15 - 20 Minutes

I recently got given the “Sims 3” and while I wait for them to slowly die (I locked ‘em all in one big room) I was thinking - why do different measures of time worry us more than others? Have you ever realised the difference between fifteen and twenty minutes? Other than five. Duh. I didn’t start a blog to write about numbers.

Why is it that if we are waiting for take-away food or a prescription or a table at a restaurant and the person working there says “about 20 minutes?” we tend to get a little bit outraged. Twenty minutes? Did she just say TWENTY minutes? This place wants an extra twenty minutes of my valuable time? I’m upset! I could do any number of things in 20 minutes – fall in love, see France, write a novel – WHY ARE YOU TAKING THESE THINGS FROM ME!?

The difference is if they say “fifteen minutes”. Fifteen minutes? Sure. That’s manageable. Fifteen minutes doesn’t seem like much time... only three intervals of five minutes which flit by all the time – twenty, however, forget it.

Why is that?

Like if I’m late. I’m running through the house furiously grabbing most things on the way out in the hope that it’s the item I need only stopping to check the time and noticing – oh... I’ve got twenty whole minutes – that’s loads of time. I don’t need to worry about hurrying. In fact, I could paint my toenails or knit a scarf in that time! Bah!

If I look and it’s fifteen minutes – just five less – holy crap! I’ve only got fifteen flipping minutes to get to work! I’ll never make it! Even if I just close my eyes and just keep driving through red traffic lights, cyclists and wildlife I’ll never get there in time! Eeeeeeee!!

It seems weird that twenty minutes seems like a long time but fifteen minutes seems like no time.

Small Sad Girl

Here's a cartoon I drew...

The Festi-Girl

I went to a music festival this weekend.

I enjoyed it.

The only problem was once I walked through the festival gates all I saw was this.

I then realised I had discovered a new species – the festival girl. Also known as the Festi-Girl.

Given their attire and the temperature at this particular festival I can only hope that they will soon become endangered. More on that in a minute.

The festival girl is a young woman (most likely a teen) who attends a music festival in the hopes of ensnaring a partner by wearing little clothing and racing about the place. The fact that the purpose of the very festival is to listen to music is irrelevant. They call to one another in high pitched squeals and often embrace by throwing their arms and legs around the other person and spinning around. For example “SaaaaaarrrrrrrraaaaaAAAHHAHHHHHH!!!” Imagine that the capitalised letters are in a higher tone. And by “higher tone” I mean blood will gently cascade from your ears.

These girls attend music festivals in little packs so as to attract as much attention as possible from moronic young males who can be seen wearing hats with little propellers on them and tight, tight pants. When the two sexes meet they interact with a dialogue consisting of monosyllabic responses punctuated with giggling and hair flicking.

Before their targets have been sucked in they need to prune themselves into an appropriate state of skankiness. This involves each girl in the group choosing a complete outfit which makes them looks like they’ve stumbled out of a forest having been lost for at least three days without shelter.

Let me explain. Starting from the top. The festival girl likes their hair to be long, messed up and often badly dyed. They believe that festivals are a time to reunite with 70s era (not that they are aware as anything that happened less than a year prior is not worth knowing) by wearing a band around their heads which often pulls their raggy hair up in an odd bun. This is to make them seem bigger and more of a threat to other festival girls that may be “snakin’ [their] man”.

Then there’s the make-up. In the words of every great consumer “more is more” and these festival girls certainly provide. Under their layers of foundation, which are only a colour match to the rest of their bodies in the dark, are several million layers of fake tan. This fake tan covers their entire bodies and they feel that looking orange, brown and speckled in most areas is the best way to achieve a state of true beauty.

Now if the messy hair and dirty looking skin doesn’t make you think they’ve emerged from a hedge then just check out their “clothes”. Festival girls prefer to wear clothing that leaves very little to the imagination. After all they have to be quick about their advances to the opposite sex after all any minute they might grow up and be taken seriously. First, I assume there is basic underwear – often their brassieres, which hold nothing but scrunched up tissues and a lot of hoping, are on display for everyone to see. In the world outside the festival it is more appropriate to cover this up but as it is a festival the illusion of covering it up is all that is necessary which is why festival girls where a singlet that looks like it has been through a lawnmower. Next come the shorts. A festival girl must show off as much leg as possible. It is a double bonus if they can get away with their bottoms hanging out the back. Usually they take regular pants and cut them to within an inch of their life, leaving the now exposed pockets to dangle limply against their orange thighs. It is not in a festival girls’ knowledge to check the back of their thighs for cellulite and cover up as festival girls are not designed to look backwards – always forwards. Possibly upwards. Add some oversized lace-up boots and we’re done.

