Golfing Mayhem 2006

Just back from a gruelling weekend away with a bunch of mates, playing golf at Narooma. This is an annual pilgrimage, last year's report has some good piccies, I didn't take the camera this year, rest assured it is just as magnificent as ever.

As usual I failed to get an early night on Friday, hit the sack about 2am, then got up and drove 250kms to Narooma on Saturday morning in time for a tee off about the middle of the day.

The format for this event remains pretty much the same each year. 16 blokes with widely varying levels of ability, seriousness and sobriety attempt to play relatively good golf on the Saturday afternoon. This task is undermined by inadequate fitness levels, hills, bottles of rum and coke warming slowly in golf bags, more hills, wind (mostly from behind the guy drinking the rum) and a nearby ocean with magnetic fields which clearly attract golf balls.

By late afternoon the majority of us have realized we are crap at golf, and geez beer tastes good. Gary is a master of organisation, and hands out the Barocca before we all get too stuck in, and then it's off to the pub until the wee hours.

One bloke declared loudly that he needed the double bed in our cabin because he's the only single guy and intends to pick up. So Adam and I agreed to play the role of wingmen. (I always liked 'Goose' more than that tosser 'Mav' anyway)
Needless to say no-one 'lost that loving feeling' this year despite much enthusiam from our Mav.

As usual most of us had one too many drinks, and in the case of Adam it was a XXXX beer, which is one too many when it's your FIRST drink as far as I'm concerned. He may have attempted to drink it because of some misguided coerscion on my part.

It is possible (my memory is hazy) that I suggested he was too shitfaced to scull a beer, and that no-one could scull goat piss like XXXX anyway.

A young local had given us the beer for free on our walk home. It is also possible that I may have turned to this bloke and declared: "Adam, If you can scull that I'll give this bloke a blow job!"

Adam failed to scull successfully, much to my relief, and the apparent disappointment of the young lad from Narooma. He did however consume enough to forget how to he got back to the cabin. This may have involved some cross country hiking on a golf course. Only one of our blokes had to retire from the Sunday competition afer stuffing a shoulder when he fell into a bunker.

Golf is dangerous.

Getting Unmarried

Day in court was a few weeks ago.

I took the day off. I was not expecting to be an emotional wreck. I was not expected the process to take a long time. The main concern for me, silly really, was the outcomes at work if I turned up in a suit. Dressing up for me at work usually means wearing matching socks and choosing a shirt with a collar and no wine stains. I didn't feel like answering the wisecracks along the lines of:

"Nice duds! Got a job interview Ian? :-)"

So I arrive at court, and felt like I was in a waiting room at the doctor. Heaps of people fidgeting, refusing to look at each other in case you can catch the clap through eyeballs. Every five minutes or so the clerk would call out the next name from his clipboard:

"Kramer and Kramer!"

Each couple would disappear apprehensively into the courtroom, then reappear a few minutes later and make a swift exit. One couple even 'high-fived' each other before smugly waltzing out.

I was sitting and contemplating what was happening, sweating profusely in my unfamiliar wool suit and tie. It occured to me that I was wearing the same shoes and shirt that I was originally married in. Ironic, and unplanned. At least the shirt still fits.

Soon it was our turn, and the courtroom formalities lasted no more than 90 seconds, a tenth of the time it took for the ceremonial component of the original wedding.

Divorce decree is due in the mail on what would otherwise be my 12th wedding anniversary.

Blonde Joke

This Outstanding Blonde Joke is for all my favorite blondes out there.

Cracked me up...

Where do I start?

I'm back from holidays, easing back into the daily routine of work, and in a state of blogging paralysis with somewhere around 500 posts I have to read. Can I ask you all to please refrain from posting anything new until about March? That should help me catch up.

I have a bunch of topics I need to blog about, so by way of reminder, here is my blogging todo list, in roughly the right order:

1. Am I divorced yet?


2. What happened at the anti-buck's night?


3. Thredbo Blues Festival - words, pictures and maybe some sound


4. Happy birthday to me! - Look at my new bling!


5. Awesome photos of Tasmania - courtesy of my kids


6. Red Wine and lazing in the Buckland River - if you're not jealous, you should be

Happy New Year everyone!

Anti-Buck's Night

Around about 12 years ago I had an extended encounter with tequila which left an indelible mark on my liver and provided my friends with quality material for taking the piss out of me ever since.

