Dodgmosis

Although previously filed as a cold case, political pressure resulting from the upcoming election year, poor polling results and a spirited game of rock, paper, scissors, has seen department heads order this missing persons case reopened.

With a fresh team assigned to the case, it was found upon review of the previous case notes that the original investigative team had not pursued enquiries at Meredith's current place of employment. An internal investigation of that issue will be undertaken in due course.

Streamlined inter-departmental cooperation initiatives with the Inland Revenue Department mean that the assigned team member was only on hold for 40 minutes before learning the victim has been employed a a Project Manager at a leading open source software development company in central Wellington.

During interview, colleagues of Meredith report repeated and prolonged sightings of her at work. The investigative team is pleased to report a stakeout of her desk found Meredith safe and sound although suffering from extreme Stockholm syndrome.

Now reunited with her blog, Meredith is making a swift recovery and has started the slow rehabilitation process.

--------------------CASE CLOSED--------------------

Halfway Down The Stairs Is A Stair Where I Lay In Agony

Case Notes Part 2

Upon interviewing the subject’s neighbours the only out of the ordinary occurrence noted was number of localised power fluctuations occurring during the third week of July culminating in repeated outages on the Friday evening. Bank statements belonging to the subject show the purchase of a new midi stereo system, new computer speakers and two new surge protector multiboards the following week.

A customary check of immigration records show that the subject left the country for an overnight business trip to Sydney in the last week of July. Credit card receipts suggest that while the visit was brief Meredith managed to find the time to take advantage of the duty free offerings at Sydney airport.

With no clear reason why the subject has disappeared from the blogging world, standard procedure dictated a check be made on local hospital records. Wellington hospital documents show that Meredith was admitted to the emergency room with a suspected broken ankle. Following x-rays the medical notes record that the injury was in fact an ‘impressive sprain’ and it appears Meredith was discharged a couple of hours later with crutches. Along with the following photos, ACC forms claim that the subject was in fact sober when she fell down the stairs and note that if she had been drinking it would be far less embarrassing.

The Departed

Missing Person’s Investigation Report
Case #68534

Subject/Alleged Victim: Meredith

Known Alias: No-one of Consequence
Date Last Seen: 26th June 2007
Case Status: Open

Investigation into the disappearance of the subject ‘Meredith’ began with a visit to her last known place of employment at MU. Her desk and office had been cleared out and examination of a nearby paper recycling bin found a letter from the HR department reminding Meredith that her fixed term employment was due to expire on the 30th June. On the back of this letter were two columns of hand written text.
On one side:

• Creepy burnt we with a hot spoon guy down the hall
• Cellphone reception = poo
• 80% skinny jeans and slouch boots
• Bad coffee
• Arse traffic

and

• Vending machine alley
• Flexi hours/working in PJs

As this appeared a dead end lead, the investigation team began following other routes of enquiry. A quick Google search on the subjects name shows her attendance and presentation at a local conference in the last week of June. One attendee interviewed recalls overhearing two distinct discussions between a couple of gentlemen regarding the employment of the subject. The first on Monday 25th June where one of the men told the other that he didn’t think he had enough work for Meredith after all and would he like to employ her (to which the other party responded positively). The second conversations on Tuesday 26th June where the same gentleman told the other that some unexpected funding had come through and could he have the employ of Meredith back again (to which the other gentleman did not respond positively)

While probing into the location of the subject’s next place of employment, investigators interviewed cafe staff who remembered overhearing a discussion between Meredith and a nearby company director. Although informal it appears this was in fact a job interview. After some standard discussion around capability, expectations and salary, cafe staff recall Meredith asking for a week off before starting her new position which was agreed provided she come in to work on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

I Ordered From The Menu Therefore Am I

On Thursday night S and I went out to dinner with her friends J and D. When I first met them 18 months ago it was made fairly clear that D didn't really like me based on something about my appearance and during their time in New Zealand we never socialised as a group again. However since they are now returning to the UK, a farewell dinner was arranged and I decided a meal at Restaurant 88 made it worth a trip out.

