rockfotze | Entries tagged with rants

Of all of the terrible things to see printed on t-shirts in my lifetime, I would have to say the current trend of busty, pornstar-esque models holding guns, flipping the bird or in a bathtub full of milk and froot loops are by far the worst. Have you seen them? I saw one today at one of those trashy cheap shops of a girl who looked like a skinnier, bustier version of Snooki wearing a stupid flat-brimmed cap and making some sleazy face/hand gesture. It enraged me so much, I felt like going to the shop keeper and making a complaint.

I first noticed them at City Beach which really did sum up the quality of them perfectly (ie. kind of nasty and aimed at 18 year old idiots). Then I started noticing guys actually wearing them. Sometimes while with their girlfriends! I can understand there are guys out there who are stupid and sexist enough to think it’s cool to wear an over-sexualised, trashy t-shirt featuring the kind of girl who a) would never ever hook up with them and b) give wristies to security guards to get backstage at gigs. Basically, the kind of guy who reads magazines like Zoo Weekly, Nuts or Ralph and thinks the girls are hot as and can’t ever settle for a normal girl because her boobs aren’t the size of watermelons while she’s about a size 6 everywhere else and she doesn’t wear bejeweled matching bra’s and knickers at all times. They probably also wear Lynx deodorant and expect to pull chicks like the guys in the ad’s do.

UGH! Who would want that on a t-shirt, ever? If I was the model and they chose that picture

to put on clothing, I’d be suing their arses (but then again I ain’t that kind of girl).

So, while I “get” why a guy would wear a t-shirt that tacky, I just don’t get how any girl would let their boyfriend wear a shirt like that out in public. She either has very low self-esteem, has no say in anything to do with their relationship, is really fucking dumb, or aspires to do that sort of modelling. All reasons are really bloody sad. When I see those couples, I wonder if there was any sort of discussion about it before they left the house. Did she comment on how shit it was? Did he tell her to stop being such a bitch and wear it to spite her? I can’t even imagine.

So I beg you, if you know any guys who proudly wear shirts like these, don’t turn a blind eye. Tell him exactly how you feel about that shirt so that next time he goes to put it on, he stops and considers how many people he’s offending when they see him wearing it. Maybe he’s too big a douche to care, but there’s always the chance he’ll take your advice and he’ll throw away that eyesore. And then you will have done your good deed for the year and for that many women would applaud you!

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As everyone is well aware, a terrible tragedy has struck Japan. We were only just getting over the shock of the Christchurch quake that killed at least 166 people three weeks go and Mother Natures unleashed her wrath all over again. I remember thinking/saying back when the quake hit Christchurch that it could have been an even worse disaster had it struck a more densely populated area, a small consolation in such a devastating tragedy.

I keep looking at photos of the carnage of the tsunami’s and it’s hard not to cry. I’ve always had a soft spot for Japan, especially since I went there in September 2009. I can’t even imagine how they will clean it all up, how the country will recover. Seeing the devastated faces of those people is just heartbreaking. I’m still not quite over the Queensland floods from january and now we have these killer earthquakes so close to home. It’s just terrifying and I can’t even imagine having to live through something like that.

If you can spare it, please make a donation. There are a lot of ways to do so to suit everyone. I’m sure every cent will help.

Meanwhile, I just wanted to vent some rage at the overwhelming ignorance people have been displaying about this disaster. I was first made aware of it when I read this VICE article. I almost couldn’t believe it, people are comparing this event to Pearl Harbor? Really???!! I’m torn between bewildered disbelief and angry acceptance because I guess it’s not all that surprising that people are so damn ignorant and proud of it. I’m actually surprised no one has said anything about it being karma for the whales, but no, the average US citizen only remembers what happens in their country, particularly when glorified in a big budget Hollywood film (seriously, would most of those people know anything about what happened at Pearl Harbor if it wasn’t for that movie? I doubt it). HEY ARSEHOLES! No country, no matter what happened during war, deserves something like this. What, are we all hoping something will happen to Germany to get back at all them damn Nazi’s? It’s an absolutely appalling mentality and it scares me to think there are so many of these ignorant fools out there.

So if you’ve already donated or are unable to, another awesome public service would be to troll the Facebooks of these absolute douchebags and give ‘em what for! But really, if you see anything like this on your Facebook feed, please don’t ignore it. Things like this ought to be addressed because ignorance doesn’t fix itself, it’s up to the more informed and less racist people in society to make a difference!

I am sick to death of hearing about Charlie Sheen. If it’s not in the news, it’s all over my damn Facebook feed. Charlie Sheen the party animal, at it again. He does drugs, parties hard, has sex with lots of women and he’s a famous actor. I have disliked the man for a few years now and I totally blame Two and a Half Men for it. My god, that show is such utter balls, I don’t understand how so many people actually like it so much. It’s about an alcoholic douchebag, his neurotic retard of a brother and a fat turd of a kid with the worst hair cut of all times. Then I realised the character Charlie Sheen is playing isn’t so much a “character” as Charlie Sheen just being himself on the small screen. Ugh!

If I see one more status or tweet about how great it would be to go out partying with Charlie Sheen, I will scream and probably not hold back with my anti-Charlie Sheen rants. I can only imagine that if friends of mine who are smart sorts of people think he’s a top bloke, then there are lot of brain-dead dickheads out there who think he’s the best thing to have happened in the entire history of mankind.

If you think Charlie Sheen is great and think it would be great to go out partying with him, allow me to remind you of some painful truths about the man. He is addicted to drugs. He pays for escorts to party with him. He is a misogynist who is extremely violent towards the women in his life. He is in his mid-40s and acts like he’s 20. The dude gets paid obscene amounts of money to play himself on TV and then gets his stupid arse busted by going on a bender and locking a women in a closet while he smashes up the room. Now he’s in rehab and is costing the show hundreds of thousands of dollars because they’ve had to halt production. And yet those stupid TV exec wankers just keep putting up with it. Why? because morons everywhere think he’s “livin’ the dream”. Check out this little fact I found on a celebrity facts site:

“A little known fact about Charlie Sheen is, he was subpoenaed to testify in the “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss trial in 1993. Sheen testified he called on Fleiss’ call girls on a regular basis spending more than $50,000 on their services. Reportedly, Sheen was a Cocaine addict at this time.”

Wow, what a classy gent. How about the fact he “accidentally” shot his then-fiancee Kelly Preston in the arm in 1990 and has been accused of/charged with assult on all of his former girlfriends/wives. I’m not quite sure why these women willingly get into a relationship with this man, but I guess “Charlie Sheen mania” pulled the wool over their eyes til he beat it right off ‘em again. He’s been arrested for drug use and possession and sent to rehab a bunch of times, he OD’s after injecting himself with cocaine and almost died and yet never seems to have learned a thing. But why would he, he’s “the man” and keeps getting work and never has to serve any real time.

He is not “living the dream” and he’s not “the man”. He’s seriously troubled and is only getting away with it out of sheer luck and because he’s rich and famous. If he wasn’t who he is and was poor and living on the streets like the typical drug addict, would everyone be so keen to party with him then? Do you think those addicts you see dancing to music no one else can hear are awesome party animals? Do you want to spend a wild night out with them? Of course not. Money apparently makes miserable sacks of crap more appealing. Yuck.

I’m sure I’m going to get a tonne of angry comments from boon’s who think he’s the greatest. I don’t care because I am sick of how he’s worshiped like a god when he ought to be behind bars. If a normal civilian like you or me did half of the shit he’s done, we would be in jail and looked down on by the rest of society. Do yourselves a favour and stop acting like he’s cool. You’re just condoning the actions of a violent and pathetic man who has to pay women to hang out with him and will probably die from an overdose in a hotel room at the age of 50.

Once again I have been angered by a news article found on news.com.au (I really don’t know why I read that damn website, it send me into a furious rage almost every time I do). Today it’s about the loss of “female” skills within Gen Y. I started typing this massive rant but when it started getting a bit tl;dr I decided to cut it down as much as possible. So without further ado, here is why I think the idea of Gen Y losing these so called “female skills” is a bit of bollocks.

Yes, a lot of Gen Y females do not know how to properly hem a skirt, whip up a roast or a batch of lamingtons and aren’t probably as good at ironing and scrubbing floors as their grandmothers were. In case you missed the memo, times have changed dramatically in the last couple of decades. Women aren’t expected to stay at home and watch the kids and do all the tedious house work while hubby brings home the bacon. In fact a lot of women, even those who have kids, have to go out and work to support their families. Suddenly the typical woman doesn’t have all this “free” time on her hands because she’s out working every day, just like her partner, in order to provide a comfortable life for herself and her family.

If you want to be good at anything, you need practice, and the life of the average female these days doesn’t allow for what this article seems to think are basic female skills. Sure, it’d be nice to not have to spend $30 on getting a hem done up by a tailor and it’d be great to be able to whip up a fancy dinner every night, but most women don’t have the time for that sort of thing any more. Not every woman has the need to grow plants from cuttings and because of how cars are these days, having a manual license is not that important any more. Even if we’re shown how to do this stuff (from parents or in high school Home Economics), our lack of need to utilise these skills means we soon forget how to do them. I mean, if you live in a unit in the City, why would you need to know how to operate a whipper snipper?

Look, I think everyone, not just female, should know a lot of these basic skills. Sewing and cooking will always be invaluable, knowing how to check the car if it’s low on oil or being able to start a mower are also equally good to know. But clearly the parents of these apparently “hopeless” Gen Y’s decided these skills weren’t important enough to hand down to many of the people of my generation and so a lot of this knowledge has disappeared. As a result there are plenty of ways we can overcome the fact we lack these skills and our lives really aren’t that badly affected by it.

As it turns out, the article itself wasn’t what angered me the most, but the comments by the douchebag chauvinists commenting on it. All I’m going to say is, if you expect your girlfriend/wife to come home after a long day at work and iron your goddamn shirts then you are a pig and deserve to have that iron shoved somewhere nasty. Women shouldn’t be confined to these old-fashioned chores if they don’t want to. If a women is happy to work all day then come home to cook dinner, do the laundry and clean the house then that’s her choice. But if you expect her to do it just because it’s a “female skill” then you need to check the date and realise it’s 2011, not 1955. Likewise, if you don’t like how your wife is a stay-at-home mum and doesn’t have the house spic and span when you come home from work, perhaps you should stay home and change shitty nappies and entertain your screaming, messy whirlwinds of destruction for once and see how you feel like doing the dishes or ironing!

Personally I was brought up to learn all of these skills, and my mum still teaches me new things constantly. I have a new sewing machine which she’s giving me lessons on, I mow her lawn all the time and have fixed her mower a couple of times and thanks to her teachings I am an OK cook, even though I don’t like cooking much at all. But that’s me, and given the fact I live where I live and have an extremely busy life, I don’t need to know these things. I just choose to and that’s my right, as it is to anyone who chooses not to learn these sometimes old-fashioned and unnecessary skills.

And to conclude this rant, here is Beyonce being the damn finest housewife ever (but not being very happy about it, which is damn well fair enough):

Originally published at rubyvelour.com
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Well the worst is now over and it’s now time for Brisbane to start cleaning up the areas affected by the floods. I’ve registered as a volunteer but have been told by a few sources that there have been so many volunteers there may not be enough work to delegate to everyone. I can’t even imagine that, too many volunteers? That’s just fantastic and I send hi-5′s to all thsoe who have donated their time and energy to getting Brisbane back to normal. I’m hoping I can go help out my friends who were affected tomorrow.

I have to admit I have been a bit disappointed in how little attention this has been given from people in other parts of Australia and the world. I wasn’t expecting everyone in the world to collapse to the ground yelling “WHY???” to the sky and donating all of their saving to the disaster relief fund. But I kind of expected a little more attention than what I’ve seen mentioned online. Of all of the blogs I read every day, only one mentioned the floods at all (Gala Darling, and she’s a kiwi living in NY) while everyone else has seemingly ignored the matter. Is it because there wasn’t a significant loss of life? Because Queenslanders have the “it’ll be alright” kind of attitude so people don’t realise how big a disaster it was? Or is this how it always is, and I’m only noticing because I saw the impact these floods had first hand? I don’t recall how much attention the fires in Victoria got in 2009 as I didn’t read a lot of blogs or use Twitter back then. And come to think of it, I’m not sure how much attention Haiti got during it’s earthquake disaster last year and I’m wondering if it was also largely ignored by bloggers and non-affected people like I feel the Brisbane floods have been. Not to say people don’t care about them of course. I just don’t know why it’s not being mentioned more to raise awareness, particularly by people other Aussies.

I guess all I’m saying is, if you know someone who may have been affected the the brisbane floods, make sure you contact them and find out if they are OK. And if you have a blog that has a significant number of readers, let them know what’s going on and encourage them to make a donation if they can. It won’t turn people off and it’s only going to do good, so start making some sort of fuss. We got smashed pretty badly and it’s going to take a lot of money and time to get things back to normal and every cent will help. Plus the floods are continuing around the country and things may only get worse still.

OK, that’s my rant for the day. If you want to get a good perspective of how Queensland has been affected, check out these great interactive before/after photos as well as the gallery on news.com.au. Please note my mum lives in Ipswich so those first few photos in the gallery are pretty shocking for me. Thank god my mum lives on a hill, as many of her neighbors (many elderly) lost everything.

Originally published at rubyvelour.com

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So Oprah is in Australia at the moment. Never before have I heard such a hubbub about a celebrity visiting this country. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her but I do enjoy watching her show whenever the opportunity presents itself (ie. sick from work). When I heard that she was coming to Australia I thought “Oh that’s cool” and didn’t think much of it until she was actually due to arrive and BOOM the media circus really took off.

There seems to be a lot of negativity coming from the general public about her coming here. People complaining that our taxes are footing the bill for the security and police presence she’ll inevitably need, the fact her visit will be disruptive, that she’s not important enough to warrant so much attention and so on. Then there was that McDonalds ad which I admit was pretty stupid and misleading (um so only guys have business meeting while women do nothing but “catch up with friends”, please). Oh and the terrible scandal of how there was a quiz on her site with some tough questions testing peoples knowledge of Australia. Oh come on, while wasn’t the best quiz I’ve ever witnessed, it was actually kind of interesting and the fact a bunch of boon’s didn’t even know about the Dingo fence, it goes to show it may have actually helped some Aussie’s learn something about our country. Everyday there’s something new in the news, almost always with a bunch of nasty, whiny comments from disgruntled Aussie’s who just don’t get it.

Love her or hate her, she’s a HUGE influence on a lot of Americans. While we’ve had to spend a lot to impress her and keep her safe, the amount of money our country will make when all of her generally clueless American fans suddenly find out what Australia is all about and start coming here to holidays will be countless. The amount of knowledge the average American has about our country could barely fill a matchbox. And now they will not only get to see all of what we have to offer, but also get a first hand account of how great Australia from Oprah, who we all know can sway millions of people to buy anything that she says is good. Having her here is way better publicity for us than it would for Obama to come, because he wouldn’t be making a bunch of shows to document his trip like Oprah is. And let’s not forget, she’s about to retire and this will be her big finale which just makes it all that more important and exciting.

