Monday, November 28, 2005

TDay Mark II

You want more, don't pretend....

1) See carnivores and herbivores can coexist
2) Eat, eat you are all too thin




3) A big turkey and some wryd extremely funky! thing Megs made
4) Henry-too cool for this party, now who can i get booze off next?



5) Yes, yes its true, I am the kewlest aunt ever...
6) Giving a mob a bad name



5) No i didn't give Sophie any of my daquari
6) Yeah, thats just fine, go home, its ok i'll clean up...in the rain

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Turkey Day

Once again The Land of the Free, provided us with the perfect excuse for vast over consumption. Having a genuine Seppo in the ranks lends it a air of respectability...no really.
It rained till 11am, cleared up to be a beautiful warm afternoon...just what we ordered.

20kgs of turkey, lashings of mashed potato, corn, salad and bread to stuff 35 odd, and i do mean odd, people to the gunnels with enough left over for the standard mature food fight.

Hmmm sweet buttery Turkey Love

The fixings.



Child protection work laws are for losers...


Ready yet huh huh?? I'm hungry....Notice the patented ObTopsNw BBQ of Power.
Plans supplied on application, must have own plamsa cutter.



The hordes descend


All appetites, some more unnatural than others were sated.




It wasn't all just over indulgence and making merry.
Evil never sleeps.


Quick quiz: Which turkey centre piece did you most resemble the morning after?
A: perky and fluffy
B: not so perky and fluffy
Answer: B

(big thanks to Megs for making such awesome peices)




Next morning had some friends drop by to help clean up all the bread that just accidently happened to be thrown around.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

One Day My Rogue Will Come

I'm posting this mostly because I'm sick of the dog/cat thing. Kate's post reminded me of it.

I challenge any of you to top it for coolest fictional namesake. And, yes, I bought a copy.


Amanda Rose was an English beauty determined to escape the loveless marriage imposed on her by her cruel stepbrother. She never dreamed a mysterious rogue from the New World would enter her life. Amanda's promise not to betray Matt Grayson, a wounded fugitive, was soon replaced by a deeper vow. Now a cruel twist of fate threw them together as enemies, instead of lovers.

UPDATE: Cozling is right, I shoulda included the Amazon reviews.


Oh and ps I went to boxing class for the first time tonight. Coz, I put you down as emergency contact so if my poor body unlawfully protests via cardiac arrest and you get a call from bored ICU nurse to that effect, you'll know the backstory.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Right, my turn!


This is Stimpy, isn't he beautiful? (Isn't he big?) Unfortunately, he went to the big free food dispenser in the sky earlier this year.

For Fyodor




Better?

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

In an attempt to redeem myself...







































I am posting some cute dog photos. These puppies are one of the latest trendy breeds, called a puggle. It's a cross between a pug and a beagle, and they don't grow very big, so they are huge with the handbag brigade. I wonder how long until some up until now very pampered chi- chiua - um little yappy dog things suddenly find themselves out in the cold.

Very cute, but I'm not sure I would pay the US$1000 price tag. A $100 or so to the RSPCA is more my style.

Scotland 1, England 0

Days in Aberdeen: 2
Days left house before noon: 0
Days got up before 11am: 0
Nights got to bed before 4am: 0
So far, on stats alone, it was a very successful weekend. But it gets better...

Pub crawls: 1
Pubs on crawl: 8
Crawlees at start of night: 15
Crawlees at end of night: 6
Fate of other crawlees: NFI
Drinks consumed: NFI
Types of drinks consumed: EVERYTHING!
Time got in: NFI
Method of getting home: On foot, eyes closed, being held up (and tripped over) by cousin.
Method of hangover recovery: Regression to 8 years of age in a swing park with a flying fox and obstacle course! (Totally cool, except for the bit where Dan fell off the see-saw and dumped me on my arse in the mud. Very funny tho'.)

But the reason why Scotland gets a point is this:


(That's Oli in the foreground. He's not looking picturesque, he fell over.) Dunnottar Castle! Actually, it is a full on fortress on an almost totally severed headland bit, with cliffs and ravines. Lots of it is intact, but also with gates in caves and passages to the beach. Totally awesome. That is all I have to say. It gets a point. Plus it is a real chance for me to go "Nerr nerny nerr nerr! I'm in Scotland!"
Here is a picture of a Scot who knows how to make Scotland look good. And Dude, this is Gemma, our future cousin-in-law. She rocks.



England, however, doesn't get a point.
I have never before spent a day in a town where the 20 meter visibility fog, with which the day started, held all day and never lifted or diminished or wavered. I've spent all day and all evening with the strange sensation that I'm living in a universe about 50 meters in diameter... Freaky, man.

(Oh and New Zealand gets a point by proxy. The sports bar that was playing the England vs All Blacks rugby match was full of Scots punters cheering the defeat of the Poms, and not a Kiwi in sight. *tee hee!*)

Monday, November 21, 2005

Geek Novels

From The Guardian Techology blog. Only 132 people voted so there is much room for debate.
The Top 20 Geek Novels since 1932. Not sure what is a geek novel exactly, but i've read most of them.
The ones i have read are highlighted.

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert

7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks

15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman

18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

Not a bad list, i guess you could go on forever.
The first four, who can complain really. I'm with the geeks on those ones.
I just finished reading "The Salmon Of Doubt" the bits and pieces from Adams computer after he died. Wanted to cry....

Ian M Banks- Player of Games, Turn To Windward, Use of Weapons.
Take your pick, they all totally rock.
Terry Pratchett- i love all his stuff, Colour of Magic was his first Discworld novel and started a great series, so maybe thats why its there. Its good but i really like alot of his later books, the characters, world and plot are more fleshed out, more interesting. Who doesn't love Granny Weatherwax, The Patrician, Vimes.......
Neal Stephenson and Neal Gaimen...sigh. I'll have those guy's babies anytime.

Other authors that come to mind that could be there- David Brin, Dan Simmons, Connie Willis, Michael Marshall Smith, Cordwainer Smith, Verner Vinge.
Plus many others i'm sure you good people could suggest.


Friday, November 18, 2005

Darksided

Not to take away from the Mr Winkle debate or anything, but its time you Ungodlys out there got a heads up.
Ohh yeah the freaks are winning folks, start stockpilling the cans of peaches.

From a American tv show -Trading Spouses.
I don't know how to direct link so go here you Gargolyes
click on watch video....(the quality isn't as good as the link i saw it from though)

God warriors go here afterwards .

Oh Come On people! Look at him! No, you know what. Fine. Wallow in your Cynicism and Despair. You'll Die Alone. Don't Come Crying.

Harry - Mr Winkle does not look like this...


This little cutie won the Ugliest Dog in the World Competition. No idea why.
His name is Sam.
He is 14, and yes he is still alive.

Blatant plug for other blog

Link is here.

Warped sense of humour

Husbang came up with the following scintillating wit in the car this morning:

H: Give me a H
Me: what?
H: Go on, give me a H
Me: okay, H
H: Give me a 5
Me: fiiiivvve?
H: Give me an N
Me: (I can see where this is going now) N
H: Give me a 1
Me: one
H: what have you got
Me: chicken flu
H: well actually bird flu, or avian influenza virus. Pretty good huh. Hey, can you blog that today?

Lucky I love him.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Not for use as a ninja climbing grapple...

Porl sent me this; its brilliant.

Scroll down the bottom and check out the cautions against incorrect usage...

Vale Diosma!


Diosma, aka Doz, aka Dozzie-doo, aka Diosma
Coleonema pulchrum (Pink Breath of Heaven - now there's a laugh), aka BatDoz, died this morning aged 18 and a bit.



It may well look like she's a bit uncomfortable in these photos, but believe me, she was a real photo tart and loved it. Whenever I got the camera out (and especially the tripod), Doz would go and stand in front of it with a patient, "Humiliate me if you will" sort of look, whether she was going to be involved or not. Sometimes I had to put her in another room and close the door because she'd automatically put herself in the shoot!




She was also easy to sketch, and I made a print or two of her as well. They're in a set of drawers buried under a mound of crud, as is my very favourite photo, so don't be surprised if you see some more images pop up some random time in the future.

Doz got into some amusing situations, including The Great Chub Debacle, and even being discovered as (some of you will remember this) the reincarnation of JF "Two Bullets" Kennedy.

