The Hairy Chef {guest post}

I met The Hairy Chef a few years ago on Australia Day through a friend of a friend. A big group of us played cricket, drank beer and listened to the Hottest 100... well they did the beer and cricketing, I just waddled around with my big pregnant belly pretending to be awesome in front of these young, funky people. The best part of the day though was all of us trying to reassure his vegetarian girlfriend that the bird boo that had just landed IN HER MOUTH did not mean she had jeopardized her morals.

So who is The Hairy Chef? Well, The Hairy Chef is a swimmer, a baker, a photographer, a writer, a teacher and really hairy. Originally from Perth, he is currently teaching English as a second language in Bogota, Colombia, drinking too much coffee and thoroughly enjoying the prevalence of anatomical augmentations in Latin America. Follow the (surgically enhanced) adventure at www.thehairychef.com, but get your first taste of it right here, right now:




10 Reasons why The Green Grass is not all that green:Traveling Is Never As Much Fun As It Should Be

1. Intestinal Parasites
No matter how hard you try, any extended period overseas will result in extended periods on the toilet and various moments at which you realise you might not make it there in time. Of course, when the toilet on the overnight bus doesn't work, and the only place to go is on the street behind the bus, you come to appreciate the luxuries of toilet paper and throne-style toilets. But when the bus driver pulls away while you're squatting in the street behind the bus, you come to appreciate the luxuries of stable bladders and solid stools.

2. Repacking your suitcase
Nobody likes packing. There's always too much stuff, there's never enough time. And you never use the things you packed in the time you didn't have.

3. THE Conversation
The Hairy Chef: Hi, where are you from?

Tourist: I'm from America. You?

THC: Perth.

T: Blink.

THC: In Australia.

T: Ooooh. Nice.

THC: Blink.

T: So. Where are you going?

THC: North. Via city A, place B and up to C.

T: Blink. Blink.

THC: You?

T: South. Via city D, place E and F.

THC: Sweeeeet.

T: Have you done G yet?

THC: Yeah.

T: It's like a total waste of time, huh?

THC: I loved it.

T: How much did you pay for it?

THC: $10.

T: Blink.

THC: You?

T: $350.

4. Not realising that you don't need to visit everything in the LP
You know that by the time you've spent 3 hours looking for the Automotive Historical Museum that it's high time you started looking for thrills in other places.

5. Not appreciating experiences because you're concentrating on taking the coolest Facebook profile pic to make your friends jealous
Nothing quite beats hiking 5 days up a mountain through snow and rain on 7 packets of instant noodles to get to the top so you can plank for your latest Facebook update.  

Planking on Mt Kilimanjaro

6. Eating rice and meat for weeks on end
When you don't know the local words for "I'd like a medium-rare steak served in a bath of jus-de-calf-milk" eating rice and potatoes for 3 weeks makes for a very long, and arduously constipated 3 weeks.

7. Ordering the chicken and getting the sheep's kidney
If you had paid attention in class, you would have avoided ordering a bowl of "vagina soup" in front of a group of nuns, or asking if you can "fuck the bus all the way to town".

8. The "helpful" local
"Yes the museum is three blocks from here. Yes it's open until 6." You arrive to find an stationery store that specialises in varieties of post-its, and is closed.

9. Breaking Cultural Customs
Learning the hard way that certain things in certain places equate to telling a parishioner what you'd like to do to his daughter.

10.Dealing with other travelers who NEED to tell you shit you don't want to know (my personal favourite)
"I left my ex-girlfriend behind. She was a whore. Now I'm here to sleep with married women because a witch told me it was my destiny." (Andre, The German)

Tell me your worst travel story... the grosser the better. 

Find The Hairy Chef on Facebook

FlogYoBlog Friday: The Not A Public Holiday Edition

I love an over cooked snagger,
A cold beer in my belly,
A day off work to enjoy it all,
And cricket on the tele.
But back to work the next day,
It just seems so bloody alien,
Where's my day off to recover?
Fuck this! It's un-Australian!

I know, I know, most of you linking up are mums who work 24/7... but shoddy poetry has it's limits!

Also, massive apologies to Dorothea MacKellar for bastardizing your poem. But *ahem* let's just Flog, OK?

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The thirty before 30 recap

I figured it's about time I sat down and assessed how I did with my Thirty before 30 list of goals. I've been avoiding it the way you avoid swimming at the beach immediately after dry shaving your legs... because I know I will feel the pain of salt penetrating a thousand tiny, self created wounds.

