'Tea Party' used to be a phrase with such positive connotations...

Recently, I've been drinking more tea than I used to. At least, I'm fairly sure there was a time when I drank less than a million billion cups of tea a day. I only really started drinking the hot stuff while working in a tea shop with Meattrain and Vegatrain. You might be thinking that the three of us living together while also working in a tea shop together would make us the quaintest share house in the world, but you're probably only thinking that if you've stumbled across this page by accident and have never actually met any of us. Most people, when asked to recall the first time they visited our old house (which I believe has now been demolished?), will tell you a story that will almost definitely involve one of the boys throwing kitchen knives at a target. Just the other day I found myself asking Vegatrain why exactly it was that he set Meattrain's bookcase on fire that one time (it was because Meattrain had been using a deoderant can and lighter to throw him some flames). I have done my best to train them out of it, but pyromaniacs will be pyromaniacs. The best I can do is encourage them to throw wine around instead.

But back to tea.

I've been drinking a lot of tea lately. I have both a wonderful selection of teas and a wonderful selection of tea pots available to me. I've been drinking it for the taste, for warmth, for relaxation and even as an attempt to prevent myself from flying into a fit of murderous rage. Although my choice of crockery for that last one may have been a tad counter-productive:

Exhibit A

I've also learned a lot about the various types of tea. One thing in particular I have learned is that man, oh man, do I want a slice of the chamomile teabag industry. What a sweet, sweet pot that must be. You see, what a lot of people who buy chamomile in teabags don't realise is that for the price they would gladly pay for a cup of the stuff in a cafe, or for a small box of pre-packaged chamomile teabags, you could buy a whole pillow-case full of loose chamomile. All you need to do is whack a bit of string on that bitch and you can sell it for an utterly insane profit. Genius.

I've had a think about this and I'm pretty sure there are two reasons why you can get away with this type of nonsense. First, because most people don't know about it. The second reason is because amongst the people who drink a lot of herbal teas and chamomile and the like, you find quite a lot of a certain type of person. For argument's sake, let's just call them 'hippies'. You see, hippies are used to paying exorbitant prices for organic produce. And often, there are good reasons for those prices. But sometimes, I think it's just because the sellers of those products have realised what they can get away with. There is no easier way to sell someone anything than by agreeing with their politics. 

Customer: Bit pricey for a bag of leaves, innit?

Me: That's just because of the new tax you have to pay for not killing puppies. This flippin' government, I tells ya.

Customer: Damn straight! Here, have all my money. Keep up the good work!

There you go, you've just completed Marketing 101. And don't go thinking I'm having a crack at hippies because I'm anti-environment or some rubbish. As you probably know, I'm a vegetarian. In fact, I'm so dedicated to recycling that when I make a typing error, I'll only delete the letters I can't reuse for the phrase I was trying to write. It just feels so wasteful to delete perfectly good letters like that.

-Smackie Onassis


P.S. I hope you've been enjoying the updates from this blog's newly appointed 'Future Reporter', your friendly neighbourhood Vegatrain.

Traditional Gender Roles Are For Quitters

thisI've always been something of a tomboy. When I was a kid my favourite hobby was bush-bashing, in its most non-innuendo sense. I learned how to abseil in the bush behind my grandparents' house before I was old enough to watch M-rated movies at the cinema.

As for other hobbies, I was originally enrolled in the local ballet school but after a few years of utterly and vocally hating it, I was switched to the local swim team. Eventually, I ended up in water polo, a sport I enjoyed a whole lot more. Our team was even sponsored by the local steel works, it was that macho. My personal motto was 'It's not whether you win or lose, it's how badly you injure the opposition'. Words I still live by to this day.

I remember in primary school when I tried to follow social convention and be friends with girls. I remember trying to pretend that I would rather watch some bullshit about Disney princesses than the latest episode of Pokemon. The most valuable social tool I figured out for myself was when I realised that if I accidentally caught myself singing the Pokemon theme, I could switch to 'Part of Your World' from the Little Mermaid halfway through and no-one would notice. Seriously, sing the first line from each, they're exactly the same.

