caoin [kɰiːnʲ]

Furry victims of the Limpdicks

2008-08-01T00:40:00.000+10:00

If you thought China treated it’s people badly in their ‘cleanup’ for the Limpdicks, spare a thought for the moggies. I can’t help thinking how effective this sort of thing was on the Black Death.

iPod meme

2008-07-30T16:20:00.006+10:00

Memestructions:

Grab your iPod (yeah right...like I own an iPod!)

Set it to shuffle (for the first time everrrr)

Use the names of the songs that come up in order to answer the following questions

What does next year have in store for me? Sing it back (Moloko)

What’s my love life like? Red Light (Little Athletics)

What do I say when life gets hard? Harebrained Scheme (Freezepop)

What do I think of on waking up? Earth (Modeselektor)

What song will I dance to at my wedding? Burst Generator (The Chemical Brothers)

What do I want as a career? tdj (Freezepop)

My favorite saying? Do it again (The Chemical Brothers)

Favorite place? Margerine Rock (Stereolab)

What do I think of my parents? Tender Lies (Freezepop)

What’s my porn star name? Twiggy Twiggy (Pizzicato Five)

Where would I go on a first date? Saints Preserve Us (Piano Magic)

Drug of choice? Here comes a special boy (Freezepop)

Describe myself: Mon Amour Tokyo (Pizzicato Five)

What is the thing I like doing most? Incurable (Piano Magic)

What is my state of mind like at the moment? Deux garçons pour une fille (April March)

How will I die? Balloons (Foals)

Well, that was some cheap fun. Randomly accurate in places, but I think it shows the iRiver randomness isn’t really that random - it seems a little fixated on Freezepop!

Maccas givin’ their all

2008-07-30T03:24:00.000+10:00

McDonalds in Yass give you special service.

Not so ’orrible

2008-07-19T22:06:00.000+10:00

Just in case there’s someone in the universe who hasn’t heard about the latest in Whedonism...for a limited time only (that would be Sunday), Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

I’ll have the stir-fry thanks

2008-06-04T14:55:00.000+10:00

Well I know it’s often on my desktop, but I have no idea I could have it on the dinner table as well.

Filth! Blasphemy! Outrage!

2008-04-09T13:40:00.000+10:00

There seems to be a wee controversy going on at the moment over an exhibition of work by Alfred Hrdlicka at the DomMuseum, attached to Vienna’s Roman Catholic Cathedral.

Strangely enough, neither Reuters nor Wikipedia nor this Kreuz.net article (bad translation) gave me much of a look at the actual pictures, but thankfully there is this lurid little vid from gloria.tv.

P.S. does anyone else find gloria.tv’s obsession with nuns a little camp?

Page 123

2008-02-18T22:32:00.000+11:00

On page 123 of whatever’s on top of your reading pile, read the first five sentences and then post the next three.

I could not endure my ridiculous situation, but replaced myself in an orderly manner immediately. Mr. Sheridan stared at the mall, and Mrs. Cholmondeley said she intended it as a hint for a comedy.

Mr. Sheridan has a very fine figure, and a good though I don't
think a handsome face.

Night and Sleep

2008-01-26T13:19:00.000+11:00

Night and Sleep, Evelyn De Morgan (1878)
(A picture I’ve had in my bedroom for many years)
caoin's flickr pics.

Lately I haven’t been sleeping well. Partly it‘s the heat and partly it‘s stress over working and having to move (yes, children if you all join hands and wish very hard, these and other exciting untold stories may yet be told…but don’t hold your breath).

I’ve been waking up with calf and foot cramp, which is annoying and sometimes painful, and I had a small bike accident on Tuesday which means I have a couple of slightly sore bits. But what surprised me the other night was dreaming I was either going to meet my dad somewhere or I was looking for him, the details are blurry now, and then boom I’m awake and thinking ‘Oh, but he‘s dead’.

It was sort of like grief reflux.

Because it’s been long enough now that I don’t think/feel about it that much anymore and I suppose I thought I had pretty much ‘digested’ it by now. But it was good to know there is still some raw feeling there, like a scab that’s pleasantly itchy or an old scar reminding you of some past adventure that, however scary at the time, you can look back at fondly now.

So tonight I’m sitting here in the heat wearing one of his singlets. Mum gave me a stack of them after he died—she probably couldn’t bear to see such new things thrown away. Not that I needed (or have worn much) a bunch of white singlets, but I think today I’m glad to have them.

Intercultural blog-exchange

2007-12-14T16:38:00.000+11:00

I read this in a random blog (Je hais mes voisins - ‘I hate my neighbours’) the other day and it amused me, so I’m going to attempt a translation for my education if not for your edification.

Cat

Bastard cat!

It’s not because he’s handicapped that he can do as he likes.
What could we do if, one day, if he lost his sense of distance jumping onto the window ledge to catch a sparrow?
Too long a jump. The sparrow flew off. The cat too.
We found him four floors down, with a small break in his back leg. Vet, operation, pins inserted, leg just recovered, but always stiff.
Since then, we nicknamed him Verdun. But that’s just at home, when we want to be mean. Besides, he never answers when called Verdun. He doesn’t acknowledge it. On the other hand, he reacts immediately when his official patronym (his vaccination book name) is proclaimed: ‘Cat, dinner time!!!’. Then you’ll see a black thing belting through the kitchen, skidding on the turn, skating on some cushions and recovering at the end of his run in front of his mess tin.
In short, last Monday, anyway, that was Verdun.

Montparnasse Station, 7:06 am, we first smelt the smell.
He doesn’t play this trick on every journey, no. That wouldn’t amuse. He prefers leaving us a little hope. But already, in the taxi, I feared the worst. Rough driving, the fine diesel smell of a Parisian taxi and our irritation at being late. ‘We’re good,’ I told myself.
And in the end, we didn’t miss it.
It must be said, shut up in his bag, carted about at arm’s length, he got rather knocked about, the moggie. And then all these people, the sudden cold, the bright lights, the humidity seeping through the fur and the monstrous howl of the TGV engine…could only cast this proud living room feline into the worst horror film imaginable, one where they shut up cats in bags to reduce them to the state of vulgar luggage.
So, what does the tom do when its cries of despair are deliberately ignored? Well, exactly, it goes! The ultimate weapon which it unsheathes on the station platform, while we race back along the 150 metres of TGV at full tilt to find our carriage.

7:12, we land on carriage No. 1 of the TGV bound for Irun, announced from afar by the incredible mewling of the overwrought cat. From nearby, by the stench emanating from it.
Looks are turned our way. Noses turn the other.

7:15, the train departs. What to do? 259 minutes - the travelling time - in a smell of soiled litter, it’s inhuman. The carriage is on the edge of a riot.
Then, a solution occurs: change the cat. Where? In la nursery of course! A nook sacrificed by the TGV for the changing of babies. It’s in car 9. Who takes responsibility for it? Me, of course! It will require all the experience of a mother to do it! I grab the cat bag in one hand, relinquish my coat with the other and drop all my pride in my numbered seat.
And that’s how we traversed the 9 overcrowded cars of the train, clearing a space between baggage stored in the aisle, stumbling over trailing shoulder straps, toddlers, shoes that have parted with their feet…me and the howling cat, both preceded by its smell!
The only worry for the time being: go quickly. Avoid the looks. Remain deaf to the comments. Skirt around the accusatory fingers. And escape the conductor.

Car 9, the logo of the baby lying down with its legs in the air finally appeared. Phew! The place is unoccupied. A man standing in the hall moves aside to let me through. His eyes settle on the bag, go back up to the logo, return to the bag… Something doesn’t quite fit, but what! ‘I must change him’, I blurted, nimbly closing the door again on what he was preparing to say.
Inside, I liberated the cat from his prison. He comes out, his expression alarmed, eyes bulging, ears back. Pitiable. He has it everywhere! Bedaubed from head to tail. I grab him by the back of the neck to immobilize him, and groom him almost hair by hair. He is so appalled that he allows it without a complaint. Just as well! Because the jolts of the train as it picks up speed put me off balance. I have motion sickness. It’s warm. There isn’t enough air. I start to sweat. My stomach contracts. I suppress a retch. Hold it in, at all costs. Take heart, you’re nearly done.
Damn! Someone tries to open the door from outside. They keep trying.
The conductor, alerted by the man in the corridor? Or worse: a mother! Pessimist by nature, I opt for the latter, knowing to what extent mothers are excessively particular about their offspring’s hygeine. What? A cat full of microbes, crammed full of bacteria, without counting the fleas, on the baby-change table…? How dreadful!
I wash everything, dry, quickly arrange the cat in his bag, take three seconds to gather my thoughts…and eject myself from the place, head down, just avoiding an empty bassinet placed on the floor. A comment, perhaps? Nothing heard! I tear along, taking cars one after another in descending order. The passengers begin drowsing. The cat also, finally exhausted.
I regain my place, wedge the beastie between two suitcases, and fall into my seat.
I look at my watch. I have only 214 minutes in front of me to recover!
‘How was it?’
‘Perfect!’, I say with my last breath of energy and a drawn expression, looking at the countryside to forget my unruly stomach.
‘Poor Pussy. It’s no life for him, really’, declares my offspring to me, before calmly sticking his nose back in his book.

That's right, poor pussycat…

Bastard cat, more like!

Original: Du chat

It’s nice to remember...

2007-12-03T14:02:00.000+11:00

...that he was told once at least.

Whedon returns to TV

2007-11-07T13:53:00.000+11:00

Don’t know if the concept does that much for me, but if anyone can make it good it’s Joss. I felt the same way about cowboys in space...

But wait, what’s that in the sky?

2007-10-31T01:27:00.000+11:00

Oh, it’s just a giant space kitten.

apod 2007-10-30 Space Kitten
caoin's flickr pics.

The APOD desktop downloader put this on my desktop today. I can only assume it’s some kind of mutant space kitten.

Either that or a very unusual comet.

Random flowers?

2007-10-28T15:56:00.000+11:00

2007.10.23 14.58
caoin's flickr pics.

Saw this bouquet in a park the other day...with a note attached.

Eloi today, Morlock tomorrow

2007-10-28T05:29:00.000+11:00

I like this current ad for beer, but I really want to see a follow up mockumentary on the downfall of the perfect ‘Eloi’ society portrayed here.

I imagine them six months later, all beer-guts, thongs and domestic violence.

Hmm, maybe that’s not the image the company wants to present.

Hearing things

2007-10-27T15:24:00.000+10:00

The other day I realized that the dishwasher makes a sound like Steve Reich’s Music in Twelve Parts.

Until I tracked it down, I thought I was going mad.

Rotating water spray + glasses = Reich

Can I unfind this please?

2007-10-22T02:45:00.000+10:00

Hmm, found a CD someone had left on the train tonight and was briefly excited by the bit of Arabic scribbled on it. It had to be something interesting, surely.

Got home and stuck it in the ’puter, fired up EAC...checking freeDB...Lionel Ritchie!? How damn exotic is that?

So much for found objects.

smash the state

2007-10-18T10:32:00.000+10:00

CIMG0448.JPG
indolentdandy's flickr pics.

Cute, ne?

Also→

You Yangin

2007-09-23T17:48:00.000+10:00

Had a beautiful day riding in the You Yangs, but now I’m tired. Not surprising since I went to sleep at about 3 and got up at 8, I suppose. The only upset was the lovely Luke failing to unclip when he stalled going over a rock. He had an unpleasant fall, cut and grazed his leg and will have a bruised hip tomorrow. Of course, he went home after that, but not before riding down the rest of the (2 black diamonds) track and having lunch. What a hero!

Scariest clown in town

2007-09-15T23:38:00.000+10:00

Scariest clown in town
caoin's flickr pics.

Going to WPPSC Insane Clown Posse night, I decided to take the lazy option and make a T-shirt, but computer said ‘no’. Couldn’t find a working inkjet printer anywhere.

Here’s the (quick & dirty) design anyway.

Neatness is evil

2007-09-12T18:16:00.000+10:00

Deep down I always knew it to be true, but now I have proof. Tidying up my desktop, happily deleting links that I knew were elsewhere I proceeded to shift-delete what my brain thought (who knows why) was a shortcut to my music folder.

It wasn’t. No, no, no. It was a junction link to the actual folder. Oops.

I cancelled it very quickly and have been ‘amusing’ myself this afternoon trying to figure out what I’d deleted. Eventually I got the info out of WinAmp: 92 files. Not bad considering there are still another 2,824 in there, but annoying nonetheless.

So, take ’eed...’tis evil I tell ’ee!

Map yourself stupid!

2007-09-12T03:24:00.000+10:00

Go here. Enjoy mappy goodness. Repeat as required.

Stencil art

2007-09-01T14:15:00.000+10:00

2007.09.01 14.15 Stencil art caoin's flickr pics.

Saw this on one of the pillars of the railway overpass on Flinders Street as I was riding past.

2007-07-24T15:09:00.000+10:00

M eh! Thought this might make it easier to post comments here, but I don't think it makes any difference at all!

But how, Belinda, does this formatting from LJ work here I wonder?