Walking through the park at night

I've heard stories about this place. None of them end with the lead character skipping away whilst eating ice-cream... My new goal in life is to make it to the other side before anything unspeakable happens. I quicken my pace only to realise that I make more noise that way. 'Slow down idiot' I say to myself They'll hear me. Too late, They are lurking, waiting, wanting to finish me off.

My eyes scan the surroundings frantically looking for light. Alas the moon is my only source. Basking me in the suns pale reflected light. I stop, turn slowly around and look at it for a few seconds. A brief moment of comfort is sometimes enough to carry a person through tough situations. I take one deep breath and turn back to the path. It is darker than it was, my night eyes are ruined by an attempt to boost moral. 'Foolish idiot!' I stand motionless, waiting to recover from temporary blindness. Surely this is the end. I hear a rustle from the bushes to my left. My mind races. I can hear my own heart beating. 'Calm down' It's probably just a squirrel... a mutated squirrel...with rabies...and beady demonic eyes. A surge of adrenaline urges my every muscle to react, to run. I overcome and focus on the path ahead.

‘SELF CONTROL’

‘Self Control’

‘self control’

‘Try singing a song’

‘you drive me crazy…

…I just can’t sleep…

I’m so excited…

…I meant tooo beee
Oh
Ohh
Ooohhhh
Craaazy!
but it feels so goood…
baaaby thinking of you keeps me up aaall night’

My choice of song is weak. I need to force myself to stop singing. Why is the only song you can think of when surrounded by impending doom always the most inappropriate one.

Wait!
Light!

The other side of the park! I’ve nearly reached it! I’m still Alive!

I can make it. Not far now. I feel the wind on my skin. Closer still. I don’t feel my legs moving beneath me yet I move quickly through the darkness. I didn’t know I could run this fast. I see someone with a dog ahead, judging from the bent over stance and hobble it’s an old person or a beggar… or an old beggar. It’s just about to arch its back bending its knees and entering the squat number two relief position (the dog not the old beggar…) before it sees me and starts barking. This dog is a hundred times better than what’s back there. A quick dodge left and right past the old man beggar and dog, I’ve done it! Civilization embraces me with its warm comforting arms.

My encounter with the demonic mutated rabies squirrel is over. I doubt I’ll ever walk alone through the park at night again.

Mosquitoes, Yummy!

Somebody asked me if my religion prevents me from killing mosquitoes the other day.

The logic > you're not going to eat it so you technically should not kill it.

Worried that I'd have to eat every mosquito I killed from now on, I decided to look further into this matter (I know ants taste kind of zingy and sour and I've heard that flying ants and meal worms are almost buttery gooey but I don't fancy eating a mosquito. Especially after it's been drinking someone else s blood, Bleuck!!!).

In short, the rule regarding killing things like mosquitoes is as follows > I may kill it if it is going to harm me.

YAY!

To celebrate my new found clear conscience (wrt killing Mozzies, flies, cockroaches...) I've decided to post some of the more inventive methods I use to cream these evil critters (before they harm me...).

>The vacuum cleaner - this is a new method I started using the other day when I was cleaning the house. It's funny watching the mosquitoes spiral into the hose (like a star ship would into a black hole or a turd being flushed...not that I watch or anything, that's just the nature of draining water...).

>The towel - Remember in school after swimming there would always be some wiseguy that twists his towel and flicks it to sting your speedo clad highknee out of the change rooms...Well it works like a charm for that pesky mozzie on the ceiling. SNAP! SPLAT!

>The one handed grab - I find that the Clapping method doesn't work too well, the air that escapes from between your hands carries the mozzie to safety. The one hand grab is much more effective (and less painful). It's as simple as it sounds, use one hand to grab that blood sucker. It's easier than it sounds, they fly very slowly. Remember though, it may still be alive in your hand so be sure to mush up those fingers well.

>Deodorant can flame thrower - Very effective but stay well clear of curtains, eyebrows, other people, hydrogen blimps...

If you find that you are fighting a losing battle all is not lost you can still get a good nights sleep by:

A - Switching the fan on
B - Not breathing (this way they don't pick up your Carbon Dioxide signal (okay so it has it's flaws, I'm working on it)
c - Sleeping in the car (windows closed and be snappy with that door)

Cheerio

The home remedy

I feel that home remedies are slowly dieing out. What with aspirin and painkillers around every second corner. I thought it would be nice to dedicate a post to the old ways (even though I don't belive in them).

Many people will still stand by their weird concoction of dog ear flakes and mashed earthworm saying that it will kill off those pesky whatevers before you know it. I just see these people as frizzy haired, wear my undies over me trousers and blink uncontrollably while staring at my kneecaps...what was I saying again....
I any case. The placebo effect can be a useful ally to the ingroant mind.

Sure once upon a time when a person couldn't find a solution to a problem, they would simply make one up out of desperation. But now things are different. Scientists have more than likely already conducted research on your problem and have come up with a solution (or if not, have at least prooved that your home remedy is bollocks).

Moving along.

When I was a kid I was subjected to various home remedies as a first resort (probably handed down from my great great grandparents). Luckily sanity would prevail and my father would bring out the medication and injections before things got too bad.

I'm not sure if anyone else did anything similar to what my family did, it would be interesting to find out. in any case some of the home remedies that stand out from my childhood are:

• Toothache remedy. rub baking powder on and chew cloves with the offending tooth. I guess this was a temporary fix at best. it probably worked by distracting your mind from the toothache pain by having an awful taste and interesting fizzing sensation. Nowadays we simply go to the dentist for a filling.
  
• Chicken pox remedy. This one was particularly useless in my opinion. I was stripped of my clothes (which is fun when you're 5) and covered in a mixture containing crushed mulberry leaves probably with some other stuff in there too. It didn't work... I smelled funny and still itched all over. This probably oringated as a joke, imagine seeing your kid covered in bits of leaves and trying to scratch its back by rolling in the carpets. heheee I think I'll carry this one forward to the next gen. Now we just give the kid a bath in calamine lotion (still smells funny but stops the itching).
• Weight (loss) home remedy. Having a number of females in my family I often laughed at the things they would do to try loose weight 'the easy way'. Solution WONDERBEANS! I'm not sure who came up with this or what species the wonderbean was but somebody made a killing selling packets of dried beans to overweight people. How it worked>>>replace one meal a day with a few wonderbeans and you will miraculously loose weight! If this did work it was because you only ate two meals a day as opposed to three. No thanks...

There are a whole bunch more. I don't want to make this post too long so I'll stop here. I'm interested in hearing about other home remedies. leave a comment!

Rumpelspoogeskin?

So what do you think of my spoogeskin?
It's a neat little trick on Photoshop. All you do is apply a glowing edges effect to your original photo and Hey Presto instant spoogeskin!

Why a Fishtank?

People spend so much time, effort and money on fishtanks.
I know, I have three...

I still can't quite put my finger on why though. Sure they are nice to look at but when I think about it, I probably spend more time on maintenance than I do on actually watching fish.

When I get around to looking at my fish tank (or 'phish tank' as spell check would prefer I typed it...) I realise how bored the fish must be (guess I'll swim to that spot over there now. I wonder if it's any different compared to the last time I was over there? OOoo look it's my baby I think I feel like eating the fruits of my loins again...)

So I had brought it upon myself to try make life a bit more interesting for my fish (in hopes that they would become more interesting to watch).
For instance, I decided to try make one puny male guppy very VERY happy by giving him an exclusive harem of 16 females. It was fun to watch him displaying his tiny dorsal fin and short tail thoughout the day only to constantly be rejected by all the females.

After a number of enrichment efforts I always end up in the same situation though. I suppose you can't blame something that lives in a 1m squared universe for being predictable.

There must be some GOOD reason to explain why we keep fish in tanks. Perhaps I'll stumble across it one day.

Something to do with human nature I guess...

EEbEE