Bloggy friend shenanigans

So Nikki came down from Sydney to stay for a few days, which explains my absence of late. She's about to leave Australia, so it seemed only appropriate that I insist upon her visiting me before she does so.

ANYWAY.

We did a bunch of stuff together, and I figured I'd tell you about it in no particular order:

• Played a LOT of Lego Hobbit on the XBox. Obviously, it involved accidentally killing each other a lot and generally being quite confused about what was happening.
• Went to the zoo. It was absolutely freezing, and the red panda was awake but lurking at the top of the highest tree in his enclosure, the jerk. BUT there weren't many people there, and the rest of the animals were in a far more obliging mood, no zoom lens necessary:

• Went down to Docklands to the Peruvian festival, which was being spruiked all over the newspaper. It turned out to be like five sad stalls at the side of the little theme park-y bit, which was rather disappointing, so we went out for lunch instead. 
• Made a vlog. When I manage to edit it from just under AN HOUR LONG to something people will actually watch, I'll let y'all know about it. 
• Went to see Les Miserables on stage. It was FANTASTIC, even though our seats were suuuuuuuuuuuuuper nosebleed-y and the people in front of us fidgeted for the entire three hours... I even enjoyed Bring Him Home, which is absolutely unheard of.
• Made a friend on the tram due to the following conversation:

Nikki: The ticket inspectors in Sydney are really aggressive. One of them once asked me "Why are you here?"Me: Maybe he was just being existential and wondering about the meaning of life?Random girl: *snorts with laughter* I'm so sorry. I'm not eavesdropping, but you guys are hilarious.Me: Don't sweat it. I once spent an entire bus trip messaging my friends about the fact that the girl opposite me was excited to see an IHOP because "OMG CHRISTIAN GREY!!!"Random girl: YOU HATE THAT BOOK TOO???????? Nikki: You have no idea. [insert 15 minute conversation about everything wrong with Fifty Shades of Grey here]

• Discovered that Kinder Surprise currently have a limited edition range of Marvel toys called Twistheads that require you to effectively remove the top of the toy's head, connect it to another toy, and then twist their bodies. It's as weird as it sounds, and they're all really creepy-looking. See?

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• Ate far too much. 
• Spent a lot of time on public transport. 
• Got to hang out for longer than anticipated because Melbourne decided that immense amounts of fog were necessary yesterday, and that resulted in Nikki's flight being cancelled. YAY!

So. That's what I did when I wasn't here. What's news with you guys?

K xx

What.

I had plans to write a proper post today, but I spent two hours this afternoon cleaning tape residue off book shelves at work using nothing more than eucalyptus oil and paper towels. As a result, I smell like a eucalypt forest, I have a terrible headache, and my brain has melted into a puddle.

So instead, I shall present you with this, which I discovered while putting out the new books display at work today:

Yes, that's what you think it is.

And yes, it's 100% as cracked out as you would expect.

It is MAGICAL. And I kind of wish I could be a fly on the wall when various small children take it home and insist on it being their bedtime story non-stop for the next two weeks... I also wish that Norway would make Ylvis their contestant for Eurovision. Because that would be BRILLIANT.

What's the weirdest thing you've seen today?

K xx

A most unfortunate curse

So Kat mentioned in the comments of my last post something that I'd completely forgotten about - that Bethells Beach wasn't quite as close to deserted as we would have liked, in that there was a man quite a distance down the beach wandering around on his own who proved, upon closer (but not too close) examination to be rather elderly and completely naked.

And this, in turn, reminded me of another incident - New Year's Eve two years ago. In case you weren't around in those days and/or are too lazy to click on that link, I'll recap. I went to Fairhaven with my brother and a bunch of his mates. We decided that we'd wander down to the beach for actual midnight, and watch the fireworks display from Lorne across the water.

Somehow, we ended up with a crapton of glowsticks and sparklers, and so were playing around with those as 2012 commenced. Shortly thereafter, an incredibly drunk and incredibly naked New Zealander staggered up out of the surf. Someone informed this random dude that he should be carrying a glowstick so that we knew where he was, and didn't have to see his junk. Upon which he grabbed a glowstick from someone, shoved it between his butt cheeks, and ran off down the beach.

He then bent down to pick up his clothes, causing the glowstick to fall out from between his butt cheeks. So he kindly picked it up and threw it back to us. You've never seen a group of people scatter so quickly as when the butt germs glowstick fell towards us.