She was also a great companion, and always up for an adventure.



Diosma was a very good (and extremely funny) dog.


This is a What Kind of Humanist Are You? quiz but I didn't want to take up space from important things so I'll just write it really small. Link and the one I am here. Go Socceroos!

Monday, November 14, 2005

Vintage Harry

Looking through the box of memorabilia that has survived the great chucking out of 2005 I came across the following harry classics. These date from the late 90's when husbang was a very bored NSW public servant working in the funding department of a large bureaucracy, and harry still had a job and access to a fax machine.

FART
Farmers Association for Rotating Trotters
Lot 34, East Cowpat Drive ~ Grondle Vale ~ NSW ~ Australia
Phone 02 9748 8688 ~ Fax 02 9748 8677 ~ Email bruce@PORK.com
August 13, 1998

Attn: Husbang (name removed to protect the guilty)
Branch: Funding
Date: 12/8/98
From: Bruce Hickman
Pages: 1 (including this one)

I wish to put forward an application for funding for the development of rural practices in the Largs region of NSW. We in the Farmers Association for Rotating Trotters have implemented a mutual support management plan of some standing for many years now. Unfortunately, times being what they are, our collective effort needs a bit of a hand. The next step in our management plan is the purchase of six Rotating Pig Emasculators. The DLC help us out in 1989 with a Collapsable Pig Fat Gauge which measures the fat layer under the skin and folds away into a miraculous cubic foot carry case, but I'm sure you're aware of this. The CPGF gave us the edge in a hard season and we won the East Swanvomit Hill Cup and achieved record high prices for our pork and bacon and equal best price for raw sausage matter. We also won the "Pig that looks Most like its Owner" competition for the third time with Kevin Girdle and Squealer. Either Kevin is one fucking ugly guy or Squealer is one good looking pig. Anyway, the Rotating Pig Emasculator represents the next step for us in FART as we take advantage of new technology. The RPE allows the emasculation of pigs by right AND left handed operators, which will make the process much faster for a start. The RPE also allows the pigs to be rotated through a full 360 degrees - often at high speed - which is infinitely preferable to the maximum 45 degree tilt achieved with the Watson and Sponkle Pig Cradle that we currently use. We really need six pig emasculators so placed that all ten members of FART will have easy access to one and so that they can even be hired out on occassion. The RPE is the logical choice.

Looking forward to your reply,

Bruce Hickman



Hutmalzadalha Camel Enterprises
TAKING PEOPLE TO THE DESERT AND BRINGING THEM BACK AGAIN
__________________________________________________________________________________
Station 12, New Bumscratcher Track
Sandville
NSW
Australia

Phone: 08 9746 8688
Fax: 02 9748 8677
email: hgrondle@hump.net.au
Friday, August 14, 1998

Attn: Husbang (name removed to protect the 'in big trouble for something he said in an email')
Branch: Funding
Date: 13/8/98
From: Herman Grondle (Head Hatmul)

For fifteen years now, we at Hutmahadalha (sic) Camel Enterprises have been an intrinsic part of the Outer Sandville community and commercial sector. Not only do we service tourists with Desert Explorer Camel Treks we also charter our services to maintaining those areas inaccessible to 4WDs. There are six temporary stations and the University of New South Wales has a scientific establishment here that is manned for only one month in every four. Our sixty strong caravan is the only way these stations can be economically maintained. We not only bring in tourist dollars but lend our services to the SES when necessary. We assisted in the rescue of the crew of a downed plane with two six camel hradradullahs, and during the Roving Tetsle Bug outbreak of 1994 where all ten caravans and hatmul teams were used in the recovery of undamaged stock.

Desert conditions are harsh and wear and tear on the camel harnesses is a constant problem. Our equipment is seriously starting to suffer so I'm applying for funding for new equipment. The only place reliable camel harnesses, saddles, bridles etc are made is in Saudi Arabia. We would like to purchase as much as possible now because of the current lower shipping charges, a good discount coupon valid for this month and the offseason has just started.

This is what I require: 28 yatmals (girth straps), 15 pairs of hazdakkas (bells and tassels for belts), 18 ramdalis (foot stirrups), 23 malifas (camel prods), 14 julakis (one person saddles), 8 hajulakis (two person saddles), 12 melareckhesdaks (slung carry bags) and 30 gelakafs (bridles).

Recently it has become abundantly clear that we need new equipment. One of the hatmuls, Max, was mounting one camel when the julaki gave way, twisting his yatmal and his banged his hazdakkas with such force that the camel took off. The bellowing camel then clipped a tourist who got caught by the ramdali and dragged for forty metres. The next day Frank prodded a female tourist's hajulaki, the gelakaf snapped and his malifas become embedded right up to the tasselled meffelrak! We've had a few instances where rogue camels with wayward melarekhesdaks have caused some of the tourists considerable consternation. this is a particular problem in the mating season. Twice now, during unloading, snapping dimlaks have startled the camels. They became unpredictable and Frank was kicked in the hajulakis. There have also been problems with John rearranging his ramdalis during a trek.

We had a horrible accident when we were storing the Egyptian river sailboats that we run for the tourists on the dam. By some freak occurrence, when Max was bundling the sails, the stick a British tourist was using for a prod was catapulted into his crotch. Max the felucca flax stacker was smacked in the jatzcrackers by a backpacker's ersatz camel whacker and damaged his hazdakkas. He nearly resigned on the spot, instead he collapsed slowly, but he did stay on for the next season.

We could also do with some funding to make our slogan better - I think it lost a little something in the translation. We need to pay for a new translator as well cos the last one was a complete halamakka bal ferrali!!!!!!!!

If you could provide any assistance it would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Herman Grondle

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Sunday arvo cabbages and kings.

It is all too easy for me to judge and misjudge my father. After all, I am working with hindsight here, having done my best to forget whatever happened during those months and even years; and also working with what I have subsequently learned from others.
Years ago I first made the observation that he was a man out of his time. He really does belong in the early 1800s: where scientists were a breed apart; where having 'Dr' in front of your name was in-and-of-itself a badge of honour worthy of respect; and where such complex issues as homosexuality simply didn't exist. Back then a man such as my father would know his place and (and this is where this all springs from) everyone else would too: most notably children and wives. He simply wasn't made for the modern age and that is the crux of things and why I have never seen eye to eye with him, and in all probability never will. I state this as fact, and with no sense of loss. It's just the way things are.
But even now I'm not starting at the beginning. And to confuse matters there are two beginnings. No, scratch that: there is a beginning and there is a locus. The locus, as with all things concerning my family, is the death of my mother. It's funny how often I've read about the concept of all the happenings in a novel or story relating to a single event, yet how long it took me to realise that it was true for my life. Must be one of those proximity-to-the-issue things.

The beginning - the true beginning - is, well, the beginning of my father's relationship with my mother.
You can tell a lot from someone with no guile, by how they phrase things. My father emigrated from England in 1968. I asked him why, thinking it had something to do with the imminent nuclear holocaust (He had previously told me a bit about what it was like to live under the omnipresent threat of a nuclear exchange. Having been born during the 1940's blitz and been bombed and strafed; and then moving to Hamburg during the early fifties so that Grandpa could train pilots for the resurrection of Lufthansa; and being your basic war-nerd, war was always *there*.) But, no. He emigrated because his job moved out to Australia, so he upped sticks at the age of 28. That was why he moved countries.
When he talks of the girl he left behind in England he says "People expected us to get married", and pretty much left it at that. But the lack of emotion when he said it I couldn't wholly attribute to the decades that had passed. People, back then, did simply expect you to get married. There was no hanging about until you were forty to say "What the hell - we've been together sixteen years, might as well get married", like today. In those days it was a bit unusual to not be married by twenty-five.
I really think he was then, as he is now, a path of least resistance kind of guy - passive to the whims of society. Now, it's easy for me to make pronouncements in the anything-goes type of world we live in now, but even so, I reckon he was passive even for those days and the reason why he wasn't married is because it didn't happen to him.

By contrast, my mother had lived and worked overseas for about three years and met a guy in London. His name was Paul and he was an American journalist. And they shacked up together in Chicago for nearly two years before a blazing row of some sort culminated in him "throwing a frozen lamb chop" at my mum-to-be. She wrote home to her older brother for the fare home - which he sent - and she came back. She never said anything more about what went wrong with Paul than what I've related above.
At this point in my aunt's rendition the phrase "on the shelf at 27" came up. Now, when that famous bloke wrote "The past is another country: they do things differently there" I can't but splutter and yell "Another country?! Talk about another freaking planet!!"

My dad said she had eyes like Shirley McLaine. I can understand that: I'm a big fan of eyes. Just what my mum saw in dad is the topic for one of those late-night red wine drinking sessions I'd like to have with her now. I simply can't reconcile the two of them: el Dorko straight from nineteen-century, class-stratified England with the social skills of a squashed badger; and a young, beach-loving woman who'd taken herself out in the world and had taken a bit of a beating in the process, but come back proven. Maybe she had come back too bruised. Maybe she believed that she had to take the plunge or be consigned to 'the shelf'. Who knows? [You will forgive me idolising my mother here: I did my abject best to forget her - and succeeded.]
They quickly got married; got a house; and got pregnant.

My mum had drive, and she had a certain stubbornness. But what she also had was kids, and that greatly restricted her options. Certainly when her sister got divorced she was seen as letting down the family etc etc. My mum was subject to the same forces and perhaps the amount of allimony and support she would have got would have been akin to destitution. Certainly we were poorer than I remember, so maybe leaving simply wasn't an option. As with most marriage trouble it revolved around money. Strangely my dad's attitude was that his money was his money. Which is an odd notion to subscribe to if you have a wife who can't work because she is taking care of your three kids; and if you are meant to be in love with this woman.
She wanted to go back to work and earn money for herself. And this was one of the major reasons cancer was so unfair. So unfair, because she'd had to put off her life to do right by her family and just as she was about to get it back on track her future was a hospital bed and chemotherapy. One more year: that was the plan. Once Pip was old enough, mum was going back to work. One more year for a woman who'd taken herself overseas and worked in Spain, France, the UK and USA; and the only thing that could have stopped her did so.
I like to think that's when he fell in love with her again. When he couldn't but be confronted by the sheer strength of her, and thus humanity. She'd given up on him years ago (even beseeching the mother-in-law she'd never got on with "Take care of my kids, because there's no-one else"), but she wasn't about to give up on her kids and she hung on as long as she could for us.
I didn't cry at her funeral, but dad wept as he should have. Maybe real life had finally caught up with him; dragged him from his previous-century mindset and dumped him firmly on the shore of the present day. A battered bodysurfer? Or more like a strand of kelp with a sheered holdfast?
He never liked the beach.
I think he never understood it.
Mum always took us up to Newport and after we'd splashed around in the surf she walked us out to the headland with it's jumbled boulders and rockpools. Her brother and sister always let her swim out first to see if there were any sharks.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Look Ma! No Meaning!

The Kansas School Board folk have passed a thingo mandating ID or somesuch be taught in their schools. The bit I liked best was this:


In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.
Cool. I really liked Kieran Healy's response at Crooked Timber:

Unfortunately they didn’t adopt my suggestion that science be further redefined to include sitting at home drinking a beer and watching the game on TV. This would have greatly enhanced my weekend contributions to science.
Heh. And never was a Heh more appropriate. I dropped science after year ten or whatever which I regret now in my (self) righteous woo bustin' phase so I see an opportunity. From now on I choose to define science as "sitting in front of the computer, eating tuna from the can for tea."

I'm scientastic!

Selling out the sizzle

Got an email about a new work website today. The site itself looks fine, but the email describes it thus:

Essentially, the purpose of the site is to ‘sell the sizzle and not the sausage’

Is there anyone out there outside the marketing profession who actually thinks that selling the sizzle and not the sausage is a good thing? What planet to marketing people come from anyways? Maybe they're all annorexic or vegetarian or something...

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

I'm pretty crap at keeping in touch with people...

...but my brother is a master. He is a lecturer and researcher of evolutionary biology at Dalhousie Uni in Nova Scotia, Canada. I get an email from him, say, every six weeks. The last two were replies to mine which read "Too busy to reply".
And, yes, he is busy. However, he is also crap.
And a dead-set genius. He's got the whole email-replaces-the-letter vibe down! He is da bomb at eventually writing a real page-turner that keeps you satisfied for the whole six weeks until the next one.

I received an email from him today.

In entireity it reads:

Date: 09/11/2005 06:16 AM
Subject: Whats new?

......
Okay, I'll go first:
Erm...We have a new couch.

Alastair


See?! Brevity IS the soul of wit.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Blog comment of the month

From http://reasonsyouwillhateme.blogspot.com/2005/11/puss-in-boots.html

"
Underwhelming said...

In a 'surprise move' I ammended my own terminology last night.

My ammendment was 'rushed through' my mind to combat an identified specific threat to Australia that will occur at a yet-to-be-determined date.

My terminology-ammendment means I now refer to Howard as THE cunt, rather then merely A cunt"

Monday, November 07, 2005

Spot The Difference

One of today's news stories. One in the SMH, one from Reuters. (with thanks to MrSnerg)

A cruise ship with 22 Australians and an unexploded missile on board was more likely to have been attacked by terrorists than pirates, says Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at a U.S.-owned cruise ship carrying more than 300 people in the Indian Ocean on Saturday but the vessel escaped and no one was hurt, its owners said.

For the record... apparently pirates are quite the problem in the area.

Ahhhh my eyes. This is from my mother-in-law...

Ladies be warned - New traffic light scam

This new scam is being pulled mainly on women who are past the age of giving a running pursuit.

What happens is that when the intended victim stops at a red light, an almost NUDE, good looking, tanned, muscled young man comes up to her car and pretends to wash the windshield. While he is doing this, another young handsome athletic man opens the back door of the car, jumps in and insists the woman drive off with him to some lonely spot where he has his way with her.

They are very good at this. They got me three times Friday and five times Saturday.

I couldn't find them on Sunday.

Ethics schmethics...

Top White House staff ordered to take ethics refresher course

Despite claims that "there will be no exceptions", hands up who thinks Dub will be there in the classroom?

Had Enough of These Dumb Quizzes?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

You Are a Little Scary

You've got a nice edge to you. Use it.

Your Sexy Brazilian Name is:

Adriana Carvalho

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Look What I Dug Up

Was doing i bit of sorting out on Saturday. Had a rumage through a couple of boxes of bits and pieces- school year books, lots of photos and old hockey trophries, which i threw out...it was abit hard but i figured i really didn't need my 1982 'A' Division Winners under 10 or 1988 'B' Grade Encouragement awards anymore.
Sometimes you have to let go.
But i did find a couple of letters which still makes me smile and i can't throw out.
Back in 1988 when i was in year 10 we had a assignment for science. Now my memory is a tad fuzzy but it involved making a model of an extinct beastie, and doing a report on it. At the time i was a member of the Riversleigh Society a cool fossil dig site in Queensland, and where you could volunteer and help dig up millions of year old bits of critters. I still have several of the newsletters from the late 80's. The mascot was a Thylacoleo or a 'Marsupial Lion', it was big and fangy and the biggest and fangiest thing on the continent. I had the idea to make one of those. With the help of Mum, i got the address of one of the main researchers involved in the study of ancient Australia and wrote to him asking for advice and infomation. (i don't remember the exact request anymore)
I wrote to Professor Michael Archer , i didn't hear back, wasn't that surprised and ended up making a Pterosaur instead, which was alot easier to make out of paper mache and wire than a cat critter.
Then five months later i recieved this, which i still think after all these years is awesome. A simple "sorry too busy" would have been fine.
I wrote back to him, slightly overwhelmed saying something like "wow its ok, no really, thanks you so much for replying, wow", and must have made some joke about know large men with large swords....and he wrote back. I am still horribly impressed that he took time to reply in such a funny, charming fashion. I may photocopy these and send them to him saying "You rock, and if you ever want someone to make you cups of tea..."
Though i never made it to Riversleigh, i have done a fair bit of volunteer work with living but endangered beasties, and i have always remembered these letters, especially when i have seen an interview or article by the good Professor, so in a way he has inspired me.

Friday, November 04, 2005

HOWARD IS A TOTAL DICKHEAD!

Right! That Lying little turd deserves... grgrargh! Something very Bad to happen to him.

This story says it all. That clear-and-present danger that he was wanking on about to justify his new uber-bastard laws to play craphouse politics with MY nation, yeah? It was a load of shit. I'm not surprised, but even better is that it was a current operation that has been run by the feds etc for over a year and now our Great Leader blew the lid on it. Hooray!