I thought I looked quite fetching sleeping it off at a bus stop in a slinky green, knee length nightgown, however the photos that were distributed at my wedding a couple of days later appeared to prove otherwise.

To 'celebrate' my impending divorce, court date is Wednesday, a few friends that admired my cooperative approach to drinking anything put in front of me all those years ago are planning an "anti-buck's night".

My take on this event is that I will be stone cold sober, spiking my mates' drinks all evening, and at the conclusion of the night a stripper will burst in and put her clothes on.

New Year Ponderings

It's the 4th, time for a post. I've been back at work a couple of days, pretty much caught up on the backlog of SPAM and the even bigger backlog of blog articles from all you funky people out there.

Seems a few of my fav blogs have vanished off the plaNET while I was away. Clean slate for the new year I guess. (Rachel if you're out there, and have a new blog, do I have to keep pressing 'next blog' to try and find it? :-)

Best pressie I got was a book from Dylan:

Saucerful of Secrets : The Pink Floyd Odyssey I highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in Pink Floyd. It covers in some depth the underground psychadelic music scene of the late 60's and early 70's as well as delving into the personalities that were and are Pink Floyd. The story of this band over the last 30 years is as compelling a yarn as any fiction from the worlds great story tellers. READ IT!

It was great to be spending the last few days alternating between swimming in a river with water clean enough to drink, and reading the above book. I've come back more relaxed than from any other recent holiday. Actually finding it OK to be back at work.

I haven't been reading anywhere near as much as I should be of late. Now that I'm in "the zone" I must get on and finish these two:

Papillon Rather self indulgent stuff, supposedly an autobiographical account from Henri Charriere of his time in, and escaping from, incarceration in French penal colonies. Like many observers I suspect it has a healthy dose of fiction. It did give rise to a movie of the same name which is one of my favourites, hence the interest in this book.

Goodbye Jerusalem: Night thoughts of a Labor outsider I like Bob Ellis. Or at least I think I do, never having met him. Like Charriere, Bob seems to blend fact and fiction. The first addition of this book was withdrawn and pulped, and still ended up in the libel courts after offending passages were removed for the second addition. Bob is largely poking fun at political figures so I get enormous satisfaction from that. I'm sure Bob did too.

Lawyers, Politicians, Journalists and Movies

I would like to commend The Law Council of Australia for their recent open letter to our dickhead prime minister unworthy of a web link attacking his anti-terrorism legislation. (Perhaps better known as 'anti-liberty' legislation.)

This legislation is a big step in the wrong direction for my country, and if NZ didn't have such a shit cricket team, I'd consider emigrating.

In no way do I wish to deminish the admirable sentiments of the letter, but I did a double take when I saw one of the margin quotes used to illustrate their points:

"The greatest tragedy that could overcome a country would be for it to fight a successful war in defence of liberty and to lose its own liberty in the process" - Robert Menzies

I wonder when Sir Bobby made that remark?

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, Menzies actions in the early 50s to ban the Communist Party lead me to believe he was talking about himself. It paints him in an ever darker shade of black than John Howard. (read: dickhead prime minister unworthy of a web link)

In 1950/51 Menzies introduced legislation to ban the Communist Party. (It could have been to ban The Star Trek Fan Club, it's not the point.) Communists would be unable to hold an office in trade unions, would be banned from Commonwealth employment, could be raided without warrant, and would have to prove innoncence rather than the Commonwealth prove guilt. The definition of a communist was roughly speaking anyone that two Commonwealth Government ministers agreed was a communist. This legislation was later ruled unconstitutional by the High Court of Australia. He followed this up with a referendum to change the constitution to allow a legislative ban, but the referendum failed.

Refer here for a better researched article about the history of the above. :)

And while I'm talking about this issue, I've seen the trailer for George Clooney's new film Good Night, and Good Luck. about Edward Murrow's attempts to bring down Joe McCarthy. Go see it. It looks great.

How to link to the REAL Me!

Note: This is NOT a blog post.

This is a placeholder for people that have real world conversations with me to link to when they blog about it.

I was mortified, (mortified I tell you!), when in this article Gordy cited his inspiration as having come from various hacks and wannabes, just because they shared their thoughts via poncy blogs.

