Props Boy and the Day I Learnt I am not Cool

   During the 90's in New Zealand, there was a children's television programme called What Now. Technically, it's still going, but I haven't watched it since 2004-ish so as not to spoil my wonderful nostalgic memories. (Also my cousin was talking to me about it about a month ago and told me it has changed considerably from the format I remember.)

   As a kiddie, I loved that show. It had wacky presenters (Caro, Jase, Shavaughn, Props Boy etc) awesome cartoons (I remember it was where I was first introduced to Courage the Cowardly Dog) and a bizarre serial acted by Barbies called Serial Stuff which I loved for some reason.

I always wanted to know what Props Boy looked like with the hat off. Well now I know. Also while researching this, I learnt he's in a fairly mediocre band. Well, I lie. I always thought "Ways to Run" was an alright song.

   Anyway, only some of this is relevant to the traumatic childhood story I'm about to tell you.

   One segment they had on What Now was reading out the super cool letters that kids had sent into them. It was my absolute life goal as a six year old to write them a letter and have it read it out on the show. It would be almost like being New Zealand famous, to my six year old mind at least. So every Sunday morning while watching the show, I'd get out my half-dried up felt pens and my crummy Rose Art Crayons and try to write them a decent letter.

   I wasn't stupid. Well, not entirely. I knew in order to make my letter stand out, it had to have cool things like glitter and colour and stickers. I didn't have any of those and Rose Art was not going to cut it. I decided all I could do was try to draw the presenters of the show and hope my pathetic portrait would at least gain sympathy points. Well, that and some nice "decorations". I decided, in order to show how super cool I was, I'd draw awesome symbols in the margins like stars, hearts, and this really awesome spiral-looking thing I'd seen scrawled in permanent marker on one of the desks at my primary school. My mum looked over my shoulder to see what I was drawing, and immediately snatched up the letter, demanding to know why I was drawing swastikas all over it.

   Six year old me was wonderfully sheltered, and had no idea what a swastika was, or Nazis, or Hitler, or any of that. I just thought it was a cool square-ish spiral- and to be fair, for thousands of years it was, in many cultures, before Nazis adopted it as theirs. Regardless, my mother was well aware that it was not appropriate for children's television, and sat me down and explained to me in excrutiating detail about what the holocaust was.

   That was the last time I ever tried to write to What Now. I wonder if I could send them a letter now, and maybe win some stickers or a tshirt. I don't think they let adults enter though. What a shame.

Bonus: I found a small part of Serial Stuff and none of it makes sense.

Mother's Day Special

   Look, I don't generally do mother's day. Longtime readers of my blog will know this is because I'm adopted and well. It's awkward. I appreciate the people who have brought me up, but I don't feel comfortable calling them "parents" as such. I don't really know what to call them. Someone suggested "caregivers" but, as my lovely adoptive mother said, "I don't give and I don't care."

   I love her. Really.

   For that reason, I thought I'd do a lovely mother's day post about her.

Here she is! And me,  of course.

   I also thought I'd share a lovely story about her from the other day.

   We have had a problem lately with the plug for the kitchen sink. You know that little metal ring at the top that assists in the removal of the plug? Well, it had snapped clean off, and every time one of us went to wash the dishes, It would take about half an hour of persistence and swearing to get the plug back out again.

   Time for a shopping trip at Mitre 10.

   Now, as a pensioner, Liz has a gold card, which allows her to get free bus rides between 9am and 3pm. This is very convenient as it requires two buses to get to where Mitre 10 is, and being Queenstown, none of these come cheap. This becomes a crucial fact later on.

   She had purchased a plug which she assumed would fit the sink, however, she wanted to get back home, test it to make sure it would fit, then leave enough time to bus back to Mitre 10 should a replacement be required, all before 3pm so she wouldn't have to pay for the bus, because if I were to describe her in a single word, I would choose "economical." Being economical, she had also decided to do some grocery shopping while she was there because the supermarket near Mitre 10 had cheaper prices than the one closer to where we live.

   This was how my adoptive mother ended up in the carpark with a shopping trolley she was about to return when she saw the bus coming. Realising that she had to catch this bus in order to make it home in time, she ran towards it, taking the shopping trolley with her. I cannot tell you why she still had the trolley or what she planned to do with it once she reached the bus, but I can tell you that she would rather die than be one of those people that do not return the trolley to its allocated area of the carpark. Perhaps she would have tried to hold the bus while she went to return it. I do not know.

   Her rather hastily thought out plan involved taking one of those wheelchair ramps (as opposed to the stairs, as she still has this massive shopping trolley with her at this stage) towards the bus stop. Sprinting. Anyway, she was there. She had made it, just as the bus arrived. Or would have, had she not tripped on the curb.

