Townsville Twist

Gender Challenged

2008-06-03T00:07:00.003+10:00

This may come as a shock to some people, but for the most part the Internet is full of braindead moronic retards. Take a few deep breaths if you want, it's big news. This is going to be another "Ebo encounters dickheads on YouTube" story, my apologies for the similarity to my previous post, but this one just has to be put out there.

I am called a lot of things everyday on that wonderful website and I love every moment of it, except for one little aspect that makes me actually concerned for the human race. The worrying thing about it is that it's the most commonly posted comment on my videos. Now presenting a selection of confused young men who have probably never ventured far enough out of their parents' basement to figure out what a girl actually looks like:

"hey asemonyo i gotta question are you a guy or girl , you look like a guy and sound like a girl what the fuck are ya, and learn how to talk right you piecfe of shit fucku r an ugly u k bitch"

"are you a guy or girl jeez"

"Are you a girl or a boy that has long hair?"

"umm..hmm..is this person a guy or girl?."

"Is that a girl or a guy...?"

"ru a gal or guy?lol"

"are you a dude or girl?"

"r u a boy or girl?"

"are you a boy or a girl ?" "

uhh are you a girl or a boy"

"are u a girl or bye cause im not sure u look like a girl"

"are u a guy or a girl ?????"

"boy or girl?"

"wow your an idiot i gotta question are you a guy or girl?"

And my favourite two comments of all time:

Retard 1: FUCK U AMERICAN PIG
Retard 2: hes australian dickwad!

My standard reply is "I have a clitoris-sized penis, internalised testicles and boobs. I reproduce through parthenogenesis, it's a beautiful thing" which usually shuts them up.

Now, I know I'm not the girliest girl in the world, and I think we proved that I'm totally hot as either a guy or a girl (see the Emilio RSVP experiment post) but they ARE missing one really obvious giveaway:

OMG BEWBS!
To be completely fair I don't exactly do that in my videos, but it's kinda hard to confuse those with moobs.

On another note, now that blogspot is hosting this image I can just refer people to its url when I am propositioned with "TITS OR GTFO".

Loving Haters

2008-06-02T01:07:00.007+10:00

First post in a year, scary. As many of you may or may not know, I am a regular poster on YouTube. Even though I will probably never reach the same plateau I did when I released the Spaghetti video, I still try to maintain the certain level of quirkyness which is expected of me. My latest video is of me reading romantic Bible passages with a tremendously swollen tongue, but that's another story.

The one thing I love about YouTube are comments. The everyday ones like "OMG ur so funni lol xx XDXDXDXDXD" kinda get boring after a while, because the only thing I can say back is "You're a retard whose grammar will turn around and bit you in the arse as soon as someone disables spellcheck, but thanks for watching". The comments I really hang out for are from haters:

"fucking stupid bitch why would you do something so dam stupid. Oh of corse only a dumb ass female would attempt that stupid shit you dumb shit!"

Mmm, delicious. These people have nothing better to do than troll YouTube and try to rip the shit out of every video they see. Luckily, I have nothing better to do than to antagonise them and remind them that the Internet is for serious business. I've devised a few simple methods of replying to these lovely contributing members of society which I thought I'd share with you all in case you become victims of their bitter, lonely tears. Keep in mind that these examples are in no way my finest, although they were all successful in stopping the onslaught. It's 2am and I'm not dead inside enough to be bothered searching through every video I have.

1) Be a grammar nazi. Either rip them apart for writing like a 2 year old retard with no hands or congratulate them on being one of the few of these savages who can actually spell correctly.

Example 1.
Hater: In your nose or your mouth, it's still making you fatter - how many fucking times do you do this trick a day you whale!?
Me: A hater who can actually use correct grammar and spelling! 5 stars, feel free to comment on any of my other videos. Eat a dick, and have a nice day!

Example 2.
Hater: SO DISCUSTING.. teh moest discusting "Girl" i have evr seene.
Me: At least you spelt girl right, although you've incorrectly put it as a personal pronoun. Good effort! Thanks for playing!

2) Look at their profile. You are more than likely to find something incriminating. It's hard to have the heart to fight back when someone points out that the only videos you've posted are ones of you taking the plastic wrapper off the new WOW expansion. Also if they're young and naive you might want to be a little more gentle *cough*condescending*cough* in your reply.

Example 1.
Hater: k dude or dudet r u a girl or a guy u must no. don't give me tat krapt saying i live in a box my hole life u have to no HAVEN'T U WENT TO THE BATHROOM AND U LOOK DOWN R U A GIRL OR A BOY U MUST NO THEN HOW DO YA GO TO THE WASHROOM. do u even have any freinds he she?
Me: Cupcake, you like Hannah Montana, I should be asking you the same question.

3) Turn the joke on them. Playing on stereotypes is always fun, and the wonderful thing about stereotypes is that they can often be dead on.

Example 1.
Hater: lawl ur vid is so shit i bet i cud make a better 1 fuckin fag loving cocksucker
Me: I think your mum just made you some cookies, time to get out of the basement junior. You, er, might want to change your jocks first though.
Hater: fuk off im 15 she doesnt make me cookies nemore n she knowz if im in the basment not to desturb me.

Example 2.
Hater: i spent 1 hour loading dis page n it was fuckin shit i want my life bak u fat lonly bitch
Me: It's a 30 second video and it took an hour to load? Are you on dialup/retarded?
Hater: yer faggpt.... y?
Me: 'Nuff said.

4) Antagonise, let them think they've won, sit back and enjoy the lulz. This is one of the only ways to truly defeat them. Everyone loves a good argument, but when it's only with yourself you feel kinda hollow afterwards.

Example 1.
Hater: u r soooo fat n ugly i hope u die of aids o wait u'll never get laid to get it lol BICTH
Me: Well you can suck my fat cock you lifeless piece of shit. I hope you get cancer and die in a fire at the same time.
Hater: ur such a reatard lol. im not gay ur the fag here
Hater (1 day later): u didnt deny it lol ur a fag 4 shore
Hater (2 days later): haha i told u so i bet u died in a fire so now u cant deny it
Hater (4 days later): looks like im write and ur wrong fag, ur not gonna say nething?
Hater (5 days later): lol i rule
Hater (7 days later): come back fag i dare u
Hater (8 days later): fuk u........ y dont u say nething?
Me: (quietly hovering in my roflcopter behind the scenes)

At the end of the day these people may be the scum of the interblags, but we must remember that while we look upon them with disgust, they're probably the ones who are dumb enough to initially buy the porn we can then enjoy free thanks to filesharing. God bless haters!

The worst time to sober up

2007-05-23T03:10:00.001+10:00

Imagine your friend suddenly springs into your room, crying and sobbing that her boyfriend of two years has, for no apparent reason, decided not to pursue the relationship anymore. What are your options?

a) Tissues, chocolate and some romantic comedy that you yell at everytime someone says 'I'll love you forever" - "YOU LIAR!!!!!"

b) Bake muffins. LOTS of muffins.

c) Tell her how fantastic it is that she's free now (i.e. suicide).

d) Get another friend over, have a few drinks and put on all her sexy lingerie that she won't need anymore and go prancing around the university.

Yeah... we picked d.

Now, try to imagine what ran through my head when I sobered up and realised that I was a long way from home, wearing nothing except a corset, undies that said "It doesn't count if you don't get caught", fish net stockings, a broken pair of handcuffs clamped around one wrist and a vibrator in my other hand. You guessed it: "..........................................oh fuck".

The funny thing was that she was still upset in the morning. I mean, did we not do our best to cheer her up? On another interesting note, would you call this a man or a woman? We still don't know.

My wonderful customers

2007-05-07T05:09:00.000+10:00

As some of you may know, I worked pretty much full time as a checkout chick in 2005. It was probably the best year of my life so far. Well, in some aspects - I got to go diving whenever I wanted and not live in a total hole live Townsville.

However, there was a dark side to 2005. I had evil customers. And oh man, they made my world go round. You think the nice regulars make your job more fun? Nope. It's the bitches that whine about the tiniest things, the people that continuously ask for obscure items to be ordered in that nobody else wants, the dicks that try to steal stuff from right under your nose painfully obviously that make the job worth it. So now I share with you some of the short stories I gathered over my year of being a checkout chick, because everyone knows, retail stories are the best because you get to roffle at stupid people! These are taken from an old old blog, so sorry to those who've already read them. There will be a few posts like this to come.

"Since I'm in the mood, I thought I'd enlighten you peeps on some more stupid things my customers do. Starting with that retarded chick who lives on coke and ciggies I wrote about last time...

The retarded chick came into the shop with her retarded boyfriend, who seems incapable of shaving the patch under his nose, and headed up to the juice fridge like they always do because the bloke lives on OJ. I suppose this is a slightly more healthy alternative to coke and ciggies. They come to my register and put two OJ bottles on my counter (shock! horror!) and before anything else is said, the retarded chick suddenly bursts out and says, "WHY DOESN'T THE HEAD FALL OFF?!" I was a little perturbed by this (that's "Most perturbatory..." to Ryan and "Curious" to Louise) and asked what she meant. She replied with the slightly more sensical "Why doesn't your head fall off?" so I simply said "Because it's sewn on real good". Lame I know, but it shut her up.

When you walk away from your register and leave it unattended, you lock the register itself using a highly sophisticated series of buttons and put up one of those "Sorry, this register is closed, piss off" signs. It never ceases to amaze me how many people will walked up to a closed register, clearly signed, and wait to be served for several minutes. No, that register's closed, read the sign, observe that there isn't anyone there waiting to serve you, see that you're the only one lining up there, go home, learn to read. Idiots.

Often, since our shelves are so higgledy-piggledy, someone will buy something and read the price off the tag beneath it, which isn't always the right tag. This happens especially when there are a lot of things on one shelf and the tags are all crammed together. It also happens that people read the tags above the item they want, not below, thus getting the price mixed up. So at least once a shift you'll get someone, usually men surprisingly, who will argue the toss about the price of something, saying that that wasn't the price on the shelf. It wastes my time, but I'm happy to do it, and race up to the shelf the item came from and discover, like always, that they've read the wrong label. Then I go back to inform them of their mistake and they accuse me personally of running a shop that couldn't organise a look out the window. Apparently that's easier than organising a look at a price tag.

On the subject on prices, you'll get a whole lot of people, mostly old ladies, who go through their own groceries and tell you exactly which items are on special and for how much. That's good and all that they can remember, but pointless since the new prices are in the system and scan in at the special rate. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

I don't know why, but some people like to work out their own change. They will hand me money and say "If I give you this amount, you can give me that amount in change!" and I'm all "Gee, thanks! I couldn't have possibly done that myself, or even with the inbuilt calculator in the register that does all the working out for me!" It gives me the squitters, especially that they treat me like a career woman in checkoutchickdom. NO! I HAVE DREAMS! ASPIRATIONS! Give me a chance, cruel world!!

People ask me to double bag stupid things. One woman is quoted as saying "I'll have a double bag please, as I'm doing a lot of walking and it'll make it lighter." Work that one out - one bag + bag and groceries < bag and groceries? I think not. This other woman in her thirties bought a packet of sanitary pads and asked for a double bag because it's so embarrassing to be seen carrying those down the street. Grow up, get over it. You're not the first person to ever have a period, let alone buy pads. God those people are a pain - I hope they get eaten by the whales they've helped kill."

That's all for today. Oh, and I drew this picture of hotness. If you want more, check out my deviantart page here.

It's time...

2007-05-02T21:29:00.000+10:00

Hokkay, this is going to be tough to say but... I like Crocs.

For those of you who don't know Crocs are... where the HELL have you been? They're the Haviana, nay, the Birkenstock of 2005 and they're still going strong. Yeah yeah yeah I know they're hideously ugly and make grown men and women look like Smurfs with their bright colours and chunky appearance. But they are kinda comfy. And my feet are retarded so I can't wear thongs (they either fit and fall off or don't fit and stay on). Sadly I'm stuck with Crocs.

I bought my first pair in early 2006. They were the least gaudy colour I could find so I could get away with wearing them in public without people's eyes bleeding. I wore them constantly through that year, but slowly the gravelly dirt paths of James Cook University took their toll on my poor Crocs. They'd served me well, but maybe, just maybe, it was time to move on. To give you an idea of what made me decide this, look at this picture comparing a new croc to my old one.

When I sent that to some friends and family to assist in my decision, one friend (who may or may not want my babies) said I should cremate them, while my mother pointed out the fact that there were still a few big areas without holes.

I debated for what seemed like hours over colour. Should I go with something wild and bold? Or how about dark and moody? I ended up buying some new ones.... that were exactly the same colour as my old ones.

Now for the exciting bit! I found out that you can buy accessories for your Crocs now! They're little decoration things that you stick in the holes in the top of the shoe. It was a hard choice, but I ended up with a crab and a skull and crossbones. They're the tackiest bits of crap I've seen in a long time, apart from the fairy statuette thing Noni broke in the hippy shop and almost had to pay $80 for.

So... do YOU like Crocs?

Newspapers are the same as plankton, right?

2007-04-29T22:48:00.000+10:00

So there our second year biostatistics class was, filing into an early morning exam after staying up all night completing an assignment for a related marine biology subject. Those of use who had completed the summary online quizzes for biostats were very pleased, as most of the questions from the test had been lifted straight from them. Except for one rather odd exception. See if you can spot the same typo that made a lot of people crack up mid-exam.

"A researcher kept track of the number of diatoms eaten by fish animal each week over a seven week period. The results are shown below.

95, 38, 221, 122, 258, 237, 233

Find the median number of diatoms eaten."

All fair and good so far... apart from the "fish animal" part anyway. But what were our possible answers to this particularly easy question, you may well ask. Well, take a look for yourself:

A whatty what what? Newspapers?

Every day here makes me wonder whether James Cook is really all it's supposed to be...

Highlights of DC Semester 1 2007

2007-04-26T02:07:00.001+10:00

Welcome DC nerds! Yes, I have run out material to write about to the extent that I will now cut and paste all the best quotes I have collected from DC this semester so far. Apologies for most of them involving me, but I'm too fucking funny and I had to be around to collect them anyway. Deal. I've submitted a few of these to Bash.org but alas, none were deemed good enough. I'm sure if we put our heads together we can do it eventually.

People, please keep in mind that these quotes are for the most part very very dirty, degrading and distasteful. Keep the kids locked up for this post.

bourkey: fuckers!!
blimpyboy: fuckee
bourkey: damn straight
bourkey: gettin pounded
Ebo: fuck u bourkey :P
Ebo: (tis TGG)
blimpyboy: zomg are you seckzing ebo?!
Ebo: lol
Wild-Cherokee: thats a yes
blimpyboy: no denial, it must be true :o
Ebo: that was yesterday silly
Ebo: i've moved on to her sister now
blimpyboy: :)
blimpyboy: hai five

Ebo: OMG HOT NAKED SHOWER TIME!!!
lws: ??
lws: most showers are hot and involve nakedness
Deadly_Dude: i touch myself
Deadly_Dude: lah lah
Deadly_Dude: :P
lws: though increasingly the trend is towards cold showers...
Ebo: yeah, well, I'm taking this one cold and clothed to be a rebel
lws: lolz
Ebo: or at least cold
lws: it reminds me of 'WARNING : DO NOT IRON CLOTHES WHILE ON BODY
Ebo: it's way too fucking hot
Ebo: ....I mean.... the weather, not ironing clothes while they're still on :S
Ebo: because I haven't done that, right?
Ebo: RIGHT?!

dutchezz: hmm i feel so much dirtier watching HD pron
dutchezz: too much detail
Deadly_Dude: yeah HD porn is shit
Deadly_Dude: get to see how dirty the sluts are more
Ebo: you can see the cocks better
Ebo: OMG SEXUAL CONFUSION :S
dutchezz: yeh.. cuz thats what porn movies are all about... cocks
Ebo: well, if I want to see the other stuff I can just look in the mirror
dutchezz: can i look in ur mirror too?
dutchezz: wait

Ebo: so like, Noni knocks on my door
Ebo: and asks for help with an assignment
Ebo: and I'm there, lip synching to need you tonight with a vegemite beard into a camera
Ebo: AWKWARD

corza: need to fill up my water bottle
Swf: i need to pee, kill 2 birds with one stone..?

Ebo: so....where are you my kittens?
GordoICEMAN: u were having sex with kittens?
GordoICEMAN: better not be ebo
Ebo: dude, don't knock it til you try it
GordoICEMAN: mitch will kill u
blimpyboy: yeah, those are HIS sex-kittens, you whore!
Zacmeister: well at least you weren't masturbating kittens Ebo
Ebo: but that would be awful
Ebo: remember, everytime a kitten masturbates, God kills a human
Zacmeister: and everytime God masturbates, Chuck Norris kills ten humans
Ebo: OMG
Ebo: what happens when Chuck Norris masturbates?
Ebo: ARMAGEDDON!!

nikki: did zacmiester and ebo just have sex?
Zacmeister: no
Ebo: yes
Ebo: I mean no

Swf: any1 wanna see wat trav touches himself over
Swf: april summers porno blooper!
Swf: well probably not, anyone who watches that goes limp str8 away
Ebo: "Whoops, I accidentally crapped all over you when you pulled out of my ass!!"
Ebo: My bad ^_^

Deadly_Dude: im eating chocolate
Ebo: whilst wanking?
Ebo: doesn't that get messy?
Deadly_Dude: a lil
Ebo: like you forget which hand and put your dick in your mouth instead?

Morbo : blimpyboy sets the topic to : Happy Zombie Jesus Day! --- Teegs though this one up ;)
Zacmeister: will Zombie Jesus eat our brains or our souls?
Ebo: Jesus has been stealing souls for the last 2000 years
Zacmeister: evil fucker

Bluck: i have an incredibily large penis
Scotty: that's funny
Scotty: bluck, you should do standup
Bluck: i do every thursday night
Ebo: yeah, he stands up and everyone just laughs
Scotty: lol
Bluck: wow nice come back ebo
Zacmeister: lmao
Bluck: ebo's mum made my penis stand up
Ebo: and she laughed, right?
Ebo: EB0WNED!!

Swf: get your medstudent friend to steal you a stillborn from the mortuary, put it in a paper bag, light it on fire, and watch them stomp it out, and the hilarity that entails...
npc: that wouldnt even work
Swf: what possible flaws do you see in my plan?
npc: if the bags already on fire, and their is no screaming from the apparently 'live' baby who is on fire, why would they be mortified for stepping on it
npc: instead they wouldn't even know what they had done
npc: just gone aww what did i step on
Swf: the baby was never mean to be alive, the mortification comes from the fact they have stomped on a dead baby, soupy pieces of which now cover their shoes and pants
Zacmeister: or alternativly, you get a puppy, put it in a bag, light it on fire, get a person to step on it, and then shout 'OH MY GOD, YOU KILLED A PUPPY YOU SICK FUCK!'
npc: put a mime in a paper bag, set it on fire and when they step on it shout out "YOU KILLED A MIME, GOOD FOR YOU!!"

Ebo: I saw a horse the other day with the grossest cock
Zacmeister: ......okay
Ebo: all the skin was caked and cracked and ewwies
npc: so you gave it head?
Ebo: of course

Deadly_Dude: me so horney
Deadly_Dude: me love u long time
Deadly_Dude: oh wrong window...
Ebo: that's right DD, fuck me hard... oh yeah... almost there... OH YES!!... Pull it out, cum all over my face... YES! YES!!! YESSS!!! CUM IN MY EYES!!!! YEEEEEEEAAAAH!!!!
Ebo: oops, wrong window
npc: ebo, you scare me

Ebo: damn, I can disassemble most things
Ebo: fucked if I can get into this vibrator
Ebo: 10 minutes to undo a half cm screw
Ebo: they're tighter than an 8 year old
tachyon: ur taking apart a vibrator...why?
Ebo: I broke it
Scotty: i'm confused as to whether i should be amazed or disgusted
npc: [20:43] Ebo: fucked if I can get into this vibrator ITS MEANT TO GET INTO YOU
tachyon: you need to go see that boy of urs ebo :P
Ebo: I just did
Ebo: but this is to procrastinate
tachyon: uhh, right. leave you to it
npc: how many vibrators have you taken apart?
Ebo: this is my first time
Ebo: I'm being gentle
Scotty: ...
lws-t: ebo just lost her vibrator-disassembly cherry
lws-t: don't worry, you have plenty of cherries left...
Ebo: SUCCESSS!!!!!!!
Ebo: I FIXED IT!!!!
Scotty: AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA
Ebo: I have no idea what I did, but it works now
npc: ebo's happy again
npc: happier even more in a couple of mins
Ebo: seriously though, vibrators are kind of meh unless you're with someone else
Ebo: the most fun you can have with one alone is to put it on a table and have it vibrate all over the place while you try to set up dominoes
lws-t: ROFL
blimpyboy: ...
tachyon: lols

Ebo: I was mid-shag and a friend knocked on my door to get her ps2 back
Ebo: AWKWARD
blimpyboy: why would you answer the door?
Ebo: she was in a hurry
Ebo: I was like, come in and join the party
Ebo: she ran away crying
Ebo: it was awesome

And because Zac requested it especially even though it's meh, here's one more. I have to keep him happy, he's the only one of you bastards that plays Helbreath with me.

Zacmeister: *Silently puts Giant Clown Wig on Fergo's head*

Plankton take one for the team

2007-04-25T00:02:00.002+10:00

A friend of mine recently got a brochure in the mail for a fantastic new nutrient drink. It's called FrequenSea and comes complete with marine phytoplankton!

I kid you not, it contains single-celled plants from the ocean. Delicious, especially considering some marine phytoplankton can produce toxins that lead to lovely things like diarrhetic shellfish and ciguatera poisoning, not to mention potent neurotoxins. But anyway, there's lots of them and they're plants right? Gotta be good for you.

Not only does FrequenSea have microscopic organisms, it also contains frankincense. No gold or myrrh unfortunately. I wondered what on earth frankincense could possibly contribute towards the drink's nutritional value, so I looked it up. Turns out it was used a lot back in the days of King Tut as makeup and dye, and in later times in aromatherapy. Oooh, makes perfect sense then. Frankincense away.

Another interesting addition is that of RNA. As any high school biologist would know, RNA is basically half a DNA strand, and there are trillions floating around in your body right now because they are found in cells and used for protein synthesis in EVERY LIVING THING. Sounds to me like somebody added it to the list to make it look like there was more useful stuff in it than there really is. Might as well add "Flagella" to the list, phytoplankton have those too!

Really though, I should give them credit for their advertising technique. They've used convincing and highly scientific statistics:

And here they state the long lives of planktivores:

AND YOU CAN TOO IF YOU JUST BUY THIS DRINK!!!!

But wait for it, then they tell you all about their plankton farming:

Sooo... basically they have no idea what they're actually culturing, they just breed 'em, toxic species and all! What's worrying is that they haven't provided a recommended daily intake of marine phytoplankton. What if I exceed it? Will I start photosynthesising? TELL ME!

I don't know if I want to buy this anymore... weeny toxic plants (some with protective plates made of glass), makeup, Noni juice (I have a friend called Noni, this ingredient is particularly disturbing to me)... It just doesn't sit right. What do you think?

Wiggly Worries

2007-04-24T21:40:00.000+10:00

A couple of years ago a friend bought me a vibrator for a joke. It came from some weird online store and when it arrived looked equally weird. Honest to God, instead of throbbing veins and the usual designs, the shaft has the image of some zombie chick set in it. A blue zombie chick.

And of course, why stop there? Why not have a bear-shaped tickler dry humping the blue zombie chick?

Really, it's kinda too freaky to use. I usually whip it out at parties and we watch it flop all over the table. Good clean fun. Hilarious to watch. Until you leave some dodgey batteries in it for a while and it stops working.

In sooth, it's been broken for probably over a year now, stowed in the back of a cupboard somewhere. I had a lot of uni work to do after the lecture recess and needed to procrastinate so what better way to do it than to fix the vibrator?

Now, I can disassemble most things. VCR's, scuba regulators, study plans, but man oh man I have never had so much trouble as unscrewing the battery cap on this bastard. It took me almost 15 minutes to undo two half-centimetre screws. The entire time I was talking on our college hub, yielding fantastic lines like "fucked if I can get into this vibrator" to which someone very wittily replied "aren't they supposed to get into you?" and "that's tighter than an 8 year old". You know, standard sex-deprived computer geek conversation.

Under the battery plate thing I found a little circuit board which the buttons attached to. At this stage the only evidence for the device malfunctioning were the battery contacts which were corroded as hell, assuming hell is highly corroded.

NPC: how many vibrators have you taken apart?
Me: this is my first time
Me: I'm being gentle

Since everything else looked fine, I proceeded to scrape the blueish crud off the contacts with my trusty screwdriver. I put the batteries in. It didn't work. I took the batteries out. I looked at it for a while. I put the batteries back in. IT WORKED!!

So if you find yourself with a vibrator that has seen better days, give it a wash and bring it in to me. If I look puzzled at it for more than five minutes and it still doesn't work, you get your money back.

Me: seriously though, vibrators are kind of meh unless you're with someone else
Me: the most fun you can have with one alone is to put it on a table and have it vibrate all over the place while you try to set up dominoes

A Night to Remember

2007-03-27T21:13:00.001+10:00

I'm a last-minute all-nighter person when it comes to doing assignments. That's the way things are and they're not going to change anytime soon. I'm thinking that I'm going to pay for it soon, but I'll worry about that later, maybe the night before.

Last year I did a really exciting report on osmoregulation. We had to stab crabs and suck out their fluids, then drip them on to a kaleidoscope thing that told us stuff. I'm pretty sure I slept through the prac so I can't really remember. Anyways, we had to write it up and hand it in. A couple of days before it was due I had to fly down to Sydney and back for a Pearl Jam concert (AWESOME) so I was insanely tired and couldn't be bothered to get started until about 2am the day it was due. Since I was so desperate to procrastinate, I wrote a diary of how the night went:

The picture's small and I doubt you could read my writing anyway so here's the text:

2:00am - Start actual assignment. Due in 12hrs.

