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January 31 Aisles and tribulations.The oh-so-hypothetical dude or dudette upstairs is testing me. My honesty as it were. Twice in a fortnight, I have been challenged, I have had my substance tested (that sounds like what they do at the olympics) and the light hath prevailed! In the first instance, I bought some towels- it's been getting on my nerves taking these giant freakin' towels to the gym. Eenormous. So I went and bought some smaller ones (2 for $4, get 'em while they're hot!), cushy, bright colours, all you could ever want and more from your gymnasium accessory. I get them home and discover to my shock an unwelcome stowaway. Right there, nestled in my gorgeous fuschia plush towel is *gasp* a facewasher that I haven't paid for! What would you do? Would you hide it away in your bathroom, enjoying the illicit pleasures of ill-gotten gains? Or would you trot straight back from whence you had come and hand it back to its rightful owners? I took it back.
Then this afternoon I be down at everybody's favourite Coles, I'm doing the requisite grocery shopping. You know, the essentials; cream, mushrooms and jersey caramels. The checkout spunk/guy/dude- male equivalent of a checkout chick was busy, stressed, flatout. He was in that aisle right next to the cigareet counter so it was also on him to serve the dolts who queue up there for their nicotine hits. He'd quickly whizzed through my selections, grabbed my money in one swift movement (while I'm thinking "hold on, too cheap, too cheap, did I only see two items on the screen?" ) and with that had evaporated off to go serve said nicotine addled bozo at the counter. I meanwhile scanned the reciept and realised that the caramels had been omitted from the payment total! Free caramels?! Score! Nope, only if you're dishonest. I waited and told him, being thanked for my honesty. Go me, I am just too angelic.
Though the world of checkouts does owe me- the other day the spunk on one express lane dudded me out of ten bucks a few weeks ago, with me getting confused as to what I'd originally handed him in the first place.
It serves me right for choosing lanes based on the attractiveness of the operator... January 20 So it's tennis season.Careful, this may surprise some people. Despite being the (mostly) intelligent, (almost) educated person that I am, I will own to still having a penchant for the chick flick; romance/ drama, romance/comedy, whatever. Just like airpport novels, chick flicks are a genre of their own. They're the bubblegum, pop productions of the cinematic industry. They are not meant to be feasible, or realistic, they're meant to be warm and leave you with a cheesy smile on your face. So I just watched the worst chick flick ever.
In 'How to Lose a Guy In Ten Days' Matt McConaughey wooed Kate Hudson after being found out to have been a jerk (well they both were) and it was cute and kooky. In 'Two Weeks Notice' Hugh Grant romanced Sandra Bullock after having a moral crisis and it was charming and sweet. In 'Maid in Manhattan' Ralph Fiennes waltzed back to Jennifer Lopez after kicking her to the curb when he found out she was a maid, and it was gratifying and lovely. In 'Wimbledon' Paul Bettany loves Kirsten Dunst and it sucked. It was so one dimensional. He loves her (but encounters aome half hearted opposition to their affection in an abysmally lacklustre performance by Sam Niell), she's temperamental, and a bit of a bitch, but comes round to loving him in about ten seconds, a bit of overly choregraphed tennis gets played, he wins tennis (oh the shock- the last match before he retires) , they live happily ever after. WHERE WAS THE COMPLICATION THAT SPLITS THEM APART? she throws a hissy fit and they don't talk for a bit. Wow, big deal. To be fair, I did miss ten minutes at the start, but somehow I don't think it would have mattered. Why would I watch a movie about this? There's Bec and Lleyton Hewitt, and they bore me to tears.
'Wimbledon' only fulfilled one of the two (possibly three) crucial criteria that all chick flicks must have. It had a swoonworthily hot guy in it, I'll give it that, but I would not have wanted to be the female lead role. But besides that, the plot was flat as a dead man's heart rate monitor. There were no romantic obstacles to overcome (apart from her being a sulky cow), there was no internal charisma to the movie. Had it been a Ralph Fiennes movie (well they would've been in a golf tournament for one- he does rich aristocrat too well, and perhaps in a slightly period setting), he would have bumbled around a bit, patted a dog, been nice to a child and come round to the right moral standpoint. Had it been an Hugh Grant movie he would've been hated by the crowd and lost the tennis but made a humble, self deprecating retirement speech with his slow smile and floppy hair, won over the crowd, and hey presto, melted the girls heart. Matt would've done similar but with the aid of the female leads best buds (who secretly want them together and provide the contrast, because even though they are all feasibly hot too, he still only has eyes for female lead), and would've stripped off his shirt to wipe his sweat soaked brow before the self deprecting retirement speech, instead of the fringe business.
What is expected about chick flicks is that they're somewhat formulaic. They always finish with a neat little ending where all the loose ends get tied up all glossily like curling ribbon on a proffesionally wrapped gift. There are only a handful of plot variations allowed (moral dilemma, opposition to romance etc) that can go wrong, and this movie made a mockery of the genre! They were pretty much 'in love' though even that wasn't believable, TOO EASILY. It comes down to the actors (it was an attrociously sucky plot, but exceptional acting can rescue the most dismal of plots) Dunst was flat, and not very enviable, despite being with Bettany, and Bettany was too soft. There was no substance.
Fiennes joined the mile high club in spectacular style with a flight attendant while Grant is known for his dalliances with those he 'employs', but you are still barracking for them, Matt gets by because he is a cut above in the looks department and has a bit of a kooky side in the naked bongo playing exploit department. Bettany is nothing. He is a nice, charming, adorable nobody, and he and Dunst, the spoilt princess (who you can't help feeling is probably quite similar in reality to the character she plays) should leave it to the experts. The ones that you probably wouldn't enter a long term relationship with in real life if it was a choice between them and a hermit crab.
January 18 Implementation phase of the SDLC.It's the new year, and I think I prefer to be kept busy. At the moment on holidays I am pretty much up to the tips of my cute little curvy ears in free time (no somebody didn't take a bite out of it- it's always been like that) and have realised, lo and behold, I actually like being run off my feet busy. Maybe it's the fact that while I am not busy, irritating things like possibly having to find a new job (don't ask) have arisen *grumble*, so I am spending (more) time (than usual) churning out screeds of information regarding how perfectly well suited I am to do anything and/or everything.
Lets turn this around and look at it another way, because although I have almost completely had enough, I do prefer to be optimistic. Tomorrow I'm meeting with my boss and will stick up for myself, which would go towards my new years resolution of being more loud (assertive counts as loud). I played pool with some of my friends recently (which counts as a semi new thing) and even though not being much good at it (though I did pot two in a row at one stage, as did the friend I was playing with) I bloody well had fun. I've reborrowed one of my favourite books from the library (it's still awesome), and had a lovely chat with (and finally learned the names of) the two lovely Vietnamese guys who I always buy noodles from for lunch. Hey, even though I may end up leaving this job; where I'm fond of customers and seeing familiar faces (the occasional celebrity, Wolfmother-hair guy who had an average Christmas, Bass clef guy, the half goth who's into Chinese remedies, and shy Mr. Kmart), I've been associated with the place in varying amounts since 2004, and maybe this is another one of those instances where I get to try something new. Move on. And isn't that what this year is all about? January 07 The returninator.So I haven't blogged much of late. This is probably because a) I'm a bit disinclined to keep posting melancholy, self absorbed bits of trash (if it's self absobed, lets try and keep it upbeat and/or interesting shall we?) and
b) because I've been talking more to the people that read this and so am a bit loathe to repeat my own current affairs in different media as it were. How about I just do the cliched thing and come up with a few...well not quite new years resolutions as such, but things I'd like to get done or do this year.
Almost all of the above can be encompassed in one motto for the year: Get out of my comfort zone a bit more- TRY NEW THINGS. I'd have that translated into Latin, but the friend who actually knows latin has not been on MSN for way too long. Your absence has been noted. Maybe I'll just embroider it on my jeans/ shoes/ forehead... |
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