They *cannot* be serious?

They cannot be serious?

Entertainment, Home and Hearth 4 Responses »

Aug 182008

Seems the UK media have been whooping it up because their athletes have won more medals at the Olympics than the Australians. The Sun (see the link) have a headline reading “Brittania Rules the Games”!

Basically a country with a population of 62 million is crowing because they are beating one with a population one third their size?? If this is all they have to crow about they are in a sad, bad way.

To put it into perspective, Michael Phelps has *alone* won nearly as many Gold medals as the entire might of the UK Olympic team so far! Ok the Olympics are about competing not about winning… however… if they want to draw attention to themselves I think boasting they are beating countries smaller than themselves isn’t a particularly intelligent way to do it, especially when one man has won almost as many as their entire team!!

Now… if they were beating the USA or China… well that’d be another issue altogether! Actually, if I was them, I’d be a bit embarrassed the media is drawing any attention to it at all!

In the meantime the Aussies continue to rack up medals… and are back to third in the medal tally… not that anyone’s counting of course!!

How’s your quality of life?

Home and Hearth, MoneyMaking No Responses »

Jul 042008

We’re quite remarkably well off by most standards. The wife earns a bucket of money, which of course we spend and enjoy pretty much, however the actual ‘quality of life’ issue still raises it’s head now and then.

In order for the wife to earn this small fortune she has to leave the house at 6:00 a.m. and return at 7:00 p.m. which is a long, long day. The result is that she’s tired constantly (aggravated by her physical condition of course and the tablets she takes to control it) and the weekends are often gone before she’s recovered enough to be able to do much.

So is our quality of life all it could be?

Well the wife said this morning she *has* to work in order that she keeps us constantly supplied with all our technological toys, and the accoutremonts of the lifestyle, to which I respond phooey!! Given the choice between her being home with us and having the toys etc we’d *all* choose her every time!

Can we do anything about it?

Well over the years I’ve whined in here repeatedly that I’d like to move, or *do* something about the issue and never got anywhere. I doubt anything will change anytime soon either. Interest rates have risen, petrol costs have risen and house prices have dropped. Essentially the simple cost of living has increased to the level that we just can’t afford to move even if we wanted to. We’d just end up with the same mortgage in a smaller house and she’d *still* have to work the same hours!

What to do? Anyone got a sure fire get rich quick scheme they can recommend??

Assault by hedghog.

Home and Hearth No Responses »

May 302008

A New Zealand man has been convicted of assaulting a teenager with a hedgehog. No idea why but William Singalargh, aged 27 was convicted of assault and offensive behaviour after he threw the hedgehog at a 15 year old boy who was returning home.

The animal struck the youth on the hip and some of the spikes were left stuck in his hip. As a follow up to this when the boys mother intervened, Little Willy dropped his daks and waved his backside at her!

No idea what happened to the hedgehog afterwards, but as the thing had been used for a game of hacky sack by Willy and three of his mates shortly before the incident it is unlikely it was in any state to survive.

In New Zealand by the way, Hedgehogs are regarded as pests because they have no natural predators so have multiplied and eat anything small that wriggles, hops… or just stays still long enough to get munched.

Even so, using one as a piece of sports equipment isn’t a good idea… ask Alice!!

Not more mice?

Health, Home and Hearth 4 Responses »

May 212008

I’m beginning to wonder if we do in fact have more mice in here than the one the cat (re) captured and killed the other day. Now and then she hangs about around the kitchen staring underneath the fridge which is usually a sign of something… though we’re yet to discover what.

Today she again wandered around yowling which I have only *now* begun to realise is associated with her feeling pleased with herself and sure enough… hanging out of her maw was yet another mouse – this time already clearly deceased.

She is able to carry them indoors because I’ve been leaving the back screen door open. It’s really beautiful weather this time of year, not ‘hot’ but a relatively balmy 19ºC and sunny and I like to ‘air’ the house whenever possible – you can get sick of too much life under air conditioning. This means she is free to meander in, out, and around at will.

Point being that if as before she carries in a live mouse and releases it, it wouldn’t be spotted by me and would probably be ignored by her since she isn’t catching mice from hunger.

So do we have mice indoors? Well I can’t really tell. I’ve been cleaning around the cupboards and counter tops but so far there have been no signs of mouse droppings (which other than chewed clothes or produce boxes is the only way to tell short of actually catching one! ).

I’ll be keeping a close eye out now just in case. It’s bad enough the cockroaches think they deserve a home for the winter without an influx of mice to keep them company! We can spray for roaches and kill of any that manage the incursion, it’s not so easy to control mice… especially not when the cat helps them through the defences!!

Members only!

Home and Hearth No Responses »

May 192008

Forum is up and working… if you want to join ask Carol for login details and how to ‘join’ – I’m off to bed

I’ll add more themes tomorrow… I like the ‘Lord of the Rings’ one but it might not be to everyone’s tastes I suppose… tho I think all but Dad have read it several times!

Family Forum Fixed.

Home and Hearth, Reminiscence 5 Responses »

May 192008

Well the forum might not be ‘fixed’ but it has at least been created. No doubt a bucket of configuration will be required before it all works spiffingly but… as I write… I have at least password protected it.

I’ve bridged it to the gallery too… and will soon sort out how to access it easily via the forum pages rather than the ‘copper’ directory (which will make the photos ‘private’ as well). Yes I could do that now… but then you’d need another set of passwords… and who wants to have to keep entering different passwords every time you access a website? Boring!!

