My Top Ten of How to Christmas Shop without becoming a Sociopath.

http://studioten25.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/gingerbreadhouse.jpg

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope your season is filled with vast amounts of Gingerbread and awesome.

It’s been quite a while since I have written, I do most profusely apologise. I don’t really have an excuse other than it is Christmas and I work in retail.

Working in Retail at Christmas time is a bad life choice. People who are Christmas shopping are generally angry, annoyed and have small children running around them like hyperactive sea turtles (which is to say they don’t make sense). Occasionally you will come across the few who recognise that they too have made a bad life choice by leaving all of their shopping this late, have accepted the fact and will always say a great big “Thankyou!” and a smile.  Most of the time you get people who are angry. Angry that December strung upon them so quickly. Angry that little Timmy didn’t need to go to the toilet 15 minutes ago but is now Really needing to pee. Angry that they had to stalk someone in the carpark at ten past nine in the morning in order to get a space.

I admit these are all good reasons to be a little bit rank. But my advice is, if you get angry before you even start the last minute panic shopping, you are going to be a hideous human being to everyone. You will be hideous to your family (should they be with you), hideous to the random strangers you pass, who are all in the same boat as you and hideous to the poor sods who made the exceptionally bad life choice of working in retail at Christmas time.

So here is my guide on How To Not Become a Sociopathic Dickhead:

1) List. List like there is going to be no damn tomorrow (and there mightn’t be seeing as today is the 20/12/12).

If you go into the shops without knowing exactly what you are looking for the Gruen Transfer is going to hit you like so many bricks being flung out of a trebuchet. This will mean you have to spend more time thinking, which is more time you don’t have, so make a list and ignore anything and everything else.

2) Understand what The Gruen Transfer is- I realise that many of you may only know it as they title of a most excellent television programme. The Gruen Transfer is the moment when you walk into a shopping centre and forget what you were there for. Designers make it happen on purpose- they make the layout confusing and bombard your senses with stimuli so that you get confused and have to walk past everything, thus increasing your chances of impulse buying.

3) Aim to be at the shops AT LEAST HALF AN HOUR BEFORE OPENING! The fact is most people will aim to be there at opening, so if you are there nice and early you WILL get a carpark and you wont be rushing to get the last Furby on the shelf. Honestly, try and give yourself that extra half an hour. You can get in, figure out where you are, what you need, sit down, have breakfast and a coffee and start your shopping relaxed and fed. You will be a nicer person for it.

If you can’t because you are working, aim to be as late as possible. Most shops are now on extended trading hours. If the store is open until 9pm, come between 7:30 and 8.

4) Budget. Suss out the prices of everything before you go. Now that we have the handy dandy Internet, you can do this at home before you some to the shops. Knowing how much things cost will save you time and worry.

5) Be understanding. If you are doing your shopping from the 20^th onwards you are very, very late. Some items that would be perfect for your loved ones, friends and frenemies are going to be sold out in your most convenient stores. This isn’t the stores fault, you have no one to blame but yourself so get over it. If you had done your shopping earlier, you would have got what you wanted, but you didn’t. Either ask the shop assistants to look up where one might be and go and get it, or get something else. Don’t stand there and complain.

6) Have backup plans. This comes off number 5. If you haven’t been able to get what you wanted and have no idea, you’re screwed. Think of a few things for each person so you can get them something other than an I.O.U.

7) Be aware of your kids. School Holidays are great when you are a kid, fabulously horrific when you are a parent trying to do the shopping. Even the most well behaved kids can turn into little Godzilla’s when confronted with a day at the shops with mum. Rope in some help to herd them along behind you. There is nothing worse than losing control of a child in the one section of a shop where everything is breakable.

8) Feed and Water yourself and companions regularly. You WILL get dehydrated and you WILL get a headache. So drink… all the time. Bring a water bottle and a snack- food court food is damn expensive.

9)Wear comfortable shoes. It may sound stupid, but think of going Christmas shopping the same way you would think about going hiking. You are making a day of it, you will be carrying a lot of extra weight by the end and you will have walked a very long way.

10) PLEASE. PLEEAASSEEE be aware of closing times. I can’t tell you the number of times in the last few weeks that I have been stuck having to stay at work for an extra half hour unpaid because people are just being slow to leave. When you see that it is 10 minutes before close, or hear the 5 minute call, go and pay for your stuff and leave. Staff are only rostered on until closing time and we don’t get paid to stay and herd you out. Closing time means the door gets closed, NOT you have another five minutes of browsing time.  

Relocation, relocation, relocation.

Long time, no type.

So, I have relocated my personage from one side of town to the other. The process of this required me to go through my belongings and decide what things I would take and what things I would leave behind. A task somewhat more involved than I had initially anticipated.

I discovered that over the 22 years of my existence, I have accumulated a lot of crap. Random bits of bric a brac that I have thought necessary enough to keep at the time- and now have sentimental value growing on them like mould in a damp cupboard, making throwing them away or leaving them behind a difficult task.

Initially, when it first came to light that I would soon be changing my locality, I had decided that my childhood toys would be staying at home. But when it came time to leave my beloved (and just a touch manky) bear/bunny that was a Christmas gift from Santa at Kindy when I was 3 or 4 behind-I just couldn't do it. This unidentifiable stuffed animal has been with me for longer than I can remember. He has always been my favourite. I couldn't just leave him, it would be cruel.

And so, a lot of the crap I had originally intended not to bring with me has ended up in boxes on the floor of my room and I have no idea where I'm going to put it.

