Ahem

I put up a discussion piece for Deakin Philosophical Society in a separate blog.  I noticed that some people have found their way across to here.  This is a personal blog from a few years ago that was intended mainly for friends and family.  It's not likely to be updated anymore (note last date of 2007) because this type of sharing generally goes on now in Facebook or Google+.  Don't read on unless you're prepared to endure harrowing tales of mid-life crises and 'my kid is so cute' stories. 

If you're interested in the drawings, Deviant Art has more than this blog does.

On and on

Got the first essay for history in a couple of days ago, getting an assignment for literature ready for next week. I've got this countdown sort of thing happening with assessment ratios. 7.5% complete for lit. (will be 37.5% done next week) and 20% complete for history.

I'm really enjoying lit. It goes at a fair pace though, not only a new piece to study each week, but often surrounding issues to study as part of it. For instance, with the film Memento, we were encouraged to go have a look at existentialism. With Heart of Darkness and The Tracker we were encouraged to learn more about the history of colonialism in Africa and Australia and race relations and such.

In history the off-campus students seem to be almost totally ignored. It's all interesting stuff, but not as compelling as lit. I think the difference is mainly in the presentation though, and how the off-campus chair in lit. really makes an effort on the message boards to get people talking, involved and engaged. With history there's no effort spent on us at all.

Meanwhile, the tot has come down with shingles. Here's the pic for the grandparents:
That rash continues on around the front in a similar narrow band in her armpit and across her chest. It was ok for the first couple of days, it didn't seem to be bothering her, but last night when this photo was taken she was having a Pinetarsol bath every half hour or so to relieve the pain and itching. Last night in her sleep she kept writhing, crying and screaming "Ants! Ants! Ants on me! Get them off!" Which was pretty awful. Needless to say I've had little sleep for the last couple of nights.

Saving the World*

It's no secret that the world contains more human beings than it can comfortably support. It's also common knowledge that because of crowding-out by humans, and the accompanying environmental degradation, many species of animals are endangered. So, I have come up with a solution that addresses both of these problems at once.

Being a scientifically-minded type of person, I believe that proposals must be tested. For this test I selected the cheetah, a magnificent feline, famous for its sprinting speed. It is obviously in severe decline in this area; on a recent trip to Werribee I counted only two! The problem is simply defined: cheetahs struggling to survive, too many humans in the world. The simple solution: feed humans to the cheetahs.

Now, I know what you're thinking: it sounds OK so long as it's someone else being fed to the cheetah. To show that I am absolutely serious about this I am leading by example and have fed my own 3 year old child to a needy cheetah.

As you can see, the tot went bravely to do her bit for saving the world and the cheetah itself was very enthusiastic.

What happened next was quite chaotic, as you can imagine. There was growling and screaming and a general to-do, this is the best shot I could get under the circumstances.
So, there you have it. I urge you all to follow my example and feed your children to a wild animal. I wasn't sure about it at first, but really it's quite liberating. If you're feeling especially generous, you might also want to feed it an elderly relative or two.

Thank you for listening, I hope together we can make the world a better place.

*No animals, including children, were harmed during the making of this blog post.

Why are boats like spiders?

Because first you see a big one:

and then you see lots and lots of little ones.

It got me wondering how much I'm going to be able to see of the Avalon Air Show in a couple of weeks.

No thanks, Telstra

I got a letter from Telstra a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, they were worried about how many calls I'd missed in December (17 of them!), so they were going to start a message bank on my line. It's free, they told me.

Well, that's very nice of them, but if I'd wanted message bank I would have got it already. It's not exactly a secret service. If someone can't get me at home, they'll probably call my mobile, or send an SMS; I don't need message bank. There was no question in the letter, though, I was getting it whether I liked it or not.

That got me thinking (always dangerous) why are they so insistent to push a 'free' service on me? The answer, I figured, was in their little graph explaining why I was getting it. I missed 17 calls in December, 10 in November. The cheek! Their network had been used 27 times in 2 months for NO payment! Someone tries to ring me at home, I'm not there, they don't pay. Next step is the caller's choice: try again later, try the mobile, etc.

So, when they turned my personal message bank on, on the first of March, the first thing I did was attempt to set the amount of time the phone will ring to the maximum to give people plenty of time to realise I'm not there and hang up. While I was listening to their interminable announcements I heard that you could actually cancel the service through their telephone set-up thing - they don't tell you that in their leaflets and promo letters. Even better, I thought.

After listening to another boring load of announcements, which I think might be so you fall asleep and miss where you have to hit the button, I managed to cancel the service - but only after confirming about a gazillion times that I really wanted to do this.

Bye bye message bank. Now I don't have a free service that I didn't want and people don't have to pay to find out I'm not home.

I aint saying nuthin...

Because uni started last week. Every time I get some breathing time and think about drawing or blah-blah-blahing, I get the guilts and go attempt to study instead.

The last 2 years I've only done one unit at a time, a quarter of a full time load. By the end of last year I was keeping up pretty well, so I decided to be brave this year and do two units. So right now I'm stressing over whether I've bitten off more than I can digest properly - I hate half doing these things.

I got radical last night and went to bed at 8pm, I was yawning-non-stop tired anyway, and got up at 5am to attempt some study time before the tot woke up to begin her usual chore of ordering me around all day. Unfortunately, she discovered I was missing just after 7. Between 8 and 9 is her normal getting up time, so I didn't get quite as much time as anticipated. Anyway, it's early and I got a bit done so I have an excuse for slacking off and blogging a bit.

What I did at the party...

Yup, that's right, I held everyone's drinks.

Consolidating.

I've been slowly moving entries from the MySpace blog over here so they're all in the one place. It's not your imagination, there really are old entries appearing out of thin air. Posts ported over from MySpace have a (MySpace) in the title.

My Plans for World Domination...

...are currently in hiatus. Here I was worried about my sagging 40-year-old butt when what I should have been worried about is my sagging 40-year-old knee. It seems to be an over-use type of thing, came on slow after a few days of treadmill use.

So, while I've been sitting on my butt over the last few days, I did this instead:

Can you tell I hate doing backgrounds? For me the main game is the face - it's the only part I find really interesting. The rest of the body I'm much less fussy with; clothes, shade em a bit so they don't look too out of place; background, what background?

This is SO good!

You may remember, last week I acquired a treadmill in my latest attempt to get my sagging 40-year-old butt to become a little smaller. Well, look at it now!

The Growly Bear was kind enough to construct a table that sits over the display so I can read, web browse, watch movies, study, play games, etc. It comes off easily if I want to run and watch the numbers tick by. I am all set to rule the world while at the same time becoming an athletic goddess! Unfortunately, the goose-stepper seems to have had the same idea. Curses! Foiled again! If it wasn't for that meddling kid!