Bruce who?

Here's an interesting fact: when I started typing 'Bruce' into my phone internet browser it first offered up 'Bruce Springsteen' (fair enough) then 'Bruce (electorate of New Zealand' which surprised me because I was looking for Bruce Willis and the fact that Safari thought I was more interested in an electorate of NZ than Bruce Willis really made me feel my age. I guess people don't really care about Bruce Willis anymore. In fact I don't either and I was only googling him because Instagram suggested some woman called Emma Hemingway Willis who had all these photos of Bruce in her feed and I initially thought she must be some lesser known daughter from some unknown wife he had before Demi until I realised that she wasn't his daughter at all. She was his wife. His daughter aged wife. Then I decided to read Bruce's Wikipedia page until I realised I knew everything I needed to know about Bruce Willis, including how old I am for bothering. Ugh.

Lessons learned (AM)

Ugh. Yesterday I was jus feeling flat. You know those days. I have a bit of  a cold and I have all this annoying work to do, not just normal work but annoying. And all this stuff in my near future I need to sort out. And a dirty house. So I thought I'd ask the Internet how to make this day better. And do you know what it showed me? A bunch of stupid memes. It just made my day worse. There was a bunch of cute puppies and dumb jokes and although I love puppies the way they were memes just annoyed me. Them and all the stupid unfunny annoying stuff turned into just made my day feel worse. Except for this.

Which made me go "Ha," and then move on. It wasn't really that beneficial to my day. I guess I was hoping for some advice from the Internet not a bunch of memes. Fucking memes. It's like the Internet gave the go ahead for everyone to make their own "Just hang in there" posters.

But I guess if I want my day to get better IRL I need to do something about it IRL, not just look to the Internet to solve my problems.

And I have to say that the IRL solutions were much better than what the Internet had to offer. I got a bunch of work done and cleaned the house to a reasonable extent and Baby came home from a two-day sleepover at my Mum and Dad's house and by the end of the day I was feeling ok. And to top it off the Internet came good in the evening when I saw this on Instagram:

• "theroyalfamilyA flotilla of traditional Thames rowing skiffs, manned by Swan Uppers in scarlet rowing shirts and headed by The Queen’s Swan Marker, wearing a hat with a white swan’s feather, row their way steadily up the Thames. ‘All up!’ they cry as a family of swans and cygnets is spotted, and the Swan Uppers carefully position their boats around the swans, lift them from the water and check their health. The Queen's Swan Marker’s iconic five-day journey upriver has been an annual ceremony for hundreds of years, and today it has two clear goals: conservation and education."

  
  
  Isn't that adorable?! I know I'm meant to be down on the monarchy but there is a lot of charm there. I wonder how the Queen voted in the Brexit referendum...oh, I just read that she isn't even allowed to vote because she has to remain politically neutral. 
  
  
  So I guess I learned an important lesson today, cygnets are adorable! Just jokes, I learned that the Internet can't fix everything, which is important to remember. 
  
  

Evil internet (AM)

First, let me apologise for the lateness of this post. I posted this morning from my phone, my phone even showed me in safari that it had worked and then when I came back to see if K had posted I saw that this wasn't here. Just another example of some fucked up shit going on online. 

All the blogs, the instagram they've just taken coveting to a new level. Fuck 'em. 

As if advertising and marketing and magazines weren't doing enough of that already the Internet came along and just took that shit on some kind of exponential journey where I basically can not see anything on the Internet without feeling like its just there to incite envy and then, often shopping. And that's because it is. On Instagram I follow a bunch of businesses and of course all there posts are ads, they're whole purpose in life is to make you covet something. Fine. And I follow a bunch of bloggers. And of course all there posts are ads in a sense too. For them or for their blogs which in turn are ads for them so they can get lucrative contracts, better advertising on their blogs, sell their books. Or their blogs are about stuff. Stuff you should buy. It's all fucking handcrafted and great quality so you can feel great about yourself when you spend fifty bucks on one mug but the truth is you just want that mug so you can look like the people on the Internet with the beautiful lives and beautiful things. But their lives are just lives, you know with all the shit you put up with, they just have more beautiful things. Or not. Anyone can take a photo that looks like a beautiful Internet life. It looks like they're doing cooler shit too, hell maybe they are but we're alright. 

And yes of course I'm getting so het up about it cause I'm a victim of it and now not only do I have to deal with all the regular shit of life and a surplus of coveting, I also have to deal with this self loathing borne of hating consumption but loving beautiful things. 

Ugh, I'm moving to the country where the surroundings are beautiful and I won't need all the stuff. (Looks like a good idea on the Internet.)

Evil internet

All the blogs, the instagram they've just taken coveting to a new level. Fuck 'em. 

