Those sorts of behaviour tend to make me want to walk out. Actually there is no tend about it. I do. And don’t go back for quite a while. And then I tell everyone I know about it.

I suspend cafes and restaurants. That means I will not darken its door, part with one cent of my cash for a given period of time (usually until I have forgotten how bad it was). One local wine bar is currently suspended for six months. Another has just come back from a year long suspension. I’m pleased to say it has lifted its game. It’s actually come to the state where my friends want to know which places are suspended so they can too avoid them, or at least avoid trying to meet me there as I won’t go.

The thing that is really annoying me at the moment though is the corkage charge. Now I don’t mind paying corkage. Especially when a place has a liquor licence. Corkage is fair. It’s especially fair when you are provided with a wine bucket, some decent glasses, the wine is untwisted and a bonus if the waiter treats your drop like it’s been purchased from their own winelist. However when I was charged $10 a head corkage at a new, unlicensed restaurant AND I had to ask for a wine bucket, glasses and then open and pour myself, well let’s just say I was little miffed. I haven’t suspended it but I only eat breakfast there now (even I don’t drink wine at breakfast).

Seems I’m not alone in this general jack-offedness about restuarants. One critic says that he wants to take a bottle of white-out to restuarants so that he can white out the unavailable wine choices that although on the list are usally unavailabe. Another mentions an EATING/DONE EATING sign that they can put out so that waiters get the general idea.

I’d personally like to add my own YES sign to flash at waiters as they invariably swoop in to ask if I’m enjoying my meal right when I filled my mouth up with food. Actually I wish they’d just go away. I’ll let them know if I’m not enjoying my meal or my clean plate will tell them that I did. See old and grumpy.

So here are some other ideas that critics (via the SMH) have suggested to improve the dining experience.

• Torch so you can read menus in dim lighting.
• Wedge to put under wobbly table legs.
• Sunscreen and hat for when you’re seated outside under an umbrella but the sun moves.
• Cardigan for over-airconditioning.
• Spare reading glasses: for the dimwit in every middle-aged group (eg my husband) who forgets to bring theirs and has to get their long-suffering partner (eg me) to read the whole menu to them.
• Pepper grinder: when you want control over how much pepper goes on your food, and when.
• Spare knife and fork: for when yours falls on the floor from those big white bowls that everything slips off.
• Whistle to attract waiters.
• Matches for lighting unlit table candles and in case you forget the torch (see above).
• GPS for navigating the way to hard-to-find toilets.  Image

Rightio then, fantasy time over. I may have made up the True Colours duet (hell maybe even the whole karaoke thing) and I know that that blue jumpsuit I wore in the 80’s wouldn’t get past my thighs, but a blogger can fantasise on her blog’s second birthday. Because Gen X Journey and Princess Kate share a birthday. How about that?

So what was happening when I first blogged two years ago. Well one of my all time favourite authors Marian Keyes went into hiatus due to depression. Anyway she’s baking her way out of depression and is bringing out a cookbook as well as writing another book about the Walsh family which should be more fun than those depressing novels she’d been bashing out. No wonder she got depressed.

I also reviewed the Sherlock Holmes movie which I didn’t particularly like, and in a fit of irony, the sequel to that was released last week. I’ll have to go and see it for old times sake. I’ll give you a review.

One year ago, my hometown Brisbane was underwater and I tried to document what it was like to see people’s lives washed away in a sea of water. Fortunately the city is back to what it used to be. Individually there a still plenty of sad tales out there.

During the past two years I have written and published 519 posts. My most popular post?–Would you vajazzle your vajayjay? The one about Australian men’s penis size gets a regular airing too. Family stickers suck was quoted in the media. I now have a weekly newspaper column and I wait in hope for someone to realise my potential and syndicate it. I’ve also got a book waiting in the wings that is absolutely nothing to do with Gen X. I just need to find someone to publish it. Actually I need to find the guts to send it to a publisher which might well be a start.

Thank you to all my regular and loyal readers and those who make the effort to comment. I really appreciate it. Blogging can be a lonely process and I’m thrilled when people even read my work, let alone respond to it.

So happy birthday Princess Kate. And happy birthday Gen X Journey. Image

Following is this week’s Gen X Girl weekly column that appears in the Townsville Bulletin’s Savvy magazine.

I had a houseful of Gen Ys over after Christmas. They all woke up distinctly green tinged, hoarse voiced and shaking hands. “Hangover” they all declared before proceeding to mope around the house, getting in the way and tiring me with their whinging.

People with hangovers really annoy me. As any good Gen X person knows, hangovers are not a badge of honour for our generation. A hangover is a sign of weakness. If you drink, you have a duty not to show it the next day.

