moral calculations: I can see how this Google Books thing could be a great timewaster...

we have a new TV. not just any TV, but a 43" plasma that makes our lounge room feel like an electronics showroom. It arrived yeseterday and as soon as the installers left, I turned it on and then caught myself getting interested in a daytime soap; the picture is that pretty. this morning it was the music videos, featuring the new INXS frontman, who might actually have a good voice, but will never be Michael Hutchence. it took all of my willpower to lift a remote control in each hand, like Circe or Trinity about to execute a wicked move, and push the "off" buttons. I miss it already. who needs a life when you've got a big TV?



(btw, that Circe I've linked to above appears to be for sale. there's one in the NGV that I've always liked. if anyone's looking for a nice stocking filler for me this Christmas...)

I think I should give up blogging. there are so many good blogs out there now, as a random surf through blogger's next blog button shows, that no one could ever read them all.

(plus a few that are probably not good blogs but demonstrate that a random search turns up random posts, like an encounter with Erik Estrada and a fishing blog.

plus the obligatory NaNoWriMo participant

and an advertising blog. I could go on...

why French women don't get fat? I'll bloody well tell you why; they all live up five flights of quaint, steep stairs. they have no lift. they climb said stairs three times a day. my calves hurt. also, they drink much coffee and smoke several packs of cigarettes a day. they all die of lung cancer at 34, before they can get old and wrinkly and fat.

yesterday I saw a woman who made ugg boots look good. also two pre-teen lovers (in the sense that they were in love, that's all) who were all dewy and rosy-cheeked and golden haired and impeccably dressed, talking together in the Luxembourg gardens like an old married couple. must be paris in the autumn.

look, it isn't much of a job. I only work one day a week. and my little column summarising interesting snippets from around the world isn't Pulitzer prize stuff. but I like it. I don't want to lose it. so I'm not sure whether to be amused or impressed that I got 90 per cent of the way through my 100-word article about petrol direct before I got to the bit about 4x lead fuels and started to wonder: is this for real? I think the plutonium petrol gives it away...

OK, I'm laughing. I still have my job.

a white giraffe.

the text says its legs are brown; maybe they're just muddy?

rental site

sublet.com paris

luxembourg gardens

small montmarte

converted shop montmartre not emailed

17th floor 15th a.

stuart highway

yet another not emailed yet

chris's studio montmartre

canal st martin - not emailed yet

listening to: Aaron Neville, Louisiana 1927
tasting: the warmth and musk of Mt Gay Rum
remembering: the streets of New Orleans, the faded timber buildings, the hanging gardens, the glimpses of something secret behind the streetscape, the every-night-party craziness of Bourbon St, the concrete-floored expanses of the largest convention centre I've ever seen (now filled with desperate people), the Aladdin's cave of the secondhand shops, the finery of the lace shops where I bought the shawl I married in, the dark end of town where the Goths came out at night, the graveyards, the huge mansions that shouldn't really have existed in this modern day and age, an art gallery with a glass collection fitting for the setting of The Glass Menagerie.

and wondering when the tears will come for a city I loved.

phileas fogg site

This spacious (700 sq ft/70 m2), sunny apt is located in the trendy Canal St Martin area, in the 10th district

EUR500 / 1br - *** PARIS: Charming Apartment to rent -- fully furnished *** Montmartre

A large bright furnished full 1-bedroom apartment available in Montmartre.
Per Month, per week, or weekend. Per month 1200 Euros,