Mars on life

The Martians are trying to communicate with me through Google Reader.

Today thinking with my hands yet led me to Symphony of Science which is fabulous and entertaining, it also has "The Case for Mars". Once upon a time, many moons ago, when I wrote this blog more regularly, I was thinking of posting something about why I think terraforming is a bad idea but then someone told me that first I should read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and I haven't got around to it. I don't think there is a case for Mars, not for sending humans there and especially not for colonising it.

But it will probably happen because today my favourite webcomics told me:

Perry Bible Fellowship

xkcd (in rollover text)
"all [JFK's] arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars."

Further research is needed on the morphology of Martian genitalia.

The web is burning a hole in my pocket

The internet is full of tempting things. Currently it is home harvest organic vege gardens, sport kilts and party in my pants pads that appeal to me. I'm trying to talk D around to the first, the second has exorbitant postage to NZ and the third is just rather expensive but maybe...

Tenuous links

I have been re-reading My Year of Meat by Ruth L. Ozeki. It is a good and interesting book although not recommended for anaemic, carnivorous Americans. It is both a good novel and an exposé of dangerous farming practices. Sometimes it becomes too much of a diatribe and its Japanese characters tend towards caricature.

It quotes from Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, a blog-like diary written by a court lady in 10th century Japan. A fascinating glimpse of the past. In trying to find a good piece to quote I found this nice blog entry about it.

Which brings me to an unfinished list in the style of Sei Shonagon:

Things one should not put in the washing machine

A treasured watch inherited from ones grandmother.

Wordlessly

www.freerice.com

The naked logophile

The best thing about facebook is Scrabulous which lets me play scrabble with friends on the other side of the world. We each play a move every day or so and the game slowly unfolds.

But I'm sick and I'm waiting for the other player(s) to move in all my games so I checked out "Join Table". I forgot the internet is for porn. I forgot Rule 34 of the internet: if you can imagine it there is porn of it.

So when I found:

Hara is requesting a Regular game using the English TWL dictionary.
Note: **LADIES ONLY** HAVE A WEBCAM? LET ME SEE YOUR BODY while we play scrabble, I have pictures of my thick hard [...] to share. Send a message when you accept so I know you read this.

I ended up in a giggling, coughing, wheezing, gasping, snorting fit.

What's on tonight

I don't know about you but when I go to the movies I normally don't have a specific film in mind. An opportunity comes my way and suddenly I want to know what's on tonight. I want to go to a website and see all my options on one page. Sometimes I want to print that page and take it with me so I can discuss which movie to go to over dinner.

Here are some quick reviews of the sites I've found that meet that need in Wellington:

www.noremote.co.nz
+ good, comprehensive and reliable info
+ links to www.imdb.com (the movie database on the web)
= sessions by cinema
- I haven't found a way to print the information sensibly

www.feelinggreat.co.nz/movies
+ sessions by film across all cinemas (a very nifty feature)
+ good information
+ prints OK and you can cut, paste and reformat it
- sometimes incomplete and not obvious when it is
- link changes name from time to time, if it doesn't work go to the feelinggreat site and search for movies

www.tonight.co.nz
- only covers arty cinemas
= sessions by time
+ prints OK

There are a couple of sites which cover all of NZ which have all the information but do not present it on one page. www.flicks.co.nz is very glossy, www.nzcinema.co.nz has info for only some cinemas but I've included it because I like the design.

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Actually tonight I'm going to the Northland Toy Library committee meeting but conceptually I might be going to the movies and if I was I'd be using these sites.

Ultimately very green

On Saturday I left my comfort zone outside the Northland Community Centre and went to Ultimate Frisbee practice. Really - me - a team sport, for fun. Let me know of any other signs of the apocalypse.

The people were lovely and I was much better at it than I expected. (My expectations were very, very, very low.) I plan to go to practice for the next few weeks and see how it goes.

There is scope for bringing H & K and letting them run wild with their cousins.

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One of the things that I realised after Ultimate, is that if I'm learning a new skill I think I am capable of, I direct the person teaching me towards what I think will help me most. I'll tell them when to skip ahead and when to repeat. When I have no confidence that I can learn the skill I don't help the person teach me - I assume that not only do they know what they are teaching but also the best way to get it into my brain. This assumption makes it more likely that I find it hard to learn.

On Saturday was one of the first times I have had enough confidence in my ability to learn a physical skill. I told the person helping me:

"Brain full. Do not give me any more instructions, just repeat the instructions you've already given me."

It really helped.

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Finally for those who have asked - my hair colour is Affinage, Colour Dynamics, Green Envy (and check out the Dutch goth site I have a completely logical reason to link to).

Feeling quizical

I am Ireland.

Mystical and rain-soaked, you remain mysterious to many people, and this makes you intriguing. You also like a good night at the pub, though many are just as worried that you will blow up the pub as drink your beverage of choice. You're good with words, remarkably lucky, and know and enjoy at least fifteen ways of eating a potato. You really don't like snakes.

Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

And in case you doubt the wisdom of the internet: baked, mashed, roast, hot chips, chippies,
stuffed, croquettes, scalloped, in salad, hash browns, home fries, french fries, leek and potato soup, boiled, gnocchi.

I am Watership Down!
by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Happy blogiversary to me

Here I am one year, 172 posts and a few new friends since the beginning.

I've invented a meme, posted about H & K, being a mum, medical madness and occasionally penguins.

Thanks to everyone who has commented - sometimes you make my day.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

Things to do:

• find an obscure word
• pass the time of day
• try a curiously addictive test
• meet nice christians
• blog.

True colours?

