Facebook 5

I post a lot of stuff on Facebook - videos, excellent links and photos. So much stuff that I realised I should post it on my blog rather than annoy everybody on my friends list.

1. A video game bar to be opened in Brisbane
This is way too cool. It combines two things in life that I love - video games and drinking. I am so excited that I think I will drink there every night. Either that or I'll work there, as a bartender or undisputed Mario Kart champion.

2. Sausage thief
This is the funniest story I have read all day. All week even. Firstly, the word sausage is hilarious. Secondly, the person who finds the Sausage King will be rewarded...with 10kg of sausages. Thirdly, he is being called "the icon of Toowoomba". The Toowoomba Chronicle's version is chock-full of puns and gets funnier and funnier as you read on.

“I hope the King hasn't been snagged anywhere or is not being given too much of a
grilling.”

3. In other news of immense hilarity...


4. Kittens Inspired by Kittens



A young girl chirpily provides the strange dialogue between pictures of kittens eg. "I'm a magician!" Obviously someone has nerdy parents who look at too much Lolcats. Hency why if I ever have a daughter, she should be exactly like this girl.

While on the subject of cats...

5. Russian lolcats

Translation: Cease your protests, the deal is done! You are to make a fine wife for uncouth American businessman!

I don't think I have anything to add to this.... just click it.

In conclusion, facebook is excellent.

Queen of Awkward

I am the Queen of Awkward. Seriously. See this facebook group? Read that entire list. I have done all of them.

I have done all of these too:

- When you are in the loungeroom with your parents/housemate/someone you don’t know very well and suddenly, out of the blue, a dirty sex scene starts playing on TV. With very loud moaning.

- Singing very loudly along to a song, then realising halfway through you’re singing a completely different song to the one you’re hearing.

- Making a potentially offensive joke that you think you’ll get away with but you don’t.

Eg.
Me: “And I was like, you stupid bitch, I hope you get run over by a steam roller.”

Guy: “My uncle was run over by a steam roller :(”

Me: “Um, oh dear.”


- Pressing the button on the bus but realising you’re a few stops too early. And then the bus stops and it just so happens that no one else on the bus wants to get off there and you sink into your seat and pretend you didn’t press it.

- Interrupting intimate moments between couples through silliness. Like when Mr Chicken and I walked through the Botanical Gardens last Friday night, chasing possums, and interrupted about fifteen couples mid-nookie.

- Or when I’m looking deep into his beautiful blue eyes, about to tell him how much I love him and he says something like “I really want a pet flamingo.”

- Laughing really hard and accidentally spitting on someone.

- Having to explain to a computer repair man why your keyboard isn’t working. There are worse examples out there, but mine was very seriously informing him that I had spilt beer in the keys and ants had gotten into it.

- Seeing someone across the pub you want to crack on to, but you’re too nervous. So you have about five vodkas in ten minutes and muster up the courage to say something. But instead of saying, “Hello, having a good night?” you end up saying “Blaaarghhhhh!” and being glared at by their girlfriend (who you just noticed).

- When you bump into someone you know but you don’t really like. And you’ve looked at each other and you know they recognise you too, but you don’t want to talk to them. So you’re left with one option: Pretend you’re someone else, and give them a weird look like they’ve recognised the wrong person.

- Being rushed to hospital for a very unsexy female-related emergency and being examined by a very attractive, young male doctor.

- Someone walking in on you doing something weird. I don’t mean like wanking, I mean cleaning out your ears with a cotton tip. Or plucking the hairs from your upper lip with tweezers. Or very, very carefully popping a huge blister on your big toe.

- When your parents invite their friends over with their children and you’re forced to make small talk with each other. Thankfully, it’s not so much of a problem these days thanks to moving out of home and the wonderful invention of alcohol.

- Answering the phone, when you’re reduced to rolling around on the floor in your state of non-sobriety, and it’s your mother calling for a pleasant chat.

- Or it’s your boss calling you in to work. But at least you sound convincing when you say “I’m in no state to work”.

