Lavinia comes from Spacefem's Planet.
(Because I'm a packrat and rarely throw anything out...)
2000 randomness: July | August | September | October
2001 randomness
2002 randomness
2003 randomly has no randomness.
2004 randomness: August | September | October
Random thought for 31st July 2000: Why does my packet of chocolate biscuits say "product life eight months" when at this rate they're clearly not going to last more than a few days?
Random diary entry for 1 August 2000: The chocolate biscuits ran out a little before 5pm.
Random rant for 2 August 2000: I hate New Caledonian bureaucracy! I only want to stay an extra four days. Four days, that's all. I don't even *want* to stay for those four days; if they'd charter me a plane leaving an hour after my last hour of work here I'd happily jump on it and get out of this damn country. But no, instead they're muttering things about "these language assistants are always a problem" just because there wasn't any flight left on the day I wanted to leave, three months in advance. So now they've got to talk to their superior and I've got to wait.........
Random music for 3 August 2000: Finlandia, by Jean Sibelius. And someone please tell me if it was on _Fantasia 2000_, and if not, where the heck did I hear it recently?
Random thought for 9 August 2000: Gravity is no joke. (Now being inflicted on innocent readers of my sig file.)
Random website for 13 August 2000: http://www.notspeaking.com -- heard on New Caledonian radio, this guy's planning to stop speaking for a year starting the 1st September. According to his website (which includes a press release and other information), at least 10 other people are also going to stop speaking for a period of time. [2004: link now seems dead]
Random website for 14 August 2000: The Griffin's Cookiebear website -- discovered with Lis and Fiona while trying to find out how many flavours of TimTams there are. Some of this stuff sounds a bit dodgy, particularly if you read it out in an innuendo-laden voice. That's always a fun game to play....
Random acronym for 18 August 2000: Z.E.B.O.R.A.H.: Zeta Electronic Being Optimized for Repair and Accurate Harm. Woo hoo! Get your own cyborg acronym at The Brunching Shuttlecocks.
Random quote for 23 August 2000:"...fossil evidence suggests that Neanderthals had very sizable brains, and they did not even last long enough to invent standardized tests." -- an article in the New York Times (it'll ask you to register; this is free).
Random sound for 12 September 2000: (mp3, ~192KB) A weird little song that you can blame on... well, me I guess.
Random website for 18 September 2000: The Onion: America's Finest News Source, a recommendation from a random fan-letter. Well, random as in it was the only one I've received that wasn't from my sister or father. (wave to Bucky!) Anyway, it's a cool site. It looks like a news-site, it browses like a news-site, but whichever way you slice it you'll have tears in your eyes (and dust on your clothes from rolling on the floor laughing).
Random tongue-twister for 25 September 2000: "Timothy Thitter ties things with thin twine." Okay, it's not great, but then I invented it inside of half a minute for a pronunciation-challenged class. Also "A singer sang a song about a thing a hanger hung." That will teach them to stop saying "sing-gah". ...I hope.
Random adopt-a-pet for 7 October 2000: Meet Lavinia!
Lavinia comes from Spacefem's Planet.
Random observation for 8 October 2000: Behind the knees is not the most comfortable place to get sunburnt.
Random pondering for 13 October 2000: Is it mildly anal-retentive to organise all one's downloaded snippets of information into folders based on the Library of Congress classification system?
Random thought for 14 October 2000: How come every time I see an episode of "Tintin" it's always the same one, set on the Karaboudjan with the cans of crabmeat and Tintin getting hit on the head while Snowy aka Milou stands by watching helplessly? Tonnerre de Brest!
Random note for 19 October 2000: Just five days until I'm out of this country and back home again. Tomorrow I pay my last phone bill, which means no net access from mid-late afternoon on the 20th until late on the 24th. It'll give me time to tidy my studio, buy souvenirs, and panic that I can't fit everything into my suitcase.
Random quote for... a while ago: "At the ringing of an alarm clock some abnormally sensitive strains of mice race madly about, go into convulsions, and die." -- p26 _Animal Language_, N.E. Collias
Random quote for 1 May 2001: "Semper ad eventum festinet." -- Horace ("Always party hard at social events." -- the illatinate translator)
Random joke for somewhere else in May 2001: Three crotchets walk into a bar.... (Courtesy of Sasscat)
Random word for 14 July 2001: The Korean word for "medicine" is pronounced "yuck".
Random food for 2002: Bbeondegi, aka boiled silkworm chrysalis. Tastes like nuts. Apparently a great delicacy on the streets of Seoul.
Random link of 16 August 2004: Schopenhauer's Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten (with English translation and including a sort of early precursor of Godwin's Law).
Random hated word of 17 August 2004: "operationalization".
Random cooking disaster of 19 August 2004: baking a cake, and stirring the egg into the melted butter-and-sugar while the butter-and-sugar is still glopping heatedly on the stove.
Random URL of 21 August 2004: www.asdf.com.
Random find of 22 August 2004: My old ASCII zebra .sig file! (You can read all about my ASCII zebras.)
Random malapropism of 31 August 2004: Guy has been stopped by the friendly traffic cops on some reality TV show. Guy is asked if he's had any previous convictions. "Hay-ll, no!" says guy, somewhat drunkenly. "I'm an honorary citizen!"
Random earthquake of 5 September 2004: Sound of a door opening suddenly and of the kitchen rattling. Data from Geonet:
Random quiz of 7 September 2004:
Random site of 12 September:
Random site of 15 September 2004:
Random revolution of 19 September 2004 (a drabble):
Random theory of 22nd September 2004:
Random political promotion of 9th October 2004:
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| | | |(Okay, so it's not a good zebra.)
Reference Number:Ê 2290108/G
Universal Time:Ê 2004 Sep 05 09:12
NZ Standard Time:Ê 2004 Sep 05 21:12
Latitude, Longitude:Ê 43.26¡S, 172.78¡E
Focal Depth:Ê 40 km
Richter Magnitude:Ê 4.3
10 km south of Amberley
20 km north-east of Rangiora
30 km north of Christchurch
Webster's Online Dictionary (not affiliated with the print dictionaries of the same name) -- you can search on English and non-English words using this box:
Work Poop Headquarters helps you calculate how much you earn each week by taking a dump.
The University of Canterbury Student Association bribed students with candy to vote in the elections. My sister, a poll booth worker, brought home a bag of left-over "Democracy Candy". Then our father 'stole' it.
"We will overthrow the dictator!" declared the People, and heroically liberated the Candy. Jubilation resulted from this triumph. When heads cleared, it was realised that the Candy had disappeared into my sister's bedroom.
"Uh..." said one of the People. "I think something went wrong with our Revolution."
"It's okay," promised our Glorious Leader. "I'm just keeping the Candy safe until the People are ready for it."
The Pointy Villain Theory.
Vote Twain!.