Is that my laptop dripping?

I was going to make up for my recent blog negligence by posting something super positive. I was going to be upbeat because even though my knee is still acting like a stubborn teenager and holding a grudge against the rest of my body, my boss has very kindly allowed me to work from home. When I heard the news I could have jumped for joy. Except, of course, that I can't jump (or at least not without screaming violent profanities) so I didn't. I just basked in the knowledge that I could be comfortably drugged up (on pain killers) and writing at home.
.

I love my apartment. Even though it's small -- so small that sometimes Mark and I have to turn sideways to sidle past various objects to get where we want to go -- I wouldn't have it any other way.

At the moment the best part about my apartment is that I get to lie in bed, resting my leg, and do all of my writing and emailing from a stable (laptop) table. It's ingenious. And it turns out that when left with my laptop, complete silence and my loony thoughts, I'm actually very productive.

But today catastrophe struck. If you're wondering whether to be alarmed, yes. Do it. Be alarmed. Be very, very alarmed! "Why?" you might ask, "Why are you giving me anxiety on a Friday?" Because Mark spilled half a stein of orange juice on my netbook, that's why!

To be fair it wasn't his fault. There just wasn't enough room for his feet between the table and the chair that I'm currently using as a side table. They snagged, caused his body to wobble and the juice that he was holding to tip over, right onto the centre of my working existence.

Luckily, since I'm a very clumsy being, we always have some form of paper handy -- tissues, paper towels, toilet paper, etc -- to wipe up my mess. So it was with some swiftness and expertise that Mark demanded that I turn the laptop off, wiped it with toilet paper *and then sat it upside-down on a towel. And that's where it is now. It's stopped dripping, which I take to be a good sign, but I'm not confident that it will survive.

• The toilet paper and guilty orange juice, post accident.

In the meantime I've been relegated to my faithful old uni laptop. It's not the fastest or brightest creation, but it does have Word and can (very slowly) access the internet. So if you're reading this post, it means that it's really exerted itself. Good laptop. Well done!

So there you have it. There's not much more to this story at present. I just really needed to tell the world (meaning my three readers) about today's woeful events. Thanks for listening.

*what an inglorious way to go...

What now?

You've got me celebrity trash. After years of resisting, of not knowing (or caring) which celebrity did what to their chin and which set of "you know they're not real" boobs that chin is currently hanging out with, I've fallen into your trap. I read this story and I've become all involved in it. The sort of involvement that shows that I care. And I do. And for that I'm part embarrassed and part angry.

In my usual fashion I will explain. The story is about the trainer from The Biggest Loser, Jillian The-Only-Thing-Brawnier-Than-My-Arms-Is-My-Smile Michaels. Speaking to Woman's Health magazine she said that she doesn't ever want to get pregnant because (wait for it) she "can't handle doing that" to her body.

Okay I'll be the first to admit that the thought of a screaming baby tearing its way out of my vagina is not my idea of fun, but it's a whole lot more natural than doing 50kg weights with your nipples. Which, it seems to me, she probably does.

The article goes on to say that Jillian has battled through childhood weight issues and is terrified that she'll be fat forever if she falls pregnant. Umm...I don't even know where to begin. It seems like she honestly believes that if she falls pregnant she'll suddenly explode out to 400kgs and will never be able to lift a car using only her index finger again. I would hate to live in her brain.

It probably won't surprise you that her statement has drawn a fair bit of criticism. Apparently a fitness role model shouldn't tell people that getting pregnant is a fitness no-no. Who knew?

Don't worry, she also has some fans who support her decision to adopt. Personally I'm not sure she's got the whole idea right. She did say: "when you rescue something, it's like rescuing a part of yourself." To me it seems like she's just repeating her message: "whenever you rescue something, it's like you're rescuing your body from natural birth". Then again maybe she's talking on a deeper level. I'd like to know which part of herself she feels needs rescuing...

Now I just have two questions:

1) Can you put "I want to adopt a thin, sculpted, muscular baby because I don't want to ruin my killer abs while giving birth to one." on an adoption form and be taken seriously?

2) What kind of mother will you be if you're that into fitness? I.e. will that kid ever get to experience the glory of greasy KFC after a big night out? Because that, in my opinion, should be one of the adoption qualifiers.

Bah. I'm toasting Jillian and her commitment to herself with a large McChicken meal. Cheers!

