How to make yourself feel old

Mutterings continued.

Got an email from Scoop magazine with info about some upcoming gigs, one of which was a tour by Brian Cadd and Russell Morris. Tomorrow night's gig is at the Civic Hotel in Inglewood - felt appropriate to me as I was living in Inglewood when I first listened to Russell Morris and Cadd's band, Axiom. We're talking 37 years ago, people. *sigh*

I am having an increasingly hard time comprehending that there are actually people out who are old enough to be married, have jobs, etc etc who weren't born when Dark Side of the Moon came out.

On a brighter note, dinner last night at Anna Vietnamese restaurants with TUS-Maureen (who was off to Thailand today on a junket, which I think is like blancmange). Started with prawn toast, finished with chicken cinnamon, no room for dessert.

And today I had lunch with Kim at the lunch bar opposite Wesley College - bacon and egg roll and a coffee for $5.90. Bargain!

Got my first Annals of Improbable Research journal (home of the Ig-Nobel Awards) the other day - I'd forgotten I'd subscribed.

Ending on an incredibly bright note, today I received a statement for one of my two credit cards which states that I owe them $4.76. Woo hoo!

National Memory Test

Mutterings continued.

How I did

YOUR SCORES
Here's your scores from the National Memory Test, just in case you've forgotten them...
Long Term Memory - Sandra's Homework - Correct
Working Memory - Shopping List - 7/10
Facial Recognition - 6/6
Name Recall - 5/5
Occupation Recall - 5/5
Visual Memory – Correct

AVERAGE SCORES:
Shopping list recall (working memory) – 7 out of 10 items
Facial Recognition – 6 out of 6 faces
Average name recall – 3 out of 5 names
Average occupation recall – 4 out of 5 occupations
Long term memory recall (remembering the fact about Sandra’s homework) – 90% got it right
Spot the difference - visual memory – 60% got it right

I rock!! I am so bloody surprised!!

Moi, moi

Mutterings continued.

Two words. No explanations.

1. Yourself
Ageing juvenile

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend:
Non existent

3. Your hair?
Bright red

4. Your mother:
Greatly missed

5. Your Father:
See above.

6. Your Favorite Item:
My cats.

7. Your dream last night:
Probably confused.

8. Your Favorite drink:
Malt whisky.

9. Your Dream Car:
Manfred Fiesta.

10. The Room You Are In:
Lounge room

11. Your Ex:
Which one?

12. Your fear?
Going doolally.

13. Where you want to be in 10 years?
Dunkeld Postoffice.

14. Who you hung out with last night?
Milo/Gus

15. What You're Not:
Technologically minded.

16. Your Best Friend:
Over seas

17. One of Your Wish List Items:
England holiday

19. The Last Thing You Did:
Phoned Leeece

20. What You Are Wearing:
Office clothes.

21. Your Favorite Weather:
Cold, rain.

22. Your Favorite Book:
Liar's Autobiography.

23. The Last Thing You ate:
Fruit slice.

24. Your Life:
Pretty cool.

25. Your Mood:
Very hungry.

26. Your body:
Oh dear. Or what happened?

27. What are you thinking about right now:
Anna Vietnamese.

28. Your Crush:
Heh heh.

29. What are you doing at the moment:
Typing this.

30. Your summer schedule:
Whinge, moan.

Must...write...newsletter

Mutterings continued.

It's Thespis time again. Thespis is the GRADS members' newsletter and I volunteered a few months back to take it on. I have photos from Hedda, I have an almost complete cast list for Cosi, all I need are the President's 'bits'.

Too warm for winter today - 27c! Made for a warm walk back from the cafe, through the Savannah and past the orangs. Most of the Painted Dogs were up at the wire for some reason - usually they ignore passers by, but something had stirred them up today.





And next door was the Rare Saddleback Rhino (or possibly a cross between a rhino and a tapir).



The staining across the back is actually worming mixture - it's hard to get rhinos to swallow medicine so vets use a liquid that is absorbed through the skin.

Thin end of the wedge

Mutterings continued.

24c today, 27c tomorrow. Noooooooooo!!!! Fortunately we're back to showers and 23c by Wednesday. Phew. My whining about the weather is index-linked to the temperature.

I had left-over curry for lunch and then took a stroll to the cafe for a real coffee (as opposed to the unleaded I usually drink. High blood pressure and all that.) and a meander back through the World of Birds. Most of the aviaries have had the internal walls removed so three enclosures have become one. We visited the Blue and Yellow Macaws who were staring snootily down their beaks at us from the high perch. Until Helen took her 'special' shell out of her coat pocket to show them, whereupon they climbed down the wire, had a bit of a nibble of the shell and posed for photographs. The visitors were very impressed.

Helen's shell has also worked on White-cheeked Gibbons and Orangs.

Another shiny Sunday

The temps are heading towards the mid 20s mark by Wednesday - today feels very summery indeed.

Dinner last night consisted of vegetable curry, jasmine/wild rice, puppadums and naan bread, followed by chocolate cake and mint fondue. Mmmm....fondue....

And the viewing consisted of the pilot of Stargate:SG1 (on a medium called video tape. Altogether now: Yes, we've got a video!!!"). I know there are certain unnamed persons in the community (Hi Grant!!) who don't like Stargate, but I do. I have lost track of it and was very perplexed to see a cover graphic from the series 9 DVDs which showed Teal'c, my favourite character, with hair. When did he grow hair?? I saw a BTS look at SG1 a few years back, hosted by Christopher Judge, who was lovely and as camp as all getout. I see from his biog that he appeared in Wise Guy - will have to keep an eye out.