ANYWAY. Apparently that incident served as a precedent, and now I'm cursed to see naked New Zealanders every time I go to the beach. Because I'm about 99% sure I didn't go to the beach at all in between those two random-naked-New-Zealander events. And there was a small naked child running around during the five minutes Kim and I spent at the beach while I was in Wellington.

At least now I have a good excuse not to go to the beach?? "Oh, I can't, sorry. I'm cursed, you see. If I go with you, a naked New Zealander will appear and everything will get slightly weird..."

Are you randomly cursed in any way?

K xx

I'm still alive!!

I'm not dead, you guys. Really, I'm not. I've just fallen off the face of the earth blogging-wise, because they have us running all over Washington like crazy people, and my smartphone is locked to my network in Australia meaning I can't put a US SIM card in it. Which means that I don't have data on my phone, only wifi. And this means that I only have internet access on my laptop at the motel, or if I go to Starbucks or similar. So blogging opportunities have been a little scarce thus far.

#firstworldproblems

I can't do justice to things in the half hour I have before we head out for dinner, but I thought I'd give you an update just the same.

• I haven't frozen to death, which is exciting. And it's been sunny every single day. 
• My roommate - who shall henceforth be known as Agatha Goodkin, because we couldn't think of a decent alias for her, and an alias generator came up with that one for us - and I went to the zoo, where we flailed with excitement over the giant pandas.

• I'm wishing I'd brought different shoes, because OHMIGOD MY FEET HURT.
• Agatha Goodkin and I have no shame in hoarding food from the free motel breakfast, and will shortly turn into bagels as a result.
• Every time I see the word 'bagel', I think of Britta Perry:

• Speaking of Community, I met a woman today who said "Hello" in EXACTLY the same way that Shirley does. It was amazing. 
• I have discovered that America does not have teaspoons or electric kettles. I discovered this in part because Agatha Goodkin is a tea drinker, and our motel room provides teabags, but no means of heating water. When she asked the woman at reception if she could possibly have a kettle, she was met with a confused stare and "............But you don't have a stove". So of course, I promptly got online and was all "Hey Gina? Do you guys REALLY not have electric kettles?", and got the reply "What's an electric kettle?'. I suppose the moral of the story is that if you throw crates of tea into the harbour, YOU CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. 
• The adverts on TV are killing me. They're so horrifically hilarious. I saw one the other night with a slogan that nearly killed me: "Miralax: draws water into your colon so you don't have to wait to feel great." WHAT THE FUCK, AMERICA?!?!?!
• Last night, a bunch of us went to the basketball to see the Washington Wizards play the Oklahoma City Thunder. Agatha Goodkin and I paid $14 for our seats, so they were in the super nose-bleed sections of the arena, but it was totally worth the money. Especially when I took my trusty zoom lens along for the ride...

View from where we were sitting, taken on my phone:

View courtesy of my zoom lens:

Boo yah.

• If someone could explain to me why America serves salads BEFORE the meal rather than WITH the meal, that would be great. Also, WHY THE HELL DO YOU CALL IT A MAIN COURSE AN ENTREE? It translates from French as beginning or entry, so it makes FAR more sense to do what the rest of the world does and start the meal with an entree, and then have a main course. Sigh.
• This weekend will feature Lauren coming to visit me. I'm super excited, and can't believe I have to survive three more days until she gets here. 

I shall update you all properly about the trip and what we've seen and done later in the week, but for now I'm heading to dinner.

K xx

Ancient history, Volume XXXIII

Previously, horses plus butterfly infested woods = Kirsti's worst day ever. On the plus side, there were cenotes, which pretty much made up for it...

We left our hotel in Merida at 7.30am and had yet another delightful walk to the bus station carrying 20kg worth of luggage. The bus trip from Merida to Palenque is approximately NINE HOURS. Our trip notes informed us that it was "along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico", which implied nice sea views. Our trip notes lied. All we could see for nine hours was hedges taller than the bus... I spent a large chunk of it watching movies in Spanish with Portuguese subtitles - namely, Flyboys and The Wicker Man (the Nicolas Cage version). I don't think I missed much in terms of the dialogue...

Nic Cage's facial expression pretty much sums up my feelings towards
this film. Also, source.

Lunch consisted of the bus stopping at a roadside diner for an hour. The food looked less than appealing, so Sara and I made the executive decision to have ice cream for lunch. Because, you know, the Pringles and Pinguinos we'd had as bus snacks weren't enough...

After a millionty more hours of driving, we finally arrived in Palenque. After dumping our stuff at the hotel, Arizona Boy gave us a quick tour of the town. If you've never been there, I can tell you that you're honestly not missing much. (Do not confuse Palenque the town with Palenque the archaeological site. The former was kind of scummy, the latter was awesome)

Eventually, we went to dinner, which rapidly became...interesting. The restaurant we went to was run by a dude named Salvador who was our guide for the archaeological site the following day. And Salvador was OBSESSED with tequila. If you didn't order tequila, he would nag you. And nag you some more. And then nag you again five minutes later. Eventually, I asked for a margarita just to shut him up. Except that Salvador believed that the use of sugar syrup ruined the flavour of the tequila. So he presented me with a glass filled with tequila and lemon juice. It tasted like sour lighter fluid...

Mix with lemon juice and serve. Also, source.

While I stopped after (two sips of) my one lighter fluid margarita, the rest of the group decided that numerous rounds of tequila shots were the way to go. Over the course of the evening, the following things happened:

• Sara discovered that seven shots of tequila will make you throw up.
• Arizona Boy didn't believe me when I said that Sara had gone to throw up, and proceeded to sniff her hair when she got back from the bathroom, which was insanely creepy.
• Waterproof Trousers (so called because he wore Goretex trousers approximately half the time) seemed to be hitting on Salvador, despite claiming throughout the tour that he was straight.
• Arizona Boy thought it would be hilarious to throw various people's belongings off the balcony of the bar we were at and into the street.
• We then had to spend huge chunks of time trying to persuade various passersby to toss them back up to us. 
• There was an awkward discussion about how not all brown eyes are nice brown eyes, which resulted in Waterproof Trousers sulking. 
• Arizona Boy turned to Sara and said (in a deadly serious tone, I might add), "Sara, would you like to ride the Arizona Boy Helicopter of Love?". I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair. He did not appreciate my reaction.
• Upon leaving the bar, Arizona Boy found a stick in the gutter (ew), and proceeded to heard us all back to the hotel by smacking people's butts with the stick and yelling "Git along, little doggies!" in a bad cowboy impersonation.
• This VW Beetle from a nearby pizza shop (no, I can't explain the connection between pizza and a giant chicken either) was parked outside our hotel. Various people (ahem, Arizona Boy) thought it would be an excellent idea to climb on top of it:

To be fair, it DID somewhat inexplicably have a chair on the top of it...

The evening ended with Arizona Boy yelling down the hall to Sara and I that his room had a California king sized bed, and that the three of us should use it to recreate the Ringling Brothers Circus. Needless to say, we passed on that incredibly generous offer and cackled all the way to bed.

Moral of the story? Tequila is evil.

Arizona Boy's version of events the next day? "That wasn't me, it was my evil twin."

The best part of being the one who can't drink straight spirits because the smell makes you gag? Remembering everything that happened and being the one to fill in the gaps the next day.

Next up, a somewhat subdued trip to Palenque (the archaeological site), which I think was enjoyed by me and no one else, and we all make the most of our stupidly expensive Goretex jackets.

K xx

Um... What just happened?

So, kids. Here we are in 2012! How were your New Year's celebrations? Mine were...interesting. Here's what happened:

• I went to the beach with my brother and his friends
• Took a scenic tour of Melbourne to get there because you can't get on the freeway going south where we thought you could #mapreadinggeniuses

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• I turned into a four year old and sat in the back of the car going "Are we there yet? I'M SOOOOOOO HUUUUUUUUUUUNGRY!!!!" over and over again until we stopped.
• Had lunch at McDonald's. They now have to list the nutrition information on the menu boards. Pretty sure one burger combo shouldn't contain 75% of your daily calorie intake *shudder*
• Had a view of the lighthouse from Round the Twist from the balcony, but neglected to take even a single picture of it...
• Went to the beach. Highly unusual for me. I spent my time there covering as much of me as possible with a towel to prevent sunburn, trying to prevent sand from getting in the spine of my book, and trying to take photos without looking like a creeper. 

• Overheard one of my brother's friends coin the term 'festively plump'. Decided it's total genius.
• Sat through a LOT of "That's what she said" jokes. 
• Alternated between being intrigued and terrified (if you're new around here: Hi, I have bird phobia) by the massive numbers of king parrots, kookaburras and crimson rosellas that turned up at the bird feeders hanging off the side of the deck

• Played with glow sticks and sparklers, because apparently we're all five years old
• Between 10 of us, we ate our way through 2.3 KILOGRAMS of jelly snakes. 

