Ten days ago I returned from a 5874km road trip that took us through the
archetypical parts of the QLD outback and up to (but not into) the
Simpson desert: starting at the Gold Coast we went west to Quilpie and Birdsville, then north
to Boulia and Winton, looped back south to Charleville and on to Bourke, followed by
a trip to Sydney and finally a solo drive back home along the coast.
Sorting through the pictures and notes was tedious, and I'm happy that the write-up
of this travel report of sorts is complete (and I'd love to travel out west again any day).
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Mon 02.09.2013 22:18
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is upon us. Unfortunately that's also magpie swooping season - as I was
reminded of today: two substantial attacks by two separate birds in two
different areas (one I knew of from last year on Markeri Street, one new bird
in the bushes off Bermuda Street). The first of those almost sent me in
the ditch: no warning, just a thunk against the side of my helmet.
Damn birds. Neither of the two spots is easy to avoid
on my 26km "standard" route, so it looks like I'll have to rethink the route
for the next 2-3 months.
Alternatives: none, because the normal folk remedies do not work, riding without helmet is illegal here and I'm
certainly not going to cycle with an afro wig over my helmet :-)
[ published on Thu 29.08.2013 18:04
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Ingredients: one drive south to a place called Minnie Water in the Yuraygir
National Park, good company, pretty good weather (it did rain but it wasn't
very cold), and gorgeous scenery. Mix well and enjoy.
[ published on Wed 31.07.2013 13:37
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In the beginning Oz was cursed with British bread: white, without form
and void; and darkness was on az's face. And moldy spirits were hovering
over the bakery shelves.
Then az said 'Let there be Rye!'; and there was rye bread. And az saw
the rye bread, that it was good; and az divided the Real Bread from
the White Crap.
Life would be so much less nice without my bread maker and decent
ingredients.
[ published on Tue 18.06.2013 22:55
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as of this moment, and after an unwelcome parting gif^W^Wbit of extortionist
bank fees i'm now the undisputed, debt-free owner of my house: i finally paid
off my home loan and got the house and land title transferred.
it's a good feeling not to owe anybody anything *happy* :-)
Update (Tue 30.04.2013 21:47):
"ANZ's profit swells" it said in the news, and no surprise: this bank's greed knows
no bounds.
To close a paid-out home lown and get the title to your
property back you have to pay them:
- $160 as "Production Fee".
- another $160 as "Lodgment Fee".
- and $137.10 as "Government Registration Fee"
oh, and by the way, the registration fee doesn't mean that
the title is actually transferred do you; no sir, we do no such
thing: for that purpose we recommend you lodge your documents
ASAP and by yourself with the Land Registry Office, for
another measly $152.10. WTF - what did i pay you $137.10 for, then?
disgusting bloodsuckers!
[ published on Tue 23.04.2013 17:39
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There's not too many of them (10 in Queensland versus 17 in Austria),
many of them are mobile (rescheduled if they should fall on a weekend),
and some of them are handled really oddly, for example Easter:
Good Friday: everything is closed, and I mean just about everything
including bottle shops.
Saturday: everything is open.
Easter Sunday: everything is closed again (didn't check the
bottle shops though).
Easter Monday: everything is open again.
[ published on Mon 01.04.2013 12:50
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That's very good to know. For the first time in 12+ years I saw a snake
near my house this morning: it was sunbathing/slithering through the branches
of a bush just outside my kitchen window. I saw it only because I thought 'hmm,
I'll have to cut that back soonish...wait a minute, what's that?'
After a brief bit of online investigation I found out that it's a common
tree snake, which is not poisonous according to Wildlife Queensland; its colouring was
actually quite beautiful (similar to this blue-green one). Mind you, I still don't plan
on going anywhere near the critter...
[ published on Tue 05.03.2013 12:16
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As of a few days ago I no longer work for said uni, and I never cared
about the sheep.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Thu 27.12.2012 12:01
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Snow causes havoc across eastern OZ :-)
[ published on Sat 13.10.2012 13:50
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Yesterday I had yet another punctured car tyre, this time two for the price
of one: one nail (not through) and one fat screw (all the way through).
Luckily it was a slow puncture and I found it in time, repressurized
the tyre and put in a quick trip to the local repair shop ($15).
This must be at least the tenth puncture in eleven years in country, which is
gazillions more than I've had in Austria: looks like punctures are a
part of the Australian way of life, too :-)
Weird. We drive slower here and the roads aren't that bad so why
the all damn holes? I think it's because the buildings here
in Southeast QLD are mostly constructed of wood, and most tradesmen
drive utes without canopies over the cargo bin and are pretty messy
with their gear: all the punctures I've had so far were caused by spiral-shank
nails or by drywall, roofing or other wood screws.
[ published on Wed 22.08.2012 11:01
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I really like this lovely small gem of common sense, uncommon in this
century of propaganda and threat exaggeration:
"That is, if the conduct complained of would not amount to an offence
if it occurred off-line, then it is not an offence simply because
in a particular instance it was undertaken with the aid of
digital technology."
"For example, complaints have been received about comments posted on
Facebook which are abusive or harassing. If this behavior occurred in
a public place it would not be a reportable offence," said Acting
Inspector Luke Manhood.
Fan-TAS-tic!
[ published on Sat 14.07.2012 17:38
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There are people who pull off pretty amazing stunts, like getting
lost for three days/four nights in a fairly small national park just
inland from the Gold Coast.
Somehow I can see only one explanation: she must have been wearing her bikini
over her eyes :-)
[ published on Sun 18.03.2012 17:03
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Last week Aldi OZ had an especially odd item on special:
blood stain removers, 8 units per pack.
Just how did I survive for 39 years without such highly crucial, essential
stuff that you need every single day?
(Maybe it's because I have a spade. Then, maybe not.)
[ published on Tue 31.01.2012 23:02
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I like gumtree quite a bit: it's free
for private ads, no registration required, simple email-based access and
best of all it works. When my nephew visited we needed a car seat for
him, and the
second ad I responded to worked out. Now that Emil is back in Vienna the
seat is surplus.
I posted an ad two days ago, had four responses within 24 hours and sold the seat today (for the same amount as I paid two months ago). Very nice.
I just hope ebay (who own gumtree via some subsidiary nowadays) don't stuff
this service up...
[ published on Fri 02.12.2011 10:56
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The laundry and the water heater are renewed and I'm declaring the
renovation work in this place done, finished, over.
(I know, I know, famous last words and all that - but at least
I don't plan any further biggies).
Here are some photos of the exercise.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Wed 14.09.2011 01:55
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Not bad: since the new meter went in, I consumed electricity worth
$81 - and received $43 credit for the energy my solar panels created.
[ published on Wed 14.09.2011 00:30
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..of those high-energy photons, please! Ahem. On Monday the sparkies performed
the solar installation on my roof (6 big panels for a nominal 1.5kW of lovely solar electricity).
We'll see how much of my energy needs that will take care of (it won't be all for sure; I usually need
about 11kW/day and a 1.5kW installation won't provide more than 60% of that) - but the feed in tariffs
for exporting energy to the grid are good (so far): you get quite a bit more for your exported kW
than you pay for consumption.
Now I just need to wire up the inverter's serial port and start logging performance with rrdtool...
[ published on Wed 01.06.2011 12:51
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Well, if I was a letter I'd also feel like being abandoned after
having those two parasitic muppets pasted on me.
(for my few colonial readers, Karl Kraus said "In Austria, sending a letter
means to abandon it". He was obviously not enamoured with the ÖPTV's services,
and used the nuances of German to the limit:
"Aufgeben" means both posting a letter and abandoning something
(as in: all hope), and "heissen" is good for both expressing
"is called" and "has the meaning of"...)
