Get that!

Bugger... my favourite radio show (on Podcast) axed.... :(

Animal Meme

I have been tagged with this Animal Meme by Arthur_Vandelay, so here goes:

An interesting animal I had...

well, i have had plenty of animals over the years, but nothing beats my goldfish that I had for about 12 years, from the age of 6 to 18. When he had reached his 12th year, he was huge, translucent white and floating on his side on the bottom of the tank. The Vet said he was alive, but was senile / suffering from Fish Alzheimers... (he lost his 7 second memory?). Anyways, I had to put him out of his misery, but thats another story...

An interesting animal I ate...

Tokyo, 1999... was offered calamari in a restaurant. Thinking of battered calamari rings I accept. What I didnt expect was the live squid brought out of the tank, placed on a stone platter, hacked 3-4 times with a meat cleaver by "the Chef" and asked to "enjoy".... had a bit of the still writhing tentacles, but that was it for me!

An interesting thing I did or with an animal...

Not me, but a kid in high school was known to catch field mice and at night dip them in methylated spirits, light them and release them across the back yard and enjoy the "blue flame" that streaked across the yard. Sad, cruel but true...

An interesting animal at a museum...

Can never go past the T-Rex skeletons... fascinating.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat...

I am a big fan of the Hippo... they seem so slow and lazy at the zoo... and you think they'd be the African Jungles version of the big dopey Labrador dog, but in fact the Hippo is one of the most dangerous man eaters in Africa! Freaky.

Tagged: Fat Aussie, Daniel Bowen, Dan English

ELECTION: Howards Tax Breaks...

This morning's Telegraph said it all... the clear headline reads:  "HOWARD DROPS $34Bn TAX BOMB".  Initial thought is "wow", but lets read the fine print...

 

The tax cuts are over a staggering 3 years... 2010/11 is when you'll reap the benefit of Howards legacy... and guess what, it'll be not long before the next election when that comes in... nice play that one, keep the tax breaks coming throughout the next term to give you a platform to buy the election after that.

 

Then lets read the detail.... for the average worker on $50,000 per annum, this "tax bomb" equates to $33.65 a week.  Seriously.  Is that it?  And you have to wait three years to get it... and in three years time $33 bucks is probably only $25 in todays money due to inflation..

 

Vote for Howard and we'll give you net $25 a week in three years time...

 

Hardly the $34Bn TAX BOMB is it?

 

Also, if you read the front page of todays Telegraph (and I am having trouble finding a jpg of it), the caption under the obligatory photo of a "housewife and kids" is the line:  "But I'd rather see more spent on services like Hospitals".

 

And that my dear readers is the point.... So many billions in budgetry surplus, the Hospital and Public Education system are in disarray and Howard wants you to re-elect him for a partial term for $25 bucks a week in your pocket.

Australia, we deserve better!

Weekend Wrap

Well, I had a very full and busy weekend!

 

Saturday morning:  Helped Kate do an assignment.  She's in Year 2 and she had to compile a Power Point presentation about her family.  In the end she had about 15 photos of her extended family and the thing she couldnt do was save the photos to her memory stick and initially how to paste them into powerpoint.  She learnt that very quickly and once the photos were on the stick she was away and new already how to do backgrounds, fonts and slide transitions!  Modern kids... sheesh!

 

Saturday Afternoon:  Cricket.  What a disaster.  Chasing 179, we were 0/45 at stumps on day 1.  We lost all our wickets in an hour and a quarter and were all out for 97 or so.  Had to follow on and were about 9/85ish when time ran out!  I scored 30 in the 2nd innings and was happy with that on a personal level, but the team had a collective Barry.  The destroyer was a 16yr old kid who took 4/8 off 6.2 overs in the first dig and about 5 for in the second.  Never seen a young kid bowl as well as that... big banana inswingers.

