A list

It has been pointed out out me on more than one occasion that I have expressed a desire to marry a somewhat larger that usual number of women. This is caused by a number of things: I am a fairly polite individual, so in saying "I'd like to marry her," chances are that it is really a euphemism for "I'd like to lay her down and eat carbonara sauce out of her crevices", also, I am old and alone - getting married would mean that I wouldn't have to cook and clean anymore (isn't that what wives are for?), very occasionally (probably never, really) it means that I find someone exciting on levels other than (as well as?) physical. I am very shallow. So because of this, and because lists are, apparently, The Go, here follows a Readers Digest abridged list of

Women I'd Like To Fuc Bone Introduce to Strange Carnal Activities Marry

I will post itty bitty pictures of all candidates; click on their names for the full-sized jobbies, there will also occasionally be links to other piccies, these will probably be rude, though. I will try to maintain some sort of chronological order to make things simpler. Like all chronological lists, I will start in the BC era. BC in this case stands for Before Conception, i.e., women who were around before I was born. It is only possible to go back to about 1920 because before that photographic images are poor and, more importantly, all the women were ugly, even Helen of Troy. Naturally, these women, even more than the others, represent only hypothetical potential brides; I'm not that much into necrophilia. I tried it once and the bitch just lay there. So First up we have
Jean Harlow, who was the person for whom the phrase "Platinum Blonde" was coined. A very early example of a women who used her physical attributes rather than talent both to get to- and to stay at- the top. A proto-skank, if you will.









Lauren Bacall, on the other hand, is class personified. Still dead, but.









Audrey Hepburn too, personifies class. She could stand still for a long time, too. Often credited with (blamed for?) creating the waif look and launching a billion eating disorders, apparently she had some sort of medical condition which prevented her from gaing weight. Don't care; she was a hornbag








.Barbara Eden played what most pop-psychologists think of as the weak man's dream girl, overtly sexy, submissive and eager to please. Dunno 'bout that, but I thought she was a babe when I was going to school. Still do. The world's best known piece of trivia is the fact that she never showed her navel during the entire run of the show. Imagine my surprise when the first picture that came up in an image search was this.







Cherie Currie caused my balls to drop. Singer of a girl band called the Runaways, teenage boys all over the world risked going blind every night as they used Cherie for inspiration. Makes a living these days as a chainsaw sculptor. Although these photos are not, in the strict sense of the word, rude, if I were born with an inny instead of an outty then a) I would never let myself get into this state, b) if I did get into this state, I would not get my photo taken until I fixed myself, c) If by some chance the photos did get taken, I would not allow them to be published, especially on my own website. Seriously. At the risk of being rude I will quote Butch Buchanan , a sadly deceased friend with whom I went through trade school - "You could cut steaks off that."





Erin Gray burst into my life as Colonel Deering in 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'. I'd never heard of her before that and she disappeared after it. Given to wearing short dresses and lycra bodysuits (ahh, lycra, where would the eighties have been without it?), apparently she did some acting in the show, too. I didn't notice.







Kate Jackson was the intelligent one in Charlie's Angels (the series, not the movie, dickhead). You could tell that she was the intelligent one because she wore higher necklines. Again, this show is the only time she has ever appeared outside her own home. Probably.








Donna Summer was a bit of a disco diva. The only song I can remember her singing was a cover of 'The Wanderer'. Badly. I used to watch her on the telly with the sound turned down and some real music on the stereo. I know absolutely nothing else about her.








Samantha Fox was a British page 3 girl who hooked up with an aussie con-man, started flogging 'diet tea' and has disappeared. The only page 3 type whose name I even know, Fox was famous for her tits. Personally I thought that they were good, but not outstanding. She did, however have those classic good looks which people in Britain like to think is a national trait. It isn't. I think that, like Goldie Hawn, Raquel Welch and a few others, she'll look good well into her fifties. Except for her tits, maybe.







Sabrina was a singer of sorts, apparently. I can remember several videos with her in them, which appeared on music programs. You couldn't hear anything in the videos as the room was always filled with the sound of men goin "hhhrrrrrr, mmpph" and similar noises, while the women were going, "You bastards are pathetic! If you don't turn that off right now, we're leaving."
That's when I learned to cook.






This is the only photo I could find of Karla DeVito. I'm not bothering with the link to the full-sized image because she looks pretty crook in it. Anybody who remembers the film clip in which she appeared with Meatloaf will remember that she was a hornbag back in the day. Don't know anything about her beside that video appearance.











Ellen Foley was the voice on the song that used Karla DeVito in the filmclip. Dunno why they didn't use Ellen for that. Foley had the ability to sing a song as if it was being played backwards, effectively a human backmasking machine. Didn't get her very far.









Kristy MacNicol was in one of those saccharine US family dramas called... Something. She was also in a few movies like 'Pirates' and 'Little Darlings'. She was pretty hot to me when I was growing up. OK, I'm getting tired, so I'm not bothered putting them in order anymore.








Lisa Bonet played Bill Cosby's daughter in Some Show. She was also married to Lenny Kravitz. Lucky bastard.











Nathalie Imbruglia played A. Character on Neighbours, or Home and Away, or something. Sang (sings?) a few songs and is married to that tool from Siverchair. Lucky Bastard.









Janet Jackson was hot in the 'Black Cat' video. Hasn't interested me before or since. She's got plenty of rude piccies online. Had work done too, by the look of it. Must be genetic.






Sue Stanley was World Aerobics Champion. I don't know what that means, either. When I was working at the pool she came to town on some sort of demonstration tour. She came to the pool about twenty minutes before closing time to swim some laps in the heated pool. It was cold and she was the only one in the pool. She was swimming in one of those g-string style aerobics outfits. I let her swim until she'd had enough, long after chuckin' out time. If she squeezed her butt-cheeks hard enough, she would have cracked walnuts with them. Nice girl, too.






Winona Ryder is an incredibly beautiful woman. I have this photo as the desktop background on my 'pooter. Has acted a bit, usually in shit movies, though. Probably not the most well-balanced individual on the face of the planet, but sanity is over-rated.





Christina Applegate played teen skank Kelly Bundy in Married With Children. The last series is the only one worth watching as Applegate developed the Kelly character into the uberskank. Don't know if she was acting or not.






Christina Aguilera is a modest lassie who came to fame as a soloist in the Modesto County choir. Demure, retiring, yet somehow slightly sensual, one for the thinking man.
P.S. If you can't find any naughty pics of her, you just aren't trying.









OK, so I know that they are cartoon characters; but apart from that;, between the two of them they compose just about the ideal woman. Funny, intelligent, cynical and Jane Lane has a sexy voice. And Daria wears glasses. I like glasses.




Halle Berry is a first-rank hornbag who can't act, despite what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would have you believe. I saw her on a Leno once. Once was enough, with an airhead like that, she'll never drown. Doesn't stop her from being extremely sexy, though.








Brooke Hanson has a beautiful, smile, body and attitude to life. I like her.









Alyssa Camplin was the first Australian to win a gold medal at the winter olympics because of skill, as opposed to being too slow to reach the accident. Joint holder with Hanson of The Best Smile In World Sport. Yum Yum>









Martina Hingis has the best body of any woman 'I've ever seen. Built like a Swiss watch, it's a pity she has a face like a chipmunk.









But the one you've been waiting for (I know I have, I'm sick of this), the Woman I Want To Marry is...











Nigella Lawson is promoted as a Domestic Goddess. Dunno 'bout that, makes her sound like one of those chubby little statues the patchouli set put on the mantel-piece. I love Nigella - she makes cooking into pornography, and licking spoons into an art form. She also has one of the sexiest voices I've ever heard.





Well, that's it.
I wonder when the female readers are thinking of returning?

This is the title of the previos post, erm, I can't remember what I was going to call it.

.