[ published on Fri 06.05.2011 20:24
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[not exactly new but still quite funny. I've got to say it also
works for longtime non-citizen residents...]
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Fri 18.03.2011 15:24
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...or any low-lying places around Brisbane. Here on the Gold Coast things
are quiet, no flooding anywhere. But with the crappy weather of the recent
weeks just about anything starts growing mould and mildew. I'm pretty
sick of the humidity...
[ published on Tue 11.01.2011 20:04
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Tomorrow I'm going camping for a few days. The weather forecast is pretty
average but it'll be fun nevertheless. I'm going to join up with some friends
at Bundjalung National Park (in the Black Rock area - camping right behind the dunes and the beach) and I'm loaded for bear, gear-wise.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Thu 23.12.2010 23:18
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Concrete apparently doesn't cut it anymore, We Must Have More Sandstone.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Mon 02.08.2010 16:37
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This is a blatant commercial plug but I don't feel bad about it.
After ages with Voodoofone I've moved over to different gang named ThinkMobile (while keeping my number: porting
works fine in this country). They resell both Tel$tra and
Voodoofone, but with very decent customer support and both better features
and price (for low-volume users like me) IMHO.
ThinkMobile is fishing for new customers and is
happy to give both
newbie and referrer $24 credit each. So, if you want to do me
some good why not join up, quote MATES and my name and we both
benefit a little?
[ published on Thu 29.07.2010 18:50
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Last weekend Conny and I spent with Pete and Wendy, Jasper and Ula
camping in Bundjalung National Park, 2 hours south of here. We camped
in the Black Rocks area (open camping areas, state-owned and non-commercial,
hassle-free and not too pricey). At this time
of the year it's also pretty much empty of people.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Wed 28.07.2010 23:34
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Today we have: one member of the Victorian parliament, this Kavanagh troll, publicly
requesting that Cat Stevens^W^WMr. Islam should not be given a visa
for visiting Oz - because "He has not said I do not support killing anybody
for the expression of their beliefs".
Never mind that the Oz powers are happily ass-licking war mongers
like G.W. Shrub who supports killing anybody for any silly reason,
but the musician, oh he must be Exceedingly Evil. (Right. I don't
like his sugary music much either.)
So, how about all the people who have not stated that they don't support
dousing stupid politicians in petrol and lighting them? And what about
those who haven't said they don't support our new weevil overlords?
And what about those who haven't said they don't
support skippy's misdeeds?
And what about those who'd dream of a plague that takes out every single
politician attempting to represent more than 50 people? (FSVO 50)
...
...picture az wandering off to code a tiny bit of perl for listing
the infinite number of things which one has to say one doesn't support
before being let into Kavanagh's Kave...
[ published on Fri 28.05.2010 22:11
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For the non-natives: the proper word is "mechaniker", and this
spoonerized version Stems from "machen" = to make or create
and "hinig" = broken. Unfortunately the mangled version is appropriate much
more often than not.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Wed 28.04.2010 15:12
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...when I will have paid off my house loan. This week I've reached a
milestone towards that goal: the outstanding amount is finally in
the five-digit AU$ range.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Wed 21.04.2010 14:24
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Bremst er sich ganz furchtbar zsamm,
hau ich mir den plutzer an.
ahem
and now for something...completely...different.
(ahoy, captain bligh! more moronic politics, pleeeeease!)
[ published on Tue 21.07.2009 22:45
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Queensland, with a reputation for having an overlarge share of
rednecks and toughs, manages to
properly jail a corrupt politician.
Austria, on the other hand, always manages to find new excuses for not
even prosecuting the lying bastards.
So which place is more sophisticated, cultured, decent?
[ published on Fri 17.07.2009 19:29
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Sounds like a veritable gourmet,
this
croc. The wording of the copper's statement is a gem;
very "unfortunate" that the croc didn't reduce the human genepool a little, eh?
[ published on Mon 15.06.2009 19:37
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