The Acidic Observer - The Home Edition

It's been a while since the last Acidic Observer, and for that I'm sorry. I have been quietly swallowing my burning views, instead of ranting about them here, like a sanctioned looney.

Thankfully, that mistake is being rectified as of now. And my aim, this week? The Darwin Housing Market.

The Man and I have been looking at building a new home over the past few weeks - probably a more sensible use of our time would have been investigating the value of internal organs on the black market.

Darwin property is at a peak, right now. To be honest we were lucky to have been able to buy a house when we did, back in 2010. Since then, the cost of property has skyrocketed. Why? Because of the Itchy Project! Well, it's actually the ICHTHYS Project, but calling it the Itchy Project makes me feel better.

It's all about gas mining and other boring stuff. Well there's more to it, but I'm just not that interested. Darwin was expensive enough without this sudden influx of interest - and while I'm sure local business, and not forgetting local developers, are loving the boom - the rest of us aren't!

Well, not me, anyway.

I also blame the state and local Governments for being so greedy that they release land in pissy amounts, driving up the price as people compete to be the newest owner of a fucking postage stamp.

I'm sorry, but when land is costing the same amount as the home we want to build, I kinda lose my shit.

And when I say kinda, I mean I morph into a wolverine and rip the head off of any unsuspecting realtor/developer who might enquire as to whether we are interested in purchasing this block before anyone else does. Even though we'd be lucky to fit a garden shed on it!

Trust me when I say that those who are renting are being shafted left, right   and centre, too. People/investors/greedy fucking bastards know they can make money from the influx of new employees of Itchy who need a home for their families. So what do they do? Up the rent to a bonkers level, dump the current tenants who can no longer afford it, and happily give it to a mining exec and their family who can afford $800+ a week because they're not paying for it. Gina Reinhardt is!

Well, maybe not Gina - but you get the idea.

Of course, just to really rub salt into the wound, I'm dumb enough to go onto realestate.com and look at the cost of building new in our hometown, in SA. Cue complete fucking meltdown as I ask the gods to strike down every single person in the NT who is contributing to the demented costing factor of a home.

I feel like for the prices we're looking at, we should be living in Sydney or Melbourne. Next door to Hugh Jackman. With Nicole, Keith, Sunday Roast and...and...the other ones on the other side. We're not looking for sea views, we're not looking for 3 hectares and some livestock. It's Darwin, people! You know, the place where mangoes cost $4 each and are brought in from Queensland, even though there are mango farms down the road. Where diesel is 20-50 cents a litre more than anywhere else...everything takes twice as long and is twice the price because of 'shipping', and then when the Ghan derails (again) it means the shops start advising us that stock will be low and we will have to make our own deodorant and toilet paper until the train can get here again.

IT'S DARWIN! We don't have a single department store. Even Freedom Furniture abandoned us!

We only have 1 power and water supplier which is Government owned. But our power systems haven't been maintained properly so now the prices are increasing by 15% so the Government can afford to upgrade and bring Darwin out of the middle ages so the power won't drop out when a gerbil on a treadmill gets struck by lightening.

The Darwin City Council slogs you $40 parking fines for being over your time limit in street parking - for the privilege of parking under a fucking frangipani tree where the flowers glue themselves to your car when it rains and secrete this disgusting white milky stuff everywhere. And then, of course, the bats shit all over your car. And then the rain clouds part and bake it all into the paint of your car so it needs to be re-done every 2 years.

The housing situation is just one more tooth in the cog of 'what the fuck, Darwin!?'.

It's all so painfully typical, I have no idea why I even get shitty anymore.

I'd say it was hope that makes me think things will change - but really, it's denial. And it get's me through, until we want to move on with our lives.

So overall, screw you Itchy, screw you Government and, today, screw you Darwin.

You are all on my shit list until further notice, Or I win the lottery.

Then I'm gonna move in next to Hugh.

The Acidic Observer, Volume VIIII

First of all, let's get this out the way - the Duchess of Cambridge is in LABOUR! Hallelujah!

This is how I think it's going...

"Oh, bother it all, those contractions are just ghastly, Will dahling..." 

"Can I ask my manservant to ask the servant to get you some Finnish purified ice, Katie, my dove?" 

"That would be spiffy - could you put in the order for my epidural, these pains are positively BEASTLY!?" 

"Certainly, Harrington will fetch the doctor immediately, but it may be a few moments wait while we get the best anaesthetist in the world here..." 

"Stone the crows, motherfucker, get me my epidural now and shut the fuck up! Don't touch me! Rub my back! Get me ice chips! Stop touching me! Did I say stop rubbing my back!? Where's that fucking doctor!? Stop talking! It huuuuuuuuuuuurts!!!!!" 

"...????..."

Now Kochie can stop crossing to a live feed of Mel standing in front of a building trying to grasp for things to say and not look like Charlie at the window of the sweet shop, totally separated from the chummy, joy of those smug bastards on the inside.

Sucks to be the one who jumped ship first, doesn't it Mel?

Anyway, sorry for the impromptu hiatus of a couple of weeks. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you'll notice we got a new member of the family.

He's a Great Dane, Irish Wolf Hound cross. His name is Loki - after the Norse God of Mischief.

Some people would say we're tempting fate with a name like that.

It's like having a new baby but a shit load worse because I can't make him wear a nappy and he chews everything, including my TOES. It's apparently completely normal - but given that I'm not a dog person, I haven't a fucking clue.

The only positive I can think of is that he doesn't eat his own shit.

Loki is The Man's longed for family pet. The Man has put up with my love of cats, tolerated their tendency to shit outside the litter box when we lived in an apartment, their love of shredding the couch and the armchair in the baby's room and their long memories and the resulting revenge.

So I felt it was only fair for him to finally have a companion of the dog kind.

And he's bloody lucky he's a cute dog, otherwise I'd have an attractive dog skin rug in the lounge.

Speaking of cute, The Man led me to my burn this week by making a passing comment that, according to some woman in the UK, babies have to be more than cute, they also can't be a red-head, to be loved.

Sometimes I think there are people in the world who should be bitch slapped. 

Repeatedly.

Her name is Katie Hopkins and she is a UK reality star. Not that this fact gives me any fucking clue who she is - but if my reality were the same as her's, I'd swallow a cyanide pill and end it all.

Katie is just one of many people who should not be allowed to speak. To anyone. Ever.

She chose to share this gem on Twitter: "Ginger babies. Like a baby. Just so much harder to love."

Hang on...like a baby? How does red hair make a baby anything but a baby? Unless they're an orang-utan - but they are still called BABIES!

Katie, clarify this for me - you're saying that I should stop loving The Jellybean because she has a tinge of the ginge? That somehow she is a sub-standard child because she is lucky enough to inherit the Irish red from my side of the family?

To assume that any child is difficult to love is a shameful thing to say. To assume that a child is difficult to love because they have a hair colour you're not fond of? You're an ignorant, despicable human being.

If I were you, Katie, red hair is the last thing I'd worry about. My biggest concern would be that my dumb-arsery was hereditary and, therefore, my kids would be doomed.

And just in case she didn't waste enough oxygen sprouting that load of crap, Katie continues on in her 'wisdom' that you can clearly identify what 'class' a child comes from, based on their name - and anyone with a 'lower-class' name is not welcome to play with her children.

Well, I don't think she needs to be concerned about the 'calibre' of anyone wanting to play with her children - no mother in the world would let their children be exposed to the offspring of a total fuckwit.

Obviously, Katie hasn't opened a newspaper, gone online, or stepped outside her bubble and realised that a child's name has NO bearing on their background. In case everyone has forgotten, Kim Kardashian named her daughter North West. One famous actor and his wife named their daughter Reignbeau. They have completely butchered the spelling of a natural phenomena. A NAME DOESN'T GET ANY MORE BOGAN THAN THAT! And this kid comes from a background that Katie would sell her cheap, reality TV soul to be associated with.

I find it ironic that the people who have the exposure, have the least to say to improve the world. Or just their own IQ.

Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff. - Mariah Carey.

I've never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that's very popular out there in Africa. - Britney Spears 

I'm not sure if it's funny or bloody frightening that, even with MENSA candidates like Mariah and Britney in the world, Katie is as close to being insightful as I am being announced as the new Queen of Atlantis.