2:03 am - Looked at the cool scar on my arm for 5 minutes.

2:06am - Realised if I combined the names of all my guy friends it made the rather ear-pleasing rhyme "Ryan-Dee-N-Me-N-Een".

2:46am - Wrote "Introduction". Yep, just the word.

2:52am - 32 words

3:15am - 100 words exactly! WOOOO!! (1/10 finished!)

3:30am - 125 words

3:40am - 192 words
4:04am - Wrote some emails to friends, 219 words (2/10 finished)

4:32am - Finished introduction - 430 words (WAY too long). Subtract words for references... 390... sweet!

5:07am - Finished results, Birds are singing

5:30am - Trivia for half an hour ^_^, 580 words

5:53am - 175 words of discussion down! 756 all up!

6:00am - Due in 8 hours, still doing discussion

6:12am - 902....

6:23am - ERGH!!! THE SUN!!! NOOOOO!!

6:36am - 1026! Now for the editing...

7:14am - FINISHED! ^_^

7:35am - Safe Assignment (plagiarism detector) doesn't catch me this time! Mwaha!

7:37am - Le sleep ZzZzZzZzZzZz

It was actually during this time that I discovered my favourite time of the day - 5:30am. There's something very pure about it, I don't know, makes me feel good even if I've been up all night.

I have 4 assessments this week, 3 on Friday, so I'm thinking I'm in deep. Thursday is going to be awesome. Poor Iago.

A Sign from God!

2007-03-26T23:50:00.001+10:00

There's something about signs that I really, really love. They're often brightly coloured, shiny (as a sidenote I recently learned that the reflective property of road signs is due to a coating of diatom frustules, how about that?) and have nice, big, easy to read letters. If you can get hold of one, it's like a trophy, increasing in value with the trouble you went through to obtain it.

But some signs are better left to the public, or better yet, humourously defaced. Townsville is home to many signs like this, a couple of which I have the fortune of sharing. The first was taken just the other day at Flinders St Mall, also known as "The Silent Road of Eventual Bankruptcy".

These signs are up nearly every ten metres in an apparent attempt to stop people throwing food to the birds. I guess instead you should throw it in the bin where they can dig it out after you leave, but at least you feel like you're doing sunny Townsville a favour. The thing that made me take a photo, however, was the little picture. How many birds do you see in that pose on the ground? My friend, that is a dead bird, and those aren't crumbs he's throwing, they're rocks. I'm shocked and appauled! Tsk tsk Townsville. You almost had me with your cloudless skies and sunset views from Castle Hill, but this savagery makes me stand tall and proud as a New South Welshman.

The next one is an old favourite of mine I've been meaning to put up here for a while. There are a few of these defaced in similar ways around the Biological Sciences buildings, so a few of you will no doubt be familiar with it.

Makes me giggle every time. Whichever douche decided to scrub out the R should be shot, it looked perfect before. If I ever find you, you WILL pay! Mark my words, douche. Mark. My. Words.

My children will hate me.

2007-03-20T23:52:00.001+10:00

There's a little shop in Neutral Bay back home which boasts the large sign: "LAUNDRETTE". I remember on many an occasion an old friend and I would walk past and comment on what a beautiful name it would be for a girl. Thus, Laundrette will be my first daughter. She sounds kind of quiet, industrious even, but with a little sexy side to her that will be revealed briefly every now and then to the surprise of many.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that in New Zealand, they have small convenience stores called Suprettes! And so, Suprette will be my second daughter. She is more street smart, has a real spunk in her step. Not so accomplised academically, but hey, she knows where all the sales are, right?

And then, like a sign from heaven, I came across this photo...

My mind is made up. My children will hate me for eternity.

There were these two whales...

2007-03-19T23:17:00.001+10:00

Anyone who knows me well will know my three favourite jokes, mostly because I tell them over and over again. The first two are short and sweet, but still manage to make me laugh:

#1 - A man went to a zoo, but there was only one dog. It was a Shih-Tzu.

#2 - Did you hear about the wooden car with the wooden engine that wooden start?

The third joke however is a constant source of entertainment, because the mere mention of two whales gets me into a giggly fit.

#3 - A male whale and a female whale were swimming off the coast of Japan when they noticed a whaling ship. The male whale recognized it as the same ship that had harpooned his father many years earlier. He said to the female whale ,"Let's both swim under the ship and blow out at the same time, and it should cause the ship to turn over and sink .
They tried it and sure enough, the ship turned over and quickly sank. Soon however, the whales realised the sailors had managed to escape in lifeboats. The male whale was enraged that they were going to get away and told the female, "Let's swim after them and eat them!"
"Look," she says. "I went along with the blow job, but I absolutely refuse to swallow the seamen."

Hee hee hee.... very juvenile, I know. So anyway, there I was up at Surfers with some friends in the holidays, when we came across this statue.

The prospect of two whales was too much for me and I fell about laughing, revealing my one weakness to the company I was in. I could have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling council!

The Worst Haircut Ever.

2007-03-18T13:52:00.001+10:00

One of my friends was feeling a little bit down yesterday and decided to do some sort of purging activity that involved scissors, hair and dye. Unfortunately for her, she chose me as her accomplice. Now, I know as much about hair as I do about keeping a stable relationship with someone who doesn't already have a girlfriend, but she wouldn't listen.

For your entertainment, I present The Worst Haircut Ever...

Starting off, we have the worst fringe ever. It's half not there, half emo, ALL AWFUL!

This is my version of layering. It's really very easy I found. You just cut some bits short and keep others long. Before you know it, you have a great haircut that all the boys will go wild over!

I discovered I had a real talent with streaks about this time. If by streaks you mean "giant tracks of peroxide that look more like an industrial accident than directed application".

Wow, what a great look! She got told off at work later that night. I don't know what they were on about though, her boobs look fine.

I decided to help get rid of the remaining red dye. Sadly, my haircut wasn't nearly as amazing as Mel's and so I can't really carry it off as well.

Well, what do you think? Should I open up my own salon?

Calling for help

2007-03-17T19:46:00.001+10:00

Come on people, do your bit for Emilio! If you have a lay-dee friend who's down and lonely, whisk her off to RSVP.com.au and introduce her to the FABULOUS Emilio. He looks after orphaned animals......

Still no responses. I'm starting to think those dating sites are only looked at by horny guys wanting to score. Well... I suppose Emilio could swing both ways...

"Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics"

2007-03-16T17:37:00.001+10:00

A few days ago a friend and I were bored as hell and decided to crack out the paint and brushes. She was slightly drunk and I was slightly high since I'd only just driven a manual for the very first time. With our powers combined, we created a piece that was... interesting. Ever seen a painting that, depending on how you looked at it, could be deeply artistic or completely awful? Ours was like that, except we were quite considering the latter possibility to be the more correct one. In any case, let me present "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics".

About that interpretation? Well, the title comes from a recent statistics lecture, and we called it that before we made our analysis of our beautiful painting. What we came up with is that the big eye in the middle belongs to someone who let his or her friends use Excel for stats and is now crying blood because they caught fire. The friends are the two blue stick people on the lower left. Artistic, no?

Anyway, at about 3am that night, I decided that it would be a really funny idea to send it to our lecturer. Here's how the email went:

"Hi Simon,
A friend and I are in BS2001, which I have to tell you is a lot less scary than I originally thought it would be. Of course, in saying that, it's mostly been cruisy so far, and you'll no doubt be getting a whole lot of crazed emails from us later.
You seem like a pretty easy going dude, so I thought I'd share something with you that happened over the weekend. A friend and I had a few drinks and got bored, so I cracked out the paint and brushes and together we painted this rather pretty sort of abstract piece. We called it "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics" (sound familiar?). From that, we figured that it was a big eye crying because its owner let two friends use Excel for statistics and they exploded or something - they're the two bluish stick dudes on the bottom left. Doesn't make much sense to me now, but hey, you can't argue with drunken logic.
Just hoping this made you smile, at least now you know that we listen in lectures.
Keep it real, Emily and her accomplice Caitlin, now hoping for HDs for our outstanding effort."

Yeah. I haven't got a reply.

Honour Be Damned!

2007-03-15T13:34:00.001+10:00

A long time ago I was in the bookshop with a friend and we spotted a book with the greatest cover I have ever seen! It had a pirate groping some chick's boob with one hand and holding a glass of booze in the other. The chick was holding a rather large gun suggestively between her legs. Tempted though we were, we didn't buy it.

We went back a few weeks later and looked for it, but didn't see it anywhere - we felt cheated! Here was the most brilliant cover of all time and we couldn't find it! Dejectedly, we went home, swearing that if we ever saw it again, we would buy it so we could look at it forever. At this point we hadn't even considered the possibility that the book itself might have been crap, but it couldn't possibly be with a cover like that.

Next time we went in looking for a completely different book - something in the Warhammer section. There, in place of where the book we desired should have been, was what we had deemed "The Pirate Book". It was a sign! I ran up to counter and bought it straightaway. So now I present, the greatest book cover of all time: "Honour Be Damned!"

Oh yeah, the book sucked.

Introducing... Emilio Bonero and the Amazing RSVP Project

2007-03-14T14:24:00.003+10:00

So, in the Vegemite post a couple of days ago there was a picture of me with a little beard made out of Vegemite. What I didn't realise was the effect this picture would have on some of my female friends. And I quote: "Whoa. You're........ HOT!". And so one thing lead to another and somebody came up with the brilliant idea of creating an RSVP.com.au profile using the picture and creating a fictional character around it. People, I'd like to introduce you to Emilio Bonero!

Hi there! I'm a fun, nature-loving artist who likes burying myself in a good book just as much as meeting friends out and about. I moved from Santiago, Chile to Australia when I was 15 and recently finished a degree in fine arts. I have come to love this country and all its natural beauty which I find very inspiring when I come to put brush to canvas.

Music: I love emotional classical music along with a lot of modern artists like Dean Martin, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette and Mike Oldfield. When I'm painting I love listening to Massive Attack - it's very deep and instinctive, helps me be more expressive. Traditional Chilean music always makes me happy!

Reading: I'm a huge fan of the classics, especially dystopian literature - To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, The Old Man and the Sea, Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye, all the way to comedy like Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and poetry like Keats and Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner is my favourite) Movies: American Beauty, Cinema Paradiso, A Scanner Darkly, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie..... and I have to admit I treat myself to some junk action every now and then ;)

Sport: I swim laps as part of my regular exercise routine, and like to snorkel and scuba dive occasionally. Every couple of weeks my friends and I play soccer together in the park.

Other interests: Corny as it may sound, I love walking along the beach, and here in Townsville there is a lot of beach to cover! The natural world holds much beauty for me, and inspires a lot of the painting I do. I'm also a qualified wildlife carer and look after orphaned wallabies and birds.

In my experience all women are beautiful, I have ample time to share with you and look forward to it!

What a catch! Now we play the waiting game......

A Tale of Two Traffic Cones

2007-03-13T15:50:00.001+10:00

I have to admit something. I have a cone fetish. No, not the geometric object, nor even a joint. I'm talking about traffic cones.

It all started late last year when we were driving home from the city after a night of getting wasted. Ahead on the road we spied a cone next to a big metal roadworks sign. We pulled over with brakes screeching, opened the door and snatched the cone up, effectively pulling off our very first conenapping. Further down the road we took another, before heading back to college with our new-found treasures. One we put on top of a sleeping friend's air conditioner. We had better plans for the other. Another friend who we know parties hard and had been out the same night was passed out cold on his bed. Another poor soul was lying on the floor. On the way to his room with cone #2, we found a little baby cone which we picked up as well. When we got inside, I pulled back the covers, gently placed the cone in the guy's arms and wrapped them both up in blankets. The baby cone we placed on the floor-dude's crotch.

Later that day I woke to a text message beeping: "I think I hooked up with a traffic cone last night!". He eventually found out it was me, and thus begun the Cone Collecting War, in which the participant to collect the most traffic cones by the end of the exam period won the respect and adoration of the people.

About a week later, myself and another friend went for a cruise. This cruise ended up being one of my most profitable escapades in terms of anecdotes, for we collected a staggering 38 cones, plus some construction flags that had been left next to the road. Imagine our terror as we approached the gatehouse of the university, the back of the car full to the roof with cones. However, we got through no questions asked. On return to the college, we did what any normal person would do with the cones - built people out of them.

All together we built four people - Conelia, Shaconea (as in Sharona), Conerad and Farmer Cones. Aren't they beautiful? Look at the detail! Conelia even has saggy bewbs!

You may well ask what befell of the remaining cones before the end of the exam period. Well, I freaked out. At 4am a few days later I figured it would be a great time to run out and stash the cones in the bushes. I had to do it in two lots since they were so heavy. The first lot went fine, as I'd suspected, there was nobody to be seen. However, on the second trip I was halfway across the road when suddenly a car came racing towards me, headlights at full beam. I literally ran and dived into the bushes to avoid being seen. The car continued past where I was and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then, it turned around. I was convinced it had seen me and so I wriggled further into the tall grass. But no, the car sped on past back the way it had come. I lay in the dirt for a minute afterwards, all I could say was "WHAT. THE. FUCK.". And so that was how I got rid of the cones.

It's not the end of the story though. This year upon my return to college, there was a leaking pipe in the quad and they had fenced off the area to students. Upon closer inspection I noticed something - On top of a star post was the head of someone very familiar - Conelia! And there on the ground was Conerad! I made a hasty escape back to my room so I could laugh loudly to myself. And that's when I decided it was time to expose the rest of the stash. There they all were, in the bushes just as I had left them months before. The same friend who had helped me 'liberate' them before helped me carry them down to my conenapping adversary's room. We placed them all around his front door and lawn and promptly ran off. The next morning I was greeted in many ways. "Very nice, but could you get rid of them?!" "Wow, that was the best thing I've seen in ages, good one!". Later that day, they were all gone, and yet I had not touched them. A day later I was walking past the maintenance guy's shed, when I spied a particularly familiar large stack of cones out the back. I'm glad I contributed something to the construction area of the college, but really I'm most surprised that I haven't been asked to leave yet. Again, I do things and go unpunished - I am unstoppable! But it has come at a price. I can never go anywhere now without my eyes widening and heart racing whenever I see a cone. Things came to a head over the holidays when I came across this beautiful piece of delectability. The hybrid cone - build of a traditional cone, height of the skinny poles we used to create the people's bodies. My mouth waters every time I pass it.

This is the Vegemite that never ends...

2006-10-22T23:04:00.001+10:00

Over the last Octoberish uni break I went to Hook Island and enjoyed a week of camping on coral rubble, getting drunk, diving and getting even more drunk. At the end of the week I'd used maybe less than a teaspoon of the jar of Vegemite I bought for the trip.

I have no use for Vegemite. I eat it in such small quantities it barely registers on my tastebuds - that's the only way I like it. Now I have a whole jar of the stuff lying around and I'm going to use it, damnit. Presenting my Top Ten Things To Do With Unwanted Vegemite!

#1 - Spread it on thickly and give it to an American, telling them that this is how Aussies eat it. I didn't have a Yank handy so I had to go without a photo.

#2 - Gross out my bathroomate

#3 - Finger Painting!

It's a horse. Vegemite really helps bring out the muscle definition, huh? If anyone wants this, it's in my fridge. I'd put it on my fridge but the ants would probably eat certain parts and turn it into a cock or something for a laugh.

#4 - Seeing what I'd look look like as a dude

Pretty hot I reckon. Millions of people from either sex are missing out!

#5 - Ye Ole Doorknob Tricke

#6 - Smear it all over someone's scuba regulator mouthpiece. Um... yeah... I was supposed to do it to mine for a photo but my reg's locked away and I just found out I've lost the key. Crap.

#7 - Use it to deface the empty SOULESS completely unlikable characters of Final Fantasy XII

The gameplay 0wns... I only wish they'd spent some time thinking up a less retarded story and working on character development.

#8 - Face paint

Holy shit I make an awesome black chick. I'm gonna go hang with my bro's and ho's. When I washed it out, it got in my eyes and stung like nothing else, so maybe face paint isn't such a good idea.

#9 - Stinking out the microwave

Wow, I'd never done that before, it totally exploded! Awesome! Unfortunately it stank out the entire building, not just the microwave. I'm gagging on the stench right now.

#10 - I suppose you could eat it...

I am better than my Tutors.

2006-10-16T20:46:00.001+10:00

James Cook University is world-renowned as one of the top universities in the world for Marine Biology - precisely why I'm here. So far, the course has been fairly good. Sometimes disorganised, but mostly good. The only thing that bugs me are the tutors for the practical components of our subjects. For the most part, they suck.

A few weeks ago, we were looking at a dissected squid and fish. The task we were given involved drawing up a table of differences between the two in 100 words. For starters, this is retarded, because these two animals are so goddamn different you could write forever about it. And then it happened:

"And while fish reproduce externally, squid give birth to live young."

My bullshit detector went off straight away but I didn't say anything, because, hell, if these suckers want to lose marks by writing complete crap that's fine with me. I got busy that evening making sure I was right - and I was. Squid lay eggs, like every other damn cephalopod. So I kicked up a bit of shit by emailing the co-ordinators about it and got the tutors in trouble. Fun fun. Then on my assignment I added a smug little footnote about them being wrong. Man I love being smart.

