New York, DC and Philly Pictures.

No words....just looky.

Qwwwwwuick Touch of a Base

Hence my return from NYC I was catapulted into a massive project that consumed my little mind for 4 weeks. That said event is now complete, and rather completed rather well too if I don’t self inflate myself too much.

Anyhoo, what a crazy few weeks. Lets recap, yes lets!!

· Gillard got the job and Tony got shown the door but not after a rather abysmal sideshow with those irritating show pony independents

· Gays won the right to adopt in NSW, that one came out of nowhere. Great work

· Christchurch got the shake ratter and rolls, damn lucky no one died!

· Two of my friends delivered children into the world. Aww bless

· I am officially in LOVE…with NYC. Come on you did not think it would be someone real!?

· Spring has arrived, bringing all its butt crack sweat inducing fun back with it.

So before further ado, let’s get back on the show.

Well...Duh. Stating the obvious part 1

Here starts a regular column of thee, where i will post utterly obvious claptrap that masquerades as news. Called rather befittingly the 'Well...Duh' section.

This week brings us to the universe chattering conclusion that rich people live longer than poor. Sorry if i just fell backwards off my milking stool into a pile of sheep innards but this hardly a bum cheek trembling revelation. Here is a summary or linky mclinkstier:

A new report shows that the poorest Australians are dying on average three years earlier than the wealthiest.

The Health Lies in Wealth report, released on Monday, states there's a three year life expectancy gap between people ranked in the lowest 20 per cent when it comes to socio-economic status compared with those in the top 20 per cent.

I am sorry, by who? The Health Lies In Wealth Report?? Who names these reports. Might as well call it 'Rich live longer....bahahahahahahahahahahhaaaaaa ....ahhh'

This is no surprise, lack of money leads to lack of healthy foods, access to medical attention, let alone access to proper medication. Those poverty stricken people in the world have not been dying from boredom all these decades because someone forgot to post them the complete DVD collection of Melrose Place. It has always been lack of proper medical attention due to lack of money or local resources, through a ....lack of money.

This is not news, nether was the 10 year anniversary of the Sydney Olympics (Seriously what the hell was that!!???). 24 hour coverage and front page photographs for an event that happened a decade ago, isn't that a bit pathetic Sydney?

Whats next on the news-a-tron this week, "Scientists discover cats and dogs do not get on", "Surprised granny gets wet after turning on shower" or "Man who sticks head in operating jet engine loses head, police baffled to explain how."

NYC!

I have just come back from holiday and I am super disco busy, so a proper update will have to be bashed out this weekend. But NYC is the love of my life, we are frantically texting and calling each other at the moment. I did meet it's parents, called Philadelphia and Washington who were both very nice.

I believe at some time in the future we will be together, but alas there shall be a large distance between us. I will have to satisfy myself with 30 Rock reruns, Hot pretzels which i will make by hand and making my house smell like burnt rubber and attitude.

Better update to come, including squillions of picture. Don't roll your eyes, I can smell boredom and hear noodles.

Elect me! Cause I will do nothing at all!

Overinflated self absorbed hyperboles could not properly explain how disinterested I am in this current election. Bar Julia Gillard whipping out the girls at a press conference and screaming “Wayyyyheyyy get a load of these coconuts!” or Tony Abbott admitting to liking a good spanking with a ladle and/or microwave door, I could not give a flaming possum trap.

That being said I will still def vote for the redhead tit flasher, I’d rather shag a car bomb than vote for that bigot Ab-dawg. But how booooooooooring is the campaign, I am astounded how stupid these campaigners think people are, that or we are tree swinging rednecks with empty muffin trays for brains who can’t remember 5 secs ago let alone 3 years. They keep saying the same old shit ‘blah blah Aussie battlers money something something , Climate change direction (LIE), humanitarian treatment of asylum seekers (DING DONG FAT BUGGERY LIE)’. They are swinging from whatever trapeze happens to be waved at them. Yes I am Bitter - party of one, ole K-RUDD's political impotence was rather disconcerting but the fact is after all this time, two regimes and soup spilling mouth farting - nothing has been done on anything. Abbott is just interested in keeping the rich rich and the poor and minorities marginlised, Gillard just wants power and a naughty weekend escape to the lodge with her man lover.

I am reminded of the fantastic scene in the movie Election were Tammy Metzler runs for Student body president and makes this speech. If anyone said that in a campaign I'd vote for them until i die from a drug fueled glam choking with a bedazzled belt. But instead I tune out the blah blah blah blah by dreaming of making a house out of toothpaste, dancing on stage with Bruce Springsteen and colour coding the granny smith apples at the supermarket. I will manage to drag my fancy ass out and vote, I will have to visit the embassy as I will be New York City……breath it in bitches….yes NEW YORK CITY. AS I am of the ilk that if you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the government cause you (NEW YORK CITY whhhheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!) did bugger all helping.

Admittedly voters want their leaders to be friggin superman, they have to get it all right and if they by some act of god they do, some old biddy in the sticks has the grumps cause her cat was awoken by the loud hedge next door. Look at Obama, what the hell do Americans want. He has done a lot in his term : economic disaster and massive global depression averted (we were THIIIS close people!), START Treaty resurrected, Health Reform, sensible war policy and a major reduction in out breaks of americaassholeitis! But people got their knickers in a twist that Obama didn’t rip off his suit, clench a knife in his teeth and swim to the bottom of the Gulf and plug that darn leak himself. God just tie him up and burn him, what a jerk.

