Whinge A Lot

My New Poem Came True! Now I'm Whinging about the Rain!

2012-02-27T17:19:00.004-08:00

Home In The Rain!

The rain on the roof is a tango

With a loud staccato beat

The smell of a ripening mango

In the summer monsoon heat

Through the rolling thunder clouds

Peeks the sunlights orange glow

The lightening blankets the sky

And the call of the curlew is low

Calls of creatures in the night

Like a lullaby sending me rest

Knowing I'm safe in my home

That this place is truly blessed

The rain pounds on the roof

In a humid nights dark gloom

Unobserved in the garden

The rainforest plants all bloom

In the morning I wake at dawn

With the early morning sun

Golden rays stream through the trees

Nature's beauty can't be outdone!

I Hate New Years Resolutions!

2012-01-02T02:42:00.000-08:00

When followed the traditions of a New Year celebration I used to make New Years resolutions but I was never any good at managing to keep them.

Now I hate New Year's - when the clock strikes midnight I am usually in the land of nod. Why everyone has a boozy party and makes their resolutions because it's the 'first day' of a new year it is just following the crowd. Historically or culturally the date is not even significant. If we held a celebration as in the past for the change from winter to spring when new life begins I could understand it. What is our calendar but a man made time scale. Wouldn't it make more sense to celebrate the seasons. In our modern society we are disconnected from the earth and its natural order.

Who is going to change for the better just because of a resolution. Anyone who wants to change could do so at any time. We all have free will. It is the rut we are in or the comfort zone that makes it easier not to bother.

For many new year is all about getting drunk and temporarily forgetting their worries. I am afraid I am one of the few sober people annoyed by the drunken declarations come midnight.

I would like to celebrate the possibility of new beginnings as a seasonal festival by being kind to myself and not thinking of past concerns. A life without mistakes is a life without wisdom. We can learn from the past and change but not through lists with resolutions.

Well at least Christmas was a peaceful and eventful celebration for us in Australia. We can be thankful for many things that are good in this country. So many around the world are not so lucky.

Why Would Anyone Be An Artist?

2011-05-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

After many failed attempts in the art room and by the end of the day having achieved very little I start to question 'why be an artist?' Sometimes I have no idea what direction I want to take.

Having started the day with high hopes and a vision of what I'd like to see on the canvas. I experiment with a technique that I may have seen or read about. Having no formal art training (unsure if this is a good or bad thing) I often become lost with the new approaches. I am sometimes so completely wrong that the results are less than promising. Testing and experimenting are all well and good but sometimes I wonder why I am bothering at all. Frustrated, I feel like binning everything!

Then suddenly and somehow I will start doing something and step off into a 'zone' that is magical. I see something new and exciting emerge on the canvas and am so absorbed in what I am doing that time has no meaning. Then I know why I do this!

This portrait of my dad as a young man is such an experience. It is only at stage one as I have placed the tonal areas and now I need to 'finish' the portrait yet I can see my dad and he is 'alive' to me in this. I now hesitate to 'spoil' what I have captured.

Well only time will tell and I guess I need to be brave!
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So managed to finish in time for exhibition - still very 'rough' but I like it this way!

Final Portrait in CSAS 2011 Exhibition

First stage - Dad's Portrait

Take Care of You!

2011-05-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

What talents you have
So much beauty and charm
Be kind to yourself
Avoid all that can harm

You know what you need

So follow your own road

Take it day by day
Let go the heavy load

You can be so funny
You are quiet a brain
You're generous and thoughtfull
You'll get through the pain

Be proud of yourself
See yourself in a new way
You matter so very much

So be happy this day

Take that one step

Do something you enjoy
Play some upbeat music
Avoid all who annoy

There will be a tomorrow
There will be a next week
There will be a next month

And it won't be so bleak!

Media Shame! Bullying Stories - Victimisation!

2011-03-22T03:05:00.000-07:00

The current media sensation over recent school yard bullying involving two boys that was posted on You Tube has now lead to the boys being named and interviewed on two competing TV programs. These so called news media programs showed no consideration for the potential harm such publicity could cause the boys.

The so-called 'interviews' were stupid in the extreme with the 'reporter' asking leading questions and then suggesting answers to the boy. Their handling of the bullying story is sensationalist and catering to an infotainment market and nothing to do with journalism or ethics.

How is this supposed to help shed light on the very real problem of bullying in schools. It is like glamorising the whole incident and could even make it popular to strike back which could lead to kids being victimised.

