Things To Appreciate

19. Wanderlust
20. Time wasting games, including trashy pointless Facebook games
21. Chocolate chip muffins
22. Clever humour
23. Dual citizenship
24. Sunshine
25. Widgets

Deep Space Beautiful Picture

I get somewhat creative when looking for images to post, and I stumbled on this since someone described it as "awesome". It's from a screensaver, found here, if you like screensavers, I suppose.

If you find any nice pics you'd like to see here (or you've taken any yourself) feel free to email me or leave a comment below.

Does This Happen To You?

You're making coffee, right, and you stand there all impatient, talking to the kettle to make it hurry up, because your two guests are in the other room and while you're making coffee you can't entertain them. When the kettle is finally boiled, you have your three mugs all nicely prepared with the coffee, milk and sugar in them, just waiting for the seductive caress of scalding hot water.

And at the moment you're about to unleash the tide of erotic wet heat onto the eagerly awaiting coffee crystals, you spot An Ant.

There's a bastard of an ant on the handle. This can only mean one thing.

There are likely to be more ants in the kettle, freshly-boiled.

So you unplug the fuçker, and frolicking around in the tide is one lonely, six-legged cast member of A Bug's Life.

Every fibre of your being desperately wants you to fish that damned creature out with your fingers, and it takes enormous restraint to remind yourself that dude, that's boiling water. So, eyeing its location in the pool, you take hold of one of the mugs and pour really, really slowly. Any time that Insektor gets near the spout, you stop, and kinda swish the water around like a whirlpool to try and get him away from the cascade section. (You know, like when you were kids and you went over to Matthew and Stephanie's house and you played Whirlpool in their pool where you all run as fast as you can around the edge, to spin the water around and around as fast as you could and then you'd stop running and just float around in circles thinking you were way cool? Yeah.)

When you successfully manipulate the bug away from the spout, you carefully finish pouring the water. Yes! You rock! Mug #2, however, doesn't quite go as planned. By this time the stupid ant won't move away. Your hand automatically comes up, to fish it out with your fingers, and then you remember, dude! Boiling water.

Removing the gatecrasher now necessitates Sacrificing Some Water, as you try to tip the ant out into the sink. You do this with a minimum of wastage, and as you pour the second mug, you totally congratulate yourself for being fuçking awesome.

Your two guests' mugs are now done, and you reach for your own. (Because your mother always taught you that you serve guests first, and yourself last.) And your guests are waiting in the other room for their coffee. But as you tip the kettle you come to a sinking realisation.

The Water Sacrifice has left you without enough water for your own mug.

Does this ever happen to you?

Music Video of Joy

What I'm about to show you is purely awful. My fiancé disagrees. He thinks it is just all-round AWESOME. He has the album, and excitedly sings along if anyone dares mention a line from any of their songs.

This was #1 in Finland. Since I was unfortunate enough to grow up in a civilised country like Australia, it never featured on our Sunday morning top 40 countdowns on Rage. I feel as though I've been deprived of a proper Sin With Sebastian upbringing.

This is probably safe to view in a place of employment; but your colleagues might laugh at you.

Doctor Dumb

I started telling you about my trip to Doctor Dumb, but got sidetracked writing about the Brats in the Waiting Room. (Is it wrong to be going about your ordinary life and wondering how to turn each event into a blog entry?)

My usual doctor is away, so I went to see Doctor Dumb. He is also known as Doctor Shortcut, because today he was extremely busy and seemed to be in a terrible hurry.

Doctor Dumb thinks my shooting, nerve-related jabs of red hot metal poker jammed upwards through my skull and out through my hair at the top, which disappear to absolutely no pain whatsoever after a quarter of a second, are... an ear infection. Now, I realise it's presumptuous of me to think I know more than a doctor, but dude, I haven't got no d*mned ear infection. I've had them many many times, and I know what they feel like.

Did I have any pain in my ears? No. Did I have a sore throat, cough, anything in my throat? No. So he decides to look in my ears. He JABS the ear-looky-thing in, and when someone jabs an ear-looky-thing against my eardrum, I jump away, because dude, that's uncomfortable. And yes, ear-looky-thing is the technical term.

He repeats on the side with the stabbing pain. I jump away in the same manner. Ah, so your ears ARE sore! You have an ear infection after all.

He wrote me a script for eardrops, advising that antibiotics would not help. I promptly filed the script in my back pocket, a precursor to throwing it in the bin later on.

