sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
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email: sjh@svana.org

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Fri, 09 Dec 2011

Cans of weed killer left next to the garden - 10:23

Cans of weed killer next to the garden (fullsize) 		I noticed one of my housemates must have been tending the garden and only used one can of this weed killer, I guess there will be more weeds to kill with the unopened can soon.

This reminds me of DAAS or possibly Flacco in one of the DAAS videos saying some line like "Nah it's beer mate". This time instead the line would more aptly be "Nah it's weed killer mate".

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 05 Apr 2011

What is this key for? - 15:21

Draw Bridge Key (fullsize)
 Recently we have looked through a bunch of the keys hanging around parts of the house and tried to sort out what they are all for. One of the keys we found is pictured below. I am sure it would be useful if only we could find the moat around the house.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Fri, 27 Jun 2008

Doors? Who needs them - 14:33
Maybe we really will have to use chainsaws to get in. Last week and this week the main entrance doors on the building I work in have been playing up. For example last week I was walking out and they seemed to be opening normally, so I kept walking, they then suddenly stopped and closed a little bit, I whacked one shoulder into them fairly hard, if I had hit the other shoulder that hard it may have been damaged again. For some reason uni security decided they would be better left fully open and turned off during the day yesterday, however they then had to come along and clamp/bolt them shut yesterday at 5pm.

This morning after 9:30am they still had not come back and unbolted the front entrance doors. After all, who needs doors really? We could just break a window and climb in and out of the building that way. Or maybe we really should let our selves in with a chainsaw. Okay sure there are other doors, however it still amuses me that the main doors are broken. Of course this also reminds me of the quote from the first Back to the Future movie. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads. We can rework it to "Doors? Where we work we don't need doors."

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Fri, 20 Jun 2008

When you have to suppress your geek side - 12:14
So I had a piece of computer hardware someone had dropped off in my office that they wanted to know if it was working, they had failed to get it working (it had shown some failures in windows and did not come online again) in windows. So I said I would have a quick look in Linux and see if it is something that could be worked around or fixed up or if it was a real problem with the hardware. After a quick look I decided it was failed hardware and thus the item in question is dead.

The geek suppression thing comes along as they guy who had dropped it off is named Jim. Thus I had to stop myself ringing him up and uttering the line "It's dead Jim".

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 27 May 2008

Vista removal injuries - 16:19
So it would be funnier to be able to say software removal injuries, however that is not entirely accurate. Yesterday when I was removing the vista sticker from the palm rest of my new laptop, the sticker came off and there was sticky gunk underneath that was a bit harder to get rid of. I carefully tried to slice most of it away, which worked well except for two small scratches, however the last little bit was still there. So I got a wet cloth and rubbed at it vigorously with my right thumb knuckle.

I did notice at the time, however around 20 minutes later I felt a burn sort of feel on my knuckle, I looked at it and realised I had a vista removal injury, a bit of skin that had been rubbed away and burnt a bit in he process of removing the gunk. Oops, I wonder if I should not admit publicly I did something this silly. However the concept was too funny to pass up, I have a vista removal injury, more proof that Microsoft products are dangerous and we should stay away.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Mon, 12 May 2008

Cheap babies - 15:09
Maybe I need to stop my sense of humour grabbing me by the scruff and ensuring I find things like this amusing, however I could not help myself this time. When I see the Baby on Board signs on the back of many cars the thought always crosses my mind, it would be more fun if you could get "Baby in Boot" signs, sort of like those fake hands poking out of a boot, but far more horrifying for most people to consider. Thus when I saw an ad on Woolworths website saying something about Down go the prices on baby care with a cute little baby in the picture. I could not help but think it would be more amusing if it said something else. (the drop shaddow on my text is a bit dark and slightly off colour, but on the whole the change worked)

Down go the prices on babies

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 30 Apr 2008

Searching for a surface - 22:22
If the camel disappears there is an obvious need for a surface on which to place objects in a gravitatively agreeable direction. Where do we find such a surface I wonder, this may call for some more scientific testing. Get one random object, such as a keg of beer (though of course if you want higher beer volume, you may want a shopping trolley full of beer cans, and really, don't we always want more beer on our websites) or a former prime minister (crash test dummy Howard), or the number 17, according to a math lecturer I had that is the ultimate random number.

