Rock stars: a self-portrait

I was just browsing through photos at The Cloud Appreciation Society and found one called Sunset over The Olgas, Northern Territory, Australia. It's a nice photo (see detail below), but what I like best about it is the copyright notice (which usually shows the name of the photographer):

Kata Tjuta is the name given by the traditional landowners, the Anangu, to The Olgas - those big bumpy bits you can see in profile on the horizon.
:)

(The area is part of the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park, and you'll need a permit if you ever want to do any commercial photography, filming, etc.)

Sunday

Would you like to guess what we're looking at here, reader? Click on the image for a larger view if you need one, but I knew as soon as I stepped into this room: there was a snake on the windowsill, and it was inside the insect screen (one of the few insect screens on any window in this house that actually has no holes in it). That snake was right here in this room. Bloody hell! Bloody bloody hell!

I was walking in here to close the window because it had just started raining, and thank God it had, because otherwise I wouldn't have walked into this room to close the window, and that snake would now be somewhere in this room without me knowing about it.

It must have come through a hole in the bottom of the window frame (designed to let rainwater out, presumably), or maybe I just hadn't noticed the screen was loose at the side somewhere. It got in. That's the point. A fucking snake - another one - got into this room. My haven. My safe little island. The place I feel okay. Bloody hell.

I got the broom from the next room and hit the insect screen with it, and the screen just flew out (thank God), as did the poor little snake who seemed just as keen as I did for our meeting to end as soon as possible. Then I closed the window and cried. And then I started shaking and cursed my stupid fucking useless life wherein which I have to chase the snakes out of this fucking room and this fucking life on my own. Where is the justice? And why am I such a drama queen? Some things have no answers.

It was probably a harmless tree snake, and if you know different, I don't want to hear it. I'm almost certain it was a tree snake, and this is the third time in about as many weeks that I've seen it, though this is the first and hopefully last time it'll ever be in this room.

And so. The end. Was there any point to this story? No. Is there any point to my existence? No. Is there any point to any fucking thing? No. And yet it goes on. Boo fucking hoo. God, I hate snakes.

Things I love: 4

How damn cute are these eggs??!!

Happy little faces from Sunny Queen Farms.


I took them for a walk outside to see the morning sun, and as you can see, they loved it!

Work safety

Work safety is important, and safety decals (stickers) have an important role to play in that important task. Here are two from the mower (a small tractor). The first one is located just below the steering wheel so that it's easy for the operator to see:


Warning! Get to a library!

The next one is found on the new deck (the part housing the mowing blades) and... Don't know, maybe it's just me? I look and look and can't make much sense of it. I'm wondering and I'm worried.


Repel dangerous rays! Get in a box?

Things I love: 2

I love clouds and the sky and my camera and making pictures with them, and I love this photo.

Feral animals shouldn't look so cute

The rabbits around here are breeding like rabbits at the moment - they're everywhere! I saw these characters this morning while standing on the verandah taking photos of the sunrise. The bitumen you can see is the driveway, not a public road, so they weren't in any danger of being run over. Not that they seemed worried by the possibility anyway... particularly not the one reclining in the first photo. At first I thought it must have been injured - its back legs broken or something. But no, it really was just lazing there.

And these are all separate individuals, by the way (and there are three in the third photo, in case you miss one or two). There were eight of them altogether.

Happy Wednesday

This picture came from a magazine, but do you think I can remember which one or when? No. Can't.

But isn't that the happiest person you've ever seen? :)

I can't think of a title (1)

The sky this morning.

Question: What's wrong with the photo?
Answer: (See the end of this post.**)

And now to other news...

After doing some mowing today I found a leaf on my shirt, so I flicked at it but it wouldn't move. And this is why:


It was a cicada. It was clinging to my shirt with sharp little feet.

(click image for a larger version)
Very quiet, very cute, and now back outside with all the other cicadas.

** The photo is upside down. Correct answer wins you 10 points and a happy 2007.

Think like an astronaut...

One world, one people.

Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other - that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?
- Mother Teresa (but see note below)

Photo by Harrison Schmitt, 07 December 1972, from Wikipedia via a re-uprighting at the old Plodding.

And "Think like an astronaut..." is idea no.64 in David Krieger's 101 ideas for creating a more peaceful world: Creating world peace takes many forms, but surely it begins with individuals.

I can't find the original source for the Mother Teresa quote, and can't be sure she said it. There's a whiff of the "make something up and attribute it to someone famous"s about it, because elsewhere (Suffering.net, quoting from a book) the same passage is written differently:

Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we are all God's children. That man, that woman, that child is my brother, my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still have such destruction and suffering?

Still, the meaning is the same, I hope: we belong to each other, we're in this world together; if we could see and appreciate each other more clearly, we wouldn't get into so much trouble so often. One world, one people. Use it or lose it.

Merry Christmas, reader, however you choose to say it. Peace to you and yours and all of us.

John Butler's long lost twin

An unnamed soldier in Somalia on the left and an Australian musician, John Butler (ABC TV's Enough Rope interview), on the right.

Photos from musicbase.de and Bleak New Year beckons for Somalia:

Ethiopia has deployed troops in Somalia to back up the official government. If the Islamists attack, they will find themselves fighting Ethiopia and a cross-border war would then develop. If so, Ethiopia’s bitter enemy Eritrea would be sorely tempted to join in.

If Ethiopia is tied down in Somalia, Eritrea may open a new front in the north. Then the Horn of Africa will be engulfed in a regional war with repercussions for the entire continent. The prognosis for 2007 for the inhabitants of that vast region is bleak indeed.

- David Blair, Telegraph.co.uk

See how I sucked you into reading about serious matters by luring you with trivialities? (If you were lured; are you feeling lured?) It's underhanded and manipulative and media outlets do it all the time, which shows just what they think of us: that we're stupid, uncaring, and easily led. Let's hope they're not right.