Absence Explained!

I haven’t been blogging at all lately and I thought I should explain myself. Basically, I’ve found a new hobby and it’s taken over my life! Any spare moment the last month or so has been spent doing two things: making lampwork beads or buying stuff to make lampwork beads. It’s all very exciting!

For the person who doesn’t know what lampwork beads are, basically, think Pandora glass charms. They’re actual glass beads that you shape and decorate using glass on a flame produced by a HotHead torch.

I did a 4-hour course with a local lampworker over the holidays (after a long-winded journey discovering I could make my own beads for necklaces) and have spent my time since then becoming familiar with lampworking theory and practising my technique.

So, here’s me melting glass onto a stainless steal mandrel:

Here’s me shaping the glass (in deep concentration):

And here’s me adding decorations:

I’m pretty much just writing the ‘a b c’ in the world of lampworking, but here’s my creations thus far:

Now that I’ve popped my head out of my lampworking mist I will endeavour to post more occasionally!

Until then, happy lampworking!!!

Puppy Love

I’ve been checking out a few blogs lately. Clicking on a few random links here and there to take me down the blog highway. As a result of these travels I’ve decided I need to include more images in my writing. The blogs I’ve enjoyed the most were those with a picture or photo to break up the text. It makes reading so much easier and interesting.

This discovery comes at an opportune time! I recently had a professional photo shoot done of my life’s love, Clancy the French Bulldog, and I’ve just received the final images! It’s called ‘lifestyle photography’ and it’s meant to be more realistic and natural, than structured and poised.

Here are some of my favourite shots (It was so difficult to choose!):

The photographer is actually an old schoolmate who I came across on Facebook. I worked out she’d started her own photography company (a career change) and I was really inspired by her photos. She has a fantastic blog at: http://www.angelahiggins.com/blog/

I hope you enjoy these photos!

WOFTAs

WOFTAs – a term a friend of a friend of mine from the Eastern states came up with. I’ve decided it’s a term that needs to go national because it so aptly sums up a whole lot of people in our lives.

Waste of Fucking Time Arseholes.

We all have them. They’re in our families (related via marriage or otherwise). We serve them and we’re served by them. We work with them (actually, we’re usually outnumbered by them at work). Sometimes we have to kiss their (waste of fucking time) arseholes. Sometimes we have to help them out. We pass them on the roads. We hold our tongues for them. Our patience is tested by them.

You’ve all got a WOFTA or two in your lives, so it’s time we started naming and shaming. Call a spade a spade. Call a WOFTA a WOFTA.

Seth Rogen – Call Me!

I watched Terminator 4 on the weekend and thought it was great – even with the maniacal Christian Bale in it. One random thought that occured to me while watching it though, was that I need to get in shape! Not because I was jealous of all the slamming physiques in the film – excuse me while I body stroke fellow Aussie Sam Worthington – but because, if there ever was life after the apocalypse, I would NOT survive!

Personally, I want to see an apocalypse film that is realistic. I want the skinny guy who’s not in shape to run out of breath after a 100 metres and just give up! I want the kid who’s been hiding out in the supermarket to be the size of a truck – ‘cos, let’s face it, he’s only gonna live off the Pepsi and chocolate. And I want the bloke who’s been fat all his life to lose weight! Imagine this scene:

Fat Guy: (As he cowers behind a fallen wall) Hey.

Fat Guy’s Friend Who Hasn’t Seen Him in a Long Time: Dude! You’re so skinny now. You’ve lost so much weight.

Fat Guy: Yeah, it’s the apocalypse. Best damn diet I’ve ever been on.

I can even imagine a nasty robot who, after throwing someone against the wall, is disappointed to find that he doesn’t get up again! He killed him on the first throw. What a shame!

Seriously though, if I’m ever going to be able handle mah-self in a post-apocalyptic world I need to get in shape!

PS – Seth Rogen, I can see you in this film. Call me!

Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner

Speaking of number plates, I have to wonder about the cars attached to them too – especially the P-Platers (probation drivers). Without over-exaggerating for the sake of a good news story, I reckon about 80% of the P-Platers I see are driving around in brand-gleaming-new cars. They’re like a fashion accessory, complete with matching personalised number plates, pin-stripes and statement stickers.

A little bit of my car’s rusted soul flakes off every time one of them overtakes me in the right lane.

What happened to the old bomb rite of passage?

A friend’s son recently arrived to a wedding I was attending late. He explained that his car had broken down again – the third time that week. I patted him on the back and said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s good for you. It’s character building.’ And it is! All young adults need to experience some good ol’ fashioned motor vehicle adversity. It’s character building! Even my friend’s son agreed, and then went on to rant about his University parking lot looking like a car dealership – how unheard of! I thought the cars in those places had to match the age of the people driving them.

I guess it means a lot of 18-year-olds these days have a fairly babyish character. And, to be honest, I don’t think that’s far off the truth…

Bad Taste Number Plates

I drive an hour to work and back five days a week, so I have alot of time to think. One thing that I’ve become obsessed with lately, not surprisingly related to cars, is the alarming growth of bad taste number plates.

It seems the ‘state the obvious’ types are tre’ chic. For example, ‘Black Merc’ on the gleaming black Merc and ‘Aggressive’ on the V8 Holden ute which overtook me using the turning lane.

My favourite so far has to be the completely bizarre ‘ADHD’. When did having ADHD become a badge of honour? Are we going to start seeing number plates with ‘Bad Speller’ or ‘Obese’ or ‘Premature Ejaculator’ on them? Or was the ADHD number plate meant to function like a medical alert bracelet: ‘All drivers around me please be aware that I find it difficult to concentrate for extended periods of time and thus, might just run into a tree…’

Thoughtlessness

Lately I’ve been grateful for ‘thoughtlessness’. I’m not talking about those times where someone uses the last bit of toilet paper and doesn’t change the roll for the next person. I’m talking about the idea of having no thought. Being thought less. Devoid of thinking. A vacant mind.

It’s such a rare occasion for me to have absolutely nothing on my mind these days that I’m grateful for the slightest opportunity to be thought less. To wake up in the morning without a single thought on my mind and have a completely free day where I have to make things up to do, rather than already have an endless list to do.

Kinda makes me wonder if frontal lobotomies were such a bad thing after all.

What’s a ‘Trashbag’ Without Some Trash TV?

I don’t watch an awful lot of TV but when I do I tend to watch the trashiest stuff I can find; reality TV, soapies, talk-back. I have the attention span of a dog in an all-you-can-eat bone shop, so it’s fitting that my brain is stimulated by shows that require only a couple of dendrites, a few nerve cells and a smidge of myelin to watch.

The latest show I’ve become addicted to is ‘American Idol’. I haven’t followed this closely in the past, but this year I’m feeling the Idol love.

Anyway, the shocking vote came in tonight that Kris Allen has won the competition!

Now, I’m not American so I understand that what appeals to this target audience could be very different to what appeals to me. But, I don’t think I’m the only person who believed that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. I would never have thought Kris Allen could beat Adam Lambert. I mean, come on, Adam is the kid who out-tongued and out-sung(ed) KISS!

Personally, I suspect vote tampering. Could it be that Kris Allen’s family smuggled a few Indian street-children into America, stuck them in a windowless room, handed them a mobile phone each and paid them one cent per text message sent?! None of them can speak a word of English, but they all know how to spell K-R-I-S now!

To be honest, it’s not something I really care about, but there’s still a shred of hope left for Adam – in Australia it’s always been the runner-up who has gone on to fame and fortune. Good luck to both of the boys, but an extra special good luck to Adam Lambert – Queen’s protege if only he was alive today.

Getting In Touch With My Inner Eminem

I am a zealous devotee of the School of Silent Reading – which basically means my students read silently for the first ten minutes of every lesson. It’s like injecting them with a horse-dosage relaxant.

Last year during a silent reading session with my Year 9s I came across the book ‘101 Things To Do Before You Die’ by Richard Horne. My students were passing it amongst themselves and giggling – which is why it drew my attention in the first place (giggling is the first sign of classroom evil). It’s quite an amusing book and has some hilarious ideas for the ‘Bucket List’, as it’s also known.

Anyway, I’ll stop my circumlocution – which is the act of using more words than is necessary to explain something simple (It’s like saying ‘You must cease any motion in your body so that you remain perfectly still and do not move, except, of course, when you need to breathe, because otherwise you’d pass out and that would defeat the purpose of staying still’ instead of simply ‘Stop!’). Hmm, now I’ve lost my point… Where was I?

Oh yes, well… when I had my quarter-life crisis in the months leading up to my 30^th birthday I decided I would create my own list called ‘101 Things To Do When You Turn 30’ so that I could remind myself that I really wasn’t that old yet! Please note: I didn’t replicate the original title because it seems a bit morbid.

So, here is my first online entry for my ‘101 Things to Do When You Turn 30’ List – interestingly enough, ‘Have Your Own Blog’ is one of those things on my list. I also recently added ‘Swim With Sharks’ but that’s another crazy story for another crazy time. So, yes, my first online entry for this list is ‘Write Your Own Rap Song’ which came to me as I drove home from work listening to the radio last week. I was attempting to recreate the beat of a rap song I’d just listened to with my own words. Unfortunately, as the drive went on, it became more poem-like.

Anyway, without further circumlocution:

It’s 9am and they’re stumbling in

Full of homework excuses and teenage WIN

Dumping bags and reading mags

Dolly is the manual for 12-year-old slags

Still can’t read, still can’t write

Homophones – site or sight

Absent dads and clueless mums

A new apple phone won’t fix their sums

It’s clearly a work in progress with many more stanzas to come as well as a catchy chorus. Mind the graphic, controversial content but that’s what raps all about bro!

Anywho, peace out.

Word to your bloggers.

Amusement Park In a Computer Chair

As my first official ‘grateful’ post this week on my very first blog I’m going to focus on something integral to both  – the internet. I’m not quite sure if the internet is what Oprah had in mind as a suitable ‘thing’ to be grateful for. She probably meant for us to think about what we were grateful for in other people: like personal qualities and all that intellectual nonsense.

Anyway, this week I’m grateful for the endless hours of amusement that the internet provides me with. Sometimes I think I should probably go for a walk instead, or visit friends, but I try not to let that get in the way of the bonding my butt does with my computer chair.

Viva la internet trolling!