social commentary: eavesdroppers and bookreaders

ok so, this morning on the train i had settled into a little 2 seater bench, and this rather large guy comes and sits beside me. That's OK with me cos it was a little cold this morning so the extra body heat was appreciated. What i didn't appreciate however, was the fact that he felt it was OK to read my book whilst i was. I mean, i was reading along, and because he was pressing into my left arm and was quite close I could see him actually looking down at my page! This totally threw me off - I couldn't concentrate and kept reading the same sentence over and over. He just kept on reading. I put my hand over one of the pages (i guess not so subtly) and he quickly looked away. The knowledge that I KNEW he was read-dropping my book didn't even deter him, he just kept reading!! I tried a few different positions with the book so he would get the hint, and eventually he lost interest. Thanks to him I can't remember what happened between pages 513 and 521 of the 5th Harry Potter book. LOLZIES AS.
But I have seen people do this to people playing games on their phones or DS's - just openly leaning over and watching. But some people playing their DS on the train don't think it's neccessary to wear headphones, so you can hear every slaughter, every objective and every grunt of frustration anyway. Maybe they are inviting a crowd..? Who knows. All I know is that people are stoopid

Raclette party tiiiime

A few nights ago I tested out my Raclette Grill... fiiiinally! Basically is is a tabletop cooking device where you can cook meat and prawns etc on the top hotplate, and also put your little individual frypans underneath the element to grill them. Very fun. So myself and my female colleagues got together and put 2 of our raclettes into the mix to make a great dinner party.



We had Chicken, prawns, sliced boiled potato, cheese, mushrooms, capsicum, tomato, olives, carrot, peas, pineapple, onion, zucchini, broccoli, salmon and tuna. I think that's all...? Anyway you just make tiny little concoctions in the fry pans and put a bit of cheese on top - YUM! Here's some of the bowls - they were in every available spot ont he table. Note to self: square bowls...





I am already planning my own Raclette party menu at my place, i learnt that you need lots of potato, cheese, and meat as they run out really fast! I was also thinking skewers could be good on the top too, like have some skewers there and people can make up their own from the chopped ingredients. So I will add this to my list of dinner party ideas that i never go through with haha. First is the Japanese one that 15 people want to attend and there is not one available night in the next millenium when they are all free on the same night. Not my fault. It's organised sports that are to blame for the worlds problems... remember it. When suburban sports teams of every kind go to actual war and start a world-wide slaughter fest, I will be safe in my home enjoying raclette or japanese teppanyaki dinner party unperturbed by the bloodshed on the streets. omg i live right near a baseball ground - i'm in the epicentre of danger. meh.

the scary door

This is the front door to my mum's house. No she is not a crazy squatting cat lady, living off beetles and mud pies - her house was burnt out a few months ago and it is still being repaired.


I went around there yesterday to check it out, as I haven't been there for a while to see the progress. Basically there were these crims renting it off an old lady, and she was sick of them not paying rent and put the house on the market. It turned out that they weren't paying rent because they were, in fact, in prison. Nice. So my mum bought it, aware of the trashed state of it, but she has a love of antiques and victorian era stuff. This house was built in the 1920's and she was in love. She looked past the needles strewn across the living room floor, past the hydroponics tubs in the backyard, past the creepy sheds in the backyard which had makeshift beds and were infact squats littered with pornography and needles. She even found it in her heart to look past the lovely outdoor living area on the front lawn. By this i mean the couches and gym equipment thrown out the front, accompanied by bags of garbage and torn up mattresses, for all the world to see. Needless to say she doesn't judge a book by it's cover.



So anyway the sale settled but the tenants ran away with the keys. So she was obviously upset that even though the house was hers she wasn't legally allowed there until she got keys. About 5 days after the settlement and before she got the keys, the house was set alight in the early hours of the morning. It was so bad. So anyway they are fixing up the damage but wont be able to live there for ages. Here are some more creepy photos..



This is the back corner where the fire started.




This is also the back corner, it's got the most damage. Even though it's devastating, the wood looks so amazing up close.


This is the creepy yet awesome old oven in what's left of the kitchen. Once they get walls and a floor it should be less creepy, and i won't feel like i am about to be jumped on by a boogie man and terribly scared.

drop it like it's hot

No thanks. I don't want to have sex with you. Well actually, I can't think of a time in my life when I would be in the presence of Snoop Dogg and he would be asking me to remove my clothes. Thank god because I would probably vomit on him before he had a chance to vomit on me.

Seriously, this guy has to be one of the ugliest "sex gods" i have ever seen. I recently sat through his music video of "Drop it like it's hot" and all i can say is... what the fuck. why?! how?! are you actually popular with the ladies? Is it because you have lots of drugs at your disposal? I don't know anyone that is high all day and has women lining up for a shag... sorry - shizzle. Oh, I know, it must be those masculine plaits in your hair, complete with pretty blue baubles. I used to sport that look in primary school and I didn't have anyone try to lez me up, so I guess it only becomes hot when you're so baked you don't even realise you've swallowed your tongue...?

I am not naiive, I realise that some women are aroused by money and power, so I am sure this is the only reason this emaciated sun dried corpse could land a fuck. I hear people make jokes about his lyrics, and always thought they were exaggerating about the "izzles" and the pointlessness of the content... oh no. not even. ahem:

"I got the rolly on my arm and I'm pouring Chandon. And I roll the best weed cause I got it going on.."

Good to know. I myself don't even wear a watch, and I drink $15 bottles of wine - but do you hear me flaunting this in song format?? no.

"So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo"

um, what? I only half know what he's talking about, so obviously that is a measure of where i stand in society. I am half way up the cool ladder. Cooler than old people, but less cool than teenagers and hip-hop society. awesome.

A friend of a friend worked at this club in Melbourne where Snoop Dogg had some after party when on tour. The manager was like "give him whatever he wants" so soon there were 5,000 buckets of fried chicken that everyone was eating, while they smoked fat blunts. oh to be famous hey? also, picturing snoop dogg blazed off his face covered in chicken grease while some girl makes out with him and takes the chicken that was half masticated in his mouth into her mouth and swallows it... makes me sick. blahhh snoop dogg yuck.

a friday perspective

Fridays are always so much more awesome than other weekdays, and i can tolerate all the shit that goes down in my work life much better. I feel as happy as larry - whoever that is...

I am suddenly reminded of yesterday morning when i saw a cambodian family at the train station wearing balaclavas. It was pretty scary. IMO the only people who can pull the balaclava look off are robbers and baddies - and i don't particularly want to meet them face to face in order to tell them how the black goes really well with their eyes, soul and heart. I think deep down they know.

okonomiyaki hunt hint

One of my friends who went to Japan with me recently has found another good looking place in Melbourne that does Okonomiyaki. Pretty exciting!! It's called "Maedaya" on Bridge Rd, Richmond! Woo mama! I think we are going to test it out soon. Here is a picture of their Okonomiyaki.. looks pretty damn good. I still think this Kansai style, but it looks a lot better than the last one! Can't wait to give my restaurant review :P

the one...the only...chester

My cat. My cat is a constant source of amusement and frustration to me. My friends and family seem to like him for their own various reasons, although his life was one with humble beginnings, riddled with neglect and malnutrition. Our story begins about 8-9 years ago. I received a call from a friend one day who was visiting another friend. She informed me that there was a stray kitten hanging around and asked if i wanted to come rescue it. Of course i said yes, and my family and I went down to pick it up. When we got there we saw the cutest little baby kitten ever, and it was so malnourished and had these massive goggle eyes. The girls were feeding it birthday cake and it was totally going to town on it. My mum expertly concluded that it was a boy cat, which was fine with me. We took him home and I named him Chester - i beleive it was a mixture of both a liking for linkin park lead singer and sean william scott's portrayal of chester in "Dude... Where's my car?". Hey i was like 13... like omg.

Anyway the vet assured us he was a boy, although as he was so young his testes hadn't dropped, and we waited for them to drop so we could get him desexed. We were further reassured of his male-ness when my younger bro was holding him like a baby stroking his soft white belly, and out came the lipstick! to this day i have never seen DK (bro) move so fast and look so disgusted... muahaha.

Anyway, over the years his cuteness seemed to shine less and less bright in our household. He didn't grow to full male ginger tom size, and his testes never dropped - but we had forgotten all about this somehow. Soon poor chester became the butt of jokes, most ran wittily along the "ranga, fanta pants, blood nut" vein. He was also never called Chester, he was called "whore" or "slut" or a variety of other awful names... Playfully of course. My older brother took great delight in thinking up more and more awful names for my poor little cat. Like a mother bird who senses her baby is weak and runty, i pushed him out of the nest of affection, and it seemed my mum was the only one who would care for him. He soon began to be an outdoor cat, and the foolish teenage me couldn't care less.

We found out after a few years that he was actually sleeping in our neighbours house, and eating their cat's food. He would casually go in through the cat door and make himself at home, they didn't mind. He also did this when living at my dad's house, and our neighbours started calling him "James". Shit cat name IMO. Anyway he is a vagrant.

One tragic afternoon we were driving home as a family, and pulling into the driveway, Chester ran forward to greet the car. Unfortunately this was the day he learnt his lesson not to tango with big cars. We all felt a definate "ba-boom" as my mum ran over him. We clamboured out of the car but he was nowhere to be seen. All that was left was some red fur stuck to the concrete and tyre. We found him later that night by shaking his box of cat food in the middle of the court, the sound echoing over the neighbourhood. He came back and was totally not happy. Over the next few days he developed a bulge in his stomach and leg where he had been run over. We thought there was internal damage and took him to the vet, where he told us that out little Chester would be fine. He also told us that Chester had what he likes to call "Inverted Testicals" and that if left alone could become cancerous. I was worried but didn't have the money for surgery, and my parents didn't seem to think it was a big deal.

Years later - in 2009, Chester came to live with me and my partner. It was his 5th house i calculated. The last house where he lived was with my dad and brothers (and me before i moved out). This was his rebel period, where he hated everyone and noone paid him attention, and he hated human contact, and he disliked being indoors.

However when he came to live with me, he seems happier than ever. We have a nice little relationship now, as i am the one who feeds him, you see. He goes by the name Chester at my house, also sometimes Tootsie, Toodie, Baby, or Little Boy. There is none of the name calling or insult slinging going on here. He is, according to one of my friends a "tripper", as he stares at the wall for hours on end purring. My dad was talking to a vet recently and he asked how much the surgery would cost, and she told him that cats never have inverted testicals and that it is common in dogs. She informed us that Chester is more than likely a hermaphrodite. Yes that is right. My cat is not quite a boy. He has a very strange personality. He dislikes toddlers (not mine - i dont have kids) pointing at him while he is licking his soft white belly... see below:


He also sleeps in weird places, like this footstool. Or on the book you are reading, or on your laptop keypad. He actually shit on the carpet TWICE in the same spot recently. I came home from work to find him inside and the smell was like a hot punch in the face. I was like "where is it...? WHERE DID YOU DO IT?!?!" to which he merely meowed and rubbed against my leg. I found it in the most hard to reach corner and it was the most disgusting thing i have ever cleaned off the carpet. yuckz. Then about a week later he did it again. So ashamed of him.


And he never drinks from his bowl. He refuses to drink unless it is from the fishbowl. He never tries to attack the fish, but just likes the water. It's so normal to me, but when we have people over they all lose their shit over it and grab him off the table. There was that one time when he stood on the kitchen bench next to a glass of water, and carefully dipped his foot into the water and licked his paw dry, and continued for a few minutes. It was weird. But he is weird so it's really not that weird.

So that is the tale of Chester and his weird habits. Yep.

dirty pillows!

I went to the local Salvo's a few weeks ago, and found these 2 matching vintage pillows. They took my breath away. I can't decide if they are garish or amazing. Well i bought them, so I suppose I do find them amazing, though I can see how they could be disliked. My boyfriend's mum said "they're very 'you'..."whatever that means...? Anyway I gave them a wash and they now sit proudly on the couch (C-O-R...are you going to the mall later?). Feast your eyes upon $2.99 worth of style...


Awww yeah!

korean bbq (take 2 - sort of)

So last night was the night i went to visit Hoon, or KG as they call him, for homecooked korean fare. Oh I found out what the KG is about. His family name is Kang (sp) and then Gang gets added at the end as a sort of nickname thing. Ok so backtracking to after work. I met blockhead (corey) at the State Library and we went to the Korean food store next to Hungry Jacks on La Trobe Street. He was having trouble trying to recall what we had to buy, and Hoon wasn't answering his calls. Eventually he got onto Hoon only to become more confused, so with Hoon's instruction he approached the Korean girl stacking the fridge, holding out the phone and said "my Korean friend...." and she was all casual and said "oh yeah, give it here" and started talking to Hoon. They say "Yoboseo" (sp) when they answer the phone like in Japan they say "moshi moshi" heehee anyway she got us a basket and was going trhough all the freezers and fridges pulling out things and then handed us our full shopping basket. Blockhead asked me if this was the most amazing moment of my life, standing in a Korean food store while the staff did our shopping. I decided probably not. But it was cool. It will almost be as cool as when i use the nose pore strip thing i bought from the counter. You know one of those blackhead pore strip things? I have never seen one IRL and i developed a sort of obsession with the idea of them. I am saving it for a day when i need to boost my self esteem and report on the anti-climax of using it haha.

So with all our goods in hand we went over to Melbourne Central station and got a train to Huntingdale which was so crammed. It's so weird riding the rails of a new line, I think it was Cranbourne Line..? Anyway as it is winter here i didn't appreciate the cold walk to Hoon's house but I knew that I'd soon be stuffing my gullet with lovely Korean food so it was kinda ok. When we got there i was totally shocked to see the collection of shoes in the entryway under the stairs. Normally you see like.... 4 pairs? Well they had about 40 pairs - not even joking. My camera was flat so I couldnt take pics (noooo) of the array of shoes all neatly lined up on racks. It was astounding, but I seemed to be the only one amazed. I bet in their wardrobes they also had more shoes. Jeez. Anyway Hoon wouldnt let me help with the cooking, but he made this dish called "TPK" or "DPK" as in Korean T and D are used interchangably. It is an abbreviation for Ta Poke or Da Poke (interchangeable) and they assured me that they are the only cool ones to abbreviate it. I bet them that I could google the initials and i could find the dish. I was wrong again. I cant even find the dish on google so i am prob spelling it wrong. *shrug*

So the dish was one of those dishes that when you look at it, you know its going to burn the fuck out of your tongue. It was a hotpot made of a red broth/sauce which had this chili paste in it, as well as onion, spring onion, whole hard boiled eggs, cubes of meat, rice cakes, and other stuff which i don't know about. It was maaaad. He also made a soup with fried fish cakes and onion and spring onion in a clear broth. Pretty amazing!

Possibly the funniest moment of the night was when we were all lazing around on couches afterwards and they told me that Hoon beleives himself to look like Johnny Depp, and everyone stared giggling like at a 16yr old girly sleepover. Then Hoon whipped out his phone and started showing me all the photos of himself with eye makeup and accesories to make himself look more Deppish. haha Hoon. Anyway he is now known as JD. go figure!

korean bbq (take 1)

Zee other week I went out to dinner with some friends to a Korean BBQ near the Queen Vic Market in Melbourne - cant remember the name quite so well hehe. It was my first time, but the other 2 were bbq veterans and even brought along their Korean friend Hoon (or KG as they call him) and he is pretty much the most awesome guy ever. We got a "combo" which included a hot plate charcoal grill thing with an assortment of meats, and condiments, and a hot pot. (We also ordered extra dishes such as a seafood pancake. Once again eyes bigger than belly... Here are a few photos of the feast...

This is my friend "corey" (fake name.... or is it?!?!?!?!!?!?) who doesnt like his face being shown. fair nuff...

It was so yummy, and tonight we are going to Hoon's house and he is cooking Korean FOR US! YEEEEEEEAHHH BOIII, cant wait!

rita hayworth glamourpuss

i like rita hayworth, and I really like this pic. I was looking for soome vintage art for the bathroom and i came across this. enjoy enJOY

re-living

yes, i am re-living. I lifted this term from the new "zombie" book called Handling the Undead, where all the corpses in Stockholm come back to life and go to their respective homes and scare everyone (worst summary ever). Anyway i'm not so much a walking talking exhumated corpse as I am living my life free of the oppressive shackles of the flu. My boyfriend had a chest infection AND the flu, and then of course living and breathing in his heady flu musk every day and night meant i too got the flu. It was... the most... miserable week of my life. Everyday we would wake up around 11 or 12 and slowly get up arguing over who needed a shower first. We spent much of the week bickering about who was more sick, who needed the better blanket on the couch, which movies to watch, and we conversed about many topics of interest such as "how can you be cold? i'm burning up!!" and "i know i need to drink the cough syrup but it makes me want to vom". ah, it was bliss. i also enjoyed being too drained of energy / feverish to attend my friend's birthday party. that was the best. actually the best part was, that when the flu passed i got a common cold and the mucus thing started happening and the itchy nose and watery eyes. this topped it off. god i hate being sick.

of course there was a point in all this when we both thought it might be the dreaded swine flu. the swiney swiney swine flu that is eating this fine country like a cancer. The doctor didn't even test us, so if his "professional" (haha i didn't even realise i had done that, what a bitch) opinion that the symptoms dont appear to be swine flu related was wrong.... everyone i know is doomed. to have swine flu. hahaha. not funny.

so now i'm back at work, looking at the 2 night-time cold/flu capsules i have left hoping that tomorrow i will feel amazing because one more lothargic day pretending to be well and happy is going to make me crack. the real happy jade within me is aching to come out and do something creative or even energetic, but the sick jade still wants to nap anywhere and everywhere. fingers crossed for a decent blog entry soon.