Random thoughts that turned out to be not very entertaining

Some random thoughts for the day:

• 43 is probably a bit much even for me
• I should have brought 2 slabs of Boags Draught when it was 2 for $64Hmmm, maybe it's still 2 for $64, better check on boozle.com.auHave I even got the vaguest chance at the job I applied for last nightIf I did get it, will I be able to convince the missus I need to spend my payout on a dirtbike
• What am I going to have for lunch today
• Aaaggghhh batteries going flat on laptop and charger is in the boardroom with a meeting in progress
• Is it cooling in the boardroom with the shit a/c or in my office with the crappy little portable a/c
• When's the next big Tatts jackpot and I hope I remember to enter this time
• People complain about the promised flying car never being invented, what about the paperless society we are supposed to live in
• When am I going to get a good answer to the question of why there are no monkeys in australia
• Mind you someone did reckon they saw a baboon on the road this morning
• A real one they weren't just being offensive
• Why don't I live near the beach
• Not a victorian beach with antartic water, somewhere where the water is warm
• People that reckon after a couple of days the water on victorian beaches warms up are kidding themselves
• Hmmm, really need to win tatts
• I reckon this was better as an idea than reality

The A Team

Just saw this link on Lance Armstrong's Twitter site.

It is details of the executive team for an A Team movie.

This is of great concern to me, does anyone think Hollywood can make an A Team movie that will do the series justice?

Who would you get play each role?

B.A. - Samuel L Jackson in Wesley Snipes body. Actually it is probably going to have to be The Rock.
Face - Brad Pitt?
Hannibal - Clooney?

What really worries me is that with Ridley Scott involved he will drag Russell Crowe into it. I just can't see Crowe in any of the roles.

Damm, I am going to lose sleep worrying about this one.

Holy exploding rabbits!!! ** UPDATE

This article is from our local paper.

To paraphrase for those that can't be bothered clicking on the link: the local shire council had a plan to eradicate rabbits along one of the local creeks by blowing them up.

They planned to use a machine that in simple terms, pumps gas into the burrows then ignites it. The rabbits are then theoretically killed by the shock wave.

The local CFA have gently suggested they should can the idea as flames and potential on-fire rabbits firing out of rabbit burrows is not a good idea during extreme heat and fire danger. It could have made a hell of a good NYE display though.

The best bit about the whole article is that the fire chief referenced Caddyshack, now that's a CFA I would be prepared to volunteer for*.

In other news it is 43.1 degrees (almost 110 F) here today, with the same or hotter expected tomorrow and Friday. I went to one of our other sites to enjoy their a/c only to get there and find it's broken. Bugger! Gonna be fun at footy training tonight.

* This is in no way me volunteering for anything.

Just for Lerm - no flying on-fire rabbit unfortunately



And the exploding whale



Now off to visit www.theexplodingwhale.com .

I haven't updated much on Sophie lately, so here is the latest.

She is 6 months old which makes her corrected age a little over 3 months old. Weight is now over 7kgs and she is reasonably tall for her age. There don't seem to be any medical complications from her prematurity, except perhaps a temperamental stomach which happens a lot anyway without prematurity.

Developmentally she is a little behind physically, she needs to spend more time on her belly lifting her head. No stress there, it's no big deal as she will get there eventually. She started doing baby talk quite early and I often catch her and her Mum chatting to each other which has convinced me I am going to need some noise cancelling headphones by the time she is a teenager.

Sleepwise she struggles to sleep during the day, due to an upset stomach but will sleep from about 9pm to 7.00am most nights. So while she wears out Mum during the day, at least we get a full nights sleep to recover.

So all said and done, she is healthy, happy and progressing well.

Won't be long before I am training her to get Dad a beer and how to pour a decent scotch.

Some like it hot!

Looking at google analytics, the average time spent by readers here is 2:31.

68.57% of you are using I.E., 28.57% using Firefox and 2.86% using Safari.

BigBadAl sent the most people (5) my way with Yankeedog coming in second (4).

Jennicki, Lermontov and moko all sent me a visitor.

Google sent me one visitor searching "the words begest fesh .com", I have a feeling that visitor was disappointed.

The Australia Day weekend was pretty quiet for me. Got in 2 runs which are my first since being sick and were far from impressive. Football pre-season starts Wed night, so it is going to hurt!

The weather is not going to help pre-season as the forecast is as follows:

Today - 38 degrees
Wed - 41 degrees
Thurs - 40 degrees
Fri - 40 degrees
Sat - 40 degrees

We live inland north of the city, too far away to get the sea breeze, so it will be a degree or two hotter.

To many this will seem like terrible weather. Personally I don't mind it, although 40+ is pushing it a bit. I do hate having to wear a suit in this weather though and it will get to 35+ in my office, so I think I will be doing lots of site visits this week.

Better 40 degrees than 4 I reckon!

Google Analytics

I missed being able to she how many vistors I was getting.

So to satisfy my vanity and ego I have just added google analytics to my blog.

Now visit people, so my numbers go up and up!

Nothing much really

I was going to write a post on Obama, but I really can't be bothered. I will make only one comment and that is that actions speak louder than words and true leaders lead by example.

There is plenty of time left in this presidency to see what kind of a leader Obama will be.

