Like no other can

We were at a service station on the way home today and I bought a can of Coca-Cola. Two cans actually because they were on special - two for $6. I was planning to buy a can of drink, I just hadn't planned on a 500ml can - who ever knew there were cans larger than 375ml. So why did I buy the larger can? It looked so good - I think they must have used the Golden Ratio or something like it in the design of the cans, because they certainly hit the right visual note. Examples of the Golden Rule in nature - snailshells and sunflower seeds; in art - the Mona Lisa. The Golden Ratio is 1.618 (or thereabouts). Powerful figures indeed ... that could be why it's used so widely in the advertising industry.

Changing the formula

It doesn't seem like 24 years ago - but it is - that Coca-Cola replaced its traditional secret receipt with "New Coke" - which fell flat and had the company revert to the original recipe after sales declined. To paraphrase another logo ... when you're on a good thing (business-wise) ... stick to it.

Curiosity

I read something the other day about the Mars Curiosity Rover ... that, all alone on the Red Planet (as far as anyone would be aware), it had been programmed to sign "Happy Birthday" to itself once a year.  How sad!  But then it became just a little sadder.  Last week marked the Rover's fifth anniversary on Mars ... but there was no "Happy Birthday" this time ... in fact, there was only one "Happy Birthday" sung and that was back in 2013.  Why?  The report I saw quoted Florence Tan, the deputy chief technologist at NASA's Science Mission Directorate as saying (after she had said that "the answer to your [Marina Soren - the author of the article] questions will sound rather cold and unfeeling" ):  in a nutshell, there is no scientific gain from the Rover playing music or singing 'Happy Birthday' on Mars.  Marina Soren's comment in response:  In the battle betwen song and science, science always wins.   Why did it do that one time?  Well, in that case, it was to see if it could be done:  so ... Curiosity (Rover) won!

Memory

Is memory fickle, fragile or something else entirely?  At lunch yesterday, one of the guests was a retired teacher - who had taught at Rangeville State School back in the '60's.  That sounded a bit familiar ... and, sure enough, I had also been at Rangeville State School in the '60's  - as a student.  Our times there had not overlapped - we had missed each other by a couple of years ... but she asked an interesting question ... who was head of the school when I was there.  I told her I couldn't remember ... I can't remember any of those years with any clarity. The first teacher I can remember clearly was Mrs Tremble, who taught me during my first year at High School in Charters Towers.  Mrs Tremble used to send chalk home with me for my (by four years) younger brother.  The next teachers I can remember were at my next High School - a couple of years later - on the Gold Coast.  I can't remember lots of their names - and the memories of some of them are much clearer.  And it seems that might not be everyone's experience ... others at the table talked about how well they remembered their school years - even their primary school years - and their teachers.  How amazing would that be!

Imagination

Imagination is alive and well!  While the kids were playing on their tricycles this morning, one was making a call on his mobile phone (a toy one) to the other - who answered on his tennis ball.  The reason for the call:  When you will be home?  I guess that bit may not have been that imaginative at all and probably shows what today's 4-year-old boy thinks a mobile phone is for.  Gone are the old Star Trek days when a mobile phone could have been a space-age communicator!

Names of things

I wonder if this was intentional?  The Brand name for the toaster is VERO but you could be forgiven for thinking it is NERO ... does anyone else smell something burning?

Cutting the Mustard

"Cut the Mustard" - what does it mean? What are its origins? I have been pondering these questions since I saw the plastic squeezable bottle of mild American mustard on the morning tea table when I came in. How do you cut a liquid - but I think you do - cut whisky for example -which essentially means adding just the right amount of water (maybe ice). But where does "cut the mustard" come few? There is some suggestion that it might be about soldiers being mustered - and only the ones who passed muster were called on to fight - or about not being able to harvest (cut) mustard (plants). Or not being able to cut very tiny round mustard seeds. The general consensus is that if you can't cut the mustard, you can't make the grade, are somehow sub-par etc etc ... but what a funny way to say it.

Handwriting

Handwriting is on my mind at the moment ... I'm reading a novel (Last Writes) about a forensic handwriting analyst - and I have started following a blog where one of the key focus areas is handwriting and how to improve yours. It's quite interesting (both of them) - especially for someone who loves handwriting. One of the recommended exercises is filling out crossword puzzles neatly, or writing out your favourite quotes, and, of course, practice ... and lots of it. But it has to  be good practice - mindful of the implements you use, taking care to form each letter, and aiming for consistency. Also recommended - keeping (and dating) your practice sheets so you can come back to them later. The thing that strikes me about this advice is that it seems that the handwriting is an end product, more important than what is being communicated ... when "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." is one of the suggested practice exercises.
I wonder how Claudia Rose, handwriting expert, would cope with line after line of handwriting practice and what she would be able to tell about the writer ... their motivation ... state of mind. She's currently holed up in a sect hideaway looking for evidence of less-than-pure-of-heart converts as she seeks out an-about-to-be-three-year-old girl who is about to be given over to be "sacrificed" (not literally - or so we're being led to believe at this stage) into a subsect of the sect.
Meanwhile, closer to home, I'm wondering about the difference in writing - and if there is one - depending on whether writing is done digitally by typing, or through transcription Software, or by handwriting. Probably different input methods work best for different uses.  I prefer handwriting unless I'm in a hurry - or in a typing mood!

Quizzes

One of the "quizzes" doing the rounds on FaceBook at the moment is "Your Life Quote" - which is fairly easily arrived at.  You select the provided link, then "sign in with FaceBook" and it gives you a quote ... and, the good news is that if you don't like the quote you get .. you can go again (and possibly even  again and again and again) to see if you like that quote better!  I know I did!  But why would people believe that something as generic as FaceBook is (as it must be) could provide something of personal significance?  Who's your soulmate? Who makes you laugh the most? You get the idea.  And you know they can only take names from your FB friends, possibly even friends of friends, or from your contacts (if you've allowed access).  The whole idea intrigues me because I know (from my cyber-security friend) that you should never click on those links (they can be as dangerous as opening that email attachment) but I know I keep doing it!

Motivation?

We used to play Trivia regularly on a Monday night and while we often had some good scores, there was another team who often had great scores, only missing one or two answers some nights - other nights not doing so well at all.  In the end, after a change in format, and because the night dragged on for too long and various other reasons, we stopped going ... and have been trying to find the same trivia game at another venue.  I've sent emails to the company that supplies the trivia questions but they have not responded, and when I did ring their number, I was told person who managed the Trivia was out of the country.  But yesterday, quite by accident, we stumbled across a game - at the Nerang RSL.  We were having a late lunch and at some point I noticed what I thought were fairly familiar Trivia sheets ... and they were ... and Trev's Trivia Show.   And even though I recognised the sheets, Sooz did a better job ... recognising someone we knew from our old Trivia - none other than one member of the "performing incredibly well most of the time" team. Hmmm ... we thought ... hmmmm.  Could this be the secret of their success?  I suggested that it might be that they had stopped going to the Monday night Trivia and be coming here instead - and Sooz was inclined to agree until she made eye contact with the man in  question ... and he looked away (guiltily?).  What a turn-up that would be ... attending Trivia a day before so they could win the half-time game ($15 voucher), the full-time game ($50 meal voucher) and the Baffler (drink vouchers for the table)!  And here we were thinking they were just good at Trivia ... except for those nights when they weren't.  The question for me is why anyone would want to cheat at Trivia at all?  Surely the reason for playing is to see how well you do using your own resources? 

A mix of words and pictures

Once upon a time we had "mixtapes"  - a hand-made compilation of music (typically copyrighted songs taken from other sources - thank you Wikipedia) recorded in a specific order ... although with shuffle on an MP3 player these days, that's not always necessary.  Before we did it though, they were typically compiled by DJs in the 70s and 80s who "mixed" and recorded them onto cassette tapes - hence the name.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they had a less eclectic batch of songs - and possibly shorter - than on the mixtapes I currently have on my phone - which are running at 40, 41 and 55 tracks long.  I don't play the songs right through - sometimes just listening to the first few seconds of a song reminds me of where it's from and why I like it ... most of them are "favourites" because they remind me of people or places or ... sometimes something else which I can't quite describe, just evokes a particular feeling ... a bit like visual art.  There was one piece ... a painting ... I heard about recently where people would look at it - and start crying. It sounded to me like it had "E Flat" in it - and while that sounds a little out there, when you think that vision and hearing both relate to "waves", anything is possible!  And who knew there was at least one book about such things - James Elkins' "Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings".  Of course, art, in its many forms, has been making people cry for about as long as it's been around - and the "why" is the subject of much speculation and discussion ... and seriously worth a bit more consideration.  I remember someone saying once that an artist spends their life trying to create that perfect piece and then, if/when they do, trying to do it again.  You have to think that part of that drive must be left in the piece ... perhaps it's that which strikes a chord in the rest of us.

To remake or not to remake?

Why do they have to remake movies? I watched the remake of Poltergist today - possibly because of the clown news out of the U.S. (nothing to do with their Presidential race). Over the last few months there have been random (?) sightings of clowns - not nice ones - around various areas of the States. One with a machete apparently even tried to lure a woman into the forest - although I'm not sure that even something as fun (to some folk) as a clown would be able to lure anyone anywhere if it was carrying a machete! I'm not one that;s afraid of clowns - there's even a name for it - but I do know some folk who are! It could be they have seen IT (the Stephen Kong miniseries) with Pennywise the clown or Poltergeist - old or new - with its horrific clowns. Come to think if it even the Simpsons with their Krusty the Clown also has the less than nice clown bed that Bart sleeps in in a Tree house of Horror. For such figures of mirth you have to wonder how clowns ended up with such a bad reputation and why they're always called so-and-so The Clown - as if we can't actually tell that they're clowns by how they look!  But back to the remake of Poltereist - which I'm not giving a rating but which was vastly different and oh so much less subtle than the original.  I understand that technology changes when it comes to movie-making but there was nothing wrong with the old one and so much right with it that it makes me wonder if there isn't any way they can come up with new ideas for movies rather than doing remakes. 

Lost my way

Nooooooo .... is it really months since I last made an entry here?  Alas, I think so ... I fear somewhere over the last couple of years, I have lost my way - doing shares on FaceBook rather than taking the time to write.  Not that I haven't been doing some jottings in that time ... there was Jannie Jaunts and This is what's happening ... but it's time to turn my attention back this way for a while.  Hopefully I haven't forgotten how.

Brain training?

I'm currently doing a daily dose of Brain Training via Lumiosity.  Whether it can actually be called "brain training" is under discussion after the US Federal Trade Commission earlier this month announced a settlement with Lumosity over charges that advertising its games as "brain training" and that they were designed to improve cognitive skills such as attention and memory and that they were capable of improving an individual's performance on everyday tasks may not be supportable.  Either way, I'm prepared to give it a go after my brother said it was helping him ... and I think there are some games there that do stretch me ... especially with visual memory tasks.  One of the hardest things though is remembering what the rules of the games are ... and yes, mostly I do the traing "daily" but sometimes I don't get to it.  I wonder how much science the FTC would need to see to be convinced that it did support Lumosity's claims.  Maybe it's a matter that the games are "designed" to help with brain training ... and they don't always work. 
Some people don't need to do the training of course ... they just have it.  Like the time my sister and I were peeling potatoes and popping them into a saucepan of water ... and then a potato went in and the water was close to overflowing.  We angsted over how to carry the saucepan to the sink so we could pour some water out until my partner suggest we "take a potato out".  Oh my goodness ... what brilliance!  One of my work colleagues came very close to that level of brilliance yesterday ... we were trying to print out a file which had too long a name - once the directory information was added. We couldn't change the file name, nor copy it, nor get it to do anything really ... every time we tried the name "too long" rewarded our efforts.  Finally, Del solved the problem ... she renamed the folder the file was in!  Bravo! 

No. 1 in shoplifting?

Why are razor blades the most shoplifted item in the world?  What do people do with them ... besides shaving, cutting drugs, eating them?  What else can you do with them.  Artists use them, people use them for cutting things ... but you would have to think there are safer ways where you're not going to risk losing a finger.  And how on earth did they decide blades were the most desirable target for our light-fingered friends?  When we discussed the possibilities at Trivia we considered chocolate and other confectionery, pens, and other things but we didn't give razor blades a single thought.  And how would you best test their answer?  A quick interweb search shows that razor blades (Gillette Quartro or something like that) is on the list, but around 4 or 5.  Gourmet meat and expensive perfume are right up there as well.

Starry starry night

Normal bulbs around the world are being replaced with LED (light emitting diodes) which, while they are energy efficient and much cheaper to run, do generate much more light pollution.  This means that even though astronauts can see Earth, Earth may not be able to see them.  I wonder if it would be different if they gave them a red hue - like the red lighting they use in some centres in the US (and possibly elsewhere) where all the exterior illumination is red, which throws very little light pollution and makes the environment great for star-gazing. 

Heavenly bodies

$4 million ... that was what NASA had originally budgetted for Earth defence a few years ago - and while that could be defence against anything (or anyone), I think they meant asteroids and other space bodies.  Well, the good news is that the budget has just been increased to $50 million and there is now a Department at NASA with the responsibility of keeping us all safe from "potential doomsday asteroids".
As the report said: The Planetary Defense Coordination Office will oversee all of the space agency's efforts to detect and track near-earth objects, and coordinate with other federal agencies as well as other nations if and when it becomes necessary. 
It doesn't say more than that ... so people can use their imagination to work out what that might mean.  The Head of the Department, with the title Planetary Defense Officer, would probably know though.
"The formal establishment of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office makes it evident that the agency is committed to perform a leadership role in national and international efforts for detection of these natural impact hazards, and to be engaged in planning if there is a need for planetary defense," Lindley Johnson said in NASA news release.
Word is that, closer to home, there's also a US plan to deal with the Zombie Apocalypse. 

Sounds rough

There was something in one of the media outlets the other day asking why it was that animals make different sounds in different languages.   I've not had the much experience with animals overseas but it does seem like they would make more or less the same sounds the world over ... but apparently you wouldn't think so if you heard "Old McDonald Had a Farm" sung in different languages.  It just makes me want to travel overseas and listen to some animals ... like the cats throughout Rome, some bears in Yosemite, dogs in San Ramon, and some otters in Scotland.  

Changing times

The only thing constant is change ... isn't that what they say?  One of the cleverest things I think a barista can do is coffee art ... drawing something in the foam on the top of your drink.  I've seen people draw some amazing pictures ... and somewhere deep in my photo archives I have some wonderful shots of those pictures.  But it looks as though this might be a dying art ... according to recent reports coming from the CES in the US, a company has invented a device which will be able to print images on the top of your coffee.  The "stencil" will come in hundreds of designs and will be customisable for company logo, football team emblems, almost anything.  It means the days of the leaf design on the flat white are well and truly numbered.  And while this may be "progress", it does feel as though the world has somehow become a sadder place.

Word/s of the year

Even though it says on social media that any quiz you do on Facebook can lead to your data become less than private, it seems very difficult to resist them.  It was interesting that both a friend of mine and I had obviously both done the same quiz ... what is your word for the year.  I tried my name and came up with "Joy" - which was fair enough; but I wondered if it might be rigged in some way ... so I put in my nickname and the quiz came back with "Innovation" - much better ... but all in all not a bad combination.  When I was telling my friend this, she told me her words of the year were "Beauty" and "Simplicity".  Not bad ... not bad at all ... but then I wondered how she was able to get two words ... had she put in two names as well?  Well, as it turns out she hadn't put in any names.  She had just decided that she would have two areas to focus on this year and there were ... Beauty and Simplicity.  She didn't even know there was a quiz on Facebook!

It can't be true!

Who knew that something on the internet could be false, untrue, even a fib!  I refer of course to the story I read some time ago .. and why would I doubt it ... even question it ... that Winston Churchill's level of anger in the WarRoom could be judged by if his teeth flew out of his mouth while he was shouting - and then smashed against the wall.  The false teeth were of unconventional construction ... they were made of wood.  And I believed that until last night at Trivia when we were trying to work out the baffler - one of the questions was "I used to be made of wood" - and, of course, I trotted out the Winston Churchill story.  St questioned it ... and based on that, I went for another look on the internet ... and what do you know, there was a different story this time ... about the sale of Winston's Churchill dentures ... and they weren't made of wood!  I felt cheated!   

Missing Herman's Head

I miss Herman's Head - which was very much like Inside Out except years before and with human actors!  The main character was Herman and the other characters - and I wish I can remember who they all were - were inside his head - like muses but also with some input into the action.  Why is it that they have to do remakes?  Yes, I know, most of the folk who see Inside Out will have no idea how good Herman's Head was ... or that it even existed!  That's a shame.

Make-up your future

There has been talk about the changing nature of employment lately and how automation and digitisation will change the face of jobs as we know it. Seems to me though that if the whole fascination with Zombie movies and series continues, if you do make-up for the living dead, your future is secure. And, if the zombie apocalypse is real - but like iZombie rather than The Walking Dead, you've probably still covered!

