Too damn hilarious! :o)

You know how you see something hilarious and think, damn, why didn't I bring my camera? Well, this friend of mine had her camera and captured these on the doors of the Ladies and Gents bathrooms in (I believe) Amsterdam :o) Apparently, a friend who was with her was embarrassed she chose to photograph this, but as she later told me, "but how often do you see things like that???" (That quote's in pink cos she's a pink sort of person :o)

The Ladies:

The Gents:

Just too damn funny!

Both photos: Viola Lobert

Note for Viola: Thank yoouuuu for letting me put these up here! :o) Remembering that you're a "pink sort of person" made me miss you more now!! :'o( xox

A crazy day in a crazy country

You know it's time to get out of this mad country when you wake up to glorious sunshine..

..followed by rain..

..followed by hail..

..bits of ice everywhere..

..bits of ice on the grass..

..and then blue skies once again..

..a multi-season day in the middle of Spring..

..that's Melbourne for you!

Ho hum..what boredom can do to one..

I've been accused, that I've not posted for a while on this thing, by my one-member fan club (yes, it's still only one ;o( ..but then again, how many members does a manshark fan club need anyway?!)

I've spent about 5 days at home now and it's driving me stark raving mad. I see why people are asked to go out and meet other people..it keeps the madness at bay for li'l while at least. BUT omg, what I realized when I did go out yday. Since I started this blog I now think of myself as Manshark..in the third person!! Omg, omg, omg..

Firstly, yday I was at lunch with a friend and, referring to my headache, I said "poor li'l manshark's head" (!!!) and he's like "WHAT?!?" Arrgghh..almost stabbed myself with the butter knife...(btw, there was this schizophrenic dude who actually committed suicide by stabbing himself with a butter knife..Okay, you didn't need to know that as interesting as it is, but I just realized that the direction my thoughts were progressing in may not be too safe in the long run..mmh).

Secondly, I have now started thinking in the third person too..such as..manshark is hungry, etc..which is doubly wierd since I never referred to meself in the third person aloud or inside my head even before the advent of manshark..What the?!?

Thirdly, I'm convinced this is a contagious disease I've caught from that sexy-boot-wearing-Turtle, who by the way, has promised to get me some of 'em very nice elmo socks (ernie would do too) for my next b'day (to keep away the maduruwas and such in Lanka)..so reminder for Turtle..you now have 139 days..I suggest you forget all that reading and uni and things and get out there asap..

Fourthly, apologies to those who've been reading this blog like it's a so-very-important-doc to fool the boss..but I'm fast running out of anymore mind-boggling, jaw-breaking things to say here so I reckon I'll wrap this up..

Fifthly, if you do, however, need to still pretend to keep reading, then stare very hard and intently at the pic of the flame on my profile bit on the right..if you're doing it right you will see the flame wavering..enjoy!

*Manshark runs off muttering to herself*

Do NOT try this at home!!

One of the first blog posts I ever read (no idea whose) was about how the older (Sri Lankan) generation has given us a shitty li'lcountry with a lot of shitty problems and now we, the new generation, are going to have to deal with the end result of all that crap. Now I was e-mailed this li'l experiment early this mornin which I thought might just be relevant:

What you Need:

- 1 cage

- 1 banana

- Some stairs

- A water hose

- Lots of monkeys (at least 10)

What to Do:

Set up the cage with the banana hanging inside and the stairs placed under the said banana. Next send in five of the monkeys. Now be patient (and have the hose ready). Soon one of the monkeys will move away from the group and start to climb the stairs to get to the banana. As soon as this happens spray water at all the monkeys (and thereby detering the adventurous monkey as well). In a while more, another monkey will try to go for the banana - repeat as above and douse them monkeys with water. Let a couple more of the monkeys go for the banana and repeat process. Soon enough, when a monkey tries to go for the banana, the rest of the monkeys will attack it to stop it even if you don't spray water on them cos they expect the water anyway. Now comes the interesting bit.

