Pinky's Book Link

Friday, May 31, 2013

Pinky and Parental Advice.



“I’m so cranky with my daughter right now I don’t know what to do!” sighed my friend Shazza one day in the staffroom.

Oh goody! I thought spitefully. Someone else’s teenagers besides mine are acting up. I wonder what the daughter did? Maybe she was driven home in a paddy wagon by the cops… or perhaps she was sprung sneaking out at night?

“Poor Shazza,” said the wise, experienced Pinky who had been behind the door when the good Lord had been handing out parenting skills.

“She’s been lying to me about where she goes on weekends.” croaked an emotional Shazza.

This is good, I contemplated, I can’t wait to hear this juicy piece of scandal.

“Go on Shazza,” I murmured sympathetically.

“She’s been telling me for the last two months that she’s been at a girlfriend’s house studying.”

Holy cow, if my kids had ever told me that sort of story I would have been instantly on to them. What's wrong with this woman?

“So where has she been going then?” I asked, knowing in my heart it could only be 
boys!  She's probably meeting up with some loser lout who drives a fluorescent Ute and hoons up and down the Strand, I mused.

Shazza leaned in closely and whispered in a discreet manner,

“She has been going to rehearsals for her high school’s annual musical! I told her she wasn’t allowed to be in it this year because she’s in grade twelve but she went behind my back. Not only that, she somehow managed to get a lead role and now it’s too late for her to pull out without letting the whole production team down.”

I stared at Shazza with a mixture of intense jealousy, resentment and a sense of thespian outrage.

“So what’s the musical then?” I sniffed enviously.

“That’s not the point, Pinky! She’s been lying to me!”

“Lying, Schmying! you big spoilsport!” I snapped. “What’s the musical?”

“Oliver Twist.”



“So she is playing Nancy?” I demanded deferentially.

“Yeah, I think that’s what she said.”

“You should be thankful she has the initiative to go and follow her dreams. This is a fantastic opportunity. She’s a super smart kid, I’m sure she’ll keep her marks up to scratch! Stop trying to make her someone she's not!” I blurted out a bit too passionately for the conservative time of morning.

Do you see what this scenario reveals?

Pinky reliving lost aspirations and pipedreams? No.

Pinky revealing why she has failed as a mother? Yes.

Too much permissiveness. Too many situations where an indulgent and liberal minded Pinky gave way to outright deceit in the name of creative exploration.

Oh well... it’s too late for me now, but I like to think, partly because of my rant, Shazza relented and her resourceful and inspired daughter was permitted to indulge in her artistic pursuits. (Fancy taking Pinky's advice!)

Kyles, Lee-lee, Emmsie and I went to watch Shazza’s daughter perform last night at the theatre. 


She was stunning. 

If she was my daughter I would have bawled my eyes out with pride. 

But the best part was when, in character as Nancy, she Oom Pah Pahed her way up onto a table and sang her heart out… 

just like her Mum, Shazza does every time she has one drink too many!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

An Itsy Bitsy Taste of Good Things to Come.

Pinky is attending the theatre tonight to watch Shazza's daughter play Nancy in "Oliver Twist".

Just so you know I haven't forgotten about you I've uploaded a photo which hints at a special project Scotto and I have been working on for your entertainment.

If you are a fan of the television show, "Mad Men" you will love it I promise.

Look closely if you dare at the photo below:



Have a great night and I'll be back soon!
Love Pinky!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Pinky's Winter Woolies



Celine and Pablo Escobark were piteously shivering on our bed last night like the “Shakin Dog” from the Wendy’s advertisement so we had to pull out their tiny weeny sweaters. 



Winter in the Tropics doesn’t officially commence until June but there have been a few signs the weather is changing.

# I can dry myself off after a shower because the persistent sweat on my body is now miraculously evaporating.

# My foundation doesn’t slip off my face as I apply it in the humidity.

# My hands have taken on the shiny, scaly appearance of an eighty year old woman.

# It is necessary to wear a cardigan until 8:30 am.

# I sneeze 481 times a day as a reaction to wearing said cardigan which has been lurking in my cupboard frenziedly collecting dust mites for eight months.

# At recess, I keep getting an urge to snatch the tuckshop pies out of the kids’ hands and high-tail it up to the staffroom because my salad isn’t nearly as appealing.

# The German Shepherd has finally stopped moulting and is beginning to look like a big hairy wolf.

# “Paul” my bunion has started to ache. (Paul Bunyan… get it?)


                           Sorry I should have cut my toe nails first.

# Scotto says, “Yes” when I ask him if he’d like a cup of coffee.

# My washing load has tripled because of Hagar’s hoodies and track suits.

# My students all have snot dripping from their noses.

# The girls in my class spend the entire day applying, admiring, and losing their cherry chapstick.

# The boys in my class all have chapped lips.

# The cat demands to be fed 5 times a day instead of once.

# You could start a fire on my front lawn by slipping on it, it’s so dry.

# I flinch like a cowardly custard when I close my car door as I anticipate a static electricity shock.

# You can leave the margarine out of the fridge for 5 minutes without it liquefying.

# I buy something wintery like a leopard skin beret which deep down I know I will never ever wear.

And finally…

# I stop shaving my legs, not because I cover my legs up in winter, but because all I end up doing is shaving off my goosebumps creating a bloody and grisly “Psycho” shower scene.




Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Poem for Teachers- about Writing Reports



“Worst report I ever saw,

You’ve failed both Maths and Science, you’re

a lazy girl Pinky!” my mother shouted.

“It’s not my fault,” sour Pinky pouted

back at her mother whilst watching TV.

“It’s those stupid teachers! Don’t blame me!”

“She should try harder! Not up to par!

If Pinky tried she could go far!”


continued Mum as she read my report.

“Maybe I just need parental support…”

My mother exploded, “You silly twit!

You’ve had plenty of that, you just don’t give a sh#t!”

Many years passed and Pinky soon learned

it wouldn’t be long before the tide turned.

Her own kids would bring home a pitiful letter

reporting how they could also do so much better.

Hagar’s not reaching his true potential.

His effort has been almost inconsequential.

If only he wasn’t so strongly attracted

To exotic things that make him distracted.”

“Padraic’s attendance has been quite appalling,

and the office ladies are sick of calling

to ask you why he's not at school,

and you make excuses like a fool
to explain away his conspicuous absconding,

we are sick and tired of this corresponding

with a mother that seems to not have a clue

where her son is and what he should do.

His schoolwork seems quite vegetative

Except for his artwork, which is quite creative…”



So now my friends the worm has turned.

And it’s Pinky’s students who should be concerned.

But teachers now are so regulated

It makes our writing constipated.

When writing ‘bout our studious minions,

Teachers must hold back opinions.

We may not mention aberrations

merely state kids don’t meet 'expectations'.

We cannot say, “The boy is rude.”

It's not allowed to ever allude

To any particular bad behaviour,

and the comment bank becomes our saviour.

And now our remarks sound quite robotic

Verging on the idiotic.

I long to write what I really think

But I’d probably stir up a bit of a stink.

“Your son displays no dedication

What he really needs is medication!

Monday, May 27, 2013

The Great Driving Test Debate by Scotto


(As it's Scotto's birthday tomorrow I invited him to write a guest post. He has some brilliant arguments... please enjoy!)

Have you seen the movie Idiocracy? If you haven’t you should put it on your must watch list for a glimpse into the potential future of our society.  It’s quite a funny movie but it makes you think and at times you can’t help but feel the movie has a slightly prophetic feel to it.
Just look at what the TV stations try to pass off as entertainment these days.  Reality show after reality show and yes, I’ll admit to watching some of them such as X Factor and Bondi Rescue, but there are those that are so mind numbingly stupid you have to wonder what idiot came up with the concept and what TV executive gave it the green light. Of course it could be that the idiot and the executive are one and the same person.  Shows like Big Brother should be banned as a public health service.
Take Celebrity Splash for instance, did they really think a bunch of has-beens jumping in to a pool was riveting telly?  The whole series could have been condensed to a 5 minute gag reel so the fact that it bombed (no pun intended) gives me some hope that we haven’t yet reached the tipping point of stupidity.
Last night, while sitting down relaxing with Pinky and sipping on wine chatting about the complexities of life (ok, we were probably talking rubbish), that RBT police show came on and there was a teenager who had lost control of his six cylinder Ford and wrapped it around a light pole.  Thankfully everyone was alright but it brings me to the point of my post, the hotly debated subject of P-Plate drivers and the plethora of ideas being bandied about in an attempt to stop such incidents.
The latest push is to make driving tests tougher and extend the P-Plate period until age 25.  While I agree that a driving test should not be a walk in the park and driver education is extremely important, I think they’re missing another important point – the cars themselves. We can talk to our kids until we’re blue in the face but the truth is, they’re not listening to us. You can give them all the statistics, show them stories of fatal crashes yet the usual answers you get are things like, “Well obviously I’m not going to have an accident” or they roll their eyes at you as if you’ve just said the stupidest thing ever.  The point they are missing is that nobody leaves the house intending to have an accident, that’s pretty much why they’re called accidents.  But, teenagers being teenagers know everything and they must blindly follow that unwritten teenage law, everyone older than them is an idiot and must be treated as such.  Maybe it’s something hard-wired into them but it’s annoying as hell.
So what’s the answer? Well there’s no easy quick fix but perhaps if we change from focussing on one aspect we should look at the big picture.  First of all, take away access to powerful cars, six or eight cylinders and any car considered performance cars.  They have far too much power for inexperienced drivers to handle.  Limit their choices to low power four cylinder cars and have speed limiters in them.  Set the maximum speed of the car to 110kph (this should probably be done to all cars as speeding is not limited to P-Platers).  Perhaps the government is simply too afraid to push through legislation that will be unpopular, but wait, they didn’t mind pushing the carbon tax through and that was supposedly ‘for our own good’. 
Of course teenagers and Civil Libertarians will vehemently oppose such restrictions but you know what?  Too bad, isn’t protecting the lives of our children our (and society’s) responsibility?  Would you rather have a complaining teenager or a dead one? Bit of a no brainer really isn’t it? Besides, they’ll always complain about something so don’t feel too bad for them, especially the Civil Libbers.  
Back when I was a teenager my first car was a 1967 Mini that cost me $200 and it was my pride and joy.  British racing green but it was a gutless wonder and quite frankly, a piece of crap.  My skateboard was worth more but I still loved that car.  Of course it wasn’t without its faults and as you would expect of such a car, it had its fair share of breakdowns.  During one such period I had to borrow Dad’s car and his had a lot more power than mine and going around a roundabout in the wet I found the back-end slipping out on me.  I’d like to say I slipped into Nicolas Cage ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ mode and skilfully counter steered and brought the car under control while being admired by all and sundry.  The truth is that I had no idea what to do in that situation and I ended up facing the wrong way and it scared the bejeesus out of me and I looked like a right goose.  I wasn’t driving like an idiot, I was just inexperienced, especially on wet roads and it surprised me just how easy it was for that sort of thing to happen.  After that I went and took all the driver training courses I could find so in future I would know what to do if I ever found myself in that situation again.
The biggest hurdles we face in trying to convey these dangers to our kids, is that they have a tendency to see us as preachy or that ‘things are different now’.  We may have safer cars but regardless of how high the safety rating is, you drive it like an idiot the end result is not going to change.  V8 Supercars are nothing like their street going counterparts and the drivers of those can survive a crash at 200kmh thanks to the reinforced safety cages, racing harnesses and helmets – things normal cars don’t have.  Do that in any street car and you’ve got zero chances of survival – no matter how many airbags you have.
At the end of the day young drivers don’t need powerful cars, they need reliable ones they can get experience in. I’m 42 and am only just getting my dream car so show some patience kids! You’ll be far less likely to put a dent in your car with some experience under your belt.
 We, as a responsible society, have a duty to guide teenagers safely through the beginning of their adult lives and sometimes that means being the bad guy and making decisions that aren’t going to be popular.  You know what though?  They’ll get over it.
Will this idea fix everything? No, but I reckon it could help improve the situation.
I can already hear some of the arguments, well I’ve got some answers.
I need a more powerful car to tow my work trailer…
Get a turbo diesel ute such as a Hilux.  A turbo diesel has all the pulling power you need, you don’t need an XR8 that can do 0-100 in 6 seconds. A turbo diesel is vastly different to a turbo petrol engine.
I have to use the highway to get to work…
So?
I might need to overtake someone…
If you need to go faster than 110kph to overtake then you don’t need to overtake.
If the speed is limited to 110kph what’s to stop people speeding in suburban streets?
Unfortunately nothing, however the fact they’re in a 4 cylinder buzz box and not a performance car might change their outlook.  You can’t do donuts in a Toyota Starlet!  While we may not eliminate speeding we can put the brakes on hooning.
What’s to stop people modifying the cars to get around the restrictions?
One hell of a fine and confiscation of their car would be a good start.  Mandatory Department of Transport checks when renewing registration would put the brakes on this practice.
Aren’t we just molly coddling them and giving them the impression that we don’t trust them?
No, molly coddling is giving in and saying yes to everything.  It’s not a question of trust, it’s protecting teenagers from themselves.  While they need to be allowed to find their own way in life it’s up to us to intervene if their safety is at risk.
I’m not driving a car like that!
Then I guess you don’t drive.  
It’s not fair…
Tough.
But they’re just being kids, you probably did stupid stuff when you were a kid…
Isn’t the role of a parent to pass on to our kids the lessons we learnt to help and protect them?  I got a couple of speeding tickets when I was young, does that mean the kids can justify speeding ‘because I did it’? Of course not, that’s a cop out. They will try and use it against you of course but as the adults we just need to stand firm.  We always hear about learning lessons from previous generations for the betterment of society, why is this any different?
But my little angel deserves this big shiny muscle car! Seeing them happy makes me happy!
Number one they probably don’t deserve it. Number two, how happy are you going to be when they wrap that over-powered behemoth around a tree and kill themselves or their friends? There’s plenty of time in their life to get a car like that after they get more experience.
Kids will always do silly things but if we give in and do nothing, do we even deserve to be parents? It’s up to us to teach our kids but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. They may hate you for it in the short term but if it means getting them through alive, isn’t it worth it?

