This blog was supposed to be about life...

...but this is too good to leave out.

Found this comic on xkcd.com today, then continued on to find this article.

Hover your mouse over the comic for the full effect.

Did I mention I love the internet?

Woe is Tuesday (aka Pimp my Monday)

My relationship with Tuesday has had its ups and downs. In fact it's possible to say that Tuesday and I have never really seen eye to eye, until just recently that is. In the past Tuesday has been tough, really tough. The excitement of Monday and a new week beginning is over, you've already discussed the follies of the weekend with co-workers, and most weeks, nothing thrilling has happened since yesterday afternoon.* The tedium of the week has set in. Unfortunately, on Tuesday morning, you still have another 4 days of it to go. A whole 4 days - that's practically forever. 4 more days of getting up early, 4 more days of work before the weekend, 4 more days of being sensible. Four. More. Days. Not to mention that sneaky little problem of the fun from the weekend really catching up with you - you can ride into Monday with a little bit of sparkle still left in your step, but it's Tuesday when you really start to suffer.

Recently however, Tuesday and I seem to have sorted out our differences, she has become somewhat the teacher's pet of weekdays. It might partly be because I've shifted my working hours slightly and no longer rise at 6am (I really hate early mornings), but I think our current rapport has grown from new Tuesday night activities, the anticipation of which manages to get me through the tedium of the working day. In fact the anticipation of my weekly rendezvous with Tuesday, boosts me through Monday, leaving me feeling as joyous as if I were coming up to Friday, a long time favourite.

So it got me to thinking - maybe all our troubled weekday relationships can be repaired. While Monday and I have enjoyed a cordial interaction thus far, I'm aware of many who don't feel the same way about her. So in their honour (and having fixed my one broken weekday relationship) I've been trying to come up with other ways to avoid wanting to break-up with Monday every time she comes around. So far I've thought of:** Cheap Monday dinner at the pub; some kind of exciting new activity like rock-climbing, jewelery making, painting, or dancing classes; cheap Monday movies; Monday spa time or even Monday massage. Leave your suggestions in the comments section, perhaps we'll find a way to kick Mondayitis to the curb once and for all.

Oh, and I know I may have picked unfairly on poor old Monday, she does get a rough ride. If your least favourite day of the week is another, feel free to substitute.

* Television does not count as something to talk about. Especially if it was last night's episode of Big Brother/Australian Idol/whatever mindless crap reality program is spewing forth this month. Exceptions might include a really fascinating documentary on string theory, anthropology or the meaning of life.

**Tried really hard to not make this sound like a list that you might find in Cosmo or FHM. Not sure that I've been successful. Actually, I probably didn't try that hard, but I did try at least a little bit.

How old am I really?

Read an article in today's Age by someone claiming to have lived their entire life with the internet. I still remember life without the internet. A lot of it. I even remember life before mobile phones. By my recollection the internet wasn't particularly widespread in Australia before 1995, I even remember the weird squelchy noises of dial-up, internet chat before facebook or msn, and the day that someone told me there was this crazy new search engine called google that was way better than anything else, and I thought "gee that's cool, they've named it the same as the number 10^100". I wonder if anyone still knows what a googol is? I'm still waiting for the new Google product called Googleplex. Even if it would be impossible to ever write the number down.

Anyway I digress. My main point was:

Do they let 14 year olds write in the paper these days?

Caller Blocked

I just got asked on a date by someone calling from a blocked number. Have I become one of those people that you have to trap into answering the phone? Maybe it was an accident, but it got me to thinking about the whole concept.

It's a thoroughly weird situation really. I'm sure I've done it in the past, although not for a while. You know, when you think someone might be avoiding you, so you switch of the number sending on your phone and call them to trick them into answering. The key thing here is - surely their lack of answer is enough of an indication that they might not actually want to talk to you. Do you need a bigger signal? And is someone who needs to be tricked into answering the phone really going to be keen to go out with you?

Someone accused me of performing this trickery last year sometime when I had the number sending turned off for some other reason (think needing to call someone who you don't want to have your number). My first thought was how entirely counter productive it was - I mean unless you had something really really important to tell them, why would you bother? Who wants to talk to someone that doesn't want to talk to them anyway?

The human mind really does work in mysterious ways.

Time is a construct

Small ironies of life:

Being asked out on a date and realising that you only have one night free in the next two weeks. It's suddenly apparent that an extra person will not fit into my life*. A friend once told me that whenever you decide to start something new, you have to think of something else that you're going to give up - after all, technically your day is already full of activities, even if the activity is just sitting on your arse doing nothing. So, right now, nothing to give up, apparently no space for new activities.

Lucky I'm single.

*That is of course, unless they're an heir who might allow me to spend less time on the more tedious parts of life.

housing crisis

Realised today that the amount of money I'm spending repaying debt is the rough equivalent of a mortgage repayment. Only difference being I don't have a house, or any assets.

All I have is the memories. There are some pretty good memories though.

In search of an heir

A downside of enjoying traveling and the finer (read more expensive) things in life is the cost. Since I opened my very first bank account, not counting the dollarmites account that I put $2 per week in, but had no access to, I've been big on spending. You know it's bad when at your 21st instead of starting with stories of stupid drunken antics, or the obligatory "I've known Miss Pomegranate since..." your friends start their speech to the brassy sounds of "Hey Big Spender".

Oscar Wilde once said that anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. From that rationale, anyone could tell from my credit card statement that I'm clearly gifted in the imagination department. Unfortunately all of this living beyond one's means can only end in one of three ways: death, bankruptcy, or living frugally until the debt is repayed and someone is stupid enough to allow you to clock up a new one. With the options of death and bankruptcy not being particularly appealing, I've opted for debt repayment and am now desperately flinging money into the black hole of debt that I've been very steadily digging since the day I got that very first credit card (to pay for accommodation that I conveniently forgot I would have to pay for when I booked the $1 virgin flights to get me there and back). I'm hoping that if I throw it fervourently enough I might actually plug the hole at the bottom, much like the drains in my house when you turn the tap on fast enough and the sink fills up with water.*

In the meantime, I've come up with another potential out. All I need to do is marry an heir and become an heiress. So if anyone knows of an heir looking for his heiress, please pass on my contacts. I'd do a much better job than Paris, I'm far classier, and I have a whole lot more imagination.

*fast enough being slightly faster than a trickle.