onetrack

Spacey, I've already got a massive collection, I just need the sheds to put it all in!! 😄

Those burgers must be a bugger to try and eat, all in one go.

Our power bill is still in credit, thanks to Govt handouts. We have a 6.6Kw solar system and we use all our appliances mostly during peak sunny periods, so we use all the solar power we generate. Exporting power to the grid is a dead loss now, they give you bugger-all for it, so it makes sense to use what you generate. When the State and Federal Govts introduce battery subsidies in July, we'll probably go for a battery, and more solar panels.

No, I didn't see it, but Indonesia is Corruption Central, and we who have mining industry insights and knowledge, know full well that the Chinese are happy to ignore safety and health issues in other countries, as well as their own, when they set up mining or manufacturing arrangements. I was in partnership at one time with a bloke named Don Blaxell. Don was a boatbuilder and a couple of his sons were, too (Blaxell boats and surfboards). Don owned a property (a vacant city block) in a city in Indonesia, in which city he conducted other business from other premises. He told me one day, the local Police Chief visited him. He was chatty and friendly initially, then the Police Chief talk turned to this block of land that Don owned. "That's a nice block of land", he commented. Don agreed. Next thing the Police Chief says, "I think I should own it". Don, in all innocence, says, "So you want me to sell it to you?" "No, I'm not talking about you selling it to me", came the reply. "I think you need to give it to me. Otherwise, you could possibly end up in some kind of legal troubles". Don got the message fast, and took the next flight out of town, and never went back. He said he wasn't going to risk getting locked up on trumped-up charges, simply because he wouldn't play ball, Indonesian-Police style. They are utterly corrupt - and I also note some recent travel stories about Vietnamese and Thai Police corruption when visiting Vietnamese or Thai hotels and other tourist spots. The Police run the places, and if you give bad reviews, they'll charge you with offences, and lock you up until you remove the bad reviews. https://au.news.yahoo.com/aussie-tourist-warns-of-common-scam-at-popular-holiday-spot-thousands-of-dollars-per-day-024949201.html

I find it interesting that Elon is going to suffer some serious financial losses from his best buddies rampant, random and excessive tariffs. That must strain the friendship a bit. I wouldn't be in the least surprised to see Elon turn on his best buddy with a 180° about face, and start to denigrate him.

I don't have a huge amount of positives to report right now. I went up to my block in the Wheatbelt on Friday to do some constructive work, and it rained nearly all day! I was pretty disappointed as I got only about 20% done out of what I'd planned. I'm trying to construct more shelter for all my items, and I'm in the process of re-assembling a large garden shed for additional storage. A positive is I only paid $50 for the garden shed, and it has been built with a proper frame made from 25mm SHS tubing and 75x38 roof beams. It took me 5 hrs to dismantle it, but I think it's taken me around 5 weeks to reassemble it! Part of the problems has been multiple heatwaves, then I had to reconstruct the frame as the original builder stuffed it up with missing supports in some places and doubled up supports in other places. I also made it worse by electing to extend the frame from front to back by 20cm. It has ended up 3M x 3.4M and it's 2.14M high at the back and 2.24M high at the front (skillion roof). Working in the open is also a problem, and I'll be glad when I get some decent shelter built. The garden shed will be completed this week, and I'll be able to transfer lots of parts and other items that are currently under tarps, into it. Then I've also got a 6M x 6M roof, that I'm slinging between two 20 foot sea containers, in the early construction stages. That will then give me some covered "workshop" area to operate. But the good news is, my "main" shed is under way - a 12M x 8M x 4M gable-roof, concrete floor shed, which I have probably 50% constructed - and my building engineer has just finished the plans for it, which the council requires, and he has given me all the paperwork to submit to them as well. The only downside is he's charged me $3000 (plus GST) for drawing up the plans, which came in on the high side of his original cost estimate.

Ken Crew was killed by a 4M white pointer shark at North Cottesloe beach in early November, 2000. He was in waist-deep water when the shark swam in, and took his leg off. Esperance is a particularly bad place for big man-eaters, it holds the record for the highest number of shark victims in W.A., with four of the last seven W.A. shark victims being taken at Esperance. https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/nov/09/features11.g23

Well, what are doing, trying to play golf in the shower? Of course, you're going to have trouble keeping your balance in that situation!

