ms crankypants

Mutating virus zombies invaded the house during the night and injected my brain cavity with 44-gallon drums of snot. Bastards. And I think they ice skated down my throat while juggling chainsaws because swallowing hurts a little, let alone trying to gargle aspirin. Clever bastards.

I’ve read every book in the house so I downloaded an e-book to read on the computer screen. How much do they suck? Hitting ‘page down’ is a poor substitute for turning a page and slipping in a bookmark when I need to get up and blow my nose again. After 10 pages my bleary little pisshole-in-the-snow eyes got fuzzy and the book I downloaded has too many italicised words that bump into the words to their left and make weird zombie words my gunk-blocked head can’t interpret. Gah.

Damn, I’m nearly out of toilet paper and tissues and there are no minions to do my sick person shopping. I’m nearly out of snot back-up paper towel as well.

Crank-o-meter: in quarantine, not because I’m sick but because I’m a nightmarish sick person

Aunty Shittyshoes (literally) has found the best way to source free garden supplies in time for spring: the local DIY car wash.

After dropping in at my local car wash to give the hoonmobile a quick scrub, I wondered why the Festival of People with Lots of Motorbikes, Powerboats and Jetskis hadn’t invaded the end bay like they had the rest of the place. Perhaps it was because the concrete flooring was coated with the poo of a dozen horses force-fed their bodyweight in laxative-laced oats followed with a few kegs of prune juice chasers and locked in a horse float for a month of Sundays. Then the tightarse owner spent a whole dollar to expel and spread the poo for the next idiots to drive their cars through.

I like to spend money washing my car and spinning my wheels in pools of runny manure on the way out so I have a smelly, shitty, brown spray-painted pattern of your animals’ faeces up the side panels of my car. And I’m sorry my tyres disturbed the creative giant Toblerone triangle of shit that fell through the ramp gap of your horse float as you were hosing.

Crank-o-meter: poo on you

In some of the quiet and dark hours when normal people sleep, I’ve been reading and editing old newspapers online as part of a community project for the National Library of Australia. The NLA is scanning newspapers from 1803, and while the image scans are a great read, the optical character recognition software does some interesting stuff when converting the images to text. Hence, insomniac nerds with keyboards jump into articles and modify the mangled stories to their original intent.

Source: http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1231810

This lifestyle of endless debauchery will do me in, for sure. The coroner will hear of my demise, come around looking for empty vodka bottles, condom wrappers and the remains of the men I’ve destroyed lying under my bed, but instead will find a bottle of water, the library’s archive open on the laptop and nothing more sinister than a layer of cat fur on the surfaces.

Anyway, I found this story in the Canberra Times from 1928 about women being allowed to vote in England after a long period of battling for the right. Australian women first voted in a Federal election 25 years earlier, but it seems their success and influence was still buried under the weight of patronising editorial.

Source: http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1231810

Thanks great-grandmothers and their mothers for fighting the good fight so all adults can put crosses in the boxes.

Crank-o-meter: bemused and amused

I found in a notebook the discarded skeleton of an essay for the last Women’s Weekly short story contest.

A few pages sketched the structure of a gawky teen’s coming of age. The heroine was based on a girl who catches my train but I became unstuck once the opening sentence flashed up in a dream: She had a face like a dropped dim sim.

I couldn’t look at her again without a nasty visual accompaniment and closed the book after word nine of the 5,000 goal. (That was a steamed dim sim, not fried, and with soy sauce.)

Picturing her again made me wonder how some foods define people’s physical features in a complimentary way, and others are not so flattering.

The possession of almond-like eyes is often portrayed as a positive quality, but try describing someone with a set of peepers like Brazil nuts. I’m coming off Prozac so expect some macadamias staring maniacally at you soon.

Thinking about backsides, what male or female wouldn’t purr if their buttocks were compared with peaches? Try the same comparison with custard fruit and find the nearest rolling pin shoved up your nose. Carrot tops can be crowning glories but muffin tops are universally bad when flaunted in public. Most body shapes are described as pears or apples depending which ingredients were mixed in the genetic fruit salad bowl.

