Will's Nutshell

american Mile Markers

This man took photos every mile on the road from San Fransisco to New York. Excellent idea for an all expenses paid holiday but must have been a bit annoying. You can even watch QuickTime movies of the journey.

Gives me an idea, however, I reckon it would be hard to find mile markers in the R of SA. Yes, one reason is because of the metric system, another would be because most them have been dug up and used in housing projects.

americans: The metric system is what the "rest of the world" uses to measure stuff, like the size of your Chevy V8 pickup, only we don't drive them here much. The "rest of the world" is suffering under the influx of cheap Japanese and Korean cars which is kind of like the problem y'all have with Pontiac only ours aren't nearly as "cool".

Eish!

Eish! (eish.net) lives.
Bluealien kind of, well, expired. Wasn't really informed of it's pending demise by anyone since I never registered it. I only sidled in there like a wasp and laid my eggs in someone else's nest. Isn't that what wasps do? Or do they lay their eggs in turds? Hmmm, will look it up on the Internot and get back to you on this one.

Foreigners and americans: "Eish" is an expression of, well, nothing really. It is used a bit like the colloquial "man". It's not to be confused with "Eikona" which is what you say when you drive over a squirrel. Pronunciation is as spelling suggests, only, it helps to say it loud while shaking your head as if you have just witnessed someone driving over a squirrel.

Quite impressed with WebAxxs. The whole setup and registration including domain was lank cheap and took 1.5 standard days. Short of sending one single solitary fax, I managed to perform the entire operation online.

Pinky and the Brainwashing

Hmmm, how to get our children to learn "C" without being propagated with political propaganda...

< snip >
Pinky: Look, Brain. It's my wonderful globe of cheese. I plan to bring it to donate it to the United Nations for doing their best to unify the nations of our planet.
Brain: Pinky!
Pinky: Yes, Brain?
Brain: Cut out that nonsense, and help me with this next programming topic. That way in a matter of weeks the nations of this planet will be unified under me.
Pinky: Sure, Brain, what are we doing next?
Brain: We are going to work with the if statement.
< unsnip >

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Yeah baby! Yeah!

Friday was my birthday leaving me with just under a year left of my twenties. I'm kinda finished with the twenties so don't feel too bad about it yet. Especially when your mates give you presents like the Zero Fog Blaster!

Yeaas sirree, this little puppy can shoot out up to 25000 cherry scented smoke rings on just 3 ounces of Super Fog-Ring Fluid. Plus, it's educashinul: it provides a "fascinating insight into the principles of physics."

Vee Mooi Af Maar Opas Die Fingers.

Peucedanum Galbanum (Blisterbush):
In South Africa, this plant can cause severe blistering of the skin as many who ascend Table Mountain and accidentally brush against the plants will know (Howes 1974). The plant produces dermatitis and blisters 40-50 hours after contact with the bare skin; the vesicant effects vary with the weather (Greshoff 1913, Marloth 1913-1932, Wicht 1918 cited by Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk 1962).

Moet BESLIS dit nie gebruik as jy 'n boskak vang nie...... the horror, the horror ....

[above plagiarised from email received from, erm, John Smith]

Life With a Dog ... Pricelist

Well, the pooch has been returned to her loving owners and I must admit, there is a small hole left over in my world. Not too worry though, I filled it with beer and feel much better. Perhaps it is time to reflect on the fiscal implications of keeping a dog:

• Dog - R0 (you get them for free when your neighbours leave their gate open or friends go away)


• Dog food - R3000 (this is if your dog is a boerbul, divide by 2 for any other dog)


• Socks - R20 (depending on how long it takes you to figure out that it is the dog eating the socks and not the washing machine)


• Detergents - R65 (for cleaning up faeces in the pre-banishment stage)


• Poop-Scoop - R150 (made from empty HTH pool chlorine bottle. Add R30000 if you don't already have a pool)


• Pot plants - R300 (why do we keep them in the first place?)

So, presuming you don't have a swimming pool, the tally comes to roughly R33535 ZAR. That is roughly 3 pounds sterling.

But can we put a price on puppy love? What is a dog worth at the end of the day? They don't help the dishes (well, not that I'm going to openly confess to it), they don't contribute well to conversation, they keep you awake at night by trying to sniff their way through your bedroom window and they don't earn an income.

However, they do:

• cut down on fertilizer costs (nuff said)


• lick burglers to death


• keep stray cats out the garden and hence muddy kitty footprints of your car windscreen


• look at you funny on demand


• attract all the fleas out of the furniture

So yes, pooch has gone home and I am divided between sad and glad. In retrospect I'm going to upgrade my hamster collection and see if I can't cut down on the electricity bill.

Life With a Dog...Pricy!

This week I find myself in the precarious position of baby sitting a dog. The pooch in question is a cross between a boerbul and a Labrador (foreigners take note: this is a small breed of water buffalo). The questionable pooch is also only 6 months old and is as high as my waist, which is high).

Being a puppy, the pooch likes to do puppy things. Like jump around, bark in a tinny-whiney sort of way and eat socks. Being a dog, the pooch likes to do dog things like swallow the sock, partially digest it and then excrete it again in case you really wanted it back. Being the infernal spawn of..something vile... that it is, the defecation tally has reached 3 humungous turds (under table, by fireplace and in front of TV) and too swathing pools of urine (one directly in front of the sliding door and one on my foot).

Now because this is someone else's dog, I have a problem disciplining it with force (read into that what you will). However, a stern voice, I am discovering, is starting to take effect. Presumably the dog realises that a stern voice is soon to be followed by a withdrawal of affection. That's a bummer for the pooch who always wants to play.

In short, the dog has been banished from the house where it can defecate on the lawn to its heart's content. Outside it can also chew newspapers till the cows come home. It can also whine at 2am and bang on the metal security gate to be let indoors because it misses me. Aaaaargh.

This is how a standard evening works (pre-banishment):

• Let out dog to defecate before bedtime.


• Wait in vain for dog to defecate.


• Figure dog has already defecated somewhere indoors and does not want to go right now.


• Go to bed


• Get woken up at 1am by dog scratching on front door


• Let dog out to defecate


• Wait in vain while dog sniffs around garden looking for tennis ball to play with


• Call dog back in


• Dog comes back in and then looks longingly at front door again


• Go to sleep (after quick indoors turd check)


• Get woken up at 2am by familiar sound


• Let dog out to wander around garden in hope that it will defecate


• Leave dog outside and go back to bed


• Get woken up at 3am by dog banging on metal security gate (loud)


• Let dog back inside in good faith


• Good faith broken within ten minutes. Let dog back out


• Sleep with one eye open waiting for sound of the inevitable


• Either let dog in and repeat from a few steps back or wedge piece of cardboard into gate to stop noise


• If dog was let back in then expect to be woken up again by frantic muffled barking (you know, the kind of urgent dog noise that is not a full bark but more of a "I need someone to notice what I did on their floor and realise I will get in trouble" kind of bark


• Dog gets banished

This leaves me now with the simple problem of ensuring the piece of cardboard stays stuck in the metal security gate every night. Pooch can bang away all night in vain. It had its chance.

I am however interested in a way of harnessing the potential energy involved in the delicate interaction between dog wanting to go outside when indoors and dog wanting to come indoors when outside, regardless of how quickly these binary states change. This way the pooch can actually be put to some profitable use seeing as how it refuses to help with the house cleaning and makes no effort to get a job.