Wait... What Were We Talking About?

A conversation with a workmate that started on the topic of different-coloured post-it notes just finished with the phrase "a car-shaped pile of dead wild dogs".

Awesome.

ANTM: PC or not PC? That Is The Question.

Never let it be said that I don't listen to me public. All… um… let's see… carry the one… all twelve of you. Below I offer my thoughts regarding Episode 2 of America's Next Top Model (Cycle 10) in two different formats.
The first avoids any language that may be interpreted, even tentatively or with the help of tarot cards or ear-candling, as racist, sexist, homophobic, ismy, schismy, or religiously belligerent.
The second is written as if by a normal human being without their sphincter clenched.
Please choose carefully.

Version One.
Fourteen humans are compared for aesthetic worth, including tests based on their ability to represent well in digitally-captured images and ambulatory skill. Two humans leave, one of their own volition, one by democratic means. Credits are shown in no particular order.


Version Two.
Nigel Barker is a sexy bitch.

Also, whilst my female parts remain staunchly heterosexual (see: Nigel Barker), my head and heart currently have a monumental girl-crush on Claire. If she had been two years above me in high school, I would have worshipped her, and perhaps tried to have a haircut just like her, but at a crappy local suburban hairdresser, ending up looking like Phil Oakey circa 'Don't You Want Me, Baby'. And she would have sat there in the quad, with her kohl-lined eyes and most probably fingerless mesh gloves, listening to Sigue Sigue Sputnik on her Walkman, sneering at me with disdain except when I smuggled her some cigarettes into the school dance.

*Cough*

Right.
Some observations:

· I've long had a theory about people. About fifteen percent of people are arseholes. Being an arsehole has nothing to do with where you work, how tall you are, what you wear, what language you speak, or what you put on your Corn Flakes. Some rich people are arseholes. Some poor people are arseholes. Some people in wheelchairs are arseholes. Even some nuns are arseholes. Bad things happen to both good people and to arseholes. It doesn't make the bad things any less bad, or less important, or less shocking, or less politically relevant. But it also doesn't give you an excuse to keep being an arsehole. Fatima. Talking to you.

· Kimberly leaves because she admits that she's just not interested in fashion. This is like Lucien Freud deciding that he's a bit sick of skin-coloured oil paint, or, for the lowbrow amongst you, like Denise Richards wanting some privacy. Besides, Kimberly wants to rent out her massive forehead for soccer games and helicopter landings, and modelling will just get in the way.

· Anya speaks like she's trying to solve a Rubik's cube with her mouth.

· For this week's photo-shoot, the modules have to dress as homeless people whilst surrounded by actual homeless people who are dressed as models. This script is like an Umberto Eco novel, except STUPID. Tyra comments that the topic of the shoot is one that's close to her heart, as this one time, on The Tyra Banks Show, she dressed up as a homeless person for a day. Today, it seems, The Tyra Banks Show is doing a piece on Women Who Wear Clothes Four Sizes Too Small. It's a human interest story. Sponsored by Steggles.

· The production budget for Cycle 10 has been expanded to include more syllables. Result = Twiggy: out. Paulina Porizkova: in. Jury: out.

· Tyra-Mails these days are read out, in unison, by all the girls as the words crawl past slowly on an illuminated display. Physical equivalent: boring a hole into your frontal lobe with a dead lion.

· Atalya is gone. My care factor is accessible only by tunneling to the Earth's core.


Somebody better murder somebody. I want a refund.

Oh! My Sides!

Funny Organs:
Pancreas
Larynx & Pharynx (like Trinidad & Tobago, should always be together)
Meninges
Duodenum
Penis
Spleen

Un-funny Organs:
Lungs
Colon
Church

ANTM And Sometimes Y

Tyra, I think we have to break up.
It's not you, it's m… it's totally you.
I just… I like my friends to be sane. With their own hair.
Plus, when I'm sharing fried chicken with friends, I want to know I have half a chance of actually selecting a piece from the bucket without inadvertently getting my hand skeletonised in a freak feeding-frenzy accident. I'm particular like that.
So, in a nutshell, you're dead to me now. And by "dead", I mean "only worth a couple of paragraphs a week".

In other, unsurprising news, almost everyone you let through the door during auditions for Cycle 10 of America's Next Top Model has an unnecessary 'Y' in their name. And these names are, almost without exception, completely fucked up.

Examples:

Anya - relatively non-stupid name. Really, really stupid girl.
Atalya – I tell ya, that's an unnecessary 'Y'.
Katarzyna – Only has value as a Scrabble score.
Marvita – Right. So we're spreading names on toast now?
Shaya – I want to meet this girl's parents. And slap them with a dictionary. A comprehensive one.
Shalynda – Jesus. Nowhere, in the past present, or future, will you ever hear the phrase "And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the newest member of the board, Shalynda". No. Shalynda either serves people fries or gives people Chlamydia.

FAIL.

Emails I May Never Send #18

Dear Madge,

Your husband is a rich film producer.
He's British.
With stubble.
He has Jason Statham's phone number.

You, by comparison, wear leotards and have man-hands.

Find a way to make it work, for feck's sake.

Like a virgin,
Jo.

Doing A Bit Of Gardening, Mate?

I wasn't having a very good morning.
It's cold, I couldn't motivate myself to go for a run, I'm swamped at work, and my Vegemite-to-toast ratio was off.
Then I popped online to read the news, because I'm all topically relevant and hyper-informed and stuff.

And, in this story, I found the hands-down winner of Sentence Of The Year:

"Ms Tankard Reist said it was hard to talk about art restoring dignity when another image in the magazine showed a woman being fellated by an octopus".

My morning is made.

A Hayzee Fantayzee Song.

Like retinal scarring, but with sunglasses.

Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag Series 4 - THE FINALE

You must be joking.
I hope you haven't stopped by for an Australia's Next Top Model recap.
I may not even remember my own name until afternoon tea-time tomorrow. I think even my letterbox is hungover.

But, like a convicted drug-smuggler, I'll try to squeeze out something expensive:

• Joydhi was a noy-shoy. Rumours suggest that she wasn't comfortable enough with live television to agree to hoyst the shoy. I think she simply ran out of vowels.
• Charlotte Dawson looked smoking freakin' hot. Scientific fact.
• Shiny Alex Perry, who looked like a treasured St Bernard's testicle that had been bronzed and put on a mantelpiece where expensive sunglasses are usually kept, argued calmly with Jonathan Pease by simply repeating the same sentence over and over. If only Wayne Cooper could learn to argue with as much restraint.
• Q: What's scarier than the scariest thing you've ever seen in your life? A: The scariest thing you've ever seen in your life wrapped in luminous green vinyl. Hint: Napoleon Perdis is the scariest thing you've ever seen in your life.
• All the modules, without exception, looked stunning. Kristy even had the fashion-foresight to wear Episode Six's beaver in her hair.
• Henry Roth from Project Runway is so... so rectangular.
• Apologies offered by contestants before the viewer voting lines are closed should be taken with a grain of bullshit.
• Bryan McFadden is as relevant to an Australian modelling competition as traditional portraiture is to James Gleeson or, for the lowbrow amongst you, as horseriding magazines are to a proctologist's waiting room (right, Alexandra?).
• I know listening to judge's opinions that we've all heard before, twice, should be interesting, but I'm momentarily distracted by insulation.
• Demelza won. Meh.

I sat in the audience. I after-partied. I after-after-partied. I am SO good for gossip right now. I am SO not telling.

Next week, I go back to blogging about my own life, society's perceived injustices, and how sometimes dragging your chair back sounds a bit like a fart.

Thanks for reading.