First let me just say that K's goat-penguin plate from yesterday was amazing! When I started reading that post I have to say I was expecting to be underwhelmed. I mean what could a small penguin plate do that would blow my mind. But was I wrong. People are so cool. Conceptualising and then actualising that image. People are the best. And so are goat-penguins.
But not everything is so cool. Like marketers and fashion websites. Yesterday I got an email from an Australian online fashion retailer that announced "Our presummer swimwear is in!" That's a pretty liberal interpretation of "presummer".Me, I'd consider presummer the period just before summer, also known as spring. A time where you may be actually considering swimming. But I guess technically winter is presummer too, if by presummer you mean any time in the year that is before summer. Tonight the expected minimum is 2 degrees. So you can keep your presumer swimwear to yourself!
There's a cafe at the end of my street that does totally ok coffee and is very conveniently located, but I almost never get my coffee there. Here's why:
The wait is always inordinately long. Even if there is only one person in front of you it often takes more than 5 minutes to get a take away coffee. Once I waited so long I had to cancel it.
The decor is wack, like it's trying for something but doesn't know what. Like perhaps the decorators/owners went onto eBay when they were decorating and bought products with headings like "Industrial/vintage/retro/cool..." I don't trust a place that has tried that hard and failed so good.
There are several places with better coffee and decor and time management skills just minutes away where I would much rather be.
So, I almost never go there. But every now and again space and time and a need for coffee dictate that I have to go there. Which is what happened yesterday. So it was I found myself ordering coffee and hot chocolates for me and LB and Baby and Newbie. When I ordered hot chocolate I was asked if I wanted the kids' version so I said yes. Because usually this means its smaller, cooler, less chocolatey than a normal version. But they cost $5 each and took two or three times longer than a coffee to make and of course I was regretting my presence there exacerbated by time pressure and a general dislike for the place.
The 'kids' hot chocolate' was served thusly: in a jar, atop it sits a marshmallow skewered on a toothpick and charred by mini blowtorch, beside it sits a glass full of pink and blue fairy floss and all this presented on a wooden platter. The hot chocolate, the waitress told us, can be poured directly into the glass with the fairy floss, if you so desire.
GGGGGAAAAAHHHHHHHH! For who's benefit is this?!? Does any parent ordering hot chocolate for their child want said child to have a triple hit of sugar? NO! They just want to drink their coffee in peace. Does any child want an artfully presented hot chocolate with a pour over coffee experience? No, they just want some sugary shit. I mean for god's sake! Has there world gone mad! Needless to say, neither time nor pressure will ever, EVER make me go to that ridiculous place again. NEVER!
K sometimes suggests that I am the more sensible of the two of us. I think she may mean I'm more pragmatic. Or something. It's hard to put a finger on. It's like how I would never go see a film like Eat, Pray, Love because I can't stand Julia Roberts and the thought of her playing a woman on a journey of self discovery makes me want to vomit. Eating and getting spiritual and finding love, gross me the fuck out. I'm just assuming those things happen in that movie. Of course I've never seen it. Ask K though, she's seen it. Even though she also can't stand Julia Roberts and would claim that a Hollywood film about woman on a journey of self discovery is enough to make her want to puke too. Because K is more into that full emotional journey I think. Or something. Like I said, it's hard to put a finger on.
For similar reasons, K is a frequent visitor to the GOOP and I am not. You may think I am, given it was only 3 months ago I was complaining about Gwynny's douching regimen. But that was the last time I visited GOOP. Until this weekend. Do you people know what is happening on that website?!?!? Things like this: "Mother Daughter itineraries in Paris & New York" And I'm not even talking about the grammar and punctuation issues. "A mother/daughter weekend in one of the greatest cities on earth is one of those once-in-a-lifetime pleasures that should be both commemorated and maximized by the best of each spot." Seriously, who the fuck is this article for?! Just the concept is enough to make me think watching Eat, Pray, Love would be a great alternative to looking at my computer.
