7.26.2010

Simple Pleasures


I'm usually sad to see the back end of ANY weekend, but I'm feeling a particularly poignant pang for the demise of this one just past, because it was just so lovely. A weekend full of simple pleasures.

Friday evening: I sequestered myself on the couch with a (well-deserved) glass of wine and settled down to watch MasterClass. The cockles of my heart were warmed when I saw all the contestants joking around and taking the piss out of each other and the judges, but that was nothing compared to the joy I felt when it became clear that everyone shared my opinion that Jonathan is an absolute tosser!

On Saturday morning I got up and pottered around for a little while, getting ready to go over to my parent's place via public transport. Although we live a mere 10 minute drive from each other, my inability to drive and Sydney's inability to anticipate my transportation needs in the form of convenient bus and train routes meant that the trip often takes an hour or more. But then, lo and behold, Captain Turbo walked through the door, home from his weekend class early, and heroically came to my rescue, agreeing (cheerfully!) to drive me over.

The day passed pleasantly - cups of tea, getting my hair cut, lunch and grocery shopping with my mother, a trip to the mall with my father, and a toe-curlingly delicious dinner shared with family.

Sunday was similarly uneventful and yet wonderful. Grocery shopping; a homemade lemon, zucchini and goat's cheese pizza for lunch; a long, long walk around the harbour, alone with a new audiobook and, often, my own thoughts; baked tomato & zucchini risotto and a glass of red on the couch in front of MasterChef and an early bedtime.

I hope I am always as easily satisfied with these simple pleasures as I am now.




7.03.2010

Words to live by

I love it when people visit other cities and think that they're a place that exists for the tourists, that no one is just trying to get from point A to point B because they have jobs and lives that happen in the visiting city.
Sometimes, during the summer, it feels like parts of Chicago have been converted into a museum geared toward slow-walking jerks who like to board full buses during rush hour in order to ask the bus driver for directions.


I found this today on http://www.morninggloria.tumblr.com and it exactly sums how how I feel about living so close to Darling Harbour and working so close to Town Hall.

If you don't already read her blog religiously, get on over there. Her shit is hilarious. GO! NOW!

What are you doing here, still reading this!?

7.02.2010

Unconvincing


The internet ad about the acai berry, the one that uses the "reporter"? Not convincing.


Mainly because it's been a while since I saw a "health reporter" who favoured sexyface, tousled hair and clubwear for her broadcasts.

Also because the berries in the little breakout screeen are strawberries and blueberries - not acai berries.

Also because SERIOUSLY THIS IS NOT A SCREENCAP FROM A CREDIBLE NEWS SOURCE.

STOP MESSING WITH ME, INTERNET.

I am not as dumb as you seem to think.

7.01.2010

Madame Turbo's Rules For Life, Part 2

Smokers – if you must perambulate, kindly keep your fag hand close to your body. Under no circumstances should you swing your arm back and forth like a censer. Actually, even non-smokers should stop doing this pendulum-arm thing. It is irritating.

Also, smokers who congregate in pedestrian thoroughfares - I appreciate that there are fewer and fewer places in the city where one can freely smoke. It is good that you are outside. It is not good, however, that you take the opportunity to revenge yourself on the non-smoking world at large by forcing us to cower as you wave your cigarettes around for emphasis, occasionally jabbing forcefully at the air to illustrate your (no doubt well-reasoned and justified) point. Cease and desist.



If you telephone my workplace and the person to whom you wish to speak is unavailable, I will offer to take a message. Read it again: “I will offer to take a message.” A message, for the uninitiated, is a short and succinct communication, typically consisting of one’s name, telephone number, and possibly a short phrase providing a brief overview of the conversation that you had intended to have with the unavailable party. E.g., “Could you let X know that Y called. My number is xxxx xxxx. It’s in relation to the last letter I received.” That, right there, is a text-book perfect message. A message is not an opportunity for you to do any of the following:

1. complain that the person you wanted to speak to never calls you back;

2. offer to wait on hold until they are free, thereby tying up the phone line;

3. request that I look into the future to determine at what point the unavailable person might be available – unless I volunteer this information, I undoubtedly DO NOT KNOW;

4. verbally abuse me for not being so intimately familiar with the details of your matter that I am able to recall in an instant your surname and telephone number without assistance;
spend more than five minutes blathering on about some entirely unrelated issue;

5. repeatedly badger me to give you legal advice, especially after I have told you that I am not legally permitted to give you such advice, even if I knew what such advice ought to be or if I even gave the tiniest of shits about your manifold problems;

6. attempt to extract a promise from me as to the future behaviour of some third party, e.g. “He definitely has to call me back! You have to get him to call me back!” If you tell me the message is urgent, I will write down that it is urgent. I will not hold a gun to my boss’ head to force him to return your call.


As previously stated, stonewashed jeggings are the work of Satan. I am considering expanding this category to include wet-look leggings. Why on earth anyone would want to look as though they had fallen arse-first into the BP oil spill is completely beyond me.