Remember Smarties? Before M&M's came to our shores, Smarties were the only candy-shelled chocolate product available in Australia. It looks like times are tough at Smarties HQ, they're trying everything to woo back chocolate lovers. First they introduced the blue smartie, then they got rid of the brown smartie, and now their latest ploy... Alphabet Smarties! But of course I had to get some. Educational and tasty! What more could I want

Tonight my sister and I ate bad chinese food and watched The Muppets Take Manhattan. It continues to baffle me how Miss Piggy can sing that high. If anything, I would have thought a pig would be a low, gravelly kind of alto if it were suddenly able to sing. Manhattan is not a patch on the granddaddy of all muppet movies, The Muppet Movie. The one I can recite. But by the same token, it nice to weep tears of nostalgia over my already soggy spring roll when I saw my favourites - Animal, Ralf the Dog, Fozzie, Rizzo the Rat... ahh.. they just don't make puppets like they used to *sniffle*.

Transcript of today's Big Scary Meeting™ With The Boss:

BOSS: So let's talk about your contract.
SHAUNA:*gulp* Okay.
B: We're happy with you. I'd like to extend your contract until the end of October.
S: How about until 1st of November? Then I'll be here for my birthday.
B: Why do you want to be here for your birthday?
S: Because we have cake.

I was trudging back to my car this eve with a trolley full of groceries when I noticed the Great Dane. A great big brown smooth-hair doe-eyed Great Dane, sitting on the passenger seat in a tiny Holden Barina, his oversized snout resting mournfully on the dash.

I'm a sucker for big brown eyes at the best of times, but when the big brown eyes are attached to a big brown furry body trapped inside a tiny white car with all the windows wound up, I saw red.

My sister, who'd gone back to purchase something we'd forgotten, awwwwed when she saw him there. I pointed out to her that all the windows were up. Then I asked her did she have a Post-It note.

There's thing with me and cars and Post-It's that goes back a fair way. Back in my crazy uni days we once happened along a car with two flat tyres. So I scribbled on a post-it and slapped it on the hub cab, "Hey. Your tyre's flat". Then we added to the other, "And so's this one."

And the poor soul who left their lights on one foggy winter morn: "You left your lights on, dickhead!"

Then another day we found this obnoxious powder blue Volvo parked in a place that was clearly not a proper parking spot. And knowing that the driver of said obnoxious powder blue Volvo was quite obnoxious herself, we promptly scribbled, "THAT'S NOT A PARK!". Which sat prettily next to the parking fine the campus nazis slapped on there 5 minutes later.

So today, I brewed about the doggy gasping for air for about 15 seconds before asking my sister, "Don't spose you've got a Post-It?"

She handled me the crumpled shopping list. Carrots, OJ, museli bars, laundry liquid, rice, ice cream, Harry Food... There was just enough room for me to scrawl my note: "GIVE YOUR POOR DOG SOME VENTILATION"

I chewed my pen in deep thought before adding "YOU BASTARDS!"

My sister grinned and carefully stuck the note to the door of the car, made some consoling kissy-kiss noises in the Dane's general direction before screeching to me, "Quuuuuuuick! Quick! Drive awayyyyyy!"

So we sped out of the parking lot, laughing maniacally. We were halfway back into the city when I said, "I wish we could have seen the owner's reaction!"

"Yessssss.... me tooooo."

Three minutes and a red light later we were back in the carpark, staking out the offending vehicle. I'm sure we were most inconspicuous, a big gold coloured car hiding behind a concrete pole and some abandoned trolleys in a deserted Sunday night carpark.

But we didn't have to wait long. A young woman with badly bleached hair, sweat pants and cigarette sauntered to the car. She plucked it off, read it, frowned, looked around furtively then tossed it away. The dog jumped around happily when she opened the car door.

"Woohoo!" my sister squealed. "Now let's go home!"

"No no no, wait wait. I want to get the note so I can scan it for my web page!"

"Just drive! DRIVE!"

I was on morning tea duty at work on Friday, and instead of mindlessly plonking down a tea bun from Baker's Delight, I decided to put a bit more effort into it. My colleague and I decided on an 80s Theme. My memories of 80s cuisine all revolve around my mothers' dinner parties. I'm not sure if this was just a small town thing or if she was just so inspired by her vast collection of Woman's Weekly cookbooks, but the dinner party was de rigueur, however you spell it.

The DP was stressful for all involved, because it was not about a nice meal and a drink with friends. It meant spending a frantic couple of days beforehand scrubbing and polishing the house and the carefully careless arrangement of magazines on coffee tables, to prove to your friends that despite working 50 hours a week, you were totally together and had the perfect household, perfect children, and perfect beef stroganoff.

Before the meal of course came the nibblies. This is what we recreated at work on Friday. Jatz crackers, French Onion dip, cheese, cabanossi. And of course, the cocktail onions, glowing red like a radioactive Rudolph.

"What if noone gets it? What if it's just a little bit too tacky?" I asked my colleague in a panic as I arranged a pile of lamingtons.

"Nonsense!" she said, skewering a piece of cabanossi with a gloriously kitsch Australian flag toothpick.

But it was a great success. Pretty soon everyone was laughing and munching and reminiscing about Allan Bond, the recession, Spandau Ballet, Challenger and hair mousse.

"Ahhh I remember that day in '83 when we won the America's Cup," mused my boss.

"Oh yes. I was in Kindergarten that year," I piped up.

"You're fired."

Ladies: If the strain of the working day is becoming all too much, simply sneak off to the powder room and sit down on the loo seat. Close your eyes, lean forward and rest your weary head on your sprawling mammaries that provide a very comfy pillow. I had a brief but pleasant slumber in this manner just now, and was skillfully able to tune out the sounds of toilet business and bitchy women flocking around the mirrors.

Now you too can have your very own exclusive What's New Pussycat t-shirt! Stun your friends with your sexy style, offend your grandmother with your lack of taste and make me feel more popular than ever possibly conceived in this delightful 100% pure cotton garment!

I just bought a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine, something I haven't done since I was 16. Okay, I tell a lie, I bought a copy a few years back coz it had a feature on Pubic Hairstyles, and I thought that was the most frigging hilarious and depserate-for-content thing I'd ever seen and I had to show it to friends because they couldn't believe such a thing was actually published.

Anyhoo, I was sick of this chick at work bagging me for my "wanky-wannabe-intellectual" taste in magazines, books, CD's, so I thought I'd get the trash mag to show her I can be one of the common people *smirk*. Some coverlines from this month:

• GIRL SEX: The new one-night stand that doubles your wardrobe
• "The moment she rocked my world" - 69 in-love men tell
• How to touch a naked man so he'll cook you dinner for a week
• Is your haircut making you look fat?
  
• What he thinks when he sees your orgasm face.

Hmmm, intruiging. It's somewhat comforting to see things haven't changed. In this crazy uncertain post-modern techo world, women's magazines are still pointless and irritating as ever. And there's still the free panty liner sample!

That Delia Smith is one foxy wench. She was even prim and proper during the bloopers at the end of her show. I bet there's a dungeon underneath that kitchen of hers. She's so efficient and orderly, "add one AND A HALF teaspoons of vanilla extract"... "fold in the chocolate GENTLY NOW!". There's none of the slaphappy stylings of The Naked Chef, who returns to our screens next week. I'll the miss the military precision of Mistress Delia.

"I want to take you all on a journey... to a special place.... to.... the other side.... the other side.... of this song..."

Profound words from one of the most profound musicians of our time, Darren from Savage Garden. Or was it Daniel? Darryl? Dennis? Who the hell cares. I had the misfortune of flicking over to Channel 7 last night to catch a minute of Superstars and Cannonballs - Savage Garden Live in Australia. Here was the D-Man, the one with the spiky hair who think he's Bono, strutting up and down the stage in leather pants and a headset mic. He urged the crowd to come on this "journey" in his squeaky, breathy tones that made Michael Jackson sound like Barry White.

Camera pans over the crowd. It basically consisted of over-excited 12 year olds with spice girl platforms, braces and glittery shit in their hair, too young to know better. And their mothers, clinging furiously to their youth. Mountainous thighs spilling from too-tight skirts, magnificient hairstyles rising like a new apartment block, eyes glazing over at the sight of the D-Man's perky arse as he ponced along the stage.

Savage Garden: Sex Beasts Extraordinaire. But I gotta wonder if this was the kind of crowd they envisaged when they began their music career? Did Dazza picture little kiddies and middle-aged ladies screaming when he practiced his funky dance moves? Hmm.

Walter Matthau has passed on, aged 79. If I had a dollar for every time I had to sit through Dennis The Menace with my little cousins, I'd be rolling in it, "Oh Mr Wiiiiiiiiilson!". But Walter was brilliant in all his crotchety old man roles. My favourite had to be Charade, with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. He had a lot of classic lines in that one. None of which I can remember right now. Oh well. I'll miss the ol fella all the same *sniffle*.

My mouse is seriously ticking me off. The cursor is moving with all the grace and smoothness of a ballet-dancing elephant. There's nothing more frustrating when you go to drag something and you just can't get it to move. There's only so much you can achieve with keyboard shortcuts! This would have to be the 8th mouse I've destroyed in 3 years. I don't know where I'm going wrong with my mouse parenting. I give you a nice mat to sleep on. I click gently. I clean your ball regularly. What more do you want from meeeeee?!!

We spent the best part of four hours watching the BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice. I hadn't watched it for a couple of years so I'd managed to forget what a lustmonkey that Mr Darcy is. When it first screened here in Oz in 1996 I was glued to the TV set every Sunday night, so very taken by this Colin Firth guy who played the foxy Mr D. Phwwwwwooooaaaar! That dark curly hair that just begs your fingers to run through it, those deep brown brooding eyes, that body! Oooh la la. More than enough to get the bossom's heaving on those 19th Century gals. But his appeal is timeless. Today we cooed and oggled and wolf-whistled every time he was on the screen. We hit the Rewind button in that bit where he's taking a bath. But just look at him... how could any red-blooded woman not be totally cuckoo? Those side burns are so foxy! :P