Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for a bit over 48 hours, two plates of meat have been sitting in a cage in my back yard. Today, they were joined by some unexpected visitors.

"How strange."

Walking out to take the daily night-time photos, I noticed that the StinkyCage seemed to have some junk in it.

“Great,” I thought, “someone from the park next-door must have noticed the cage, and decided to use it as a bin. Looks like they’ve filled it with coke bottles, fast food wrappers…I just hope that they haven’t touched the meat.”

Then I got closer, and I found that my guess was way off:

A jug of gravy, a jar of tartare sauce, a bottle of "Rawsons" wine, some plastic cups, a plate of green things, two knives, a fork, and a custom menu.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have just experienced one of the strangest pranks ever pulled. Someone has snuck into my backyard, and turned the StinkyCage into a faux fancy restaurant. It’s…amazing. Amazing, and bizarre.

I’ll say this right now – I have no idea who did this.* I know at least two dozen people who are reading this blog who also know where I live, and I suspect most of them have minds warped enough to come up with this. I have my suspicions, but all I know for sure about them is that they don’t know how to spell my name. (I put it at the top of every post, prankster! How hard is it to remember?)

*and before anyone suggests it – no, it wasn’t me. This should be obvious, but someone actually accused me of stealing the meat in StinkyPete 1.0, “to make it more interesting”. I have not the money to do this, nor the imagination to come up with this sort of prank.

I am sitting in here in complete awe. Prankster, whoever you are, I take off my hat. I salute you. You have made my day. My favourite part of this quite impressive prank, other than the menu, is probably the fact that it’s a bottle of Rawson’s wine.

I went down and took photos of the meat at around 2pm, so whoever did this must have snuck into my back yard between then and midnight, when I went down for the poke/smell tests. I…there are no words.

If you can’t make out the menu, it reads:

“Haywood’s

Steak de Kangourou
Steak de Porc
Sauce Bolognaise de Papa
Cervelas
Jambon en Boite”

I don’t actually speak French, but the first three aren’t hard to work out. (I particularly like the sound of “Bolognaise de Papa”) Babel Fish tells me that “Cervelas” is “Saveloy”, but “Jambon en Boite” comes out as “Ham Limps about it.” Perhaps that is the French nickname for SPAM.

I’ve decided that, true to the spirit of the project, I shall leave the new additions to the StinkyCage out there, except for the menu, which is already inside, hanging on my wall. The jug of gravy is already exposed to the elements, and tomorrow I’ll pour a glass of the wine, and open the jar of tartar sauce.

(I tried, unsuccessfully, to open the jar tonight:)

It resisted even my best jar-opening grimace.

In other news: “searchingstars”, over at the LJ mirror, informs us that it did, in fact, rain in Brisbane yesterday:

Not being on the north side I can’t give you a definitive answer, but I can tell you that at about 2am in Logan it completely *bucketed* down.

For the benefit of our non-Brisbane readers, I have included a little map showing where the StinkyCage is located compared to Logan:

I have circled quite a broad area, to discourage stalkers. Map courtesy of DiscoverBrisbane.com

It’s possible, being on opposite sides of the city, that the rain completely missed us, but the plate was definitely wet, so I’m putting yesterday down as a “rained”.

MeatGirl, no longer staying with me, is forced to communicate via comments like an ordinary reader,and asks:

What the heck is that greyish blackish thing on the pork steak?!

Good question! I meant to explain that earlier – when I put out the meats on Day 0, they were all frozen. It was quite difficult to get each of them out of their packagings and onto the plates – I had to use a knife to cut the Pork Steak out, and even after it was out of its packaging I discovered that a small black packet had frozen onto it.

I have no idea what it actually does, but there was one in the Kangaroo Steak packet as well. Perhaps it’s just cushioning, maybe it’s supposed to keep the meat fresh. In any case, I tried to cut it off, but since it was pitch-dark (I was doing all this outside, with only light from my camera to see by) I only succeeded at cutting the small black packet open, exposing the whatever-it-is inside to the world.

I’ll keep it there, it will be interesting to see if it dissolves with the meat or not.

Daily stats!

Weather – dry – it wasn’t too hot today, or at least it wasn’t when I woke up at noon. I think that my sleeping habits are too erratic to keep track of the weather as accurately as I should. I hereby dub my housemate, Cannibal Kate, “Official Weatherperson”. Every day, I’ll find out from her what the weather was like, so that the descriptions can be a little less vague.

I’d take a photo of her accepting the honour, except she’s asleep at the moment, and I don’t think taking photos of your sleeping housemates to repost on the internet would endear me to her.