Needless to say, in my teen years I became friends with a lot more boys than girls. I had a big group of friends and for conversational purposes we would often split off into sub-groups. Around year 10 I noticed that these sub-groups usually consisted of girls on one side, and then boys + me on the other side. Every now and then I would feel a bit disloyal to my gender and try to join in their conversation, but after about three minutes of talking about tv shows that I found about as entertaining as watching a turd dry in the sun (see my current poll for more details) and gossiping about who was asking who to the formal, I found myself smiling, nodding and wandering back to the boys so I could outline why I thought Steven Bradbury should be our national sporting mascot. For the record, it's because nothing embodies the Australian spirit more than cruising casually into the gold medal position after everybody else stacks it at the last minute.

Don't get me wrong, some of the best friends I've ever had have been girls. But in general, I just plain old get along better with boys. Spitting, swearing and belching are three of my favourite activities. I remember being out in the courtyard when Vegatrain pointed out that a certain tree needed watering. My sole response was to spit on said tree, which he followed by filling a glass of water and then throwing the glass itself at the tree's trunk (for the record, the tree is doing just fine now). I also quite enjoy being able to drunkenly make out with my mates, then never mention it again apart from to say 'Hey, remember that time we totally macked?' and then high five.

I know I'm not a proper girl. When girls are upset, they are supposed to watch romantic comedies with a box of tissues and probably some ice-cream on hand. I know this from the films. Personally, if I'm upset, there's only one movie I will watch and that's Die Hard. What would cheer you up more? Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and a whole lot of explosives, or Hugh Grant weeping for two hours? I know which direction the scales are tipping for me.

Needless to say, a lot of people have thought that I was a lesbian over the years. I remember conversations with my mother where she appeared to be encouraging me to 'come out'. I think it may have been wishful thinking on her part, due to her complete and total paranoia that I would one day come home knocked up.

These days I get mistaken for a lesbian a lot, although it's mostly due to the fact that I have a boyfriend who is mistaken for a girl so often he doesn't even react to it anymore. When I first moved into the sharehouse known to all as the 'Dude Ranch' there was some discussion of whether it could keep that name with a vagina under the roof. In response, all I needed to do was point at Vegatrain, who was probably talking about how much he loves Charmed (but only the parts with Julian McMahon, on account of dreaminess).

I am well aware that my boyfriend is a total and utter girl. If there is so much as evidence that a spider has been near his desk, I am called in for the kill. Or if it has since disappeared, it is my job to find and destroy it on the chance that it might come back. I am sure that I'm one of the few heterosexual girlfriends in the world to utter the phrase 'Sweetie, do you want to keep these ticket stubs for your memories folder?'.* When we go out, he's always the one who takes ages to fix his hair and decide which pair of bright pink fisherman's pants he's going to wear that day. I have often said that dating him is the closest thing you can get to lesbianism while still having regular access to a cock. The reverse is probably true about me.

And, realistically, what more could you want in a relationship?

-Smackie Onassis

*On a related note, I feel that I might be in the minority of girls to have said to their boyfriends: 'Clearly, you have not seen Star Wars enough times.'

EDIT: On reading this entry, Vegatrain turned to me and pouted, saying '...but I only have ONE pair of bright pink fisherman's pants.' I think that in itself says enough.

Important News Bulletin: Insect Overlords

Have you ever worried that some kind of oversized insect race is going to take over the planet?

I'm going to go out on a limb, dear reader, and assume that you have. Because of course you have.

If you do happen to be one of the few people who have never had this concern, you're probably sitting at your computer, smirking. Oversized insects, you might be chuckling to yourself, what kind of stupid moron would believe that?

Well skeptics, I sure hope your microwave has a 'words' setting because you are about to be eating a certain few choice utterances.

Look at that beast. That's a moth. That thing that's covering it? A CD stacker dealie thing. I don't know what those things are supposed to be called, but the point is: that is a moth with a wingspan the size of a CD.

Let me tell you what happened here.

Vegatrain and I were sitting in the courtyard, minding our own business. Suddenly, we heard a frenzied flapping sound coming from the branches of the tree above us. At first, we ignored it. We're pretty used to the wildlife that frequents our courtyard, from the infamous Senator Mousington to the dreaded Drill Sergeant Jack Hornet.

