CrankyGoblin.Com

In the end...

Geoff Appleby — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 12:00:00 GMT

This is the end of this blog. I've moved to a new site, and I won't be blogging here anymore. You're welcome to come with me at the new place though :)

Sometimes I Confuse Myself

Moved Day

Geoff Appleby — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:54:00 GMT

All done. Well, the PC is moved anyway. And configured finally to play live tv again. The table where it used to live is still sorta unavailable for use...but you get that.

After shot?

After shot.

w00ty t00ty.

Moving Day

Geoff Appleby — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:56:00 GMT

Bugger me. It's time.

For the last....many...months, my media centre PC has been sitting on our dining table. Heat constraints meant I had to get it out of the entertainment cabinet, and here it has sat for time immemorial. Ok, not quite that long, but DAMN long, that's for sure.

You see (and stop me if I start boring you..no..don't...i'm talking, so nyah) the raid card that came with my raid box wasn't very good quality. A little bit of heat to the area, and it starting dropping bytes as it read them. Not good when you store about 3 TB worth of media on said raid box. So it came out and i hacked it better (dropped the raid card, ran 5 sata cables to the mobo instead of just one, and started using the onboard raid controller instead) and there it sat. I was scared of moving it back in case heat was still a problem - and time never seemed to allow us to get a multitude of fans installed in the entertainment cabinet. But I've got a solution now, and back we go to the unit...

This brings up something interesting. Crankgoblin (the website you're viewing now) actually runs on my media centre. I'm self hosted. w00t right? Right. But it does mean that when I have a power outage...or the net dies at the ISP end...or my router needs a reboot...or I mess with some setting or other...crankygoblin goes offline. Oops :) You guys will get over it I'm sure.

Also, I have a question to ask of those that care: I'm moving to a new blog engine. I'm going to do it real soon now. My question is this:

Do you want me to migrate all my old posts over to the new blog?

Option 2 is to keep the old blog up, and put the new blog up on a new address. Both options work for me...but I'll be swayed by popular opinion.

Leave me some comments, let me know. I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Anyway...I digressed a little. Time to move the PC back to the TV cabinet. W00t. (plus, it means I can watch live tv on the xbox again, since my antenna cable didn't reach the pc when it was on the dining table.

Here's the before shot (pre-move). After to shot to come afterwards (duh).

Yes. That's an Eric Rudder bobblehead I was sent many eons ago. He's there as a constant reminder that I need to clean up. Which I'm now doing.

Any want an Eric Rudder bobblehead? Is he worth anything on ebay perhaps? :)

Link to self

Geoff Appleby — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:07:00 GMT

Just noting this link coz its useful to me right now.

http://threepress.org/document/epub-validate/

Testing Scripting

Geoff Appleby — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 22:21:00 GMT

I cant' remember if i can embed script in my blog posts or not. let's see...

I'm not dead yet.

Geoff Appleby — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:47:00 GMT

I'm loath to do much blogging while I work on the transistion to the new blog backend. The new blog backend is coming along, but it's still got a little ways to go (GAPTCHA has been 50% implemented...while it generates the images and displays them, its not accepting new comments, regardless of your correctness of your image selection. and there's still no admin pages).

There's the whole wedding to organise too, so the migrate isn't going as fast as I would want it too.

It's funny, I never realised quite how much time it takes to get a wedding ready. Seriously, what's wrong with eloping? Sheesh.

As sad it sounds, I must admit, I do choose to actually try to get some sleep each night too.

So yes. I'm not dead yet. Come back thursday and we'll see.

Looks like BlogEngine.NET is it...

Geoff Appleby — Tue, 25 May 2010 05:17:00 GMT

I've done some reading up (thanks to Noonie and Nick for the links) and from what I've been reading, BlogEngine.net is the way to go. I've not run it yet to try it out, but there's a few things mkaing it look like the correct path to follow:

It's open. This means I can hack my own changes in (coz there's no way i'm doing ANY captcha without GAPTCHA :)
It's simple. I'm busy lately. I don't want to spend hours figuring out the code base. The theming support looks hella-easy.
It'll talk to SQL. Haven't exactly figured out how to turn this on yet, but I like the idea of a DB backend...I think.
Dave Burke uses it. Back in the day when I was actively hacking my Community Server (read: this) blog, he and I were often (well...sometimes) trading coding hacks and tricks for running CS. If he's moved that way, it makes sense (Dave, get ready, expect me to harassing you again soon!). He's even written some scripts for migrating CS content to the new platform! (Thanks buddy).
It does't have multiple-blog support - but that's not really a big deal. From what I can tell, it's just a matter of cloning the site over several applications (basically, run a new instance of BlogEngine for each virtual-directory (each user gets a new vdir). I think you can make them all share the same DB backend too, which would be good.

In the coming days (probably weeks) I'll be setting up a test BlogEngine.net site at home and having a play. Once I get GAPTCHA implemented and my old content migrated, then I'll start putting this blog to bed. Don't worry though, the main URL won't change....at least, I don't think it will. Probably the biggest issue is blog posts i've done that link to each other...with the new engine if the urls look different, then the links will 404...

Yes, I've still got a fair bit more reading to do to figure out all the issues...but so far, it's looking good.

Rumours have been greatly exaggerated.

Geoff Appleby — Sat, 22 May 2010 05:57:00 GMT

I would like to state categorically and unequivacally, right now, that the rumours you may have heard are completly unfounded.

I'm a little saddened that no one thought to simply ask me instead of wildly speculating. Please, just ignore what you may be hearing around the grapevine.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a dancing pony.

That is all.

I Need A New Blog Engine

Geoff Appleby — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:06:00 GMT

In the two years since I was last seriously blogging* community server has gone under a few changes - to the point that community server doesn't even seem to exist anymore. Telligent still has products, but they're not for me. Hell, I'd been holding off on upgrading to the latest version as it was. So this blog is, like, massively old.

It still works, which I like. But it's old. And I've lost my copy of the source code too. Hell, I lost my source base probably 4 years ago in an eventful laptop upgrade where I forgot to backup the hard drive first...

My requirements: must be open source, and .net. Preferably uses an MS SQL backend. Even more importantly, must be easy to customise how it looks. And I want to re-implement GAPTCHA for that engine.

Simple really.

* Well...two years may well be an estimate a little on the conservative side, but I'm conservative by nature. Right?

Aliveness

Geoff Appleby — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:09:00 GMT

If I may, just for a moment, quote the esteemed Martin Riggs..

We're back, we're bad, you're black and I'm mad.

I decided two months ago - yes, two full frickin months - that I wanted to start blogging again. It's taken this long for webhost4life to pull their fingers out of their asses and actually make the fricking site work once more (that's a lie, but more later). Long story. You don't care. You will, when I describe it in detail, but not right now. However, this site is called crankygoblin for a reason...man I'm cranky.

So anyway...I'm back. I have a few different projects on the boil all at once at the moment. These should start appearing soon - read: hopefully tomorrow. Until then, rest assured, I'm alive and things are starting to get back to normal now.

W00t? Oh yes. Very w00t. Wootlike.

I gots yer internet filturd

noonie — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Not content with just filtering porn; now Senator ~~Condom~~ Conroy now wants to put a prophylactic on the entire internet!

iTwire - "The Australian Federal Government has turned the eye of its proposed ISP web filter towards a current classification loophole, online video games and their import sites."

The Age - "The Federal Government has now set its sights on gamers, promising to use its internet censorship regime to block websites hosting and selling video games that are not suitable for 15 year olds."

I wonder what's next. "Inappropriate" opinions?

Emisha website up and runningish

bridget — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:51:00 GMT

Hiya!

This will be the website I will be blogging on to keep you informed on what I am up to while I'm writing my book. If you would like to leave a comment or tell me what you are up to please do, I would love to hear from you. :D

As soon as I can I will be loading up the All That Remains fan fiction story to this site so you can read it here as well as on Fan fiction.

Well that is all for now. Hope to hear from you soon

Always love and hugs,

Emisha xoxo

Escape From Fnordish - A Rather Delayed Update

Geoff Appleby — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:05:00 GMT

I suspect that anyone reading this post has thought that I died. Or at minimum, that this blog has died. I suppose it's fair to say that I certainly put very much effort into it in the last...well, year or two.

However, I thought I'd post a little update on one of the things that's been keeping me busy. A long time ago (January 2008, in fact) I posted the first couple of chapters in a story that I'd been working on.

Well since then I've finished that story, and been working on the sequel. It updates regularly - as I write a chapter, I update the online version that is available for all to read. I try not to make changes to anything that's been released.

So anyway, for those who may be interested, it's being hosted on this very website. Feel free to check them out here - Escape From Fnordish.

How Excitement

Geoff Appleby — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:24:00 GMT

RIP Don

Geoff Appleby — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:45:00 GMT

Well turds. First George Carlin, now Don S Davis.

