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The mouth of an average vegetarian contains about twice the odor-causing bacteria than that of a non-vegetarian.
While this may or not be true, certainly their emissions seem to be very "fruity"!

Postal

How scary would it be if one of the so-called rogue nations went nuclear AND postal at the same time?

Pigeon

Pelican ... its beak holds more than its belly can - which isn't exactly true - just ask visitors to London's Hyde Park last week who watched in horror as one of the resident pelicans scooped up and devoured a passing pigeon. The pigeon went down flapping and fighting - but went down nevertheless.

Workplace safety

Go-Go girls in Bangkok are to get training in classical dance to help prevent pole-swinging strains and other gyration injuries. (It didn't say whether they would be padding the Poles .... which are getting swung - sorry - bad joke.)

Face Off On

British surgeons have been given the go-ahead to do the first full-face transplant. But which of the 60-odd people waiting will be chosen as the first? As well as tissue matching, they have to make sure there is a match for skin tone, texture and hair colour. But what if the transplant doesn't take? But where would people get the donor material for face transplants? It reminds me of bad detective fiction where the villain on the run would have their face re-made so no-one would recognise them. I'm sure this isn't the same - but imagine if people were able to get face transplants to conceal their identity - although apparently when you get a full face transplant, it's just the skin you're getting - not all the bone structure e and other characteristics which make you look like you. You might get gangs roaming the country for face donors - beating them up to convince them to go with them - and the head gangmember saying "not the face ... not the face!".
Eye lash transplants are also available now. But wouldn't it be awful if the surgeons mistakenly put eye BROW hairs in instead of eyelash hairs. And wouldn't it be worse if the donor were someone like Bob Menzies (owner of incredibly bushy eyebrows while he was alive).

Cleaning up

What's $405,000 dividied by $494 - because if you can work that out, you can work out how many hours worth of naked cleaner Michael Lee had at the expense of the firm where he worked as a financial director. Not that they realised - but once Michael had drained his own bank account paying for the "call girl" to dust and vacuum wearing only rubber gloves - he couldn't give her up. And he had already spent $197,000 via credit card (after his own $49,000). He gave himself up to local police when his conscience got the better of him. One of his neighbours seemed most surprised that even though Michael was paying top dollar for his cleaner, his place was absolutely filthy.
I wonder how many times a week she visited. (My calculator suggests nearly 820 hours of service for his employer's $404k - hopefully it made him a happy person around the office!)

Christmas comes early

Well, there you have it. Proof that Christmas is getting earlier each year. These snaps are from Sydney's Queen Victoria Building where it was reported that "many trucks arrived and about 100 men" put up the Christmas Tree and sundry decorations overnight. The tree is massive and goes all the way to the top of the building! Well worth a look if you're about ... but no need to rush - at this rate it's going to be there for at least two months - that would also be a sixth of the year, in excess of 60 days - you get the picture!

The Urawaza Way

I am on the search for more information about Urawaza - secret tips for solving life's little problems - like how to make a band-aid stay on your finger, how to improve your bowling game and how to extend your reach to help touch your toes. I found out about Urawaza through a Wired article - but I want more. I went to YouTube but it seems all the Urawaza clips have been pulled because they infringed copyright. Drat. At this rate I may have to move to Japan so I can watch the Urawaza show on television there - and see the tips tried in real time in front of a live studio audience. (Yes, I know, not point doing it in front of a dead one!)

Shower

What do you do in the shower - how long does it take - and how much water does it waste? With Australia in the grip of a continuing drought, the thoughts of many are turning to water conservation - and how better to conserve water than by studying people's shower habits? Apparently locals here in Sydney are wasting water by singing, day-dreaming and playing with toys rather than concentrating on washing. They're also shaving legs, shaving faces, washing hair and cleaning teeth - good grief! What else will people think to do in the shower? The most amazing thing - besides that Sydney water authorities are distributing thousands of shower timers - was that all these other activities seemed to take about 8 minutes each. It's made me determined to see how long my showers are - in minutes as opposed to "half the hot water" (we have a very small hot water system).

