Fail Estate

Hey hey hey do you guys think that this is a good bit of scripture to put in a birth notice? I totally don't. "James 1:17 - Every good and perfect gift comes from above." Apart from this one, presumably. Which came out of a vagina.

Moving on, here are my Real Estate Top Threes for today. (Busy day, stuff to do, phoning it in.)

Top three headings:

"SUPER DUPER DO-ER UPPER"
Real estate agent, male 30s, seeks same for quiet nights in and weekend carpentry projects?

"Sleepout Helps Pay Mortgage"
Most boring news story ever.

"Living with Logfire."
Hilarious sitcom about a single woman in the city and her anthropomorphic heater?


Top three grammar spasms:

"Is this wonderful opportunity to get into a sought after area."
This was the first sentence in the ad. The whole first sentence. Personally, I think an ! would have improved it vastly.

"Two interconnecting living and flow to patios of outdoor entertaining."
Do you like outdoor entertaining? Well, this house has whole patios of it, and you can flow right onto them.

"With a view that can only be described as a world class panorama is this exquisite as new home, the house is at one with the terrain."
I'm not sure where to start with this.


Top three misc:

"3 DBLE bedrooms, SPACIOUS modern home with PARK OUTLOOK and internal access GARAGE"
I kind of really hope that the estate agent talks like this when they're showing people through the home. "And now, we're coming through to the -" clears throat, "MASTER BEDROOM!"

"Now's the time to 'buy' the best site in Wainui."
I know this guy, he has these sections for sale. They fell off the back of a truck, if you know what I mean.

"Come for an inlook to see the outlook."
Get out. GET OUT

Poo Tarts*

*Thank you, Reverend Spooner

This is a two-part post. Part one is just about stuff and part two is an award. Read whatever bit you want, I guess.

News Part

My mother's birthday yesterday = playing Cranium with extended family = getting the Charades* card = miming 'Sex Kitten' more and more frantically as the timer runs out and my mother fails to guess. HOW does she not know the International Humping Gesture? Why do these things always happen to me?

*charades is not my forte, or even really my mezzo-forte. it is my tentative mezzo-piano at best

At work, got shouted at by gay escort! Was exciting. He was having trouble getting an ad placed, and had spoken to several people by the time someone transferred him through to me.
"Hi, this is Ally, how can I help?"
"You can stop dicking me around."
"Excuse me? I have just started talking to you." (At this stage I did not know he was gay escort, or would have made smutty dicking pun.)
And then I used Retard Voice on him for the rest of the call. You know the one - real polite, but like you're humouring a retard. "Okaaaay....okaaaay. Now. Have you gone to an agent to make this ad, or are you doing it by yourself?" Was v satisfying, you guys know how I like my little power trips. At the end of the day, though, he's a male escort and I'm not. I win. How unfortunate, to be a wanker both personally and professionally.

Also at work, turns out our spell-check hates God. Was drawing up a couple of ads for Aidanfield Christian School. Spell-check wants to know if maybe Aidanfield was meant to be Damnified.

Had first rehearsal back at band last night - it is remarkably similar to how it always was i.e. fuck Goff Richards. The second piece we played started off with a semi-high note that only I and the guy I sit next to, who is Army Band and has nice arms* and one of those ridiculously manly names, like Kurt or Burt or Thumb or something, played.

For non-musicians, there are three things that can happen when you are required to play an exposed high note (the note is exposed, not you. Usually).

Thing One: you play a beautiful, perfectly tuned note that gladdens the hearts of babies and makes the ghost of Beethoven jizz in his pants. This never happens unless a) it is a Thursday, the moon is in Jupiter, and you've just had your bikini line waxed or b) you have the wrong piece of music and are not meant to be playing at all.

Thing Two is when you spend the five minutes before the piece in intent concentration, playing the note over and over to get it lodged in your brain, etc. Then when it's go time you panic, don't breathe, and make a noise which is sort of like "ptthhhhTHURP."

Thing Three is my favourite. It is when you think, "This is ridiculous, it's only a note, I have been playing notes, like, forever," and you decide that you will Show That Note. And then you come in way too loud on the wrong note and make a noise that sounds like "speAH -hurp- BLATT" and everyone looks at you in incredulous horror.

Anyway, my sheet of music had the first note crossed out, and above it someone had written, "Fuck that." It had been partially erased but was still legible. Kurt/Turt/Smurf scoffed at this in a 'what's the brass band world coming to' fashion. I, too, hooted derisively. Did not mention that I totally recognised the handwriting. Totally my copy from last time I was in the band. Totally did not tell Burp/Lurt that.

*excuse the pun, but this is totally an Army Band thing, they all have nice arms. Suspect there is a large tanning-lotion-and-curls section of basic training that they have neglected to inform the public about.

Got home and Kate mocked the shit out of band, then said, "Sorry! I don't mean to insult your...kind? Your...race? I know you brass players...you all band together. YOU ALL BAND TOGETHER!" Sigh.



Award Part

I have an award! The lovely Baglady, who was one of my very first regular readers, have bestowed on me ("the batty Ally," she says) the nicely named 'I Shoulda Been a Stripper' award. I don't tend to add awards to my sidebar because a) it is fiddly and b) it is fiddly, but they're nice to get, and this is an interactive one!

So here's what this award demands of you.

a) Post the award.





b) List seven personality traits, as evidenced by your blog.

1. self-absorbed (mistyped this as 'elf-absorbed, which I am not). Am pretty sure the fact I have a blog at all more or less guarantees this: cue outraged folks saying, "What about people with news/music/politics blogs?" COME ON PEOPLE a blog is all about gettin' on the Internet and shouting, "Hey, everyone! Come and see how good I look!"
   


2. slightly amusingly stunningly mad. I'm pretty sure this explains itself.
   


3. easily amused. News stories about cheese and phrases like "Saturnine, I opined on the bovines," are more than capable of making my day. Most of this blog is just crap which amused me.
   


4. picky. You do not see what goes on behind the scenes but every post is written, edited, previewed, edited again, posted, read, and then sometimes edited more. It is amazing really that posts are not significantly better.
   


5. indiscreet and un-PC.* Quite apart from the blog-defining haiku, I often don't think before I post. Luckily when this happens Andrea emails me and says life-saving things like, "I hope those aren't your colleagues' real names," and "Maybe you shouldn't mention actual names of actual companies you work with." And then I go back and change it, and avoid getting fired for yet another day.
   
   *Q: what do you call babies born in whorehouses? A: Brothel Sprouts!
   


6. amusing. Sometimes I read my blog and think, "Oh, this is quite funny, I have been quite clever here, it is amazing that this enormous brain of mine has not burst out of my skull." Sometimes, though, I read it and think, "Why do people read this drivel?" Which leads me to my final trait -
   


7. vain. Every time someone comments or follows I puff up like a peacock and tell family and friends, who sigh, and roll their eyes, and say, "43 followers! Gosh. That's a lot." Also, I post lots of photos of me looking nice (or at least interesting) and not so many of me looking like bad.
   

c) Give the award to 7 others with notable personalities and let them know.

Because I think you all have notable personalities (apart from one or two, you know who you are) anyone who wants to do this one should consider themselves tagged. I don't tend to give people awards anyway because some people love awards, some are indifferent, and some get slightly offended should you bestow awards on them ("It's flattering, Ally, but I don't have time for this."

The Twilight Years*

*or, The Sculpted Alabastard.

People who don't enjoy taking the piss out of Twilight, maybe you should skip this one. Everyone else: here is a story about Twilight, after the initial infatuation has worn off.

In a small weatherboard house on the shabbier side of town, the sun is peeping cautiously in through a chink in the curtains. Bella Cullen (nee Swan) is asleep in the bed, her long, dark hair spilling over the pillow. The floor is covered in dessicated hamster corpses in various stages of decay. A hamster that somehow survived the massacre produces a horrendous death rattle, and Bella wakes up. She leans over the bed, just in time to see the hamster's quivering vomitous death, and clenches her teeth. "Edward! What the hell is this?"
There is silence. She shouts again, then gets out of the bed and walks across the room, kicking aside hamster bodies as she does so.
"This," Bella mutters under her breath, "is fucking disgusting."

Bella walks down the hallway and into the kitchen, where Edward is standing, naked and in a rather posed position, in front of the sink. His well-muscled, alabaster back is facing Bella, who begins to harangue him about his midnight snacking habits, occasionally waving a hastily collected hamster corpse to emphasise a point. After a couple of sentences Edward spins around, snarling. He is clutching a headless rat and has blood all over his chin.
"That's revolting," Bella says. "It's like drinking milk straight from the carton." She shakes her head and opens the cupboard.

Edward, disdainful of Bella's toast, snaps a rat bone between his teeth and begins to suck out the marrow. Bella scowls. "Why do you always have to ruin my breakfast?"
Edward cracks another bone and wanders disinterestedly out of the kitchen and down the hallway, sculpted alabaster buttocks bobbing slightly as he walks, sculpted alabaster scrotum peeking out between his thighs.

Bella shouts after him, "I know you're a vampire, but for the love of God, put some pants on!" Without turning around, Edward raises his perfectly sculpted alabaster middle finger.

When Bella returns from work that night and walks into the lounge, where Edward is sitting and playing a zombie game on Xbox, she is not in a good mood. Edward's grunted hello doesn't help.
Bella fills in the conversation herself, in a sing-song voice she knows Edward hates: "Oh, hi, Bella, how was your day? It was great, thanks, Edward. Thank you for asking."
She looks around the room, wrinkles her nose.
"It smells revolting in here. You do know that being immortal doesn't mean you never have to shower, right?"

Bella walks through to the kitchen then abruptly reappears in the doorway, hands on hips.
"Edward, seriously," she says, "you could've done the dishes."
Edward pouts and replies, without taking his eyes off the screen, "I don't use dishes, Bella. I'm a vampire. I don't eat."
"Edward, there is a dead rat in the sink."
"It's not mine." Bella doesn't say anything.
"OK, it is mine." Bella, thinking of the previous week's exsanguinated hooker in the bathroom episode, doesn't reply. Instead, she sits down beside Edward and asks, cautiously, if he had any luck finding a job. Edward snarls and throws the Xbox controller to the floor, where it crashes through the floorboards.
Bella says, "Oh for God's sake," and puts her head in her hands.

"We've been over this," Edward shouts, "Of course I haven't got a job! I can't get a job, because people will notice."
"Notice what? Notice that you're a lazy bastard? You know what I have noticed? You are beginning to get fat."
"Don't be ridiculous," says Edward, "I can't get fat. I am a vampire. And - I don't know why you even bothered to ask this - people will notice I don't age."
"You can get fat," Bella says, "you are getting fat. Because all you ever do is sit about on your arse."
"Bella," Edward says, in the tone one uses to address a small and not very bright child, "Darling, it is not easy, being a vampire."
"Try being married to one," Bella says through gritted teeth. "I should have listened to my father. Hair product all over the pillows and rat skulls in the bed and dead babies in the bath! Eternity has never seemed so long. I have had enough of this, Edward. I am going out."

"But," Edward cries, "the vampire baseball game! I am playing!"
"Go by yourself," Bella says, "I'm going to Jacob's."
"That bastard!" Edward shouts.
"Yes," Bella says cheerfully, "that bastard."

As Bella leaves, Edward stands in the doorway in his boxer shorts, unkempt and ineffective, and shouts, "You'll regret this, Bella! He'll shed everywhere!"

Bella turns round and smiles brightly at Edward, who is sparkling pathetically in the dying light, and says, "Only on a full moon."

Bummer

I realised today that it is fast becoming summer, bastard season of doom. I hate summer. Apparently this is abnormal and weird, but there are two perfectly good reasons why I hate summer. Here they are. (Obviously this was the week I remembered that I can make numbered lists.)

1. It is too hot. I could never live anywhere even vaguely tropical as even the mild heat of Christchurch turns me into a grumpy sweaty asshat. Here is a short and by no means exhaustive list of some things that excessive heat takes all the fun out of or, if you like, Enjoyable Things Summer Ruins.
   - Sleeping. Who amongst us has not known the joy of tossing and turning for hours, desperately trying to lie in a position where the breeze wafts across as much of your body as possible, only to wake up an hour later in the gummy embrace of the hottest, heaviest, most constrictive sheet in the world, which is trying to have an intimate relationship with every part of you at once?
   - Showering. In winter, a shower is a lovely, warming, calming joy. In summer, a shower is a pain in the ass. I resent summer for taking away my showers. Not that I don't shower in summer. I do shower in summer. It's just so warm and humid that you put it off all morning, until it's really hot. And then you think, "Maybe this would be better if I took a beer in the shower with me." And it isn't, you just accidentally turn into an alcoholic.
   - Being Outside. Every summer I am presented with the same charming dilemma: be outside and get sunburn, or be inside and sweat until my face melts off.
   - Being Inside. See above.
   - Coffee. Like every bloody other thing, it is too hot. Why would you fill your innards with more hot? And so you have to drink iced coffee, which in my opinion is gross.
   - Friendships. Is hard to remain on close terms with anyone when you can't wait for them to go home so you can fill the bath with ice and roll about in it in nude ecstasy.
   - Life.
   


2. Everyone is better looking than me. I know, it sounds like one of those insecure girl things, but stick with me, I have logical justification here. It really fucks me off (or hacks me off, this is a family-friendly blog) how there are some people who, the second the first strawberry or whatever grows in summer pops its head through the etcetera, become magically lissome and tanned. You know the ones. They prance down the main street in short shorts and have tousled hair and rub baby oil on their legs and I am hideously jealous and bitter that I am not one of these people. I am highly attractive in winter when it is cold and I can be all pale and dramatic and bundled up. I am so down with that! I was made to stand about looking wintry and mysterious. I was not made to run about the beach in a carefree manner and a string bikini. Even if I could, through some bizarre summer miracle, manage to look like anything other than a barrel with a bit of string tied round the middle (it's not that I'm large, I just don't have the right shape for a bikini), my complete inability to tan rules out any carefree running about. Last year three small children had to be hospitalized after falling foul of the glare off my legs.

So that is why I don't like summer.

However, this year I am going to abandon my traditional tactic of 'be shitty for 4 months' in favour of 'adapt, like one of those lizards that adapt,*' and when summer comes I will be tanned and slender and ready. Ha ha ha ha ha. No I won't. Do your worst, summer. I will be in the ice bath with my beer.

In unrelated but awesome news my Well Dressed Bestfriend Andrea has been featured here, on Queens of Vintage (which is super-prestigious vintage fashion site). This is more exciting than the time I thought I invented the reverse microwave and was going to be famous, and that was pretty exciting until I remembered about freezers. So go and have a look at Andrea. Because she is Cool.

*Not chameleons. You know. The ones that can change temperature based on their surroundings? Please, someone, tell me that on top of all this summer bollocks I did not make up a lizard.