*sigh*

Be well, General Hammond :(

My New Children

Geoff Appleby — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:08:00 GMT

As anyone who knows me knows, I've got two gorgeous children.

It's time now to show you the new additions to my family. They're nowhere near as cute, but they're family, so you have to love them.

Last night I was at the doctors checking up on a problem with my wrist, and I mentioned that I'll be going overseas soon. Not long after that, I got jabbed in each arm getting boosters for both tetanus and polio. The doc was fine, but he certainly wasn't thinking when he put bandaids on my arms though.

I decided not to try to pull the bandaids off. Instead I cut them off. It was way less painful. So now I have bald spots on my arms to go with my head.

For some reason, my mother and sister had an idea.

So here they are, my two new babies. :)

RIP George

Geoff Appleby — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:53:00 GMT

Sad now :( I'll miss you.

Cross Culture Experiences

Geoff Appleby — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:48:00 GMT

A friend of mine in Phoenix, Arizona asked me to send her some vegemite. I won't name her, for anonymity is important. Let's just call her 'Teh Mandeh'.

So I did.

When Teh Mandeh received it, she tasted it for the first time on webcam, so I could watch.

All I can say is...oops, did I forget to tell you that you should have it in small doses? *evil grin*

I Gots Me A New Phone

Geoff Appleby — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:57:00 GMT

For a while now i've been using an iMate JAMin as my phone/pda. It was pretty good, cept for the lack of buttons. It was all touchscreen.

I upgraded a few weeks ago. I wanted something that was pretty much the same, but i wanted to be able to type, not just tap.

Enter the iMate Ultimate 9502.

So far it's going pretty well. There's issues, but it's a bleeding edge phone with no ROM updates or patches available yet, so I've had to learn to baby it along.

Issues I've had so far:

It takes SD cards, but not SDHC yet. Apparently there's an update coming out that will make it work. There's an unofficial patch floating around that will make SDHC work, but it's no good for me. A common side effect of this patch is failure to read the card from Media Player. Since the thing i do most with this phone besides send texts is to use it as my mp3 player, it makes it difficult :)
It's got internal GPS, but it doesn't come with GPS software. I haven't got around to (read: I'm too tight) buying an app that works well.
Most of the time, the keyboard runs a little slow. Those of you who know the size of my hands will realise that being able to use my thumbs on the qwerty keyboard is a feat in itself, but I can actually type really well on it - my thumbs are just pointy enough. So i type away as fast i can and...the keyboard can't keep up. It drops letters all over the place unless i slow myself down. This only seems to happen when texting - if i'm in word it keeps up ok.
Random hardware messups. I have to reboot it once in a while because the vibrate function stops working. A reboot fixes it, but it's a strange little bug.
I use the pre-installed windows live messenger a fair bit when i'm at home (since it's got wireless, so i'm not paying for data access). But I also use Yahoo (ugh) messenger a lot, and a decent windows mobile client is really hard to find (that's free). anyone got any suggestions?

What else have I learned? It's amazing how much value you can get out of quite a small cap. I'm only on the $49 cap with vodafone, and I do a LOT of texting and a bit of going online to check emails or random webpages when i'm out and about away from home. I've come close to going over the limit for the month, but not quite. That's pretty cool.

I do need to work out how to create my own themes for winmobile though. I really like the green theme that comes built in (coz i lurv green), but I need the text on the today screen to be green, not white. My preferred wallpaper is quite pale, so reading the white text on it is a little difficult.

But yeah. It's been geek heaven.

Technology is wonderful...and lazy.

Geoff Appleby — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:02:00 GMT

I find it fascinating just how much is available for keeping in touch with people. But what really made me laugh was how I talk to a friend of mine in the states. We talk a lot, and finding the easiest way to communicate quickly has been a slowly evolving process.

So the setup is like this. Two webcams, one here and one there. Visibility is achieved. This is all good, but what if one person isn't actually at the computer at the time of connecting the cams? Messenger Plus! comes in handy there - it has an auto accept feature, so now whenever either of us open the the others cam (and limited to only that other person, thankyou very much!) it will automatically open, be the other person in bed sleeping, or sitting on the couch watching a movie, or whatever. I've noticed that i pick my nose when in front of my computer a lot less now. Just. In. Case.

If we're both sitting at the computer, then there's nothing else to do. Type away in messenger, or talk on the mic, depending if it's turned on. I only remember to plug it in half the time, so i forget a lot and just type without thinking about it.

But when she's sitting on the couch, what i type can't be read from there...but that's easily sorted. She's got a blackberry, and every email i send gets delivered (eventually) to her phone. And she can reply on her phone. Sorted.

But that can have some delays. Now we've moved on to the next option. Yahoo messenger *shudder*. I really don't' like the yahoo brand, but every im sent to her on that gets delivered to her phone as an SMS instantly. And when replied to, it's delivered back to my IM window jsut as quickly. Nice.

Damn americans have it good. Unlimited SMS for a flat fee. We don't get that here.

If i want to be lazy and sit on the couch or lie in bed too, then i'm stuck with paying $1 for every 5 minutes i spend online on my phone checking my email. And on my phone, which has no actual buttons, typing stuff takes ages - the stylus and screen area is small, and my hands are very big. Pretty crappy, but workable. And expensive.

But still, technology is cool. Enabling people sit on the couch and do things with very little effort everywhere. This is where we've ended up as a society. All things are pretty much possible now without getting up off the couch. No wonder i'm so overweight :)

Side note: I've been looking into austrlaian prices of diffferent deals you can get. I can't find an unlimited international SMS deal, but i have discovered that vodafone (my mobile carrier) does has a $5 a month unlimited data deal (the Email & Messenger pack, which is part of vodafone live) provided you only connect to windows live (mail and messenger only) or yahoo (mail and messenger only). There's very little on the web site about it, so i guess i have to make a phone call, dammit. Anyone know any more about it?

And that sounds like too much effort :)

Hmm...look at that. Time passes.

Geoff Appleby — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:39:00 GMT

You know, it's been a while since i posted anything. Had you noticed? :P

I've actually been constantly (ish) thinking about writing posts. But the thing is, i've been working on a big article to put up here. It's really long, it needs a lot of polish - it was one of those ones that just wouldn't come out right with a lot of effort.

And i've been working on it for a while now. So long that i've forgotten what it was I was trying to say. So that article is going to the great electron recycling bin in the sky.

Normal transmission shall resume shortly.

I found another 2 headed thingo

Geoff Appleby — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:46:00 GMT

You may recall a post of mine recently about a peice of graffiti where one of the people had two heads.

Late last week I was wondering back from a lunch date (not that sort of date) and found (quite by accident) another one of them.

That's two. The second is about 200 metres away from the first as the crow flies, but there's a road and a car park in between. It's painted on the side of a little tin shed that serves as a small office with a parking attendant in it.

I have to wonder now - if I wander around this area, will I find a trail of 2 headed mutant things? And if there really is a trail, what will it lead to? Riches? Treasure (of the non-riches variety)? A boobie trap?

I can't help but wonder...

Rule 34 of the Internet

Geoff Appleby — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:39:00 GMT

XKCD is a comic that I really like. Just read it, it's great. Anyway, this one in particular stands out to me as oh so true.

(Note: yes, wetriffs.com does exist now :)

In the last 12 hours, it's been proved to me twice.

I found this about 10 minutes ago (actual url hidden to protect the guilty - and I know this guilty person personally):

No, it's not porn. But I can't help but fit it into a superset of rule 34, which is simply that if you can imagineit, it can be found on the internet.

And then there's this next link. Please, don't follow it if you're easily offended. Or at work. Or if your speakers are turned up too loud. Or if there's kids nearby. Or if there's anyone around at all. Hell, just don't look. Don't look here. omg.

Escape From Fnordish - Chapter 2

Geoff Appleby — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:42:00 GMT

Escape From Fnordish

Tales on the Path to Squishpoo

Chapter 2 - Portentuous Portents

Having escaped their prison, Prince Edgarb and Phil the Fish set out across the meadow that was just outside the gates of Castle Fnordish.

How’d they escape? Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so let’s just accept the fact that they did. Somehow. So let’s move on. ^##

"Well bugger me," said Prince Edgarb. "That was a close one!"

"Yeah, I know," said Phil. "Can you believe how-"

I said never mind!

So they started across the meadow. But little did they know that the other side of the meadow, hidden away at the back, was an item of portent. Sounds pretty cool doesn’t it? Portent. P. O. R. T. E. N. T. I’m not really sure what it is yet, but it I like it.

Where was I? Oh yes.

They crossed the meadow. It took them three days. It wasn’t actually that big a meadow, but it was a heavy fishbowl, and Edgarb wasn’t used to physical exertion. Besides, he forgot to bring his walking shoes, and he didn’t want to hurt his footsies. They made it finally, however.