I rarely set goals because I'm so bad at finishing things and I end up feeling like I've failed because, well, I have failed. Even when I go all gung-ho and promise myself I do it this time, I just don't. Things get in the way; pregnancy, child wrangling, work, life. But mostly my fucked up head.

I have a room full of redundant supplies bought each time I decided to try some new activity or set a goal because I don't do things by halves. I am committed to failing in the most spectacular way possible. This year I will do more art = a room full of canvases, paints and paintbrushes. This year I will start my own makeup business = a metric tonne of eyeshadow and false lashes. This year I will meditate and spend more time on me = three books on Buddhism and mindfulness plus a fancy pants meditation CD. All gathering dust.

The final result is that I'm left feeling like a tool for yet another year of not accomplishing anything with the added bonus of feeling guilty about wasting money on so much stuff I never use. Especially when I could spend it on important, expensive things like wine or medication or other useful things.

Having the goals written down, even on the internet, doesn't spur me on, doesn't motivate me. So the list has sat here, for almost a year laughing at me, mocking me. So, rather than get all emo about it (oops, too late) I'm pulling on my big girl pants and assessing the list. Let's see what I failed to do, and what I managed to do despite being the Queen of Procrastination thus surprising us all, mmkay?

1. Finish renovating the house
Fail. OK so we're not starting off well. Our walls are still without paint and our yard is a disgrace. I had huge plans for a vege patch - I was so excited. Sadly the excitement diminished when I saw how expensive it was to buy soil to replace our barren sand.

2. Buy a new pair of shoes
I achieved this. Three times over. I will consider this a spectacular example of when goal setting goes well. Yay me.

3. Go on a holiday with Map Guy and Tricky
Check! Ten days in paradise with my boys was amazing.

4. Attend my Dad’s 60th birthday celebration and spoil him rotten with presents
We had a surprise dinner for my Dad's 60th. Because my mum didn't want to ruin the surprise, when he got dressed in shorts and a tshirt she didn't tell him to get changed, meaning he rocked up to the restaurant, where everyone else was nicely dressed, looking rather bogan. He was so embarrassed and I was furious at my Mum.

5. Start dancing lessons with Map Guy
Fail. It's a double fail because I bought us lessons and we never attended. And I wonder why I never have any fucking money!?!?

6. Expand Where’s My Glow?
When I wrote the goal list I had 106 followers on the widget and I wanted to get to 200. It ticked over to 600 just the other day. I know it's not a real indicator of success or anything, but I'm not going to lie, seeing that number makes me feel good.

7. Ask for help when I need it
Went back on medication, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. I'm awesome.

8. Read and comment on more blogs
Half Fail. I did this for a long time. I would read and comment on every single post that was linked to FlogYoBlog Friday. And then a combination of working on the conference, getting a writing job, Tricky becoming an adventurous toddler and still wanting to have some semblance of life (combined with poor time management and kick ass procrastination) means I now hardly read any. Not even the ones I subscribe to. I am a bad, bad, blogger.

9. Get my hair done
Woo, I did this! That drag stripe was getting huge.

10. Cook more food from scratch
Just call me Martha. Quiches, slices, gingerbread, shortbread, and cake pops! I even made up my own recipe for Cheesecake and Oreo Macaroons because I was feeling smug.

11. Attend the Aussie Bloggers’ Conference
Ooooh yeah. And it was amazing. Almost time for the next one!

12. Clean out my kitchen cupboards
I did this twice. Surely I can cross something else off because I did this more than was necessary? C'mon, gimme a break!

13. Have a facial
Fail. I didn't even get a facial in Kota Kinabalu when it would have cost $3.50 for an hour. Shame on me for not exploiting a poor country and an awesome exchange rate.

14. Keep breastfeeding Tricky
I've considered weaning Tricks at least once a week for the past few months. But breastfeeding is bloody handy - it's so damn easy to comfort him when he falls, lull him to sleep if he's unwell, and gives me a moment to just sit and be with him. I don't want to be still feeding him when he's at school, that is a little much for me... but I don't know when he'll wean. He's a boob man, I don't see him giving it up without a fight.

15. Enter more competitions
Again this is one that I did for a while, then stopped doing, especially for blog competitions. I felt bad commenting on a blog that I hadn't been to for a while just to win a prize. "Oh hi! No I don't read your blog, but I'd love some free shit!"

