“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.”

Well, having just finished off the first season of Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ “The Tudors”, I take back everything I said about “The Other Boleyn Girl” being porn the other week – this taketh the jackpot! This baby needed three discs just to fit all the porn-y-ness in! On the upside, JRM does make an excellent petulant monarch (and if my friends are anything to go by, who wouldn’t want to screw him six ways to Sunday anyway??) And there’s a lot more there for Tudor lovers than there was in TOBG (and lots of awesome hats and man candy). Thumbs up!

Now, back to the web…

1) Live and direct from the UK (cannot BELIEVE I am visiting this sick sick country) it’s The Man Who Has Sex With Cars. ‘Nuff said. Even as an Australian (we have a racial sick love for bad cars) I cannot possibly identify…

2) Do you love science fiction? Old science fiction? In particular, the crazy world of flying cars, teleporters and promiscuous sex-bots they promise in the mythical faraway year 2000?? Then Modern Mechanix is the blog for you – and it’s all true, baby!

3) AniBoom is kind of YouTube for cartoonists and animators. There’s some weird, weird stuff there. I warn you now. This, however, is pretty cute, and very true… (you’ll have to click the image below to go there – they haven’t discovered fire or embedding yet…)

“If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor….”

I saved a guy’s life at the university bus-stop today. At least I think I did… Some old guy collapses just as the bus is pulling up. Now, half the students start boarding the bus. The other half (minus the two nice guys who caught this old man as he was falling) stand there dumbly. So yes, that leaves the short, terribly unfit and high-heel-wearing librarian to run for the security guards. Which I did (and if I’d heeded my own advice and taken the damn heels of, I would have done it a lot quicker) and ambulances were called and interesting-looking medical things were applied. Karma tells me that I did the right thing, because my bus waited for me as I tottered to the rescue. Yay! Gotta love when that happens. But damn it, SHOULD I HAVE LOST THE HEELS?? Would it be wrong to ring every hospital in the city with a vague story about a collapsed-at-the-bus-shelter old guy to try and find out if he made it or not??

If you need me, I’ll be over in the corner having a mini ethical crisis while you check out your weekly links… *whimpers*…

1) Tonight’s first link is for my sister, who was grouchy with me after she told me all about her new anchor tatt (“it grounds me”, she says) and I told her it made her look like a sailor’s doxie. If you’re going to get a tatt, get something classy, folks. Damn thing’s with you forever, so get something you’re going to like waking up and looking at in the mirror. May YuppiePunk’s “(Not So) Complete History of Literary Tattoos” provide you with some good ideas (or at least something interesting to gawk at if you are, like me, not of the body art persuasion…

2) Last week I brought you a news story from my home town. One I thought couldn’t be topped for sheer stupidity. Lucky for me (or not-quite-so-lucky, depending on your perspective) our Kiwi mates from over the strait have obliged with a doozy of a dodo-brain for you this week. A little known fact is that our state of Queensland is the only state in Australia where alcohol cannot be accepted as a form of currency – apparently in New Zealand, they have slightly different worries…

3) Finally, this week’s vid blends two of the most wonderful (and yes, at times, most freakishly weird) things in the world – Bjork and cats! A fun little cat-lover’s video, well done…

“Art (like food) begins in imitation and ends in innovation…”

Hello everyone! It’s a lovely day, too lovely to be kept inside. Today we’re having a staff lunch at our uni’s pizza cafe, and I am EXCITED! We’re having POTATO PIZZA! POTATO! On PIZZA!!! That’s like the two best foods ever in one… Australia really is the lucky country!

So I’ve been starving myself all morning so I’ll enjoy it more… here are some links to snack on! Bon Appetit!

1) I come from (well, I grew up in anyway) a smallish country town. Now that I’ve escaped to the big city, it’s always great to hear about my hometown on the news (just to reassure me it hasn’t sunk into the ground overnight and nobody noticed). Now, usually it’s drug murders or public health crises… though we did have that big recycled water thing a couple of years ago. But nothing beats slightly silly small-town revenge stories like this one… yes, I lived here, folks. And this does not surprise me. Not one tiny bit…(though the lack of total ugliness in the dress does, slightly. And the fact the girl’s name wasn’t Sharnay or Dakota or Maddddddisssson or some other bogan/trailer-trash name does… )

2) Librarians are an odd bunch (I believe we’ve established that time and again in this blog!) They like to write about themselves as a profession. They’re often quite glib, or very very depressed about it. And they’re often quite isolated and alone about it, which is what make Sh…, an interactive blog novel about a bunch of fictitious library workers, so interesting. If you liked “The Librarians”, or even “The Office” (probably more the UK version, not that awful Yankee ripoff) you might very well enjoy a peek…

3) Finally, are we all on agreement – monkeys are fun, yes? And monkeys helping people = extra fun? And monkeys helping people while hiding in car boots? Let’s find out, shall we?

“A dog wearing clothes is still a dog…”

So is porn wearing Tudor costumes still porn? And if you had to choose between sleeping with a sibling or dying, which would you choose? Moreover, if you had to choose between being/having (delete where appropriate) Natalie Portman or Scarlett Johanssen, which would you choose? (Ladies, you get Eric Bana by default…) Yes, I saw “The Other Boleyn Girl” this morning. No, I have no answer to any of the above questions (Could I have Natalie’s face and Scarlett’s body, yet keep those tiny Portman feet? And do I indeed get Eric Bana by default??) Luckily, I have internets, and a million other people with opinions on the above….*blissful sigh* why ever have an answer for anything? Delightful!

1) Tonight at work we were making a shortlist of “hot old men” celebrities (well, I thought they were old. I’ve learned to keep my dirty ageist thoughts to myself…) We had your usual Connerys, Firths, Depps and the like… but this got me thinking. Who are the most unattractive celebrities out there? Like, officially? Lucky for me, Listmania cover everything (and are just as bored and weird as me) so thanks to them, I bring you the Top 10 Ugliest Male Celebrities …do you agree? (Comment to me, not them! Or to both of us!)

2) Want the ultimate frustrating trivia game? How many countries can you name in five minutes? Type quick, punk! It’s full pressure on, the most heart-pounding minutes I’ve had all week (yes, even including all Eric Bana’s screentime in aforementioned histor-erotica!) I got 70 – can you beat me? You can? Fine, well can you do it drunk? (Hey, I wasn’t drunk, I was at work. But I do need to feel superior about something…)

3) I heart cats. So does more than one of my co-workers. One of them sent me this. Perfect, pure, unadulterated cat. Heartless little bastards, and their evil mindgames…

“The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them…”

Today my boss is off sick, and while the proverbial cat’s away… the mice have weblinks! Yay! (Does this take the metaphor too far? I hate proverbs at the best of times! Me and Benjamin Disraeli…so much in common!)

1) A while ago I brought you a wonderful story about the German government paying people to put nice things in Wikipedia about them. Why oh why is it alwaws the Germans when Wikipedia’s in the news? (Of course, unless it’s the CIA…) Anyhoo, the wonderful people of Germany love Wikipedia. They love the crazy internetty social construction-ness of it all. So much so, that according to this article, they’re going to pick their favourite web-based encyclopedia posts, and PUBLISH THEM IN A BOOK. The irony of this should not escape any of us…

2) People always seem to like my posts with sites about books. Okay, here’s another for you. In the words of this site’s author – “Ever read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to yourself, “Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that.”? I know I have. Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality. How might one do this?” Well, take a look. Books That Make You Dumb uses maths, pilfered Facebook data and biting wit to examine which books correlate with low and high SAT scores (which I gather is the grade that gets you into Uni in the good ol’ US of A). Irrefutable proof that chick lit and porn are bad for the brain – and that kids who read classic sci-fi RULE!

3) People always react well to my Gross Food posts too 🙂 Juvenile little bunch that you are! Well, in honour of my northern hemi friends who are just beginning to thaw out – what could be more perfect than icecream? Oh yeah, gross icecream. Welcome to the freezers of Japan, where just once gross icecream isn’t nearly enough, but 101 Frightening Icecream Flavours will just about do it… Yum!

(Yes, that is salad. I swear.)