How Baby Boomers Inadvertently Screwed You Over

Welcome back to me after a long hiatus from the keyboard. I haven’t actually been up to anything of consequence (unless you count watching all 3 seasons of Roswell) so its not like I was neglecting my blog to do anything important, it just fell by the wayside. Kind of like everybodys childhood dreams.

Today I’m here to talk about Baby Boomers ie, your parents, or even YOU if you are someone’s parent reading this blog (Hi Debs!). I’m going to examine Baby Boomers and how their fears and ideals may have shaped your life into something that you didn’t actually want for yourself.

It’s a known fact that many parents don’t like it when their teenagers make life-changing decisions for themselves. I think that this is a combination of fear that only they know what’s best, not being able to relinquish control over their child’s life, and not wanting their child to do anything that may embarrass them and force them to admit to other smug parents that no, their child now won’t be going to university when they leave school.

It’s okay if you leave school to join the pageant circuit, though.

I was constantly fed the same dribble as a teenager by my mother: “You have to go to university, otherwise you won’t be able to get a decent job and you’ll die”. When I pointed out that both her and Dad left school around age 16 and became successful people who both owned businesses, I was always told “yes, but it’s different nowadays. We could walk into an apprenticeship at age 16, there’s no such thing as apprenticeships anymore”. Hmmm. Tell that to my friend Keg, who left school to do an electricians apprenticeship and was able to own his own home at the age of 22 (and now probably has several more and dabbles in real estate on the side). Tell that to Klone Hairdressing who offered me a hairdressing apprenticeship when I was 16!! When I was a teenager, I really wanted to be a hairdresser or makeup artist. I really wanted to do that hairdressing apprenticeship, and my mum wouldn’t let me “leave school and ruin my life”. She wouldn’t listen to reason that even if I did leave school and didn’t enjoy hairdressing in the long run, ANYONE CAN GO TO UNI AFTER AGE 20 ANYWAY. So even if I truly screwed up my life by leaving school (unlikely), I could actually have still had a fresh start at the age of 20.

Did I say a fresh start? I meant a fresh crack pipe.

I really wished that I had been a dumb child. The curse that I was struck with, was that I advanced very quickly in terms of education. When I was 10, I was reading at a 15 year old level. When I was 13, I was completing maths at a 15 year old level. Guess what happened? At age 15, everyone else caught up with me and I was no longer considered “brainy”, I was just plain average. (I think I may even be regressing - at age 27, I’m blogging at a 14 year old level). Having 10 years under my belt of teachers telling my parents that I was incredibly smart/gifted worked against me. When I was no longer outstanding or achieving straight A’s, there was obviously something wrong with me. I wasn’t trying hard enough, and I could be so much more, why didn’t I CARE anymore? Guess what? I never “stopped caring”, or put any less effort in than I did when I was 10. I always cruised through school just being myself, and if the onset of age 15 made me “average” then I really didn’t care. I was never trying to get A’s previously, my parents just assumed that because I was getting them, I must have been really trying and actually caring about it. B’s and the odd C still did the job in senior high school, so who even gave a shit anymore?

Baby Boomers, that’s who.

So because of my “supposed gifted mind” I was deemed “too smart” to leave school to do an apprenticeship, I was destined to go to university. Of course university rolled around and I didn’t even know what I wanted to do, so I enrolled in law to appease my mum (who I considered to be very scary as a teenager and would never go against her wishes). Unsurprisingly I dropped out of law because it was boring as shit and not at all what I wanted to do with my life. My mum didn’t speak to me for over 2 weeks. 

After dropping out of university, I started working full-time, as a bartender. WOW, GREAT USE OF MY GIFTED MIND THERE. I actually wasted 2003 until 2006 doing this and getting married. So basically at age 21 I had completely thrown 3 of the best years of my life away just being a married bartender – which is fine if its what you really want to be doing, but its not what I wanted out of life at all. I went back to uni and studied archaeology this time, however had to pay my own tuition as punishment for having ditched it the first time round. I actually really enjoyed archaeology however I don’t have much use for it now, as I have wanted to be a tattoo artist for the past 5 years.

So by following the Baby Boomers dream, I stayed in school and went straight to university. I am now 27 years old and have no qualifications conducive to my career goal or to my current job. I spent the last 5 years stuck in more jobs that I don’t like paying off massive amounts of debt from poor choices that I made when I didn’t have a real career, and I now still owe around $20 000 of a student loan. I am only now just financially able to start work towards my career goal – at age 27, when most people I know already have houses and assets at this age. My older brother has 2 houses and makes almost double what I do in a year, and he got Ds and Cs throughout high school. He didn’t go to university and although he went to Polytech to study hospitality (TAFE, for you Aussies) I don’t recall if he graduated, and if he did, he doesn’t work in the hospitality industry anyway so that qualification has nothing to do with his current success.

The main point is, university is NOT the be-all and end-all if you want your child to be successful. Don’t push them into going to university if they don’t actually know what they want to do. For a Baby Boomer that never went to university, a student loan is something that they never even consider. They don’t see past their thoughts of “I want my child to be successful, I don’t want them to make the same mistakes I did/I want them to have the opportunities I never had” etc etc etc. Being pressured to go to uni when I could have been earning a wage and learning a good trade at the same time sucked big time. I wish I’d never been an intelligent kid if this is where it landed me. My brother didn’t get pressured to do shit and he is really fucking successful and happy. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy, but its taken a hell of a long time to get there. And my brother isn’t at all unintelligent (on the contrary he’s very smart) but he was never “school-smart” ie his grades were average and he shone on the sports field instead of in the classroom, so nobody got any wise ideas about him having to go to uni or else he would die. 

“You gon’ give that shit up, and you gon’ concentrate on golf.”

So here is my advice to children: Firstly, you shouldn’t even be reading my blog, its full of mild drug references, cussin’ and coarse adult themes, Secondly, for fuck’s sake if you are smart then you know it and nobody else has to until you’re older. Just keep that shit to yourself and pretend to be average so that nobody expects big things of you and then you will be able to make the choices that you really want without too much backlash from the parentals.