Smile

We all have different skills - and we all try to get more from time to time.  I was reading today that one of the ways to help you learn - especially when you are feeling slack and can't concentrate - is to force yourself to smile as you learn.  If you can't fake a smile, you can force yourself to by holding a pencil between your teeth.  Of course, for some of us this is not an option ... in fact, once that pencil goes in my mouth it's all I can do to not be squeamish.  Maybe that's a new skill I could try to learn :)

A FaceBook challenge

Who knew? Logging into FaceBook from a new browser I had the opportunity to "prove" my identity by answering security questions or by identifying folk I am connected to on FaceBook. Given my lack of ability for facial recognition, it could have been a big mistake. I did manage to get all of them but there were a couple which had me almost guessing. It would be interesting to know how the selection algorithm works ... how it decides which "friends" and which pictures to select for the recogition task. It does give you the option to "skip" if you don't know one, but thankfully I didn't have to find out how many "skips" it takes for you to be locked out. Still, I think it was easier than trying to remember the answers to those security questions.

Time on his hands

Neil Moore, serving time for fraudulently obtaining over 3 million dollars by convincing folk he was from Barclays Bank, has proved he still has what it takes! From his quarters in the Wandsworth Prison in the UK, Moore set up a fake web domain with an address very similar to that of the court service's official address. He then emailed fake bail instructions to prison staff - and was released. His "escape" went unnoticed for three days - and may not have been discivered at all had solicitors not arrived to interview him ... only to find out he wasn't there. Oddly enough, three days after his escape was detected, he surrendered to authorities and is now waiting for sentencing on 8 counts of fraud and one count of escape. It will be interesting to see if they restrict his access to technology this time around.

Charge!!!

It's not often I receive an email reminding me to charge one of my devices ... but I have started getting them from my FitBit Charge (a new acquisition - a Christmas present). The Charge tracks steps, distance, calories spent and consumed (if you have a mind to enter them), several other fitness things, and also, as I now know, it's battery level! What will they think of next ... especially as it holds the charge for 7 to 10 days? This makes it fairly easy to forget ... as opposed to the about-to-be-available Apple Watch ... which surely must have a better battery life than the 18 hours claim I saw the other day!

Apocalypse plan

I'm not sure where I read it, it was a while ago, but apparently the US Military has a plan for coping with the Zombie Apocalypse - should it happen.  The plan's disclaimer specifically states that "this plan was not actually designed as a joke".  CONOP8888 - otherwise known as "Counter-Zombie Dominance" (dated April 30, 2011) was devised to allow the military to come up with a way to plan what could be a real response using a fictional scenario.  That was the plan anyway.  You can read more in The Washington Post - just search Google for "Leaked Document Reveals Government Preparing for Zombie Apocalypse". 

Have a musical day

Watching Ice Dance at the Sochi Winter Olympics this morning, I'm wondering how or if the choice of music affects the judges' perception.  The competitors were dancing to older tunes this morning - not a bar of Eminem to be heard - but some tunes were more familiar than others - and definitely more upbeat and fun.  Did the judges think so as well?  Or are they trained not to take any notice?  I know that as the competitors danced, I was bopping along with some of the music in my head and thought those with the "best" music had done better - and the judges seemed to think so as well!  Or perhaps they were just better skaters. Hmmm.

Milk drinks

Why is it that when you buy Vanilla flavoured milk, the Vanilla doesn't sink to the bottom like Choclate does.  Just wondering ,,,

It's Dino DNA ...

Well, probably not, but researchers have discovered components of blood cells in a 46-million-year-old fossilized mosquito. It is the first found fossil of a blood-engorged mosquito and while it might be a Jurassic Park life-imitating-art opportunity, there is apparently no viable genetic material in the sample. Who knew that DNA has a finite life span - around 6.8 million years? The fossil was found - heavens can only guess how given the size of mosquitos - unless they were much, much bigger way back when - in Montana!

Tourist attraction?

There's trouble in Summer Bay! No not the "Home and Away" one; it's a Resort near Florida's Disney World. Guests were given only a short time to escape when a 30m "possible sinkhole" opened at the Resort causing a building to collapse. No-one was hurt in the incident - which means the 105 folk evacuated were much luckier than Florida man Jeff Bush who died in February when the earth opened under his bedroom - swallowing it and him. Hundreds of sinkholes open up in the U.S. each year - and according to a report on news.com.au Florida's "sinkhole season" lasts from the start of the state's rainy season to the end of Summer. As Larry McKinnon, a Sheriff's Office spokesman suggested: Florida is famous for bugs, alligators, pythons, hurricanes and now sinkholes.

Words ... who's responsible?

Words

S read me a quote from one of the blogs she was reading today and asked me to guess whose it was (the quote not the blog). She said it was someone I had been talking about only recently and that was enough for me to guess correctly ... and on my first go. The other two people it could have been were Lizzie Borden (who, although there is that ditty about her killing mother and father, was actually acquitted at trial) or Christa McAuliffe (the winner of the NASA Teacher in Space Project who was lost, together with the other six crew members, in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986). For some reason though, it was Mother Teresa who came to mind first. I have been reading about her decision to minister to the poorest of the poor in 1946, when she was 36 and traveling on a train on her way to a retreat. I hadn't realised that the Home for the Dying she opened in 1952 afforded those who were there the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faiths. According to Wikipedia: "Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites". I hadn't realised how controversial some of her views were ... for example, reportedly failing to give painkillers, even in severe cases. According to Mother Teresa's philosophy, it is "the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ". It's usually the way, sometimes though isn't it that others can see both good and bad in people: Mother Teresa was honored throughout her lifetime, and afterwards, and she was even appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia!

 

Now, where are those keys?

What will they think of next? Apparently, someone has produced an app for the iPhone (and they're planning to have it for Android-based smartphones at some point) which will keep a copy of your keys for you ... not a real copy, of course, but a virtual copy ... it takes a photograph of your keys and scans them into a diagram which a locksmith can then use to make your new keys. According to the report I read on Zite, the app is called KeyMe but it doesn't yet appear to be available from the Australian iTunes store - possibly because we do not yet have participating locksmiths. But the whole thing isn't a bad idea at all - as long as the whole thing has the right security protocols and doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Now there's an idea for a crime novel ... valet parking ... copies of keys (house and car) ... multiple robberies.

Meat ... the future

"It tastes like despair." That was how one of the characters on "Better Off Ted" (and what did that title mean anyway?) described the meat they made in the lab at Veridian Dynamics. It was the stuff of fiction then but now it's a reality. Over the weekend food critics in London were able to sample meat that had been made in a laboratory. It apparently didn't have the same flavour as all-natural meat although that might have been due to the cooking techniques. I didn't see anyone delicately (or otherwise) discard the meat after tasting it - a la Jeff Goldblum's character in "The Fly" after he has teletransported it and found something had been lost in translation - so it seemed edible. So what now? Will it be mass-produced and be used as an off-set against carbon credits? If they can grow meat rather than graze it, surely that could significantly change the environmental outlook - especially as cattle contribute so much CO2 to the ecosystem. But, more importantly, will it come in different flavours ... colours? Pork ... lamb ... beef - and what will they call it so it's not confused with "real" meat?

Building for the future

Well ... what do they know that we don't? In Brisbane, Queensland, they're building a new Riverwalk. The last one was washed away in the 2011 floods. This one will be built to survive a one-in-2000-year flood. So, if Australia has only been under white settlement (with written records) for 250 years or so, how can they possibly know what a 2000 year flood event looks like? If it's because they have already seen one, is a Riverwalk that will withstand another one necessary? Or do one-in-2000-year events happen more regularly these days?

Music Man

Tully, far north Queensland: A karaoke party was interrupted last Friday night when a man, 175 cm tall and Caucasian in appearance, and with a moustache, and grey and blond hair, walked into the house, smashed the karaoke machine with a shovel and left. Police are still looking for the man - and hopefully they'll ask him if he did it because (a) he loves music or (b) he hates music.

Not a good night out

Aaron James Belt wept today as he was sentenced to three and a half years jail (parole was set at nine months) for glassing two students at a nightclub in August 2011. There is something about this that I just don't understand, especially as he was not drunk at the time.

It all started in the nightclub when two university students entered the toilets where Belt was in a cubicle. They told him to hurry up. As Belt was leaving, a scuffle broke out between them and he came back a short time later with a friend. All may still have been well at that point had Belt not been carrying a beer bottle and had one of the students not accidentally head-butted him. Belt thought it was a deliberate act and reacted by smashing the bottle on one student's head, shattering the bottle, which Belt then slashed across his face, breaking his nose and cutting an artery. He then turned on the other student, slicing him across the forehead. Even though both of the glassed men were bleeding badly, Belt left the bathroom and would have left the Club if security guards had not stopped him. The report I read did not say what Belt's friend was doing while this was happening. Belt, who was not drunk or impaired by illness at the time of the attacks, wept as he was sentenced.

What I don't understand though is, even if the toilets were full, how do you accidentally head-butt someone?

Decisions ...

Reports today suggest that brilliant English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author Stephen Hawking was so ill with pneumonia (contracted during a visit to CERN) in 1985 while writing his Brief History of Time that doctors offered to turn off his life support system. His then wife, Jane, refused and Hawking, who has a motor neurone disease which has progressed over the years to leave him almost entirely paralyzed, recovered but not without being given a tracheotomy which removed what remained of his speech. He had previously used partner-assisted scanning to communicate but at about this time he was given a computer program called "The Equallizer" from Walt Woltosz - allowing him, unassisted, to select between nearly 3,000 letter/word options.  One of his nursing staff (he required full-time care after the life-threatening pneumonia), Elaine*, had a husband who was a computer engineer and he rigged a portable computer to go on Mr Hawking's wheelchair ... giving him the true power of speech.  One of the first things he did with his new computer-generated voice (with an American accent which he has kept unchanged) was to ask his assistant to help him finish Brief History.  And the rest is ... History was finished and for a work that set out to be a popular book which "would make the universe accessible to the general public" - it was ... staying on the best-seller list for over 4 years (237 weeks) and making Stephen Hawking a household name. 

* Elaine subsequently left David and married Mr Hawking in 1995, but they have since divorced.

Say what?

Is it just me or does this seem counter-productive?  One of the suggestions received for possible inclusion in the "Queensland Plan" (the 30-year look ahead being pioneered by the current Queensland Government and seeking public input) is ... compulsory (my emphasis) volunteering.  It seems that these notions may not even belong in the same sentence!  Compulsory = required by rule;  Volunteer = agree freely.  It will be interesting to see if this and other ideas championed in the plan get any traction.  And, come to think of it, did anything ever come out of that Summit organized by the Labor Government just after it came to power back in '07? I can't remember the details now but they were looking at a way to improve Australia in the coming decades and enlisted the input of hundreds of Australians, mostly leaders in their fields.  Hmmmm ... might have to go and have a look.

Look ... there on the horizon ...

...it's an Election! I saw this in today's The Courier Mail and was immediately stuck by that this must be advertising the Labor Party's "new" asylum solution for the benefit of the voting public ... unless there are potential asylum seekers who are subscribing to The Courier Mail. I'm interested to know what other press the ad has appeared in ... and how much government money is being spent on internal (to Australia) advertising ... and whether it appears in the electronic versions of publications as well. Doubtless the Government has a good reason for doing this advertising ... besides electioneering ... but I have to wonder, too, how long this has been in the pipeline given it was only announced last week by K Rudd, less than a month after he took over the leadership of the ALP again. Whoever it was that said the wheels of government move slowly hadn't reckoned on this lot!

A suitable tribute?

Being a tribute band! How cool would that be? How would you decide who to emulate? I was wondering about this and related questions while I watched AbbaLive tonight. Do you need a physical appearance similar to the star? I have a friend who looked, at one stage, a little like John Denver (was I the only one who saw that?) and I think I looked like Elton John once too.  Is that enough for the kernel of an idea for a tribute show? The two Johns! Although we might need a better title or name change here in Australia because of the "John" thing.  And, as someone has now suggested, an ability to sing would be a bonus! Does this mean lip-syncing is not allowed? 

Time to grieve

I saw this on FaceBook today and thought it was actually quite helpful in trying to understand people coming to terms with the human condition.

No ... not Zombies again

For those who enjoyed 28 Days Later - well, "enjoyed" may not be exactly the word for a movie showing modern-day England overtaken by Zombie ... but it wasn't bad, and certainly was much better than some thought it would be ... do not even be part-way tempted to watch 28 Weeks Later. I had put it off and put if off and put it off for a good couple of years, but finally, I have succumbed ... and am sorry that I did. I'm not sure if it's the same production team responsible for the film as the first one, but this one was blood-thirsty, gory, and seemed to be conveying one message ... beware spoiler follows ... it was all the children's fault ... the re-contamination of Britian, and, when they escape by helicopter over the White Cliffs of Dover, the contamination of France and, one would think, the rest of the world. And if they come up with anything even faintly resembling 28 xxxx later, be afraid ... very afraid.

Alienation

Listening to Radio National's Books and Arts Daily program about a new play Alienation (not to be confused with Alien Nation - a science fiction television series from some years back where speckle-headed aliens come to share Earth) I was surprised to hear comment that being an alien abductee could be a bit like being someone from the WatchTower Society (aka Jehovah's Witnesses) - no matter how much you believe what you are saying, no-one is going to believe you (or listen to you?).  

Good news - RSI is no more

It was bound to happen sooner or later - it appears that RSI - Repetitive Strain Injury - is no longer a problem in the workplace.  It has apparently been replaced by Occupational Overuse Syndrome.  I'm not sure where I was when that changeover took place - but I'm glad I'm up-to-date now!  

Scared?

I'm rewatching "The Mist'' (based on Stephen King's novel of the same name) and this version is in black and white. I'm fairly sure the original was in colour and filled with horrific images and lots of blood and gore. Is it more or less scary in colour? Have they even done studies into this - and, if so, how would they measure different levels of "scared"? And does level of "scared" vary from person to person? Is there a common denominator - a scare rating?

Mind the brain

The mind is truly an amazing thing. Years ago, an item made its way around the internet - it was a paragraph where all the letters of the words were jumbled save for the first and last letters. The point was that you could read and understand it and I always thought it could have a great application for those puzzles you see - 9 or so letters usually in a 3 x 3 grid, and you had to find as many words words as possible, including the 9-letter one, Well, I was stumped this morning with this one: CEO NNO TPM, I tried combination after combination, none the wiser: PEMTONCON, PONTEMCON, CONTEMPON, CONNOTEMP. My second-last shuffle gave - still no joy - CEMTONNOP and then - my last go before l resorted to an anagram program: CONEMOPNT. And just as I thought: if I had the right first and last letters, would the world magically appear - it did! Brain 1: Me 0. Highlight the space COMPONENT and copy and paste it into your browser search bar to see the answer if you don't have it already!

The brain still works ... just!

I saw this vehicle at the Markets this morning and it took me two looks to actually work out what it meant! Ah well, next time I see something like this I might get it first time!

Doctor Who?

I was doing a puzzle the other day - it was anagrams - names of television shows - and the answer was Doctor Who ... although it could well have been Torchwood (the Doctor Who spin-off)! Who would have thought there names were anagrams? I had certainly never noticed it before ... and I am still a little pleased that someone thought to do it!

End of an era

I know I haven't watched it for a long time but I know there are folk who do ... and they will be horrified to hear that they will no longer be able to catch up with Days of Our Lives (sands through the hour-glass) when Channel 9 stops broadcasting it on April 26! I'm not sure if it was this or another American soap where one of the main actors went upstairs to get something (a pair of socks or maybe skis for a trip) and didn't reappear for several years - and then it was if nothing had happened!

Siri-ously

I thought it would save me some time (and lead to more regular blogging) if I could use Siri (on the iPhone) for dictation/recording - but based on the following, this may not be the best solution:
* Driving along the Gold Coast hwy today it just isn't getting any better the line Stromley 600 astilbe and Princess to pick people way from the light rail works are also
* Teasley TUBSLEY Park in Southport is that Mandor Tuesday and public
* The weather is school monkey one thing here this today on the way last stop.

Accidental ?

The full details are a little sketchy now (I really should have blogged this as soon as I made a note to ... when it happened) but two Australian men holidaying in Phuket have been arrested for accidentally shooting two German tourists. Hmmm ... how does that happen? Apparently, and I'm not sure if this is the police or the two men who were saying this, they had meant to shoot a Danish tourist (aka Danny) but missed and hit the Germans instead. Hmmmm, I guess that would make it an accident of sorts, but what I don't understand is how two Australian "tourists" end up with a gun in Thailand. The men reportedly had links with a motorcycle club here in Australia, but I can't fathom what kind of accident it must have been for them to have a gun fall into their laps while they were there ... and then for them to run into someone that they wanted to shoot. Ah well, this may be one story we will never know in full ... and just another reason to be careful while you're on holiday! You never know who's out there gunning for someone - and whether they're a decent shot or not!

Preppers

For far too long I have been trying to get to my backlog of articles - clipped but never read - and finally I did - and was amazed to see that something I had seen on National Geographic in the last few days rated a mention. i had seen a man cut a pig's carcass in half - and here was information about him and what he used - his invention the Crovel. Tim Ralston is a Prepper - someone who fears The End Of The World As We Know It and who is doing something about it ... geting ready, being prepared, being a Prepper! And he's helping other people get reading with products like the Crovel - which started life as a Prepper accessory and which now more than doubles as a weapon - and made him more than a million dollars in the process!

It's hard to know what the Preppers will prepare for now that the Mayan Apocalypse prophecy appears to not have been fulfilled ... we're keeping more than an open mind because if it does herald a new Age of Enlightenment, it would be unfortunate starting it off as a Naysayer!

Cleaning up

"Blog re washing powder counterfeiting" ... this is definitely a reason not to procrastinate - or should have been because now I have no idea where I "filed" this report - and I can't remember the details of the story ... but it did sound intriguing, especially as there was so much - tonnes and tonnes - of the "stuff" involved - 40 to be exact. It turned out to be fake OMO "made in China", packaged in buckets for sale at convenience stores and market stalls throughout south-west Sydney. It was definitely not the real stuff, Unilever (owner of the OMO brand) assured consumers as real OMO doesn't come in buckets here in Australia. Who would ever have suspected that folk would try to clean up with fake laundry detergent? Obviously desperate times call for desperate measures!

What price entertainment?

Illusionist Derren Brown likes to push the envelope - and he certainly seems to be doing it again if you can believe reports just out. In his latest series, the first two episodes are given over to the story of a young man who Brown induces to believe the ''world as we know it" has ended and he wakes into a Post-apocalyptic world where he may be the only survivor. I'm not sure if this is on it's way to Australia yet - but I hope it is because the concept is fascinating: that you can (cleverly) turn a person's life into a horror movie-and then say it's for his own good! The whole undertaking was very complex and complicated and it will be interesting to see how it was executed.

Changing laws

It is the law of diminishing returns or the law of marginal utility that determines whether your second cup of coffee is as good as the first? Of course, it's economics but sometimes it's just all about taste - and what you feel like at the time. And what was the name of our Economics teacher at Meadowbank Tech who taught us everything we needed to know (but not necessarily remember) about Economics using examples based on tomatoes and hi-fis (it was a little while ago)!!

Felix's freefall

Congratulations Felix Baumgartner- and well done for your fantastic freefall from the edge of space. As you stepped off the platform of the gondola over 35km above Earth, for just a moment I thought you might do a Buzz LightYear ... spreading wings and instead of falling you would soar upwards ... "to infinity and beyond". But you didn't ... but you did achieve the speed of sound on your fall to earth, making yours the fastest freefall on record. But not necessarily the longest - something to do with the fogging-up of your helmet visor and an early deployment of your parachute? But it was wonderful to see that the man who held (still holds) that record was on your support crew - Joe Kittinger (now 84) who back in 1960 did the freefall from a balloon 31km high. This is truly the stuff of legends - that leap of faith when you (and he) stepped out into space (well, almost space!) and fell to earth!

Will power

It hardly seems fair - if it's true. According to research published a while ago, but currently being challenged, your level of will power is affected by the amount of glucose the frontal lobe of your brain ... meaning the more sugar you have on board the more will power you have ... and if your sugar levels drop - as they do when you are dieting - so does your will power. Anyone else see the problem here?

Solid as a ...

Words are funny things. I was reading this morning that it was the anniversary of Prince Charles and Lady Diana's divorce only a few days ago - and was thinking that there was a marriage that was rocky ... and then wondered how "rock" and "rocky" could have such divergent meanings - if something is "rock solid" then it is a world and a half away from being "rocky".

In the moment

It's amazing that we can so easily miss things. Driving in to work this morning (or, more precisely, the coffee shop I go to before I go to work) I noticed the sky was starting to get a pink glow - what does that mean? I know there's that old rhyme - red sky at night = shepherd's delight; red sky at morning = shepherds take warning. But why? Is it rain? Cold? Heat? Alien abduction? Something else? The red sky did come - and as I took out the iPhone to take a photograph, I had to wait for the "updating database" which was taking so long I changed to the native camera application - more time gone - and then so was the colour in the sky. Missed it - the photograph anyway - but at least I noticed it was there. And wondered how much of the colour was because of volcanic ash drifting across from New Zealand following the eruption on the North Island.

Settle ...

I don't know about anyone else but I feel a little sorry for Australia's Olympic Contenders. There has been some talk recently about the young lass who didn't manage Gold and was distraught about placing second. They even called off a press conference because she was too upset. So, since when has coming second been such a crushing defeat? Well, as we all know, no-one who goes to the Olympics wants to come second ... but, of course, there can only be one winner and it depends on their performance on the day. And while it's disappointing not to win, it seems that the media could help by not fuelling discontent over placing rather than winning by saying things like: he had to settle for second! Settle? Settle? What are they thinking?

Z is for Zombies

Z is for Zombie - not really but that’s a bit the way I feel at the end of the A-Z blogging challenge. It has been a fantastic exercise and experience and wonderful to visit other bloggers also doing the challenge and to marvel at how similar yet different we are. My head is filled with the possibilities of how to continue the blogging challenge because it has taken me to places and subjects that surprised me and certainly did much to stimulate my ... brains ... brains. There is much in this world that we don't pay enough (any?) attention to because we are so/too busy just going about our business like automatons or, dare I say it, Zombies! Here's to a period of zest and zeal in my personal zeitgeist - thanks to the A-Z!

(Thanks to the organizers and all who participated ... See you next year!)

Y is for Yellow

I have always thought of yellow as the colour of intelligence - but, it seems that it is so much more. According to the Australian Oxford Dictionary, it is the colour of buttercups, lemons and gold, of ripe wheat and jaundiced complexions, and of envy and suspicion. I didn't realise though that it could also refer to the press - where it means to be unscupulously sensational. We know that it can be used for describing fauna and flora, and has a use in sports where players can be given the yellow card when they're being cautioned; and there's the yellow flag - which indicates there's a crash ahead, although the yello flag can also be a flower or the flag displayed on a quarantined ship. To have the yellow jack is to be sick with yellow fever, and the yellow peril refers to "the political or military threat regarded as emanating from Asian peoples, especially the Chinese", and since we're in Asia, there's yellow rain which was reportedly a chemical warfare agent but which now appears to have been bee droppings (although it would have made more sense if it had been yellow and black). If you ran from that rain, people might have suggested you had a yellow streak - a trait of cowardice. But yellow is the colour of victory in cycling where the yellow jerseyshows you are a winner - but not necessarily the winner. Of course, some of us just like the colour because it's ... yellow.

X is for X marks the spot

X marks the spot. Why do they say that? Is it because on the old treasure maps they would put an X to show where the treasure was buried rather than writing "here there be treasure". It was obviously something they didn't trust to memory or shipmates. Were there back-up treasure maps? Or furphies which put the X somewhere which wasn't the spot where the treasure was? And why was it an X and not a Y or even a number? Maybe it had to do with map references, the intersect of longitude and latitude lines. They wouldn't have had triangulation then - or maybe they did and knew how to use it - although it seems a little more difficult than specific map coordinates. Of course, it's hard to know if pirates really did bury their treasure - it probably wasn't something that was publicised. It definitely was the stuff of fiction though with the pirates of Treasure Island having buried treasure aplenty but research suggests it's usually the stuff of legends rather than real life.

But even if X didn't find a place on treasure maps, it did prove useful - and still does - how could you say 10 in Roman Numerals if X didn't mark the spot?

W is for Wish

Does wishy-washy just mean you can't decide what it is you (want to) wish for? If you were referring to a person's inability to make a decision or lack of strength, wouldn't you just use "washy" rather than ”wishy-washy”? But I'm more interested in the wishes. What would we wish for if someone offered us, say, three wishes. Would it be something for yourself, something for your nearest and dearest, or something to benefit the world in general? Would the difficulty in deciding depend on the wish-giver's sphere of influence? There's a world of difference between world peace and a pie for lunch. And what if you knew there would be not-incredibly-wonderful consequences from the wishes a la The Monkey's Paw. And if you were the one with the power to grant wishes - as long as you weren't constrained by having to grant the wishes to the person who released you from the magic lamp (and why were you in there in the first place, and if you have the power to grant wishes why can't you grant your own?) - how would you decide who to give them? Would you want to give them to someone pure of heart? With a social conscience? Sound business acumen? And what would you base the decision on? How can you tell what a person really thinks and feels just by watching/talking with them - and wouldn't it change if they knew you had the power to grant their (every) wish?

If you had one minute to decide what your three wishes will be - what would they be? Start now ... and no being wishy-washy ...

V is for Victory

We were sitting listening to the radio this morning as we had our breakfast and the subject matter was A.N.Z.A.C. Day. One segment was about soldiers writing letters home saying that they had killed Germans, and their loved ones would write back saying don't tell me about that - so they would write about the landscape instead. That then led to the story of a friend of S's Dad who had served in World War I and who, at one point, came face to face with a German soldier - he looked just like me and I couldn't do it was the general gist of his remarks afterwards - and apparently neither could the German, because the friend was still around to talk about it. But it brought up the notion that perhaps there was a better way to fight wars - like scissors paper rock - and whoever lost went home! Then, because we all know that the same ideas are always floating out there in the universe, I saw this photo. V is for Victory, but it would be nice if it could be a Virtual Victory instead without loss of life.

