Supermarkets, Nature, Muncle*

*I'm sorry about the formatting, this computer is kind of horrible like that.

Today I leapt cheerily out of bed at 3.30am and drove to Ashburton to count everything in their supermarket. We caught a lift with an Australian competitive lawn bowler and ex-eftpos salesman called Rick, who I swear was trying to chat up my mother ("So, are you a bowls lady then, eh?") and who talked constantly when I wanted to look out the window - but it was nice, because a) I like driving in the dark and b) we passed a house! I love seeing this.

No wait not that I mean we passed a house which was being moved down the road.

I used to live in a flat on the main road through the city, and every so often a house would roll by at 3am, and I'd always go out and watch - the whole procession, from lead car, truck with 'Wide Load' sign and then the house itself (on a truck, in case you were thinking of something like this) -

- with the windows all lit up, and very quietly. Almost magical it is. And then Rick guffaws and says that he was selected for the Canterbury Lawn Bowls team again this year and the magic is kind of gone but whatevs.

Little quiz about my day at the supermarket. Which of these statements is true?

a) there is a brand of hamburger patties called 'Meateors'

b) 'Oceanfish' is a valid catfood flavour

c) when you scan Sunmaid Raisins they show up on your scanner as 'S/M Raisins'

d) packets of marbles now come with a list of '10 Exciting Marbles Games to Play'

e) all of the above?

Scan down for the answer.

'e'

OH SHIT A FLOATING EYE

Nothing else exciting happened except that a packet of juice powder (I have temporarily forgotten the proper word for this) exploded on me in a shower of tropical groove (it's called that) and then all day everything smelt like juice.

Here is a fact about birds.

Did you know that, like most other um animals (maybe plants too? hmm) the way that birds evolve is based on who their predators are? The vast majority of birds have always been eaten I mean 'predated' (real word) by ground-dwelling mammals with crappy eyesight and an excellent sense of smell. That is why most birds nest in trees and fly about; because when they're up there the predators can't reach them except for I guess climbing predators but fuck I am not talking about that. Birds are also, in general, brightly coloured but not very smelly. 'Cause of you know the predators.

Enter New Zealand birds! Back in the day we didn't have any mammals except for a whole lot of seals and sea lions (which apparently were really really populous (and presumably ate, um, not-birds)), so all of our birds were predated I mean eaten by....dun dun dunnn... other birds. Bigger birds.

Cannibirds.

Birds who could fly, and who had excellent eyesight but a crappy sense of smell.

And that, it turns out, is why NZ has stinky, dull brown birds that lay their eggs in the ground.

It's also why they have long poky beaks - so that they can stick their noses beaks into the ground and eat someone else's baby birds.

Nature is interesting, huh?

Speaking of interesting, the most awesome part of this post is about to happen - I am going to tell you about Andrea's dream. I was in it.

Andrea and I were living wild in the desert, having rejected the society of the time in favour of living as outlaws and periodically sweeping into town to conduct a raid. (Here comes the awesome.) The top halves of our bodies were human, but we had dinosaur legs. Robotic dinosaur legs. Robotic dinosaur legs that could transform into motorbikes.

So we would come sweeping into town on our motorbike wheels, then transform back into our dino-centaur selves and lay waste to the town with the giant guns we had mounted on our metal gauntlets. Did I mention we had huge metal gauntlets with guns on them? Because we totally did.

I was going to try and draw this but there's no way my Paint skills could capture it.

Anyway, to thank Andrea for including me in this kickass dream, I'm going to play Muncle! I mentioned this a while back, but didn't get around to it, and she keeps reminding me.

Would you like to play? It's pretty simple, really, I just ask you a question - you know, one of those 'if you could be stuck in a lift with any famous person, living or dead, who would it be' type questions* and then you answer. It's a pretty good ice-breaker for parties.

Ready? Here goes.

Would you rather... fuck your Mum's body with your Uncle's head on it, or your Uncle's body with your Mum's head?