So if you’re one of those “Oprah go home” types, have a think about the bigger picture. It’s not about her, it’s about how many of her American fans will soon be pumping their US dollars into our economy and how soon we will have less people out there who think we all ride kangaroos to the shops and wear green khakis everyday after wrestling crocodiles while shouting “crikey” (no offense to Steve Irwin, of course).

Originally published at rubyvelour.com

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I have the dreadful track record of everything going wrong on a Monday. Today was a total doozie. I’m a firm believe in getting stuff of your chest to help make you feel better so let me tell you about how my day started:

After forcing myself out of bed at a reasonable time (I’ve been sleeping in a lot lately and decided this week would be different) I got ready without too much fuss. As I got up a but earlier I had just enough time to make a decent breakfast… except TWO lots of milk were randomly off (and chunky to boot, uuggghh) followed by the discovery that my fancy new bread was now hosting what I can only assume was the start of a new civilisation (aka nasty ass mould). After I sort that mess out, I’m now about to run late so end up having a rushed and unsatisfactory breakkie before realising I’m now running late. I run down to my car, since I have been transferred to an office where there’s no public transport (don’t even get me started about that) only to get stopped and abused for ten minutes for parking somewhere I shouldn’t park (my bad, but man ten freaking minutes it lasted). So I’m late to work where I discover I left my packed lunch on my bed. FFFFUUUUUUU!!!

But I’m not one to dwell too much and have lots of cool stuff coming up to take my mind of what was possibly the worst Monday of 2010. For example, festival season is upon us with Stereosonic this weekend. I’ll be the sweaty girl checking your tickets, in case you’re going to the one in Brisbane, so try not to look like too much of a douche or else I may not let you in ;) But seriously, I am looking forward to December for all of the festivals, my Vampire-themed birthday party (yes I still do theme parties and always will) and having a week off over Christmas and New Years to relax at my mum’s place and then party party PARTY!

What are your plans for the last month of 2010?

I am opposed to downloading movies. Not just because it’s illegal and stops Tom Cruise from getting millions of dollars that he really doesn’t deserve, but because this new phenomena of being able to download movies the minute they’re released now means cinemas are packed full of the idiots who lack the intelligence to download movies or just have nothing better to do. I admit I still go to the cinemas to see movies because I like seeing movies on the big screen with good surround sound. While we have a projector at home with an OK sound set up, District 9 kicked about 10,000x more arse when I saw it at the movies. I also enjoy getting out of the house now and then and very much love cinema popcorn and frozen soft drinks. But sadly, despite the numerous episodes of Seinfeld that taught so many people the basic etiquette of going to the movies, people become massive douchebag’s when they go to the movies. Here are my tips for a better movie-going experience:

OPEN PACKETS DURING THE TRAILERS

This should be a no-brainer but I am always missing important parts of movies because someone decides to tear open a packet of malteasers during a quiet or tense part of the film. And it’s never a clean tear, it involves a lot of plastic bag wrinkling and commotion and then the inevitable “hand is too big for the opening so instead of shaking the foods into my hand I’m just gonna cram my hand in there, rustle and scrunch the plastic as my fat hand tries to grab as big a handful as possible and generally make more noise than a Boeing 747”.

BE POPCORN AWARE

OK so I know popcorn is not exactly a quiet snack and I also know that it’s crazily addictive and you can’t just eat one piece at a time, you just have to shovel it in like you’re getting paid for it. But you don’t have to scratch around for a handful of popcorn for three minutes, only to come away with six pieces and a heap of unpopped kernels to show for it. Grab the damn handful in one swoop without shifting all the popcorn around the box and getting your grubby fingers all over the goods. Whether your hand is in there for one second or five minutes, you’re going to come away with the same amount so do it quietly and quickly, please!

WHISPER, BUT NOT TOO OFTEN

I am the worst for wanting to talk during movies, but as I am in a big room full of people who paid good money to watch the same film as me, I bite my tongue and make sure to whisper very quietly if I absolutely have to say something. Shame so few pay this common courtesy back though! Whatever possesses people to have conversations about what’s happening in the film (or sometimes whatever the hell else they have to talk about) in normal voices or in half-arsed whispers that are about half a decibel lower than their normal outdoors voice and then have the audacity to get the shits when I turn around and tell them to pipe down… I just do not know. Save the commentary for when you buy the DVD and take the hint when half the cinemas is turning around and glaring at you.

DON’T CLAP

Have you ever gone and seen a movie and had wankers start clapping at the end? WHAT THE HELL? What, did the director walk in while I wasn’t looking? Is this the film premiere that I inadvertently walked into? No? Then stop clapping. I don’t know why I take such offense to this but I seem to hate clapping in general since it’s not warranted 95% of the time. Especially at the movies.

DON’T RUSH FOR THE EXIT

Have you noticed how everyone decides they will leave the moment the credits appear in a vain attempt to beat everyone else at leaving the cinema? Have you also noticed how this never works and you have a traffic jam down the aisles (where assholes won’t let you out of your row) and everyone ends up leaving at the exact same time in a slow shuffle? Yeah, thought so.

PUT YOUR FUCKING PHONE DOWN

If the movie is that boring, fuck off already. Sitting there, texting on your phone so that everyone around you is blinded and/or distracted by the bright light from your screen is rude and obnoxious as hell. I know I am totally a value-for-money kinda gal, so will stay and watch a movie all the way through to make my $16 worthwhile, but if you tear away your eyes from your douchey bloody iPhone for two hours, you need help yo!

These really are the basics and I could go on and on. God only knows why I bother going to the movies considering how annoying the general public are. It’s like some people just become massive fuckwits as soon as they walk into a movie theatre. I mean really, do you need to wrap your chip packet back up every single time to get a chip out, so that you have to unwrap it a minute later to get the next one??? Can you honestly not tell your friend to shut up and stop asking so many stupid, loud questions? It seems to me these things seem pretty straight forward, but I guess it’s like how you instantly become a dumb arse as soon as you’re a customer, people just seem to lose their shit the moment then walk into the cinemas.

And thus concludes my random, angry rant for the week!

I just realised I have not had a good rant on my blog for a while now. I am not feeling particularly ragey tonight but there are a few things on my mind that I thought I should make public.

1. People who misuse the word emo. For the record, that’s most people. It drives me nuts that people use it as an insult against anyone remotely alternative when they seem to be feeling an emotion other than happiness. I get called an emo a fair bit but I don’t get too mad at people because I understand I do have the main traits of the typical emo. But then I see people calling friends who are so far removed from the emo subculture getting told to “stop being so emo” when they’re sad or angry about something. In this example I’m talking about a friend who is indie. I don’t expect everyone to know the difference between all subcultures (because god knows I don’t and I’m pretty cluey about that sort o thing) but you do sound like a total knob when you call someone an emo who very clearly isn’t. It’s not 2003 any more, it’s not a new term that you can sound clever by using, so get it right or shut up!

OK so this isn’t the best example of emo’s vs indie kids but it’ll do to prove my point. If Bill Kaulitz on the let there is acting sad, then you reserve the right to call him an emo (also a girl, but that’s for another rant). The people on the right, while a bit douchey and also prone to sulking are clearly indie kids (aka hipsters) and so calling them “emo” is inappropriate. It’s like how anyone who wore black back in the day got called a goth when nine times out of ten they were anything but goth. God I hated those times.

2. Facebook fanatics. It shits me that people rely so heavily on Facebook for all of their information. I had some jerk getting all snippy about not getting a reply to his Facebook comment when the information he sought could have been found very easily elsewhere. People need to chill the fuck out about Facebook, it’s not the be-all-end-all and is certainly not a very good resource or getting news and information. There’s this other site called Google, learn how to use it!

3. Pedestrians. I don’t know if they’re getting worse lately or I’ve just been missing out on all of their stupidity for so long. Or maybe I have just become more aware o the stupid things pedestrians do that almost gets them killed so often. The other day my friend and I were driving in the City and we almost hit some young Asian dude in a suit who was walking on the road next to his mates on a blind corner. We beeped him but he just shot us this look of disdain like we were the ones doing something wrong. Fuck man, we’re in a car and you’re a sack of meat with nothing to protect you but that fancy suit you’re wearing. Guess who’d win this battle? I see people running in front of cars on Friday and Saturday nights down on the street where I live all the time. It shocks me that I haven’t seen someone get killed because there’s no looking, there’s just a mad dash across the road and the hope that you’ll beat the car who’s coming right for you. These kinds of people are the ones who deserve to get run over but never do.

4. The cost of movie tickets. I go to the movies a lot and I’m constantly shocked and appalled at how much it costs to go see a movie these days. I went and saw Toy Story 3 last night it cost $20! Admittedly it was a last minute thing and I had to pay an extra $1 for 3D glasses but hell! There are some cinemas that charge a lot less but you usually have to get your tickets hours in advance and then line up or an hour to get a good seat. It’s no wonder so many people download movies these days! On the plus side though, Toy Story 3 was pretty fucking good.

Aaaand that’s me done bitching for now! Stay tuned for some proper posts real soon!

Originally published at rubyvelour.com
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(Image from here)

As all Aussies now know, we have a new Prime Minister. The first female PM our country has ever had after being our first ever female deputy PM. She wasn’t democratically elected and was made PM after Kevin Rudd was kicked out for not doing a good enough job, according to some factions within the Labour party. This has been met with both applause and outrage because one one hand it’s pretty neat that we do have a female PM finally, but also kind of shit how she got the job.

Look, I don’t know dick about politics. It’s not an interest of mine and there’s always so much going on that I just couldn’t keep up, even if I wanted to. I’m basically the kind of person who believes most politicians are all the same and doubt there’d ever be one who I’d be proud to call my Prime Minister (except maybe Obama but that’s because I have this dream that when the world is taken over by aliens he’d kick major arse and save the day and then latter hang out and shoot a few hoops while listening to Montell Jordan). I’ve done a little bit of reading up since all this went down and also spoken to people who know a bit more about how the politics of Australia works and so while I get it to an extent, I’m an amateur at best.

My only whinge is that people need to sit back and let her do her thing before getting all hyped up. Yes she’s a woman and that’s cool, but she’s from the same party as Rudd (who I never, ever trusted, might I add) and so I’m not going to agree with about 60% of the things she’ll say and do because I’m not a Labour supporter and their policies aren’t things I necessarily approve of (when I actually get what’s going on, of course). It’s also kind of neat that she’s openly atheist and refuses to pretend she believes in any faith to win over the Christian voters. But her being an unmarried, childless woman as well as an atheist doesn’t mean she’ll be some kick arse new feminist PM. I’m a female who’s unmarried and childless and is also very openly atheist but I sure as hell couldn’t run a country! I can barely get my shit together and get to work on time every morning! On the same token, she may have taken over the position of PM in a nasty sort of way (I seriously never did trust Rudd but man I felt for the poor guy when he stood down, he’s just lost the biggest job in Australia remember, that shit gotta hurt!) she may end up being a good leader who we decide to keep at the next election. Only time will tell and so people need to shut up, stop hypothesising and let the damn woman do her job for a little while before we start jumping for joy or complaining bitterly.

And just one last thing, YES she has red hair. My god, why is this such a big deal? I fucking hate it how people have such a big thing against red heads. That shit is whack and almost like racism in my opinion! Red hair doesn’t affect your personality and I am sure as hell will not be what makes Julia Gillard a good or bad Prime Minister. Get the fuck over it people, this ain’t primary school any more!

Anyway, that’s enough politics for this blog for one year.! I promise not to do this again any time soon!

Originally published at rubyvelour.com
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I have a bit of a gripe with various people on the internet at the moment. “Oh what is it this time, Cara?” I hear you moan, and so I will tell you! Various bloggers have been having a bit of a whinge (by which I mean, are getting all of their underpants in massive knots over) some Frock Watch thing over at MamaMia.com.au which boggles my mind. I don’t really have much to do with that site except maybe having a quick squiz at it now and then whenever some shit storm is brewing because someone didn’t like something Mia Freedman wrote and so it wound up on some crap current affairs program or there was a bit of a hubbub on twitter about it. But this took my interest because of how passionate these girls were getting. Turns out it’s a case of people considering her commenting on the fashion of celebrities at various events to be WRONG and against her strong Body Image ethos. She doesn’t comment on any of the fashions as far as I can tell, but as people comment on them and can be kind of nasty sometimes, it’s apparently hurtful and turns women against each. Um, what?

I would love to live in a world where we can all appreciate one another for how we look and the different choices we make. But I am also a realist and know that unless we all get full frontal lobotomies or turn into those old fashioned depictions of the future where we all wear the same space-age outfits and look kind of the same, that ain’t going to happen. It goes against human nature not to comment on other people, be it in a negative or positive way. Expecting women to look at celebrities who are wearing dresses that cost as much as our cars and jewels that cost more than our houses and not have something to say is preposterous. If we don’t like what they’re wearing, we have every right to say so if we want to. It’s not very nice, and we all should learn to stop being so damn critical all the time, but it’s what most people do and it generally doesn’t hurt anyone because most of us whisper such comments to a friend, have a chuckle and move on with our lives.

Mia Freedman strives for women of realistic body shapes to be seen in magazines and on TV. She’s not campaigning for a world where anyone can wear whatever they want without someone out there not liking it. Give her a fucking break. We live in a world where terrible things happen everyday. There are entire countries and religions that force women to live like slaves to their husbands and wear clothing that ensure they do not look desirable to any other man. We live in a world where LGBT people aren’t allowed the most basic right of marriage and are often persecuted and in severe cases, killed for having the “wrong” sexuality. And yet here we have people getting so mad about something so trivial. Yes, someone making a snide remark about how they don’t like what some celebrity wore to an awards show is trivial and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Because a) There are far more important thing to worry about in the world and b) The celeb’s don’t give a shit what we lowly common folk think, and even if they did I am sure they can dry their tears with their big wads of cash and buy a few Cartier diamonds to cheer themselves up!

When we live in a world where there’s no discrimination about race, gender, religion or sexuality then we can all go crazy and stop people from having opinions about what other women wear. If indeed that’s what you really want.

Originally published at rubyvelour.com
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Anyone who knows me in real life has very probably heard one of my Bear Grylls rants. They usually happen on a Monday night or Tuesday morning after the show has aired in Australia on Monday evening. Let me get this out, loud and clear, so no one has any misunderstandings: I FUCKING HATE BEAR GRYLLS!

It’s become apparent that most people who know of Bear Grylls think he’s fucking awesome. Well I am here to not only tell you that he is not but to also explain why. I hate the man so passionately that whenever someone says “Hey did you see ‘Man vs Wild’ last night?” I have to use every ounce of my self-control not to slap them in the face. I will however, let them know exactly how I feel about the show and the stupid dickwad who hosts it until I am shaking with rage.

So why do I hate him so much? Aside from the fact he has possibly the worlds most annoying accent and tries to get all Steve-Irwin-excited except with less amusement? Aside from the fact his show his a crock of shit? OK well how about how the motherfucker kills animals for ENTERTAINMENT. You heard me, enter-fucking-tainment! There’s no other way around it, people watch the show with the expectation that he will do something gross like drink muddy water or his own pee, or more importantly, kill an animal for food. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? EVERYTHING! I know animals are killed for food all over the world each and every day, I am not naive and nor am I even a vegetarian so it’s not as if I can get all morally-righteous about how meat is murder. But the simple fact is, he kills animals for his TV show because that’s what his brain-damaged target audience want, and so he delivers.

I get into the same argument about this every time I start ranting about Bear Grylls so let me just say this: This show is not about teaching people how to survive in tough locations. It is entertainment, pure and simple. If you think that after watching a bunch of his shows, you could be left alone in a Siberian wasteland and last more than a day then you’re fucking retarded! You’re going to remember all of the things a trained mercenary taught you in an hour TV show, are you? Get fucking real! You ain’t going to remember shit and you know it, dick bag. If you find your arse stranded in the amazon goddamn jungle, you probably did some fucked up shit and deserve to be eaten by piranhas or a boa constrictor within the first hour. Who the HELL finds themselves in those situations? Explorers? Adventurers? Indiana Jones, maybe? Not you, that’s for damn sure!

And then there’s the stupid belief he is actually surviving. OK guys so how’s the show being filmed? Ain’t by hand held camera! He has at least two camera guys with him, based on the different camera angles you see in the show. And that’s not including the people in the helicopters who do those impressive, sweeping shots of him while he’s supposedly “on his own in the wilderness”. Bollocks! Those camera people ain’t “surviving” with him which means they’re probably carrying food with them. Which means Bear Grylls doesn’t have to drink rancid water that camels have pooped in, nor does he need to eat anything he finds with a heartbeat. He could always point at a non-poisonous frog and say “If you were desperate, this type of frog would be edible” (not that it matters since you wouldn’t remember anyway and would most likely end up eating a poisonous toad by mistake) instead of then having to go kill it for the viewing pleasure of his deranged fan base with their insatiable blood lust.

Which brings me to my next point, which fills me with the kind of uncontrollable rage. Killing animals for entertainment. I’ve now established he’s not teaching people how to survive but rather showing off how fancy his SAS training is. I’ve also proven that he’s not actually surviving at all because he has a fucking camera crew with him and no one on earth is crazy enough to eat/drink the stupid shit he does so they’ve clearly got packed lunches in the backpacks and camera bags. These two facts therefore negate all need to kill any of the animals he so callously slaughters, because he doesn’t need the food and not one person watching the show will ever find themselves in a position where killing and eating a massive tarantula will be the difference between life and death. As far as I am concerned, he just enjoys killing animals and ensuring high ratings by eating them LIVE or in the nastiest way possible. You know what dude? Kill the damn animal first if you must eat it. Biting the head off a live snake is not only unnecessary and clearly dangerous, it’s also CRUEL!

If you still think he’s great, that his show really is about teaching people how to survive in inhospitable locations (and actually think you could do any of the stuff he does), that he genuinely is trying to survive in the wilderness and that the animals he kills are a necessary part of his survival, then fine. Just don’t talk about the douchebag to me, lest you wish to feel my fiery wrath. I can’t help you if you’re really that stupid, so just keep all mentions of “Man vs Wild” or Bear Grylls at least 100 meters away from me at all times.

Originally published at rubyvelour.com
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For all of those not in Queensland, you may not be aware of the proposed changes being discussed in parliament about what times venues around the state can trade, what time lockouts should be and how public transport and police presence should be adjusted to crack down on alcohol-related violence, particularly in entertainment districts like Fortitude Valley (where I live and socialise). It's been a HUGE issue, especially to those involved in the entertainment and music industries, and there's a great concern that we're facing a situation where nightclubs, bars and live music venues will be forced to close earlier because of a few trouble-makers who the law apparently cannot touch.

I am not an expert on this whole situation but I am one of the many people concerned by how adversely these changes will affect the Nightlife in Queensland and may even cause loss of jobs for those who work at these venues (ie. students, shift workers etc). I've always thought the 3am lockout we have is ridiculous and has caused more issues than itwas meant to fix. As someone who lives and socialises in the Valley, I see the trouble caused when people can't get into venues at 3am and find themselves drunk and without their friends and have to go line up in the excessive cab lines full of other drunken, frustrated people. No wonder there's so much violence! It's an undesirable situation for anyone, and bringing that time from 3am to 2am will just make the problem a whole lot worse.

In an ideal world, everyone would listen to me and follow my super-awesome, informed decisions. Obviously that doesn't happen (yet) so I will just tell you all my thoughts anyway and hope maybe someone will listen to me and realise I may know a bit of what I am talking about. First of all, there should be NO lockout at all. All the lockout does is cause people to foolishly leave clubs and make a mad dash to another club (for no real reason except "OMG it's almost lockout, let's go to some other club just because we won't be able to go there after 3 and maybe it's better than this one") which inevitably leaves a lot of people on the streets because their drunken perception of time and distance meant they missed lockout by a couple of minutes. Needless to say, this pisses people off and since they have nowhere to go and so they have to make their sorry ways home. Therefore at 3am the taxi lines are bloated beyond belief, all full of these frustrated punters who were keen to stay out longer, and facing an hour wait for a cab while they slowly sober up, whichonly infuriates them further. Meanwhile the people who managed to get into (or just stayed in) a club before lockout, who decide to leave the venue after 3am are faced with these now half-sober, angry people whose moods are all their worst. Tempers flare up, fights happen and people get hurt.

If lockout was abolished and we could come and go as we pleased, there would be no more late-minute dashes between clubs before 3am and people would leave the venue and the Valley at their leisure. A lot of people would probably not stay out so long as most people feel the need to stay til at least 3am, and those who do want a big night can rest assured they have until closing time at 5am (which should also be extended, by the way) in which to visit various bars, pubs and clubs. It would also mean, those who leave clubs after 3am and find the cab lines are horrendous or that they missed the night bus, have the option togo back into a venue, which is a hell of a lot safer than spending the next hour amongst a broad range of drunk individuals who are probably itching for a fight.

Personally I don't think there is a solution to late night, alcohol-induced violece. Aussies love drinking and there's always going that unfortunate contingent of people who also enjoy fighting. Taking away the rights of the well-meaning majority because of the actions of the few obnoxious lout's hell bent on picking fights and causing trouble is UNFAIR.We need to get rid of the bad elements and work towards making things safer for everyone else. Our public transport is atrocious and needs to run at times that coincide with venue trading hours, there needs to be a increased police presence to match the amount of people out and about (this should be a no-brainer but apparently isn't) and we need services to help the people who overdo it and can get assistance before they do further damage and have to be taken away in an ambulance (is it Ravesafe who do this at the moment, or another group of volunteers?).

Let's face it, we can't stop people from wanting to go out drinking, so we need to make it as safe as possible for all who do and NOT let a bunch of middle aged politicians make decisions about the things they have NO clue about!

Somee links of note in regards to this topic:

Queensland Locked Out
Queensland's earlier pub closing plan angers public
Venues brand 2am lockout 'a return to Joh era'

Feel free to tell me your thoughts on this matter and give me some more links to add!

ruby_sig

I hate money! OK so that's a damn bold-faced lie but I do hate what money does to people and how people act around it. It drives me insane how peoples lives can revolve around their pay cheques and how no one else seems bothered by this sort of mentality. I consider it a really unhealthy attitude to have towardsmoney and personally never let anyone but those nearest and dearest to me know if I am running low on funds and ameagerly anticipating my next pay(and then again, only on the rare occasion would I say anything about it to them at all). I honestly do believe your financial situation directly relates to your relationship with money, so that if you find yourself always thinking about your next pay then you'll always find yourself broke the day before and desperate for the money to land in your bank account so you can go buy some dinner. I also believe this sort of attitude means you place far too much importance (I don't think that's the word I'm looking for but it'll do) on moneyso that when you do get paid you go all kinds of crazy and end up over-spending which means you're going to wind up broke right before your next pay once again. And so continues the cycle.

Look, we all have those weeks where all out money disappeared on bills and god knows what. But we don't have them every week (no one could possibly have a bill every single week that wipes out all their pay unless they have some sort of shitty, low paying job or a bunch of kids). Get real and start prioritising you slack motherfucker. No one forced you go go piss away half your pay on the weekend after pay day, not did they encourage you to still go out the next weekend even though you know you can't really afford it. Taking your lunch to work was daggy as hell when we were all kids but no one gives a shit as adults so stop spending crazy amount of money a day on lunches when it costs you dick all to prepare your lunch the night before and take it to work with you. Stop being a snob and walk to work or catch the damn bus, driving your car or catching a cab is an expensive alternative when you know you're going to be lucky to have two $1 coins to rub together in a weeks time.

I know I talk about being a spendaholic but I rarely find myself broke or even with less than about $100 in my bank by the time my fortnightly pay rolls around. I have NO idea how I do it, since I tend to spend money on a lot of frivolous things all the time, but I guess it comes down to prioritising and being sensible with my money. I'll never buy something, no matter how badly I want it, if I know it could mean being broke for a day or two as a result. If I have a big bill due I will compromise by spending the weekend in and spending as little as possible. It works pretty well for me, and while I find myself sitting here broke and bored at home due to an unexpected and very large electricity bill coming our way this week, I know this is an uncommon occurrence and will make sure the electricity bill is never left til last minute ever again!

Whenever people I know (and there's a lot of them who fall into this category, I ain't targeting no one in particular) bitch and moan about how broke they are, I find it hard not to shake them and maybe even give them a few slaps around the head because I know they pissed most of their money away instead of being responsible and saving their money for once in their damn lives. PLUS some of these people earn MORE than me too, which makes me even angrier, especially consider I know how much more debt I have than them as well.

In summary, people need to learn some responsibility and how to damn well respect money. It's evil as hell but it's a necessary part of life that we all have to deal with. Unless you're a bum student or have the worst job in the word that pays dick all, you have NO excuse to wind up broke every damn week/fortnight. And if you choose to live the sort of life where partying hard and throwing your money way on useless luxuries is your thang, keep your fat trap shut about how broke you are the day before pay day because it's fucking pathetic.

ruby_sig

Originally published at rubyvelour.com.
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I am one of the lucky few who doesn't suffer from PMS, though apparently I was unlucky today (damn St Patrick's Day for lying to me!) and had it bad. Hence why we have another "Things That Pissed Me Off Today"!

That Time Of The Month. It sucks balls and all men should be eternally grateful that they do not have to go through with it. I really am pretty lucky where I don't get PMS or cramps (except for today when I randomly got both) though I do get nasty migraines and bloat up like a water-logged corpse. I also hate how all girls, as much as they hate their periods, breathe a sigh of relief when we do get our periods because hallelujah we're not pregnant! It's awful and totally unfair and justifies us to be mean as hell to all males at that time of the month without repercussion!

Grocery shopping. OK so sometimes I really enjoy it but not when I am in a foul mood. It's incredibly hard to try and buy practical things that will last you til your next shopping trip when you feeling like stabbing someone in the eye. You also find you're absent-minded so that when you get home you forgot to buy some of the main things that drove you to go shopping in the first place. Also, the stuff you want is NEVER on sale when you're in a bad mood and need to go shopping. INFURIATING!

The cow who made my lunch half the size it was last week. See, there's a Farmers market right in the middle of the City every Wednesday and I discovered one stall that sells the most delicious (and totally bizarre) food - avocado and mushroom floats. I got one last week and almost died from food-lust so went back today and got about half as much as I did last week. Sure, I could have complained, but I am not the complaining type so I ate it (and admittedly, enjoyed the hell out of it) and then sulked a lot and ate lots of St Patty's Day themed lollies to make up for it. Needless to see it wasn't a great combination :S

People being to cool to dress in theme for festive days. I was appalled by how many people I saw walking around the City who made no effort to wear green for St Patrick's Day today. Oh come on, it's St Patrick's Day, get over yourself and have some fun and get into the spirit of things like the dag you really are. I refuse to believe anyone when they say they have no green in their wardrobes whatsoever. Green is so common, and when its bright it looks fucking awesome, so everyone's got something green tucked away somewhere, you damn liars! On the other hand I thoroughly enjoyed noticing what levels of green people wore today, some of it was over the top and in-your-face, some of it was sneaky and subtle :)

And now for the big one! The thing that pissed me off in particular today, as it has for pretty much ever, are over-opinionated arseholes. I am so sick of how so many people I know find it necessary to inflict their opinions on the rest of the world and be damned if you don't agree. I consider myself a great person to be friends with because I don't really give a damn if you don't like all of the same things as me or want to do all of the things I enjoy doing. And yet all I ever see around me are people who have to open their fat traps about every damn thing like it's their god given right to bad mouth anything they don't like or agree with. Ya know what? No one gives a flying fuck! I don't mind it when friends have a bit of a rant about something (god knows I love doing it myself, clearly) but when it's constant and gets to the point where its like they have nothing good to say about anything (unless its one of the rare things that they happen to like), I could seriously start punching fists through skulls. Look here, if you're the kind of person who has to be like that, learn some goddamn tact and shut your mouth for once. You don't like that band or style of music I like? Hooray for you, but I don't want to hear about how much you hate it and why it suck and have you be all in my face about it. You don't like the things I happen to enjoy doing? Then don't do those things and get the hell over it! Far out, it's like it's become fashionable to become a self-righteous fuck these days and it's really gotten to me, as you can probably tell. There's nothing wrong with keeping opinions to yourself, or at least saving them for the people who you know will agree with you. It ain't your job to tell everyone how you think it is because a) you're wrong, b) no one cares and c) it's not funny or clever and it actually hurts/angers people. Next time, think about who you're about to bitch and moan to and decide if it's worth looking like an arsehole, because chances are that's how you're going to come across. And all for the sake of your over-inflated fucking ego.

OK well now I feel a bit better! Nothing like a bit of a whinge to get the chip off your shoulder, eh? Bare in mind, with that last one, I am referring to a broad range of people in my life, so if you're reading this and think it's about you, it is. But not just you, so suck it up and take my advice for once in your damn life and accept the fact you come across as an arsehole when you tell me the stuff I do, the things I like and the people I hang out with are all shit. That's right, I'm talkin' to YOU!

ruby_sig

Which night? ri or Sat? Standing or seated?

Originally published at rubyvelour.com.
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I started writing a blog about the whole body image debate going on right now, how magazines and the fashion industry are apparently trying to encourage positive body shapes and perceptions. It was all very fancy and informative but it was boring me so I am going to have a big old rant instead!

I posted a link on my Twitter this week that talked about how a study concluded that Australian women have the highest rising obesity level in the world (based on the BMI scale). I found it interesting because we're always accusing Americans of being so much fatter than us, and yet there's apparent proof that we're much worse. One friend who is a fat advocate got upset and defriended/unfollowed me from everything online and generally made me feel rotten about my interest in this article. It's not as if I said (as the majority of the comments on that article said, much to my disgust) that fat people are disgusting and need to stop whinging, eat less and exercise more. I just took an interest in the damn article because it's a controversial and constantly discussed issues these days, particularly in my life.

