Jared Diamond Books

Funny how there are some old shows that you miss, and others that you don’t. I remember being obsessed with Colonel Universe for a good year or so. And I mean I was wearing t-shirts and trying to convert all my friends at school into watching it too. I was a fanatic, and then suddenly they stopped airing it and I dropped off. No more interest. It was all in the sugary-sweet buzz.

But there was also a show I loved just afterwards, Kid Cops. It was about little kids solving crimes, with all their voices dubbed over with adults. In retrospect, it was kind of creepy, but it’s what I loved, and I still kind of do. Their methods for handling evidence bags were a little bit off, though. Like, right now I’m well into cop shows, having seen many, many more that star adults and people who do research into this kind of thing, and the police bags on Kid Cops were a joke. One time, Tammy (she was the four-year-old with the blonde hair- secretly in love with Jason, five years old, dark and handsome, I guess) was at a crime scene, I think maybe in the season 2 finale. Anyway, she picked up a severed toe and put it in the bag, and then if you look at her in the background of the next conversation, she’s just…swinging it around. I don’t even think she sealed it properly, she’s just…I don’t know. There are all kinds of blatant breakings of policing rules if you look at the kids in the background. Like when Suzie was investigating a double-homicide by a crazed schizophrenic, and she just waltzes into his apartment without a warrant. What mad kid stuff! Sometimes it was the child actors, sometimes not. But I’ve been catching up now that I’m older and wiser, and some of the things they do just wouldn’t fly if it wasn’t a kids’ show. All that wasted security packaging, with a generation of kids just not knowing how it all works.

-Jane

It’s funny how when you’re ill, you completely forget what it’s like to be healthy. Then when you’re healthy again you forget what it was like being ill. It’d help a lot with empathy if we could just conjure up that feeling.

Personally, I think I picked up this cold from ice skating. Or rather, I had a cold, went ice skating and it just got a whole lot worse. Not too smart, I know. Yeah, I need to learn to look after myself, but it’s really hard when you’ve just discovered a completely new sport and it’s dominating your life. Who knew there was so much ice skating in Melbourne? That stuff is the bomb; kind of makes me wish I’d grown up ice skating so I could be one of those regulars who stays well away from all the new people and performs all the aerial pirouettes. One day, that’ll be me.

But I’m still a lightweight, it would seem. A few sessions of finding my skate legs and I’m already sniffling. I know, it’s cold and all that…you’re skating on ice. I still think I could be out there, but I don’t think a cold environment is really what I need at the moment. Although, if I invest in some really good winter gear…I mean, it’s not like you’re skating around in Antarctica. Ice skating rinks are not sub-zero temperatures, because it’s not quite the same as skating on a frozen lake. Actually, updated life goals: go skating on a frozen lake. There’s probably somewhere in America you can do that, but for now I’ll have to settle for regular old ice skating rinks. Honestly, I want to be a bit better at this whole ice skating gig before I take on the big leagues. And that’s the thing about ice skating in Australia: no danger of falling through and getting something worse than a cold.

-Leela

Sleepy in the morning, wide awake at night. The human body always find ways to make us miserable. Got a hot date? Here’s some kind of blemish that seems to swallow your whole face! Available for a limited time only! Yeah, until your date is over. Feels like such a betrayal. And then when you’re recovering from a nasty virus that made you get the snivels for like, three whole days, you’re asked to plan a birthday party. Because we can’t just find some birthday party venue around Melbourne and ask them to pick up a cake? Maybe shove some party pies in the oven? No, of course not.

I still have my snivels, so you’d think my parents would have pity and excuse me from the proceedings so that I can lie in bed, resting and recuperating. That way I can give my full attention to when the party actually rolls around- plus nobody wants me sniffing and blowing my nose all over the party decorations, and least of all the food. All these kids are going to talk away with the sniffles, and I can tell you now it’s not going to be my fault. I tried to save them, I’ll tell the parents. I tried my hardest, but it was the wish of the overlords that I get stuck in making decorations and purchasing small sausage rolls to be heated on the day. Now, even the innocent denizens of the supermarket are at risk of infection. This plague will spread until everyone has the sniffles in all of Australia, and we shall be known as the nation of sniffles forever and ever. Our flag will just be a picture of a dripping nose.

And I’m supposed to be looking for kids party venues. Well, the main comfort I glean from that is that they often have other fun stuff for kids to do, like ice skating and…mini golf? Maybe not inside. Anyway, the kids will be off doing stuff and away from my sickness. My devastating, contagious sickness.

-Allie