rule number 1.

Do Not Let Pissed People Pack Your Dishwasher.

Last week, a good friend from the local cafe/sitcom-set/soap-opera[1] was trying to arrange her birthday. She lives just near me in a little studio apartment, so her place is out. She wanted to have something on the night of her birthday (the Monday that finished 2 hours ago). I offered my place for a party venue after the other possibility fell through. A couple of other mutual friends offered to do the party setup on Monday afternoon, so I threw them the spare set of keys to my place, and we were off. And yes, having a party on a Monday night could be considered silly, but what the hell. I figure one of the benefits of being a grown-up is that you get to make your own mistakes.

It was a fun enough party, although some of the folks involved were a little loud. Nonetheless, I had everyone out by about 1am or so, and only a couple of breakages (and 3 very, very pissed-off cats) to deal with. My friends even helped clean up and pack the dishes and glasses (well, some of them) into the dishwasher and turn it on.

I crashed asleep after un-fucking my house (getting spilt candle wax off polished wooden floorboards is no fun when you're drunk, but you gotta do what you gotta do). About 1/2 an hour later I was woken by a vague sense of "something's not right". Downstairs, I could hear a watery dripping noise. Something you do not wish to hear at 2am. Really.

Wandering downstairs I found that in packing the dishwasher, my friends had managed to figure out a way to fuck it up. Really. I would not have thought this was possible - you pack dirty stuff into the dishwasher, turn the dial to make it go, and leave it. But nooooo. Somehow, the liitle slidy things that the top rack sits on had gotten out of wack and were sticking out more than they should, and they forced the door of the dishwasher open just a tiny amount.

Tiny, but enough for it to spray a whole pile of dirty dishwasher detritus alll over the kitchen floor. Yay! Mopping at 2am on a Monday night/Tuesday morning is absolutely one of my favouritest things in the entiiiiiiire world.

So yeah. When pissed people pack your dishwasher, make sure you check their work.

Even if, like me, you're also totally drunk. Christ, I have work tomorrow. Why did I think offering my place for a Monday night party was a good idea?


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[1] Some of you no doubt know about 33 1/3, aka my local urban family. Or gang, without the unified colour scheme. Imagine "Coupling", but of course we're far more witty and attractive[2].

[2] Some poetic license[3] taken.

[3] Lies.

s.m.a.t. cards

Anyone got references to more information about the new Australian Compulsory Identity Card? Everything I've seen says "massive fuckup waiting to happen". That the person in charge "could not commit to the project for the long-term" does not fill me with warm and fuzzy thoughts.

You know, I try to not assume the worst of people in authority, and then they disappoint me, again and again.

31%

Thirty-one percent. That's Bush's new approval rating. And a massive 65% disapprove.

Ouch. Mr "I don't pay attention to polls" Bush must be deep, deep in denial to avoid thinking about this.

He's a failure and nobody likes him.

[update: see this post for the exciting photo-finish race between Nixon and Bush. While he's still got another 6% to fall to beat Nixon's approval low, he's only one point behind Nixon's worst disapproval rating. Remember, this was a President who was forced to resign. And these numbers are without anything like the congressional inquiries that Nixon had to suffer through - if the Democrats do manage to take back one of the houses of Congress and start running inquiries at the end of the year, I think we're going to be seeing whole new records of unpopularity being set]

I is for Iookie, that's good enough for me

Originally via artbroken. He gave me the letter 'I'. Here's 10 words beginning with the letter 'I', and what they mean to me.

intolerance - I'm quite happy to be intolerant of intolerance. I've actually had someone try to tell me that in calling them a bigot for their homophobia, I was demonstrating my own intolerance. So be it. (No, I don't particularly like those fundy Christian loons like the Catch The Fire freaks and their drumbeat of hate-the-muslims. either. I'm intolerant of most intolerance, really).

idealism - without the dream and the hope that tomorrow will be better, what's the point of continuing? You gotta have the hope. Even if it just results in the sweet sweet nectar of disappointment.

immature - you say childish, I say childlike. My email sig line has been "It's never too late for a happy childhood" for many, many years now. (That's a line from the great Bloom County, by the way).

incommunicado - I'm always fighting the internal fight over this, the temptation to just run and hide from the world. When things don't turn out as you hoped, there's that part of you that just wants to give up. Must not listen to that part of your brain.

interconnection - We're social creatures. Without the love of your friends, you'd not survive long as a functioning human being.

intelligence - because nothing's sexier than a good brain in the right person. Way, way more important than mere physical attributes. (For me, appearance is nice, but more important is presentation. If you're not going to make at least a bit of an effort, you're not going to appeal.) Above all, there must be smarts - without conversation, you have nothing.

irony - Both a shield from the world, and an excuse for fools to wear appalling clothing. Not understood outside Australia and Europe (see Morrisette, A.)

imp - like rascal, scallywag and other terms of that ilk, these are words that seem to only get used by elderly aunties these days. Pity. They're good words, and have a certain cheeky charm to them.

innuendo - flirting is still one of the most fun things you can do with your clothes on. And no, once the clothes are off, it's hard to refer to it as "flirting".

impeachment - the only way we're going to see the United States government stop fucking up the world. Impeach the fucking lot of them. The sooner, the better.

Only 10 words. Damn, it was hard cutting down the 11 I originally had - eventually, though " independence" got left behind, because I wasn't so happy with the words about it.

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If you'd like to play, leave a comment. I'll give you a letter. Then you post ten words beginning with that letter in your journal and explain why they're important enough to make the cut.

(no subject)

"Tonight - I drive the scariest car in the world!
James drives the least scary car in the world!
And we all drive a car with a monkey on the roof."


Neef is right. Top Gear is so much fun. And I don't even like cars.