U is for Undecided

We received the rates bill today and with it a survey asking if we would be prepared to support a new library (yes) by agreeing to a special rates increase over several years to fund it (undecided). But how could we say no ... because it would be good to have a new building to house the collection and there could be some purpose-built areas as well. To say yes would mean a certain rate increase but we would be investing in the infrastructure of the local area ... except that it's not our local area anymore but one day we may want to sell and the more infrastructure (read: libraries) in the area, the more inclined someone might be to want to buy. To support the library or not? Still undecided but leaning more towards yes. I think.

T is for Too Late?

I had forgotten that S is for Sun - and now the A-Z Challenge has moved on to T. So Too Late? Ray Bradbury wrote a story about a young girl who is waiting for the rain to stop and for the sun to come out - she knows it will, but no-one else at her school has ever see sunshine. They lock her in a room and while she is there the rain does stop and the sun does come out - and while everyone else is entranced by this, all she sees of it (and the world stretching itself in the sunlight) is a ray of light across the floor of that room.

Most of us take the sun for granted - even though some of us do take every opportunity to let it seep into our very being. But what would happen if the sun went out? Not exploded as a supernova but just quietly went out. What would you do when, at 10am in the morning, the sunlight just stopped and the world plunged into darkness? How dark is pitch black? And while the lights would come on as though it was night, there wouldn't even be the reflected light of the moon to brighten the night sky! Would mankind be able to adapt? Would the resultant world be a place we would want to live in? And would we ever stop waiting for it to come back on?

T is for Turn of Phrase

English is an amazing language and we are often given to the odd turn of phrase - albeit, sometimes unintentionally. This evening when I was making my way through a large public place (read: Casino), following some friends through to a different area of the gaming floor, I found myself delayed "waiting for some old people to pass". As I was telling them this, I realised how inappropriate it sounded - waiting for old people to pass. Well - sort of. And isn't "sort of" good too, as a friend posted on FaceBook earlier this week - as attributed to Demetri Martin: 'Sort of' is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It's just a filler. Sort of - it doesn't really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after 'I love you' or 'You're going to live.'

S is for Sasquatch

We are not alone. Or are we? There is a field of study - Cryptozoology - which is said to be about mythical animals or, the way I like to think of it, of animals whose existence has not yet been proven - your Sasquatch aka Bigfoot, Yeti or Yowie (why did that just autocorrect to "townie"?). I don't know why but I have long wondered if we were the only sentient species here on Planet Earth - and from my teen years I have read magazines, books and now the Internet on whether they exist. Very early on I read of a park ranger here in Queensland who had had come face-to-face with a large foul-smelling red-eyed, standing on two legs and towering above him, hairy creature. It was definitely not a bear (they aren't native to here) or anything he recognised - and he never wanted to see one again. Another crackpot? I was inclined to think not when I saw the name and confirmed that it was a friend's father and yes, she knew the story, and the encounter had terrified him, and this was definitely something they didn't often talk about. Similarly, the sighting of a large man-like creature on the back roads of New South Wales some years ago also terrified my partner's brother. It shambled across the highway in front of him and went off int the bush. He didn't follow it. These sightings were both some years ago now ... and I often wonder if these creatures, and those like them, are still out there? And if so, how do they evade detection especially as man encroaches further and further into bush territory.

R is for Research

There's no doubt that research has it's place, but you have to feel for the rats. I was listening to a How Stuff Works podcast today on how much sleep is enough sleep. The general consensus is that it's 6 to 8 hours a night for the average person (surprisingly they didn't mention how much a gifted person needs) - and they know this from ... research. It seems that a fair bit of the research involves rats, especially when it has to do with sleep deprivation - and we're not talking about the way it's used as a method of torture here. The University of Chicago has done research with people - 10 healthy men in their 20's - and after only 6 days of sleeping for only 4 hours a night the men developed signs of pre-diabetes. The report didn't say which of these studies was conducted first, but the other one they mentioned was with rats, where severe sleep deprivation effectively cut their life span from three years to three weeks! How incredible is that? Are lab rats especially bred for research purposes? And if they are, does this make it better? I can't help but imagine what the uproar would be if they did this with people.

Q is for Quiet

Why is it that when you're trying to be quiet, you can't? And it doesn't matter how hard you try - you'll knock something over, or crash against something - and once you've made the noise - it just gets worse - probably because you're trying even harder to be quiet! Is this a non-self-fulfilling prophecy?

Q is for Queues

Queues aren't what they used to be. This makes me a little mad (read: infuritates me) because lots of people seem to have forgotten how to wait their turn. I know sometimes people have a valid reason for being in a rush and wanting to push in, but it isn't a good look and it makes the rest of us a bit irritated. Only this afternoon, there was a woman intent on overtaking me on the motorway - or is that undertaking, because she wasn't on the road - she was driving on the shoulder, tailgating me because there wasn't enough room for her to go by safely unless I moved over. I couldn't see why I needed to - if the traffic was queued but still moving, why should she not have to wait her turn like the rest of us? By the time we reached the exit (the same one I was using) she was travelling beside my otherside back fender; and it was at that moment that I wondered if not moving over was such a good idea - was I in a "road rage in the making" situation? Would she be difficult about it and not let me use the exit? I needn't have worried because she did, but it does raise the question of this and other queues ... are we all in line on the subject?

P is for Play

We don't do enough play these days ... I think some people have completely forgotten how. When we're little folk, our work is play - that's how we learn. We splash around in troughs of water and learn about displacement and that the wetter you get, the more fun it is. We paint all manner of things which aren't necessarily recognizable by anyone but us and we learn that yellow and blue make green and that rainbows have seven main colours - all of them beautiful. We learn to love cardboard boxes and as we get a little older we come to like the toys in those boxes, and we learn to share and we learn how to use our hands and hone our fine motor skills and our eye-hand coordination. And it's all fun. Until one day we forget about having fun and laughing and playing. Someone said recently that they don't call work "work" for nothing, and it's true. It's about productivity and profit (another P word ... oh wait, they both are) and politics (another one!). But why can't it be more about fun and play? Or are we just not playing the right games?

O is for Onion

Whenever I see an onion my thoughts turn to the Toowoomba Range and the truck driver who chose to veer off the road rather than drive over cars to get to the safety ramp. Who knows if he thought he would be able to slow his onion-laden truck before it went over the side of the Range, with him somehow surviving the crash, or if he acted on instinct, and knowing he could not live with the knowledge that he had caused the death of others. Whatever the case, and we can never know, the decision cost him his life. We drove down the Range a couple of days afterwards and there were still onions strewn around the scene. It was a very real reminder.

No doubt lots of people who have heard the story about the "onion man" have forgotten what it means all these years later, and the sacrifice he made. This is why it's good to keep the memory of this act alive, showing how one man can truly make a difference. Onion anyone?

N is for News

You have to wonder what the world is coming to when there is a news* article saying Australia will be one of the safer places to be if we ever find ourselves in the midst of a Zombie Apocalypse! Or was that "when"? Of course, it's always good to have the opportunity to be prepared - so we can start stockpiling provisions, working out how to turn our homes into zombie-proof fortresses and studying up on how to stop the zombies, despatching them before they make a meal out of our brains. Are there other ways to kill a zombie than with a chainsaw? Will even they work - and, if so, are there ones out there with longer handles?

I'm not sure that that's a world I would want to live in - just like I wouldn't want to live in Midsomer or Cabot Cove where murders are always in the news - and just as well or police and mystery writers would have little to do - except maybe watch televison where a nice juicy murder now suffices as entertainment. Is that it - do we live in a world where, to a certain extent, newsworthy events and entertainment have become somewhat interchangeable? Or is that old news?

* News: information about recent and important events.

M is for Missive

Have you noticed that you seldom get missives through the mail anymore? Have those long letters you could languish over, absorbing your correspondent's news, gone the way of the dinosaur? Have they been replaced by an SMS, s Tweet, Facebook post or perhaps a group email? Do you miss them? I raised this issue a couple (few?) years ago on this blog and soon after was surprised by an actual letter in the mail - and even though it was from a friend who I saw regularly to catch up with over a coffee, the letters took on a life of their own. I have moved away since then and even though neither of us is as frequent a correspondent as either we or the other would like, for me it is still a thrill to get or send the letter. When I mention missives to other people, they say they miss them too and one friend has even asked me to write her one of those long letters like I used to (many years ago now ... before life became busier) - and you know what, I'm going to ... and, while I'm at it, I’m going to pen a missive to Deb as well! Anyone else?

