I have been helping Duane and Johanna move to a new house in Leeston.

Their son William is very good at saying “tree”. He has not yet clearly matched the signifier to the object yet, so rather a lot of common household items have been designated as trees.

To make matters more confusing for a one-year-old, the new house does actually have an indoor tree. It was once a pot plant, but had clearly been given a lot of loving care by a previous owner. Fortunately, they have high ceilings.

I’m not sure that I believe that there is nothing up my sleeve that isn’t comfortable and happy in its place.
A Song To Welcome The Onset Of Maturity, Chris Knox

I woke up this morning to find a blackbird had come into the house at night to spread feathers liberally around the dining room and die under the table, lying on its back with its little feet in the air.

On the staircase was a little pile of cat chunder.

I suspect these two things might be connected.

From the north, to Bagshot Row. From the south, to Tuckborough.
Nine-Fingered Frodo, Lords Of The Rhymes

My brother-in-law Raymond is gearing up to sell a new energy drink. New to New Zealand anyway - apparently “Dark Dog” is very popular in Europe.

Tonight we were sitting around talking about advertising, and Ari mentioned that you don’t see many ads aimed at Koreans in New Zealand. And that led to my amazing advertising plan. It works like this: you make a very simple ad, using the product’s colours (in this case mostly yellow, with black and red highlights). It doesn’t have anything flash, just a bit about the product and a slogan, and then a picture of the can. And perhaps “Now available in New Zealand”. The exact text is immaterial.

Because you do the first one in Maori. Not with subtitles, just Maori. If people don’t speak Maori, they can see the picture of the can.

Then you do the next one exactly the same but in Samoan.

Then you do one in Mandarin.

And you continue in this fashion: Tongan, Korean, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi… all the languages that are spoken in New Zealand. English can come somewhere down the track too.

I think that would attract attention. And because most people wouldn’t be able to understand most of the ads, the only thing they’d have to go on would be the picture of the can.

We’ve been sedated by the gasoline fumes and hypnotised by the satellites and d’you believe in what is good and what is right?
The Beat(en) Generation, The The

I finally took the Inspector Fu proposal to the printers today, to make a dozen flash booklets to wave under the noses of publishers. Then they will say “We want to read the rest! What happens after inspector Fu find the golden ladle from the dynasty of King Changmo?” And Grant and I will say “Read the next page.” And they’ll read it and say “Wow! He’s going to protect the Snow Leopard brooch that is the very symbol of the kingdom of Nekim as it’s taken on a tour of Australia.” And we’ll say “Australia would sell better than New Zealand, right?”. And then will come the giving of money.

The woman at the printers had an uncanny resemblance to Debra in many respects. Although one of those respects wasn’t location. Unless I thoroughly misunderstand the concept of “Bristol”.

So that every mouth can be fed.
Israelites, Desmond Dekker

Our school is plagued with inspectors from the Education Review Office.

Not that they’re nasty people or anything. The guy who visited my class today seemed a pleasant chap. But they’re not all teachers themselves, and those who are aren’t necessarily secondary teachers. It’s never very clear what they want to see, and they don’t spend a lot of time discussing things with you. They just come in, ask a few questions, and then disappear again. There’s planety of things I’d like to tell them, but not all of them are appropriate for discussion in front of the students.

They have to write a report at the end, and presumably they’re going to look silly back at the Education Review Office if they don’t include some ways the school could improve. So I figure it’s a good idea to come up with one or two small complaints that they can use, so that they don’t have to make up their own. In my case I pointed out how small my classroom is. That’s not the school’s fault as such, but maybe they can put that in.

Realise the sun doesn’t go down. It’s just an illusion caused by the world turning round.
Do You Realize??, The Flaming Lips

I just got a phone call from someone at… is it still called Meridian Energy? They haven’t spontaneously changed their name again? OK.

I just got a phone call from someone at Meridian Energy who has the unenviable job of calling all the people they’ve accidentally undercharged for power. We had an interesting discussion in which she apologised, and I explained carefully why it’s a good idea to send the meter reader at a time when one might plausibly expect someone to be home rather than at 2pm on a weekday, and that I had in any case managed to arrange for meter readers to enter my house on several occasions since the last one they had written down.

But we came to the eventual conclusion that they had supplied approximately six hundred dollars worth of power over the last year or so but forgotten to bill me for it. And would I please overlook their mistake and pay up?

I did notice that my bills seemed a little light over the winter. But I’d assumed that their approximation of where my meter might be had enough data points to be reasonably accurate.

She was coming to see him, something changed her mind.
Hole In The River, Crowded House

How did all this cat slobber get on my keyboard? I was only out of the room for a couple of minutes.

Ahem.

Dan has pointed out a disturbingly catchy song about Seeing Things. It deserves wider acclaim.

Carrots, handbags, cheese.
Scampi, The website I refer to above

September 12: a political simulator. Can you get the terrorists without killing innocent civilians?

Clue: no.

And then see what happens.

Do you fear me when I say, I feel your pain every day?
Rock The Nation, Michael Franti & Spearhead

Wuthering Heights: The Roleplaying Game.

Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely, on the other side from you. I pine a lot.
Wuthering Heights, Kate Bush

Writing workshop tomorrow afternoon at my place. All welcome.