pet peeve … food morons a/k/a bogans a la carte

god almighty, spare me from the food morons.

i eat a lot of sushi, dear reader. love the stuff. lean, good portion sizes, relatively cheap, fun, different.

i was standing in one of my local sushi joints the other lunchtime — konichiwa all at Mr Sushi at the Ashmore Pitstop — waiting for my favourite dishes to swing round on the train track. in a nearby booth sat a classic set of bogans a la carte. three blokes and what can only be described as a chick. bleached blonde, boob tube, long fake french nails with the obligatory gold sparkles.

Miss Sophisticate picks up the menu and waves over one of the sushi builders.

‘Oi’d loike this,’ she said. ‘Only without the roice. Oi don’t loike roice.’

so let’s get this right. hungry. doesn’t like rice. in the whole universe of fast food and takeaways, picks sushi joint. naturally.

similar thing happened the very next day at my other favourite sushi house, Sushi Train at Labrador. Two — i’m guessing — schoolies sat in the booth next to me.

one pulled a plate off the train and proceeded to drown it in — i kid you not — an inch-think layer of mayonnaise. but at least she chose an actual sushi dish to do it to.

her mate asked for a bowl of rice and a bottle of teriyaki sauce. that’s it. need i say more?

go home, children. go home and have a Chiko roll.

you know what’s creepy, dear reader? i shall tell you

i was cruising my site stats yesterday and discovered that one of my colleagues subscribes to this, my (very) personal blog, using his work email address.

i use the term ‘colleague’ fairly loosely — we actually have little do with each other on a day-to-day basis, but technically he is higher up the chain than me. we’re certainly not what i would call ‘friends’.

now, either this guy is so bewitched by my humour and beguiling spiels on Rachel Maddow and the last film i saw, and is so online-ignorant as to not realise that subscribing with his work address means every single personal post i have published here has gone and continues to go THROUGH THE NEWS LIMITED EMAIL SYSTEM …

or, he’s monitoring me for some professional reason. in which case he’s going to be sorely disappointed. i certainly wouldn’t post anything of interest to the upper echelons of News Limited here. reckless i may be, stupid i am not.

i prefer, i think, to believe that he’s just dumb.

so here’s the bottom line, fella. you’re absolutely welcome to subscribe to this blog USING YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS. why you would want to do so is beyond me, but hey, who am i to deny the Magnetism of the Cate.

but have the courtesy, and the respect for my personal privacy, to UNSUBSCRIBE YOUR WORK ADDRESS, eh?

seriously.

UPDATE: Well, he hasn’t unsubbed yet. perhaps he hasn’t checked his work email yet. perhaps he thinks i’m not talking about him. perhaps he’s just rude.

a good day to be with friends

a funeral today. the four of us went together, as a team. looked after each other, made each other laugh. shared round the kleenex. in many ways it was a good day. we were tight. we gave good hugs, received good hugs. paid due respect both to the dead and to the bereaved. there was a huge turnout — 100 inside, twice that outside, i reckon. good music, good memories and a couple of very brave women.

it did my team good to remember there are some things more important than click-bait, that the world doesn’t end if we don’t work every second of every day. that it’s okay to cry with mates.

i felt really at peace with it. things happen as they are meant to — even if it takes us while to see it, y’know?

A Long Time Coming is an even longer time coming

after much pfaffing about, all at my end, my publisher has settled on a release date for my third novel, A Long Time Coming. July 10, 2012 is the date and I’ve got a bucketload of editing to do between now and the New Year to get it ready for that date.

all good … i’ve neglected it long enough to have regained interest in it. all i have to do is find the time and the energy.

the good news is this nightmare year is nearly over and my head is right for it. so all systems go.

gym twazzocks and why they get on my tits

i am one of those poor unfortunates who must go to the gym five times a week or risk dropping dead. what can i say, i like m’food.

i don’t take a lot of pleasure in it, other than the reassurance that i have staved off death with the power of my bike-thighs.

but one of the rare joys of a gym rat’s life is watching the various breeds of human that feel the wet, the wet of sweat.

i belong to that group who are always on the knife’s edge between invisibility and humiliation.

you will rarely find us in the free weights section, for that is where the mirrors are. mostly you will find us in overlarge t-shirts, daggy trakky-daks, earphones in, head down, bum up. we’re just trying to get it done with the minimum of attention from the personal trainers, and fellow perspirers. we are quiet and we are very aware of the distance between ourselves and the lycra-clad perfection bouncing happily on the treadmill next to us.

i fight this rampant embarrassment with little fuck-yous of my own. one day i’ll wear my ‘be nice to fat people’ t-shirt. the next day i’ll wear one that says ‘too big to fail’. mostly i raise my middle finger by defying expectations and pounding away on that goddamn bike for 45 minutes, or until my arse goes numb, whichever comes last.

then there are the tryhards. at my gym, there’s a couple who always wear matching workout gear — pristine white, skintight singlets, black shorts and those pretentious useless half-finger gloves that apparently are utterly essential for the sculpting of muscles.

this couple lift weights so heavy they are have to change the method of lifting, just to get them in the air — thereby rendering the purpose of that particular machine completely useless, of course.

the other night, it was just me and Mr and Mrs Twazzock on the machines — there were some others in there, but they were on the free weights and treadmills. The Twazzocks were grunting and moaning at one end of a line of empty machines, and i sat down on the compound row set-up to do some repetitions.

i was adjusting the volume on my iPod when Mr Twazzock taps me on the shoulder.

‘do you mind if i jump in,’ he says.

i look around at all the empty machines and decide that clearly the steroids have proven too much for this man’s cerebrum, and i step away carefully.

twazzock.

then there are the Socialisers. these are the women of a ‘certain age’ who turn up in their best lycra, fully made-up, hair perfect and never actually raise a sweat, ever. in fact, the only part of their bodies they exercise at the gym are their flapping gums. yap, yap, yap.

there’s a bloke i call Golden Sweat. he’s the one who — despite the signs all around the gym imploring us to wipe down the machines after we’ve used them — doesn’t even bring a towel. instead he leaves his nectar smeared on everything he touches.

i knew a bloke who went to the gym every day. and every day he wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off, a pair of denim shorts that could only be described as Daisy Dukes, and steel-capped workboots. he also thought his sweat should be licked off the gear by the nearest chickie-babe.

when i win Lotto, i’m going to open a gym. the membership will be rather exclusive. nobody under 90kgs allowed. no matching clothes. no mirrors. electronic scales that actually can handle real people rather than supermodels. clean, laundered towels available at the door as you walk in, free of charge. disinfectant at every station.

i shall call it Cupcakes. and it will be free for people who need it and absolutely not free to twazzocks.

okay, i’m back … did you miss me

i think i have figured out how to combine my tumblr obsession with maintaining my blogging life.

so.

i’m back.

a few honest words from an insignificant, hopefully almost invisible, below the radar News Limited journalist on the News of the World hacking scandal

i’m really tired of being silent on this issue. personally, i don’t think what i’m about to say should present any kind of threat or surprise to my bosses, but if it does to the point that they feel like kicking me up the bracket for it … well, so be it. i’ll take that bracket-kicking. it’ll be worth it just to get these thoughts out there.

i am a run-of-the-mill, under-the-radar, hard-working honest journalist on a regional daily newspaper owned by News Limited here in Australia. it won’t take you too much digging around to figure out which one, given i link to it all the time.

i don’t know one colleague in our newsroom who thinks the actions of the News of the World are anything less than repugnant and offensive.

i don’t know one colleague in our newsroom who would for one moment consider similar actions in order to get a story.

i am sick to my back teeth of being tarred with the same brush as the News of the World and its actions, simply because we are owned by the same corporation.

i am sick, frankly, of being considered similar to even my News Limited colleagues in the big metropolitan daily papers in this country.

Not because i think those papers are behaving in NotW-like fashion — far from it — but because the differences between regional and daily newspapers in terms of resources and ethos are chalk and cheese.

saying we are all the same is a false argument.

the newsroom i work in is small by any standard other than regional weeklies and freebies. it used to be a lot bigger. but News Limited’s way of satisfying its fiduciary responsibilities to its shareholders is to maximise profit while minimising costs. i can’t argue with that, regardless of how hard it makes my job.

the journalists in our newsroom are, for the most part, young, keen, green and on the steepest learning curve imaginable. they are also idealistic and, enthusiastic and, without fail, well-meaning. they would no more consider unethical practices than i would consider entering Miss Universe.

i’m tired of the huddled masses hating my profession on reflex. people are quick to forget the good stories, the community-minded stories, the well-written stories, the worthy stories. people are quick to label us biased, with an agenda. believe it or not, with the exception of a planned campaign on, say, wiping out crime on our city’s streets, or exposing an incompetent city council, agendas just never come into it. we don’t have the time, or the resources.

none of it is true, at least in my 23-year experience as a News Limited journalist. when i started at my paper we weren’t even part of News Limited.

we’re just a bunch of workers, trying to do our job, in a frankly under-resourced, over-pressured environment that makes me break out in hives on a daily basis.

i’m not saying that there isn’t corruption somewhere in the Australian mastheads of News Limited. i wouldn’t know where or when. but i know that the vast majority of our journalists, editors and managing directors are honest, hard-working, talented people who get tired of the abuse.

I AM NOT A SCUMBAG, I AM A HUMAN BEING WHOSE ONLY MISTAKE WAS TO CHOOSE A CAREER ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE. APPARENTLY.

been thinking over this whole osama bin laden thing

… and i’ll be honest with you … it makes me uncomfortable.

yay, he’s dead. he killed a lot of people. a lot of innocent people. i understand how his death gives closure to a lot of hurt people. end of an era, etc etc. i have no argument with the fact that the world is a better place without him. i have no doubt he deserved to die for his crimes.

however.

a small, elite team of professional killers entered another sovereign nation’s space, without their knowledge or permission. that team enters a building, finds the man they’re looking for, who is, by their admission, unarmed. they kill him on the spot, no doubt none too prettily. they then take his body to another sovereign nation, where presumably they take materiel for dna testing. then they dump his body in the ocean.

no trial, no ‘loose ends’ if that’s what you want to call it. an execution, leaving no trace.

here’s what Noam Chomsky had to say about this week:

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders …

… There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly.

… Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

it makes me uncomfortable that liberal commentators like Rachel Maddow, for example, not only can’t seem to see that the jingoistic celebrations on the streets of young Americans chanting ‘USA USA USA’ and ‘Obama got Osama’ and holding posters of the Statue of Liberty holding aloft bin Laden’s severed head have their exact parallels in the celebrations on the streets of the Middle East on September 12, 2001. Not only can Maddow — just to choose the one liberal i’ve followed all week — not see that parallel (or at least chooses not to draw it) but she took part in the celebrations herself.

there has been no critical commentary on the execution of bin Laden from Maddow at all, and that disappoints me, because, sadly, it deserves some objective analysis from someone other than the Glen Becks of the world, god help us.

the USA is about ‘justice for all’, right? i don’t have an argument with bringing bin Laden to justice — and if that means execution at the end of the judicial process, then yippee.

but shot down by, presumably, multiple assailants, in his own bedroom in front of his wife, and for all we know, his kids?

strikes me that the USA just sank to Al Qaeda’s standards. and it’s double standards, no question.

no doubt this will bring the hate to this blog, but i’m going to say it out loud …. I EXPECTED MORE FROM THE COUNTRY THAT CLAIMS TO BE THE MOST POWERFUL AND THE MOST ENLIGHTENED IN THE WORLD.

bin Laden didn’t deserve to be treated like a human being — god knows he didn’t treat his enemies with anything other than evil contempt. but how much more enlightened would the USA look today if they had treated him with the respect he DIDN’T deserve?

come on, bring it on.

well, that was fun … not

hello, did you miss me?

i’ve been having a medical adventure — nothing too dramatic, but enough to keep me off the blogging circuit.

my gastric lapband — my second — went pear-shaped. well, not exactly pear-shaped, but it was buggered. that’s a medical term for No Fucking Use At All.

it slipped. well, it tore away and slipped, technically, as these things are supposedly stitched down to the outside of your stomach when they put ‘em in. And it slipped right to the top of my stomach, effectively meaning my stomach was reduced to a tiny little sac which couldn’t deal with the juices it normally produces, let alone anything i was trying to put in it.

result? constant nausea, constant vomiting, pain, bleeding, and ultimately dehydration. that’s what drove me to the ER a couple of sundays ago, and it all went from there.

i had surgery last thursday to remove the band and its port and since then i’ve been up at the Parental Units abode in Toowoomba recuperating.

back home now, back to actually, y’know, eating and back to work next wednesday.

please, my fellow fat folk. do not get a gastric lapband unless you have done the work in your head. it’s just a tool, not a magic bullet. don’t do it without having your attitude right first, or it’s a painful waste of time.

take it from me. two lapbands, two failures, many scars and several thousand dollars later.

a little rant about homophobia and a certain kind of man

Let me paint a picture for you. My local servo. 9.30pm on a sunday. I wander in to buy a soothing bucketload of chocolate, as you do. At the counter is a bloke and he’s ranting on at the young fella behind the counter.

He’s banging on about the flood levy and what a fucking unAustralian slag that Julia Gillard is, giving all that foreign aid to the bloody indonesians. I’m mildly amused about this as i just happened to have written about it in my latest blog post over at goldcoast.com.au — you’ll be unsurprised to learn that i was expressing the opposite view, however.

Now this bloke is what i call an ‘eighties man’. He’s probly knocking on 60′s door but he can’t quite bring himself to give up the Grecian 2000 and let a little gray into his life. Either that or he really needs to update his toupee. He’s got that big bushy mo that tells the world he’s never gone down on a woman and never will if he’s got anything to say about it. He irons his skintight jeans to a knife-edge. He’s got his CFMEU polo shirt on and his knuckle tatts say ‘love’ and ‘hat’ cos he lost his little finger somewhere. Probly up his own ass because he looks the type who would love to take it up there if he only had the balls to admit it to himself.

He then proves me right by switching his rant to the Greens and their gay, anti-fishing agenda. ‘first thing they’ll do is ban all recreational fishing down the east coast of australia,’ he opines. “second thing they’ll do is let the gays get married.”

By now, of course, i’m standing behind him in the queue. I lean forward and say quietly:

“careful mate, there’s a big old lesbian behind you, within touching distance.”

You’d think i’d rubbed an ice-cold dildo between his arsecheeks he moved that fast. Off he scurried and just before he walked out the door he yelled:

“You can listen to me, girlie, i don’t care.”

Well, he certainly told me.

Arseclown.