Knitting on the Brain?

Tres amusink. Knit me a zombie for my birthday, will you?

it's that doing unto others thing...

came across this a few hours ago ~

Transform Homelessness

and although it's a joint venture with a corporate entity, it's an easy idea to get people involved. and kind of nice to see at the end that other people in your area have done the same thing.

Zierholz at the Brewery (Canberra)

We had our staff Xmas party here this year. OMG there was so much excellent food. We chose the $40 a head Xmas banquet (there is a choice of three from $35 per head to $45 per head). There were 19 of us and we couldn't eat it all. I'm so glad we didn't go for the more expensive banquet (with extra dishes) and in fact the cheaper banquet probably would have fed us all quite well. So, here's what we ate:

Mini swiss brown mushroom, onion and caraway tarts
A hot and cold selection of German meats
Over roasted duck and spatzle salad (this was so good)
Grilled chicken breast
Zucchii fritters
Beer battered fish and chips
King prawns sauteed in garlic and sage
Sauerkraut, warm potato salad, braised red cabbage
Traditional German bretzels (giant bready pretzels, yum)
Slow cooked pork belly with caramelised Zierholz Porter sauce

Their everyday menu looks pretty good too.

For the beer drinkers (we were in a brewery after all) there were a number of different German style beers on offer, which had been brewed on the premises. The best part was the 'paddle'. A paddle is 7 shots of the beers made by the brewery in a neat little rack for $10, plus a middy of your favourite beer once you had finished all the shots. A great way to sample all the beers without having to drink too much of one you didn't like. They also do mini kegs, which my boss had for his 40th (unfortunately before I started work here) and which he said were very good.

Zierholz is in Fyshwick so there are no issues with parking. They also do bar snacks for casual diners. So next time you are in Canberra and wondering what to do, maybe a visit to the brewery might help pass the time?

"A name's a name."

sure. but I suspect in 20 years time when this child turns round and backhands his father (and mother for that matter), he'll say, "... and a c0ckhead's a c0ckhead."

"Little H1tler can't have name on cake."

uhuh.

what defines "Teh Outback"?

via a few peoples on LJ. a number of these hinge on what you call Teh Outback - which can mean "anywhere west of where you currently are" on the east coast, and vice-versa on the west... but I'm presuming here it means "where it's really flat and hot and there's not much stuff around."

also, wouldn't mind a reference to Pavs, lammos, drop bears and Midnight Oil. oh,and Sandmans, or Chargers. still, one of the more coherent memes I've seen in a long while.

1. Heard a kookaburra in person
2. Slept under the stars
3. Seen a koala
4. Visited Melbourne
5. Watched a summer thunderstorm
6. Worn a pair of thongs
7. Been to Uluru (Ayer's Rock)
8. Visited Cape York
9. Held a snake
10. Sang along with Khe San
11. Drank VB (flat, for a dare, blech!)
12. Visited Sydney
13. Have seen a shark
14. Have used Aussie slang naturally in a conversation (really? well bugger me)
15. Had an actual conversation with an indigenous Australian (Aboriginal)
16. Eaten hot chips from the bag at the beach
17. Walked/climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge (legally - want to do it illegally too)
18. Used an outside dunny, and checked under the seat before sitting down
19. Seen Chloe in Young & Jackson's (sorry but this is too Melbourne-centric)
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus
21. Been to Sydney's Mardi Gras
22. Have gone bush-bashing
23. Taken a sickie
24. Been to see a game of Aussie Rules football
25. Have seen wild camels
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Had a Tim Tam Slam
28. Ridden in a tram in Melbourne
29. Been at an ANZAC day Dawn Service
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Held a wombat (seen one in Teh Wild but didn't approach, I'm not stupid you know)
32. Been on a roadtrip of 800km or more
33. Seen the Great Australian Bight in person
34. Had a really bad sunburn
35. Visited an aboriginal community
36. Seen a redback spider
37. Have watched Paul Hogan (pre-Dundee)
38. Seen Blue Poles in person (and loved it)
39. Wandered barefoot in the bush/outback
40. Eaten Vegemite
41. Thrown a boomerang (but it didn't come back)
42. Seen the Kimberleys
43. Given a hitch-hiker a lift
44. Been to Perth
45. Have tried Lemon, Lime and Bitters (didn't know this was Orstralyan)
46. Tried playing a didgeridoo (failed dismally. have seen Rolf Harris play in person and got his autograph though. have heard that females aren't actually meant to play the didge. anyone know if that's true?)
47. Seen dinosaur footprints
48. Eaten Tim Tams (as opposed to just sucking them down a la point 27? silly)
49. Been to Darwin
50. Touched a kangaroo
51. Visted the Great Barrier Reef
52. Listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson (not by choice)
53. Killed a Cane Toad
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre
55. Have read and own books by Australian authors (I collect Norman Lindsay and Mary Grant Bruce amongst others)
56. Visited Adelaide
57. Know the true story behind 'Eternity' (and have the t-shirt)
58. Been camping
59. Visited Brisbane
60. Been in an outback pub (country yes, outback no, at least, I don't think so)
61. Know what the term "Waltzing Matilda" actually means
62. Gone whale watching (not with a tour group though. anyway, if you live in Sydney you just have to loll about the harbour on the right day)
63. Listened to Slim Dusty (not by choice. where's the 'Listened to Nick Cave' question?)
64. Own five or more Australian movies or TV series
65. Sang along to Down Under
66. Have stopped specifically to look at an historic marker by the side of the road
67. Eaten a 4'n'20 pie
68. Surfed at Bondi (swum, body-surfed, and never gone back in. too crowded! visit to eat occasionally)
69. Watched the cricket on Boxing Day (quintessential Boxing Day fare)
70. Visited Hobart
71. Eaten kangaroo (yum)
72. Seen a quokka
73. Visited Canberra
74. Visited rainforests
75. Used a Victa lawnmower
76. Travelled on a tram in Adelaide
78. Used a Hills hoist (both the accepted usages)
79. Visited Kata-Tjuta (the Olgas)
80. Used native Australian plants in cooking
81. Visited the snow (once, it was pack-ice and boring as bat shit))
82. Chosen a side in Holden VS Ford
83. Visited the desert
84. Been water skiing
85. Read The Phantom (as in comic? is that particularly Australian?)
86. Visited Parliament House
87. Gone spotlighting or pig-shooting
88. Crossed the Nullarbor
89. Avoided swimming in areas because of crocodiles
90. Listened to AC/DC
91. Called someone a dag
92. Voted in a Federal Election
93. Have been swimming and stayed between the flags (was made to when I was pregnant. usually I'm a rebel)
94. Had a possum in your roof
95. Visited the outback
96. Travelled over corrugated roads
97. Hit a kangaroo whilst driving (scared the living shite out of me. roo wasn't happy either)
98. Been well outside any mobile phone coverage (Bogan's Gate!)
99. Seen an emu
100. Have woken to the smell of bushfires

Discounts

ur doing it wrong

Next Week-Strip Seaching The Brocolli

Posh Nosh

I'm embarking on a dangerous mission.
It involves leg hair.

Boys, leave now.

Girls, should you be accursed with this same dreadful affliction, should you be brave enough, come witness my pain and humiliation optimistic foray into the realm of the beauty industry's latest money-grabbing vehicle of the impossible promise - permanent hairlessnessness.

Banishing the Werewolf is the story of one girl's adventure with her new fluorescent pink friend, the curiously named and annoyingly punctuated no!no!

Squeeeeee!

From email I got yesterday.


"Guess whose back? THE CAT EMPIRE.
After a quieter year by Empire standards, we are pulling our troupe together again to hit the road in Australia, for 16 shows, and more to follow…
Having declared some ‘long service leave’ for 2008, after being on a seemingly never- ending international tour, we have spent this year closer to home; Felix delved into his classical side, Will returned to study town planning, Ollie has been seen on stages in Melbourne almost every night of the week, Ryan has been doing whatever Ryan does, Harry has been on tour with Jackson Jackson, and Jumps spent a month in India, leaving Mumbai just 24 hours before trouble started.
Having tasted some ‘normal’ life, we are keen to get back on the road, and hope you will be there. We are taking the show back into our favourite theatres, a bit different to the big outdoor stages of the last tour – this time you will be able to see us!
Joining us on the road for this tour are PAPRIKA BALKANICUS (Romania, Serbia & Slovenia). We first met these self proclaimed “masters of great atmosphere” in the wee hours of Edinburgh Festival in 2003. Paprika Balkanicus play a fiery blend of Balkan, Eastern European and Gypsy music. Mio Matsuda Japan sum up their show as an "Amazing performance - they hit the audience like a Balkan storm!" You are going to love them.
And guess what else? We are finally about to give you what you have been asking for all these years….a new LIVE ALBUM. It’s called LIVE ON EARTH, and you heard it here first! We will come back to you soon with how you can pre-order it. A dvd will come out at the same time…more about that later.
Tickets go on sale December 15 from the outlets below, and will sell out quickly. Don’t miss out!"


RELEVANT BIT:

Friday Feb 27 SYDNEY, The Enmore Theatre

I get to bounce around like a lon on my birthday. Hooray!

Let me know if you want to join me.

Tate bothersTennant

Quick hide! But not behind the sea cod!

... is a quote from a Pate Biscuit story (aka Glyn Nicholas on the Big Gig)

And is now apparently the official noise that whales make.

I'm sure most parents will have been in the situation of going through a book of animals and making all the noises with the child. And there are some animals that don't seem to have a noise. So we jokingly quoted Pate.... and the Crankmaster was saying it over and over until bedtime. It was so hard to keep a straight face.

Usually our default animal noise is gronk. A friend told me that giraffes say "well, hello there" and Tops decided that camels say "It's a lovely day".

Anyone got any other animal noise suggestions?

Quote of the day

"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."

(Its from Girl Genius, but really, if you're not reading it already, nows a bad time to start - he's doing a fairly silly side story arc that mostly has that quote to recommend it so far.)

Social skills and the SCA

Never the twain shall meet.

I just have to tell someone. Otherwise I will have to get out the flaming sword of (indignant) righteousness.

We just got an email from someone explaining to us why Yule bookings were down. They are? This is news to us.

She and her 10 newbies won't be attending because you can't have a Yule without a feast! Goodness! What were we thinking?

And it wasn't right that we wouldn't be having the Boar's Head and Wassail. Hmmm. So why did we order the pigs head from the butcher?

But she did mention that the event was 'wonderfully cheap' this year. But obviously not enough for her to give the event a go.

She seemed to think that she was doing us a favour for letting us know a week out what was the fatal flaw in our planning. As if having the date we were told to run the event clash with a combined 40th and a graduation party wasn't enough.

How is that sort of email helpful in any way?

It has just enraged us completely and I'm quite glad she has promised not to come (not that we had given her a moment's thought before this nor have we seen her in nearly 2 years).

I might be quite rude to her if she did....

Free + Cat Empire + Outdoors + Summer = Win

A freiend recently mentioned that the Cat Empire were playing the Sydney Festival. I was hoping it was part of the opening night street party, and voila! I was right:

http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2009/Festival_First_Night

So, put on your two shoes for dancing, and get ready to get the party started.

Famous people in our midst

Says it all, really.

A gift for that person who has almost everything....

A real periodic table. Of the coffee variety.

