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?