Due to the mild level of interest (5 positive, 1 negative and 12 neutral comments), the review blog is still here. Well sort of. Actually it is somewhere else :-)
Welcome to the first blog roundup at mu.nu. I would especially like to thank the munivians and PixyMisa for making this possible. Just because it is the first real roundup at mu.nu and because I am feeling generous, there is a double serve this week....
Ramblings of SilverBlue is the first candidate today. I want to start with some more useful latin like "Vescere bracis meis" which could come in useful next week. In a similar style there are some useful thoughts to ponder. My personal favourite would be "Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity". There is also a great picture which fits in beautifully with a joke published over at LOL last week.
Second blog today is the only blog to advertise on Sydney buses: DramaQueen. The master of zodiac (and suggestive pictures) turns out to be a real duck fan. I can remember seeing a hundred yellow ducklings (well lots of them anyway) and knowing that a large proportion of them were destined for the table. I think growing up rural removes a lot of the squeamishness that you find in city kids. What I want to know is whether this post is referring to another new euphemism that I am unfamiliar with or was that just Goldie being funny? Apparently she was in Sydney around New Year and will be the week after Easter. The first time I didn't know her and the second time I will be at the Catholic Family Conference. Hmmm. One day I will have to try an organise a Sydney blog get-together.
Ripples leads off his blog at the moment with a post about trolls. The blog used as an example is Read My Lips (see below). Ripples has some excellent advice for anonymous (or semi-anonymous) blogger like myself. In the same vein there are comments on longevity in the blog world. This is a blog that is always worth visiting.
Apparently, kingsley.blog-city.com, is looking for a new home. Seems to be a bit funny after paying for an account but apparently even one paid month will mean your blog is preserved indefinitely.
Now this next blog makes me feel very old Serendipity*. I know that the younger generation always invent new forms of speaking but I find myself loosing the plot of the story in all the 2's and 4's. Maybe this post is the result of an overdose of SMS. Hmmm. Maybe I could write an SMS to English translator. Anyway, head over and enjoy the thoughts of a uni student (I can't remember being an undergrad - it was so long ago). Interesting that this week we got two similar blogs....
What with all the moving of blog things I have been a bit slack with the reading and a nearly missed an important question over at GRRR be afraid about 18 wheelers. Dunno how you count the wheels on a truck but the biggest ones (road trains = 1 cab + 2 or 3 independent trailers) are (in theory) limited to 100 km/hr (62 mph) everywhere in Australia (except possible the Northern Territory). The actual federal limit is 110 km/hr (68 mph) or cars/bikes and 90 km/hr (56 mph) for trucks UNLESS they are fitter with a speed limiter in which case they can travel at 100 km/hr. MInd you I have been overtaken by a road train while travelling cough a little more than 110 cough on the freeway to Canberra - obviously the limiter wasn't working properly ;-). The Northern Territory (AFAIK) does not have an upper speed limit outside of the cities. That is why they tried to hold the last cannonball run between Darwin and Alice (Springs) but it was cancelled when a Japanese Dentist, on his first trip to Australia, tried to take his brand-new (never been driven on the road previously) Ferrari around a right hand corner at 180 km/hr (112 mph). While you are visiting, don't forget to click the button that says 'Don't CLICK this'.
On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News is letting us know that the Iranians also don't have WMDs - they have hidden them. Be funny if some turn up in Iraq after all, there would be a real omelette shortage for a while. There is also an interesting post regarding a tit-for-tat attitude when it comes to religious tolerance. Also it appears to be just as well that Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury does not have a show on the BBC. If he did, he just lost it...
The Official Gary Turner's; Weblog / Moblog is one I don't recall visiting before. I was particularly taken with the Ninja Parking picture although I suspect that possibly the car bounced off the wall :-) There is also an interesting post which is almost a summary of the position taken over at USS Clueless. Apparently (like me), the writer is dieting and (unlike me) has decided to post his weight losses up on a regular basis. All I can say is that I am both taller and heavier (and they do not cancel out).
Another Day Dawns is a brand new blog which has a total of one post so far. Makes it hard to get the required link count unless I link to it three times :-) Actually it was a neat story about catching trains (I used to do that for school and I got to the point of hating trains). The one thing that confused me about the London underground (apart from the non-spatial maps) was that interchanges weren't. I mean in Sydney went it says interchange it means you can see the other platform from where you are. In London, it might look like an interchange on the map but actually you go up one set of stairs, round the bend, through a tunnel, take a lift, another loooooong tunnel, more stairs and an escalator before you find the other platform. In fact we caught one train and by the time we had changed to the second one, we could have walked to our destination. Oh well, if you do travel on trains in London, Another Day Dawns has some advice on how to do it efficiently. (Got my three links :-P)
Last blog for this week is Read My Lips. notGeorge has already had some coverage recently, so this time I am going to look further back than usual starting with a Friday Funny. Betcha anything that Ralph will acquire than now I have linked to it :-) Next a more serious post asking about bed sizes (versus sheet sizes). Yesterday we moved some mattresses around only to discover that our two queen size beds used different sized mattresses. Surely that means one is not really queen sized? Finally to finish on a lighter note we have the story about the judge who wanted to remain anonymous. Remembering how well notGeorge dealt with wierdo comments reminded me of the way Paul rips apart some of the idiot comments (you seem to get a better class of idiots on Paul's blog). In fact, Paul does it so well that one of his tame idiots is now flaming Paul's comments on other blogs instead....
That's all for this week. Have fun and see you again next weekend - if not before.
Blogroll Checklist
==============
G'Day Mate - Archive (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate! (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate - Reviews (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate - Humour (SELF) AOK
The Gray Monk AOK
Aussie Courier AOK
LOL: Laughing Out Loud AOK
The Postulate AOK
Another Day Dawns AOK
Note: There were 1751 possible links to consider (0 unresolved).
TOP 15 Sites
============
1: LOL: Laughing Out Loud (96)
2: The Gray Monk (73)
3: Dusting My Brain (51)
4: On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News (41)
5: All AgitProp, all the Time... (39)
6: Read My Lips (32)
7: Aussie Courier (29)
8: Da Goddess - Friends are like bras, a good one never lets you down (23)
9: Ramblings of SilverBlue (19)
10: CynicalCyn.com (19)
11: PD: You ... relax. (14)
12: Skipjack DOT INFO (14)
13: Interested-Participant (14)
14: DramaQueen (13)
15: My Boyfriend Is A Twat (12)
Random 10 Sites
================
Ramblings of SilverBlue (19)
DramaQueen (13)
Ripples (4)
kingsley.blog-city.com (9)
Serendipity* (1)
GRRR be afraid (12)
On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News (41)
The Official Gary Turner™ Weblog / Moblog (6)
Another Day Dawns (6)
Read My Lips (32)
This is a series of short bits and pieces that can't wait until the next roundup.
Firstly, if you found this site, congratulations. It won't be official until April 1 (when nobody will believe it because they think it is an April fool joke). The new blog is currently balanced over two servers - mu.nu and the archive site. As I get the kinks in the new layout sorted out that will change.
Anyway, there was a rude comment left over at Read My Lips but notGeorge seems to have dealt with it very effectively. It was encouraging to see the munuvians (like Susie) coming out in support of one of their mates.....
I am secretly wondering if the notGeorge is really just a disguise for NG (next generation) - the power blogger.
Actually one of the best sections on notGeorge's blog are the introspective (i.e. Navel Gazing) posts. I was thinking of that today when I came across some debunking of crackpot theories about golden numbers and fibonacci (the f number):
Navels. We read that you can reveal f by measuring the height of a person and the height of the person's navel, measured from the floor. The ratio of navel height to total height is supposed to be f. And with the current interest in navels, the implication is that this is one indicator of attractive bodily proportions. Has anyone checked real people? In the interest of science I checked this assertion for a large sample of the most popular swimsuit models. This should check the claim that bodies judged "beautiful" should have the ideal characteristics of form, including the ideal navel height. [It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.] The results averaged 0.58±0.01, with rather small variation. So much for that myth..
Looks like a whole new area of possible research and gives yet another opportunity for navel gazing :-)
Over at CARS (which is now in a blog format) there is a lovely post about the 3 year party for MacOSX:
Apple's 21st century operating system turns three years old today and while Ars Technica marked the event with a retrospective, Apple celebrated by taking OS X and 15 of its screaming friends to Chuck E. Cheese for an afternoon of pizza, games and sugar-induced frenzy.
...
OS X proceeded to consume four pieces of chocolate cake and three glasses of Coke. The Unix-based operating system then tore around the Chuck E. Cheese like a hysterical jack rabbit for forty-five minutes until it collapsed in a tired, whiney lump on the floor, refusing even to support its own weight.
Check the plink for more party details :-)
The Gray Monk has a post about helicopters. As he is the proud parent, I guess that makes me a proud uncle-in-law (or is that a step-uncle-in-law)? All this family stuff is very complicated. Much easier if I switch to Australian: "Onya mate".
