A Miscellany of Bibelots: The Ninth

Since I ought to be frantically designing a study to measure whether or not curriculum change in New Zealand schools has impacted on food literacy and food security, I am (naturally) writing posts instead. 

This episode of bibelots is brought to you by the strange bedfellows food...and economics. Don't worry, the latter of the most pop variety, I promise.

I made these okonomiyaki t'other night. Well actually, I made the mix and left it on the table with a gas burner so my people could eat them hot off the griddle. They were perfect; shrimpy, spring-oniony and delivered a little vinegary heat surprise from the sriracha in the mayonnaise. I served them with tonkatsu sauce as well and upped the amount of shrimp by half again - okonomiyaki, then the sriracha mayonnaise (made with kewpie, natch), tonkatsu sauce, toasted sesame seeds and bonito flakes = major food joy. Making again, soon.

I get my news from my Twitter feed, which means I get a very strange mixture of things indeed. Recently: The Guardian on an economic revolution. Gawker (I know, I know) on an economic apocalypse. And so, why not put your money into cheese? And I mean that literally - that seems to be what they do in Italy (ha! and just as I write I realise that is no shining endorsement since that country is not, shall we say, entirely solvent). 

And lastly...I hate to admit it. I have insisted, flying in the face of all reason as is my wont, that this doozy of a summer shall last until May. But the mornings, they are a-colder (happily, the days are still warm so I only have to suspend disbelief for a few hours a day). Eating this porridge helps keep me cosy, but also makes me feel a little bit like I might be able to face reality. Because if this is what reality tastes like, I miiight be persuaded to accept it.

A Miscellany of Bibelots: The Eighth

This episode of bibelots is long overdue; I seem to have blown my load of nonsense composing emails to a robot but I've been saving amusing links for y'all like crazy, I promise. The theme today would be best described as twisted, I think.

A woman who licks hair right off her cat. And I don't mean that euphemistically.

It's hard to imagine what was going on outside the frame (or indeed, inside) in these photos...The eyes cannot unsee what the eyes have seen.

Remember when you were a kid and there were like, five jobs you could think of? And how now, you meet people and they're like "oh yeah, I'm a mobility applications consultant"? Well, this isn't that, but some people get paid to sharpen pencils and snuggle. Not at the same time, mind.

And how convenient! Eat all you want, and then get it sucked out of a hole in your stomach. Uh, ew.

A Miscellany of Bibelots: The Seventh

Woah, the seventh! I'd excuse you if you thought this blog was turning into a Tumblr with all this reblogging of stuff from around the innernetz but I believe I will redeem myself in your collective eyes because this edition of bibelots, dear reader, is brought to you by rationality and science - totally unfrivolous and untumblrish amirite? Actually, there's no rationality, it's just the science but I thought that sounded better but now I've just confessed that and so...oh, well, never mind.

Welcome to the future ladies and gentlemen and people in between, because not only are we growing ears on the backs of mice but you know that nursery rhyme "three blind mice"? They are blind no longer. And, even more gobsmackingly - because as sensory organs go ears are the most complex and least understood - regeneration of hair cells from the ear. So go ahead, play that iPod at 80 decibels, you can just get new ones.

And while I'm being inappropriately flippant, feel free to chuck that plastic bottle out the window because a new planet almost identical to earth has been discovered - sweet!

Ever wondered why your fingers get wrinkly in water? Wonder no longer, it was an evolutionary adaption.

You'd understand what was going on in these gifs if you'd paid more attention in science - well, mostly chem - class, but even if you didn't, they're pretty cool.

You know the saying "build a bridge"? Well, the water in these two beakers has taken those words to heart after being exposed to high voltage.

And finally, some pretty awesome discoveries were made this year; there was the discovery of particles that act as their own antimatter and annihilate themselves, genetic code from an extinct group of humans who lived in Siberia 50,000 years ago was sequenced and the brain-machine interface by which thought can move robot arms for paralysed people was improved but the winner of them all according to Science journal was the discovery of the god particle.

A Miscellany of Bibelots: The Sixth

Even though my mornings have been extremely productive of late (running sprints! taking copious notes! writing! doing yoga!), the mid-to-late afternoon me seems to collapse into a torpor where even the insane itchiness of my mosquito bites won't rouse me; maybe it's sympathy idleness with another loungeroom lizard I know, though he, because he is currently damaged, at least has an excuse. I blame the lingering atmosphere of holiday - lots of people seem not to be back at work yet - and the sultriness of the weather, which incidentally I couldn't be happier about. 

This episode of bibelots is brought to you therefore by the concepts (are they concepts? I'm too lazy to decide) languor and inactivity, or at least, the type of reading that appeals to me when I'm overcome by them.

Every evening at 10 p.m. the "Flogsta scream" may be heard in the western outskirts of the Swedish city of Uppsala when students scream collectively from windows, balconies and roof tops. It sounds like this.

Dickhead gets his just desserts.

This is what happens when spiders get high...and what pastors sound like when they get stuck in handcuffs with a ball-gag in.

Baby echidnas are weird. 

Germans have a word for everything and now you can too (or at least, you can pretend to).

And the second half of this video made me choke on toast.

A Miscellany of Bibelots: The Fifth

This episode of bibelots is brought to you by the letters A and B - that is, to assuage the boredom of anyone who might be back home early, and resentfully, from the holidays or unwell or in hospital while everyone else is still sunning themselves desultorily, gadding about on city breaks or wandering about in the bush. Northern hemisphere kids, I guess this doesn't apply to you but you can still come to the party, you must be feeling a lil anticlimactic post-New Year also, yes?

Speaking several languages badly has been of little use in my life except to madden me when the word I want to use does not exist in English and attempts to translate are met with blank stares or incomprehension. This person who has compiled a list of 25 words that don't, but ought to exist in English might be my soulmate...if I believed such a thing existed.

The only way to become a master of something is to do it; trite but true.

Grand Central Station in New York has a whispering gallery! I want to go to there.

The best title I've seen all year (!) : "A Woman's Opinion is the Mini-Skirt of the Internet."

The opposite of fireworks... FYI, it kind of needs to be watched on a big screen.

And cheese that costs 1000 euro a kg, made of asses' milk, natch (okay, donkey's but I couldn't resist).