But the flapping continued, getting more and more rabid and distracting.

"There's a bird caught in that branch," I said, squinting to see as far as I could into the tree.

It was dark and I had lost my glasses yet again, but I could just make out the movement of a pair of wings, fluttering around in clear distress. Worried that an innocent bird might be hurt, Vegatrain got up to see if he could find an appropriate tool for trying to free it.

It's a good thing he got up when he did.

Mere moments after he moved away from his seat, the creature in the tree suddenly plummeted to the table, inches from where Vegatrain had been sitting. It landed with a thud and lay motionsless, assumed by both of us to be dead.

Cautiously, we went to examine the body.

To our surprise (and horror), it wasn't a bird. It was a moth. A moth the size of a bird. And not a small bird either.

We put the first thing we could find that would fit on top of it, as caution generally seems like the best option when dealing with creatures that are clearly not of this world. But at least it was motionless. Dead. We were looking forward to palming it off to Meattrain for some hardcore dissection action.

But then, in a twist straight out of the opening scene of a B-grade monster movie, it came back to life.

It started flapping its wings. Just a bit at first, enough to let us know that it had woken up. But soon it came to realise that it had been trapped. Captured. Like a wild pokemon. It was not cool with that. It had forcefully freed itself from the tree, only to be captured by man. It flapped harder, becoming more and more agitated. At one point, I was sure it was going to blow the case right away. I kept my distance, watching it.

"Do we... do we kill it?" I asked.

And yes, maybe we should have killed it. Unfortunately for the world at large, we are both vegetarians and as such, are pussies when it comes to killing things. Especially when those things look like they could fight back.

So we let it go. Took it out the front of the house and released it back into the wild. Maybe we'll never know why it was so big, or how many of these creatures there are. Maybe it will breed with another insect, a spider for example, to create a race of creatures even more horrifying. Maybe those creatures will take over our government. Let's hope they at least have a decent tertiary education policy.

Maybe it's a coincidence that it turned up in the courtyard of our house, which also happens to be the residence of a certain (mad?) scientist, who just so happens to have a radiation licence and access to substances that most people will likely never even see.

Maybe we'll never know.

-Smackie Onassis

Wine Fight

We had a wine fight once.

When I say 'wine fight' you might be thinking that I'm putting a spin on something, that it's goint to be a more boring event that I'm slyly twisting so I can call it a wine fight. Let's be clear: when I say 'we had a wine fight', I mean that Vegatrain, Meattrain and myself once found ourselves in the kitchen at our old house, covered in white wine and flinging more of the stuff around everywhere.

I've thought before that the house the three of us share (with Richard Melons, who keeps himself separate from such shenanigans) isn't really a grown-up's house. The central room is an entertainment centre that consists of three TVs, multiple gaming consoles, a few couches and a big ol' stack of beanbags*. As I have mentioned, the centrepiece is often a top hat that we keep filled with chupa-chups.

But then I realised, this is a grown-up's house. It's just for the type of grown-up every kid wants to be when they're older, rather than the type they actually turn into when they cave to pressure and start being sensible. And that's kind of a good analogy for the way we act most of the time.

Let me explain the wine fight.

To understand how it started, you have to have a basic grip on how much I love bargains. For those of you who don't know, I really like bargains. I like them more than a friend. If I see a really good bargain, I have to cash in on it. If it's something I can't possibly use, I will try and think of someone I can tell about it. I once called Vegatrain's sister-in-law from the shops because there was an amazing special on tuna and she was the only person I knew who eats it. When a bargain is that good, I must at the very least witness someone taking advantage of it. I call it 'Vicarious Bargain Joy'.

I was out searching for some specials when I found a really, really cheap cask of white wine. It even looked like reasonably decent wine, I guess, all things considered. I bought it, thinking I would drink it for sure. Naturally I had one glass and put it away when I realised just how awful it was. It sat on our kitchen table for some time.

Until one fateful day. Meattrain, bored and restless, sat down at the table and poured himself a full stein of the stuff. He proceeded to look at it like a drunk cowboy looks at a racial stereotype and skulled the whole thing in one move. It was pretty impressive.

I'm not sure who made the next move. It was either me or Vegatrain, but it was a long time ago and I don't quite remember. Whoever it was poured a proper glass of wine, looked at it nervously (neither of us can best our housemate in the being-a-man stakes) and promptly threw it all over Meattrain, who was still sitting at the kitchen table. From there, all bets were off. Several litres of wine were thrown, ending up all over the three of us and any surfaces or inanimate kitchen equipment that happened to be in the crossfire.

And no, it didn't feel that great to be covered head to toe in goon. But I have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as the time the boys stuck a 1.25L Pepsi bottle upside-down in the back of my pants and then unscrewed the lid. Rotten boys.

-Smackie Onassis

*For awhile the beanbags were working as my chair in the study. When we set up the study, we had four desks but only three appropriate chairs so my section of the study became a pile of beanbags in the corner with my lapdesk/laptop combination. However, after a month or so I found a chair under a pile of laundry in my room (seriously) and now I can sit at a desk like a proper person.

P.S. I haven't updated in ages because I've been heaps sick and stuff. But I am feeling better now so it's all good :)

The Neglected Sister Blog of Thinly Veiled Threats

On my walk today, I listened to one of my favourite Canadian indie-rock outfits, Mother Mother. I really like this band, you guys. They only have two albums out at the moment, but I have listened to both of them way too much. I came home with the need to tell the world about how seriously great they are. I was going to do a post in here, but then I remembered the much neglected music blog that Vegatrain and I started together a while back. There is not much on it as yet, but it does now contain my lengthy rant about how much I love Mother Mother.

Hopefully I will be adding to it a bit more often. I have been feeling a bit useless recently and writing helps. Especially when I get to rant on about music, which I do most of the time anyway.

A New Cult

Check it. Also: yes, the name of the blog is a Belle and Sebastian reference.

-Smackie Onassis

"This aint no play on words, my love for him's absurd"

I was out in the courtyard with Vegatrain the other night and I must have said something wacky. I don't remember which particular thing it was that I said, but it made him laugh and shake his head.

"You know," he said, "This is the first relationship I've ever been in where I've been the comparatively normal one."

I conceded that he was probably right, considering the two of us. I admitted that I didn't think I'd ever get to experience being the "comparatively normal" one. But Vegatrain is probably the closest I've ever come to it, although that's probably because we are ludicrously similar as people. His parents have stopped even trying to differentiate between us, insisting that we are actually just the same person.

I have said to him before that we could never break up, on the simple basis that we would never find another relationship where this level of absurdity is acceptable. I have mentioned before that we basically communicate in absurdist song parodies, but I don't think I've really driven the point home that we actually do that. Most of the time. The most common one would probably be me singing "Don't go doing a fart!" whenever Vegatrain passes gas, but it is one of many. Ask Meattrain if you don't believe me. He hates musicals more than anything so it's pretty traumatic for him. 

But Vegatrain does some pretty ridiculous things all of his own. I have told you about the wonderful procrastination incident. There are a few other quirks I would like to bring attention to.

Vegatrain, as you may have guessed from the name, is a vegetarian. He has read a lot of books on the subject and as a result he does not eat meat. Nor do I, for the record. I do want to be clear on one thing though - we are not, as I would refer to them, awful vegetarians. Not to mention any names, PETA. We both hate the fact that PETA are always asserting that they are the voice for every vegetarian in the world, because we do not want to be associated with them in any way. We don't want people to think that if we see them holding a steak, we will just flat out murder them. If you want to know exactly why they are so awful, watch the Penn and Teller episode because it sums it up much more succinctly than I ever could.

Anyway, my point was that Vegatrain has a social conscience. And maybe, sometimes, he might just use his ideology as something of an excuse. But don't think I'm criticising - I think it's fantastic. I noticed that he has a tendency to use paper towels to put food on instead of plates. I asked him if there were no clean plates and this is what he told me.

"Well, I've thought about this. And I figured that there is a bigger shortage of water than paper in this part of the world right now, and paper is a much more renewable resource. So it's much more environmentally sound to use paper towels."