And here is my advice to parents: Stop comparing your childs school years to your own. Just because you didn’t get to go to uni doesn’t mean your child has to. Just because it “seems” scarier these days to get into a decent job when in your day, you could just wave a shit-covered stick at a gentleman and he’d hire you as his company CEO, doesn’t mean anything. If you deem your child to be of superior intelligence, then for fucks sake stop worrying about them. If they are intelligent they will be fine. Intelligent people don’t end up as barmaids forever unless they actually want to. Lastly, DO NOT PRESSURE YOUR CHILD TO GO TO UNI. University MUST be your child’s personal decision. Why? Because if you make that decision for them, you are setting them up for a massive student loan for a degree that they will either drop out of once they have left home and are no longer scared of you, or that they will not use once they work out what it is that they really want to do. A teacher saying that your kid would make a great lawyer and your kid saying “yeah that could be fun” at age 11 DOES NOT MEAN THEY ACTUALLY WANT TO BE A LAWYER. Stop getting your hopes up.

For the many of my friends that have children, the best you can do is encourage your child to pursue what they enjoy. If I had a kid that came to me at age 16 and said “Mum I want to leave school to do xyz apprenticeship” I would ask them why, and if they could provide a thoughtful answer then hells yes - they can do that. If they tell you at age 12 that they want to be a doctor, just tell them that they do need to get good grades and go to university for this, and leave it at that. You have given them the education, now let them proceed in their own way. And don’t whinge on at them when they are 18 about how they were “going to be a doctor”. People change their mind all the time when they are 12 years old. Let them change their mind, its how they will discover what they want out of life. Also, not everyone has to actually undertake tertiary study to do be happy and successful, and it doesn’t matter what other people’s children are, or are not doing – that shit is none of your business. Please remember that success is not measured by the size of one’s wallet, nor in comparison to what others are doing. Success is measured by the fulfilment that your son or daughter gets out of their life, and by the way in which they interact with others. I say that you shouldn’t even care what grades they get at school, you should be more concerned with whether they have good manners and treat others kindly, and whether they can survive a day without a cellphone. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture, because school is such a small part of life and for 70% of us, doesn’t have any effect on how the rest of our lives turn out.

I just want to finish this post with a thought after re-reading it; yes my Mum definitely did pressure me to go to uni, however she in no way did this for any other reason than that she wanted me to be successful and happy. Again this is the screwed-up Baby Boomer mentality, when really all she wanted was for me to have a good life. My parents always loved me very much and I want eveyone reading this to know that, however this is my hindsight view of the pressure I felt as a teenager, and if it helps open the eyes of just one parent reading this, then possibly it might make a difference to the life of some awkward future teenager, somewhere.

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox

Keepin’ It Real In Your Relationship

Yesterday I saw American Pie: The Reunion, and not only was it a boring, misogynistic and predictable movie, it also drew my attention to the absurdity in which the way relationships are always shown in film and TV. The worrying thing is that many people I have known in my life have seemed to mirror this ridiculous behaviour in their own relationships. So many people are assuming that it is normal to have the kinds of relationships that are shown in movies, and they think that the accompanying drama is also necessary, and that it is normal to fight a lot. I’m sure everyone has heard the notion that it is healthy to argue, but it doesn’t mean that its normal to argue regularly, as so many couples seem to do these days. By regularly, I mean arguing more than once every couple of months.

It’s called Dawson Leary Syndrome and it’s where you act like a fucking dick all the goddamn time.

Anyway, enough about that – back to the movie. As many will know, the married Jim and Michelle are the main characters in the film, and they go back to East Great Falls to celebrate their 10 year high school reunion. MAJOR Spoiler Alert: Kara is the girl next door that Jim used to babysit, and she is all grown up now, to the point where Jim is checking her out and has no idea who she is at first. Kara then develops an attraction to Jim and asks him to go to her 18th birthday party, which he doesn’t intend on going to. The next night, Jim and the gang (except Michelle who is at home with their baby) head to the beach for old times sake, and lo and behold, they stumble upon Kara’s 18th birthday party anyway. Kara is really wasted and asks Jim to drive her home in her car because her boyfriend never showed up, and although Jim doesn’t want to be alone with her, she guilts him into it by telling him that it’s not responsible to let her drive drunk. So he drives her home and in the car she throws her dress out the window and tells him that she wants him to be her first. Jim is awkwardly trying to drive and get her to wear something, when he loses sight of where he is going and nearly hits a tree. As he brakes, Kara falls forward into his lap and passes out in a prime BJ position. Then as Jim is trying to wake her up, the Asian MILF dude shows up in his car and starts talking to Jim through the window. Of course Kara now wakes up and starts to raise her head. (I know that this is extremely long-winded, but I promise you, I do have a point to make and I will get there). Jim pushes her head back down because he obviously doesn’t want the MILF guy to know that it is someone apart from Michelle in the car, and insinuates to MILF guy that Michelle is giving him vehicular gobby. He then has to get Kara home (without her clothes as she threw them out the window earlier) and into her bedroom whilst not letting her parents find out, and then back home to Michelle. Of course he manages to do all of this in that usual predictable American Pie way.

Pretty much exactly like this but with slightly different music.

Herein lies my anger. Instead of telling Michelle, Jim doesn’t say a word, and instead lies about his night. At this point in the film, I leaned over to Chris and whispered sagely “I bet that fucking MILF guy is going to hit Michelle up about the car BJ when he next sees her, this movie is so predictable”. Well, I wasn’t wrong and Michelle and Jim had a huge ass fight, because obviously it looked 100 times worse than what it was. I don’t understand why he couldn’t have just told Michelle in the first place, and if not, then why the fuck are they married to each other? The message that this seems to give is, “it’s fine to lie to your partner, ESPECIALLY if you are completely innocent and have nothing to hide, because you will end up having a big argument about it and she will storm off and ignore you for awhile, but its okay because without even actually discussing it, she will turn up at the reunion and dance with you and then fuck you in the band practice room anyway”.

“OH MY GOD YOU GUYS YOU CAN’T TELL MICHELLE THAT I HAD A BEER BECAUSE OUR RELATIONSHIP ISN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO HANDLE THAT KIND OF HONESTY AND SHE WILL BREAK UP WITH ME”

Is your partner not also supposed to be one of your closest friends? In which case, they would be having a laugh about it with you. I couldn’t imagine not telling Chris about something like that, it’s so retarded. I do know many people that tell me not to tell their partners about what they get up to at stag dos and on weekends and stuff, all of which is COMPLETELY harmless and innocent. For the record, if you are a dude at your friends stag do, and there is some sort of stripper/veggie show etc, you have done NOTHING WRONG and should be honest. Looking at a stripper that you didn’t even hire yourself  is not the same as meeting another girl, becoming emotionally attached and then hooking up with her. You should tell your girlfriend about your crazy nights out with friends.

The paunchy dude on the far left told his wife all about this night, and she refused to iron his lemon shirts for the next three months.

 Why? Because if you can’t even tell your girlfriend about a hilarious stag do, then I hate to be the brutually honest bitch here, but you shouldn’t be together, end of story. Allow me to repeat this more clearly: If you feel that you cannot even tell your partner about something that happened in your everyday life that has nothing to do with your relationship, then you should question what you are getting out of this relationship.

I also knew a girl that regularly smoked pot, who would hide it from her boyfriend. She said she was unable to quit smoking pot as it was a big part of her life, and yet she was happy to be with someone that didn’t approve of her lifestyle. How does that even work? How many people lie to partners and compromise themselves and their beliefs for the sake of being with another person?

There is a mass consensus that relationships are hard work. This is bullshit! If you are truly happy and with the right person for you, then it should be 100% EASY. Yes, the occasional disagreement is normal, but I guarantee that if you are with the right person, you will both move on from it pretty quickly and it won’t get dredged up again in the future. The “hard work” that people seem to think completes a relationship is what they expect because in mainstream media, relationships are all shown as being overly dramatic, and full of lies. The plot of “boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back” is ingrained as being normal to so many people, when in reality, it should be “boy meets girl, boy gets girl, girl and boy are happy”. But of course that formula doesn’t sell movies.

More like, “500 Days Of An Annoying Hipster Girl Leading An Equally Annoying Guy On Because He Is Too Pathetic To Stand Up For Himself And Leave Her”

My last observation is that many couples don’t treat each other very nicely at all. If you love someone, then you should be treating them with the respect, joy and courtesy that you would show to your best friends. Too many people seem to take their partner as being someone that they can get away with acting shitty towards. So often, females decide that they need a bit of drama, and act all unhappy, expecting their boyfriend to give them attention and try to find out whats wrong. If the guy asks whether they are ok, it will be met with an icy “I’m fine”, and so the guy goes about his own business, while the girl gets madder and madder that the guy isn’t reading her mind or fawning all over her trying to cheer her up. At no point did the boyfriend do anything to warrant this, except maybe not picking his towel up off the floor 3 days ago, and he has no idea why his girlfriend is being a bitch, because, y’know … she’s being a dick and doesn’t really have a good reason for it. I would stake money on the fact that that girl NEVER pulls the same shit on her girlfriends, so why does she assume its acceptable to treat the person that she is supposed to love that way?

It’s because she wants you to WANT to do the dishes, you fool!

GRRRRRRRR.

Ok, this post has definitely been long and ranty enough. In summary; find someone that you bloody well enjoy being with. Use my golden rule. If you are regularly unhappy with your partner once a week or more, then do yourselves both a favour and actually talk to them about why, instead of ruining your own life being miserable. Conversely, if they aren’t open to communication, then why are you even still with them? You only have yourself to blame if you are continually unhappy, and only you can improve your situation.

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo

The 7 Signs

As you all know I am a bit stuck in the past, technology-wise. I thought technology kind of topped out in the 90s, and I still consider a 1997 movie to be “new” looking and “recent”. Today I was thinking a bit more about what I consider to be “new”, and to be honest, compared to what’s out there now, my era looks really dated. Allow me to enlighten you with 7 incredible signs of 20 years of advancement, with pictures of things from 20 years ago, and today. Please note that I did put a lot of work into researching models etc, so the pics are truly from models of 1992 and 2012 (although in some cases, like the walkman, that same model contined for about 3 years so was also available on other years around 1992).

1. Lets start with the obvious thing that you jerks seem to think that you cannot live without: mainstream mobile phones.

This must also explain bumbags, and the decline thereof.

2. TV: teacher … mother …. secret lover…..

Panasonic certainly saves on plastic TV casing these days.

3. Computers - This, I thought was pretty good. Note how neither have CD drives? Thats because between 1992 and 2012, CDs became relevant, and then became irrelevant. LOLZER!

The difference is even more pronounced when you look at the screens!

4. Video game graphics have certainly come a long, long way. The first is Bart’s Nightmare on Sega Mega Drive, and the second is the new Prototype 2.

Oh no, Bart! Watch out for that sinister-looking shrub!

5. Point and click cameras – for the sake of this, I considered only your average Joe family BBQ snapshot cameras, not the flash-whiz-bang ones that require you to actually know how to work them. Obviously, the 92 camera uses 35mm film that you would have to take to get developed, whereas the 2012 is digital.

I’d say on the whole, cameras have changed the least.

6. Cars – again, I have always considered a 90s car to be “flash”, because my first car was an 84 Honda Civic. That meant I was a 16 year old driving a 17 year old car!  The 2 cars below are both Honda Civic sedans, because some models of car look older/newer than they are, so I figured using the same model for both would show the true evolution.

The 92 version is much better for “doing laps” and drinking bourbon in, though.

7. Portable music. Excitingly enough, the exact same walkman that my Dad bought me as a 7 year old, was available in 1992 and so I was able to use it as the early example! The Kube looks totally rad, don’t you think?

BUT WHERE DO YOU PUT THE TAPE?

Well, for those of you who are over 25, I hope you enjoyed your trip down memory lane. For those of you who are younger than that, you have grown up in a ridiculously over-hyped technological bubble and I resent your age bracket for being so dependent on technology and not appreciating the true joys in life, like getting pre-loved, musty smelling books at a library instead of on a cold, sterile Kindle… or buying a cassette tape and savouring the first time you unfold out the huge album booklet, only to have trouble folding it the right way to fit back inside the cassette. You haven’t even lived.

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxooxoxoxox

15 Tattoos That Grind My Gears

There are some tattoos out there that just kind of annoy me. You, the reader, may even have one or more of these and that is fine, just as I probably have tattoos that you think are tacky or lame (forearm stars, anyone?) I’m not being elitist and I welcome you to bum out any of my tattoos in the “comments” section! Below are just the types of tattoos that I personally think are stupid. So without further ado, let me rant about tattoos that I don’t like and why:

1. Ford and Holden logos: Yes I get it, you’d rather push your Ford than drive a Holden, or you gleefully exclaim that Ford is an acronym for “Fucked On Race Day”. I am aware that Bathurst is the key event of the year that “sorts out the boys from the men” and proves which is better, Ford or Holden. Get the merchandise (there’s enough of it out there, in every tacky bogan shop that ever existed) but don’t get the logo tattooed, especially not on your shoulder or bicep and especially not on the boobs. It really does look dumb.

"Please, Mr. Die-Hard Ford Supporter, PLEASE let me have sex with you"

2. Angelique Houtkamp tattoos that weren’t done by Angelique Houtkamp. This is actually plagiarism and I know of many tattoo artists that would be pretty pissed if you took a picture of their work to another tattoo artist and got it done. Whilst I think Houtkamps flash is pleasing to look at and cutesy, if I see one more stupid hipster with a lady’s head on a birds body, or a lady’s head in a tea kettle I will be kicking the nearest person in the vicinity. P.S. Tattoo artists probably get a bit bummed when you would rather them plagiarise someone else’s work than do one of their own designs. I wouldn’t go to Salvador Dali and ask for a copy of a Picasso.

And if you're gonna steal someone else's schtick, at least try not to fuck it up!

3. Barbed wire armbands: Was this all a byproduct of that Pamela Anderson movie? Did early 90s chicks think that by getting this they could run around telling people not to call them “babe”, or that they would look like Pamela Anderson? Barbed wire armbands are the tattoo equivalent of those awful necklaces. You know of which I speak.

It was the accessory equivalent of the 90s tramp stamp.

4. Geckos/lizards on ankles: Pretty sure these are only ever done these days in Bali.

5. Kanji …. grrrrrrrrrrr. Sorry. I know that many people have Kanji symbols, but please. Why would a 17 year old girl who has never learnt Japanese, get the word “angel” in Kanji on her hip? Because she is a fuckstick, that’s why.

6. Looney Tunes characters – Taz? Really? Way to show your quirky style, by getting a Taz tattoo on your ankle, you dick. I find many people in their 30s get stuff like this. It’s funny because they would go through their twenties being careful not to get a tattoo because “it’s permanent”, then in their thirties they decided that “life’s too short” and so they go out and get a fucking Bugs Bunny tattoo on their shoulder.

Or, a Taz ripping through their flesh. Cool story bro.

7. Playboy bunnies: You may as well have all of your character flaws listed in Times New Roman down your arm. Seriously. Playboy bunnies suggest 1 of 3 things. 1. You think that you are really sexy and have what it takes to be a Playboy Bunny. 2. You think that living in some old guys mansion with dozens of other skanks and a curfew is a respectable career path for a woman, or 3. You’re just incredibly stupid and can’t think of anything better to have as a tattoo.

Or, 4. You're a major loser of a dude.

8. Tribal tattoos on skinny white boys. What’s your iwi bro? Yeah didn’t think so.

9. Lots and lots of words. When you get something extremely lengthy tattooed in a font, not only have you wasted a prime piece of skin real estate, you will also look stupid. Your tattoo artist won’t be too pleased either. Contrary to popular belief, many tattoo artists HATE doing font and large pieces of wording, unless it is a custom artistic script. Which the majority of jerks never get. How could someone think that Courier New would actually look good on a 3D body with natural curves? I have something that is 11 words, in Old English, and it looks really stupid. However its not visible, and thats why cover-ups were invented!

Yeah, love the fool that gets a novel tattooed on himself.

10. Trees etc with names “hidden” in them. If you’re going to get a name tattooed on you, have the guts to get it in a visible manner. You can still make it artistic, however hiding your 6 kids’ names in a celtic knot just looks trashy.

11. Animals with monocles: Yes these make extremely cutesy art but again, there are too many hipsters out there with a dinosaur/owl/bulldog wearing a monocle and/or tophat. I actually feel really bummed for the artists that did these originally because they actually are quite nice. However, hipsters had to go and ruin it for everyone else. Booooooo.

Lovely tattoo work, not very original though.

12. Any corporate or band logos: I know I have already blackballed Holden/Ford and Playboy Bunny, but here are some more that look fucked up. Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nike, BMW (or any other rich white people car brand, for that matter), Metallica, Nickelback, Lynyrd Skynyrd, I could go on forever. But I won’t.

13. Nautical tattoos on people that have never been to sea. Nautical tattoos are extremely historical in nature, and it kind of shits me to see 18 year old girls with a big traditional ship tattoo, who then try to declare that their great-great-grandfather was in the navy and that is why they got it. For fucks sake, saying “I think ships look good” is a better answer than trying to make up some bullshit story to justify your trendy tattoo. PS. Never make up bullshit to justify your tattoos. In fact, you never have to justify your tattoos to anybody. Fuck them – it’s your body and your choice, and if you like ships, then go ahead and get your ship. I still don’t like them on landlubbers, though.

"I miss my grandmothers cousin Leslie soooo much, and she went on a ship once, and this tattoo is to honour her life"

14. Bad portrait tattoos. Never get a portrait tattoo from someone whos portraits you’ve never checked out. Seriously – tattoo artists have a portfolio for this reason, so you can see their work before you let them permanently decorate you. I waited about 7 months until I found an artist that I was comfortable enough to get portrait work from, and I’d be prepared to wait years if I had to. For gods sake, don’t get a portrait from your mate Steve that does sweet tribal, or Dazza down the road that did your Mad Max tatt. Just don’t. Spend the time and money in getting something that doesn’t ruin the memory of the person you’re getting inked.