And then we watched the Derek Jacobi episode of Randall and Hopkirk, which L and R liked, I'm pleased to say. This was followed by a British history lesson in Dr Who "The Idiot's Lantern", with the wonderful Maureen Lipton as The Wire. Then it was a Gou'ald/Wraith crossover ep of Atlantis, and finally, MST3K's Manhunt in Space. It must be space because everything is prefaced with the word 'space'.

From the preceding short, General Hospital:

[Black-caped, solemn nurse Jesse glides through the hospital ward lobby.]

Crow: Ah, here comes Nurse Feratu.

Milo had a brief, but intense, relationship with Leece's boot. It'll never last.

Today has been spent tidying up, visiting the Stock Road markets for books (Phineas Redux by Trollop; Under World by Reginald Hill; and the Court at Windsor - a Domestic History by Hibbert), and lunch at Britannia Cafe (roast meat and veg, Yorkshire pud and a pot of tea).

Forgot to mention the trip to Bunnings to buy some plants - Chinese vegies and soapwort.

Carry On Up the Nerd

Mutterings continued.

Over on angriest's blog a few days ago, the comments, which started out talking about the delisting of Pluto as a planet, somehow turned into a discussion about Carry On films. This was my suggestion for a new movie:

The Kenneth Williams/Julian Clarey character would be the owner of a dot.com company, which his wife, Hattie Jacques/Dawn French, would be trying to turn into something nice and family oriented. His company partner and brother in law, Sid James/Tony Slattery, on the other hand, wants to turn it into a porn site with lots of photos of Barbara Windsor with her top falling off.

Bernard Bresslaw is the dim, but gifted, programmer caught between Sid and Hattie.

Nerds looking for porn are puzzled with the ever-changing website - tits one day, crochet patterns the next.

Nice work if you can get it.

Mutterings continued.

Four jobs have become available at the Zoo. Have a look here for more details. The Fundraising Officer and Receptionist positions are part time, one of the Ed Officer positions is permanent full time, the other a 7 month contract.

There goes the pay packet

Mutterings continued.

Not that I actually receive a pay packet, more a computer generated pay advice, but you get my meaning.

Went shopping this morning and have come home with five tops, five DVDs and $60 worth of groceries. Oh dear and all before 10.30am. Fortunately, all the clothes were bought on sale - two of the tops are rather groovy (I'm from the 60s - I'm allowed to say 'groovy') tie-dyed Indian numbers in sea blue and green and were only $15 each.

Likewise, (almost) all the DVDs were also on sale - finally found the extended edition of A Knight's Tale for $15.99 (K Mart); Shaun of the Dead and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition, no less) both for $14.92; The Name of the Rose ($9.92); and The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. I'd seen Apocalypse in K Mart for $32.99 and figured that Ezydvd across the arcade and down a bit might have it cheaper. They didn't have it at all; Sanity Music did, however, and for $3 cheaper.

The grocery shopping was almost as exciting - Coles in Cannington stock a small variety of English made goodies, including Weeta Bix and PG Tips pyramid tea bags. I now have enough of both to last a while. A long while. Oddly, the comestibles are found in the "Asian Foods" aisle; I wouldn't have thought the Asian community was THAT big in the UK. Mind you, there are a lot of people from India and Pakistan in Bradford, where some wonderful curry houses are to be found.

Perusing the Indian section of the food aisle, I came across the puppadum shelf. I picked up a packet that looked interesting until I turned it over and saw that nearly all the puppadums were broken. "Wonder how that happened," I thought. Whereupon I dropped the packet on the floor, thus answering my own question.

And they had Whiskas for 99c a tin. Er, not in the Asian foods aisle, but.

Musings:

1. The Funky Bunches flower shop in Leederville is a lovely establishment whose corporate livery, and identity, is bright purple. When they opened up a shop in Como, just down t'road from me, they painted it their signature colour. The South Perth City Council (boo!!) swooned and then screamed, "You can't paint in that colour! It doesn't fit in with the Como ambiance!! Paint it white!!". Or words to that effect. So why do they allow this? The Como Hotel may look cool and funky in the photos, but reality is a little more nauseating. The pub is painted purple and lime green. Not a nice shade of purple, either. And there is never any excuse to use lime green. And it's a bloody big building so there's a lot of purple and lime green on show.
2. Where are all the Manfreds? When I bought my little BUS (Ford Fiesta), the car had been voted Car of the Year by Wheels (I think, coulda been the RAC) and I was told by the car dealer that the model was so popular, the only choice I had in colours was white or dark blue (I got the dark blue - it's metallic and looks really nice in the sun. Or when it's clean. Ahem.). So were are all the other Manfreds? I don't recall seeing another Fiesta for months.
   

And on a sad note, our solar system has lost a planet. Yes, the planet Pluto ain't. Looks like we'll have to make up a new mnemonic to remember the order of the plants, because My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas don't work anymore. Perhaps she could serve us noodles and be done with it.

Feels like I'm on holiday.

Mutterings continued.

I only have tomorrow off, so it's not a very long holiday. I plan to go "me" shopping in the morning and then lunch with Pat, Genette and Shirley. The forecast is for rain, and we'll be sitting outside, but the table is under cover. Which is nice.

And today I had lunch with Kim. We went to the noodle house in Mends Street - I had the three flavour noodles (the flavour being sweet chilli sauce). Don't think we'll go there again.

