So, where'd you get those from?

Last Friday was our work Christmas party. You know that it's been one of those sorts of nights when 2 days later someone emails you from work saying "Ok, next time we all go out, we're gonna have that dance off. Get ready", and your thinking "Dance off? What dance off? Was there some sort of West Side Story moment at this party? Am I a Jet?"

I won't bore you with the details of how I went through the usual malaise of the "what the fuck am I going to wear? Why does everything I try on in the shops look like shite?", but suficite to say I knew it's bad when I get sent a care package of clothes thanks to Li, with all her lovely party frocks in it. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the breasts to carry off any of her tops (chicken fillets wouldn't have filled been enough for my puppies. In fact, whole chickens stuffed down my top would not have helped at all). Surprisingly, help came in the form of a dress that my mother had bought for me when I saw her earlier this year.

Now I love my mum, honestly I do. And her clothes are fantastic. On her. Unfortunately her dress sense, when extended to me, is not a winning combination that's going to get me in on the cover of Vogue anytime this century. So you can imagine my shock when she told me she had bought me a dress and the smile I had prepared myself to wear when she showed it to me was genuine and not a hard, plastered on grimace. It's a green patterned maxi empire cut dress, with a sort of plunging neck line, that I had planned to keep covered behind a pashmina, a bolero, and whatever pillars happened to be at the venue. 3 glasses of champagne later and that plan flew out the window. So after the whole chicken fillet/borrowed clothes debacle, I was shocked to find out that my breasts were in fact topics of conversation with my bosses wife. I practically chocked on one of my never ending glasses of champgane when she asked me where I got my cleavage from? (No, they were not a christmas present, I've had these my whole life).

So relatively sucessful Christmas party? So-so. No raging hangover the next day (thanks to The Ex-Flatmate and a friend of ours going off to Tesco's at 3am to buy pizzas (yum)). Bruises all over my legs from being flung around the dance floor (oh wait.. I remember this "Dance Off" thing now... The massive bruise on my knee is proof that I am, in fact a Jet, from my first cigarette to my last dying day), and a hole in the top of my foot where someone has decided to try to crucify one of my feet by smashing their stilleto heel into it. This is Christmas people, not Easter. And I'm not the massiah, I'm a very drunken girl. Now with added boobs.

A pack of dolphins

I truly love the randomness that is London.

Last Friday night a few of us started the evening at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum for a hollowween inspired night of gouls, ghost stories and exhibitions. The big draw card was the ghost tour and the booze. Unfortunately, tickets for all the good things disapeared in like 2 minutes flat, and we never made it to the bar.. That's how we started the night.

Here is how we ended the night aka my tale of how we met some NFL football players from the Miami Dolphins. In London. In a Hard Rock Cafe. No where near the V&A:

Calv, C and I decided that we would walk to Green Park tube station about 10 minutes from Kensington.. Meandering along, yabbering to ourselves we passed the Intercontinental and a massive tour bus chuckablock full of Americans, all with Miami Dolphin tags on their necks... Calv is a massive NFL fan, and a Dolphins fan to boot. And that's when we noticed the 5 massive blokes who got off the bus and were walking the same direction we were headed. So doing what all good, law abiding, live and let live people like us do, naturally we followed them. Right into a Hard Rock Cafe..

Calv, C and I went to the bar and scoped out what the 6 foot whatever, really broad shouldered footballers were doing. Drinking down some dutch courage, Calv and I got up the nerve to go speak to them. Ok so when I say speak, what I really mean is I said nothing other than "hi how are you doing?", whilst Calv swaggered over to them like a man, and then gushed at them like a schoolgirl. We introduced ourselves. Calv told them he was seeing them on Sunday, that they were his favorite team, and he was so excited about seeing them, and did he mention they were his favorite team? And he was really excited? Did he? Uh-huh? Then one of the guys, (Michael Lehan according to the Miami website) introduced himself to me. That is a perfect oppurtunity to show how cool you can be, and let me tell you, I really did fail 100%. I couldn't do the chit chat. I couldn't do the witty banter. I couldn't even do the awe struck fan (ok that's cause I'm not one). All I could do was say "I'm great thanks, how are you?". No witty repartee. No "wow, so how are you enjoying London?" or "Are you excited about playing here?" or "what the fuck are you guys doing in a Hard Rock Cafe?" or "so.. groupies eh?".

