Telemarketer Rant*

*It's not what you think. I am on the side of the telemarketer. Kind of.

I get really annoyed with people who delight in being rude to telemarketers.

I completely agree that telemarketers are a pain in the ass because a) they call during dinner and b) they want to sell you something, but I hate it when people start telling a smug little story about what a jerk they were when someone from the phone company called.

"So this telemarketer called," they say, "and asked for the householder... and I told them she'd died in a car accident! Haw haw haw!"
"Usually I just shout, FUCK OFF as loud as I can then slam the phone down!"
"I start swearing at them... in French! It's great because even if they can't understand it, they're not allowed to swear back! Haw haw haw!"

Come on, people. Are we really that super proud of being complete dicks to total strangers?

I know, and to a point agree with, the 'they invaded my privacy so it is within my rights to be a douchebag' theory, but that is why no call lists exist. If you are on a no call list, telemarketers will not call you. That is why it is called a no call list. Maybe if you don't like telemarketers calling then you should be on that l-

oh no wait, I see your point because I guess being on a no call list isn't half as fun as telling someone to commit unnatural acts with a toilet brush because they had the audacity to call your house during Australia's Got Talent. Wow! You just made someone doing what's already a pretty crappy job feel even worse about their day. Whoopee shit, good for you!

Maybe next time just say, "No thanks, I'm not interested, have a nice evening" and put the phone down because for fuck's sake, telemarketers are people, just like you are. Not faceless robots for you to shout FUCK OFF at. They are just people doing their job.

Sorry about the rant. It just makes me mad.

Fancypants

Last night the Pilot and I went to a fancy restaurant. I love fancy restaurants because I like to pretend that I am fancy.

I'm not.

(Also, why does the lion have nipples? That look like little balls of string?)

Normally I'm not very good at fancy restaurants because I tend to get drunk and become strikingly unfancy. The same goes for dressing up nicely - I put on something pretty and throw a large amount of makeup at my face then trip over and say FUCK and the illusion is spoilt.

Once I went out for dinner wearing a lovely black strapless dress, which had a ribbon attached at the back - you tie the ribbon in a bow round the front. I was on my best behaviour right up until the point where the ribbon came loose, my date said, "What's that trailing behind you?" and I roared, "Ahhh shit, the fucker's come undone." Illusion ruined.

The restaurant last night was lovely, though. The owner - who knows the Pilot, which was convenient on the free-glass-of-bubbles front - was a fantastic host, and made us feel very special and very important and also very pretentious and also, eventually, very poor but it was totally worth it.

Here were my three favourite things:

1. When we went outside so the Pilot could indulge in a cigarette, the waiter (who was French, but I don't think it was on purpose) asked if I wanted a shawl. A shawl! I was completely startled and sort of shouted, "Shawl! Oh! Yes!" and all of a sudden there was a Large Blanket just for Me!

2. When we sat down for dinner, the menus had our names on them. As in, typed up before we arrived. 'Welcome to Restaurant, Ally and the Pilot' they said.

3. When we ordered starters, I had to ask the Pilot what cornichons were, which was hideously embarrassing until it turned out that he didn't know either. I suspected they were a sort of nut, but it turns out they are tiny, delicious pickles. Why they couldn't just put that on the menu I'm not sure. Tiny delicious pickles! I love going out for dinner.

I'm still not very fancy, though.

SHOWER MOHAWK FUCK YEEEAAAAAAH!

Playing Photographer

Yesterday my boss, who is awesome, called me into his office. This generally means one of five things:

1. I have done something heinous and he has found out
2. Someone else has done something heinous and I need to know about it
3. He needs a favour
4. He has just figured out how to use the PDF Creator and desperately wants to show someone
5. He is wondering if I am going to go across the road and get a coffee any time this morning and if I am, maybe I could get him one?

It was 3.

"Ally," he said, "If the company pays you a bonus, can you do me a favour?"
"Sure. Wait, no, what kind of favour?" Because there are some kinds of favour that it is unprofessional to do, even if you are being paid a bonus. (Sexual favours.)
"I need you to go and pretend to be a photographer tomorrow."
"That's fine. You know I took three sets of photos for people last week, right?"
"Yes but this is different because we-" I have no idea who the 'we' is here and assume he was using the royal plural "- thought [Actual Photographer] would be available, but she isn't, and [Colleague] has to take photos for an ad tomorrow."
"Um. OK! Sounds fun."

