why?

I just saw an ad for some type of facial product/moisturiser thingy (it has to be a marker of how poor the ad is when I can't even remember the product's proper name) and the celebrity promoting it was Lindsay Lohan. I have to ask you- what would you buy because LL was there telling you how wonderful it was and how clear it's made her skin and how she loves it, yada yada yada. How could you watch such as ad without thinking, "Girl, you are such a mess, in a out of rehab for drugs and alocohol. You're a mess, you're not a role model in any way. You think my skin needs help and that fancy moisturiser can help? Girlfriend, you're the one who needs help." It just all seemed a little surreal to me...

TGIF

I headed home in a relatively ambivalent mood. It was 7.30pm. It was Friday. My work is about 10 mins from the train station and as I was waiting for my train, I went for my cell phone- which wasn't there. I looked everywhere and decided that I must have left it at work so went back to work but on my way back, realised that I had left my phone on the 2nd floor. To which I don't have keys. I kept heading back, hoping against hope that I had indeed left my phone on my desk. So I got back to the office and guess what- the cleaners were there and they have keys to teh second floor so YAY, justice triumphed, hip hip hooray. This is especially the case because this weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend, meaning that Monday is a public holiday so I would've been without my phone till Tuesday. Which would've been pretty darn traumatic.

So with this change of events, suddenly I was in a VERY good mood. Plus I've gone one week withouth chocolate. Well one working week which is good enough for me. Bring on my long weekend!

hoist by my own petard*

So I had this cunning plan to go without chocolate for a week. Just coz I can. Or rather because I fear I just can't. Our office has a large tin which is frequently full of all manner of goodies- chocolates, biccies, cakes, mini-swiss rolls, the list goes on. And since I've been working phenomenal cosmic hours and not getting to the gym, I thought I should see if I could go a week without.

Although that said, today was the only day I didn't go to the gym and that, as much as anything, is probably to blame for my foul, self-indulgent mood. Up until today, I'd had a gym break half way throuhg my day when my brain got to recharge itself, a period of time where my brain was somewhere else. But today there was so much to do that I worked all the way through which meant that by 7pm my brain was quite literally shutting down, it had nothing left. I was also in a fairly foul mood which, for some strange reason, makes me laugh at myself. It's the way I have of being able to look at my life from an eye-of-God perspective, I can laugh at myself going, "Oh, poor widdle Ayzy-kins. She didn't get to the gym today and she hasn't had any choccie all week and now she's tired and crabby and hungry and feeling sorry for herself. Boo hoo." God knows why anyone likes me, the way I take the piss out of myself, I shouldn't even like me... ;-)

I may not have chosen the best week to do my choccie boycott- print deadline looming and all. A nasty side effect of this resolution of mine is that I seem to have developed a generalised health conscience so when doughnuts were brought down to our office today, I thought it would be hypocritical to eat one when I wasn't eating chocolate. Just for the record- this is abnormal behaviour for me. I came home HUNGRY- which may have accounted for the high proportion of cheese on my omlette but hey, a girl's gotta live, right?

So here I sit watching House, just me and Lappy (oh I'm gonna miss him when Hayden takes him back...) as the flatties are out. Trying to get my brain to slow down so that tonight when I collapse on my bed, totally bodily exhausted, I actually fall asleep as opposed to having a million thoughts run through my head.

* stricly speaking this is not true because this is what the phrase really means. But I liked the sound of it so I decided to use it anyway. Live with it.

will hug for curry

It sounds like the heading for some cheesey new chick-lit book doesn't it? I can just imagine the blurb on the back of the book now: Aynia's life was bland. Finally making it in the world of graphic design she had a job she liked with people she liked but worked so hard that there seemed time for little else. The closest she got to excitement was fending off the amorous advances of the proprieter of her local Indian takeaway. Then finally the scuba diving magazine she works for sends her on a trip to the Red Sea and with the appearance of her personal dive guide, Juan, it seems that there might just be some spice in Aynia's life after all...

So I'm liberally cutting and pasting (and embellishing) different parts of my life... I know, I know, I have far too vivid an imagination and too much time on my hands- this is what happens when I can't be bothered taking my iPod out of the depths of my backpack and walk the half hour home from the train with just the company of my own thoughts. Dangerous.

In regards to amorous advances of my local Indian takeaway proprietor, well it's kinda true. Every since Kitty was here and leaned on the Indian takeaway counter after 2 pints and told the guy how they made the best curry she had tasted in a very long time and was there being all drunk and chatty and tall and blonde and then got us both hugged- well ever since then (curse you Kitbit), I have had to fend off dodgey Indian hugs which get held for just 2 seconds too long. Which is about 3 seconds too many for my liking. You know when you hug someone and go to let go and step back but they're still holding on- that. The latest instance was last night- I did my standard wave hello as I walked past on my way home from climbing and as I was getting my keys out, the guy actually came out. I got a hug hello and as a result, am in the process of perfecting my exit trategy which involves putting my hands on his shoulders as I let go, thereby pushing us away from each other which is more active than just letting go and trying to step back. I was offered free curry- or at least free dessert and, get this, I actually said no. I was thinking at the time, "What is wrong with me? Saying no to curry? Who am I and what have I done with myself?" When I got back up to the flat, Sarah and Sean couldn't believe it either.

So my conundrum is this: what do I do? If this were a pub or a club, I would have no problem telling this guy to fuck off but this is now not a stranger, it's my curry man and I know him and it'd be rude to say, "Excuse me, could you please not hug me for so long, it makes me uncomfortable?". Wouldn't it? I mean if a few hugs every now and then get us extra curry and free things and a discount, where's the harm in that? For now, I plan to perfect my exit trategy and get Sarah or Sean to do the picking up when we order curry...

So this is me signing out for tonight, the girl who will sell her body for a curry.

the coolest idea ever*

I came across this link on A Dress A Day and was struck but what a cool idea it is. I don't think I could adapt something like this to my figure (I suit a different style) but I still think it's supercutiepie. And such a nice flared skirt.

On the subject of sewing, next Monday is a bank holiday and I think I'm gonna be spending it making togas. I know, I know, all you have to do is wrap a sheet around you but I'd like to take the chance to be creative and make something a little more tailored. We'll see how it goes... So why am I interested in togas? Well one of my friends is having a birthday party in a couple of weeks and she wanted to do a dress-up and went for the toga theme. The reasoning was, she wants everyone to dress up and everyone has a sheet to nobody should have an excuse. Which I guess seems fair enough but coming from Dunedin where toga party = skanky fresher boosing fest, I have my reservations. That and I'm not the kind of person whose figure is seen in its best light when wrapped in a large white sheet... So the sheet won't be white, in fact I'm thinking the louder the pattern the better. ;-) Whilst researching various toga patterns on the web I made the schoolboy error of doing a google image search. All I can say is WTF and yep ladies, I'm pretty sure that chest hair is real.

After a weekend which has mainly consisted of 2 days of shopping (but I wasn't the one doing most of the spending so yay) I am absolutely shattered. My flatmates and I are currently sitting down in front of the tv in a vegetative state watching Troy and wooden horses made us wonder about the origins of never look a gift horse in the mouth. So I googled it (as you do) and, for those who don't know, here is, supposedly, the history behind the phrase:

Who Said It: St. Jerome
When: 400 A.D.
The Story behind It: This proverb is based on the fact that a horse's value is determined by his age, which, in turn, can be roughly determined by an examination of his teeth. The message conveyed is that a gift should be appreciated for the thought and spirit behind it, not according to its value. St. Jerome, who never accepted payment for his writings, first used the phrase in reply to his literary critics. His exact words: "Never inspect the teeth of a gift horse."

And that's all for now folks.

*given that any new thing I see that seems a bit funky has to be the new best idea ever... ;-)

dickhead me

Today I locked myself out. Yup. I went for a run before work (that'll learn me, if I hadn't done that, none of this would've happened.) and grabbed the spare keys, forgetting in my rush out the door (8am) that it isn't a complete set at the moment because we recently had some locks changed. So I got back, got through the bottom door and then stood in front of the top one as a sickening feeling grew in my stomach. Luckily for me, my friend Kez is off sick at the moment and only lives 10 mins up the road. Only thing is, I had to wait till she was up and about. So I walked, walked some more, swung on a swing, knocked on Kerry's door (no answer), walked down to the locksmith, got a quote for at least £58-75 just for the callout (and I only live 2 mins away from them so over my dead body was I paying that much to get them to let me in), walked to my local library, picked up some "quality literature" (Dr. Cowboy), read that for a while, tried Kerry's again (still no luck), headed back to the library, read some more, tried Kerry's yet again adn this time I struck gold. By this time it was midday and pretty much my first words to Kez were, "I locked myself out, I need a shower and I need food."