Science AND interpretive dance!

Mousicles will love this...

Dancing Phds - Go on, you know you can't look away.



(This was the grad student winning entry, she's from Sydney Uni)

Some people are people we wish we knew

Such as the people who came up with this!

http://apcmag.com/gods_wicked_sense_of_humour_on_facebook.htm

Quick! Go clicky before they censor the whole boiling!

*** Under the article is a screen grab of the page in question. Read it!

Stuffing Mark II

Or - what you get when you send the non-chili eater to buy the ingredients whilst distracted...

The chilies - they were long, green & de-seeded before being chopped (I have no idea what they are called)

The chili powder - stayed in the shop and the hot curry powder came home instead (what??? they are both hot, have 5 letters and start with c and end in an eee sound- even sort of the same colour.) So the husband gently points out that they are, in fact, two entirely different things, searches the cupboard and finds chili flakes instead... Adds the same amount in flakes as the recipe calls for in powder.

I flee the house while it is all being cooked to buy ice. Rob's original recipe & Mouse's cornbread recipe can be found back in Nov 06.

Kiva...Go Do It

Cross posting from Cunning Plan cause its awesome.

Amanda, aka Flopearedmule aka younger sista send me this for my Birthday- 3rd December, in case you have a spare speedboat laying around.

Kiva- Loans That Change Lives

I got $50 to loan to people around the world to help them get started. Gawd, what a choice.
The idea, you loan the money and at some point down the track they repay you, to loan again.

What a wonderful concept. I'm planning on adding to it and doing more.

After much nail biting, tooing and froing and a glass of Chardy I chose these two loans.

Zareena M. Nazir Group


Husniya Boturova


Tell and give to your friends, better than socks for Christmas.

For next year...

I expect Coz n Ob to have this on their front lawn or a bloody good reason why not.

Stuff sent to me at work

I love that I'm working in a cube farm full of nerds... It's a comfortable, familiar place. I'm even starting to have half a clue about what I'm doing....although I screwed up some SQL yesterday.

I am one of the older nerds at work, but nerd interests don't seem to stray too far. There was a surge of interest in Magic cards not too long ago. I took the cards in but haven't yet had the time to face anyone in a game. (Mind you, the goblin desk is still looking good)

Anyway, occasionally there is an amusing link send around. Here are two that amused me...

19th Century vampire hunting kit
http://gizmodo.com/5089477/real-19th-century-vampire-killing-kit-is-a-must-in-current-economic-climate

and an amusing Chinese sign... (DV don't look)
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/82/262083226_7529f61148.jpg

like a puppy getting lucky with a lassie

There something not quite right with that Cap Empire lyric....

While I have your attention, you should all book for Yule Feast. I know you are coming but I want to make sure you'll be there.

Also, you should also all send Fliss a message today to tell her that you are going to Turkey Day. We don't want to have a shortage of food!!!!!

Okay everyone, as you were.

I love Aunty

A mother's group friend came by a number of free tickets to see the latest Hi-5 concert and invited us along. I figured a free concert couldn't hurt and we could always leave if it was too much for the Crankmaster. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

If you asked the Crankmaster, and if he could answer in language unbroken by gibberish, he'd probably tell you that the best bits of the concert was the big balloons they threw into the audience and the camera on a crane. And possibly mention the popcorn which was bought by another parent and shared by the kids.

He was quite rivetted.... or perhaps shell shocked. I'm not quite sure which. He did sit motionless for the performance.... until the balloons came out. We left halfway through because it was getting close to naptime and I didn't want to fight the crowds to get home with an overtired child.

It was fun, but it seemed to me to be kinda dodgy children's entertainment. It was certainly pitched for an audience older than MrJ, but I was quite aware of that when I went.

First up, the concert was in a stadium which seated thousands. We were in the first balcony about 100m from the stage. Then there was the massive stands of merchandising for sale in the foyer. The stage was very bright and colourful. There were a lot of sound effects and lighting and costume and much hype of the "I can't hear you..." variety. Every song and dance seemed to involve some sort of toy prop, which no doubt could be found in the aforementioned merchandising stand.

In contrast, I got free tickets to see the Jay concert last year. All the music was played live and accousticly. The theatre was about 40 rows deep. The stage was a backyard setting. And there was only one prop.... a plastic bottle. We've also been watching a lot of Play School at the moment, with many episodes featuring Jay. All the activities have a home made feel.

The ABC style kids entertainment seems to invite the kids to think and imagine and to do things while the Hi-5 style seemed to push the passive watch and buy stuff.

I know which one I prefer my child to watch.

Mind you, I don't expect I'd pass up a free ticket for any sort of kids entertainment in future. I'd think twice about paying for some stuff.

By the way, does anyone know a source for the massive balloons.... They WERE funky.

Friends! Romans! Computer geeks!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/12/rome-reborn-italy

House of Single Entendre strikes again...

Speedy: ... and then once I've moved those crates, I can unpack those boxes full of crockery, and -
Mendoza: More? You have more crockery?
Speedy: Yes. There's still space in those dressers you know.
Mendoza: How many services does a girl need?
Speedy: ...
Mendoza: ...
Speedy: ...
Mendoza: ...
Speedy: ... like I was saying...

anyone else remember this show?

Generate your own press release

with the Daily Telegraph's RANDOM MINISTERIAL SCANDAL GENERATOR TM

Not that I generally endorse the Telegraph, but this form is actually amusing and clever. I want a Minister to be caught knitting at the Lord Mayor's Halloween party...

At least it is some light amusement following the mini-budget, which (thankfully) wasn't as bad for our department as it could have been.

click to make it bigger and admire MissFliss' handiwork

Turkey Day is on the way...

