Short Sticks…

July 24, 2008

A collection of random thoughts… the kind that keep me awake at night:

Am I the only one who has a problem getting the first tissue out of the box? By the way, my record is 7 wrecked tissues. Not too shabby, I know. I was in the zone that day. Seriously though, why can’t we design a tissue box that automatically pulls the first tissue out… leaving the second one dangling tantalisingly ready to go? I’m fairly certain tissue box manufacturers have heard this feedback before… but have they done anything about it? No. As such I think I can safely say, all tissue box manufacturers are bastards.

–o–

Have you noticed that whenever you’re shopping and you go to pay for your items, the check-out operator invariably hands you your change and receipt with the coins on top of the notes, and then on top of the receipt. Inevitably you are laden with bags so you then have to play a strategic game of one-hand wallet juggling just to get your shit back in order. Common sense would clearly suggest, coins first… then notes and receipt. I am positive that check-out operators are secretly aware of the hassle they are causing and take some sort of morbid pleasure out of it. As such I think I can safely say, all check-out operators are bastards.

–o–

Congratulations to Nicole Kidman and hubby Keith Urban on the recent birth of their daughter Sunday-Rose. Pundits have been critical of the glam couple’s choice of name. Now whilst I’m not a big fan of the name per se, I don’t find it the least bit offensive. At least not as offensive as names like Saddam… Osama… Adolf… or Cher… or indeed any other historical figure that has wrought evil on this world. It is sad to think, that thanks to just a few slightly bad eggs, these cool names are now taboo forever. Now THAT is an atrocity.

–o–

Crows. Funny wee creatures. They are obviously intelligent, however their language comes across a trifle repetitive. Caw. Caw-Caw. Clearly they are trying to say something, but to me it all sounds the same (except for one local crow, that makes a sound uncannily like the creature from “Predator”. Perhaps it IS the Predator… and I am being stalked as his next trophy. “If it bleeds, ve can kill it!”.). Anyway, I digress. Perhaps crows suffer from a form of avian expressive aphasia? I can picture a crow’s brain pattern. “I’ve been yelling out about this half full carton of chips for ages! Where ARE all those guys?!”. Meanwhile, another crow is listening to him and thinking “Crikey, Cameron’s a bit excited. If only I knew what the hell he was going on about…”.

–o–

I was driving down the street the other day and it suddenly dawned on me just how many poles there are in our day-to-day lives. Seriously, next time you’re out and about, take note. How terrifying would life be if you were polophobic? That is, scared of posts and other supporting structures, not of people who originate from Poland. Mind you my girlfriend is Polish and she’s very small, but she scares me sometimes, especially when I’ve accidentally dropped her toothbrush in the toilet. Consequently I don’t tell her when that happens anymore. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Keep out of my booze!

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Magpies… hmmm… pie…

July 17, 2008

Yesterday, I attended a site meeting for a housing project I’m involved with on the Gold Coast. After a tour of the construction site, I was crossing a park to go to my car, when all of the sudden, I heard a flapping noise behind my ear.

I instinctively turned towards the sound, and was struck broadside on my right temple by a high-velocity projectile. For an instant, I thought I’d been hit by a basketball, such was the force of the blow, but then I felt a trickle of blood down my temple accompanied by a sharp pain.

I immediately looked around to find the perpetrator of the assault. It was then I noticed my black and white clad attacker…

It was a motherfucking magpie.

Here’s a photo of one at his recent booksigning:

In Australia, many of us have childhood memories of aggressive magpies. Indeed, I discovered a national survey that found 90 per cent of males and 72 per cent of females have been attacked by a magpie at some time in their life.

Magpie attacks are mostly just a pre-emptive defense strategy whereby the magpie is simply protecting its nest. However, as with humans, some are simply assholes.

In some areas, over-aggressive “rogue” magpies are trapped and removed. However, removing the father can affect the survival of the chicks as the male is the main food provider, while the mother tends the nest. As such many neighbourhoods are extremely protective of their local magpies. Indeed, there are signs in a lot of neighbourhoods, preaching “Preserve Your Local Magpie”…

Preserve them in a pickle jar I say… but nooooo… magpies are a protected native species in Australia, so it is illegal to kill or harm them…

I know… what a gyp…

Look, to be fair, for ten months of the year, I don’t mind them. They do have charming singing voices. But during breeding season they can be a right pest, so much so that signs are often erected in parks where magpies frequently nest.

As it turns out, magpies usually don’t make heavy contact, however they have occasionally been known to attack the eyes. Most often they turn away just before impact with a clack of their beak as a warning. As it happened, I heard my attacker coming a moment before impact, and turned into his path, causing him to plough into my temple with his beak open. Hence I have two little crescent-shaped puncture wounds on my temple, which went in as deep as my skull.

Indeed I half expected him to be stuck there on impact, Wiley Coyote style, with a comical “Sproy-oy-oy-oy-ing!” sound…

But to give you an idea on what I had to contend with, here’s a nifty video of a magpie attack filmed by a cyclist wearing a camera in the back of his helmet.

So now you know more than you wanted to know about magpies. However, in closing, I think it is important to highlight the truly calamatous and disruptive nature of these scourges of the ornithological world:

Yup… I rest my case…

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