australian rozie

ATTENTION! Christmas is coming! I went to Australia Post at 11:45am the other day and there was a queue of about 40 people before me. There was no point coming back later as the closer it got to lunch time the more people would joining that queue. Why do people feel possessed to send a gigantic teddy bear through snail mail themselves? Have they not heard of online shopping? So here’s my solution – don’t send packages to anyone in December. Maybe you can send a gift voucher – not a parcel! Buy your international & local stamps in bulk, early.
No one has said Merry Christmas to me yet – thank Buddha, but I’m waiting for it… any minute now! Ho Ho Ho.

So a big weekend for voting and elections. As I don’t talk politics with family or friends or workmates – I found another 2 candidates to rant about:
Natalie & Matt – the two finalists in Australian Idol 2007. This year I wasn’t as passionate about who I wanted to win or more like, who I didn’t want to win. The were both good looking, pleasant contestants. I lost a bit of Idol momentum by missing about 5 semi-finals while on vacation, but I caught up on-line. Yes, I voted for Natalie (just once). Out of the two, I thought she deserved to win – she has displayed some canny musical arrangements and sang 2 of my favourite songs from the 80s on the show: Boys in Town by Divinyls and Running Up that Hill by Kate Bush. Matt had some good moments this year (such as driving teenage girls c.r.a.z.y), but I couldn’t stop looking at the hair!! He’s young (only 17), he’ll bounce back. So congratulations to Natalie “The Gauch” Gauci!!

This year, I finally managed to get myself down to the Sydney Opera House forecourt for the finals show. Every year I sit glued to the TV, thinking how much fun it would be, to be there on Idol Grand Final night. So thanks to my bro (and his “connections”) I got a golden ticket. There was almost a chance to be a “seat filler” Kramer style, but it didn’t happen:( So there was a lot of screaming teenagers, big signs, big cameras and little ol me going “oh is that guy on Neighbours?” when the “celebrities” walked up the red carpet. I actually thought Matt would win by the amount of cheering/screaming and signage that appeared whenever his name was mentioned, but in the end good taste prevailed! The best part was finally seeing the Divinyls live (singing Boys in Town) twice (due to technical hitch with the live telecast) at the outside concert. It has also meant I won’t spend $84 seeing them at the Enmore for the sake of seeing them. By the way Chrissy Amphlett’s biography is awesome.

Hello! not Ni Ha

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

So I’m in the library at lunch time and this guy comes up to me and says “Ni Ha?… blah blah mandarin blah blah blah”. And I’m looking at him like “What the?” and then he says to me “Are you Chinese?” I say to him, “No, I’m Australian – gotcha didn’t I?”. Then he goes “But you’re parents were Chinese. Geez, you young people have no sense of humour”. I guess I just had my defences up for some kind of racial slur, I know it’s 2007 but I remember when being politically correct was not an option.

So, the older I get, the less tolerance I have, and the more I want to complain about certain things. I really need to get this off my chest, it’s causing me distress every morning on the way to work. Today my complaint is about the people at my bus stop not queueing up in an orderly fashion. Actually they don’t queue at all, they just mingle around the bus stop, push in and jostle for position as the bus approaches. This $hitz me so much!!! We live in a civilised society – why the f**K won’t they line up? I hate it when I’ve been waiting for the bus for a while and then someone just rocks up and gets on the bus before me and then there’s no more room and I can’t get on the damn bus. I wish I had the balls to say to them “Excuse me there’s a queue, so get in line” but I’m too embarrassed to be the “crabby” woman at the bus stop. Anyway there really is no queue to join just a disorderly mob! It also annoys me when I don’t get a seat on the bus when people who push in to get on first get the seat. Doesn’t anyone else feel this way? Are they happy to have people push in front of them after they have been waiting for 10, 15 minutes or more? Arghhhh! Who can I complain to? Sydney Buses? My city Councillors?

Kanye West

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

I just received this email: Greetings — we’re doing a story about the Diana Concert and would love to you use your photo in our image gallery. To approve or deny the request, just click on the link below. You’ll receive full credit next to your photo, of course.
I then went on to read this article.
Why would anyone want to use a picture that I took off the TV to illustrate an article???

Anyway, some parts of the televised concert were great, ie Duran Duran, Kanye (big medley) & Diddy, some were OK – Elton, Joss Stone, Nelly Furtado, some weird – the National Ballet, some awful – Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, Status Quo. At least you could say there was something for everyone! Not sure what Princess Diana would have thought about that “ho-bag” Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas (not Fergie her former sister-in-law). There were only a couple of “appropriate for the occasion” songs. Diddy was the only one to really make a big thing about the concert being for Diana in his performance by changing the lyrics of I’ll be Missing You to include lots of cheesy Diana mentions (“so beautiful”, “so royal”). It was also fun to see the young royals let loose – except Prince Harry, who seemed not to want to “put his hands in the air and wave them like he just don’t care”, he knew 500 million people were watching him.

While waiting for the lights to change on my way back to work from lunch, the guy behind me let off a fart! Thanks buddy.
In other news, sat next to the girl with “questionable blue fur/suede jacket” on the bus this morning. NB It also has studs. Actually she wasn’t wearing it today, but she was wearing it yesterday. Today her black jacket had a simple cord rope embellishment on each seam.

Dave & I were doing our fortnightly-ish recycling on Sunday afternoon. This involves taking a couple of boxes of recyclables from our apartment down to the garbage room in the carpark. As I was about to put our paper recycling into one of the big bins, Dave saw clothes in there. Perfectly good, clean clothes (ok they weren’t very fashionable, which I guess was why they were being thrown out) but what the !@#$ were they doing in the paper and cardboard recycling bin? Anyway, I dutifully pulled out about 20 items to Freecycle (you all know about Freecycle don’t you?), but Dave said we had to get rid of them immediately otherwise they’d just take up room in the apartment. So we ended up going to the local shops and putting the bag of clothes in the charity clothing bin.
Further reading No More Stuff and Enough

He finished!

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie.

Onya Dave! I’m sure he will elaborate more on the race on his blog soon. (After he’s recovered)

Not only is this 21.1km test of endurance, speed and tactics supported by Australia’s best distance athletes, but it is considered a virtual ‘must run’ by the dedicated distance runner. The course has also been described as the most picturesque half marathon in the world.

http://halfmarathon.smh.com.au/

Here’s an article in SMH

I went to a charity trivia night with a friend from work on Wednesday night. The event was organised by her partner to raise money for Outback Assist a unique volunteering opportunity to travel to a remote Aboriginal community in Outback Australia for UNSW students. $10 entry also included a emu, crocodile, camel or venison hot dog! I had the emu, tasted like a normal BBQ’d sausage really. I bought about $20 worth of raffle tickets and luckily was the second person picked for the random raffle (you get to pick whatever you want from the prize table). There was a huge meat tray there, but for some reason I didn’t take it, I chose a bottle of wine instead – I will probably always regret that. There were lots of people and everyone seemed to have fun racking their brains on the various trivia questions thrown at us. I, of course hammered the “Aussie songs quiz”. It’s important to know the songs of The Choirboys, Cold Chisel, Yothu Yindi, The Whitlams, Goanna & Australian Crawl.

3DWorld_140507

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie.

I was flicking through this week’s 3D World and while looking at this spread, I realised I’d had “personal” music related contact with everyone on the page (except Robbie Lowe/Rob Lowe – he’s too new school).