Sat 29th Nov 2008

from 2pm, turkey on the tables about 7pm...

Full details available at:
turkeyday08@yahoo.com.au

There's an invite too... if anyone can let me know how to upload pdf files to a post... adding as an image didn't seem to work.

DV, you managed it last year - which technical whatsit did you use?

Well Holandos

I guess this is goodbye. World Vision have written to say that you have left the program to purse further studies at another location. While I sincerely hope that this is true, I'm not sure that this is a step that many ten year olds would take. I suspect that the last time something happened in Haiti, it happened to you. But maybe you are still out there, and maybe one day you might google your name. So this is for you.

Holandos Misistre DOB 3/6/1998 in Haiti. When I first sponsored you in 2003 you weren't yet at school and your favourite game was soccer. You helped look after the animals that your mother raised and sold to support your family. Your dad had left the family and you didn't know where he was. Later I got another photo of you in your school uniform. Your ambition was to become a chauffeur and drive nice cars. I got a couple of drawings from you, and I sent back Christmas cards and birthday cards for you each year. But this year I didn't hear from you at all, and I didn't send the birthday card. I'm sorry if you missed it. If by chance you ever do read this, Holandos, know that there is a lady in Australia who is wondering how you are and hoping that life has treated you kindly. Goodbye Holandos.

At Last, America Will Heed the Desperate Wishes of the Rest of the World

...and shut the hell up about our election.

(In other news, the good guys won.)

Dammit! Whats the name of this movie?

That I have stuck in my head, and am trying to tell some other folks that they need to go watch, but I can't remember the name of?

Post-Crouching Tiger, stylistically beautiful movie set in the beginnings of the Chinese empire-building phase, where they tell the same story several times from different points-of-view, using colour to differentiate between the different storylines. And it had that gorgeous scene with the falling leaves, and ends with the shot of a man's outline picked out on a wooden door in arrows.

I tried scrounging around in imdb, but when you type something like the above into a search engine, it just crawls off in a corner and sulks. Statistically, you guys are better at reading my mind. (I also thought there was a post on ForBattle about it, and I've just spent a fairly amusing half-hour digging through the archives - an experience I heartily recommend to all and sundry - but couldn't find it.)

A woman walks into a bar and asks for some double entendre

so I gave her one.

This is so deliberate.... Almost too easy, really....

http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2008/10/27/khaak-mongers/

It's only a story

I love books and I love it that the child seems to enjoy them too.... But sometimes he takes it all a little seriously.

We have a book called "Wibbly Pig is Happy". It's a short 7 pager with a seemingly innocuous story....

But oh no... It turns out to be an emotional roller coaster!!

Starts off simple enough...
"Wibbly Pig is happy." (he's a the beach with his bucket and spade)
"Wibbly pig is busy" (he's making a sand castle)

And then it starts getting exciting...
"Wibbly pig is hungry" (he's got an ice-cream!!!)

And then it all goes wrong...
"Wibbly pig is surprised" (a wave has washed over his sand castle... causing him to drop his ice cream!!!!!!!! Oh no!!!!)

"Wibbly pig is upset. He needs a hug" (well you would if you'd dropped your icecream!!!!!!!)

"But a lick will do." (A little dog comes over to comfort Wibbly pig. Bugger that. What about the icecream!!!!)

"Wibbly pig is happy again" (Wibbly pig goes running off to play with his bucket and the dog runs after carrying the spade. So not only did he lose the ice cream, the dog has snatched the spade!!!!!!!!!!!)

It takes a while to calm him down after that book....

We also had a book called "Yo-yo's day" which was about a little dog leaping out of bed, gobbling up his breakfast, playing in the park, having a nap, then lunch then more play, bathtime, dinner time and then bedtime. The betrayed cry of 'No! Yo-yo' when the hero of the story went to bed was priceless.

Just shows you can get lost in a book at any age, I guess.

Stupid ideas that get stuck in your brain

I have had a stupid idea stuck in my brain for some weeks now, and tonight I decided to finally get it out. Of course it is easier thought than done. This post of Laura's garden, and more importantly Laura's chooks is what started me off on The Infinite Chook Project (with apologies to the Infinite Cat Project).

So I found the post and scrolled down to the pictures of Terri and Bindi then went and collected the chooks. Madge and Beryl got a bit nervous as we entered the house, maybe there is some residual memory of large cooking pots in their subconscious or something. Anway, I placed them in front of the computer and had the perfect shot of them both looking at the screen. Of course I was struggling to get the camera out of its pouch.

I will let the photos tell the rest of the story.








Fail.

World of Goo!

This ones for all you engineers out there who miss your LEGO, and anyone who loved Lemmings (the game) or the Incredible Machine series (I'm lookin at you Mouse)... but also for the non-engineers who just like sticking stuff together.

World of Goo is a game about cute little balls of goo. You can grab them and bounce them and fling them around, and if you drop them close enough together they form little goo-bridges between each other, and you can build things. There are different kinds of goo: some can be unstuck again, some are flammable, some float like balloons; there are even undead zombie goo. They come when you whistle for them.

The game has a quirky sarcastic story, rendered in early Kindergarten Crayon Drawings of the Goth Kid. The levels are mostly not time-based, so its not a hand-eye coordination test like some of these puzzle-y games, and they're mostly pretty quick; you can pop a 3-4 minute level in here-and-there while waiting for the next batch of brew to boil, as I proved yesterday. There's a free demo which is sizeable - the first 20-25% of the game - and the full version costs $20 (all of which appears to go direct to the authors) and can be bought online. And best of all, theres a playground where you can go to just build stuff with all the goo-balls you have rescued from the levels so far.

Go forth! Get gooey!

happy halloween

For all your home made decorative halloween needs you need nothing more than a pair of scissors, a hot glue gun and a tampon.

I love big phone companies

So... we're moving house. So we need to move home. Well... how does that work? You can ring them and have the following experience:

"Tell us your phone #"
"1234567"
"Did you say 1234567?"
"Yes"
"Tell us why you are calling us"
"Moving house"
"Did you say moving?"
"Yes"
"Okay. Please hold...."

A human comes to the phone...

"Hi. I'm from Victoria. So how can I help you?"
"I'm moving"
"Okay... I'll put you through to moving."

< insert hold music and apology >

"Hi! I'm from Darwin. Can you tell me your current phone number?"
"Sure... 1234567"
"Okay... so what's your new address?"
"321 Awesome street, McAwesomeVille"
"Okay... let me book in your move...."

< more hold music >

"Hmm... turns out your line has been out of use for 8 years, so we'll have to book in a technician to investigate, which will take a week. Or you can book the move from that phone during business hours. We can shut down your old number now but that will make it more irritating to get the new one connected. When the technician comes out. A week later."
"Don't worry about it. I'll leave it for now."

That whole exchange took 19 minutes of my life I'll never get back. I especially like the bit where I told the machine the information required who didn't bother passing it on to the human.

Normally I wouldn't

bother commenting on US politics, but this is pretty amusing..yet scary...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=blesmzddd38&feature=related

If I Believed In Reincarnation...

Jellyfish at Monterey Aquarium

Otters wild at Morro Bay

Monterey Bay Aquarium Otters

Basking Seals on the CA Coast

Preening Gulls

oooggglyyy

mmmm pron

It started when three brothers joked about making pornography for fans of the genre who happen to be offended by on-screen sex. Out of that joke came an idea for a website, and they called it PG Porn.

From an article in The Age "It's Pron but without the sex'"
(and via a chum in melbourne)

It's very short and very funny and has Nathan Fillion doing some atrocious acting. (no nudeyness or anything - dammit!)

Nailing Your Wife | Girls | SPIKE.com

Wonder Sauna Hot Pants

Wonder Sauna Hot Pants
Originally uploaded by SA_Steve

You know you want a pair.


Grrroowwww!

I need to buy some lego...

No, really.



For Battle!!!!!!!!!!

UglyYetSomehowIrresistableLickyDog-o-phobes:

do NOT click this link.

for the rest of us... heh.
just... heh.

Arachnophobes:

do NOT click on this link.

for the rest of us - how damn cute! I especially love that you can turn the 'bounce' up and have a lovely jaunty spider. because when I think Huntsman, I think 'jaunty'. or, you know, 'squawk and deft flick of the wrist to send Huntsman flying into the bushes, never to lurk in my letterbox again'. either way.

funky graph meme thingy

mmm music

musical meme

brought to you by the phrase 'pimp my blog'

Because I am that kind of girl...

..and Ilike to know what I'm doing in the next few months.

Dates that I know of so far;

Cocktail party - 22nd Nov
Oliver & Zoe's birthday party - 6th Dec (It'll be during the day but I suspect we will all need alcohol that afternoon/evening)
Yule Feast -13th Dec (Mouse and Tops have any more details beyond the date?)


Do we have a date for Chrissie Pissie yet? 20th? (have edited it)

Oh and anyone want to take responsibility for Turkey day this year? Megzz and Snerg are unable and we have no room for it if it rains...

Anyone know of any other dates relevant to all/most of us?

Have yourself a very tripod christmas

I'm going to this:

For the Love of God! A Tripod Christmas

on Tuesday 4th November, 9.30-10.30 pm. Who wants to join me for a rousing chorus of Fabian?

Invasion of the sibling

Hi all,

My brother will be in coming to visit this week and bringing his two daughters (now 8 and 4). Most of you have met them.

In celebration?! We will have a BBQ in the backyard on Saturday. From naptime until bedtime. BYO dead animal and drinks.

Stuff will happen. All the usual suspects...

Ta

When the spin-off is 'better' than the original

Can Eurovision get any bettererer? Why yes, yes it can.....

AsiaVision 2009

"The format is highly suited to the Asia region"
Ya think?! Friggin match made in heaven.

Mindy 1, snotty little shit 0

I was at the local supermarket on Saturday night (I know, social butterfly me) waiting at the deli to buy 1/2 a chook for dinner. At this particular deli, it is usual to wait in front of the chook display if that's all you want. Then, the deli person can ask you what size chook, print out the label, bag the chook and you are done. Nothing strange about that.

So I'm waiting and the young bloke behind the counter, lets call him Snotty Little Shit (SLS) is serving someone else. So I'm watching the other person in the deli cleaning up the fish display and remembering back to the days when I used to work in a deli. I was wondering if they had a good boss, who allows you to start packing stuff up when it gets quiet about an hour before close, or a bad boss who won't let you touch anything but still expects everything to be clean and in the coolroom by 8.05pm. It was a quiet night, so I had no concerns about waiting to be served while the person cleaning got on with it.

So I'm still waiting and then I notice that SLS and the bloke he is serving looking at me. Then they confer briefly, then bloke being served (BBS) looks at his list, SLS gets something else, wraps it and hands it over, they both look at me, confer, BBS consults his list, etc etc. This happens about 5 times. By this stage I'm getting annoyed because I want to get home and get dinner started but I wait patiently. Finally after one last glance and conference, BBS moves off and I wait for SLS to come and get my chook for me. And I wait. Then I walk down the counter and he is putting something in the display. Hello? Do you serve customers you wanker, I didn't say.

"What do you want" SLS says, rudely. I almost, and should have, said Customer Service. But I was polite. "1/2 chicken please". I watch him print out the label, "No, one of the $4.99 ones thanks, with sundried tomato and basil".

SLS: We don't have any
Me: Yes you do (I've just wasted 10 fucking minutes of my life looking at them)
SLS: No that was an old special
Me: They are right here in the display, right behind the ticket that says $4.99 (voice rising) Would you like to come and have a look?
SLS: (sullenly) Oh I forgot they were there.
Me: (In my head, yeah right you %*&%^%#$@$)

Fruit and veg person: SLS (didn't hear his name) mark down all those ones to $2.50
SLS: Yeah, okay I'll do that.

So, not only did SLS have to serve me, he got told to give me a discount. When I saw BBS later on my rounds of the supermarket I gave him the glaring of his life until he looked away embarrassed. Bastard.

Moral of the story: if you don't like serving customers don't work in customer service. I'm considering having a t-shirt made up with this, just in case I ever run into him again.

Shiver me whatsits

Friday be talk like a pirrrrate day.

This be your warnin'

The girl least likely to..

You'll need a box of tissues; this is painful but important stuff .

Extreme Girliness

Um, Pip? You should join the facebook group for breathless appreciators of this guy. You and Corinne can gush over him.

...Hey, at least it's not Darcy anymore.

Pip and her friend Janet watched "Penelope" a kids movie where Christina Ricci has to accept herself even though she has a pig's snout for a nose.
McAvoy is the love interest.
This movie has the hottest kiss I've ever seen in a PG movie.
No wonder teenage pregnancy is a problem!

I hope my moggies don't get any ideas.

more animals

Can you guess that I'm alone in the office again today?

Large Hadron Collider? I just met her.

Robot joke from Futurama. No, I don't get it either.

Unfortunately for those of us hoping that the destruction of the Universe, when the LHC is/was(?) turned on today, would mean that we wouldn't have to clean the oven, we are out of luck. Despite the doomsayers claiming that we are all going to be sucked into a man-made black hole, and wouldn't that be ironic, apparently larger collisions occur in space all the time. Bugger. So looks like I'll have to keep putting off cleaning the oven. Unless of course they find that the mysterious God-particle really gets the grime off. That would be good.

For the ubernerds, here is a link to the LHC site.

Edit: now you can check on the status of the Universe.

Time waster du jour.

Hello I'm David and I'm taking you from behind. NSFW

Um... Just Dumb

Online music psychological surveys.
I know: credibility bypass, or what?
But this one struck me as especially spurious.

The article from the paper is here

And the online survey quoted is here

From these 36,000+ who have completed the above have enabled the study leader to say:
"People often define their sense of identity through their musical taste, wearing particular clothes, going to certain pubs, and using certain types of slang. It's not so surprising that personality should also be related to musical preference."
WOW!
Hmm, people often display the fact that they have an identity. Who would have thought? Really? What an astounding statement.

In the survey: "More than 36,000 people from all over the world were asked to rate 104 musical styles and also questioned about aspects of their personality." Prof North said the research could have many uses in marketing, adding: "If you know a person's music preference you can tell what kind of person they are, who to sell to."

And here at the results:
(Astute readers will notice some glaringly obvious styles of music, but that might be a sub-editor on the article.)

MUSICAL STYLES VERSUS PERSONALITY TRAITS

BLUES High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease

JAZZ High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease

CLASSICAL MUSIC High self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease

RAP High self-esteem, outgoing

OPERA High self-esteem, creative, gentle

COUNTRY AND WESTERN Hardworking, outgoing

REGGAE High self-esteem, creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

DANCE Creative, outgoing, not gentle

INDIE Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle

BOLLYWOOD Creative, outgoing

ROCK/HEAVY METAL Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease

CHART POP High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease

SOUL High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease

What a complete waste of time. Also, a crock.
Check out the questions on the survey! You are asked to remember how you felt about a myriad things in the year in which you discovered your FIRST 'important' album including your relationship with your parents, whether you felt you were heading for something 'big', how it related to your love life, career/career direction etc etc

For me it was 1992, Nirvana's 'Nevermind' and the answer to most questions is 'I don't know? 5 on a scale of 1-10.' ie useless, flawed data.

Jackson Jackson Concert

Anyone interested?

Jackson Jackson Concert at Factory Theatre on 14th October - tickets are about $30-

Thie website is here

FLOPEAR'S DREAM APARTMENT

Via Its Lovely, I'll Take It.

It's in Rockdale and only $655,000.
The kitchen needs work though.

White chocolate and tomato madness

In preparation for the KoL BBQ next year, we had to experiment with the pizza. And we shared this unique experience with Meg and Snerg.

Here it is before cooking...

and after cooking...
Note - the white chocolate didn't melt. It just went a bit brown. Of course, topsy didn't realise that you could buy white chocolate chips from the baking section in the super market so he just bought a normal block of white chocolate and chopped it up.

And here's proof that we ate it.



It mostly didn't taste too bad. The chunks of white chocolate overpowered any flavour of tomato or oregano. Mostly. Now and then there was a weird void where the other two flavours rose up in revolt. And I do mean revolt. I struggled to finish the second piece....

And the bad news is.... Now that I look at the kolwiki again, it seems we need to use real slices of tomato and not just the passata.

So there has to be an experiment number 2 with proper white chocolate chips and real slices of tomato.

Are you prepared to try again?

Beer cross-post

Just a quick note for any of you still homebrewing. I lost yet another one of my little black books full of beer recipes (makes about 4 now I think) and even following the learning curve of your average American president named Bush it seemed time for a new tack; I'm putting the recipes for my current batch of brews up on the blog I threw together for fiddling with bowmaking. (Yeah, I know. But what goes together better than archery and beer?)

Quick smile

Porn star or my little pony

I only guessed 3 out of ten. Disturbing really.

Diet Coke and Mentos... IN SPACE!!!!!!

