Token Smokin' Hottie: Ripley

Fear not, men of the world, I haven't gone over to the ladies. My deep and abiding love for Ripley (a fictional character, obviously, as if I need to point out that I'm not talking about the actress Sigourney Weaver) has nothing to do with wanting to get her into bed. Although, you know, should this somehow become a possibility I'm not entirely ruling it out. She is pretty cute and with her biceps I bet she could throw me around like a rag doll.

Having seen Prometheus at the weekend (forget the haters: I thought it was great schlocky fun, much of which didn't make a lick of sense and really didn't have to) I subsequently rewatched Alien, which is - for a sci-fi movie made in freaking 1979 - holding up pretty damn well. I've seen the sequel, Aliens, plenty of times because it's a classic but it'd been ages since I'd gone back to the first movie and I'd forgotten how much I love, love, love Ripley. Of course she is awesome in Aliens, where she's super tough right from the start (is it possible to NOT get chills every time you hear "get away from her you bitch"?), but I think I almost like her better in Alien, where she's a bit softer around the edges but you can see her hardening up as crew members around her keep, uh, dying horrifically. (Is that a spoiler? I don't think it's a spoiler. If you haven't got around to seeing Alien sometime in the past 30+ years you're probably not going to go out and see it tomorrow. Although, really, you should. It's great fun.)

Only when you get a movie (or indeed a string of movies) with a bitchingly awesome female lead - particularly in, although not limited to the action genre - who isn't just a love interest do you realise how few and far between they are. I'm not trying to make this into a rant but, seriously, it's a rarity and it can be a bit depressing. Do I need to explain why the likes of Angelina Jolie as the titular (heh) star of Tomb Raider doesn't count? No? Good.

Movies like Alien make me want to do away with M or MA ratings for movies because shit like this shouldn't be kept from kids: it should be fucking forced on young girls to stop them from growing up on a diet of nothing but bullshit movies/TV that tells them their happiness is tied to their ability to weigh less than 120 pounds, have perky tits and find "The One" (again, do I even need to talk about how bullshit this idea of The One is? Is that a conversation that's even worth starting? No? Aw, you guys are the best).

What better role model for the youth of today than Ripley, who starts off the movie disobeying her Captain's orders because she knows best. And she's right: she does know best. It's just a pity everyone else are kind of fucking morons and the only other smart person on the ship is a) evil as fuck b) an android.

To summarise, Ripley is everything a girl should be: tough, brave, smart, likes cats and I love her. And, hey, nobody ever said it was a crime to look good in a tank-top and a pair of skimpy undies.

I grow old (I shall wear my trousers rolled)

Comments friends or colleagues have made when seeing me for the first time since I cut my hair that makes me think they hate it and don't know how to tell me:

1. Wow

2. You've... cut your hair.

3. It's really short.

4. It's... shorter than I expected.

5. Do you miss it?

Balancing the scale

Often when I want to buy something I don't need (a second third copy of Maurice, perhaps, yet another pair of red heels, a $6.70 soy mocha) I tell myself that it's okay because I don't smoke. I mean, if I smoked just think of how much money I'd spend on cigarettes every day, week, month. If that's not enough (I mean, I'm just not sure I need a second poncho-jumper) I up the stakes: well, what if I was a CRACK addict, what about HEROIN? Imagine how much cash I'd blow through then. I'm saving hundreds of bucks with all this clean living I'm doing over here. I'd draw you a graph to explain just how this works but you probably wouldn't understand it.

I mention this because it's occurred to me lately that I'm not a particularly good person. I'm no monster - I try not to actively make other peoples' lives worse, I have my handful of standing orders in place - but there are many aspects of my character I don't particularly like and a few that make me feel downright awful if I think about them too hard, which obviously I try very hard not to do. With this in mind I have compiled a list of bad traits/character flaws I do not possess to convince myself I don't really need to change my ways and be a better person. So, you know, I may be kind of a cruddy human being at times but at least I don't...

• Kill people. That's right. I'm setting the bar pretty low. I don't kill people. I have never shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. That's something, right?
• Hurt Animals. Again: no shit. Who the fuck DOES hurt animals/kill people except serial killers or serial killers in the making? Patting myself on the back for this one seems like describing someone as a great boyfriend because he only hits you where it doesn't show. But bear with me, I'm just warming up.
• Double dip. On the other end of the spectrum, sure, but still: that's a check in the plus column.
• Wear harem pants. I will never undertand the appeal of these diaper pants. If you want a pair of pants you can do a shit and nobody will notice maybe you need to re-evaluate your life.
• Ignore Beggars. Okay, so I'm really sure randoms begging on the side of the street reeeeally appreciate my patronising smile and whispered "I'm sorry" when I don't have change/am not in the mood. Doubtless my recognition of their humanity Makes Their Day. No wait, I think they'd prefer $5.
• Kill Spiders. I'm not quite sure this is a virtue (does the world really need more spiders?) but I have to believe that opting not to kill a sentient being when you can just as easily trap it in a glass and escort it politely out to the garden makes the world a slightly better place. Flies of the world may disagree with me.
• Write indulgent blogs that will only be of passing interest to close friends who take an active interest in my life and absolutely nobody else. Oh, wait...