The school bullying policies don't seem to be altering the culture in schools all over Australia. The two boys have now being victimised by the media. Shame on you!

Week-ends Aren't Long Enough!

2011-02-20T03:30:00.000-08:00

It’s Sunday night - obviously which means it's MONDAY tomorrow. Oh, no! The work week begins again and lasts five whole days. Why oh why does time expand during the week and contract during the week-end.

Having has a lazy restful Saturday and caught up on all the blogs, forums, Facebook and You Tube etc etc today I am NOT ready for another week to begin.

Saturday had an easy dinner of take out fish and chips which was cooked perfectly and was local so very fresh! This evening we had spag bol which was also easy and delicious. Watched a James Bond movie on Saturday and tonight am watching Bones followed by Castke - who done its - as I do my internet catch ups.

Bed soon and then wake up to another Monday! Then . . . . . .Bugger!

La Nina - What 'a girl' - Worldwide Extreme Weather Disasters!

2011-02-10T01:44:00.000-08:00

La Nina - the girl - is apparently to blame for the present global weather events in Australia, as far as Africa and the snow in US. La Niña is a period of cooler than average sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean supposed to be part of natural climate variability. Because the Pacific is so large any change can effect weather in far off countries.

The devastating floods in Pakistan in 2010, flooding in Africa and now Cyclone Yasi in Queensland - one of the strongest to hit us ever - are all part of this!

The scientists say it will continue for a good while yet! So stay tuned for weather warnings!

Australian Summers! HOT!

2011-01-26T01:50:00.000-08:00

Oh sun of mine in the summer sky

You are so hot I think I'll die

What must I do to have respite

What will help me through the night Oh my god what must I do

How can I cope It can't be true

Many more months must I endure

How will I cool down

Who can ensure

That the cooling breeze

Will be coming soon

To cool the night

Neath the waning moon!

Cooktown Raising Funds For The Queensland Flood Appeal

2011-01-14T04:27:00.000-08:00

After seeing and experiencing the need to help that Queensland's in the Cooktown area have been expressing the Cooktown Lion's Club - Cooktown Chamber of Commerce & Tourism - Cook Shire Council and the People of Cooktown are joining in a fundraising response with donations and fund-raising events. Many local businesses have already committed to donate portions of their income.

How can you help. Go to the Cooktown Cares Blog or Cooktown Cares Twitter and find out! Feel positive by joining in and sharing as we help together.

Whinging Suspended! Queensland Flood Disaster Emergency!

2011-01-13T00:22:00.000-08:00

11:30am Media Conference with Premier Anna Bligh Thursday Jan 13
The media coverage of the disasterous floods in Queensland and currently in Brisbane is surreal. It is on every channel. After a time I have to turn the radio and TV off. As I am unable to do anything other than donate money it is so hard to watch for long intervals. I feel so lucky to be in Cooktown which is free of this disaster and at the same time I feel for the people, some who would have been killed in an instant, being unable to escape the wall of water being called an inland tsunami, that rushed through Toowoomba and then down the range and the Lockyer Valley on Monday and Tuesday. A wall of water destroyed everything in its path and wiped away complete houses. Grantham, Tent Hill, Laidley, Murphy's Creek, Postman's Ridge and Forest Hill have also been ravaged. Black Hawk helicopters airlifted people to safety.
Premier Anna Bligh described the situation as "very grim and desperate". "Effectively what we've seen is a wall of water, in some places up to eight metres at a time, coming down (the Lockyer Valley)," she said.

The On-line Shopping Debate!

2011-01-09T03:21:00.000-08:00

I sure save money by shopping online and would not be able to purchase what I do otherwise and this is apart from the difficulty of living in a very small north Queensland town with very limited retail possibilities and what arrives having freight costs added.

Though the internet shopping may be unfair to local retail I still try to shop locally and it is the extras I get on-line which I would not buy locally in any case.

An advertising campaign, launched by a group of Australian retailers that aims to convince the government to level the playing field against foreign websites that are offering tax-free goods seems a case of the giant retailers crying poor when they do everything they can to close down the smaller retailers and prevent competition so once the little business man shuts down they up their prices as they have a monopoly. Isn't that exactly what the internet retailers are doing to them! They can't have it both ways.

The ad reads: 'We agree with our customers that online retailing is a wonderful convenience that is here to stay. We also agree that fair competition is good for our customers and we want to be able to offer them the same Australian tax exemptions that offshore retailers enjoy.''

At the moment, no GST is imposed on goods that are bought from international websites for less than $1000. Wouldn't it make more sense to get rid of GST for small buisness in Australia so they can compete but not the larger retailers. It's odd to hear Myer, David Jones, Harvey Norman and Target all claiming they want a level playing field when with their buying power they have a big advantage over small retailers.

It is not only high prices that sends me to the internet to shop. On-line there is a much greater range of goods and the service and backup seems better than some retailers in the 'real world'. There is a lot to be said for service to the customer. Also being able to shop any time is a great advantage.

So retailers need to get with the new way of shopping or be left behind!
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Chrismas Crazies!

2010-12-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas. Yes we are doing it all again!
Christmas presents that nobody ever uses. Spending up on credit for a lot of pointless crap! Randomly buying things because it's Christmas. Saying you are not wanting any presents and having family and friends totally disregard this and still insist on spending a large amount of money.

Being told you are being mean if you don't want to spend what is considered the proper amount! I know I'm being a whinger but I hate to see all that money being wasted. OK, if I'm being a fool I'd like to hear about it in the comments!

What about overwhelming kids with so many presents they can't take anything in then filling them with lollies and watching them bounce off the walls until they throw up! It could cause a psychotic break or at the least scar them for life.

I say stop the commercialisation of Christmas! Get rid of the piped muzak and especially songs about snow and reindeer in Australia while we are melting in the heat.

Stop the theme gifts - movie and TV product launches to sell the toys of fantasy characters that have nothing to do with our culture or real life. Let the kids use their imagination to explore their surroundings. Remember the days when a tin can and a bit of string let you 'phone a friend' but now its an iPhone with a Face book app!

Maybe having the downturn in the economy is a great thing in the long term as we will have to look at giving of our time and use our imaginations to entertain ourselves. Get off-line and out of doors!

The holiday season and all its excesses see many buying rubbish they don’t need for someone they don’t know, sending cards to a list of people they never see and who don't really care what they are up to. Some think it's great to include a newsletter of all their achievements, their kids achievements, their pets achievements and photos collages of everyone in Santa hats and endless snapshots of expensive holidays. Please people save a tree and forget about us!

Do a good deed for this holiday season and stop forcing people to participate in this mindless drivel and don’t make them feel bad if they don’t.

Bah Humbug everybody! Oh yes and have a very very merry Christmas! (Yes we sent our 'contact once a year for Christmas people' this photo! Yes we included a newsy newsletter! Wish I could follow my own advice!)

Bruce Highway Needs Work ASAP!

2010-11-16T01:45:00.000-08:00

Bruce Highway Roadworks October 2010

As I drove from Cooktown to Brisbane and back in October / November I found that stretches of the Bruce Highway are more like a track than a major highway.

It sure doesn't seem suitable for the heavy trucks that travel to meet deadlines. I experienced many of the Truckee's traveling over the speed limit and frequently tail gating. Gaps, potholes, eroded edges in places make driving a risky business.

From figures released in parliament the road toll for 2000 to 2008 on the sections being upgraded were 56 dead and 282 people admitted to hospital. These details of the road casualties along the blackest of black spots make you wonder if the federal and state governments are doing everything they can to fast-track construction

AFL Grand Final A Draw - What A FIZZER

2010-09-25T02:47:00.000-07:00

WHAT! Doin' it all Again Next Week!!! The crows and the saints looked wiped out and had very flat moods when the Grand Final ended in a draw. Now they have to wait a week to see who is the champion team. WTF! Why can't they just keep going until somebody geta a point and they'd be the winner! STUPID rules.

Bloody Grand Final Rugby Football Fever!!!

2010-09-24T02:51:00.000-07:00

So it's Friday night and I prepare a tasty meal, turn on the television to catch up on the latest news headlines. What news headlines!

Bloody sport has taken over! The latest football news.

The Grand Final qualifier match - the Roosters against the Titans. Football fever is everywhere except in my living room!

Thank the airwaves for the ABC!

Is footy really the most important bit of news in the world today!!

We Aussies - I must be a lonely standout - have an obsession with sports of all kinds. Sports news, sports shows, four types of footy - AFL, Rugby (league and union) and Soccer.

I don't have anything against sport on the whole as it is great to be active and keep fit and healthy and being in a team you learn how to cooperate in a group which is probably a good thing.

My whinge is the amount of time given to sports in the media. It's even more annoying when the main item on the news is sport. If they didn't do that I'd simply switch channels when the sports news came on. Often more than one main news story is sports related or about a sportsperson and the drama of injury, bad misbehaviour in public, money paid by clubs, corruption, etc etc, ad nauseum. Keep all that 'sports' stuff in the sports section of the news.

Well at least now I've had a whinge I can settle down. I will do a channel surf to keep up with who wins the grand final qualifier because that's probably all anyone will be talking about tomorrow and I need to know who won and any major dramas of the match but meanwhile I'll be watching ABC and Waking the Dead - much more interesting!

Photobucket Should Be Called "PhotoF#ckIt." "There's A Hole In The Bucket"

2010-09-04T05:29:00.000-07:00

I am absolutely furious at the fact that if I accidently delete the wrong photos from my Photobucket web albums there is no way to restore them.

Surely technology has the ability to create restore points or undelete features in programs or have a Recycle Bin - such as Windows has - or a deleted photo files folder on Photobucket. Such a basic feature!!

Also the layout of 'All Albums' page view sucks!!

If you create subfolders in Photobucket the main folder states it is empty in All Albums view. Somebody - OK I mean myself - could accidently delete an album which contains many subalbums and hundreds of photos.

YES I KNOW a warning pop up appears asking if you really want to delete etc but the warning is the same for deleting empty albums - it is not extra dramatic to say "listen fool do you know what you are doing deleting 1,266 photos from subfolders!!!! DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS!!!" which would give you pause.

Even if Photobucket had a great warning and you then deleted the photos it still should be able to have them stored in a deleted photos folder so you can ^#(*@$^@*& change your mind!! And when you have a Pro Account and are paying them to store your photos they should be more helpful.

When I emailed them I got this useless reply:
"Dear XXX,
Unfortunately deleted media cannot be restored. Please note that if a folder states it is empty this means there are no images in this folder however any folder with images that are in this folder will be deleted as well. Please make absolutely sure you want all of this content deleted when you choose the delete.
Sincerely,
Your Photobucket Support Team"

Attachment I emailed them to show how the Album containing full Subalbums showed as empty in All Albums View!

Rappin' Drivin' Me Insane!

2010-08-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

All the pizzle and the drizzle echoes in my head

I can't get to sleep when I'm lying in my bed

Its the rap that is phasing

I don't find it amazin'

The sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

Its a drizzle or a pizzle

I don't get what that means

Break into a sweat

'cause it's a sure bet

The brothers rappin in the hood

Sure don't put me in the mood

All rappin' 'bout da Pooleece

Bout a booty or a great piece

The sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

Aint no romance, aint no talk of love

All about the quick flick or causin' some blood

It's a gang bang and car chase shootin by

Its a base dance aint no never askin why

The sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

The body bag is holdin' onto a brother

The little bros line up wanna take a colour

The blue lights are callin' for another mother

The undertaker got a box put you under cover

The sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

Drizzle and the pizzle are beatin' in my mind

I gunna go crazy 'cause the rappin' ain't so kind

When the rapper gunna do a lovin' rap

Maybe he do that he gunna be capped

The sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

Get this sound and beat outta my mind

If I can't forget it I'm gunna go blind

I'd rather go deaf so I don't hear the sound

Oh that rappin' - ahwww it sure do pound

The sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

All the pizzle and the drizzle echoes in my head

I can't get to sleep when I'm lying in my bed

Its the rap that is phasing - I don't find it amazin'

Cause the sounds and the rhymes

Are repeatin' in my mind

Ahhhhhhwwwwwwwwaaaaahhh!!

Global Warming! What the Fudge!

2010-08-29T18:06:00.001-07:00

World weather is awful! If it’s not drizzly and overcast it’s hot and humid so that you drip all over the place. If it's not hot it's freezing or we're in a drought, then a flood, bush fires, tsunamis, melting ice caps - that darn global warming. Bloody temperatures, humidity, and rainfall random and unpredictable. It is all our fault and the earth has hit the payback button. What can we do? Evacuate the earth. Plan now! Then again we are most likely buggered anyhow.

My First Whinge - Australian Election 2010

2010-08-29T03:05:00.000-07:00

All is confusion in the halls of power, for who will we turn to when it all goes sour!

Politics!! The Aussie federal election - what a dog's breakfast! We still don't have a government. Every one is sucking up to the independents. Neither Gillard nor Abbott gained an outright majority in the election, meaning one side must win support from the independents. Now both sides are making promises and probably won't follow through on any of them.