Category: life

I Feel Naked Without My Cell…

What a week, the world is buzzing, some things happened, A Mind of Its Own added to its staff. Although we are still trying to work out what role he will play in the organisation other than mascot. Perhaps he can start out in the mail room and work his way up. All I know is he’s getting paid more than me. I know how expensive those premium dog biscuits are I see the transaction on my credit card statement when the other half returns to the office.

So we promised you not one, but two posts this week and we joked about throwing in some steak knives and no seriously we are giving you steak knives. We are however sticking to our promise and delivering a second post. Which will come first you ask? We’ll we have no idea it just depends on how quickly they are edited and what the topics are. Hold on to your hats, grab your gin and tonic and settle in for another adventure with the team as we take you on another journey through this wonderful world.

Saturday night in Australia, something that happens every week, Saturday comes after Friday it’s a no brainer and we are pretty sure it’s on some Gregorian calendar not sure who invented it and nor do we have the time and energy to research it for you. If you are interested just type something into google search folks or ask Siri. Back to the blog, it was your typical Saturday night in Aus, the footy was on with all the various codes splashed across free to air and pay tv respectfully. Social media was once again buzzing and we were busy tapping away at a keyboard while sipping on a glass of Pappy Van Winkle. Oh wait that was just a dream we don’t have disposable incomes here to waste on a bottle of whiskey that is double some people’s salary each month.

While we watched the Swans finally get the chocolates on the hallowed turf of the Sydney Cricket Ground after only managing to string together one or two home game wins so far this season. We promised we’d provide statistics if they were available. Back to the point of this blog. While I did the somewhat manly thing for a change and watched the football, millions of women and men, I know there were plenty of blokes watching their dreams disappear across the pond in London, we received several Facebook Messenger messages regarding the fading dreams.

With millions of viewers tuned in, both men and women watched their dreams disappear with the utterance of just two words. For the ladies that watched on in awe it was the realisation that the dark prince, no wait that was Dracula, that the bad boy of British Royal Family had finally been wrangled and was now a married man. The men saw there dreams of marrying a strong, gorgeous lawyer who knows how to keep a secret and stands up for man disappear in an instant. It’s at this moment that we all remind ourselves that even rangas need love.

So with the latest royal wedding in full flight over on channel nine, our team were way too engrossed in the football to even know what was going on. A quick check of social media told us all we needed to know. Rachel Zane married the ginger royal party boy in a large ceremony that wasn’t at Buckingham palace but at some grand church where a bloke spoke for apparently way too long as he gave his gospel style sermon to the Royals. A lot of Aussies got caught up in wedding fever and hosted dinner parties. Let’s be honest folks it was an excuse to have a piss up but that’s ok in our book.

We’ve just been told that the lovely looking lady marrying Prince Party Fanta Pants is not Rachel Zane and she is certainly not a lawyer. Apparently like millions of men across the globe I’ve been living in dreamland and she’s an actress not a lawyer. This young ladies real name is Meghan Markle and oooweee is she remarkable. Que the roll of eyes and bad dad joke abuse from my wife but hey it had to be said and I’m sure I’m not the only writer to find solace in a dad joke about her last name.

So on to the ceremony… Based on the photos on instagram it was a star wars themed wedding? Prince Party Fanta Pants was wearing his best Imperial officers uniform flanked by his loyal storm troopers and Commanding Officer the other brother that no one remembers because he was too well behaved. Dumbo got an invite? Oh no that’s Prince Charles sorry old chap those ears are getting saggy and bigger with age. The imperial officers uniforms look sharp and before we know it Princess Leia is walking down the aisle escorted by Big Ears himself, it’s at this point I start scanning the crowd looking for Noddy and the rest of the gang. Maybe they’re shy but I’m sure they are there.

It looks like hollywood has come to the party, the cast of suits are there too taking up the back, back rows as are the rest of the star wars cast including Chewie, sorry again our mistake it was just Camilla. None of this actually happened at all, if it had, it would have been the wedding of the year and worth actually watching if it did. Instead there was a wardrobe change at some point and they exited the church looking very dapper. Gone was Meghan’s flour sack princess Leia dress now replaced by a lovely white grown. Prince Fanta Pants has also lost his Imperial officers uniform and has found himself a James Bond tuxedo and is looking sharp.

They jump into a vintage car and drive off to live happily every after, after they throw a big party and Lizzy has a few too many glasses of bubbly before begging the DJ to play the Macarena. That actually happened the car, I mean not Lizzy busting our to the Macarena or doing the worm across the dance floor. It was an amazing prototype Jaguar E-Type roadster, we knew it was an open top car but had to do a little research in order to share with you the exact make and model. What amazed us the most about this vintage Jag was that it had been retrofitted with an electric engine and was as quiet as a mouse, not that you would have been able to hear it over the roar of the crowd as Prince Fanta Pants and the newly appointed Duchess of Sussex left the church and headed off to the reception.

There were plenty of key moments throughout the ceremony from watching one of Macaulay Culkin’s kids hold Miss Markle’s’ dress train as she walked down the aisle. The resemblance to the young actor from the hit Home Alone movies was uncanny. To the BBC taking a swipe at Donald Trump. Most of the Royals were there and at the end of the day there was love in the air. The Duchess of Sussex and Prince Fanta Pants were loving throughout the entire ceremony as they held hands and whispered sweet nothings to each other and then there was the kiss the world had been waiting for. The one that would shatter the hopes and dreams of men and women around the world.

