Yes it takes that long. No we can't do it ourselves.

My personal hero Kath quit her job this week.

In an unrelated story, at my own workplace, I was arranging to send some students some important letters. Instead of using modern technology to print the letters and send them, we are now required to send them to another department whose responsibility it is to change the font and re-format the letters before they are sent out so that the letters have a different font and are reformatted. No other changes are made, nor required.

Please refrain at this point from pointing out any inefficiencies in this process.

Three days later, I received the letters back before they were sent to the in-house printers instead of being printed by the printer next to my desk.

When I sent the letters, the first line read

"This is to certify that John Smith of 10 Jones St, Smythtown has done a course ..."

When I received the letters back, the first line read

"This is to certify that John Smith, 10 Jones St, Smythtown has done a course ..."

Did you spot the difference?
I did.
I wrote back:

"Looks like somehow the font-changing process has removed a word, changing the meaning of the letter from a statement confirming that a person residing at an address has done a course into a statement meaning that somehow a person, a street address and a suburb have all somehow done a course.
Obviously a grievous error has occurred.
Please change it back as these letters are only for specific people and not entire streets or suburbs for that matter."

The reply came within the minute:

"I made the decision to remove the “of” as it does not not read correctly. "

See what you're missing, Kath?

I feel sorry for the leprechaun peddling

Last Xmas I got a remote controlled helicopter. I was the king of the world because I could fly it around the pole in the kitchen (mostly) without hitting Mele and making her angry.

This Xmas, Charlie has learnt a new word 'eeCop', which is a Germanically efficient way of saying "Show me some helicopter videos or a real helicopter or I'm going to scream until I get a collapsed lung"

So I got on uuChuuB.

Turns out I'm not practising enough.



Seeing as I'm breaking my oft-held rule about not just re-posting videos I find, I may as well also report the best comment from that site: "He's a Witch i tell ya! WITCH!"

Combine the two and "Jingle Bells" takes on new meaning

The League has new staff cars!

They're like those car testicles, yet somehow even more brainless. Although maybe not in the country where "Red Hot Summer Deals" are advertised on deep orange backgrounds with un-melted snowflakes drifting around.

"And then I dropped a stitch!"

Take two people who are intelligent, witty and outgoing. Both can tell an amusing story to a crowd with ease and have everyone laughing. Both can conjure up quips and one-liners on the run in a conversation by reading the situation and understanding the rules of humour and good timing.
One is male and one is female.

Why is the male then referred to, and remembered as, "a funny guy", and the female is always "Crazy!"?

I know the answer, it's a rhetorical question: it's because we still, as a society, fear and mistrust intelligent, outgoing females. Look at the etymology of the word "hysterical". Essentially, having a womb was thought to make you insane. This meant that hysterectomies were originally performed to treat female insanity - which itself was a very wide umbrella.

By the early 20th Century, women were allowed to use this word for "crazy" for occasions which were "funny". This was becoming necessary because as (white) women were slowly being allowed to vote and drive, this put them within earshot and they would, inevitably, do this "laughing" thing.
So "hysterical" needed to remain in broad use because it was difficult to tell whether a woman was laughing because she had heard a joke about about washing or embroidery or some such or if it was because she was just crazy as clown-shit and needed her womb removed.
Obviously, being too simple to actually be involved in the sophisticated world of adult male humour, women were not performing the same action as men when something was amusing. The very thought! Thus was the modern usage of "hysterical" born (there's some of that sophisticated male humour we were just discussing).

So remember girls, next time you're laughing at something, be careful, or you'll find yourself straight-jacketed and organ-robbed quicker than you can say 'bum-trumpet'.

And remember, everyone else: next time you think fondly about a female who you find witty and outgoing, are you thinking of her as "funny" or "just so crazy!"

At least none were stuck together

You know those delightful little urban myths that occasionally happen in real life? The hope for little miracles upon which Antiques Roadshow is based, where some innocent is happily browsing a bookstore or Seconde Hande Shoppe and comes across a quaint little trinket which just happens to be worth millions.

[Actually, I take that back about Antiques Roadshow. Its success is based on the audience's hope that Old Lord and Lady Picklenose will present their supposedly priceless Faberge eggs only to be told that these particular examples were a popular prize at fairgrounds during the 1970s. "Probably worth between 5 and 10 pound - to a collector" the expert will explain cheerfully while Sir Chumpbottom's greasy smile droops down around his tweed lapels.
Don't even try to deny that you've secretly shouted 'Sucked in, you greedy twerp!' when that happens. But I digress.]

My thing is old books. I love the way they smell, the cool old tooling covers, the quaint little drawings and poems inside along with the copperplate inscriptions and the exciting dates - if they have any. I know nothing about it, but I still love the feeling of treasure hunting when I go into second hand book stores, looking for either comics or a bargain.

So there I am, in Port Elliot, about twenty minutes away from raiding the famous bakery and scouring the shelves for something cool.

I come across this:


It really is a beautiful little item, about 8 by 10 inches. 1865. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the pages have long ago fallen out - it's just cover boards and title pages. Fortunately, it's full of old drawings and lithographs. Like this one:


And this one:


Nice, eh? Then there's a few different ones like this:


and, erm, this:


Now I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking "What marvellous drawings! What fine detail! I must see more!"
You're thinking that because that's what I was thinking too. Then I turned that drawing over and found, well, this:


No problem. Very artistic, right? Right. Artistic. Great composition, a wonderful example of early photography in the naturalistic form which ....



... ah, yes, see, this is also a fine example of, um, what's obviously a collection of artistic interpretations of the early twentieth century appreciation of femininity as exemplified by the emphasis on .....

R ... right.
Hrmm ... well that still doesn't mean that I haven't stumbled upon a grouping of art works which can be recognised as representative of an era famous for its lithography and the skill of its craftsmen and artists, many of whom were ...

Okay then. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe the collector just happened to have put all the racy ones at the front and kept the real groundbreaking artistic work at the ...


Nope. More naughties.
Okay, if the next one isn't sexy, then I definitely haven't stumbled upon some stone-aged secret spank book from a deceased estate.
Closing eyes, crossing fingers, turning page ... and it's ....

Oh.
Fucking great. Here I was, hoping to find a bargain first edition and here am, potentially handling the dried remains of millions of little 'first editions'. Gross.
Surely that's it.

Oh man. What is this stuff?
It looks like nuns were really the thing back then. I suppose they had to work out some way to spice things up - what with everything being taboo'n'shit. It's not like today with the internet and everything imaginable at the touch of a button. They probably didn't have a whole lot of weird fetishes or anything because it's not like ...



Does this book come with hand sanitiser?

Ferris! It's not working!

I'm angry at a book. You need to help me.

Go and find any teenagers you can and ask them:

1) Have you ever heard of 'clocking' a game?
and
2) What does 'clocking a game' mean?

I know. I'm 30. I've played games you could actually clock. Kids these days need to tell me if some author knows what she's talking about.

Ladies, turn away now

Figure this out:

Background: 23 months ago I started my first full-time job. Ongoing, secure future, benefits, super, the lot.
Downside?
It's an office job. I spend 8 hours a day sitting on my arse. When I get home I spend most of that time sitting down, studying.
Then Charlie turned up.
No time for the gym, no time for extended jogs - exercise is a very low priority, because now I think in terms of time. Constantly balancing the hours I spend away from Charlie and Mele with the hours I can possibly spend with them.
Summed up: I would rather spend the two hours after work before Charlie goes to bed with him than pounding the streets in search of fitness. And that's exactly what I do.
I haven't exercised regularly for two years. Hockey sort of counts, but it was once or twice a week and it's over now.

Problem: Just before I started the job I was riding 10kms a day or jogging. I weighed 82 kgs. Fast forward through 23 exercise-free months and how much do you think I weigh now?

Have a guess.

Go on.

Got your number?

Wrong.


I now weigh 72kgs.


How the fuck does that happen?

I think I know, but I will reveal the answers in the next post after we've had a few guesses from the floor...

***
UPDATE: Or maybe I'll just save my breath.