Author Archives: Pete

Camera Bag


Mike posted about not having a camera handy today. I posted this in reply in the comments section:

Contents of my small hessian shopping bag, which goes everywhere with me these days:
 
* wallet, large, zip-up, multiple cards for the holding of
* glasses, distance type, other
* mobile phone, Nokia, heavy, drag pocket down type
* Panasonic LX5, camera, high quality type
* tape measure, 5m, furniture and wood measuring for
* tissues, various, emergencies for
* GPS, Garmin 1490t, finding way home type
* iPod Touch, video files for showing of
* liquor shop bags, beer transport of
* strong analgesics, emergency for
* letters, notes, notebook, pencil, biros

How did I ever do without these things when I was younger? I don’t have enough pockets for all this.

If you don’t carry a camera, you won’t get the shots. Fortune favours the prepared.

The Carpet Bombing Aftermath – Monday

Finished, but he left some debris for me to clean up.
It’s middday and the Carpet Call storm trooper has just finished up and left. Thank Dog!
I had a dentist appointment at 10am this morning, which if the job had been finished on Friday would not have been a problem. As it turned out, I had to leave that guy alone in my house until I got back at 11:30am. Him alone with Minnie. I was nervous.
When I got home, I heard a coupe of dog barks and found Minnie trapped in a small area between my carport wall and the house. She had wandered in there, as she does, and couldn’t find her way back out again. Why? Because the passageway was blocked by a pile of carpet scraps too big for me to lift out of the way.
Cleared now, but Minnie was trapped behind that box and a pile of carpet debris.
I had to leave her while I went inside and sussed the situation.
When I saw the carpet bomber was preparing to leave and was outside near his car, I said, “My dog is trapped here (she had settled down on the brick paving to wait) – can you shift this stuff so I can get her out?”
“Yeah, mate, I’ll get to it in a minute, I’m just finishing up.”
I said, “No, can you move it right now please, I need to get my dog out.”
“Yeah, alright mate”, he says, in a tone as if I’m causing him aggro again!
Then finally, as he’s leaving, I point out the three large rolls of carpet in my laundry.
He left these for me. What a guy!
“What about these?” I say. Meaning, aren’t you going to take these? “No, those are leftovers for you” he says. He’s not taking them away. These are the rolls he left on Friday blocking my toilet door.
I’ve just been around taking photos. He’s left more pieces of nail strip in the passageways, just ready for me to tread on! 
New pieces of nail strip left for me to tread on.
There’s debris on the carpet, and there’s a small bulge in the carpet in one room.
That bump will be my fault, of course.
So now, luckily the sun is still shining, but I have to spend the rest of the day moving my furniture back in before it rains tomorrow.
What a BASTARD. What a rotten customer service. CARPET CALL, Balcatta. Stay away from them!
______________________________________________
And the dentist? No decay, but my teeth are very worn down due to Bruxism, teeth grinding. I wonder why I do that???!!!!

Holy Shit! Anti-depressant!

The dark before the dawn. Sanur January 2011
A few days ago I wrote about the news item warning of side effects of an anti-depressant called Efexor (compulsive gambling addiction). I knew I’d taken it, but I couldn’t remember when, even though I remember its effects all too well. 
Today I’ve found my diary for May 2003, starting on Efexor. “Anxiety, nausea, stomach upsets, vision difficulty, prostate constriction, difficulty urinating.”  I stuck it out until Thursday 7 August, but had to stop. I can’t believe I went on so long.
____________________________________
I’ve just found the further details of the next anti-depressant drug I was prescribed, the one I wrote about last week. It was 8 August 2003, and the drug I took wasn’t Efexor, it was Edronax.
Guess what I’ve got in my cupboard at this moment? A packet of Edronax, prescribed only a month ago! Luckily, I didn’t start them.
Diary entries: 
Friday 8 August 2003 – started Edronax – UGH! Stomach upset, mild nausea, chills, shivers, back to bed for 1 hour.  Can’t face taking second tablet.
Saturday 9 August: After breakfast, again, UGH! Stomach churning, upset, chills, shivers, woozy.
Later: wobbly, slow.  Second tablet, couldn’t face food or drink.
Rotten night – floods of dreams. COLD feet. Couldn’t get them warm. Woke at 3am and very poor sleep afterwards.
Sunday 10 August: Can’t face tablet this morning. Breakfast OK. Still woozy, tired, headache, stomach upset. Lunch at Meryl’s place.  [This is where I wrote about feeling disembodied, weird, having to drive home.]
3.30pm  took 1x Edronax. UGH! Awful feeling. Tense, stomach upset, anxious, scared. Continued to bed time 9.30pm. Chills, shivers, distress.
Awful sleep, masses of dreams, waking every 1/2 hr to 1 hr, sweating, feet ice cold.
Monday 11 August 2003: work at TVW [how did I do it?]
Effects of Edronax slowly wearing off, but excessive sweating! Even in COLD evening, still sweating.
Tuesday 12 August: poor sleep again but not as bad. It’s wearing off. Sweating still.
3pm: saw Dr W… — Stop for 1 month or more (my suggestion).
Thursday 14 August: Feeling much better.
____________________________________
So there it was, August 2003, burned into my memory, a week or so of terror and sweating.
And I’ve got a packet of this awful drug at my side right now, prescribed only a month ago!
Is this coincidence or my psychic abilities again? In yesterday’s Weekend West, Saturday 28 July 2012, there was an ad at about page 7:
The Captain Stirling Medical Centre is going to get a call from me. I’m not on antidepressant medication now, but this is too good a story to keep secret. I’ve got them all diarised.
What a lucky escape!

PS

My mind?
I am in a state of nervous anxiety right now, Sunday evening 8pm. I have a dentist appointment at 10am tomorrow morning, which is anxiety producing enough.
But that carpet gorilla is due here to finish the job in the morning, and I wonder what I’m in for. I spent a good hour today taking doors off their hinges because I didn’t realise it was up to me to do it. He’ll crap on me if I don’t do it, or charge me $30 per door.
But as well, I’m going to have to leave him here alone in my house while I go to the dentist. F..ck!

When I arranged this carpet laying last week, I had no idea it would clash with Monday’s dentist appointment.  This Carpet Call company is going to regret this. Already my article has been linked to on a Canadian web site.

The future

enceladus saturn moon surface
Enceladus. There may be life on this icy moon of Saturn.
I’ve been thinkin’. Yeah, it hurts a bit, but it’s nearly beer o’clock and that’ll ease the pain. I take that fantastic medicine that comes in tall brown bottles. Lovely stuff!

I’ve been making a mental list of things that would set us doing handsprings, lift us up and shake us and make us realise, we will be OK.

I’m an eternal optimist. I believe science and technology are advancing so much and so fast that I don’t worry too much about the future. Even my doom laden post about methane doesn’t set me back too much, despite my forebodings. Something will turn up.

So here’s my list of things I want to see and I reckon are coming. I’m no scientist. I just read a lot.

These are in a rough order of importance and impact, highest first:

  1. A visitation from a friendly alien people (whatever “people” means);
  2. Reception of a decodable, understandable, friendly message from another star or planet;
  3. Discovery of sentient life on another planet, wherever it is;
  4. Discovery of life on a planet in our solar system;
  5. Achievement of fusion power, or any other infinite, non-polluting power source, eliminating the need for oil and coal and all the destruction they cause;
  6. Achievement of transport powered in the same way – ie no need for oil and petrol;
  7. Discovery of a way to eliminate humans’ need to fight and kill each other, ie ALL humans become non-aggressive pacifists, without exception;
  8. Discovery of the basis for disease, ie the fundamental reasons underlying illness and disease, and why DNA goes wrong for us;
  9. Discovery of the basis of sleep and dreaming, and a way to engender restful, peaceful happiness without harmful drug treatment for anyone who wants it, a voluntary choice, without harmful side effects;
  10. Discovery of the basis of mental illness and cures for schizophrenia, depression, psychopathy, other psychoses and all the other terrible mental illnesses;
  11. Development of ways to reliably control the weather, to eliminate droughts and major weather disasters;
  12. Elimination of the need for organised religion as we presently understand it.
That’ll do for now. I may add more, but let’s not get too ambitious.

Note the things I do NOT include:

  1. Immortality – how are you going to pay for your eternal lifetime?
  2. Aging and death – how many people can the planet support?
  3. Elimination of war – when the need to fight and kill is understood, wars will no longer occur.
  4. An endless supply of food – we already have that, if you think about it.
  5. Riches for everyone, “all the gold you can eat”  – what’s left to strive for if everyone is rich?
  6. Elimination of poverty – there will always be people who cannot manage their lives and will be poor. Their lives will improve along with all the other discoveries.
Hmmm. Time for another dose of medicine.
Oh, that’s right! I forgot Point 13: The development of the perfect beer and an endless supply on tap in my kitchen.
PS: it has taken me nearly four hours and multiple tries at saving, editing, reporting Blogger faults, then copying and composing in MS Word (the final solution) to get this posted. EVEN NOW, this is appearing in Times when the rest is Georgia. This is f..cking hopeless. I’m posting now in desperation.

And even though this text appears in Times on the edit screen, on the posted blog, it’s Arial!!!! This is ludicrous. Yet Google is considered to be a top company!

PS

These wardrobes. That workshop shed.
I should add that I am feeling so much better that I went out shopping for food (and beer) this afternoon and clean forgot to take my stick. I did everything without it, too. I have felt for some time that the more I use it, the more I lean on it, but my legs are slowly regaining their strength.
Also, I had to reposition the three wardrobe flat packs in the workshop, because the boys had not raised them off the floor where water might damage them. It took me about an hour, shifting 2.1m high panels and doors, sweeping, vacuuming leaves and bringing bricks in to set them on, then lifting them back onto the bricks.
I did it! I was so tired at the end that I needed a sleep, but the point is, I can do it again now. It’s working!

Abuse from Carpet Call!

Once again, I have to clear the rooms! He left the heater fan running.
Minnie’s bored by all this.
This is the guts of my house, out for the weekend. Lucky it isn’t raining.
He left the passage like this, with nail strips.
The small white square is a piece of nail strip for me to tread on.
And another pair, right where I tread, nails up!
Sometimes I think I’m a lucky, lucky guy. Very often, things just fall my way or I have lucky escapes.
But yesterday, Friday 27 July, I had the worst customer experience day it is possible to imagine!

It was new carpet day. I was looking forward to having a good clean carpet floor right now for the first time in many years (having dogs wrecked my carpet – always dirty).

At 8pm Friday evening and through now, Saturday 2:15pm, ALL my furniture and computer gear (except this laptop on the table) is outside in the cold and dew on the back patio and the job is only half done. I have my table and a few chairs, and nothing else.

The guy complained to me when he arrived and during the day for not having the house TOTALLY 100% cleared of things by the time he arrived at 0845,

I had 95% cleared it when he arrived and the rest was on castors. I assumed I’d be able to just wheel it out of the way as he worked, but in any case, Mike and Troy were due to come and would roll them outside. What’s the problem?
I showed him the rooms as I wanted him to do them in order, lounge and main bedroom already totally 100% cleared. We, Barry and I, had planned to move the wardrobes from one room to another as he did the job.
Oh no, he said I was supposed to have the house 100% cleared and he needed to put down the “clear edges” and wouldn’t be able to do it unless the house was totally cleared. “Clear edges”? Nail strips. I said I had never heard of clear edges and anyway, what was the problem, he could start on two rooms and by the time he was ready, Mike and Troy would have the rest clear.
Well, not good enough and he phoned his boss and complained about me. His boss phoned me and asked why I’m holding him up?
I said I’m not, but I can’t talk now, I’ll call back later. Boy, will I ever.

Barry arrived and talked to him, saying to do as much as possible and we would go out. Barry took me to lunch and tried, successfully, to calm me down.