Living on the edge

What are the riskiest words you can enter into a search engine - forgetting for a moment what they might be from a national security point of view -surely someone, somewhere, must be watching for that. But I digress - the most riskiest words you can use are "free screensavers". Nearly two-thirds of sites returned by such a search are problematic for users - exposing them to spam, spyware and other dangerous downloads. And, beware, apparently the sponsored results are high on the list of offenders.
(Not sure where I pulled this from - but it's got a date of 060514 in my notes.)

Haunted house

Planning a trip to New York before Halloween and want to face your deepest, darkest fear ... well, there's now a way. Tim Haskell, an off-Broadway producer, has set up an interactive haunted houses in each of NY City's five boroughs. But the question is - do the 13 phobic obsessions he identified by polling New Yorkers translate to the rest of the world? And would they pay to go into a room to confront those fears? Especially if they knew there were actors in there to stalk and terrorize them? Apparently - since 22,000 visited one haunted house he set up last year. Tickets are available on the web (turn your computer sound down first though) but you'd best hurry if you want to go - the houses close on 2 November - which, incidentally, is the same date that Sculpture by the Sea opens in Sydney.
So, what are those phobic obsessions? Haskell said his survey found that most people were afraid of roughly the same 13 things, such as drowning, clowns, rats or cockroaches, as well as heights and closed-in spaces. Guess a visit the house is necessary to find out what the other seven are! But be warned, the added theatrical elements reportedly make this a more intense experience than your usual haunted house - making it too extreme for some - and I know if I went I'd be one of those that had a physical reaction - heralding a need for dry and/or clean underwear! I went to a haunted house at the Royal Easter Show a few years ago, and was absolutely terrified at the thought of walking 10 paces through a pitch black corridor. But we still do it don't we? It seems part of us loves a good scare - probably because it feels so good when it stops.

Motivation?

And did you hear the news from EuroDisney about some of the employees, dressed in their character costumes, having what has been billed as a "Mouse Orgy" in video of the incident which has found its way on to the net. Management was not impressed and there is talk of disciplinary action against the employees. Seems that before facing the paying customers for the day, some of the "characters" had a bit of a play around - pretending to be engaged in "affairs of the heart" - although by all reports, the activities may have been more sexual than romantic in nature. I thought about going to the web to have a look and ran into a dilemma. Could the video be construed in any way to be pornography? What is pornography? According to the SlovoEd dictionary, pornography is:

1) the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2) material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3) the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

So what was the intention of the players? Was it the same as the person/s who posted the video to the web? And does the intent of the downloader figure in the equation. Can you be arrested for downloading pornography if you are not doing so for sexual gratification? I'm not sure what else you would be downloading this material for but there may be a set of circumstances which could prevail eg if you did not know what you were downloading or ... well, I don't know, okay ... but perhaps it could happen! So, to cut a long story short, in the end, I decided not to download "Mouse Orgy" and somehow I don't think my life is any the poor because of it.

Hanging by a thread

You just never know what information is going to fall into your hands (or your ears) when you're listening to podcasts. Thanks to the BBC's Chris Evans, I now know that tiger slugs have an interesting way of ensuring their sexual partners don't do it with other slugs. Heavens, it also means that they don't do it with them again either - but there may be bigger things at play here.
Tiger slugs mate by hanging from threads in trees. While theyre hanging there, their sexual organs, which apparently are longer than they are, are released and mating takes place. Afterwards, one of the slugs bites off the other's reproductive organ and eats it - meaning they are well-placed to get on with the reproducton. The other slug probably just wanders off somewhere - not sure if their bits are going to grow back at all. It's interesting what the animal kingdom has worked out to keep some species going, isnt it?