Anyone that was there, probably covered in stray spittle, knows that good as blog discussions are, they are no substitute for a decent shouting match.

For example. If you want to say:

"I was talking face to face in the real world with Ian today about the best way to cook 'chicken fettucine with chili and preserved lemons'..."

Then from now on you need to add in this code, or incur my wrath:

<a href="http://www.netspeed.com.au/ian.gay/
2005/11/how-to-link-to-real-me.html">Ian</a>

By the way, that preserved lemons recipe is magnificent.

Basically stir fry chicken, mushrooms, garlic, fresh red chilies, preserved lemons, coriander, spinach.

Maybe this is a real blog post after all..

Scallywag

M took the kids out for a bike ride last week, while I stayed home and tried not to suffocate in my own phlegm. Damn I hate snot.

This was the first time M had been cycling with my two, so I gave her the briefing about keeping an eye on my son when they moved from cycle paths to roads. My boy has about as much road sense as a cane toad.

In part because of this speech M was hypersensitive to son's every move, something which was not lost on him. At one intersection M felt that son had not carried out due diligence before crossing and chastised him. The response (delivered with a huge grin) was:

"If I die, you're SO going to lose your chance with Dad!!"

Lest We Forget

Today is Remembrance Day.

In 1918, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month the guns on the Western Front fell silent, and the "War to end all Wars" was over.

Like the people from many other countries, today is the 87th year that Australians have paused to remember the fallen and the broken from all conflicts where Australian servicemen and women have seen active service.

For me it is a time to relect on the enormous sacrifice that was made by an entire generation of young men, and in particular my Grandfather Raymond. He spent four hellish years in the mud and the filth that was the Western Front, before returning to Australia a changed man, deeply effected by his experience.

A quick Google found some statistics here and here.

The short summary is that close to half the men of age in Australia volunteered to fight for king and country, and 65% of them became casualties. These percentages were mirrored by most countries involved.

To put this in a contemporary perspective I've done some very basic (and statistically flawed) extrapolations using 2005 populations. Please don't give me a hard time about the maths, or my assumptions, it's back of the envelope sort of stuff. The numbers are staggering.

It's roughly the equivalent of 2,000,000 Australians volunteering to join the military and go to Iraq. 750,000 would be wounded and 320,000 killed.

For America, it would be 30,000,000 volunteers, 12,000,000 wounded and 4,600,000 killed.

Lest We Forget

Tagged Goodness

Lelly tagged me on this, and then pestered me at 4.30AM this morning to get on with it, never mind that her post went up at about midnight and I do this thing called 'sleeping'.

Gotta love time zones :-)

1. Go into your archives.


2. Find your 23rd post.


3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).


4. Post the title of the post, and the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.


5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

23rd post was Mistaken Identity, which was about other people on the net that share my name.

and the fifth (actually, it's the eighth, but it's the best) sentence was...

But the one that takes the cake is an electrical engineer about my age (I left high school to study electrical engineering), in prison along with his wife for murdering their young son by poisoning him with salt, apparently because he was naughty.

Creepy stuff. Who else out there has bizzare alter ego's available via google research? You don't have to post links if your real or full name is private, but I'm interested to hear any good stories.

So who to tag? Standard approach applies, I am a rule breaker so no actual tagging shall occur. If you've read this post, then you have been tagged. Do it, or don't. It's not my interNet. If you comment, or you're already on my 'must read' list, then I'll check out your posting.

Can I go back to sleep now Lelly?

Wangaratta and all that Jazz

Back at work, dammit, after a great weekend of Jazz and Blues at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz.

My parents have been inviting me down for this event for over a decade and circumstances have always conspired against me, so I resolved to ensure attendance this year. I was not disappointed.

The weather was ordinary, but the music was not. Armed with a glass of premium local red wine we soaked up, and soaked in, the atmosphere of the slightly damp street party. the main street of town was closed off and lined with food and wine vendors, and a community stage had music going all day. Wangaratta has never looked so good!

Jimi Hocking was terrific. Just my sort of blues, clever lyrics, astonishing guitar work and a healthy dose of showmanship. I particularly liked 'Skinny White Boy'. Basically a song about a boy from suburban Mentone that wants to play the blues, but doesn't have a dead dog or a hard luck story to give him credentials! There is a sample of this song at Somersault Music if you are interested.

The other revelation was Ella and the Dynamic Groove. This group of six young musicians with an average age of about 16 blew me away. Ella Thompson's voice was amazing, and as a wannabe bass player I was in awe of what Joel Williams could do with a bass guitar. Their site has some samples as well.

I had hoped to get in to see the Oliver Lake Trio as well, but time got away, the freebie acts, and the constant lure of good food and great wine in Reid street was difficult to leave.

I am SO heading back next year! Well done Wang!

Fun with Google Images

I borrowed this from Ago-go.

Directions:

Go to Google and click on the images link. Type in the following and post the first (or your favorite) picture the search engine finds.

- The name of the town where you grew up
- The name of the town where you live now
- Your name
- Your Grandmother’s name (pick one)
- Your favorite food
- Your favorite drink
- Your favorite song
- Your favorite smell

I'm just deep linking the images I found, others seem to have taken their own copies.

Town where I grew up:

I don't remember getting seasick, this must be a mistake

Town where I live now:

Seems to be a bit of a theme here. At least I've upgraded, even if I'm in danger of being called a drifter.

My name:

Self portrait, obviously.

My Grandmother’s name:

She atrophied a bit by the time I met her.

Favorite food:

marinated with a plum sauce. Divine! (bring on the hatemail!)

Favorite drink:

Clear winner! Goes really well with the favorite food.

Favorite song:

Awwwww...

Favorite smell:

Now I've weirded myself out.

That F**king game

Part of the reason for my non-blogging of late has been my immersion in the game World of Warcraft, also referred to as 'That fucking game' by Aughra :-)

Until yesterday I thought this was just a derogatory reference, but I now understand that it is far more literal.

For those people that aren't aware, WoW is a Dungeons and Dragons style multiplayer online game. I have several characters that I play, including a male night elf hunter, and an elderly looking male gnome warrior. But at the moment I'm mostly playing my female human priest. She is without a doubt a hottie. Naturally I modeled her on all my favorite bloggers, using HNT pictures for inspiration when designing her 'look'.

At the moment she is running around the world in black leggings, a g-string and a tight fitting low cut vest thingy. Perhaps I should post a picture later today as some sort of virtual HNT.

I am NOT a chatter, never having used instant messaging, IRC, or until recently even SMS. I have used the chat facilities within this game, but mostly to talk to other characters for the purpose of playing the game, and within character, ie. I role play as the character I am playing. Typical DnD stuff.

It still amazes me the number of players that assume in real life that you are roughly equivalent to the character you have designed, at least in choice of sex. Does that mean that 'undead mages' in real life are gothic, or perhaps blood sucking serial killers?

Last night a male night-elf rogue called 'Drizzet' propositioned me thus:

[Drizzet] Your cute
[me] I know
[Drizzet] u look gr8 in that vest
[me] How about this cool hat (I put on my purple wizard hat, very eccentric, looks great)
[Drizzet] How about this (he takes off his shirt)
[me] nice abs.
[Drizzet] How old are u im 21 :~>
[me] I'm 35 (no need to tell him I'm a bloke just yet, this is quite funny)
[Drizzet] Nice. Beauty comes with age. (M is standing next to me pissing herself and advises that this line never works!)
[me]giggle
[Drizzet] So are you interested in some cybersex?
[me] nope :)

I've added him to my 'friends' so I know when he's online. Sure this is starting to sound like I'm a fat truckie in a singlet top with my butt-crack showing, pretending to be a 14yo looking for friends online, but this is hilarious and besides I'm the victim here!

Several of my male 35 yo mates also play this game and have a collection of female hottie characters. It could be fun to build him up a bit and then let him know our real names :)

Or perhaps he'll spot his character name on this page and learn the truth? Who knows, he could well be a she anyway! Hi Drizzet!

Perhaps next time I'll let him/her have his/her way with me in exchange for 50 gold pieces.

Ohmygawdimso busyihaventgottime forpunctationorspacesbye

Geez, I miss my bloggin. Sorry to anyone who may still be taking the time to visit, I have been extremely busy on many fronts, and blogging has pretty much taken a break.

Hoping to be back soon. It's warming up down here, so the beach beckons, and I shall therefore taunt you with photos of paradise shortly!

edit: it took less time to put some spaces in this title than it would to fix my template to cope.

Dorky Tuesday

Os, the Grand PoohBah of Half Nekkid Thursday has in true Jerry Bruckheimer style created a spin-off called Dorky Tuesday.

