Salt and corrosion

An arresting headline I read today: Senator to fight 'herpes of fruit'. That does rather sound as though the Senator has this unfortunate disease. Happily for him, he doesn't.

Here is a thing to look at: When celebrities were young. Stephen Colbert! And another thing: Stitching together faces of people related to each other. So there are some momentary diversions for today.

Yesterday at work we trialled video conferencing our inter-office staff meeting. So high-tech. We are thinking of having this system installed in our two offices, and the company who sells it has offices in the same two towns we do, so instead of them coming to us to spruik* their wares, they invited us round to theirs to have our weekly meeting. They even provided strawberries and muffins, which is more than we get at our regular meetings. So that went some way to compensating for the horror of seeing ourselves on screen.



* Oh, the spell check doesn't like this. Is that because the spell check is stupid, or is 'spruik' not a word used beyond Australian shores?

Yesterday was wintry, and the sky darkened early. Looking out the window at work, we could see the wall of the TAFE college across the road, flat and grey with eight windows lit from within. That part of TAFE is evidently the kitchen where the apprentice chefs learn their trade, because we could see them in their whites at their benches, like a series of tableaux. It was a painterly effect.

Speaking of painterly, here is a thing: Silk. As it says, go ahead, give it a whirl. (Hold shift and move the mouse to change direction, press S to stop it moving and X to start a new one.) I wrote my name.

Mirages came up in conversation today, reminding me that, for quite a long time, I was confused about what a mirage was. I thought that people lost in the desert might see palm trees and tents and a lake, maybe a few saddled camels. I think I was confusing 'mirage' with 'oasis'. It was quite a shock when I found out that wasn't a mirage at all and that mirages were just the imaginary puddles I saw just about every day on the road. Life is very disappointing sometimes.

Oh, what a busy day of largely pointless things I had yesterday.

I read an article in the paper about a deep sea research expedition off Tasmania, which found some new corals and such. And that was interesting, particularly the gorgon's head coral. But it reminded me of something I saw a few weeks ago, about a host of new species found in Malaysia over the last decade. I was particularly taken with the idea of a spider as big as a dinner plate, as well as what looks like Barbie's Dream Millipede.

There was a great map on Strange Maps the other day, showing the United States by state motto. This inspired me to create a similar one for Australia, which... well, isn't nearly as impressive. We don't have as nearly many states and territories, and one of them can't even be bothered to think of a motto, so get your act together, Northern Territory.

( And South Australia's not much better )

Fifteen minutes of doing that aside, I spent yesterday doing the giant crossword in the local paper's summer holiday liftout. Five hundred and twenty-one clues filled in and three left. So close! Any ideas on the missing words, f-list? (ETA: all solved!)

21 across: Replay (current letters: _ E _ A _ C _ )
8 down: Disdainful ( _ A _ A _ I _ R )
85 down: Perfectionists ( S _ _ C _ L _ _ S )

I also finished my half of a joint craft project with my mother, something I started months ago and, er, dawdled in doing. She claims she'll have her part of it done by the end of the week. We'll see.