And now for a bit of cross-promotion

See more stunning pics like this - and a few heartwarming tales - at Jessica's Blog.

And in the "who really cares section"

Nicole Richie has given birth to her first child.

She named it Harlow Winter.

I have no further comment.

In other news

The boss of ABC Learning here in Australia has been caught selling off millions of dollars worth of his shares while reassuring shareholders that everything's okay...

But I think the real question we need to ask shareholders is:

Why would you ever trust a man that looked like this??

Some things don't need a title

and now I feel a bit silly

And after all that, it turns out it was a false alarm.
No sunspot, no mole, nothing cancerous, just an inflammation at the base of the hair follicles on my chest.
Would have been nice if the first doctor had picked that up so I wouldn't have had to pay for two consultations, but you get that.
As I said, better to be safe than sorry.

Today, a doctor is going to slice me open then stitch me up again

I'm a little bit nervous.
I have a sunspot that has appeared on my chest in the last couple of months and when I visited the doctor's surgery yesterday, I was told it was best to have it "cut out."
Ew.
So in about an hour's time I'm going under the knife. It's nothing really to be worried about but it's the first time anything like this has happened to me so I'm a little anxious.
I know it's a good move in the long run but part of me wishes I could just ignore it and it would go away.
Unfortunately, it won't. And fortunately, I wear sunscreen whenever I'm in the sun so I'm hoping this won't be a regular occurrence.
Better to be safe than sorry, right?

So He's Open about Sleeping with Other Boys

Server admin: He's Catholic, isn't he?

Developer: Nah, he's just gay.



State and Water Street
Peoria, Illinois

Overheard by: only girl in an office of men...

From Overhead in the Office

Good Vibes

One of my favourite past-times at music festivals is people watching.



So I thought rather than analyse each of the performances at the Good Vibrations music festival (they were all awesome except Kanye West who we didn't watch anyway) I thought I would analyse the people who were there at the event.

• First mention goes to the tall girl in the pink flouro top who screeched "Team Aviator!" And insisted on having a photo with me when she saw her sunnies matched mine.


• An honourable mention to the outrageously buff guy who was almost as wide as he was tall and subsequently insisted on walking around the place with his top off and his biceps flexed. Way to look natural, my friend.


• To the masses of (mainly girls, but there were some offending guys) people who wore flouro - it's still not cool.
  
• And then there's waistcoat guy - the guy I saw wearing trousers and a waistcoat (complete with white long-sleeved shirt and tie underneath) during the heat of the day.
  
• And to the guy passed out at the back of the ambulance tent at the healthy time of 2pm - perhaps don't drink so much quite so early next year, my friend.
  

Falling in love with Paris is like remembering an emotion that you never had...

I've never been to Paris, but after watching Paris, Je t'aime last night, I love the place already.

It's funny how you go through periods when you watch a few Hollywood movies in a row and then you go back to a foreign/independent film and realise exactly what you've been missing out on.

This film, part of the official selection for both the Toronto and Cannes Film Festivals, is a collection of short films, all filmed in Paris and revolving around different aspects of love.
From the love a mother has for her young baby, to an older couple meeting to finalise a divorce, to a pair of mimes that meet in a jail cell one night, to a single American tourist who falls in love with Paris itself, this film is absolutely magical.

And to top it all off, each short film is directed by a different esteemed director - from Gus Van Sant, the Cohen Brothers and Wes Craven to Gerard Depardieau.
There is also a massive range of actors from Steve Buscemi and Natalie Portman to Elijah Wood, Nick Nolte and Bob Hoskins.

Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, some are just downright weird, but all in all it is an absolutely brilliant collection.

See it.

Please feel free to help yourself to that humble pie. It's gooood....

I watched possibly one of the best episodes of Four Corners I had ever seen last night.
Last night, for the first time, I saw senior Howard Government ministers talk honestly (well, as close as we're goign to get anyway) for the first time.
Gone was the smug arrogance, hindsight was now 20/20 and they actually more or less admitted that they got it wrong.

It was stunning.

It was like a massive bit of closure after a particularly bad break up.

Gone was Costello's smug grin, and even Downer was a bit more subdued than normal - though ever the diplomat.

But Tony Abbott just proved that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
He found it so hard to admit they got it wrong, unlike Andrew Robb, who said that "by definition, they had underestimated Kevin Rudd" - because he won.

No, Tony Abbott said that while he didn't think ratifying Kyoto would have "saved our bacon" he considered that "the public" (words he almost spat out) "the voting public might have found it a bit curious."
The implication was that he still thought they were doing the right thing - but it was the "voting public" that had misinterpreted the Liberal Party's best intentions.

Well fuck you, Tony Abbott. Enjoy the political wilderness.