Meme-tastic

"Take the nearest book and turn to page 123 and find the fifth sentence, then publish the next four."

OK.

That'd be Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, by a certain Mr B Anderson, which I'm meant to be reading for, oh, that thing that's due in NEXT WEEK.

"Nationalist leaders are thus in a position consciously to deploy civil and military educational systems modelled on official nationalisms..."

Oh GOD. I can't do it. That sentence goes on for nearly a PAGE.

via Dave the Scott.

(Who was reading something much more edifying.)

Internet v Thesis smackdown

The picture really is worth 1000 words.

Via Lifehacker (via 43things).

Cat fight

Possible other names for this blog, based on IMDB search for keywords teen prison break reform school girl:

-Space Rage: Breakout on Prison Planet
-Excessive Torture in a Female Prison Camp+
-Girls Gone Wild: San Quentin#
-Schoolgirl Report Part 3: What Parents Find Unthinkable
-Satans (sic) School for Girls
-Prison Camp Girls, Jailed for Love*

+Hong Kong's seminal Great Escape from Woman's Prison. Directed by Wang Gang - great name for anyone working in this genre, no?
#I made that one up.
*My fave.

Hooked on tunez

Man, I can't believe how long I had that free iPod languishing in my cupboard, unused.

As soon as I got it I took a massive hate against it.

Because, you know, no voice recording, radio, or flash memory, the scroll wheel's stoopid, the battery's crap, it's so shoddy and overpriced, I could never go for a walk with it, it'd break into a million pieces, I wanted green, not blue, blah blah Apple-hate.

So I just stuck it on the eBay pile and forgot about it, mostly.

'Til last week, when I was forced to use it for uni listening purposes.

NOW I'M MAINLINING IPOD LOVE-CRACK.

That's a special kind of crack, by the way, where you love, love, love, love, your iPod. You love it beyond all reason, beyond all understanding. You love it as you've never luuuuurved before.

It's so awesome. I love its clicky wheely goodness, its pretty backlit screen, its... everything.

I ADORE that I'm coocooned from everything, wrapped in a shimmery, soft bubble of tunes.

Right now I'm floating on a balmy, breezy old-school sea, with Frank, Rosemary and Louis.

Buh-bye now - I have to put my tiny, shiny baby to bed.

My heart belongs to...

Thinking about past literary crushes.

In no special order:
Andrew McGahan. Wrote his first novel working as a Centrelink mail sorter. Love this even more now that the dole Fortnightly Commonwealth Arts Stipend has fallen out of fashion a bit.
John Birmingham. Adored him ever since he wrote for Semper. Crazy ex-housemate claimed to have lived with people in West End who'd shared with Birmingham and had hated him for selling out. That sealed the deal.
Do detectives count? Lord Peter Wimsey. And Albert Campion.
Jon Ronson. Hi-larious.
PJ O'Rourke. Mean. Republican. Wrote lots about sex and drugs.
Boris Johnson. Not exactly literary. But oh, he does turn a nice phrase.

Status report

You: ''How's your thesis going?''

Me: ''Yeah, no, great, thanks. Should be done any day now.''

But IN FACT...

09.21am Mainline Nescafe and nurture huge internet crush.

09.38am Google The Wretched Tale of Little Stevie Wright and The Damage Done.

09.53am Use postgrad reciprocal lending to get copies mailed up from NSW.

10.06am Factiva "Jack Marx" AND "All dates" GET.

4.40pm Realise Marx is ''hat wearing journalist Jack Marx'' of Sex and Money fame infamy. Crush deepens.

4.44pm Dimly aware Marx maintains regrettable silence on all matters pertaining to Timor, oil, online news, business reporting.

4.45pm More Nescafe. Peruse Radar archives.

Osama eat your heart out

''He threatens and taunts like a deranged child, strutting the desert like an animal on the prowl, and dressing like an extra on the set of his own gaudy war.

''But who really is this man who has caused so much fear and outrage in the international political scene, who has made terrorism his creed and practices it with deadly consistency?

''...whose messianic vision and ruthless fanaticism threaten world stability?''

Is it...?

Nope.

''This mad dog of the Middle East.''
--Ronald Regan

Are they talking about...?

Nuh-uh.

''He is one hundred percent sick and possessed of the devil.''
--Anwar Sadat

One of these guys...?

No, infidel fools.

It is the one and only Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

From Harry Gregory's superbly lurid 1986 bio of ''number one anti-American thug'' and ''Tripoli Terror Merchant,'' Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Trev Terrific

Meet Trev.

My mum, bless her, suggested Trev start his own blog: ''Trev Today.''

''Trev flew into our home and into our hearts...'' she said.

Trev is a very sweet birdie, but I can't see him stretching his day -- seed, tweet, seed, tweet tweet, mirror, peck, seed, seed -- into a blog.

Fits and starts

So I reinstalled Firefox and all my old bookmarks were magically resurrected.

I am hot for Ms Fits all over again.

Pretty pretty, buy buy

Hopelessly addicted to making wishlists of all the things I'd buy online if I had any money at all.

Added to the ever expanding 'SO CUTE TO BUY' file last night:

Very sweet wooden toy ring holder thing
Extra adorable 'Be(e) Green' tee
Hott 'These boots were made for riding' tee
Can't-live-another-day-without dinosaur chasing unicorn tote
Not-really-sure-about-this-but-still-v.cute tee with twigs on it

Hot, cross bunny

Romerolagus diazi, the Volcano Bunny is found only in the central part of the Mexican transvolcanic belt.

Bonus bunny facts at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology's Animal Diversity Web.

Via boingboing.

Beastly bunny stalks UK hamlet

Pre-Easter, a huge rabbit is menacing an English village.

"The first time I saw it I said, 'What the hell is that?'"

Southern Cross

Woo! Off to Melbourne tomorrow, cashed up and ready to shop.

I'm thinking Douglas and Hope, I'm thinking Savers, I'm thinking Fitzroy, St Kilda, the city, Elsternwick. Maybe baby, Carlton ? And if I go to St Kilda (oh, the cakes!)… why wouldn't I stop in at Albert Park? And Balaclava.

Which reminds me. I loved loved loved that fake Fendi denim jacket I bought from the angry Russian lady at the end of Chapel St. It was fabulous in the bestest eastern bloc hooker kind of way. Why'd I ever throw it away? What a fashion fool I was.

Must get to Christine's. And Camberwell market.

If I could fit in some shiatsu, that'd be good…

And I have to see the National Gallery. And the ACCA too.

Most wonderfully of all, will see the lovely D, who is letting me crash with her at Hawthorn.

Then there's the gorgeous C, and the much missed K to be met for a bowl of pho at K's restaurant.

And the magical marvellous Dr A with her boyfriend M for tapas and drinks.

M was in the circus. Is that not awesome?

Photos later.

Xe Om

Oh. Cept for a bit here.

Return

Well, that's been quite the hiatus.

Still adrift in the internet doldrums.

Bound to wash up ashore soon. Surely?