Long weekend here this weekend and I still have a touch of the flu so I will probably take it a bit easy. That said, I really need to get 3 runs in to restart my fitness program. It was supposed to start between xmas and nye but I got sick, then better, then sicker.

Footy pre-season starts next week, so I have to start doing something.

Nothing exciting, interesting or bizarre going on at the moment.

We need to get Minx back so I have someone to discuss Lance Armstrong's return with.

Dakar

Well after a years hiatas, the Dakar rally has been run and won again.

This years Dakar was something different. The on-going troubles facing many countries in Africa that lead to last year's Dakar being cancelled, convinced the organisers to move the rally to Argentina and Chile. So this year we had a Dakar that didn't go anywhere near Dakar.

I was pretty concerned when I heard this. I loved the stones of Morocco and the dunes of Mauritania, this iconic landscape made the Dakar.

I couldn't see how South America could reproduce this. Isn't Argentina and Chile all mountains and farmland?

How wrong was I????????

This years Dakar contained farmland and spectacular mountains, but it also contained no trail cross country runs through desolate scrub, roads covered in fesh-fesh* like water, rocky trails and some of the biggest dunes I have ever seen! The route was truly epic.

So while not in Africa, this year's Dakar seemed to have all the elements expected that provide a real endurance racing slog.

I would love to have a go at it one day, but I would probably do the Australian Safari first as a warm up.

*Fesh-fesh is a powdery like dust. The worst fesh-fesh is like water, you drag your finger through it and it collapses back in on itself so your finger leaves no mark.

Sick!

It finally happened. The boy who never gets sick, got sick!

I am not as bad as Birmo, but Birmo level would be the next stage.

I have had a couple of colds over the years, but I reckon it has been 8 years since I last had a sweaty, shaking flu like this one. I have that feeling like I have just played a hard game of footy on a 36 degree day.

I even took a couple of days off work!!!

Typical, I get sick just as the Dakar rally is coming to an end. At least I did have an excuse to watch the last couple of One Dayers.

Oh well. I am back at work today, so I better get back into it.

Voice2Text

We are trialling Telstra's Voice2Text on our mobiles at the moment.



It great from when you are in a meeting and get voicemail that you want to subtly check.



The problem is that it has trouble translating some of the words. It regularly gets names wrong and has words that it can't decipher. Here's an example:



Hi, it's your wife. Can we get some big ___ on your way home cold ones. Thanks. Bye.



I wasn't sure what to make of this message, but it sounded exciting so I sped up as I dialed my message bank to listen to the message.



You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered she just wanted me to get a couple of large Slurpees on the way home:-(

*NOTE: I actually wrote this some time last week but didn't publish it for some reason. Must have been just as I was getting sick.

Anarchism

As I am deep down an anarchist, here is my attempt to destroy global productivity during this time of financial turmoil -

check out http://stickcricket.foxsports.com.au

and for the Americans out there

http://stickbaseball.com

Now try and get a full days work done!!!

Russian Mafia Barber

Ok, so I am posting here now, that ought to confuse you all.

Got my hair cut on the weekend. I had been trying to grow it long, but I just don't have the patience to stuff around with long hair.

Why would I want long hair, I hear you ask.

Well two reasons really.

1. I had long hair when I was 16 and it seemed ok at the time. Mind you I spent so much time at the beach back then that it was permanently salt encrusted which made it easier to manage.

2. Males on Dad's side of the family traditionally go bald young. My granddad was balding, my dad is balding and my brother is balding. I inherited my hair from Mum's side of the family and so have never even had a hint of balding. So by growing my long I would be rubbing it in to my dad and brother (granddad won't care as I find dead people seldom give a stuff what the living are doing).

The problem is that as hair is on top of my head and I can't see it, I can't really be bothered spending much time on it. So for me, short is the best option.

Sunday I dropped into the barber's in the local shopping centre. This is an actual barbers shop and not one of those chain hair cutting places like Just Cuts.

I keep going back to this place for one simple reason. Not because they do a great job and I am really happy with them, I get my hair cut that short it is kind of irrelevant. Not because all the staff are female with big jugs, too much risk of turning your head at the wrong moment and getting scissors in the eye.

I go there because they don't even attempt to make small talk. They just sit you down and cut your hair.

The guy I had on Sunday was a classic example of the staff at this barbers. He is a big guy, couple of inches taller than me and probably carrying an extra 10kgs. Cheap, faded, dodgy tatt poking out from under his short sleeves and a blank, unemotional look on his face.

The guy only spoke to me three times to ask; what I wanted, to clarify one point and then to ask if it was short enough.

He didn't even ask me to tilt my head forward. If he wanted me to tilt forward then he continually whacked me in the back of the head until I did. When he wanted my head back up, then he slapped me in the forehead until I lifted it back up. There was no gentle but insistent pressure, he just whacked me till I moved.

You may think this seems a bit strange, but actually it makes complete sense. You see most of the staff at the barbers speak in a thick Russian accent, so clearly the shop is a money laundering scheme for the Russian Mafia.

Suffice to say, they don't get many complaints.

Other Blog

I have created this one just in case.

See my other blog at http://nautilis.wordpress.com