In the library where I work we have this dandy shelf where they place new books (that is books that are new to the library even if they happen to be secondhand and falling apart) before they go out onto the open shelves for public borrowing. This shelf exists right next to the tea room. So if you happen to be making a cuppa or heating your lunch in the microwave you can duck around the corner to take a quick look at the ‘new’ books while your tea brews or your cheese melts or whatever. Usually you really only get the time (or have the inclination) to do a title scan sometimes you may be drawn to do a quick flip through a book or what I call a ‘30 second read’.

I have learnt many gems of wisdom from 30 second reads… like the following:

Apparently I have asthma because I burnt to death in a previous life.

Woot.

Guess I can stop feeling pissy about dad blowing dope smoke in my face when I was a baby.

The neighbours have a trampoline in the style of the one in the picture above – you know with the sides that are designed to stop children both falling off the trampoline or being pinched by the springs (remember spring pinches? man they hurt like the devil.)

Yesterday my flat-mates and I all gazed out the kitchen window to the amusing sight of the neighbour’s toddler being confined in this thing… he was kinda pressed up against the mess while his older siblings gallivanted up and down the yard.

He looked a bit like the kelpie puppies they also have caged on the premises… like he wanted to run his prison cup along the bars :p – I can imagine his tales of woe when he gets older, something like “when I was a baby mum and dad would lock me in the trampoline while all the other kids got to play… I’ve had trust issues ever since” *grin*

So I volunteered to be a head-of-hair for the sister of a friend of mine at work :p and they took my unruly locks and created a marie antoinette style hair-do for a hairdresser’s creative style portfolio.

We actually tromped out to that old farmstead near the airport and there was a photographer (also creating a portfolio), an old style floofy dress involved, and another real live model (as opposed to sightseeing volunteer like myself) who was 15 and taller than me o_O.

In any case some basic things I learnt about floofy skirts and big hair that they don’t tell you about in the old romance novels:

• Big hair will get caught on any available tree, bush or vine
• Big hair requires that you have a hair dresser in attendance with comb and hair spray
• Big hair doesn’t really fit in your modern car… neither do floofy skirts (driving? … hmm difficult to impossible)
• Floofy layered tulle skirts are absolutely awesome bug catchers (I was shaking flies, mozzies and the odd garden bug out of my skirts the whole time)
• Floofy toilet doll skirts do not encourage stepping backwards – just go for a complete about turn

Also Beware El Diablo Gato

Welcome to the Autumn (fall) equinox.

Apparently this day should be roughly the point at which the nights start to become longer than the days. The last day of the year that the day light hours are longer than the nights. It’s the beginning of the cold, dead season. Harvests are over and winter is on its way. If I was going to be all spiritual this day would be a time for reflection and contemplation on what is to come.

But I am kinda an autumn creature myself – I feel like the party is just getting started life wise, so instead I’m planning to hit a body combat class this afternoon, then I’m off to celebrate someone’s birthday by splitting a meal with a mate.

Yesterday we planted a garden against the odds (odds being snails and frost lovely frost… better get enough pots to cap everything before bedtime.)

Maybe when its late… I might take some time out to attempt the annual reflection, I never do get to it on Christmas New Year.

Below-B Grade Horror… actually I think this film is well known as z-grade. Famous for attempting to use a real tiger rather the CGI or a claw hand-puppet.

‘Tall Dark & Walks into Walls’ was pretty much on target when he summed this one up as some kinda America teaching tale where the moral of the story is something like “If you don’t let your kids watch TV and go to school – then you’ll get eaten by a tiger and the sheriff will get to keep your kids.”

The film was so under budgeted that for a while there I thought the only tiger I was ever going to see was the photo-shopped one on the DVD cover… yay for running with a camera through the scrub ^_^

Why I didn’t actually feel the need to brain myself with a heated (its winter down here) brick:

• Jogging causes time travel… or the sun to move backwards
• The Mustache… really you have to watch it to understand the full awesomeness of ‘The Mustache’ – honestly the actor was just there to support the mustache.
• Gary Busey – faster than a tiger
• Tigers – change shape? Shrink in the rain?
• Tigers – eat about 3 people a day
• Tigers – have more camouflage than your average assassin ninja
• Tigers – are camera shy and will move at the speed of light when faced by a photographer
• Tigers – can explode through iron cages at the speed of light
• Tigers – chop people up into pieces and hide the bits artistically in the trees
• Tigers – no matter how small leave tracks like dinner plates that even a kid can see
• American soldiers – can’t see the tiger prints for the trees
• Tigers – dodge bullets by standing behind the American soldiers
• American soldiers – 100% more likely to shoot each other than a tiger
• Little boys don’t really care if their mothers get eaten by tigers… in front of them
• In fact nobody really cares
• The best way to kill a tiger is to shoot a nearby car and explode the gas tank and hope that the resulting nuclear mushroom takes out the beast (don’t forget tigers are super slow unless facing a photographer.)
• Happy endings are all about getting to go to school?

I’m such a sucker for Z-grade.

To be truthful I was rather hoping the weird little kid was some kinda shape shifting psychopath, but werewolf horror has never been as popular as ‘Jaws’ style horror, oh well – better luck next time eh?

Take a Look at My Shoes

Indeed ^_^

Meanwhile I think I got ripped off by the sneaker people, my old sneakers are coloured green and grey… and they didn’t come that way, they were a sparkly white and blue originally. I can’t say they are precisely broken but they are a year old and look like the garden has vomited on them… on a daily basis. So off I went to buy some new ones.

So off to AthletesFoot I went.

Blergh and I purchased the cheapest pair I was shown – the salesman was all “Wow doesn’t it go to show that the most expensive shoes aren’t always the most suitable?” and I’m standing there thinking *sure mister, it’s no miracle really – I was reading the prices on the wall over your shoulder* –  Bwahahahaaa

Least they will last a good long time.

On another topic that is still shoes and thus not really another topic at all: http://www.demonia.co.uk/ (Recommended footwear from a friend of mine – some nice shoes in there, apparently cheaper on e-bay.)

Lovely Complex – Dam Dadi Doo

So I’ve been asked by one of the ladies who also attends the local district Children’s Book Council meetings for a list of anime and manga that would be suitable for a girls only school (grades 7-10.)

Off the top of my head I recommended Howl’s Moving Castle & Visions of Escaflowne (the movie), because eh… what kid that isn’t interested in anime is going to watch a twenty something episode series? Really you gotta try and get the non-anime person hooked first… then turn them into a drooling addict willing to watch 24 eps.

Meh, but I dunno really.

Escaflowne is a good anime, it always crops up in rec and reading lists because it has layers of symbolism and is a decent example of the alternate reality fantasy anime. Howl’s is my favourite Hayao Miyazaki film. But are they going to be appealing to a bunch of Australian private school girls? Howl’s could be see as too childish and Escaflowne is kinda dated and heavy fantasy. You know the sneaky way I get people to watch an anime I like is I locate a brilliant anime music vid and do up a sample CD, thinking I could do one for this lady – but first I need a list of suitable anime. And that’s not even touching the manga issue.

Current List of potential titles:

Anime

• Fruits Basket
• Ouran High School Host Club
• Lovely Complex
• Princess Tutu

Current selection criteria: Reasonably short series (no more than 26 eps), humour, romance, adventure, heroines, soft viewing ratings (so basically I am looking at finding Shōjo I guess… might be pushing it if I went to far into the Seinen side of things, much as I like XXXHoLiC)

Invented new swimming technique: The Frog-Paddle!

Guaranteed to drown or injure your friends after… say one lap of the pool.

See what you need to do is combine the tail end of the breaststroke, aka the frog kick with a deformed version of the front end of the dog paddle, that is instead of allowing individuals to paddle freely with both hands get them to sort of make a scooping movement with both hands.

Now challenge said friends to a lap race, last survivor of the frog-paddle wins.

Awesome old book over on Project Gutenburg called ‘Swimming: Scientifically Taught’ - includes lots of photos of old cossies and facial hair.

I was savaged by Count Charlie after I accidently stepped on him while he was sleeping along the bottom of the couch. People who think cats are harmless have obviously never stepped on one. My whole foot was numbish and aching for about three hours – despite application of dettol. My ankle swells – woe.

I never thought I would come back here, never thought I would have to cast my eye over the landscapes of my younger years from this taller more cynical height that is my adulthood. Clichéd really, everyone thinks ‘Ah yes, but I – I will never go back. I will be one of the lucky few. No matter how the stories go, I won’t retrace my footsteps.’

But there you have it, here I am.

Shitty shire. It’s the same old decrepit dump really.

Walking up Coopers road in the stinking summer heat I’m not really getting any of those zen like feelings of having come full circle, I should have saved this trip for my twilight years. The local flies swilling around my head aren’t doing much to encourage any romantic notions, and really sedimentality was never one of my strong points.

Coopers road is the main drag for this armpit town. A street noted for its corner store, a swiss-army-knife style outlet; newsagents, posties, grocers, hardware store, café (if you could call it that) petrol station and general all round supplier of necessary crap. Last I was here the Cooper family had pretty much cornered the market on everything but booze and gambling – the other two great necessities for eking out an existence in rural Australia.

Booze is what I am looking for.

I have some ritualistic cleansing to do before I can proceed.

Translation: I need to get shit faced.