The Eddys & Swirls of a Babbling Brook

No joke, this is a true story

Mon, 26 May 2008 07:16:57 GMT

I feel like I have to share this hilarious conversation I had with a lady at Melbourne Central on Saturday morning, just to be sure I'm not losing my mind and that she IS actually crazy.

Waiting to take the lift down to the carpark under Melbourne Central

40-something lady: "Excuse me, I'm looking for the toilets. Do you know where they are?"
Me: "No, sorry, I don't really shop here often"
Lady: "Oh. Someone told me they were near Sportsgirl, but this sign looks like a Mens sign to me, what do you think?"
Me: (noticing that she is pointing to a sign above the lifts with three men inside a rectangle) "No, I think that just a sign for the lift"
Lady: "But don't you think they look more like men than women?"
Me: "Well, yes, the figures are men, but I don't think the sign has anything to do with toilets at all. I think it just means that this is where the lift is"
Lady: (now pointing at the arrows next to the sign) "But don't you think that this arrow might be directing me to go UP to the toilets?"
Me: "No, I just think those arrows tell you to push either up or down for the lift. I don't think any of this has to do with toilets"
Lady: "I think I might go up in the lift anyway, just to see for myself"
Me: "..."

What the hell? She just DID NOT GET IT. Also, what kind of creepy arse toilets have three men in one cubicle? And if she was so certain that they were men's toilets, why would she want to go check them out anyway? This woman did not look crazy, she was well dressed and well spoken, ould have been any of our parents or teachers. It was the strangest thing.

Paul's Movember fiasco

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:47:51 GMT

Disaster has struck in the form of Movember. Where once stood a relatively innocent month containing exams, my Mum's birthday and a day off to watch horses run, now lies 30 DAYS OF BROOKE'S WOE!

During Movember (from here on referred to as Woe-vember), Paul and all the guys in his department at work have signed up to the official Movember cause. That's right, in support of prostate cancer research and men's depression support, shev will be growing a Mo.

I am not in support of this mo. I do not relish the prospect of scratchy kisses and Tom Green jokes. I like my man clean-shaven, and a month is a long time. However, he has informed me that if I DON'T donate in his name, then he won't shave it off. SO PLEASE HELP ME

To sponsor his Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter his registration number which is 129517 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor him by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for his Registration Number: 129517. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

WE HAS A HOWZ!!!!!!!

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:09:12 GMT

FINALLY!

After well over a year's vicious cycle of searching, finding, applying and consequently getting rejected for dozens and dozens of properties, we finally have SUCCESS!

Thanks in no small part to lauramh85 (who is now, and ever shall be, the wing beneath my wings), shev, jashasha, myself and my brother will soon (coming to you, 24th September) be the proud... occupants of 83 Scotch Pde, Bonbeach. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, dishwasher, carport and huge backyard.... mmm, sexy.

This is not Mount-two. I love you all, but I value my bond too. It's rather a large one. I'd really like it all back. That's not to say that we won't be having movie nights when everybody has the next day off, or BBQs on weekends when the weather is good (did I mention Chris has a BBQ?), and you can bet that we'll have a nice little housewarming party once we're all settled and have decided what housewarming gifts we want to mooch off you guys, but as a general rule THIS IS NOT A PISS-UP PLACE!

Disclaimers aside, this is SUPER DOOPER WONDIFEROUS HAPPENSTANCE! THERE WILL BE MUCH JOY!

King Lear OMGZ Squeeeeeee!

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:43:07 GMT

Went to see King Lear on Tuesday night with icefalcon, jashasha and cruciel. Apologies to those who expressed interest when we first proposed this outing a few months ago, but having missed out first round, I didn't want to risk losing the couple of seats I could buy by trying to organise a group again. I literally just logged into Ticketmaster on a whim and was amazed to find a couple of 'impeded view' balcony seats available for the performances two days from then and bought them on the spot. Also, they were all but sold out again anyway, and I couldn't have gotten more than 4 seats if I'd wanted to. As it was, the seats we got were so far back that we were forced to lean all the way forward if the action was too close to the front of the stage. Luckily, this didn't happen tooooo often.

Disclaimers being dealt with, I am now free to SQUEEEEEEEE! It was seriously awesome. I've seen King Lear done twice before, by fairly reputable companies too (Bell Shakespeare and MTC), but the RSC production just blew them out of the water. Ian McKellen was far far too convincing as a madman. He's going to go insane some time in the next 10 years or so, and nobody is going to be able to tell whether he is serious or not. It was the most believably gradual descent into madness I've ever seen performed. Most Lears seem relatively competent, if a little unwise, right up until he is shut out of the castle, and then they suddenly go mad all in one go. McKellen's Lear was far far better. By the end of the show, when he was rocking Cordelia and just on the lee-side of death himself (sorry, but Shakespearean spoilers don't exist), there were 7,500 people in that theatre and you couldn't hear one of them breathe. It was the loudest silence I've ever heard. Very very moving.

Other random things to come out of the night:

It's OK to be nude on stage if you're old, gay and awesome. Also helps if you have a shirt over your head to hide the embarrassment
For an old guy, Sir Ian is quite impressively... built.
The city is full of crazy people. Why this should continue to amaze me, I can't explain
The guy who played Edgar had a body full of eye-candy
There are only three types of people who go to King Lear. Students and enthusiasts, pretentious theatre-types and old people.
Said old people do not find "I get in trouble if I hold my p[ie]ce" funny.
Crunchie Chocettes are too noisy to eat in an audience full of people so engrossed that they forget to breathe on occasion
I needs to get me some shiny shiny Elizabethan dresses and overcoats. Purrrrrrrty!

We were also upset by the woman sitting next to jashasha, who snored through much of the first act and then didn't return for the second act. Firstly, how can you sleep through the awesome that is Sir Ian McKellen raving? And secondly, it's SHAKESPEARE- you either appreciate it or you don't, but either way, you know what you're in for. If it's going to put you to sleep, give the ticket to someone who would kill for it. There were people who came along without tickets, just to wait in a list on the off chance that someone doesn't pick up their tickets and they could buy their seats 20 minutes in. It was very wrong to see two vacant seats in the second act...

DH lols

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 01:31:23 GMT

Deathly Hallows was squee, easily my favourite book, won't say anything else about that here, most of what I think is in icefalcon's post.

HOWEVER:

Today's paper (gogo Herald Sun) had a page 2 story about how sexually threatening the book was, and how children under 12 could be scarred for life by it. I can only imagine that the 'sexual attack' they are talking about comes from

Fenrir's threat to Hermione, but little kids could easily assume that's just a werewolf bite thing. They dealt with Lupin, they can deal with this.

Good to see our newspapers doing such a bang-up job of freaking parents into censuring what their kids read.

Plenty of room on the bandwagon

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:13:57 GMT

Create your own Friend Test here

This time I'm REALLY going to gaol...

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:47:35 GMT

Anyone remember back to nearly a year ago, when I was freaking out because Centrelink were doing an audit on me? And how I was certain I was going to gaol? And how they couldn't track down any records from my employment at Burger King because the company had folded without ever sending me a group certificate, so they instead asked for payslips from Kmart, for which I had reported accurately and been paid properly?

Well, they obviously tracked down SOMEBODY, because they just sent me a shiny letter:

"The correct amount of your earnings from Nepean Burgers/Hungry Jacks and Kmart Australia Ltd was not taken into account in the payments made to you. THis means you have been overpaid $8675.20. We are, therefore, required to recover this amount.

Period : 1 Jan 2005 to 28 Jul 2006
Received : $10,310.77
Entitled: $1,635.57
Amount Due : $8,675.20
Date Due: 27 Feb 2007 "

You have GOT to be fucking KIDDING me. They obviously KNOW what my income is, so they HAVE to know that there is no way in hell that I can get that kind of money in a month. Hell, or a year. I only earn like $16,000 a year. This is over half what I earn. Furthermore, I was reporting ACCURATELY for the stated period. There may be slight discrepancies which occurred in weeks where I was called in for extra shifts between reporting my income on Friday morning and ending the pay week on Sunday night, but no way is there $8675.20 worth of extra shifts.

Which means that the error must have been in how they calculated what they owed me. I assume this is because they've determined that I shouldn't have had the $6,000 income bank that I had acrued up to the time I started work at Kmart. THAT WASN'T MY FAULT, I RANG AND INFORMED CENTRELINK THAT I WAS GETTING A NEW JOB THAT WOULD LIKELY MEAN I EARNED TOO MUCH AND ASKED TO BE TAKEN OFF THE PAYMENT, TO WHICH THEY REFUSED, SAYING THAT I SHOULD STAY ON IT, REPORTING FORTNIGHTLY, UNTIL THE INCOME BANK WAS DEPLETED.

But even if that IS the case, and they still insist that I pay back the money (even if it's their fault, not mine), I can't understand how it could be more than $6,000 that I have to pay back. Surely, if they calculated my payments based on a $6,000 income bank that shouldn't have been there, then I should just have to pay back the value of that said income bank. Where the hell is this other $2,675.20 coming from??????

I can't handle this right now. I have to pay my enrolment fees by 9th Feb. I have to buy books. I have to register my car by 17th Feb. I have to buy a stupidly overpriced parking permit. I have to get a new battery for my car. I have to finish paying off my loan to Dallas. AND I HAVE TO FUCKING MOVE OUT! Paul's dad wants him ( and therefore, us) out by the time he goes overseas. This means April. I have been working my butt off to afford furniture and appliances and bond and shit, spending every spare minute harrassing bitchy real estate agents, trying desperately to regain my independence.

What the hell do I do now? I can't be the girl living at her boyfriend's parents much longer. I need to get out, I need to be me. I need to stop having to tiptoe around the house that I live in. AND THIS IS NOT HELPING MY SITUATION!

How the fuck am I going to be able to get out of this mess? I really can't see any light at the end this time.

Christmas Sadness

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 04:14:15 GMT

Now, I'm hardly the most religious of people, and I'm certainly not the most genuinely simplistic either- I like expensive toys as much as the next person (unless, perhaps, that person is Paul...), and I can't really claim that I don't have fun with the materialistic side of Christmas and Valentine's Day and all of those other days that Hallmark loves. You won't find me lighting advent candles this year, and you certainly won't find me giving someone the gift of a sponsored child- it's a beautiful idea that I totally admire, but I'm just not that good a person.

But having said that, I feel I have to express just a general dissatisfaction with how little people seem to care about the real point of Christmas, especially in recent years.

Somehow, a healthy materialism has given way to possession anxiety, and the idea of giving gifts for the sake of the other person isn't as important as showing off how much you spent. I know kids pretty well- not only do I come from a family large enough that the Babysitters Club would have insisted on two sitters, but I've just generally come into contact with them a lot- kids parties at HJ's, coaching kids at little aths, etc. etc. Hell, I'm not so old that I can't remember being one myself pretty damn clearly. And the main thing I know about most kids, is that if you can feed them and give them a big grassy area to play in, and they are happy. Feed them with a huge roast dinner and swap the grassy field for new toys wrapped in shiny paper, and they are ecstatic. Finish the roast dinner off with a huge dessert, fill the dining table with family members and then actually play WITH your kids with the new toys in the shiny paper, and you have nothing short of euphoria. Kids love the novelty of Christmas, the attention they receive, and the opportunity to play something new with the important people. For the most part, they don't even care what's inside the wrapping, so long as it's something NEW that inspires different games. Religion aside for a moment, Christmas is about doing your best to surprise and inspire the people you care most about, then spending the time with them that you can't afford to for the majority of the year.

Which is why I can't help but be saddened by the number of customers who have completely lost sight of the whole point of Christmas. In their mind's, a specific toy of a certain monetary value MUST BE PURCHASED AT ANY COST OR THE WORLD WILL END. They've become almost ruthless in their quest to shop; they don't seem to care who they hurt or inconvenience or make cry in the process. It doesn't matter how much grief they cause along the way, so long as a particular toy is in their grubby little hands at the end. I've seriously lost count of the number of people who, in the past month, have used variations on the phrase "Ok, well then YOU can be the one to tell my son why his Christmas is ruined" Ruined? Lady, my favourite part of Christmas was making my family watch me perform in some shitty little Christmas concert at the end of the year. Furthermore, I can only do so much. When a toy sells out, it sells out- there's nothing I can do about it.

Worse, are the customers who KNOW they are being arseholes, but have factored this into their shopping experience and decided that the end justifies the means. Sunday I had a customer want a discount on a $70 children's guitar, already on sale for $52, because it had some cosmetic scratches on it. I said that I could only give 10% discount for cosmetic imperfections. The guy scoffed and said "I'll give you $20 for it". I said no. He said that "Kmart shouldn't make a profit from damaged goods. I should get it at cost". I said firstly, that there is no reason why we shouldn't make a profit off goods that were in perfect working order, secondly, staff members aren't privy to cost information and thirdly NOBODY IS TELLING HIM HE HAS TO BUY IT IF HE DOESN'T LIKE THE PRICE. He insisted I call a manager. I did. The manager said we could do $45.01 and that was it (roughly the 10% I offered) and that if he took it, that the item would become non-refundable. When I relayed that to the guy, he said "What? What if I get it home and something ELSE is wrong with it?" I said that would be fine to return if it was for reasons other than the mark-down reason. At this point his turns to his wife and says loudly "Well in that case, I'll just buy it, take it home, BREAK IT, then bring it back after Christmas saying it was like that when I opened it and I want a new one" WHAT THE FUCK. At this point, I might have angrily mentioned admission of intent to fraud and made like I was calling security, which sent him into a tirade of "Stupid bitch, you're determined to ruin my son's Christmas, I demand to speak to the store manager in person, I'm standing right here until I speak to her, etc. etc."", yelling to every customer that entered the store that Kmart is cheap and trying to rip everyone off, you should go shop elsewhere yadda yadda yadda. I had to get Southland security to throw him out in the end.

It just saddens me that people are willing to sink to the level of declaring intent to fraud, whilst insulting a sales assistant and slandering a company name to all of its customers in the pursuit of $25 discount. Is it worth it? Is that REALLY what Christmas is all about now? Seeing how much of an arsehole you can be in under 20 seconds, so that you will be given what you want so that you leave? LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR, ARSEHOLE. We never had much money around Christmas time, with so many kids and one income, but it was still the best day of the year. I don't think it would have been improved for me if I'd found out that Dad had made a young girl at Kmart cry so that I could have a cheaper guitar. It's different now, with me out of home and four of six kids with jobs of their own, but whilst the presents might have gotten more expensive, the sentiment is the same. I got as much pleasure from Brian's gift of a cat scratching post for Switch as I did from Chris' extravagant Day Spa voucher (well, almost as much. I LIKED it as much anyway...maybe if I were a cat it would be the same).

But the point is, the holiday is about peace and goodwill TO ALL. I just wish people would try and remember that somewhere in between pushing in the layby queue and wrestling that pregnant lady for the last TMX Elmo doll.

No. Fucking. Way.

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:38:31 GMT

The world has gone mad. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why I would FAIL an ENGLISH unit (when my lowest English mark for my entire degree to date has been a 74 and I've spent the last year in an advanced, speed-track-you-to-Honours class), and yet somehow manage a DISTINCTION in Chemistry, a subject in which I not only missed 5 labs of a possible 13, but didn't attend any lectures after Week Five, did all of my exam study in two days... AND HATE WITH A FIREY PASSION!!!!!!!

I would argue that the marks are somehow reversed, but that actually makes things worse for me. I'd much rather pick up a random English unit that I can breeze through without a problem in first semester, than have to hold off on starting Honours until second semester for one damn repeat of Chemistry. There is NO WAY IN HELL that I failed that subject. I did some KICK ARSE essays for that, and I killed my seminar presentation. The only thing I can think of is that he didn't accept my late Paradise Lost essay at all. Which sucks, because I probably could have done a little better on my final essay, maybe even better enough to scrape a Near Pass, if I'd included examples from Paradise Lost- but I didn't want to because I wanted to save that text for the other essay which he clearly hasn't accepted anyway. Poo.

