Entries for event are now open until 3kj;lka
Thousands of Japanese have spend $1,600 each on a poodle only to discover the animal they have received is, in fact, a sheep. Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food. Not that strange if YOU ARE A SHEEP.
Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.
For those Japanese amongst the readership, the sheep is the one on the right.
The Green Man had a sheep for a pet for a while, her name was Ewe-nis. She was a good pet but the person we got her from didn't tell us she was a house-sheep. The Green Man had ideas that she would live in the paddock and eat grass, sadly Ewe-nis had other ideas about where sheep lived and what they eat (which was in the house eating "wild bird mix" seedmix). She eventually went to live on a hobby farm but at no point did The Green Man think she was a dog.
Postscript: Oh well, it was a great story but it appears to be a hoax. Says something about The Green Man's perception of the Japanese I suppose.
Well he is tonight. Meet Phillip Kerkhof, 41, who jumped into shallow waters to chase the bronze whaler shark because it was eating bait that he and other fisherman were using off a jetty near Port Lincoln.
For those of you not familiar with sharks, bronze whalers are one of your more ferocious sharks. Phil jumped off the jetty and wrestled the shark after capturing it in his arms and managed to fling it up onto the jetty before killing it.
"He didn't think," his wife said. "He'd had a few vodkas and wasn't thinking straight. He just does things off impulse. He thought about it later and said, 'That was a bit dangerous, next time I think I should stick to beer.'"
Not only the man was eating shark. Chritine, his wife says "I cooked some of it up the night after. It was beautiful. Really tender. There's a few people around here who wouldn't mind trying it so it'll go pretty quick."
The Green Man is more forward thinking than most. When he arrives at the folk festival he has four showers on the first day thus addressing all four days cleanliness in one efficient session. In spite of this The Green Man unexpectedly found himself in need of an additional shower part way through the festival due, in part, to the refusal of Mrs Green Man to come with 3 feet.
All shower cubicle were occupied and those waiting consisted of three singers from an Irish folk group and aged in their early twenties and on a high on their first trip from Ireland and, of course, The Green Man himself. They were joking around and a cubicle became available. One went in and the other two became impatient for their turn. One yells at the top of his woice
"I hope no-one is wanking in there because there are people out here waiting for a shower"
Within about 30 seconds the two remaining cubicles opened out came two boys, one about 12 and the other 14. They left the shower block avoiding eye contact. Oh well two more boys scarred for life.
Anyway The Green Man was entertained with some magnificent lyrical singing of Irish folk songs during his shower.
This of course is not such a problem for women, although one wonders whether the same applies to cubicles in the ladies but the etiquette of where to stand in a row of partially occupied urinals is significant and important to master if you are retain your masculine self-respect.
Flash Arcade has kindly come to the rescue. Once you have mastered the descrete urinals you are ready to move on to the next level and tackle the sutble science of positioning yourself on a continuous gutter. Don't expect Flash Arcade to help you here. This is "zen master" level and you will have to discover it for yourself.
When confronted with a headline like
Queen's contraception awareness program among world's top five
What is a a good subject of her majesty to think? I know that the royal families of Europe have displayed considerable lack of awareness of contraception over the last few centuries but Betty just doesn't seem to be the sort of royal to need such an awareness program. Her children are another matter of course but, if she has had dalliances, she has been remarkably discreet. Ironically, what genetic strength there is in the royal houses of Europe, including Britian, is probably due to a certain lack of faithfullness on behalf of the female aristocracy. Like pure bred animals, the highly inbred royals are at real risk of genetic diseases. Like pedigree dogs, the injection of a some fresh genes into the gene pool from a mongrel that has climbed over the fence can be extremely beneficial.
The royal families of Europe suffer from a number of genetic diseases that are rare in the overall population, haemophilia being the classic example, and any wonder, this relatively small group have been marrying and breeding with close cousins for centuries. It got The Green Man to thinking "why aren't they more genetically diseased than they appear to be?" and "why haven't they started to genetically diverge from the rest of the population?" They did in some ways, the Hapsburg lip, for example, but they are essentially still the same type of human as the rest of us and they shouldn't be. The answer is simple, they are not genetically isolated and it is not the males that are to be thanked. The ones that have been the recepticals of fresh genetic material into this, otherwise, isolated group are the promiscuous royal females. Over the centuries the royal families of Europe can be particularly grateful to the lack of contraception awareness by their female members.