So, I will be moving overseas, and I asked him for a letter outlining my diagnosis (anxiety, memory loss and depression) and medication (Zoloft) and he said, when are you moving? Come back and get it next time. (Gee thanks Doc, you're so helpful.)

Since I don't get to the doctor often, I mention that last week, I wet the bed. Groan. I think the last time I did this was 14 years ago, while pregnant with my daughter. Now, wetting the bed, while continually thirsty, is a symptom of Diabetes. So, should I have a glucose tolerence test? No. There's no need, he says. Unh? (So I should just go back to wetting the bed, or what?)

While I'm here, I press my luck and bring up the subject of my finger. (I know, I know, Doctor Useful is obviously not going to be much help, but I was feeling like a bit of a laugh.) For the past three months or so, my right middle finger has been feeling slightly sore, swollen, stiff and just all-round annoying enough for me to continually notice it. Could it be arthritis, I ask? Because, you know, my younger sister has it, and it's really only in her sternum. But no. The fact that only one finger is sore is because I use that hand more. Despite me saying, I've done nothing different over the last three months to cause this, IN FACT, I now avoid doing anything with my right hand that strains it, ie, picking up shopping bags, pulling handles. And even though he didn't even LOOK at my finger, he says that it can't be arthritis, because it's only in one place. My sister must totally not exist, or else she has been misdiagnosed and her arthritis is really, oh I don't know, Elephantitis Of The Testicles. (In her chest.)

(She would totally laugh at that, since she's gay. Testicles. Get it? Never mind.)

Doctor Smart then thinks to ask where I'm moving to. "Finland? In Russia?" No. Not in Russia. Next to Russia. "But nothing next to Russia! Where Finland?" Europe. Next to Sweden. Sweden, Finland, then Russia. (Gestures to invisible world map above my head...) "Finland? In Europe? Russia? Where is Finland?"

So there I am, holding up one hand to try and show Doctor Educated where Western Europe is, ("England!") and how the Scandinavian countries are over to the right, and then you have Russia. And then he pulls out this pearler... "I thought Denmark next to Russia."

For crying out loud. I have no idea where this guy did his university-doctory-learnery-thingy, but evidently, it wasn't in Europe, Russia, or anywhere that a university-educated man could be expected to know that Finland is not in Russia, it is not politely attached to the top of Germany, and it is not in Alaska-which-doesn't-exist. More to the point, I'm still trying to work out why he was so fascinated with mid-air geography when he had no interest in the vocation he had presumably chosen, ie, doctoring the patient sitting in front of him.

In addition, when he wanted to know WHY I was going there, I couldn't make him understand why fiancé wasn't coming here instead, because he had no grasp of what "financial reasons" meant, why "Immigration would be difficult", or why British Citizen meant I was allowed to live in Europe. In the end I just said that if fiancé comes here he Has No Medicare. Ding, light bulb went off above Doctor Clever's head, because finally I had Spoken His Language.

So, inexplicably, he then referred me for a blood test next door. On the order he asked for sugar level and rheumatoid factor. You know, those things he said I didn't need. The nurse rocked. She was very worried I'd faint, it turns out, because I kept saying I was fine. Even after she had to go fishing for a vein, gave up and swapped arms.

I have created a World Map According To Doctor Geography. I've correctly located Finland both inside Russia and attached to the side of Canada. I've also taken the liberty of putting Denmark in a more convenient location.

SOOOoooo Tempted

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!

I've been known to buy geekish things from time to time when I see something that's just cool beyond all coolness in a geeky way. I may just own a collection of bizarre items that are either related to computers or powered by them. I also love candles, incense and all things perfumed. AND THEN I SAW THIS.

If this isn't the ultimate in geek scentery I don't know what is. (Scentery is a word. It totally is.)

USB Aromatherapy: Scent 2.0
$5.99 from ThinkGeek.com

Apologies...

...to anyone who just received multiple copies of a meme. I had an American Date Math Moment™ which confused the hell out of me, and then I had a 29th February Moment™ which confused the hell out of Blogger. Suffice to say that the meme was supposed to go out on the 1st of March (not the 3rd of January, which spammed it all out immediately onto the floor in a heap).

Sorry!

Fresh Produce

from Weird Search blog

I had another stroll through the bowels of my referrers today (or, "Where did these people come from?"). A handful of people trickle in here each day; considering I don't promote this place I can hardly complain. Also, in Weird News Today™, randoms are following me on Twitter. I've no idea where they're coming from, or what could be so exciting in my tweets. But in response I'm going to post fewer tweets were I complain about the weather.