"Swimming with the fishes" has too many connotations of bad things happening to you. I like to stay in shallow water, and I prefer my water much warmer, thank you! Besides, I have an abiding fear of sighting a massive dorsal fin that's attached to a Great White, any time I get near ocean water that's over chest deep.

I think I've seen a bloke with a coffin for a sidecar. There's also a mob delivering your coffin on a flat tray on a sidecar, cheaper than an extended wheelbase funeral hearse!

Peter, where are these dangerous showers located? I've noticed a lot of European bathrooms have some cheap and dodgy setups. I always try and aim for 4 star accommodation today, trusting that a 4 star rating helps improve ones chances of getting a nice bathroom.

It's quite amazing, the number of solar panel arrays that have been installed now. The Chinese must be raking in the money with solar panel production. This one at Merredin, 260kms E of Perth, occupies 462Ha of land. It produces enough power to supply 42,000 homes. https://risenenergy.com.au/portfolio/merredin-solar-farm/

That looks like a giant Wrassecal in the first photo! 🙂

Some wives would make you turn in your coffin! 🙂

Probably just the normal Jetstar passenger experience! - fighting with each other, drunk beyond belief, trying to open an exit door - just another regular Jetstar day! 🙄

Chisel? What, a sandstone coffin?? I guess if she was a mummy, a sandstone coffin would be alright. 🙂

I hate burns, they really hurt, and those crematoriums get pretty hot, they reckon. I reckon a pine box and hole in the ground is good enough for me. But I want a spot that won't be disturbed by population encroachment and I need to think up a really good epitaph to put on my headstone to make passers-by think or laugh. There's some good epitaphs around, ones like "Here lies Lester Moore. Four slugs from a Forty Four. No Les, no more."

Trump is chaos personified. His actions are erratic, his decisions follow no order, and they're reversed in split seconds - and he loves operating like that, he believes keeping his opposition "off-balance" is a superb way to operate. But his deranged actions with no real plan, are actions that are almost certainly leading America into a major recession. But Trump will never acknowledge he's responsible for that recession, he will conveniently find a scapegoat or reason to pin the blame on, when a recession hits the U.S. He's destroying the American armaments industry by making other countries ramp up their armaments manufacturing, and armaments manufacturing is the backbone of American wealth and economic activity, and I'm amazed that leaders of the American military-industrial complex aren't rounding on Trump already.

I see no need to import rubbishy quality farmed fish from Vietnam, when we're surrounded by a couple of the worlds biggest oceans and few smaller ones. The Vietnamese fish farms are in boats sitting in the Mekong River, and the Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, with 400 major factories all discharging their industrial waste into the Mekong with very little official checks, and certainly no waste treatment. I'm happy to pay a lot more for locally-caught fish, and even Australian farmed fish are better than any imported fish.

Yeah, you can really see Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians agreeing to that scumbags deal!! I'm surprised it doesn't include free Ukrainian land for Trump golf courses and hotels, too!

A Country & Western legend, his "Poetry in Motion" is still a classic - and "It Keeps Right On a-Hurting" is country gold, too.

Australia has been the best military base in the Pacific region for America since 1942. We have an outsize importance in their military scheme of things. It's high time that relationship was reset, and America made to pay more (for using Australia as a base) - because we can be be just as transactional as Trump, too, if he wants to only work that way.

What a pack of imbecilic morons, putting tariffs on Heard Island and Macquarie Island! I bet someone wrote up an April 1st article about Macquarie Island exports, and they believed every word of it, as Gods Truth. A friend of SWMBO's who does marine/environmental research work says they've been ordered to remove any reference to "bio-diversity" in any marine or environmental research that is to be sent to America. What a pack of f****** idiots.

It's all fake news, according to Trump.

You can't see the first letter properly, it actually reads "AK-47" - the new tool in DOGE for improving efficiency and cost-cutting. Did you see where the new, cheapened, USAID Dept sent just THREE people to help in the Myanmar earthquake? What a pack of miserable a***holes Trump and Musk are.