The Jamjar

McLinkHalloweeny Spitballin'

Illnesses Whose Victims May Not Be Safely Eaten: At one time, it was believed that Crohn's disease was a genetic disorder and thus its victims were safe to devour. Recent studies, however, suggest that Crohn's is environmental bacteria, linked to Johne's disease, which infects ruminants. If this is correct, victims of Crohn's may not be safely consumed.

McSweeney's via Fox

Passengers on a German train mistook a Halloween reveller dressed up as a gore-covered zombie for a murder victim and called the police. The 24-year-old man fell into a drunken slumber on his way home from a Halloween party in Hamburg, police in the northern town of Bad Segeberg said. Believing his hands and face were smeared with blood, passengers alerted police after getting no response from him. A first aid team called to the scene soon cleared up the confusion. Police told the man to remove his make-up after which he was allowed to continue his journey.

nzherald.co.nz

Dave: Fox has kindly setup the nice interface from W:
Fox: i can make it a different colour or something.... i just made the letters bigger because Stephen complains about small things, like elves
Michelle: "stephen complains about small things and elves are small too, therefore he complains about them" or "stephen complains aboug small things and elves tend to complain about small things too"?
Stephen: Goblins complain about big things, like horses, which tend to make a mess of a goblin unfortunate enough to be caught underfoot. Gnomes complain about everything, big or small, and then try to fix it, making things much much worse. Elves are just fantasy, they’re not real.

Interface Team

Dirty ole town

From Hollywood to Hoxton, art collectors are prepared to pay big money for anything Banksy does, with his most expensive single piece, Space Girl and Bird, selling for £288,000 at Bonhams in April. But Hackney council doesn't care. "We have to clean up the walls," said a spokeswoman, confirming that the street cleaners are ready to blast some of modern British art's most distinctive images away as part of a zero-tolerance policy. "We can't make a decision as to whether something is art or graffiti. The Government judges us on the number of clean walls we have."

You dirty rat: Street cleaners prepare to blast Bansky away, nzherald.co.nz

Link added 7 November: Wooster Collective celebrating street art.

Meme: Page 123

A Blog meme is a jumpstart idea for blog content. It's not only great for bloggers (like me) who don't have a lot to say off their own bat (these days) while also being a chance to have some outward (and then hopefully *inward*) links - making the blog-net a stronger uahm.. web! ties that bind and all that jazz.

Yeh right so maybe Search Engine Optimisation isn't high on the list of priorities around thejamjar.com but some people care about it, you know?

I haven't seen any memes that made me want to participate for a long time - actually I haven't really noticed any memes full stop - until I stopped by one of my oft-haunts Hello, Stranger to find a sweet book meme called Page 123.

Like all truly good memes, it's simple: reach for the closest book to you right now, open it up at page 123, go to the 5th sentence, then blog the next three. Simple!

Walking to the car, she takes his hand and puts it, for a moment, lightly between her moving legs. Roger's heart grows erect, and comes. That's really how it feels.

Page 123, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

 

Like Barb, I'm doing two, because I'm the boss of this blog and I do what I please! Plus, while Gravity's Rainbow is written in the most beautiful, musically long comma'd sentences, the three on page 123 are short! crazy-go-nuts. So I give you Jamie Oliver as well - his new cook book is just fantastic and I recommend it highly as a jolly good read!

The classic combination is garlic, lemon zest and flat-leaf parsley, all chopped together really finely. It can be sprinkled over stews, broths, soups or pasta dishes at the last minute. It really brings a dish to life.

Page 123, Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

I don't tag - never really cared for it so meh, not gonna tag the 5 People the meme suggests. But if you like the look of this meme, give it a go. Even if you don't have a blog - why don't you see what's happening on page 123 of the book closest to you right now - it's kinda nice to dip into a snippet like that.

PS: I was asked at last night at dinner if I had a "My Face online" which I thought was adorable.

Random A-Game: Bring it!

Melbourne Arts Festival: The Show Must Go On

Late yesterday, Fox won tickets to The Show Must Go On at the Arts Centre. I didn't know anything about the show but always have a YES ready when Fox asks me along to stuff.

"The Show Must Go On" examines the relationship between art and life, explores the clash of fine art and entertainment and challenges the expectations audiences hold about dance.

theartscentre.net.au

You might have experienced, in your life, being given a hand-made gift from a child - maybe a Father's Day card made with flour glue and pasta - this show is a lot like that. While I'm not going to tell you anything about The Show Must Go On, I will say that the performance unwraps itself and presents a gorgeous gift of an evening.

It is authentic, genuine entertainment - hand made with love, and definitely worth a visit.

PS: two things happened after the show:

• I was (kinda) interviewed by a person from ABCRadio, and
• Fox kicked a guy on the tram-ride home

Sunday Brunch

OCD Much?

So Fox sent out an email at work urging anyone with nail vanish at home they didn't use any more, to bring it in and swap it with another one from the resulting "pool" of unwanted bottles. Over the last few days the number of bottles has grown, and they also seem to have found their home on my desk.

I like straight lines* - I like wiggly ones too but when there are a whole lot of nail polish bottles on my desk they need to be in a straight line if they are in any kind of line at all. Coming over to my desk and moving the bottles out of alignment just causes me more work. It's not easy distributing small bottles evenly along an invisible straight line without any guides or rules.

Now, if I had all of my nail polishes displayed on my desk,
they'd be anything but straight.

Stephen White, Interface Developer

*I suppose the line of bottles can be wiggly or curvy or zig-zaggy, just so long they're something and not just loitering about looking untidy. Huddles are also acceptable.

But hurdles aren't.

PS: there are quite a few shades of blue in the polish-pool.

DeGraves Street

Stormy Friday