In the medical school at Newcastle University, someone’s graffitied one of the men’s toilets with an offer for gay sex, ending with the promise: “I’m nine inches long and two inches thick.”

Underneath, someone’s written:� “Are you a ferret?”

I bought a couple of nifty things. First, something I needed for the chilly Melbn winters: Ugg Boots!

We saw an advertisement in the newspaper for Jumbo Ugg Boots who make the boots by hand, using real sheepskin. We dropped by the factory on Saturday and sure enough. Sheepskin all over the place. After trying on a few different kinds, I settled on a small boot with the “collar” unrolled to provide some warmth for my ankle. Set me back $40. There are lots of other varieties and colours of this quintessential Australian footwear, but I opted for something a bit traditional – not to mention cheaper. The knee-length ones go for $99. I reckon they’d be very warm, but I’m not a fan of boots.

I also found a first edition of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye at a little used bookshop for $12.

Even though I didn’t need it, I’m a fan of his, and the book’s in very good condition. Published (and typeset) in 1953. The hand-set typography is really lovely � I’m a fan of the question marks in the font they used. And it smells so nice. It’s such a nice little object. I can’t wait to set into reading it:

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one. He had a young-looking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other.

Chandler writes like a house on fire.

This is almost as good as Luther Wright and the Wrongs’ version of The Wall. A bunch of good ol’ boys went and played a bluegrass medley of Radiohead songs.

My flatmate just got a new toothbrush. I’m so envious of it because it’s yellow and silver, just like my website.

I like yellow and silver. The spare head does nothing for me, I already have one of those.

I found a useful page that details the correct sequence of colours in a category 5 Ethernet cable (as well as some other telecom stuff). Because I know this is important to you, gentle reader, I thought I’d share. It’s part of the total service guarantee�, available only from your friends at jurgen dot ca.

We were still heading the wrong direction, and whoever had designed the Warsaw highway system had not apparently heard of the U-Turn. I marvelled at the Polish system of signaling to drivers to make way, which was to wave a kind of giant plastic red lollipop out the window, moving it in complex patterns to convey instructions to the driver about which way to veer to avoid the careening cop car. The only signal I could make out was a kind of frenzied shaking, which seemed to mean “read my mind and get out of my way, MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER!!!!”, judging by the running commentary.

This story has it all – suspense, drama, humour, engaging characters and witty dialogue. And it’s all true. Maciej Ceglowski was attacked by thugs while walking along the river.

A friend of mine, setting up a new blog, asked me a question over email. I rather liked my answer, so I thought I’d share it with you too, gentle reader.

... what is XML/RSS feed? What does ‘syndicate this site’ mean?

Two sides of the same coin. An XML/RSS feed allows people syndicate your site. It’s a file with just the content of your site in it. None of the HTML, just raw content. Mine looks like this.

Hit that and view source (cuz the browser tries to be all smart about it). Looks kinda like HTML, but it’s just little bits of information, presented in a way computers can understand.

So. That’s all well and good, but what now?

By supplying that .rdf link to a desktop application, it goes out and collects this file (and usually lots of other .rdf files from lots of other websites) and gives the user a quick rundown of what’s happening on all the sites. NetNewsWire is pretty good for this, but there are others too.

Now the really cool part is that you can take that URL to your website and have that website’s current headlines appear inside your own website. If you want to run the newest headlines from Reuters, for example, you simply include the Reuters URL into your blogging program. How this is done varies from blogger-program to blogger-program, but the basic idea is the same thing. Try it with mine if you like.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

If this is actually true, I’ve got a lot of “told you so’s” to get going. Of course he’s got a blog

I think this will prompt several other “dead” people to come out of hiding and announce themselves publicly. Ready or not, it’s the return of the living dead!

Snopes, of course, disagrees with the idea that he’s back.

I caught this article in the dead-tree edition of The Age over lunch today. While aimed at banks, these business tips by Morgan Stanley Australia’s chairman Harrison Young apply well to pretty much any business out there.

Well, it looks like the story about the woman who allegedly rode a motorbike through Chernobyl is a fake. Oh well. Nice pictures though.

Hm. Looks like she’s changed her site and is backing off on the “this is real and true” stuff.