   I don't know how much the average shopping trolley weighs, but it all fell down on top of her.

   One would suspect this situation was bad enough. There would be the pain, the humiliation, and still the possibility of missing the bus. But she had not suffered enough yet, it seemed, because she discovered that she was in fact trapped underneath the upturned trolley, and required assistance to get out.

   My readers, you will be relieved to know that after this, she made it home safely to test the plug.

   It appeared to fit correctly, but upon testing in a sink full of water, we found a leak, so it may yet require a second trip to Mitre 10. No trolleys this time though. Poor woman.

Putting the "troll" in "shopping trolley."

Bellez's Big List of Weird Shit: Part One

   First of all, I've decided to divide this up into multiple posts otherwise I will never finish it. Seriously.

   Right, this is definitely going to be an ongoing and updated thing as I spend too much time looking up weird shit. This is my comprehensive list of every fucked up thing I can find on the internet. Some of it may be NSFW. Actually, most of it will probably NSFW. Bonus points if you make it through the whole thing. Suggestions welcome.

   The only thing I will thus far refuse to watch is 1 Man 1 Jar. Mostly because I, too, have an anus, and that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I only know what it is because I have four brothers, and the one who looks the most like a goat used to describe it to me in excruciating detail.

   Let's begin...

1. Begotten
If anyone can tell me what this movie is about, please let me know. Fortunately the whole thing is right here for you to watch while high until you make sense of it. I haven't got through all of it yet. By the way, in the opening scene there is self disembowelment.

2. My Immortal.
I know, I know, I've mentioned it on here before. However, this "so good its bad" piece of literary genius is so entertaining it's worth a second mention. Basically, its fanfiction that is so bad it puts Twilight to shame. If you want a basic overview of the plot: Hogwarts, clothes clothes clothes, makeup, random spontaneous sex, all the teachers are rapists, everyone is bi, drugs drugs drugs for no reason, preps can die, goffik. Top spelling as well.


3. This video.
As requested by Dom. Hey, it's even got clips from Begotten in it, too!

4. Willy Bum Bum.
David used to sing this to me over the phone when he first started talking to me nearly two years ago. I, in turn, would hang up on him. William and David both forced me to watch this and I must say, it's probably one of the tamer things on this list.

5. Bloody Pingu Throw
Basically a Flash game involving brutally murdering penguins. The further it is thrown across the Antarctic landscape, the more points you obtain. Even Max was horrified by this game, and Max has shown me some horrific things on the internet. I find it strangely addictive.


6. Mr Hands video
I'm not going to post a link because I don't really want to look this up. You can Google it yourself. Basically it involves bestiality (receptive anal intercourse, if you want me to be specific) with a horse. The man died shortly after- for the details, here's a Cracked article. (See #4.)


7. Blue Waffles.
Click on this link here to see a lovely picture of it. Basically it's a very infected vagina. That's gone blue. Lovely. I specifically looked it up for this blog post as I'd never actually seen it before, and I honestly felt a little disappointed. I think I expected it to be far worse than it is.

8. Salad Fingers series
A lovely cartoon series by the utter(ly mad) genius of David Firth. It's quite well-known, but very disturbing. It's an 8 part series (I think a very recently added episode 9 is available on YouTube) which debuted in 2004, about a very lonely creature named Salad Fingers who enjoys the feel of rust and is probably severely mentally unwell.


9. Spoilsbury Toast Boy
More David Firth loveliness. Makes Salad Fingers look tame in comparison. Also, it's backwards running, so to watch it in the order it is designed to be watched, watch this one first, then this one, then this one. The last one gave me nightmares for a week.


10. Smiledog.jpg
   I found this on CreepyPasta (what on earth was I even doing there?) about a photo of a lovely dog who drives people to suicide after having seen it. As with all creepypastas, of course, the only way to save yourself is to forward the picture on to everyone you know. Hence, ya know. It's going on my blog. I didn't find the image itself very scary, though it did remind me a little of the music video of Black Hole Sun, which used to give me nightmares when I was little. Here's a link to what I consider the most disturbing smiledog image.


11. Un Chien Andalou
A surrealist art project from 1928. According to Tyler, who sent me the link: "It was a surrealist art project from the late 20s made to be the most shocking film around. It won." I haven't yet watched the whole thing (it's around fifteen minutes long) but I did watch the infamous scene at the start in which an eyeball is sliced open. Here's the link.

12. You're in that weird part of Reddit again, aren't you?
And by "that weird part" I mean the most known fucked up subreddits, Spacedicks and Beating Women. Sure, there are weirder things on there, but these two are infamous. While we're at it, in r/beatingwomen I discovered r/ChokeABitch. I promise they're just trollin'...

This list is to be continued in part two, with more of a "messed up porn" focus, largely from contributions from Gareth, who is probably the most perverted boy I know. Coming soon!

I would like to thank Tyler West, Carl Domigan and Dominic Ormsby for their contributions to this post. If you have become traumatised after viewing items on this list, feel free to head to http://www.babyanimalz.com/community/ and look at cute baby animals until you feel better. Probably Not Sane takes no responsibility for any mental trauma.

Annabel goes to the formal, burns a kitchen

   So in the weekend, I attended the school formal. As an aside, I looked pretty darn good, too.



Damn good, indeed.

   The formal went wonderfully, everyone looked great and had fun, no one got kicked out for turning up intoxicated, etc. So, a wonderful night. Yes. But that is not really what this blog post is about.


   After the formal, there is always an official afterparty. For, I presume, legal reasons, I must constantly clarify that the school actually has nothing to do with the afterparty; just that it is organised by some of our students, and tickets are sold at school, much like the private 18th parties we have here. (Everyone pays up to $10 for an 18th ticket, and that barely covers the costs involved, and I didn’t have one for my 18th. Afterparty tickets, on the other hand, are around $40, so they can afford to do a pretty good job with it.) Again, I’d like to clarify that the school is not involved at all with the afterparty, it is a private function, and as such, minors may bring alcohol with their parents’ permission.

   Let’s also clarify, I am not a minor.

   There is, however, an alcohol limit- four RTDs (must be below a certain alcohol percentage), six beers or one bottle of wine. If you are serious about your drinking, you will realise that, short of smuggling in a hip flask between your breasts (as one girl did a previous year, and let me assure you, she got caught) you will quickly realise that the wine is probably the most alcohol you can bring. In our binge-drinking culture in New Zealand, one might expect that everyone would bring the bottle of wine: the advantages to the seasoned binger are obvious: they can be cheap as chips and are an effective way of getting trashed, if you so desire. However, a majority of our binge drinkers are like this:



Keep it classy.

   These… "drinkers" will not touch wine with a ten-foot bargepole, let alone their mouth. They are not drinking alcohol to enjoy the flavour- you can get fizzy drinks that taste the same. They are drinking with the sole intention of getting as wasted as humanly possible. Keep it classy, yo. Anyway, no matter how dedicated they claim they are to drinking, they wouldn’t be caught dead (or, more likely, passed out and surrounded by their own putrid vomit) with a bottle of wine because “ewww, wine tastes disgusting!” On the contrary, I quite enjoy a nice glass of chardonnay.


   I had no intention of getting trashed at the afterparty. Mostly because my mother had kindly offered to take me home from it when it finished at around six in the morning. (To be fair, it started at one, so that’s not half as bad as it sounds.) I just wanted to have a few drinks, dance terribly and have fun. So no, I did not bring my bottle of cabernet sauvignon just to get wasted and be tagged by people I don't like in a whole lot of photos on Facebook (as a small consolation, at least I’ll be the most sober one in the pictures, but once you’ve been drinking red wine from a bottle because no plastic cups appeared to be provided, your lips are generally stained a dark purple and you don’t look too sexy by then anyway) and had quite a bit of fun. But the night was long, so I had some more of the wine, and next thing I knew, I was getting into my mother’s car at quarter to six in the morning, giggling loudly. I was rather more intoxicated than I intended to be.

   Upon arriving home, I decided what I needed more than anything was pasta. Unfortunately, in my somewhat impaired state, cooking pasta was not something I was altogether capable of. (My drunk texts to my brother’s friend, which I discovered the next morning, showed that I clearly believed otherwise at the time.) I got a pot of water boiling , put in some spaghetti and waited for it to cook. I also realised I had been dancing for approximately ten hours, if we also include the formal into our calculations, and I wanted to lie down for a second because my feet were sore. You can already see what a disaster this was going to be.

   To cut a long story short, I was awoken some hours later by my mother who informed me that I’d fallen asleep and the kitchen was full of smoke, but that thank god there wasn’t a fire, and that she’d saved the day. My brother persuaded me afterward that microwavable drunk food could be the way to go, except for the possibility of accidentally putting metal in the microwave. I have decided that next time, I might just make a stop at Fergburger instead.

The Washing Machine

Yesterday, I attended the Dan Davin creative writing workshop provided through my high school. We had Helen Lowe, a fantasy and sci-fi author talk to us about writing, and take us through a few exercises to develop our skills. The first exercise was to remember back to a time when we were young and experienced fear, and to write about our experience. This is the earliest clear memory I have of being afraid, perhaps when I was three or four, and terrified of a washing machine. Also, she had us writing in stream of consciousness (where we just keep writing, do not take our pen off the page and do not edit it as we write, which is useful for getting emotions and ideas out) so I apologise for any errors or rambling.

   I don’t remember how old I was. Let’s just say, very young. I had some unusual fears- almost to the point of being ridiculously OCD about some things, like making sure I never ate the red M&Ms before any of the other colours, for instance. I wasn’t afraid of dogs or the older boys who lived down the street. I didn’t have many rational fears. However, as far as irrational fears went, well… I was deathly afraid of our washing machine.

   The thing was probably ancient, but I just remember it being gleaming and white, and when I sat my petite self at its base, it appeared to stretch up forever. Not that I’d sit anywhere near it if it was on. It was noisy and grumpy, and would thump thump thump as it cleaned our clothes.


I was 98% sure that the washing machine was put in our house with the sole purpose of murdering me. I hated it. I’d run outside and hide in my sandpit and hope that the damn thing never became capable of moving from place to place.


Its method of murder? I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, but I think I believed that it would somehow intentionally fall on me and crush me, and hours later my poor mother would come into the laundry and see the murderous machine on its side, with little evidence of me but for my tiny legs sticking out from underneath. It was not a pleasant thought.


   Later on, I began to have nightmares about the washing machine. These tied in with the other nightmares I’d been having- about the monkey bars at the Fernhill Road playground (my father had encouraged me to play on them when I was very young and I fell off and decided they were also part of a plot to murder me) and of the dragonmonster that lived at the bottom of the garden. (Where it most likely still resides- although as I moved from that house a good ten years ago now, I can’t confirm this.) I used to have nightmares about sitting outside, at the other end of the garden (where the dragonmonster wasn’t) and hearing the sound of the washing machine starting. The panic would rise in my throat and I would look around for my mother or my father or some form of comfort, but I was alone. Once it got to the thump thump thump stage of the washing cycle, all chance of escape had been lost. The nightmare would always end the same way. My father would come and ask me if I wanted to go play on the monkey bars, and just as I was thinking about how ineffective his persuasive technique was, the washing machine would slowly fall out of the sky to crush us both.


   Of course, it never quite reached us by the time I awoke from this nightmare. But the horror of seeing a gigantic appliance falling out of the sky to attempt to murder you by crushing is in itself a purely horrific experience. However, the utter joy of my situation was that I had the absolute pleasure of this nightmare being a recurring dream. Night after night after night, I was nearly murdered by a piece of whiteware.

What Do Wasps Contribute to Society? (Nothing)

   When I was eleven, my mother used to give me little fruit jellies to take to school in my lunchbox. My favourite was raspberry and pear, mostly because red was my favourite colour and pears were my favourite fruit. Raspberries have never been a favourite of mine however. There is a raspberry bush just outside my rapisty bedroom window and sometimes when boyfriend comes to see me, he’s far more interested in leaning out the window and picking berries than he is in me. Anyway, I’m rambling again.
   When I was eleven, I used to sit outside the primary school library because it was in the sun, and after I’d eaten I could easily dash inside and pretend to be engrossed in a book because I had no friends. The unfortunate aspect of the library, however, was that it was where the wasps also liked to hang out. Gah.

   Raspberry and pear jelly, libraries, wasps, and me. You can already see where this is going, can’t you?

   I was stung on the face. Twice. Thus began my utter phobia of wasps.

   In Year 11 (when I was around 15 or 16, for our international readers) my maths class was the place where all the wasps wanted to be in the summer months. The teacher very kindly sat me by the window, which, unbeknownst to her, did not help the matter at all. Anyway, the bloody things insisted on flying around my head. And yeah. Yeah I screamed. Loudly. And everyone laughed at me and made buzzing noises for the next two weeks. Yeah. Thanks guys.

   Just yesterday, when trying to put a plastic bag in an “alfresco waste receptacle” (rubbish bin) a bloody wasp came out and chased me for a solid five minutes. This incident, naturally, got me wondering.

   Well, I’d like to start off by saying I take biology at school. Actually, I do so by correspondence now, because it clashed with Drama, and I didn’t want to drop either subject. But, due to my biology background (ha!) I figured I could provide a decent investigation.

   My Second (Non) Scientific Investigation: Are Wasps Useful?

   No. No they are not. That is all.

   No, that was not scientific, but damnit, do we really need science to tell us those bastards are evil and after our soul?

Advice For Men: Valentines Day Gift Guide

(How to exchange cash for loving, without mucking about on street corners)


What Not To Get Her

• A Hallmark card. Because it’s lazy. You don’t have to be artistic to make her a card. If boyfriend gave me a card he made with a crudely drawn stick figure and a heart, I’d be impressed. Mostly at him noticing my undying love for Pak ‘n’ Save man.