So last night I didn't drive the eliminator, but was on the sidebuster instead. Pretty macho names, huh? A sidebuster is a ripper that busts the sides out of the hills (hence the name), then pulls the hills back up instead. As there is a lot of load on the tractor doing this, it is only a four row rig instead of the eight rows that the in-crop implements are. It still keeps the tractor down to about 4.5 k's though; this, coupled with the fact that nothing goes wrong with it and it is pretty much self-steering means that you get pretty bored. You might say that your mind wanders, even after you take over an hour to find and repair a wiring fault. My mind wandered to blogging - and suitable subjects to post about. I started off with a subject I am going to post about (not tellin'), from there it drifted off to a girl I knew when I worked at the CQ swimming pool, the first aircraft my father saw, another girl I knew at the pool, how to win back ex-girlfriends, animal welfare, a third girl I knew at the pool and on and on. The only common link in all of it was the pool and more specifically the kids who were there at the time. Therefore I'm going to tell you a few stories of my pool daze. The first one will probably get the attention of the paedophiles and their hunters.
It must have been late September or early October because I don't remember anybody using the two outdoor pools except for a girl about twelve years old and her younger brother. I don't remember their names but they were regulars. Good kids, loud and energetic, happy kids, very polite. In the wading pool was a fountain made of stainless steel about 700mm high, one jet of water going straight up about 1200mm and a circle of smaller jets coming out sideways around the top.
The kids had been playing around for about half an hour when I noticed the girl behaving..., oddly. I thought that I must be putting an incorrect interpretation on things, so I went into the manager's residence - which was attached to the kiosk/office and got the manager's daughter; who was the wife of the vet, to come and give me a second opinion. I didn't give any hints, just got her to come and look at 'something' for me. She came out, took one (un-hinted at) look at the young girl and Vet's Wife's eyes bulged out, her jaw dropped, her eyebrows shot up, one hand covered her mouth and she didn't breathe for at least thirty seconds.
The young girl was in the wading pool, standing over the fountain, occasionally adjusting her position so that the main jet of water was spraying on her - in the words of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction - holiest of holies. Every now and then she'd go off and play with her brother, usually after he had splashed her, then it was straight back to the fountain.
After a couple of minutes when Vet's Wife had got over her initial shock and had subdued the urge to burst into laughter she said "I know one little girl who isn't so little anymore."
Then followed a long discussion about masturbation in general and female masturbation in particular. Vet's Wife never took her eyes off the young girl the whole time. Eventually VW said "You know, I don't think she even realises she's doing it. She couldn't, or she wouldn't be so blatant about it."
Me: "What should I do about it?"
VW: "DON"T FUCKING TELL HER!"
There was a girl in the swimming club, K, who started High School the first summer I was at the pool. K was - and still is - the prettiest girl I have ever met. Nice kid to go with it, probably also the best behaved kid I have ever met, too. In fact K was so pretty that one Sunday evening I was at the local Leagues Club with my mad Scottish next-door neighbour, to whom I spoken about K but who had never met her, when he said "That girl you told me about is here in the restaurant with her boyfriend. I was up on most of the swimming club kid goss and didn't know she had a boyfriend so I wandered past the restaurant to check him out. It was her Dad, who still looks like he's about thirteen. The point is, Jock knew who she was just because she was so good looking.
In the first year of high school, all the kids were put through their Bronze Medallion. Part of this involved 'rescuing' somebody and towing them back to shore, fifty metres each way. The P.E. teacher (actually, it's H.P.E. these days) explained this to the assembled class, then told the kids to split into pairs and take it in turns rescuing each other. A fist-fight broke out between the two boys nearest to K over the right to rescue her. K, in the meantime, had partnered with another girl.
There was another girl in the swimming club (there were boys, too, but most adolescent boys are much less likely to: a) do anything interesting, b) go near an adult or c) not be annoying.) who, were I about six or seven generations younger, I would have chasing her around like a dingo bitch on heat. L wasn't all that pretty (she was kind of cute in that Martina Hingis/chipmunk kind of way), but she was intelligent, quick-witted and had the physique that comes from six or seven years of increasingly intense physical training. Over the time I was at the pool L and I became pretty good mates. Actually I became good friends with a lot of the kids. One of them joined the Navy and served in the Gulf. Once during a swimming carnival a lady from another town came up to me, pointed at L, who was doing a few slow laps in the indoor pool, and said "You'll have to stop her doing that, it's just not right."
Me: "What, warming down?"
Lady: "No, that other thing, it's just not right." Look of stern disapproval, then she went back outside, leaving me confused. When L had finished swimming I told her what the lady had told me. L laughed and said "OK, I'll stop."
"Stop what?"
"Giving your phone number to all the good looking women I see."
"What did you do that for?"
"Well, you know... You haven't had a regular woman since you got rid of (ex-girlfriend), I've got brothers, I know about urges and there are lots of women out there. You should be grateful."
What could I say, she had good taste. A couple of the women actually called, but only to let me know what happened.
OK, boy story. During another, smaller carnival, the mother of one of the boys in the club came up to me and told me that her boy had got a gumnut caught in his bellybutton. I didn't bother asking how he had managed to do this, it seemed pointless. I tried a few tricks, nothing worked. I also made a suggestion which was rejected, so the boy was sent over the road to the ambulance station. They handpassed him on to the hospital, where my suggestion was taken up: they drilled a blind hole into the gumnut, inserted a screw into the hole and - using the medical equivalent of a pair of pliers - grabbed the crew and ripped the gumnut out.

Slant 6 Mind

Doing night shift you get bored. AM radio reception goes haywire pretty much on sunset and there ain'y no FM stations nearby. So I dug out some old tapes from the junkroom music library. One of them was a tape I made of a CD I had forgotten about, Greg Brown's Slant 6 mind. It's the only album of his I've ever seen and it's a ball-tearer. Think of a mix of Tony Joe Whie, Van Morrison and Willie Nelson - only not gross. I don't know why I stopped listening to this; I played it almost non-stop last night. One of the songs - Mose Allison Played Here - reminded me a little of the pubs Hooch took me to:

Mose Allison Played Here
The joint is a dump
the owner is broke
at least that's what he said
the p.a.'s a joke
the waitpersons are snotty, the bartender's rude
they want to make sure I know they forgot me
but not their attitude
the bellyachers played last night
everybody got sick
don't even try dancing, your feet would just stick
the band signs their poster
"fuck u miguel"
and that's all the good part
the bad parts the smell
and what was your name again, oh - yeah - right - brown
your crowd just drinks water
surprised you're still around

and nobody's coming, because hey man you see
advertisings expensive, hey, what guarantee

but as I set up I am proud to be here
because once last November, Mose Allison played here.



