Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
“Fritst!”
Have spent much of the weekend sitting in awestruck wonder at Optusnet’s amazing wireless broadband connection speed of 56.6 kilobytes per second which ensures that the most frequently-seen webpage reads “Connection Failed.”
Cancelled my attendance at next week’s MEAA Freelance Journo’s gabfest in Melbourne as I’ll be needing the money for visiting Japan in late April and couldn’t ensure that I’d be back in Brissie in time for Saturday’s Queensland “Festival of the HB Pencil.”
This weekend’s a four-dayer for me, ruined by a 4am start on Wednesday…
Aquired a tension headache Sat night and it wasn’t much better this morning but tootled off to dog obedience club anyway. Demi was a pig in the lesson–overnight rain meant all these interesting smells were coming up from the ground. Quick go through the practice ring then reported to head Instructor and 4 lucky Grade 2 dogs and handlers were taken out their class and handed over to the tender mercies of two trainee instructors
About 10 minutes to do a couple exercises the HI wants to introduce and then we were let loose.
So I took my two handlers and dogs to a nice shady spot and introduced myself to the two and fourlegged members (a labradoodle and a miniature schnauzer)
then, hmmmmm circle or walk them up and down in a line? Two people make a crap circle and by walking in a straight line they could walk more briskly–believe you me your dog will find plenty of distractions and ways of getting in trouble at all times but if you dawdle along with a dog on ‘heel’ you are handing the dog chances to misbehave on a platter!
So “Tell them they are working” and I noticed both handlers were less than firm in this, one practically ASKING the fucking dog! Didn’t say anything, we walked (heeled) up to one end of the field (separated by a mound of earth from the main practice field) and back, me and Demi trailing behind and I saw them looking a lot at their dogs and consequently walking diagonally instead of straight forward.
Hmmm so heel back to the shady end of the field and gave a little lecture: dog is a social and hierarchical animal, not a loner and they work out where each dog stands in the pack with the most dominant dog as the leader and that the handler must be the pack leader that TELLS not ASKS the other dogs what to do. Further, the pack leader is the one that finds food and water for the pack so make a fuss when giving the dog even just fresh water and that the dog must eat after the handler and family do (if it is an inside dog.)
Also told them that I would tell them if their dog misbehaved and to look at some object in the distance and walk straight towards that. Mentioned that at times in class people not doing this walked directly across right in front me and Demi which was annoying.
So “TELL your dog ‘working!’” and lo and behold commands were firmer and the dogs behaved better. I also made sure to ask a few questions e.g. where they were having trouble and we spent a bit of time doing drop and sit stays. One handler overjoyed her dog actually dropped so I reinforced ‘your dog wants to know where it stands in the pack and so by being firm and showing you are the leader the dog is really happy to do what you tell it to do.’ They also walked a lot straighter and I could tell they weren’t looking at their dog
Both handlers thanked me and neither dog bit me so must have done OK
The lesson really took it out of me and i have just lazed about for the rest of the day.
I had acquired a very old bottle of Export Guinness with about 2cm evaporated out the bottle. so didn’t have high hopes but opened it (tiny pfffft) and poured into a glass, sniff and surprisingly the stout was in good shape! Fair bit of licorice flavor, smooth, brown not black color with garnet highlights when held to a light. Had a bit of alcohol in it too!
Sorry forgot a closing
Played Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, made a great big lamb and eggplant Korma.
You monkish swine! Now I want to go down to the German Club to get myself a nice tall glass or two of Kostritzer, but the German Club is closed on Sundays. I’ll just have to salivate in disappointment while reading a manga about a Yakuza boss who dissolves his gang so he can open up a cake shop that sells inedible pastries…
Inedible pastries!
Ummmm should I? I am sadistic enough to
I also have a 750ml bottle of 9yo Millenium Ale!
W/end highlight – listening to a young kid called Cade do the regular Sunday night Jazz show on JOY 94.9fm in Melb. Good mix of trad and experimental Jazz. Makes me wish tomorrow wasn’t a work day.
Watched the mighty South Sydney hand out a hiding to the Eastern Suburbs side on Fox sports very pleased
Proved to myself that I am crazy as I spent a couple of hours cleaning my old car within an in inch of its life in preparation for dropping it off at the wreckers. A bit like taking an old horse to the you know where. Not that I have ever done that or am ever likely too. I’ve never actually driven a car into the ground before either but there was nowt else for it. Then it rained a lot. It was a good car. The new one’s better.
Husband and I took Friday off work so we could take the kids off to a bach in the Bay of Plenty this weekend. Of course, at 5am, the 8-yr-old woke me with headache, sore throat, aches and pains, and a raging fever. He had come down with flu. As I doled out medication, and soothed his brow, I steadily felt worse myself throughout the day. Yep, he’d shared it with me (having throughtfully crept into bed with me in the middle of the night while hubby was still on WOW). So we had to cancel our weekend away, and the boy and I spent most of the weekend sprawled on the couch or napping in bed, taking copious amounts of panadol, while hubby and the girl did, whatever. I guess in it’s own way it was a form of family bonding!
Classism is alive and well at Australian Customs and Immigration.
Curiosity on Sunday night’s television: “Border Security” as usual featured a lucked-out New Zealander, likely a Pacific Islander, with a violent past being denied access for a single week to attend an aunt’s birthday party, even though his 12-month conviction was suspended (and presumably a family occasion might aid his rehabilitation). This episode also included an upper-class American, Paolo Liuzzi, described on the show as the former boyfriend of Princess Beatrice. This nice fellow was convicted of manslaughter in the US following the death of a fellow student in a drunken (or worse) brawl, and sentenced to three years probation – the equivalent of a suspended sentence one would have thought – and community service. He was frisked for drugs after his gear tested positive for cocaine, but allowed in unconditionally.
Spent most of Saturday partly blogging and partly reading and taking notes from Bernhard Uhlendorf’s Siege of Charleston – (letters/diaries of Hessian Officers, 1780.) Have two copies of it, neither of which I actually ordered from Amazon, trying to get Hough’s Siege of Charleston by the British Fleet. Amazon sent me refunds for both copies and didn’t require me to return the books, so I am very happy with them, especially as I would have ordered the books anyway, as one of the First Fleeters I’m studying was in the siege of Charleston in 1780 and eventually to be Governor John Hunter visited Charleston in 1770. Giving surplus copy of book to a historian friend of mine who (I hope) will soon be beginning writing a biography of John Hunter. Watched The Bill.
Sunday, a bit of time on line, especially when I was cooking, but spent most of the day reading Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy’s An Empire Divided. The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. Had skimmed through it last August/September when I was in hospital but am reading it much more closely now.Night, watched Rogue Nation – very good, reasonably accurate (Bligh was not under house arrest all the time the Rum Corps was running NSW – he spent a considerable amount of time on board a ship in Hobart) – Looking forward to next week’s episode. Loved Living in Austen. A delightful parody and very neat tying up of all the loose ends. The bit with Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy in modern day London was side-splitting, IMO. (Am an Austen fan, but suspect you didn’t have to be one to enjoy the series. But I suppose after the BBC adaptation Pride and Prejudice is one of those classic novels everybody knows even if they haven’t read them. (Suppose some others would be Oliver Twist; Wuthering Heights; A Christmas Carol; Robinson Crusoe; Gulliver’s Travels.)
I know it was a typo, but that conjured up images of scubadiving string quartets, wading woodwinds and surfing Sousaphones, along with full orchestras on pontoons beyond the line of breakers.
Don’t know if it’d be the thing for eight-year-olds, though.
“…so we could take the kids off to a bach in the Bay of Plenty…”
no, terangeree; let me explain.
“bach” is Kiwi (pakeha slang) for “holiday house”. The bach doesn’t have to be at a bEach, though with the extensive coastline and magnificent beaches, most are.
“I’m going to the bach thus weekend” = I’m off to my holiday shack. And many of them are as shacks: think NSW, Qld, Victoria etc in the 1950s, 1960s.
I’m not sure whether “bach” [pronounced "batch"] derives from ‘bachelor’. I doubt it. Most of the bach’s I ever saw were owned by large families and used by the extended family (not by some selfish bachelor).
Ah, Mangawhai, 1962…….
http://www.mangawhai.co.nz/Index2.cfm
Went to the Blue Mountains Folk, Blues and Roots Music Festival for the seventh year, but it keeps getting better and better. Really wonderful music, Guinness and fine reds flowing freely, great company and a really positive ‘vibe’.
Couldn’t ask for much more of a weekend!
Had a go at a cycling race on Saturday – a handicap event over 30km.
I started out first (i.e. slowest) in a small group of three that ended up cruising the first half of the race and only got a hurry on when we turned at the 15km mark to return home and saw the later starters about 400m back! Then we took off as quick as we could but our number three dropped off. When you get only two people working there isn’t much aerodynamic advantage in it. We hung onto the eventual winners for a couple of km after they caught us thinking they could drag us up a hill in the last 1/3rd of the course but they dropped us when the road turned upwards.
We started to let the packs whiz by, partly because we couldn’t catch them and partly because the other bloke and I were having a little grudge race by that stage as the co-operation started to get competitive. I tried to drop him on the steep part of the climb from there and got about 10-20 metres on him after climbing it faster than I ever have, but then he steamed past me on the final straight when I punched into my biggest gear only to find my legs had turned to helpless jelly. Turns out he was quite happy sucking wheel most of the way up the hill. I think it’s kind of funny that tactics and experience made my efforts worthless. Watching that big old magnificent bastard hunkered over and grinding past me was extremely cool though – 65 years old (vs my 40), ex local copper, hands like a side of meat, wrestling his carbon fibre trek like it was a belligerent drunk.
Sunday was painful, the usual 6:30am bunch ride was sparsely populated and there were a few punctures and a bit of waiting around in the cold, then it got ugly when the boys decided that the fog was too thick on the highway and took the long way home = 75km. By the end of that I was a shattered and drooling mess and struggled get out of the saddle to climb the final hill on old Inverell road. I hope it did me good as I need to find another 5km/h average and some better idea of tactics.
This is sort of a continuation of my weekend.First, the back-story. I’ve briefly mentioned I’m being exasperated by my next door neighbour who plays an electric piano and sings in a high pitched, to me, annoying voice. Efforts by both me and the agent make little difference because he’s not exceeding council decibal limits, but is just a pain in the arse. So I have vague ideas of moving. (Very vague, but they’re there.)
As you all know I have in the house next door some Aboriginal friends, mostly from the same family. Don’t ask me how many. When nearly all of them visit together there’s troo many of them to count, and who cares anyway? While I’ve stopped them udsing the computer (too distracting to my writing)they still visit reasonably regularly. One of them, a ten or eleven year old girl comes around quite a bit.I mentioned to her I was thinking of moving and why. Big mistake! Now, I know I should have thought before I spoke. I know all these kids and their parents, aunts and uncles like me a lot. I know that if Indigenous people take you to their heart, your battles are automatically their battles. I know this. I’ve been hanging round with Aborigines on and off for a very long time.But I was still shocked, and very, very touched when my little friend burst out to the effect that none of them wanted me to go. I told her I’d let them know where I moved and they were all welcome to visit. Then she said she was going to go and punch my next door neighbour in the mouth. It took me a good five minutes to talk her out of this line of action. In fact I sort of had to ordere her to go home and behave, and make sure she did. But I have to say, i’m really touched, I’m really moved, by such incredible loyalty.
I do worry a bit about my next door neighbour. I know how these kids can make life difficult if they feel like it.I’m not sure I’d want to be on the end of the disapproval of the various kids, cousins, neices, nephews, uncles, aunties, and assorted friends who would probably back them up. Ah, well. And it was all unintentional.
Gadget of the day,
http://www.ecomediaplayer.com/