As if advertising and marketing and magazines weren't doing enough of that already the Internet came along and just took that shit on some kind of exponential journey where I basically can not see anything on the Internet without feeling like its just there to incite envy and then, often shopping. And that's because it is. On Instagram I follow a bunch of businesses and of course all there posts are ads, they're whole purpose in life is to make you covet something. Fine. And I follow a bunch of bloggers. And of course all there posts are ads in a sense too. For them or for their blogs which in turn are ads for them so they can get lucrative contracts, better advertising on their blogs, sell their books. Or their blogs are about stuff. Stuff you should buy. It's all fucking handcrafted and great quality so you can feel great about yourself when you spend fifty bucks on one mug but the truth is you just want that mug so you can look like the people on the Internet with the beautiful lives and beautiful things. But their lives are just lives, you know with all the shit you put up with, they just have more beautiful things. Or not. Anyone can take a photo that looks like a beautiful Internet life. It looks like they're doing cooler shit too, hell maybe they are but we're alright. 

And yes of course I'm getting so het up about it cause I'm a victim of it and now not only do I have to deal with all the regular shit of life and a surplus of coveting, I also have to deal with this self loathing borne of hating consumption but loving beautiful things. 

Ugh, I'm moving to the country where the surroundings are beautiful and I won't need all the stuff. (Looks like a good idea on the Internet.)

Bret Easton Ellis, I love you (AM)

I really was not made for these internet days. I remember in the early days of internet, living with Miguel and David, Miguel had internet in his room. I’d use it sometimes to write an email, maybe look up a thing or two, but I couldn’t spend long hours in front of the computers like my housemates. They are still much better than me at the internet. I know this because they send me links to things I would never have the patience to find. As in, I would never have the patience to roam the 'net for hours on end through one obscure site to the next just to find some hilarious or gross thing.

I have websites I look at regularly but I rarely add to these. I may wander around the 'net for a while if I have purpose but I just don’t have the time or patience to spend a long time looking for potential  best new things. So too with podcasts. I have a few in my rotation but I’m more likely to drop ones I tire of than pick up new ones. But lately my regulars haven’t been giving me what I want, what I need. What do I need? You know what I want right now from my podcast? I want to listen for a good length of time to something enjoyable and immersive, fairly lighthearted but intelligent. But also that won’t punish me if I drift away from it for a couple of minutes. You know what I mean. That! That is what I’ve been wanting. Sure I’ve tried other podcasts outside my regular roster but it’s hard to really connect with one.

When I learned Bret Easton Ellis did podcasts a year or two ago of course I jumped at the chance to listen to it. I love his writing. His earlier books especially are among my all-time favourites and I often lament the fact that I had to miss seeing him speak a few years ago because I was bed-bound with a cold, so his podcast seemed like really a new best thing.  Back then I listened to an episode in which he interviewed BJ Novak. And by "interviewed" I mean he talked for an hour during which BJ Novak was occasionally given the opportunity to interject, answering a question ostensibly directed at him, but evidently posed so that Ellis could offer up his own thoughts on the matter.

This did not make the podcast unenjoyable. To the contrary, the ridiculous self importance of BEE was highly entertaining but I felt at the time like it didn't fit in to my podcast regime. A regime which was largely dedicated to podcast hosts with a much more understated sense of self-importance. 

Yesterday, though, I just knew it was time to really shake things up and that I needed to listen to a totally different kind of thing. No Fresh Air. No This American Life. I remembered The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast and I decided to give it a go and within minute I knew I'd made the right choice. 

I chose to listen to an interview with Judd Nelson which opened with about a 20-minute monologue by BEE, waxing lyrical about what actors are like, about how they play a part all the time, about the difference between them and the other public performance professions. About how they always want to please, always hide something. Nothing he was saying was in the least revelatory, but the guy really has a way with words and although, or because, he really seems like a douche bag it was highly enjoyable listening. It really suited my mood perfectly. It made me remember what it was like to read some of his beautifully crafted sentences for the first time. It made me remember, Bret Easton Ellis, I love you. 

But words are not a man. Of course I don't love him. I hate him. I find him equal parts wonderful and repulsive. Which is of course a balance for the ages. But I certainly enjoyed him. And if you have a passion for the 80s and the movies of the time, listening to Bret Easton Ellis talk to Judd Nelson about The Breakfast Club and St Elmo's Fire was always going to be a joy. Listening to BEE recount the way Emilio Estevez and other hot young things were perceived and presented in the media of the time is a great insight into the pop culture of a time I was too young to be aware of. I really felt like I gained an insight into a time and place listening to that episode. And I love that. It is basically my main thrill in intellectual life. 

Guys, I think BEE has found his way onto my podcast roster.