Last night's episode of Extras was very funny and had some lovely one-liners from Mr Gervais. Thanks to TV Snob for this quote from our episode 1 (I think it was episode 2 in the UK and the US):

"Ben Stiller plays himself as a director of the movie in which the main character was orphaned during wartime. Ben questions how to help an orphaned child:

"How can I cheer up this orphaned kid? By showing him the DVD of Dodgeball? Well, sure, then he'll be happy for an hour and a half, but what then? Do I show him Dodgeball again? Of course, he'll get more out of it, because he'll spot new things the second time round. It's layered; it's written that way. But how many times can I show him Dodgeball? Seven, eight, maybe. Then what?"

To which Andy Millman mutters, "Make Dodgeball 2?"

And this:
Ben Stiller: "And who are you?"
Andy Millman: "Nobody."
Ben Stiller: "What?"
Andy Millman: "Nobody."
Ben Stiller: "Exactly. And who am I?"
Andy Millman: "Either Starsky or Hutch, I can never remember."
Ben Stiller: "Was that supposed to be funny?"
Andy Millman: "You tell me, you were in it."

I'll stop now.

Fooooodddd.

Mutterings continued.

Just back from dinner with TUS. This week we went to Duende, a Spanish tapas (and I think that might be an oxymoron) restaurant, in Leederville. Little pricy but the food was wonderful. We all raved about the duck proscuttio and would happily have had it as a mains. Finished it off with an evil rocky road semi freddo which, surprisingly, had nothing to with chocolate frogs cut in half.

This is a great website that I Stumbled upon - vids of a cat called Annie. The vid called Stealth particularly tickled me.

Wet, with wind.

Mutterings continued.



Make your own Einie pic. This is mine.

It's been a wild and woolly day. Woke up to the sound of thunder (how far off I sat and wondered) and couldn't work out what the noise was. Mid morning, the rain came in horizontally. Sure made Temara, one of the orangs, move. She'd been sitting on the top of her tower with all her worldly possessions (sacks, branches, leaves, food) and was nearly blown off.

Today's cool word: nudiustertian (nu-di-uhs-TUR-shuhn) adjective

Of or relating to the day before yesterday.

[From Latin nudius tertius, literally, today is the third day.]

So there you go.

Tonight's Time Team ep had the chaps and chappettes looking for a henge and a crannog in the north of Scotland. Lovely place. One of the archeologists was from this place. I've been there.

Lousy 'journalism'

Mutterings continued.

I'm beginning to think that online news articles aren't run past an editor before being posted. This piece about the Trekkie convention in Las Vegas is a prime example. Mr Spock is called Doctor Spock a number of times (I can understand the confusion in the 60s when there was a Doctor Spock, but I'm sure the writer of this piece has probably never heard of him!) and a group of 10 university students from Taiwan "trolled" the convention (I'm sure he meant 'trawled'. If he didn't, and I was one of those Taiwanese fans, I'd be pissed off!). I feel tempted to correct the errors in red text and send it back to news.com.au; wouldn't make any difference, sadly.

On a lighter note, it's raining again! Warmish today - 21c - and rather pleasant. We took a walk to the cafe for lunch via the new orang climbing frames and walked back past the baboon boys, who were wrestling, chewing on each other and generally being boys.

Shiny Weekend

Mutterings continued.

The pies and Yorkshire puds I cooked for dinnner last night turned out rather well. I used sandwich steak which turned out to be very tender and tasty. Simple recipe with steak, onions, mushrooms, carrots, ale, beef stock, thyme and bay leaf and puff pastry. Rob cooked a really nice spicy plum pudding dessert with custard.

The night's viewing consisted of Space:1999 (complete with expendible guest star of the week. It was also the penultimate episode of series 1); Kolchak (in which a headless bikie on a BSA wreaked havoc); Randall and Hopkirk (Revenge of the Bog People, which featured a lovely piece of surrealism with Tom Baker as Wyvern. He was ice fishing in his study and pulled out a white rose; he put it to his nose and said, "Aaah! Haddock!"); and a really dire Hercules movies given the MYSTIE treatment, which made it a lot better.

And today was spent visiting Gosnells markets for vegies, incense, perfume oils (Spiritual Sky's Aphrodisia! They're finally making the original scent that I used to wear in the 80s. Hurrah!) and assisting with Cosi auditions at the Dolphin. There was an open day at UWA and perplexed kids and parents kept wandering into the Dolphin looking for the toilets or the music department. We kept having to stop them wandering into the theatre and disrupting the auditions.

Another soggy Saturday

Mutterings continued.

More rain, hurray!

Usual Saturday - grocery shopping (no shiny stuff - I think I've bought enough DVDs for a while. Until I find A Knight's Tale and Maid Marion for less than $20, that is) for provisions for tonight's dinner (I'm making the beef and ale pie I saw on a cooking show set in Yorkshire. I've even got some Yorkshire puds to go with it!) and a trip to the Post Office to deposit a couple of cheques and buy some posscards.

I finally got to see the League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse last night. It was surprisingly sweet and tender in parts. It was also very bloody and grim in parts. A damn good film. One of the Gentlemen, Mark Gattis, wrote and starred in PROBE, an offshoot of Dr Who featuring Peter Davison, Louise Jamieson and Caroline John. He has also written for and about Dr Who. PROBE is made by the same people who made The Stranger with Colin Baker and (sad fan girl alert) David Troughton.

If you go down in the woods today...

Mutterings continued.