Stumbling, gasping for breath – yes, both of them were gasping; Edgarb has been using the fishbowl for drinking water, the little ***, and it was running low – they approached the edge of the meadow.

And there, in the shadows, just sticking out a wee little bit was something reddish. Or was it bluish? It was definitely sort of...green. Yes, dear reader, in case you haven’t worked it out yet, I still have no idea what it is, ok?

"What’s that?" asked Edgarb, pointing at it while stalling for time.

"Umm..." said Phil. "I’m not really sure. I think it’s something portentous though. We should probably have a look."

They crept closer, peeking carefully to make sure there were no doodie traps. Unlike booby traps, which can be harmful, doodie traps are only annoying; they’re all squishy between the toes – Edgarb had no shoes, remember?

They approached the red-blue-greeny large (but small!) item of portent. "***!" Edgarb whispered, "Is that what I think it is?"

"You know, I really do think it is," said Phil.

"It’s an item of portent!" they both whispered simultaneously together at once to each other.

Phil looked carefully up and down and to both sides. "You know Edgarb, I think I know what it is," he muttered.

"What is it?" asked Edgarb. "To me it looks like a giant tiny can of hairspray."

"That’s exactly what it is!" said Phil. "It’s a giant can of hairspray. If we spray it at our enemies, something portentous will happen."

"Sah-weet!" said Edgarb, who incidentally also hung out in chat rooms and other things of that nature, and he’d really picked up on the l33t lingo.

"Grab it and we’ll take it with us Phil", said Edgarb, who incidentally also hung out in chat rooms and other things of that nature, and was also a lazy bastard who never did anything he didn’t have to.

"No Edgarb," said Phil defiantly.

"What? Why not Phil?" asked Edgarb, confused. Surely Phil wanted the hairspray of portent as much he did.

"I’m a fish, Edgarb." said Phil. "Got no hands."

"Oh yeah," said the lazy little prince. He grabbed the portentous hairspray, put it in his bag, and they set off on the trail out of the meadow.

"You know Edgarb," Phil said as they walked, "I think this is a sign. Items of portent are just so, you know, important. Something portentous is going to happen with it soon, I’d stake my reputation on it."

"What reputation?" Edgarb asked.

"Oh hush."

The trail led into some woods. No matter where you are in the whole mega-multi-uni-thingy-verse, there are really only two types of woods. The first type is like in the Return of the Jedi, with the speeder bikes and the massive trees. It big, it’s open, there’s plenty of light, and there’s cute fuzzy teddy bear things running around eating your food and worshipping your servant droids.

The second type is like the one that Little Red Riding hood travelled through to get to Grandma’s house. Those woods are dark, closed in, and nasty things like cross-dressing wolves with big sharp teeth lurk around every corner.

You know which type this one was, right? Of course you do. I might have had storm troopers at the castle earlier, but there’s no way I’m writing in cute fuzzy Ewoks.

Edgarb, with Phil in his bowl clutched in his arms, crept quietly down the dark twisting trail. He had to duck under low hanging tree branches, push his way through spider webs, and climb over tree roots, all that annoying travelling through the woods stuff.

They weren’t really that far into the woods when Edgarb thought he saw something moving off to one side. He looked carefully, but couldn’t see anything. He shook his head, and kept on going.

A little later, the same thing happened again, just a flash of something white in the corner of his eye. Again, he couldn’t see anything there when he looked properly.

The third time it happened they were deep into the woods. By this stage they were starting to look for somewhere to bed down for the night. The flash of white came again, but this time Edgarb, who had been looking out for it, was ready. He immediately dashed off the path; heading straight for whatever it was that was there.

"Who’s there?" he called. "I know there’s someone there!"

"Edgarb, what are you on about cobber? Are you seeing things mate?" Phil, it seemed, had not only completely missed the flashes of white that Edgarb had seen, had also picked up a bit of an Australian accent.

"I’m not seeing things," Edgarb called back as he ran into the forest. "There’s something there!"

Edgarb ducked behind a tree, and came out carrying a gorgeous little fluffy white bunny rabbit. "You see Phil? I told you there was something."

Ok, ok, I know – but it has no resemblance to a cute fuzzy teddy bear.

Edgarb stumbled back to the path and sat down, putting Phil’s fishbowl down on a flat stone beside him. He held the rabbit up and looked at it.

