Hello.
That's an interjection. An interjection is a word expressing emotion. Like this:
uh, eh....
or the aforementioned
Hello.
Grammar is fun. Back to this: a new word that is interjection-worthy because it's got an exclamation mark.
Take note: If you are talking to your chef about making a summer berry pie, chatting to you cat while tending blackberry hedges, having a fight at a family barbecue, giving out to the poor checkout girl for giving you $100 instead of two $50s (Jeez, it's all money, lady, calm down), being given out to for crocheting a sock wrong, muttering abuse while cleaning up after a concert, playing a tree in a play, or addressing parliament (that's for all my politician readers out there), let me Interject momentarily.
Thing is, I've been thinking about my current non-student existence, and I have realised something momentous. I have therefore decided to Interject on your life by declaring it to you.
You're welcome.
This is it:
Hlib!
(it means, Holiday Life Is Boring, condensed for your convenience into an interjection. Now that's what I call something.)
To back up this interjection, look at this. I watched Bridget Jones last night for the 400th time, ate my way through an entire packet of biscuits (almost), and drank like, a bottomless cup of tea. And then I went to bed before 12 because I had an early start. How drab. Also, am reading a book I've already read. Hlib indeed.
That's all. Have a bon something.
(Hey, interjections are meant to be short. I'm also in the middle of a delicious mint-hued sort of caramel confection. I'm a very busy person.)
Showing posts with label idle ranting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label idle ranting. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Sunday, 1 July 2012
child-lock caps and other irritating inventions
Think twice the next time you recline your seat in economy class while wearing a fringed sweater and clutching a maths trophy. You will feel my wrath.
Hello loyal someones. During my search for cold cures the other day, I discovered a magical bottle of turquoise blue cough syrup that claimed to be a hybrid of peach and vanilla flavors that I think the entire world should be aware of. I know. A cough syrup that tastes like vanilla and sweet peach. Where has this been all my life? Humph. We shall soon find out.
I took the bottle from its box, set the plastic measuring cup on the tabletop, and twisted the cap. Of course, it was a child-lock cap. That's what this cold-cure confection had been hiding behind.
Which leads me to this list, one of those that goes under the heading of So Angry I Made A List. So here we are. Child-lock caps and Other Inventions I Hate.
1. Child-Lock Caps
These are not child-lock caps. I am 19 years old, almost 20, and it takes me ten minutes to remove a 'child-proof' cap with the aid of a toothpick and a teacloth. I have a cousin who has been plucking those lids off Calpol bottles since she was eight. If you don't want your children to run around gulping down copious amounts of golden-tinged Benylin For Dry Cough syrup, then do what it says on the tin: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Child-proof bottle-stoppers are not child-proof. They work against certain people (e.g. me) and glide off effortlessly for others (who could easily be your 4-year-old niece). Whoever came up with this sucks. And besides, there are far more dangerous things that kids can get their hands on these days. Like knives (only a drawer handle away!), paperweights, and a copy of Miley Cyrus' latest album.
2. Reclining Seats in Economy Class
The inventor of these was clearly trying to do a good deed, and make Economy class more bearable for you and me and everyone we know (except for that person that we all know who flies first class and then moans about how long the flight was - we've got other things to contend with, lady. Like teeny television screens, people sleeping on top of us, and the fat guy in front of us who reclines his seat and squishes our legs for ten hours). However, he failed, and instead succeeded in making economy class A LIVING NIGHTMARE, where Daniel Radcliffe is right up in your face fighting ghosts.
On top of this, I can never get my seat to recline. Oh, cruel world.
3. School Prize Day
Who enjoys this? Every year on the 24th of May our school had possibly the longest prize day in the country. One one hand, it was the only day in the year when the nerds could finally be recognized. And when they were recognised, they drove us all crazy. Yes, you won a prize for maths. No, I don't particularly care. On the other, our prize day had the added fun of rewarding nobodies. People got prizes for manners. Prizes for neat uniforms. Prizes for shoe-tying. The principal talked about climate change. The RE teachers talked about the 'Living Community' (still unsure what this means. But am intrigued to know about the Dead Community which they never seemed to mention). Sixth years talked about God.
Whoever invented prizes for school should really be noted for being one of the worst inventors in modern history.
4. Fringe
This has been wrong ever since the days of the Wild West Texas Ranger. And it's still wrong. It will never be right. Dangling pieces of faux-suede tacked onto your handbag/jacket/shoe is just never going to be a good look. Ever. Same goes for wrap dresses on the overweight, leggings on the over-forties, and patterned tights on pretty much anyone.
5. 9am Lectures, 2pm Lectures and 5pm Lectures On The Same Day
Yes, I've only got ten hours a week. Yes, I know most people work from nine through two and until five, but that is arguably less irritating than coming in at nine and then either having to go home for half an hour before rushing out the door again, or sticking around and wasting away in some godforsaken corner of the Science Building. What can you do from eleven to two that's in any way productive? Go to the gym? And what are we supposed to do from three until five? Read?
Not cool, college, not cool.
And a Mildly Interesting Thing I found during the week:
This movie, which I saw last year at 2am on some godforsaken channel after an ill-advised night out: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie, if you're being all art house), is being re-released this month (it's from 1972). It's a bit of a gem if you like swish European stuff (sort of), posh people (sort of), intrigue (sort of), missing dinner dates (sort of), hallucinations (sort of), 70s French fashion, and drug mix-ups (sort of). And who doesn't? Come on, it's old and it's French and it doesn't have Kristen Stewart in it.
Check it out! And bon Blog!
Hello loyal someones. During my search for cold cures the other day, I discovered a magical bottle of turquoise blue cough syrup that claimed to be a hybrid of peach and vanilla flavors that I think the entire world should be aware of. I know. A cough syrup that tastes like vanilla and sweet peach. Where has this been all my life? Humph. We shall soon find out.
I took the bottle from its box, set the plastic measuring cup on the tabletop, and twisted the cap. Of course, it was a child-lock cap. That's what this cold-cure confection had been hiding behind.
Which leads me to this list, one of those that goes under the heading of So Angry I Made A List. So here we are. Child-lock caps and Other Inventions I Hate.
 |
| trying to trick me by being smartie-coloured |
1. Child-Lock Caps
These are not child-lock caps. I am 19 years old, almost 20, and it takes me ten minutes to remove a 'child-proof' cap with the aid of a toothpick and a teacloth. I have a cousin who has been plucking those lids off Calpol bottles since she was eight. If you don't want your children to run around gulping down copious amounts of golden-tinged Benylin For Dry Cough syrup, then do what it says on the tin: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Child-proof bottle-stoppers are not child-proof. They work against certain people (e.g. me) and glide off effortlessly for others (who could easily be your 4-year-old niece). Whoever came up with this sucks. And besides, there are far more dangerous things that kids can get their hands on these days. Like knives (only a drawer handle away!), paperweights, and a copy of Miley Cyrus' latest album.
2. Reclining Seats in Economy Class
The inventor of these was clearly trying to do a good deed, and make Economy class more bearable for you and me and everyone we know (except for that person that we all know who flies first class and then moans about how long the flight was - we've got other things to contend with, lady. Like teeny television screens, people sleeping on top of us, and the fat guy in front of us who reclines his seat and squishes our legs for ten hours). However, he failed, and instead succeeded in making economy class A LIVING NIGHTMARE, where Daniel Radcliffe is right up in your face fighting ghosts.
On top of this, I can never get my seat to recline. Oh, cruel world.
3. School Prize Day
Who enjoys this? Every year on the 24th of May our school had possibly the longest prize day in the country. One one hand, it was the only day in the year when the nerds could finally be recognized. And when they were recognised, they drove us all crazy. Yes, you won a prize for maths. No, I don't particularly care. On the other, our prize day had the added fun of rewarding nobodies. People got prizes for manners. Prizes for neat uniforms. Prizes for shoe-tying. The principal talked about climate change. The RE teachers talked about the 'Living Community' (still unsure what this means. But am intrigued to know about the Dead Community which they never seemed to mention). Sixth years talked about God.
Whoever invented prizes for school should really be noted for being one of the worst inventors in modern history.
4. Fringe
This has been wrong ever since the days of the Wild West Texas Ranger. And it's still wrong. It will never be right. Dangling pieces of faux-suede tacked onto your handbag/jacket/shoe is just never going to be a good look. Ever. Same goes for wrap dresses on the overweight, leggings on the over-forties, and patterned tights on pretty much anyone.
5. 9am Lectures, 2pm Lectures and 5pm Lectures On The Same Day
Yes, I've only got ten hours a week. Yes, I know most people work from nine through two and until five, but that is arguably less irritating than coming in at nine and then either having to go home for half an hour before rushing out the door again, or sticking around and wasting away in some godforsaken corner of the Science Building. What can you do from eleven to two that's in any way productive? Go to the gym? And what are we supposed to do from three until five? Read?
