Just hanging around

( Steamy serpent fantasies )

Leunig better be careful. Most seditious little duckie that he is. Might soon be wearing that orange jumpsuit too

A strange serpent

scaeriefaerie13 has placed the Imperius Curse on this poor unsuspecting serpent under the guise of some seemingly innocuous game.

Be warned, this game is called "Six Weird Things." It starts by having one person type six weird things/habits about themselves in a blog. Next, six other people must be "tagged" by this person. Their names will be noted at the bottom of your "Six Weird Things" blog and you must send them a comment to inform them of it. If you become "tagged," then you must write a blog of your own six weird things/habits and repost the instructions. Finally, chose six new people to be "tagged" and make sure that you inform them.


1 Izzie has a pet rat with some very peculiar habits. Wormtail is rather partial to camembert cheese, crackers (especially the thin wafery sorts) and the odd glass or two of cabernet. In fact, he insists on the first sniff and sip of every glass of red that darkens the Izzie's lips. And what the Rat wants, the Rat gets.

2 The Izzie has been known to hiss and snarl when grumpy, especially at consumers of stinking coffin nails and screaming squawking rotten little rugrats. We so so hates the noisy little beasties.
And then other times the Izzie hisses just to announce her presence among those who are aware of her serpentine tendencies. What's really sweet is when certain folks hiss back (Like the lady at work who has a large collection of pink and fluffy cats and an extremely dark sense of humour, who Izzie calls the Lizard Queen)

3 The Izzie does not collect pink and fluffy dolls, cats or similar creatures but is very partial to teddy bears and have even made some ourselves. Fussy Izzie only likes mohair and other such real materials.

4 Izzie does not have a sweet tooth and goes out of her way to avoid sugar and salt of any sort. Sweeteners are even lower on the Izzie list of acceptable food ingredients along with anything GM. This sounds a bit peculiar in light of our addiction to chocolate but it is the dark and bitter stuff that we prefer where the bitterness offsets the sweetness. On the other hand, the Iz is most fond of savory tastes like cheese and peanut butter which we will put on just about anything. A recent addition to this list are chickpeas which Iz discovered is a common ingredient in falafel, hummous, pakoras and kofta which are among our favorite munchies ever.

5 Izzie is a bit of a goblin at heart and has kept a little green book since the age of 15 or so where we write down everything that we spend. Used to even go so far as to put stuff into categories such as rent, groceries, booze, books etc and balance the books at the end of every month. Getting a big fat zero at the end of the month was a most rare event indeed but it was not worth the hassle of searching for the missing millions for most months. So in the end we were satisfied with any discrepencies between income, expenditure and savings of less than $$20 for the month and to have the assets column getting bigger every month.
But once we got our paws on the Lair, got a bit slack and in early 2002 stopped bothering with the rituals at the end of the month. But we have still kept up our daily squiggles and a most amazing memory jogger it can be many moons later. And now that the end of the Oz financial year is upon us, will be soon slaving away over a hot abacus and hoping to be a bit more disciplined with this lot of New Year's resolutions - especially as our tax return will need to be in well before the usual witching date of 31st October.

6 Izzie might be a rather ancient serpent but still loves picture books - especially those by Dr Seuss and Graeme Base and children's books in general. Apart from the exception - a certain Mr Pullman - they are so less likely to be written by pompous pretentious prats. But the funniest, prettiest and wittiest of all has to be one "Godel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid" Not quite kid's stuff but the sheer sense of joy and wonder evident in this book is so childlike and like the Potters - it is one of this serpent's favorite 'happy pills'

Now which of the Izzie friends are the most normal? No point in picking on the weird ones. That would make life too easy


accioslash
andromakhe
benedictxvi
hedge_funds
ozfille
swiv

A twisted path

Lots of tasty juicy radio morsels this week. Thinks we better post the linkies before they find their way to the Black Hole of Cyberia

Been reminiscing lately about a certain writer and his infernal books which Petunia always threatened with tossing in the bonfire. "They are corrupting and twisting your mind" she used to claim. And sometimes we think she just may well be right. But they gave us our first taste of Zen Buddhism and its distant relative Taoism. And the more we find out, the more we like it so could hardly pass up the opportunity of hearing the stuff straight from the source

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.'


Spiritual Classics - China
(audio)

And then another tale about two creatures who have fascinated this serpent for a long long time. Two men who held mainstream religion in utter contempt and disdain but certainly had delusions of divine grandeur. Oh and the music at the end is truly spooky spine tinglin stuff
Michael Burleigh on political religion
(audio)

Goblin Gossip

A quick squiggle before our daily fix of Howard Hating Radio National. Bugger. Still not got around to gossip from Greasy John's TakeAWAys on Wednesday.

Was not a bad day really. Had a meeting with the Potions Mistress who is getting desperate for funds to buy bigger cauldrons and broomssticks and riders for deliveries.
Got a peek at the loan application form from the credit union and says that even if the Iz was able to have all the income and expenses for this financial year entered into the software and printed out financial statements and all - within a week or so - that it would still be insufficient as they need to be audited by a real goblin and not just a wannabee. And - adds Iz - getting a goblin at this time of year is well nigh impossible not to mention extremely expensive. Asks why she can't just redraw on her house mortgage. Just about every lender these days does redraws - everyone it seems except hers. Iz said that the cost and time involved in preparing this loan application (and Izzie is doing it for free) is far in excess of the benefits. While the costs of getting the loan are 100% certain, the approval is not guaranteed at all. It would probably be much cheaper and quicker simply to move her mortgage to a lender who does do redraws and then she can get her paws on her own equity without jumping through hoops.

Iz got to thinking what a shame it is that some one with a good business idea and experience is limited by lack of funds. Or rather lack of cash. Any home owner who has had a place for more than 3 years has got plenty of equity with this present crazy housing boom. The Iz on the other hand has no bright ideas for business but can get access to cash with nothing more than a phone call and a three day wait for the loot to be transferred back to our main account.
Suggested a credit card as a short term solution. The one that Iz will be applying for - also from our friendly lender is only 10% pa interest. But you need to earn more than $25,000 pa and be able to prove it. And as a self employed business owner - proof is the one thing she does not have. She does not even have tax returns as evidence and admitted that she had not filled one out for the last four years or so.

Amazing really - the skills required to generate income are very rarely the same as those required to maintain and manage it and they are very rarely both possessed by the same person. Izzie does not have an entrepreneurial bone in her body but is rather talented at running on the smell of an oil rag and of knowing where all the money went at the end of the month.

So, aside from our own end of financial year rituals, will need to get several months expenses entered into that program. Been procrastinating lately and should have already gotten to the end of November 2005 but in reality - still stuck in September.
But even if this stuff is not needed for loans or tax returns (it certainly is for the infernal GST) - it is the sort of thing that you really need to do anyway. No point in slaving over a boiling cauldron for months and months only to discover that there's no silver sickles left over after paying the landlord and the other bills. Most small businesses run at a loss for a while but if you are - you really need to know exactly how big it is so you have a better chance of working out if you are feeding and watering plants with potential or just throwing good money after bad.

So, had a pretty productive morning and did not feel all snarky and cranky like last Thursday - even in the shops. But the mad Mac well and truly tested our patience. Absolutely had to snatch certain podcasts today since some Radio Nation programs have the mp3 files available for only two weeks. The little beast decided to go on strike. That side of things downloaded ok but the infernal spinning beachball of doom was on overtime. Even so called superspeedy Opera was on snail's pace. Had to use Opera since the other two browsers were being uberbitchy. Just the opportunity we needed to snatch some skins and do a bit of tweeking. So so love how you can click on the tabs and see thumbnails of the corresponding webpage. It even gives snippets about encoding. So now the Iz knows that our serpent diary is already in Uft 8 or whatever it's called. Most delighted indeed as we now can play around with LJ Book and not be totally dependent on some windoze only archive program.

Same sucky stuff this evening. So the Iz took to the Preciousss with an axe and shut down just about every open window or program. Seems iTunes and iPodder well and truly gobble the juice. Yesss. Would have been nice to spend that precious 149 silver sickles on an extra 512mb memory rather than MYOB goblin stuff.