"This thing looks pretty healthy to me Phil," Edgarb said. "Looks like I’ve found myself some dinner. It’s about time I had a properly cooked meal – I’ll get a fire going"

Phil was about to answer (he had his own opinions on what made a good dinner, and roast rabbit meat – any meat – didn’t sound that tasty to him. Worms, flies, and other little bugs – now there was a dinner fit for a fish!) when the rabbit’s eyes went very large and it started squirming and wriggling (much like a worm in fact, Phil thought – he was getting quite hungry) and trying to break free.

Edgarb kept a firm hold while the rabbit struggled. It twisted, it turned, it did it’s best to get free, but Edgarb was too strong. Eventually the rabbit stopped struggling – but its eyes grew big, and it just stared. It stared right at Edgarb, as if its eyes were boring right into the back of Edgarb’s brain. When that seemed to have no effect, it stared at Phil too. Back and forth it stared.

"You know Edgarb," Phil said. "I think this rabbit is more than just a rabbit. I’m pretty sure that it heard you say you were going to cook it."

At this, the rabbit stared back at Phil. And then it nodded.

"Holy shit!" said Edgarb. "I think you’re right! Ok little bunny, here’s the deal. If I put you down, are you going to stay still? I think we need to talk about this."

The rabbit stared back at Edgarb. And then it nodded. Edgarb gently placed the rabbit on the ground in front of him, and let it go. The rabbit just sat there, staring.

Edgarb stared at the rabbit. The rabbit stared back. Phil looked at the rabbit. The rabbit stared back. Phil, you’ll note, didn’t stare. Well, he did, but since he was a fish he couldn’t blink, and everything was a stare. He was a little sensitive about it, actually. So he just looked.

"Oh well, looks like it bugs again," said Edgarb, who got up and started looking around for things to eat.

The rabbit just sat there, watching.

He found some berries for himself, which he ate while he picked them, and then dug some ants out of a nest and dropped them in Phil’s bowl. Phil was getting pretty tired of ants, but he knew that Edgarb was doing the best he could, so he didn’t say anything while he ate.

And the rabbit just sat there, watching. And then the rabbit hopped over to Edgarb’s bag and started pawing at it. "Hey, stop that," said Edgarb as he pulled the bag away from the rabbit. "Leave it alone! There’s nothing in there but an item of portent." Still the rabbit kept trying to get at the bag.

"You know what Edgarb?" called Phil from his bowl. "I think I know what’s going on. It’s obvious when you think about it. But I don’t think you’re going to like it though."

Edgarb considered this very carefully, then thought about it more, and then pondered some ponderings. "Nope, I don’t get it Phil, what’s going on?"

"You sure you can’t figure it out? It’s easy." Phil paused. "But ok then. We picked up an item of portent before, right?"

"Right," Edgarb nodded.

"And now there’s a rabbit hanging around, right?"

"Right," Edgarb nodded again.

"And...." Phil prompted.

"And...?" Edgarb’s face was still a blank.

"And so you should spray it with the hare spray!" Phil groaned.

All of a sudden Edgarb understood. "You’re right, I don’t like it Phil. That’s a terrible joke."

"I know." Phil agreed. "Don’t blame me, I’m not writing this."

"Well I’m not writing it either!" said Edgarb.

Well I’m not writing it- oh. Sorry everyone. I guess it’s my fault. Any-who...

Edgarb took the hare – sorry, hair – spray out of his bag, pointed it at the rabbit, and sprayed. Nothing happened. He sprayed some more and still nothing happened.

He sprayed a third time. Something definitely happened.

The rabbit grew. As it grew, it changed shape a little, so that it stood like a man – but shorter. Imagine a werewolf, but instead of being part man, part wolf, it was part man, part rabbit.

It was a wererabbit.

^{## Thanks to Robert Rankin for this technique :)}

What do YOU talk about at work?

Geoff Appleby — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:59:00 GMT

Today's been pretty wierd. I share an office with one other person, so we're chatting to each other all the time.

Often it's work related chatter. And I'm sure that today is no exception. The thing is that besides all that, I was thinking over some of the topics we've talked about today (and many of them resulted in internet research). It's a little strange.

What the age of consent is in Australia (and overseas) and when is it considered statutory rape?
Is a friend of mine that I went to high school with - many years ago - that I recently added to facebook still married?
Just what is the church of scientology?
What did Christina Aguilera look like when she was in the Mickey Mouse Club with Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears?

This is just some of them. I can't remember such an unusual list of topics in one day. Not at work anyway :)

Is every one like this?