16. See some amazing live music with Map Guy
Fail. I blame Perth for being so far away.

17. Clean out my wardrobe
Fail. Though I did technically do this... it morphed in to a floordrobe and that's how it's stayed for months and months. Piles of clean clothes on the floor of the bedroom and the (walk in) robe. How can I have so many clothes and bugger all to wear?

18. Hang photos up on the walls
Fail. Oh dear. Three in a row. What makes this worse is that the box of frames has been sitting in my kitchen for about 18 months now, gathering a thick layer of dust. I would dust them but going near them reminds me I haven't hung them up yet and makes me a sad panda.

19. Have a nice 1st birthday party for Tricky
It was brilliant. Including the cake I made that had people oohing and ahhing. Is it bad that looking back on that cake makes me swell with pride? I remember the cake more than the day... bad mama.

20. Write some poetry
Fail. Unless you consider a poorly written limerick that won me snow cone maker from Mrs Woog.

21. Spend some time in Albany so that Tricky gets more time with his rellies
We've made the six hour trek to Albany a few times in the past twelve months - Me, Map Guy, Tricky and a giant, farting dog. The last time we sung Old MacDonald for three hours and I was convinced that driving in to a tree would be less painful... until we passed a double fatality on the highway and realized a few hours of singing to entertain a bored toddler is NOTHING and I will do it again and again and again without (much) complaining.

22. Clean out the Man Cave (the study where Map Guy spends most of his time

Fail. Errr... kinda. Cleaned it out, moved the desk so it was almost empty and it became the 'guest bedroom' (if you can call a mattress on the floor a guest bedroom?) for when my inlaws stayed over. Then it became the laundry room which morphed in to the junk room. Which is how it is now but with the desk that was removed, crammed back in.

23. Lose weight

So technically I achieved this. Although it only really happened because I got extremely ill, lost the ability to swallow anything (including my own saliva) and wound up in hospital. BUT I'm going to hold on to it because after I lost it, I didn't gain it back and then lost a teeny little bit more too. YAY ME! Even though it goes past my birthday, I didn't put on any weight over Christmas for the first time ever. EVER!

24. Make a new friend
I have made lots of new friends in the past year, and as someone with a major psychiatric illness and an anxiety disorder this is HUGE.

25. Keep seeing a counselor (keep’s the craziness at bay)
Fail. Although, after the bullshit that happened with the last crackpot was declared me cured after four sessions that consisted of drawing a picture, telling her about my favourite childhood TV character and being told to have a lolly jar and dive in to it whenever I wanted to reconnect with my inner child (even though I was obese - What. The. Fuck?), I have given up for a while and am flying solo. This may prove to be my undoing, let's wait and see.

26. Go on a date with Map Guy
I know I did this... but I can't remember where we went. I think it was to the movies.

27. Be more assertive
I'm going to chalk this up as a success. I'm not great at it, but I'm getting better. I can even say no now... granted it's only in situations that don't matter and to people who I don't know but that's not the point. Baby steps.

28. Keep attending Mothers’ Group
Love my gals. Can't believe I ended up with a group of women who all get along so well. Now two of them are up the duff again I wonder how it's going to change our dynamic. Will we all keep meeting up or will life get in the way? I hope we keep meeting, it's something I look forward to every Friday.

29. Go swimming
I swam. Both in pools and the ocean (in Australia and Malaysia)... in front of people! This was actually a much bigger deal to me that I thought it would be. When I first published the list I mentioned I used to swim for a club... I didn't mention why I stopped though and blamed my lack of recent swimming on body issues. It ran a lot deeper than that, and now I'm going to be annoying and not tell you why because I'm not ready to. Sorry.

30. Plan a kick-ass 30th birthday party
Until two weeks before my birthday I wasn't going to have a party because we'd decided to go to Malaysia instead. But then I decided I cannot turn 30 and not have a little gathering, so we went to the beach for a sunset BBQ with about 20 friends and it was lovely. What was even more lovely was my awesome cake - proof that I've been baking from scratch more!

So there we have it. 20 out of 30 aint bad, right? Right???

Now, to make some new goals or not? Hrmmm.

FlogYoBlog Friday: The Wiggle War Edition

Toot toot, chugga chugga, big red knife in the back.

What could have been a triumphant return from sickness for Greg Wiggle has turned in to a PR nightmare after it was discovered Sam Wiggle had been shafted with bugger all notice. The PR Fail was clinched though with an awkward interview on the Today Show.

Here's an artist's rendition my understanding of where Sam is now:

Sam, mate, call your union Woman's Day, but for now, perhaps a little Flog will make you feel better?

Are you Team Sam or Team Greg?? Or Team I-Don't-Fucking-Care-As-Long-As-It-Keeps-My-Kids-Quiet-So-I-Can-Have-A-Hot-Fucking-Cup-Of-Tea?

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Of Twitter Haters and PR Fails

This post was going to be a standard Mummy Blogger post about how I got up at 5:30am the other day (alternatively known as the ass crack of the day, a time when no human should be awake) so Tricky could see the bus that Map Guy had hired for a bucks party. It was going to be warm and fuzzy and leave the females in the audience with aching ovaries at all the cuteness of an excited toddler's dreams coming true as a bus pulled in to our driveway and took him for a ride up and down the street.

But all that went flying out the window when I checked Twitter at our post-awesome-bus-trip breakfast on the edge of the Swan River and saw this:

Gee, tell me how you really feel.

So I had a look at Biker Vet's account, found out he followed fourteen people, had nine followers and tweeted mainly about bikes, the defense forces and bad PR. No other tweets anything like the one directed at me, so it obviously wasn't just a random hate account. Someone I know? An ex? A friend of a friend of a non-friend who's decided to be a super mature keyboard warrior, hiding behind a pseudonym?

I of course decided to take the moral high ground and not be caught up in it. Well, I would have, but it was much more fun to do this:

Which I think sorta upset him. Or perhaps it was the half dozen retweets of it? Or the tweets of others, like Super Daddy saying not only did he give a flying fuck but a rat's arse too. Love my tweeps!

He countered:

Riiight. So I'm a clueless, vacuous bimbo who needs to get a life, yet HE'S the one spending time sending hate tweets? The irony bubbled up around me and I went for a swim in it! Irony spa FTW!

But I'm thrilled to find out I apparently work in PR. Sending a few muesli bars and calling people Dear Blogger? I could totally do that, thanks Biker Vet for your encouragement to change careers!

By this stage a few people had noticed and were asking what I'd done to make this guy so cranky at me. I told them I had no idea and he was obviously watching my tweets because he replied:

And attached this photo with one name blocked out:

Yes, that's right. I did a reply all to @claytonwfu5y who had spammed us all (that account is now suspended because I always block and report spam) and for that, I am being called horrid names as if we're in a playground. And for the record, one of the others in the group, who understands what a reply all is, retweeted it.

Interestingly on Biker Vet's timeline he complains about clicking on a link that has now infected his email account... there is NO LINK in my tweet, I'm complaining about said link in my tweet, yet I'm the spammer?  Sheesh!

Just after that tweet I get an email from a newly created Biker Vet gmail account (a warning popped up that it was a new linked account) saying "This was posted to my business twitter account. It may not have come from you. Please confirm." with a copy of the same image with the name blocked out.

Ohhhh right, so he checked it was from me after calling me a clueless, vacuous bimbo? Way to jump the gun, Biker Vet.

So I assume (possibly making an "ass out of u and me", but hey, I'm gonna go with it) that the name blocked out is Biker Vet's business account that he mentions. I also assume that Biker Vet has no idea that I can find this out by a two second search of my own timeline. And voila, we have our answer.

Mr Biker Vet, you are unmasked... and I could spill the beans and tell the world (well a few thousand readers) who it was that was posting such crude comments about me, but I'm going to restrain myself for a few reasons, number one, because I don't want a barrage of readers to go to your website and give you traffic and number two, I won't be pulled in to a defamation lawsuit.

But I know who you are. So how about I click on over to your page and see what you do, shall we? Oh, look at that, you do personal training and... wait for it... PR! Can you say PR Fail?

I have replied to both tweet and email (cc-ing in his real email address that took a whole five seconds to find on his website), stating that it was a reply all to a spammer... and he's refusing to reply to me. Radio silence. Crickets chirping and tumbleweeds. Me thinks he's not so tough now that I know his real name?

So kudos, Biker Vet, for a massive PR Fail before your PR company is even off the ground.

What have we learned from this adventure? The internet is forever, everything is traceable, I'm now classed as Twitter Royalty for having a hater and my tweeps are awesome. The end.

I'm putting this to bed now. No Twitter flame wars on my behalf, thanks.