formspring.me

Do you remember the last time you flew a kite?

Not exactly, but I'm going to say when I was 12, on a mountain in PNG, with a gaggle of village kids. Cheap Chinese ones that only lasted a day before splitting or tearing.

Have you ever considered that the older generation are messing things up and the younger generation will be left to sort it out?

Not really, and that generational line starts to blur at my age anyway. People always have & always will screw up. People always have & always will discover something new then sneer at those who didn't know it. We do the best we can, generally.

What's your star sign, chinese animal?

Not a clue, I'm not into any of that.

If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got. What do you think this means??

Stop eating M&Ms & wondering why you haven't lost weight.

If you knew absolutely for certain that there was no afterlife, no god, no judgement day and this is it - how would you live your life differently?

If I knew that for certain, I would be dead. The possibility of there being more makes life bearable - otherwise we're all just meat puppets.

What are you reading at the moment and is it any good?

Right this second I'm reading Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove, and quite enjoying it. There are 2 more in that series. Next in line is Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, # 12. Finally, the end! ... Oh, wait. No, they've made "the last book" into a trilogy. Bollocks.

Ask me anything

SPAM WARNING

Obviously this is shite, but someone will fall for it...

From: "yahoo@cc.yahoo_email.com" <customerservice.member@live.com>
Date: 4 February 2010 10:09:17 AEST
To: undisclosed recipients: ;
Subject: Warning!!! Yahoo Used and Unused Account Removal
Reply-To: customerservice.member@live.com

Dear Valued Member, Due to the congestion in all Yahoo users and removal of all unused Yahoo Accounts, Yahoo will be shutting down all unused accounts. You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Info below after clicking the reply bottom, or your account will be suspended within 24hrs for security reasons.   User Name: ................................ Password: ................................... Date Of Birth: ................................ Country Or Territory:.......................... Enter the letter from the Security Image  :  .............................................      Fill the above information's correctly to avoid your account blocked.   Warning!!!  Account owner that refuses to update his or her account before two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently. After Following the instructions  the sheet,your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconvenience.   Yahoo! Customer Care Case number: 8941624 Property: Account Security      Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

[SENEGAL] Why Africa Remains Impoverished

From WEIRDNUZ.M147 (News of the Weird, January 31, 2010)
by Chuck Shepherd
© 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Why Africans Remain Impoverished

* The huge, $27 million statue ("African Renaissance") being built in Dakar, Senegal, was conceived to boost tourism and be a point of African pride, acting as a magnet for visitors and museum-goers. Problems have arisen (the statue was built by North Korean labor, has no distinct African theme, and features a female who reveals perhaps too much thigh). However, according to a November BBC News dispatch, Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade remains optimistic and has declared that, though the concept was his idea, he personally will magnanimously take only 35 percent of the revenue streams generated from visitors. [BBC News, 11-16-09; The Guardian, 1-5-10]

* * * * *
Are you ready for News of the Weird / Pro Edition? Every Monday at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com and
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net. Other handy addresses:
* WeirdNews at earthlink dot net,
* http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
* P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679

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Dik-Dik Antelope

This story about a newborn antelope is interesting, but something struck me:






Is it just me, or does that look like a bird with ears and deer legs? Probably just me.

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What kind of... Bird? Is it a bird?

photo source



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Spelling!

This delightful offering comes via Regretsy.com (full post here).


Just a list of the spelling issues here:


* "depicks" ---> depicts
* "boarder" ---> border
* "decortive" ---> decorative
* "falage" ---> foliage

I despair.

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[USA] Gay Marriage threatens the health of our... oh. Wait.

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[USA] whear edjumication roolz

From WEIRDNUZ.M146 (News of the Weird, January 24, 2010)
by Chuck Shepherd

© 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Government in Action!

* In January, the Berkeley (Calif.) School Board began consideration of a near-unanimous recommendation of Berkeley High School's Governance Council to eliminate science labs from its curriculum, reasoning that the classes mostly serve white students, leaving less money for programs for underperforming
minorities. Berkeley High's white students do far better academically than the state average; black and Latino students do worse than average. Five science teachers would be dismissed.
[East Bay Express, 12-23-09]

* * * * *
Are you ready for News of the Weird / Pro Edition? Every Monday at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com and
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net. Other handy addresses:
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679

Yeah, I think it's obvious that there's some disparity in test results... but "remove science"?!? What's the rationale there? Make everyone equally uneducated? Or - oooh, here's a thought - OR, you work on bringing other people up closer to the top standard.

I hear of black kids being accused, by their peers, of "acting white" for doing well in school - that's appalling. But do you want that to become a universal? Do you want every child in the country dumbing down so as not to exceed expectations? That's ludicrous.

America: please don't get dumber.

Oh, FFS, spider season is here

This monstrosity:


is a huntsman the size of my palm. It's about 4 feet away from me.

You live if you run the other way, spider. Otherwise you enter the Exclusion Zone & I must kill you before you touch me.

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[Word usage] Aaaargghhh

Listening to "Panamindorah" audio book:

* "he was drownding"

* "no, quite the opposint"

* "supposably"

* "they weretn't real"

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Not a Hard Problem

This Is Not a Hard Problem
50-something yuppie guy to another: My wife just doesn't understand that men go through menopause too. It's not just a woman's problem. These past few months I can tell that I've begun my menopause.
Teenage girl sitting across from two yuppies: I'm pretty sure they call what you're going through "erectile dysfunction."

--F Train

Overheard by: Sophia
via Overheard in New York, Dec 3, 2009

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Quote o' the Day

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Isabel Lucas - wow

Not being a Home & Away fan, I've never really been much fussed over Isabel Lucas. I mean, I know who she is, but I usually have to think about it a bit.

In WHO magazine this week, there was an article on Isabel doing the Mt Kilimanjaro climb to "raise awareness of the global clean-water crisis". In possibly the most relaxed, informal photo I've ever seen of her, she looks AMAZING.



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Quoth the Waven, "Nevewmowe!"

LibriVox produces some superb free audio literature. Recently I discovered Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, in the LibriVox catalogue, and thought I'd like to hear it again.

Uh... no. This is the review I left them on iTunes:

The primary requirement for audio is a good reading voice. I'm sorry to say, having some who says "waven" and "buwwow" and "nevewmowe" is so offputting as to make it farcical. This is a classic of foreboding and looming, ever-increasing menace & fear - not a good choice for a reader with an Elmer Fudd voice.

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Keith Olbermann re Robertson/Limbaugh

Nicely said, sir.