loved this, found via deb. it's only 2 minutes, and it'll make you feel good.

yes we carve - pumpkins for obama!

soap nuts are a nut or pod which grows on the, wait for it, "soap nut tree" in india and nepal, and has a high saponin content - that means, basically, it exudes a soapy sap. you put half a dozen of them in with your laundry in the washing machine and the warm water encourages the release of the saponin and washes your clothes clean.

we tried a few different combinations over the weekend and found that for most clothes on a 30 degree wash you get a clean load at the end. heavily soiled whites (i managed to stain a towel with leg make-up) don't come completely clean, so you might be better off treating anything like that separately. i used a dozen drops of essential oils on the cloth bag the pods come in to scent the wash, and that was a lovely treat.

soap nuts are wildcrafted and usually fairtraded. there are no chemicals involved in your wash to go back out in to our water supply or to irritate your skin. so, all in all, they're great for the planet and good for you, too.

you can get them all over the place these days, but i bought mine here. if you decide to buy them at the funky raw shop then you should get yourself some conscious chocolate while you're at it. divine stuff.

from where i'm sitting it's hard to feel good about bailing out banks who are responsible for their own collapse. the top echelons and ubertraders get paid phenomenal amounts of money and silly bonuses. i mean, one bonus is more than i will make in my lifetime. then they come cap in hand begging for us, the lowly taxpayer, to stump up the cash they so carelessly lost through mismanagement.

thank god mr brown and company put the proviso on the deal that bonuses were moderate and tied to real performance and not just champagne-fuelled fuzzy feelings.

phew. so glad that's off my chest.

at this rate, perhaps booyaa and i will be able to buy somewhere to live in a year's time. there's gotta be a silver lining, right?

the first time i saw an ad for it i was so outraged i actually went to the site to see how they could possibly claim the results they tout on the ads. but, you know, it's pretty normal, frankly, for this day and age, for marketers to lie blatantly, so i shrugged and ignored it.

then i saw a headline that the ads had been pulled from facebook. hurray! i went to read all about it only to discover that the first google ad under the article was for, guess what? yup, the bloomin pink patch. irony rules ok.

go see it for yourself.

awesome.

by anthony burrill, via one plus infinity via booyaa's news reader.

a polish soap opera about a young woman leaving her family behind to go to college gets dubbed and turned into the story of a dysfunctional - and frankly crackpot - irish family suffering the culture shock of leaving their hometown of cork to move to dublin.

the visual aspect is actually quite slick, and the timing of the new voiceovers is impeccable. the stories the team come up are completely bonkers.

there was a pilot followed by an 8-part series. totally out there. watch part one and if you're not hooked then you're evidently too sane for this world.

why [over+toilet paper=good] and [under+toilet paper=bad].

here's the skinny. go get some learning.

but at least there's one.

booyaa discovered this amazing site which shows you the photo on the packet and the substance once it's on your plate. i'm lost for words, to be honest.

go check it out. but please, don't ever buy any of these products.