This One's For The Ladies...

When the phone rings and you don't recognize the number, don't answer, they'll leave a message and then you can decide if you want to talk to them. I know that and yet I still answer -

Me - Hello?

Girl - Hi, I'm calling from blah blah clinic.

Me - Oh... Hi... Do I owe you guys some money?

Girl - No, according to our records you haven't had a pap smear since March 2008.

Me - Oh. So... Do you want to give me one?

Girl - Would you like me to book you in? We can fit you in at 9:45 am tomorrow morning.

Me - Um... (We only just met, can't I have a week to get used to the idea?)

Girl - Is that good for you?

Me - Yes, it's fantastic. Which doctor will it be?

Girl - Doctor Singh is available if you'd like a female doctor.

Me - Can I have someone else? (I had her last time and I could hardly walk after)

Girl - You don't want her?

Me - Is that a problem?

Girl - Most women prefer to have a woman.

Me - Do I need to give you reasons?

Girl - (Pause) We can fit you in with Dr. Tran.

Me - Um... (I don't know him, should I get drunk before my appointment?) OK.

Girl - So 9:45 in Clifton Hill?

Me - Can I go to the Fitzroy clinic? It's across the street from me.

Girl - Is that where you live?

Me - Yes.

Girl - Have you been there before?

Me - Yes.

Girl - Please hold.

She puts me on hold for so long it's probably giving me brain cancer to find out if I have cervical cancer and then she comes back to tell me I'm booked in for tomorrow... Yay?

P.S. I forgot to go.

Oh yeah, here's a joke I made up after I the last time I went to the doctor: A doctor gets caught in bed with another woman by his wife, he listens to the wife complain for thirty seconds and then he says - Get some rest and come back in a week if it still hurts. That'll be sixty-five dollars.

Black Market Beach

Sometimes you read something in the paper that surprises you when you thought you were no longer able to be surprised about the wicked things that humans get up to. Today it was the new phenomenon of beach stealing.

Singapore has been accused of waging a 'sand war' and paying smugglers to steal entire beaches belonging to its neighbors. The island city has grown 20 per cent in the last fifty years by reclaiming land from the sea and the recent bans on exporting sand in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam have have increased demand for sand and created a lucrative black market. Under cover of night, the smugglers have raided beaches in Indonesia and Malaysia, carrying away millions of tons of coastline and shipping it to Singapore. Environmental groups fear impending environmental catastrophe and blame corruption in the Singapore government.

Is there anything we won't steal, anything that can't be bought?

Avatard

On the way into the theatre I didn't feel like I was looking forward to seeing the movie, rather that I wished I had already seen the movie. Two billion dollars in 39 days, you have to see that and you have to see it in 3D. I thought I might be the only human not to have seen the most successful movie of all time yet, but no, IMAX was packed with other late adopters. Everyone in my row was already seated and of course they were all wearing thongs cause it was hot so I stood on all of their toes as I squeezed past, desperately hoping I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom in the next three hours.

Due to the cleverness of my friends we had the perfect seats in the middle of the middle and unlike every other multiplex movie I've ever seen, the film started on time. No trailers, no commercials, just the movie, so weird. As soon as Sam Worthington wakes up and people are floating around in zero gravity, I felt like I was in the room with them and I thought this is what it must have been like to have been an adult when Star Wars came out. Like you're witnessing the birth of something completely new and also like you're watching a kids movie. Naming the sought after plot device 'Unobtanium', unashamedly takes all credibility out of the equation. Nobody goes to this thing for the dialogue but Sam Worthington actually says out loud, 'I just don't know who I am anymore'. It made me want to punch him in the face, when they can make that possible, we will truly be living in the future.

The audience was strangely quiet, the woman next to me didn't move or make any sound at all except when I was talking to my friend she gave me what I assume was a nasty look but I couldn't tell because of the giant glasses. By the way the glasses are the worst thing you've ever put anywhere near your face and I've heard some cinemas charge extra for the glasses, what a scam. After about ninety minutes my eyes hurt and I felt like I was on magic mushrooms.

As for the movie, I got the message, and then I got it again, and then I got it every five minutes for three hours. I wanted to call James Cameron to tell him that I was already at the party and he could stop calling now. I really liked the spectacle but the whole thing was a little bit Smurfy, and kind of like if Jar Jar Binks and his family lived on the Ewok planet from Return of the Jedi, but they had a permanent rave thing happening where they only use ultraviolet lights and everyone's favourite colour is purple cause it goes so well with blue skin. I kept expecting some guys with fire-sticks to happen. The one effect that did get the audience excited wasn't even in 3D - Sam Worthington's legs all withered and shrunken from being in a wheelchair. It looked so real!

When we came out the expanse of concrete outside the cinema made our world look so boring and flat, where were all the flying monsters and floaty jelly-fish? Why wasn't everything rushing toward me? I had to move to get to it, how annoying.

Topless Man Vs Wild

The general format of each episode of the Discovery Channel's show 'Man Vs Wild', is that ex-army guy Bear Grylls is stranded in some perilous region and has to get back to civilization. He tells survival stories about the particular area, he sometimes has to build an overnight shelter and he usually finds a reason to get his shirt off. This is my favourite part of the show, even when he pisses on that shirt and ties it around his head to keep him cool in the desert.

Bear has been accused of staging some of the scenarios, I don't care, even if the whole thing is staged it's still great. He might contrive the hunting and catching of the local food but he doesn't fake eating it alive. In a mangrove swamp in Panama he eats an angry beetle that bites the inside of his mouth as he eats it. In the Sahara he eats a large camel spider that he describes as being like "an explosion of pus in my mouth". I freak out if I find a bad bit of lettuce.

Caliboringication

Why is Californication so boring? It has some of the things other good TV shows have, like good acting and clever writing, but it's soooooo dull. In every episode the guy who's exactly like David Duchovny but his name's Hank, meets a girl or two (or more) and then guess what? He has sex with her, every single time, and that's all that happens. Nothing else. The daughter's always in a bad mood and the wife is hot but what does she ever do, except have great hair and look amazing in jeans. Yawn. Usually when I watch a show and nothing much is happening, I'm the first one to say 'Hurry up and kill somebody' or 'Hurry up and fuck somebody', but on this show no one is going to get killed they're just going to get fucked, and it gets old. The sex in Californication is so tedious and uninspired, it makes me miss the lezzos on 'The L Word'.

Conversation Killer

World's biggest conversation killer -

"I think we need to have a talk."

It's never a talk about how great you are

or how well you do your job,

or how much fun you are to live with...

T.O.N.Y. Joke of the Week

If I ever heard my parents having sex, it would sound like they were moving furniture. "Okay, lift your end up. Back up... pfff... it's not gonna go. Twist it and take it back out. Never mind, put it down!"

By Bob Marley (the comedian not the dead musician)

Party Killer

Number One way to kill your party -

Make people smoke outside.

Next party I have, I'm going to make people drink outside unless they have a cigarette.

War Vs Peace

Since my post, Happy V Sad, I've been conducting some more search engine battles, aka time wasting trials. Just search two words or phrases and see which is more popular. First I tried some phrases, the kinds of things I think people like to confess on-line -

'I'm so bored' V 'I'm so busy'

Being bored seems to be something that people like to complain about and being busy is something busy people love to tell you that they are, so I think this might be close and it is. 'I'm so bored' is the winner but only just, at 489,000 hits, to 'I'm so busy' at 453,000. But the results that I read were equally boring and it makes you wonder, if all the busy people are really so busy, how do they have time to complain about it on the internet?

'I'm so fat' V 'I'm so ugly'

'I'm so fat' gets 42 million and 'I'm so ugly' only gets 17 million, so fat beats ugly, but ugly is definitely more interesting. A teenage girl has written to an advice column called christiananswers.com, 'I find myself looking in the mirror and wondering why I have to be so ugly and have such an ugly body when all my friends are pretty and have nice bodies. Why was God unfair to me like this?' The answer she gets is, 'If being good looking is important to God, then Jesus Christ would have been a real hunk, right? But he wasn't. In Isaiah 53:2, Jesus was described this way: "In our eyes there was no attractiveness at all, nothing to make us want him." Jesus wasn't good looking, yet he rocked the world because he walked with God.'

Yeah, good point.

'I just got married' V 'I just got divorced'

Married people love to show off their wedding photos and wedding presents and lifetime supply of happiness, so I thought this was a pretty fair fight, but 'married' gets 31 million and 'divorced' gets 145 million. Turns out divorced people have a lot on their minds. This search took me to a site that sells divorce gifts and greeting cards. For 5 US dollars you can get a pack of novelty alimony cheques printed with, 'Pay to the Lying Selfish Whore, Cold Heartless Bitch and Cause of all my Pain, in the Amount of Every Last Friggin' Cent.' They also sell Ex-Husband Voodoo Dolls that come with 25 pins.

Nice.

'I love my job' V 'I hate my job'

This genuinely surprised me, 'I love my job' got just over a million hits and 'I hate my job' only got 332,000. The number one result for both searches was a site called jobvent.com, which offers 'inside information about the jobs and employers we love and hate'. I only spent a few minutes at this site but there wasn't a lot of love going around. Just for the hell of it I searched 'blowjob' and got 35 million results. Quelle surprise as the French say.

Then I moved on to the big issues -

War V Peace

I know this is not a fair match, war is loud and proud and peace is quiet and hard to find, so the result is no surprise, war gets 579 million hits, peace only gets 204 million. War kicks peace's ass.

Jesus V Obama

I thought this was going to be a good fight with an advantage to Jesus because he's been around for so long and his fans are so famously enthusiastic, but no, Jesus gets 168 million and Obama gets 215 million. Obama really is bigger than Jesus.

God V Science

For someone who may or may not exist, God gets a lot of hits at 387 million. Also someone has taken the domain name god.com. It's a Christian website that promises to answer such pressing questions as 'Why are there so many religions and which one is right?' That was posted last year but still no answer. Anyway science beats God by more than 300 million hits.

So I guess that's the end of that old argument.

Sex V Love

It's the internet, it has to be sex. But no, 'sex' gets 654 million results and 'love' gets a massive 1 and a half billion, bigger than war, sex and Jesus combined. I think Jesus would be happy about that.

Final Destination Unknown

While trying to read about the 'Final Destination' news story - an Italian woman missed the Air France flight that crashed into the ocean with no survivors, but then she was killed a couple of weeks later in a car accident in Austria - I somehow went to a site called proudzionist.com (how could I not click on it, with a name like that?). It was much more boring than it sounds, but after that I went to some site on the proudzionist blog roll, called righttracker.com, which is a directory for right-wing conservative blogs and sites. I checked a few of them out and yeah, scary. But I like how you end up at such unexpected places sometimes on-line. You might find out about something you didn't even know you were interested in, or get way too much insight into the minds of crazy people. It's like a mystery flight, destination unknown.

Superdupermarket

I'm at the supermarket choosing between six kinds of orange juice and I notice that the guy next to me is wearing one of those 'trying not to get swine flu' paper masks, that look is so over. Then I notice that not only is he buying a lot of cartons of orange juice, but he's putting each carton in its own individual plastic bag. Freakin' germ freak. He calls out to a random supermarket employee and complains that one of the juice cartons is open and they shouldn't sell it. Then he starts yelling about how he spends fifteen dollars a week on plastic bags because of things like this, and over a year that's hundreds of dollars.

I love how he blames his psychosis on the perils of open juice cartons but how could he spend fifteen dollars a week on plastic bags? They only cost a cent each or something don't they? Even if he's paying ten cents a bag, he's still going through a hundred and fifty bags a week! Maybe the germ phobia thing is just a cover and he's really just obsessed with plastic bags. Anyway, I'm riveted, he walks away and I can't decide what kind of juice I want, all I want to do is follow this guy around and I'm dying to see the inside of his house. The supermarket employee tells me that the germ guy usually comes in five minutes before they close, he buys a months worth of food, wraps every single item individually and then the poor person on the checkout has to deal with all the plastic bags and the whole procedure takes an age and they can't close the store.

I never get plastic bags, because I like totally want to save the world, but now I'm wondering if there's any point when there's people like this guy using seven thousand bags a year (if he's paying only one cent a bag, then he's using 78,000 bags a year). Maybe one day there will be an environmental militia that will take people like him away and lock them up with all the unrepentant water wasters. Oh yeah, that's me. But I have great rationalisations for my long showers, I don't have a pool, or a garden and I don't play golf or lawn bowls (golf courses and bowling greens use millions of litres of water a year). Also I find it infuriating that we're encouraged to have three minute showers but business and industry, who are by far the biggest wasters of water, aren't being forced to recycle or conserve it. Yes, I'm aware that I'm ranting and me and crazy germ guy will probably be sharing a cell and I'll have to beg him for a plastic bag to kill myself with.

M.J.R.I.P.

don't

stop

'til

you

get

enough

More Current Affairs

Stop the Presses! Celebrity Chef Insults Current Affairs Host! 

Tabloid media has gone insane over Gordon Ramsay, the famous for being angry TV chef, insulting the host of 'A Current Affair', Tracy Grimshaw. Even the Prime Minister has commented and come to Tracy's defence, call me crazy but doesn't he have more important things to do? (I obviously don't but surely he does) 

Apparently Ramsay likened Tracy to a pig, sure it's not very nice but I can see the resemblance and I've called her worse every time I've ever seen the show. He also implied she might be a lesbian, but that's just stupid, no self-respecting lesbian would host that ultra-conservative, reactionary, piece of crap excuse for a TV show. 

Tracy hit back in a one-sided rant to camera, using the show as her own personal soapbox, and calling Ramsay an "arrogant narcissist" and a "bully". Oh the irony, accusing someone else of being a bully, when bullying people is the definition of your job and you're on a show famous for bullying and exploiting naive, unsuspecting people. But you don't like it when somebody does it to you, do you Tracy Grimwhore? You bullying, piggy, current affairs biznitch!

Vice Versa

Dear Vodka, Chocolate and Cigarettes,

Thank you for always being there for me. Everyone says you're bad but they don't know you like I do.

Forever yours,

Jenny from the Blog.

P.S. If you kill me, we can still be friends.

Current Affairs

Today I got a phone call and my friend said something no one wants to hear, 'You were on Today Tonight'. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I actually felt nauseous, instantly. I wondered what terrible thing I had done to get me on a current affairs show? And then, what terrible thing did they find out about? I didn't even get around to wondering why they would care what I do. 

Turns out I was accidentally standing next to the star of a movie that I went to the opening of, I wasn't even invited I was just a plus one. She was wearing black and smiling for the camera, I was talking to someone and wearing a really bright scarf, not just red but fire engine red, and apparently me and my scarf were distracting. It could have been a lot worse. Even though I appeared on one of the world's most sleazy television shows, I only feel slightly unclean.

Side Splitter

I'm crap at remembering jokes and usually I don't even try, but the other night I'm having dinner at my friend's parents house, we're outside smoking and her dad gets a step ladder to sit on. I know that I know a joke about a step ladder, I can't remember the set-up, but I don't let that stop me -

Me: Have you heard the joke about the step ladder?

The Dad: No.

Me: I love it almost as much as my real ladder.

It got a huge laugh especially from my friend's step mother.

I believe in crediting jokes so I'll tell you, it's a Jack Dee joke, I think.

Sad Vs Happy

In the middle of my busy and inspiring day, full of rewarding and meaningful tasks, I type 'I'm so fucking depressed' into Google and get 111,000 hits. It's strangely comforting to know that more than a hundred thousand people used exactly the same words to describe their mental states. A disproportionate amount of them seem to be in, or just out of, rehab. They sound pretty fucking depressed. Someone called 'BREAKaBEAT' writes, 'I'm so fucking depressed, sobriety is not at all what it's cracked up to be'. Someone else called 'Rageboy' writes, 'I'm so fucking depressed I could fucking die. And I'm so sick of feeling this way, I could fucking puke...' I hear your pain Rageboy.

Just out of interest I tried 'I'm so fucking happy' and got 3,670,000 hits. So I guess the happy people win. Yay for them for being so fucking happy. My favourite is 'I'm so fucking happy I found a Taco Bell that serves the chili cheese burrito'.

People That Need Me To Kill Them

People at movie theatres who only start wondering what they want to see when they get to the box office, need me to kill them. The ticket person asks them what they want to see and they turn to each other and discuss. You had the whole way up in the line to talk about this. 

I hate you.

Same goes for people at the supermarket who wait until the cashier tells them how much it is before it occurs to them that this is going to be a financial transaction and they need to find their wallets. 'Where is my money? Do I want to pay with cash or card? Hmm... Let me think while everybody waits for all eternity'.

Why must you people torment me so?

I'm Not As Nice As I Thought I Was

I'm at a party in a bar and I don't know anyone except the host and a girl friend I brought with me. My friend nods in the direction of a girl across the room and asks, 'What do you think of that pink dress?' I look over at the girl in the pink dress and say, 'Not with that orange face'.

I thought I was a nice person. Looks like I need to think again.

The Horror...

My favourite news story this week is about the old man who got attacked by mice in the old people's home. He was bedridden and helpless when a mouse plague went through the place, staff found him the next morning covered in blood and his head, ears, neck and hands had been chewed on. Can you imagine what it would be like to be attacked and eaten by a plague of mice when you can't move and fight them off? It's like a horror movie but so much worse because it's real!

A few years ago I got obsessed with the woman who had her face ripped off in an accident in a milking shed. I wasn't so much obsessed with her as with the horror of the situation. I think her hair got caught in something and her face and part of her scalp were pulled off in one piece and fell into the milk vat, which turned out to be a piece of luck, as the milk preserved it and kept it clean so she could have it sewn back on. The story had a happy ending but I couldn't stop thinking about her husband finding her without her face on and having to tell her that everything was going to be okay. I wonder if he has nightmares about it, or maybe they tell it as a funny story when they meet new people.