I don't know if Kevin from Backstreet Boys could really look much better than this, though. Are those little pieces of bacon around his face? An homage to Kevin Bacon?

15. Ambiguous tattoos where you had to dig deep to find a sad story with which to justify them. It’s not LA Ink, tattoos don’t all need sob stories. If you want a tattoo, get one. Don’t get a flower and try to pass it off as being in memory of your great-grand aunt that you never even met. Just settle the fuck down and have the guts to wear a tattoo without needing to explain yourself to others.

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxoxooxoxxoox

 

15 Sneaky Ways to Sneak Booze Into Places

I pride myself on not only being a good ear in times of crisis, but also being a proactive friend that can offer helpful advice where needed. So here are some tips and tricks that I have gathered over my 13 years of being a consumer of sweet sweet booze.

1. A hipflask down the undies never goes astray. Make sure its a small one, or one with a gentle curve in it so that it contours to your body. Last years work function didn’t have alcohol and so I was forced to bring a hipflask of vodka – which I had brought from the bogan shop down the road called “Sharlene’s” (we are pretty sure that “Sharlene’s” is a front for a dodgy drug op, but thats neither here nor there because they sell a mean hip flask and BB gun). I bought a jug of soda water and lime at the function, and then under the table I unloaded my hipflask in ….. and then proceeded to get rad (I’d already had a snifter or two beforehand, of course).

Haters Gonna Hate.

2. Wearing a hoody? Fantastic! Did you ever realise that a goon sack nestles into the lowered hood of a hoody perfectly, and its the one places the bouncers never bother to check?? The only problem I see with this is that many places don’t allow hoods. However this would be a great one for a festival, because fuck paying $9 for cans of mid-strength beer all day. Once you’ve made it through the doors, I would recommend to transfer your goon to your bag because the weight could give you neck problems … and drink it fast!

It's a hard job to do sober ..

3. The most recent way that I have snuck booze into a venue was for the Cold Chisel concert at Sandalford Winery over Easter. Don’t get me wrong, we were still “paying customers” but my sisters and I are just so thrifty that we cannot bear the thought of paying outright for booze ALL NIGHT. The security at these places is pretty tight and they really do go through your stuff. You were allowed to bring in food as it was a “rug on the grass” type of gig, but they confiscated jars and everything. So how did we run this gauntlet, I hear you ask? We made a fruit salad and tipped vodka in it. We let that shit soak for a couple of hours and then just took it along. They never thought to check the fruit salad! However, eating the fruit that was sitting in a huge pool of vodka was pretty gnarly, so we just tipped the vodka into our wines and made a makeshift “punch”, and then once the vodka level of the fruit salad had waned, we started eating the fruit. YUSSSSSS.

Barnsey kept coming back for seconds.

4. If you’re a bit of a girly girl, get yourself one of those little spray fragrances (not an aerosol, just a little spray bottle) – make it a decent sized one, about 500ml if you can. Tip out all of the nasty baby prostitute fragrance and wash it out thoroughly, including the spray pump part. Once its totally free of chemicals, fill it with peach or other delicious schnapps. Because they smell fruity, like a spray, and many perfumes contain alcohol so nobody can accuse it of being anything other than fragrance. Also, the handy spray mechanism means that you can just wander around without a care in the world, spraying schnapps into your mouth all night like a goddamn billionaire.

LIKE A GODDAMN BILLIONAIRE.

5. Recently, this  was brought to my attention. I need one of these but I don’t know if I can afford for my tits to become any bigger, to be honest – because then I’d really look suspicious.

6. Get creative and hollow out stuff to fit miniature bottles of whiskey into. This can be done with so many things, like cameras and bibles. I’ve always wanted to get a book and cut out a hole in the pages to put something secret into. What better way to use this idea than with booze?

Salvation lies within. FECK!

7. If you’re going to a sporting event, buy yourself one of those big obnoxious foam hand thingys that all the fans seem to have, and load that shit up with the finest from your top shelf. Nobody at sports venues bothers to search too intensely, you normally just get the rudimentary pat down and the quick look at the top of your bag. Side note: Whenever I go into KMart or wherever and they ask to see my bag, sometimes its a satchel with a cardy on the top and they don’t even ask me to stir the contents around. I could have stolen a 3 pack of socks under that cardy and they’d be none the wiser. It just seems pointless to me, unless they are looking for a TV thief.

8. If you have a young child and the place is family friendly, get a whole bunch of “water toys” – the ones that have a wee trapdoor so that the kid can put water in it and empty it out. Fill those with booze, and go to the venue, passing them off as “kids toys”. Nobody is going to examine a bunch of baby toys very closely. Probably make sure that if you are going to do this, bring someone sober to mind the child (not that I’d ever want to take a child to a place where I was trying to have a fun time). However this is an excellent last resort and can be good for “family friendly” things like Pride Day and Blues n Roots.

"It's okay little Timmy, mummy will give you back your toys later"

9. Wear some oversized high top shoes – you know, the nicely padded ones, and push 2-3 miniature vodkas down each shoe. Nobody checks shoes and thats 6 shots right there! Yes it will be uncomfortable but it’s only for a little while, until you are safely inside the venue. Plus you will be wearing comfy shoes and won’t end up crying and carrying your heels at the end of the day like a dickhead.

10. Are you a smoker? It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to be! A ciggie pack can hold 2 miniatures, so you can pretty much carry 4 per person and then a real pack of ciggies in your hand to smoke with, if you are a smoker. Yes you might get looks of scorn from the gate staff, and hear them mutter phrases such as “lung cancer” , “gangrene” and ”second hand smoke” under their breath, but who gives a shit? Not me, if I’m not paying exorbitant amounts for alcohol.