The knee saga

I know you’ve been dying to hear it: the knee saga. That is, the process by which I went from being a perfectly happy person in a stinger suit (just look at me sitting there all toothy smiles):
To an awkwardly limping wreck at odds with the medical system.

It all began on a gorgeous, relaxing, sweltering February day while sailing the Whitsundays. I was standing on the roof of our Catamaran admiring the lack of wind and the complete stillness of the vessel (this is important to outline just how thoroughly retarded I am). Then for no reason whatsoever I decided to step down in a way that proved (if anyone had any doubts) that ankles and knees should never be forced to work against each other. That is if your foot is pointing to the right, for instance, your knee should never be straightened at the same time. Especially with a bravado that shouts “look how fantastically I’ve mastered my sea legs.”

Skip forward a couple of grinding cracks, a genuine conviction that my knee had developed a sudden obsession with Cubism (and was trying to mimic a Picasso masterpiece) and some rather forceful demands that Mark beat it back into its original shape (which luckily he refused to do) and we come to me hobbling around the boat, asking for alcohol and bumping into anything I could – regardless of whether it was actually in my way or not. If there had been a psychiatrist onboard I’m sure they would have strapped me up and put me into a padded room for my own safety. But, alas, there was not. Instead Mark’s mum sweetly rubbed VapoRub on my knee.

I won’t take you though the details of the next few days; most of the time I was in a half-drunk stupor anyway. But I will say this: it is very hard, I would even say impossible, to get into a dingy using one leg.

To save you from boredom, I’ll skip past the journey of my knee from grapefruit-sized mass back to near-normal knobbiness. I’ll just say that after a visit to emergency, a stopover at an MRI imaging centre and two sessions with a specialist (which amounted to no less than 13 hours of waiting time), it was determined in no uncertain terms that I did in fact hurt my knee.

More specifically – to quote my MRI – I have a “displaced bucket handle tear of the body and anterior horn of the medial meniscus with a displaced fragment lying medially in the intercondylar notch.”

This is a diagram of what the medical jargon means. It is actually a representation of a diagram drawn by my doctor after I made it clear that all I could see in the MRI was evidence that I got something for my $500…but not something good enough to frame.

Since the writing on my diagram didn't quite come out in the blog, I'll translate:

1. This is a healthy medial meniscus
2. This is my medial meniscus with a bucket handle tear giving me the finger before moving onto diagram 3. (My doctor's diagram wasn't flipping the bird, just in case you were wondering)
3. This is the fragment of my medial meniscus sticking its...er...nose (??) where it doesn't belong

On a related note, I also have “fissuring of the articular cartilage over the lateral patellar facet extending onto the patellar apex”…or more specifically “grade 2-3 chondromalacia of the lateral patellar facet extending onto the patellar apex”

Just to be clear, the first (bucket handle) thing is the real problem; the second thing was, according to my specialist, unlikely to have happened directly at the same time. Secretly I think it was caused by one of my ungraceful one-legged dismounts into the dingy, but I didn’t tell him that.

This is where I’m up to now. Apparently my knee will not be so kind as to grind down the offending fragment in any reasonable amount of time which means that my specialist is going to have to get in there and fix it himself. That’s right; my ridiculous clumsiness is now taking me to the operation room for an arthroscopy. You can read all about the procedure here, but since I’m guessing we all have better things to do with our time, basically it involves the good doc sticking a camera and some medical utensils into my knee and taking the fragment out.

On hearing this news I could only summon two thoughts:

1) I finally get to use my health insurance
and
2) I get to see the inside of my knee (maybe)

I can’t say that I’ve been looking forward to either, but I’m warming to the idea.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the saga of the knee.

Cover up, you're making the earth shake!

I know I’ve promised part two of our camping story, but I haven’t had time to write it yet. Sorry, I’m a busy girl with a busy lifestyle and today deadline panic took over my usual lunchtime ranting.

Instead I have a fun story for you to read. Well actually it’s only about two per cent fun and 98 per cent completely fucking insane. Pardon my French, but I’m really concerned for Tehran’s population of 12 million people.

If, like me, you have been struck down with a crazy workload and don’t have much time to spare today, I’ll give you a brief synopsis of what the story is about.

Basically some cleric has allegedly blamed women who are dressed scantily (and are therefore promiscuous) for the earthquakes in the region.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which [consequently] increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi apparently told Iranian media.

I’m not sure how many people believe this man, but it must be some for him to have made it onto the online pages of the SMH. Then again, maybe he’s just a lunatic that the Aussie sensationalism-junkies dug up…or maybe he’s been misquoted. Who knows?

The point is that I dare hope that nobody is stupid enough to believe him. Surely they’d have to question why the rest of the world (beginning with Hugh Hefner’s residence) isn’t either under water or (at least) in ruins.

Anyway, of more concern is that Tehran which is home to some 12 million citizens is, according to seismologists, doomed. To quote the SMH journalist it “straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 80 kilometres long” and hasn’t gone through a major earthquake for some 180 years. That’s gotta spell trouble.

The SMH journalist managed to squeeze some other bits of largely unrelated info into his story – allegations to do with the legitimacy of the election, for one. But I guess what has stayed with me is that even the president (legitimate or not) admitted that five million people should leave to make the city less crowded…what of the other seven million? I just hope they cover up…

Camping weekend: Part one

I’ll fill you in on the details later. Like maybe when I’m not at work and not sweating about the visit to the knee specialist this afternoon. Maybe when I get back from the specialist at 9pm after yet another ridiculous wait. Then again I’ll probably have to sell my laptop and most of my furniture and clothes to pay for further medical assistance, which means that I won’t have the means to update you and who wants to write naked anyway? Not me. I like to be fully clad. So enjoy part one and I’ll fill you in on the details later.

Like every good camping trip, ours began with a list. Usually I’m the list maker in our partnership, but seeing as I’d had a rather busy week, Mark decided to take over responsibility and write out every item we would need for our two-day getaway.

I think the list speaks for itself:

Mark’s camping list:
- 2 sleeping bags, pillows, blanket
- Tent
- Foam matts

- Toilet paper
- Candles and stand for candles (so that they don’t set anything, like for example Mark’s pillow, on fire)

- Lighter, matches
- Torches
- Towels (this also implied: toothpaste, toothbrushes and soap)

- Mosquito spray
- Sun cream

- Drinking water (we got six litres)
- Apple juice
- Orange juice
- Ice
- Alcohol, wine – vodka
(He’d be damned if we came out this experience thirsty!)

- Food
- Biscuits, chips, lollies for Agnes (because Agnes can turn into a cranky bitch without her intake of sugar).
- Plates and cutlery, can be plastic, cups
(If not plastic, they could be titanium. We’re lenient like that. But the cutlery and cups were plastic. We forgot plates. )

Things that weren’t on the list but Mark prepared earlier:
- 1 giant, don’t-mess-with-me knife (which, he explained, was just in case we needed to stab a psychotic killer. There’s no phone reception in the bush, you know.)
- A series of maps printed from Google. (Printed on such a scale that only a couple of roads had names and the rest was guess work. Needless to say, we saw quite a bit of Kandos, which is a lovely mid-western NSW town which surprisingly has its own Wikipedia page. This leads me to believe that either people are really impressed with its cement production or more than one soul has gotten lost on its streets.)

Things that weren’t on the list (but for the most part were supplied by my parents, who we visited on the way):
- Chairs (yes, I know that’s not rough-n-tough-ing it, but both my knee and I are grateful that we didn’t have to stand the whole time).
- Paper towels and other things needed to clean the tent once we had packed it up.
- Sausages (who goes camping with the sole mission of building a fire, gets that fire going and then has nothing to roast on it? Mark and I, that’s who. But, for anyone who’s interested, smoked and charred baguette doesn’t taste half bad).
- Plates.

Overall I think we did well. Watch this space for part two.

I adore Chester!

That is what I named my boyfriend’s back-of-throat laugh. If you think that seems like a strange thing to do, you probably don’t know me very well and you definitely haven’t heard Mark laugh. And I mean really laugh. You see, Mark’s laughs could be classified as a separate language system and studied. The boy doesn’t mess about.

His laugh spectrum begins with his “polite” laugh, in which he expels air in neat, nerdy “ha ha” soundwaves. When this intensifies, becomes louder and is interspaced with deep breaths – “ha ha ha (pause) ha ha (pause) ha ha” – it means he’s really laughing from the heart.

The final level – which also often involves a rocking motion – sees the adoption of a whole new breathing technique. In this the “ha ha” expulsions are followed by a regular pattern of loud inhalations that sound a bit like a squirrel choking on a woodpecker.

Mark also likes to experiment with his nostrils and throat to vary the severity and meaning of his laughs.

This is how Chester comes about. I’m still not sure how he does it, but when Mark finds something particularly amusing (usually himself), he signifies it by letting out a ticking kind of sound at the back of his throat. I don’t know how to describe it, because it’s just one of those things you have to experience for yourself (like the purring of a cat or Channel 10 news presenters trying to sound empathetic). Personally I adore it. That’s why I’ve named it Chester. And that’s my story for today.

Obsessed!

I just found a restaurant that I may have to find time to be truly obsessed with. It’s so fantastically cool that I wish I could have babies with it and fill Sydney with other equally-cool (though maybe a little bit more deranged) places.

Since my full-time job of restaurant writer requires me to be sane, I’m going to use this blog as an outlet to tell you about it in my own crazy, erratic, “ummm…I’m not sure that she’s even talking in coherent sentences anymore” kind of way.

The place is called LL Wine and Dine and I’m sorely disappointed that while other people have already managed to become regulars, I only just discovered it. It actually opened eleven weeks ago – right around the time that I could still walk without a ridiculously subtle limp (the one that makes people think I was just born ungraceful and wearing cheap, flat shoes).

Anyway, since I haven’t actually tried the food yet, I’m just going to tell you about how very aesthetically-orgasmic it is. But before I do that – porn wall and all – I have to retell its history because it’s pretty amusing.

The history

So picture this: three young lads, who happen to be brothers, decide to turn an abandoned adult bookstore into a funky new Potts Point (read Kings Cross) restaurant. Okay, so already you have to imagine that this is quite a task. There are all sorts of unsavoury parts of adult bookstores (especially ones that have been around for forty or so years, as this one had been) that you wouldn’t want to mix with food. So you have to sympathise with Tim, Chris and Matthew when they discovered that the place had an even more nefarious background than they first imagined.

This didn’t come to light in one, calm conversation with a previous owner – it was a gradual discovery during which they uncovered hydraulic doors, secret passageways and false exits. “What kind of porn needs those sorts of security measures?” you wonder “does the public need safeguarding? Does it feature Tony Abbott?” As it turns out, the bookstore served as a front for an illegal casino for quite some time. So no, it wasn’t quite so bad.

You’d think that having found this out, the brothers could go on with their lives in a happy, informed kind of way. But there was also the question of why so many condoms and other odd items were strewed about the place. Cutting a long story short, once the casino had been raided and the owner sold it, his replacement turned it into a swingers’ club (which eventually also got raided).

But the largest discovery – and I’m talking volume – was a secret attic filled with 35 garbage bags of old-school porn. There was enough material to bury the front part of the restaurant in two inches of boobs. In an instant the brothers were faced with a teenage boy’s ultimate fantasy and a responsible adult’s worst nightmare: What to do with all this porn?

Rather industriously, they decided to use the more quaint pages as wallpaper in the restaurant’s passageway (and give the rest away). And just so you don’t miss it, they mounted a bright red “ECSTACY” sign* right above it.

Looking at the wall is a bit like smoking a spliff in Amsterdam – you know you’re allowed, you know it’s not a big deal but you feel like there’s a giant red sign (in this case a rather suggestive one) flashing above your head alerting the world – and your mother – of your indecent behaviour. And yet you stop and search the various faces to see whether you can recognise any of them. That is until you realise that by now they’re old enough to be your mother, then some paranoid thoughts enter your mind and you decide that you don’t want to see anybody you know in that light, so you move on…

The restaurant
Aside from the wall which I’ve made quite a big deal out of, sorry (it’s not that big and I’m not that perverted), the rest of the restaurant is all class. The front bar has a certain old-world quality that comes with classic leather bar stools, polished wooden counters and shelves of alcohol. From there a corridor leads patrons from the bar, past the aforementioned wall and to the dining area. It is meant to make you feel like you’re going from the bar, through a laneway and into another bar. And, strangely, it does.

The back end of LL is split into three rooms:

The downstairs lounge simmers with red banquettes, white pillows with black embroidery that somehow seems suggestive (even though it’s not), round cocktail tables and warm-toned brocade ottomans. It’s a very Kings Cross-appropriate place to drink a cocktail.

The upstairs dining room is intimate, moody and very cool. So cool that at first you’re not sure whether you’re actually cool enough to hang around it, but then when you sit at one of its dark brown tables, you realise that it’s not about you at all. And that makes you feel cool.

The middle section shamelessly stares into the dining and lounge rooms like a true voyeur. Although it – and its modern Japanese screen feature wall – somehow manage to stay super classy.

A bit about the food

Okay, I haven’t tried the food or cocktails yet (but trust me I’m busily clearing my schedule to make it happen). So, just for the curious, I will say that the cuisine is modern Asian, prepared by chef Jin Kung (who has done stints at various good restaurants) and is a fusion of Chinese dishes with Thai and Japanese ideas.

Personally I’m looking forward to a chilli and coconut martini and some black tea and star anise smoked duck breast pancakes with house soy bean sauce and spring onion. I will update you on my experience. Let me know if you want to join me in my quest and become equally obsessed.

*the original name – and sign – of the bookstore.

Photography courtesy of Caroline McCredie

And now I'm on a horse!

Mark's friend found this commercial and I've been laughing at it ever since. Enjoy:



For more entertainment check out this video.

Some thoughts

1) Happiness is a morning caffeine hit.

2) Office air-conditioning was invented to test our ability to withstand sub-zero working conditions. And should we ever colonise a much cooler planet, it will be justified.
Until then I remain resentful.

3) Do Amnesty International call centre employees get paid? I’d like to have a legitimate reason to berate them for calling me when I’m about to find out whether Phillipe’s inflexible limbs will once again be his downfall in So You Think You Can Dance.

4) Is Bonnie Lythgoe (from SYTYCD) the daughter of a ferret or some rodent-like creature?

5) Is Natalie Bassingthwaighte the result of an unfortunate accident in which a pair of bagpipes, a mole, a sack of awkwardness and a tube of stupidity combined to form a television presenter?

6) Catching up on three hours of SYTYCD episodes can have blog-related consequences.

7) Who was the designer/person responsible for Sydney bus interiors and are they colour/style blind?

8) My productivity impulse sets in at exactly the same time that I realise I don’t have enough time to finish my work. Why?

9) Colourful paperclips are a fun thing to have on one’s desk, even if I’ve never actually needed to use one.

10) No matter how carefully I shave my legs, I inevitably find a little tuft of hair at about the same time I sit down in some public place.

11) No, girl on the train, vomiting stories are never cool. Especially when there are uninterested (and clearly repulsed) strangers in your carriage who don’t want to hear what repercussions your drinking has had on your wardrobe.

12) There needs to be a community announcement about the growing number of the blinking-impaired. They’re everywhere and they will swerve into your lane unannounced.

13) Although I lack the motivation to rake through this country’s laws, I’m pretty certain that it is not illegal to have my friend bring her dog up to my apartment for an hour. And no amount of polite smiling will convince me otherwise, evil concierge man.

14) I wish I was more poignant.

15) Truly fantastic TV shows have got to be either clever or gloriously mind-numbingly stupid. And yet Australian news, current affairs shows and Border Security fail time and time again (and not for lack of trying).

16) The joy in Stevie Wonder’s voice makes a perfect cleaning companion.

17) Bakers Delight is not a good bakery. It is disappointment dressed in burgundy. Don’t listen to the Sydneysiders who tell you different (they don’t know any better).

18) I’m waiting for the moment when the Red Cross charity people who try to poach supporters from the busy city crowd, start stabbing passers-by with syringes and taking blood by force. The aggression in their manner suggests this isn’t far off.

Angry rant

Yes. Okay. I know I rant a lot. In fact most of my blog is just one rant after another, but I've just been catching up on today's news and the stories about the changes to refugee policy have got me in a tizzy.

For those who have been too busy this week to reach for the paper (as important and industrious professionals often are), let me quickly summarise what has been going on.

Basically the Rudd government has changed its policy on refugees coming from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan based on a UNHCR review of the conditions in these countries.

According to the new policy, the processing of refugee claims by Sri Lankans and Afghans will be suspended by three to six months. This was done in a bid to stop the invasion of Australia by the evil masses or people who jump onto boats to speed their way to our shores with the view of destroying our economy....wait. No. That's just what a lot of the media and ignorant Australians will have you believe.

The move -- which is a bit of a turn for Rudd from his previous policies (although his foreign affairs minister is arguing that Rudd's always had a tough stance on refugees. In this he's both right and wrong; it all depends whose standards of "tough" you're looking at, but I'm not going to go into all of that) has received its fair share of criticism from all factions.

