“… a new report, released yesterday by the Foundation for Australian Youth, which said that over the last 15 years the income growth of the top 1 per cent has been a whopping 42 per cent higher than that of the bottom 90 per cent of workers.” [- See more at: https://newmatilda.com/2015/08/25/income-top-1-cent-grew-almost-half-see-if-you-can-guess-how-bottom-90-did#sthash.LqLDDgRM.dpuf]

Caught again. Woolies again. Gettin’ sick of this:Marked as $2.50, charged $5.00. Do I go back to Joondalup, 15Km and 15 mins drive away? Woolies scores $2.50 off me.

On Saturday Quinns IGA got me too. A pack of asparagus clearly marked down to $2.99, but I was charged $3.99. How to boost profits – add a dollar to every bill. Multiplied by all the customers each day, that’d be several hundred dollars. Nice work IGA Quinns. Cheats.

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Another one! Here’s the box:

And here’s what’s inside:

Huh?

Yes, the box is twice as big as the contents. Surprise, surprise. Gotcha. Well, they won’t get me again. I won’t buy this product again. Grrrr. The fish wasn’t very nice either.

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I wrote Sunday’s post below (23rd) before reading The Saturday Paper. The editorial is one of the hardest hitting I’ve read in a long time. It shows up the terrible repression, torture, rapes, child abuse and violence in the Nauru detention camp, our Australian concentration camp. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2015/08/22/close-nauru/14401656002275

The government’s policy is to make detention in these Australian gulags worse than the conditions that made the asylum seekers leave their own countries, so that word will get back not to make the attempt to escape the persecution at home. What a terrible way to do it.

There’s no doubt that the Australian company contracted to guard the camp is rotten, violent, corrupt. The guards regularly rape the women and abuse the children. All this is done while our Liberal government turns a blind eye and threatens doctors and care workers with jail if they speak out about it.

This Liberal government constantly says what awful criminals the people smugglers are, but the Australian guards are worse! And they are being paid by this awful government, let loose on the asylum seekers in our name! This is nearly as bad a the Nazi prisons. There are no gas chambers, but prisoners have been set on fire by the rapists!

We must speak out against these atrocities being committed by this awful government. I urge you to write to Peter Dutton, the minister, and to Abbott, that sanctimonious, misogynist prime minister, that awful man. Not in my name!

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I’m writing this at 4am. Can’t sleep again. Went to sleep quite easily at about 11.45pm but woke at 1.30am and that was it. I lie there in a twilight zone, nearly asleep but still aware. I lasted until 3.30am but have given up. I’ll have to catch up in the morning. I’ve been using Valerian, the herbal sedative and it works pretty well, but it hangs over. It takes many hours to wear off. I’ve been trying to do without it but … Very, very tired yesterday. Can’t get much done.

The other problem is itching. It’s not a rash, it’s just constant small itches all over, like hair follicles. Scratch one small area and another starts, constantly. I believe it’s part of being elderly. Bugger. It’s OK now that I’m sitting up.

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 I’m watching The Island with Bear Grylls on SBS, where two groups of 14 men and women have been dropped on separate small uninhabited Pacific islands and left to fend for themselves. It was episode four last night and it’s very good. The women have settled down and aren’t bickering so much any more. They caught a pig and ate well, enough to rescue them from starvation, but it’s only a couple of days’ worth of food. They still haven’t learnt to fish.

The guys have had a big bust up, but one of the guys is doing well catching fish, so they eat pretty regularly. They’ve got through the bust up now, and are far better at organising themselves and keeping their fire going. They can do teamwork much better. The women are getting better, but they’re not doing as well as the guys. Good program.

But the pestilence of the commercial breaks! SBS is atrocious. There’s a 10 sec sting leading in to the break, then a 30 sec promo, then three or four commercials, then another promo, then another promo before getting back to the program! They endlessly repeat the same promos. It’s so bad that I’m recording all the programs I want to watch, then replaying and fast forwarding through all the breaks to get away from this endless, repetitive crap. So they drive me a way from the commercials, defeating their aim. Too bad, but I can’t watch the awful promos with fast flashing clips where no shot is allowed to remain on screen for more than a second, usually less. I can’t watch them! Eye tearing rubbish. Ugh.

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No action on the car yet. I was just too tired yesterday. I’ve virtually decided to go with the Mercedes CLK550, although the much cheaper CLK350 is tempting. I’ll have to have a test drive. Maybe later this week.

I’ve said I want to hit the road, take the new Merc on a drive east across the Nullarbor, but with all this tiredness I’m not sure I could do it. Or whether it would be prudent. Often I’m not 100% alert when I’m driving, I must admit.

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I bought a new Microsoft keyboard yesterday, a smaller, flatter one, trying to save space. Boy, it’s hard to get used to after the old full size one, the original sized keyboard from the 1990s. It only cost $18, so if I can’t get used to it, no big loss. My fingers are having trouble finding the keys, but it’s getting better. Push on.

I had a puncture yesterday. Actually, the left rear tyre of my car did. I hadn’t used the car since last Monday and I’d walked past it and hadn’t noticed anything wrong, so I think it was a slow leak. Anyway, I went to go out yesterday morning (just to buy the papers – at Quinns*) and found I couldn’t.

That’s the first puncture I’ve had in over 30 years. I often think about it. The last one was down in Pemberton in the early 1980s on the Honda Accord. In those days I changed the tyre myself, but I started to do it yesterday and realised the nuts were too tight, the jack was too hard and the spare was too soft.

I called the RAC and he made quick and easy work of it. Crumbs, trolley jack, impact nut driver and the wheel was off in about two minutes flat, if you’ll pardon the pun. Then spare on, and an air hose like you see at service stations and I was a goer. I have a small foot pump but it was making no difference at all. Waste of effort.

The cause of the flat was immediately obvious – a screw through the tyre. So that’s what that clicking sound last Monday was.

What a bugger, because I’ll have to buy a new tyre and since I want to sell the car very soon, I didn’t want to spend any money on it. Can’t be helped. The RAC guy quoted me $91 for a new one, so it’s not too bad.

Crumbs, the accent on the RAC guy! He was a Scot, with the thickest Scots accent I’ve ever heard. I could hardly understand him unless he was facing me and I could read his lips, not that they moved much. Nice guy, from the Loch Lomond area of Scotland. He told me the town but I couldn’t understand him. Nice guy, been here 10 months.

• Why do I drive to Quinns, about 5Km, just to buy the papers? Because it’s the nearest newsagency that sells The Saturday Paper. I support a new newspaper, and it’s a good read. You should read Richard Ackland’s summation of the royal commissioner Dyson Heydon. By the judge’s own writings and words, be is a very, very conservative man with ideas more in tune with Jo Bjelke Petersen’s madness. He ruled in favour of the tobacco companies against cigarette plain packaging, for example. He suggested the 2008 GFC was not real and ruled that the federal (Labor) government should not be allowed to take measures to safeguard this country. Very, very odd.

  Of course, he was chosen as the royal commissioner in the attempt to smear trade unions and Labor precisely because the PM thought he would do a good hatchet job. Oh what a tangled web we weave, …

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Wow, I’m wrestling with the car decision. I spoke on the phone to the owner of the CL600 on Friday and it seems genuine. He’s a big businessman and has four other cars. Needs the garage space, he says.

What a magnificent car. A 6 litre V12 engine in a 2-door coupe.

Two tons, 0-100Km/h in 5.4 secs, 250Km/h top speed. The drawback is that every running cost is high. The cost of repairs would be frightening. The fuel economy is about 18L/100Km around town, vs 12L/100Km in my present car and the same in the CLK that I’m also thinking of.

I’m thinking, well, I’ll just own it for a year or so and drive it very gently. Yeah, right. But how can I see this, be able to own it, but pass it up? I can’t hep thinking that in five years’ time, I’ll say, “Gee, I wish I’d bought that CL600!”

On the other hand, the CLK550 that I’ve been looking at is a bit cheaper, has only done 43,000Km (vs 69,000Km) and would be easier to drive and park (I assume). Performance wise, it’s slightly better – 0-100Km/h in 5.2 secs, same top speed. Seven speed automatic, which should be super smooth. And 6 years younger. Big factor.

Then in the same yard, there’s a CLK 350 for the much cheaper price of $21,777. That’s a big saving. It’s done 107,000Km though, which Barry sucks his teeth at. Reaching the age where some work might need doing, expensive work.

Hmmm, tough decisions, but very enjoyable to think about.

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I’m back on my hobby horse of tilted photos again. A US photography blogger has just moved to the Finger Lakes area of New York state, and he suggested we Google images of the area.

Well I did, and I’m amazed at the sloppy images I found. Some examples. In each case, original on left, my correction on right:

I don’t understand how these can be released by their owners with these tilted water horizons. I wouldn’t allow it.

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Good to see that this incompetent, cruel government is digging itself into a deeper and deeper hole. The royal commission is going off the rails, having lost credibility. The cabinet is leaking like a sieve. The government’s climate change abatement figures have been shown to be a pack of lies (by Bernie Fraser, no less, the former head of the Reserve Bank, a pretty credible guy). New atrocities are surfacing weekly at our concentration camps on Nauru and Manus. The list is endless. This must be a one term government. They are just too awful.

The Victorian Liberal Party has discovered that someone has embezzled, stolen, around $1m of party funds. They’re all foaming at the mouth about who could have done this.

Michael Kroger, the prominent Liberal man in Melbourne, was being interviewed on TV about it, and he linked it to the ACTU and unions in the biased royal commission hearings!!!

Bloody hell, I nearly choked on my chip. It’s a Liberal man who has stolen this money from the Liberal Party. What’s it got to do with unions???

OK, you dish it out, mate, you can take it. The funds were stolen because that’s what Conservative people like that do, people who seek power in Liberal branches. It’s been shown that they accept donations from members of the Australian mafia (Four Corners). They’re remarkably quiet about that. They are crooks and thieves and embezzlers whenever they see the chance. How the hell can you link this to unions? Disgusting behaviour on the thief’s part but sickening slander from Mr Kroger. I spit.

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Probably going to test drive that Mercedes tomorrow, Saturday. Barry has looked it over and says it’s mint! In immaculate condition, still with that new car leather smell.

But I’ve found there’s another CLK in the same dealership, a CLK 350 which is a 3.5L V6. [A CLK by the way, is a 2-door coupe, the same size as a normal large family car. I know 2 doors might be tricky at times, but I virtually never carry more than one passenger so it doesn’t matter to me. The thing is, a 2 door says Hey, I’m a bachelor, sporting man-about-town. I want that! Anyway, the seats are electric, power driven, so when you want to get into the back, you just push the switch and the front seat moves forward. Ha.]

This CLK350 has done 107,000Km, substantially more than the one I’ve been eyeing (43,000Km), but it’s substantially cheaper too, $21,777 vs $36.500. That’s a big saving. That’s swaying me.

But I’ve discovered another beauty in Perth, a private sale. It’s a CL600, a 5.8L V12!

Phwoooaaar.

It’s a 2000 model, a bit old, but it’s only done 69,000Km. It’s in immaculate condition from the photos. I’ve spoken to the owner and he’s an oil exploration company CEO who has a young wife and child and four other vehicles. He needs room in his garage.

Speaking of which, it’s 4.994m long and I wonder if it would physically fit in my garage. I think it would with millimetres to spare, which would be no good. I wouldn’t be able to get at the boot. I’ll have to measure the garage.

Although it’s a V12, it has cylinder deactivation, meaning under light load, slow or stopped, six of the cylinders shut off to save fuel, making it a straight six. Amazing. He says you don’t notice it happening, of course, as it should be.

He’s willing to knock $1,000 off for a faulty CD player, making it $39.000. That’s not much different from $36,500 for the other car. Hmmmm. Tough decision.

The problem is, when it’s working it’s fine, but repair and servicing costs are very big. In theory, it only needs one service a year. I hope.

Another point is it has rarity value and may appreciate in value. Possibly.

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More crooked pictures. From yesterday. In each case the wonky one is first:

Tilted to the right i.e. CW

Level waterline.

Tilted to the left.

Levelled waterline.

Tilted to the left.

In each case above, the first image is tilted one way or the other. In the second pictures, I’ve straightened them. This is glaringly obvious to me. Why do they publish them without fixing them?

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I’ve had my claim for return postage for the faulty Yamaha tuner accepted by PayPal. The Sydney shop phoned me yesterday to say they’d received it, confirmed it is dead, and sent me a photo of the box and label. That was enough for PayPal. It’s only $35.40, but … I never thought I would need to use this PayPal service but it’s worked well. Good thing.

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I’ve always been an optimist in technology. I’ve always thought there could well be a technological fix for atmospheric CO2 and global warming. Right now I’m listening to the BBC interviewing a US scientist who has discovered a way to take CO2 from the air or any source, split it into oxygen and carbon and the carbon comes out as carbon nano-tubes which are used in carbon-fibre for high strength materials.

The plants to do this can do it with solar power, and he suggests putting plants in the desert areas of Australia, among other places. It’s still only a lab demonstration and it may not work out, but it’s grounds for optimism.

DAB+ radio coverage Perth metro. See me? I’m firmly in the red “poor signal” area. Damn!

Is there no end to my radio/TV reception and internet troubles??! At the Trigg house, only 12Km from the city, I was plagued with digital TV dropouts. I had to erect a 5m pole with a fringe area antenna, with a masthead amplifier to get acceptable TV reception.

For years I had to make do with dial-up internet at 28Kb/s, then 56Kb/s maximum (but I never got better than 35Kb/s). Then, when ADSL (phone line digital) access came along in the early 2000s, there was no line available in my street. I had to make do with wireless internet from Vivid, which never lived up to its sales pitch. It too was slow and prone to constant dropouts. The best I ever got was about 200Kb/s, I think, when they were advertising 9Mb/s. Bulldust.

It was the same for DAB+ digital radio – prone to fading. Just me moving around in the room was enough to make it fade out. FM was also variable.

But at least I had good old AM, for 720ABC, Radio National etc. Good solid AM reception, noise free, but low, low-fi.

Now at this location. I had hoped my troubles were over. Ha! In some respects they’ve only got worse.

Good old AM radio is so bad, so noisy as to be almost unlistenable here. Bloody hell, the 6WF high power transmitter is in Hamersley, “just down the road”; but “just down the road” from here is about 25Km away. That should be OK, but the poor soil conductivity in these coastal suburbs means poor signal strength. (Why? Because radio reception depends on a conduction path through the soil, through the “earth” literally, back to the transmitter. Amazing, eh? That’s electronics for you, that fantastic, fascinating subject.)

As you can see above, ABC DAB+ (digital) radio is officially shown as poor in this area. What’s so frustrating is that I can get 23 other digital radio stations fine, but the ABC stations I want (720Perth, Radio National and News Radio) are very iffy, prone to fading with the weather or my body movements. Only the ABC gives trouble! I can’t get the ABC stations at all on my new Sony tabletop receiver. Grrr.

FM radio is good, but FM doesn’t have the stations I want. So, two out of the three transmission media are very poor here and the only good one doesn’t carry the stuff I want. Ha!

OK, internet. I thought at first I’d be able to get ADSL2+, the fastest phone line internet, but no, I can only have ADSL, the lower standard one. OK, I thought, that’ll do. But the best I ever get is 1.3Mb/s. Most of the time that’s not bad, but I can never watch YouTube or any news item video and have it play smoothly. It always stutters and gives me the Please Wait symbol.

At the moment I’m throttled to 256Kb/s, having exceeded the quota for the month. It’s like being back to dial-up – I wait up to 5 minutes for pages to load, sometimes never loading. I’m downloading the non-beta version of Firefox at the moment and it’s been downloading for nearly an hour so far! I’m not sure if it’s dropping out and restarting: every time I look it seems to have gone back to the start.

Then I thought of internet radio – no radio reception required. I’ve just tried it on this computer (admittedly at the throttled speed and again, hopeless. Stopping and starting, stuttering, repeating, then dropping out. Unuseable. It’ll probably be OK when I’m “unthrottled” on 22nd August, but it’s the same as any other internet connection – mostly it works, but often it doesn’t.

So yesterday I thought, OK, time to change to fibre. I had previously thought it was available to me, not from the NBN but because the whole suburb is supposed to be cabled as a model planned suburb.

But when I checked with iiNet’s web site, it tells me it’s not available at this address. Dammit! I thought when I checked last year that it showed I could get it.

So summing up – poor TV reception, prone to dropping out. Rotten AM radio reception. Totally variable digital radio reception, also prone to fading and dropping out entirely. Good FM reception, but only on some stations (with a northern suburbs repeater), and not carrying the stations I want. Lowish speed ADSL internet. No fibre internet.

This is 2015? Not in my universe.

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On the same lines, Windows 10. I’m eligible for the free copy on all three of my computers, but I’ve made at least three attempts (i.e. I’ve let it go ahead and download itself, all 2.7GB of it) on this computer so far and all three times it’s bombed out with a completely obscure error message:

Clicking Get Help with this error leads to nowhere. Therefore at this stage, the Win10 download is Not Working! Did I really think it would? Nah. I’ll have to wait until after the 22nd and try on one of the other computers.

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The final episode of the three “The Politician’s Husband” was on Sunday night, and I still maintain it should be called The Time Traveller’s Husband, because it still showed it was made in MMXXIII, that is 2023. Some script assistant has made a goof, and no-one picked it up.

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I’m a fan of the Bear Grylls Island programs, where 14 women and 14 men were dropped on two Pacific islands and left to fend for themselves for 6 weeks. Three episodes in, it’s time to draw some conclusions.

The women are hopeless! From the very beginning, whingeing, bickering, moaning, arguing, bitching, complaining and generally not co-operating. Two of them have dropped out – couldn’t take it. The rest are literally going around in circles, getting hopelessly lost, starving, becoming seriously dehydrated, and all the time whining and fighting each other. No plan, no leadership, no working together. They can’t keep a fire going.

The men, after a bad start, are a complete contrast – good humoured, co-operative, resourceful, able to plan and set tasks, with a working fire for water purification that they can keep burning. Admittedly, two guys had a big dispute at the start and both left after the second day. Very poor. Another has left a week or so in with illness, and another is being far too lazy. But the men work as a team, always getting on with each other, gathering masses of dry firewood and storing it to dry, keeping the fire going, catching a Cayman croc for food. Sure, they nearly starved, but they got past it.

So, men, good marks. Women, hopeless.

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Bear Grylls’s favourite speak is Repetition, Repetition, Repetition and so on. Planning, planning, planning, that sort of thing. And so is SBS. Bloody hell, the barrage of repetitive promos! Endless repeats of the same boring promos for weeks on end. It’s so bad that I record all the programs and watch them later, fast forwarding through the commercial breaks to escape the repetition.