Colleague, slightly later: "I told them you were a professional photographer."
Me: "Why?"
Colleague: -shrug-
??

Anyway, I went along, carting the fancy work camera (usually used to photograph seals) and turned up at a very posh day spa, full of women in white coats talking about things like Clinical Aromatherapy and IPL and QRA Wellness Protocol and Micro Derma Thingy. Here is my total experience with beauty treatments: once I got a manicure. Not kidding. That's it. Plus getting my eyebrows waxed, which you guys probably didn't need to know. The Dayspa (sounds like a futuristic Vespa) was VERY VERY CLEAN and I had to take my shoes off before I went inside.

They rattled on about the ad for a bit (main lady, who was nice but quite terrifying, in the way that Spa Ladies are, said "It has to look claaaassy" in a cut-glass British accent) and then suggested that we take a walk 'around the grounds' so that I could take some 'preliminary shots' and determine the best place for photos of the team.

They did not know that I was not actually a photographer.

I picked a nice background (camellias) - after the Spa Ladies spent some time looking at 'preliminary shots' of different bits of foliage - then lined the team up against it. They asked Photographer Questions like, "How should we stand?" and "How is the light?" and I made things up Professional Noises and took some photos and thought, right, time to skedaddle out of here back to the office and hope at least one of these photos turned out ok.

"Right," said Head Spa Lady, "Let's look at them on my computer, shall we?" Oh No! Almost shat myself. The Spa Ladies gathered around Head Spa Lady's laptop and pored over my pictures for half an hour, by which stage I was sick of playing photographer and needed a wee and was petrified that at any minute the Spa Ladies would put their heads together and whisper then spin around as one and shout, "You Are Not A Real Photographer!" and then their bodies would all fuse together into one white-coated, overly-made-up-five-headed Spa Hydra with forked tongues and perfectly polished claws and I would be incinerated in a fiery blast of Micro Derma Thingy and would never be able to work in this town again ! ! !

But they didn't. They chose a photo and said Thank You and We Appreciate It and We Would Like To Give You A Free Facial Treatment Next Week (!) and now I am OFFICE HERO, which is a really boring version of Guitar Hero but I think my point is that people will believe anything, especially if you are carrying a camera and telling them you are a photographer.

Tomorrow I am going to carry a carry a whip and see if anyone will believe I am a lion tamer. I think Probably Not.

Seal of Approval*

*or any one of ten alternate 'seal pun' titles.

Today I went down to Kaikoura to take photos of baby seals! I'm not sure why either. But they were pretty cute. Here are some photos:

The baby seals play in this waterfall. I'm not sure what the proper collective noun is for baby seals so I'm just going to go ahead and say there were a fuckload of them.

At the end of the day they go back down the river...

...to their home by the sea.

This baby seal was wise. See the knowing look in his eyes? He is the Yoda of baby seals.

These baby seals were wistful, awww

This baby seal was relaxed, athletic and startlingly photogenic. Sort of like a baby seal Tiger Woods (pre-scandal period).

This baby seal was super grumpy


and this baby seal had lost his ball!

(ok, they're the same seal. Maybe that's why he was grumpy.)


This baby seal was a total attention whore


and this baby seal was freaking the fuck out, thought he saw the Seal Police

I have no idea what this baby seal was doing but he is awesome.

And that was my day with the baby seals.

Carsick

It has now been long enough since this incident happened that I can tell the story. And I am so glad, because it's an awesome story, albeit a little bit disgusting. So let's travel back in time, to a more innocent age…

Back In Time

One of my colleagues was sick. Let's call her Ailing, because it means 'sick' and sounds sort of like a name, if you are Irish. In the afternoon, before going home, she was telling us about her illness, and I found out a terrible thing.