11. Tape a goon bag around your torso, and wear a couple of t-shirts to disguise that familiar goon bag feeling. That way if they pat you down, you’ll just seem “unfit” and they will be too embarrassed to ask you to lift your shirt. Either that or tape it to your back. In fact, you can find a million ways to bring in a goon bag, around the thigh, under a scarf, pretty much anywhere as it conforms to your body. However I would always recommend bringing a half full goon bag, so that it has more freedom to move when you need it to.

"That's fine sir, go on in"

12. If the function is a classy one, wear a top hat, and rig a small wine cellar into it. I would imagine that you can get two bottles of wine into a top hat, and as long as you secure them firmly then it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Once again, it will be on the heavy side, but its only until you get into the toilets where you and your accomplice can swig them down. If your accomplice has nice breasts, this is good because they will take the attention away from your top hat, and then when she is drunk she might make out with you.

Abe rocked the party that rocked the party, which is probably why he got shot by thugs.

13. This is one that my Dad taught me when I was about 15 and I don’t know if it would really fly in this day and age, however if you are willing to buck fashion for the sake of getting drunk, then it’s a real doozy. Dad and his friends used to go to the rugby in the 70s wearing huge manly bell-bottomed pants, however they had taped booze all around their calves and shins, because back in those days the pants were so redonkulous that they would hide the booze and nobody ever thought to search there. I did try it once, with “Lee Superflares” (don’t pretend you don’t remember “Lee Superflares”, you dick) and it worked a treat. That was one high school sports day that didn’t suck! (P.S. Long jump is fucking fun when you are drunk)

(Dramatization)

14. Pay an elderly person to cart it in, hidden in their wheelchair for you. There are so many places the elderly can hide booze, including (but not limited to): under their leg blanket, down the sides, behind their back, in the wee pockets under the seat, in their cardys. With the poor state of the pension, many old people will do anything to make a quick buck that the taxman doesn’t know about. How else can they ply their grandkids with Werthers Originals and Danish Butter Cookies at Christmas time?

"Well, alright .. I'll do it for a tuppence"

15. Find someone “on the inside” at a gig, and get them to bring it in for you with the roadie equipment. Arrive early and have them meet you somewhere discreet so that you can give them a BJ and they can give you your booze (roadies LOVE BJs, everybody knows that). This is prob the most easy way to get it in actually, and you may not always need to pay in the form of BJ, some people will just do it because they are nice, or some prefer cash.

Anyway, enjoy your next function in the fashion that I have enjoyed so many in my lifetime – drunk enough to strike up a conversation!

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxxoxo

So You Wanna be On Top?

Back in the day, I used to watch quite a bit of America’s Next Top Model. The wannabe supermodels were all girls aged from their late teens to their late twenties and were all fairly similar to each other (particularly in one season when there were twin sisters, who were especially similar to each other). As I watched, I used to think “yes, I could easily skulk around a photography set, all smoky-eyed and prominently collar-boned”. I would then scornfully watch as these girls struggled to keep it together and produce a decent picture, whilst stealing adoring glances at myself in the night-time reflection of the lounge room window. “Yes”, I thought, “yes I could DEFINITELY be the next Tyra Banks”. Anyway, that was a passing thought and life has since passed me by and dubbed me “too old” for modelling.

To which I say, “ha!”

I think it’s no secret that I am a bit of a dark horse when it comes to being glamorous. Oh yes, people often pass me over for my thinner, blonder friends, but at the end of the day we can all agree that it is indeed, moi, that the camera adores.

Let me share with you my secrets of professional modelling – I have created a stunning beginners guide to a basic portfolio. This is the one that you would take with you when meeting with Karl Lagerfeld and Donatella Versace, and I believe that this is called a “go-see”. The point of this portfolio is to show yourself in a natural way, to demonstrate your versatility in the modelling world. You must follow these hot tips and create your own portfolio, before its too late to become the Next Top Model!

1. Start with a clean complexion, with your hair pulled off your face. It’s important to show your natural bone structure.

Don't forget to thank Tyra for the opportunity to go on this "AMAZING JOURNEY"

2. Apply foundation, just enough to create a flawless coverage but not too much – remember, you are showing your natural beauty here.

You want to look dewy and porcelain.

3. Now that you have a flawless base, I like to recommend a touch of eyeliner. Eyeliner shows that you’re not afraid of the make-up chair, and also to show that you are willing to suck dick venture outside of your comfort zone to score the booking. Eyeliner is a great way to highlight your large sunken model eyes.

Make like Taylor Momsen with that shit.

4. Your outfit should always be simple, yet chic. Many models choose to wear a singlet and designer jeans, and the mistake they always make is choosing a plain white or black singlet. What I have done here is chosen a plain black singlet, with “London” across the front. This shows that I am down with Kate Moss and the A-List, and know about all of the major fashion capitals of the world. I have worn black on the bottom also, to create a chic Parisian silhouette.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a "London" singlet, you can also wear other metropolitan hotspots such as "Wellington" and "Canberra".

5. It’s always important to accessorise correctly. Killer heels are a must, as they elongate my (already long and slender) legs. I have also selected a large handbag which positively dwarfs my tiny model frame, and if you’ll look closely, you will see that the bag is a designer – “Le Sport Sac”. It’s important that the designers know that you are ready to jet-set to Europe for Fashion Week.

I chose cork wedges, because they are timelessly chic.

6. For your photos, it is paramount to show both natural poses and artistic poses, including full length and face shots. One of my favourites is the hands on waist with your shoulders pushed forward. It elongates the neck and showcases a delicate decolletage and collarbones, whilst still allowing you to “smise”. “Smise” means to smile with your eyes, and it is Tyra’s trademark – she never goes anywhere without her smise.

It's almost insulting to everyone else what a chic and effortless modelling shadow I cast.

7. Make sure you spend awhile working on your signature poses. To give you an idea of how to do it correctly, here are some of mine:

"I'm not a virgin, but I'm not a whore either"

"Tyra FIERCE"

"mystic Venezuela"

"Praying Mockingbird"

"Abashed Emotion"

8. Now that your portfolio is ready, you can start on your “go-see” appointments, and when you are in the new Covergirl ad, just remember who got you to that high level of your profession.

