The bathroom renos

The bathroom will have a double-size shower with huge 600 x 300 mm tiles, a mixing tap and a massive bloody shower head (it'll be like standing in the rain). Click on image to enlarge.

The GG renovations that we started 5 years ago and finished in 2008 included fitting out 7 new bathrooms. I thought it might be about time we did up our own bathroom (and laundry and toilet) and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 3 weeks. My work is finished and now it’s up to the tiler who has started on the floor and should be completely finished this week. I never want to renovate another bathroom in my life – it’s bloody hard work. I’ll post photos of the finished job when … well, when it’s finished. More photos ‘over the fold’:

The ongoing saga of the Mt Buffalo Chalet

Why would you want to change this ….

To this?

Well, if you could get it for nothing, I guess you would!

I am not the slightest bit surprised (or upset) that the State Government has rejected the proposal put forward by local consortium Mt Buffalo Community Enterprise Ltd (MBCE) for a $51 million conversion of the Mt Buffalo Chalet into a rather uninspiring and over-ambitious 99-room hotel/resort. I think the plan was very flawed.

Seriously, have a look at the ‘commercial in confidence’ concept and business plans now fully on display at MCBE’s website. Make sure you click on the ‘fly through’ and I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this was basically a total rebuild with very little of the original chalet to be left intact. And, according to the business plan, MBCE was seeking to fund the $51 million of demolition and new works as follows:

Beatles trivia

Yet to be surpassed.

This will keep me up all night. We just switched over to Channel 7 to watch The Amazing Race (a show I actually enjoy) and caught the end of some stupid quiz show where the last question was this:

“How many Beatles’ songs have a woman’s name in the title?”

As if anyone would carry that information in their head. I’m a big Beatles fan too but that’s not something I’ve even thought about … until now. Apparently the correct answer is 18 but I’m buggered if I can think of more than a few including:

1. Anna (on the ‘B’ side of one of their earlier hits)
2. Julia (about John Lennon’s mother)
3. Lady Madonna
4. Lovely Rita Meter Maid (from Sargeant Pepper’s)
5. Dear Prudence *
6. Long Tall Sally * (###)
7. Eleanor Rigby *
8. Lucy in the sky with diamonds (about LSD) *
9. Michelle *
10. Sexy Sadie *
11. Polythene Pam *

Can anyone help? I’ll update this as more come to mind. Oh look, The Amazing Race is on.

(* = updates to original post)

(### Long Tall Sally is not a Beatles original, so I think the correct answer is 10  – as above)

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Forty seven reasons to dump Michael Clarke

For once, the headline doesn't go far enough.

How can a national cricket side like Australia that dismisses its opposition for just 96 runs and leads by nearly 200 on the first innings, end up getting belted by 8 wickets in less than 3 days?

I dunno, but maybe ask our ’boy’ captain Michael Clarke how his side only managed an embarrassing 47 runs in its 2nd innings.

What a bloody joke. Clarke is no leader.

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11.11.11

Remembrance Day 2011 – Nirvana for Nerds and Numerologists

The heading of this post – today’s date – is a once in a century event. It’s only in the 11th year of a century that there can be a line up of six identical numbers. According to some people out there this is apparently of some significance and has great meaning for world events:

“Eleven is a master number for us and when you get a day like tomorrow … you get incredible energy out there,” said Alain Baillon, a Queensland psychic and numerologist.

“It’ll be a new step up and forward in consciousness.”

But according to others it marks Armageddon, or something like that:

… in Egypt, the possibility of such rituals has forced the closure of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Atef Abu Zahab, head of the Department of Pharaonic Archaeology, told AFP. In ancient times, the number 11 took on a more sinister meaning, and was seen to represent evil, or sinners.

Then, of course, it’s also Remembrance Day, which is commemorated at 11 am. But I’m hanging out for when the clock reaches 11 minutes & 11 seconds past 11 o’clock (am or pm) when we’ll have this eery line up:

11.11.11 on 11.11.11

Yeah, I know, there’s not much else to blog about at the moment.

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Flood alert?

Update Wednesday 9 Nov @ 11 am: This ‘flood’ looks like a non-event so far. I’ve spent all morning clearing the gutters in anticipation of a deluge that looks like it won’t happen. Oh well, had to clean them anyway.

The Ovens River @ Bright in flood a year ago (click on image to enlarge)

 Have we become too ‘Disaster Paranoid’ ?

I might be going out on a limb here but I seriously doubt that the expected deluge of rain forecast for the next 24 hours will result in any serious flooding around here and that the news reports of ‘North East flood alert’  are alarmist and just appealing to the fears that have been built up in people from seeing disastrous and deadly flood events elsewhere in Australia & overseas. Look, I know we had some moderate to major flooding late last year but they were by no means life threatening. And I know that 35 people were killed in Queensland’s disastrous floods earlier this year but … that’s Queensland, you know it’s in the tropics and they have cyclones and like a metre of water can fall in a day, whereas the weather forecast here is for maybe 20 mm today and somewhere between 50 and 80 mm tomorrow. Thereafter it clears up. Sure, we might get some flash flooding when the drains find it hard to cope with a sudden deluge but I tell you what – I’m not about to start filling sandbags anytime soon. For Christ’s sake, it’s just a bit of rain – grow up.

