Sneaker.

My dad's birthday is tomorrow (he is turning very very old) and I haven't bought him anything and also I just realised I've got a shift on that night, so I thought I would make him a nice cake. And because I have a keen interest in cake architecture, I decided to build him a Concept Cake.

Being the remarkable little woman that I am, it didn't take long to come up with a brilliant cake idea. Now, my dad has been wearing the same type of shoe for about three hundred years: the Dunlop KT-26. (KT is short for "kinetic"; 26 is the number of miles in a marathon. Yup.)



I actually don't remember my dad ever wearing any other kind of sports shoe ever. He says they're comfy, cheap and dependable, so why switch? If they keep making them, he'll keep buying them.
So, of course, I thought it would be a buh-rilliant idea to model my cake on this classic piece of contemporary footwear. Luckily dad was at work wearing work shoes, so I managed to get a hold of one of his KTs and make some sketches.

I decided on a blueberry buttercake, with icing made from white chocolate, blueberries and vanilla. Sound nice? Yes, yes it does. I rounded up the ingredients - had a minor crisis when I discovered we had NO EGGS!



- but dealt with it in a calm and rational manner. And then I baked the cake, and I iced it, and, well, here it is:

RUN - DON'T WALK - FROM THE BLOB!

I know, it doesn't look that great on its own, I know. But I figured out, all you need to do is put a real shoe beside it and look! It blends right in.



Fine. I created a gastronomic abomination. But it's the thought that counts, isn't it?
Happy birthday, Dad!

Worth.

E-books, yo.

So I assumed that electronic books would be far cheaper to produce because they aren't printed on paper, thus removing the cost of materials. But it seems that I was exaggerating the value of materials, because everywhere I look, I'm told that e-books cost practically as much as print editions. The budget-eaters are development, design, editing, marketing.
I merely perceived digital content as being cheaper... or being worth less... than print content.

I mean, everyone thinks that, don't they? And why? Because digital content, from the get-go, has been provided free or cheap. So people expect it to continue being free or cheap.

A couple years ago I wrote a short essay about the future of newspapers. Once-traditional newspapers have to run their own news free online these days, because nobody is willing to pay for a subscription to online news. If they're asked to pay, they click away. There are plenty of other free sources of news.

It's the same deal everywhere. Once music became accessible online, it started majorly losing value. People felt there was nothing much wrong with downloading free songs. "It's not stealing if you can't hold it in your hand" seemed to be the idea.

Publishers are terrified that books will go the same way.

Amazon, I believe, was selling its e-books for the Kindle at a standard price of $US9.99. Maybe half, maybe a third of their print price. Publishers accepted it, but they did not like it. If their books were all available that cheap, then people would expect them to stay that cheap. And that's what it's about - not actual value, but perceived value. If you can get something for nothing, you're not likely to co-operate when someone starts asking you to pay. Doesn't matter how excellent and useful that thing is. It was free, dammit, and it should stay free!

(Of course on the other hand, if you perceive something as being valuable, and someone starts offering it for cheap, you're gonna be all "Uhh... dodgy.")

Thoughts? Do you think digital content is worth less than physical-world content?

(NB: If you want to read a credible source, here is The New Yorker.)

Pledge.

Today I am making a promise.

Plenty of bloggers have used their blogs to make a promise. To declare a goal. They write as they work towards those goals, chronicling each step both forward and back, and sharing the understandings they reach.

Julie Powell (subject of the movie Julie and Julia), blogged constantly for one year, to record her efforts to cook every recipe in Julia Child's classic French cookbook.

Aussie-born highlander Shauna Reid blogged as she struggled to overcome her crippling obesity. It took her six years, but she succeeded in losing 80 kilograms, fully half of her body weight.

This kind of blog - the kind that takes the form of a personal journal - is often perceived as an exercise in public self-pleasuring (or self-abuse, as the case may be). That's because, ordinarily, a journal is a private thing. It is used to note down the thoughts and feelings of its author: an outlet for the insides. And even though journals are equated with forbidden knowledge and juicy secrets, most of them are deathly dull to read. That's because they're not written to be read. They're not written to record. They are written only to unload some of the thoughts that weigh too heavily on the mind.

A blog journal, on the other hand, is unmistakably public. But who would want to read the online mental purgings of some-nobody-or-other? It would be nothing but broadcast wankery. Rambling, whining and self-obsession aren't usually audience drawcards (okay, I'm aware of how many exceptions there are to this rule. I said usually).

But look. Bloggers who write this way are doing it wrong. Every blog - even a personal blog - should harness the power of its readership. When I say "power", I'm not talking about the power to declare your views or denounce your enemies. I mean the power of community. Shared expression, expanded awareness. A big readership can make you feel popular, sure; but a truly valuable readership will give you strength and support.

When Shauna Reid was working to lose all the fat that made her feel so weak, the readers of her blog were watching. They followed her story, and she wrote for them. You know how this works - her successes were inspiring; her setbacks elicited sympathy; her weight was a struggle people could identify with. She tried and reviewed weight-loss strategies, talked about good eating, good fitness policies and good health; And, of course, she wrote (still writes) wonderfully.
The point is that she blogged for her readers. Shauna's goal was reinforced by the support of her readers. When her determination faltered, they provided reserves. When an effort failed or pushed her backward, and it seemed too hard to find another new approach, there was a reason to keep searching.

Anyhow.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I'm going to get better.
I have been depressed for so long that I'm not sure who I am underneath it. But there's gotta be somebody behind this frown - right? I've been trying to dig her out but it's not bloody working. And I tell myself, there's so much stuff going on. It's difficult. You'll get there.
But I'm not getting anywhere. I've been seeing doctors and taking meds and trying to be positive and after nearly a year of it, I'm as lost as I ever was.

So: this is it. I have to make a change. It's hard to be sure where I am on the path, but I've got to get to Happy. And screw everything I said about oversharing. I'm not about to start writing poetry and quoting deep dark song lyrics, but I need to be honest.

I will get out of this depression.
So I will write, as proof that I am trying.
But I need you to read - so that I continue to write.

Sinking.

I think I spent the first couple of days assuming it would only last a couple of days. But as those days dropped away and more and more fell after them, I realised what was really happening.

She'd left me.

I'd felt sad, yes, I had been sad to be away from her. I didn't have the luxury of wallowing because there was work, and there were essays to be written, commitments to be kept. I suppose I could have forfeited them but I just didn't understand yet.

But now the essays are done; the weekend's cinema traffic has passed. And with relief from my workload, it really has sunk in.

Of course this is all old news. Almost everyone else who knows, thinks she broke up with me two weeks ago.

Well, no, actually.

She told her friends she had. But it took her another week to tell me. Always the last to know. I know, right? I am drowning in cliches. I'm sorry.

It's idiotic of me to be broadcasting all of this. I promised myself I wouldn't overshare, yet this is what? The fourth, now, in the Rejecto-Miriam Chronicles of 2010? It doesn't help that I suspect my meds have stopped working and my social timidity seems to have intensified to phobic levels. I should just go with it. I could be the next Emily Dickinson. You know, apart from the poetry. I just don't think I could bring myself to inflict more poetry on the world.

I don't know what to do. I've never had to do this before. All I know is that the sun is too bright and the world is too empty, but when I close my eyes she's in my head, and when people reach out to me, my reflex is to draw away and go where I am safe and separate. Words and touch and sentiment are only stings and burns. But, goddamn it, silence is ice.

Pea.

CANNOT SLEEP

Nobody.

This blog looks so goddamned lame.
I get like one comment per eight posts, or something...
To anyone who actually visits this URL, I swear, the Facebook version is where everyone responds. I'm not just writing to imaginary nobodies.

Okay, I kinda am. But hey, in Pathetic Fantasy World, everyone is better looking and knows how to spell.

In other news, I have an assignment due tomorrow, for which I have not selected a topic. My lecturer expects 1,500 words of a cogent and informative nature. But all I want to do is curl up in a gently vibrating shit-heap of sobs. Maybe I could just do that. I'm sure everyone would understand.

I want to go home.

PS. Please don't respond. This is called self-indulgent wallowing. It would be very nice if you could pretend you didn't notice.

Day.

Drank my coffee, checked my ferrets, bleached my shirts, took my drugs.
Point of interest: Miriam is single today.
Good morning.

Bailey.

I speak to far too many people who are ignorant in the ways of Bill Bailey.
This is a travesty of culture and I cannot abide it. Baileology only requires a short period of study, the core texts being Cosmic Jam (1995), Bewilderness (2001), Part Troll (2004) and Tinselworm (2008). They are also available together in The Inevitable Boxset of 2009.
Key points to note:

• He has a beard named Lionel.
  