Today/yesterday was Waitangi Day. After too much chocolate I am unable to sleep so I give you this musing (for background try Wikipedia on New Zealand Flag [and this later post]):

Of great uncles

I have been reading The First Eagle by Tony Hillerman. I like all his books, mostly he writes very readable detective stories that feature the Navajo Tribal Police. I enjoy the glimpse into other cultures that his Native American protagonists bring.

In The First Eagle Tony Hillerman writes: "Hosteen Nakai was Chee's maternal granduncle, which gave him special status in Navajo tradition." Which led me to thinking about my only maternal great uncle: Francis Skinner. My uncle Francis died in 1941, long before I was born. He is famous in a small way as a friend, protege and lover of Wittgenstein. You can read about him in Wikipedia here and although it mentions "the dismay of Skinner's family" it doesn't tell you that the thing that really caused them lasting grief is that Wittgenstein did not tell them Francis was dying until it was too late to visit him.

Jim Chee's granduncle Nakai is steeped in Navajo tradition, my great uncle Francis's life did not fit with tradition. Chee spent a lot of time with Nakai, Francis was distant even from his sisters. Chee visits his granduncle on his deathbed, none of my family visited Francis. Chee and his family are fiction, my family is real. Both of these men are treasured.

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The rest of my WikiFamily (people with articles about them in Wikipedia I am vaguely related to) are:

Donald Lynden-Bell - British astronomer
John Brown - American abolitionist
John Reed - American bolshevik

Remember a catchy tune

I am very, very tired. Last night I couldn't sleep and eventually gave up for a while to be woken a couple of hours later by our alarm clock. Usually in the weekends and when I'm with the girls I nap when they do so for the last couple of weeks I've had a nap most afternoons. But after last night's experience I am trying to stay awake this afternoon to make sure I sleep tonight.

I am also slightly stressed about the new nanny starting tomorrow, the state of the house, D having just left for America for three weeks, having committed to things I have no babysitter for.

Slightly stressed, very, very tired mother is not a pretty sight and H & K are great at picking up on the insanity vibes but not yet old enough to understand that keeping a low profile would be the best response.

Last night when I had given up sleeping for a while I was surfing the web, not, I admit, the most soporific pastime but it was there. And pondering my inability to remember music and thinking that I'd once read a name for the condition but I couldn't find it. What I did find is a test used by people studying amusia, the inability to hear music.

If you're interested in trying the test yourself use this link, they are particularly interested in testing families so if you are related to me your results would be of extra value.

I scored very close to average on the test (25/30 & 27/30) which interested me. D will tell, at length if you'll listen, about my inability to sing a tune. It isn't because I can't sing a tune and I'm not tone deaf, it is because I can't remember most tunes. For example yesterday I was trying to sing the Buzz O'Bumble song and I couldn't remember the tune past the first two lines. I can remember the words but not the tune.

There is an up side to this - someone can say "Hey Mickey you're so fine" to me without leaving the tune stuck in my brain for the rest of the day. Probably unlike you [cue evil laughter].

Another reason for the penguins

"Or, at least, about a tenth of the [memory] cabin trunks were full of vivid and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine tenths were filled with penguins, which surprised her..."

From The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams via Which Surprised Her.

Space is big

I use Google a lot and I have personalised google home with the Nasa Image of the Day and Astonomy Picture of the Day pictures on it. Sometimes they have images that just blow me away, like these to from today (click on them for more info):

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Picking the scabs out of my hair

I'm back at work today. I've worked one and a half days in the last month. I've lost the rhythm of working. It all seems strange to me. Just think of the millions of years of evolution that have gone into developing a lifeform that sits behind a desk reading email. Perhaps proof of the undirected nature of the process? We are all just accidents on the way to making the best bacteria.

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One of the many emails I've been trolling through said:

The innocent victims of Internet child abuse cannot speak for themselves.
We need you to light a candle of support <http://www.lightamillioncandles.com/>.
We're aiming to light at least One Million Candles by December 31, 2006.
This petition will be used to encourage governments, politicians, financial institutions, payment organisations, Internet service providers, technology companies and law enforcement agencies to eradicate the commercial viability of online child abuse.
They have the power to work together. You have the power to get them to take action.
Please light your candle at lightamillioncandles.com <http://www.lightamillioncandles.com/> or send an email of support to light@lightamillioncandles.com.
Together, we can destroy the commercial viability of Internet child abuse sites that are destroying the lives of innocent children.
Kindly forward this email to your friends, relatives and work colleagues so that they can light a candle too.

The page the links take you to has two links, the one labelled ENTER didn't work for me, the one that says "If you cannot see a flame on this candle, click here" did.

Eat brains

To celebrate this little known and just invented Zombie Day I bring you:

• the best in zombie knitting: Dawn of the Knitted Dead (via beautiful monsters)
• the best in used brains: Brains4Zombies.com
• the best in zombie preparedness: Zombie Squad

and a reminder that the only real way to kill a zombie is to fill its mouth with salt, sew the lips shut and then bring it in sight of the sea.

Itching only makes it worse

In a desperate attempt not to write a post whingeing about my chicken pox I was looking for chicken pictures on the web and on page 4 of a Google image search for "chicken" I found this:

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/. Sadly there is a perfectly logical explanation which is not that the BBC mistook the Queen for a chicken.

Poxy lady*

I have chicken pox. I am achey and sweaty. I don't have many pustules at the moment, long may it stay that way. At least pustule is a wonderful word.

*I'm not a lady but I couldn't resist this title.

Attack of the cute animal games

Warning - may be dangerous to your productivity.

Orisinal

More ways to procrastinate than you can shake a stick at.