Thursday, February 25, 2010

Pardon my pedantry but ...

Shouldn't it technically be DON'TabortSA.com?
I mean, far be it from me to help out some already-beyond-help, right wing, lip-twiddlin', cousin-fiddlin' nut jobs, but if they are against abortion, shouldn't they effectively avoid a party name that directly suggests that they are in favour of RU-486ing the entire state?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

If you could just reassure me that I'm not crazy

Doesn't everyone give the two-fingered Jedi command-wave as they approach automatic doors?

For those lucky ones who missed out last time ...


If any of you four loyal readers (Shippy, River, Kath, Jono) buy it, I will sign it! Any name you like. Then you will be able to produce this little tome at future parties and your guests will wonder at just how you managed to get Fidel Castro to sign an Australian children's book!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Bewbs

I know I've probably brought this up a few too many times, but it bears repeating: theage.com.au, the website of one of the more respected broadsheets in the country, cannot seem to stop posting pictures of scantily-clad women. And it's becoming more shameless.
A survey of women about breastfeeding in public on their "catering to bored mums" site essentialbaby.com.au (as opposed to ... the other kind? The expendable, non-essential tykes?) ran with the title "Breastfeeding in public: do you?" and this picture:



Fair enough? Sure. Breastfeeding. No problem.
The
link to this survey from another page contained a little image with it, you know: to catch the eye and illustrate the nature of story.

This image, of course:


Did you even read the last few sentences?

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Entrepreneur Man Strikes!

I'm selling 2 tickets to Kangaroo Island and a TV.
Tell me you've seen a better non-Chuck Norris-related eBay listing and I still won't believe you.

Tell me you've seen a wackier question for an eBay seller and I'd love to see it. I really did get asked this, just scroll down the bottom of the listing:

"where is Kangaroo island?"


Actually, I can even tell you about it a wackier question. Actually, it was more of a conversation. I was telling someone about selling these tickets to Kangaroo Island, and the wacky questions I get about it (another was "Does this trip depart from melbourne, or another city/state?"). I went on to intimate that although I would mock these individuals in private (er, and on a non-linked blog), for having access to the internet, and yet being unaware of it's knowledge gathering capabilities, I actually went and visited Wikipedia and SeaLink online to confirm my sources (as far as that is possible). In visiting Wikipedia's entry on Kangaroo Island, I discovered that it is Australia's third largest island, behind Tasmania and a place called Melville Island in the Northern Territory. I relayed this to my audience, to which they responded:

X-:
Well it is the largest island in Australia.
Me: Actually, third largest!
X-: What's the first?
Me: Tasmania.
X-: That's not an island, it's a state.
Me: Is it surrounded by water?
X-: Yeah.
Me: It's an island.
X-: It's a state.
Me: A state and an island are two different things.
X-: Whatever you say!

This was a real conversation.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Yeah yeah, Poor David Kiely


Can we please stop pretending that Miranda Kerr doesn't look like a twelve-year-old? Power to her, go be a model, make your money, girl, razzle dizzle. But really, this little blogger has had enough. There's something a bit off here.






Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Parenting is what you blog about when your life ain't that interesting Pt 2

Monday morning - Mele's turn - 7:45 am
Tuesday morning - Franzy's turn - 7:15 am
Wednesday morning Mele's turn - 8:00 am
Thursday morning - Franzy's turn - 6:50 am

Notice a pattern?

Tomorrow morning - Franzy will get shooshed on his way to work for waking the baby.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Parenting is what you blog about when your life ain't that interesting

But seriously, parenting is great.
Now when you sleep-in, and wake up normally instead of being cooed awake from the next room, your first thought isn't "What a great lie-in", it's "Is he dead?"
Very relaxing.

Monday, February 1, 2010

I'm tryin!

In fact, we're all so busy that I've discovered a new measure of 'busy-ness': pee smell.
More and more lately, I've been noticing that my pee smells like fragrant tomato paste. I don't have some weird disease - it's because the more stuff Mele and I have to do, the more often we resort to one-pot wonders such as:
  • Pasta sauce
  • Chicken Provincale
  • Anything where you cook all the ingrediants in a single cauldren with spices because the prep is reduced to shop, chop and heat.
The upshot is that because we're cooking all these things in a single pot, we tend to use onions, tomatos and herbs as a base and hence, when I'm taking toilet breaks in between machine-gunning the office around me with speed, efficiency and a dry wit, my pee smells like meaty pasta sauce.

Or maybe I should just see a doctor ...

An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test

Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.

Have you heard of the band Joy Division?

Chinese food, not Chinese Internet!

Champions of Guess The Header

  • What is Guess The Header about? Let’s ask regular “Writing” reader, Shippy: "Anyway, after Franzy's stunning September, and having a crack at 'Guess The Header' for the first time - without truly knowing what I was doing mind you - I think I finally understand what 'GTH' is all about. At first I thought you needed to actually know what it was. Don't get me wrong — if you know what it is, it may help you. I now realise that it's more Franzy's way of invoking thought around an image or, more often than not, part of an image. If you dissect slightly the GTH explanatory sentence at the bottom of his blog you come up with this: “The photo is always taken by me and always connects in some way to the topic of the blog entry it heads up.” When the header is put up, the blog below it will in some obscure way have something to do with it. “Interesting comments are judged and scored arbitrarily and the process is open to corruption and bribery with all correspondence being entered into after the fact and on into eternity, ad infinitum amen.” Franzy judges it, but it's not always the GTH that describes the place perfectly that gets it. “The frequent commenters, the wits, the wags and the outright smartarses who, each entry, engage to both guess the origin and relevance of the strip of photo at the top (or “head”) of each new blog and also who leave what I deem the most interesting comment.” It generally helps if you're a complete smartarse and can twist things to mean whatever you feel they should mean - exactly the way Franzy would like things to be twisted." - Shippy Blogger and GTH point scorer.
  • Nai - 1
  • Lion Kinsman - 2
  • Will - 2
  • Brocky - 2
  • Andy Pants - 2
  • The 327th Male - 3
  • Mad Cat Lady - 3
  • Miles McClagen - 4
  • Myninjacockle - 4
  • Asheligh - 5
  • Neil - 5
  • Third Cat - 5
  • Adam Y - 6
  • Squib - 6
  • Mele - 6
  • Moifey - 7
  • Jono - 8
  • The Other, other Sam - 14
  • Kath Lockett - 15
  • Shippy - 19
  • River - 32