Six Flags

When I was in Kentucky earlier this year, from a distance I saw a Six Flags theme park. If I hadn't, I may not have noticed two references to Six Flags in the news recently.
First off, the chain is looking to impose dress and behaviour codes so they can return the parks to families - discouraging anti-social behaviour like people taking their shirts and shoes off, clothes bearing profanities, and rude and offensive behaviour. There was no mention of keeping character actors from doing pretend boinking.
While this may be good for their flagging business, I'm not sure how it fits in with the piece of news - around Friday 13th - where the Six Flags parks at Valencia was offering guests the opportunity to take themselves and three friends to the front of some ride queues if they ate a live cockroach. There was apparently no shortage of takers with four dozen consumed in an hour at one point.
When I first heard of this it was on a podcast and I thought it was that if you caught a cockroach you could jump to the front of the queue. It seemed like an interesting proposition - but curious - did they have a cockroach problem they were hoping to quell?
I can remember having only seen one person eat a live cockroach (no, haven't seen anyone eat a dead one - people don't seem to do they? Even on Fear Factor it's live ones). But back to the coackroach eater. His name was Mark Everingham and it was a big'un. I'm not sure if my revulsion was in any way lessened by his bravado in actually biting the cockroach in half (we heard the shell crack) and chewing thoroughly before swallowing.
The Six Flags park also had a cockroach eating competiton - with prizes available if you ate 13 Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches in 13 minutes.
Of course, I remain curious about from whence came the cockroaches for guest eating - and whether different species of cockroaches have different flavours.

Reference point

Citizendium ... well the name's not quite as catchy as Wikipedia but its founder hopes the experts (experienced editors and subject authorities) vetting user submissions will give it the edge over the more well-known online reference site. Although not mentioned by name in the report I read, it did say that Citizendium's founder was a co-founder of Wikipedia. A test version of the new site is due to be launched in California presently but because of bandwidth issues, it won't be available to the general public. Offers of help can be lodged through their site.

Heckle

The Sydney Morning Herald has a reader submission column called Heckler where it invites people to write in with 450 words (previously 650 words) about whatever makes their blood boil. I sent this off earlier this week - and have had no response - so it wasn't what they were looking for ... but it seems a shame not to share it.

Readers ... 450 words - hang on … what kind of inadequate non-rant producing limit is that? Why would I use this as a reason to put pen to paper to vent my spleen instead of merely going off at drivers cutting in on me, people walking too slowly, too long queues, people who push in, people with annoying, stupid mobile phone ring tones, people who put recycling in the rubbish bin and rubbish in the recycling, people who dump their rubbish near the bins, thugs who regularly smash the glass at the bus stop, and people who don't keep the security doors closed. And people who aren’t nice to each other – and don’t pick up after themselves, their kids or their pets. (What do you mean don't bang so hard on the keyboard … can't you see I'm busy here.) And don't push in front of me at the lift, the lights, getting onto the bus, getting off the bus, getting the newspaper, crossing at the lights (if the little man isn't green, I'm not going anywhere!) and certainly don't blow smoke into my face. There's a reason I stand downwind of you - and for all of our sakes, don't forget that you discovered deodorant last summer. And no, I don't want to listen to any of your conversations "on the bus" - who cares if you're on the bus - they know you're not home because they would have rung you there. And don't be the bus driver who sails past the stop where I've agreed to meet my partner and am carrying a backpack, two picnic chairs, and 10” x 12” photo enlargements in nothing more protective than a bubble-wrap envelope. And certainly after I catch an express bus to get in front of you - and then get on and ask you why you didn't stop - don't sit there and lie to me and tell me that you did stop - and then, don't tell me to lodge a complaint if I'm not happy - because you know that's exactly what I'm going to do.
[Draws breath] I guess 450 words isn't such a bad limit after all. They say you can't maintain rage for long - but it's been a few months now, and if my partner's right (and it is hormonal) it will be a while yet. Of course, it could be because of violent US TV shows - as suggested by a senior magistrate in a road rage case this week. If that’s the case, with my reliance on television for relaxation, I may never get out of this vicious cycle!

The Dream

The Channel 9 television network in Sydney has just been sold for nearly $5 billion. I can't imagine how much money that is. Or what you could do with it - beside perhaps buy some art - although not Picasso's La Reve (The Dream) that owner Steve Wynne "elbowed" recently, putting a small hole in the canvas. The painting had apparently just been sold for $US139 million, but Mr Wynne (the one with the errant elbow - possibly due to poor peripheral vision) decided to release the buyer from the contract, and to have the painting repaired and keep it instead. Can't imagine what they must have felt when they heard the tear. The Age carried a report on the incident, and a pic of the painting.

Dress code

There's been a bit of press in the last few days about enforcing dress conditions - but it's not at a club or something semi-sensible - it's on religious lines. An airline worker has been told she has to wear her crucifix (cross) under her clothes - and Muslim women are under pressure not to wear their head gear. As a woman being interviewed on the BBC World Today Select program reasoned - really what does it matter what anybody wears as long as it isn't a bomb strapped to their chest.

Almost ...

If you were planning a carjack, you would think you'd be confident of your ability to actually drive the vehicle. Well, that seems not to be the reasoning of a woman in Sydney who recently flagged down a vehicle, "helped" the driver out, and jumped in to drive away - only to find out that it had a manual transmission and she didn't know how to drive it. Not the world's best plan. The woman was apprehended by passers-by.

A roundabout approach

According to a report from the BBC, a study about to be published in the Lancet suggests that ... an estimated 655,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 who might still be alive but for the US-led invasion. The study, conducted by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHBSPH) estimate that the mortality rates have more than doubled since the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, causing an average of 500 deaths a day. President Bush has already come out discrediting the report - saying that while the loss of civilian life causes him grief "Six-hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just... it's not credible." In the past, Mr Bush has put the civilian death toll in Iraq at 30,000 - and other independent reports such as Iraq Body Count's figure of 44-49,000 civilian deaths, based on media reports. The JHBSPH relies on a "cluster" method - and this originally showed that 100,000 had died in the first year of the invasion. If their reckoning holds true - it suggests that the death rate has increased to 250,000 per annum. Which suggests that the whole notion of introducing democracy to Iraq could be a moot point if they a) kept the occupation going long enough and b) increased their kill rate. Hmmm.

Weapons control

A 13-year-old student wearing a mask and a long, black (or green) trenchcoat fired a Mac-90 (replica of an AK-47) into the ceiling at his school earlier this week. When confronted by other students and administrators he told them "please don't make me do this." The action happened about 10 minutes before school was due to start - and as well as the weapon, he had a note saying he had planted a bomb in the school - as well as detailed plans for an explosive device, and of the school. The lad was arrested, and no device was found.

The question is - where did he get the gun? Apparently from his parents, who kept the weapon in a safe at home. How big must that safe be - and I guess you can't really call it a "safe" anymore since the lad now has the combination. And why did his parents have the Mac-90? Well, according to one local official "it is not uncommon for people in the area to own assault weapons".

Hmmm - makes you wonder doesn’t it - but certainly not about the number of shootings at US schools - which may or may not be on the increase if the reaction to the latest shootings is to have the US Government consider adding more security - rather than looking at gun control laws.

But at least there is a major distraction now … where did North Korea manage to get nuclear technology? And how do you stop them testing it (again) or using it should they ever be invaded - or if they get bolshi!

Barbed comments

Not sure if this is true or not - but listening to Dr Karl's program on podcast the other day, he said that of the two recorded stingray barbs to people's bodies in Australia, both had hit their victims in the heart. Dr Karl posited that this could be something to do with electricity in the body - almost as if the stingray detected and aimed for the electrical field. He cited the cases of a swimmer at Coogee - and Steve Irwin.

StarTrekking ...

A model of the StarShip Enterprise, possibly used in the title sequences of StarTrek: The Next Generation or possibly the Original Series (reports vary), sold at auction for $774,000 (AUD) the other day. In fact, there seemed to be more money than sense at the Christie's auction of StarTrek memorabilia with the lots going for many more times the reserves. Good thing I wasn't there - I might have wanted to walk away with Captain Kirk's chair, or a scale model of something from the show - maybe even Mr Chekov's plastic console.

I'll just have to make do with the "Verses" - episodes fans make themselves because they cannot bear to be without the series in one of its incarnations (and there have been a few). So sit down with the computer, and a broadband connection and check out what's on offer (links courtesy of the NY Times): the Scottish production at www.ussintrepid.org.uk; the Los Angeles based, exploring gay themes as well as the Universe www.hiddenfrontier.com, the Texan www.starshipexeter.com, or perhaps the "online community theater" offering www.starshipfarragut.com. Or maybe you’d like to follow the other 30 million downloads at www.newvoyages.com - which is now so popular it has scored Mr Chekov (Walter Koenig) as a guest star. Live long and prosper!

