Off to have oz bebbehs

Catch you on the flip side.

T-minus 18 hours

Pardon my absence the last few days - I spent another couple of days in the hospital over the weekend. The oz bebbehs are doing fine, but my body has hit a wall and just isn't coping anymore. Still, we've made it to 38+ weeks, which is a pretty good accomplishment with twins - and so, long story short, I'm being induced at lunchtime tomorrow.

Ben and I have spent the last two days making sure everything is ready to go: the house is clean, the laundry is done, the lawn is mowed, the cats are...well, we haven't really done anything for the cats. They're pretty self sufficient little buggers.

We're scheduled to check in at the hospital in just 18 hours, and I think this is quite possibly the single most exciting and terrifying thing I've ever experienced.

Wish us luck!

Inspired lunacy

Check this out - a guy named Casey Pugh invited 473 Star Wars fans to recreate the original movie in 15-second clips. And this is what that inspired lunacy looks like (well, what a 4.5 minute clip looks like, anyway):

Star Wars Uncut "The Escape" from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

It's an incredible mishmash of animation, puppetry, stunningly amateur live action and OMFG CHECK OUT THE LEGOS! (You all know how I feel about Legos.)

The entire thing is being screened in Copenhagen next week. I feel a trip to Denmark may be in order, don't you?

Dripping with sarcasm

So this:

Is a SarcMark - a punctuation symbol designed to denote sarcasm in the same way that '?' denotes a question. I'm undecided as to whether this defeats the purpose of requiring someone to properly structure a sentence to reflect sarcasm, or if it just makes it easier to avoid your comments being misconstrued.

What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? Would you use it?

P.S. If you want to try it out, SarcMark is currently offering free software downloads.

The Precious

I've been asked by a few readers what kind of camera I shoot with. The answer is this:

It's not the worst point-and-shoot in the world, but it's far from the best. It doesn't tend to do well with indoor photos or low light situations, but can get some surprisingly good macro shots, and has been my faithful little buddy for years.

Until now.

Because now there is The Precious.

I've been wanting a Nikon D90 for ages. Aaaaaaaaaaages. But with all of our not-inconsiderable bebbeh expenses, ever actually getting one was something of a pipe dream...at least until my friend Melissa emailed me to say that she was selling her barely used Nikon, and would I be interested in scooping it up at a substantially reduced price? Would I?!?

Why yes. Yes I would.

Props to the Precious for making my very ordinary photography skills look this good. 

I still have a LOT of learning to do before I even come close to using this camera to it's full potential, but I'm loving it already!

Ben. Jake. Baby wrap.

This is what happens when your husband wants to know how to use the DIY Moby wraps that you made for the babies, and the cat is the closest thing to hand.

Oddly, Jake didn't seem to mind. In fact, I think he actually enjoyed it. Little weirdo.

If I ever go to South Africa...

...I'm so flying with Kulula Air. Mostly because their planes look like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

Dudes have cows on their planes. Apparently I'm a sucker for beef-based advertising.

Eight is...

...the number of veggies in V8 juice...

...the number of legs on everyone's favorite arachnids...

...the number of days in the week (if you're a Beatle)...

...the number of maids a-milking in a certain Christmas carol...

...the number of pawns per side in chess...

...the number of planets in our solar system (RIP Pluto - we miss you)...

...the number of bits in a byte...

...the number of years I've been living in Australia.

Happy Anniversary to me!

It takes a real man to give birth

And in a follow up to yesterday's post about my pregnancy woes, who wants to see a man experiencing childbirth? Well, sort of, anyway - he gets hooked up to some electrical impulses that simulate something like contractions, and the end result is...interesting.

I think this would be excellent mandatory torture a valuable experience for all men, don't you?