CL <flothru@yahoo.com> dixit:
>jwb@csse.monash.edu.au wrote:
>> I'd defy any cat to make itself comfortable on my stove's burners; not
>> that they'd get much chance to try in our kitchen. Anyway, there are
>> much better cat-amenable warm places such as the central heating outlets.

By "stove" I meant レンジ, not ストーブ.

>Ours do not try to sleep on the stove, but the warmer / cooker in the
>middle of the kitchen table and the box that the single burner gas stove
>gets put in have some sort of allure.

>What are these "central heating outlets"?  No Japanese manufacturer has
>invented them yet ... or none of the houses within our purchasing budget
>were designed by people who knew what they are, either.

Don't think I ever saw one in a house in Japan either. Sometimes called
"register" too. Rectangular grill set in the floor, from which warm air
issues.

>>> Isn't ビクトリア州の山火事 an annual event?  Sort of like matsuri time
>>> in 盛岡市?  
>> 
>> Indeed. The change this summer was to have them start so early, and to
>> have such a big one (it started as a heap of small fires after lightning
>> strikes, but eventually coalesced.)

>Not like the ones in California where they're lit by pyromaniacs, then.
> Australians have to rely on divine intervention, like Texans do?

Oh we have them lit by nutters too. It's line ball whether lightning
starts more than them. The ones caused by lightning tend to be more
in the difficult-to-access parts, as you'd expect. Cigarette butts tossed 
from cars and trail-bikes without spark arrestors are other culprits.

I read somewhere that SE-Australia, California and the south of France
are the most fire-prone places on the planet. Certainly walking around
in the bush at the moment with everything bone-dry and crisp you get the
feeling you are in a tinderbox. Endless 35C days like today don't help
much either.

-- 
Jim Breen        http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia 
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学