Primary Emotions

I was thinking about disappointment the other day and how it is pretty much a combination of sadness and anger. It got me thinking that perhaps that just like there are primary colours, there are primary emotions of which all other emotions are a complex combination. Like colours you can add emotions at a different point in the (mixing) process and end up with slightly different 'shades'. Extremes of emotions occur when an extra amount of a particular emotion is added to the mix.

So for example:

Disappointment = Sadness + Anger
Joy = Happiness + Happiness
Fear = Anger + Uncertainty
Hate = Want+ Uncertainty+ Anger + Sadness
Passion = Love + Want
Eagerness = Love + Happiness + Want

I've come up with 7 primary emotions:

• Happiness
• Sadness
• Love
• Anger
• Uncertainty
• Want
• Guilt

Maybe there are more than 7? Someone like Socrates or Pavlov probably came up with this theory years ago and its been debated and discredited by first year Psychology students ever since...but hey... I should have Googled this before posting.....

Profoundity Not Profanity

Yesterday I had the unpleasant experience of having to overhear my downstairs neighbours having a major domestic incident. With the floor being so thin, there just wasn't any avoiding hearing it.

He was yelling his brains out and without exaggertation, every third word was f&ck. It occurred to me as I was turning up the TV to try and drown out the constant stream of obscenity that the reason one would use that word so frequently could only be from a lack of creativity or vocabulary.

Therefore, in order to prove to myself I am a well educated, creative individual, I am going to attempt to not swear for a week and find alternative ways of expressing my displeasure.

Do not underestimate just how significant this undertaking is to me...it comes with potential risks to my health! My grandmother attempted to give up swearing several years ago and ended up with boils in her ears. The boils only went away when she started swearing again. Wish me luck people.

(Oh, I've decided I can still say crap, piss, bugger and damn...they don't count..hell, they are almost cultural. Ummm...hell is ok too)

Zero Deniros

I'm broke. Seriously broke. If I count my cheque account overdraft and my credit card debt, I am serious when I say have negative personal worth (and I am not even thinking about my student loan in this equation cos it makes my eye twitch).

So when the medical insurance company I asked for a competitive quote from, decided I had accepted their draft policy (without my signed confirmation!) and subsequently took $200 out of my bank account on Friday, I believe I was most righteous in the wrath I inflicted upon them this afternoon.

I am not pleased to say the least. I now have 30 days to write a letter asking these bastards to please cancel my 'policy' and give me a refund. Yep...I have to ASK them to please give me my money back when I never said "yeah, here you go, take whatever you like, whenever you like, don't worry about letting me know, just go for your life". Waarrrggghhhhh!!

The uber rage builds....

Imagine How Uncomfortable The Car Ride Will Be

Oh god...I just had a highly embarrassing phone call...it went like this:

[Phone rings]
M: Hello?
Caller: Hi, is that Meredith?
M: Uh yep {hmmm, I don't recognise the voice, I wonder who this is?}
Caller: Hi, its Steven
M: Oh..Hi Steven {fek, do I know a Steven?! Buy some time to think...} How are you?
S: Yeah, not too bad, how are you doing?
M: {crap, crap, crap! I have no idea who this dude is} I'm good thanks. What can I do for you?
S: I was wondering if I could please get a ride to work tomorrow?
M: {Steve, Stevie, Stew, Mr Steven....nope, not helping} Ahhhh....probably..sure, where do you work? {Think you dork, think!}
S: In Lower Hutt central
M: Riiiight, sure. Yeah, I'll be heading that way. {Goddamn it} So, um, one question before I say yes...what's your last name there Steven?
S: Laing.
M: Oooooh...right. Steven *Laing*....... {Meredith's brain hums tunelessly to itself}. Nope, still drawing a blank there sorry. I suck. Can I have a another hint?
S: Karate?
M: {Ding!!} Ooohhh....*Sensei* Steven....Oh, ok. right. {Yeah Meredith, from that karate class you took for several years} Hi! How are you? {You've already asked that dumbass}. I mean...[cough] where do you need me to pick you up from and what time? ......

Wow. That was awkward.
I can hardly wait for the drive in.

