"And You Aaaaareeee....?" blog hop

I wrote this post's title like that because I sort of imagine it being said by someone with a severely arched brow. Don't you?

Oh dudes, there are so many fun and exciting things happening around the blogosphere today! If you want to read all about Lynda R. Young's story in the MAKE BELIEVE anthology, check out this post. Also if you are looking for my post for the BABY FACES blog fest, click on THIS link. This post though is for the hilarious "And You Are?" blog hop, hosted by the seriously awesome duo Emily R. King and Tammy Thierault. For this blog hop, participants have to answer ten questions. Below are my answers:

1. How many speeding tickets have you gotten?
I have long since lost count, sorry! If I estimated I'd say maybe...ten? But I could be wrong.

2. Can you pitch a tent?
Nope. Tried, and failed. One memorable year at the Southbound music festival, my mates and I found it really easy to find our tent in a huge field full of campers, 'cause ours was the only one completely flat on the ground! We slept in it that way, and unsurprisingly all developed colds (it rained that night) over the next few days.

3. What was your worst vacation ever?
Most of my holidays have at least had some good aspect to them, but nowadays I really do get annoyed by holidays that aren't at all restful. I think I'm getting old! Some might ask if sleeping in a homeless shelter could qualify as a worst, but you know what? It gave me great story material, so no, it doesn't. I guess this is a crap answer to this question, but honestly I don't have a better one to give. ;)

4. What was the last thing you bought over $100?
Well, I assume you don't mean something boring like my annual licence/third party insurance fee? Nah, didn't think so... Well, the last fun thing I bought over $100 was the reissue of the Smashing Pumpkins' faaaaabulous double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Apparently it's going to ship out no sooner than tomorrow (Dec 4th), which means my copy might ship out tomorrow. Cue much SQUEE!

5. We're handing you the keys to what?
The kingdom, baby! I don't know what kingdom, but it's a kingdom and I like it!

6. What was the last meal you cooked that made even you sick?
Well, I don't know about sick as in spewing, but I will say that my freezer still contains the last lot of vege curry thing made in my slow cooker...three years ago? Something like that. I should proooobably clear that stuff out at some point...

7. Fill in the blank: Oh my gosh! Becky, look at her butt! It is so big. She looks like a 
potato with legs.
[I cannot claim credit for that as it's my mother's, but she heard it from someone else I believe. Regardless of where it originated, I love it]

8. What was your first car?
First one I ever bought? A Suzuki Swift '94. I loved that little bubby, and very nearly shed a tear when I traded it in for a brand spankin' new Toyota Yaris. I say nearly, 'cause I was still a bit bitter over the tennis elbow that thing gave me, so it wasn't all bad getting rid of it.

9. Your best friend falls and gets hurt. Do you ask if he/she's okay or laugh first?
I'd probably smile, shake my head and say, "There she goes again!" The particular best friend I'm thinking of is always climbing on walls and other stuff, while wearing stilettos no less, and having accidents (i.e. falling off said wall into a flower pot - and yes, she broke the pot).

10. What's the worst song ever?
Pearl Jam's cover version of "Last Kiss"... blllellleeeeggghghhh. But another one that gives "Last Kiss" a total run for its money is a song by Australian muso Bernard Fanning, called "Wish You Well". I rewrote the lyrics for it actually, and my version goes:

"I just wanna wish you ill

you're someone I'd like to kill"

No offence, Fandango (that's what we call him). And I know my rewritten lyrics don't really reflect my rather Buddhist attitude to life, but oh well, that's the dark, twisted power of a horrible song for ya.

In truth, I could go on and on and on for this question as there are so many shitty songs in the world. But I prefer to focus more on the great ones. ;)

Ohhhh those high school dances - a blog hop

I'm here, I'm here! It's not far off my bedtime, but I couldn't go for the night before writing up my post for this fun bloghop, hosted by two very cool bloggers, Emily R. King and Kelley Lynn! The rules of the bloghop are as follows:

I think this was Year 11
 - so I was 16.

Here are the rules for participation: 

1. Post pictures of your high school dances. (Make sure you tell us which one is you if they're group pictures.) 

2. Share with us your funniest high school dance story.

3. That's it!

I was 14 I think,
heading off to a
school formal.

Well, folks, I'm terribly sorry to say that apart from being a total weirdo in high school, I was pretty boring to hang around (unless you were an oddball like me, which my best friends in school happened to be!). We loved to listen to loud rock music, do silly drawings and pretend that our favourite book characters never really died and were still living on somewhere out there (okay, just in our heads...). We were total nutters, still are actually, and all that really mattered to us was that we had fun. The result was that there weren't any embarrassing dance stories, at least not that I can remember, and not that involved me dancing (unless you count any moment when I was dancing).

Even here, in Year 12 (at 17),
I was perfecting my frozen-in-time smile.

As you can see from my pictures, they're pretty boring too, but I will say I did hear one interesting story about the dance I was heading to in the picture to your left there up above (it's moved now). While my friends and I were hanging out in the dark dance venue at our school, wishing some hot guy would come and dance with us, the cops were receiving reports of vandalism occurring on school grounds somewhere. There was even a police helicopter out and about, casting its light around the school grounds looking for troublemakers. That's why some perfectly innocent boys arriving late to the dance got apprehended as suspects, thrown bodily to the ground, that kind of thing. I'd had no idea about any of this until a few years ago, when I ran into my former high school principal year co-ordinator! (I always get these mixed up) in the library where I work, and we fell to reminiscing about the good ole days. Haha.

One last picture to round off the post... Me looking slightly like a zombie vampire, quite unintentionally. I think this was one of those photos where everyone in the picture was looking in different directions: