You never expect the Spanish Inquisition!!!

Sunshine

What blogger would you most like to meet? You!! But I know I'm going to, same with Grace and Gwen and Apoc. Ummm....A really hot one. Chuck sounds like lots of fun, and I think Outlaw would be great too. I might be meeting TAN at New Years, and I'd like to buy Isabel a drink. All the NZ bloggers on my links are friends of mine, so they don't count. (Do you think she'll notice I haven't really answered it?)

Have you ever gotten so lost you were worried you'd never find your way back to civilization? Yes, on a school camp in 4th form, because this stupid cow of a teacher didn't know the difference between a ridge and a slope. It was ok though, because there were about 12 of us, although I did get 12 bee stings. The number of classmates that got lost and the number of bee stings I recieved are completely unrelated.

What job are you going after when you graduate? Queen of the Fucking Universe. I have a mug with that on it that my darling cousin bought me about 11 years ago. I want to work for the World Bank, go and tell them what they're doing wrong. But I also want to go home too, so I'm torn.

Would you kill a loved one for world peace or keep them alive and watch the world destroy itself? (yes I stole this question from a thought provoking blogger because it's a good question) Couldn't do it. A world without my loved ones in it isn't a world I want to live in. Selfish, I know.

Would you marry someone that you didn't love in order to gain citizenship in a country? Hell yes, in fact I had a friend of my brother-in-laws offer me $10 000 to do so. My family would spit tacks though.

Fishboy

What's the difference between a duck? The Bill. And I don't mean a duck's beak, I mean the fine UK police drama.

The Assimilated Negro

have you ever had sex with a guy who's thingamajiggy was as big as that icicle? No, have you?

And I guess also have you ever had sex with a guy who's thingamajiggy melted in warm weather? What! You mean that's not normal?

Gwen

Since I am rather randy be prepared to give good answers!

1. What was the best screw you have ever had? At this bar in Australia, it was called a "Comfortable Screw" and they mixed Southern Comfort in with the vodka and orange, it was yummo.

2. What would you rather, Incredible one night stands or mediocre sex for the rest of your life? When its with the one you love, its rarely mediocre. I heard.

3. What type of farm animal would you screw? Huh? Like I'm going to answer that!

4. What pornstar would you screw? I couldn't actually name one, sorry. A really hot one who had no germs.

5. What male blogger would you screw? Does Viggo have a blog?

6. What female blogger would you screw? Well, you're pretty hot....

7. What male blogger do you think has the most vd? If you could get vd from imaginary sex, then I could answer that.

8. What female blogger do you think has the most vd? Me.

9. What classic monster would you screw (like frankenstein, or dracula?) Definately Dracula, he was well sexy. Hot like FIRE!!

10. What type of fruit would you screw? You're very strange, you know that don't you?.... Lets just say, it wouldn't be an orange.

Dave

Have you ever feared that a flatmate was preparing to eat you? No, but then I wasn't the one whose room they wrapped in roasting foil...

Luther

Have you ever hoped that a flatmate was preparing to eat a flatmate? No, but if your fankle wasn't getting better Lisa and I were going to amputate it and invite everyone around for a spitroast.

Apoc

Do you enjoy KY Jelly and Peanut butter sandwiches? Never tried, but probably.

Do you think I'd look dashing in a dress? Ooooh yes, I have a lovely red number you would look just smashing in.

Would I have to shave my legs? Definately

Would I have to shave my chest? No, you should wax it. Chest stubble = not pretty.

Can you shave my coinpurse? Can I use my big kitchen knife?

What did you think of Ben when you called me in Vancouver and I passed the phone over to him? Very polite, but I couldn't really hear him, lots of noise in the back ground at both ends. I must talk to him again one day. When you and I are drunk we'll give him a wee bell.

Where do the sexiest accents come from, other then from down under? Scotland. Or Croatia.

How many questions am I allowed to ask? Seven more.

What do you think of a North American Winter? Ask me again in February

Would you ever sleep naked with someone just to stay warm? Have done, will likely do so again. Mmmmm. Naked.

Will I ever shut up? I sincerely hope not.

Favourite sexual position? Up against the wall, in a place where its really not appropriate to be doing it. Office bathroom, moving elevator, you know. That type of thing.

When was the last time you peed your pants? Just now.

What was your first pet's name? A blue budgie called Billy. My friend fed him fimo by accident and he died, so while my sisters and I were at school my poor mum spent the entire day going to every pet shop in Christchurch with the dead budgie in a plastic bag, saying "I need a budgie that looks exactly like this one". Bless her, saving our wee childhood innocence of the brutality of mortality for just a little longer.

WWWCD -
What Would Winston Churchill Do? Say something incredibly witty yet scathing.

Flint

how'd you get so pretty? I'm Muhammed Ali.

Grace

What's your biggest wish you have yet to fulfill yet and why? I don't know where to start.

Do you still want to shag Benjamin? No, and I'm not sure I ever really did. He's pretty, but I don't fancy boys prettier than me. Top bloke though, I'd like to buy him a drink.

How heartbroken will you be when I announce Viggo's my baby daddy? In your dreams, sister!

Are you going to flash your boobs at Mardi Gras? Is the Pope Catholic?

If you could change one thing about you, what would it be? My skin. Its too freckly and scarred (as a result of being too freckly and then those freckles/moles turning into nasties and having to get surgically removed). Also, I wish my brain was a bit more ordered, and that I could think of other people a bit more than I instinctively do.

How much do you love the Dave Matthews Band? I'm sensing the correct answer is "Quite a lot".