Stench – 1/10 – there was a distinct smell when I went down today. I’d blame it on whatever the green things are (I’m a carnivore, I have very little contact with green food) except that the smell was there when I went down to take photos earlier in the day as well. At this point, I suspect it’s the Kangaroo Steak. I’ll point out that the SPAM has once again become completely stenchless.
Stench radius – 30cm – it was present before I even put my head in the cage…though I did have to lean down quite close to smell it.

The Original StinkyPlate, left, photo taken during the day, and Fort SPAM, right, photo taken at night.

When I went down during the day, I noticed that the ants had once again abandoned Fort SPAM (the saveloy/SPAM plate) and were back on the Original StinkyPlate in full force, particularly the Kangaroo Steak.

“Aha,” I thought, “they continue to favour one plate during the day, and one plate at night.”

Returning that night, once I got over the surprise of the cage being full of unexpected objects, I noticed that the ants were no longer on the Kangaroo Steak…but nor were they on the SPAM. They seem to have completely abandoned that plate, in fact. Not even the saveloys are attracting them.

Individual meat stats: (and I’ve thought about it, and decided not to include the jug of gravy, jar of tartar or glass of wine in the stats. I’ll continue to report on their progress and popularity, but they were added a day later, and I haven’t tasted any of them, so the pure science of this experiment could be jeopardised.)

(I also briefly considered poking the meats with one of the pieces of cutlery left behind by our anonymous prankster, but decided that for the consistency required by science, I’d best stick with the Poking Stick.)

Kangaroo Steak:

Toughness – 6/10 – exactly the same as yesterday. I expected it to be either squishier or tougher, but no change.
Popularity – 3/10 – down from yesterday. There are a lot less ants, but they seem to have focussed on one small section of the meat, and have already removed the outer layer of meat. I’d show you a picture, but they all came out quite blurry – I’ll get a better one tomorrow.
Appeal – 7/10 – down from yesterday, the Kangaroo Steak is starting to pong (I’m pretty sure that it’s causing the smell, anyway) and keeps getting darker every day, which I assume is from the ridiculous amount of blood contained within. (see the StinkyPete 1.0 entry where I taste-tested each of the meats.)

Pork Steak:

Toughness – 7/10 – also the same as yesterday.
Popularity – 2/10 – yesterday, the Pork Steak was covered in both ants and flies. Today, not as many.
Appeal – 8.5/10 – slightly less than yesterday, but the Pork Steak is still looking like it could be cooked up and eaten without issue.

Dad’s Bolognaise Sauce:

Toughness – 0/10 – the poking stick, again, met with no resistance.
Popularity – 2/10 – the flies seem to like the Bolognaise sauce the best out of all 5 of the meats. I wonder if this will be where the maggots are laid, if this is the right time of year for maggots. Is this the right time of year for maggots?
Appeal – 7.5/10 – I’d cook it up and eat it, but I’d be checking for maggots.

Wall of Saveloy:

Toughness – 7.5/10 – just as tough as yesterday. None of the toughnesses have changed since yesterday, actually.
Popularity – 0/10 – not a single insect, during the night or during the day.
Appeal – 10/10 – they look and feel unchanged from yesterday, and the chances of them being filled with insect eggs is slim, so this rating, too, is unchanged.

Can o’ SPAM:

Toughness – 4/10 – just like yesterday, I thought “This is really tough”, then accidentally poked a hole in it. Not as tough as it first seems.
Popularity – 0/10 – I did see a single ant crawling over it at one point, but it clearly wasn’t there to eat. It was just exploring. “I claim this mountain of non-edible meat in the name of the Queen!”
Appeal – 8/10 – the insects may not like it, but it looks just like a regular can of SPAM to me. I’d eat it, if I were starving to death.

Daily head-in-cage photo:

It's so busy in there, I now have to worry about my hair getting in any one of fifteen things.

It wasn’t a struggle to keep my head in there for the time required to take the photo. There’s a distinct smell, but it’s not overwhelming. I can probably keep it up for another two or three days, at least.

Tomorrow: Daily Check-in!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve recently been claiming that StinkyMeat.net was down. StinkyMeat is the original “put meat on a plate in the back yard and watch what happens” project, and definitely worth a read. It will no load on my computer, but someone just told me that it’s still live. I did a bit of research, using the handy site downforeveryoneorjustme.com and it turns out that yes, StinkyMeat was just down for me. I don’t know why that is.

I would like to issue an official apology to Mr Mahlon Smith (whose personal website is also live for everyone else, it seems) for this misunderstanding. It shall not happen again!

I palm my face in shame.