Awkward Work Conversations I Have Had...

... With the woman who sits very close to my desk at work and seems to think (incorrectly, honest) that I am behind a complaint lodged (anonymously) about her inanity. It was bad enough when she asked me about it in the office hallway but when she cornered me in the bathroom things got awkward... not as awkward as a little bit later when she came up to my desk, trying to speak through her TEARS, but still, you know, AWKWARD.

Things that are currently not working in my apartment (or why I sometimes despair at living in an apartment built in 1939 even though none of these things have anything to do with that fact).:

1. The washing machine.
2. The internet.
3. The water heater.
4. My brain.

I was going to say...

... that awkward moment when you realise the fresh-faced, super young and cute dude you were trying to make blush just for funsies may have been your friend's little (much younger) brother.

But that was days ago. Today a little bit of Facebook stalking has me nearly convinced said boy wasn't my friend's little brother at all but a legitimate party guest whose name I've forgotten but who was almost certainly of legal age. At least, you know, I really fucking hope so.

The enabler

Him: Do you want a port?

Me: Hmm yeah I'm not supposed to be weekday drinking this week.

Him: Port doesn't count.

Me: Okay then.

Highlights and lowlights

Highlight: I survived my first day back at work!
Lowlight: I cried.
Highlight: Nobody saw me!

By the by (In case you're looking for something to read this public holiday)

Great Sam de Brito column today I thought, which articulated many of my own feelings on an incredibly tacky story which irritated me no fucking end when I read it. Pass me a sick bag please.

Things that make me feel like I am maybe not a proper grown-up even though I am by now quite, quite old:

1. I don't have any bandaids in the house. This fact I did not discover until I damaged my poor feet trying to break in a pair of shoes which, now that I think about it, may be a smidgen too small for me. When I lived at home Mum and Dad's bathroom cabinet was chock full of medical supplies, both minor and major. So now I guess I have to... buy them myself?

2. I faintly resent having to pay for my own medication. Similar theme to number one. I don't have big medical expenses but I do have to take a pill for my stupid thyroid every day, which I resent deeply. It's by no means a big expense but shouldn't all my money be disposable income to spend on books I don't read and shoes that don't fit? Don't you want to keep me alive by paying for this stuff, Mum and Dad?

3. There is nothing to eat in my fridge except for an elderly piece of lasagna left over from a giant lasagna which my mother made me. No explanation required.

4. I am so broke my card got declined when I tried to buy a veggie burger at the pub. A veggie burger. And a diet coke. That was a sad day and I'm sure the woman behind the bar was not fooled by my "oh um, *ahem* guess that money hasn't come through... shall we just try credit then shall we?" SHAME.

Overhead in Perth: Outside the Flying Scotsman

"Connections is that way hahaha."

- Some random fucker sitting outside the pub. I can only assume he was talking to one of the dudes who walked past in skinny jeans but really, Perth? I mean REALLY?

Things I maybe possibly regret from last night

1. Deciding I just didn't need dinner before going to the party.
2. Having a sip of Jose's weird, kind of awful vodka drink.
3. Slurring "you're adorable" to some poor frightened cutie with amazing hair as I ran out the door (he was though).

Surprising benefit to having short hair that I had not anticipated

Slightly slutty clothes look slightly less slutty than when I wore them with long hair. I don't know why this is but I swear it's true. It's not that I favour particularly slutty clothes, it's just that I have reasonably prominent boobs and somehow the presence of said boobs has the potential to make anything remotely low cut look borderline pornographic. True story. Anyway, I bet if I cut off another two inches I could get away with a keyhole neckline. This. Is. Living.

Apropos of nothing: Top 5 of my 25 most played songs according to my iPhone

I don't know how my iPhone works these things out and, frankly, I have my doubts about some of the songs on this list but, eh, it's rainy and cold outside, I'm supposed to be finishing my tax return and I'm looking for something, anything, to distract me right now. Play on.

Real Estate, It's Real
No surprises. My favourite song from one of my favourite albums from last year and one of those songs that basically sounds like happiness. Plus I listened to this album a lot in Italy. Like, maybe too much.


