Hypothetically Speaking....

So - yesterday would have been my brother Eli's 21st birthday. We had some birthday drinks and a cake for him. My neice H insisted on singing " Happy Birthday ", which kind of made my mum tear up a bit. Thats me and him, right there.

Just imagine - the child in that photo with me would have been 21 yesterday, had he lived past the age he is in that photo. You'll forgive me if this is kind of morbid, but my head spins thinking what my life would have been like if Eli was still around. First of all, my sister wouldnt exist, at least not in the capacity she does now. My sister was born 10 months after my brothers death ( draw your own conclusion there... ) so maybe she would never have been born at all. Secondly, i'd have two brothers - Good Lord Almighty, one has been enough! What if i was the only girl in the house ? I suppose i would have been a way better wrestler if i'd grown up with two brothers. I mean i totally kick arse now, but imagine if i'd had to beat two instead of one? Oh, and i probably wouldnt have half the emotional issues i have now - the beginning of my childhood wouldnt have been as melancholy, thats for sure.

Surely i'm not the only one who ponders these hypotheticals. Of course, there are those people who prefer to say " But it happened, so why bother with the " what ifs " ? Well, i like to bother with the what ifs because its fun. Maybe not when your ponderings deaths, or divorces or dramas... but what about the small stuff, the stuff that seemed somewhat trivial at the time? The what ifs on those ones are good for daydreaming about on lazy Sundays - or, in my case, filling the space between thinking your tired and actually getting to sleep ( Insomniatic Musings, remember ? yes, it actually means something ). Take these for example ( bearing in mind that each situation is considered seperately to the next )......

What if i had gone to the class for gifted children ?

First off, Lauren i would probably still be best friends. I'd also have been better friends with some of the other girls who were in that class and, like them, i'd probably constantly travelling the world. I dont know how they do it, but 3 of the 4 girls who came to my high school out of that gifted class are ALWAYS overseas ( i know, because i stalk their Facebook pages ).

What if my best friend P had never moved to town?

Wow..... weird. I mean, the girl did totally snob me on her first day at my school so i dont even know why i'm friends with her anyway ( its cos i lubs her ). But if she'd never arrived in Year 8, I would probably be best friends with a girl named V. We would have probably moved to Sydney together, where she is now a nurse and i would be working in film.Yes, i dreamt of that once.... i could have been the female Australian version of Tim Burton.

What if i hadnt been to nervous to perform on stage with my Year 11 Drama class ?

I would have moved to Sydney after high school to attend NIDA ( The National Institute of Dramatic Arts ) and, consequently, I would be winning this years Oscar for my brilliant performance in some biopic, co-starring the ever talented and totally gorgeous Emile Hirsch - who i would also be engaged to ( we fell in love on set ). I'd be wearing a fabulous Zac Posen dress, Louboutins and some kind of Bvlgari jewellery. Oh hell yes. Ok, thats not me, thats Jennifer Garner - but i would totally rock a Zac Posen!

What if I had agreed to stay the second year as an au pair ?

Its an absolute given that i would have got up the courage to ask out my crush - which means, of course, that i would now be married to Roberto the Chilean Deli Guy. We had have a handful of sweet, perfectly gorgeous, dark-haired Chilean-Australian babies. I would also be fat from all the chicken salad sandwiches i would have consumed. ( Towne Deli, Summit, NJ - go there, order chicken salad on a Portugese roll. )

What if i had been more passionate about my Year 12 Textiles class project ?

I would be taking part in this years season of " Project Runway- Australia " which i would of course, win. My designs would then be seen on every starlet in Sydney and Melbourne, where i on they would be noticed by Paris Hilton on her next trip to Australia to attend some random New Years Eve party ( for which she was paid a ridiculous amount of money ). Though i wouldnt be entirely pleased because Paris is a skank and my clothes are ( obviously ) not skanky, she would launch me in LA - from their, a runway show at New York Fashion week using ANTM contestants. Picture it .... ( please refer to the Zac Posen dress above for inspiration ).

Oh yes, check it boys and girls - I have totally brought the pop culture references to the table for this post!

Call Them What They Are

Hamas political poster, West Bank 2007
Vote for us. We'll kill Jews.

Most of the world is condemning Israeli “aggression” in the Gaza Strip. Are they crazy? Looks like it. I’m talking about the rest of the world, not Israel, which is trying to stop Hamas terrorists firing rockets from Gaza which they’ve done every day for years. That’s not crazy. That’s survival. Western media endlessly shows us Palestinian civilians killed by Israelis. They don’t mention that Hamas shoots rockets smuggled from Iran into Israel from Palestinian schools, hospitals, mosques, and civilian homes.

