First, there was the original Chris Crocker sobbing plea to "leave Britney alone", and then countless parodies, including my personal favourite (until now, anyway), Leave Blackbeard Alone. I've mostly left the many, many parodies alone because, well, most of them were pretty stupid, but now, Seth Green is begging us to leave Chris Crocker alone, and as well as being self-referential, it's a hoot.

There was a debate between the current Prime Minister, Mr Howard, and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd. During the broadcast, they were using a "real time worm" device to show the viewers' approval. There was a huge controversy about the worm, from using it at all to asking who the viewers chosen were to viewers wondering why it appeared to react negatively or positively before the debaters would even start to speak...

Here's Dr Worm in action:

Note to non-Australians: This is a parody of a series of commercials that have been running in Australia for some time now, about violence against women. The Australian Liberal Party is the opposite of "liberal". Last year or so, Mr Howard introduced legislation that was supposed to be "workplace reform" but which led to a tremendous amount of unrest and, according to many reports, people losing their jobs or being very unfairly treated. When Mr Howard sent troops into Iraq, 90%+ of Australians were against it. Mr Howard has gotten caught time and time again in half-truths and outright lies, and has a whole string of broken promises behind him. Mr Howard has steadfastly refused to apologise for... well, anything. He pretty much wouldn't apologise if he shot God in the foot. (No, I don't like Mr Howard; according to current polls, a majority of Australians feel the same way.)

Andrew and I have these weird little geeky brain games that we play. For example, we'll try to think of as many songs as we can that have a colour in the title. It doesn't have to be a colour, though. We've done all kinds of stuff. Place names, women's names, men's names, animals, you name it. There are no "winners" in that game, by the way. It's just a fun little way to get some mind exercise, which is something we're very big on in our household.

We also play games like, "What's the world's most famous dog?" or similar. Our latest was "What's the world's most famous street?" We had some good suggestions. Wall Street, Fleet Street, Broadway, Sunset Boulevard, Champs Elysées. But I think the most famous street in the world (and certainly the most famous zebra crossing!) is Abbey Road.

Next time I'm in London, I'm going to make a point of going there, as a matter of fact, and - wait for it - crossing the street! (Along with all the other tourists, of course.) And what the heck, I might walk a couple blocks to Cavendish Avenue and look at the gates of Paul McCartney's house, too, although Cavendish Avenue is probably only famous to Beatles fans and the paparazzi.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to be in an octopus's garden in shade. He'd let us in, knows where we've been, in his octopus' garden in the shade...

I got an email today from a company in India who have been trying to get me to buy their wholesale goods (I haven't yet). Here's the message:

Dear Valued Costumer,
Now we have some Carnelian machine cut Roundel beads. I send these pictures to you. Wish that you are interesting.

*sigh* Yeah. I wish I was interesting, too...

I always knew Cockatoos were smart, but nobody ever said they had good taste in music...

Andrew made omelettes today. First time he's done it. We got a new omelette pan last week and this week we put it to the test. Yummy! He's a pretty good cook, generally speaking, and now that I know he can do good omelettes, I'm going to press him into service making them... Mmmmm.

Just for the record he also makes an excellent risotto (from scratch, too!) and a killer green curry (usually with lamb and snow peas).

I just finished reading Waiting for the Beatles: An Apple Scruff's Story by Carol Bedford. What a fun read! It was really evocative and easily put me in London in the late 1960s, sitting outside the Abbey Road EMI studios, waiting for the Beatles to come or go...

Carol Beford, the author, was one of the the Apple Scruffs. These were the world's most dedicated fans. They weren't groupies in the usual sense of the word, in that, they weren't offering or trying to get sexual favours from the band. Instead, they just waited for hours at a time in all kinds of weather just to get a glimpse, to say hello, to give the Beatles gifts (for birthdays, for example). The Apple Scruffs eventually even produced their own magazine!

I was quite interested in the insights into George Harrison's personality offered by this book. The author formed a friendship with him and while I don't entirely understand why she basically walked away from him (well, I kind of get it, but she may have left some stuff out that would make it clearer) and ended their friendship, I do appreciate the glimpse she gives into his personality and mannerisms. Very interesting (and, like the author, George is my favourite).

The book was published in 1985 and has been out of print for some time, so it can be hard to find. I bought a second hand copy through Amazon, but you can probably find it through your local library system if you look hard enough. Anyway, it's a really excellent read, and I enjoyed it very much. I think most Beatles fans would, as well.

I've been playing with Google Earth. I decided I wanted to have a look at Friar Park, the home of the late George Harrison (which is still home to his wife and, I believe, his son, although his son is about thirty now and probably also has a place of his own).

It's quite extraordinary! You can see it quite well with the satellite pictures, and the estate is really big with amazing gardens. I knew this, of course, but it was cool to see it. (You can grab the Google Earth location if you want.)

I also had a look at Abbey Road in London, and the world's most famous zebra crossing (and yes, I have a Google Earth location file for that, too).

The reason I was doing all this is because I recently read a very good book, Waiting for the Beatles: An Apple Scruff's Story by Carol Bedford (who was one of the Apple Scruffs), and I got a bit curious and started looking on the web for pictures of the areas where the Scruffs used to hang around, which sort of led me to thinking about that zebra crossing and made me think of Google Earth...

Every bloody year, without fail, I spend a couple weeks in October being miserable. Headache, significant sinus congestion, usually a lot of dizziness (pressure in the ears from the sinuses, you see), frequent nausea, hot flashes, unbelievable fatigue, but then sleeplessness at night sometimes....

Why? Because something is violently growing and I'm allergic to it. I don't know for positive sure what it is, but I suspect it's a certain kind of native Australian grass (having done a bit of research).

I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't have anything like an amusing ending for this post. It's just me, my headache, and my damned stupid allergies on this end, and the damned stupid allergies aren't very amusing (thus making me unamusing and unamused).

Pen to wand
I fear he will.
Magic is real
Make your secret wishes come true!

Really cute video (and if you're my age, you'll get a lot of the little in-jokes), extremely entertaining song and animation. I like They Might Be Giants. But then, I would. Because I'm a nerd.

They Might Be Giants - The Mesopotamians

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The main pages of BonniNet have gotten a pretty drastic redesign. You can see for yourself.

I need to be creative. I need to meditate, I need to eat, I need to sleep, I need to be creative. If I don't get enough of any of those things, I start to become unblanced or even unwell.

I've decided to redo the main pages for this domain. I really like the Renaissance-inspired scroll design, but I've had it for years now (honestly, I'm not sure how many, probably around five years... yikes...) and I'm kinda tired of it. So I'm working on something new, something different, something creative, and something like I've never had on the main pages of this domain. For one thing, the mew pages are black. For another, it's inspired by psychadelia (blame it on The Beatles), fantasy-grunge, and it's got a magickal, sparkly, slightly hallucinogenic feel to it.

Yeah, really.

The graphics are done. Now comes the boring, tedious part, wherein I have to do all the code and tweak and tweak until it's just right. The good part is that last time I did a redesign I did it using an external style sheet and SSI inclusions, so it should (theoretically) be super easy to change the pages by just changing the style sheet and the inclusions. How easy it will actually be remains to be seen, of course, but that's the theory.

I'm also going to do away with my "memberships" page, I think. Not that I'm not still a member of a lot of things, but I think I can work it in effectively elsewhere (like on the "About" page) and just do away with that extra bit. And besides, I couldn't work the link into the new design very elegantly, so I just did away with it. Orf wiv its 'ead, I say!

New design should be premiering soonish, like, maybe by the end of the week if things don't get hectic and I don't get too distracted with other stuff.

Saw an eBay ad today (at the cinema, no less). It went like this:

A bunch of random people are standing around in the snow on a mountaintop. None of them are properly dressed for the weather. They seem terribly happy and unaware that they're likely to freeze to death or develop frostbite.

Finally, one woman runs up and grabs a shopping trolley (cart), and leaps into it and begins to slide down a hill into what we see is a luge or bobsled track. She careens down the track, skidding snow and ice everywhere, laughing into the camera, as spectators watch and cheer. At the end, we're told that we find out that it's "exciting" to shop on eBay.

