djm4_lj

Almost twenty years after I first used (and fell in love with) an Apple Macintosh, I've finally got around to buying one. What's more, it's a portable, with AirPort and everything (it's a refurbished iBook 12" 1.33GHz PowerPC /512DDR /40GB /Combo /AE /BT), which is also new territory for me.

I was going to wait to get something later this year, but it would just be too useful to have one for my New York trip in April. Remind me, if I look like spending money in October, that I've already got my early birthday present to myself.

You can run Oolite on one of those, yes? ;-)

My delight at finding the box-set of Pink Panther films at a reduced price last Thursday was only slightly tempered by the discovery that The Return of the Pink Panther had, for some unfathomable reason, been left out of the set. It's the third film and, in terms of sight gags, is right up there with A Shot In The Dark, even if it's not quite as tightly plotted. Who in their right mind would put the scattergun re-tread of familiar gags and lazy stereotypes that is Revenge... or the unwatchable travesty that is Trail... in the collection instead of that one I just can't imagine.

Fortunately, there's releasing Return... on a separate DVD next month. Play.com, here I come!

I'm less surprised about the fact that Arnie doesn't have a maotorbike licence valid in the US and rather more that it took not one but two motorbike accidents for anyone to notice this.

According to the Cancer Research Campaign, a lot of overweight people are 'in denial' about their weight. But then, the idiots are using BMI as a measure, so they can fuck off. That's the last time I'm giving them any money, the scaremongering bastards.

Computer says Mona Lisa is happy. So that's settled, that,

"The one nearest the wall?"
"It's the only one that wasn't damaged in the fire."
"But it's a fake!"
"How can it be, if Leonardo painted it?"
"With the words 'This Is A Fake' written under the brushwork? In felt tip?"
"It doesn't affect what it looks like."
"It doesn't matter what it looks like."
"Doesn't it? Some people would say the whole point."
"But they'll find out... They'll X-Ray it."
"Serves them right! If they have to X-Ray it find out if it's any good or not, then you might as well have painting by computer."

We have a pair of mistle thrushes in Melford Road at the moment. Actually, I don't know that they're a pair, but there are two of them; usually, one of them perches in one of the berry-laden trees along the road, shouting rattling defiance at any other birds who look like they might have designs on the berries, and the other perches on a rooftop aerial with a look of pained tolerance for the noisy display of its partner.

Mistle thrushes, in case you've never heard them, have an alarm call like a stuttering football rattle or, in bird terms, like a speeded-up magpie. Today, both birds were calling, although I suspect that this was because the normally silent one was discombobulated by trying to perch on a telegraph wire. Mistle thrushes are large for thrushes - even bigger than blackbirds - and this one couldn't quite pull off the insouciant balancing on a thin wire act. It was clearly affronted by this, and felt that if those pesky starlings could just sit there without a wobble, it should be able to, but after about a minute of swinging wildly like a pendulum on the high seas, it sheepishly retired to the nearest tree.

I don't really think of mistle thrushes as town birds, and certainly to the extent that they are so they're more usually found in parks and larger gardens. I think Melford Road suits them very well at the moment, however, because it's lined with two rows of trees that look like white-berried rowans (is there such a thing?). As you might guess from their name, berries form a substantial portion of their diet. One thrush sometimes feeds from the tree outside my window; I'll have to try to get a photo next time I see it.

'Zombie worms' found off Sweden.

Now, this is a fascinating story. But I am completely baffled as to why these are referred to as 'zombie' worms. They don't seem any more mindless than any other worm, and they're not noticeably undead. There's no mention of the worms' susceptibility to being controlled by some form of deep-sea witch doctor, nor do they seem to favour the brain over any other part of the whale's anatomy.

I mean, yes, they feed on dead flesh, but I'd like to introduce the people involved in naming them to this newly-coined term 'carnivorous' which more or less has that covered - possibly with the qualifier 'scavenging'.

Boa Alligator vs Python.

Burmese python in the Everglades - yes, I didn't know there were any there either - literally bites off more than it can chew. Not for people who are squeamish about reptiles, especially ones who died in unpleasant ways.

Because I sort of cheated on the poetry meme, and posted a piece of poetry I'd posted before. And because I've had this song stuck in my head for about three months now, and writing it down might just free it.
( Happy Endings, by Pulp )

Water returns to Iraqi marshlands. Which is welcome news, because I was slghtly worried that the Marsh Arabs just been forgotten about. But they haven't been - it's just not as headline-grabbing as some of the other stuff that's going on in Iraq.