Why I am better than Stephen King

Recently, I have been told by a number of people that they actually read this blog, think it is lovely and wonderful, and want me to post more crappy pictures. However, my problem is that I have many unfinished posts waiting to see the light of day which I just can't make into proper long posts. So I'm going to do something drastic (not really). Remember when Stephen King was releasing a bunch of shitty novels, like Cell and Lisey's Story, but then he released a book of short stories that were really good, and then after that his novels became good too? I'm going to try that. Welcome to the Stephen King method of blogging. Except I don't think Stephen King illustrates his short stories. OH WELL. This is why I'm more awesome than Stephen King.

01. A tribute to Vlad


The most recent person to say that I should post a new story was Vlad from Interference.com. Since he seems to actually like my posts, I thought I might draw him a picture. Since he's never posted a picture of himself on the Superthread, I thought I'd draw one of him, so that we can at least all have the same image in my mind. Until he posts one, this is what we'll all think of when we think of Vlad.

I really tried to draw a glorious motherland bear in the background of this picture, but alas:

What even is that. It looks like a fucking hand puppet. And that red thing is meant to be its mouth, not a slash wound/vagina.

Anyway, tribute to glorious motherland Vlad! We drink much vodka and borscht in his honour!

02. The creepy Liberal candidate for the Victorian election


His name is actually Ted Baillieu. He ran a woefully uninspiring ad campaign for the Victorian election (which it actually looks like he's won, boo and nay). This ad campaign consisted of him standing there and the words "Vote Liberal". See:

However, the boyfriend and I reckon that it's actually quite clever after all. The undertones are all in his facial expression. Do you see what I'm getting at here? This guy is fucking creepy.

You get the idea, right? Implied. Very clever, isn't he?

Bloody paedophile.

UPDATE! I just saw this on The Age! I think he just did flash someone, and he is very VERY happy.

One of the other candidates for my electorate was equally terrifying. She used the same picture for every single ad. Does this woman here inspire confidence in you, or does she look like she's about to eat your family, your pets and everyone you've ever loved?

Ahhh! I'll never sleep again!

Of course, the ALP candidate for Melbourne itself is called Bronwyn Pike. Her election slogan?

"I LIKE PIKE."


How long did that take you to come up with? No, seriously, I would have never ever have thought of that by myself. Well done.

I just wanted to change all the billboards to read "I like pie".

Speaking of which:

03. In work news ...


For those who came in late, I work in a pie shop and I start at stupidly early o'clock.

Now, at work, we offer an upgrade with your pie. For two dollars more, you can get your delicious pie turned into death and sadness served with mashed potato, peas and gravy on top.

As much as I love mashed potato and gravy, they do not belong on top of a pie! Peas, on the other hand, don't belong anywhere. Ew, peas. Anyway! Generally, if you wanted to know if a customer wanted this, you'd ask something like "would you like mashed potato, peas and gravy on top of your pie?", wouldn't you? Well, some of my staff member don't have quite the right idea. They think this is appropriate:

THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT.

Other than that, customers are fairly uninteresting. Though there is the guy who comes in almost every day, asks repeatedly if we have curry pies, then goes on about how "it's only 9:30, way to early for a pie!" and then hangs around for ages asking for curry pies. One day he is actually going to leave without a face.

04. As if I didn't learn my lesson the first time ...


Many of you will remember the post in which I tried Russian-style tea. Obviously this didn't end well, and I vowed never to drink awful foreign teas ever again. However, as part of the amazing Crowded House trip, we stayed in a beautiful hotel in Brisbane. They gave us a lot of complimentary teas. Thanks to my morbid curiosity and my natural instinct to take everything in hotel rooms that isn't actually nailed down, the teas came home with me. There was a selection - Earl Grey, peppermint, green tea and chamomile. I made the Earl Grey for the boyfriend and he actually liked it! That's weird, because here is how Earl Grey tea is made:

Anyway. I never tried the green tea - I left that for my friend Helen to have when she visited me - but I did brave both the peppermint tea and the chamomile.

The peppermint tea was just all kinds of wrong. Another friend of mine described it quite accurately as drinking boiled mouthwash. She wasn't far off. I couldn't even get through a quarter of it! At least it cleared my sinuses - it was also akin to Vicks vapo-rub - but for fuck's sake, does anybody ever actually drink that shit voluntarily? If so, WHY?

As for the chamomile, well, it just tasted of nothing to be quite honest. I put honey in it and it was marginally better - I actually managed to finish it this time. But still! My quest to find a good herbal or fruit tea still remains futile. They smell of everything and taste of nothing. If you love being continually disappointed, herbal tea is for you, I suppose.