Not cool, college, not cool.
And a Mildly Interesting Thing I found during the week:
This movie, which I saw last year at 2am on some godforsaken channel after an ill-advised night out: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie, if you're being all art house), is being re-released this month (it's from 1972). It's a bit of a gem if you like swish European stuff (sort of), posh people (sort of), intrigue (sort of), missing dinner dates (sort of), hallucinations (sort of), 70s French fashion, and drug mix-ups (sort of). And who doesn't? Come on, it's old and it's French and it doesn't have Kristen Stewart in it.
 |
| no K-Stew over there... or over here... |
Check it out! And bon Blog!
Sunday, 10 June 2012
ufos, veggies, and getting told off by 14-year-olds
since when was not knowing your vegetables a crime?
I know lots of things. I know how many times Roger Federer has won the French Open (once). I know what a mohair jumper looks like. I know how to cook a killer carbonara and I know how to order five slices of ham from a deli in German. I know what to do with a long division sum (barely), I know a Robert Frost poem off by heart, and I know what happened in the 2006 World Cup final.
What all these people don't want to realise/don't actually realise is that they have help when they buy their vegetables. They have little digital signs that say Psst! Pink Ladies!, and I'm A Broccolini, and No, Not Over There, I'm The Fennel Root You Want, and even I'm A Sweetcorn Even Though I Look Like A Leek.
I don't get help like that. When it comes to veggies, I'm all alone.
 |
| stupid evil pear... I'll know your code someday and then YOU WILL BE SORRY |
I know lots of things. I know how many times Roger Federer has won the French Open (once). I know what a mohair jumper looks like. I know how to cook a killer carbonara and I know how to order five slices of ham from a deli in German. I know what to do with a long division sum (barely), I know a Robert Frost poem off by heart, and I know what happened in the 2006 World Cup final.
What I don't know, however, is anything about vegetables. Or fruit. Or herbs, for that matter.
And why am I telling you this? Why am I admitting my deep, dark secret? Because it has been cruelly exposed in my current job as a supermarket cashier. Little old ladies with huge bags of some unidentified leafy thing smile at me and ask me how I am. I smile back and say EH, WHAT IS THIS? Their faces fall. What am I, a cave-dweller? A philistine? Or - worse - an American? No, I'm just someone who doesn't know the difference between a head of cabbage and a head of lettuce. Or between a turnip and a swede (that's a hard one, but there's no excuse for mixing up cabbages and lettuces, no excuse AT ALL).
 |
| this is more like my kind of checkout |
What all these people don't want to realise/don't actually realise is that they have help when they buy their vegetables. They have little digital signs that say Psst! Pink Ladies!, and I'm A Broccolini, and No, Not Over There, I'm The Fennel Root You Want, and even I'm A Sweetcorn Even Though I Look Like A Leek.
I don't get help like that. When it comes to veggies, I'm all alone.
The other day I had a particularly vile experience. Two girls came to pay for their basket of Sweets and Other Crap 14-Year-Olds Buy When They're Left In The House For The Weekend. No problem. 14-year-olds aren't going to be buying herbs are they? Or difficult-looking asparagus/bean shoot cross-breeds? Not a bit of it. 14-year-olds like twizzlers (whatever they are), sugar, gum, and coke.
Safe in this knowledge, I was happily scanning through boiled sweets and rubbery dolphins and sugared fish and ready-made pizzas when I saw the unthinkable. I saw the UFOS.
Safe in this knowledge, I was happily scanning through boiled sweets and rubbery dolphins and sugared fish and ready-made pizzas when I saw the unthinkable. I saw the UFOS.
Unidentifiable Fruity Objects.
WHAT'S THIS? I ask, about a squashed, dry purple thing.
The girls looked at one another before one said, in a, may I say, utterly disparaging tone, A PASSIONFRUIT?, barely hastening to add YOU IDIOT after it.
Then there were the weird-shaped lemons.
WHAT ARE THESE? I asked again, hoping for a somewhat warmer response.
Are you serious? IT'S A YELLOW SQUASH. Pan-faces. Expressionless, like little middle-school judges. For the record, I have NO IDEA what they were planning on doing to that 'yellow squash' (probably just some made-up Australian thing), but I fear for the poor thing.
By the time they left, with their incorrectly scanned watermelon (stupid thing comes under WATERMELON and not, as I previously believed, MELON, WATER), the only thing going through their heads was, undoubtably, Who is this kid?
Then there were the weird-shaped lemons.
WHAT ARE THESE? I asked again, hoping for a somewhat warmer response.
Are you serious? IT'S A YELLOW SQUASH. Pan-faces. Expressionless, like little middle-school judges. For the record, I have NO IDEA what they were planning on doing to that 'yellow squash' (probably just some made-up Australian thing), but I fear for the poor thing.
 |
| is this the lettuce? |
 |
| .... or is this? Not so easy now, eh? |
I was wondering the same thing. Who is this kid? Who am I? Well, before today, I was someone who thought they knew their parsnips from their peppers, their passionfruits from their beetroot (look the same! No kidding!), their star fruits from their yellow squashes.
Not anymore. Now I was just some rookie checkout girl. And it didn't feel good. It didn't feel good at all.
As if not recognising fruit and veg and herbs wasn't bad enough (smelling a bag to check that it really was basil raised more than a few eyebrows), I also don't know the codes. You know, the ones the suave checkout chick types in with her perfectly manicured finger when you plonk down a load of carrots (carrots: 24), bananas (17), or pears (66 or loads of other unknown numbers. I thought there was only one kind of pear. Wrong again, Shona). Endless sets of 57, 103 (broccoli? God I'm getting good!), 60, 218... (No! Broccoli 107! God DAMN IT! What's 103 then? Leeks?)
I think I should get back to enjoying my time off, to be honest. Next week I'll be back on till, failing to recognise coriander, mixing up ironbarks and butternuts, desperately looking for MELON, WATER, and charging someone $12 for two carrots just out of spite.
I have power too, you know.
OTHER MADE-UP NAMES FOR FRUIT-RELATED ITEMS
zucchini - what the hell happened to a good old courgette?
eggplant - this has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with eggs, or indeed plants. At least aubergine is a colour
capsicum - ? pepper not good enough for you?
rock melon - why does a regular melon deserve a stupid name? Because it looks like a rock? Not buying it, Australia, not buying it
lebanese cucumber - otherwise known as a smallish cucumber
50 types of apple - can't they just all be the same price? No? Unfair world
Bon Blog! (non appetite!)
Not anymore. Now I was just some rookie checkout girl. And it didn't feel good. It didn't feel good at all.
As if not recognising fruit and veg and herbs wasn't bad enough (smelling a bag to check that it really was basil raised more than a few eyebrows), I also don't know the codes. You know, the ones the suave checkout chick types in with her perfectly manicured finger when you plonk down a load of carrots (carrots: 24), bananas (17), or pears (66 or loads of other unknown numbers. I thought there was only one kind of pear. Wrong again, Shona). Endless sets of 57, 103 (broccoli? God I'm getting good!), 60, 218... (No! Broccoli 107! God DAMN IT! What's 103 then? Leeks?)
I think I should get back to enjoying my time off, to be honest. Next week I'll be back on till, failing to recognise coriander, mixing up ironbarks and butternuts, desperately looking for MELON, WATER, and charging someone $12 for two carrots just out of spite.
I have power too, you know.
OTHER MADE-UP NAMES FOR FRUIT-RELATED ITEMS
zucchini - what the hell happened to a good old courgette?
eggplant - this has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with eggs, or indeed plants. At least aubergine is a colour
capsicum - ? pepper not good enough for you?
rock melon - why does a regular melon deserve a stupid name? Because it looks like a rock? Not buying it, Australia, not buying it
lebanese cucumber - otherwise known as a smallish cucumber
50 types of apple - can't they just all be the same price? No? Unfair world
Bon Blog! (non appetite!)
Thursday, 7 June 2012
somewhere out there... but not on Facebook
my unsupportive family, and watch out, there's a Facebook under the bed
Spoiler Alert: RANT. Proceed with Caution.
Do I wish that more people read my blog? Yes. Do I promote it to anyone I know? No.
Am beginning to think this is maybe not the best way to go about Blogging. Other people with blogs TELL OTHER PEOPLE about them.
Better. But now I'm in Australia I'm hardly going to ring up everyone I know and say Listen, Read My Blog Bitch, Read It Now! And I'm too self-conscious to establish Somewhere Boring with its own custom made Facebook page. (Stupid shy blog.)
I have gone as far as linking it to people on my Facebook, though, so I'm not a total lost cause, right? WRONG. Linking is not the same as doing something productive. Harumph.
