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.

particularly liked this one:

whatever happens, I now have an excuse: it's the hormones.

having finished work in order to get a whole lot of things done, I now find that it's so easy to let things ride, things that formerly I would have got hot under the collar about. this is good, because I'm not quite as much of a stress bunny as usual. it's bad, because it's quite possible a large number of things won't get done.


it's grand final day. I used to be a rabid Fitzroy Lions supporter; I would ride my motorbike to the western suburbs in the rain to watch them lose. I knew every player's name and number. then they became the Brisbane Lions and broke my football heart, no small thing in this town. so today during the second half of the Brisbane Lions' third consecutive Grand Final win - an extraordinary feat, three in a row - I was taking advantage of the emptiness of the Brunswick baths, getting a lane all to myself.

between the box-unpacking and baby-stuff-shopping I've been indulging myself with that kind of thing. yesterday I went to see the 2002 Ranamok glass prize exhibition, and lusted after some of the most beautiful pieces of glass I've seen yet. then went to Acland St and wandered around, followed by a rare night out at the movies with a friend, complete with a visit to a cool bar for a (non-alcoholic) drink afterwards; it was almost like a date - she picked me up, we laughed at them movie together, talked for an hour, then she dropped me home. as usual, one wonders why one doesn't get more time with one's old friends.

I need - and there probably is somewhere - a link-surf recorder. it would tell me that I came to this article about why nerds are unpopular (I'm only 1/5 of the way through and I'm grokking it and getting secondary school flashbacks), from this site about girls' computer games to which I was referred by this blog about gaming , which was brought to my attention by workmate Nathan

then, when I have that software, I need to convert it to RL conversations.

finial - A small, decorative appendage that finishes an element of architecture, furniture, etc., especially at the peak of an arching structure. One common design is knoblike with a foliate texture.

A common site is the terminating ornament found at the top of many lampshades.

feeling a bit sad about this burning down. haven't eaten anything there for years, but it made a nice finial to the St Kilda pier. is that what finial means? sounds right.

this is my last whole day at work; after tomorrow morning I am on maternity leave. kind of weird. but there is so much to do outside work, and I am slowing down with all the hormomes/an enormous creature living under my skin compressing my stomach and lungs, so I guess it's time.

I've remembered why I like Jim.he links to good stuff, like this article on administering the replicant test to politicians. it should be compulsory. I can think of at least two Australian politicians, make that three, who would fail miserably.

oh, and the ABC is going to run Dr Who from the first ep. starting next week. I'm on baby-having leave from next week! ex-term-in-ate

homestarrunner; nice use of tecchy stuff

strangely amusing: an RSS feed into a serious-looking newspaper format. found-newspaper-headline-poetry.

opposite my office is a derelict power station. it's full of asbestos. it also has a huge concrete chimney, maybe 15 stories high.
this morning, I turned into the end of the street and saw the words "Save the Tarkine" painted right down the side. When I got there, there were cop calls all over the place. the people who painted the slogan, and another saying "No jobs on a dead planet" are still up there. they had to climb up a couple of hundred metres of ladder, then abseil down the side, to paint the chimney.
I can see the chimney from my office window. the fact that this is a newspaper office wil probably not hurt their attempts to get publicity.

the web site for the book in which I have a chapter is up.