Critical Penguinista

Leon Brooks, aka the Perth Penginista, was involved in a car accident on Saturday night and sustained severe head injuries. He is currently in ICU. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to him and his family and we hope for a speedy recovery. More details as they become available.

UPDATE (200602281030): Leon is in a medically induced coma while doctors fight a chest infection. It will likely be 4-5 days before they can reduce the sedation sufficiently to assess his brain and spinal damage. He is expected to remain in ICU for another 4-5 weeks.

Should we be concerned...

...that the phone number on the warning signs, at the City West train station informing people to call before digging because of buried power lines, has only SEVEN digits?

Wannabe Commandoes

Enjoy

10 Signs That You Are Editing A Really Crap TV Show

1. Nobody knows what the show was about.


2. The shoot was so traumatic nobody will talk about it, or acknowledge that it ever took place, or admit they were even involved.


3. In fact, the accidental filming of some dolphins in the river while filming cutaways was the highlight of the entire shoot.


4. When the tapes go missing, the crew are relieved.


5. When the tapes are found, the crew are disappointed.


6. When the tapes are played, it's discovered that one is empty - it wasn't recorded on at all. The crew are relieved.


7. The producer/director insists that the remaining material will be edited into a show irregardless. The crew are disappointed.


8. But also relieved it's not their problem anymore. Thanks a lot, guys.


9. The crew ask for their names, if they must be mentioned at all, to be "creatively" spelled in the credits.


10. We still don't know what the show's about.

A Cheney Headlines Digest

Actual headlines on the Cheney shooting affair, collected on rec.humor.funny:

Shoots, Hides and Leaves
-- Washington Post

Arms-bearing Americans are rarely wrong
-- Telegraph

Guns don't shoot people: Vice Presidents shoot people
-- Capitol Hill Blue

Real Men Don't Hide Behind Scott McClellan
-- The Nation

Shooting pains
-- Globe and Mail, Canada

Pundits Bird-Dog Vice President
-- Detroit News

Hit Me With Your Best (Buck) Shot
-- Houston Chronicle

Cheney Gets His Gun
-- The Nation

Ready, Aim, Misfire
-- San Francisco Chronicle

Orange You Glad Cheney's Not Here?
-- Chicago Tribune

Cheney not licensed to shoot birds (or friends)
-- Australian

Analysis: Cheney's little shot not a big deal among mishaps
-- Buckeye Firearms Association

Cheney Bags a Lawyer
-- The Herald (Scotland)

Cheney can't hide from smoking gun
-- Virginia Pilot

See Dick. Run!
-- The Smoking Gun

Loose Cannon
-- Washington Post

So he shot a man
-- Town Hall, a GOP online blog

Cheney Shoots Quail and Everyone Else Ducks
-- Sydney Morning Herald

Pregnancy Milestone

With six weeks to go, my belly button's popped! yay!

Little Boxes on the Hillside

Houses in Mexico. The view from Google Maps

Dale Begg-Smith: Millionaire, Olympian, Spammer

Heh, our newest Olympic hero has been outed: he made his millions in spam. Even so, I'm happy to claim The Mogul of the Moguls as one of our own for any number of reasons: he's a nerd-athlete, he's an unscupulous entrepreneur whose activites border on the criminal yet he's basically a decent sports-loving guy (is that true-blue Aussie or what?), he started this when he was thirteen, but most of all, because he's someone who will do anything to support his one true passion - skiing.

Yes, Dale Begg-Smith spammed for his sport.

Oh, and he's actually cut back on his spamming activities to concentrate on his sporting career. So if there's slightly less spam around, we can thank his dedication to the snowfields.

Olympic gold medallist, self-made multi-millionaire, and still only 21. He's just made every Top Ten Most Eligible Bachelors List. Except maybe the one on SlashDot.

Review: Jarhead

Every war film is different. Every war film is the same.

A story. A man gets lost on the way to college. He joins the US Marine Corps. He trains as a scout/sniper. He goes to war. But he is still lost.

Jarhead is a lot like Desert Storm, the war this film is about. It looks spectacular, it leaves you with a warm inner glow, but it doesn't really achieve anything.

Jarhead is competently made. It's funny. It has heart. It's easy to empathise with the characters. But it has all been done before, and in most cases better. It's a little like Platoon set in the desert.

Six out of ten M40s.

RU486 Passed: Rationality Prevails

Bet this is the last time Howard allows a conscience vote :) "No, no, no!" you can hear him shout in the big house under the hill. "You're supposed to vote according to MY conscience, not yours!"

He must be wondering what's happened to the country he thought he was leading, and maybe finally realising it only ever existed in his imagination.

Huh. Too much to hope for.

Next impossible thing: convincing Abbott that it's him we have no confidence in, rather than Parliament. Parliament just proved it works fine. The fact that he feels Parliament is wrong shows his complete failure to understand the requirements of his job: he's there to serve the interests of his country, not those of his church.

The Mystery Of The Cat's Disappearing Dinner; Or, A Typical Pre-Coffee Mornng Conversation

Scene: The Kitchen, First Thing This Morning.

I walk in, and notice a little plastic baggie lying wet and flat on the kitchen sink. Normally, it would contain the cat's dinner portion for that evening, having been left to defrost all night. But the baggie, its ends still neatly tied up, is empty except for a little water.

"Hello," I say as Skribe walks in. "What's this empty little baggie?"

"The little prick," he says, staring with some surprise at it. "He's gotten to his dinner. Look, I bet there's a hole in the side somewhere."

