Someone really needs to check before broadcasting.....

Beginning May 31st, we have "Cool As Clint" week, which is all about bombarding us with Clint Eastwood movies on Fox Classics, one of the channels offered on Foxtel, my pay TV provider here in Aus.

Unfortunately, though, nobody bothered to check to see if the screen shot above actually reads as "Cool As Clint" and not something far worse, before broadcasting!

Oh! For the days of proofreaders and their ilk!

Other things - there's been a series of somewhat bizarre advertisements being broadcast on the telly recently, all involving animals in some shape or other. For the most part, they've been for Bank West, one of the bigger State-run banks (in Western Australia). Each State in Aus seems to have their own bank - Bank of NSW, Bank of QLD, etc.

My favourite Bank West ads have been the flower in its pot, singing (badly), with animal onlookers, and the red squirrel ad, where he talks about squirrelling away all his nuts(!)

Given we don't actually have squirrels (let alone the British Red), it's an odd choice for selling banking to Australians, but it's terribly cute, and I like it.

But my all time favourite is the one I saw last night for Cadbury Chocolate.

If you go to this link, you can watch it in all its smoothy goodness:

http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com.au/index.php

(Make sure you have the sound on!).

That's me for today - got stuff to do. Toodles....

It's been a busy few weeks....

I finally finished my university subject at the end of February, and managed to pass all my assignments, although nowhere near as well as I would have hoped.

I'm struggling currently with what feels likely to be a bout of 'flu, or at least an early Autumn cold. I know I seem to be far more tired than I should be most days, but perhaps that has something to do with worrying about my silly dalmatian, who recently underwent surgery on his nether regions for stones in his bladder (poor boy).

He's okay now, however, but we are still awaiting the results of some tests on the stones to see what part of his diet caused them in the first place.

So on to other news. I joined a book club today. Or rather, the woman at my local library who sets up the book clubs up here rang me to say they had a vacancy for one of the book clubs that meets during the day. As it is only one day every three weeks, I felt that even with my limited energy, I could manage that! So this Friday, I go to my first meeting. Should be interesting, at the very least.

Apart from worrying about university and my dog, I've not really been doing much of late. We've been having floods again. Like most Queenslanders, I am thoroughly sick to death of the sight of rain now, and look forward to a cold and crisp Winter (preferably dry).

Anyway, stuff to do.

It's raining, it's pouring.....(you know the rest!)

Just a very brief blog entry (at 4.30am!) to say not a whole lot, but mostly because it's been all of about half a month since my last one, and I thought I should try and blog AT LEAST once a month!

Anyway, short version of my life:

1. I've been busy with this and that (work and/or study-related)

2. I've been stressy because of the rain (I should expect rain, given it's the stormy season here in Sunny Queensland where it seems to rain more than any other country on the planet, or at least, that's how it feels). It's been flooding down behind me again, and once again I've been cut off from all manner of civilisation, except what can be found online or on the telly.

3. My cats have survived almost an entire summer outside in their cat enclosure, despite one of the velcro twins having his bleeding nose thing going on again. Grrrr.

4. The mad dalmatian who I call my own, has been having "let's see who can bark the loudest at the stupidest of things, oh and in the middle of the night too" contests with the ring leader of the two Border Collies who lives next door. She eggs him on, and he says "I'll take your bet, and raise you..."

So there you go. Now I'm off to do more work and/or study...

Aftermath of Australia Day - past and present...

I was looking yesterday for a picture of the Aussie flag for my blog entry about Australia Day, and in my travels I came across an absolutely fantastic Brisbane blogger. His blog for yesterday was about the 1974 floods. Given I was only 5 months old at the time (so a month older than I am in my blog photo), I don't rightly remember the flood well :-)

Also my family was living in a little country town outside of Ipswich at the time, so we weren't actually in Brisbane. What I'm getting around to saying is that while I have grown up all my life with stories of the flood of '74, and I knew it was in January, I wasn't actually aware of the fact that it also coincided with Australia Day that year.

Anyway, the blog entry is here:

http://www.yourbrisbanepastandpresent.com/2010/01/australia-day-floods-1974.html

It is well worth a read for lots of reasons. It has some wonderful photos of Brisbane, both past and present, as well as a very good history lesson or three!

Having had a good (but quick! - I promise to go back for a more in-depth gander soon) look, I came across some other links from his sites, but one I will post here for Ceramix's benefit. Perhaps it will help him understand some of the things I come out with on occasions. I know the Aussie lingo is unique, and so I offer up a website with some absolute doozies from the Aussie culture:

http://www.wallabydown.com/slang.html

Anyway, it's going to get up to 34 or so today (that's Celsius, guys), so I'd best get on with things before it gets too hot.

Enjoy your day!

Happy Australia Day!

It's been a typical Australia Day for me - hot and sweltering! As opposed to last year, when I went down to Brisbane for the day (South Bank, to be exact), I chose to stay close to home this year. Given the Christmas/New Year period was less than celebratory due to illnesses, deaths, and anniversaries of previous deaths, I woke up today not really feeling much like celebrating our national day, to be honest.

So I went to the shops (I checked first to make sure they'd be open!), and had some wonderful chats with the various check-out chickies I had dealings with. Mostly about how as a nation, we seem only to physically portray our patriotic tendencies on this one day of the year. For the rest of the year, our flags, t-shirts, shorts, and other general paraphernalia that we have with Aussie flags, flora, fauna etc on them, are safely tucked away in the bottom drawer - "for safe keeping".

The same goes for our music, it seems. I, for one, love the local Aussie music scene. We have a wonderful eclectic style of music here in Australia. So why are our radio stations full of American and English music? What about Aussie pride?

Mind you, I'm getting myself all worked up here about the lack of Australian Pride and Patriotism, while listening to John Farnham, so I can't talk! You can't get much more Aussie than ol' John Farnham. Except maybe for Barnsie (Jimmy Barnes), Acca Dacca (AC/DC), INXS, and Skyhooks, just to name a few.

Kinda helps to have a large music library, I guess!

But for the most part, our radio stations (on TV (now that that's an option), radio, internet, mobiles, etc) seem to rarely play much Aussie music that I can find, unless it's Country.

Anyway, I'm waffling now, so I'll stop, and go back to my happy music listening, having cheered up a great deal since I got home :-)

Either way, I plan on spending tonight listening to more Aussie music - all on my lonesome :(

(But I do plan on enjoying it!)

R.I.P.

My neighbour died last night at 8:25pm. Her funeral is next week, and I plan on attending. The new neighbours in the ex-rent-a-house have offered to drive me there and back, which is very nice of them, and I will be forever grateful to them for going out of their way for me.

Not much else to say, really, and I don't rightly feel like talking much just now anyway, except to say that I am no longer all that keen on January as a month, as it seems to be a month when everyone dies. With the exception of two small people I know, both born in January, I can't say that there is much to celebrate anymore.

Roll on February!

:(

Lots of different things.....

Firstly, I must say - Happy New Year.

Now that that is over, let me just catch up on what's been happening since Halloween, which was my last post.

Firstly, a bit before Halloween, my sister got married. Yay!

Secondly, I did okay with my week on no power stint, although not as well as I would have liked. I will do better next time.

Thirdly, the rent-a-house next door has finally been sold and now I have nice new neighbours, with two lovely dogs who enjoy coming over to play with my silly dalmatian.

Fourthly, my other neighbours, who have been here since forever (it seems), well they aren't doing so well. One of them has cancer, and it doesn't look at all good. The person in question has recently been moved to a hospital near by and put in the palliative care unit, so I guess that isn't such great news for them. I still hope every day that it will go into remission, or the docs will find out that it was all one big mistake, and that my neighbour is fine.... Either way, I will be there for those left behind as best I can, but I share their pain. My neighbour is very dear to me, and I don't want to see them go either.

Apart from that, (and to change the subject completely)...

Why is Britain complaining that they don't have enough grit for their roads? Surely, after last year's massive snowfalls, and the fact that they ran out (or came very close to it) , they would make sure that this year they had ample supply? Or is it just me that thinks this makes good sense? If you run out one year, make sure you have enough for the next year! It's called stocking up, fellas!

Over Christmas I finally got myself something I've been wanting for ages. It's a doo-hickey that allows me to transfer all my cassettes to my computer. (It will also do records, cds, videos, etc) So I've been having a play with that, as one of my New Year's Resolutions is to de-clutter my life and my house.

And I have A LOT of cassettes from my teenage years.....

It's been an interesting journey though, finding out what I used to listen to, tranferring stuff that I've never been able to find on CD (or download) over to a more manageable (and storeable) format, plus also discovering some audio files of lectures, rehearsal tapes for concerts I was in, and some recordings of myself!

Anyway, stuff to do...