Imagine a kraken...

'Imagine a kraken. Now put it in an armoured ice cream cone. You get Cameroceras.'
from 'Ten Extinct Nopes that you should really be glad are dead' by KhanadianDaleks

Why do birds suddenly appear, every time Blake is near?

'What is the strange fascination with Blake Garvey? He is a handsome fellow and his shirt removals certainly reveal he has got what counts. But is it his looks? Is it the fact that his voice is so low that worms explode when he talks?'
Ben Pobjie about The Bachelor, The Age, September 4, 2014

Relieved like a manta ray...

'Knowing this information gives me scope and dimension; it allows my bowels to exhale relievedly like a manta ray settling on the ocean floor'
From 'Would it Kill You to Stop Doing That?' By Henry Alford

Stewed in warmed melted butter

'The heat was so extreme as the ship sailed towards Rio de Janeiro in February 1832 that Darwin slept naked on the mahogany dissecting table at night. Even then he complained that he felt as if he were being stewed in warmed melted butter'
from Darwin and the Barnacle by Rebecca Stott

Another way to express the sensation of feeling really hot here (NSFW: coarse language):

Alan Brough to Colin Lane on Spick and Specks
"You want a piece of me?!"
"Yeah!"
"Well there's plenty to go 'round. I'll give you a little bag."

Mr Potato Head - Chef Edition

I work in a shop selling chef's clothing. Some customers always like to be fashionably dressed, expect off the rack chef's clothing to be tailored to their body and think they fit a size or two smaller than they should be in order to work comfortably in a kitchen environment. * Others have a more pragmatic idea of what they need in order to work. One such customer is a charming, middle aged French man I served yesterday. Upon discussing the size he needed and being told the uniforms have a generous fit:
"I don't mind if it is baggy but I don't want to look like a potato."


*You've got to be able to squat to check ovens, reach up to get equipment, and most importantly have some breathing space between you and your clothing because you are going to get warm if not sweaty.

Rubber chickens and LGBT marriage

'In a heartfelt speech, Labour MP and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said “we all love a good wedding”, with its “cloud of confetti” and rubber chickens...'
from The Age

When I first read this I thought it was an amusing typo. "WTF? What has this got to do with it?" I asked a couple of people what it meant. They didn't know either. I tried looking up the speech but all I got were more news sites with the same story. It wasn't until I asked my younger housemate - who I expect has been to a few weddings, she's quite the social butterlfy - that I was able to discover what was meant. It should be a singular rubber chicken even if more than one chicken is eaten because it is describing the meat/food rather than an animal. I don't believe I've ever had rubber chicken ... probably a good thing. Any of you lucky enough to be in the same boat and wondering what Yvette was on about, this post was for you.

✿◕‿◕✿♥❀◕‿◕❀

Since I'm here: Yay for marriage equality! If you want to get married, the gender of your Love shouldn't matter. Marriage these days isn't about the procreation of children or the financial security of women. It's about a life long commitment of love with another soul. Love is love. You don't have to get married to show it but if you want to then you should be able to. You are not a second class citizen. Years from now we will look back at this like we do with mixed race marriage and wonder why it seemed like such a big ask for something so simple. It will seem shocking that it was ever frowned upon let alone unlawful. One day we will get there.

Goodness, gracious great balls of...

At Broulee Beach, NSW. 6-8 year old girl to her possibly Islander Dad about something she has beach combed.
"Dad, look - it's like a super ball."
"Might be poo."
*pause* *thud of small object*
*man laughing*
Girl,
"Nah it couldn't be a poo because it's too hard."

Phở bia = a fear of Vietnamese soup

Phở bia = a fear of Vietnamese soup

Post-It note caption/inspiration for photo by my housemate. Styling and dramatic Photoshopping by moi. Model is Wallace from Aardman Studios. Wallace wears The Wrong Trousers by Feathers McGraw.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Yesterday afternoon, J and I are out on the road, on our bikes to Aldi for some bicycle bits on special. Coming up to a set of red lights we negotiate past a car in a drive way reversing her way into traffic, her car end sticking out into the road. She would have needed other cars to let her in so it wasn't going to happen just yet. 
As I wave my hand to the driver politely acknowledging our passage through, the driver yells "Stupid bikes!".
I think 'stupid driver'. 
J asks me what she said, I repeat it. 
In true J fashion, without missing a beat he responds "But bikes aren't sentient."

Everything is prettier by candlelight

We sat by candlelight in the backyard with homemade pizzas and a roll of paper towel we have brought out for serviettes. I commented that by the candle light the roll looks like an expensive ceramic not cheap paper towel. My housemate's friend asks, 
"What would be the point/use of a ceramic paper towel?" 
I responded "It's a metaphor for the futility of cleaning!"

Polly wants baked beans on toast!

'Best description of owning a parrot: "... it's like having a toddler running around with a canopener on its face..."'
a friend of a friend on Facebook.

You don't wanna touch this

Mike Rowe on TV show Dirty Jobs is instructed to clean up the living area for the birds in a Las Vegas magician's show. On being told to get the kinks out of the long, pink water hose
"This is a very kinky hose ... The kind you don't take home to Mama."

Perfect Pyjamas

Larry "What, are those?"
Balki "My spiderman pyjamas."
Larry "Let me rephrase that. Why are you wearing those?"
Balki "My He-Man pyjamas are in the wash."

Eaten by a Giant Clam

'The English naturalist Charles Waterton would often startle guests to his Yorkshire manor, Walton Hall, by hiding behind the front door and biting them as they entered. (His pretentions to being a dog were no idle fancy - he was perfectly capable, even when well past sixty, of scratching the back of an ear with his big toe). '
From Eaten by a Giant Clam by Joseph Cummings

Not sure what to title this one!

'Having spent the first five years of my academic life studying great ape social cognition, I’ve seen more simian penises than I care to mention. I once spent a summer with a 450-pound silverback gorilla that was hung like a wasp (great guy, though) and baby-sat a lascivious young orangutan that liked to insert his penis in just about anything with a hole, which unfortunately one day included my ear.'

Jesse Bering, Secrets of the Phallus: Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, Scientific American, April 2009

MasterChef...

At work, two middle aged ladies are looking for a gift for a bloke they know.
"Ah MasterChef aprons! They have MasterChef aprons. You could get him a MasterChef apron. Do you think he would like that?"
"I think he would be insulted [low chuckle]!".

Gold

On the train from Footscray into the city we pass a temple under construction. It features a golden statue almost as tall as the temple itself. There is a group of jovial Maoris behind me.
On seeing the statue one bloke says "Whoah... What is that - gold?"
His mate "Cheese."

An analogy about veganism

'Vegans are to meat what Christians are to sex. The best way to control people is through shame, and attaching shame to a natural part of being human is hugely powerful.'

'Wolter' commenting on this article.

Egalitarian cuisine or disrespectful to the fish?

I learnt today that having a taste for salmon doesn't mean you know how to pronounce the word. I'm not sure if this makes salmon sushi handrolls an egalitarian cuisine or disrespectful to the very tasty fish. If it were a foreign word it would be less of a thought curio.
At a sushi shop in Melbourne CBD,
"Yeah we want two sushi rolls. One of them sal-mon..."