So… the forum is at http://lewmat.com/forum and as far as I’m aware, currently you can’t get in there… hahaha…. oooh the power… so if you do manage to, let me know sooner rather than later ok??

Getting back to the subject at hand… we can either share one password… or each have our own. Makes no difference to me, but currently as *I* have to manually register any of us who joins we may as well all share one password – so email me and I’ll register/activate you and send you the password. Okie?

The forum is pretty basic right now but I have 20 modifications (including a chess game – if it works) to add tonight and tomorrow, and also several different themes so you can select your own favourite.

Catch ya later!!

Family forums.

Home and Hearth 7 Responses »

May 182008

Following my latest technological embarrassment (deleting the entire membership list of the gallery) the old man left the following comment

I wonder if there is another family in the world engaging in this conversational crossfire with such insulting good humour= madly unique, or uniquely mad?

Which made me think… as I do from time to time… of a suggestion I made a little while ago about the possibility of creating a ‘family forum’ for us to communicate through.

It’s nice to have all these comments and jokes on the blog, but as the old man reminded me it *is* all being said in the open… anyone can read them!

Lots of us have instant messengers and yes we use them to chat, but the time differences make it hard to keep track of who is where and when they can be reached. We could cut through a lot of this if we had our own place where we could ramble to each other to our hearts content – if and when we felt like it!

It’s *very* easy to do, and *very* easy to maintain. I can even set up a forum that is entirely private, i.e. only members can view the posts, and password protect access. I can even link it to the gallery!

I’m not suggesting it as a place where we would spend hours but as a place we could leave messages to all and sundry just amongst the family? Or am I just getting carried away again?

Again, a little feedback would be good. If anyone thinks it might be useful then I can set it up and we can see how it goes. There are lots of us out there who never drop by the blog, but who might feel less inhibited if they know nobody but family would be seeing what they wrote?

More on the gallery.

Home and Hearth, I.T and similar 7 Responses »

May 182008

Considering making the ‘holding’ directory ‘password protected. It wouldn’t make a lot of difference to anyone who *really* wanted to get in, or who searched via Google for instance since it’s not that easy to prevent images being viewed on an open server, but it would make casual visitors slow down.

I’m only querying it because some of us might upload pictures of our kids and grandkids that we wouldn’t necessarily want spread around the internet. Some people like their privacy.

It might just be an inconvenience, and if one of us gives the password on to friends or neighbours for them to see our stuff then it bypasses the entire security aspect anyway so may be pointless.

Some comment/feedback would be appreciated.

It’s a bit alarming.

Crime & Punishment, Home and Hearth 6 Responses »

May 182008

Was talking to a guy on Friday who had been burgled recently. He was telling us how he, his wife and daughters had been in the house at the time and how the thievess

s had bashed their dog to keep it quiet, taken the keys to his and his wife’s cars, loaded them with their goods and driven off… all without then hearing a thing.

A neighbour *had* seen them leave and had chased them in *his* car but lost them near the local McDonald’s. The police had arrived quickly but the thieves had vanished. The cars were found abandoned and stripped in Mt. Druitt a 20 minute drive away down the new motorway link.

This was bad enough, but nothing that unusual really, but then he told us that *twenty* other houses had been robbed over the previous weeks in much the same way in the same few streets.

The area he lives is Bella Vista, a quite affluent area with expensive houses. All had dogs, all had alarm systems… and all ignored their dogs barks, and all had neglected to turn the alarms on at night!

We have learned our lesson… learning a lot lately… and have started turning the system on at night. It isn’t foolproof of course, but at the least the alarms should go off if someone enters the house, scaring them, alerting the neighbours and giving us a chance to respond (call the police, arm ourselves etc.).

Arming the alarm isn’t hard. We have a keypad outside our bedroom door and all we have to do is tap the code in before I walk into the bedroom… not rocket science. We just never used it.

Over the years we’ve occasionally heard of people being burgled around us so I’m not sure why this particular incident should have pushed into action, but it did. Maybe it was the ‘immediacy’ of having him talk to us. Maybe his security arrangements sounded too much like ours. Maybe I’d realised how blase we’d become over the years… no idea. But from now on the dogs are going to find me responding when they bark and the alarms are going to remain *on* whilst we sleep!

I really don’t want armed thugs wandering around the house robbing us whilst we sleep thanks.

And with that, I’m going back to bed.

Gallery active, activated and operational.

Home and Hearth, I.T and similar 5 Responses »

May 172008

I’ve adjusted the settings to the gallery at Imagery so that I manually register anyone who wants to join, assuming I know and trust them – which means you don’t get a ‘registration mail’.

==================

Edit:
You’ll all be glad to know I accidentally deleted everyone

Please rejoin and I’ll activate you when I get up… sorry… I shouldn’t have tried to do what I did when I was half asleep

==================

For the two family members who joined… eeejay4 and vintagechic… welcome to the Gallery. You are now bona fide members. Also, it seems I can make you both ‘Admin’ level if you need to upload pictures in bulk?!?!

So basically we’re off.

I’ll adjust the space later on to make sure there are a few more gigabytes up there ‘just in case’ but if we get above 20Gb it’ll get hairy so don’t go berserk okie??

For EJ… I’ve been busy all day but we’re home tomorrow your photos *will* go up I promise!!!!

For the others who joined using ‘interesting names like ‘eyxb725‘ and the rest… I’m afraid you’ll have to be more open about who you are before I activate you!

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