Over the course of the day I noticed every festival girl I saw looked a) exactly like the one before her and b) miserable. I was confused. Why would they attend a music festival – which is meant to be fun – only to look sour? Then I realised. A festival girl’s life is filled with drama. If they have no drama going on then they die. Festival girls live in a state of anger, shame, guilt, confusion and lust. These emotions usually culminate in a series of episodes which they act out during the day such as: cheating on someone, being cheated on, actually speaking your mind, getting insulted, losing your friends in a crowd and being unbelievably unprepared for the weather.

Which leads me to my final point... when you think of a music festival you think of sunny skies, green grass, heat, snow cones and laughter. The music festival I was attending was in a climate where my car was covered in ice by the time I went home. Needless to say that an anorexic pair of shorts wouldn’t cut in this weather. I would look pretty miserable too if I had dressed entirely for the opposite sex and under the pressure of my festival girl group – mostly because I would be cold. I was wearing a snow jacket and ear muffs and I was having a great time! I can only assume since the festival ended at a temperature of -2 degrees that they perished.

One can only hope.     

Collective Noun for Celebrities = a Hot Mess

I was recently held down and forced to watch films such as "Valentine's Day", "New Year's Eve" and "He's Just Not that into You".

In the midst of hysteria I came to this conclusion...

You Need to Literally Sing Your Guts Out, Preferably on the Judges

Okay. We’ve all seen those singing reality shows where any jo-schmo is forced onto the stage and therefore into the homes of thousands of unwilling families. You could argue that it is all our choice about whether we participate or watch or don’t watch but I’m sure each of you has seen at least one episode and understands that people go on, sing, and are harshly judged in a variety of ways until there is only one person left standing. From what I can gather you need to be well dressed – and by that I mean fitting into one genre of dress – basically you need to make your own brand and stick to it without the help of a marketing manager. These can include – skanky, rocky, alternative... and old... and that’s about it. That aside what I’m really getting at is that whenever there is an ad for these shows they always show the judges looking flabbergasted (obviously) and then a series of contestants who proceed to open their mouths as wide as they possibly can. It seems to me if you want to go far in the music/reality business you need to be able to fit the whole microphone in your mouth in one go or else you will be eliminated for not “feeling it” or having enough “passion”.

Passion directly equates with the width of your mouth.

And the only real way you can legitimately open your mouth that wide is if you are singing out one really long, continuous note with your eyes closed as if you are lost in that one moment. Here is a picture I drew to illustrate.

As you can see – this cartoon would clearly win as their eyes are closed and they could easily deep throat the microphone whilst singing some stupid ballad like “You are the Wind Beneath my Wings”.

Once their song is all over then everyone will jump around and start clapping and honking like sea lions and the contestant will say something lame mushy like “I’ve wanted to be a singer since I was a foetus” or “I just want to make someone in my extended family proud who may or may not be dead” and all that contrived nonsense. Meanwhile I just feel very, very tired.

Just a Thought: Showering

Here’s a topic I have been grappling with for a while—

Showers.

And when people take them.

People who are hygienic tend to have at least one occasion of cleaning themselves per day. I understand that there are those who come from much colder climates and don’t tend to perspire as much and thereby shower less - please note that still freaks me right out. Then there are those, like me, who live in ridiculous heat and humidity. If you’ve ever been in a sauna then you’ve been in my country. There’s nothing quite like walking through what feels like someone else’s heat waves 24/7. Clearly this means that you tend to be a lot sweatier than the average bear and must bathe to avoid social ostracism.

 I take one shower a day – at night. Unless I’ve been intermittently mud wrestling in manure, in which I may bathe more, I will have one showering experience every twenty-four hours. Some people take two. This doesn’t make sense. Why have a shower before bed and then when you wake up again in the morning? Some say it wakes them up for work. I say it is odd considering the act of showering is to cleanse oneself and unless you are practising extreme zumba in your sleep and sweating profusely then it is just a waste of water. Then there are those who only take one shower – in the morning. This also doesn’t make sense. Why drag the sweat of your day into bed with you at night? Who wants to sleep in the germs they have accumulated throughout a day? You may have rubbed up against all kind of nasties and now they are invading your boudoir (oo-err).

In the summer you don’t have to be an obese teen jumping around in an enclosed Justin Beiber concert for five hours to rack up a righteous stink. In fact it only takes pulling off the sheet and sitting up in the morning to be covered in a layer of perspiration.

All in all if you don’t have at least one shower at night time then I’m not going anywhere near your bed without a disposal chemical protection jumpsuit.