Regardless of the topic, people all have varied opinions on certain things and not everyone is going to agree. Not only would that go against human nature, it would also be extremely boring. In regards to body image, weight issues, fat vs skinny etc, everyone has their own opinion. In this case this person believes in positive body image, fat acceptance and is generally a very vocal person when it comes to wanting others to embrace their sizes, particularly the "larger" percentage of the population. I've always admired her for this, despite the fact I have not always agreed with all of her opinions on the matter. But alas, she didn't like what I had to say (not that I said much, really) and quickly did away with me when she thought I was directly going against her belief system.

I have a turbulent and somewhat distorted perception of what body image/acceptance means. I am one of those unfortunate people who will probably never be happy with my size, even if I did get to my goal weight. It took me a number of diets and lot of going up and down in weight before I finally got to the stage I am at now where I first and foremost want to be fit and healthy which in turn will help me lose weight and get me to the size I want to be. I've never been the sort of person to preach about what's right and wrong when it comes to weight, because I do not have an educated, non-biased opinion and I don't feel as though my personal insecurities would make me a good role model on this particular topic (on arse-kicking and general awesomeness however, I am the ideal poster-girl).

I'm not writing this to make this girl feel bad or to be all up in your faces about THIS IS WHAT I THINK ABOUT BODY IMAGE SO ACCEPT IT OR FUCK OFF but just to say - we all have different opinions on this subject and no matter how we feel about the opinions of others, they have a right to think that way and all we can do is stick up for our own beliefs and accept the fact there's always going to be conflict of interests. Especially with an issue as delicate as this.

And for the record I am actually a bit of a "fat advocate" myself, even though I really dislike that term (though I don't know why). I've always been the type of person to stick up for the overweight and obese at any given opportunity. I've written countless "letters to the editor" after being outraged by peoples opinions on overweight people. I have always campaigned against people using someone's weight as an insult during a fight (if that's all you got then you got nothin') as well as how being fat is still fair game in TV and movies in this overly PC world of ours when it should be just as controversial as any race, gender or sexuality jokes as far as I am concerned! Just because I wish to be slim myself does not mean I do not care and understand the plight of those who are overweight and proud to be so!

ruby_sig

Originally published at rubyvelour.com.

Wolf Whistling

Now I sure this may rouse up some debate with the menz, but I often wonder if guys, especially the really gross ones, actually think giving sleazy eyes and making loud (usually inappropriate) comments at pretty girls is endearing?

Let me paint you a picture so that you understand where I am coming from. At lunch yesterday afternoon I was riding an escalator behind a pretty blonde girl. Down the bottom was a morbidly obese man who wore an old, faded sleeveless t-shirt that had sweat stains around his armpits and had man boobs like none I've ever seen before. He was a cretin, just a gross individual who clearly did not care about his appearance one little bit. This slug was staring at the hapless girl as she descended the escalator with no subtlety whatsoever. It was disconcerting enough for me and I wasn't even the one being stared at. If that wasn't bad enough, he then he turns and says to his rat-like mate, loud enough for all to hear "Aww nah she's way too young" and continued undressing her with his beady, sweaty little eyes.

What would he have said if she wasn't in fact abut 18 years old? If he's going to be that vile and make loud comments about being too young for him, how would he have acted if she's been his target age? I shudder to think! And why he HELL does he think it's OK to say that sort of thing? Apart from the fact he was a total beast of man, how does he expect to attract someone by shouting exactly what he feels at his object of desire? Even if he'd been a good-looking, well-dressed young man I'm sure he would have gotten the same sort of reaction (though the girl might have felt a little bit flattered as opposed to totally repulsed, I guess).

Now this guy clearly doesn't represent all men, but a lot of guys out there seem to think yelling dumb stuff at pretty girls as they pass (ie. the old walking-past-the-construction-site stereotype) is a clever thing to do and will actually end well for them. I get it every time I walk past the deadshits who sit around the bus stop where I live, they holler "Hey gorgeous lady, I like yer tatts" as though that's going to impress me and I'll give them my phone number or a sneaky BJ. I refuse to believe this has ever actually worked for them, that there is a woman desperate enough out there to find that appealing and reciprocate. We can't stop them from having a look, but don't we have some sort of right to walk down the street without having stupidity thrust upon us just because we're easy on the eye?

If you're one of those guys who thinks it's attractive to yell "compliments" at a pretty lady as she walks past, think again. There are very few women who like this sort of thing (you can tell who they are) so you have two options. the preferred one is to shut up and just appreciate what you see quietly. The second one, if you simply cannot keep your big yap closed, is to approach the girl and say something to her one-on-one, though you better make it good and not along the lines of "You have sweet tits" because you may very well get a slap or an angry "fuck off" in reply. If you do it right, you may be one of those lucky few who actually gets the girls phone number!

Personally, I spend a lot of time getting ready every day to look nice. Not necessarily for guys, it's mostly for myself as I feel good when I look good. I don't mind the occasional look from random blokes, because it makes me feel like my hard work was worth it, but I feel objectified when I get things yelled at me and so retaliate by yelling back how I feel (usually "Get a life, ugly"). I am inclined to think most women feel the same way, but obviously I could be wrong, so I'd love some feedback!

Guys: have you ever whistled at or yelled a comment out at a girl and had her reciprocate? What did you say and how did she respond?
Girls: do you like having guys wolf whistle and yell compliments at you? If so, why?

ruby_sig

Originally published at rubyvelour.com.

In case you're not familiar with Australian holidays and celebrations, January 26th is Australia Day. I've always been a bit torn about how I feel about Australia Day and so never really know how to celebrate it. Typically it's a day off work where you have a BBQ and drink a lot of beer and that's about it. We're Aussie's, all we care about is having a day off work (preferably on Friday/Monday in order to get a long weekend), adding a BBQ and booze into the equation just sweetens the deal, really.

Personally I get a bit irked by all of this "Aussie Pride" business that's been going on the last few years. It's not that there's anything really wrong with being proud of your country but it's always been kind of un-Australian to make a fuss about it. We're laid back people who sort of have this silent agreement with one another that yes, we do live in a bloody great country and we're all very lucky and proud and all that. Being overly patriotic is more of an American thing to do and god knows we don't want to be like those damn Yanks!

But the younger generation (which just so happens to be my generation) have decided they want to be loud and proud about how much they love being Aussie. So now they all wear Australian flag's as capes and basically cover themselves in as many flag-motif items of clothing they could get their hands on. They even like putting little flags on their cars for the month leading up to Australia Day (which is so bloody daggy, might I add). But probably the worst of all is how many young people are getting the Southern Cross as tattoos these days. I am against these tattoos for many reasons, though mostly because I hate generic tattoos and wonder why they even bother getting tattooed if that's the best idea they could come up with. If I felt like getting a tattoo to represent my being Australian, I sure as hell wouldn't get a southern cross and would get something personal and relevant to me and me only (but that's more of a "I hate generic tattoos" sorta rant). I don't necessarily agree with how people call these tattoos Austicka's because not all people who get these tattoos are the typical, racist yobbo we all hate so much. But it does instantly label you as a bit of a douchebag, whether you are one or not.

To be honest, I will always be one of those quietly-proud Aussies who doesn't make a big deal about how much I love Australia and cringes a bit when kids in their early 20s run around, pissed as parrots, carrying the Aussie flag, Southern Cross tattoo on their necks (what's with that placement, by the way?) and bellowing "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi" in everyone's faces. It's not that they're bad people, and certainly not all of them are bogans who put stickers on their utes that say "We're full, get out" or "Love it or leave it", it's just something that's going to take me a lot to get used to. Because as much as I'd love to think it's just a fad that will disappear in a couple of years, I'm starting to think it might be a trend that's here to stay.

Some interesting articles I found on the subject, if you please:

Since when did dumb-arsed nationalism become compulsory?
Australia Day Is Still Ok
Why Australia Day is rubbish
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Yuck, Yuck, Yuck
Enough with the Australia Day backlash

ruby_sig

Originally published at rubyvelour.com.

Last night I went to my first big gig of 2010, one that I'd been particularly excited about due to it featuring three of my favourite artists - Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal and Lily Allen. I have been a fan of both Calvin and Lily since their first single's came out and have seen each of them once before. With Dizzee I admit I kind of jumped on the bandwagon when "Dance Wit Me" came out, but as someone who is actually very much into rap and not just a fancy-pants who likes whatever is popular right now, I don't feel too bad about it.

Last night's gig was a mixture of good and bad. Oh the music and artists were great, but there was a lot of shit stuff going on that nearly ruined my evening. First of all it was at the Riverstage which is an excellent venue but as it's all-ages and has 10pm noise restrictions, gigs there often start quite early which sucks if you work til 5pm which is when the gates typically open. My friend Sarah, my sister Erin and I planned to lave mine at 6pm to get there around 6:30pm thinking that's about when Miami Horror (who?) would be done. But oh no, turns out Calvin Harris started at 6:15 and so we only made it for his last two songs ("The Girls" and "I'm Not Alone") which PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH! Not only did he have a shit start time, his set was only 30 minutes long. God I was angry. I am seriously considering writing a strongly-worded email to someone about this. Or bust some heads together, whichever ends up being easier. I managed to dance and cheer and swoon for these two songs at least, so I guess it could have been worse (ie. missing him entirely). My sister and I both got his t-shirt as a tribute to him and our poor timing. Also because he is so very handsome and ought to be painted in gold across my boobs ;)

Dizzee Rascal was next and that's about when all the teenyboppers came along. A number of which stood right by us and tried to push through. We wouldn't let them so they decided it's be clever to push and crash into us violently. We told them to stop, yelled at them and then started pushing back. But they kept doing it and being little smart-arses about it, just to add icing to the cake. So Sarah pushed them as hard as she could so they almost toppled over and told them to "put some clothes on you sluts" (I'm sorry but girls who are clearly 15 years old should NOT be out wearing tiny denim shorts and little velveteen bra-tops, nor should they wear that much trashy blue eyeshadow and red lipstick). One in particular, I shall call her Velveteen (for her poor choice in top-material) was yelly and getting all up in our faces. I got very black all of a sudden and did the crazy-black-lady hand-thing and yelled "Do you wanna do this?" very loudly in her face a bunch of times. This kept on even as Dizzee got on stage, Sarah pushed them again and a couple of them came back swinging so we grabbed them, roughed them, mostly Miss Velveteen, up ever so slightly (just a few choke-holds, face-smooshings, slappings etc) and a final shove and they finally decided to back off. We shook with rage for a while but we soon transformed that into energy to DANCE.

Dizzee Rascal was excellent, I really loved his show. I saw him once at Parklife a couple of years ago but was too far back and too smashed to enjoy it properly so this was a much better experience. He started off with a bit of his back catalog and a few of the non-singles from his latest album which were all excellent. He worked the crowd a lot, getting us all to cheer and chant things and generally being very cute yet a lil bit gangsta (his face is so cute I could pinch his cheeks forever, which is probably not the look he's going for really). I flipped my lid when he and his rather handsome backup singer (backup rapper?) started doing the Funky Charlston before "Old School" because it's my favourite dance of all times ever! Then at the end he played all the big, new hits, starting with "Dance Wit Me", followed by "Holiday" (probably my favorite) and ending with "Bonkers". I never jumped/danced so much in my life, my legs and butt are still sore actually, and I very nearly peed myself from all the jumping/needing to go to the bathroom.

Lily Allen was on next, but we were exhausted and so stood a bit further back where the slope starts in order to see her properly. God is she short! And her legs are amazing! I don't know if it's weight-loss or just those fantastic high heels she wore but damn I couldn't stop staring at those pins! She opened with Lil Wayne's "A Milli" which I thought was hilarious because that song is so bad it's good. She played a lot from her new album which I admit I only got a month or so ago, so I didn't know a couple of the songs. I loved how she dropped some drum n bass and dubstep into her songs, such as "Smile" because I was feeling as though her songs were just a teeny bit slow going at first. She did an AMAZING cover of Brittney's "Womanizer" which I know all the words too apparently (as if anyone's actually shocked by this fact!) and ended the gig with a very extended version of "Not Fair" which had some (decent) electro as the last chorus. I personally loved her rants the most - she told us she'd watched BBC news the other day and was angry at the Americans criticizing Obama for not making the changes he promised since becoming President last year. I laughed, imagining her shouting at the TV, shaking her fist and thinking "right, I'm going to have to rant about this tonight to get it off my chest". Hilarious. I also loved hearing everyone yelling the lyrics to "Fuck You" whilst giving the finger. Very classy!

Overall it was a lot of fun and I guess I can't complain too much. I just wish we'd seen all of Calvin and that those slutty little girls had OD'd before they got to the gig (they were definitely on something), though admittedly I did get a lovely rush of adrenaline after our biff-up so maybe it was a good thing!

ruby_sig

Originally published at rubyvelour.com.

I have about a zillion pet hates. I can't believe I've never posted about any of them until just now! See, I'm the kind of person who get gets her hate on very easily and with what seems like the silliest things, but I get so darn passionate about it and start ranting and raving about 'em and well, it's pretty funny (even if I do say so myself)!

Today's pet hate are for all the morons out there who think they're doing good and are really doing no good for nobody. This was spawned by that ridiculous fucking facebook status upate thing where girls are encourged to post the colour of the bra they're wearing as their facebook status in order to "raise awareness for breast cancer and confuse boys". OH YOU'RE KIDDING ME, RIGHT??!! Aside from the fact breast cancer is probably the one cancer we're all the most aware about (after all, half the stuff you can buy these days has a pink version where part of the profits go to theBreast Cancer Foundation), how is posting the word "white" going to do anything for anyone? Wanna know how? IT AIN'T!

I have a few other ideas for your goddam sheep. How about we raise awareness for a less publicised/sexy cancer like bowel cancer? Or is writing the colour of today's poop not cute enough for you? Or how about you take an extra minute out of your damnlife and actually donate some money and then make a Facebook status about that? THAT will make an actual difference. And as for the "confusing boys" part of this whole thing - ARE WE ALL STILL CHILDREN? "Wouldn't it, like, be so cool if we, like, totally just wrote down the colours of our bra's and didn't tell the boys why?" "OMG they'd like totally freak out!" NO THEY WON'T! Show 'em pictures of boobs, or (more importantly) boobs after having breast cancer removed, and maybe they'll pay attention. It ain't like you're actually showing them your bra's, so why would they give a fuck???

This is just the tip of the iceburg really. There's been this sort of crap going on forever that has always pissed me off severely because people just follow the trend like retarded little sheep, not bothering to question WHY they're doing it or if there's a better way. Because ya know what? There usually is!

So next time you decided to show support for/protest something, think about what effect you're making? Any? No? Then if you're actually passionate about the subject in questionthen DO something that WILL make some sort of impact. Donate money, volunteer, whatever it takes to make some sort of difference. Otherwise sit down and shut up because you're pissing me (and probably a lotta other people) off.

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Cara Westworth

RUBY VELOUR

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UGH! Who would want that on a t-shirt, ever? If I was the model and they chose that picture

to put on clothing, I’d be suing their arses (but then again I ain’t that kind of girl).

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UGH! Who would want that on a t-shirt, ever? If I was the model and they chose that pictureto put on clothing, I’d be suing their arses (but then again I ain’t that kind of girl).

(Image from here)

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UGH! Who would want that on a t-shirt, ever? If I was the model and they chose that picture

to put on clothing, I’d be suing their arses (but then again I ain’t that kind of girl).