Your favourites* are still hanging around. There's apparently no curing some people of their addiction to bat poop, butt paste, snotty sims or boiling urine. But in an exciting new twist* we now have "urine smells like hot dogs". Just HOW close are these people getting to their toilet bowls? And why would that bring them here? (For the record, I have no idea if my urine smells like hot dogs, because I don't make a habit of sniffing it.)

Someone with an odd fetish found me via "japanese panties and pantyhose clips". Someone disturbing via "Australian bushfires hot chicks". Well yes, I should imagine families' injured laying hens would technically be hot chicks. I can only hope that you weren't searching for burned or injured female humans with that string.

Sir Paranoid wants information on "Google Phone Tracking", presumably because he stole a car with a phone in it and is concerned that police might show up in lieu of some hot girls with drugs.

Before I go, I need to include this one because it made me laugh rather than just scratch my head. I know that I used the word lickable in a recent post, and I was totally referring to cool widgets in templates, which are very lickable. And occasionally I will post a pic from Fail Blog since it is funny. But why someone would combine them is beyond me... nor do I really understand how "fail blog lickable" landed them here. If I knew who they were, I'd pass them tissues to cope with the disaster. Oh the humanity.

Gotta run. Someone is "stealing panties from back garden" and I need to go look for them out my back door.

* Or not.

More Things I Like

Because you need to know. That's why.

14. Coke
15. Random acts of kindness
16. That Greek Age Game
17. Days cooler than Sahara degrees
18. Candles

Stirring Paint

In honour of what I have been doing this morning. I should have totally taken a picture, but I didn't (because I'm good like that). But hey, look, someone else took their own!

This one is um, cream and dark grey. Mine was GLORIOUS deep violet into pale blue. It was divine, and you'll just have to take my word for it, and enjoy the cream and dark grey instead.

image thanks to Look At The Sea's photostream on Flickr

Brats In The Waiting Room

So I bit the bullet and went to see the doctor today. This was not my usual doctor (who was away). I waited a long time... but I expected this, so no biggy. I don't mind waiting, seriously, but what I can't stand is Bored Kids.

Today we had five different varieties. The first was Well Behaved Baby. Baby was about 12 months old. Daddy looked after baby on his lap. Daddy was patient, talked to baby, let baby stand on his legs and played games. This baby gets a gold star. Daddy gets two gold stars. Even Mummy gets one despite taking off her shoes and folding her legs on the sofa.

The second was Normal Kid. Normal kid was a little girl about four years old. The worst she did was get bored enough to circle the sofa chairs, walking between the backs and the window (tapping me on the head as she went past, just to make sure I noticed her). Normal kid did not scream, throw a tantrum, or run. But the way that her mother yelled, you'd think she had set fire to the curtains or something. I think Normal was just used to letting her mother go and quietly doing her own thing.

Then we have Spoilt Brat. Spoilt Brat is also about three or four years old, dressed entirely in pink, is overweight, has food stains all down the front of her, looks like she has slept in her braids for the last three days, and is not wearing any shoes. (Did I mention the carpet is something I wouldn't dare walk barefoot on?) Spoilt Brat also has a bottle of Coke in her chubby grubby hands, and wanders around alternatively whining and swigging from the bottle. When my son opened his tiny pack of cheese and crackers, Spoilt Brat sat right next to him on the sofa, stared at his food, then coughed all over him.

Spoilt Brat also got very bored. There are no books, no toys, no play equipment, not even a tv showing kid shows, to entertain her. So she starts walking on the sofas from one chair to the next. When this is no longer interesting, she walks behind them. She gets stuck, and begins wailing. Her mother lifts her out, kid climbs straight back in and gets stuck again. This time her mother pulls the armchair just out from the wall so she can get in and out - Brat decides she can now rearrange all the furniture in the room. When she pulls one armchair from next to another patient, slides it around and inserts it back to front, then climbs over, sits on the floor behind him and starts singing loudly, he gets annoyed and walks over to the other side of the room. Brat's mother mutters something about a smack if she doesn't stop. Brat begins an all out tantrum, jumping and stomping and screaming and yelling her damaged little voice out at the top of her lungs (it's obvious she does this often, just by hearing her half-voice as she screams).

The fourth and fifth kids were brothers. I noticed Chubby Baby first. Chubby Baby was wearing nothing but a nappy and a singlet. It was hardly a hot day, either. Chubby Baby was crawling all over the carpet that I wouldn't walk barefoot on. In between bursts of crawling he would put his hands in his mouth. Mmm, tasty.