I like'd 'em.

Slant 6 Mind

Doing night shift you get bored. AM radio reception goes haywire pretty much on sunset and there ain'y no FM stations nearby. So I dug out some old tapes from the junkroom music library. One of them was a tape I made of a CD I had forgotten about, Greg Brown's Slant 6 mind. It's the only album of his I've ever seen and it's a ball-tearer. Think of a mix of Tony Joe Whie, Van Morrison and Willie Nelson - only not gross. I don't know why I stopped listening to this; I played it almost non-stop last night. One of the songs - Mose Allison Played Here - reminded me a little of the pubs Hooch took me to:

Mose Allison Played Here
The joint is a dump
the owner is broke
at least that's what he said
the p.a.'s a joke
the waitpersons are snotty, the bartender's rude
they want to make sure I know they forgot me
but not their attitude
the bellyachers played last night
everybody got sick
don't even try dancing, your feet would just stick
the band signs their poster
"fuck u miguel"
and that's all the good part
the bad parts the smell
and what was your name again, oh - yeah - right - brown
your crowd just drinks water
surprised you're still around

and nobody's coming, because hey man you see
advertisings expensive, hey, what guarantee

but as I set up I am proud to be here
because once last November, Mose Allison played here.



I like'd 'em.

Happy Easter and stuff

OK. we all know that it's Easter tomorrow (or today, depending on how you look at it). We all also know that I'm a lazy bastard, so here's a coup[e of (very tenuously) Easter related cut and paste jobbies that I've been saving for a special occasion. The first one comes from a newsgroup devoted to cooking (Don't laugh, a man's gotta eat, and if you don't know how to cook, then someone who can cook is a good person to ask for advice), I don't remember who posted it, but it's called

The Rules Of Chocolate

If you get melted chocolate all over your hands,
you're eating it too slowly.

Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices
and strawberries all count as fruit,
so eat as many as you want.

The problem:
How to get two pounds of chocolate home
from the store in a hot car.
The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.

Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal.
It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.

A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of
calories in one place. Isn't that handy?

If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in
the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate,
what's wrong with you?

If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top
of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they
will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.

Money talks. Chocolate sings.

Chocolate has many preservatives.
Preservatives make you look younger.

Why is there no such organization as
Chocoholics Anonymous?
Because no one wants to quit.

Put eat chocolate at the top of your list of things to do today. That
way, at least you'll get one thing done.

Tee Hee, huh. OK, that one was probably more for the laydeez. I don't really have anything for the blokes, so Maybe you'll just have to

Deal With It

You've probably heard of the term 'metrosexual', or stupid things like
'queer eye for the straight guy'. Well here is the latest movement, the
Retrosexual!
OK folks, I have had it. Every time my TV is on, all that can be seen is
effeminate men redecorating houses, talking about foreign concepts like
"style", and "fixing" guys like myself. Real men of the world, stand up,
scratch your butt, belch, and yell, "ENOUGH!" I hereby announce the start of
a new offensive in the culture wars, the Retrosexual movement.

The Code
A Retrosexual DEALS with it. Be it a flat tire, break-in into your home, or
a natural disaster, you DEAL WITH IT.
A Retrosexual not only eats red meat, he often kills it himself.
A Retrosexual doesn't worry about living to be 90. It's not how long you
live, but how well. If you're 90 years old and still smoking cigars and
drinking, I salute you.
A Retrosexual does not use more hair or skin products than a woman. Women
have several supermarket aisles of stuff. Retrosexuals need 1.
A Retrosexual does not dress in clothes from Hot Topic when he's 30 years
old.
A Retrosexual should know how to properly kill stuff (or people) if need be.
This falls under the "dealing with it" portion of The Code.
A Retrosexual watches no TV show with "Queer" in the title.
A Retrosexual does not let neighbors screw up rooms in his house on national
TV.
A Retrosexual should not give up excessive amounts of manliness for sex.
Some is inevitable, but major re-invention of yourself will only lead to you
becoming a froo-froo little wuss, and in the long run, she ain't worth it.
A Retrosexual is allowed to seek professional help for major mental stress
such as drug/alcohol addiction, death of your entire family in a freak
treechipper accident, favorite sports team being moved to a different city
etc. You are NOT allowed to see a shrink because Daddy didn't pay you enough
attention. Daddy was busy DEALING WITH IT. When you screwed up, he DEALT
with you. Buck up WUSSY.
A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to
conceal himself from prey.
A Retrosexual does not strip naked, get into a sweat lodge, and bang on
drums to bond with other guys. That stuff is gay. However dressing in kilts,
banging on drums around a campfire, and drinking heavily is just fine.
A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting.
(If not, he can borrow some from a friend who has enough wound stories to
last for 3 lifetimes)
A Retrosexual knows how to use a basic set of tools. If you can't hammer a
damn nail, or drill a straight hole, practice in secret until you can or be
rightfully ridiculed for the wuss you be.
A Retrosexual does not order an apple martini at the bar. Get a beer and a
shot of scotch or bourbon.
A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that you are riddled
with fear, or are trying to make up for a small penis. Guns are TOOLS and
are often essential to DEAL with it. Plus it's just plain fun to shoot.