At the moment most of my old photos are tucked away in boxes, unsorted, and I have no wish to delve into them at the moment. There are too many photos of one of life's recent chapters that I'd rather not look at just now. Maybe next week.

I don't have a scanner anyway, and Corinna is too busy scanning her bits to lend me hers, so you get a dorky(ish) photo from my Bali adventures.

"Sure it's raining, but I've only got to run about 10 metres. How wet could I possibly get?"

HNT - Better late than never edition

Half Nekkid Thursday - Sunday Edition.

This was taken a short while ago, in the hot tub in my back yard. Gotta love the fairy lights.

It was supposed to be a photo of just my feet, but I got tangled, so had to bring a friend again. The first person to correctly guess which feet are mine, and which are M's win 12 month's free subscription to my blog!

Random unrelated stuff

I paid $80.15 to fill my average size car with standard unleaded petrol today (about US$60). That's the first time I've ever broken the $80 mark. Actually it's the first time I've ever broken the $70 mark. What the hell?

Much excitement at the end of my street last night. It was cordoned off for about an hour and half while lots of nice policemen with guns and grim faces dealt with 'issues' at the_house_with_way_too_may_cars. Lots of neighbours and I shivered and gossiped in the street. We summised they were being busted for drugs, or perhaps for painting their fancy hotted up BMWs bright metallic pink and having number plates like '4DACHICKS' (*). In any case the offending cars appear to have been loaded on to trucks and taken away. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

My son is in his first school play tonight and tomorrow. Very exciting stuff. I get to do the 'proud parent' thing tonight, which should be way more fun than the 'frazzled taxi driver parent' thing I have been doing all week, delivering him to rehearsals.

I haven't been to the beach in three weeks, dammit.

(*) Not the actual custom plate, but mighty close!

Reading my customer's blogs

This blog is predominantly a personal site, I rarely mention my work, though I do subscribe to a few blogs run by customers of the company I work for.

Scott has recently discovered that a few of us are reading his blog. I concur with the general comments from Lindsay, Gord and Stilbert that we all read his blog to keep in touch with our customer base, know our market, etc. It's extremely useful for there to be conduits between the developers and the users.

Anyway, the reason for this post is to giggle about the way in which Scott discovered the subscribers from my work. He is doing reverse IP address lookups from his site access logs.

SCOTT! Get comments happening on your blog and as well as unsolicited offers for viagra and weight loss programs, you are likely to get feedback from lurkers such as myself.

I apologize to my regular social readers, I won't be infecting my blog with worky stuff again.

Dammit, fire alarm.

Do I stay and write this blog article, or run for my life? Better run and set a good example for the others...

HNT and other Sunny Piccies

In order to ensure that 'The Great And Powerful Os' doesn't put a karma destroying hex on me, I am getting my Half Nekkid Thursday post up with at least five hours to spare!

HNT this week uses a fairly common photographic technique employed by many an HNTer. Aim a digi camera at your own feet. Note my clever use of a prop, The Pacific Ocean, which was a most pleasing temperature at the time. Scroll down for more beachy photos.



Noosa is a fairly busy place a couple of hours north of Brisbane. We spent a day up there strolling on this beach, cruising the shops on Hastings Street and people watching from a streetside trattoria over lunch and a chianti.









South West of Noosa, near Nambour is "The Big Pineapple", which was a source of much fascination to me as a child. Australia seems to have a disturbing number of tourist attractions along this theme. The Big Banana, The Big Merino, The Big Trout, The Big Mower, The Big Cheese, etc. etc.



I promised pictures of Nemo and I don't like to disappoint. I found him in a shop, shrinkwrapped, but he seems happy enough.



Drove back to Brisbane via the coast, and found ourselves on Castaways beach, which goes on for about 16 kilometres, we were about half way along, and the photos below show us looking left, looking right, and then taking our own picture.







Inland a little are The Glass House Mountains. So named because they reminded Captain James Cook of glass houses he had seen in England. Obviously he had spent too long at sea. The aboriginal names for each mountain are far more spectacular. M and I want the house in this picture. The photo doesn't do the view justice.



Just behind me when I took the above photo was a rainforest where we did a bit of walking. Below was taken late in the afternoon so is a bit dark.