Sadly none of this has anything to do with the article in question which was to do with a new website by Queen's University entitled sexualityandu.ca. Still if The Green Man was still researching gene flow within human populations which he did all those many years ago then the "Promiscuity of the Female Members Of European Royal Families As A Survival Strategy" might have made an excellent PhD topic.
I know it is purile, but all the more satisfying for that
(via Bene)
Attention men, if you are planning to utilise the services of an online dating service there are a few things you need to brush up on, the movie/book Bridget Jones' Diary for a start.
Clinton East who is not one to shy away from the minefield of sexual politics that is online dating decided to do some analysis of word usage in online adverts from the desparate seeking the equally desparate. Utilising the online dating service rsvp.com.au he downloaded 100,000 ads. He then divided the ads into those seeking a male and those seeking a female, the particularly desparate who would except either gender didn't make the cut.
In his post he publishes the most commonly used words in both categories. There are two observations of a flippant nature that spring to mind
- the males seeking females think of themselves as "guys" where as the females are looking for a "man"
- martial arts and 4x4 are just not worth mentioning in your "desparately seek woman" ad.
Finally here is a Clinton East conclusion lifted from the post
There are a whole heap of people seeking ‘discreet’ relationships with females. There was almost no representation of these in the under-30 age group (only two in the whole set), with the bulk occuring in the 30-50 group. Combining this with the preference of ‘murder’ in the corresponding ’seeking male’ group (who are about the same age, 30-50), we conclude that there are probably a large number of men seeking a relationship with a female who herself would prefer a good mystery or paperback from Mills and Boon. I think there’s a marketing opportunity in there for the brave…
Click on the link to his post above, it makes fascinating, if completely inconsequential, reading.
hmmmm. A slave like devotion to LOTR (The Lord of The Rings to the uneducated) and an encyclopedic knowledge of its contents my lead to suspicions amongst your friends that you harbour nerdish tendancies.
Construction Minas Tirith in lego is only going to confirm it.
From Brickfest 2005 the annual conference for the AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego ) via Wired.
Once upon a time, there was a philosophy professor. One day he decided
to teach his class a bit differently, he decided to teach them a life
lesson.
So when the class began, he took a big, big jar and wordlessly began to
Fill it with rocks, each one a couple of inches in diameter. He asked
the Class if the jar was full. They said yes.
He then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He
Shook the jar lightly, and the pebbles fell through and filled up some
of the Gaps between the rocks. He asked the class if the jar was full.
They said yes.
He then picked up a small bag of sand and poured it into the jar. He
Gently shook the jar, and the sand fell through and settled where there
was a Space between the rocks and the pebbles. He asked the class if
the jar was full. They said yes.
Now they were fascinated. He knew he had them.
So he took two bottles of lager from under the table, opened them and
carefully poured each into the jar. Of course, the sand absorbed the
beer...... and at last the jar was full. All the students laughed.
Once the laughter stopped, the professor calmly and quietly began
talking. Everyone in the classroom was hypnotised by his display.
This jar represents your life. The rocks are the most important things
: Family, children, your health, your partner. If everything was lost
and only they remained, your life would still be full. There was
silence in the room.
The pebbles are other pretty important things - your job, your house,
Your car. The sand is everything else. The small stuff. The stuff
that doesn't matter.
If you put the sand into the jar first, there will never be room for The
pebbles and the rocks. The same is true for your life. If you spend
All your time and energy worrying about the small stuff, you will never
Have time for anything else.
He paused and looked around.
There was nothing but silence, so he continued.
Happiness is paramount in life. And so you must pay attention to the
Big things that give you the most happiness. Play with your children.
Take time to go to the doctors when you don't feel well. Go out dancing
with your friends and your partner. If you do this, there will always
be Time to go to work, to clean the house, to deal with these kinds of
things.
ALWAYS take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set
your priorities. The rest is just sand.
One of the students raised her hand and asked what the beer was all
about.
Now it was the professor's turn to smile.
I'm glad somebody noticed that. Remember this : No matter how full
Your life is and how much you have to deal with and how much you may
think You have to do, there will always be room for a couple of beers.
Shai Coggins is a writer, artist, published author, professional blogger, podcaster, online instructor, consultant, wife, and mum with a Masters Degree in Applied Psychology. (Well that is what her blog says so it must be true.)
By contrast The Green Man is a professional ratbag and an amateur blogger but with a prodigous number of posts.
She has published a badge of honour for blogs past the 1,000 post mark, which is no hurdle for The Green Man (1,126 posts).
As The Green Man has pointed out before, the forest floor of The Green Man's blog is littered with fallen leaves of little value. There are, however, a few precious acorns amoungst leaf litter and Shai does not place any caveat on the quality of posts. So, with no show of humility, The Green Man claims his prize.
Want to know what is the most requested image from The Green Man website. A quick analysis shows that female or male nudity just didn't cut the mustard. Apart from the title, which is on every page, this is the image that has attracted the most attention on The Green Man.
Ahh, you are a deeply disturbed lot out there.
The Country Fire Authority is the organisation that manages fires within rural Victoria. They are largely volunteers and do an excellent job however fire season is over and it is time to let the hair down.
North Warrandyte Fire Brigade are running their annual comedy festival . Naturally it rates high on the internation comedy festival circuit and tickets are limited so if you are planning to fly in from Europe or the States it would be wise to book ahead.
Martin Pearson is at pains to point out that he is a great fan of The Lord of The Rings and ipso facto he has licence to abduct and mutilate it in a most hilarious fashion. Martins lopsided view of the film is that he thought was excellent but would have been so much better as a musical.
The Green Man had occassion to attend a performance of the mutilation over 3 days at the National Folk Festival last year and Martin presented it again this year. Like many of these sorts of things it is impossible to replicate the humour outside the venue however the honourable Pearson has taken some of the better parts and assembled a CD that he is counting on to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. The said CD is entitled "The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien, being a three part musical synopsis of book and file LOTR."
It is a collection of songs, (click here for a sample.) and narrative (Click here)
The Green Man humbly suggests that it would make an excellent present for the LOTR fan in your family. If that is yourself then indulge yourself.
You can contact Martin Person on by email on martinpearson@iinet.net.au or by snail mail at
Martin Pearson
PO Box 2373
Richmond South 3121
Australia
It costs $40 for the double CD. That is in Australian dollars which is probably about 75c US.
If you are in Melbourne and act quickly you can catch the live performance at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He is performing Bolkien as follows:
Friday 8 April (7.30pm)
Sat 9 April (7.30pm)
Sun 10 April (5pm)
Fri 15 April (7.30pm)
Sat 16 April (7.30pm).
The venue is the Royal Society of Victoria, 9 Victoria St Melbourne. Tickets cost a mere $20 and can be ordered through Ticketmaster7 on 1300 66 00 13.
hmmmm The Green Man has been a bit serious of late, time for a joke.
Q: What is worn under a kilt?
A: Nothing, it is all in perfect working order. aw aw aw aw
If you find the concepts of male genitalia and the Queen of England fundamentally incompatible do not click here. (not that work safe)
I am off to perth for a week. I have disabled comments because I will not be around to perform the cleanup of comment spam that is continually necessary. Look forward to more reports from the worlds of art and science from The Green Man around 18th Jan.
Sam is interested in mail boxes and has been collecting images of the worlds more unusual examples.
Visit him here to see more examples of the worlds mailboxes.
An elderly person falling in their home and breaking one of their frail bones is a sad and unfortunate event. It often means the end to their life as a self reliant, independent person. Recent research has been undertaken by Dr Susan Kurrle, Director, Rehabilitation and Aged Care Service at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Health Service, Sydney, NSW to look at the role pets play in causing accidents within the home.
Pets have long been regarded as a plus but they do get underfoot from time to time and falls can happen. This was going to be a serious article on the issue until I got to this line:
80 - Female - Pelvis - Cat - Fall while attempting to move quickly out back door as cat carried live snake in through side door.
Yes it is a serious issue but the mental image of an 80 year old woman high-tailing it out the back door as the cat enters with a highly agitated snake in its mouth through the side door is just too much for a Friday afternoon. 
Reminds me of the time my dad got locked in the walk-in canary cage with a tiger snake wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. The venom of the Tiger snake is the fourth most poisonous in the world and is present in large quantities. A normal bite could kill 40,000 adult mice.
I can still hear him yelling in abject terror "Shit! There's a snake in here"
laughed! we nearly wet ourselves (after we got him out of course)
Perhaps you had to be there, or perhaps it is just the perverted Australian sense of humour when it comes to these highly venemous snakes that share our bush life.
Anyway the serious research is here if you wish to read it.
Ah yes The Green Man is entering into the festive spirit with some snow on the main page. This is, of course, completely inappropriate, given that it was 35 degrees yesterday (that's Celcius, 95 Fahrenheit).
It does however typify the strict adherance to these inappropriate northern hemisphere Christmas traditions within Australian popular culture. We cling desparately to the snow theme when most of Australia never has snow, even in winter. Santa is dressed in a well ventilated costume to stop him collapsing of heat exhaustion whilst chocolate treats surreptitiously turn to liquid, escape their foil wrappings and congregate at the bottom of the shopping bag.
At this time of year Carols by Candlelight is an exercise in stamina for the younger members of the audience with the candles only becoming relavent after sunset at 8:43pm.
Still generally we are prepared to overlook the anachronisms and embrace the European ideal even if we have to turn the refrigeration unit on the air-conditioner to maximum.
The thing about Japanese food is that it is all in the presentation. That's what makes body sushi work.
Even if you have idealogical objections to the use of a willing female as a plate you have to admit that, at least, it has a degree of presentation about it.
Not all self-service foods lend themselves to this style of presentation however. Guacamole, for example, just does not work.
Grab a piece of paper and fold it in half, it is now twice as thick as it was before. So what happens if you repeat the process? It is now four times as thick as the original piece. Just keep on folding and imagine how thick it would be after 100 folds. Reasonably thick you'd think, and you'd be correct.
At seventeen folds it would be taller than your average house. Three more folds and that sheet of paper is a quarter way up the Sears tower. Ten more folds and it has crossed the outer limits of the atmosphere. Another twenty and it has reached the sun from the earth. At sixty folds it has the diameter of the solar system. At 100 folds it has the radius of the universe.
It seems incredible but it is true, click here to see the table.
(via J-Walk)
You will only get away with being a credible PM into your 70s & 80s if you have a decent head of hair. It allows you to connect with the electorate. Bugger interest rates and dead bodies in Iraq, a good surfy head of hair will see you through.
Of course if you're a traditional supporter of the Liberal Party then you don't want some radical whipper snapper running the country, how about Conservative Mark, now he looks just the ticket.
Not happy with either of these then create your own leader of either political persuasion via the Advanced Hair Studio community service website click here for John or here for Mark.
Well the Olympics are finally over and not a moment too soon for The Green Man. The frivolous entry on the Olympics Medal Tally has been generating upwards of 2,000 visits per day from people actually looking for the Olympics Medal Tally, which shows that sports-mad people don't read the google search results very carefully before clicking on a link. There must be some sort of Psychology PhD in that surely. hmmm Dr Green Man, it has a certain ring to it, perhaps I'll file the idea away for 2008.
Not that the sports-mad amongst us are illiterate, the average pages per visit has not dropped indicating that many who stumbled on The Green Man looking for Olympic stats went on to read other pages.
In normal circumstances one could expect our television and radio broadcasting to settle back down now but our Prime Minister, the man of no-so-stainless steel, has had the audacity to call an election. It looks like another six weeks of interrupted viewing whilst the two major political parties attempt to differentiate themselves whilst both saying exactly the same thing.
So who will The Green Man vote for? Need you ask? The Greens of course, boy you lot can be slow at times.
Oooooooo, just checking the usage stats. Included in this month are the following sites
bu-wcs1-kelly.nipr.mil 1306 hits from 1 visit
wcs2-mcpherson.nipr.mil 719 hits from 2 visits
wcs2-moffett.nipr.mil 164 hits from 2 visits
wcs1-moffett.nipr.mil 126 hits from 2 visits
Bearing in mind that there are only 914 entries on The Green Man, they must have read every entry.
