Show us your favorite winter-inspired craft.

I don't know about 'craft'... it's more of a hobby. My favourite winter inspired hobby would have to be writing smart-arse answers to all those Vox questions that arrive in that season about summer. Because you see it's a bit irritating to get summer related questions when you're in the middle of winter. Yet we get them all the time. It's just as annoying, in fact, as getting winter related questions in summer. Which it is here at the moment in the Southern Hemisphere. Remember us, Vox? The other half of the planet?

Screw winter crafts. I'm off down the beach.

Article found in The Age online.

Not into housework? Join the club

Deborah Ross

January 18, 2008 - 1:06PM

The non-domestic goddesses of the world are uniting ... if they can remember when the meeting is.

Welcome to the Non-Domestic Goddess Club. This is the largest organisation in the world for those who have old iceblocks embedded in the iced-up walls of their freezer. The club, founded at some time but no one can say when exactly as the members forgot to write it on the calendar, operates under the slogan: "Nature abhors a vacuum and so do we."

The club also, by the way, abhors the Dyson. This was decided at the last AGM because the fact that it is funky, and won't lose suction, doesn't make it any better and you can't fool us. Minutes from the last AGM are available on request but only after they have been lost, found, lost, found, lost and then found again at the bottom of the fruit bowl under the small brown furry thing that may once have been a plum but then again could equally be one of those baby koalas for the tops of pencils. Who's to tell?

The Non-Domestic Goddess Club expects its members to uphold extremely low standards at all times. Anyone nearly up-to-date with the ironing will have to explain themselves in full, while anyone totally up-to-date will be automatically expelled. Anyone who hasn't touched an iron in years and just tries to pass everything off as 100 per cent linen (including her face) will be awarded free life membership. Ditto anyone who makes Nescafe by placing the mug under the hot tap, both when pressed for time and when not, and who prepares bedding between guests by turning the pillow over to its "fresh" side.

The Non-Domestic Goddess Club has this to say about blackened cookware: soak, soak, soak, then throw away when nobody is looking. The club also suggests never questioning the fact that there is a street directory in your underwear drawer, as well as a toy knight, some small change (amounting to 85 cents), a book on houseplants and three boiled sweets. To question can only lead to madness.

The Non- Domestic Goddess Club has this to say about socks with holes in: put aside for darning, then throw away when nobody is looking. The Non-Domestic Goddess Club suggests never, ever going right to the bottom of the laundry basket, as anything could be living down there. The club fully endorses opening the top of the laundry basket, sighing dispiritedly and promptly closing it again.

The club expects all members to have all of the following items at the back of at least one kitchen cupboard: a tin of golden syrup with the lid half-cocked (treacle is also acceptable); an ancient pot of hundreds and thousands; a spilling bag of decade-old lentils; several bottles of food colouring (all green); a variety of exotic pickles and chutneys, which seemed like a good idea at the time; any number of herbal teas with tempting names such as Mango Carnival and Tropical Fiesta, which no one drinks because they all taste of pond; sticky jars of stuff that can no longer be identified and have bits of old moth wing, spilled lentils and fairy-cake cases stuck to their sides. The club has this to say about leftovers: decant carefully into Tupperware, place in fridge, leave for a week, then throw out when nobody is looking.

Alternatively, place in freezer, leave for a decade, then throw out when nobody is looking. Never throw anything away today that you can keep and throw away at a later date.

Click here to read the rest of the article

It's an edited extract from Always Go To Bed On An Argument, And Other Useful Advice From The Non-Domestic Goddess, by Deborah Ross ($27.95), published by Allen & Unwin. I am definitely going to get this book!

If you were suddenly granted the day off today, how would you go spend your free time?

What's this 'if', Vox? It's Saturday here. I've already been granted the day off by the Gregorian calendar. Nothing sudden about it really.

How am I spending my time on this not-so-sudden day off? Pontificating online about the nature of 'Saturday' apparently.

My finances are limited, so I need to set myself a plan of attack on life in general. Since everyone seems to be going crazy over lists recently I figured I'd organise my life in list form. Hey, it's better than my original idea of organising it by interpretive dance.

Stuff I need to spend money on over the next couple of weeks:
Electricity bill       done
Credit card repayment      done
Groceries
2 coffees while at uni (I treat myself once a week to a coffee to keep me sane).
2 Subway veggie delites (Ditto for buying lunch on Fridays)
Cask wine (Yes, this qualifies as a necessity!)
Tatslotto ticket because dammit the universe owes me

After paying for all of that it leaves me a about $50 left over in my bank account.

Stuff I would dearly love to buy:
New inserts for my stupid running shoes that give me stupid blisters all the stupid time
Failing that, another packet of bandaids.
Illustration board and new technical pens
A new skirt (my current ones are now too big. Great as part of my weight-loss plans, not so good for my being-clothed-adequately plans)
A gym membership at the local PCYC
An exercise pedal
New running shoes that don't give me blisters
Birthday present for my sister

Obviously the birthday present for my sister takes top priority, but I haven't heard from her in weeks and I don't even know if I'll see her for a month or so. She'll probably tell me not to get her anything anyway because she didn't get me a Christmas present. I might toddle up to Borders tomorrow regardless and see if they still have Elizabeth on sale (Spoilers follow!) She's a huge fan of Christopher Eccleston and surprisingly she's never seen that film. I found that out the hard way when she asked if he was also in Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I pointed out that would be very bloody difficult given his character had his head chopped off at the end of the first film. She was horrified I'd given away what happened to him. I was more horrified that she hadn't seen the movie yet. Ah well.

I feel much more organised having this list. And much poorer. *Sigh*

There is a storm brewing in a teacup in Australia currently.

Today Tonight (a local TV show peddling fear as news) claimed tonight that several major Australian bookseller chains refused to stock Andrew Morton's biography on Tom Cruise because they were scared of being sued by the Church of Scientology. They alleged that Big Bad Scientology is limiting our freedom of speech and our right to The Truth. Their proof? The same booksellers were quite happy to stock other controversial books such as the one on Alan Jones. And they state that other booksellers are happy to import the book.

Anyone who has read an Australian paper in the last five years or has the vaguest knowledge of Australian law can call bullshit on that.

Firstly, all of the 'controversial' books mentioned (can't remember the full list I'm afraid) were written and published in Australia, which meant they were checked, double checked and triple checked by Australian lawyers before being published, let alone put on the bookshelves.

Why? Well that's the second point. Australia has some of the toughest libel laws on the planet. The law will always favour the plaintiff. Even if the facts are true you need to prove that they are true with evidence that is admissible in court. From what I've read of Andrew Morton's sources they would not stand up to such scrutiny. Fine for publishing a book elsewhere, but not here I'm afraid.

And third, booksellers are private companies. They can stock whatever the hell books they like. Now, if the Australian Government had decided to censor the book then fine, there's a case to be answered about excessive censorship and freedom of speech. But as it stands this is a ridiculous attempt to make a story out of nothing simply because the big names of 'Tom Cruise' and 'Scientology' are involved.

And, yes, some other booksellers are happy to import the book for customers. But even they have said that at the first whiff of a law suit directed at the publishers they will stop ordering them (link).

Another point: I believe the Church of Scientology couldn't sue for defamation anyway. While corporations cannot sue for defamation unless they are not-for-profit or employ less than 10 people, and the Church of Scientology is categorised as not-for-profit, I believe their right to sue is restricted to hate-speech and vilification. (These changes to Australian law happened in 2006 so if anyone reading this has more knowledge of the situation please feel free to add your comment!)

It's a crazy book full of crazy allegations. If you're upset no-one's stocking it blame Australian law, not the booksellers. Or better still, stop being upset and just order it via Amazon.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

It seems to be a universal law that when people have the least amount of money, the maximum amount of unexpected expenses arise.

Like many I have bugger all money in the wake of Christmas so of course that's when everything has to go wrong.