Most of the media won’t even call Hamas terrorists terrorists. Instead, they say “militants,” or civilians, or even “refugees.” Refugees? From where? They live in Gaza, which used to be part of Egypt, but was taken over by Israel when Egypt invaded from Gaza in 1967. Israel also took the Sinai Peninsula, but gave it back. Why? The deal was: Israel gives the Sinai back to Egypt - Egypt accepts Israel’s right to exist. That’s all.

Why doesn’t Israel give the Gaza Strip back too? Easy. Egypt doesn’t want it. Nobody does. Why? Because it’s full of crazed, Radical-Muslim terrorists, that’s why. Egypt would have to be nuts to take back the Gaza Strip. Egypt remembers what happened to their president, Anwar Sadat. He was machine-gunned by Radical-Muslim terrorists after signing the Camp David Accords with President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Manachem Begin and thereby accepting that Israel has a right to exist. He was machine-gunned by Radical-Muslim terrorists just like those who make up most of the population of the Gaza Strip.

Notice that I’m saying “Radical-Muslim terrorists” a lot? I have to, because the alleged “journalists” in the rest of the world won’t call them what they are. Perhaps you think I’m over-reaching by calling most Palestinians terrorists, but a majority of them voted Hamas into power, knowing full-well that Hamas was dedicated to the destruction of Israel - not the peaceful coexistence with Israel as a neighboring Palestinian state - but its utter destruction and killing of its Jews. You want to call them innocent civilians? I don’t. They don’t want a Palestinian state as much as they want Israel gone. You can’t negotiate with people like this. Israel is doing what it must do to survive.

And by the way, Palestinians danced in the streets when they heard about the September 11th attacks, but except for Fox News, western media didn’t want to show you that either.

Why do our alleged journalists refer to Palestinians as “refugees” and not as terrorists? According to Wikipedia: “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) defines a Palestine refugee as a person ‘whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.’” Yeah, the older ones lost their homes and means of livelihood in that conflict. They chose to leave Israel 60-62 years ago because they knew their fellow Arabs in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt planned to invade and kill all the Jews. Arab Palestinians believed they could return afterward, and get much more than they left if all the Jews were dead, but that isn’t the way it turned out. Invading Arab armies were humiliated by those pesky Jews in their tiny country, who had their own army for the first time in two thousand years. Arabs called it Al Nabka - “The Disaster.” It was as if five strapping high school boys jumped a kindergarten kid and got thrashed. Their self-induced humiliation only made them hate Israel more.

They tried again to destroy Israel in 1967 and in 1973 with the same result. Palestinian Arab “refugees” bet on the wrong horse every time. They’re still “refugees” only because they’ve been supported by the United Nations for the past sixty years. If not for all those billions in refugee relief, they’d be force to really make peace. But they don’t want peace. They want Israel gone. After sixty years, that’s still what they really want. Sure, they want a Palestinian state, but not next to an Israeli state. That’s why they voted Hamas into power. Meanwhile, they want to keep the money flowing in from the UN, the US, and the EU, who all believe they’re helping “refugees” According to ProcCon.org, it’s “the equivalent of $1,330 per Palestinian. By comparison, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II provided $272 per European (in today's dollars).” As long as the money flows, the “refugees” don’t have to worry about supporting themselves. They can concentrate full-time on terrorizing Jews. When I was in the West Bank a year and a half ago, most of the Palestinian men I saw were hanging around smoking cigarettes. The only ones I saw working were a few shopkeepers, cab drivers and waiters. Garbage was everywhere, but I didn’t see anyone picking it up. Why should they? They were second and third generation “refugees” supported by dollars and Euros from the west. Let the west clean up the garbage.

If we support Israel’s right to exist, we must stop subsidizing Palestinian Arab “refugees.” It’s the only way this festering sore will ever heal.

A Year In Review - Insomniatic Style

So here it is, as previously mentioned - my year in review post. To clarify, these are my favourites of the year, not necessarily the technical " best ". I think ranking things as " best " is, well, best left to the experts. Favourites however, are completely subjective. Also, please note that this list is comprised only of things i have seen, heard, bought or experienced for myself. ( Side note - anything that may have been released in the US as of late 2007, but not released here til 2008, obviously counts as 2008 Footnote - the listed items are not in an particular or signficant order ). You may not agree- hell you may not even have heard of some stuff, let alone liked it. Its all about me, me, me - that being said, i formulated this list for all you people, so have at!

Films:
1. The Dark Knight - two words: Heath Ledger. Wait, two more: posthumous Oscar. I went into this hoping it wasnt all hype, and it wasnt. Heaths performance is so brilliantly dark that even minor plot holes or that horrid accent Christian Bale uses as Batman could sink this ship.
2. Juno - this just had the quirky, kind of dark, not-everybody-is-gonna-get-it kind of humour that i love. Ellen Paige just does the biting wit so well, and she has just the right amount of freckles to be believable as the odd girl ( rather than the gorgeously pretty popular girl ). I kind of loved the whole mature storyline as played out by kids thing aswell. Total winner.
3. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army - who doesnt love Hellboy? He's big, he'd red and he's grumpy but he's just trying to keep the world safe. Lets face it, he's really just a romantic at heart - the whole Hellboy/Liz thing, despite being a a mixed species romance, is totally gorgeous. Ooh, and also, lots of stuff blows up and there's tonnes of fighting and cool stuff like that.
4.There Will Be Blood - sure this movie is long, but Daniel Day-Lewis is so mesmirising that you never once look at the clock. Its no wonder he won the Oscar for this film - everything he does is just so unbelievably watchable. Paul Dano is kind of a revelation too.

And my least favourite?
Tropic Thunder - I know this one is going to be a controversial pick, but i couldnt even watch all the way to the end of this. I understand what they were aiming for, but it just fell flat for me. Plus, I think i'm kind of over Ben Stiller. He has no range: he's either the sweet, goofy romantic or aq gung-ho idiot. I'd love to see him do something closer to his work in " Reality Bites ". I just think he needs to moves past the crazy faces and dicks in zippers.
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TV Shows
1. How I Met Your Mother - i really got into this show this year. I totally want to date Ted and Barney ? Barney is the shit-funniest character on TV. Don't judge me, but i would totally have a one stand with Barney.
2. The Amazing Race - yep, I am still in love with this show. I know their are about a thousand other reality shows i could be watching, but The Amazing Race lets me indulge my travel fantasys ( oh, and the fantasy of winning a million dollars ).
3. Big Bang Theory - aww, Leonard is just so darn cute. I'm just hoping that at some point Penny is going to realise it, rip off his glasses and drag him to her bedroom. And Raj has all the potential in the world ( as realised when he volunteered for that drug trial ). But its Sheldon - man Sheldon cracks me up. He's just so weird....
4. So You Think You Can Dance Australia - loved this show! So vibrant, and sexy and stylish and fun. I sooooooo wanna go and take dance lessons, except i'm kind of likely to trip over my own feet and sprain an ankle or something. I'll just keep my dancing on the pub dancefloor and far, far away from a national, television stage.
5. Greys Anatomy - the season of Izzy and George ( which was kind of awkward ), Alex and Rebecca ( which was kind of sad ) and Callie turning lesbian ( or has she ? ). McDreamy was still hot, McSteamy was still waaaay hot although, unfortunately, Meredith was still mopey. Will that change in the new season ? Doubtful - but as long as the boys stay hot and the romance and gossip stays scandalous, i'll keep watching.

And my least favourite?
The Moment of Truth - O.M.G. This is just trainwreck TV. I cant understand why anyone would want to watch this program. Its basically just repulsive people admitting to scandalous and hurtful things in a bid to make money. I'm all for the trailer park trash of shows like " Jerry Springer " but this ? This is just nasty. Much like the " contestants " on the show....
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Songs:
1. " My People " by The Presets - the ultimate dancefloor anthem for this year. For all of you not in the know, The Presets are an Australian dance/electronic outfit and this is the song that had me dancing everytime i heard it. " I'm here with all of my people! "
2. " Use Somebody " by Kings of Leon - my favourite love song of the year. And by love i mean i could totally use somebody like Caleb Followhill... love me Caleb, I'll love you back!
3. " Thats Not My Name " by The Ting Tings - this song is just so catchy! And, despite the fact my local radio station played it about a million times a day, i'm not sick of yet. Its different and fresh and.... its just so damn catchy! Its my loungeroom/car sing-along-song. You know, the way you sing at the top of your lungs and pretend like your a total rock star ? Yep, you have one of those too.
4. " Kids " by MGMT - totally loving the trippy, psuedo-psychedelic pop by these guys. And " Kids " is getting a lot of airplay right now, and its my favourite song off " Oracular Spectacular ". It may just be my anthem for the summer and, therefore, makes this list.
5. " Leave Out All The Rest " by Linkin Park - ah, my emo song of the year. Everybody needs a soft/loud/soft.loud rock song that they can play when they are feeling either melancholy ( I wanna die right now... boo hoo hoo ) or angry ( You are all going to regret this when i'm gone, bitches ! ). Linkin Park usually fits the bill for that kind of song, and this song falls into that category. Ah, Linkin Park - with me since Year 12.

And my least favourite?
" I Kissed A Girl " by Katy Perry - Puh-lease Katy Perry: you did not kiss a girl and even if you did it was only to impresf the horny drunk boys. I cannot stand songs like this. Firstly, Katy cant sing all that well but that doesnt matter so much in these days of slick production. The issue here is the song is a complete novelty, just sung to titillate and shock. So its gets a little controversy and then radio starts playing the crap out of it. Which only makes me hate it more. I just find it so sad that people are able to build a ( brief ) career out of such an annoying, and utterly crap, song.
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Albums:
1. " Pretty.Odd " by Panic At The Disco - sweet, sweet pop music, with an old-school Beatlesque twist. " Nine In The Afternoon " very narrowly missed out on a place in my favourite songs - its just pure, sweet, sunshiney pop at its best. And so is the rest of the album.
2. " Duets " by Reba McEntire - I know what your thinking: a country album. But Reba is like the queen of country and she's an all round brilliant artist, which is why she inspires artists like Carole King, Kelly Clarkson, Don Henley and Justin Timberlake to sing with her. The song she does with Justin - which he wrote for mind you - is just gorgeous, and the duet on " Because of You " with Kelly is near about as good as the original.
3. " Only By The Night " by Kings of Leon - hello, best rock album of the year. If you havent already bought it/heard it/ heard OF it, then what the hell is wrong with you ? Seriously, yoiu cannot escape the genius of " Sex On Fire " and the aforementioned " Use Somebody " so why try ? Just go and buy the album and love it. Now.
4. " Across the Universe " soundtrack by the cast of the film - if you dont know the film, its a musical using the songs of The Beatles so, thusly, this is a collection of Beatles songs sung by the cast ( who include Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess and a cameo by Bono ). My pick for the best is " Hey Jude " which, with its " Naaa, naaa, naaa, na na na na! " has been the song i turn to for a pick me up and Evan Rachel Wood singing " Blackbird ". Gorgeous song such by a gorgeous girl in a gorgeous, pure voice.
5. " The Odd Couple " by Gnarls Barkley - alternatley, the album i've found myself either playing with windows rolled down in my car, or choosing to dance around the house to while i do housework. " Run! " is a great song for vacuum dancing AND cruising the streets and " Blind Mary " is just too cute. Need to get your party ( or housework, whatever takes your fancy ... ) started ? Choose Gnarls Barkley.

And my least favourite ?
Note, that there is no entry for this one. I'm not in the habit of buying music i dont like and, although it is possible to misjudge the strength of an album ( by buying ti based on one song or the strength of previous albums by that artist ), that didnt happen this year. Hell, i wasnt even forced to listen to a crappy CD by a friend - you know, whilst chilling out, or on a roadtrip - so, consequently there is no one album i can choose as my least favourite this year. Yay for my ears!
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And that be all. The years pop culture as rated by me is now over. Leave a comment, tell me what you agrred/disagreed with, how mad you think i am for a particular choice, or even just leave your own choices for favourite. Peace out yo!

Welcome Home Hudson!

Well for awhile now I've been saying that Hudson is COMING home soon. But now I'm am proud to announce that Hudson IS HOME!! I'm so excited I can't wait to meet the newest member of the Carney family. The pictures are of him petting the horses (the one in the picture is Gypse), the next of him sitting on a horse for the first time (that horse was Honey the best horse in the whole wide world!) and the last of him looking like a real cowboy in one of the saddles in tack room.

Isnt she lovely? Isnt she won-der-ful ?

So there you are everybody - the very proud Aunty Amy and little Isabella. Or Bella, as she is already informally called. Its not the best photo ever but at least she's awake and we're both looking at the camera. That was taken this afternoon, so lets call it an official portrait of me and Bella when she is four days old. She's too, too cute! Let me show you a close up:

Aww, look at her! She has this cute little mohawk thing going on and a sweet, little, perfectly formed nose. Sure, she looks kind of grumpy in this picture but you probably would be too if it were 35 degrees celsius outside and because you're only four days old you have to be bundled up in a blanket. It would make you kind of grumpy, and kind of sweaty, but thats not the point. The point is Bella is a cubby cheeked little cherub and i think i will have to control myself from kidnapping her and keeping her in room.

But isnt the way all proud aunties feel ?

2008 in review

So as many of you know(at least I hope you know by now) that it is January of 2009. Last year(wow it's weird to say that) for me went by kind of fast and was crammed full of stuff. It was great though and I learned a lot. As for a year in review thing I don't think I can do one just cause I don't know what I'd list but I guess I can put some highlights down.

