Australia Calling?

Tuesday, February 6th, 2018 —> -4˚C / +23˚F & ‘partly cloudy’ @ 1:33 pm in Atlantic Canada —> Today would have been my Aunt Phyl’s birthday…

Koala Ren

– “Koala Ren” –

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Update: Contact from another Australian Travel Service : 12-Things To Do in Australia.

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— Ordinarily, I might have ignored this:

— But The love of my life has relatives in Australia. I’ve always been semi-fascinated with Australia { And New Zealand, I mean any place that names their capital city after me can’t be bad – roight? 😉 } & Cathi’s got relatives in New Zealand, too.

— I went looking for anything that might have cited the article referred to in this message { below } and couldn’t find it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. & it could have been something from one of the twitter feeds that are on both sides of the posts/articles here –

— But – in the spirit of personal nonsense { which often makes more sense than anything ‘sensible’ —> }

— Here’s the message from Janice of your-rv-lifestyle :

 

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Dear Jim,

My name is Janice and I’m a writer at Your RV Lifestyle. I was doing research on things to do in Australia and just finished reading your wonderful blog post: http://aerendel.ca/aarchives/?cat=13

In that article, I noticed that you cited a solid post that I’ve read in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia

I just finished writing a guide that is even more detailed, updated and comprehensive on the 100 best things to do in Australia. It is over 10,000 words and packed with practical tips and advice. You can find it here: https://www.your-rv-lifestyle.com/things-to-do-in-australia.html

If you like the guide we’d be humbled if you cited us in your article. Of course, we will also share your article with our 50k newsletter subscribers and followers across our social platforms.

Either way, keep up the great work!

Warmly,
Janice

 

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— I’m not sure if this qualifies as ‘citing’ her article in her magazine – But hey – I looked at the link and it wasn’t anywhere near as schnarr as the spam links I used to get in way too many ‘comments’ here – and – if we win the lottery, and win big enough, we’ll probably go looking for Koalas and hope to hear some didgeridoos freeing the tension from around my spine. 🙂

 

~~~~~ Jim

 

Weekending-

Sunday, July 19, 2015 -( 16˚C / 61˚F @ 10:45 pm in the dark and damp here in Atlantic Canada )-

Messy office.

This ‘Office’ is technically transitioning from ‘completely freaking messed up’ to ‘I just might be able to find something I’m looking for in here’.

Yes, we had a weekend. Of course it rained, but- We got things done, and moved forward into a more optimistic state of mind, no matter how many idiotic bits of political lies and rule bending b.s. the current administration is bombarding us with constant commercials on just about every station in Canada, and maybe especially New Brunswick and a couple other target areas. If it wasn’t for the fact that they are so obviously lying and trying their damnedest to get away with immoral bull [ chips ] by playing their propaganda clips before the election has actually been scheduled – which is unethical, immoral, not quite fattening, but should be illegal, and will probably help convince the majority of Canadians who are not brain dead to vote the morons out of office that much more quickly… I might be able to shudder and shrug my way through it. But the evil sonuvaguns are trying to convince vulnerable people that if any of the other parties get to form the next government they will steal the candy out of their babies’ mouths, take away their pensions, and, in general, peel the skin from their bodies as painfully as possible, and set their private parts on fire. The politix of fear are alive and well and Canada.

Pallets, lumber & garbage can cover.

Pallets (& plywood) R us. I got a little bit done, pulling nails out of interesting pieces of lumber that used to hold three decent pallet together to form shelves for plant sales at a nearby chain type hardware and lumber store. They do have Home Despots up here, but this is a more local franchise. The thing on the far left is something I built out of plywood and 2x2s to discourage the local racoons from messing with our garbage. That’s my white hat reflected in the window.

We got out and about on Saturday afternoon after a pleasant brunch. & After grabbing a couple necessities (like food?) at the nearby supermarket, we stopped off at a ubiquitous hardware chain store and stumble upon a couple goodies, like stain for our projects on sale. 🙂 And we were checked out by one of the most friendly and pleasant young cashiers we’ve ever encountered there.

And then I convinced Cathi to check out the free pallets one company leaves out in the hopes that they won’t have to pay somebody to haul them away or whatever business they’d have if nobody came along and took advantage of the free pallets.

What we found there this time was three surprisingly good pallets and one smaller pallet with split pieces but a couple good two by fours. So Cathi said she was happy we checked. We also found the last of the season’s small potted herbs for sale for $.24 each. I think we got two small plastic square things of lemon balm and a couple other intriguing plants, one was peppermint? some kind of mint and the other had tiny light purple flowers.

This morning Cathi went around and planted the herbs along with the ivy she brought home a couple days ago-

Ivy surrounded by grass, climbing a fence.

You probably can’t tell with a casual glance, but there is some newly transplanted ivy in the center of this photo. I told Cathi I’d like to see some ivy and she found some in the bargain/closeout section of one of the stores she frequents. We had nine little pots of English Ivy, which I hope really likes the climate here, and when we set them on the outside porch they thrived, sort of said, ‘thank you’ and now there are something like 4 plants around Jassper’s fence and a couple more in not so easy to spot places. But Yum- They should enjoy the rain we’re supposed to get in the next several days.

And, beyond my usual feeling like I’ve lost my mind, we did okay. – It had rained overnight, and it’s supposed to rain every day for the next four days? At Least?

— As long as you don’t dwell on the fact that, for a promised interview with a local Author I was trying to get an old mac computer to work with the old free version of ProTools and when I struck out with the best computer I still have here for that option I tried to wake up an older G3 (“cute”) MacBook and which, for all its 640 megs of RAM started up and charged the nearly dead battery really well, but when I tried to restart using Mac OS 9.2.2 the hard drive with that operating system had a coronary and played dead. I tried another external Hard Drive with a similar Operating System, but it was even worse. — When I took the worse HD into the office here and connected it to another Mac, that other Mac saw it long enough to know it was there, but when I tried to ‘verify’ and then repair the danged thing, it disappeared and said it was beyond help, but I should back up what I could and then it wouldn’t mount the danged thing and reformat it. But if it ain’t mounted ya can’t back anything up- bluddy idjits- so I tried repairing it again a couple times with the disk utility and it finally gave up trying to tell me it was too far gone (or too old, or too riddled with planned obsolescence???) to fix- well, surprise surprise, it fixed it enough so it would mount. I then tried backing up files. First the routines thought it might take an hour, then a couple hours, then 16 hours. So I went to bed & when I woke up and checked it, it looked like it had been backing up nicely for several hours and then hit a bad file with a name that was about two miles long and full of heiroglyphics- and the only thing it had actually backed up was a stupid icon. grrrr. So I spent most of today manually backing things up one file at a time.

All the time I was gnashing my teeth and backing up stupid files etc. Cathi got up quietly and went outside and transplanted things, thinking it would be raining later.

Garden gnome hiding in ferns.

I wanted to upload a photo of Cathi on her Gazelle, but I need to straighten it out so I’ll upload the photo of a gnome hiding in the ferns by our stone wall.

— And there a very interesting story at https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-greedy-companies-making-products-that-break that says France has a law against planned obsolescence. 🙂

~~~~~ Jim

Planned Obsolescent Schnarr –

Friday, July 3rd, 2015 -( 22°C / 72°F @ 11:45 am under sunny skies on our side of the river here in Atlantic Canada )- -My friend, Greg’s daughter -Kyla-‘s birfday 🙂

Domino, looks like he was complaining about something or other- IN May of 2013

Domino, looks like he was complaining about something or other- In May of 2013

— Okay, let’s see. I can’t say this morning got off to a rough start because I’m still up since last night. The computer I rely on the most, the one I’m writing this on right now, is going blind on me- if I’m doing any graphic-heavy 3D stuff- the monitors suddenly go black and say “hey- we’re not connected to anything-” and since I got this computer specifically to work on completing my game world, and the game that’s supposed to happen inside that world- this is disconcerting. I better look up the spelling on that one, it doesn’t look right. Must be okay, the spell checker doesn’t like words with dashes attached to them, but ‘disconcerting’ passed their test.

— Planned obsolescence –  Do you think that anybody who ever thought it was a good idea to make sure stuff fell apart more sooner than later so they could sell more stuff should be drawn and quartered in public? I mean why wait until these mudder fuppers die and have to face their karma in their life reviews? For the same reason that judges are all going to be in big trouble when they have to explain themselves to the Man who told them “Judge not- that ye be judged-” It’s not my place to condemn ice holes for making everybody’s lives miserable? -Shrug- But every once in a while I want to be there when one of those ‘persons’ is in dire need of a quick ride to a hospital and the parts he so cleverly had his engineers make out of plastic instead of aluminum the way they had always been in the past- fall apart and the ice hole has to die alone in his vehicle because his clever designs worked so freakin well? I mean the height of this revenge type thinking would be, the poster child for planned obsolescence opens the door of his planned obsolete automobile, falls to the pavement and gasps for help and some homeless guy whose life he ruined comes over to him, blind drunk, opens his zipper and pees all over the slime ball while that evil ice hole gasps his last breaths and dies in an extreme state of fear. Grumble grumble grumble —