But what, you don't have a daughter you can take to Paris or New York? Don't worry, the Goopsters have something for everyone. Like "13 interior design tips from Kara Mann that make a big impact." Everyone needs home decorating tips, right? There are some great ones here, like "stray from the standard bathroom mirror and sconce combination." God, she is so right, the old bathroom sconce and mirror combo is killing bathrooms. Also, "double up on function, a dining room does double duty as a library by stacking books on the table when not in use." Well that's a swell suggestion Kara, I'd fucking love to put those stacks of books on the floor every night, spill a bowl of pasta as I'm trying to set the goddamn table. Sounds great. But if you listen to tip number 5 you won't have that problem. "Edit. Simple stacks of books mixed in with a carefully curated collection add interest without adding clutter." This under a photo of a huge bookshelf without about 10 books and 7 ceramic pieces. Because who needs to read anyway.
Don't think you can apply these styling tips to your home? Maybe you are more of a "design-minded person with a dog". Great! Why don't you buy the $100 dog collar they recommend. Oh, I guess because that would be fucking idiotic and maybe if you have that kind of cash to spend on dog collars you could just donate it to UNHCR instead. Or one of the organisations GOOP supports because "GOOP has a big heart" and if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of a page on GOOP and read the site map right down the very bottom, well just above UNSUBSCRIBE, you will see a button to take you to a page to tell you that maybe donating money is ok too. GOOP supports four charities and if you would like to be more GOOPY than ever you could donate to those charities. If you bother to think about it and look for that page which is weirdly not very prominent unlike the "SHOP" link which is the first link on the GOOP homepage and also PINK as opposed to the black of all the others, just to help you find it.
Wow. I'm sorry. I did not expect this to go so far. I have no idea what just happened. What is wrong with me? Why am I hating on GOOP so hard? Well, I guess it's pretty self explanatory. Let's hope that I have finally learnt my lesson and I do not head back there so soon. But if this means one less of you have to suffer as I suffered reading GOOP, this has not been in vain.
I didn't make it past that first 30 seconds, because like J, that's how long it took to hate it.
It was the lighting that did it. So bright. Like the TV equivalent of 7eleven at one in the morning. If I wanted to see that kind of lighting I would go to 7eleven at one in the morning, or watch an old episode of E Street on YouTube.
I liked how during the day yesterday, fellow INXS lovers were expressing their excitement about the show on social media. Someone posted a picture of their vinyl copy of The Swing, complete with original price sticker from Billy Guyatts.
I saw a lot of ads for the INXS mini series that started last night and I felt pretty torn. I loved INXS when I was little. They were the band that made me realise how awesome and hot rock music could be. I loved them. I LOVED THEM! And when I hear them these days all those feelings come rushing back. INXS are really special to me. And that is why I felt both supremely drawn to and repelled by the mini series.
Also because I found the guy playing Michael Hutchence pretty repulsive. Of course Michael Hutchence himself had a slightly repulsive quality. But in that good way. He kind of had a creepy sexy thing going on. As a long-time fan of the pretty face even as a 10-year-old I was more drawn to Jon Farriss, but the draw of the Hutchence was strong. Creepy sexy, the force was strong with that one.
Anyway, for the sake of curiosity, and to report back to you guys, I watched INXS: Never Tear Us Apart. Needless to say within 30 seconds I hated it and my feelings didn't soften. Is it because INXS were probably a bunch of douches? Is it because this show was just shit and the acting pretty awful? Who can say. My understanding is that some of the Farriss brothers were involved with this program.You know, just like how they were involved with RockStar: INXS. I guess that INXS had planned to have a Rolling Stones kind of career, I think Michael's death really fucked them. And fucked it for all of us too. I mean, why can't we just remember how good they were, why do we have to be subjected to the likes of JD Fortune or that tripe on TV last night. I watched a bunch of INXS videos on YouTube last night and you know what was about 75,000,000 times better than that stupid effing TV show? Everything INXS did in real life.
I do wonder how much say Andrew Farriss had in the making of the show. He was the most miserable bastard! "Let's not get a manager." "Let's not go on tour in America." "Let's not make the awesome album Listen Like Thieves." Shit, Andrew Farriss, I hope you are not really as miserable as you were in the mini series.
I guess part of the problem is that faking creepy sexy just means you are creepy. Faking musical genius just means you look pretentious. You have to be pretty special to fake that stuff and not surprisingly some shit made for Channel 7 was not special. Not at all.
The only good thing about that stupid show last night was the music. That was really good.
I got an email from Kit cosmetics the other day telling me I could look like a Kardashian. In only 15 minutes no less! Ha! No thanks!
This was the image at the top of the email:
Basically, this is what happened in my brain:
Eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Gee, you'd hate to be Khloe. And not just because she's the fat one. Also she has the worst nose job. Plus that stupid name. But maybe that other one that's not Kim is miserable. I don't even know her name. But maybe she likes it like that. Being a Kardashian would have to suck. Eww they're so gross.
I don't understand this whole nude lip phenomenon. An understated lip, sure, but that look where you look literally lipless because your lipstick is the same colour as your foundation, WTF?!
And then my train of thought changed when I saw this:
I want to rub that gold on my face. I love gooooold. Oh, sure, I don't know that the Kardashians
really glow. If they did I doubt you could tell with all that other
shit they wear on their face. Plus can a mask really give you a glow?
Probably not but reality never stopped me buying beauty products before.
But I could never bring myself to buy a product with the word Kardashian in it, could I? Could I.
Luckily all I had to do was look at there stupid faces to know the answer. Still I can't help wonder about that gold goo.
From what I can tell hippopotamuses are pretty cool. Yesterday I went to Werribee Zoo. It is a pretty cool zoo. You walk in and there, right in front of you, is an expanse of green and some gorillas just chilling. They are in an enclosure but it is designed in this great way so they feel right there. We saw lions ripping cow ribs from a cardboard box, giraffes frolicking in the faux savanna, an ostrich stuck his head in the bus and we saw some hippopotamuses. Eventually.
When we went to the hippo enclosure you couldn't really see anything. And then these eyes bobbed above the water. Later a whole head.
Hippos are semi-aquatic, they can hold their breath under water for 6 minutes.They spend all day in the water to keep cool then get out when it cooled down to eat. While we were watching the water to see these awesome dudes pop their heads up the woman next me said to her companion, "It's a pretty stupid way to live, really." Um, what?! Oh lordy! It is this kind of statement that makes me hate strangers. And I don't want to hate anyone, strangers or acquaintances, and yet sometimes I have no choice. Thanks a lot lady. Way to ruin my day.
So being able to live on land, but also essentially live in water is stupid? If you ask me it would be the motherflipping best way to live. The only way you could improve on that is to add wings, but there ain't no way a hippo gonna fly. Have you seen the size of those things?! Imagine living like a hippo. Sure, they may not have all the mod cons
that we enjoy but they have it pretty sweet. Enjoy a refreshing dip all
day long. Plus they are huge and super territorial so they are tough. And they can run fast, up to 30 miles an hour.
Did I mention that the hippos we saw were completely submerged. Completely! It was awesome, these huge animals hiding underwater! Just chilling. Literally. (HA!) That stupid lady next to me is the one living the stupid way, what with all her stupidity.
It’s something that has been baffling me for months but was really shoved in my face this morning as I walked up the escalators at Parliament station past walls plastered with Tag Heuer ads.Why did Tag Heuer blow all their advertising budget on Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz without saving any for the or advertising guys?
If they had budgeted better perhaps they would have had someone to tell them that this picture of Leonardo staring angrily into space while holding a watch in his hand is ugly and stupid. Who holds a watch like that? Shouldn’t he be happily wearing that watch on his wrist? I guess I am not a man, so maybe as a person outside their target market I’m missing something but this ad just has me asking questions, not coveting watches. People of advertising, you’ve effed it again.
