:)

My brush with death

So I don't know if I mentioned it, but somehow I let the band enter me in the Argus. Then I allowed him to buy me a bike. This all seemed sweet and nice last year, but last year has sneakily turned into this year and the (bluddy) argus is now less than TWO WEEKS AWAY!! (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK)

Now unlike my band, I am not one of those annoying naturally fit people. I do not have a blitsvinnig metabolism. If I am going to get through any kind of sporting event alive I need to have done the training. The band is not well disciplined in these things because he IS one of the annoying naturally fit types. But nevertheless the training is now underway (good that i can say that LESS THAN 2 WEEKS PRIOR TO THE AGONY ARGUS!!!)

On Saturday we went for a huge long cycle. Over a mountain pass, through the forests etc etc. Beautiful and all, but... stretching. We were on our way home, having done about 60kms (I KNOW!!!) and then it happened.

It wasn't another cyclist, wasn't a car, wasn't a downhill or an uphill for that matter. I was on a straight pavement, cycling at an impressive speed and as i reached down for my water bottle I saw a huge (from my perspective) gash in the paving. I panicked and braked (broke?)and screamed something less than ladylike. Next thing I was on the ground stuck under my bike. T-shirt lifted to expose the height to which my porno padded spandex shorts had crept. The band was ahead of me so the first hero to the scene was a super serious cyclist. He has all the best gear and the little cycling shoes and the gaudy spandex top (no t-shirt and takkies for this pro!) It was humiliating to say the least. I was stuck. Couldn't move. So he had to lift my bike off me. The worst was trying to explain what had happened. From a stationary vantage point the "gash" in the pavement was unimpressive so I basically slammed on brakes for inexplicable reasons. Not cool.

What IS cool is that I have INCREDIBLY impressive bruises on my one leg. THey are more like rainbow-hued welts really. I especially wore a skirt yesterday so I could show as many people as possible. They look pretty hard core. Unfortunately they are quite upper thigh so I can't realy show guys. But I took a photo with my phone to get around that one. I have been very brave following my brush with death. I got straight back on the bike and cycled the 7km home from there. Gravel covered head held high.

Apparantly if you haven't fallen off a bike you aren't riding hard enough. I guess that makes me a hard rider. Ok that sounds like one of those cheeseball skanky ass condom brands so let me take that back....

Check my leg... the lumpiness is swelling... hardcore hey?!?

So the band and i are addicted

to 24.

Someone lent us the first 4 seasons and now we're hooked. For the sake of our marriage we have compiled a strict list of rules for when we get addicted to a series:

1. (and most important) absolutely no watching ahead without the other one.
The breaking of rule number one has resulted in many fights and many incidences of me being forced to sulk in shocked dismay. The problem is usually that my narcolepsy kicks in after a few episodes and the band then watches ahead while I sleep!
DON'T DISCRIMINATE AGAINST NARCOLEPTICS!!

2. When rule number 1 is broken, no lying about it!
That's the real betrayal. When you are on the edge of your seat, tensing every muscle in your body, at the risk of dying a suspense-induced death and you glance over and the band is calmly inspecting a mark on the couch. Then YOU KNOW!!! The accusatory glance met with a guilty defiant avoiding of eye contact and followed with a "HAH!!!! You've SEEN this already!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU!?"

And so you see that addiction to series like Lost, Prison Break, Grey's Anatomy (Stef pretends not to be that interested, but he SO is) and 24 leaves our marriage in a delicate place.

LUCKILY for some reason 24 has the opposite effect to the others and after an episode I am WIDE AWAKE and totally psyched. We're on season 2 at the moment and as a result, when I do fall asleep I spend my dreams trying to deactivate nuclear bombs, interrogate terrorists and just generally save the planet from armageddon.

What a week

SERIOUSLY!! (yes, yes, I do watch to much Grey's Anatomy and I SERIOUSLY wish they'd get a move on with producing more episodes)

So as I mentioned, anniversary night was marred by my husbands retching. It was a couple of days before he was healthy again.. Friday night I got back from work and ran over the band's dog. Needless to say, after that I was the one vomiting.

Loyal readers (anyone? ANYONE??) will remember my issues with the dogs. Click here for a refresher. Anyway, contrary to popular opinion I certainly would never try to run over an animal. Not even zac, though we have certainly not always seen eye to eye (there's an ongoing power struggle between us for the band's affection - he thinks he was there first, but please, the band was Definitely already loving me back then... I mean "zac" is "caz" backwards after all.. subliminal messaging people, I am not immune.

ANYWAY!!! so there was much retching from me following the incident (ok, fine, the retching was the next day and may not have actually been related) but I did feel terrible. Zac was crying and limping and stuff. So he was taken to the vet who suggested leaving him for the weekend to see if he improved and checking back on monday. So monday came with no improvement and x-rays were taken. Turns out Zac's hip was out of joint (SINCE FRIDAY!!!!!!!) Heebee jeebeees!!!

One of my best friends was in a car accident a while back. It was really bad - to give you some idea, he had to have 8 hours worth of brain surgery, reconnecting of nerves in his arms, etc etc etc, but when he got to the hospital from the accident all he kept saying to us was that it's his hip, that he can't handle the hip being out of joint. THAT'S HOW AWFUL IT IS!!!!!

So our poor pooch had that the WHOLE WEEKEND!!! Don't ask me how the vet didn't pick that up when we first took him!! But SHAME!!

Also, and most exciting, is that the vet reckons I didn't run over zac at all... that he just lost his balance and popped his hip out when he was running behind the car.

Anyway, that was just the most recent ordeal in the life and times of caz and her band. seriously

Happy anniversary shmoo

So yesterday was our wedding anniversary. 2 years. time flies!
We kept it low key (we're pretty broke at the moment).. I made a little homecooked meal, very nice. I made my man tuna lasagne from scratch... that's right, whipped out the old pasta machine, made strips of fresh lasagne. Made a killer salad... (assorted cherry tomatos and sliced peppers in a little balsamic - grilled in the oven and put over normal salad obviously with copius amounts of cashews and feta - it's amazing!! Try it!!) and made a homemade apple crumble. All served with good red wine. I KNOW! wonderwife, that's me.

Anyway, so all was well and my incredible cooking skills were duly noted and then zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

At midnight I woke up to my band puking his lungs out (sorry for the expressiveness). SICK AS A DOG! He was up all night. (gulp...maybe not quite wonderwife)

So do you think I poisoned my husband on our WEDDING ANNIVERSARY???
I ate what he ate (and some more on toast for breakfast) and I'm hundreds, so i'm telling myself that it is a stomach bug and completely unrelated to our anniversary meal..........

but not the best end to our wedding anniversary.

Random things in celebration of my 100th post

Hey look! I managed to get a pick of my creepy co worker mentioned here.







aaah little poochahontas










MY TOTAL FAVOURITE...Bananas! hahahaha

but best of all:

FREEDOM!

50 things you didn't know about me

1. I am one of the most relaxed people i know (except when it comes to Vodacom... but let's not go there)

2. I have an uncanny sense of smell. I could be a sniffer dog. Seriously. My band can't eat a thing without me knowing. And i'm accurate too!


3. I have three older brothers, no sisters, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

4. Despite my sweet exterior I'm physically quite aggressive - I was a demon in the waterpolo pool! Vicious!

5. I watch my words and am quite ordentlik in general, but I occasionally slip the word F*@# into general conversation to see if people notice and to watch my band's face.

6. I absolutely can not handle toilet references, toilet humour, etc. I am completely uncomfortable with it. People are generally very surprised by this. I'm not the prissiest person around. But it's one thing I can't take. Think it might be due to growing up under 3 brothers.

7. I have the most detailed, clear dreams almost every night and i always remember them.

8. I bake a MEAN apple crumble.

9. I adore my parents and speak to them just about every day. They are two of the funniest people I know and very dodgy!

10. I hate full panties. They creep up my bum. I'm a total g-string girl.

11. I never shout. I prefer the deathly silent approach to conflict but there's one exception:

12. ROADRAGE. I find it hugely gratifying to scream at idiot drivers. It makes me happy.

13. I was born on my mom's birthday. She never knew what i'd be and for 9 months and 2 weeks she'd been praying for a girl, then finally out I popped. Happy Birthday Mom!

14. I have developed some kind of allergy on my wedding ring finger. I have to wear my ring on my right hand coz for the past year as soon as i try switch back my finger gets all red and inflamed.

15. Despite #14 I adore married life. I think if you work at it, it is one of the most underrated practices of our times and gets a disproportionately bad rap in the media.

16. I get a handwritten letter in the post once a week from my gran and she gets one back from me.

17. I am a sub-editing nut. I automatically sub-edit things as I read them and I actually enjoy it. I'm amazed at how many errors make it past sub-editors in the media. My best one in recent times was a picture in the Cape Times. The caption below the pic read: "CAPTION: Two line caption please two line caption please two line caption please two line caption please two line caption please"

18. I hate the uneccessary use of the quotation marks. For example Toys "R" us. Yes, thanks, we get it. You are very cleverly and originally shortening the word 'are' to 'R' and just in case we think you have made a mistake you have put those helpful little quotation marks there to show us. Can "U" please "B" less "irrit8ing"??

19. When I was 12 and we were all getting ready for our first school 'disco' I overheard a school friend laughing saying that I'm such a clown that she can't imagine me dancing. I've had a complex when I dance ever since.

20. I fully believe that I started the whole trend on green as a wedding colour. Every one has copied me on it.

21. My favourite part of a meal at a shmancy restaurant is the warm, dense bread and butter they bring before. DAM IT'S GOOD!

22. I notice the way people speak and can become a little obsessive about it. We had this one lecturer from Gabon and his crutch word was 'actually' pronounced 'uck-tchoo-wuh-lee". Where others would say 'um' he'd say actually. So it would be like "So actually for sustainable development to actually work we actually need to bring in community development actually as an element." I used to spend his lectures counting the actualies. I think i got to over 200 once.

23. I absolutely hate the smell of strawberry yoghurt. BLEGH it makes me want to spew. My office sharer eats one every day and I open all the doors and windows and throw it in the kitchen bin afterwards. I suspect she eats them more often now she knows it nauseates me.

24.I don't have a tv - we watch dvds etc, but there's no tv connection. I never plan to get one.

25. My gran had breast cancer and so did my mom. My mom is fine now. My gran died. My chances of getting breast cancer are very high. I like to think it doesn't bother me or freak me out, but every now and then I have a dream about it, so I know it's in there somewhere plaguing me a little.

26. I am rooting for Britney Spears.

27. I love owls.

28. When I get a fright my feet ache. I think all the adrenalin rushes down there or something.

29. I love cheesy humour. Actually, that shouldn't be on this list.. im sure you did know that about me.

30. My favourite place in the world is the Wild Coast. I love everything about it. The people, the smells, the views, the cows, the sea, the food. It's definitely my happy place.

31. I hate blowing up balloons. It gives me a creepy feeling in my glands. It's vile.

32. I am a narcoleptic. Ok, not quite, but I do like my sleep and it's rare that i make it through a dvd or movie (even at the cinema) without a little nap inbetween. Nothing like a drawn out fight scene to cure insomnia. If i'm with good friends I can fall asleep right in the middle of the conversation.


33. My ears are the most (unpleasantly) sensitive part of my body. I can't stand anyone being near them.

34. The solution to all my problems is a hot bubble bath. If I'm tired, sick, depressed, or whatever I hop in the bath. I think a water birth would work well for me.

35. I am a mild germophobe. I wash my hands after touching anything public.

36. I eat pizza and fruit with cutlery. I hate having sticky fingers.

37. I love series like Lost, Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy and 24, but my best show of all time is Seinfeld. Elaine is my hero.

38. I’m a laid back type and most comfortable in slops and shorts, but since I started this job I have upped the preppiness. I think you should dress for the job you want not the one you have, so I am.

39. I’m the chick you always see singing her lungs out in the traffic.

40. I have caught crocodiles with my bare hands and hitchhiked through Botswana.


41. I won this big poetry competition in grade 11 and have never lived it down.

42. I cannot take angelina jolie and since her, I think Brad Pitt is a total wuss.

43. I harbour secret fantasies about someone trying to break in/attack me and me sorting them out good and proper! (see #4) I believe that they would come off second best - I would have pure rage on my side.

44. I find most babies completely intimidating and their mother's even more so. My friend kate who has a 2 month old is (unbeknown to her) helping me conquer this. She's fantastic and doesn't pour on the guilt or panic when the baby cries in my arms. KATE YOU ROCK!

45. There are few things as cool as receiving something personal in the post.

46. My first car (which i had in my first couple of years at varsity) was a Nissan Pulsar (nicknamed Breyton of course). It was a little hatchback thing which has already had 3 owners in my family alone! A broom handle held the boot open when necessary. Oil needed filling once a week. I think that the sound system (inherited from my brother) may just have been worth more than the car. At the end of it, we sold Breyton for R4000. I loved that car and when my (future) kids want cars one day, I'll teach them humility by starting them off on a breyton. A 3rd class drive is better than a first class walk. Oh geez. I officially just turned into my dad!!

47. I am a birthday and christmas nut. And yes, OBVIOUSLY the presents are a beeeg bonus, but i also love that on Christmas I get to bond with all my fam and on my birthday I always hear from the most random people that I haven't heard from in a year. I love that!

48. I am the eternal optimist and enter every competition I can. I sms all those product things and visit Win Now. Last month I won a pair of binoculars for the winning letter in the latest Wildside Magazine.

49. I have two tubs of bubbles on my desk from a wedding I went to. Stressed colleagues tend to come in, sit down and start blowing bubbles. It seems to be very therapeutic.

50. What he said:

Creepy co-worker! (case 1)

So there's this guy who works for my company. Our head office is in Stellenbosch which is where i live (and all the readers turned green with envy) but this guy works in our Joburg satellite office so we don't see him too often.
But whenever we DO see him, like this week for example, the following disturbing things happen:

* He frequently winks at us girls. At first we thought it was like a tic or a involuntary twitch. But the winks always manage to coincide with something mildly suggestive which he is saying at the time.

* He is a kisser. And not a polite, francophile kiss on the cheek, but a full on lip kiss on which always seems to leave a gobby imprint. eeeeeeeeeeeugh. Now call me a prude, but I don't think it's entirely appropriate for work colleagues to be snogging each other at every opportunity. (sure there are exceptions, like if I worked on the set of Prison Break for example, the rules would be different)There are few people I ever kiss on the lips. My band. Possibly some family and one or two choice friends who may just be those sort of people which is fine. But NOT work colleagues. I mean honestly. It's not like I miss him so much each time he's away that i need to KISS him when I see him. It's disgusting. And also, it's not just the first time you see him. Like this week, for eg, he will try to get one in every day. I MEAN SERIOUSLY PEOPLE... HOW SIFF IS THAT?? Fortunately it is not just me... it's all the younger ladies in the office. but still. When he arrived I tried SO HARD to avoid the snog. Really I did. I was carrying a huge stack of A2 boxes which basically meant there was a metre of safety between me and anyone and so i kind of waved a hurried hallo and tried to make a run for it. "HEY!!! CAROLYN! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? IS THAT IT? AREN'T YOU GOING TO EVEN SAY HALLO PROPERLY??" (~wink!~) eeeeeeeeeugh people. there really is no escape.

* Today he commented on the fact that he would have no problem if i wanted to wear cleavage tops (~wink!~). Incidentally I don't wear cleavage tops to work thank you very much but WHO SAYS THAT TO A COLLEAGUE!!!

Now before you have me writing to the CCMA crying sexual harassment, he is my senior so i can't be too rude and also he's not actually after me, he's just a generally cringeworthy guy. BUT STILL!

GOVERNMENT WARNING!!!

Do not swallow your chewing gum.
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Guess which

devoted little blogmeister revamped her blog?
ME!!!

That's right people, I'm living the dream!

CREEEEPY PEOPLE & WEIRD COINCIDENCE!

So last night i watched this documentary "The most hated family in America". If you can get hold of it you MUST watch it. It's unbelievable!!!!!

It's all about this church which consists mainly of one (LARGE) family. They believe that they are the only people in the world going to heaven and their whole entire message is that God hates America (nice!).

They even have a website all about it. If I had just seen the website I would have thought it was a joke, but seeing the documentary I am ... (speechless?)

Basically their whole message is that everything bad that happens is a result of God's punishment and they therefore REJOICE in it. For example, if a US soldier dies in Iraq they go picket at his funeral saying how "God hates fags" (they consider anyone who doesn't agree with them 100% to be the equivalent of a homosexual in God's eyes). They say that God is punishing america for her liberal ways. Their one picket sign says "Praise God for 9/11". It's really so sick.

Frighteningly, appallingly, atrociously they call themselves christians, more specifically "baptists".

I'm sure the baptists in America must be cringing over that. Coz I sure as hell am cringing over them calling themselves christians!!! THEY ARE SO FAR OFF. Kind of wonder if they've ever seen the new testament.

There's one part in the documentary where this nearby church has a fire and they rejoice! They picket outside it calling it a "fag church". Their theory being that the fire was God's wrath and therefore the church must be evil. Psychos. Don't know which God they know, but he's not even RELATED to mine!

Anywho, let me not digress. What's truly weird is this: Having never heard of these evil people til last night, I was pretty surprised to stumble upon a news article of them this very day. Click here to read about how they plan to picket at HEATH LEDGER'S memorial because he acted in Brokeback Mountain.

Oh the depths to which I have fallen

So I never thought I would stoop so low...
using my own personal bl- no... never mind. I can't do it.
I won't.

Oh the painfulness of coming up with titles

Welcome back to Batchfoo!! Click here to read all about her new uber-cute bambino!

Well I am back after a loooooong holiday. DAMMIT PEOPLE WHY DID IT HAVE TO END???

I still have serious post holiday blues :( CLEARLY
and on top of it i am sick - ears, throat etc.

I stayed home from work yesterday and watched mr wentworth miller for most of the day which did make me feel happier, though it did nothing to lower my temperature!!!

Can you guys believe Heath Ledger died? How sad is that!? and he has a 2 year old!

OK so after much laziness and lack of writing at least this tiny post is a start!

ok byeeeeeeeeeeeeee

oooooh the lengthiness of the last weeks before vacation!

People, it is 9 days 8 hours fifty eight minutes and twenty two seconds til the last days of work (yup - I am geeky enough to have actually placed a countdown timer on my desktop!)

I CAN HARDLY CONTAIN MYSELF!! No really.

BUT TIME IS DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGING!!
so loyal readership (cher)
what's news?

So on friday i have two year end parties - one day and one night and both of them are pirate themed... what are the chances.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!

Have i used that title before? probably. I'll be honest, it's not my most original effort, but it is VERY multiplicable. Yes, i made that word up, hence it is a cazism.

Multiplicable: - (adj) Applicable in various ways, Applicable for a number of reasons, eg. the title of Jake White's autobiography In Black and White is multiplicable in that it refers not only to the colour of the text on the paper, but also puns on his surname as well as referring to the racial debate in SA rugby.

I could SO write dictionaries!

Anyway, to expand upon the multiplicable nature of THE FINAL COUNTDOWN:

1) It is the final countdown - 17 days to go - until I take a ONE MONTH VACATION!!!!! (Don't moan... masters and a full time job - you KNOW I deserve it!!)

2) It is the final countdown - a matter of hours - til one of my favourite people gives birth to her bambino and I find out whether I'm an aunty or an uncle. haha, ok til i find out if it's a boy or a girl... clarification for those that live in these parts: KATE IS IN LABOUR - woohoo!!

3) It is the final countdown until I am back to my wedding weight.... lost 6kgs only 4 to go.

4) It is the final countdown until I see my dog - PHOEBE!! Yay! And also all my brothers, my neice, my folks and my gran!
This is Phoebe... how cute is that!!


5) It is the final countdown til I find out whether or not I am preggers, knocked up, etc. HA HA Cherilyn, don't freak out... I REALLY REALLY doubt it, however, due to extenuating circumstances there is a slight chance.

6) It is the final countdown til I hear whether or not I passed my Masters (sometime at the end of the year)

So anyway, I trust I have been successful in embedding that song in all of your heads? haha

Whose birthday is it??

LISTS

So I found an interesting new blog click here to see it - quite cool - and it inspired me to make my own little list which I'm sure will be added to over the coming weeks and I hope you guys will add to it to (if there is anyone out there....anyone at all?)

LIST OF THINGS THAT BUG THE HELL OUT OF ME:
* Vodacom service provider (obviously)
* Facebook users that invite you to every stupid application there is - like vampires???
* Facebook profiles that have a gazillion applications and take forever to load
* IT people who know less than me
* Cold weather when it is meant to be summer :(

LIST OF THINGS THAT MAKE ME EXCEPTIONALLY HAPPY:
* My hammock!!!
* My band!!!
* The month of holiday that is fast approaching
* Being done with my masters (and seriously this one is big enough to stay on the list for my whole life!)
* My absolutely ADORABLE neice. Seriously, how cute is this child!!!

NO MORE NERDINESS

Ok guys, I know i've been a disgrace to blogland, but it's been a heavy year!!!

But never mind, below, you see before you SUCCESS!!!


Ok that is me*, the blogger formerly known as nerdabluddylert with my completed masters thesis. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The relief is beyond description.

Of course, there will be even more relief when i know whether or not i actually passed!!!

Anyway, now do you forgive me scarcity?? scareceness??? or whatever?

* DISCLAIMER: please note that that is me after arriving at work at 8am (ok, fine 8.45) and leaving at 2.30am - working for 18 hours straight!!! so I am looking smelly and tired and mildly neurotic - this office is creepy after midnight!!!!!

How to annoy a vegetarian

Found this article on news24.com. I think it's fantastic!!

The next time you get the urge to antagonise a vegetarian – and if you're a meat-eater you probably suffer from a perverse need to do so – lean towards them over the dinner table and deliver one of the following immortal lines:

1. Did you know Hitler was a vegetarian?
2. But you’re wearing leather shoes.
3. So what made you give up meat – was it for religious reasons?
4. Moo/Baa/Oink (in accordance with whichever meat dish you’ve just ordered).

This will elicit a reaction, but not, as you may like to think, because you’ve ruffled fragile vegetarian sensibilities with your rogueish wit. The real reason they’re peeved is that they’ve heard all of these facetious remarks (not to mention the barnyard impressions) many, many, many times before. The prospect of getting into an argument with you also bores them to death, so more often than not they’ll just give you a pained smile and return to their tofu.

But there are lots of important things they could say to you on the topic, so, to save them the bother and tedium, I’ve listed the appropriate responses to the above comments for you here (except for number 4, which is too puerile to waste another second on).

Vegetarians, please feel free to print out and distribute as needed:

Did you know Hitler was a vegetarian?
Let’s just consider for a moment what the man would have been like, and the implications for world history, if he hadn't been a vegetarian. And anyway, there are enough overwhelmingly virtuous famous vegheads - Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, St Francis of Assisi - to cancel him out.

But you’re wearing leather shoes
This is quite a tricky one actually… OK, here goes:

The world is a complicated place, rendered in shades of grey. Deciding not to care about an issue just because it gets a little confusing and morally murky is sheer intellectual laziness. It’s not great to wear an animal’s hide on your feet, true, but it’s considerably better than wearing one animal’s hide and also partaking of the flesh of several others.

So what made you give up meat – was it for religious reasons?

The irritating implication of this question is that if you can demonstrate you’re a vegetarian for religious-cultural reasons, then you’ll have the right to be taken seriously, whereas any other reason is somehow flakey and light-weight. Here are some of those ‘light-weight’ reasons:

Because it eases the burden on the health system
Buddha aside, how many overweight vegetarians can you think of?

Studies suggest that a vegetarian diet reduces risk for some of the biggest killers stalking the modern world:

Cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and stroke
Cancer, especially of the colon and reproductive organs, Obesity,
Type 2 diabetes, Gallstones and diverticular disease

In addition to these ills, feeding on other animal species, especially when they’re kept en masse for convenient culling for the dinner table, is not a great idea if you consider the communicable diseases that have arisen from the practice. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow) and avian influenza (bird flu), to name just a couple. And let's not forget that HIV/Aids is thought to have had its origins in the human consumption of other primates i.e. bushmeat hunting.

Because it eases the burden on the planet
Billions of flatulent cows and, to a rather lesser extent, sheep, produce an awful lot of methane, one of the most potent of the greenhouse gasses. This, plus the vast amounts of fossil fuel required to accommodate, slaughter, aesthetically package and transport all that tasty meat makes livestock farming one of the biggest contributors to global warming.

And it takes up huge tracts of land and gallons upon gallons of water. Growing crops uses resources too, but nothing like as much. Besides which, most of those crops are used, not to feed the world's growing human population, but to feed livestock destined for meat-eaters’ plates: about two thirds of grain produced is fed to animals farmed for meat and milk.

Because underdogs rule
Despite a slight increase in visibility and status in recent years, vegetarians remain an often derided and unappreciated minority. But it’s always been cooler to be an underdog than a top dog, to buck the system than to slavishly follow the status quo.

Vegetarians' cool rating is further elevated by some of the Names they have in their midst: J.M. Coetzee, Alice Walker, Steve Jobs, Annie Lennox and, for some unfathomable reason, a large number of pro skateboarders, BMXers and other extreme athletes. OK, there’s also Larry Hagman and Pamela Anderson, but that just serves to show there is no such thing as a vegetarian ‘type’.

But mostly they’re cool because they’ve put some pretty deep concerns before the craven appeasing of their own appetites. As freestyle BMX vet and all-round ultra-cool extreme vegan dude Taj Mihelich succinctly puts it: “I don’t think that I’m so important that an animal has to die every time I want to eat.”

nerd a bluddy lert

Hi all
I'm sorry i suck so much! phew. It's the Bluddy Masters. Note: the official title is now The Bluddy Masters. Not the Masters, the BLUDDY masters.

SOOOOOOOOO tired of it now. tired of reading about climate change.

Figured out that I have been studying now for 19 YEARS!!!! NERD-A-BLADDY-LERT!

My thesis needs to be in and complete at the end of Oct so i pretty much need to finish this weekend to allow time for corrections etc. OOOOH THE STRESS!!!

the band has been away ALL WEEK so i have got some work done. But it has been sooooooooo lonely and i've had horrible nightmares every night - tam: even worse than a nipple on your bum! All these shark dreams and dreams about radioactive virus things and poisonings and supporting the indian cricket side. seriously.

Anyone out there a grey's anatomy fan? How yum is mcdreamy!?

anyway, i'll be back sooner next time.