nice design and pleasingly random posts at 2xy
really nice design, actually.

as I queued for my fantastic bratwurst-in-a-bun lunch at the Victoria Market, two lawyers behind me were discussing sentencing rules.
one said to the other "yes, he lacked that innocence factor, didn't he".
and then they pushed in front of me in the queue.

now we've stormed the f'n boat!
unbelievable. unless the 430 starving refugees were mutinying (sp?).
but I doubt it.
a Norwegian tanker calls Mayday, heads for shore, and what does Australia do? we send in the troops to stop it landing.

412. that is the number of visitors DamnthePacific (the teenagers mentioned below) have had in ONE SINGLE DAY since they were made a Blog of Note.
(their sitemeter is the cube on the bottom left of their page).
man, I hope Ev warns me before he makes me a Blog of Note (it's only a matter of time, I'm sure). I'll have to bake extra cookies.

and relationships; these two teenagers (well, one's 21) want you to fund their getting-together. isn't that cute?

can I just say, as an Australian and all, that this is just evil?
I don't care who is technically responsible. I don't even care if they're not genuine asylum seekers at this point.
you just DON'T leave 400-plus people stuck without medical care and sufficient food and water floating about on your border while you sort out who's "responsible."
we're responsible. the Indonesians are responsible. everyone is responsible.
and to blather on about the law is to underline the lack of moral thinking involved in Australia's whole attitude to asylum seekers. sure, deport them if they prove to be faking. but don't leave them floating on a Norwegian tanker. get them to land, feed them, then get on with it.
grrr...

and this is a typical angsty teenage blog
(thinks again: mustn't put up too many links.blogs that are all links just scream "go away, and here's the door")

in keeping with my new role as a blog critic, I'll have to put up more links here to recycle in the paper. otherwise I just lose them; bookmarks suck when you use three different PCs. this is a dope slang chick

heh-heh

I've managed to work my blog obsession into my work. this is the intro for my first BlogOn column in The Age's Green Guide. but the actual three-blog column won't appear until next week,so I can't really post them here until then. I'll put them all up onThursdays from here on in. (thinks; this is a bit hyperbolic. must rewrite with reality filters on)

What's a blog? Yet another of those newfangled things that hardly existed two years ago, but is already an indispensable part of the wonderful wide Web.
An abbreviation of Weblog, the blog is a bit like a journal, a bit like a news site, a bit like a page of links, and a bit like nothing else you've seen.
The appeal of blogging is its immediacy; the best blogs are updated daily, with generous links to topical Web sites and other blogs. Some are devoted to an obsession (music, programming, the blogger's cat) and some are purely personal, at times verging on exhibitionistic.Subjectivity rules; bloggers post what they think, when they think it.
BlogOn will survey the spectrum of blogs, from banal to near-genius, arranged in no particular order.
For a little blog browsing of your own, try www.blogger.com, www.diaryland.com, www.weblogs.com, or just go to your favourite search engine and type in "blog" and your topic of choice.

oooh!
darn Blogger T-shirts!
I want one, just as I wanted a coffee mug.
but the $20 shipping cost just totally sucks. it brings the cost of the T-shirt to $80 Australian. After tax, that's half a days' wages.
I've asked this before, but you never know; does anyone in Australia want to share a care package with me?

Sound effect: drumroll
Shot one: velvet curtains, parting
Shot two: a pair of legs in formal trousers, descending staircase
Shot three: pan up to me, dressed in a man's dinner suit and top hat, leaping onto stage like Fred Astaire.
Shot four: me, sticking face way too close to camera so my nose distorts like a reflection in the back of a spoon.

"AND IT'S A BIG HELLO TO MY FAITHFUL READER IN ALASKA @ HOME.COM!!!

(come on out and say hi)

memo to the Bloggods: if you can't find my lost archives, can you at least get a sexier 404 message? this is, well, ordinary. unlike, for instance, oh, I can't be bothered right now, but I know there was an all-out competition for great 404s a few months back. will find them soon. after I find my archives.

typo of the year, from The New York Observer: "Egyptian by birth, Mr Assaad was born and raised in Australia..."

Sorry, no link.it was in hard copy press kit about Heavy.com, a funky, bandwidth-suckin', music-dissin, animation-makin' site-of-the-minute. It even won a webby

oh, what the hell. this is only the draft, of course. I think secretly I hope if I write it all down, it will stop swirling about in my head.

listlistlistlistlistlistlistlist

general to-do

fix stuff in sewing pile
index folder so it makes sense/reflects this list?
renew library books
Labyrinths – Borges – for Andrew
get off westpac’s mailing list
check BV re lost key
get Bilbo moved into our name.
send photos to Africa
sort out magazines in lounge
sort out digital pix
sort out wedding pix
copy documents and send up to Dad
new panniers for bike
email photo to Julian’s wedding person
fix woollen skirt
buttons: purple and black cardigan
put up dogsitting posters
book into mosaic course 28-9 October
barry baby fund
update password list – all passwords, work/home/Web
kylie’s wedding present
chase up boots at recycled recreation
See Renata
art gallery show – September
Dr Wong for Sue Cant
get strap back from Sue
check gift vouchers
call rob: 9592 2275/0403 814 514
morocco pix - liz

uni

blogs and writing and ideas:

writing blog
develop ratava concept more – declaration of no invasion of privacy page?
find missing archives
make them make sense and make them updateable

House stuff:

polish chandelier.
fix 60s chairs
recover grandma’s chair
new blinds for b2/all rest of house
clean B3 carpet
make a beautiful mosaic wall in the garden
stop the neighbours’ flats
concrete removal quotes – also dirtmoving
olive tree cutback quotes
call fence people.
ah to do garage quotes
list for front part of house: see list attached
four poster day bed/cushions/silk hangings
laundry basket on wheels
fix mirror
sort out renovation/objection folder
make sliding storage things for under bed (Home Beautiful may 01)

house shopping:

owl box
video recorder
get wine fridge - sophie lee 362 Clarendon St 9686 9922
frame for corrugated art
clean standing lamp
miele showroom
ascot vale plumbing
barbecue
church st furntiture store


Garden stuff

spikes for black plastic
use wedding vouchers
use woodworm killer
kill weeds
plant tomatoes
bird box

f flat

renovate kitchen
fix bathroom leak
paint windowsills
inset bedroom lights?
new bathroom vanity and cupboard?

work stuff:

update saved work files on disc
as per “jenny” list at work
this week: do school case study w. pic.

weekly stuff:

brush bilbo
dust
market
gardening hour
budget

3x
50 k
2000 m

monthly:

pay mobile phone bill
pay ah
pay other bills

end of financial year:

kill Fairfax shares

wish list:

10 more dogs
learn to cook polenta
sleep for 10 hours without waking up
hear Aaron Neville again
save Merri Creek
make a really productive vegie garden
swim twice a week for the rest of my life
meet Salman Rushdie
Tell Bettina Arndt what I think of her politics
find a job I really enjoy
make a glamorous entrance
ride the same horse for a week – make friends with it (Jackie says she’ll come riding with me)
spend a year gainfully unemployed (not being a mother, just free)
find out what happened to David Jantzen
Gothic night
Rialto views

music

Ross Hannaford live


food


flower drum
cicciolina

travel

ballooning
New York year (go shopping on 5th Avenue in high heels and a killer dress)
Go to Wales for Heather’s 18th birthday
Ride the London eye and get stuck on top for an hour
New Orleans month -sleeping days and drinking rum to R & B at night
Tasmanian walk
learn Spanish
speak Spanish in Spain
The Mansion - september
tassie walk
monet’s garden in spring & autumn.
wa wildflowers
See the Mayan temples
swim in a warm, lively ocean with surf – Byron Bay?

things
really nice pen
mx-5
new road bike
own an Emily Kngwarreye


life
see Marc married and happy with children
cross everything off my to-do list
turn 101 on a bicycle (or if necessary, tricycle)
have children
teach my children how to be happy
write something really good
tell all the people I love that I love them
have grandchildren
Get really stoned and laugh at the walls
finish my b.Litt
?masters of communications?

movies:
metropolis
Buffalo 66
Croupier
Elizabeth
Antz
Live Flesh
Twelth Night
Fast, cheap and …
Kurosawa movies

books:
Will Self – how the Dead Live
Dessaix – Corfu
Ulysses – Homer
Ulysses – Joyce
understand how they connect
rest of the bookshelf stash
The Second Sex
If now now, when – Primo Levi
Calvino – the Uses of Literature
2001 Saul Bellow book
Catch-22
The Reader
Tristram Shandy
Pat Clancy’s book on French woman in Melbourne
Frank Lloyd Wright: architect – R.McCarter
Duckness – short stories

anyway, can't hang around. am writing the list to end all lists, with subheads like "general stuff", "life", "wishlist", "travel", "books".
it's going to be a very long and challenging list. it includes meeting Salman Rushdie and spending a week riding one horse, getting to know it.
not necessarily at the same time.
it also includes "plant vegie garden" and "call Rob". from the mundane to the spectacular, it's everything I want to do.
the question is: how many ticks?

no, Blogger referrals are showing up. so all those "unknown" referrals must remain a mystery.
howsitgoing, Missouri?

it's only four archives. but I want them back. just talk amongst yourselves while I test some more.
good morning, New York State!

so we went off and walked the dog and looked at stuff that might be nice in our house if we ever get the renovations done, but within 10 minutes of getting back, here I am tweaking things.
I think my Sitemeter isn't recognizing referrals from Blogger. this post is so I can click through and test my theory.
hello, Arkansas!

I can report back, four and a half ^$&*^%*&^ hours later, that ftp without Windows 2000 and frames without a clue are quite hard.
but at last, I have my "ratava" blog and general thoughts site up at ratava.com, and hey, what else would I have done? read a book? walked the dog? had a LIFE?
This tutorial was quite useful, and I can advise that if your frames are not behaving (like the second one just doesn't show up), it helps to clear the page of all other code. of course it is now totally disabled/old browser unfriendly, but I need to get outside and breathe, so usability will have to come later.
(all this reminds me how wonderful Blogger is)

spring: on the wisteria vine and the persimmon tree, green velveteen buds have appeared, and I know that sometime in the next two weeks, they will burst out into leaves.
it's raining, but the sun is strong enough to give the air a yellowish glow.
the white lilies that line the curve of the front path protude a liy head-height above the giant lily leaves. they have Art Deco curves, trailing off into an invisible line that points to the sun.

defining moment # 1:
visiting Heather and Richard and the beautiful 4-day-old Rosie last night. I came out of the hospital glowing and warm and frankly wanting one of my own.
they will be the BEST parents.

defining moment # 2:
getting my motorcycle jacket out of the cupboard and finding mildew all over the collar and back. I've had that jacket for 10 years. so what if I'm scared of the bigger bike. the sun is shining, the wind is blowing and dammit, I'm feeling restless.

ps: yes, I realise these two d.m.'s are mutually incompatible. so?

Happy birthday Blogger!
I'm always late...but I usually get the month right, my friends will tell you.

I am talking to a vacuum. blogger is down and my post will post, but not publish.
in two days, I have filled 1/2 an A4 notebook with work notes.
and I wonder why my work gives me headaches and leaves me tired.
and worse: I have to do my tax tonight... help, somebody save a poor strugglin' gal from the evil ATO

