Hattie dreams big

Last night, whilst playing on my iPad (did I mention that I now have an iPad?) me and Man discovered the joy and sheer amazingness of a game called Angry Birds. It involves a fleet of birds which you slingshot with deft precision at a group of green pig faces among meticulously arranged slabs of ice, wood and stone. The aim is to squish the pig to death, either by a direct hit from one of the birds or from a subsequent toppling of their crudely fashioned war forts. There's an assortment of hilarious sound effects, including smug pig snorts when the birds have failed in their mission, giggles when the birds succeed, and excited 'wheeeeee's when the corpulent feathered warriors are flung through the air. It's awesome in it's simplicity, and we played for a good 3 hours, taking turns (at which Man was amazed, as I do not share well. My true colours shone screaming through eventually though when I insisted on 7 or 8 turns in a row to his 1).

Anyone with an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad (did I mention I have an iPad? No? I have an iPad!) should understand the importance of this purchase if they wish to lead a happy life. Those without Apple products are surely destined to live out the rest of their days in grey boredom due to the lack of Angry Birds.

Exhausted after our perilous and gallant ordeal against the smug green oinkers, of course it was the time to indulge in some deep conversation about our life aims. Man posited his which were all very mature, well thought out and admirable. He said he would also love me to be happy with my lot, and was hoping that before long I would have more colourful ambitions in life than winning all the cups on Mario Kart.

I was understandably outraged that he though this little of me! That he thought these were my only dreams! Obviously Mario Kart is great and accounts for perhaps 30% of all the meaning in my life, but my only aspiration? I was hurt and, after I'd hit him, told him thus. He then gently reminded me that during a recent similar conversation, when he'd asked me what I'd like to have achieved in a year's time, my response had been 'I like to think I'd have won gold cups in all the Mario Kart Grand Prixes'.

Oh. My. God. He was right! My biggest goals in life were linked to success at a video game on the Wii in which only I partake. I need new goals, and I need them fast!

So readers, here is my new list of goals of what I want to have achieved in a year's time:

- 1,000 subscribers to my blog
- finished recording my album with my band
- be King of Blogworld
- have a decent income from a job I actually care about
- win all the cups in Mario Kart
- win Angry Birds
- have a pet Griffin
- gone up a cup size
- eaten a lot of steak
- have something named after me; perhaps a pub, Polar Bear or missile silo
- been a guest starring patient on an episode of House
- have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry/Awesomeness
- gone to the moon

There you go, Man. Put that in your pipe and smoke it - Hattie now dreams BIG!

I have to go and play Mario Karts now.

Disclaimer: if I only achieve one of the first 4 goals that'd be ok too.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hattie's first steak (in 9 years)

EDIT: 17/08/2010 You can now listen as you read along with my partner in crime and collaboration, Peeteer Smith, narrating in his special way!

I was vegetarian for 9 years. 'What a fucking moron!' I can hear you all chime. Well, I had a boyfriend when I was 16 who fancied himself as a real punk ass motherfucker. Part of his whole image was being vegetarian, which was weird as being a punk he was also violently opinionated and he and his punk friends were amongst the angriest people I've ever met in my life. I'm talking spitting bile and green piss and vinegar - quite the opposite demeanour you would expect from someone who cared so much about animals.

They were the kind of people who'd rather be right than happy, projectile vomiting their views on to anyone and everyone. They'd have a boner for any sort of disagreement so they could do battle with their trusty sword of self-righteousness and be fed by nurtured hatred for anyone who's opinions differed slightly from their own. Don't get me wrong, they were lovely and very caring good people, but the anger was strong in these ones, as was the insatiable need for attention in any form. I fitted right in!

Of course being 16, insecure and a total outsider, this was exciting and I soon became a punk too, telling all the cool kids to fuck off and being so damn different that I didn't give a shit that no one liked me because I was all cool with my misery and anger and self harm. I totally rocked the vegetarian thing and felt a swell of pride at being better than everyone else who still ate meat, secretly denying my body's cries for bacon and vitamins.

A few years on, the punk and his minions took it to the next level (veganism) and pledged for ever more that they'd never have a bank account and that all they'd ever need would be kept in a box under their bed. By then I'd manage to surgically remove my head from my ass to the extent that I had an actual bank account, but I still kind of liked being special and different. The punk thing had gotten old and I decided that I missed washing and didn't really like looking like a lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with that, but its hard to chat to boys when you look like a lesbian). So, resolutely, I stayed veggie.

FOR NINE YEARS.

Looking back I think I really did enjoy the feeling of pseudo-superiority it gave me. It gave me an edge, and made me better than everyone else. I love being paid attention! For those of you who wonder - ALL vegetarians think they're better than you on some level.

Anyway, blah blah blah I finally decided the time had come to return to the dark side. My man had been tantalising me for months by cooking more bacon than is humanly possible to want to eat and wafting it salaciously in my direction. Bacon is the vegetarian's arch nemesis - you do NOT want to be veggie, drunk, and within a square mile of bacon cookin g, as you will most likely lose your resolve.

I had decided the sacred moment had arrived, and we went for dinner at the most rocking amazing restaurant ever - Pizza Express. I was still a little nervous, and ordered a veggie pizza. He offered me one of his pieces of peperoni. Good god, could I really go through wit h this? I stared excited yet nervously at this tiny disc of cured porky delight. It looked incredible.

I gingerly took the meaty talisman which was to kick start my foray into carnivorousness, and cut it carefully into four pieces (those of you who know Pizza Express will vouch for me on just how pathetically small their peperonis are) and daintily snaffled each piece with delight. This is amazing! How could I have been so stupid as to not eat meat for nine fucking years?! Who the fuck knows - all that mattered was that my eyes had been opened and I had returned to the source of all righteousness. And tomorrow, we w ere to dine on steak of amazing!

Man had booked a table at one of London's best steak houses - a fourth storey penthouse restaurant overlooking the Smithfield meat market. Basically, fresh dead cow was sold at 5am in the morning but metres away, taken up to the restaurant, most likely not even refrigerated, and then cooked to perfection that same day. This was not your average steak.

We ordered a 32oz medium rare monster to share and, blood lust in my eyes and mandibles, I demolished a good 24 ounces of it. I shit you n ot, I later entered an acute state of steak induced delirium at the hands of the meat bomb that had exploded into my very being and, sweating profusely, ordered my man to run me a bath at 2am and to 'get me some steak, I must eat STEAK in the BATH!'.

Best night ever.