Album Release Announcement

************URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT********YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST************

For anyone who has read my blog in the past (people keep threatening to, but I'm not sure if they've been brave enough to follow through with it), you'll know I've been learning guitar. Well, basically, I've learnt all the chords and a few scales. Soooooo...it is without further adieu that I announce: 

A Fine Line Between Snores and Farts. 

Kirsty Webeck's first folk album. 

So basically, here's the story, I'm going to need lessons for about 5 or 6 years before I can write or record anything. So I just wanted to let the world know that I'm ready for the challenge, I've thought of the album's name and I've got a goal that I'm striving toward in leaps and bounds. At the moment I think the release date will be around September 3, 2014, but I'll keep the schedule up-to-date via this blog. 

Later in the week I'll be posting the lyrics to my first mega-hit just so you can get to know them before the album hits the charts. 

Thanks for all your support guys. I really appreciate it. 

xx

Amendments

With a view to fooling the world into thinking that anyone reads my blog, I have removed the 'followers' section. This way I can tell people that I'm taking a few days off work to reply to all the mail I've received from the thousands of followers who read my blog and would probably die without it. 

There is no need to display one's significant lack of readership. The good thing is that I am my biggest fan. I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes I can make myself cry with laughter. I know I probably shouldn't be admitting to that, but it's not an ego thing. I'm fully aware that half (or more) of the things I say, don't make sense, certainly aren't funny and send people off looking puzzled, often shepherding their children away from me with gentle whispers reassuring them that they'll never have to meet me again. 

I'm not a stranger to being introduced to people with stern looks warning me not to say something too ridiculous. You know, that gritted teeth utterance of one's name, while (to the untrained eye) gently resting one's hand on the potential screw-up's shoulder, all the while the finger tips are burrowing a hole into the shoulder. That kinda thing! 

Anyway, I've covered a lot of ground since the original thought of taking down my 'followers' list. It was a bit bleak, a bit grim, the kind of thing that you think you must have checked the wrong box for:

Would you like your blog to kick you in the teeth and remind you everytime you log on that you're a loser? Check the box below to activate this feature.

On that note, I'm going to go find that check box and uncheck it. I've recently started writing proverbs too, so I can leave some of my wisdom on this Earth for everyone. 

The sitting duck and the cicada both reached for the same cob loaf. The baker tilted his silly hat and all the darkness in the world was left whispering through the willows like that weird sound you make when you're trying to scratch the back of your throat...with your throat. 

Lipsty 16/7/2009 - I trust that I don't need to explain this. 

Besos.

Lipsty 

The Taiwan Weekly

Motorcyle Hidden By Layers of Bird Faeces.

A Shida resident awoke early on Thursday morning to discover a large, white mound in place of her motorcycle. Upon closer inspection, the worried resident realised that the white mound was in fact her motorcycle covered in faecal matter from some kind of avian species. In a country that has in the past held grave fears about bird flu, it would seem that an even bigger threat today is bird poo (although rhyming with bird flu, it is a completely different threat).

Ms. Wang parked her motorcycle in the alley at around 9:30pm on Wednesday night. Unbeknownst to her, she was making the fateful error of parking under one of the few trees in the neighbourhood. Ms. Wang has indicated that if she could turn back time she never would have made this decision (and she'd take back those words that hurt you, and you'd say... - or is that from the Cher song?).

"I just took it for granted that there was a parking space free, in such a busy part of the city I seized the opportunity and parked there. Now I know why the space was vacant," a teary Ms. Wang explained while digging through the pile with a packet of wet wipes.

Thankfully for Ms. Wang litigation is alive and well in Taiwan and she will be pursuing the matter with local authorities. She is currently seeking legal advice from Lee, Chen and the Money Grabbing Associates about how to go about suing the local council. In addition, she will sue the national government for outlawing bird hunting in the city, and she will also seek damages from the birds themselves. She is also pursuing avenues to sue the local restaurant owners who covered their mouths and giggled uncontrollably throughout her ordeal, while pointing her hidden motorcycle out to passersby. For now, all of us at the Taiwan Weekly wish Ms. Wang all the best in her endeavours to uncover the rest of her motorcycle.

By: Lipsty

Humble Pie

To My Sister,

I am sorry for saying you have ginger hair on your Facebook page. You don't have ginger hair. Most people can see you don't have ginger hair and I hope you don't have any 'friends' on your Facebook account that don't know you well enough to know that you DON'T (I repeat, DON'T) have ginger hair.

If anyone ever says you have ginger hair I will personally write you a reference saying you DON'T have ginger hair. Again, I'm sorry for the confusion. Your hair is very NOT ginger.

Thanks in advance for accepting this apology.

Love,
Lipsty

Reverse Sigh-kology

Holler! I'm guessing that to successfully undertake reverse psychology on yourself you have to have a certain level of intellect. This is clearly a level that I've not reached yet. 

