10 years younger in 10 days … a pictotrip

It may be quite obvious to everyone who reads this blog, all six hundred million of you (hello Bangladesh!) that we watch a lot of TV. Or rather, the TV we watch becomes like our 4th flatmate – more reliable, less prone to bang on the door at 4am when drunk, constantly amusing, not irritated by the pong from the fridge. And entering our stable of “see it or cry heaps for at least a minute” is the show Ten Years Younger in Ten Days. Find old craggy looking people, preferably with sob stories, inject botox, squeeze into mutton-y clothes and then have Sonia Kruger spin round like a little girl at the end and exclaim, “Oh my Gooooooooo—-ddddd! Is that yooooooo——u? (oh and I think my bony knee just broke.”

It’s on before Lipstick Jungle, OK? And if reality TV bites, it can bite me on the butt. Really. Cos I like it. Anyway this was one of my most favourite episodes.

Problem number one: wife appears to be midget.

“Beer, jugs of oil and ceramic mugs are all part of a balanced diet. Also, handfuls of air thiiiiiiiis big.”

Black shirt dude: “Who’s the midget now!”

Green shirt dude: “Me bro! Don’t hit me with your eyebrows.”

Doctor dude: “Once your teeth are fluro UV rave sticks for the new millennium, no one will notice that you look like Freddy Kruger.”

Make-me-over lady: “Oh, you mean Sonia Kruger? Yes, her face is most unfortunate.”

“Stop looking … stop looking … jizzing bejesus who employed me to dress men …”

Recipe for 1 x generic advertising metrosexual. Insert into TV machine, swipe fringe to side, plonk with bronzer. Do not forget embellished hoodie under suit, or all will be lost. Set to dry. Once your little ad-noid is ready, insist he smile cheesily at all times or else, “He will lose the Vodafone account and mini-stapler shaped like an egg!”

Holy gravestone of God, my Grandmother from the past was hidden in there! Exorcism!

Ok, all that said, I loved this couple.  They both slogged away really hard at their jobs (of which she had THREE), and had cute kids (I think – oh hell all kids are cute), and really seemed to love each other. And now they can smile to prove it.

i like to offer a nice bouquet of thoughts

free salad lunch = good.

rain and slippery shoes = bad.

up north fang mission = good.

possible swine flu / feeling like crud = bad.

next three mad men episodes (and final gossip girl episode) downloaded and ready for viewing = good.

free food and booze this evening = good.

lots of work to do and still writing this inane post = undecided.

i’m no mathematician but i think that this bouquet is leaning on the side of nice.

dear dream journal

dear dream journal,

last night i had a dream that a BRAND NEW Coles appeared amongst the drab assortment of shops down the end of our street. it was magical. four levels, open 24 hours, bright white floors and fluoro lighting. heaven had torn off a limb and dropped it onto percival rd. i set about collecting the things i needed and putting them in my basket. i only had a short amount of time to do my shopping because i had to be at my baton-twirling class at 6am. i scurried around, choosing my bananas and yoghurt and assorted goods. suddenly, my sister was in front of me, asking me to help choose a good couple of cardboard boxes from the box cage (like we used to do when we were kids, in franklins. the boxes were the best part of grocery shopping).the distraction threw me and i looked down and suddenly all the things i had SO carefully selected were nowhere to be seen! i retraced my steps. i found a mandarin on a stack of beautifully arranged tissue boxes, a banana next to the toothpastes. but this Coles was far too big and labyrinthine for me to comprehensively retrace and re-collect all my precious goods. i was distraught. then i woke up. it was the first day of winter.

dream journal, what could all this mean? what is my sleeping brain trying to express to my waking self? that my latent desire to baton-twirl is causing me to rush through LIFE (obviously represented by Coles in this dream)? that my sister is a distraction and must be destroyed? that i need to petition Albanese to get a Coles into Stanmore, stat? alas, dream journal: i may never know.

the mysteries of my mind are deep and innumerable.

Inside Boeing’s Answer to the Airbus A380… and Racism.

So. Former Telstra Chief Executive Sol Trujillo’s come out today saying that Australia is ‘a racist parochial backlot where people have toes for fingers’* in response to K’Ray’s HILARIANT 1-word reaction to his departure from our golden, sea-girten soils: ‘Adios’.

(What Sol? It’s not OUR FAULT you’re constantly wearing a poncho made of tequila-glazed fajitas and saying ‘Ai-yai-yai!’.)

 

Fat wogs and skinny wogs aside, I have a feeling racism may be losing its shine; it just isn’t quite the el Dorado we all thought it was in the nineties when I sold everything I owned to buy shares in it and probably retire, gold-plated and tremendously obese, at 35 (fortunately everything I owned in the nineties was a case of $3 dollar Chardonnay from my mum’s cupboard and a pan-flute – so no great loss, but still. I could no longer tour the world with my spicy Celtic covers of classic rock songs like ‘Thunderstruck’, and UB40’s ‘Red, Red, Wine’).

