My week

Platypuses

Earlier in the week I watched a programme on Animal Planet about platypuses [Wikipedia tells me there is no universally agreed plural term - but that platypi is of course wrong, and platypuses seems correct to me]. I learnt a lot about them, which I guess was expected since I didn't really know anything about them. It turns out that nobody really knows much about them at all, and the programme followed a pair of scientists and a cameraman trying to find out more about them. Anyway, I enjoyed the program so much, that I would like to share these interesting facts with you (the neatest one is at the bottom!):

• they are in fact mammals (just mammals that lay eggs!) - I know! Weird huh? It turns out that their only surviving relative, albeit distant, is the echidna, which is also an egg-laying mammal
• they live in Australia - check it out! I didn't know that. I did know that echidnas were Australian, but I didn't know the two were related; having never really thought about it, I presumed, for some reason, that platypuses were from South America (aren't most things originally from there?)
• male platypuses have a venomous spur on (each of?) their back feet, but no-one really knows if they use it for male-male conflict during breeding season, or if it is reserved for defence against predators. However, they do know that the venom sac behind the spur is largest during breeding season
• they are smaller than I thought - about the length of your forearm
• during courtship, the male grasps the female's tail and they do this cool little dance in the water, flipping around and spinning and stuff (the scientists don't know whether they have multiple mates or just one, during a breeding season)
• they live in burrows, with nests at the end. The female platypus goes down to the water's edge and collects damp leaf litter, and places each leaf individually under her tail, and then rolls her tail up and scrambles back up the bank, then down the burrow to the nest (the entrance to the burrow is high up the bank so there is less chance of it getting flooded). 
• they are cute, and their fur looks kind of like a penguin's (and they have the webbed feet like a penguin too)
• a baby echidna is called a puggle - how awesome is that?

I'm sure that's quite enough about platypuses for those of you who aren't quite as crazy as me. 

New Things

Lately I have decided I need to try new things... since I don't really have any interests... which leaves me bored a lot of the time, and is exacerbated by the fact that I am not finding much satisfaction at work.

Last night I tried Tai Chi at the Taoist Society in Lower Hutt. It was interesting, and fascinatingly close to the few moves that Adrian taught me from Tae Kwondo. Obviously in Tae Kwondo you do a bit more punching and kicking and it's all done with controlled force; in Tai Chi the stances are similar, the blocking types of movements with arms are similar, and the control is similar. I found it a little boring, because the beginners' class learns a 'set' with 108 moves, which, obviously, requires a lot of repetition to learn. It strikes me as similar to learning how to dance - learn step 1, repeat until you remember it; learn step 2, repeat until you remember it; add step 2 to the end of step 1, repeat until you remember it; and so on. So last night we learnt 3 moves. I quite like them, but 40 minutes of doing the same 3 moves... I'm not sure if it's for me. I can't go next week as I have a hair appointment that I made ages ago, but I guess we'll see the week after that if I want to go again. It may be just another one of those things I try once, and never do again. Or I might go back...

I have an appointment with the Volunteer Wellington people next week, to see if I can find something to do on weeknights or weekends. I had a quick look on their website, and they have lots of animal-y and wildlife ones, and some stuff with youth and elderly people as well. I'm quite looking forward to the opportunities there.

Hopefully soon I will get a membership to WIMA (Women's International Motorcycling Association), who (for a very cheap yearly fee) provide newsletters and have an area rep to let you know of organised rides/ rallies etc. I wanted to do it when I first started riding but since we only had the little Scorpio, I thought it would be kind of dumb cos I would be quite slow on open road rides etc. (I don't even know how often they do those actually). But now there is no excuse!

Also I have been contemplating a membership/ regular donation to the Forest and Bird Society, which gives you newsletters, opportunities to do work in the forests etc. Haven't fully investigated that one yet, as it may be a while off.

So, lots of thoughts buzzing around my head.

Taupo for the weekend

My sister Anna and her boyfriend Rob booked a bach in Taupo to stay at this weekend. And they invited us! And then Mum and Dad said they'd come along too! So it's all very exciting. The weather looks a bit poo, but we'll just have to stay indoors and make Dad play board games. Adrian and I were looking forward to riding up on the bike together, but the weather forecast like it is, we'll be going in the car (boring! And a lot more expensive!)

Other things

This week I found a new favourite comic.
Check it out: The Motherf***ing Pterodactyl (yes, it contains profanities)

Amongst my other favourites are:
Angular Momentum
Windows 7
Hats
Purity
Parking
(all from http://xkcd.com/)

and from http://mows.com/:

and just for finality, from http://failblog.org/ (one of my favourites in a long time)