My hair isn’t like golden sheathes of wheat but more like cold spaghetti thrown against a wall, and my bum was last seen in the wholegrain loaf section of the bakery. I won’t wear red lip colour because it makes my lips look like an overripe cherry tomato. Thankfully I seem to have avoided cauliflower ears and Bratwurst fingers, and my skin is more cream than yoghurt.

Crank-o-meter: brain like a watermelon

Dear blog, I am weaning off the Prozac. I am tiring of the night sweats and the other side effect that appears trivial on the surface but is making me antsy.

The next few weeks will be like bouncing on a trampoline while playing table tennis with my brain chemicals.

Ping!

Pong.

Bellywhacker!

Good thing trampolines have safety nets these days so the landing should be more an awkward rebound than broken bones on the back lawn. And no leg hairs caught in the springs.

Crank-o-meter: ok today. this headache could bugger off though

I like feet. While at close range they look like mangled gargoyle hands that have been whacked with the ugly stick, they’re useful things. Tootsies help us get from here to there and back again, provide the reason for shoe shopping addictions and can kick butt in a literal sense. And stubbing a toe on the skirting board while doing a midnight pantry raid is the easiest way to know you’re alive.

During the reality television show I watched about the psychologically damaged kids of the future, I was cajoled into feeling guilty about the state of my humble feet. I did not realise heels and toes were such a hotbed of shame and embarrassment but Global Shop Direct has set me straight with its Ped Egg product. The ad went into great detail about how the human foot is the root of all aesthetic evil and — thankfully for everyone with feet — how to right those scaly wrongs and step into society again without wearing rubber boots. All this for less than $75!

In case I haven’t convinced you to pick up the phone and order a Ped Egg for every foot in the household, here’s an important message from the web site:

Stop wasting time and money at nail salons. Stop being embarrassed by your feet. The PedEgg is the ultimate way to have smooth, beautiful feet.

The Ped Egg is an instant solution to dry, callused skin. It’s great for moms, dads, daughters, grandmas – the whole family! It’s ergonomically designed, fits perfectly in your hand, and it’s perfectly safe and painless.

The Ped Egg has over 130 precision stainless steel micro files to gently smooth and remove the roughest, dry, callused skin. It works great on the toe, ball, side, and heel of your foot. And the Ped Egg’s unique design holds all the filings neatly inside until you’re ready to empty it, so you can use it anywhere.

Apart from wondering why sons and grandfathers aren’t targeted in this banish-ugly-feet-on-everyone campaign, I am still worried about the accompanying image.

Source: http://www.globalshopdirect.com.au

The text says you can use it anywhere.

How about when taking a phone call? “Oh hi, honey, I’m just emptying my foot filings in the bin. Can you grab a litre of milk on the way home?”

Enjoying quiet family time? “Kids, you lazy little sods, what have I told you about not emptying the foot file receptacle? Do you think I have nothing better to do than dispose of your excess skin?”

Being beaten at Monopoly? “Here, distract yourself Ped Egging your grotesque feet while I steal money from the bank.”

Impromptu SingStar session in front of the TV? “Here you go, rhythm section, grab two half-full Ped Eggs and shake your maracas.”

Baking banana and coconut bread and run out of desiccated coconut? Sorry, that was too disgusting. I’ll go now.

Crank-o-meter: ewwwww, and poor value because you can buy an angle grinder for the same price

I tried to read the news today but if I see one more lightning-related headline because someone named Bolt won the 100-metre sprint I might stick my head down the toilet. Gurgle, gurgle.

So I turned on the television to check out the new series Weighing In. I couldn’t resist the précis of ‘Join a group of kids aged eight to 18 as they enter Europe’s first weightloss camp’. Now I know why I don’t usually watch tele on Sundays.

This could be the most shithouse, ill-conceived and destructive show ever put on the box. I can deal with adults making fools of themselves on TV because they have the life experience to know better. But kids? What parent chooses to put a morbidly obese child with self esteem issues in a camp with television cameras and pompous, condescending ‘coaches’ who seem to like making the kids hurt themselves at rugby and aerobics? Come on, no kid chooses to do aerobics. I’m 25 years older than this crew and still have nightmares about an unnaturally perky glamazon chirping “Feel the burn!” the only time I fronted to an aerobics class back when leggings were in.

One girl lost seven pounds in the first week and “feels really good” while another lost one pound and is busy beating herself up emotionally in an on-camera interview. Good stuff, let’s play back those tapes on special occasions such as the first time they stick their fingers down their throats.

No parents are at the camp to, I don’t know, learn about diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, support, love, parenting and not outsourcing their kids to a television network. At the least they should have their own love handles and bingo arms put on display, be forced into aerobics classes, eat dried mung beans with air for dinner with hawk-eyed ‘coaches’ watching their every move, and have to listen to every minute of the talent show where their kids who can’t sing are having their self esteems restored by a group of strangers who won’t be around when camp is over.

Crank-o-meter: livid

It’s amazing how one person’s apathy can destroy a collective good mood.

Someone I know at another site is co-ordinating people power to support a charity event in a few months. Where she is, on Planet Empathy, her co-worker has a 16-year-old child with the disorder who can’t walk, has limited communication ability and still wears a nappy. This is the everyday life the child will always have and the family will need to manage for as long as it can. Colleagues, families and friends got involved last year, and this year my workmate e-mailed the other sites to see if anyone else is interested in helping on the day.

In a nearby e-mail galaxy, on Planet No F#$king Generosity of Spirit, the e-mail’s recipient deleted it without opening. I retract my hatred of e-mail read receipts, because my workmate made a special phone call to him to follow up. He said he didn’t receive an e-mail, and she took a dark joy in saying the read receipt came back to her ‘deleted without opening’ so he did indeed receive it. He changed his story without pausing and said it looked like it would be too much hard work.

Oh yeah, forwarding an e-mail with a cover note of ‘Care to help? Contact Ms Carebear to sign up’ would be pretty f#$king challenging for someone who manages to dress, prepare meals, hold a responsible job and has all his mental and physical faculties intact.

Planet Little Bit of Humanity can be rewarding. Come and visit one day, but I’ll still be at the front of the queue to smack your chops.

Crank-o-meter: arghhhhhhhhhh

Cyclist Fabian Cancellara recently spent three weeks riding the flats and hills of Europe with his race numbers affixed both the right way and upside down to ward off supposed bad luck of wearing number 13. He didn’t win the race but didn’t break any bones so the universe seems to have balanced (he came in 65^th of 145 finishers so his final result was almost in the middle).

Photos: http://www.bettiniphoto.net

I thought I’d try the same thing at work for the day.

A few out-of-the-ordinary things happened:

• I set up the photo in the change room, snapped some pics and removed the evidence that incriminated me as the village idiot, then realised both 13s in the photos were right side up. Whoops. Not necessarily bad luck but just impatience in trying to flee the scene of the crime.
• Police had barricaded the road to work and I was already running late, the detour road was full of road workers wielding ’stop’ signs and I was stuck behind the slowest driver in living memory. I’m not sure if it was bad luck to encounter so many delays or good luck that I got to the office in one piece.
• I nearly hit an already-dead fox on the road. It would have been bad luck if my car had hit foxy loxy, but he’d already experienced the unluckiest day of his life. I didn’t see any number 13s on his pelt.
• Later in the morning I was caught in some office politics that made me want to hunt down the guilty party and stick pens up her nose. Would have been bad luck for both of us if I had been motivated enough to get out of my chair.

All in all, I didn’t win a public servant of the week award and all body parts are intact, so even stevens it is.

Crank-o-meter: just another day, really

I’m at that stage when electronic products are evolving quicker than my ability to keep up. I felt like a presenter for the Antiques Roadshow recently while telling someone that my first personal computer at a workplace had a blinding one megabyte of RAM and a 20 megabyte hard drive. The 256-colour monitor was bewwwwwdiful to the eye.

However, as much as I struggle to keep up with the wizardry of new gadgets, my built-in bullshit meter is as good as ever. And Nokia, your new phone is a piece of crap compared with your old one. Let me show you why.

Good new idea: updated software so the phone is more like a portable personal computer or whatever the marketing guff says
Bad new idea: software packed with programs no one needs, hogs more disk space and disables other useful programs

I used to turn my phone on and back it up to the computer, first time, every time. What’s all this crap on the CD?

I had to uninstall the new software, remove it again because pesky remnants wouldn’t go away, kill off and re-install my former media player and pretend I still had my old phone so I could re-download the old phone software. And hey, going retro works. Stick your CD up your bottom.

Good new idea: kick-arse camera
Bad new idea: the old model of this range has a lens cover and this one doesn’t. How much money did that save? Five bucks? Why have Carl Zeiss super-dooper glass technology when dust and fingerprints spoil it on day one?

Good new idea: 8 gigabytes of memory
Bad new idea: bugger-all user control to manage it

Under the old regime I could create folders and save things wherever I wanted. This new system lumps all videos and images in a gigantic space — they can be tagged into albums but they still sit in the same central area. Who’s got time to sort through umpty-million photos and tag each one? And, most importantly, where can I stash my Freddie Mercury in leather mini-skirt image collection so nosy pick-uppers of phones don’t find them?

Source: YouTube

No matter where I stash new folders, the images in them still appear in photo central. This is not good. A girl needs her secret places sometimes.

Good new idea: having a ‘lifeblog’ to upload one’s daily communication ephemera to the web while on the move
Bad new idea: can’t turn the damn thing off if one’s life isn’t that interesting

A few button presses is all it takes to see every message in and out and image and video taken, received and sent. Bad, bad juju.

Good new idea: can’t think of any more
Other bad new ideas: the ‘lip’ to flip up the screen was removed from this model so the screen is always dotted with fingerprint grime, the GPS map loading is beyond comprehension and the ‘notes’ menu item for jotting little reminders in a handy space has disappeared. I have had to resort to paper and pen to jot down book recommendations on the fly, damn you. My purse is full of sticky notes.

And why won’t Tetris re-install?

Rating: Lots of glitz but not a lot else, like a sponge cake that’s fallen flat and has five inches of cream in the centre and a slurry of passionfruit icing on top to hide the lack of substance.

Crank-o-meter: overrated

I didn’t catch the Olympic opening ceremony on television last night, but my sub-conscious created its own ceremonial dream sequence during this morning’s early sleeping hours.

In the dream, uniformed teams were entering the stadium for their lap of honour. Elsewhere, Mother Nature was in a room, preparing to take over the world’s satellite television networks. It wasn’t often the developed world came together collectively and there were things she needed to say. (In the dream she was looking ageless but tired, in her early sixties with grey bobbed hair and fitted ivory jacket, matching knee-length skirt and heeled pumps with a floral scarf knotted at the side of her neck – like a more auntly version of Anne Bancroft.)

Mother Nature looked uncomfortable addressing the camera, almost apologetic to be interrupting the modern world’s latest celebration of its triumphs.

“I won’t take much of your time,” she said. “I’ve been watching you quietly for so long and this seemed the best time to talk. I promise to return you to the coverage in time for the fireworks.”

The tiring dowager of the earth straightened her spine and took a deep breath.

“Please don’t be shocked by the greys and tans of the Beijing sky from the comfort of your television sets. I thought the verdant forests of the Amazon would suffice as the lungs of our planet, but it seems they do not. Beijing is the new set of lungs of your world. I tried my best but you needed what I originally gave you.

“Elders, do not be concerned with my next words. You are in the twilight of life before you, too, return to the earth like the dinosaurs and giant mammals before you. Enjoy your last years.

“Baby boomers, may I say, in the sunset of your worldly power, you have held me captivated for decades with your idealism. I thought you could do it; return your species to times of simple living and enjoying the world I created for what it was, but most of you succumbed to temptation. You climbed my mountains, sent people and machines past the protective blankets of atmosphere, yet it was never enough. I did try to provide enough to please you. Use your last allocation of oil with abandon to fuel your caravans and planes as you take early retirements and explore what’s left of my simple gifts.