A week later our assignments were available for collection. Mine was filled with wonderful little comments like this:

I thought about emailing the co-ordinators and telling them what unprofessional hooligans they were being represented by.... but I was laughing too hard. Fuck me if I can't take a joke.

Iago Strikes Back!

2006-10-08T20:16:00.002+10:00

James Cook University is located in some sort of National Park, or so I've been led to believe. This means we can't have pets on campus - not fluffy ones anyway. Being an avid fish girl, I went out and bought myself a little Siamese fighting fish and called him Iago.

Iago is my best mate. I can tell him everything and he'll listen. If I'm sad, he'll wiggle at me to cheer me up. Granted, his advice is somewhat lacking in tight situations, but at least he doesn't judge. I couldn't ask for a better friend... except maybe one that doesn't watch me in the shower.
Iago does some cool stuff. Our favourite trick is getting him to jump out of the water and take food from my hand - he's very impatient and does it whether there's an audience or not, so I guess it's no skin off his nose. This trick gets modified occasionally, exchanging a hand for some other body part. Like TONGUES, you filthy people... though I suppose that's pretty filthy as well.

Enjoy this then, my big YouTube hit, Iago biting my good friend Jess' tongue!

Tequila - that's all I need to say.

2006-10-06T16:41:00.002+10:00

When it comes to drinking, I can't refuse a cold Corona. When it comes to drinking hard, I can't refuse a shot or ten of my good friend Jose Cuervo. Jose and I have spent many memorable nights together, and he's the one I always take home with me at the end of the night (providing I haven't left him in somebody's toilet... or floor... or both).

We met on my 18th birthday party and have been close ever since. When my friends see him coming they know there's going to be trouble. When I decided much older men were great at kissing, Jose was there. When I decided it would be great to throw up all over someone else's bathroom, Jose was there. When I dance so hard that I'm drenched in sweat when the club closes at 5am, you'll know Jose was there. And when somebody mentioned making out with everyone in the room, ladies included, yep, it was Jose.

Jose is responsible for many of my finest and not so finest moments... God bless you, tequila.

Have you been Touched?

2006-08-19T21:45:00.002+10:00

If you've never heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you probably haven't spent enough time on the net. Basically it's a parody religion first established during the Intelligent Design debate of 2005 and argues that there are multiple theories of ID. One theory is that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world (beginning with mountains, trees and a midget). Since this theory and that of God doing it all have pretty much the same evidence to support them (i.e. none) it is only fair that FSMism should be taught alongside ID in schools.

Pastafarianism, as it is called, was extremely well-recieved among the public and has been accepted by many, probably because its version of heaven has a beer volcano and stripper factory. As a firm believer in the power of science, I accepted the FSM into my daily life and encourage others to be Touched by His Noodly Appendage by preaching the good word when I'm outrageously drunk.

Being a science student, I have to attend practical classes during which I have to wear a lab coat. I've been looking for something to put on the back of my lab coat for a while now, and finally made up my mind today.

For more information on His Noodliness, go here.

My Bar Fridge

2006-08-17T14:24:00.001+10:00

One of THE most important things a uni student will ever own is a bar fridge. Now, being a guru on all things alcoholic, my dad knew this and gave me a fully-stocked fridge when uni started. This is my bar fridge before O-Week:

And this is my bar fridge after O-Week:

Am I not the model uni student?

Bugger

2006-08-14T19:49:00.001+10:00

At John Flynn College, you are given the options of living in crappy, tolerable or comparatively luxurious accomodation. If you're poverty stricken and end up with a crappy room (which, as a side note, have recently been done up and aren't too horrible anymore) you may be lucky enough to be on the balcony side and have your very own little patch of slab overlooking my bedroom window. Now imagine the following individual's dismay when they discovered that they couldn't use theirs because that's where the water heater lived.

Ripped off! Alas, somebody needs to make sacrifices so I can shower for as long as I want.

Drinking Tips for Uni Students

2006-08-13T00:39:00.001+10:00

It is my strong feeling that drinking at universities has become a problem that undermines the academic atmosphere and turns brilliance into slobbering vomiting sloth. I have thus compiled a guide on responsible practices when drinking and how to remain respectable when one is undertaking this regretful activity.

1. Whilst doing that trick where you suction a shot glass to the side of your face by sucking all the air out with your mouth and sliding it to your cheek, don't suck too hard. You don't want people to be thinking your partner is a wifebasher, now.

2. Make sure you get REALLY close to cameras because otherwise it's hard to see you in the picture.

3. When staying the night at a friend's house, try to use some sort of support for the head. Scuba tanks aren't recommended, but they sure look funny.

4. After a few drinks, it is easy to get slightly disorientated, like this individual. No, the bottle doesn't go in that way...

...Well, that's close enough...

5. Now for hats. Hats go on your head, not your face.

Not that way, silly.

Good work!

As my uncle always said, "At uni you don't have too much money, so you're going to have to choose between food and beer sometimes. There are a lot of hungry uni students out there."

Seamus slapped my nice arse

2006-08-12T18:32:00.001+10:00

No, I'm not revealing anything about what happened that fuzzy night after the last exam, I am merely reciting a mnemonic I use to remember the metamorphic progression of shale.

And alas, for it is probably the last time I'll ever have to use it - I'm no longer doing geology. It was one of the most influential subjects I've ever taken and I'm so glad I did it. It breaks my heart to leave behind my dear lecturer, Blenky Boy, with whom I have such fond memories. Who could forget the overnight field trip we went on together? The starry skies watched over by the luminous moon... the campfire that burned like the love in our souls... the columnar joints in the igneous rock and its delicious plagioclase phenocrysts... And who could forget how sexy he looked in this kid's camp chair?

That pose is totally turning me on.

As our love blossomed over the semester, I learned so many valuable things, like the cleavages and hardness of... hee hee... minerals. We dined on sedimentary rocks together, and on one special occasion, he rubbed his own saliva all over the rock I was studying so its features would come out. He was a man of many talents - so many desirable talents.

And when he spoke about tectonic plates I could feel my world shaking, vibrant and alive! Together we explored the mysterious trenches, scaled the highest peaks and rejoiced with the erupting behemoth volcanoes. And even though his arm was cradled in plaster, he had no shame in wiggling his noodle with it to demonstrate the P- and S- waves that so rocked my world.

In secret, we met under the canopy of green life to discuss the finer points of microgranodiorite, swathed in soft sunlight beside the restfully gurgling stream...

If it weren't for you, my sweet Blenky Boy, I would never have been able to get a high distinction in geology... Well, maybe the completed pracs and exams passed down from a second year helped a little bit.

Today's most valuable lesson

2006-03-29T17:46:00.001+10:00

I am very proud to say I now know what cane toads and sausage rolls have in common. First of all, meet Toadby:

Toadby is a rather misfortunate cane toad who spends most of his time flaking out (ha ha) in the back lane from the college to the uni. Since this is the fastest way to the uni from our deck we have to walk past him all the time. I can pretty safely say that he hasn't visibly decomposed AT ALL since he first appeared. The smell, on the other hand, makes it pretty obvious that there are definitely some bacteria at work.

It's hard to imagine something that small and flat can smell so bad. I was gagging when I took this photo. See the sorts of sacrifices I have to go through to entertain you people?

Lunch today was sausage rolls, because some brainiac decided that they'd put it down on the special requests list. Everyone's first bite of these sausage rolls was followed by one of those "This isn't quite right" looks. They tasted kind of fruity, almost more sweet than savoury. Still, I bolted one down and grabbed another one for later.

On the way home from my Geology prac today I said g'day to Toadby. Usually the wind only blows one direction down that lane, so once I'd gotten past Toadby I thought I was in the clear. Typical, the wind had changed. I got a nice strong whiff of decomposing cane toad. Awful! A bit later in the evening I went to eat that sausage roll. My first bite was recieved a little differently this time. For some reason, it tasted exactly the same as Toadby smelt. That's what had grossed so many people out at lunch. I'd finally put my finger on what it tasted like, and it made it all the more revolting. One of those things you never thought possible.

Just a note. As it turns out, I didn't get that question on eating rocks (below) right. Makes me wonder if all those wantons I've eaten in the past might have been bull testicles or something.

Getting our rocks off

2006-03-26T00:01:00.001+10:00

After being told at the beginning of our Geology prac that we were NOT to think about sex for the next three hours (I kid you not), we were taught how to tell the difference between silty rock and not-silty rocks: eat them. That's right, "just snap a bit off and have a chew. Don't knock it til you try it". Being the person who had snorted a bowl of soup the previous evening, I was naturally voted the official rock taste tester. I take great pride in these kinds of juvenile achievements so I took this highly flattering and sexy photo of myself:

I said it was definitely siltstone instead of mudstone. Other people thought differently, but they hadn't eaten it. I'd better be bloody right.

