Ying's Christmas Partay

I have learned that SingStar is dangerous, and popular amongst optometrists.

Ying invited her friends from optometry and high school for a relaxed evening on Boxing Day. Earlier in the night, I swore up and down to Rena and Soph that I would NOT be singing. No way. Nuh-uh. I hadn't gone to karaoke before in my life and I wasn't gonna start now.

Then me and Soph especially started to get really into it, especially with the 80s stuff, and the more recent stuff as well. Laura by the Scissor Sisters was great, some old Whitney I Wanna Dance With Somebody, but my FAVOURITE of the night would have to be Smells Like Teen Spirit cause everyone just started yelling into either mic and it was great.

life lessons

Life lesson #1 - Don't put your goldfish in tapwater
Life lesson #2 - Don't put tapwater in a car's radiator

All these lessons, I learned the hard way. Driving my mum and aunt to Ashfield to visit my uncle and cousin, Ella's (my car) temperature skyrocketed and STEAM started coming out of her radiator!

Luckily my cousin Matthew knows a thing or two about cars, undoing the whole front bonnet of the car to check the radiator and hose for leaks - there weren't any - then buying radiator coolant (the stuff you're supposed to use) and feeding that to Ella.

Ella was a lot happier, and here's Matthew giving his personal seal of approval.

it's peanut butter jelly time!

Mary's shoot finished yesterday, and it was heaps of fun ... and we had a theme song! It all started when Dave and I (we both had parts as extras) had to greet each other, and look like we were talking. Dave suggested peanut butter sandwiches ... and of course we had endless repetitions of the peanut butter jelly time song!

Even Oyvind, who has endless patience and tolerance, at the end of the shoot, was like "Let's put something else on, shall we?"

Some other highlights:
*Driving by and throwing milk all over Mary ... we have great photos.
*Bonza and Dave digging into the peppery spaghetti.
*Pantene Mary
*The coffee spill that went all over the floor
*Bon's Coke spill
*Using a beanbag to block out light ... yeah, we're real hi-tech
*That shiny microwave door! Who knew opening a microwave door would be our trickiest shot?

retro!

Sooo freaked out about even thinking about starting my film. Spoke to one of the other girls who also got funding and she's already got a fairly well-known Australian actress on board, and that just floored me. Whoah.

***

Last night went out for the work Christmas party for our little transcription dept starting at Chedi (previously known as Thai Land) in Newtown, where in the process of me getting up, and trying to put my shoes on again to go buy some wine (they don't allow you to wear shoes in the cushion area) I broke both my DRESS and my SHOES.

The strap snapped when I was twisting around, trying to get my shoes on, and then the fastener for my shoes broke. Lucky I had been out the whole day before, and so I had another outfit and shoes that I'd changed from. Phew.

My third gaffe is when I attempted to pour wine for Bec, without realising that the top was still on! Everyone had a good laugh, but I must have gone a bright red!

I felt so underdressed when we went later to Club Retro (the dept is mainly girls, can't you tell?) in my jeans and tee, amongst a sea of sequins and halter necks. As a child of 1987, it's surprising how long some of these songs have remained popular ... although I'm ashamed to admit that I only know the lyrics of Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' from the Westlife cover.

Ying's 20th at Casa Asturiana

Sophia, Julia, Tapas, Rena, Kylie, Ying and I went to Casa Asturiana, which is on Liverpool St in the Spanish Quarter to celebrate Ying's 20th year on this here planet.

There was some confusion over the tables, which led to our party walking up the stairs, then down the stairs, then UP the stairs again! Then we found out that half our party had been mistakenly put downstairs

... but we had already started eating our bread, and thought it would be kind of odd if we ate the bread, got up, and left ... so, the downstairs people came up to our much nicer upstairs table with our view of the monorail.

We ordered a banquet, which started off with almonds (which tasted like peanuts) with a sweet, honey glaze, and Spanish and garden salads.

And what's a Spanish dinner without sangria? Very drinkable, although I know deep in my heart it's cheap wine.

Our tapas consisted of:
*GAMBAS A LA PLANCHA - Fresh prawns from the barbecue accompanied with salt & lemon
*ALBONDIGAS A LA ASTURIANA - Meatballs cooked in savoury tomato sauce
*PULPO A LA PLANCHA - Octopus straight from the barbecue
*SARDINES ESCABECHADAS - Filleted sardines marinated in olive oil, vinegar & garlic
*CHORIZO A LA PLANCHA - Barbecued Spanish pork & paprika sausage
*PATATAS BRAVAS - Fried cubed potatoes topped with spicy tomato salsa
*CHAMPINONES A LA PLANCHA Barbecued whole button mushrooms with white wine garlic and parsley
*CALAMARES FRITOS - Fresh, fried calamari


Dessert were casadiellas, pastries made from ground wanuts, cinnamon, lemon zest & anis liqueur, dusted with icing sugar, and were very yummy and Christmassy.

Julia LOVED the sardines, and no one else touched them - she was my food hero for the evening. I think Tapas kept on shooting her looks, like "Are you sure?!"

We were also entertained halfway through our meal by some Spanish dancing, and that was pretty awesome. I love it when we have these interludes in meals for dancing, just like at Rowda Ya-Habibi!

Ying tried to get Rena's attention by calling her name, but when that failed I suggested, just for fun, she try other names she might answer to like "bitch" or "skanky-ho", which didn't work either because Rena is neither bitchy nor in the least bit skanky. She's just has a knack of selectively blocking out idiots like Ying and I!

This is a photo of Rena refusing to smile ...

Afterwards we headed out to Darling Harbour to Pier 26 for a few drinks, then we called it a night. Happy 20th Ying!

the return of the SMS bully!

At uni right now, waiting for work to start at 6 ... *sigh*.

Am in the Building 2 computer lab, and thought I was in the room all by myself, so I started to play Goldfrapp from my computer at a fairly loud volume. Then a guy in the room told me off... but seriously, I didn't know anyone else was there! And it's Goldfrapp! Grrr.

Anyway, I know what you're all here for ... the return of the SMS bully. Here's her latest piece:

Dog if ya going to school tomorrow slut im going to kick your hole

I'm not replying anymore, and I'm sort of glad that the person who is supposed to be getting the messages isn't. She probably thinks she's really intimidating this poor girl... and she isn't even getting these messages. Hahahaha.

holidays!

Holiday plans - help me add to this list, and also let me know what you're doing so I can gatecrash (no, not really. but if you are offering a trip to Hawaii ...)

DVDs to watch:
*Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 1, 2 & 3
*The Office Season 2
*The West Wing ... because Alissa is obsessed, and I want to know what all the fuss is about!
*Clara Law - Letters to Ali, Floating Life
*Pedro Almodovar - Bad Education, Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown
*Agnes Varda - Cleo a 5 de 7
*Wong Kar-Wai - 2046, Fallen Angels, Happy Together

Books to read:
*The Latham Diaries (have currently got this out, incredibly - but not intentionally - funny and controversial)
*Jonestown ... because I'm morbidly fascinated by the prospect of Alan Jones having crushes.
*Margaret Whitlam biography ... because she bags out Janette Howard for holding hands with her husband.
*Maybe some Ruth Rendell

Things to do:
*Jade's 21st, Ying's 20th
*Work Christmas Party
*Melbourne trip? in January
*Australia Day at the Rocks
*Secret Santa dinner
*Modest Mouse @ the Hordern
*Damien Rice!
*Snow Patrol (missed out on tix for this, but doesn't mean that I won't stop trying!)
*Transcribe, film, and SLEEP (the most important one)