pretty much the greatest thing ever invented is flight control.

this is a stock image. fyi, my high score is MUCH higher than 15

flight control is an application on my iphone that lets me play air traffic controller. i am so john cusack in pushing tin. and we all know, even in a lesser movie john cusack is always awesome.

i bought flight control because it gets good ratings as a game to play on an plane. and i am all about hot tips for in flight entertainment, since on saturday i'm embarking on EUROPE 09.

europe 09 is set to be the best holiday yet. lots of friend time. lots of me time. lots of train time. and not a moment too soon because wellington 09 has not been the thrill a minute i'd been hoping for. on the upside, wellington 09 has meant spanish tapas night at liquidate. my new monday tradition. so i can't complain too much.

anyway with the prospect of europe 09 comes the prospect of more blogging from me. get your rss feeds primed and ready to go. because, in the immortal words of michael jordan: i'm back.

new favourite song of all time alert.

i need music to cheer me up though. something like this....


but when i'm being less dramatic, i realise i haven't got a lot to grump about really. so what if i think i'm going to miss helen clark's dulcet tones and winston's oration. there is a reason to make like fleetwood mac and keep (thinking about tomorrow). mostly it is hottie-alert obama. i feel like i personally contributed to his victory. through will power alone. i used the power of positive thinking. i bet oprah did too. WE ARE SUCH SOUL MATES I CANNOT BELIEVE I'VE NEVER MET OPRAH.

i'm making up for it by watching lots of her 20 years of oprah dvd. number of times i've cried: three.

i've watched movies too. eg choke . i went on thursday night. 7.5/10. i've never read the book but i think it is on the 1001 list - so i REALLY must. anyway, movies about sex addicts, mental institutions and parents with dementia all add up to a good time. the very best bits were in the trailer but since i only saw that once, it didn't ruin it one iota. also i finally got to see a complete history of my sexual failures. kind of continued my sex themed movie buzz. this was a bit more uncomfortable but i'm still not sure if it is a mock or doc - umentary. and the internet is no help either. i figure the guardian reviewer had the same thoughts as me calling it an 'alleged' documentary - only he found the documentary less endearing - you can read it here. i give that a 7/10.

when i'm not losing myself in the arts, i'm indulging in fashions. i mentioned i had a new dress for the ball last week. well, i went to the ball and guess who was the belle of the ball. BINGO. it was me. god bless the l'estrange corbet dynasty. they know how to do red chiffon. but also they know how to milk the election. they had a 12.5% off day on saturday and i spent well more than i saved in preparation for looking H.O.T in new york.

oh and i'm in the koru club right now getting ready to board a plane to vancouver. RANDOM. anyway, i'm away for two weeks. first vancouver and regina (hehehe) for work then new york, boston and miami for fun and cocktails.

don't. stop. thinkin' about tomorrow. don't. stop. it'll soon be heeeeere.....

i feel like a playboy bunny that has been picked out of the mansion and now has to find a new place to live. oh, hold on .... that was a movie i saw tonight. 4/10.

although, i do actually feel a bit like that. tomorrow my secondment ends. and even though i have been tempted to turn to prayer to make this day come more quickly, tonight i got yelled at over the phone because obviously i'm on call 24/7 and it made me feel a little retarded and like i needed to stick around to redeem myself. plus i got a present and a card so sweet that made me want to cry. being kicked out of the mansion is making me all emotional.

don't cry for me though. because i'm making plans to go to miami in november. to art deco it up with the cuban hotties and hulk hogan.

hello all you hulkamaniacs out there. are you living by the three demandments? if not i'm gonna bring my atomic leg drop and make you hurt just like you were rowdy roddy piper and it was 1989 all over again.

actually, that picture of hulk has helped no end. i'm down right chirpy again. which hopefully means i'm ready to start on my ambitious craft project: making a dress out of my business cards. if it takes more than ten minutes though i cannot guarantee it will hold my attention. wish me luck.

you should probably know i love personality tests. which is why going to melbourne last week was my best australian holiday ever. it started with shopping. then moved to cocktails and ended in three days of personality tests, 360 reviews and counselling.