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Bright Rod Run 2011

That place in the background looks familiar - click on image to enlarge.

Time to expand the event into a whole week?

The 21st. annual Northern Suburbs Bright Rod Run was held in brilliant sunshine and warm 30 degree weather, and was bigger and better than ever. Honestly, this event is so popular that I think it’s time the organisers looked at holding it over a whole week embracing two consecutive weekends that would take it into the middle of November. That way, everyone who wants to come would get in. I’ve got no doubt that an extended event would be a roaring success and what a boost to the town’s economy that’d be? Anyway, I reckon this event is head & shoulders over others like the Spring Festival and the contrived ‘Rockabilly’ festival first held in March, which is just a poor (but expensive) imitation. The best events are always those driven by the outside organisers and participants not by local businesses looking to cash in - that’s my take on it. Click on “more” below to see the rest of my pics – and click on each image to enlarge. See you in 2012, rodders:

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Pokies – a sensible solution

Hardly glamorous, are they? Why do fools ruin their lives on these things?

Just limit the size of bets!

I’ve never liked Andrew Wilkie’s gun-to-the-head approach over gambling reforms. Not that I’m a fan of gambling (I think those who can’t resist the temptation are fools and we all know about ‘a fool and his money’), it’s just that I don’t think this dweeb from Hobart – who only received 20% of the 90,000 first preference votes in his own electorate – had any kind of mandate to insist on such wide national reforms. But he did and, as we all know, he made his support for Julia Gillard’s minority government totally dependent on her passing these reforms by 2012. I reckon Gillard should have played it tougher, refused to be blackmailed and dared him to go with Abbott. He wouldn’t have. She should have handled the Greens that way over the Carbon Tax too. Anyway, it’s good to see that at least one independent MP ain’t buying Wilkie’s draconian mandatory ‘pre-commitment’ scheme and wants him to water it down to simply having a maximum bet of $1 per spin. Common sense at last (click on “more” to continue):

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Special rate to be dropped?

UPDATED POST

Commercial-Industrial rate to be replaced by a (lower) differential rate

At long last the Alpine council seems to have finally acknowledged that the 48% surcharge it has imposed on properties like mine for the past 15 years under its Commercial & Industrial special rate is far too high and an unfair burden on local business owners. At  its meeting on Wednesday this week, the council has moved to drop the rate from next year’s budget and replace it with a lower commercial differential rate. Don’t get too excited yet though because, according to the report, the differential rate will be in the order of a 30-40% surcharge anyway, meaning we won’t be saving a great deal. I think that’s still too high, especially for properties that are not in commercial zones.

I have reproduced the council report over the page (click on “more” below to read it) but there are still more details to come. Ratepayers have 30 days to make submissions on the proposed change and I’ll certainly be doing that. While I welcome any move that more fairly distributes the rate burden throughout the shire rather than the punitive system that applied to the 600 or so properties charged with paying the special rate, I’m not convinced that it’s a fully equitable proposal. I’ll be writing much more about this later.

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The rods are arriving

(click on image to enlarge)

All week there’s been a steady trickle of customised vehicles arriving for The 23rd Annual Bright Rod Run to be held over the weekend. But today (Thursday) they are already pouring in for what looks like being the biggest (and longest) event ever. Maybe it’s time they extended it? Anyway, I’ll do my usual photo post sometime on the weekend. With temperatures set to hit 30 degrees it’s gonna be hot in more ways than one.

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The Sophie collection

Click on image to 'enlarge'.

I haven’t blogged a lot lately because … well, because (1) I’ve been pretty busy around the property (2) Is there really much news worth blogging about?

We seem to be in a deep hole of nothingness on the real news front at the moment and even the local member for Indi – that wonderful power-of-attorney specialist Sophie Mirabella – has gone really quiet and is keeping herself out of the headlines. I wonder why?

So, on that subject, I have put together this collection of Sophie posts that I’ve written over the last few years, just to remind you of what an appalling record she has and, well, just for the hell of it. Click on the link if you’re bored and looking for a laugh. Cheers.

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Melbourne Cup farce

Neither horse has touched the line here - the only call you could make is "dead heat". (Click on image to enlarge)

I did not have a bet on today’s Melbourne Cup, so my opinion is not in any way biased. This is the Channel 7 photo finish of the race. The judges awarded French horse Dunaden (top & inside) as the winner over English stayer Red Cadeaux. But quite clearly, neither horse has actually touched the line in this photo. It appears to me that the photo finish settings are wrong here and that, if this is also the photo from which the race is declared, the only decision you could reasonably reach is that the race was a dead heat. Red Cadeaux may appear fractionally behind in the above photo but bear in mind that: (a) The white flash on his nose distorts his actual position. (b) This gets down to a ‘bob of the head’ and you may well have found that in the next frame, Red Cadeaux would have touched the line first. It beats me why the connections did not protest and insist on a full photo review. No skin off my ‘nose’ though.

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