Real Monsters for Halloween

I could spend hours scouring the internet for imagery… and no, unlike many of you who use the internet for a similar pursuit, I’m not talking about collecting untold gigabytes of pornography!

I like looking for art and artworks of obscure artists.  I think it’s amazing that I am able to see the works of an art student in Russia or an little known sculptor in Spain or an accomplished illustrator like Toby Allen who created these ‘Real Monsters’, as artistic representations of mental disorders.

mental disorder monsters anxiety mental disorder monsters avoidance mental disorder monsters borderline personality mental disorder monsters depression mental disorder monsters disassociative mental disorder monsters OCD mental disorder monsters paranoia mental disorder monsters schizophrenia mental disorder monsters social anxiety

Today is Halloween, which in Australia generally means very little, no matter how hard retailers are trying to get us to buy into this particularly un-Hallmark, but decidedly consumerist, holiday.  Popular culture seems to spend a lot of time cogitating on zombies and vampires and things generally undead, that generally go bump in the night.  Monsters of this kind do not bother me at all.  Never have and never will.  But these ‘Real Monsters’ of Toby Allen’s… well, them I got some experience with, and they scare the shit out of me.

Ticket dream

Had a bad dream this morning…

I was leaving Carindale shopping centre ON FOOT, and had to hand my car park ticket to someone in a little booth in order to leave.  Not sure whether it is noteworthy or not, but there are no little booth bitches at Carindale shopping centre… just machines where you stick it in the slot?!

Anyway, I found myself in an argument with the booth bitch, because I didn’t have my ticket… it was somehow at home?!  And she was insisting that I retrieve my ticket in order to be allowed to exit the complex ON FOOT and for some reason not seeing that in order to retrieve said ticket, I needed to exit the complex!  I tried logic and reason, then switched to wheedling and cajoling, then switched to abuse and accusations.  The whole thing was absurd!  I was getting so wound up and pissed off at this officious and ineffectual, intellectual Lilliputian for insisting I get my ticket to give to while whilst simultaneously refusing to let me leave in order to get said ticket!

Eventually I turned on my heel, went to an entrance to the complex (walking past several places of direct and easy escape!?!), fetched a new ticket from the entrance machines and walked back to the booth bitch handing her a ticket time stamped just a few seconds earlier, at which point she happily did her thing and let me walk out.  Go figure.

Reminds me of the day I had trouble with the Nasty Arse Power Mongering Dumb Ass Bitch of a carpark Nazi in Roma Street when I was working for The Devil.   Situation was just so nonsensical, it defies description.car park booth nightmareWoke up feeling awful, teeth clenched, ears hurting, hands in fists, muscles all tense.  Strangely enough while there is explanations up the wa-hoo for dreams with associated feelings of being trapped or sensations of futility… I couldn’t find any online dream analyses for Nasty Power Mongering Dumb Ass Car Park Booth Bitch nightmares.   😛

 

Australia’s biggest dumbass.

Well, he gets to be Australia’s biggest Dumbass today… tomorrow, of course, is another opportunity for an even bigger dumbass to come along and grab the public’s imagination.

The Honourable *scoff* Greg Hunt MP, Minister for the Environment was quoted in the news media as having ‘researched on Wikipedia’ that there is no connection between the bush fires currently ravaging parts of New South Wales, and the conditions currently experienced as a result of global warming (though in truth, I don’t think he stated his opinions quite that concisely or eloquently).  Naturally, he has been lambasted across the press and various social media platforms for being a complete asshat.

What’s got me, is that this joker is a Law graduate, with Honours, of Melbourne University, did his postgrad Masters degree at the prestigious Yale University, and was even supposedly a Fullbright Scholar… and yet here he is talking to the national media about important issues like global climate change and using WIKIPEDIA as a source to back up his argument!!!

What a complete tool…  anyone with half a brain would have seen the fallout coming as soon as the words came out of his addlepated brain.  Needless to say, the Twittersphere has been having a field day, and rightly so.

Someone even took the liberty of making some alterations to Mr Hunt’s own Wikipedia page to demonstrate how factual Wikipedia really is on a moment to moment basis.  This of course was duly altered back to reflect the good minister’s preferred version quick smart.

Fortunately, for those of you who missed it… I have a screen grab  🙂

Environment Minister Wikipedia page hacked

 

Well, what can we say…  If someone is going to go around quoting Wikipedia as a definitive source in a national debate on climate change – then getting your page hacked couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Yale grad and Fullbright Scholar, my arse!

Little boxes… little boxes.

Yay!  Lots of tradies in short shorts scampering all over my house today as they install the new air conditioning system.

Althought I have to admit, I always find it rather disconcerting to have tradesmen in the house banging and drilling and screwing things all over place.  Especially if they are up in the roof and all the banging and drilling and screwing is going on without me!  In truth, the noise always makes me feel a little uneasy – like the house is going to fall down around us… and meanwhile I tend to potter around attempting to look as industrious as the tradies, while actually engaging my efforts in less profitable endeavours… namely watching the tradies, banging and drilling and screwing things all over the house!  In my defence, this is probably due to the fact that there is an alarmingly small requirement for the chopping of wood with axes in the air conditioning installation process, else one would be watching that instead!  😀

need a tradie

Anyway, new air conditioning system will, of course, have two major and immediate impacts for us:

1) We will have Summer Friends again.  That’s right.  When you have air con in BrisVegas, you have lots and lots of friends in the summertime.  For, as you know, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a house sans air conditioning in Queensland, accommodates only sad and lonely pariahs that no civilized member of society should want to call upon (a phenomena experienced by pool owners and ducted air con dwellers alike).

And 2) We will have the pleasure of seeing the pretty little graphs on our summer power bills soar to their previously lofty, and excessively disturbing, heights once again!  Oh yay!  Praise the powers that be (pun intended) for ensuring that domestic electricity prices have soared by approximately 200%+ in last decade.  Sigh… thems the breaks.

But, we shall endure without complaint… for, at least we will be comfortably cool while we contemplate our discombobulating power bills.

I’m on my way. Do you need anything?

Friend is coming over… husband is on his way home… Mum is en route.  Whatever the occasion, whenever someone says to me: ‘I’m on my way.  Do you need anything?  Bread?  Milk?’  I have this urge to ask them to bring something…. Anything!

I think the problem stems from an auditory hallucination of sorts.  Because what they are saying is: ‘I’m on my way.  Do you need anything?’, but, what I am actually hearing is Robin Williams’ voice as the genie in Aladdin saying, ‘Poof!  Whaddaya need?  Poof!  Whaddaya need?  Poof!  Whaddaya need?!’

disney_aladdin_genie_wallpaper-normal

A genie?  Hells yes, I feel like I have to ask for something… and if I don’t, then I feel like opportunity came a knocking and I missed my grab at the brass ring!  And through my mind goes, something like this –

I need a strawberry Magnum! … but it’s only breakfast time.
I need my air con fixed!  …. that seems unlikely on a Wednesday afternoon.
I need a baby! … bit expensive and hard to get on short notice.
I need a cleaner! … probably not obtainable where they are coming from.
I need a massage! … can you get those to take away?
I need a retaining wall! …. might need more than one person for that.
I need goat pies! … damn, it’s not market day.
I need some pain free sleep! … not sure where you get that though.
I need pink hair dye! … hmmm, maybe ‘need’ is a strong word.
I need my car serviced! … should probably take care of that myself.
I need more Qantas Frequent Flyer Points … but who doesn’t.
I need a new refrigerator! …  pretty sure that’s not what they had in mind.

Sigh.

So I flounder momentarily for something sensible, tangible and potentially obtainable to tell them to bring with them… and I inevitably answer,

‘Ahhh, nothing.  I’m all good.’