Nicotine patches ...

Okay, so I have been smoking since my 13th birthday. I have quit on several occassions over the past 20 years. Obviously, since I am writing about this, not very successfully. I will not bore you with the whys and wherefores of all of this, but I will cut straight to the chase. The last two times I gave up, I gave up with the assistance of nicotine patches. The first time for about 18 months and the second time for about a year. The last time was about 18 months ago. Oh, yeah, the patches work, but smoking seems to be a default status with me. lol.

The patches work by putting a continuous but teeeny amount of nicotine directly into your bloodstream so that you do not have to actually put a cigarette into your mouth. You go three weeks without the habit of smoking and cut down the level of nicotine to almost nil and then voila, you are a quitter. The theory sounds good.

One of the side effects of nicotine patches are "vivid dreams", psychobabble for nightmares worse than the most deplorable acts of terrorism. Those tiny nicotine driven nanobots travel into your brain, take a look around, have a good chuckle and take your absolutely worst fears and make them into a dreamscape reality. Waaaaah! Yeah, in otherwords you dream of your own death at the hand of some psychochotic serial killer and die. Yeah, you do. But then, you wake up in some way and watch the CSI:Miami team doing the forensics on your death and you get in and help them. G0 figure.

Now before you go, ew, I don't want to do that, let the words of experience stroke you gently.
You don't wear the blasted things to bed. Take them off about an hour beforehand and have a large drink of water. Make sure you go to the loo just before you go to bed. It doesn't get the nicotine out of your system, but reduces it to a more manageable level. You just don't dream about the post mortem. Okay, you don't get the "vivid dreams" either or they aren't so bad. Yeah, I know they aren't nanobots either.

They really do stop the cravings. The patches have nothing to do with why I have failed before. This time around I have done some stress management stuff and have alternative things to do with my hands. I also have some stronger painkillers - although the pain that I had previously was because of my gallbladder which has since been removed. I still lack strong coping skills, but as I am aware of this, I am able to deal more with it. As long as the old person doesn't annoy me more than usual. It is still against the law to kill people.

Ha. bye ...

Brass Monkeys ...

Anyone who knows me knows I prefer cold weather to hot weather. Winter is my default season. However, this is totally absurd. It is so cold these nights that I just want to crawl into bed and keep warm. My feet get cold unless I wear sox, and that is not good. If my feet are cold my whole body feels cold. We only have bar radiators here and they are expensive to run. It isn't even May yet! I can recall this time of year when there have been bushfires. Yeah, it's chilly. Brrr ...

I went over to the Scrapbook shop at Leumeah today to cut out some lettering for a friend's scrapbook she is doing for a friend of hers. She was inspired by the Wedding Album I did for another lady where we work. I have loaned her this and that to help her and another lady at work has loaned her stuff as well.

While I was there, one of the shop people gave me the Calender for May. There are a couple of good classes on offer and a Stamp Club one Saturday that I am very tempted to do. They have knocked the class cost down to $5.00 plus materials. Materials are rarely over $20 so it would be a good way to do something productive and some time out from home.

My own scrapbooking that I have done lately has been rather uninspired. Of course, now I use different techniques to what they taught us at Scrapbook University, but even so, the pages are pretty boring. Maybe a few classes would remotivate me.

I joined a Yahoo group a few years ago of local scrapbookers (i.e. in Oz) but it got to the stage where it was a couple of people doing all the threads, mostly on upcoming weekends away they were promoting or their own line of scrapbook stuff. There were a few swaps, but nothing of grand interest, so I finally left. I didn't joing another group for ages, but there is a US based group who use stamps from After Midnight, which I own a couple of, and Krafty Lady moulds of which I own several and will be buying more later this year. They have swaps, if you want to join, you can promote your blog/webpage, so I follow some of the blogs. Also they have tutorials and video tutorials which are really useful. It is all run by the people in the group, so it isn't a professional set up by any means. The people seem very nice, too. One Australian lady is on it whose art I have admired for a long time. She lives at Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory. Her work is a bit eclectic, but I love it anyhow. So little by little I am learning new techniques for my own art and hopefully in the near future will have some interesting things to post. Like all my stuff, it is a big maybe.