...and that's how you play Muncle!

(Thanks to Mr London Street for introducing me to this dreadful game.)

*Helen Keller is a poor choice

no-one except me is going to find this amusing

If Highland Cattle had instruments and Twitter they would be way better than the Jonas Brothers even though all of their songs would start with moo. I am about to prove this with a photoessay


Publicity shot for new minicow alternative dance punk outfit The Herd.



Young & frantic frontman Charlie.



Charlie's Twitter profile picture. He has 667,984 followers



Guitarist Adam's MySpace profile pic



Bonza, the drummer. Has 897,992 followers on Twitter but no-one knows why



Gunther is the bassist, do not fuck with him



I said DO NOT FUCK WITH HIM

last year he gored a paparazzo.

he is too legit to twit




cover art for the band's soon-to-be-released debut album, An Inconvenient Hoof.


In summary, fuck the Jonas Brothers* and bring on The Herd.

I wish they were a real band.


*but not actually 'cause they're underage

Kate's Birthday!

Today is my younger sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Kate.

We went to the petting zoo to celebrate. Petting zoo? Hmm. It bills itself as a Wildlife Reserve but most of the animals are just wandering about waiting to be fed.

Animals I Petted Today, in order of petting

- Eel - not really a very pettable animal. Feels sort of like a sea cucumber, albeit one that might bite you at any moment. Also, they have freaky bright blue eyes! You could make a kickass horror movie about eels. Someone probably has.

Here are two little stories about eels. Once, when I was very small (well, smallish, maybe about 5-7) I was swimming in a river on our (country) property, and I was bitten by an eel! (Because I stood on its head.)

I don't know if you know this, but eels are like sharks in that not only are they vicious bastards, their teeth point inwards, so once they've bitten you it's really painful to get yourself unbitten again. See?


this is totally what happened.

The next day, all of the women who lived up the valley went eel hunting in the same spot of the river. We caught two and smoked them and that, my friends, is the law of the jungle.

Second eel story (also with picture:)

When my two uncles were relatively small (8-10?) they went eel fishing with Nana and Granddad. An eel was duly caught, and they decided to take a photograph of my Uncle Graeme (possibly Graham), who had caught it. Before they took the photo, they chopped off the head of the eel (why?) and due to some post-mortem eel reaction this is what happened:

proper spelling of 'uncle' too long

Of course everyone else in the hunting party thought this was freakin' hilarious and didn't help poor Uncle for ages. Also I think there is probably a photo somewhere of him being eeled.

Anyway, onto another animal! This is fun, isn't it.

- Deer - they were pretty cute! Looked just like deer are meant to look. They were shy at first, but eventually I lulled them into a feeling of security with such phrases as 'there there, deer' and 'oh, deer.' Then, when the deer were finally close enough to feed out of your hand, these motherfucking ducks that were everywhere came up shouting quacking and waving their wings about and spooked the deer!

- Duck - I 'petted' it with my foot after the deer incident. Enough about ducks. I patted a goose too at some point but meh. I also threw some food to a swan, but I miscalculated and the food disappeared inside the swan's feathers. Whoops.

- Wallaby - oh man these are so freakin' cute. I'm not really one for the cute animals but it looked like this -


- and it ate out of my hand. OUT OF MY HAND. Granted, I had to crouch down in the dirt for bloody ages so it got used to me and could be tempted close enough, and then when I stood up I realised that the entire time my other hand had been resting in a big pile of wallaby shit but it was totally worth it.

- Large Pigs (regular/kunekune) - I quite like pigs. I like their unashamed sense of entitlement, for a start. Most of the animals were pretty coy about wanting food, all butting their heads against your hand and looking cute, but the pigs got straight down to business; the second you walked up to their fence you were confronted with a wide-open pig mouth (do not run a Google Image search for this). They throw their heads back and expose these huge yellow teeth and miles of pink gullet, into which you throw the food. Then they grunt and chew for a bit, while you scratch behind their ears (apparently pigs are into this). Then they open their mouth again. Ah, pigs.