That 17 is not an object and instead some quasi thought based construct or something should not deter us, after all the camel was there in the first place simply so we had somewhere obvious and natural to place a blog. This of course brings us to the question of how we can place these random objects, if they are truly random (which brings up problems related to the need for a RNG and some source of real entropy) wont placing them in some order just mess that up. The question of where we place things once the camel escapes is also in need of consideration.

Scientific testing of various new and unknown locations that are more or less not camels will be needed. A table is one such item on which we can place things. A large body of water, such as the pacific ocean is another such object. This has the added bonus that some objects may or may not float. Also some objects may or may not be eaten by sharks, giant squid or a Grue. All these eventualities bring a number of opportunities for betting on outcomes, though if doing so wastes as much paper as the damn form guides that appear in newspapers too often we may need to give up and give the ants a chance at society.

I wonder if a society of ants would have people farms, who knows maybe they already do?

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Thu, 13 Mar 2008

Get people to pay attention to communication - 12:14
James suggested I should tell the world about this theory, I suspect because I am wearing the t-shirt, he thinks I need to live up to it. We were discussing some email James had sent to a few colleagues trying to arrange a time to do something to their computers. James was complaining they were busy and tended to ignore the email.

I suggested we obviously need to use some new more immediate communication mechanism, this "old skool" email thing just was not working. So how about smoke signals, older and slower you may argue, however if used indoors, the fire alarm will be set off and everyone will be aware some form of communication was in progress assuming everyone knows smoke signal communication is in use. Maybe the fear of having time wasted by a smoke signal generated fire drill will mean more attention is paid to the less drastic communication forms. Also most of the rfc's I reference here may not work well for in building communication.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Mon, 06 Aug 2007

Fix the bugs in my food - 16:03
I was amused to see a reference to a burger king product in Canadia containing a buildid http://www.burgerking.ca/en/1158/index.php?buildid=25. Do they build their food like we do software, so maybe you can check a specific revision of the food out of version control and build it. Can you ask for a newer revision of some food with less bugs in it? I am sure they will claim their good does not contain bugs, we know that claim tends to be wrong in software so can they really be telling the truth with their food?

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Thu, 26 Jul 2007

Gannets - 19:13
concrete dude This gannet is probably not about to attack a piece of pizza, maybe for the dual reasons that this is a Northern Gannet rather than an Australasian Gannet and that Pizza eating gannets from ANU in Australia seem to have become extinct a few years ago.

So what is this gannet thinking as it swoops down, and what is it swooping down upon. I guess it is in a bit of a Batman pose, maybe it after some criminal scum of the (remarkably sunny) night time streets of Gotham. I kind of doubt it though, this is a bird not a bat, and it really does not look much like Dick, Jason or Tim. This is a bird so I am really not sure we need to go far looking for the motivations and deep thought patterns behind what is going on. There is probably a reason for the term Bird Brain being in common usage.

Looking closely at the shape of its wings in this photo the gannet looks a lot like what I remember Darth Vader's ship looks like, this Gannet is probably about to say "Luke I am your father... squawk".

(original image source)

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 25 Jul 2007

Concrete Dude - 17:01
concrete dude Say hello to the Concrete Dude children. Okay so it may not be concrete, it could instead be marble, or a tasty slab of granite chiseled out to look like some dead bloke. The real question we need to ask though is what to call him and what is he thinking. Really it is a bit of a wonder what a half man half inscribed concrete slab creature could be called. Mermaid/Merman creatures are half fish, A centaur is half horse. There is no word for concrete slab in Latin such as Mare, nor is there a creature in Greek mythology, half man half concrete slab. Really I am at a loss as to what to call him. Thus we will have to stick with Concrete Dude (with thanks to Bill and Ted for the inspiration).

Next we are on to the thorny issue of what he is thinking, if anything apart from what is this Serbian spruce and how did it end up in my hand? Maybe he is hoping he does not fall over, with no legs it will be somewhat difficult to get back up, I wonder what the weight limits on most wheel chairs are, would they be able to support our friendly concrete dude or would they crumple like a crumply thing? The other problem is the severe lack of colour in his outfit, no pink granite or any real variety simply dark grey clothes perfectly matching skin tone.

(original image source)

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Fri, 29 Jun 2007

I wonder what we can dream up for xkcd - 17:16
A while back I wondered if xkcd should do a strip about the reaction of a hard core geek when they first learn of the existence of xkcd, how the person in question disappears for a number of hours not to surface until they have read the entire archive. I think it is a bit self referential to ever actually be in a strip though.