So needless to say, no work for me today. I called in as soon as I got to Kerry's and apparently everyone had been really worried because it's totally unlike me not to call in. When I checked my facebook, there was a message on my wall:
Aynia, can you get in touch with work?! No-one knows where you are and we're worried that you may have had some sort of flapjack making accident or something! If anyone knows where Aynia is today can they give us a call on: [xxx number supressed]. Thanks [name withheld]
and when I finally got to my phone tonight, there were missed phone calls from everyone at work who has my number. So that's all very sweet and it's good to know that if something happens to me over here, I will be missed. Although when I go in to work tomorrow, I'm pretty sure they will mercilessly take the piss out of me. (This is how I know I work with good people, I would do the same to them.)

penguins and fluff

Schmappy Feet
On Sunday I watched Happy Feet which, to be completely honest, I thought was quite a shit movie. I was only one more singing penguin away from turning off the TV and walking away when suddenly some South American-styled penguins entered the plot and suddenly things moved from potential Bathroom Brigade material to moderately amusing at times.

Ever since the stupid singing penguins though, I've had Kiss by the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince, or the artist currently known as Prince, or just Prince, if you're gonna be a boring old square about it. At any rate, it's been stuck in my head. So I had to look up the lyrics- as you do. It's an earworm, I hope you all catch it.

Not much use for the people back home
I have found a pretty darn delicious fudge recipe. The reason it won't of much use to NZers is that it uses Fluff. I came across it in a supermarket here and remembered it from living in the States and making fudge with my cousin. The result is pretty darn sweet (not a problem for this mere mortal) and the texture is (in my humble opinion) pretty near perfect. I brought some in to work and was a little alarmed that it didn't instantly disappear. People would be like, "Oh no, I couldn't have another, it's just so sweet." I was confused. Too sweet? Maybe there is something chemically wrong in my brain or physically wrong with my tastebuds because I have yet to discover something being "too sweet". I was starting to think that I was the only freak in the office who could quite happily down three pieces one after the other (but held back) until three of my fellow workers stepped up to the plate. One at 7 pieces in a row and another other might have topped up around 5. Not too shabby really.

Cake Sunday

It's been a while I know. I can't even start on explaining how busy work has been but I'll sum it up in 9 hours days (at least) with no lunch breaks- ie. veryVERY busy. So this week, my baby having gone to press, I thought I'd be able to sit back and breathe a bit but it hasn't really been the case. (Boo hoo, sob sniff oh woe is me poor widdle Aynzy-kins etc etc)

Hayden is staying at the moment and I'm sure the poor boy thinks I have no life and that all I do it come home, coma, watch tele and bake cakes. I tried to set up a monthly date where friends came around and each month it was 2 news people's turn to choose what cakes we would have. This seemed a cunning way to (1)buy friends and (2)work my way through the cook books I'd been given for Xmas. Alas through general lack of organisation and business, it hasn't been monthly but after much delay, this Sunday shall once again be Cake Sunday. I'm looking forward to it. I like baking- hell, I love baking, and this is a great excuse for me to muck in- plus I like feeding people. So roll on Cake Sunday!

So what else has been happening in the Land of A? Not a helluva lot really, I must get back on with stumbling to serve up quirky web gems and other lively bits'n'bobs to enliven your days. In fact half a tick....

Aah yes, here are some goodies:
Eagle vs Shark
Those of you in NZ have probably already heard of this gem or, dare I say, seen it (no idea when it's coming out). For this wanting-to-be-back-home-Kiwi, this film trailer is an absolute gem. Kinda Napoleon Dynamite rip-off-esque, but still, the accents alone could keep me happy for days. I will like so totally be watching this in the cinema.

Charley
For the cat lovers, this is adorable.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Sudha's Carrot Cake recipe

Having spent a panicked few minutes looking for the pieces of paper I scribbled this recipe down on, I thought I would take the wise precaution of putting it on the web so I can find it whenever I want. Little pieces of paper go walkabouts with me and I can't call my parents up every time I want to bake...

So here it is. We (my family) got this recipe from a friend and it's divine. You'd better like sultanas and the nuts are, as always, optional but this is a moist (this is the only time it's appropriate to use that word), dense (but not heavy) cake. Enjoy!

