When Coke goes Scrooge... Pepsi comes to play

When Coca-Cola refused to provided coca-cola for it's Melbourne manufacturing plant's Christmas celebration the employees; in an act of defiance that I think is very typically Australian; didn't complain but went ahead with the party, with slabs of Pespi to drink. The media got a hold of the story and there you go...

Coca-Cola are not happy chappies about it. Serves them right in my mind, especially given the company is always proclaiming that they invented the look of Santa Claus etc. Their actions seem more Scrooge than Santa to me, shame on them!

I wonder if the Santa, pictured above, had to buy his own drink for the shoot.

Well played coke workers, well played.

Shout out to my stranded friend

Seems there is a Gilligan complex going on at the moment. Many things are stranded, sadly without the desert island or coconut-cream pies.

Just as the Canadian Copyright Bill has been delayed, my dear friend is stuck at LAX. After already spending 3-hours on the tarmac; due to the weekend's monstrous snow storm; she is now stranded in L.A, waiting to find a connecting flight back home to Oz.

Thinking of you Bella, there is nothing worse than being stranded and not knowing what will happen next. Wishing you a safe and swift journey back home.

Hopefully the Copyright Bill will find it's way too. Though in that case, I find it odd that people can get so mad about something they haven't even seen yet.

Snow-a-rama

There is so much snow, I can't even see out the window...If I have to go outside, it will be in what I call "pilgrim-mode"... battling the elements...like pilgrims back in the day.

I find that making things overly dramatic to compliment the dramatic weather somehow makes it easier to deal with. I can role-play and practice my exaggerated expressions of woe, which distracts me from focusing on how cold or uncomfortable I am.

It works for me anyway.

Building the ROM Crystal

Great little video that shows the construction of the Michael Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

So, THAT's what was happening!

What has eight legs and smells nice?

I don't suffer from arachnophobia, but I don't particularly like spiders either.

Growing up in Australia, the land of large and hairy huntsman, you learn to deal with them. I used to be a master of the piece-of-paper-and-jar capture technique.

Since moving to Canada, my life has been relatively free of spiders, the few I have seen always seem so tiny compared to the huntsmen.

Now that I live in a condo and winter has arrived the local spider population have moved indoors and seem to really like my bathroom.

The first few I either ignored or quickly disposed of, then one got ambitious and decided to take residence on the ceiling immediately above the sink. This I was less nonchalant about, as the last thing I need is a spider falling into my hair as I wash my face or on to my toothbrush.

I decided to take action, this bathroom was too small for both of us, the spider had to go. Unfortunately being on the ceiling made the previously mentioned paper/jar technique too tricky; using a shoe too likely to leave a mark. We don't own any bug spray so I had to be creative.

Out came the Freebreeze, which I liberally sprayed my opponent with. Unlike humans who enjoy the scent of Freebreeze, the eight-legged creature was obviously very unhappy (despite smelling nice) and acted quite 'drunk'. So 'drunk' he fell - attached to a piece of his web - precariously between the sink and the ceiling, which helped no one.

Unsure what to do, as I merely wished to kill not torture him, I tried to release him from the web to go down the sink. He by now was pissed-off and wiggly, I freaked out, so more Freebreeze was applied. At this point there was so much Freebreeze in the small room we were both nearly knocked unconscious.

Eventually I knocked him off his web and down the sink, I ran the tap to wash him away and to wash some of the Freebreeze off him. Mission accomplished.

The next morning my boyfriend was in the bathroom and commented "there's a mark on the ceiling, looks like something was sprayed"...I didn't say a word.

Christmas cards for EVERYONE

Christmas cards have been part of the festive tradition since 1843.

I personally have been giving them out since Grade 4, when everyone gave one to everyone else in their class. Usual stuff, your best friend got the prettiest card, the boy you didn't like the religious looking one.

In more recent years, with the rise of the internet, I have become slack and for the most part make use of e-cards to send my Christmas greetings. There are however a very small handful of people (including my mother who threatens violence if I don't) whom I send a traditional hard-copy card by post.

I was at the card store recently trying to select cards for this small group. Nothing too religious, nothing too cheesy, nothing too North American (hard to explain). Making these selections is easier said than done and is getting harder due to the rise of 'specific' cards. I found cards for "Mother-in-Law", "The Boss", "For my Hairdresser", "For my Super Intendant" and my favourites "For my Dog" and "From the Dog".

Although I found them a bit strange, I wouldn't have have minded these cards, except that all the specificness had obliberated the customary nice-card-with-nothing-written-inside that is what I usually get.

I couldn't help but wonder... How many people give specific cards to their hairdressers and how many people are at home writing cards "From the Dog"?

Human History - Short Form

From the 60 second lecture series at the University of Pennsylvania comes human history in ten points. My favourite is the first point, 'tribes: tough times'. Below are a few more.

Human History
Alan Charles Kors
George H. Walker Endowed Term Professor of History

- First, tribes: tough life.
- Rainfall agriculture, which allows loners.
- The impulse is always there, though: "Kill or enslave the outsider."
- No one who teaches you knows what will happen.

For the full list, to go www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/trans_Kors.

Book Worm Goes High-Tech

I have always been a bit of a book worm, unashamedly so.

At the moment I am reading a fabulous book by Alberto Manguel called 'The Library At Night'. The book ponders everything from why people feel compelled to collect books; the history of ancient libraries; and how the author and his library are slowly becoming 'one', due the dust from the books and the dusk from his shedding dead-skin cells intermingling.

I am not in a position where I can have a wonderful physical library, yet, so I am creating an online one for myself at Shelfari.

Shelfari is perfect as I always have trouble remembering what I have read - I've accidentally brought the same book twice - in the past. This way I can create an online catalogue for myself, see what my friends are reading, and get ideas for future reading.

So until I get the physical library I have always dreamed of I am a relatively happy book worm. Not sure I want my library and I too intermingle our dust so we become 'one', but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.