¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! &iexcl

I’ve read the wikipedia article for the Year of the Rat in order to prepare myself for Chinese New Year (kung hei fat choi!).  I took particular interest because I know that I was born in the Year of the Rat – in fact, I’m a wood rat.  It means as much to me as being Aries does really, but it’s a nice way to be pseudo-cultural.  At least I’m better than my work.  An email was sent out listing all the Chinese New Year festivities to help celebrate diversity, including an "Iron Chef tournament".  Iron Chef is Japanese, but in Australia, there’s no difference, they’re all just asians.

I am disgusted to learn that in Chinese, the character ‘l can mean either rat or mice, so the article refers to it intermittently as the Year of the Mouse.  All this time I’ve grown up believing I was a rat, a disgusting, ugly rat, when really I am a mouse, which is way cooler.  People who own rats as pets are fucking weirdos who are too lame even for WoW and so have to stick to Everquest.  People who had mice as pets were the fun kids at school.   They had an Atari and were the first to learn how to use rollerblades well.

I once owned a pair of mice, named Frankenstein and Dracula.  I was younger, so I thought that Frankenstein would be a good match for Dracula, not understanding that Frankenstein is just the mad scientist, not the monster.  Dracula attacked Frankenstein and Frankenstein ran away.  Dracula later ate the wrong kind of grass and died.  The moral of the story is that you need scientists to avoid dying of food poisoning.  Oh well, I only bought them for a Year 9 science project.

Anyway, I think mouse is more appropriate to me. My boyfriend once said I looked like a mouse.  I was coming down from a big night at the time, had pupils the size of hubcaps, dark circles under my eyes and was standing in a shower like a drunk zombie, but I’ll still take it as a compliment. Mousey is a compliment, right?

Speedy Gonzales was the best Warner Brothers character ever.  He knew everyone’s sister.  While his friends were all the stereotypical lazy Mexicans that had him banned from Cartoon Network for a while, he was smart and frigteningly efficient.  I am lazy, but I enjoy indulging in amphetamines from time to time, including at work, so I think that I am really the modern day Speedy Gonzales.  So for Chinese New Year, I will wear a sombrero.  It makes perfect sense.

This is another self-obsessed introspective journal entry brought to you by Speedy Gonzales.   ¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!