Lunchtime doodle.

It's a self-propelled flying machine for cats. The toast pops up, is immediately buttered, and two slices are continually rotated to keep the cat aloft. Not the most original concept, but I hope to animate this properly over the holidays. The cat is making a raspberry sound with his tongue, because that's what you do when you're in a flying machine.

Oh dear. Look at what they've done to Moonee Pond's station. How terrible.

A knock at the door.

Tiles roll:

"It's Roxon and Kevin
Yes Roxon and Kevin
One has six soundbites, the other has seven
Their parliamentary rights
mean they can have free flights
It's Roxon, it's Roxon and Kevin-in-in-in-in!

Before their term is done
Their plan will be declared
In The Age and Herald Sun:
They'll take over health care.

They're Roxon and Kevin
Yes Roxon and Kevin
Their electoral campaign
Is easy to explain:
Instead of house debates
They'll overthrow the states

They're Roxon, they're Roxon and Kevin-in-in-in-in!
"

Two white mice sit in a laboratory cage.
"What are we doing tonight, Kevin?" asks one.
"Same thing we do every night," replies the other, "try to take over senior hospital administration!"


------------------

A man walks into a video shop.
He's cold and stands near the heater. He's obviously not looking to buy anything, just keep warm.

Store owner: Nasty night out there?
Man: Yeah, yeah. Freezing. Yeah. Wouldn't want to be stuck out there. Oh, a lot of, I think a lot of low air pressure, you know, came down from Abernethy or somewhere like that, and it's just...
Store owner: Is that right? Now, what can I interest you in?
Man: Oh. Yeah. Right. Ok. I'd like some hardcore policy positions, please.
Store owner: Here you are. Set in a Northern Territory prison. 25 quid.
Man: Did you, did you have anything in a town hall? You know, where everyone votes for the charismatic young Labor fellow and then...
Store owner: No... got one with hospitals.
Man: What kind of hospitals though, you know...
Store owner: The kind with big waiting lists!
Man: What do they do though? Non-emergency procedures? That's the kind of thing I'd want, really. You know, a lot of hospital paperwork. And that...
Store owner: That's very specific.
Man: Yeah well, you know, just keep looking and we'll find something. Can you turn the popularity polls up?
Store owner: (holds up video with "Hospital Administration" printed on the front) Hospital administration. 4 billion quid.
Man: (desperate to waste time and not get kicked back outside into the cold) Sorry, I meant to say senior hospital administration. That's the only thing I'm actually interested in...
(Store owner lifts his fingers from the front of the video to reveal that the video is actually called "Senior Hospital Administration")
Man: Could we watch it together? You know, maybe we could get a couple of committees or something, and...
Store owner: (points to door) Out!

Less of an ice-breaker than the personification of global warming.

That second stripe there. It is actually a lovely shade of green.

Theory of the week

It's been happening for years. Everyone's used to it now. They're huge, but they're invisible. The beasts lumber down the streets like polar bears. Some are ravenous and eat hundreds of people. Often people notice if the animals have eaten someone in uniform. Many humans desire to be subsumed by these monsters, and make themselves deliberately appetising to do so. Some people work for years to make themselves delicious for a particular beast. Often we're congratulated on being eaten by one of these animals. We're all subsumed, eventually. The beasts are called Job Titles.

Theory of the day:

Eyebrow hairs are actually the brain expelling old memories through the forehead.

If you shave off your eyebrows, all the new memories have to be put into making new hairs.

That's why I can't remember the whole of April.

Wondering vaguely....

why people explode beached whales into bits, instead of eating them. If anything is ethically unproblematic, it's eating an animal that committed suicide.

It would save a lot of cows, anyway. Odd that we'll torture and kill a bunch of other animals for food, but won't eat a beached whale.

----------------
Now playing: Marc-Anthony Macon - Wild Western Tales of the Crackshot Christ
via FoxyTunes

Pet review: the human body.

Useless. Don't bother getting one.

Sure, they look cute, but you have to take them with you everywhere, they for live about 80 years (needing constant care for all that time), and once it goes through puberty it'll constantly nag you about getting another one for company.

You feed them, walk them and play with them, and how do they reward you? Syphilis.

Bodies are also uneconomical. You always have less than you think - female bodies in particular.

They're easy to obtain but hard to get rid of: dump a body beside a highway and drive away, and see how far you get.

Instructions are contradictory: doctors, religions and instinct will all tell you different things about how to treat it. The RSPCA isn't interested.

Plus, they need to be symbiotic with about 12 other species to work properly.

Bodies: worst birthday present ever.

Yoghurt ad: "Find it on supermarket shelves, not your thighs."

Pondering the strange social life of the ad executive who often wakes up to find yoghurt on his thighs.

Wondering vaguely why it's still called "the news" if it's reported entire hours after I hear about it.

Vaguely wondering...

how so many hundreds of people over so many years can have the same unoriginal thought.

Perhaps it is the same twitch I have to say "and also with you" after someone wishes me peace.
Perhaps I missed a cultural meme somewhere.

But on average, 3 people in cars have the urge to remind me that I'm a dyke (or freak, that's almost as common), every day.
My record is 9, for a 5km walk.

I once went to programming class in my pyjamas. What it was doing in my pyjamas I don't know.

Teaching properly law to the cat, temperance to the hair, some new swear words to the Connex website, and patience to myself.

I receive many liberal-points for being a red green rainbow pinko commie feminazi. (Liberal points are what you receive when you do something PC, and can be used to offset non-PC behaviours.) Some of these I spend on buying non-organic food and wasting electricity. But I earn so many points that I can afford a very valuable item: the ability to be racist against people. I enjoy my ability to be racist. Last week I was racist against games programmers. This week I think I'll be racist against schoolchildren. (For one, they have music class way too early in the morning.)

For Kissability.

The Daily Eyebrow - I probably should have recorded yesterday's... edition

As compensation, effing cats.

The Daily Eyebrow - silly edition

Things I can't afford this week with my negative $900.

Since I won't be economically stimulated like the rest of the country, and Centrelink have kindly denied me Youth Allowance for my own protection, I won't be able to afford:

• Easter eggs
• Tickets to see my favourite band next week
• Any tickets to the Comedy Festival
• Admission to see the new penguins at Melbourne Aquarium
• Cat food
• New lenses for my glasses
• Headphones, as mine have broken
• Prescription medicine
• Presents for Mothers' Day
• Computer stuff to help me in my degree (including: graphics and toolkit programs, games for research, a videocard for the games, a motherboard for the videocard, and a new case to fit it all in)

And the thing that stings the most:

• Flowers and money for romance.

Oh! And I almost forgot: food and rent. Hmmmm.

The Daily Eyebrow - reprise

Sometimes I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars.

As heard on Radio National:

"You can't learn the piano by going to a concert and watching other people play - you have to play the piano.
You can't be a marathon runner by sitting on the couch and watching DVDs of marathons - you have to play the piano."

The Daily Eyebrow - memorandum

Welcome to the upper part of my head, containing both nonsense and the burn of the sun.

The Society for the Preservation of the Status Quo

We've all been looking forward to it, and now their slogans have finally been released for this year's campaigns.

• Yay capitalism! Everything's dandy.
• Unrealistic beauty standards save me money on food!
• I never liked trees much anyway.
• Hooray for the free market! It's also free entertainment!
• All the lumberjacks I know are ok.
• Three cheers for industrial farming practices! Plants and animals are lovely!
• Huzzah for oil! Running cars on distilled dinosaurs is pretty cool.
• Why not refrain from writing a letter to your local parliamentarian: they're pretty busy.
• Woo heterosexuality! We can marry already!
• Hooray stuff! It's quite good, stuff.
• It's hard to change society, and Dr Who is on the telly tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
  

The Daily Eyebrow

I imagine this is going to become somewhat of a regular feature, since I shaved off my eyebrows.

You probably shouldn't shave off your eyebrows.

For one, you'll cut your facial scar, not feel it, and bleed everywhere. It will be embarrassing in a social way.

My body is totally coded queer for Judith Butler.

Why this joke is funny:

First published in 1990, Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble explores the constructed nature of... oh never mind.

It's a funny joke, though.

Troubleshooting sandwiches

The banana and peanut butter sandwich is a hairy beast that must be tamed with the judicious application of tempered heat. Tip of the day: When disaster strikes, have ice-cream instead.

Dilemma: After toasting, the bread is soggy or floppy.
Problem: Heat is not circulating underneath the bread during the grilling process.
Solution: Toast the bread before assembling the sandwich, or place the sandwich on a raised wire rack in the grill to allow air to circulate underneath.

Dilemma: While toasting, the top layer becomes burnt, while the rest of the sandwich stays cold.
Problem: The grill is too hot, so cooks things too quickly.
Solution: If you can, place the sandwich on a lower shelf. Otherwise, put the sandwich in the oven for 5 minutes to warm up, before finishing it under the grill.

Dilemma: The top layer of banana turns to mush.
Problem: The banana is overripe, or the sandwich has been cooked too long under a low heat.
Solution: Cook the sandwich at a higher temperature for a shorter amount of time, and only use just-rip bananas.

Dilemma: The top layer of banana is all dry and chewy.
Problem: You have used Lady-finger bananas as the top layer, or the Cavendish bananas are under-ripe.
Solutions: Wait a day for the bananas to ripen before making the sandwich

Dilemma: After cooking, everything falls apart.
Problem: Too many ingredients on the sandwich, or not enough peanut butter.
Solutions: Use less ingredients, or more peanut butter.

Recipe: Peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

a.k.a: my dinner for the past 5 days.

Ingredients

1 slice of bread, toasted.
2 bananas (make sure one of them is cavendish)
half a jar of peanut butter.

Method

1. Preheat the grill to its highest setting.
2. Spread the toast with a thick layer of peanut butter.
3. cut one of the bananas into thick round slices, and arrange in a flat layer on the peanut butter.
4. Spread another layer of peanut butter. Arrange any slices that didn't fit on the first layer.
5. Repeat step 3, using the cavendish banana.
4. Spread a super-thick layer of peanut butter on top.
5. Place under the grill for about 2 minutes, or until the peanut butter is brown and bubbly.
6. Cut the sandwich into slices, as the bread will be impossible to pick up in one piece.

Cooking the sandwich makes the top layer of banana crunchy with melty bits, while keeping the layers underneath nicely warm and gooey. Don't use lady-finger bananas as the top layer, as they just dry out and become chewy banana chips.

I must experiement with a layer of jam or chocolate spread under the first layer of peanut butter one day.

Why I admire Daleks.

It's because they're big tin chickens.

I'm a fan of chickens, because they they have no inclination for introspection. Existential thought doesn't crease their feathery foreheads; they are never paralysed by doubt. This is because the answer to any question of identity is "I'm a chicken." So, everything they do is chicken by default. They can't be anything but confident in their own ability, blind to any other option but following their programming.

It's for this reason chickens are the superior beings. They might lack the plasticity of humanity, but their expertise in being chickens more than compensates. While humans mull around being uncertain of themselves and the world (and themselves in the world) chickens perform their roles perfectly, without hesitation. Chickens' identity, actions, and perception of themselves are one and the same thing. They are as confident of themselves as Daleks are of their universal superiority.

The Daleks are basically chickens, with complex cognitive ability. The Daleks' arrogance is an extension of chickens' intrinsic certainty. Like chickens, Daleks have no reason to empathise with other creatures, as everything they need to know is programmed in their instinct. Like chickens, there is no difference between what a Dalek does, and is.

In the new series of Dr Who, the only defeat of the Daleks is achieved when an individual Dalek is changed in some immutable way.