I have a confession to make. When I was a kid, I decided that if I couldn't be an author, I badly wanted to be a spy.

I always thought I'd be a good spy. After all, I'm a great liar (as all authors are... I mean, that's what they do...), and I have a pretty cool head in a crisis. Of course, I'm a screaming wuss when it comes to pain, which might have impeded me somewhat.

I mean, someone would only have to threaten me with the mere hint of torture and I'd spill the beans. This fear, incidentally, is what first got me into trouble with religion. When I learned from the nuns (at about age 5, I think) about what all the martyrs had suffered because they refused to deny God... well, it occurred to me then that I wasn't, you know... that committed to the idea. All I could think was... why didn't they just tell the Romans what they wanted to hear and not get eaten by a lion? I would have...

But I digress...

You see, MI6 is running a recruitment drive, so they've put a test on their website up to see if you have the stuff a spy is made of.

 Take MI6's 007 test

I scored 8 out of 8 and got a "please apply" message.

Maybe I missed my calling:)

This should come under the category "Some people have way too much time on their hands" but is intriguing, none the less.

A team of bored geeks statisticians at Kansas State University has just mapped the 7 Deadly Sins in the US plotting per-capita stats on things like theft (envy), number of takeaways (gluttony) and STDs (lust).

Interesting to note that the most "religious" areas of the US are also the most "sinful"


I would love to see a similar map done of Australia. Actually, one of the whole world would be kinda fun, too.

The one shown here is for Pride (the root of all sin according to the survey), which is a conglomerate of all the other maps.

The rest of the maps are here.

You try explaining to people that living here is not like living anywhere else in the world, and people don't believe you.

But it's true. Really.

This was just reported on the ABC News website...

Northern Territory Police have arrested three women for allegedly trying to break into the Alice Springs jail.

Superintendent David Chalker says police received a report the women were trying to gain access to the low security prisoner cottages just after 12.30am on Saturday.

The women, aged 21, 22 and 27, have been charged with trespassing and released on bail to face the Alice Springs Magistrates Court at a later date.

I swear, I'm not making this up. The link is here.

Chugging along...

This is something of a miracle, given the help I'm getting, what with cats who think they can type

And cats who think I spent $2000 on a nice warm bed for them, made by Canon...

By the way... Stevie knows to step on the pause button before she settles in, so she's not distrubed by me printing anything while she's sleeping in the printer tray...

Flew back from Darwin to Alice today.

The good news, was that for the second time running, I got a seat in the emergency exit aisle over the wing with lots of leg room (awesome on a flight that only has cattle class and no business class seats).

The bad news is that I got jammed between the Incredible Hulk and the Incredibly Smelly.

Smelly hadn't showered for about a month, I reckon. Hulk farted all the way (2 hours).

Smelly slept, except for the small break he took to lean over the back of the seat and tell the three-year-old behind him to "stop kicking my f***ing head in".

Classy gents, both of them.

Oh... and while we're taking off, Smelly says to me... "hope I don't get overcome with a sudden urge to rip the door off in flight."

"Yeah..." I replied. "Me too..."