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxox

P.S. Just to confirm, this entire post is a piss-take.

Boredom-Busters For The Discerning (Or Not) Modern Lady Or Gentleman

So you’re bored, huh? Well, never mind – you just sit back and let Aunty Chelle cure what ails ya. With my advice, you’ll not be bored for at least another day. Here is a list of my favourite boredom-busters, in no particular order.

1. Tidy out all the drawers in your house.  Take all your desk drawers, kitchen drawers etc, take everything out, wipe the insides of the drawers, and replace the important stuff in an orderly fashion. Be brutal about what you should and shouldn’t keep. A 3 year old baggie of methamphetamine is something you should chuck out (regardless of how much you paid for it), whereas you can keep only barely expired condoms for a little longer. Put them near your Whore Jar so that you always remember to use them. Once you have cleared out all of your drawers, not only will you now be able to close them properly, you have just gotten rid of a tonne of junk. It’s probably best to do this drunk or high, with good music on that you can sing to, being that it probably counts as “housework”. However, I like to call it “treasure-hunting”. I recommend Alanis Morrisette, Nirvana and Dr. Dre for this activity.

"I don't think you should be throwing out those slow burning Zig-Zags"

2. Start a blog. That is truthfully how this one began – out of sheer boredom. And now I get 50-200 hits a day and I enjoy it so much that I don’t even have to be bored or drunk to write a post! If any of you readers do start a blog out of boredom, I promise to read it!

3. If you’re at home alone, have a fashion show with yourself. Try on all your shit, and also your partners. You never know when you might find a gem. Chris has a really rad 70s suede waistcoat/vest thingy that I’d be all over if I didn’t have boobs.

It's ok, it goes both ways.

4. Go to the supermarket, buy some Sharpies of assorted sizes, and draw on everything and anything that you can get away with. If you are renting, just draw on the whiteware that you own.  If you own your own house, pick a small wall somewhere and draw on it!! I don’t understand why there aren’t more people out there with full-wall murals in their toilets. Hello, its a room you go to for getting rid of waste, I doubt that it really matters what is on the walls. Furthermore, it would actually look really cool. The minute I get my own home, I’m going to do a big Sharpie mural on a toilet wall.

5. There’s no shame in getting drunk and looking through old photos while listening to music from yesteryear.

Because where else apart from the early 90s, could unsupervised children drive a boat around a lake while their parents got drunk and played on the outdoor waterslide (which was later torn down for safety reasons)? I am the one driving with the massive white sunnies, for the record.

6. If there is any kind of musical instrument in your house, teach yourself how to play something on it. Guitar is particularly easy for this – now that the internet exists, anybody can learn to play guitar chords. Just google guitar chords for a song that you can sing, and then learn off the internet! Just don’t play that annoying Deep Purple song. You know of what I speak.

7. If you can borrow a skateboard, go find an abandoned carpark and go for a skate, even if you “can’t skate”. It’s not that hard, you don’t have to be able to “do ollies” or anything, just kick, push and coast. If you can already skate in a straight line, go get a huge blue tarp and a loyal sidekick, and go do some tarp surfing. Invite another friend who is into photography to come and take photos, because tarp surfing can make some pretty fun pictures. Then you will have busted boredom for not one, but three people!

Fun without sand!

8. Take something from a flatmate/someone you live with (make it something that they will miss) and leave a ransom note, made from cut out newspaper and magazine letters. Of course, it’s all in jest and you must still give it back even if they can’t make the ransom payment, because nobody likes a cunt.

Lurk in the hallway to try and see their reaction when they get the note, for bonus fun.

9. Make phone calls to relatives, and if you’ve got no relatives, then get drunk and make prank calls with a friend. You’re never too old to do this. My German friend Christine is really good at doing them, and with her German accent it is even more hilarious!!!!! My friend Laura and I also got trapped into talking to a guy that we were prank calling once, and he turned out to be really nice. So you never know where they will lead.

10. Give yourself a haircut, because nothing makes you feel swirlier than a “new look”. Go show it off to the fine people at the supermarket and pretend you’re way more chic than you really are. You’d be surprised at what a difference a little bit of newfound novelty confidence makes to your swagger.

11. Make a list of people you have slept with/made out with. (I know everybody has done this at some time or other – make a list of “slept with” if you have slept with more than 10 people, and if not, make a “made out with” list). Then look up those people on Facebook and give yourself a pat on the back and 10 points for the ones that turned out successful, and negative 5 points and a disapproving look in the mirror for those that became bogans. You can also give yourself a disapproving look for every shag whose name you can’t remember, or a pat on the back if you’re that way inclined.

Some may require more than one pat on the back.

12. To finish on a positive note, get a whiteboard marker and write all the stuff you love about yourself on your bathroom mirror, so that in the mornings you can see it, and then leave the house with a smug strut. Probably do a wee test first in the corner of the mirror, because I don’t know if whiteboard marker actually comes off mirrors, and you don’t want the next tenants to know that you are so flexible that you can give yourself a BJ.

Well, I hope that you aren’t bored anymore!!

Love, Chelle xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

The World’s Shortest Blog Post, Because I Can’t Not Announce Today’s Feelgood Moment!

Today I came across the most marvellous, cutest thing ever. It just so happened that of all days, today was the day that I chose to leisurely stroll around and look at everything in the supermarket. I usually don’t even look at the meat section, because the only thing I ever get from there is chicken and I know exactly where it is kept. Mmmmm ….. chicken …….

So anyway, there I was at 10am on a Sunday leisurely strolling the aisles with my trolley, when I came across this wee beauty:

He even went to the trouble to include little red stars!

And:

The offending loin chops.

I wanted to run out to that back butcher room and find “Joshua” and pick him up and squeeze him and place him on my mantelpiece. I bet he’d be smiling away, too. I don’t know why I found this whole thing so delightful, but I just did. How many supermarket staff apologise personally for “substandard” product, whilst vowing to do their best to find a “serius” supplier”?

