Salt and corrosion

I have been reading a book about Lizzie Borden. You know, her with the axe and giving her mother forty whacks. Only it turns out that it was (a) a hatchet, (b) her step-mother and (c) only eighteen whacks. I suppose that doesn't really scan, though, does it? Not nearly as catchy. Anyway, what really caught my eye was the family's breakfast. On the morning of the murder, they ate: mutton soup, sliced mutton, pancakes, bananas, pears, cookies, and coffee. And then they were sick, because the mutton was off/poisoned (cheers, Lizzie). But still, that's a breakfast.

In my quest to find the world's ugliest shoe, I came across these:



And yes, they were an April Fools' joke and not real. Still, the mental image of how silly that woman must look with her leg stuck in the air pleases me no end.

My mother's friend Val came round today, and was telling my mother about her grandson going to paintball.

Val: He's really into violent games now, bash 'em, smash 'em things. Paintball.
My mother: And all that eye-gouging.

So if they ever invite you, don't go paintballing with Val and my mother. You will not come back alive.

This week's knitting photo: ( Surprise! )

Get your minds out of the gutter for this particular Cartland title. I looked it up. It's called that because the hero is blind. Obviously. (While on Cartland news, I have recently obtained another free Cartland, so there's something for us all to look forward to. Coming soon!)

A conversation with my mother's partner:

John: Did you know that Michael's wife had the baby?
Me: No. What variety?
John, reading off a piece of paper without wearing glasses: It's called Lucas Glen.
Me: That would be a boy, then.
John: I would think so, yes. It was ninety-one pounds.
Me: Ninety-one pounds?
John: That's a good size, isn't it?
Me: I'll say.
John: Yes, well, Michael was a big lad.
Me: Babies are large-ish if they weigh nine pounds.
John: Well, that is a good size, isn't it? [Puts on glasses to read paper again.) Oh, that's an L. Nine pounds.

Today I heard a joke. It's for fans of Eldon John and/or vegetable-based humour.

( Why doesn't Elton John eat cos lettuce? )

Here are some instructions from the Australian Tax Office:

Post your tax return to the following address:

Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 9845
IN YOUR CAPITAL CITY

The address must appear on your envelope as shown. Do not replace the words 'IN YOUR CAPITAL CITY' with the name of your capital city (unless you are lodging from outside Australia). Because of a special agreement with Australia Post, there is no need for you to include the name of your capital city or a postcode.

If you are lodging from outside Australia, replace IN YOUR CAPITAL CITY with SYDNEY NSW 2001 AUSTRALIA.

It's pretty good, but not up to the standard of their statement that you don't have to give them your tax file number to talk to them, but if you don't give them your tax file number, they won't talk to you.

While I am on the topic of officialdom, there was an article today about rules at (mining company) BHP's new offices in Perth. Eleven pages of them, including these: No eating soup at your desk! Only eat cold soup at the communal hub on each floor! Only eat hot soup in the special hot soup zone on level 45! No 'nibble food' at your desk! No photos bigger than A5 on your desk! And only one of them! Or a framed workplace award! Doesn't that sound like a fun place to work? Each of those things is probably quite reasonable in isolation, but all together they sound like somewhere to stay well away from.

I did not know I needed Super Mario Bros, the 8-bit opera. And yet I did. That made my day.

If you were interested in a story about a wall, particularly one that was painted... blue, well, my friends, The Blue Wall is not the story for you. If, on the other hand, you wanted a cracking tale full of rampant implausibility, why then, it's just the ticket. I finished it last night. After being beaten about the head, so to speak, with the... blue wall in the early chapters, it's rarely mentioned again. Once when the doctor goes to visit the sick girl and finds that her nurse has finally fixed the menace of the... blue wall by (wait for it) filtering the light shade so the wall is now pink (!), and again at the end when the doctor and the nurse attempt to explain the non-existent menace of the... blue wall.

I don't want you to think I didn't enjoy The Blue Wall. I did. You can get your own copy to share the enjoyment here. (I notice that page lists the book's title as The Blue Wall: A story of strangeness and struggle, which... yes. That's one way to put it.) Of course, if you just want to experience it vicariously, then read on for the internet's only synopsis of ( this magnificent piece of literature )

We were kept amused at work today by a car crash. No-one was hurt, I should say; we're not completely awful people. Four young guys in an old bomb hit a street sign right under our window, then spent the next two hours shouting at each other and swearing loudly at the car while poking vaguely at the engine with a screwdriver. So it was only amusing in that we were a floor up and could look at them without them knowing. Probably less amusing for passers-by. It was oddly quiet when they finally gave up and called someone to tow them away.

One of the medical news emails I get had an article about medical students learning bad habits from watching medical dramas. That was yesterday. Today it was full of comments from doctors about the times they made a diagnosis that had baffled more senior doctors, simply because they had seen the same symptoms on ER or whatever. One of them said he'd amazed all and sundry with a diagnosis of psittacosis in just those circumstances, which isn't all that impressive. Psittacosis cropped up so regularly in Australian TV dramas when I was little that one glimpse of an old man with a cough and a racing pigeon was enough for me to diagnose it too.

Years ago my mum came home from work and said one of the other nurses had recommended this great new medical show, Chicago Hope, as being both entertaining and medically accurate. So we duly tuned in that evening only to see an ebola scare, which somehow involved evacuating the entire hospital, except for one operating theatre, which was locked down, mid-operation. Doctors, nurses and patient, all trapped, hoping the ebola didn't get in. My mother nearly fell off her chair laughing. Even today, just mentioning it makes her giggle. She also reported that the first thing her colleague said the next morning was, 'I'm so embarrassed.' Quite.

I was making my grocery list earlier, looking up recipes, and there was a link to the most recent post in their forums, which was by a woman who posted a list of baby names she liked in combination. Just putting them out there in case anyone wanted to use them. That was a kind service, wasn't it? Most of them were fine. And then there was Dusty Griffin. That's quite... poetic.

I don't know that I would call these 'hilarious' Harry Potter comics. Possibly false and misleading advertising there. But! The joke in the second-last one is what I think of every time I see a picture of Voldemort. I'm easily amused.

I'm having one of my periodic fits of the glooms. Just work gloom, or more likely, back-to-work-after-having-a-week-off gloom. I hope it lifts soon.

There has been a story in the news here recently about an Australian author who wrote a book set in Thailand that was apparently included something defamatory about the Thai royal family. The Thai royal family wasn't happy about this, so imprisoned the author while he was in Thailand. He was released last week. What's kept this in my mind, though, is that his book sold only seven copies. Seven! I can't decide what would be worse: only selling seven books, being imprisoned for writing a book or being imprisoned for writing a book that only sold seven copies.

Looking at a therapeutic goods website at work, we were momentarily amused by the name of the Original Back Nobber II but that was soon forgotten in the joy of discovering Bongers Tapping Balls. What a genius name (although the lack of apostrophe is annoying) and a genius concept. And there's a review on the product's amazon.com page from a disappointed percussionist who didn't realise what they were for, which makes it even better.

Finally, the chemist next to my office has a big poster in its window that suggests it's time to 'SWEEP CLEAN with the INTESTINAL BROOM!' That sounds... messy.

My work's Christmas dinner last night was good. It was held at the Mantra, a new... a new complex, I think is the word I'm looking for, down by the bay, with a hotel (in a turret!), restaurant, day spa and a big revolving door such as those seen in films set in New York office buildings (such a door has never been in seen in the City by the Sea before so it's all very exciting).

To get there, I had to drive down Beach Road (guess where that leads!*), which is a long stretch of road that has been filled with eight sets of speed bumps to stop hoons hooning up and down at pace. All the speed bumps are marked with a sign that unintentionally resembles a hat, and I was amused to see that someone had graffiti-ed a little face under all sixteen signs like so:



I was especially taken with the speed bump/hat sign that shared a pole with a pedestrian crossing sign depicting a pair of walking legs; the graffiti artist had drawn a tiny head and body between them, with enormous arms waving wildly out the sides.

Further proof for my long-held belief that I am the world's most forgettable person came when one of the board members - a woman who has known me for nearly four years - saw me come in and asked, 'And who's this?' My boss pointed out that I'm Alicia and she said, 'Oh, of course! I didn't recognise you with the bright red lipstick.' It's true I was wearing my new Intensely Red lipstick instead of the clear or nude shades I wear to work, but I don't think it made that much difference. But perhaps it did. I'll remember that if I ever need to go into hiding: slap on the red lippy and they'll never find me.

In today's paper was a letter to the editor in which the writer called for discerning television viewers to form a mob and hunt down Sniff and Stiff. I'm all for that. For those of you who are blissfully unfamiliar with Sniff and Stiff's work, they are the stars of a commercial that is on Every. Single. Time. I turn the TV on and I hate them. Especially the bald one, whose smug, bald head is just begging to be smacked. Judge for yourself (possibly not safe for work, depending on how your work feels about tired, tawdry humour):


Would you like to join the mob and help destroy them?




* Or leads away from, I suppose, depending which direction you're travelling in.

Yesterday was a dreary sort of day. Full of unpleasant, tedious jobs. Nothing terrible; just blah.

But then a blog on my feed reader featured an old magazine cover showing what it would look like if David Bowie was attacked by weasels while swimming at night, and everything was rosy again.

I'm not suggesting for a second that April 10 has historically been a dull day, but the earliest entry in today's "Today in history" feature reads:

1833: Bananas go on sale in England for the first time.