 

Sunday:  For the first time in an age, I spent the day at home doing chores and cleaning up... I started by giving the lawn a "Weed & Feed" and then Niki swept and I pulled some weeds from the backyard and come lunch time we had the yard looking 10 times better than it was.  Then we went to the garden supplies place at Blaxland and ordered 2 cubic metres of garden mulch for next Friday and had lunch at Subway with the girls.  Subway is good value and a damn sight healthier than anything else!  Then it was grocery shopping and afterwards I went to the hardware store to buy a wheelbarrow.  The only one left in the shop - apparently there was a run on them! - was an already assembled one... unfortunately it just didnt quite fit into the hatch back and so I had to partially dismantle it on the side of the road.  At home, I then spent another hour putting it back together... joy!  We then had friends Julie & Con + kids over for dinner and we BBQ'ed some steaks, snags and meatballs with onions.  Niki whipped up some salads and then we ate waaay too much.  I had a few beers and a glass of wine and then desert of ice cream and chocolate topping.  Then by 8:30 our guests went home and by 9:00 I was snoring on the lounge... until Niki kicked me into bed.... zzzzz

Well The Election Has Been Called

November 24... finally Howard calls the thing and we can get on with it...

 

If the polls are to be believed (and I am not a huge believer in them myself) Rudd should win in a landslide... the margins seem to indicate that the election will be a formality, but lets be on the lookout for dirt file stories and how Rudd is in favour of eating babies or something...

 

But be prepared Australia as both parties will spend the GDP of a small country on advertising... *yawn*

 

 

Another Sad Day - Floppsy

Niki and the girls went to the movies yesterday and when they came home late in the afternoon, they found our rabbit Floppsy had died in the cage...  The girls, Kate in particular, were hysterical and when I spoke to Niki on the phone they were incredibly upset in the background.  Apparently Kate had been playing with Floppsy and nursing her just before they went to the movies and so when they got home it was even more distressing for her.

 

Floppsy was the stray rabbit we adopted so we dont know how old he was, so maybe it was just one of those things, but we've had a terrible run of pet deaths over the past 6 months or so... but the girls are now worried that Matilda the Guinea Pig will be lonely and they're determined to get a new guinea pig or rabbit to share the hutch...  I am not keen but they absolutely love their animals and when I left for work this morning Matilda was on their laps in the loungeroom being cuddled.  I guess I will hear today that we will have a new addition to the family already.

 

This morning though we buried Floppsy in the front garden... the girls took one of the many spare paving stones and enscribed his name on it with love hearts and flowers and he is now resting next to all the other pets - Tonya, Rosie and Jimmy.  I have to say - its getting a bit crowded there!

 

 

Overzealot Councils

School holidays have been on while I was away in London and as is tradition in my local area, many kids meet at Glenbrook park to play.  The kids get together and the mum's have coffee and watch their kids play on the swings and run around the park... all very simple stuff and you would think totally normal...

 

But oh no... not the Blue Mountains Council... they have done something incredibly stupid... they have FENCED OFF THE PARK AND BARRED ACCESS TO ALL!

 

Why?  Well the sign proclaims in big letters - "Park Closed Due To Dangerous Trees".  Yes due to the risk that a branch may come down in the local park from the gum trees and the higher than normal number of kids in the park due to holidays, they decided to close the fucking park!  HELLO!  Its the Blue Mountains... do they know why the mountains are called BLUE?  Its because of the haze that the billions of eucalyptus TREES give off in the sun.  There are trees in the Blue Mountains!  Thousands of them!!  And yes, there are some at Glenbrook Park.  Yee Gods!! How amazing!!

 

So the council has shut the park until they can determine what to do... local Greenies (and they too number in their thousands, and in this case I am with them) are aghast that the council may rip out the majestic gum trees from the park.  So there is a bit of a stand off and the lovely park is closed off with 10' high cyclone fencing and "Warning" signs.

 

If this logic is to be followed, the council should be asking all of us to stay indoors under our beds in case something falls on our precious heads.... but even then you're at risk because the bed may collapse as well...

 

Ridiculous!  Can we not get some common sense back in the world!