Movies
Movie characters who were supposed to die but got saved by last minute rewrites…
TV
Gaiman. Simpsons. Awesome. That is all.
Other
12 notorious bookstore cats… (I think this is an American phenomenon – I’ve never met one here…)
Italian authorities are pretty sure they’ve found the tomb of crazy Roman Emperor Caligula
Science is evil, and animals are innocent victims – in two parts…
Movies
The 10 Highest Grossing Films of 2010
Who’s going to play Roland in the movie version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books? (Warning – there’s no actual answer in here, folks…)
TV
It’s not Christmas without fan baking dedications. This year, it’s “Serenity” in Gingerbread…
Books
11 superheroes every woman wants to date, and reasons why it’s best you don’t…
Other
Movies
The 15 Worst Films of 2010 (which I proudly have seen none of!)
TV
Promising new ABC TV show – billed as “Gay Big Bang Theory”. (Of course it’s ABC so it’ll have 6 episodes and then lose funding because it’s not on commercial TV…)
Books
Five Sci-Fi Childrens Book Mashups
Music
Other
Let’s all make fun of iPhone spelling mistakes…
We’ve had a week of veterinary dramas – dog eats clothing, dog fails to pass clothing in either direction, clothing gets stuck, dog gets sick, dog gets operated on, etc – so blogging just kind of fell by the wayside, sorry. Never let it be said that I’m lax though – you can have your weekly wrapup and following meme in the one post, just a little late 
So first, the weekly wrap-up:
1) One Good Thing: gosh, having to think hard here, it’s all been a little… fraught, I guess, is the word. We had a new kitten join our extended family. I haven’t met him yet, so no photo. But he’s apparently all kinds of cute, and has reduced my heavy-metal-rockstar brother (whose girlfriend is his proud mother) to a big kitten-kissing softie, so that’s all good!
2) One Bad Thing: apart from extended veterinary troubles? Well, due to nursing post-operative dog, I cancelled a date with some girlfriends to go to the movies, something we normally do every month. We haven’t been for 2 months now (since Prince of Persia) and I really don’t want it to fall by the wayside, it’s something I really value and I know that when I have kids it’ll be even more precious. Actually, when I thought about it, I realised that I spoke to nobody except hubby, animals and six-year-olds from Friday afternoon through 9am this morning, and that’s pretty pathetic.
3) One Thing I’ve Learned (with apologies if you’re eating): how to clean blocked canine glands. I am very very sorry I ever learned this, and I am going to endeavour never to have to do it. In a word, Disgusting. In two words, Utterly Disgusting.
Now, Monday Meme – since I have animals on the brain…
An interesting animal I had
I had finches for a couple of days. They were really just remarkable because one finch killed and ate (yes, pecked at the corpses and feasted on) all the others in the space of about 72 hours and then died itself. It was very 28 Days Later, only with finches.
An interesting animal I ate
I’m afraid I’m not very interesting here: don’t tend to be adventurous when it comes to animal food products. I have eaten crocodile and camel, but I think that’s as far as it goes.
An interesting animal in the Museum
I saw a fossilised prehistoric duck with teeth at the Australian Museum in Sydney. It’s captivated me ever since, still strikes me as the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, albeit slightly terrifying. Totally explains geese.
An interesting thing I did with or to an animal
Oh gosh, I do hope nobody answered this in a sick way! Again, I’m not the adventurous elephant-riding type. I did comb an angora rabbit at a zoo in New Zealand once, and then help spin its hair into wool…
An interesting animal in its natural habitat
Pretty much every animal is interesting in its natural habitat. But I am most taken with sea otters, the way they play and interact with each other in the water. You just have to hold your nose because they smell a lot.
What animal would you be if you could be any animal?
One hundred percent a cat. Cats absolutely have it made.
Big family evening, speedy post before a nice warm bed with a nice warm cat
1) One Good Thing: Little victories: our OPAC broke down on Friday afternoon and we got an early mark. I got invited to write another review. Oh, and Thursday’s Honey Cookies were fantastic, total smash hit!
2) One Bad Thing: This isn’t really a today thing, it’s been a few things across the last couple of days that go together and have ticked me off. I have a strange-ish surname – Creese. It might be prone to mis-spelling, if one didn’t have it written down in front of them. I have this week suffered not one, but two, bad misspellings, and on reasonably important/official things too. And it’s not like I was dictating over the phone: in both cases these people had my surname written out in front of them (in one case on a driver’s license, for pity’s sake) and still got them wrong. So according to my first published review article, I’m a Crease. Even worse, according to my annual theme park pass, I’m a Cheese. Is it really that hard, honestly people?
3) One Thing I Learned: that I can get from bed to car on a work morning in 5 minutes if need be! My alarm didn’t go off on the morning of my early shift, and I awoke with 5 minutes before I needed to be out the door and on the road, and I made it – clothes on the right way around, medications taken, hair brushed. And I even managed to break a pair of shoes and have to switch to another one in that time too! (Of course, now my argument to hubby that yes, it does take an hour for me to get ready to go out to dinner, isn’t really going to work is it?)
4) Today’s link: and the World Cup is officially so all-pervasive now that even psychic octopuses are getting in on it…
It’s been a bit of a nothing day, really – let’s see if I can scrape together enough for an entry! And stay up late enough to watch Australia V Ghana!
1) One Good Thing: Finished (pretty much in one sitting) Tom O’Bedlam by Robert Silverberg. Very very cool, apocalyptic and more than a little creepy. Not that this is a book recommendation. Because, you know, I don’t do those…
2) One Bad Thing: my cousin’s 21st birthday party was supposed to be tonight, but it’s postponed 
to a weekend I’ll be out of town and can’t go (Oh well, at least I didn’t show up on the wrong night, we can all be thankful for that.)
3) One Thing I Learned: that apparently time travel would kind of suck if you could really do it…
4) Today’s Link: in honour of the bunny we saw on the way back from the dog park (we’re in suburbia, but outer suburbia, so bunnies are uncommon but not a rarity. Still, it’s probably the first one Dog has ever seen out.) who I’m sure would have reacted similarly if Dog had managed to escape his leash and try to make him dinner. At least, I’m telling Dog that…
Thursdays are busy. Thursdays after you stayed up to watch the rugby, which you don’t even really like, and that’s all anyone wants to talk about and you just want to get some work done, are tough as well as busy. I’m looking forward to 5pm so I can rush out, play Simon Says, read books about pigs and dress small children in Newspaper (yes it’s a Scout night again, and following my Blogging Month Day 4 promise to stress less about it we’re all having more fun including me!)
1) One good thing: Wii Sports again this afternoon – and I am the Table Tennis Queen! (Though admittedly Skinnibitch is the Basketball Queen. To be honest, was there an invasion in Basketball Land, we would both be up for abdicating the throne…)
2) One bad thing: I waited in line at Boost Juice on campus for AGES…(having finally decided to bless it with my patronage, I have this thing about franchise services in closed communities like campuses, it irritates me beyond belief.) Anyway, I waited a good 15 minutes, finally got to the front of the line, ordered my juice, and the just-about-five-year-old behind the counter tells me he can’t make juice, he doesn’t have the ingredients. He can make smoothies and crushes, but can’t make juices. WHAT THE…!! It’s Boost JUICE how can you possibly be unable to make JUICE!!! GAAAAAH!!!
3) One thing I learned: how to use Mendeley. Only not really, because I can’t get it to synch, and even the collective Twitter Brain of my followers couldn’t help me. Now I’ll have to read the documentation… *groan*
4) Today’s link: Especially for those who don’t watch Glee, so you can keep up with morning-after-glee tweets and workroom conversations and not feel left out. And it’s re-enacted by cats – so full of win!
Today’s been a gloriously do-nothing day – last night’s family dinner was great, and today’s featured not much more than fisho hamburgers for lunch and lots and lots of True Blood. Booyah!
1) One good thing: Okay, this is going to out me as such a nerd but… Today’s good thing is yes, after months of gameplay I managed to catch my Pokemon HeartGold legendary pokemon… I will take all geek-bashing with good grace!
2) One bad thing: Hubby misread the timetable and missed his final basketball game of the season. A shame, because while they’re in no danger of coming anything but last, it’s been a great opportunity for him to get to know some of his workmates a bit better, and he’s enjoyed it (plus it leaves me Sunday nights to get my Dr Who on alone!)
3) One thing I have learned: that even though I’ll be missing tonight’s Dr Who for Masterchef (hubby gets to pick since he’s alll upset about missing his game) I can catch up on it LEGALLY! On iView! Who new? Welcome to the 21st century, ABC!
4) Today’s link: care of Cracked.com – What Pets Are Doing When We’re Not Home. I can see mine doing at least 3 of these things… though admittedly we’ve been trying to get Cat to do #22 for at least the last 7 of his 8 years with no success :p
Okay, so there’s this Blogging Month thing going: and yep, I’m going to try it. Going to try and blog EVERY DAY for the month of June.
I figured I’d do something basic: One Good Thing about the day (so far, or the proceeding day), One Bad Thing about the day, and One Thing I Learned, plus one link.
Wish me good luck! And do let me know if you think this is a terrible idea and there’s no WAY you want to hear from me every day!
1) One good thing: I got off my ass for the first time this week, went for a walk with The Dog, and it was LOVELY outside! This despite the first day of winter, which is usually nasty just to show you what you’ll be in for over the next 3 months. Out of spite.
2) One bad thing: I went to watch the Lady Chatterly DVD a work friend loaned me – and it didn’t work! Stupid DVD regions! I want my Sean Bean!
3) One thing I have learned: that I didn’t miss much when I chose Prince of Persia over Robin Hood at the movies last night…
4) Today’s link: animal cuteness gets turned up to 11 as you meet the baby sloths of Aviaros del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica…
No bad news, actually. All good! It’s been a great couple of weeks- the Muppets won a Webby. Gordon Brown is going bye-bye. Adele got eliminated from MasterChef. Fantastic news all round!
Now if only I’d never seen that story about chocolate and red wine not actually being good for you… Never mind. Links. Links are good for you. Yeah…
1) Speaking of the Muppets, they’ve sat down for a chat with Chris from Nerdist.com. The podcast (and it’s very much true Muppets style) is here…
2) iPhone app developers, dog lovers and Japan – you have gone too far this time!
3) Finally, youTube – and if dogs can have fun with new technology, cats would just like to add that they can do it too. And be much cuter while doing it…
