How sad is it that I knew this would be about birds before I clicked? I've been on the internet far to long :-)

You forgot "Leader of the Pack"!

#2 - Indeed - a good 'brelly blows inside out in a gust of wind just as easily as a cheap one.

I think they've done the right thing - one person getting killed thanks to a fault caused by the mishap is one too many.

25:

OH MY GOODNESS THE CHIPS!

(That might not make any sense to anyone who's not Australian and born prior to 1977...)

Engineers do have an odd sense of humour. Check out An Engineer's Guide to Cats on YouTube if you haven't already ;-)

I'm not sure what's creepier, the video in general or the desperately wide smile of the woman in the middle.

Pipenta, if you look closely you can see that this one does have a face: I'm guessing the vid maker didn't want the advertising on the front side to be discernable.

And Robert Crumb had a thing for Bugs Bunny. I find Waters a lot less objectionable as a person and an artist, however...

I'm not a scientist, but at a guess, I'd say the emulsifier in the detergent is reacting with the fat in the milk. Am I right or not?

I was reading a forum once where a nurse posted about a case she had years ago where the patient passed a gigantic mass of impacted fecal matter. Apparently all the staff had come in to have a look and a laugh at the giant poo, and the patient, who had just endured a painful and humiliating experience, was made to feel even more worse. I thought this nurse's and her colleages' behaviour was pretty awful, tbh.

ER is a stressful, high-pressure job and on the one hand, I don't begrudge them their giggles at all. However, surely they have a duty to not actively humiliate the people in their care, and that includes those who have things stuck in their behinds.

#9

I want my baby back, baby back, baby back...ribs.

One of Australia's foremost music gurus (at least at the time) Ian "Molly" Meldrum, predicted that Cyndi Lauper would be a bigger star than Madonna.

Adam, now why let the boring old truth get in the way of a good story?

Cats do it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRbhpCApIi8

Without looking at the clip or the comments, I'm going to take a wild guess and say the dead parrot sketch is there?

Didn't Crichton's Dad give him something like that in Farscape?

#21 - Michigan J. Frog, and I didn't even have to Google.

These guys are so in love!

What would be an Australian-market equivalent to a Tootsie Roll? I'd like to give this a try!

I was on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Sydney in 2000 (like NZ's, Australian quarantine is some of the strictest in the world) which was fumigated. It wasn't a "thick smog", it was a couple of cans of spray and nobody got ill. Don't know exactly what happened with the Air NZ flight, but judging from the other comments, it seems fairly routine.

14:

The Guardian on why metal fans are brainier.

I don't have an opinion either way, but not everyone seems to think metal fan = dumb.

There's video here.

I'd probably shit myself if that happened in front of me, and I LIKE dogs!

The Stig's driving!

#7 - is your question directed at #6 or at the story in general?

I like the bunneh.

You COULD waste billions trying to control the weather...OR you could do something about trying to cut the pollution. No surprise that the suits have chosen the former.

24: I'm sorry, I'm just LOLing at the acronym. Alien Vs Predator as an Alternative to Violence ;-)

Why is human, decent behaviour so often claimed "Christian"? Being good is just being good, full stop, and it's a shame that it gets co-opted like this.

I think that's a great idea. People will be unlikely to lay out that kind of money unless they're serious about wanting to see the movie. Old people (notorious talkers, in my experience) probably won't pay it and it'll make it too pricey for people bringing kids along to kid-inappropriate movies.

Meaning I'd be able to watch the damn movie in PEACE.

57: I've heard. Do they still fingerprint anyone who comes in? I'll be travelling somewhere not quite so unfriendly - a war zone, maybe.

#52, you have just made sure I will never visit the USA, unless substantial changes to this lunatic system are made. Thank you for the warning.

You really have to wonder if someone wasn't just power-tripping and had a dislike for nipple rings as strong as Allthegoodnamesaretaken's up there.

An old friend of mine had a brother who was a policeman. If he saw a youth wearing a baseball cap back to front, he's make them turn it around. I mean, really. A kid's baseball cap. So yes, powertripping twonks are in positions of authority all over the place.

Jamie Sue, that's probably what they want. Not a criticism of your decision at all - just saying.

However, what about drawings? What if someone was found with drawings of children in compromising situations on their computer, instead of photographs? I somehow doubt people would be happy that the person is satisfying their urges without harming anyone, and let them go on their way.

That IS illegal in Australia. Gotta look after those pretend children!

I love the Spyro! ;-)

When I read that headline, I was picturing socks that would look like hairy hobbit feet! But the ones above are lovely, I can see the work that went into them.

Scary, I had just added 2001 to my reading pile - figureed it was time to crack it open again. RIP, ACC.

Pious bastards like the woman above are usually the ones with the filthiest minds. I remember hearing about a rollercoaster here getting complaints from the moral minority back in the day:

http://www.wonderlandhistory.net/more/t_wonderlanddemonaerial.jpg

Yawn. If this person made movies, I guarantee they'd be unwatchable.

Disgusting. Yet fascinating and ultimately satisfying. Yes, OK, I'm a zit-popper from way back.

If nothing else, this entry led me to the awesomeness that is Techno Viking. What a hero!

OK, give. This is the *real* Amy, isn't it? And that junkie we see lurching all over Perez Hilton is the impostor.

#27 - Think about it for a minute. Crocodiles can't jump when they're on land, which is where Irwin was when he had the baby. They can and do use their powerful tails to propel themselves out of the water, which is what this one did here.

Christ, that's horrible.

You think maybe he's been watching too much Summer Heights High? :-)

#17: Bwahahahahaha! You win the internet! :-D

I never did get the whole mallrat thing even when I WAS a teen. Thought they were gormless losers then and gormless losers now. My friends dragged me along once or twice, I got bored, went home and read a book.

I love how they've put the words "Aussie" and "fries" together and expected them to make some sort of sense. They're called "chips", ffs.

Further to what I said in my previous comment - so many buildings are lazily designed, just build a sweatbox and stick a big air conditioner on top of it. If more buildings incorporated design such as this, think amount of coal we wouldn't have to burn just to keep ourselves cool.

Palindromic, a rainwater tank in Victoria, Australia is NOT going to ice up. Furthermore, Victoria, as in many parts of Australia, is currently in the grip of a years-long drought and rainwater tanks are a fact of life. It might not be the prettiest thing in the world but it's a good idea and one we Australians have already begun getting used to.

Yawn. You're a U2 fan long enough, you learn to ignore both the occasional wank from McG, Bono AND teh Internetz.

Australia is only just now getting an outbreak of equine flu that started last August under control - and part of the reason it was so unmanageable was that because records of animal movements were spotty and ill-kept. Cost the racing industry a fuckton of money, and that was just the start of it. So, less with the terrorism, more with the rather sensible disease management stuff?

The pseudoscience, drug and psychology bullshit I'll chalk up to garden variety religious fanatacism, but scientologists are the only ones who can help at road accidents? That's just bizarre.

We don't download because we want to steal it. We download because we want to see it. I'm stuck down here in Australia, and it is nothing at all for us to be months (and sometimes, years) behind overseas TV and movie releases. We are supposed to sit there like good little consumers and wait our turn. Is it any wonder a great many of us took to downloading so quickly? I don't bother with terrestrial TV anymore, and it is terrestrial TV's own fault.

The TV networks, run as they are by monkeys, have only just realised where their audiences were disappearing to and recently, as in least year, started offering a few shows in a timely manner.

Movies - bit different, but same basic principle: STOP MAKING US WAIT and you might notice a reducton in piracy levels.

Ditto - BJ Davis has just made sure I won't be spending a cent on that movie.

Might download it one day, though. If I have a few meg left at the end of the month and absolutely nothing to use it on. Maybe.

The same thing happened in New Zealand a few years ago, and they'd had children together. They were forced to divorce. I'm not sure what happened after that, but come on, I mean, the kids already existed, the deed was done. What harm could have come of them staying together, had they wanted to?

He's probably right, at least partly. Even if the kids ate McDonald's a lot, if they spent more time outside exercising and less in front of video games, they'd be a lot less heavy.

Ceruleanshipper, I don't know how you're going to go there. I've seen both Mr Fry's appearance on Top Gear and Mr Clarkson's numerous appearances on QI, and they seem quite chummy. I'm aware it's only TV, but Clarkson is characteristically vocal about public figures he dislikes. Piers Morgan, for example :-)

I disagree with 95% of everything that comes out of Clarkson's mouth, but I don't feel the need to come to a blog and spew bile because of it. Oddly enough, I can actually disagree with someone without becoming overwhelmed by screaming hatred.

A lot of folks on the other side of the fence are just as loud and obnoxious as he can be - being a leftie does not automatically make you Not A Jerk.

Starwed, you're right - Topsy had been ruled a "danger", having killed one (or was it two?) of her handlers and had already had her death sentence passed - Edison petitioned for the right to do it by electrocution.

However, another fact of the matter was that right before she killed one of the handlers, the man had fed her a lit cigarette, so she was obviously being baited. It was a rotten situation all around.