2C shredded carrot
1C sultanas
1 1/2C sugar
1 1/2C water
1/3C (125g) butter
1C plain flour
1 1/2t baking soda
1/2t of each salt, cloves, spices*
1C whole wheat flour
1t vanilla essence
1C chopped walnuts

• combine in a pan carrot, sugar, sultanas, water and butter.
• bring to boil and simmer for 5 mins.
• leave to cool**
• sift plain flour, baking soda, salt and spices in to wet mixture
• add whole wheat flour
• add vanilla and walnuts and mix well

Cook for at 180˚C for 35 mins or until cooked***

Ice as you please but I have found the best one is:
finely grate a lemon rind, add a tub of cream cheese, make sure it's soft then add in as much icing sugar as you need to get the right consistency. Vague instructions I know but I'm a handful of this, pinch of that kind of cooker. ;-)

*I just put in 1/2 of each cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg
**this will take at least 20 min depending on your pot. I never leave it to cool totally because I'm too lazy
*** I usually find this is about right although more towards the 40min mark depending on your oven. It can pay to check it at 30mins to be safe

scariest piece of spam mail yet

Good afternoon, friend!

Do you see this game? Funny flash game with nude Angelina Jolie. She sucks and... fucks! Enjoy! The game in your attachment.

Thanks.

[editor's note: I did not open the attachment]

gem of the day

bootscootinbaby.com

How exactly I got to this site is a long story. Let's just sum it up with:
"OMGthere'sawebsitecalledbootscootinbaby.com (I was talking very fast at that point) where mums can go to linedance with their kids"
[I click on the link]
"Argh! It's in comic sans!!" (Whilst also thinking to myself, "ARGH! It's also pink and has an animated gif of a baby in cowboy boots dancing.""

Make sure you check out the snapshots link. The mothers do line dancing with their babies strapped to their fronts. My boss is of the firm opinion that line dancing (and country music) are cancerous growths that should be cut out of society. I strongly disagree. Maybe living for 4 years in good ol' redneck southern states rubbed off but I say country music has its place and if I could spend an evening boot scootin' my way around a dance floor I would be in some form of heaven.

simple pleasures

To cut a long story short, 2 banners needed to be designed at work for a promo weekend we're doing at a dive site in a couple of weekends. We need the banners to go beside our stand and lucky me, I go to design them. That's not sarcasm folks, I'm fo' real lucky. This is the first large scale design work I've done and I must be a mega-design geek because the thought of standing beside two 2m high (80cm wide) banners designed by myself fills me with a warm fuzzy glow and makes me begin to drool with joy then start doing little excited jumps of joy. There's just something deliciously mouth-watering about getting to design BIG things.

Of course with this excitement comes big angst. I'm designing something on screen that is going to be 2 METERS HIGH. That is bigger than me. (Not hard to do, true, but still, bigger than me...) It's hard to know when you look at something on the screen what it'll be like at real size. But they're looking good and they're transferring to the printer now and I've checked and double checked and got other people to double check and finally, I had to just close my eyes, take a deep breath and hit 'send'.

There will be photos of me with my 2m high babies- I just hope to God there aren't any mistakes otherwise I'll be spending all weekend at the dive site looking at the muckups and obsessing over them. But I'm sure it'll be fine. The main thing to focus on is I will have made something that is 2 METERS HIGH. I go weak at the knees thinking of the chance to design a billboard...

delivering the goods

Shelly von Strucknel was in fine form the other week:

Others are complaining about errors triggered by Mercury's retrograde cycle, which continues until early next week. Those pose little problem for you, as you swiftly figure out a solution for most. The personal doubts you are tangling with are another matter, and have you wishing you could find quick solutions for them

She actually used the word retrograde- I couldn't have been happier.

sweet choice legend

We have recently acquired another Kiwi at work so we now number a grand total of 2. I derive a pure and simple pleasure from talking to my fellow countryman because although the accent is familiar, it isn't the nastier, more embarrassing variation and just the way he puts sentences together reminds me of home. It struck me this morning that although he is speaking exactly the same language as me, his sentences have a structure, and words are used in a way that would only happen back home. I love that. I miss that. I've pretty much lost that.

from the hands of babes...

this is my flatmate Sean, as drawn by his 4 year old niece:


this is me:


psychoanalyse away, we had a field day with them.