— But- on a lighter note – I did download over 750 photos (not all of them worth keeping) onto three different computers last night while dealing with computer catastrophes. The stupid ‘We know better than you do what you want to do’- routines inside one computer decided that I wanted all 757 photos to go get lost somewhere on a cloud, and told me my drop box was full. So I swore at that computer and told it to take those photos down from the flippin cloud and put them in a nice new file on my desktop. When it – obviously scared half to death – did what I told it to, I discovered a couple lost gems in that flippin cloud, that I never wanted anything to do with in the first place. No danged cloud has any business grabbing my stuff like that. And, oh yeah, the nearly lost gems on that should be lost cloud? – the above photo of Domino the Bengal Cat was one of them. Yum.

— And now I should belatedly get my posterior to bed. I’m going to skype with mom tonight, and she’s delighted to be able to see me and hear me when I do that. And now that I got my grumbling done, I won’t have to darken our conversation tonight with angry thoughts about ice holes who so freakin cleverly design things to fall apart a long time before they need to. – I won’t say, “May they rot in hell.” Because we’re already there, so how about, “May they open their eyes and realize they’ve created a living hell for themselves right here and now.” – Shrug. I often think I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, because I don’t collect enemies and sort them according to how rotten they are to their cores- But- Waking up in hell is a blessing that us truth-seeking ‘Angels-In-Training’ wish upon ourselves so we can continue our mission to manifest Heaven on Earth. & No, it’s not too late to keep trying to do that.

— Yay?

~~~~~ Jim (who tortures spelling checkers for fun, and has the poetic license to prove it can be done.)

Saturday, 06 September, 2014 – CBC News Headlines –

{ Copied & Pasted from Radio Free Earth News  —————Jim }

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Saturday, 06 September, 2014  -( 72˚F / 22˚C & Mostly Cloudy in Ithaca @ 8:41 am )-

{ I’ve been doing this because I believe that the CBC may be more honest and more respectable than Media here in the U.S.A., AND not a lot of people in the U.S. may know that or have access to anyone who might point them toward the CBC & their web site. }

{ & again, these are not links. If you want to read these stories, listen to sound clips, or see any video -if there is any video- go to CBC dot CA/news. —Thanks. ———djo——— }

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Pipeline through boreal forest 120 km south of Fort McMurray, Alberta

Canada Leads The World in degrading Pristine, Intact Forests. This pipleine carries steam to well heads and heavy oil back to a processing plant. This section cuts through boreal forest 120 km south of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

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Lead Articles:

B.C. cool to idea of arbitration to end teachers’ strike { -More like, The B.C. government and the Minister of Education are cool on the idea of allowing an impartial 3rd party decide how this should be worked out. —djo— }

Results of Alberta Tory leadership vote due later today   {  }

Sierra Leone to ‘lockdown’ areas infected with Ebola   {  }

Fighting in Ukraine subsides as ceasefire takes hold   {  }

Donetsk residents doubt truce would create lasting peace   {   }

Hispanic Mother & Child bonding on a bed or sofa.

“U.S. President Barack Obama vowed in June that he would act without Congress to reform the immigration system. But a debate appears to be underway at the White House over the timing of any immigration announcements. Will he or won’t he act before the midterm elections?”

-Analysis- Obama’s immigration dilemma: Act now or after midterms?   {   }

NATO faces 1st test, as Estonia accuses Russia of abduction   { According to the Estonian government, Russian agents crossed the border of Estonia and detained a police officer. Estonia and Canada are calling this a provocation.   —djo— }

3 circles, top two are black, bottom has a big smile and strange eyes.

Disney thinks this image is too much like Mickey Mouse Ears.

David vs. Goliath trademark battles: Giants don’t always win   { The electronic DJ known as Deadmau5, is being sued by Disney for incorporating giant ears as part of his costume. }

-Photos- Bad weather soaks stars, fans on second night of TIFF   { It was Bill Murray Day at the Toronto International Film Festival. }

 

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“Offbeat”

Robot milkers gaining in popularity at dairy farms in N.B.   {  }

Strange looking fish.

An Ocean Sunfish, like the one in this photo , washed up on the beach at Cape Disappointment, near the mouth of the Columbia River in Washington state, USA. The fish was 6 feet long and weight almost 300 pounds.

‘It’s really an odd-looking fish’:  Rare 2-metre sunfish washes ashore   { Some West Coast friends of mine are very worried that radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant disaster -after the earthquake and Tsunami- might poison vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean and make living on the west coast of North America not so pleasant in the near future- We get updates from Coast to Coast am (<—-<< Link-) every so often that are not encouraging. —djo— }

Tim Hortons coffee cups: XL claims put to the test   { Somebody tested the capacities of Timmy’s large and Extra-Large paper cups- & contrary to the Conspiracy Theory that both cups hold the same amount of coffee- found that when filled to the line that Tim Hortons  Employees fill these cups to- There are 4 more ounces in the Extra-Large cup than the Large one.  —djo— }

Toronto Festival goers — and the world — celebrate #BillMurrayDay   { I heard an interview yesterday with the producer behind some of Bill Murray’s more memorable movies – Bill does his homework and deserves the accolades he received.  —djo— }

 

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“Most Viewed”

Pictures of storm clouds, downed trees as storm passes through   { This article includes several ‘tweeted’ photos taken in the Ottawa-Gatineau Ontario-Quebec area yesterday- The storm was quite impressive.  —djo—  }

Alex Stone arrested after U.S. teen wrote about shooting pet dinosaur   { Link This one really is worth reading. A 16-year-old student in South Carolina had an assignment to write about himself as if he was updating his status on facebook. He wrote that he shot his neighbor’s pet dinosaur with a gun he’d bought. His teacher notified the authorities and the police were called in. The student had his book bag and locker searched – and, when he objected to the way he was being treated was called, ‘irate’ and taken out of school in handcuffs. The school did not inform his mother. She is quoted as having said, ‘I mean first of all, we don’t have dinosaurs anymore. Second of all, he’s not even old enough to buy a gun.’  – And I would add that if the teacher believed that everything any teenaged kid would write as a status update on facebook was politically correct – that teacher is not connected to anything like ‘Reality’.   —djo— }

Busting Bill Murray: 10 believe-it-or-not stories   {  }

[Dutch dentist] Jacobus van Nierop’s patient: ‘Everything was infected’   { The Dutch dentist, arrested in New Brunswick and wanted by interpol on warrants from France claiming he mutilated patients- allegedly told somebody in an immigrations hearing/interview that he’d killed his wife in the Netherlands in 2006. A woman who lives in France said the dentist insisted she have all her fillings replaced even though she was unaware of any problems with them. After the dentists did the oral surgery she did have problems. She says he used dirty, infected instruments when he operated on her. The woman said her eldest child was also a victim of this dentist. —djo— }

Two dead, eight injured after moose collision on Highway 11   {   }

-Blog- Spirit Airlines slips up by trying to cash in on nude celebrity photo leak   { The Airline sent email ads to customers saying “Our Bare Fare was Hacked!” and featured a line drawing of a woman covering her chest with her arm.  —djo— }

 

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Other:

Fragile Ukraine ceasefire seems to be holding   {  }

-Audio- The celebrity nude selfie leak and why we care   {  }

5 memorable marketing blunders   {  }

Education Minister cool to arbitration to end B.C. teachers’ strike    { If the Education Minister is afraid than an impartial arbitrator would find against the government and in favor of the teachers- that should tell you something. —djo— }

Indigenous women ask, ‘Am I next?’ in push for inquiry into deaths   {  }

-Photos- 4th biennial Stand Up To Cancer live benefit   {  }

Unresponsive plane crashes of Jamaica killing U.S. couple   {  }

Adopted brothers reunited in Ottawa after decades apart   { There is also a video. “Two brothers who didn’t know they were related have reunited in Ottawa” }

-Must Watch- ‘Stories of our lives’: being gay in Kenya { “Kenyan filmmakers rish everything to tell the story of what it’s like to be gay in Africa”  —djo— }

-World- Pakistan, India flooding kills more than 200   {  }

-World- Nicholas Henin, French journalist, says Brussels museum shooter tortured him in Syria   {  }

-Politics- Brian Mulroney says Supreme Court criticism ‘sends the wrong signal’   { “Former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney says it was “unhelpful” for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to publicly criticize Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin. Mulroney is credited with winning the biggest landslide victory in Canadian election history – then turning the government over to Kim Campbell -the 1st and only woman Prime Minister of Canada so far- The people I’ve talked to in Canada blame Mulroney for the biggest loss the Conservatives ever suffered He came in with the biggest pro-conservative vote ever and after he left, the conservatives only won 2 seats – out of 295 —djo— }

-Politics- Canadian special ops soldiers to be part of anti-ISIS team in Iraq   {  }

-Politics- ISIS recruits in Canada spark Liberal call for parliamentary probe   {  }

-Business- Apple’s not talking but tech lovers anticipate iWatch release   {  }

-Business- Canada loses 11,000 jobs in August   {   }

-Technology & Science- House sized asteroid flies near Earth this Sunday   { A newly discovered asteroid – 20 meters wide -that’s about 65 feet & change-  will pass a ‘safe’  40,000 kilometers / 25,000 miles above New Zealand – The article goes on to say that they asteroid will be farther from Earth than any of our communications or weather satellites.  —djo— }

 

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“Local / New Brunswick”

-Opinion- Michael Camp: Campaigns marked by political allegations  { Michael Camp is a journalism professor at St Thomas University  in Fredericton. “Two allegations against David Alward’s Progressive Conservatives caught my attention this week. – One was colourful and direct. The other was by innuendo, one of the darker arts in the world of political persuasion. – The first came on Thursday when Dominic Cardy laid out the NDP’s platform. – Cardy is doing his best to shake off the perception that the NDP is a party devoted to taxing, spending and racking up big deficits. – He said he didn’t buy the idea that there was anything left wing about driving New Brunswick into bankruptcy. – So before the bank arrives to repossess the car and the furniture, we better straighten things out. – That’s the ‘new’ NDP message. – But I think Cardy’s attack on patronage should connect with a lot of voters — if he can get them to listen. – Who would disagree with this little gem from the party platform? – “Whether it’s a Conservative minister getting the road to a friend’s fishing camp paved while your car bangs over potholes that never seem to get fixed, or your neighbour, a prominent Liberal supporter, who always finds a summer job grant for his children — too often knowing the right people seems to matter more than working hard.” – Cardy didn’t name names. His examples were generic rather than specific. But every voter knows it’s the way things have always worked in this province. – If you want a nice job, start by making friends with a politician in power ”  && “The other notable allegation, if you can call it that, was made by Liberal Brian Gallant. – On the same day Cardy was unveiling his platform, Gallant took a little time off from his usual campaign routines to offer some comfort and support to Andy Harvey. – Gallant suspended Harvey as the Liberal candidate for Carleton-Victoria when it was revealed that he was facing fraud charges. – We don’t know much about the case, other than it involves the Harvey family business and the sale of some wood. – Harvey says he’s innocent. Fair enough. The courts will decide. – But in the meantime, Harvey and the Liberal leader are raising questions about the timing of the charges. – With the cameras rolling, Gallant told reporters they should ask the attorney general of New Brunswick why a Liberal candidate would be charged in July, three years after an alleged offence took place, just as the election campaign was getting into gear. – And if voters hadn’t given this much thought, Gallant apparently thought a little nudge would be in order. – “You’d have to ask the Attorney General as to why it’s been done now,” Gallant said. – “And I’ll certainly allow New Brunswickers to come to their own conclusions as to why it would have popped up now.” – ”  —djo— }

David Alward unveils full ‘Say ‘Yes’ platform for PCs   { Jim W’s assessment of television commercials for this ‘Say “Yes” to jobs etc.’ campaign: >>—-> “David Alward comes across as a mean-spirited high school bully looking down from behind a political pulpit, sneering at voters with a message that feels like “Only a god -bleeped- idiot would vote for [the opposition] – He’s got that smug “my-daddy-could-afford-to send-me-to-the-most-expensive-educational-institutions. So I clearly know better than you do- look. He claims that fracking is safe and will provide loads of magic jobs for everybody- And that is just not true. Scientists whose jobs depend on money from the fracking industry are the only ones I’ve heard claim that fracking is safe. When the protective layer of stone that keeps natural gas down -and keeps the gas from seeping into well water- is shattered- there is no way they can protect the water supply from gas and other harmful chemicals. Their suggested band-aid solutions are laughable- metal pipes rust- concrete slabs crumble and crack. There is no safe way to repair an area that has been fracked. & Hey, run the poster again-“—Jim Wellington. — Okay, I’ll do that. —djo— }

sign comparing jobs per million bucks invested.

Jobs Per Million Dollars invested. Oil & Gas = 2 jobs. Building Efficiency = 14 jobs. Clean Energy = 15 jobs. “Do The Math!”

Liberals request judicial ruling over campaign transparency law   {  }

& There’s more New Brunswick news at (Link >>—->)  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick  — or, if you want to see local news from any other province, you can find it  at the cbc.ca/news/ site.

 

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{ 12:12 pm  —> Had one nasty browser crash and suffered the kind of lag lag lag I haven’t seen in years – —> but, ready to check for typos and paint the headlines pretty colours   >>—-> Pushing the “Publish” Button @ 12:55 pm     ———djo———  }