Example A: Recently, I have realised that my fear of cockroaches has spiralled out of control. This dawned on me numerous times, but especially when my hair fell on my face and I thought it was a cockroach so smashed myself in the side of the face with my mobile phone, leaving a bruise on my cheekbone. I thought, something has got to give. So I tricked myself (a little more so than I care to admit). I decided to try to think of cockroaches around my garden as pets, and to let them be and try to adjust my feelings  toward them rather than adjusting their life spans. 

Result: I realised I'm a pet killer. Despite their new status as 'pet,' I was still mauling them with gallons of cockroach spray. 

Side effect of the result: Feelings of sadness knowing I'm a pet killer. Who knows when I'll stop? I'm scared to walk past the park in case I suddenly decide to kill the neighbours golden retriever. 

Lesson for the general public: Don't ask me to pet sit when you go on holidays unless you want to come back to find Fluffy and Wiggles lifeless and stuck to the ground covered in white spray.

I'm really not very good at this stuff at all. It can go either way, I feel ridiculous because I know I'm tricking myself, or I trick myself really well, forget I'm tricking myself, let myself down and then feel like a failure...then ages down the track I remember I was tricking myself and have to deal with the effects of mixed feelings - pride that I tricked myself so well, and fright that even I can trick myself so well. 

When will it end? Hasta la vista cockroaches, thanks for making me realise I'm a sigh-ko! 

I wonder if Oprah kills cockroaches? I wonder MORE why there are so bloody many cockroaches in Taiwan. I wonder EVEN MORE why the hell I'm still here with all the little stinkers! 

Who's to say in this crazy, mixed up world. 

Love to you and your pets! 

xxxx 

 

Public Displays of Affliction

Holler! What is it about hobbies that make them so attractive? I'm one of those people that come up with a new hobby every other day, some of them more wholeheartedly than others. I guess this blog in itself could be thought of as a hobby. Obviously a rather sporadic one, but a hobby nonetheless. I admire people that can do something on a super regular basis. However, right now I'm hiding behind this lame excuse that I blog in waves because 'it's my style'. Let me carry on thinking that.

As I'm typing about hobbies, I am feeling the numb effects on my fingertips of my latest 'hobby'. I'm learning the guitar. Ouch! It hurts for the first few weeks hey! I took up the guitar as a direct response to the stresses of changing jobs and moving house.

Speaking of which, my house is awesome, however it came at a great price. The tenant before me obviously hadn't been taught too much about keeping a clean house or taking out trash. As a result, 1.5 years worth of beer and wine bottles and pizza boxes were very strategically placed all throughout a one bedroom apartment and its garden. Awesome! The only redeeming thing in this situation was that it afforded me the opportunity to witness some of the most bizarre human behaviour I've witnessed to date. Examples include, but are not limited, to the following:

1) The downstairs neighbour complaining that the noise from the front door of the apartment (the sharehouse I was living in before moving upstairs) was too loud, so kindly doused the whole thing in peanut oil. Not the hinges of course, but the other end of the door. Is the door quieter? No. Do all of the occupants of that house have sticky hands all the time? Yes.

2) The painters took the liberty of having a nap on my bed. Yup, all three of them, snug as a bug in a rug. On my bed. When they didn't respond to my 'evil eye' I realised it was best to leave them there.

3) The aforementioned downstairs neighbour biding her time, then seizing the chance to run through the front door in the sharehouse, through to the back of the apartment, around onto the balcony, in what could only be described as rat-like stealth, to start furtively working away in the corner of the balcony. When approached by a rather irate yours truly, she went on a rant in Chinese about how she was helping us for free and no one takes care of the building but she is doing it all for free, hero this, hero that, shut up lady, get out of my house lady. Wild, nosy woman on the third floor!

4) The sliding door man was supposed to come to replace the fly screen doors (said ex-tenant/animal ripped a hole in them for his cats to pass through/shed their fur all over). He called me at 10am on Saturday morning to tell me to get down to the 7-11 two blocks away and help him get the doors upstairs. One can imagine what I told him to do with his doors. I was paying a decent amount of money to have him do the work, he was happy to walk away. Weird!
As a result, the joke of the month continues, "the last tenant left his cat here, there it is, coming out of the hole in the fly screen." What can I say? I'm not removing the filthy hairball from the door. Judging by the way he lived up here, it may even be his own fur.

5) The garbage woman came bright and early on Sunday morning to clear more of the debris that was left behind. After giving her careful instructions, I stumbled back to bed. About 15 minutes later I suddenly woke up and decided to check on her, just in time to see her murdering my aloe vera plant in what can only be described as a frenzied attack. After confiscating them, a bit of CPR and some repotting I am pleased to report that they are all doing fine, however, I have been woken during the night to hear them crying out with nightmares of 'the incident'.