His elder brother, perhaps three, was well-behaved. Big Brother was sick as a dog. I felt sorry for the little mite. My sympathy was only offered while he stayed a good five metres from me, however. The kid had a perpetually-runny nose, and constantly wiped it on his right arm-sleeve, evidenced by the horrible brown muck on only one sleeve of his shirt. He coughed non-stop as well, those wet snot-coughs only small children can do, where bacteria-laden green phlegm explodes from both orifices for maximum travelling distance.

The brothers' mother then changed Chubby's nappy - in the waiting room. And I KNOW there is a baby change table in the disabled toilet.

It was a most pleasant wait, I assure you.

I Am An Addict

We need a local chapter of Dooce anonymous.

I'd so be there. I might arrive with my laptop in my backpack and I might surrepticiously try to pick up a wlan signal during the meeting though. I mean, I'd have admitted I was an addict already. It's not like they should be surprised that I'd be suffering withdrawals from the internet and from Heather in particular.

Seriously, the best part of this photo is the look on her face. I must have cracked up laughing a dozen times over just trying to come up with a caption. It becomes even more apt a facial expression when you learn that she appreciates pregnancy, and the sleep-deprivation associated with a newborn baby, a bit like roadkill enjoys becoming roadkill. (That's an assumption, of course, since it's theoretically possible that the flattening of one's brain onto bitumen is a euphoric feeling.)


image Copyright © 2009 by
Heather B. Armstrong
www.dooce.com

Have You Ever

...had a stone in your salivary gland? (A what in my whatcha whoosit where?)

I've had a couple of these in my relatively-healthy existence. The first time, my jaw felt kinda weird, then would feel stiff when I ate, progressing quickly to OMFG THIS HURTS, I AM SO NOT EATING AGAIN. Essentially it's a blockage of the spit gland tubes into your mouth, so when you eat (or do anything that makes you drool) the gland swells up and can't get rid of the spit. This is Most Unpleasant.

The first time it happened I went to a doctor in Sydney, who looked at me carefully, checked beneath my earlobes for the telltale swellings, and was then unconvinced of what my internet research had diagnosed. I told him, dude, I have this lump under my tongue, I can totally feel the blockage! He then jammed a begloved finger under my tongue, trying to feel for this ENORMOUS lump that I was convinced was the size of a grape. Amazingly, a finger clad in a one-inch-thick latex condom cannot feel grape-sized lumps. So he'd press down harder and harder until my eyes were watering with the all-round fun of having a guy try to pierce the bottom of my jaw and through my neck, using only the first digit of his right hand.

He still declared he couldn't find anything. He also advised that these things don't tend to resolve and surgery is usually necessary. He was about as pleasant as an inch-thick condom.

After pleading to see whether it would maybe resolve in the next couple of days, he reluctantly let me leave, and I went to see my mother. She turned out better than the doctor. When it had happened to her, she went to see Dr Space Cadet. (I kid you not, Mum's doctor is a space cadet. I can't tell you her real name, because [1] I don't have enough spare cash for a legal defense, and [2] you'd totally think I made the name up to make her sound like a space cadet.)

Dr Space Cadet, on hearing my mother's avoidance of eating lemons, salt or anything causing drool, chided her severely and advised plenty of sour foods causing agony, the idea being to flush out the stone. So I loaded up on lemons and water by the gallon. About a day later, the lump had moved and after much manipulation I could see a tiny shiny white dot - I was so determined to get this bastard out and avoid surgery that I had decided to slice it out myself, *IF* I could get hold of the slippery little bugger with the tweezers. And by the time I actually gripped it, I could pull it out. One rice-sized stone, extracted. The relief was awesome.

The next time I felt the beginnings of those plums-under-the-earlobes I drank about ten gallons of water and must have fixed everything.

This time, it's on the other side. And I know it is my own fault for not drinking enough water. About 2 days ago, I noticed the rock under my tongue. No real pain, no need to care, right? Wrong. Today I have the most retarded (and random) shooting pains up the side of my face. These feel like months ago when I had a wisdom tooth pulled, except it's completely healed now and it just can't be coincidence that the duct lies right on the nerve. I'm all Smurfy and happy and next thing POW! In one split second, someone shoves a red hot knitting needle up the inside of my jaw, in front of my ear, and into both my scalp and temple (by magic). By the time I can clench my jaw in agony, draw in a hissed breath and grab my face, it's gone.

This new rice grain needs to move its butt out or else I'll sell my shares in SunRice.

Shopping Cart Hero Game

I laughed. Dangit how I laughed. This is one of those mindlessly idiotic things you see, that you just KNOW are seriously stupid, but then you laugh anyway. And then you play it at least fifteen times, just to laugh some more.

Play Shopping Cart Hero Game

Nonsense Words

from Weird Search blog

I'll admit it, I never actually expected to discover that people are finding me via nonsense words. I'm now the top search result for "protectrix cowpuncher quickthorn", but that's to be expected, since it was a Googlebomb experiment.

But "dfhla" - now that's another one altogether.

A closer look tells me that this came from a keyboard-mashing incident while I was testing my feed. Google indexed it in the sliver of window before I deleted the post. But hey, let's get into the more interesting shall we?

• perfume plane
• mrs peabody's beach (please note correct use of apostrophe)
• new zealand korean priest bike blog
• salt bubble shooter
• lady chatterfield ( ! ! ! )
• searches like chuck norris

Look. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times.

You do not search for Chuck Norris. He finds you.

Stuff I Am Glad Exists

in no particular order

1. My significant other
2. Intarwebbing in general
3. Coffee
4. My kids
5. Trident Hot And Spicy Thai flavoured 2-minute noodles
6. Inventing verbs
7. Electric fans
8. Thongs (flip-flops)
9. Blogs
10. Pretty flowers

bonus items
11. The ability to make another post later when I realise I left something off that is totally, way cooler than half this list.
12. Microwaveable bowls that are decent enough to eat out of straight after cooking. Damnit, I KNEW I'd think of a missing item even before I hit "Publish Post".
13. The option to suddenly decide I'm not signing my name anymore because I'm the only one who posts on this blog ANYWAY.

PS. Happy Commercial Crap Day (aka Valentine's). If you actually care that much about your significant other, you should have taken her out to dinner yesterday. And told her that she was special last week, and proposed in January. ♥♥♥

Boat on a Beach

I have a note that I kept when I found this pic, indicating that it was from Flickr user The Little One. Unfortunately I can't find that user (a handful of people call themselves that, but none of them seem to have this pic in their photostreams). If anyone can identify the artist please let me know.

Another Blog I Love

Suburban Bliss is written by Melissa Summers, whose regular posts cover everything from freaky relatives to the twin joys and irritations of family life. Melissa is married to Mr Perfect (otherwise known as Pants). Literally. She describes him as a virtual adonis, who cooks, cleans, babysits, and has the health and body of an Olympic gymnast. Isn't enough to make you green with envy? (I keep waiting for the post that says, "Just Kidding, Pants is actually more like Homer Simpson!")

Melissa also considers her blog to be a form of birth control.

Definitely the freakiest thing about it is that she never bores me. Um, hello? Even the great blogs occasionally have my ADHD finger itching towards the "Next Post >" button. Somehow not this one. Hrm, maybe we're eerily alike.

Suburban Bliss - www.suburbanbliss.net

~ Elisa

Donating to the Bushfire Appeal - FOR FREE

Are you in Australia?
Is this you?

I'd really like to help out, but to be honest, I am not that rich.
You know, it's sad and all, but it's not in my street and life goes on.
I don't really want to part with my hard earned cash.
There's a credit crunch you know? The government will help them.
Poor Bushfire people, but I don't want to use my credit card online.
I really can't be bothered.

Don't feel guilty, do it the easy way that costs you nothing!

Coles Supermarkets all over Australia will be donating 100% of their store profits for this Friday, 13th February, 2009. If you don't believe me, check out their website at www.Coles.com.au. All you need to do is do your normal grocery shopping there on Friday instead of a different day or shop. I'll be there and Coles isn't even where I normally buy from. I'll even be there without my car, and taking a taxi to get the stuff home!

Please, I rarely ask people to send stuff on, but let everyone know about this. Get into your email now and spread the word, or click on the little envelope below to send it to a friend from here.

Let's turn a Black Friday into a good one.

~ Elisa

Fires

A firefighter in New York City has been fined after parking in front of a fire hydrant.

No, that's not the weird news. The weird news is that he did it on purpose.

And left a note asking not to be fined.

AND used the fact he's a firefighter as the reason they shouldn't fine him.

"I'm really a fireman," the guy wrote. "I work in Engine 46."

...although generally I post crazy news stories to help us all have a laugh at the bizarre things in life, this one has me furious with anger. This guy needs to be permanently fired as a firey. You may quote me on this one. It's blatant disregard for someone's life. It's not understanding, as a FIREFIGHTER, that he knowingly put someone's life at risk for his own personal parking convenience. And it's using his occupation to freakily excuse it?

Huh. Sorry for the rant. It's just that this week we've had more than 135 Australians die in fires, and the death toll is still rising, and the fires are still burning out of control. People are desperately fleeing a 100km-wide wall of flames (60 miles wide) and they're dying in their cars as the fire is too fast for them to outrun. Doctors have described the horrific burns as worse than bomb blasts. Kids are in burns units, some people have lost their parents, some have lost their children. This is our worst peacetime disaster in history. It's a little hard to feel any sympathy for such a mindblowingly-idiotic and selfish piece of behaviour as intentionally obstructing a hydrant.

The Australian Red Cross - www.redcross.org.au is accepting donations online from anyone in Australia via cheque or credit card. The Australian Red Cross are not using a single cent for administration costs and the entire amount will go to people in need. You can also read information there on who are coordinating things like billeting / homestay and accommodation offers for the 6000+ survivors who are now homeless.

People in the USA can donate via the American Red Cross online, by selecting "International Response Fund" or by mail, to, American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 (include a note "Australian Bushfires" with your check) or in person to your local American Red Cross chapter. Donations can also be made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS. The Red Cross honours your preference if you nominate which disaster relief program you would like the money spent on.

~ Elisa

cross-posted to Crazy Odd News

Another Meme

Thanks to Allison, Sascha, Julie, Sarah, Andrew and every other d*mned Facebook user who tagged me... yes I mean it, thanks! ;)

This one is the "25 random things about you" memes where you have to copy and paste this to every person in your email address book within fifteen minutes or else you will get 497 years of bad luck, your hair will all fall out, you'll accidentally ski into a goat's MEOW and become stuck there, and 17 female third-world children will contract elephantitis of the testicles or else you will miss out on the meme-y goodness.

1. I started my family at 18, semi-intentionally. I was naïve to the extreme. I am not real good at feeling appropriate emotions (even my mother has admitted she doesn't understand me, and my dad would just be amazed that feelings exist in the first place). I suspect that my wish for kids was some expression of trying to figure out family love, since my sister and I hated each other as kids and my parents were (still are) merely housemates that don't display any love whatsoever. (My sister is gay, and once remarked that our orientations MUST be to do with that loveless marriage.) Kids at 18 was an enormous mistake. Just having kids was probably the main part of my mistake, since I think my only parenting genes involve the presence of ovaries. However, we play the hand we've been given so I do love my kids and I don't regret their existence.

2. Vasectomy was a great invention.

3. I consider myself a lapsed Wiccan, in the way that someone might be a lapsed Catholic. You know the kind... can say they believe in X Y Z, but don't spend their days living organised religion. I have no interest in seances, "witchcraft" in the stereotypical sense, casting spells or throwing runes. I live my life in what others erroneously refer to as karma. Treat people how you expect to be treated because it will come back to you. However, I do, in a sense, worship Mother Earth and Father Time, if someone needs to understand that to get it straight in their heads. More than this, we all owe our existence to the planet we're standing on. I consider climate change skeptics to be ostriches, and more than that, they're selfish bastards. Personally, people who never consider their impact on the world around them are merely asking for the world to bite them in the ass.

4. Love being fair-skinned; hate the fat distribution I've inherited, regardless of the fact I have a BMI well inside the normal range. I am never going to have washboard abs, nor is my stomach ever going to be free of severe stretchmark scarring, but since it has never been public display material, it doesn't really matter anyway! :)

5. My eyes are grey around the outside and yellow in the middle ("cat eyes"). The technical name for this is central heterochromia and their technical colour is "hazel", but people generally assume they're blue.

6. I don't like dogs, as a rule. I can tolerate other people's well-behaved dogs, have even been known to pat them and babysit, but I just don't like them. I'm a cat person.

7. I'm a dual citizen of Australia and the UK. I expect to eventually add Finnish to the list.

8. I suck at coordination and anything remotely athletic. I'm the kid who always came third-last at school carnivals. The only kids behind me were that grossly overweight girl and the boy with the learning disability.

9. I'm an internet addict. I don't mean I can sit there for three hours. I mean I can sit there from the time I wake up until the time for bed. Family have often mocked this, however, my internet time includes streaming movies, watching youtube, reading the news online, writing my 3 blogs, writing fiction, playing internet games, chat rooms and using skype. None of them would mock someone who filled 12 hours of their day with a newspaper, going to work, watching neighbours, home & away and the simpsons, renting a movie, writing in their diary, playing scrabble for an hour, having a gossip with friends at a bar, then calling some buddies on the phone. Yet we've both done the same thing really.

10. I'm a single parent and I harbour no animosity to the kids' father. Quick, take a photograph to preserve this occurrence for posterity.

11. I love gardens and still seem to kill anything interesting. I am presently filling up garden beds with random boring shrubs, and they aren't dying, since I don't much like any of them.

12. I'm not vegetarian (any more) but eat very little meat. It has nothing to do with loving animals, I just detest dealing with raw meat. I'll make the effort to prepare fresh meat in a meal once a week, but more often we either eat a vego meal or we deal with foods containing pre-prepared meat (BBQ chickens and canned chunky soup are staples for us, I can do those gems in ten different casseroles dude). I could happily live as a vegetarian again if someone else dealt with the whole "making sure I eat properly" crap. Generally, it's easier just to throw the odd bit of meat into diet than to be continually downing supplements of B12, iron, vitamins, minerals and omega 3 to the nth degree. Even these things aside, I prefer not to rely heavily on any food that is so destructive to the earth as cattle are (and by this I mean the impact they have in consuming fodder etc).

13. I suck at whistling and the kids laugh at me.

14. I had nine piercings but have retained three (ears and tongue).

15. Night owl. If you call me at 9am on a weekend, don't expect pleasantries or sense.

16. I love planes.

17. I am anti-aspartame. Do not feed me your nutrasweet sh!t. Do not feed it to my kids and let me find out about it. I can eat chocolate and down coca-cola like the best of them, but I'm not being a guinea-pig for any chemical that's linked to cancer the way this useless stuff is, when there's perfectly good sugar to use instead.

18. Same goes for canola oil, and I don't really want to hear a lame argument that so many people eat it that it must be safe.

19. Coffee is the nectar of the gods.

20. I'm engaged to a wonderful man, but I define myself as bisexual. A better description would be to say that gender to me is largely irrelevent, since I love primarily with my brain. I like (or dislike) a person according to whom they are, not what bits are in their pants or who they're rolling in the hay with.

21. I don't think I could ever have nip and tuck done. Can't imagine having a surgeon cut pieces of my face away to lift it all up, can't imagine losing chunks of stomach to become flat, don't want to think about lollipop incisions to send my post-children bust further North, and stay away from me with a fat-sucking hose. Hey, good luck to those that have, but it's not for me.

22. In the same way I cannot contemplate having silicon bags put inside my chest, either for reconstructive purposes or even just for augmentation. I don't define myself by my gender-specific parts, so from an asthetic point of view, having boobs is a bit like having earlobes - they're just, there. If I ever got some diagnosis that necessitated having them lopped, well I'd just be flat chested. If others are uncomfortable seeing a breast cancer survivor like that, then that would be their issue, not mine. I wanted to applaud Christina Applegate for appearing on TV with no padded bra, no bust, just her honest self. And I feel like hugging women that think they cannot go on without them.

23. I cried at ET.

24. I often cry at heartwarming news stories.

25. I once auditioned for Australian Idol.

If you're reading this and have a LiveJournal, a blog, or Notes on Facebook, guess what sucker, you just got tagged. Make with the meme-ing and copy/paste this to people, stat.

~ Elisa

Leo's Great Day Game

Here's a good way to while away some time :)

If you've ever enjoyed games like The Crimson Room, you'll like this one.

~ Elisa

Click Here to play Leo's Great Day

Another Instalment of Strange Search Results

Today's instalment of weird search features some unusual search string combinations.

How novel! ;)

First of all, the ones that make sense, since I blogged about something quite similar:

• paper shredder Darwin
• intruder panties sausage
• bagpipe funnies
  

There's a certain, um, satisfaction (?) in seeing those things come up. Or something. But then we have the ones that don't quite make so much sense, or reflect pretty badly on me, or both.

• I steal panties
• comet shakes Dubbo (serious? I didn't feel a thing)
• has a weird fascination with snow plows
• hamster in Kuwait
• urine smells like popcorn
• bailey cream on the plane
• boyfriend number 2
• boiled urine smell

Just WHAT were those people trying to find?

Do we actually want to know?

And who can forget our absolute regular?

• batt poop butt paste

But seriously. I had to end on a more serious note. Something you might not be aware of. Thanks to Google's Webmaster Tools, here's the news (don't forget you heard it first in Weird Search Blog):

• Elisa was arrested

~ Elisa

cross-posted from Weird Search Blog

I The Loving EngrishFunny.com For Pleasant Time

Interesting pictures, many people to laugh, if you want to be, you will visit the site of www.engrishfunny.com.

I would want this place in infinite a pleasure, and proposals in order to sign to your of the readers these daily photographs can be obtained.