Spent a day wandering around Brisbane as well. There is a speccie fig tree growing in the centre of town.



For a city near the coast, with some of the worlds best beaches within reach it was a little comical to find a man-made one in the middle of the town, a stone's throw from office blocks and carparks.



Brisbane's Story Bridge.

Moving Day

Just coming back up for air after a miscellaneous nasty microbe kept me in bed for the better part of four days. Being kept in bed is a very good thing except when you're by yourself, coughing, sneezing and wheezing with only a packet of lozenges for company.

I usually fight off colds reasonably well, however last Friday morning I awoke with the telltale signs in the back of the throat warning of impending disaster. It was probably penance for not posting promised photos of Noosa or Half-Nekkid bits the day before. My first reaction was to roll over and go back to sleep, cower under the doona and take a one day sickie. No such luck - it was MOVING DAY.

M and I have moved in together, or more specifically she has moved in with kiddies and I. Very Exciting Stuff. But not on a cold Canberra Friday morning with a head full of snot and clinging to one end of the world's heaviest and largest wardrobe, desperately trying to avoid dropping it fifteen feet off the side of a front porch railing..

In hindsight I should have paid the extra hundred bucks to have the removalist bring another bloke with him. By lunchtime everything was moved, I was completely shattered and collapsed in bed until after dark. About a week later the house is returning to some normality, there are still moving boxes everywhere, head is clearing. I want it to stay that way so I won't be taking any chances with karma - photos go up straight after work tonight!

HNT - Weekend Edition

I know, it's Sunday, but some nutter pinched the batteries out of my camera, and I haven't been able to get this piccie off of it before now. And I'm off to the Great Barrier Reef to try and Find Nemo next week so can't wait until next week to post, cos I won't be around.

I know, I'm contributing to the chaos of irregular HNT posts that has been concerning some viewers, so I'll leave it up to Os to decide whether this is a late post from last week, or an early post for next week :)

CDs in my collection

I was reading Jason's post about his CD collection, and thought I'd start one of those pesky list getting tagged things.

This is also a good way to find out if the people I tag are actually keeping an eye on my blog, because I might not get around to pointing this out to them :-)

Five recent CD purchases.

• Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams


• Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn


• Xaviar Rudd - To Let


• Coldplay - X & Y


• The Waifs - Up All Night

Five CDs you have had for a while, and still play regularly.

• Coldplay - Live 2003


• Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls - Gossip


• Crowded House - Crowded House


• Leonard Cohan (Tribute) - I'm Your Fan (Various Artists)


• Jeff Buckley - Grace

Five CDs you might not admit to owning, or having owned, unless your conscience makes you fess up on a blog.

• Air Supply - Greatest Hits


• Thompson Twins - Here's to Future Days


• Bananarama - Wow!


• Julio Iglesias - 1100 Bel Air Place


• Pseudo Echo - Love an Adventure

The first music you remember purchasing, perhaps on each format.

• Vinyl (1983): Men at Work - Business as Usual


• Cassette (1984): INXS - The Swing


• CD (1988): Queen - Greatest Hits

Tag: Polly, Rachel, Os, and of course anyone else who wants to share, it's not like it's my internet.

Aussie Wine

Moose asked for some Aussie Wine Recommendations, and I thought a post on the subject was better than a comment buried somewhere.

I'm an avid red wine lover. I'm not one of those poncey ones that swishes, sniffs the glass, discusses the hint of elderberries before spitting in a bucket, but rather the type that knows what I like, and will consume it with much slurping and spillage on the carpet.

White wine has it's place in my heart as well, but Australia produces so many magnificent red wine grapes, a glut in fact, that my friends and I regularly exclaim that there is no such thing as a bad Aussie red. This is of course easy enough to disprove, but my circle of friends and I regularly buy wine from as little as 5 bucks, typically cleanskins that fight well above their weight.

Wine between $10 and $15 can really excel, and $25 to $40 buys you something a bit special. Above that wine starts to lose it's value for money as far as I'm concerned. Everyone has their price point, and I'm not a millionaire (yet).

For me it is as much about regions as it is particularly wine labels.

For big reds like Shiraz and Cab Sav, I always look to South Australian regions like Coonawarra, Barossa Valley, McClaren Vale, Limestone Coast. As well as Victorian reds from the King Valley and Rutherglen. Rutherglen in particular is renowned for fortified wines like port, muscat, tokay.