here i am drinking a mint julep. not in savannah, but at the meat and wine company - melbourne, while watching a couple give eachother foot rubs IN PUBLIC like it wasn't a thing. for me, it WAS a thing and i could barely cope with the mad case of the giggles it was giving me.

i am resisting being self disclosing about the course, even though it was so awesome it is basically all i can think about. it confirmed i'm an infp. so i feel confident that i can accomplish great and wonderful things. however there is a questionmark over how this combines with the fact i'm a fire sign. jung and astrology seem fairly similar if you ask me. ie both are right on the money.

and at the course i fine dined, and got to wake up to this view every morning, before walking along the beach (for like five minutes, this was self discovery not a health spa).

since returning home i've been in a bit of a haze. mostly because all i want to do is talk about the course. i keep recommending it to people, and analysing their problems. i'm like an evangelist. which is why i urge you to do it too. but if you don't have a spare five thousand dollars or whatever it costs to do this professionally, take the free internet test here.

i have also dedicated time to finding new places for my ikea presents to myself. it turns out i didn't really need that third duvet cover. oh well - i bought that before i was self actualised. so it doesn't count. oh and i went to see the tempest at toi whakaari. i don't do shakespeare without claire danes so it wasn't my cup of tea. plus it was too avante guarde for my tastes. but it was enjoyable overall plus gave me the sense of being cultured. bonus.

speaking of being cultured i need to stop writing now and go and work on my 1001 books to read before you die. months ago i declared i'd read one a month. that hasn't happened. i've only read one - fear and trembling. but am close to finishing a second - eva trout - which despite all the summaries making it sound like the perfect book for me is actually duller than you could imagine. i do not recommend it.

there is a hotel in singapore i am in love with. the fullerton. if you are an eligible bachelor you will win my heart if you take me there on a romantic retreat. it probably costs a bomb to stay there which would add to the romance of course. it is so very flash that the bathrooms have glass basins, the conceirge checks things on the internet for you and taxis charge you four dollars just for waving down a taxi near the fullerton. it oozes class.

i didn't stay there for obvious reasons. but i did take a boat ride past and then later use their conveniences. it was like heaven on earth.

singapore has been a-ok. my cellphone semi works here but apparently is sending messages multiple times which is just fantastic. overcharging me no doubt. perhaps i should turn the phone off now. what else? um it is h.o.t. and i have swum a lot to recover. there are lots of white men with asian girlfriends and the orchids are beautiful. i look like crap no doubt due to the humidity and the general tiredness making of travel. added to that in auckland i got to sit in the plane for three hours while mechanics checked out a problem on the plane. which turned a ten and a half our journey into a thirteen hour nightmare.

anyway, singapore airports very famous free internet is about to run out on me so should end here. today i fly to hanoi for some hustle and bustle and maybe even seeing a long dead ho chi minh. if i'm very lucky.

so anyway today i went to the travel doctor to have needles stuck into me so i don’t get rabies. well that’s a lie. i didn’t get the rabies vaccine at all. only hepatitis a. and tetanus. the latter of which is the most hurty vaccine of them all.

anyway, i saw a doctor and three nurses. and they all tried to get me to promise to take condoms. because they have this whole sexual health buzz at the travel doctor.

but hello how am i supposed to get pregnant with the next baby maddox?

that is maddox chiven jolie pitt. not maddox the guy who knows dick about fashion. anyway back to baby maddox. he is cambodian you know.

i am going to cambodia.

you do the math.

plus i should feed monkeys. honestly, the travel doctor is systematically taking all the fun out of this trip.

in other news i am having a crisis with my weekly fashion challenge. update to follow in coming days.

the thing i like about friday night television is that it usually involves some kind of fashion related reality television. which is why i am not really a regular at friday night drinks. but tonight i miss timed it because the blimmin bus was late and i only got to see the end of the fashion police show. i tried to make up for it by watching bridezilla but after thirty seconds it was already unbearable i retreated to my room with yoghurt and blueberries and guidebooks for vietnam.

