BBQ IS NOT A FOOD - an in depth analysis of Eloise's nasty eating habits.

Tonight I blog about a very close friend of mine, whom happens to be my housemate. Although I’m sure if you asked her she would say that I moved into HER house..which technically is true, but considering my bedroom is infact slightly larger than hers it would seem that I inhabit more of the house than her. For those of you who know Elise Launer,  you will also know that she is fondly addressed as ‘Eloise’, ‘Bambi’, ‘Shitbrick’ among other loving pet names and has by far one of the fussiest palates in the Southern Hemisphere. Her cooking repotoire exists of few dishes, not because she can’t cook, but because she just HATES everything. The few dishes she does enjoy include

• Chicken Caesar Salad
• BBQ
• Jatz
• BBQ
• Stir Fry*
• BBQ
• Chicken in  a Bag
• BBQ
• 1kg buckets of Trolli lollies (considered a meal)
• Zappi (also considered a meal)
• Did I mention BBQ?
• Carrot (Has been known to eat 6 in a sitting)
• Iceburg Lettuce (none of this fancy shit please)
• Tasty Cheese
• Cucumber
• Taiggans Roast Potato’s (keeping us slim since 2008)
• Ham and Cheese Pizza with BBQ Sauce
• Mutton Rolls
• BBQ
• Chicken Curry Pasta (If desperate)

eloise's snack of choice (has been known to selfishly hide them from amazing housemates)

*Stirfry – Chicken must be cooked for 5 hours to ensure the bird is infact dead. Vegetables allowed are snowpeas, capsicuam and carrot only heated for less than 25 seconds to ensure crispness remains as Eloise HATES cooked veggies.

Although this list appears large, by the time you rotate the meals around weekly Eloise is often struggling to find something new and exciting to cook. In a recent conversation a serious and beckoning question was posed to the young Marine Biologist ‘What is your favourite food?’, we asked…..her immediate response was ‘BBQ’…..ummm WHATTTTT?!? What does that mean exactly; do you physically enjoy the taste of the grill, the steel, the gas bottle? Ofcourse we knew she meant Steak, Steak, Hamburgers, Kebabs and more Steak. The best part of living with Eloise is when you decide that you are going to cook something exotic…like toast..with cheese on top…no doubt she will sniff your near burnt bread….make her way into the kitchen, watch you cut her cheese (I cut it crooked on purpose) and ask ‘WHATS THAT?’ to which you reply ‘TOAST’….to which you will hear back ‘LOOKS WEIRD’…ofcourse it does, OFCOURSE IT DOES. Actually a great example I have of Eloise commenting on an exotic meal occurred not to long ago. After a hefty 2 hour day of Uni I decided on having a beautiful Thai Laksa for dinner. No sooner had I fried off some garlic and added some Laksa paste into the pan did I hear ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SMELL’…will Eloise trundeling in from her bedroom. ‘Oh it’s just a thai curry’ I probably replied…’LOOKS LIKE ROAD KILL’ was the response I got. Oh goodie. Cannot wait to eat my road kill. Things only got better when I added my seafood marinara to the dish prompting a near gag reflex from Eloise. I think I glared at her a few times and she eventually made her way in front of the TV, where she probably blamed me for the shitty reception preventing her from watching Bondi Rescue. I finished my dish off with a nice garnish of coriander and sat and ate my delicious road kill next to her on the couch. Smiling.

 

eloise's one true love

My favourite quote from Eloise this week:

On discussing marriage  -

'Knowing me I will serve schnitzels at my Reception…'

Golly gosh I can’t wait for that event. 

I only go to the netball to check out the Dad's.....PART II

To carry on from my last blog…I want to discuss the many things that come with the world of Netball.

If you’re lucky to be in a netball club affiliated with a football club you will be fully aware of the menu that comes with these memberships. I myself only really go to game days for the schnitzel rolls. In fact now I think about it the only time I venture out of my vehicle is to use the ladies or to line up for that roll. It’s an exciting moment when you finally reach the front of line and the still size 10 footy mum/canteen lady asks you what you want ‘Schnitzel roll, with gravy and chips’ you  say whilst watching Mrs Smith-Clark-Wilson assemble your heartburn delight. You stand on your tipy toes eyeing off the gravy ladle wishing, hoping for a double dousing of liquid gold. After handing over your cash you without fail compare the amount of gravy your best mate got on his schnitta roll, concluding that you were both ‘jipped’ and begin the slow decent back to the commy. By the time you get in the car, most of your chips are gone and the ones that are left are immediately devoured by mates vultures sitting in the backseat. The sad part about this experience is that by the time you wrap your fat gob around the roll itself, you can’t even taste the deepfried chicken breast in all its glory due to previously burning the fuck out of all your tastebuds after impatiently eating all your chips. Still…I’ve found that football isn’t really football without one of these suckers…I mean why else would you go…to actually watch?!?!

the heart and soul of  a true blue snchittie roll

Anyway….back to netball.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching my younger sister’s game. After donning the appropriate attire (see Part I) I waltzed up to the side of the court and spent the remainder of the game glaring at stinky 5 year olds who had a delicious looking packet of crispy m&m’s (Where were my m&m’s?). I started to observe a few things about country netball..

Observation 1: You are never to fat for netball

Unlike ballet, where once you have outgrown your leotard thats it walk away my friend….netball uniforms seem to come in an infinity number of sizes. This is probably due to the fact that many of the women playing in them are actually the size of a small house. Being a bigger girl myself, I applaud the women that squeeze themselves into their multicolored fun suits weekly…but SERIOUSLY I think they tend to forget that what they are wearing is a watered down version of a cocktail dress. I often curiously wonder whether these women are comfortable putting on these suits that usually ride up their asses so bad that most spectators get to see whether the grass really is greener on the other side. I mean usually their wardrobes comprise of happy pants and oversized target tees (or is that just me hmmm), maybe I’m just jealous cause no tom dick or harry would catch me dead in material that accentuates stretch marks that don’t even exist on my body yet.

Observation 2: The umpires are usually fatter than the players.

Self-explanitory – ADVANTAGE  CHICKEN WING-DEFENCE

Observation 3: The effortless hair look.

Look kiddies, I know that you want it to look like you have simply ‘chucked’ your hair up in the car on the way to the game….PUHLEASE give me a break…. we all know you secretly crawled out of bed 2 hours before game time just to perfect your messy bun with ribbons to match. I guess those ‘random’ bits of hair hanging around your face do tend to juxtapose nicely with last nights touched up makeup though….i guess if it brings all the boys to the yard...

Observation 4: Knowing the netballing lingo is key to gaining a deeper understanding of the complex sport.

If you’re not familiar with terms such as

‘Up and in girls’

‘Slow your passes’

‘And, again, and again’

 and many others.

You are just like Like me, and you might find your first couple of experiences in the netballing world bamboozling. But don’t worry, after a few games you will begin to feel comfortable with netty language and perhaps even feel the need to throw your own words of encouragement in...example..

‘I CAN SEE YOUR PUBES’

or similarly

‘YOUR BROTHERS YOUR SISTER’

 

'up and in'

Observation 5: DILFS

The funny thing about netball is that you would expect to mostly see women, funnily enough though their usually an abundance of middle-aged men (we will call them silver-foxes) watching their darling daughters executing a perfect pivot. It’s hard to believe that grown men can get emotional over a game such a netball, but believe me it happens. The point is.......thankgoodness for the Fathers who turn up every Saturday…without them…I really would have no reason to be their in the first place. 

 

one of the regular netball dad's at my sister games...i just love this shot

I only go to netball to check out the Dad’s.. PART I

If you come from a small country town like me you are more than likely to be in some way linked to the netball/football scene that encompasses the air every winter. Whilst in their teens most of my friends spent their Saturday mornings pulling up sports undies and lacing the worlds whitest net burners up, I was pulling on my pink leotard, forcing my hair into a tight bun and prancing my way into 9:00am ballet classes. The idea of playing netball never crossed my mind, until puberty hit. Puberty vs Leotard = I don’t fucking think so. And so my dancing days were over. I was never going to dance Swan Lake anyway,so I didn’t mourn the lycra to much.  Years went on and I found that I could replace dancing with piano, singing, drama, tennis and bountiful McDonalds trips. Netball only became a part of my life when I started going to my friends games. I wasn’t really that interested, due to the fact that I couldn’t understand what could be remotely fun about playing a game that involved no touching and turning in little circles to find someone to pass to…(now fully aware that the technical term for this is ‘pivotting’.)… only to throw the ball into a too-small net, run backwards hands in the air an do it all over again. Nevertheless, I wanted to support my buddies…2 of whom were particularly good. I knew that I couldn’t avoid the game forever, and in my second year at Uni I was forced asked to play in a social team with some of my closest friends. 

 

                                                                          

my netball team 'the silent ninja's' in all our glory

Although I only played a handful of games (I slept through most), I have to admit it was damn delicious fun. I secretly believed after years of freezing my fanny off at other people’s games, some higher power would reward me with an amazing netballing ability that would rival any of the current thunderbirds skills. Alas this wasn’t this case, and to put it bluntly…I was shit. My teammates thoroughly encouraged me every time I stepped onto the court, whilst the umpires sympathetically coached me through the rules of the game whilst I played. Our team itself consisted of my boozed up uni friends, most of whom were usually pissed before stepping on the court. Two of them in particular, loved to fill up their drink bottles with cask wine (sounds better than ‘GOOON’) and red cordial. Although this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it seemed to aid us by consistently putting off the other teams with drunken lay-ups (some people channeled their inner LeBron) and the general alcoholic stench excreting from the pores of my oh so professional team mates. Without a doubt the best player on the team was a male, and for the purpose of this blog we will call him Glen. Glen was the best person to watch play netball, and would rival even the bitchiest girl from the opposing team. He seemed to own that ball, and he knew it too, with every eye roll, glare and goal that accompanied his existence on the court.  Subsequently Glen has gone onto bigger and better things in the netballing world ^claps^. The funny thing is we were actually pretty shit hot (clearly due to my skillz yo), and wound up in the grand final…only losing due to the giant Goal shooter people had fondly named ‘Boo’…there nothing boo-ish about him. We also had our one supporter, Taiggan ‘tay tay’ Pomery, who due to past knee injuries couldn’t lend herself to playing in the team itself. However on a weekly basis (maybe twice) she would clap lazily from the sidelines, pretending to watch whilst really using the time to think about what purchase she would next make  at Marion shopping centre.

 

taiggan tay tay pomery, cheering for us...

At the end of the season, the organiser of the social netballing scene awarded me with a Mcdonalds Voucher that read

To Lizzie Coke

For trying to catch the ball with her head multiple times during the game.

THANKS Dave, that seared chicken snack wrap sure was worth the head trauma....

All in all my introduction to netball was a positive one. I haven’t played since my inaugural season in the silent ninja’s  and I must admit I do miss those wintery nights, where  for one hour we could pretend we were athletic superstars and where wearing leggings as pants was considered acceptable.

 'great defence lizzie'

PART II of this blog will explore the many aesthetically pleasing parts of the netballing world.

EXAMPLE: netball supporter’s attire:

           

Acceptable

trackpants, hoodie, uggboots a scarfe perhaps

Bordeline Skanky but still acceptable

Skinny leg jeans, singlet, jay jay’s brown leather hooded jacket.

Plain stupid, ugly and seen way to much

black leggings, singlet, cute little white shoes, full face of BYS makeup and pneumonia.

And that’s just the mum’s…

EM S N obsession

I first signed into the world wide web back in 2001, when my best friend, (lets call her Jose) told me about this hip new thing called MSN. Well she didn’t actually tell me rather I overheard her talking to one of the cooler kids (she was always more popular than me) about it at the end of the school day. The conversation went something like this;

Jose – ‘Cya later’

Ben – 'Cya on msn'’

Me – ‘WTF’ ( I don't even think wtf was a coined term in Year 7)

After enquiring about this new revolution, Jose promptly set me up with a hotmail account, she asked me what kind of username I wanted, she had already chosen jellibeenies@hotmail.com and I wanted something just as cool and innovative as my msner in arms. However, somewhere between clicking on the ‘sign up’  and ‘I agree to this bullshit’ link I was left with the name bigfoot_97@hotmail.com. Over the years this username and others such as

·      ilovethebeatles@hotmail.com

·      supercalifragilistic@hotmail.com

·      and my ALL TIME PERSONAL favourite

                                                                               kung_fu_kitty@hotmail.com

These usernames have come back to haunt me through many nostalgic conversations held with friendship group, example

‘hey remember msn’, 

‘hahah yeah I do….yes i do....BIGFOOOT’

and so on and so forth. Lesson learnt, I now tend to keep my email addresses rather straight forwards and more towards the this_is_my_name@lookingprofessional.com kinda thing.