The rather interesting post the other day I read critiquing the art in various online comic strips pointed out how xkcd is not at all worth commenting on re art as it is not about that, also it pointed out that UserFriendly also is not about art, both are simply geek cliques or something. He may have a point, though I have to say in the case of xkcd especially it really does not matter as the content is so brilliantly funny to geeks it rally appeals. A counter to that is the point that it goes completely over the heads of most people. I tried showing xkcd to my sister a while back and she simply did not see the humour.

Anyway my latest idea for an xkcd, with thanks to DanielS for providing the source material (his apartment in Helsinki flooded) that lead to the idea. Wouldn't it be fantastic to have the floors in your house freeze over with ice and you could ice skate around your apartment.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 30 May 2007

Catholic Explosion - 16:45
So what would happen if you got a Pope and an Antipope together?

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 22 May 2007

Almost the same to where this category came from - 15:28
I had not thought of this last time I read this xkcd strip, however the concept there is almost the same as the one I got the category name for silliness from ilmiwac (with update) though with Knuth rather than Frank the vet.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 16 May 2007

There is an obvious reason for the naming - 22:21
I got to wondering why the pope is always called something like Benedict, John Paul, Innocent, Clement, etc. It seems so obvious they should at least once choose a name that rhymes nicely with Rope, however I had a quick look for names that may infact rhyme and it does become more obvious, the majority of names are from some heathen (Greek mythology) source, those that are not (Lope for example) are too obvious a rhyme, you could not in all seriousness call him Pope Lope after all. It is a shame really this lack of appropriate names for the Papal person, I guess they may have to stick with established tradition after all, just for a change.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Thu, 03 May 2007

Careful how you bend me - 14:14
The battery on my bicycle is flat, the light will not work, oh no I may not be able to start the bike now. What will I do, maybe I had better ride it home an charge the battery. I guess this could have been viewed as a problem riding back from somewhere else (as opposed to riding in circles in the dark in one place) last night when I kept flashing people with what little power was left.

Heck that almost brings us into the realms of more silly super powers, what is your super power? Well see I can flash people. That is not a power, simply the behaviour of drunk uni students... or is it? Of course this may bring us to something along the lines of a recent post with the song quote "Funny girls on the T.V Shows, Close your eyes and they turn to snow." that I heard a few minutes ago. Oh my god, watching comedy on tv, if we close our eyes the funny women turn to flakes of frozen water. What ever will we do to avoid our "comediennes" coming over all frosty?

Of course if the funny girls happen to have the above mentioned super power and put it to use while making the males in the audience laugh there will be far less chance of them turning to snow, they always said sex sells but in this instance it may also ensure we are not lining the pockets of the snow making industry through the sacrifice of female comedians. Wondering as we were about not much power being left, or running out of power, what is it that you do to recharge this super power, this ability to flash people. Unlike the battery on which the green lantern recharges, there must be some other way in which to recharge this super power. My suspicion is it involves copious amounts of beer.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 30 Jan 2007

Swans of different nations - 14:25
Over the past few weeks I have been having an ongoing discussion with some friends about what Swans are probably saying about us as we kayak past them. Fairly often while Kayaking on the lake in Canberra we go within a metre or two of a swan or a group of Swans.

The Swans here probably yell out something along the lines of "Look out mates there is another bloody kayaker about to barge through". I suggest that due to being Australians swans they are indeed quite likely to use swearing in every day conversation even though they are not too upset and tend to stay right where they are not even moving too far as we come through a group of them.

I then extended the idea further suggesting British swans are probably far more civilised and proper saying to each other something along the lines of "Look out there chaps I see another kayaker is on their way through" as we paddle near them. One of my friends I was having this discussion with pointed out it really would depend where the swans are from in the UK as to their level of politeness. After all inner city London street tough swans (say from a small lake in Hyde Park) may be less polite and proper than some from some idyllic country English setting.

Heck for all we know the swans in Stratford Upon Avon get all Shakespearean on us and speak with thee, and yonder, and sit around composing sonnets in between being interrupted by Kayakers. Of course this is just in the English speaking areas where swans congregate. There are probably similar differences with swans in other places such as Germany. It has been suggested the swans in Hamburg are far more polite than those in Munich.

The Hamburg swans may be heard saying something along the lines of "Moin moin freunde! Seid ihr alle da? Viel spaß und einen schönen Tag noch." whereas the less friendly more abrupt swans in Munich may say "Gruß Gott und HImmel Arsch!"

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 23 Jan 2007

Does the fridge light stay on? - 21:40
Hah I solved it, see cameras now days often have timers. So what you do is disable the flash, set the timer on the camera and place it in the fridge. Then close the fridge door.

Sometime later come back and remove the camera from the fridge. Then look at the photo, we will finally have proof of whether the fridge light stays on or not when the door is closed, this works well for small fridges, for larger fridges you can still climb in and see for your self I guess (though it may be easier to remove all the food and shelving first, thus the camera experiment should be easier).

Who needs all that engineering and circuit diagrams for fridges claiming anything about the state of the fridge light at certain times when you can do simple experiments like this. Well done to modern cameras and timers I say. I leave the experiment as an exercise to the reader. I wonder if the camera fingerprint will still be in evidence in such a shot?

Of course there is another issue that could be looked into here, what are the Schroedinger effects here, what is the state of the fridge light, the camera, the photo, the digital finger print, etc if you never open the fridge. I postulate the photo will be of live unicorns.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Mon, 22 Jan 2007

Testing the 1 Million Monkey theory it applies to mutant grass - 13:48

Starting the Genetic Grass Monkey tests (fullsize) 		I was out riding in Canberra yesterday for a while and I noticed it is good to see the government is obviously testing some scientific theories for Australia Day. On regatta point is this example of the question regarding the length of time it would take 1 Million Monkeys planting 1 Million strains of genetically modified grass to grow an Australian flag and appropriate Australia day message in the ground.

My only real problem is I do not know when they started the testing so I really do not know how long it took or how many strains of GM grass the monkeys had to use before this came out. I had better write to the government and ask them when they started their Genetic Grass Monkey test program.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 16 Jan 2007

Squirrels not allowed to ski uphill - 10:27

Please to be stopping the squirrel on skis (fullsize) 		Last night on a train coming back to my sister's place from Bondi I noticed a sign among the banned signs on the wall that I would swear suggests squirrels are not allowed to ski uphill here, or it says squirrels are not allowed to smoke through their feet. The banned sign to the left of the no smoking sign. Good to see city rail's graphic designers seem more interested in fancy stylised designs than making their warnings clear.

Of course I may just be showing off how blind I am, combining this with the ANU moose sign the other day.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 10 Jan 2007

Rocky watch me pull a moose out of my university - 20:40

The Moose Sign at ANU (fullsize) 		From I distance I could have sworn this was a sign with a moose head and a cross through it. It was somewhat disappointing when I got closer and I realised it was some sign saying no busses or trucks past this point. It really would be far more interesting if the ANU had no Moose signs up around this Australian educational institution.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Mon, 08 Jan 2007

A list of 2007 predictions to schonfinkel favour with... uh, people like me. - 18:39
January: The governator (Arnold of California) puts out a press release to encourage the use of the nickname "The Governator" in the hopes the nickname "Arnie" will no longer be used and thus decrease confusion for Ani Difranco fans.

February: After the success of the 2007 Australian Mountain Bike Nationals in January the federal government announces all government backing and funding for the Rugby Codes, AFL, Cricket, Golf and Motor Sports would be cut to enable further funding and attention for mountain bike trails and access nation wide.

March: More weekends are discovered in the edges of March to enable people who already have events to compete in every weekend a bit of a break... or more time to do events alloted on the newly discovered weekends.

April: Fafblog returns after the huge break and puts out a huge back log of posts and resumes daily posting.

May: Arnotts announce the release of the Tofurkey flavoured Tim Tam, much use of the term Tofurkey all over the place ensues. (so sue me the name still makes me giggle)

June: Underwear Pirates Ltd announce they have turned a profit.

July: Freak snow storms in Canberra enable us to use Cross Country Skiing as our major form of transport around the city, the novelty of this much snow is definitely there for Australians, though some of the Sweedes or other northerners living in Canberra tell us it gets old fast.

August: Anti Counting Crows protesters attempt to blow up the planet to put a lie to the album title August and Everything After. Fortunately they fail, everything will still be there after August.

September: Jude Law and Ewan McGregor move back into the same residence and strangely are joined by Peter Wingfield, the trio announce the forming of a Boy Band, largely to mess with people's heads.

October: Cadel Evans rocks up to the Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race in Canberra at Mt Stromlo to compete after winning the Tour de France in July he convinced his sponsors to let him do some fun mountain bike races too.

November: The portmanteau Movember is combined with another November observance NaNoWriMo with the aim of finding which writers would have been the most competitive entrants in the World Beard and Moustache Championships 2007 a few months earlier had they entered.

