Thumbs

You know, I actually use my left thumb for a lot of things. That drat rat may have only sunk one tooth in (well, one upper and one lower) but it happened to be right at the point of my thumb that I usually use to grip things.

Most inconvenient.

Yay, Shaun!

Shaun Tan has been awarded the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award!

In response to this news, I can only say: "Whoot! Whoot! Huzzah! Yay, Shaun!"

I quite like Shaun Tan. His The Arrival is one of my favourite books of all time. It's one of the few times I've picked up a book in the library, and had to go out and buy my own copy because I couldn't imagine not having it in my home. It's just magnificent - and also impossible to read to anyone. If you find a copy of the book, you'll find out why.

The man is just brilliant. He shares a spot on my bookshelves with Graeme Base, as writer/illustrators I love to pieces and can't live without.

As the award website says "He combines brilliant, magical narrative skill with deep humanism".

He deserves to receive an international honour. That's all I can say.

Things you read in the news...

...especially when you source your news from CakeWrecks (see link in sidebar):

Busty Israeli model Orit Fox was posing with the boa constrictor during a photoshoot in Tel Aviv when it suddenly turned on her. The snake latched on to her left breast just as she was about to alluringly lick its head. (The entire article can be read here, at All Headlines News).

Personally, I don't blame the snake. If some complete stranger tried licking my head, I'd probably react violently as well. It's a shame the snake wasn't venomous, is all I can say. Ms Fox deserved a few weeks in hospital on antivenin for being that pathetic. I don't care how much money you make, when you get to the point that you are licking snakes for photos for a living, you've taking the wrong path.

The truly sad part of this story is that the snake died from suspected silicone poisoning.

That's another indication you need to take a close look at the choices you've made in life, Ms Fox - a snake bites you, and it gets poisoned.

That said, I'm not entirely sure how trustworthy the news source is, so if I have accused Ms Fox of being toxic when the snake did not, in fact, die as a result of biting her, then I apologise.

Die Fastenzeit

I can't help but feel I'm probably doing it wrong.

Last year I decided to try this whole "giving something up for Lent" thing a go. I'd been going to an Anglican church for over a year and I was starting to feel comfortable in thinking of myself as Anglican, so I figured it was time to engage in a few religious observances. However, I grew up in a Pentecostal denomination where Lent wasn't observed, and there's an extent to which I have no idea what I'm doing. One of these days I'm going to have to take a course on being Anglican, or something, instead of trying to pick it all up by osmosis.

Anyway, last year I gave up chocolate for Lent. It seemed like something that would be enough of a challenge to be significant (I eat chocolate everyday - usually at least twice a day), and it meant that eating a chocolate Easter egg on the Sunday would actually have some sort of meaningful significance (the feast to break the fast), instead of being a weird mutilation of a pagan tradition that had been more or less completely high-jacked by confectionery companies and supermarkets.

It was good for me, I think. I tend to lean on chocolate a lot more than I should when it comes to getting an energy boost in the afternoon, and I have developed a habit of eating something sweet after lunch and dinner that should be discouraged.

This year I decided to up the ante and give up both chocolate and coffee. These are two things I used to consume much less frequently a few years ago, but I've become decidedly addicted to them in the last couple of years. I seem to rely on coffee to keep me upright in the morning and chocolate to keep me going in the afternoon. Getting rid of both seemed like it would be a suitable sacrifice for a period of fasting, as well as being something good for me in a physical sense.

The 40 days of Lent (which, technically, don't include the Sundays, but I'm ignoring that detail and going cold-turkey until Easter Sunday) is meant to call to mind the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness before beginning his ministry. It's one of many times the time frame of 40 days is mentioned in the Bible. Theologians theorise that "40 days" is a period deemed "long enough". Some even go so far as to claim the time is entirely metaphorical (like "a time, two times and half a time"), but there is evidence in a lot of other sources that six weeks is the ideal time to establish or break a habit.

If you can consciously make yourself do something for six weeks (like, say, getting up at 6.00am to go for a run), then it will become "normal" and take less effort to do. By the same token, if you avoid doing something for six weeks, it becomes non-habitual and you find it more difficult or unnatural. Or so They say.

So, 40 days without chocolate or coffee should, by this reckoning, be "long enough" to get me to the point where I don't need a balance of chocolate and coffee to get me through the day...

Only I think I'm doing it wrong. I'm not really avoiding coffee and chocolate so much as substituting other, similar things in their place. I'm eating more lollies than I normally do (liquorish all-sorts are currently taking the place of my after-dinner chocolate), and I've actually started drinking more flavoured milk than I used to... While I am significantly cutting back on my caffeine consumption (I've taken to having weak black tea instead of my morning coffee), I think I've definitely increased my sugar consumption.

It's not really a fast if you give up beef and lamb only to eat more venison, and I'm not sure giving up chocolate only to take up liquorish is the way it's supposed to work.

But... Darn it all, I NEED the sugar. Especially without the caffeine. I NEEEED it. I've been doing a lousy job of being awake since Ash Wednesday, and without the sugar I think I'm going to need another two or three hours of sleep to make up for the lack of stimulants.

I have previously noted that replacing sleep with coffee is a bad idea, but it gets worse when you stop drinking the coffee.

Which I guess is just symptomatic of the fact that I really need to alter my lifestyle to get off the coffee and sugar on a more permanent basis. Early to bed and early to rise, and all that jazz.

All good ideas for the future. Doesn't help me stay awake right now, though. I don't think I've ever looked forward to Easter so much in my life.

This is the way we waste our time...

Waste our time, waste our time. This is the way we waste our time, when the assignment's due tomorrow...

http://mulonananass.blogspot.com/2011/03/klaver-pomm.html

Eestlane

"Kas sa eestlane?"

See on küsimus mu õpetaja küsis mulle, üks kord. See oli harjutus.

Ma loodan võiksin ütleda "Jah! Ma olen eestlane. Minu vanaema sündis Eestimaal, ja mul on eesti pass." Aga ma ei saa.

Oh, see on tõde. Mu vanaema sündis Eestimaal. Haarjumaal, tegelikult. Ja mul on eesti pass.

Ainult et ma ei elu Eestimaal. Ma ei kunagi elanud Eestimaal. Nii ma ei tunne nagu eestlane.

Ehk ühel paeval...

Everything I touch turns to...

...German.

Still not sure how it's happening. There are a few things I've put in German on purpose - my computer, "my" iPod. Yet things I haven't set to German seem to end up in German anyway.

It's a puzzle. I think I'm being haunted, quite frankly. Haunted by German...

Oddly, though, Google Chrome has stopped listening to my computer settings. I think I might have frazzled it by changing every week.

Dictionaries

There comes a point in your life... well, in my life, when I just have to admit I have too many dictionaries.

I had to move my bookshelves this week, which meant I had to move the books. Which meant I had to look at them and ask myself if I really want them to stay in my life.

Turns out I have a lot of dictionaries. 26, when I stopped counting - and that wasn't including multiple volumes or works that could technically be called dictionaries but didn't have the word "dictionary" in the title. There are those who suspect the main reason I started learning two new languages was so I would have an excuse to buy more dictionaries. My collection of thesauruses or thesaurus-like books was smaller, but still somewhat ludicrous.

The simple fact of the matter is that I don't use all of them.

So, I bit the bullet and ditched a few. I no longer have the Penguin Dictionaries of Art, Science or Religion. The Pianists glossary is gone. Some of the smaller versions of Oxford have been passed on to others (although I still have the Oxford School Dictionary from 1968. Don't ask me why).

Weeding is fun, is it not? You find books that have been sitting on your shelves, unopened since the day you got them, and try to talk yourself out of keeping them for a few more years on speculation.

And then I have this strange compulsion to keep all of the plays and collections of poetry I've gathered over the years, even though I started putting my library together based on the idea that I would one day be a Speech and Drama teacher - something entirely likely ten years ago, but not so much these days.

That's the thing with books (and other stuff), sometimes. You keep them because they represented a time in your life when you were the kind of person who might read or use that book. Then you move on, but it's almost like trying to weed your photo-albums.

Pieces of yourself - now surplus to requirements - sent away to some charity to sell for 50c each at a book fair...

My mother might be a supervillian

My mother has been teaching a new class this term, and they've been focusing on "Natural Disasters". So far, every disaster they've looked at has either happened just before or within two weeks of her lessons.

When Christchurch had its earthquake, do you know what she said? "Tsunami is next."

I'm beginning to suspect she might just have superpowers, and she might not be using them for the good of mankind.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, she says volcanoes are next on the list.

Readers!

At some point in the last couple of months my library has acquired a small number of German Readers!

This makes me very happy. Also, somewhat perplexed.

a) I usually scan the New Books emails for things like this, but obviously missed every single one of these (indicating they all came in the same week).

b) I know I didn't ask for them (I was looking at another company's books, but hadn't gotten around to ordering them). Does this mean the German lecturer actually listened to me when I said he could put in requests for material like readers? Does this mean he actually found some readers and ordered them?

Now, must work out best way to promote them...

Perhaps it's time to bring back the mini-displays?

Did you know...

... that heart failure can give you a cough?

Seems a bit petty, really: "Aha! I kill you! And I make you cough!"

First Race

2011 Dash for Cash. 4.6km in 34 minutes. Placed 344.

When a dog takes over control

I have to admit it, the Italian version of Kommissar/Inspector Rex is actually better than the original. The stories and acting just seems to have kicked up a notch since Rex moved to Rome.

More importantly, though, I can understand the theme song. I've never been able to quite grasp the theme song for the original. No matter how hard I try, I just can't make out all of the words. It sounds for all the word like this:

I see heroes without fear
Cowabunga, empty streets
Time to hide in dirty cages
Then you'll see how it's gonna be
When a dog takes over control
We'll be fine until the end
That's what they call a good friend
He'll always understand
That's what they call a good friend.

Which, quite frankly, doesn't make as much sense as it could. Particularly the "Cowabunga" bit.

I've tried looking up the lyrics online, but it seems no one else can come up with anything that makes more sense. A few of them have "killing thunder" rather than "cowabunga". So much better.

Is the song suggesting a possible future where dogs are in control and people are imperiled, but thankfully saved by one particular dog who likes us? If so, that really doesn't fit with the TV show at all.

Oh, and then (after Moser was killed and they switched to the second guy) they re-recorded the theme song. Unfortunately, instead of making it easier to understand, they just dropped several lines. Because, you know, that's likely to help.

Helen should keep her big mouth shut

So, we've been having an interesting week. Things have been going wrong. Technology has been failing. People have been slicing themselves open in freak accidents. Other people have been experiencing, shall we say, "slight technical difficulties" with their home lives. Things like that.

I personally blame Helen, who has been spending the last week saying "What else could possibly go wrong?" a lot. Like that isn't daring the universe.

Take yesterday's training session, for example. Somewhere between 200 and 300 people turn out on a Saturday morning (having paid for the privilege) to hear us tell them all about writing essays and doing research.

To begin with, the room is locked and we have to track down security to let us in (surely, if you book a room, someone should be on hand to unlock it). Then we discovered the presentation equipment was frozen and the projectors wouldn't work. Since all of our sessions were running off slide shows, that was a bit of a problem. About an hour into the session, just after we finally managed to get our "Plan B" to work, the projectors came back on... only the have the Internet cut out half and hour later (and a lot of what we were to show the students was on the 'net).

We spent the entire morning trying to teach without tools and fix the tools at the same time. There was a point when I was speaking to the crowd and I noticed people were taking notes. My brain was somewhere else entirely, trying to work out what to do next. I kid you not, I actually had the thought: "Hey, people are taking notes based on what I'm saying. I wonder what I'm saying..."

And, through it all, Helen keeps saying "Seriously, what else could possibly go wrong?"

Stop asking the question, Helen. We don't want to know the answers.

The Losing Team

I have two hats with the word "Fury" on them at home. One is a proper cost-me-$25-from-a-merchandise-stand hat, the other is a $5 cheapy I picked up from an in-store display. I'm not sure they were actually meant to be for sale, but I asked and they sold it to me.

The "real" hat was my celebratory hat. I bought it when the Fury won their first home game, and decided that I would wear it whenever they won. The other had was sort of my way to still show support even if they weren't winning. I wore the cheap hat a lot.

I think I'm going to have to rethink my "winning hat" and "not winning hat" strategy from now on, due to the fact that my team has permanently lost.

The thing that really urks me - that urks all of us in North Queensland - is the fact that it was painfully obvious FFA had no real intention of letting us continue. This for the past six months.

For six months (at least) FFA has been dangling an impossible carrot in front of the team - effectively saying "oh, yeah, of course there's a chance you will survive, you just have to do this thing we all know you will never be able to do, without any real sense of support from us".

We all feel as if the FFA wanted to axe the team after the last season, but also wanted to look like they were trying to give us a chance. "Oh, look, fans of this team, we are supporting your team as much as we can, so don't hate us when we inevitably kill it."

It would have been so much fairer to everyone - especially the players and staff - if they had said "Right, this is definitely your last season. Make the most of it and find a new job next year".

Sure, we would have hated them for not giving the team a chance, but we hate them so much more for jerking everyone around.

Man up, FFA. If you're going to put the cat down, then put it down. Dragging out the process out didn't make anyone look good.