I wrote the BEST damn essay for that subject too. And my final essay was awesome, all about how Renaissance women should really learn to be seen but not heard :P

Ah well. I guess that kills any debate about starting Honours before finishing science. I'll just finish my last three units in first semester, start Honours second, and (hopefully) graduate by mid 2008...

Chris passed all his subjects. He is amazed- he was planning what he was going to say when they dragged him up in front of the board. Kudos to him.

Wedding Madness

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 01:55:39 GMT

Just when I thought my Mum had mellowed out somewhat, that maybe the crazy was over and we could have a completely normal relationship, she has to go and do something insane again.

Saturday was my cousin's wedding (in Williamstown of all places- at least we got to drop in on Andrew and Allirra I guess), so Paul and I spent the morning madly finding him a new suit before rushing off to our respective hair appointments. We left for the wedding about 1.15pm, and had a pretty bad run getting there because people were leaving for Derby Day (which was around the corner from the reception hall in Essendon... took us longer to get from the wedding to the reception than it took us to get to the wedding in the first place. Meh), so when we got to the church, we didn't really have much time to speak to my family or anything, and we just squeezed into the only two seats left on the bride's side, which were on the aisle side, right in front of my parents.

So anyway, everything is going really well, the church is really pretty, and we're all waiting for the bridal party to come in- and as I turn around to watch the door, I hear Mum hiss under her breath, "Please dear God, don't let the little harlot be wearing a veil over her face". My God. My cousin Sandra (the bride) has been living with her fiance for a couple of years, and they recently finished building their dream home (GORGEOUS btw,), and so Mum has gone and taken offense to the fact that she's getting married in a Christian church when she's clearly not still a virgin. But I figure it's just Mum being Mum, so I grit my teeth and ignore her. The bridal party starts coming in, everyone is really beautiful, my aunt looks really really proud, Sandy's younger brothers are crying- it's so moving. Then the bride comes in, looking stunning and already in tears herself- wearing a veil over her face.

Well fuck, Mum makes this loud horrified gasp like someone had asked her to make Sophie's Choice and says loudly "I can't be a part of this blasphemy. She's a harlot and a hypocrite and I can't be here". Then she stands up and makes a move TOWARDS THE AISLE to storm down it and out! She's literally going to storm out of someone else's wedding, right down the aisle, with the cameraman at the top of the aisle to record it all! I mean, how can she be so fucking selfish as to ruin someone else's wedding? Someone who, I might add, was the flower girl at her own wedding, and who has been nothing but sweet and kind to everyone? I thought spurning the invitation to Sandra and Phil's housewarming was bad enough, but ruining their WEDDING DAY? Jesus christ.

Obviously, Chris and I weren't about to let that happen, so we collectively grabbed a different part of her jacket and held her in place, hissing at her not to make a scene, it's none of her business and how dare she be so selfish on someone else's big day. She starts weeping uncontrollably (which I hope most people thought was just emotion, since even the bride's father was crying- and he's the kind of big bloke who lives on steak, beer and sports), and going on and on about how blasphemous it was and how "I can't be here. I can't. I'm not strong enough to sit through this hertical farce of a ceremony. I won't lie to my God".

I lost it a bit then. I turned back around to her and hissed something like "It's not for you to judge, it's for God. Besides, this isn't even a Catholic service. That's a female priest up there, in case you hadn't noticed (I'm sure the veil has the same symbolism in the Anglican faith, but I was willing to say anything that would make her doubt herself at this point)" She didn't stop her random moves towards the aisle, so I said "What about me, Mum- are you planning on walking out on MY wedding too?" and she turned to me with these cold distant eyes and said, "If you wear a veil. Then yes."

WHAT THE FUCK. I cannot believe her. How is she able to make everything so neatly about HER? I'd be willing to bet everything I own that when Sandy was choosing a gown for her wedding, she didn't spare a thought to some archaic symbolism and instead went for tradition. I guarantee that if she wore a red dress and a fascinator, mum would have been just as scandalised. Besides, Mum is no fucking saint herself. She might have been a virgin until she was married and doesn't believe in contraception, but she was also planning on aborting Bree if the amniocentesis test showed that she had a serious defect (which there is a high chance of when you're dumb enough to have kids at 48). "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone", bitch. And whatever happened to the last commandment? LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU. I seem to recall Jesus more than forgiving Mary Magdalene- and my cousin is no fucking whore!

In the end we got through the ceremony because it was very short, and I had a firm hand on Mum's jacket throughout it all. I got so pissed though, I missed heaps of it because I was constantly waiting for mum to storm out and ruin everything. I didn't even get a single picture. Paul got pissed at me too, because he didn't realise what was going on, and just thought I was being rude turning around and talking to my mum for the whole thing. I skipped a few heartbeats at the bit asking for objections, and also when they were walking back up the aisle and talking to everyone- I was half expecting Mum to rip off her veil. But we survived, and then Mum ran off to sit in the car and sulk after the ceremony, so at least she couldn't do too much damage there.

Aside from Mum's craziness, it was a great day though. I cried when the bride and groom kissed, and I cried all through their speeches at the reception. The groom got so emotional during his own speech that he couldn't say parts of it and Sandy had to say them for him. I don't think there was a completely dry eye in the room. I was elbowing Paul and telling him to take notes. Best of all, my amazing cousin didn't seat Paul and I with my parents- they split us all up, with just me, Paul, Lauren and Chris sharing a table with another cousin about our age, and her brother and boyfriend. It was hilarious. Our waitress was full of sass too, and kept us supplied with lots of booze. The garter ceremony was hilarious (Phil is such a gun), and Lauren caught the bouquet! I even got a proper dance with Paul (all I had to do was promise that we could leave straight afterwards). All in all, it was wonderful, and could have been an amazing day- but I can't help feeling saddened at how close everything came to being ruined, and at how prejudiced Mum still is against me. When I told Paul what Mum said about storming out of my wedding, he laughed and said "Haha- please, PLEASE wear a veil Brooke!" which was hilarious, but still. Why must she be like this? I don't want to plan my wedding around her insanity. I'm wearing a white dress and a veil and I'm having a Catholic service, damn it!

Ding-dong, the mother-fucking witch is DEAD, bitches!

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:37:03 GMT

NO MORE CHEMISTRY! EVER! I'm positive I passed that fucking exam, perhaps not with flying colours, but at least well enough to get the 33% I needed from it to end my bloody battle with the evil witch Chemistry FOREVER!

I would have done better too, but they made me use a scientific calculator, and I haven't used one since Year Nine, and so I couldn't figure out how to do Inverse Log on it... wasted a lot of time searching through menus too (and yes, I know, I could have done 10^x. My log laws failed me until I walked out of the exam).

I may be miles from making sense of my fucked up course, but at least the demon that's haunted me for four years has been quelled somewhat.

Sword of Truth... MINI SERIES???? Ugh.

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 03:01:41 GMT

I know this sort of thing has been bandied around (mainly with regards to tWoT moreso than SoT, but still), but this appears to be legitimate.

WFR to be made into TV miniseries

Posted: 7/24/06

TOR BOOKS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Elena Stokes Russell Galen

Director of Publicity Agent

Tor Books Scovil Chichak Galen Agency

Sam Raimi gets Terry Goodkind’s bestselling Sword of Truth adventure series!

Sam Raimi, best known as the director of the hugely successful SPIDER-MAN and SPIDER-MAN II films, and his producing partner Joshua Donen, have optioned film rights for Terry Goodkind’s enormously popular bestselling SWORD OF TRUTH adventure series, published by Tor Books.

Having been approached by Hollywood a number of times over the past decade, Goodkind was never convinced that his 400,000 word bestselling novels could be successfully compressed into worthwhile feature films. In a meeting at the author’s home, the renowned director and producer instead conceived of a groundbreaking mini-series. Within two hours Goodkind was sold on the concept and negotiations commenced. Ten months later the deal was finally concluded. “It’s a dream come true to work with someone of such remarkable vision, talent, and ability,” Goodkind said. “Given Sam’s sincere love for these stories and his determination to only make great films, this mini-series will be a watershed event.”

All of Goodkind’s novels have been international bestsellers. Translated into 20 foreign languages, there are over 10 million copies in print. The SWORD OF TRUTH series began with WIZARD’S FIRST RULE in 1994. The 10th novel in the series, PHANTOM, is on sale now. The 11th and final volume is under contract and will be published in 2008.

Raimi and Donen hope to begin production of the opening mini-series, WIZARD’S FIRST RULE, within the next year, to be followed by ensuing volumes of the epic novels. The development process will begin while Raimi completes SPIDER-MAN III. Definitive word on the production will be available in early 2007.

Goodkind was represented in the negotiations by Russell Galen of the Scovil Chichak Galen Agency in New York City.

I generally enjoyed these books for their trashy-but-fun plot lines and kick-arse characters, but even I have to admit that every book published since September 11 has read like an essay on Goodkind's philosophy on the war in Iraq. How they intend to make THAT into a mini-series I have no idea.

But I'll probably download it anyway, if only to laugh at the undoubtably poor acting.

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 03:50:51 GMT

In less angsty news, I watched Spirited Away the other night- and the voice of Lin in the English Version is Susan Egan, who plays Megara in Hercules.

I picked it. I am proud.

Most Embarrassing Presentation EVER

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:41:04 GMT

Ok gals, I'm looking for some support here. Don't disappoint me or I may have to sell all of my Mills & Boon books on principle and use the money for chastity belts. Or something equally wholesome.

I had to give a 40 minute seminar paper today on a short story for a third year english class I'm doing. The story I got given was The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence. Now, you might not know the story, but I'm sure a lot of you know Lawrence's other stuff... and it's pretty fair to assume, going into a Lawrence text, that he's got sex on the brain right? That's pretty much all he writes about- well, not strictly, but it's a major theme everytime time. Lady Chatterley's Lover, Son's and Lovers... they're all the same. Someone never really got over Freud.

