Minni

My little Minni is recovering from her desexing operation tonight. Interestingly, she didn’t get a large incision on her stomach, like my other cats did – it looks like they did it through a key-hole incision on her left side. But it seems to be causing her more pain than the normal incision caused the other cats. Every so often, she twitches and tries to find a comfortable way to lie.

Poor little babykins.

Charts and Tallies

Did I mention that my sister is pregnant? Actually, she found out two weeks ago, but I didn’t know if it was for general publication. She and her fiance weren’t planning to have a baby (at least not for a while), but they are thrilled. She’s going to be about 12 weeks pregnant at her wedding. I think the pregnancy graph below updates live. I think her due date is 4/4/05, so I’ve based the chart on that.

Hayley’s Pregnancy Graph

On another tangent, buggery.org has a number of adjusted Olympic Medal tallies. I like the one that ranks according to medals won per head of population. Australia ranks 2nd in that one. You can also rank countries by team efficiency or by Gross National Profit, amoung others. Feel free to manipulate the statistics to your country’s advantage.

Fay Wray

I just went to check my score in Dead Rotten Pool (tastless, but amusing), and I noticed that Fay Wray died on my birthday.

Her memory lives on, clutched by a gigantic gorilla on the Empire State Building.

50 Books You Must Own

Books Alive have put out a list of 50 ‘must own’ books, which Neerav has kindly transcribed to her his blog.

I have indicated below what books I own, have read or have BookCrossed. Some of the books listed as ‘Owned’ may in the future be released through BookCrossing.:

1. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho R
2. All the Pretty Horses, Cormac Mccarthy
3. Almost French, Sarah Turnbull
4. Battleaxe, Sara Douglas
5. Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood O R
6. Bridget Jones Diary, Helen Fielding R
   
7. Candy, Luke Davies
8. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
9. Constant Gardener, The John Le Carre
10. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
11. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown R
    B – joined bookray
12. Dirt Music, Tim Winton
13. Dune, Frank Herbert O R
    
14. Eat Me, Linda Jaivin
15. Enduring Love, Ian Mcewan
16. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
17. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury O R
    
18. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
    R
19. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
20. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
    
21. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
22. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein O R
    
23. The Hunt For Red October, Tom Clancy
24. Ice Station, Matthew Reilly
25. It, Stephen King O R
    
26. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte O R
    
27. Life of Pi, Yann Martel R
    B
28. The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson
29. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold B
    – I think I’ve signed up for a bookray
30. Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux
31. My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin O
    R
32. Oscar And Lucinda, Peter Carey R
33. Palace Walk, Naguib Mahfouz
34. Perfect Match, Jodi Picoult
35. Perfume, Patrick Suskind O R
36. The Poet, Michael Connelly
37. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver R
    B – joined bookray
38. Possession, As. Byatt O R
39. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen O
    R
40. Secret History, Donna Tartt R B
    – joined bookray
41. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
42. Sophie’s World Jostein Gaarder
43. The Surgeon of Crowthorne, Simon Winchester
    
44. This Side Of Brightness, Colum Mccann
45. Three Dog Night, Peter Goldsworthy
46. Time To Kill, A John Grisham
47. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee R
    
48. Tully, Paullina Simons
49. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice O R
    
50. Year Of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks O
    R B – wild release

Getting older

Sunday was my birthday. It was fairly uneventful, except that Mum and Dad came over and we had lunch and cake. John was sick most of the day from his scheduled injection the night before, but there wasn’t much we could do about that.

John is taking me out to dinner for my birthday on Wednesday to the Four in Hand in Paddington (a little top-shelf-but-casual French bistro attached to a pub). We’ve eaten there before, so we know it will be extremely good food.

We also went to see Lenny Henry show at the State Theatre last Monday. Hilarious. He’s such a funny, talented man. His show encompasses stand up and then he does a number of characters (one man show kind of thing)… and my god, he can sing too! Well worth it.

Other than that though, it has been a pretty low key birthday.