Nothing to do with the fact that you don't want to do any dishes, then? Of course not. That's just a bonus, is it?

The other thing I would probably mention about Vegatrain is his 'Irrational fear of all living sea creatures', as he wrote on his centrelink forms. He actually has this. I once (meanly) made a photoshop swapping Vegatrain's face with that of a stingray just on the basis that he is terrified of the things. He has said to me before that he is happy to go the beach, just as long as I don't expect him to go swimming. It was a bit hard for me to understand, coming from a town where I literally swam in the ocean every morning before school*. But these are Vegatrain's problems with the ocean: it's dirty, fish have sex in it, there's salt and seaweed everywhere, there are heaps of creatures that can hurt you that you can't even see. He has even go so far as to propose a fake ocean, for people like him. A simulated beach where the water is filtered and you can swim with the friendlier fish and actually see them properly because the water is clear and clean.

I don't know if that will ever happen, but a man can dream.

-Smackie Onassis

*My morning routine in high school: up at 5:45, jog to the beach, swim, jog back home, get ready for school. I know, what a jerk. I did it because I loved it though. It also meant that I could occasionally brag about being hit on before 7am on a school day, thanks to surfers.

Smackie Onassis: Friendship Origin Stories

Sometimes I become friends with people in pretty amazing ways. You have already heard my origin story for my friend Bones, which is one of my favourites. But I do have a lot of other pretty great ones.

I have mentioned my friend Binny a couple of times. He was one of my best friends back in Newcastle, and his was one of the most important friendships of my life. How did we meet though? I'm glad you ask. I'd be more than willing to discuss it at length. Seeing as you asked and all.

We met when we were both at the housewarming party of a mutual friend of ours. She was the trumpet player of the band I was in, I'm not sure how she knew Binny. I approached him and started talking to him solely on the basis that he was wearing a Decemberists t-shirt. Yeah, that's just what I'm like. We realised that we had a lot of common ground and exchanged phone numbers, promising to hang out sometime soon. We were both in relationships at the time, so it wasn't anything romantic. Unfortunately at the time I was always either at uni, or at work, or riding my bicycle from uni to work. I didn't have a lot of free time and as a result we kept missing each other. Our potential friendship seemed doomed.

Until one Monday morning. I hadn't seen him since the party, so I was a bit surprised to see his name come up on my phone. I answered and he explained that he was pretty cut up because his girlfriend had left him that weekend.

"It's funny you should say that," I replied, "My boyfriend left me on the weekend, and as a result my parents had me put in the psych ward at [name of hospital]"

"You know," he muttered, "That hospital is about 100 metres from my front door."

As a result, we spent a lot of time together over the ensuing weeks. Once I was allowed to go for walks I would head over to his house for beers and guitar hero on a nightly basis, despite the hospital's zero tolerance alcohol policy. I didn't really care, and neither did the nurses who apparently once saw me at the pub with him when I was supposed to be in my room*. They didn't dob on me and I respect that.

From there our friendship was well cemented, to the point that even when I was allowed back into society and started working again, I still spent the majority of my free afternoons at his house.

I think that's a pretty good friendship origin story, but don't think there's not more where that came from.

You may have noticed that the manboy referred to by the name Vegatrain (which is what he insisted on being called, by the way) is a fairly significant part of my life. But how did we actually meet? Well, my origin story for Vegatrain is tied into the origin story for some of the other totally excellent people in my life, namely Buglustre and Harrison.

Imagine this scenario: a lonely 21 year old is bored and on the internet. Her days of playing music to not-always-embarrassingly-small crowds are long over. While she is pretty lonesome, the last thing she is looking for is love. On a whim, she signs up to an internet forum. I'm not going to go into detail about how I announced my presence, but let's just say I entered with a bang. I wasn't taking the whole 'internet' thing at all seriously. But then, on an unimportant thread about Christmas presents, I mentioned that I had got my tiny hands on 'Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers' by the National and I was loving it sick. This got the attention of a young man on the other side of the country. He commented how much he liked the National and replied by quoting a Belle and Sebastian song with reference to my username. I responded by saying that my name had absolutely been inspired by the song in question and that I had actually seen Belle and Sebastian last time they were in Australia, even though it meant leaving a university exam early so I could get to the venue on time. He responded simply by saying 'Let's be friends.' At this point I feel like I should thank every band I listen to for forming so many of my most important relationships.