Besides Facebook and All That, the funny thing is, I told my family about it. Now, you would think that of all the people in the universe, they would at least be curious. Nope. Not a bit of it. I emailed my mom the other day with a casual Oh, By The Way, Check Out My Blog. She didn't check it out. All my views that day were from the United States and, unless she's leading some kind of double life, I'm pretty sure she's not in Seattle or something. If she had a blog, I'd read it. God.
Maybe I should publish my diary online: OMG today Dom and Ella broke up! Feeling SAD.
Maybe not.
Back to the days of talking to myself in a rash and inexplicable manner. Back to the drawing board. You're right, it is a bit sad talking to nobody. But Facebook is a big, scary machine that demands its own capital letter before it allows itself to be recognized by my computer's dictionary. I can't deal with that sort of thing. The name of this place doesn't even have a capital letter. But maybe I'll get some gumption somewhere and get Facebooking (yes, yes, the capital letter's there. Sheesh.)
Maybe one day I'll do it, before I've resorted to radio broadcasts, newspaper ads, or, god forbid, flyers with pictures of tumbleweed on them.
(Then again, I could try putting ads in the newspaper. 'WANTED: READERS'. Now that's what I call a good idea.)
 |
| you have absolutely no messages... or views |
Spoiler Alert: RANT. Proceed with Caution.
Do I wish that more people read my blog? Yes. Do I promote it to anyone I know? No.
Am beginning to think this is maybe not the best way to go about Blogging. Other people with blogs TELL OTHER PEOPLE about them.
Better. But now I'm in Australia I'm hardly going to ring up everyone I know and say Listen, Read My Blog Bitch, Read It Now! And I'm too self-conscious to establish Somewhere Boring with its own custom made Facebook page. (Stupid shy blog.)
I have gone as far as linking it to people on my Facebook, though, so I'm not a total lost cause, right? WRONG. Linking is not the same as doing something productive. Harumph.
Besides Facebook and All That, the funny thing is, I told my family about it. Now, you would think that of all the people in the universe, they would at least be curious. Nope. Not a bit of it. I emailed my mom the other day with a casual Oh, By The Way, Check Out My Blog. She didn't check it out. All my views that day were from the United States and, unless she's leading some kind of double life, I'm pretty sure she's not in Seattle or something. If she had a blog, I'd read it. God.
Maybe I should publish my diary online: OMG today Dom and Ella broke up! Feeling SAD.
Maybe not.
Back to the days of talking to myself in a rash and inexplicable manner. Back to the drawing board. You're right, it is a bit sad talking to nobody. But Facebook is a big, scary machine that demands its own capital letter before it allows itself to be recognized by my computer's dictionary. I can't deal with that sort of thing. The name of this place doesn't even have a capital letter. But maybe I'll get some gumption somewhere and get Facebooking (yes, yes, the capital letter's there. Sheesh.)
Maybe one day I'll do it, before I've resorted to radio broadcasts, newspaper ads, or, god forbid, flyers with pictures of tumbleweed on them.
(Then again, I could try putting ads in the newspaper. 'WANTED: READERS'. Now that's what I call a good idea.)
Friday, 3 February 2012
punctuation lessons
... another Important Thing
Thought punctuation was all
about the commas and apostrophes? Think again. As I discovered today, there is
a whole other world of punctuation out there that I was horrifically unaware
of. The shame! THE SHAME! Oh, it’s horrible, it’s horrible. Not knowing this
kind of USEFUL information meant that I would be more suited to giving tours of
Machu Piccu than ‘reading’ English. When I lived in those dark times of Not
Knowing How To Put A Line Into My Essay, I would have been better at pointing
out historical archaeological details about a place that I had never been to
than sitting down reading something that had been written in the 1700s by some
guy with five slaves and 300 acres. Without even considering the question, To Put
In Inverted Commas or Not To Put In Inverted Commas, I was blind to the real
study of English. The Real Stuff.
But, all jokes aside,
seriously.
Seriously. One day in front of the television and I’d learn what the weather was like in Turin. One day in an English class and I learn that when you use the dash (‘The Hyphen’), you must leave a space either side so that the lecturer correcting your essay won’t have an actual stroke. It transforms this sentence of made-up words that my lecturer likes to pontificate with, from this
Seriously. One day in front of the television and I’d learn what the weather was like in Turin. One day in an English class and I learn that when you use the dash (‘The Hyphen’), you must leave a space either side so that the lecturer correcting your essay won’t have an actual stroke. It transforms this sentence of made-up words that my lecturer likes to pontificate with, from this
Neutrally explicified-
To this:
Neutrally explicified –
I know. Totally different,
right?
 |
| the questionable land of punctuation marks |
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