festering mass of resentment

Sometimes when you're sick and feeling sorry for yourself, the best thing to do is not to pick yourself up and carry on but rather to wallow in it for a while, swim in it till your fingers get all pruney. That's my theory at least and it's what I really wanted to do this weekend but it just didn't happen. I'm at a disadvantage anyway because my naturally sunny disposition* makes wallowing in self-pity a bit hard. I tend to end up taking the piss out of myself and making both myself and those around laugh at my cynical oh-woe-is-me approach. I didn't know if I wanted to get a really sad movie so that I could cry so hard my eyes swelled shut and I couldn't breathe properly and I felt really sorry for myself or if I wanted to fall asleep in front of action movies. I envisaged a duvet, the sofa, the TV, a shite load of popcorn and not much else. I also needed to clean my room and go through paperwork that I've been putting aside to sort through "later" for ages. My room got a little tidier but otherwise none of my vision for the weekend was to come to pass. *sob* *sniff* Instead I was inundated in babies- which usually I would love- and in fact I did love it. I mean how can you not love babies? I think what I resented was that I ended up having a weekend full of having a nice time chatting with friends and having coffee and sitting outside at the pub in the sun talking to people and, of course, making babies laugh and it was a nice weekend. But I didn't want a nice weekend. I wanted to be holed up inside on my sofa watching all of the Star Wars (the vintage versions, not the new stuff) or all the Die Hards or something with Arnie, or something to make me snot all over everything. I wanted to wallow in sickness and self-pity so that I could start the week afresh with it all out of my system. Alas it was not to be. So now I'm still sick and feeling sorry for myself and am quite the hater right now. How lucky I can laugh at myself.

*don't laugh

I know I shouldn't laugh but...

The headline on my Metro* this morning could have come from a Hiaasen novel: The rise of DIY plastic surgery. Here are a selection of the better quotes:

Obsession with celebrity culture is driving people to perform DIY cosmetic surgery, an expert warned yesterday.
In the worst case, a man gave himself a nose job with a chisel and replaced cartilage he removed with a chicken bone, according to consultant psychiatrist Dr David Veale.
Others have cut their stomachs in DIY tummy tucks, and used glue to try to pin back their ears.

Now I know I should be horrified by the impact that the media is having on our everyday life and boo-hiss to size zero models etc etc and that it's tragic that someone cuts their own stomach because they think they're fat but I'm afraid I just can't get past a guy chiseling his nose off and putting in a chicken bone. It's so horribly tragic that I can't help but laugh. Say it with me folks: WTF.

*still avoiding reading the horoscope in the morning although now that I've sworn off reading it, it is of course all I want to do. But I know that if I read it, it'll be all doomsday again and then I'll regret it. But it feels like having a scab that you know you shouldn't pick so all you want to do it pick at it. Scabby little Metro horoscopes. A pox on them all.

new hair and a touch of British class

On Friday night Kez and I went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I thought it was about as good as the first one, a work colleague of mine thought it was the most disappointing thing ever- and he has knowledge of the comic. So from an ignoramous standpoint- about the same as #1, from an aficionado point of view, superpuss. And in case you're wondering, these hot pictures of me and Kez in the hothot glasses are the 3D glasses that were provided for a Reb Bull ad that played before the movie. Probably the biggest point of note was that a couple was sitting about 4 rows in front of us and at the final fight sequence, the guy got up and left the cinema, I'm assuming to go to the loo. Then, just when everything has finished, the dude comes back in. The icing on the cake was that one of the main characters had been taken out of play for most of the grand fight finish and just as the dude goes to sit down, they come too and say, "Did I miss anything?" Oh the grand ironic comic timing. I sniggered to myself but Kerry, bless her soul, let out the loudest cackle ever- in a quiet cinema. It was gold. This picture is in here because the toilets at our local cinema are a constant source of horror stories for us. Usually there's no paper, the seats are half off the loo, there are tampons and/or pads scattered liberally and stuff clogging the loo. We use toilet paper to open the doors on the way out, we're that scared. So when we went to go to the loo before our movie on Fri night, I was suspecting the worst. We walked in and for once it was empty and (relatively) clean. But as I scoped out a suitably sterile loo, I came across this photographic gem which caused me to laugh so hard and so long that Kerry nearly left her toilet to see what all the fuss was about. I'm just glad that nobody was around so that I could take a photo of it. This snap, ladies and gents, typifies my Wimbledon Odeon experiences perfectly.

And here, at long last, are silly posey pics of my new haircut. It's the shortest yet folks.

I'm getting some fantastic morning hair with this cut. It's never quite vertical but very close to it.

I thought it bared comparison to how my hair used to look.

riddle me this Batman...

This was in a catalogue I got at work. What I can't understand is why, if your phone is on silent (when surely, of all times, you want it not to attract attention) you want a flashy rotating toy on the end of it. WTF I ask you. W T F.

kitty!

I think it must say something about how cat deprived I am that I look at this and say, in my patronising who's-a-little-coochy-coo-then voice, "Aaaw, look at the widdle kitty swimming for his dindin. Isn't he cute?" No Aynia, he is not cute. Actually, he's looking pretty f*cking ferocious and scary as hell. Here is a link to the online article.