Note:
Crying. There are very few reason that a retrosexual may cry, and none of
them have to do with TV commercials, movies, or soap operas. Sports teams
are sometimes a reason to cry, but the preferred method of release is
swearing or throwing the remote control. Some reasons a retrosexual can cry
include ( but are not limited to) death of a loved one, death of a pet (
fish do NOT count as pets in this case), loss of a major body part.

OK so that one came from another newsgroup, but at least it came from the testosterone laden atmosphere of a motorcycling newsgroup.
Happy Easter ya bastards.

Nightshift

So yesterday morning I had to show one of the Irishmen (we've got two of them now, the original one has returned and brought his cousin with him) how to operate the offsets, repair a puncture and go to bed so that I could be bright eyed and bushy-tailed for nightshift last night. I forgot to sleep, though.
Except for the bright eyed and bushy-tailed part it all went well.
Picking started on Monday (May the Great Chicken bless contractors - I hate picking) and I'm chasing around behind the pickers with an Eliminator, which is a combined root-cutter and mulcher and full-time concentration thing; which is good as it helps the time pass. On top of that, a road-train of steers arrived just before two a.m., so I had to unload that as well. One of the steers was blind or retarded or something and didn't want to come off the truck. I dragged it off by the ear eventually. Chalk up one side swipe to the third buttock. I didn't cry, though.
Not while the truckie was still there.

Couple of updates

I had a bit of a chat on the phone to dear ol' Dad on Sunday. He cleared up a couple of things for me.
Firstly, the mystery bike is probably a grasstracker. Popular in England, but not so much over here, grasstracking is essentially speedway on grass, albeit the tracks are usually a little bit longer. I should've thought of that, maybe I've got a late developing concussion.
Dad received a phone call from the publican of the Empire Hotel on Monday morning, asking if any of his kids had lost a mobile. The pub guy had gone through the menu and found a number labelled 'Dad' and gave him a call. Dad then called my brother and got him to pick it up and send it to me.
There goes my 'Didn't make it to Sinny' excuse. Oh well. Pity that I've already bought another phone and left the charger for the old one at the fleapit. Nevermind.

For no apparent reason

OK, so I think I've sorted out the problem I had with posting photos. I've selected this one to post because I don't think I've posted this before.This is what happens when you are not paying attention. It happened at the last place I worked at. It was a Saturday and I was the only one on the farm. I had to walk about four kilometres to where the nearest tractor was, drive the tractor another five kilometres back to the shed to get a chain, then drive back to the first tractor, hook up the chains, then get in the first tractor, start it up, put it in first, leave it spinning, get out and go up to the second tractor, put it in gear, tow the first one out and up the hill, stop the second tractor, run back and stop the first tractor, then explain to the boss on Monday why the tractor wasn't where it was supposed to be.

States of Confusion

There are a couple of stories in the news over the last couple of days that illustrate - to me, anyway - why a state/federal system just don't work too good.
The first one is in America, where in that hotbed of loony left liberalism - Florida - the court system has decided that it is OK to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, essentially starving her to death. Now the boss of the world United States, who is the brother of the boss of Florida, has said "Nuh-uh! Like, no way dude, not while I'm on patrol!" and has got his flunkies to push a bill through congress which would allow the Federal judiciary system to get involved in the case, presumably because he believes the Feds are more conservative/scared of the Right To Lifers.
Meanwhile, here in Orstraylyer, the Federal attorney - general has decided that large corporations should be allowed to sue for slander, which is different to what the state attorneys - general think. So, in the spirit of compromise, Razor Ruddock has set a deadline for the states to change their laws to suit him or he will write a federal law.
Which makes me wonder why we have states. Granted 'State Of Origin' has more of a ring to it than 'General Area Of Origin', but it doesn't sound that good that we should pay an extra shitload of shiny bums a shitload of dollars to render the whole system of government even more inefficient than it otherwise would be. Government will never be efficient no matter what system is in place - look at defence, where no-one but the Feds are involved, or the local council, where no-one but... you get the point. At least if we fucked the States off, the Feds would have no-one to blame when people aren't happy about schools/health/infrastrucure/ tax burdens etc.
It just so happens that in both of these cases I am on the state's side, although the Schiavo case is not as clear-cut as it would appear. Her family seem a bit histrionic in their accusations about her husband and their is little doubt that they are extraordinarily selfish in their desires but they do have a valid claim as Terri's blood to be involved in any decision about her future. I think they are delusional in both their claims about Mr. Schiavo and their opinion on Terri's state of consciousness (Daffodils react to light, too, it doesn't make them cognizant).Whether it would be more of a tragedy if they were successful is debatable. Every court in Florida disagreed with them, however and that's where the matter should have ended. Either you have a states based system of government or you don't.
As for corporate slander, no doubt the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry will be pining for the same simple rights that are granted to Joe Everybody, yearning to be free, like the downtrodden everywhere. It would never occur to them, or any of their members that they could make vexatious claims against Joe Everybody and then keep those claims tied up in court so long that Joe Everybody is a broke and broken man. That just isn't the corporate way to use your strengths to gain whatever advantage you can. Once again, you either have a states based system or you don't.
These two cases don't do anything to make my position easier to justify, but I'm sticking to it.

Two wheels are enough for me

So now that I'm a bit more confident with this photobucket thingy (except for arranging the photos in order) its time to put something with a little class on this site. If you don't like motorcycles you'd be better off mowing the lawn or something 'cos that's all I got.Actually all these motorcycles (except one) have a strong family connection with me. Or at least the models do.

First up we have a 1950 JAP powered speedway bike - exactly the same as my dear old Dad used to race. Pretty, huh?

Next up we have a 1971(?) Triumph Trident. They're pretty, but I don't like 'em all that much. Releases in about 1970 they were essentially a 5T with an extra cylinder, which means that they are 11/2 times a1938 motorcycle designed by Edward Turner. You can tell when one has been ridden for any length of time, the centre two header pipes (the middle gylinder has a siamesed exhaust port) go blue from overheating. In fact, until people wised up and started honing out the centre cylinder a few thou, they would sieze at the drop of a hat. My brother has one...

Now we get on to the good stuff... A 1939 MOV 250cc Velocette. Originally built as commuter bike, somebody has obviously gotten enthusiastic on this one. My Dad had one of these that he would ride to work on the weekdays and race on Sundays. He rode it to Bathurst once, then raced it there...

A feller from Adelaide(?) called Les Diener took one of these little pushrod singles and turned it into a twin cam firebreather that on one occasion was used to beat current 250 world champion of the time Hugh Anderson at the Ballarat GP. Anderson was a Kiwi...

Now this is a Triumph Tiger 110. Not sure of the year but I think it's about a 1949 or 1950. The '110' was a factory guarantee that every bike of that name would reach 110 miles per hour. The high compression version of the 650 Thunderbird, my father and I built one up from three boxes of bits. Ours was a 1954 model and differed from this one in that it had swingarm rear suspension. It never got to be this pretty. Dad sold it. Bastard...

This is the one with no family connection. It didn't have any information with it, but by looking at it I can tell you that it has a '50's Triumph engine with probably a '60's cylinder head on it, judging by the twin carbs. Could be a GP head too, I s'pose, but I don't think so. The frame looks like a '60's Hagon speedway frame to me. I don't know why anybody would do this, maybe they thought a Speedtwin/Tiger 100 motor was the go (They're not, not for speedway, anyway), maybe it's a longtrack bike - but it doesn't have the two speed gearbox longtrackers used to have. Dunno.

Not so happy snaps

OK, so this is the second go I've had at using this photobucket thingy. I've shrunk the image sizes by varying degrees to see if I can fit 'em in. The first shot is a nekkid piccy of me (are you excited yet?) This was about as colourful as the bruising got, but the swelling kept increasing in size for another six or seven days.

I'm not confident on this one at all. It's supposed to be smaller than the first one, but it's huge in the little preview thingy you get to see before it's posted. Photobucket wouldn't lie, would they? It is supposed to be another bruise shot, but we'll see.

And the final one is what a helmet looks like after I've worn it for a while.

Happy Snaps

I don't really know what I'm doing here, but I thought I would show you some happy snaps. The first one is of Casa Thruster del Wollomombi.

The next one is of the Wollomombi Falls (on the left) and the Chandler Falls.

One thing that always catches my eye in the hills of NSW is the rocks, they're everywhere...

Well, that's it, now press 'post entry' and...

UPDATE: I can see that I'm going to have to do something about the size of these pitchers.

