Sage words...

...from Desperate Housewives:

"Honey, I wish there was some pill you could take to protect your heart."

If you don't think this is a good show, you haven't watched it. Properly.

HappyHappy

Perhaps you were disturbed by the previous image. If so, then this is for you:

Pain

A False Sense of Security

Randomo

Texta, on cardboard. Not actually that blurry.


I didn't do this, but I wish I had.




Seth and Emily. This would be funny with a caption, so why don't you make one up?

Down the Channel. Seth, the media man, documents Mum and Dad standing about and looking around.

Aww, this is cute.

Father and Son.

From the Dojo...

The Dojo also specializes in magical weaponry, including the Glowing Orb of Power:

Sermon Illustration

I'm not a preacher, but sermon illustrations always pop into my head. Then pop out. So I'll write them down. Free for all to use.

So, I went running-shoe shopping (an activity I dread). Unsure of my purchase, the sales assistant, Ollie, told me to take them home and wear them around the house. If I don't like them, I can return them, so long as they're resell-able. That is, I shouldn't wear them outside. But the only way for me to know for certain if they're the pair for me is to go for a run. Outside. But I can't do that. Therefore I have to make the decision on less information than I'd like (that is, just walking around the house), because I'm not allowed to soil the sneakers. If I do, then I have to keep them.

The analogy is probably pretty clear by now. It's a partial illustration of the Christian ethic of sex and marriage. When you're just going out with someone, neither of you will get a complete understanding of what the other is like. You might try living together, but if you do that, and break up, you're returning soiled goods. I'm sure you can see other parallels. I can't be bothered pointing them all out to you, and I'm sure you're clever enough to see them yourself.

Time's Arrow

With a wet washer I smear on a field of mascara below my eyes and then retreat to the kitchen to regurgitate a small white tablet, perfectly intact. Some water comes up too, which I return to the tap. It's bedtime, but before I'm even under the doona, I feel the weight of sleepiness. I note the time, and then check my alarm clock to check if I'm right. I am. I make the decision to get up, but I don't. Instead, I immediately dream. I dream that the succession of events are reversed.

When I wake up it's dark and my doona has organised itself into a neat spread. I then pick up a book and faithfully read, not flick, from the very last sentence. I read a few chapters. The events are in the right order, unlike my dreams.

Over the next couple of days, I continue to read in this unorthodox fashion, until I give the book to the man at the library desk, who zaps it. Then I have to return the book to the shelf. I make this incantation: "Sima, Sima, Sima" while running my finger along the "A" section of Adult Fiction.

A few hours pass and I have the desire to reread Time's Arrow, but I don't act on this desire. Instead, a couple of weeks later, Emma Wilkins recommends the very book I wish to read (and have recently read). I feign ignorance, and the book is spoken of no more.

* * *

Anyway, I'm recommending Time's Arrow to you. A man wakes up at his death, and time runs in reverse. Nails appear from the rubbish bin and attach themselves to his fingers. The flames spit out letters. It's not just the gimmick of events told in the wrong order which carries this book. Martin Amis explores stuff (which I haven't got my head around yet) and other stuff (which if I told you would constitute spoiling).

Read it, if you already have. If you haven't, this has predestined the failure of my recommendation to you. ;)

A couple of caveats though; the book will disturb your mental health and there's a fair bit of sexual content.

Breakfast for Tea

I made this the other night:


Gourmet Magazine version.


70's Cookbook version.

I can't cook scrambled eggs by the way. Can someone please teach me?

Now It's Your Turn

My Own Little Post Not So Secret

Some Cafe Postcards:

More Survivor: The Biggest Looser

Fat Camp

How about this an idea for a reality TV show fat camp?

The premise is the truth that weight loss is all about disturbing the kilojoule in kilojoule out equilibrium. So, if you want to loose weight, consume less kilojoules than you expend. Even better, have the kilojoules that you consume come at the cost of the kilojoules that you expend.

On fat camp, then, any food you eat, you must have exerted equal or greater energy in acquiring it. The Loosers will have to pick their berries a couple of kilometers away from camp, there'll spear fishing and maybe a few wild pigs will be set loose to catch. So the fatties have to chase and chase their lunch before they're allowed to eat it. Or maybe they have to climb a cliff face to an erie to collect empowering eggs or something. It would make great TV.

Horror

I had this Exorcism of Emily Rose experience last night. These hag arms reached up through the mattress (like the dead reawakened, emerging from the grave) and yanked my shoulders back down suddenly, so that my whole body shook. Nightmare chiropractor.

Oh, I was sleeping. There wasn't really someone else's arms in the bed.

Bored Game

Someone thought this would be a pretty exciting theme for a board game. Power supplies. Electricity grids. It's even more exciting to make a game about power grids than to say work for a power company. Here's what the board looks like.



Note the lack of gimmicky real lights and circuits. Real players have no need of that.



This is Emily (massaging), Jack and Ruth. Jack and his girlfriend Ruth are PowerGrid fans. They are medical students.

Hair Mousse

So, it looks like I'm out of mousse...



...I shake the bottle...



...and there's a little mousse left.

It Contains An Element of Suprise

Just going to the toilet.


No surprises here....



No, wait.



There is a small element of surprise.



Or should I say a small elephant of surprise?

Who Are You, O Man?

I used to be threatened by Quantum Weirdness. It upset my deterministic worldview. My paradigm is a bit more flexible now, but I also see that Quantum Weirdness is humbling. It defies conventional, macro-scale laws and mathematics (which is very bizarre because people tend to think of things like mathematics and logic as etched into reality), and so shakes much of the understanding that we pride ourselves on.

Edit: Just a caveat, it annoys me +1 when people use Quantum Weirdness to justify their hippie-new-agey-otherwise-impossible-to-justify philosophy, because it defies logic. That misses the point. Logic "still works" on the macro scale; just because it's god-like status is questioned on the picto-scale doesn't mean that it can be used to justify illogicalness.

Life Imitates Art

Philosophy Now is currently my favourite magazine. It's philosophical, accessible and funny (believe it or not). Anyway, in the "News" section they alerted us to legislation that scientists wish to change for doing research on chimeras. Currently, scientists are allowed to fertilize human eggs with cells from rabbits, cows and goats, but the embryos must be destroyed no later than the two cell stage. The biologists would like to extended that period of chimeric life to fourteen days, in which they could study and experiment with the embryo before destroying the human-animal hybrid. The embryonic stem cell could be used to grow organs for humans.

Of course this is controversial. This article mentions some of the ethical issues people are worried about. For those of us who think that a human embryo is a person, then it is possibly problematic to destroy human-animal hybrid embryos. Also, if the chimeras are allowed to develop into full grown beings, what rights and responsibilities do they have? Are we to treat them like fellow human beings? Do we treat them as though they are moral beings with moral responsibilities?

We may not ever have to ask these questions, because any legislation to allow chimera creation probably won't pass.

Am I just one sick puppy, or does that disappoint any one else? The idea of a chimera, a part-human, part-animal creature from the world of sci-fi, fascinates me. What would they look like? How would they behave? What would we think of them? Would they be persons?

A Draught

I noticed some cold air coming into my bedroom. So I looked over at the door.



And saw what the problem was...





...what was coming into my room.

Gwyd and Emily

Wanted: A Fat Person

I'm just putting this out there. Here's what I need: A really really morbidly obese person to model for some life drawing. I'm sorry, I'm too poor to pay you in cash, but I can pay you in food, yummy food, as I imagine that's what you'd like. Contact me via email or in the comments section if this is you.

Edit: If you're not really really morbidly obese, but just somewhat obese, you'll do. Beggars can't be choosers.

Second Edit: If you're uncomfortable being naked, you can wear budgie-smugglers or a two-piece (if you're female).

Margate Stargate

Xylophone Bird

Knitted Lies

Emma W. and I went on a excursion to the land beyond the borderlands today. We visited Moonah Arts Centre (yes, Moonah has an arts centre) and saw a knitting exhibition (part of Ten Days on the Island). It was supposed to be an exhibition entirely knitted, but no, false advertising. There were non-knitted items like shirts (surely the easiest thing to knit). But the most misleading thing about the exhibition was that many of the objects such as the fountain, wheelbarrow, human figures, stove and telephone, weren't actually made entirely of knitting. Instead, they were objects covered in knitting. How easy is that? Surely it requires much more skill to create something entirely from knitted wool? Shame on those grandmas.

Our Favourite Rockstar

I saw Anthony Rochester play the other night. Good times.

Who You Value

Would you agree that this is true: the people you value the most are not those who wowed you most with their wittiness, fun-ness, intelligence or glamour, but those who showed you kindness?

Mood

I've been feeling really good lately. So good that I've not had the demi-urge to blog. Not manic good, just steady-eddie good, but the best I've felt in about 2 or so years. This is going to sound really wanky (but I'll say it anyway); I actually feel like my dreams are achievable, and if not, I don't really mind anyway.

I Love Harp

Tonight after Church Christina Sonnerman kindly let me play her gorgeous blue-green harp. I love harp! I didn't know what I was doing, but I was entranced for ages with what sound plucking a few strings could create.

If you want a ha-ha funny time, watch Sank-O Hour on ten, Sunday Night 9:30pm. Playboy meets Idol. It's bitch'n and skank'n. Girls, you ain't empowered. Don't kid yourself.