Photograhing Golden Orb Spiders.

Apart from the fat lady who sits outside the front door and the others of her ilk we have around the garden, we now have one that has made it’s web above the car over the space that will one day become a car port (if we ever manage to keep  any money for more [...]

Vale Jeremy Beadle

Sad to hear that Jeremy Beadle has died aged just 59. He’d been ill on and off for some time with Leukaemia, and kidney problems etc but finally succumbed to a bout of pneumonia.

I can’t say I ever liked his style and I felt more sympathy for those people he ‘pranked’ than I felt the [...]

Ooops… I talk too much.

Been said before and it’ll be said again. I talk too much.
I just looked back at todays offerings and realised I’ve spent far too long typing and too little working. Makes a change tho, I’ve hardly been on here for ages and I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy the odd ramble now and then (yes [...]

Poor U2 - for a few dollars more?

Bands like U2 have been whinging because the poor dears are losing money to those poor sods entirely lacking in musical discernment who download their music… illegally. Admittedly I’ve never bought anything U2 had produced… but then I wouldn’t listen to them either if I had any choice in the matter and wouldn’t download their [...]

Australian Outdoor Wildlife

Outdoor wildlife is a little more diverse than indoor… thankfully. We still get the usual cockroaches, large and small hiding in the leaf litter but as they don’t do anything except annoy (and occasionally try to come indoors) I tend to leave them be. Likewise the flies are pretty much left to their own devices [...]

Rubbish Collection: Baulkham Hills

Life goes on… and as it does, piles of waste and rubbish are generated. As is the way of the world, the local council responded by reducing the size of the waste bin for general rubbish from 240 litres to 140 litres… I assume this was intended to make us all recycle more of our [...]

More on the failed Samsung SGH-A501

In January 9th I wrote to Samsung (via their web site form system) about the SGH-A501 model we’d bought for the eldest daughter two weeks before Xmas 2006 and which failed over Xmas 2007.
They responded a few days ago suggesting I ring their technical support for assistance which I did.
They politely said hard luck.
Personally I [...]

Human beings - human doings

I was sitting at the train station this morning, as I do every morning what I take the wife to catch her train, watching would-be passengers coming and going. This morning for some reason what struck me was the huge diversity between one human body shape and another.
It was just an idle thought really but [...]

Kids off back to school this week… yaaay!!

If you hear sounds of cheering from the house later this week you’ll know what’s happened… the kids have finally gone back to school!
The youngest will be heading back into Year Three of Junior school and is looking forward with some trepidation to the event wondering who her new teacher will be. She’s expressed some [...]

Dog bites baby - mother supports dog.

The picture is of two year Noah Cottie who yesterday was bitten by the dog in the background, a 50kg mastiff-staffordshire cross. What’s ‘odd’ is that Noah’s mother said the bites were Noah’s fault for pulling the dogs ears and that she wasn’t going to get rid of the dog. When questioned she said she’d [...]

India wins - cricket loses.

In what is really a disgraceful decision the ICC has bowed to pressure from the almighty dollar and backed down over their decision to ban  Harbhajan Singh for three test matches over his calling Andrew Symonds a monkey. Ok there wasn’t enough evidence to ‘convict’ him… there never really was. All we had was the [...]

The diet.

Hmmm…. not doing so well here I’m afraid. Christmas really hacked my resolve and I allowed myself far too much leeway in what I ate. Apart from having put on nearly 10 kilos I’m finding it hard to regain the resolve I had before the diet ended and get the weight moving in a downward [...]

Australian Indoor Wildlife

In some ways we consider our little patch of heaven to be virtually a wildlife preserve. Everyone else I know sprays chemical around their property with wild abandon. The rule seems to be if it moves… kill it. Ok maybe that is a little extreme but it sort of sums up the general attitude, even [...]

Some topics…

I thought maybe a list of stuff I intend (or intended) to cover might help both of us. Let’s see…
Wildlife in the garden
The diet.
India and the cricket debacle.
Kid attacked by dog - mother backs dog.
Eldest daughter off to high school.
One species but what diversity.
The state of the house.
Rubbish collection.
School leaving age being raised.
Grandson’s camera.
… maybe [...]

Nearly another week gone!

Seems hard to believe it’s been 6 days since I wrote in here! It’s been 6 quite hard days as well, all in all.
Since the daughter left for the UK we’ve been trying to get ourselves reorganised into some sort of ‘normality’. The chaotic state of the house wasn’t all her fault by any means. [...]

Bandwidth Blues

Our connection has returned to normal. Speeds is now rated at:
Your line speed is 3.79 Mbps (3787 kbps).
Your download speed is 473 KB/s (0.46 MB/s).
I am again as one with the universe. 

Christine Karger: Citizen of the Year!

We were *very* pleased to learn that our local Girl Guide Leader (Christine Karger) had been made one of our local ‘Citizens of the Year’ at a ceremony last week. Unfortunately we weren’t able to attend… mostly because we didn’t know the event was on… but must agree that Christine is a *very* worthy recipient [...]

Homeward bound (3)

Got word from the daughter to say she and family got home safely… though I think to say that might mean a reassessment of the meaning of the word ’safe’.
From reading between the lines… no detail of course… it wasn’t the best journey ever. She reported that the flight had a two hour delay somewhere [...]

No word yet!

Well I’m assuming the daughter and family got home ok but I can’t be sure.
As far as I know, their flight arrived in London 12 hours ago so you’d think they’d be back and settled in… but who knows what might have happened en route? I suppose it’s a bit much to ask that they [...]

Bandwidth Busted.

Discovered last night that the entire months bandwidth was used up a week early and we’ve been shaped’, i.e. our access speed has been dropped from 3Mbps+ to 64Kbps.
The reason is obviously that the allowance has been used. What’s really annoying is that it isn’t *me* who’s used it! I’m not even sure it’s the [...]

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