Do the rich have an obligation to help the poor? Why or why not? As a general rule, yes, because the likelihood of them having had much better opportunities than their poorer counterparts is quite high. But if people are poor cos they're too lazy to get off their fat arses and get a job, then no. And if people are rich because they inherited it or won it, then they have an extra obligation to help the poor. There are different types of rich people: there are those who are rich because they were in the right place at the right time and made the most of an opportunity, then there are those who got rich by shafting everybody else, then those who came across money by good fortune. I'm sure there are many other types of rich people too, but its time for the next question now.

Last time you got laid, was it with a human (alive) or an object (even though I consider men objects, it's not what I mean). It was a real live man. Common decency prevents me from elaborating further.

Have you ever had e-sex (blogger comments aside)? Not yet.

Phone sex? With whom? Why? No, seems like there's Something Really Important Missing.

Coke or Pepsi? Usually neither, but when I'm hungover or extremely tired, I'll occasionally bow to the Dark Master that is the evil Coca Cola.

Toilet paper: over or under? On my bottom, thats where.

Favourite book? Top few? To Kill A Mockingbird, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Midnight's Children, The English Patient, Foucault's Pendulum, Ordinary People, The Matriarch

Favourite music? Right now: Interpol, Fat Freddy's Drop, Snow Patrol, Phoenix Foundation, Deftones, Chemical Brothers (First two albums, before they got crap), Bomb the Bass, Minuit, Salmonella Dub, St Etienne, Straitjacket Fits, Beastie Boys, White Stripes....

Least favourite blogger (aside from Mike/IAWCC)? That dick that I was arguing with who Ben was arguing with too, the right-wing guy who took issue with my "liberal talking points" ie facts.

Claire

How much do you hate PPA 810.2, Research Methods for Public Administration? More than sand in my knickers, more than stupid people, more than screaming children in supermarkets, more than people who eat with their mouths open, more than people who are mean to dogs, more than period cramps, more than the US Republican Party, more than 80s hair, more than ignorance, more than fundamentalists, more than television advertising, more than ingrown toenails, more than pretentious people, more than Kylie Minogue, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and J-Ho combined, more than seafood, more than traitors, more than strong winds, more than the media that tells girls they're nothing if they don't subscribe to a particular conception of "pretty", more than Michael Jackson, more than yeast infections, more than barbershop music, more than made for TV Christmas movies, more than the fact I've run out of things that I hate. Ahem. Quite a lot.

Anyone else?

Spiky kitchen window deathsicle

From the Bandwagon Jumping Dept. of Planet Claire, in conjunction with the Ministry of Can't Think Of Anything Interesting To Post I present to you.....

...question time.

Ask me anything. I will probably answer it, and sometimes even honestly.

Here, I'll even show you how its done.
Q: Whose house?
A: Run's house!


Then you can go and check out Borat, who, in response to recent claims by the Kazakh Ministry of We Are Not Amused that the country sue Sacha Baron Cohen, said "I like to state, I have no connection with Mr Cohen, and fully support my government's decision to sue this Jew"

But first, let the Inquisition begin.
Bring on Cardinal Biggles!!

Right bitches, I'm back.

And while I was gone I went to Pennsylvania and had my first American Thanksgiving experience. Its a weird tradition, people come together and cook a turkey the size of a three year old child and eat themselves into a food coma and follow it up with "pie" by which they mean tarts and sweet flans and cakes. And the day after people get up at 5am to go shopping to buy things they really don't need and to fight each other for cheap products which were more than likely made by children in Burma who don't have turkeys to eat.
Anyway, it was nice to be with a family again, even though it wasn't my own, and Kait and I drank every night, which is why I'm saving up my money and buying a house on this street because I'd fit right in.


Reading Pennsylvania is smack bang in the middle of Amish country and I was most upset to come away from my wee holiday without seeing a single Amish person. I'm sure they don't all look like Viggo but I would love a photo of some Amish people. However, I didn't see any, which as it turns out may have been a good thing because apparently they are a bit stinky because they don't use soap or deodorant or toothpaste or listerine or shampoo or perfume or razors or dental floss or any of those useful things we use to smell nice and keep our teeth from not falling out. I would last five minutes in an Amish house because stinky breath is my number one Hate (co-first prize winner with Eating With Mouth Open. I firmly believe all noisy eaters should be taken out back and shot).

So, the drinking. First night we went to this right dive of a bar that was kind of fun and drank beer and that was nice, and the second night Kait's brother-in-law's band was playing at a fire company which is where firemen go to drink but none of them were hot, and the singer of the band embarrassed the crap out of me and I nearly hit him but didn't cos I'm a lady.
And then Kait's friend Salad took a photo of me and I look really fat so I need to get exercising and cutting down on the old booze a wee bit or Greenpeace will come to the beach when I'm swimming and refloat me. However, the day that I go on a diet is the day that hell freezes over that GW says something intelligent that pigs fly that Sarah is not my number one girl that the pope is a single mother from South Auckland that Fat Freddy's suck that Luther is short that Fox is fair and balanced that I am not awesome. So basically, never.

So, in keeping with the season, I ate obscene amounts of food on Thanksgiving, and we went to the first-night-bar again, and I drank scotch because it was cold and I got a bit drunky which was fun.
We also went for a wee walk before the bar after the turkey and before the "pie" and I saw a sign. Not The Sign, nor the Sign O The Times, but a sign nonetheless.

And I took its photo. It was most obliging, as were Ramone and Chet.

Ramone. Big fat grumpy black cat. I heart Ramone.

