What a ridiculous pathetic token effort is the Canned Food Hamper. Every year they ask people to bring in something to work to chuck in the big box to donate to the poor people at Christmas Time. All it means is a chance for all the tight arse bastards to clean out the Tins of Yesteryear from their pantries.

And don't think I can't tell! The can of Golden Circle Pineapple Chunks has the label design circa 1985. And there's three tins of SPAM. And 6 tins of that putrid Nestle Coffee n Milk stuff. Loads of Two-Fruits. And a few with labels missing. A jar of morello cherries the colour of dried blood. An out-of-date box of Cadbury Roses, missing the whole CANNED FOOD premise altogether. It's bloody insulting. The hoardes of overpaid fat cat public servants are the stingiest, most-uncharitable bastards I've ever seen. Urgh.

My french teacher called me last night and said if I came back to class tomorrow and did the oral exam I could still possibly get the diploma. She was so nice about it I caved and said yes, even though I will be totally humilated and sheepish after disappearing about 5 weeks ago. So now I am frantically trying to construct a story out of some pages I've been assigned from the text. These are times when you suddenly feel the urge to call up any francophones you may happen to know ;) We've got a cliffhanger of an ending now: Est-ce que ils ont tous swingé ensemble? Personne ne le sait.

Bloke without car wins $250K on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Bloke buys car. Bloke crashes car. Bloke dies. Oh dear! :(

Oh my! Did any Aussies see tonight's Sea Change? Good lordy I almost swooned myself into a dead faint at that rrrrrrrow of a scene with Max and Laura. Oh how they looked at each other. More burn and smoulder in those gazes than a thousand barbeques. And that kiss was electric! Phwoar. Oooh la la. Damn, I need to get out more.

Boys in wet undies - referral du jour or Shauny's wildest dreams? Definitely referral du jour.

Hurrah! I'm today's Celebrity Chef at the lovely loobylu. Follow your nose to my famous Midnight Brownies recipe! Make sure you let me know if you try it :)

huge hung men in their speedos - referral du jour or Shauny's wildest dreams?

I spent the day at the Macromedia Built For Speed seminar today. Woohoo. It was interesting to see all the computery folks of Canberra surface for the event. And what an odd bunch of individuals they are. I am sure most of them were government contractors looking for a day release from public service a la me.

I don't know how it happened but I ended up sitting surrounded by the most annoying people in the universe. In front of me was Mullet Man, his long greasy brown tresses cascading over his shoulders like Michael Bolton in flannel. And he had the most apalling body odour. Not that there is any kind of BO that isn't appalling, but his was particularly potent.

Behind me was The Sound Of One Moron Clapping. You know the kind. They can't just laugh at a joke like a normal person. They have to shout "HA! HA! HA!" really slowly, with each HA punctuated by a clap. HA *clap* HA *clap*. Like that. Grrr.

To my right was Whistler. His nose trilled away like a rabid canary all day long. Phhhhwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeet! I wanted to slap him down and scream "JUST BLOW YOUR FUCKING NOSE DAMMIIIIIIT!"

But I didn't. I am a classy, tolerant dame. Heh.

There were also a couple of dozen losers in the room who found it necessary to shout out stupid comments and laugh uproariously at their own efforts. A note to programmers: You're not funny. So shut the fuck up.

Then there was Annoying Redhead Bitch (ARB). ARB is a teacher at the fine institution I attended last year and is one of those know it all types, completely oblivious to the fact that all her students know more than her. Every time one of the presenters would make a mistake she sqwark out, "No! That's wrong!". Or if someone got in and answered before her and won themselves a totally choice Macromedia mousemat she'd sulk, "I said that before!"

She was bleating away with some answer but the presenter didn't hear her, so Mullet Man yelled it out and won a Macromedia tshirt for his efforts. "Hey that was my answer!" sputtered ARB, then whacked MM in the manner of Elaine's "get out!" thing on Seinfeld, except MM was sitting in from of ARB so MM went sprawling off his chair and hit the decks.

It's amazing what people will do for a stupid hat or a pen. You should have seen the frenzy when they drew the winners of the software. I was feeling lucky and planned to sell my software on Ebay, since I have all the Macromedia stuff nice and cracked on my puter already. I was picturing myself putting the dough towards that camera I've been lusting after for so long. It was mine, all mine. The winning tickets were Red F17 and Red F7. My ticket was Red F 70! Bastards!

But I did win a cruddy lollipop for answering a question. Woo!

And look out for Dreamweaver 4 in a few weeks, kiddies. It has O'Reilly reference books built in to it! Oh hurrah :P

Portrait of former Prime Minister Paul Keating bears striking resemblence to Mr Burns.

I was driving along past Parliament House last night with the crappy radio trilling away when the most ridiculous song I've ever heard came on. It was a rap song. By an Aussie guy. About Canberra.

I try to be respectful of peoples forays into music making but when I hear a rap song in a barely-disguised Aussie accent, mate, I just cringe. And when it starts going on about Parliament House, Lake Burley Griffin, High Court, The National Liiiii-bra-ry, Canberra Raiders, yo! it was just toooo much.

I'm sitting here at work eating a mango. It somehow seems very wrong to be eating such a thing at work. The luscious texture of it, the juice slithering over your fingers, the fragrant messiness of it all. Mangoes are just dead sexy. So to eat one at work amongst shrieking phones and whinging public servants feels strange. And about as filthy as tossing aside piles of books and papers and shagging on the desk. Mwahaha! But I'm sure nothing like that ever happens around here. So I shall stick to my sweet n sticky mangoes.

Somebody call the UN! We have a case of Crimes Against Humanity. Someone has allowed Jimmy Barnes back into the studio to record the imaginatively titled Soul Deeper.

In the early nineties he churned out the musical abomination Soul Deep, in which he slaughtered a number of classic hits like River Deep, Mountain High and Many Rivers To Cross and now he's done it again. Among the tunes to be desecrated this time around are Chain of Fools and I Put A Spell On You. Good lord!

For those not in the know about Mr Barnes, imagine the sound of a dozen wailing stray cats thrown into a cement mixer on full power. That's about the delightful quality of his "voice". Urgh. Somebody snuff him out before it's too late.

I got to drive a Commonwealth car on Tuesday. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of working here (hip hip hoo freakin' ray) and I would have to say driving that car has been the highlight.

We were driving into the city to collect the goods for our Melbourne Cup Luncheon, and I volunteered to drive. I almost spontaneouly orgasmed at the feel of the car purring along the road. It didn't clunk and groan like The Bird™ used to. It glided down the highway like honey then roared into life when I reefed on the accelerator at the lights. I'm from Bathurst, you see, so driving like a hoon comes naturally to me.

At the supermarket I had great fun turning the car security on and off just because I could. Beep beep! Beep beep! I love technology. And the power windows! Took me awhile to get the hang of those. At one stage I was mashing the buttons with my fist and swearing as all four windows rose and fell insanely like glass gophers.

In my excitment to get back into the drivers seat, I lost my balance with the antipasto platter and ended up with fetta cubes and marinade all over my sleeve. Urgh.

We twirled through the dial on the way back and sampled the delights of Canberra commerical radio. Elton John Benny and the Jets, Little River Band Happy Anniversary, Billy Joel Piano Man, Foreigner Urgent , Lionel Richie Three Times A Lady and then again Little River Band with Curiosity Killed The Cat.

I reeked of olive oil and spices but I grinned like a fool as we glided back into the car park. Best of all, I didn't crash. Yay!

"I am going to scream if that precocious little shit from the Olympics sings the national anthem!" I said at about 3.15pm.

And what do you know? The little shit Nikki Webster was there! Warbling her annoying little heart out. Everyone laughed and said I would go straight to hell for my nasty comments.

Sure enough, a minute later, the horse I'd drawn in one of the sweeps was scratched! The little bastard Pravda refused to get into the barrier. "Karma coming back at ya!" everyone jeered.

But then a few minutes later, the horse I'd drawn in the more lucrative sweep WON! Hooray for Brew! Woohoo! I win I win! Drinks are on me! :)

It's Melbourne Cup Day, which means we eat and drink at work and do not a great deal all day long, in the inimitable style of the public service. I think I've drawn every dud donkey in our sweeps.

I have had a rather successful history of Melbourne Cup punting, though. My primary school teacher was also a bookie. His idea of a maths lesson was to teach us about the fine art of horse racing. On a school excursion to Dubbo, he took a break along the way to take us to the Wellington Boot, a small town race day. It must have looked quite bizarre, a middle-aged bloke with a minibus and a couple dozen snotty kids trailing round behind him.

On Cup Day 1987 it was also my birthday, and I was feeling lucky, punk. In typical style, my teacher had organised some sweeps for us. We also had a little contest going, where we had to write down which horses we thought would come 1, 2, 3. And whaddya know? I got the trifecta! My teacher was gobsmacked, if only I'd placed that bet at the TAB, I would have been freaking rich. Instead, I won a hamburger.

I am chicken shit. Three Tuesdays ago I rocked up to French class and realised I'd left my textbook and my notes at home. I've been studying since February, and it just doesn't come naturally to me. When our teacher went around the room asking questions, I would flip madly through my books to prepare my response in advance, testing out my pronunciation in my head, so I'd be in control and ready to dazzle by the time she got to me.

But without my security blanket I was useless. For the whole class I was shaking and looking down at my (borrowed) piece of paper hoping I wouldn't be called on. But I was, and I floundered and blushed and tripped over my words in my dreadful accent as if every word of French had fled my brain like a school kid from a classroom on the last day of term.

Our teacher frowned at me over her glasses and shook her head and asked me if I ever did any revision at home? And on the rare moments when I managed to answer something right, she'd throw her hands in the air and say, "Oh hooray! I was just about to give up on you Shauna!"

I scrunched myself down in my chair as if I could somehow make 5'9" of flushed face and fat arse disappear, but it didn't work. I know she doesn't mean to sound offensive, but she is a French native and sometimes her English doesn't come out quite right so it seems mean and mocking. But of course I took it personally, like I always do.

Thursday night rolled around and it was time for class again. I curled up on the couch with my quilt and Harry and Ten Capital News and didn't move. "You'll be late for French," my sister said.

Now it's two Thursdays later and I still haven't been back. It would be ten hours of catching up now, so I wouldn't have a hope of being prepared for the exam. I told myself that is fine to quit, because I only started learning because it was meant to be fun and relaxing, but then it got too serious.

Then I felt ashamed and incredibly lazy and let down and gutless because I didn't put in enough effort and I gave up too easily and what is Mum going to say when you tell her you couldn't even handle a simple little French class?

I am scared of my mother. I am scared of people, places. I am scared of many of you guys. I am scared of looking stupid and scared of anything remotely different and I hate me for it.

There were balloons and streamers on my desk when I arrived at work today, then the day brought cards and presents and emails and guestbook entries and cake and letters and dinner and a movie and phone calls and and roses and cuddles and brilliant mates and I had a wonderful day. Thanks to you all. Made me feel all special and smoogly :)

23 years ago today I was born, but people were too busy drinking and betting coz it was Melbourne Cup Day.