Another birthday passes by ...

Thanks everyone for all the birthday texts and messages. My phone is being a complete dog at the moment and only sometimes lets me answer phone calls. All other times it jams and plays a one second loop of the ring tone for a minute before turning itself off. Very annoying.

In other news Zeds parent flew back to Canada on Wednesday and I begin the slow process of putting my house back together after 12 weeks of house guests.

Waiter Rant - Should Bloggers Become Authors?

This has been one of my favourite blogs for a while now. Good waiters should be all about excellent service, a little bitter, smoking cigarettes and having witty conversation out the back.

The waiter rant, is short tales of waiter life, sometimes outrageous and sometimes sad, usually witty and dry. And joy of all joys he is writing a book. While I don't know if I could take a whole book of the blog style of writing, it will be interesting to see what the transition from blog to book is like.

Just like in the nineties where being a good stand up comedian would land you a TV show, the 2000 equivalent is a book deal from your blog. If the TV shows are anything to go by, you usually get a watered down family friendly version of the once edgy comedy that got noticed in the first place. Books are less likely to be dumbed down and censored so with any luck some of my favourite bloggers will be making the transition to off line media and having their writing mettle truly tested. Writing for the web is a completely different kettle of fish than writing a book. Web browsers typically have a short attention span and don't want to read anything that requires scrolling. Short and snappy works well, but would that work for a book, I might feel a bit assaulted if I read 400 pages of "short and snappy" or would it work? Would it become a page turner allowing my TV/Internet generation addled brain to really work in the niche it has become molded too?

I don't know.

A POX! A POX on us ALL!!

My co - worker has had a weird rash for the last two days. Turns out its chicken pox. CHICKEN POX. (Pox is a good word it would be in my top 50 words for sure.)

So shes been at work, contagious, spreading the germs everywhere, Poxing all over the place. (From now on pox gets a capital letter.) 5 pathologists couldn't diagnose her so she went across the road to the white cross to see a real doctor. Its says a lot that the hospital employees got to the medical practice across the road rather than see anyone in the hospital.

THATS BECAUSE ITS WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD DO! Seriously, if its not an emergency, see your GP or go to an after hours medical center.

But I digress. POX. So I'm at the gym (I go sporadically) and I have this massive headache. I still have it now, I tried drinking beer but it didn't help. I am full of pox paranoia now.

POX!

I don't know If I even had the Pox! However, it may be irrelevant as it is possible to get the pox twice.

Motorola V3.x Worst cellphone ever.

Mostly I think cellphones are dumb. Not that its dumb to have one, that they are themselves stupid.

Modern Cellphones are laboured with poor operating systems, pathetic light capturing devices that they pass off as a feature camera and claim to be mp3 Players but have no headphone output (because really what I want to do is either listen to through the tinny ringer speaker or fork out $80 for blue tooth headphones)

Why I hate my cellphone.

1. Its ugly.

2. It randomly turns itself off.

3. Sometimes crashes during an incoming call.

4. Randomly decides not to play the programmed alarms.

5. Has horrible predictive text.

6. It takes forever to do anything because you have to wade through so many menus.

7. Basically, poor usability.

8. It promised to be so much more.


Reasons why (I have to) like my cell phone.

1. I can't afford a new one.

2. The camera isn't awful

Motorola have been on the down and down since the RAZR, when that first came out, it was awesome, but everything since that has been a razr re-hash, chunkier and crappier.
Read about motorola and why they are now crap.

Pepino - Sub tropical fruit for the kiwi garden

I get the "Get Growing" email newsletter from New Zealand Gardener and this week they featured PEPINO! Actually they featured them a bit late, because if I'd planted them a couple of months ago, I'd have a nice little crop. Lucky for me you can find them at the garden center with a few fruit on them. Also if you keep them protected from frost they will grow year round and produce a massive crop next year.
I purchased the Pepino Incredible Ruby variety and I still want to get a regular Pepino as well.

All I need now is a nice big pot and some trellis or gutter guard and some sticks to make a support for it, otherwise the weight of the fruit becomes too much for the poor little plant!

I'm quite enjoying edible gardening. Its practical and a satisfying hobby. This year I was getting lettuces and cucumbers everyday and I even got tomatoes despite planting them in terrible spots and not trimming the laterals and not feeding them. Things that grew really well were the regular cucumbers, lettuces and apple cucumbers. I have now planted spinach and silverbeet for winter greens and my late beans are throwing me a handful every now and then though they are in a far too shady spot.

What I really need for next year is some raised garden beds for the middle of my tiny back lawn. The little garden of to the side only gets full sun for about 6 weeks of summer then the house shades it a lot in the mornings. So I need to get some scrap wood and get to work so I can fill it with compost and get it ready for spring!

Freecycle - For stuff you can't sell on Trademe

I recently upgraded (Zeds hand me downs!) to an LCD screen for my computer. My eyes are thankful and so is the planet. Throwing my old monitor away would not be good for the planet, so after looking on Trademe and seeing that CRT monitors were lucky to sell for $1, I decided the best course of action would be to freecycle it. I listed it, someone emailed and said they would take it. They picked it up, they were happy, I was happy!

So what is freecycle? Well its a website where you list stuff that you are prepared to give away for free. Its excellent for things that are not really worth selling, but there is still the possibility that someone one there could use it. Its stops a lot of junk ending up in the landfill and it gets rid of clutter super quick.

The Auckland group is managed as a Yahoo group, so if you have a yahoo ID or are prepared to get one its quite easy to join, or you can just join the email list. Heres the FAQ on joining.

Freecycle is a nice philosophy too. I like the idea of passing on things I can't use at no cost. I've seen a lot of community groups get much needed computer equipment, kindergartens get art supplys, a solo mum get some work clothes and so on. So do it for the planet, do it for the community and never throw away anything useful ever again!