for weather nuts

The dot-com era didn't really end for me until last Thursday.
That was the day I sat down at my home PC after work, in the mood for a good argument, a little online discussion, some virtual interaction with real people. I tried to log on to Salon's Table Talk forums.
I couldn't.
Sometime in the last month, while I wasn't looking, Table Talk had become a "member-supported" community; a nice euphemism for "no pay, no play."
So after almost exactly four years of membership, I was shut out. I could no longer post irrelevant word associations on the One Word Thread, dream of New Orleans summers in La Nouvelle Orleans, or poke fun at the Yanks from the safety of one of various threads for Australian members.
I know that in Silicon Valley, spoiled dot-commer's complaints about the withdrawal of "free stuff" have been mocked by those who see it as less than a tragedy that young men and women now have to go and buy their own T-shirts, or pick up the phone to order pizzas.
And lately, I've been an infrequenter poster on Table Talk, distracted by new toys like my blog (Web log).
So whether I'm entitled to wax nostalgic about (no doubt wasted) hours playing "Continue The Story" creative games and indulging in mutual commiserating over trashed relationships with complete strangers is arguable. But to be suddenly locked out of a favourite forum like that still feels wrong.
Most of all, it's made me realise that what we thought was ours never really was. Salon - who have valiantly tried to keep going as a quality publication and no doubt have good reasons for what they're doing - owned us and our words and ideas all along.
And if you check the terms and conditions of your own favourite forum or free publishing service, like Geocities, you will probably find that they own yours too. An honourable exception are the free Web log services, who seem to see their role as facilitators a little differently.
Salon has, so far, left the forums open to public readership. The threads I looked at were filled with discussion of the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go variety, and the odd wail about the cost of membership - US$9.50 a month, soon to be US$15. In Imagination, where silly ideas and brilliant writing were the order of the day in 1997, one thread plaintively asked "Is There Anybody Out There?".
The consensus was that Table Talk was dying, a wasteland of diehards who would not stay once they realised that most of their buddies had gone.
I'll admit to being a Web cheapskate - my first-ever search string was "free software", and although I've paid for URLs, I've always found the cheapest possible way to get stuff published.
But I won't be paying to be part of a community. Friendship is just one of those things that you should get for free, or not at all.

my official "go-away" to all telemarketers, cold-callers, junk-mailers and banks at Junkbusters
it's getting there, as far as a personal profile on the Web goes. I wonder if I can refer all spammers etc to it? but how?

this is of no interest to you, it's just a young Australian geek I plan to come back and read more about: black ice media
This, otoh, is a site promising eternal life

what a good idea: spambait,, a series of pages that clog up the spam spiders.
did I mention I've been getting 15-20 spams A DAY at my Hotmail address since I put this blog up?

oh McJim, you've done it again!
I believe this product may be real. they have a patent pending 'n'all.

I have converted my dog - a perfectly good Keeshond (think big Pekinese) into a poodle.
I have done this by means of a skin-tight tank top that flattens all the fur on his middle bit, leaving a plume-like tail and a huge main separated by a sleek sausage.
I'm a bit ill tonight; just doing whatever comes into my head.

The incredibly depressing and guilt-inducing story of Coltan.
You know you're soaking in it?

graffiti of the day, newly sprayed on a wall on my way to work:
"bad cop, no donut!"

I'm starting to like Ruth, in a perverse kind of way:
"I grew up with the philosophy that you do not leave your bedroom unless you are properly attired and to leave your home looking anything but your best was considered a crime against humanity."
you go, girl! today, white shoes in winter; tomorrow, Milosevc!

I think you'd have to start with the hair. It's very Eraserhead.

Sucky Way to Die has accepted my nomination of Christopher Skase as a person who died in a sucky way (natch).
can I just say that it's sucky, too, that all the people who were pursuing him for the money he ripped off from ordinary tradespeople and other creditors to finance his family's nice life in Majorca, stopped maligning him just because he's dead?
I mean, I know there's no point now, and his family's upset and all that, but he was a thief and stayed one. The suckiest thing about his death, I think, is that he appeared to still be in denial about having done wrong. Like John Howard, he never apologised, and unlike Alan Bond, he never faced a court and did his time.
not that I really care.

According to the source code, Ruth's Web designer is: A satisfied Microsoft Office User
I wonder if that's built into Front Page or if he actually wrote that?
keep up your HTML and Perl skills, kids. if you forget how to do it from raw code, Bill WILL own you.

I really shouldn't poke fun at other people's foibles - after all, I was looking for "black tie" dress codes because I am anxious about what to wear to the HUGE wedding tomorrow - but could one deprive one's loyal readers of Modern Etiquette.com?
This particular page features the author, Ruth, in a fur muff of her own design on the page devoted to "Ladies Who Lunch."
Quite.

I could set up a really strange referral loop with Jim

the academics folded, btw. on both my creative arts subject and the last-minute problem they found; apparently I'd been doing all "second year" subjects and was supposed to call some of them "third year" to complete my degree. all exactly the same subjects, of course.
when the course advisor suggested this morning that I should just do more subjects (this is after SIX YEARS) I looked at her and said "I don't think I have the financial or the emotional commitment."

the tireder I get, the weirder the things I say. last weekend in the great bathroom fittings shopping disaster, I used the word "concept" to describe a tap. on the way home, I told Andrew I really wasn't enough of a yuppie for him. but he loves me anyway.

after reading my last two posts: no, I am not a substance abuser. really

usually, if I've had an extra hard day at work, I'll come home and after a while have a bath and a dhinandtonik. but not tonight. no, tonight, the jynnantonyk has to be NOW!
I think it was the addition of a story for the news section that turned the slight ache in my neck into a full-blown cervical headache
I've probably had it coming for a while, what with my being down the slack end of the scale. but why'd it have to happen so FAST?
and on top of that, various administrative nightmares at uni, I've lost the key to my bike, the neighbours' flats appeal is creating work, my friends and rellies all want their kids babysat, and Andrew hasn't been home from work before 9.30 pm, usually midnight, and won't be tonight either.
no wonder I only work a four-day week. apparently the cure for these headaches is relaxation. hah!
maybe if I filled the bath with gin'n't'n'c?

(if you're wondering why I can't spell Gin and Tonic, you need a Guide)

I've had two cups of good Italian coffee this morning and am typing MUCH faster than usual.
Read about coffee (in the US only, maybe I'll offer them some reviews) at caffmag

there are some amusing words on the Echelon keyword list
this one finishes at "Middle" (Middle Earth? Middle Age? whatever can they mean?) but before that are the words "fangs", "furby", "Scully" and "dictionary." And you'd think the word "explicit" alone would jam their servers, wouldn't you?
the words "mailbomb" and "computerTerrorism" are, of course, in every good computer terrorists' emails. not.
and "froglegs"? FROGLEGS!?! huh? non comprende

Stolen from Jim: revenge on those annoying academics; the truth about how they make up subject titles.
yes, I know they haven't done anything to me yet. but they will, they will

I think Jim is probably a really nice guy. And if I ever get back to Wales, I will track him down and take him to the pub.
this is because I have laughed out loud no less than four times while reading his blog.

dogcam
'nuff said.

morbid, yet strangely amusing: sucky way to die

ho hum. here we go again. another administrative battle, this time with the University of Melbourne
seems Arts students aren't allowed to do creative arts subjects (in this case my coveted biographies/writing subject). And I've bought the reader and everything!
don't know if I can be bothered going back to the doubtless very fine Shakespeare subject that is the alternative. but if I don't, I'll be one of those people who is one subject short of a degree, so to speak. $329, it would cost. enough to do a semester of Spanish for the trip back to Spain I'll probably never make.
option C is to fight the ruling, blah blah blah. it's too late to do the subject as a "community access" person, even.
why do I have a feeling this will end up in some tribunal or other?
but given that I originally started my Arts degree in order to transfer into Law, and given that they then changed the rules so I had to do heaps of arts subjects before transferring, then lost interest in law and decided to just do my B.Litt, I'm inclined to stand my ground this time.
stupid rules.

I have decided I want to buy an Emily Kngwarreye painting. I will have to remortgage my flat to do so, or convince Andrew that it's a good idea. but I really want one.
a) she was a genius and they are really beautiful works and
b) I fully expect that they will be worth more as the years go on. we're talking Picasso, Monet, Rothko-level art here. It's funny, because I have always been very suspicious of the Aboriginal art industry - it can be deceptive, shallow and exploitative. but when I went to her retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria a couple of years back, it blew me away.

I don't know if this is a bug or a feature. but if you click on my archive links, text from the archives appears below the text area as a kind of wallpaper. anyway, it looks cool.

eh. sometimes I just sit down to blog without having much to say. maybe because it's Monday morning and I'm procrastinating the whole shower/ride/behave like a work person thing.
so I'll just put up a link to a teenage stream-of-consciousness blog with less than the usual level of banality and some intriguing (verbal) images scattered through it.

I have a new blog for my new uni subject at the rather pretentiously named Internet Flaneur
it's all about writing, journals, biography, identity, real life as it appears in fiction. I think.

I find it hard to believe that an index of popular links from 9,000 blogs could only find four new links in common.

usually when something is hot, it pops up EVERYWHERE for a few days; think Kaycee Nicole.

but this is worth a look; and I might submit my blog to get the backlink traffic ...

life in space

life on mars