Exit, pursued by a bear.
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araquel- July 10th, 23:50
tired
Have just spent fifteen minutes chasing the mouse about the house in a bid to recapture it. Suspect one of the girls must have let it out of the cage to play and then completely forgotten about putting it back, and it's spent the last few hours prowling the house in search of food until it ended up in my room.Fortunately food was a higher priority than freedom, so capturing the mouse was less aggravating than it might have been for all parties concerned.
- Mini-Gnus: never trust an Oompa-Loompa
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- araquel
- July 9th, 21:00
Unlucky worker's death by chocolate | World News | News.com.au:Desperate workers battled in vain to save a 29-year-old man who died after falling into a vat of molten chocolate at a factory. Vincent Smith II was with three workers dumping chunks of chocolate into the simmering liquid when he somehow lost his balance and fell in.
I read this, and all I could think of was this:
And then I hit this part and just lost it:TV pictures showed one of his distraught colleagues standing outside the factory in Camden, New Jersey, his clothes covered in chocolate.
I think this means I'm officially a bad person.
- Pyrrhic victories all round, it seems.
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- araquel
- July 9th, 14:14
amused
One man's rare win for states' rights may ring hollow | theage.com.au:Federal governments have long spent billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on whatever they wished. The High Court found this week that they have been wrong in doing so. The decision leaves years of past and future federal spending in doubt, and is the states' most significant High Court win in many years.
I'll be interested to see how long it takes the conservative columnists' heads to start exploding as they try to reconcile this.
On the one hand, it's a mild slap in the face for the Rudd government, with the threat of more substantial ones to follow; it highlights the increasingly shaky financial position of the predominantly Labor state governments and the perceived need for greater centralised power (or, alternatively, less government, so that the market and free enterprise can fill the services gap at the state level); and it comes at a time when the conservative commentariat will be looking desperately for something to wave about to draw attention away from their floundering economic and political alignments.
But, on the other hand, it was a decision reached by judges, and judges (as any right-wing columnist worth their salt will assure you) are the absolute last people you want making binding decisions on legality or governance.
- Mini-Gnus: Escape from Monkey Island
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- araquel
- July 8th, 14:25
- amused
Zoo evacuated after mass chimp break-out - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):A zoo in north-west England was evacuated on Sunday after about 30 chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure.
Come on, it's near Liverpool. After hordes of soccer hooligans, how scary can 30 hungry chimps really be?
The animals escaped from 'Chimp Island' and found their way into a keeper area where their food is prepared, the zoo said.
More than 5,000 visitors were asked to leave Chester Zoo, near Liverpool, shortly after the break-out as keepers rounded up the chimps.
- Delegation
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- araquel
- July 8th, 13:25
- amused
Jokingly told the middle child when leaving for work last week that she was in charge until Nana arrived to watch them. It wasn't a heavy responsibility - the teenager was still sound asleep and likely to remain so until well after Mum got there, I was taking the youngest to holiday care, and the worst the birds were likely to do was yell at her.
Middle child was amused. She was even more amused this week in a similar situation, because when the teenager woke up (before Mum arrived) she asked permission to watch TV. Fortunately she didn't abuse her power, and allowed the teenager to assume her place as resident couch potato.
- Lolcats: there are many things I don't do. This is just one of them
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- araquel
- July 7th, 22:41
- tired
- Kangaroo Point Cliffs
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- araquel
- July 7th, 22:21
exhausted
From the Botanic Gardens boardwalk at Gardens Point.
- Mini-Gnus: Swine Flu's other casualty
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- araquel
- July 7th, 16:58
- tired
That'll do pig, zoo tells only porker | Oddly Enough | Reuters:KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's only known pig trotted out of quarantine Saturday, two months after he was locked away because of swine flu fears, to bask again in the mud at the Kabul Zoo.
I'm pleased the pig is out of solitary. I felt quite sorry for the poor thing when it was first locked away.
- Mini-Gnus: your life in the hands of Twits
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- araquel
- July 7th, 16:43
- amused
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Twitter to give bushfire alerts:Australia is to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to give people early warning of bushfires.
ZOMG WTFBBQ!1!!! kthxbai
- Mini-Gnus: pleasepleaseplease
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- araquel
- July 6th, 8:47
- amused
Cat urinating on laptop may have sparked house fire | The Courier-Mail:FIRE crews are investigating whether a cat urinating on a laptop sparked a fire that has destroyed most of a home in a Gold Coast gated community.
The only thing that could make this story more perfect is if it was Macbook.
- The camera never lies, but it can only report what it sees.
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- araquel
- July 5th, 11:35
- cold
This is what the camera, left to its own devices, thought it was seeing (and, truth be told, this isn't that far off the mark):
This is what, after some friendly persusasion, I convinced it it should be seeing:
No wonder the poor thing was getting confused. To the eye, actual lighting conditions were probably somewhere in between the two. And, in hindsight, I shouldn't really be surprised at how difficult it was to get good shots from the other side of the river an hour later when it was fully dark.
- You don't have to be a humourless dimwit to work here, but...
