Thursday, December 21, 2006

Line rider

http://www.linerider.org/play2.php

One of the things that kept me away from blogging for a while there. This is addictive. Once you've had a play, check out some of these movies: http://www.linerider.org/movies/

There, that's my Christmas present to everyone in blogland. Enjoy.

R.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Creature in the compost heap

Last week a mysterious creature was sighted in the compost heap of a suburban back garden in Regional Australia. According to eye witness reports, it was definitely reptilian in nature. An artist's impression of the sighting is shown below.
As the cover of the compost heap was removed, the creature slithered away. It moved too fast to be able to ascertain whether it had legs.

"I thought it might be a snake", said Flying Kiwi. "It had stripes on its back, so I didn't think it was a brown snake. But there are plenty of other poisonous snakes in Australia". From her description, an artist was able to render a realistic impression of what said snake may have looked like.


As only a portion of the creature was visible, it was hypothesised that it may in fact have been much larger. Although there have been no prior reports of crocodiles so far south of the tropics, the drainage ditch abutting the property made this a very real possibility. Although the lack of water in the drainage ditch somewhat refuted this theory. Again, an artist's impression of the possible crocodile is shown below.



After consultation with local residents however, it was agreed that the creature was probably a harmless and kind of cute blue toungue lizard.


Flying Kiwi expressed relief at this turn of events. "Still", she added, "I can't believe how many poisonous things there are in this country. Who would choose to live here?"

R.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

No, it's not fine

We haven't had decent rain for quite some time now. Farmers are walking off their farms because the drought is so bad. The dam upriver is just about empty - less than 10%. Once that's gone, we have no more water, and neither does the Murray River.

I noticed last week that the weather report on local TV no longer says "fine" but "dry". Because it's not fine that there is no rain. Incidentally, this idea was first brought to the nation's attention on Triple J by none other than Harold from Neighbours.

As if heat and drought isn't bad enough, the bushfires have started (with no water to put them out...). . Saturday is forecast for 39C and there are worries that the fires will be worse than "Ash Wednesday" in 1983.

I don't think we're actually in any danger here. Except from smoke inhalation. There was so much bushfire smoke drifting in today that I had to have my foglights on at 4pm. The smoke alarms went off at work.

Please send water.

R