Also: the kunekune pigs (which as far as I can tell are pretty much the same as regular pigs), like many (if not all) of the Willowbank animals, live in a little shelter. The difference is that while all of the other animal shelters look like normal animal shelters i.e. primitive wooden huts, the Kunekune dwell in a replica of a traditional Maori dwelling. The Maori, of course, being the indigenous people of NZ. Does this seem a little inappropriate to anyone else? Took an awesome photo of huge pig coming out of Maori meeting house, but is not developed yet.

- Kea - Apparently New Zealand's smartest bird. In fact, apparently the smartest bird in the world! Bit my finger. Did not seem very smart.

- Donkeys - Not very interesting but quite nice to pat.

- Llamas - Should be called 'Llames': see Donkeys.

- Sheep - See Donkeys, but not nice to pat.

- Horses - A Big One and Some Little Ones. Not unlike Donkeys, except that one of the little horses bit my finger. Was my own fault.

- Rabbits - why are these even at the zoo?

- Mini-cows - Ok so they're actually called Highland Cattle. They're like regular cows, only about chest-high and ten times more awesome. They rocked! My favourite was one that looked exactly like the following picture, but was black.

He totally has a band.

I want a little herd of these hipsters.

- Mink - Mink is Andrea's cat. I petted him when I was at Andrea's house this afternoon. Hey, Minko!


Animals I Did Not Pet, but Very Much Wanted To

- Goat. - The first thing Kate said to me when I mentioned going to Willowbank and petting things was, "Don't touch the goat." This was rapidly followed by Mum, who said "Do NOT touch the goat!" "OK! OK! I will not touch the goat!" Turns out that the goat urinates on his own head (I thought this was pretty impressive until I realised it is the head that he moves, not the stream of urine) to make himself nice for the ladies. So we DO NOT TOUCH THE GOAT, or everything we do smells of urine forever. Got to the zoo and saw the Untouchable Goat, who was just crying out for some love! However, I did not touch the goat. Instead, I stood next to the goat, wagging my finger and looking stern, while Kate took a photo of me Not Touching The Goat. I really wanted to touch him.

- Gibbons - Not allowed to touch them (although apparently last time we went to Willowbank, when I was Just Wee, my granny fed them a bit of licorice. Sigh). Was at Andrea's this afternoon and she said out of the blue, "Are you OK?" "Yes," I said, "am fine." "Oh," she said, "you looked a bit sad." "No, was just thinking of Gibbons." Thinking of Gibbons is good band name; Gibbon Query also not bad.

- Kiwi - "Do not touch the Kiwi it is a very shy bird yada yada yada." Also was bloody miles away and first one I saw was not Kiwi at all, was rock. Second one was bonafide Kiwi, but still not very interesting.

- Black & White Ruffed Lemur - Could not reach. Also was not supposed to touch them, but I would have flouted that rule without a second thought! Look at them!

Well, look at this one.

Dude! I really really want one. One of the ones we saw was stretched out on a tree branch in the classic lounging-in-the-sun pose. He even had an tree-branch armrest on one side, had tilted his head back and was stretching lazily from time to time. All he needed was a little lemur beer. Lemurs remind me of a dog/human hybrid.

In summary: Nature rocks.

Silver Lining*

*this post is both long and boring, but it has pictures.

My mother and I want to watch 'Mothra,' but the local videostore only has 'Godzilla vs Mothra'. The ensuing indecision (take a chance on that, or watch something else?) is a choice I never thought I'd have to make. Luckily she is making it for me and has trotted off to get a John Wayne. I intend to spend the evening hanging out with my mama with my blankie and endless cups of tea and if that's a lame way to spend a Saturday night then I don't want to be cool.

My money's on Mothra.


Here is a Contents Page for what promises to be a rather lengthy post. So you can stop, go and do something productive, then come back to it. Unlike most Contents Pages, this one is completely unrelated to the order in which the items appear. It's just a list of crap you can expect to read about today.

onesie = no swine flu / warm inside a dog / meteorology magic / british beetroot / pronking-stotting / sitting up like pork / my parents: courtship of / videostore, incense / horses in suburbia (greenday) / get stuffed! / the dumb bug / carpark patrol / hizach


Firstly and most urgently, I really want a pyjama onesie. Pyjamas with arms and legs in them. A jumpsuit made of pyjama fabric. Onesies are remarkably hard to describe, although fashionpolice.net describes them as 'adult footed pyjamas.' Anyway, I thought that these delightful items were the preserve of small children and my friend Riadan, who has a red woolen one that I remember fondly (?) & which I always thought he just sort of found somewhere (he is that sort of person) but it turns out that no, pyjama onesies are widely available! I really want one. Swine flu - which is apparently kinda wimpy anyway - can't getcha when you're in a onesie and also they make for practical zombie fighting gear.


See? Ready to fight zombies.

Seriously I am willing to do pretty much anything for a pyjama onesie please can somebody buy me one for my birthday (july 29) and give it to me now pleasepleaseplease.

Have I conveyed how totally I want a onesie? I REALLY REALLY WANT ONE.


Scientific discovery of the week: it is warmer inside a dog than it is inside a person!* I discovered this because I was walking the dog and, while my breath wasn't misting in the cold, his was.

Fuck yeah, science.


Also in the 'scientific' field, I can predict the weather!** Yes without reading the weather report. I am like an old man sitting in a rocker gumming away and saying "Ee, storm's a'coming, can feel it in my bones," but without being an old man - the scar on the back of my hand itches when there is a storm coming! It has to do with humidity and air pressure*** but last week I said to someone, "Storm's a'comin'!" and then, having used up my apostrophe ration for the week, retired to bed. And then the storm a'came! I am a meteorological Harry Potter, is what I am. From now on I am going to run about shouting that my scar is itching and the Dark Lord is active! (Meteorologically active.)


In an aside, I really like how the British pronounce 'beetroot.' Not 'bee-droot' like the rest of us, but 'bee'root,' or sometimes even a distinct 'beet root.' Beet beet beet! Root.

Today I am going to teach you two words which mean the same thing! I know, it's exciting. Fuck I have an educational blog.

You know that thing that springboks do, when they bounce straight up in the air off all four legs at once?

Not a springbok, but yeah, that thing.

Well, that thing now has a name, and that name is pronking! Or stotting. They both sound slightly rude describe that action. I have made it my mission to tell everyone about pronking in the hopes that they will admire my sophisticated vocabulary and/or buy me a onesie.


Did you know you can buy incense in the videostore? It's right there, with the videos and the popcorn. It was in this one videostore anyway. That's about all there is to that story.

Another good story: I saw a horse walking down the road today. With a rider on it. It is weird, seeing horses in suburbia. I would have been completely confused by the 19th century (and, in fact, all of the centuries before it.)

Another good story: I saw a dumb bug today. It was hopping along the pavement, no doubt looking up at the sky and thinking happy bug thoughts, when hop! it jumped straight into a drainage grate. Whoops, bug. Shoulda paid less attention to how cool you were, breathing through your skin and all, and more attention to where you were going.

(How cool would it be to breathe through your skin? Hopefully not through your butt-skin, though. There should totally be a specific word for butt-skin. Actually I was thinking today, after accidentally saying HIZACH to my friend Zach, that 'hizach' should be a word. Maybe it should be a word for butt-skin, as in, "I have a boil on my hizach." Yeah, that works. (Mum wasn't sure why bugs would mind breathing through their hizachs. "Well," Kate said, "do bugs fart?" According to the Internet yes, yes they do. (What is this, Biology Week?) I wonder if that bothers them, what with the breathing through their hizachs?))