Wee!! Yippeee!!

It's been a good week.

Mutterings continued.

Felt long, but. Achieved a lot, saw a lot, didn't get to eat with TUS (bummer).

From New Scientist: Caps Lock Must Die!

More interestin' stuff from NS: Shattered art can be digitally rebuilt.
And this, which really tickles me: "The reincarnation futures market

IDAN BEN-BARAK, signing himself as president of InMyTime Corporation, is buoyed by the success of his scheme for buying time - you may yourself have noticed how the cost of Thursdays has risen since our report on it (1 April). "As part of our expansion plans," says a new InMyTime statement, "we have hired a team of past-life therapists to conduct some surveys." Ben-Barak naturally volunteered to be the first subject, "and it appears that I was Shirley MacLaine in a past life".

This might seem strange, since she wasn't actually dead when we last checked. But apparently this kind of scheduling problem happens all the time, and it sorts itself out eventually. InMyTime thinks Cleopatra is to blame, as she has been quite overbooked for reincarnations lately, which wreaks havoc on the system.

InMyTime's legal department has consented to release selected details of further findings of the study. It identified a school netball star in York, UK, and a real-estate agent in Orlando, Florida, who both appear to have been Charlemagne, apparently on a time-sharing basis. Joel R (London) has found out to his dismay that he's a "Firstie", with no previous lives. As such he will be blamed for anything going wrong with his future selves. Elias Z, a dentist of Pasadena, California, was previously a particularly well-karmaed fruit bat named eeeEEeeee-EE-Eei in Madagascar, 1914-21 (estimated).

Intense competition for Charlemagnitude will of course raise prices when, as InMyTime expects, a market in reincarnation is opened. How well the fruit bat option will sell is less obvious."

It's been a good day

Mutterings continued.

Got a lot done this morning, including finishing off the monthly report to the Board, had lunch with Kim at the Italian place next to Secret Squirrel (we're boycotting SS because its prices are too high and the food at the Italian place is much fresher) and then went onto the orang roof with the Docents to give the red people their behavioural enrichment. The highlight was watching Hsing Hsing consider all the options of how to get down to the ground by the quickest and easiest route.



Hsing making his way down to the ground to get his BE (frozen ice lolly with fruit in it).



Slowly working his way across.



Taking a safer route.



Nearly there...



Made it.



Hsing grabs his ice lolly...



... and works his way back up with tower with the ice lolly in his mouth.


Hsing takes a detour.

Cold Wednesday

Mutterings continued.

Another late meeting this afternoon so no dining at Sienna's with TUS. *sigh*

It's been a busy couple of days - GRADS committee last night and a couple of meetings today.

Hsing and Utama, two of the orangs, have been moved into an enclosure that has had new climbing poles and ropes installed and we've been watching Hsing slowly and cautiously work his way across the ropes. He's never been exposed to such structures before and it's all new. Great to see. Tomorrow afternoon we're going on up on the roof at behavioural enrichment time to get a close up view of them.

More auditions for Cosi this Sunday and the overflow will be looked at on Monday. I'll be helping out again on Sunday arvo. We discussed getting together a production committee for Cosi - when the need for a props person came up, everybody at the table turned to look at me. I, of course, looked behind me to see who they were looking at.

From the ABC website: Midsomer Murders - Return of the murder mystery series
A new series of Midsomer Murders, the hugely popular British television series about murders that take place in the fictional English county of Midsomer, returns to ABC TV from Friday, September 8th at 8.30pm.

Ah, Midsomer - a village with more murders per capita than London and Washington.

Service Day

Mutterings continued.

Manfred had a service today. He's only done 15,500km and according to the log book his next service was due at 45,000 or 12 months after the previous service. He'd had his 3,000km in May last year, so time-wise he was 3 months over or mileage wise 30,000km under. Confused? Anyhoo, it cost $154 at the local garage and he has new oil, filters, etc etc.

Leaving him at the garage meant I had to catch the bus to work, a short journey that cost $1.40.

It's been a funny day - the sky keeps clouding over but I don't know if there's any rain it. Showers were promised but I don't think they've eventuated. Bloody windy, but.

More good stuff in the mail - the Ripping Yarns DVD I ordered from Sendit has arrived.

Testosterone Telly

Mutterings continued.

Watched an old favourite from the 70s on UKTV this morningh - The Sweeney. Starred a very young John Hurt as a computer teacher ("This is a VDU, which stands for Video Display Unit."). I know, I know, the Sweeney and its ilk (the Professionals, etc) are politically incorrect, sexist, blah-de-blah but they're still great viewing. And tonight it was Wiseguy with lots of big hair, shiny frocks and Kevin Spacey.

Sat in on auditions for Cosi this afternoon. According to Grant, the director, we've had a lot of talent come and audition.

Interesting concept - Book Mooch.

We can stop anytime we like!*

Mutterings continued.

* Dr Who and chocolate mini muffins excluded.

Home made pea and ham soup and crusty bread from L and R and chocolate mini muffins from me. After reading the review on floppy woppy baking products in Choice, I bought a silicon muffin tray made by Wiltshire and used it for the first time yesterday. It worked really well and didn't set the smoke alarm off (I'd been warned by L and R that theirs tends to do this) - the smoke alarm not having any batteries may have something to do with this. Ahem.

Great night's viewing: started with Fruits Basket, a rather sweet, and highly amusing, 13 parter based on the signs of the zodiak. This is moi: "Year of the Rooster

1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005

People born in the Year of the Rooster are deep thinkers, capable, and talented. They like to be busy and are devoted beyond their capabilities and are deeply disappointed if they fail. Roosters are often a bit eccentric, and often have rather difficult relationship with others. They always think they are right and usually are! They frequently are loners and though they give the outward impression of being adventurous, they are timid. Rooster people's emotions like their fortunes, swing very high to very low. They can be selfish and too outspoken, but are always interesting and can be extremely brave." So there you go.

We then watched the second of the Arthur Dales (Darren McGavin) episodes of X Files, Agua Mala. It was rather creepy and I think L and R enjoyed it. I think next week we'll watch The Unnatural, another Arthur Dales story.



Dr Who Spoilers:

This was followed by Dr "We can stop any time we like" Who, a real good 'un starring the Cybermen (cyberpeople, really, as some of them were women). Funny in parts, tragic in others and I knew what was going to happen to Mickey.

And we rounded out the night's viewing with MST3K 's the Sword and the Dragon. Hai-keeba!

"Mount your horses, gentlemen." "We're not *that* lonely!"
-Sir Branton/Crow (as George).

and the source of one of my sigs:

"As a scientist, I'm constantly working with materials
that threaten life on a global scale, and,
sometimes, they spill..." -Dr. Forrester.

Shower carnage (delicate readers look away now).

Mutterings continued.

I have been known, on occasion, to, shall we say, delicately enhance the [cough] natural [cough] colour of my hair (and if you believe that, have I got a bridge for you!). The post colour removal scene is always the same: I open my eyes to find the shower walls, curtain and soap dish beflecked with fluffy, blood coloured foam (think the shower scene in Psycho if, instead of the loony's weapon of choice, she'd been attacked by a soapy loofah).

This morning it put me in mind of the Sunsilk (I think it was - you can tell I ain't no brand queen) ad of a couple or so years ago. Woman, big hair, make up that looks as though it was thrown at her face by Rolf Harris before the "Can you tell what it is yet?" stage, storms into the bathroom and pulls open a drawer in which lie a pair of scissors and a box of hair colour. Cut to scene of 'red stuff' going down the drain. Could it be...blood? Has she...done violence to herself? Of course not, you bloody fools! Most women and all gay men immediately suss that she's been dumped and has taken the "Fuck you, you'll be sorry!" option and given herself a make-over.

Apparently there were people out there who a) have never been dumped; or b) never been out with anybody to be dumped by (or c. are so rich, they get their hair coloured in a salon and never actually see the coloured sludge going down the plug 'ole, but we don't know any of them) and got their proverbials in a bit of a twist. "Oh the horror! The horror!!" And the ad was pulled.

A sunny day, intermittently.

Mutterings continued.

The sun keeps coming out, briefly, however the city is shrouded in clouds.

The usual grocery shopping this morning - no shiny thing purchases, I did that yesterday.

Silly (and probably old) joke on The Men in White: Two atoms are walking down the street. One of them says, "I've lost an electron!" "What?" "I've lost an electron!" "Are you positive?"

When IS it ok to walk out? I've walked out on a couple of films - Papillion comes to mind - but I don't think I've ever walked out on a theatre production.

Branagh's latest - the Magic Flute - sounds interesting.

And starting this Wednesday - Ricky Gervais's Extras. I've been looking forward to this.

Hal Spacejock Support Crew

Mutterings continued.

Thanks to Leece and Rob for introducing me to Hal Spacejock and thanks to Martin Livings for telling us all about the Support Crew.


I joined Hal Spacejock's Support Crew
I didn't pay anything,
I didn't sign anything,
and I didn't read the fine print.
Just like Hal!

No space pilot can exist in a vacuum (hah!), and behind every successful pilot there's a talented and dedicated support crew.
Hal Spacejock is one of the least successful space pilots in the history of the galaxy, and a worldwide support crew is needed just to get him off the ground.

Join now for free Hal Spacejock goodies!
| Join the team | - - - - - - - - - | Hal who? |

All shorn

Mutterings continued.

Back from the hairdressers - lighter in pocket and hair.

I've had a nice afternoon; knocked off work at 12 and headed off to JBs (two DVDs - The Corpse Bride and Underworld Evolution (yes, yes, I've read the reviews, but it has Derek Jacobi in it wearing some very fetching clothes. Plus it was cheap.) and a CD - the Clarion Call, R and B, mod and pop-psych from down under. And by 'down under' they mean Western Australian) ) and Spotlight (spent my birthday money - thanks Maureen and Steveg. I've been wanting to spend it on something special and today I bought myself a coffee plunger thingo and a capuccino milk fluffer upper. Have just made myself a coffee and the milk fluffs up a treat.). I also bought some bowls with chickens on them. The cashier wrapped them up in paper patterns instead of the usual tissue paper. Must have a look later at what the pattern in actually for.

The Comedy Channel is reshowing Full Frontal - the really good ones which had Eric Bana, Milo Kerrigan and Nobby Doldrums (played by the wonderful and terribly good looking Shaun Micallef), et al.

Sunny Day

Mutterings continued.

Cold start but a shiny day. Sat in the sun at lunch time and scoffed the Staff Special - beef stroganoff pie and chips and a large coffee.

The huuuuuge crane was at it again this morning - we had a diverting morning watching large poles with structures attached being raised into the air and lowered into enclosures. We were thinking of serving tea and cakes, for a small sum, as the view from the walkway near our offices was extremely good.

Some of the orangs weren't impressed with the noise and carry on and refused to come outside. The rest were fairly non-committal, as is the way with orangs. SCIENCE ALERT! Unlike most apes, orangs are not at all communal and tend to live on their own once they reach puberty - this is why our lot are in separate exhibits. Mothers and children stay together until the youngster reaches 14 or so and then they move off. Males and females come together to breed every 7 years or so. Consequently, orangs don't have the same range of physical expressions and vocalisation that other apes do. We often get asked why our orangs look bored. They're not, they just look like that. If you don't have to rely on facial expressions to get your meaning across, you tend not to develop them.

And they really hate having to wear collars with the name Pongo inscribed on them.

Things in the post: the Director's cut of Hellboy (includes 10 additional minutes, 12 hours of extra features and exclusive collector's booklet - all for 6 quid); refund cheque from Medicare (for $21, which is less than half of what I pay for a consultation); newsletter from the Australian Orang Project; and a statement from Virgin Credit (closing balance of $24! Whoo hoo!! Course, it doesn't take into account my recent purchases...).



How evil are you? Bugger.

What the...?

Mutterings continued.

Transparent duct tape?? Duct tape that's transparent??? Who the hell wants transparent duct tape? How are your actor and director types going to be in awe of us techies is they can't see what we've done? How will they know where their marks are? Or where the set furniture goes? The whole point of duct tape is that it's visible. Highly, nay, extremely visible. It's like the Force - it has a dark and a light side. It's not bloody transparent.

[mutter, mutter] transparent duct tape...I don't know...what's next?...gels that only come in one colour?....[Poss wanders off into the distance, muttering to herself...]

Much excitements at work - the remaining climbing towers are going into the orang enclosures and are being lowered into place by the biggest crane I've ever seen. Huuuuuuge. The tyres are about the same height as me (5'6" in the old money, which is 1...something something cms). Not sure what the orangs think about all the activity but one of them was sitting in her tower, head on her arm which was resting of the edge of 'bucket' (near the top of the climbing towers are large round buckety/wastepaper baskety looking things that the orangs sit in), taking it all in.

Off to Anna Vietnamese tonight with TUS.

Words, words, words

Mutterings continued.

I subscribe to A Word A Day and get interesting emails popping into my inbox telling me of words that I'd either not heard of before or should use more often. Or both. Yesterday's word was arithmancy - divination by numbers. This is very apposite as today is census day and the Bureau of Statistics will be doing its own version of arithmancy using the results. Wonder how many Jedi will turn up on this census?

Today's word is bibliomancy - divination by interpreting a passage picked at random from a book, especially from a religious book such as the Bible."Here's the step-by-step method:

1. Pick a book you trust a lot.

2. Put it on its spine, and let it fall open.

3. With your eyes closed, trace your finger to a passage.

4. Interpret the passage as your lifemap to the future.

You could even add more randomness to the process. To do that at the macro level, visit a library and pick a book at random from the shelves. At the micro level, instead of interpreting a passage, pick a single word and let it point you to your path.

Then you could try awadmancy -- divination based on words from AWAD. Focus on the question in your mind and then click here to get a random word from our archives: http://wordsmith.org/words/random.cgi"

Ok, here goes...picks Graham Chapman's autobiog "A Liar's Autobiography, Vol. VI"...and it says, "We flew to Timaru, a town about the size of my house - the only difference being that there is no seafront in Highgate and Timaru doesn't have a theatre as big as mine. We arrived with our costumes, props, and lipstick, walking down the aisle of an auditorium that held a paltry 2000, to find Humphrey Barclay, a producer not commonly known to be related to a bank. He was setting up the lighting for the evening's performance which was particularly important because it was being recorded for New Zealand Television, an organization slightly bigger that the New Zealand Navy. He was shouting at the electricians for more light. They turned all the available stage lighting up to full. He screamed at them again that this was not good enough. The cast by now was on stage, arranging props and doing a walk-through. None of us could quite understand the need for extra lighting in that we were already being blinded by the fierce glare from every part of the theatre. Humphrey, now in a frenzy, foamed at the nostrils and roared for more light. He threw off his sunglassses in anger, realised he'd been wearing them, sat down, and went puce."

It mentions 'props' twice! That must be my calling.

More 'arry sightings - a young 'arry had managed to climb onto the railing at the top of the steps near my office. 'e was having a few problems keeping 'is footing (bad enough when you only have two feet...) and kept waving 'is front four in the air at passers by. I got very close to 'im but didn't actually touch 'im - I got the Director in the next office to remove 'im. She did this by putting her arm next to 'im; 'e crawled on, went for a bit of a wander up and down the front of her shirt and she took 'im outside. Caroline told me I was very brave for getting that close.

Godammit!!

Mutterings continued.

Headed home all ready to roll up the sleeves and do the final tidying up/vacuuming/floor washing/shower descumming before the estate agent's inspection tomorrow, only to discover he'd been today. Dammit! Not that the place was a tip, it wasn't, it's just that my washing is all over the place, there are Red Rock crisps crumbs on the carpet (left overs from Saturday night) and I hadn't made my bed. *sigh* I rang the guy, who seemed perplexed that I have these damn things every 3 months ("You're only just getting over the last one", he said) and explained why the place looked like a Chinese laundry. He didn't seem to care and said there was nothing wrong with the flat.

The reason my washing is all over the place is that Perth and surrounds have been in the grip of some savage winds and not a little rain. Australind, south of Perth, was hit by a tornado and 26 houses have been destroyed.

The orangs at work have been making the best of a bad situation by huddling on the tops of their towers while wrapping themselves in hessian sacks. Many hessian sacks. The males, Hsing and Dinar, weigh 96kg and 125kg respectively and are probably in little danger of being blown away.

Speaking of news, I've noticed that Sky News and other agencies, print and tv, are asking for photos, vids, news stories, etc from the great unwashed out there, instead of getting it themselves. Is this a way of involving the masses in the gathering of news, or are they just too lazy to send their own reporters out into the field?

From the ABC online article about Australind: "Send us your pictures. Email your pictures and video to ABC News Online or send them via MMS to 0448 859 894 (+61 448 859 894 if you're overseas.) Email address: yourpics@your.abc.net.au."

And from the Sydney Morning Herald, "Do you have more information about this story? Contact reporter Dylan Welch at dwelchweb@smh.com.au."

Go and get it yourself, you slacker! 8-)

The Mansion of E, by Robert Cook. I like this a lot. I also like Hax: "Hax looks like a hat with legs, which is not surprising, because that's essentially what he is. He gets around by hitching rides on the heads of both willing and unwilling passersby. He works for a rather shadowy and ill-defined individual who goes by the name "God".

Things that make you go, "Squeeeeeee!!"

Fits and spurts

Mutterings continued.

I have another rent inspection on Tuesday, so I've been doing some desultory tidying and dusting.

Last night we had a great meal prepared by Rob - seafood paella, with Morten Bay bugs, scallops and Red Emperor. Mmmmmmm.... Dessert was apple parcels and chocolate hedgehogs.
I bullied L and R into watching the X Files episode, Bad Blood. Glad I did as it was very funny and a good introduction for them - this was only the second ep of X Files they had seen. We watched the final episode of Rah Xephon - I don't quite understand what it was about. And we watched episode 2.2 of Cattlecar Galactica and MST3K "Being From Another Planet" which was cross between Stargate (mummy in a sarcophagus) and ET (said mummy is actually an alien).

"Frank, let's pretend that I hurt you and move on, shall we?" -Dr. Forrester.

DVD purchases, take 2. Forgot to mention that I've also put an order in for BBV's The Stranger "Breach of the Peace" DVD. Sad fan girl alert: it has an interview with David Troughton.

Another 'must have' DVD - the Masters Apprentices' Fully Qualified - "The package will include extra footage not on "Turn Up Your Video" as well as a CD of Masters Apprentices' greatest hits with bonus tracks." I was a huge fan of the Masters in the 60s - I found their overtly aggressive sexuality scary but rather thrilling (I was only 12/13 years old). Ditto Led Zepplin.

The next Wiseguy story arc has commenced - this one features Kevin Spacey as the aptly named Mel Proffit, a not very nice at all guy.

A Busy Saturday

Mutterings continued.

The usual grocery shopping this morning was followed by fun shopping at JBs and Spotlight this afternoon. JBs have got their X Files DVDs going out for $12.95 so I bought a couple - one features Darren McGavin (Agua Mala), the other has the very funny vampire episode (Bad Blood) I've raved about to L and R. We might get to see it tonight.

It's been an expensive couple of weeks, DVD-wise. Pre-ordered Mission:Impossible (admittedly the money won't be deducted from my credit card until it ships), bought Hellboy last weekend from Sendit, X Files from JB's today and this morning I ordered Ripping Yarns and The Nightingales (I have no idea what it's like but it sounds interesting - "First transmitted on Channel 4 in 1990, Nightingales focuses on three security guards who have the unenviable task of the graveyard night shift in a tower block. It is a strange comedy where just about anything can happen. A werewolf that performs open-heart surgery, bouts of Shakespearian verse, and an undercover police operation are just some of the bizarre situations – and confrontations – the trio find themselves in. This 2 disc set contains all of the episodes from both series’ of this unhinged sitcom.”

I looked for Maid Marian in JBs but they didn't seem to have it so will try Ezydvd on my day off on the 25th.

A bit of a blog before sleepy bo-bos.

Mutterings continued.

Just back from the Dolphin after a stint usheretting. An audience of about 60 - small but appreciative, laughed in all the right places.

Another day of meetings - Full Staff Day (which, as the name suggests, is when all the rosters overlap and there's a full complement of staff), and then an IT Committee meeting.

In the right menu - it's over thattaway ----> is a map which shows where my visitors are popping in from. Most are from Perth, however there are a couple I can't quite figure. Two are in the US (California and one in New York, or Pennsylvania or New Jersey, it's a little hard to tell); one is New Foundland (Hello Nancy!!); one in the north of the UK (Hello Ash!!); one in, I think, Finland (very exotic); and one in SE Asia (possibly Singapore). Hello everyone.

Ok, time to go nigh-nighs. L and R for dins tomorrow night. I've worked out how to reconnect the video recorder so we might watch The Stranger.

Warm!

The day started rather soggily but warmed up to 23c. Took a nice stroll across Windsor Park at lunch time and had lunch at Dome. Kim and I both had the burger with the lot - so big, we had to eat it in halves.

A good review of Hedda on the ITA website.

This is rather cool - the State Library has got the WA Post Office Directories, 1893 - 1949, on line. "The post office directories provide information by locality, individual surname, government service, and by trade or profession. The different sections enable the enquirer to see at a glance the householders or businesses in any one town; the address of any householder or business in the State; and the businesses or individuals throughout Western
Australia engaged in any trade or profession.""

Maid Marian outtakes.

A long Wednesday

No dins tonight with TUS as I didn't get off work until 5.30pm. Had a meeting about elephants for the last two hours. This was preceded by a 1.5 hour meeting to discuss research. This was preceded by lunch and a wander past the White-cheeked gibbons and a chat with young Jermei. This was proceeded with an interview with a potential supply officer.

It's been one of those days.

Thanks to Angriest for advising that the first series of Mission:Impossible is available for pre-order at Ezy DVD. I have, of course, pre-ordered it. I have all of the first 3 series on tapes - it will be nice to get a cleaned up version with no watermarks or commercials.

More interesting stuff coming:
John Kay and Steppenwolf.
Lovejoy (vols. 1 - 10)
Lobby Lloyd! Chain!! Max Merrit and the Meteors!!! (I suspect anyone under the age of 45 will have no idea who I'm talking about)
Cattlecar Galactica, series 2

Rocky and Bullwinkle
The wonderful Police Squad

It's Bloody August!

That's two months of winter....goooorrrn. We're on the slippery slope to
Christmas, I tell 'ee.

Still, we've had a nice few wintery days - bit windy for my liking but you get that. The clouds keep coming over but nothing much has fallen from them this afternoon.

Had coffee and a bikky at the cafe at lunch time and then went to check on the baboon boys. Chad had a fig branch with small fruit and leaves on it that he was trying to hide from the others. He kept nibbling on it and then shoving it into crevices, checking each time to see if it could be seen by the others. Taye was being very quiet and grown up and was giving one of the females a thorough grooming. A longitudinal study of those two would be very interesting - most baboon troops have an alpha male to keep the rest in line, so it would interesting to see how Chad and Taye develop without the usual male influences. Quite nicely, I suspect.

My friend Nick (Hello Nick! Where's me letter??) sent me this - The Goodies Ride Back to the Edinburgh Fringe. You wouldn't think Tim was the oldest, would you?

Thanks to Grant and Martin - another meme:

1. Elaborate on your default icon.
It's moi, South Parked.

2. What's your current relationship status?
Resolutely single.

3. Ever have a near-death experience?
I hope not!

4. Name an obvious quality you have.
Big tits. Well, they're pretty obvious!

5. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now?
The earworm has been alternating between My Body May Die by Pulp vs Swingle Sisters and Hooked on a Feeling, by BJ Thomas.

6. Any celeb you would marry?
See 2. However, if I was forced into it, David Troughton. Or Johnny Depp.
Actually, both of them are pretty heavy smokers and I don't think I could cope
with that.

7. Who will cut and paste this first?
Possibly Leece. Or Rob. Or both.

8. Name someone with the same birthday as you.
Levar "Kunta Kinte" Burton. AKA Levar "Geordie Laforge" Burton.

9. Do you have a crush on someone?
No, not at the moment (give it a couple of hours and get back to me).

10. Have you ever vandalized someone's private property?
Not so much vandalised, as 'did' things to it. When I was a uni student, a friend and I used to break into other friends' houses and 'do' things - like put potatoes in bean bags (yes, this WAS the 70s), turn their number plates on their cars around, that sort of thing. We got into the house of a med student friend and put a skeleton (yes, he actually had one) in his clothes and in his bed. We spent the next April Fool's Day cowering in our lounge room, convinced that we would be made to atone for all we had done. Turns out, nobody caught on it was us.

11. Have you ever been in a fight?
Only the usual kicking and hairpulling stuff you do with your younger sibling.

12. Have you ever sung in front of a large audience?
Eeeeek, no!!

13. What's the first thing you notice about the OPPOSITE sex?
Their eyes.

14. What do you usually order from Starbucks?
I went into a Starbucks in London and was completely overwhelmed and intimidated by the whole coffee ordering process. They should give lessons in ordering coffee from these places.

15. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Nah, I'm a wuss.

16. Say something totally random about yourself.
I like cheese.

17.
Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
I don't think so.

18. Do you wear a watch? What kind?
No, if I need to know the time, I just ask people who do. Or check my mobile phone.

19. Do you have anything pierced?
Both ears - twice. I did have four earrings in my left ear, but one of the holes refused to heal and one closed up when I went into hospital for surgery and I had to take them out.

20. Do you have any tattoos?
.See #15.

21. Do you like pain?
See #15. (Did I mention I'm a wuss?)

22. Do you like to shop?
Depends what kind of shopping. I loath grocery shopping and make sure I'm at the supermarket by 8am on a Saturday because I become VERY AGITATED AND AGGRESSIVE WITH BASTARDS WHO WON'T GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!
pant...pant..

Don't much like clothes shopping either.

23. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?
Coffee and a roasted hazlenut and chocolate cookie at lunch time.

24. What was the last thing you paid for with a credit card?
Hellboy - the Director's Cut, from Sendit.

25. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone?
Claire, one of the elephant keepers.

26. What is on your desktop background?
It changes - I have Webshots and the image changes every 15 minutes or so. At the moment it's the tea and coffee making facilities in the Chifley on Terrace hotel I stayed at a few months ago.

27. What is the background on your cell phone?
Funnily enough, it's the same icon as on my blog page.

28. Do you like redheads?
I AM a redhead!

29. Do you know any twins?
Errrr, no, I don't think so.

30. Do you have any weird relatives?
I think that's probably me.

31. What was the last movie you watched?
Through Fire, Water and Brass Pipes with Leece and Rob.

32. What was the last book you read?
Northern Lights, Philip Pullman.