I Don't Mean to Blow My Own Nose... But

http://pinkpatentmaryjanes.blogspot.com/2008/08/party-time-excellent.html

With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

With all of the modesty I can summon in my giant, pretty brain, I am going to let you in on something.

I have certain talents and abilities that, when viewed by normal mortals, border on the superhuman.

For instance, I can identify with 100% accuracy if a breast has been augmented without the need for manhandling. I can throw a clean, unused tissue across a room using nothing more than force of personality and technique. And, I wake up looking exactly as I will look all day - I go from unconscious to work-ready in slightly under 8 seconds. (You will never get that rollercoaster ride of seeing me ‘unready for the outside world’. I just look bog-ordinary all the time.)

But there are no free rides in this universe. No free lunches. Thermodynamics is gonna getcha. Karma wants its cut. Dues must be paid. Eternal balances must be maintained. The aging portrait in my attic is falling out of its frame.

I have a flaw that is worsening.

I am now completely out of control with where I may absentmindedly secret a remote control. (I once searched a house for over half an hour for a credit card sized uni-remote that was stuck to my back in the summer heat, so when I say things have worsened…) At the same time I have managed to eradicate the part of my brain that looks after the object permanence of black, plastic objects.

When I get up from the seat, I take the remote with me because; ‘I’m just gonna be a second’. It is then placed cunningly anywhere between 70 centimetres (where my hand can naturally fall to) to 225 centimetres (where I can reach without trying) off the ground. Anywhere.

The trap has worsened. Today I caught myself in a loop that Isaac Asimov would have been proud to put in a ‘Robot’ book.

1. Sat down. Picked up 1 of the 2 required remotes.
2. Swore.
3. Got up carrying remote to look for other remote.
4. Found original missing remote in colander over microwave.
5. Sat down. In possession of 1 of the 2 required remotes.
6. Swore.
7. Got up carrying remote to look for other remote.
8. Continue ad infinitum and absurdum.

It Ends With a Devo Song Stuck in Your Head

A couple I was having breakfast with recently were describing how she had been nearly knocked-out by their dog. Apparently it’s a bit of an excitable thing, with a lot of legs and the ability to accelerate from a standing start and into your head in 5.1 nano-seconds. (She was bent over making the bed at the time, so at least she had somewhere nice to pass out.)

She kept on talking about the arrival of the animal as a bit of a surprise - As though they went downstairs one day and there the thing was under the Christmas tree. I asked about this, which resulted in one of the best sentences I have ever heard.

“Well, he thought it was a good idea. I sent him out to buy parsley and he came home with a book about whippets and a hat.”

His rebuttal has the tone of a man who is tired of having to justify the totally logical explanation.

“It’s not often you see a book about whippets!”

This is apparently enough to swing the family on the idea and they end up with one of these daft creatures. The hat is never explained.

Everyone around the table thought this was utterly brilliant. They kept on going with other problems that the animal presents. You can’t catch the whippet to discipline it. It has so much leg you can’t push it through a door if it doesn’t want to go, and my favourite sentence of the morning.

“It’s no fun, you know, a carsick whippet.”

Carsick Whippet. Say it out loud and you’ll wish you’d named your first high-school garage band ‘Carsick Whippet’.

We've Been Lied To, People

While I was researching how to make an emergency Colin sale to the Japanese ('cmon... it's a win win. Unlike our authorities, they know how it's done and there's a free lunch in it) I was forced to ask Smurf who Jessica Louise Origliasso was.

He said that he thought she was a Veronica.

I asked how that could be, and said that I didn't understand. He then hits me with,

"And did you know the Lighthouse Family, not only did not live in a lighthouse, they were not even related."

A Man Of Many Parts (just look in the instructions!)

I had a pretty significant birthday yesterday. One of those ones that really changes your bracket on a survey. In response to this, I am pleased to report being showered with gifts that are both flattering - and indicate that when you hang around for long enough, a few people are going to get to know you pretty well.

The prezzies paint a picture of a guy who admires the ideal of the renaissance man, and hopes to meet him one day and buy him a drink.

(I can’t pretend that Emergency Contact hasn’t played a large part in any of this, but go with me on the story.)

I have been given art.

A manipulated found object by Nicholas Jones, whose specialty is sculpting, using books as the base material. That one doesn’t go in the pool room. That’s on a feature wall in the East Wing.

I have been given an antique copperplate map of Europe, with notation that puts it before the unification of Germany (Prussia, bold as brass right there on the landscape) and a delightfully hazy idea of where the best place to stick Turkey is. Not for the pool room either. I think perhaps above the fireplace in the Drawing Room.

Two quarto books with pages at about 400gsm of Dante’s Inferno and Pergatorio, with opposite page reproductions of Blake for the Inferno and Dali for the Pergatorio. They are so not going in the pool room. In fact for the remainder of this financial year, I will have them on the display table in the library… maybe the conservatory.

And Lego. Yep, a 1,000 piece Lego set and that, my friends, is going in the pool room.

I am an uncompromising blend of brows. I like to work in both high and low.

Improved Star Wars Scenes

Millenium Falcon under attack from a pair of Thai Fighters.

With a Blood Hurdling Cry...

I was a bit puzzled by some disappointed Australians on telly recently. They were virtually suggesting that missing out on a medal wasn’t their fault, it was the weather’s.

It was two Olympic sailors and they capsized their boat - twice. They were racing very well and hunting through the field and were looking at pulling a medal, when they ditched it a couple of times and came out all sad-faced at the camera.

