The Real Thing

Listening to: ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ by The Beatles

I don’t claim to be a connoisseur of fine good. There are some foods I’ve tried that are just wrong and it would be obvious from their description that they are crap. Like a ‘cabonara’ pasta box, that you microwave for 2 minutes. The so called cabonara sauce was an icky, bacon flavoured paste that would seem more at home coming out of a tube of toothpaste for dogs. Or the bun from a Yupi lolly hamburger that came with the kids' magazine at work. Just wrong.

You won’t find me trying are any of the recipes from a delightful book my dad just acquired. If he dares to dish up anything from this book there will be much protesting. I’d rather eat instant noodles than anything from: ‘Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola’ (by Elizabeth Candler Graham ‘Great-great-grandaughter of…founder of Coca-Cola’, and ‘Ralph Roberts…author of over forty books’). Not all of the recipes in here use Coke. Some use Sprite and other products made by the company. Unfortunately there are no pictures so you will have your your imagination. There’s a fair amount of gelatine and layers involved. Here’s some of the culinary delights listed:
O Australian BBQ Chicken - We have a style of chook that Southern Americans are aware of - WTF?
O Pirate Steak - Arrrr… bleargh
O Forgotten Stew - Speaks for itself
O Crabmeat Supreme – It’s as bad as it sounds. Think tomato soup, Coca-cola, cheddar cheese, 2 cans of crab meat, and still more cheese.
O Coca Cola Salad
O Congealed Vegetable Salad – Oh yes, the word ‘congealed’ always get my mouth watering. A lovely mix of orange Jello, Sprite, shredded carrots, green onions and celery.


And another thing…
Have concluded that poppy seeds are one of the most pointless foodstuffs. All they do is make things look pretty. Made two tuna salad rolls for lunch. One with sesame seeds and one with poppy seeds. Not only do poppy seeds have much less flavour, but they’re messy when stuck on the outside surface of a roll. Most of them fell off onto on my plate. Oh, and they get stuck in your teeth too easily.

Mole Rats.

If there was a prize for best opening line in a Natural History journal, this one is the winner:
‘It’s a subterranean dynasty ruled by a queen who, like her subjects, looks like a four-legged penis with a tail and buck teeth’*

Here’s the animal in question, the naked mole rat:


Here’s the super cute and perky Disney version from the cartoon series Kim Possible.



In my search for mole rats on the web I came across this rather sweet piccy I just had to share with you. A mole rat in the land of juicy chocolate turnips. Awww.... I lubs it :D



That concludes my posts containing extracts from this particular issue of Nature Australia (highly recommended reading).

* Pollard, Simon D., ‘Queens of the Desert’, Nature Australia, Spring 2004, page 72

Plastic Birds

The other day I read about blogs that deal with more important things than minutae of the author’s life. Political blogs, news blogs etc. This blog isn’t about to be one of those, but the following is something that has bugged me since I read about it. I want to share it with you. I feel it’s relevant considering my recent mention of pelicans.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my fascination with animal skeletons. I think they’re cool. This one isn’t cool. What you're looking at is a rib cage full of plastic.


Source*

Until I read this article I thought that plastic bags were the main problem when washed into stormwater drains, only affecting local/Australian wildlife. Think again. This sad little skeleton is evidence of something bigger than that. All plastic washing into stormwater drains, and into the sea is dangerous to wildlife - particularly to birds. What’s more it can swirl around in the sea for decades, spreading around the globe, breaking up into more pieces, spreading further still.

What's the story behind the skeletons? On Lord Howe Island a flesh-footed shearwater chick is too weakened by starvation to move away from humans. Its belly is full of plastic. How did this happen? Its parents would have ingested this plastic when finding food for their chick. When they regurgitated food they also regurgitated some of the plastic. While smaller pieces may pass through, others will sit inside the stomach, taking up room. Too much accumulated plastic and there’s no room for food.

After reading this article - and before typing this up for you today - I went out to the front of my house and into the back lane behind it, to clean up every bit of plastic I could find. Not just bags, but anything plastic. It was the least I could do and I will continue to do this on a regular basis. I will make a small difference to birdies/critters out there somewhere :)


In other news...
The days are getting longer now. Hooray, past the half way mark for Winter!


*Hutton Ian, ‘Plastic Perils for Seabirds’, Nature Australia, Spring 2004, page 58

Pelicans

Listening to: ‘Now You’re in Heaven’ by Julian Lennon

Am fighting the blues at the moment. Getting annoyed, but not showing it, with people a lot. Perhaps these people are actually annoying and I was comfortably numb before… Feeling dissatisfied with my appearance more often. Fiddling/adjusting with my clothes more often than is really required (probably). I will get through it.

