How Do You Solve a Problem Like Meredith?

So yeah. I'm back and stuff.

On Thursday I had to attend a launch party thingie for a website I've been project managing for many months. It's been a 'challenging' project so it was lemon juice on paper cuts when I found out it was at The Lanes bowling alley.

Ever since I was a kid I've disliked bowling...partly because of the shoes and associated grossness that goes along with greasy food, bad music and throwing heavy balls at 10 pieces of white plastic, but mostly because I suck horribly at it. So I was pretty dark on the fact that I had to attend this 'party'. Knowing I couldn't show up and associate with clients in the mood I was in, I tried to cheer myself up as I was walking down to The Lanes. For some odd reason the song "My Favourite Things" from The Sound of Music popped into my angry little brain. As I tied to recall the lyrics I realised that my favourite things are actually quite different from ole Maria's.

Here's my version:

Raindrops on roses and all the earth kittens,
bright coloured Muppets and possum fur mittens,
brown d.vice packages tied up with strings,
these are a few of my favorite things.

My Little Ponies and strong coke and bourbon,
door bells and door slams on Jehovah's suburban.
Plunging neck lines and the way Eddie Vedder sings.
these are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in a cheap dresses caught right up their asses,
makeup that stays on my nose and eyelashes,
loud belly laughs that show QI brings,
these are a few of my favorite things.

When the bills bites, when the head stings,
when I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
and then I don't feel so bad.

Cheered me right up and I bowled a 91 and 93 including 5 strikes.

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.