Anyway, to prove to all and sundry that this event took place, here is the pic I took of them...


You know what impressed me the most? Professional atheletes, top of their game, have a big match in less than 48 hours. How were they preparing? By scoffing as many nachos and ribs in as they could possibly fit into their mouths. Classic.

Self Induced Strangilation

Ah, late night, 1am postings after drinking rosé all night and chatting about the various pubs nearby that are infamous because East End gansters like the Krays* murdered members of other gangs. Gotta love it (obviously the drinking and chatting and posting, rather than the murder. Which is not nice and shouldn’t be loved.)

Anyhoo. The problem with late night, drunk postings is that you don’t really recollect what you wrote… When I checked my post today, I was flabbergasted as to why the hell did I feel the need at 1 am to type out most of the lyrics of a Queen song?

I woke up this morning with the inevitable hangover, sprawled on the bed, my headphones still in my ears, and the cable wrapped round and round my neck, half strangling me. That’s when I had a flashback of me listening to my ipod, in my pj’s, dancing around the room, hairbrush in hand, silently singing to “Under Pressure”…

I am such a classy bird.

* Ok this is completely unrelated BUT I just realised that Ronnie and Roxie Mitchell from “East Enders” are based on Ronnie and Reggie Kray! It makes sense now. Plus they all have Peggy Mitchell (Barbra Windsor) in common. (She's plays the girls aunt in East Enders, and she used to be a girlfriend of one of the Kray brothers.. If you go to the Blind Beggar, there are loads of pics of her and gangsters all over the walls...)

Never say "and get yourself something nice" to me

Last week Dr D asked me to get him his lunch, and with his best "East End" geezer, I'm a cockney lad I am, voice, the threw me a tenner and said "er' you go luv treat yourself to something nice".

So I did. I bought myself some £99.50 per kilo, still on the bone, hand carved in front of me, Jamon. Aka ultra expensive, cured, beautiful, would eat this every day if I could afford it, ham from Brindisa.

And it was dead tasty. I love how it says on the label "Eat Within 3 days". I scoffed my 5 paper thin slices within 3 minutes. Flat.

Proof I eat things other than nutella and white bread!

Bag Envy

I have bag envy. It's not very often that it happens, and I'm not really a big "clutch" handbag girl. But I lurve this one.


It's not Dior or Chanel or Prada. It's not Louis Vitton or even Hermès.

It's The Gap. Yup. I have bag envy from that mass produced, made practically by slave trade, every 3rd person in the world can buy it, Gap. Though I feel slight shame in wanting something from The Gap so badly, I do hope it comes to London... cause I really want it. And I don't even often want girly girl things either.

Which would you do?

Oh lord. Ever since seeing The Bourne Ultimatum last week, I've been a tiny bit Matt Damon obsessed. And popsugar has loads of red carpet pics of him (yes and of his wife) that have been keeping me quite entertained.

However, I found this today on geeksugar and gizmodo and holy crap, I can't stop laughing:

So my question to you is: Which would you do? Answers on a postcard. (Or comment). I defy to you look at either Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, lounging 'seductively' on their desks, nerd style, and not piss yourself laughing... Ooh baby, let me turn you on with my nerd talk. Oohh la la la.

Randomness of London

What I love about the randomness is Lonon is that you'll never know who you'll see on an average night out. Take last week for example. A friend and I went out for a few drinks and a meal at a cool Japanese restaurant called Tokyo Diner in Chinatownlast week. Deciding we wanted some ice-cream, we went to Leicester Sq around the corner, and right into the barriers for the Fantastic 4 world premier. So we ended up waiting for an hour, chomping down our Ben and Jerry’s' scrunched up against a metal barrier waiting for Jessica Alba and Ioan Gurrudd (aka the mean hearted Horatio Hornblower, dashing sea faring naval officer who marries Julia Swahala out of pity and then spends all his time ignoring her.. poor dear). Whilst Ioan, clearly was embarrassed that he has any association with this film based on the fact that all the would be C list celebrities and hanger ons strolled out of the theatre, looked at the crowd, waved etc, poor Ioan came running out, dragging his wife/girlfriend behind him, eyes to the ground, not making eye contact with anyone. Jessica, who was crowned the Most Beautiful Woman of the Year, on the other hand, who I didn't think much of, actually looks annoyingly pretty in real life, plus she was annoyingly nice when she did come out, waved at the geeks waiting for her, and autographed posters held up by spotty nerds.

So here is the fruit of our 1 hour wait: a very blurry and crap picture taken on my phone (incidentally, what is the freakin point of having a camera on a phone if the pictures it takes are so rubbish? I think I'd prefer to not have a camera if I could exchange that for extra battery life, but that's a whole other rant)

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Let them drive cake

I saw this ad last night on the tv and it is fantastic!! Not just because it's cake, but because I have always had a bit of thing for the "Sound of Music".. (I defy you to find anyone my age from Sydney who didn't love the Sound of Music.. or maybe that was just something wierd with the all girls school I went to. I think I could recite the entire movie, sing all the songs, and possibly do the dancing bits too. Captain Von Trappe. Grrr).

I can't find the youtube link so I'm afraid you'll have to actually go to here to watch it from the Skoda site. It's a brilliant ad, and since all I feel like I've done for ages now is eat cake, this is a perfect, Friday afternoon zen like piece. Feel like eating a bit of tyre now.

First post as a Brit

Yes, here it is. My first post as an Aussie-Brit (sorry, I just can't get myself to say my nationality without sticking "aussie" in there first).

I've been insanely busy for the last week, which is not much of an excuse for my slackness with my blogging, but it has meant that this is the first time in 7 days I've managed to get time to sit down and write. This mostly has to do with my ruddy job. Stupid salary paying job. Expecting me to actually work for a living. Bastards.

The Citizenship ceremony:According to the website, the British citizenship ceremony is supposed to be something to mark the occasion of becoming British with a memorable event. This meant that we all had to get dressed up, go to the local town hall, and stand in front of which ever mayor (past or present) turned up, who came into the main room, all dressed in her ceremonial robes. The ex-mayor who presided over us was this woman so short and small I actually thought she was a midget. Turns out, it was a bit deceiving because the man in front of her, holding her Mayrol stick (used for changing the TV channels or for poking the people pealing her grapes I'm guess) was such a massive circus freak of a giant, it made this petite woman look look like a 3 child. I almost burst out laughing when I saw her. Not very stoic and British of me. After some speeches, we all had to individually say our names, and swear the oath to "give my loyalty to the United Kingdom" and to Liz. Next came the "singing" of the national anthem (well, I say "singing" in the loosest possibly term. Almost everyone mumbled their way through it, except for the comedy duo act of Calv and Dr D, who were on the balcony yelping their guts out, albeit slightly off key. I've been told that singing God Save The Queen without having your arms raised in the arm, excepting to see football players (be it rugby or soccer) try to murder each other and screaming "COME ON EN-GER-LAND!" afterwards is very strange indeed).

The whole thing was actually really fun. Calv, Dr D and C came to watch me take the oath so I can now go and live in France if I want without need of any visas. It was very weird, but everyone who was there, all 40 or so of us, were all grinning from ear to ear. I guess we all must have been thinking about the hard slog we had to endure for 5 years to get to this point, and if you've been here so long, you must have embraced some of the country (heck, they make you pass a "Life in the UK" test before you can even apply to check you know something about Britain) so by standing in that room, you were saying you too wanted to be part of it .

During the ceremony, I am ashamed to admit, but at one point I almost cried. I found that my mind started to wander, and I started to think about how long it had been since I'd lived in Sydney, and about everyone I left behind, especially my mum and dad, and what sort of life I could have had back home. The two options I think would have been still living with my folks, without much having changed since I was 21, or married, squeezing out sprogs. Would I have been happier? Who knows. What I do know is that I'm glad I stuck it out, because this is what I'd wanted from the moment I realised that my sponshorship lead straight to that little maroon passport at the end of it all. So all the homesickness, and missing friends and family, and leaving everything familiar I guess has been worth it. Plus, I do have an amazing network of people around me, which has seriously kept me sane (though barely!) for the last almost 2190 days in England.

As for my gift: I've been asked about this already. No, to my great disappointment I did not get condoms or a AK-47, which I think really would have captured the spirit of South East London. No instead I got this delightful passport holder, emblazoned with the Southwark Councils crest, and a little "Southwark" on the bottom. Just in case immigration in some foreign country ever wanted to exactly where in London I'm from. I'm actually a bit disappointed. Not that at this point in time I'm ever going to need one, but you know, a pregnancy test with "Your Courtesy of Southwark Council" would have been more apt for the area...

And finally, after the ceremony the two most hilarious, classic, only in Britain, racist things happened, (which are actually quite funny):

1) The compair was congratulating us all, and asking how we all feel. Then he said "OK, so now
you're all British, you have to go home and start eating roast beef, and roast spuds, and Yorkshire puddings. Remember, that means no more peas and rice OK!"
2) When I went to hand in my form to the photographer so he could send my pics back of me shaking the ex-mayors hand, he asked me:

"ok, you're the girl from New Zealand right?"
"no, I'm Australian" (me thinking 'there weren't even any New Zealanders at the ceremony!')
"Oh, that's right. Ok, I'm just going to write something on your form down, you know, just to help me remember who you are, and make sure I send you the correct photo"
"Um ok"

He, with a perfectly straight face, writes down: Australian. Chinese Looking.

For some reason, that made me laugh my arse off. Not in the least because I don't even look Chinese... What a welcome to Britain eh.

Infatuated again

I wrote a couple of months ago about a horrendous crush I'd developed on Superman (yes, you read right. Not much of a mind blowing announcement: "Geek girl fancies comic book hero. "). Oh god, how pathetic).

However, the revolving door of fictional men I get crushes on seems to have stopped right firmly at the door of Jane Eyre's Mr Rochester.

This is of course helped by the fact that he's recently been played with Toby Stephen's in the BBC production, which is just amazing. After watching the BBC production, I was in the throes of the 19th century novel, and I have to say, I don't know where this novel has been all my life! And on top of that, I can't get over it was written by a Bronte, considering how I can't even count the ways in which I loathe and despise Emily Bronte and her pathetic book "Wuthering Heights" (for god's sake Catherine and Heathcliff. Get a god damn fucking room, or go get lost on the moors until collapse of starvation and wild dogs eat you).

Mr Rochester though. God damn. Whilst it's sad for someone my age to lust after a fictional character, especially the youngest son of a wealthy man who ends up (LOOK AWAY IF YOU DON'T WANT ME TO SPOIL IT) locking his wife away in a tower and becomes a brooding, angry, depressed, hollow shell of a man. But there you go. It's too late. He's long "dead" and I think he's great.

Snow in London

Today it snowed for the second time this year! As an Aussie girl, even after almost 6 years in London, I am still excited everytime I see the snow, even if it is only about 2 cm deep and has all melted by midday. At lunch today, I found all the swept clumps of snow, and jumped up and down in them like a 5 year old. I'm never going to grow tired of that!

Check out my slideshow here

Me in M&M form

Clearly whilst being very busy at work, I stumbled across this from those crazy kids at M&M.

Try it, it's fantastic fun!

In Loving Memory

There will be no Friday Moment of Zen this week for 2 reasons:

1) I wanted to talk about the gorgefest that Sunday night will be thanks to the Superbowl. I don't even watch american football, but any excuse to eat nachos, buffalo wings, ribs, and guzzle bottles of beer is ok with me (I'm so classy!). And whilst I do have a full post about Gorgefest Sunday Superbowl, I can not find any pictures of chicken wings that do them justice.

2) Today's entry will be in loving memory of The Flatmates Nintendo Wii.

Which I apparently bricked by sending him an email.

Oh yes, that's right. The Flatmate's Wii, which we got him for Christmas, and which you can not now buy for love or money is bricked. Dead. Fucked. Gone. Bye bye.

Apparently by sending him an email which has loads of html tags in it (who knew that a Eurostar itinerary could so lethal?), I've managed to kill his Wii. It starts up, begins to play the Wii music, then boom. Dead. It just stops working. He's been on the phone with Nintendo customer support, and they've never seen this before, so he's now had to send it back the very same day he bought a brand new controller so we could play 3 player Mario Carts.

Oops.

So to help stop him from topping himself, we took him out last night to get a bit pissed. And in loving memory of the games console that everyone wants, but no one can get, I'm missing out on the Friday Moment of Zen, because for him, there can no longer be zen like state of being.

Embarrassing Kareoke Flashbacks

I've just had the most embarrasing flashback of me standing in my living room, mic in hand, singing my guts out to Belinda Carlise's "Heaven is a place on earth":

"OOOH baby do you know what that's worth?
OOOH heaven is a place on earth
They say in heaven, love comes first
OOOH heaven is a place on earth
You make heaven a place on earth...."

Oh dear.... I thought it was a bit wierd that I seemed to know all the words.....

So here I sit at my desk, blushing slightly, starting off quietly singing, though gradually getting louder and louder, until people start throwing things at me to try and stop the music: "you know we're just beginning, to understand the miracle of living, I know I was scared before, but I'm not AFRAID ANYMORE!!! OOOH BABY DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT'S WORTH? OOOH HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH!"

I know no shame.

The mother of all parties

We had our 6th Annual Australia Day (now with added Witangi Day) BBQ party on Saturday night for possibly the last time ever. What with The Flatmate moving back to Oz, and me moving into my new apartment, both of us are leaving our current mother of all parties house for much more sensible, grown up, less teenage abodes. Our flat does seriously rock when it comes to throwing a damn fine knees up mother brown shindig, as we seem to be able to make as much noise as we like, make as much smoke as we like from numerous bbq's on the balconies, party on until 7am, play singstar and screech so loud you could hear it about 1/2 a mile away (apparently), and we still know no fear of our neighbours complaining or calling the cops. We think this mostly has to do with the fact that our neighbours aren't legally allowed to live in their "flat" because it's zoned to be an office, and not as a house, and since we hate them, we really don't care. (Childish? Oh yes, absolutely).

As it was a bbq, I prepared all the food on Friday night before going out, so we had tandoori lamb, pork tocino, big fat chorizo sausages and adobo chicken. I figured everyone else would bring all the standard fair of bangers and vege crap anyway. And as it was a celebration of all things antipodean, I made a pavlova (well, two in fact because I started to make it after I had a few drinks and then my friend C and I got the temperatures wrong, and baked it at 250C not 250F... we only noticed it's blackened charcoal like texture when the fire alarm went off... ooh masterchef, eat your heart out!). My friend from Oz C made some delicious Anzac biscuits, and a mate P made lamingtons. It's amazing when you immigrate to another country how it's the little things like snack foods and deserts, which you can get freely in your home country, but after years way, are the ones that make the biggest impact on you.. each bite of a lamington or an anzac brings back feelings of nostalgia for backyard swimming pools, scorching summers in December, cicadas, and friends and family... The humble pavlova is enough to make grown antipodean men weep (and grown antipodean women quake with fear of demolishing the whole cream laden thing and growing sideways...).


This years Aussie day bbq was definitely one of our most successful ones to date. Starting at 6pm, it ended with the last few scragglers leaving our house to a rising sun at 7am.. Loads of drinks, food, and of course the obligatory singstar all made their mark over the 13 hours of parting down.. If it seems that singstar is all we do at our shindigs, well... you'd be damn right. I now seem to own every single one of those damn kareoke playstation games, and they are so fucking addictive! There is nothing more fantastic than watching your friends try to battle it out and out sing each other on cheesy classics like "Gold" by Spandau Ballet, "Little Respect" by Erasure (DAMN YOU MAGIC! He beat me by only a tiny fraction.. i swear that man practices!), and my person favorite "Sweet Home Alabama" (yeehaw!). One of our directors from work came with his wife, and at 5 am, after we'd turned the playstation off, jumped up, mic in hand and said "COME ON GUYS! We have to crank it up! Let's start singing!!". You have to understand, we only started up again because he's the boss, and not because we're sados... Fuck it, I don't care, I'm not proud. I love singstar. What I love about is that it's the people who come over and think that it's going to be really sad and pathetic are always the ones that end up releasing their secret rock god, complete with Pete Townsend style windmilling, finishing songs with a rock and roll arm in the air, head held high, score way down low... it's so much fun!

My top 5 for this year's party is:

1. None of our furniture caught on fire (unlike one year, when ignited absinthe spilled out all over our coffee table!)
2. Everyone who threw up did it either outside or in the toilet (unlike last year.. very very messy... )
   
3. There are reports of people not recovering until 5pm Sunday night
   
4. I didn't pass out, wake up at 5 in my bed, still in my clothes, and think "oh, the party's over! And everyones gone home!"
5. Dr K, who is one of the worst singers alive, who still loves doing it anyway, decided to trash talk one of the girls from work, who was so excited about singstar.. As she warbled away, he yelled out "Come on! Try and sing at least one note!", to which she turned around, screamed "I'm trying my best!" and then threw the mic straight at his head... That really makes me giggle!
   

I'll post some pictures tomorrow, some of which are priceless... Least of which is one of our friends in the "sex hat" (a leather biggles hat someone brought to our place years ago, but which neither the Flatmate or myself can come around to touching to give it back to them, because it really, really, really does look like a gimp mask...), my "high maintenance mask" and pavlova all over his face...

Ah, what a fantastic way to celebrate Australia Day...

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Happy Australia Day....

Well it's Australia Day today, or if you're aboriginal it's "Invasion Day", when white settlers came to decimate your people, destroy your culture, and kill your homeland.

Anyway, since it's Australia Day, and I'm a wee bit homesick, I was trying to find all things aussie related on YouTube.. then I stumbled across this... It's cheesy badness makes it very, very amusing, and for some reason this kid's done a video of the crappy suburb that I come from, Cherrybrook (why is there a wiki page on Cherrybrook??? I really don't understand). If you do watch this, I live just down the road from the roundabout near the shopping centre... I actually think this kids backyard is right near my house.....

If this is not your cup of tea, then I've included this one below, which is a) a timelapse video of sydney b) a shamless advertisment for some guys website.



Just one last thing, I do not actually know the kid who made the cheesy doco, but I do sincerely appologise for his mispronounciation of Nova Scotia... I'm cringing all the way from London.

Friday Moment of Zen: All things aussie and cheesy bad.

Party Games in the Office

Helpful tip: What they don't tell you in the "How-to"'s: if you're going to do party levitation in the office, don't scream when they lift you 2 cm off the floor.

We did this in the office this week, (why? honestly because we can) and since the only other girl in the office point blank refused to do this, I let myself be the levitatee (is that even a word?). The only thing was that the idea of having nerd boys (none of whom leave their boxers in the office) touch me under my knees and armpits made me squeemish, so we decided to just picked the chair up, with me obviously still sitting on it.

I was all up for it, until they decided that there should be a 5th person to stand behind the chair, just in case the whole thing tipped over, and I cracked my skull on the radiator behind me. Only then did I think "what the hell am I doing?". When they started to levitate me and I was literally about 2 cms off the floor, I screamed like the girl I am, they dropped me, and refused to do it again, in case one of our directors came running around the corner to see who'd been killed.

I really want to do it again, but I think I've missed my one and only non-drunk oppurtunity to try this.

Does anyone else do random things like this in their office?

Deadly Flannel

Me, walking past Calv's desk at work, spot a flannel shirt, very similar to one I loved when I was in high school (hey! I know what you're thinking, but in the early 90's flannel rocked. Just watch reruns of "Party of 5". That dude from Lost isn't so cool now is he).

Me: "Oh look, I used to own a flannel shirt just like this" (pick up "shirt")

Me: "OH MY GOD, IT'S NOT HIS SHIRT, IT'S HIS BOXERS!!! EEEEK"

Me: Run to the bathroom to wash of the boy germs of my hands, because those boxers have been under his desk for the last 4 years, and I don't want to catch cooties.

Friday Moment of Zen: Champagne Thursdays + Vomit Fridays + German Country & Western Music = Me Being Almost Human Again

I am horrendously hung over today. I love everything about Champagne Thursdays, except for the inevitable Head Pounding, Neck Throbbing, Holding Vomit Back, Hangover Fridays.

I'm not convinced that I am feeling like shit today because of the whole bottle of rose I guzzled with dinner, or the numerous bottles of champagne a bunch of us shared last night (going out with nerds who work for big investments banks is great when you're a nerd girl, for we are indeed a very rare breed, and they always buy drinks. I'm not proud.). I actually think I feel and look like shit today because of the sneaky cigarette I bummed of a guy at the bar, or possibly the 5 lamb chops I had for dinner.....

So, to nurse my "hangover" this morning, I've had:

• 1 carton orange juice
  
• 1 skim milk cappacino
  
• 1 egg, ham and hollandaise sauce muffin from Benugos (to counteract the low fatness of the skim milk)
  
• 1 paracetamol (because I'm conceeding that I am in fact getting old, and it's possible I might start needing drugs to help my alchohol abuse. Actually I must be maturing a little because I normally start my road to recovery by having a can of coke and a packet of cheese doritos at 9am. Hmm. fruit juice and paracetamol... how novel).
  

However, the thing that is really making me feel better this morning is listening to that crazy "german" band Texas Lightning (I say "german" because I think they are actually from Newscastle, NSW, however they were the german entry for Eurovision last year so go figure). Now don't get me wrong, I am not a country and western music gal (despite loving tunes like "Sweet Home Alabama") but this seriously infectious song is just the dogs bollocks when it comes to fun. Listen to it, I dare you not to smile.

So my Friday Moment of Zen this week is my cure for Champagne Thursdays: Wierd Arse German Country & Western Music. Enjoy!


Update As of 4pm, I've also had: 1 large pepperoni & chilli pizza, and a chunky peanut butter bar + I'm going out for dinner tonight, so soon I'll won't be able to leave my house because i can't fit through the door, and I'll have to wash myself with a rag on a stick.

2007: Year of the Sweet and Sour Pig

According to Chinese Astrology, 2007 is The Year of The Pig, and to celebrate, China Post have issued a new stamp with a twist to celebrate the New Year.

How brilliant are these stamps! Not content with them being dead cute, what with the little piggy pulling it's mum's tail, the designers have added a really bizare twist by making them scratch and sniff stamps that smell like sweet and sour pork AND that taste like sweet and sour pork when you lick them. I'm not sure if that would beat the taste of stamp glue, but I'd be willing to give it a try.

What with 2008 being the Year of the Rat, hopefully China Post won't come out with a limited edition garbage flavoured stamps with pictures of mother rats eating their young. That wouldn't be nearly as cute.