I have things to be thankful for. Small, silly, and/or simple things still bring me happiness and contentment. For example on the train home from the dentist (small new filling and clean up) I saw four birds flying in a line. Slowly, as they came into better view, I saw they were pelicans. The sight of these beautifully large birds, so graceful in flight, moving against the grey sky made me feel happy. I’ve always found the sight of a flying pelican an uplifting sight. To see four was rather special :)

Rainy Day Activities

Had a great night out last night dressed up as a pirate. Much fun when dancing, to fluff about in glowing white shirt, a dangly sash belt, boots and a tricorn hat. [sings] Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me. Tee hee :D

Today was a classic Winter's day in Melbourne. Like the Winters of my youth, it rained almost all day. So no soccer this week :( Even if it had been fine, my group has been a lazy bunch. They seem to have dispersed, or found girlfriends who won't let them kick a ball around for a couple of hours on Saturday :P Hopefully it will pick up in Spring.

Rainy Day Activities:
I got my exercise by taking a walk in he rain, under my enormous Bunning's umbrella.
Tidied a bit in my room, did some dusting.
Completed a collage I started months ago but had stashed away for a day such as this :)

Here 'tis:


Mutation
paper collage

70 Kinky Jelly Spheres aka KJS*

At work we sell rubber balls that make light and sound – think electronic laser gun/ explosion sounds - when you bounce them. 3 year olds like to play fetch with mum by throwing them about, usually out of the store. On such occasions these things bounce dangerously close to the balcony edge, threatening to roll off and brain some poor bugger on the escalator 2 storeys below.

Today I wrote off 70 of them. I initiated** taking our usable write offs to the Salvos, thus minimizing our waste. As I carted this bag of balls home tonight, my little brain got to thinking of the ways 3.15kg of rubber balls bursting out of the bag would be a bad thing/disastrous:
1. While going crossing the balcony level to escalators – could potentially drop 3 storeys to people on lower ground level. Would this cause serious injury? I’m not sure. I missed the episode on Mythbusters regarding things dropped from a height.
2. While on long escalators down to my platform. These things would probably fall even more uncontrollably oweing to the plethora of surfaces and edges. Chaos theory in action. [propellor head]
3. On platform while train comes in. Embarassing but probably no injuries.
4. While in packed train. No one gets concussed though potentially people could trip over them and roll their ankle. Ouchy. Oh yeah and my pride might be injured, because it might be really funny to spectators.
5. Walking up ramp from station. Everyone behind me would be in trouble! High potential for falls. My reaction would probably be “Holy crap! Stop!!”
6. Accosted by someone in the street. I’d swing the bag at them just before I scoot off. The explosion of rubber balls would surprise the accoster (is this a word?) plus it would foil pursuit of me :P
7. At my front gate. The least dangerous as well as the most annoying and likely of them all.


*I remember the product code for this product, KJS, by turning it into an acronym :) Everytime someone buys one, this runs through my head as I type in those letters :P
**Have also initiated recycling our bottles in food court bins instead of chucking out with rest of rubbish.

Full Circle?

[sulk]From my first goth club pirate night back in March, to my second one this Friday, I have come full circle. I’ve gone from not knowing anyone to knowing around a dozen or more. Yet, as last night proved for me, I can still feel just as left out and lonely in a crowded room.[/sulk]

Thank goodness for music worth dancing to. After all it was what brought me out in the first place. It’s what I continue to go out for, socializing comes second place, and it’s what gives me the most enjoyment from my club.

The dressing up part? [whine] Yes it’s fun but sometimes angsting about getting the right combination of skirt/hosiery/top/footwear isn’t. I can’t not care in such an environment. Even with everyday wear I find that I feel better about myself when I’m happy with my outfit. There’s this funky pair of B&W striped knee high socks I have that I’ve been trying to work into my outfit week after week but it never works damn it![/whine] I think I’ll resign them to house/bed socks.

Maybe it’s just the Winter Blues hitting me, or maybe it’s the scene. This disillusionment seems to be the norm among the former goths I’ve spoken to. You can have too much of a good thing. I have been going out every single week for the last month. After this week I’ll make myself scarce. Perhaps that will make it special again.


In other news…
I found out tonight that my late grandfather, who used to coach tennis, coached the only (or the first - I don’t follow the tennis) Indian to win Wimbledon!

Spam Tales II

Here's the one using a perfume ad. It reads:
trust hurts.
this makes it all better.
Cheryl Thug, Emergency Cash


Cheryl Thug
digital file


The original ad: