Christmas - Digital Version.

Thanks to ExcentricPT of youtube

Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia

Merry Christmas, Everyone.

Santa is on his way soon.

Norad Santa Tracker.

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

Christmas Lights Gone Wild.

Thanks to houseofboyd of youtube.

Australian Christmas Painting

Santa and the Drover

by John Edward (Jack) Waugh.

http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/waugh.html

Santa Claus pausing for a rest by a country wayside,

sharing a billy of tea (and some biscuits) with a wiry Aussie drover.

Darcy and I are having a night in.

I had a colonoscopy today and everything is fine. Thank Goodness.

My mum died of colon cancer and I had some problems.

Doctor said I behave responsibly and it was best to have regular tests (5 years). I'm at that age group when you need to become aware of future medical problems.

When my daughter, Natalie, bought me home from the clinic

Darcy was hiding in the clothes dryer.

Wow, Its raining in Australia

and there is lots more to come this Summer.

My usual view of this boat

which I drive past on the way to work.

So with all the rain we have had this year

they have built a low sea wall along the shoreline.

Another thunder storm is on its way to the coast.

Cat and dogs have taken up residence inside the house.

Looks like the mowing won't be getting done today.

Law & Order:Criminal Intent stars

Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe

are returning for Season 10 with 8 episodes.

CI has had some great guest stars appearing on the show:

• Liza Minnelli
• Mark Linn-Baker
• Rita Moreno

I would love to see:

• Tony Shalhoub
• Ethan Suplee
• Kathleen Turner
• Candice Bergen

Who would you like to see guest star?

My new television Samsung 32"

I bought this new one today after getting a great price from JB ****,

My son, Michael dropped over and set it up for me and will be back on the weekend to pick up my old TV and DVD recorder and also a 5 disc player that I no longer use. Yay.

Last day of my week break from work and I haven't done half the things I had planned to do. I spent two days with my daughter and her family and realised when I got home I hadn't taken any photos. Natalie is wanting to return to work as she and her husband are paying off their house mortgage and her baby daughter wants to continue to breast-feed. Stalemate.

Hysterical

I have a rather juvenile sense of humour.

Courtesy of http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Watching a 'live stream' coverage of the Chilean Miners.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/

The 5th miner has now being rescued, Jimmy Sanchez, aged:19 years.

Message to the Sun above Sydney, Australia.

Can you please take the shades off your face

and burn away those clouds.

Thanks.

St Marys Cathedral, Sydney.

Sunday night and I am watching Stephen Fry

on Channel 2 (aka ABC).

What a charming man, his monologues are interesting, funny and entertaining. I didn't realised how tall he (6'4") was until Jennifer Byrne (5' nothing)

joined him on stage to participate in a question and answer segment.

Love his yellow socks.

First day of the October long weekend

and its wet, miserable and cool

back to wearing trackies, sweats and slippers.

Channel surfing on the telly,

AFL GF on Seven,

Rosehill races on Nine,

Rugby GF on Two

UCI Road World Championship on Ten.

Sport, sport and more sport.

I haven't been posting much lately due to an increase in work hours.

Too tired when I get home to do much but I thought I would include this photo

of my car at Kilcare Heights, north of Sydney.

Across the water from Byles Lookout is Palm Beach which is where the exterior shots for the Australian soapie, Home and Away are filmed. I don't think I have ever watched one full episode of this soapie only see it while changing channels.

I have such a boring and drab countryside to motor around on my daily travels. :-)

This is Hysterical

Oprah Sings

Oprah and her Best Friends Forever will be coming to Australia in December.

Two weeks ago I lent my neighbour from over the back fence my little Ryobi chainsaw to help prune some of his trees. We discussed thinning out the tree in my yard as he wanted to put in a vegetable garden on his side of the fence and my tree gave too much shade.

Last evening just before dark, my neighbour decided to prune the tree. Well, the first I heard was my dog Bailey having hysterics and barking his head off. Now, who in their right mind starts hacking at a tree in the dim light, I was absolutely flabbergasted, he couldn't wait till the weekend. There was no way I was going to let him anywhere near my Ryobi , so I had to pretend not to hear Bailey's yapping but after 15 minutes I had had enough and bellowed - "Shut up, Bailey". I don't know who got the bigger shock the neighbour(s), my dog or myself at the volume I was able to achieve. LOL.

I was thinking about this (out of character) reaction today, and realised it may have been the result of what had happen earlier in the day.

I had gone into a clients house and the first thing she showed me was the fencing guy repairing her back fence which her neighbour had back into and damaged, so she had a whinge about that and then mentioned her washing machine had been playing up and she would have to get her son to look at it.

Okay, so I head off to do some work in the house when I hear the machine running a little rough so I wander out to the laundry and find the client pulling some wet clothes out of the machine because it had stopped running.

Water is dripping on the floor and running under the machine and just as I arrive at the doorway the machine starts to spark, I try to get the client to come away from it but she is getting cranky with me because her machine is broken, wft. How I am to blame I have no idea.

Water is seeping towards the client so I check the floor and then reached over and grabbed the electricity cord and yanked it out of the wall socket. Honestly, you would think she would be thankful I stopped her from getting electrocuted but no, all I got was abuse. Later, after settling the client down I rang my supervisor and she is going to contact the client's sons and have the client tested for dementia. Personally, I think she is just stressed and grieving as her husband passed away earlier this year.

I am glad this work week is finish as on top of my own hours, I picked up an extra 10 hours work.

On the way to work, today,

I came across this old wooden boat that had seen better days.

Broken branches in yard from strong winds.

I loaned a neighbour my little chain saw and he has hopped the fence and did the same for the branches in my yard plus a dead tree fern was cut down. Yay He then dragged the debris over to his front yard and it will be picked up by council.

We discussed a large tree which is hanging over our adjoining fence he has offered to come in and lop the branches that are pushing against the fence.

The back yard got done today. Along with general tidying up and getting rid of some rubbish. Tomorrow a trip to the local tip is on the cards after I de-clutter the garage.

Finally, got my lawn mower back from the repair shop. Yay.

The front yard was starting to get a little overgrown. Tomorrow, I'll tackle the back yard, the weeds and general tidying upl.

Taiwan’s News Service explains our Federal Election

Julia Gillard vs Tony Abbott.

Inside the cabin during a space shuttle launch

Thanks to bbruin14.

I've added a new link to my Favourite Links.

Don Burke's Backyard

Australia's Original Lifestyle Program

now has its own website.

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

The site has a message board and fact sheets .

I typed in "Chook" under Pet section

and it came up with 30 results.

Jolicloud Review by Distro.

Jolicloud is an operating system

specifically created for Netbooks.

Win 7 Starter O/S was installed on my Netbook when I bought it. I found Jolicloud when it was mentioned on Twitter and installed it. Both operating systems are now installed. I have had no problems switching between the two on Startup.

I love it.

I'm a great fan of Bones.

This is their recent release promo video from

Comic Con in San Diego 2010.

ps also an excuse to see if I could customise the video

on Youtube from 560x340 to 382x240

which is a better fit for a 2 column blog.

Found Video for previous post.

The Australia Elections will be on 21 August,

our two main Parties are Labor and Liberal.

A campaign video has been removed (I assume) because it used the opening credits of the The Addams Family, it was featured on the Channel Ten daytime show called The Circle this morning.

I taped today's episode, it featured the opening credits of The Addams Family show with Tony Abbott as Gomez, Julie Bishop as Morticia, Bronwyn Bishop as Grandma, Barnaby Joyce as Uncle Fester, Sophie Mirabella as Wednesday and Joe Hockey as Pugsley etc . Brilliant.

Tony Abbott is leader of the Liberal Party.

At the time the video was taken down it had 64,767 views.

This video has been removed by the user.

Saturday 12.40am.

Sitting up late watching the Tour de France.

The house is lovely and warm on a cold night.

Darcy is not moving from the lounge... too comfy.

Ooops! Excuse me need to turn my electric blanket on.

One of the downsides of living alone,

there is no-one to warm the bed up for me. lol.

The days coverage of Tour de France has just started

but while I was waiting I found this cute video.

Rabbit Vs Snake

Go Bunny.

Thanks to www.bobinoz.com for drawing my attention to it.

Its after 11pm Friday and I am sitting up watching the Tour de France. Loving the overhead aerials of the cyclists, castles and farmlands of this stage of the Tour. The commentary is nearly as good as watching the race ...lots of trivia.

My memories of this week has been rain, rain, rain ... got soaking wet a couple of times running from a client house to my car ... car heater got a work over. I don't use an umbrella as when it gets wet it tends to fog up the car windows and leaves a damp smell in the car.

Tour de France 2010

I love watching the Tour de France.

It is the world's greatest cycling race with almost 200 cyclists involved.

On the 3rd July, 2010, it started in Rotterdam,

Netherlands and will finish on the 25th July, in Paris, France.

Its cold

Ok, not northern hemisphere cold

but cold for Sydney.

Tuesday and Wednesday mornings of this week

were the coldest-1celsius (=30.2F) in

60+ years with ice on my car windscreen.

After the humongous electricity bill last year

I am determined keep this year's bill down.

I am wearing a woollen cap and have a rug

across my knees while typing this blog post.

Vuvuzela Amnesty and Buy Back Scheme

Listen Up!

Roy and HG in Queen's Birthday honours.

www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/06/14/2926044.htm

These guys always me laugh.

I played around with the new iPad today

in a JB HI-FI store .

I want one.

What a fun thingie.

Twitter Chatter

THE ‘BEST’ PARTY WINS IN ICELANDIC ELECTION:

COMEDIAN NOW THE MAYOR OF REYKJAVIK

A joke political party in Iceland, started six months ago by a comedian, won the most seats during a local election The party, know simply as “the Best” won local elections in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, scoring 34.7% of the vote and securing 6 of 15 seats of the city council.

Today arrived sunny and breezy, so like a flash I was up and the washing machine was in overtime, two loads are now on the clothesline outside flapping in the breeze. Lovely.

Then it was off to the local shops to buy some batteries for my flashlight, I have a LED torch that you only need to wind up to charge but I like to have a spare on hand. Picked up the Sunday papers which usually takes me most of the week to read, paid off a layby, bought some hair conditioner, pet food and a new dog blanket for the dogs bed (warm and cosy).

Listening to the weather channel giving update reports on the storm going through the south coast of New South Wales -a state in Australia-, 6,000 without power, shattered windows and roof damage. The storm is heading towards Sydney but hopefully it will have blown itself out by the time it heads further north.

Hunter Rainfall Forecast

Rainfall is expected for another 6 days.

I will have developed web feet by then.

Lost Re-Enacted By Cats In 1 Minute.

by tremendousnews.

I was listening to the radio today when weather reports of hail and rain in the Sydney area were announced, by the time I got home the storm had already gone through leaving behind no electricity to the house, a sodden yard and scared dogs.

Luckily soon after I bought in my groceries and attended to the dogs the electricity came back on, so I didn't have to get out the candles and torch to see my way around.

With the eminent cancellation of the flagship Law & Order series, maybe the networks can replace it with this version.

Chicken Detectives.

Back to work today after having 4 days off last week, first phone call this morning was from work supervisor to say as my leave was for family reasons, then instead of using my annual leave I could use 4 days of my domestic leave. Yay.

Domestic leave is to be used for caring for a sick relative, family death/funeral, etc.

So that means I still have 4 weeks of accumulated annual leave, so my work supervisor will be contacting me soon to take some time off. D'oh!

I'm currently on leave because I had too much leave accumulated. So I have had a couple of trips down to Sydney to see my new grandchild.

Today I had a day home which I spent doing a couple of loads of washing and gave my two dogs a bath and shampoo. They smell quite nice now and are allowed into the house to visit.