So with New Year’s Eve festivities bearing down on us, I have devised my top 10 hangover cures. (Disclaimer: I am not a doctor nor do I claim to be. I am a drinker who prides herself on never getting hangovers. These cures were acquired by years of trial and error. Use at your own risk).

1. Vanilla milkshake and a chicko roll. I know it sounds disgusting but the milk puts a lining on your stomach, the vanilla flavour is full of sugar and the oil-soaked pastry gives sustenance. The cabbage in chicko rolls is a blood purifier.
2. Coke and fish and chips. It must be full strength Coke and the fish and chips must be accompanied by vinegar and tomato sauce. A perfectly balanced meal of carbs, protein and fat.
3. Dehydration powder, water and asprin mixed together in one glass. The dehydration powder (the stuff you take when you get diarrhoea) replenishes your electrolytes, the asprin is a pain killer and water rehydrates you.
4. Milk thistle. You can buy this herb from the chemist or health food store. The instructions say to take one with each meal. I prefer to take about five when I come home after a big night out and another five when I get up. Then I pop them all day. I repeat I am not a doctor so you should probably follow the directions on the bottle.
5. Drink a Bloody Mary. This is how I make them. Pour a nip of vodka in the bottom of a glass, add ice, fill the glass with V8 Hot and Spicy, sprinkle in a little Tabasco and a squeeze of lemon. Stir and drink. Repeat as often as necessary.
6. Cherry ripe and Coke. This is a variation on the fish and chip combination, but is ideal for those with a sweet tooth. The combination of caffeine, sugar and fat has curative properties.
7. Drink a slug of water as soon as you get home from a night out. Don’t do this the next day. Water is poison the day after drinking unless you add things like sugar to it. But the night before—as much as you can get down.
8. Go for a swim and put you head under water. It’s very peaceful under water and your inflamed brain cells shrink from the cold.
9. Drink some Gatorade. If you can tolerate drinking something that colour with a hangover, you can do anything.
10. Drink a Gold stubby. This is only for the truly desperate. It’s can’t be any other type of beer and don’t even think of drinking it from a can. It must be an ice cold Gold stubby with condensation on the side.

Choose one or choose them all. Happy New Year. Image

I was unpacking the dishwasher the other day, throwing a little tantrum in my mind about the cups. Why can’t dishwasher manufacturers get the slope of the cup holders right? If they could just manage that I wouldn’t spill the water that has pooled on the bases all over the kitchen floor. And as I write this it occurs to me that that is a perfect example of a first world problem.

Urban dictionary defines a first world problem as problems arising from living in wealthy industrialized nations that third worlders would probably just roll their eyes at. It’s also known as white whine.

Anyway I know that many of my first world problems are meaningless and trivial and I dare say selfish, but really what’s a Gen X Girl to do if she can’t complain. So find following my Top 10 First World Problems.

1. Because it’s Christmas time I have to stop buying myself all the things I want just so that people can have something that they buy me as a gift.
2. There’s nothing to watch on Foxtel. I pay for the service yet there is nothing to watch on 50 channels. There’s also nothing to record so I have to watch really, really bad TV, repeats and sometimes even advertisements.
3. My internet is slow. It takes ages for pages to upload. By then I’ve got bored and opened a whole lot of other slow loading pages just to pass the time. Then the computer freezes.
4. Everyone looks short and fat on my TV. This is especially bad when I’m showing holiday photos on my flat screen. I look short and my behind looks wide. The only comforting thing about this is that Kim Kardashian looks like that too. Stupid TV. I expect more from it.
5. I have to take the long way round the shopping centre to avoid the charity muggers. No you cannot pester me into donating to your charity. Didn’t your mother tell you it was rude to ask for things?
6. My purse is heavy because of all the five-cent coins I have in it. I despise the five-cent so much that I can’t be bothered to bend down to pick it up when I drop it. It’s not worth my while.
7. I hate it when the barista mixes up the order and gives me full fat milk when I specifically ordered a skinny flat white. Full fat milk tastes horrible and ruins my cup of coffee. Then I have to chuck it out.
8. Someone gave me a watermelon the other day. It had seeds in it. I couldn’t be bothered dealing with the seeds so I threw it out. Watermelon seeds spoil my enjoyment of watermelon eating.
9. I hate being nagged by my coffee machine. It tells me to empty the grounds container, fill the water, find some beans. Why do I have to do all the hard work?
10. Sunscreen makes me sweaty and hot. I don’t want to get skin cancer, but I don’t want to be hot. What to do?

