sw’as

Finally, I can release to the world the reason why I’ve been so slack at posting new material on this site. It’s still only a pre-release and certainly not 100% finished but we want to get it out there so that we can get some feedback.

http://www.theshindig.net/test-server/

Please keep in mind this site is still undergoing live development and you can expect that some features won’t be implemented and there might be some instability. Nevertheless, please report any unexpected behaviour. Please post comments on this post if you have feedback to give.

Cheers.

The title doesn’t lie; I’m going to talk about toilets (and celebrities).

For many years now I’ve wondered why on earth people would have reading material in the toilet. I would estimate that at least 50% of domestic toilets in Australia have some form of reading material and it usually takes the form of trashy magazines (almost invariably old). I have also seen news papers, National Geographics, Readers Digests and romance novels.

I can only come up with a few reasons as to why anyone would want reading material in the toilet.

1. Someone in the house has bowel issues and frequently expects to be on the toilet for an extended period of time. One problem with this theory is that bowel problems, in my experience, usually mean exerting enough effort to make reading a fairly inconvenient thing to be doing.
2. You are expecting to run out of toilet paper and think that Paris Hilton’s wonky plastic face or Britney “let’s not go (out), let’s just f**k all day”* Spears’ new miracle diet is a worthy replacement.
3. You genuinely enjoy just sitting on the toilet and need something to justify your time there.

Now let’s have a look at a few reasons why it might be a bad idea to have reading material in the toilet.

1. Clearly the first reason is that it’s just plain old unhygienic. Reading material (unless you laminate it - maybe) is just not able to be cleaned effectively. Unlike all the other surfaces in your toilet which can be (and hopefully are) cleaned at reasonably regular intervals any form of paper is just going to go on collecting germs until it is thrown away. Let’s not even consider the prospect of a book previously resident in the toilet making it’s way back onto the regular bookshelf.
2. Why on earth would you want to spend more time than is absolutely necessary in the smallest room in the house, under what could easily be rather smelly conditions. You should really just be getting in, doing what needs to be done as quickly as possible (without cutting corners), and getting back out. If you’re spending more time than that, you obviously don’t have much else to do.
3. Any material you decide to relegate to the toilet, you clearly don’t hold in high regard. Given this is the case, you have to question whether it should be in your house at all.

Now, having (I think) clearly articulated my argument that the toilet is not a good place for reading, I have to confess that lately I’ve been reading in the toilet.

I think there are a few key precautions you need to take if you plan to read in the toilet. First you must ensure that anything that has been read on the toilet stays in the toilet. Second, the material must be conveniently broken into chunks that can easily be consumed in the relevant amount of time. Third, it must be something that you would not read in your normal day to day activities but, nevertheless is useful/interesting enough for you to want to read it.

I have found a book that meets all of these requirements, if you must provide patrons of your toilet with something to read consider this book.

• Britney was quoted by The Sun as saying this to her new husband. Sourced from here.

Around my computer screen I have a bunch of stickey notes with various tasks I need to get done. I just stuck one up that said “Chat to Natalie about Chlamydia.” I had to have a chuckle about how this could look to someone reading them.

No people I DON’T have Chlamydia.

More than anything at the end of this weekend, I’m drained. I took the week off work to work on my uni project (a website for our social club) and I got a good chunk done, but not enough. I can see me not sleeping much for the rest of semester.

Hannah and I are about to buy a fantastically brilliant new digital SLR!! We are seriously looking at the Nikon D70s. We should be getting it very soon. I’m going to need to up grade the photo album on this site to cope with all the goodies!!