another Fraser moment

Bollocks to this, I'm off to Dunedin.

To see this.

hi ho, hi ho...

So, here I am at work wantonly wasting work time on writing blog entries rather than doing what I'm supposedly paid for. Davewah is up in Kaikoura for a couple of days to go collecting (and has borrowed Tattle's boat which he describes as the water borne version of a jet-powered tricycle...) so consequently I can spend time faffing around up here. Not that I can do much with this 'puter because it's so old and slow. The 'upgrade' it received last year improved it from a coal-powered monstrosity to a kerosene burner. Well, at least I don't have to stoke it every morning.

Crap, I've gotta go feed the fush. I'll leave you with this marvelous email from Claire, in response to my thoughts that she should get comments enabled on her blog and that we should see a movie next week.

Memo: To Agent C********

From: Agent N*******

Re: Suggested visual edification enterprise

Am inclined towards responding in the affirmative to the above proposal, next weeks schedule predisposed towards acceptance early in the week, notwithstanding employment obligations and taking into account long overdue return of top medical drama Monday night.

Regarding proposed feedback function on weblog: Am considering imminent consultation with colleagues for the express purpose of enabling said function; nocturnal habits of those possessing appropriate technical capabilities proving thus far prohibitive.


As always, the employment of your chronological resources is highly valued by the Committee.

Hee.

shameless thieving (again)

From The Scroll of Emptiness, this neatly sums up what I think with the added benefit of my not having to find my own words with which to say it. Thanks!

GE is scientific progression forward. This is a good thing.
GE has dangers. This needs to be well understood, and these dangers need to be actively guarded against.
The way to guard against dangers isn’t “Ban the dangerous thing!” it’s “Understand the dangerous thing, and make sure it does no harm. ”. Fire is dangerous, but many of us allow it in our homes under controlled circumstances. Likewise electricity, knives, water and string.
I support people’s right to not partake of genetically modified foods, and as such, I support compulsory labelling.

(Via No Right Turn.)

And, yes, I know I've been on anti-GE protests and I know I'm supposedly helping my Greenpeace mates out with this kinda thing but... Sorry guys, I had misgivings at the time but you caught me before coffee on my day off. I was weak. When it comes down to it I'm a scientist and think that things should be researched. Knowledge is good, knowledge is power. There are no inappropriate questions. Cliche cliche. Only by learning things can we hope to make a positive difference. My two cents.

Anyway, didn't get nearly as much puter/interweb catch-up time as I was hoping tonight. Many more things to talk about here to but they'll have to wait for a later date coz I'm to bed. Think I'll have to set aside a weekend just to peruse the whole of Frank's site. Bro, you got a lot o good stuff there.

music

Had a really good day at work, which is surprising enough on its own to blog about, but I put it down to a visit to my favorite shop and an indulgence the purchase of some rather fine tunes.

Firstly, and I've been wanting this for a while, I got Moving Units's ep with the simply marvelous tunes 'Between Us & Them' and 'I Am' on it. These guys rock! And they're supposedly coming out to NZ this year, I only hope it's when I'm still here.

Next, continuing the jangly angular indie rock theme, I got the latest Interpol cd 'Turn on the Bright Lights', a wee gem that's been growing on me the more I've heard of their stuff on the radio. They're starting to get noticed by commercial stations now so expect repetitive thrashing of one or two of their songs this year...

Thirdly I bought Scribe's monumental double A-side 'Stand Up/ Not Many'. Coz everyone's gotta have it :-)

Lastly, and as a bit of an impulse buy, I got the Black Keys' cd 'thickfreakness'. And oh my god! I'd been hanging out to get all the other stuff I bought and this one last side thought has damn near eclipsed them all! I had a quick listen in the shop and cracked a huge grin at the few opening bars of the title track. These guys are quite fantastic - the thick, dirty fuzzed-out bluesy guitar riffs, the muscular drum work, his voice... Fuck these tiny computer speakers, I've gotta go listen to this LOUD! Later gaters.

reincarnation day

According to my diary, today's the day to choose what to come back as. I'm going for evil alien overlord.

Anyway, apologies for the lack of blogging (or, if you prefer, sorry that I'm back) but life has been getting between me & my puter.

A few quick links for the interested:

Very Important Things - everyone go there right now as Green Fairy says. Bloody hilarious.

Zombie Infection Simulator - can't remember where I got this from but it kinda reminds me of 28 Days Later... without as much blood & screaming. Thankfully.

The March of the Sinister Ducks - "Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars, reading pornography and smoking cigars"

A public health warning - perhaps a little too late to be seasonally correct but I fucking hate Xmas (bah humbug) and I thought this was hilarious.

Filthy Hedgehogs - Spaz hole... snigger. It was the Big Pants Trekking that attracted me there originally (of course). Just check out the whole site, it's all good.

Righty, I've got things to do in the so-called real world. Later lovelies.

Addendum: Just found this through Peter Mac. And snorted my viente latte all over the keyboard. Go look.

LotR: tRotK ... doncha just love acronyms?

Well, probably everyone in the blogosphere has commented on the movie except me so... I'll keep it that way and just link to others' reviews. Here's a particularly wonderful piece from Tracey at foolscap:

[...] Sir Ian McKellen certainly deserves an Oscar for saying stuff like "Polygon, Son of Bibbly Bob, Ruler of Nandor, you must go in haste to the Kingdom of Harpsichords" with just the right degree of seriousness.

Hee hee.

PS I can't recommend Tracey's site enough, read the 19 Things About Me post. Number 15 had me cackling on the floor and mildly concerning my cat.

things I never wanted to know about Annie but have been forced to find out #4962

Annie went on holiday and picked up a dose of giardia. Consequently, back in Chch, she has to take a poo sample in to be tested. Now Annie has no barriers. At all. Nada. So I've just been regaled with her attempts to take a dump into a container this evening (10 mins straining, nothing happening) and worries about what, if she has to crap during the night, to do with the deposit - apparently putting it in the fridge is the accepted thing (yuurrrccckkk!!!). And then having to walk across town in the morning to take it to the lab.

God, I laughed so much I nearly split. I love that girl, she is a truly unique individual.

inspiration

Or the lack of it at least. It's not like I don't think interesting things (well, to me at least, and thank god I find them interesting [sometimes!] coz I'm trapped in this head all alone). Just when it comes to recalling and writing about them the words won't come.

I used to keep a diary (the appallingly old-fashioned papery kind) for many years. I was a prolific writer for perhaps 8 - 10 years. The same period of my life was when I was writing the most for my own enjoyment, short stories of variable worth (ranging from recyclable material to compost to be honest...), observations on life, god-awful poetry, etc. Never had the discipline or ego to attempt a novel but.

That time also coincided with my greatest volume of drug-taking and possibly the only period when I was reasonably comfortable with socialising, going out on the town, dancing, all that youth shit. Or perhaps I wasn't all that comfortable, but I did it anyway. Never look back with rose-tinted glasses, I always promised myself I'd never idolise my school years as 'the best time of my life'. They sure-as-fuck weren't.

Nowadays I feel more at ease with who I am, and more accepting of my own personality. Tonight for instance I was considering going over the road to the buskers festival but couldn't be arsed mainly. But Annie came home & her youthful enthusiasm is infectious (for a while) so I scraped myself out of the house to join her & the downstairs boys (not to be confused with the backstairs boys, nonono). But it was obvious within seconds of getting there that I couldn't handle the crowds, so I bailed. And so I'm here, in my room with my cat, writing shit.

Gotta say, it feels good.

Well, this was supposed to be a rant about how I couldn't remember the cool observations I made walking home from the mechanics' this morning but I'll save that for another time. Perhaps.

old news

An excerpt from an article in The independent about the Columbine massacre:

Evan Todd, a popular football player and school hero, told reporters: "Columbine is a clean, good place except for those rejects. Most kids didn't want them there. They were into witchcraft. They were into voodoo dolls. Sure, we teased them. But what do you expect if you come to school with weird hairdos? It's not just jocks; the whole school was disgusted with them. They're a bunch of homos, grabbing each other's private parts. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease 'em. So the whole school would call them homos, and when they did something sick, we'd tell them, 'You're sick and that's wrong.'"

Insert obvious disclaimer that I don't support teens shooting each other (except if it's to be a reality tv show, Running Man style), but fuck! Well, you bully-boy conformist, you saw kids who looked different to you so the thought penetrated your sloping, Cro-Magnon forehead that they therefore had to be evil. So they must be persecuted, teased, bullied, ostracised, physically beaten, mentally & emotionally abused, basically crushed till they crawled off to die (somewhere where you couldn't see it, eh? Out of sight, out of your very tiny mind, huh?). But sorry to say, those ones didn't go quietly. I frankly don't blame them (no intended reference to Frank there, but it's apt!)

Read more.

One of the most telling points I thought was that the 'Trenchcoat Mafia' at Columbine, and similar high school killers all over the US at the time (who remembers now?), should be seen as part of a wider culture of endemic low-level violence, persecution and aggressively policed conformity. A-fucking-men. A little introspection please America, 'nuff with the hand-wringing and sort your shit out.

Right, I think I've gotten that out of my system. I just fucking hate bullies and can empathise with the underdogs all too well.

(via Peter Mac)

larf!

And one from Robber Rabbit:

"I'm arresting you for a breach of the peace. Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence."

"Oh. In which case: Ouch. Ouch. Bastard coppers. Stop hitting me."

Fab.

cruel & tasteless: the combination rocks!

Here's an excerpt from the inimitable Maddox:

That reminds me of how much I hate babies. Why does everyone want to save them? There are too many babies. I'm not saying we should kill them, but if you happen to be giving your baby a bath and the phone rings.. well, nobody will judge you. Besides, you might get free brownies out of it at the funeral, and brownies rule.

Hmmm, the eternal dilemma: babies or brownies? :-)

damn & blast

Right, this is pissing me off. Probably my own fault but I'm having so many problems publishing this bloody site, and now I seem to have lost entirely the pearls of wisdom that I wrote only a few hours ago. Bollocky bollocks.

I think the word is 'bleeaarrggguehhh'

Claire went to see Cabin Fever last night. I warned her about it, since I'd seen it last year at the festival and 'gross' doesn't go anywhere near far enough to describe it. Sure enough I recieved a number of slightly hysterical txts during the course of the movie, the last of which brilliantly sums it up: "I dont know if I want to shower first when I get home or puke. Its a conundrum."

salmon chanted evening...

Sorry, couldn't resist that one. We hopefully have the whitespot infection on the run now, although the tank temperature is all over the show. But we have two healthy looking atlantic salmon in quarantine till the main tank is given the all clear. The last atlantic salmon on display in New Zealand, after these two there will be no more...

To continue the fish tale (they just keep getting better don't they?)... So Dave was taking photo's for identification purposes (I was half expecting him to whip out a wee ink pad and take it's fin prints, perhaps roughing it up a bit in the process) and whilst in the process of trying to get that perfect lighting on the fish's good side it leapt right out of the tank (it's the truth yer honour, he jumped of his own accord, the sergeant wasn't anywhere near him at the time).

I'm beginning to think Dave's nerves are shot because he didn't even bat an eye, there I am making a beautiful slo-mo dive for the momentarily airborne piscean (and, despite my karate honed reflexes, failing dismally) and he's just rolling his eyes and grinding his teeth. Actually, looking back on it he might have been having a seizure. Hmmm.

The fish is fine though, thanks for asking. Hopefully it learnt a valuable lesson about throwing itself out of aquaria.

After all that we still are no closer to finding out what it is. Might be time to bring out the thumbscrews. Or finscrews. Whatever. I bags being bad cop.

Fish madness

Interesting and stressful things have been afoot at the 'quarium. But how is that possible I hear you cry! Yes, I know it's hard to believe - that interesting things could happen is strange enough but stressful too! Oh and nothing to do with the semi-humans (except Colleen, she's a step up the evolutionary ladder for sure) employed as guides either. This is a real fish story.

To set the scene:

So we've got a few infection problems at the moment due to chiller units breaking down (during the hottest days of summer of course! Murphy was an optimist). But we're getting on top of them now (hopefully). After trying nearly every treatment and dosage in the extensive library of fish books that Dave owns, plus the set-back of discovering that formalin only has a shelf life of 6-12 months and the stuff we use is up to 2 years old. But we're fighting back and seem to be winning. Or at least forcing a stalemate.

Then yesterday we get a call from New Zealand Fish Guru Numero Uno saying could we hold a couple o fish he's having sent over from the Chathams, because he's out of the country for a month. Of course we say yes massa. He da man. Well, fishly speaking.

Stress levels rising now because the fish we've agreed to look after (sight unseen) are supposedly Chatham galaxias which, as everyone knows, are extremely rare and have been described only once (by aforementioned Fish Guru of course).

So yours truly spends a good hour making sure a nice wee tank is absolutely spotlessly clean and disinfected prior to their arrival. Some acriflavine added as a bacterial prophylactic. Plus making sure the water temp is (relatively) low because, as everyone knows, rapid changes in temperature are lethal to fish.

Jules brings the fish in, pH is ok so they're introduced to the tank. Little bit of fungus but not serious, bucket of salt water added to clear that up. All is hunky dory.

We look at fish. We look at (comprehensive, definitive, Bible) book on fish (also written by aforementioned Guru). We look up Chatham galaxias. We look at fish. We look back at book. We look back at fish quickly in case it's changed. It hasn't. We look at book again. It hasn't changed either. But the fish isn't in the book. Oh fuck we say, we have to babysit a previously undiscovered species of fish for a month in the middle of summer with no idea as to how to look after it.

Bags not! I say.

Bugger says Dave.

The saga continues tomorrow...

frak

Just wrote a whingey post about how my blog isn't working then lost it. Thereby sparing all of you the torture of reading my bitching. Gah.

Sarah, I think I've inadvertently lost your comment coz I was messing around with posts and formatting and have deleted the post it was attached to. Oops. Good thing it wasn't a treatise on unified theory or I may have put physics back another 100 years.

Conversations with Bo:

J: Please don't eat my cat
B: It's a cat eat cat world
J: you're not a cat
B: he'd eat me, I can see it in his fiendish eyes
J: You're looking at his arse

testing testing

Still don't seem to be able to view my blog on the net. Even tho the blogger people seem to think it's ok. Hmmm.

heh

Debunking conspiracy theories the Frank way:

Even if you're looking at the bigger-picture type of conspiracies that aren't directed at individuals at all (Microsoft, the UN, etc), you've still got to contend with the fact that humans aren't that bright to begin with, and the collective intelligence of groups goes down as you add members, not up.

Brilliant. Cynical, yes, but brilliant - what I've come to expect from the man.

As much as I'd like to be a misanthropic genius like some of the wonderful people on the interweb (Maddox, The Bitch, etc) I don't really have the passion for it. I seem unfortunately to be an optimist, no matter what life throws at me. Dammit.

one final thing...

I seem to be having trouble publishing the site. Although why I'm writing this as an entry I don't know - if you can read it then there's no problem anymore, if you can't then... Rack it up to tiredness.

ciao children.

nocturnal ramblings

So, it's been an interesting evening. And well into the morning to! Had some great visitors even if they weren't all getting on with each other... Eroica and Cam spent a fair amount of the evening off arguing with each other which wasn't a problem for me since that left me to talk with the lovely Hadassah (awesome name!). And I was impressed with the wee girl - she may be only a teenager but is pretty clued up and extremely well read. Was going to make some acerbic comment about her taste in men there but I'm not as nasty as the Bitchfrog. Cam's a nice boy, a bit full of himself and needs to chill out a bunch, but on the whole a good guy. Anyway Cambo - I think she's pretty serious on the boyfriend. Not that you can tell much from someone when you've only met them once, just a gut instinct. Nice to meet someone as passionate about books & language tho, if she does come over again I'll no doubt be forcing books on her...

I was going to write more but I've really gotta do shit tomorrow so I'd better get to bed. Toodles.

PS I've decided to drop the attempts at anonymity & making up nicknames for everyone, it was taxing my imagination too much. I was rationalising it to myself a while ago by saying that no-one reads this site anyway so there's no need to protect identities but have just recently gotten my first commenting visitor so that screws that argument. Oh bugger it, I'm just too lazy to bother with all the deceptive stuff - barring releasing my own name of course! One must have one's mysteries ;-)

Anyway, awae w' yeh t' bed.

heeeeeeeeeeere's fishboy!

I'm back again, after a wee hiatus of blogging. I know - I've only been going a month why would I need to take time off? Well, it's been Xmas (bah humbug) and New Year (random cynical mutterings) and summer and people and drinking and late nights and work and karate and coffee and more people and random events and going out and an almost total lack of inspiration. But I promise to do better from now on.

In actual fact, the inspiration has been there but it strikes me at odd times when there's no way of recording my thoughts. I had an epiphany the other day when feeding the fish, but the fact that I was snorkeling with sharks while holding a large piece of raw meat kinda drove it out of my mind. By the time I'd toweled myself off the thought was gone forever... Sigh.

Also I have these flashes of brilliance (and I realize you've only got my word for it but would I lie to you?) which happen most often at night and the sequence of events often goes like this: *ping!* (the sound that a brilliant thought makes usually, although sometimes it's more like that sound you get when you hold one end of a ruler on a table with the other end over the side then lift the free end and let it go producing a sort of thwblwblwblblwblblwbll. But ping is easier to write), lights-on, find glasses, drop glasses over side of bed, gingerly explore under bed for glasses while trying not to find anything that might make it impossible to avoid the fact that I need to tidy my room, get up, disturb cat, get lacerated by said feline, wrap towel around self so my nudity doesn't offend aliens watching my every move (I know they're there...), get paper, rummage for pen, find pen, try to get pen to work, try to write on blood soaked paper, find new paper, try to remember thought, sit down, stand up again real fast, remove cat from buttocks, retrieve paper from behind wardrobe and pen from pot plant, give up trying to remember, attempt to get past enraged cat to phone for an ambulance before passing out from blood loss. This happens several times a week.

Right, gotta go coz am being invaded by weirdos.

how long is a piece of string?

Take a piece of string and cut it in half. You now have two pieces of string, each half the length of the original. Now, cut one of the halves in half again. Cut one of the remainders into half, and this again, etc. The fact is, no matter how many times you cut the string into half, you will never achieve a state where the length of the segment reaches zero.

So, eventually, you will have cut the string in half an infinite number of times, and hence you will have an infinite number of pieces of string which will all have a length above zero.

Obviously, any value above zero multiplied by infinity equals infinity, and hence through logical deduction we have proved that any piece of string is infinitely long.

The Great Green Arkle Seizure

I've been reading a great deal of Douglas Adams' stuff lately and am struck, as always, by his wonderful prose. He really had a beautiful way of constructing sentences. Leaving aside the hilarious & thought provoking subject matter, his word play was par excellence.

more boring crap

Damn, what is it about sitting in front of a 'puter that saps away all your enthusiasm and inspiration?

Have thought more about resolutions and have come up with a couple:
1) Get my Nidan grade at the end o year camp. Well, not really up to me I guess but at least show that I have the desire and ambition to do it, and tell Frazer that I'm keen. Eeek! He'll beat 7 shades o shit out of me over the next 11 months...
2) Find an affordable massage therapy course somewhere and apply for it.

More will apear as they become clear to me.

boring crap

Damn, first day o the new year nearly over and I haven't made any resolutions...

How about the old faves - get more exercise, eat better and get more sleep? They'll do. And the likelyhood that they'll be achieved is about as high as ever. Sigh...

more another time perhaps...

G & I went up to clairebear's for dinner - nice wee pad! Had a good time - pretty low key but C is good value as always and Bridget was there who is also heaps o fun & also mighty pleasing to the eye... hurr hurr hurr

Nice to hang out with smart people, having challenging conversations, talking about random shite...

Assholes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why o why do I have to work with such human refuse? Sigh...

NYE wrap up

Last night was a lot more fun than anticipated. Considering how tired I was and how jaded I've been on the whole "fun" thing too... And despite RoBo managing to get us completely lost on the way - even though she had explicit written instructions in front of her! Sigh.

A pretty low key affair - only 9 or 10 of us there, but they were all fairly well written before we got there. Bloody tequila, the curse of my life - just when I thought the karate club was growing out of it my friends decide to take it up! Aaaarrrgghhh. Bluuurrk.

Crazy antics abounded: a lot of hooning around the field in the dark in Bex's car with 3 or 4 people clinging to the roof. Who'da thunk a bunch o 30somethings could be so teenagerish? Hope that Goatboy & Kenny's fotos come out so Sam can someday see how idiotic parents can be... But it was a lot of fun. A perfect night - still & warm & sooo many stars! I'd forgotten how many are up there since only a dozen or so manage to shoulder their way through the Christchurch haze & light pollution.

Talked to J&J which was great, they sounded a little lonely. The days of having large meetings of the clan are waning, they've been on the decline for some years but the Chch pickings are getting thin. I never thought I'd be one of the departees either but I'm out o here soon... It's a depressing thought but barring a wedding or two to come, the biggest gatherings will be at funerals. Blah. Too depressing for this wonderful day.

Had a great night, Goatboy was spectacularly trashed and trying to beat me up as usual. I'm always trashed as well so this was a new experience to see our playfighting from a sober perspective. What a pair of fools! Hee hee! Mick showed me some capoeira moves which looked really cool, tho I'm pretty sure I'd be totally uncoordinated if I tried them... Probably break something. So good to hang out wih him again too, we don't see him down here often enough.

RoBo made a friend there too (slapper!) and so didn't return to Chch with me but 'slept' under the stars... Heh heh heh - and you accuse me of hitting on your friends & family?! Pot to kettle, come in kettle...

More on last night later, the morons are vexing me so I must go smite them...

The beginning of a beautiful friendship?...

Sooooo, 2004 eh? You don't look so tough. Don't try any funny stuff ok? You're my bee-atch, get used to it.