- Having an intimate moment alone with your man in the kitchen, then looking out the window to look into the shocked/disgusted/aroused eyes of the guy that lives in the flat next door.

- And then your boyfriend waves to him.

- Putting your media player on “random” a song like “Freestyler” comes on… while in the middle of having sex.


You can rock MY microphone, BABY.

** BONUS STORYTIME **: When I was going out with my then-boyfriend a few years ago, we were doing what most teenagers with hormones do. Hurriedly, he put media player on random so as to disguise suspicious noises from his parents. In the midst of the throes of awkward, teenage passion, Tenacious D’s “Wonderboy” started playing.

It was very hard not to sing along or throw him off so I could crack up laughing when Jack Black says “That’s telekenesis, Kyle! How about the power…to move you?”



"Riga-doo-doo, riga-doo-doo..."

and now, a word on racism from a chinky gook from commie land

On Australia Day, I spent the day under a beautiful mango tree with some friends, eating barbecued meat and drinking beer. I wore my Big Day Out shirt from last year (which has a stylised Australian Coat of Arms on the front) and we listened to Triple J's Hottest 100.

Days before, I had an infuriating conversation with a patron at the pub. He demanded to know where I was from,and whether I "loved Australia."

I have this conversation every so often with some deluded old fart who is convinced that I am a dirty, slanty-eyed illegal immigrant who has just walked straight off the boat and taking the jobs of ordinary, hard working Aussie battlers, blah blah blah. To this day I'm unsure as to what they think they'll achieve by having this conversation.


Herro herro dis is Shitty Wok, you want some Shitty Chicken?

Despite the fact that I am an Australian citizen and can speak English just fine (except when inebriated), this old dude just did not get it. Our exchange ended with me mishearing what he said, his triumphant juvenile mockery of my alleged lack of English skills and myself promptly tipping his beer down the sink.

Now for the twist. You'd think this would be an entry whinging about how awful and oppressed I am, being an Asian female, in a land of thong-wearing white Aussie dudes.

Well, even though that exchange with old mate made my blood boil, I must say that racism is on the decrease. Conversations like that happen, but not very often out of the hundreds of people I talk to every week. And when they do, they're from people who couldn't be taken seriously by any intelligent life form. Like my obese, hairy, pokies-addicted friend I mentioned.

Sure, you meet the occasional person who can't get past the fact that you're not white, but I put that down to upbringing. Most people are merely curious and mean no harm, even though most of the time it comes across as offensive anyway. Other than that, 95% of my friends are white Aussies and none of them particularly care that I'm Asian.

Hell, Mr Chicken is a blue singlet-wearing, self-proclaimed "bogan" from Toowoomba whose idea of a rad time is wandering around in the bush, and he still reckons I'm allright.

One could argue that the loopy old bat I talked to was just a product of an old upbringing. Yet a lot of old people nowadays have lived through wars and the immigration boom. Many of the regulars at the pub are old men who are quite friendly to me and totally understand the whole "I'm Asian but I've grown up in Australia, mate" deal. In fact, most people in general understand, or even go the other way and are concerned about racist fuckwits giving me a hard time.

But what of events like the Cronulla Riots? I say that in the grand scheme of this country, it was a small group of people who were widely condemned by any Australian with a brain. Thank god for that. Imagine if the entire nation condoned racial violence.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that racism, in some form or another, is always going to be around. It's human nature to fear or hate something different. But the world - particularly Australia - is a lot better than it used to be, and it can only get better.

Not too long ago, it used to be perfectly okay to say "nigger" in everyday speech. Now the American president is black and an Aboriginal man is Australian of the Year.

It's a small start, but it's a good one.

Many people realise that racism, on a public level, comes from the truly ignorant or hateful. Racist comments, if they're not a joke already, are very rarely taken seriously. I try not to anyway. If I got upset every time an idiot said something insensitive, I wouldn't have time to go to the toilet.

Basically, if someone wrote a very serious letter to The Australian saying something like, "All Koreans are dog-eating communists who should be culled immediately", I hardly think a political leader would put down his morning coffee and call a meeting about it...

"Koreans are a serious problem in Australia."
"My god, you are right. They're everywhere, speaking in some crazy language I don't understand, cooking tasty food with lots of chilli, studying quietly in universities, drinking our beer and dating our sexy, sexy Australian men! Plus they're all Communists."
"Isn't that just the north?"
"Huh? Anyway, I suggest an overhaul of international relations. We must close all tasty Korean restaurants, blow up Kias and Daewoos, outlaw any eating of dogs of any kind..."

...and enact an Anti-Korean Bill of 2009.


All this talk about unnecessary racism reminds me of a certain ranga politician...

So all things considered, I don't mind being an Asian in Australia. Sure, some of our political leaders make my head hurt, the phrase "un-Australian" makes me want to slap somebody and the more nationalist bogan Aussies scare me.

But on the other hand, Australia has some good beer (well, not all of them), Triple J, crazy stoned Queenslanders (which is another blog entry altogether), a majority of fairly decent people and a prevailing sense of humour.

One of my favourite TV shows to ever come out of Australia is Fat Pizza. A thoroughly politically incorrect comedy, Fat Pizza exploits and exaggerates the stereotypes of wogs in gangs, bad Asian drivers (cheers Ahn Do), insane Italians and disgustingly racist white Aussies to make people laugh - ultimately to realise how silly it all is.




Hopefully one day, everybody will.

Great Musical Mysteries

What is music? For some, it is a creative outlet for personal self expression. Others use it as a means to make profit by mass-marketing consumer popularity. Some just like making a shitload of noise.

But sometimes music doesn't make sense at all.

In no particular order, here are my personal Top 5 Great Musical Mysteries!

1. Rihanna and the Numa Numa song.



Many internet geeks know about "the Numa Numa song", otherwise known as "Dragostea Din Tei" by Romanian pop group O-Zone. It was made famous by Gary Brolsma - your average nerd who thought it'd be a laugh to upload a video of himself singing and dancing along to it, way back in 2004. The video became a hit and had 13 million views by 2006.

Imgine my surprise when I heard the familiar lyric "Mi-a-hi, mi-a-ha", digitalised and sung to a hip hop beat by none other than Miss "Umberella, ella, ella" Rihanna herself.




The great mystery: Why Rihanna's producers thought it would be a good idea to cash in on a song made famous by a fat, dancing nerd.

Maybe it was so "Umberella" would sound less annoying by comparison?


2. Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue's duet

The darkest Australian musician meets "the singing budgie" with a fondness for gold hot pants and writes a song.



I must say I'm not a fan of either Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. It also seems highly unlikely that any Nick Cave fan would like Kylie Minogue, and vice versa. Yet here they are singing a song about falling in love and killing each other. And it works.

The great mystery: Why is this song so goddamn good?

3. The lyrics to "My Humps"


What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my humps,
Humps, my humps, my humps, my humps, my humps,
My humps, my humps, my humps, my lovely little humps (Check it out)

"How do you know what that means?"
"No one knows what it means. But it's provocative."
"No it's not!"
- Jon Heder and Will Ferrell in "Blades of Glory"



It doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that "humps" refers to curves (or boobies).

But why "humps"? There are thousands of words for female body parts and she chose "hump", which makes me think of "heffalump" or someone who is horribly disfigured.

This particular verse:

They say I'm really sexy,
The boys they wanna sex me.
They always standing next to me,
Always dancing next to me,
Tryin' a feel my hump, hump.
Lookin' at my lump, lump.
You can look but you can't touch it,
If you touch it I'ma start some drama,
You don't want no drama,
No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama
So don't pull on my hand boy,
You ain't my man, boy,
I'm just tryn'a dance boy,
And move my hump.

... could easily sound like Fergie is singing about a disgusting tumour growing out of the side of her body.

The great mystery: Choosing the most unsexy word to sing about sexy you are.

4. The video clip to "Total Eclipse of the Heart"



I adore this song. Ever since I saw an old man singing it (really well!) in karaoke at the Victory Hotel, I love it. Bonnie Tyler has an amazing voice. The song itself is about the doubts and fears somebody can have in a relationship, but ultimately realising that love overpowers all.

So can anyone explain to me why Bonnie Tyler is wandering around a spooky old boarding school with creepy boys doing extra-cirricular activites around her?

The great mystery: What I just mentioned above. Plus, seriously, there are ninjas fighting in the middle of it!

5. Avril Lavigne's self-censorship
Oh, Avril Lavigne. You are hardcore like a 14 year old girl wearing an Emily the Strange shirt.

Ms Lavigne released an incredibly annoying song last year entitled "Girlfriend". I'm sure you all know it. In case you don't, here it is for your viewing pleasure! (Youtube won't let me embed the video for some reason).

At some point in her tirade to get some dude to cheat on his girlfriend, she declares "I'm the motherfucking princess!". Radio stations usually bleep these words out for the general public and to shield the kiddies from such naughty words. You can usually hear the uncensored, naughty version on the CD.

My ex worked in a CD shop around the time Avril's album came out and had to play the dreaded harpy's music all day. He noticed something a little off.

Indeed, you never hear "motherfucking" in the song at all. Avril sings "motherffffking" on the recording itself.

The great mystery: Avril Lavigne fails at being hardcore, even when she says "motherfucking".

It's not me, it's you

Dear Fortitude Valley,

I am writing you this letter to say that we should break up, yet remain friends. Acquaintances, maybe.

As what happens with many long term relationships, I have begun to see your flaws. And sadly, some of those flaws are things I cannot live with.

Firstly, you are high maintenance. Your standards of wealth meet at such a high level that spending a night with you empties every cent from my wallet and bank account. And then you insist on staying up til the wee hours of the morning.

Your associates are also really beginning to annoy me. I don’t like your friends who are grown men but insist on wearing fluro, and your screechy female friends with their bums hanging out of their dresses. Either that or sad old seedy men who hang out in the pubs by themselves, waiting to latch themselves onto some poor unfortunate lady. The last time I saw you I was trying to watch The Pretty Boys from the outside of Not Quite 299 but was driven away because a rather annoying man kept obstructing my view and enthusiastically telling me to come inside.

A typical inhabitant of the Valley.

But we had a lot of fun in the early days, dear Valley.

Remember the tequila sunrises at Club 299, when I used to think it was a legitimate alternative venue and before it was “Blink” or “Trash” or whatever?

Remember vomiting in the mall after too many vodkas at Ric’s?

Remember dancing about at the cocaine-caked sausage fest that is the Mustang Bar?

Remember cocktails at the Glass Bar? (actually, that place is still pretty cool and makes the best Long Island Iced Teas ever)

But maturity makes us all move on to bigger and better things. Like a beer under $5. Waiting at the bar and being served within five minutes. Competent bar staff that are not hired for their extensive knockers. Being able to sit down with a beer and talk to someone, rather than being forced to shake your rump to shitty house music on a stinky dancefloor. Being able to walk around and not being hassled by guy who thinks his sexy dance moves will get me in his pants.

But do not fret too much of my absence, my dear, for I shall visit when you choose to host sweet bands and drum ‘n’ bass nights. You still have many good points like the Step Inn, Not Quite 299, The Jubilee and The Tivoli.

Apart from that, I could only really enjoy you if I was two years younger, fashionable in any way and pumped full of pingers. But I’m none of those things.

Just understand that my love for you is over.

Love,

Ellie

PS. Before you ask, no, there is no one else. But I find myself becoming closer and closer to The City these days, and the promise of the Victory and the Brewhouse eventually reopening is something that will possibly lead to a greater commitment.

lets get political. political!

It's starting to get exciting on the American front as the election starts to wind up. Admittedly, I haven't been avidly following the campaign trail and I wouldn't have the slightest clue what policies the presidential candidates have put forth. But it's all exciting in the last 48 hours or so. Those Americans sure know how to put on an election campaign. Plumbers and Barackrolls and hockey mums, oh my!


