Green dream

It's funny how the common vernacular can change from time to time. It used to be that a "green dream" was a way of sayiny a humane farewell to ailing pets - but now it's front page headlines - as in "Rudd's Green Dream" - an election-time vision for a future filled with renewable energy. It's certainly out there.

Fun with pumpkins

I loved "Wired", if only for the wonderful surprises it gives us from time to time. Halloween is fast approaching and what would it be without pumpkins. Have a look at these from last year: Foxtales or Deathstar (it's well worth the clicks).

Bear facts

Sarah Wallmer, a wildlife volunteer, now has something concrete to show for her efforts - four puncture marks on her buttocks after being bitten by a bear. Sarah was running with dog at the time and even though she was making lots of noise - to "announce her presence" to neighbouring wildlife, it's believed that the prevailing wind may have obscured her voice - making her appearance to the bear and her cub somewhat unexpected. And they don't call them "wild" for nothing. When the bear charged her, she dropped the dog's leash and turned her back to it - hence the stabbing pain in her buttocks. The bear roared and left.

A matter of principle

Our enlightened HR Manager organises for us to go to Business Breakfasts run by Network Central. Today's guest was investigative journalist and (now) author Jana Wendt. She was wonderful and engaging - both while speaking to the group, and then personally as she autographed copies of her book - a complimentary copy for each attendee was included in the cost of the event.
She spoke briefly of her time as a television reporter and some memorable (not necessarily happily) moments - like receiving an invitation (which she refused) to be privately entertained by Libyan leader Gadafi, even when a female aide ("and this was difficult" she acknowledged) said she would lose her job if unable to convince Jana to comply. Or the sound of film being torn from a camera because PLO's Arafat did not like the content of an interview with him. But her message this morning was truly about the people who she had interviewed for "A Matter of Principle" - and how she had birthed the book in a darkened room "by the glow of the computer monitor" over a 10-month "gestation". The book is a collection of interviews including Charlotte Rampling, Shane Gould, Frank Gehry and David Malouf. As the author would no doubt invite you … please enjoy.

White light

Did you know that white lights contracts the pupils for half and hour, and makes it difficult to see anything in the dark. That's why white light is #1 unwelcome visitor at Deerlick, one of three astronomy villages in the US - places where amateur stargazers can go to escape the light skies of suburbia. Homes have dim red outdoor lights, and windows have to be lined with light-blocking materials to prevent light escaping; and even flash lights have red bulbs. Seem like something you'd be interested in? Well, you may already have missed your chance with Deerlick where star lovers have already bought up big. There were 17 plots on offer 2 years ago - but not any more. But the good news is that even if you can't buy into Deerlick, you can go to the 10-acre hilltop obsevation field adjoining the village to gaze at the stars. But as you drive in to town, it might be best if you remember to turn off your high beams, in fact turn your head lights off all together - go with your parking lights

Penvy

I try not to but sometimes you just can't help but fall victim to that old evil - pen envy. The stationery store near the office (which I visit only occasionally - the office not the store) is having a sale of Lamy pens - my pen of choice. It's over 14 months since I lost my favourite 3-in-1 Lamy in the US and I'm fairly sure it's gone for good - so it's no wonder that I found myself tempted by similar, marked-down, models today. But I resisted. Okay then, the real reason I didn't walk out of the store with one is that I couldn't choose which of the four I wanted. Alas, I will be passing that way again tomorrow and I fear "opportunity + penvy = purchase".

What if

... you had booked return airfares to Christchurch (New Zealand) 5 months ago, were due to go in 5 days, and still hadn't done anything about booking accommodation, car etc. This reason for this inactivity was probably lack of inspiration rather than lack of time. Finally though, you get to talking with people and you decide that you'll spend first and last nights in Christchurch and the rest of the time based in Queenstown. But where to find accommodation easily? Well, the obvious answer is "the internet". But where to start? Which is why it's good to speak with as many people as you can until finally the magic words pop out ... wotif. Now I've heard of wotif and I know other people have used it effectively - but up until the time M mentioned it yesterday (and not just because she's a shareholder) I hadn't given it a thought. But yes, it does operate in New Zealand, and yes, we have now booked all our accommodation. It was an easy and excellent experience made much simpler by the advanced search capabilities on site (our main requirements: a kitchen and broadband access) and the ability to shortlist interesting properties for review and discussion. (Stay tuned for photographs of grey skies and rain - which is the current forecast for our visit.)

Lights up

Is it just me or is Christmas coming earlier each year? It's still October but that hasn't stopped Gold Coast computer repair-person Wayne Turner and his wife from spending the last month hard at work putting up their 2.5m Santa, 12 reindeer, and a guitar-playing snowman. And they haven't finished yet - which is why it's a good thing that there's still more than 3 weeks to go before entries close for the area's Christmas Light-Up competition. The Turners will have to wait until 2 December to find out if they're amongst this year's prizewinners - and a little longer (bus tours of the Christmas lights start Dec 7) until they know how much money their display, and people's generosity, have raised for the Gold Coast Hospital's children's ward.

Here we go again

"Summer time madness back from tomorrow" proclaimed The Gold Coast Bulletin today, and I couldn't agree more. It's daylight savings time (DST) again and for the next 3 weeks I'll be struggling with DST jetlag as my bodyclock and conscious mind struggle to come to terms with a time zone where clocks are pushed forward an hour for a reason I am yet to fully embrace. In fact, I'd be happier to embrace it if they had the equivalent of DST all-year-round, but I don't think that's going to happen. (Note to self: remember to manipulate ALL time pieces in the house this time - and change the batteries in the smoke alarm.)

Toby

I was surprised to hear an ad on the radio today for pre-paid funeral services. That wasn't the surprising part - no, that was that it was an interview with a child - Toby I think his name was. He's the son of the funeral director and he's doing the ad because "by the time you need us you could be dealing with me''. The tag, of course, is that it's a family business. So we know what young Toby answers when he's asked what he's going to be when he grows up - and we can only guess the look on people's face when this youngster cheerily says "I'm going to be an undertaker". It seems a little odd saying that - but people have been expected to go into the family business for years!

SMS

I am visiting provincial Queensland at the moment and am amazed by some of the content in The Chronicle, the local newspaper. It relates to a common addition to a lot of papers now - the ability to send in short comments (previously "Letters to the Editor") via SMS - so folk are making their point in 160 characters or less. Leaving aside for the moment that the rules of grammar and spelling do not matter in this forum (although some of us find it part of the challenge to keep both of these as critical elements of ANY communication - even, or especially, short ones) the published messages are refreshingly articulate. Take the one about current electioneering (aka pork barrelling) and the observation that, as a farmer, the local sitting member should well known that you can't fatten a pig on market day!

Birds of a feather

It seems that lots of people we know have taken to raising chickens (although I am sorely tempted to write "chickins", not sure why). These are Jo's chickens - actually it's one of the chickens and a broom, the bottom bit of a piece of gym equipment, and some of the brick wall - but you get the idea. At one point during the morning, she discovered both chickens in the back shed, busy watching themselves in a mirror.
While I resisted picking them up and cuddling them when there were tiny - and certainly wouldn't do it now - I did have a little nurse of one of the guinea pigs that Jo's daughter received for her birthday recently. The condition of them entering the premises was that there be no babies, ever, so both the guinea pigs had to be female - which is why Jo couldn't really complain when one of them gave birth to two babies a couple of days coming to live with them. Unfortunately, neither of the babies survived.