The Go-Betweens, Love Goes On
Again, no surprise. My favourite song off the only mix tape I've been given in a good three years. Charming.


Frankie Rose, Know Me.
This one surprised me. Yes it's a super cute song from a super cute album but have I seriously listened to it more than the many other cute songs on my iPhone? Apparently so.


Fleetwood Mac, Everywhere
Look, I could defend this one and honestly I... have my doubts this belongs on the list. But the fact is that there are times in my life when only a little slice of Fleetwood Mac will do.


Atlas Sound, The Shakes
I don't know what it is but the way he sings "found money... and fame" just kills me.

"To be stupid, selfish and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost." (Gustave Flaubert)

The last bottle was a mistake

Days spent in Italy without getting a hangover: 26
Days spent in Perth without getting a hangover: 2

Sometimes a quote is all you need...

‎"So your boyfriend walked in and saw you fucking the face of a dead bear. That's going to look bad even to a boyfriend who isn't a vegan."

(You can read the rest here).

Movie Scene Monday: Manhattan

Manhattan is probably only number three when it comes to my favourite Woody Allen movies, comfortably behind Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, but it has one of my all time favourite opening scenes for any movie. The city, the music, the jokes... insert your own swoon here: for me it's just perfect.

Confessions of a first time reader of Gone With the Wind

1. I didn't find the book's racism distractingly offensive. I know I'm supposed to be offended or at least mention how off-putting it is to have the book's white characters constantly talking shit about "the darkies" but, eh, the book's treatment of black people is so completely ridiculous to a 2012 reader that it sort of... didn't even register enough to be have an impact on my enjoyment on the book. I choose to believe that I'm not a secretly racist monster but was merely distracted because I did most of my reading on a plane, on which I also watched a few episodes of the sitcom 2 Broke Girls which, um, kind of really does seem quite racist. I'm just saying.

2. I skim-read most of the stuff about the civil war. This is supposed to be A War Book as much as it's A Romance Book but, eh, I really couldn't give two shits about the war when a) it's not really a secret how that ended and b) there are Scarlett schemes to be hatched, dresses to wear and parties to attend. Same thing happened when I read Lion of Macedon, the charming David Gemmell novel that got me into the fantasy genre as a teenager. That book contains a fair amount of ancient military strategy stuff that I suppose is really very interesting if you like that kind of thing but even on re-reads I breeze through all that crap in favour of the juicy 'will Parmenion ever be happy and when is Alexander the Great going to turn up?' gloop.

3. I... really liked Scarlett O'Hara. I mean I didn't even realise that was an even slightly contentious position until I read this most amusing article, which sums up her character thusly:

"Which leads us into this: are we supposed to like Scarlett?... What's to like, when you think about it? She's a terrible friend, she's borderline illiterate, she's racist, she's violent, she's ungrateful, she wallows in minor bouts of regret for being such a shitty person once she's achieved her next aim, and she accepts expensive gifts from gentlemen without thinking of the consequences. (Just candy and flowers, darlings! Keep your virtue with you at all times!) And, not to be all "I have a chiiiiiild now" about the whole thing, but WHAT ABOUT WADE AND ELLA? CHRIST ON A FUCKING CROSS. We all remember Bonnie, because she broke her neck, and had a bit of a personality (Margaret Mitchell did not seem like a kid-friendly individual, no?), but those sad, bland, dull children with dead fathers, dragged along behind her curtain-dresses and treated slightly less well than her ill-treated friends and acquaintances are far more tragic figures than smokin' hot twenty-eight year olds who went from being rich to very briefly poor to substantially richer over the course of a thousand pages. (I know, I know, her parents kicked it, which was very sad, and she had to wear black, which was uncomfortably hot, etc.)."

And, well, yes and no. Yes Scarlett is king of, um, a sociopath but she's also feisty and brave and honestly who among us can't identify a little with her 'I want what I don't have at least in part because I don't have it' mentality? Plus the bit about her being a terrible friend is true but, in fairness to Scarlett, the other girls in the book are all kind of twits, either dull and dumb like that stupid bitch who wanted to marry Charles or fucking Melanie The Martyr who is supposedly beloved by all for her goodness and generous nature but would be INSUFFERABLE if you actually had to put up with her shit for five minutes. I like to think the author, Margaret Mitchell, hated Melanie and based her character on someone in her own life because, really, the way Scarlett bitches about Melanie being Melanie is simply too funny.

4. If I had read this book 10 years ago I would seriously have considered writing some serious fanfic involving the Tartleton twins. Because, shit, those boys were sort of the business.