Her Ladyship finally managed to go down the back to live with the stables and a bath and tub for water, long grass, the sand in the round yard she looooves to roll in and the smell of the boy must have finally gone. The grandsons had set the stables up as a cubby house, so I felt a bit bad asking them to put it all away. They had built some clever stuff there and very imaginative problem solving for their ages. They are alot smarter than they let on. Both of them could be engineers.

Well, I must be off, my nice warm bed beckons me, and I have to go earn the pennies tomorrow. Till again we blog ...

Surrey with a fringe ...

After Ben Hur, I thought the barrel bottom had finally been reached, and from there it could only be up, right? Hahar. Now, the old person found Okalahoma! with all the song and dance of the original - heck it is a video not a DVD. Why hasn't the law changed? So I sang away the afternoon much to the annoyance of both the old person who went to bed before they got up to singing Poor Judd, and the daughter who does not care if it is a classic, I hate musicals that old, please don't sing and why do you want to watch it? okay, then give me back my computer.



Truth to tell, the songs are singable if you know the words, which I have done for what seems like all my life, but the story itself is a bit trite. The costuming, even for those days was cheap, and some of the acting was sloppy. They would churn them out in those days, so I guess it is only to be expected. Rod Steiger was far better as the Illustrated Man than Judd Fry.



I fell over the other night and banged my head on the ground. Not hard, not even enough to bruise me, because having rained there was mud and it was soft (lol) but it gave me a nasty fright nevertheless. My glasses fell off and I was lucky I found them in the dark. Neither the old person or the daughter heard me calling out, because for a few moments I seriously could not get up. But my trusty old Her Ladyship wandered up and had a smell to see if I was okay. She just stood there waiting. I have fallen in the past and when I have not got up, she has started neighing, so I knew I would be okay one way or the other. Still no one came, I got back up finally and went and gave her her hay. When I got back inside I was a bit grumpy from hitting my head, the leg on my glasses had been bent and still isn't quite right. I yelled at the old person and the daughter, changed and checked for cuts and bruises. Since then the old person has found where he left the torch and has been coming out with me. Hahar.

The sister and Sunnyboy came out yesterday afternoon while the old person was away at the races. She brought some eggs with her and bread, so we made scrambled eggs for lunch. Usually I put on lunch for us, which is usually sandwiches with a variety of fillings. Sometimes, too, we have hot dogs. Yum. It was a nice treat. We chatted about this and that, and I lent her some punches to punch out some shapes so that she can make some Artist Trading Cards and maybe a little scrap booking. I showed her how to make concertina books and a box to hold it in and a maze book which is folded in a certain way and then cut and folded again to form sixteen mini pages. (When I think about it, I haven't photographed the couple I have made, so it is a note to self to do so).

I gave her some inkpads and a stamp and a couple of punches for herself. I let her have some paper for the scrapbooking and some card stock. I also gave her some precut bland Artist Trading Cards so she has no excuses not to do it. I previously gave her a small sticker machine with a spare cartridge. She says she has some glue. I also said she was to photo graph the results and e-mail them to me. When she does I will post some, so you can see what she does.

So I am still working in flux to sort, cull and pack all my gear. Must get back to it ...

Thinking ...

I spend much time thinking of all the fabulous things I could say about current events, but by the time I get around to actually blogging, much of it seems pretty trite, and I forego the writing. Hence it sometimes looks like I am not all that interested. Spending time thinking is not sharing my thoughts and I have been wondering if I should perhaps, just for the heck of it.