and my camera. which reminds me: it is your favourite time of the week

fashion challenge - part iii

week three: black beads

history of the necklace: when i first started working after university i had one work outfit: a shirt and a skirt. which i basically wore every day with a cardi when i wanted to look especially professional. (or a suit which was three sizes too big. but i don't count it.) anyway, to disguise the lack of variety in my wardrobe i bought three sets of beads for $10 from kleins. these are the only set of the three beads to survive.

day one: shine on, you crazy diamond.

due to the long weekend, day one was a tuesday. which threw my game some. but like a professional, i gathered my wits and created this ensemble. cardi: the jacqui e cardi i now realise i wear EVERY WEEK, a skirt from the internets and a charcoal slip from carly harris. total cost: $200.

here i am, super fly and rocking the outfit.

even though it officially means i have worn underwear as outterwear at work, this was my favourite outfit of the week. the beads were shining. and so was my slip.

day two: dress to impress

i have already blogged about it, but wednesday was important. i wanted to dress sharp. but i couldn't find a single outfit that went with the beads. i was about to abandon the challenge and offer the beads up to the first person who showed any interest when i decided on this outfit. white victoriana top: from farmers two years ago, black/grey (or is it blue) waistcoat: from century 21 in NYC, black skirt (not pictured) the bargain of the century skirt that, again, i appear to wear every week. all up we're looking at around $100 worth of clothes. bargain city.

and here i am. doing my best miss tyra: being fierce. you will see how i could be so bold as to blame my eye makeup for ripping an eyelash out from its roots and into my eye. talk about overdoing the eyes and underdoing the lips. but actually, the eye makeup is the redeeming feature of this outfit. i shall not be wearing it again. plus i think i will give away the waistcoat. so one more free hanger in my wardrobe. hurrah.

day three: reow! what a tiger.

animal prints. for me it is a bit love/hate. sometimes they are so wrong. but sometimes, like in this banana republic top, they are so very right. i paired the top with my favourite world dress (which, incidentally doesn't come across as slammin in this photo as it is in real life). and kaPOW, an outfit that is a 30% tiger and 70% girly girl with bows. ie 100% me. this is the most expensive outfit of the week, at $400.


and here i am in the outfit. and i just realised that it looks like an actual tiger has bitten off my legs and i am about to passout from the pain. i do not usually look like this. but anyway, great outfit. just not as kaPOW as i was hoping for.

so at the end of week three, i have no fewer necklaces than when i began. next week i plan to pick something deliberately impssible to match. i need some space for all the goodies i will pick up in vietnam.

*****

as an aside: do you love how i'm just casually dropping in to the blog how i'm going to vietnam? cos it is true. i am in the final stages of booking tickets to vietnam. and i'm being very practical about it and everything. take today for example, i bought a tog bag for my togs when i'm in vietnam...


sooooooo at the top of my MUST HAVE list. ride 'em cowboy....

here i am trying out travel outfits. sure i look hot but what a nerd. i lay out all my outfits - mixed and matched and then pretend-packed them to make sure they fit in to my supersmall suitcase. then tried them on to make sure they actually went together. i still have three weeks until i travel.

in my defence i was on a sugar high. i went to simply paris, my new happy place, for afternoon tea. which, because of weird weekend eating habits, was also lunch. and at least some of the people who work there appear to speak french which is awesome because it makes me feel cosmopolitan by association. anyway, go there. there are cute cakes, rich cakes and light cakes and tea in awesome tea pots and they do side orders of fries. i actually don't think there is more you could ask for food wise. decor wise i'd ask for circle rather than square tables. but that's me being picky.

actually picky is a potentially highscoring scrab word. i'll have to store that one in my memory bank.

speaking of banks and scrab it is time for me to review last week:

10 out of 10! honestly. sunglasses are evident in this picture, afternoon tea with hels was at simply paris and i could not speak more highly of it, the klaxons are in new york the same time i am, so HOOK UP ( i don't even mind that it means i'll probably have to see bjork perform live), my cellphone is fully charged, i haven't had a single berry yoghurt trio and my student loan overpayment has gone directly to my credit card.