Megan (Rachel to most of us men) was now off the market and Harry (Prince Fanta Party Pants also to us blokes) was also spoken for. So as people shed a tear the world over for something that would only ever of happened in their dreams. The Royal Brat come good had finally met the woman of his dreams. Here at A Mind of Its Own we can only look on in awe that we were able to write this piece without watching one snippet of the Royal Love Fest. Instagram pretty much wrote this for us. So from all of us here at A Mind of Its Own we wish Prince Fanta Pants and the Duchess all the happiness in the world and truly do hope they live happily ever after because who doesn’t love a good story about a Prince finding his Princess on the set of a tv show. So until next week we’ve hope you’ve enjoyed the Royal Wedding addition of a Mind of Its own as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it for you. Oh and Lizzy if you are reading this we are sorry about calling Harry, Prince Fanta Pants.

Of all the gin joints in the world…

Another day, another dollar, well for this writer another dollar in the coffers of the multimillion dollar company I work for while I take home my meager salary that barely covers my wife and I for a month. The money men at the top take home there five figure salaries and world continues to spin but I digress the aim of A Mind of its own is not to be a platform for this writer to voice his woe is me moments but to make the readers aware of what’s going on in the world.

So where do we start you ask yourself and on what great topic will the team be enlightening us with this week? Well that’s a great question as we struggled for days on end to come up with a topic that will touch the hearts and minds of our readers. Then it came to us like a smelly fart on the wind. Well it was more a suggestion from this writers old man. In order to write this weeks blog I was going to have to step out of my comfort zone, well maybe not step out so much as step up and own my often geeky ways.

With much trepidation I jumped in the rental KIA carnival of death with my old man and headed off to the Gold Coast to gather some much needed content for this weeks piece. Now ladies and gentleman, I used to think I was a bit of geek, the cool kind who plays video games, reads comics and watches all the movie adaptations yet still likes sports and manly things like beer, guns and boobs. But as I learnt last weekend I am far from a geek let alone remotely geeky in today’s modern society.

So let me paint the picture of the land that I had just walked into. Everywhere my eyes looked they took in a world unknown to them. Men, Women and Children dressed up as tv, movie, comic book, video game, manga, wrestling, you name a character someone was no doubt dressed up as it. As I ventured deeper and deeper into the den of what i had by now dubbed the festival of freaks and geeks, i felt my IQ growing and a sudden love for dungeon and dragons. Maybe it was all the colourful costumes or perhaps it was seeing grown men living out the lives of their idols and heroes but I actually felt smarter.

The growing world of cosplay was all around me and here I was the odd one out for several reasons. Firstly no one had told me it was a dress up party and here I was in baggy pants and a tee shirt. Secondly I was wearing deodorant and wasn’t smelling like a high school gym after year 8 physical education class unlike many of my fellow event goers and thirdly which was probably the most surprising, my old man knew more people than I did. That had never happened to me before and we were in my Knick of the woods not his. Was my Dad more popular than then me?

We weren’t even through the main doors and yet my education had already began. Like a hyper colour explosion pop culture and its faithful surrounded me. There were some amazing costumes and some not so amazing. People had gathered from galaxies far, far away well as far as I’m concerned Logan and Ipswich often produce people from other planets. Yes Pauline I’m referring to you and I know you don’t like it.

I had peeled back the curtain and dared to sneak a look into a world of unknown. Like the first time your mates take you to a club of sin, I was filled with excitement and trepidation. What if I someone recognises me? What if my Dad posts we are here on Facebook? Dammit too late for that one, we haven’t even been here for two minutes and he’s checked us in. The Dalek is out of the Tardis on that one.So with no further risks of embarrassment I dove deeper and deeper into the throngs of fanboys and girls.

There were rows upon rows of fanfare and paraphernalia mixed in with some C and B grade celebrities with 100s of people lining up to grab a photo and autograph that’ll be worth something amongst these people in years to come. Let’s be honest they were more like D grade celebrities, I’d never heard of half these people let alone watched the shows they were from. I strolled past some authors and artist trying to hawk their wares. Listed in on a talk or two about fight scenes in video games and movies. And more than likely starred for way too long at some of the people squeezing through the throng of people gathered.

Now deep in the dungeon I found myself standing in front of what looked like a third world armoury bazaar shop in some third world country. Gleaming fake swords, mock guns and hammers made of foam hung from the ceiling of the store. If I was preparing for a fake zombie apocalypse this where I would come to arm myself to the teeth. I passed several other medieval fake blacksmiths and even an armoured heaven. The guys sitting there didn’t look very heavenly nor did the look like they had much to sell to masses. They did however look like they were decked out for a serious round of laser tag.

Forty minutes later I was done, my eyes hurt from gawking, my jaw from letting it hit the floor and my feet from having to dance around people to keep moving down the aisles. I was left with more questions than when I started, an expensive signed comic print and desperate need for air that hadn’t been contaminated by body odour. I was also starting to think of a career in marketing as ranges of pop cultured themed deodorants swam through my mind.

So what did I learn this week? Supanova, Comic-Con and many other pop culture conventions bring out people from all walks of life. The people that used to be referred to as the freaks and geeks now seem to be the norm and teenagers haven’t discovered the wonders of deodorant. Cosplay has hit Australia in a big way and is here to stay and my dad will always know people at these events than I ever will.

My first adventure to the dark side has left me wondering and wanting to ask more. What I can safely say is that everyone needs to at least go and check out a pop culture convention once in there lives. There is something for everyone and it was more than a little surprising. So for another week it’s over and out. We dare you to go where no man or woman has gone before…