so anyway if you are my facebook friend you probably realise by now i'm like obsessed with scrab. which is a shame because i suck at it. for every game i win i lose two. how that happened i don't know.

not that it should bother me. because hello this time next week i'll be parasailing in waikiki. or at the don ho show. or something awesome anyway. currently getting a buzz from telling people in meetings i won't see them for five weeks. suckers.

maybe i'll move to the states. i mean, it would increase the likelihood of me seeing interpol live. i will do a pro con list on the flight home from LA. that is if i have time - in between picking between the sixty movies on offer. and as an aside thanks qantas dot com for knowing that the only info i need about my flight is what movies are playing. info like how to smuggle wine into the USA would have been totally superfluous.

tonight, in addition to watching an amusing figwit doco, i read lots of guidebooks. mostly for nyc. if i sleep in nyc it will be time wasted.

also guess what? i am still waiting to be an aunt again. my sister is still pregnant. and i still await anxiously the arrival of my new toy. i have outfits all selected (for both him and me) and can't wait to dress him up and cuddle him and smell him. holy heck babies rule.

and so do holidays.

as i've said before so does my life. rules that is.

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.
  

so today i have been thinking about how awesome last night was. if i forget about how some drunk chick spilt red wine right beside my hot white kicks, and how the dj didn't have my most favourite song of all time (shout to the top, shout...) it was one of the best nights of my life. singing at the top of my lungs to ABC's poison arrow. and to simple minds. so much so that i'd lost my voice by hometime and the taxi driver asked me why and i said singing and then he assumed i was in a band and tried to talk to me about the awesomeness of being a musician. and it was like five in the morning and i couldn't actually find the words to tell him to he was on a way wrong track.

i have also spent the day contemplating movies. last night i went to edith piaf, the biopic (not its real name, but its real name escapes me). depressing. i can't believe mrs jones made us sing edith piaf's swan song (pun alert) at high school prize giving one year. then again, what can you expect from a woman who, with zero irony, made us sing she's leaving home to our parents.

today i went to the doco on on danny williams - one time lover of andy warhol and missing person. which was pretty good. but it meant hanging out at te papa for a few hours because i was too tired to walk anywhere else between buying tickets and movie start time. and i couldn't figure out the te papa maps and it took me about fifteen minutes to find the bathrooms. i was so tired i nearly cried in frustration. i also spent a lot of time in the gift shop. looking at the rangi kipa tiki. and the man at the counter told me i really should consider them because i'd rock it. and i was like: i already have one. but you're right. i rock it.

wow that's a lot of links. here's one more. to my list of things to do over the past week. haven't done badly this week. no (new) world dresses so i've managed to spend less. i won convincingly at scrab (like seriously, it was almost like HRC was letting me win, but since that is 100% unlikely it is actually just that i was seriously on form), and i watched project runway - a great introductory episode too, one where someone got kicked off for having contraband in the apartment!. i rocked AUT with my lecture on health policy and funding. and at the end people were inspired by my life story. like honestly. i know, i'm surprised too. and i went to the edith piaf movie and danced til almost dawn at atomic - as already mentioned. my failure was i didn't walk to work one single time. and i'm still in love with seth rogan. but i did join facebook dot com so that probably evens it out. overall about an 8 out of 10 week in terms of meeting my key performance indicators.

this week i will

• spend less
• go to the ian curtis biopic
• walk to work more
• plan some activities for when i am in new york, new york.
  
• receive my first on line clothing purchase, apart from t. shirts that is, in the mail and it will fit like a dream
• beat hrc in scrab
• at least freakin' come third in the pub quiz that has all of a sudden become popular (note i blogged about it two weeks ago, then it started getting popular. conicidence?)
• do some washing. i'm running out of clean clothes and when that happens i often convince myself to buy new ones.
  
• update my ipod. i have all these awesome songs to put on my ipod but no space. i guess that is a drawback of a nano, but small and perfectly formed is my preference for technological things.
• actually find time to spend with friends. i've been a bit bad at this lately.
  
• find a way to wear my hair that is quick to do and awesome looking. this may be the impossible dream but we'll see how it goes.
  

so this week i have been moderately successful with my to do list. top of the table: i didn't ask a single person to spin my necklace, but others asked if they could. the ideal situation really.

i didn't win at scrab, but i won hundreds of games of connect four. did you know that is my game? connect four. i'm like a genius at it. i can't remember the last time i was beaten. and i don't try half as hard as when i play scrab. or monopoly. or ticket to ride. anything vaguely complicated i guess.

i was also the world's greatest aunt. i spent yesterday with ryles. we went to the beach among other things.

ryles is hilarious now. i mean he always had a gift. but last night he rocked my world he was so funny. he was tired so kept lying down to nap. including in other people's gardens on the way home from the park. he will make an excellent vagrant.

i went to quiz, i got over marcus lush (somewhat), i spent less, went to shananana, finished listening to every song on my ipod in alphabetical order and watched the big chill.

this week i will:

1. spend less
2. beat hrc in scrab
3. not go to cas-fri drinks in order to get home in time to watch project runway. I FREAKIN' LOVE THAT SHOW and still haven't seen a single episode of this season. and since love isn't a feeling it is a series of actions, my actions are suggesting my declared love is a LIE. and i'd hate to be a liar.
4. give a lecture. that's right. a lecture. in dorkland. which means i will also get to qantas lounge it up. all the biscotti i can wrap up in a napkin. i love their biscotti.
5. atomic, saturday. i will dance til dawn. then feel awful all sunday. i can't wait.
6. go to the edith piaf movie in the filmfest. same day as atomic. but i'm hardcore, i can do both.
7. walk to work more. this was my failure from last week (that and the scrab). i will try and remedy it.
8. try and stop laughing from last night when i saw knocked up. part of the reason i'm over marcus lush now is that i've fallen for another man. although it has been a long term relationship really.
   

this week i will:

• wear my new necklace without asking people to spin it.
• go to quiz, as in actually go rather than be in some other city and wish i was there. which is so ironic since i go there and complain about it when i am actually in town.
• finish listening to every song on my ipodnano in alphabetical order (by song title). i'm up to W. once i've finished listening i can finally delete some songs and add new ones. and by new ones i mean style council's shout to the top. how have i lasted this long without listening to shout to the top every morning to kick my day off right?
• watch the big chill on dvd. i borrowed it from my mother because it is set in georgia, USA and i'm going to georgia, USA. my mother hopes i will get to see the beautiful house in which it is set. i'm doubtful about seeing the house. but certain about watching the dvd.
• try to get over how in love i am with marcus lush right now. i want to be a media star that then becomes an enigma who moves to a small town. or be married to one. reow. that man could not be getting more publicity right now if he tried. but this week i'm not going to be sucked in by it.
• beat hrc in scrabble. i'm not sure how she keeps winning since i'm obviously the smartest person around. then again, maybe scrabble is simply a game of luck.
• spend less than last week. not spend nothing, just less. baby steps.
• go to shantown on saturday to spend time with ryles and continue to be the world's greatest aunt.
• read a large chunk of the blind assassin. i've been avoiding reading this book for seven years. i think the time is right. kind of the opposite to the last book i read (generation x, i know, i'm like twenty years behind the times).
• not go on bebo obsessively. what started as a way to remind my cousins that i am young and hip has become a twice a day obsession. shame.
• walk to work more. it means getting up early, but that is good for the soul.
• become a better person by doing the above things, obviously.
  
  

i was reading some other blog and they were talking about taking time to prepare blog posts.

whatever.

i write the best blog i know, and it involves one thing: images.

there are two approaches. approach one: look at my cellphone to see what pxts i've taken that day

and if any are worthy: blog about it. like this

_________

in scrabble tonight these were my left over letters. i drew the heart, because anyone who has played scrabble knows there is no heart tile. naturally i thought i was hilarious - the way i arranged my letters. but then i was hysterical because i won, due to getting the word zinc on a triple word score. 45 points. awesome.
_________

approach two: take about a million self portraits, talk about my day and how hot i am and voila, success. and there is of course a series of other approaches. a personal favourite is the blog posts with pictures of edible nephew ryles. people love to know about other people's family. which is why christmas letters are so anticipated.

i do also love pictures of a famous person, which is usually of someone i will marry or pictures related to a song i haven't been able to get out of my head. these can be unexpected winners. like the dire straits image. due to that image i get about twenty extra hits on my blog per day.

lastly there is the posts where i google image search something and something random, requiring me to share with you, comes up. on its own it is a great giggle for me, i sense some people don't get them. which turns my giggle into a full on laugh. honestly, i'm hilarious. and sooooo off the cuff.

hot or not lists are so lame. which is why i'm addicted to them.

going up:

naughty nail polish. seriously, my new red black nail polish is called naughty. i feel like such a vamp.

going down:

french manicures. ew. the white nail part makes me want to snap your nails. see, it is so going down it turns me violent. and i'm peace loving.

going up:

scrabble.

going down:

the euphoria associated with winning a quiz. last week i just about passed out i was so happy. this week i took the prize like money ain't a thing and barely celebrated. but i was happy. just less happy. like when companies report profits that are pretty good, just not AS good as last quarter. that's my current feeling.

going up:

joshua jackson

going down:

any movie without a former dawsons creek star.

going up:

taupo. i'm about to visit for the third time this year. it is basically my home away from home.

going down:

cafes in taupo. when breakers is amongst the best on offer you are in serious serious serious trouble. seriously.

going up:

pod. the staff are flirty and business like in the right ways.

going down:

sweet mothers kitchen and the methods they use when someone has booked a table. i watched gordon ramsay on tele tonight and he just about fired someone for not planning table bookings better. smk have a thing or two to learn from gordo.

going up:

waist lines, but not in a good way. high waisted skirts and pants, you are so very unflattering.

going down:

my energy levels. i think it is time for bed.