Monday 24 October 2011

Rugby World Cup 2011 winners!




Congratulations to the New Zealand ALL BLACKS:

World champions, having defeated France to secure the Rugby World Cup 2011.

A nation of 4 million produces a team of men to defeat the best in the world, it's a real life Cinderella story, I am overjoyed as is the whole Nation of New Zealand, no doubt!

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Aussie Kids Learn Morals and Ethics in the Home

A typical Australian Kid learning right from wrong:



A young mother was working in the kitchen listening to her son playing with his new electric train in the living room. She heard the train stop and her son said, "All of you sons of bitches who want off, get the hell off now, cause this is the last stop! And all of you sons of bitches who are getting on, get your asses in the train, cause we're going down the tracks."

The mother went in and told her son, "We don't use that kind of language in this house. Now I want you to go to your room and you are to stay there for TWO HOURS. When you come out, you may play with your train, but I want you to use nice language."

Two hours later, the son comes out of the bedroom and resumes playing with his train. Soon the train stopped and the mother heard her son say, "All passengers who are disembarking the train, please remember to take all of your belongings with you. We thank you for riding with us today and hope your trip was a pleasant one. We hope you will ride with us again soon."

She hears the little boy continue, "For those of you just boarding, we ask you to stow all of your hand luggage under your seat. Remember, there is no smoking on the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us today." As the mother began to smile, the child added, "For those of you who are pissed off about the TWO HOUR delay, please see the bitch in the kitchen."

Sunday 2 October 2011



Hang on real tight Mate, don't let bloody go!



About 2003 in the summer, just before Christmas, we went to the Waimate rodeo in the South Island, New Zealand. My young bloke James won the sheep riding event!

Sadly there is no photo or video of the epic ride I was too busy chasing the bloody sheep hoping I could catch him if he fell hard, but the crowd cheered and roared and the boy hung on for dear life I'll tell ya.


A lad with a streak of stubborn tenacity...




If he can approach problems in life as he grows older with the same level of stubborn tenacity as he displayed riding that daggy old sheep, I reckon He'll do good.

He won prize money of $NZ 12.50, that's almost enough to buy a can of coke once ya convert it to $AU!

Edit: He also scored a pocket full of wool, he ripped that out of the sheeps back when he finally fell off.




A proud Father...



Mate, I was seriously proud of him that day. I think it's probably every Father's ideal to watch his boy grow up to display stoic courage in the face of fear.

I Have watched James come to terms with bullies at school with the same quite determination he displayed at that rodeo since. He is certainly well on track to grow up to be a knock about bloke just like his old man.

Australia is the last bastion of that kind of toughness in our modern world and I reckon it will serve our nation well to raise our sons to be stand up individuals. We face an uncertain future as a nation and it will be the task of our kids to carry us through.


Turbulence!


Here's a tale of Billy Hayes from out near Alice Springs,

A wild young ringer in is day who done some crazy things.

He'd jumped bulls over fences, raced a colt up Ayers Rock,

See, his legs weren't built for walking they were made for riding stock.

A legend round the rodeos from Aileron to Broome....

Chainsaw

The toughest bull of em all.

Chainsaw was the wildest ride of 'em all. This Brahman bull developed an almost cult following on the Australian rodeo circuit and he even stars in a great country and western song!

The best information I could find about chainsaw comes fromMechanicalbullhire.com.au

"The most famous Brahman Bull in Australian Rodeo history is Chainsaw. Chainsaw had an expansive career of over 10 years on the circuit. Being one of the toughest and roughest bulls to ride, only nine cowboys were ever successful on Chainsaw. The King Brahman Bull had a very impressive record.

Chainsaw won Australia's Bull of the year a world record of eight times from 1987 to 1994 becoming a legend in rodeo and bull riding circuit around Australia.

Chainsaw had a unique a powerful bucking style that was hard to track and predict and even though Chainsaw was not a large bull, these abilities made it difficult for cowboys to ride.

Cowboys tried to study Chainsaw movements without success, Chainsaw had the ability to shift direction and do whatever it takes to throw the rider to the ground.

Chainsaw was notorious for a sideways jump with all four feet out to one side and turning back to the right all at the same time. This manoeuvre was almost impossible for left handed cowboys and made it difficult to anticipate the next move. With each successful buck, Chainsaw has an added personality by taking a swipe at the failed cowboy and charge to the middle of the pit before doing a victory lap in front of an chanting crowd.

