Geeks are Sexy: Why Every Girl Should Love a Nerd

John Howard's cabinet has a new modus operandi. Regular business is dealt with briefly, sometimes between just the Prime Minister and the relevant minister. The rest of the time is spent on political discussion.

(Note: I don't like John Howard. I've never liked John Howard. He has some stuff he does well, but overall, I think he's a bigoted, self-justified, Baby Boomer who wouldn't apologise if he shot God in the foot. I'm gratified to see that the Australian public is finally becoming as disenchanted with him as I've been for so long.)

Well, I finally gave in and called Telstra about the network outages. I worked out that the problem is pretty much only there when it rains (since we've been in drought for seven years until quite recently, it wasn't that much of a problem, eh?), and we called, and they sent out a technician. Amazingly, they didn't even argue or try to get us to go through stupid, purposeless steps to make sure that we really had a problem or that we weren't just totally stupid or whatever.

There's a thing that techs do when they realise they're talking to technically savvy customers, a sort of demeanor you take that you speak to them on a geek-to-geek level. It's a subtle form of geek acknowledgment. I expect it happens in other fields and areas, too, a sort of nod to the other person that you recognise them.

So a tech came out today (yes, on a Saturday) and Andrew talked to him about the problem and the guy tested the connection and listened to the symptoms and went out and changed a couple of parts in the connector box just outside the house. At the moment, the connection is actually fine, but it's not raining right now, so... Anyway, he talked to us about the situation and for the moment this is the best he can do. If it keeps up, call back and they'll come out and check further up the line (which means they actually have to go underground via manhole, so you can see why they don't want to do that straight away). He gave a couple of troubleshooting tips and was generally quite pleasant.

Here's hoping that the parts he replaced end up fixing the problem. It's extremely frustrating to lose my internet connection every time it rains. I mean, sure, it's okay during a drought and all, but every climate model they use is predicting the end of the drought...

I keep getting phishing emails claiming that I've received an ecard. Mind you, they never tell me who its from, or rather, they do, but it's always ridiculous. So far I've "received an ecard" from:

a schoolmate
a family member
a friend
a co-worker
a neighbor

and a few others that I can't recall. Today, though, I got this:

You've received an ecard from a Worshipper!

My inner goddess must be showing....

Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

(Just a note: I have no personal issues with Catholics, and I very much respected the previous Pope, John Paul II. Benedict, however... let's just say that if he wants to create religious unrest, he's doing a damned fine job of it.)

It's not exactly workplace unfriendly, but it's a bit on the naughty side...

Believers
As unicorn as catnip
Rare as walking on water
As fiery
To the dragonhead
Yes you have been.
Show me now

A sexy Brazilian-style bikini wax almost cost a 20-year-old Melbourne woman her life.
 
The woman suffered a near-fatal infection after she was left bleeding by the hot-wax hair removal procedure, performed by a trainee waxer.

It's sleek, fast, cute — and pink.

A charter-boat captain from Lake Charles, La., photographed a rare pink dolphin a couple of weeks ago in Calcasieu Lake, an estuary just north of the Gulf of Mexico in southwestern Louisiana.

(Go check it out, there's a really good photograph; the little girls were completely captivated!)

Yay! The server is back and not only is it back, it's actually repaired. It will now boot itself automatically (a *nix server is supposed to do that, after all), and doesn't require babysitting when there's a power flicker or something that interferes with the power supply (such as tripping on a power cord, which has been known to happen). I'm very pleased, to say the least. Most of the problems we've had have been because the RAID wasn't functioning and now, happily, it is! So, just, YAY!

People are not the result of a cosmic accident, but of laws of the universe that grant our lives meaning and purpose, says physicist Paul Davies.

They were toys destined only to bob up and down in nothing bigger than a child's bath - but so far they have floated halfway around the world.

Saw the surgeon today. He's quite young, only in his mid-thirties, but that aside, he's going to remove my entire gallbladder. The stone is pretty big, apparently, and once the gallbladder starts to produce stones, it keeps doing it. He did explain to me exactly why you don't strictly need a gallbladder, so that's okay.

It's keyhole surgery, and barring any complications, it's only overnight in the hospital. The surgery is scheduled for 7 April, at the same hospital where my mother-in-law just had her knee replacement surgery, not far from Zoë's school.

I also got an ECG today. It was surprisingly quick. I always thought those things should take a while, but, no, pretty speedy, really.

Oh, and it seems I'm a good candidate for lap band surgery. I have, in fact, thought about it. It's a covered medical procedure in Australia now (both public and private healthcare covers it), and I would probably benefit greatly from it. I eat a fairly okay diet now, exercise moderately and regularly, and try to keep my fat intake low (well, I have to, with the gallbladder and all), but I still can't move the weight...

The doctor said to do the gallbladder surgery, let it heal, see how my health goes after that, and then we'll consider the lap band if I seriously want to do it. So I've got some months to think about it. I don't know if I'd want to do it or not. It's a pretty serious step and it's a huge, permanent change.... But then again, I don't really want to drop dead of a heart attack or have a stroke from high blood pressure or develop diabetes and so far the steps I've taken myself aren't doing much good, so... Well. I'll think about it. For now I'm going to get my gallbladder pulled out through my bellybutton. The things they can do these days!

Generally, I don't particularly care for skinny men. I don't normally find them attractive. I like big guys (hey, I'm a big girl, okay?).

But for David Tennant, I'll make an exception...