There were also a few interesting tidbits in the prac book itself. One was this warning:

"Even though taste is a very good way to distinguish between shale and siltstone, DON'T taste this particular rock. Don't make your friends (or enemies) eat it either. Wash your hands after examining this specimen. Really. Do not suck your fingers or pick your nose. There are metals present in potentially toxic quantities should you suck, lick or eat the specimen. Immediate death is very unlikely, it would more likely be a protracted and painful death, or just slowly damage your health. No, it's not mercury or arsenic, it's lead, so you'd probably have to eat several rocks to get really sick."

Another is this little exercise. As you can probably tell by now, our Geology lecturer is a weeny bit quirky.

"Exercise 6: Briefly examine 3/20, bauxite from Weipa. The round things are called 'pisolites' formed by..."(bla bla bla, scientific boring stuff)..." Say the word pisolite out loud (pronounced 'pizzolite'). Do not say this word to your answer sheet."

There was nothing else involved in that exercise. I worry about these guys that get hard ons from looking at dirt.

In fact, we LOVE it!

2006-03-25T23:49:00.001+10:00

There's an intersection that you have to drive through whenever you leave the uni. On the corner is a shopping mall, which truth be told is a pretty impressive one for Townsville. The one little niggley thing about it is this sign on the main road that gives me the jibblies (oooh, that almost rhymed!).

That's NOT the sort of pose I want to see someone do at an information desk EVER. Like, come over here and we'll tell you where you need to be and if you want we're also giving out free blowjobs under the desk. Puts a whole new swing on "Customer Care". Eerk, I think I'll go study now or something - it's getting on my nerves just looking at her. She can 'have' someone else.

Chemistry Tutes = JCU History

2006-03-24T16:40:00.001+10:00

My Tuesdays are made up of eight delicious contact hours that run until 9pm. Wednesdays are worse, beginning with an 8am start and running til 5pm. It's a struggle getting up for those 8am Chem tutes, but it means that you can get a nice fresh hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, baked beans and HASH BROWNS! In the class, the Chemistry lecturer/tutor goes through a bit of the actual work, but spends most of his time telling us little stories about the uni's colourful chemical history. Two are of particular note, so I thought I'd share the joy.

JCU's NMR Machine
For those of you who don't know what NMR stands for, it's shorthand for enema.

For those of you who DO know what NMR stands for, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, this story will make more sense. Several years ago James Cook Uni bought a brand new shiny NMR Machine thing (you can tell I wasn't listening in the lecture) that makes molecules vibrate and it's used to determine what molecules are in a sample. Or something. They use this same technology in medicine with MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machines.
Anywho, they imported the machine in from overseas and it arrived in the country on time, but for some reason it took six months to get it to the actual uni. Upon further investigation it was discovered that since the stamp on the box mentioned the word "Nuclear" nobody was game to go anywhere near it for fear of their balls dropping off for those six months. Customs had had a real good long poke around at it (with a ten foot pole, no doubt) before it got the okay. Apparently this is why MRI machines are called that instead of NMRI - people freak out when they see "nuclear" on anything.

Any chance to use a Bazooka
I wish I could remember what chemical it was, some sort of liquid chlorine compound I think, that they used in great quantities to keep the tanks nice and clean over in the aquaculture buildings back in the day. Since the uni used it in bulk they bought it in bulk and stored it in big metal drums. The problem with this chemical was that over time it would release gas, and since it was in a sealed drum, the drum would get bloated and people started to get a little bit worried that they'd go boom any moment. The uni had over-ordered the stuff and they had about half a dozen of these big bloated drums lying around waiting to blow up. So what would you do to dispose of them? You could ask a chemist OR you could get the bomb squad in. Guess what the blokes in charge chose. So the army turns up in their big manly trucks with their big manly guns and decides that the best thing to do would be to stick the drums in a field and shoot them with a bazooka! And they did. The explosion was pretty big - like REALLY big. It knocked some of the humvees over, two soldiers had ruptured ear drums and it blew out all the windows in the buildings and cars within a 200 metre radius.
Turns out that if they'd asked the chemists, they would have been told to stick a hose in the drums and fill them with water. Chemicals disposed of. End of story. I think I still would have preferred the bazooka though.

Library Treasures

2006-03-20T12:34:00.001+10:00

The JCU Library is pretty good. Of course, I've never been to another uni library so I can hardly compare. There's a help desk where they encourage you to ask them anything about anything. There's always a computer available for you to use. It's always quiet. But there's one thing that, shall we say, 'sticks out' a little bit from your standard library. We have a naked man chained to the wall.

He's standing right next to the libarary catalogue searching computer. As a side note, they've tried to be cool by calling the catalogue "Tropicat" which sounds like one of those lame nicknames somebody wants to be called but nobody does. I think the Library staff even cringe when they say it. Anyway, It's kind of distracting having a naked man right next to you when you're trying to search for journal articles. I'll be there typing in my search then suddenly realise I've put "plant* AND etiolat* AND penis OR bondage".

It's one of those things you don't want to get caught staring at but at the same time you can't help it. So let's have another peek:

At least it's not as bad as the stone sculpture outside UTS. I so wish I had a photo.

At Home with the Nuns

2006-03-13T23:34:00.001+10:00

At John Flynn there is an annual event called the At Home Dinner. Basically it's an excuse for everyone to dress up in drag and dance like Napoleon Dynamite. This year everyone had to pick a song or movie beginning with the letter of their deck - T-Deck did Titanic, F-Deck did Footloose and, not surprisingly, N-Deck did the entire Napoleon Dynamite dance.

L-Deck, as I have mentioned in the past, has been dubbed "The Nunnery" because we're made up entirely of girls. It only seemed appropriate to dress up in habits and dance to Like A Virgin.

Oh, don't we look so wholesome? We walked to dinner in two lines with our hands in the praying position and promptly sat down and started guzzing down the goon and passion pop. One by one they called up the different decks to perform. We were one of the first few to go through. We got up and our DA Julia gave a speech about how we'd been excommunicated because we liked to indulge in certain activities that the church didn't approve of, and that we "know more about heaven than you could ever imagine". One of the girls had spliced together this prayer song that came on first before it abruptly changed to the first chorus of Like A Virgin. When this change occurred we threw off our habits to reveal our inner souls.

HOT!! Our dance consisted of such classic moves as the group orgy, the Mexican bum-slap and me giving a lucky stranger a lap dance. We ended up coming second which we were all pretty stoked about. The prize choccies were gone in about 8.54 seconds.

Then we all got outrageously drunk and I projectile vomited all over a rival college's bathroom.

Got Dead People?

2006-03-09T00:05:00.001+10:00

Today for geology we got a new lecturer who was a little more enthusiastic than the last one. I was almost sad to see the old one go, because he was very... 'quaint' is really the definition of his character. In farewelling him we let go of the geologist stereotype:

It's not all bad news, however. Let me run through the way in which he opened his lecture on mineralogy. All pictures are pretty accurate to what he put on the board.

Lecturer: Okay, so let's say you die. Everyone dies, calm down, it's gonna happen one day. We bury you in your little box in a nice little graveyard.

You're sitting there, quite happily decomposing. Now, what are the most common elements in the human body?

Me: OMG loiek Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen!!!!!!! LOLZ!

Lecturer: (with an aside of 'Emily, you rule so much, see me after class naked') Right! Now let's say it's a few million years down the track. You've been covered in a few kilometres of sediment and ocean and stuff. By this stage there's not really much left of you apart from a few squashed pockets of carbon

Then, OH NO! HERE COMES A SUBDUCTION ZONE!

Now your remains are pretty far down where the pressure is immense, so what are you made of?

(Silence)

Lecturer: Okay, who has a dimond ring here?

(A few hands go up)

Lecturer: OH MY GOD YOU'RE WEARING DEAD PEOPLE!

He was still laughing in our prac a few hours later. It's always nice to see somebody being passionate - this guy was really getting his rocks off...on rocks.

Cuckoo Curlews

2006-02-27T22:33:00.001+10:00

I've mentioned curlews in the past as birds that wake you up in the middle of the night by screeching in the college grounds, but my description was severely lacking. I forgot to mention their legs are made of wire and you can bend them in all sorts of wacky shapes. I made this one myself:

Pretty cool, huh?

Oh the shame!

2006-02-24T13:09:00.001+10:00

It must be fate.

When I was in primary school there was this girl with terminal cancer. Her name was Megan. Just before she started school she'd had one of her legs amputated to just below the knee. She was a beautiful singer and was always cheery even though she knew that she didn't have long to go. Kinda inspirational, hey?

Anyway, she came over to my place one day after school when we were in year 1. Roll-ups (the snack thing) had these promotional glow-in-the-dark stickers in every box, and I'd collected them all except this one with a dolphin on it. We were very big on sticker collecting back then. That day at lunch time Megan had revealed that she was the proud owner of the coveted dolphin sticker. I was so jealous. When she left the room I nicked it. I stole from a dying child! Megan passed away about a year after that episode.

Until now I haven't really thought about it. Then, as fate would have it, one of my roommates, Noni, showed me her folder for her weekly notes. And there, on the cover...

I'M SORRY MEGAN! I'LL NEVER STEAL FROM ANOTHER SOUL AGAIN!!!

What are the chances of a sticker over ten years old showing up in Queensland in mint condition in the same room as me?

JFC: Home of the Quad Run

2006-02-19T19:38:00.001+10:00

Every college has its own little traditions. The kind of stuff that the guys in charge know about but turn a blind eye to because it's culture! John Flynn has a few nice ones that I thought I'd share.

The Quad Run

Everybody who goes to John Flynn has to do at least one Quad Run before they leave/get kicked out. The quad is a big grassy area with a few trees in the middle of the college where people play footy, lounge about or go for rides in the resident kangaroos' pouches. At night however, the quad turns into a playground for something a little odd. Flynners from all over come (most of the time a touch intoxicated) to do a couple of laps of the quad, do some pushups, flex their gargantuan biceps and impress the ladies. Twist is, they're butt naked. Shoes are allowed, actually, and Batman capes have become quite fashionable lately.

My only complaint is that I live in L-Deck (also known as The Nunnery or The Convent). L-Deck is separated from the quad by one of the other college buildings, meaning that we miss out on all the Quad Run action. I propose that, since we have a very nice new concrete slab in front of the L-Deck buildings , the Slab Run be incorporated with the Quad Run so that the poor nuns get to see some flesh too.

Gavin Peterson is coot

Nobody knows quite when it happened, but a long time ago there was a boy called Gavin Peterson. Now, Gav was a bit of a ladies' man and was admired by many during his time at John Flynn. One girl happened to be quite taken with Gav, but she apparently wasn't too crash hot in the spelling department. Thus her declaration of affection yields the classic message "Gavin Peterson is coot".

It has become a tradition of John Flynn to write "Gavin Peterson is coot" anywhere and everywhere. You can see it scrawled on toilet doors, under beds, desks, on trees and even on t-shirts. People have seen it written interstate and even overseas. Impressive, eh?

I myself have written it four times in various places. I hate graffiti, but in doing this I feel like I am an exception to the rule - I'm doing my duty as a Flynnian!

The Bongo Van

A while back St Paul's procured a van. Not just any van, but the oldest, crappiest van they could find. They took out the engine and stripped it of anything it didn't really need for its intended purpose. It was christened the Bongo Van. The idea is that the fossils jump in and buckle up (if it even has buckles), then the freshers push it wherever it needs to go. It's one of the main modes of transport to inter-college cricket games.

My very first Bongo Van experience was during the 4.30am wake-up call on the first night at college. We neared the St Paul's carpark and noticed that there was one vehicle that didn't quite look like the others. As in it was lying on its side in the
parking spot.

It is a long-standing tradition that Flynners try to steal the Bongo Van. The greatest story ever told of this was that some bloke went over to the van in the middle of the night, dismantled the whole thing and hung the pieces from the trees in the quad. Brilliant, and it'll be hard to beat. On several occasions we've ventured over to the Bongo Van late at night to see if we could turn ourselves into legendary freshers, and on all of these occasions we've found the van to be heavily guarded. We're talking people sleeping on mattresses around it. Big people. It was unanimously decided to leave our hopes and dreams for later. A lot later.

The Haunted Rooms

This one isn't really a tradition but it's still creepy. There are several rooms in the college that are said to be haunted. We've been told that in the past there was a fireman going around and checking that all the fire extinguishers were in good nick. One of them wasn't and it blew up and killed him. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it still might explain some of the creepy stuff that happens. In one room if you throw open the door it sometimes bounces back - but there's nothing for it to bounce off. In another people complain that at night when they're sleeping they feel something pushing hard on their chests, like somebody's trying to crush them. When they get up to look there's nobody there. Spooky, huh? I guess living in a brand new building has its advantages - nobody's died in it yet. Hopefully, anyway.

GOOD MORNING ST MARK'S!!!!

2006-02-17T18:04:00.001+10:00

I'm sure many people have fond memories of their first night at college. Undoubtedly there will be a lot of booze, a lot of yelling, a lot of vomiting and then a lot of hangovers. Ours was no different.

First I must explain the fresher dance. Every year at John Flynn (JFC for short) the student exec teaches all the widdle freshers a dance that they have to do whenever they hear the designated song, no matter where they are or what they're doing. This year it's Hung Up by Madonna, and the dance consists of such classic dance moves as the Mr Bean Thrust, the Shopping Trolley, the Sweeper and the Monkey.

You can probably understand that getting up at 4.30am is not enjoyable (Alison will tell you this fairly often). Put that together with a late night of heavy drinking and spewing and you have the sort of cruelty the fossils inflict on the freshers. At said time we rose from the dead to our DAs beating our doors down to get us up and into the quad. Upon arrival the tell-tale tick tock of Hung Up started belting out from somebody's room and we were forced to dance. Alas, this was not the end of the morning's activities. The hundred or so freshers were then rounded up and marched to all the other colleges, where we proceeded to wake them up with rather loud group "GOOD MORNING!!!"s, war cries and (my personal favourite) airhorns. It was a long and difficult journey seeing as though many of us were still a bit tipsy, but we did it in the end and laugh about it now.

Don't you just love O-Week?

Welcome to sunny (one so true) Townsville!

2006-02-16T21:59:00.001+10:00

Townsville, Townsville, Townsville. What is there to be said about this sleepy little town where all the shops are closed on Sundays, where petrol is 10c cheaper than Sydney and where multi-laned roundabouts pollute the streets like toxic prawns in the Harbour? Well, that's about it actually.

James Cook University is a diamond in the rough of Townsville. One could quite happily live there and not need to venture outside the campus, as long as they didn't have various college activities requiring purchase of outrageous costumes. The Douglas Campus, as it is known, is quite small in comparison to many universities in Sydney. The med students complain about the ten minute walk from the college to the faraway Medical Sciences building. Of course, this arduous trip can be made in two minutes by car, which is an option a number of students choose.

The university is in the middle of a national park, meaning that a great variety of animals can be found mingling with the students. Bush turkeys are apparently quite fond of the smell of the refectory and can be found outside fairly often. Curlews, birds that look like kookaburras with stilts, enjoy late-night shrieking just outside the dorms and are thus the natural enemy of pre-exam students. Besides the birds, it is not uncommon to see kangaroos eating the grass next to your dining hall, butterflies trying to rape your sparkly fresher hat and cane toads hanging out in the puddle of washing machine water. Ahhh, such are the delights of nature.

Among the bizarre trees that congregate in the university grounds, there lie great tombstones...or at least, that's what the buildings look like anyway. There are a number of questionable architectural ventures, for example the Chemistry building looks...um...cheesy?

Can't even begin to imagine what they were thinking. Probably about lunch. We can't forget these beautiful window shades adorning several Humanities buildings. Note that this is the closest area to the colleges and takes a horrendous 3 minute walk from door to door.

The two general main lecture theatres are the HLT and CLT. The big sign outside the HLT says "Sir George Kneipp Auditorium" and the CLT hardly even has a sign, so it is only by word of mouth that we know where and what either actually is. Then there's the matter of what HLT and CLT really stand for. Most people get the 'Lecture Theatre' part out, but the H and the C are still a mystery even to the uni admin staff I asked. Upon asking a second year I solved the dilemma: "Huge Lecture Theatre" and "Crappy Lecture Theatre".

That's the uni sorted, what about the colleges? There are seven on-campus colleges and anyone who lives off campus wants to live on-campus. Until this week, I thought the movies had hammed college life up. I was wrong. It's even more crazy.

For example, take my college: The John Flynn College. John Flynn has its foundations based firmly on Christian values, and last year's fresher shirt read "Flynners do it like ANIMALS!". I've never come across the terms 'fresher' and 'fossil' in Australia until now. A fresher is a brand new shiny uni student and a fossil is a returning student. Upon arrival at John Flynn in 2006 all the freshers are greeted by the student executive committee and given a sparkly hat with their name on it. They are not to remove the hat unless showering or sleeping - it is to be worn at all times. Punishment for not wearing it varies from standing on a chair and singing Mary had a Little Lamb to pushups and having to introduce yourself to everyone with a megaphone, among others. There are many variations of the sparkly hat in evidence. Showercaps, stripey bibs, foam visors, bandanas and dorky caps with the peak pointing up have all been used by the different colleges over the years.

Further analysis will be given to life at JCU and JFC a little later, as they are playing Madonna's Hung Up and I must go out and do the fresher dance to it.