So, I ask again: is Howard serious about the War on Terror (TM).
No, he's f@cking not. And he never f@cking was. And he can just go and get f@cking f@cked. [thanks to Ozzy for helping me with this post.]

Anyone who has ever said that Howard was good at anything or good for the nation can suck my balls from now until eternity. Or perhaps, suck someone else's balls. Nic White can go and suck Amanda Vanstone's fladoobadah's as punishment for being simply crap.

Oh and Fatboy, you are the shittest Labor Leader ever. We need someone with real balls and that can mean one person only: Julia Gillard.
Jules, it's time to whip em out and give everyone a thorough fisting!! Yeah, see how _you_ like it, dickheads!
"Jules: putting the love in glove".

If I don't get arrested before then, the revolution will take place in the event of a Liberal victory next election. Walls. Blood. Painting. Wall. Lining up. Shooting. That sort of thing.

Carry on.

Genius via The other Andrew

This is simply genius!

from TOA's original post here

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Despair


What can I say - I love this stuff. I've be buying myself the latest calendar for again Christmas this year.

www.despair.com

Unleash the power of mediocrity

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Let those who help themselves not be helped by the state.

Those people who shift their money offshore to avoid Australian taxation laws should not be able to reap the benefits of everyone else paying their taxes.
They can't call the cops, or the ambulance, or the poisons information line or vote.
Screw them, and the horse they rode in on*.

* This view is neither endorsed nor supported by ForBattle. It is a figure of speech. harry does not generally support bestiality because he's unconvinced that it can be consentual.

Does not compute. Social engineering.

A criticism from conservatives, THE RIGHT, and libertarians levelled at moonbat lefties such as myself is that we are intrusive, manipulative social engineers from the same hellish school as those bastards Stalin and Mao; and that this is a bad thing.
Yet, I can't help thinking that those who trumpet the triumph of the allies after WW2 as evidenced by what the countries of Germany and Japan have become are wrong to lay these laurels at the feet of the freedom, dmeocracy and the American way of life. Yes these countries have been amazingly successful at throwing off their previous dynasties, but surely these are cases FOR large scale intrusive, manipulative social engineering. After all, the whole purpose of these rebuilding programmes was to prevent these nations being militarily expansionist again; and by neccessity that meant deliberately targetting those parts of the nation that gave rise to it. Certainly preventing both countries from having armies helped them immensly and they served their designated purposes of acting as a bulwark against Soviet and Sino power blocs very well.

So, is leftie moonbat social engineering a bad thing? No. It can be good, and it most certainly can be successful.
So are THE RIGHT, libertarians and conservatives fans of massive social engineering? You bet your arse.
So, no more finger pointing on that issue thanks.

Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?

In what way would this help workers AT ALL? In what way does it give 'us' choices at work? Who does this it protect?

I'm willing to be converted to agreeing that it's a good idea if someone can tell me how it helps anyone other than creators of shonky work practices.

I mean, REALLY. We are all completely fucked.

New projects and industries will be quarantined from industrial action for five years, instead of the previously proposed one, under late changes expected in the Government's new workplace legislation.

Bathyby Diva

I have an odd urge to pass this on.

Does anyone watch Dancing With the Stars? I don't but now I've discovered the Bathie Army website, I wish I did. Show your support with a Chris Bath mask and read her "weblog." She is naughty to call it that though -- no comments, no blog, sweetheart.

What did Bathie do? Did she argue with them? Did she sulk? Did she complain? No, no and no. Three times no. She wore it. She took it on the chin, looked up and said "is that all you've got?" It was like watching Steve Waugh at Sabina Park in '95. She took all they could give, all their worst. And did she falter - not on your Nellie. She answered their criticism with a blistering Viennese Waltz, fighting a prohibitively slow tempo. Helen, Paul and Mark admitted she was their favourite in the waltz, and all gave her 8's. Todd showed that while spelling may be a favourite hobby, numbers aren't his thing, so he gave her a 5.

After soaking all that up, and bouncing back, she had to stand before the firing squad. She did it with dignity, poise and defiance. Edward Woodward did no better in "Breaker Morant". But she survived.