willedoo

Albo's toast. He's spent his whole term wandering around in the dark bumping into things.

Then there's performance art which is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. One so called artist (in New York I think it was) dropped his duds and laid a bit of cable on stage and we're supposed to believe it's art. What's worse than the performance artist is the clowns who sit in the audience and applaud the nonsense.

I'm very proud of my free road material delivered today. It's the recycled driveway from a house in town my new house flipper acquaintances are renovating. The driver said it was about 18 cu.metres, I guess it would be about right. The next step is to figure out the best way to use it without watching it all wash away down the hill. It's broken up hotmix interspersed among the gravel base. The gravel is not your normal final surface road base, this stuff is smaller aggregate and a lot of fines. It will be ok for filling some big holes and laying proper road base over the top of it. I'd forgotten how limited single drive trucks are once they get off the bitumen. We had a storm last night so the top inch or two was a little bit greasy when he brought the first load. He didn't get far with the single axle and no diff lock. After he got out on the bitumen and did a reverse gear charge from there, the momentum got him in place. A bogey drive with a diff lock would have just walked straight in. On his second and third load the wind and sun had dried the dirt so he was ok.

This beer can artwork got thrown in the bin. The banana jogged the memory of reading about this one last month. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/08/beer-can-artwork-lam-museum-thrown-out-all-the-good-times-we-spent-together

I have doubts Trump's new best friend Elon will last long. Raging egos like that are bound to clash. I read an unconfirmed source that said Musk is already starting to act like the co-president. Musk's weirdness will most likely get too much even for Trump. Donald is at risk of being out-weirded if he keeps the buffoon around. I give him a few months at best.

There's been talk of felons not being able to be president circulating on social media but I don't think there's anything in the constitution to stop it. The requirements for a candidate are: must be a natural-born citizen of the U.S., must be at least 35 years old and must have been a resident of the U.S. for 14 years. Trump's problem is that under the constitution a president can only grant pardons for federal crimes and not state crimes, so he can't pardon himself and clear his record.

He knows he only has four more years so he probably wants to leave a legacy. The test will be whether mad Donald or slightly less mad Donald wins the arm wrestle. If he keeps appointing people like the pair of dipsticks previously mentioned, he might end up looking like the saner one. He'll probably appoint that idiot Kennedy as well just so he's got the complete set of three stooges.

He needs to trim those nostril hairs.

Is filtering way too fast a new way of saying speeding.

Jerry, I bet you wish you still had the Minis. My old Patrol was an MQ as well but it had the 4 litre petrol engine. I used to curse that old ute at times but it served me well for a long time. The Patrols had good transmissions and running gear, not so good in the body and chassis department.

Merbau is nice timber, nice and stable and durable. I also picked up 20 0r 30 metres of 140 x12 spotted gum T&G overlay flooring. They're short off cuts, around 1500 to 1800 and have a few cracks and large gum veins but will be ok for something rustic.

I've had two 2WD utes, both Holdens, an EH and a HK. Two wagons, an EJ and a Nissan Cedric. Six sedans, FE, EK, HD, HQ, Falcon XW and Fairlaine NC. Five 4WD utes, 2x Landcruisers, a Nissan Patrol, Mitsubishi Triton and my current Holden Rodeo. The Nissan Cedric I'm not proud of. Owning that car was a bad thing.

As far as the bikes go, one was a new Norton Commando Fastback and the other was a bit less glamorous, a Suzuki 50 stepthrough.

Here's a random thought - I've never owned a new car. A couple of new motorbikes but never a brand new car.

That was my thoughts. There might be worse but I can't think of one. The electoral college started life as a way to ensure the plebs didn't get a vote. It took some time until a popular vote was allowed as well. Democracy for the nobs it was. Their system doesn't seem to be very accountable to me. The US system is one of horse trading and back room deals. The only way you can even get legislation looked at by a committee is if you are prepared to trade seven mules for three horses. The other bit about having an executive government that only requires one elected person and whoever he/she picks is bizarre. Talk about lack of accountability to the voters.

By truckloads I mean 8-10 cu.metre tippers not my little ute.

The bludging is over and it was back to some hard work today. The house flippers rang up and have a bunch of give-away stuff to get rid of. They're trying to wrap the job up before the holidays and put it on the market. Today I got a couple of loads of left over 140x19 merbau decking that I can use. It's about $1,500 retail value. Tomorrow will be another two or three loads of blocks and plywood. Somehow I always seem to end up with a heap of half blocks and not full size. Always handy for corners or piers though. Thursday they are ripping up the driveway so I'll get a couple of truckloads of broken up hotmix to fill some holes in my track.

The Democrats have been in denial for a long time. It was obvious to Blind Freddy that Biden wasn't fit for a second term and that he was a big risk of losing the presidency. Because of his elder statesman position in the party nobody wanted to rock the boat earlier, and it was left up to Biden to decide. It's also fairly obvious if Biden is the main reason the democrats look like losing, keeping the ship on the same course will result in hitting the rocks. They might have had a chance if Biden signaled his intention much earlier and a capable successor from outside his administration was prepared.

It's a totally dumb system that American one. They beat their chests about their democracy but it's one of the worst models.

There's long been a certain amount of overseas production for some U.S. machinery companies. I drove a John Deere 3130 tractor that was a 1970's production made in Germany. From memory the JD engines they made were made in France. I've also driven a Cat D7G, 1970's vintage that was made in Japan and a D8H 22A, 1960's vintage made in the U.K. I wonder what he will do with tariffs on U.S. goods made overseas in general. Guitar manufacturers like Fender and Gretsch both have their more expensive, higher quality models made in the U.S. and cheaper models made elsewhere. Tariffs can hurt a lot of consumers in that field. Basically there would be no cheaper lines available and a big part of their trade would evaporate and it would be a situation of tariffs bankrupting American companies.

There's only two still alive; Trump himself and George W.

It's not that long ago married women were referred to as Mrs. George Smith or whatever their husbands given and surnames were. I can't remember when that died out, but it was still around in some circles in the 70's for sure.

Both good indulgence foods. My regular diet is embarrassingly healthy so I have a great reverence for pizza and fish and chips.

Nev, that makes you at least 122 years old. If you mean white women in Australia that is.

What is it about pizzas and Friday. That's my pizza night as well. I would guess it's related to the end of the working week for a lot of people.