tintinnabular

I love that Australians have taken over twitter and that it's about politics and not sport! How many people outside Australia must be scratching their heads wondering what on earth a #spill has to do with #tonyabbott? Thankfully, it doesn't mean he spilled out of his budgie smugglers. There don't seem to be many conservatives on twitter because the reaction is mostly negative, and those who are happy are mostly people who think this will be a good thing for the ALP and not for the Liberals. Abbott is absolutely vile but I can't see him winning an election. If I'm wrong, I'm leaving the country.

Just brushing off the cobwebs for some brief thoughts about Merlin.

( Merlin 2.10 )

( The Real Merlin and Arthur )

Goddamn you Bradley James for getting "The Voice" stuck in my head! Bradley and Colin are ridiculously adorable, and just plain ridiculous, when singing along to it, but the cultural cringe that song induces somewhat diminishes my enjoyment of it.

Glandular fever is boring me into posting again.

( Cut for ramblings and spoilers )

I haven't watched the new Hey Hey It's Saturday. I was shocked that it was brought back at all because it was irrelevant and out of date when it was originally on air. I was outraged when I saw the blackface skit online. I was even more outraged, but sadly not that surprised, when I made the mistake of reading some of the comments by fellow Australians who just do not get it. The skit was racist. I don't believe the people doing the skit intended to offend anyone but that doesn't change the fact that what they did was incredibly offensive. Some people have defended it by saying that it was a "tribute" or parody of a specific musical act (The Jackson 5). Some have defended it by saying that blackface is not a part of our culture and therefore can't be expected to be aware that it could offend people in America. Bullshit. The word "blackface" isn't part of our culture but the concept certainly is; just look at golliwog dolls and biscuits, an image inspired by blackface minstrel dolls. I remember having the biscuits at a friend's house when I was a child, although by that point the named had been changed to "Scalliwag". The makeup and wigs the people in the skit were so exaggerated I would have no idea they were supposed to be The Jackson 5 unless told. They were even doing minstrel-style dancing! So yes, I am very skeptical that these men were really unaware that they were using blackface or at the very least unaware they were using a racial stereotype. The men in the skit tried to defend themselves by saying they are a multicultural group and therefore cannot possibly be racist. This is the same ludicrous argument I've seen a lot of Aussies use in blogs in defense of our country - "we're a multicultural country therefore we can't be racist" - with no sense of awareness about the discrimination and racist attacks many of these groups face: the attacks on Indian students earlier this year and the Cronulla riots of 2005 are just two of the better known examples. Others said Harry Connick Jr was hypocritical for criticising the skit because of this skit in which Connick parodies Southern preachers (save your sanity and do not read the comments). Maybe I need to have my eyes checked but Connick Jr is not wearing black face, nor does he have makeup on to make him appear to be black; he is doing a parody of white Southern preacher.

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I'm still alive (I think). I will get around to blogging about my trip mostly for my own records but it appears as if most of my friends are no longer using LJ anyway. At the moment I struggle to write things longer than 140 characters (this entry being an exception) due to suffering the most annoying illness ever: glandular fever. I had the audacity to go out on Saturday afternoon to see one of my dearest friends who I haven't seen in ages and have been barely able to get out of bed ever since. I'm physically, mentally and emotionally drained so not terribly good company even during the rare moments I feel well enough to actually attempt being social. I've barely seen my friends in the last month because I've been sick since the day after I got back. Being in The Netherlands with Ali seems like an age ago. It's very strange whenever someone asks to hear about my trip. I saw a lot of amazing things but it can be so hard to find the words to adequately describe/explain the experience, especially since my experiences in Cardiff, which took up the majority of my time away, were more about interesting people than things. If you spend most of every day for four to eight weeks with people you are bound to become close (or at least come away with some interesting stories) but sometimes once you leave those confines you realise that closeness was transient. I hope I stay in touch with most of my friends from the course, some more than others. 

I kind of want to blog about the racefail on Hey Hey but at this point I think I would be ranty rather than intelligent and coherent. 

I'VE SUBMITTED MY THESIS!!!!!!!!!!! 

 I think my luck is finally beginning to change because I've just won a competition for the first time ever and it's actually a pretty cool prize! I've won free tickets to any gig at the Hordern Pavilion in 2009! I was automatically entered into it when I ordered my NIN tickets and promptly forgot about it. Of course I've just checked the Hordern's website and there is absolutely nothing on that I want to see other than NIN. Hopefully some good bands will come out this year. But only when I'm actually in the country!

It is the worst time to be trying to finish a thesis because it is too hot to concentrate! I'm also very tired because I insisted on getting up at 3 am so I could watch the inauguration live. It was totally worth it. It's so fantastic to have an eloquent President again! When I called Mum this morning she answered the phone by saying: "a proud American speaking". This is a woman who has been threatening to revoke her citizenship for the last 8 years. President Obama's speech was so impressive striking the right balance between realism and hope. I loved that he acknowledged non-believers, Muslims, Jews and Hindus; he makes such an effort to be inclusive (this is why I think he chose Rick Warren to give the invocation who I detest but would placate the ultra conservative right) which is what the  country needs right now. Let's just hope his words are backed up by actions.

 

 Holy frak!

( Spoilers )

 You are so ridiculous but I still love you. He totally has lip gloss on; you can't tell from the photo but his lips are suspiciously shiny in the video at the original source.( Click for pretty )

Nick has been released from hospital! Hopefully now he will no longer have anymore setbacks and can just start recovering. 