• He is an honorary member of the Society of Crematorium Organists.
  
• He did all his own piano stuntwork for that episode of Black Books.
  
• He is taller, thinner and more bendy than you might expect.

So, for those of you who know it not, here is a magnificent love song you are sure to enjoy.

Sacrifice.

Why do you think Jesus was divine?

I'm really asking. I'd like to hear responses. It's the question at the very heart of Christianity: Jesus, as the embodiment of God on earth, swept clean the tablets and singlehandedly carved out a new faith. If he was divine, then Christianity is the true faith. If Jesus was only human, then Christianity is a (mostly) terrific set of ideals based on some really creative historical documentation.

(This gets a bit complicated, so you might want to pass if you're feeling twitchy today.)

Firstly, I question the logic surrounding Jesus as God. If Jesus was genuinely God on earth, then he was all-loving, all-knowing, infinite. He'd have been a miracle-worker; the sweetest, loveliest fellow around. And he'd have known his own future, from birth to painful death. In fact, God's infinite nature is supposed to render past and future meaningless, because he sees every moment now.
Without going into the implications of experiencing the same moment for all eternity (because I'm fixating a little on the driving of the nails), it is logically inconceivable that Jesus could have the properties of an infinite being, bound within a human (therefore limited) body.

Because apparently, Jesus wasn't just divine. He had two natures: he was God, but possessed a complete human identity also. As a human, he would be limited by his body, by the physical laws, by mortality. And scripture appears to show elements of both natures: he aged, he bled, he hungered, he was subject to emotion. Yet his biographies are peppered with all these little miracles. The walking-on-water incident, for one. That part was God, I guess.
But far more sordid was the ressurrection. Jesus was tortured to death in a barbaric, humiliating fashion and, like a human, he suffered and died. And then, like someone decidedly not human, he returned.
But note: he still bore the physical scars of his torture. His human body had endured those days of starvation and blood loss, and it was that human body - not just the divine entity within it - that had been ressurrected. And according to the Christian faith, Jesus will return again. Now, I'm not going to make any Zombie Jesus jokes. But in all seriousness, what will return again? If the Christ is a dual being, both human and God, then a return by God only could not be called the second coming of Jesus. But a return by the complete entity of the Christ would imply the presence of the human Jesus. The limited, physical, extremely dead Jesus. (Or would any human do? Because that doesn't seem right, somehow.)

...so, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Here's the background of this theory: In BC times, the Jews had a tradition of animal sacrifice. To absolve their sins, they would take a healthy animal (this was specified: it had to be one of value, not a lame token) and slaughter it in the name of God.
The death of Jesus was, then, a deliberate act by God to pardon the sins of humanity. It represented not martyrdom, but human sacrifice. And that means, regardless of his divine and infinite nature, Jesus died as a man.

Why make death the price of absolution? And why - if God is so insistent on humanity having free will - would he choreograph the entirety of Jesus's life and death?

The story of Jesus's death means nothing to me. I'm not into torture porn, and in any case I don't think anyone believes it is death that defines us. It is life, and how we live it, the choices we make, the things we strive for and sometimes achieve. And the story of Jesus's life is worth everything. I prefer to see it as a historical document, with supernatural elements added by its propagandist authors. Though the specifics of Bible morality are flawed, Jesus has provided us with a philosophy for finding our own morality. He was not prescriptive - "thou shalt" and the like - but demonstrated goodness by performing it and allowing us to recognise it.

My view is this.
Jesus being God makes Jesus a cipher: nothing but the shadow-flesh of something that cannot truly be contained.
Jesus being human makes Jesus a great man.

_____

So my question stands. If you are Christian, I beg for your considered response. Why do you believe Jesus was divine?

Chomp.

Okay, so a couple of days ago I wrote about simple food, but I left something out: you! (Aww.)
Really, though. What simple foods do you like to eat? You know, little snacks. Quick dinners. Awesome amazing crazy combinations. Stuff you can slap together yourself, not packaged museli bars or cuppa soup.

Aaaand go.

1. Peanut butter, banana and honey on toast; 2. tomato cheese avocado sandwich; 2. melty ham and pineapple muffins.

Terrence.

Today's spider update is brought to you by Clean Miriam in a Hair Towel.

Terrence

I was just showering when I happened to notice a huntsman the size of your jaw, standing on the ceiling above the shower recess. I guess if I was anybody other than me, I'd have freaked and leapt out of the shower and killed it with deodorant. But I'm me, so I just stared at it stupidly for a bit, until it (by now named Terrence in my head) started making motions to shuffle away.

Except he didn't. Terrence KAMIKAZE DROPPED from the ceiling down to about 20 centimetres from my head, then halted abruptly. I'm NOT afraid of spiders, but if you got spider-bombed while you were naked, you'd have shrieked a little bit too.

Terrence flailed wildly in midair. Okay, so he wasn't floating, he was on a silk line. He scrabbled at it and eventually began climbing back up. He reached the ceiling but couldn't seem to get a grip on it. Eight little legs, desperately kicking out, trying to hold firm. Poor Terrence... I'd steamed up the ceiling and he couldn't walk on it. It was like watching someone slip and fall down on a wet floor... except upside down falling up... with silk...

Poor Terrence.

Plaintalkin'.

I have this awesome thought.
You know how sometimes you're really stoned and you have this amazing thought that you MUST write down before you forget it, you MUST record it to share with the world but your hands are too big and the pen is so very, very small...

Well, this isn't that, but if you nodded just now, haha.

Anyhow.
I investigated a cooking site recommended to me by Wadey "Wi-Wi" Fu, and that cooking site recommended another cooking site, which I also investigated, and it was this: Great Depression Cooking with Clara.
Ninety-four-year-old Clara Cannucciari is sharing stories and recipes for cake-takingly thrifty meals. On YouTube.



The terrible food shortages during the Depression meant Clara's family really had to stretch their rations. Clara sings the praises of pasta and potatoes, but also suggests some unorthodox sources of nutrition: dandelion salad, for instance. She includes extra authentic details, like turning off the stove to save gas and letting boiled water do the cooking. Not a speck of wastage in Clara's kitchen.

The thing that really got me was the flat-out plainness of it all. In every video I watched, she'd say of the key ingredient: "It's cheap, and it tastes good. And it's good for you." Plain talking. And plain, plain food. Peas. Eggs. Pasta, pasta, pasta.
I'd have a moment of scepticism - tastes good, seriously? - and then I'd think, hang on. Why shouldn't it taste good? There's nothing wrong with simple food. There's something lovely about eating a single ingredient and tasting it solo. We eat nearly everything in complex cocktails of exotic ingredients and flavour enhancers. You don't really know what you're eating unless you check the fine print. A bottle of raspberry cordial labelled "90% JUICE" isn't lying... but there still ain't no raspberries in there. That's dyed apple juice you're drinking. Why not just drink apple juice?

So my thought I mentioned up above, it's this.
Plain food. Food with, like, one or two ingredients. You don't like cooking? Why? 'Cause it takes time and effort. Why? 'Cause you think a recipe has to involve five different spices and two specific fresh ingredients you haven't got and you'd have to go buy. So you ring for pizza. So you microwave a Lite'n'Easy.
Even those 4 Ingredients books aren't on this track. Yeah, the recipes are simple, but they all call for "store-bought pastry cases" and "jar of white sauce" and "custard filling". They're super time-savers, but unless you only shop at organic boutique rich-person shops, they're still going to be crammed with preservatives and "flavour".

There's so many reasons why plain food is good.

• It takes little time;
• It takes little effort;
• You know exactly what you're eating;
• Unprocessed foods are more nutritious;
• Your body has an easier time digesting unadorned vegetables;
• It won't empty your pantry fast;
• It's far cheaper than "convenience" meals;
• ...and when you do eat something "rich", you'll actually notice.

By the standards of times past, our food is rich beyond belief. We've shoved flavour up its arse. We are so used to everything tasting SWEET and SALTY and SPICY and TANGY and SOUR, that we don't even notice how intense it all is.
To a chimp, a banana is sweet as candy. To us, a banana is something that requires maple syrup and hot chocolate fudge sauce to be really SCRUMPTIOUS.

That's if we eat real bananas at all.
Some of us only like the Party Mix version.

Watchers.

I know what you think. "I have a blog!" means "I document every half-inch of my life in a public journal decorated in bright, eye-maiming colours and graphics!" and "I don't know HTML!"