A quick search of the net reveals the following quote
nipr.mil is not a single domain a but a hush-hush web proxy that acts as a gateway for hundreds of U.S. military domains in order to hide their identities. It was established by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) in response to a memorandum (CM-5 1099, INFOCOM) issued in March 1999 by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calling for "actions to be taken to increase the readiness posture for Information Warfare." "Uncontrolled Internet connections," the document says, "pose a significant and unacceptable threat to all Department of Defense information systems and operations From Bhopal.net
It sets The Green Man a wondering. What bit of rubbish has he posted that attracted the attention of US Military intelligence? I don't mind the visits but I bet they didn't even click on one of the adverts.
How is a mystical woodland spirit supposed to earn a crust when they have all the fun of visiting and don't even play ball by clicking on an ad.
Given our close ties with the USA these days, The Green Man is wondering whether the ASIO file has been set up yet. (That's Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation for you non-Australians)
Wonderful things these clock radios. You set your alarm to half an hour before you want to get up and are arosed gently from your sleep. That is unless some half brained sports announcer is wetting his pants and yelling at you through the radio over the fact that some unknown Australian has kicked a round ball through a net in Greece.
Damn Olympics, it appears the soccer has started already and the usually sensible ABC has abandoned it's, normally sedate, early morning broadcast for coverage of the Olympics. Groan
How many days until they are over? Please let them end unexpectedly early.
The Green Man has in the past had great hopes of making his fortune from the blog. Sadly, the 65 cents a day that the advertising raises is not enough even for a ancient woodland spirit to survive on.
Just when hope was all but lost along comes Hollywood. It seems they have noticed that some of their key demographics do not watch that much TV these days. They are on the web and many are visiting blogs. So it is then that, when Paramount Pictures wanted to promote their picture "The Manchurian Candidate", they came a knocking on the door of a number of blogs, Instapundit and TheTruthLaidBear to be specific.
Apparently their blog advertising budget was only in the 4 figure category but, hey, if those digits are on the left hand side of the decimal point, The Green Man is interested. Now all I have to is wait for a film on something GreenMan-like and I'm in the money.
How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to replace a lightbulb?
The Answer is SEVEN:
- Elaine Chao (Secretary of Labor) to deny that a lightbulb needs to be replaced
- Colin Powell (Secretary of State) to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about the lightbulb
- Alphonso Jackson (Secretary of Housing & Urban Development) to blame the previous administration for the need of a new lightbulb,
- Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense) to arrange the invasion of a Iran which is rumored to have a secret stockpile of lightbulbs
- Vice President Cheney to figure out how to pay Halliburton Industries one million dollars for a lightbulb
- Karen P. Hughes (Senior PR Advisor) to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the lightbulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag,
and finally one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a lightbulb and screwing the country (currently an unfilled position).
hmmmm they clearly don't use bayonet mount light bulbs in USA
The BBC report "Porn furore vexes Austrian leader"
Oooooooh the Austrian leader, how disappointing, I thought it said the Australian leader. I must stop skimming in the news reader.
Come to think of it, imagining John Howard in a porn scandal, now that is challenging. Give John his due he is about as boringly straight as it is possible to be.
hmmm perhaps a little bit of Clintonesque action with that cute young PA he now has is just what he needs. Might relax him a bit. Not that I am saying he is uptight or anything. Although, the fact that you could crack walnuts with those buttocks does tend to indicate that a bit of relaxation mightn't be such a bad thing.
Darren at the Living Room points us to a resource provided the Australian Government, the public toilet map.
The Green Man was most intrigued and felt compelled to give it a go. Sadly it proved hopelessly inadequate. A quick look a The Green Man's suburb of Warrandyte showed only one public toilet, there are heaps more bushes than that in Warrandyte.
An interesting development in the life of The Green Man blog occured yesterday. I refer specifically to this comment
It's been a pleasure to read the articles you have posted today. It gives me an insight into what is consuming your thoughts.
Innocuous enough I hear you say. Well yes, except that it was made by Mrs Green Man herself.
Yikes! Mrs Green Man reading the blog! I had better have a quick look back at my recent posts.