So I go into this story pretty much expecting to read about sex, and I'm not disappointed; the whole damn thing is about how this little boy desires his mother, who is so emotional detached from her children that she can't reciprocate her part of the infantile sexuality bond and thus he turns to this rocking horse to displace his desire... which I read as masturbation. I mean SHIT, all the horse's names are like "Lancelot" and "Shining Dawn" and "Morning Spark" and crap, plus he rides the damn thing as if he's getting off, complete with "Yes, yes, now now now" type stuff, plus he won't stop riding the horse nutil he 'get's there', and he's afraid of getting caught by his mother, and he thinks it's wrong but his uncle says it natural and la la la la la. So anyway, I have tonnes of evidence to support it, I really thought it was to be taken as read- he wants to 'get lucky" because his mother says her husband isn't lucky, and so SHE'S not lucky to marry an unlucky husband (clearly an impotence thing), and so he wants to ride this horse until it tells him the name of a horse that will win a race so he can bet on it and win and give the money to his mother to 'satify her' where her husband can't... anyway there's TONNES of evidence, so I get up there and start talking as if this is a moot point on the path to my real argument... only to be met with a stunned silence from EVERYONE when I ask for input, because NOBODY read it that way. Not even my tutor. I then never ended up GETTING to my real argument because I spent the whole time defending myself against allegations of being sex-crazed! God help me if I didn't have the evidence to support it... this is the same class which got homo-erotic overtones from Bartleby the Scrivener ffs! How can this be so hard to see when they managed to argue for hours on THAT!

Anyway, before I go hang my head in sorry and sign up to a convent, I was hoping that SOMEBODY has read the story and can confirm that I'm not a lunatic, that it's really there in black and white, and that I'm not some kind of pervert.

PLEASE!!!

NOT FAIR!

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:20:48 GMT

I'm horribly sick and it's exam time and that's not fair that always happens I have no idea why I blame Paul he got it first and I blame Dallas he leaves the heater on overnight and I blame God because he OBVIOUSLY HATES ME and I blame the people at Robitussin because THAT SHIT TASTES LIKE BALLS and I blame the cat for taking my seat everytime I go to check on my soup and I blame Katherine Mansfield for stream of consciousness the end

Of course you realise, this means war....

Mon, 29 May 2006 02:30:53 GMT

I gotten woken up this morning, at around 8.30am by the sound of the old lady next door complaining. Now, this is not unusual. There is ALWAYS something for her to complain about. If it's not a car in her spot, it's that we've left our bins out 5 minutes too long. No, of itself, waking up to the sound of her complaining is, unfortunately, a common occurrence.

What was so strange about this morning was that nobody was home for her to complain to. I was in bed, and my car is parked in another street, so she wouldn't have known I was there. Dallas and Paul had both left for work . So who the hell was she complaining to?

"Poor little thing, they keep you locked up inside like that, just looking out of the window all day, through the cobwebs... cobwebs inside AND cobwebs outside. Dirty dirty people they are. But aren't you beautiful? Amber eyes to match an amber heart [WTF is an AMBER HEART???]. You could come and live with me you know. Come play with Mr. Biggles. He's a lovely cat too. [lies, all lies] I'm an animal lover you know. Never met an animal that I was afraid of. There are two rotties that live next door, and they are beautiful dogs. I feed them my spare bones. People ask me 'Aren't you afraid of Rottweilers?' and I say 'I haven't found an animal yet that I'm afraid of'. I'm an animal lover you see"

That's right, she was talking TO MY CAT, who happened to be sitting in her favourite spot in the windowsill. But wait, it gets even better...

"Horrible people they are to keep you locked up in there. Did you know that they keep parking their dirty old car in my car port? Yes they do. It's my car port, I can do what I like with it. And that girl! You know she wouldn't open the door to me the other day when I wanted her to move it? Jingled the keys at the door and everything, and then just went away [in my defense, I don't actually HAVE keys to the front door. I couldn't open it]. I don't know, girls these days. No respect. No respect for the elderly. And me with my bad back. I've got a slipped disc you know, but the doctor says he can't do anything about it. Serves me right for being so active in my old age. Don't know what Dallas wants with a girl like that around anyway. Needs to get himself a proper woman. One that cleans cobwebs properly, and doesn't trapse about in trousers [does she think I'm with DALLAS? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA]. I keep telling himself he needs to buy this place. But nobody listens to me. I'm just a dotty old woman. But my, aren't you a precious little thing. Amber eyes for an amber heart [again with the amber heart!] You could come live with me. I'm an animal lover you know."

At this point, I was in danger of giving myself away by exploding with laughter, so I called Switchy back to bed for a snuggle (BEST HOT WATER BOTTLE EVER). Still, a good morning's entertainment.

WANTED: One new boyfriend

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 09:53:35 GMT

Must be 6'4 1/2" tall, brown hair, green eyes, slim build. Must own sexy black BMW and be prepared to chauffeur me around in such vehicle. Must have good knowledge of expensive restaurants. Must have GSOH, tendencies towards domestic violence acceptable. Must be non-smoker. Must download me episodes of 24, Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, South Park, Naruto, Bleach, Veronica Mars and Will & Grace. Must cook a good Chicken Scallopini. Must love cats. Must love MY cat. Must fix my computer (preferably tonight).

Most importantly, must NOT own an XBOX 360.

All applications must be submitted in writing.

Fucking work.

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:49:23 GMT

Goddamn work. They only rostered me on for three shifts the past week, Monday (which was a stupidly short 3.5hr waste of time), and then Saturday and Sunday just gone. But then they ended up calling me in at short notice for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, as well as lengthening my Monday to 5 hours. This meant that, together with the weekend, that I was working a 7 day week. I didn't care too much, because I really need the money, and I know that I wont be able to work as much in the coming weeks.