Premonitions

Some of the cars in the neighbourhood had their windows smashed last Thursday night. As I waited at the bus stop the next morning, Christine and John her husband came out and surveyed the damage to their car. He shook his head and said - you know, I didn't want to park it there last night - it was just that the other car was in my usual spot (around the corner) - and then - I almost put it in the yard.

Have you ever had the feeling that you should or shouldn't do something - and then regret that you didn't act on your original impulse? Or is this the universe's way of preparing us for when less-than-good-things happen. I remember feeling like that before our house was broken into a few years back. It was almost a relief when it finally happened - and it certainly wasn't the shock it could have been - awful yes, but not a shock.

A kiss is just ... a hiss

Some people will do the strangest things to set a new world record. Take Thai snake charmer Khum Chaibuddee who today won the title of "Dangerous Kisses" by kissing 19 king cobras in under an hour. The previous best was 11 venomous snakes (set in 1999 by American Gordon Cates). Khum Chai-buddee has been working with king cobras for 12 years in his village Koke Sa-gna - and has been bitten only three times in his life. But his world record bid has also set the stage for a growth in the tourism industry in the area.
According to the Bangkok Post, Koke Sa-nga is Thailand's only known village where most of the 140 households breed or keep cobras as a pastime or a means of making a living. The village has previously become a tourist stopover following documentaries which showed snakes coiling around the residents during their leisure time. Which should have been good news - except the fortune this should have afforded the previously impoverished area was constricted by the division of the village into two factions - each claiming to be the original Koke Sa-nga snake charmers. Eventually the government stepped in to patch the rift - seeing that it was possible to increase income in the area - from 3 million baht from donations and souvenir sales for each of the factions - to over 20 million baht a year. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has commissioned Khon Kaen University's faculty of architecture to design a larger stage for the snake show and king cobra exhibition centre under one roof. The village (47 km from Khon Kaen) may also be developed into Asia's largest living king cobra museum and study centre, which will also include the cultivation of indigenous herbs used to cure snake bites.

Wired tip

People are sometime scritical of the information contained on the internet - but here's something which may be of interest:

Not that you'd ever need to do it, but if you had to disarm an atomic bomb, wouldn't you like to be prepared? By Patrick Di Justo from Wired magazine.

The article takes you through the key steps: disconnecting the battery; removing the neutron trigger; removing the conventional explosive; and separating the U-235 masses (that would be the uranium) - in slightly more detail than this.
Lastly, the article notes: If these tips don't work, give us a call and let us know what we got wrong.

Predictable?

Don't know whether you've noticed that the price of petrol at the bowser has started to drop a little lately. Well, - if you haven't, the NY Times reports that OPEC has - and is considering cutting its production to stem the recent steep decline in oil prices. Let's hope an alternative is in the offing somewhere!

Terrorist act?

I had not heard of the Westboro Baptist Church before today - and I think I preferred it that way. Numerous stories about this religious group of approximately 150 members (80% of them related) populated the US press today after they had threatened to picket the funerals of the 5 Amish school girls killed earlier this week by "milkman turned madman" (so dubbed by ABC News Nightline). The Westboros make it a practice to picket - 6 per day, 15 on Sunday - and have started picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. As far as I can tell from the reports I've read (and I absolutely refused to go to their website), their message is that everyone but them is evil - and includes that "God hates America" (as they have reportedly paraded on the streets of Baghdad before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime); and that "God hates fags". When bad things happen - it's God's will at work - punishing all and sundry (except them) for moral turpitude.
The main gist of today's media was that the Westboros had agreed not to picket the Amish funerals in exchange for airtime on national media. As one source said that it seemed an awful lot like negotating with terrorists!
I'm not sure if it is encouraging or not that there are groups out there - eg the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club in this instance - who were prepared to shield the Amish (and the world generally) from the Westboros - especially if the moves by various legislatures throughout the States, eg Indiana, to make it a felony to protest within 500 ft of a funeral are not successful. Somehow 500 ft doesn't seem like nearly far enough.

Coincidence?

It's probably just a coincidence - but is there any reason that condoms and pregnancy tests are next to each other on pharmacy shelves? (If prescriptions were filled immediately, chances are I would not have noticed this!)

