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...

Nobody Give Me A Car

This isn't a revelation for anyone who knows me but my driving seriously sucks. I've been driving unsupervised for nearly 4 months now and I can't see any improvement in my skills at all. Yesterday my drive home from work just about put me off driving completely. Well...maybe one last drive....off a cliff.

I had several close calls (one of them wasn't entirely my fault but did kinda involve a honking great truck and me swerving in front of it briefly) and then at the supermarket I somehow managed to get wedged in a car park and had to do an Austin Powers like 70 point turn to get out...and of course there were a pile of cars waiting for me. Then as a fabulous punctuation point to my trip, I finally pulled into my garage, opened the door and there was the Sh*itten Kitten cowering under the stairs. I'd either nearly backed over her in the morning and she was trapped in there all day or she had whipped in unseen as I was driving in and I could have squished her pulling up. Sigh. I am going to have to learn how to ride a bike or buy a horse or something.

Sh*ittin' Kitten'

A couple of years back when my cats were still kittens I was going through my standard morning (pre-breakfast) routine of clearing out the kitty litter tray.

Just like it seems the smell of toilet cleaner stimulates an...ahem...'evacuation response' from the human male, the sound of a litter box being cleaned out appears to stimulate a cat.

My cat's litter tray was at the bottom of the stairs so after doing poop scoop round 1 (ding!) I sat back down on the stairs to wait for my sweet Bella to finish her important cat business. Had I know that Bella had an upset stomach that morning I think I would have stood.

Whilst part way through her business a noise, my now ex partner, made upstairs startled her. It startled her so much that she took off up the stairs without pause or more accurately....without clench.

Rather than running up the stairs on the gap to my left right or left she thought the best course would in fact be up my legs and torso, over my head and down my back - all at warp 9

U.K.S soon followed.

Once I realised what had happened all I was able to do was let out a small whimper to try in order to communicate my intense distress. My ex heard this small noise and asked what was up. The exchange went like this:

M: {Whimper}
X: What's wrong?
M: The cat....
X: The cat what? Did the cat poo?
M: Yeah but its worse than that. The cat..
X: ...ahhh the cat did a stinky poo
M: Well yeah...but its worse than that. The cat...
X: ...the cat did a stinky poo and missed the tray?
M: Yes [through clenched teeth] but it is worse than that. The cat...
X: ....ooooohhh, the cat did a stinky poo, missed the tray and some of it got on you?
M: {Whimper} {Sob}
X: [Finally gets off lazy arse and looks down the stairs at me]
M: [looks up at X]
X: [Walks away silently]
M: See! Its worse than that...
X: [Turns on shower, hangs up towel on rack, goes back to lounge]
M: [Heads to bathroom, past lounge] Thanks. By the way....I can still see you shaking when you laugh silently.

I finished up house training the cats shortly after.

It Doesn't Mean They're Not Out To Get You

I finally did it. I asked the Media Research people what their long game was...

For over 2 1/2 years now I have got a call once a month on a Sunday evening from the strangely friendly folks from "Media Research Ltd". I have to listen to 30 songs played for 5 seconds each and rate them based on the following scale:

1. Don't know
2. Don't like
3. Tolerate
4. Neutral
5. Overplayed
6. Like
7. Favourite

Yep, you read right - 2 and a 1/2 years.

This rating system has become so ingrained in my head that I often find myself yelling "5! 5 damn it! That's a freakin' 5!" at the radio when an especially thrashed song is played for the 15th time that day.

After the 1st year I started to get suspicious... after 18 months I became convinced that "Media Research Ltd" was the front name for a psychological experiment on how long people will complete surveys without any end date or....well....ahem....a reward of some kind.

After 2 years I decided that I was going to be a statistical pain in the butt and continue on as long as I could just so the bastards had skewed p points and q curves etc. I was playing THEM!

Just 5 minutes ago after 2 1/2 years they finally broke me. I just got off the phone from them and after the 30th time of being asked "Do you remember the ratings?" I snapped. "Ok, seriously now, how much longer are you guys gonna keep asking me to do these surveys? Is this some sort of 'a la Lost' social experiment?!" I got the calm response "Until you ask us to stop calling or you are too old" "And how old is is too old?!" I asked with alarm.... "30" I got back. lollll. Well....what's another 2 years??...

An Outstanding Achievement

This evening when I got home I found in my letterbox a highly amusing letter from the Polytechnic I do my professional development study through. And yep, I am being coy with names and details cos these people also happen to be my employers...

It reads:

"Dear Meredith,

We have analysed the results for each Bachelor of [something or another] course in Semester 3, 2005 and we are delighted to inform you that you have achieved top marks for [Course Code] [Course Name].

The results represents an outstanding achievement. Please accept my personal congratulations.

Yours sincerely,
The Dean of the School of [Blah de blah]"


Seriously now guys....how much analysis was needed when I was one of two people doing that course last semester??

Kudos to me....I was head of the class and bet out that one other chick. Woot!

Heehee

Sounds like?

Yesterday I got completely soaked walking down to the train station and even though I was horribly uncomfortable in my wet pants, once seated, I couldn't help but sit perfectly immobile for the entire train ride.

Part way through the journey I managed to move my eyes enough to look over at my fellow passengers. They were doing exactly the same thing!! It was like scene from a zombie movie.

So here I am thinking, while surely it is logical to try and rectify a physically uncomfortable situation such as wet pants, a glass of OJ spilled down your front, a startled kitten pooing all over you [stay tuned for the Sh*ttin Kitten story], so many of us suffer from this strange body catatonia phenomenon.

So o' course I want to name it but I can't get any further than "Uncomfortable Kinetic Silence"... which isn't my best work, I'll admit. It does have its acronym going for it - U.K.S - which is kinda the only noise you can make while suffering from the freeze ray of icky "Ukkks"

People. I need help. Giving it a name, gives us power to overcome this bizzare scourge.