12th of November: My adventures on StumbleUpon

Before I start today's topic, I'll give you a bit of an update on my life.  As you may or may not know, I'm currently at the tail-end of my final uni exams for the year.  I have my last one tomorrow.  Psychology and Criminology went well, but I wasn't worried about them anyway.  I had anatomy today.  All through this semester, I have struggled with anatomy, mainly because it's completely unrelated from the rest of my subjects.  The teachers keep saying stuff like "Don't worry learning about that, you'll do it in your physiology class tomorrow".  Guess what?  I don't do physiology, so you better not fucking ask me physiology questions in the exam.  In other words, most other people in that class had anatomy supported by their other classes.  I had one core subject, then I had to choose 3 elective, none related to psych.  Naturally, it didn't end well.  I could handle psych, crim and anthropology, because they taught you what you needed to know.  I couldn't do anatomy, because the 3 lectures and 1 practical a week were clearly not enough to teach me about EVERYTHING in the human body.  Cellular level, upwards.  Of course I can't do it.

For anatomy, I passed the first exam by 2.6 points, failed the second by 2.6 points, so I was exactly on 50% of assessment so far.  I did the practical, and I passed by 0.6 of a mark.  So, before today's exam, I was on 30.6/60.  Today's exam makes up the other 40%, and I don't think I did fantastically.  I'll be surprised if I pass.  The first thing I did was go to the student enquiry desk and ask what happens when you fail.  Long story short, it's not the end of the world.

Anyway, on to today's topic.

There's a toolbar you can download if you go here.  It's called StumbleUpon, and I love it.  You select your interests out of a massive variety of categories.  Anything you can think of, there's relevant pages on it.  It's awesome.

Anyway.  After you do your interests, you can start Stumbling.  You hit a button, and it sends you to a web page relevant to your interests.  You can select "All" and be sent to a page from any of your interests, or you can chose a specific one.

I'll show you a few pages I've Stumbled onto.


http://www.kennethparker.com/100_park_temples.html   - There's quite a few pages like this, where it's just a picture, but usually they're awesome, like this one by Kenneth Parker.  Just looking at his photos, I'm pretty sure most of them would make for beautiful desktop backgrounds.

  - There's quite a lot of simple, yet thought provoking stuff on there.


http://www.coolpicturegallery.net/2010/10/10-most-reckless-doctors.html  - Then there's creepy shit like this.  It's about doctors who do terrible (or terribly stupid) things to their patients.  I would pursue my dream of being a cosmetic surgeon, but I get the feeling that I would do stupid shit, like the doctor that left a sponge in their patient's spine.  Not intentionally of course...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doIcr8Jw4gY  - Have you ever seen that 3d pavement chalk art?  This video is a time lapse video of how it's done.



http://www.notreallybutseriously.com/index/NRBS_043.html  -  A short comic-style picture of how different superheroes would handle a situation.  It's pretty awesome.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/71127  - The story behind Abraham Lincoln's beard.  I don't know if it's true though.  Never heard of it.

http://www.funzug.com/index.php/nature/amazing-sight-in-the-south-pacific.html  - Awesome pictures, but WTF.  Another reason to be afraid of the ocean.  There's all sorts of weird shit in there.

http://www.rockstartutu.com/adult-teen/adult-teen-tutus.html  - An online tutu shop.  What's up with that? Who buys tutus online?


http://io9.com/5443825/sci-fi-foods-we-wish-actually-existed  - Oh man, this totally brings out the nerd in me.  The Milliways Dish of the Day creeps me out a bit.  I don't think I could handle a conversation with my dinner of choice.


http://www.buzzfeed.com/melismashable/the-best-of-face-replace  - This is so funny!  Basically, if there's someone making a stupid face in a photo, everyone else has that face photo shopped over their real one.  I don't know if that made any sense, but just look at it and you'll get it.  21 is so gross though.


http://www.spreeder.com/app.php - If you want to try and train yourself to read faster, this would probably be really helpful.  Unfortunately, I'm already a fast reader, so I don't get too much benefit from it.


http://www.direman.com/direman/comic.php?comicID=515 - I think you have to be fairly nerdy to get this one.  "Camping" is an online gaming term for sitting in one stop, waiting for the enemies to come to you.  And people hate campers.  And abuse the crap out of them.  Online gaming is serious business.


http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html - Very true.


http://www.inewidea.com/2009/12/28/16155.html - HOLY CRAP I WANT IT


http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/11/how-to-permanently-delete-your-account-on-popular-websites/ - A handy guide to deleting accounts.  I know that Facebook is notoriously hard to delete. It may come in handy to someone.

http://fakescience.tumblr.com/ - Fake Science, for when real science is too hard. 

http://www.sexcigarsbooze.com/2010/07/old-rockers-then-now/ - Rock stars, then and now. For some of them, the only difference is the amount of make up the men wear. Side note:  Check out Bon Jovi's chest hair!

http://www.zornog.net/etc/martainrandom/martainrandom.htm  - It starts off as a somewhat believable story about the room mate from hell.  By the end of it, you know it's not possible, but you want to keep reading anyway.  It's also quite long.


http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/fascinating-new-species-found-in-papua-new-guinea.php - Some newly discovered animals in PNG.


http://www.fludit.com/design/dudes-made-from-lego-cubes.html - Some easily recognisable people/characters, all made from Lego!

 Well.  I think it's nearly time for me to go to bed.  Or at least stop blogging.  I have my anthro exam tomorrow at a stupidly early time, and I've only revised over the first 4 weeks of notes, which was a pretty solid effort of 19 pages.  I'll print off the rest, shower, then take it to bed with me.

Night, readers.

Current word count is 20, 706 + 980 = 21, 686.

6th of November: Catching up.

So, I kind of missed the 6th of November. 

I had to work, and it was so stressful that I've blocked the entire day out.  I'm beginning to hate Christmas.  A lot.  People seriously walk in, and don't look for their own stuff, they just grab a catalogue and point and grunt at us.  They might as well just make a list and let us shop for them.  It would be a whole lot more efficient than them pointing at stuff, and we have to run all over the store because they're idiots who can't use their own eyes.  But this is more relevant to today, because I was on the floor (walking around helping people find stuff).  Yesterday, I was on registers, and my god, it was the worst day ever.

We have this deal where if you spend over $100, you get a $10 gift card.  This doesn't seem too stressful, but you have to write down all these details, and stamp the receipt.  There's a bunch of other promotional stuff going too.  I"ll give you an idea of what happened with most customers yesterday.

*Customer walks up and dumps their shit*
Me: Hi, how are you?
*awkward silence as I put through their items*
Me:  Since you bought over $40 of Dora stuff, you also get a free trolley bag.
*Customer grunts*
Me:  You also spent over $75, so would you like one of these plush polar bears for an extra $5?
*Customer grunts*
Me:  Would you like to go into the runnig to win a $1000 shopping spree?  Just fill out your details and I'll enter you on the register.
*Customer grunts*
Me:  *enters email address*
Me:  Ok, that's $405096849.  Since your total was over $100, you get a free $10 gift card.  
*Customer pays*
*I frantically write down transaction numbers and total costs, tick boxes, stamp and highlight receipts, and tell the customer how to use the EFTPOS machine because they're retarded*
Me:  Here's your receipt and gift card, if you go to the website that I highlighted down the bottom, you can fill out a survey about the store and get a $5 voucher. Have a nice day!
*Customer grunts, looks at their receipt, and goes straight to refund counter to grunt about being overcharged*

So yeah.  Registers suck when it's busy.  When it's not busy, it's boring as shit.

Floor is pretty much the same.  Boring for the majority of the time, but when it's busy, there's people everywhere coming at you.  Not cool.

When I woke up this morning, I had a massive headache, which was a continuation of the night before (no alcohol was involved).  I took some painkillers, then went to work.  I felt pretty good, until about 20 minutes in, when I had a really bitchy customer.  I was running around all over the store for her, and when I was helping her with easels, she dropped one on me.  On my head.  Bitch.

After that, I made an unbeliveable amount of dumb mistakes.  As I said on Facebook, I need to dye my hair blonde to match my actions today.  

Well, I'm finished work, finally.  Now I have to revise for my psychology exam tomorrow afternoon.

 Since I'm seriously far behind on my word count (not really, but I want to stay ahead)  I may as well revise by teaching my readers what I've learned in the last few weeks.  It's kind of interesting.  I've found that psychology is mostly giving names to things that you understand, but don't have a name for.

Currently, I'm on the week 6 lecture: Socical Psychology.

Soical psychology is the study of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, implied or imagined prescence of others.  According to Gordon Allport.

Fundamental Attribution Error is the general tendency to wrongly attribute people's behaviour to internal dispositons, while underestimating the effects of social and environmental errors.  An example of this is when someone bumps into youand knocks you over, and they hurry past without apologising.  The fundamental attribution error is when we assume this guy is a complete asshole who doesn't care about other people, etc.  We assume it's part of his internal disposition, or personality, when he could be rushing off to help an injured person, or stop someone from stealing, or he may have to be somewhere very urgently.  But ususally, people ignore the environmental factors, and assume he's an asshole.

Asch's Studies of Conformity:  The participant is in a room with other people (who are actors, pretending to be participants).  They get shown pictures with 3 lines on it, labelled A, B and C.  They are asked which one is shortest.  It is no question about which is the shortest, but the actors all say the wrong answer and seem very confident about it.  The participant gets confused, and may stare at the image, wondering whether he isn't seeing something.  Eventually, he agrees with the rest of the people by saying the obviously wrong answer.  It shows that people will go with majority influence, rather than their own perceptions.  What's interesting though, is that if one of the actors is told to be defiant and go against the group, then participant will almost always side with the defiant actor.

Milgram's Studies of Obediance:  This is a pretty famous one, used to justify the actions of soldiers in war, Nazis in particular.  A participant is placed in a room with an authoritative person, who says they are connected to Yale University or somewhere of similar prestige.  The participant is told that they are to ask another participant (who is an actor, located in a different room, but still able to be heard) questions.  If the other person answers incorrectly, the participant is to administer electric shocks, increasing in voltage as more incorrect answers are given.  Every time an electric shock is given (not really, but the participant thinks so) the actor screams, and pleads them to stop.  Guess what?  The participants didn’t stop, even when the shocks were supposedly lethal.  A few (maybe 1 in 100 or so) got upset and refused to continue, but not a single one tried to check on the person that they thought they were shocking.  This study is sometimes used to justify people’s actions in a war-scenario, where people are told to kill under orders of their superiors.  They don’t kill because they’re terrible people, but because of the authority figures standing over them, demanding they continue.

Bystander Intervention:  The more bystanders around witnessing an event, the less likely a person is to interfere. Everyone assumes “oh, someone else will take care of it”.  This can potentially be very dangerous.  I’ve seen videos on Youtube testing this out, where a child actor is told to scream and cry when another actor attempts to “kidnap” the child.  Most people didn’t do anything, especially women.  They looked uncomfortable, but looked the other way and hurried off.  A few men stopped to help the little girl out, and the situation was immediately explained to them by the experimenters.  The best response by far was the massive gang of black guys who went to beat the shit out of the acting kidnapper until the experimenters ran out trying to stop them from killing the poor actor. 

Now that I think about it, a lot of these things make sense.  Even if you read it and think “I wouldn’t do this.  I would never electrocute someone to death, and I would intervene if I saw a child being kidnapped”.  But the truth is, you probably have already been in this sort of situation, and you HAVEN’T helped.  I know that I’d like to be able to say that I wouldn’t do this, but I would, because I have.

 In school, or even in any social situation, if someone is being excluded from a group, you would rather stay in favour of the group’s leader (or in the experiment’s example, the authority figure) rather than try to help the  person being excluded (or given electric shocks).  This is natural, because humans are far more concerned with preserving their own well-being and social standing, rather than risk it for someone else.

In the bystander intervention example, I’ve recently been in this situation as a bystander.  I was in a little café thing at uni, just having lunch.  A special needs boy came in, with his carer.  The boy was walking along behind the carer, before he started acting strange.  He eventually collapsed, and started having a seizure in the middle of the café.  The carer was there, helping him.  The girl that worked there came out, and wasn’t sure what to do, she got the boy a glass of water, and just sort of hovered around anxiously.   I sat there thinking about bystander intervention statistics, and thinking about why I should or shouldn’t help.  I decided that if I did try to help, I would probably get in the way because I didn’t know the slightest thing about seizures, and I would just be in the way.  Even though I knew I was just conforming to previous studies, I didn’t help because I thought, as I’m sure many participants thought, that “someone else will take care of it”.  Anyway, the kid was fine within a few minutes, and he walked off with his carer to have lunch somewhere.

Well, that’s all of Week 6 for you.    I’ll spare you all the rest.

Word count =  12,796. 

4th of November: It's nearly Christmas!

Now, as most of you know, I work at a toy store. Ordinarily, people go "OMG cool" or "it must be so fun to work there".  No.  Think about it.  There's fun stuff freakin' everywhere, and you can't play with it, you have to get as much of it out of the store as possible.  That being said, it's still more fun than wherever you work.

Since it's approaching Christmas, we put out our 45 page catalogue yesterday.  It's not even the Christmas one.  It's like the pre-Christmas one, and its 45 pages.  It ends on November 16th.  What a waste of paper.  If it lasted to DECEMBER 16th, then yeah, that could work.  It probably takes until December to go through the whole bloody thing.  Anyway.  The topic of today's post is "Stupid shit that parents buy for their children".

I started thinking about this last night, when I was doing night fill.  Night fill is when a pallet of boxes, stacked higher than your head, is dumped in an aisle, and its your job to get them on the shelves.  If they don't go ON the shelves, you stick them on top. In stacks that, once again, go much higher than your head even if you're on the top of a 12ft ladder.  Yeah, I was doing night fill last night, in our Fisher Price/ Bruin aisle.

One of the items you typically find in the Bruin/Fisher Price aisle

It's all items made for kids from the ages of 6 months, to maybe about 3 or 4 years.  Playmats, rattles, activity walkers, that sort of thing.  It's not a bad aisle.  The boxes aren't too heavy, not too small that millions of things can fit in one box and you unleash hell when you open it.  The boxes are still quite big, and mostly square/rectangle.  They go on the shelf easily (yes, this is how toy store employees judge whether or not they like a toy).

Anyway, this aisle occasionally has some really stupid shit on sale.
Like a plane.

Technically, it's a Bruin Light and Sound Jet Ride On.  Who the fuck buys their kid a ride-on plane?  If your kids runs up to you saying "Mummy!  I want a plane for Christmas!"  You tell them to piss off and ask for something more realistic, like a job in a sweat shop.

I see no problem with my 3 year old being here

The plane is pretty cool though.  You can't see it in the picture, since it's in motion, but the rotor thingo at the front lights up and spins and makes noises and shit.  And it plays music and stuff.  Pretty cool.  I'd buy it, if it weren't made for people 50kg lighter than me.  And if I made more money.  And if it wasn't such a stupid thing to give a child.  I mean, if you give them a ride on jet one Christmas, what will they ask for next?  How do you top that? Give them omnipotency?

See, if I had a kid, and they wanted a plane for Christmas, I'd tell them that all their hopes and dreams are stupid, but I'll get them the next best thing.  A letter box.

 It talks!  And it sings, and it counts to ten.  At that point, I lost interest in what it did, because its a freaking letter box.  I really doubt that it can do anything cool.  Now really, toy manufacturers, a letter box?  What sort of messed up child do you think is going to WANT a letter box for Christmas?  Oh, that's right.  Toy manufacturers don't make toys for KIDS, they make it for the lazy-ass parents who can't be fucked finding what their kid wants.

I almost see where Fisher Price is coming from with the letter box.  Its bright, it has heaps of shit to pull on.  It sings, it counts, it has plenty of detatchable parts to choke on.  But I think the main part of its appeal is that fact that children go through a certain stage in psychological development (can't remember when, or what it's called.  What?  Don't ask me, I'm a psych student) where they find that putting stuff inside other stuff is really interesting.  They think that if they can't see it, its not there.  That's why they lose their shit in a game of peek-a-boo.  Just when they thought they got rid of you, you're fucking back again.  But I think that the letter box is aiming for that age group where boxes and closing doors and stuff are a novelty.  Who knows?  I may be wrong.  If I am, then it's just a letter box, being sold for the hell of it.


Now, another toy I don't get is Zhu Zhu Pets.  They're guinea pigs, which buttons on their noses, and wheels or some shit where their feet should be.

There's about a million varieties, even green ones.  I don't know why there's green ones.  But they sell for like $20 each.  An actual living guinea pig is about $10.  And if it were a real guinea pig, your child would not want more and more and more.  They would be content with the one they have.  Or, if you buy them a second one, they can be content with the millions of baby guinea pigs they will soon have.  But buying them a toy guinea pig is strange.  I think you're supposed to buy them a track and a play set so they can roll around the track or something.  I don't know, I've never seen it in action.  I have seen a note saying "do not place near head or hair" attached to a box.  I found that interesting.  I'd like to think that out there somewhere, a poor little kid had to cut a toy guinea pig out of their hair.

These Zhu Zhu Pets are a nightmare though. They have a fairly small designated area on the shelf, and you can fit millions on there because the boxes are so small.  But even with millions on the shelves, there's still millions more that need to go somewhere.  So they go on top of the shelves.  They spread lie a disease, even spilling across to overstocks in other aisles. It's ridiculous.  Also, they have now made a version for boys.  Kung Zhu Ninjas, and Special Forces Hamsters.  WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY


I'm running out of the will to type, so I'll talk about one more toy before I either move on to something else, or I give up entirely.

These are Sing-a-ma-jigs.
I don't really know what they're supposed to do, but I think they're supposed to be very popular this Christmas.  We have heaps of them in the warehouse.  I played with one.  They sound pretty weird.  I can't even explain them, but you can change the tone and pitch of their voices and god knows what else they do.  Their mouths consist of those really low quality hair bands I used to use when I was little.

I just looked on youtube for them.
This is what I found.

I think the creepiest part is that they have teeth.  Quite sharp, pain-causing teeth.  You can't see it, but behind the mouth are two little white plastic teeth that you don't notice until it closes around your finger.  And it hurts like a bitch.

Now, on to some less freaky topics to fill my word count, and update you on my daily life.

-Just as I stopped typing to give myself a bit of a break, I noticed that the palm leaf with the bird nest in it has fallen into the pool.  When you have a look, the spawn of satan baby bird  isn't in there.  Strange.  Mum thinks the dog ate it.  I don't think he would, but who knows?  It had to go somewhere.

-Last night after I got home from work, the BF came over to pick up his wallet, and to discuss a plan I had come up with while I was putting ride-on Jets on shelves all night.  I was thinking that in January, if we're still together, it will be our 1 year anniversary (holy shit that year went fast).  I suggested we plan to do something romantic awesome.  Like hire out a hotel room and chill out for a day or two.  By January, he should have a steady job and some money, and I'll be drowning in cash because of Christmas.    And it's not even that expensive, like I expected it to be, if you take into consideration how nice the place is.  We would have to have a balcony overlooking the Strand, obviously.  That view alone is worth the price.  Look at it!

I'll make sure I bring my white dress, so I can look in amazement in the opposite direction of the beach like this chick.

Nothing's set in stone, since I only came up with it last night.  But now I really want to do it.  I mean, even if we break up, I'll get a few friends to take his place, and we have a wild weekend in town.  Sounds good to me (the BF, on the other hand, suspects that I want to steal his kidneys).

Partly, I want to do it because it's an awesome idea, and I'll need a break after Christmas.  But the main reason is because I'm 18, and I want to use my 18-ness to do things I couldn't do before, like buy alcohol, and book hotel rooms without parental permission. I've been 18 for like 3 months now, and I still feel like I shouldn't be in 18+ places, doing 18+ things.  The novelty probably won't wear off for a while.

-Today is the second day of almost constant rain.  It's supposed to be Summer here, or at least approaching Summer, yet it's freezing cold because of the rain and overcast weather.  I'm actually considering putting on a jumper (sweater for you Americans)! The downside to rainy Summer weather in this part of Australia is the fact that we get cyclones.  It's really hot and humid (sticky and damp like a sauna), and the cyclone develops, and it destroys everything.  Fucking sucks man.  This Summer is supposed to be a really busy cyclone season, unfortunately for us humans.  Cyclones only come into contact with towns pretty rarely, but when they do, they fuck shit up.  A few years back, cyclone Larry hit a town near where I live, and all of Australia had a banana drought.  That sounds weird, but we had no bananas.  That's weirder than the term "banana drought".

Right.  I've made the minimum word count for today.  Now I just have to make up for yesterday's failure.  To do this, I shall talk about how screwed up the NaNoWriMo word count statistics are.  They're very discouraging.  Last year, when I attempted it (and failed about 2 days in, after 2000 words) they had a very basic statistics screen.  It said your goal, how many words you did today, and your total word count.  Now it's all about how many "successful" days you've had, how many days in a row, all that sort of stuff.  Even if you do a massive word count one day, then a slightly smaller than average one the next day, you're still ahead, but the website counts that as unsuccessful.   It was doing it to me yesterday.  I did about 3000 words one day, then 1240 the next, and even though I was below my daily goal, I was still good for the total goal, yet I was "unsuccessful", apparently.   It really sucks for the people who have school and stuff, who do the 10,000k weekends.  Because the website says they have 5 day "unsuccessful streaks".  That's really very discouraging for people, especially if they're actually ahead of their goal.


I just had a look at yesterday’s word count, and realised I have to do another 700 words or so to make up for yesterday, if I want to hit my total goal of 9000 words by today.  How about I do some study, and I'll type a small-ish blog later this afternoon/tonight. 

My total so far is 8415.

3rd of November: Hmmm

What am I going to blog about today?

I consult my list of blog topics, and none seem particularly interesting, and I don't think I could squeeze 2000 words out of any of them.  The list I've been getting some ideas off has ideas like "Things that scare the shit out of me", which I have done.  Another topic is "My First Kiss" and "My Worst Kiss".  Not sure I want to talk about those.

My first kiss was when I was drunk at a party, with a friend of mine.  After that, it's been VERY awkward between us.  Especially since my friends don't let it go.  It's not even that embarrassing, but everyone else tries to MAKE it embarrassing.

My worst kiss?  It was a strange night.  Once again, I was drunk.  For those of you who know me, all I have to say is "New Years Eve", and they know exactly what I'm referring to.  For my newest follower, Hed from Hed Down Under, this happened at your beloved Magnetic Island.  Anyway, I was drunk, and instead of wobbling around like the drunk girl I was, I had my hand on the shoulder of some guy, so that I could keep myself upright.  I don't know what happened, but next thing I know, he's kissing me, and he's got his hand up my skirt, trying to tell me I had a fantastic ass.  That didn't work well, because... You know.  Have you ever TRIED to compliment someone while your tongue was halfway down their throat?  Bit difficult.  I said to him, "Excuse me", I turned around, and threw up everywhere.  I didn't stop for a few hours.  And that's why I will never, ever, mix vodka and rum in my stomach every again.   I still feel queasy when I see Captain Morgan rum.  For days afterward, I couldn't drink anything without feeling sick.  It was still the best party I've ever been to.  I think my drunkenness ruined it for everyone else, but I had fun.

So there you go, my first and my worst kiss.  FYI, my first SOBER kiss was with the guy I'm currently dating.  But THAT story is not going to be posted for all the internet to see.  It is quite embarrassing.

Speaking of the guy I'm currently dating, he left his wallet at my house.  It has no money or anything in it.  Just a $2 coin I think.  And a very silly looking school ID from 2009.  I find it funny that he takes such pride in his hair, no matter what it looks like.  In this ID photo, the best way to describe the hair is like a shorter, modified version of Russell Brand's hair.

Kind of like that.  Except his was straightened at the front, and a teased-to-hell rat's nest at the back.  Weird.  Sometime between that photo, from start of 2009, and when I decided to randomly talk to him after 6 years of no contact in January 2010, he cut it so it's shortish, spiky, and highly styled.  No matter what his hair looks like, he's still in love with it.  It's like his prized possession.  I'm not sure what would hurt him more, throwing his last pack of cigarettes into a pool (as Dani-Q once threatened), or shaving his head.  Either way, no one will survive.

But yeah, he left his wallet at my house, under my bed.  I don't have a clue how it got there, considering he put it on my desk, which is on the opposite side of the room.  I tried texting him about it multiple times, but I haven't heard from him.  You would think that he would want it back, but nope.  He doesn't ever have his bank card or anything, so I suppose he doesn't need it.  It just means he'll have to ask for it back from me if he wants to go into town, because his 18+ card is in it.


Well, I managed to ramble on about that for longer than expected.

I have to go to work this afternoon.  I don't fucking want to.  I hate working late, because it means I sit around all day, not doing anything because I don't want to waste my precious free time.  If I worked in the morning, I could go to work, and I'd have all this time afterwards to do whatever I felt like doing.  But working at night, you just wait.  If you go out before work, it feels like you don't have enough time, and you constantly check the time, and you end up late anyway.

I'm supposed to be studying for exams this week.  I only have 2 night fill shifts (putting new stock on shelves), so nothing to worry about there.  Next week, I have all four of my exams.  I also have like 4 night fill shifts, 6pm to 10pm.  Why is it that I get heaps of work when I shouldn't be working, and I get pretty much nothing on the week that I have no uni.  It's the same as when I had all my assignments due about 2 or 3 weeks back.  I worked about 3 times during the week, when I shouldn't have been working at all.

Stupid work.


I can't really think of much else to write at the moment.

OH.  One last thing.  In the backyard, next to the pool, we have all these gardens, all with palm trees in them.  Birds make their nests in them, and the silly birds always choose the palm leaf that's turning yellow and is about to fall off at any second.   It doesn't happen very often, but for the last week, we've had a nest out there.  Two eggs hatched.  One day, my parents witnessed a hawk take one of the babies, and the hawk sat on the pool fence and ripped the baby to shreds, in front of them.  So there was one baby left.  Mum and I expected this baby to be cute, so we went to take a photo of it.

The original photo we took was just a tiny little head sticking out between two palm fronds.  But something wasn't quite right.  We zoomed in on the camera to look at the head, and it looked quite strange.  So we uploaded it on the computer, and I've zoomed in, and cut out all the extra crap so you too can see what I see.

FUCKING LOOK AT IT.   THAT'S SOME MOTHERFUCKING SCARY-ASS SHIT RIGHT THERE.  IT'S BEEN WATCHING ME FOR A WEEK NOW!

It's fuckin' angry.  I can tell.







You know what the scariest part is?  It's gone.  Not in the nest anymore.  I can just tell.  One day I'm going to be home alone, and I hear a strange noise.  I'll turn around, and that THING will be looking back at me.  Possibly holding my dog's severed head.  Now that I think about it, I haven't seen my dog all day....







I guess today can be counted as my first unsuccessful day of NaNoWriMo.  I'm not going to be able to make 2000 words today, since I don't really have a topic.  Lucky I did 3000 words yesterday, I knew it would come in handy one day, I just didn't realise it would be today.  Well, I made it to 1240 words, I might be able to come up with something after work.  My total for November is now 6370.

Also, I've found some pictures from that Zombie Walk that I didn't end up going to.

Makeup by Veeutiful, Photo by Hiroshima Photography.

2nd of November, part 1: Halloween

This is supposed to be my 2^nd of November post.  However, since I got November 1^st done so quickly, I went straight on to the next day.  Technically, this was written yesterday.  I left it for a few hours, so I cut it a bit short, and just saved it in a word document to post it later. I didn’t reach the goal, so I’ll have 2 posts for the 2^nd of November.
As most people know, it was Halloween recently.  As an employee at a (US owned) toy store, it wasn’t a very fun time for me.  Mostly because of the costumes.

That Baroness one in particular.  Now that I look at it, what the hell happened to that chick’s feet?   And her mouth, too.  I think in this case, its one of those “bad photo quality makes things a lot scarier” problems.  We have a lot of those at my work.

Back to costumes, we had an entire wall covered in Halloween stuff, including costumes.  Generally, they were $50 to $80, which is reasonable for Australian prices.  There were a lot of witches, devils, angels, ninjas (which were freakin’ cool), princesses, Grease characters, and a weird white hooded cloak thing.  So there were heaps.  And as expected, the popular ones, that every customer wanted to buy, didn’t scan.  When you work on the registers, you can’t leave the registers.  And the non-scanning Halloween costumes were about 3 metres away from where we stand.  But we couldn’t just walk over.  We had to call someone from floor staff to check it for us.  And when they did check it, guess what?  It has no price tag, because it doesn’t scan.

I wanted to strangle someone.

On the Saturday (30^th Nov), we were doing Halloween activities.  All these kids showed up dressed in costumes, and most of them were variations of Batman.  One girl had like this black and red gothic angel/demon thing with huge wings.  She was about 5 years old.  Why was I not an awesome gothic angel/demon thing when I was 5?  She won our best dressed competition for the girls, and one of the Batmen (Batmans? What’s the plural of Batman?) won the boys’ competition.

 I wasn’t involved since I wasn’t cool enough, but I got to wear a witches hat.  It certainly made the shift more interesting, until someone liked it so much that they bought it straight off my head.  So I was hatless for the last part of my shift. 

After I finished, I had like a million missed calls from various people trying to make plans for that night.  My original plan was to go watch the Zombie Walk on the Strand (the beach) with Dani-Q and the boyfriend, then find a party to crash.  Then the Cleaning Nazi chucks a spanner in the works by announcing that we were going to the casino for dinner.  Now my meticulously thought out plan is destroyed, and I reschedule with everyone, since I’ll miss the Zombie Walk if I go to dinner.  I go home, have 15 minutes to get ready, leave the house looking like crap, go to the casino, and wait in queue for a good 20 minutes to get served.  We have dinner, I try the pokies for the second time in my life (I googled pokies to put a picture in here, and all I got was pictures of nipples) and I won $15.  Not as good as the $68 I won last time.

We leave, and rush off to the bf’s house, pick him up, rush off to the other side of town for this party, and get a message saying “don’t come, they’re kicking everyone out”.  We go anyway.  There’s heaps of people out the front, mostly slutty little 15 year olds, puking and going to the toilet in the gutter.  Classy. 

We knew that the party was hosted by 2 guys I knew, and some other guy that we didn’t know.  The one letting people in happened to be the one that we didn’t know, and the bf was (accidentally) quite rude to him.  My friends came up, and handled the situation, and we were let in.

There were more 15 year old skanks inside.  Apparently they were glaring at me, god knows why.  I’d like to think that it’s their normal faces.  More skanks turn up.  It’s the usuall Halloween costumes, black lacy bra, tiny shorts and a pair of ears and a tail that makes them some sort of animal apparently.  They were all wearing massive heels that they couldn’t walk in.  It was quite funny to watch.  They were all there for some guy, who hadn’t arrived yet.


He turned up a bit later, with a smoke machine, and some crazy lights thing.  It was pretty cool, until smoke alarms started going off.  It got really, really hot, so we went outside.  Suddenly, a bunch of 15 year olds run out to a car, open the boot and pull out a black case.  Back inside, they open it up, and it’s a disassembled stripper pole.  They spent most of the time trying to set it up.  They had a bit of a dilemma when they realised it had to be screwed into the roof.  We were the only ones sober enough to do it, and we sure as hell weren’t going to give up the entertainment of watching them try.  Everytime they thought they had it done (but still not attached to the roof), someone would put the motor bike helmet on and jump onto the pole.  It collapsed every time, and broke about 3 tiles by the time we left.


We were going to wait for them to finish, then watch them faceplant on the ground, but they took so long that it lost its entertainment value.  We went to McDonalds, and chilled there for a while.  2 people went home, and my friend dropped the bf and I in town (we call the local nightclub strip “town”).  It was full of zombies from the Zombie Walk that we didn’t get to go to.  It was also full of slutty playboy bunny costumes, slutty Alice in Wonderland, slutty soldiers (camo bra, camo undies, facepaint and thigh high boots), and a variety of angels, devils, and princesses.  Most of the guys were zombies, vampires, or mafia people.  We didn’t feel like spending money, so we took a look around at the free entry clubs, and saw plenty of people we knew, but no one we knew well enough to hang around with.  We called our ride home, and sat outside the hotdog stand to be picked up. I just realised I wrote that sentence, and it seemed like it was a set-up for something to happen.  Nothing happened outside the hotdog stand.  We talked to some of the bf’s friends, but that was it.   We went home, end of story.


So that was my Halloween.  Or rather, it was the night BEFORE Halloween.  On the actual night, no one came to harass us and steal our sugary deliciousness.  Finally, people are recognising that Halloween has nothing to do with Australia, and so they don’t celebrate it.  Even though I’m pretty sure it’s not American, the celebration aspect of it is.  So keep it in America. 


It’s quite funny how involved Americans seem to get with Halloween.  Not sure if it’s just a media sensationalising of it, or whether people really are that hardcore about it.  It’s strange though.  In Australia, we don’t really go all out for our holidays.  We do all the Christmas and Easter stuff, but not much else.  Except for Australia Day.  Oh god, Australia Day.  Everyone sits around and gets pissed at a barbeque.  It’s awesome.  But we don’t do fancy costumes, or carve faces into innocent vegetables, we just get drunk and eat lamingtons.



  Fuck I love lamingtons. 










What was I saying?
I don’t remember where that was heading, so I’ll start on something completely different.  You know how I went to the psychic the other day, and they totally mind fucked me?  I told Dani-Q on the way home, that I was going to go home and play the Sims so I felt like I had some sort of control in my life.  Lucky for me, uni’s pretty much finished, because I am ADDICTED to Sims 3 again.  Honestly, I’m typing this as fast as I can so I can start playing again.  Hmm, maybe I should finish here, and come back to the rest of this blog later.  I might get some inspiration from my little virtual people.

Ok.  It’s about 12 hours later.  I wasn’t playing the Sims the WHOLE time.   Honest…  Since it’s so late at night, I can’t be bothered sitting here writing this when I have all day tomorrow to do more.  This can be part 1, added in the morning.  And I’ll add part 2 later, after I’m done with it.  This post is 1510 words, bringing my total to 3610.

Inverted Greebles [UPDATED]

I'm conflicted.

I have someone texting me about going out all day. I've had someone nagging about me blogging all day. I clearly can't do both to a satisfactory level, so I compromise. I blog as well as I possibly can, while my poor little phone is buzzing its little heart out.

The reason why I am putting off my social life for an hour or so is because of NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. It's actually international, but that ruins the catchy name. The other day, I was going about my daily business, and I realised it was October. Then I thought, "Hmm, when's November?" Then I pretty much creamed myself when I remembered what order the months of the year go in.

It's November next month! And NaNoWriMo is in November! And that means that NaNoWriMo is next month, in case you have reading comprehension issues!

Two years ago, I first heard about it. As a little sixteen year old, I found it to be too daunting. And, it was already December by then... Last year, I signed up, had a few months of intense dedication and excitement, until November 1, when I gave up... On.The.First.Night.

God damn it.

Ah well. This year, I decided I wasn't going to do it. Then I was thinking about Russell Brand putting out a second autobiography (despite how young he is, and how it's only been a few years since his first). I considered writing my own autobiography, but that would be silly, since I haven't really had too many dramatic life changing events to dedicate chapters to.

Instead, I'm going to do this blog as my NaNoWriMo project. The goal is 50 000 words, which is the size of a smallish novel. I worked this out last year, if I do 2000 words a night, it gets me over the line by the end of the month. So yeah. No structured and carefully planned narratives for me, just an endless stream of Meganisms (apparently, within my extended family, that is a commonly used term). Don't worry, I have plenty to talk about.

You know that person I was telling you about, who keeps texting me? He turned up at my house anyway, despite my dismissals. I'll finish this later. I may be slightly drunk, but it will be completed.


To Be Continued...



I'm back, and I figured that I might as well continue this one, rather than start a new one.

ANYWAY.

So my NaNo project will be this blog. I told Dani-Q about this, and she's up for a challenge. Personally, I think we'll both surrender within a week, but who knows? Typing in this blog isn't nearly as hard as trying to write your own fictional story, where you're constantly wondering if it's going to be any good and screaming "DON'T READ IT!" Every time someone walks past. Also, this way, it seems like I'm making daily progress. I'm really not, since I don't have a goal other than word limit.

I'm going to go ahead and tell you something completely (well, not completely, but somewhat) off topic here.  I've been writing stories and crap since I was learning to write.  My first one was like 2 pages long, and it was about a crab with magical powers.  I was clearly a strange little child.  Anyway, I've been writing for a long time.  I've also gone to a few different workshops with authors and shown them my writing and whatnot.   I won a poetry competition once.  It was also terrible, but not as bad as other kids' I guess.

I picked up a tiny little piece of advice from god knows where, but it helps as a character building exercise.  I used it once, and I liked it a lot, it's a shame I didn't keep those few paragraphs.  IT WAS:  Write a scene where your character(s) are having breakfast.

Y'know, you can learn a lot about someone from their breakfast.  Think about it.  My breakfast, or lack thereof, is completely dependent on what time of the year it is.  If I have cereal (which takes me like an hour to eat), I have plenty of time so I must be on holidays.  If I have something quick, and un-breakfast-like, for example pizza, I am going somewhere, probably uni.  If I have a coffee or something liquid, I'm going to work and don't have time for food.  If I have nothing, I'm going shopping, where I buy something while I'm out.

It also teaches you a lot about another person.  Let's say Jane wakes up at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon, and rather than go for the greasy bacon and eggs that her husband made her several hours ago and left on the bench, she goes for a nice big glass of water and a puke.  Big night, Jane?  I can tell.

John wakes up at 5:30am, has a power-shower, and grabs his protein shake on the way out of the apartment, with a towel around his neck.

It can also be done with several characters having breakfast together. A family with three kids, Mum rushing off to work while Dad feels the toddler.  Or, the other way around gives you a completely different story.

I'll stop now.  You get the picture.


To continue with something completely different, I'm going to see if I can get to 2000 words without running out of steam.



People who invite themselves along to stuff:  I had to deal with this situation personally today.  A friend of mine sent me a message about going into town (to nightclubs) tonight  for cheap Tuesday.  I was willing to go, because I figured I have money to spend on some fun.  I ran into another friend, who was also going out tonight.  That's when they told me "(Let's call her...) Barbara kind of invited herself. "  So, by extension, I invited myself as well, since the one who invited me wasn't invited.  Its not a huge deal, since I really don't think they would care if I went (it's my town too, guys.  I see it as a party that everyone's invited to).  Still, I told the chick who organized it that I was going to have a night alone, and save my hard earned cash.  That's what I fully intended to do.

I got home from uni, had a shower, washed my hair (FINALLY).  I snuggled up in my PJs, started this post, and KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.  My pyjama party was crashed by the boyfriend.  Mum runs into the room, frantically gesturing for me to put some real clothes on.  So he makes awkward conversation with my parents, who hate him, while I get dressed as slowly as possible.  I'm not going to make things easier for you if you turn up unannounced.  Keep that in mind before you show up at my house, whoever you are, Blog Stalker.

We get food, go places, blah blah blah.  Then I find out that (the person who I renamed as...) Barbara has texted my boyfriend (because renaming is fun, let's call him...) Ken, trying to make him take her into town.   Fair enough if I was going in with her, but I wasn't going to.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry, I just thought it was strange (and a bit funny).  Anyway, enough about tonight.  It was weird and I can't be bothered trying to explain why.

Speaking of Barbara and Ken, I was talking to Danique today about Barbie (the doll).  In particular, the Twilight Saga dolls made by Mattel (the company that makes Barbie).  I was telling her about the massive jump in quality from the first movie's Bella and Edward dolls, who look like a brunette Barbie and a pasty white freak.

To a semi normal looking Jacob doll for New Moon, which I won't link to, since I can't find a decent picture of the one we sell at work.  Then, when Eclipse came out, I noticed these were the most amazing dolls I have ever seen.  Freakin' look at them down there!

 How cool are they!  And I don't even like Twilight!  But they look like the characters, and not like Barbie/Bella.  This got us onto the topic of other Mattel triumphs, and a couple of other fucked up dolls.  There's the Black Label Basics Barbies, which are like the perfect women.  Not even like Barbie perfect, more like perfect in a more-perfect-than-Barbie way.  As Danique put it, "It's America's Next Top Model for Dolls!"

Once again, how cool are they!!!!!!  The really really black one makes me laugh.  It sounds so racist, but its funny when the packaging is black, the doll's dress is black, and the doll is the same colour as the packaging, so from a distance it looks like an empty box. Still, I'd kill to look like any of these dolls, because they are far too good looking for real people. 

What else was I going to write about?


There's some guy trying to talk to me on facebook chat.  Honestly, if you're relying on FB chat to contact me, I clearly don't like you enough to give you any of my real details, so don't bother talking to me.  He's some random guy, I don't know where I found him because he's well into his 20s, and I don't have any friends that old.  Not that it's old in the general scheme of things, it's just that I'm barely 18, so someone in their twenties is old and worldly to me.  Anyway, the point I was going for before I got off track, when we first encountered eachother, we were strangers.  Now, nearly a year later, we seem to have a lot of mutual acquaintances.  They're all people we've both known for ages, separately.  It's like I'm playing 6 Degrees of Separation with myself. 

I'm not going to talk to him. 

He's weird.


One last thing.  Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63lyA42Y6ug&feature=related

Since I don't think the link worked.

My god.  November can not come fast enough.

The Phantom Corn Popper.

1.  I'm going to do a numbered list, rather than a proper, paragraph structured blog, because I don't really have much to say about anything in particular.

2.  I work in a toy store.  This may seem fantastic for all you non-toy-store-employees, but its not all that great.  Don't get me wrong, most of it is great, and I'm not planning on leaving any time soon.  BUT.  The store is seriously a death trap.  Here are some common occurrences:

-Crap falling from shelves on to heads, usually with the pointy bits hitting you in the eye.

-Random unsanitary goo finding its way into children's clothes.

-People (staff and customers alike) falling in every possible direction, such as down stairs, up ladders, up stairs, down ladders, over boxes/children/the occasional dog.

-Finding animals in strange places, like dogs in the warehouse, rats in the nursery, dead possums in bike shop, and these tiny humanoid creatures called children: we kind of have an infestation of the weird little buggers.

-Finding cuts all over your body.  I am covered in tiny cuts, and I am becoming immune to the pain they cause, which is good I suppose.  On a related note, I was on break today, and I felt something strange in my back.  I later have a look at where the feeling is coming from, and I have these giant cuts down the middle of my back.  It looks like I got raked (yes, raked, not raped).

-Some people believe that there may be some sort of poltergeist, due to all the random shit falling unexpectedly, lights flickering, strange noises in some parts of the store, and the fact that something raked me.

-Fisher Price corn poppers.  Google it if you don't recognise the name, but everyone's seen them.  If you put too many of them together, they somehow make a god-awful noise.  I don't know how, since they're made of plastic and styrofoam, but they create like a really high pitched whining sound.  So high pitched, that you can't really hear it unless you're in complete silence, for example, doing nightfill in that aisle.  Its so high, that you aren't sure if its real or you're imagining it, until you bump into them and they stop.  Either way, it scares the shit out of me.  Maybe we don't have a poltergeist.  It might just be a phantom corn popper.

Anyway, that's enough for number 2 on my list.

3.  My blog-writing friend (whose blog tempted me into starting this in the first place) has been nagging me all afternoon about updating, so here it is.  It may seem like I'm taking ages, but believe me, when I do update, its always long enough to satisfy you.

4.  Isn't it always fun to get text messages while you're at work?  I know you aren't supposed to have your phone on you, because you should be working.  But let's ignore that for the moment.  When you receive messages at work, its like it  affirms your existence.  It says to you "Yes, even if you are stuck in the one building for an ungodly amount of time, there is still life outside of its walls, and these life forms are taking the time to think about you".  I'm definitely overthinking this, since the messages weren't particularly deep and meaningful and life affirming, they were the sort that you wouldn't really want to show your grandmother.  Even if it was a bit crude, its still nice to know that someone's thinking about you.

