Mouse Infestation

"Queensland Health has rostered on extra staff to conduct pest control at a Darling Downs hospital after an 89-year-old nursing home resident had his ears gnawed by mice."

If this is a mouse plague then they can hit very quickly and they are everywhere. it is worse because this is an aged care home. Darling Downs is an area prone to mice. There are areas like that and the mice come in and take over. Because it is aged care they are subject to regulations and they cannot use poison. Same in schools. When people are old and frail they just cannot deal with it. I would have thought shifting them out would be a safe and better option until the hospital can get rid of the mice. They run everywhere. They won't all get trapped and they won't all get found. It is just a horrible situation. It's important we have back up plans for schools and hospitals if they are subject to infestation by anything. We need to think it through and then we need a way to move people out because this happens in some parts of Australia. You can't just let the old people and nursing staff manage. They need a plan and immediate, rational help. Discussing the situation is not helping. Fix it!
 

Traffic Congestion

"The slowdown means an average 15km journey to work is about five minutes slower than it was a decade ago."

If South Australia has become worse it is a factor of speed cahnges on various major roads, non stop road works, more houses, more traffic lights and a lack of adequate public transport. You never know when roadworks are going to pop up. Housing estates put a load on roads. There is no thought about staggering school dismissal and starting times and trucks can really impede the traffic in hilly areas which a lot of Adelaide is. The roadworks need to be completed because our roads have been in need of upgrading so that bit is unavoidable for now.  With better public transport we'd ease the burden on roads.

Sludgy Internet

"Initially, computers will go offline for several minutes at a time. From 2012, however, they're likely to operate at a much lower speed, rendering the internet an "unreliable toy", Times Online reports."

Laughable, really. Get us to buy the equipment. Get us to rely on it. Get us to use it for critical services and then....the promise of poor quality delivery. Why am I not surprised this is all our fault and we shall just have to put up with it?! Pathetic.

Up and runnning on Ubuntu

It's been a good experience not to be on Ubuntu since Saturday. I have been frozen with the weather change and my laptop running Ubuntu is not on the ethernet by the fire....I have been huddling! Today is a bit milder and so I was anxious to get back onto Ubuntu. That says something. I have been battling Apple at work and it really has been annoying me how limited it is.Most of us are a bit cranky because we are so used to Windows stuff and much of what we run is Windows based. We are finding alternatives but they do not seem to be as flexible. For image and music the Apple is fantastic. At home I have been fighting with Vista. It takes too long to load and then it has been sludgy and some of that is scripting errors on Facebook and some of it is who knows what because the screen whites over, the computer trawls through files and I sit there like a pillock with all this fancy equipment waiting for it to get a move on. Even the Dell which has been a dream machine has been slow. Surely the computers aren't affected by the sudden cold and wet? So now I  am on Ubuntu. It started up, I logged on (I love that...this is MY computer) I had updates, a little information message to read. It just went on the Net. I am working on getting the codecs together. TV5 played okay but the picture isn't crystal clear. France 2 had a beautiful picture for its car video before the news. The picture was superb...then Ubuntu went and found me lots of codecs but I got the first image of the news and that was that. I know with things like this it just takes a little while even on Windows to sort the issues out. I am patient. But Ubuntu is so polite and so easy to get along with. It tells you about things. It asks you about things. It doesn't just push you into stuff...nor does it take over YOUR computer. So yoo-hoo from Ubuntu again!

Crisis overload

We were talking today about how now,since Bush,Blair andHoward we just keep going from one crisis to another. On and on. We finish with one and off we go to the next. Our reactions are no different. All the awful dumped on us as a planet is still affecting of us. But we are growing tired of this one crisis stacked upon another and then the fear and horror it creates. It sucks big time.

Nude Hiking Banned

"VOTERS in the heart of the Swiss Alps have passed legislation banning naked hiking after dozens of mostly German nudists started rambling through their picturesque region."

I guess it would take you a bit by surprise to find someone in nothing but their hiking boots while you were out hiking in the Swiss Alps. No more. We are all safe from surprises and I daresay the hikers will be safer and warmer as a result. Too bloomin' cold!

Message in a bottle

"The message is written in pencil and bears the names, camp numbers and home towns of seven people, including at least four Poles and one Frenchman."

The bottle was found at Auschwitz. The people were 18-20 at the time. So young. If they are identified it will maybe help put some families at peace. It's just unbelievable.

Swine Flu in Adelaide?

Just today at lunch time we were talking about the swine flu and what it might mean. Some people thought we had no cases in Australia but we set them straight. We now have 12 suspected cases in Adelaide and suspected cases are popping up around Australia. It is a virus which is being chased around the world now. What I really am impressed with is how so many governments have put very quick preventative and safety measures in to action. I don't think it will further anything to flap and carry on like a pork chop. It is really important that we keep our thinking clear so that we take sound actions. A lot of countries are doing this and the good thing is we have global communication and so countries will be able to help each other. That is important in containing this. We were wondering if we would have to stay home. Getting food would become a problem but then we were laughing at what we might have to survive on for a month if we were not allowed out of home. That was hilarious. What we weren't clear about is if they actually have something which will deal with this virus or not because we seem to have mixed messages as usual. They either have something or they don't. We were not worried as such because we thought the information was being discussed well and we thought people in authority were taking good steps to ensure the virus is contained...and that is the important bit. It needs to be contained.

It's wet!

In summer we would sometimes have a glorious tropical downpour in Adelaide to help relieve the heat and dry. That hasn't been the case for a while now, but these 5 days of downpours and freezing cold have been welcomed with open arms. We have green things growing in our gardens. We have wetness. There is no dust to irritate our eyes and lungs. Some of us are toughing it out with blankets, winter woollies and snuggly socks. Some of us are heading straight for the heating. We are not complaining. We say it's cold. We say it's wet and then we laugh. It's great. Just great. The birds are chirping, the insects are coming out of their flooded abodes and some people have possums to keep an eye on. You don't want them and their all night poker parties in your roof. The rats are out too. Their homes must have been flooded. Hate them. As themselves they are interesting...but you do not want them around your home. Horrid things. So we are rugged up with books, DVDs, TV and laptops...but our bodies have slowed right down.It is really hard to get them going! We are remarkably relaxed considering we are so wet and cold!

Bette Calman

"You're never too old. The body is a remarkable instrument. It can stretch and stretch, and get better all the time. Forget age."

Bette Calman is 83 and still practising yoga. She teaches 11 classes a week. What an inspiration. I remember our new last year, I think, had a woman in her 90s running yoga classes. We got to work the next day and we all started walking, yoga, exercising. We had no excuse! These women are an inspiration to us and it like the French news had all these older women who were doing Tai kwondo and they were just awesome. They were so fit and so strong...agile. It was living proof we can all lead healthy, happy lives if we are prepared to put in some effort. These women don't see it as effort though. This is how they think and live and they are truly amazing.

Damn the spam

"The energy devoted to sending, storing and sorting phoney messages is 33 billion kilowatt hours of power, generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving a car around the planet 1.6 million times."

Aren't you  glad we turned our servers off  to  unknown entities?

Women and Heart Disease

"People think these women are dying of old age. But in fact they have a cardiac condition that is often something that could be reversed or fixed with an operation or avoided altogether if they started taking action earlier," Dr Marasco says."

Read the whole article. We not only hear about a very dedicated and talented cardiac surgeon, she is using her professional experience and knowledge to explain to us very clearly why women need to look after their hearts and get help earlier. It is something we are not acknowledging. Let's get the information out there and wake women up.

Ban the Bags

"There's already trepidation among assistants who are fearful of how some customers will react when the ban hits," Mr Malinauskas said.

We don't need plastic bags and the world is a better place without them. We can manage, you know. If people cannot bring their own bags, well, they need to get jiggy with it. Bags are there. We have had access to sensible alternatives for AGES. YONKS. We even have the new teeny tiny bags which miraculously fold out into a big bag. So change is what we need. It stops the plastic bags going into the wild. Rubbish can be put in other bags or containers. I prefer cloth bags because I can wash them. I have some durable plastic ones but cloth is easy and they fold up better. I even made some nice cloth bags for people for Christmas presents and they have all told me they had lots of compliments! So...let's get on with it and get rid of the plastic bags. I like how some shops have gone bag to the paper bags. It is about keeping our world recyclable and clean. We lobbied for this change and we were glad. Now all of a sudden we have got people who cannot cope without a plastic bag. The alternatives are better...they don't split and drop your shopping!

Villers Bretonneux

"In a touching display of trans-world and generational solidarity, the children of this tiny French village vowed to return the favour bequeathed to their great, great grandparents more than 80 years ago when the state of Victoria raised funds to help rebuild their war-ravaged school."

Ça c'est incroyablement touchant.  Trop gentille. The children in Villers- Bretonneux have collected money to help a school in fire stricken  Victoria just as we helped them rebuild their school. I hope they do not have to wait long, mais il faut patienter un peu,   it has been a long, tough haul for Victoria to manage what it has had to manage. There is a beautiful site here about the history of Villers-Bretonneux.

Prescribed drugs.

"I want to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else," she said. "It must be happening every single day and there doesn't seem to be a system in place to stop it."

I am with her. I feel for her and I think she has lost her son in sad circumstances and wants to make something good come out of it. It would be good because there are all sorts of reasons why there should be proper checks and balances on prescribed medication. Sometimes it may be the doctors who do things in good faith. Sometimes it may be the patients who don't administer their drugs properly and sometimes it is a case of too much too often. We are becoming more accurate with this . We can determine drug levels through blood tests. In that sense we can be far more accurate in our management of the correct dose for an individual. Some people do not understand there are problems if you mix prescribed medication with other things and it might be something like the food you are eating or the vitamins you are taking. With computers , case histories ought to be able to be managed better. Maybe the privacy laws cut across that. This man lost his life at 23 . Maybe we can do better than this if we think about it and then Mrs MacMahon might get some comfort.

Anzac Day

It is Anzac Day today. The day we remember and it's a day where we think about who we are as a nation and what is in our history. A day to respect those who have fought for us and to remember we have always played our part in history in some remarkable ways. I nearly always hear the dawn service which is near my place. Today I didn't. It has been raining now for 3 days and the relief has let us all sleep at night. This is the first year I haven't heard the dawn service. I don't feel bad about it because Australia is about being Australian. Sleeping after a long haul dry as tinder summer is a good sign. It has poured harder today. So hard my gutters couldn't hold it. It was dark, black and then it just rained and rained. We have been hanging around home with our families. One neighbour is trying to sort out fallen branches in between the rain. Another is having visitors and a third is getting the kids off to sport. My sister is curled up reading a Whodunnit.We have had a day getting the house in order and I baked Anzac biscuits which have had the thumbs up. I got the recipe from our local paper and it's the best Anzac biscuit recipe I have had. The lunch boxes will be happy this week!

18Kg tumour removed

"When I get home the first thing I want to do is hug my kids."

Doctors in Germany have removed an 18 kg tumour from a Saudi Arabian woman. It doesn't say how she came to be there from Kuwait. It was a malignant tumour and is supposed to be the largest of its kind. The woman can now wear normal clothes and yes, she just wants to hug her kids. This is such a lovely story. Lovely, because the woman never gave up. Lovely because she has grace and gratitude and lovely because doctors have allowed her to be normal. All over the worl there are doctors who bring such relief to people's anguish and who are able to solve problems remarkably well. It's just fantastic.

Baby Shaker

"Apple has apologised after a "deeply offensive" game for the iPhone called "Baby Shaker" was approved for sale in the company's online store."

Who approved it ? Who gave the go ahead? How does a game like that get to be released? How can it become a product without someone saying yes? All those people need help and Apple and any company need to keep tabs on what they are marketing. These things get out, there are the apologies, but they still get out. And who made the game? That person needs a lot of help and  I'd like to know that this matter has been properly investigated and resolved. I want to know the checks and balances ahve been done. We are awful when we cannot even think kindly about little babies. I don't want a society like that.It's not something I can excuse.

The chips are down.

"It takes only few minutes for an eight-year-old to scoff down a small packet of chips. But guess how much exercise they'd have to do to work it off? Well, according to a new study, an hour."

Okay, up you get then, grab the footie and start working it off. No TV for you tonight , my boy.

Public Transport

BUS commuters were left stranded on five Torrens Transit routes this morning because an employee forgot to assign drivers on the company roster.

We are disgusted with Adelaide public transport. Buses don't arrive or arrive early so connections are missed. If you happen to start work at 5 am , bad luck. You are expected to have a car in this state if you want to work. Those without cars are badly disadvantaged because no public transport will get them there for early shifts or late shifts. Then you have the lunacy of the one hour gap around 2pm onwards. It is just nonsense. The trams are packed to capacity and stifling. If people want to catch trams they can't because the trams are packed and just drive by. Trains are okay but then they can't meet the early and late shifts  and we have the small matter of lines buckling in extreme heat. No mini buses like in some countries. The whole lot needs looking at and fixing. In the light of climate change we need to be using public transport. Ours is a complete travesty and there are only a few runs which are safe. It is wrong to be living where you cannot reliably get to work unless you have a car.It is sheer and utter nonsense...but it is also a social justice and equity issue.

RAIN!!!!

"RAIN, glorious rain - nearly 32mm of it in Adelaide alone. No wonder people across the state are celebrating."

Two whole days of it! It started off quite warm and sunny this morning so we thought we'd seen all the rain there would be...then the clouds built up, the wind got colder and it rained...and rained..and rained. We had forgotten how slippery it can get and how squeaky our shoes are on the floors in shopping malls. We were laughing. No one cared about how wet it was. It was just bloomin' brilliant to see the rain and everything is wet! We have had to dive for jumpers and warm woolly jackets and hats. Some of us managed to find umbrellas. No one complained a bit. it was just great. We've been making soup and pasta. We have been stocking up on potatoes and sweet potatoes. We've been sharing good book titles and interesting DVDs. We are ready to roll...It has been utterly depressing to see the state dry up and gardens fall apart. We usually have pretty nice gardens but some people have lost interest and you can't blame them. 

Town of Wainuiomata banned

"As a Scotsman I don't have a vote, it doesn't matter to me, you're banned," he told the legislator.

I love it. He owns the hotel in NZ and he has had trouble with the locals so his answer is to ban the whole town because it's his hotel and he has nothing to lose...and is clear about that and his boundaries. He doesn't want rowdy people in his hotel. I  love it!

Australian Crocs in NZ

"They hate each other and will be kept apart at the zoo."

Won't it be too cold four our crocodiles in NZ?  One comes from Darwin and one comes from Cairns and the zoo keepers in NZ are finding them a bit feisty. I don't think crocdiles can hate though, can they? They just eat it if its in their way and they are hungy. They need a lot of respect.

Catfish and Mandala

Given there is a a lot of talk about people smuggling into Australia again then I think Catfish and Mandala is a good book for me to be reading. Andrew Pham gets you in from the first word and weaves the tale of his journey to America and then back to Vietnam with a modest but disarmingly honest approach. He just tells the story of what it is like to be a Vietnamese born American and then a Viet-kieu in Vietnam. You hear the tales of what it was like trying to escape from Vietnam and then what it is like to return when you have been living in America. As the story unfolds you get more and more information which arises naturally from the bicycle trip around Vietnam. It is not sensational but he simplicity of it is paradoxical. and deeply moving. It is the simplicity which keeps you reading. He has such a way with words and he embellishes nothing...but then nothing needs to be embellished. It is fascinating and it has given me a much better understanding of what might be the reality for some of our refugees here....and has made me think about how awful it is that people try to make money out of their misfortune. I have just lost myself in it everytime I have picked it up and it is easy to see why this is a prize winning book. There are e-copies available here.

A la folie, pas du tout

The trouble with translating form one language form another is that you often miss the point, don't get the complexity of thought and therefore remain oblivious to what thoughts might be possible. Little French kids play a games with daisies ... il m'aime (he love me) un peu ( a little bit) beaucoup (a lot) passionnément,(passionately), à la folie (madly), pas du tout ( not at all). A la folie literally means to madness. What starts off as an Amelie type film and you think, oh no, I have seen her doing this before...changes in a very surprising way to something quite different and then you have no idea where it's headed...or you have ideas and then they are discounted. Good film for a rainy day or where you just want to get lost in a very interesting little story. Samuel Le Bihan becomes better and better as his role unfolds. So yes, in English it's He loves me , he loves me not, but A la folie, pas du tout is the perfect title. It is a film which really makes you think about relationships and how they become dysfunctional and then a film  which makes you think about how some people are caught up in the sticky mess of relationships and you understand better why they cannot free themselves so easily.

Earth Day

Click here to get more mini-SharkBreak widgets - www.SharkBreak.com

Storm Drains

"He also warns people to stay away from creeks and storm drains, even if they are dry."

We need to get that message out loud and clear because if the rains are as heavy as they have been prdicted to be then people , kids especially, will be caught unawares and put in danger. Storm drains have always been an exciting place to play around Adelaide , but they are treacherous in wet weather and kids can get caught out far too easily. Same with the creeks. Some will fill quickly and the banks will be slippery. We all need to remind ourselves of this.

Child Abuse

"(But) this offence was triggered by unexpected and subliminal forces... it is appropriate to suspend the sentence."

He kicked his 3 year old son and gave him a lacerated liver. He has been a victim of child abuse himself. he is allowed to live with the son if the Department of Corrections Abuse approves. There appears to be support there. He is receiving fatherhood and anger management counselling. The family needs his income to keep their house. We are all gob smacked. He has a 1000 dollar good behaviour bond and a 29 month suspended sentence. Is that enough? We didn't used to punish parents for being violent to their children and we didn't help them either. I shall never forget a friend of my brother's who used to come over to our house. He was a great kid. He turned up one day with his hands wrapped up and couldn't play guitar. My Dad, being my Dad, just started talking away and then we found out his Mum would burn his hands on the electric stove to punish him. We all felt sick. There was a silence. The mum turned up on our doorstep not too long after that and was trying to threaten by Dad to do with something to do with my brother and her son. He brought up about the hands. I could hear him saying if her boy ever turned up at our house again with any kind of injury, he would just go down to the police station. The boy was never hurt again. I found out years later he became a priest. I hope this man has enough boundaries to keep his son safe. It is a different way of going about it and  the whole situation would need a lot of monitoring.If he is usually a good Dad, there is some hope...but that kind of violence is insidious.

O'Bon environmentally friendly stationery

I was in the stationery shop in Malvern today and the bright oranges, kiwi and strawberries caught my eye. The products look fabulous. Really well made and very colourful. So I bought a packet of pencils made from recycled newspapers. They have sharpened to an excellent sharp point which I am very fussy about. The notebook with the big juicy strawberries on the front is destined to be my new computer notebook. It looks delicious! It is made from recycled sugar cane pulp so that's one way to clean up as you  go. The quality of the paper is very good. Check out their site and look for their products.

Ubuntu Visitors

This is a screen dump of some of my visitors from Ubuntu. I get stats on 100 at a time and they just come from everywhere. The bulk of my stats yesterday were for the Yoo-oo fromUnbuntu post and look at all the people who said yoo- hoo back. It's so heart warming and very much appreciated.

Anzac Day

Monday should shape up to be interesting. We used to have a public holiday on the Monday if Anzac Day fell on the weekend. It's Saurday this year and they have changed the rules. We are all at work on Monday...oh, and school! Judging by the conversation today, plenty of people are confused. Use this site.

NASA feed for Earth Day

NASA is planning to celebrate Earth Day by broadcasting high-definition images of the planet taken from the International Space Station (ISS).

Well, that could be interesting. About time we heard something good from te space station. I heard they were arguing about toilets and then they had repairs to do. Always repairing just like at home! It'll be great to get some high definition pictures of our planet. Hope they can see through all the space junk flying around. Earth Day is the 22nd...that's tomorrow for us! Are the astronauts on Facebook? Are they allowed to social netork up there? Do they use Skype to call home?

Rain?

"HEAVY rain has been predicted for the weekend - boosting the hopes of farmers riding on season-opening rains."

We'll believe it when we see it. They have promised rain before and it has looked like rain. We might even have got a light sprinking of something wet...but no real rain. Everything is parched. Just not burnt now. The sun is not a cruel, but the ground is becoming waterproof it is so dry. I look forward to a decent rain.

Happy Adelaide

Adelaide had a really nice feel today. Relaxed, busy and happy. The Nylon Zoo was a big hit with the children and lots of people took photos. There was a guy in a light shirt playing guitar and he was relaly cool and the magician drew quite a crowd. People were happy to be there, shopping, eating, just passing the time. There was a good mix of ages which was a good sign and a good range to dress, another good sign. Variety and harmony. Balance. The consensus of opinion seems to be that Hindley Street has deteriorated badly over the last two years and it is basically swarming with kids under the influence and then clueless as to what appropriate behaviour is. Adelaide afraid to take control of kids. The only black spot today was some nine year old...maybe 8, who was at the Nylon Zoo and decided to kick his Mum or big sister in the shins. He was carrying on and gesticulating and remonstrating. So out of tune with everyone else and so odd for his age. I don't think I have ever seen that in town. Adelaide kids can make a noise but they are not aggressive...not as young kids. Anyway, no one bothered much not even his mum/elder sister or mum/grandma. They didn't seem to be bothered he was kicking. Hate to see him at school. Anyway, people were enjoying eating outside as lunch time because it was pleasantly warm and then they enjoyed the buskers today. A really good feel.

Mindless Violence

"Police say he was then kicked in the face about six times before a second man kicked him a seventh time leaving him unconscious on the ground."

This one is in Melbourne. It needs to stop. We don't want or need mindless violence. The police have released video footage in the hope people can help identify who it was. I like that. I like the fact the community is involved and asked to be involved because there are far more nice people than cruel ones. We need to be able to band together and what better way than technology and the Net. I hope they find out who did this.

Country Areas

"I wanted to stay in the area and thought that was the best time to buy. It's a great little town," she said.

I'd like to think the housing crisis is allowing people to think about the value of our country areas. In SA we have some fantastic country areas  and so if young people are buying out in the country and encouraging a property sales to flourish , it is a good sign. Our country areas need to be revamped and regrown so they continue to be part of a state which is growing. Young people will know how to make the connections and changes needed for that and the older residents will probably be glad of some new faces. Things will change, they always do, but we need to keep regional SA up and running because it's something we value and is valuable to us.

Social Networking

"It's not reading, writing and arithmetic in this case though - Telstra employees are implored to observe responsibility, respect and representation."

In a word reputation. Not unreasonable to expect an employee to respect the reputation of the person or company for whom they work . If they do not like them , then they can move on. And that doesn't mean you have to accept all the work conditions offered. Those sorts of discrepancies need to be aired in person and face to face. Social networking is a very easy way to keep in touch and far more efficient than a phone call. Phone calls can last up to half an hour. Depends who you get at the end of the line. Sending an SMS, an email, a Facebook note or a tweet is far quicker and would take you less off task if you managed it responsibly. Phone calls mean you are subject to the mood and whimsies of the person at the other end of the line. Social networking has to be evaluated in terms of benefits to and the workplace. No use ignoring it.

Ubuntu, Ibuntu too

So many lovely people have come to my blog from all over the world. Ubuntu people. I thank  them for taking the timeto visit me. What I have discovered already about this community is they are just there. They help you stand on the ledge and fly out of Windows and are just there. I am a little flashing red dot on a map in Australia. From the moment I came onboard with Ubuntu I knew I was that little red dot in Adelaide and that someone was there. I confess it was the same with Vista too. I was very aware when I came onboard with Vista that there were people there trying to help me get it right quickly. Safe hands are important when you are taking risks. And Ubuntu has so many of them! I have always wanted to try Linux. It has always been there tapping on my shoulder. I really like it because it is simple and fuss free. My old NEC is doing everything I need at the moment. And more. I have got into Terminal and  Gedit and have googled away until I could do code things. I am happy. I love code. I used to love doing things in Basic and Qbasic... then Windows took it away.I wasn't brilliant but it's me. It suits my brain and that is important. Not much suits my brain. So now I can make directories, list the last ten files, list all the things on my computer in order of size,change font colours...say hello to myself and tell me I'm logged on...all this in a couple of days. I went through my apc disks and have downloaded the tutorials.to do  this week. Made such a mess of my nice clean chocolate desktop! And I have discovered Edubuntu. I know it exists and it could be so helpful to schools onlimited budgets from what I can tell.. . that's equity and social justice.

Fruit and Veg allergies

"A long time ago ... I hardly ever saw anyone allergic to bananas. But bananas in particular is one I'm seeing more and more patients with," he said.

Seems weird. Children are suddenly allergic to bananas, kiwi fruit...They are getting furry, prickly sensations and tingling in the mouth...a metallic taste. That is not the fruit, in my humble opinion. It is something to do with how and/or where the fruit is grown or treated. Apparently it is okay if it is cooked or frozen.How odd.

Electricity price hikes

He says the cost of the infrastructure upgrade will fall to customers.

"But it is a small amount, say $2 a week," he said. 

Yes, indirect taxing. Couple of dollars here and a couple of dollars there.I stillpay the River Murray levy. What River Murray??!! This is just a big con. We get to pay for upgrading or  supposed upgrading.Whatever they decide. Why don't you all give me a couple of dollars a week? I need upgrading.

The tallest man

"I am so worried about his marriage, job and his health that my hair has turned white," his mother, Wang Keyun, told Xinhua. 

The new tallest man is 27 and 8' 7...that is tall.His poor Mum is worried that he will have a sad life.He looks happy enough and his only health problem at the moment is his sore foot which will heal with treatment. He has been working for a street performing troup and had been enjoying basketball. As with other things I think we are going to have to use our flexible thinking to make life more productive for tall people. They ought  to be equally employed inspite of their height. We need some equity here.  We have come a long way with humans of different persuasions. We can get better.In the meantime Zhao Liang awaits the official measurement from the Guiness people and a bright future.

Susan Boyle

"Boyle has shattered prejudices about the connection between age, appearance and talent. She has proved that you don't have to be young and glamorous to be talented, and recognised as such."

Susan Boyle has been the talk of the town here. It was because she was so misjudged initially. No one had given her credit for dreaming a dream  and allowing it to become true. Our society is all about packaging and we were shown up for the superficial beings we have been conditioned to be. Luckily we learned a good lesson. People have realised how shallow they were and they have not been afraid to say so. We can thank Susan Boyle for setting our eyes and the picture straight. Britain not only has talent, it has honesty.

Yoo-hoo from Ubuntu!

That's it -my Ubuntu desktop!! Clean. The taskbar at the top and the one at the bottom are all you need. It was not without trepidation that I embarked upon my Linux journey, but I am always up for a learning curve on computers! I got out my poor  overheating NEC and figured I could do no harm. Blogging about it the other night gave me this idea. What if? What have I got to lose? You know you want to! I got out my Mandrake disks, set the computer up to boot from the CD, got half way through the load and pfft. Nothing. So then I got out my Mandriva disk. That loaded and wouldn't charge the battery. Not that it mattered. I was running from mains and an ethernet connection. I recognised Konquerer from day I had put a Konquerer CD into my old desktop and rescued a file or two I needed to reboot my unbootable computer. That was so hard! So...then I remembered I had apc disks and found one with Ubuntu 6 point something. It loaded. The cool chocolate desktop and choice of screensavers impressed me .Yes, that's what I like!! So then it decided to do 325 updates. Okay...Oooh, running a bit warm. I played with it a bit ,went on the Net had no  problems except I was in Firefox 1.5. Then I had another update notification...1250 updates and I tell you, they were coming down at over 300kb per second and I have NEVER had that kind of speed in Windows. Two magazines, 3 chapters of my book and a lot of gasbagging later...I was installed. Ubuntu is really nice and my poor NEC is managing.  I am looking forward to discovering Ubuntu 8.04!!

Touch Screens

We already have them. We already have screen you can write on with a stylus...which can convert it to text?!! What's a keyboard for?! Windows 7 will be coming and it features touch screens and managing other things like your TV and stereo. I cannot see how this will be of benefit given we can do it. Touch screens give me the creeps. If you remember the story about peanuts in pubs and the study which discovered how many types of urine in the peanuts, I really am not keen for multiple user touch screens. Who knows where their hands have been? I'd like tothe new windows to sort out the driver issues because that is Vista problems in a nutshell. The rest of Vista is fine and I have no issues with it. XP has more reliable drivers and manages peripherals better which is why people have stuck with it, especially offices. XP has proved its worth because it has been performing reliably for years. It is a good operating system. Vista tried to be too clever and then people became impatient. I have bothered with it because I like the interface and I can say the help I have had from Microsoft support and third party driver/software sites has been excellent. I have had most things fixed with in minutes and the only thing which took a couple of hours was my old Nokia mobile phone cable...but he networking through support was impressive. I think the Outlook programme is too big and clunky in Vista. Great programme but takes to long to load and use. So we'll see....and I am looking forward to seeing, but spare me the touch screens and the stylus writing!

50 000!!!! Youpi!!!

Electricity up...rationale down.

"The prices were "a direct consequence of hot weather and high demand", it said."

They have obviously forgotten we had freakish heat this summer and to stay well and alive people needed to use electricity for fans and air conditoners. We are still expected to work. The heat was causing damage and harm, it was distressing people and they were still expected to carry on as normal. To get a hit pocket hit after trying to manage that lot will now mean people will further suffer. Not everyone. Electricity is for those who can afford it. It is obscene. No one should be so hot  they are distressed nor so cold and hungry because they cannot affort heat . It's obscene. It's a utility not a money making fund.

Bus driver saves frog

"I couldn't just squash it," Ms Pommerel, who has been driving buses for 13 years in the southern German city of Regensburg, told daily Die Welt. "I did my job and saved a life."

I cannot believe Christina Pommerel is in trouble for stopping the bus and putting the frog on the side of the road so it wouldn't get squashed. So what if the bus was 20 minutes late. Can't believe the passengers were so uptight and stressed they could not appreciate the beautiful nature of this woman. 20 minutes is no big deal and maybe they had other transport to catch it and it might have delayed them. They should maybe try getting around Adelaide by bus. Sometimes they don't turn up, sometimes they drive past you. Most of the time it's fine. It was a frog and she cared about it. She is now not allowed to be kind so that she can keep her job. What kind of world is this. We are so arrogant.

Neosexuals

"They want the manliness of a James Bond, the looks of Hugh Jackman, the humour of Jim Carrey and the youth of Zac Efron."

Well, they can want all they want to want, they are still going to get a man and they come in all shapes, sizes and persuasions. A real man is who he is the same as a real woman is...you are not born a woman, you grow into one, according to Chanel. I guess men do the same.

Teenage Drinking

"She was drinking with friends at a hotel, she was admitted into a hospital in Sydney as a consequence of that drinking," Mr Garrett said. 

