this is outrageous. how can you sack someone for a fairly innocuous post on their own site? Bill, Bill, Bill, you still don't get it, do you? the words "information" and "free", I mean.

just when I'd given up on Wired ever doing anything interesting again, the current issue has some interesting think-related pieces that aren't just about "homeland security" or videogames featuring girls with big tits.

now checking out two blogs from their "human nodes" article: Joichi Ito in Japan and Clay Shirky in the US, on "Economics & Culture, Media & Community, Open Source"

used to be that Batgrl would write about battening down the hatches for tornadoes. now it's fires.

it's been ages since I linked to any new blogs - have been pretty much not doing the blogrounds since I stopped doing my blog column for the paper, and computer time has been limited to getting ahead on freelance work and chatting to buddies lately.
but this one is not only local, but well written, funky-looking (could be a standard template for all I know, but I like it) and in the old-school Interesting Observations On Life vein.

so most of the really important stuff is crossed off my to-do list now. which is lucky because I'm a bit of a zombie today and not feeling like doing much at all.
eventually, one day, I know that the pub and maybe even study and online identity issues will get me excited again. work, I dunno about.
but at the moment I'm just a big round ball of hormones waiting to have a baby. have decided to have it on my due date - Monday - just to annoy all those people who say "it might be early" or "first babies are always late".

If I bank a cheque, it ALWAYS takes three business days to clear. standard. no argument. etc.
so why, oh why was I able to walk into a Bank of Melbourne in High St, Northcote, Melbourne, Australia today and bank a personal cheque drawn by an American on a bank in San Antonio, Texas, and be told it had cleared that second?

it is nearly as galling as the fact that after the pathetic xchange rate and tax, I'll be clearing about $400 for about two-three weeks' work, done a year ago. hey ho. at least it makes my trip to the US (when the xchange rate was against me the other way, of course) a bit more tax-deductible.

sometimes it's best not to think about things too hard.
so there's this huge ball of glowing gas up there, slowly burning away:

and down here several million or whatever k's away, this other ball of rock has developed all these things, this life that grows and moves and feeds off just the light from that ball of gas.
and one kind of those things is humans, and that's why I can sit here at a computer and think about it all.
my brain hurts. a lot.

not blogging here very often. so much of my preoccupation seems to be unpacking boxes or shopping for baby stuff. or napping because I'm not sleeping well (could it be the several kilos of fluid and baby attached to my front? I wonder...). and none of that is really interesting, is it? nor, I guess, will the baby be. except to me, Andrew, my friends and my INSANELY clucky mother.

my copy of the book arrived today. for all my annoyance at the pittance I'm to be paid for the work involved (and the rise in the .au dollar in the meantime), it's kind of nice that it has actually happened.

the ABC is showing Dr Who from the very first episode. we're taping it and haven't missed one.

we have decided that Terry Nation is a fun writer - the other guy was a bit odd. current series, the Keys of Marinus, is a mix of Barbarella and existential, Matrix-like philosophy (are they better off being under the control of the Mesmertron or knowing The Truth?). plus it has brains in a bottle with big snail-like eyes. cool. Terry was the writer who brought the Daleks in. I particularly like the continuity breaks, the Dr stumbling over his lines, and the occasional glimpse of people moving sets behind the actors. truly.

actually, checking out that program guide, the ABC seems to have skipped a few series? bad ABC!

talk about people getting the government they deserve!

I have nothing to say about this. I love America. I even love some of my American friends. I love New Orleans and New York and Las Vegas, some parts of which are actually also part of America. But. BUT!!

And I wonder if Arnie really knows what he's letting himself in for?

why can't we get a clothesline to fit our wall?
this may seem trivial - ok, IS trivial - but they go straight from 1.2 to 2.2 metres. 1.2 is too small. 2.2 is too big and would require the use of very large amounts of concrete to install, and in the wrong place at that.
and I am going to NEED a clothesline soon, dammit. I'm 36 weeks pregnant and my future is nappies.