Good Grief.

Oh no, the interwebs is out to get me!

Not only did my email and my Facebook get hacked into by some worthless fiend, but now I've discovered The Book Depository, which is surely the work of the Devil.  And since I firmly believe in the principle of 'share the wealth', I hereby notify you gentle reader of this awesome sites existence.  And if you knew already, then why the Hell didn't you share?  Huh?  HUH?

Phew, anyway... as I mentioned, some scum-suckin', mouth-breathin', butt-faced dog poo hacked into my practically antique Gmail account last week.  I have to say though, that I do have the ruliest friends who, as soon as they got my (very oddly grammered, if that is such a word) email, claiming that I was in London, stranded by the ash cloud from the volcano in Iceland texted me to say, dude, we know you're not in London.  Incidentally, did anyone else noticed that the news has given up trying to pronounce the name of that volcano?  I mean, I can understand why, it's quite the mouthful, but honestly news-readers, suck it up!  Even if it is just for a little comedic value!  But then, I had another text message from my buddy in Auckland saying that she was chattin' right that instant with the diddle on Facebook!  *sigh*  Yup... so needless to say, Facebook is off the menu.  My husband seems to be correct in his railings against the behemoth Facebook... not that I'll ever admit it to him!  (Actually, he just read that, so it's like I've admitted it... failure again!)

Okay, so onto happier things... I've just bought 'Bigfoot Cinderrrella', 'Curious George visits the Library' (of course!  What other Curious George book am I going to buy!?) and Robert Crumb's 'Kafka', which looks just delicious.  I can't wait until they arrive - but apparently they take about two weeks to get here from England, so I'm going to have to.  It's not something I'm very good at, the waiting, but I'll try to forget that I ordered them (now, that I can do), and then it will be a nice surprise.  I urge you all to pop along to the Book Depository , not only are they fairly ridiculously priced books, but they also ship free to New Zealand.  The price is right!

Downward Spiral

I don't think they have a scale for laziness, but I feel like I should be pretty high up there if they ever do get around to making one. For instance, I keep getting the urge to bake for the blog, and then baking and not taking any pictures of the darn things that I make. Perhaps it's got something to do with the fact that my camera is being dopey at the moment... or it could just be the myriad other things that I have to do.  Such as holding our frisky sofa down...

Anyway, I remembered an awesome thing that I think that I read in one of Nigella Lawson's books once upon a time, which was lucky for me because I was fresh out of ideas for a shared morning tea that we were having at my work.  I've gone right off the cupcake thing, since that's what everyone expects from me now, and as awesome as they are to make, they're always too sweet for me.  In my experience, people get suspicious if you don't eat your own baking.

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby, Right Round

So, International Independent Record Store Day.  It's happening kids, happening on the 17th of April!  How exciting!

Seriously though, I'm totally issuing a challenge to myself this year, which is to no longer suckle at the teat of Big Music.  My plan is to start buying actual physical music (as opposed to merely downloading stuff from itunes, which is so passive it's not even funny... I don't even have to leave my living room), and to buy that music at an indie store.  NZer's will know that after the demise of the Real Groovy franchise, the Real Groovies (Groovy's? you know what I mean) have become independent of each other (well, Auckland and Wellington have... when we were in Christchurch a few weeks ago their RG was still going, but I don't know what the situation is there), and there are loads more succulent treats of record stores dotted around the country.  

The wicked thing about them is that the people that work in there know their onions, so if you choose a good time to go in (when they're not bonkers with people, I mean), you can generally strike up a pretty good natter with the People of the Store, and they might just shine a light onto a new and fascinating musical path.  Anyway, the IIRSD, as I mentioned, is happening on the 17th of April, a Saturday, and most of the indies that have signed up will have interesting things happening.  You can check out the Record Store Day website for a list (this is the New Zealand list, of course), and watch the video below for a bit of a larf.  But, even more importantly, do it because Henry Rollins reckons that "Every time you buy your records at one of these places, it's a blow to the empire".  

Okay, here's the vid: