Dammit. WHAT is Andrew and Kathleen‘s secret? It’s killing me. I mean, I think I know – you’re all thinking it too – but we could be wrong, right? So come on, guys, tell us before I explode!

Ebert gives Batman Begins four stars! Now maybe I can convince the Snook to go see it. (I like superhero movies a lot. Him… not so much.)

Famewhoring burns calories!
Yes, it’s true. As Tracey noticed, that was me knitting with the Nuala, the Channel 7 weathergirl, on the evening news tonight. A bunch of us from the shop went down to help promote the Salvation Army’s Knitting for our Homeless event this weekend. Man, my hair looked RED! The Snook’s extracting the video and I’ll have it posted in the morning.

After the newscast I headed into Glebe for my catch-up Weight Watchers meeting (since yesterday’s was cancelled because of the holiday). Again, I LOST WEIGHT. That doesn’t sound remarkable because you people don’t know what I ate this past weekend. On Friday night the Barkers watched me eat a veal schnitzel the size of a dinner plate with a side of deep-fried potatoes and wash it all down with three pints of beer. (Mmmmm, beer.) And I still lost over a kilo! My weight loss is now defying the LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS. I can’t explain it. It’s like a sign from the universe telling me that my efforts to get rid of this virus are ALL IN VAIN, because it’s a GOOD VIRUS, and I love it and want to keep it forever. My precious, precious virus.

Oh, yeah, and so I ended up doing some more famewhoring, because there was a journalist at our meeting covering the Weight Watchers group leader pay dispute (which is spearheaded by our leader). The journo explained that nobody had to be photographed if they didn’t want to, but most of us ended up hanging around. The guy took a bunch of pictures from behind and then asked if anybody was willing to go up front for a few. Nobody moved. Finally I was like, “Sure, why not? I’m not from this bloody country anyway.” So I stood up and told my little story while the the photographer circled the room. Later I asked the journalist where the story would run and she said – barring any legal complications – it should appear in Good Weekend sometime soon.

So keep your eyes out for my newly skinny form, soon coming to every form of media in Australia. I expect to be appearing on Neighbours next year…

I saw it on the news and had to go to the official site to confirm: Tetsuya was awarded the Order of Australia today! We have to go there now.

What a long and unblogged weekend!

Friday I had my first experience with dentistry outside the U.S. I know, I know… I’ve been living overseas for, what, over five years now? But we’ve got private health insurance now and I felt like it was finally time to do something about the way my wisdom teeth keep flaring up in this INTENSELY PAINFUL WAY every few months. Sure enough, it looks like they’re going to have to come out. (The bottom ones, anyway.) I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ve never had an operation. Everyone who’s ever had them out has differing tips and horror stories too. At any rate, the HCF Dental Centre in Chatswood was really cool in a futuristic kinda way. I’m used to tiny little rural dental practices. This was like dentistry as practiced with economies of scale. I was directed back into a massive warren of cubicles, each manned with a little Asian dentist and assistant. I drew Dr. Tang, who had an extremely Ocker accent and threatened to beat me over the head with a book if I don’t start flossing. I liked him.

After the dentist I had lunch with Rodd’s sister Jeannie and his nephew Kurt. (Hey, I guess he’s my nephew now too! Odd that I never really thought of that before. I’m an Aunt!) We had a lovely visit. Afterwards I had a long walk from Milson’s Point over the Harbour Bridge into the city. What a gorgeous day. I was just walking along, listening to the iPod and having this total Tara D Moment where I just felt so in tune with the universe and in love with the city and so grateful about the state of my life. Oh, and obsessively poking my tongue into the seemingly gigantic holes between my newly-cleaned teeth.

I’m rambling on and on. I’ll never get to Monday at this rate! I should go faster. On my way home I saw a car on fire in the middle of George Street. I called the Snook and took pictures with my phone but it never blew up or anything, so eventually I headed back to Chippendale. That night we took Amy and Rob over to Una’s for some much-needed bratwurst and beer action. We finished the night watching Samson & Sharkey at the Nag’s, where Sharkey was so kind as to dedicate an Elvis song to the Snook and me. Saturday, of course, we pulled up pretty short after all that beer. I just made it to the Knitting Guild meeting that morning. We spent the rest of the day eating zucchini bread and lazing about. I also managed to finish the Snook’s Slytherin scarf – in record time! – in preparation for our trip to Hogsmeade. Sunday it was back to work for me, but luckily today was a public holiday so my week is all nicely broken up. (The colonials are all supposed to be celebrating Lizzie’s birthday.) I spent the day knitting a new sweater for the Snook while he brewed a beer in honour of the sovereign. As it’s a brown ale, I believe he’s calling it “Her Majesty Mrs. Brown.” Heh.

Face Analyzer – You upload a picture and this site purports to analyze your race, gender, and aspects of your personality. It’s pretty crap though. The first one I uploaded was my short hair and it came back with “No archetype found.” I’m a mutt! Then I tried this one with long blonde hair and glasses. It pegged me as a 100% Chinese male. Whatever. And no matter what I uploaded of the Snook, it always came back as predominantly Middle-Eastern. I even tried one with no facial hair – thinking that was the issue – and it pegged him as a Middle-Eastern/Eastern-European female! He must be too pretty.

The funniest parts of this Fugging are the references to Dawson’s Creek:

Joey Potter would not lie to me like that. She didn’t lie to me when she went off on that boat with Pacey, and she didn’t lie to me when Dawson’s dad died chasing an errant scoop of ice cream, and she wouldn’t start now.

And what’s with Tom Cruise wearing the leather jacket everywhere? He wigs me out.

Via John: Dating a Developer. You know, I’d have to disagree with several of those “tips.” In fact, most of them actually apply to me way more than the Snook. I’m the one that stays up all night writing code to categorize cross-stitch charts. I’m the one on the street pointing out the frequency of iPods to iPod Shuffles (“…and can you believe that wanker still using a Nokia N-Gage?”) I’m the one with the growing collection of Apple-related T-shirts. (I’m totally making my own “Steve Jobs is my homeboy” shirt.) Him? He’s in bed every night by 10:30. He never notices people’s gadgets (or their shoes or anything else about them, for that matter). He’s not a bleeding-edge consumer; he finds old hard drives in our apartment complex’s garbage room and tries to bring them back to life. He doesn’t drool over the Apple Store. I think he’s a lot more old-school geek than the new era of fanboy Mac-loving CSS cowboy “designers,” and I prefer him that way.

Oh, and #2? She was SO WRONG on that one. My Snookums only has eyes for me. 🙂

Via the Snook: A scotch egg… made from an ostrich egg. Normally I loves me some scotch egg, but blecch! (I’m still a little queasy from the thought of poor Charla eating an entire scrambled ostrich egg on The Amazing Race.)

Bookstores: The Natural Laxative? That is the funniest Ask MetaFilter of ALL TIME. “The power of bowels compels me!” Bwa ha ha!