Livin' in the 80s Month: Day Three

movies:

• valley girl (1983) basically an 80s slang how-to. best soundtrack. nic cage is extremely nic cage like, as usual. that man manages to both terrify me & make me believe in a better world all at the same time.
• fatal attraction (1987) hadn't seen this in forever & was intensely distracted by how scary glenn close looks. not because her character is a grody creep, but like, her actual physical appearance. ghoulish horseface. i had nightmares.

tv shows:

• good morning, miss bliss (1988-89) season one, eps 1-3. this show is unofficially the first season of saved by the bell. screech, zack, lisa & mr belding are there, but they're in junior high & miss bliss is the featured teacher, instead of mr. belding. it lasted one season before they retooled it, graduated the kids & renamed it saved by the bell. miss bliss is a poncy tart, so i'm glad they got rid of her.
• the golden girls (1985-1992) season one, ep 3. dorothy can't beat sophia at gin rummy, oh the drama that ensues!
• married...with children (1987-97) season 1, eps 7-10. kyle is loving this, having not really seen it before, stoked!
  

music:

• the jesus & mary chain's barbed wire kisses (1988) on the record player while kyle & i were painting in the garage.

food & drink:

• sara lee banana cake & lipton tea (grody...i can't have my usual T2, as they weren't around in the 80s, so had to settle...buying twinings tomorrow to get me through the month).

• cherry apple lollipop.

• shin ramyun noodles...second last pack, won't buy any 'til next month, i have to break the stomach churning addiction!

• mushroom & nut pie, salad, banana smoothie. pie recipe from the margaret fulton book. this was way gnarly, margaret knows what time it is.

• cola zooper dooper. we bought the aldi version of zooper doopers last month and they were grody to the max (i'm genuinely in love with the word grody, by the way). kyle was forcing himself to eat them, but gave in & threw them out yesterday. nothing compares to the original.

challenges/comments:

first day back at my path centre since i started this. the very first thing that the very first patient said to me when i brought him in was "happy new year...how about that guy who blew his head off with the fireworks?". i couldn't scream "NOOOOOOOOOOO, I'M LIVING IN THE 80S FOR THE MONTH & I CAN'T HEAR THE NEWS, DUHHHHH!". instead i said "yeah that was something...but you should've seen my cats on new years with all the carry on, their ears were so pricked up!". yeah.

i really missed having my radio on at work. maybe i can find one of those oldies community stations that have no ads & only play music from the 30s & everyone's name is betty & sound like they're being run from a nursing home. i remember finding a station like that when i lived in st. kilda during my teens, it was my favourite.

Livin' in the 80s Month: Day Two

movies:

• war of the roses (1989) i remember all the bitter divorcées of my childhood loving this movie. divorce/unhappy marriage was seemingly all the rage in the 80s. i am not a bitter divorcée, but i love this movie. michael douglas is grody to the max, but kathleen turner is one righteous babe.
• mr. mom (1983) ahhhh, this was so cute! written by john hughes. martin mull is in it, always a plus.

tv shows:

• married...with children (1987-97) season 1, eps 1-6. i grew up with this show, so it's pretty rad that 3 & 1/2 seasons aired in the 80s, so i can watch them this month. bitchin'! i remember my dad, brother & i loved it & didn't miss an episode, while my mum hated it & grumbled in the background. al bundy is hands down one of the greatest tv characters of all time. it's good straight off from the pilot episode too, most shows take at least half a season to get into the swing of things. uh, tubular.
• freddy's nightmares (1988-90) season 1, ep 1. this show was a spin-off from the nightmare on elm street movies & is an anthology show, like the twilight zone. the first episode was about how freddy became freddy basically & was a bit slow moving. from what i know of it, most of the stories don't actually involve freddy. maybe it gets better, or maybe it's a pile of crap, we'll see.

music:

• the human league's dare (1981) while i cooked dinner. i seriously considered phil oakey-ing my hair for this month (i still kind of want to).

food & drink:

• eggs & avocado on multigrain & a cappuccino for breakfast.

• shin ramyun noodles for lunch.

• smiths crinkle cut chips.

• spinach & potato patties and avocado w/ raspberry vinaigrette for dinner. both are recipes from my trusty margaret fulton book of vegetarian cooking (1989). i made the avocado dish just because it looked like the most hilariously 80s thing in there, but it was actually completely awesome. stoked. margaret fulton looks alive on the back cover of this book, far more pleasant than the zombie apocalypse cardboard stand that haunted me in coles all last year.

challenges/comments:

spent the entire day vegged out at home, safe from outside influences.

i miss my 5:30 eddie mcguire fix. i wish i had some episodes of sale of the century or wheel of fortune to tide me over. i don't think i ever would've crushed on tony barber like i do on eddie, though. burgo on the other hand...

Livin' in the 80s Month: Day One

movies:

• hot pursuit (1987) john cusack tries to find his girlfriend in the caribbean, hi jinks ensue. i'd never seen this before & wish i'd kept it that way. also features jerry stiller playing the exact same character he plays in everything ever.
• star wars episode VI: return of the jedi (1983) finally. years ago, i promised kyle i'd watch the original star wars movies with him (having avoided them all my life). i got through the first two ok a while ago, but couldn't bring myself to watch the last. well, it's done now & may we never speak of this franchise again (though i did like that part where chewy hugged han solo...and those teddy bear things were kind of cute).

tv shows:

• the golden girls (1985-92) season 1, eps 1-2. i forgot how much i loved this show. blanche gets involved with a bigamist! dorothy confronts her cheating ex stan at their daughter's wedding. i was having trouble remembering the gay housekeeper coco while watching the first episode, which makes sense as the character was dumped when the show was picked up.

music:

• various 80s compilations during my shift at lush, inc. dickie wilkins hits of the 80s #1 and #2!

food & drink:

• space food stick on my way to work! plus choc coconut & lemon slices & some fruit salad when i got there courtesy of my workmate whitey.

• kumquat & taro pudding bubble tea. i don't even know what a kumquat is, but the taste was not unlike regurgitated orange juice.

• japanese curry & rice for lunch.

• home time, west coast coolers! this was the only pack at my local bottle-o & i'm pretty sure it's been there since the 80s. later on, i had a bacardi & coke and a cosmopolitan.

• microwave popcorn with the movies.

• shin ramyun noodles (thankfully sold since 1986...i've been going through a phase with these, even though my digestive system is less than keen about it).

• top deck chocolate.

challenges:

i already really, really miss the news. i can't shake this feeling that something really important has happened & I DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT. in 80s news, there's lots of shit going down in the USSR...

on the bus on my way to work, well, as i put it on my facebook "a posse of newjacks are blasting their boom box on my wheels! i can't tell them to step off, but am saved by the earplugs in my bag! bitchin'!".

watching my slang is proving tricky...going on my lunch break yesterday, i said "BRBBBBBB", as i always do, then had to slap myself hard on the face for doing so. which you can only get away with so many times in public before they put you in the loony bin, but it's THE ONLY WAY I'LL LEARN!

Livin' in the 80s Month!

a few weeks ago, i decided i wanted to live an entire month confined to 1980s culture (for nothing other than my own personal kicks).
december was going to be too busy, so i settled on january & here we are, january 1st.
i rang in the new year last night with some footage from the countdown to 1984 & distressingly woke up with "she blinded me with science" in my head, fuck it. i hate that song. i mean, i hate that latest smash hit by thomas dolby.
i'll be updating this blog daily with how i'm going. here's the rules:

• movies/TV: i can only watch movies and TV shows that were released/aired during the 80s. watching qualifying shows/movies on free to air television is risky, as i can't watch the ads, so i'll likely be avoiding it altogether and just relying on my own collection (we've disconnected the aerial).
  
• music: i can only listen to music released during the 80s.
• books/magazines: i can only read books/magazines released/issued during the 80s.
• food/drink: i can only consume food and drink that was available in the 80s. it doesn't necessarily have to have been available in australia during the 80s, anywhere in the world will suffice (for instance, today i had bubble tea, which originated in taiwan in the 80s, but did not become available here until much later).
• video games: i'm a nintendo nerd, but we only have consoles from SNES onwards, so no video games for me. we have plenty of board games, though (unfortunately my all time favourite, the home improvement board game, will have to have the month off).
  
• technology: given how hard it was going to be to access enough old technology to get me through the month (signing up for a home phone again, obtaining playable VHS tapes etc.) & the fact that i wanted to keep an internet based record of this whole thing, i am giving myself a fair amount of leeway with this. my movies and tv shows are all either on DVDs or are avi files being watched through a usb stick connected to my set top box. i can only use the internet for work related reasons, for research purposes relating to this project (e.g. was cadbury top deck available in the 80s?), and for the purposes of updating this blog and my facebook regarding this project. my "home phone" is in fact my iphone, however i am banned from using it for anything other than phonecalls, and facebooking/internet relating solely to this project or work (i am rather upset that all my words with friends games are going to lapse!).
• news: i cannot watch any televised news, read a newspaper, or listen to radio. i can however read news from the 80s. my husband kyle is planning on printing a page of news from online archives every day for me to read.
  
• work: i work two jobs, one being as a pathology collector in a medical centre. i have my own room there & usually have talkback radio playing for background noise/entertainment/patient distraction. this will have to stay off for the month. i can't even play gold fm, because they play 90s music now (plus the news updates & ads are a problem). i don't anticipate other problems there, apart from patients talking to me about the news, as they sometimes do. my action plan if that happens is to just yell "LOOK, KITTY!" and point to the pictures of my kitties i have around. my other job is at a LUSH cosmetics store, the girls there have already been given the heads up & have pledged support to only play 80s cds when i'm rostered on, chaaaaaaamps! i sometimes need to use the internet to update our store's facebook page & this is allowed.
• language: i am awkwardly trying to incorporate 80s slang into my everyday vocabulary...so, ah, bag your face.

other rules/issues will be dealt with as they happen. day one's blog post to come in the morning!

this is something.

this girl on the bus was wearing two pairs of glasses. at the same time. one looked like her actual prescribed specs, and the other op-shopped. they weren't even sunnies, so it's not like she couldn't be arsed buying prescription sunnies & just desperately needed to shield her eyes from the sun. every time she moved her head, the second pair moved and she had to adjust them. this averaged about 9 adjustments per minute. that's a lot of effort just to achieve a six eyes look. more power to her? i don't know.

DeeDee's Craptacular Movie Festival Of Crap.

so i'm doing this thing at the moment where if i want to watch a movie, i have to watch whatever is next in order in my avi movie folder that i haven't seen before. i do things like this often, obsessive quirk? i don't know, but at least it's put an end to my complete indecision when it comes to movie watching. i have a lot of random shite picked up from my brother, so this is going to be kind of gruelling at times.
all the james bond movies are first in my folder, and i've only seen one of them before, but fucked if i'm watching 20+ bond movies in a row, so i'll watch one of them every 5-10 movies 'til i'm done. so far...

#1 lord of the rings the first one, whatever it's called - will watch the other two when i get a chance with kyle...i need to watch them with him so he doesn't miss any of my brilliant snarky commentary & so he can update me when i look away or get distracted by cats, same goes for the other two matrix movies ;) yeah, so, this was long, peeps weren't kidding for real etc. i think it made me pee a lot for some reason, much more than i usually would in 3 hours. hobbits are kinda shit. what even happened in this movie??? 3 hours and they didn't even get to their final destination! this probably would've gone better if i liked fantasy, but i really, really don't. it least it had the professor from sliders in it, love that crazy bastard.

#2 bee movie yesssssss, the audio doesn't work! (rule is if there's something wrong with the file, i'm excused)

#3 before i self destruct oh god no. it's a 50 cent movie. screw you zal, screw you. i am so tempted to pretend this doesn't exist, but the obsessive completest in me won't allow it. OH HOW IRONIC, HE'S A GHETTO THUG BUT HIS KID BROTHER'S A GENIUS, I GET IT. 40 minutes in so far. i can do this. he sure is shooting a lot of people. oh, and now it's turned into soft porn. there ain't a single competent actor in this whole damn thing. stilted lines galore. OHHHHHHHHHHHH. i just imdb'd it, turns out fiddy wrote it and directed it too. that explains it. doesn't he have mega-money? doesn't he own vitamin water or something? why didn't he pay someone to make this passable? goofy fuck. oh yay, more shooting. 48 mins in.

this can't be an accident.

penis nose mask w/ pot leaf scarf.
$2, family discount store, bell st mall, heidelberg west.