Which is a shame because I've always thought I'd look good with a crown.

The Acidic Observer, Volume VIII

Tuesday just seems to roll around so fast, don't you think?

Maybe because the world seems to be so considerate lately, and has been pulling out the dumb-arses faster than I can register them.

Let's address the most obvious issue to begin, shall we?

If you've been living under a rock in the Himalayas, then you may have missed the fact that Kim Kardashian realised her baby was due around the same time as the royal baby, and decided that moment she needed a C-section to cash in effectively.

So last week, she had a baby girl. And probably a tummy tuck.

And last week, she named her baby 'North West'. There's no word on the name she's given to her tummy tuck.

And last week, we found out they call little North, 'Nori' for short.

Because it's not enough to give her a ridiculous legal name, but they have to give her a nickname that implies she will be wrapped around some rice and salmon, and served with chopsticks.

Why not cut out the middle man and name her 'California Roll'?

However, this week, Kimye is in fine company. I'm unsure of the amount of national coverage this story has received, but we all know Darwin can be a bit of a hub for - to put it kindly - the intelligence-challenged members of the world. Or fuckwit tourists, if you prefer.

I'm not sure why they all come here, and the ones who manage to get a drivers license are the ones who I think should be deported immediately. Except for the interstate visitors who come here with their fucking caravans and Winnebago's.

They should be banned from leaving their own driveways.

Recently one tourist from the UK, 28 year old Alex Neale, took 'dickhead tourist' to a whole new low and was busted riding around on the roof of a Coles delivery truck.

Image courtesy of the NT News website

When the driver pulled over and Alex dismounted, he had the nerve to ask the driver if he could take him home, before just strolling off.

Alex, the cost of a bus ticket in Darwin has gone up by a whole dollar. But I'm sure if you had called your Mummy, she would have sent you the extra dollar. Shit, she might even have sent you enough to cover a return trip!

We can only hope the return ticket would be from Darwin to London.

But just in case he doesn't go home, I think we should all encourage Alex to participate in the fashionable activity of standing on croc traps. I think he would be a natural.

Ah, crocodiles - culling the gene pool since the beginning of time.

And while we're looking at dickheads in the Territory - let's have a quick look at our Chief Minister, shall we?

I'm sure there are plenty of ways to eloquently tell the opposition to butt out. But why bother with such nonsense when "get out of the way, piss off" says it all!

Adam Giles is one step closer to greeting the Queen with 'would you like a shower, shit and a shave before we crack a tinny over breakfast?'

People say the NT is a bit rough - but I just don't see it.

The Acidic Observer, The 'What the Fuck, Universe!?' Edition

This week The Acidic Observer comes courtesy of my own life.

There will be swearing, irrational problem solving and more swearing.

They are 100% First World problems, but they are shitting me to tears so I am going to bitch about them here.

Because if I can't bitch on my own blog, then what the hell is the point??

For starters, Power and Water are on my shit list. They are at an all time high on my shit list, in fact. Why? Well, in my experience, when you send out an amendment to a power bill that shows your bill is well and truly covered and you have a surplus to carry over to the next quarter and then the next week you send those same people an ACCOUNT for $1,300 for the same quarter you just told them was paid for - you're going to end up on someone's shit list.

And, frankly, they should be grateful not to be on my 'hit and run list'.

Then the pool man knocks on the door. He's checked on the leak from the pool pump we were talking about, and it's not the 'o' ring.

No, of course it's not the 'o' ring - why would it be something that could be solved for under $10!

The entire fucking sand filter has split, and to make it even better we can't claim it under the 10 year warranty because the pool and equipment came with the house when we bought it, and the warranty isn't transferable.

Are you shitting me!!? Fine, there's another $1,200.

Although I've been wondering how much it would cost just to fill the stupid thing in. I may have mentioned this solution to The Man...

Finally, I wake up this morning and flick on the news only to find the TV in the lounge room has a massive red strip of pixels down one side of the screen.

Yep - thanks Universe - fuck you too.

On the bright side, this irritating shit happens in 3's, yes? So we're done. For now, at least.