• Condoms. For an acquaintance. No matter how optimistic you are. If you’re single on Valentine’s Day, don’t even think you’re going to get any action from the other lonely single people out there. They’re too busy drowning themselves in cheap wine to care about you showering them in affections. (And protection. Still, better safe than sorry!)

• Flowers that you stole from the neighbours garden, you cheapskate.

• Those tacky “this coupon entitles the bearer to one free kiss” type things. BAN THESE PLEASE. Besides, I own a vivid. So if I don’t like you, I will edit it until it says “this coupon entitles the bearer to one free smack in the face with a phonebook” and then I will regift it to you, with the smack provided.

• Dead kittens. This almost speaks for itself. But a couple of years ago I was in a long distance relationship, and my boyfriend at the time got me a kitten for Valentine’s Day, mostly because it was free. (His neighbour’s cat had just had kittens.) Aside from being a cheap present, this was also a really poorly thought out idea. Mostly because the kitten died of cat flu before he ever got to Queenstown to give it to me, and I never let him forget the incident. We didn’t make it to the next Valentines Day. I wonder why.


Further Bad Ideas

• Nothing at all

• Oral sex when she doesn’t know your name. PEPPER SPRAY TIME!

• Chocolates, while you tell her you love how fat her thighs are getting. On second thoughts, perhaps just chocolates and an “I love you” will suffice, unless you want your present from her to be a phonebook to the face. (See above.)

• You could tell her she’s almost as pretty as I am. She ought to be flattered by this.

• A pair of pink, fur lined handcuffs.

• Or, better yet, knee pads! (Boyfriend recently purchased some because he had utterly destroyed his knee on a rock. He suggested they could be my Valentines present. I was unimpressed.)


What You Should Get Her

• Something

• A bottle of tequila. Why? It turns everyone into a nymphomaniac. So win for you!

• Roses. Red ones. If she doesn’t like clichés, get her a dead kitten.

• Take her on a date somewhere, how hard is tha- NOT THE FISH AND CHIP SHOP. SOMEWHERE NICE.

• Last Valentine’s Day, I hung out with two backpackers from England. They had a campfire, and I provided the marshmallows. If you’re going to do this, call your local council to see if you can get a fire permit. (It turns out they didn’t, and could have got in a lot of trouble, especially if they’d lost control of the fire.) Oh, also. Try not to set your date on fire. It tends to end badly when that happens.

• Been together a year or more? Why not get her some jewellery? But if you went and bought it from The $2 Shop, whatever you do, don’t let her find out, or she will never let you forget it. Its practically asking her to smack you in the face with an aforementioned phonebook- and no one wants violence on Valentines Day.


Notable Mentions

• Washing, deodorant, clean clothes. Really. Try not to use excessive hair product either. Just imagine her running her finger through your hair- and them coming out all stuck together from the excess product you used. It’s not very romantic.

• Valentine’s Day is February 14th, just so you remember.

• I have a boyfriend, but I will totally accept any gifts you wish to give me.

• For those who say its an over-commercialised holiday that you will not be celebrating this year… let me know when you finally get laid.

Calici the Rabbit and Friends

So today, my dear mother decided to have a garage sale. And by that, I mean she decided a week ago and the thing was today, but anyway. So we’ve spent the past few days sorting through junk in the garage, deciding whether or not to sell it, and putting on the little yellow price stickers.



Pictured: a freaking pain in the behind. It's hard enough just trying to get them out of the little dispenser.



While searching through the masses of junk and slowly getting covered in yellow stickers, I came across three toys of great significance in my childhood:

• A small, multicoloured elephant
• A blue magnadoodle
• A white rabbit (or, at least, it was white once. It was now a murky grey.)

Bam went the wave of nostalgia, and thus, I bring you more traumatising childhood memories…


The small, multicoloured elephant:

One of my earliest memories was of the day my birthmother and my brother William came to visit- David can’t have existed by this point, so I can’t have been that old. I remember him being a picky eater and refusing to eat the onions on his pizza. I also remember playing on the couch with him. I’m not sure exactly what we were playing. It appeared to be some sort of horrible murderous death game in which William kept dying. (This was nothing to do with me. He was, and still is considerably stronger than me.) Anyway, overprotective of him as ever, it was Super-Elephant to the rescue. I’m not entirely sure how Super-Elephant rescues dead Williams, but I do remember that Super-Elephant’s main form of transportation was using his ears like Dumbo to fly towards my brother, who miraculously came back to life, only to die again by launching himself of the couch like a lemming. Only it turns out lemmings are not suicidal and that the famous footage was created by throwing them off a cliff. Make that two Disney references thus far in my post.



No, I do not really know what lemmings look like. In every other regard, however, the scene looked exactly like this.




The Blue Magnadoodle


Magnadoodles were a little like Etch-a-Sketches back in the day, but with more scope for creative expression, mostly because rather than using little knobs, you were provided with a magnet pen which allowed you to create intriguing, thought-provoking artwork. For example:

It was the shiz.



The (formerly) white rabbit

It was a gift given to me when I was little, so little that I forget who gave it to me or the circumstances surrounding it. I do know that it was shortly after seeing Alice in Wonderland (Disney reference number three) on video, which I hadn't particularly enjoyed, that I received it, as I was originally going to name it "The White Rabbit." (Originality was not my strong point at that stage of my life.) Even then, however, I didn't like the name.

Shortly after, we went to stay with my Aunt Diana for a few days. Now, this was around '96 or '97, at any rate, during the heyday of the Calici virus. For those of you that are somewhat uneducated, it would pay to do a little googling. At any rate, it was a virus that caused bunnies to die somewhat horrible deaths, which was good news for the farmers, because rabbits are a pest. I'd heard it been talked about on the news a little, although I was far too young to comprehend what any of it meant. So when Diana suggested I name the toy bunny Calici, I thought it was a beautiful name for a rabbit. Which just goes to show what sort of a childhood I had.


   At any rate, the garage sale is over, and I made a total of $24, which I will probably blow on either cocaine, hookers, or cheese. Except I can't afford cocaine or hookers, nor do I have an interest in them very much, so cheese it shall be.

Hurrah!

Stargazing, Rock Hugging, Funny Burgers and Yodelling Lesbians- 2011 Thus Far

   Well. 2011 has been… interesting thus far.


   I spent new years eve walking down the hill I live on to get into town where I was meeting my boyfriend. (Fine, I was going to go watch the fireworks too.) I wasn’t too keen about walking, because it was dark, and I was getting paranoid about rapists and murderers. While avoiding being raped/murdered, I bumped into another group of people walking into town.

   “You aren’t rapists or murderers are you?” I asked.

   “We’re the group hoping to be raped and murdered. If you’re trying to avoid that, you should probably join the group further down the hill. They’re the anti rape and murder group.”

   How reassuring.

   However, I began talking to one particular member of the group how assured me that he was not a rapist, to his knowledge, and at any rate, he and I made it safely into town with neither of us being raped and/or murdered. That’s always a good start to a night.

   We spent a majority of the time before midnight looking for boyfriend, who took his time getting there, and trying to avoid heavily intoxicated Gorons. (for those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to certain people from Gore, who may not be quite as intelligent as the rest of us.) Having been drunkenly groped by one of them, we ran off to the gardens where we could safely presume they weren’t, and found a boulder. Which we then proceeded to hug. Because rocks need love too.

As do trees. And yes, I just wanted to use this picture, because I am proud of it.

   It was nearly midnight when I heard from boyfriend, and we were running around town (which was, of course, packed) trying to find him. Somewhere, at some point, I managed to lose my phone, which lead to something of a panic attack, and I nearly missed the fireworks trying to find him. (It’s rather hopeless without a phone.) The fireworks were over, boyfriend was not in sight, I was clinging on to the arm of this poor stranger to try to prevent losing him like I had my phone, and to top it all off, a bunch of intoxicated Gorons were heading in our direction. We decided to head back to the last place boyfriend had said to meet him, and on the way, although town was still packed, we miraculously found him.

 
   Heck yes I’m amazing.
   We then wandered around town, did some stargazing, found a man passed out at the bottom of my hill, tried to rescue him (and failed, he ended up spending a night in the cells most likely) and realised that it was actually freezing by now (thank goodness I had brought socks. But they wouldn’t fit under my skinny jeans, so I had to wear them over them. Hot.) and decided to part ways with our wonderful stranger (although agreeing to meet up the next day.)
   Went to the police station the next day in the hope that some kind person had handed my phone in. They hadn’t. I blame the Gorons. There were about four other people there at the same time who’d also lost their phones. At least they can blame being drunk. I had a sober new years.

   Also heard from FS (Friendly Stranger) on New Years day, and he informed me that he was going to go the Topp Twins with his mother. I informed him that my mother would be jealous, and so he invited us to join him.
   Again, for those unfamiliar, the Topp Twins… well. I had to explain them to an overseas friend of mine. “Uh, they’re like these older, yodelling, lesbian twins, and they’re part comedians, part singers, and they’re rather iconic in New Zealand. Or, as the twins themselves put it: “When we’re overseas, we tell everyone that everyone back home is just like us!” Search them on youtube, my explanations couldn’t begin to do these fine ladies justice.
   On the fourth of January, I walked to Frankton and back to buy a new phone. That was another epic adventure of mine this year, because that stuff takes forever. But I am proud of myself. Besides, I got a rather good deal on the phone.
   So, I found myself, new phone in hand, on my way to a winery to see some yodelling lesbians with FS, his mother, and my mother. Brilliant.
   My mother ditched me for most of the evening, because that appears to just be the way she is, and FS and I went off in search of food.
   I myself am not a vegetarian. Yes, I love animals. But I also find meat to be rather tasty. FS on the other hand… well. He’s a much better person than I. Thus we found ourselves at a burger stall, to see if we could find a veggie burger. We couldn’t, really. The lady selling burgers was rather amused, in fact. “Oh look, we’ve got a vegetarian!”
“Could you just leave out the meat pattie, perhaps?”
“We’ve got fish. Do you people eat fish?”

   It turns out vegetarians generally do not eat fish, as they don’t tend to grow on trees.
   “No, just vegetables please.”

   The lady then turned to glare at me. “I suppose you want a veggie burger too, do you?” I must admit, I was somewhat intimidated.
   “No thanks, I’ve just eaten."
   “Alright. I’ll put that down as a funny burger.” She insisted.

   Not even a veggie burger. FS got a “funny burger”. Welcome to the South Island.

   Funny burgers aside, the concert was rather enjoyable, even if FS’s mother kept trying to give me wine. I’m rather sure the best part was when she informed me that FS had told her that meeting boyfriend and I had been the highlight of his time in Queenstown. He got rather embarrassed and denied it, but ha. I bet she was right.

   And that is the rather condensed version of my current adventures in 2011.

2010

As today is the last day of 2010, its time to write an absurdly nostalgic overview of the past year...


• Homeless Friends = Best Friends

Me and Homeless Lee at the Bear Hands Wall- "We built this wall with our bare hands- our bear hands!"

In January, I befriended two freedom campers (I use the term "freedom campers" extremely loosely here, as they were basically backpackers who ran out of money after they spent it all on booze) from England (well, where else could it be but England!) named Matt and Lee. By the end of February, when they left, I was broke. Coincidence? I think not.

• All Scottish Men Are Named Euan

 Because I met three Euans-from-Scotland in the space of around two days, bringing me to the conclusion that in Scotland, it must be illegal to name your son anything but Euan. They did have lovely accents though.

• Making Love(ly Music)



Life is always cheerful when you're Rainbow Boots...

 Yes, I invented Rainbow Boots last year, but this year she got her very own cartoon, Making Love(ly Music), of which the first few cartoons are up here. I must put some more up in the new year.

• Sick Cookies Make Cool Brothers



My brother is awesome, basically.


My little brother David just started talking to me this year, which automatically makes him cool, if you haven't yet figured that out. He even got his own character in Making Love(ly Music) called The Sick Cookie. Because he is disgusting.

• I Managed To Remain Single For Nearly All of 2010

This is less of an achievement and more of a fact. I remained single nearly all year, until on Christmas Eve I got a boyfriend for an early Christmas present, basically. He is lovely. That is all I need to say.

• I Started A Blog

Mostly after being inspired by Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half, who I am pretty much madly in love with. Her blog is a lot better than mine though.

• I (Legally, At Least) Became An Adult

I turned 18 this year, which is quite exciting, although it (as yet) hasn't impacted my life all that much because I don't really like going out all that often, and I haven't voted yet, and all that seems to have happened is that everything costs more now and I have to pay bank fees which is a bitch. Still. I feel old. I've almost learnt how to drink responsibly now too.

In other news...

• Nobody really likes BP anymore after a massive oil spill that made greenies of us all. Conveniently, we were learning about environmentalism in French class, and so learnt all sorts of exciting rude things to call BP.

• We discovered that a majority of New Zealanders are actually racists, sexists, and just generally not very tolerant people after Paul Henry got in trouble for making racist comments about the Governor General and his apparent lack of New Zealand-ness, as well as making fun of Sheila Dikshit's name (oh, GROW UP. Yes, I know it sounds like dick shit. Lets now move on please) and had already got a bit of a telling off for commenting on the facial hair of a woman he interviewed. Many New Zealanders rushed to Henry's defence, claiming that he was "just saying what we're all thinking" which just goes to show how terrible we are as a nation. Good job New Zealand!

• Haiti's really not the place to be at the moment.

• The All Whites didn't fail spectacularly at the World Cup, and we had something to be proud of, telling everyone that our football team was "unbeaten." We didn't lose a single game. Or win one either. We just drew. Pretty good effort though, for a country that is apparently obsessed with rugby. Is in unpatriotic if I say I really could not care less about the All Blacks?

• There was an earthquake in Christchurch on the same day as my 18th birthday, which was terrible, because it means my mother didn't realise I was an adult until about midday. No one was directly killed by the earthquake, and the Cantabrians coped with the situation remarkably well. I doubt the same could be said if it had occurred in Auckland.