December: I continually fail to have any blogthenticity going another full year with no photos of my (non existent) cats on this diary.

For anyone who wonders what the heck the title is about there may be some hints in Combinatory Logic but it is a pretty lame joke (and could only ever appeal to a math or computer languages geek).

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Sun, 21 May 2006

Some things I did not do today - 22:13

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 16 May 2006

What is here? - 17:31
I am here now, I was not here from Thursday afternoon until Monday night. Of course how can anyone really tell if I am making this up? I may not be here at all, just a keyboard by itself doing the one million monkeys thing! Spoooooooky!

Of course this is the Internet, well I think it is, otherwise this is some strange collective unconscious thing happening and we are indeed all eating fruit in a cave instead of participating in a vast global network of computers and people.

So assuming for a moment (we experience reality as it happens so who knows what we will see or need to assume in the next moment) that this is the Internets. What is here? For all those Internet addicted geeks who already had the T1 wired into their brains they may always be here. For everyone else you could argue not being here is one of those rare instances with no net connection. Of course how do you know when some random Internet user is connected, and thus here? It is almost like trees falling in the forest, if no one is connected to the Internet, does the Internet exist? and is there anyone on the Internet?

For all this there does seem to be a problem somewhere, whoever it is that makes the falling trees silent in the forest has stopped reading Fafblog as there has been nothing there since early April. Or maybe Chris locked Fafnir, Giblets and the Medium lobster in the basement, man wont Giblets be angry when they get out.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 19 Apr 2006

Odie Day - 12:05
What are we going to do today Garfield?
Chase parked cars and slobber like you do every day Odie!

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 22 Feb 2006

Crossing the streams - 09:21
At a supermarket the other day I discovered Latte flavoured Tim Tams, as everyone (in Australia at least) knows Tim Tams are the world's best Chocolate biscuit. However this Latte flavour could be dangerous, there are to potential reasons for this. 1) Combining the Coffee addiction and the Chocolate addiction, who knows where it will end, we may all begin overdosing on these wondrous new tim tams soon. 2) If you are in the habit of having a Tim Tam Explosion, using Tea what will happen when you cross the streams, Tea causing the Latte explosion, anything could happen.

As a sacrifice to science I will endeavour to research this and learn to the best of my ability what will happen, I may be gone for some time.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 29 Nov 2005

One Week - 14:02
You are most welcome to sing this entry to the tune of One Week (video) by Bare Naked Ladies (if ever there was a NSFW sounding band name that is it). though I do not know how much it will help.

I saw someone else doing this detailed diary of a week thing, everything you see on the Internets (or if you must wikipedia link) should be copied I thought I would give it a try. (thanks to the fun that is using a proleptic gregorian calendar I am pretty sure the days below are correct for those dates)

Monday May 13 150 BCE, Sittin' around discussin' with Ishvara what name would be good for the son or daughter of god in the Christian religion in a century or two, a few possible names such as Trevor, Cathy, George, Kylie, Rick, Neil or Gwendolyn come to mind, but we do not worry much as no one has to decide for more than a century yet.

Tuesday April 1 2036 CE, One joke someone tried today was suggesting Unix Time would overflow almost 2 years early due to the f00f bug, however this being somewhat geeky other themes proved more popular.

Wednesday February 21 3120 BCE, Someone opened the first Mcdonalds franchise on Christmas Island today, not much media coverage, and due to the lack of people living there they have not sold many big macs since they opened, this may explain why the crabs do not tend to be overweight, though I am not really sure about that.

Thursday July 28 1932 CE, Trying to find a milk carton to do a late Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging post I am once more stumped by the fact the milk carton has not yet been invented, hurry up you lazy swedes and invent the milk carton, I don't have all day to sit around waiting for a milk carton.

Friday December 2 2005 CE, that is still a few days away, how am I supposed to know what I will be doing, silly.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Wed, 23 Nov 2005

This cause and effect may give the kooks a pause - 22:22
Sure I almost said this may cause them a pause for a thought, but then I remembered how unlikely it is that a thought has ever really entered their head rather than just passed through as a repeater for kook radio. However stop for a second and imagine, what if those people (kooks, interchangeable term) who think some $DEITY placed all life on earth at some given point not too long ago are correct, and evolution and all that are all just a big giggle.

