A Very Froggy Story

I must thank my niece, Sarah-Jane for this tale.

These types of emails circulate endlessly around the internet, and readers will almost certainly have seen something similar hit their inbox at one time or other. Anyway, I thought this was better than the average of its type, and decided to add it here. Now you don't have to circulate it amongst your friends -- just point them towards this page, and they can read it here. Just think of the bandwidth you can save.

oO0

Once upon a time there was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a running competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.

A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants.

To be honest, when race began, no one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower.

You could hear statements such as: "Oh, that's way too difficult!" Or, "They will never make it to the top." Or, "Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"

Sure enough, soon, one by one, the tiny frogs began collapsing.

Except for the remaining frogs who continued to climb higher and higher.

The crowd continued to yell, "It is too difficult!" and' "No one will make it!"

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up. But one continued higher and higher and higher. This one wouldn't give up! At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower, except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

Of course, all of the other frogs wanted to know how this one frog managed to get to the top.

A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal? It turned out. That the winner was deaf!

The moral of this story is: Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic, because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes -- the ones you have in your heart -- away from you. Always think of the power words have, because everything you hear and read will affect your actions. Therefore: always be positive. And above all: Be deaf when people tell you that you cannot fulfill your dreams. Always think: God and I can do this!

Pass this message on to 5 'tiny frogs' you care about. Give them some motivation.

Oh, and if you fall down 10 times, stand up 11.

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(Re) Introducing Betty Davis

~ A year or so ago, I was in one of my favourite record stores browsing the shelves, and had my attention diverted by the instore album that was playing at the time. The artist was a woman I had never heard of. Her name was Betty Davis.

The style of music playing was obviously funk, but it was the power and aggression of the performance that stopped me in my tracks. Betty sounded like a young Tina Turner, but where Tina is diminutive, Betty seemed to be twice as tall, and appeared to have a stage persona that towered over band and audience alike.

This tribute YouTube video is for Betty's song, Shut Off The Light. The video's creator, Tym Stevens seems to have a tendency to use lots of images relating to bondage and sado-masochism to illustrate his videos, so if you are offended by such images, you may not want to watch the clip. However, you can simply let the video play through without watching it if you wish. Alternatively, go straight to this Betty Davis tribute page on MySpace, and listen to the selection of songs there.



Here is an edited version of a bio that appears on the above Betty Davis MySpace page that has been set up as a tribute to the great diva.

"Born Betty Mabry in Pittsburgh, Davis began working as a model during the mid-'60s. She gained entrance into hipster musical circles very early on -- her first writing credit, "Uptown" by the Chambers Brothers, came in 1967, before she'd turned 20. One year later, she met Miles Davis in New York, and they were married by the end of summer 1968. Though their marriage didn't survive the end of the decade, Betty Davis was tremendously influential on Miles, introducing him to psychedelic rock and even influencing his wardrobe. Miles' 1968 LP Filles de Kilimanjaro featured her on the cover, and he wrote the final track ("Mademoiselle Mabry") for her.

"Her self-titled debut album finally appeared in 1973, and though it made no commercial impact at all, it was an innovative collection with plenty of blistering songs. Even more so than a soul shouter like Tina Turner, Davis was a singer for the feminist era, a take-no-prisoners sexual predator who screamed, yelled, grunted, purred, and cooed her way through extroverted material like "Anti Love Song," "Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him," and "He Was a Big Freak."

"Religious groups protested many of her concert appearances, and radio outlets understandably refused to play her extreme work. Davis hardly let up with her second and third albums, 1974's They Say I'm Different and 1975's Nasty Gal, but they too made little impact. Though she would've made an excellent disco diva, Betty Davis largely disappeared from the music scene afterward. An aborted 1979 session has been released on multiple occasions, once as Crashin' From Passion and also as Hangin' out in Hollywood."
~ Biography by John Bush/AMG Photos from Joost/JB Collections

The Betty Davis MySpace page has links to some excellent additional material, including radio interviews, online musical tribute programmes, and much more.

It appears that Betty has been living in seclusion for the best part of 30 years, following the failure of her recording career. However, there has been much renewed interest in her recordings, and a new appreciation of her musical talents is long overdue. Now that her albums are being reissued, a new generation of musical enthusiasts are rediscovering Betty Davis, and she will hopefully regain her rightful place as one of the great African American recording artists.

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New Word Definitions

Here are the winners of the Washington Post Mensa Invitational, which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The 2006 winners are:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying (or building) a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid AND an a$$hole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which only lasts until you realize that it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting some.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a serious bummer.

13. Decafalon: (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

14. Glibido: All talk and no action.

15. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

16. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

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Beach Life

Given that most of Australia's population of 20 million people live almost within spitting distance of the coast, it's surprising to me, just how little time I've spent getting my feet wet in the ocean.

Writing this, I'm trying to remember the last time I actually emersed myself in sea water -- and for the life of me I can't. I do know it would have been back in the early 1990s. And I'm quite sure I haven't swum in the ocean since at least 1995. Don't get me wrong. I can flop around in the water along with the best landlubbers, and on a good day, could give a small dog a run for its money with a passable dog paddle. But I've been avoiding the ocean for the best part of 30 years, and I'm not even sure why.

When I was a spotty-faced teenager, I loved to swim in the sea, and I still remember taking the day off work one hot summer to spend the day at the beach. This was well before the days of holes in the ozone layer, and SPF 15+ sunscreen oils.

Oh, the horror... the horror...

Eight hours of unremitting summer sun turned me into a well cooked, lobster red colour that left me in skin blistered agony, shedding dead skin for weeks afterwards. It turned me off sunbathing for years, and even now, I rarely venture out into the midday sun unless I absolutely have to.

I am ruminating on this after spending a very pleasant few hours today, on the foreshore of my local Semaphore beach. Today was a state wide holiday, and this long weekend the Semaphore Music Festival has been taking place at various venues nearby. Today, the foreshore was host to an all day parade of local bands plying their music from the back of a semi-trailer on the esplanade. The weather was perfect. The crowd well behaved (although the same can't be said for the many canine's taking their owners for a walk), and the music fair to middling. Oh, and the ice-cream was so big even I couldn't finish it.

I decided that as soon as the weather allows, I am going to purchase a pair of shorts (or swimming trunks if my body shape permits), and take to the water at least one more time before I head off overseas on my European travels. But more about that later.

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