Equal Rights for Pet Owners

I read a little piece by Clover Moore that pointed out that many pets travel free on public transport in other states, however they don't in NSW. In fact they aren't allowed at all except Guide Dogs (who are often called Blind Dogs. Are Blind Dogs blind versions of Guide Dogs, I've often wondered?)

The piece did say Clover would fight to make pet owners equal citizens and look at pets travelling on public transport subject to certain conditions.

So what would 'em conditions be?

Personally I am looking on with bated breath because I am looking forward to escorting my own pet hippopotamus on the next CityRail carriage. I think my brother is thinking that the entire family could claim free transport as a sub-human pet-species.

Anyhow, again, I am looking forward to those conditions. Will they cart out the usual boring conditions?:

1. All cats and dogs must give up their seats for older cats and dogs
2. Please be respectful and mind your yapping, barking, meowing, tweeting etc into your mobile phones.
3. Please poop in the station litters provided

Or something a little more creative?

Some suggestions:

1. If feeling the need to chew at a bone during the trip, please make sure it is not attached to another (live) passenger's torso. Penalties apply. Fines scaled depending on whether gnawed passenger was travelling on a concession or full fare.
2. Parrots, mynas etc are requested not to annoyingly mimic and repeat other passengers' conversations, especially that of schoolchildren. We've heard it enough.
3. Please take any eggs you may lay on the trip with you. Lice are requested to respect the hair of other passengers.
4. Please do not walk along the train tracks, even if you have nine lives.
5. The term "bitch" will not always be used literally in public spaces.

New Petty Crimes

Mr Coffee and I were just walking down Pitt Street side by side the other day, chatting - I think it was about mobiles or something. At any rate, we weren't chatting on our mobiles to each other like something out of an American teen movie.

Some bearded older bloke a little behind us growled at us to "Stop that talking, it's against the LAAAAAW!"

It was a bit tempting to point out that of course he had been talking in order to point out that talking was against the law, so perhaps he had done himself in.

So beware all ye public yammerers - the vigilante citizen police are on their way to arrest you under the Public Yammering Offences Act.

Personally I think an unkempt beard of the type he was bearing was more of a public offence, but apparently I'm not an expert in this area in this kind of law.

Mr Coffee and I both started laughing at this guy, which I believe may break a section of the Act dealing with giggling, laughing and smirking in public, all the more serious for at a public vigilante officer and all the worse the crime since we couldn't easily stop.

He then threatened that "Next time he would HAVE A CAMERA!" and we wouldn't find it so funny.

I hope he has it set to video otherwise his still photo with no audio is going to sorely disappoint him with no yammering evidence. Or perhaps lack of chatter is the way he prefers it.

The Asian Wants a Xenophobe

I read in the celebrity section of the Daily Tele that Pauline Hanson might be interested on getting on a dating reality TV show - and she likes the idea of The Farmer Wants A Wife.

That's a show where rural males are tried out with city ladies, and the city ladies are put through the hoops to see if they could manage a country life - things like sticking their hands up cow's bums and stuff. Maybe a man will look at a girl with her hand up a cow's bum and just say "That's the girl for me." I don't know, maybe lot's of country romances start out that way.

But I just don't think we're exploring Pauline's potential to the fullest. My concept for a show would be The Asian Wants A Xenophobe (or The Asian Wants Pauline).

Watch a host of Asian males with Pauline Hanson as the dubious prize. Watch Pauline vy for their attention - or at least their votes, and the males put her through various tests.

Pauline Hanson attempts to put her hand in a martial arts slice through 6 breadboards!

(if she psyches herself up to think they are Asian immigrants' faces, she may well get through this one!)

Pauline Hanson doing the lion dance!

Pauline Hanson having to order in a Vietnamese restaurant without once asking a waiter to "Please Explain" the menu.

I think this one's got legs. Bring it on!

Public Toilet Queasiness

I'm going to come out of the bathroom and admit to another phobia.

I have a distinct phobia about public bathrooms.

I really dislike them. I avoid going to any public bathroom; of course some places' "amenities" are better than others but all up, it's not my cup of tea. Or cup of toilette. Or bowl of toilet.

I know there have been studies saying that the public toilet seat is in fact no more swarming with germs than your work keyboard, but I've never believed it. I'm sure they must have done a switch when they did that test. Someone switched the toilet seat with the keyboard and the tester just didn't notice when he or she was taking a sample of germy bits.

I always imagine toilets with this infestation of creepy crawlies. I can never bring myself to sit down on a public toilet seat, which means environmentally unfriendly-like covering the toilet with lots of toilet paper so no skin at all has danger of any even accidental contact.

I can't believe the average public toilet could be considered as clean as a keyboard. not some of the ones I've seen. Twice I've been to a public toilet and someone before me has blasted faeces all over the toilet seat. I have never seen that on a work keyboard, fortunately.

I usually attempt to go to the toilet before I leave the house so I don't have to go in the public bathroom. Sometimes I go twice at home before I leave the house. I dont' know if this ups my chances of not having to go once I've gone out.

There have been some public bathrooms which are not all puddly wet on the floor and don't look like a poo-bomb has hit them, but I never feel quite comfy in the cubicle.

It just doesn't feel the right place for swishing out the bladder and bowel area.

I can never feel at home in a public bathroom.

Or maybe that's the point.

Too fat to die

A death row inmate has put on so much weight he may be too pudgy for them to lethally inject him.

I thought obesity was supposed to be a death sentence, not avoid one!