chicks rule

When Ms Julia was plopped into position, I wanted to celebrate by making a t-shirt. But I got busy, and lost the moment, as per usual.

And then I thought I'd whip one up anyway, for the halibut. I pondered whether to wait and see if she was re-elected, but after a bit of marketing research (emailing some girlfriends), the consensus was to SEIZE THE DAY so that we could wear such apparel at election time, which is now.

So here you are. Chicks rule, right at this very moment. Huzzar!




If you would like a piece of this, go here. I've given lots of options, including stickers, mugs and tote bags. They seem to be having a bit of a sale at the moment, so now's the time to grab one cheap!

dotty points

Sorry, still feeling flat. And somehow quite disconnected from things. Still, there have been some light moments over the last week:

-- assessing lots of TAFE students as a guest panel member, which felt like being on a panel for some kind of talent show. Byrd was also a panelist, and I discovered how Bad Cop he really can be, which was fun.

-- I had a surprise run-in with a mermaid! We literally bumped into each other in the halls of my art skool, and she recognised me from the various silly photos I've mounted over the years. We made time to stop and have a beverage together on the weekend, among decorative wombat tiles and trees, and it was lovely.



-- Bumblebee and I had a visit from Colonel and Lady Duck today. Colonel Duck has decided to stage an Intervention on our badly neglected garden, and came up to make some plans about how to proceed. He gave Bumblebee one last chance (after nagging him for ages) to write a Christmas Present Suggestion List before he committed to buying him singlets and undies, so B sat down and wrote a very Star-Wars-heavy list, with one last thing at the very end: he wanted a (sic) BADMITTEN SET.

All I could think of was a set of mittens knitted in the shape of devil's horn hands, so:



I had to make that image, THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THEM ON THE INTERWEBS. Come on peoples, especially etsy peoples who can KNIT. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before????!!!

-- It was the cats' collective birthday last friday. I gave them a huge plate of raw whiting. They were very happy. They turned five.

-- Best Beloved has a new job. With a new title. It's quite an impressive title, but I'm not allowed to tell you it. The acronym, however, is DISS {see, I'm even getting my jokes wrong] DISMISS. That's something to laugh about, isn't it?

I'm quite enjoying watching the Liberal Party turn themselves in knots. That's another thing to laugh about...

Hmm. I'm trying to laugh more. I'll get there.

:-)

:-0!

Cuffsafe?

Did anyone see The New Inventors last night on ABC? The 3rd invention was called cuffsafe, and is pitched as being "designed to make the potentially dangerous task of applying and removing handcuffs safer".



I found that there was a sense of discomfort to the segment, which I attribute first of all to the panel's (slightly squirmy) awareness that they were talking about something that has sensitive human rights issues, and secondly to the fact that the inventor kept using the phrase 'detainee', which exacerbated my first point. He also threw into the pot the notion that his market wasn't just Australia, but America and other such nations, which brought (to my mind at least) a number of unsavoury applications for the device.

Even in the final discussion, I found that the panel would start talking about cuffsafe, but then change the subject rapidly to something 'safer' -- or was that the ABC's careful editing? They certainly placed this invention carefully in with some pretty harmless and consciously cute inventions: the endearingly-named 'Move Ya Bastard' car shifter, and an endearingly homemade gardening buggy. A bit of camoflage around the tricky issue, and maybe, just maybe, it worked.

The feedback panel at the New Inventor's program site has nothing at the moment -- and I'd be very surprised if anyone does bring up any of this -- but I'll be keeping my eye on it, just in case. If you didn't see it, and you have broadband, there is a link to the segment on the cuffsafe page.

If you did watch it, what do you think?