So, anyway, flash forward a few weeks and under strange circumstances I am spontaneously buying a plane ticket at 1.30am on a Wednesday to fly to the other side of the country solely to meet a guy I have been talking to on the internet for approximately 3 weeks. It sounds exactly like a summary of things you are not supposed to do if you want to be responsible, but it was amazing. We got drunk at midday and had our first kiss to Debaser by the Pixies, which we had put on the pub jukebox. A month later I moved here. I am always of the opinion that this isn't exactly how normal people go about things, but have you even read my blog? I am not normal people.

Buglustre and Harrison are both people I met through that same website, along with Sally-Tsar in Melbourne. I haven't been to the site itself in a long time, but that's probably because I actually see the best people I met there in my day to day existence. Buglustre enjoys telling the story of how she wore her 'killing boots' the night she met me 'just in case'**. Of course, she turned out to be about a foot taller than me so she probably could have crushed me between her thumb and forefinger if she had so desired. Luckily, that wasn't necessary. Harrison tells me that he didn't like me at all at first, but was pretty quickly won over by my breasts. This is despite the fact that the pillar of sexual attractiveness for Harrison is Josh Thomas.


-Smackie Onassis

*why is smackie not in her room she's supposed to be in her room why is she out of her room

**Every time I say these words, I can't help myself from wondering what would happen if Neko Case ever had a brother/son named Justin. I know it's stupid, but I honestly can't help it. Every time.

Music Thangs

I am awake early again, waiting for my ipod to charge so i can go for a walk. I ended up falling asleep at my laptop last night, only to be woken up by Vegatrain handing me a soy hot dog because he is concerned I am not eating enough and am turning into skin and bones. Like a vegetarian Jewish mother. The whole scene was pretty darn adorable.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you guys about the musics I have been doing lately. To get myself back into it, I have started with covers of songs I like. Among my favourites are Liz Phair's classic 'H.W.C.', the title track from God Help The Girl, my own acoustic Nina Gordon style cover of 'Straight Outta Compton', well, the list goes on. I even covered a Tom Waits song, which seems kinda bizarre if you know what my singing voice sounds like*. I guess I have been having a bit too much fun. Vegatrain suggested that if I ever record an album it will be called 'Smackie Onassis covers obscure songs and then does some stupid originals'**, which I think would probably be a fairly apt name. 

Yeah, I have written some originals. I am going to try and put them on here, but that involves recording them first and because I have no possessions (just about), I will have to wait until such a time as;

a) I will not be disturbing anyone with my nonsense

b) Vegatrain is not using his computer, which has recording capabilities

But hopefully, soon. If you are interested in the songs I have written here are some descriptions in, oh you guessed it! Bullet points. I hope the guy who invented bullet points is wearing his punctuation medal*** with pride because he totally deserves it.

• Ono! A song based on a drinking game that Vegatrain, Buglustre and I invented. The name came first (inspired by Uno) and we then decided that it would be a game where we write down one unfortunate occurrence on each card. Every round we all pick a card and the person with the worst thing (as agreed on by general consensus) has to drink. We have played it a few times and it is always just the funniest thing in the world, probably because we are so good at coming up with ridiculous scenarios. I have way too much fun singing this song.
• Psychology Cat the Song by Psychology Cat (the band) I had always planned to write the theme to my sitcom idea about a cat who teaches psychology in an underfunded public high school. Now I have. I am pretty proud of it because it is very Eleanor Friedberger, and she is a total idol of mine.
• Nigel My primary school geek ballad to the infamous Nigel No-Friends. There was one of these guys in every school I am pretty sure.