• My computer died meaning I had to buy a new power supply. On a scale of one to ten that's not too bad as far as computer's go, it's one of the cheaper components to replace, but I could have really used that $60 on something else, y'know?
• Then the kettle died. It was a really nice one (read: expensive) that my mum gave me and we can't afford to get a new one. Luckily we have a gas stove-top kettle to use instead, but it takes ages to boil and is a pain to use. But since my darling EWK never pays for any of the household goods I guess it falls to me to replace it and I can't afford it right now.
  
• Oh, and I returned a stack of uni library books last week. In the process I learned a valuable lesson: NEVER RETURN A HEAP OF BOOKS ALL AT ONCE. Yep, they've managed to lose one of them. I've been told I still have a book overdue and I'm sure it was one of the books I returned. Somehow they haven't scanned it properly and since it comes from another campus god knows where it is at the moment. So if it doesn't turn up on one of their library checks in the next six weeks I get to fork out for a new book. And uni text books aren't cheap. I can look forward to spending well over $100 on it, plus the $22 fine. AND IT WASN'T EVEN A GOOD BOOK!
• So naturally the next day a $300 electricity bill came in just to top off my extremely happy week.

To make it better I'm still chasing payment for my last freelance job. It's been eight weeks since I issued the invoice and the real kicker is that I undercharged them in the first place. I can understand being tardy in paying a $3,000 bill, but when I deliberately kept it well under what it should have cost? Well, that pisses me off.

You know what universe, you owe me big time. And I'll be buying a lotto ticket this weekend to give you a nice opportunity to pay me back you bastard!

I got tagged by Melissa:

Here are the rules

1. Grab your nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.

5. Tag 5 different people.

The traitor hasn't left any leads.'

'And you can't even imagine who he is?' Witiezslav asked.

'I can imagine,' Gesar said with a nod.

(The Twilight Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko)

 
 
Normally I don't like tagging people because those tagged feel obligated and those not tagged feel unpopular, but I'll play by the rules for once. ;-)

I'm tagging Bookmole, LeendaDLL, GinBaby, Charlie 5-0, and Paikea. But anyone else can play if they want to!

If you could create your own National Holiday, what would it be and when? 
Submitted by John M.

It would be the Daily Holiday. It would be a day off celebrating the fact that it's a day off. And it would be every day.

Not good for the economy, perhaps, but good for bone-idle people like me.

This is a boring, nothing post on no topic whatsoever but to prattle on about stuff that's happening. Feel free to ignore it at your leisure.

I'm back at uni. That means that any lengthy comments I've made on posts today are likely to be the last ones you'll see from me for a while. You may regard this as a good thing or a bad thing. Sure I'll be adding less to debates but I'll also be adding less to other people's frustration. Me? I prefer to think of all the little pixels who will be spared by my inactivity.

I'm still overweight. I'm counting calories, eating only fruit and veg in between meals, watching my portions and exercising more but the weight isn't coming off. I'm using a weight-loss hypnosis CD and book but I think I'd be better off using a stop-drinking-NOW-you-fat-heifer hypnosis program. Basically I have quit everything fun except booze so I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I'll have to tackle my borderline alcohol abuse before I can get thin and healthy. And I don't like self-realisations that hamper my fun.

My brain isn't happy. I've found a new area that could possibly be incorporated into my thesis. The problem is that it's very terminology heavy and it's an area that's completely new to me (interpretive archaeology). It took me several months to wrap my head around presence theory and all its terms from psychology last time I found a new area so I'm not looking forward to starting from scratch again.

My computer shat itself a few days ago. I bought it a new power supply and now it's better, but in the interim I was freaking out in case the problem was more expensive. I could be excused for being grumpy at the unexpected cost, but I'm choosing to look at it in a positive manner. At least it wasn't the motherboard or graphics card that went belly-up. And when I eventually decide to upgrade my other components I'm going to need a better power supply so at least that's out the way. So this was a good thing. Who cares that it ate up the money with which I was going to join the local gym! *Grumble*

What else? I wore a nice cotton dress to uni today. A nice cotton dress with a huge bloody stain on it that I only just noticed ten minutes ago after wearing it all day. I feel like a grot.

I have also discovered what a great series Cracker was, admittedly a little late (roughly 15 years after it aired).

Oh, and I'm having a bad hair day.

That's it. That's my entire life right now.