Take a monkey out of the cage and replace it with another (who does not know this process obviously). Now this new monkey will try to go for the banana. And the poor monkeys in there who still remember the water will attack the new dude to stop it. This will happen everytime he tries to go for the banana. Then take a second monkey out of the cage and replace it with a new one. New one will go for banana, others will attack..including the first new one who has no idea why he's attacking - he just knows he must stop this new dude cos all the other monkeys think so. Then take a third monkey out and replace him. This third one will be attacked by 2 monkeys who have no idea why they're attacking him and 2 old ones who remember the water. Then a fourth one - he will be attacked by 3 monkeys who've no idea why and one old monkey who remembers. Then replace the final one. This will be attacked by the other four (= all) monkeys - though none of them really have any idea why exactly they're trying to stop him. So there's no more need for water cos none of the monkeys will go near the banana again without being attacked by the others.

What to Think:

Why is this? Cos that's the way things were done, and that's the way things should continue to be done.

What to Question:

Now, can we really blame the old monkeys who remembered and not the new monkeys who fell in line?

However, seeing as I don't know just how intelligent monkeys generally are, I can't say how far they're capable of any independent thinking really.

Top 5ive things I hate...

...about living in the land down under. I’m only writing this to give you poor souls a break from all the politics, mayhem and what not. At least that’s all you need to know. (Note to Manshark: this is for reminding you things you might forget if Sri Lanka were to start driving you mad someday in the near future).

So, the Top 5ive things I hate about living in the land down under:

1. When the sky goes all blue and rains down blinding sunshine and I, like the fool that I am, run out (and still miss the damned bus!) without a jacket and freeze my butt off since the cold wind won the contest over the sun

2. People who have no respect for running mansharks and beep their horns and scare the living day lights out of me

3. Crazy tram drivers who ding-ding-ding! at running mansharks and scare whatever remains of the living day lights (what are living day lights? The number of ‘light’ of days one lives? So does that mean manshark shall now only live at night?)

4. Vicious, lunatic magpies

5. People who run over possums and leave their carcasses (the possum's, not suicide-ed people's) in the middle of the road (okay, I'm not asking for a sob-fest burial here, but at least leave 'em on the road side so the rest of the possum-brood won't possibly get run over looking for mum)

6. (Hyper) footy crowd at Richmond station on Sat arvo – no, the stink of beer is just not attractive

7. People who say ‘she’ll be right mate’ instead of giving me a hug when I tell them I have failed my exams

8. Big, neat roads with polite drivers that make driving such a bore. Now, in Sri Lanka, it’s a bit different, y’see. First, when you manage to nudge your way on to the main road from the itty bitty lane you were on, there’s the exhilaration of your first triumph of the journey. Then comes the mad go, stop, go, STOP!! (fucking three-wheeler full of grinning dimwits), go, stop, shit that dimwit-full three wheeler is after me, go, go, GO!!, stop, apologize to the biker you almost ran over (yes, it’s always the non-bikes that are at fault), go, stop, etc. Then comes the best feeling of all when you reach your destination: knowing you achieved, albeit verging on near insanity now, all that you set out to achieve and have gone the full distance of the journey you set out to travel. THAT feeling is just not there in the land down under.

9. People who find tiny people mansharks cute for they not only selfishly withhold (much deserved) hugs, they also selfishly don’t understand how much time it takes to try to get a good foothold just so I can at least see the bloody exam paper that’s on that abnormally high desk from the abnormally low chair

10. Lack of humidity – when my hair doesn’t go crazy people mistake me for a normal sane person manshark and tell me normal sane things about their normal sane lives which are just too normally, sanely boring. Well, except maybe "Bob" who lives on swanston street and once told me he knew I was one of ‘em the minute I stopped to listen to his crazy li’l songs (I actually stopped to pet the lab who lives with him, but why burst his bubble?) Besides, "Bob" hates chocolate so I don’t need to share my choc waffle with him while I listen to the stories 'bout people he’d met who have fires in their head ("Bob"'s been places you've never dreamed nightmared of!)

I know I said “5ive” above, but once I got started, there were just so darn many…Why did I not get my one-way ticket outta here earlier??

Dogs can sniff out cancer!

Yes they can. That's what a few years' worth of research has shown. Cos science relies so heavily on machines and their data analyses, scientists, doctors and cancer research foundations obviously raise their noses at such unbelievable notions based on mere anecdotal evidence.

However, generally when there is some anecdotal evidence, cancer research and other such foundations fund labs and researchers to find tangible evidence. In this case though, no such funding was forthcoming. So for more than a decade there's been only anecdotal evidence. But about 5/ 6 years ago (I think) a researcher published his findings that dogs can sniff out bladder cancer. Problem with the study? The dogs sniffed it out only something like 45% of the time. That's not good enough. However, the research was conducted to prove a principle - dogs can be trained to sniff out (at least some forms of) cancer.

Since then there's been other studies on dogs' ability to sniff out breast, prostate and lung cancer. The success rate has been astonishing. An article that was to be published in March this year in Integrative Cancer Therapies did this study: 5 household dogs were trained over 3 weeks to sniff out breast or lung cancer by sniffing breath tests of patients. The study found that dogs can sniff out breast or lung cancer with an accuracy level of 88-97%.

A tv prog called Can Dogs Smell Cancer? (SBS) shows a research team in California (I think) that leaves a breath test done on a lung cancer patient FIVE years ago (which was since then left in a non-airtight container in a garage all these years) with some breath tests of non-cancer patients and the trained dog sniffs it out!! Something no machine on earth can yet do!

A sceptical oncologist from the UK Cancer Council who was interviewed (on the same prog) said ONE BIG problem would be that patients would not trust and/or rely on a dog sniffing out cancer.

Considering that right now it's doctors who "sniff out" the cash cancer (in terms of suspecting something to be cancer or sth like that to order the relevant tests) why not dogs? Esp considering we use dogs to sniff things out in other life/death situtations in this terrorism-filled days? Besides, a lot of doctors today are people who seem to forget their oath and moral codes at will. For eg, when my grandma was really sick the doctors, after keeping her in hospital for over 2 weeks said they wanted to do a bone marrow exam on her. Based on what evidence? Well, cos they couldn't find anything wrong with the patient, but the patient was too weak to get out of bed or even open her eyes. So the doctor suspected a form of bone cancer (since my great-grandma might have had had it from the symptoms my uncle recalls). So my mom asks what the good doctor was planning - long term. Well, comes the answer, it's likely that if we find cancer, it'll be quite advanced now so we'll have to treat it with chemo. But considering the age of the patient (86), it's unlikely she'll survive chemo. Right. So again, WHY are we doing this test? Certainly not in the name of 'curing' the patient. At least, not in this particular case. This is only ONE of my personal experiences with doctors who use patients as their very own guinea pigs/ research projects. You don't want to hear the rest. Or the experiences of other people I know.

And anyways why should doctors/ researchers be so afraid of encouraging the use of dogs in early cancer detection? Isn't timing everything in cancer?!? And doctors will have their fair go anyway cos dogs only "detect" - they don't "cure" or "treat."

If I had to choose between trusting a dog or a doctor to detect the possibility of cancer in my body, give me a dog anytime! At least I know it's not thinking "what other tests can I order that'll bring in the $$?" and/or "how many more times can I ask this patient to come back to see ME, the expensive "specialist"?"

Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god

My thesis is due in five days! 5! Five! FIVE!!!!!!

Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god

OH MY GOD

I can either

1. Sit dow and Just Do It

OR

2. Find a thick rope and hang myself

Option 2 is tempting, but I must resist. I mean, what would everyone do without moi?? (ie, once the celebrations die down)

(Don't you dare answer that!!)

To rant a blog or to blog a rant? That is the title.

A 30C day was forecast, hence off I went about my chores in a skirt and rubber slippers. BUT I forgot that winter had made my feet dry and soft and used-to-socks. Hence 15 minutes into the walk there was a blister on each foot.

Having limped the last 20 minutes to my destination tragic realization hit me- I needed to walk back all that way home again! No can do.

So I walk into a pharmacy to buy bandaids.The lady behind the counter very politely tells me that bandaids don't come in ones or twos but in 25 bandaid packs. Err..excuse me, lady, I have two blisters, not twenty-five. And apparently the pharmacy also doesn't take Eftpos for purchases under $10 and there was no ATM in sight. I pray and hope tmrw's newspapers will report that a lady pharmacist was found dead from having mysteriously acquired 25 on blisters on each foot.

And for all of you who saw me limping home (a green-skirted manshark, that is) thank you very much for offering me a ride. I hope you die of blisters someday soon too.

For all of you who stopped me to ask if I had a blister, and cluck your

tongue in sympathy - that did not help. A bandaid might have.

And to the Russian-accented dude who sympathised with my limping around the dvd store just before proceeding to tell me 'I think you are gorgeous' (as if there was such a thing as an ugly manshark!) - go fuck yourself. Next time you so much as look at me, I'll have you shot (mafia links are easy to acquire around here).

And while I'm on this rant, let me also tell you all the things I found annoying during my (slow) walk home: every fucking song on my i-pod (it'd now be at the bottom of a river had I found one), the sound of housekeys jiggling around in my bag (why do I have so many keys when there's only one door to my house?), people who don't pick up their dogs' shit off the pavements (have you tried manoeuvring - how the fuck do you spell that word?!? - around such piles with blistered-feet?), Magpies protecting their young in trees who swoop down at you for walking under (well, excuse me for living!), supermarkets that run out of chocolate wafers (no, vanilla will not fucking do), and finally when I find a million e-mails waiting for me at home from people who send millions of friend requests/ messages to my Hi 5 (one of these days, I'm gonna shut down that site and all you losers are gonna have to find yourselves a job!).

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh.

"Protesters" "protest"

This is so bloody hilarious I absolutely had to post it! ;o)

So the Govt and the LTTE have once again agreed on talks. The JVP is once again getting their knickers (or is bloomers the right word?) about 'foreign intervention' and what not. Nothing new. What's so funny though?

This: there were protests outside the Norwegian embassy with protesters carrying banners saying things like "Hands off Sri Lanka", "We must defeat the LTTE" and "Don't divide power."

"But protesters said they had been bussed in by the Marxist JVP party and were unsure why they were there.

'Our political party informed us to come here,' said 48-year-old farmer Hiram Ariyadasa from north-central Sri Lanka, holding a banner that read "Hands off Sri Lanka".

'I don't know what it says. I don't know why I'm here,' he added, before JVP handlers ordered journalists to stop talking to demonstrators." (See this report on AlertNet)

Well, nothing new again I guess.

Excuse me while I go fall off my chair...he he he

Boiling the Frog..what does it mean??

Recent convo with a friend ran thus:

Friend: bla bla bla..it's a classic example of boiling the frog I tell you!..bla bla

Me: Wait! What does 'boiling the frog' mean?

Friend: Oh. You say it to mean sorta culturing people to think or feel a certain way. Without them knowing that this is being done to them. Ok?

Me: Ok. But what does the phrase itself mean? Why frog? Why not..er..boiling the ant? Or elephant?

Friend: Dunno. That's the phrase. So listen.. bla bla bla.

The convo ended thus. My question then was where is this phrase rooted??

And at last I've found the answer!

Apparently (I've not tried this and have no wish to and hence will rely on hearsay) if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water it'll try to jump out cos it'd rather not get boiled to death. But if you throw it into cold water and slowly bring the water to boiling point it will not realize it is overheating and will die.

Apparently this is cos frogs are cold-blooded and so takes on the temperature of its surroundings. Hence the frog will continue to warm, adjusting to the temperature of the slowly boiling water till it overheats.

So, this could work in terms of implicit prejudices- over-exposure to the same bias can cement it unknowingly or at least till it's too late.

Let's see if this works in other contexts:

If someone (let's say a govt for the lack of a better example) announces: Today you will go to war. Today your loved ones will kill people. Today your loved ones will possibly die.

There could possibly be lotsa people jumping up and down protesting just as the frog will try to jump out of the boiling water.

BUT if someone (let's use say the govt again! Just for fun!) were to say it thus: people such as you and I have been wronged. They're being hurt and continue to be hurt (by whatever way). So let us go save them. Let us go defend them. Now, that that is done, let us go see if we can defend some other parts/ peoples. Some of your loved ones can die doing this. Let us go on an offensive to retake what is yours and mine. It is only cos of your loved ones that today we have what we have. Let us thank those who died for us.

The frog never really stood a chance, did he? Poor sucker.

Now, this works with frogs cos of their cold-blooded nature. But we humans are warm-blooded creatures. Therefore we should not (biologically) take on the temperature of our surroundings.

Now think.

Warm-blooded? Cold-blooded?

Frog? Human?