What An Exciting Weekend!

My brush with fame continued on Saturday night when I got to meet and greet Penny Taylor! Woohoo! My encounter was captured quite succinctly on camera (thank you Wayne):


Here I am getting very nervous at the thought of being in the presence of PT. Armed with a program (which we rorted from a corporate box) and a pen (which turned out to be dodgy), I was contemplating what topics of conversation I could muster with PT (apart from Bunsen burners and the periodic table).

Shar & Wayne were completely flummoxed by my excitement & enthusiasm. They were patiently watching me go completely loco like a kid in a candy store. They eventually got fed up & kept saying "I want to go to KFC". But chicken can wait whereas celebrities cannot - although hot'n'spicy is only back for a limited time.

What a golden moment!
Started off a bit shaky with my dodgy pen not working. After laughing at my use of the word "dodgy", PT asked her mother for a pen (how embarrassing) - she even introduced me to her mother! After searching extensively in her hand bag, no pen was to be found so PT [continued below] ...

A fruiful night notwithstanding the fact that we were probably the only ones there that weren't under the age of 20. The Opals allowed some time for signing autographs. I left the stadium a very happy little cherub. And yes, everybody did get their KFC.


The only question that remains outstanding is whether our asses would look bigger or smaller than the Opals' in those body suits.

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[continued] ... had to ask this little boy to borrow his pen. Why couldn't I have just brought a pen that works? I asked her about Phoenix and she gave me a very detailed answer. She even told me that her team lost to L.A that night by 2. I decided to do some sucky-uppy by telling her that she would have made the difference. She was extremely nice and polite, and an absolute treat to meet. I wished her good luck with her future endeavours and although I could have possibly stayed and chatted longer, I was getting too tongue tied and felt I should leave before I made an even bigger fool of myself. Definitely the highlight of my night considering the actual game was pretty crap and the cheerleaders were OH SO BAAAAAAAD! They were a good source of (bad) entertainment though.

I AM FAMOUS!

OMG! I made it on to the most pre-eminent website of our times: WNBA.com
Check me our here! (See Question 2)
I think I've had my fair share of '15 minutes of fame' this year. Damn, I hope I am not wasting it on undistinguished feats. By my calculations, I still have a good 8 minutes left which hopefully will be worthy of Daily Telegraph/Today Tonight mentions.

I think I have something similar to Sjögren's Syndrome and/or Multiple Sclerosis. Why do I say this? No, not because I have Munchausen Disease ... but because I keep attacking my 2nd finger on both hands. I can't stop myself from cracking it! I crack it when I'm bored, when I'm stressed, when I'm reading, when I'm thinking, on the toilet, on the train ... everywhere, every time. I have these abnormally sized knuckles on my index fingers now and it's GROSS.

There has been a deafening silence of late which must be filled with verbose crap poste haste.

Apologies for the lack of updates, but since the move to the dreaded 'open-floor plan' (accessorised with low partitions) I've had to be more accountable for my time, work and internet activity (since the entire floor has a bird's eye view of my screen now).

Where to begin? Well I just returned from a 10 minute massage session with the workplace masseuse and OHMYGAWD! Luckily he had one of those chairs where you squish your face in the hole, or else I would have been moaning away like a silly git. You know the other day when we were in a video conference, I saw myself on screen and I was shocked to see just how BIG my head is vis-a-vis the rest of my body. It makes me look like a child! And the big cheeks just adds to the BIGNESS of my head. And someone actually called me "button" the other day!? At first I thought it's because he couldn't recall my name but could it be because of my appearance?

It's been a week of rude males (again).

Rule Male Incident No. 1
As we were reversing into a car parking space outside Eric/Fiona's apartment, this man decides to stand right in the middle of it, supposedly because he was minding it for his work colleague (who had yet to arrive but when he showed up was on the wrong side of the road). At first Wayne tried to have a chat with him. Becoming increasingly impatient and pissed off at the situation, I jumped out of the back seat and intervened with the objective of speeding up the 'piss of stupid male' process. As predicted, he had the usual "I'm allowed to stand wherever I want on the road"; "you're not allowed to reverse into me" arguments. Initially I tried the respectful technique of addressing him as 'sir' and utilising logic, but obviously a discussion based on logic is futile when dealing with stupid males. We ended up resorting to the following points: "does that mean you can stand in the middle of George St since you're allowed to stand wherever you want on the road"; "does that mean that anybody can camp out on the street to mind parking spots". After some painfully obvious statements, he finally gave up and walked away somewhat disgusted. To make the point a little more cogent, I decided to walk across the street and mind an empty spot for his work colleague. But alas, the gesture was not appreciated and his colleague drove right past.
I'm kinda amazed he took me seriously considering I was wearing my beanie and bball gear (i.e. loser pet store). Goes to show that justice prevails even when you look completely disrespectable.