My interpretation, though, is that buying things on eBay is like leaping, unprepared, into dangerous and stupid activities that could result in injury or death.

Okay, so you're not too likely to end up dead or injured from shopping on eBay, but in the past few months I've had TWO different sellers take my money and disappear. Perhaps I'm a bit jaded.

One of Peter Gabriel's best, in my opinion. Very moving. He became intrigued with songs he heard that were sort of half love song and half religious passion, and wanted to write something like that. I think he did very well.

A great and highly suggestive song, a really cool video. How can you not like something with dancing chicken carcasses?

Well, my DVD writer is... I won't say it's hosed, because it does work. But it doesn't work properly. Can't write at full speed, and it doesn't always read CDs properly. It might be the cable or something (I've seen that happen before, certainly) or similar, but we're going to go get another one, anyway, an internal one.

Which means, of course, that I have to clean my desk. Not a happy prospect. My desk is The Repository of Everything That I Can't Find Another Place For and Things That I Just Happened to Have Nearby. Seriously, my desk... You know how they say that a clean desk is a sign of a disordered mind? If that's true, I have the most orderly mind anyone's ever seen... (which pretty much demonstrates that the saying is wrong, but, as ever, I digress).

I'm listening to The Beatles. I know, big surprise, right? I know I always say that The Eagles are my favorite band of all time, and... well, they are, pretty much. But I realised the other day that if the Demon of Difficult Hypothetical Dilemmas came and forced me to choose to listen to only ONE band for the rest of time, it wouldn't actually be the Eagles. It would be The Beatles... (especially if I could include all the solo work of the band members!)

Anyway, I do love The Beatles (as I've mentioned) and let's just say they're my favourite band that broke up before I was old enough to really know anything about them. The Beatles hit the U.S. in the year I was born, and I grew up listening to them. I started to actively like them when I was ten or so. I used to get out one of those big old reel-to-reel tapes (anyone remember those?) and put the headphones on and listen while I colored or drew. Come to think of it, I still listen to The Beatles while I'm pushing the pixels, so it seems some things never change.

So lately I've been collecting more Beatles albums. I want to really fill out my/our collection. Revolver is our latest acquisition. It's a damned good album, arguably The Beatles' best.

I like listening to this with alpha wave enhancement and a trippy visualisation that responds to the music. It's pretty good stuff...

This is a really interesting album. Glad we've got it now (mind you, I was familiar with the songs on it, but I didn't have the album and I hadn't heard some of the songs in a long time). It's also got one of the coolest covers of all time (in my opinion), and really nice sitar work from George Harrison (my favourite Beatle).

Even Zoë said of "Love You To" (a Harrison song with classic Indian structure), "That's a good sound!" And she's right, too. It is a good sound. A damn good sound.

And if you're still not convinced of the absolute coolness of this album, I suggest you read the free e-book (in PDF format), Abracadabra, which tells the story of this remarkable album. Really interesting read.

Turn off your mind, relax
and float down stream
It is not dying
It is not dying

Lay down all thought
Surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining

That you may see
The meaning of within
It is being
It is being

That love is all
And love is everyone
It is knowing
It is knowing

That ignorance and hate
May mourn the dead
It is believing
It is believing

But listen to the
color of your dreams
It is not living
It is not living

Or play the game
existence to the end
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning

(Tomorrow Never Knows - Lennon/McCartney 1966)

So, this blog has gotten pretty boring, unless you particularly enjoy the stuff I link to. I'm not writing a lot here. As I've said, it's not because I haven't got anything to say. It's because the things I have to say are not things I want to say here, on this particular blog, for various reasons.

Thoughts on enlightenment, on the nature of God, on Oneness, all that sort of thing... I dunno...

I'm going to think about this a bit. Perhaps some of the the stuff I've got to say can be turned around to be stuff I can say here, that will fit the general mood and theme I've got in my mind for this blog. I mean, yeah, I can, at will, change the direction of this blog (I've done that before!), but I'm going to have to think about how I want to do that.

In the meantime, I do have another blog in, as they say, an undisclosed location. You can read it if you want. Just drop me a line and let me know.