I’m not usually one for live theatre. Ever since I saw Nikki Webster don an unbearable Kansas accent playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I’ve avoided it at all costs. But last weekend, with no Strawberry Kisses or airbrushed FHM covers in sight, I returned to the stalls to see Woyzeck. The thought of music and lyrics written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and a stage performance by Tim Rogers was too remarkable to pass up. And it was amazing. The music was enchanting, almost like Tim Rogers was channeling Cave and Ellis. The performances were sickeningly stunning and the staging and costumes were ingenious. Although the play was originally written in 1837, this performance transcended all space and time. The story of Woyzeck is frighteningly modern. It’s a story of a soldier who murders his lover, which seems a classic tale, but this production directed by Michael Kantor really defies normality and launches us into a tumbling world of madness, absurdity and disturbing familiarity. Woyzeck is playing at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne until February 28.

Aside from Monday morning at 3am after gallivanting about all day at Parklife, I hadn’t had two minute noodles since my short lived Maggi two-minute noodle obsession in year eight, which begun when my friend showed me how you mix in the flavour sachet with boiling water before adding it to the noodles (which was a revelation to my sprinkle-flavour-sachet-on-after-adding-water world). So when I reached for the faithful yellow Maggi packet from the back of the pantry the other night, you can imagine the sense of nostalgia I felt after a seven-year hiatus. But something was different. This time two sachets fell out of the packet. TWO SACHETS. For a moment I thought I had got lucky and got two packets of flavouring as a mistake. But I was wrong. It was a sachet of vegetables. Or little orange things that resembled carrot and one pea cut into about sixteen slithers. Seriously! Vegetables in two-minute noodles… If there was one recipe I thought would be guaranteed to never change – it’d be two minute noodles. How long has this been happening? And since when were they baked not fried? Is it acceptable to admit you eat two-minute noodles these days?

One supermarket check out betch settles the score on which apple reigns supreme

Granny Smith

Definitely the most over hyped apple ever. Possibly the most over hyped fruit ever. Studies show that when people think “apple” they think “Granny Smith”. This can only mean one thing. I will apply my logic of Nana’s Apple Pie here. People who have been deprived of homemade meals as a kid buy products like “Nana’s Apple Pie” and “Granny Smith” apples because they think that because the name conjours up a warm and fuzzy image of a caring old person wearing a hand knitted jumper with golliwogs on it serving up food to them, the same feeling will occur when they re-heat or chomp into the product at home. Heating up “Nana’s Apple Pie” in the microwave on high for five and a half minutes does not make up for the fact you let your kids eat Cheetos for breakfast and set fire to shrubs in your backyard.

Pink Lady

Misleading name (apples are red, not pink) but the sweetness makes up for it. I think this is the apple people avoid normally due to high prices, but once it’s on special even Home Brand Marree buys a bag. Sometimes the sweetness is a little too sickening, but so is the red and green colour combination of my bedroom walls/curtains and I have learnt to put up with that.

Fuji

The illusive apple. I heard a Fuji apple talking to a Red Delicious Apple once and recorded the conversation…

Red Delicious: I’ve been here for three whole years. I can’t take the fluorescent lights and constant Wham over the speakers anymore…

Fuji walks into the room after overhearing Red Delicious complaining to himself.

Fuji: Oh shut it, shit face.

Red Delicious: When did you get here?

Fuji: Flew in from a Steve Aoki/Cobrasnake party in Paris last night, slept for 3 hours, few guest appearances around the town over the next few days then flying out to the Full Moon Party in Thailand to meet some fine bitches on Wednesday.

Red Delicious: Oh

Fuji: Where’s the coke?

Crimson Snow

Sounds like something you paint on your toenails. Don’t know that much more about it except no one buys them and if they do they are probably a pretentious Tookrak mother who stops at “crimson” traffic lights.

Golden Delicious

I have never stopped someone from stealing anything from work, except once. One man put a Red Delicious apple and a Golden Delicious apple in the same bag and told me they were both the price of a Red Delicious apple. And I said “No, the Golden Delicious apple is a bit dearer” and weighed them seperately. Then because I did that, he couldn’t afford them and didn’t buy anything. I AM SUCH A BITCH. Who does that? He was a pensioner for fucks sake. Racked with guilt from this incident I let anyone steal anything, as long as they disguise it cleverly… eg the two apples, one bag trick.

Red Delicious

The bane of my existence. Why does it even try to be an apple. It’s soft, powedery and tasteless. Yet people still buy it because it’s garantteed to be the cheapest apple on sale at any one time. I ate a Red Delicious once because I was lured in my it’s shiny dark red exterior and the fact it resembeled the apple from Sleeping Beauty. It was worse than the time my sister sprinkled sugar on buttered popcorn instead of salt. I’d like to say I won’t be tricked again by falling for something with a hint of shine and a relation to a childhood movie. But everyone knows if American Apparel released their take on David Bowie’s outfit from Labyrinth I’d be first in line.

If you see me gnawing at and/or slowly devouring my bedroom walls from this weekend onwards let me tell you now, it’s not because my body is craving plaster and dried up blu-tack from when I decided to cover my room with Tazos. It’s because I’m painting my room a delectable shade of Iced Vovo. Dulux hooked me in by naming their paint colours after that famous “pink fondant either side of a strip of strawberry jam and sprinkled with coconut” (according to the Iced Vovo page on Wikipedia which I may or may not be the main contributor to). But seriously how much pulling power does the name of a colour of paint have when choosing the shade for your bedroom walls? If I was in the market for a crisp white bucket of paint for my minimalist bedroom, no questions asked I’d pick Mexican Milk over White Watsonia any day. Purple gal? I’d recommend Astro Zinger or for a more subdue choice, try Fiddlesticks. If you want to liven things up with yellow you could swing by Cowardly Custard or even a nice shade of Garfield slapped on your wall. If you don’t have a sweet tooth and a bucket of liquid Iced Vovo doesn’t tempt you, there is always the savoury version called Slippery Salmon to fall back on. Dulux caters for everyone.

I received a certificate in the mail yesterday that is probably my greatest achievement yet.  Actually, make that ever. It beats “participation” ribbons in school athletics and “encouragement” awards for sticking with piano lessons through the hard times of destroying that song that ice cream trucks play. I got an award for turning twenty-one. Pretty sweet. I didn’t even have to do anything or even give anything my best shot and fail miserably. Somehow my local member of council knew and congratulated me on my mean feat. I know probably hundreds of other people turned 21 on that same day and they all got letters too… but hey, a certificate is a certificate. And when you are used to your family celebrating the fact you finished races without passing out, you cling to what you got.

Tell me you didn’t bite into your watermelon flavoured Lip Smacker at least once as a kid? Now I find out there’s 7-Up and something that looks like a Fanta equivalent tasting Lip Smackers! Pretty sure I’m never eating real food again. Yeah the thought of Dr Pepper on my lips freaks me out slightly, but that’s only because in primary school people told me it was made out of medicine (they were probably confused by the “Dr” in the title). Cheers!

Apparently watching teen soaps like The O.C. and Gossip Girl with your parents is a better way of getting sex education than those cartoon books Where Did I Come From? and What’s Happening To Me? It’s pretty much what kids around the world have always known, but now there’s the official report to prove it. A British social service agency says that the best way to get the awkward sex conversations flowing with your kids is to sit down and watch a nice “steamy” ep of The O.C. with them. No one has used the word “steamy” since Marcia invited all friends around for an all-girl sleepover in the original Brady Bunch episodes, but I guess I’d chose TV over pictures of a cartoon sperm drawing wearing a top hat holding a rose any day.

So Mean Girls is soon going to become a video game. I’m guessing you’ll play Lindsay Lohan pre-drug fiend and earn points by solving Mathletes equations and wearing pink on Wednesdays. Apparently the fact that the game is being developed in conjunction with Legacy Interactive means it will be a cheap and disposable with a safe and boring plot line. I can’t help but think they should take some inspiration from Grand Theft Auto and let you drive around in a school bus running down Regina George and earn money by selling Calteen bars on street corners. Who’s with me? Regular moms might not be down with it, but I’m sure “cool moms” would.

Originally posted at Yen online

Ah, Lego. The lazy man’s brick and mortar. I’m proposing that builders use Lego to construct everything from now on. The world would be a much better place. Not enough room on the train? Build another carriage. Housemate ate all your Tic Tocs? Build a fort in your backyard with no windows or doors and only dry biscuits inside and keep that pesky person inside until they realise Tic Tocs are worth their weight in gold. Boyfriend thinks he looks good with a red beard? Switch his head for someone else’s sans fire truck whiskers. I could clearly go on forever. The Lego brick is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. I suggest instead of paying a labourer the next time you need renovations done – do it yourself with Lego. You’ll save money and you’ll have the craziest coloured bathroom this side of the seventies.

Who didn’t have a sugar-coated yet brief obsession with Pez dispensers at some time in their childhood? You know the drill… start the collection with your classic Minnie Mouse dispenser and after doing a bit of research, realise that you could NEVER collect them all, and turn your attention to chip packets in hope of a rare Tazo that would make you the envy of the playground. Yes, it’s true that the handful of Pez dispensers I saved my pocket money for are long lost, tossed into the mass-grave of primary school fads that also contains my Tamagotchi, Chia Pet and “The Brain” Yo-Yo. And quite frankly, I haven’t actually given a thought to Pez and all it’s painfully colourful, dextrose-ridden, head flippin’ glory for a good few years. Until now.

Enter Micky Mouse: the suicide bomber. Don’t forget Pluto the cannibal and Bob the Builder the ladies man. French artists, Jean Sebastien Ides and best-friend Ivan Duval (aka Atypyk) have hand-transformed everyday sickly saccharine cartoon characters into characters with an edge. Certainly not the kind of folk you’ll find in the next Disney film, unless Mickey Mouse decides to give up

Toon
Town to become a member of the Klan… you never know. There are future plans for an international exhibition but for now get your sugar-fix at SweetWorld.