this week i may be a bit more demanding of myself because frankly the past week has all seemed too easy. this week i will:

• not buy any clothes (i weakened last week and went back to world, my favourite clothes shop in wellington, i voted for it here but somehow it didn't win. neither did lyall bay fishie chippie which makes best chips and best lime milkshakes in the region. and don't even get me started on how the title of best barman was stole from my fave cutie barman. the dj (other) i voted for did though. so i don't feel like i was totally ignored).
• give out the "for no particular reason" presents i have been acquiring over the past week. this one isn't a chore at all though. still, i am noting it as an activity.
• buy tickets to the klaxons.
• decide whether to pay the inflated inflated prices for tickets to the killers in australia in november (i really should have advanced ordered, i just didn't think about how they might sell out).
• do laundry. lots and lots of laundry.
• finish watching gilmore girls season six so that hrc can start (and finish) watching before we depart.
• try and finish the book i'm reading (touching from a distance, about ian curtis - basically what the awesome movie i saw at the film fest was based on. this is a great activity cos it's free)
• win me some scrab (either internet scrabulous or real life scrabble, i'm not fussy)
• organise a flat taboo challenge - i think newtown will win
• hang out with ryles. we'll probably do arts and crafts and make fun of people. he's the greatest ever two year old. EVER. and
  
• be super professional at work. this will be the hardest task of the week.
  

i'm so angry at new york city.

if you've read my blog even once before you will know i'm going to new york. for a wedding. and it will be awesome. but somehow the wedding is on at the worst possible time for me to see the bands i'm in love with.

yesterday i declared that my life's plan is to dance to interpol. life's ambition denied. because they play NYC about a week before i get there. arctic monkeys are the same. kaiser chiefs are there the same time as me. in fact so much the same time that they are playing the exact same time that my friends are getting married. i contemplated finding a way of doing both but i'm pretty sure it is not feasible. the biggest heart break was morrissey - who i miss by like days. then there are the bands that play hours after i leave (bloc party) or a couple of days after i leave (lcd soundsystem).

luckily though i'm there in time for genesis.

i hate new york.

despite this i'm saving for it. which is why i'm having my weekly to-dos. last week i set the bar low and still failed to deliver. mostly because i keep buying songs on itunes (spandau ballet's gold anyone?). hence my creditcard use. that plus the visit to the bendon outlet store in otaki which somehow is like introducing my wallet to the toilet (in that my money seems to get washed away). but i did everything else: dancing til dawn (or thereabouts), 90210 special features, and lots of toasted sandwich lunches.

this week i will try and raise the super low bar a little, just to inspire some kind of action or inaction on my part. i will know it is a good week if:

• i use my remaining student loan overpayment cheque to pay off some of my credit card debt
• i find some concerts to go to in the USA that do not involve phil collins
• i buy some awesome sunglasses to go with my new bathing suit
• i remember to charge my cellphone consistently
• i take my lunch to work at least one day and have zero berry yoghurt trios for breakfast
• i have a fabulous afternoon tea with hels.
  

when you google image search being cool this is what you get. i was a little bit disappointed that there were none of my self portraits in the top few images. cos hello, i'm the very definition.

also, in breaking news i am basically destitute. as a result of spending my life savings on international travel.

i have just done a bit of a stocktake of recent spending patterns and a lot goes on what i have classed incidentals. without going into too much detail this includes things like socks, underwear, hair pins etc... before you tell me i'm being stupid: i've spent over $120 in the last week on these things. needless to say, this pattern must change.

i spend a lot on food. mostly eating out. but i have decided that basically a girl has to eat and i'm not returning to a two minute noodle lifestyle no matter how important international travel is to me. i could just date more i guess and hope that my dates pay but hello that is so plan C. because i'm in a terrible frame of mind right now (think: needy). my dates would likely walk out on me.

other expenses are travel to and from work (non negotiable) and clothes. and it is clothes that i have to stop buying. alls i'm going to buy is a grey singlet from glassons and voila summer wear becomes winter wear. plus i'm going to knit myself some chunky knits to keep myself current. i mean, even though i'm destitute, that is no excuse for not being freaking cool.