I would have thought that there were two important skills involved in being the best sailors on the planet. One; reading the weather. It’s going to play a part in sailing so please get used to it. And Two; find alternatives to getting around the course clinging to the underside of your upturned dinghy.

But these guys were very skilled tradesmen indeed, compared to a Swedish girl I watched last night. She quite literally fell at the first hurdle.

She went to China from Sweden, ran a few heats, got to the semi-final of the 100 meter women’s (term used loosely) hurdles, got up off the blocks, ran 10 meters and fell over. She completely failed to get over the hurdle. She had the physique that indicated she could clear a three bedroom house, so it was obviously a mental problem.

In her commentary, Raelene Boyle said how heartbreaking it was to work all that time, put in all that practice, train all those thousands of hours, only to have this happen on the night. She then went on to speculate that the Swedish woman must have come out of the blocks and got to the hurdle surprisingly quickly and not got her foot high enough.

Two things occur here. If you train thousands of hours as a hurdler and still cannot reliably get over the first hurdle, or are able to surprise yourself with your own turn of speed; You are in the wrong game.

Or… Raelene Boyle is still trying to explain how it’s possible to train that much and still balls up a really crucial part of a running race.

Sometimes You Have to Suffer For Your Art

It really takes it out of you, you know? I'm trying to organise a good visual gag, but it has an uncertain outcome.

First; you have to know that I haven't always been Grey. My real first name is Nick.

Second; Emergency Contact is off to see Germaine Greer tonight.

Third; I'm going to put on a nice dress, do my hair and make-up and wait around, probably quite chilly, just so that when she comes home from Germaine, she can looked shocked at me and say,

"Oh, that's the female you Nick."

Dream Housework

An ex-girlfriend of mine was once angry at me for 48 hours, in real life, because of something I did to her in a dream. Emphasis on ‘ex’.

I tend to quickly lose interest in books and films with a lot of dream sequences.

In unkind moments I have said to people, about to launch into another tiresome description of what they dreamt last night, “You are not even interesting when you are awake, why would I want to know about what you think about when you’re unconscious?”

Whenever you see a post in this blog where I claim that “last night I had a dream…” and then follow-up with some dire prediction or mystical plot point, this is a lie. I never have a dream that will make enough sense to write about.

Until now. And I want my money back.

I am quite regularly having, sensible, cogent, loooooong and detailed dreams about… wait for it… housework. Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ!

Housework.

The other night I dreamt, in fume cloaked detail, that I cleaned the kettle and the top of the stove. I didn’t miss out a single bit. I even took the freakin’ winders off the hotplate controls and put them in a nice bowl of boiling water and baking soda.

The galling thing is those chores do need doing at the moment. So I’m going to have to do it all again in real life. Boring. Twice.

But now I’ve shared it with you, it has spread the boredom out a bit. It isn’t quite as deep as before.

If I'd Known You Were Coming I'd Have Baked a Cake

My colleague, Smurf, as you may or may not know, lives in Bondi - right down on the beach. He had a bad but flattering moment on the weekend. It all started when he misheard what the big running race was called.

He looked out his door on Sunday to see thousands of people pounding down the road at him. It's at this moment that he thinks to himself,

"My goodness. It really is the City to Smurf."

Han Solo Couldn't Get the Millenium Falcon Out of This

Note to builders, architects and strata busy-bodies:

The position this photo is taken from, is as far away from the back of the parked car as you can get if someone parks in the space behind. Let's run through this shall we?

See that pillar on the the left there, the one that pokes halfway into the visitors car-space? Yeah well that's perfectly ok, as long as you don't have to deal with a pillar... say... oh I dunno, half way down the space on the other side... oh fancy that.

This angle barely does the car-space justice. The width of the thoroughfare it backs onto is half a car length. This leads to interesting mathematical problems when it comes to inserting an object that is not actually flexible in the middle. It takes talent to design a car-space quite so unwelcoming to the visitor but they didn't stop there. Oh no.

It's not so pronounced in this picture, but you can partially see the effect. Wherever possible, the lights are set to avoid highlighting concrete coloured pillars that are standing in front of concrete coloured walls, in any meaningful way. A Dr Who episode will be shot in this carpark and he will crash the Tardis.

Breakfast of Ex-Champions

Weet Bix last a long time.

I have hit this season's porridge threshold and went back to a box of Bix in the pantry. I couldn't remember how long they'd been there, but they're absolutely fine. I was a little surprised to see an Ashes Cricket Card on the bottom of the box with Shane Warne's face on it though.

The Second Saddest Thing You Can See

The handwritten note taped over the name, Ben, simply says, "Please Take Me."

I like to think that Ben wrote it himself, on the way out to go real estate shopping. He's just moving to more salubrious surrounds... and no; not 'The Farm'.

Case Notes.

For those of you following Fahrenheit 72, there were developments in the case this week. Part 7 has gone in early and sits beneath the Panda piece below. Two inside the space of four days... I'll have this case cracked before you know it.

AGADA.

Pand On The Run

I love 'em. So cute. So Useless.

Panda update. I have documented my indepth study of Pandas elsewhere in this scientific forum. (For a catch up See "I hear they're not even good eatin'") But the crazy little buggers just keep pulling out the good gear.

During the recent earthquakes in China, four of the daft, black and white bastards made a break for it out of their compound.

Guess how long they stayed on the lamb?

ONE FULL DAY.

Three of them came back. Couldn't find any food.

Bears.

No food.