Chet. He has three legs. I know pretty much all cats have three legs, but the unusual thing about Chet is that he doesn't also have leg number four that all the other cats have. He got shot in the first Gulf War and now sits around the house collecting his veterans benefits.
He's a pretty cool dude, even if he did bite me. Twice.

Back to the booze. Last night was fun because we went to the Ugly Oyster with Kait's "boys" one of which was her ex-boyfriend and long lost twin of our very own Luther and his silly skank of a girlfriend was there (not Luther's, his is most awesome and not in small town USA but is on a boat making the oceans safe for the inevitable global pirate takeover, I mean the ex-boyfriend's) and she hated me because he was loving The Claire and kept trying to talk to me and look at my boobs and ignoring her what a rude bastard. We think he's a dick because he was not very nice to Kait when they were together and was rude to Kait's mum who is the coolest lady in Pennsylvania. Anyway.

Then I drank A Lot Of Bourbon and someone made me do an Irish Car Bomb which is a shot of Baileys dropped in most of a pint of Guiness and you're supposed to chop the entire thing in one go and I couldn't do it and I felt bad because I was the sole representative of my country there and I let the side down but then I snogged a really hot boy called Zane and that made up for it. Zane hearts Claire. And Claire hearts Zane, at least for a little while in a bar last night until fate tore us apart like star-crossed lovers in manner of Shakespearean tragedy or similar. Poor Zane, because he's still in Reading Pennsylvania and I'm in Syracuse New York and long distance relationships never work and it was beautiful while it lasted but we'll always have the Ugly Oyster Bar and our one wee snog.
Now I have snogged boys in two states. Only 48 to go.

And now I'm going to bed.

Thank you for all the nice things you said while I was gone.
Did I miss anything exciting?

Low-atus

Most of the time its pretty cool being me. In fact, its generally awesome.
However, there are rare occasions in which everything comes sneaking up on me and smacks me in the back of the head and completely floors me. Right now is one of those times.
So, I'll be away from the blogosphere for a little while.
I don't know how long for, I never know how long these things will last. Maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks.
I'm going to be fine, I'm getting pretty good at this now, I'm just so tired of it all.
Talk amongst yourselves, and I'll be back.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

....in T minus 43 minutes.....

ohmigodimsoexcitediloveharryicantwaittoseethedragonsandvoldemortandohgoodnessithinkimgoingtopeemypants

Holy Toilet Hugging Hangover, Batman!!!

I feel like complete arse.
Arse that has been marinated, grilled, chewed up, spat out, jumped up and down on, put through a blender, laid out on a cricket pitch and then steamrolled over.
Booze + Claire = Pain.

We had this hoojimmy at ours last night, people from the university came and talked about that weird space we inhabit between student and faculty, and then there was food, and wine (lots of wine) and after a while we got sick of the talking so I put Fat Freddy's on and there was grooving and then I put some Phoenix Foundation on and there was much rejoicing and then some people went to Harry Potter (you're a wizard, 'Arry!) and some went bowling and Rebecca and I were going to go bowling too but there was much disorganisation and drunkeness and some more wine so we ended up at Taps (pub up the road) where there was beer and darts (at which I completely suck) and foozball (also on the list of "things at which I suck") and its all a blur really.

I have no idea when Sanjukta and I staggered home, but it was pretty darn late!! I have vague recollections of calling Rebecca and shouting at her answerphone "Are you alive!! I'm going home!! Bye!!"

Awoke at 7.30 am, gave consideration to chopping my head off to stop the pain, but decided to go back to sleep instead.
Awoke at 12.30, went down for a cup of tea, went back to bed.
Awoke at about 1.30, went downstairs to puke, went back to bed.
Awoke at about 2.15, went downstairs to puke, sat in the shower for 20 minutes hugging my knees and begging forgiveness, went back to bed. Remembered to turn shower off.
Awoke about 5pm, went downstairs for food, discovered the toilet was blocked. Swore loudly and often. Went to the downstairs neighbours for a wee and ended up borrowing their plunger, as our one is officially crap. Unblocked the toilet. Make a mental note that unblocking toilets while crippingly hungover is on a par with trying to change a baby's nappy while in a similar state. Clean bathroom floor (thankfully only liquid mess, but still pretty gross). Wash hands with scaldingly hot water and about ten pounds of soap. Note tendancy to exaggerate.
5.45 ish, cook big disgusting mess of hash browns, eggs, tomatoes and toast. Mmmm. Fried goodness.
6.15 ish, retire to room in an attempt to do some work, because have been complete write off the whole day. End up reading blogs and listening to Interpol.

Now its 7.15 pm, and perhaps the time has come for me to actually do some of the great fuck off pile of work I have to do before Tuesday.

Arse, I tells ya.

Edit: 7.26pm: realise that at some point during the day I have lost my ability to reconcile past and present tense while blogging hungover.
7.27pm: come to terms with my new disability

Hey, down in splendour, take a bow, blinded in the white light and the crowd, die slowly in your arms, left to lie alone, and save your face of changing colour and your smile of fading colour cos you'll never find another who will give you ever after and you shouldn't have to say goodbye...

So, things that suck. T-groovy is working New Years Eve until 6pm then starts work again at sparrow's fart on New Year's Day.
Arsefeckshitwanktitfuckbollocks.
Oh well, I probably couldn't have afforded a trip to Paris anyway. Still. Fucksticks.

The good news however, is that now I have loads of time to make plans for exciting things to do for New Years. Normally I couldn't give a flying fuck about it, in part because its completely arbitrary because the calendars have been adjusted so much ever since people began measuring years, and in part because the New Year in New Zealand arrives 16 hours before it does here, so I can kind of have two...

Also this year is significant because its the first New Years in FUCKING FOREVER where I'm not working in some mad-busy restaurant being grumpy and sober while all around drunk people are having fun and thinking they're cool when they're really being complete cunts.

So, what should I do?

There's Times Square, a few hours down the road in Manhattan. That could be fun, although probably full of Americans. I could go to Canada and visit Apoc. Apparently I have some distant relatives in Vancouver, but they're probably really boring.

Any bright ideas?
Or in lieu of bright ideas, $2000 to go home would be nice too.

Currently listening to: Straitjacket Fits; "Down in Splendour", as if the title wasn't hint enough.

Breaking news just in....

Has anyone seen this woman?

For she is Person of the week for sending a care package.
Sorry Mr Peter Jackson, you may have a trillion Oscars, but Bridget is in fact the Coolest Person in Wellington (tm) (except for Hester, of course...)

So if you see her walking down the road, please buy her stuff. She likes Japanese food and socks with toes and dogs and yoga and is a vegetarian and has many books and speaks Japanese and Russian and has a law degree and is very clever.

In the last few days I have been averaging 4 or five hours of sleep a night, and so my customary Wednesday afternoon nap turned into about 3 hours of blissful snoozing. So, once I got up I was feeling all scrummy, and not like I was about to kill someone, so I went downstairs for a cup of tea. As one does.

Sitting on the coffee table was a care package Bridget had sent me, containing not only the new Phoenix Foundation album I had been whinging about a few posts ago but a few other goodies as well.

Here is how much Bridget rules.


Some socks with kiwis on them and a crunchie bar and a chocolate fish and the new Phoenix Foundation cd to whose awesomeness I am currently getting down to.

All together now: YAY BRIDGET!!!

I really want to eat the chocolate fish now but I was getting stuck into some jaffas earlier and am worried that if I eat more sweeties I will puke, and I really don't want to waste probably the only chocolate fish in North America.

Heres another reason why its great to be me.

My dressing down matches my trackpants and I'm wearing my moo boots.


Speaking of cows, check this out. Turn the sound up. (Thanks Heq)
I heart cows. Especially Cow Tse-Tung.

And on that note, I'm off to buy some wine, because I'm a raving lush.
Take care now bye bye.

Holy flaming arseholes, Batman

So I was in the shower, washing my hair and drinking some vodka, and a thought came to me.

Sometimes its just so weird, being me.

But I'm in a rather benevolent mood, which may have something to do with the teensy weensy bit of alcomohol I've had to drink because tomorrow at 9am is Research Methods and being overtired and having a little wee baby hangover actually makes that class more enjoyable that is how hellish it is.

And as a result of my rather benevolent mood, I've decided to invite you all to my birthday party. Unless you're mean or stinky, in which case you can piss off.

So, this party. Its in May next year, and it will probably be at my Dad's house, and its a Significant Burpday so there will be cocktails and bar service and champagne and yummy little nibbly things and lots of beautiful people. I want to fill the swimming pool up with one giant cocktail, but Dad said a) no piss off thats a perfectly good swimming pool and b) Claire that is just SOOOOO nouveau riche. I heard about a guy who had a birthday party for his wife and had an ice replica of Michaelangelo's David with vodka coming out of his winkle and waiters in togas and firecracker displays but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get that.
But thats cool.

And then after my party we can drive up to Kaikoura and go whale-watching and go to Akaroa and play with dolphins and then drive south and stop in Geraldine for a cup of tea and a pie and to see the world's biggest jersey (its in the Guiness Book of records!) and then drive further south and go to Mount Cook/Aoraki and walk up the Huka valley and get stonechips in the windscreen of the car but we won't mind because we will be having so much darn fun. And then we can stay at the Hermitage with the ghosts and then drive to Oamarama and stop by Sailors Cutting and steal a boat and go across the lake through the gorge up to Willow Peak and I can share my childhood memories of waterskiing on a glass-flat lake and barbequeing and my Dad telling the dead horse joke and Ed and his badly cooked eggs and white chocolate and the smell of petrol for the boats and the really scary storm we had that is the reason to this day I am afraid of high winds.

And then we can drive even further south and go through the Lindis Pass and stop at the top and look out across the McKenzie valley cos its a hundred colours of pretty, and then we'll be off to our next stop which is heaven on earth the best place I've ever been Wanaka. And we will have planned ahead so that when we get there the water and heat and spa pool are on and we'll stop at the supermarket and buy loads of yummy veges and wine and cheeses and dolmades and crackers and we'll get to the house and I'll cook up a big feast and we'll sit around the big dining table and share stories about our lives and our favourite teachers at school and the first time we rode our bikes without training wheels and the naughty things we did and got away with and the best concerts we've been to and our favourite songs and the first time we got drunk and we'll laugh so much there are tears running down our faces and then I'll make us all a nice cup of coffee and we'll load the dishwasher and we'll sit on the comfy sofa and watch Black Books and then have a spa and go to bed all full and relaxed and half drunk and delicious.

Then in the morning we'll all pile into the car and go into the town and buy sandwiches and orange juice from the Doughbin and drive up the other side of the lake past Glendu Bay past Treble Cone right up into the Matukituki Valley to the DOC site and we'll walk right up to the bottom of the Rob Roy glacier two hours straight up and we'll get to the top thoroughly exhausted but in the best possible way and we'll get our sammies out and the keas will try to eat them but we'll be cleverer than them cos they're just silly parrots after all, and after we eat the sammies we'll walk down and instead of going back to the house we'll drive up to the Cardrona Hotel and have a beer and some hot chips and toast our feets by the fire and then go back to the house and stop at Tuatara Pizza and get venison and cranberry pizza and brocolli and brie pizza and apricot chicken pizza and a bunch of other flavours and go back to the house and eat our pizza and lie on the floor because its heated and maybe have another spa and when we get up in the morning we'll just lie around the house drinking tea and eating toast and playing scrabble and trivial pursuit and listening to some tunes and maybe sit in the spa some more and look out at the lake over to the Rippon vineyard and to Mount Aspiring and watch the boats coming and going and maybe go into the town and get drunk and walk home singing and making angel wings out of stolen toi toi and then after a few days we'll pile ourselves into the car and head back to sunny Christchurch and get on a plane and the adventure will be over.

Ummmmm.....

You can do a multiple regression with two independent variables and one dependent variable when the dependent variable is on an ordinal scale and the independent variables are measured in a categorical index, can't you?

Get in the kitchen and cook me some pie!!!

You can all start calling me Nigella Lawson, because I am a freaking DOMESTIC GODDESS!!!
We have this thing in my political science class where each week a couple of people are nominated to bring lunch for the whole class. Somehow I let slip that I Can Cook, and so find myself in sole charge of tomorrow's lunch. Which is fine and dandy, but being the perfectionist foody-type person I am, I hate to have pre-made anything. I make everything from scratch, that way I know whats in it. Also, it means I can take the credit for its awesomeness, but thats another story.

So, I have spent about two and half hours of my valuable time (only valuable because I have a research proposal due on Wednesday and readings for tomorrow to do and ten pages of a final paper due next week not because I was going to do anything fun like get drunk or watch telly or talk to my friends or kiss boys or anything) in the kitchen, like the Good Woman that I am.
I made a HUGE pot of chilli, all vegetarian-like because some of my class-mates don't like eating dead things, and its got beans and tomatoes and green peppers and lots of red chilli and just enough garam masala and some onion and some other things that are secret.

Then, I decided that instead of cooking rice or something nice and easy to go with the chilli, I decided that my class needed tortillas.
Incidentally, did you know that flour tortillas and paranthas are virtually indistinguishable? There's your fact for the day, all you need is a few cups of flour, a bit of salt, some oil and warm water, and you have either tasty tortilla action, or Indian flatbread, depending on the occasion.
So, I make up the tortilla mixture (we'll call it tortilla today, because chilli and parantha sounds silly) and started kneading it. And then kept kneading it. And then kneaded it a bit longer. And because it was such a big-arse mixture, it was going to take fricking FOREVER for the gluten to bind, so I stopped and had a wee rest. Then I kneaded some more. (now I have sore stomach muscles, which is a good sign) Then I got sick of playing with the dough, as one does, and decided to cook the little fuckers, whether they liked it or not. They're flour, its not like they're going to stage a mutiny. So, I cut the big fuck-off ball of dough into little tortilla sized pieces all ready to roll, and remembered that I don't have a rolling pin. I do, however, have a jar, which came in very handy. The thing with tortillas though, and especially in cold weather, is that you have to roll them out, and then stretch them, and then roll them again, and then stretch them, and then cook them.
After the first couple, it was all going well, and I began to feel like I was on a roll of sorts, excuse the bad pun. At around tortilla number eight I began to feel the strain, but continued on, knowing that when my classmates got their lunch it would all be worth it. Around tortilla number 14 I was ready to feed my classmates a ball of tortilla dough each. At about tortilla number 17 I began swearing out loud.
I made twenty of the little motherfuckers. TWENTY.

All I can say is that tomorrow in class, if there is a single person who doesn't say "gosh these tortilla are nice, its wonderful to have handmade food" that person will be recieving the patented Claire Smackdown (tm). I don't like to go into details, suffice to say within my "tools of the cooking trade" I have a knife who's blade is nearly a foot long, and which is kept almost surgically sharp.

The good news is that I tasted the chilli and it is Extremely Awesome, so you're all invited to help me eat the leftovers. You have to make your own tortillas though.

EDIT: This just in: Its a hard job keeping everyone happy. I've fixed my links again, in keeping with parochial loyalties. Any more problems please staple them to a frisbee and throw them the way the wind is blowing. They'll get here eventually.

Me and the boy with the aubergine hair travel the world with only three cares; one is of money, two is of time, and three is the tragedy that you are not mine

Dear Man,

For the last dozen or so years I have been told by many people, all of different relationships to me, that you are out there. When I had my heart broken in Australia, I consoled myself with the thought that he wasn't you, he wasn't the one I was looking for, and that this was all part of the journey to get to you. Back in NZ, when Tall, Dark And Handsome But Unfortunately A Complete Twat showed his true colours, I realised that you weren't him. I arrived in America, and thought as an added bonus perhaps I might find you here. So far, no such luck. I have met Emotionally Retarded and Really Hot But A Bit Of A Wanker, thankfully I managed to avoid any sort of involvement with either of them.
(Then there's Nice Guy Who Fancies Me But I Don't Fancy Back, and of course every girl knows Mindbendingly Hot But Taken.)

The last thing I want you to think is that I spend all my time thinking about you, or that I cover my face in make-up every time I leave the house, just in case I see you. I know that you will love me for more than my red hair, incredibly long legs and impressive rack. You'll love the fact that I'm a bit clever, and a bit unpredictable, and that I talk to myself. You won't mind that my nose is wonky from where I broke it, and that I'm a food snob and that I drink too much wine, and that I don't have a flat stomach. You'll agree with me that stupid people should be sterilised, and will completely understand the brilliance of both Fat Freddy's Drop and Interpol.