What I do know is that this "grown up" business is quite odd. Having to draw up plans like in Kindy so that very one knows where everyone else is going to be and so that someone remembers to feed the dog. We even have named week planners on the fridge, a meal planner and a list of chores.
It's like being a child, but more expensive and worrisome.

Happy Alaska Day! And don't forget your tie.

It's Alaska Day! The day the Alaskans, people who were once Alaskans and people who would really like to be Alaskans celebrate the day that their fair state ceased being part of Russia and became part of the USA.

Also on the cards today is International Necktie Day (you can blame the Croatians for this one). The modern necktie was around by the time of the Thirty-Years War. Croatian soldiers wore their traditional knotted neckerchiefs and the Parisians -because they were Parisians- though it looks cool an made it a fashion statement.

Going Superhero...

It may be considered blasphemy by some to learn that I really, really don’t like summer. Summer is my least favourite time of year.

In Autumn, Winter and Spring you don’t have to wear several thousand layers of sunscreen every waking moment of daylight to keep from becoming red like an overdone lobster.  You are not in a constant state of dehydration due to sweating and you don’t have to complete change up your work wear to accommodate not being able to wear sleeveless dresses without a cardigan.

Summer is the time of year when people who are blessed without the good ol’ Irish complexion show off their ability to gain a bit of colour without having to go all red and painful first. Summer is the time of year when fashion designers only design shorts for people with Really Good Legs. I have been on the hunt for a new pair of shorts for about three years, I am yet to find a pair this season that cover my arse. I am not a tall person, I am just over 5ft 2”, finding shorts that at least cover the very top parts of my stumpy little legs shouldn’t be that hard right? Right?

Dead wrong.

Apparently this season comes to you courtesy of denim underwear with the pockets hanging out the leg like misplaced testicles. Make sure you always wear your best undies because the rest of the world will be able to see them no matter what you do. We will see the waistband creeping over the top of your hipster shorts and should you need to bend over, your outwear will simply move to let those knickers take the spotlight.

Now, I’m not saying that they always look bad…. Wait… no that’s exactly what I’m saying. They always look bad.

When I was at work the other day a young lass came in wearing these “pants”. To start with she was a healthy looking human being, which is to say she was an average height, fit looking, not a lot of extra fat. In anything else she would have looked absolutely stunning, instead her underwear shorts said “look at my owner’s enormous thighs!”. The other problem was that I don’t think she was wearing any underwear, as an entire shop full of people were treated to a view of her pubic hair when she bent over. Its pretty hard to ignore something like that.

I think that if you are going to go and wear underwear as outerwear you should at least go superhero. Get some leggings, whack your undies on the outside and give yourself a superhero name. People will still be staring at you, but it will be because they think you’re a weirdo, not because they can see your hoo-ha and they’re not sure if you know that.

A River, a Fire and some Fish and Chips.

This week, those of us that live in the sprawling metropolis of Brisbane looked to the sky and saw some explosives being shot out of boats on the river. It was all very exciting. There were red ones, yellow ones, those ones that go BANG and then go all sparkly, those ones that don't go BANG, the ones that sort of just fizzle out like they aren't even trying to be impressive.

I am privileged enough to have never had to be amongst the crowds when watching the fireworks. The only time I have ever done that was one new years eve... It was something I regret with every inch of my being. There is nothing quite like having beer spilled all over you and going home to realize that you smell like someone else's sick to make you really want to do that again.

Throughout random years of my childhood we watched Riverfire from my Dad's office building. It was cool. We were level with the Dump and Burn and one could see the whole awesomeness of it all. Last year I was in another office building with friends, the only downside was that we had to keep rampaging around the office to see all the fireworks. Imagine 20 20-somethings running around full up on dip and wine. Its great. This year we were a merry band of 5. We arrived late (sorry Tim), we walked down the hill to the local Chippy and obtained our sustenance of fish, chips and burgers with The Lot, walked back to my friend's apartment and perched ourselves on the balcony where we saw the whole spectacle from 10 kms away.

It was, perhaps, the best one yet. No silly crowds, no annoying rampage around the building to get the best view. Just good food, excellent company and a damn good view.

Hello Philosophy, Rest Well Astronomy.

Today’s birthday is brought to you by the phrase “Confucius say”.

That’s right kids, today is Confucius’s 2563^rd birthday. I think. I have issues with working out time due to the fact that unlike normal maths there is a no need for 0… anyway… give or take a year.

While we may all know the silly phrase we don’t all know what Confucius actually did. Well, at least those of us who didn’t take a philosophy course at Uni…

Moving on.

Confucius had a lot to do with Ethics (and yes, it deserves the capital E). As a philosopher, he was more than capable of coming up profound ideas that have changed the course of human existence, but as humans, we are all capable of that kind of thought. What Confucius was able to do, was communicate those ideas as a teacher, politician and author/editor of many of the texts that made it into the public consciousness.

Today is also the anniversary of the day the world said a fond farewell to Astronomer Edwin Hubble (and if you don’t recognize his last name… shame). Hubble is the guy we really have to thank for the dreams we have about just how big the universe really is. At the time Edwin Hubble began his work at Mount Wilson, it was thought that the Universe consisted only of The Milky Way (or Home, as we like to call it). From 1922-1923, Hubble made some observations, and these observations were scrutinized and poked and prodded until it was conclusive… there is more than one house on our street. Edwin Hubble found other galaxies. 

Hubble also discovered a few things to do with the now pretty much accepted belief that the Universe is in a constant state of expansion. The big one is cosmological red-shift. The massively dumbed-down version of red-shift is that it happens when something is moving away from you really, really fast (Doppler effect) but in the case of cosmological red-shift, the change in the wave-length of the light does not occur because of relative velocities of the object and the observer, instead the photons (light) are expanded and stretched by the expansion of The Universe. Yeah?

Hubble figured this out because he found a rough correlation between the amount of red-shift he saw and the distance of the galaxy he was observing. He found that the greater the distance, the greater the red-shift.

We lost Edwin Hubble at the age of 63 to cerebral thrombosis, and although he was pretty young to go; he did a hell of a lot for us, our thinking and how we view ourselves, the world and the Universe.

A little something to brighten the week...

I thought that today I would share with you a poem harking back from our childhoods. I had completely forgotten its existence but I was thankfully reminded of it by one of my choir conductors who had the wisdom to read it to us on our recent rehearsal weekend. Such great joy did it bring forth amongst us that I think I must share it with you all.

Noise, by Pooh
A.A. Milne

Oh, the butterflies are flying,

Now the winter days are dying.

And the primroses are trying

To be seen. 

 

And the turtle-doves are cooing,

And the woods are up and doing,

For the violets are blue-ing

In the green. 

 

Oh, the honey-bees are gumming

On their little wings, and humming

That the summer, which is coming

Will be fun. 

 

And the cows are almost cooing,

And the turtle doves are mooing,

Which is why a Pooh is poohing

In the sun. 

 

For the spring is really springing;

You can see a skylark singing,

And the blue-bells, which are ringing,

Can be heard. 

 

And the cuckoo isn’t cooing,

But he’s cucking and he’s ooing,

And a Pooh is simply poohing

Like a bird.

 

From, The House At Pooh Corner.

The Norse God of Vengeance, Music and Muppets

You know, one of the things I am loving the most right now is my trusty iPod Classic. I had been without one for some months due to my old one breaking, being sent away for repair, lost and then not retrieved. Luckily the place I bought it from are pretty awesome about honouring extended warranties and gave me a full refund, with which I promptly bought another. I managed to get four fault free years out of the last one, so I figure, it’s probably worth it and I hate the idea of having both an iPhone and an iPod touch. That’s just stupid.

Being without Montague (that’s what I named him) made me realize that I have WAY too much music. Having to actually decide what I was going to want to listen to before actually wanting to listen to it so I could put it on my phone was a tedious business and I lost sight of a lot of the more archaic and strange pieces of my collection that I would only occasionally have the urge to listen to. (As I am writing this-longhand because I am on camp- I am watching Mulan and thinking “why the heck do the Huns have yellow eyes?”) Things like the CD of Bagpipe music, five CDs worth of classical piano and a bunch of really strange yet fantastic cello music, not forgetting the dulcet tones of Foster and Allen.

The first few days after I got Víðarr (that’s what I named him- Norse god of vengeance- don’t ask me why, I get taken by whims sometimes), I had him on shuffle EVERYTHING. T’was grand. I happily listened to crap I hate, bagpipes, cellos, Hanson and Weird Al Yankovic, stuff I used to adore but haven’t listened to in several years. It was fantastic.

Now I am on a mission to listen to every single song that is contained within Víðarr’s fantastic little hard-drive of awesome. Thus far I have managed to listen to about seven albums… out of several hundred and i occurs to me that some of the albums are really very long. There are some that I have already skipped simply because the were wrong for the moment. For example, The Presets are really not appropriate “Bedtime-need-my-brain-to-be-calm” music and I have found that most soundtracks are a pretty poor choice of driving music.

Another brilliant thing about having my iPod back is the sudden accessibility I have to all of my Disney movies (hence the watching Mulan). It’s great. Mostly because they are all almost exactly 90 minutes long which is the perfect movie before bed watching length (or “its 3am and I cant sleep thanks to the Anaconda/Kraken/ Man-Eating Possum living in my ceiling). I also have Jonathan Creek. I love that show, so, so very much. So much so that Danse Macabre became my favourite piece if music for an age, and its thanks to Leverage (also on the iPod) that I found Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade (another truly beautiful piece of music).

(Oh! I’ve reached the sad bit of Mulan. Sadness. Not as sadness inducing as Bambi, but sadness inducing nonetheless.)

I am beginning to wonder how long it is going to take me to give up on this whole “listen to every song you own” thing. Noting that I have already skipped around three albums (I cant actually remember how many).

I am also noting that whenever I write the word “skipped” I always draw the ‘k’ before the ‘s’, also my stamina for handwriting is sadly lacking. My whole arm hurts.

Anyway, back from that lovely tangent, I am going to get to the B’s and wonder how the hell I ever thought this crusade was a good idea. I give myself two more weeks before I fold. Fold like a really terrible (but not unintelligent) poker player.

The others are playing a game of Cheat behind me. They are using two decks. There are alot of them. Things are getting complicated. Its quite entertaining listening to them through the filter of Disney dialogue.

Anyway. After getting lost several times while writing this and failing to keep writing due to the fact that this is the first extended piece of handwriting I have done since first year Uni (some four years ago now) and I am now so weak and feeble and shamefully unpracticed at long-handing it (and I never devised my own version of shorthand); I am going to conclude this small chapter and finish watching my movie… and probably start watching The Muppet Show… I love The Muppets, not so much the new movie, the voices were all wrong (I’m sorry guys, but I watch The Muppet show to much and if you ain’t Frank Oz I can tell)…

Whatever.

Ipods are good. Mine is named Víðarr.

Update: I got to the B's and thought "The Is AWESOME!" because the first album I have that starts with the letter B is Barney Stinson's "Get Psyched" Mix.

AAAAAaRRRRrrrr!!!!

I hope you all know what day it is, I really do. Arrrrr.

It’s….

International Talk Like A Pirate Day!!!

Probably one of my favourite days of the year… you know what, not probably, it IS one of my favourite days of the year.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day has one of the most fantastic origins in human history. During a racquetball game one of the co-creators endured sudden pain and reacted with “AAAarrrrrr” and that was the birth of the idea that would become a really silly thing celebrated worldwide.

We really have three fellas to thank for the wonderment that has been the 19^th of September for the past 10 years. First off there are the two fantastic racquet ballers who first thought an entire day devoted to the word “AAArrrr” would be a good idea, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’Chumbucket (and you know what, I’m just going to use those names, because they are just too good for words) and then there is the journalist who also thought it was a fantastic idea and started promoting the day – Dave Barry (see, sometimes journalists do something useful!). Thanks to these three, we have an entire day devoted to the fun of talking like a pirate, regardless of crap your accent is.

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/press/Images/Pirateguys_portrait_2005.jpg

The world needs more silly things like Talk Like A Pirate Day, because all the other international days are really preachy about morality and saving the planet and stuff. Talk Like A Pirate Day is a day when the whole world can wear an awesome hat, put on their favourite boots and swagger like Johnny Depp. We can use words like “landlubber” and “kraken” and just be cool about it. We can talk in silly voices and use archaic language and pretend we understand each other. We can throw insults like never before and just accept that it’s all in good fun.

So have a fantastic Talk Like A Pirate Day, and say a prayer for Robert Newton, the Patron Saint of Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Facebook Talk Like A Pirate Link.

Official Cap'n Slappy Twitter Link.

Happy Enterprise Day!

On this day in 1976, the world met the newly completed Enterprise; the first Space Shuttle Orbiter to be produced by NASA.

According to the "everyone" in the phrase "everyone knows", Enterprise was originally going to be named Constitution, because its unveiling was on Constitution Day and that would be fitting. However, apparently a bunch of Trekkies (thank goodness) wrote to President Ford asking that the name of the craft be changed to Enterprise, to honor Startrek. He did it. He totally had NASA change the name to Enterprise. The president was a nerd.



Enterprise was never capable of space-flight despite its name and what most of us think shuttles do. It was designed to test the shuttle design in terms of flight, approach and landing. Five orbiters following the Enterprise actually made it into space but only three of them are still around. The Challenger, first launched in 1983, disintegrated after takeoff on its 10th mission. The Columbia was destroyed on re-entry on its 28th mission in 2003.

The Discovery was the longest serving of all the space shuttles, first taking to the skies in 1984 and flying 39 missions before being retired in 2011. Discovery now lives at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The Atlantis and Endeavour shuttles are also on permanent display, Atlantis at The Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex and Endeavour at The California Science Centre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shuttle_profiles.jpg

The Lady is no Tramp...

What can be said about Lady Gaga? All manner of things probably, but today I have nothing but praise for the woman.

I work in the cosmetics and fragrance department of a shop and yesterday my manager got really, really excited. He got so excited because the new Lady Gaga 'Fame" stock came in. For weeks now, people have been ringing us up asking when we are getting it. Officially, it shouldn't be being sold until the 17th here in Australia because Lady Gaga wanted it to be a worldwide launch all happening on the same day, but thanks to Macy's that plan has been thrown out the window by most retailers, so you are able to buy it now.

So why am I so full of praise for a celebrity perfume when I usually try and steer people away from buying things that have been put together by the famous? Because this isn't your average perfume.

Reason Number One:

The fluid is black. That's right, black and opaque. It is so cool. It clears when it oxidizes, so there is no fear of having the look of being attacked by a giant squid, but the point is, its black.

Reason Number Two:

http://www.luxuryitems.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/lady-gaga-perfume-black-fluid.jpg

It looks damn classy. The outer packaging is classy, the inner packaging is classy and for Lady Gaga, the whole advertising campaign has been classy (in a very weird Gaga kind of way... basically not hideous... which is what I think of most perfume ads...hideous). This isn't the normal bright pink and purple with diamante and glitter routine. This is something I wouldn't cringe at seeing on my bathroom counter. But where is the Gaga? you might well ask. The answer is "have a look at the claw". It just screams Gaga, but in a nice way, not a meat dress way.


Reason Number Three:

The scent. Once again she has gone in the opposite direction from most female (or prepubescent boy) celebs who create a fragrance. Instead of making something that is so strong you can smell it three miles away or something that smells like lollies, she has gone for something that Chanel on Bulgari would put "noir" in the name of (which is appropriate given the aesthetics). It actually reminds me a lot of some of the more classic Chanel fragrances (No.5 comes to mind) while having the heaviness of the Illamasqua 'Freak'.

This is not a little girl's fragrance. It is Mature, Sophisticated and worn well anyone can pull it off. Much like Illamasqua's 'Freak', it is undeniably a feminine scent, but can be quite masculine. Depending on your own body chemistry, different notes will become more intense. On me the Belladonna really shone through, while on one of the fragrance boys it became very musky.

                “Tears of belladonna, crushed tiger orchid heart with a black veil of incense, dust, apricot and saffron mixture of essential oils and drops of honey.”

The initial scent actually reminds me a lot of the dry shampoo I use... weird. The other thing is that unlike most celebrity fragrances it didn't make me feel weird. Most of Britney's and Beyonce's make me sneeze, Wonderstruck makes me nauseous and Beiber just gives me a headache (we wont even get into Davidoff). I was well and truly exposed to Fame for a few hours yesterday and I didn't fell any kind of sick, so there's a win.

The trick to wearing any fragrance is to test, test, test. When you go into a perfumery, spray some on and then walk away for at least two hours. This will give you a really good idea of how the perfume will wear on you, not the spray card. I have very acidic skin, so most perfumes will last a max of two hours on me before they burn off, the exceptions are Flora and Freak which seem to last most of the  day.

Monday.

Monday's are usually crap and today was no exception. Happily, it did have a rather marvelous moment of beauty.

A ship, a sub and a big blue wet thing.

We all know that this year was the 100th anniversary of that fateful night the titanic hit an iceberg and fell to the floor of the Atlantic. What you may not know is that today is the anniversary of the day anyone saw the likes of her after that night.

On September 1, 1985 a submarine by the name of the Argo sent back video footage from the ocean floor. For the first time in 73 years, human eyes saw the Titanic.

Robert Ballard and his team had been looking for the Titanic for some time before they managed to find her. The difficulty was twofold. a) she wasn't where everyone thought she should be and b) she rests over 3km below the surface.

Nothing much for happened with the exploration of the Titanic for a year, but the point is, after 73 years of not being sure, 73 years of conjecture and conflicting witness accounts, we were all able to start piecing together what happened on July 14, 1912.

Happiness is...

Laughing at nothing.
Cake.
Gnomes.
Tea.
Realizing you can hum the entire score of three of your childhood movies.
Tea.

Dear Jerry Nelson.

Dear Jerry Nelson,

I hope you know the difference you made to generations of people all over the world. Your voice, your humour and talent brought comfort, laughter and hope. The world will miss that.

But don’t worry, although right now we are all really sad, in a few weeks when we start re-watching old episodes of Sesame Street, a smile will cross our lips, a chuckle form in out throat and we will all start sing “I Love To Count complete with Transylvanian laughter. And that is all you.

You are not gone. You never will be, and although few people knew your face we all knew your voice and they joy you brought to millions as Rowlf’s right hand, Snuffy, Lew Zealand and Floyd among others. Without you, The Muppets wouldn’t have been The Muppets, Sesame Street would be sadly lacking and millions of children would have lost interest in numbers.

Thankyou.

Now as you see the likes of Jim Henson and Richard Hunt again, say thankyou to them for us. We wouldn’t be the same without you.

Happy Birthday... sort of.

Today is a good friend of mine’s birthday. So I thought, other than sending her a gif from The Emperor’s New Groove what can I do to make her birthday nice… because rather clearly, I have not got her a present yet. Sorry dude.

So what I have decided is I am going to write a post about some of the weird and wonderful and terrible things that have happened through the ages on this, the 23^rd of August.

Pierre-Jacques Volaire [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 In the year 79 Mount Vesuvius started to make it known that he had a pretty bad belly ache. The next day he would erupt; destroying Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis. Somewhere around 3000 people died and the human race learned an important lesson about living in close proximity to volcanoes. 

 

 In 1305 Braveheart was executed using methods that only the civilized English could possible come up with. William Wallace was dragged through London behind a horse, hung (but released while still alive), eviscerated (then they burned his guts in front of him), castrated, beheaded (his head was then preserved in tar and displayed on a spike on London Bridge), his body was cut into four pieces and spread across England with his limbs being displayed in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.

In 1989 something like 2million people made a human chain that stretched across three Baltic states  (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in a peaceful political demonstration for Independence. 

 In 2007 we finally found the missing Romanovs. The remains of the rest of the family were found and partially identified in 1991, but two children Alexei and one of the younger girls (always assumed to be Anastasia were missing). The skeletal remains of the children were found a ways away from where the others had been found, and interestingly there in no way of telling which girls was missing. The physiology of the girl’s remain place her more squarely in no-mans land when it comes to identification. DNA proved she is a Romanov but she could be Anastasia of Maria.

Today is also Vulcanalia so go and set something on fire (safely). Vulcan is the Roman god of Fire. Vulcan doesn’t do human sacrifice (which I personally find strange), instead people would trow live fish or other small animals onto bonfires as a sacrifice. After the great fire of Rome in AD 64, people stared sacrificing a bull and a boar as well (probably thinking that Vulcan set the city on fire as punishment for too much fish and not enough red meat).

I was trying to find nice things that happened but it seems that the 23^rd of August was always a pretty bad day in terms of noteworthy things happening.

Anyways.

Happy Birthday.

The day Old Mona went on holiday.

On this day in 1911, a few people in Paris had that horrible sick feeling you get when something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The Mona Lisa was not on the wall. Not was she with the photographers that were supposed to have her. She was gone and no one knew how or who took her.

You all know the painting. If you don't I suggest you use Google now before all of the gods strike you down. The mysterious portrait of someone who might possibly have been a Noble Woman, possibly a Normal Woman or possibly a Whore painted by one Leonardo Da Vinci somewhere around 1503- 1506. We will never actually know who the subject was and why the heck she's smiling like that (seriously, that smile worries me), but that's not really important. What's important is just how ridiculously simple she was to steal.

In 1911 there was security and The Louvre had plenty of it. But somehow Mona went walkabout under everybody's noses. One might she was there and the next morning she wasn't. Picasso was implicated by Apollinaire in the theft along with half the cat-burgling population of Paris. Alas, no-cigar. Mona rained in the wind for two years before the real culprit was discovered.

It turns out that an Italian employee of The Louvre was one of those folks who thought that everything had its rightful place in the world and he believed that Mona's rightful place was in Italy, not France. So one day he decoded to hide in a broom cupboard until the museum closed, shove the surprisingly petit Mona under his jacket and leave after closing. Genius. Unfortunately, due to the painting's fame he never would have got away with it, but he did manage to hide her in his apartment for two years before getting impatient and trying to sell her to museum in Florence. Vincenzo Peruggia served a whopping six months for the theft and Mona returned to her home on the wall of The Louvre in 1913 ready and waiting for Nat King Cole to sing about.

Photo for a Monday.

Imagine for a moment that inside your house is somewhat like a cave. Dark. Cold. Just slightly damp. Welcome to my house.

Outside the sun is shining, the air is almost unbearably dry and it's so bright even the birds have decided to hide for a bit. Walk inside and everything is blue thanks to window tinting, the tiles are cold and the walls radiate coolness. Not the hipster kind of cool, the "oh my god, it's freezing" kind of cool.

Father and I sat outside for a bit today to escape the bone chilling chill. We have a gnome. I had forgotten about him.

Ge gets to be warm all day. Basted.

We've come a long way... or have we?

"We made the dirt just radio-active enough to register on a Geiger counter."

At some point in history is was appropriate to prove how good cold creme was at removing dirt but making the dirt on some poor girl's face radio-active and then proving that she now has a radio-active face. You will note that in the advertisement, we never see her not having a radio-active face so we honestly don't know if she used her cold creme and was no longer radio active or if she mutated into a super villain worthy of her very own comic book.

Photo of the day.

Imagine if you will, the wrong end of a Cathedral.

Through the west door we come, through the west door we go. We don't look at it and think "hey, that's a really nice wall".

But it is a nice wall. It hasn't been there long, it's stones are still all shiny and too clean to really be worthy of the pomp and circumstance of Cathedrals. But in time, it will hold the memories of millions of faces, voices, thoughts and words. It will remember in silence as only stone can and look down with its cold and sullen strength at the east end, the place where all the eyes turn, and it will think "you know, before I was here, this acoustic sucked".

Photo of the Day

5 Reasons I don’t watch the Summer Olympics.

Here are just five reasons I don't like watching the Summer Olympics.

1) The coverage sucks.

Even if I wanted to watch an event, chances are it would be one of the ones that the guys in charge of he Australian coverage would say “nah, no on wants to watch that”.

2) I find sport boring.

Unless my friends are playing, then I can scream random things at them like:

“Noodle Banana! That’s not how you play… this game…”

“Go opposing team!”

“You run like a fish!”

“LAMA!”

“Rubarb rubarb, buffalo, rubarb!”

3) I hate competitive people.

When I come across a competitive person, I want to punch them in their over-enthusiastic face. I was raised by my Mum, who is one of the least competitive people on the planet and I love her for it. Before doing anything I was always told “just do your best” and you know what? I came second at every eisteddfod I ever played in and I was damn happy… actually, I couldn’t have cared less. I went out on stage and performed, I liked that bit.  I didn’t even mind being told I wasn’t as good at playing classical music than the other girl, because even at the age of 9, I was completely aware that classical, romantic and modern were not my forte.

I remember singing at an eisteddfod where our school choir didn’t come first. I was the first time in something like 5 years that the choir hadn’t received first prize. A lot of the kids were angry and upset, I wasn’t. I was eating a biscuit and had way to much hairspray in my hair. I was quite happy to be there, singing Part 2 of Once Upon A December.

I even noticed competitiveness at Uni. I was there in the Orange Room (if you don’t know what I’m talking about visit the SJC at UQ) typing up an assignment. It was a research project about research methods… we had to research which method of research was best. My opinion was that you need both qualitative and quantitative research methods to be able to seethe whole story and I wrote as much. The girl beside me had decided that you only need qualitative. We were talking about this for some time, then she started to argue with me. I remember her telling me “I’ll be surprised if you pass”. She was right and I was wrong and she was going to win.  The week we got our marks back she asked me what I’d gotten, I didn’t know yet because I hadn’t picked it up but she was outraged that she had only gotten a 4. “My GPA is screwed” she said. I couldn’t care less about my GPA. So I went and picked up my assignment I got a high 6, missing out on a 7 by 3%, I was unbelievably happy.  I decided not to tell her, what good would it do to tell her that she had lost at the competition I wasn’t competing in?

4) I hate the media coverage.

The newspapers today have all been covering the Olympics like we should be ashamed of our athletes for not winning enough gold. Now, I don’t know about you, but these people have made it to the biggest event in the world and they should be damn proud of themselves for that. A lot of them have worked incredibly hard to win gold and when they don’t, there is a while before they can accept that they still did amazingly well. The Australian media is not helping them get through that period of disappointment.

What the Australian media are doing is pointing out how crap they did, how they are not good enough to be there, how worthless they are. I’m sure that’s really good for self esteem, both for the athletes and for the Australian public who actually care.

No matter what happens, athletes are always going to be disappointed with themselves for a while. Even when they win, they find things to work on so that next time they can be better. Not winning means that they didn’t achieve their goal, that there are lots of things to fix for next time. They already know that, we already know that and shoving a microphone in their faces just after they have finished, when that disappointment is at its peak means that all the media are going to get are a bunch of quotes hat show that disappointment. Wait a few days and they will have the perspective to see how well they really did.