A minute silence was given to Chainsaw when he passed, this reflected the respect he had received from the Rodeo Crowds and Cowboys. Today there has been no other Bull that has matched this famous King Brahman Bull."

Does it upset you to see animals treated like that?

Rodeo's are about skill. Riding skill. There is no better man on a station than the one who can toss a bullock or break a wild horse every time, quickly and without any fuss or muss. The stockmen of the Australian outback are a dying breed, this work is way too hard, hot and dusty for the kids of today.

That's a shame, for the character this work builds in a young man is incredibly valuable. Staunch, stoic perseverance in the face of any hardship. It's a very big part of what it means to be from the bush, to be Australian.
What do you think, are rodeo's cool or cruel?

Saturday 1 October 2011

Living in a World of Technical Innovation, be Happy, be Aware of the Risks.

Some thoughts about technology and the way it has enhanced our lives: How technology has grown, It's usefulness and the associated risks.


For all of us, there is little doubt that computers have enhanced our lives. The ability to jump online and do a google search on any topic that interests us has been useful to say the least. The internet has opened up the world to so many of us and the possibilities are nearly endless. The only real limitation now is our imagination.

I know for myself, I would not have been able to start writing without the tools the internet has freely given me. I would not have online friends in over 20 foreign countries and my point of view would be far narrower without computer technology. Facebook, although becoming invasive and controlling lately, has smashed down the barriers of distance, language and nationality and without it and online forums, interactive websites and voip technology there is no way I could keep up the level of contact I have with my extensive family and friends network.

I have ridden the wave from the outset. I first got into computers at the age of 16. My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 which was basically a 1/2 size keyboard with a cassette tape drive and ran BASIC as an operating system. It had no monitor, the output had to be jacked into the TV for visual display. I would write my own code and back it up to cassette tape in order to do things. This little machine let me play my home grown versions of asteriods and moon lander in all their line rendered glory at home and saved me money I would have fed into arcade machines otherwise.

  
I learned early about the rapid pace of development in computer technology. The Sinclair was replaced by an Amstrad, which in turn was replaced by my first "real" PC a 286 IBM with two 5 1/4" floppy disk drives. This machine was my first to get connected online. The internet didn't exist back then beyond military and university uses. I used a 1200 baud modem to connect to BBS sites. Bulletin Board Systems were incredible openings into a world of (mostly useless) information. I was hooked!

The 286 was replaced by a 386 these early machines ran DOS, then a 486 which ran windows 3.0 my first windows machine. My first Pentium machine was also the first connection via dial up to the internet. I was online with a vast community of nearly 2 million users! I had my first system failures due to computer virus activity that same year, it was 1994. The internet has of course grown a little since then. The figures released in March 2011 have pegged 2.0195 Billion users online now, that's around 30% of the population of the planet.

Our home is very connected now, running a high speed broadband connection wirelessly serving two very high spec desktops and a 2nd gen i5 Toshiba laptop as well as a Nexus S google smartphone running the latest Android system. My 12 year old son is completely computer literate and I am still pushing the boundaries of available technology every day. I have dealt with over 200 varieties of computer virus, trojan and worm attacks and our systems are seriously secured with firewalls, software and hardware gates.


I have seen, personally dealt with or read about every hack, scam , rort, conjob, and bullshit business opportunity there has ever been online. They never ever stop. Every day new people get online who think that they can selfishly use this technology for personal gain while they safely hide behind their keyboards.
Facebook is a breeding ground for these amateur con artists and sadly it is also the first point of contact for so many of my extended family. 

A word of advice for those who care to listen: Never trust anyone online. Never click on email attachments. Never let third party software, applications or executable (.exe ) code run on your machine without sussing it out thoroughly first. Never stick a flash drive into your network and copy files without scanning them first. Assume from the outset that anything from outside your system is already compromised. Act accordingly.

Enough doom and gloom, In general your online experience will be full of fun, learning and exploring the infinite possibilities of this technology bounded only by our collective imaginations. The whole world is at your fingertips, literally, and there is no conceivable limit to what you can create, achieve, see or do here!

As a parting shot for this little article I'll leave you with this:

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, 'If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'

In response to Bill's comments, Ford issued a press release stating:

If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash.........Twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.

P.S. - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call "customer service" in some foreign country, most likely India, and be instructed on how to fix your car, yourself!