Caucasians speaking Canto

This is pretty silly but the guy made me crack up when he talked about "Po Sum On Yau".. lol

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=vU0Sbtw7CRw&feature=related

Offensive Mags

So another day (second in a row!) of NOTHINGNESS. It's so good once in a while just to slow down and... wake up at noon, watch a few episodes of a favourite tv series, grab a coffee at the gloria jeans down the road and do a spot of grocery shopping. I was browsing through mags and picked up a copy of 'Womens Health' when my eye caught FHM's cover advertising the "32 page booklet of boring but important finance guide" (or something like that).

Without being able to resist myself (and after ensuring no one else was walking down the aisle), I picked up & flicked through the FHM. I was horrified to find that a guy's idea of 'cost cutting' would be to remove items like "Kids" which cost $500,000 on average to raise two. Solution? "Buy condoms.. you can buy them in bulk on ebay, 100 for under $50 bucks" it suggests. Another problematic finance sucker is "Girlfriend" costing an average bloke $256,000. Solution? "Wait for The One", or alternatively find a lady who earns more money than you.

I am horrified that blokes would find suggestions such as these acceptable to appear publicly, nationwide. The bloke writing this was probably a stingy mid-30s commitment-phobic nerd, dishing out unwanted advice on things he probably doesnt even have (ie. girlfriend). Nowadays, with so many working women, certainly women contribute just as equally as blokes for household expenses. How dare he claim all the cred, as though women just sit around on their asses all day and suck bloke's wallets dry!! Even if women don't work, they still have to look after the kids and do all the housework for the guy, which in itself is no easy feat. How would the guy like to spend the rest of his life, instead of the opportunity to go to work, to change nappies, feed, watch over and bathe the baby, do all the mopping, cleaning, cooking, washing, dusting, grooming, gardening etc. the entire day, day in day out over the next 10 years until the kid is old enough to look after themselves? That sort of work is worth way more than $250k over say, 10 years - the average pay would be $25k pa for that sort of work. That's worse than a maid, and half the amount paid for an average university graduate fresh out!

So, in the end, I put that mag back down (cover facing backwards) and left with my womens health & family sized block of creme brulee chocolate.

Exam Rush, Perth and New Job

June was a busy month - fact aside from the end of financial year (tax return time.. yay....), I've (hopefully) passed another semester with newfound knowledge on property law (renters: always lodge caveats, buyers: always register quickly), gained more insight into our country's international obligations (our government has discretion as to whether or not to protect citizens when in trouble overseas) and found out more about administrative government (ways to challenge decisions made under govt policy).

This semester was fun, informative, political, eye-opening, and I was amazed at how much effort it takes to understand even just the surface of how our society works. An average person would probably come across all these issues at some point in their lives but they won't know the things I know now. So scary. It's so much better than learning debits and credits in first year. I feel old though - all the 'club executives' who still send me emails for union clubs were mere feotuses when I was able to walk.

I went to Perth straight after exams for half a week. On the flight there I sat between two men, both of whom wanted to chat. I read 350 pages of "The Time Traveller's Wife" recommended by my sister, however it wasn't really able to sustain my interest long enough. I chatted about investment houses with the guy on my left, and about travelling and exploring rural Australia with the English backpacker on my right. Kinda weird actually, had to turn my head either to the left or right, but either of them didn't talk to the other.

I also cooked for Michael's parents and cousin (thai green curry chicken) which was way too spicy... Michael actually did most of the stirring and tasting part ehehe, we also shopped around in the city and ate waffles. It was a pretty relaxing weekend, cold though! We celebrated our 17 month anniversary at what was supposedly one of the best Perth restaurants though I felt it a bit overrated, though I still thought it was sweet of Michael to have dinner reservations hehehe. We had marron for entree... marron is interesting and can only be found in Perth I think:

We also had loads of Yumcha in Perth! It was the first time I couldnt finish delicious har cheung coz I already had too much food!

I started my new paralegal job yesterday, whilst it's pretty exciting to start a new position and I've overcome first-day anxiety with minimal fuss, I'm feeling the pressure to be brought up to speed with everything - there's just so much to learn! Plus the person whose leaving the role (for exchange overseas to Netherland) seems extremely good at what he does. How do I become better than him at the role?

Line up shoot out

I'm *so* excited about Woolies' express self-checkouts I could SCREAM!!!! I almost did today, after I figured out how to use one of these beauties. Seriously an amazing invention - all you do is scan your item yourself, insert a few coins and *tada* receipt + change and you're outta there! If I got a dollar for each of the numerous times busses were missed because of waiting 10+ minutes in those tediously slow 'express' checkout lines, I'd be a millionare! I was in and out within 30 seconds!

Speaking of millionares (or not)... on the train today, I was reading the MX, not my own of course but actually sitting next to someone reading their MX as usual, some lucky lottery winner converted $29 into $58mil! I don't know how lottery works and have yet to buy my first ticket, but holy crap what on Earth?!! How do the lottery make money?? Where do they get $58mil from?? This guy gets more than Allan Moss' $50mil requirement package, despite increasing the size of Mac Bank's profits 30-fold over his career!!!!!!

Hmm.. this guy kinda looks like sloan from Alias

Nah, not really.

Qantas Drama

So I had a a pretty quiet weekend with Michael, just catching up on lost time. We watched Indiana Jones and Ironman! Blokey movies I know, but I quite enjoyed them. I remember the good days when I used to watch Indie on Video tapes with my dad... hahaha... *cracks whip*... actually I got a bit creeped out at the end of the movie when aliens came out. I'm pretty scared of aliens. I used to have nightmares about them.

We also went to the Fish Market and spent $80 on a really disgusting seafood platter at the orange "Deep" place... just because we got there at 3pm, they gave us all the old foods leftover from the whole day! The lobster tasted really dry and crackly, and everything just tasted off, including the salad. Luckily we had a big family dinner that evening and my mum got two huge crabs at a Chinese restaurant to make up for the crappy seafood...

We also went to the aquarium and saw crocodiles, I learnt that the difference between an alligator and a crocodile is that the bottom teeth of a croc actually overlaps onto it's top lip!

  Look at the teeth!

Michael's flight got cancelled on Sunday night. We had a really rushed dinner at the Menzies, only to wait at the airport for 3 hours (which was already delayed by 1.5 hours) before a cancellation announcement was made - something about the doors not shutting properly, leaking water and not being able to fix it (all the engineers were on strike!!!). We heard quite a great deal of swearing over the cancelled flight, however it was just as well they found it while on the ground and not while the plane was flying thank god!!!! Still, if Qantas would agree to a measly 2% difference in increased pay, this would never have happened, especially since the media reports them as profiting 40% last financial year.

Further, I think it's bullshit that the airlines try to justify increased oil prices and push costs back onto customers. That doesn't make good business sense, they might as well just say that they're ensuring they can still maintain profit margins! Anybody would know that costs are a risk of doing business. It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

They paid for our cab fare to the hotel and back to the airport next day (about $120 in total) & partially reimbursed another night's stay ($150), there were about 500 seats on the flight, doing the math this would add up to $135,000 in total cost for Qantas!! What's worse, it wasn't the first cancelled flight of the day so all the nearby hotels were booked out too. They should have increased engineer's pay...