Tony Abbott has gotten into the debate in the middle of the "crisis"- as he does - when his Christian spirit could no longer withstand the way the PM was lying/cheating to the electorate/changing his spots. Or, at least, that's what he'd have you believe.

In typical Abbottness he has claimed that the minister is vying for the love of the polls with this band-aid solution. He might be right. I don't know.

Why the PM did what he did and what the opposition leader has to say about it isn't actually the most disturbing part of this debacle.

The most disturbing part is that under the political squabbling over who's got bigger balls when it comes to "getting tough on asylum seekers" or "queue jumpers" (that term must have been coined by a journalist), there are real people trying to get away from real persecution.

I, of course, speak of the 1/10,000th of one per cent of the world's refugees that Australia receives. Yes. That's right according to the CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the number of desperate people trying to claim asylum is that small.

We are not being "flooded". We're not even being drizzled.

Of course I'm not suggesting we should overlook the issues of people trafficking and all of the other highly illegal operations of the criminals who profit from the illegal immigration trade or ignore environmental issues around increasing the population of our country, but how about stopping the hate?

Politicians are politicians. They're meant to be the ones who long ago sold their soul for something or other. You expect them to cheat, lie and do everything for self-gain. I'm not even sure why people are so shocked when politicians act like politicians.

What I'm shocked about is how many people, without really thinking about the situation are happy to scream about Australia being invaded by refugees. And how many argue that piling onto a dangerous boat and setting off for a foreign land is actually something that cunning people would rather do than calmly process a visa and get here legally by plane. They argue that this is not a sign of desperation but impatience. Seems a bit silly to me.

I know that there are exceptions to every rule and that there are people who jump the queue out there, but I think most people who take such drastic measures to get to Australia aren't and shouldn't be treated as evil invaders.

Anyway I really have no solutions. I just needed to rant a little. I feel better now. Thanks for listening.

Oh and if you want to do some reading on the subject, have a look at this story. And this one. And, if you have time, read the comments at the bottom of this story.

Addicted!

I will be the first to admit that computer games are super addictive. Mark will be the second to admit that I'm a good authority on computer game addiction. After recently downloading a game from my childhood -- Warlords II -- to make me happy he watched in growing helpless, bewildered annoyance as I all but ignored food, TV and the time so that I could conquer the planet.

And while I argue that people have gone to more extreme lengths for less worthy causes (I conquered the world after all!), I will concede that I was perhaps just a tad too obsessive. It was just so difficult to tear myself away to eat dinner when eight other "nations" were trying to kill my mighty armies.

I returned to my normal self after I had won, although Mark is still recovering from the wild, obsessed person he saw tapping away at the computer for hours on end.

So when I read this story which was sent to me by a friend, I got really shaken up.

Not only is it a really grizzly affair, but it is very, very unfortunate.

To summarise, a Korean couple let their baby starve while they were playing an online fantasy computer game.

And yes, I suspect like most people, my first reaction was outrage at the stupidity of these parents. In their testimony they revealed that they would feed the baby, put her to bed and then leave the house for ten hours to play at an internet cafe. You don't have to be a genius to work out that this is a moronic thing to do. I'd like to think that at some point (maybe when your baby starts weighing less than your joystick) a maternal instinct would kick in to clue you in about feeding times. Or maybe, just maybe, you should realise that you are responsible for a human life and read a book or two.

But then since I don't have kids and I can't really vouch for what kind of parent I would be, I decided to stay objective. According to the story, both the man and woman were really shocked by what happened, they had never had criminal convictions before, claimed that they were never taught how to look after a baby and that they were addicted to the computer game.

The ignorance excuse is ridiculous. If they didn't know how to look after their baby they should have taken steps to learn. And while learning they should have also brushed up on how babies are made, considering that the woman is currently pregnant. Sad. I know.

What really struck me though is that this is a monumental case in how computer game addiction is viewed. Alcohol and drug addiction is seen as a horrible infliction (though self-caused) and, as a result, a lot of responsibility is taken away from the addict. What this case will be asking is: should game addiction be seen in the same light? Is it possible to be that addicted to a game?

I'd like to think that while my temporary two-day addiction made me act a little loony it didn't steal my sense of responsibility, butthen again I only played for two days.

In the end I'm not going to be the person to cast the first stone. I just think it's really, really sad.

P.S.

I know that the picture probably doesn't suit the tone of this piece, but how could I resist?