[insert random word]....of DOOM!

I went to my friend Penny's birthday party on Saturday night. Much fun was had. Actually, to be more accurate it was a combined birthday party with her friend Chris who for some inexplicable reason I found incredibly fascinating. He was one of those people who you couldn't take your eyes off just in case you missed something that would give away what was going on in his head. Or as the guy that was wearing this shirt would probably say, he had a +3 Charisma.

Turns out this 'party' was simply a ingenious ruse of Penny and Chris to lure around a bunch of people to get them horribly drunk and have them play a game they spent half that afternoon creating. Heh.

The other half of their day was spent watching Invader Zim, ultimately resulting in the end of every second sentence they said having the words ".....of doooooom!" added loudly. For example...."Hey Penny, where is the toilet? Oh, its through that door....of dooooom!. Uh...thanks."

So back to the game. Penny and Chris had designed an elaborate game of trivia based on them. Yeah. If you landed on a P or C square you had to answer a question about Penny or Chris respectively. Quite exciting when that night was the first time I had met Chris.

There were also star * questions which had a made up answer.....or ummm...not? It was a little unclear since the rule masters were completely hammered by time the game started. For example one of the star questions I got: "When Penny traveled back in time how did she accidentally destroy mankind?" I suggested she said "....of dooooom!" so often that everyone committed mass suicide...but sadly that wasn't the right answer and we missed a turn. Thinking about it, I was lucky to have not received a Punishment card which were handed out when players landed on a jolly roger square or based on P and C's random discretion. Armpit licking, singing Salt n' Peppa's "Push It" and spouting original poetry were some such punishments. There was a Punishment card revolt at one stage regarding an underwear swapping task, where one of the players took off to the toilet (of doom), whipped off his boxers, and as he came back into the room placed them lovingly on Chris' head. Mmmmm sanitary. Early morning blog reports indicate that said boxers ended up in a pitcher of water and put in the freezer. I'd call that a grossicle.

I nearly lost my uber cool at one point when my team landed on a square that directed us to go back 4 squares. That square directed us to go forward 4 squares. Argh. Someone yelled out "Infinite loop!" and they got a bonus turn. I should have known that with being in a group of programmers!!

After about 2 1/2 hours of "The Amazing Pentastic, Chrisarific Super Happy Fun Boardgame (of Doom)" most people were getting a wee bit over it and/or distracted with alcohol related fun (not Penny or Chris - the troopers!). Most teams were down to half the original players and other members wandered in and out asking whether it was their turn or not. At one point my team mate (and all round super cool guy) Nem, leaned over and said to me. "I'm beginning to suspect they incorporated another infinite loop into the game...its just that this one is more subtle"

Concerned he was right, I called a taxi and headed home shortly after midnight. It was a cool night.

Back to the Future

I often daydream about being able to go back to when I was 5, with all the knowledge I have now, and do it all again. And yep, that is bearing in mind I'd consciously have to go through the horrifying experiences of primary school and puberty all over again. That's how much think I messed up the past 27 years. This 'no regrets' thing is clearly for under-analysers.

I think it would be great to be able avoid the bastards in your life and find those special people sooner along the way. Half the fun would be about making sure I didn't screw up my time-space-bestest buddy continuum. My entire life would be like an episode of Quantum Leap... sans being a doctor or having a holographic best friend from the future...oh....and no swiss cheese brain of course. But definitely the 'putting right what once went wrong' bit.

There are a few obvious things I think most people would do given the same chance, such as working harder at school, learning a language, being more active in sports so they weren't the fat kid (I'd choose martial arts) , staying 'just friends' with the ex and being less reckless with student loan money.

There are a few more random personal ones I have like, I would have learnt to drive sooner (I might've been a halfway decent driver by now if I had), I would have been nicer to my brother when I was little and I wouldn't have screamed "And you ruined my life!" in response to "You ruined my pencil case!"(when the 'popular' girl in my social group who dedicated a good proportion of her spare time to making my life miserable, accused me of defacing her new pencil case). I've never been able to live that one down. Sigh.

Event Horizon

I've been really struggling to find things to write about this last week. I've had a couple of people pass on their compliments on my blog and I've also had someone suggest one of my recent posts wasn't up to my usual standard. Urgh. That really made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
All this has added up to wicked writers block. Normally its getting me to shut up that's the trick.

When I first started out I was sadly desperate for people to read my blog, but now I've past this bizarre event horizon where deep down I would like just a little less pressure to post something worth reading. This was reinforced by my new blog addiction New York Hack where the author is complimented on her blog with every single post. I can't imagine the pressure she feels to keep coming up with this stuff.

Come to think of it this phenomenon would explain a good number of Stephen King's more recent books and some of the later episodes of Seinfeld ....

It's A World of Laughter, It's a World Of Tears

I can't understand why I get such perverse pleasure from this but...

Well over a month ago I took my laptop home to work over the weekend. On Monday, sometime between leaving my house and walking down to the train station the ID tag attached to the lappie bag fell off.

The tag was the typical "If found please return to...." and in a moment of rarely displayed pure genius I'd slotted in my business card on the other side of the plastic sleeve.

Annnnnyway. A few minutes ago the lovely woman I sit across the room from presented me with my rather worse for wear lappie bag tag.

The story goes like this:

Some good samaritan had found the tag, kindly put it in an envelope and dropped it in the nearest postbox. Once taken to the main mail distribution centre it was put through one of the mail sorting machines. Unfortunately the small metal ring which attached the tag to the bag was placed in the envelope at an usually awkward angle and due to the pressure of the sorting process, popped out of the envelope. This small metal ring subsequently jammed the sorting machine so badly that it forced NZ Post to contract in some mechanical engineers. It took these engineers several hours to strip down the machine in order to get to the little wee mental ring that was caused the machine to jam.

One of those engineers was my workmates next door neighbour who happened to know that she worked at the place mentioned on the business card. He popped over last night to see if she knew the person the tag belonged to..

It's a small world after all.

And NZ Post hate me.

Am I wrong to find this highly amusing?

PMT....MNFS*

*Makes No Frickin' Sense

As I lay all leaky and snivelling and generally miserable in bed last night I tried to make myself feel better about my insane hormones by trying to rationalise why humans are programmed like this.

What genetic advantage is there to the behaviour and feelings of PMT?! As far as I can see it makes everyone miserable...no-one wins except the chocolate and tissue makers.

The only biological rationales I can think of are:
1. It mirrors some of the signs of early pregnancy and keeps the cave man sticking around to protect his unborn child OR
2. It encourages the cave man to get the hell outta the cave until the cave woman is in a better head and hormonal space which is usually around ovulation and her most fertile time.

I dunno. What am I missing here (apart from 6 litres of water and a 3 kgs of salt) ?

Exercise Is Bad For Your Health

Recently my evenings and well...life in general...have been so unbelievably boring that in an attempt to feel less like a nana, when I got home tonight I did some exercise!

Good Idea: Peddling away on your exercycle whilst watching TV

Bad Idea: Peddling away on your exercycle whilst watching TV when one of your cats is inclined to launch himself from the chair behind you onto your back with claws fully extended.

Bogan Personality Test

On Friday night I had pizza and drinks with some friends. It was all going wonderfully until the boys decided to get a better idea of the 'cut of my gib' and force me to do complete the 'Cool Wall'
For those who don't know about the Cool Wall - its part of the BBC show Top Gear. Top Gear in simple girly-like terms is a car show. As part of the show they rate the cars they've reviewed using the following scale:

• Seriously Uncool
• Uncool
• Cool
• Sub Zero

The boys almostly magically produced a metal board with magnetic pictures of around 50 cars and the Cool Wall scale along the top and I was asked to place all 50 cars under the 'correct heading'. I was also told to pick my favourite car and explain in no more than 50 words why I liked it. The answer which couldn't be based on its name or colour. Christ guys...given I can't see whether it has a cool stereo "it looks cool" is my standard answer when it comes to cars.

It took me 15 minutes to complete during which time no-one spoke to me and it was ensured I was given adequate light and leverage.

You'll be pleased to know I was given a pass with only 5 of my choices being 'wrong'. The boys were impressed thank god...I've had less stressful university exams...