(Ok, not really. But its kinda close.)

Never underestimate the lengths to which a true nerd will go to make a gag on YouTube...

Shift + i

Someone actually wrote this down as an excuse for not making a correction from 1 to the equivalent Roman numeral and faxed it to us as work:
'...we cannot correct the approval letter as requested as our keyboard does not have Roman numerals.'

Yes - they'd be the people looking out for public safety then....

Update: so the poor guy who got the fax called them up & explained how to get a Roman numeral (with a straight face). Half an hour passes....

The folks who couldn't figure out the Roman numerals now call back and claim that their computer must be different to ours because they can't get the little strokes at the top & bottom of the I! My guy chokes, splutters and then explains how to change from Ariel to Times New Roman font in a Word document.

I think my poor staff member needs an award for keeping it professional in the face of monumental stupidity.... Vodka should do nicely.

...but no cigar

Get ye to Facebook

And check out Emma Rose. She is just adorable. You might have to "friend" Jess first.

wanna buy a house?

This one looks good.


Was flicking through the local paper and notice that the street name was a bit familiar....

Almost, but not quite, completely unlike me...

I have taken up Laura's challenge and made a Manga cartoon of myself. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, it is almost, but not quite, completely unlike me. For a start I couldn't find the bit where you attach the children hanging off you. The background is waaaayyyyy too tidy. I'm not looking tired or stressed, and the eye colour is a bit wrong. And my shoulders aren't that narrow, or my bustline that perky. But still, it gives me something to put on my profile.

Feeling hungry?

I couldn't have made this up if I tried.

Bizzarro Genius Baby

For all you folks out there raising Nerds Next Gen...

Thanks to Shamus for pointing it out.

for mr tops

via graphjam


*grin*

I hate to say "I told you so."

Wait, no I don't.
I FRICKEN TOLD YOU SO!!

Oh, surprise surprise, sports and club services are down, and student support is sadly lacking. Oh Em Gee, what ever are we to do?!

Hold the phone, I've got a great idea -

Let's introduce a fee system for students to fund the non-academic aspects of student life. What? No, of course this isn't a reintroduction of compulsory union fees. No one mention the 'U' word! *face palm*


http://news.smh.com.au/national/govt-says-no-to-compulsory-fees-plan-20080821-3z0o.html

The Rudd government has rejected reports it is considering reintroducing compulsory fees for university students.
... But reintroducing compulsory union fees was not being considered, [Julia Gillard] said.

So they're not going to simply reverse the decision of the previous govt. Of course not, cos we don't mention the 'U' word these days.
So let's see how it is worded:

Reports suggested the government was set to reintroduce compulsory fees for university students to reverse a decline in sporting and social services on campuses.

That's what the Union did, wasn't it?

An announcement was due next month with an "opt-out" system to replace voluntary student unionism with students able to choose which services their fees were spent on and whether they wanted to belong to the student union, Fairfax reported.

Oh!! So totally different, then.
Wow, what a notion! You can avoid being in the union by choosing to allocate your fees to Clubs and Socs instead. Or something... Hm.


Someone please tell me that this is an actual improvement on the simple "Pay us money, we'll give you services and representation" idea of student unions and not just a complicated system to avoid the bad press of compulsory unionism because, quite frankly, i don't believe a word of it.

Even Presidents Get the LoL treatment

Someone's been having fun at the offices of the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/aug/12/bushlol?picture=336501045

not that I condone puns, but...

the warehouse

A Room with a View

I have a pretty decent office in the new house, but as a relatively last-minute idea from Mike we added a balcony off the lounge room. It's brilliant. If the weather's half-decent I spend most mornings out there with the notebook and breakfast. I love the way the sky is constantly changing here, and at 7,000 feet with bugger-all smog its as blue as a blue thing with extra blue in. This is my first attempt at a series of photos taken from the same angle, looking out over my shoulder from my morning office.

I don't really like the framing, and the dark bits have a tendency to make the colours on the actual view wash out, but we don't have a tripod so you kinda get what resting the camera on the windowsill nets you. It should be fairly obvious that I'm not taking these at anything like a regular interval - just whenever I look up and happen to notice something new and wonderful floating by. There are a few better cloud shots from the same balcony over on my Flickr accountbut they're not taken from any consistent vantage point.

I'll stop blatantly linking them...

...when they stop being so damn funny.



I love it for the geek reaction - mine was similar but without the funny analogy - but there's enough of you out there in the teaching profession to get a snicker out of it from the other side of the fence...

a bit pathetic, really

from the Age (and countless other news websites). why do stuff like that when you're only going to be found out and made to look stupid? I don't get it.

For All Those Upcoming Celebrations

Be inspired by Cake Wrecks

Concept not understood

Parts of babies

Truely gross Chinese bound foot....

Bon Appetit

Another Social Engagement in August

While we're on the topic of social engagements in August:

I'm turning 30, on the 30th, my champagne birthday. Come and help me celebrate with drinks at the Marly.
Also, it might be my last birthday in Australia for a while.
Also, also, I'm finishing my masters in November, so that can be part of the celebration.
Also, also, also, end of winter...
Do you need anymore reasons?

Details: 8pm onwards, Marlborough Hotel on the couches opposite the Prego bar. Cnr King St and Missenden Rd, Newtown.

I know this is a bit late for those of you with kids, and clashes with Tina's BBQ, but well, it's my party and I needed it to be simple and on the day (and I'll cry if I want to? No, wrong song).

It's my birthday and I want pancakes.

Sunday 24th August
Breakfast @ my place
7am until naptime

All the usual suspects invited.
RSVP so we can have enough bacon and eggs on the turkinator.

I realise that I share the birthday with some of your daughters so I won't be offended if you have other parties to attend.