A few days ago Holly and I were commenting on how I haven't been sick in ages, which is unusual for me, so of course now I am sick. Just a cold and sore throat but I feel quite horrid. And of course it's hot and humid - seriously, why do I never get colds when it is actually cold?! I must be feeling slightly morbid because I've just started watching Survivors. The whole post-apocalyptic, plague killing most of the population story has been so many times before and has been done better than this. I've never seen the original so I don't know how it compares and so far this remake doesn't seem to contribute anything new to the genre. I'm hoping it will improve.  

 I spent most of last night watching 80s British cartoons with a housemate and friends. First up was SuperTed - the original Welsh version! It was so great to hear the language again but I was kind of depressed but how little I understood. Even more reason for me to go to Cardiff in July! Next up was an episode of DangerMouse featuring a Welsh dragon because we had to have a segue. Out of all the shows we watched it was considered to be the one that holds up the best. SuperTed possibly would have if we could understand what was going on. I don't think it helped that we picked a really trippy episode - some evildoer taking over SuperTed's dream which involves him and Spotty (Smotyn in Welsh) being trapped in a Dali-esque world. Then we watched Count Duckula. The general consensus was that it wasn't as good as we remembered it being when we were kids. Finally we watched Trap Door. The theme song was more exciting than the actually episodes which were just really random but not in a funny way (e.g. an entire episode of Berk fishing) and increasingly contrived ways of getting Berk to open the trap door. The best episode was one that was basically just an extended version of the theme song which we watched a few times. 

 Matt Smith! My first thought was: I think Captain Jack will be very happy!

I've looked at his wikipedia entry and still have no idea who he is so I don't have strong feelings about his casting. But I'll probably end up loving him; I'd probably end up loving anyone because it's the Doctor! Although I am relieved it's not James Nesbitt. He is my age which is quite young but then Peter Davison was only three years older when he played the Doctor. David Tennant is so incredibly popular he has a lot to live up too and being unknown might help him overcome that. 

I still haven't seen Confidential yet - it really sucks living outside the UK at a time like this. 

First a non meaty food obsession! I've been getting back into baking. I just bought a Women's Weekly cookbook with cupcake, cheesecake and cookie recipes and strangely for me I am more interested in the cookie recipes than the cupcakes. I have a ridiculous amount of desiccated coconut and white chocolate melts because Mum gave me some baking supplies she wasn't going to use. I don't really like white chocolate so I don;'t know what I'll do with the melts but I am a bit obsessed with coconut at the moment. I made coconut macaroons last night which turned out really well. They very light albeit somewhat sticky. They are so easy to make. I want to make them again and am considering experimenting by dipping them in chocolate and then letting the chocolate set in the fridge. They are pretty awesome by themselves but chocolate could potentially make them epic. The only problem is that the recipe only uses egg whites so I have to figure out what I can do with the yolks. I have a spaghetti carbonara recipe that uses yolks only so that is one option but I have been eating too much pasta lately so I need some other ideas as well.

I finally have an appropriate userpic for these entries just as my meat obsession is finally starting to settle down! ( meatastic )

 Before anyone gets too excited, I am not discussing who will play the 11th Doctor, but the Christmas special called The Next Doctor. I don't think they will announce it for a while yet. Russell T. Davies's final specials will air in 2010 so we might not even find out until then, although I hope we find out sooner. 

( Spoilers ahoy! )

More exciting adventures this week! Yesterday I had baked ham at Mum's place for an early Christmas dinner (she basically wanted an excuse to drink lots of Champagne). She cooked it with pineapple and apricots and deliciousness and as you can probably tell I enjoyed it very much. I've also tried beef but only in a lasagna. It was awesome and now I'm craving a beef burger. I've also tried two types of seafood this week but one doesn't really count - prawns and tinned tuna. I didn't mind the taste of the prawns but I still don't like the texture and struggled to eat three of them. I was surprised by how bland the tuna was. I still find it utterly bizarre that I have no qualms about eating foods I would have found repulsive even just a month ago. It wasn't that long ago that I couldn't stand to be in the kitchen if someone had opened a tin of tuna because the smell was that overwhelming to me. On Christmas day I will be trying some salmon so that will be the true fish test. 

 http://beautifulcervix.com/

It's a project by a 25 year old woman, who is also a doula and student midwife, who has taken a photo of her cervix every day for one menstrual cycle. It's not safe for work but I don't want to say that the photos are "graphic" because I don't think a woman's anatomy is graphic! I'm posting the link because I think it is an important site for women to look at it. We're not encouraged to talk about our sexual organs in a mature way or are made to feel embarrassed about them. This site celebrates them and it is very educational.   

So Gabe jokingly said I should start a blog about eating meat again and I thought it was actually a good idea. Since I already have this blog I thought I would just post here. After that first bite of Mum’s meatballs I’ve gone a bit crazy. It’s all happened so fast but it is a huge change for me so I really need to sort my thoughts out and that’s partially what I use this blog for anyway. 

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 Nick's surgery should have started now. I can't concentrate on my thesis and I'm making myself feel sick by thinking about it too much so in an effort to distract myself I'm going to rant about the many shows I'm watching at the moment. You lucky things.

( Heroes )

( Pushing Daisies )

( True Blood )

The main show I am obsessed with at the moment is Merlin, a new BBC show which was made to fill Doctor Who's timeslot. I am totally in love with it and because it is Arthurian I could rant endlessly about it so I'll save it for another post at a later date. I bet you can't wait. :) It will be airing on Channel Ten early next year and you should definitely give it a chance. Chloe, I think your boys would love it - lots of sword fighting but it is a child-friendly show.

I’ve finally gotten around to watching Showtime’s series about Henry VIII. It’s surprising that it has taken me this long because I love this period of history and the Tudors are fascinating. I tried to keep my expectations low which is a good thing because it ended up being a very trashy soap opera with corsets.( Spoilers ahoy )

 

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