05. And finally, the news you've all been wanting - shit buildings update


Recently (and by recently I could mean anything from "yesterday" to "in 2008"), I made two extensive blog entries about all the weird and shitty buildings around where I live. Since then, I've found out a couple of things.

First of all, the Patra House. I am VERY let down. It really does just seem to be a club for Greek people from the Patras region. Still, the rather intimidating "Members Only" sign still arouses suspicion in me. How the fuck DO you become a member anyway? Also, I had a dream a couple of nights ago that the Patra House was actually a bar and they were doing $5 jugs. Stay classy.

In other more important news, remember the shitty drug house? Yeah. Guess what? The fucking thing is for sale. That's not the big thing though. The big thing is how much they want for it.

Just look at that piece of shit! We couldn't believe it. It was originally up for auction, but now seems to be up for sale proper. Ok, I know that's a bloody big plot of land and all that, but $1.5 million? WOW. Also, click here for a big version of that picture. I want you to be able to see all the shit in the back garden properly.

So there you have it! Hopefully, by the Stephen King theory mentioned above, my next post will be just phenomenal. Hopefully I managed to create one before the end of the year (how the fuck did THAT happen, by the way!) Until next time, enjoy this huge collection of turds.

Oh my fucking god I win at life.

Since last time:


Well, the last time I started writing a blog entry proper, I received a phone call from New Zealand informing me that my grandma had passed away, so I popped back home for a bit. Though the circumstances weren't the greatest, it was still lovely to be back. I even managed to catch up with Lena for a bit, and had a massive love explosion all over her face.

When I returned, well, I can't remember if I posted before about how my work had been messing me around. Basically, I was hired in August and was told that I would be starting in mid-September, when the store was due to open. Do you want to know when I started? Do you really?

October 29th.

So I'm bloody poor and stressing hard about having to pay my uni fees upfront next year. Oh well, such is life. I'm sure I'll get by somehow.

Other things happened also, but let's get all this preamble out the way so that I can tell you about one of the best trips of my life. Yeah, italics means Serious Business.

CROWDED HOUSE TRIP OF AWESOME AND WONDERFUL!

I fucking love Crowded House. They're almost my favourite band, in fact on days like today they ARE my favourite band. So Ax and I had made plans to follow them on part of their Australian tour - Melbourne, Sydney and two Brisbane shows. I very nearly lost my job over trying to acquire leave over this trip, but all was well in the end and nobody had their eyes stabbed out. It was a close thing though.

Melbourne, 5th November, Rod Laver Arena


This show was seated, but by god did we have amazing seats. Dead centre, front row. The seats were about as comfortable as sitting on a pincushion, but that was ok because we only spent about two milliseconds sitting down anyway. As soon as we heard the opening notes of I Feel Possessed, we were up on the rail, and there we stayed for the entire show. I hardly even remember leaving my seat. It took fucking ages for everyone else to stand up though, it wasn't until It's Only Natural, just before the encore, that everyone actually got up. Case in point:

Can you see us? The whole fucking arena saw us, dancing away like idiots. It was awesome! Set highlights included, oh, everything. Impromptu Chocolate Cake, Private Universe with most of Black and White Boy included in it, the hilarious banter. With three more shows to come, well, how much more awesome could it get? WELL.

Sydney, 6th November, Horden Pavilion


This show was GA, thank goodness! Our flight landed in Sydney at 2:30pm, and then it took us ages to get to the hotel, so I was freaking out a little bit about getting a good spot in line. We were absolutely determined to get front row! So we walked from our hotel to the venue, during which time I discovered that the city of Sydney can't stand pedestrians and wants them all dead. The idea of a pedestrian crossing seems like a very novel concept to them, and they like to tuck them away in the most inconvenient places. So it seemed to take about 9 years to actually get there, and I was convinced that the line was going to be a mile long! But no, of course not, we were about the 7th people there. We met lots of lovely Frenz in the line, and passed the time quite happily. When the gates opened things were rather chaotic, but we still managed to basically stroll down to the front and secure the front row.

This show, Ax was most determined to try and get them to play Recurring Dream, his favourite CH song. We had prepared a number of signs for this purpose and had warmed our voices up (well I lost mine, but that's not the point) the night before. The whole show was almost finished, and we were about to give up, when Neil heard one of our yells and said something along the lines of "I'm going to try and play it for this guy down the front" (pointing at Ax). He made noises about how he "didn't know it very well", but as soon as he was past the first verse, he was off! He even managed to do the solo on his acoustic guitar, which was SO MUCH win. I think Ax probably could have died happy at that point.

The rest of the set was amazing. They did a special performance of The Intriguer with the girl who won the lyrics competition held on their official website, which was lovely indeed. In My Command fucking killed, as did World Where You Live. Also, Neil made up a hilarious song about this guy who told him that he was singing Something So Strong wrong. This guy was called Evan, and according to Neil, "Evan makes love to his bed".

We tried to meet the band afterwards to thank them for Recurring Dream, but alas, we only managed to get a wave out of Matt as he drove by. Never mind!

We now had a couple of days of rest, in which we got hideously drunk, saw a dugong and ate some amazing bacon, though not quite in that order. More details on the dugong later, too. Then, on Tuesday morning, we made our way up to Queensland, the state of humidity, toads and not much else. Ax and I had the best hotel room ever. I would totally understand Evan making love to his bed if he had been staying there. But anyway!

Brisbane, 9th November, Convention and Exhibition Centre


Alas, for this show we failed to get front row seats. We were about 18 rows back. Although the sound was very good, the audience was poo. They sat down for pretty much the entire thing, even the people at the front! I was hoping that having It's Only Natural early in the set would get people on their feet, but NO. I couldn't resist leaping up a bit in Whispers And Moans (how could you NOT?) but we didn't get to stand properly until the encore. The lame people in front of us even sat down during Elephants. Idiots.

There were some very funny moments, including an impromptu song about this girl at the front and her "lovely dress", pointed out to us by Nick Seymour. Tomorrow night I was to have my Nick Seymour moment, but wait! I haven't finished talking about this one yet. I had been hanging out for Neil to do the Split Enz song Message To My Girl, after hearing it in Auckland in April and loving in. He delivered, and it was beautiful. Twice If You're Lucky was very good, and as always, When You Come blew the roof off.

The set was very good, as always, but sitting 18 rows back is NOT ideal. What would tomorrow night bring?

Brisbane, November 10th, Convention and Exhibition Centre


I knew that this gig was going to be the best one from the moment we found our seats. We were front row again, but this time we were right of centre, just in front of Nick Seymour. This was awesome enough, but then I noticed the stage. There was no barrier, so we could walk right up to the stage and lean on it, and the stage was so nice and low! I could actually see everything!

For this whole trip, I had been hanging out for them to play That's What I Call Love, a song from their debut album which, to our knowledge, hasn't been played since 1986 or so. More specifically, a demo version exists which is the musical equivalent of tasteful gypsy wares. My hopes of them fulfilling my request weren't exactly sky high, but I made a number of signs, just in case. Turns out I didn't even need the signs ...

Just after Twice If You're Lucky, Neil made a comment about how Nick can't dance very well after his recent knee surgery. He then asked if anyone in the audience had "healing powers" and would rub Nick's knee for him. Of course, I did it! Nick then said "what was my end of this deal again?" My opportunity! "Please play That's What I Call Love!" I yelled. Come on, after a nice knee rub, surely they would oblige?

Neil just went "Oh, jesus!" but gave it a go! I freaked out with excitement, but then nearly DIED when I realised he was singing the gypsy wares lyrics! So now I have a very cool claim to fame - I rubbed Nick Seymour's knee, and got them to play a song that, as far as we knew, hadn't been played for over 20 years. FUCK YES. I hardly remember much of the following song, Pour Le Monde, because I was still on a high. Hell, I still am.

Hole In The River also dominated, as did the full version of Chocolate Cake. I wish we could have gone to more shows - they're playing in Adelaide tonight - but I really couldn't have asked for more. What a fucking fantastic band.

I know this blog has very few pictures. I'm so sorry. I'll make a proper one soon, though it'll probably just be crappy pictures of Neil Finn. I'm in that kind of mood.

I love you.

Cat Lady

Where on earth have I been since the last time you saw me? Not very many places, to be honest. First of all I died (I'm still dying a bit) of a horrible cough which feels like lots of angry hedgehogs are trying to bash their way out of my throat.

That made me sad. Hedgehogs are cute and shouldn't make me feel like this:

Of course, that doesn't really stop me blogging. It's just I've been feeling spectacularly unfunny for the last week or so. I've suddenly become very homesick and that really isn't the best frame of mind in which to write funny stories and draw funny pictures! But I'm feeling much better today, especially because yesterday, summer arrived! But of course, this always happens. In late September/early October, there will be one brilliantly sunny day. Everyone will put on their shorts and run outside going "YAY!! SUMMER IS HERE!!" and get sunburnt.