It's not an important number birthday. I just thought I'd mark the day with a relaxed morning with friends and good food.

Olympic Fever

Tina had a cunning plan....

....her house and barbecue and my legendary organising skills *snort*

so.....

Stig & Tina are having a BBQ.

Which I am organising for them like the good social secretary I am (apparently)

Come to their house on Saturday 30th of August sometime after 3pm to burn chairs, books, heretics food substances in celebration of the end of winter.

Bring some stuff to burn and some stuff to drink.

Ya know ya wanna, it’ll do ya good.

Let us know if you need their address etc.

Want Cheezburger

more cat pictures


more cat pictures


more cat pictures


more cat pictures

It's a good thing I didn't buy cake

or I would have been forced to eat it all myself. The boss is at a meeting, one workmate is having a flex day, and the other two are out on site visits, and we are still waiting for people to fill the two vacant spots that have been vacant for a while now. So I'm going to celebrate 12 months of being in this job on Thursday and pretend it's not my birthday today. And then I'm going to take a big dose of STFU because things could always be worse.

A Knob Goblin Barbeque Team is Us

There is an Australian Kingdom of Loathing gathering meet next year and 'The Lemmings' KOL clan have volunteered to cook for a BBQ.

MzKrin just reminded me while I was Loathing and so I'm prodding you guys for some ideas of what to cook and what to wear, etc.

Eg clothing in-game - knob goblin pants, "kiss the knob" aprons, chef hats
Items - knob goblin tongs
Food - knob sausages, knob mushrooms, spooky shrom-kabobs, carob chunk cookies, white chocolate cookies, etc

And we are going to attempt to make an edible white chocolate and tomato pizza because we like a challenge....

So you loathers, past and present, ideas?

for battleyness

Freaky Dancing Liquid

It's late, my brain is really mushy after 2 hours of mandarin lessons after a long day with a two year old, on three hours sleep. Then I found this:




And now, I think I'll have a beer.

No, I'm just happy to see you...

Woof!

Beer!

Hi,
Who was it who wanted the James Squire Pepperberry Winter Ale?

Person in question drank some at the James Squire ale house in Darling harbour and wanted more. But I have NO idea who this conversation was with, or where, or when. Except it was fairly recently.
Anyway,
I'm trying to pass on that it is available in bottles as a special addition at, among other places, the bottle shop of the Marlborough hotel in Newtown.

robot mowing sheep

Dance, baby dance

take a moment out from Tuesday morning blech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

Schooner of 2500 aphids please

Interesting facts of the day - How much insect in your processed food is "acceptable"?

http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2008/07/12/eeew-of-the-day/

I'm hanging out to visit Wenchi and try them bugs-ona-stick. Happy to eat bugs if they have been prepared by them that know how.

Rowany Online Bookings System Farewell

I suppose I should be grateful. It hasn't been a trivial job for the last 7 years for me and my fabulous minions... but to suggest that we didn't exist.... Now THAT was insulting.

I've just spoken to the new festival 'powers that be' and they have these great ideas....only that they have been in place for the last seven... count them 7.... SEVEN, did I mention, seven years.

I'm sure I have an issue letting go of a job that involves such large amounts of money and getting all the names and numbers correct. I'm sure our system wasn't the best and I'm sure it could be improved, but it was a cosy little system and it worked. It worked bloody well.

I imagined that I'd some day explain it all to someone, who'd then take it and care for it and appreciate the cunning code that my friends and I had developed.

It's sad to think that someone is going to start from scratch and aren't interested in what we've learned - about the people who get their booking wrong every year; about the people who write in green crayon every year; about the people who try to get their equipment booking in late every year; about the people who's credit cards are known to be a little bouncy every year.

But it looks like it is to be no more.

I suppose it's a compliment to do a job so well that no one notices. It's a really CRAP compliment though.

So Aeron, Megz, Snerg, Gui, Kitty, AnythingGirl, Donwald, DV, Tops, BaggyT, Fz, Speedy, Wenchy and everyone else who's help who's name eludes me in my infuriation, thanks heaps. You can all take the year off. We've been made redundant.

And all the other reasons given why I shouldn't do it any more didn't make me feel any better. "I've got a really good IT guy on tap.". So have I.... it's called ME!
"You're really busy having a family and a life". That didn't stop me last year. And I'm pretty sure the other IT guy has a family too. Claiming anyone in the SCA having a life is a dubious statement at best.

So there's all sorts of good reasons why I don't need to do this again.

So why does it feel like a kick in the teeth?

I know why. It's because I know how much work I'm offering to do and they don't want me.

They have no idea........

(Fade out while bridges burn)

oh my!

You may wish to wait until the kids are not around. The questions can be a little bit tricky to answer.
This is from Ken, but he is too busy achieving world domination of the serfs in his computer village to post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeLo1Dm7_H0

Lessons learned at Fort Canning

Tell your children:

and everything will be juuuust fine.

ooo funky

Hey Scruffy and J, can I have a some money please?

Quite specifically, some of this money



as discovered by MrNw

Cthulu's favourite

Fresh from the breweries of R'lyeh

with a name like that, what could go wrong?

"Ready For Battle"

Army of robot monsters.

I long for wombat.

Things that make me go WOOT

Feeling a lack of Joss Whedon-ness? Never fear, Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long blog is almost here!


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.


ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

more info here

Time To Dust Off Your Annoying T-Shirts

And stock up on condoms.

EXTRAORDINARY new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for "causing annoyance" to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today.

Wish I still lived in Sydney. Annoying Catholics would be my new expensive pasttime.

JUST HAD TO SHARE

Moved into our new house today....as i gloated already on A Cunning Plan.
Here is our bathroom counter.


That is all....
Come visit