Progress thus far. Weight increase instead of decrease. Diet went out the window somewhere between day ten and thirteen. Friday the thirteenth turned into the biggest emotionally drama laden evening this side of the Rialto Building and my general attitude towards life at the moment has a big fat “Fuck You” tattoo on its hairy arse.

What a life, I say! What a life!

It’s a good life. A comfortably awkward life that reeks of commuter BO, riding on the bloody wrong train home and laughing one’s guts out in one’s head.

Why stress about petty bullshit and carry it around like a sack of flaming crap on your shoulders?

I laugh at difficult situations. I giggle uncontrollably when I’m feeling threatened, nervous or so pissed off that I want to punch someone in the stomach.

Live. Love. Laugh and when life brings you down, give it the middle finger salute and move the hell on.

Pot kettle black advice, I know but I’m sick of being the bad person/black sheep in nearly every bloody situation I’ve been in of late.

Instead the one hundred and forty characters get stretched to over one thousand. Every Web 2.0 entrepreneurial type, podcaster, former postman and social media coke snorter is waiting for a paragraph about how AWESOME Google Wave is.

Well, uhhh, sorry to disappoint you but I HAVEN’T GOT A BLOODY GOOGLE WAVE INVITE YET. So nyerr. (that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t love one)

I spent time trying to make a mixtape last night. You remember mixtapes, right? TDK D90 audio cassette in a twenty year old double deck cassette recorder hooked up to an equally ancient amp fed into the Macbook.

Real girls use cassettes to make crazy mixtapes for blokes they reckon are “pretty bloody alright, yaknowhattumsayin’”.

Trying to figure out whether the bloke has a cassette player himself is a different kettle of barramundi altogether.

There’s something quite special about making mixtapes and then listening to the final product. I was brought up on wow and flutter, jumpy vinyl, half chewed cassettes recovered from a feral National Panasonic ghetto blaster from 1985.

Sadly mixtape making has been a bit of a cursed affair as well. I’ve had blokes throw my cassettes on the ground and step on them. Crushed the magnetic ribbon, crushed the creativity and crushed my heart to pieces. TDK didn’t get the chance to do amazing things to any of their systems.

Is this why all the cool kids now make mp3 mixtapes instead? Uncrushable just deletable.

So, fellas, tell me, if some chick made a mixtape for you as a way of saying “you’re an alright sort of guy, let’s hang out sometime”, would you dig that or find it to be childish?

Hit me up with a comment. I’m curious to know what you think.

What exactly is or was “my day”? The late 1990s? Pre-Internet days? Uni days? The 1980s?

Apart from using such a passé line, my tolerance levels for fads and resurrected trends has wained so much since my late 20s.

I see girls wearing what looks like nothing more than a long tshirt over leggings and think to myself “Darling, where are your pants?” I see guys wearing skinny jeans with a huge bubble where their bottom is supposed to be. My instant reaction is “Did you borrow your sister’s jeans? Let your nuts breathe, brother.”

2009 feels like 1989 complete with frosted lipstick, huge leather belts worn around tops and guys with mullet hairdos.

I have friends who were born between 1986 and 1989. I just can’t relate. I remember all your funky awesome trends the first time around. We didn’t have Supre, Cotton On, Politix, Facebook or Twitter back then. The only “Internet” we had were BBSes but even those were far and few. If you owned a Intel 286 PC back then or even an Amiga, you were the coolest geek around. We used to write letters back then too.

We’ve become a society that sucks hard on the teat of social media. I’m asked a common question by new acquaintences these days. “Do you have Facebook?”. I’ve started to answer no and tell them that I’m on Twitter, email or just direct them to this site.

Life was so much easier before social media. Less heartaches, misunderstandings, mistrust and confusion.

The world is a smaller place and it creeps me out.

Some things are best left unspoken in a positive way. Who needs words when there’s a bassline calling your name?

• Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate – I decided to take the plunge and install the latest Release Candidate version of Microsoft Windows 7 on my trusty dusty craptop after having read numerous writeups about it over at Lifehacker. Eyecandy wise, it gets the big thumbs up. Performance wise, it runs a lot smoother than Windows Vista. Multimedia wise, my USB TV Tuner dongle actually works straight out of the box without any pissfarting around with other software. Overall, Windows 7 is a HUGE improvement over Vista (which was an operating system debacle). It’s nice of Microsoft to allow the regular Joe or Joanne Geek to be able to test-drive the latest addition to the Windows family in the real world. It is, however, a bit of a shame that Microsoft did nothing more than slightly tart up what has always been a dog of an operating system, IMNSHO.

• Hiatus – I’m taking some much needed time off from Twitter. With all that has happened over the last couple of weeks, a month off will no doubt be enough time to sit back on the sidelines and watch the world go by…one tweet at a time. To be honest, Twitter stopped being fun for me and if it’s no longer fun, I’ll just walk away. Perhaps I’ve just missed the point or something but hey, it’s only a social network, fer Pete’s sake. I’m not entirely sure if I’ll be attending the next @MTUB event. I have an uncanny fear that I’ll end up sitting on my own, in a corner for a while because I’m lousy at mingling and heck, I’m, well, you know…..@melbournegirl. I’ll be returning to Twitter some time in June. Feel free to follow me on Friendfeed or send an email my way. I don’t bite…

• Everything else - In between the madness that is the beloved dayjob, I’ve been following Angus Kidman’s rather awesome Hand Luggage Only adventures. One piece of carry-on luggage and a smattering of Australian locations to be visited. Hardcore geek roadtrip to the max! In the coming days/weeks, melbournegirl.net will be going under the knife. The blogroll will be gutted, the theme will be chopped to bits and all the other rubbish will be archived. You have been warned!

On a final and very personal note, a big thanks has to go out to a couple of very special people out there (who will remain anonymous out of respect) who have helped me through the last few days. Here’s to yet another HUGE eff-off weekend of actually living that thing called LIFE!

@mtub 20 was a special one as it was the delightful @andrewsayer’s birthday. The Workshop Bar was buzzing with tweeple, alcohol, good tunes and failwhale cupcakes. Overall it was a great night and I got to meet so many wonderful people. A big boooooo to The Workshop Bar for becoming party poopers with their “Take off your Twitter name sticker if you would like to be served at the bar”. Here’s hoping that a new venue for future @mtubs is found as I had a whale of a time.

I’m absolutely hopeless when it comes to mingling and am the first to admit that I’m extremely socially awkward when faced with a party situation. Cheers to the following tweeple for being damn awesome and making me feel comfortable at @mtub – @andrewsayer, @lilylauren, @snarkattack, @froosh, @fulltimecasual, @candysnap, @indefensible, @maxcelcat, @yonderboy, @kartar, @bmn, @coliwilso, @mspecht, @LucasS, @bethanie, @bellabacchante and a myriad of other tweeple who introduced themselves to me on the night.

I have to get drunk drunk drunk to catch that buzz buzz buzz and heaven knows I’ve literally trip trip tripped over my shoelaces and words when I’ve tried to talk to your best friend.

He probably thinks I’m fat and awkward. One heck of a badly drawn cartoon character on a crumpled up piece of paper.

Today I’m all confused. Antsy. Not making any sense whatsoever. Distracted. In knots. Lacking substance.

Watching the clock. One hour to go. Freedom imminent and you and your best friend would probably be wondering what drugs I’m on.

I was nominated for a Sales Consultant of the Year award. I was a finalist too. I didn’t win though. I’m quite surprised as to how I even got to the stage of being nominated in the first place. I haven’t been my usual vocal self of late and I suppose that’s due to not having the heart to get all “if you’re happy and you know it” with my team like I used to.

I’m happier plonking my nose in a book and tuning out until the next call drops in and I have to endure the nasally whine of some random elderly person shouting into their phone’s mouthpiece. “YOU SENT ME AN $800 BILL. I CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY IT!” I’m geniunely sorry that you can’t afford to pay it, really I am but it’s not my fault that you didn’t read the business rules that were sent to you and have been written in plain English.

/sigh

/places customer on hold and transfers them to the accounts department

/breathes sigh of relief

/plonks nose back into book

A good friend of mine suggested that I write up a list of things I am liking and hating at the moment. Looks like I’ve got lots to get done this weekend.

• I’ve got back into DJing after a very lengthy absence and oh, does it feel GOOD to be playing some delicious tech-house again.
• For some reason, I was nominated for Sales Consultant of The Year and as of last Friday, I’m a finalist. I’m sincerely hoping that there’s no swimsuit category as I would FAIL.
• I accidentally found someone who makes me happy (ok, so he found me but lets not argue about it. It all ends in tears.)
• I’ve been playing way too much Fallout 3 and rediscovered the joys of Football Manager. It’s good to be gaming again
• It’s almost Giftmas/Festivus and it’s the first one that I’ll be spending without my old man. Still missing him.
• I have a pet magpie. His name is Chapachoo. When everything gets too much, he comes and nibbles bread out of my hand. I, in return, have someone to talk to.