I watch him examine the baggie. After a while, I say, "So... he untied the baggie, ate all his dinner, washed the baggie clean, tied up the ends, and left it where he found it."

"I'm completely freaked out," Skribe admits, and walks out of the kitchen.

I put the empty tied-up holeless baggie in the bin and think: Okay, the cat needs more food, and I need to make coffee.

On with the rest of the day.

Maths, But Not As We Know It

Since when did 25% more of 250 result in 300?

Love and Babies, Or Something Like It

Happily for some, Valentine's Day this year followed directly on from Chap Goh Mei, the fifteenth and final day of the Lunar New Year and also known as Chinese Valentine's Day.

Double bonus for florists, chocolatiers, and restauranteurs, if they were canny enough to exploit it.

We spent the evening trying to comprehend how our lives were going to be severely rescheduled by the arrival of Bubzilla using a 24-hour clock diagram, and little pie-wedges indicating different activities, and discovering that you cannot physically fit in about 8 baby feeds-and-changes with regular hours for sleep, housework, meals, meal preparation, grocery-shopping, the occasional shower, any personal time-out or time with partner. Out-of-home hobbies and sports never even made it onto the clock.

Romantic.

Which leads me to wonder, how on earth is Australia "aborting" itself out of a future when we're in the midst of a baby boom? Or bounce, whatever the favoured jargon is. Talk to anyone in the baby industry - they've never been so busy.

Oh, and in the spirit of the cynically inclined, here's an article about why Valentine's Day is over-rated, particularly if you're dumb enough to be cheating on your partner.

Grug Has Been Burgled

Grug the cartoonist has been burgled, and while some of his equipment has been replaced (or will be), he won't be affording a new tablet anytime soon. If anyone wants to donate, there are details here. Grug will happily mail out a sketch from his remaining collection with donations of $10 or more.

Overheard. . .

. . . on Barrack St this morning, Young Guy on mobile phone:

"Nah, I dunno how long the cops is gonna take. Me Dad's got into some trouble. Like killin' someone."

Overheard. . .

. . . at an audition:

"I didn't say you were pretty. I said: Put on another dress."

Preparing For the Puppy

Of all the weekends we pick to move stuff into storage, we had to pick this one - a hot one. And with less than two months to the big event, too :)

Already we've been innundated with all sorts of useful advice - the sort of advice that comes from personal experience. Like puting plastic over the mattress in case my water breaks while I'm in bed.

Or when going into labour, make sure my fingernails have been trimmed, and Dad's not wearing a shirt with buttons (because he'll lose them).

It's going to be messy. Between the afterbirth discharges and the leaky nipples and Bub's experimental bodily functions... Don't bother with nice new clothes for the self or the baby.

Don't bother with brand name baby lotions, creams, cleansers...etc either. You won't need them, and Bub won't like them anyway.

And when Bub's old enough to become mobile, he will get into everything. Worse than a cat, in fact, because the cat does not possess opposable thumbs. You will never be able to put enough safety locks or catches on cupboard doors and power points, for example.

Cheerful stuff, in general. For now, though, our immediate concern is where Bub's going to sleep, and what Bub paraphernalia we're actually going to need to get. We're not even sure we need to get him a cot. Yet.

Goldfish memory test

It's more than just, Oh look, a rock.

Fear of Girls

Enjoy

Smartrider: Dumb Biller

How long does it take to top up your smartrider card with BPay?

THREE days.

That's three days I've been watching the numbers on my card grind down towards zero, as every time I "tag on" the little orange light helpfully lights up to warn me that there will soon not be enough fare money left on the card.

Three bloody days. So much for the digital age.

Are You For RU486?

Parliament appears to be devoting more time, passion, and propaganda, on the RU486 debate than they did on IR reforms and anti-terrorism measures combined. Johhny even reckons this rates a conscious vote when just about nothing else did.

So good to know the only way to get our public servants to fight for our rights is when they realise they are themselves directly affected - not just once, but always and ever.

Abortion is not a moral issue, it's a health issue, and there's all there is. If RU486 is safe, then that's all that counts. And let's face it, no drug is absolutely safe - even Panadol has bad effects on some people. You don't see that used as an excuse to bar it from the public.

The State of the Union

Enjoy

Offensive Perspective

Brokeback...to the Future

Enjoy

Boom!

Our server blew its power supply early Sunday morning. In attempting to diagnose the problem late Sunday afternoon I discovered what a 20cm spark looks like. Fun! Recommended for small children or pets.

What is it?

If you already know what it is, have you ever seen one?

What the fuss is about

This is one of the cartoons that has the Islamic world in an uproar. Personally I found most of them in poor taste - this one was the wittiest (in fact I found it downright funny). I publish this one in support of free speech and against the tyranny of mass hysteria. I urge others to do the same.

Games To Play With the Pre-Baby

After the Boy-Or-Girl Game and the Name Game, I suppose the next most popular guessing game parents-to-be play is What Will Bub Look Like?

This is made doubly entertaining for us considering Bub's blended heritage. With a wog dad and a chink mum, dark hair and eyes are a given, as well as a mediterranean complexion. But will he get Skribe's nose or mine?

Thanks to these scientists, we're fairly certain Bub'll have gooey ear wax though.

Another game I don't like to play is fretting over how big he'll be at birth. First time babies tend to be small. But. Factors in favor of a big boy include a healthy mum who's been eating well and who doesn't smoke or drink or been chunking up on junk food, and was herself a big baby. Uh-oh.

And then there's the game I play every ten to twenty minutes: How Long Can I Hold Out This Time Before I Have To Make A Toilet Run? And the answer is always: Until now.