What I Did On My Holidays

So, I went for a little ride on my motorcycle. Through Goondiwindi along the river road to Yelarbon, which meant that I had to backtrack a little bit to get across the river. I would probably have been better off going to Inglewood and then south as the road to Texas had about 30k's of the roughest dirt I've been on in a while. I did find a few good camping spots on the river, but I'll save them for future use as it was too early to pull up. Stopped the night at the pub in Texas instead. Dead as a doornail. Only to be expected on a Sunday night, I suppose.
I can't remember what the cafe is called in Texas, but it does a really, really big breakfast. The woman running the show is a bit of an odd-bod, though. Didn't want to know me at first, but then she rabbitted on like a teenager on a stolen mobile. So, after putting a bit more air in the tyres and adjusting the suspension to cope with the thirty or forty kilo's I just ate I was off.
Through Tenterfield to Casino. The roads are moderately windy and fairly smooth, unfortunately I was following a shower along which meant the roads were still a bit damp, which kept speeds down a little. Lunch at Casino - Arancini and salad, with Dolmades and things scattered about the place, pretty bloody good.
From Casino through Grafton, then back up the range towards Armidale. Roads still windy, but now they were dry so more speed was the order of the day.Through Ebor to the Oxley/ Wild Rivers National Park at Wollomombi, where I camped the night. It was the first time that I'd used all the you-beaut, Peter Brock Racing type camping gear that I'd bought over twelve months ago. It's all ball-tearer stuff, easy to use and effective.
Through Armidale to Uralla for brekky. Everybody must be fat in the Northern Rivers/ New England area, all the meals are enormous. Some of them taste good, too.
Then came the part that I'd been looking forward to all year, riding the Ox.
Without a doubt the best road I've ever been on. The Great Ocean Road is good, the Putty Road's o.k., Bell's is vastly over-rated, but the Oxley highway between Walcha and Wauchope is flawless. I'm not usually much of an Edwin P. Macho type on a motorcycle but you can't help yourself on that road. Anybody who finds themselves puttering along enjoying the (admittedly striking) scenery whilst riding the Ox should go straight through Wauchope to Port Macquarie and visit the Volvo dealer - your motorcycling days are behind you.
Apart from passing the usual assortment of cars and trucks, I also managed to get a VTR1000, took about twenty k's, but I got'im.
Down the highway as far as Taree (bor-ring) then up Buckett's Way to Krambach, turn left and back down to Nabiac. Kinda reminded me of the days of my youth, what would have been fantastic roads when they were first sealed are now goat tracks. Still, it was fun picking a line between the pot-holes and patches while sill trying to maintain a decent speed.
Went to the national Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac. Absolutely staggering. Unless of course, you don't like motorcycles, in which case you should report for conditioning.
Back up the highway a few k's, then over to the coast road through Forster/ Tuncurry to Buladelah. All these coast towns are pretty much the same from Lakes Entrance to Bowen, I don't really see the attraction. In the tourist-y ones anyway. Camped the night at the pub in Bulahdelah, which was pretty damned good.
Next day, it got weird onme. The plan(?) was to head back inland through Cessnock, eventually coming into Sydney via Gosford on the Old Road. Unfortunately I only got about twenty k's from Buladelah up the Booral Road when I fell off. Not really sure why, it happened pretty quickly and I don't have a clear memory of it - more like it is in the movies when the director only wants to give you hints in the flashback.
I can kinda remember the sun in my eyes coming out of a fairly sharp left-hander going up a hill and the back end coming out and trying to highside me when it got traction again. Going by the bruising, you would say that the bike just went out from under me, though. Dunno.
Apparently I was still bouncing when a council road crew came around the corner. Give 'em something to talk about in the smoko room, I suppose. They called an ambulance and, just like buses, none came for about half an hour, then two did.
'Cause my helmet was busted, they made me wear a neck collar the whole way to Newcastle (there's a hospital at Buladelah, but they only do x-rays Mondays and Thursdays), which took about an hour and a half. They did a bunch of x-rays, one of which indicated that I might have spinal damage, so they sent me off to do one of those thingys where you are put through a tunnel and a laser beam does laser beam stuss. As an aside, how much of the hospital equipment market does Siemens have, exactly. At one stage all I could see was the laser beam (red, unfortunately, the green ones on Telly look much spacier) and a sticker on the machine which said not to look at the laser beam.
Anyway, that doodah said that I didn't have spinal damage so I was allowed to take the collar off. The doctors still wanted me to stay in hospital, but I wasn't keen. After a free and frank exchange of ideas, we reached a compromise - I would stay for a couple of days in an on -campus(?) house set up for the relatives of patients to stay in. Never have I been pampered by so many different people. I don't know if it gave those ladies a chance to take their minds off their own problems or to give the sort of attention to someone that that would have liked to give to their ill relatives, but I got treated like a king. Thanks ladies. In fact, many thanks to everybody concerned, from the Great Lakes Council road crew, the ambo's etc, through the doctors and (particularly) nurses to the nuns and Toni the social worker who offered me advice and counselling. Apparently some people get a bit upset.
Anyway, after a couple of days there, I decided to keep going to Sinny, so I caught a Taxi to the station, the lady was friendly, so, thinking of Adrian (too shagged to do the link thing, you know who he is) I tipped her quite heavily. There happened to be a train at the platform, so chuck the bags on and go. Get off at Central and try to find a room (I did have one booked, but I was two days late for that). Nothing in the CBD so I got a taxi and gave him instructions on how much I was prepared to pay and how far into the 'burbs I was prepared to go and just told him to drive until we found something. The prick started to whinge about how long it was going to take so I told to pull up and I'll get the next cab (we were still at central). He had a change of heart. After about ten attempts at various places, I got a room at the Crest in the Cross. The cabbie then made me feel bad by rounding down the fare from $36.80 to $35.00. Straight up to the thirteenth floor and into a coma for ten hours - thereby missing my sister-in-laws birthday party which was the original reason for coming to Sinny in the first place.
First order of business next day was to find another room as the Crest only had single nights vacancy. Booked into some fleapi the other end of the Cross and took my stuff up there before ringing Hooch (see Adrian re- linkage). Spent most of the rest of the day doing not a greatd deal at all, except for buying a couple of hippy t-shirts.
Apparently, nobody in Sinny has ever caught a Taxi to the Coopers' Arms before, not only didn't the cabby know of it, neither did the base operator. From memory, Hooch's cabbie was ignorant of its existence, too.
Yes folks, that's right I met the erudite, intelligent, articulate and cosmopolitan Hooch. And what does one do in the company of somebody so refined?
Get falling down drunk of course. If you can do so whilst belittling the entertainment provided at the public houses of debauchery it's even better. At one stage I thought I had a new aboriginal boyfriend, but love is a fickle thing so we left him at the Coopers Arms and soldiered on to the Empire, where I saw the band with the world's most socially inept guitarist. You know all those cliches about lead guitarists? This guy was the exception that proves the rule.
So, next day, after I came back from my jog to Bondi and swim around south Head to Pott's Point, I realise that my mobile is nowhere to be seen. Or heard. So now I don't have Adrian's or Rat's number any more. Except that I do, they're on my 'pooter, not much good to me in Sinny, though. That's about all there is to tell - lazed around for a couple days, train to Dubbo, bus to the Ridge, then boss's wife home.
To find that I have three painters camped in my sleepout and on my vertandah. Oh, well, at least I've got another cook for a few days.

