For reasons that remain unknown, in recent months I have found myself making up games. Not board games, or (heaven forbid) sport/fitness related games, but rather silly pointless little games that I can play anywhere, anytime with anyone. It could have something to do with my short attention span, or that my social life basically consists of playing a board game once a week and then having a cup of tea before bed so a lot of time I have to make my own fun, but for whatever the reason I have created a few games that can be played in your day to day life, and I am now going to share those games with you.

Game One: Is That Tim?

One night when I was sitting outside a movie theatre with a friend, I thought I saw another one of our friends Tim (mentioned in a previous post) getting out of a car. I hadn’t seen Tim in a long time, so I excitedly shouted “Is that Tim?! IS THAT TIM RIGHT THERE!?!... Oh, no. It’s not”. My friend and I found this so hilarious that we decided it should be a game. You can play it anywhere with anyone! Even if you don’t know anyone called Tim!

Okay, so it doesn’t seem that fun on paper, but trust me, it’s a whale of a tim.

"Is that Tim? Is that Tim RIGHT THERE?!"

"Oh... It's not. It's just a fart."

Game Two: Hypothetical Questions

Inspired by the love Emma and I have for hypothetical scenarios, this game is fairly simple to understand, but confuses everyone else. To play simple ask someone if you can ask them a hypothetical question. If they say yes, ask them a question that doesn’t seem to be a hypothetical question at all, e.g “What’s the time?” or “Can you direct me to the railway station?”. I’m just holding out for the day when someone responds with “Well, hypothetically speaking you could be asking this to me at 2:45pm, so its 2:45pm”, and then that person and I will be friends forever.

Game Three: Pun Shopping

Tired of grocery shopping being a boring task? Then why not give Pun Shopping a go!

To play Pun Shopping, simply make as many puns as you can using the names of the products in the shop. Examples: “We need to get our shopping done in a ‘Jiffy’ (firelighters)”, “I feel like I’ve been Schweppes of my feet!” “Arnott these puns great?”

Game Four: Fluro

This game is probably my favourite of them all. It all started when my friend Rachel and I got into the habit of saying “Fluro” every time we saw someone in a a fluorescent vest, shirt or jumper. The game has advanced since then, and now you don’t just say “Fluro”. The terminology is as follows:

• One Fluro - “Fluro
• Two Fluros - “Double Fluro”
• Three Fluros - “Triple Fluros”
• Four Fluros - “Quadruple Fluro”
• Five or More Fluros “Flurry of Fluros”
• You can also add what sort of Fluro it is. For example, a Fluro digging a hole becomes a Hole Fluro.

Well, that’s it for me. Now go forth, my hypothetical ducklings, go forth and play pointless games to your heart’s content.

Becoming Famous on the Internet: Copious Glitter and Stalking

I bet you all thought this blog was over, didn’t you? Didn’t you? I bet you thought we’d abandoned it forever!¹ WELL SUFFER, because we’ve generated more content for you to read!² And just to make things even more marvellously incredible, in today’s Super Special Digital Media Edition, you won’t just be reading, you’ll be watching and listening, too! And you won’t even be subjected to our horrible MS-paint art!³

I must apologise. It is very poor form of us to go so long without posting anything, particularly when we want to bring ourselves Internet fame. Speaking of which, that is what I’m here to discuss today!

Obviously, Aysha and I are so filled with splendifero-fabulosi-tacular-ness that it seeps out of our very skin, but as you readers haven’t really had a chance to see us, you may be unaware of this. Hence, today I’d like to show you two videos.

The first, displayed below, is about Aysha, and how famous she is already.

She sure is wonderful; it’s no wonder that she is already being stalked by a faceless corporation!⁴ Although I would like to put on my hipster glasses and point out that I’ve been stalking her since way before it was cool. Look, here I am to prove it, hipster glasses and all!^5,6

Now, you might have thought that Aysha was cool up there, but wait until you see this. Here’s my film debut. Keep watching after the credits for extra awesomeness.

Wasn’t I amazing? Yes, I know, I really worked so hard, and was sure to apply the acting techniques of… what’s that? You… you were watching the dog the whole time? Oh. Well I guess that’s understandable. I can’t expect all of the attention; it was a two-actor show. What now? The waiter’s arm was your second favourite character? Well, I still believe that I contributed to… Oh, my dad visible in the background for a few seconds at 0:35 was preferable to being stuck looking at my face?

Oh well, it must have been the cinematographer’s fault for making me look bad. I’d once again like to call attention to our dear friend, Tim Hodgson, first mentioned here. Tim wrote, directed, filmed, set up lighting for, held the microphone for, and did every other filmmaking job that I’m not familiar with for this movie. Apparently the task was to prove to the students⁷ that it’s impossible to take on every job when making a movie. However, I’m pretty sure Tim SMASHED THAT CONCEPTION OUT OF THE WATER. Woo, go Tim! There were no TIMperfections in this movie!

---

¹We certainly thought that we had.

²Yes, you definitely can’t stop reading now! Look, you’re at the bottom of the page already!

³You will, however, be subjected to something called a “Blingee”, that I learnt about from Regretsy.

⁴They’re not really faceless; they have Aysha’s face. LOLOLOLOLOL

⁵I confess that they’re not real hipster glasses. I use them to see, not to be ironic.

⁶ My use of "Blingee", however, is ironic.
⁷A thing that Tim is.

How To Enjoy Being An Adult

On my seventeenth birthday, I began fearing my eighteenth. For those of you not from Australia (if you’re not from Australia please comment or send me a carrier pigeon or something to let me know because I find the thought of our little ol’ blog attracting fans from overseas mind-blowing), I should explain eighteen is the age in Australia when you are legally considered an adult.

While most young people can’t wait to be all grown up, I was close to having an emotional breakdown. I didn't want to grow up. I didn't want responsibility. I hated the idea of the adult world. Everyone kept asking me what I wanted to do with my life and I had to keep telling them that I had no freaking idea. Now it’s okay to say you have no idea when you’re little. That's fine. When you’re little and someone asks you want to be, no matter what you say, people are cool with it (with the exception of maybe “mummy when I grow up I want to be a prostitute”. Then maybe it’s time to book your child in for counselling). You say you don’t know what you want to be, nobody cares. You say you want to be a ballerina or a fire truck, and people just smile and laugh. When they ask you what you want to do when you’re nearly an adult, however, they expect you to be able to recite a five year plan. I can’t do that. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, let alone in five years.

"... and then once I finish my degree I'm going to move to another city, get a job, and rent a flat with my brother until I save enough money to look into buying a house of my own. What do you want to do, Aysha?"
"I want to be a Ninja turtle! Or a pony!"
"Okay.. But what about.."
"PONY!"

But now that I am an “adult” I’ve come to realise it’s not so bad. You can actually do pretty cool things when you're a grown up. Yes, there are responsibilities and whatnot, but I think in the end they are worth it.

One of my favourite things I can do as an adult is that I can do my own shopping and decide what I want to buy all by myself. My Mum is a bit of an Organic fan. When I say that, I don’t just mean our food is Organic. I grew up with Organic Toothpaste that tasted like Molasses and Dirt. While all the other kids in the playground were eating peanut butter, I got almond paste.

Although I still live with my mum, now that I’m all grown up I can get what I want. I was so genuinely excited when I bought Cocoa Pops, I ended up telling the person at the checkout all about how much I couldn't wait till tomorrow morning to eat them. I brush my teeth with proper toothpaste which I hide in the bathroom drawer. I eat peanut butter with Hundreds and Thousands. Yep, I’m living the life.

"Just like a chocolate milkshake, only I can have it for breakfast! Then I'm going to brush my teeth with colgate!"