We are in a sort of state of flux at the moment, and are likely to be for a while. I have lived in Sydney since 1995, and in that time I have collected a huge amount of stuff. You couldn't really call it much else in polite society. So I have decided it needs to be culled to a more manageable amount. It is not a rapid process with me, and much of it falls outside my fetish for lists. So I am starting with my art and craft stuff. I have on lay-by two portable drawer units and I will pack all my arts and crafts stuff (i.e. not my sewing stuff) into these two units and whatever does not fit into them will have to be either sold at a garage sale or put into the recycle bins. Some of my bigger items will come as I kept all the boxes, but the paper, embellishments, rubber stamps etc., will have to fit or go.

Then there are my magazines. When I finally decided to leave Whyalla, I had a collection of over 10 years of several magazines, including the weekly issues of New Scientist. There were over 10,000 individual magazines. Luckily for me, I was able to rid most of them at my garage sale at about $5 per 100. This is not ROI but then, I never had them for investment, just for the information they contained. I kept all my Arabian Horse News mags and some of my craft mags, about 500 in all. I have probably got about 3000 now, of the AHN, Scrapbooking and other arts and craft mags. So again, I will have to cull and sell some.

I hadn't intended on moving for quite a while when we first moved here or I would have curtailed. However, the house here is not being maintained as it would by a private landlord and the rain has caused much land deterioration from having had over 30 horses prior to our coming here. We have had one horse and have had to suppliment her feed as the grass, while it exists now, is not really all that nutritious and the land is very, very weedy. Herladyship will not eat weeds, and really, I can't expect her to.

Work wasn't bad last week, because I only worked for two days, Friday being a Public Holiday. A few people were off on leave anyhow, being the second week of the holidays. In fact, by Thursday afternoon there was only myself and one other person. As she is a temp, I got to be boss.

The boss himself had asked me to do a project which entailed making a small table, cutting out about 10 from an A4 sheet, laminating these and then cutting from an A4 laminated sheet. Then I had to get double sided tape and put a little onto each one. Each of these had to be stuck onto every single telephone on Campus. There were well over 100. It was a fun thing to do, workwise, but afterwards my legs were aching. Partly because instead of taking lifts to the second floor I took the stairs, thinking it would be better for me, and the lift is often out of the way, anyhow. I have been doing alot of walking lately, so I didn't think my legs would be so bad. Mind you for all the walking and eating good food, I don't seem to be loosing much weight. Wouldn't have anything to do with the chocolate, would it? lol.

Well, I am going to be disconnected soon, so I had better sign off. Trah ....

Greater than Ben Hur ...

So tonight's movie that the old person borrowed is Ben Hur. It's up to the horse racing scene. Ben Hur's boss said they were the finest horses from Arabia. Alas, not so. Apparently they were actually Lippizzaners - the horses that the use at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The Americans rescued the herd at the end of World War II, and kept some to take breed back in the USA. Anyhow, Lippizzaners are always white horses, so they had to use boot polish to make the chestnuts, bays and blacks in the movie. Also, the four abreast chariots were not used. Only two horses, and later only one horse.



There were a few Hippodromes scattered through the Roman Empire, but horse racing wasn't all that popular. The horses, far from being the 15 and 16 hand Thoroughbreds we see today, were more like ponies up to 14 hands. Even the Arabians back then were not as tall as you see today - the original imports in the 19th Century were only ever as tall as 14.5 hands. So speed factors only improved when the Arabians were crossed with more modern Trotters.



I could easily sit here all night talking about the history of modern horses, but I would probably bore you to tears.



My interesting news is that I have joined Second Life. I have an avatar called Anika Bondar. Anika is the feminie of Anikin, who of course was the Jedi warrior before he became Darth Vader. The daughter thought this was apt. Of course, for the true trivia buff, Anika is also the human name of Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager.



I have joined Second Life to participate in some of the education programmes offered there, but also to see if I can't set up some sort of business. Experiment on line to see the reaction for the real world, so to speak. But it is taking a bit of a while to get used to controlling the avatar and someone actually called me a Dag. Moi? I guess a cybergoth fatty would only be described as a dag if I am really honest. I tried to capture a picture of her, but alas it didn't work. Once I get the hang of things, I will upload a picture and you can decide if I am a dag or not.

bye ...

Not alone ...

Reading my RSS feed this morning I find I am not alone in my concerns about the Gay Lobby and children. If hetero's were to do some things gay people do around children, we would be dragged off to jail and branded as pedophiles, yet because "dad and dad" are gay, it is okay to do those things around children. Yetch.

Look I don't approve of other cultures that do honor killings of women/girls either, does that make me a racist?

Why can't people just let children be children. Time enough to find out about all that sex stuff when they are old enough to understand it. When they actually have "hormones". Imposing it on them before then is just sick. Call me whatever horrible label you like but that is how I feel and I know many people feel the same. Some even feel "worse", like killing and bashing. I don't think those things really solve problems, nor does writing a bog entry about it, but at least it is here in the Public Domain.

Now that the communists are in power in Canberra, it will only get worse. It is the kids I feel sorry for, because they have to carry the consequences into their adult years and support us oldies in our old age.

I had two issues when my children were growing up. One was blatant racism, because my children where not "white". The other issue was that the feminazis decided that girls were not getting a fair deal in the education system, and the way to solve this problem was to blatantly discriminate against boys. Having two sons and two daughters stuck me between a rock and a hard place. I spent many a long hour going up to the various schools my kids attended and point out to the most senior person and the school counsellor the blantant discriminations and asking what the fnck they were going to do about it. Which usually ended up - not much.

On top of that, one of the teachers decided that violence was a good way to solve some problems. He broke one kid's arm (not mine) and pushed one of my sons into a brick wall. When he was supposed to be reprimanded, the Teacher's Union stepped in and prevented this from happening.

Fortune smiled on me, in the end. I was on a high school council a few years later, and this teacher had come up for appointment as a Deputy Head Teacher. The two students on the council had expressed concern about this - one knew first hand of the incidents above and knew of others as well. My mother was also on the council, and so the four of us spoke to the other parental representatives who also had heard and expressed concern. When the vote came, the teachers were pretty pyst about it, but had to live with our vote to not let him be Deputy Head. The chairman of the council was also the Teacher's Union rep for the city, and also my teacher at TAFE. Later I asked her if it would affect my results at TAFE and she said it wouldn't. To her credit it did not. She knew I was the instigator of this event, and once we had had the opportunity to fully explain, she understood, as she also had a child at that school. There was much taking to task with other teachers, but the majority, once they understood the reasoning were okay with the vote.

Unionism has overstepped its mark in some respects. They should just be worker advocates, not politicians. (ooops. lol). (Insert Capitalist diatribe of choice in this spot).

I told you that story to emphasise the point that the Teachers Union carries much weight in what kids actually get taught. Whether it is in the classroom or not. Somewhere along the way a line has to be drawn in the sand and we say, just teach the kids the academic stuff they need to know and leave the rest of life stuff to parents. You may not think we are doing a good job, but lets not get into a points arguement on who does a better job with our kids, shall we? Hmmm?

Yeah, there are some bratty kids out there, but maybe if you busibodies had let us keep our ability to smack our kids some of them would be less bratty than they are. One quick reprimand will save a lifetime of grief for a kid any day. Argue all you like, with me it falls on deaf ears.

Till again we meet, dear reader ...

News headlines ..

Sydney is a strange place if you live here any length of time. I should probably have never come here, but it is too late now.

Today's news in the Daily Telegraph was about how schools are going to have to drop references to mothers and fathers, boyfriends and girlfriends, etc., as gay people are offended by these sorts of references.

Now call me homophobic if you like but this is seriously getting out of hand. Maybe it could be pointed out to someone that gay people are not the only minority group in schools these days. How is this going to go down in Church sponsored schools and muslim schools? What do you think the consequences are going to be in these situations?

I find it offensive because of this. My daughter has two school aged sons. Their father did not bother making himself responsible for raising those boys and so she is a single mother. To those two boys she is their life and their security. How can they not be allowed to call her "mother"? I mean are we talking stupid or what?

What do Lesbian children call their parents? Most that I know call their parents "mummy" or "mum"; likewise with homosexual raised children, it is "Daddy" or "Dad". So where is the discrimination? What are you going to call them? You can't refer to your spouse as a husband or wife, but as a partner. Married couples are not "partners", they are much deeper than that, particularly ones with children.

Furthermore, I do not know any primary school age children that actually describe themselves as gay or not gay (heterosexual). Sexuality is not really an issue with little children. People who make it an issue have something seriously wrong with them (hmm... let me see, in other areas they are called pedophiles). Even gender issue do not rise with little kids. It usually goes that little girls think little boys are yuk and vice versa. However, even at quite a young age a little girl knows that the other person is not a little girl and likewise a little boy knows she is not a boy, and that is about as far as they think about it. Bringing gender issue into children's lives, no matter how you look at it is sick. Psychologically sick.

Maybe you could take a page from the Christians and Muslims and start your own schools. Leave those of us who want our children and grandchildren to maintain their innocence as long as possible alone. You would never have to worry about a shortage of teachers, which I am sure you know.

But then you are the same groobers who are holding this talkfest in Canberra this weekend, aren't you? If my sister and her family didn't live there, I would strongly urge someone to drop a bomb on the place and rid us of these freaks in one go. If only ...

Not without my ...

...lunch! How about that, I forgot the canteen was closed for the holidays and had no lunch with me at work. I ended up buying a packet of chips from the vending machine and having that. Yuk. Had the munchies all afternoon. Way to go, dopey.

I will have to remember to make something before I leave in the morning.

Long days with very little work. There weren't enough desks for everyone, but since it was my day on the Switchboard, I got to sit at my normal desk. The two part timers are off tomorrow and Friday, so it will be okay. I think when my time is up in September I will go back full time till the end of the year break and finish up then. I will have about ten days leave due and my long service entitlement, should get me through till I can either start my own business or find another job. Whatever.

When the days are long with little work, I find I look forward to the weekend. Especially when I know I have things I can be doing at home. So full time work will be frustrating again, but at least I will have something to look forward to at the end.

I have run out of glue and can't get any till tomorrow night. Why I am finding this so annoying I have no idea but it is really bugging me. I guess I take my glues so much for granted. I use glue in almost everything I do, and as I expand my mixed media arts I will use even more, but I think there I can use liquid PVA glue and not have to worry so much.

I am thinking about packing all my "junk" and it will be a logisitical nightmare without throwing away much of what I have. (sob). So I will be allocating one of my four days off to culling and sorting all my things until it is all done. I will also begin my lists. I cannot travel without a list, so if I have them prepared it will make things easier. It is about the only time I keep a list, and it is silly, because I would probably be alot more organised in my life if I kept lists all the time. I also need to start journalling because I think journalling is good for organisation as well. If I force myself to do it to start off with it will become a habit pretty quickly.

I am getting tired now so I shall bid you a fond adieu. cheers ....

Feeling sorry for himself ...

So the old person has had this dental appointment he has been waiting weeks for. He chipped his tooth at the beginning of February, and instead of going to the dental hospital and getting it seen to immediately, opted to go to a clinic in Ingleburn about 10 kms away by car. So they say he can have an appointment. They would write and let him know. So after three weeks his letter duly arrived and gave him today as the date. He was like "WTF" why so long? Because it is a government free clinic. Still this is the old person, isn't it?

So the big day dawns and I am not going with him! (him: WTF not?)

So he gets back in less than an hour, face all drooping, a grotty sponge hanging from his mouth. They pulled it out. They had actually offered to fix it, because it is near the front of his mouth, but he is convinced a filling will fall out. So he has this huge hole in his gum. Yuk. Oh, yes, I have to look at it, he insists. Cuts up one of the new hankies I bought him just in case it bleeds.
Luckily he slept most of the afternoon and did not moan and groan about it - which is unusual enough. But he had to get up sooner or later. He can't have anything too hot or too cold, paracetamol and not asprin because asprin thins the blood (maybe that is what is wrong with him - an OD of asprin at some time in his life - lol).