Random story: my parents' first date was at the movies - they went to see 'Zoltan, Hound of Dracula,' and my father wore his slippers. This is my second favourite story about stuff my parents did before I was born; the other one came up when I was swanning about in a Russian-style fake fur hat. "I used to have an actual Russian fur hat," Mum said wistfully. "Dad and I were on a boat, and the boat was robbed." Pause. "The only thing they took was the hat."

Speaking of romance, I was going to go to a craft evening with NRT tonight but then I remembered that I hate craft. He said, "Too bad you're not coming - I'm wearing my beret." Man sure knows how to woo a lady.


Tomorrow, links to things I like to read!



*not based on any actual science.

**not always.

***still no actual science, I made that up

In which I know Nothing about Birds*

*this is a terrible post, the one below it is much better, maybe you should read that instead

Today my mother went to a lecture about Large Flightless Birds. Here are some things she told me when she got home.

Did you know the Dodo was a pigeon? A big fat flightless pigeon? No, me neither. Also penguins were originally over 6ft tall! 6ft tall! No idea how tall they are now but 6ft is pretty big.

More importantly, birds do not have lungs. NO LUNGS HOW DO THEY BREATHE? THROUGH THEIR ARSE LIKE A TURTLE? Well, no. They do have lungs, sort of, but they also have tons of air sacs throughout the body and also some of the air they breathe in goes straight into their bones. I am a little sketchy on the details, but basically it takes birds 2 breaths for air to go right round their system. Also they are descended from dinosaurs but everyone knows that! Breath 1 in: air comes in through beak-mounted nostrils, is taken straight to an air sac. Breath 1 out: same air goes into the 'bird-lungs.' Breath 2 in: new air into air sac, old air into different air sac (and bones?) Breath 2 out: new air goes into the bird-lungs, old air goes out, um, bird mouth? Beak end. Bottom of bill. I know pretty much fuck all about birds, in case you hadn't come to that rather obvious conclusion on your own, but I was interested by the whole birds-don't-have-lungs thing. Got over-excited and asked with some concern if the dog has lungs - if I'd stopped to think about it I would've realised I knew the answer, but I was all panicked by the birds-no-lungs revelation. He does. Thank God. If he didn't have lungs either my entire world would have been turned on its head. Do you have lungs?

Moving away from birds - their flu was so last year - there is swine flu in my city. Not only does this mean that David Bain/Swine Flu situation is even more likely (whee), it also means that if there is a zombie apocalypse we're going to need to be prepared. The old plan (steal boat, live on boat/oil rig, fish) has been supplanted by the much more sophisticated New Plan (steal cruise liner, sail across indian ocean, join Somalian pirates using cruise liner as bargaining tool, shoot zombies with extensive pirate ammo supplies, fish). It is a good plan apart from two What Ifs. 1) What If... there is no cruise liner in port when the zompocalypse comes? Steal the next boat down, I guess. Note to self: in case of zompocalypse, find someone who can drive a boat, or buy manual in advance (when am buying water purifier and small still.) Must also remember which way the Indian Ocean is. Left at Stewart Island? 2) What If...Somalian pirates are zombies by the time we get there? This is pretty unlikely because they seem fairly badass. Is much more likely that they'll think we are zombies & start shooting but hey if that happens it'll be ok, we'll just ram them with our cruise liner (which no-one has prevented us stealing because the armed forces are busy dealing with the zompocalypse & the general populace are doing silly things like holing up in a supermarket.) The New Plan is the Plan of Andrea and I. You're welcome to join - meet us at the Carlton Corner pub when the zompocalypse - I simply cannot use this word enough - befalls us.

EDIT: The Somalian Pirates Cruise Ship idea was Andrea's. I did not give credit where it was due and I am very sorry.

Date on Sunday with NRT, who is fine with me blogging about it* (what a good sport! he's going to regret that) except that he wants a more mysterious alias. Personally I think he should be grateful that I'm blogging about him at all NRT is kind of catchy, but I'd be open to suggestions. The comments field is your oyster.

I realise I did the two-post-in-one-day thing again, but god damn it zombies are important. Birds maybe not so much.


*What he actually said was "I don't mind you blogging about anything to do with me in which we are clothed"

Poking a dead raccoon is not research

And now for the news.

The News: Today I cleaned my aunt's house - the positive thing about this was that TELLUS (who you will remember is the rotund little vacuum who flung himself down the stairs last time I was there) and I are now friends, united against the ever-encroaching dust front.

Here is the not-so-positive thing.

I would like to state here that my aunt and uncle are neat, tidy and civilized people; if they weren't I still wouldn't break cleaner privilege and tell you about their mucky existence. However, I have no such loyalty to the couple who recently stayed in the guest bedroom and who apparently livened up their stay with a game of what I can only assume is called "Who Can Stick A Pubic Hair Highest On The Shower Wall?" What kind of filth wizard leaves scattered pubes at head height? Ew. And there's just no way they could have got there by accident, it must have been...some sort of contest? I just hope there was a good prize, you know, something worth being that fucking disgusting.

The weirdest thing about writing that paragraph was that it gave me an intense sense of deja vu, like I myself had played the pubes-on-wall game. Which I would like to assure you I haven't. WEIRD

In fashion news, Kate has a new hoodie. Unfortunately when she puts the hood up (which she was doing as part of an extensive visual pun in which she and I both wore hoodies with the hoods up and shouted "Neighbour Hoodies") it bears an unfortunate resemblance to...well, that other white pointy hood. In a fit of bad taste I renamed her KKKate. Then she said something really racist and I thought she was quoting a rap song but no, she was just saying something appropriately racist. (Appropriate to the hoodie, not to anything else.) Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I have not been a very good influence.

In Internet news, KKKate has been a fountain of amusement today. She looked over my shoulder while I was on twitter (yeah yeah, I know, tweeting is for vacs) and shouted WHAT IS THAT, BUTTER DOT COM? So then we looked up butter.com and it turns out it's a website about butter. I don't know what I expected, but I'm kind of disappointed. It does, however, have a useful list of 'Related Links.' Here is the list. 'Whey, Yoghurt, Buttermilk, Parmesan Cheese, Drumsticks, Cheddar Cheese." What's wrong with that? Drumsticks are pretty similar to butter if you ignore the fact that they're completely different.

In local news, here is a challenge: I have decided that the only way to win my heart is to design and build (or commission, that is fine too) a robot that makes cups of tea and steals bottles of vodka and responds to voice commands. Email is fine for the specs, but I'd like the finished product shipped to my Christchurch address.

And now, for the Informative Fact of the Day!
In Danish, the word 'gift' means either 'poison' or 'married,' depending on the context. Cool, huh? I bet you did not know that! Unless you are Xalion, who told me that, but he is too busy designing a tea-making, vodka-stealing robot to care.

In animal news (totally a legitimate news category), yesterday I saw a 7-legged spider. I was removing it from the shower at the time (it was terrorising Kate and it appears that of late I have become spider-vanquisher), and as it flung itself onto my hand (why do they do that) I noticed it was missing one of its two front legs! Because of this I thought it deserved to be lowered gently onto a tomato plant, rather than squished into oblivion. This story does not have a moral except maybe that 'otherly abled' arachnids get a better deal than 'otherly abled' people, as far as being spared a gruesome death goes. But I don't think that's a very good moral.

Speaking of poor morals (that is called a Segue, which is not news), I discovered today yet another case of my cellphone's 'predictive txt' feature having weird predilections towards unsuitable words. I was trying to type 'I'll leave you a plate of turkey,' but ended up almost sending 'I'll leave you a slave of turkey.' Other unfortunate things my phone likes to say are 'That's an unusual pervert' and 'Happy Farter.' God damn it, phone, you make me be's worse than I already be's. Should I ever want to request an Easter plate, I had better remember to do it from a different phone.

Underground Strikethrough News: Where Is The Trust? Readers Still Check for Hidden Strikethrough