But now they’re even repeating the programs a few days apart! The Island programs are shown on Monday night, then repeated on Saturday night. What the … ? Until I realised this, I was wasting my time watching on Saturday night. Now, don’t bother. Very annoying.

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Just waiting on Barry to inspect the CLK550 Merc at the car yard for me. I’ve pretty well decided to go for it. Good low mileage (43,000Km) so it should be OK. (6pm Tues, he’s just phoned and is looking at it right now.)

Then I want to hit the road. I think I might do a drive to Albany (via Margaret River for a night or two). I haven’t seen Albany in ten years, at least. With global warming, lower, cooler latitudes will be better. Only day dreaming, but I’d like to see it again.

Then, I want to drive east, across the Nullarbor. Probably the final chance I’ll get to do it – everything’s getting harder these days.

That Mercedes will be a very pleasant way to do it, I hope. Cruise control, seven speed automatic, active suspension, electronic stability control. anti-lock brakes, Bose sound system. Air con, of course. Leather seats. Steering wheel paddles for gear changes, and buttons on the wheel for radio and phone. In-dash TV screen and DVD player. Built-in GPS. This is a $130,000 car when new, don’t forget. All luxury included.

I want to option it up a bit and there’s a firm in Melbourne that imports Merc add-on bits from Germany. Wood and leather rimmed steering wheel for example, veneered wood centre console compartment lid, dress trims for head and tail lights, wood gear shift knob. AMG style grille etc. I’m not sure I want these, I’m just window shopping.

But it’s a fairly nervous idea – to set out alone across the Nullarbor. I’ll need to spend at least one night, possibly two on the road, in a parking bay. I won’t be able to drive all day as I used to; I’ll need to take it easy. If a breakdown happens, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Or hitting a ‘roo. You don’t get Merc service out in the middle of nowhere.

As for fuel economy, it’s the same as my present car, the V6 Magna. Both are about 12L/100Km around the city, improving to 8L/100Km on the open road. Not great, but pretty good for a big, powerful V8. Acceleration 0-100Km/h in 5.2 secs, by the way, and a 250Km/h electronically limited top speed. That’s supercar territory.

Another example of tilted water horizons. This is as it was published.

This is rotated so the water is level. To me, the tilted water in the top photo is glaringly obvious. Why don’t they get it right?

It’s the polluted water accidentally released from a gold mine in the US.

Wot a laugh!

Aaah, the Liberal Party, the gift that keeps on giving. Month after month, new scandal after new scandal. I love it.

• 2014 soon after elections – Minister for Finance Arthur Sinodinis forced to go to the back benches when found implicated in NSW ICAC hearings into water and coal leases in NSW. It was supposed to be a temporary suspension, but after nearly two years, he’s still out.
• 2014 Budget – tax the poor, leave the rich alone. Couldn’t have been a clearer illustration of the Liberal mindset. Budget measures still not approved.
• 2014 The Lord Rabbott VC and 14 bars, does a “Captain’s pick” and introduces Australian Knighthoods! Three poor stupid misguided fools accept his offer. Widespread derision all round, including from his own party.
• 2015 The Lord Rabbott KCMGBG VD VCR reveals that he doesn’t know how many points there are on the star on the Australian flag. He says there are six. There are seven.
• 2015 Viscount Rabbott Bart. KVHS B.Bullshit B. Boxing Oxon again does a “Captain’s pick” and makes the Jook Embrugh an Ocker Knight! Even more derision. The whole of Australia cringes with embarrassment, while falling about laughing.
• 2015 Tony’s Girlfriend, Bronny “Chopper” Bishop is found to have massively rorted the travel allowances scheeme to the tune of half a million dollars, taking gold plated limousine rides from her palace down to the fish and chip shop because “you can travel in the bus lanes” in a limo. Forced to resign the speakership, thereby bringing the parliament into disrepute.
• 2015 Tony’s Pick as the “union corruption” Royal Commissioner revealed to have made a plan to speak at a Liberal Party fund raiser. But this eminent man, this learned judge, it seems didn’t know it was a Liberal Party event, even though he made the booking months ago and the Liberal Party logo was plastered all over the ticket. Biased. Biased. Biased.

Gee, and 2015 isn’t finished yet. This is fun. This has to be a one-term government. What a bunch of biased, elitist, rich list, incompetent fools.

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Spring is here, two weeks early. A beautiful, warm 24C cloudless sunshiny day, with almost no wind. Forecast is for 25C tomorrow. WA, world’s best climate.

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Saw the doc today for the results of the kidney function re-test. Back to normal. Phew! We don’t know why it tested bad two weeks ago, but as I suspected, it was anomalous.  Fact is for someone of 68, type 2 diabetic and, erm, a bit overweight, I’m in remarkably good health. CLL? Sounds like a Mercedes model type to me.

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I nearly tipped toward buying the Merc CLK55 AMG in Adelaide yesterday, but I have to decide soon and I don’t feel I’m ready. For all my feelings of good health, it’s still a big ask to fly to Adelaide with all my luggage, buy a car sight unseen and set off driving via Melbourne, with the intention of staying on the road for at least four weeks. Daunting. The Perth car seems a safer bet – it’s $7,600 more expensive but it’s only done 43,000Km vs 98.000Km for the Adelaide car, and it’s two years younger. And I have more confidence in the dealer. And I’ll be able to trade my present car.

Interestingly, I found my printout of the car when it was at Young’s Holdens up the road, before it moved to John Hughes a couple of weeks ago. Price at Young’s – $43,000. Price at John Hughes – $38,000. Hmmm.

No, not that one, although it’s a perfect example. No, this one:

A pentagon only has to have five sides. It doesn’t have to be symmetrical.

Anyway, a bright guy has discovered that the above shape can be tiled so as to completely match up and cover a plane, voila:

It seems there are only 15 pentagons that can “tile the plane” as above, with no gaps. The search is on to see if 15 is the final number. There are no hexagons, septagons, octagons, nonagons or higher sided shapes that will tile a plane. Fascinating.

Once again all this is courtesy of that marvellous on-line newspaper, The Guardian. As you can tell, I’m a big fan. I am an on-line subscriber – you can read it for free, but I feel I should pay so I paid about $100 for an annual subscription. Good value, in my opinion.

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I have the Navman MyVue Drive GPS navigator. The web site and literature say “free maps for life”. Oh yeah? What is this??

See the fine print?

Lifetime Free Maps. Only $129.

How the bloody hell is $129 free? What bullshit!

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What a rotten, sleazy, dishonest, untrustworthy government we have oppressing us at the moment. Federal or state? It doesn’t matter, it applies to both. Both Liberal-National coalitions, both as bad as each other. Both make any kind of promise or commitment that they think voters want to hear at election time, both never intend to honour their pledges. How can anyone seriously believe Abbott or Barnett? They tell lies! Neither intends to stick to his promises!

I’ve said before, but I’ll repeat, I don’t care about same sex marriage, it’s of no importance to me. But when 60-70% of the population are in favour of changing the law, Abbott blocks it because of his own personal prejudice. What a prick.

Barnett: he’s wrecked the WA economy. It will take decades to undo the damage he’s done to the state’s finances. This is not just my opinion – read the articles in the press. Now he’s refusing to release reports on the proposed new highway through wetlands on the south of the river. Why would he refuse? Draw your own conclusions.

The good thing is that, like the Republican Party crash and burn in the US, it’s making it more and more likely that this will be a one term federal government, and that Labor has a good chance in WA in the next election. Look at the WA Liberal Party – they simply do not have anyone capable of being the next premier. Hah! Ha ha ha. They do not have any quality ministers capable of taking over from Grandpa Barnett. What a joke.

Ah, enough of this. I feel sick at the injustices being done in our name. Australia is being labelled a “don’t care” country in the global warming mitigation drive. Abbott wants coal – why? Because the coal and mining industries pay bribes, that’s why. Big bribes. Draw your own conclusions.

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I posted the faulty Yamaha tuner back to the dealer in Sydney today; a real shop, by the way, found on-line but a real Australian shop. I spoke to them on the phone.

As I suspected, it cost me $35.40 for postage. I said to the guy on the phone that I wasn’t keen on paying this cost, and he sounded glum as I think he saw it as wiping out his profit. He didn’t say no, but … However, because I paid by PayPal, it looks as if I can get a refund of my return cost from them, PayPal. That’s handy. Let’s see if it works.

We had discussed the colour of the tuner on the phone – black or “silver”, i.e. brushed aluminium. I thought I’d ordered silver, but black arrived. No problem, either was OK. But the guy in Sydney said he has lots of sliver in stock but no more black. OK, send me a silver.  While I was boxing it up, I noticed that one end of the box has Silver printed on it, and the other end has Black. Huh? No wonder there was a mix up.

I’ve emailed them to say it’s coming and included the following:

so far, in the past 12 months –

• Postage of this item [the Yamaha tuner] at a cost of $35.40

• Postage to return a failed OCZ Vector SSD drive to OCZ in Taiwan $56

• Postage to return a faulty (2nd hand, sold with warranty) model train loco to UK firm $18
• Postage to return a wrong fit Metabones lens adapter to Hong Kong $26
• Return of a Pioneer BluRay player to JB HiFi Clarkson twice due to intermittent failure to turn on.
• Return of three failed coffee capsule machines – two to Woolworths, one to Coles.

Am I jinxed? It seems to me that quality and reliability is slipping in manufactured goods. Obviously due to the pressure on manufacturers to keep producing newer models faster, and because everything’s now made in China, to lower standards. That’s the problem – we keep wanting newer, shinier models faster and cheaper, and we’re suffering the consequences.

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Re the missing TV antenna, one of my mates raised an interesting point yesterday: there’s no TV antenna because the whole suburb is fed from a master antenna via a cable! Now that he mentions it, there does seem to be an absence of antennae in the streets around me. I hadn’t thought of it before. This is a planned suburb, I guess.

Well, if that’s the case, where’s the master antenna and how is it distributed? How do I find out? Who do I talk to? I don’t know. More work needed.

Another one! My Yamaha DAB+/FM/AM tuner arrived yesterday. I read the manual (yes), plugged it into the power and switched on. Nothing. D.O.A. That’s Dead On Arrival. Won’t even power on. Dead as a dodo.

Damn! First it was the OCZ SSD drive failure, costing me $53 to return it to Taiwan, for which I was never reimbursed. Then it was the Pioneer BluRay player that wouldn’t power on, costing me two trips back to Joondalup to have it replaced. Then it was the pair of lens adapters that interfered with the camera body, that cost me $25 to return to Hong Kong, again not reimbursed. And now this. Add to the list the three coffee machines that have each failed within a few months. I’m getting tired of this!

At least this Yamaha tuner came from a Melbourne hi-fi retailer, but it still means I have to re-box it and post it pack to them. That’ll cost me at least $35 I’d say. Grrrrrrr.

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I’ve exceeded my monthly 20GB download limit with iiNet. Holy cow, I never dreamed I’d ever use that much in the first two weeks of the monthly period, but I have. It just means I’ve been throttled to 256Kb/s, which is way above what I used to get with wireless internet at Trigg, that black hole of TV and data reception.

Part of the problem is that Windows 10 is downloading – 2.7GB worth. I’ve got three computers to download it for, but I’m only allowing one to do it at a time. I’ve had error messages already, which are utterly meaningless. Even Microsoft doesn’t seem to know what the error means. However, the download has picked up again and I’m letting it do it at 4am when I have 20GB of off-peak data available at full speed.

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Well, the car deal might be happening next week (it’s the actual car above and below). I talked to my good mate Barry, the former John Hughes car salesman, about the car at John Hughes’s yard in Victoria Park (Perth) and he volunteered to enquire for me.

Result: he’s haggled the price down $1500 and we’re going to go and see it next week sometime. Yes, there might be a spotter’s fee payable to Barry, but that’s fine with me. He helps me out frequently, for example by driving me to and from the airport and the cruise ship at Fremantle. That’s worth gold to me. He’ll pick me up and drop me back here.

This is a 5.5L injected V8 with every conceivable safety feature and item of electronic wizardry. It’s a 2006 model, way ahead of its time and has only done 43,000Km. Performance – 0 to 100Km/h in 5.2 seconds! Five speed automatic. (Why only 5-speed? Because the power of this engine is too high for the normal 7-speed, and with that much power available, it hardly needs to shift gears. It starts off in second, unless you tell it otherwise.) Anti-lock brakes, of course and big drilled discs all round. Electronic Stability Control. Etc etc. Looking forward to a test drive, at least. I’m not committed in any way yet, but see below.

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I had my six monthly eye tests last Wednesday and the doctor was annoyingly vague. He told me he was a little concerned, but to come back in six months. Worried about what? Cataracts, I think, or was it retinal damage? I’m not sure. And my bad sensitivity to glare? Dunno, might be dry eyes, try eye drops. Not happy with the guy. I think I might have to ask my GP to refer me to another eye specialist.

Speaking of my GP, my latest 3 monthly blood results came back last Friday and suddenly my kidneys are out of range. It’s odd, because they’ve always been fine. Why the change? She’s worried enough to immediately take me off the diuretic and to cut my metformin dose in half. I have to have another test this week and we’ll see on Friday if it was just an anomaly or whether it continues.

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While I was at SCGH hospital I bought the paper at the newsagency (I had to wait three hours for the eye drops to wear off). I noticed the very clear division – male magazines one side, women’s magazines the other.

Male magazines – lots of car mags, of course, but electronics, computers, The Economist, The New Internationalist, The New Statesman, New Scientist, Fine Woodworking, etc etc. All of them, even car magazines, needing brain power.

Women’s magazines – New Idea, Women’s Weekly, Hello!, Woman’s Day, Hollywood stars, dieting magazines galore, cooking, hair, makeup. No brains needed! Brains a positive impediment.

Call me misogynist by all means, but the day I see a woman reading any magazine or newspaper with any serious intellectual value is the day I’ll know I’ve won Lotto. Women read trash, utter vaporous rubbish. They believe any lies about weight loss and movie stars uncritically. Utter airhead stuff.

In all my years of sitting in cafes I cannot recall a single instance of ever seeing a woman reading a serious newspaper or news magazine. Look at the magazines in doctors’ waiting rooms – all women’s trash mags.

The one single instance of seeing a woman reading a serious magazine was coming back from Singapore last year, when I saw a Perth woman reading (well, she was carrying) a copy of New Scientist. I was astonished. A woman reading a magazine needing brain power??!

Prove me wrong. Women are airheads.

Ever since I moved into this house, I’ve had problems receiving TV channels and the FM radio reception in my tuner amplifier is almost non-existent. (TV and FM radio share the same part of the EM spectrum, so the antenna feed for the TV is also used for the tuner amplifier). Same for DAB+ digital radio. Very poor reception with terrible fading. As shown in the previous post, I’m in an outer fringe reception area.

Most of the time the TV reception is OK, but it’s weather dependent and sometimes I can’t get ABC channels. I’ve looked outside for a TV antenna but there is none. I assumed it might be in the roof space.

Well, my good friend Keith came here yesterday and got up in the roof space to have a look. Result? There is no bloody TV antenna anywhere! The signal I’m getting is purely stray pickup by the cables in the roof space. Bloody hell. No wonder I’m having trouble.

The good thing is that the house is properly cabled, with splitters sending cables off to the various sockets in the bedrooms. So if I get an antenna installed, I should have a good result.

I wonder what happened to the original antenna? Was there ever one installed? I’m the third owner of this house. I’m still in touch with the owners before me and I’m sure they wouldn’t have taken the antenna with them when they moved out. I’m inclined to think that there was never any antenna from the start. It’s quite possible. The builder would have installed the cabling in the roof but it would have been up to the owner to have an antenna installed. Maybe they did what I’ve done – plugged their TV in, saw that it worked and left it at that. Amazing.

Anyway, I’ve contacted a TV antenna installation company and I’ve just got to say Go.

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I recorded the new TV program The Politician’s Husband on ABC1 on Sunday but I haven’t watched it yet. I edited the start and finish and noticed that at the very end, where it shows the BBC logo with the production year in roman numerals, this – MMXXIII. Huh?? I looked closely. That’s what it says – MM XX III — that’s 2023. Maybe the show should be called The Time Traveller’s Husband!

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I still haven’t made a serious move to buy that Mercedes that’s sitting there waiting for me. But the latest housing price report has made me hesitate even more. Perth’s median house price fell about 2.6% in the past twelve months. My suburb is smack on the average, so it means the value of my house has fallen.

I’m not thinking of selling, but I’ve always regarded the house as my nest egg to be raided in a reverse mortgage at some stage. Buying a $40,000 car is just using that amount of my $500,000 equity in my house.

But a reverse mortgage depends, to work safely, on the house value rising at or above the interest cost on the mortgage. If the house is falling in value, then a reverse mortgage, where you don’t make any repayments to the bank, is a slightly riskier proposition. Although I’m eligible to do a reverse mortgage (over 65), I haven’t done it because I still have savings. But using those up, when the value of my house is falling, makes me nervous. Therefore, I think I’ll wait before making any rash moves. It wouldn’t be a rash move, but I don’t need a new car – it can wait.

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So Bronny “Chopper” Bishop has gone. HOORAY! What a travesty she made of the Speaker’s position in the federal parliament. She ejected or suspended members from the House on 400 occasions, and 390 of them were Labor members. Totally biased. Question Time became a waste of time. This is the Liberal Party way.

What a bloody disgrace. A Liberal Party member. Yeah. It seems to me that even though she’s apologised and repaid her doubtful travel expenses, that shouldn’t let her off the hook. I think she should still be investigated for fraudulent claims on her signature.

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I’ve often thought that I’m pretty lucky in having no problems with arthritis or joint pains. I’m 68 and many, many people have these troubles at this age. I’ve been free of anything except an occasional sharp pain in my knees.

But my right arm has started aching pretty constantly, and now, from a few days ago, I’m getting sharp pains in my right hip area. Uuurrrgh. I hope I’m not heading for hip replacement. The right arm is my mouse arm, of course.

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My new Sony Xperia SP phone has arrived and is now working. This the replacement for the one I lost a couple of weeks ago. The lost phone was an HTC Desire, a relative cheapie that I never liked very much. Very hard to use.

This new Sony is still an Android phone but it seems easier to use (I can work out how to answer and make calls!). It’s also smaller, so I’m more inclined to carry it in my pocket. I could never find the old one, so I often missed answering calls.

But losing my phone means I lost all my numbers that were stored, so I’ve got to rebuild the Contacts list. Very tedious work. I think I had a backup, but I don’t know where it is. Not much of a computer guru am I?