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
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Went to the gun club on Saturday, and fired my new toy (a reproduction Civil War-era revolver) for the first time. The sights need some work (with a file … ), as the point of aim and mean point of impact were about 3 feet from each other at 25 yards.
Currently making beer for the first time in months.
Again, not lazy. Garden was a dreadful mess with growth rampant from recent rains, but at the same time, multiple dead trees and shrubs from drought. I only had a pruning saw, no axe or chainsaw. Chopped quite a large pittosporum down w/pruning saw as well as a Buddleia about as big as the average silver birch. Stuff is now on the ground and the garden-y part of the garden can now be seen as opposed to being a mass of weeds. I have pulled a sufficient volume of weeds to fill the average SUV interior (now there’s a temptation.) Cut miles and miles and miles of viney things that were threatening to strangle other things. I. HAVE. PREVAILED.
Did NO planting, fertilising. watering or any other plant-encouraging activity on the whole weekend, was all chopping, hacking, pruning and weed pulling.
Now that the back’s broken (the work, not mine, although it feels a bit that way) I can ring the council for a Hard Rubbish and Green Waste day. Neighbour alert! Come and get our junk! I’m hoping to bribe / persuade the kids to do the bundling and tying of the green waste.
Dennis Shanahan manages to dredge up some “Great news for Tony Abbott” voodoo out of nothing whatsoever. Should be renamed “Dennis the Shaman”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/poll-trends-keep-alp-worried-about-abbott/comments-e6frgczf-1225849658659
CMMC,
I saw that Shanahan piece on Google News. I knew I’d throw up if I opened it, so I didn’t.
Ben working on writing chapter 5 of my book all Easter.About 2/3 way through the chapter. Also reading Eric Williams Capitalism and Slavery. As noted on another thread tried to watch Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. Gave up before I reached the really scary bits. Will have to wait another day. (I’m not watching it at night.)
Tomorrow I have to start on two book reviews which I have to finish by the beginning of May.
Fecking marking! It’s not very much fun. Also lots of cooking and eating food with friends.
As I said over on the clothing-terminology-dispute salon, over the Easter weekend I somehow managed to get myself expelled from a social-networking group before I actually joined it.
Other than that, the Easter break consisted of:
Friday. Drove a train to Toowoomba. Slept. Drove another train back from Toowoomba.
Saturday. Slept. Woke up. Drove a car to Toowoomba. Waited for a train that was three hours late, and then drove it back to Brisbane.
Sunday. Slept. Drove a train to a coal mine near Ipswich. Waited for the empty train to be filled, then brought it back to Brisbane.
And on Monday, I slept, and wondered where my gravatar has got to…
Terangeree, you appear to be using a different email address since yesterday, so perhaps your gravatar is attached to the previous one and you need to update your gravatar account/profile?
I completed my first fantasy role-playing session in Japanese yesterday. 8 and a half hours in a room playing a completely abstract game with 3 people, entirely in Japanese. I’m pretty happy about this, it’s the biggest challenge I’ve completed in Japanese yet.
Yes, Tigtog, Optus closed my account last weekend so I’m now with the Brobdignagian Puddle ISP. I’ve updated my gravatar, but it seems to have got lost in the wash.
The New Yorker has an interesting comment piece on AGW, by the way.
Cutting off a Buddleia at the ankles is good for it, Helen. It’s be back in no time, bigger than before, except now you will be afraid of it seeking its revenge upon you.
Lazed on the couch on Friday, alternately inhaling chocolate and Colm Toibin’s recent novel Brooklyn, which I am now determined to write something about. Very very recommended.
Made a very pretty new tea dress from poppy printed Liberty lawn trimmed with black cotton lace on the collar and bands on Saturday, ate some more chocolate, then went to a rock and roll dance in the elegant surroundings of the Kensington-Flemington Bowls Club. Danced myself silly.
It was our first wedding anniversary on Sunday and we went to Dromana for a picnic at the Diggers club garden, which was lovely, although the perfection of hte gardens there does make us both feel a bit beleaguered. Stopped at the Safety Beach traffic lights and counted eleven pedestrians in a row licking ice creams. Went to the Tyabb packing House on the way home and scored nine vintage dress patters for $2 each, the earliest is 1920s and quite the oldest pattern I’ve ever had. I fully intend to make them all – definitely the Jackie O suit, and even the 1930s velvet evening coat with huge leg o’mutton sleeves. Just in case I ever get invited to a premiere on Hollywood Boulevard in 1943.
Today I have made a decent effort to try to get some work done, sending off one completed essay and doing something towards organising the talk I’m giving at UTS on Wednesday. I really should finish that, however.
Thanks Terangeree … although how Joe Bastardi can have a “theory” that the Earth is cooling is itself an interesting question. Either it is or it isn’t.
In fact, the radiation budget from satellite observation systems such as IRIS and ERBS alone tells us that the Earth is warming, even without the near surface temperature measurements which, unsurprisingly, say just the same thing.
Deb @ 5; my commiserations; marking is the pits. Hope it’s over by now, and, sg @ 8,congratulations on taking part in a great learning experience.
I spent Saturday selling books at the annual Blackwood Easter Carnival in the hills outside of Melbourne. It’s a very beautiful spot at the Blackwood sportsground.
Sunday I spent cooking dishes to preserve food from the garden: tomato sauces, roast capsicum, pesto, beetroot dips. Thank the goddess for Stephanie Alexander; her Cook’s Companion is a marvellous help for dealing with garden surplus.
Surprised how little I thought about the Christian story of Easter this year (perhaps the atheist push is gettin’ to me); on the other hand Good Friday afternoon, around 3 o’clock, was dim and somber as usual.Heard a lot of stories on the radio about sexual abuse in the church – what’s that doing to the church?
And also on the radio: Bulldogs thrashed Richmond: A Bulldogs win is always a positive at my place.
Best Easter experience: turning the clock back,getting an extra hour of sleep and , most of all, now getting up with the sun rather than in the dark.
Thank Christ for Easter.
Spent the weekend in the death throes of decision making – stay in Melbourne or take up the offer of a position in the UK? All sorts of family emotion over the Sunday roast (although my parents are still in the old Dart, making for more… difficulties). Still not really sure how one should go about making these decisions (schools? Pay? Lifestyle? Proximity to Paris?), but I feel that this way produces the most lowgrade stress!
Today one of our chickens hightailed it to the neighbours for the first time ever. Over a 6 foot fence, no less. Is this a sign?
I think anything like that feels like a sign, Emperor J, when we’re trying to make momentous decisions as you are. Good luck with it.
Did some plumbing, cleaned the chook shed, made a nummy vegetarian tagine, tragically looking forward to going into work tomorrow even though it’s a day off because if I don’t organise my workspace the way I need it I’m going to go mad.
Look at it this way, the chicken obvs wasn’t coming home to roost.
Make of that what you will.
Well, it seems that the gravatar is still lost in the wash.
Thought I’d get back into the world of blogging, but as yet haven’t figured out what to write…
Reading about COSCO’s other mishaps, I find myself wondering if the company will do like they did a few years ago in San Francisco, and state that the ship is actually owned by an “non-affiliated company” and so COSCO is not liable to pay any fines.
Back to being dead tired. Watched peculiar creatures on Sanctuary exceedingly reminiscent of Bald Iggles from Little Ab’ner.
Cheers to all the gardeners. Anybody know how to get a greenwaste bin out of the People’s Republic of Moreland?
Spent the weekend with the parents. Rode up Mount Hotham. Spent the last few kilometres trying to figure out a rude acronym for the “CRB” in “CRB Hill”.
Okay, there’s something to read there now.
It’s been sitting in my computer for six months, as no Australian newspaper or magazine was interested in the piece.
Great stuff!
More!
Every so often you come across something that is realy nice.
http://www.corpangelnetwork.org/
That’s excellent, Terangeree.
CRB = Country Roads Board IIRC. They used to name bits of roads after themselves.
Paul @ 17
and they were Tribbles from Star Trek, too. Original plotting, not.
RJ @ 17,
Indeed. I checked the series out on Wikipedia (won’t link as I don’t want to be a spoiler) and it gets complcateder and complicateder. Still, its better than watching Tony Abbott or some other bvoring politician.
[Anybody know how to get a greenwaste bin out of the People’s Republic of Moreland?
]
Robert, if it’s anything like Maribyrnong, you have to pay $$$ to have the extra greenwaste bin. Do you own or rent? If you’re renting I’m not sure how that would go – whether you can pay the council yourself or if it goes on the landlord’s rates, which would be a nuisance as you’d have to negotiate with them.
I haven’t got a greenwaste bin b/c I have this continuing fantasy of taking trailerloads to the tip. I need to get over this.
We has green wastebins in Armidale for those who want them.
Highly advanced and civilized place, Armidale. Me and Ute Man live there. And its got a Uni.
I’ve been in the garden here all day.
Oh yes, my lovely daughter called to say,
How are you, mum? Are you okay?
She always does when they’re away.
They’d be back late in time for bed
Not leaving till the kids were fed
And just as she rang off she said
We’re bringing you a lovely red!
I echoed her, Thanks, that’s lovely!
But didn’t say, “I hope not ‘bubbly’
Cos sparkling wines for me are doubly
Strong and leave me feeling very wobbly.
From now on I will always read the label
Cos last night’s red left me unstable.
I caught my foot in the computer cable
And found myself truly ‘under the table’!
But I was fine, and tho’ I’m old and grey,
I all at once felt fit enough for any fray.
Alas! Foolishly I led my self astray
D.U.I on the Information Superhighway.
For David Irving (nr)
Cworrr, Paul! We have a uni here in Footscray too. But no free green bins. User pays rools here, unfortunately!
Ah, yes, well not much danger of that here, except at the uni. Rural socialists of the Nat Party variety rule sunny Armidale.
We have green waste bins in Adelaide, too (free, of course). I reckon Victoria must’ve had a bad case of the Jeffs a few years ago …
Our council (in Adelaide) gives us one free green bin each, collected every four weeks. But you can buy an extra bin for $81 (one off cost, delivered), and then the council will collect two green bins every four weeks. And if you pay an extra $33 per year, they will collect the greenwaste every two weeks. This seems like a good deal to me.
In Epping (Sydney) our green bin is collected on alternate weeks to the yellow bin …
Here on our suburban block in Brissie we have a sizeable compost heap in an out of the way corner of the backyard and we find we can cut up most of our green waste and put it on there (even progressively over a few weekends if there is a big cleanup going on.)
We pile it up on the way into the compost pile to give the brush turkeys something to do – we hope there’s some sort of unspoken agreement that they can use the stuff to build up the pile, which also functions as a nesting mound, and not get stuck into my favourite plants.. The last few months every so often we see a “ball bird” whizzing through the yard. They are brown balls of feathers when they find their way out of the egg. At this stage of the year we have turkeys of varying sizes coming and going – they’re quite an amusing feature of our backyard
I think Ann of Brisbane wins.
Something puzzles me about how I often miss out on the main thread of conversation e.g I am surprised I’ve missed out on the green waste disposal chat – here in WA we have regular collections scheduled a year ahead so one can plan really big clean-ups in advance and be ready with almost limitless amounts of appropriately bundled waste.
Back to my IT ineptitude – I open up LP, decide I’d like to comment, maybe get called to the phone, sit down later and write a note, or as today copy in my pome for DI(nr) and when I submit I then find I’m miles behind the conversation. Is there a way to stay on line, comment and at the same time watch the thread as new comments come in. Right now I have to go out and come back in again to catch up stuff!
Everytime I put out our green waste bin, the council (Sydney) take it as well. We do have two, but we also have one unit with its own, so it’s justified. Nevertheless, I’ve found the best answer to green waste is: What’s a weed? All looks like grass to me.
Greg asked:
Hakea, lantana, asparagus fern, NZ christmas bell, canadian dock, farmers’ friend, cleopatra’s needle, camphor laurel, sellis australis, privett, bougainvillea …
I have them all in my yard … They don’t look like grass to me.
That’s where the Country Roads Board, later Road Construction Authority and still later VicRoads, snowplough depot that kept Mt Hotham open in winter was and, as far as I know, is still located. Although it may have been privatised in the early 1990s.
Fran,
The best definition of a weed I have heard was “Any plant growing in a place that you do not want it to grow”.
Anyway – last weekend I actually went and did something I had been meaning to for a long time by going to Uluru. Great way to spend a long weekend with the kids and a good reminder to them that this country has a lot more in it that just leafy suburbs and big buildings.
Andrew plant cited a definition of “weed” as any plant growing in a place that you do not want it to grow
Yes … pretty much … A similar definition of “pollution” applies. Too much of any agent in the wrong place makes it a pollutant — hence CO2, which plays an important role in photosynthesis can also be a dangerous pollutant.
Fran,
And If I happened to enter a room that had pure CO2 (or, for that matter, pure O2) that I can guarantee you that I would regard that as being sub-optimal as well, if only for the short time I was in there.
Given that at a concentration of 35%, wet organic matter can spontaneously combust and most of us would suffer oxygen toxicity, most certainly. From the POV of anaerobic bacteria on the planet (putting aside the improbability of them having a POV) the appearance of oxygen on Earth amounted to a lethal pollutant.
Interestingly, the property of oxygen that is of such benefit to us is also the property that makes the growth of tumours possible.
It’s a funny old world.
Look on it as a limit to growth …
ugh … Leigh must be in an undereducated stratum.
Professor Leigh? How shameful!
And Leigh should also know that from is collocated with different rather than to …
Now, now, Fran, we didn’t all do Latin at school.
I must admit it surprises me that Prof Leigh has only just noticed the increased inequality, though. Isn’t he the bloke who showed that near-term pregnant Australian women were managing to cross their legs so’s to delay birth for long enough to claim the baby bonus?
@ DI(NR) – claimed, not showed I think.
DI(NR) @ 1
I didn’t think revolvers had been invented during the Civil War (1640s)?
He reckons he showed it, Mindy, but I never quite understood the mechanism …
Having witnessed my ex-missus give birth three times. I don’t believe you can stop labour once it’s started by just clenching your knees together.
The other far-from-Civil War Terangeree – the one the Americans had.
I got too big a mould for the balls, btw – little buggers were really hard to force into position, and the loading process shaved a 10 thou annulus of lead off each one.
I must do a comparative survey of Green Bin policy in different municipalities to convince ours that they are being tight bastards.
Terangeree,
They did exist during the English civil war, but were of limited number. Wikipedia does a piece on them.
Ah, thank you, Andrew.
Now, if only I could figure out what’s happened to my gravatar…
@DI(NR) sorry, that comment sounded like I was being snarky at you, which I didn’t mean to be. Yes, I’d like to know how you can stop labour by clenching your knees together too. I suspect that what he “showed” was that women with scheduled caesars scheduled them after July 1. Which they are perfectly entitled to do.
Understood, Mindy. I didn’t feel you were being snarky at me.
Frankly, I thought his analysis was full of shit (or at least didn’t show what he claimed it did). The postponement of voluntary (and doubtless premature) caesarian sections was always the likeliest explanation.