Apart from giving myself more cavities, not much has changed for me since becoming an adult. I still watch children’s programs. I spend evenings building blanket forts and watching Disney movies on video in them with all my soft toy companions. If anything, being a grown up allows me more time to do all the things I loved doing as a kid. I don’t have to worry about my mum calling my friend’s mum to organise one Saturday when we can hang out for a couple of hours. I do all the childish things I love except now I can do them without adult supervision. And I think that's pretty cool.

As for what I want to do with my life: I still don’t know. And I think that’s okay. I guess my five year plan is just to do what I enjoy doing. Writing songs, stories and plays, reading, dancing, singing, being a theatre nerd, and watching children’s programs. And of course, writing posts for this blog. I enjoy that. I just hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. Although if you don’t enjoy it, you probably stopped reading a while back.

PS: When I wrote Hundreds and Thousands for the first time I accidently misspelt it and the result of that misspelling inspired this pun:

What do dogs like to decorate cupcakes with? Houndreds and Thousands.

Do you like it? I made it all by myself!

PPS: As I was falling asleep I thought of another pun about my friend Tim. What do you call a blemish on Tim? A Timperfection!

I think I’m funny.

Aysha Vs Technology

Good news everyone! Emma went through my previous posts and made my spelling and grammar less horrible! Isn’t she wonderful? I think everyone should say thank you to Emma, right now, aloud. Whether you’re at home, in a library, or stealing internet from McDonalds, let’s have a big thank you for Emma. I can’t think of a good segue to transition from thanking Emma to my next post, so I’ll let you mentally insert one. I could say that this way I’m keeping the readers involved in the post, but really, I’m just being lazy.

A while ago, Emma and I went through a phase when we were convinced that our phones were out to get us. I don’t know how this came about, but for a while we were paranoid that our phones were sending embarrassing texts to people without us knowing, or that they would re-write out texts when we sent them. For example, if I wanted to text Emma saying “Hey, want to catch up for coffee later?” my phone would instead send it as “Hey, I want to throw scalding coffee over you later, because I hate you”. However, we never had any evidence that our phones were against us and so this obsession was soon forgotten. Until, just recently, when I got my new phone.

"They seem to be distracted..." "Quick, send horrible texts to their closest friends, GO GO GO!" Note: We actually own the silly hats pictured. Note Note: We really do get distracted by them. They are awesome.

Due to me being horrible with new technology, I hadn’t upgraded my phone for roughly three years. My old phone had been so faithful, but when I finished school and got a job, I figured it was time for my phone to retire and for me to get a shiny new replacement. It seemed like a great phone. Purple (my favourite colour), slim, just the right size to fit into my wallet, and relatively simple to use. It wasn't until one night when I went to text Emma that I realised something was up.

The text I intended to send was “Hey Emma, I finish work at nine on Tuesday. Want to catch up?”

When I reread the text however, my phone had changed it to “Hey Emma, I finish work at nine on Uterus. Want to catch up?”

I found this both disturbing and amusing. But no fear of my phone being against me was aroused. A few days later, I tried to send a message to another friend, signing off with this:

“…Anyway, I’m really tired. So I’m going to head to bed. Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”

My phone decided the text would be improved if I said:
“…Anyway, I’m really tired. So I’m going to head to bed. Goodnight. Sweet erections.”

I was less amused, and more disturbed. Erections? What? No! I didn't want to wish my friend sweet erections! I told Emma. We were both very disturbed, although we had to admit the idea of wishing someone sweet erections was quite funny.
“Have a nice erection!”
“Sweet erections!”
“May all you’re erections come true!”
Imagine how messed up Disney movies would be if they replaced “dream” with “erection” .

I was slightly more paranoid about my phone at this stage, but I was finally pushed over the edge when this happened.

Intended message: “I finish my shift at seven, so I’ll come over then.”
Message my phone wanted: “I finish my shift at seven, so I’ll come over UBERSEXUAL.”

….

WHAT! That…It just…NO! It doesn't even work! At least things like erection and dream, and uterus and Tuesday made a scrap of sense. You use a few of the same keys when beginning those words, so to some extent I could accept that. But “then” and “ubersexual” DOES NOT WORK!
Is ubersexual even a word? According to Microsoft word and the squiggle of shame, it isn’t. After telling Emma this, our paranoia returned. We’re still unsure if Emma’s phone is against her or not. But we have good reasons to believe that my new phone just likes to cause trouble. First it has a GPS that tells me to turn left when I’m on a bridge and to my left, there is a drop to my death. Now my phone is trying to make me sound like a sex crazed maniac.
What does technology have against me?

PS. Sorry I didn't give you many pictures in this post. Didn't really think it was appropriate to draw Ubersexual Uterus Erections.

Ramblings of History: Ancient and Modern

Have you ever come across anything strange lying on the side of the road as you’ve driven by? Maybe some fast food debris? Pants? Maybe a body? If so, it was probably just my great uncle; some of you that have travelled on the Eyre Peninsula may be familiar with a sign between the cities Whyalla and Port Augusta, reading “Long Sleep Plain”. This was erected to honour my great uncle, a character well known throughout the peninsula named Percy J Baillie.

P.J. moved fairly frequently during his lifetime. One of his moves was from Whyalla to Adelaide. On the night that he was farewelled from there he’d had a bit to drink, but the others at the party were under the impression that he had left and was driving to Adelaide anyway. However, he didn’t make it very far; he only made it to where the sign now stands, on the property of his friend Mr John Nicholson (although Mr Nicholson was unaware of this at the time). Perce parked his van and decided to go to sleep. He slept through the night, the entirety of the next day, the next night and awoke on the morning of the day after that, believing that he’d only been asleep for a few hours. Mr Nicholson soon corrected him when he found Percy on his property and figured out what had happened. But this isn’t the story I’m here to tell you today.

What I really want to talk to you about is the time Aysha and I found a pair of shoes on the roadside just out of town.

Late one night, we’d visited our super-mega-awesome-foxy-hot friend Rachel to watch Madagascar 2, and were returning home in my car. We were approaching a bridge, still about 5 minutes from the outskirts of town, when Aysha spotted something out of the window.

“Why on earth would somebody leave a pair of shoes behind when walking or driving?” Aysha asked me indignantly, and perhaps rhetorically. I frowned and gave her question careful consideration.

“Well, maybe someone was walking along, when they were struck with a thought. Maybe they thought to themself, ‘you know what would be awful? If somebody was walking along here and they’d forgotten to wear shoes! They’d be so uncomfortable, and there’s nothing they could do about it because the nearest shoe store is a very long walk away, and in the opposite direction to what I’m currently travelling!’” I replied. “But then they’d think, ‘I know! I’ll take off my shoes, so that when they reach this point they can put them on and their feet will be saved. Yeah. What a good plan. I’m awesome.’”

Aysha was awed, and laughed heartily at me, because my suggestion was so good that she was too filled with glee to hold in.

Aysha was so awed and filled with happiness by the brilliance of this plan that she burst into a fit of laughter.

“I thought that you were saying that you were awesome for coming up with that story!” She gasped.

“No, the person who was nice enough to leave their shoes thought they were awesome for doing such a good deed. But aren’t I awesome for coming up with that? I believe I just solved our mystery.” I responded.

I believe that Aysha then became tactfully silent, save for occasional uncontrollable giggles. The topic came up again at a later date, this time when Aysha and I were driving around town. We passed a power line over which somebody had thrown a pair of shoes with the laces tied together.

“I wonder why people hang shoes like that. It must be really annoying for the power companies to get them down, if they ever do. The people who do it must be dicks,” I mused aloud.

Then, a thought dawned on me. “Maybe they don’t suck! Maybe the person who left it there was a really good natured but dumb superhero, who was just flying along, when they suddenly thought, ‘you know what would be horrible? If somebody was walking or flying along here when they suddenly realised they didn’t have any shoes on! They’d be so embarrassed! I’d better take my shoes off and leave them here to protect their dignity,’ and then they’d take them off, knot the laces together and drop them. Unfortunately it wouldn’t occur to them that we mere mortals can’t reach the shoes to get them down, and if we tried to get them down some other way we’d probably electrocute ourselves. So really, the shoes are just taunting the shoeless ones. Maybe it was a supervillain who left them there?”

Aysha replied quietly, “I thought that people threw them there as a signal that people could buy drugs in that spot.”

Either or.

Mr. Tubby

So first up I would like to say that I am sorry about any spelling or grammatical errors in my last post. I got really excited about writing my first blog (or ‘blag’ as I like to call it because of an XKCD comic), and didn't bother to re-read it. I did write in Microsoft Word first, so if any mistakes were to occur Microsoft Word would give me the red squiggle of shame. However, this does not always mean 100% accuracy grammar/spelling wise. I’m rambling now, but the point is I’m sorry that I suck at spelling and grammar. Please forgive me. Now that that's cleared up, I’ll get on with my new post.

Every year, my hometown holds an event called the Strawberry Fete (I believe it is a fundraiser a local church organises, but I am not entirely sure). There is a variety of strawberry-based goodies to buy, as well as stalls selling homemade jams and cakes, toys, used clothes and books etc. Emma was volunteering to sell things at one of the used toy stalls and enlisted me as her sales assistant. We tried very hard to get people to buy things from our stall. We sang songs and did dances. We even played with the toys to show children how much fun they could be (although I’d be lying if I said we did that entirely to sell toys, there was a little part of us that just wanted an excuse to play with them).

"Look at the fun train, kids! Chugga Chugga WOO WOO!" "Can I play with it?" "Um..No."

It wasn't till a few things had been bought, and our stall was less cluttered that I noticed a teddy bear. He was possibly the cutest Teddy Bear I had ever seen. He had a big chubby face, and a tartan bow tie round his neck. I picked him up and showed him to Emma. I believe it was my intention to say “Why Emma, won’t you gaze upon this teddy that I just found? Would you not agree that his adorability is astounding?”. However I was so overwhelmed by the cuteness of my new found friend that what came out was “EM! BEAR! LOOK! BEAR CUTE! SCHNOOKY WOOKY IS SUCH A CUTE LIL BEAR YES HE IS! AWW!”.

Emma, who agreed the bear was adorable but was able to articulate it better than I had been able to, suggested that I buy him. I considered it, but decided not to. I was a grown up. There had to be some child who would want this bear more than me. I put the bear down, but every time a child came to the stall, I would steer them away from the bear I adored so much and try to persuade them to buy other toys. When the Fate was coming to a close, I couldn't resist him any longer. I threw my money in Emma’s general direction and gathered the bear into my arms, squeezing him tightly and dribbling things like “Lil schnookums is coming home with me! Oh you are just so adorable! Whose adorable! You are!”. Emma and I decided to have joint ownership of the bear, who was then christened Mr. Tubby.

"Mr Tubby" (Note: He is much cuter in real life)

After the Fete, Emma and I spent the afternoon walking with Mr. Tubby between us, each of us holding one of his paws. We took him to the shop and strapped him into the kids seat of the Trolley. “What was that, Mr Tubby?” We would say and then lean close to him so he could whisper to us, “No, you can’t have ice-cream for tea, young man. We need to find you some bear food. Excuse me, Woolworths Employee, where would one find the bear food? Do have a special section?”

"Do you have any bear food?" "What...Like Porridge?" (That was his actually reaction. What a cool guy)

Last holidays, when Emma came home, I thought it might be nice for Mr. Tubby to stay with her a couple of nights as he barely gets to see her. So I did up his bow tie and placed some flowers in his paw, leaving him on Emma’s doorstep. Little did I know that Emma’s mother was chatting to her cousin, telling him how immature Emma can be in certain ways. Talk about perfect timing.

"Emma is immature in some ways. She still loves Disney Movies and teddy bears -" "MR TUBBY IS AT THE DOOR!"