of idle delays and imminent returns

somehow my flight to melbourne has been delayed by two and a half hours, meaning that it now leaves 15 minutes prior to its immediately subsequent melbourne-bound brother. how a flight which takes little more than three hours can be delayed by close to the entirety of its duration isn't wholly clear to me, but it's given me a fine opportunity to take advantage of the free food, beer and internet available from the wonderful world of the qantas lounge. i'm onto my second rotation on the buffet. they've introduced pan-asian finger food. exciting.

more exciting (probably) is the fact that i'm actually going back to melbourne. albeit briefly. still, a week in this fabulous city is more than enough to get me all hot under the collar. it's coming courtesy of the enforced break between chemo and radiotherapy, which doesn't kick in until the 19th. and there's people to see, festivals to attend, bars to frequent and stand-up to do. oh my lord yes. had a meeting with oncologist last tuesday which seemed to clarify the likely shape of the next few months as well. i'll have radiotherapy from the 19th of feb to the 4th of april, followed by another six week break as i wait for my body to de-irradiate itself before we look into surgery around mid-may. best case scenario (i.e. no chemo post-operatively) i should be done around my birthday, medium-case (i.e. chemo post-operatively) and i should be done some time in auagust. which might be too late for second semester, but i think this city's going to struggle to keep me in place for another 6 months. ah, melbourne. you're so close i can almost smell you.

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and while we're in the mood for filling in time, here's a few odds and sods to occupy those idle minutes.

1. want to feel worse about your place of employment? then spend a while browsing 'this ain't no disco, it's where we work', a collection of workplaces that have poured more money into their office design than you have into your house. makes those demountable cubicle partitions we know and love look pretty sweet if you ask me.



2. while we're on the topic of design, hows aboot some floating salt and pepper shakers. fuck to the yeah. i could live in cardboard and still be content if i had some of these.



3. show some valentines love. order chocolate miis, for your significant other/tennis arch-rival. send your mii designs to paul pape and enjoying eating each others digital representation in chocolate form. how... lovely.



4. jennifer maestre makes sculptures out of pencils. i'm sure she does other things with her life as well, but this is too cool.



5. news from the world of science that men could be made redundant, as scientists have successfully created sperm cells out of female embryonic stem cells. while the process is still incomplete, it raises the possibility that viable, genetically diverse human pregnancies could be produced from two women alone. interesting...

6. and finally, the good people at reuters have compiled a debunk-heavy list of the seven greatest medical myths. as someone who has for years been arguing that shaving body hair could not possibly cause it to come back thicker, i can't help but feel slightly vindicated.


and would you look at that, my plane boards in ten minutes. thank christ.