Iain's journal

Frederik Pohl, blogger (via): So, does he write... pohlemics?

Does anyone know how to devise beautiful club tricks? I seem to have goofy invention down pat; recent examples are the jump forwards to catch a club between the legs and the one which ends up with clubs stowed in increasingly inelegant locales.

But, some nights, I think it would be nice to have some trick fall out of my head that was elegant, or beautiful, or nice, rather than... goofy.

Also: I kind of sort of got into position for a one-arm handstand today. This is a bit exciting. Maybe I'll get it within a few years!

If only every election begat this sort of genius effort, the world would be a better[1] place.

[1] w.r.t awesomeness

man boards the train smelling of cigarettes
and takes a dostoyevsky from his pocket
(the poetry writes itself)

That sounded much better in my head on the day, a month or so ago, that it occurred. Oh well.

I posted this dinosaur comic to my facebook profile a while ago, wondering vaguely if anyone would take it as a hint.

It appears not!

On a rather different subject, this piece was in the paper the other day. All I can say about it is that it's remarkable.

It's a short story by Murakami. It was not what I wanted it to be, from the title, but it charmed me none-the-less. I think that makes it win?

I just bought plane tickets to get me to tasmania and back for the circus festival. Virgin blue has this neat feature where you tick a box and they add a couple of dollars to your purchase price to offset your carbon usage (yeah, yeah, carbon offsets, sigh, I know).

But then on the booking confirmation page:

Carbon Offset Status: Unfortunately, we are unable to process your Carbon Offset purchase at this time. Please try again here

Which rather takes the shine off the business.

I am in awe - that is where kitsch meets kickarse, if anything can be said to be so.

Today, kottke talks frogs mentioning that the frog deliberately breaks it's bones "probably when it is threatened", and I certainly hope so. But then I thought, maybe it just breaks it's bones for kicks and giggles. Ridiculous? Of course.

A drummer caught out with no sticks? That's okay, a protuding ulna shard will do the trick.

Need more definition in your shadow puppets? That crisp narrow line is only a fracture away.

Or, in a special two-for-one offer, if you've lost your pen, you have an ink-and-quill package with you at all times. Just sharpen that radius up a little and you'll be golden. Actually, more red then golden.

Yuck. What was I thinking?

Like a pixar movie, but with less soul. via

If the whole project actually works, that will be neato and a half.