“Joshua”, you have restored my faith in humanity just a little. Cheers, bro.

Well, I hope everyone else’s Sundays started as pleasantly as mine!

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxox

I Still ….. Am Not An Adult

- I still … haven’t done my last 2 years of taxes. I think I did 2010 via eTax, and then owed money and so I got scared and deleted eTax and pretended it would go away. I’m pretty sure I must have done it wrong though, because all of my friends got money back and I’m not much different to them. It’s not like I’m some sort of businessman or anything. Now I have to do 2011′s and I’m worried I will owe money this year as well. In fact, I will happily pay anybody who is savvy to do my last 2 tax returns for me. Any Perth volunteers? I believe I have the correct “documents” ie “group certificates”. I’m not kidding either – will somebody please do my tax returns for me?

The collector in me wants to say "keep them mint in original packaging" ...

- I still … don’t know how to make a real soup, using the oven. I’m not too proud to use little microwave soups.

Never too proud.

- I still … get into my pyjamas as soon as I get home from work. If I don’t have to go anywhere, I will wear them all day. In fact, I’m wearing them now!

No you are not mistaken - that IS bleach all over my singlet. What of it?

- I still … like getting intoxicated, when will I grow out of that? I still get excited about taking drugs getting drunk.

-  I still … draw on furniture, and every single sticker that I get “has” to go on something – usually my desk. There are 4 “Beyond Skate” stickers on there, and I haven’t even been on a skateboard in 12 years. What a fraud.

Even the bumper sticker that I was too much of a wuss to put on my car, lest I get pulled up and caught "possessing".

- I still … haven’t got the knack of correctly saving loose change – the white one is for notes and gold coins, the blue one is for silver coins. Currently the blue one has 50c and the white one has $62, but only because I got the guilts yesterday and put $62 in there. Don’t worry, I’ll be raiding that all back out soon because there’s still one week until payday.

50c. What a joke! Y U so thrifty, Chelle?

- I still … have Pikachu slippers, but because of the damn Australian heat, hardly ever get to wear them!

Because I can't catch em all barefoot.

- I still … steal cocktail toys from bars and bring them home. There are so many more than those hiding in drawers, too. I unashamedly  get my boyfriend to put them in his pockets if I didn’t bring a handbag. Sometimes I act all sophisticated at home and mix a wee Kahlua and milk with a tiki stirrer.

Special thanks must go to Hula Bula Bar and Devilles Pad, without which I may never have discovered the joys of nicking silly drinks accessories.

- I still … don’t have adult things like bills and car registration forms on my fridge. Instead, there is a Metal Gear Solid Snake shopping list and a couple of postcards which aren’t even mine. *hangs head sadly*.

Fridges aren't exempt from my stickering, either.

- I still … consider 2 candles and a scale model of the Empire State Building to be appropriate outdoor decor. I like to think we have “eclectic” taste. Not really … I don’t even know how that model came to be on the outside table, but I’m too lazy to move it.

I like to call it "Shabby Chic".

- I still … haven’t hung these towels out, and it’s been 2 days. Now I have to wash them again.

Because, I CBF.

- I still … don’t really own any “novels” … most of that bookcase is tattoo magazines and dinosaur figurines, and pretty art books containing mostly pictures. There are a few music autobiographies, but hardly any Dickens or Shakespeare.

... and porn.

- I still … have limited freezer contents – microwave vegetables, ice cream, frozen berries, and vodka. They are all good in emergencies. 

(Obvs).

- I still … don’t care for having a “garden”.

Love, Chelle xoxoxoxooxoxox

Left My Marmite Factory Outside The Dairy …. Nek Minnit …..

For those of you who are from NZ and Australia, the news of NZ running out of Marmite is no doubt old hat. For those of you who don’t know what Marmite is, it is best described as axle grease with salt. It’s a yeast spread (hold the Rosie O’Donnell-related jokes until the end, please) and is Vegemite’s kiwi counterpart. It’s also made in the UK but in the same way that Cadbury chocolate is – not as good as back home.

So here we are in 2012 and the kiwis are all outraged over the fact that the country is unable to produce Marmite, due to a forced closure of the Marmite factory after the Christchurch earthquake. Special news bulletins have urged viewers to ration their Marmite, by offering thoughtful suggestions such as only using Marmite once a day, or only using it on toast as it spreads easier when warm (again, please hold all Rosie O’Donnell-related wisecracks until the end).

It's okay, Rosie. I also object.

Numerous trademe.co.nz auctions for Marmite have cropped up, with hilarious descriptions such as “only one knife full missing” (corroborated by pictures, below).

Nobody bought Nek Minute's "Limited Edition Nek Minute Marmite" which proudly had no butter contamination.

One dude has sold 1.2kg of Marmite for $205.

This is what we call an "economic opportunist" (that is, a cunt).

That’s around 15-20 hours of labour for the average New Zealander. Would you work an extra 15-20 hours at your job to ensure that you survived 2 months without your favourite original yeast spread? I wouldn’t!

I don’t even know why I am writing about this, but it feels like something I should write about, being a kiwi and a “current events” blogger (not that I’ve ever really blogged about any events that have been current before). I don’t understand why it is such a big deal, seeing as to me, Marmite and Vegemite are pretty much interchangeable, much like vanilla and french vanilla ice-cream. Sure, everyone prefers one over the other, but in the end you’d easily eat either in a pinch.

Not only is it strange that people are paying 20 times the regular price for Marmite at auction, but Sanitarium have advised that production will start again in the next couple of months, so people are only going to be unable to buy Marmite for about 2-3 months. Think about how long a jar of Vegemite or Marmite lasts – fucking ages! I usually have one of the small ones on the go for around 6 months! So the people who already have Marmite in their cupboards probably wouldn’t even need to worry anyway! The ones who probably will worry a bit is the bakeries that sell cheese and Marmite scrolls, but even they can switch to Vegemite for a couple of months.

Settle down, New Zealand its just a yeasty breakfast spread, and your “Marmageddon” is making us an international joke at the moment!

Love, Chelle xxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo