Organisation

I am not a very organised person. I try to be, but forgetfulness often gets in the way. This year, however, I am going to kick that in the ass and attempt to be so much more organised. And I know how I can do it too. It's simple.

I love lists. I love making lists, and I love that satisfying feeling you get when you can tick something off. So even more than I love lists, I love ticks. No, not the itty bitty itchy arachnids. Think Nike.

I've already started this at work (a few months ago, actually. Aw yeah!). I have a notebook that sits on my desk and there's a page in it for every day that I am at work. When I first come in to work, I check my in-tray and my emails, sort them into priority, and write them in a list in my book. Then I start at the top and work my way down the list, ticking things off as they get done. If somebody else asks me to do something while I'm at work, it gets added to the list. If it's a high priority, it gets marked as such. And then when it's done, TICK! YAY! Feels good, man!

So to make the rest of me as productive as Work JM, I'm going to get myself a smaller notebook and carry it around with me in my bag. Every morning, I'll make a list of what I need to do that day, and tick them off when they're done. So I get EVEN MORE TICKS! It's like being rewarded with stickers, but cheaper.

Hooray for psychological validations!

Also, I am going to make a list of bigger things that I need to get done that don't have a set time frame and hang it up at my computer desk, which is where I spend a great chunk of time when I'm not at work. And I'm going to put it here too, so if I don't get things done, you will all know and berate me for being unorganised. And by 'you', I mean me, when I go back and compulsively check previous blog posts for typos that may have slipped past my attention the first thirty times.

Listening to:

Devo - Girl You Want

Cake

I really like cake. The band, not the thing you eat.
I also like cake. Yes, the thing you eat. But what I like more than eating cake is making cake.
Specifically, making cake for other people. I want to do more of that this year.
So that's why, at midnight last night, I was in the kitchen, making a cake for a friend whose birthday is today. It's a Mr Toast cake. Because reasons.

I made this one late last year for my younger brothers 21st birthday. He had a pirate-themed party. So I made a pirate-themed cake.

And here's the other side, so you can see the plank...that broke off during transportation .__.

And some of us dressed up in pirate-themed costumes.

This one isn't actually cake, it's gingerbread. But I'm including it because it was a lot of fun to make, and because there needs to be more Stargate-themed stuff on the internet that isn't fan-fiction.

And as usual, I'll leave you with a song that you should give a listen to. They describe themselves as the hardest hitting Hammond Organ Trio in Australia. That's reason enough to listen to them, right?

Oh look, a top ten!

I've been trying to make a list of my top ten favourite albums of all time for YEARS (seriously), but I guess fate didn't want me to make the list until #6 was released last year. I kind of cheated a little by putting a soundtrack in there, but I think it is justifiable because all the tracks are by the same band, I just happen to like that collection of songs the best.

Anyway, this is a list of my personal top ten favourite albums of all time. No explanations. Nuts to explanations!

#10

Regurgitator - Unit (1997)

#9

Goldfrapp - Black Cherry (2003)

#8

The Pillows - FLCL Soundtrack #3

#7

Dead Kennedys -
Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

#6

Django Django - Django Django (2012)

#5

Dandy Warhols -
...The Dandy Warhols Come Down (1997)

#4

Jeff Buckley - Grace (1994)

#3

The Beat - I Just Can't Stop It (1980)

#2

Kraak & Smaak - Boogie Angst (2005)

#1

 The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003) 

Well, there you go. That's my top ten favourite albums of all time. I feel a strange and satisfying sense of accomplishment. Thank you, Django Django, for allowing me to complete my list!

And on one last, final note, here's my favourite track from my favourite album of all time:

Thanksgiving

Just like Halloween, Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here in Australia. I don't even know what it really is all about. I could look it up, but then my Google search history would look vaguely normal...for a short while, anyway. By the way, it is possible for a skunk to kill a dog. Just in case you were wondering.

Anyway, all that I know about Thanksgiving, I've learned from cartoons. Which means pilgrims and turkeys and pumpkin pie. And I suppose being thankful for things. Which is nice that there's a day specially for you to be thankful for things, but personally I think that if you're really thankful for things, you should remember it always and appreciate them ALL the time.

On that note, here are some things that I am forever thankful for:

• Sports socks. Thank you for keeping my feet comfortable all through the year and not wearing out as often as boring regular socks.

• Google. Thank you for revealing to me the answers to (almost) all of my stupid questions.

• Restaurants that let you split bills. Thank you for making dining out with a large group of friends that much easier.

• Ballpoint pens. Thank you for always being in the bottom of my bag, ready and waiting for whenever I feel like drawing something.

• Regurgitator. Thank you for all the albums, the live shows and being there for me all through my childhood.

• Octopuses. Thank you for not living on land and not being able to climb trees.

• Steam. Thank you for the awesome sales, being mostly reliable and letting me buy games without having to leave the house.

• Badminton. Thank you for being a fun sport that I can actually play even though I am terribly uncoordinated.

• Sunscreen. Thank you for making it possible for me to keep my pale ass outside all day while only getting partially sunburnt.

• Rollercoaster Tycoon. Thank you for allowing me to vicariously live out my dream of being a rollercoaster/waterslide tester.

Of course, there are many more things that I am forever thankful for. Friends and family, mostly, but nobody ever comes to the internet for sentimentality, do they?

Also, thank you to The Oatmeal for making awesome shirts.

What's playing?

Cake - Sick of you

Thank you, Cake, for making awesome film clips

Halloween in Australia

Okay, so Halloween isn't really celebrated that much over here. Not like in America at all.

Some parents like to let their kids dress up and go Trick or Treat-ing. I even saw one family attempting to do so on my walk home from the train station after uni. I'm not convinced they would've had too much luck. I saw ONE house decorated for Halloween today, and it was about a half hour drive away from my house. I'm actually glad I wasn't home around Trick or Treat time. I'm not sure I could handle answering a door to children expecting candy and have to tell them that all I have in my cupboard is brown rice, museli bars and a box of Wheaties.

Some people use it as an excuse for parties and to dress up in costumes, which is fine, if you aren't already of the opinion "hey, who needs an excuse to dress up silly and have some friends over?".

Me? I use Halloween as an excuse to indulge my love for horror movies. The problem lies in deciding which one to watch. I decided that since it was Halloween tonight, I should find something REALLY scary, and roped one of my housemates into it. But what movie to watch? In an attempt to find out what the scariest movie ever made was, I searched online for lists of the ten scariest movies ever made, found nine of them, and charted my results. Here's the top ten I came up with:

Top Ten (apparently) Scariest Movies Ever Made
10. Hellraiser
9. Alien
8. The Omen
7. Poltergeist
6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
5. Psycho
4. Halloween
3. Rosemary's Baby
2. The Shining
1. The Exorcist

I have seen exactly.....ALL of them before. Here I was hoping that the internet would wow me with a list of movies that I'd not seen before, but no. Thanks, internet. Maybe if I expand my research to more than just top tens, and find some lists that actually have foreign films in them? I think the Japanese are pretty great at horror movies. And horror games too! Did anybody else ever play Project Zero? I think in some places it was called Fatal Frame. And just now, looking it up, apparently there is a Fatal Frame MOVIE in the works! YES!

Anyway, we ended up watching a couple episodes of The Walking Dead, and Saw. And then he went to bed and I sat at my computer and watched Unthinkable. Scary? No. Creepy? A little. Disturbing? Yes.

And, just in case anything I've said makes you think I have a personal vendetta against Halloween (I don't, by the way), I painted my nails with some ghosts.

And now I leave you with one of my most favourite cheesy Halloween songs!

Gig etiquette #1: Don't have stupid hair.

I am, by no means, a short person. I've had to stoop to get through a doorway before (it was in a castle in Japan, even the shortest person I was with at the time nearly hit her head), but there's a few good perks that come with being tall. Being able to see over things is a pretty good one.

Usually I have no problems being able to see the stage when I go to see a band play. I'm never the tallest person there, but tall enough that I can see past most people. But the other night I went to a gig where I had immense difficulty seeing the band moving about up on stage. My friend and I (he's similar height to me, which is about average dude height, I suppose) were situated behind what seemed to be a group convention of the tallest guys in town. That's never easy to see past, but one guy even more so. Not only was he tall, but he was wide as well, but that wasn't all. His hair was the part of him that was most difficult to see past.

Now, I've had hair mishaps at gigs before. Consistent dread-whipping at a Frenzal Rhomb show, a tall girl with a bun on the very top of her head, I've even been poked in the eye by some pretty impressive Liberty Spikes. But this guy...well, let me show you what his hair looked like:

Yes, the guy in the middle. Those are his super tall friends next to him, and those are his dreads pulled into a spiky ponytail on the very top of his head. Trying to see the stage while standing behind this guy was, I felt, akin to being seated directly behind Marge Simpson in a movie theater.


Anyway, apart from the obstructed view, it was a pretty darn good gig. Regurgitator always put on a great show.

How I came to go to a party as a banana hooker

So I was invited to a 21st, the theme of which was "fancy dress". I know, right? No specifications. Do you want me to dress all fancy, like with a monocle and everything, or do you want me to wear a costume of some sort? 

Originally, I thought I'd just dress as fancy as I could; the fanciest person at the party! That'd show 'em! But then I thought, no, that's boring. I know! I've ALWAYS wanted to wear a banana costume! EVERYTHING is funnier in a banana costume! And then I decided that I would combine the two, and go as a fancy banana. With a tux jacket and a top hat and everything!

So, I ordered myself an inexpensive banana costume online. I had some fancy-ish pants and shoes I could wear. My brother has a top hat and monocle I could borrow, and I'm quite good at drawing false mustaches on myself, if I do say so myself. All I needed was a tuxedo jacket. But therein lies the difficulty. Have you ever tried to find a tuxedo jacket with no size specifications other than 'it needs to fit around a banana costume'? Well, neither have I, because I was very busy in the weeks leading up to the party and ran out of time to find a jacket. 

The day of the party, and frantic for a plan B, I rushed out after work to buy some fishnet tights, threw on my heels and some false eyelashes, and rocked up to the party as a banana hooker.

Yes.

A banana hooker.

In hindsight, I proooooooooobably could've just worn the banana costume. It would make explanations a LOT easier, and I wouldn't have had to spend the night in uncomfortable shoes. Oh well, next time!

Actually, next time, I'm going to cut a bite mark out of the banana costume, cover myself in fake blood and go as a zombie banana. Maybe for Zombiewalk. 

Oh, and when I sat down, the costume puffed out considerably, as if I was now a pregnant banana hooker. My friend snapped a photo, which I (humbly) present to you for your amusement.

This photo is as good a reason as any to NOT invite me to your party

As I told my internet wife, "I'm having a WHOLE BUNCH, and they're YOURS!".