~ Elisa

Ferris Wheel, Paris

This amazing photo was taken in Paris, by Jennifer K Dick - her blog can be seen here. Click on the photo for a bigger image.

~ Elisa

I'm Slow Today!

Please forgive today's entry kinda going out, oh, ten hours late, but just now in Sydney it's too hot to do anything else but breathe. That, and I may or may not have forgotten to set up today's post. Ahem.

I've been trekking through a few new blogs (well, they're new to me). This happened during the Cake Wrecks vs Dooce voting conundrum recently. One of the blogs I discovered is Evany's Extended Cake Mix.

(Pause while I try to come up with a succinct one-paragraph description of Evany's blog, and why I like it.)

(Fail.)

I don't know why I like it. It's mesmerising in the way daytime soaps are. There's never going to be a resolution... never a happy ending, never a dramatic conclusion that ties up every storyline neatly in a giant silver bow. Even Evany's About Me page is just a chronicle of events that have happened to her since birth. But she's fascinating, and the way she approaches the happenings of life is just way cool.

Evany has also, in her late 30s, suddenly found herself staring adulthood in the face and been forced to grow up - she's pregnant, and finding the whole experience quite an eye-opener. The journey from vintage handbag fanatic to parent is going to be rather bumpy, I suspect.

* drinks a toast to having front-row seats

~ Elisa

Best $10 Ever

I'm not usually what anyone would call a model parent. Like everyone else, I have my faults, and one of them seems to be a severe lack of parenting genes. At times I think the *only* parenting genes I have must involve the presence of ovaries.

My sister gave me a voucher for Christmas, to a particular online store. While thoroughly enjoying despising the heat we've had all through January, I decided it was Time To Buy A Pool. (Hot tip: Celsius. Yeah, these are around 95 - 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, "hot tip" was a pun. I just barely managed it with this sweat happening.)

The online store had the pool. 2.4m wide (8 feet) and about knee deep. The usual price was $100, and it was on special for $50. Awesome! (Adds pool to shopping cart.) Then we need the filter. (Adds $60 filter to cart. Calculates shipping. Total price: $140.00.)

At that point I um'd and ah'd. And then I did what any tightarse parent does. I checked eBay.

I found one for sale, but it was listed as faulty - the pool had a hole. Undeterred, I figured that I'd take a gamble on this auction, throw the pool away, and if the filter was ok, I'd then buy the pool alone with my voucher.

So I won the auction for $10. Even after delivery, this made the filter pump cheaper than new.

Then I opened the pool. The previous owner had even circled the holes with a pen. They were pinprick size. I started wondering if perhaps the pool was salvageable - I could just go buy a repair kit. This pool was bigger - 3.05m wide (10 feet) and 70cm tall. Those babies retail for $120 even before anyone buys themselves the filter pump.

(What the model looks like)


And then I unpacked the pump (brand new in the box) and discovered the pool repair kit.

We now have a $190.00, 3.05m pool in the backyard. The thing is monstrous, as far as portable above ground pools go. The kids are loving it. I put a shade sail up above it. I'll even confess to having lazed around in it the last few days. And when I saw the kids playing in it today I was touched by an uncharacteristic thrill that I had made them so happy.

Without doubt the best $10 I ever spent.

If You Are At All Geeky...

...then you'll love this. I absolutely laughed so hard. A friend, Ben, sent it to me when I commented that I would not TOUCH Windows Vista until someone showed me why I needed it and why XP no longer did what I needed. So clever!

~ Elisa

Bubble Shooter Game

Classic game that never gets old :)

~ Elisa

Click Here To Play

Weird Search Results For Today

Ok, so it's not so much that the search results are weird, but the actual search terms people plug into Google.

I've blogged about this before, including the fact that on-and-off I am nabbing the #1 through to #4 search results for "jay leno egg beater guitar" and consistently have #1 and #2 for "religion nonspecific". But, here are some new entrants.

• offbeat travel (well... different)
• jay leno egg beater guitar google (ok, someone's trying to see if I'm telling the truth?)
• happy religion (joyful joyful - hot tip: avoid Scientology)
• fireys (perhaps related to a fire station burning down recently)

Now, none of those are particularly bizarre. But wait. There's more.

• sucky sucky long time
• scout facelift 2009
• dr elisa dumbest criminals

I don't think I've ever been called Doctor before.

And "bat poop butt paste" is still a winner for... some strange people... coming in with a #3 result.

I'm... proud?

~ Elisa

cross-posted from Weird Search