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& The Lover                                                                                                                                   & Grief                                       of Justice            of Fire         



Friday, August 31, 2007

Oh my gosh I am on facebook and everyone is asking me to add a million applications. I'm getting dizzy and most of these applications require me to check my page for statuses, etc. That's an awful lot of stuff!

By the way, you know what's cool? As in really, literally cool as well? Glacier surfing, that's what. I was listening on the radio a couple of weeks back at work and one of these guys was on the program. I just had to go onto Youtube and check it out. Here's one of the videos below.


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Some things have happened since the last time I've blogged, not least of all the fact that I have turned 23!

Ick. That is so old.

But the girl who washed my hair at the hair salon thought I was like 18 or 19. Still young...

Oh yes, I have also cut my hair, well not really, mostly trimmed and re-shaped so it looks much better now, and I have dyed it too, a warm chocolate brown with golden streaks running through. It's really nice. I wanted it to be a more obvious brown, maybe lighter and warmer. This shade looks more black when it's not under lights but I guess I will have to deal with it until the next time I colour my hair. It's still really lovely. I love my hairdresser.

Anyway, for my birthday, we had a party with the theme of pirates and gangsters. But hardly anyone came dressed up except for a few fun people! But it was really good - my pina coladas were a big hit with all the girls except one who had an allergy to pineapples - whoops, it's a good thing I told her what was going into the drink before I gave it to her! But it was really fun. When everybody gathered round and sang happy birthday and I had the cake, I felt like crying. It was awesome!

And it was definitely a good birthday, mostly because for most of this year I didn't think I would have a good birthday at all. I always put so much stock - way too much stock, the Gutter Philosopher says - in things like new year's and christmas and birthdays so I often end up disappointed. I'm trying not to do that now. But this birthday was definitely a good one. When else do I start the day off with a present of a free pole-dancing class and end by falling onto the ground with a lesbian on top of me? Ha ha, no, it's not as bad as it sounds! The class was a gift from the Gutter Philosopher because I had said I won't mind trying pole dancing classes but I am a bit miffed since I will have to go to the class by myself whereas these are the kind of things you should go to with your girl friends and have a laugh at. Boys never understand girls. And the lesbian thing was just Cindy being drunk and leaning on top of me like I was an umbrella stand and my high heels giving way. I was up again in less than two seconds because I had on a new dress and the ground was wet, wet, wet! (We were all outside then smoking and drinking and waiting for taxis and sorting out cars to go clubbing). Still, it's a good way to tell people how the night was when they ask about it, ha ha !

Speking of presents ... Last year, most of my presents consisted of perfume. This year, it's alcohol. Lots of yummy girly wine. I can't wait to crack open a bottle. I'm making spaghetti with a creamy egg bacon sauce (out of a jar, naturally, since I'm certainly not motivated enough to actually make a sauce from scratch) with chicken and mushrooms plus garlic bread for the Gutter Philosopher and myself on Saturday night and I am going to have the Brown Brothers white wine with it. Yum yum yum ...

But back to the night of the party, we decided to go clubbing after that and had all kinds of adventurous plans to go all the way to the other side of town or to the casino but then fell back on good old dodgy Varga instead. But when we arrived, I got tired and the Gutter Philosopher got horny (or so he says) and we decided to go on home. What do you now but there was absolutely NO cabs around so we had to get into line at the taxi stand that had wound all the way down the block. And worse of all it started raining. It was a good thing I still had my gangsta gurl fedora hat on. But I was also just wearing a little black dress and heels so I practically froze to death. Swore several times and made friends with the couple behind us. Nothing like rain to bring strangers together.

Well, the rain and the fact that most of my party was also spent outside in the evening between drizzles (not good weataher for a birthday party) because everyone was drinking and smoking and thought they were warm when in fact, it was probably below ten degrees outside, it was not good for the cough that I had been developing. Now it is an official full-blown cough and I can barely talk. I cough so much, I sound like I have that horse flu that is taking over the whole country and sending horses in a tizzy at the moment. My colleagues probably hate me because I can't stop coughing and I think I have more or less passed it around because everyone else around me is coughing and sneezing though not as badly as I am. Urgh. I hope I get better soon. So this weekend, I'm probably staying home and resting as much as I can. Oh no, I have to work at the art gallery this weekend! I'm probably going to infect everyone there too.

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Nest-building

Another nice idea I had about home decoration was to have a jigsaw puzzle displayed on a coffee table instead of your usual bowl of fruit, vase of flowers or coffee table books. It doesn't have to be complete right away, but just scatter the pieces across the table and work your way through the puzzle in your own time so it means your coffee table has a new look every time you complete a part of the puzzle. Chose a nice jigsaw puzzle. I also remember reading somewhere once that Kate Moss liked jigsaw puzzles, although that was a long time ago.

I used to love jigsaw puzzles when I was a kid. I remember I had the children's ones, the really easy ones that have maybe five to fifteen pieces. I had one really adorabe one of a kitten and a puppy and I used to take it apart and put it together over and over again. We used to do big ones as a family too. We had one of Lake Tahoe and it was really hard because there was so much green in it and it was all the same.



There was also this shop back home when I was in high school that sold jigsaw puzzles. You'd walk in and there was a dark room at the back where the glow-in-the-dark jigsaw puzzles were put up. It was gorgeous and we used to go in just to admire the room. The pictures were really great too, a lot of them were the horoscope ones. I was really pissed that the Virgo one was so crap when the others were so gorgeous. Honestly. Virgo is a sign that some artists paint really gorgeous and others paint it really crappily. Some Virgo pictures are so awful, I just cringe when I see them.

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Eeeek, it's been such a busy two weeks. I keep wanting to blog but there's no time to blog!

Most of it was taken up by work. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Sunday when we went to watch Die Hard, we also went to the museum and the art gallery. The museum, to check out the National Treasures exhibition, and the gallery to check out the Egyptian antiquities exhibition. I think I must have gotten too hyped up about both exhibitions that it didn't seem as awesome as I expected it to be. The National Treasures one was full of old papers and maps which were pretty cool because you could actually see the old faded handwriting and all that...some of it too faded to be read. Plus the lighting wasn't that great, probably to protect all that old paper, so you couldn't really read what was there anyway. I strained my eyes so badly, they hurt when we left.

The Egyptian Exhibition was pretty cool but there were so many people there, that was a bit of a bother. We had to hurry too, because we had to go watch Die Hard later. Not that that movie was that awesome - see review below. I'll probably go back later to check it out again at my own time.

Then the rest of the week was mainly work. I kept meaning to go online when I got back from work, but it's just too tempting to curl up in bed and read instead...

Then Friday night was girls' night! It's been just way too long since we had a girls' night so it was great. First, we went to this bar where Carine's friend worked as a bartender so we got free yummy cocktails. The bar was mainly full of middle-aged divorcee-types. There were actually some pretty well-done-up women, and there was one who reminded me of those 40-something women in the Age of Love, she definitely did not look like she was having a good time and she kept glaring at us, like 'what the hell are these young bitches doing here? trying to steal my men?' I don't think she had anything to worry about, all of us had boyfriends and none of the men were really that enticing! The only hot, young guys in that place were behind the counter. Haha! But the band that they had was good and the drinks were yummy. And, hey, we're on a girls' night, we're not out to pull...

But actually I had given the Gutter Philosopher a call to come out that night too so he and his group of guys were down at another club so we went over to see them. Then everyone got really drunk and the girls left at three-ish except me 'cuz I was getting a ride home with the Gutter Philosopher and the guys just kept going on and on until the club closed. We went to have pizza and chips after that, yum yum, well the guys had kebabs, I had pizza because I'm not really a fan of kebabs. But give me a chip and bacon roll! yum yum! Then we stumbled home and I downed lots of water because I had to get up early and get over my hangover because ...

My sister was getting her wedding dress the next day and I had to go with her. I wasn't so sure about the dress when we first saw it because it was practically falling off her but now that it's been altered and fits her perfectly, it looks really good. She'll have to practice walking in it though, otherwise she's going to trip over the hem. Really, that's a good question. How do brides make it down the altar without lifting their long skirts in their hands or keeping their eyes on the floor? After all, she's got to have her eyes on the groom, smiling beautifically and all that. And you can't just, like, shuffle down the altar - you have to glide! Must take a lot of practice. It's like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, during that big ball scene when she had to meet the Queen. When she came down some steps with the prince to dance with him, she was not looking down at all. Back straight, eyes forward, all regal and graceful. Down. Steps. In. A. Long. Gown. Now if it was me, I'd trip. But then I'd trip even if I was barefoot in shorts. That's how clumsy I am. Ah, well...

After the dress, we went to some paper shops. They sell the most gorgeous papers ever. I might call it stationary but it was more than that - it was paper! You can actually use the squares to wallpaper rooms, though it would probably be very expensive wallpapering. Or make a cover for candle lamps or for scrapbooks and photo albums and journals. They were so gorgeous. I didn't get any because I don't have any use for them or time to put them to use but my sister bought quite a few, because she's making the invitations for her wedding. Me, I was just glad to get home later and collapse in front of the sofa with pasta and some good TV shows. I saw this really horrible episode of Law and Order SVU the other day and it really got to me like no other episode ever has. I mean, I used to be a big Law and Order SVU fan (although not so much lately because I have been watching it a bit too often on cable tv with the Gutter Philosopher and it was starting to wear off on me) but this just put me off crime shows completely. And all sad movies, TV shows, books, stories, etc. It just made me feel so sad and horrified. I had to scour the library to find a book that didn't have any sad scenes in it. Do you know how hard it is to find a good book without any sad scenes? And unfortunately, the night that I had collapsed at home to just rest up on the couch was the night where the only shows on were crime shows, sad shows and, um, Forrest Gump. Which is pretty sad itself. But I had to make do with it because I didn't have any happy DVDs either. Bleh. But, my, how thin was Tom Hanks back then? Now he's all successful and old and stout. Well, stoutish anyway. You can see he wears a certain jadedness about him now, not as fresh as he was back then. Or maybe that's just my imagination.

Anyway, on Sunday night, we had great pizza, albeit a dodgy prawn one from Domino's which tasted great but left a funny feeling in your stomach after. Then the week just passed by in a mad rush and here we are, on Thursday! And that's the up-to-date.

Oh, I tried calculating my carbon footprint on the internet. Just search for carbon footprint on the Internet and you'll find lots of quizzes to help you calculate your carbon footprint. But I couldn't really do mine because I had no idea about lots of things like how many kilowatts are my light bulbs and how many miles I travel a day. Lots, I imagine. Should really start planting trees to offfset these things.

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Monday, August 13, 2007

We went to watch Die Hard 4 tonight. First of all, I am not impressed. It was pretty much a case of the trailer being better than the actual movie - again. Sometimes, I think they need to tone it down with the trailer.

Someone also said the previous Die Hard movies were much better than this one. I'm not sure - I haven't seen any of the old ones or if I had, I had forgotten them.

Secondly, I thought Bruce Willis's character was actually kind of an arse. Like, it was really unnecessary continuously taunting the bad guy about his girlfriend's death - I'm really not surprised his daughter got kidnapped after that - Bruce Willis a.k.a. John McKlein was really just asking for it. When the bad guy had kidnapped his daughter, he was less of an arse to her as well than you would expect for a bad guy. Not to mention Bruce Willis was kind of being racist about the bad guy's dead girlfriend being Asian and all that, did he have to keep referring to her as Asian? I mean once is fine, but over and over again? What point was he trying to drive home? And what was that thing about an 'Asian hooker'? Are you insinuating if you're Asian and good-looking, you're a hooker? Please, Bruce. Also, you had to admit, it did seem like the bad guy was kind of hard done by by the US Govt itself. Really, I sympathised with the villain. I did.

It could have been better written. I give it a pretty low rating. If you want to watch it, just watch the trailer, it basically has all the best parts in it. Trust me. Even the special effects and lots of action didn't do it for me. I've seen better action and suspense. And with all the special effects going on in most movies, I think having special effects just does not cut it anymore, no matter how awesome they are. You gotta pair it with a good movie and use it judiciously. Action, too. Like the first Lara Croft was fun but the second one, although they went to a million different countries and there was lots of action, seemed to just have something missing. Like you keep thinking you should be excited about it but you're not.

Oh, I was just telling the Duchess that I was criticising Die Hard 4 pretty badly and she commented about sequels for movies that happen 20 years later. Like with Rocky. Now, the last Rocky movie was pretty good, I thought, it did the previous Rocky's justice. But not Die Hard 4. Sorry. No. That one crashed hard in my book.

Also, we got La Premiere tickets for that movie and we are also not very impressed with the La Premiere. For such a high price, it's just not worth it. We'll stick to normal movie seats.

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Saturday, August 11, 2007

Nights Out
I keep wanting to write posts but there never seems to be time over these two weeks. When I get home at night from work, all I want to do is just sit back and read a book and do nothing that requires effort. But that means there are plenty of book reviews coming up ... :)

Last night was a bender. Went out with Baby Bro and his twenty other friends that I have never met before to a masala mix! Met loads of people that I hadn't met in ages which was so fun and nice, I forget how much I miss them. It was so nice that everyone just decided to show up so it was a little like a reunion but without the Duchess and SweetRhapsody. Guys, I needed you there!

So the main of what happened that night was that Baby Bro and I downed an illusion shaker (for old times) in less than five and I had too much champagne and may have insulted my friend's pretentious friend, which I am delighted about because he was really too up himself, but didn't insult anyone else, not at least as far as I recall, which is also good because my mouth tends to get a bit out of control when I get drunk *blush* and sat on a staircase with A for a really long time, talking about what I don't remember, and danced with David *yay! the most fun dancing partner a girl could ask for*, kept losing Carine in the crowd, won the disapproval of K, which is nothing new, and for some reason I was avoiding someone else. Also lost Baby Bro, probably about 100 times. Saw the Boombox, missed you, dude! Then we went to eat but I didn't get to eat much because all the food was gone by the time I made it to the restaurant, then we went to Baby Bro's friend's flat and I found a bag of cheetos but before I got one or two down my throat, Baby Bro hustled me home and I tried to stay the hunger pangs with a bowl of instant noodles which were deceivingly spicy and collapsed into bed.

All in all, a pretty good night!

And water did nothing for my hangover but made it worse.

But in a few minutes I have to take a shower and go meet Louise for breakfast/lunch and make everything better with lots of carbs. Yay!

Will be back with more later!

* * *

All right, now I am back, two days later. Carine and I have rehashed the night and decided it was a horribly drunken and terribly fun night.

I'm knackered from the week. Before Friday night, there was Tuesday night, which was the night of the Gwen Stefani concert! It was really fun. I was disappointed with the Gym Class Heroes' opening act, though, which I had been looking forward to. First, because the sound during their performance was kinda shitty (thank goodness it got better when Gwen came out). And secondly, because it was bad enough that we had seats from far away, but worse still, for some reason, the camera guy would NOT focus on them as a close-up on the big screen. They were smaller on the big screen than they were in real life playing down there on the stage! So unfortunately, although Travis and I were in the same room, he was miles away and I didn't even get to see his face. Sniff.

But Gwen was awesome. It wasn't a fantastic all-out-there performance like a Pink concert or a Sarah Brightman concert but it was great because, well, it was Gwen. She's really cute! And has really great stage presence. And her Harajuku girls are awesome, my favourite is Music(I think. Well, the one from Okinawa anyway). Gwen had a bigger Japanese theme than I had expected, seeing that her new album had less of a Japanese touch than her first one - she wore a really cute Japanese outfit with a gorgeous obi and a short bunchy skirt that's kind of like a mini kimono all bunched up around her hips and thighs. At one point, for the song Luxurious, her male dancers dressed like Japanese businessmen back in, um, I think around the 1970s or 1980s, you know, kind of like Dick Tracey, the noir-ish comic detective, in a suit with boxy shoulder pads and fedora hats, while her female dancers dressed in kimonos and danced around them like geishas. And another time, they played the dance scene from Memoirs of a Geisha. It wasn't like a short concert or anything either, so it was pretty worth it. After the concert, my sister and I got Gwen T-shirts which were pricey at the cost of $45 but are real nice. Merchandise, yay!

Her costumes were really cute too. There weren't as many costume changes as you would expect for someone as reknown as style as Gwen, though. My sister spent half her time taking pictures, so I'll put up a few when I get them off her. Also, she didn't wear really skimpy clothes but she looked fantastic and really fashionable (except for a pair of glittery red shorts which I wasn't really a fan of) so more the power to her.

Hmmm. That now occurs to me. I should put up my list of Most Stylish People soon.

And poor Gretch didn't even make it to the concert - she got into an accident on the way, which thankfully she was not hurt badly in, and happily she is feeling better now.

Then there was Wednesday night, when everyone was supposed to come out and have drinks near my workplace, only due to rain and illness and the fact that most of us have work the next day, only Mystery Wolf and her friend made it, which I was actually quite relieved about because I had forgot my ID and they wouldn't let us ito the bar without it because there were cops everywhere. I say luckily because that would mean finding cabs for everyone to go somewhere else and I'd probably have a mass mob on my heels because of that. But because there were only three of us, Mystery Wolf's friend squashed us into his tiny car and drove us somewhere else instead. We went to a bar, then to the base, which had some decent songs but also some really old rnb songs which made me feel like I was back in high school. That was also a fun night but combined with the night of gwen's concert, I was pretty knackered after that. Beer has been my main drink for a while now but I think it's time to drink something new - maybe champagne, like what I was drinking on Friday night! Let's cut down on those alcohol calories for a bit. :)

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Monday, August 06, 2007

Sometimes, you meet the grumpiest bus drivers in the world and sometimes u meet the nicest.

Example one:
Last week, I got on the bus and said hello to the driver, who suddenly leaned towards me and said in a conspiratorial kind of tone: "Did you remember to bring some sunshine with you?" I was taken aback for a second, then I leaned forward and said in the same kind of tone, "Yes, I did!" "Good girl!" he said.

It's people like that that make you remember to bring the sunshine.

Example two:
This morning, as I was getting home from the Gutter Philosopher's, it started raining. At first it was a light drizzle which I didn't mind so much because the morning air was so cool and fresh and all I had to do was put my hood up. I was wearing my long white skirt and it made me feel like a bride/medieval princess as I ran down the street. The bus came and I got on and it started pouring like mad as we neared our stop. When I was getting off at the back door, the driver called me to come up to the front, and I went, thinking there must be something wrong with the back door. Instead, he handed me an umbrella, announcing "from a king to his princess." I protested that I'll never be able to return it to him but he said "just share it with someone else." It was really sweet!

Then there was the cab driver that I discussed psychology with on the way home the other night. Sometimes, you meet the most interesting people taking buses and cabs.

All the same, I can't wait for when I'm finally able to save up enough cash for a car!

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