For Rieslings I look for Clare Valley and Eden Valley.

Margaret River in Western Australia make great white wines.

Now, a few favorite labels, very approx pricing, this is all off the top of my head. Google for more accurate info I suppose. I might improve on this post after work if I feel inclined:

Morris Bros Cab Sav ($15)
Wyndham Estate Cab Sav ($25)
Wyndham Estate Shiraz ($12)
Wyndham Estate Blend ($15)
The Wine Shed Cab Sav Cleanskin ($4.95)
Ingolby Shiraz ($12)
Gapsted Verdehlo ($?)
Wolf Blass Yellow Label Riesling ($10)
Wolf Blass Bronze Label Riesling ($18)

Chardonnay : Blurk! Ask someone else.

1998 was a stunning year for red wine in Australia if you can still get it. You won't be disappointed. 2000 and 2002 were also great.

Back to work now!

cleanskin - a wine bottle with either no label, or a very brief one, sort of a wine lucky dip. Often produced from left over grapes not used for the brandname wine least the market price drops.

Fresh Snow

Had a great week. Coped with skiing in generally crappy weather by drinking way too much red wine.

Below is a view from the car window on the way up Mount Buffalo, which in summer looks like this.



We skiied at the very small Cresta Valley ski fields. Not very high up, only about 1700 metres (5600ft) at the summit, so snow is never great, but costs very little and is good enough for teaching the rugrats that were with us. Didn't get many great piccies cos weather was ordinary. Here is a panorama from last year. I especially enjoy zippin' in, out and over the rocks up the top. It's actually a lot steeper than this photo shows, but it's still very small. I need some Rockies...

Snow and Wine

Heading off to the Victorian High Country for about five days of skiing, snow play and sampling of excellent Aussie wine. Full reports (with piccies) should appear early next week.

Melbourne Road Trip

Last friday through to monday was a four day road trip from Canberra to Melbourne and back, with a couple of minor detours along the way. The initial reason for the trip was for M to get her hair done.

Sure it's 662.21kms away and a 7.23 hour drive, but apparently if you find a good hairdresser you need to stick with it. Besides, any excuse to go to Melbourne every few months is welcome.

Normally M would fly, perhaps for a daytrip, but once we decided that I would come along as well, we took a few extra days and drove instead. On the way down we stopped at Wangaratta and she got to meet my parents, my brother's family and their guinea pigs. In return I got to meet her Mum, try out her Mum's sofa bed, and get inspected by a variety of her longtime friends, and then on the way home met her brother and his wife in Shepparton.

All of this had the potential to be very stressful and go horribly wrong, but thankfully a great time was had by all. So now the only one left is for me to meet her father, and then I think we are done with all the introductions.

While M was having her hair done I had two hours to kill wandering up and down Chapel Street, checking out an eclectic mix of op shops, pawn brokers, book stores and finally a decent Irish Pub, where I found it necessary to rest for a few minutes and refuel.

Sitting outside, working my way through a pint, I discovered that every second or third car was a BMW, Porsche, Audi or a Range Rover. There is WAY too much money located with WAY to small a percentage of the population.



At one point I had to go into a collectibles shop and ask 'how much is that Dalek in the window?'. Very cool, a radio controlled dalek, presumeably with an 'exterminate' button. Sadly, at $175 it wasn't able to come home with me, unless of course the exterminate button was in fact fully operational.

HNT - Bring a friend edition

M and I trying out her Mum's sofabed last weekend in Melbourne.

Gordon, note the lack of a visible wanger.

Happy Anniversary to Me...

Today is my 15th Anniversary in the one job.

Woohoo! Only another 25 years to go until I can access my superannuation and retire!

This is a great place to work, but the thought of having a 40th anniversary makes me a bit queasy..

This place is a bit like The Firm. In my area of about 15 people, we have people with 19yrs, 18yrs, 16yrs, 15yrs (me), 12yrs. And across the company there are a bunch of others with long service entitlements as well. It probably looks pretty ugly in the liabilities column in the company accounts :)

To my fans, sorry about the lack of HNT last week, I went to Melbourne for a few days, and will post newsy stuff about that trip as soon as I charge the batteries for my digi camera and can include the pictures as well. Same camera contains a controversial entry for this coming Thursday, so make sure you check back...