If your kids don’t hate you at some point in their life then you’re doing it wrong.

Image credit:downloaderkidz.com

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Pinky's Relationship Advice for Men

                               

We teachers were sitting in the staffroom yesterday when one of the Rugby-loving male teachers, JB, shot me a look,
“I see you’re off the salads Pinky… like you said you were going to in your bl….” he trailed off and guiltily looked at his feet. 

“Er… I was just reading your blog to make sure you didn’t bag me out about the cheesecake incident at your party,” he added with an overly breezy chuckle. For more on the cheesecake debacle read …here

“It’s okay JB,” I smiled sweetly, “You don’t have to make excuses for reading my blog! Lots of men read it.”

That is technically a big fat lie, lots of no-one reads my blog, but I do know at least a dozen men that do read it and it started me thinking about including some male-friendly content.

I know there’s a plethora of advice out there for men on how to interpret the mysterious quirks of women; what to say when she asks if her bum looks big, how when women say they’re ‘fine’ it means something completely different to ‘fine’ etc.

So I thought it might be useful to compose a Pinky list of home truths about women which you boys may or may not find helpful.

Now remember, I’ve been married twice, have a father, a brother and four sons, so these ‘home truths’ are not necessarily thinly veiled jibes at Scotto and could be about any male (
Scotto made me write that).

“Pinky’s Home Truths About Women”

#1. If you ask your wife if you can go on a three week Rugby Union Trip to Hong Kong when she’s eight months pregnant with baby number three and she says yes, she doesn’t mean yes. If you do go, the misdemeanour will continue to be brought up even twenty years later, after the divorce … no matter how amicable it was. (Guess who?)

#2. Don't jump off the scales gleefully announcing you've lost three kilos in a week just because you gave up smoko for four days last week. Your wife will not be impressed.


#3. When you hear your wife viciously swearing and violently shoving bottles around in the bathroom, try to recall if you cleaned your whiskers off the bathroom counter and sink after you shaved because that’s probably what she’s carrying on about. Don’t go in there.

#4. When I come upstairs to the bedroom with the morning coffee, am overwhelmed by a pungent gaseous odour and whilst gasping for fresh air fling open the windows, don’t try to blame the long-suffering dog. It was innocently downstairs with me the entire time.

#5. If you’re out shopping with your spouse, a Jennifer Hawkins (Miss Universe) look-a-like walks past and your wife says, “Wasn’t that girl absolutely stunning?” don’t reply innocently, “What girl? I didn’t notice”

We know you’re bullsh#tting.

#6. If you bung on the sick act too much when you’re not that bad it will come back to bite you on the bum, just like the boy who cried wolf. 


When Scotto complained of a stomach pain for over a week I kept telling him it was probably wind and to go for a walk and fart himself silly. After finally going to the doctor he was sent straight to the hospital with acute appendicitis. I felt like a terribly neglectful wife but when he was released from hospital two days later he collapsed at home with the post-op pain. After being rushed back to hospital with great drama in an ambulance, the cause of the excruciating agony turned out to be… wind.

#7. When you give a woman gifts don’t expect her to be forever in your debt. For example, if you give your mum a fifty dollar gift voucher for her birthday, don’t text her two hours later and ask for a thirty dollar loan.

#8. A woman may bitch and complain about her mother until the cows come home but don’t ever join in. Your mother-in-law will be the first person your wife will call when you have a big fight.

#9. When your wife/girlfriend cooks something new for dinner and asks you if you liked it, say you liked it. It’s not Facebook… you don’t get a choice.

#10. When you and your spouse are hosting and preparing for a big party, compiling a comprehensive playlist on the sound system is not as big a priority as you think… hosing the back patio is!

Hope you found that helpful boys.

And JB… I heard you when you said, “How do you put up with her?” to Scotto at the school fete last year. 

                                  

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Teenagers Behaving Badly Part 12- I See Dumb People

                         
I’ve been trying to work out how I would categorise my blog for when Oprah Winfrey comes knocking on my door asking me to come and talk about my life on her television show. She still has a show doesn’t she? If not I’ve been wasting my bloody time following her on Twitter…

Is Pinky Poinker an ‘Informative’ blog covering history or current events or even how to cook cupcakes or make slippers from duct tape? I can easily vouch for the fact that there is nothing anyone could possibly learn from any of my posts, except perhaps that the contraceptive pill was invented for a very sound and prudent reason. 


                                 
Could it be a ‘Creative Rant’ type of blog releasing my frustrations with the world in an amusing and entertaining manner? Not really… I have a Teachers' Registration Board, a bowdlerising father and a suppression order from my kids which all serve the purpose of gagging me from saying what I really want to say.

No. I feel that Pinky Poinker’s blog is more of a ‘Cultural Introspectives’ genre.

“Oh come on, Pinky!” I can hear you moaning into your Sauvignon Blanc. “Get off your high horse and stop being a wanker.”

But before you stop reading, think about it... Along with all my incessant whinging about my five teenage kids, I usually compliment their outrageous crimes with an equally appalling tale from my own nefarious youth. 


I write this way in the hope of inspiring improved global relations between other parents and their pimply offspring.

Perhaps the ugly confessions from my own despicable and shady past are merely an altruistic action aimed at posing the confronting concept that we were just as bad as they are? Still not buying it?

My friends… I was- sadly- just as wicked as my own children have turned out to be but, and it’s a big but, I wasn’t as dumb.

I knew how to cover my tracks whereas Abbott, Costello and the Three Stooges leave such blatant clues I feel like I’m on the set of Scooby Doo. 
                                 
I seem to always catch them in the act which makes me wonder if I’m only aware of what’s floating on the surface. Are they really dumb or just pretending and merely throwing red herrings in my self-congatulatory face? 

Am I the dumb one?

Carlo Maria Cipolla, a famous historian, is renowned for his essays about human dumbness. The following are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of dumbness:

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of dumb individuals in circulation. (So it would be possible for a mother to give birth to five dumb people in one family… I’ve often wondered.)

2. The probability that a given person is dumb is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person. (So even if they played State Representative basketball, achieved an OP 4, or won a State Award in Playwriting they could still be dumb people.)

3. A person is dumb if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process. 

(Hmmm…. I’m thinking about two written off cars right now.)



4. Non-dumb people always underestimate the harmful potential of dumb people; they constantly forget that dealing with or associating with dumb individuals invariably constitutes a costly error. 

(You can say that again. If I had a dollar for every replaced item that was carelessly lost or destroyed by my suspected 'dumb people' over the last twenty years I’d be chartering a yacht and docking at St. Tropez instead of scanning my shopper dockets every week.)

5. A dumb person is the most dangerous type of person there is. 

(What the hell does that mean? Come to think of it, Jonah once left a soft drink can in the freezer which exploded when I opened the door missing my head by a centimetre.)

Now I get it! My dumb people are trying to kill me!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Pinky Puts Off Medical Tests

                        

I just returned from my newly resurrected custom of taking a power walk along the river. With winter approaching it’s dark by the time I get home at this time of year and the river bank was resplendent with thousands of glittering fireflies. Gorgeous!

The trek up the river, however, was not as pleasant. Who should Pinky happen to have the misfortune to cross paths with, but her cheerless family doctor.

Why would running into your doctor be such a calamity you silly woman? I hear you asking whilst rolling your eyes and sighing.

Well, you didn’t see the evil glinting eye and disapproving grimace she happened to fire at me as I walked past her, waving and smiling jovially, and I’m not being paranoid.

I went to visit Doctor Killjoy in her surgery about five months ago, seeking advice about some minor ailment or another.

“So Pinky…” she began to predictably scold, “I see you haven’t had your bloods checked for three years. You should be getting them checked every year once you get past forty years of age you know.”

“Yes, I know… it’s just been so hectic lately,” I replied meekly.

“Well I’m filling out this form for you to have an iron and lipids check and stats on your kidney and liver function. It’s just a general check-up and if you go for the test tomorrow morning I can fit you in next week to discuss the results.”

“No worries!” I chirped agreeably. “I’ll see you next week then Doctor!.”

As I stated, that was five months ago.

I don’t want to go for those tests, ever.

What if the fun police discover I only have one square centimetre of functioning liver remaining? Will I have to give up my nightly tipple? That’s never going to happen now is it? 


For more on how Pinky knows she doesn’t have a drinking problem read … here

The other thing that really puts me off having these horrifically invasive tests, is being ordered to fast for twelve hours. I honestly don’t think I’d be physically capable of getting out of bed; getting dressed, driving to the clinic and sitting in a waiting room with sickly looking people for at least an hour whilst reading two year old New Ideas... all without two cups of milky Nescafe and two sugars please. How do people do it?

