You are warned.  Malaysia  1990  © PJ Croft  2017

A couple of weeks ago I talked about never giving up on getting something to grow. Well, I’ve persisted, with some stumbles at times, I admit, and my flower has survived and grown to maturity. Looking forward to a long bloom.

Hang in there.  © PJ Croft 2017

Apropos persistence. I got this shot about five years ago in my old house. I was sitting in my usual spot under the air conditioner and felt something brush my arm. Looking around, I saw this.

This gecko must have crawled up the wall outside and through the air hole into the air conditioner. When I turned it on, the gecko got blown out the front and had to hang on like this. When I frightened it, it dropped its tail and that’s what I felt. But it hung on! I gently took it outside and released it in the garden.

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This is crazy. On 13 March I wrote of the coincidence of two separate news events (woman drowning her child; Aussie Eurovision contestant chosen) occurring in one week in the town of Moama in NSW, then soon after finding a video game character called Joseph Momoa. Then soon after that, seeing the announcement of a Disney movie called Moana.

Now, today, it seems that the woman caught with drugs in Colombia is from a South Australian town called Moana.

Someone is making this up.

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How much longer is this beautiful weather going to hang on? Can’t we have some bad weather for a change?  And where’s the wind gone? Perth used to be the Windy City. It’s not good enough.

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My internet billing date is the 22nd of each month. This morning I found I’d used up all my 20GB allowance, on the 6th! I get shaped to 125Kb/s when that happens.

I never used to go anywhere near to using 20GB, rather down near the 5GB end. But month after month I’m approaching or exceeding 20GB and I can’t see why. I don’t download movies or songs. I do download software, and often it will be in the 400-600MB range, but that only happens a few times each month.

I’ve been wondering for some time if I have a bandwidth thief piggybacking on my wi-fi. This extra loading started quite suddenly, I think, more than a year ago. In particular, I can’t make my PC stay off. If I tell it to Sleep, it goes to sleep, then wakes up again straight away. If I Turn Off, it goes off and seems to stay off, but many times I find it’s on again when I wake in the morning. And much of my bandwidth is being used in off-peak hours, i.e. between 2am and 8am. Sometimes I do use the PC if I can’t sleep, but rarely.

I do know that Microsoft downloads and installs patches in the early hours and can wake the PC remotely to do it.

Something’s just occurred to me. I’ve got another desktop PC in the spare bedroom, two laptops that are usually just asleep most of the time and a tablet that is often just asleep. I wonder if …  I think the way to prove this is to switch the modem-router off when I go to bed (it’s next to my bed, because that’s where the phone socket is). Then look at my usage graphs after a few days or a week or two.

Meanwhile, I pay $59.95 for internet service and 20GB a month, but it’s only another $10 to add another 20GB when I run out. Not too bad. I don’t think I’m getting a very good deal from iiNet, judging by ads from other companies offering huge data allowances or uncapped plans for no more cost, or less. Might be time to stamp my foot.

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Toyota MR2 from 20 years ago.

Toyota SR current model.

Something has gone wrong with car design. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!