Guilty Pleasures

If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours? We all have guilty pleasures, si? What I'm about to reveal could make or break this relationship.. it could very well have me turning scarlet next time I step out into public, if I find the courage to venture yonder the door frame that is, orrrrr it could simply just have me toss my head with an embarrassed little laugh.. the magnitude varies. The reason I'm about to showcase my shame? My extremely bad work ethic and sheer boredom.

Brace yourself, lads. Starting from least embarrassing to most.

Dinner in bed - Sif you've never done it.. all snuggled up under the covers, pillows plumped behind you and a nice meal.. because sometimes you're just too lazy and it's just too nice! The last time I did this it was because I was having my own private Big Bang Theory marathon.. not really ashamed of this one..

Bold and the Beautiful - I used to watch this religiously. Yes, I understand soapies are never-ending life crisis extremists but come on, at least Bold and the Beautiful is much better quality than Days of Our Lives or heaven forbid, Passions! Remember Passions? Tabitha and her doll-kid, everything just went haywire from there.. maybe that's why they axed it. I could go into length here and start discussing the characters and what I hear to be the latest (I havn't watched it in a while due to my unfortunate make-a-living hours) love triangles (and I wonder if Brooke has made it through an episode where she doesn't cry..) but we stray.. but this one pleases me.. and at least it's not Neighbours!

Playschool - Okay so I don't really have an excuse to watch this anymore as even my 5yr old niece has grown out of it but it gives me a thrill every time I catch it! Who doesn't like storytime?! And those learning-the-days-of-the-week gadgets and clocks are so cool.. and where did you first learn to make playdough? That's what I thought. I used to imagine (going back a few years now ok, don't tease) that Monica would call me up and ask me to be on playschool with them.. I also used to wish (and still do) that I worked on Playschool, how fun right? right. I wonder what window they'll look through today.. will it be the circle window? the square window? the arch window? ha.

Mariah Carey - Ummm... so maybe I know almost all the words to her songs.. and own quite a few of her albums.. and maybe I used to try and sound like her and maybe I tried to reach those decibel notes she gets to and maybe I did reach them and then lost my voice for about a week.. this is kind of embarrassing.. i'm not really one for mainstream pop or rnb in general but sometimes she hits the spot.. you have to admit, she has an amazing voice.. it's just.. not cool..

Sound of Music - "The hiiiiiills are aliiiiive, with the sooooooound of muuuuusic.." I blame father for this one, he tried to turn us into the Von Trapp family. True story. When it wasn't Schubert or Haydyn or Shostakovich or Chopin, it was The Sound of Music record he would put on when it was time for us to go to bed and play it loud enough for the melodic intricacies to weave it's way through our dreams. When I was about eight he made us learn the 'Cuckoo' song and put on a family concert (just like in the movie) at MLC.. it was a tad humiliating at the time.. a little bit funny now.. not that this has anything to do with the Sound of Music but all us kids played instruments and he made me learn Haydyn's "Messiah" for it.. can I just tell you now that it was a hard piece to play! far beyond my eight year old violinistic ken.. but I did it... aaaaaaaand getting off topic here. But how can you not participate in "Do, re, mi" in music class?! or not run around a gazebo screeching "I am 16 going on 17" pretending to be Liesel (guilty as charged)?! How can you not swoon when the Captain sings "Eidelweiss"?! How?! Me loves it.

Finding fault - This guilty pleasure is pretty horrible.. I guess its a fault in my character.. but you know what? everybody does it, I'm just saying it out loud, or.. writing it.. for the horrible truth of humanity to be recognized. It makes me infinately more comfortable when I look at someone who to me seems pretty damn perfect and force myself to find some sort of humanistic fault, whether it be in appearance or character. Maybe it's spite or jealousy or maybe it's so they seem more human or closer to the flawed me.. something perhaps I can relate to. It doesn't mean I don't like the person, it's just so I feel like we're on more even ground and less intimidating..

Twilight - There. I said it. I feel so dirty. This is the worst of my guilty pleasures and it's a big one. I should try to justify myself here and make a clear demarcation between my opinion of the books and the movies. The movies are horrible. Bad acting, bad graphics, bad script, bad interpretation of characters. True enough, the actors don't distort the general splendour visually but seriously, whatsisname Pattinson, stop playing Edward so needy and pathetic, you made me switch from Team Edward to Team Jacob.. and Kristin.. you're crap. The books are so, so, so much better! I will admit, when Twilight came out in cinemas I saw it... ten times.. I knoooooooooooooow! shutup. He was just so pleasing to the eye! geez.. I'm a perve.
And maybe I do own a twilight t-shirt.. and poster.. but I HAVE clamed down, I promise. If it makes it any better I've only read the books twice... Please don't break up with me..