5) The Winter Olympics are just plain better.

Snow!

Ice!

Figureskating! (mmmm Plushenko)

Ice-Dancing (seriously, who doesn’t love the fact that Ice-Dancing is an Olympic Sport)

Bobsled!

Australia... well, lets face it. We almost never win anything so its less competitive.

The list goes on.  

Today would be a good day to remember a girl named Anne.

Today’s day in history is not a birthday, or an anniversaryof death. It is not the day that something that we take for granted wasinvented or discovered. It is simply a day that something nasty happened tosome not-at-all nasty people. And although once you get to the part of thispost you will all say “oooohhhh, yeah we know her”, right now you are probablyjust raising an eyebrow wondering what on earth it could be.

Today is the 68th anniversary of the day that the Nazi’sfound three jewish families hiding in the Achterhuis of some offices inAmsterdam. The informant who gave them away has never been identified.

We all know the story of Anne Frank, or at least, we should.She is a symbol. A symbol of life, hope, and teenage girls. She held onto somuch hope, even through all of the horror, terror and knowing what was coming.She was a 15 year old girl who after almost 70 years, makes us all feel likemonsters. And that is important. She is the symbol of what the world would liketo accept as humanity.

Her diary is a wonderful thing. She started writing in it inJune of 1942. In those early entries she writes of the restrictions that wereplaced on the Jewish people, on the 20^th of June she made a list ofall of those things that Jews were forbidden from doing.

On the 6^th of July, the Frank family went intohiding, and it is from here that Anne’s words become important to the world.Her diary gives us a glimpse of what it was like for the persecuted children,forced from the lives they knew and shut up into a box. After the liberationsof the work camps and the end of the Holocaust, Anne’s Father returned toAmsterdam and found Anne’s diary and papers. Reading them was a revelation tohim. He had no idea about the depth of her thinking during her short life. Herdiary told him more about his daughter then he had ever known.

Ever since the publication of her diary under the title Het Achterhuis in 1947, the world hasbeen fascinated with the girl who was Anne Frank.  Her words were tuned into a play to give Anneand her family life again.

To someone who has never seen the horrors of war, the ideaof the Holocaust is hard to comprehend. The idea that people… humans can commitsuch atrocities against their own kind, with all the morals an ideologies andreligions that we claim make us more than just animals. Over 6 million peoplewere murdered n cold blood because they were not the same as the ones doing thekilling.

Unfortunately, humanity is not Anne Frank. Anne Frank wasthe beautiful exception.

A Watch, a Mouse and a Cannon.

On this day in 1933, one of the most famous watches was born. It is probably one of those ones that you look at in shop windows and thing "I want that".

At Century of Progress in 1933, the Ingersoll Watch Company launched the Mickey Mouse watch and alarm clock series. The watches back then retailed for a whopping $3.75. Amazing. Today, they retail for $50... sometimes more... and they are still just about the coolest thing in the world.

Damn it, now I want one.

Also on the cards today in the anniversary of a death that made Horrible Histories' section about Stupid Deaths. You know the song. "Stupid deaths, stupid deaths, they're funny cos' they're true", now its going to be in your head for the rest of the day. You're welcome.


James II of Scotland was a Middle Ages gun nut. He loved his artillery and the new inventions that were coming to light.

On the 3rd of August 1460, King James decided to kick the English out of Roxburgh Castle and to do this, he decided to use cannons. Lots of Cannons.
Unfortunately, at this period in history, cannons were prone to the odd explosion and the one King James was standing next to did just that.

According to the reports from the battlefield, the cannon, known as The Lion, exploded and a piece of the shrapnel hit James in the leg. He was "stricken to the ground and died hastily", presumably of blood loss and shock. He was 29 years old and had 7 living children.

In The Movies, The Silent Movies, The Lion Roars with Sound.

You know those advertising things that cause you to associate something with a product? Like how I now associate The Beach Boys with cheap electronics. Well. When you hear (in your head) me say "MGM", what do you see? I'm going to say that you will see one of two things, you either see a casino or a lion.

Who cares about Casinos?

I care about Lions. Lions are cool.

On this day on 1928, Leo the MGM Lion roared for the first time. Well, Roared with sound.
 

http://ipods.techfresh.net/mgm-movies-on-itunes-store/

The MGM logo had included a Lion since 1917, but in 1928 a new lion came along named Jackie whose roaring visage was recorded for the new 'soundie' logo which was premiered on the 31st of July at the opening of the film White Shadows in the South Seas.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwy2blClU11qhspbko1_1280.jpg

White Shadows in the South Seas is a special movie in film history. It was the first silent film to use a pre-recorded soundtrack in the place of the old live piano number. The soundtrack consisted of a romantic score and some atmospheric wind noises. Apparently the word "hello" is also in there.

So Happy MGM Lion Day!!! Now go and watch some good film and television.

Happy Birthday Mozart!

No, the other one.

Maria Anna Mozart was the elder sister of the better known Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In her childhood she was tutored by her father as a musician, much the same way that Wolfgang was. In fact, in her youth she was a proficient harpsichordist and on tours with her brother she sometimes received top billing. 

But why then do we never hear of Maria as a musician? I hear you asking. Well, due to the social conventions of the time, when girls reached a marriageable age they were to focus on the marrying thing, rather than showcase their incredible talent and become famous.

