I'm in Darwin. It's pretty hot. I think I can see America.

i'm doing my best

 

Hey Liz Hurley, shove another Oatcake in your mouth

Hey Liz Hurley, I think you’re very attractive and good looking but quite frankly I don’t care for your weight loss advice. Yesterday Lizzy proclaimed that her toned, supple body is down to not eating breakfast (naughty girl), instead she drinks hot water and a ‘couple’ of oatcakes?

Oatcakes?

I of course popped along to the supermarket immediately to purchase said Oatcakes because a) I very much want Liz Hurleys body and b) they are oatCAKES…if you can eat cakes while being thin then I say YES PLEASE!

I was wrong.
Oatcakes are bullshit. My insides are so bored right now.
They’re like baby teething biscuits….but worse. I wanted to smother them in Philadelphia cream cheese or rub them on the carpet to add flavour.  Come on Liz, surely with access to personal chefs and magic weight loss machines you could do better than suggestion the dry old boring festival biscuit that is an oatcake?

*Note to self Oatcakes and poor lighting make you look super rough

I’m on a new health regime and I’m taking it pretty seriously….(partially because I’m doing a story for The Circle and I don’t want to fail on national TV). Last week I was hypnotised to make me want to enjoy running more… to be more confident and not freak out. I think it’s working, I run and don’t expire, so that’s a plus.

I’ve also downloaded an iPhone App. Yeah, I know, w hat super healthy technology obsessed health nut!  It’s a calorie tracker program that is very high tech. It makes you enter everything you eat and it tells you if you are fat or not.

Earlier in the week I purchased my very first set of scales (gross out). I spent a long time in Big W staring at the wall of options. From you el-basic-o hospital style scale to one that measured bone density and fluid retention.

“Hey Aleisha, are you pregnant?”

“No. Thanks for asking, it’s just a fluid baby…pass me some diuretics.”

I like the addition of bone density measurement. You need it you know? Its fat you want to lose, not bone. Mkaing the distinciton between the two is very important.

“Hey I weigh 65kg but my bones weigh 10kg, so really I weight 55kg.”

Works for me.

I know there is no Liz Hurley quick insane weight loss solution. I have to work for my Madonna arms and Jessica Alba abs. I really dislike celebrities that say the ‘don’t exercise’ and ‘sometimes forget to eat’. Their pant’s arelike totally soooooo on fire.

I’ll continue my regime, eat healthy run like the wind and avoid pastry shops, ice creams and muffins.

Oh muffins I love you.

Oaauuauuaaahhhhhhh

Great I’ve got an oatcake lodged in my throat, it’s like eating biscuits made out of cooked  play dough.

LIZZZZZZZZZZZ

Hey Gisele, why don’t you just get fu…

She’s been labelled the perfect woman. If you ask any man under 35, she probably would have shared intimate private moments with them in their imagination sometime recently.  Gisele Bundchen is a ‘super’ woman, supermodel and it seems all round goddess of everything. Recently this faultless freak of nature took time out from her idyllic life, for an interview with Harper’s Bazaar magazine. If you’re eating lunch be prepared to lose it, as Gisele’s philosophies of life, love and labour is vomit inducing.

First up she’s pro breastfeeding. No problem there.  She says;

‘There should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months.’

Ok good.
I’m glad she’s adding ‘worldwide’ legislation to her already full plate.


“Gisele practised kung fu for two weeks before the birth, did yoga three times a week and meditated every day in preparation”

It was also reported that she meditated throughout the birth (no screaming just rainbows and butterfly’s) and got up out of bed a couple our afterwards to make pancakes…presumably not with the placenta. Yes you’ve just had a 7lbs baby expelled from your vagina, but hey lets cook.

Because she is from the ‘super’ breed of women her petite, firm body bounced back to ‘super’ state just 6 weeks after giving birth, ready for a swimsuit shoot. SIX WEEKS.

Shut up.

For gods sake, shut up.

Do we really want to read this shit?
I’ve never birthed a child but I’ve heard enough horror stories and tales of vaginal tearing woe to know that none of my friends have said (like Gisele announced) after an eight-hour labour ‘didn’t hurt in the slightest’.

Oh please.

Maybe she wants to be hated? Maybe this is part of her grand plan of seclusion…to completely isolate herself from the sisterhood, so that every time we hear her name we spit on the street.

Why I oughta.

Men aren’t going to read this article. And if they do they’ll just add her perfect birthing, pancake cooking, tight arse swimsuit body to the already long list why Gisele is an Adonis.  They’re always going to love her, smug, bendy little Brazilian body* I suppose that’s the important thing.

I wonder if she ever thinks about what guys do while looking at her?
Probably while she’s breastfeeding and counting her money.

For more Gisele quotes and nonsense see this buzzfeed article….why Gisele is the new Gwyneth

*Please don’t read this as me chastising a beautiful woman. That is lame and it’s totes not my deal. There are plenty of beautiful successful women that don’t strangle us with their own perfection.

The creepiest collectable of all, ‘a handful of love’

Yesterday in the mail, we received one of those yellow envelopes that are full of discount coupons. I persist in opening them even when I am 99% sure that they only contain ‘coupons’ for nanna spy on your neighbours Venetian blinds and cheapo carpet cleaning… whose ads always feature a photo of a sex offender man wielding a vacuum and wearing what looks like a prison jumpsuit.

I hold a little shard of hope that one day I’ll rip one open and the coupon will offer me something I actually want to buy, instead of something that I would pay not to have in my house… like this. (Click the shit out of it to make it bigger)

Ok firstly this little creepy baby is called ‘a handful of love’. My boyfriend read that an immediately said it sounds like a pretty way to describe a hand job.
I think the baby looks like a keepsake from an abortion.

I can sort of understand people collecting dinnerware and fancy ugly figurines. Well I can’t but good luck to them.
My first summer job was in a home-wares shop. Until they realised I had a care factor of zero and was quite clumsy when it came to glassware I worked in the crockery section. Old ladies would come and fog up the glass of the display cabinets, getting excited about the latest ‘pretty lady’ Royal Doulton release (a ghost like figurine that cost a bomb and had no purpose except to elevate the status of the old lady… )  They’d always want to handle them which meant me putting on silly white gloves, which made the shiny porcelain even more slippery. I’d always ask the olds what they do with them?
“Look at them dear….and dust them,”
Kill me.
Anyway back to the alien foetus.
A couple of things:

Gross.
Also,

Totes sounds like a corpse.
Good luck to the collectors out there. I understand it’s about the thrill of a find etc.
But remember if you do see someone with a small mailable foetus perched on their finger, don’t be alarmed…but be DO be aware.

Personally if I had to collect anything it would be figurines like this. Radical.


http://www.jessicaharrison.co.uk/page3.htm

Life after the chef

So the search for Australia’s Masterchef is over and done with for another year… well until they begin auditioning next year’s contestants, which I do believe starts all over again in a couple of months. I can now go back to accepting dinner invitations without sneakily checking my twitter to see who buggered up, who had a breakdown over pastry and who looked smug while retelling tales of an opponent’s failure in the kitchen.

We laughed, we cried (well I didn’t because I’m tough and refuse to let a cooking show break me) and we’ve yelled at the TV:

“For Gods sake! Take it off the hot plate Claire, how many times can you forget you are cooking on a cooking show?”

My partner was a reluctant Masterchef viewer. In the beginning he would ignore it completely and concentrate on his laptop or reading while I talked to the television “Adele, seriously if you cry again…it’s over”. After a couple of months he would loiter near the couch, stand like he was going to go and do something else but end up watching most of the show.  This evolved into him perched on the side of the couch then eventually sitting down and being fully sucked in, asking me relevant questions such as.

“Who’s the hot one?”

“Fiona”

“Why does the red head speak with such faux restraint?”

“She’s a lawyer”

“Who washes up?”

Best question EVER!

“Probably a runner.”

We would have bets in elimination episodes as to who was leaving.  We’d judge not by the cooking but by which contestant looked like they had panda cry eyes during the talking heads segments while retelling their elimination experiences.

Things I won’t miss; Masterchef made me hungry, even when I had already had dinner. Watching Matt Preston, sluggishly chewing with his eyes closed and that bloody fiery saucepan that exploded every time something interesting happened, making us wait through an ad break.

Who’d have thought that a cooking show would ‘capture a nation’ and create some massive (albeit probably temporary) celebrities. Marion, Claire and Callum all featured in the trash mags this week, even getting papped walking along beaches and shopping in markets. Who’d have thought?

I’m happy for a mini Masterchef respite, mainly to get out and see friends who think I’m dead and to walk off a couple of the extra TV induced kilos…till next year my culinary companion.

How will you fill the Masterchef void?

Office dress ups at the 7pm Project

It’s the 7pm Projects 1st Birthday party this weekend. We’re having a dress up party.

Yeah I know. Pressure much?

We have to dress as someone or something that’s been in the news since we’ve been on air.

It’s been funny listening to all of the office chit chat from the writer’s room cave.

“Who are you going as?”

“What are you going to wear?”

“Do you think I need a wig?”

Blah blah blah.

I get the vibe that most of the ladies in the office just want a costume that makes them look sexy and vavoomy. Something that requires a spray tan, false eyelashes and a hint of cleavage.

I asked one of the girls what she was considering wearing, she said “Probably Oksana…”

I jumped in
“With smashed up teeth a phone and an alimony cheque?”

She shook her head,

“Or maybe Donatella Versace”

Me

“What’s Donatella done this year?”

She shrugs,

“I don’t know, she’s just got a great tan,”

Another member of staff is going as ‘We forgot you died because you died on Michael Jackson’s death day, Farah Fawcett’.

I said, “I hope you’ve got a colostomy bag included in your get up…it’d be really easy, just get a zip lock bag full of beef and barley soup and stick it to the side of your dress….you can pulsate it through the night.”

She declined.

Other costumes I know are being explored are Rhianna, post spousal abuse…but only ‘delicate bruising’?

Say what?*

I think if you’re going to dress up, then do it properly, go the whole hog, create a scene. You can get a spray tan and wear falsies any day…how often can you dress up as a middle aged virgin pop singer with out of control eyebrows.

My first choice of costume was Hey Dad. Unfortunately someone else chose it and I don’t think this is the situation where two Dads are better than one.

I’m going to keep my costume a secret. I think it’s reasonably clever. Who knows though? Maybe getting a bronzed rack out might be a good career move?

Let’s just say it isn’t a person. It’s been mashed up and had complaints.

Today at the service station I saw this.

I’m a HUGE Seinfeld fan but I just don’t know if I need to see George and Kramer Dp’ing Elaine while Jerry watches on, eating cereal…even if it does have the boppy bass and vocals.

*domestic violence is NOT ON.

Hair Sandwich

A couple of things.

After yesterdays post people found imdoingmybest.com by searching for these sweet babies

I can give you the answers.

1. n/a

2. She has 2, deep peach and Cosmic Latte

I went wig shopping this morning to add to my personal wig collection. I’ll probably need a full time wig soon if the amount of hair in the shower drain is an indicator. Am I right guys? Am I right?

The designs are good. Britney, Paris slutty red head and Yumi Stynes.
I love Yumi and I am going to take this to her next time I’m on the Circle.

I did a ‘get thin’ hypnotherapy meditation tape earlier in the week. One of the exercises to get you to cut back on the food that you most crave is was to imagine eating, then imagine eating a plate of human hair and eating your favourite food with it.

It totes works.

In fact I feel like vomiting right now.

Speaking of Britney. She’s the poster child for hair extensions. Who knew that under all that blonde fake hair, her natural style was Ron Howard/balding man.

Maybe her allowance didn’t cover hair maintenance . I know and excellent place on Victoria street  that are cheap and they’ll chuck in a free head massage….they can’t guarantee virgin hair though :(

I wish Julia Gillard was on The Hillls

Did you know that Julia Gillard loves to watch Oprah and Tony Abbots favourite colour is silver teal?

I didn’t either, mainly because I just made it up. (Is silver teal even a colour?) I was trying to open this post up with some new, interesting facts about our dear leader and her greatest rival so you might keep reading.

Don’t leave me… please…I feel the same way.

The elections coming up and I have mixed emotions. It can be exciting but speaking on behalf of the 7pm Writers I’m being brutally honest when I say election time is tricky. Making federal election material seem fresh, to put it charmingly, can be like polishing a poo.  31 days of kissing babies, slagging off the opposition and images of Gillard and Abbott taking morning tea at day care centres and nursing homes is hardly riveting stuff.  Sure the weeks before the election are vital for voters and politicians but gee whiz it can be challenging to remain interested.

Preferences, surplus, promises, taxes, policies, trade, economy, jobs, slogans, Asylum seekers, WorkChoices, carbon trading, nuclear power, religion, speedos and hair… are you still with me?

One party says something, the other says they’re wrong.

I love the Internet and everything weird and mental that lives there but sitting on it for 8 hours a day has dented my mind. I have a short attention span. I like my information fast and concise. Hold the BS.  No spin thanks (fat chance). Is it ridiculous for me to want to get to know the real candidates? The people behind the handshakes?

If there was a Julia vs Tony, The Hills style reality show, I’d  definitely watch it. A fly on the wall doco that captures them at their most normal, in their office, eating dinner, Tony pumping up the tyres of his bike, Julia maintaining her hair, practising speeches in the bathroom, calling the Greens to negotiate preferences. It’d be ace and I reckon it would be a really easy way to help people decide who they would vote for.  Oh look Tony eats margarine… I don’t like margarine, I’m voting for Julia.  Oh no Julia uses pen to fill in her Sudoku…she’s dead to me.

Last night I watched a Tony Abbott interview where I felt on the cusp of seeing the real Tony, the man behind the persona. Just when he seemed genuine and real, something clicked and he put in a ‘and that’s what the Labor party won’t give you’ line. Damn you Tony…damn you.

The political advertisements have started. The forced smiles, sitting at picnic tables, talking to ‘normal’ Australians, slow motion close ups of unflattering ‘make the opposition look evil’ photographs, grumbly, fear mongering voice over’s and the occasional attempt at humour (Abbott family- Adams family advertisement).

What’s next for the election? For me I really hope one of them falls over or shuts their coat in the door of the car…at least that’d give us something else to talk about.

Smell like me

Today I received an email advertising discount perfume. I have no problem with this. In fact I probably subscribed to the mailing list because they used the words ‘cheap’ and ‘discount’ …that’s how I roll.

A couple of things stood out to me. The Celebrity perfume business is booming…so much so they are running out of celebrities to make smells out of.  I’m of the belief that if you  are going to ‘smell like a celebrity’ then pick one with a bit of integrity and pizzazz. This is the opposite of what I mean.

I don’t want this. What does she do now? Do you think she went into the lab with the lab coat people? I like it’s edgy name ‘black Star’.  Get it? She’s a star but she’s dark and mysterious and indy….except when she’s doing Proactive commercials.

The other stand out fragrance was this.

For times when you want to smell like a psychopathic Cuban drug lord.

(please note, the pleather packaging…)

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm pleather.

I wonder if Isabel Lucas will have a perfume soon?  Oh I sure hope so, she’s be great speaking about fragrance and the fairies and hair accessories.
Here she is last week walking through LAX with her guitar and headband. She probably strummed the whole way over and sent her fellow travellers  into a lovely deep sleep over the Pacific talking about being the worlds ‘sexiest vegetarian’,  dolphins and the philosophical meaning of Transformers.

Can you return a person?

Oh Mel. Oh Mel.

I don’t like to get into other peoples business but when it’s posted on the Internet and remixed with a hip dance beat (oh yes, oh yes…) I can’t help but become involved. Mel Gibson, Mr Braveheart and ironically the star of What Women Want (should have paid more attention there), where has that anger come from? What is going on in your life that you need to yell and splutter so? It’s not very nice; actually it’s downright disturbing and sub-human.

“I’ll put you in the f–king rose garden, because I’m capable of it,”

Nice words coming from an outspoken traditionalist Catholic father of eight (I only mention his faith because he so often speaks of his dedication to the church and its teachings).

Is ‘our Mel’ ours anymore or can we just give him back to the USA? I mean he was born there; he speaks in an American accent, he’s lived there most of his life… but at the moment with the angry bigoted rants, the alleged spousal abuse I reckon it might be a good time to just set him free.

Australians have a tendency to claim ownership over celebrities and sportspeople that make us proud. Why wouldn’t we? They’re good at what they do! A pat on the back and including them in a ‘come to Australia’ tourism campaigns can’t hurt? We’re one big happy family until someone slips up. Russell Crowe was ours; until he lobbed a phone at a hotel employee …then for a time he went back to ‘New Zealand actor, Russell Crowe’…we took him back though…he like Rugby League.

Tom Cruise was an ‘honorary Aussie’ until he dumped ‘Our Nicole’ and hooked up with Dawsons Creek, same with Kim Clijsters, (although we still like her, mainly because she escaped Hewitt’s clutches and doesn’t sell updates of her every movement to women’s magazines). Terry Irwin is another ‘by marriage’ Australian, Sam Neil and the Finn brothers are still on our ‘not born here but we’ll have them’ list.

I don’t know what Mel Gibson’s next move is…  after his last arrest (for driving under the influence when he made anti-semitic remarks to arresting officer) he laid low, got a divorce and hooked up with Oksana.  All I can say is good luck to the PR team that he takes on to fix this mess because not even Mad Max can make me forget about this stuff.

*This article can also be found on the 7pm Side Project

eye of the tiger

Over the weekend I travelled on a couple of Tiger Airways flights. Every time I fly Tiger I curse my own cheapness. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the planes or even the staff… sort of. One of the male flight attendants needed to be reminded that a shirt should be buttoned to the neck and not just under his nipples…it’s not Saturday Night Fever here dude…it’s a plane ride and I think he spent more time waxing his chest than memorising how to activate the emergency slide. The time where air travel was something to get excited about has passed. The anticipation of a trip to the airport and a plane journey used to make my tummy flip. What food would we get on the little magic trays? How many cans of lemonade could I consume before needing to climb over four people to reach the toilet and what B grade sitcom would we watch on our own personal screens, laughing together as a cabin with knowing smiles.

I work; I earn a living, why shouldn’t I go with Qantas? Why? Because I am a tight arse and find it agonisingly hard to ignore the $29.99 specials that Tiger continue to woo me with. But how quickly I’m reminded of the error of my ways when I am at the Tiger gate, sneakily transferring my bathroom bag and shoes into my big handbag to try and get my suitcase under the ridiculously tiny 7kg hand luggage limit. 7kg? My bag alone weighs that much, one outfit weighs that much….my boots weigh that much.  Ridic. I pass the gates and repack my bag. What a silly show.

We trudge across the tarmac being guided by shivering flight attendants, people hurry to get ahead. I want to scream,

“RUN YOU IDIOTS….we’ve all got allocated seating! We’re all going on the same plane fuck sticks but YES DO RUN TO GET AHEAD OF ME…JERKS”

We take our seats and I pray to the plane gods that they spare me from sitting next to the chatting octogenarian, the coughing teenager or god forbid a two year old. I flip through the lamo magazine fantasizing about Qantas and Deborah Hutton telling me all about the wonderful things I can do at my destination.

This journey I was lucky enough to be seated next to a woman who immediately revealed herself to be a full-blown mental lunatic. She sat for the entire journey with sheet music on her lap, humming and trilling along in falsetto… just under the note that only dogs can hear. Her music was housed in a Care Bears folder.  Fantastic stuff.

When it came to mealtime the prepubescent flight attendant announced that Tiger no longer accepts cash. Credit card only to buy a Mars Bar or Pringles?!

Today Tiger announced that they would be charging people to check in at the airport.  This isn’t anything new; EasyJet and Ryanair have been doing it for years.

I have one more pre booked tight arse flight, then I am renouncing cheap domestic plane journeys. I want Deborah Hutton, little cakes wrapped in cellophane and the 7kg paranoia to disappear.  Please remind me of that next time Tiger has a 99c sale.

 

© 2010 I'm doing my best: Aleisha McCormack All Rights Reserved