However, I must confess, Man, that I am beginning to get a little impatient. Its been a while now, and I'm beginning to think that perhaps all those people who told me about you were telling me pork pies.
Sure, I know I'm busy, what with this pesky PhD thing I've got myself involved in, and I know that I'll probably be jumping from one country to another for the next couple of decades, but occasionally when everything goes tits-up it would be nice for someone to be here to listen to me rant in the middle of the night and sometimes in the winter when its cold and dark and I'm bundled up in my bed watching crappy science fiction movies, it would be nice if there was someone to share the scotch with.

I'm just saying, that's all.

Fucksticks

Blogger is being a right cunty bastard and I'm trying to change my profile photo because my head is freaky huge in the one thats there and its creeping me out (who gets creeped out by their own head?) but it keeps telling me the link is broken. Actually its probably photobucket thats being a cunty bastard, or perhaps a bit of a double team cunty bastard action is going on.
Either way it was pissing me off so I thought I'd better stop doing that or I'd get angry and trust me, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. I don't go green, but I punch things and break things and say many bad words quite loudly and hey I've got red hair so I'm allowed to.

I'm going to New Orleans in February to hang with some blogger chicks and drink my weight in vodka and wine and probably snog some random dude. Hey, if I get enough drinks in me, perhaps I'll snog a random girl as well. Stranger things have happened.

My dumb class got cancelled today, yay!! No, not the one I REALLY hate, just the one thats a bit dumb. I mean, this is a fairly elite school, sure its not Harvard or Yale, but it just out-scored them (and Columbia and NYU and Cornell and Stanford etc, suck it down punk bitches) on pretty much everything in the most recent thing-that-scores-graduate-schools-that-people-wet-selves-over
and its fairly expensive (well they must have money cos they keep giving it to me!!Sweet!!) ....wait, where was I going with this?
Right, fancy pants school, so you would think that graduate level classes have some measure of like, structure, and assessment and things, right?
Well you would think that, BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG!!!

In this class, which has been going since the end of August, I have had to submit my notes from the weekly readings, and turn up, and theres been vague threats about a final paper, but nothing definate, and ask a few questions in class, and thats about it. Sure, the readings are pretty hard going, and they had the decently to translate Plato and Aristotle into English (don't know about you, but my Ancient Greek is a teensy bit rusty) but thats only added up to a few hours a week. And very few of the classes seem to relate to any of the other classes, and while its all very interesting, I really can't see where its all going.

And that troubles me, because I really want to kick its arse, but I can't kick its arse if I don't even know what its arse looks like, let alone where it is. See, if I get in "Good Academic Standing" (tm) I'll be eligible for a Big Bag of Money to go home next summer (just in time for winter). Also, I have to like, not fail, or I'll lose my student status and then I'll lose my visa and have to go home and while that would be nice I want to go to New Orleans. Also, theres a conference in Calgary, or maybe Ottawa, or perhaps Vancouver... somewhere in Canada next year I want to go to. I would submit a paper, but its all a bit difficult at the moment. Besides, I can't really think of anything interesting. Thats a lie, I can think of plenty of interesting things, but none of them are appropriate for these fullas. OK, Calgary. My bad.
Hours of fun.

Who lives in NYC that loves me? My lovely flatmate has kindly volunteered to go down to Manhattan in December to stalk Anthony Bourdain with me, and we need people to drink with (read: buy us drinks and introduce us to hot men).

I look really nice today. I'm wearing the sexiest blue trackpants, complete with racing stripes down the side that are a wee bit too short for me cos my legs are too long for normal clothes, and grey woolly socks, and a Batman t-shirt.
So freaking hot right now.

I'm quite tall, did you know that? I'm five feet ten and a half, which I converted to centimetres and its a little under 180.
I drink lots of tea. I love it. I'm so English.
My Grandad was born and raised in India. He went back in his early 20s to Calcutta and worked on the river for a few years. Then he got shipwrecked. I'm pretty sure that wasn't on the river in Calcutta though.
I've got very nice teeth, and I've never had braces. Only my wisdom teeth out, which hurt like a motherfucker, and one root canal (because I was so traumatised after the wisdom teeth thing I didn't go back to the dentist for 8 years). That hurt like a motherfucker as well.
I also drink lots of water, but the water here sucks. The water in NZ, well in Christchurch anyway, is literally spring water. The purest in the world, and we use it to wash our cars.
At one point in time I owned 17 pairs of sunglasses. Now I have four, but only brought 2 to the US with me.
I used to work on a bungy jump on a beach in the Greek Islands and got to bungy jump for free. That was pretty cool.
Sometimes I think about having a big political rant about the state of the world but I wouldn't know where to start and it all makes me so angry and depressed that I give up and write dumb shit instead because this blog is kind of a thing like that.
Sometimes I really wish that I was stupid so I didn't understand what I do and then I could accept what I'm told and then I might be happier and I wouldn't know that I didn't know squat and I'd be worried about what shoes to wear and if I had put 5 pounds on and when the new trashy chick-lit book was coming out instead of spending half my life walking around astounded that people accept the shit they accept and they continue to live their lives and think it doesn't matter and don't realise that one person can make a difference and that if you live your life according to how you think life should be you've made a tiny ripple in the world and that ripple will matter and that at the end of the day if you've lived beholden to no one but yourself and the principles of good and true and beauty and knowledge and thinking about making the world a better place for those who are yet to enter it instead of trying to prevent people from being happy in the ways happiness finds them them you've done and people will say good things about you when you've gone and they'll mean it and will be sad and won't sit at your funeral thinking about the groceries they must get on the way home or what to buy cousin Betsy for Christmas they'll be thinking that the world was a better place for having had you in it and sometimes my dad despairs of whats to become of me I'm nearly thirty and I've got no money no job no assets no boyfriend but I've got what I believe in and thats the idea that I can make things better and that I have a gift because I have the opportunity and people would kill for the things I've got and thats why at the end of the day I'm glad I'm not stupid I'm not saying I'm some sort of genius far from it I can be pretty daft sometimes and I had my iq tested once and its no record breaker but its a respectable amount above the average but despite all the knowledge we have and don't want theres the knowledge we do want and can use and so we do these things so we may find our own version of happiness which is to stop ignorance and greed and intolerance and misery and poverty and starvation and suffering so we say thank you for what we have and thank you more for what we can do.

Phew. Did not see that one coming.

One of these things....

I need a new picture for my profile photo, and because I'm in love with myself, I like all of these and need help deciding.

Picture one: saucy yet academic


Picture 2: Glam yet thoughtful


Picture 3: Thoughtful yet playful


Picture 4: You can almost see up my nose.

Votes in the box please.

EDIT: I found this on Green Fairy
Turn sound up, cue hilarity.

Autumn: when death is pretty

Funniest. Thing. All. Week.

Ballbright's knickers for sale on ebay.

I want to go to Canada so I can shake the hands of the shit-stirrers that thought this up.
Yes, and maybe even buy them booze.

This just in....

I don't want to buy anybody's knickers, except my own, which are already mine therefore I don't need to buy them. Therefore I don't want to buy anybody's knickers. Ok? Ok.

I'm going to school now. Later.

I am a compulsive blogger!

Do you think that in my profile picture it looks like I have no neck and that my unusually large head is attached directly to my shoulders?

Listen up, bitches

This was my weekend: correlation coefficients and non-equivalent dependent variables and simultaneous equations and temporal relationships of causality and measurements of civil society and reports of truth commissions and advocacy issues of ngos and social transformation and normative vs. neo-Tocquevillean arguments and cosmopolitan citizenship and post-national identity and quasi experimental design and construct validity and washing.
That sucks, and in keeping with the mission imperative of "Keep Claire sane (-ish)" it is decreed that there will be much fun had in New Orleans at Spring Break 2006, sometime between 10th March and 20th March.
Also, if I can magic some money out of thin air there is also the possibility of some fun being had in Paris over New Year. I will set up a PayPal account, and people can donate money to my cause. How exactly does one register oneself as a charity?
But before any of that happens, I am taking my arse (and possibly the rest of me) down the road to Manhattan to dine at this restaurant because I am in love with Anthony Bourdain and want to have his babies and eat his lovely French cooking and get really fat and then he'll leave me for a hot skinny model but I won't care because me and my babies will have lots of lovely food to eat and scrummy French wine to drink and we will be all happy together and then I'll get my stomach stapled and be all thin and go and see Anthony Bourdain and say hey look at how hot I am again and he will be all ohmigod Claire you are such a sexy bitch please take me back I want to cook for you forever but I'll say sorry mon ami you had your chance and then me and Warrick Brown CSI will jump in a van with all my Bourdain babies and we'll drive off to Mexico and live happily ever after.

But after dinner at the fancy schmancy restaurant and before I get really fat and have babies (not necessarily in that order) we will go to New Orleans and drink lots of cocktails and I will meet Grace and Sunshine and Chuck and his Matt and Outlaw (honourary blogger) and Gwen and Isabel and oh goodness who have I forgotten probably someone who will now hate me forever and ever or at least until I buy them a really poncy cocktail in New Orleans. Its Chickstock (and Chuckstock) '06, for all those who couldn't make it to Blogstock '05.5.
But if you are a relatively hot and intelligent chap, preferably over the age of 25 and most definately over six feet tall who is not an emotional cripple or a fucktard or a complete knobrash and who thinks freckles are nice and that farts will always be funny no matter how old you are and that dogs are some of the nicest people in the world then you are invited as well.
I'll be the red-head holding up the bar.

PS speaking of fat, I just ate the last TimTam. Stay tuned for sugar coma action.

Toitu he whenua, whatungarongaro he tangata

Its good to know one can still count on Tom Scott.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

In the entire history of ideas, since the very beginning of ideas, this has got to be one of the best.


C/o- my new friend Sunshine

Yes I'm venting

Right I'm a bit angry and I know that some of it was my responsibility and that I fucked up and I've said as much and tried to make it clear that I felt I owed you something but not all of it was my fault there wasn't the need for those other things and I wasn't trying to shirk any responsibility there I just didn't want to take any work away from the third party because it was part of her thing and she was happy with the arrangement we had made and if she wasn't she didn't tell me if she can't tell me she feels like shes getting the short end its not my fault but I know the other thing was my fault and I tried to make it clear to you that I owed you and that we agreed that I didn't do my part but no you didn't get what I was trying to say and for that I'm sorry if I didn't make myself absolutely crystal clear but there is no call whatsoever to speak to me like I am your intellectual or moral inferior because I am neither I can accept when I fuck up I say hey, guess what, about that thing, well I fucked up and I'm sorry about that and I'm going to try and fix it now and then I do I am not trying to get away with anything I face up and take it which is what I'm trying to do and if you will believe what people say about me behind my back thats your problem especially when I say things in jest because if you believe everything I say in jest you'll have a pretty fucked up idea of me of anyone for that matter and if you are to be friends with someone you believe them over others I believe thats part of the qualification exam I agree with you that I fucked up and that I owe you which is what I'm trying to fix but nobody deserves to be spoken to like that I am not trying to get out of anything I am not attempting to justify myself or put a spin on anything I can accept I didn't make that clear but you are clever I thought you would have got what I was saying but obviously not thats ok though now I have made myself very clear we agree that I made a mistake and that I am trying rectify that but from what you said that was completely to be expected that I would fuck up you seem to have a pretty low opinion of me which makes me wonder why you got involved in the whole thing in the first place if you think so little of me but at least now I know a lot more than I did before about both of us and theres a lesson in everything and I can safely walk away with this one and regarding professionalism there is no excuse for name calling and you're probably going to give me shit about this post if you even read this but this is my blog and I write what I want and this whole thing saddens me because its all a bit unpleasant and if I didn't make myself clear then I'm sorry but if I fuck up I say so and stand up and take it and I think thats the second thing I did wrong after the first that started this whole shitfest was that I didn't make it clear that after I had thought about it I realised that I had fucked up and thats what I have been trying to say but I didn't make myself clear which is pretty ironic really because thats kind of my name.

Happiness....

...is a cup of tea and a packet of Tim Tams, and then you bite off opposite corners of the Tim Tams and dunk one end in the tea and suck the tea through the Tim Tam and it makes the biscuit go all yummy and the chocolate goes all melty and then you eat the whole thing in one bite and then go "OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH shit that was yummy I'll take another one thank you" which goes towards explaining why I have precisely 5 Tim Tams left from four packets that my mum brought over from Noo Zilland there are 11 Tim Tams in a packet and I did share some of them but now I'm feeling fat and sated.
This is how awesome my mum is.

Two months worth of The Listener four packets of Tim Tams four boxes of jaffas one issue of North and South magazine one bottle of 42 Below Feijoa Vodka two jars of Marmite and lots of Mum-hugs.
Fo' shizzle.

This just in, the internet is evil.
That is all.

EDIT: Sad news from NZ, Mr Rod Donald, co-leader of the Green Party, dedicated environmentalist, generally sensible man (except for that argument we had about the World Bank) and dead-ringer for my Uncle Barry, has died.
Bloody heart attacks, there's been a bit of an epidemic this year.

We live for just these twenty years, do we have to die for the fifty more?

So tonight was fun.
I went to Rebecca's house and called this guy cos if you go posting your phone number on the internets what the fuck do you expect and he was off his chops and then I talked to this guy who was getting chopped with the previous guy and all sorts of other bloggers its quite hard to do links when you've had one Feijoa vodka with apple juice two apple martinis and two absolut citrons and tonic and a glass of wine with dinner.

Now I've forgotten my point.

Oh bollocks.

In which Claire is delicious.

Right now I am just so scrummy its not funny.
I had one of those most deliciously long hot leg-shaving hair-washing body-scrubbing foot-pumicing showers and now I am covered head to toe in pure shea butter I got from this nice lady at the Pan-African village at the state fair and my hair has gone all nice and curly and I smell really nice and its only midnight and I'm going to bed and will read as much of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" as it takes for my hair to dry and then I will go to sleep because I will get up nice and early tomorrow and kick my research design paper's arse and in the afternoon who knows. Perhaps I will discover cold fusion. It is Half-Nekkid Thursday after all.

It took time then I found you....

Yesterday I was at the mall for far longer than I would care to admit, but in the end it all paid off.
Why, I hear you ask? What the fuck is she talking about?
I found the sort of bargain that some women (ie not me) dream about, and the most gorgeous boots I have ever seen (this week).

Yep, the most perfect chocolate brown leather boots in the WHOLE FRICKING WORLD are now mine, all mine I say, MWA HAAHAAA!!!!!!!
Ahem, sorry. Also don't stare too long at that picture, because the whiteness of my leg may damage your retinas.
I always swore I would never buy any Tommy Hilfiger products, because Tommy Hilfiger doesn't actually make anything, they merely contract everything out, ie Tommy Hilfiger jeans were always made by Levis etc, and its the whole idea of buying a name for the sake of a name that I object to, but hey. Goes to show how easily my principles can be bought.
Because I quite happily paid my $60 (yes you heard right, $60, including tax, for real leather boots) to the nice people at the shoe outlet shop and then went home and held my new boots on my lap and talked to them while I watched telly.

Here they are again.

Damn, they are some sexy beyatches

In other news, I had buckets of fun with my mum, we ate ridiculous amounts of food and drank many litres of wine and spend insane amounts of money (bargain boots notwithstanding) and this afternoon she went to Boston and then shes going home and gets to see my sister and my dad and those lovely children but I'm not too upset. I have too much work to be anything but focused on that.
Having said that however, one would think that I would be diving back into work, but since I got home from class at 4.30 today I have done washing, tidied my room, nuggeted my new boots and my Docs, washed the dishes, talked to Rebecca on the phone for half an hour (poor wee possum has a stomach flu) and played with my camera. (see above)

Ooooh, a new episode of House is on tonight. Looks like class will be fun tomorrow. Can you say "unprepared"?

Did I miss out on anything interesting in Blogland?

Update from the front lines

I'm still alive, and have not, as yet been kidnapped by my mum or homeland security.
Have been shopping and drinking wine and eating bunches of yummy food and doing real world stuff, and haven't touched any work since Thursday. Oh dear.
I'm waiting for Mum and Jan to come by in a taxi in about 15 minutes, we're going to the IHOP for breakfast (how American!!!) and then I'm off to class and they're off to Boston. As you do.

She hasn't tried cleaning my room yet, but she has offered, twice, and once to clean the bathroom, and took it upon herself to try and clean the front of the oven. Ha!

Normalcy to resume in T-minus 3 hours.