Planned Obsolecence

Well, it must be the time for all extended warranties to expire.

Things are starting to break down around the joint. After turning the spa back on yesterday, I found that it refused to run the circulation pump so that means that this will now require repair or replacement (I'm betting replacement) and I can only assume that the cost will be something beyond my bank balance. Had a look at it myself, but the wife suggested that this might be akin to Homer Simpson running the Nuclear Power Plant. After some careful consideration, I had to believe that she may be right.
The Dishwasher has decided that it's internal circuit board is going to play the "press me twenty times before I respond" game. Having a dead mouse in there didn't help either.

I am now hoping that the "Ruddy Money" will assist in covering the repairs of both of these items, but I feel I may need more. I can buy a new Dishwasher, but the Spa ain't going anywhere...

An Anniversary Thought

My wife and I have been married for 25 years. Quite an achievement in these modern times, however, I don't see it as such. Marriage shouldn't be an effort. Sure, we have had our ups and downs. Having to "get through" or "compromise" in marriage does not make a marriage. We have yelled at each other over little things, yet the big things have made us stronger as a unit. We have never compromised. We have cried together. We have cried over each other. We have laughed at each other and we have laughed together. To add to this, we have been friends since I was 10 and Deb was 8. I intend to leave this world loving my wife without ever having a second thought about it. I may not get to do a lot of things in life that others seem to feel they have to do before dying, however, I will say at the end that my life was complete from the minute I set eyes on the love of my life.

Tenacious D - Inward Singing Typography Experiment

One of my favourite tracks from Tenacious D's first album. Reading along as the boys get into it seems to add to the humour of the whole thing. I love it.

Modified through Boredom

Well, I had nothing better to do, so I decided to modify my Blog with a couple of widgetty gadgets. The World Wide Weird is probably one of the better ones, as you can read stuff that would not normally be stuck in the news feeds.

Have fun!

Ping Test

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Vesna from Big Brother

I stumbled upon these gems while surfing around YouTube the other day. Vesna was my favourite Big Brother person...ever.

Teenage Tirade

My son came home from school today bellowing at the top of his lungs that his car was broken. We had just spent a thousand dollars on the clutch and various parts. He's had it a week and now it is broken again.

He told his mother and I that he can only get a couple of gears. There is no 1st, 2nd or reverse. This is a problem. He then told us that he had been having problems with getting it into reverse since he got it back. His younger brother also informed us that if he couldn't slide it into a gear, he would ram the gear stick until it did go in. I am now worried that he has broken something that shouldn't be broken. Why do they do these things? Why did he not tell me a week ago about this problem? We could have taken it back straight away and had the mechanic sort it out. Now we may have to pay for whatever damage may have been done in his impatient state. Teenagers.....bloody hell!

Nightwish with Tarja

Here is one of my favourite bands with their old singer. the new singer is just OK, but really doesn't hold a candle to Tarja who sang with such passion. A shame she was a primadonna.

House Warming Hangover

My esteemed colleague Mr. Quin had his house-warming party last weekend and a good night was had by all. I forced him to ransack his house looking for old videos to watch of him as a young, thin, slightly attractive male in his prime with his old band 'Kid Gloves'. He was none too keen at first, but after finding the tape, we all had a good old laugh and realized just how old we are. We also watched his lovely wife as a contestant on "Perfect Match" with greg Evans. What a hoot!

Alas and Alak (is that how you spell 'alak'?)....I drank too much. The next day was a woeful effort at being human and my head throbbed mercilessly for hours. In between bouts of sleeping and groaning, I managed to keep breathing. I swore an oath to never drink beer again. It was broken two days later as my mate retuned from Holland and forced me to go to the club with him. It was a good decision as we won a motza on the pokies. Something that is done rarely in these tight times.

A night of non-excitement awaits me tonight as Dave and I head off down to Kiama to appease the Gods of Boredom at Kiama Leagues Club. Happy Days...

Something to smile about.

Paul Hogan with one of his best...

How do you answer this question...?

The question usually asked after you've come back from a funeral is most likely "How was it?"

That's a tricky question.

Do you say "It was great! Had the time of my life. Ran into old friends and chatted for quite a while." Or do you say "It was very sad. I cried a lot. People were crying. Somber music was playing and I don't want to go to another one."

For me, I just say "It was a funeral." They are really neither good or bad. You hook up with other people you may know or have not seen in a long time. You may have a laugh, a cry and listen to a minister talk about entering the kingdom of Heaven. You may see a slideshow, you may not. In general, Funerals are an event that are best avoided, but hard to stay away from, especially when the person who died is a close friend or relative. Today's funeral was all the above; moments of sadness, laughter, a slideshow, tea and biccies and chatting to people not seen in quite a while.

Yes, "It was a funeral."

Yet another day passes

Well, this morning was quite busy. I fielded quite a few calls from old workmates in regards to what happened to Pete. His funeral is tomorrow and I can feel a bout of depression coming on. I was going through my mail contacts list and saw his name in there. It was with a heavy heart that I deleted it from my contacts list.

In other news, my wife tried to kill me by hiding all of the nasal sprays today. She put them in the medicine chest where I would never look for them.




I've decided to add this picture of Kate Fischer just to make myself feel a bit better.

Rest in Peace

In the early hours of the morning of the 20th of May, I lost a dear, old friend of mine; Peter Linsley.

He had been suffering from something that it seems the doctors could not contain and the complications surrounding this caused his death. I am feeling quite empty at the moment. Peter was a great mate who had a quick wit and a wonderful imagination. We used to spend a lot of our time working together and playing computer games together.

When we were both working together, the amount of work we had to to do concerned us little as we both enjoyed each others company telling jokes, singing songs and basically making up our own brand of idiocy. The work that we did changed dramatically and towards the end of our time together as work partners, we found ourselves going down a completely different path from where we started. Peter wasn't happy with the direction we were going and decided he would prefer to get back to what he did best and I just kept on heading down another path. However, that didn't stop us from getting together and making the most of our friendship. Peter eventually left our common workplace and moved into another government office just next door to his previous place of employment. He told me that he was only ever given temp work there and was never sure of where he was going to be from one moment to the next, but it didn't really seem to worry him too much.

As the years passed, Pete and I saw less of each other. We found it more difficult to spend any time together as Pete's circle of friends was changing and my family responsibilities kicked in. However, our friendship never waned and when we could get together, we would. It would be just like we had been together the day before. He had confided to me that he was looking at moving to Canberra at one stage and he seemed quite happy about the idea of this, but for one reason or another it didn't eventuate and he remained in Brownsville. When Peter sent me a txt stating that he was in hospital and undergoing surgery for this cancerous growth, I was worried, but he seemed happy enough & sort of philosophical about it all. A period of time after the operation, he was able to go home and I spoke to him on the phone about his ordeal and how he was coping. He sounded quite happy and said to me that he had lost a fair bit of weight over the time he had been in hospital which I put down to the obvious "nutritional value" of hospital food.

About a month and a half had passed and I received a txt from Pete's brother Steven telling me that Peter had to be taken back to hospital and was not in a good way. I sent a message back to Steve to keep me informed of his progress. One night passed and then Steve sent out a txt to say that Peter had passed away this morning.

I'll miss my old mate dearly...God-damned Banana-Head.

Tiny Prayer Answered

Years ago, a good mate of mine was taking photos of the band I was in at the time and he took a piccy of me that I always regarded as probably one of the best if not THE best.

I sent the picture away to be published with a band resume that we were having made up at the time and that was the last I saw of it....and the resume. My life (and ego) was shattered! Whatever would I do? All I had was a bad photocopy of the picture and believe it or not, I actually demanded it back from one of the girls I used to work with who I had given it to. I told her that I would get another one to her when I managed to get the original photo back. It never happened. Over a period of a few years, my old friend who took the picture was working at the same place of employment as I and I asked about possibly getting a hold of the negative. His words were not comforting at the time. "I'll have a look, but I really don't know where any of that stuff is. My stuff is in a state of disarray."

I decided that it might be best to move on with my life and not get overtly flustered at the loss of a picture that made me look like a Greek Adonis.

Then, a month or so ago, my old friend Rob contacted me and told me that he had located the negative and that he would not only get the photo reprinted, but that he would also have it blown up for me. I was so happy I ran around the house crying out "He's found it! He's found it! My life is complete!" I'm sure that I ripped off all my clothes and swan-dove into a large glass of water.

So, here for your gratification (and mine) is the picture that I speak of.


Well, I thought I looked good in it anyway....

Going on Holidays.....again

Well, I suppose it's going to be that I only post something here when I go off on a holiday. This time it's Bali.

The wife and I are heading over there to celebrate mine and my mate Wayne's 50th birthday. Unfortunately, my birthday is actually 2 days after we come home, but I figure that I will still celebrate it anyways. Once again, my mate Buzz and his wife Jaye will also be there. It's been 3 years since I was there with them to be best man at their wedding. The best time of my life I might add. It was great to be there with so many great people.

The picture I have put up here is the view into the courtyard from our balcony. We stayed at the Malasti Beach resort. Four Stars, but felt like five.

YouTube....source for strangeness

There are times when you come across something that really makes you smile. This guy on YouTube has done just that.

An Unwanted Diversion

My wife and I returned from a 10 day cruise around the South pacific. The holiday was meant to exclude going to smelly Noumea as we had been there once before and were not impressed.
As we floated around the Pacific Ocean on the Pacific Star, it was announced to us that we would be making a slight detour and that our previous destination (The Isle of Pines) would have to be averted due to some silly old bugger suffering a from some illness on the ship. He or she had to be hospitalized and 2000 people would have to put up with it. Where did we end up? Noumea!

I want my money back!


Having had my whinge, I can tell you that we had the time of our lives anyway. I think the kids would have preferred to stay home and play on the X-Box....little turds.

The most powerful man in the world......err....

Stuff like this cracks me up. I often feel that sometimes, the people that edit these little snippets really don't need to 'enhance' anything...

George Bush Drunk Part II

Posted Feb 10, 2006

Late Late Show Craig Ferguson is convinced that the Prez has fallen off the wagon - take a look at the evidence.

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

Not everything in life is easy when you grow old. You start to forget things and you also can injure yourself quite easily. Both of these apply to me...

While finishing up a gig at a local pub on the South Coast, I stepped off the stage while perving at the barmaids and manage to twist my foot underneath me. There was a loud 'POP' and everybody looked around to see me writhing in pain on the floor. I had fractured the small bones in foot x-rays would later show. It has now been around 6 - 8 weeks and things are returning to normal, but as you get older, the stifness and pain just seems to refuse to go away. The guy pictured here thought it was hilarious...

How to destroy your Bank Account

Well, I decided to bite the bullet and get one of those damn-fangled new big screen TV's. Considering what I had before, this is just like looking out your window. In fact, it's even better than looking out my windows, as I have not cleaned those in quite a while. I now have something that compliments the Home Theatre system that I've had for about 4 years or more. I decided to go with the LCD variety of TV and not the plasma, as the plasma seems to leave a sort of relic around the sharp edges of the picture that is on screen. This new TV also has a built in HD set-top box thingy and automatically sets itself up once you plug the antenna in and turn the TV on. Good. That saves me.


Now I can watch Jerry Springer in Hi Definition....