Autumn Zebra

As it rains, I wonder whether I would be better off in 15th Century (European) clothing, or not. As I sit here with my butt and lower legs of my trousers still wet 2 hours after coming out of the rain, I consider that a shift, petticoat and dress, of linen, wool and wool, would no doubt have stopped the water soaking through to my skin. In "the past" it was sometime acceptable to take off "dresses" or gowns and sit around in petticoats and whatever else was worn on the top half, so I could be doing that whilst drying my dress. Of course I would have had a long woollen cloak over the top too. I'm not sure if they were lined or not. In any case, I'd like to make some common woman's clothing from anywhere in the 15th to 18th centuries and see what it is like wearing only linen and wool. One definite advantage is the multiple layers on the top AND bottom halves, instead of only a skirt or trousers covering your legs.

Two videos I found quite funny. An Engineer's Guide to Cats , by engineers. Suitable for other non-engineer people as well. (approx. 7 minutes) Something from an Australian TV Program(?) - Who will receive the Trojan horse ? Features real wooden horse. (approx. 2:45 minutes) EDIT! More from the Australians - why you should dress like an American rather than "a crude Arab cliche" if you want to film or take photos of landmarks or nuclear power stations.

This guy does really cool graffiti in London. His site is here . He does subversive or commentary ones: Article about " One nation under CCTV " artwork/stunt. 4 photos of his efforts, made into a postcard. He does cute ones, generally with rats: He does beautiful ones: (Some categories may overlap) *All photos from http://www.banksy.co.uk , where there are many more. I like graffiti.

The online shop "Edible" has rare and unusual food items such as chocolate covered ants and Thai curry crickets or even sugar-free toffee-candy with an edible scorpion inside. You can order them and eat them. There are non-insect products like the "brandy like liquor fermented in a cask with lizards" and a lollipop made of ground pearls and sugar. The stuff is fairly expensive although it's not like you're likely to be buying it frequently. They seem to ship all over the world. I'm not sure if I would want to try any or not. Maybe. http://www.edible.com/shop/

My score on The "What Type of Intellectual are You?" Test : Your Score : The Collaborator You scored 66% empirical, 40% public, and 23% teaching-oriented You are The Collaborator! The Collaborator is one of the most beloved types of intellectuals. With an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, you spread your sights over a broad range of disciplines, eager to tap the knowledge of the brightest in their fields. Acting as a sort of honey bee to these great minds, you synthesize an eclectic array of abilities. Your name may be second on a lot of books and papers, but you'll always be first in the hearts of your peers! Link: The "What Type of Intellectual are You?" Test Luckily, I was just reading about Erdos numbers the other day, so I have actually heard of their example. This is probably somewhat correct in the "broad range of disciplines" bit, and I'd rather not be the pioneer discovering something in an area, or leading s

Somewhat alarmingly we found this spider yesterday: And this one today: It looks like it is rock-climbing: What's up with all the big spiders? One is not alarming in itself, but two in two days? The second one was smaller than the first. It had legs about 3cm long, and a body about 1.2cm long. Here's a bad picture of the larger first one in a container held in G's hand: For some reason he did not leave it on the wall for me to take good pictures of. The pictures of the second one are better - you can see it's hairy legs, etc - and you can click on them to see big versions! Yay!

There was a small cardboard box in G's room upstairs that, surprisingly, he wasn't using. So I got to have it. I thought I might make it into a box for gloves, but then it turned out I had gloves that went further up the arm than just the wrist bone, so the box would be too small for all my gloves to lie flat, making it a bit pointless because I might as well just use any box. Then I discovered CDs fit in it absolutely perfectly. Maybe it originally had CDs shipped in it. So I started with this box and material, and some other material I needed because some of this stuff was too annoying: And finished with this, how exciting. I think it looks cool. In position with the CD rack: