BecJacobs

Palladio - the Renaissance architect. It got me thinking about how Ruby is going to be learning Italian at school and that we really should visit Italy at some stage to inspire her.

Viper PIts inspired by an episode of Man vs Wild set in Panama. Interesting fact:Viper pits were thought to hold a cache of lost pirate treasure. Shockingly I didn't find this out on Wikipedia. Wiki was a bit too literal.

Palau - Where is Palau and why would an archologist explore it looking for bizarre looking little people? Palau is a Pacific Island 800km east of the Philippines which has a well established matrilineal society.It's ancient connection to the Javanese lead archiologists here where they discovered the oldest known burial ceremony in Oceania. The discovery here is thought to be related to the controversial discovery of Flores in Indonesia.

The other day I came across a link on the ninemsn home page to an article in Mother and Baby called "In Praise of Lazy Parents". Funnily enough it struck a cord and I clicked on it. Great article, you can find the full article here. I then went on to take a look at the author. Her name is Brett Paesel, she's an actress who lives in LA, and she has 2 kids. She has written a book called "Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs and Other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom". Sounds right up my alley. This interview with her is fantastic. I think I just might order it....

I don't know what it is about standing in a queue but I naturally start to get annoyed. What annoys me the most is when people leave too much room between them and the person in front. What's up with that? Keep it compact and tidy is my theory.

Different types of queues?

Coffee Queue, ATM queue, Movie Theatre Queue, Queue when you don't need to queue... What else?

I have a theory on photography - if you have a good eye then you can take a great photo with any kind of camera. Fancy expensive cameras can definitely help, but it's kind of cheating. I have alot of dodgy cameras, polaroids, lomo, action samplers. You can get some fantastic pictures out of them. Some of the best. I still have my Polaroid 600 and am anxiously monitoring The Impossible Project to see if they start producing Polaroid film again.

This photo was taken with my iPhone and then I applied a Filter through the CameraBag app.

   The inflammatory title of this post is inspired by my ongoing experiences with my local DVD store. Here's the latest scenario... Sick child, need to work from home. Brainwave - go to the DVD store and rent as many movies as sick child would like so she rests and lets me get some work done. Great, takes mere seconds for sick child to pick out a couple of Barbie movies. Fantastic - get home, sick child cannot wait to start watching... my cunning plan is falling into place like a beautiful dance. So I endure the torturous minutes it takes to get to the actual menu (can I pay extra to get a DVD that skips these bits?) of a 'special' treat of sweeping through a circa 2002 3D landscape, a full 'intro' spoken by Barbie herself and then finally the selections pop up. Play movie - yes!

Every now and then I come across the age old debate of the internet and children's photos. This morning I read a blog post by MamaMia (@miafreedman). I have great respect for this lady and enjoy her blog so the following rant has nothing to do with her or her views.

It's usually starts out as innocent concern about children's likenesses and them being used on the web. As anyone with children knows you are repeatedly being asked to sign a waiver allowing your child to be photographed in the event that a photograph is taken and your child just happens to be in it.

Ari has recently been using my laptop and I'm often intrigued when I open up my laptop the next day and his last search is still in the IE Default search box. Today it is "bible code obama".

The other day it was "gabriel method" and another time "fibromyalgia"

With all the talk of the resignation and appointment of a new premier here in NSW there has been a bit of press about the cabinet members and other members of parliament. To my surprise the member for Balmain is a woman called Verity Firth. This is probably of no significance to anyone really. The reason why I am so surprised is because for a few years in my early twenties I had a good friend called Verity Firth. Lovely girl, a bit crazy, born again christian, slightly daffy. Don't worry, I searched her and the pictures prove they are definitely not the same person. It's just such an unusual name that I was really shocked that there could be 2 of them. Last time I saw her she was living in Drummoyne (after returning from Newcastle, UK) and had a young baby girl. Weird. Speaking of Newcastle UK, I actually visited her there and stayed with her and her boyfriend who then became her husband. That's right she was a pretty good friend of mine. I would have been about 24 at that stage. What ever happened? Why aren't we still friends? I think it was just because our lives were so different that we drifted apart.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a pretty voracious TV watcher. There's so many good things to watch. One show I'm particularly excited about is Dexter. Showtime have just released the new Dexter Season 3 trailer. Hmmm...nice. I can't wait for the new season to start. September 28th seems like ages away. At least I can indulge in some Dexter merchandise while I wait.

This weekend I headed out to Ikea to look at a piece of furntiure that I was sure would solve our entertainment woes. I had seen the peice in 2 of my favourite homewares magazines this month and loved it more and more each time I looked at the picture. I consulted Ari who wasn't convinced but was kind enough to say he trusted me and if it looked good in person to go for it. Got there, looked just as fantastic as the picture... better still had "Full Service Item" so my fears of flat pack hell were averted. Decided to take the plunge and bought it.