The lawn monster returns.

You might remember last year when I did a few posts about the giant fungus that grows on our front lawn each Autumn. Well, it’s back.

I noticed the other day that it had returned, seemingly overnight, and took this photo of it with the assistance of a Lego man for scale.

It is still growing and, as you can see, whatever it is that eats it is still munching away even at this early stage.

I wonder what an undamaged one would look like? It would probably be quite impressive and would have to be an improvement on the misshapen monsters we see each year!

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Update to yesterdays dress-up post.

Number 2 went off to school this morning very happily, dressed as Master Yoda. When I picked him this afternoon up he was even happier, having paraded in front of the whole school and winning best boys costume for his class. Yippee!!

A new face in politics.

Some of you might remember that I have whinged a bit in the past about the pathetic politicians we are currently afflicted with here in Australia, and I’m not the only one complaining. After all, pollie bashing is something of a national sport over here in Australia but with Julia and Tony, boy, do we have something to complain about.

Fortunately, over the weekend I saw this news report that revived my hopes that something interesting, however small, might happen between now and the election in September and gave me an excuse to post an Australian music clip.

Angry Anderson is now the member for the National Party in the seat of Throsby, NSW.

Now, I know that Throsby isn’t my electorate so I can’t vote for him, and I also know that he might not do a good job, but I don’t care. One less suit in politics can only be a good thing.

Angry was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1993 after being recognized for his work with youth, and is known for his work with charities so hopefully he isn’t just a famous face without anything useful to contribute. (Peter Garrett, anyone?)

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Angry, below is a YouTube clip of him in his rock and roll heyday as the short, bald (and surprisingly fresh-faced) frontman for Rose Tattoo in 1978. If you have seen the extremely politically incorrect and very sweary television series Swift and Shift Couriers (where his character spends every working hour hanging out at the pub, beer in hand) it will be fairly clear that he is still something of a ratbag.

Here is a far more recent viewing of him as seen on the music trivia show RocKwiz. I will include a slight language warning when he gives his opinion of politicians. Quite appropriate really.

A cloudy day.

Here I am, just about to go to bed and wondering what that niggling feeling that I have forgotten something is….
Yup. I forgot to do a blog post! Shame on me!

The kids and the Man all had the day off today so we spent the morning driving around doing some shopping and spending too much money at the local hardware, and the afternoon organising some giant garden beds for my new apple trees.

To alleviate my guilt here is a photo I took this afternoon while we were driving home. See you on Monday!

My new best friend.

I am going to make a confession today.
Although I am a lover of all things old I am also not-so-secretly addicted to gadgets. If it is new and shiny, has buttons and goes BEEP I want one.

I don’t necessarily get them mind you, after all, who can justify spending tonnes of money for no reason, but still, it doesn’t stop me wanting them.

As luck would have it the other day the Man made an excuse to had to get himself an iPad for work and bought me an iPad mini as well! WOO HOO!!

I have wanted one for ages but, you know, who can justify buying an unnecessary toy like that for no reason? Trust me, I tried my best to find an excuse that didn’t ring hollow….

Since the arrival of my new best friend I have spent more time than I should have downloading apps for it (and, admittedly, playing games) and found some photo editing ones that I have been having lots of fun with. (Snapseed is my favourite so far.)*

Our changed weather has been keeping me amused because I have been able to take what would have previously been boring photos of cloudy skies and make them look like all hell was about to break loose.

I unwound my window and took this one from the car while I was waiting for the kids one night. The clouds were nowhere near as menacing, I had to crop out the roof of the nearby police station and time the picture between the cars going past! I messed around with it until the school bell rang and I was really pleased to see what it turned out like.

I can see that I will be taking pictures of everything that seems slightly interesting to see what I can do with it from now on. The problem with that is nobody should be seen taking photos with an iPad, you just look ridiculous!

Now I just have to work out how to post photos to my blog properly from it, how the hell do I get the text to wrap around the picture instead it just sending it to the bottom!!!! Aaaarrgghh!

*and for those of you who have been following my saga with Telstra, I am finally posting from the couch using the new modem (the third one sent to me) wirelessly with the iPad, no computer needed!

Thank you to poor Rachel at the Telstra call centre who finally got it working, she is my new hero. We were on the phone so long that I think we may have broken some kind of phone help persistence record yesterday. We were on for so long, in fact, that she had to call me back on the mobile phone as the battery in the home phone ran flat after the first hour and a half, and she waited while I called the school to tell the kids to wait for me as I wouldn’t be there in time for the bell!

Kevin McCloud’s Man made home. Put your feet up and watch this antidote to consumerism.

I have been lax in my posting today, the kids and I went out to the movies yesterday (as you do when it is school holidays) and, frankly, after the drive there and back and braving the traffic and people I was too blah to do any thinking at all.

Anyway, after spending the day in crowds of people groaning under their loads of shopping bags and junk food I am taking the opportunity to share the antidote to that with you through the medium of Kevin McCloud’s Man Made Home.

I loved this series when it was on telly recently and will be attempting to convince the family to supply the DVD for my Mother’s Day present.*

In Man Made Home Kevin shared his efforts at building an off the grid cabin in the woods. Everything used during the construction was recycled or repurposed, including the toilet and the fantastic jet engine cowl bath.

Watching this made me want to build a shed of my own! I am not sure how happy the neighbours would be with me tanning my own hides and an outdoor toilet (generating methane for the stove) right outside their window though.

*And Kevin, if you’re out there, why is it that you didn’t do a book about all of the off the grid stuff? Yeah, I know you can find out about that stuff from every strange hippie on the net but still….. There’s time to get one out before my birthday!

Earworms. No, they don’t eat your brain….

Yup. Earworms. I know you’ve been afflicted, and more than once too. Don’t be ashamed, you’re amongst friends. You can admit it.

Earworm is the term used for those songs that get stuck in your head, playing over and over, and driving you crazy. According to that wikipedia link, women and men are equally affected by earworms, although in women they last longer and we find them more irritating.

*not representative of real earworm…

(Yes, I know there are some of you who wish to make some comment about the annoyance threshold of women and how unsurprised you are. You know where the comments are, knock yourself out )

Naturally, I went to youtube to find a really annoying clip to put here in order to give you all an earworm for the day.

In doing so I found this utterly brilliant mashup of some of the worst earworm offenders of 2012 (by DJ Earworm of course). It includes Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Psy, Gotye, Maroon 5, Katy Perry, One Direction, and that bloody whistle from Flo Rida among others.

Some of them are songs which have been on high rotation on my own ipod (definitely not One Direction though, you gotta draw the line somewhere) and have taken up wormy residence in my brain for varying amounts of time.

The prompt for this post was a television report noting that a technique has been developed for removing these catchy, yet massively annoying, things. Apparently solving an anagram will do something to your brain to circumvent its evil hold on your mind.

I suspect that all it will really do is free up more space in there for the next earworm to get its catchy little tentacles in there….

Ok. Share, people. What is the most annoying earworm (old or new) that you know?

Alternatively, share your best anagram! I couldn’t think of one of my own. Since watching that clip all I have in my head now is a snippet of One Direction …..“You don’t know, oh oh…..”  Aaargh!