Random Is A Stupid Word

Random stuff I have been mildly obsessing over lately (apart from hating and needing to replace the word random - but there is no other word dammit!):

25 Reasons Why You Should Dress Up Every Day. Hell yes you should! Get crazy in that costume box like you did when you were a kid.

Watched Grey Gardens, the 2009 TV movie (based on the documentary from 1975) with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. Both of them were brilliant and perfectly embodied the real Edie Beales. Ms Barrymore was especially awesome, getting Little Edie's flouncy mannerisms and crazy drawl so perfect I had to remind myself a few times that I was not watching the woman herself. She even did the infamous flag march, motherfuckers!

And I nearly wept with joy when I saw it.

Paper Heart is a cute little doco musing on the nature of love, with Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera. It's a bit of a 'scripted reality' but I loved the little songs and weird puppet shows. I may be biased, because I could watch Michael Cera pick his nose and inspect it and I'd still shout "Yay! He's so witty."

I heart cracked.com. I just like stupid lists in general I guess.

Literary tattoos. For the tattooed dork. Why didn't I think of that?

Read PattyJane's blog. There's a super-cool robot cushion guy that you are totes gonna covet. Harass them. Give them your money and a robot cushion guy can be yours to love and hug! (I think...they sell other stuff for kidlets so I'm convinced if I harass them enough they'll market the robots too).

In other news, we are distantly related to lemurs. YAY! Thanks David Attenborough, you are constantly teaching me amazing shit that makes me happy. I don't have a link for this, but I do like to daydream about being a lemur-girl.

And looook, a white Kiwi bird!

I couldn't give a shit about cooking, but fuck I love Nigella Lawson's kitchen accessories. The creamy colours make me hungry. But then, even Nigella's voice makes me hungry. And sleepy. And I kind of want her to be a nanny to my children cos she's all bosom and lips and rich foods and fur rugs, kinda like a bad romance novel but cosier. I have no link here either, but if you could buy me some of her salt and pepper piglets and milk jugs and butter dishes n shit, that would be great. Ta.

This shit still makes me laugh and sing the song for the rest of the day.

This is pretty amazing, and live too! Watch the eagles nesting, sleeping, and generally fucking around! It's like Big Brother....with eagles!

Oh and dear god I love this guy, and now he has made an homage to Jem, I love him even more. If you haven't seen his Nasty Ass Honey Badger video yet, YOU NEED TO QUIT THAT SHIT YOU'RE DOING AND CLICK THIS FUCKIN NOW! (you need sound and there is swearing, so NSFW).

Still bored? Well fuck's sake, do I look like I'm here to entertain you?

Here's a picture of Jem and The Holograms. Now shut up.

Live Below The Line - El Epilogo

I forgot to mention despite the fact that I lost three kilograms, I put one back on during The Day of The Donut, eating almost pure sugar.

Oh and I actually had my antenna fixed so now I am a TV Zombieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Looking forward to the show My Strange Addiction like ca-razy! Bitches eating couches and sleeping with hairdryers and shit = awesome zombie viewing.

Live Below The Line - Dia Cinque

OK, delayed reaction. I spent most of the weekend in a slurring sugar coma and my brain is only just shaking its way out of a hallucinogenic sickly sweet fog. And this week I have been suffering a continuation of the brain fade that began when I stopped consuming protein. Major brain fade. I'm talking driving-the-wrong-way-down-a-one-way-street brain fade. Cutting-random-chunks-out-of-my-hair brain fade. Making-stupid-cute-avatars-of-myself-on-stupid-iphone-app-games brain fade.

Oooh, look, she stupid cute!

With the help of over 40 amazing people, I raised a total of just over $1900, with a grand total of over 1.2 million bucks raised across the Land of Oz. And I discovered that bullying, whining and a whole lotta guilt moves folks to give you their cash. My final threat on the last day of sponsorship was telling my co-workers that they wouldn't get into heaven during the impending Rapture unless they sponsored me. And it worked a charm; I pulled in around 600 bucks that day! See? Guilt, particularly religious guilt, moves folks.

Oh and I discovered I am totally down with cannibalism now. I'd been telling people how I was gonna BBQ their tasty tasty flesh during this week, as human meat has no market value and is therefore exempt from the $2 per day rule (you can tell I've thought about this campaign from many angles). Everyone laughed it off, oh hahaha, eat our flesh, haha, you kidder!

Then...I was watching Frontiere(s), an awesome gory French horror film involving a dash of eating thine own species. They hacked off this dude's arm and served it up to his girlfriend like a Sunday roast. And I'm watching them prepare the arm, thinking mmmmm. Like mmmmm, goddamn that arm looks tasty. And they is carvin' it so nice and thin, and there's gravy....ohhh mmmmm, I could go me some tasty tasty arm flesh.

Lesson to be learned: don't fuck with me in the wilderness because I am already prone to cannibalism and I will take the first opportunity to spit roast your ass and nom on your arm like a chicken wing.

Hello Kitty approves of Arm Nom

Second lesson to be learned: If you google "frontieres cannibal arm" you get a link to my blog. Even before I wrote this! I got reader-acquiring skillllz.

Luckily for all, on the Saturday after the drought broke, Ash brought me the promised donuts. DONUTS. Thanks Ash! I heart your donutty love.

Hellllooooo, sweet sweet sugar. I've missed you so.

Honeycomb n chocolate cream n sprinkles n shit. We ate until we felt thoroughly sick. And I realised I'd survived my five days of madness, only to quite likely die from instant diabetes. I think I yelled, "MY DIABETES!" several times in a bad Southern accent, a la Bret Michaels. I definitely yelled, "DONUT SHOVEL!" while shovelling donuts with a Tupperware device that will heretofore be known as, you guessed it, The Donut Shovel.

In conclusion, it was so good and so rewarding to be a part of the Live Below The Line campaign. I'm now trying to carry forward what I have learned about starvation and want, to be more conscious of being wasteful, and not spending too much on food. I'd definitely like to do this again, as I was astounded at the generosity from my sponsors, particularly donations from some who I thought wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire. But next time, I will get a team together. And next time I'm binging on Weet Bix. Cos they only cost like 8 cents per Bix....Bik? What the hell is the singular of Weet Bix anyway?

Live Below The Line, I thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. And for allowing me to lose 3 kgs without even trying (a diet of almost pure carbs is not as fat-inducing as you think, kids). But the moral of the story is, I SURVIVED. And did a shitload of good for humanity, which makes you feel great.

PS The criminal downside to all this is I actually accidentally stole brunch on Sunday. Myself and The Boy each thought the other paid, and didn't realise until hours later that we'd done a runner. Like dirty street urchins.

Here's the free goodness I scored. Accidentally.

Lookit that awesome free nom-ness. No BBQ human for me!

Live Below The Line - Dia Quatro

I AM FUCKING HUNGRY

I WANT BURGERS WITH EXTRA FUCKING CHEESE

NOW!!!

Live Below The Line - Dia Tres

OK so I missed posting this last night as I was at a friend's place, watching people eat yummy yumbos for dinner, drinking wine and eating random chocolate goodness while I pretended I didn't feel deprived. Luckily, I was mostly distracted by the television in the room broadcasting Glee's equally shit-hot and traumatising overhaul of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Yaaaay Glee!

As I don't have a working antenna at home, I haven't had TV for nearly two years and any exposure to it at other peoples' houses turns me into a drooling zombie that goes GAAAAAAAHHHHH and points at the pretty swirling colours in the magic talking box. I miss TV. I miss my mind-numbing, loneliness-destroying electronic mother/teacher/best friend and I hope that stoopid antenna man comes and risks his life on my roof soon so I can have some goddamn moving pictures action! I want to be able to pass judgement on Masterchef and Dancing With The Stars like all the other zombies.