Went to World Changers and had a blast at the first youth camp that I have ever attended.

Had fun with my friend Morgan at World Changers. And in this picture you see have short hair(Well short for me) which is the shortest my hair has been since 1st grade. It's longer now of course.

In an attempt to curl my hair this happened, I learned to never brush curly hair. And if you notice from the picture with Morgan to the half fro one I had Braces put back on which was wonderful! NOT!

Curled my hair again and got a better result!

I now own a nice dress. All of my friends know that I never wear dresses but I love this one. The picture is of me and my parents before a Christmas program at church

I have had a ton of fun being in the Youth Praise Band. They're all such a good group of friends, crazy friends, but good. I've had so much fun being a part of it with everyone.

2008 a good year and too many things have happened to list them all and I'm sure 2009 will be a great year too!

A Belated - Happy New Year!

So a Happy New Year to all of you peoples out there. Hopefully you all found yourself in the company of good people in the countdown to 2009, and with a bit of luck hopefully you got to kiss at least one of those people. I got me a little New Years peck from an old school friend of my brothers which is not exactly what i had in mind, but hey - i'll take what i can get.

By far the highlight of my New Years was .... the birth of my neice! Welcome to the world little Isabella Grace. Yes, thats right regular blog followers, the impending new baby ( who was due on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day mind you.... ) finally arrived at 2:23am on New Years Day. Happy New Years to everyone in my family. And not only did she finally arrive, but she happened to be the first baby born in our region for 2009. How cool is that ? She gets to be in the local paper and, thus, will go down as part of local history. Bella is totally going to be famous when tomorrows addition comes out! Hopefully i'll be able to post a picture tomorrow, or at least give you a link to our local newspaper, if you want to check out my gorgeous new neice for yourself.

And now, for the part you've all been waiting for - or at least, the part you've been expecting: my resolutions. I've never been the type to sit and make a very specific list of what i want to achieve. I know some people think that putting your EXACT goals on paper and sticking them on your fridge/closet/bathroom mirror is a great way to self-motivate; I, however, am of the opinion that if you leave your goals as general as possible, you wont be disappointed if you couldnt do EXACTLY what you wanted, but you'll appreciate what you did do. Does that make sense ? For example, if you say " I want to save $5000 by the end of the year " and at the end of the year you only have $4500, you'd probably be a little letdown, wouldnt you ? But if you made your resolution " I'd like to save as much money as possible during the year " well, $4500 doesnt look so bad, does it ? So, in the spirit of leaving myself open to all possibilities and not tying myself to one specific thing, here are the three things i want to achieve during 2009:

1. I resolve to continue the gym and health routine I started in 2008. During the past year, I managed to not only start regularly going to the gym, but i kept it up. I've fallen off the wagon a little in the past two months, seeing as i've been a little under the weather, but i am pysched to get back into it. And, not only do i resolve to continue the gym going, but i also intend to push myself just that little bit harder when i can, instead of resting on my laurels.

2. I resolve to spend as much time as is possible with my neices. For the record, that would be H who is now 3, and the previously mentioned newborn Isabella. I like to think i'm a great aunty ( i was going to say good but you know what ? I'm actually GREAT ) already, but i know their have been times in the past year or so that i could have asked if H would like to do something with me, or times when we have been playing and i've given up the game just a little too early. I know she " loves my guts " - as she's just become fond of saying - and want little Bella to be the same way. I want to have the loving, nurturing , " My Aunty Amy is the bestest! " kind of relationship that i've never had with any of my aunts or uncles.

3. I resolve to say " yes " more often that I have done in the past. No, I havent been to see " Yes Man " with Jim Carrey. The truth is i've kind of come to this conclusion on my own - i've kind of missed out on a tonne of stuff because i said no. I said no because i didnt know anybody else who was going to be there; I said no because i was too tired or too lazy to make the effort to go; I said no because i was afraid how things would turn out in the end. Now i'm thinking even if things dont turn out all that fantastically, at least thats an experience right ? I've had a great 2 weeks over this holiday period because i've said " yes ", even when i would only know one person at birthday drinks, or two people out of 40 at a bbq - if i'd listened to the old me, i wouldnt have gone. And i wouldnt have rocked as hard as i did! I've made at least one new friend ( who may be a mother of 5 but she's pretty neat ) and a handful of acquaintances in only two weeks - imagine what i could do in a whole year of saying " yes " ?

And thats about it for now. I was thinking of doing a couple of " Best of " lists - say, my top 5 best movies of 2009, for example - but i've been too consumed by baby cuteness to think that much. Give me another week and i might have come up with them....