Now I know this is hard to accept, but you will need to suspend disbelief just a little bit further, thus accepting that first idea may make this next one more palatable. Assume for a second all these miraculously created people were not religiously inclined loonies salivating over small children or hiding away in some abode of worship, imagine for a second one or two of them had sex, you because it feels good, or it was something to do of an afternoon.

What the hell did they think when the effects started to appear, otherwise known as childbirth. With no period experience, due to evolution, when the female started to increase in girth and have all associated issues, what was going through their heads. How many years did it take them to correlate the sex with the child birth, they may not even appear to be related at all, and with the religious mind seeming all intent on banning all forms of reasonable science anyone suggesting the two (sex and childbirth) were related was probably burned at the stake. Then when pregnancy reaches its culmination, all the pain and weird things going on, followed by the appearance of a little human. Heck the religious mind may even take this as some form of exorcism, thousands of women and newly born children were probably put to death. $DEITY may have needed to intervene at some point to put a stop to the silliness.

Getting back to reality I think we should be glad of evidence and observances as we and other animals evolved to keep current reality of how the species propagates understood by the practitioners (in this case the practitioners being all of us).

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Mon, 07 Nov 2005

What is it with Holbrook. - 22:15
Driving through Holbrook the other day got me to thinking what I am sure is on the FAQ list for the town. What is a submarine doing in a country NSW town no where near the coast? Sure some people have attempted to come up with a reasonable answer, something about renaming it from Germantown during WWW1 and choosing a submarine war hero and maintaining a link to submarines over the years. But really who is ever going to believe that. Obviously not the townsfolk or the council, on the FAQ and the council page about about Holbrook there is nary a mention of the submarine.

Can the people living there even see the submarine in the park there? When a visitor asks them about the submarine in the town do they look at said questioner in askance, What submarine? I can not see anything like that and I think it may be a bit hard to hide one in the park there. Maybe the submarine is sort of like a submarine patent, and no one could see the submarine, or the town (after all there is a sign on the highway claiming it is the submarine town) until the day when some other town elsewhere claimed to be a submarine town, and hey presto Holbrook appeared and pointed out an established history since a name change in 1915.

Of course there could be another reason for the submarine, kind of like a nuclear bunker but this one is for the town council in case of floods. No one will even know they left as the submarine will be able to sneak away under the water, it will just be Noah, a bunch of animals and the Holbrook town council.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Tue, 25 Oct 2005

Footpaths out to "get you" - 21:59
So I hear you wonder what does this yonder footpath upon which you may wander have to do with a complete understanding of yourself. Who knows, but I have to say the footpaths are not telling me anything. They just sit there all cememnty and solid keeping their secrets. I stop walking for a minute and ask the footpath "How's things Mr Footpath?" (This may be seen as sexist but I lost my book on footpath sexing so really have no idea how to work out what gender a given footpath may be so Mr it will have to be). You know what? the footpath doesn't even answer me.

I mean it could help us out so much if it did, a footpath is surely a useful source of information, I may in fact have been walking on the next Einstein of the footpath world. It would have saved us years of study if the footpath had told us putting our children on a diet of happy pills wont make them happy, instead scientists have spent years and untold monies trying to find out why drugging children up to their eyes with happy pills does not create happy bouncy children.

You know, maybe the footpath has a secret, it may know who stole this duck and is keeping quiet to protect the perpetrator. Hah I say, the duck stealing fiend has been foiled, the show must go on, and it did, the duck's understudy got quacking and was up on stage in no time.

There it sits staying silent and solid, it may indeed get you, it is after all a good listener, with nary a whisper of what it has heard repeated theron.

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Thu, 13 Oct 2005

Are the cakes surreal today? - 16:53
When you see a surreal cake, you know what I mean, something that looks suspiciously like a vacuum cleaner, that is infact an edible slab of chocolate spongy goodness, swinging through the trees in your local library. Do you ever think to yourself, I wonder who bakes those cakes, or does this sight only make you hungry?

If you do sit around pondering the identities and habits of those artisans of Daliesque though never fear I will not reveal the answers to any of what you wonder, you are most welcome to continue sitting there as long as you wish.

Lots of people have been known to use colloquial phrases such as "as dumb as a box of hammers" or "as queer as a three dollar bill" however there are some variations. "As queer as a one or two dollar bill" may indicate the speaker belongs within the box of hammers genome for example. If you look around there are more interesting examples of these colloquial terms anyway. "As queer as a football bat", "As queer as a bottle of chips", "As queer as a screen door on a submarine", "As queer as a lemonade sandwich". All of these are of course variations on As camp as a row of tents though with a more American bent.

All you need to do is think up something that is rather obviously strange or unusual, put it after "As queer as" and you will be able to start your own americanised homophobic colloquialism production business. This is surely going to be far more profitable than selling underpants.

If you are however keen to see bats used in football (either the black flying rodent like creatures or the sports person's arm extension) I have to ask why the heck not? They use them in ice hockey and the violence of that sport attracts fans everywhere, if you used bats in football the game would be more violent and thus attract much larger crowds, after all everyone loves to crowd around a train wreck out of some ghoulish fascination. Letting some prejudice show, if the increased level of violence manages to kill off a few more AFL, RL, RU or NFL style footy heads the world will be a better place anyway.

If on the other hand black flying rodents become a common part of the average game of football, those Daliesque chocolate spongy vacuum cleaners flying through the library will no longer be so surreal after all.

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Thu, 29 Sep 2005

No inspiration? - 21:51
So many blogs have one of those posts, the post that starts off with "I have no idea what to blog about" and pretty much ends there. This is probably one of those posts. I have no idea what to write, or should I even write something? No inspiration, I obviously need a source of inspiration, where art thou inspiration?

I could go wabbit^Winspiration hunting but where would I begin to look, maybe I had better hope inspiration comes from some external source, like say alien abduction. Who knows it could happen, though if it does, I hope it is some cute fluffy little aliens, cute fluffy friendly little aliens, not big scary aliens. Big scary aliens would be a bad source of inspiration, you would be sitting there all quaking in your boots... assuming of course you are wearing boots? Who knows you may be wearing slippers, or pumps, or spd sandals. Okay so for the sake of argument, you are sitting there quaking in your spd sandals while the big scary alien is scaring you. After all that is what big scary aliens do isn't it.

After all if the alien was sitting there with a tea service and scones it would be a big tea and scones alien and not a big scary alien. Anyway you obviously wont get inspiration from the big scary alien, nor for that matter would you get any from the tea and scones alien, what with it being too busy with its tea and scones to do any inspirin'. So it is obvious really why it has to be cute fluffy aliens that sit around giving inspiration. They could give you all sorts of inspiration, you could write blog posts about bunny rabbits, and harmless little kittens, maybe even the harmless cute fluffy aliens could be the focus of your newly inspired blog post.

But really how likely is any of that, maybe I had better face facts, I can think of nothing to write about, I hope my poor little blog does not have to be put down or anything because of it. Ignoring for a minute how difficult it is to put down some virtual object, just think about it, if you have a piece of paper, or a pen or a gherkin. You could put it down on that table (assuming you are near a table, rather than the camel you are probably closer to, in which case you would need to put it down on the camel). How do you hold some virtual object in order to put it down?

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Tue, 27 Sep 2005

The sheep are scared, what's next Brain? - 15:10
Riding out in the country today, along a bitumen road, 20 metres from fenced in paddocks full of sheep. It would appear the sheep have sufficient distance from me that they would not be afraid. One would think they may even be brave enough to come close to the fence and taunt me as I ride past. Insults and taunts such as "Baah Baaaaah Bah Bah Baaaah" or the rather cruel "Bah Bah Baaah Baaaaaaaaah Bah Baaah", none of this happened though. Instead the sheep ran further away from the fences on both sides of the road as I rode past.

Woohoo I instill such fear that even the sheep are running scared, next step either Profit or World Domination (heck why not both). Ignoring for a moment any other interpretations of scared sheep.

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Sun, 25 Sep 2005

I Wonder - 19:00
Could this be shorter?

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Sat, 17 Sep 2005

How can you tell if you are as camp as a row of tents? - 22:15
It appears, if the title is anything to go by I am in search of some really bad colloquialisms, or maybe I just need to get in touch with my own raging homophobe. One possible response to the question I heard is "You have had a few pegs in the wrong places". If I were serious at this point you would expect me to be donning my white pointed hat and robes or taking up a position in the US Republican party (if they are not already synonymous?)

In answer to the question I could just link to the James Dobson's notes on detecting if your Son is gay (actually I can't as it appears the original article has disappeared, however Fafblog and the Apostropher to which I linked said it all much better) and suggest that my work here is done, there is however the small problem of that document being impossible to read with a straight face. Ahh yes if the gaydar pings wildly in the presence of your male offspring (notice of course in this obviously male centric world there is no questions raised about the female offspring) you must rush out and cure them of this abomination in front of Alanis^Wyour $DEITY.

But I hear you ask, given the option to choose your own $DEITY, what reason is there to be upset here, after all you may worship at the church of Big Gay Al's Big Gay Animal Sanctuary, or any manner of fun loving and sensible (or not) house of worship. Indeed it is even written down in a few places that it is a good idea to allow people to choose their own religion (and have free speech and a bunch of other stuff). If we go ahead and let people choose something, rather than insisting on a prescribed text it would be folly to get upset over something as unimportant as someone having a slightly different sexual orientation to the so called norm. Wouldn't it?

I probably only wrote this post because I cracked up upon hearing the expression used in the title, ahh well.

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Wed, 14 Sep 2005

Ode to talkative cereal - 12:42
Yeah that cereal, the little one in the corner that looks like puffed rice, not the serial in the place with long sleeved white jackets who would like to be on the loose and armed. The little puffed rice'esque cereal, that may in fact not be puffed rice at all. Who knows it may be a weet bix (ahh the joy of English, where the plural of Weet Bix is Weet Bix) or a Pterydactal (a lesser known form of breakfast cereal dating from some 80 million years ago, this breakfast cereal looks remarkably like a large flying lizard, do not let it fool you though, it tasted great with a bit of milk).

Anyway while chatting with my breakfast cereal this morning, discussing the vagaries of economic rationalism as it is applied to pasta sauce purchases ("what if god wanted pasta sauce" sung to the tune of the Joan Osborne song) made by converts to the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster it got me to wondering, if I post something here, when you take into account my ability to Tipo, is anything written here intended to was some other message supposed to appear out of the mess that are these posts?

Just think, if we could combine dyslexia (bringing to mind the buttload quote "I am dyslexic of borg prepare to have your ass laminated") with Typos and apply this behaviour to many bloggers around the world, maybe they do not all write about their cats but are instead writing insightful posts into the modern world in which we live. Then again maybe not.

What to believe about the posts appearing on blogs around the world may possibly be influenced by other things, such as people adding the music they are currently listening to on the end of their posts. Why we need to know this is beyond me, though if they post about Alternative Rock how do we know they are not looking at another rock?

Alternative rock is the name given to one stone when you're looking at another stone. The term was coined by photographer Edwin Blastocyst when looking at one stone and speaking about another

After all this, how do you really know this train of thought arose while talking with a rather insightful rice cripsie? If I was not talking to my bowl full of bacon and eggs on toast with fresh milk poured upon it what was it that really sparked this post? Maybe it was simply more adventures in searching for blogthenticity. After all, the other day in an interview Heather was seen to suggest

if someone is just yakking about their cereal and how many errands they have to run and here they are living their life and describing it in the most banal way possible then it doesn't matter if it's the best looking site I've ever seen, I probably won't go back.

if I can not talk about my breakfast, I had better find something interesting to talk to my breakfast about, and the realities of pasta sauce in the modern world is as good a topic as any.

Mmmmm ... cows.

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Tue, 06 Sep 2005

How exactly does one go about "Watching the sausage"? - 21:24
So I freely admit, Fafblog is pretty neat, in theory we all may be Fafnir, however irrelevant of our status as Fafnir I would recommend reading Fafblog.

I do need to ask one eensy weensy question though, no not "Giblets: Are you a big girly man?", instead I feel the need to ask, how exactly does one go about "Watching the sausage"? And what exactly do you get out of watching this tubular meat product?

As a small experiment, lets try it out shall we?

A Sausage
(zoom)

So what is the above Sausage doing for you? Does it incite you to riot? Are you sitting there planning a bbq that was not on your social calendar until your eyes alighted on the tubular meat product? Will this pair of sausages have meaningful insights on the problems faced by your political party of choice?

Should we simply sit around watching the Sausage or should we compose some questions for the sausage, stage a sort of Sausage interview if you will.

So Mr Sausage, how about dem Bulls?

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Get some blogthenticity! - 21:23
Given that this is supposedly a blog I had better do something to ensure you all believe that it is indeed a blog. Ahh but what I hear you ask gives a blog that oh so necessary street cred? Ahh of course, photos of cats are on all blogs everywhere, that must mean something, I had better do something about that fast.

Schroedinger's Cat
(zoom)
There, that may or may not be a photo of my cat ready for posting to Mongolia or simply wondering how to play alive and dead all at once.

There we go, back to our regularly scheduled adventures in belly button fluff.

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