So, like I said, these are but a few examples of the tyranny I faced while trying to get this place back to a reasonable condition! Tough crowd.

In all of these people's defense, they have given me something to write about, not to mention the phobia of Taiwanese tradespeople. Just kidding, this is just a small sample ;)

Anyway, here's a quick acrostic poem (no Tuesday is complete with out one) before I choose one of my hobbies to hoe into before I say my prayers to Oprah and hit the hay.


Excuse me, how gross.
Xylophones could clean better than you.

Truly, what a shambles.
Ech, I feel sick, sick, sick.
Nothing seems to clean off the scum.
Arrrghhhhhhh so yucky.
No, thanks. I won't accept your apology.
Thanks for nothing, wanker.

Heartfelt, emotional and full of raw feelings. That, dear readers, is a window into the pain I am feeling right now.

Until next time, don't cast the first stone unless you're in a glass house.

Lipsty
xx

Editing Prize

The first one out of my one fan to find the typos in the previous blog post will receive a free 10 minute session on Skype with me.

Letter of Thanks

Dear Crabs,

You don't know me. My name is Lipsty, I'm an Australian writer/editor living in Taiwan. I've been a big fan of you guys ever since I was a kid. On a trip to the Philippines a couple of years ago I realised that there was something I could do to get even closer to you guys - crab walking.

Ever since that day I have regularly paid homage to you by crab walking in a range of different situations, to a range of different venues. Below is a list (not complete) of different ways I have indugled in crab walking:

1. I crab walked to the 711 once
2. I crab walked for part of the journey to walk the other day
3. I crab walked up and down a flight of stairs
4. I crab walked around my classroom once
5. I crab walked into an elevator at a major department store
6. I crab walked from my table at the pub to the bathroom once
7. I crab walked from my scooter into Starbucks once

I could continue for ages but I don't want to waste your valuable time as I'm sure you also have a lot of crab walking to do. I just wanted to thank you guys for changing my life and giving me something to be passionate about.

Here's to many more crab walking excursions.

Yours sincerely,

Lipsty

Punctuation!?,,,,,

Just as a quick side note, I've noticed (along with others) in my new writing and editing job that I am a bit tight with the old punctuation. I've never been one to chuck in an extra comma here or there. I'm, going to! start, turning over a - new leaf,,,,,,.! 

Holler at me, if, you think! I'm' missing out on any punctua,ti,on marks! 

Word! 

Remember That Time You Didn't Write A Blog for 27 Days and Other Observations

I'm remembering that time! Seems like a distant memory now that I'm tap dancing on the keyboard preparing to write something Earth shattering to give my anonymous readers something to while away the seconds (or maybe even minutes if I can be bothered). I love observant people. You know who you are. Particularly when they catch you doing something damning. Even better, is an unobservant person who snaps out of their daily haze to catch you at your worse. 

Like the teacher who'd miss all of my friends' typos on their school assignments but managed to zero in on my "pubic relations" report. Certainly a lot more fun than "public" relations. Although, others would argue that the best past time of all would be "public pubic relations" - ooohhh the thrill of getting caught. 

Like my ESL student who always wrote "bog" instead of "dog" but managed to catch me out leaving an "o" out of balloon. The little dude couldn't string a sentence together but rose to triumph over his teacher. It was a simple writing error, by the way, it had nothing to do with my propensity to spell simple words. Needless to say he didn't receive any stickers for a week. 

Like my taxi driver the other night who waited for me to nestle into my sticky, stinky seat before announcing in Chinese, "you're a foreigner." I'm sure had he realised the magnitude of the awkward silence that was to follow, he never would have pointed out the obvious to me. I'm not sure if was the pasty white skin, the blue eyes or the curly "mother of pearl" hair that gave it away. Who has "mother of pearl" coloured hair by the way? I think it's more a tooth colour than hair,  it's certainly not the colour of my hair. A lot of fun to declare, too. Actually, this guy isn't even a good example of what I'm talking about - but never mind! 

Anyway, I guess I'm going to stop playing hard to get. I've been asked by my one fan (you know who you are) to keep the blogs coming. So I will. Just for you. If you're willing to read the rubbish that I drivel on a regular basis, then I should at least be forthright with the drivel. 

An interesting exchange that I had at my favourite local Middle Eastern restaurant tonight: 

Waitress: Would you like the Egyptian cigars?

Me: No, I'm Australian. 

Sometimes 2 + 2 really does equal 5. 

Stay tuned for Friday's newsflash of the week. Back by popular demand - designed to keep my fan at bay ;) 

Remember to thank Oprah before each meal, remember if it's a cheap curry you'll be in the bathroom for days afterwards and that it's easier to kill two stones with one mockingbird...or whatever. 

Lipsty!