Then after more aggro, the carpet storm-trooper left at 3pm, job not finished, saying he’ll be back on Monday to finish the job, blaming me for causing him delay.  The implication is that this will cost me extra!

I was sitting out the back among the contents of my house talking to a good friend Peter Dales, who had visited. 

I said, “But where am I going to sleep tonight? My bed is outside!”

The carpet storm-trooper just shrugged and turned and left, at 3pm.

My friend Pete Dales has just retired from a job servicing dentists’ and doctors’ sterilisers. As he said, you never leave a customer in the lurch like that, and especially you don’t knock off at 3pm with the job not finished.

CARPET CALL! NEVER EVER USE THEM! This guy was an aggro bastard. He was abusing me for not doing what he thought I should have done for him. Blaming me for him not being able to finish today.

He left me with all my furniture outside and no bed to sleep on, and loose carpet nail strips in the hallway, on the concrete, nails upwards. I have photos, and Pete Dales at 3pm saw the departure. Pete’s jaw was on the floor. He is my witness. He has been working in a customer service job and as he said, you never leave a customer in the lurch. That’s what happened to me today – this carpet slug left me hung out to dry. Or hung out to dew, actually.

Oh, as well, he left me with three rolls of carpet in the laundry blocking my access to my toilet. As you know, I’m a bit restricted in movement. Too bad, for this guy.

(Pete Dales saw my good friends Mike and Troy arrive and they brought my bed back inside, so I will be able to sleep tonight, but … )

Good old Barry took me out to lunch at Scarborough to calm me down, because I was in a state of nervous anxiety, wondering what this guy was going to do to me.
I’m writing it all down in detail because I’m going to make the biggest complaint in history to Carpet Call and I’m documenting it here. I have photos of it all, of course, and witnesses, four of them. All were appalled.

I can’t say anything yet because the guy has to come back and finish the job on Monday (I’m hoping it doesn’t rain in the next three days!) so I musn’t upset him.

But I was sitting here (outside, of course) almost head in hands all day from this guy.

And now, no TV because it’s all dismantled and outside, and I missed the Olympics Opening!! 

UPDATE: Saturday afternoon – I’ve got TV reception back and am watching the Opening repeated.

Fuck! What did I do to deserve this?

I’m a member of CHOICE on-line and they are running a customer experience campaign at the moment. Guess where Carpet Call are going to be featured?

I can’t say anything until Tuesday but I intend to march in there and say, “YOU BASTARDS!”
They’ve already lost Pete Dales’s business because he needs a carpet job and knows now where NOT to go.
Oh, and this morning I found a 2″ square piece of nail strip on my bathroom floor, nails upwards, just waiting for me to tread on it. Luckily I didn’t. He also left nail strips down the passage as well.
Sigh. I was reallly looking forward to sleeping on my double bed for the first time in over a year last night. Not yet – he hasn’t done that bedroom yet.

PS: I forgot to say – I heard an odd noise last night but couldn’t work out what it was, a whining noise. I found it this morning – he’d knocked the lounge room heater fan on and it was running all night! Not the heater itself, just the fan. But it’s cost me a dollar or two in power.

OMD! Luckily Minnie keeps me calm.

With friends like this!

The Art of War – Kill your allies. Why do we bother?
I have just posted this on The Atlantic’s web site, a US news magazine:
I am an angry Australian. The Australian SAS are the among the very best, very toughest special forces in the world, but they are secretive. They usually NEVER talk about it. We NEVER see their faces. They fight and are disabled or die without telling. They have been in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 12 years supporting the US in anti insurgent fighting.

In the past few days, a new documentary has been released where former SAS soldiers and officers have spoken on camera for the first time.

A former SAS officer spoke on TV here last night and said the greatest fear the Aussie SAS hold is not the Taliban, it’s the US! Blue on blue! He said time after time, they have been shot at, bombed or targeted by US drones or Predator gun ships. They fear the US more than anything else in Afghanistan.

He cited an example where a Predator targeted a supposed column of enemy armoured vehicles and was poised to fire on them. In fact, it was a line of 14 poplar trees behind which the SAS were sheltering. They got the strike stopped just in time and got out of there.

This goes right back to Viet Nam. Aussie casualties from US forces were rife. The gun culture – blaze away at anything that moves and look later.

Thanks a lot guys, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent so soon.

I added, “I expect now to be targeted by all the gun freaks and super patriots.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/yes-sometimes-drones-are-actually-effective/260260/

Say goodnight, Dick

Sanur  January 2011
I have a “friend” who calls himself an electronics engineer. He’s Malaysian Chinese and admits he’s an out and out racist. He hates refugees. 
He’s a permanent resident here in City Beach, living a life of great comfort on shareholders’ funds and he doesn’t see that any other immigrants should be let in. Do you, Michael? Not without rigorous tests and medical checks. “Who knows what diseases they are carrying?” Eh, Michael?
He also will not believe the science of Man-Made Global Warming. To him, it’s a natural sun cycle and we can’t and shouldn’t do anything to combat it. To him, the so-called Carbon Tax is just a government swindle.
This is the abstract from a scientific paper http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html  If this won’t convince anyone, then say goodnight.

Although the sudden high rate Arctic methane increase at Svalbard in late 2010 data set applies to only a short time interval, similar sudden methane concentration peaks also occur at Barrow point and the effects of a major methane build-up has been observed using all the major scientific observation systems. Giant fountains/torches/plumes of methane entering the atmosphere up to 1 km across have been seen on the East Siberian Shelf. This methane eruption data is so consistent and aerially extensive that when combined with methane gas warming potentials, Permian extinction event temperatures and methane lifetime data it paints a frightening picture of the beginning of the now uncontrollable global warming induced destabilization of the subsea Arctic methane hydrates on the shelf and slope which started in late 2010. This process of methane release will accelerate exponentially, release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere and lead to the demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century.
“… lead to the demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century.”

I’ll be gone before then. I’m going to enjoy the rest of my life. Sorry kids, it’s too late. We are at the tipping point, now!

This is how the world ends, not with a whimper but with a giant fart! Everyone will be exposed, everyone. Goodnight.

English pig dogs

Poms
Just now I have posted the following on The Guardian’s comments about another double-dip recession in Britain:
English, I fart in your general direction. You do comedy superbly well. No wonder. You are such funny people.

As an Australian, I feel entitled to gloat. Yesterday, the RBA announced that Australia has chalked up 21 years without a recession, the only country in the world to ever achieve this

The RBA Governor: there is no mystery to this, we can expect growth to continue for the foreseeable future and it does not depend entirely on China. There is no need to fear a housing bubble or any bank failures.

We have sailed through FOUR successive financial crises from 1996 to now. It is not luck. I feel safe.

Today, Wednesday, we announced annual inflation of 1.4%, another new record. Growth is around 6% in Western Australia and we have a jobs crisis – we cannot get enough engineers and workers. Average wages in WA are about GPB 55,000.

Sydney ran the “best Games ever”. We can do it again, any time we are asked.

You bastards have looked down your public school noses at us for 200 years. Condescending, supercilious, snooty, snobbish, bastards. Very funny.

This is classic old and new. The UK is old and decrepit. Your living standards are falling, you are decaying, crumbling. You are not far from being a poor country. You can no longer sustain your military muscle. Your banks and financial institutions are riddled with failure and corruption, DUE TO ARROGANCE and greed. Looting, remember?

If I didn’t love Britain so much I would crap on you even more. I am 7th generation Oz, but I go back to 13thC Britain, yet you make me line up with “other passports”, with the Poles and Turks (sorry guys).

You even fu..ed up the Thames Jubilee Procession!

Your queen (she gets no capitalisation from me) has awarded our former PM John Howard the OM. This is an appalling error of judgement. Howard = Blair. He is hated here, for good reason, yet Liz awards him the OM. (I think Tony Blair is a good guy.)

I am angry. Serve you right, Poms. You are old and in decline. I exclude Scots from my diatribe.

I expect to get flak. Too bad.