instances. One who had jumped ship before I did, one who arse-kissed his way to a promotion, and one who allowed me to see him cheating on his girlfriend for the second time, with a different girl. Oh!
  

Yes. Oh.

Etc.

• John and I went to a preview screening of Pan's Labyrinth at the Dendy today and it was So Much More than I could ever have imagined it to be. It was utterly superb. Even John, who is a notorious HoMM (Hater of Most Movies) thought it was brilliant. And, quite frankly, I think that it is highly unlikely that there will be any movie produced this year that can possibly be considered better, in any way. Go and see it, STAT.
  
  (But be warned if you are squeamish. It is incredibly graphic, and the violent scenes range from a man having his face pummeled with the base of a glass bottle until it caves in in a bloody mess, to a man being stabbed in the mouth and the knife ripped out through his cheek. Oh, I've put you off now, haven't I. Seriously, go see it. Just cover your eyes during those bits. And take a sick bag for all of the baby-eating. Ha! Joke.)
  
  If you do go and see it, then please come back to this post and agree with me when I say WHY DID SHE EAT THE GRAPES? Jesus. Give me freaking heart failure, why don't you.
  
  
• As for Aureya/Epona/whoever, my suspicions most definitely matched popular opinion - I am a firm believer that the e-mail came from the girl in question, rather than her older sister. Even so:
  

  Epona,
  
  Nobody need be out of pocket over this - all I would ask is that the posts be taken down, and I can see that they have.
  
  Thank you,
  
  GBE

  
  And let that be the end of that.
  
  
• My apologies for joking about baby eating. Poor form. And I, for one, have never partaken in such activities.
  
  
• Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club have populated my weekend DVD time this week, and I think I have officially exhausted Blockbuster's collection of Famous Eighties Movies. This saddens me greatly. Do you have a favourite Eighties movie? And if so, what is it, and is it available at my local Blockbuster? I need more legwarmers and big hair, damn it.

There is an update!

An update on that stealing business from a week or two ago.

I received an e-mail from one 'Epona Rell', and after um-ing and ah-ing about posting it here, I figured HEY, copying and pasting is Quite Apt.

Subject: I'd like to apologise for my sister.

Dear GBE,

I recently became aware that my little sister was pretty much plagarising her blog off yours. She's only twelve, and as far as I can tell it was because she thought you were rather cool, and wanted to be like you, but didn't know how to go about it. She always tends to feel that she can't do something as well as other people can, and it makes her do rather stupid things (like plagarism).

I tender apologies from both myself and my sister, who wanted to apologise by sending you her pocket money for the next few weeks. However, since only someone insane would give out their details to someone over the internet, we've settled on this:
She will donate it to the charity of your choice. Preferably something with a likelihood of being available in NZ.

Again, apologies.
Epona Rell

Hmm.

Thoughts?

On movies:

Friday night, I watched Pretty in Pink, because I felt completely exhausted and altogether shitty after work and what better way to feel better? Eighties movies, yes. One of this life's great mysteries is WHY did she choose that weiner Andrew McCarthy when she could've had Ducky? Do you pick the rich boy with the terrible choice in friends who has shoulder pads bigger than two steroid-fattened legs of ham or the quirky cute boy who can mime Otis Redding and says "I would have died for you." HMMMM?

There are two movies that I want to see, for the first time in a long time. The first being Marie Antoinette, because I want to marry Sofia Coppola, and the second being Pan's Labyrinth. Now, I saw a poster for PL when I was loitering outside of the comic book shop (oh, I can hear your sniggering), googled it as soon as I got home and Must. See. It before I EXPLODE from anticipation. It is not out yet, and will not be released until the 17th, but I very well may go and start queueing now.

On TV:

John, who has always claimed that Reality TV (with the exception of Border Patrol-type shows) is the spawn of Satan, is absolutely devastated that Kate the Pig Farmer has been kicked off Australian Princess.



Only true Australian boganism could convert him. Tis a miracle indeed.

On feet:

I bought a new pair of pluggers, after mine snapped when I gracefully tripped over in front of several people, and was prepared for the pain. A new pair of pluggers means breaking them in, and I was expecting the rawness, the blisters, and the tenderness. What I wasn't expecting was for my evidently soft, sissy feet to disintegrate into festering, pus-heavy blobs of flesh. Hey, yes, too much info, etc.

My accidentally loud quote, which may actually make me a strong contender for next year's Australian Princess token bogan: "Remind me to wash the pus out of my pluggers, ok?"

Yes, WE HAVE A WINNER!!!1!

On... various shit:

• We have a video camera now! I have been struggling to think of something blog-worthy to video and can only come up with Reg's attempts at human speech, or five minutes of Gnome Cam.
• The weather is shitty! As hot as if I'd been skewered and plopped into a lava fondue, then a bit cold, then rainy, then humid. STUPID QUEENSLAND.
• My desk is ergonomically-shithouse! My neck hurts, I'm fearful of developing RSI, I need a massage, I'm twitching, I'm delirious, etc.
• Detoxing makes me want cake! Doing ok with the healthy-eating thing, though we generally eat out on weekends and I struggled to choose the salads. You want me to pay HOW much for a bowl of lettuce? How about I just give you my bank account details, you rob me blind, and I'll munch on this bit of parsley. Yeah.
  

Sniff.

You told me the government would be bludgy, and that I would get to have tea breaks ALL DAY. I'm pretty sure there were mentions of biscuits and cake and it's not like I can eat them while I'm doing this detox bollocks (somebody get this girl a PIE) but HEY.

When I started, I watched my co-workers having chat breaks galore, taking lunches, doing arts and crafts, etc., and I realised that these earlier claims were all true. And then I started to settle in a little more.

I sit down at my desk in the morning and glue my eyes to the screen, not taking them away until I quickly grab lunch, and then reattach them while I shovel said lunch into my mouth. Having done this for all of this week, I've found myself wondering what happened to that earlier, lazy-arsed working lifestyle?

And then I realised.

All of my co-workers are still living it.

I am a foolish girl! Stupid, I am! Somebody punch me!

So I thought about just sitting back and chilling while the e-mails rolled in, and I did it for all of twelve seconds before realising that I Just. Couldn't. Do it. Maybe it's come from my last workplace, or being a total teacher's pet in school, or some type of hereditary neurosis, but I can't chat, eat, and drink tea when there's Stuff To Do.

Names such as 'knob', 'stupid git' and 'unnecessarily diligent wench whose hair was quite excellent today' might spring to your mind at this point.

Proposed methods for fitting into the government mould:

• Hiring somebody to physically wheel my chair into the kitchen and place a cup of tea in my hand, every half an hour.
• Programming my computer to shut down every half hour for at least five minutes, so that there is no other alternative except chatting and drinking tea.
• Some sort of electrocution device, which zaps me every time I try and open another e-mail.
• Requesting that the most handsome, studly government worker could move their desk next to mine, so that rather than work, I stare at them all day and drool on my keyboard.
• Blog from work (hurrah!).
  

I need to take action, STAT.

New Years truly is a load of arse.

John and I headed over to Southbank, with the music and the fireworks and the proposed merriment, and discovered that it was so utterly riddled with tarty slappers and teenage posers that we almost drowned in the toxic combination of Britney perfume and Lynx.

We saw the kiddies fireworks at 9:00pm which I actually quite liked. Highly unusual for me as I'm generally pretty blah about fireworks, having seen them at least three billion times since birth. Curse my privileged Paris Hilton-esque upbringing. Cough. We then discovered that there was absolutely nowhere to have a beer, and what is New Years without beer?

We left, and ended up squeezed into a booth in a poorly-lit pub in the Valley, peering out of the window and counting the number of girls who don't know how to get out of a taxi gracefully.

I.e. Hello underpants (or the lack thereof).

Only one girl ran around topless. Come on, people. Where is the partying spirit?

Let's face it. New Years Eve is one of the shittiest events of the year. There's too many people. There's too many drunk teenage girls shitting me off. There's vomit in the streets. There's drunks in the streets. The Doc Martens I hadn't worn in a month shredded my feet. By the time you get through the swarm of people at the bar, midnight has already been and bloody gone.

And as it ticks over to 2007, you have to tell yourself that your life isn't passing you by, and that tomorrow is just another day, rather than the beginning of yet another year which will inevitably fly by in a flash and leave you wondering exactly what have you achieved?

Sigh.

My major achievement was discovering that my camera has its very own setting dedicated to fireworks.



Hurrah!

As you can probably guess, I don't do New Years Resolutions, but the Fitness Kick that John and I are going on tomorrow coincides pretty well. Ages ago, I spoke to a Machu Picchu veteran who told me I would need at least two months of training to Not Die on the hike, so I took him at his word and decided I would attempt to exercise properly after Christmas. This also meant that I had a perfectly good excuse to be a lazy shit up until this point.

Alas, no more!

And it is pretty fantastic timing, given that I am about to explode from all of the Christmas Cheer. We need to rid the house of all of the rubbish food by the end of today, our last day of gorging.

• Half a tub of brandy custard
• Six litres of coke
• Thirteen small packets of chips
• Two pot noodles (No! I cannot give them up!)
• A box of Bulla frozen yoghurt bars
• Beers, a bottle of wine, a couple of Bundy & Cokes
• A shitload of butter
• Leftover Christmas chocolates
• A homemade Christmas pudding, large enough to feed the people of at least two third-world countries
• Cocktail frankfurts
  

If I start eating/drinking now and don't stop until I leave for work tomorrow, I should get through it. Right?