Ailing: "I was feeling sick all day yesterday. I went and had lunch, and I had about two bites of rice and then I thought, I'm going to vomit."
Me: "Did you vomit!? I mean, you poor thing. That sounds awful."
Ailing: "Yes! I did. I was in the car*, so I got out, and, you know those little triangular things with trees in, in parking lots?"
*the branded work Hyundai which is my favourite
Me: "Yes. Eww!"
Ailing: "I was sick in one of those." Pause. "I was parked right outside [notorious pub] too, and there was all this rice coming out of me, and people were looking…"
Me: "Ewww! Ewww."
Ailing: "But the worst thing was, I though I'd feel better after a vomit - you know how you usually do - but I got back in the car and drove off, and it came back!"
Me: "It came back? Oh no. Oh no."
Ailing: "Yes! I felt it go-" and here she puffed her cheeks out and made a hoiking gesture, you know the one - "and I knew I was going to be sick again."
Me: "What did you do? Where did you end up?"
Ailing: "Well… I didn't have time to pull over."
Me: "Oh no!"
Ailing: "I chundered in the Hyundai."
Me: "In the work Hyundai? You barfed in the work Hyundai?"
Ailing: "Yes! It was awful. I had to go home and clean it."
Me: "I can't believe you- "
Ailing: "That's not the worst thing.
Me: "What's the worst thing?"
Ailing: "You know how when you vomit, it presses on your bladder?"
Me: "…you didn't."
Ailing: "I was incontinent in the Hyundai. I drove round all afternoon with three newspapers shoved under my bum.""
Me: "You… you were... you weed in the Hyundai! I can't believe you weed in the Hyundai. I'm never driving that car again."

And do you know the worst thing? The worst thing was that I had been driving the Hyundai all morning.

Good story eh.

Three Beautiful Things

At the moment life makes me feel like someone trying to walk ten dogs at once, which is not a very good analogy but it least it doesn't feature Hitler or the disabled. For some reason my analogies often do, and it never goes down particularly well.

Am grumpy as today at work I spent the morning doing someone else's job because they had not done it themselves and now I am behind at my job; also today at work my boss told me off for flirting with one of the reporters! Which is just unfair.

Me: "Colleague just told me off for flirting with Reporter!"
Boss: "You were."
Me: "I know! It's hilarious because he doesn't flirt back."
Boss: "You're mean! He has a girlfriend."
Me: "I'm not mean! He doesn't mind. It is flirting practice."
Boss: "He just stands there. When I came out before he was blushing. You're terrible."
Me: "Ha ha ha ha ha, sorry."
Boss: "No you're not."

Anyway what with the metaphorical Dogs of Life and the increased workload and the pending sexual harassment investigation I thought it would be nice to focus on the positive for a minute.

Do you guys know about Three Beautiful Things? It is a blogging concept (I feel like a wanker for writing that) where every day you blog about three things which have brought you some measure of joy. Here are mine.

Three Beautiful Things

1. Beauty and the Beast has been re-released at the cinema in 3-D and I am going to see it on Sunday. With a date! With a date who has a pilot's licence. I know, right? He is also a great guy and I like him a lot and blah blah but hey you guys, pilot's licence*. Told Dad about this via text and he replied "keep your flaps up ha ha." Dad is a classy fellow.

2. At work, printed off the WHAT turtle from a couple of days ago (scroll down if you have forgotten) and stuck it on a stick coffee stirrer emery board thing some people make wagons out of but not toothpicks, you know those things, what the fuck are they called? one of these:

and now whenever someone comes over to my desk and starts in with the "Ally, I have a question," or the "Ally, can you help me with something," or the "Ally, do you know if," I just hold up the WHAT turtle and it is immensely satisfying.


3. I am sitting on the couch in my onesie, with the dog, eating a pie. It is cold outside and the heat pump is on, and I don't have to be at work again until tomorrow. Soon I am going to make a cup of tea and go to bed and read blogs and talk to My Date and maybe watch some TV on the internet and that, people, is a Beautiful Thing.

*But, sweetheart, I don't just like you for your pilot's licence, honestly! Also, about the reporter flirting. I know it sounds bad but I was totally just honing my skills so that when I flirt with you it is really good flirting.

Bum bum bum

Every so often it is nice to tell a heartwarming story about your family.
Here's mine.

Story About Butts

Last night when I got home from work my flatmate Sam popped out into the hallway and mooned me.
"Sam!" I said, "Our buttocks are not a weapon."
Sam mooned me again, so I mooned her back.
Then we teamed up, waited for Kate to come out of the bathroom, and mooned her in unison.
It was buttocks galore.

Kate said, "Wow! Your bums look funny."
"What?" we said. "Our bums do not look funny."
"Yes they do," she said, "they're all veiny."
Sam and I, concerned about the possibility of blue cheese buttocks, raced off to our respective rooms and checked out our bums in the mirror.
"There's nothing wrong with my bum!" I shouted.
"Mine's fine too," shouted Sam, "what are you talking about?"

And from the hallway, I heard Kate's voice:
"Made you moon yourselves!"

Best. Sister. Ever.

Turtlez

Today I went to the movies and saw a documentary on turtles!
Guess what this post is going to be about.

Good guess.

The movie was called TURTLE: The Incredible Journey, although a better title would have been TURTLE: The Mildly Interesting Journey, If You Like That Kind Of Thing.

The cinematography was excellent and the script was awful, especially as they made a point of following one turtle all the way from birth to first laying of eggs and talking about said turtle in a very humanising way so that audience became emotionally invested in said turtle. Then they pointed out that only one in 10,000 turtles makes it to the egg-laying stage... isn't it lucky that the one they chose to film ended up being the one that made it? Although, I guess it would break up the action events if the narrator was constantly saying, "...and then that turtle was eaten by a shark, so here is our new turtle." Pause. "...and then that turtle was caught by a fishing boat, so here is our new turtle."

I was going to throw in some interesting Turtle Facts, about how the turtle journeys from where it was born right across the world* and back again but then it turned out that actually the facts were not particularly interesting. So let's just have a couple of turtle photos and call it a night.

*maybe? my geography is not so great. it goes for bloody ages, though

Turtle photo for the ladies:

Aww. Cute.

Turtle photo for the gentlemen:

It was naive of me to think that Googling "turtle boobs" would be fruitless.

BG

Hi everyone! I am both exhausted and super busy at the moment so, while there will be a proper post tomorrow, today you get Bear Guitar.

In your mind, what is he playing?

Hyundai in Love

Today I found out a thing both surprising and sweet: the work car is capable of flirting.

I was out having coffee after an 8am meeting with a client, and I was driving the work Hyundai, which you might remember is my favourite car (even though you have to Drive Responsibly And Not Pull The Fingers because it's bright orange with the name of my work splashed across the side of it in blue. The other day in Work Hyundai I pulled up at the lights next to a branded car from a rival newspaper and when the lights changed we wasted them. My boss was pleased.)

Anyway, I was sitting there drinking my coffee when a zippy little electric blue hatch pulled into the carpark and the Hyundai went nuts. He flashed his lights and beeped his horn and did all this other crazy car alarm shit which I had never seen before. I didn't even know the Hyundai had an alarm, and I drive him on a daily basis. "Really?" I asked him (in my mind), "don't you think you're being a bit obvious?" "BEEP BEEP BEEP," he replied. Which I think is kind of like a wolf whistle. I'm not sure what the light flashing is.

I adopted an expression of annoyance and tried to look like it was definitely not my car, whilst frantically pushing the remote lock thingy in my pocket. Nothing happened, but after a couple of minutes the Hyundai was quiet.

Until five minutes later, when Electric Blue left the parking lot - as soon as she started her motor it was all BEEP BEEP FLASH FLASH HEY BABY NICE UNDERCARRIAGE, WOOO BEEP BEEP BEEEEP!

And the Hyundai was not quiet until I went over and unlocked him right in the door hole.


I hope you enjoyed that story. I have a date in ten minutes so I'm going to put some pants on now.

Bertha

My mother's friend Bertha is staying with us this week. I have so many positive and interesting things to post about but instead I'm going to post about Bertha because she has been here for three days and if I don't have a huge rant about her I am going to go mad and kill her and wear her skin.

Bertha is a hideous old bag sent from the mouth of Hell to torment me for my sins, except I can't remember ever doing anything heinous enough to warrant a week of Bertha. Here's a taster: Bertha arrived in the house and responded to my "How was your trip?" by completely ignoring me and talking to the dog for five minutes, then ordering me to bring in her suitcase. Bertha refers to herself as a 'sweet old lady' but she is actually a 'bitter old woman who looks like a dude and is constantly offending people through being tactless and uncharitable.' She's not an inherently awful person, she's just so rude that she's kind of awful to be around. And she makes other people awfuller, too - right now I am slurping my tea obnoxiously just to fuck her off.

When Mum announced that Bertha had invited herself to stay (oh, yeah, we didn't invite her... she's up here for a week for a weaving course and announced that she'd be staying with us) she said, "I couldn't say no... Bertha has been kind to us over the years."
"Bertha," I said firmly, "has never been kind to me."
Mum paused and said, "No... I guess she hasn't."

When my sister and I were little, Bertha used to give my sister $50 birthday and Christmas presents, and take her out for lunch and shopping trips. Bertha did not, however, ever take me out for lunch or buy me anything. Bertha did not, in fact, acknowledge that I had a birthday or might like to partake in Christmas. This wasn't because I was a horrible child, but purely because Bertha had two adult daughters - one she liked, and one she didn't like. Kate reminded her of the one she liked. I reminded her of the one she didn't like. So she ignored me, or said hurtful things which is A-OK now (this evening she said, "What are you going to do with your life? You have to do something!") because I am big but it's pretty uncool when you are little.

One of my most vivid memories of Bertha is from when I was about 8 or 9, and still harboured ridiculous and ill-suited career dreams. We were walking up our driveway for some reason and I mentioned that I would like to be a chef. "Don't be stupid," said Bertha instantly, "you haven't got the imagination."

Since Bertha has been here she has insulted everyone repeatedly, shown us a million photos of her house, and scratched her back with the wooden spoon. Yes, the one we use for cooking. No, she didn't ask first.
Hilarious moment when she was showing house photos:
Bertha: "... and on this lawn is where the rabbit cages go."
Kate, who likes animals: "You keep rabbits?"
Bertha: "Yep. Breed them for eating."
Kate: "!!!"

Currently, Bertha has turned the TV up insanely loud and is sitting on the couch, knitting and blinking like a hellish owl (that knits). Here is a list of things Bertha has complained about in the hour since I came home from work:

• Dinner (meat tough, vegetables undercooked but, in longsuffering tone, "it is food and we must be grateful for it")
• The TV news (content)
  
• The TV news (reception)
• The royal family (inbred and adulterous)
  
• The dog, Charlie (unsure exactly what the problem here was)
• Heat pump, setting of (too cold)
• Heat pump, setting of (too hot)
• Heat pump, setting of (fan is blowing in face of Bertha)
• Kate ("That girl talks too much," said Bertha as Kate was talking)

Also, she is mean to Charlie, so I am going to 'accidentally' knock Bertha's finicky, tiny-stitched knitting onto the ground and then let Charlie in and leave the room and laugh HA! HA! HA! then bury the remains of the knitting in the garden and be all like, oh, no, I sure haven't seen your knitting HA! HA! HA!

Right now though I'm going to go to the pub or something because if I am in the house any longer I am going to take Bertha's knitting and shove it down her neck and HA! HA! HA!

Sorry. But thanks for letting me vent. Normal post tomorrow.

Bucket List

So yesterday I was watching Oprah imagining that I was watching Oprah because I am totally at work when Oprah is on, and on this imaginary Oprah episode there was a quartet of douchebags (it's the proper collective noun for douchebags, when there are four of them) who had devoted some time to composing and completing a list of things to do before they die. Why is it that when people make these lists they are always of things like "Swim with the dolphins" and "Deliver a baby" and "Go skydiving" and "Tell a stranger they're beautiful" and "Dance in Michigan" or whatever? Those lists suck. With Andrea's help, I made a BETTER list.


20 Irresponsible Yet Tempting Things To Do Before You Die

1. Run from the cops
Not because you have anything to run from, just for the sake of it, and preferably after doing a double take and shouting, "Fuck! It's the fuzz!"

2. Perform surgery on yourself
Not, you know, major surgery. Just something minor. "Oh, this scar? Yeah, that's from when I got a nail stuck in my hand and took it out myself with the pliers." "Oh, this half a tooth? Yeah, I dentisted the shit out of that."

3. Get 'kid dirty'
You know how when you were little you'd go out and play and get covered in mud and leaves, and have grass stains on your knees and dirt smudges on your face? I never get that dirty any more and I miss it.

4. Break a musical instrument
There's something really tempting about pointless destruction. Especially when you are pointlessly destroying something beautiful and expensive. Like when you are stomping on a violin. No, no, don't be horrified, take a minute and think about it. See? Tempting.

5. Protest at a wedding
You know that part in the wedding vows where the celebrant says if anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony they should speak now or forever hold their peace? Go on, say something! (Before Andrea's wedding she specified that I was not allowed to object. However, if I ever get married - stop laughing! - you're all welcome to come along and object. Then we will cut the wedding short and go to the pub.)

6. Run something over
For the half of you who haven't muttered "psycho" and stopped reading, isn't there a small part of you that has always wondered what it would be like to run something over? Not something big. Not, like, a ten-year-old. Just something small. Like a rabbit. CALM DOWN PeTA I didn't say I was going to, I'm just saying isn't it a bit tempting to see what that would be like.

7. Sleep with someone famous and tell everyone
Apparently when you sleep with someone famous you're meant to be quiet about it. I would totally not be quiet about it. You shouldn't either. You should tell Ev-ery-one. Unless it was an embarrassing famous person, like, uh, Ricky Martin. Don't tell people about that. Has anyone in the audience slept with someone famous? How was it? PLEASE TELL ME.

8. Read someone else's mail
Sometimes, when I am walking, I am really tempted to just pull letters out of strangers' mailboxes one by one until I have a huge pile, then sit down somewhere and read them all. And if it is anything important maybe put them back. But maybe not. Or maybe put them all back in the wrong mailboxes in the hopes of promoting some kind of street party and gradual coming together of the neighbourhood, which would totally work in an indie film but not in reality because everyone would just chuck out the mail that didn't belong to them, rather than walk up the street to the lonely old lady at No. 23 whose children never visit her any more. How depressing.

9. Feed the animals
You know that sign they have at the zoo, that Please Do Not Feed the Animals sign? Just for once I would like to say FUCK THAT SIGN.

10. Fire a gun illegally
Because everyone's bucket list has 'fire a gun.' I don't mean super-illegal, by the way, not in-Vegas-at-a-hooker illegal but just a little bit illegal. Just enough to make people go, "What the fuck was that? Was that a gunshot? In the middle of WifeSwap?"

11. Pee in a swimming pool, as an adult
...and hope like stink that it doesn't have that purple pee-detecting chemical in it because wow, getting kicked out of the Aquagym for urinatin' is not something I have on this list. If you're feeling a bit shy you could probably amend this one to "pee in the ocean."

12. Garden in the nude
Commune with nature! Prance in the grass with the sun on your nekked self! Feel the dirt between your toes and/or buttocks! Flash your elderly neighbour, and/or the postman! Maybe even get on Google Earth. Garden in the nude, people. Be your own hose.

13. Walk out of a job
I have actually done this and it was amazing. Andrea's mother has also done this, but she told them she had won Lotto.

14. Send an explicit love letter through internal office mail
I really, really, really want to do this. Pen a filthy note to someone in the building then pop it in the (anonymous) internal mailbox and see what happens.

15. Poke a hive
Don't actually do this one, though. I poked a hive once and all the bees came out and one flew up my nose and I had to block the other nostril and sneeze it out and it was fucking gross and also the bee stung my lip before it went noseward and half my face swelled up and everyone laughed at me. Do you know why I poked the hive? I wanted to see what would happen because I thought the thing about angry bees coming out might be a myth. Newsflash: it's not.

16. Punch someone in the face.
Pow! Right in the kisser. Pow! Right in the kisser. I was thinking about this and I've never actually punched someone in the face. It seems like the kind of thing you should do at least once. Pow! Right in the kisser.

17. Run away to sea.
Not necessarily for very long, especially if you don't know how to do boat things, which I don't. I guess what I am really saying here is stow away on the ferry! Which runs between the North and South Islands and takes about 3 hours.

18. Lunge wildly at the Pope
A friend of Andrea's was recently in the general vicinity of the Pope, and managed to get about a metre away from His Holiness. Andrea and I agreed that should one ever be this close to the Pope you should make a determined effort to poke him with your index finger, and thus Lunge Wildly at the Pope was born.

19. Graffiti something
A wall! A car! A house! The dog! Under that dodgy section of the railway track bridge! Maybe not there, though, because there will be proper hoodlums and they may not appreciate your ten-foot-high, neon pink BIEBER FEVER!!1

20. Swim with dolphins...
...and take photos of yourself giving them the finger.

I'll make a start next week.

As Eel Swims In Bottom

Today I would like to share a news story with you:

Man Nearly Killed as Eel Swims in Bottom.

Here are the facts:

A Chinese fishmonger almost died after an eel swam into his bottom.

Li Chang was sitting on the edge of a tank at a warehouse in Guangzhou in southern China when he fell back into a container of live eels, The Sun newspaper reports.

The 43-year-old said he was horrified when he felt one swim up his trousers and into his anus. He said he was too embarrassed to tell anyone what had happened and continued working. But colleagues called emergency services after he collapsed.

Doctors performed a five hour surgery to remove the creature and repair the severe internal injuries caused by it moving around.

"The eel had badly injured the patient," a hospital spokesman was quoted as saying. "If he had not arrived when he did he would have died.

"We expect he will make a full recovery though."

Really? Really? As I said on Twitter and I'm sorry if you've heard it before because you are on Twitter too, I have EXTREME trouble believing that eel swam up that man's bottom all by itself.

I guess when you work with eels, "I fell in the eel tank and a clearly suicidal eel wormed its slimy way between my buttocks" is slightly more plausible than "I slipped and fell on this eel in the shower," but I'm still not buying it.
The eel. Swam up. My bottom.

IT DOES NOT SOUND VERY TRUE.

All I can say is Li Chang must have been really relaxed, as you traditionally are when you fall backwards into a tank full of eels. Either that or the eel was desperately missing its cave home (I think eels live in caves and can't be bothered looking it up) and was prepared to put up one hell of a fight in order to be in Li Chang's bottom.

Do you want to know what I think?

I think Li Chang wanted the eel to go into his bottom and put it there himself.

A mistake he is unlikely to make again.

(Also, sorry to keep mentioning eel porn.)

Nice Tie

Unrelated to anything except awful, Nick Jonas is playing Marius in the West End production of Les Mis and that makes me SAD.

Apart from anything else wasn't Marius, you know, a grown-up?

Also unrelated: Jared Leto is in NZ and I don't know whether to be excited or throw up. I wonder if I Tweeted him hard enough (sounds rude) he'd come and visit me? Probably not, eh.

Also unrelated: Kate is singing me a terrible Twilight version of Taylor Swift's You Belong with Me. The original, for those who don't know, is about the girl next door who is in love with her best friend who is dating a cheerleader so basically every teen movie ever.

Original lyrics:
She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers

Twilighted lyrics:
He wears khakis, I wear ripped shorts
He's a vampire, I am a werewolf

It's fucking horrible and it's going to be stuck in my head until I die.


Anyway, today's main point is that apparently saying "Nice tie" to a male colleague (or, I guess, a female colleague who wears ties) is akin to saying "Let's go fuck in the photocopy room,*" and I've been propositioning workmates by accident. Apparently this is a well known thing which I have never heard of before.

I found out about this because female colleague and I were walking down to the carpark and passed male colleague, who is currently straddling the line between 'colleague' and 'friend', and I said "Nice tie!" because he was wearing a nice tie and then we got to the basement and female colleague got the giggles and started going "Wooo-ooo! Ally and [male colleague] up a tree," and I became annoyed because I just meant he had a nice tie! If I'd been trying to proposition him I would've done it in a classy corporate way, by saying, "Hey, baby, you can onboard me any time." Did you guys know about this "nice tie" thing? Why didn't you tell me?


*But maybe not, because we don't actually have a photocopy room. We do have a storage room with a mezzanine, though, which is totally where you'd do it.

Ball & bums

I went to a ball last night! Look, here's a photo of me and a colleague all dressed up. We wore fake nails. They took forever to stick on and by the end of the night she'd lost three, and I'd lost two so pulled all the other ones off. But there was a solid hour or two in there where we looked like proper ladies.

(Her face doesn't actually look like that, I have blurred it out in Paint to Protect Privacy.)

PROPER LADIES.

Significantly later in the evening.

Also, last night in conversation it came up that some people just have really cold bums, and I wanted to see if anyone else has come across said bums (not a pun). Here's how the conversation went:

Friend's pregnant wife: "...and if I went, it would be cold."
Friend: "Do you get cold? When you're pregnant?"
Wife: "...yes. You're not like a whale, all covered in blubber."
Friend: "Oh. I thought, because you have another person..."
Wife: "Not how it works."
Friend: "Oh. But you're always warm when you're spooning!"
Pause.
Friend: "Although, some people just seem to have really cold bums. Have you ever noticed that?"

And I thought about it and realised yes, yes I have. Have you guys ever been in the position where you are spooning (and you are the big spoon, and both the spoons are nude spoons), and you notice that the other person has an inexplicably cold bottom, and it never warms up?

I think these people are some sort of bum vampires. Too tired to develop that theory any further right now but I'm pretty sure I'm right. Be wary of them.