Song Lyrics and an Awesome Job. Also, it was Lionel.

Today I got dragged to the next town over and ended up in the local library for an hour reading a book on cults.  I started off with one one baby names but almost literally threw that one aside when I saw that it had ‘Alice’ as Greek, and meaning ‘truth’ (it’s Germanic, derived from Adelheid, and it means ‘noble’).  Research FAIL.

Anyway!  That is totally not what this post is about.  I started searching for jobs in earnest today, mostly for when I get back to Chch.  I found one that I really really (like, really) want to apply for, as customer service rep at the Dept of Internal Affairs.  It entails ‘providing full and accurate advice and checking and receipting applications for BDM [Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Civil Unions], Passport and Citizenship customers,’ which for a start would be namenerd heaven. But that is not all.  Oh no.  I would also ‘be required to perform marriages and civil unions’ at the registry office.  How fucking awesome would that be! I could create havoc and marry German nutjobs to their true-love-pineapples.  My brother’s first reaction was to ask me if he could marry him to a cat.  Dad asked if Guy wanted to marry Vianne (my cat, and surrogate ‘daughter’), then pointed out that if he did so, I would be both his sister and his mother-in-law.

That conversation ended pretty sharpish lol, and Guy and I began another one about scapegoating.  That Clayton Weatherston guy was on, and Guy goes, totally deadpan ‘nah, I don’t think he did it, eh’.  I ljust looked at him and was just about to do an epic ‘wtf?!’ when he continued ‘It was Lionel.  Same with David Bain.  Wasn’t him, wasn’t his dad.  It was Lionel.’  I LOLed.

For those of you who have never watched Shortland Street, Lionel was the guy who used to make muffins at the hospital cafe and disappeared mysteriously one day, from a spot on a rock being battered by the ocean.  His body was never found.  The theories are: he jumped (he’d just found out his wife was an embezzling evil bitch), he slipped, or said evil bitch pushed him in.  OR that he survived, and will one day walk into triage and ask why Chris Warner looks so much older than he did yesterday.  It’s sort of a running joke.  Guy and I have decided that he is now the scapegoat for everything, including farts (now that Zinzan isn’t there to blame).

Haha you totally didn’t need to know that!

Also today, I discovered a website call www.songmeanings.net.  According to Holly, I am way behind on discovering this (apparently I have been living in Guam?!  Which is…somewhere near Papua New Guinea, thanks Luke!) but it is very entertaining.  As much of an English nerd as I am, and as much as I used to overanalyse song lyrics when I was a young teenager (overt sexuality in song lyrics used to bother me a lot), I quickly realised that I had never even properly thought about the lyrics of a lot of songs that I love, apart from one or two that had quite obvious meanings (or so I thought, anyway!).  My favourite thread so far is for ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ by Natasha Bedingfield (which I Music Mondayed a while ago).  I had never really thought about it, beyond it being a happy song about ignoring the bad stuff and just being in a good mood.  According to many people I am far too innocent.  Depending on who you listen to, ’sunshine’ is a euphemism for: LSD, vibrator, and, of course, Jesus!  I am not entirely sure what Jesus would be doing in anyone’s pocket, but it made me LOL.  I think I’m going to stick with my original interpretation!

Ever discovered you’d misinterpreted some song lyric (not to be confused with misheard, although this website is lolworthy for those)?

A New Word and Finding Things to Do.

I woke up this morning with the word ‘austipagia’ (pronounced OS-tih-PAH-zhee-a) in my brain.  Apparently in my sleep I had decided that this was an actual word, and derived from ‘austere’ and ‘page’.  Austipagia describes a book whose pages are not filled to capacity.  For example, the Edmond’s cookbook uses its page space well, but Jamie Oliver’s books are a good example of austipagia, since there’s only one recipe to every two pages, and they are usually quite sparsely laid out.  I am of the opinion that this word fills an important niche in the English language, and intend utilising it forthwith. 

I also discovered an awesome new (actual) word the other day: I was doing a crossword and one of the clues was ‘order of angels’ or something like that.  I initially thought it was ‘cherubim’ but that wouldn’t fit, so was trying to find another synonym.  Eventually got to ’seraphim’ (thanks Ms K and your hymns!) and then got to wondering whether ’seraphic’ was a word, by analogy with ‘cherubic’.  Looked it up and was delighted to find that it is.  Now I’m wondering why ‘angelic’ is so overused when ’seraphic’ sounds so infinitely cooler.

/nerd

In other exciting news (not), my father has decided that I am In A Rut (because I worked nights in Chch and therefore did very little during the day.  It seems to have escaped him that most people who work during the day do very little during the evening, so I was actually behaving quite normally) and so has apparently been offering my services (oo-er!) to all and sundry during the past couple of weeks.  I personally would have liked a day or two to myself after the intensive cleaning and moving feat I just participated in, but so far I have been chivvied into: a babysitting job; volunteer work at a) the library (which I’m actually quite happy about), b) the museum, and c) the SPCA; ringing up the local Guiding coordinator and arranging to join one of the units here, which also ended in my volunteering to help out at one of the local primary schools.  Oh and starting driving lessons.  That was actually quite fun.  My dad neglected to inform me that the brake pedal didn’t actually work unless you press the clutch pedal too (which seems ridiculous to me – surely if you need to stop suddenly, one pedal would be much easier and less time-consuming to press than two), so the sheep’s enclosure got a very firm little love tap, and the car got a couple of ‘laugh lines’.  I seem to be ok at reversing so far though, which is a little counterintuitive I suppose, but I’ll take whatever I can get!

Today I escaped to my friend’s house where I hung out with her and her gorgeous wee one-year-old most of the day.  We went to the library and the swings and the slide and played with playdough (I think I had more fun than the baby; I made a snowman and an aeroplane that looked a bit like a penis with wings (not on purpose!), and built Bubba’s name out of playdough snakes) and then I had to go home to cook dinner.  Had planned on dal or spinach canneloni but discovered we had neither lentils nor spinach so chucked some mushrooms in with a tin of tomatoes and made pasta, while bopping round the kitchen to Billie lol.  Also found out some awesome news about another friend of mine, which I am quite happy about (but can’t share lol sorry I know that’s mean!).

BAM! and the dirt is gone. (as am I)

For the purposes of this post, I am assuming that you have all seen the ads for Easy-off BAM!, where the uber-cheesy man says uber-cheesy things about chlorine bleach in a bright pink bottle (the bleach is in the bottle, not the uber-cheesy man.  That would be a much better ad, though).  The first few times I saw that ad I thought it was another one in the ‘home safety’ series.  Like the one where the guy’s up a ladder and trying to sell us paint, then falls off the ladder and lies there twitching on the concrete.  Or the hot-water system one where the guy slips and cracks his head in the shower, or the woman selling muesli bars who trips over her kid’s toys and faceplants in the glass table.  Anyway!  The BAM! ad has a similar level of cheese to those, I kept expecting the man to  spontaneously combust or something.  Sadly now I can’t take the piss out of the ads with as much glee as I did before, coz the stuff actually works.  I have had lots of experience with it in the last couple of days, what with cleaning walls and cupboards and the fridge (sprayed BAM! in the freezer while it was still cold and ended up with BAM! frost).  Then there was the oven.  I came over all Monica, and Mum was exceedingly happy when I asked if I could clean the oven (I just love the way it’s all dirty and then it’s SO clean). 

My room finally got emptied today, so I finished cleaning the walls and vaccumed up 6 years of dead spiders and moths lol.  I took a few pictures too.  I didn’t think it was possible but it actually looked smaller when it was empty.  o.O

Got on the bus at 3pm, ended up sitting next to a girl who had Swine Flu last week.  I was kind of excited, I don’t know anyone who’s had it so that was my first real brush with the phenomenon lol.  Snow everywhere over the Pass, so pretty.  We didn’t stop though, which I was sad about.  I *heart* snow.

And now I am at my dad’s place on the coast.  Have discovered two unwelcome rules already: 1) no running the hot tap.  I assume this means I can’t even use warm water for washing my face at night, a thought I do NOT relish in the middle of winter.  2) no using the computer in ‘public/social areas’ of the house.  This means the dining table (where I usually do my thing at breakfast time) and the loungeroom, presumably even when there is no one else in the room.  This is sad because they are the only two rooms that get any decent sun.  It leaves the TV room and my bedroom (which is frickin freezing, I’m used to being right next to the fire-containing loungeroom).  I am not impressed. *whinge, moan*

On the upside, I had my last night of work last night.  I was DM and Tom Baby was on with me.  Then everyone else that I like came in for a kai or a drink and we ended up sitting around talking about Japanese porn (apparently there’s an anime superhero called Rape Man, who does pretty much what it sounds like he does) until an hour after everyone else had left lol.  It was lots of fun and if any of you guys are reading this I am going to miss working with you!  I will miss Chch in general akshully, I didn’t realise that I liked it until I left.  No more Spotlight 10 minutes away   I will be back soon though!  (Way more Buffy days ahead.  And Holly, don’t think you’re getting away with not having seen Notting Hill!)

I also made my last trip to the supermarket and got served by the cute cashier lol.  I am sad that I will not have anyone to grin winningly at when I go to buy milk now.  I can’t see this place having anyone that cute

I am offski now to read about Lizzie Bennet and zombies, and to listen to Billie (song of the day: ‘Walk of Life’.  Hey! She’s on a bus too! lol)

Music Monday: ‘Girlfriend’ – Billie Piper

The other week I went all teenybopper and relived my late-primary school years by downloading a whole bunch of music, including Steps, B*Witched, Aqua, S Club 7, Hear’say, and Billie.  I had most of these already, but on cassette tape (why, yes I was a child of the 90s, how could you tell? ) which don’t work so well on the ol’ iPod.  I put them all on one playlist and have been enjoying them possibly a little too much lol (have been bouncing around the house and singing along), but this is my favourite overall so far (it’s been on repeat a LOT).  I was never a huge fan of Billie at the time; I was more a Britney girl, but she definitely has teh awesome now.  She admits she is not a great singer (just watched an interview with her where she was asked how the music career happened, apparently she got spotted by some producer when she was in an ad campaign and the guy tracked her down and asked her if she could sing.  She told the interviewer, ‘I lied, and said ‘yes’.') but I really like her as an actress (which I think I have mentioned before on this blog) and she seems pretty down-to-earth and cool from what I’ve seen of her.

Anyway, here is my song of the moment, enjoy the awesome 90s-ness of the dance moves and fashion and don’t think too hard!

My own personal lolcat. And my youtube obsession.

Since my mum and I are moving out of our house next Tuesday, this week has been overrun with packing.  We started my room on Monday and I was truly surprised at how much STUFF I have.  For those of you who haven’t seen my room, it’s about 6mx3m, and, having had two bedrooms growing up I had managed to accumulate a bit of stuff when I moved all my bedroom-at-Dad’s contents over here.  But I was still surprised.  My mother, ever the optimist (and underestimater) thought we would need maybe 20 banana boxes to pack up the entire 3 bedroom house.  Just my bedroom has filled 14 or 15.  Plus we have given away 9 rubbish bags full of clothes and 5 boxes of toys and other stuff to the City Mission (not all my stuff though).  I did manage to rescue a couple of things though, stuff from the last time we had a throw-out and never got to the City Mission – a top and sweatshirt that I had been thinking about recently and thought they were gone forever.  Sometimes procrastination IS a good thing!

We have also burnt a lot of crap, including wrapping paper that has been growing more wrinkled with each passing holiday of disuse.  One roll was sitting in a banana box by the fire the other night, so I picked it up and waved it at the cat, who was in one of his weird moods (sometimes he’ll start attacking the rug by the fire for no reason at all.  The rug is covered up at the moment so he’s moved on to the defenceless rubbish bags that are waiting to be filled).  He started batting it, from the other side of the box from me.  I put the end of the roll in the box, seeing if I could get him to jump into the box.  This didn’t fly with him, but he did start trying to get at the roll through the holes in the side of the box.  I started giggling and the furry black paw that would keep appearing through one hole then the other, so I moved the roll faster between the holes.  That’s when he stuck both paws in, one through each hole, still wildly trying to catch this roll of wrapping paper.  I literally rofled.  I wish I’d taken a video or photo because I promise it was funnier than it sounds!

We recently got wireless internet at our house, something I’d not-wanted for ages (my dad has it and every time I’m there I’m awake till 3am watching stuff on youtube).  I’d been pretty good about not using my computer in bed until a couple of weeks ago.  I discovered old episodes of Shortland St.  Not really old, just 4 or 5  years ago, which was when my favourite character initially appeared.  And then I got sucked into the storylines (again!).  I think I‘m an epic geek, because I actually remember some of the lines word for word from these old episodes o.O  And to make matters worse, it has captions for the hearing-impaired, which have wormed its way into my brain to the extent that I’ve started saying ‘ominous music plays’ when ominous music plays.  If I start doing this IRL, you’ll know why.

I really need a life.

Can I Just Say: Duh!

Just found this article on Stuff, in which Debbie Rowe (the mother of Michael Jackson’s two oldest children) claims that the children are not biologically his, but were conceived with the help of a sperm donor.  Is there anyone who actually thought they are his biological kids?  I know it’s been a long time since MJ had black skin, but as far as I can tell, vitiligo (the skin disease that he apparently had, which changes your skin colour) only changes your skin colour, not your DNA (it does have a genetic component, in that you can pass on a tendency toward having it, but it doesn’t change the genes that say what colour your skin is) (feel free to correct me though, my knowledge of the condition is pretty much wikipedia plus a few magazine articles).  Those kids are more pakeha than I am (the older boy anyway, he’s blonde, the girl is a little darker but looks more like she might have Italian or Greek heritage rather than African-American).  I suppose it’s possible that MJ has some caucasian DNA that came through, like those sets of twins where one’s fair-skinned and the other’s dark because both parents are mixed-race. Possible, but unlikely that this is the reason why his kids are white.  Your thoughts?

Off topic, this reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend shortly after Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman divorced. We were talking about how sad it was (this was before we knew that Tom Cruise was a nutjob and control freak!), and what would happen with the kids.  I said they’d probably do joint custody, and she asked whether it would work the same for both kids, since Connor (the boy) obviously wasn’t Tom Cruise’s biological kid (I guess she was under the impression that he was the product of an earlier relationship of Nicole’s).  I think I LOLed for a bit before explaining that both kids were adopted (she was only about 11 at the time).

Music Monday: ‘Happiest Girl in the Whole USA’ – Daveigh Chase.

This song was originally recorded by Donna Fargo (who, I gather, is or was a famous country singer) and is supposed to be from the perspective of a newlywed  to her husband.  It’s been covered by others over the years too, including Tammy Wynette.  I had never come across it before I heard it on Big Love the other week.  I don’t really watch the show regularly, but I tune in every now and then when I remember it’s on (it’s been buried at 11.45 on Monday nights) because it’s quite good.  If you don’t know the show, it’s based around a polygamous Mormon dude and his three wives and families trying to hide their situation from the world around them (they don’t live in a religious commune or anything, and are reasonably liberal).  The middle wife (played by the awesome Chloe Sevigny) is the daughter of the prophet of a polygamous sect (the old guy in bed at the start of the clip), who is accused of forcing young girls to marry older men in the community.  The girl singing in this clip has recently escaped from the commune and is now fiercely against polygamy.

This song is incredibly cheesy and cutesy in itself (which I kind of love anyway lol) but this version with this character singing it adds a bit of a creepy air.  I put a different version on my iPod and now I know all the words – have been singing it around the house and driving my mum crazy

Enjoy!

Weirdest Compliment Ever. And Movie Day. Also, I Hate My Work.

I remembered this recently and thought it was worth sharing because it is so very odd, and also because I want to know whether any of you have ever had a similarly weird compliment!

I was in 6th form at the time and in French class.  Another girl and I were sent to the oral room *waits for sniggering to stop* for a test or something.  This girl wasn’t really a friend of mine, mainly because we were in entirely different ‘groups’ of people at school and didn’t have many classes together – it wasn’t like we didn’t like each other but we didn’t know each other very well either.  Anyway, we were walking down the hallway and she turns to me and says ‘I really like the way your nose whistles’.

Up until that point I had been blissfully unaware of my whistling nose, but apparently the same did not apply to everyone else.  I actually can’t remember what I said or did in response, but I would have to say that that moment was up there in the oddest conversations of my life!

Now you share: Can you beat that?

Now I am going to rant about my work, so here is the place to stop reading if you are easily bored or have an antipathy toward profanity (it took me a while to find that word in my brain – it kept wanting me to use ‘fornication’ o.O).

Stupid fucking manager (SFM) can’t sort his fucking staff so makes me work every day for two fucking weeks including after Brownies when I am tired and supposed to be having the night off.  I asked for tonight off instead because it’s the last meeting of my writers’ group before I go off to the Coast but noooo.  Even though it will be very quiet it’s imperative that I be there along with SFM plus another staff member plus a trainee.  I’m starting late (close to when the meeting starts), then he will send the other two staff members home first, ensuring that I miss the entire meeting, even though he knows that I would really like to be there.  A similar thing happened on Sunday.  I was initially offered the night off because I had worked Thursday (which was supposed to be my night off), which sounded good to me since Holly and Jenny and I had a movie day planned.  Then SFM changed his mind and decided I would need to be there as well (even though Sundays are pretty quiet in general).  I get there at 7 and there is one table in the entire restaurant.  He then proceeds to let the other girl finish 15 minutes after I get there.  Would it have been that fucking difficult to text me and tell me not to bother coming in?  Especially when he knew that I had friends over.  I will be so glad to walk out of there in a couple of weeks’ time.  I like everyone else there, but FFS this guy does my head in!

On a happier note, Teen Movie Day was a success!  I made lolly sushi the day before (Fruit roll-ups (which apparently you can’t buy anymore.  Maybe too many kids pulled teeth out on them.  I used those fruit-for-yonks things instead, except they only had pull-apart ones that kept pulling apart when I rolled the sushi), rice crackles (extremely fiddly – apparently the original recipe used a different type of rice crackle involving marshmallow – I’m trying that one next time coz the rice bubble clumps kept falling apart when I rolled) and lolly snakes/whatever in the middle.  They were worth the hassle though coz they set properly in the fridge and tasted pretty good), and chocolate crackles with the leftover rice bubbles and kremelta.  I also made a token plate of fruit and vege bits, and Jenny made cupcakes and brought chips and choc bikkies and Holly brought the popcorn (I managed to undercook the first batch and overcook the second.  Goldilocks of popcorn.  I are it).

Here is the lolly sushi (Holly remembered to take a photo):

We watched: Never Been Kissed (a bit cheesier than I remembered), Now and Then (more woo-filled than I remembered, but it all got debunked in the end, and I still liked the movie), Sixteen Candles (hadn’t seen it before but I liked it – funny, and not unintentionally lol.  Much better than the other Molly Ringwald movie I’ve seen – The Breakfast Club), and Ten Things I Hate About You (my favourite teen movie ever).  Good day!

I watched another movie yesterday that I recorded the other night: My Summer of Love.  It was a good movie, interesting story, and good performances (I *heart* Emily Blunt).  Freakin’ weird ending though!  Apparently they shot a more ‘audience-pleasing’ ending, but decided not to go with it – now I’m curious as to what it was.

Music Monday: Truly Madly Deeply – Savage Garden. And Cascada.

As you all probably know by now, I love Savage Garden.  Truly Madly Deeply is not my favourite of their songs (although I do love it), but I picked it for Music Monday because of this horrific cover that I found.  I discovered by accident via a fellow forum-member, who was asking if we’d all heard this awesome new song called ‘Truly Madly Deeply’.  I asked if it was a cover of the Savage Garden song and she was like ‘I don’t think so’ and linked me the song.  Apparently she had no clue who Savage Garden was (I feel old!) and the song actually was a cover.  I linked her the original but alas I don’t know if it made any difference.  Cascada appear to be some German girl group who take good songs written by other people and create a bland cover, then remix them to make dance singles.  I can’t decide which version is worse, the slow one or the dance one, but I’m posting the slow one since it’s the one I heard first.  Here’s the fast one if you want to assault your eardrums further.  I think the slow one is worse, actually.  At least the fast one is something different.  I might be tempted to dance to it if I was out and in a really really good mood.  Maybe.

And here is the original, if, like me, you now need an antidote to teh awful:

Whew!  *breathes*

However you feel about Savage Garden, surely you have to agree that their version is better, right?  *waits for people to disagree just to annoy me *

Cat names and Spam. And a WTF.

Last night I was patting my cat and remembering a cat I used to know called Mandu (Cat/Kath-mandu, geddit?). This turned into a long conversation with my mum about good pun-names for cats.  We decided that Zinzan would probably be called Atonic if we’d named him with a pun.  Now my pet fantasy is to have two cats, a boy called Atonic and a girl called Atomic (as in Kitten, like the pop group).  We also came up with Egory, Astrophe, Alyst, and Alogue (prn A-log, like A-Rod ).  I tried Hedral (for the religious cat) but mum said the ‘cath’ ones didn’t count.

Then, because I am a nerd, I got the dictionary out and found some more:

Aract – if your cat likes to pee everywhere, or if he/she is blind.

Abasis – if he likes to jump on you from a great height.

Aclysm – if she’s forever wreaking havoc on your furniture.

Alectic – if you’re a poetry nerd and/or your cat has three legs.

Afalque – if your cat is a zombie.

Acomb – if she confuses you.

Apult – if she likes to hide then leap out at you.

Amaran – if he likes the water.

Aplexy – if he doesn’t move much

Alepsy – if she’s a bit schizo.

Arrh – if she’s a bit snotty.

Aplasm – if she makes you feel better.

Echism – if he sleeps on your Bible.

Cher – if she likes baseball.

Erwaul – if he’s noisy.

Erpillar – if she eats bugs (random fact: caterpillar actually comes from the Old Northern French word catepelose, meaning ‘hairy cat’.)

Echol – if you’re a chem nerd.

Tle – if your cat looks like this

What pun-name would suit your cat?  Pick one of mine or find your own.

While I was looking through the dictionary, I came across the following as part of a definition:

‘In their native regions the nuts are strung together and burned as candles.’

Imaginary chocolate fish if you can tell me what word they were defining!  (Hint: it’s not as scary as it sounds )

Also, I got an awesome spam comment on my last week’s Music Monday from someone called Dr Brian:

‘Thanks for a great acticle, I will pass this on to my patients…’

I wish my doctor would send me links to awesome web videos.

This next bit was not part of the original post, but came across it on stuff this morning:  Vanity Fair readers have voted on who they think is the most handsome man, and the winner took it out with 51% of the vote.  Can you guess who it was?

If you guessed Brad Pitt, you are wrong.

If you guessed Daniel Craig, you are wrong.

If you guessed Johnny Depp, you are wrong.

If you guessed George Clooney, you are wrong.

If you guessed Jack Nicholson, you are wrong (and also a bit weird).

‘Twas Robert Pattinson. That’s right, the scruffy, pasty, permanently-bewildered-looking, stalker vampire from Twilight.  Now, if this was a poll done by, say Girlfriend magazine, or even Cosmo at a stretch, I would understand.  But this is Vanity Fair.  I thought it was supposed to be read by grown-ups.

Johnny Depp only got 7% of the vote.

I feel betrayed, somehow.  I will never read Vanity Fair again.  (not that I usually do! ).

Admittedly theirs was not the best picture of him, but come on.  7%?!

Although the readers did vote Angelina Jolie in for the women, so apparently they’re not completely blind.

Here’s a line-up of the options they had.

And here’s the women one. Based on those pictures, I would have picked Angelina or Cate Blanchett.  Scarlett Johanssen’s one is just freakin scary!

In your opinion, who should have won?