Rule Male Incident No. 2
Last week's touch footy game was marred by the following remarks between myself and bastard No. 7:
[Me on defence]
No.7: *whinges* (because I accidentally tipped him too hard - so he reckons anyway)
Me: "Stop bitching and play the game"
[Next set of attack - me of offence]
Me: "Watch the tits" (as he whacked me across that region pretty damn hard)
No.7: "Stop bitching and play the game" (in a mocking tone)
Me: "Wait til you have tits, then you can come back and say that to me"
[Later on in the game - talking to the referee]
No.7: "Sir, I think the girl in yellow shorts (me) has a problem"

Rule Male Incident No. 3
Same touch footy game. Equally as rude male but fatter and slower.
Rude Male: "Stop touching my balls"

He was clearly delusional and probably took up the sport because it has the word "touch" in it. Ok, a bit harsh but how offensive and disgusting is his suggestion? Makes me want to puke. This same guy had the balls to apologise after the game - should have really kneed him at that point. What an idiot! I cry "chivalry"!!

On completely different subjects:

Felicity
On a major Felicity craze at the moment, which could explain my Felicity DVD watching long weekend. I forgot how much I love that show. Seriously need to purchase Season 3 and hopefully Season 4 will come out soon. This show really tugs at my heart strings and affects me in the most profound ways. Yeah lamo I know. And unlike shows such as Buffy & Alias, it is not completely devoid of reality - I mean, I could never really fall in love with a vampire ;p Ok, shall stop talking searchingly about this before I begin ranting on why they had to cancel the series - bastard males of network television!

Basketball
Opals playing in a pre-olympics tournament this weekend. Am very keen on watching them, especially in light of the fact that Penny Taylor will be in town - woohooo! Can talk to her about Bunsen burners again. Can you actually believe that we discussed about bunsen burners last time we met? What the? I have no idea how it came up. Perhaps I can bring up the periodic table this time and how helium looks all alone in the right hand corner. Checked out the Opals' draw in the Olympics - they have a good shot @ the Gold this year.

Nice Japanese Waitresses
I don't know why but I have an issue with nice Japanese waitresses, especially the one on York Street. Every time I go to that restaurant, I get extremely upset and end up leaving the eatery depressed and lamenting on why she is smiling all the time. Is she truly happy? Is it a facade? I felt so bad one time that I left a note for her with the bill thanking her profusely for the wonderful & kind service. She came out running after reading it and smiled her gentle smile. That made me even more upset. Settle petal - need a grip on reality I think ...

College
Some results are out and woohooo - I got a H.D for one subject! More results pending.

Miss Universe
Couldn't resist the temptation of commenting on the 2004 pageant after viewing some weeks ago. First, the Australian delegate was so much more substandard than first imagined. Not only was she the only one without a degree, but her walk resembled that of Demi Moore's in 'Strip Tease'. But then, the most beautiful of the lot (Miss Paraguay) had this to say when asked which female leader she'd like to interview and why: "I am here in Miss Universe pageant as a finalist." What's going on? Do beauty and brains have to be mutually exclusive these days? Surely not with shows like 'Extreme Make Over' and 'Queer Eye'.

Work
Development/career plan time - ackkkkkkkk. I wish myself mental health and a good dose of self esteem.

Okay long enough blog. Outtie ...

Let's aim for a bit of sporting and cultural flavour today.

I read in the paper this morning that Miss Australia won the Miss Universe pageant. Considering this site is a slight homage to the Miss Universe cause (only by title), I thought I'd give this near miraculous event some 'PR'. By the way, welcome to all those people who have done searches on "miss universe 2004" and unfortunately ended up here. Even though I am Australian (by citizenship) and share aspirations of donning my native traditional dress,¹ I am afraid you have been duped by either yahoo, google or ninemsn (this is why you shouldn't buy shares in Google).

What luxury is it for a girl to claim that she "never really wanted to be a beauty queen" and "joked about Miss Universe as she watched it on television with her mother" but nevertheless goes on to winning the darn thing with minimal effort. Though I must say that her description of winning the pageant really perplexes me: "It's like having a really bad car accident - you don't see it coming and it changes your life significantly". Somehow, I would have used a more up-beat analogy ... but hey, I'd be happy if someone sings me the "you are my star ... la la la la" song. AND do you notice how quickly the runner-up gets whisked away when they announce the winner. We're talking milli-seconds. Isn't that the ultimate feeling of being a loser - being carted away because you don't deserve the limelight. Cut up.


For those that are partial to the NBA, it looks like it will be Detroit and L.A in the finals. And now I would like to make a bold statement - Detroit will win the championship. Why? No mathematics or probability involved (because I don't understand the crap). Purely due to the fact that the WNBA finals played out in exactly the same fashion and Detroit ended up stealing the championship convincingly.

And speaking of basketball, our team had a really good win last night. I haven't enjoyed a game of basketball as I much as I did last night for a long time. Hmmm that was a bit of a nebulous sentence. Nevertheless, enjoyment came at a cost. I am now suffering from what is medically coined as "blunt trauma" (colloquially known as a cork thigh). I'm a bit concerned in light of the fact that a certain resident of Hornsby Hospital did NOT know what a cork was. What are they teaching in med school these days? Oh yeah ... and I am NOT A CHOKER ANYMORE! YAY! Actually managed to sink all 4 of my free throws in the dying seconds of our tied game. I am now officially in the same league as Michael Jordan *cough* Looks like I'll have to take up softball soon.

Will have to be moving building soon, into an open plan office. Oh the horror! Though the kitchen is much better and there is a vending machine. But still ... OPEN PLAN! No more dodgy conversations on the phone.

Managed to eat foil yesterday after insisting on warming Sylvia's leftovers (which was wrapped in foil) in the microwave. I knew that it was going to catch on fire, but somehow I managed to convince myself that the laws of chemistry was not going to apply to me and my food that day. The power of denial ... it's what Dr Phil makes a living out of. So it caught on fire and melted bits of my lunch box. That lunch box has been through so much. First, it was dumped (down the loo), and now it's been burnt (via microwave). It's almost like it's been in a long-term relationship. So I ended up crunching on bits of aluminium foil, but hey, at least the food was yummolicious. You're a great cook Sylvia!

And Mindy ... when you're sliding into first, and you feel something burst ...

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1 http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2004/06/02/1086058896254.html

So what do you say when someone barges in your office with "I'm sick, I've got the shingles and I just got my period".
Do what I did throughout chemistry class in High School, that is, *smile and nod*
And if it wasn't smiling and nodding, it was singing the Nigel Song, or sucking up to my Maths teacher whom I absolutely adored (no hanky panky though).

Anyway, found out yesterday that I could have gone to Singapore for 3 days to do a presentation that I prepared for the Spore Telco Code but nooooooo I had stupid College. I really must have bad karma, or extreme bad luck, but then again luck is only how you perceive things apparently. So in another words, I am pretty lucky since NOT going to S'pore means I won't put on weight and get that ugly yellow air-conditioning skin colour that is so predominant amongst people of that country (no offence). Instead I can put on weight here (since it is winter) and get that awful white chocolate dry skin colour. Woohoo!

Speaking of winter ... how cold has it been? I almost died of hypothermia last night during touch. It took a good hour to regain feeling in my fingers. Perhaps I will have to start being hard core and wear those Rocky fingerless gloves. But then that defeats the purpose of gloves huh? Go figure. Last night, there was this guy who FULLY blew his nose (twice on the right nostril, and once on the left nostril) on the field. Then he has the audacity to shake everybody's hands after such an act of human indecency. Was really torn as to whether I should shake his hand or not. I hope the sub-degree temperature of my hands manage to sedate the snot germs.

Seattle play Phoenix on Friday morning 2:30am! How exciting! Will have to hold a nigel party reminiscent of the nigel World Cup Soccer Party I held in 1999 (as soon as I find someone who will lend me their Optus/Foxtel).