On a certain birthday ending with a zero, I was sitting on my bed reflectingly gazing out the window when I espied the postman attempting to squeeze a parcel and a letter (maybe a card with a voucher inside!) in my mail box. 

Racing downstairs I eagerly bounced out the front door to see which lovely friend or relative had gone to the trouble of sending me a birthday surprise.

The letter was an official missive advising me that I was now eligible for a free mammogram and the parcel was a bowel testing kit. Charming… so this is what happens when you reach this particular milestone in your life.

I could get my head around the mammogram but there is no way I am laying a piece of tissue in the toilet bowl, pooping on it, scraping some of the poop off the top, placing it in a jar, and then mailing it to some long-suffering pathologist who was sadly counselled by a very incompetent career advisor.

Is there anything fricking nice about getting old?

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Pinky loves her very own Bruce Willis!

                                                           Bruce 'Scotto' Willis
                       

Growing up with parents who bred dogs and having personally owned nine members of the Canis Familiaris Genus Species, I've had my fair share of exposure and made some observations on their general behaviour. 

A dog will never sh#t in another dog’s hole. Neither will they steal another dog’s bone then p#ss on it. They may eat it but they won’t deliberately make it so undesirable that no other dog will want a piece of it. 

Not so in the human world.

As a relative newbie in the world of the Internet (read more on that…here ) it hasn’t taken me too long to figure out that there are more than a few nasty animals out there in the cyber-wilderness. 


There are the indolent Sloth Bears who hijack your site with misleading links to porn sites or malware, eg; Broken Controllers. 

Piranhas may swim below the surface of your computer stream in the form of viruses or worms. 

Poison Dart Frogs send you email messages or tweets containing vicious barbs so that when you click on them you expose your computer to all kinds of evil malware. 

I’ve even had sinister little spider monkeys (always a pretty girl with an innocent name and only one or two followers) favourite my Tweets in the hope that I will explore their link so that they can infiltrate my computer with malevolent Trojans. 

Why do they do it? Because they can; also to spam you with advertisements for pornography, weight loss programs and Spanish holiday homes, or worse… to hijack your computer. 

This is what Professor Mungleton warns could happen to you...

Upon arrival, there's something tempting like unlimited torrent downloads, promises to scan your computer for viruses, or pictures of stripping girlies or cats falling down, and you think "Oh, that looks fun" and you click on it and invite worms, trojans and viruses into your computer and suddenly your credit card has been used in Nigeria, you're on the Interpol watch list and your computer is part of a botnet attacking the US State Department. Not to mention the endless popup adverts and redirections you'll get.

Oh yes my friends, it is a bloodied jungle out there. 

But guess what? I am lucky to be married to my own “Bruce Scotto Willis”... a
 fully qualified, USB carrying, anti-virus warrior living right under my roof. 

How can I be sure he’s the right vigilante for the job?

Well folks, these are the bedroom remote-controls for the telly.



These are the family-room remote-controls for the telly.




These are the TV room remote-controls for the telly.




-If ‘Bruce Scotto Willis’ ever goes out of town I have to leave the telly running for the entire time as I have no fricking idea what any of those remotes are for!

              This is my geek’s yoyo collection.



This is just one of my geek’s three Deloreans. 



These are my geek's Pinball machine, Games machine and
the computer all of which he BUILT ENTIRELY BY HIMSELF! 




So Yippie-Kai-Yay Mother F#%kers! Bring it ooooon! 
I'm married to the Emperor of Geeks!

My ingenious geek has installed Avast Anti-Virus on my laptop and any time those dunce-hat, computer subversives attempt to infect my laptop with their filthy malware, a siren blasts and an “Alert Alert Alert” message ( just like that robot from Lost in Space) blares shutting it down quicker than you can say ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance’.

So in the words of Bruce Scotto Willis; 

“Those hackers are just a fly in the ointment, Pinky. The monkey in the wrench. The pain in the ass.”
Please check out Professor Mungleton’s full post…here

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Pinky and the family curse.

                Jonah- the 'good-looking' one according to my Cougar friends.

I don’t write much about my twenty-two year old son Jonah; this has something to do with the fact that he has threatened to sue the crap out of me if I so much as pen one word in regards to his activities and as he is close to completing his law degree -and I don’t want to lose the house- I usually refrain.

However, I heard from Jonah’s father on Thursday night that he had been involved in a car accident in the big smoke where he is attending university. It was only a wee bingle but Jonah was at fault and like all the Poinker children, he doesn’t have any insurance. “Lenny”, Jonah’s car copped the worst of it but thankfully it’s still driveable.

I phoned him this morning in order to glean more information.

“What sort of car was it that you ran into, Jonah? Was it an old one?” I ventured hopefully.

“Ah no Mum, it was an new Audi.” I could see the hairs stand up on the back of Scotto’s neck when I repeated in a dismayed squeal, ‘An Audi!’.

Thaddeus caused an accident a couple of years ago damaging his car, Hagar and Padraic both devastatingly wrote their cars off and now Jonah has finally succumbed to the family automobile curse.

Lulu at least is safe. She already smashed up the family four wheel drive when she was about four years old.

We had just returned from dropping her brothers to school when Lulu resolved to chuck a full-blown wobbly and stubbornly refused to get out of the car. After ten minutes of listening to her screaming at me and humourlessly watching her thrash around in the back seat, I lost my patience.

“Right! You can stay in the car then you naughty little girl!” I sternly announced.

I walked inside the house planning on giving her a five minute timeout when suddenly I heard her screaming.

Rushing outside I was horrified to witness the truck rolling slowly backwards out of the garage down the slightly sloped driveway. Paralysed with fear, I was certain the brick garden edging would bring it to a standstill but instead it trundled right over the bricks. 


 Gaining momentum the monster truck bowled over a well-established palm tree while continuing to head towards the gully separating our house and the Newmans’ next door.

All the time I could see little Lulu’s terrified face pressed up against the window. As if in slow motion it barrelled backwards down the six foot gully where it finally came to rest. Flying to the truck and opening the door I grabbed my precious, little stunt driver and thanked God she was perfectly fine.

Much to the entertainment of the block of units next door, the four wheel drive had to be extricated from the gully via a crane and although the damage to the vehicle was minimal, Pinky’s opinion of herself as a responsible, careful mother was permanently damaged. 

I’d broken one of the Golden Rules of child-rearing, Never leave a child alone in a car!

My own record as a driver is pretty spotless (despite what other lying folk may tell you) except for one accident when someone ran into the back of my Volvo. (Yes…stop laughing okay. So Pinky used to be a Volvo driver… get over it!)

I had seven year old Thaddeus and baby Lulu in the car with me at the time. Thaddeus was taken to hospital in the back of an ambulance as a precaution because he'd hit his forehead on the dashboard. He seemed fine but as soon as they put a neck brace on him he went into shock out of sheer fear. Poor little bloke.

“I had a bit of a rear-ender! You’ll have to come and get the car.” I hurriedly informed my then husband on the phone. 

He was expecting a little ding in the bumper bar but this is what he found when he arrived at the scene. 



It was a write off… we don’t do things by half in the Poinker family.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Pinky wants to know where YOU were?

                            


(This is one for the oldies... you know who you are!)

Where were you when Louis Armstrong walked on the moon? 


Okay… I know it was Neil, but most of the people who read my blog are so young that even their parents were probably too young to remember the lunar landing. There are a few of you reading however, that have managed to cling to the remnants of life, bravely beating off senility and even worse, the grim reaper. 

You’d have to be at least fifty years old to possess a living memory of the moon landing, and even my husband, Scotto, was still three years away from becoming an embryo when it occurred.

Little Pinky was a tender eight years old and sitting with the entire school watching a tiny black and white telly in the play shed when the ‘great step for mankind’ took place. I recall one of the girls in my class, Beryl Stuart, telling everyone how her Auntie Phyllis knew for a fact, that as soon as that astronaut bloke stepped on to the lunar surface, the world was going to explode. 

Even at eight years of age I knew this was a load of codswallop, but her dark prophesy still unnerved the entire class a bit. Either Auntie Phyllis had a fantastic imagination or she was on LSD, is all I can think.

I was only two when JFK was assassinated so I don’t remember it, but I do recollect my mother crying at the news on television when Robert Kennedy was shot. At the time I couldn’t understand why she would be so upset about a man she’d never known but then I remembered her sobbing at the drive-in when Elsa the lion died in ‘Born Free’ and deduced that Senator Robert must have been a nice person.

Mum and I were on a holiday in Sydney in 1980 when we walked past the newspaper headlines heralding the death of John Lennon. We both cried in the street as I recall.

Cutting up and spray painting foam mattresses in order to create giant banana costumes for a kid's play is what I was focussed on when my mother rang me in shock in 1997 to tell me that Princess Diana had been killed in a car crash. I didn’t believe her at the time; it was such an implausible scenario.

Three months later, sitting stunned in my lounge I listened to the news that Michael Hutchence had been found dead in his hotel room. When I heard the news of Michael Jackson’s passing on my car radio I had the same sense of loss. 

All three; Diana, Hutchence and Michael Jackson were of the same vintage as myself and I felt somehow connected to them. Although of course I didn’t know these people, they had helped to shape my identity, fashion sense and attitudes; they were in a sense, my peers. It’s sort of like losing a part of yourself; or a significant part of your life.

Why am writing about such a depressing subject on a Friday night, I hear you bleat plaintively.

Probably because I’m sitting at home with my dogs lying all over me watching ‘Better Homes and Gardens’ and contemplating my mortality. 

I’m getting old and I’ve only just realised it. I’ve been waking up lately in a cold sweat, mentally calculating how many ‘good’ years I have left... and it ain’t many.

So I’ve made a few resolutions that will ensure I enjoy the final decades of my life.

Firstly, I am not going to worry about getting fat anymore. I’m going to just buy larger sized clothing and I won’t give a pig’s a#se. I’ve had enough of salads, cans of tuna and crackers. It’s time to chow down.

Secondly, if I feel like being a grumpy old b#tch, then I’ll be one. When that twelve year old at the chemist asks me if I’ve ever taken Panadol before I’ll give him a piece of my Pinky mind.

Thirdly, I’m going to start doing old lady things like going on cruises, talking to myself, squinting over my glasses, groaning when I get out of a chair, declaring loudly that Rap and Hip Hop music is a load of sh#t , asking strangers in the shopping aisle to read labels for me and farting at will.

Look out peeps… Granny Poinker is heading your way!

PS: Please leave a comment if you remember where you were at any of those times mentioned above. I’d love to reminisce.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Nobody Listens to Pinky.

                                    

“So as part of this unit we will be learning about Mary MacKillop.” I said to my grade four students today.

“Awwww!” came the collective moans of dismay.

“We learnt all about her last year Mrs P,” they insisted.

Hmmmm, I thought, that’s good, maybe we can get through that part of the unit quickly then.

“Okay, hands up and tell me what you know.”

Three hands went up. 


“She was Australia’s first saint.” 

“She started the first Catholic school in Australia.”

It was going well until the final enthusiastic answer, 

“She was there when they saw the rock moved away from Jesus’ tomb!”

At least it wasn’t as bad as Rach’s class next door who asked her if Mary MacKillop was the same Mary who appeared when you turn the lights off in the bathroom and say,’ Bloody Mary’ three times into the mirror.

In the middle session I gave a very comprehensive (even if I say so myself) science lesson about friction. We went out to the car park and examined the tread on the tyres, (by the way Mrs Robertson, you need new tyres) and even did an exciting experiment involving rolling canisters along different surfaces and measuring the distance they travelled. It was all written up, tabled and aptly diagrammed in their books.

“So guys, what did we learn about friction today?” I asked optimistically during the afternoon session. Little Jacinta tentatively raised her hand,

“Um… if you cut up a pizza then each piece is called a friction?”

The only way you can be almost sure kids are actually listening is to say, 

“Look me in the eyes and repeat after me…” Even then there’s only a slight chance it’s sinking in.

Not that I can talk. I was dreadful at listening and even when I was eighteen I recall an incident which sent my father into a well-justified apoplectic fit.

Mum and Dad were going out for dinner and my boyfriend was over for the evening.

“Pinky, I want you to listen very carefully,” said my father gravely. “A man is going to phone me tonight to ask if the job at the hospital is on or off. He doesn’t have a home phone so I can’t call him back. Please make sure you answer the phone and give him the message.”

“Yeah, sure,” I murmured, waving him off dismissively.

“It’s very important Pinky,” Dad stressed, “We are turning the electricity supply off to all the operating theatres at the hospital just so we can do this job tomorrow morning. You must tell him the job is on, okay?”

“Yep, sure Dad, bye.”

About an hour later, while my boyfriend and I were watching the telly, the phone rang.

“Just ignore it,” I flippantly remarked.

“But it might be that bloke your father wanted you to give a message to.”

“Oh yeah… that’s right. I’ll be back in a sec.” I was a bit annoyed at this inconvenient chore taking me away from 'The Sullivans', but I slouched over to the bothersome phone and picked it up.

“Hi… yes he lives here… he had to go out but he gave me a message for you,” I paused suddenly, realising I didn’t know what the hell the message was supposed to be.

“Well…?” the bloke on the line queried. “Is the job on or off?”

“Ummm… It’s off.” I blurted, hedging my bets, I mean to say there was a fifty/fifty chance that ‘off’ was the correct response.

Dad’s first anxious question when he walked in the door was naturally to ask if the phone call had been dealt with.

“Yes Dad,” I drawled indifferently, “I told him the job was off.”

The look of murderous fury on my father’s face would have sent Charles Manson scuttling away to hide under his mother’s skirts. Even my boyfriend (the traitor) just stood shaking his head at me in disgust.

After a volatile and vociferous sermon on how much of a f#cking idiot child I was, and how I was the reason they'd invented the pill, my father was forced to drive around the suburb the bloke lived in all night. Dad had to scan driveways for the bloke’s car so that he could inform him that the job was indeed on, not off.

I’d be a liar if I said I have improved my listening skills since then. Just ask Scotto. 

He often tenderly takes my pointy little chin between his thumb and forefinger, gazes into my face and says, “Now look me in the eyes, and repeat after me…”

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Pinky's Advice: If you can't do it... teach it!

                   Pinky fends off a couple of thespians. (Mark, Alan and Pinky!)

Amateur theatre did become a bit of a sporadic hobby for me throughout my adult years, despite the shaky start outlined in yesterday’s post. 


Let’s see... from the age of twenty-five until I was about forty I played a scheming servant; a psychotic baby-killer, a cruel and hypocritical religious fanatic, the self-absorbed director of an aged nursing home, a bossy theatre director, the child-hating socialite wife of an affable but hen-pecked husband, a bogan, a dishonest lawyer, a snobby factory boss hiding a terrible secret… are you beginning to see a pattern here?

When I lived in Sydney in my early twenties I joined a theatre group and was granted the role of a servant girl in a play called “The Chocolate Soldier”. My first entrance on stage was to run in and animatedly shout, 

‘The soldiers are coming! The soldiers are coming!”

I’d decided to wear a pair of ancient court shoes I’d discovered in the boot of my car as part of my costume. They had been on their way to the dump but seemed to suit the era of the play and I was on a budget.

On the highly anticipated opening night I lunged onto stage hollering my lines with all the dramatic flair I could muster, thrilled to be performing on stage in the big smoke (albeit amateur theatre). 

My spectacular theatrics unintentionally extended to slipping over in my worn shoes and landing flat on my bum. Naturally the audience found this to be hilariously funny and it took us a while to establish that the play wasn’t actually intended to be a comedy. The director was not impressed.

The same thing occurred the following night and the night after that. I wasn’t actually falling over by now as I’d managed to anticipate the moment my shoes were going to lose traction, but it was clearly apparent each time that I’d slipped and skidded and there was always a loud titter from the audience.

“Pinky,” sighed the director, “would you please do something about those shoes!”

On the final night the director’s wife brought in another pair for me to wear. My entrance was as smooth as a Nancy Kerrigan swivel but as I was exiting the stage I suddenly felt the elastic snap on my voluminous petticoat. 

I was forced to ungracefully hobble from the stage clutching the mass of heavy, white Broderie Anglaise in an attempt to drag it off with me, much to the amused delight of the spectators.

I went to auditions for the same theatre group’s very next production but unfortunately I didn’t make the grade. I can’t think why.

One time and one time only, did I manage to score the role of the leading lady. I was to play the role of Deirdre in “Deirdre of the Sorrows”; an ancient Irish princess who roams the Irish wilderness and tragically falls in love with the wrong bloke. Forced to marry the horrible, wretched old King instead, she melodramatically stabs herself to death at the finale. 

Not only did I have to come up with a passable Irish accent, I had to bring some credibility to a heart-breaking death scene. Three comments about my performance remain with me until this day.

Director: “Pinky, you look and sound like you have colic when you’re stabbing yourself. Can you work on that please?”

‘Friend’: “I felt so sorry for you having to wear that ugly costume, Pinky.”

Mother: “I don’t know how you remember all those lines, Pinky!” (This is one of the most back-handed compliments any pseudo-actor will ever hear.)

My swan song in the world of grease paint was to play an old crone (surprise, surprise) in the T. S. Eliot verse drama, “Murder in the Cathedral”. 

The director decided to costume the Women’s Chorus in itchy, thick cloaks made of what I imagine were horse blankets. Not a very sensible choice in the North Queensland Summer I can assure you. 

The performances were imaginatively staged in an actual Cathedral and the ‘women’ had to sit amongst the audience on the pews. Every now and then one of us would spontaneously leap out of our seat and loudly project our one or two lines of poetry, unnervingly startling any unwitting member of the audience who was unfortunate enough to be sitting beside us.

Our creative director (the late and great Jean-Pierre Voos) had procured a real horse to make a stagey entrance down the aisle in the middle of the performance. 

The nag managed to squeeze out an equine ablution every single night, filling the cathedral with the pungent aroma of horse manure. 

With the heat, the smell and the sheer boredom I swiftly deemed it was time I threw in the theatrical towel and seek greener pastures. Probably not a huge loss to the local amateur theatre scene methinks!

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Pinky's Big Break

                                Pinky about eleven years old.



I’ll let you in on a little secret. When Pinky was a little girl she wanted to be a ballerina/movie star/pop singer/airline hostess. A bit unusual for an eight year old, eh? I don’t know any eight year olds like that...  LOMARFL (or is it LMFOLAFEL?).

When I was about eight years old our teacher Miss Lang, courageously decided to join forces with the class next door and hold a concert for all the parents on the last day of school for the year. I loved the last day of school mainly because of the limitless slices of watermelon we’d be allowed to eat. 


How easy it was to please kids back in those days. 

The idea of being a part of a performance concert on such an auspicious day had me in a pink fit of exhilaration.

I was definitely not one of Miss Lang’s favourite students due to an earlier incident where I educated the girls in my class on the intricacies of sexual intercourse… read here


In fact, she made it quite clear on many occasions how irritating she found me to be. I’m not sure if it was her curled lip or forced smiles when I regaled her with my interminably long narratives that gave it away but I’m sure you are all nodding knowingly at this point of the story. A lot of my teachers were of the same ilk and I really don’t know why.

However as I was a particularly loud, overly confident little girl, Miss Lang awarded me a leading role in the short moral play “The Fisherman and his Wife.” I was to play the materialistic, whiny and superficial character of the ‘wife’, but the subconscious typecasting of my teacher went over my innocent head as I had more lines than the two teacher’s pets, Lynette and Kaylene. Those two goody-goodies were allocated the role of princesses, but they only had a measly one line each so I was quite chuffed.

Until, that is, they brought a rather negative aspect of my starring role to everyone’s attention.

“Look at your picture in the book, Pinky!” the girls teased, pointing out an illustration of a strangely unattractive woman with a big wart on her chin and wearing a scarf.

“And you’re married to Bruce!” they squealed in catty mirth.

Poor little Bruce was playing the ‘fisherman’ and suddenly the sheen of my future stardom began to fade. I really didn’t want to be married to Bruce Helmbright in any manner of speaking. Number one, he spat when he talked, and number two, he had a weird name -when I think about this now I suppose ‘Helmbright’ indicated that his ancestors were either very clever or merely wore bright helmets- but nevertheless I couldn’t in a million years be married to a boy named ‘Bruce’.

Miss Lang would hear none of it and I was stuck with the role of the haggard old crone.

“Does anyone have any special talents?” asked Miss Lang hopefully when organising the recital programme.

“I learn ballet!” called out an eager Pinky with stars in her eyes.

Miss Lang looked at me doubtfully, “Can you show me what you can do, Pinky?”

Now I did learn ballet and had recently been a ‘bubble’ in a concert with about fifty other ‘bubbles’, so I had a costume and everything.

I unreservedly kicked off my shoes, strutted to the front of the class and improvised the most ridiculously dramatic dance you could ever conceive. Astonishingly I fooled Miss Lang and suddenly I was not only the leading lady of the class play, I was also the Prima Ballerina of the grade four recital, performing a dazzling solo (sans music) to which I reinvented the steps every time I practised it.

“Tracy Roberts reckons you made that dance up. She told us it’s a load of rubbish,” sniggered Lynette and Kaylene after my glittering rehearsal in front of the class one day. 

Tracy learned ballet at the same studio as me and had also been a ‘bubble’. The big loud mouth was spot on though; my off-the-cuff dance was a load of rubbish and deep down in my heart, I knew it.

The final day of school arrived. I’d crammed the blue sequinned ‘bubble’ costume into my school bag, my lines were learned for the play and I was a nervous bundle of zealous anticipation. The various parents had begun to arrive (not mine I might add, perhaps they knew better) and Miss Lang, in a highly stressed state, was startled by someone tugging on her arm.

“Miss Lang! I think Pinky is sick. She’s laying under the desk and won’t come out.”

Miss Lang, controlling her panic like a trooper cajoled me out from my hidey hole.

“What’s the matter Pinky? Surely you can’t be sick.” She had a bit of an impatient tone in her voice as I recall. “The play is on in ten minutes and then you have your dance straight after that. The whole of grade four is depending on you.”

And just to prove my integrity that I was indeed very sick, I vomited all over the desk, the floor and my blue sequinned ‘bubble’ costume. 

The obligatory bucket of sawdust was urgently called out for, the concert was cancelled at the last minute and Miss Lang probably never bothered to orchestrate another concert ever again. Who’d be a teacher eh?