The healthy option?

OK, I give in. I am sick.

So I went into Coles and picked up the only Day & Night Cold & Flu Fighter tablets available. But to my bewilderment, this is what the day tablet contains:

• 1.5g extract equivalent to dry berries
• 1.0g extract equivalent to dry bark
• 1.2g extract equivalent to leaf

I guess I was expecting something that sounded vaguely medical, not a collection of items I can pick up in a backyard.

The most interesting thing though, is that to convert this to a night tablet and make yourself drowsy, all you have to do is replace the dry bark, with dry root. Hmmm...

One of those days

Today is one of those days where things are just not working.

I've got a sore throat, my tummy is unhappy, I keep going from being really cold to really hot... but I'm not sick!!!

It's one of those days where you start a sentence, then realise half a minute later that you haven't finished it. Where you almost fall over while you're standing up. And where sometimes you feel like you're floating above watching yourself move.

Perhaps I need more sleep.

Coke Live 'n Local 05

Despite not winning an acoustic guitar or an xBox, this was an event I'm glad I went to...

The fun started when we were queuing up. There were announcements over the loudspeakers informing us that bottled drinks had to be poured into cups - fair enough... explaining how to scan our tickets - ok... outlining what a barcode looked like - what?!?! They obviously don't think much of the youth of today!

Anyway, you know you're old when you get a perfunctory nod by security. That is, everyone apart from W, whose bag of Safeway groceries clearly made him look dangerous... the thing was, our Amish boy had even (partially) shaved recently!!!

Anyway, I better get onto the music. There were 5 bands, which I thought got progressively better, separated by interludes from DJ 'Make Some Noise!!!'.

The very young-looking The Gear were on first, and unfortunately the loudest cheers came when they announced they were playing their last song. They were followed by The Spazzys who I enjoyed more, but their voices were disappointingly drowned out by their guitars.

The most curious act of the night was definitely P Money. He did a surprisingly small amount of singing / rapping. Not only was his main hit pre-recorded, but the moment the kids went crazy was when he played original versions of Blur's Song 2 and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Ah, I guess classics will always be classics...

This was proven again with Spiderbait, whose songs are actually very short. I loved Calypso and of course Buy Me a Pony, but the most popular was definitely Black Betty.

Finally the band the mosh pit were waiting for, The Living End. I loved the songs from 'our generation', as W puts it... I think Prisoner of Society and Second Solution are brilliant songs. Although I only realised tonight that Second Solution is actually about a guy on death row... I guess 'And what I wanna know is will I get death row' makes more sense than 'And what I wanna know is where I get to go'...

I think the scariest part of the night was realising that I was not that young anymore. When I was a teenager, I didn't necessarily immerse myself in the typical 'teenager' mentality. But rather than feeling relief and validation that most people my age now see the boys as abusive, the girls as badly-dressed, it just makes me feel old...

I guess that's what you get for going to a Coke-sponsored 'alcohol-free, drug-free' event.

Thanks for the ticket Fi!

Madness

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.

Vann Martel, Life of Pi

I think a little madness is important... what fun would it be if everything was always logical and sane? Aren't the times when you're most free the times when you're a little crazy, saying what you want and doing what you want with no regard for what the world thinks?

Sometimes when I go mad, I go into one long fit of uncontrollable laughter. Not many people have seen it, but those who have either stand back from the epileptic display or join in.

Other times it's a little darker. I crave the pain, the tears, the anger. I know that it's illogical, but that doesn't mean a thing. Those who have seen this never join in.

Still, it's those times of freedom that make it all worth living...

La Bohème, Sydney

I've never been a huge fan of opera. I was almost scarred for life by a school excursion to Hansel & Gretel. However, Simon Phillips' version of Puccini's La Bohème has changed my view on that...

Firstly, despite being a true Melbourne girl, it is hard not to get excited by being in the Opera House, looking over the water at night to the Harbour Bridge.

Secondly, the opera itself was amazing. The sets were simple, but very effective; the costumes were... modern; the orchestra was good and the singers, not that I know anything about singing, sounded great to me!

Finally, I love the fact that opera can get away with ridiculous story lines. For example, in the first act, Mimi visits her neighbour Rodolfo to get help relighting her candle. His goes out too, she loses her house key and then suddenly, they're declaring their love for each other! Maybe I'm not enough of a romantic to believe in love-at-first-sight-in-the-dark. And I guess 2 hours of singing isn't enough to develop a romance. But still, opera gets away with it.

Thanks for the ticket Mel!

Intro to me...

Just for the record, I am a happy pixie... not an angry one, not a cute one, not a ditzy one. Just happy.

And why a pixie? Well, also for the record, that has nothing to do with feeding children dirt. It's just due to my belief that children should not be kept in bubbles and that a little bit of playing with snails and slugs in the garden won't harm them. Surely it would help them, at least to build up their immune system... For some reason, this belief makes me a pixie.

Anyway, I have finally made the time to start up my own little blog. I have no illusions that other people will make time to read it, but here it is anyway.