Yep, selfish and shallow. So what are your first world problems? Image

To my father, Spam was canned ham. To my daughter, it’s naughty, annoying email. Here are 21 more expressions which mean something totally different to him than to her.

Tweet
To my father: what a bird says.
To my kid: what Kim Kardashian says.
Pre-game
To my father: the period before the actual game began.
To my kid: drinking before the actual drinking begins.
CD
To my father: ‘certificate of deposit,’ a financial product that once earned interest.
To my kid: what parents used to listen to music on before iTunes.
Stream
To my father: running water in the woods. (Later in life, the efficiency of his bladder to evacuate.)
To my kid: what gets Justin Bieber performing on her computer screen.
Like
To my father: a positive sentiment, generally about a person, place or thing.
To my kid: a “button” (on Facebook) expressing one’s vote of agreement.
Text
To my father: the original words of something written or printed.
To my kid: phone message made up of the letters OMG, LOL & WTF.
Junk
To my father: the stuff in one’s attic.
To my kid: the stuff in one’s pants.
Chat
To my father: what you do in person with friends.
To my kid: what you do on a computer with buddies.
Social network
To my father: friends and neighbors with whom you actually hang out.
To my kid: people you “know” on Facebook and Twitter, most of whom you’ve never met.
#
To my father: number sign
To my kid: hashtag
Roaming
To my father: What the buffalo did on the range.
To my kid: Excessive phone charges, paid by parent.
Swipe
To my father: to steal.
To my kid: what you do with a credit card, also paid by parent.
The shit
To my father: what a dog left on the sidewalk.
To my kid: something awesome.
The bomb
To my father: Hiroshima.
To my kid: also something awesome.
Reality
To my father: the state of things as they actually exist.
To my kid: TV shows that bear no resemblance to the state of things as they actually exist.
The Jersey Shore
To my father: The beach where Jersey people went in the summer.
To my kid: A “reality” show featuring halfwits exhibiting bad behavior.
The situation
To my father: A state of affairs.
To my kid: Asinine guy with great abdominals, exhibiting bad behavior.
Digital
To my father: A thermometer.
To my kid: An entire way of life, dude.
Weed
To my father: what grew on the lawn.
To my kid: what the kids bring to school.
Get Busy
To my father: To occupy yourself.
To my kid: To occupy yourself having sex.
Cougar
To my father: Large wild cat preying on deer.
To my kid: Older wild woman preying on younger men.
Muffin top
To my father: Top of a muffin.
To my kid: Fat role around the waist.
Gangster, now as “gangsta”
To my father: Al Capone.
To my kid: Fifty Cent (aka “Fitty”).
Fifty
To my father: 50.
To my kid: The new 40.
Sick
To my father: Physically ill.
To my kid: Fantastic.
Ill
To my father: Physically sick.
To my kid: Also fantastic.
Ecstasy
To my father: A trance-like state of absolute euphoria.
To my kid: A pill, to produce a trance-like state of absolute euphoria.
Energy Drink
To my father: Coffee.
To my kid: Red Bull.
Vietnam
To my father: Horrendous war.
To my kid: Wonderful tourist destination.
Crib
To my father: Where a baby sleeps.
To my kid: Where a rapper sleeps.
ED
To my father: Talking horse of old TV show (“A horse is a horse, of course of course…”)
To my kid: Erectile dysfunction (“Seek immediate medical attention for an erection lasting over four hours.”)
Wicked
To my father: Very bad.
To my kid: Very good.
Train wreck
To my father: A train that was wrecked.
To my kid: Lindsay Lohan

Can you think of any more? Image

I’ve always been one for a fad. If something new comes along, I’m the first one to jump on the bandwagon. Call me gullible, call me credulous, but if there’s something new in town you can guarantee I found it weeks ago, no months ago, gave it a test run and then abandoned it. I may grasp a fad with unbridled enthusiasm, but like a twenty year old after a one-night stand, I quickly move on to a new conquest.

Does anyone remember the kambucha tea craze? I was there. Kambucha tea was elixir of life; ringing any bells all you Gen Xers? Drinking it daily would ensure optimum health, glowing skin, a size ten figure, the secret the universe, and end to poverty—there was nothing it couldn’t do.

For such a wonder product it worked quite simply. You obtained a dinner plate sized mushroom, placed it in a container, covered it with tea and sugar and let it grow for a week in a dark, cool place, then—hey presto, mushroom juice. Sounds like compost, but no, it was the key to a long and healthy life.

Weight loss fads—tried them all—first. Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Atkins, The Zone, and Cabbage Soup are old friends. There’s been green tea, home gyms, and I even had one of the original Jane Fonda tapes which I had to hide from my husband who insisted I fast forward it to the pelvic thrust bit while he watched with his tongue hanging out.