L is for Love

L is for Love, or perhaps it's for Loss, because that is what invariably results from Love. What is it "they" say? "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". I tend not to agree with them. Or perhaps I do. I am of two (at least) minds about this one - partly, I think, because my visual memory is not good - and certainly my powers of description (what did/do they look like?) are worse. When it comes time to recalling a loved one - even if we are parted only for a day - I can get the sense of them and vaguely try to describe them to myself - but it's definitely wanting. Photographs help but not enough. And when there are images - they are often ones I would rather not have. Although, writing that, I realise that the image I have of my father, after his death, at the viewing where he is in one of his favourite Thai shirts, and with the Superman tee placed in the coffin with him - even though it is a hard image, it is one I do hold on to because this is when I knew that he was finally "free" from the brain tumour that had stolen his life slowly over the more than two years between diagnosis and last breath. Of course, I can think of other instances of him if I look at photographs, or try to imagine him in a remembered setting, but I cannot recall the rich vibrance of the man he was. Hopefully other people are able to conjure up their loved ones better. But does that make it easier? Or harder? I truly am at a loss to know.

K is for Karen

Karen: the language (spoken in the Thailand and Burmese Borderlands); the people (making up 7% of the total Burmese population); the first name (and surname) - as entered in a Google ”vanity search”! The only thing wrong with egosurfing (as looking for yourself on the web is also known) is that you do run the risk of finding out that your namesakes have more interesting lives than you do! But that doesn't stop people opening up a search engine and typing in their name - in fact, nearly half US adult internet users have done it - and at least one Australian (that would be me!). My favourite other me is an egg-blowing, shooting, wheelchair-bound person of mixed origin (Hawaiian/Japanese/Cherokee). I’m definitely intrigued by the me who is into artificial intelligence; and now not totally sure about the GP who seems wonderful (according to the reviews) but has a billing department which isn't. Alas, you do need some patience to find me - I’m so far down in the Google search results that I found my attention wandering off and I’m now thinking of doing that myself ...

J is for Justice ... or just Just?

Is there a natural justice in the world? A sense of fairness that pervades the universe as we know it? One where we can be assured things will work out in the end? I’d like to believe that as the alternative (one of them anyway) is a random kind of universe where anything can happen - and we chalk the results up to fate or, if preferred, destiny. It's interesting that the autocorrect on my computer replaced "fate” with ”care”. Are they the same thing? Do we shape our own fate based on what and who we are and what care we put into our lives - and how much we care about others ... and how fair we are in our dealings with them? Would it then be enough if we were just just? As in ... ”just” as in ”absolutely”, ”exactly as this moment”, ”free from favouritism or self-interest or bias or deception”, or, from its origin - ”righteous in the eyes of God, upright and impartial”. Could that be it then? Could natural justice be the effects of a person's actions that determine his/her destiny in this lifetime - rather than in their next incarnation because that would then be Karma ... and therefore a topic for another day!

I is for I Want ...

I was saddened today to read of a young Chinese man who had reportedly sold his kidney so he could buy an iPad and an iPhone. This makes a change to the stories (are they true?) of Chinese workers in Apple factories in that country being so unhappy that they choose to end their lives by throwing themselves off the factory at such a rate that nets have been erected around the buildings to try to save their lives. How could electronic devices turn into such masters of destiny? Don't get me wrong, I am an Apple-and-all-things-"i" fan but I want to see another model of capitalism which could see people in the land of manufacture able to afford what they're making without having to sell off body parts; see the company of manufacture still turn a healthy profit, and the rest of us able to use an iDevice without having to question its or our own morality. I don't think that's too much to want ...

H is for Hard

There are some blogs which are harder to write than others - not because the subject matter is hard but because it is hard to decide on the subject matter. I hunted through the dictionary looking for an H word to be the focus for today's blog, took heart from asking other people what they thought a good H word would be (Hiatus Hernia anyone?) and finally picked something - and then realised that that topic wasn't working for me. Then someone suggested Hard. And it is - I had thought about writing about heart, and home, and heroes, and Homer (who was our wonderful cat who we named after Homer . . . Simpson the first time we saw him eat! ) and hope and happiness and Harold Holt and Houdoni and habits and hackers and Hell and hagiography and hair and halitosis and hallucinations and Harry Potter and horcruxes and horror and hotels (as in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and ... the list goes on. In retrospect, I realize that by settling on one, I had just settled - and I need to do more than than when deciding what to blog about - otherwise it ceases to be something I really want to do and, instead, just becomes ... hard!

G is for Good

”Good.” How many times a day do we say ”good” without really having given much (or any) thought to what other word might be better. I often replace "good" with "excellent" but only if it's warranted. Come to think of it, it may not be that we don't consider other words, but that we don't consider the answers enough - possibly because we don't think that folk who ask questions where our best response is ”good” are interested in a "real" answer, as in: How are you today? Good. As opposed to - ”Don't ask, I have a horrible night, my partner just left me, I’m having trouble with the bank, and if I have to listen to one more session about being a team player I am going to lose it”. How was dinner? Mmmmm ... good - not to be confused with sublime, excellent, amazing, or, at the other end of the spectrum, words fail me. Which is where ”good” probably is (good), in light of Mr Rabbit’s advice to Thumper: if you can't say anything nice, don't say nothing at all. Good.

F is for Friday

Friday - the last day of the working week. Never was it is as welcome as the very first week I worked and even though it is a few years back now, I can remember the absolute elation I felt walking home from the train station through Tempe Park knowing there would be no work tomorrow! It was like being let out for the school holidays - and even though it was only two days stretching before me this time, rather than weeks, it was glorious! I've only had that feeling once since and it wasn't at a particularly onerous job, at the end of a long week, or for any special reason - except that it was Friday and not in that TGIF way - although goodness knows there have been enough of those over the years! I'm not sure if it would be a good thing or a bad thing if it happened at the end of every week - there's certainly nothing wrong with looking forward to weekends but you'd have to hate being it a job where that was the only highlight ie not being there!

E is for Extenuating Circumstances

Extenuate: (often as extenuating adj.) lessen the seeming seriousness of (guilt or an offence) by reference to some mitigating factor.

It's a bit like that story about the man who kills his mother and his father and then pleads for clemency because he is now an orphan! The sentencing hearing of Sydney man Neal Richardson (convicted of murdering his lover before using a power saw to dismember her body) has heard that he suffers from traumatic recollections.

''He's off drugs now. He's sitting in jail with his life ahead of him,'' his barrister told the court, adding there was evidence Richardson felt ''contrition'' and ''remorse''.

After her death (which Richardson claimed happened when Ms Grant hit her head on a coffee table when they fell during an argument) at the house they shared in Malabar (a Sydney suburb), and believing that the police would think he had killed her (as she had been slated to give evidence against him on an assault charge) he disposed of her body on a NSW rural property.

Justice Lucy McCallum adjourned the matter for sentencing on May 11.

E is for Evidence

While I never saw Jerry Maguire (the movie) I can't help but think his "Show me the money!" was another way of saying "I'll believe you if you show me the evidence" ... but I have no proof of that - and there’s no-one immediately available that I can ask. Evidence makes up a huge part of our modern world - it's at the forefront in the cop show television genre - possibly too much so because people now have an unrealistic belief in forensic science and how well and quickly it can bring results! Or that evidence is best looked for by torch (a la CSI Miami) rather than turning on overhead lights. Evidence is there too in psychological research - although it's a little thin when studies are based on small, non-representative samples. This may be why they say hypotheses can never be proved - only supported. And what of religion - where people seek "evidence", proof, of the existence of their particular deity/God to bolster their faith. Would Jesus have been believed if he hadn't performed miracles such as bringing Lazarus back from the dead, curing the sick, feeding the hungry? Is there any way anyone would/could accept the existence of a being from another realm if they had no knowledge of it? Can folk believe in something for which we have no evidence? I guess the answer to that last one is Yes - especially since the property recovery of the 1990's seems to have resulted from people simply saying it was so!

D is for Demons

We saw a program the other evening which featured a segment on three teenage exorcists. They specialised in casting out demons and while the whole notion of these young things doing this was far-fetched, the segment did raise an interesting point. One of the young women exorcised during the segment said that she felt her demons had been cast out - and then went on to talk about her teen pregnancy, her abusive parents and other things which had troubled her and were now "gone". Hmmmm - that made some sense - thinking about demons not as supernatural beings that had invaded someone's body but as negative talk, experiences and criticism that had invaded a soul, built a nest there and started to fester and eat it away from the inside. And this isn't a new thought - although people in the past may not have viewed it exactly in those terms - because it isn't that long ago that people with a mental illness were thought to be "possessed". So what demons are each of us harbouring? What skeletons are in our closets, what secrets do we keep, things of which we are ashamed, things we prefer we hadn't said or done that we can't let go of, forgive ourselves, forget and move on?

[The devil is in the detail: isn't it amazing that we have a language in which a demon can be either a "cruel wicked and inhuman person", "an evil supernatural being" or "someone extremely diligent or skillful"? Me, I'm going with the Ancient Greek origin - δαίμων (god, goddess, divine power).] (Thanks WordNet.)

C is also for Conversation

Most of us take conversation and social interaction for granted. We fall into an easy interchange with others - passing the time of day, talking about the weather, avoiding taboo subjects like politics - and don't give it a second thought. For others it's a much more difficult proposition. They lack the basic skills of and for social interaction and find it difficult to acquire them - and it isn't easy - and harder still to find places and opportunities to practice. Lean forward and smile - try to connect with people - show them you care - these are the stepping stones to acquiring social skills: not really like ... but not totally unlike ... fake it till you make it. Now that's something to talk about.

C is for Change

To be honest, change isn't one of my favourite things ... unless it's coins, in which case it's welcome in bucket-loads. Real Change though, well, that's an entirely different matter. I am resistant to change. I realise this is perverse, given the only thing constant is change because change doesn't. But what's the alternative? A world without change? A world where we didn't need to adapt to new circumstances and conditions? A world where we can rely on everything being the same from day to day? Day in ... day out? That already sounds like a less interesting place especially if the lack of change extended to subjects, gears, tunes, clothes, lanes, jobs. Hmmm, could be time for a change ... of heart!

B is also for Bring Back the Ballad

They don't do ballads like they used to - not just the poems, but the songs as well. Music today is not about the words - let's face it, it's pretty hard to work out what they are - it's about the beat, and lots of it! Once upon a time, it used to be about harmony and melody. It used to be that you could put together a mix tape to share with your special someone to let them know how you felt - and the songs, filled with lots of E-flats and even more of the love tone, would spread the warm fuzzy feelings which symbolised how deep was your love. Now it's more likely to be head-banging rhythms and high-volume which is perfectly acceptable for dancing, especially as a precursor to mating, but it's not necessarily something which when next you hear it will brighten your smile and make your heart sing. Ah, Ballads ... (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning) how do I love thee? Let me count the ways ...

B is for Blog

It would be interesting to know how many blogs are alive and well out there on the internet and how many have slipped into disrepair through neglect or folk simply not having enough time to keep them current. Everyone (or is this a generalisation?) starts a blog with good intentions although no doubt for vastly different reasons. I'm not sure if blogging is about vanity or about people trying to find their voice - and then trying to have it heard ... although for some it may be enough that they have made the effort at all. These are probably not the folk who sign up to track their blog's statistics. Or is that something we all do - looking to see the number of hits on our sites, where they've come from and how folk have visited our blog instead of one of the other millions of blogs out there. Chance? Fate? Blog-hopping?

A is for Artist

It could also be for Ageing Artist. Last weekend we went to see Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons in concert at Jupiters Casino here on the Gold Coast. It was absolutely amazing - great staging, band, backing singers/dancers (that would be The Four Seasons) and, of course, Frankie Vallie himself - now in his late seventies. How amazing that someone would still be performing then - will we see Lady Gaga, Madonna and others of the current crop of artists performing when they're nearly 80? But back at the concert, within minutes - moments? - of the concert starting, the person I was with and I both had the same question - was Frankie Valli really singing or was he lip-syncing? Did it matter? As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who were wondering and during the course of the concert we came to believe that it was a mixture of both - for some he was actually performing with voice, and the rest of the time he was just performing - because unless you knew, except for a couple of small spots - you would never have picked it. Certainly, our being in the 5th row made it possible for us to watch his lips, and the screen, and to (we think, but were we wrong?) pick the difference. But it was a truly amazing performance - even if he wasn't actually singing, he was still "going through the motions" - and very well. Some singers use manual cues when they're trying to reach a certain note - it can be as subtle as a small movement of a finger - and he was doing all of that. But more than that he was taking us back to those "good old days" and it didn't really matter how he and The Four Seasons and the band were doing that ... as someone asked afterwards "Who said they haven't invented a time machine?". You just have to admire the dedication of someone who would be performing the same songs all these years later - because we know no-one really wants Frankie Valli to sing modern songs - he's there for the ballads - and even though he's sung them over and over again, he's still doing it and helping people tap into their memories! Bravo!

Role models

There was an interesting article by Andrew Jacobs in today's Sydney Morning Herald about the Chinese push to re-instill comrades with a sense of selflessness and industry by urging people to "Learn from Lei Feng" - a young man who was killed when a colleague reversed a vehicle into a telephone pole, sending it crashing down on him. Lei Feng was promoted to the status of National Hero by the Communist Party propaganda machine: Lei Feng, industrious, generous and irresistibly impish, China's most endearing soldier, the sort of fellow who would darn his comrades' socks and skip a meal so others might eat.

As Jabos writes: "In urging people to 'Learn from Lei Feng' a year after his death, then-leader Mao Zedong sought to imbue China's youth with a passion for self-sacrifice and patriotism — and perhaps distract them from the hunger pangs of famine that followed his disastrous effort to rapidly industrialize in the Great Leap Forward."

While these propaganda methods may have worked well "back then", today the Internet allows a forum for people to question the push - which they are doing although some of the comments are being deleted by censors.

Jacobs reports - and this was the interesting part which added to the suggestion that "government-sponsored role models strained credulity": previous party icons include Shi Chuanxiang, a happy-go-lucky "night soil" collector; Wang Yiqing, an electronics worker who assembled 5 million radio parts without a single mistake, and - wait for it - Iron Man Wang, who dog-paddled in a vat of cement when there was no machine to mix it!

Carrie ... the Musical

Just when you thought you had seen everything - here's something else to whet your appetite for theatre. Remember Carrie, Stephen King's story of a young, increasingly troubled teenager who is teased until she turns nasty, well, you can now see the Musical of the same name - until 22 April since it has extended its season. The following is an excerpt from The StephenKing.com Newsletter:

The newly reworked and fully re-imagined production of Carrie, produced by award-winning off-Broadway theater company MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, recently announced an extended run through April 22. The musical's original creators, composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford, and book writer Lawrence D. Cohen (who wrote the screenplay for the 1976 DePalma film version) have completely revised the their 1988 musical under the direction of Stafford Arima. Stars Broadway stalwart and Tony Award nominee Marin Mazzie as Margaret White, and a young actress named Molly Ranson who, by all accounts, is giving a star-making performance.

Not very clear - again or still?

Going through my wallet this afternoon (you do have to do it sometimes!), I came across a discount fuel voucher from one of the supermarkets. I checked the date and found it had expired - although it was fairly hard to read because the ink was fading fast on the thermal paper. Is this an additional service they offer that maybe didn't work as well as it might have? Self-fading fuel dockets ... they fade totally when they are out of date.

Not very clear

It depends on what you see as a positive - the headline on to day's Gold Coast Bulletin was: Vampire Killer Living on Coast. If you were afraid of these undead creatures of the night (unless you subscribe to the Twilight model) you might be pleased this was the case and you would see a "good news story". The intention though was not this. It is to let folk know that a woman who stabbed a man to death and then drank his blood has been released from prison and is now living amongst us. Is this a case of clarity sacrificed for brevity?  

Use it or lose it?

One thing I love about being on holidays is that there is more time for puzzle-play but it has been just a bit disappointing.  I obviously haven't been doing enough of it because one I love and am usually quite good at is now proving quite difficult and I have had to resort to using pen and paper to try to figure out the 9-letter word you can make from the jumble of letters.  Or to self: do more of them and regain lost sense of mastery (aka use it or lose it!)

Two new habits

According to a report I was reading this morning in Zite, two habits that people who are interested in self-improvement could take up this year are journalling (for recognizing, learning and remembering life's lessons) and reading books (because successful people do).  

Why is it so?

Have you ever wondered about how we adopt sayings and never actually question their origins or what they really mean? It struck me this morning that we use the term "Russian Roulette" but it seems to have very little to do with Russia - although Wikipedia suggests this is where the "game" originated - or Roulette - except perhaps (again as suggested by Wikipedia) the spinning action and the element of chance/risk involved. And who knew there were (at least) two variations - one where the two players take turns spinning the revolver's cylinder before firing. Chances are this would provide onlookers with better betting options by hopefully increasing the number of turns before one of the players did shoot themselves in the head! The other variation, where the cartridge is only spun once - means on a standard six-shooter, the game (and the players) would have a limited life. And if you were the second player and your opponent had survived three goes - would you pull the trigger? And if the punters had bet on which player would die - and they had bet on you/against you - would you be or feel compelled to pull the trigger. I would have said "who in their right mind would do it?" but then realised that, in my universe anyway, people in their right mind do not put loaded guns to their head and pull the trigger!