Naked and wet Obama aside, If I could get Gillard to come here and have a cuddle and a chat. I would say “LADY! I will vote for you but please can this time something end up happening!, instead of this vaudevillian side show we call policy. It’s pretty easy… people are simple, they want low taxes, not to be old and lonely, pretty nature stuff, no apocalypse and an occasional fart on a playground swing in summer.

Done. Do it fanta pants. Now shut up.”

Now.....all change!

Sydney Mardi Gras post recession

What’s that mister time? …oh it’s time to shake it all up again like a large snow globe. Right I better hold the shower rod perchance I slide out the window with all this reshuffling. This Wednesday night my friend Ad and I were in search for non fattening yumbo pizza, and being not one who reflects on life, Ad (he is more of the ‘shut up and deal with it’ type) sighed ‘It seems everything is up in the air at the moment’. Funny cause I thought I was the only one who thought life was seeming like one giant scene change.

My friend Curtis is returning home to tropical Cleveland Ohio, Matt is off on a 11 week trip around Europe, Ad’s current paramour was no more and my friend Oli is about it have her first baby in 5 weeks. Not to mention other friends job changes, relationship strains and general unrest. I have though remained pretty much the same, apart from my upcoming NYC trip the status is resoundingly quo.

I am still warring with the pigeons on my balcony, having found they are not afraid of wooden snakes I have taken to waving my dirty gym sock at them to scare them off. I do feel a bit bad, as pigeons mate for life I find myself jealous of their cuddling on my balcony, if it weren’t for them covering my furniture in bird yogurt it would be fine. So I storm out like a madman screaming, “Don’t rub your long term commitment in my face, pigeons!”. Yesterday I did it in a towel and almost fell off the chair. I then imagined people finding my naked dead body clutching a stinky gym sock in one hand and a wooden snake in the other, two stories down in the alley and trying to figure out what happened. That would have been a bit sad.

Back on message. So it seems my wee group is undergoing a bit of a rejig in the style of preschool musical chairs. It’s hard not to be nervous or sad as it’s so hard to find a group of friends you can connect with all at the same time, and this is what we have. We are one pulsating brain and in recent times I have really come to realise that it is the relationships you have with your friends and family that really count and define you, not dudes who breeze in and out of your life. But I begrudgingly agree change is good, we need a chance to see things in a different light. Life is like that, people come into your life for one reason or another and the way they affect or change you is only apparent after they are gone. My mum told me that after a certain Irish disaster.

Anyhoo, I am sure this will work out just fine. Can’t help but wonder what’s coming up for me, if it will be nice or not so fun. Either way, with good friends (no matter where they are or what they are doing) I am sure I can handle it.

The Bride and The Crisco

..No we bloody well can't!

So I heard this funny story from my boss of all people last week and had to share.

His sister in law to be, at the time, was preparing for her wedding to my bosses brother. One of the prep items was to bake the Wedding Cake and one ingredient the cake called for was Crisco Shortening. If you don’t know what shortening is, it is essentially rendered vegetable fat in its purest state. You use it for such gastronomic treats like coco-pop crispies and other gastric horrors. It fell out of favour in cooking for some time when people wished not to have heart attacks at the age of 8. All those dead children were just a hassle and blocked up the garden sprinklers. Anyhoo our bride skipped off to David Jones, providers of all type of poshy noshy to buy 20 packets of Crisco.

Unfortunately David Jones was bare of fat slabs, but before the bride reached for the Sara Lee mix a rather helpful clerk whispered to her she could purchase Crisco at an alternate location, a rather comely place in the gay ghetto…called Toolshed. It was demonstrated through whiteboards and a laser pointer to the Bride that some men of the man loving type, rather enjoyed nothing other than inviting a chum over for peach schnapps, Golden Girls reruns and shoving their hands up each other bottoms. This past time, known as ‘fisting’ required a lot of slippery assistance to get a big ole man hand up ya backtrack. Obviously a bottle of whiskey and a mallet to the head won’t suffice and the most popular access ‘assistant’ was our humble Crisco Shortening.

So with some glee the bride ran off to Toolshed, where you can buy all kinds of delights like hardcore Belgian cat porn and dildos of all shapes and sizes it would would not be out of place in some Mardi Gras version of “It’s a small world after all”, but judging by the sizes you can buy it would be more of “It’s a sore world after all”. The wise Bride called ahead to make sure they had spare Crisco, it was a Saturday anyway. So bounding up the stairs she found 20 blocks of Crisco were awaiting her next to what she called ‘A very well stock S&M section”. All was sorted, the bride was able to make her cake for the wedding and all was good, the cake was delicious and no one’s bowels were relocated to their brain.

But I can’t help but think of people eating the cake when all of a sudden they are finding they have swallowed their entire hand to the elbow and did not know it. ‘How did that get in there’, let alone if you dropped a piece and slid on it. You could slip all the way to New Zealand.