The Smell Of Trouble

The Swine Flu

Is this Mexico's subtle way of telling us we're not invited to the next Spring break parties in Cancun?

Twitter

So...I signed on to Twitter. Don't ask me why. I don't know why. In fact, me and my boyfriend just had a two hour long discussion about why wouldn't he give me his kidney (I don't need his kidney. I mean, physically, I don't need a kidney, I've already got one. But it's always good to have a spare, right?), and when he finally agreed to give it to me (after blabbing on about how it is going to decrease his years on this planet and offering to sell it for me in the black market so I can afford those Prada shoes), I have told him I opened an account on Twitter.

'Forget it', he stood up and shook his head, 'I'm not wasting my kidney on someone who uses Twitter'.

I didn't see what he meant, but after being a part of this wonderful, exceptionally boring community, I sort of do. After all, the way I see it, Twitter is basically the result of a Facebook addict who's been updating his 'what do you do?' space quite often, and asked himself one day - 'hey, why don't I open a website that is all about what I do all day? wouldn't that be a great idea?'

And the answer is, of course, no. It wouldn't be a great idea. The reason for that is because most of us are doing absolutely nothing all day. In fact, my Twitter page goes pretty much like this:

Elle Stern has brushed her teeth

Elle Stern scratched her arse

Elle Stern put the kettle on

Elle Stern realised that she's out of coffee, is pissed off

Elle Stern's cat is on heat, trying to molest a dirty kitchen towel

Elle Stern doesn't know what to eat, goes to work in 5 minutes

Elle Stern feels like she is writing a ledger of everything that is going wrong in her life, which is pretty much everything

Elle Stern is going to stop this shit right now, before she loses her mind.

Of course, not all of us are boring. There is this special layer in our society, I think they are called Celebrities, who have much, much more interesting lives than I do. They have Twitter pages, and this opens the doors to the interesting, fascinating lives of stars as Miley Cyrus, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. For instance - Want to know how was John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston's date yesterday?

- Well, tough luck, buddy. They won't talk about it for less than 10k from OK magazine. However, being a John Mayer follower on Twitter (yes, I do understand that this makes me sound very pathetic), I have access to his deepest thoughts. As an example, he just posted this on his page:

johncmayerMy life feels sort of like
the last 20 minutes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Except I don't have a
dusty little book to go by.

Amazing, huh? So deep, my eyes almost bled. Wait, maybe they did. Let me check. Nope. Not yet, anyway. So what do I do, you ask? I write on my twitter page the following as a response:

ellesternAgrees that John Mayer's life
is like an Indiana Jones movie, especially if the movie is badly written and
lacks any sort of talent.21 minutes
ago from web

So, do you think someone laughed? Hell no. I've just received a personal
message from an angry follower, asking me why am I harrassing John Mayer.

I also can't quite figure out this Twitter thing as I have recently read that
Ashton Kutchen and the CNN had a competition of who is going to recruit more
followers on twitter. You'd be happy to know that humanity chose the obvious
idea of neutral, balanced and interesting news...of Mr Kutcher. Yeah.

By the way, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact he's a hot piece of
**** and posting pictures of Demi Moore in her knickers and a lot to do with
the
fact he is a witty, intelligent human being. Seriously. I mean, not.

Budget Boogies

So, has anyone heard the budget for 2009? - Oh, of course. We were all refreshing the Guardian/Independent/Daily Mail/Google News every five seconds to see what Alistair Darling had in mind for Britain for the upcoming year.

What I enjoy the most, though, is the realisation that most of the people I know, including myself admittedly, have suddenly turned to Financial analysists with masters in Economics. That's coming from a graduate with a B- at maths, who, one day, actually lifted her hand in the middle of an exam and asked: 'wait, so let me get this straight, if minus and minus is a plus...is plus and a plus a minus?'. By the way, I was 17. By the way2 - you're not telling this to my mum.

However, something just doesn't seem to be right about the 2009 budget. You don't have to be an accountant to realise that Britain is spending and spending like a Lindsay Lohan in a shopping therapy, whilst money doesn't come in any way. The only additional income the government is expected to initiate is a 2% increase on Alcohol and cigarettes - good news to all of us, smokers, who pay 7 quid for a pack of cigarettes already, and a tax increase on people who receive the income/pension of more than a 150k. That is hardly a way to pay ourselves out of the 170 billion pound dept we got ourselves into. Or, as Jeremy Clarkson said - increasing the tax on the salaries of 30,000 people in the hope it can pay our debts is like trying to pay your mortgage off the money you find under your sofa pillows.

Then again - and this is the budget booger in me, who knows everything about finance - I have heard very little jokes that are as good as Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's careers, so who knows? Maybe we are in the right after all.

Twilight Troubles

Oh, Robert Pattinson. Isn't he wonderful? - Bzzzz, not. If anything, my best advice is for his hair to persue its own career in acting, find itself a decent agent and squezze the most out of this Twilight insanity;

Just to make it clear - I have not watched Twilight. I had a few chances, the most recent one was being stuck on a plane for six hours, but even that did not convince me to sit and watch this chick-flick. Instead, I watched the boring and overrated case of Benjamin Button. Occasionally, I would turn the channel back to Twilight, and will catch a scene of Pattinson and Kirsten Stewert running in the woods and panting like two nymphomaniacs in a swingers party, and turn back to Benjamin Button, and then back to them running in the woods. All they did in this movie is literally running in the freaking woods.

And in an unrelated story - yesterday I had the pleasure of catching a film in a Clapham cinema. The film was called 'Let the Right One In', and it was Swedish (and probably tall, lean and handsome). It was about a tender love story of a teenage vampire falling in love with an mortal. Sounds familiar? I know, not at all.

The movie was absolutely brilliant and I recommend anyone with eyes to watch it. Otherwise, I shall end this with a Stephen King comment:-

“Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real
difference is that [Harry Potter author] Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and
[Twilight author] Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very
good.”
- Stephen King tells USA Today

Oh, boy! Poor Stephanie Mayer. Isn't her life like an Indiana Jones movie...