Of course, the next day (today) it pisses down with rain and is cold. I fear my shorts will be sitting dejectedly in the wardrobe for a while. It's meant to be sunny again this weekend though. Just so you know.

Anyway. The boyfriend and I have a new hobby. Catspotting! He hasn't had a cat for 48784687 years, and I left my babies behind in New Zealand, so we both kind of crave cute fuzzy cats all the time. We've started to become quite familiar with the neighbourhood cats. Allow me to do for you the cutest blog entry ever.


1. Adorable black and white cat

We've seen this cat a few times on sunny days. It is the sweetest cat! So friendly, and always comes to see us. It acts like it owns the place, and is always on the lookout for the best patch of sun. We've seen it at four different houses, so god knows where it lives! All we know it it's so adorable!

2. Funny brown-faced cat

This cat has been sighted at a shitty house near where we live as well as in the nice house next door to it. Very cute, but not quite brave enough to come and say hello to us.

3. Mysterious ginger cat

We're not sure whether we've seen this cat a few times, or if different ginger cats have been sighted. This one was clearly way more interested in his sunny patch than us - just look at that face!

4. The best grey cat

This cat is my favourite! It looks just like my old cat who died earlier this year. It was so adorable, especially since you don't see that many grey cats. The best thing was that it seemed almost as brainless as my old cat - on our way home, it started to rain. This cat was still there outside. SO cute!

5. The cutest tabby cat

Definitely a contender for the cutest cat! Just look at that face. We've seen it a few times, and at one point, it was so well concealed in the flowerbed we almost missed it. Such a lovely cat!

6. Scruffy cat

We've only seen this cat once, and at a rather crappy house. Gorgeous long-haired cat, but he did need a good comb and a bit of love! He had a very serious little face.

7. Adorable white cat

Possibly the only cat friendlier than the black and white cat from the same street! This one was absolutely adorable. The boyfriend fell in love with it - not surprising, as it looked much like his old cat! This one seemed to love him as well. SO cute!! I hope we see it again soon!

8. Other adorable white cat

This was a cat we'd seen before, but never up close. He had clipped ears, probably due to albino cats being prone to skin cancer :( He seemed to be staying in the shade, which was good! Very cute, but he was quite happy to stay lying down. We know that this house also has a jet black cat and a tabby.

9. Black and white cat #2

This is another cat we know. What is it with black and white cats being so adorable and friendly? This one has come out to see us before as well. I just want to take him home!

So there you go! There are many, many more cats, including Flowerpot Cat and Window Kitten. Expect more posts like this, especially with the amount of cats we've been seeing in the sunny weather. I hope you've enjoyed your daily dose of adorable, and if any of these cats are yours, can we have them? Thanks.

UPDATE

Yes I am still alive. I haven't been for a while though. Expect an update tonight! Yay! I hope you're a excited as I am, dear reader!

Mainly I'm just writing this post so that I don't cop out of doing the entry itself. I'm sorry if this is a huge letdown. I will make up for it, I promise.

In the meantime, here is a drawing I found in my "blog" folder. Unfortunately, I can't for the bloody life of me remember what it was supposed to be part of.

Thank you.

The ultimate tea-making guide.

Right. I am alive again, kind of. While I was dying, it occurred to me that Death By Bad Tea must be one of the leading causes of death outside of the United Kingdom. I think it's a terrible thing that there are people out there who don't even know how to make tea! (I'm looking at you, boyfriend). So, being the kind person that I am, I have compiled a handy guide to tea-making. It covers the most common mistakes, including the fatal tea-making errors that will make you bleed out of your eyes.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First of all, let me present to you The Good Tea Guide.

A bone china mug is important, as it preserves the tea flavour very well and keeps it hot for a long time. The white interior of the cup is also vital - how else will you monitor your tea colour? Also I think it's just offputting to drink from a mug with a dark interior.

Let me take you through the vital steps involved in making a truly amazing cuppa.

