Our Garden
Since my Dad couldn’t believe that I have actual sweetcorn growing my Australian garden, I took some pictures this weekend as proof. Things are really going nuts out there. The corn tasselled about two weeks ago and we’ve just noticed the first two baby ears of corn starting. We lost our first crop of green onions (due to an extremely hot day) but the second batch are coming along nicely. We hit the gardening store this past week to stock up on seedlings, pots, and soil. We also finally bought ourselves a hose but we try not to use it too much. Snookums even got this stinky fertilizer made from seaweed to spray on everything! Our thumbs aren’t green but they’re getting there.

It’s the best thing since punk kittens rockin’ out the White Stripes… Viking Kittens that Want to Take you to a Gay Bar. I giggled and giggled. (Link courtesy of Brigita.)

You know what’s even more annoying than people who directly embed your images in their webpages? People who directly embed big honkin’ sound files from your site. Case in point. (Be sure to have your sound turned on to hear my revenge.)

In addition to Kurt’s victory, hobbits around the world have another reason to cheer: Several of them have taken Roger Ebert to task for his comments about Return of the King. Hmmm, Uncle Rog looks a bit like a hobbit himself…

World Idol Results
Hooray for Kurt! I was predicting his victory all week based on the buzz from the ‘Net. Too bad for Guy, but he really didn’t choose the best song to show off. I don’t think he’ll mind losing very much though (as opposed to Kelly and Will, who both looked a little shell-shocked to see some of their scores). I was happy to see how well Peter did but a little surpisred that Ryan didn’t score more highly. I guess protest folk songs don’t play too well outside the western hemisphere. Read on for more commentary from myself and the Snook.Me: “Elton John? He hasn’t been a legitimate popular music star in, like…”
Snook: “Twenty years!”

Me: “What the hell is up with the Pan Arabic scores? Did they try to use my super sneaky voting strategy?”
Snook: “I think they messed up and voted backwards.”

Snook: “Frickin’ Heinz again! Stupid fourteen-year-olds voting…”
Me: “Heinz. Winkler. Two names no person should ever have.”

Me: “Alex looks like your nephew Kurt on a bad hair day. She’s like a toddler who can’t grow proper hair yet.”

We had an interesting debate over whether Shannon Noll (the Aussie runner-up) would’ve gotten more votes than Guy. On the technical side, he’s just not a great singer. He doesn’t move really well on stage. But on the “x factor” side, he’s kinda cute in a big-white-guy-with-a-soul-patch kinda way. He definitely would’ve been more what people expected as the “Aussie” Idol (i.e. way more Steve Irwin than Guy). He probably would’ve worn jeans and sang “Workin’ Class Man”, for example. So I reckon he would’ve picked up the teenage girl vote, plus the Crocodile Hunter and country music fans. As much as it pains me to say it, I think he’d have scored higher overall.

Lastly, I’m still not getting the Will Young thing. He’s just so… weird-looking.

Happy frickin’ New Year. The Snook and I went to the pool today and I thought I did a good job of protecting myself from the sun. We were out there for two hours and I had sunscreen, a shirt, a hat, the works. Afterwards I was sitting on the couch at home and I suddenly noticed that the back of my thighs felt uncomfortably hot. A mirror soon revealed the horrible truth… My bum is bright red! It’s sunburnt from my bikini to my knees. It hurts so badly I can barely sit. And this is my last two days of vacation! I had a lot of sitting-on-my-bum planned! Awwww… I’m going to have melanomas on my ass.

Later: Thank God for ibuprofen. Seriously.

2003: A Dave Odyssey. I’ve always liked Dave Barry…