I Want a Disney Sidekick

I’ve grown up with Disney princesses. Anyone who hasn’t – hasn’t had a real childhood in my opinion. After all – what’s a childhood without idealised expectations of men, the world and everything turning out alright in the end which you carry throughout your entire adult life? Sure this gets a bit tricky when you’ve been repeatedly cheated on by a less-than-princely ass and no one will hire you and your car breaks down AGAIN and your favourite boots are officially dead. We all have our crosses to bear but the way the princesses in the films deal with it is by confiding in their sidekicks. Having watched each film about a billion times I decided that I, too, need a Disney sidekick. Given how many there are it takes a bit of thought as to what meets your criteria.

First, I don’t feel much attachment to the really old Disney films so I’m immediately eliminating these kinds of characters.

Sure they if they could talk they might come out with old timey phrases like “Spiffing outfit Miss” or “Golly that is tough!” but then I assume they would also have a set of moral codes and values from that era who wouldn’t come in handy when I ask them “so... it’s cool to go to third base on the first date, right?”. Their little cute animated eyes would probably turn dark and then they’d burst out with “GET BACK TO THE KITCHEN YOU VILE WHORE!” So that’s a no.

 Then you’ve got the tough toss-up between characters that can talk and characters that can’t. Sure I’d want someone feisty now and then that would come out with hilarious quips at the right moment – like Iago.

But maybe not a character that is voiced by Gilbert Gottfried as that could get really annoying after a while.  Sorry Gilbert, but how do people tolerate you? Also if you are going to choose a talking character make sure they don’t sound like complete morons.

Sure it may be cute for a while but I don’t think anyone could handle this lot for more than fifteen minutes without jamming them in a blender and then wedging that inside a microwave.

Then there’s Sebastian from “The Little Mermaid” sure he has a hilarious Jamaican accent and would add “mun” at the end of every sentence but he’s so sensible and boring. If you choose him he’d be just like another parent only stricter and more pinchy. Even Flounder is a pain

– poor Ariel – no wonder she wanted to be on dry land where these conscience-bound sea critters couldn’t bother her anymore.  

 But then I’d also want a character that could just give me adorable looks that say it all and make me forget about my woes and melt at their pure cuteness – like a kitten or something. Like Pascal.

Then there are other non-talking creatures like Abu from “Aladdin” who could steal me things but may give me diseases like Milhouse in “The Simpsons”.

That and he gets on my nerves with his incoherent screeching.

I guess I’d rather go with the non-talking character. So that rules out the other awesome ones like the genie from “Aladdin”, Phil from “Hercules” and Kronk from “Emperor’s New Groove”. Shame but you have to be ruthless.

I also think it is important to have an animal or creature as your sidekick. If you had chosen Kronk people might wonder why this huge guy was following you around everywhere – sure he’d make delicious dinners but your significant other might get a little confused  and suspicious. Plus if you went on holidays you would have to buy him his own seat – which leads me to my next point.

 You also have to think practically. Whilst Rajah the tiger from “Aladdin” was my absolute favourite as a child and has made me want my own tiger as a pet for eons (except not so much after I found out that tigers, in real life, mark their territory by spraying stink out of their butts) but tigers are quite large. Given that I don’t live in a fuck off huge palace I doubt I could handle a tiger in my apartment without everything getting broken at once. Therefore size is important. You need to choose a small creature – preferably pocket size to avoid suspicion. After all you don’t want everyone pawing at your little creature – or locking you in a crazy house for an undisclosed period of time.

Which brings me to my next point. Don’t pick something that is actually imaginary. As much as the “Hunchback of Notre Dame” was a trippy and confronting film (check out Quasi’s face) I’m pretty sure that weird statue trio were just statues. I mean if you tried to explain that they just happened to “come to life” when no one else was around I think you would be put away. Though Quasi kind of already was put away... Hmm...

Next point – you should only have one. Loads of Disney ladies have two or more but this is just being greedy. Besides you don’t want your creatures having little off to the side shenanigans without you. The main point of this companion is to heed to your every thought and action. Okay sure maybe if you had more they could rally together and surprise you with a bottle of wine every now and then – or a necklace that was once your mother’s that got broken when a white guy shot Coco-um and he accidently ripped it to shreds as he fell slow motion into a puddle. That could come in handy. It sure helped Pocahontas. But Meeko, to me, whilst being smallish and mute is kind of a pain in the ass. He seems to have ADD and never stops breaking things and getting into mischief. Mischief exhausts me which is why I would rather have Disney characters running around my home than children.   

I think my final choice is just going to have to be the chameleon from “Tangled”. I know that goes against all the classic characters that Disney has made in the past but... I watched “Tangled” last night and now that’s all I can think about. HE’S SO DAMN CUTE! ARRRRGGGGHHH!!

Who would you choose?