Problem is, the Kmart SDA Agreement states that a casual employee shall not work more than 5 days in any one week, Monday to Sunday inclusive, except by mutual agreement, where they can work a 6th day if they are not opposed to the idea. 7 days is flat out not allowed. To make up for this, they have to offer double the usual rate of pay for the 7th day. This shift, being a Sunday, ALREADY pays time and a half, which bumps the shift up to triple time (2 x 1.5 for those of you playing at home).

Coles Myer found this entirely not kosher when they went to pay me Sunday night. They had to pay it, of course, but they also rang up my line manager and abused her for it. They suggested he make sure it not happen again. So she looks at the roster on Monday and sees -gasp- I'm working AGAIN Monday night, for my normal shift. This will make it 8 starts in a row, which (I have since discovered) magnifies the overtime rate for the entire overtime period, i.e. the Monday shift would be at double time, but so would the Sunday shift, which, being already now triple time, becomes 6X the usual casual rate of pay. To give you an idea how much money that shift would be, I am on approximately $18.37 an hour. 6X that is $110.22 which, over a five hour shift, pays out $551.10. This is for ONE SHIFT, not including the other 7 days of work or the double Monday.

Put simply, Sue (my line manager) couldn't allow it, so she asked the Team Leader working at the time to ring me and cancel my Monday shift, and to replace me. Problem is, the team leader fell sick and didn't get around to it before she went home, so she left a note for the next team leader to take care of it- a very brief note simply saying "Mel, you need to cover Brooke's 6-10 Service shift" Naturally, Mel assumed this meant I'd called in sick or something, so she just rang someone to pick up the shift. The result of all this is that NOBODY TOLD ME, and I wasted my evening by suspending my study, washing and drying my uniform, heading out into the rain to walk to the station, paying for a train ticket to Cheltenham, walking to work through more rain... and being told to turn around and go home. Worse, I couldn't even rant and rave about how inconsiderate it was not to even ring me, when the only reason I'd worked all those days in the first place was TO HELP THEM OUT at increasingly short notice during what was supposed to be my week to catch up on uni work, because the people working when I got to work weren't the ones at fault for the mix up.

Fucking bureocracy. If you fuck up your roster, and then need my help to get out of it, don't penalise me for going to all that effort. Next time, I'll just tell them to go screw themselves. I'm staying in bed.

Mountview Lost and Found

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 06:19:15 GMT

Mountview has accumulated a massive amount of personal articles which do not seem to belong to anyone living here, and it is taking up what little storage space we have (which is none). So here is a (not at all exhaustive) list of things in our possession- claim it or we will throw it out. "That's mine but I don't want it- you can have it" is NOT a sufficient answer. Pick it up or at least promise to, or it will be going in the skip we we will be hiring over the next weekend or so.

*Mens black zip up jacket
*Mens tan corderoy jacket with white wool lining Rob
*Blue peaked cap of some kind
*ONE pink heart shaped stud earring
*SNES Console and controllers Newo
*Black and white striped dress (pretty sure that's Chantelle's, but I'll add it anyway) Chantelle
*Black women's size 7 'Now' heels, closed toe.
*Brownish serving plate (probably the one that Laura gave us the cheesecake on, but not sure) Michelle
*Red shoulder bag (someone said it might be Amanda's...)

There's probably more, but I can't think what. That's the main stuff anyway. Come collect your shit, or we will find a place for it. This place will be the bottom of a dumpster.

Oh, What a Night!

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:00:16 GMT

WOW.

That was such a great night, nearly everything went off as planned. I am flabbergasted. That LITERALLY would not have been the case without the help of all of you in some way (even if it was just by turning up to help celebrate). As many of you know, I was stressing right up to the time dinner was served that something would hit the fan, but it didn't. The rain held off, the food was good, nothing much got broken (except a champagne glass- and that was the CATERER!), music was awesome, no cops, no pissed off neighbours, and very few pikers (and it sucks to be them in my opinion). AND THE BOOZE! Holy crap- there is literally enough booze and food left over that we could just do the whole damn thing over again at no extra cost. Our biggest concern at the moment is consuming all the amazing food before it gets wasted, and finding a place for all the booze. MEGA kudos to Chris for that, can't really thank him enough. Or Dallas for that matter, for the catering. Or Rob for the tent, trailer and organising power. Or Chantelle for cleaning and setting up, providing a playlist guide to Manol and James of stuff I like and generally de-stressing me. Or James and Manol for organising the music, all the way from playlist to speakers to keeping people from queuing up shit. Or Allirra for spending her day doing everyone's hair and makeup (I've never looked such a princess!!). Or Laura for organising with everyone to get me that fabulous dress, amazing tiara and gorgeous shoes. Or Laura and Aaron's dad for the timely floodlight. Or James, Chantelle and co. for the ABSOLUTELY necessary patio heater. Or Jeff and Bree for turning up as guests and promptly transforming into decorators. Or Michelle for her FABULOUS giant '21' for the wall. Or Andrew, Ben, Alex and Rob for making the uninhabitable carport into a stylish sitting area. Or Lauren for CLEANING OUR LAUNDRY (*shudder*) Or Carmel for giving me CHEESE POPCORN. Or Dad for keeping his speech short. Or Mum for not spraying the house with holy water before she entered it. Or...or... maybe I should leave that there.

Pics will follow as I locate any. Thanks again everyone for an awesome 21st. I'll never forget it :D

OMGZ SHOES!!!!!!!!!