Next blog 2015 (AM)

Remember next blog? Way back in the early days of Miss Soft Crab I was curious about where the Internet would take me if I hit that button on the top bar of MSC that says Next Blog. What I found was a bunch of boring people talking about their families and a bunch of other people talking about food.

I started thinking about it again during the week when someone said to me "You know how we talk about all this mundane stuff, do you know some people talk about it on the Internet?!" Oh the naïveté of a person new to Instagram and that does clearly not read blogs. Or write them. Ahem. "Do they?" I asked. And although I'd like to think I don't write about the same boring shit I talk to people about, like cleaning the house and putting children to bed and what I'm going to do with my life, I know that's not really true. Half the time I wish I wasn't even talking about that boring stuff.

So it got me wondering whether hitting Next Blog would bring me the same annoying content Instagram is always trying to shove in me face: uncluttered houses and mothers baking and drinking wine and struggling and loving it and  all that rubbish. That's basically what she was talking about. People complain-bragging about their life on the Internet. I wondered if blogs had followed Instagram so far that this lifestyle thing would be overwhelming in the same way food blogs were when I first went exploring in 2011. So it was that last night for the first time in a long time I hit Next Blog. 

Things seemed to have changed in blogs, but not as you'd expect. At first the blogs I came across seemed more interesting, weirder and funnier. The first one I came across was by a guy who draws little cartons and takes photos, including some darling ones of his snow covered backyard and a pig with a snowy chin. 

The second was by a guy who, among other things, recounted 8 hours he'd spent in a Florida airport over night because, as far as I could tell, he did not want to pay the exorbitant late night shuttle bus fees to get to town. Suck it up bro. Seriously. This guy was quite funny, but then you really have to wonder about his life choices. I mean he just walked around na airport for eight hours. Because he didn't want to pay for a shuttle.

Although that might sound boring it wasn't really and it kind of got my hopes up for what would come next. But sadly things became completely monotone after that. It was just beer blog after beer blog. Mainly by guys with beards I guess. So I guess blogs have followed Instagram fashions, but not quite how I'd expected. And the weird funny blogs are still few and far between. Lucky you guys have already found Miss Soft Crab. My verdict is, you may as well stay here, 'cause Next Blog got not much for ya.

Here it comes (PM)

The cold weather sure is here. Even though it's sunny and beautiful outside right now there's a chill in the air. It's truly autumn at its finest right now, but it's only gonna get colder. Well first it's gonna get hotter with the BOM forecasting 29 degrees for next Wednesday, but in the grand scheme of things it's only gonna get colder. Yesterday I changed from the summer doona on my bed to my winter doona. Fancy! I'm like a goddamn Kennedy with my seasonal doonas. Getting into bed last night was a real joy, especially after eating lasagna and red wine for dinner and watching Netflix on my TV using my new Google Chromecast. Hells yeah, I know how to do cold weather right!

I am missing out on that Accuweather app but I plan on downloading that ASAP. I check the BOM website about five times a day. I think I'm overly dependent on it and probably expect too much of it. If I have some things to do at non-specified time during the week I look at BOM to see what's coming weather-wise to plan my week out. If I have actual plans I check BOM so I can start thinking about what I might wear to said plans. All normal enough I guess but sometimes I think about checking BOM for plans way too far into the future, like weeks or months ahead though I know they can't forecast that far accurately. Sometimes I have a split second thought that BOM may be able to forecast other things too, like who is going to be somewhere or what someone may be thinking about doing for there birthday, as if BOM is not a bureau of meteorology but rather a bureau of fortune telling . I would probably become similarly dependent on Accuweather, probably more so given its time- and location-specific predictions but whatever the future is now so I better have all the apps possible to help negotiate it. 

Instagram and me (AM)

I'm always writing to K telling her to get on Instagram so she can see pictures like this:

This:

This: 

and this:

It's possible she's joined secretly but she's missing out by not following me because my account is pretty good. 

Ok, it seems better in Instagram. 

Of course the downside of Instagram for a modern girl like me is that I also follow a bunch of food-related IG accounts and while some are harmless enough, others are nothing but trouble. I'm looking at you dough-based businesses of Melbourne! 

Friday before last I tried All Day Donuts because their Instagram account promised delicious things. And  their Instagram account was right to make that promise. And then last Friday I saw this picture:

And I effing went back and tried them again. I don't know if you can read those signs but they include 'rose creme' and 'strawberry cheesecake'! Strawberry cheesecake! That is two of the world's best things together in a donut! Shiiiit!

And just when I was thinking about how Instagram was going to get me fat it told me about the Flour Market. A meeting of the great dough makers of Melbourne just blocks from my house. So what did I do on Sunday? Guess. 

Well you're only half right. Because me and every hipster dough-lover of Melbourne was lining up to get a piece of the dough. And  in fact as I'd been walking to the Flour Market I was already  questioning why I was out of the house before 10am on a Sunday just to buy doughs I could buy some other time not in a hall full of people, so you can bet when I saw the queue I just got the hell out of there. 

But it was great, up on a sunny blue-skied winter morning walking around, we caught the tram to the city and walked around there which is quite delightful on a Sunday morning. Went to the market where I bought apples in preparation for next week's chutney club and I was home by 1pm feeling super productive. I thought Instagram was making me fat but it's just making me awesome! Another win for me and Instagram! 

No thanks (AM)

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.

Stupid Kardashians.

Telecommuting (AM...but it's actually PM)

 

Hi Crab friends. Sorry for my tardy post.  I’m in Sydney and everyone knows that things move quite slowly up here.  Sydney is famous for its slow pace. You wanna find somewhere to just escape the rat race and relax? Go to Sydney. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you.

But seriously, I am in Sydney.  For pleasure.  Appleheart had a work do last night and because I love other people’s work functions, I concocted a plan to fly up yesterday after work, go to Appleheart’s thing, and then go to work as normal on Thursday and Friday, but from Sydney. It's called telecommuting!But there's really no commuting involved at all. It’s the best! But naturally I was beset by technical difficulties this morning, so I’m running a little bit behind schedule.

Working from Sydney is quite nice. Obviously there are differences to working from my office in Melbourne. In Melbourne, my office is an office,  not a Travelodge.

 

We have Nescafe Blend 43 and Arnott’s Assorted Creams at my office. Here we have something called Douwe Egberts.

 

On the back it says: "Empty contents in to cup, add boiling water".

The view from my office in Melbourne is quite lovely. It looks out over the Fitzroy Gardens.

The view from my Sydney office is a bunch of buildings.

But the most apparent difference relates more to Sydney itself rather than my Sydney office.  You guys, they don't seem to have winter up here. It's warm and sunny as hell. There is sun streaming in on me as I write this. It's messing with my usual feelings of gratitude for my job because it keeps me  warm and snug in my office all through winter. Right now I feel like the Travelodge office is getting in the way of me and some sunshine. Not cool, Sydney. How are people supposed to feel grateful for their jobs when you pour sun on them all the time.

I'm going to make myself a cup of Douwe Egberts and think about that.
 

What I almost learned this week (AM)

This week I decided I wanted the answers to questions I had often pondered. Like “Could this sore throat and snotty nose that totally seems related to my menstrual cycle really be PMS?” and “Is chilli addictive? 'Cause I gotsta get me some.”

According to some websites “Yes, peppers are addictive. Peppers contain capsaicin, a natural chemical that sends a burning sensation from the nerve endings in the mouth to the brain. The body defends itself against this pain sensation by secreting endorphins, natural painkillers that cause a physical "rush" - a high that keeps us coming back for more.” (Statement 1). But according to the Guardian, “Capsaicin, the compound that provides the mouth-watering punch of chillies, does not seem to have any addictive qualities whatsoever.” (Statement 2). I guess Statement 2 does not actually contradict Statement 1. It’s just that the idiot that wrote Statement 1 was an idiot. Chillies probably aren’t addictive but maybe the body’s response is?

On a side note I actually saw Statement 1 repeated almost word for word on more than one website. usually with many typos and bad punctuations. So let me make it unmistakably clear that Statement 1 is the viewpoint of a bunch of other people that I do not necessarily hold to be true. Or not true. Also, the Wikipedia page for ‘chili pepper’ says nothing about addiction. And  you know my position, if it’s not on Wikipedia it doesn’t exist. Ipso facto, I just really like chilli. Wikipedia, does however say that “Psychologist Paul Rozin suggests that eating chillis is an example of a "constrained risk" like riding a roller coaster, in which extreme sensations like pain and fear can be enjoyed because individuals know that these sensations are not actually harmful. This method lets people experience extreme feelings without any risk of bodily harm.” The thrill! The addiction of the thrill!!!

As for PMS, the internet was similarly useless on this point! Although when I typed in the search for "PMS flu-like symptoms", there were a ton of results, they were all useless. At first, I was delighted that there were so many results, but nothing really gave me solid answers. Though thanks to things like the Kotex period forum page I know I’m not alone. Or it is suggested that I am not alone, because I can’t imagine that anyone but the Kotex marketing team is writing on that message board. So, I went over to Wikipedia, natch. And I learned that: a) if you don’t have actual emotional symptoms you don’t have PMS!; and b) there is an increase in probability of attempting suicide during the menses of  1.68! WHOA! Sucks to be a chick! As usual!