But, damn, am I glad I haven't had TV this week! I was never aware until now that the reason why there are so many fat motherfuckers in this world is not only because of ruined childhood self-esteem, but because EVERY SECOND ADVERTISEMENT IS ABOUT FOOD. I kid you not. When not being hammered with cooking shows, which are like the devil when you're hungry, you are utterly bombarded with bright shiny-shiny colourful tasty-looking food food FOOD. Fuck you, television. You are a nasty mama.

I even watched a show about a super-fat woman trying to lose weight and this STILL made me hungry. Watching morbidly obese people eat usually makes me feel ill and depressed and all "oh, the humanity!", like watching someone huffing on a paint can, but all her cramming her face with calories made me crave chocolate and chicken wings HARD.

I am forlorn.
Oh, and I'm so delirious and craving stupid foods like a pregnant lady that I actually contemplated bulimia as a good way of doing this challenge cos I'd still get the tasty goodness without actually breaking the $2 budget. Ummmm, no Elisha. No. Look to Maria Conchita Alonso for reasons why bulimia is baaaaaad (and why "it's hard to be bulimic when you're Cuban")


Maria


Conchita



ALONSO!


PS To the lovely Ashley, who is bringing me an abundance of donuts this Saturday ("BRING ME ALL THE DONUTS ASHLEY"), -- hearts and salutes, love, hugs and strawberry shortcakes! We shall dine in splendour my friend, on every donut we see. Until we barf a sea of donut slime, as promised.

Although the bastard did just email me this:

Damn you Ash! You must redeem yourself with at least 5 varieties on donut come Saturday!

Live Below The Line - Dia Dos

OK it's starting to suck now.

The cravings are kicking in. And delirium. More than usual, that is.

I can't even buy petrol without being bombarded with donuts and Coke and other yumbo snacky-snackys that I'm not allowed to have. This rice and soup combo is starting to do my head in and I'm wondering if the soup I have left is going to last for three more days, or if I'll be stuck eating a tonne of rice by Friday. And one bastard I work with thought it would be funny to rave on about food until I shut him down with "Have you sponsored me? No? Well shut the fuck up!"

I've been trying to save my chocolate for a moment of desperation, but it looks like I am already clawing at the desperate wall. Please, forgive me if I yell and scream horrible things at you this week, I am not myself without protein.

But the good news? I'm well over my target of $1000, so I increased it to $1500. I cannot believe how generous people have been so far. Humans really can pull together and make big changes in this world if we just co-operate, play nice and share! Over $800,000 has been raised in total so far. A whole lotta kids around the world will have their lives significantly improved by this campaign, and I am proud to be a part of it. You should be proud of yourself too!

(If you haven't sponsored me or anyone else living below the line, you have no right to be proud so wipe that smug look off your face and sponsor me here)

MMMMMMM DONUTS.


Someone better buy me a whole bunch this weekend, or I'm crackin' skulls.

Live Below The Line - Dia Uno

This week I'm taking part in the Live Below The Line campaign, where participants live on $2 worth of food for five days to raise money for people who live on less than that, for EVERYTHING, every day.
I decided to do this because, despite giving money to charity each month and sponsoring friends to grow moustaches, shave their heads etc, I have not actually RAISED money individually for a cause since I did the 40 Hour Famine in high school. Which I failed at, miserably. One cannot live on barley sugar alone, and it's stupid to make growing teenagers try. Damn you World Vision.

So, armed with vegie soup, a crapload of rice, some noodles and piddly rations of coffee, sugar, milk and even chocolate (thank YOU, Kmart dodgy old easter egg sale!), I embark on a tour of starvation and eating piss-poor boring same-old food for five days. You cannot beg, borrow, or steal, because market value of everything you eat must be accounted for.

Here's a pic of the soupy ricey casserole thing I had for dinner (after same soup for lunch and crappy homebrand noodles for breakfast):

Mmmm, slops!

For now, I'm feeling positive, not too hungry, and consoled by the fact that over a billion people worldwide suffer this fate all their lives. God knows, by Friday I could be weeping and chewing on my own skin and hair. Or, as I've told my workmates, cannibalising them because human flesh has no market value and therefore can be barbequed and dined on at leisure. Mmmmm, tastes like chicken....

Of course, none of this would be possible without the amazing people who have sponsored me to reach my goal of $1000 and beyond, which will go towards education and improved quality of life for kids in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, and other countries where people cannot whinge about the price of that pretty pair of sparkly shoes they so desperately want, COS THEY HAVE NO SPARKLY SHOES GODDAMMIT.

If you haven't sponsored me and would like to get on board the Starving-Elisha-Is-Fun-Especially-When-She-Loses-Her-Shit train, click here. Only people who sponsor me are allowed to give me hell. I will be posting my descent into madness here each day, so come and join the ride. Post lovely, supportive comments (or evil, ra ra ra suffer, hope your guts hurt comments if you've been kind enough to sponsor me).

Here's to doing good in the world, it makes you feel awesome!


PS I may be somewhat distracted from hunger by today's arrival of my magical name-necklace. Having an unusual name, I have oft-whined about not being able to buy stupid crap that has my name printed on it like all the Rebeccas, Sarahs and Nicoles of this world. But now....IT IS MINE. To hang around my neck so drunk idiots can pretend they know me and I can deny it's my name at all. Sucks to you, Carrie Bradshaw!

They're Alive....Alive!

A friend magically scored free tickets to see Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular last night, and I was lucky enough to be invited along. Thanks Nathan!

Let me just start by saying, IT WAS AMAZING. If you get a chance to see it, do it. Do it, I tell you. You will be bedazzled. A fondness for dinosaurs does help. And taking children with you. The adults reacted well, but the kids had their minds completely blown, squealing and waving glowing disco dinosaur merchandise. I would have squealed and waved glowing crap too, if the line for glowing crap wasn't so long. I probably did squeal. I was VERY excited.

I freaking loved dinosaurs as a kid. I had books, I had figurines; I even had a freaking walking, roaring dinosaur model that used to scare the living shit out of my cats. Wait, I don't think that was mine. Somebody must have let me fuck around with it a lot though.

I arrived late to the show, which sucked cos I really wanted to be there for the atmosphere of "WHOA!" that must have engulfed the place when the first dinosaur walked out. Yes, walked. I'm talking LIFE-SIZED, ANIMAFUCKINGTRONIC dinosaurs, people. Have you ever seen a goddamn giant Brachiosaurus walking around? NO. You haven't, because you haven't seen this show. Watching Jurassic Park does not cut it. If you have any interest in dinosaurs whatsoever, this is the closest you'll get to seeing a real one, unless I have severely underestimated the powers of genetic science.

So I arrived late, did the squeeze-and-apologise to those already seated, sat down and started clapping and grinning like an idiot at the dinosaurs. And continued to do so for the rest of the show. The partly-robotic, partly-puppeteered creatures were so vast in size, so detailed in feature, that I had a hard time convincing myself they WEREN'T real. I sat mesmerised, drop-jawed and yelling, "YAAAY!" whenever a new dinosaur came out. When they lumbered over our way and eyeballed the crowd, I resisted a strong urge to wave and yell, "Oh, hiiii! Over here Mr Dinosaur!" At one point there was a smackdown between two Torosaurus' (Torosauri?), I thought the old one was gonna die, and I whimpered and prepared myself for tears. I totally got involved. My friend leaned over when and said, "Um, you are aware that all dinosaurs are dead now?" No Nick. No. Right now I'm not at all aware they're dead, because THERES A BUNCH OF THEM RIGHT THERE OHMYGODDINOSAURS!

