I am officially going bananas

I never got into the whole musical ring tone thing, when my phone rings it sounds like a phone ringing.

Well, actually, I hadn't got into it until now.

This is my new ring tone.



It starts at the "one banana" bit.

Better busy than dead, but I do feel like a re-animated zombie

I have been out of control busy lately. I have my Masters to do, little monster to help look after, football training and games, more plumbing to dig up and I am porting all our work ISDN phone services to a new telco which means lots of out of hours work.

This weekend was supposed to be a bit of a catchup weekend. Do some study and start an assignment, play a football practice match and knock off the last of the digging. This is how it finished up:

Friday Night

• Got picked by the Good Lady Naut (GLN) from work so we could go to a friend of hers surprise birthday drinks. He gets a couple of grand prix tickets for his birthday and invites me to go with him on Sunday.
• Home and in bed by midnight, I drove so I wouldn't be hungover while playing football (too old to play hungover these days. I once played a practice match so hungover that I stopped to vomit twice on the way to the game, we played 6 quarters and I didn't get a touch until the last quarter).

Saturday

• Get up and go play footy. Hot in the sun and the ground was rock hard so I was pretty knackered by the end of the game. Left shin/calf badly swollen from being kicked.
• Home, shower, feed the monster and then get the GLN to drop me at the train station.
• Train to the city then to The Squires Loft with 3 mates for dinner to wet my mate's babie's head. Pub crawled from there to the Waterside Hotel and succeeded in not only wetting the babie's head, but virtually drowning ourselves in alcohol as well.
• Taxi home, lots of water then bed by 3am.

Sunday

• Up by 8am with surprisingly no hangover. Feed the monster then jog to the train station complete with now badly bruised shin/calf and plenty of other aches from playing football on a rock hard ground.
• Train then tram to the track and meet my mate that has the ticket.
• Spend the day walking around the track introducing my mate to the world of F1 and Australian motorsport.
• Spend 4 hours standing in the same spot to, first of all reserve the spot, then watch the race.
• 7pm race is over and having not sat down since 11am, it feels like everything below my shoulders is only connected to me by pain receptors. As pain receptors don't actually control muscles, I very nearly fall in a heap while walking down the hill we watched the race from.
• Another tram and train ride followed by a 20 min walk and I get home about 8pm.
• In severe pain now and all my muscles are starting to seize if I stop moving for even a minute, but domestic duties have no sympathy for the weary.
• In bed, lights out at 11pm, asleep by 11:00:01 pm.

So of all the catchup I had planned, playing in the football practice match was the only thing I achieved.

Oh well, better busy than dead.

The softer side of Nautilus

I am not known as an emotional or sensistive person. I don't have a feminine side and am only in touch with my inner child when it comes causing trouble or displaying a childish response to emotional events.

But even a big, brute of a man like me, needs to show a softer side from time to time. So with that in mind, check out this new trailer for Where the Wild Things Are which will be released later in the year:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/

I am looking forward to this film, not just because I read the book as a kid, but also because a lot of it was filmed in Australia and Angus Sampson is in it.

Now that I have showed my softer side, here is a photo of me strangling a bear one handed (btw the pint is mine not the bears).

The Internet Filter is a joke.

I am not a particularly political person. I believe our political parties have both become so conservative that there is only a minimal difference between them. More than anything I just find politics boring.

That said, as an I.T. professional, I find the whole Internet filter issue extremely frustrating. Forget the potential for political censorship and a reduction of freedom of liberties. I just plain cannot see how it can work effectively!

We filter Internet usage at my place of employment. We maintain a blacklist and download updates to it from various sources. There is also the ability to block sites based on keywords. The problem is that as soon as a blacklist is saved it is out of date and keywords can give false positives, after all ass can mean a donkey type animal. It is easy to move a website to a new address and substitute offensive words with similar in-offensive words. Then there is the software that will allow you to bypass the filter all-together.

I imagine that most of the very illegal stuff done over the web is not website based. Websites can be tracked after all. Most of it would be peer-to-peer stuff that would make it a whole lot harder to find and how does an internet filter control what goes on in a messaging or chat type environment?

It's enough to make you think the Government is more interested in the potential to control Internet access than it is about protecting it's citizens.

The only effective path for controlling Internet access we have here at work, is to advise everyone of the rules and that we will be reviewing the usage logs. If you step outside the rules then we have grounds to instantly dismiss you.

Flinthart has had a number of posts on this subject and his latest informs us that Stephen Conroy (Communications Minister) will be on the ABC's show Q&A this Friday. I want to echo Flinthart's call for you to submit a question to the show on this topic, just follow this link.

Here's the question I submitted:

Why are we wasting money on an Internet filter that will be completely ineffective? Why not direct that funding to increase Police resources to identify and prosecute those that post or access illegal material on the web?

Terror Australis - Stupid people stay away

Yesterday, I sent an email to a friend listing all the things he can do on his holiday to Port Douglas. I finished the email by saying "The area is well worth the visit and you will enjoy provided you don’t get eaten by a shark or croc, stung by a jellyfish or bitten by a snake or catch dengue fever".

Whether you are a local or a foreign devil, we all know that Australia flora and funa is actively trying to kill you all the time. Redbacks don't just sit in their web, they hide under the toilet seat to launch a surprise attack. The croc or shark you don't see is the one that gets you. Snakes hide in the long grass where you can't see 'em and Dropbears are perfectly camouflaged by the foliage overhead.

Knowing this just makes the Logan man bitten by a Black snake seem really dumb! He figured an injured snake would know he was just trying to help!!! I reckon a couple of stubbies might have been involved in this incident.

Of course, reading this incident brought back memories of the truly moronic Darwin man that decided to collect a King Brown snake for the local pubs fish tank. He not only got bitten catching the snake, but he then put his hand back in the bag with the snake and got bitten several more times. He ended up in a coma for 6 weeks and lost his arm, but that isn't the funny part of the story (although it is pretty funny). The funny part is while they raced to the hospital, his mate administered first aid to keep him awake by pouring beer on him. Probably a good idea as these guys are soooo dumb, I bet he was driving!

I was looking (unsuccessfully) for the original newspaper article, complete with photo of the one armed guy in a wheelchair, when I discovered this site. The site contains 6 snake myths that have fooled gullible people and was astounded to find I hadn't really heard of any of them.

Snake Myths that have fooled gullible people

• The Death Adder has a sting in its tail. Being amongst the most poisoness snakes in the world wasn't enough?
• Snakes hypnotise their prey. How do they hold the watch without hands?
• Tiger Snakes chase people. You should run uphill to escape them. If they chase you, why would running uphill help?
• Snakes milk cows. WTF!!!!
• If you kill one of a pair of Tiger Snakes, its mate will hunt you down to take its revenge. Wasn't that the plot for one of the Jaws films?
• In Australia, there is a Hoop Snake that takes its tail in its mouth and then goes bowling merrily along. I think I saw this on an episode of the Simpsons.

So my conclusion after all this is, if you are stupid, stay the hell away from Australia.

*Note: I just found out that Terror Australis is the name of the 501st Legion of Star Wars costume enthusiasts. http://501tag.com/newlowsite/home.html

Scaremongering and maybe Howard was right!!!

As most of you know, I work in the wonderful world of I.T.

As part of my job, I am sometimes required to cleanup a virus effected pc and on a couple of occasions we have had a virus spread throughout our network. Not a big deal as most virus's are more concerned with propagating themselves or performing denial of service attacks on people like Microsoft, than doing any lasting damage to your pc.

Nevertheless, I still get, at a rate of about 1 per week, emails from staff that they have received warning about the latest and greatest virus that is on the loose. I usually spend about 3 seconds on google and then reply to them with a link to the snopes page confirming it is a hoax.

Sometimes the hoaxes are not even virus related, such as the one I received today which follows:

Subject: MOBILE PHONES - Do Not Call Register!

This is for Australian phone numbers!

REMEMBER: Mobile Phone Numbers Go Public next month.

REMINDER all mobile phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

Below is a link where you can enter your phone numbers online to put an end to telemarketing calls
https://www.donotcall.gov.au/

While the donotcall register is a legit gov website, the rest of the email is just scaremongering.

This is all no big deal when the emails are sent to me. It's a couple of seconds out of my life and I am happy to set people straight. The problem is when people forward these to group email addresses. I then have to deal with the panicky fallout.

So next time you receive a virus warning email, jump on google and search the subject or keywords with the word "hoax" and see what comes up. I reckon the little Johnny Howard said it best, "be alert, not alarmed".

Tree Change - pointless post

My parents, when they are not travelling the continent or the globe, reside on an 150 acre country property. Yep, they did the tree change thing.

It is a pretty simple life. The house is basically a flashy shed. Power comes from solar, wind generator and petrol generator, water from tanks, hot water from solar and pipes in the combustion heater and there is a septic tank for sewerage.

The view is pretty spectacular as they are on the crest of a North facing hill will untouched Crown Land on the opposite hill. The valley between runs West towards the Hume Highway and you can see the see the lights of Shepparton (the only part of Shepparton you want to see) in the distance.


The view of the valley is framed by a large tree surrounded by huge rocks with a large split rock below it on the slope into the valley.

The tree is so spectacular that my Aunt was moved to paint it for my parents, unfortunately I don't have a picture of the painting.

Sadly during a massive storm last year, my Dad was stunned to watch a bolt of lightening strike the tree and split it down the middle. The tree is now dead.

There is no real point to this post. Moko's post about the storms in Brisbane just reminded me of the tree so I thought I would post some photos of the Old's place. I love the browns of the Australian countryside, if it is too green it feels a bit strange (unless it is a Green Frog).

Dolph, he's no Warnie

During a short comment conversation with Lobes over at the burger, he brought up Dolph Lundren. Knowing Lobe's vast knowledge of most things and that he has been to Sweden, I thought I should do a little research at Dolph's IMDb page.

I was astounded!!!

Here is a short list of Dolph's more impressive achievements:

• Master's degree in Chemical Engineering


• Awarded Fulbright Scholarship to MIT


• Third degree black belt in Kyokushinkai Karate


• Has been both Australian and European Heavyweight Karate Champion


• Was Grace Jones's bodyguard and lived with her for 4 years (scary)


• Plays the drums (of course)


• Speaks three languages and bits and pieces of at least two more


• Served in the Swedish Marines


• Was photographed at the Factory by Warhol


• Worked as a bouncer in New York with Chazz Palminteri


• Is responsible for the quote I use most often in my life. "My problem is that people get intimidated by someone big and beautiful like me. They hate to think I can be smart as well."
• He looks like a gigantic blond knob

While he is no Warnie, he hasn't done too badly for a zombie!

People are weird

You have all heard me spruik the ego boosting benefits of google analytics.

Well there is another benefit and that is the ability to see the keywords people have used in search engines to stumble across your blog.

So far I have had 13 referrals from google using the following keywords:

10 man ration pack

20,000 leagues saturday night live video

exploding rabbits - Proud of this one

female barber shaving heads - Strangely proud of this one too

is mernda safe to live in with fire threats

kryal castle ballarat food - Embarrassed to be associated in any way with Ballarat

mafia barber - Pretty proud of this one, but also slightly scared it may get me killed

marcus ambrose koala

marcus ambrose nascar earnings

mernda dorren

safe to live mernda

shane warne the musical - Should have been shane warne the god

the words begest fesh .com - What the hell was this person looking for and were they disappointed?

I might have to take the tip from Paul Boylan back in the JS days and start mentioning Lesbian Pantomime horses.

I have 12 blisters and a sunburnt arse crack

Last weekend was the Labour Day long weekend here in Victoria.

Rather than do what most sensible people were doing and spend the weekend in a beer garden somewhere, here is what I was doing.

That's right, I dug a hole!

Our house has had plumbing problems since the day we moved in. We have already had a section of broken sewer pipe replaced, but I am sick of smelling the contents of the toilet every time I use the bathroom sink. It can make brushing your teeth reasonably unpleasant.

After much discussion with our plumber friend, we have made the big decision to replace all our pipes and re-route the sewer pipe out from under part of the house slab. The quote from the plumber was scary, but it virtually halved when I said I would dig up all the sewer pipes. Hence the hole.

I knew where roughly where the sewer pipe was from where the plumber had dug up the section he had replaced last time. So I dug in line with his previous trench and as his trench was chest deep on him, I dug until my trench was chest deep on me. After approximately 8 hours of digging and chipping through rock hard dry clay, when widening the trench I finally found the pipe. The following is a picture of me pointing to the pipe.

So not only did I dig on the wrong line, I also dug about 3 feet too deep. BUGGER!

After about 13 hours digging, this is what I finished up with.

Now I just have to dig under the path, down the side of the house and then back under the path to the side of the house.

I already have 12 blisters and a sunburt arse crack, how do you reckon next weekend is going to go?

DVD Gold!!!

Most of you will be old hands at searching the bargin bins at book stores, video stores, record stores, etc. Well on the weekend I was searching through the $2 DVD bins out the front of the newsagents when I struck gold! Hidden in amongst films starring David Hasselhoff and Billy Baldwin was this little beauty:

Project Grizzly is a documentary about Troy James Hurtubise's attempt to make and test a suit of armour capable of withstanding attack from a Grizzly Bear.

Troy is a Canadian inventor/scrap yard owner/martial artist that gets aboot (he is Canadian) the bush wearing a red beret, jackets with lots of tassells, a bowie knife on his hip and a throwing knife on a bandolier (because real mountain men know you are better off with a knife than a gun). Incidently, the bit where Troy discusses his reasons for carrying knives shows his true warrior mindset, but doesn't explain the beret.

He is an amazing man that has not only an incredibly inventive mind and altheletic physic, but also understands the importance of striking a pose and shaving lines into the side of your mullet 90's rapper style. I think I offically have a man crush!

Troy also understands the importance of riggerous testing and these make up some of the most education aspects of the documentary. I have included the following example.

Being the moden man he is, Troy has his own website here which I can see myself spending many hours on.

So if you are hunting through the bargin DVD bins and see a copy of Project Grizzly at only $2, buy it, you won't regret it.

ps. Today's Green Frog is brought was brought to you by The Good Lady Naut.