This wouldn't have happened if he'd been a crossword fan...

Like most people I spent a certain portion of my childhood doing jigsaw puzzles.  Hours upon hours of painstaking searching, matching and fitting to create a picture that, with varying degrees of success, resembled what I saw on the front of the box.

So when I read about this fellow, who made a forty thousand piece puzzle out of pictures taken from the Queen's diamond jubilee, only to watch it crumble in front of his eyes as he pressed in a tile that had come a teeny bit loose [link], I winced with second hand dismay.

You poor, poor bastard.

Can you imagine spending quite literally weeks on something like that, only to watch it fall apart and not be able to do anything to stop it?  Luckily he was able to salvage portions of it, and he thinks it'll only take a few weeks to recreate the rest of it, but he must have been so upset.

His wife, according to one article I read, was less sympathetic about it all.  When a reporter asked her what she thought about her poor hubby's masterpiece crumbling before his horrified eyes, she just started laughing and couldn't stop.

What does she do when he has serious problems?  Kick him in the shins?

Seriously though, go watch the video below.  It's one of those train wreck situations.  You know it's coming, you know you're going to cringe, but you just can't look away.

Whatever happened to using a good old fashioned scarecrow...

Working in the administrative area of a library is an odd experience.  I work in finance, but there are also people in my team who do records management, administration, and facilities management.  That's a pretty broad spectrum.  It means that you can find yourself discussing things you'd never have imagined when you woke up that morning.

Take, for example, the conversation I had with one of our facilities people the other day.

Him:  You know the problems we've been having with the birds outside the cafe? 

Me:  I may have heard some whisperings about the evils of bird poop, yes. 

Him:  Well I'm supposed to be looking for a solution, but I've only managed to find one so far ... and I don't think it'd go down very well if I suggested it. 

Me:  Okay, now you've got me curious. 

Him:  Um ... have you ever heard of something called psychedelic birdseed?

So apparently this is a genuine thing you can do to discourage birds from crapping all over your place.  You hire a guy to come in and lay out drugged seed that confuses them enough to leave, and then they tell all their little birdy friends that the shit you're pushing is bad so you end up with bird crap free footpaths.

Seriously, there's a guy out there somewhere whose job it is to do this.

Who the hell comes up with this stuff?  Who woke up one morning and thought to themselves, "Halucinogenic birdseed!  What a great business idea!".  And do I even want to know how they managed to get away with testing it?

"No, officer, I'm not poisoning those pigeons.  I'm just drugging them. Why?  Um ... for science?"

When David Bowie asked if there's life on Mars, I don't think this is what he had in mind...

So ... did anyone else hear about how those jokesters at NASA spent eight hundred million dollars so they could draw a picture of a dick on Mars?

*drops to the floor laughing uproariously*

Oh god, this is just priceless!  Surely there are cheaper ways of seeing if a robot can draw vaguely obscene graffiti.  Perhaps shelling out fifty bucks for a remote control car and a trip to the beach?

And if all they wanted was to draw dicks on things, couldn't they have just done it on a bathroom wall like a normal person? All that would have cost them is the price of a Sharpie.

Okay, okay, I know it's unfair to insinuate they did it on purpose, but that's the most amazing SNAFU I've ever seen!  Can you imagine the technicians in charge of the Mars Rover Curiosity trying to explain that one away?

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what happened.  One minute we were just doing our job, then Phil made a fart joke, and the next thing you know..."

According to NASA it was just a coincidence, and not a group of technicians acting like sixth graders.  But I'm not buying it.  I'm thinking that NASA guys are just like any other bunch of blokes. Get them together in a room for long enough, and their average mental maturity drops to that of a twelve year old.

Sure it was an accident, NASA ... sure it was.

Because you can never pull too many practical jokes around people wielding pointy scissors...

As most of you know by now, I'm an enormous phantasmaphile.

I love all things spooky and ghostly.  I've been on a fair few ghost hunts in my time, my collection of vintage true life haunting books is nothing to be sneezed at, and you've already heard about my Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters marathons.

So when I saw this practical joke that someone played in a beauty salon, I just had to share.

Why is it nothing this cool ever happens when I'm getting my hair done?  The scariest thing that's happened to me recently at the hairdressers is this conversation I heard going on behind me while I was getting a trim.

Woman:  Oh, don't cry sweethearts!  Mummy's just getting her hair cut!  Yes she is!  She'll be finished real soon and then you'll get to have dinner with Daddy.  Won't that be fun!

Children:  *shrill screaming*  I WANT TO GO HOME!!!

Woman:  Yes you will!  Dinner with Daddy!  

Children:  *wailing and punching*  HOME HOME HOME!!!

Woman:  Yum yum yum!  So much fun!

Children:  *yelling and making a break for the door*

Terrifying, no?

Luckily I was facing away from her so I could indulge myself in a fit of the giggles, much to my hairdresser's consternation.  At one point she even ducked down under the bench with the pretence of plugging in a hair dryer, just so she could slap me on the leg and mutter at me to stop laughing or she was going to lose it.

I thought I'd been pretty subtle about about it, but the filthy look I got from that woman as I walked out of the salon made me realize that perhaps not.  That's when I remembered that even though I'd been facing away from her, I HAD been sitting in front of a mirror.  A mirror which would have quite clearly showed my face to the rest of the room.

Oops?

Damned hair salon mirrors, always causing trouble.

And if you act now, you'll get the third month of incarceration absolutely free...

Tired of spending hundreds of dollars a month on cigarettes?  Sick of being sent outside like a naughty puppy every time you want a smoke?  Don't want to smell like the bottom of an ashtray anymore?  Well, why not try all new SlapACop!

That's right, with our revolutionary new quit smoking method, SlapACop, you too can give up smoking in as little as seventy two hours!  All for the price of a bus ticket to your nearest police station, you can exchange a face slap to a uniformed officer for an all expenses paid trip to jail.

Enjoy the peace and serenity of your very own jail cell, the professionally prepared meals, and most importantly NO CIGARETTES!  That's right, after being forced to go cold turkey, you'll be foot loose and cigarette free in no time. 

Disclaimer:  Fees listed here do not include any bond that may be required by your local law enforcement agency.  So really, if you end up having to shell out five grand to get you out of the pokey, it might not be the best option after all.

Sure it might sound like I'm being facetious, but this is something that a California woman actually did.  Rather than buy some chewing gum, visiting a hypnotist or asking a friend to yell at her every time she tried to have a smoke, she decided the best option was to try and get arrested so she'd be put in jail and out of temptations reach.

And really, with a plan like that, how could it go wrong?

I'm guessing she didn't really think it through.  I'm not exactly an expert on the clink, but I've been led to believe that cigarettes are quite plentiful in there, what with them being used as a form of currency and all.  But then what do I know, maybe she did her research and found a smoking free jail before she headed off to put her plan into action.

You'd need to be pretty careful though, I'd imagine.  Go too easy on him and you'll get off with a warning, go too hard and you might end up with a pretty new anklet and the inability to put the rubbish out after seven o'clock at night.

On second thoughts, maybe it would just be easier all round to buy a packet of Nicorette.

Because life's too short to spend time running a hot piece of metal over your unmentionables...

I'm pretty sure I own an iron. You might not realise it from the state of my clothes, but it's around here somewhere. There's a cardboard box in the laundry I haven't searched in a while, maybe it's in there.

The ironing board though, well that's a tricky one.  The last time I saw it I was using it to prop up the steam mop (also M.I.A.).  That was about six months ago, so god only knows what's happened to it since then.

But really, it's not surprising I don't know where they are.  I don't iron. My tea towels get folded in whatever state they come off the line, my sheets go on the bed rough dried, and my clothes are purchased for both their comfort and their declarations of not requiring ironing.

I know, it's utter blasphemy for someone who loves cleaning porn as much as I do, but I just can't help it.  Ironing is one of those chores which, despite my best efforts, I can't seem to make fun.  And believe me, I've tried!  But there's only so many After Dinner Mints you can bribe yourself with before you're sick to your stomach with half a basket of ironing still left.

I guess you could say I have a love/hate relationship with ironing. When I was a wee little thing, that's how I earned most of my pocket money. A cent for hankies, two for tea towels and pillow cases, five for clothing and ten for sheets. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as child slavery.

I should look up the statute of limitations on something like that.

I suppose I could just cut the crap, be a grown up, and iron the damned shirt, but I like to think that I'm taking a stand against misrepresentation in the clothing industry. They told me I wouldn't have to iron those shirts. I didn't iron those shirts. Sure, I may look like a really big shar pei, but a gal's got to put her foot down somewhere.

A six year old harlot or a victim of PC insanity, you decide...

I've seen a lot of scary things when I've been out shopping ... those mounted fish that sings "Take Me To The River" comes to mind ... but I always get an extra special case of the shivers when I see those god awful clothes they're trying to sell little girls these days.

Seriously, what sort of an eight year old needs a padded bra?  Or a lace teddy?  Or a g-string with "Naughty" on the front?

The sexualisation of kids has definitely gotten worse over the last few years.  Kids are encouraged to want to wear these things that no one would have dreamed of dressing a child in when I was little.  It's really no wonder we're all erring a little on the conservative side when it comes to children's clothing.

But I have to say, I think the school officials who called this six year old girl's parents to complain about her clothing being too "revealing" might have gone a tad overboard.

Apparently the school thought that her Hello Kitty outfit was too revealing, claiming that the length of the shorts were in breach of the school's dress code.  Her parents were, understandable I think, confused.  The girl was wearing leggings underneath them, and had actually worn the same outfit to school before without any complaint.

If their problem was with the length of the shorts, well I can say that I wore them just as short when I was her age, but I would never have said there was anything questionable about the clothes my mother dressed me in.  


Take, for example, this picture of me when I was about five (with my brother).  That skirt is just as short as the little girl's in the article.  Would you consider what I'm wearing to be inappropriate? Is there really that much of a difference between her outfit and mine?

There's a big difference between kids clothes that are short and kids clothes that are inappropriate.  There wasn't anything provocative or sexual about that little girl's outfit.  Nothing that screamed 6 going on 30.

So go take a look for yourselves.  Do you think her outfit is too risque for a six year old?  Do you think the school was overreacting?  Do you think Hello Kitty shorts will soon be joining Big Mouth Billy Bass as an inappropriate and tasteless thing to display in public?

But most importantly ... didn't I look awesome in that little blue dress?  Damn, I was a cute kid!