Friday night in town

This evening we went along to Hyde Park for the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Month Night Noodle markets. This is where a bunch of restaurants set up their stalls and offer a selection of culinary delights to enthrall the public. It was good food and a wonderful thing to do on a cool Spring evening. And after our meal, we went for a wander through the nearby art&about display at Hyde Park North - Sydney Life. The winner of this competition - prize $10k - was supposed to be announced today but we didn't see a winner's notice on any of the pics.
Update: Fixed link to art&about.

Stem cell research

Scientists are working on stem cell research again - this time by combining human cells with a rabbit egg. The hope is that this will allow scientists to perfect stem cell creation techniques without using human eggs. "Human eggs" is a matter of semantics though because they will be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit (or cow). Imagine if the fertilized eggs were allowed to grow to maturity: there would be people with their own rabbit's foot. How lucky is that?

Good news and bad news

There is so much non-good news around at present that it's a bit hard not to get infected by it. And even good news has its reciprocal - like the executive jet that landed safely in Brazil last week after a midair collision. The collision happened at 37,000 feet - with a new Boeing 737-800 (taken delivery of by airline Gol less than a month before) which crashed with the loss of 155 lives. The big question - after how did the collision happen - was, why wasn't it the smaller executive jet that crashed?

Sending it back?

Have you ever sent a meal back in a restaurant? I'm watching Jamie's Kitchen in Australia and they're talking about pressure in the kitchen - and one of those pressures is people sending meals back. I could have sent my lunch back yesterday (there was lettuce on my sandwich) but didn't. And now I'm trying to remember if I ever have. I know I've sent coffee back (not hot enough, too strong) but I can't remember doing it with a meal. Not that there haven't been complaints about meals: at Bilson's some years ago "this duck's not cooked" and at lunch yesterday "there's lettuce on this sandwich - I didn't ask for lettuce". It would be easier if I didn't have such an "iffy" stomach - but it often takes me some time to decide on what I'm going to have and as long as something resembling that arrives - I'm usually happy enough.

An Independent Source

I know it seems as though I might have run out of things to blog about because I haven't made an entry for a few days - so it's thanks to Deb for advice about the man who killed himself by picking his nose. Deb advised that what started as an innocent pick caused a nosebleed that could not be staunched. By the time the ambulance arrived the man had suffered major blood loss and a heart attack ... and he died before they could get him to the hospital. At this point. I would like to offer a source other than Deb, but since she made it up - I can't! But it just goes to show how much she cares about blog content! Thanks Deb.

Bargain bin

I visited OfficeWorks today and had a look through their clearance bin - following Michael's example of yesterday where he found a(n) 128MB XD card for $10. I scored too - a 1GB card for $38.72. It had been returned as it was labelled 2GB and when the previous purchaser tried to use it - it came up as 1GB - but it's big enough for me. (Well, now that I have 3 x 1GB cards, it is.)

Jericho Junkie

Against my better judgment, I have allowed myself to be sucked into watching a new series - Jericho. It's on at 8.30pm on a Thursday evening - and it has been on two weeks now. But I haven't watched either of the tapings I've done - instead, I find that late at night, just as I'm about to go to turn off the television and go to bed, the "coming up next" announces an encore performance of … Jericho. So, I sit up for the next hour and watch it - and think - no, it's far too manipulative, turn it off and go to bed. But I am mesmerised, unable to move - and the next thing I know the closing credits are rolling - and I'm vowing not to get caught again. (That being said, I don't think it was any worse the second week - at least the escaped convicts seem to be out of the running now, and we know that there have been nuclear explosions in a number of US cities.)

MVEMJUN1

Well, any of the mnemonics you've used to remember the names of the planets of our solar system are out of date. Pluto has now been relegated as "not a planet" and renamed as a number - 134340. And how is this so? Here's an except from the Wikipedia entry:

In August of 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefined the term "planet", and classified Pluto, Ceres, and Eris as dwarf planets. Pluto is also classified as the prototype of a family of trans-Neptunian objects. After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340.

Somehow, it's just not the same. (Not that it's likely to bother me given I didn't get it right in the title - where's Saturn?)