It's not that easy being green

Stay tuned for a redesign of el blog. I like green and all, but realised the other day that the green template that blogger supplied rather burned the retinas. Hopefully I can persuade the resident designer to knock me up a logo.

Speaking of green, when in the US recently we saw the original Kermit the Frog in the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC. He was very cute, but quite small and a little mangy. I was glad he was behind glass because I thought I'd catch something off him!

Waiting outside Flinders Street

In Melbourne, one of the main train stations in the city is Flinders Street station. It's a big interchange point and you can get off and get trams and buses from there too. Most trains either start or end their routes at Flinders Street. The point is there's a lot of trains going in and out of Flinders Street. This sometimes means that trains have to wait just outside the station for other trains to leave the station before they can pull in. Theoretically, that's not meant to happen, but we all know that Connex isn't perfect. That's not the point of this post, although I vehemently agree with others that Connex needs to shape up in a big way. Anyway, my point is that I am ALWAYS on the train that has to wait outside Flinders Street. I guess I should be annoyed by this but I'm more amused than anything. I'm lucky I work in a job that isn't too over the top and my boss doesn't go crazy if I'm 5 minutes late sometimes.

Why am I always on the train that waits to let others past? It doesn't seem to matter what line I'm on, what time of day it is (it happened to me today in the middle of the day - hardly rush hour!), if it's an express train or not, what my destination is. It's always my train. Sometimes I have to wait to allow multiple trains through, showing just how important my train really is. Why is this? The logical answer is that it's a coincidence, and it shows how dodgy Connex is and how many of their trains are late or delayed. I'd like to think there was something else going on. I'm all for conspiracy theories!

Eurovision 2006

I can't tell you how much I love Eurovision. I watch it every year religiously. Apparently Ausralia is one of the few countries to have a significant Eurovision following outside of the countries who perform. I guess Australians are drawn towards camp and bad taste! One thing I love about Eurovision is no matter how much it is parodied, or parodies itself, there are still moments where I stare at the screen in utter bewilderment, trying to figure out 1. what is going on and 2. why they thought it was a good idea. Like the recreation of Aristophanes' The Birds with people actually dressed as birds flapping around the stage. As Terry Wogan pointed out, there was no mention of Bird Flu here. Terry Wogan is of course another reason I love Eurovision. He's a well known Eurovision institution which, until recently, was not heard by Australians due to SBS's need to put their own commentator in. While I loved Des Mangan introducing weird cult films late at night on SBS, he never really cut it for Eurovision. So it's good to hear Terry again. The other great thing about Eurovision are the terrible hosts who always seem to be talking over the top of each other or having awkward silences. It's true Eurovision gold.

Last night I was overjoyed that Lordi won. They are a death metal group from Finland who performs with monster costumes, and I was going for them. The best part about their act was that apparently whoever funds the Finnish Eurovision entry said they didn't know if they could fund the pyrotechnics which usually accompany Lordi's act. So there was a grassroots funding campaign so that Lordi got their pyrotechnics. I love this, because the Finns obviously understand the need to have pyrotechnics on a large scale with their death or heavy metal. Apparently the funding campaign was organised through two of the biggest heavy metal festivals in Finland, leading to the conclusion that there are multiple heavy metal festivals in Finland!

My second favourite entry, "We are the Winners/of Eurovision", from Lithuania also scored highly, so it's good to see that at least some europeans have a sense of humour about Eurovision.

Anyway, I am looking forward to next year's competition in Finland, and to see the response from other countries who will try and copy Lordi's act next year. Should be an absolute hoot!

The Da Vinci...

I've tried very hard not to write about That Book or That Author, because most of you have heard my rants, and the only thing that's changed is there seems to be more stupid people than I ever thought, given the soaring sales with books.

So.

The only thing I am going to say is...The movie sucks. It is already rotten. My favourite quote is that it's "Retarded, ridiculous and crushingly dull". That makes me laugh.

Maybe I am a bad person, but this makes me quite happy.

The Sociology of Libraries, part 3

I've noticed that the more irritated I am about answering someone's question, the more helpful I become. Take last friday, for example. I was rostered until 6pm, and bang on the dot of 5pm I was suddenly inundated with questions (most of them along the lines of, "how does the Dewey Decimal System Work/Where is my book?"). The more people who lined up to ask me questions (yes, there was a line!), the angrier I became. However, instead of answering with shorter and shorter replies, I became excessively helpful, explaining the mysteries of Dewey, recommending other books and telling them to look on our webpage. Why is this? I think it's down to guilt. I feel guilty about feeling angry so I'm extra nice. Does that make any sense? Why do I have guilt about library patrons? This is all wrong!!!

In a related note, it probably means if you run into me and I'm being super nice and helpful, I probably really want to slap you and tell you to go away.

Copping a Freebie

I should begin with the usual apologies about not updating sooner - as usual the hideous libAIRy course got in the way with time consuming, arbitrary assignments...So sorry. Anyway...

I was happy when I started working in the city because it meant I got off at a central station (so no changes or going all the way into the city and back out again - you have to love Melbourne public transport!!) and there are lots of trains going there during rush hour so it doesn't take me very long to get into the city. However, I have discovered another benefit to working in the city that never occured to me. During the rush hours, people stand outside the station giving out samples of stuff to commuters. By stuff, I mean all sorts of stuff. So far, I've been given perfume and deoderant samples (they mostly go straight into the bin), moisturiser, shampoo, cereal, and tea. Being the poor student that I am (I can't stres the "poor" part enough), I take advantage of all these samples to wash my hair, eat my breakfast and make my tea, at least from time to time. Sometimes this works out very well, such as washing my hair with the shampoo samples. Other times, it's not so good, like the hideous tea I was given which was mint flavoured green tea, made with both synthetic mint flavour and synthetic green flavour. It was disgusting, and I've sampled a fair few teas in my time! My latest sample (that I was given today) is a little tub of body lotion. It seems fairly harmless so I will try it out.

I should also note that the obvious point of giving out these samples is to entice people to buy these new products. I should also note that I have never changed my buying habits to incorporate these new items, although these samples give me several pointers about what to avoid!

Memo to fashionistas

Dear people who are currently walking around Melbourne looking all fashionable with skin-tight jeans, tops and thongs/sandals/slipons/toeless shoes of some kind:

It looks silly wearing thongs on your toes when you are wearing a giant jumper on your top half. You look like desperate fashion students, rather than people who know how to dress themselves. It is now May. It is definitly time to put those thongs away. It looks silly and you will probably get frostbite.