Can it be?

Excuse me for one brief moment as my excitement builds and obsession strikes again! Let me set the scene: you're surrounded by London's greys and white's, the chilly air guides your frozen icicle fingers deeper into your coat's pockets, and you sniffle, suprised your mucus hasn't solidified. You hurry along the street careful not to slip on the wet ground, desperate, searching for that one place that can give you that moment of relief. Finally, you find what you're looking for. You are standing outside what looks to be one of London's trendiest bars.. you go inside. But alas, it is not the pint or martini that calls to you, nor the cute barman with his beatles cut that on anyone else would look a disaster. No, it's the lavatory. And not just any lavatory... egg-shaped toilet cubicles.

Yes. Yes. And in that moment you experience one of those rare moments in your life where you get doped up on natural ecstacy that not many things other than an egg-shaped cubicle can give you.

As an aside, let it be noted that I'm going to London in October and I am going to find this 'Sketch' bar and for the first time in my life be determined to use public facilities :)

As it is written, it will be done.

"Deny thy father and refuse thy name"

.. but if thou wilt not be but sworn, my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet...

So I have a dilemma. I've been thinking about changing my name for a while now and I've even started filling out the forms to make it legal. Trouble is, I 'm still not 100% about doing it.. for various reasons. So, I've decided to create a pros and cons list to a) organize my thoughts and b) answer everyone's "why?" question.

To be:
(pros to changing)

•  Maureen = an eccentric old lady with eight cats and an obsession for lace doilies
• to avoid the snigger/snort/chortle/giggle after saying my name
• Maureen-Heidi is too long and the combination doesn't have the right rhythm
• There are much, much nicer names
• I can have 'Maureen' as a middle name and thus actually have a middle name
• It get's confused with 'Marie' a LOT.. so much to the point where I can no longer be bothered correcting people
• It's ugly. For further explanation on this point, please see Glen's blog.

or Not to be:
(cons to changing)

• It's grandma's middle name.. she might get offended (not that she really needs to know.. I'm sure I'll still answer to it)
• having to find a suitable name that is a) not tacky b) suits me and c) not plain but not overdone
• having to do all the respective paperwork after changing it ie. passport, bank accounts, licence, so on and so forth
• parental units will be against it (that's not a biggie though)
• expecting that everyone I know will call me by my new name is not realistic

That's all I can think of now but I'm sure I'll get bombarded with further reasons later which I'll add.

But maybe I can just drop the Maureen part and go with Heidi, it wouldn't be such a big change... little curly-haired Swiss goat girl or super hot sex bomb model?

That is the question.

Pshyeah

On a lighter note, check out Scotty Vanity.. the first time I heard him was over three years ago and I randomly remembered him today.. pretty funny.. pretty gay.

Chopin Etude Op 10 No.12 HQ

An excellent rendition of one of my favourite classical pieces (yes I can be super dorky sometimes). This song was composed by one of the greatest classical composers of all time and was written about a revolution hence being called the 'Revolutionary'.

Everytime I listen to it it takes me on an emotional rollercoaster (lame metaphor, I know). I'm pretty sure that's what's supposed to happen though.. ;P

Something I must do one day

Weekendnotes.com is one of my favourite websites. I'm even on the mailing list.. hahaha, shush. Anyway, I love it because it has so many cool ideas and things to do and places to see. There's about a million things that I've put on my list to do/see but I got this one in the most recent email:

Horse-drawn Restaurant - that's right. It is exactly what it sounds like. Definately something to be experienced, yes?

So I was doing some random googling today and I found myself browsing through Salvador Dali galleries. These are a few pieces that I thought were interesting/particularly disturbing:

Surrealist Knight          Figure with Drawers

Metamorphosis of Hitler's face into a moonlight landscape.

Can you see Hitler?

I'm baaaaaack!

Greetings blooggers! I noted that the last time I blogged was in 2008.. if you are unaware, it is now 2010... I bow my head in shame. To explain this it could be either one or all of these possibilities:

a) I forgot I had a blog
b) I have had nothing further to say for the past two years (unlikely)
c) Obviously I created this blog in the days of unemployment and have been much too busy with my job and amazing social life to have time to rant...

Also unlikely. Let's go with 'a'.

Actually looking at that last blog I find that I'm pretty much the same and my views havn't changed much.. to be glad? or sad? Questions to be answered.

Anyway, from now on I promise to talk more nonsense and post more fun :)

'Roger that' will you?