I have a couple of parodies too. I have found now that by some strange circumstance (I'm thinking I had a stroke and didn't realise it) I have found myself basically thinking in song parodies. For real, you guys. I was in the chocolate section of Big W the other day browsing my confectionary options and found myself thinking 'Hey! Kinder Bueno. Hey, Kinder Bueno. Bueno, where you going? Hey Kinder Bueno...' to the tune of Guero by Beck. I felt instantly ashamed. However, I have actually written a few full length parodies, the most notorious being my version of Lady Gaga's Pokerface with lyrics about Pokemon. Harrison very much wants me to put that on the internet but I am a bit shy about it. There is also the fact that I have never actually listened to the original song, and instead based it off an ironic cover. Yes, I am THAT indie.

-Smackie Onassis

*Hint: I am the exact opposite of Tom Waits.

** Vegatrain has actually said that his favourite of the songs I am playing is my version of Hiccups by Darren Hanlon which made me blush and smile coyly because I don't know if you've picked this up guys, but I am pretty into Darren Hanlon.

***I imagine a punctuation medal to be shaped like an exclamation mark.

Quick Bite

I just saw Vegatrain typing "definitely not videos of homos, that's for sure" into youtube.

It is pretty funny that the resulting videos were of professional wrestlers.

Being A Ridiculous Person: A How To Guide

Ok. Anyone who has known me for more than a couple of days will be able to tell you that I am a fairly absurd person. I have been for the majority of my life. There was a time when I suppressed it because I wanted people to take me seriously, but that didn't end well and now I have gone back to full-time amusing myself in stupid ways. Here are some of the things I have done, usually for no reason other than to amuse myself.

Texting Random Numbers: The first time I did this I used the simple 'Don't do it!', sent to a randomly chosen number that I saved in my phone under the name Henry Soundsystem*. Since then, I have taken pleasure in sending messages of a more confusing variety. The other day I sent the message 'All my insides are made of someone else's hands'. Of course, when they ultimately respond with 'Um, who is this?', I respond with silence.

Winning Arguments: Normally, I like to win arguments by conventional means, but sometimes I am just not in the mood. I have found that an easy way to win arguments without really trying is to state your case, wait for the other person to reply and then, no matter how vehemently they disagree with you, say "Yes, that's what I'm saying." At the very least, they will be disoriented and you can kick them in the shin and run away.

Taking a random thing someone has said and implying it is part of their name:

For example:

Harrison: Wow, how about that global warming, huh? It's really hot today.

Me: Harrison "how about that global warming" Smart

For optimum effect this should be the only thing you say. As always, if they question you, deny you ever said anything. It is also worth pointing out that writing this entry allowed me to fulfill my hobby of both starting and ending a sentence with a three letter palindrome.

Being a Walking Sight Gag: This started unintentionally when I was about 14. I was in a suburban shopping mall when I felt a tad peckish. There was a farmer's market there and I noticed a large, tasty-looking mushroom. As it was probably going to be the cheapest edible thing I would find, I bought it and proceeded to wander around the shops eating it raw. I will never forget the looks I got. The most pronounced double takes I have ever seen in my life. It felt fantastic and from there, I never looked back. Currently, I am enjoying buying the teensy tiny apples that the organics shop near me sells. Seriously, they are smaller than an egg. If people see me eating them and ask about it, I say that I buy them because I am so tiny that next to me they look like a normal apple.

Encouraging People To Name Drop: This is not so much an act of encouragement, but I really struggled to find a short, coherant name for this. Basically, what you do is whenever someone starts telling a story, you do the following:

Friend: So I was talking to my friend Steve the other day...

Me: Was it Steve Buscemi?

There is a celebrity for most names, so this is one that hypothetically works for every conversation, but I cannot guarantee that you won't get slapped if you do this all the time. Unfortunately, if you are like me and have no real knowledge of pop culture apart from obscure experimental folk bands and cult indie films starring Clea Duval, this may not work as well as you might expect.

The Emperor's New Slogan: I have only done this once, but oh man was it worth it. Some friends and I were going to a peace protest, back when the Iraq war was a thing that might not happen. For some reason, we decided to make our own slogan shirts, but with a slogan that naturally didn't make any sense whatsoever. The slogan we chose was 'Now THAT'S a big bag of cheese!', inspired by a recent trip to Coles. However, people at protests don't want to look stupid. We saw person after person squinting at our shirts trying to figure it out, but then when we made eye contact with them, they would smile and give us a thumbs up. It was sensational.

Now, you have all the information you need to start a career of your own in the lucrative absurdity field. Good luck with that!

-Smackie Onassis

*When Buglustre and Vegatrain found out about this, they got the number out of my phone and promptly started sending Henry Soundsystem a few messages of their own. Somehow they managed to convince the poor girl whose number it was that they were a friend of hers. She still texts Buglustre sometimes.

Procrastination

I was going to write a proper entry, but then something happened that I thought I better record straight away, in brief.

Vegatrain was shuffling around with papers in the study, trying to build a flimsy barrier so that we could play lexulous against each other without seeing each other's letters. See, Vegatrain is preparing to start a philosophy degree and is trying to get himself a bit more organised. I noticed that he had one piece of paper that had the heading 'Procrastination', but then had nothing else written on it. I laughed and pointed it out to him.

"Oh yeah," he said, "I was going to write a list of ways that I could procrastinate when I needed a break, but I didn't get around to it."

Vegatrain, ladies and gentleman.

On The Entertainment Value of Fetish Porn

Most people who know me are probably aware that I totally dig fetishes. I don't get aroused by them, or use them for any kind of sexual purpose at all really, but holy hell, I can't get enough of them. I find them both hysterically funny and intensely fascinating.

I'm about to start a psychology degree by correspondence. While the whole subject of psychology is interesting to me, I'm hoping to eventually do post-graduate research. Specifically in the area of sexual fetishes. Because, man, what even the hell. When someone has a fetish for swallowing another person whole and then inflating to twice their size before pooing them out (This is a real fetish. There are whole forums on the internet dedicated to it.), I just... I mean, just why... how, even? I want to know.

Last night, Meattrain brought up a fetish that he finds particularly funny, the one that involves getting your jollies by cooking and eating someone. Or, alternatively being cooked and eaten yourself. In a simpler time, there might have been one or two cases of these kinds of people ever finding each other and actually carrying out these acts. Then in the first week of the internet, there was ten of them*. I had, of course, heard a lot about this fetish, and followed the legal battles that always ensued when the courts were all "Hey! You murdered that dude and ate him!" and got the strange and unexpected response of "Yeah, but he was totally gagging for it."

Meattrain asked me if I had actually seen any of their porn. I hadn't, because unlike my housemate, I have a soul. However, when he described just how funny it was, I started getting pretty curious. See, it's very hard to make acceptable porn for a fetish that involves cooking and eating another human being. You can't have sex with someone you've just skinned and boiled, I guess. The way these guys have dealt with this is to make soft-core porn that consists of attractive women, trussed up and covered with food. Meattrain described one image he particularly liked where a women was done up to look like a turkey, complete with a banana sticking into her "lady bits". Naturally, his main problem with this image was the fact that you can't put banana with turkey because it would plain old ruin the flavour. He suggested a parsnip instead, although Vegatrain thought a carrot would do the job nicely.

After this discussion, Vegatrain and I went into the courtyard for a tea-break, and I couldn't help mentioning how I excited I was to look up this website. Vegatrain responded by burping loudly, explaining that with my talking about porn he wanted to give the worst possible impression of us to any neighbours who might be listening. I agreed and played it up to the best of my ability.

Smackie: I am sure looking forward to a large serving of porns tonight.

Vegatrain: The women in porn are often looking forward to large servings themselves!

I didn't actually end up looking up those images, as my computer promptly decided it didn't want anything to do with it and refused to let me do anything but listen to twee pop and play pokemon like a good little girl.

But, if you're that curious, I looked it up just now and it is pretty disturbing.

Warning: That link is not safe for work, unless you work in a place called Kannibal Kitchen, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist at all, so why would you lie like that?

-Smackie Onassis

*not verifiable (i.e. I made that up)

Hey Everybody

As soon as Vegatrain heard that I was starting he blog, he first insisted that he have a guest column. When I agreed, he began to "negotiate his contract" and insisted that he get a credit on the front page as an 'Article Contributer'.

So, hey, everybody, listen up.

Thinly Veiled Credits:

Top Lady: Smackie Onassis

Article Contributer: Vegatrain