Anyway, my introduction into the world of instant messaging was quick, fast and mean. I learnt quickly that without ample amount of contacts online you could fall into a deep and dark online depression, forcing you to askjeeves a question or pop in your Dangerous Creatures DEMO DISK. Once I had collected my fair share of online contacts, MSN time became the bomb. My day consisted of getting up, going to school, singing a few praise the lord hallelujahs and racing home to our camel coloured Pentium 1,  ½ a gram of ram, crusty keyboard and joystick to boot computer to become the 97^th bigfoot of the instant chatting world. 

 

At this time in my household we still had the single phone line contraption going, so that when I wanted to use the ‘net’ no one else could call through. This ended up creating havoc most days within the house, as all of a sudden most of my homework HAD to be done on the computer using the Internet. The only person who caught onto this sudden computing craze, was my living at home grandmother who subsequently was the only one to really ever use the phone herself. As my netting time was cutting greatly into her phoning time, we came to an agreement that I was only allowed to be online for one hour after school and that was it. Ofcourse that dream of hers was shortlived and I she often spent the her afternoons storming up the hallways yelling ‘GET OFF THE INTERNET ELIZABETH’ to which I would respond by snatching the cable out of the back of the computer and informing her that I was never on the internet and that she in fact must be going  crazy.

When I think back to my msn days a few things come to mind. Firstly, blocking. What an ingenious function and kudos to the creators of the life saving button. I myself wasn’t a huge blocking user, however I distinctly remember it being useful in my times of need, namely after cowardly insulting my playground nemesis. When Microsoft rolled out the new XP, with it came, the new msn with a ‘add your photo’ and webcaming function. By this time my parents as well as my crazy grandma, had realised that I had become overly obsessed with msn, and had decided to not upgrade what had become the typewriter of the computing world. This computer was by this time so old, that the new and improved msn could not be downloaded. This worked in my parents favour, and decided that as they both had PC’s at work, they didn’t need the function of the household computer anymore. I remember jumping on my friends computers and signing in to my long lost msn page, adding all my new contacts and waiting for my lovers to IM me. Oh the envy I had for my friends who had 24 hour access to MSN, whilst my parents glorified over the fact that was still playing Dangerous Creatures. I even managed to get onto it at school using e-messenger, before the IT faculty caught wind of my treachery. Eventually after two long years of no in house MSN  my parents finally caved in and got back online. The day had come where I could sign into my beloved once again, but it was to late…people had moved on…livejournal and myspace had started to creep into the online world.

I rather miss those simpler times, when your desktop wasn’t overcrowded with multiple open tabs with headings such as facebook, twitter, tumblr & pirate bay. Sitting at the computer with my bowl of 2-minute noodles, ice-cream and a box of jatz, staring at the right hand corner of the screen just waiting for your long lost crush to sign in with an msn name such as....

                                        LiZzIe I want tO have your bAbies!!!!!!! <3

I don’t know what it was about those little orange boxes flashing at the bottom of the screen, but boy did they start something big. In a world where instant messaging has become so much the norm, with iPhone’s and facebook etc, it’s hard to imagine not having it in our lives.I still have MSN on my computer, albeit the mac version, and every now and then I still logon. It’s funny to think it was easy to have from 50 – 100 contacts online at once and now a meek 4-5 remain, with a sad little ‘away’ sign hovering over their names. Like vinyl and high-waisted jeans I hope that MSN makes a comeback like no other and when that day comes I'll be ready. It will be like a sort of retro instant messaging service that indie's and hipster with lather themselves in. Maybe then I'll get back those two year I lost.