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As for midnight, we all walked from the house down to the beach. We reached the beach with about a minute to spare until the new year, and brought out a bunch more glow sticks and a sparkler bomb, which fizzled out miserably. A bunch of small children at a nearby house screaming the countdown at the top of their lungs proved very helpful in establishing that 2011 was nearly over. From the beach, we could see the fireworks at Lorne, further down the coast, along with some incredibly illegal (but very pretty!) fireworks being set off by a bunch of people about 100 metres down the beach. 

I also spent a chunk of time staring up at the sky, because the stars were AMAZING. Sadly, a TARDIS didn't appear... *sigh*

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Then, out of nowhere, a random New Zealander appeared. He was stark naked (I gather skinny dipping was involved), very drunk, and *very* impressionable. Someone said something along the lines of "Jeez, mate. You should carry a glow stick so we know where you are and can avoid you [and, by extension, seeing your junk]!" In response, he grabbed a glow stick from someone, jammed it between his butt cheeks, and ran off down the beach.

Well. We could CERTAINLY see him then. Up until the point where he bent down to pick up his clothes, and the glow stick fell out. And he picked it up and THREW IT BACK TO US. This led to much screaming and yelling and "DON'T TOUCH THE GREEN ONE, IT HAS POO GERMS!!!"-ing from certain inebriated members of our group (not me), and the offending glow stick being kicked into a hole on the beach and buried. I pity the small child that inevitably found it the following day... O.o

So there you have it. Between that and Paulie telling me the next morning that he was woken up at 4am by an unidentified couple having very enthusiastic sex (complete with arse slapping) upstairs, I believe 2012 is keen to crown itself The Year of 'What The Fuck Just Happened?'...

Anyone else have any interesting New Year's experiences?

K xx

My brain can't cope...

Things that are enormously disconcerting: seeing someone you went to primary school with on the other side of the world. ON A COIN.

(I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but for those of you who aren't aware of it, my one and only claim to fame is that I went to primary school with Kate and Pippa Middleton...)

Seriously, it's doing my head in. Thankfully, it looks almost nothing like her, so I can pretend it's just some random stranger...

Anyone else got a rubbish claim to fame like mine??

K xx

New York - the "Robot Busboy" edition

Our last full day in New York started with a trip here: 

Yup. 30 Rock. I was horribly disappointed that we didn't come across Liz Lemon or Jack Donaghy while we were there, especially as I get the theme song from 30 Rock stuck in my head every time I so much as look at a picture of the GE Building. Sad face... Still, the view from Top of the Rock made up for it:

Once we finished there, we each sold a kidney and went to TGI Friday's for lunch, solely because it was close by and we were too hungry to find anything else. It was definitely NOT worth the small fortune we paid. From there, we wandered down Fifth Avenue in the direction of Central Park. At the corner of 5th and 57th - just near Tiffany's - we saw something totally weird. A woman in an ornate wedding dress (and clearly on her way TO her wedding, because her bridesmaids were standing by the side of the road, but there was no sign of a groom or any groomsmen) ran into the middle of the road, accompanied by her photographer. 

She then proceeded to spin in circles, standing on a steam grate. In her wedding dress. In the middle of Fifth Avenue. Which was filled with traffic. Needless to say, the nearby cops weren't very impressed and chased her off pretty quickly. I wish to God I'd taken a photo of the whole thing to show you. Because it was INSANE. (And sadly, on this occasion, Google Images was of no help... *sigh*) 

Anyway. We continued up 5th Avenue and into Central Park. Again, there was a total lack of dead bodies or psychotic rapists hiding in the bushes. I'm almost entirely convinced that SVU has been lying to me all these years... We decided to go to the Central Park Zoo, as we had plenty of time on our hands and no real plans. It's kind of a sad little zoo, although it's not really surprising given how tiny Manhattan is in the grand scheme of things! Despite its tiny-ness, we still had a fun time. I was particularly taken with the fact that the snow leopard came out to play:

Usually they're sitting at the back of their cages looking sulky. I don't blame them, really! We sat by the seal pool for 20 minutes or so, just watching them play. Eventually, we tired of that (and that millions of small screaming children that were nearby) and headed off in the direction of Strawberry Fields. 

The park was filled with families and dogs and a bunch of old men on roller skates, which was ever so slightly confusing. But it didn't matter because it was a gorgeous day, which made me forget to look for dead bodies and SVU detectives for a whole five minutes:

We knew we'd reached Strawberry Fields when we heard a band playing Penny Lane. Having sung it as part of house music a millionty years ago, there's a possibility that I broke into song. I have a sneaking suspicion that I was better than they were... #winningatmodesty

Anyway. We eventually reached the John Lennon Memorial, and sat there for a while watching all the people take ridiculous photos of themselves making peace signs and duck faces. We briefly contemplated wandering further to see the Boathouse, the Reservoir and Belvedere Castle, but that seemed all too much like hard work. So instead, we headed back to the subway and our hotel. An hour or so later, we headed out in search of dinner. We vetoed the thousands of Irish pubs that we passed, briefly considered going to a restaurant that served mostly hummus, and instead ended up at a packed Italian restaurant. 

We really should have known that it wasn't going to be great when this happened:

Waitress: Can I get you guys some drinks to start?

Sara: I'm fine with water.

Me: Can I get a Sprite, please?

Kat: I'll have the cab sav [points at cabernet sauvignon on wine list]

Waitress: Sure thing!

[five minutes later]

Waitress: Okay. Here are your drinks. Three waters, a Sprite, and a White Zinfandel! 

Cab sav:

Source

White Zinfandel:

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Um, NO. They're not in any way the same thing. We eventually got that little misunderstanding sorted out, and resolved not to use Antipodean abbreviations in American restaurants again. 

I kind of wanted to order pizza, but a small pizza was 16" (!!!), and it seemed like you could pretty much only have a cheese pizza, and then pay extra to add a very limited number of toppings to it. As one of the few vegetarian toppings was broccoli, and as I'd learnt my lesson about broccoli and pizza in Chicago, I ended up ordering ravioli. As we were waiting for our food to arrive, we noticed that we had a ridiculously attentive busboy. Any time anyone in the restaurant so much as picked up their glass of water, he'd rush over with a jug to refill it the second they put it down. The same happened with clearing tables. No matter how far away the plates seemed to be, he'd make EXACTLY the same movement and they were suddenly in a pile in his hand. I quickly developed a theory that he was a robot busboy. This theory was further supported when he snatched Kat's plate away before she'd even put the cutlery down. Awkward. And definitely a robot.

And yet, despite the ridiculously attentive service from the busboy, we had to sit around the table looking expectant for a millionty years before we could get dessert. Sadly, the dessert turned out to be not worth the wait. Sigh. Not really what I'd hoped for on our last night in New York. 

Join me next time for the trip up to Boston.

Source

Sorry. I just wanted an excuse to include that somewhere...

K xx

It's official - my brain is on drugs

Seriously, y'all. I don't know what the hell my brain is smoking, but in the past year, it's been throwing out the strangest dreams EVER. There was the one where I had to save a bunch of puppies from being eaten by crocodiles. The one where I was playing baseball against Edward Cullen - in a supermarket. The one where a T-rex was rampaging through Woden eating bogans, and it had an animatronic velociraptor as a pet that was acting like a sheepdog and rounding up the bogans to be eaten. And the one where a friend had lost a hand in an industrial accident and wanted help selecting the most lifelike prosthesis.

But last night? Last night was by far the weirdest. It was my wedding day (which, for those of you who know me in real life, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA), and I was marrying Gene Hunt from Ashes to Ashes. This guy, for those of you who aren't familiar with the show:

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Sex on legs, no? So, yeah, that was weird enough. But then we need to add in the fact that these two were my bridesmaids:

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Yes, Catherine and Pippa Middleton. Sure, I went to primary school with them, but I've had no contact with either of them since 1994. And they were wearing really ugly pistachio (only slightly more olive) coloured dresses. We were running late, and couldn't get a taxi to get us to the venue. So someone from work gave us a lift. On her QUAD BIKE. And I didn't have a garment bag for my dress, so I was freaking out that it was going to get dirty. Speaking of my dress, it looked like this:

Aren't my Paint skills fantastic? I should totally sell my artwork for millions of dollars... Anyway, it was eggplant coloured silk. But the bits on the front were a combination of glittery crap and fake fur (the orange looked like a skinned Muppet). And the bottom bit was a layer of some kind of cheap, shiny navy blue crinkly fabric. Dream Kirsti took one look at it and went "Okay, what the FUCK was Past Kirsti drinking when she bought this thing??"

Anyway, we got to the venue (on the quad bike), and I headed inside to get changed. Only to find that the alterations place had scribbled a bunch of numbers across the neckline of my dress in permanent marker. Like THAT would make the dress worse! And then I remembered that I'd never gotten around to booking a hairdresser or buying fancy underwear, so I was going to have to walk down the aisle with my hair in a ponytail and wearing whatever knickers I'd grabbed from the cupboard that morning. Oh, and I hadn't shaved my legs, and I kept putting my shoes on only to find that I'd somehow put on my sneakers instead of my wedding shoes (which, weirdly given the colour of my dress, were white).

Then the best man came in. Who was the best man, you might ask? THIS DUDE:

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Yep. Niles, the butler from The Nanny. Anyway, Niles came in to tell me that there weren't enough gift baskets for the guests. Apparently I'd decided that we needed to give ACTUAL baskets to all our guests, and they were filled with scones wrapped in tea towels. Quite what I thought our guests would do with these during the ceremony, I have no idea. Then my mum arrived, and proceeded to tell me that after the ceremony, I had to go to school with her and read a couple of books to the grade 1s.

Oh, and my engagement ring was a ruby stuck to a piece of tin foil wrapped around my finger. And throughout the whole thing, I knew I was making a massive mistake, but the Middletons wouldn't let me have my phone to call a taxi or whatever.

And then, THANK GOD, I woke up before I had to go through with marrying a character from a TV show in the ugliest dress in history. If anyone has even the faintest clue what the FUCK my brain is trying to tell me, could you let me know?

Dear Brain,
Please stop smoking crack when I'm not looking. Kthxbai.
Love,
Kirsti

Please tell you guys have whacked out dreams all the time too???

K xx

Full moon weirdness

I was in the city (which, in my opinion, should be surrounded by sarcastic quotation marks...), and it was filled with some incredibly strange sights, which often resulted in fits of hysterics.

The first piece of weirdness was a man sat outside the Canberra Centre talking to his friend. This in itself contains nothing strange. The weirdness was this - the man was dressed in a ghillie suit. A GHILLIE SUIT! Yes, you can buy ghillie suits at Army Disposals shops. But a) WHY??, and b) why would you wear it to go to the shopping mall????? It seemed rather appropriate, given that I came across this during the week: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/15/ap/strange/main6963026.shtml

The second was about five minutes later. It was a woman in a shop that sold tea and teapots and stuff. She was riding a Segway. Of all the places that you could possibly ride something as stupid as a Segway, why in a shop filled with highly breakable things? Also, why would you spend $10,000 (yes, I Googled it) on a Segway when you could WALK?

The third was a girl who had painted her face white, and then done some kind of a skeleton thing over the top. And then she'd made the whole lot dribble down her face. She looked both ridiculous and incredibly self-conscious. I mean, if you're going to go all out with doing your make-up like that, surely you wouldn't be embarrassed by it?

And then today, the guy ahead of me in the check-out queue bought $110 worth of fillet steak, $2 worth of milk and $3 worth of bread. I don't even want to know what he has planned for the week ahead...

Gotta love a full moon - freak flags flying all over the place...

K xx

Confusion...

This arrived in the post for me at work on Friday: 

Awesome. I've been wanting an official Cats scarf for ages, but they're a total rip off at the games, and the sports stores up here don't even bother stocking AFL merchandise *sigh* So last week, I caved and bought one online through the Cats' website (and even with the shipping, it worked out cheaper than buying it at a game). But in addition to receiving just the scarf in the post, I got a great deal of amusement.

Let's start with the care information on the back of the cardboard thingy that lets them be hung on rack in store:

Turn inside out?????? Can anyone explain to me HOW you turn a scarf inside out? Especially when it's got tassels hanging off the ends... I also like the 'cool iron' and 'do not dry clean' lines - God forbid you turn up at Kardinia Park with a creased scarf!!

Then I checked the care label on the scarf itself, assuming that the hangy thing might be used for more than just scarves. It too says to turn it inside out before washing, but that's not what I particularly enjoyed.

No, my favourite part here was the last line (well, the last line besides the distribution information): One size fits most. Seriously? MOST??? It's over a metre long!! Find me the person with a neck circumference of over a metre, and I'll give you...oh, I don't know, a dollar? (Hey, I got my tax return during the week, and I'm classified as a low income earner by the government - a dollar is about all I can spare! Okay, I'm exaggerating. But still. All you're getting is a dollar, dammit!!)

Oh, and I've just remembered that I forgot to take a photo of the "with compliments" slip that came with the scarf. At the bottom of it was a disclaimer - "We only sell Half Cats, not real cats" (Half Cat is the name of the Geelong mascot). The idea of someone turning up at Kardinia Park trying to BUY an actual cat is remarkably entertaining to me. I really need to get out more................

K xx