The price of a photo

It has often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but this morning I questioned the validity of that statement after I had recovered my jaw from the floor of a medical "imaging centre".

The morning had started off pleasantly enough -- got up a bit earlier than usual, had a shower and drove to have an MRI scan of my right knee. You know, just your average morning.

I was pleasantly surprised by the posh furniture, unhospital-like (helpful) signage and pleasant hotel-esque reception desk. "How lovely! How does this hospital manage to be so lovely?" I gushed naively as I filled out the required paperwork and admired the futuristic clipboard (the kind that would have cost $50 at some designer clipboard store).

Apart from being guided into a giant buzzing, banging, vibrating, radioactive MRI machine, it was quite an agreeable way to spend the morning. I even got handed some headphones to listen to seven minutes of radio while I waited for the machine to do its thing.

The moment when it all came tumbling to a horrible end was when the receptionist -- looking like a professional makeup artist -- smiled sweetly and said something evil like:

"Forty-five minutes sitting in our designer reception area, three minutes using our designer clipboard and seven minutes in our designer MRI machine? That comes to $467.00 thank you. If you're not using your soul; I'll take that too."

In actual fact, I can't vouch for that. I wasn't really listening to her until the dollar signs popped out of her mouth and smacked me in the face. I'm not sure whether I managed to successfully mask my horror - I may have been too busy fumbling for my credit card and straining to stop my heart from dropping out of the closest cavity -- my nostrils? Not sure.

I had my scan at 7:50am, it is now almost 3pm and I'm still not over it. $467 for seven minutes?! That's almost $67.00 a minute! Outrageous! If that's what you're paying for 1000 words you're getting ripped off.

Anyway, this unexpected expense of course means that the MRI image has now become the most valuable picture of myself that I own and, subsequently, will have to replace the drunk Brazilian Sydney Harbour Cruise photo* in the prime bookshelf spot. Here's hoping that it got a good angle of my knee. It would be really tragic if it makes me look fat.

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*It was my parents' wedding anniversary, there were a lot of cocktails going around and at some point that nobody can quite recall, we thought it would be a great idea to pay a photographer $30 or so dollars to take a very average picture. It gets the prime bookshelf spot because we spent $30 on it, damn it!

And the most inappropriate photo goes to...

The pregnant couple fornicating in front of the camera...

I know you're probably wondering whose "special drawer" I've been rifling through to get my hands on this image. What I am about to tell you may come as a bit of a shock and trouble you more than anything I could do. Well, that's probably not true, but at the moment I have plenty to blog about, thank you. I dare say it's going to be at least several months before I start exploiting my friendships.

Anyway, I found this image on an image sharing site. I know this is hard to comprehend, so I'm going to make this even clearer: the people in this picture wanted for their lovefest to be seen.*

Ever since I saw it awkwardly (and overly sexually) sitting between images of babies and picnicking families, one thought has been plaguing me: WHY WOULD YOU TAKE A PICTURE LIKE THAT?

Clearly it isn't something you'd send to your mother. Well I don't know, maybe you would. I don't even know your mother. Maybe she's into that kind of thing. But it isn't the sort of picture I would send to my mother so I thought I'd come up with a list of reasons of why someone would take a picture like that.

Unfortunately, after some thought (and some really far fetched ideas), all I had written down was "amateur preggo porn" and "why does she have her bellybutton pierced at such an advanced stage in her pregnancy?" (which is really just about the same thing). So I decided to change my strategy and come up with a list of reasons why I think this picture was taken with pornographic intentions in mind:

1. The aforementioned bellybutton piercing suggests unsavoury, unclean practices.
2. Because the man's trousers are unbuttoned. There are three main reasons why a man unbuttons his trousers and only one that involves a camera.
3. The woman has the giddy/naughty-but-posed look of an amateur. It says, "Make it believable Maggie. Make it believable".
4. If you observe the photo closely you'll notice that the man is in fact kissing the woman's hair and not her neck, but he maintains the facial expression of someone who is in a very deep Tantric state (then again maybe he's just catching up on lost sleep. Who knows?).
5. There is just somethign creepy about their body and hand positions.
6. The woman is wearing a maternity sports bra which suggests this isn't a high-budget production.

There, I think six reasons is enough, although I'm sure you could come up with more if you wanted to. I'd suggest you stop looking at the picture now.

*I should also add that, somewhat inappropriately, the photo was tagged "mother" and not "amateur preggo porn".