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- araquel
- July 3rd, 15:54
- amused
Old media, by Crikey | The Australian:Crikey sells itself as the future of serious journalism, but it isn't. It does not break big stories. It does not send reporters around the world. It does not analyse policy in detail. And too often it escapes the laws on defamation and the scrutiny of the Press Council. Crikey is what newspapers were in the 18th century, a small-circulation propaganda sheet, read by people less interested in news and debate than having their prejudices confirmed.
The Australian (or, as it's affectionately known, "that toxic rag") gets defensive over suggestions that it's past its best. So defensive, in fact, that its editorial appears to completely miss the irony of its concluding sentence.
- Mini-Gnus: Grave-robbing
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- araquel
- July 3rd, 14:22
- amused
New dinosaur species found in Queensland | The Australian:Three new species of Australian dinosaur have been discovered in a prehistoric billabong in western Queensland.
They stumbled across the secret National Party burial ground.
- Game Theory: strictly for gamers?
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- araquel
- July 3rd, 12:57
- amused
John Quiggin » Against (micro)economic imperialism (crossposted at CT):Over at Crooked Timber, we’ve had various versions of the case for and against the use of (micro)economic rational actor models in the social sciences lately, so I thought I would weigh in with my version of the case against. It has three main elements
John Quiggin (quite rightly) shoots a few more holes in the stupidity that is Game Theory.
(I know Game Theory is economics struggling for legitimacy by pretending to be a real social science, but it's also one of those things I always associate with gamers, because its most strident advocates I've encountered tend to be gamers who assume D&D is an accurate and acceptable representation of social situations).
- ... and on a related note.
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- araquel
- July 2nd, 21:34
- amused
see more Lol Celebs
- What is the measure of a man?
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- araquel
- July 2nd, 21:31
- amused
see more Lol Celebs
- Smooth Criminal: the '50s version
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- araquel
- July 2nd, 21:14
- impressed
- Brussels Sprouts
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- araquel
- July 2nd, 20:00
- amused
Written over my dinner: coffee and Lindt dark chocolate with ginger. I mention this solely to provide sadistic context to what follows.
One of the little secrets parents never talk about openly (much) is that having kids is like having your own set of lab rats with the advantage that they can (sometimes) give you coherent feedback when you experiment on them, and the ethical clearance standards are much lower.The girls and I have had a long-standing agreement when it comes to things like vegetables: I won't try to make them eat anything that I find personally repellent, and they eat what I give them without a fight. So thus far in their lives they've escaped the two great horrors of my childhood dinners - mint peas, and Brussels sprouts.But there's been a rising tide of discontent against cauliflower and broccoli lately, and while I've subdued the broccoli complaints by buying a nice shiny steamer and slowly mastering the art of steaming broccoli correctly, the cauliflower grumbles continued unabated. "If you think that's bad," I warned them, "you should try Brussels sprouts."They were skeptical, and so the challenge was issued: tonight, the girls faced off against the Little Green Balls of Death (and I had to learn hurriedly how to cook them).I'm oddly disappointed. The middle and youngest children eyed them suspiciously, decided the safest thing to do was to eat them first, and then declared them tolerable but not great. I sampled one, and was forced to agree. This suggests that either my taste buds have atrophied, or - and this seems vaguely heretical - perhaps I cooked them better than the ones I was fed.The youngest even went so far as to declare them preferable to that bogeyman of the vegetable world, the cauliflower, so that battle continues. Maybe I'll need to resort to the mint peas after all.But fortunately all was not lost, because the teenager is a practising, fully-paid-up Drama Queen.She was the last to sample her single sprout. On the first (and only) bite, she dropped her fork with a clatter, flung her head back from the plate (face contorted in disgust, tossing her hair dramatically) and let out a mighty cry of "EEWWWWWWW!"We laughed. It's probably scarred her for life and ten years from now she'll be weeping on the therapist's couch as she relives the memory and shame. But we laughed.And then she cried, because we mocked her pain.And I'd feel bad about laughing, except, well ... it was just too damn funny not to.
- Mini-Gnus: now *this* is a loss.
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- araquel
- July 2nd, 19:53
- tired
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Actress Mollie Sugden dies at 86:Actress Mollie Sugden has died at the age of 86, her agent has said. The TV star, best known for playing Mrs Slocombe in long-running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, died at the Royal Surrey Hospital after a long illness.
Of all the famous deaths in the last week, this is the one that actually makes me sad (well I was sad about Jeff Goldblum, too, but he got better). I have a lot of fond memories of Are You Being Served?
- That's entertainment
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- araquel
- July 2nd, 16:25
- amused
The Chaser takes aim at Michael Jackson, Malcolm Turnbull | TV | News.com.au:THE Chaser boys have paid tribute to the recent demise of a "truly tragic freak".
"It's obviously a very sad week as we try to come to terms with a monumental loss, and mourn the demise of a truly tragic figure - Malcolm Turnbull,'' Chris Taylor said in last night's satirical show.
"So much success early on, but then, later on, he just became a freak,'' added Craig Reucassel.