Archive for January, 2008
Odd Spot #538: Christmas crackers every month

Around 50% of the population may already know this. But for the other 50% here is a weird fact I just learnt.

Women using Fleur sanitary pads get Christmas crackers every month. You see, not only do you get a feminine hygiene product when you open a Libra Fleur pad. You also get a list of amazing facts, called Odd Spots.

Are you reddy for trivia in odd spots?I wonder if they stand with baited breath each month while attending to women’s business, waiting to see what amazing facts they will learn?

Do you think they hope to start early when they run out of things to mention during small talk?

Though, I think they may be being short changed on miscellaneous trivia. As can be seen, both Odd Spot #221 and #146 both state “Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaters bananas“.

Not to mention the marketing genius involved in the packaging. Let’s see, it has to do with blood, we’ll make it pink with different coloured red spots. Just in case they find it in their handbag and can’t remember what it’s for.

It seems I’m a bit behind the times in noticing this though: Some people noticed it way back in 2004 [1,2]; though others seem just as surprised as me; and some think the Odd Spots are just a load of crap.

If you want anymore impressions you can go trawl Google blog search on the topic.

Although I have learnt two important things from this list: You shouldn’t talk about your mother around ferns; And don’t lick finger print recognition devices.

Lambenting about Australia Day

The Sheep That Ate TennisWatching tennis this week I think I’ve had enough of the serve by Sam Kekovich. All that lambenting about Australia Day.

In past years vegetarians and Cronulla rioters copped the flank. This year Sam racked up some more insulted parties, including the New Zealand PM.

As always there is the call for an Australia Week. Though the petition “will not be formally lodged with parliament, but Sam will seek to present this to the PM“.

While I can see that the MLA thinks the campaign still has a leg to stand on. I think it is wearing a little thin and should be given the chop.

Prams put squeeze on Sydney buses

There is a baby boom in Sydney at the moment, most apparent in inner city suburbs. But state public transport system is failing new parents with prams. New policies by State Transit are making it harder to use the service, at a time when people should be encouraged to be more green and use public transport.

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Necronomicon 2002 photos uploaded to flickr
Necronomicon 02, 2002 - Day 1 Finished uploading my photos from Necronomicon 2002 to flickr last night. Previously hosted on the Necronomicon Gallery, I though they would be more accessible on flickr. Necronomicon 02, 2002 - Day 2
Necronomicon 02, 2002 - Day 3 You can also find them in the Australian RPG Conventions group. And the original convention site can be found here. Necronomicon 02, 2002 - Day 4 - Prize giving
MSG @ Home

One must understand that this cause and effect relationship is speculation…

Dinner in questionAfter dinner last night I got wavy lines in my vision, my vision then went very blurry on one side, and later on me head felt filled with cotton balls with a slight pain down the other side. Like the symptoms of a migraine without the splitting headache. What had caused this…

Another person, with a working brain, drew me to the Black Bean sauce that I had used to make dinner. Consulting the labelling I found no mention of MSG, the only unknowns in the ingredients being food additives 627 & 631.

Searching Google I found Food Standards Australia New Zealand has lists of Food Additives, jumping straight to the list by number version we can see that they are: “Disodium 5’-guanylate (flavour enhancer)” (627) and “Disodium 5’-inosinate (flavour enhancer)” (631). So no Monosodium glutamate (MSG), its number is 621.

Another interesting result was the All additives page on the Food Intolerance Network site. It lists 627 and 631 as things to avoid. And says the following about these additives:

The adverse effects of MSG (621) are well documented. We have also received many reports of skin rashes associated with new additive 635 which is a combination of 627 and 631. Yeast extract, hydrolysed vegetable protein (HVP) and hydrolysed plant protein (HPP) are ways that manufacturers include MSG without having to declare it on the label.

So it looks to contain a MSG substitute.

Thought, the Australian Glutamate Information Service site, www.msg.org.au, explains there is no link between MSG and migraines.

a 1990 critical review of the literature on food-triggered headaches (Food triggered migraine: a critical review. Annuls of Behavioural Medicine, 12:51-651, 1990) concluded that the relationship is controversial. The review states that there is no evidence to support an association between MSG and migraine headaches.

So, I suppose there is nothing to it, and I’ll have to look for another cause.

But who is Australian Glutamate Information Service? It appears that AGIS is an industry body set up to “restore the reputation of monosodium glutamate (MSG)“.

Green with envy, or goblin blood?

King St runs greenI stepped out of a bus in Newtown today to see the gutters of King Street running green.

Should the Goblin Protection Agency be called? Or is someone just a little envious?

Now the amount of water is consistent with the slight drizzel of rain, but it is generally not that fluorescent green. I suppose that someone has tipped paint into the gutter, or a new pain job is running in the rain.

An interesting sight, but probably not very environmentally friendly.

King St runs green

Who or what is WPNG?

What is WPNG?Seen stencils like this on a foot path or road near you? And what does ‘WPNG’ stand for?

These have been popping up recently in my part of the world. Mostly on freshly dig and filled holes in the road or footpath.

Initially they looked like a political message, seeing them in Newtown. Do they mean West Papua New Guinea?

But since the stencils keep appearing on tar filled holes, maybe it is an acronym for the company doing it: Weird Pipes N Gaps

Searching for ‘wpng’ have not been very useful, mostly brings up results about a Portable Network Graphic program. Though I did get one for an Oregon natural gas company.

Have you seen these and have a better explanation?

Where is your Australian Passport advice?

Looking up information about Australian passports the other day I noticed the following sponsored link.

Dodgy passport information URL

The URL listed looked wrong to me. Australia doesn’t allow domains straight on the ‘.au’, only as second level domains. There is no www.AustralianPassportAdvice.au. But I wonder how many people realise this?

So, is is ethical to advertise a URL that is not the same as the one that the viewer is directed to? And is it also the responsibility of the group serving the advertisement (Google in this case) to check this?

The actual site is a ‘.com’ domain. It promises to help Australian citizens with all things related to passport registration. Just call the 1902 number and be charged $5.50 a minute. I think I’ll give it a miss. :)

APA discaimerIf you make it to the bottom of the page, small print in a colour very close to the background colour, says:

This service is not connected with, or endorsed by, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. APA has no professional qualifications or experience related to the subject matter and we recommend that you contact DFAT for any information relating to passports.

The official Australian Passport site can be found at: www.passports.gov.au

(Which doesn’t work if you leave off the ‘www’ or if you use the singular ‘passport’)

Time travelling bread on sale at Woolworths

Time traveling bread

At Woolworths in Marrickville Metro on Friday night I noticed some bread from a different time zone, +851 GMT.

It was interesting to so much bread on sale, a full table and shelf. Must have cooked too much and about to go off. But close inspection revealed that it wasn’t to expire till 10 or 11 February 2008.

Only problem is it hadn’t even been baked yet! The baked date was ‘8 February 2008‘.

There is something fishy going on here, and I’m not talking Omega-3 in bread.

Time traveling bread

Woolworths must be shipping in bread from the future to supplement its bakery on high demand days. And they got carried away, shipping in too much from too far in the future. Looks like a job for Jean Claude Van Damme.

Though a more probable explanation for this is that someone set the date on the labelling machine wrong. So it is printing dates out of whack by more than a month. So Woolworths is probably just trying to sell off quickly bread that has been mislabelled.

The time travel version is more interesting, though the mislabelling is more likely correct.

blockdelete.com is a scam!

I just got 3 messages from one of my MSN contacts, all URL that redirect to www.blockdelete.com. A site that wants your username and password so that “Our system will login with this information and learn who has blocked you“.

blockdelete.com is a scam!!

Any site that wants your username and password, however benevolent it may look, is a scam.

After they get your username and password they spam all your contacts with a URL that redirects to this site. You have just given someone else the keys to your house. :)

Go change your MSN password immediately!

And if you use the same username and password combo for other thing (like your email) go change the password on them too.

Other sites with the same message: