Help!

O great and powerful Hivemind please help me!

I have been given two Rose's chocolates as a token of thanks. But separated from the box I have no way of identifying the contents of the shiny wrapper.

The first was easy, in a bright green wrapper it is marked (much like the Poison Arrow Frog) as containing mint (possibly pepper, hopefully spear).

The other is somewhat of a mystery and it is in this that I seek your guidance O wise and benevolent Hivemind (please see fig 138 below)

Man I wish I could draw...

sw-nightday
Originally uploaded by Dr.Monster.

Coz I would totally draw something like this!

Video for Amy

This is just an example to help Amy with her blog.

Tease!

You can't see the film, but here's a film that says you can't see the film.

Australia: slow on the uptake

Congratulations to Queensland Governor Quentin Bryce, women's and indigenous rights advocate, lawyer, and former federal sex discrimination commissioner. She is to become Australia's first (first!) female Governor General.

Normally I wouldn't care who the Governor General of Australia was (I can barely remember who the New Zealand one is) but the fact that it took until 2008 (220 years!) before they had a woman in the role is pretty astounding. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said:

I think it's a great reflection on the fact that modern Australia is about the proper role of women in our society.

We're nearly a decade into the 21st century, when did this "modern Australia" thing start? Is it Australia 2.0?

I'm really glad that in New Zealand we have a large number of women in high positions and have done for a long time*. And I hate it when I hear about people complaining that we are becoming "feminised" by it. For some reason being masculinised is ok though.

Also, just as an aside, the Herald headline says "Finally, the Aussies embrace girl power". "Girl Power" as it has become (rather than where it actually originated) has nothing to do with empowering women and everything to do with increasing the spending power and marketability to/of young women and girls.

*I know the glass ceiling is still very much in place.

Small town memories

My Mum just emailed to say she'd been talking to an old school friend of mine. He's back working in New Zealand and has a wife, a kid and another on the way.

The timing made me laugh a little though, in that I've just purchased a large amount of music from my youth. Including the complete Nirvana discography. Nirvana was the music we used to listen to while we got... to doing our home work and going to bed early (you never know who reads blogs these days).

It's funny how, although I haven't listened to Nirvana for a really long time, I can remember all the songs and a surprising amount of the lyrics.

Accelerometer

I don't wish to slight the wonderful field of music journalism (writing about idiots, by idiots, for idiots) but I'm getting kind of annoyed by the reviews I've been reading about the new REM album Accelerate.

The reviews themselves are fine and completely correct about the album. It's good and reminds you of earlier REM work (circa Green).

However, it is NOT their best album "since Automatic for the People", which is pretty much what every review says.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi was a brilliant trip to the edge of alt-country and a spectacular follow-up to the harder Monster (an album I liked but can see why others wouldn't). I haven't seen a single review that even mention New Adventures, which makes me think that perhaps they are judging the new album only on REM's most famous work.

At this point I'm going to stop before I become a raving fanboy. But I just wanted to speak my peace on this.

Back off man! I'm a scientist.

I can now unequivocally state that Ghostbusters is not as funny for me when I listen to it in French or German. I managed to chuckle once when it was in Spanish.