You've just been BarackRoll'd. Lols and such.

Silliness aside, this election is quite important. I mean, let's face it. If aliens invaded earth and said, "Take us to the KING OF THE WORLD", you'd take them to the White House. You wouldn't exactly introduce intergalactic space bodies to Kevin Rudd as representative of Earth, would you?


"Are all earthlings this geeky and full of milky goodness?"

The main concern I have with the election is that, again, it's between an old white guy with an appetite for warfare and, to quote the wise Weebl and Bob, Hopey McChangePants.

I have, uh, heard rumours on the internets that the smart guy will win. But if the last few elections are to go by, it looks like the old white guy is going to win.



Oh well, we'll soon see. Good luck, America!

Fuck you, phone monkeys!

For the last four days, I have been waking up at stupid o'clock every morning, trudged my arse through morning traffic to QUT and produced various news stories for the uni's radio station.

I would like to vehemently state that I want to be a print or online journalist and want no part in this broadcasting tomfoolery whatsoever. Please feel free to slap me over the head with a novelty-sized giant fish if I ever say, "I think I'll go for a radio job..."

(I'm listening to my own story on the radio at the moment. I'm doing the entertainent wrap-up but I sound like I'm reading a eulogy).

Anyway, enough of my lack of radio prowess and the fact that I don't sound like Sandra Sully. I would like to talk about phone monkeys.

My news stories were written at the very last minute, making deadline (or not) by a hair. A nose hair.

It wasn't because I'm a slow writer (or slow in the brain even). It was because it would take at least two hours to finally get someone on the phone.

Here's how 95% of my interviewing went...

Phone monkey: Hello?

Me: Hello, I'm Ellie from QUT News and 4EB radio. I'm putting together a story on cheese smuggling and was wondering if I could talk to the Minister of Cheese.

Phone monkey: What is this about?

Me: Cheese smuggling

Phone monkey: For who?

Me: QUT News and 4EB radio.

Phone monkey: He's in a meeting.

Me: Oh... do you know when it will be finished?

Phone monkey: No. But I can put you through to our media representative.

Me: Okay, sure.


Ring ring...ring ring...

Media representative: Hello, Captain Twat, media representative of Twat Enterprises, how may I help you?

Me: Hello, I'm Ellie from QUT News, blah blah blah.

Media representative: I'm busy. Can I call you back?

Me: Sure, our phone number is blah blah blah. If you could call back before 11 o'clock (before deadline, you smarmy motherfucker) that would be great.

Media representative: Okay, sure.

Many hours later, ten minutes before the story is going to air and after I've picked a completely new story altogether...

Ring ring... ring ring...

Me: Hello QUT News, Ellie speaking.

Media representative: Hello, it's Captain Twat here. I'm ringing you back to tell you that I don't want to be interviewed.

Me: ... great. Bye.

And this happened even, I shit you not, when I was putting together the entertainment wrap-up. I went through a secretary and two media representatives before I got onto one fellow who said that he was not allowed to be quoted to the media. Considering that all I wanted to ask was what was happening at the museum this weekend, I find it all to be a bit ridiculous.

The only times I got a good interview was when I somehow managed to get a hold of the source's direct line and talked to them first, without the secretaries and PR bastards in the way telling me that everybody I want to talk to is overseas, interstate, in a meeting, or can't talk to the media. Even then, this one woman I talked to was so sour and grumpy (because talking about farmers' markets is a sensitive topic apparently) that I didn't end up using her grab for fear of her voice destroying the souls of anybody who listened to it.

So, fuck you phone monkeys.

Thankyou for making my job harder.
Thankyou for telling me I can read what your CEO said on your website, even though I just told you I'm doing a radio news story and need an interview.
Thankyou for being an absolute bitch for no reason. I hope you tell your boss about it and he fires you on the spot for not letting him talk on radio.
But mainly, thankyou for inspiring me to seek news stories from community groups, activists, and real people in the future rather than go through the bullshit of bureaucracy at a government level.