 

It’s reassuring, then, that Boeing’s come up with such a reassuringly reassuring answer to the age-old question of whether or not it really don’t matter if you’re black or white: grey people.

Cultivated, courteous and infinitely fond of decorative fruit, these gun-metal Gorgons cruise the skies in a happy haze of lounge-music and leather interiors. There are no wars here; no land to fight over; no cousins to sleep with and get involved in a fictionalised-Kings-Cross-Shooting-that-actually-happened over.

It’s all a dream of self-referential post-modern artworks and spiral staircases; the clouds forming mirrors to pingback mighty, mighty dun-coloured glory. Cinerous, isabel, pearl or griseous, whichever way you look at it the future is grey.

            

 

* Quote MAY have been SLIGHTLY amended.

5 things I wish I didn’t do on Facebook

Ah, Facebook. It’s like that really attractive friend of yours you suspect might be partially retarded.

Sure, she looks great on a dance floor in deliberately-laddered opaques and a boater, but you sometimes wish she didn’t go all glaze-eyed and giggly-in-a-bad-way when you want to talk about something that’s not fashion-related, or, um, anyone for jaeger shots?

She also slept with your boyfriend last year but didn’t really mean to do it and, um, that’s ok, right, we’re cool, you know? I was practically unconscious at the time ROFL…

 That’s right. Come to think of it, you basically HATE her, because she’s always making you:

1. Get excited by quizzes promising to tell you what kind of movie/crush/taxidermied animal you are, only to realise you will never have the answers because you will never forward said quiz on to twelve ‘friends’.

2. Check who’s RSVP’d to events you’re planning on attending. Obsessively. As in, ‘Attending’, ‘Maybe Attending’ AND ‘Not Attending’. Even though you know these RSVPs mean little and you regularly select ‘Attending’ when you REALLY mean ‘Probably not going to bother’ or even ‘I’d rather eat my own poached eyeball with chopsticks than go to your pretentious excuse for a (non-)event’.

3. Appear constantly in photographs ‘blasted, blind, blithered, blotto, blued’ even though you know your boss and several other professional acquaintances, ex-boyfriends and other undesirables have total access to said photos due to your resolute laziness with privacy settings.

4. Regularly make yourself want to drink salted bleach by checking your ex-boyfriend’s public profile and voyeuristically analysing all evidence of ‘women’; then gaining perverse and ludicrous satisfaction from the scanty evidence of ‘men’ to be found on your own even though you’re well aware that said ex has neither the means nor inclination to perform similar acts of masochistic stalker-sleuthing.

5. Check it every five minutes for ‘updates’. Nothing has happened. Nothing will happen. You should do some work or write a blog or get a dog or something. Intellectually anaemic, fetid and obsolescent, you should have learned by now that Facebook will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to relieve your taedium vitae (which is why I’ve decided to consecrate WAY more time to virtuous occupations like reading the thesaurus, clearly, and learning how to spell Latin words like ’taedium vitae’, ‘via’, and ‘Ricky Martin’). 

Now Masebook, that’s something I’d LIKE to spend time on….

pump it up

Until recently, it was a rare Monday night that the Duumsters weren’t plonked front right of our local gym for the 6.30pm session of Body Pump.  We could be invited to our own wedding and have to politely decline, as Pump called. “Going to Pump on Monday night,” was equivalent to, “having a drink or ten million on the weekend” – like, duh. Pump was like the Brawn in our Brain Sandwich. Boyfriends came and went, favourite TV shows were picked up (hello, City Homicide), then dumped, as soon as Sophie let us. Our love for Pump never flagged, however – despite having lesbian boobies flashed at us every time in the change rooms, despite having to ferociously murder five other gym-junkies in the race to get a bench, despite us all beginning to resemble the Chinese swimming team in the 70s. Until, for whatever reason, we all decided to “take a beat,” (a la Victory Ford and supposed-to-be-hubba-hubba contractor with child in Lipstick Jungle). Who can say why. Maybe we just preferred being in bed reading trash novels to doing squats that even strippers would find indecent. Did Pump briefly push its face into snot-laden tissues, air its freakum dress, have some rowdy nights out with the girls, during which it breaks its nails, rediscovers late-night New York Slice, and spews sparkling rose onto a boy from Lagoona’s shoes? Doubt it, it’s a gym class, not a person. Still, no doubt it missed us (or at least the $11 our presence assured, apiece).

After some time had passed, we began to realise there was a Pump-shaped hole in our lives (roughly equivalent to 2 x triceps muscles and a butt). We trickled back in, heads held low. “Hi, Pump,” we mumbled, “looking good!”. “Wish I could say the same about you, flabby!” it guffawed. Low blow, but fair. We set up our benches, put on our little gloves, and prepared for some muscle-maxxing action. And then it all came flooding back. Why the love had surged between us the first place.  Where else can you be comfortably clothed in sweats, but still feel like a Gladiator? Where else can you re-visit your rave music childhood, without it being (heaps) lame? In what other class can you beat a muscly beefcake dude, flagging after ten measly repetitions? NOWHERE I TELL YOU! And we’re not alone. After trying to track down the warm-up song that gets our heart-a-fluttering (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRWBifXLUq4) some like-minded Pumpalots turned up, http://www.lesmills.com/Community/forums/thread/55609.aspx, and http://nzglen.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/bodypump-70-tracklist/). Sure, Pump is a slut. And it tends to date weirdos with bad haircuts. But whatever. Haus ov Duum HEARTS Body Pump 4evs. Till we get sick of it again.

tv, how we love thee.

as winter is about to set in, so is our extra layer of fat, our heater and our permanent bum-shaped creases on the couch. please don’t disappoint, tv!

let’s take a walk through the tv week.

mon: brothers and sisters. good tv. we will miss you, boston legal! is 30 rock still on?
tues: we watched the last episode of season 1 mad men (on DVD) last night and then found ourselves with a whole night of NOTHING before possibly one of the best shows on tv: lipstick jungle. tuesday is the best and worst night on tv. acceptable, in view of the fact nothing is on: 10 years younger in 10 days. freddy kruger in a red dress is painful but it’s so horrible to watch it at least gets your heart rate going. lipstick jungle deserves it’s own post for this season.
wed: criminal minds. the gube. enough said. family guy, if you can stay awake.
thurs: Q & A. amazing.
fri: please don’t watch tv.

oh, and neighbours every night, of course.

so far, prime time free to air is just not cutting it.

suggestions for improvement of tv: maybe lipstick jungle at 8.30pm on tuesday? mad men magically on our tv whenever we turn it on? new true blood directly to australian free to air? new weeds?

i don’t think i will stop watching tv, but it would be nice if there was something better going on.

thoughts? comments?

Our favourite Oaffieupagus gets back next week!

Sure. Sydney ain’t no Europe. But at the Haus ov Duum, we’ll be bonne chance to have her back.

And don’t worry Oafie, we’ll move to Paris one day.

There we will soak ourselves daily, lying down flat, and frolic in fields with buttercups, and sleep in till 3pm, and have ultra cute babies that never grow old and wear tiny stripy scarves round their necks that flag in the wind as they sail sail sail down paved paths throwing small baguettes into the hands of wizened crones leaning out of dusty windows.

This will be our soundtrack.

Our commune will front up a little something like this.

Buttercups like so.

Our daily diet? Melted butter, of course. (or margarine in a pinch) (hell, why not go the whole hog and say condensed milk).

And the piece de resistance? (see how well I’m gonna fit in in France?). Our tiny babies with satorial aplomb. And they can ride bicycles! And throw baguettes! With those kinda mad skillz, surely they can cook, clean, pluck our eyebrows and earn the cash-o-la.

Plus, they come with their own snow domes! (I can just tell Lucy’s gonna wanna steal this one’s outfit).

So, Oafie, hurry back! Cos we’ll go back to our future some day!

xx lalaz

Get a handle on this: BAD ART

How good is bad art? What could possess someone to painstakingly paint 3 takeaway coffee cups, you may ask? Just for the love of (awful) art.

Here’s another pearler I saw on a van in Stanmore.

I mean, for sure, nothing says clean toilet better than a gleeful dolphin defying space and physics (not to mention his dolphin family, who would be frankly disgusted, sure they’ll SLEEP with humans, but they won’t frolic in their fecal matter) – especially one so artfully rendered. The delightful, fizzy spray of water at his tail just makes me want to open my mouth and swallow. And those thunderous tear drops? More moving than The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride. ”Wow” says the dolphin. Wow indeed.

You can see more bad art here: http://www.museumofbadart.org/

– lalaz

I end this week, disturbed

Apparently I am the doggy door of the viral world.

In case you can’t read that, Backdoor Lala is a Trojan Horse that allows unauthorised access to a compromised computer. In human terms, I am a large wooden implement that is shelved where the sun don’t shine.

Ewwwwwww!!!

So, in the spirit of comraderie, I will give my fellow doomies Viral Names.

Sophie (happy birthday!) is: Spamallam Oafoffikus (BBQ!) Human terms: She is teflon to imaginary big penises, Nigerians, Surrealist poetry and replica watches.

Lucy is: Soft-in-the-head-Ware Fire-Hill (luv U LOL). Human terms: Soft and cuddly up top, raging tornado of fiery spikes elsewhere (that cannot be mounted).

Wow. I think my brain has been compromised by this backdoor business.

– backdoor lalaz