1. Teabag, obviously. Now the only blend I will accept is English Breakfast. I recognise that there are some heathens out there who seem to enjoy the soapy taste of Earl Grey, but we'll just pretend they don't exist for now. Herbal teas are not teas; we'll cover that later. As for loose leaf tea, well, I admit I haven't had much experience with it. However, I have nothing against it and will in fact respect you if you choose to take this difficult path in tea brewing. 
2. Sugar. I take one. I don't really have any strong opinions on tea sweetening - oh wait, I do have one. My mum used to use those godawful Equal Sweettabs. They made the tea taste of Diet Coke. Foul things!
3. Water. Now this step may seem simple, but believe me, it is fraught with difficulty! Firstly, the water MUST be boiling - if the water kind of ejaculates out of the spout of the kettle, you're doing something right. Secondly, the water must be poured from a reasonable height above the cup. This is to ensure adequate agitation of the teabag, giving you a stronger and more delicious brew. 
4. Stir. Again, a seemingly simple step that people still fuck up. Make sure the teabag is agitated enough. The tea needs to permeate the water properly, or else your tea will be weak and nasty, like Earl Grey dishwater. Set your teabag rotating with your spoon, and then draw the spoon out of the cup in one quick motion, allowing the teabag to rotate unhindered by the spoon. Rest the spoon on top of your cup for convenience. 
5. Milk. REMOVE YOUR TEABAG. I cannot stress this enough! Take it out and throw it in the bin. Now. Thank you. Now then, milk. Only full cream milk will do! None of this skim, low fat nonsense. There is a good reason for this - after 18 years of watching my mother use trim milk, I can assure you that it will turn your tea a nasty blue colour. Also it will taste like wee. Anyway, pour your milk and stir at the same time, so that you can monitor the colour of the tea effectively. 

Done! There, it's not so hard, is it? Well, according to lots of people, it bloody well is. Real tea is just splendid, and will probably make your day.

Bad tea, on the other hand, will make you dribble uncontrollably and bleed out of your eyes.

Clearly, this is not good for your overall health and wellbeing. So WHY do people make so many stupid mistakes while making tea? 

Firstly, people assume that things like herbal "tea" and skim "milk" are a good idea.

Herbal (oh, and fruit) teas are just abhorrent. They are also most misleading! Fruit teas smell so wonderful, and yet when you taste them ... well, there's no taste. It's all just smell. I might as well be drinking a mug of boiling water while sniffing a blackcurrant. Not impressed. Also, the kind of people who drink herbal and fruit teas should be avoided at all costs. They are probably activists and own numerous items of clothing made out of hemp.

As for skim milk, well we covered this earlier! It makes your tea blue. You got the message? Good. I will not take any responsibility for your foul tea made with devil milk. 

However, of all the deadly tea-making sins (did I mention that some people people put the milk in BEFORE the water?! AHHHH! This INSULATES the teabag, making it next to impossible for any delicious tea to seep through! Why would you do this to yourself!) I think the worst one of all would have to be something that I have thankfully never experienced first-hand. Legend has it that those ridiculous Americans hardly even know what an electric kettle is. They also seem to think you have to specify "hot tea" to get a cuppa, or else you'll get ICED TEA which is just as repulsive as fruit/herbal tea. Clearly they know nothing about tea-making. So next time you go to an American's house and request tea, prepare yourself for the following. I hear this is quite common. Are you ready?

They use WARM WATER to make tea. Out of the TAP.

This is so wrong on so many levels!!! I actually have nightmares about this!!

Ok. Breathe.

So there you have it, your guide to a perfect cuppa, every time!

Some people may have other opinions, but mine is always right. Yep.

FFFF-

I keep trying to post, but I think I'm dying. I feel full of death and unhappiness. Translated, that means I have a bothersome cough and am very lethargic. Apparently, this also means I can't draw or write very well.

One of the worst things about being sick is that I can't have caffeine. Normally, caffeine makes everything right with the world. When I'm ill, however, it makes me feel like everyone's trying to kill me and my heart beats so fast I feel like it's going to come bursting through my chest and go bouncing off down the road at any small surprise. This isn't good. I can't even have my 87487456 cups of tea per day! However I bought some hot chocolate mix today, which makes everything slightly better. I need my hot drinks, otherwise I morph into something with roughly the looks and disposition of Margaret Thatcher. And we wouldn't want that now, would we?

One more piece of news for the day! In this post, you will recall (being the loyal readers you are) my mention of the Patra House. Well the other day, when I wasn't dying, I went past and it was open again! This was very exciting. It is much, much bigger on the inside than on the outside! I think it's actually the TARDIS. Anyway, there was some sort of Romanian gathering going on in there. There was a little table at the entranceway with a vase on it. Sellotaped to the vase was a sign that said "EKE".  I don't know whether that means "welcome, good Romanian friends" or "set foot in this place without a membership card and you DIE". Open to interpretation, I suppose. There were a good few people milling around the bar (at 2:30pm, psh, who drinks then!) and one of them had come out for a smoke. Once again, it was a bit of a letdown and didn't have nearly enough mafia-type action for my liking.

Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to post something with pretty pictures. Fingers crossed I don't die in the night!

This happens at least once a week.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who automatically thinks of this. Also, I think in the third photo, I unintentionally drew a picture of Wyatt Roy.

In addition to this, for an embarrassingly long period of time, I thought that neé indicated that the person was born of the opposite gender. No, really, because the first instance of this I saw was something like Lisa Williams (neé Steven). It was one of those lame people who had a first name as their last name. Most confusing. I think I only realised the truth when I was about 15. Thankfully, I was never in a situation where this woeful misjudgment would come to light.

That's all for today. It's Sunday and I'm going to Max Brenner.

I live in a really weird place, part II

Part I

Yes, I am quite aware that I could have easily put all of these together in one post. Never mind, I'm sure huge posts are intimidating anyway. Let us continue with our tour of Melbourne's outer suburbs!

#4: That weird shop next to Con's

This one was pointed out to me by the boyfriend. He mentioned that some nights when he'd been going by on the tram, he'd seen the lights on in this previously-thought-to-be-abandoned shop. Recently, I saw it too! Any shop with a graffiti-covered frontage and mouldy-looking lace curtains drawn at all times should arouse suspicion instantly. If it doesn't arouse suspicion, then you're clearly just not suspicious enough, so there! Anyway. The first time I went past this place when the lights were on, I wasn't able to see anything through the tantalisingly non-curtained window at the top. However, the second time, I noticed two things:

1. The shop was partitioned into two. Nothing could be seen in the right-hand side of the shop.
2. There was all kinds of Chinese pictures up on the walls.

Prior to these observations, I thought the shop must be some kind of mafia hangout. But after this, my mind immediately went "brothel brothel BROTHEL!" As it is prone to doing. But come on, that's a pretty shitty brothel. It doesn't even have a "Thai Massage" sign up in the window. So maybe they're just trafficking drugs in there, which is a lot more boring.

And no, I have never been to Con's. I don't know if the hamburgers really are a con and are actually made out of asbestos. All I know is that I want to work there so that I can see who works in the brothel.

#5: Is it a house or is it a garden?

This one really fucked with my head the first time I walked past it. I just ... WHY. WHY WHY WHY. Most of the other houses around here are normal, sort of. And then you stumble across a forest in the middle of Melbourne's northern suburbs. I really, really can't explain this one.

1. They just don't have enough space in their already-quite-ample garden?
2. They're trying to camouflage themselves in preparation for an attack from bicycle-roof-shop (just wait, I'll explain). 
3. They're trying to see how dumb the cops are around here - is it really possible to grow crops of weed on one's roof?
4. Hot, hot plant/weatherboard sex.

If I ever come up with an explanation for this, you'll hear about it here first.

#6: Fucking awful brick building!

There are an unfortunate number of shitty brick buildings around here. Sometime in the 60s, some property developers decided it would be a GREAT idea to knock down large numbers of beautiful Victorian terraces, and replace them with awful brick edifices with roughly the same amount of personality as John Key. Good going, guys. But really, most of them aren't notable enough to include in a blog entry about interesting buildings. But oh god. OH GOD. This one is just so, so awful.

First, it is fucking huge. I think there's about 25 apartments in it. And these apartments are grim. This thing is on one of my usual walking routes, and the bridge that crosses the highway offers a great view into the lives of these poor souls. The rooms are roughly 1cm x 2cm, and oh boy they look DAMP. I'm sure roaches are an issue. On one side of the building you get a view of the sound barrier next to the highway, and on the other side you get an interesting view into your neighbour's bathroom. Some rooms, I'm sure, don't actually have windows.

I'm not sure what these poor people did to deserve living in such a massive shithole. Maybe they voted for Tony Abbott. That would probably explain things.

#7: Bicycle-roof shop

I DON'T KNOW I REALLY DON'T KNOW.

The boyfriend and I saw this one very late at night while walking home from a gig. Just like Weird Shop Next To Con's, this was one that we just assumed was abandoned. But oh no, of course not! Nothing is ever as it seems around here!

As always, the mouldy lace curtains were closed and the front of the shop looked like it hadn't been used since 1972. However, through the small window at the top, I could see a few things. It had a bike hanging from the ceiling, as well as a Chinese lantern. This only leads me to one conclusion:

Mafia crafts and handiwork club!

Thank you. I hope you enjoyed your tour of Melbourne's weirdo buildings. There are probably hundreds more, but I'm really sick of drawing buildings now. 

I live in a really weird place, part I

Here in Melbourne, it's not hard to stumble upon unusual/creepy/intriguing buildings wherever you go. Which is kind of weird - this never happened in Auckland. The most exciting thing around my neigbourhood in Auckland was this one busted up old house on the way to the beach, in which Long Bay College students had sex and smoked parsley and had sex with parsley and smoked their own bodily fluids.  Here, things are far more exciting. You never know what you might find around the corner! Here, let me take you on a tour.

#1: Amazing silver tinfoil alien house

I noticed this as I was going past on the tram one day. It really does look like someone decided to glue sheets of heavy-duty tinfoil over every available surface of their house. I'm sure there are many logical explanations for this strange behaviour.

1. Aliens are coming and the owners of this house need to deflect their incoming radio waves.
2. Matt Bellamy lives here.
3. They're trying to blind all their neighbours. Just try looking at this fucking thing on a sunny day! You will actually go blind and die. 
4. Their house is actually made of weatherboards. I would understand completely if this was the case. I hate weatherboards. When you have weatherboards, anything is an improvement.

But all in all, this behaviour is truly bizarre. In addition to this, I have seen a number of houses nearby with the same tinfoil stuff over seemingly random windows of their house. Tinfoil wars are ON!

#2: The Patra House

(Note: The Patra House actually does have more windows. I just forgot. But they also have blinds closed at all times). 

This one has intrigued me since I first visited Melbourne. The thing is, it's probably something totally innocuous. There are millions of immigrants around here and I guess they need somewhere to gather. There's an Estonian House just down the road. But still, The Patra House still manages to arouse suspicion. Earlier this year, there was a Romanian flag up in the window. Romanian nationalists, perhaps? The "MEMBERS ONLY" sign in the window is hardly welcoming to any passing Romanian. And that raises the question of how on earth does one actually BECOME a member in the first place?

Whilst the blinds are always drawn and the door is always firmly shut, one day the boyfriend and I had the good fortune to walk by while someone was inside. They had carelessly left the door ajar! All thoughts of getting stabbed and shot fled my mind as the Curiosity Beast awoke. I peered in. Disappointingly, there wasn't all that much to see. It had a bar and kitchen, which looked nice and clean, and a large space on the floor, presumably for when the members want to engage in some crazy Romanian dancing. 

I think the strangest thing about The Patra House, though, is the sign on the side of it. It says something like "LP gas conversions and EFI specialists". 

...

Somehow I don't think that's what goes on in there. 

So The Patra House is a little bit weird, and I am certainly tempted to put a letter in their letterbox asking how I can become a member and if I have to perform any strange rituals to join. But I'm scared of them setting my house and fire and harvesting my organs, so perhaps this wouldn't be the best course of action. However! There are more weird buildings to come. Move along now ...

#3: Disgusting drug house

Eeew. This place is pretty revolting. I'm quite sure it's a crack house. But for god's sake, if you really want to have a crack house, why don't you try making it a little less obvious?!?! Anyway. Several times, I've walked by this place and noticed cars out the front. These have always been really nice new cars, which are totally incongruous to the surroundings. Once there was a nice black Mercedes van, driven by a little Asian fellow. I tried to see if there was anything in the back of the van, but the windows were tinted. Hmm ...

One day, when a nice shiny red car was parked out the front, I noticed that the gate to the left of the house was open. Behind the gate, things were even more dire than they appeared from the front. There was a fucking terrifying dog - I think it was a pitbull or something. There was also a garage full of all manner of shit, and some kind of abortion which I think once might have been a garden shed. This place is mental. For ages, I just assumed it was abandoned, as there are a number of abandoned places around here. But no, those fancy cars proved me wrong! Very queer indeed. I wish I lived across the road from this place. I would love to see what goes on. I would also be terrified of having my house set on fire when the crackheads see me up there with my binoculars, but whatever. 

Next time:

Creepy shop next to takeaway place!

House with garden on roof!

Ceiling-bike shop!

Fucking awful brick building!

I nearly got killed by a crow today.

I promise, this post contains not a hint of exaggeration. It's all perfectly true.

As I may have mentioned before, I am moderately retarded when I out on my own. Bad things just seem to happen to me. So today when I went to go to the supermarket, I considered it a minor miracle that I had actually managed to arrive at the supermarket without getting run over, mugged, kidnapped or converted to Scientology. However, it was silly of me to think that my luck would hold.

I don't like Australian birds. I'm used to birdsong being a peaceful sort of thing. I don't want to wake up every morning to the sound of lawnmowers raping each other to the music of Impaled Northern Moonforest. One day, I told a crow to shut up. It started to follow me, cawing at me incessantly. It was terrifying. Since then, I think the fuckers have been out to get me. They're following me, I tell you.

So I rounded the corner, ready to stride confidently through the entrance to the supermarket, when I was confronted by THIS:

This was the biggest crow I've ever seen in my life. Death was radiating from this thing in waves. This crow wanted blood and it wanted it NOW. To put things in perspective, here is a picture of the crow next to the sun. THAT is how big and deadly and horrible this crow was.

I didn't want this big black fucker (no, that's not racist) to get in the way of my precious grocery shopping. I needed my tomatoes and bacon and cheese and I needed them NOW. So I bravely took a step towards the beast from hell.

"CAW" roughly translates to "get the FUCK away from my bin, you filthy miserable excuse for a human being. I own this place now! Within weeks, this whole city will be taken over by my family, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it! Why don't you just go home now, you dirty foreigner. Go back to the land of real birds that sing properly and don't attack you when you're trying to walk to the shops! You're not AUSTRALIAN enough for me!"

At this point, I was quite certain that I was going to die. I wanted to take out my phone and call the boyfriend and tell him to sell my body to science, but I was afraid the crow might mistake it for some delicious roadkill and bite my hand off.

But then, I took a closer look at the crow. I used what little brainpower I had left and realised that since this crow was roughly equivalent to a walrus in weight, I could simply run nimbly past the crow and be in the safety of Coles before it had even raised a wing. Although Brain assured me that this was the right thing to do, I couldn't help but picture morbid scenarios involving my eyes being pecked out and my arms being eaten and the crow dragging me away to its lair so that I wouldn't be found until the boyfriend got hungry and wanted me to cook him some bacon and then realised I wasn't home, so he would go out and try to find me but instead just find an eyeball and perhaps a toe at the entrance to Coles.

But I bravely pushed this terrifying scenarios out of my head, closed my eyes and ran for it.

The next thing I knew, I was safely inside! I couldn't believe I'd made it! Buying my groceries made me happy to be alive! I would get to taste coffee and eat bacon and violently attack the boyfriend whenever I wanted to! Oh, joy of joys.

And thankfully, the bastard had gone when I left. It was probably dragging the mangled remains of a small child underneath the shopping centre.

Birds are evil.

Why you shouldn't try foreign things.

Recently, I discovered through one of my favourite websites that in Russia, it is perfectly natural to drink one's tea with jam in it. Now, I am a tea puritan and as such, under normal circumstances, I wouldn't even be tempted to tamper with my tea in such a dangerous manner. However, this time curiosity got the better of me. It was one of those cases of "I love tea! I love jam! How can this possibly fail???"

Now, I had such faith because I have tried unusual food combinations in the past and they have actually WORKED. The best example of this would be chocolate bacon (which I keep meaning to make for the boyfriend. Oops). It was just the perfect combination of sweet and savoury, nice and crispy, like an orgasm in miniature. Truly glorious. But anyway, as you may have already gathered, the same experience was not to be had with the jammy tea. Just because two things are nice separately does not mean they should be combined under ANY circumstances EVER. 

I looked up brewing instructions on the ever-helpful Wikipedia, and as instructed, I made a cup of strong black tea with no sugar. I think this was already a harbinger of disaster. I HATE black tea. But anyhow, I proceeded to add two large spoonfuls of blackberry jam. I stirred it for ages and ages and ages and it still refused to dissolve. Horrid little bits of seed kept floating to the top of the cup. But by this time I had committed myself to it, and I raised it to my lips for the first sip.

It actually wasn't all that bad to start off with. It was unusual, but at least the jam took the foul edge off the bitter black tea. However, the more I drank, the fouler it got. Here are my feelings in graph format:

I actually did manage to force myself to drink the whole bloody thing. The last couple of swallows were the most repulsive of all. My mouth was filled by this disgusting berry sediment - and you should all know my feelings on SEDIMENT. Ptooey! (That was me spitting). I think afterwards I looked something like this:

I had to drink about 16787561 cups of normal-person tea before I recovered. Actually, speaking of normal-person tea, remind me to do a blog one day on correct tea-brewing etiquette.

So obviously my lesson for the day is to never try foreign foods ever, no matter how tempting the combinations of things may sound.

I realise this lesson is rather silly considering that foreign food makes up most of my diet, but you get the idea!