And you know when you go to a music festival or somesuch, and you watch all the smaller, kinda cool bands, but you're really just waiting for the headline act? The Tyrannosaurus Rex was the the power puppy of the dinosaurs, and when the Big Mamma T-Rex hit the stage, people flipped their fucking lids.

(I know this video is sideways but tilting your head slightly won't kill you. If you know how to rotate the vid, please let me know)

Let me tell you, people shrieked and clapped like she was a freaking rock star. And when she roared, OHHHH MY FUCKIN LORD. The whole place rumbled and more than one person was convinced they would be eaten.

Here's a video of Raptors that's the right way up for all you peeps that now have jarred necks from over-tilt.

Go and see them. It's aimed at kids so is a little patronising, but if you indulge your Inner Child, they will fucking love it. And may just squeal, clap and whimper idiotically like mine did. Here's a linkety link to bookety book tickets. And you might be able to get cut-price tickets here. See how I'm looking out for your interests?

It's only on in Melbourne til the 15th of May so grab every child you see and get the hell down there, buy some glowy shit and squeal squeal squeal! Cos dinosaurs rule!


PS Major kudos to the older ladies sitting in our row who giggled hysterically at some blow-up grass prop that popped up emphatically in front of us, rather like a bizarre sex toy. It was delightful.

PPS I wonder if any Creationists have been to see the show, and if it conflicted their souls? Ohhh, but that's right, dinosaurs are "God's little jest", a wild goose chase leading to carefully planted "fossils" he conveniently buried when he was busting out on building stuff. Good one, God!

Horrorbubble - The Sentinel

I watched The Sentinel last night, and this movie is five shades of fucked up. Of course, I LOVED IT.
And no no no, I don't mean that crappy secret service, guns and romance pap from 2006, I mean the lurid and lush horror from 1977.

70s horror, oh how I love you. As far as I'm concerned, the only movies made should be 70s horror... with maybe a couple of 80s numbers thrown in. Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, The Exorcist, Alice Sweet Alice, Stepford Wives, Black Christmas.....*sigh*

There's just so much to be excited about: The colours! The camel toe! The weird cameos! The bizarre religious imagery! The kinky sex!

They are indeed, the ultimate combination of Kitsch AND Kill. Disco outfits and stabby-stabby. Hearts to you, 70s horror!

So I was all ready to blog about The Sentinel and all of its fine 70s attributes, then I remembered that I found this movie via the amazeballs horror blogger, Final Girl. And she wrote a review of it that I could never challenge. She is one witty motherfucker. With incredible taste in horror. You should read it, so click here. (I hope you've realised that things underlined and in pretty colours are clickable by now, but hey, we all get interwebby spazzykins sometimes).

But I will mention the one thing that bedazzled me throughout this movie....

(apart from being badly distracted from the scariness of the dead-risen-from-hell scene by a man who looked like he had terribly infected testicles hanging from his chin; that's him on the right -- it was wobbly and WEIRD)


...the magical and dashing presence of.....BURGESS MEREDITH!

With a canary and a creepy-ass cat! "Black and white cat....black and white cake...eeeeeee" (watch the movie and you'll know what the hell I'm on about)

I love Burgess, ever since the days of Clash of the Titans and Santa Claus The Movie (mega hits when I was a kidlet). And no shit, I just found out he narrated Twilight Zone The Movie, which scared FUCK outta me as a kid. Plus, he was the original Penguin in Batman. Conclusion = BURGESS MEREDITH RULES!



And hosts crazy parties for killers, apparently.

For any horror fans, I highly recommend following Final Girl. She does super-funny summaries of a huge range of horror, and fucked up comic strips to boot. I heart you, Final Girl. I will always look to you for horror lurve.

Do YOU have a favourite 70s horror you want to recommend? Cos I need MOOOOOORRRRE.

PS Now I'm fucking busting to watch Clash of The Titans again. Harry Hamlin, HURRAH!