I was the first to aerobic classes. I grapevined right instead of left causing a human pileup in the aerobic room. I was banned. Oh the shame. Since then lots of people have been banished, but it was me who was banished first—I started that fad.

I’ve dabbled in laser eye surgery, chemical peels, facial massage and acupuncture in my quest for youth. I’ve embraced soy, green tea and shark cartilage. I’ve eaten more salmon than a brown bear and I pop fish oil capsules like lollies.

There were a few fads I refused to engage with. I have never had decals on my toenails, I’ve always hated matt lipstick, scrunchies are a crime against hair and there is no way I am ever going to sport a butterfly tattoo on my behind.

There a few things on my fad radar right now—ear candling for one. This is how it works. A burning candle is inserted into the ear (true—I’m not making this up) and wax instantly melts away. I’m not sure where it melts to, but it sounds intriguing. It is also gets rid of headaches. Clean ears and no headaches—it’s got me already.

I’m also keen to give the vibrogym a whirl. Apparently you stand on a vibrating plate and all the shaking gives you defined muscles, eliminates cellulite and is good for your heart health. It has fad, and therefore my name, written all over it.

You probably think I’m a sucker. You’re right, but there’s every chance that there’s a residual effect to all those health and fitness fads and I’ll live to enjoy yet more fads well in to my nineties. You never know I might restart the kambucha tea craze from my vibrating nursing home bed.  Image

This is my Gen X Girl column from this week’s Savvy Magazine that appears in the Townsville Bulletin.

It’s no secret that I enjoy a drop of wine. OK, to be fair maybe that could be more than a mere drop, but I’m hardly Robinson Crusoe. Anyway big suck in to me because now I’m definitely going to get breast cancer. Well that’s what some study says anyway.

According to a recent Harvard University study, having one unit of wine a day could increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 15%. Having two units of wine a day will increase it by 50%. This is very bad news, especially when you consider that a unit is a piddling 100ml.

Is anyone putting down their glass of sav blanc as this read this riveting piece of information? Didn’t think so. If you’re anything like me you’ve learned to disregard information like this. We’re all suffering from Conflicting Health Theory Overload Syndrome.

Now this is not yet a medically recognised syndrome. I just made it up, but I have every confidence that it’s going to be picked up by the medical profession.

As a practical example of CHTOS let’s take my old friend wine. Wasn’t it only last year that health experts were advocating a couple of glasses a wine for cardio-vascular health? So for the sake of our health we enjoyed our daily tipple, reinforced by the results of another study that says drinkers live longer than kill-joy abstainers. Yippee. Heart beating fine and we’re fun and then along comes the latest study saying that we women are going to get cancer. Stupid sexist study.

Wine’s not the only breast cancer causing culprit out there. Apparently underarm deodorants are a big no-no. Sorry, I’m not giving that up—no one will talk to me. And wide strapped underwire bras are also taboo. That should boost the sale of those hideous ah ha bras that are being flogged on TV at the moment.

We’re also warned to avoid tooth fillings and root canals. I’m not sure that one can avoid a root canal. It’s not as though anyone chooses to have one. It’s more the pain that drives people to pay exorbitant sums of money to dentists rather than an aesthetic but there I go being all judgmental.

Anyway because I read a lot of women’s magazines and spend too much time on the internet I have a wealth of conflicting medical advice that may be helpful to you. So here goes.

1. Yoga does not make you fit because you mostly lie around a lot.
2. Bananas can help you give up smoking. A banana costs more than a cigarette.
3.  If your poo looks like little hard balls you are in trouble. Miranda Kerr says so.
4.  Drinking eight glasses of water a day is bunkum.
5. Your coffee addiction is inherited from your parents. Yes it really is your mother’s fault.
6. The whiskey diet is true. Lady Gaga said so.
7. Swearing reduces blood pressure.
8. Running is bad for you.
9. Soy can lead to the excessive feminisation of men. Put the soy and linseed bread back on the shelf boys.
10. 30% of men do not wash their hands after going to the toilet. Image

This is my weekly column from the

Can you touch type? Kudos. Big merit to you. Well it would be a big merit if you were completing the 100 Point Behaviour Test for Teenagers formulated in 1953 by Dr George Crane.

I’ve always thought touch-typing to be a necessary skill. Not sure that it contributes to the worth of a 2011 teenager though. Actually I wish I had the skill of fast texting that all teenagers inherit at birth. The skill that lays dormant and festering through childhood and then manifests itself in a frenzy of thumb tapping to sent out at lightning speed searching messages like “wazzup” on their thirteenth birthday. Me, I use the keyboard on my phone to send the equally searching but beautifully punctuated “How are you?” Fortunately (for my street cred) I have abandoned the emicon. That was a very lame period of my life.

Anyway back to the meritorious behaviour of the 1953 teen. Regular church attendance will score you ten merits, but showing racist behaviour—well that gets you a big demerit of five points. But being a racist is nowhere as bad as “illicit sexual relations” which earns the horny teen a whopping twenty demerit points. Let this be a lesson in moderation to you young people.

OK, I know you’re just dying to know other ways that the 1953 teen could redeem themselves. So here’s an incomplete list: play a musical instrument, sing in a choir (I’m sensing a theme), has operated a newspaper route , teach a Sunday school class, asks to be excused when leaving the table early, depends on the alarm clock to get up instead of mamma, knows how to swim and wipes toothpaste specks from the mirror. That’s a diverse list of requirements.

The list of demerits is equally varied. The errant teen: flirts while on a date or is a “two timer”, cheats at school, fails to clean the comb after using it, is grumpy or caustic in the morning and accepts foolish dares to please others (planking on railings anyone?).

Anyway in the interests of recapturing my lost youth, and the absence of any willing teenagers prepared to tell me the truth, I conducted the test on myself. I’ll tell you now I fell down on all the church and prayer stuff and the profanity bit and that whole thing about drinking alcoholic beverages and gambling. I also failed on all the musical merits. I did try singing in a choir, once, and I was so bad that they asked me to do the big smile and mouth the words. This suggestion has been repeated when I sing karaoke.

I did excel at the household chores though. I regularly take the garbage out without nagging, I can prepare an entire meal on my own and I know how to swim. I never stick gum under the table and have stayed away from home for a week. Whew—at least I got some in the positive column.

Anyway I’ve totted up my score and let’s just say I failed. Apparently I have the emotional intelligence of a kindergartner. The children of 1953 must have been very virtuous, or maybe this test is a crock.

Does Guitar Hero count as playing a musical instrument? Image

This is my Gen X Girl column for this week’s Savvy magazine published in The Townsville Bulletin.

I’m starting to think I might be quite old. I actually remember when the internet was discovered. OK, it wasn’t discovered like Captain Cook discovered Australia, but discovered like when it first came out. My first time was at work. We dialled up, the noisy modem made lots of Star Trek sounds and hey presto we were ON LINE.

There were four of us crowded round one computer when the boss asked what we wanted to look up using our Alta Vista search engine. “Porn” we all chorused and that’s what we did. Looked at porn for five minutes, with our boss. Sort of gross—yes. Kiddies, in the olden days you could do things like that without having a sexual harassment suit slapped on you.

I remember when mobile phones came out. Well they more resembled a tackle box with a phone in it. Very big, quite inconvenient and majorly wanky. “Can’t see those taking off,” I thought to myself. Major fail.

However some really cool things have come out just recently and quite frankly I don’t know how we ever survived without them.

1. Group discount coupons. My inbox is full of group discount coupons offering me all sorts of incentives from facials to Thai holidays to golf games. There’s nothing like getting a facial for $25. Reminds me of what things cost in the 80s. My most recent purchase—one of those robot vacuum cleaners. Only $200—what a bargain. Works OK, but the real fun is watching the dog freak out.
2. Online shopping. “They’ll steal all the money from your bank account”, Nana cautioned but the rest of world and I embraced internet shopping with gusto. I buy clothes from the US and UK and have them delivered to my house for free. I think of the deliveryman as Santa bringing me lovely gifts once a week. I buy my makeup from Hong Kong where I pay half the price, get a 10% and more free delivery. God bless you strong Aussie dollar.
3. DIY Travel. I make all my own travel arrangements when I fly overseas. I do lots of research and find good stuff for cheap. I pick my airplane seats online. I don’t use travel agents anymore. The last time I used one resulted in a very dodgy hotel in a male enclave of Dubai. Blonde female? Muslim? Attention for all the wrong reasons.
4. Smart phones. Do you remember when a Filofax was the in-thing for any businessperson? You put your contacts, appointments into a hideously expensive organiser, which resulted in RSI as you lugged it around. Now it all goes on to the phone. The internet is there too. Genius. Now you can look up porn on the bus.
5. E-books. I love a good read but have you seen how much books cost? And then you’ve got to find somewhere to store them which is fine if you have a shelf of Shakespearean works which make you look smart. Fantasy romances not so much. But books can be downloaded for a fraction of the price and stored the e-reader. Money and storage problems sorted. You can even read romance novels on the bus. No one need know you’re reading vapid crap because you look so clever with your fancy e-reader.  Image