QOTD

You know, I’ve done cunt and now vagina, I really should focus on cocks next.

-- Kitta, commenting on Vesna's Vagina

Today

Apart from suffering from the same bleah-bleah cold that TP suffered from over the weekend, I spent much of today - and last night - reconfiguring our server so we could move our adsl modem from pppoe mode to bridge mode.

What does this mean the unadulterated may ask? Pain, worry and loads of confusion is the answer.

To cut a long story short, after 13 hours - 2 on the phone with our ISP, who were trying their damndest to fix the problem btw (Westnet rock) - the problem was eventually solved. Thanks to Cyberknight Leon Brooks, who sight unseen figured it out in about a minute.

Yesterday

I visited PLE's new Bentley store yesterday. Unfortunately I made the mistake of using map.com.au to find out where the address was.

Things I've learnt about the shuttle from NASA TV

NASA TV is wonderfully informative - well it is when there is something actually happening. Most of it's trivia but it does skew your perspective when watching scifi films.

For instance, before doing an EVA (spacewalk), the astronauts sit in the airlock fully-suited up breathing 100% oxygen to remove all the nitrogen from their blood. For an hour! I don't know about you but sitting still for an hour is hard enough for me particularly without a tv, but to do it in a spacesuit. These guys are superhuman. Of course, they have extra incentive. If they don't do it they get the bends. There's something I'd love to see in a flick.

Hang on Captain, we can't check the type 3 deflector for a least an hour

In the hours before returning to Earth the astronauts take in specific amounts of fluids and food so they'll be able to cope with the effects of gravity. Another one I'd like to see on film.

Prepare to land. Break out the beer and chocolate rations.

A couple of hours before the shuttle is due to touch down NASA flys the shuttle test plane along the landing route over and over to check for things like windshear. This of course involves flying up to several thousand metres and then throttling the engines back so they can glide/plummet to the ground. They continue this right up to the point where the shuttle lands. Talk about team effort.

Once landed, the Shuttle takes 45 minutes to turn off. Namely, 45 minutes to go through the checklists to turn off each and every system. Probably because there is still enough fuel aboard to cause a bigga-badda-boom. It's fun listening to them as they ask permission from mission control to turn stuff off.

Eileen, you are go for ammonia reconfig.

What ever happened to control-alt-delete?

QOTD

To the person sliding down the rail on his arse, we installed the stairs so you could use your stubby little legs.

-- Perth Train Station Announcement

Seeking One's Roots, And Finding It's Cinnabar

Decided to look up my old family name for the hell of it. I'm sick, bored, and just bloody-minded enough to go do some etymological sticky-beaking in a language I'm functionally illiterate in.

This list has been reproduced as part of a comprehensive online dictionary. My only gripe is that I don't know which way to read the list, right-to-left (conventional Chinese) or left-to-right (Western style). Does this mean my family name is the 102nd or 82nd most common surname in China? Just even out the differences and place it at 92nd.

To my great delight, I now actually have an understanding of how the family name evolved, even if I still need to concentate in order to write it. I still don't know how Chinese surnames originated. European surnames, for example, derive from four distinct types - occupational, patronymic, geographical, and descriptive - Chinese surnames just seem to be random words.

Still, it's always fun to find out the meaning of names, doubly so when you discover it's a something you like, and doubly doubly so when you've managed it in a foreign language.

Bleah Bleah and Bleah

Just spent the entire weekend helping run a training course in video editing, nine to five, with a cold. Am tired inside and out, and feeling totally bleah. Back to work again tomorrow. Then another weekend training. Then another regular week. Then the third and last weekend training.

Right now, extremely unmotivated to do anything but crawl into bed and stay there with hot milo and loud loud music.

And if that wasn't enough, we lost the cricket. Double bleah.

Banksy And The West Bank Barrier

It's getting so no bare concrete wall is safe from the graffiti artist, especially if that wall is the nearly 700km long security feature being built by the Israelis to protect them from the Palestinians, and the graffiti artist is Banksy.

Anybody who can complete nine pieces of artwork while dodging warning shots from the Israeli army deserves to have his voice heard. Wonder how long before the Israelis whitewash it?

Use it or lose it

Have your say.

Turn Your Doberman Into A Poodle

www.attackchi.org.au has the perfect solution for getting all those dangerous dog breeds out of our communities - simply disguise them as some other breed of family-friendly dog. That way, everyone's happy. Except maybe the doberman...

Perth Comic Artists Meetup

Grug says:

When: Monday the 8th of August @ 7:30pm
Where: Fast Eddy's Cafe. Cnr of Milligan and Murray St Perth
Why?: Do you seriously need to ask this?
Who: If you do a webcomic / draw / read comics feel free to rock up / bring friends.

Ooh, tempting...

Russian Surrealism On My Desktop Slideshow

What to do while waiting for the laundry, hmmm... vacuum? clean toilet? scrub bathroom? Nah, go find some more unreal desktops to download.

A couple of nights ago I finally got around to ditching my embarassingly large collection of Tolkien desktops and replaced them with a handful of nifty ones.

Which would have been cool, except that every morning and night when I hopped on, I'd find myself staring at the same bloody desktop. That's what happens, of course, when you set your desktop slideshow to change on the hour, and you only have six image files.

Obviously, I needed more. Lots more. The weirder and lovelier the better.


Them funky Russians. I don't think it's just because I've been working on the St Petersburg 1900 episode either, or that I've had Tchaikovsky and some heartbreaking Rachmaninoff aria pounding through my brain, but there's something so beautifully morose and cynical about Russian art that just makes you want to let go of the railing and be smothered by the deep waters. Hell, even their techno has an edge of nightmare to it. Must be those long and bitter winter nights.

Ball 6

The SMS Evolution

It seems that Sydney plans to use SMS messages and email to alert the public to evacuate the CBD in case of a major emergency. I guess this means that those that haven't kept up with the digital age are doomed to die. Pity, I just learnt what the all clear sounded like too.

Who did you say killed me?

Is your relationship stuck in a rut? Sick of the sight of your partner? Then you need The Akin Method¹. With just one wallet you can be free and single in next to no time.

¹ Some gaol time may be incurred.

Freo's season - so far

Round 1:

Rounds 2-3

Round 4

Rounds 5-7

Rounds 8-9

Round 10

Rounds 11-14

Rounds 15-19

Thanks to OzRamblings for the idea.

Putting the Perth Back In Apathy

"Hey, Jonno. You hear they found explosives in Langley Park this morning?"

"That bloody Neil."

And that was it. With the recent bombings in London, Cairo, Bahgdad...etc, you'd think we'd all be running around like headless chooks at the first hint that bangshit has been found in the city. Nah, not us. We all know it's bikie gangs, or geeks trying to impress each other. Islamic extremists... not even on the list of likely suspects.

Even so, www.news.com.au tried to play up the Terrorism angle, but really weren't convincing, no matter how many times they repeated the T word. On the other hand, Aunty did such a perfunctory job you'd think they were covering the under-14s lawn bowls qualifier.

By the way, best London Bombing joke I've heard so far: suicide bombings are like the bus - you wait ages and ages for one, then four turn up at the same time.

When You Really Need To Look Like the Swamp Thing

Available in Desert Tan, Mossy Oak, Leafy Green or Woodland.

Collect them all

This is an action figure. A porn star action figure. Nuff said.

Frisky Download

I've added a link to our short film Frisky in the sidebar. It's a windows media file and costs just $US3 to download. Enjoy.