An "Ask Auntie Lowan" Digression.

(ah, she speaksa my language!)

Woofa woofa!

Hey, lady, I'm not that kind of guy!

pd, well said, now if only I could find someone willing enuff to run, dance, flounce, sashay or saunter with me !

Well, yeah, that's the problem. Even when single, I mostly sat on the couch with a pipe and a bottle...

sigh......

Wassa matter, Auntie Lowan?

whine, whine...

rhed or whhite?

Aroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

Dear Auntie,

Is it possible to provide a translater for your verbal ( or more correctly written) emissions as half the time I have no idea what the smeg you are on about-I mean take

"Aroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"


Are you referrring to a kangaroo that has just obliterated your computeror do you wish to book a room at the local hotel or perhaps some Indians from a nearby Circus " Cowboys and Indians " show let loose an arrow and you can't spell it !

Please enlighten my darkness

Not a whine, just a musing......

And anyways, who has ever done anything but whining on agonay aunt columns ??

Agon!

A great root.

Protagonist.

Antagonist.

In biochemistry, it gives us the simple "agonist" -- no value judgements made.

Agony.





Does paragon come from this? (Nerd!)

Dragon, too! Dr. Agon?

Or Catherine of Aragon ?

Song that sprang to mind in patiodog's barking at Gautam, trying to shepherd him in to the dating game:

it was "Someone who would take my hand And samba through life with me" that made me think of it.

KP (one of those rare straight men who LOVES dancing!)


So Nice (Summer Samba)

Someone to hold me tight
That would be very nice
Someone to love me right
That would be very nice
Someone to understand
Each little dream in me
Someone to take my hand
And be a team with me

So nice, life would be so nice
If one day I'd find
Someone who would take my hand
And samba through life with me

Someone to cling to me
Stay with me right or wrong
Someone to sing to me
Some little samba song
Someone to take my heart
And give his heart to me
Someone who's ready to
Give love a start with me

Oh yeah, that would be so nice
I could see you and me, that would be nice

Someone to hold me tight
That would be very nice
Someone to love me right
That would be very nice
Someone to understand
Each little dream in me
Someone to take my hand
To be a team with me
So nice, life would be so nice
If one day I'd find
Someone who would take my hand
And samba through life with me

Someone to cling to me
Stay with me right or wrong
Someone to sing to me
Some little samba song
Someone to take my heart
And give his heart to me
Someone who's ready to
Give love a start with me

Oh yes, that would be so nice
Shouldn't we, you and me?
I can see it will be nice...

Music by Marcos Valle
Lyrics by Paulo Sérgio Valle, Norman Gimbel
Sung by Bebel Gilberto.

verra nice...

(just realized: KitchenPete = KP = Kitchen Patrol...)

LOL!!!


Arooooooooooooooo was me howling - you will recall I began by barking and went to whining - the howl was the next stop on the journey.

I have been traduced - I will have you know that I won the Lady Symon prize for Reading and Clear Speech in Grade Three!

Boo smegging hoo.

Grade three you were lucky to get those three points !

Anyways I was minding my own business when a pigeon dumped on me. This got me thinking, if all the pigeons in all the world dumped on people at the same time, that would be a lot of poo wouldn't it.

Maybe some good will come of this thought I then I read this :-

In a project funded by the Animal Health Board, Landcare Research scientists have found a way to extract DNA from possum droppings. They can then use the unique genetic profiles obtained from possum droppings to identify individual possums and estimate numbers of possums that are not killed or caught. The method is the first step to an unbiased way to determine exact possum numbers.

" Because in some instances there are possums that you cannot hunt or trap easily, it's difficult to estimate how effective a control operation has been," says the project manager, Graham Nugent.

"Possums produce more than 100 small droppings a day, so you have much more chance of finding possum poo than finding possums. And of course, possum poo doesn't try to hide from you.

"Our research shows that you can extract DNA from droppings anywhere up to 27 days old, depending on how much rain there has been."

Mr Nugent says this technique for counting elusive wild animals may prove to be cheapest when the animals are scarce. "That's because only a few DNA samples are needed to ?'capture' some of the possums at least twice when there are only a few animals. It is the proportion of recaptures that is used to estimate possum numbers."

Landcare Research geneticist Dr Dianne Gleeson says although examining possum poo is hardly glamorous, the results have been very exciting.

"We did not expect to have any success. However, by peeling the ?'skin' off the droppings with a scalpel, we could find small numbers of DNA cells that have been sloughed off the walls of the possum's gut.

"With this approach, we gain enough information to obtain individual genetic profiles of possums that remain at large."

Dr Gleeson says the cost of the technique compares well to field counting methods, and will decrease as procedures are further streamlined. She says researchers can immediately start to use the technique as a tool to estimate possum numbers.

However, and perhaps unfortunately for her, this success has sparked similar projects.

"We are now working with deer droppings, to see if they can yield clues to numbers in the wild. But there are plans to extend this to wild pig poo.

"Deer and possum poo is bearable, but pig poo is pushing the limits of what we can tolerate."

What next wabbits and Unicorns ?