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:30:58 GMT

My feet have bling. I am in squee.

That is all.

The power of 16 years of karma...

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:06:14 GMT

Does anyone else remember how we used to joke about how funny it would be if Robert Jordan died without publishing the whole series? Well, it seems like 16 years of people making those jokes has finally paid off...

Jordan been diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare blood disease affecting roughly 8 in a million people, with 22 different strains of the disease spread across those 8 people. At face value, he has about 1 year to live, but once he starts treatment, that expectancy will likely jump to about 4 years, to a high of maybe 8 years.

Even better, the disease is remotely linked with Alzheimers- what a kick in the balls if he recovered but then forgot what he was going to write...

He technically only has one more book left in the original arc of tWoT, but if I were him, I'd say "Fuck you all. I'm DYING. I'm not going to spend my last years slaving over a series I've (probably) grown to hate. I'd rather enjoy my last few years by spending all my money than spend my time trying to produce an ending to a series that will never satisfy all of you anyway. Go fuck yourselves, I'm going to Disneyland."

For those of you interested, his press release and personal blog entry can be found here: http://wotmania.com/wotmessageboardshowmessage.asp?MessageID=311647

WOW. Is my family ever out of the loop

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:03:45 GMT

This is how close my extended family is:

*phone rings*
Brooke: "Hello?"
Aunt Lorraine: "Yes hello, is that Brooke? It's Lorraine."
Brooke: "Yes, it's me. How are you? I haven't heard from you for... well, years really!"
Lorraine: "Yes, life does seem to get in the way a bit doesn't it? Now, you've got your 21st coming up next weekend, don't you?"
Brooke: "That's right, the 1st"
Lorraine: "Well, I'm not sure if Les and Peter and I are going to be able to make it"
Brooke: "That's alright, things come up. Thanks for letting me know you're busy"
Lorraine: "No, no that's not it exactly. It's just that last week I had an operation on my brain, so it all depends on how I'm feeling."
Brooke: "..."
Brooke: "Oh my god, I hadn't heard. How are you?"
Lorraine: "Not too bad I suppose. But I only had the tumour removed on Friday last week, so it all depends on how I'm feeling. And you know that Les and Peter won't come if I don't."
Brooke: "Of course, that's completely understandable. I'm so sorry."
Lorraine: "Yes well, we'll try to make it though, just don't include us in the catering numbers. We might pop in later"
Brooke: "Yeah sure, I'd love to see you- just don't, you know, overdo it or anything"
Lorraine: "I'll try my best."

WTF? She had A BRAIN TUMOUR removed ON FRIDAY!?! Jesus, you'd think that would be the kind of thing you'd hear about... points for even bothering to ring, let alone to say she'll try to drop in for the latter part of the evening.

Did you hear that, all you serial pikers? An aunt I haven't spoken to in at least 3 years is going to try and come TWO WEEKS AFTER BRAIN SURGERY. Let that be a lesson to you... SOME EXCUSES ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS!

Chris' letter for those who care

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:45:55 GMT

Dear Ms. Miller,

The occurrences of the evening of the 22nd of May 2005 were not meant to be of a personal or indeed even personnel matter. The shenanigans that occurred were a direct result of a build up of stress resulting from unfortunate misconceptions and misguided anger upon your behalf, which was deemed by myself such a context, however foolishly, to be a personal attack.

With regards to my alleged actions on the night, specifically relating to the projection of barbeque sauce, in my thoughtlessness I feel I was only reacting to the mistreatment enacted by yours truly. Master Benjamin Walter, in my opinion, did not in any sense (since most of the unwise acts were of my fault) deserve the berating that he received. The actions you took, I felt, were unacceptable particularly since his employment status is still very vibrant [Brooke’s note: VIBRANT???].

What angered me more was the ever increasing “double standard” that seems to be present amongst particular managers. There seems to be two different rules for the differing sexes. Your taunts at Fabri, Walters and I of laziness and procrastination were directly juxtaposed with similar actions practiced by you and Ms. Gates in the dining room, thus inspiring the proceedings that took place. It also frustrated me that you jumped to conclusions of apparent “dodgeyness” from counsel with the most hated, bitchy, despicable and unintelligent person to have ever worked at Hungry Jacks- Ms. Gates. Even Ms. Gates later, when confronted, caved at such remarks.

It was thus in reaction to these reasons that I did lash out; it was my express intent prior to these events to not, in any one of my actions, cause a reckless destruction of personnel property, consequently my rather lack-lustre leaving parade, than what was conscribed prematurely to have happened.

I thought it was rather necessary to divulge this information to indicate the reasons of my misdemeanor. Nonetheless disregarding all of my personal feelings, it is under duress that I accept fault and any consequences of this matter. Although I thought that it was rather minor, and that the issues of I terminating my employment were quite veracious and blown up, I now understand the repercussions of my actions and I am sorry for any hardships.

Sharps.

I may actually have to go see The Da Vinci Code

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 02:21:08 GMT

I was so intent on not seeing this film (though it IS perhaps even better suited as a movie than a novel), but then I found out what an awesome cast it has. Tom Hanks, Paul Bettany, the chick from Amelie, the guy who played Dr. Octopus and IAN MCKELLEN. Plus a non-sucky director (Ron Howard).

Prejudices aside, this could be awesome. I shall have to ponder this.