Speaking of Australian*, the other paper in Sydney is carrying a story about Queensland vs NSW (and Vic). Worth reading for locals anyway.
Also in Australia, we have the man who would be king is fighting with the American ambassador. Again. Last time his boss had to apologise for him. This time, he is the boss!
In more global news, USS Clueless has an update on the Palestinian vs Israel solution (or lack thereof). Tiny Little Lies is asking about whether it one is being a bigot for rejecting religions that allow (or encourage) wife-beating.
The first al-Qaida gift for the French has been found.
Finally in really, really local news: the council election for the suburb I live in made it into the Sydney papers (scroll down to the article about 'Pistol Pete') thanks to a very entertaining feud between the owner of a backpacker motel and the local mayor.
* Silly joke - there are actually three papers in Sydney: "The Australian", "The Sydney Moaning Herald" and "The Daily Telegraph".
This Blog Roundup starts with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we now include a brand new Guru-Blog (The Postulate) in the counting. Take the time to pop over and welcome her to the international world of blogging.
Now for the bad news. Firstly, this will be the last Blog Roundup to count our good mate Aussie Courier. He has decided to quit for good and has packed up his blog. The archive pages are still there (and an index page) but there can be no more updates. I am sure he would appreciate a farewell comment or two in exchange for the great reading he has provided over the last year or so.
Unfortunately that is not the end of the bad news. This is also the last blog roundup to include the Humour Blog. Most of you would be aware that it has not been active and all the posts have now been archived and the blog will be shut down permanently at the end of the month. Those of you with links to it, might like to link to the humour archive instead (check under the category archives at ).
Finally (in the bad news department), I am thinking of shutting down this review site completely. The comment spam problems are driving me batty (there is no auto-closing function on typepad) and the the autodiscovery problem is making the whole review process unwieldy. I currently prepare this whole entry in MT (where autodiscovery works) and then cut and paste into TypePad. The acid question is whether it is worth recreating the review blog under MT or just mix the reviews into the main blog (which is reverse migrating from TypePad to MT as you read this). The main reason for having the separate reviews was to ensure that the links stayed visible for some time (2 - 3 months) instead of vanishing in a week (as would happen on the main blog). Suggestions or comments on this matter would be appreciated....
Onto the review. First cab (and also the 4th) is LOL: Laughing Out Loud. Rofl (or Ralph) is posting one joke every day at midday local time. He used to be a prime source of the material that went into the humour blog. He also collects and reposts stuff from around the web (with attribution of course) and usually after a delay (was one month, will be two months). Recent jokes (not taken from my blogs) include: Womens' Points and The Oil Change. Personally, I like the Rules of Manhood. I must also explain (at Rofl's request) that he may be a little slow answering mail. He is using the fantastic 'deferred post' plugin - so that the posts are generally prepared well in advance. He was telling me the other day that he already has jokes lined up until the end of April.
Next up we have Skipjack DOT INFO who has found a blogged the The n things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the Army (the number of things appears to grow every time I see this post). Well worth reading. Apparently this Skipjack insists that he is not the Skippy in question with the frail excuse that he was in the Navy rather than the Army. Personally if I was that Skippy's commanding officer, a transfer to the Navy might be just the thing :-) There is also a link to a (very large = 32MB) trailer for I, Robot. I am sure I have that book somewhere.... It was also neat to note that Skipjack used the same quote from USS Clueless about Spain that I did.
I just realised that it has been a couple of weeks since I popped in to read On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News. The problem is with so many blogs now providing RSS or ATOM feeds, I have been relying too heavily on the news aggregator and I miss some of the quality stuff like this story. On the one hand it is worrying that this guy had so many attempts but on the other hand it is good to know that he has been stopped every time. On a similar positive note, check out this item about how blogging is influencing decisions at high levels. Whatever you do, don't read this entry because it might change your preconceptions about Iraq and Al Qaeda. I need to go and check with Ms Kinsley about her web rates - maybe she can debug the CSS problems from a windows perspective.....
It was interesting that MommaBear (from On the Third Hand) is a regular reader of our next candidate: The Gray Monk who in turn has a connection to the new blog mentioned at the start of this review. The post that MommaBear linked to, deals with the The Modern Myth of Christian Aggression and is well worth a read. Like The Gray Monk, I have also refrained from watching the later parts of The Lord of the Rings. My better half kindly bought me the first DVD (2 disk edition) and when we watched it we realised that some essential bits were missing (like the gifts given by the elves). According to the ads on the DVD we should have got the extended edition (7 disks). Now I am going to wait until they come up with the super-great-complete-special-directors-cut 21 disk version which contains all the movies and then probably decide that it costs too much money :-) There is also a thoughtful comment on the Spanish elections and what we can expect next.
That's all for this week and (depending on the comments) possible the end of the run. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Blogroll Checklist
==============
G'Day Mate - Archive (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate - Reviews (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate - Humour (SELF) AOK
The Gray Monk AOK
Aussie Courier AOK
LOL: Laughing Out Loud AOK
The Postulate AOK
Note: There were 1600 possible links to consider (0 unresolved).
TOP 15 Sites
============
1: LOL: Laughing Out Loud (76)
2: The Gray Monk (55)
3: Dusting My Brain (39)
4: All AgitProp, all the Time... (34)
5: Aussie Courier (25)
6: Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' (22)
7: Ramblings of SilverBlue (21)
8: On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News (19)
9: Interested-Participant (16)
10: CynicalCyn.com (15)
11: Da Goddess - Friends are like bras, a good one never lets you down (14)
12: PD: You ... relax. (13)
13: Jivha - the Tongue (12)
14: GRRR be afraid (10)
15: Reflections in d minor (10)
Random 5 Sites
===============
LOL: Laughing Out Loud (76)
Skipjack DOT INFO (2)
On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News (19)
LOL: Laughing Out Loud (76)
The Gray Monk (55)
Well this last week I have been working hard on getting the archive blog fixed up. Nothing that visible to the public (yet) but I did get the rest of July, all of August and a chunk out of September transferred. As a result (especially combined with a bit of the blues), there has been very little real blogging activity. I would like to get on with that and to help the random number generator has decided to provide duplicates this week (see the extended article for the full results).
Ignoring duplicates, there are only three blogs to review, the first is Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' who has been pining for some link luv. Tiger gave up smoking at the New Year and is still going well. He is seeking advice from the ladies on crotch itch which I thought was purely male problem :-) He has just returned from a trip to Luckenbach (which is apparently important if you know anything about Texas history - which I don't). Pop over and say hello, he'll appreciate the visit.
Next cab off the rank is Interested-Participant who would really appreciate your vote over here in the 'BlogMadness' contest. He has made it through to the cut-throat final series and is currently winning this round. Apart from the voting there are many, many amazing short stories like the rewards of being in the reserve, and the problems of being Amish. On a more serious note there is a wonderful tongue-in-cheek comment about releasing lab rats into the wild.
Finally we have the top linked blog: Dusting My Brain which is currently headed by a post in German (*) which I can't read. To make up for that there are some spectacular beach photos which are encouraging me to go take some pictures of the local beaches myself (Coogee, Bondi, Tamarama - hmmm maybe not that one). I think the beach photos were a reaction to the disappointment of missing out again. She also want to hear the voices of some other bloggers - I keep thinking of the scenes from Sneakers where they are trying to get the geeky guy to say 'my voice is my passport' so they can break into the computer centre (not that Squip would do that of course).
(*) Translation (via Google):
We felt much for each other, and nevertheless us splendid stand. We often played "man and woman", and us does not gerauft nevertheless and struck. We gejauchzt together and joked, and tenderly us kissed and geherzt. We have at the end from kindischer desire "hiding places" easily in forests and reasons, and thus to hide knew ourselves that we appear never more.
Blogroll Checklist
==============
G'Day Mate - Archive (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate - Reviews (SELF) AOK
G'Day Mate - Humour (SELF) AOK
The Gray Monk AOK
Aussie Courier AOK
LOL: Laughing Out Loud AOK
Note: There were 1705 possible links to consider (0 unresolved).
TOP 15 Sites
============
1: Dusting My Brain (50)
2: The Gray Monk (43)
3: LOL: Laughing Out Loud (43)
4: Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' (31)
5: All AgitProp, all the Time... (29)
6: On The Third Hand: More fair and balanced than Fox News (27)
7: Da Goddess - Friends are like bras, a good one never lets you down (26)
8: Aussie Courier (25)
9: PD: You ... relax. (23)
10: Jivha - the Tongue (22)
11: Ramblings of SilverBlue (17)
12: DramaQueen (17)
13: CynicalCyn.com (17)
14: GRRR be afraid (16)
15: Interested-Participant (15)
Random 5 Sites
===============
Interested-Participant (15)
Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' (31)
Interested-Participant (15)
Dusting My Brain (50)
Dusting My Brain (50)