When we arrived J greeted S and I with fond hellos and D said hello to S.....just to S. After a brief and awkward moment where I thought perhaps she hadn't recognised me I said pointedly "Uh, hi Des." and was rewarded with a quiet grunt of hello.

And that was the most engaged D would be with me for the rest of the night.

I am not exaggerating even a little bit when I say D pretended I wasn't there at the table the entire night. I have to give her some credit for achieving this given she was ignoring 25% of the dinner party. Even more so since I was sitting opposite her which meant she had to follow any conversation between S and J like a tennis match as to prevent any chance of looking in my direction. She also managed to stop and stifle laughing at any of my jokes by pursing her lips till they turned sorta blueish.


This game became quite tiresome about half an hour into the event so I stopped engaging in the conversation and let my mind wonder. I started to have an existential moment and wondered if I was really sitting there at the table. Perhaps D was ignoring me because I simply wasn't there, perhaps I existed only because S believed I was there. My mind raced back to my first year Philosophy credit filler course and then to the movie The Sixth Sense.

And then I realised she was just an emotionally retarded uber bitch.

Mother Would Be Happy

For anyone who saw the documentary on 20/20 last Thursday night, you will know exactly what I mean when I summarise the programme in a single word: yeeeheheheeeuuuugh. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, it was a documentary on life sized silicon dolls. According to one of the happy punters these 'love dolls' are apparently much better than 'organics'.

The teaser ads during the week had me hooked and hanging out for the full show when I noticed details such as the fact that the eyebrows of one of the guy's dolls were nearly worn off. This begs the inevitable question - what action would cause such wear?? I repeat: yeeeheheheeeuuuugh.

During the show one of the owners had to send his doll in for some repairs. The camera followed the repair guy as he began running through the work required on the doll then abruptly cuts to him throwing a piece of mangled pink silicon on the bench and exclaiming "Agh. I've run out vaginas" in the same tone you'd expect from an electrician who had just run out of fuses in the middle of a job. You know...a little annoyed but quite matter of fact. In the last week I've been trying to see whether this statement has universal application and appeal outside of this guys's life but I am just getting odd looks, rather than the nods of 'been there honey' I was hoping for.

Fascinated with a side of horrified by the documentary, I went online to do some research on these silicon dolls. The site was alarming as a whole but answered the burning question of whether they make male dolls as well. Indeed they do but I take it from the position of the male dolls in the advertising pictures they are not made in the majority for women. It also became clear that the featured male doll has more than a passing resemblance to Gary Sinese and that it would be a long while before I could watch any of his movies again. Thinking nothing would top the drop down options for customising dudedoll's appendages (XS, S, M, L, XL and Limp) (!!) I visited the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Now, for a question to make it to the FAQ page, I think it would be fair to assume that question had been asked more than say, 5 or 6 times? Questions such as can you get hermaphrodite dolls, how hard can I pull the nipples, can the dolls fingers close and can you make a custom doll from a photo, were disturbing enough but the highlight would have to be can I buy a full body silicone female skin suit?

Join me in saying.....yeeeheheheeeuuuugh.

Word Association for Movie Critics

My friend Michael came over last night for pizza and bourbon to celebrate his recent lawyer stuff success. We've know each other for a long time and our conversations tend to be more of a stream of consciousness than anything else.

As we were munching away on our food we had the Inside New Zealand Sex Wars documentary playing in the background. In one section of the show a very camp guy in a black and white stripy top wearing a dog collar and with spiky black hair was part of a group of men trying to look after a bunch of babies.

Michael observes: "He's kinda gay huh?"
Me - "Yep, and an emo. A gay emo."
Mi - "Oh! have you seen Spiderman 3?"

I think this sums up the movie nicely.

Sci Fi Fantasy Plot 102

Step 7: Select the appropriate pronoun and enter 'must defeat the'

Step 8: Choose one of evil, dark or powerful and one of wizard, witch or sorcerer

Step 9: Create a name for the antagonist. Here names beginning with M are strongly recommended and names that start with a word associated with evilness or death are excellent choices, for example Mortack or Murdana.

Step 10: Think of a world ending outcome if the antagonist created in Step 9 is not usurped by the hero such as [name of civilisation/species]'s fourteen moons collide or pretty much any outcome that includes the words chaos, oblivion or extinction

Now just put it all together with three dramatic dots at the end of the paragraph (' ... ') and you've got yourself a winner of a sci-fi/fantasy writing award that is named after some guy you've never heard of but always has an initial in his name' e.g. J.Edgar Johnston or William V. Hardy.

Let me demonstrate....

[Name] is the [last/only/remaining] [name of civilisation/species] aided only by [his/her] [corny ability] and [weapon or creature or scantily clad love interest] [he/she] must defeat the [evil, dark or powerful] [wizard, witch or sorcerer] [antagonist name] before [dramatic result] ...

Becomes:

Kalex-dor-tan is the last Katandorian. Aided only by his ability to communicate with the earth itself and the beautiful Kendia, he must defeat the dark sorcerer Murdana before Katandor falls to oblivion...

Sci Fi Fantasy Plot 101

For the past few weeks I have been working my way through my brothers near-endless collection of sci-fi/fantasy books and listing them on TradeMe. I've been including the little blurb from the back of the book in the auction details and after entering nearly 100 of them I began to notice a trend. I am pleased to say that I have managed to crack the author code and have designed a formula for creating your own sci fi-fatasy book plot! Feel free to use as you like folks...

Step 1: First off you need to create a name for your hero. Use of hypens and apostrophes is encouraged as are, for some reason, names beginning with the letter K (Kendric, Kenda, Kretek etc). If you are stuck for ideas take a real name and remove a letter or two e.g. Sarah = S'rah, William = Wilam) or merge two real names into one e.g. Peter/John = Pej-ohner or Emma/Michelle = Emaelle.

Step 2 : Choose one of last, only or remaining after entering 'is the'

Step 3: Create the name of the civilisation or species of which your hero is a member. For this group start with the first letter of the name of the hero you created in Step 2 and then try and reuse as many letters from their name as you can. For example if your hero's name is Kalex-dor-tan then your world should be called something like Katandor

Step 4: New sentence. Enter 'aided only by' followed by the appropriate construction

Step 5: Think up a highly improbable and corny magic skill such as the ability to talk with rocks or summon giant butterflies.

Step 6: Follow with 'and' and choose a forged weapon (such as a sword or axe), oversized talking animal (horses and spiders work well) or a love interest who should be depected on the front book cover wearing armor that wouldn't protect any vital organ whatsover

New! Stupid Idea!

You may have picked up from previous posts that my embarrassingly heterosexual girl cat is way past the festively plump stage and is now officially obese. I really do my best for her, I make an effort to engage in active play with her, she doesn't get snacks except the very occasional sliver of raw chicken and I spend $60 a pop on special diet cat food which I dutifully measure out twice a day. So imagine my delight when I picked up the latest sack of cat food from the vets and saw this great big yellow announcement:

What?! OK....whose fabulous idea was it to improve the taste of low calorie cat food? Hey logic boy, if p = q and q = t then my cat is going to eat even more of this food, damn it. Your Vulcan-like logic is astounding.

Head I Win, Tails You Lose

On Tuesday morning I was waiting at the bus stop when a random woman called out to me from across the street...

"Excuse me...does this bus go straight to Wellington?" I politely answered "Yes, it does"

Then she said, a little louder this time, "No, I mean does this bus go straight through to Wellington?" Feeling a little silly I said "Ohh, no, sorry, it isn't not an Express bus, it will stop through at the train station".

She then said with an alarming sense of urgency "No no, no, I mean does this bus go straight to Wellington...are there any corners or anything?" Desperately trying to keep my face neutral I replied "Riiiiight. Well, there are a couple of corners I guess, but once we hit the gorge it is pretty much straight along the quays"

She nods with satisfation and crossed the road to the bus stop. As she took her position standing next to me, she leaned over and said "It's just that my daughter and I drank two bottles of red wine last night and I am horribly hungover and my stomach is rather delicate" Avoiding eye contact at this point I said "Ahhh, sorry to hear that."

I hoped that was the end of the weirdness for that early in the morning but I noticed she was peering expectantly into every car that was going past. My curiosity got the better of me and I asked "Umm...are you looking out for someone?" She looked at me like I was the mental one and said "No, I'm just waiting for someone to stop and pick us up" "That ain't gonna happen until the bus driver comes past" A puzzled expression came across her face "What?! Up in Auckland I pick up people from the bus stops all the time" Wondering whether I'd seen any recent news reports about murdered hitch-hikers I said, "Well that doesn't happen in Wellington" She responded "It might. Let's see"

Now having enough of a crazy hungover woman that wasn't a direct relation, I couldn't resist:

"If you get picked up by someone....I'll cover your bus fare"
"Deal!"

Room of Echoes Part 2

For some reason Blogger is spazzing out if I try to post all of my entry at once...so trying it in two parts....

Things I've discovered…

• While playing a co-operative first person shooter I become a psychotic Full Metal Jacket like drill sergeant, barking out orders and generally being an uber bitch
• A woman at my work who is more diabolically evil than I am even when I'm playing a first person shooter
• My girl cat's Fabric of the Month (she refuses to sleep on any other textile but) for March was damp towel
• My girl cat's FotM for April is satchel strength Nylon/polyester blend
• A Daddy Long Legs poison is not the deadliest amongst spiders and yes their fangs can peirce human skin

Things I've found amusing...

• Having to pull up at a pedestrian crossing to let a lone Jack Russell terrier cross the road
• Being asked out by a guy that I just lead through a training workshop
• Getting sweet and public e-learning justice on a notoriously techno-phobic man I used to work with
• This video: http://glumbert.com/media/monsters
• Saying ‘a husband’ instead of the correct answer of ‘silent’, to the question "What do you call a type of partner that doesn't do anything?", while in a predominantly male meeting
• On the way home last night, seeing a bus driver parked up at the depot asleep in his chair, with the "Sorry, not in service" message displayed.

And that’s about it really.

Room of Echoes Part 1

I've been out of the game for a while now so I thought I'd get back up to blogging speed with a summary of the last two months:

Things I've been doing…

• Working
• Selling my brother's seemingly unending supply of sci-fi books on TradeMe
• Thinking about work
• Playing video games
• Stressing about work
• Spending time with the beloved and not stressing about anything

Things I've been wondering...

• In role-play adventure computer games, why do undead monsters like zombies and skeletons drop health potions?
• What is the correct etiquette to observe when you come across an acquaintance showing an alarming amount of arse crack in very public view?
• If you can enforce minimum browser requirements for a site, why, oh why can't you have minimum user intelligence requirements for a system?
• How can anyone tell one episode of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch apart from another?
• Why are my migraines back with a vengeance when I have been completely chocolate free? (No mean feat during Easter)
• Addictive, feels so good but yet is so bad for you and always chasing that first high - heroin or cracking your joints?
• If flossing is so freakin' great for your teeth, why does the dentist have to ask you whether you've been doing it when you go in for your checkup?
• Who the heck is feeding my near morbidly obese cat when I am dutifully measuring out her low cal cat food?
• Why didn't I create an anonymous blog so I could write about work and not end up as a cautionary tale at an international conference?

Get Your Motor Running

When I saw something similar to this on the desk of a work colleague:

I realised that by changing one little bitty part of this flyer, I would be inventing a new high demand product that could make me my millions. Huh....and my teachers said my smutty mind wouldn't take me anywhere....


More fool them.

Scroll Button And The Lappie

I know it is awful of me but if I could be paid money to provide sarcastic responses to people's stupid or badly worded questions, I would be a happy, satisfied and productive worker indeed. So strong is my desire to mock the stupid I often have to take a quick walk or go have a coffee before responding to some of the emails I receive in my travels.

This constant internal struggle has been truly tested these past few weeks as I have been selling off some of my brother's stuff on TradeMe (yessss, with permission).

I just received the following question on an auction for a Dungeons and Dragon's handbook:

Any writing, stains, tears or creases?

Sigh.

"Yes a little bit of writing but it could only be called spasmodic at best, nothing really significant but you might like it. You do see occasional tears but only usually once a month or when I happen across Extreme Makeover: Home Edition while channel surfing. Absolutely no stains however, I don't colour my hair or use fake tan...I'm assuming you don't count freckles or lip gloss?
A few creases here and there, as you'd expect at my age however given I've been kept out of the sun and being a non smoker, not as many as you see in other comparable products.

Oh, you mean the book?

Besides a small dent on the front cover it all in great condition...although it does have a fairly distinctive odour... If I had to describe it, I would say a little musty with a hint of geek."

What Do You Mean "The Bottle Room"?....Oh.

I have lost count of the number of ways I've tried to start off this posting. I want to describe what you are about to to see here but nothing really covers it adequately.

On my shortlist were:

1. "It is a rare yet satisfying occasion that I come across someone crazier than I am...."

2. "Whatever you might say, you have to admire the focus of these folks..."

3. "I apologise in advance to those using dial up..."

4. "Umm...obsess much?..."

But I am just going to go with:

Jack might 'Live Here' but Sanity is 'Gone No Address'

NOTE - This is not my house!

And my favourite piece in the collection, just because it seems such an incongruity....

A Jelly Good Time Was Had

In order to keep busy/moderately sane during the summer break, I did a spring clean out of the house. I find throwing out crap gives me a feeling that I would equate to eating fat free soul food...if such ambrosia existed.

While sorting through the stuff I have stored in the garage, I found a sash I was once awarded:

Sweet, sweet memories washed over me, memories of 60 litres of raspberry jelly.

Let me explain...

Several years back I was down in Christchurch on a seminar. My brother was living there at the time so I was staying with him for the week. On the last day of my stay we were invited to attend a themed party held by some local Teacher's College students.

I normally avoid theme parties like I avoid amoebic dysentery or touching polystyrene (I have a thing) but a 'debauchery' party sounded like too much fun to miss.

There was the 'private' tepee sauna, the toilet covered in strategically placed mirrors and there was the jelly wrestling pit.

After watching a couple of guys flail about in the jelly the gathered crowd became understandably restless. The chant of 'Jelly chicks! Jelly chicks!' rang out. Not keen to disappoint, the party hosts started asking around all female party goers whether they'd be up for a round. They approached me to which I had to respond "Ya'know...I'd love to, but I leave Christchurch tomorrow and don't have a change of clothes" To which they responded "We have spare clothes you can use" To which I responded, "I'm in!"

Only one other woman was keen for a wrestle and when I came back outside from getting changed I found the gym bunny flexing and posing in front of a salivating crowd.

I stood there staring in disbelief until I heard my brother yell 'Geez Meredith, do a kick or something!". Now, a little context if you will. A few weeks earlier I had graded for my brown belt in karate.

Heh. Hey gym bunny...its wabbit season.

So, yeah, I threw out a perfect head high round kick and dropped straight down into the splits. With the grass covered in jelly I was able to slide up to a standing position.

The party goers went berserk.

As I stepped inside the wrestling ring my opponent charged at me. What does one do when charged? Perform a leg sweep of course. As she fell to the ground, I pinned her down and waited for the judges to call the win. Given the 7 seconds it took me to win my jelly wrestling round, I was humbly and yet appropriately presented with the above sash....and a drink.....ma'am.

Ah...good times.

How Stella Got Her Uber Back

Yep, I'm back folks. Sadly, my absence wasn't anything as exciting as being on the 'lam' after my minor Christmas shopping killing spree (like I'd ever leave evidence linking me to a crime!)

I simply lost my mojo. Some guys called Boredom, Loneliness and Stress snuck up on me and kicked my butt. After that I found myself spending most of my time with this odd couple called Insomnia and Bummed.

We're hanging out less and less these days as I've started spending time with these great folks called Strength, Humour and Drive.

I'm hoping they are going to introduce me to their hot friend Passion.