5.  Some of my friends may be aware that I am completely in love with halterneck dresses/tops/whatever.  Sometimes I say I like it because it makes the wearer look classy and elegant.  Really, its because of its well known effect of making breasts look larger.  I like that.  Anyway, readers.  You may rejoice, I have found another halterneck dress to add to my collection.  I now have a black one, and a bright blue one, both of which look stunning.

6.  I have been doing a criminology assignment on the CSI Effect.  Basically, I've been trying to write 1500 words on how TV makes people stupid.  They watch CSI, and expect TV magic to happen in real life crime cases when they are part of the jury.  In my research, I have found some strange stuff.
  
     a.  A prison inmate was caught with drugs in his rectum.  The jury did not have an excrement sample to confirm that the drugs were indeed in his rectum, and not in someone else's.

     b.  In another prison, a syringe was found next to a note signed by a certain inmate.  When approached, the inmate had syringe marks on his arm, and admitted it was his, yet the police did not do a handwriting analysis on the note, so they would not convict him.

     c.  A man sped past police in a stolen car.  When he was arrested, the jury demanded fingerprint tests done on the car, to prove that he was in the car that he was driving (because, apparently, you don't have to be in the car to be seen driving it?).

     d.  A man was acquitted of an attempted murder charge because there was no "scientific evidence",  after hearing the good news, he promptly hunted down his girlfriend and repeatedly stabbed her to death.

The bottom line of my argument is:  People are stupid.

7.  I recently turned 18, as I may have mentioned in some other blog.  This means I can (legally) enter nightclubs.  And I have been doing so.  Anyway.  I was there the other night, sitting there casually while my friends were doing god-knows-what.  I already made a point of finding THEM males to use and abuse in whichever way they please.  I personally am already in a strange sort of agreement with a male, and so I am not even slightly interested in jumping through the hoops to get a new one.

Well, I was trying all night to find friends for my friends, but they were being all wishy-washy standard girl stuff.  They go to do something somewhere, and I am left sitting on a couch.  There's a guy with a bunch of other people about a metre to my left.  He beckons me over, and we begin to talk.  I'm thinking friendly chatting, and apparently he's thinking something different.  He seemed quite confident when he tried to kiss me on the hand/shoulder/cheek/lips, and I realised he never actually asked me if I was comfortable with any of it.  He never asked about any other people I may or may not be involved with.  If he had, I would  happily tell him that I was not looking for anyone, and that I was here for my friends.  But, for some reason, the topic never came up.

He asked me to go outside with him so he could smoke (LOLOLOLOL SMOKER) so I did.  Ah, fresh air, and a noise level suitable for conversation.  Still, the topic never came up.  I just thought, well, I'll give him some way to contact me, and I'll run for the hills so the awkward "I guess I've been leading you on by talking to you" conversation never comes up.  Guess what?  He has no phone.  How come everyone in the developed world has a phone, except for the people that I encounter?

Anyway, went back inside, saw pretty much everyone I know but don't really talk to (funny how people go "OH MY GOD I DON'T TALK TO YOU EVER BUT LET'S HUG ANYWAY" in nightclubs) and found my friends.  I'll skip over like an hour or so, since pretty much nothing happened.  We went back outside again (god knows why), but this time with my friends.  Finally, they were able to correctly identify my uncomfortable body language, and we left, after a very awkward "I'm leaving for no apparent reason" conversation with this guy.

If for some reason you read all this, and you realise, hey, this sounds exactly like me you're describing, then yes, it is you.  I used a lot of commas in that sentence.  Back on track, if this is about you, then I'm sorry about the other night, if you feel I may have led you on or anything.  It wasn't intentional.  You're a nice guy, but I'm not really emotionally available right now (emotionally available - sounds like something out of a dating advice column, but it means that regardless of my married/single/other status, I am personally not able to commit myself to a relationship with you).

I've kind of forgotten my point now.  Maybe there wasn't a point.


8. (I think this is 8, not really sure)  On my desk, I've created a sort of collage of photos from the last 3 years or so of my life.  I've seen lots of other people do it, and I've always looked at it, thinking "wow, this person has so many great memories with friends".  Looking at mine, yes, I have some great memories with friends. But these randomly pasted together images don't accurately reflect my life, because it doesn't show all the stress and pain of the parts in between.

For example, there's a photo from a sports day with people in costumes.  It looks all happy and fun, but leading up to that moment (and even after) there was plenty of arguments, tears, and dirty looks tossed around by all.  Another photo, from film and tv class, doesn't depict the race against time that came in the form of an assignment, which was being completed while the photo was taken. Another one is from a friend's birthday party, and everyone that night was angry at each other, because some chose to go to several other parties that same night, before eventually turning up around midnight.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, because these experiences make me who I am.  But, never again will I look at a photo album of collage and ignore all the happenings between each photo, because what you don't see is just as important as what you do see.

9.  On a lighter note, I have been on lecture recess, and I will be until Monday (Its Saturday now).  I know that right now, I feel stressed and worried about uni, and I'm looking forward to this semester being over, so I get a break and have a chance to save some money (Toy store job + Christmas =$$$$$).  BUT.  I know once uni is finished, after maybe  3 weeks of holidays, I'll be sick of being at home or work all the time, and I'll want to go back to uni.  Oh well.

10.  I have a chihuahua called Butters.  Being a chihuahua, he is quite small, regardless of what size he believes he is.  This size can pose a problem.  He is not a guard dog, and if anyone comes into the yard to steal stuff, they'll probably take him too.  Anyway, we just have him because he'll bark at stuff.  And bark he does.  He's a good little alarm system.  The problem is, what he perceives as a threat is not actually a threat to anyone but him.  Namely, the possums that live in the tree near his bed.  I thought it was funny how they sat in the tree while the dog lost his shit, hopping around on the ground.  However, the other morning, I realized that this situation was far more serious than I thought.  The entire side of the house was a battlefield, and the possums were victorious.  Butters has a little igloo type thing with a dog mattress (which we call his hump rag) and all his toys in it.  The hump rag was over in a completely different part of the yard, and his toys were everywhere, including places that the dog could never reach.  Dog food was spread out all along the side of the house. I believe that possums have co-ordinated an attack against my dog... Bastards.

Well, that's about all for now.  I also have realized that I easily wrote a 1500 word blog post in one go, but I've been agonizing about my 1500 word essay for about a week now.