the flattest city

Is Adelaide not the flattest city in the world? I know there are hills - I haven't seen them yet but I'm assured they exist. Feeling slightly disoriented by the flatness and lack of big circular street patterns...(that's what you get coming from Canberra)- I'm used to a visible ring of gentle rolling occassionally snowcapped hills letting me know exactly where I am. Here I'm loving being able to ride a bicycle everywhere and prending I'm actually fit because I'm not struggling up any pathetically gently rises.

I've also eaten the second-best pizza of my life this week. The best was consumed at a fairylight bedecked restaurant by the name of Babylon, complete with crocheted lightshades, red check table cloths and maps of Italy, situated in Huay Geaw Road (spelling could be completely wrong) in Chiangmai, Thailand. That pizza was without a doubt the best I've ever eaten - lovely light melt-in-your-mouth crust, perfect amount of toppings, not a great pile, and perfectley tasty. Babylon was run by a big ol' Italian man and his small Thai wife.

So this week I had organic pizza at Good Life in Glenelg - seriously magic pizza - it's awsomness must be tried to be fully appreciated! Go there - now!

inspired art

smworkofart
Originally uploaded by manthatcooks.

I found this image while surfing flickr last night - It's the first work of art in a long time that's make me laugh out loud - unfortunately the owner of the flickr page who posted this informed me they sold out - what I wouldn't give to own a large work of art!

domestic bliss

note: size of kitchen relative to size of tyres

poor neglected blog

Oh poor neglected blog! Every time I walk past the computer I feel guilty - I think of all the crap in my head and say "head why can't you come up with something to say, or some ideas to work through, or some witty bit of something you read to relate to the internet?" and my head says "... think I'll wag my sewing class where I'm failing zipper insertion 101 (but getting advanced high distinctions in unpicking) so I can watch spicks 'n specks which I haven't seen in months". And then the cold hard reality that I've blown my broadband downloads and no longer have the patience to wait more than a second for anything, and should be writing that grant acquittal and should really be doing a whole bunch of other stuff takes over... and my poor blog disappears into distant recent memory.

To add to that tedious list of excuses dear blog I'v gone and got myself my first ever full time permanent job in the public service (woohoo), after thirty years of part-time casual three jobs at once or flat broke nothin' I'm adding another layer to the domesticated picture of Queanbeyan life. I now have the job, the mortgage, the knee-high grass (summer will take care of that), a wedding ring (post eleven years of living in sin), three chickens hanging round the five vehicles in the yard - and a front room full of drum kits and car parts. Neither of which I know anything about but the old man keeps himself busy doing mysterious stuff with them - right at this very moment he's sitting in the kitchen doing something to the mag wheels with the white walls on them.

Next time I'll revert to the intended subject matter - If I can remember what that was... (come on brain there's intelligent witty commentary in there somewhere...

Imploding and Exploding Organs

Imploding and Exploding Organs is the subtitle of a chapter called Life Under Pressure in a book called Life at the extremes: the science of survival. I haven't read this chapter yet but I'm filled with very graphic imaginary images of organs imploding and exploding. This useful tome - the kind of book it's essential to read if you plan to be an underwater oil rig maintenance person or are travelling to the moon any time soon - also mentions nitrogen intoxication, which happens when you dive beyond a certain depth in the ocean.

"...christened 'the rapture of the deep' by Jacques Cousteau." (I love that phrase)

Basically like alcohol intoxication - the author goes on to say that scientific tests on the effects of nitrogen intoxication have been done and one normally serious scientist who volunteered as a subject cheated on his dexterity test. (I'd love to know how you can cheat on a dexterity test...)

"Such studies sufficed to show that divers suffering from nitrogen narcosis could not be expected to behave responsibly and might react in ways that threatened their own or others' lives. Indeed, some intoxicated scuba-divers have been known to offer their mouth-pieces to the passing fish..."

Apparently people recover very quickly from nitrogen intoxication.

"The typical reaction was,'My God, I'm sober.'