The end of the year is nigh

Good Christmas
# seeing my 21 yr old brother lose at SuperMario or something to my 4 yr old cousin
# discovering my cousins boyfriend helped organise the rally against racism. I got to let off some frustration about the rally's true purpose being masked from its audience
# cool gifts. My kitchen is pretty decked out, I got some quality books and DVDs, a puzzle that's gonna make me tear my hair out, i'm set for the summer:)
#good food good company pretty good day

Bad Christmas
# an electronic cheese grater. We as a family already own one and IT FUCKIN DOESNT WORK!
# thats about it. A pretty good year;)

Crap movie of the week: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Just damn boring. I didn't care about the characters, and actually felt it probably should have been longer so we could get a little more story and plot in there.

Crap video of the week: the Fantastic Four. It is as bad as you thought it would be.

Crap place of the week: Cheers in Glenferrie. The queue was bollocksly long so we bailed and went to the Hawthorn. Was actually alright. And on the upside, we went back home and played Jordo's copy of 'Scene It'

Should I be embarrassed that I recognised Charlie Sheen from a high school photo straight away?

Have a great holiday everyone.

Ho Ho Ho and a bottle of rum

Merry Christmas all!

Highlight so far for today - thinking it said "whore" on one of my boxes when it actually said wrobe. Didn't know what Santa was getting at?!

Btw - I know most of you are cooler than me and didn't stay home and watch Carols by Candlelight but Daryl Somers singing was truly annus horribilus. He tried to make out he could sing in a deep, masculine operatic voice and it was enough to make anyone's ears bleed!

Song of choice for today: Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis Queens. A little old school rap always goes down a treat with grandmas!

Will see you all in the new year, eat some yummy munchies,

All my love,

Mel xoxox

Stealth Maestro Buscema Shmoove

Note: the title is my pimp name as generated by the Pimp generator on the net! I also like Sugartastic Melanie Shizzle and Macktastic Melanie Squueze!

Work is bollocks atm. I still don't have my timetable for next year, I can't move my stuff to my new desk until Monday and I can't decorate my homeroom until the squabbling over homerooms is done! Grr. On the upside, I spray painted my filing cabinet black with bright green drawers - looks damn hot!

Friday afternoon I went to the rally in the city to protest against the Cronulla race riots. Organised via text messages on Thursday afternoon, about 1500 ppl (according to the media) turned up and we rallied through the streets yelling stuff like 'No racism, no war, this is what we're fighting for'. It was cool to see people from all walks of life there, including cute little 70 year old white couples :) Was good except it ended up at the Victorian Liberal Party Headquarters where they started to do speeches opposing the war in Iraq etc. Now while I am against the war, and I don't particularly like the Liberal Party, that wasn't why I attended so I bailed, like some others who I overheard saying "I came here to protest racism, not talk politics shit"

Saturday night Jarrod and I went to the Greenday concert at Telstra Dome. Fucking awesome gig. My Chemical Romance were turgid if you ask me, playing cliched punk pop, and Jimmy Eat World were good but not spectacular, but Greenday blew my mind. Being the last show on the worldwide tour, they opened the roof, had fireworks and pyrotechnics, and a double encore. A fucking great gig.

However Telstra Dome massively underestimated how many ppl they could fit in, and the Idiot Zone was like only one quarter full! How annoying to those of us who had to go General Admin!

And someone shake me if I consider going to an all ages gig in the near future. We had squealing 12 yr olds next to us screaming "I love you Billy Joe!" in the middle of songs, wearing glow sticks and having permanent marker on their arms saying stuff about how gorgeous Billy Joe is. Jarrod was all like 'Its probably their first ever gig, let them have their fun' but I couldn't resist sticking my elbow in the girls back every time she jumped up and down and landed on my feet. My reasoning is that I work with teenagers 5 days a week, I don't want them fucking up my weekends!

After the gig, Kateo, Jarrod and I went to the Supper Room, where they charge $8 a beer but make an awesome Virginia Ham and Gruyerre toasted sandwich! We watched a 50 year old woman and her 20 something year old toyboy footy player being all over each other, and trying to entice this other woman into a threesome. Hahahah

Peace out.

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it" George Bernard Shaw

Today, like everyday, I read the papers, and come across this:

"White nationalist groups involved in the Cronulla riots have predicted further racial violence, naming the Melbourne suburbs of Heidelberg, Preston, Reservoir and Springvale as potential "hot spots".

I don't believe I really bought into the terrorist threat stuff. I'm not afraid to fly, and i'm definitely not afraid of Muslims. I did teaching rounds in a school with a large Muslim population (prob. 80%) and I learned so much about the culture and grew to appreciate it and its intracacies. Every now and then I am reminded that we only fear what we do not understand, so I try and learn about whatever it is I fear and work my way through it (barring spiders- creepy motherfuckers)

But this "nationalistic" "patriotic" red necked stuff really creeps me out. In fact, it downright upsets me. There's something about it that I cannot shake.

I know there are two sides to every story, and i've followed with interest the arguments between the warring groups in Cronulla. But both warring groups (I say groups, and I mean the select groups of violent people, not the cultural groups on the whole) are in the wrong. Clearly in the wrong. "You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it." Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)

Heidelberg is where I plan to move. Preston and Reservoir have been stamping grounds of sorts as I worked in that area for 8 years. I love these areas and all the goodies they offer. I have never felt fear in these suburbs. And if they were taken over by this brutal violence, I think I would actually cry.

This era of conservatism is upsetting. And I don't understand how I, a progressive who believes in social harmony, tolerance and acceptance, can feel like I am in a minority. Which is how I feel atm. I always said that with the next few generations we will see the eradication of racism, sexism, homophobia etc but that day now seems so much further away.

"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." Ralph W. Sockman

Burlesque

Last night Jarrod and I went to the 'Burlesque Hour' at the Spiegeltent.

Pretty cool although also pretty odd. 5 chicks each come out separately and perform a routine of some sorts (except for the Town Bikes, who come out together to do dance routines). Like one chick comes out, starts dancing, and then ripping off all the underwear she is wearing. Another is on stilts. Another does hula hoops on a ball. I particularly liked the chick who did the monologue about being raised by wolves, bears, and whales. Oh and I also liked the chick who pops balloons with nails attached to her underwear. And the routine where they send up 'hello kitty' and 'sailor moon'

A pretty cool night.

Friday Night Becc, Jarrod and I went and checked out Clagg, a doom metal band Viccars is playing in. I enjoyed it when the songs had a little bit of speed, but the songs go for like 11 minutes and 9 minutes of it is 'doom indulgence' or 'sludge' where they basically just play guitar feedback! It's so weird thinking 'is this the end of this song or have the started the next one??'

Naja, es geht.

Good times, good times

Argh!

My god do I hate house hunting! It's incredibly mind numbingly dull, particularly when the cool looking places are out of your price range!

And real estate agents are sly mother fuckers, and I know they're trying to screw me over. I hate the stupid politiking of it, particularly as I have to do this all on my lonesome since my boy's working hours at the moment are ridiculously long and tiring.

I'm falling asleep at the computer here, to the sounds of my boy's sister and father arguing over christmas decorations. I left my house feeling saddened as my father was putting up the decorations for my mum. She swore she wouldn't turn the house into tacky-palooza, at least not on the outside where ppl can see, but we've lost the battle. Big cut out Santas hang from my roof, reindeer haunt my garden, and there's even a retarded key hanging on the front door which says something wanky like 'We dont have a chimney Santa - use this instead"

Grr

no wonder its time to leave.

Fave pick me up song on the radio - i think his name is Josh Pike and it
s called like House on the Hill or something. Oh and Terracotta Pies by System.

peace out