• For those who have been living under a rock in the past few months, (pun not intended) some Chilean miners were rescued after being trapped underground. We hoped for a similar happy ending for the 29 men trapped in the Pike River Mine, but unfortunately it was not to be.

• Some royals (ok, William and Kate) got engaged, and the world went crazy discussing Kate's "breeding" like she was a pedigree bulldog.

Lovely Weather, Isn't It?

   I started writing a post about my ridiculous weekend, but I found it awkward to write about. I mean, I guess I could mention what a disaster it was waking up in Invercargill (the last place anyone would want to wake up in) but the rest of it is just... hmmmm. Weird.

Invercargill, yeah.

     So instead I'm going to write about the weather. Yes. That's right. The weather.

Lovely weather today isn't it?

   Only because there's a huge storm at the moment, and I'm hoping that there's no school tomorrow. Because then I can lie in my nice cosy bed all morning, listening to rain on the roof. I'd probably get up around midday, due to a cheese craving, wander to the fridge and polish off half a block without thinking about it. (This is why I'm fat) and realise that I am doing nothing with my day.

    Quite often, that leads me to attempt to undertake some epic task, such as posting another cartoon (which, by the way, take ages to make because I do them on MS Paint and I am, surprisingly, from the shocking state of them, a perfectionist) or write multiple blog posts, or even tidy the kitchen and living room which is hugely epic when you remember that I live with a messy dog that likes to sneak into the compost bin then vomit the contents on the living room floor. And I also live with two elderly parents. As far as I'm concerned, elderly = hoarder. So there's old magazines and Otago Daily Times from years back all through the room, and heaven forbid I should ever throw them out.

Pictured: The least of my problems

   So yes. That's my plan for tomorrow. Stay at home and sing "Circle of Life" at the top of my lungs while vacuuming. Unless school happens. In which case I won't be a happy chappy.

Oh hell yeah! 

Let's shove a tube down your throat!

   Let's not, ok? It isn't fun. Also: Doctors are sadistic.

   Unfortunately, that doesn't even begin to cover it. I was tired and gah a lot last year, which I'm going to put down to stress/growing/not properly understanding the concept of sleep. But my dear mother decided to diagnose me with coeliac disease. (Gluten intolerance.) My doctor was like, yeah, try a gluten free diet. Yeah. Don't. Unless you absolutely have to. You will never be able to eat (anything worthwhile) again. No pasta. No bread. No baking. No sauces. No beer. (Not that I'm big on beer anyway, but that's not the point.) Everything you eat tastes like cardboard. Life is no longer worth living. Sure, there are gluten free alternatives. But they'll never be as good as the real thing. And don't even think you'll ever be able to eat out again. Or go on holiday. Or enjoy life.

   My doctor scheduled an endoscopy, and for six weeks beforehand, I had to eat a whole lot of gluten foods so that if I did have coeliac disease, it would show up in the tests. I've never been so happy in my life. I'd missed regular, gluten-filled sausages. For six weeks, I stuffed myself to death with gluten foods, fearing that this may be the last time I'd ever be able to.

   The day of the endoscopy was one of the most traumatising experiences of my life.

• Step 1:  The back of your throat is numbed with an anaesthetic spray. This is to make it easier to swallow the probe. The nurse told me it tasted like bananas. I guess it did, sort of. Rotten, fermenting bananas.

This is how banana spray traumatised me. I can no longer eat the potassim rich fruits.

• Step two:  You swallow the probe thing. Despute the banana spray, this still hurts. The probe is a tube-like device with a camera on one end. It has to be swallowed, so they can take lots of lovely pictures of your duodenum. Consult a dictionary there if you need to.

What sort of pockets have you got, Oxford?

• Step three:  in order to take even lovelier pictures of your dudune duodenum, they have to pump air into your stomach so they can get a better view. This is like attempting the more advanced sections of the Karma Sutra without proper preparation- your body is not supposed to do that, therefor it will end badly. And hurt.

It is not a flat tyre, so it doesn't need inflating.

• Step four:  did I mention that thanks to the camera, my entire stomach and duodenum was being shown on a television screen- and everyone could see it but me. Because they got me facing the wall where the screen wasn't. So I still am not familiar with my duodenum. (As you may have gathered from this post, I love the word duodenum, and am trying to use it as much as possible.)

• Step five:   What goes in must come out. And, I must say, after all that air was pumped into me, I did the most spectacular burp. I belched like a man. A manly man. A manly man who liked to belch. I've never felt so masculine in my life.

Except for the time I gave myself eyeliner-stubble when I was bored once. That was very manly.

   I got the results a week later. No coeliac disease. Gluten was my friend again. And I love it dearly.