Holidays

Well kiddies, I've got two weeks off and I'm going for ride. I might post something of a travelogue from somewhere, but I doubt it.

More magazines

So I've had a bit more time to read "Investigate" (note lack of italics) and I've got to say I'm not impressed. Since the last post I've had a bit more of a dip and read the Costello interview. I'm on record (a diligent person would provide the link. Diligent people suck.) as saying that Peter Costello is my PM of choice amongst the current crop of Feds. He still is. But to call the puff piece in Investigate an interview is like saying Sixty Minutes has credibility or that the Herald-Sun (get a Victorian to explain) during the Kennett years was impartial. This was the most biassed, one sided, you sit there while I feed you your lines piece of bullshit masquerading as journalism that I've read in ages. The only purpose it served was to focus my bullshitmeter.
I'm going to bed, but next:
Deconstructing Ian Wisharts fantasies.

Magazines

Over the weekend I got a major surprise from the boss - a day off! So what does any red-blooded rough, tough outback Aussie male do when he gets a day off?
Housework.
Then he drives 180k's round trip to do his grocery shopping, but mostly he buys a couple of magazines, 'coz that's what blokes do. Does he buy Sporting Shooter and Outback? Does he fuck. He buys two current affairs/commentary type magazines - Investigate and The Australian Rationalist. Investigate because Taxi - Driver, multimedia personality and all-around nice guy Adrian Neylan has a column in it, The Australian Rationalist because its attention-grabber on the cover reads 'Materialism: Our New Culture?'
I'll review Investigate first (He types, regretting the decision to use Italics). Firstly, the important bits - Young Adrians column is topnotch, but you didn't need to be told that, did you? There is also a lifestyle section which, given that the advertising space is taken up by companies such as Maserati, is pretty much what you'd expect it to be. The book reviewer - Alice McCormick - certainly seems to know her stuff (as she should, she operates a fairly major independant bookstore), but, as the only reviewed writer I had ever heard of was Tim Winton, who I don't rate all that highly, I'll reserve judgement.
Actually, I very rarely find myself in agreement with reviewers on pretty much anything. I don't know if it's because I lack a passion for the subject or I'm just not clever enough, maybe they're just wrong. Yeah, that's it. I used to watch The Movie Show with Maggie and Davo fairly often, not because I valued their judgement(s) when it came to Cinemahh, darrling, but because they had a good chemistry. Plus Maggies got very bright eyes and probably the worst haircut in the history of visual media.
Actually, I like the new mob on the Movie Show, too, although I'm not that interested in it that I even know if it's still running or not. Megan Spencer and Fenella Kernebone make me wish I was a generation younger and in my seventh year of a Liberal Arts course at some major uni.
Shit, I'm out of time and I've gotta go to work.
More review later. (Maybe.)