Which... yeah. But blogs weren't always this way.

The first blogs, apparently, were little content filters for the internet. Their authors knew code, and knew their way around the web. They would trawl for good websites, and post up links to these on their (self-coded) blogs. So, a news blog author would scan news sites and link to news of note, usually with a strip of their own commentary to wrap up the package. Witty, ironic commentary. And there you have it - the web, pre-surfed for your convenience; along with an opinion on the matter, in case you can't think of one yourself.

It isn't like this type of blog is formal. I mean, it's still self-published opinion writing, and nobody likes to read a dry, academic-style opinion piece. Humour and colloquialism are important. But so is intelligence, and the ability to question and criticise.
The thing that's cool about these blogs is, they take content from outside sources and they examine them for strength and quality. Poor news reporting? You won't get away with it. Political situations? Here's an editorial the paper won't publish. Bias is expected - no - counted on. Blog writers answer to no one (except, hopefully, their reader-commenters) so they can challenge anything anyone presents as fact.
"Question everything" would be a great rule to blog by.

I'm not saying journal-style blogging can't be valid. It's probably unwise to publish too much personal info on the net (sorry if I'm guilty of that), and quite honestly I wonder why some people bother writing one-dimensional this-was-my-day posts with no regard for reflection, creativity or punctuation. Really, if you have no interest in your audience or the agonies they suffer tRyIn 2 rEaD uR sHiT, maybe you should relocate your journal to a little notebook with a lock.

But, personal blogging can be good. It can illustrate your perspective on life and experience; it can get you in the practice of describing and analysing your world. Or, if you've got talent, it can just be flat-out awesome fun to read.

I still like the "question everything" concept. I hope I do that here. I hope I'll do more of it. There's so much damned info coming at me every day, sometimes it's just easiest to accept and believe. But asking questions is so important. Knowing better... it's so important.

(Especially when it comes to killing spiders.)

Figurehead.

Recently, Joy FM presenter Doug Pollard, aka the Rainbow Reporter, took a stand against the gay monarchy.
(Exhibit One and Exhibit Two.)
He complained that drag is constantly seen as the figurehead for "gay culture", even though it doesn't represent contemporary gay identity at all. Doug sees drag as "a relic of the days when we had to always be hidden, or in disguise" - days long gone, by his estimation. Shouldn't pride mean being ourselves, rather than hiding behind the peacock feathers which, yes, are exciting, but no, don't represent us accurately, and to be blunt, make some of the more conservative spectators a little queasy?

Men in sequined bikinis are pretty much a prerequisite on every pride float. But cross-dressers actually represent a very small minority of gay men. I still have yet to meet a gay guy that wears ladies' things for performance or pleasure, and I assure you, I've met a fair few gay guys by this point. You might not believe me, but actually, the majority of homosexual males are oversized, bulging he-men who chug down full bottles of bourbon and rip the heads off feral cats.
(Possibly a complete fabrication.)
Still though. Gay guys. Just like other guys, except that they just like other guys. Most do not wear sequins, ever.

And personally? Drag queens shit me. Look, I have no problem with transpeople or transvestitism -

(For the uninitiated, transpeople are those who don't identify as a member of the sex they were born into. Transvestitism is a separate thing, basically amounting to a fetish for the clothing of the opposite sex. And if it gets you off, that's your business. Go have fun)

- but drag queens are something different. Drag is performance. Men who dress in showy women's gowns on stage are performing a caricature of feminine identity. They have exaggerated rolling hips, stalking heels, great curving scimitar lashes. It's a parody of women, and I think it's hideous. There's a strange mixture of mockery and admiration in drag performance, but I think it's time to quit with the mockery. If you admire women, then represent them for real. Sure, keep the theatrics if you must, but quit with the superficiality, the bitchiness, the perpetuation of one painful female stereotype.
So boys? Wipe that glitter lipstick off your smirking face. More femme than a real female? Don't give me that crap. Women don't look like that. Women don't act like that.

"But wait!" you cry. "Who shall we put on the pride floats?"
Well, it's not gonna be as sparkly, but here's what would be on the Miriam Pride Float:

People in love. Holding hands, sharing dessert. Kissing, hugging, dancing. Because that's what being gay is all about. It's about love. And love doesn't need sequins to sparkle.

...and if you absolutely must dress up in ladies' things and prance about on stage, here are a few drag queen characters I might enjoy.

- Drag Princess - Caffeinated Power Mum - 

- Anchorwoman - Beloved Primary Teacher -

Exterminate.

There are a lot of insects and bugs at my house. Some are peaceable little tykes. Others are not. A short list of bugs I have encountered here in the past six months:

• Daddy-long-legses in practically every corner because we don't really dust our house
  
  
• Jumping spiders on the back porch
  
  
• Mrs Red-Back making house in the ferret cage
  
  
  
  
• Large white-tail spider chilling in the bathroom one night
  

• Huntsman spiders - many - hanging out on the ceiling, loitering on the windows of my parked car
  
  
• Ants going marching... as they do
  
  
• Cockroaches standing nonchalantly in various areas of the kitchen (best case: floor; worst case: kitchen counter)
  
  
• Your regular summer-type flies, which always fly laps around the lounge light (even when it's not on) in square formation. It's like that light has an invisible set of traffic signs or something.
  
  
  
  
• Mysterious grubs camping out in the ferrets' food bowl
  
  
• Menacing and unbelievably dangerous winged dust monsters of death (i.e. moths) curling up to sleep in folds of the curtains.

I'm not afraid of bugs, but I will acknowledge that two of the creepies on this list have been known to cause death, and others can be illness-causing to various degrees. In consequence, a good number of the above creepies have been put to death by me.

Some of my methods have copped criticism, but I believe they are sound. I have substantial experience in the field of bug slaying. I know my prey. In fact, I think I have knowledge to share with the world.

So, for your future use, here is my fact sheet about the various methods of bug slaughter.

VARIOUS METHODS OF
BUG SLAUGHTER
A handy guide for the aspirant murderer

1. Swatting

Viable targets: flying creepies
Your target has to be airborne, and it has to be big enough for you to really smack it with your flyswat. Mosquitoes will just get blown away by the swooshing air. But there's nothing more satisfying than whipping that bloody zitzing fly and knocking both its wings off with one neat little *click* as it connects with the flyswat.

2. The Boot Smash
Viable targets: ground crawlers
This is Christine's preferred method, but I have to say, it has its faults. There's the obvious problem of squelchy insect gizzards afterward, but that's only if you actually kill the thing. The grips on your shoes leave a lot of generous spaces for bugs to take shelter while you're trying to murder them. Small bugs can survive the boot smash completely unscathed.
And don't try this one on the mighty cockroach. Regardless of its size, a cockroach can outlive the hardiest of boots, because the boot smash works on one simple principle: death by flattening. And I don't know if you've noticed, but cockroaches aren't actually three-dimensional. If you look at them from the side, you will see that they have no height at all. So trying to make them flat: not going to work.



3. Suffocation by paper towel
Viable targets: anything that hangs out on walls
A variation on the boot smash, again relying on the smoosh factor, but solves the problem of mess by mopping it up with the murder weapon! Of course, this one requires you to get as close as one paper thickness away from the victim. And depending on the bug's own method of attack, this could be a bit dangerous. Otherwise - just icky.

4. Drowning
Viable targets: sugar scavengers that come to feast on your dirty dishes
This is one for the borderline sadists out there. It's a method that invites spectation. Ants in your coffee mug? Just walk it to the sink and fill it with hot water. Watch the ants struggle at the water's surface, until heat and exhaustion get the better of them, and their flailing slows and dies.
This can be enjoyable to watch, but like watching gladiators battle exotic beasts, it can be dreadfully disappointing when the ants manage to reach the surface, scuttle to safety, and live on.

5. Exposure to lethal substances
Viable targets: pretty much anything
So, bug spray. Honestly, it's a drag. You spray madly as the creature scurries away, hoping that its refuge will be its gravesite. The stuff can take ages to take effect. That's not really humane, now, is it? I mean, for those sadists, again, it can be a laugh to trap the creepie and watch its life fade away slowly, but for me - not good enough.
When I found the red-back in the ferret cage, Dad whipped out the spray and emptied the can on the thing. It started running and completely did not die, so Dad crushed it with a shoe before it could scuttle out of sight.
When I found a gigantic white-tail on the bathroom wall, I ran to get the bug spray, but it was all used up from the red-back incident. So I grabbed a spray-bottle of Oomph Degreaser instead, and crossed my fingers. One good squirt, and the spider's legs just curled inward 'til the spider was pointing at itself from eight directions at once. Then it went stiff. And that was it.



Again I mention the problem of cockroaches. Their broad, flat shells are like tiny brown chemical hazard suits. Nothing gets through. Turpentine, bleach, Mortein, uranium. Forget it.

6. Straight-up decapitation
Viable targets: COCKROACHES
So here's what I do.
See a cockroach? Walk calmly to the kitchen drawer and pull out a nice sharp flat-bladed knife. Approach cockroach carefully, to avoid cockroach getting into runaway mode. Position blade of knife above the point of connection between head and body of cockroach.
Slice.
In my opinion, they should develop and market tiny guillotines for the dispatch of the pestilent cockroach. Try bouncing back from that one, bitch!

Press.

And for my next trick, I'm going to write a very dry research essay about books and their changing value as they age after publication.
Other people's research essays always sound incredibly boring, I know. At least *I* think it's an interesting topic. This is the basic idea:

It's a common perception that books are for the ages; that print makes the word immortal. Of course that's not quite true. But what kind of life - eternal or otherwise - does a book have after publication?
Publishers don't really know what happens to their books. "Sold" is all they want to hear. But some books last decades. Some have lasted centuries. Some are now worth a bajillion times more than they were sold for.
Example. Virginia Woolf - Orlando. How much would you pay for a Penguin Classic paperback? An old copy from the op shop? How much would you pay (if you were some crazy rich bookophile) for a first edition in hardcover?

Content matters. So does format. Paperbacks aren't great for long-term collecting. Crack that spine just once, and your shelf is besmirched, baby. And what about non-fiction? Humanity corrects itself as it goes along. A history book might stay handy, but a science book? Go through a book just ten years old and you'll run out of ink trying to cross out the obsolete content.

And then there's e-books. A book on file? A text download? You mean... you want us to pay for something that... basically... doesn't exist? There's been excited industry chatter about e-books for years, but despite the fact that practically all of us buy our music online now, and upload all our movies to hard-drive so we don't have to faff around with DVDs, we just don't seem to be interested in digital format books. We won't pay for them. Somehow all the value gets sucked out of a book if it's not pressed on paper anymore.

Why? Why must it be paper? Or is it ink that we want? I want to know.
So, I'm running a survey as part of my research and I would love-love-LOVE you to fill it in for me. Just ten widdle questions. Click here. I love you. I love you.

Dawn.

So despite the best efforts of the Victorian government, I saved absolutely no daylight this year.

The morning that daylight savings got switched off (April 4th), I was unaware of the time change until my girlfriend noticed by chance that her computer had gone back in time. Which was lucky, because otherwise I would have shown up at work an hour early like a loser goose.

You can still reap the benefits of DS even if you're a day late. If you just go to bed at the same time as usual (1am minus daylight savings equals midnight), you'll wake up at some crazy early hour like 8am, thus moving away from the nocturnal lifestyle you have adopted.
However, instead of doing this...

...I pulled an all-nighter...

...for no reason.










I'm on easter break. I have no reason to deprive myself of sleep. And yet up I was, doodling away on my laptop, snacking on other people's easter eggs, and listening to the gentle rhythms of South Road traffic at dawn.

(I maked pretty booksies though - squiz up!)

So yeah, I was totally fine the next morning, totally didn't sleep anyway, had all this book design fun (shut up), zoom zoom, nothing wrong with doing what I feel like, so I stayed up 'til 3am again.

And the next morning (more accurately 1:30pm)...










(Please note the drawings above are the work of Mmselle. Allie Brosh of hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. Go there because she is psychotically awesome.)

...yeah, so the next day, ohmygoodness. Headache, stomach ache, oh hey, forgot to take medication yesterday, everything is so, so lame.

Why did I stay up? Why would I do that? I love sleep. Sleep is my sweetheart. The one I long for; the one I cling to. Sleep, I adore your cottony softness and your loving, enveloping zuzz. I would be with you always, my darling, but the world doesn't understand and won't allow it. Daily they tear us apart with their torturous alarm clocks and 9am workdays. I can't live without you, dearest. I know that now. Come back to me. Only you can swallow me up and take me to the deepest secret places in the ocean of my mind.