Established in 2002
I’m upgrading to WordPress 1.2, please excuse the mess…
Done.
I have to say this. WordPress is like that awesome friend you have that is always amazing and surprises you with their constant coolness. Last night I expected my layout to break and hours of messing around to follow, so when I refreshed and saw that the index.php wasn’t broken, I was pretty damn happy.
WordPress is sexy.
People e-mail me quite a bit to ask if I’d consider hosting their website and even though I’d love to host everyone’s Hilary Duff fan blog or “I love ducks” blog, I can’t due to the fact I don’t have much space or bandwidth to spare.
I have some news for all you Hilary and ducky fans though. Xaxax Hosting – the lovely people who host this website – are running a contest where you could win a domain name registration and hosting for a year. Imagine how many duck love could be had in a year!
I’m getting dizzy thinking about all the duck love.
Each Month Xaxax Hosting will select a winner who receive a ‘Starter’ hosting package, along with domain name registration (com/net/org) and a Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000. The ‘Starter’ hosting package includes:
For more information go to the Xaxax website and click on the ‘Contests’ section. Good luck to all you ducky fans.
Before I hit ‘Publish’ on the last entry that I posted, I thought “am I being silly or overdramatic about this?”. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Should I tell people I’m fine? Or should I share my pain? In the end I shared, and hoped others had been through the same thing.
This last week I’ve felt sad, tired and pissed off – to the point where I even threatened to choke the local vets with one of their overpriced leads that they sell. The amount of cyber love and well wishes I’ve received this last week was un-expected and made things a lot easier, so I want to say thank you. The internet can be so fucking amazing at times.
We also received a card from the Emergency Vet Centre that we took Harry to, it had his paw print and a kind message to us inside. It’s nice to know some people still care.
I was going to take you for a walk Friday afternoon Harry, it was the second day of spring and the sun was out, also, my back seemed up for a walk. It had been so long since we went for a walk, I could hear the bushes and poles crying out for you to pee on them, your pee was the coolest, the other dogs pee wasn’t the same.
I was just about to come tell you about the fantastic walk we were about to set upon, when I was told that you didn’t look well and I had better come see. I really didn’t expect to see you in the state you were in. You were on the ground, struggling to breathe, and you didn’t respond to anything I said Harry-Boo. You’d start howling now and again and move your legs like you were trying to run, but your eyes were rolled back and you couldn’t move, it’s was horrible. I had to hold your jaw open so you could breathe.
We took you to the local vets and they said you were probably bitten by a snake and we let them give you an injection of anti-venom. It cost $400, but we didn’t care about the cost, we were told it would save you. Then we were told to go home and wait a few hours for it to take effect, those hours were so long. Finally the phone rang and a nurse told us to come pick you up, when I saw you I didn’t know what to think. They said you were stable, but you looked like you were in a coma. They told us to take you home and watch you over the weekend; they were all going home and couldn’t look after you. We asked if you might have had a seizure and they said no, it was not a seizure. They also said you were burnt and your hair was failing out, we saw no signs of burns or your hair falling out before we took you up there.
We decided to take you to another vets even though the local vets said you would make it through the night, we felt that we couldn’t care for you at home and you’d be in better hands at a vets. We didn’t want to be in the situation where you stopping breathing and we couldn’t do anything. We took you to an Emergency Vet Centre which was about an hour away – we told them all the details and waited while they assessed you. After 15 minutes the vets finally came to talk to us. They told us you were in a coma, you had severe brain damage and they wanted to know why we brought a comatose dog in. They told us they had to put you down, they could not send you home with us or put you in the ICU because you wouldn’t recover. This was a far cry from what the local vets told us earlier on.
You apparently had a brain tumour, which caused the massive seizure that you had, I’m told you didn’t feel any pain – I hope that is true. Even if the local vets had of treated you properly it wouldn’t have made a difference, you’d been having the seizure for too long and it cut off oxygen to your brain. It would have been less traumatic for us though. I feel so angry – we listened to them because we thought they knew what they were talking about. I’m not a trained vet, but even I could see you were in a coma.
I wish you could have talked old chap, told me you weren’t well. Looking back, you clearly had a few signs of a brain tumour. You definitely had Geriatric Separation Anxiety and your personality had changed, it was like you were a little puppy again. Remember how we told the local vets about this ages ago and they said you were just being ‘a blue heeler’? We shouldn’t have listened to them. Just four days ago I was outside throwing you your dog beer – it’s hard to believe you’re gone.
Did you know the dog next door sounds exactly like you? It barked a few times today and for a split second I thought “What is Harold barking at?” and then I remembered that you weren’t there.
I miss you Harry, Saturday morning pancakes and TV won’t be the same without you.
I took a drive down to ‘Australia’s Marina of the Year’ last Sunday afternoon to have a look around, I have to say it’s quite peaceful and beautiful there, perfect spot for a relaxing Sunday arvo. It was also the perfect place to test my new Ricoh Caplio G4 wide camera.
Later that day, I sat out in my backyard taking photos of bell flowers as the warm sun went down, I was trying my hardest to keep the camera still enough to get a good picture, while Harry tried his hardest to get me to throw him his dog beer toy.
More images in the ‘Sunday Afternoon’ gallery.
I receive a lot of email from people enquiring about kangaroos. Do we ride them? Do we keep them as pets? Do they save people just like Skippy did? The answers to these kinds of questions is mostly ‘no’, due to the fact that if you get near a wild kangaroo you will probably get your ass kicked. I don’t want my ass kicked, so I’ve only ever been close to joeys or small kangaroos kept in captivity. Sometimes when I go walking in the bush I’ll see a family of wild kangaroos, but I never go to close or make my presence know because of the whole ass kicking thing.
Last week my mother got quite close to a roo, a bit to close for her own liking.
She was driving to work early in the morning, the sun was just starting to warm things up and take the chill out of the cold morning air. The road she takes has bushlands all around it and from time to time kangaroos will cross the road (to get to the other side of course). She tends to drives slowly down this road, the kangaroos come hopping out of the bush at high speeds and she wouldn’t want to hit one of them. This ‘slow down for the roo’s and all will be sweet’ theory worked pretty well, for a while. She was on the look out for any roo’s when suddenly she heard a large bang, she looked to her left where the sound originated from and saw a large kangaroo had hopped into the side of her car. After a few seconds of shock it got up and hopped away, while most likely thinking…
“Struth. I hit one of those shiny moving things again. Oh well, she’ll be apples.”
The roo seemed unfazed, like it smashed into cars all the time for fun. The car, on the other hand, is now badly dented. All thanks to a speeding bloody roo who clearly hasn’t seen the ‘slow down, save lives’ ads on TV.
Now she’s left wondering, does the insurance cover kangaroos hopping into the side of her car?
It’s official. Lady Rikku has graduated from puppy school. I attended the event and took so many photos that people started to wonder of the camera was, like, attached to my face permanently (I’ll upload the pictures later).
When time came to test what the puppies had learnt, Rikku passed with flying colours. She sat like she’d been sitting in a past life, she went down like it was nothing special and she gave her paw like no other puppy has ever given their paw. She also completed stay, something which only one other puppy present could grasp. She was the shit.
After much love, attention and treats were showered upon her for her good job, we asked Rikku what she wanted to do with her life now that she had graduated. She was quiet for some time, she was probably thinking about the large amount of choices that lay in front of her or maybe she was thinking about chewing my jacket. Then suddenly she barked, well, it was more of a snort, but we all knew what she meant.
She didn’t want to be one of those puppies that has puppies before they’re doggies and cashes in on the governments $3000 a pup policy, she wanted to make something of herself, get out of this small town and become something. Stop licking herself and go out there and be some dog, the dog. We advised her that the road to achieving her dreams may be rough, but we’ll always be there to walk her down it on her lead. Later, I heard her humming the words… “I’m not a pup, not yet a doggyyyy, all I needdd is time, time to dig a hole and pee on a rugggg”. She’s a bit of a Britney fan you see.
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you, the class of 2004…
Sorry, the class of 2004 were all way too busy chasing each other to stay still for a photo.
Last night, I watched the Olympic opening ceremony. Or should that be early this morning? In Western Australia it was on from 1:30am to 5:30am, I am officially buggered today.
I have to say, it was worth it though. The ceremony was very theatrical and that made it a joy to watch. Bonus points need to be given to the people who were in charge of costumes and make-up, there didn’t seem to be any detail spared.
The water was a bit odd, thoughts of “how the hell are they going to get rid of it” and “where will the athletes stand, in the water” ran through my tired head. My tired thoughts were answered, when the commentators explained how very high tech it all was, and that the water drains away in 3 minutes. The state-of-the-art gas system under the water for the flames was what I was most interested in, since I’m a geek, it’s all about the cool flames coming from under the water. Oh yeah baby, flames.
So many wires, I’m amazed nothing went wrong. It reminded me a bit of the movie ‘What Dreams May Come’ at one point, maybe it was because I was lacking sleep or maybe it was the guy on the wire floating around, just like a scene in WDMC.
The only part that left me wondering was the sheet bit, where a sheet was pulled over the athletes during a performance. Unless it symbolised she had a really long dress, it really had no meaning and was just another ‘cool thing’ they could do (which was also done at Sydney I might add).
The athletes coming out was a bit long, and I had to read a book to stay awake (‘Just a geek’ by Will Wheaton). I also think that merchandising should make official camera head straps that the athletes can use to strap their camera’s to their head. The more hands free to wave flags and make hand signals at the many TV camera’s the better.
My favourite bit (from the telecast I was watching) was when they had a close up of one of the people that kept all the athletes in order, lets call them the ‘hand holding barriers’ since that’s pretty much all they did for two hours. The hand holding barriers were doing some hand signals, or maybe it was sign language, whatever it was the guy didn’t seem to know them well. He missed a few and stumbled along with a camera right in his face. Maybe everyone else was doing it wrong and he was the only one doing it right or he was busy thinking that this was a dumb idea, he should never listen to his friends, quick $50 his ass. His arms are probably killing him today, what with all the hand holding that went on.
I thought the flame lighting wasn’t amazing. Sydney still kicks ass in the flame lighting department. Yep, if you’ve got a flame, we can light it mate!
I have a head cold, I think. The first symptoms of a head cold are the same as the first symptoms for Ebola, but since I’ve been no where near the Congo, I’ll put it down to a head cold. The interesting this is said head cold likes to make up words, yeah I know, weird.
I woke up with head cold and it wasn’t until I started replying to email and writing some of my book (which was by far the worst thing I could do with a mind numbing headache) that I noticed that it was making up words. I’d normally put this down to some cold medication that I’ve taken, but since I’ve taken nothing I’m left at a loss. Some of the words head cold has made up today are:
The pesky head cold also keep giving my brain odd thoughts, such as:
“Why don’t they put margarine on the sliced bread before they put it in the bag? Then it would be all-in-one and you wouldn’t have to wash any knifes afterwards.”
Brilliant head cold, we’ll get a noble prize for that one.
“I bet Paris Hilton was abducted by aliens and that explains the bruises, bloody aliens.”
Now I remember why I don’t watch ET.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a fish that blew bubbles, a bubblefish, yeah that would rock.”
That would kind of rock.
The head cold wants you to know that this entry was brought to you by the word Specfuntic.
Once she was let off her lead and placed upon the tiled floor, Rikku instantly sizes up her opponents. To the left stands a Border Collie, licking it’s, umm… private parts, and to the right a Rottweiler, drooling heavily. Being the brave dare-dog that she is, Rikku decided to tackle the Rottweiler first. She slowly started to creep up behind it, edging closer and closer until it turned its head and looked straight at her, she suddenly starts bounding towards it, completely forgetting that she is a Silky Terrier/Chihuahua.
“Awww what a cute puppy… She’s a feisty one.”
I’ve been attended puppy school with Candy (the human friend) and Rikku (the puppy, which needs an education) because I was told that Rikku was beating up the others puppies during previous classes, and I just had to see it for myself. I was amazed, in awe, and dying of laughter when I saw that the little ball of fluff I lovingly call ‘Lady Rikku’ was beating up the other (much larger) puppies, I even had to grab her and make her have some lap-out-time because she was getting too rough.
“My, isn’t she energetic, she just keeps going and going and…”
After some talk about puppy food, the puppy school teacher went around the class asking each owner what they feed their pup, and when it was Candy’s turn to share I felt like saying “well, she’s on crack, as you can see”, but I thought that it might not have gone down well, there were innocent little puppies present.
“She’s umm… Different.”
Her legs seem to be growing at a fast pace and her body is yet to catch up, she looks a bit odd at the present time, like some strange African dog that has long legs for running and a small head for doing small head stuff. I still love her though, well, when she’s not chewing my hair.
“It’s like she has the mind of a German Shepard and the body of a Chihuahua.”
She’s the smartest dog in her puppy class… ok, I know I’m her Auntie and it’s my job to say those kinds of things… but it is true. Candy is contemplating enrolling her in agility classes after she completes puppy and doggy school and there are even talks of getting Rikku into doggy modelling/acting. She is already toilet trained, can sit, drop (Harry can’t even drop, unless of course food is involved), and is pretty close to roll over, she can also stand on Candy’s shoulders and not fall off. She’s a star, a star I tell you (but she’ll have to check into rehab if she doesn’t get that drug problem under control).
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