Then it turns out that he has more dental work booked because they want to fix some other teeth. I guess at his age if they can keep him going with his own teeth he will be alot better off. But they are also talking about giving him a plate for other missing teeth. So he is quite excited about all of this.

I almost feel sorry for him in his pain. The problem with people like the old person is that they moan so much and feel so sorry for themselves that there is no point in anyone else feeling sorry for them, they have enough of their own.

Anyhoooo ...

Parcel came in the mail today. It was a CD of Benny Goodman. 1930's Jazz. For me and the Boys from the great grandpa. (Okay, he is my dad, but he is GG to the boys). So we are going to have some real jazz to listen too and appreciate.

I have done quite a few pages of scrapbooking these last few days. There has been what might be termed a back log of UFO's and new pages to get on with so once I have finished I will take photos and post them. The main problem now seems to be what journalling I will include.

hasta la vista ...

Talk fest ....

So they are having a Talk fest to determine the way they want Australia to look in 2020. Some of the people there are, shall we say, not very nice people. Whatever they determine is going to be alot of self interest for alot of big wigs and us "smaller" people, those of us "in the street" are going to be forking for alot of conflict of interest. I wish my taxpaying days were over.

I am a Capitalist supporter, whether I have capital or not. It is a better system and a fairer one. You earn what you are worth and you don't have to worry about the sponge down the street getting your hard earneds. But when the sponges get together, they want to fleece you for everything they can and call it "Social Democracy". Crap, a rose by any other name, it is Communism, pure and simple. At least a rose, even by any other name, smells good.

So we will have socialised water supply - great, socialised food - nah, the farmers would never go for that one, so it will have the sh!t regulated out of it - same difference. Socialised electrickery? NSW wants to sell off its electrickery plants for the money into state coffers so it has more grease money to pay developers to develop the next rubbish tip and pristine beach. If the money was going into hospitals and schools, you would think it would be okay. Let's not kid each other here. But before anything is sold off by a Labor government it has to be regulated to death. That way supply is guaranteed to their mates. Socialised climate? No plastic grocery bags. This is going to make such a difference to the climate.

And what if you don't jump on the climate bandwagon? You are a member of the forces of Darkness. Read my lips:

proud, card carrying member of the Forces of Darkness

you freaks. But I digress.

So these sort of topics are going to be discussed. They were talking to a group of children, alas I didn't get their ages. They had their own 2020 talkfest, and some are going to be at the adult one. One thing I have learnt over the years of involving children in these sorts of things is that the kids are patronised by the adults and generally ignored. Children do not vote. Children do not "understand", children work against vested interest - and that is just not on.

At least to the supporters of this sort of thing I can say "you will get what you deserve, and don't come whingeing to me after it all goes pear shaped".

Sitting around ...

The old person is sitting watching the original "High Noon" movie. Full blast, no matter how much he get's yelled at to turn it down. He refuses to believe he is going deaf. I refuse to bash my head on a brick wall.

This morning when I went to feed Her Ladyship her brekky, I grabbed her food bucket only to discover it was slimey. I looked and there was slime all around the rim of it, and the inside of the handles as well. I knew snails were mindless, but sheesh. So I washed it all off, fed her brekky (with warm water). Then just now when I went to give her her hay, the bag I carry it to her in, had two snails on it. Yuk.

Snails are one of those pests that aren't really pests, unless they are eating your plants. So I am reluctant to squish them just for the crime of climbing on the bag. So I just drop them and they go on their merry way rejoicing. My preference would be to keep ducks, but they would probably have less hesitation than the horse does to come into the house. And then snails would probably never be quite the same tucker to them. Aaargh!

Still, we only get snails when it rains, so it is a hard call, really. The only way to deter them from plants is to stack salt or ash around the base of the plant. But when it rains these wash away very quickly. Hence the desire for ducks. Snails have eclectic taste, as well. They eat food you or I would eat, but not flowers or herbs. They don't eat weeds either. I could make a good case for them if they ate weeds. Picky, picky, picky.

The cockies have moved to Padstow. I haven't seen more than one or two lately, but just past Padstow station are several trees that have bits of branches and twigs strewn all around their bases. And the dreadful squarking noise the cockies make. Still, better it is driving them mad, than me.

am I raving ....

Ladies Day at Canterbury ...

Let me start off by saying this: the old person couldn't find his bum with both hands behind his back and a road map (Prachett). I ended up finding the free ticket in the console of the car, after he had assured me he had looked everywhere. So, unfortunately I was obligated to go. But then I left the camera at home. We were in an extreme hurry in case when we got there I missed being one of the only 1,000 people who would get one.

Canterbury is not all that far from us, about 30kms as the crow flies. Alas, roads do not follow the crows (and I don't know if that is good or not). We have to take some expressway, where after about 20kms you have to pay money if you want to go any further. Mind you, if you don't want to, there is nowhere you can turn around and go back. So basically you have no choice. About two km after that is the off ramp to get to Canterbury road off King George Road. Why we couldn't go the way that doesn't cost money and is probably a bit faster, but I feel it has something to do with someone having forgotten where to go and totally refuses to use a road directory.

Canterbury Park Racecourse is a nice smallish track in the middle of a very old area, probably the oldest next to Randwick. They no longer keep horses there for training, although I gather it is a quarantine area. It wasn't in use during the EI outbreak, so I might be wrong. But the boxes are lined with wood, so if a horse kicks out it isn't in so much risk of shattering its leg. The stalls are bigger than anywhere else and just seem nicer too.

I have been about 10 times to Canterbury since I first started to go to the races back in 1997. I have never seen so many people there. It seems to have been enlarged and opened up more, but it was in the shade all afternoon so must face directly south. The track and inner field looked lovely and green.

There was group (grade) and stakes racing so the horses were very well presented. There was good racing, as you would expect on a group racing day, although not all of the favourites won. In fact there were a couple of upsets. JB Cummings is a grand old master and since he started his filly in a minor group race, you knew it wasn't going to win, he is just keeping her fit. Sure enough she just toddled along, not last, but no where near the winner. Wait a few weeks till the BMW, or the Coolmore and suddenly she will grow and extra leg. You mark my words. (Oh, oh sorry, Mimi Lebrok). Anyhow, the horse that won the race also had won the day I went to Rosehill last month, and she just toys with them, and spurts on just at the end.

I could go on about some of the horses and their breeding, but that isn't relevant to this blog.

So being ladies day at the races, all the ladies had dressed up. Such a wide variety of dresses and suits, and those of us who are dags and always will be. Dagginess is just so comfortable. Well, I wasn't totally a dag. So many Paris Hilton look alikes, wannabes and a few Angelina Jolies and a few who actually stood out. Like one woman I saw who had this dress that had been designed from the 1940's. It was just beautiful, and full kudos to her for wearing it. Some of the hats were nice, but seriously some clowns do better hat wise. Even blokes wear hats to the races, mostly the older guys. Although the old person wouldn't be caught dead in one.

I thought it was a bit rude that some girls had taken alot of time and effort to dress up and look nice and their bloke partners had not. I saw a few daggy guys I would have kneed if they had turned up for me looking like that after I had gone to so much trouble. It is a guy thing, however. 'Nough said.

The little coupons that were given out as we went through the tunnel were for goodie bags from Nivea. The old person grabbed an extra one so I was able to get the daughter one. I had invited her along, but she didn't want to drag the boys along. It would have been very boring for them. Well, with all those ladies, maybe not for grandson1.

Races always attract some unusual people. Gambling problems come in all shapes and sizes, from pokies, lotteries, casinos and racing. And racing does attract its fair share. I could write an entire blog on some of the people I have seen over the years. I am not game enough to take photos of people without their permission and some of them would probably stalk me and kill me if I did. However, they would make a really interesting photo montages and I would win a Pulitzer or whatever it is. Maybe if I ever get a phonecam I'll get game.

I don't know what else to tell you. Which I know is unusual. Maybe I am tired - lol.

cheers ...

Funny words ....

Grandson1 was a naughty boy last week, allegedly, and was suspended for two days earlier this week. As the daughter has to attend TAFE, I told her I would look after him rather than taking him with her. He enjoys going to her classes, so I saw it as rewarding him, whereas being bored at home with Granma was not so much. But he just sat and read and watched TV and pottered as though it was a weekend without his brother. He never asked for anything (his brother does that for him) and ate what I fed him at lunchtime without protest.

Overall, he is a nice boy. A real "ladies' man". (You do not call your Granma "Babe"). He is bright enough, probably could apply himself further at school, but he is not lagging behind. He does have a bit of a temper but very rarely. But it is the occassional temper that gets him into most trouble. Instead of stepping back he just lashes out. It has taken me a bit of a while to realise he does this (and yes I do know why) and now I know what to do about it.

Then yesterday he went on the class excursion to Canberra. He told me the entire trip was totally "sick". (Okay, you are going "say what?"). "Sick" is the modern day word for something that is so fantastic, it is beyond description. I am used to him saying this, so I knew he had a good time. He had left at 7.00am yesterday morning and returned at 7.00pm last night. He was talking so fast I could barely understand him, and his eyes were shining so I know he really did have a very "sick" time.

In times not so long ago, when we found something that was good we said it was "wicked". It goes along with words like "cool" as modern remeaning of our language.

Older people know a menu is a list of meals in a restaurant, whereas our kids think a menu is something that drops down on their computer screen. A mouse is a tiny animal cats eat, but now it is also a computer device for using on a graphics screen. Normal words take on new meanings with common acceptance and usage. And although our dictionaries lag behind, eventually they do catch up.

But I think "sick" is the funniest of them all.

I am easily amused ...

Well ...

it has been a fairly nice few days at work. The Boss asked me to do stuff, they gave me other stuff to do and this afternoon we had film reviews, today's star being Kevin Costner. It was more like a civil gathering of mature women rather than, well, some of the raunchier stuff that has been commented on, on other occassions. It started with the Supervisor saying she watched Postman over the weekend. I watched it about two or three years ago, and it was a good movie. I think with his movie Dances with Wolves they were his best two. Then we chuckled about what a disaster Waterworld was and compared it disfavourably with Mad Max and then got a synopsis of the Postman movie. Knock me down with a feather.

My class last night was just revision. Revision consisted of being given a copy of the full time students test from a few weeks ago. There were spaces to fill in answers. I tested some of my answers in MySQL and when I got them to work, asked about another question and left about sevenish. It was super getting away early. My sleep has been sporadic to say the least. I can't live on strong coffee much and all as I would like to.

I have an RSS feed, through Google. I never really appreciated Google much before, but since having this blog and the RSS feed and knowing a few other things are in the pipelineI have gained alot of respect for them. Anyhow, I am debating (with myself, of course) whether to have the RSS feed appear on my front page or not. I think I might split it up among my blogs, if I can. It would be a real test of my webbing abilities doing that.

Oh, and I found out about this piece of code that you can add to blogs and websites that will immediately take you to that person's page when you click on their name. The only thing is, I don't know whether Blogger supports it or not. Admittedly if I want to link to someone at the moment, I just click the link button and type in the web addy, but this is something a bit different that comes up everytime you put that person's name in. To tell you the truth, I think the only reason why I am excited about it, is because I actually understand it, but not sufficiently to explain it. Oh, that sounds just like, me. lol.

The old person had a free admission to the races at Canterbury for me tomorrow, but rather cleverly, he has misplaced it. If he can't find it, I wont go, because it costs a fortune to go to the races, but if he finds it and I go, I will take my faithful camera. I keep promising stuff, don't I?

I will get there.

Still miss the koala, too.

adieu ...