Power and Water seem to want money every 3 months.

Bastards.

We really need to invest in a generator.


 

The Acidic Observer, Volume V

I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to write about this week. There was a lot of 'big news' in the papers, but nothing that required the piss being taken out of it.

Okay, that's a lie - here in the NT, there was a news story about a car accident that was caused when the passenger decided it was essential to his existence on earth to moon the driver of a truck. Except instead of being a 'hero' to the mooning society of the NT, he became a distraction for the driver who lost control of the car and rolled it.

I mean, really, where else is there to go with that? The stupidity is off the charts - I'm not sure I could even come up with an acidic response that has enough burn.

All I know is that, with any luck, my Dad will have a new inmate to look after.

It's been a big week here at home - there's the mystery of the disappearing chickens, the mystery of the massive fucking holes in our fence, and the undeniable connection between the missing chickens and the massive fucking holes in the fence.

We are convinced that the poor chickens have met with foul play - excuse the pun - and it's most likely at the hands of the big arse dog from next door that keeps creating massive fucking holes in our fence.

If the dog isn't careful, I will be repairing the holes with a lovely tanned leather, and he will be the star of his own great disappearing mystery.

But aside from the Great Chicken Mystery of 2013 (which isn't really a mystery), the biggest news is that I've been made redundant.

I'm actually quite thrilled!

It must have been sightly confusing for the manager who called me. I'm not sure she was prepared for someone to be so pleased about being unemployed.

I assume they were anticipating tears, questions about positions that could be applied for, chances to take on a role completely unsuitable just for the sake of remaining employed and, possibly, offers of being the person who cleans the carpet with their tongue.

Trouble is, love, I'm not unemployed. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm on maternity leave. I'm not in Bali, living it up for 12 months, having a party. I'm busy trying to make sure 2 small people are fed, dressed, to pre-school when required, bathed and still alive by bedtime. If I manage to get my own shit together in that time, then my day is a 100% success and when I collapse into bed at 9pm I don't dream about stacking the dishwasher.

I've done the working mother thing - and it was the biggest load of bullshit I've ever experienced.

Yeah, sorry, a spreadsheet does not rate with me when my child has a raging fever and childcare has called for me to collect her. My manager would put on a 50 year old's version of a floor kicking tantrum, and I'd leave to pick up my sick kidlet anyway.

Dude, I'm a parent. The day a tantrum scares me is the day I am completely fucked.

In the end, I'm not even sure why my workplace included 'flexible', 'family' or 'friendly' in any of their documentation. It was clearly there for decoration. Or perhaps for mocking purposes.

Either way, they've done me a massive favour. The only thing that could have made it better would be if I could have given them this...

 

The Acidic Observer, Volume IV

Reality television - it's endless fodder for acidic review.

And I'd like to focus on 'Embarrassing Bodies'.

The entire concept baffles me. If you had a terrible case of haemorrhoids, would you go on national television to have it assessed by a GP? Would you feel less embarrassed about your condition, knowing that people sitting down to dinner would be serenaded by your bum cheeks being unceremoniously spread?

And that in itself brings up some serious questions regarding scheduling. I don't know what kind of iron-stomached sadist is choosing when it should go to air, but holy crap batman, you need to rethink that one.

If you're too embarrassed to go to your regular GP - a closed environment, no cameras, total confidentiality - what the hell would possess you to jump into the back of a truck and have a doctor prod your privates while a cameraman hopes his wide angle lens can capture the 'moment'!?

And let's hope you jump into the back of the right truck, for starters. You'll give the Postman a fucking coronary if you sit down and start launching into a conversation that contains words like 'discharge'.

Trust me, your regular GP doesn't bat an eyelid at conversations like that. More importantly, if you haven't had a chance to wax in months and you need a pap smear in the depths of winter, your regular GP will be the only one to witness that. Most importantly, you don't have to apply foundation to every part of your body that a camera might need a close up and apply lipstick to all your lips - including your vag.

And they draw a curtain while you get dressed so they don't go home and giggle about you tripping over your knickers.

Now, don't lie - we've all had that moment where our toes haven't gone through the leg hole, resulting in a less than dignified nose dive into the floor. But there's no one there and you can pretend it never happened.

If you go head first into an examination table because your stiletto got caught on the edge of your lacy g-string, on television, the whole world will be laughing.

But just when I thought I had seen it all - every a-symmetric breast, every bent penis in the UK - and there was no where else for them to go, they come out with 'Embarrassing Bodies: Kids'.

What the actual fuck?

Are we seriously going to start parading our kids and their issues in front of television cameras? Well, yes, we are.

"Oh darling, I know you have an issue with going to the toilet, but we're going to see a lovely doctor in the back of a truck and the entire world is going to be able to share your 'learning to poo' journey. Won't that be fun!?"

And people claim bloggers are oversharers! Are you serious!? Yeah, I may write about applying lipstick to vaginal lips but I'm not attaching a 'how to' video!!

Regardless of my opinion, it's clear reality television has a strong following. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen, but what I do know is the next reality program needs to be 'Psychiatric Roadshow'.

There are a lot of Big Brother viewers out there who need to get their heads read.


 

The Acidic Observer, Volume III

Another week, another edition. I figure this could go on forever, given the dumb-arsery of some people who manage to get their opinions published.

It's currently 5:57am.

Between the myriad of thoughts in my head, the ongoing process of 2 different alarms going off and being snoozed by The Man (since 5am) and the noise of one cat licking itself at end of the bed, I thought I might as well get up and write this.

While I can return to sleep amidst endless thoughts and stupid alarms, I just can't ignore the cat.

My burn this week is centred on a series of comments in an article I read, titled 'The Retro Mummy', featuring the lovely Corrie from Retro Mummy, and Kate from Picklebums, amongst others.

The general overview of the article, written very well by Alexandra Carlton, is that there is a growing trend in women choosing to be at home with the family rather than prioritising a career, or being a working mum.

The article covers the position of stay at home mum and working mum quite well, and I honestly thought there wasn't anywhere else to go with it. Alexandra was open in her writing stating that being at home isn't something everyone can afford, which is very true, and Corrie admits to receiving emails regarding that very subject.

The article states that there has always been a Working Mummy Vs Stay-At-Home-Mummy situation, much the same as Breast Vs Bottle and Immunisation Vs Non-immunisation. We 'eye each other with faint suspicion, each fearing the other is living a more fulfilled life...', and it's true! Personally, I have been struggling with the idea that I won't be returning to work and I'll be a full time SAHM, because I worry I won't be of enough value to my family - that if I'm not putting money in the bank, I have no worth.

It's not true - being home with my girls and, hopefully, showing them that finding a balance between home and work is more than possible, is very valuable, and you can't put a price on that.

Although Centrelink certainly try.

But those points aren't my issue.

In closing the article, there were quotes from 2 women, Anne Summers and Clementine Ford. Summers is apparently 'exasperated' by the fact that some women are choosing their families over the 9-5. And I would like to quote her with "If women want to quilt and craft and sort out their linen cupboards on a weekly basis that is their business. But don't claim it is a superior way to live,". Yeah, because when I get out of bed all I can think about is making sure my tea towels are all folded the same.

Clementine Ford goes on to say that staying home is 'self sabotage' because the divorce rate is high and, when that happens to you, finding a job after you've 'cut yourself off' is difficult.

I have to admit, the sun is awfully bright in my eyes when I walk outside once a week to put the bin out. And there are these really loud machines that seem to contain people - my husband sits in one and it takes him to work every day. He calls it a 'car'. My husband tells me all sorts of stories about the outside world, and it sounds so exciting.

One day I hope to be able to read something called a 'novel'. But right now I'm in the middle of my Woman's Weekly Cookbook.

Anne and Clementine, thank you for your feedback, and thank you so much for claiming that the stay at home mum is dragging society back to the 50's and, in doing so, are reducing the value of women all around the world.

My blood boils at the accusation that a change in attitude towards work and family means my generation has wasted everything that the bra-burning days fought for. And while I could stand back and say 'I never asked you to burn anything for me, so go fuck yourself!', I should probably take a different path to the same conclusion, or risk having my house attacked by Germaine Greer clones, catapulting burning girdles at the windows and screaming "down with cupcakes!!"

It shits me to tears that Feminists are so high and mighty about what has been done to further the working woman, that they can't see a choice to be home or at work as another positive step for the feminist movement. Once upon a time, it wasn't a choice - if you were female you were home. No negotiations. There was a time where we weren't even viewed as worth educating. We were a burden, something our father's had to pay a man to marry and take away.

The last time I checked, baking a cake and learning to make a quilt aren't the indicators that we're returning to medieval times and we're going to start putting thrushes on the floor and use chamber pots - because, you know, we're home to empty them now.

What about those stay at home mum's who start a business based on a passion they found while home with their children? Are they dragging us back to the 'old days'? 

Trust me, there is nothing easy about choosing to stay home. Most working mum's will tell you that the days they go to work as their 'day's off'. I know mine sure as hell, were! Conversations with adults, 8 entire hours without having to watch anything from the Disney Junior channel and when you say 'no' to someone, they don't throw themselves to the ground and scream, until some stranger walking past labels you a 'bad person'.

And let me tell you bitches something, trying to write a scathing blog post while nursing a baby on one side, and comforting a sick 4yo on the other isn't easy, but that's what I'm doing right now.

Maybe there would be no mummy war about this if the feminists calmed the fuck down and stopped trying to find a culprit for a change in society that they don't like. Maybe the feminists are the ones who are struggling to keep up? Maybe the feminists are the ones regressing? Because having a whinge and a cry when things don't go your way, sounds awfully like the temper tantrums Miss 4 pulls when I tell her she can't have chocolate for dinner.

So put on your big girl panties, put your fucking bra back on and stop making women feel bad for their choices. Or else we'll put you on the naughty spot.

 

The Acidic Observer, Volume II

Hello Tuesday!

For a minute there I thought I wasn't going to have much, if anything, to add to this little ranty pants saga. I was worried.

First of all, Dan and Steph won the MKR finale - it was the best outcome I could have hoped for. Dammitt. And then, there were no drink driving celebrities, no one suing KFC because they don't serve Big Mac's and no new cars with cameras to replace our eyeballs.

But then, like a beacon of ranty hope, Channel Seven premiered their new show, Celebrity Splash.

Oh. Dear. God.

It was like a car crash - you know you shouldn't look, but the chance of glimpsing something horrific is just too tempting. And it delivered.

I was mildly confused for a moment because I couldn't work out where the celebrities were. I know I'm young-ish, but I like to pride myself on having been born in the mid 80's and, as such, familiar with a vast majority of past and present TV personalities.

However I'm not sure if the word 'celebrities' is as applicable for this show, so much as 'random people, some who used to be on TV before you were born'. But I agree, 'Random People Splash' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Perhaps 'I've Run Out of Money Splash'? or 'My Knees Are Giving Out and I Don't Think I'll Make The Next Olympics Splash'?

Aside from the fact that it appears to be a bunch of victims people throwing themselves from the highest platform available, I'm not quite sure what the point is. There are plenty of belly flops that make you cringe...

Wait! That's it! I noticed they were mildly ambiguous about what the grand prize would be for the unfortunate, spandex clad winner, and it has just occurred to me. 

What this show should really be called is 'Reconstruction Splash'! By throwing themselves from a platform and possibly having their faces mashed and internal organs liquefied by the watery impact, the grand prize is an all expenses paid trip to the reconstructive surgery ward of the local hospital.

And we all know that the first step in reviving a long lost career in television (or a non existent one) is some brand new, well enhanced plastic features. And a body lift so tight, the surgeon uses your belly button as a marker for your new lips.

I know we've run out of ideas for movies and so we're rehashing everything we can (Titanic 3D, anyone?), and it's only a matter of time before we see Fay Wray being dragged to the top of the Empire State Building in 3D, but I honestly thought TV had a bit longer before we were dredging the bottom of the ideas pond.

Okay, let me re-phrase that. Dredging the bottom of the Dutch ideas pond. Because apparently we can't think of terrible ideas all on our own, we have to borrow some from the land of legalised marijuana. Which kind of says it all, really.

In the meantime, I am grateful for my Foxtel subscription - yes, it may be mostly re-runs and shows from the US, but if it means I can avoid the terror that is Free to Air TV, then it's worth every cent.

 

The Acidic Observer, Volume I

I've got my ranty pants on this week. Why?  Because the world has gone completely insane and I feel the urge to get on my soap box about it.

The title of this post is, hopefully, the first in a series of soap box posts. In my mind I see it as a newspaper edition - but instead of reporting current events from an all-angles, completely un-biased position, I am going to be taking the sarcastic, exasperated and outraged position and throw in some reductio ad absurdum, just to keep it interesting.

So beware world - if you make a stupid move, I'll be on your arse, ready to point out your idiocy.

To begin this inaugural edition, I would like to start with the 22 year old student who is suing McDonald's because she spilled coffee on her leg and it burnt. Honey, if everyone who spilled their Maccas coffee on their lap sued them and won, there wouldn't be a bloody Maccas! She states that the lid wasn't secured properly by the staff, and I believe her - 99% of the time the 10 year old serving me a meal is barely able to reach the cup dispenser, let alone fully secure a lid to a steaming cup of coffee.

What I don't understand is the need to sue them. Okay, the lid wasn't on properly and you spilled your half strength vanilla latte with 2 marshmallows and whipped cream on your lap. It burnt. Badly - second degree burns are no laughing matter. But can we really go about suing organisations or people simply because a series of events occurred and you inadvertently got hurt?

They put massive warnings on the cup that the contents are hot and may burn - it's not an invitation to test out the theory.

If you were at home and made a cup of coffee, tripped on your cat/dog/hairless mole rat and spilled it all over yourself, are you going to sue your pet? Are you going to sue your Mum, or your boyfriend if they served you hot coffee and you accidentally wore it? No. Because it was an accident - and this is no different.

If you ask me, this entire situation is the coffee equivalent of 'I'm going to sue the condom company because I got pregnant and the box didn't say the condom was ineffective if applied to any body part other than a penis'.

Next on my hit list is an advertisement by Subaru for their new vehicle that has not just a reversing camera, but 2 cameras that look out the windscreen and will tell the car to brake so you don't run down an innocent pedestrian.

The reversing camera makes perfect sense. I have one on my car, and I love it because I don't have eyes in the back of my head (shhhh, don't tell Miss 4) and I certainly can't stretch my vision to the rear bumper of my vehicle and reverse at the same time.

I DO have 2 eyes in the front of my head that happen to be able to look through a windscreen and judge when I should brake to avoid an accident or killing an innocent bystander. My suggestion would be, if you don't have this ability, to step away from the vehicle and get your seeing-eye dog out of the driver's seat.

Lastly, my attention is drawn to the recent arrest of Reese Witherspoon and her husband - whats-'is-face. He was pulled over for high level drink driving, and Reese tried the 'don't you know who I am?' move. It backfired and she got arrested for backchatting the police officer. And he honestly had no idea who she was, so she was wasting her booze-soaked-breath anyway.

It's not the fact that she attempted to talk her way out of it that annoys me the most - but the fact that they were in that situation to begin with. Reese, I'm sure you've made enough movies and get enough alimony from Ryan to be able to pay for a taxi - you have more money available on your credit card than some people could possibly imagine, and yet you both decided to drive and risk the lives of other people on the road because you were too cheap, or perhaps you thought too 'special', to take a taxi that other 'normal' people use.

Just because she's famous doesn't make her husband's actions any less dangerous. It doesn't make them invincible. It doesn't make them any less responsible for their choices - even if Reese did think she was famous enough to talk her way out of it. If Reese and her family were involved in an accident with a drunk driver, you can bet she would be on day time talk shows to rant and rave faster than flies on a shit. She would be the face of every anti-drink-driving campaign available, and she would be burning crates of whiskey in the streets, just to make a point.

But put her on the opposite side of the story, and suddenly being famous means you feel you can operate heavy machinery while soused. Interesting theory - glad we didn't have to discover the ultimate outcome from that idea.

And so ends the first edition of The Acidic Observer. I hope you enjoyed my withering reviews, and I have no doubt I'll be back next week with equally scathing reports on some more of humanity's best cock ups from the week.