University Student Strategems for Horizontal Cleanliness

1. Wear clothes.
2. Remove clothes periodically. Once every several days should suffice.
3. Having removed clothes, strategically project aforementioned attire upon some unsuspecting, otherwise-clear, patch of floor.
4. Repeat for a moderate period of time (n.b. period of time determined by the interval specified in #2, above)
5. Await absence of clean (or acceptably deodorisable) clothing.
6. Decide it is time to act: in sweeping manoeuver, collect items of apparel from floor and relocate for purposes of washing — or, in extreme cases, incineration.

The advantages of this technique are manifold. However, for the purposes of brevity, I will promulgate but two here:

1. That, in behaving thus, one should remove the need for a permanent carpet. Accordingly, vacuuming disappears entirely from the vocabulary of necessity, as this ‘carpet’ can be not only removed and cleaned at whim — and in parts! — but is, on the whole, already considered to be dirty and, as such, the idea of vacuuming that which was dirty upon ‘installation’ is, self-evidently, absurd.
2. That, in continuation of the floor-covering theme, upon removal at periodic intervals, one may readily enjoy a clean surface that lies beneath, which has been not only protected from the maladies of day-to-day exposure; it has, in accordance with the “sweeping manoeuver” alluded to above, been also immediately dusted and revealed as a vast, undiscovered expanse.

It stands to reason, therefore, that all other manners of habitation are vastly inferior, substituting true efficiency for an illusion of cleanliness — which could, in fact, be no further from the truth — outshone by the innumerable advantages offered by such a ‘slovenly’ (thus spake the accusers) mode of living.

As an addendum, let it be acknowledged that much of the above theory is wholly dependent upon the looseness of deposit: that is, folded clothes are no-where near as efficient in their capturing, covering, and sweeping capabilities, and should accordingly be avoided insofar as is possible for effective application of the above theories.

Friday, today, in a few hours time,

will be a productive day. I will wake up before 8, be dressed + have eaten breakfast + functional by 9, start ingesting video from TACKLES sleepover last Saturday (NOT on a Linux computer, because even Ubuntu doesn’t play nice with Firewire cards, it seems), call a friend I’ve been meaning to call for too long and generally stop procrastinating on that front whilst the video thingy is at work (I bought a Firewire cable so will hopefully never again have to capture from analogue sources where I don’t absolutely need to), and call another friend accordingly, based upon the outcome of the first, prod the Matthias site a little bit (blog goodness for those who are keen on it!), hopefully return a video camera if Adam is home (otherwise leave voicemail and deal with it all later, I suppose), return home, email check (compulsively, as if there were any other way), eat lunch, go to work, work, get home, contemplate dealing with captured video and decide it’s too hard without iMovie/Premiere/something less painful/more powerful than Windows Movie Maker/less gargantuan/buggy/UI-designed-by-primates than Cinelerra, email compulsively some more, chase some lights, put off til weekend (when everywhere will be closed anyway), stay at home for once, sleep (before midnight).

Noticing a downwards Getting-Stuff-Done trend. Meh. Lecture is cancelled tomorrow so I’ve got more time to try and be productive in. Now I’ve just got to not wake up too late… not even the 372 will save me if it’s not a going-to-uni day (haven’t had one of those in a while now, nice!)

Hail

Foetus

Seven weeks: able to feel and respond to stimulus.
Sixteen weeks: able to hear even whilst the pinna is still forming.
Seventeen weeks: skin sensitivity in most of body.

Twenty-four weeks: legal abortion in NSW, Australia, without any need for proof of danger to mother or child.

We know the seventeen weeks figure for skin sensitivity from testing on ‘aborted’ (but still alive — and interestingly acknowledged as “living”) foetuses. Seriously. I don’t know how the experiments go exactly, but I reckon it’s something along the lines of “hey, let’s prod the unborn child and see what happens!” (semi-sarcastic tone). Sigh.

Half of this education course seems to be about the best way(s) to scar and kill children. It’s interesting in a really scary kind of way.

Car Key Convenience

We finally got around to getting dupes made of car key after the ignition lock thingy broke and we had to get it replaced. So now there is more than one shared car key between three occasional drivers, which is excellent. Not so excellent is that I nearly broke my keyring putting it on, because Honda make seriously obese keys, but no matter. I have a key now. *is happy*