There is some evidence (in letters from her brother) that she was a composer (although no manuscripts have survived) and that she maintained a close relationship with her brother throughout their adults lives (although some historians beg to differ). What historians don't differ on is that Wolfgang and Maria where extremely close as children, even creating their own language and imagining a kingdom which they ruled together (it's a sibling thing).

Maria ended up marrying a fellow by the name of Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg (say that three times fast, I dare you), who already had something like five kids from previous marriages. Maria bore him three of her own, although one of them (the eldest, a kid named Leopold after her father) was actually raised by her father. We have no idea why Leopold Jr was raised by Leopold Sr, some theories are to do with the child's health, Maria's submissiveness to her father and that it was possible that Maria was just too busy caring for so many other children that she couldn't look after a new born herself. Whatever the reason, Leopold Jr was raised by Grandad until Grandad died.

So sing a little ditty and wish a very happy birthday to the slightly lesser known of the Mozarts.

Today is a good day to think about cats.

Big ones with massive canines to be more specific.

Today is international Tiger Day. The day that we think about tigers to raise awareness for all the efforts that go towards saving one of the most fantastically adapted cats from extinction.

International Tiger Day was only created in 2010, so it's a pretty new thing, but Tigers and the impending doom of the species is not a new thing.

Tigers are special. It's pretty amazing how an animal that is mostly orange and black and stripy can camouflage itself so well in a green and brown environment. But that's Nature for you, shes one tricky lady.

Happy Anniversary Henry VIII!

Happy 472nd Anniversary Henry VIII and Catherine Howard.

On this day, the 28th of July in the year 1540 at Oatlands Palace, King Henry VIII married his 5th wife, the oh-so-very-young Catherine Howard. Their marriage took place just three weeks after Henry annulled his marriage to Anne of Cleves and apparently, Henry showered his young wife with gifts an riches (probably to make him considerably more attractive than he was at this point in his life. At this point he was somewhere around 140kg and has an ulcer on his leg that needed to be drained daily).

For a little while, all went well. That is until Catherine started finding the company of other, younger, more attractive much better than that of her husband. The most notable suitor of Catherine's was Thomas Culpeper who ended up being beheaded. The result was her being tried for treason and then beheaded just two years after she became queen. Another part of the treason that should be noted was that she had a romantic history from before her marriage that was unknown to the King.

And so, poor young Catherine became the second wife of Henry VIII to die at his hand. But in order to become a wife, you have to get married first. Which is what they did on the 28th of July.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Photo of the day.

Imagine for a moment, the sea.
It is a strange thing full of majesty. It can be calm and soothing and deadly and fearful. It gave all life. It takes it too. Its water stretches from the deepest crevasse to the highest atmosphere.

This is a photo of the atmospheric bit.

Happy Birthday MacGyver In Space!!!

15 years ago today, something awesome happened.

15 years ago today, MacGyver got a haircut and went into space. 15 years ago today, James Spader got kicked out of the James Spader Club for being less like James Spader than Michael Shanks. 15 years ago today, Amanda Tapping decided it was time to prove to the world that she holds a PhD in Kick-Ass-Babery. 15 years ago today, being a huge, impassive, slightly gold guy became the most awesome thing you can be. 15 years ago today, we were introduced to Hammond of Texas, the man with treacle voice.

Stargate SG-1 premiered on the 27^th of July 1997 on Showcase and it was amazing, despite having one of the longest opening credit sequences I have seen (although not as long as Twin Peaks. Twin Peakswins at that game).

I remember it well, being seven years old and watching Stargate. Truth be told all I can actually remember is sitting on our really weird brown rug in the family room watching the opening credits. It was many years later that I started to watch it again from the beginning and proudly declared myself a Stargate nerd.

Stargate SG-1 was the continuation of the 1994 film, but with changes. O’Neil (otherwise known as Colonel Grumpy Pants) was changed toO’Neill (2 Ls), who you may remember from such productions as MacGyver and…MacGyver. James Spader (as I have already mentioned) was out-Spadered by Michael Shanks and his 90s hair and new characters were added to fill the spaceof favourite alien (T’ealc), ridiculously smart and beautiful babe (CaptainCarter) and The Good King (General Hammond, he of the treacle voice and the remarkablebrow ridge).

It was a show of good ol’fashioned family sci-fi goodness. All the wholesome with just the right amount of snark, but with the true freedom that is only found in sci-fi that enables us wee humans to explore justwhat it means to be a member of our own special species.

After 10 seasons, 3ish plot arcs, 2 movies, 2 spin-offs (I’m counting Universe) and some videogames it was time to let it go in 2007. And although I hate getting past Hammond leaving (because I love Don S Davis) and O'Neill leaving (because life is nothing without hearing “for crying out loud”said with mild despair) in my re-watching and re-watching, it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing because I can go back and watch it all again, and pick up on the bits that I missed the last time (like how many Jaffa are wearing watches).

As much I hate people who say things life “it shaped me as a person” (and I may have to throw something at myself as a result), I’m going to say it. Stargate changed my perspective on a lot of things, it opened my mind and made me the out and proud nerd I am today. I am now an appreciator of a type of media I never would have liked without it and I now know a whole lot more about space because I’m curious and go and research things I see on TV (Nerd, I told you).

So if you haven’t found the joy and wonder of Stargate, go and watch a few episodes. If you don’t like it for the story, no matter, there’s always the eye candy and a game of Spot-the-DeLuise to keep you entertained.

Thanks Startgate.