Well it's been another huge year and kudos to y'all for surviving the apocalypse. I've put together a list of my fave posts from each month this year in the obligatory blog wrap up.
May - I stood up for my bloggy self because a sample of washing powder sure as shit doesn't pay my electricity bill (in response to the infamous Bandaid-Gate).
June - The Trickster turned two. Nawww, my little boy is growing up so fast!
July - I stood up for 50 Shades of Grey. Well, kinda. I KNOW, I KNOW!
December - Got shitty at a woman who tutted at Tricky when he was mid-meltdown and I was trying to calm him down.
And that's it!
I'll be taking a little bloggy break over Christmas and New Year but I'll see you back here mid January with news of my fan-freakin-tastic sponsorship to DPCON13! Ya huh, someone actually admires my head on Madonna's body photoshop skills! Who'd have thunk it?
Until then, be safe, take care of yourself, and each other, or whatever it is that Jerry Springer would have you do.
Yesterday I went on a wine cruise that my mum had bought through one of those daily deals sites. We decided to make it a bit of a girls day, cruising up the Swan River on a gorgeous summer's day, wine glass in hand. Ahhh yeah.
I've been on a wine cruise before and figured it would be similar - cushy and air-conditioned with obligatory snack/wine bar and tourist commentary that you're too busy talking over to hear. Instead we were met with a dingey boat that had seen better days. It appeared that they were trying to hide the fact that the boat was ancient and could do with a really good scrub by covering it with lashings of bright turquoise paint on the inside and hear-it-coming-orange on the outside.
About three minutes in to the cruise I was wondering why I even said yes because my stomach had already started doing flips. Not an issue, surely they'll turn on the aircon soon? Wrong. They didn't have any. On a boat where the windows didn't open and half of the roof was made of glass...
It was sweltering and despite it being a calm day I was starting to turn a lovely, and appropriately festive, shade of green. I asked Gopher Smith for a sexy spew bag. I thought he was taking the piss, the way most people mock me for intense sea sickness (I got sick on a cruise ship with 12 decks...) but no, they didn't have any. They don't stock them.
Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of public boat, particularly one that is on a WINE CRUISE serving a tonne of cheap goon to it's patrons, doesn't provide spew bags? Boats and booze, people! One of those is going to make at least one person yack.
Gopher, who looked like one of the Waugh brothers (the sexy one), gave me a shopping bag, complete with hole in the bottom. He might as well have handed me a paper cup and gone all Garth on me. "If you're gonna spew, spew in to this".
On disembarking, after having managed to not lose my lunch (if I'd had lunch - you had to pre-order food on the boat and we weren't told until we got there) I let the guys know they might want to invest in some vom pouches to which they replied "But people don't get sick on the Swan River". I'M PEOPLE, I GOT SICK! Fucker.
It got me thinking, what places have you been that have had the most obvious thing missing? Pub with no beer ala Slim Dusty? Hotel with no mini-bar bed?Tell Aunty Glow and she'll write them all strongly worded emails.
It’s nearly Christmas. I’m sure you already knew that though on account of every single shopping centre swarming with people lining up. Lining up to get in, lining up to buy things, lining up to get them wrapped, lining up to get their kid to sit on a strangers’ knee. Lots and lots of lines.
I have been in Christmas mode for a month now, part of my Operation Christmas Brainwash for the Trickster, and I’m well and truly over it. I don’t want to buy any more presents, I don’t want to go to the shops, I don’t even want to hear The Boob singing Holly Jolly Christmas any more and that is really saying something.
To put it bluntly, I have a serious case of the Can’t-Be-Fuckeds.
The advent calendar I made Tricks, with a different activity every day, is being neglected now that I have the all-important child-with-strange-old-man photo sitting pride of place on my TV cabinet (what people who aren’t rich have instead of display cases and mantles).
We have baked, sung, baked again, watched Christmas cartoons, got crafy, decorated trees, baked some more, went hunting for Christmas lights, and did I mention we baked?
I’m done. I’m over it. There will be no more bloody Christmas activities that involve doing anything more than sitting on my fat arse because I just can’t be fucked. Advent boxes are going unopened and we haven’t even gotten to the gingerbread yet. There will be no more trips to the shops to get something small for so-and-so on the off chance they buy us something because I'm not prepared for another tantrum and I just can’t be fucked. There will be no last minute buying of gorgeous decorations because I just can’t be fucked… and because I have nowhere to put them come January.
I’ve reached my Christmas saturation point and I’m calling it. No more Christmas things.
That is until it’s Christmas eve and I change my mind, get out the Reindeer food and letter to Santa and make some shortbread... ahh fuck it, who am I kidding? We all know I'll do it.
Are you over Christmas already? Got a serious case of the CBFs?
I've been cooking up a storm this month. Every second or third day Tricky's advent calendar activity is baking because he absolutely loves it - he even has his own apron now which serves the dual purpose of keeping his clothes clean and looking super adorable at the same time. I've made cheesy biscuits about five times because they don't last long. And no, I don't mean they don't keep well, I mean they're eaten by the end of the day. Can you say moreish? They're based on a recipe I found recently that I've played with a bit (read: MOAR CHEESE, less salt).
They do keep in an airtight container for a day or two, but are best eaten straight away. When slightly warm. Oooh yeah.
Cheesy Christmas Stars
Ingredients (makes 50 stars... well depending on how big your star cutter is obviously)
150g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
75g room temperature butter
80g grated cheese (the finer, the better - use pizza cheese for extra flavour)
Additional grated cheese for the top
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
Apron FTW!
Method
Sift the flour, whack in the salt, give it a bit of a stir
Rub in the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs (or cheat and melt the butter - you might have to add a bit more flour but who cares when it's easier, right?)
Add in the grated cheese and stir it in (it's a bit thick, it's OK)
Crack the egg in a glass, add the milk and whisk it together with a fork
Tip almost all of the eggy milk in to the mix and stir, again, to form a dough. All this stirring burns calories, right?
Need the dough a tad on a floured board, then roll it out about 1cm thick
Cut out shapes. Stars taste better. I tried trees and gingerbread (or cheesebread) men and it just wasn't right.
Place the stars on a baking sheet, put a quick flick of eggy milk on the top with a pastry brush and cover them with a bit more cheese. Go the parmesan, you know you want to.
Bake them at 200C for ten minutes or until golden. Or, if your oven has a cold stop like mine *grumble*, turn then around half way through. GAH!
Do you remember Passions? It was on Australian TV in the late 90s and the first half of the naughties when I was in late high school. I know, I didn't realize it had run for that long either.
With people having Princess Diana as a guardian angel, a bizarre never-fucking-ending love triangle, amnesia, witches, a weird doll that came alive, the live-in nurse that was an orangutan (WTF?! BamBam, who played 'Precious' was even nominated for an Emmy), some rich folk who meddled in other people's lives and numerous doubtful paternaties. And sometimes all of that in just one episode.
I watched about a dozen episodes. At one point in school it became cool to watch it just so you could take the piss out of it the next day. It was verging on being so bad it was good but didn't quite make it, landing squarely in the poke-eyes-out-rather-that-watch-this-shit basket.
In my current I-don't-like-Twitter-anymore phase (which sure as shit will be over the next time I'm on a train and need rescuing from my boredom and hate for being alone), I've decided that Twitter and Passions have a bit in common:
5 Reasons Twitter is like Passions
1. You can go away for a month, come back and still see the same arguments being rehashed. FFS! How many times does that whiney little bitch have to go on about the boy not liking her, even after she is the one who cheated on him... right now I could be talking about EITHER. Substitute the topic for monetization or ethics in blogging (or being tired of Twitter) and lather, rinse, repeat.
2. There are lots of fucking weirdos. Twitter is full of them, hence why I am there. Harmony, the thankfully fictional town in Passions was also full of them. Don't just go straight to Tabitha the witch, the whole fucking town was loopy, there are too many to even mention.
3. There are heaps of whiney bitches. That chick Theresa? OMG I wanted to slap her upside the head every time she spoke or did that lip quivery thing. Same goes with people who continuously whinge on Twitter like me. No, it's true, one of the things I hate most about Twitter is my own tweets - shut up already, woman!
4. There are a couple of hot and awesome people who don't know you even exist. Like that one hot awesome guy who never got cast again because OMG YOU'RE THE GUY FROM PASSIONS. I don't know what his name was, but his career has not gone from strength to strength. Twitter is the same - a few hot people that are getting their 15 minutes of fame who don't even know you exist. It's fucking depressing, why am I even there?
5. It sucks you in, even when it's shit. Like that one week I watched Passions to find out if Whiney McWhinerson would marry the hot brooding guy. It was a train wreck, I couldn't look away. A whole week I watched only to find out that a viewing week was a Passions minute and shit just draaaaags. That's a week I'll never get back. Twitter drags you in too - especially the shit fights and hilarious hashtags. One minutes it's all "I'll just have a quick look" and the next it's "I forgot to feed the dog and it's 1am".
For a serious "ummm WTF?" moment, check out this clip. Now I'm all for not being politically correct all the time but everyone in a psychiatric hospital playing with dolls? Yeah, nice.
Do you have a love/hate relationship with Twitter? Did you watch Passions?