In transit to visit my parents, I stayed overnight with an old school friend. And believe it or not, there was occasion, thanks to Julie Bishop, Federal Education Minister, to give a rousing rendition of our old school song ...From the bush and beach and town itself, we come to gather on the hill ... The news of the day had carried an item about Ms Bishop arriving at Southport State High School to announce a new $1.something million Home Economics (?) block, only to find the School and its principal were not expecting her. When she was told that no-one had told them she was coming she asked the principal "who didn't tell you I was coming?" ... d'oh, how would he know if no-one told him? But, back to my overnight stay. Younger daughter Rach may have had something to do with the choice of manchester. I was impressed with the bedspread, because it has a different duo of horses on either side. I was also sharing the room with the Barbies - or were they Bratz?

Early morning call

Working on a global project brings me into contact with colleagues around the world - and we are often called upon to do group teleconferences that start quite early in the morning. A colleague had an early morning meeting scheduled the other day and then another longish meeting with me starting half an hour later. When we wrapped it up just over an hour after that, her mid-morning, I asked her what she was going to do next. "Get up" she told me. As the first meeting had been so early, she had taken it, and my meeting, from home. I'm still not sure whether she was serious or not but I certainly enjoyed the laugh with her. (And I'm certainly wondering about a similar strategy for my early meetings!)

Providing an education

One of the news feeds I read in the mornings (when I make time) is Yahoo US News. Here are two items from this morning:
Loopholes hide some misconduct records: More than 300 California educators had their teaching licences revoked or suspended because of sex-related offenses from 2001 through 2005.
And the other:
Sexual misconduct plagues US schools. The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh" he told his boss.
The next item may then come as little surprise - but there is no suggestion here of cause and effect, although the case could be made for finding out "why":
2nd-grader suspended for drawing of gun. A second-grader's drawing of a stick figure shooting a gun earned him a one-day school suspension.

"Lucky" Dube

South African Reggae star Lucky Dube turned out to be not so lucky when he was fatally shot in a suspected car-jacking in Johannesburg last week. In the past year, historian David Rattray, singer Taliep Peterrsen and opera singer Deon van der Walt have been killed in what have been called "similar attacks". Gratefully, I was unaware of this before/during my recent visit to South Africa but there were 19,000 murders there last year. I was aware that it was not safe to walk the streets - and certainly not to go into Cape Town's city centre after lunchtime on Saturday. When I jokingly asking a colleague where he kept his gun (following our use of an "air lock", one at a time, to enter the bank) he told me that he had handed it in a couple of years ago when new laws had been introduced. It would have made it too difficult to keep it, he told me. But it seems that no everyone reacted the same way. According to the Emergency Response doctor I sat next to on the plane on the way back to Australia, there are over 2,000 gun shot wounds in emergency departments in Johannesburg each year - and if you are preparing for a medical tour of duty in Iraq, you'll be sent either to Johannesburg or Washington DC because of the gun-trauma injuries you'll witness there. Washington DC? Yes, apparently there is a quite active gang scene there.

Perception

I have been lamenting the lack of time at work at my desk and that my "Inbox" is not empty. But that all changed this morning when I logged on to find I had reached 200 unread emails. There's something about a nice round figure that can put a person at ease (well, this one anyway).

FW: Tip

I subscribe to various newsletters about time management, for around the house, and in the office (although these two seem to have blurred a little since I started telecommuting).
I was reminded last week that a tip that works for one person may not necessarily work for another - or if it does, it's not for the same reason/s.
"Feeling rushed in the morning? Iron what you plan to wear tomorrow, the evening before. That will buy you at least 10 minutes extra time to get ready for your day."  Fair enough. But what they don't mention is that it will also save you multiple trips back home to check whether you've left the iron on in your rush to: decide what clothese you're going to iron, put the ironing board up, turn the iron on, wait for it to heat up, have your breakfast, iron the clothes, turn the iron off, let the iron cool down, put the iron away, make sure all the powerpoints are off, and lock the door after you ... oh, better check, was the iron cool enough to put away, is it near anything flammable, did I turn the power off ... then, did I turn the light off the last time I went back, did I lock the door properly (did I hear it snick) ... You get the idea.

What next?

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the kitchen, German meat firm Toennies has released its new "toaster schnitzel". Two years in the making, it saves consumers the trouble of frying up their own schnitzel - instead they can place the frozen treat into their pop-up toaster and voila in three minutes its ready. Toennies assures us that the pork and breadcrumb creation will not ooze grease and burn in the toaster but they are keeping Mum on how they've achieved this as a patent is pending.

Life savers

A Melbourne cemetery has come up with a life saving idea - making sure its cemetery staff are trained in the use of defibrillators (and first aid). This move comes in response to the mourners who collapse at the grave side - not an uncommon occurrence. As Vicki Pridmore, chief executive of Melbourne's Cheltenham cemeteries is quoted "A lot of people who die are old, so the people who come to the services are frail and they are vulnerable anyway, and the additional stress of a funeral tips them over the edge." They call the ambulance four or five times a year and as well as being used to deliver an electric pulse to restore regular rhythm (something we are all clear on) the defibrillators can also help assess illness for arriving paramedics.

Book Club

My partner belongs to a bookclub and I go along for dinner before the meeting, and to give my partner a lift home. Of late, I have started to sit near the group when it meets and listen in. These are a few of the comments from last Tuesday’s meeting when they were discussing a book whose title and author are probably best kept out of this particular report (not that the bookclub would not not want this reported back to the author!) “He was so far up himself even I wanted to kill him . . . If it doesn’t stand alone then it’s no good as far as I’m concerned . . . I couldn’t get the image out of my head of Mr Burns and Smithers . . . It set the scene a little bit … there was no development of anything . . . I was really annoyed about the synopsis of it – on the front, “an extraordinary work”– this was all very misleading . . . How could you compare this man with Dickens and Hitchcock . . . Even though you don’t like him, there’s no reason why . . . The highlight of the whole book was finding a typo in the last seven pages . . . Very disappointing . . . I gave it a 3 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . it was crap but I didn’t mind reading it . . . 5 . . . I kept hoping it would get better . . . It was like Spotless, but much worse.” And then, having talked about the book for this month, the club turned its attention to other books the members may have written. One mentioned was “Heart-Shaped Box”, by Stephen King’s son, writing under the name of Joe Hill. Unlike this month’s book, it came highly recommended.

Good Samaritan ...

When Australian woman Ksana Natalenko bid $320 to buy a pig that had turned up at a Sydney childcare centre, she thought she was giving it a good home. As she's quoted today in The Daily Telegraph "I imagined we would be watching television together" which makes me wonder how much Green Acres (with famous, almost human, pig Arnold) figured in her deliberations. TV watching is not what the 100kg pot-bellied pig, Bob, is focused on. He's "hot to trot" with only mating on his mind, as Ksana found out when she went to collect him, only to have him try to mount her. At that point, Ksana, who also has dogs at home, knew that the whole "take in a pig and save him from the abbatoir" scenario was not going to work. Let's forget for a moment that her neighbours, having heard about the scheme, have supposedly raised it as an issue with their local council. But back to Bob. Unable to keep him at home, Ksana has found alternate lodgings for him – for $20 a day. She is trying to find a more permanent solution – excluding an obvious one, especially as butchers have said that Bob is not suitable for eating, although word is that "there are certainly people out there who would slaughter him to make salami". (I am not going to think about that TOO much as I fear salami would become "off limits" for me.) Ksana has approached various agricultural schools and farms but has yet had no takers. An interesting dilemma.

Pushing the boundaries?

The Chaser's War on Everything, a fairly popular satirical program on one of Australia's national television broadcasters, has attracted some flak this week because of a"tasteless musical item" which "mocked dead celebrities" including Steve Irwin, Peter Brock, Princess Diana, Kerry Packer and (our) Don Bradman. In replying to the attacks, the song's author maintained he was "very comfortable" with it; but it seems that the approach is not so comfortable that everyone is fair game – some dead celebrities were excluded based, it seems, on whether they were seen to be in any way hypocritical ie the "innocent" (innocent in the eyes of the Chaser Team – and where would that distinction lie?"). But, it does make you wonder about the responsibility of people formulating anything for public consumption (pause to think about blogging as one such medium) and if one does need to "think about these sorts of things" eg whether the content might offend family/friends/loved ones – or the person themselves if they are still of this mortal coil.

Great Wit

Oscar Wilde (quoted as uttering, on his deathbed, "Either those curtains go or I do") has just been named in a British poll as that country's greatest wit, with 20% of the vote, thereby narrowly beating out in second position comedian Spike Milligan (who had "I told you I was ill" engraved on his tombstone). The poll, of 3,000 comedy fans, was held to mark the launch of a new TV channel called Dave - under the banner "The home of witty banter". But with a name like Dave, it could be hard to find on a TV dial (although they're probably a bit outdated now). While not making the top 10, the highest ranking woman in the poll, coming in at No. 12, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is quoted as having once said: Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Food for thought

Following a recent trip to South Africa, I have been pondering on "who decides air journey meal times?" Who decides if the menu/meal choices you are working to are in sync with your departure or arrival destination - and how far apart meals should be served? And am I the only one who's plagued with these thoughts? Apparently not. Just before falling asleep with his book last night, I found a reference to just this question - meals on planes - in Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost" where he describes the ennui of a flight from New York to Sydney, broken only by the appearance of meals at regular intervals. Alas, though, no answers.

Word verification

.... anyone who's posted a comment on a blogger site knows about word verification ... well, I'm not sure that anyone could call it that given the "word" I had to enter this evening. yzpxkzqd [...rub your eyes and look again...] yzpxkzqd. Yep, ain't no word like I dun seed before!

PowerHouse

While the inquest into Princess Diana's death continues, her wedding dress is currently on display at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. The dress is displayed on a faceless manikin - which seems an interesting artistic choice. I can't help wonder what the considered options were - Diana lookalike, a headless mannequin, a faceless mannequin, no mannequin at all. I wonder if this presented greater ethical challenges than, say, the showing of the Star Wars costumes a couple of years ago?

Power outage

An item in the weekend news didn't come as much of a surprise -in some ways. On television one night while I was in South Africa a couple of weeks ago, a notice came up saying that the immediate power shortage had passed and it was okay to turn on more appliances. I hadn't seen the previous notification but can only assume it was advising a shortage was imminent, and please turn off some appliances. But it seems that calling on customer help to deal with infrastructure problems may not be a foolproof plan - which could be why a power shortage in South Africa recently caused a rather large spill of raw sewage into rivers and a popular dam.

DNA to the rescue

What do you do when your mates keep having a go at you because you and your partner have dark hair and brown eyes, but your new baby has blonde hair and blue eyes? Well, you could go off and have a paternity test in secret - and then when you find out you are not the child's father, confront your partner about who the father really is. Then, if she's on the ball, she'll also have a DNA test - and be more than a little surprised when you find the baby isn't yours either. How so? An unintended switch at the local hospital 10 months previously with girls born 18 minutes apart. At the time, both mothers had commented that their baby's weights had changed "overnight" but they were assured by hospital staff that the weights had been "recorded incorrectly". Both sets of Czech couples have decided they will switch children - so they can have their "own" daughter. Before then though, they plan to spend more time together, before exchanging children in the lead-up to Christmas. But it does make one wonder what their lives would have been like if the girls had been raised in the wrong families. And how strong are "blood ties" - given the couples had raised the girls for 10 months and were still prepared to hand them over.

Driven to ...

Now this is resourceful ... a 6-year-old in Denver (US), feeling a bit more than peckish, took his grandmother's car keys, put his child seat in the driver's seat, climbed in, and tried to drive himself to a restaurant. However, it was not plain sailing - he couldn't get the vehicle out of reverse and 23 metres later he backed into an electricity transformer, taking out the power to surrounding homes. Luckily no-one was hurt and, being a responsible, if not competent, driver, he told his grandmother what had happened. (Seems like a good reason to keep some kind of nutritious snack on hand!)

'Trouble at' Mill'

But actually it's good news because it means there's another Wallace and Gromit half-hour television adventure on the way - due to make it to a small screen in your living room sometime in 2008 (or shortly thereafter). In this adventure, the first small-screen offering featuring the pair since the wonderful A Close Shave(1995). 'Trouble at' Mill' is a murder mystery and Wallace and Gromit have moved from pest removal to running a bakery from their house. And of course, no new show would be complete without a fresh love interest for the (so-far unlucky in love) Wallace - this time the aptly named Piella Bakewell. Can't wait.

Famous voices

You've probably heard it a few times, but may not know you've heard it ... the Wilhelm Scream. It's been in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Toy Story, and Lethal Weapon 4 to name a few. So what is the Wilhelm Scream? In the 1951 film Distant Drums, a voice actor overdubbed a shriek as an alligator "tore" a man's arm off when he wandered too close to a swamp ... and thus the Wilhelm Scream (more a screech) was born. It's been used over the years since by sound engineers and is so much part of a joke by them, it's now the punchline.

Dom Pedro

Whenever I travel (yes, yes, I know ... the last time I was in San Francisco), I try to sample the local fare, well, as far as my sometimes squeamish stomach will allow (hence my "no kangaroo", "no crocodile" policy). I also try for the local drinks - which is how I found the Dom Pedro here in South Africa. I'm surprised we don't have it in Australia, especially since our shores are no strangers to people from South Africa. The Dom Pedro is like a thick milkshake but with a dash (perhaps more than a dash) of Kahlua or Whisky. Mmmm. Definitely worth the visit to South Africa to discover it.

South Africa

Blogging's been a bit too hard with limited internet access (and time) but I have managed to post a couple of photos (more to come - plus captions) on the www.101-journeys.blogspot.com site.

A tale of two muggings

Just when you least expect trouble it can come your way and make an otherwise memorable day memorable for other reasons. Case in point the French tourist visiting a wildlife sanctuary in Malaysia who was attacked by an orangutan who tried to make off with her backpack and left her bruised and scratched. (The incident has dispelled her previous belief of orangutans as "friendly, cuddly creatures".)
Or the couple in NY's Central Park who were robbed at gunpoint almost as soon as he proposed. Let's hope neither of them is superstitious/see it as a bad omen because it could leave one a little anxious about the big (wedding) day - she had just accepted when the (heartless) robber jumped out at them before making off with his watch and their (romantic) dinner money.

And on the subject of advertising ...

Ever looked out of a plane window and thought "gee, wouldn't it be good if someone put, say, an ad 20,000 square metres in size (that would be about the same as three football fields) down there so I can be persuaded to buy something?" UK-based Ad-Air is hoping that's the case with the new service it launched earlier this week in London. Its plan is to place large ads near the runways of the world's busiest airports - including London Heathrow, Paris, Geneva, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Abu Dhabi. The first advert will appear in Dubai next month and could develop to produce a moving image that starts each time a plane comes into sight and will be illuminated where local legislation allows.
Hey, I'd like to see that - which suggests that advertising just might work ... before I read this item on Reuters, I didn't even know that this was something I wanted!!

Conversation piece

Was it GMail that was going to put targetted advertising on emails by "reading" them for content and then serving relevant ads? Well, if that wasn't difficult enough, another company has come up with a way to link advertising to telephone calls made via the internet. It will have software "listen" to your call and then display ads relevant to your conversation. So, if you're talking about "dinner", a restaurant ad or review could pop up on the caller's computer screen. "Could" being the operative word since it seems that it's notoriously difficult for computers to recognise speech, for example someone writing about architect Harry Seidler, kept having Harry Spider come up on screen with the voice recognition software she was using. A test of Puddingmedia's beta software is reported on one news site as having had mixed success. Relevant ads appeared when the reporter talked about restaurants and computers, but the software was oddly insistent that he should seek a career as a social worker. But, as the chief executive of Puddingmedia advises, this could be seen as a feature rather than a bug ... "Sometimes crazy things pop up. It actually enriches the conversation, which is very cool."
Public trials of the software begin in the US soon.

Around the world

Cricketer Shane Warne arrived in Australia yesterday - considerably later than photos of him leaving the overseas (London?) airport were published. It's amazing, isn't it ... how quickly information can be transmitted around the world these days? But try telling that to Australian television stations who are "rushing to air" programs soon after they are broadcast in the US. This haste has been billed by one station as "streamed direct from the US" - which is why it's odd that, given the almost instantaneous nature of "streaming" in technology terms, that it then takes them up to two weeks to actually broadcast the "streamed" content. The move to have a shorter gap between US and Australian broadcast is to counter the increasing (illegal) practice of people downloading shows when they are broadcast overseas, rather than waiting the (used to be) up to 6 months [sometimes never] for them to turn up on our screens.
Of course, my big lament is even missing shows when they are broadcast - because I didn't actually listen when someone said "Did you see they've got a new series of Night Stalker out" and by the time it actually registered (some weeks later) that this is something I did want to watch, I tuned in just in time for the final episode. Hmmm. Looks like a visit to amazon.com for me.

Word for the day

You never really know where new words are going to come from so I was pleased to find one in a cartoon this morning. The word? Atlatl. The meaning? A device for throwing a spear or dart that consists of a rod or board with a projection (as a hook) at the rear end to hold the weapon in place until released. (Thank you Slovoed.) The context? A caveman trial with guilt implied because the defendant's atlatl was found near the crime scene.

Sex (?) in the News

Why do they call they "newspapers" when some of the material in them isn't news ... like yesterday's item on celebrity chef Jamie Olivier who, if you believe what you read, thinks he's a bit of (not necessarily even thinking) woman's crumpet, given how many women throw themselves at him, particularly when he's in Australia.
But it wouldn't do to remove non-news content from the pages of newspapers, because then we would miss out on gems about other "celebrities" like Jack's in The Daily Telegraph: He might be the Sheik of Tweak in the fantasy world of professional cricket, but in real life he's the Moron of Melbourne, the Bonehead of Blackrock, the Bogan of Brighton. Or Carol's, about the same in-the-news-again-because-of-sex-texts celebrity: I wonder what woman would find him attractive if he didn't have celebrity status. A fat, immature oaf with bogan hair and cornflake lips.

Fancy a career change ...

Seems NASA is on the hunt for people with the "right stuff" to become astronauts. Applications close July 1, 2008. Possible job destinations include the International Space Station, and even the Moon. And what is the "right stuff" - well, a bachelor's degree in engineering, science or mathematics and three years of relevant professional experience is the right start. Or if you're an experienced teacher (kindergarten through to 12th Grade) you'll also be considered to be off on the right foot.
Successful applicants for NASA's first intake since 2004 will be announced early 2009 - to give time for the six-month interview and evaluation process. If you're interested you can get more details online: http://www.usajobs.gov or, if you're already in the US, or have a good international rate on your phone, call (281) 483-5907 for more information via NASA's Astronaut Selection Office.

There's a bear (?!?) in there

It's not easy sometimes to distinguish what's happening in the real world - especially if you're a patient at the Predeal (Romania) psychiatric institution which was recently broken in to by a bear and her two cubs. The bears were hunting for food and found it because after being chased from the facility by hunters with tranquilliser guns, the adult bear padded off to the surrounding forest with her head still stuck in the canister.
It's good there were staff on duty at the time though … otherwise the patients may have had a hard time having people believe what was happening.

Surprise

Two reports from today's The Daily Telegraph which shouldn't go unnoticed.
First, a New Zealand woman who died from cancer on Sunday placed her own death notice in the local paper. "If you are reading this you will have realised that I am no longer with you" wrote Lois Ngaire Causer, 76 ... "I ask you to celebrate my life. Although at times hard, on the whole I had a good innings". I'm not sure I could be composed enough to do it ... but it's one way of being prepared. The report was unclear as to whether publication of the notice came as a surprise to her family although it seems, it wouldn't really have surprised them given her eldest daughter's assurance that it was "quite characteristic for her to do things like that".
But in the other report, there was a fair degree of surprise for the family of a young boy who was recovering from emergency brain surgery on a subdural empema (abcess). Where he had had a strong Yorkshire accent previously, it seems to have been replaced by a "posh" accent, more reminiscent of Queen's English. He apparently is unable to hear the difference - and was quite surpirsed to see his family staring back at him trying to make sense of what they had heard.

There is a difference!

Or so the "hand washing police" suggest based on recent research. In broad terms, males are much less diligent in washing their hands after using the bathroom - 33% (1 in 3) compared to 12% (1 in 8) of women don't. The study was based on observations of more than 6,000 people in four major US cities last month. This is important especially as, according to doctors, handwashing is the single best thing people can do to avoid getting sick. And while it may seem odd that there are people out there prepared to hang out in public restrooms checking hand washing (or not) behavior it's good they're prepared to because if we relied on self-reporting, we'd never know how bad the situation had become. In a recent survey 92 percent of Americans said they usually or always wash their hands after using the bathroom - as opposed to the 77 percent who researchers for the American Society for Microbiology found actually do.

Careful of the Crocs

Just when you thought it was safe to go back ... on the escalator, there's news of various reports from around the world of a new hazard ... Crocs! Not the living, breathing, chase you up the beach kind but the other variety - the plastic, soft-soled clogs that have taken the world by storm (and which are sometimes referred to as "farm shoes", especially if they're yellow, and intended to be a Christmas present <sniff> but don't get me started on that now ...). According to a report on Yahoo US News, numerous reports are being received from rail stations and shopping malls about people, especially young ones, getting their toes caught in escalators ... and the element they have in common appears to be Crocs (or other non-original versions of them). According to one woman's report, her son's Croc was "sucked up by the sidewall of the escalator and his Croc was mangled". Luckily he escaped injury, toes intact. Crocs have begun putting a warning tag on their shoes.

Day in Focus

... is back, but I'm not sure for how long. Follow the link on the left to get there.

Margaret remembered

The second of my aunts on my father's side died yesterday morning at 12:50am. This follows Margaret's long and brave battle with complications from diabetes. During this struggle over many months, she was resuscitated at least twice and at the end had developed gangrene in one of her legs and while amputation was being considered, the family and medicos didn't get to make a final decision as Margaret's kidneys started to fail and then ... she was gone.
It's hard to imagine that someone so full of life over the years of my childhood (and beyond) is no longer with us, except in spirit. She was willing - and able - to grab the world with both hands even though sometimes it had seemed as if she had been dealt one of life's not quite so impressive hands.
Among her many achievements, but one that hold a special place for our family, she was the one who, as my mother's friend more than 50 years ago, introduced her to her brother John - and thus our immediate family became possible.
On a lighter note, I will always treasure the memory of us doing the rounds of the Christmas lights in Toowoomba a few years back, with Margaret belting out carol after carol.
Vale Margaret.

Cafeteria

This morning as my sour dough toast - with butter and jam on the side -arrlved, I realised that the "butter" was probably margarine. It often is at sandwich shops and I find it quite bemusing when they ask "Butter?" (on your sandwich) when they have no butter, just margarine. I was pondering if this was worthy of blogging - and came up with "no" … until later this morning, at a hospital cafeteria, when a gentleman, awaiting his order was asked "Margarine?" Finally ... truth in sandwich-making. Which is why it was then nice to watch the same cafeteria worker opening a fresh packet of coffee beans and pouring the contents into the grinder attached to the cappaccino machine. She took a deep breath, savouring every last trace, and said how much she loved the smell. Definitely "a perk of the job" some wit in the coffee line remarked (okay, it was me).
Also notable at the same cafeteria was the sign displaying this wording: Today's near miss could be tomorrow's accident. Please report all near misses.

Just desserts

If you were a dessert what would you be? In Japan, a couple of politicians including the recently stepped-down Prime Minister have "tribute desserts" in their honor. The ex-PM's is a bun with red bean filling, while the Foreign Minister's is a butter sponge. The report I saw gave no clear indication of how the particular desserts were matched to their namesakes - whether it was something they liked (in which case mine would probably be Lemon Meringue Pie) or what they resembled (put me down for a big cream puff). So, given the choice ... what dessert tribute would bear your name?

In for a penny …

According to an ad in today's The Daily Telegraph, Australia's 1930 Penny is worth big bucks. There are belived to be only 1,500 left and those have risen in price from $350 in 1966 to $45,000 today. So wouldn't anyone jump at the chance to have one - or more correctly to have their "very own tribute 1930 Penny" for a mere $19.95. This limited offer (50,000 issued world-wide) comes with a 30 day money-back guarantee and is available from www.downies.com. And the good news is that if you ever want to spend the 'penny" - it's legal tender in the Cook Islands!

Early adopters miss out

The cost of the (is it 8GB?) iPhone has dropped dramatically - by $US200 - within a couple of months of release, leaving early adopters out of sorts and out of pocket. But it appears that Steve Jobs is coming to the party - with a $100 store credit on offer for those who paid full price for their iPhone. Which raises the question - is early adoption of any technology worth $100 (the difference) for two months. Well, the only answer is YES ... unless it's a couple of Palm products I've had which didn't quite live up to my expectations. And speaking of Palm products, their Foleo - a laptop of sorts which would be totally compatible and synchronisable with Palm applications - has been pulled from the product line-up before it started shipping. Ah well, at least it saves me having to decide whether to get one (early or otherwise).

Googling for Fossett

After adventurer Steve Fossett disappeared last week while flying over the Nevada desert, news reports told of Virgin founder Richard Branson scouring satellite images of the area looking for signs ofhis missing friend. Now you too can join the search via Google Earth via Google's Mechanical Turk scheme. Anyone taking part downloads updated satellite images and an associated program that allows them to flag possible crash sites.
The creators of the search scheme said Mr Fossett's plane would appear as an object about "21 pixels long and 30 pixels in wingspan". While local search authorities suggest it's unlikely that Google Earth images will show more than military satellite images, they shouldn't underestimate the rigour of Earthers. You only need to subscribe to "Strange Things on Google Maps" on the Google home page to know the lengths people go to in searching images - a blimp, a sculpture of an iron molecule, the Hollywood sign - and it's updated often.

Horse sense

As we are still in the grip of equine flu in Australia it's not that much of a surprise that we there are signs on national roads warning that there be "No Horse Movements". Of course, this could be taken a couple of ways - one which is probably not exactly as the officials want - but it does highlight a problem with the flu and bodily functions. Once you have horses confined to a single space, and no products that touch them able to be moved into the wider community least it be infectious, what do you do with all the manure? This is apparently one of the (small) logistical problems they had to contend with with the lock-down of stables at Centennial Park (scene of a sizeable EI outbreak). And late last week, when a truck carrying manure crashed in outer-suburban Sydney, there was a major clean-up of property and people in the area to make sure any risk of infection spreading was contained.
Additional Note: One of the race courses here is called Flemington. In a television comedy program (The Chaser's War on Everything) they had images of the new Phlemington!

Writer's (cell) block

I'm never quite sure where story ideas come from for me - sometimes they're triggered by a news story, or something I see, or something someone says .. but there's at least one Polish writer today who will be serving some cell time because of his "best seller". He has been jailed over the murder of a businessman, four years after writing a novel detailing a similar earlier crime which occurred a couple of years earlier. Yes, yes, it's all been done before ... but in this case, the book contained details about the crime which were apparently known to only the killer and the police. Krystian Bala insisted the detail in "Amok" about the brutal murder of a Polish businessman were taken from press reports of the crime or made up. Of course, the fact that the real-life murder victim was Bala's ex-wife's lover might have skewed people's thinking. However, because of a lack of evidence, Bala was not convicted for the murder - but received the 8 to 25 years prison sentence for his involvement/directing the killing - which means that the statement "known to only the killer and the police" is slightly misleading and really needs to be extended in this instance to include "and perhaps the person who instructed and continues to protect the identity of the killer". But it does give pause for thought for writers, doesn't it?

Virgin's Outlook

When making some flight bookings online yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised (read "stunned") when the on-screen confirmation offered an option I had never noticed before ... click on a link to save the flight details as an Outlook appointment. What a fantastic idea! And it schedules it an hour before the flight so there's an even better chance of being at the airport in time. Nice one Virgin Blue.

Hot iPhone

There has been an avalanche of sales of Apple's iPhone since it was introduced in the US some weeks back. Of course, not everyone has been happy with the fact that if you want an iPhone, you have to use Apple's chosen carrier, AT&T (who apparently pay Apple for every new connection and ongoing charges). That's where the hackers come in - trying to find a way around the block and it seems that they've done it. Some of the "hacks" require opening the iPhone case - which probably voids the warranty, but worse - can lead to other trouble - like the would-be hacker Wired reports had a "wayward screwdriver puncture the battery, causing it to explode". Yes, best to go the software route if you're so inclined and according to This Week in Technology, software hacks have been "hacked" and should be available soon. And they could be popular - according to one site over 200,000 users have signed up to indicate they are interested in "knowing more".
It will be interesting to see if the iPhone can be used on any network when finally it reaches Australian shores sometime later next year ...

Suspicions

It's hard to know what's suspicious these days - especially with foreign entourages in town for APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation - yes, it does look like it needs another noun at the end doesn't it?). On the way in today I noticed a garbage bin that had been covered in black plastic and sealed shut with police tape. However, this seemed to be the only bin in the area that has been sealed so. The other bins - across the road, around the corner - are still open for business. So, the question I found myself asking: is this suspicious? Or the street furniture maintenance worker who had put traffic cones on the footpath around his van, where he was working on a utility cover, and a patch of footpath further along. Is this suspicious? And who decides? It's likely to be a long week - but at least there's a chance we'll get to see some helicopter and fighter-plane fly-overs - and hopefully it will just be a continuation of their practice runs.

Note to self: get out more

During a computer training session last week the Microsoft Wizard came up and before he could be deactivated he started reading the help text - in Stephen Hawkings voice. I was surprised - until I realised that Mr Hawkings voice is computer-generated also - and while I know I knew that, it still came as a shock to realise that others may use "his" voice. I guess we take having our own distinct voice for granted.
Also in the never-before-realised department - ginger beer can be alcoholic (and quite potent the way my brother brews it!). But does this mean sarsaparilla could be as well? And that it wasn't a "soft" drink in the good ol' Wild West?

Doing what they loved

I often wonder about the statement "they died doing what they loved" and how this is somehow supposed to make a person's death more meaningful or less sad in some way. So you have to wonder about the 18 year old who was recently killed at his workplace, in a car wash in Michigan. Ricardo Martinez was closing up for the day when a customer returned to have their vehicle re-washed (no reason as to why was given). For some reason, after the vehicle entered the wash, so did Martinez where he became entangled in the giant automatic brushes, and died. Police are reportedly not treating the death as suspicious even though the Yahoo News report suggests that it was not that customer who found Martinez's body but one coming later - which seems plausible if Martinez followed the vehicle into the car wash. Not a good way to go.

Mars Rovers

It doesn't seem like five years since the Mars Rovers touched down and started sending back photographs of the Red Planet. Not bad for devices that had an expected service life of a few months. But it's been touch and go for them recently with dust storms blanketing Mars and restricting the amount of sun light reaching the Rovers' solar panels. So touch and go that it seemed there would not be enough energy generated to keep minimum systems functioning. I first heard about this the day before yesterdady when listening to a month-old podcast of Dr Karl on JJJ. He seemed quite moved by the Rovers' plight which had already been a concern for some time. So, this morning when I read that the dust storm was over and the Rovers are okay (even if old and dirty), I breathed a sigh of relief on his (and their) behalf. At the same time, I couldn't help remembering a cartoon I'd seen of the tiny Rovers traversing the Martian landscape taking photos of the distant dust - which turned out to be a group of aliens holding up photographs of desolate landscapes in front of the very small Rovers - thereby preventing them from capturing images of the very lively, teeming metropolis behind them. Or the other enduring image from back then, of a desolate plain with a single feature way off in the distance ... gigantic yellow runes ... also know as the McDonalds golden arches!

Under durex*

You'd have to have a fairly low pain threshold to try this - or perhaps bald. A US robber has been dubbed the Duct Tape Bandit after robbing a store with the adhesive tape wrapped around his head. Alas, it was no match for the storekeeper who had his own duct tape - wrapped around the business end of a wooden bat. Ouch.
* Durex: generic (and brand) name for sticky tape in Australia in the 1960's; plus generic (and brand) name for condoms in the UK in the 1960's.

Two for one

While typing up my blog spot this morning, I was puzzled and surprised to find the same words appearing on my phone screen as my Palm. On reflection, it made sense - I use the wireless keyboard with both, and the phone was also picking up the signal. Who knew you didn't have to specifically activate it (must have something to do with the power settings), and that you don't need to point the infrared arm directly at the infrared port?

Seen in Newtown

… a man with a yellow golf tee through his ear lobe
… sign outside a laundromat "Quality Socks for sale"

Father's Day

You just have to love Father's Day. It's probably my favourite time of year ... because advertisers have cottoned on to that the ideal gift for a father is probably related to electronics in some way. Result: the newspapers are full of ads and catalogues! Makes the gadget-loving side of me very happy.

Travellers beware

If you're planning a visit to Australia, make sure you bring LOTS of money - especially if you're unlucky enough to be travelling with unscrupulous tour operators - you know the kind: they charge you $100 for walking along a public (ie free) beach, and take you to shops where you can buy a $80 sheepskin rug for $1200. It seems that this kind of thing is becomng an increasing problem on our shores - so much so that the Mayor of Waverley, where the famous (free to walk on) Bondi Beach is located, is pushing the government to crackdown on rogue operators.

Early bird

There's a saying that the early bird catches the worm, but in Camperdown, Sydney, the early birds also get the buns. When bussing past a fast-food outlet, we noticed some commotion on their front step ... and realised it was a small flock of birds trying to peck their way through plastic sheeting to get at two trays-full of buns that had been delivered to the shop before opening, and left on the door-step. They seemed to be having some success .. and while it's unlikely they'll eat all the bread, there will no doubt be some interesting beak and foot prints on the delivery.

Reward

On page 15 of today's The Daily Telegraph is a 1/8th page ad offering $20,000 reward for a Acer Travelmate laptop stolen from the Wahroonga area.
PROOF: Send a file or a picture from the olaptop to prove bona fide. Even if data has been deleted and you are a third party recipient, the reward will still be paid.
DROP OFF: Once this is proven, email instructions for handover of cash reward will be given.
Email: stolenlaptopreward@gmail.com
I was a bit surprised there wasn't an accompanying story because it seems there could be a story here. What makes a laptop worth $20,000 cash, no questions asked, even if the data has been erased?

Numbers games

Imagine my surprise as I sipped my coffee and feasted on the morning news to find that a quarter of Australians are addicted to coffee and cannot function without it.
Hmmm ... sounds plausible I suppose until you read further. The survey was of a sample size of 552, of which 26% said they were addicted to coffee. All of these drank more than 3 cups of coffee a day. The "self-proclaimed addicts" said they could not "speak to anyone before they had their first caffeine hit in the morning" ... which must make their partners really happy! The report of the survey, conducted by the Home Beautiful magazine, did not outline the methodology employed, how the sample population was chosen, or give any other details which might suggest the findings will be reported in a scientific journal any time soon!
Also on numbers, and "how did they get that?" was another story in The Daily Telegraph today which told of a pensioner who celebrated her 100th birthday by lighting her 170,000th cigarette from a candle on her birthday cake. Now if only I knew what day World War I started in 1914 (when Winnie Langley was 7!), I could re-check the calculations* ... 5 cigarettes a day since then ... say 1 July 1914 (midpoint in year) to 28 August 2008 is 34,000 days is ... (drumroll) 170,020 cigarettes. Close enough but depending on the actual date, they may have rounded up or down to get to the round figure. More research is needed ... but how amazing would it be to smoke no more and no fewer than 5 cigarettes a day. Of course, it's not such a big health risk, she insisted, because she never inhaled ... cigarette smoke ... as opposed to the rather bold headline on the article which proclaimed "100 year-old never inhaled".
*According to Wikipedia, World War I started on 28 July 1914. So even if she started smoking on that day, and smoked 5 cigarettes a day, that would take it to 169,885 cigarettes smoked in her lifetime (so far). But as she started smoking a few days after the way started she would also fall just short of this mark. (Thanks to Palm's Personal Power One calculator which makes it so easy to work out the number of days between two dates!) (I know ... too much time on my hands.)
And finally, on the subject of choice, in a recent newspaper debate over whether TV shows are objectionable ("too sexy, violent") a reader comments "If families don't like this sort of show, then they should turn off turn the TV off or change channels. This is why there are several free-to-air and pay TV stations: to allow viewers to watch what they like." Hmmm, perhaps not - surely the companies who are running the stations are actually looking to make money out of the exercise, with different offerings a way of catching a greater audience, rather than their way of simply increasing the options open to viewers. The plethora of reality shows spanning so many channels attests to that.

Lunar eclipse

We are lucky enough to have clear skies for the lunar eclipse tonight!

Thinking gap

You'd think that if you were going to take someone to a well-known suicide spot like Sydney's Gap, and throw them off, you'd at least try to make it look as though they'd taken their own life. Not so for men currently on trial in Sydney for the death of a luxury car dealer in 2005. Although reports suggest that they had only wanted to "put the fear of God" into their victim who they had kidnapped from his home, it seems they were intent on a little more as they lifted him over the safety fence, stood him on the edge and then, with him blindfolded and his hands bound, they reportedly "tossed him over the edge like a 'football'". That could be the type of thing that leads the police to think there may be "suspicious circumstances".

Does it martyr?

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph today, US forces in Afghanistan came so close to capturing Osama bin Laden in 2004 that he instructed his men that "they should all die and martyr him as well" should it look like he would be captured. The questiion is: if someone else is responsible for killing you, can you die a martyr? According to the SlovoEd dictionary a martyr is someone who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion, or a person who sacrifices something of great value and esp. life itself for the sake of a principle. Certainly since the War on Terror was announced, martyr has certainly brought to mind the image of someone who voluntarily takes their own life (and that of others) in their cause. Of course, the suggestion that Osama bin Laden may have asked his followers to kill him may just be part of Western propanganda. In the Newsweek story The Daily Telegraph was reporting on, it seems the US has not had a serious lead on the Al Qaeda chief since 2002. The 2004 near-miss seems to have been random.

More Singapore photos

More pictures have been posted but you'll need to go to the 101 Journeys (August 2007) blog to see them.
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Wizard wonders

Within days (China) and weeks (France) unauthorised translations of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" have appeared on the internet. The Chinese effort was the work of a team who worked tirelessly save for reported consumption of instant noodles. The French version was a sole effort and has already been ordered off the web by the JK Rowling camp - which seems a bit harsh given the official French version of the long-awaited and much-hyped final instalment of the adventures of the young wizard and his mates won't be available for some time yet. So much for simultaneous global release! (Yes, yes, we understand about production schedules and such but e-publishlng would help reduce lead time!) In both instances it has clearly been a "non-commercial" exercise with at least one of the sites publishing a notice to that effect. But I suppose there's a commercial imperative at work here - can't give away something people will pay money for - even if they have to wait to do so.

Not saying the two are related but ...

June 30 2007: World Youth Day 'will proceed' despite racecourse concerns: The head of World Youth Day 2008 says next year's Papal mass at Sydney's Randwick Racecourse will go ahead, despite concerns by horse trainers.
August 25 2007: Equine flu threatens Randwick: In a major escalation of the equine influenza situation, today's Randwick meeting is almost certain to be cancelled after pleasure horses using nearby Centennial Park returned positive tests to the highly contagious disease.

Singapore shots (not those kind of shots!)

The original?

Of course, you haven't really had a Singapore Sling until you've had it at Raffles, where it was invented by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon sometime between 1910 and 1915. My manager was kind enough to take me off to that Hotel for the experience and being an long-time visitor to Singapore he realised that it wasn't just about getting to the Long Bar but about understanding a little more about the place. So we took a walk around part of the hotel so we could see the front of it - and imagine the days when horse-drawn carriages pulled in to the drive to discharge their passengers. And then a must was a look at the Tiffin Room and the Writers Bar. Then we could go to the Long Bar - but not before we'd walked through to the internal courtyard and admired the many fountains sprinkled through the grounds.

After we'd supped on Slings and beer and thrown peanut shells on the floor, we hurried back to the hotel to bid adieu to two of our team that had assembled for the Workshop we were attending - but as we descended the wooden circular staircase someone mused about the many people who would have treaded the same boards over the years eg Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin, Queen Elizabeth II ... and now members of the AP CBP Workshop team.

Freecycle

When I was looking for a good home for a television recently, a friend suggested I try Freecycle. It's a Yahoo! Group .... and messages are delivered to your email. It's free and easy to use. As the Group home pages says: Freecycle (TM) Sydney Central is a group for people in the Central, InnerWest and Eastern Suburbs of Sydney who have things they don't need or want anymore and are looking for the item to be reused rather than thrown away. Don't dump it or send it to landfill, give it away instead!
So, you post your available items to the group and maybe your junk will become someone else's treasure! If you want something just ASK - you never know! Everything must be FREE, SAFE and LEGAL. Non-profit groups welcome. No politics, spam or silly business please. (colour added)

It worked a treat and the TV was soon on its way to a new home! Now I watch in wonder as the emails come in with the OFFER, TAKEN and WANTED notices.

... Sling

It looks like a massive drink but it wasn't that big - but it was my first Singapore Sling ... in Singapore of all places.
The team went out to dinner tonight at the Hog's Breath Cafe and since Singapore Slings were on the menu - it seemed like an okay thing to do.
But we are the last of the big drinkers. While a group retired after the dinner to bed, or to the bar, ten of us went of to Swensens in search of ice cream!

Singapore

"We're just about to fly past Ayers Rock" said the pilot on our way to Singapore "and those on the left side of the plane should be able to see it". Lucky me, I was in 12A on the left ... even luckier, a while ago I blogged about what the Rock looks like from the air - otherwise I'd still be looking for it!

It was rainy in Singapore today (I think that makes it 3 in a row) so it was quite funny to see people brandishing open umbrellas walking past the travel agent with the sign "Sunny Holidays".
On the way to dinner at a Chinese restaurant (Shanghai style) we passed this church, saw where the Hogs Breath Cafe was, and were within a meatball's throw of an Italian restaurant.

Phone blog

I spent 1 hour and 40 minutes on the telephone with the Modem and Data support section of 3 (aka Hutchinson 3) here in Australia as they tried to help me get my mobile phone (Palm Treo 750) working as a modem for the laptop. It worked!!! It was a true testament to customer service as I was led, step by step, through the process ... including one of the techs sending me a ppt of the process. It had us all stumped for a while but ... bravo 3!

Borrowing from Big Brother

Have a pic you really wish was better - maybe without an ex or perhaps that car obscuring a vital piece of sceneny? The good news is that help will soon be on hand - thanks to a new digital photo tool from the UK. As best I can understand, the tool is an algorithm which will analyse your photo, then go and check against online photo libraries such as Flickr to find similar images.  It will then piece together the "best fit" from 20 of the images it finds, to match the lighting, camera position and composition etc of your image, and then create a better composite.  Tests suggest that even in its preliminary stages, 30% of the improved photos couldn't be detected.  Move over Big Brother.

Personality Power

If one person sitting on a stool can generate enough power to turn on four LED lights how much electricity could you generate from a rock concert?  A lot apparently - enough to move a train.  The idea is that of two graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who believe the mechanical movement of hundreds or thousands (as opposed to "hundreds and thousands" which is a confectionery of sorts) can be milked to produce electrical power.  And it wouldn't just be concerts; you could also harness the collective energy of crowds of commuters, and shoppers.  While James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk even have a name for it - Crowd Farm (which makes me think again about wind farming) - they see it more as a learning area in the near future.  But if you could move a train - what else could you move?  A space shuttle? A launch would run to about 84 million strides, leading one of their project reviewers to quip (the highlight of the Associated Press report) “That’s one small step for man, eighty-four million, one-hundred sixty-two thousand, two hundred and three steps for mankind.” 

Blind, drunk

Not sure which one it is but there's a reality program where someone is blindfolded and has to drive a car following their passenger's directions. A 20-year-old Estonian man has gone two better. He was arrested for the second time in a week for driving while blind - yep just blind the first time, and blind and drunk and following the directions given by his 3 passengers the second time! Police were keen for the man's car to be confiscated and for him to be put in jail for a spell in the hope he would see the light.

Memories

While sorting through a mountain of paper, filing and getting ready to tackle my tax, I found the packaging from my first 128MB SD card. The price sticker was attached: $169.95. Yesterday's catalogue price for a 2Gig SD card from Australia Post: $35.

Recall

China has been prominent in the news of late not because of next year's Olympics so much as the recall of goods manufactured there. So far on the list is pet food, fish, cough syrup, children's toys and hotel toothpaste. But when is a product recall more than that? When the boss of the toy factory hangs himself. Chinese media has reported that Zhang Shuhong, a Hong Kong businessman in his 50s and boss of the Lida Toy Company in the southern province of Guangdong, was found dead in his factory workshop on Saturday - after the recall of about 1.5 million preschool toys made by the factory for Mattel Inc.'s Fisher-Price. At least he didn't have to suffer through today's news of another toy recall - again related to high lead levels. Good but sad news is that no problems with the toys - some of which have been around since 2002 - have been reported/recorded.

Is there a doctor onboard?

In the future, as told by Star Trek, medical science will have come a long way … but how far? And what will be the practical inplicatlons? First guess is that there won't be as many Doctors ... which I'm basing on the fact that the USS Enterprise seems to have only one doctor at a time - even though there are roughly 5,000 on board. (Hmmm ... I wonder what the doctor:patient ratio is in the general community in a modern country these days?)

Waiting ... Waiting ...

Italian police have found a 70-year-old woman living with the mummified corpses of her two older sisters who are said to have died a year ago. Also in the house - which almost repelled police with its stench - were the remains of a dog. Police were tipped off by an anonymouse phone call and are not sure whether the sisters, 73 and 78, died of natural causes or were killed. I wonder why they didn't use "murdered" in the report I read, which suggested there was a religious element: "Everything is clearly linked to religion, they believed in resurrection." The women had isolated themselves from everyone (well, maybe not "everyone" since there was the matter of the anonymous caller - unless it was the remaining sister) some time ago and it seems their friends thought they were living at their holiday home. The remaining sister was taken to hospital. No further details were available as local police were not available for comment.

Hands up …

anybody who was planning to hear Big Ben in London over the next six weeks. Sorry to disappoint but it seems the 13.8 tonne bell that provides the chimes and "dongs" for the clock (often wrongly) referred to as Big Ben will be silent as maintenance (cleaning and glazing) is carried out. The clock itself should be working again today.

Wash your hands people ...

There's apparently a new fingerprint technology out which could provide information on a suspect's diet, sex and race. The technology site www.gizmag.com reports that gelatin tape is used to remove a fingerprint for analysis under a spectroscopic microscope. Residues found could indicate if the suspect had come into contact with gunpowder, narcotics or biological or chemical weapons. Or, in the example cited in the report I read: Strong traces of urea, a chemical found in urine, could mean the fingerprint belongs to a male. Ewwwh. Not quite sure where the ability to distinguish race will come from - curry anyone?

Headline?

This is probably a headline you won't ever see: Man held on croc-fighting charges.

Net worth

Tale One: A man tries to find a bride over the net (second time around) and goes to Mali to meet up with his new bride and take possession of a large amount of money as part of the "dowry". He is kidnapped and held for ransom, but escapes after 10 days in captivity when he is released to pick up part of the ransom money. Also playing a part in the episode: Australian Federal Police, the South Australia Police, the Canadian Embassy in Mali, and Mali's national police.
Tale 2: A woman (cybername Chatty) in Ballina NSW is saved from death after she types "I feel sick and giddy" in a socuial networking chat-room and then goes quiet. Sweetpea in the UK rang through to Chatty's daughter in Queensland who rang through to Chatty's neighbour who knocked on Chatty's door, and, receiving no response, called emergency personnel. Chatty had collapsed in a diabetic coma and could have died except for the Sweetpea's actions. Sweetpea is a great believer in the internet. She originally came from Nebraska (US) but moved to the UK after meeting her British husband, Bill, in a chatroom.

Non-fast food

I knew it was possible to have your burger at McDonalds made up without lettuce. I didn't realise that you could also have burgers made to order ... say with up to eight meat patties and nine slices of cheesen - known as a "double-pounder". The burger has attain cult status after a video of a lad eating it was posted on-line. Nutritionists liken the double-pounder, which costs around $18 and isn't listed on the menu, to eating 45 Tim Tams - or five Pizza Hut deep-pan Hawaiian pizzas. (Would "Hawaiian" be legal in Scrabble?) You can also Have It Your Own Way with big big burgers at Hungry Jacks.
All this talk of over-the-counter food reminds me of a comment I heard the other evening as I waited (and waited and waited) to be served at the McDonalds outside Gatton, Qld: "I thought this was supposed to be 'fast food'".

Off key

What is the world coming to when even karaoke isn't safe? Reports from Seattle tell of a woman who was so unhappy at one chap's rendition of Coldplay's Yellow that she told him he "sucked" - and then pushed and punched to to get him to stop singing. In an attack akin to what I imagine could mirror that of a rabid raccoon, it took several people to separate the woman from the would-be crooner.

Sounds like …

... an episode of Seinfeld to the "T". The owner of the Tea Cosy, a Brighton (UK) tea room, has verboten certain behaviour including mobile phones, dunking biscuits, disrepecting the Queen, skirts above the knee and conversation "louder than two tones abo e the chink of a tea cup". Just how wonderful must the tea be?

Woman 1 ... Raccoon 0

When a five year old boy was attacked as he walked through woods in Connecticut, a friend of his mother's wasted no time in leaping to the rescue and killing the assailant - a rabid raccoon. I'm not quite sure how rabid raccoons act but I have a vivid mental image of roiling fur, gnashing teeth, and lightning fast unpredictable movement - and I'm well prepared to believe a local official who is quoted as saying "she is one tough lady".

Pained expression

Tattoos are consistent: they hurt going on and coming off. But that's probably part of their allure - a double testament to your devotion to that special person, pirate, mermaid or who or whatever convinced you to have a tattoo etched into your flesh by inserting ink under the skin (or by producing scars).
But the question is whether it's still as much of a commitment if there is a relatively easy way of removing said tattoo. And there now is. It's a new way of applying the dye which can then be removed with a single laser treatment. Of course it costs more than the regular dyes but given the multiple laser treatments required for removing conventional tattoos, if you're not absolutely sure about the commitment, and know you don't always cope well with excrutiating pain, it might be a worthwhile each-way bet.

All at sea

Question: What's more exciting than a drinks stand at the beach?
Answer: A drinks stand at the beach with an 8 ft yellow and blue Lego man standing outside it.
Said Lego man was found all at sea, well, bobbing off the beach at a Dutch resort and drifting off towards England when rescued by workers from the drinks stand. Reuters reported the Lego giant was sporting a huge grin when rescued. There was no mention of a search for the rest of Bob's family. (You'd have to call him Bob wouldn't you?)

Look! Up in the sky ...

No it's not the NZ boy whose parents want to christen him Superman after their first choice, 4Real, was rejected by authorities. It's a crocodile in Russia which appears to have made 3 attempts to escape the apartment where its kept by jumping out a 12th floor window. Khenar (sex uncertain) lost one tooth in the latest fall but seems to be okay otherwise. No details were given in the report I read about Khenar's size, but it seems s/he was able to comfortably fit on the back seat of the owner's car when he came to collect it. At this point it seems reasonable to think, if only for the sake of passersby, that the owner put bars on the window, or at the very least sit down for a heart-to-heart with Khenar to see why the crocodile wants "out" so much.
(I wonder what other animals/reptiles can legally be housed in Russian apartments.)

Bright eyes

Tired of not having that "bright eyed look" ... well, there's help at hand from Nintendo DS. Players can now do "Face Training" which is 16 types of exercises designed by beauty expert Fumiko Inudo. Each of the exercises takes between 2 and 10 minutes to complete but faceners (well, what else would you call someone doing "facening") are warned not to do more than 15 minutes at a time lest they overexert their facial muscles or get them "out of balance". As well as the onscreen model (and live images on the dual screen of your face) an electronic voice encourages you through the exercises: twist your mouth, drop your jaw, wink, glare at the ceiling etc. There's only one bit of bad news ... the program is currently only sold in Japan and plans for international sales are uncertain.

070809 10:11

Well, it will be at some point today, for those of us who ascribe to the yymmdd method of date recording.