“Generation X, my beloved guilty children now facing the dashed hopes of middle age. You had the benefit of growing up without war and with the benefits of the technologies your forebears created but I know you feel the moral suffocation of a choking world. I don’t know what to offer except understanding how you hold history but feel too powerless to change an unavoidable future. May you find peace whichever way you travel through the rest of your lives.

“My youth, your future. You are in the interesting bind of being at the tail end of bountiful energy but dependent on the technological benefits your parents created. You may still be alive to witness the hour oil runs out. I don’t know if you’ll work collectively to hold humanity together or return to territorial basics. That is the challenge for your generation. I’m afraid you won’t have much time because you’ll be the first to have shorter lifespans than your ancestors – make the most of the time you are given. The one thing I can’t give you is health

“I’m sorry you didn’t like what I created for you. I am tired and need a rest before I deliver some unfortunate news to my arctic animals. I will return to my work after you have finished what you started.”

She kept her promise. Her visage faded from the world’s screens just as the fireworks began.

Crank-o-meter: It made no sense yet all the sense in the world

Cuu Huynh lost his life two years ago after his head became jammed in bottling machinery at his workplace .

In addition to suffering a terrible death, Mr Huynh was 58 years old at the time of the incident and would have reached retirement age this year if he were still alive. Instead, this week his employer Foster’s was fined $1.125 million for failing to maintain a safe workplace and failing to adequately train staff. Another man was injured similarly several years earlier and the brewer did not fix the machinery, instead making changes after Mr Huynh’s death.

Thirty-two Victorians died as a result of workplace incidents in 2006/07 and 66 incurred life-threatening injuries. In effect, two people a week are seriously injured or killed going about their daily business at work when legislation is unmistakably clear about employers’ obligations to provide a safe workplace. This is the tip of the iceberg when minor injuries, near-misses and unreported incidents are added.

How hard is the message to get across that no one should die at work? The “she’ll be right” mentality is not all right. Ask Mr Huynh’s widow and three children.

Crank-o-meter: sickened

Last week was an interesting mental health time. I was somewhat well adjusted on Monday, down as all hell for a couple of days, drained from recovering from the slide, and then had a weird phase of wanting to hug people. Thank goodness the cuddle hormones have been flushed from the water supply and this sentimental phase has passed.

Yesterday I surfed the web to check out the Melbourne Writers (no apostrophe, apparently) Festival program. The sound you just heard of a chipmunk being squeezed with a pair of barbecue tongs was me shrieking with delight when I saw Helen Garner’s name. She’s going to talk, in person, for a whole hour – this could be my chance to embarrass the bejesus out of both of us when I scream that I love her and please may I spend just a few hours sitting on her loungeroom floor devouring the scribblings in her notepads?

The ticketing system is rather unusual in that I can’t bloody well work it out, but it doesn’t matter, because the ‘sold out’ page says quite clearly at the top that Helen’s session is fully booked. Screw you to eternal damnation people who got in before me. I hope your armpits are infested with the fleas of a hundred million flea-ravaged camels who also lay spit balls on you while whooping your bums with their dingle-stained tails.

I might buy a ticket to Germaine Greer’s opening address “On Rage” as it seems apt. We can both get angry about not hearing Helen talk.

Crank-o-meter: my procrastination should be no reason for my failure

After six or so months of purging things that make me cranky, angry or plain old shake my head until the grey matter rattles, I still can’t explain why I come back for more but it’s one of the better habits I’ve kept.

The blog is like a virtual loungeroom where I can sit on a burgundy velvet chaise and explore the way I see the world, and hurrah if anyone drops by to listen or chat. There’s always a spare seat with plenty of well-fluffed cushions and a champagne cocktail at the ready.

I like my pink, brown and white electronic room. I can lie on the lounge in a huddled ball when I’m down, take pictures of strange things that at the time seem vitally important while jumping on the lounge (though not Tom Cruise-style, thanks), sit cross-legged on the floor and worry about humanity while reading the news from the computer perched on my lap, or stretch out with hounds sprawled across my belly and wonder what’s churning in my head today.

I was in my web site doo-dad’s control panel yesterday and looked at the statistics and more people come here and read than the half-dozen I told initially about the site. From some countries where I don’t know anyone. And sometimes return for more. Nutters, you are. I haven’t a clue why people come here but thank you.

Crank-o-meter: Many years ago at a corporate breakfast, I remember then advertising wunderkind Siimon-with-two-Is-Reynolds quoting that we have 30,000 thoughts a day. Most of mine centre on basic needs like mustering the motivation to crawl out of a warm bed and interact with the other humans. And what to eat because it’s mid-afternoon and cat biscuits, Tabasco sauce, soy milk and slivered almonds just aren’t making themselves into an edible lunch. Gosh, I’m hungry but not that hungry. I wonder if cushion stuffing is edible.

Times are tough in the government department where I spend the daylight hours, to the point of being told by the senior manager to forage in cupboards for pens because there’s a heavily-reduced budget for writing implements and other luxuries used to communicate with the public. It gets a bit disheartening, especially now when I’m short-staffed and my peers have no capacity in their org charts to help each other and there’s no money for temporary staff or trained robots to steal me a new pen because mine’s running low on ink. And, of course, deadlines remain the same.

It’s rampant micro-management like this that makes me grateful for some of the benefits of the public service, like still having a say towards our collective employment agreement. Because there’s no money, employees have to find ways to change working conditions on a cost neutral basis. There’s a jaded ‘can’t be bothered’ feel because we’re tired, haven’t had time to take leave and we aren’t feeling terribly valued, but once we knew the meeting’s facilitator was listening, the atmosphere changed markedly.

We came up with ideas, and even if they never reach the lawyers and unions, someone listened. And allowed us to speak. And helped bring our warring factions together because we realised we are all in the same leaking boat with water up to our necks. One concern raised was how our department can reduce the higher-than-average amount of sick leave taken. We asked why it was so high, and no one knew because no one has asked — a bean counter just wanted the number lowered so the statistical folk in Canberra would back off. An employee survey on the intranet log-in screen could take care of that question and save money by reducing whatever’s causing people to call in sick when they aren’t. The jaded think tank was warming up.

Having said that, a lot of public servants carry high sick leave balances because they’re given more sick leave than most of the private sector. How about we create a new form of leave called ‘wellbeing leave’ or similar and we can move some of our sick leave into wellbeing leave and use it to go to the gym, or go for a bike ride, or attend to preventative health care appointments so sick leave is used only when we’re broken. The powers-that-be will get a better reflection of its workforce’s motivation levels and staff will feel more empowered and healthy and take less sick leave. And it’ll cost jack shit — hurrah for public service brain power.

We have an entitlement to training but budgets tend to be shuffled to pay for pens and paper — someone suggested a training budget attached to employees rather than the workgroups. Worth thinking about. And could be transferred from one department to another if staff move on so a higher-skilled public service benefits everyone. Throw us some more problems, we’re kicking butt.

And, funnily enough, not one point of consensus on the top priorities related to more pay or benefits. Everyone had focused on work/life balance and accessing the benefits we already have but are becoming difficult to use because of lack of staff, time and support. It’s all stuff that can be fixed by people and not money. And looking at it from my previous private sector experience, these ideas could be trialled in government as an example of ways to attract and retain people in private industry.

Consultation sessions like this are often like voting in elections because each person has a tiny voice that doesn’t seem to amount to much at all. But for just a few hours we roared like lions before returning to the rat race.

Crank-o-meter: squeak

I couldn’t decide whether to post this. Commonsense was saying put the keyboard down but mischief was replying wow, this could be fun. A l’il cloud of depression has rolled in though and nothing seems funny, so read away while I go and hug a dog.

~~~

I picked up a block of chocolate and almost reeled at the distinctly sexual connotations of the seeping peppermint on the packet. The photo doesn’t do it justice and I am not (usually) a sees-a-double-entendre-in-everything person.

But if I were crazy enough to send feedback, oh, what to write?

Dear chocolate company

I am not a weirdo stalker and don’t look for Freudian slips in the confectionery aisle, however, the depiction on the packet of your peppermint-filled chocolate looks suspiciously like the end product of when a man loves a woman, or when a man loves a man, or when a man loves himself.

Your marketing and packaging design teams might be bitter about lack of quarterly bonuses or something, because I’ve conducted a survey and others agree with me. No, not others from the adult section of the video shop, but other guileless chocolate eaters. We all can’t be reading too much into it and no one is humouring me to make me stop the harassment.

Please explain. And tone down the glossiness and viscosity of the peppermint filling.

Yours
Cranky Chocolate Freak

Crank-o-meter: funny or loony, the margin is fine

Some things about commercial sport shit me, such as the “You’re so unbelievable oh oh oh oh” music piped over the speakers after a goal or try or some other ‘you’re supposed to be cheering now’ moment, not understanding why male basketballers wear hideously baggy, shiny sack clothes yet women wear skimpy-yet-awful rainbow-bright skinsuits with flared handkerchiefs as skirts, and Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin are shithouse talking-heads-on-sticks cycling commentators who should be put to pasture and lots of people agree with me but the revolution is slow to start. And parochialism annoys the pants off me: why cheer for someone like Lleyton Hewitt just because he’s from the same country if he comes across as a raving yob? Oh yeah, green and yellow are bog-awful colours and please stop making Australians wear them.

When I’m not throwing empty tinnies at the TV, I’m also lamenting the amount of men’s sports that are supported by grinning women wearing very little and dishing out the trophies. For heaven’s sake, women, stop being the support act and start leading.

I cracked a sad attack about this a couple of years ago after watching the Bathurst 1000 car race and the grid girls and trophy givers were almost literally freezing their tits off after some bad weather rolled in. I sent a crankygram to the V8 Supercar organisation asking for an explanation of why car racing is stuck in the dark ages, how much of the crowd would really give a toss if the girls were replaced by — I don’t know — former event winners who have credibility rather than spray tans and nice hair, and did they know how many women they were pissing off who might want to pay money and go to events but the archaic sexism is just too much? I did not receive a reply, but thankfully I didn’t hold my breath waiting for one. I might have turned blue like the spandex vixens on their payroll.

This new flare-up of the grumps started yesterday when a cycling-mad friend said some of the Tour de France podium chickybabes weren’t as babelicious as in previous years. Granted, they usually wear dresses instead of swimsuits so the visual trash factor is lower, but the concept of women supporting men’s sporting glory is still void of sense and logic. The friend didn’t stop and added that it was better than the coverage of a race in Poland when the podium women looked like they probably kick-started trucks for a living. My response went along the lines of, “Good, that’s what you deserve for upholding stupid and irrelevant traditions of women standing back in skimpy outfits waiting to applaud men, for no real reason but to be stared at, or on some flimsy context that being on a podium will do wonders for their modelling careers, or that they really do enjoy being leered by drunken yobbos whose wives won’t have sex with them, and when was the last time you saw half-naked men supporting the women’s netball or arse-kicking hockey teams? ARGH.”

He said, “But weren’t there some grid boys at the Formula One Grand Prix this year.”

I replied, “Yes, a handful or two, but two lots of stupid still make the concept really f#$king stupid rather than right.”

I think he changed the subject. I didn’t even get to the bit where trophies could be handed out by trans-sexual Daleks or a troupe of drag queens so there’s something for everyone.

Crank-o-meter: back to having the shits up again

Or so the signs point.

The Stony Point seal hasn’t been spotted for a while by local people-who-wield- fishing-tackle and I was worried about his welfare (to the point of driving to the boat ramp occasionally and looking out to sea for a small, bung-eyed, cranially-dented, pesky seal to no avail.)

The local newspaper reported sightings a couple of weeks ago with an accompanying photo.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24001659-2862,00.html

I dunno, he looks like he did in March except his whiskers might be a tad longer. With this lacklustre growth spurt he’ll hit his predicted adult weight of 300 kilos in 2050 and I’ll be out there petting him on the head and saying, “I knew this boy when he was a young ‘un” and trying to scruff his non-existent hair while he blushes and moans, “Awwwwwwwww, how embarrassing,” in seal language. He’ll have graduated from nicking fish from pelicans to raiding Tasmanian aquaculture farms because the world’s oceans will be drained of sea life long before then and the Phillip Island penguins will be an historical hologram show for tourists.

I didn’t see the seal but I found another clue that he’s back scunging for food around town. I love a bit of self help that tells things how they are.

Crank-o-meter: arf arf

One of my favourite winter treats is wrapping up in warm bed linen and towels when they’re fresh from the clothes dryer (I don’t do it that often and the Prozac causes night sweats sometimes and I have to use the dryer because it’s finally raining but have to stop feeling guilty each time I use electricity in case it causes the planet’s last breath because I just can’t sleep in my own ageing sweat and I am sorry poor planet). The cats also think napping on warm linen is their birthright in winter. And I have a new camera phone I’ve been busting to play with so, hey, why not combine the three?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Until the cat cracked the shits at me and the fun police walked in and said:

“What on earth are you doing, Princess Leia?”

“Right, I’ll leave you to it.”

Crank-o-meter: cosy (and possibly crazy)

The New South Wales Government has acknowledged a problem with the increasing number of injured, hypochondriac and other non-dying ill people placing more pressure on hospital emergency departments. The government’s solution is to run television ads to encourage garden variety sick people to visit their general practitioners rather than present at triage reception desks.

Hello, reality check required in aisle one, I can’t remember the last time I secured a doctor’s appointment fewer than five days in advance here in Victoria and the situation was similar when I lived in Sydney. That’s acceptable for routine visits like annual check-ups and prescription repeats but there’s still a gaping void of care between routine and emergency that requires a doctor’s attention. Has no one in the NSW Government had a suspected urinary tract infection or unusual lump for example? Or needed a medical certificate for a cold or flu because it’s required by many employers and cannot be backdated?

Curiously, the NSW Government’s research indicates that only a third of patients at emergency departments believe themselves to be in need of hospital care — potentially more than 1.5 million visits to its emergency departments are linked to a shortage of general practitioners or incidents occurring outside normal clinic hours.

If someone is in genuine need, no doctors in my local clinic will refuse to make time; my doctor has never been less than 45 minutes behind schedule even at 10 in the morning but that’s the daily overload GPs work with already. The nearest bulk billing clinic operates without appointments but it’s not an option for people who might need a medical certificate for gastro and can’t physically leave their toilets for more than an hour, let alone sit in a waiting room for three hours or more. And for folks like me with delicate mental constitutions at times, I am not comfortable going through my life history with a stranger when my K10 is off the scale and I’m not sure what to do except talk to someone who knows my background while I’m still okay and haven’t evolved into an urgent case.

Every other clinic within half an hour cannot accept new patients. A new clinic opening at the end of the year is already accepting names for its books because of the overflow at existing practices. And it’s worse in rural centres and towns.

Lazy people who can’t be bothered waiting for appointments and Medicare refunds will keep fronting at emergency regardless of government advertising. For the majority, however, I can’t see the sense in pushing people from one over-stretched part of the public health system to another. Both sides of the scale are broken and shifting weights won’t make an ounce of difference.

We need a lot more bolstering in the middle. I’ve heard grumblings that pharmacists can sign medical certificates for a small fee, which is a reasonable start. The federal government also needs to look harder at the re-qualification process for immigrants, preparing universities to train more doctors (especially with our aging population), and giving doctors more reasons to want to stay in practice longer. And that’s just the start: doctors are useless without other health professionals including access to support services, specialists and facilities. Is there such thing as para-doctors like para-legals to help bridge the gap?

Crank-o-meter: healthy at the moment, thank goodness