Yes, Mr. Garretts's 19 year old daughter has been into hospital for drinking too much. One thing is for sure. It is better out in the open. The number of parents who are trying to cope with binge drinking and who try and cope alone or hide it is more than I care to think about. Too many. The drinking is not within their control. Police would want parents to be talking to their children about what to do when they are far too drunk. Some parents don't want to be involved and then something awful happens. I understand the line...you have done the drinking , so I am not running after you. I understand it but the consequences for a drunk teenager these days are quite severe and it is a high risk activity. So I am glad this is out in the open because more parents might be able to help each other . There is a trend through the the media and social networking which makes drinking  far too much quite normal. It is kind of like a  game and you can head for the next level. It can be seen in high profile performers this dare and double dare approach to drinking. Get a drink, get to 18, get to the pass out stage...whatever. Game on. We need a better way of dealing with this...and upfront, out in the open, tackle it for what it is, is probably a good way to go.

Vline crash in Victoria

"A 20-year-old man, a 20-year-old pregnant woman, and her two-year-old daughter died when a V/Line bus veered off the Princes Highway north of Portland."

This is profoundly sad. I read about it yesterday but there were scant details and so I was wondering how it happened. I like what the police are doing to try and get to the bottom of it. They currently believe the bus lost control is wet weather. These coaches are humungous and I have often travelled on them. They have seat belts and the drivers remind you to put them on. They are also very good drivers who keep passengers feeling at ease, so something has gone dreadfully wrng for a coach to spin out and roll like that. I am glad they are taking their time but my heart goes out to the families of those who lost their lives. They were so young, so vulnerable.

Vista and Ready Boost

I do not have the complaints about Vista that others seem to have. I like the look and the feel of it. I like how I can customise it. This desk top is a couple of years old now so it's a bit short on ram. I used the Ready Boost in the early days and it didn't seem to make much difference. Now I have it going again on a 2GB flash drive it's a lot faster and you notice the difference. The drive was empty so it wouldn't autoplay to give me the Ready Boost option. So I loaded a couple of files, configured it from auto play for Ready Boost and then deleted the files I had loaded. Bingo! It just manages the page loads more smoothly and isn't hammering away. I have a little ACER lunch box hard drive and am not game to open it. It would probably be easier to put in ram sticks, but I figure...line of least resistance. This is going okay and I am happy with it.

The Worst McDonald's in the World

"Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have now reeled at a video taken at the McDonald's restaurant on Hindley St at about 3am on a Sunday earlier this month."

And so they should. We have kept saying there is a problem in Hindley Street and it has been challenged, brushed aside, ignored. Adelaide needs to life its game and front up to the horrible stuff going on. The head in the dust is not working. There are some basic decency issues reflected here which we need to clean up around the place. We have let our dignity and decorum slide and it's time to stop squalid behaviour. We own Adelaide. We live here. We need to stop the decay now and restore ourselves to that nice place people used to visit and where we felt happy to be. Revulsion has never been something which existed here.

Carbon Capture

"Simon Roz of Greenpeace says carbon capture will not be commercially viable for 40 years, and the Government needs climate change solutions now."

I am so confused! This article seems to be the opposite of what has been previously said , or maybe I ma confusing separate issues. Isn't this about sequestering carbon? Haven't we been working hard on carbon management? There is a great, but long, article here which discusses quite well what we have been doing, trailling and managing. it would seem we have been doing more than we think and this article now has muddied the waters..or is it me?  We need to put carbon back into our soil. In 200 years we have lost 50% of our carbon in the soil...white settlement has done the land a whole lot of good, heh?

MacWorld

Okay, I'll use the glass half full approach and try and present my Mac experiences positively. I just do not feel at home on the Mac. THE Mac. Not  MY Mac. I have got it all running in French and that was a piece of cake. I downloaded French Firefox and it was taking me to French sites. Now all of that is really, really good because it keeps up my language skills. I like the widgets which come up with a simple button click. I downloaded an aquarium. The music sounds tinny but the  fish are a happy diversion from work! It stopped working though , as did Firefox. You cannot customise Firefox like on Windows but a Mac is not about personal computing, it's about using programmes to do stuff. The iPhotos is  really good. Garage Band has been a big hit with others. I downloaded DeskCover and that has put my desktop icons into a darker area to the right and it adjusts itself depending on how many icons I have. I like the dock because you can adjust the size of the icons and I had it doing a Mexican wave which amused me for quite a while. It goes well on the wifi at work but at home it's woeful and I used a fix and haven't had time to see whether that has resolved my home wifi issues. Doesn't really matter . I just bolt it onto the router with the ethernet cable and then it just goes like a rocket.  It jammed up though when I had loaded a CD and downloaded programmes and then it didn't want to go back on the Net. With 2 gig of RAM it oughtn't to have those sorts of problems. The mouse is fantastic. The best mouse ever by a long shot. Customising system preferences is really easy. I found Terminal and that is my idea of a good time. I wrote in the code to have the laptop talking to me and everyone else. I wrote in the code to send an email to someone whose address I could remember. That was so easy and such a bonus because it means you don't have to go through a browser or email client. For quick notes to someone it's rather like Twitter. Gotta love that. So now I am thinking I might need to familiarise myself with Unix. I can at least relate to that.

Digital TV

I have digital TV on my dingly Dell. It sorted out the hiccough s of reception and it's cool! I can now swap freely from channel to channel without the dreaded floating point operation! I am using an Artec TV USB tuner and a cheap UHF/VHF/FM antenna and it's now running smoothly and I am so happy! Oddly enough when I asked the windows media centre to scan for stations last night , it took ages and found none. The Artec software picked the Adelaide stuff up straight away. It is important to get the antenna in the right place. My UHF dish is facing south and the rabbit's ears are facing south at 90 degrees. Odd, but still. New adventure in computing. Incidentally I loaded Paintshop Pro 5 which has been on every computer I have ever owned. I cannot use Adobe or anything like that. I am just not that patient. My Paintshop Pro loaded on my Dell and just took off. Who says Vista cannot handle obsolete software? I actually have found  it to be very good at managing all my own programmes. I have given up nothing. The background on the desktop is one of my photos of Anse Vata beach in New Caledonia. Fantastic spot!

SharkBreak

This link comes via Ben for Best Job...grand merci et bon courage!


Click here to get more mini-SharkBreak widgets - www.SharkBreak.com

Asperger's Adventurer

"He was found by police at a western Sydney train station two weeks later, on Good Friday, after riding his bike 950km (600 miles) across parts of two states."

His parents have taken this all in their stride, it would appear, but then Apserger's children can be remarkably surprising and  are quite sudden in their decision making at times. No, he wouldn't have thought to tell anyone. He would have wanted to see the East coast of Australia and would have been thinking what a great adventure it was. He would also have probably been thinking that his parents would know he was okay because he'd tell them if he wasn't! In many ways our children don't get to go off on great adventures where they use up their energy and satisify their curiosity. They have to live very restricted lives for safety reasons and that is sad in a way. He is obviously very fit and energetic...but oh, heavens, thank goodness he is safe.

Wombat Poo saves the day

"So we thought, 'Well, the customer obviously wants it,' so we thought, 'Let's give it a go,' and it happened to turn out to be a very nice paper."

This is a heart warming story because it is about ingenuity, collaboration, listening to others and then , top of the list, saving jobs! Great story.

Take a Break!

"Those in Italy received 31 days (using 25 days), Spain 30 days (using 27 days) and Germany and Austria received 27 days (using 25 days and 23 days respectively)."

I am not surprised to hear we are not taking holidays and not resting. 19 days and people are not using them. They are also hording long service which was designed to give workers a well earned rest. In caring professions here the pressure is on to be at meetings, training, skill development, inservice, performance management. There is real pressure to work and be doing all the "currency" training. Tough ask. One English person I met recently was saying we do the jobs of 4 people in England. He couldn't believe how we have to multitask, how we have to do everything and how we are forced into being everything to everyone in the work place. Then he couldn't believe how many hours we put in and how we didn't get a chance to ...yes, take a break. I think it is important to listen to the observations of new comers to our country. Not everything they say is right or true but they do have a fresh perspective which might give us insights into how we might  manage our workplaces better.

Dell Inspiron 1525

I'm in the dingly Dell!! I have a new Dell Inspiron. I have quite a history with laptops now and quite a lot of experience. For a techno noddy, I am doing okay. The NEC laptop which was lovely was given to my daughter and she did heaps of graphic things on it. Graphics and music. That's her. It had years of constant use. When I installed the new ADSL 2+ high speed wifi broadband, the NEC just couldn't cope and started to overheat. There's a lot about it on the Net. So daughter got my Presario. Well, it lost the sound, downloading and played up something unreal. So I took it back on and used it mainly for my own purposes but then it wouldn't go on the Net and couldn't access the new wifi. I tried recovery and it got even worse. I was limited in what I could do, what I could use for a browser and French sites were a big no no. I googled the drivers and the Vista drivers for that laptop had plenty of issues. So I loaded XP...can you understand now why I wasn't blogging in the new year??!! The XP drivers were brilliant but the loading of XP lost sound, graphics, USB controllers and all sorts of other stuff which was in the the recovery partition but not accessible. I downloaded a lot of stuff and got it all okay except for the scrolling. In the meantime I replaced daughter's laptop with a Toshiba Satellite. Absolutely brilliant. Cruisy as. Great. Then I found out Kevin Rudd was going to give me money. So I have given my Presario to someone who really needed a laptop. He has it working brilliantly because he reloaded Vista and got HP to do some diagnostics and it works fine on his broadband which is not like mine. So...then I had to use the MacBook from work. It's nice enough. Just not me. It's for someone who isn't me and I have battled away with it trying to feel at home. It hasn't happened yet. When I found the government money was coming and I gave the Presario to a deserving person I went back to see the techie where I had bought  the Toshiba because the plan was to buy another. They had one but not as good as the one I had bought. I was going to say, see you later, but the techie asked me to give Dell a whirl. He had to be joking. I wouldn't touch Dell with a 10 foot barge pole. So he just let me have a look at what else they had and I was going to go. He persuaded me to look at the Dell Inspiron 1525. He told me Dell had fought back and were producing some good laptops. I was dubious. I tried it. It was pretty cool. Graphically not as slick as the Toshiba, but cool. I bought it and I can tell you , I had the shock of my life. It comes packaged with SOFTWARE. It has CDs. I have copies of everything which is loaded. it has a recovery partition too, but I do not have to make my own disks (which were great with the NEC and not very helpful with the Presario). I have CDs, I have manuals, I have an online support centre. I have not had any interference or taking over of my machine. The Dell is very dingly and helpful. It is pleasantly polite and has heralded a new era in laptopping for me. I am sick of fighting them. This Dell is running TV for me. I still have a couple of glitches to sort out, but it's good. I am so at home and I set it up to suit myself in 30 minutes. That was a record. I am stoked!! The last laugh has to go to the Toshiba , though. It comes preloaded with Vista Business and daughter has loaded Office 2007 and Adobe CS. She is as pleased as punch. We looked at the back up disks which come with her laptop....and there is one to downgrade it to XP!! Love it.

Road Toll

"The death takes the state's road toll to 36, 10 more than at the same time last year."

It is just so sad this should happen after Easter. The Hills can be treacherous. You always have to drive carefully. We made an enormous effort to stay toll free over Easter. Some drivers were still daft but the rest of us were defensive and the police and media did all they could to help us drive safely. We are just going to have to hammer away at this. We succeeded over Easter and that has to give us heart we can rally as a state to save lives. It's why I like South Australia. We can all get on the same page and raise the same level of awareness. We can lock together to make change. Time to change. Time to stop these deaths and the terrible trauma for police, paramedics, hospitals, the fire brigade and then the families and friends of those who die so young.

Abduction attempts

"She was again successful in escaping the men and rode home to inform her parents of the incident.''

She is a pretty tough little lady to ward off two abduction attempts at the age of 9. Someone was obviously determined to take her and she was equally determined to remain free. It's fantastic she had such a strong spirit, but clearly, we need to find the swine who would want to abduct a little girl. It's sick and sickening.

Gophers wrecked

"Because of some of the people's ages, it is very hard to get insured. We have one gentleman with brain damage and it was his only means of transport," he said.

Eight residents in a retirement village had their gophers stolen and wrecked , allegedly by kids. People in the  neighbourhood had heard the kdis but no one could seem to report anything which could allow the police to catch them. Police found five of them which were wrecked and had their batteries removed. This all happened in the early hours of the morning so it is quite difficult to be alert at that time. They might have been behind electronic gates but they seem to have been useless. Obviously the scooters can be started and used far too easily. They cannot be insured because the residents are to old, so anyone who buys a gopher/scooter needs to be aware there are some real risks here and considering how expensive they are then I'd say it ought to be better than this for the elderly and infirm. Security cameras in retirement villages would appear to be desirable as would proper locking devices on the scooters. So , what else can the batteries be used for? I know I should ask who knows if their children were out in the early hours of the morning...but some parents have no idea where their children are.

Easter 09

We had a pretty laid back Easter. It was family and sociable stuff. It was just great because normally it is the pop ins or the one meal. this time we spent a lot of time together just relaxing and laughing. and doing things together We had some great home cooked meals and it was a revival of the times when people had the time just to be there together and enjoy each other's company. Likewise today . Friends came to visit and it was simple and sociable. The neighbours had got back after lunch from their caravaning trip after lunch and others just seemed to have spent their Easter weekend like me...with family and friends just doing simple things. It wasn't an event. It was really nice time together and that's what a lot of people seemed to be doing. Lots of shops were closed to so those workers had had a chance to be with their families...and it's a great pity the graffiti daubers didn't have a place to go...I have a few suggestions...makes the area look like crap and if that's all people have for a life, tagging...they need to sod off and get something decent to do. It just looks horrible and those taggers should be just be put to work in the community. It is so ugly and stupid.

Easter Blitz

"In just 12 hours, five drivers returned positive tests for drugs and 72 drink drivers were caught - 43 of those losing their licences on the spot."
I was driving my sister home on Saturday and you could see the bright lights a mile away...so many flashing lights. I didn't do a U turn like some...I just waited and made sure I didn't run over the police man. Last time the police man walked out in front of the car and damn near gave me a heart attack. This time he stood on the median strip and just ushered me into the queue...and they are always so surprised when I get a zero reading. I drink tea! A nice champagne on Christmas day  and the rest of the year , tea. Last time they made me do it again. This time I was set free. So then I was at my sister's for a while...and realised I'd probably be picked up on the way home. There they were again...the flashing lights and a lot more people doing U turns or turning off before the breathalyser station. I hope they have cars there in the back ground to catch the ones who just don't go through it. So this time I thought, I am ready...and the police just stood at the side of the road and let me pass. Hoorah!!! I hate breathalysers even if I don't drink. I am glad they have been out doing their bit to try and stop accidents because people who drink and drive are anathema to me. There is no excuse. They are dangerous even when, like today, they are driving at 40 and pretending they are in control. I hate drink drivers.

MacBook

I am getting there. I currently have it bolted onto an ethernet connection on my modem router and it goes like a bomb. It ought to. It has 2 gigabytes of ram. At work it is fine on the wifi access and drops out now and again but at home it is still sluggish and unreliable. I hate going on the wifi at home with it. PC wins hands down with the home wifi. This is great on the ethernet connection though and all I did was find the lead, plug it in the Apple and plug it in the modem router. Taht easy, that simple. I have made a great newsletter in the Pages application. Now if I can use that, anyone can because I have always been hopeless on desktop publishing programmes. I love iPhoto and have used iTunes , not for music , but for educational/informational services and radio streaming. I wouldn't download music. I value the artwork in albums. Full stop , end of story and I want my own, properly produced copy...complete with song words and art. I have found out that iTunes is more than a music shop and I have been amazed. I hate how everything is on the left hand side of the apple. Considering we set up right..then all to the right except usb and headset ports is better. The number of times I have knocked off that daft magnetic power connection is too many to count. Case of a misplaced, great idea. Doesn't work in practice. Other than that I can say I am finding my place in Apple land. Am still breathing a sigh of relief when I get back onto my PC. Have found one good site, though :

UsingMac-m Mac Tips and Tricks

Gorilla back in zoo

"A nine-year-old gorilla has used a palm frond to escape from his enclosure at Melbourne Zoo and go walkabout before being recaptured with the aid of bananas."

The inventive gorilla escaped yesterday but luckily the zoo has managed to entice him back away form the elephants  and back to his own enclosure with bananas. I guess he just wanted a bit of variety. Animals don't like being enclosed. Wild ones pose a problem though when they escape. Everyone has been supremely level headed about this. The level of care is impressive.

Extreme callers

"The 73-year-old woman, who phoned her son up to 49 times a day was fined 360 euros ($478) by the court in the southern city of Klagenfurt."

I wish some people would behave themselves. They think because they have your phone number they can ring whenever they please and as often as they please...and leave messages or not and then ring friends or family if you do not answer. These extreme callers are obsessed and irrational. They do not behave in a reasonable manner and maybe taking them to court is what we have to do. When the line comes up "private" then  it's hard to know or prove who is ringing. I expect people to leave a message these days. When you get someone though who rings every 15 or 20 minutes it is unbearable. I used to have a phone where you could turn off the sound. My cordless can't be turned off at the base and then you get the answering machine and the rattle or not of the messages. It is behviour which has come about since we have had phones and it is just very tough because you cannot deal with it reasonably because you will be at fault even when you do ring back...but I  lose interest in obsessive callers, family or not. There has to be a way to fix this.

Unemployed Teens

"It's an urgent situation. We can't leave these young people out there. We need to shift workers with low skills into the middle-skilled category."

The catch cry is at work, at school or in training. A lot of young people have not really engaged in any of those things and have expected to be carried. So there will be some hard lessons for the indulged. Parents won't be able to carry them, schools will be demanding to know why they are not there, training will be dropped if they cannot turn up and jobs will off load those who make it too hard. The guy who did my roof last year told me he had been through 34 apprentices before he got the lovely lad he had with him at my place. He said they kept calling in sick or rolling up late or doing a half baked job. He just could not rely on them. The one he had with him was friendly, hard working and yes, a lad. Bit slack but learning and very genuine. The local supermarket is going mental because it is employing one girl who turns up randomly for her shifts, one boy who doesn't turn up and then another girl who takes very long breaks. So the pressure is on and small supermarkets talk. You know how hard it is for employers out there. So Yes, we need to insist young ones take some of this weight and grow up and do what they need to do. At the moment adults will need jobs to keep the mortgages going and their families fed so I'd say the kids need to be at school or in training so we have people who do have skills. They also need to be shown how they can make the most of their talents and skills and they need to learn skills we can use and they can contribute. It is about sharing the wear because times have changed and everyone has to put in and we all need to be doing our bit.

Easter Driving

Well, I cannot say we haven't tried. The messages and awareness raising have been out in the media loud and strong. So many people who are in the position of having an audience have made a very special effort to keep safe driving on everyone's minds. The radios are monitoring traffic and roads and the banter is about driving and how to stay alert and in good spirits. TV and papers have featured pieces about safe driving and there is a sense our community is doing all within its power to ensure a toll free Easter...to spare the police, the ambulance drivers, the fire brigade and the hospitals the gruesome and traumatic jobs they have when there are road accidents...because our statistics show they are not accidents. Most car crashes in SA are avoidable. I love us when we knit together as a state for a common cause.

Man poisons himself.

"It is understood a man attempted to harm himself by swallowing pesticide organic phosphate."

That is so sad. That he would want to do that to himself. He must have been in a pretty bad way to do that. The worst thing though was one paramedic and others who tried to help him were badly affected by the fumes.So at least 4 other people were put at risk because they were trying to help him and you have to admire their courage. There has to be a better plan for dealing with people who try to poison themselves.I am not sure that it is common so we might need to be reminded of how we can deal with it. The man may not be okay and then the hospital staff may be affected while they are trying to treat him. He needs all the help he can get if he survives.

Family Easter

In our neck of the woods we have opted for a family Easter. We are all doing it simply and locally. The best bit was the Mum neighbour who hopped into the caravan the  Dad neighbour brought home just before I left for work. As I left she was sitting at the caravan table in her Schiaparelli pink flannel pyjamas and enjoying the feel of knowing this would be her home for the next couple of days. They have little kids and so it will be a family affair and the caravan holiday is something new for them. She was excited and he was feeling important. Their home is being house sat by parents who then get to live in a bigger home again for a few days. I am having family over. my neighbours are having family over and at work that seemed to be the way too. Some people were going down the coast with their families and others were haveing their families over for Easter. Simple. We are all keeping it simple and doing that wonderful thing called bonding.

Affluenza

"Cash ‘N’ Trade owner Matthew Fuller said he was servicing a “new breed” of high-income clientele who had overspent and could not get a bank loan due to the economic downturn."

Well, there are people who haven't considered that there is more to life than goods and acquisition so if they are pawning Porsches and plasmas then it is a good sign. Some people have been caught up in the flurry of affluenza and have focussed on worldly goods at the expense of relationships, health and wellbeing. Things can be shown off but they cannot show affection. Some people would have pushed themselves into a lifestyle they couldn't really afford and so lightening up and offloading some of that burden might actually make them feel happier.

High Stress Jobs

"It says they are dangerously fatigued and pessimistic about the future of the submarine fleet, yet many are so focused on doing a good job they burn out and then leave."

I don't see how cash incentives will address burn out. it might temporarily attract new people to be trained but unless the job changes, then the fatigue, pessimism and burn out will remain. This will not be the only job where we have not addressed working conditions. there have to be jobs where we have a shortage or high turn over because the right people cannot be recruited for the job or the conditions of the job are untenable. We need to review these high pressure jobs. We need to look at the sorts of jobs which crash people and their lives. If we are serious about viability and mental health then we need some experts in here looking at what factors are affecting the submarine personnel and the sort of conditions which lead to the malfunction of such a job and then the dysfunction of those employed in it...and jobs of that ilk. It means being honest and practical and we are good at that once we decide to pull our heads out of the sand.

Easter Road Toll

"To me it's eight hours at a scene, dealing with the relatives for months, years afterwards ... picking up pieces of bodies, pieces of flesh, zipping up body bags with young people in them - it can be fairly horrific."

While some of us are preparing for Easter, the police, ambulance personnel , fire brigade and hospitals are preparing themselves mentally and emotionally for the Easter road toll. There shouldn't be a road toll. There is no need. There is a lot of good advice out there about how to avoid being a statistic . Much of it comes down to foolish decisions. Dumb moves and peer pressure. There is so much the community has done to mobilise common sense and practical responses to people who are apt to make driving a lethal activity. The police, ambulance personnel, the fire brigade and hospitals just keep on going out there. They all play there part. They all have a job to do...and then the police have to knock on the door and deliver the news. They should all be spared this constant trauma.I should like to think we can have a road toll free Easter and just have Easter... so all these people can have Easter too.

Final 100

I am just about down to my final 100 clicks before I reach my 50 000 on my stats. It's amazing. Incredible and something I am now obsessing about...the counter watching.So, do I click on, or do I reset the counter to 0???

Taxi Drivers

Well, the talk of the town has most certainly been taxi drivers and their driving and their mobile phone obsession. In three different conversations we were talking about taxi drivers ont their mobiles while they are driving. In these conversations it was certainly a problem women were encountering. Firstly , it's illegal. Secondly the amount of accidents caused by drivers on mobiles is significant in SA. So we have a safety issue here as well as people flaunting the law. The worst bit though was how you manage this. Women who had asked them not to use their mobiles got roundly abused and shouted at and then the taxi drivers just kept talking on their mobiles. So then what do you do? Do you put yourself at risk and ring the police? Do you take their number and report them when you don't know who actually owns the company? Do you ask to be let out because you don't actually want to provoke an agressive person more. Not good enough but what can be done? These guys are really giving taxi drivers a bad name.

G20, NATO etc etc

"Mrs Merkel looked bemused as the Italian's call dragged on and finally opted to start the event's opening ceremony without the Italian."

In many ways Angela Merkel has come into her own during these European meetings. She has been calm, confident and smiling. She has not been put off or out by any of the things going on and has sustained a capacity to simply keep things on track and in place. The leaders have been remarkably relaxed. There have been smiles and conversations as never before. Barak Obama has walked in on the scene in a way that simply hasn't happened for a while. He has kept it simple, been human and done things like go to dinner in Prague with his wife rather than some official function. He hasn't done it to snub anyone.He has constantly shown that he just wants things to be kept simple. He has been articulate and he thinks well so he has gelled well with the Europeans who like to discuss things. Barack Obama can  seemingly fit in with anyone which is what you want in a leader and he can talk in depth and at length too. The Europeans have valued this. Kevin Rudd, our Prime Minister has also been at ease but this tour came at the end of a very tough and emotional time with the Victorian bushfires and Kevin Rudd had to help manage some unique circumstances in Australia and then leave for overseas. He probably needs a break. Similarly  Barack Obama is dealing with some tough financial stuff , his new presidency and is then put into a new Eropean political arena where he has been welcomed. It is important we value the efforts that leaders make to be normal and co operative. We are past the stage of one upmanship and these meetings have shown we can get a better level of co operation if we just let people be people, leaders or not. These meetings have been far friendlier. I should like to think we see some good come out of it. More often than not there is talk but no action.

Police praise drivers

"SOUTH Australian police have been pulling over motorists just to tell them they are doing a good job, Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis has revealed."

I think we'd probably have a heart attack if we got pulled over by the police!! Just die on the spot. I panic when I go through the drink driving thing and I rarely drink and not at all if I am driving. I still panic. It's not even because I have bad experiences with the police. All the police I have had to deal with have been really impressive and really nice to deal with. I don't see why people shouldn't be told they are doing well. For starters it would be nice to favour good drivers. Then it would probably be a feel good thing for the police who always have to deal with negatives. It might help them in their job. If we got used to it we might feel less intimidated but right now when I have the  police behind me I am so careful to be driving perfectly! That is a tough one.

Nathan Bock

"We'll give him as much time as he needs," Goodwin said. 

Which was generally our opinion at lunch time. We didn't think it reflected upon the team or its players. We thought the responsibility lay wholly and soley with him. When the newspapers reported that he was charged after assaulting his girlfriend, we all believed it should have read ex girlfriend. We were one on that. No one should treat another like that and when they do it should not be tolerated. We then talked about pressures on people in the limelight and how they cannot necessarily get the time to sort out their pressures and problems as we do. He needs a better way of coping and he needs to sort out what is leading to this behaviour. He is condemned by us for his behaviour not himself and now is a good chance for a young bloke to teach others how you go about putting it right and keeping it right. It made me realise how much we have changed with regard to how men treat women and that we now realise some men have problems which we need to help and that women should not be accepting in any way of violence.

Wolverine Review

"He also described how easy it is to download any film or TV show and joked he might decide to catch up on some other recent films via illegal downloads."

For someone of his apparent calibre you have to wonder what was going on in his head. It's a shame it ended like that and that he made those decisions.

Water Restrictions

Still for 3 hours a week but the new times are:

• Even numbered houses        Tuesday and Saturday        7-10am or 4-7pm
• Odd numbered houses         Wednesday and Sunday     7-10am or 4-7pm
•  
• More info here if you are like me and always forget!
  

iToaster

"The iPlayer Toaster Edition features built-in wi-fi, allowing you to stream your favourite BBC iPlayer TV and radio programmes direct to the toaster front panel."

You have just got to read about the iToaster. Brilliant! Check the date....I cannot wait until they are commercially available!!

Flexible Working Hours

"Millions of parents with older children are now able to ask employers for flexible work arrangements, rather than just those with children under six."

The British changes are aimed at creating a work/life balance. Parents are often torn between commitments to their childrena nd commitments to their job. In certain respects the labour intensive years of bringing up a family should be dealt with in a more flexible way. We want children to be looked after. We want them to be responsible and we want them to be socialised. All this means they need to be guided through their developmental years. Parents also need to have some of the strain taken off them. It can be so hard when children are sick or they have commitments to sport or other interests. you feel awful and run ragged during those years, so parental health often suffers. It will be great to know if the measures dicussed in the article have a positive impact all round.

Scary Scooters

"Suddenly she passed me at full tilt," Mr Bishop said. "I shouted after her, but she is a bit deaf. I couldn't chase her as I have had a triple heart bypass.

His wife is 87 and appears to have gripped too tightly onto the controls so that she vanished 8 km away! She maybe panicked or had a lapse. It is scary. The poor husband to have to deal with that. Luckily it has all turned out well and the police appear to have managed it remarkably sanely. Mrs. Bishop says she was sleepy. We noticed quite a few of these scooters out in our area yesterday and the thing which worries me is they have to go on the road. Given they are for the aged and infirm, then it is a bit hard to expect them to negotiate traffic and for traffic to negotiate them. It would be good if there was a cut out button at a certain speed. I do think we need to review the use and the safety of the scooter usage. This story is a nightmare even though it reads quite funnily.

Stimulus Package

"I'll have a one-way ticket in one hand and a graduate certificate in the other. It's extra money we'll spend overseas." 

That comment is  there to annoy us. The stimulus package is there to promote spending in Australia. To stimulate our economy. The double payments are unavoidable when the situation is dire and then we just want to get it in place. Then you cannot police the use of the money. It is given in good faith because even the price of super market shopping has blown out because of the drought, so many families will use that money well to get them through the tough times. It's a pity we cannot monitor the spending of the money...issued as vouchers into the areas we need supported. I'd like to see that!This has been done in good faith as have the packages in other countries. Sometimes I think we are too kind.

Panda-monium

"We're all very excited about their arrival and the construction of their new home is well under way. You can now see the walls over the zoo perimeter starting to form their night quarters."

We are excited that Wang Wang and Funi are coming. We love pandas and they will be a great addition to our zoo. A lot of people in Adelaide know already and the kids are getting quite excited. We need to get the bamboo supplies up and running and that is something the community is looking into in different ways. We can't wait until September but we know, like the Sun bears, they may need to acclimatise and adjust. It is a big trip from China and it's not really what you want, but the world has had to unite to help protect species. Our zoo has made some magnificent changes so animals can live more comfortably and it has become a very popular spot now in Adelaide. Their additonal special events are becoming known and well attended. It is so us...fresh air, animals and beautiful plants. We are desperately hoping this will go well.

What was he thinking?

"A FORMER Liberal candidate and JP has taken photos of himself speeding and put them on his Facebook social networking site."

When you read articles like this you realise that new technology can be very seductive and that people will use it without thinking. Why would he speed? Why would he take a photo? Why would he put it on Facebook? People need to ground themselves sometimes because the toys are very enticing.

Mortgage Repayments

"Each will be individually tailored for the particular customer, but they could be extending the period of the contract on the loan," he said.

This news is great because people just need to get the strain taken off and if they can freely negotiate with their banks then it makes a good outcome possible. At one stage I negotiated to suspend my payments for a year so that I could rejig my finances and my life. I had been paying more than the mortgage payment but my financial situation suddenly changed and I was sinking. To be able to negotiate my mortgage was the best thing I could do to help me get back on my feet. A year down the track and everything was so much better and I could pick up the repayments and steam ahead. The other thing I did was sell an expensive propety and get a cheaper one so that I could manage. There are lots of things you can do and it makes life so much better if you learn to be a bit more flexible in how you deal with things. It can be tough and worrying but you need to get a good plan together and stick to it. The government's coming in onside just will help people feel a bit more secure about negotiating finances. In the end the banks do not lose out...and nor do people.