Thanks to NANTZ of Vinnie Vidi Vici blog

for posting this video.

Oscar winning short film, The New Tenants.

Actually I just loved the smiles on these two guys.

Guest Twitterer - Leonard Nimoy

Star Trek fame.

TheRealNimoy

LLAP = Live Long And Prosper.

Conan O'Brien presents- It's Not Easy Being ... Superman

with special guest, Jim Carey.

Vincent D'Onofrio's Dance Moves

TIME_WARP from Jazzy Babe on Vimeo.

just for the fun of it

Video by Jazzy Babe

TV Guide Magazine | News | The Men of NCIS

This is nice if you're a fan of NCIS

TV Guide Magazine | News | The Men of NCIS

My desktop computer is chugging along quite nicely now that I have given it a good clean. The problem was my cat Darcy had decided to stretch out along the printer for a snooze and upon arising kicked the cables on the computer loose. D'oh!.

At least this time it wasn't the keyboard he was wrapped around as he tends to get a little stroppy when you try to move him.

My desktop computer has flickered and died.

It looks like I will be pulling it apart tomorrow

to see what the problem is.

Thank goodness, for the netbook.

Boy and Iggy the Cat

or

Why has my iPad screen got scratches.

Dr Horrible's Emmy Broadcast

with Neil Patrick Harris

Wow!

My toaster just short-circuited.

I'm amazed that my 'el cheapo' 4 socket power grid

with cut off switch worked.

Thank Goodness.

Otherwise I would have had to have (!) replace the burnt wire in the meter box which I don't know how to do. oOOo

Video Moved.

Mr Stephen Fry attended Apple's ipad demonstration

in January, 2010.

.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/pricing/

I think I would like one of these, please.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/pr_ipad_first

Yay!

The jungle in the back yard has now been mowed and I can see the clothes-line. I knew it had been lurking out there somewhere and with my trusty mower was able to navigate a path (or twenty) so all was revealed.

Mowing Joggers at Rest.

News Item

Crocodile tries to steal

Catch of the Day

Vincent D'Onofrio on Good Things,Utah

yesterday, Friday 12 March 2010

The women spoilt the interview by talking about themselves. Why? It seems they're using his appearance to get more publicity for themselves.

Personally I think they could have sat back and let the Guest have centre-stage which is the reason you have a guest in the first place to learn more about his projects.

He hasn't ruled out doing another television show,

just one that is a little more family-time friendly.

Rant Update: None of the interviewers mentioned that The New Tenants, a film he appeared in won an Oscar for Best Short, Live Action. This interview was after the Oscars.

I am currently reading a book called

"Down and Dirty Pictures by Peter Biskin.

It is the story of Miramax Sundance and the Rise of Independent Films.

Vincent D'Onofrio is to portray Harvey Weinstein

in the film of the book which is filming now.

On page 69, an exempt from the book

"Finesse was never part of Harvey's arsenal. He tore phones out of walls and hurled them. He slammed doors and overturned tables. Almost anything within reach could become a weapon -ashtrays, books and tapes, ..."

While I was reading this particular page

I remember a scene in LO:Criminal Intent

where the character Goren yells at his mentor Cage and another scene when Goren with a sweep of his arm sends the contents of his desktop clattering to the floor. I remember thinking how explosive those scenes were and how the 'practice' run will benefit D'onofrio's portrayal of the Harvey Weinstein role.

At the 2010 Oscars, a movie called The New Tenants

won Best Short Film, Live Action.

Vincent played a character in it called Jan.

Photo courtesy of thereelvincentdonofrio.com

Hooray! I have finally finished with the physiotherapist after 4 months of therapy. I had an appointment with my doctor this morning and he gave me the all clear, after I left the surgery I rang the physio and cancelled my appointment for tomorrow.

Personally I think I have been ok for the last month but the physio insisted I needed more therapy but as I am not a contortionist I would not need to distort my body in weird and more wonderful positions. I'm done.

Another Saturday has come around.

Bailey and Kahlua have been washed,

fur cut and nails clipped.

Exciting Life.

Now I only need the mower to start

and my day will be complete.

Sums up my day

I Wish.

I was born in Berala and remember the day
 the Berala Hotel and adjoining shops were opened. 
Great excitement. 
 It was a little village with turn of the century shops 
until the new stores were built..

(Photo courtesy of:Jim of Sydney City and Suburbs)
http://sydney-city.blogspot.com/2010/02/berala-pub.html

In 1971, My dad aged 54yo had a massive stroke while playing snooker (pool)  in the games room of the pub and a friend of his came to fetch Mum and I, Mum had been wondering why Dad was late getting home. We got there just as the ambulance arrived. This was at a time when no women were allowed in the public bar (men only) so it was rather a strange feeling walking into the pub. He spent 3 months in hospital until my mother insisted he be cared for at home.My dad survived another 14 years in the care of my mother.

Every time I pass by the pub I remember that day. It was a life-changing event for me. It was 1970, the liberation of women was happening. I had recently gone against my mothers wishes (I was working in a Bank - Bank of New South Wales) and entered the Public Service (Public Trustee) because of the sex discrimination of women in the banking industry. In the PS I was treated as an equal plus I got an extra week holiday/sick leave, better pay and more job opportunities. Unfortunately, I was too inexperienced at the time to take advantage of it. I was a young 18.

My brother and his mates refer to the pub as "Berala Beach" as they would tell their mothers they were heading off to the beach for the day and in reality spend the day
in the beer garden. lol.

I wandered off to the local beach to update my new header photo. The walk down to the beach is quite steep so will head back for more photos when there isn't a threat of rain.

I had planned on going along to Shelly Beach which is just south of The Entrance but there was a branch carnival held today Sunday, 7th February. All available parking was taken so will head back on another day when it is not so crowded

Contemplating what housework needs to be done
 this Saturdy morning.

(Photo:Tim Burton's new movie- Alice in Wonderland.)

I'm a proud member of the Baby Boomers generation but I am curious to know how many blog sites are written by baby boomers. I think BBs are in the 48-65 age group. 

I  love the diversity of the blog content on the Internet.

Lots of mummy, craft, knitting and photo blogs

but I can't find many blogs written by Baby Boomers about their everyday life. It will be interesting to see who visits this site following the BB tag/label.

Trivia: In Australia 1 in 7 is over the age of 65
by 2050 it will be 1 in 4.

Funny photo from Twitter.

Today,my son Michael is at the

100th Big Day Out
music festival in Sydney.

(www.novafm.com.au BDO photo gallery)

It is very hot in Sydney today,

 Twitter posts from the festival say 40C (100F+).
My Weather Pixie on blog reads 41C at 3pm

My son Nick has such a quirky sense of humour ,
he has just posted this on his FB page.  lol

  "and so I should cook...

 I shall cook a meal greater than many meals.. 

a meal for MEN... hearty.. full of awesome and manlyness...

 to bring hairs to your chest and give you guns...

 a meal better than any meal you've had before...

 but who's up for the challenge of this meal... 

to consume it is to prove your a man... 

but who is truly a man... 

none can be greater than the man that Creates this Meal.."

Nick and I have very similar sense of humour, our favourites shows were the radio broadcasts of The Goon Show with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, especially  the characters Jim and Minnie Bannister.

Amazing Photo of Snow covering England

as NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead.
Snow covers most of England

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=42237

I had a rostered day off today but still had to pay a visit to the medical centre and a visit to the physio with a new physiotherapist ..lots of pain involved.
Oooooouch. Tender spots.lol.

I took two bags of old clothes to the Salvos and will start to go through the chest of drawers in the spare room and find other things to get rid of soon.

Happy New Year to all my fellow Bloggers.

2010

Now that has a nice sound to it.

Whatever, Fate has install for me, bring it on. I say.

I love a challenge.