Spammers, I am disappoint.

Some of you may recall that I have already written a post on spam in May.  At the time of that post I decided to make things interesting.  I disabled the spam blocker on my blogger account in the effort to attract more spam to deal with.  Actually, to attract any spam, since the only ones I have had so far were from Kristen and Lac who are not actually spam-bots.

Spammers, what the hell? Not a single spam entry since I disabled my spam safety net.  I know I am not the biggest blog... and in fact only have 18 people who follow me, but actually and very literally I AM BEGGING TO BE SPAMMED.  It is an open invitation and so far I am having a party with just me and the tramadol laced inheritance cake.  You will never get an easier target.  I won't even delete your spam, and instead display it proudly for all to see.

About the same time as my spam filter disabling, the forum where I spend a lot of my time upped its spam measures and I now have not disapproved any spam since MAY.  I am having withdrawals.  I might even make one of the tags for this post 'spam me damn it'.  Do you think that would work?  Or saying words like Canadian Pharmacies and Viagra? 

Spammers! Oh delightful morning on the Internet market.  Why you ever need flaming language for best possible? Post here Canadian pharmacy and best cost only Tramadol without prescription!  Freedom for posting and happy guarantee!

Please?

I am what I am from my childhood.

I think the reason I am such a strange character is clear from the stories of my childhood.  I was never very normal or straightforward, which I think is pretty obvious once you see the finished product. 

A prime example is of my sister's first birthday.  I was almost four and getting into all sorts of trouble in my grandmother's sewing cupboard.  At this stage I had just started sewing (But I still needed Grandma to thread the needle for me) and I wanted to make something to wear to her party.  A little over ambitious? Probably.  Likely to end up as an embarrassing photo for the whole wold to see? Most definitely.  Unfortunately instead of going for a modest dress or a nice dress suit I went with a bikini.  Why my parents allowed me to attend my sisters birthday party wearing a strip of fabric covering my nipples and a loin cloth I will never know.

Due to a lack of photographic evidence at this time this illustration will have to do.

Another issue of my childhood was that I was born without the instinct of stranger danger.  While my little sister would eye people off and keep her cute little mouth closed I would be blabbing my head off to some poor unsuspecting stranger.  To this day I have no concept of this very important survival instinct.  On the upside it means that it is easy for me to meet people and make friends.  On the downside it can get you into all kinds of trouble.  I have had several people of the male persuasion think that my lack of stranger danger means they can follow me home or stalk me at work.  I am slowly learning the importance of keeping my mouth zipped.

Being afraid of the dark is another throw back from my childhood.  I know, Hambo the zombie slayer afraid of the dark?  Don't ask me how or why, I just am.  I am ok as long as I don't realise I am in the dark.  Going to the toilet in the middle of the night is ok as long as my brain doesn't work.  I remember being only about nine years old and totally freaking myself out.  I had somehow convinced myself that there was a leopard in my room, crouching by my closed door just staring into my soul.  I couldn't blink.  In the end I managed to throw myself from my bed to my little sisters and fall asleep with her.  When I woke up in the morning it turned out that the 'leopard' was actually my school bag and I was a giant sissy.

Dream Job?

As some of you may know, I am about to graduate from a Bachelor of Nursing.  This is pretty freaking awesome and I can't wait to be freed from the shackles of student oppression and be freed into the paid workforce.  People ask me if I have always wanted to be a nurse and if it is my dream job.

Let me start by saying that I didn't realise I wanted to be a nurse until recently.  Looking back it all makes so much sense, but that is the beauty of hindsight.  HOWEVER. Nursing is not my dream job.  Who in their right mind would think: 'Yes. It has everything I could ever want in a job!'  Don't get me wrong. I totally love it.  The satisfaction and happiness I get from the care I give people when they need it most makes my heart sing.  But who in their right mind is totally happy that they have to deal with every gross bodily waste known to man? There are at least 5 jobs I would rather do instead of nursing.

'Why,' I hear you ask 'Don't you pursue those dream jobs?' Because real dream jobs don't actually give you any money and, in reality, they are probably things you would end up paying someone so you could do it.  Here is my list of top five jobs I would do if it were possible. I don't think it will take you very long to realise why no one would pay me a wage to do these...

1. Professional At-Home Sleeper
If someone paid me to sleep I would be a millionaire in no time.  I am the kind of person that can sleep anywhere, anytime.  I have slept through new year's parties (with no alcohol involved.  I once fell asleep halfway up the stairs (some alcohol may have been involved...).  I once had a nap where my torso was on the couch and the bottom half of me on the floor... You get the point.

2. Casual Cake Taster
The reason it says casual is so I can choose my own hours and cut them back when I start to put on the cake inner tube.  Imagine the kinds of cake I could eat... *drools* Piece of cake.

3. Dog and Cat Snuggler
Does your beautiful pooch or sweet kitty need an extra cuddle during the day? I am totally your person.  Also available for rat snuggling.  Grumpy owners and animals with attitude need not hire me.

4. Zombie extra
Do I even need to need to list why this would be awesome?

5. Video Game Tester
As long as I don't have to test kids video games like Dora the Explorer or some rubbish I could do this full time plus.  I would never need to leave the house! Sunlight? I don't need that, I have vitamin D pills.

Any of these jobs would be great.  I could even do them part-time after I finish my nursing shifts. Actually, you don't even need to pay me.

Black Ops is the best and worst game in the world.

I have come to this conclusion this very afternoon.  Black Ops and I have a bitter sweet romance that very often ends up with me screaming at the screen and flailing my limbs around.  Or sometimes dragging myself from the couch to the bedroom with red eyes at three in the morning.  Yet, somehow I end up romanticising the game and putting it into the PlayStation to wile away my precious few hours on a game that turns me into a raging mad woman.

This afternoon for instance I spent a full five minutes arguing with someone, who sounded like a prepubescent boy, about how he should turn his mic off while he eats chips.  For five minutes.  What is wrong with me? Why didn't I just mute him? Why didn't he mute me? Because Black Ops turns you into the Devil's spawn.  The swears that came out of his mouth!  The worst part was when I was telling him off I realised I probably sounded like his mother.  'Turn your mic off when you are eating chips!'  While I was at it I should have told him I would wash his mouth out with soap and roused at him for playing games instead of doing his homework. *facepalm*

When it comes to video games it's like I become a different person.  Like Jekyll and Hyde, I am a cute little girl who is into nice things and the moment Black Ops is on I become the power hungry, locked and loaded maniac who takes no prisoners.  When I play I pray for someone to tell me that I sound like a 10 year old boy so I can kick their ass and tell them how bad they must feel being beaten by a girl.  Or telling people to nick off when they find out I am a girl and try to be all nice.  Then I shut it off and go to work, chatting with patients and joking with old ladies that I am only called Samantha when I am in trouble. 

I even had one guy have a go at me for having the same name as him (Hambo).  What the hell dude? I added you two weeks ago because you thought it was cool we had the same name.  All Black Ops players are crazy people waiting to happen... And that is totally self confessed.

Life is cyclical.

I say this because things we did when we were younger we end up doing when we are older.  There are the obvious ones that people talk about and make jokes about.  Like that we started out eating mush and pooping ourselves and it pretty much ends the same way.  But that isn't what I am really talking about.  I mean things that circle through much more rapidly.  I am talking about things like clothes.

I have noticed that when I was younger I had much better taste in clothes than my parents.  There is a video that my Dad took of me when I was three where I was wearing a singlet and underpants and then, halfway through, my Dad thought "Gee, I should put some clothes on Sam. Having her half naked with hair like a hobo doesn't make me look like a very good Dad".  The next shot you see of me is with fluoro yellow trackpants with a black stripe up the side and a huge horrible floral print jumper.  He also forgot to brush my hair.  My Dad was an awesome Dad (and still is) but I was glad there came a time I could pick what I wanted to wear.

In case you can't tell from my crazy hat, I am the one on the left...

I then went through a stage where I wanted to do things my way.  I got my hair cut and picked out all my clothes.  Now, I understand my parents wanted to let me do my own thing and discover who I am.  HOWEVER, letting a nine year old get herself a boys haircut and wear blue Hawaiian shirts over a tank top with three quarter jeans is something they should have had an intervention for.  I still have the school photos of my hair in this cut, but I refuse to let anyone see them and my Mum wouldn't let me chuck them or burn them because she said she paid so much for them.  I choose to believe it is so she will have something to blackmail me with.

I then had my early teen years.  Even now I look back on what I wore and think 'If I did it then, why the hell can't I dress myself well now?'. I think this was mainly due to the fact that I started stealing my mothers clothes.  She had awesome expensive platform shoes. Mine.  Oh, that is a lovely halter neck top, is it from an expensive boutique? Mine.  Those jeans you love and treasure? The ones that fit you perfectly and you love more than anything else? Mine. And they are also destroyed because I wore them to my first drinking party and they got ripped as I tried to get out of a shopping trolley. So, what else do you have?

Looking pretty sophisticated before my next relapse...

Then I had my later teenage years.  These, I think, were the worst.  I went through a grunge stage where I wore lots of black, big scary looking boots and got a tattoo.  In this cliche the only thing I didn't do was run away and join a bikey gang.  I even had the poor taste to wear a bikini instead of a bra.  Someone should have stepped in.  The last day of my horrible look was when I was 19.  I was working in a government laboratory in Toowoomba and, every Friday, I would wear the most outrageous combination of clothes I could think of.  This particular Friday I wore knee high striped socks, steal cap boots, a black frilly skirt, black button up shirt and a pink and multicoloured beanie that had ear flaps with plaits.  I was particularly proud of the monstrosity I had created.  That was until they sent me downtown to pick up some things from an office supplies store.  That's when it ended.  I don't know if that is how they intended it to go, but they did me a huge favour.

The beanie in question.

And now, finally, I am getting a respectable wardrobe together.  Things are looking good for my fashion sense at the moment.  But the bitter sweet thing is, it's only a matter of time before I circle through again...

This is the awesome dress sense now... PLEASE DON'T TAKE IT FROM ME!!!!

Smoking. The cool way to die.

*WARNING*

This blog entry is on a serious and probably depressing topic.  Please only post constructive comments (if any) and site the source the of the information provided.  These should be reputable sites that have been published less than 5 years ago. This is the standard for university and research papers so I think it should apply here.  Remember, this is my turf so don't post any crap or try trolling because I will kick your ass.  Also, if you are easily offended by facts and figures that go against your opinion, maybe you should give this one a miss.  

Ps. don't hate me.

One thing my close friends know about me is that I am a big anti-smoking person.  Smoking to me is my crusade.  As a soon to be nurse I have witnessed many people not only harmed and some killed by their smoking habit but also those who have been exposed to tobacco smoke through no choice of their own.  Not only that but I have been witness to the harm tobacco smoke can cause, personally.  My Grandfather on my mother's side died from complications due to cancer caused by smoking.  My mum smokes and I can definitely say she is less well because of it.  And lastly, I have found that I have more trouble than most people when it comes to getting over chest infections and the like from what I believe was caused by many years of passive smoking. 

For some background information for those not up to date with current events in Australia, the Queensland Government is introducing plain packaging to cigarettes in an attempt to reduce the number of smokers and/or the amount people smoke.  There have been several studies conducted that all found that plain packaging reduced the number of adolescents who start smoking ( Germain, Wakefield & Durkin, 2010; Hammond, Dockrell, Arnott, Lee & McNeill, 2009; Wakefield, Germain & Durkin, 2008).  To me that is why it is important that this goes ahead.  We are talking about stopping young and impressionable adolescents from starting a habit that could ruin their lives by reducing the appeal, not banning them or taking away their freedom.

7 Things You Should Know About Cigarettes & Smoking Before You Tell Me I am Wrong/Stupid

1. I have more chance dying in a car accident than dying from smoking.

If this is part of your argument then you will be interested to know I have done some research. And you are full of crap.  In 1998 it was recorded by the ABS [Australian Bureau of Statistics] that 19 000 deaths that year were due to tobacco smoking but in 2009 only 1 464 deaths were due to road crashes (ABS, 2011; Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure & Transport, 2009).  With 2.3 million people estimated to have been smoking in that year, that gives smokers a 1 in 122 chance of dying from a smoking related disease every year.  Conversely, a motorist (be it a driver or passenger) has a 1 in 15 000 chance of being killed on the road. PLUS if you smoke and drive then you are just making your chances of getting to the pearly gates this year even higher.  

VERDICT: ARGUMENT INVALID.

2. Cigarettes are just as bad for you as drinking or fast food.

Yes, alcohol has many detrimental effects.  However it should be noted that there are safe levels for alcohol to be consumed where it is actually beneficial.  Tobacco, on the other hand is carcinogenic and the use of any tobacco product is not recommended as their are no known health benefits that outweigh the significant risks.  Most food in now required by law to display the nutritional content of the food they are selling to allow consumers the chance to make an informed decision.  I see the warning labels on cigarettes to be that equal.  

New warnings are proposed to be implemented for alcoholic drinks, so don't think smokes are the only ones being targeted.  As a friend of mine (who I will name Deep Throat to protect his identity) said 'Beer and fast food companies have their own regulations - which they meet rather than consistently wield their influence, power and might to avoid' - I happen to agree with this wholeheartedly. Those tobacco companies are shifty buggers.

VERDICT: Maybe, but smoking cigarettes around other people is worse than eating and drinking around them.

3. I'm not hurting anyone.

This one may be true. I guess it depends who you ask.  As someone who has been exposed to 16 years of passive smoking I beg to differ.  This information was obtained from the ABS website:

• The breathing in of tobacco smoke by non-smokers can lead to harmful health effects in the unborn child, and middle ear infections and bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma and other chest conditions in children. It is also linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). In adults, passive smoking can increase the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and other chronic lung diseases (Queensland Health 2006).
• More than a third (37%) of children aged 0-14 years live in households with one or more regular smokers, while 10% of children 0-14 years live in households where there is at least one regular smoker who smokes indoors.

If you smoke alone or only with other smokers then I guess this statement is true for you.  However, the amount of people I see smoking with their kids/grand kids (my Mum included) is enough to make me think that most smokers couldn't truthfully say they aren't hurting anyone.  I remember sitting on the back stairs with my mum as a kid and never thinking anything of it, even though she would be smoking.  Smoking in the car with kids in now against the law AND THANK GOD FOR THAT.  So next time you light up think about who you may be hurting.  I have a study at home that also claims that the smoke residue on clothes can be enough to harm young children... I will tell you one thing. Passive drinking and passive fast food are yet to give anyone cancer.

VERDICT: Only true if you aren't being a douche.

4.  Mobile phones are linked with cancer, why are they not being targeted?

Several studies have noted that although there has been an explosive increase in mobile phone use in the last 30 years there have been very little changes to the rates of brain cancers over this period (Inskip, Hoover & Devesa, 2010).  This would suggest that mobile phones are not likely to cause brain cancers.  It is recommended that children limit their use of mobile phones due to their developing brains being sensitive to even low levels of toxins (Inskip et al., 2010). No big deal, we don't let kids smoke or drink (or at least you shouldn't be) so it shouldn't be that hard to pry a mobile phone out of their little chubby hands. Besides, smoking does more than give you and the passive smokers cancer, emphysema and COPD aren't that pleasant either...

VERDICT: Stop trying to pass the buck.

5. Australia is turning into Nazi Germany.

Really? When we start killing millions of Jews or castrating dyslexics get back to me.  You are seriously comparing the holocaust with implementing plain packaging smokes?  Just in case you didn't realise they aren't making cigarettes illegal, they aren't putting up the price and they sure as hell aren't saying you can't buy them.  If you want to smoke and having plain packaging is ruining your enjoyment or your will to buy them, then maybe you should question your motivation behind smoking... 

VERDICT: Ummm... Do I even need to say anything? This one is sensationalism at its best.

6. Fast food companies should be taxed if tobacco products are being taxed!!

This seems a little petty to me.  If the Government taxed everything that had a detrimental effect we would be taxed to the eyeballs.  The fact of the matter is I can eat McDonald's and decide to eat only a cheese burger every day.  If I exercised and ate right otherwise I doubt it would have any impact on my body. Cigarettes, however, are different.  I am still receiving nutrition from my cheese burger but smokes do not donate anything useful to the body.  In addition to that the chance of me getting cancer from smoking increase with every cigarette I smoke, not matter what my diet and exercise routine are like.  At fast food places I have the choice to make healthier decisions regarding my selections.  The only healthier option for cigarettes is LESS OR NONE.

VERDICT: A pack of cigarettes a week does not equal a week of cheeseburgers.

7.  The tobacco companies will sue and then who will pay for the plain packaging?

I was going to type this bit up myself but my friend, Deep Throat, puts it so much more elegantly...:

'It would be ridiculous for an industry to argue loss of revenue about a government sanction on their packaging, when their entire BUSINESS MODEL is all about killing off their own consumer group. Loss of revenue is the ends to their addictive and deadly means. If they want to keep their revenue intact (or indeed GROW their consumer base, rather than poisoning them to death), then they should try selling perfumesticks or chocolatesticks or viagrasticks.'

VERDICT: I would support a company who sold chocolate sticks.

To finish my piece I would like to say that no one asked me if I wanted to smoke for all those years I was exposed to passive smoking.  I think if more people were concerned about the kids and innocent bystanders in this debate of smoking then their point of view may change.  It's sad to think that my sister or myself may get cancer or a smoking related disease just from being in the same car as a smoker for all those years.  Vote for plain packaging and common goddamn sense.

References:

Australian Bureau of Statistics, various articles.

Australian Government: Department of Infrastructure and Transport. (2009).  Road deaths Australia, 2008 statistical summary.  Canberra: Australian Government.  Retrieved from www.infrastructure.gov.au/

 

Germain, D., Wakefield, M., & Durkin, S. (2010). Adolescents' perceptions of cigarette brand image: does plain packaging make a difference?. Journal of Adolescent Health, 46(4), 385-392. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.08.009

Hammond, D., Dockrell, M., Arnott, D., Lee, A., & McNeill, A. (2009). Cigarette pack design and perceptions of risk among UK adults and youth. European Journal of Public Health, 19(6), 631-637. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckp122

Inskip, P., Hoover, R., & Devesa, S. (2010). Brain cancer incidence trends in relation to cellular telephone use in the United States. Neuro-Oncology, 12(11), 1147-1151. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Wakefield, M., Germain, D., & Durkin, S. (2008). How does increasingly plainer cigarette packaging influence adult smokers' perceptions about brand image? An experimental study. Tobacco Control, 17(6), 416-421. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

I really should be dead. Me living seems illogical.

I can't believe I am still alive - and in one piece! I think back over the years of stupid things I have done that should have killed me and I am surprised that I am not dead.  For instance, I loved climbing the trees out the front of my Grandma's place when I was a kid.  I was five when I first fell out and almost broke my arm.  I cried and it hurt a lot but I was back in the tree a couple of days later.  One of my fondest memories of my Grandad involved him hanging out the front window yelling at us kids to get out of the damn trees.  Even now it makes me smile, it's such an old man thing to say. 

When I was about 8 years old I was climbing one of the trees in my new dress.  Now I know what you are thinking.  That doesn't sound like a good idea... And, in hindsight it was a bloody stupid idea. But, hey, my 8 year old brain was living in the moment and no dress was going to stop me climbing my trees.  It was all fine until I decided to get out of the tree.  I decided to jump out.  It wasn't that high but, as it turns out, that wasn't the issue.  My dress got hooked on an old cut off branch and proceeded to hang me.  I was hanging in the tree, my face turning more and more red.  I managed to call out to my 4 year old sister, who was climbing the trees with me.  'Get mum and dad,' I managed to choke out.  She ran off, like a good sibling, to get our parents.  She ran up to them and, do you know what she said? 'Mum! Dad! Sam is stuck in the tree!' It's a wonder I was still conscious by the time they wandered leisurely down the path towards me.

Since then I have almost poisoned myself with old mince on two separate occasions, given myself two very serious chest infections, broken my thumb doing a cartwheel and a million other stupid things.  But I am not concerned with stupid things like almost knocking myself out after colliding with the fridge with my face in the dark.  I have survived so many freak accidents that I am sure I am like a cockroach.  Bring on the radiation.

I am more concerned with the crap I am putting in my body. I have this problem where, if there is food in front of me, I will keep eating until my stomach has taken up space in my chest that was reserved for my lungs.  Even that would be OK though, if the content of my food was good.  Unfortunately I tend to eat rubbish.  I have these periods where I will eat so badly that I will guilt myself into eating healthy.  The time that I stick with eating healthy is inversely proportional to the quality of the food consumed before the guilt diet. 

Going by that information I think the food I have consumed in the last week means I will be eating salads for the next year.  On Wednesday night (the Pictionary night) I had all manner of cheese, apple pie, ice cream, custard, olives, dip and crackers and lots of awful wine.  Then yesterday I ate my own body weight in cake, chips, nachos and soft drink at our manager's farewell.  It was so bad that I had to stay behind to recover because I couldn't breathe properly.  We also went out to shooting last night and ate a million lollies and chocolate and I also drank beer and ate lots of dim sims. THEN this morning my coworkers and I had the brilliant idea of getting a certain fast food company's* food for breakfast.

Somehow I managed to down a pack of three hotcakes, a sausage and cheese muffin, a hash brown and a canned soft drink.  Then I had a stupid idea.  I decided to calculate how much of my daily intake I had squandered on such a fattening breakfast. I kind of wish I hadn't.  Below is an illustration of my working:

This isn't a hotcakes lid, it's my tombstone...

Energy: 60.5%
Fat: 59%
Saturated fat: 74%
Salt: 79.8%
Sugar: 98%

The worst part is that these would be for an averaged sized adult.  I am not quite 5 foot 2 and only 55kg.  I don't know about you but that doesn't seem like average.  Also, I am pretty bad at exercising...
I can't believe I have had 98% of my daily sugar intake AT BREAKFAST.  I have a Caramello Koala in my hand.  It alone has 12% of my daily recommended sugar intake.  I was going to be good and not have it, but then I realised I had a coffee this morning. A coffee with sugar. So, screw it.  Bring on the chocolatey death...



EDIT: It appears that I have seriously overestimated my daily intake allowance.  One of my friends pointed out that these values would be correct for an average male.  I don't even want to do the math for the average female...

*I will refrain from mentioning their name so they don't sue/murder me. But we all know who I am talking about! ;)