The Purple Dragon Blog

Are you sick of hearing that political catchphrase, ‘working families’, everywhere you go? Does it irritate the eejits out of you to hear how the government is helping ‘working families’ (as opposed to lazy, bludging families? working single people? pensioners? couples? what?) every time you turn on the radio or the news. Then the Purple Dragon ‘Working Families’ Drinking Game  is for you!

‘Working Families’ drinking game*

This is a good way to make watching the news much more interesting.

Rules:

1.  Grab the alcoholic beverage of your choice. It’s more fun with friends, but you can play it singly if you’re lonely and unpopular. Alcohol loves you just the same.

2.  Switch the tv onto a news channel. If you’re on free-to-air tv, the ABC news is a good pick; it’s nice and long, and it has a varied, more thoughtful look at current events than other channels, which gives you more opportunities to play the game.

3.  Every time one of Kevin Rudd’s people mentions ‘working families’, have a drink.

4.  Every time some one from another political party** mentions ‘working families,’ have another drink.

5.  If a more or less neutral group** refers to ‘working families,’ have two.

6.  If the man himself, the honorable Keven Rudd, mentions ‘working families,’ yell ”BANZAI! “*** and have three drinks in quick succession, as fast as possible!

By the time you’re finished you will be completely sloshed, and feeling much more charitable towards this annoying catchphrase. The best part is, the rules can be adjusted at a whim and new ones can be added by players to make the experience more interesting. So have a go at the Purple Dragon ‘Working Families’ drinking game today!

*This will probably make no sense whatsoever unless you are familiar with Australian PM Kevin Rudd and his political policies.

**They do this surprisingly often. I don’t think they like this phrase, either.

***The Japanese equivelent of “Bingo.” It is pronounced sort of like ‘barn-z-eye!’ and is much more fun to yell than ”bingo” is.

Could you write the story of your life in just six words? That’s what participants in SMITH magazine’s six-word memoirs project did. The result is a book filled with six-word stories by famous and obscure writers. Some of my particular favorites are:

I like girls. Girls like boys.  (Andrea Dela Cruz)

 

My life’s a bunch of almosts.  (Shari Bonnin)

 

Just in: boyfriend’s gay. Merry Christmas.  (Seshie Hargett)

 

Born bald. Grew hair. Bald again.  (A.J. Jacobs)

 

Surname rhymes with profanity. Childhood torture.  (Noah Smit)

 

But all of them are funny or poignant and some so succinct that you can see a life’s worth of events and emotions behind them. Did I contribute? Of course. And I invite everyone who reads this to have a go!

Sorted life, met world, completely lost.  (Purple Dragon)

Anyone who has had a conversation with a teenager lately, you have got to watch the filmclip to the song ”Sort Of Dunno Nothin’.” This song is hilarious, and the filmclip just adds to the amusement. It was played on quirky Aussie music quiz show “Spicks & Specks” last night which is where I saw it.

While I was on YouTube, Lil Sis made me look up a video of Keira Knightly playing “Raindrops are Falling on my Head” on her teeth. Amazingly, all the notes are more or less accurate.

Oh, and in a fit of St Trinians love, I made an avatar.

Since I’m no longer at the childcare centre I’ve been looking for work elseware, and I have an interview with a moderately posh dept. stoe next week. So I’ve been out buying professional clothes and presentable shoes, and I’m exhausted and rather short of money. Sadly my hair is blonde again, because having grown it out a little, it was brownish to sort of just above my ears but suddenly blonde the rest of the way.  While I liked my natural, unstreaked hair color, the brown->blonde looked really ratty and unprofessional. So yesterday I got it cut and streaked again. I’m all grumpy about it, because I looked prettily pale with darkish hair, but the blonde hair next to my face gives a yellow tinge to my skin. I feel like Rose, all pink and yellow, dammit.

I’ve got my Supanova costume together, yay: it’s the St Trinians one. All I need to do now is decide, do  want to enter the cosplay singing the St Trinians song, or would that just be lame?

So, I’m going to a pop-culture convention in about a week. I have a costume question for you all. Bearing in mind that I am five feet nine inches tall, have brownish hair with blonde streaks I am growing out, should I go dressed as:

A) Lucy Saxon from Doctor Who, for which I have a moderately-similar costume ; or

B) a generic St Trinian’s schoolgirl from the new St Trinian’s movie, for which I can get a more or less accurate costume.

What do you guys think?

I’d like to thank the world for the large round of indifference regarding Kitt’s death.  Somehow  the fact that she was ‘only’ a guineapig makes people seem to think this invalidates my love for her and the deep pain I feel now she’s gone. Yes, she was a guineapig, but I loved her all the same, she was as much my family as anyone else. How can you put a value on love? Who is to say a guineapig is less deserving of love than humans? For that matter, who’s to say she wasn’t more deserving than a lot of people? My guineapig was loving and gentle and innocent and never hurt my feelings, did cruel things or behaved badly. From that perpective she’s better than a lot of people. Why shouldn’t I grieve her, she was important to me and I built part of my life around her and I loved her. Every time I walk past the pig cage it hurts to not see her little face looking up at me hoping for my attention. It’s like a gnawing hole in my chest. What I’d really like is to hit somebody, it makes me feel so angry that I couldn’t protect her from this.

My little guinea pig died today. We had to have her put down. She’s been a little listless for a couple of weeks, and suddenly she became quite skinny and stopped eating. So we took her to the vet this morning. Diabetes, the vet said. She could smell the ketones on her breath easily. Even if you could treat guieapigs for diabetes, which is almost impossible, it would have been too late with Kitt anyway. The vet asked if Kitt had always been this small, and I said yes, not so thin, but always my tiny pig, and the vet noted that she had probably had diabetes a long time and that was why she never reached normal adult size.

She was such a wonderful piggie, you know. When I first saw her, she was a tiny moving rug with an eager, friendly little face. Dad called her Ruglet because of all her fur. I named her Kitt, after a fanfiction author I adored at the time, when I was sixteen. Whenever I went past the pig cage she’d run out and look up at me, hoping for treats or pats, always so happy to see me. 

Last night I let her sit on my lap for a long time. She moved close to my arm and rested her head on my arm and just lay there peacefully as I stroked her and tried to convince her to eat. Lil Sis took photos for me.

This morning the vet said, I could have her put down or let her die naturally… she was starving herself to death. Could anyone submit their pet to such a terrible death as painful, ill starvation? So I stroked her and talked to her, holding her gently all the way home, singing to her until she died. Then I cried. We will bury her when Lil Sis gets home from school.

I will miss her, and love her very much. That’s all I can say, really.

All of yous pray for my guineapig, please. Small pig is very sick. Going to the vet tomorrow.

Spoiler warning for Sarah Connor Chronicles 

Is it just me, or does Sarah Connor Chronicles sound like it could have been pulled wholesale from fandom? I mean, the general plot is something like, ‘after Terminator 2 a hot girl terminator pulls Sarah and John into the future where they angst and self-torment in between near-death experiences’. Is it just me, or does that sound like a piece of fanfiction to you. Bad, Mary-Sue fanfiction. I swear, back in high school I considered writing something similar, but decided not to on the grounds that even fanfiction readers wouldn’t be interested. And yet, SCC is really enjoyable. ‘Cameron’, and her attempts at learning the subtleties of human behaviour and society, is quite amusing. The plot moves quickly and is interesting. The terminators are well done, the action interesting. The characters dilemmas pull you in. Sarah isn’t as tough as she should be, and John is a whiny, selfish emo brat (Why is this happening to me? This is unfair!  I shouldn’t have to do this. You took care of it last time, Mum. You take care of it.) Yet in the end, it doesn’t matter that much.

Some people might have wondered about the last post… No, I didn’t intentionally teach my guineapig to dance. I was dancing in front of the cage when she began copying me in hopes of food, and I took advantage of the situation. Lease note I did not actually train her to do this. Wish I’d gotten it on tape though, it was adorable.

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Childcare scenario:

Teacher sings, ‘bee be bumblebee, come and sing your name to me, your name is…’ and the child indicated gives their name.

Teacher: Bee, bee, bumbebee, come and sing your name to me. Your name is -

*points at child*

Child *bellows*: JACK SPARROW!!!

Teacher: Um, okay… you can go to morning tea now…

*Purple Dragon dissolves into laughter…

Since the one for this year is on in a month, better post the rest of the photos! The entire lot can be viewed here.

Look! It’s Claire from Heroes! Well, sort of…

Doctor Who merchandise! Sadly, it was display only. They refused to take bribes…

The 501st had a display recruiting Imperials.

Even Vader stopped by. He strode around majestically, imposingly, but was quite happy to pose for photos… however getting his attention inside that muffled, vision-impairing suit was hard, so whenever he strode by you saw a string of people after hi mtrying to get his attention.

Billy Dee Williams (aka Lando Calrissian) was charming and amusing in the role of guest speaker.

For more photos not included here, click the link at the beginnign of the post.