How To Kill Australian Bugs

There's a clever cartoon circulating on the web which we need to discuss:

I wish I knew who created this so I could credit them.  This person is obviously a far, far more talented artist than I will ever be.  How do they draw such straight lines, I wonder?

While the creator may well be the Rembrandt of our age (such as it is), he or she is an amateur when it comes to killing bugs.  Yes, these are all acceptable ways of defending your home and homeland from invading insects and aggro arachnids.  But they are only the beginning.

I used each one of these in only my first week here in Bugland (aka Australia).  Since then I have expanded my repertoire to match the challenge:

• Fire.  Did you know that insects are flammable?  So is insect spray, rubbing alcohol, acetone, turpentine, spray cooking oil, and lots of other handy household items. This requires certain precautions, however.  Such as not living in a flammable structure.
• Flood.  When a bug goes down the drain, it almost NEVER comes back!
• Burying Alive.  Actually, this one is not always effective unless you have access to a backhoe/excavator.  Then, it is pretty effective.
• Rubber Band Archery.  This takes practice.  Fortunately for me I delivered newspapers as a child laborer, and my co-child-laborers and I had access to thousands of rubber bands and hours of unsupervised time in which to shoot at all sorts of targets: flies, ants, each other . . .
• Ballistic Projectiles.  I once bullseyed a mouse (basically a large mammalian insect) using a lemon thrown sidearm.  While seated.  At the dinner table.  While eating.  (You get extra points for each element of normalcy maintained during the kill.)
• Shovel Bisectioning.  100% effective.  "But," you say, "how often do you have a shovel handy when there's an insect around?"  Let me put it to you this way:  Every time I have had a shovel in my hand, there has sooner or later been some sort of critter that required bisectioning with it.
• Rake Multipokery.  This is an advanced tactic that requires specialized training.  And a rake.
• Vehicular Bugslaughter.  This comes in two varieties:  Premeditated Bugslaughter and Involuntary Bugslaughter. What's the difference?  Legally speaking, with one of them you have to have good aim and good timing.  Either way, you have to wash your car later.
• Utensil Stabbery.  This is a good one to know because you almost always have access to dining utensils.  Just remember to ask your waiter for clean utensils afterwards.
• Wooden Stake Through The Brain.  This works extremely well on almost anything, not just bugs.  It's probably the only thing effective on Zombie Vampires and certain species of cockroaches.  
• Death by Riverdance.  Got boots?  Got bugs?  Then you too can do this.  Very little practice and no Irish heritage required. Or any of that annoying jig music.  Just stomp away!
• Flattening To Death of Small Bugs Using Your Bare Hands.  Sometimes it comes to this.  Do not attempt on anything that can bite, sting, pinch, poke, or that has a large volume of guts inside it.

Good luck!  You'll probably need it.

The Most Important Thing I Have Learned

The most useful thing I've learned since coming to Australia is probably the importance of always having a stick with you when you go to the outhouse.

This weekend I was reminded of that timeless lesson, and of a photo album I created about six years ago from the construction of the outhouse at The Shed.  It explains how to build your own outhouse in just 83 easy steps.  The incident that reminded me also happened to involve this very dunny.

It had been about a month since I last made it up to The Shed.  This is May, and for some reason, this year Western Australia has decided to hold Winter in May.  That means that it was dark by the time I got up here.  Dark, wet and cold enough to warrant bringing in a bunch of firewood with which to warm up The Shed.  But by the time I arrived, I also had an urgent need to, uh, meditate upon the porcelain.

So I picked up a flashlight and a handy stick and headed out to the dunny.  Approaching it with caution, I opened the door and poked the stick inside.  It caught on something crackly.  The stick caught hold in a large, stiff web.  A messy, disorganized web that practically filled the entire space inside the dunny.  Though the responsible party was not to be seen, I knew.  Redback.

I closed the door, willed my bowels to postpone the evening's scheduled activity and went back inside the shed to get a fire going and something to eat.

The next morning I returned to the dunny with a bigger stick and a can of spray.  And an even more urgent "need."  I knocked down all the webs I could see and put down some surface spray along the walls.  When I came to the crevice under the sink I believed to be concealing the redback, I gave it a good shot and stood back.  Right on cue, about 10 seconds later an enormous, fully mature redback came scrabbling out and began the writhing and lashing that I've seen hundreds of times in my life. American Black Widows and Australian Redbacks share a lot of DNA and a lot of similar behaviors.

Since using a dunny puts one in a rather vulnerable, immobilized position, I prefer to wait until there are no deadly poisonous creatures within inches of my person.  I therefore waited another hour or so before returning to find the venomous spider well and truly dead.

The wisdom of always bringing a stick with you to the dunny once again proved its worth.  No, there weren't any more spiders, but due in part to the repeated delays, my visit created a temporary plumbing malfunction.  A good, solid stick is useful for sorting out that, too.

The Worst Mexican Restaurant in the Universe

I am pretty confident in making that statement, in spite of the fact that we have not thoroughly explored the entire universe yet.  Because "That Little Mexican Place" in South Fremantle isn't even Mexican food at all.  It's Food Wankery.

Food Wankery is when you put pretentious gibberish on the menu that you KNOW damn good & well that your customers cannot possibly understand.

Food Wankery is when the name of the restaurant makes an implied promise of Enchiladas, Tacos and Burritos that are at least a facsimile of actual Enchiladas, Tacos and Burritos; but instead delivers the following sort of bullshit that I swear I am NOT making up:

"Corn truffle (cuitlocoche) empanadas with guacamole (vegan) (gluten-free)"

"Crab albondegas in chipotle broth"

Roasted poblano chile with pork and apple, toasted walnut sauce (gluten-free)"

We quizzed the waitress for ten minutes on what any of this stuff could possibly be.  Upon hearing the waitress mispronounce "tortilla" phonetically instead of "tor-tee-ya," we decided this so-called Mexican restaurant was complete Food Wankery.

We left without ordering.

"The owner has been to Mexico a couple of times" protested the waitress.

Really.  She totally said that.


The awesomeness of Mexican food is in inverse proportion to the distance between the restaurant and Tucson, Arizona, this planet's epicenter of Mexican food.  Perth, Western Australia is about as far away on this planet as you can get from Tucson without starting to sneak back th'other side.  That puts me at a distinct disadvantage when my craving for Mexican food causes me to wander into pretentious snobby establishments serving pretentious, snobby food that has never even been heard of in Mexico.

Food Wankery is when customers are afraid to call Shenanigans on pretentious food snobs for fear of being labeled un-hip.  I have been eating Mexican food for almost half a century, sometimes right inside the Tucson city limits!!!!  So I am totally hip to what Mexican food is and ain't.

It ain't "Squash blossom quesadillas with pumpkin seed salsa," "Lamb Shank cooked barbacoa style with Mexican rice and salsa fresca (gluten-free)" or "Pork posole with red cabbage, radish and salsa roja."  I'm pretty sure simply adding red cabbage to anything disqualifies it from being Mexican food.

Mexican food is unpretentious rough peasant fare made from corn, beans, and whatever meat they managed to kill the day before.  Mexican food is spicy hot, with lots of peppers, onion, cilantro, and whatever cheese and sour cream is at hand.  Goat cheese will do, but orange store-bought cheddar is fine too.  Mexican food is steeped in spicy, saucy gravy for days, not minutes, so the complex flavors are well blended.

And Mexican sure as HELL ain't vegan or gluten-free!  Go back to Mexico one more time, you wanker, and this time try to find out how REAL people eat over there.

I got those Bridgetown Blues

There's a sleepy logging town buried in the forests of southwest Western Australia.  You would probably not take much notice of it if you were passing through on your way to somewhere else.

But on one weekend each November, its population explodes from 2970 to over 15,000 as fans and musicians descend on the town from all over the globe for a three-day party.  You would certainly notice Bridgetown then.  There is no "just passing through," because Bridgetown IS the destination.

Besides, they block off the main road.

Friday night at The Blue Owl, a 1000-man tent full of Blues.  Charlie
Musselwhite performing.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Blues at Bridgetown music festival, and the first year I've been able to attend in spite of A) being a dyed-in-the-wool lifelong Blues addict, and B) living just 3 hours away from Bridgetown for the last dozen years. But this year I finally answered the call.

Literally.  The phone rang Tuesday morning, four days before the event.  My best mate Tim had the news that the West Coast Blues Club had been given a 50-minute slot at one of the five venues on Saturday night, but that their house band had flaked out for one reason or another and couldn't make it.

The club president had asked Tim to put something together.

The gig was unpaid, but the free admission to all areas of the festival was worth $186.  All we had to do was get there.  Oh, and find a bassist and drummer too.  This turned out to be harder than it sounds.

But Tim was persistent and resourceful, and after phoning nearly everyone he had ever played with, managed to put together an amazing lineup of musicians, meeting the following high standards of qualifications:

1. They have their own instruments and transportation.
2. They are free during the scheduled performance.
3. The credible prospect of Public Humiliation does not faze them.

Using these exacting criteria we put together a band that played for the first time together on stage in public at the Bridgetown Blues festival.  No rehearsals, no practice, no warm-up.

Sometimes the light's all shining on me.

You'll have to take my word for it that it came off incredibly well, all things considered.  Because finding someone to take some video was one thing we were regrettably unable to pull off at the last minute.  But it might have been something like this plus bass and drums, and on an outdoor stage in the rain.  Use your imagination.

Tim, drummer Aki and I on stage at the Green Room musicians club.

But that was just one of the amazing experiences we had.  The rest of the weekend was spent weaving through crowds from one stage to another, checking out as many acts as we could, availing ourselves of the services of food vendors when absolutely necessary, jamming with local musicians at The Green Room, and then taking a quick kip in the backs of our utes off the side of a deserted road when caffeine could no longer postpone sleep.

The Utes: our mobile motels, storage facilities, dining halls, research
centres, and rehearsal studios.

But all good things come to an end, including my supply of Dr Pepper, and so it's back to the real world on Monday.  

             ____

Here's a list of some of the amazing performers I had the chance to see and hear:

Scottie Miller - a piano player from that historic incubator of the Blues on the Mississippi: Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Also a protege of my great piano heroes: Dr John, Prof. Longhair, and the great James Booker.

Minnie Marks

Minnie Marks - looks like a teenage girl, plays bottleneck like Robert Johnson and Eric Clapton's love child after forty cups of coffee, if that were even biologically possible ('cause you'd probably be dead after that much coffee).  This complete mismatch between appearance and sound absolutely blew the lid off the largest venue at Bridgetown.  I saw hairy tattooed biker dudes jumping, clapping and screaming like little girls at a Justin Bieber concert.

Mia Dyson - Janice Joplin meets Joan Jett meets Concrete Blonde in this Melbourne-born rocker now working LA. Miss this act and Mia will personally and deservedly punch you in the face.  

Dream Boogie - an Australian act fronted by a luxuriously seductive Mississippi Bayou Queen complete with feather headdress and sleeveless sequined gown, and backed by a solid blues trio with an authentic sound.  An unforgettable live experience.

Ali Penney - a piano-playing barmaid from Sydney takes it on the road with a powerful Blues act.  BONUS:  Her bassist Hans Deberitz played on stage with Tim and me!!! How cool is THAT???

Mojo Webb - a hot blues frontman with talent coming out his ears.  It started raining during his performance at the Geegelup open-air venue, but I could not turn away.  By the end of the set, I was soaked to the skin.  No matter, though.  Rain comes and goes, but Blues are for life. 

A Winter Wonderland

It is now August and the height of the Southern Hemisphere winter.  Well, it was when I started writing this post.  It's actually September now.  So sue me.

Winter in topsy-turvy Australia means that Bindoon looks something like this:

One notices, if one looks closely at the above photograph, the peculiar absence of snow, ice, or frozen water crystals of any kind whatsoever. This anomaly can be explained by the fact that the temperature is about 70 F.

The hills and pastures of Bindoon, Western Australia are as green as anyone could wish at the moment.  WA's winter is better than some countries' actual summer.  At the Shed, too, we find a Winter Wonderland consisting mainly of wildflowers and bees.

Bindoon is a cattle and citrus area, and is particularly known for its excellent Mandarins. And this has given me an idea.  As anyone knows who has studied the film, The World's Fastest Indian, no shed can be complete without its own lemon tree.  If the whole world's economy collapses and I am somehow reduced to surviving at the Shed, it would be rather embarrassing to be done in by something as ignominious and preventable as Scurvy.  Therefore:

One Lemon Tree.  In planting this tree I was ably assisted by this small black centipede.  Though perhaps "ably assisted" is not 100% on the mark.  Perhaps I should say "not significantly hindered" which amounts to more or less the same thing. 

American Health Care Is Stupid

Yes, you read that correctly. I know you were expecting the title to be "Australian Health Care Is Weird" because that be more in line with the overall tenor of this blog.  But this is one area that I think Australia has a few things it could teach its bigger, fatter cousin to the north.  And I'm not talking about China.
Obamacare, obamacare, obamacare!
In Australia, whether you're a permanent resident, a naturalized citizen, or a citizen by birth, YOU HAVE BASIC HEALTH INSURANCE.  Automatically.  For FREE!

All you have to do is walk in to your local Medicare office (or Mediocre if you're a smart-ass like me), fill out a form, and get a plastic card with your name and your Mediocre number embossed on it.

Then, anytime you feel yourself coming down with a broken leg, a brain tumor, ADHD or the Spanish Flu, you can make an appointment at any local family doctor of your choice (called a General Practitioner or "GP"), pay a few dollars and get it checked out.

If the "GP" has enough turnover to employ an office staff, then they might do something called "bulk billing."  That means you pay only the $20 or so co-pay for the office visit, and the doctor sends Mediocre a bill for the rest.  Otherwise, you pay the full bill, then later take it in to the Mediocre office yourself and get most of it refunded back to you.

Now, let's say you have a serious condition that requires a specialist.  Acne, for example.  Then, your GP would write a referral to a specialist, a Dermatologist in this case.  (If you have Lizards, he might refer you to a Herpetologist.) With that referral, most of your costs incurred with that specialist are covered by Mediocre.  But if you are content to pay out of your own pocket, you are perfectly at liberty to see any specialist anytime as much as you want without a referral.

Sounds like a Hypochondriac's Utopia, doesn't it. Well, it has some down sides too.  Because it's almost free, it is sometimes over-used by idiots who smoke, drink, eat and screw themselves into poor health.  Consequently there can be lengthy waits to get an appointment at a GP, get into the hospital, or to finally have that brain transplant you've been so desperately needing.

Also, Mediocre stipulates how much Mediocre money a doctor can receive for their mediocre services, and often this is below the doctors' costs.  As in America, the cost of health care has risen dramatically as scientists have invented ever more expensive ways to not die a little longer.  Consequently, most doctors only have enough time in your appointment (average length: 1 hour in the waiting room, 14 seconds in the "surgery" or examination room) to give you a randomly-generated prescription for some pills that may or may not make frogs grow out of your armpits.

In other words, "free" health care is no exception to the maxim that you get what you pay for.

That is why in Australia you also have many opportunities to purchase "private" health cover which gets you into the medical fast-lane, better hospitals, smarter doctors with better English skills and TWICE the amount of time (28 seconds) to give you a prescription for something guaranteed to make you go away and not bother him anymore.

Private health insurance in Australia costs about a tenth of what health insurance costs in the US.  It also covers "unnecessary" extras like dentistry, hand-washing before surgery, and boob-jobs.  Though what exactly constitutes "necessary" medical procedures is the subject of intense debate in pubs and bars across Australia.

Shouldn't America adopt a similar system?  Perhaps not.  Australia has just eight or nine states or territories (we're not sure if Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands count), and just 22 million residents. It's quite a different thing to administer a Mediocre-type system across 50+ states and 300 million people.  There is a strong argument in favor of running these things on a State level under Federal laws.  Except if you live in Arizona.  In that case there's a strong argument in favor of moving to Colorado.

Another problematic issue is this.  If someone is paying for your medical care, can that person reasonably have some say in what you can and can't do that may affect your health, and consequently your medical costs?  I personally think that would only be fair.  But good luck banning all the things that could put you in the hospital!  Food, drink, drugs, tobacco, sex, sitting, standing, working, playing, walking, driving; virtually every aspect of life eventually comes under government control if we follow this line of reasoning.

But there is a solution!

My solution to the quandary of a single-payer health care system which does not simply reward idiots and bums while punishing healthy people with higher taxes is this:  Free basic health care with a slight twist.  If  you drink, smoke, do drugs, overeat, don't exercise, are overweight, have unprotected sex, or are really, really accident-prone, you pay for the privilege and freedom of doing as you please with an extra co-pay for each voluntary behavior that increases the burden on the health care system.

When we examine the extraordinary costs of providing emergency-room care for the poor and the cost of interventions that would have been cheaper to fix sooner, then the single-payer system is the cheaper option by far, as long as you don't inadvertently reward behavior that makes people sick.

But in the end, as all of us will, you will eventually die.  In Australia, it will almost certainly be in the jaws of a shark, crocodile or wombat.  From this perspective, America's obsession with Obamacare seems a silly, silly, silly, silly silly thing to worry about.







Find out more.  Understanding Australia's Health Care System:

 

The Ongoing Crisis

It's not the downward spiral of Europe's economy, or the surge in American socialism demanding that government pass more laws to make us all happy, nor is it the continuing domination of politics by the worst sort of people - the power-hungry.  No, the real crisis isn't even the accelerating hypnosis and brain control of billions of people by the insipid, never-ending drama and drivel of television.  None of those things affect me.  I'm in Australia.

The only real crisis as far as I'm concerned is spiders.  My projections show that at the current rate of breeding, in less than 1000 years the Australian continent will be completely covered one foot deep in writhing, creepy spiders.  And that, my friends, is clearly one foot too many.  Massive sea level rise would be luxury in comparison.

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up in the morning, sat up, put my chilly feet straight into my house slippers without even checking in them first, and pulled an old wool sweater from a heap of clothes on the floor.  Then with bleary, unfocused eyes I staggered in the general direction of the kitchen for some much-needed cereal.  This being the southern hemisphere winter, it was not warm enough to eat cereal in only my underwear.

As I reached out with my left hand to grasp a spoon from the drawer of spoons, I noticed that there was, dangling awkwardly from a silken strand attached to the sleeve of my sweater, an immature Redback spider.

YI YI YI YIIIIIIAAA WAH WAH!  Stomp stomp stomp.

NOW I was fully awake.  I thought nothing more of this not-unusual Australian incident until about a week later.  I noticed that my right shoulder had been strangely sore for too long to be just a pulled muscle from splitting firewood up at the shed the previous weekend. It felt not just sore, but lame.  And oddly heavy.  Strangely painful in ways I hadn't experienced before.

It felt achy when held in almost any position except pulled up against my neck.  Sports cream, hot packs, massage, nothing made any difference.  I began to wonder if perhaps, that morning in the kitchen, I might have been bitten by that Redback.  I mean, not a full "rush me to the emergency room" bite, but just a nibble.  A quick nip. Who can say how long that spider had been scrabbling around on or in that wool sweater, or where it had come from before that.

There was a raised red mark on the back of my upper arm, which I took to be a failed boil that never quite got going.  But by no means was it at the center of the sore area.  I suppose I will never know for sure, as the soreness/lameness/heaviness now enters its third week.

The alternative theory is that I was bitten by something else that I never knew about and that got away with it, or that I had perhaps experienced a very little, tiny, small stroke.  Neither of these thoughts leaves me feeling any more in control of my life and destiny though.  And so, lacking evidence, they must be dismissed on purely ontological grounds.

But if any new evidence were to come to light, you can be bet your sweet Hegelian tush that ontology will always yield to empiricism in everything.  It always has, and always will.  Yes, I'm talking to you, science denier!  Your ontological objections to empirical truth are weak and purposeless.  So there.

Wow!  Philosophy really does have its uses.  For a moment there I got so fired up about philosophical wrongheadedness that I completely forgot for the moment that my shoulder was hurting and that the whole country was covered in spiders.

Why Australia Is Better

Australians love to travel overseas.  Being an island, you can't travel outside Australia without going overseas, so that works out quite well.

Anyhow, the reason Australians love to travel overseas to foreign countries is that it reaffirms to them how much better Australia is compared to everywhere else.  Oh, sure, there are some advantages to be found in foreign countries such as Europe, America and Bali.  The shopping is usually better in every other country that I've ever been to.  But the internet is quickly doing away with Australia's retail backwardness.

Some readers are concerned that I have been critical of Australia in past posts.  Not so: I am merely enjoying the full extent of the humor that this odd place provides.  But to assuage my many critics, here are just a few of the things that make Australia better than that dodgy place you've chosen to live.

Benefits of Australia:
1.  Space.  Consider, 0.3% of the world's population getting 4% of the world.  Just under 23 million Australians share 3 million square miles.  That's nearly the same population as Southern California, but in an area 53 times as big.  We've got lots of elbow room!  (Granted, large portions of it are uninhabitable crocodile-infested outback and the rest is covered in spiders, but I'm just saying, in theory we have that much space.)

2.  Freedom.  Starting your own business is relatively easy in Australia.  Given the red tape, paperwork, restrictions, multiple layers of bureaucracy to wade through (city, county, state and federal) one encounters in the US, it's  a miracle that any new businesses ever get going there at all.  But in Australia, any reasonable person can set up a corporation, file the paperwork, and start an empire.  This simplicity makes up for Australians being in other ways some of the most over-governed people on the planet with way more laws than are actually necessary.  There is a widespread, unconscious belief that government holds the solution to every problem.  Which, of course, is complete bollocks.  There is also a long heritage of the authorities regarding the populace as dangerous children in need of firm guidance, constant policing, and being unworthy of the least degree of trust.  Other than that, you are pretty much free here to do as you please.

3.  Health Care.  Employers aren't saddled with the bizarre and onerously expensive tradition (as in the USA) of being responsible for providing health insurance.  Here, everyone automatically  has basic health coverage provided by the government and it ends up being a lot cheaper for everyone, the taxpayers included, in the long and short run.

4.  One Tax Return.  In the USA you have to file in your state of residence AND with the feds.  State, county and city governments all have taxation authority, and this leads to nonsensical confusion, duplication, stupidity, and waste.  In Australia, local councils (cities and shires) can't levy taxes except for property rates which pays for garbage collection, fire brigades, libraries and other local services.  On the down side, local councils can sometimes be rather silly.  Take for example, the Shire of Cue, Western Australia.  When there are less than 300 people living in an area bigger than Connecticut, there isn't a large pool of talent from which to draw your leaders.  Then again, some would argue that on the balance this is a good thing.  For the entertainment value at least.

5.  Vast Wealth.  For example one company, Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG) owns an estimated 12 billion tons of iron ore, most of which is currently underneath Western Australia.  At the current price (depressed by jittery markets) of about $130 per tonne, that means this one company is theoretically worth an absolute minimum of $1,500,000,000,000 dollars.  That's $1.5 TRILLION!!!!!!  My calculator values the company at something like $560 per share.  It is currently trading below $5 per share.  (NOTE: this is NOT financial advice.  I am NOT licensed to give financial advice.  Do NOT run out and buy stock in  FMG.  At least not until I've had a chance to load up my portfolio some more.)

6.  Lamb.  Most Americans don't like lamb, and for good reason.  American lamb is terrible!  But Australian lamb is one of the best things anywhere.  It's the sort of experience that can make a would-be vegetarian say, "What was I thinking?"  Broiled on the BBQ, slow-roasted, or just whack it in the slow-cooker in the morning before leaving the house.  A bit of rosemary and garlic, or just on its own, lamb is lean, tender, flavorful but never gamey.  The rest of the world could sink into an economic and ecological abyss (which will probably be Greece's fault), but Australia would still be able to feed and clothe itself in rather fine style.

7.  Tim Minchin.  Born and raised in Perth, Western Australia, Tim Minchin is a classically-trained pianist (among the best performers I've ever seen on the keys), a truly gifted songwriter, hilarious musical-comedy entertainer, social commentator, and Skeptic.  Check him out on youtube.



And that's why Australia is better than where you live.

Travel Advisory Warning

If you plan to travel to Western Australia at any point, then there are some safety issues you should be aware of.

Obviously, in the water we're talking sharks, crocodiles, stonefish, jellyfish, and surfers.  On land, there are wombats, mosquitos, various deadly spiders and snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and Aussie psychopaths.  On the roads, there are kangaroos at night, "hoons," cops with speed cameras, and yet more Aussie psychopaths. There are also tourists like yourself driving on the wrong side of the road.  Be sure to avoid them whenever you can.

Nothing new here, obviously.  The same information is available on any reputable travel agent's web site. But there's one safety issue that they don't tell you about.  There is a danger that visitors will almost certainly encounter, and probably the last thing they would ever expect to come face-to-face with.

Un-sliced hamburger buns.

That's right! It is a known fact that it is not possible to slice a hamburger bun without threat of serious injury to your person.  The trick is to cut all the way through the soft bread and then stop just as the razor-sharp serrated knife comes in contact with the palm of your hand.  If you can actually do this without drawing blood, then you are probably a woman.


In the USA, it is virtually impossible to purchase a hamburger bun that is not already pre-sliced for your picnic, camping, or entertaining convenience.  Bakers of hamburger buns in America have discovered through decades of market testing that users of hamburger buns almost always want them to be sliced in half horizontally to facilitate the placing of a beef patty and various toppings between the halves.  Brands of hamburger buns that were slow to adopt this innovation in the slicing department were shunned, ridiculed and sued by consumers of hamburger buns until their stock price plunged and the company went out of business.  By this process of Darwinian improvement, we now have both the convenience and the SAFETY of hamburger buns that come already sliced right from the store.

But not in Western Australia.  No - it's actually hard to find even one brand of hamburger bun here that is pre-sliced in the package.  Bakeries here assume that customers want the OPTION of slicing their own buns (and their hands in the process), or perhaps they think some people prefer to place the meat and toppings under, over or next to a completely intact bun.

The chief mechanisms for product improvement (specifically: consumer outrage, lawsuits and ridicule) that work so well in the USA seem to be absent in Western Australia.  Probably because for many products there is just one brand available.  One choice, take it or leave it.  And, Western Australians despise nothing so much as a complainer, whom they call whingers.  As in, "You're a whinger.  Stop your whinging, you whinger!"

Rather than complaining, they'd probably tell you to just click on the picture below and buy this safe and handy bagel slicer which, with some ingenuity, can be modified to work on hamburger buns as well:

Of course, another theory is that Western Australians really enjoy danger.  They live here, after all.  Some of them even by choice.

The Cutting Edge of Technology

Western Australia is well known for being on the cutting edge of technology.  Why, it was as early as 1959 that Perth got the first TV station in Western Australia, barely three years after Sydney and Melbourne.  I honestly don't understand WHY some people say WA stands for "Wait Awhile."

And the blistering pace of technology did not slacken after that.  In 1965, barely six years later, Perth got a SECOND TV station.  Imagine that!  Your choice of TWO channels!  Then, a mere decade passes before, in 1975, trailblazing Australian TV broadcasters switched over to COLOR!  (Or 'colour' as they write it.)  I don't know how people were able to keep up with all that progress.

So what's next for Western Australia?  Well, on our street recently the power company has been busy upgrading the electricity distribution network to the very latest in cutting edge 19th-century technology: wooden power poles.

You see, the old ones were nearly rotted away and were falling over like dominoes.  Instead of converting to underground power, they opted to invest their time and money (8 billion dollars over the next 5 years) in fixing the old overhead distribution network, because it's cheaper.  But only in the short term.

It may be soaked in green insecticide and
have its own barcode, but it's still just
a tree trunk.  19th Century technology.

In the long run, overhead lines are far more expensive to maintain.  They are susceptible to insects, winds, falling tree branches, bush fires, car crashes, vandals, wayward  airplanes and children's kites.  I recall reading a news report of 900 homes being left without power due to "a light rain."

They say a major solar flare could disrupt power in modern industrial countries plunging entire civilizations into blackness, but in Western Australia, all it would take is a good stiff breeze.  Wind of the ordinary, non-solar variety.  Would this civilization survive such a fall?  Well, it's from no great height, so . . . .

WA has 660,000 wooden power poles, a fact which they now know, thanks to a new computer database which recently (read: finally) became operable after years of cost overruns and software development stuff-ups.  Actually, they admit that there are still some 4,000 poles on the network the locations of which are currently unknown.  How do you lose an entire power pole holding up your live wires?  Cutting edge technology, I guess.

In any case, the decision was made without the benefit of my whiz-dumb and all along our street the decrepit old power poles were methodically replaced with brand new ones.  For that to occur, the power had to be turned off from 9 AM until 5 PM on certain days while the work went ahead.  If you've been completely without power for an entire day recently, you will know what I discovered:  THERE'S NOTHING TO DO!

Overhead wires are only cheaper until something goes wrong,
like a light rain or slight breeze.  Or an idiot in a crane truck
forgetting to lower the boom before driving away.

But as I waited patiently for the power to be restored as the time approached 5 PM and the workmen were packing up and leaving, I heard a tremendous BANG!  I felt the whole house shake, and saw a crack open up in the ceiling.  I ran outside to witness one of their crane trucks heading down the street.  Its boom was sticking up in the air and it had the overhead power cables of half a dozen houses trailing along behind it, mine included.  It took out half a dozen more before the oblivious idiot stopped to see why there was now an entire power pole dragging on the road behind him.

Needless to say, the power did not come back on that evening.  Those workers (and many more, besides) were there until well after midnight feverishly stringing up wires to people's houses, and in some cases repairing the roofs of damaged properties.  Our house didn't get power until sometime the next day, making it more than 24 hours without electricity.

Fortunately none of the food in our fridge was spoiled, and we have a gas stove for cooking and gas hot water.  Thanks to another cutting-edge 19th century technology, candles, we were able to get through this without major injury.

OK - so maybe WA is a few centuries behind in the technology department.  But energy is just a fad anyway.  In a few more decades the electricity craze will be over and we'll wonder what all those poles and wires were for.  Meanwhile, Western Australia is catching up to the USA in one important area:  Junk Food.

I was recently able to purchase these items.  Not at a major supermarket chain, but at least in accessible stores in a suburban shopping center within 10 minutes' drive from my house. This is progress!  I've been deprived of these items for over ten years.  Soon, Western Australia will catch up to the US in obesity and diabetes.

Unless the power goes off.  Then we'll get plenty of exercise chopping firewood, like our ancestors did.  Hmmm - I bet those big wooden poles would burn pretty well . . .

My Reaction (Har!) to the Nuclear Debate

I crack myself up. Seriously, though. it has been observed that there is not one major global problem that could not be significantly diminished, if not altogether eliminated, by only one minor change that is entirely within every individual's reach.  Just one simple choice could solve the problems of Global Warming, peak oil, disease, poverty, war, urban overcrowding, crime, environmental degradation, extinction of species, water shortages, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, traffic congestion, overflowing landfills, and American Idol.

That powerful but simple solution is this one easy-to-understand idea:  fewer humans on the planet.  That isn't likely to happen any time soon, since making more humans is just so gosh darned fun.

(Keeping one's pants fully in the "on" position is coincidentally also the solution to a surprising number of non-global, personal, legal, financial and medical problems, but that's another post.)

There is no question that we are going to run out of cheap energy relatively soon.  Yet everyone I've talked to recently still seems fully committed to reproducing themselves as many times as possible.  An alternative source of energy is needed if only to provide the illusion that everything is going to be OK while we continue to breed like teenage rabbits in a carrot silo.

This is the point at which some shill from the energy company pipes up and says, "Did you know that just one tiny kilogram of environmentally-friendly non-CO2-emitting Uranium replaces about two thousand TONS of horrible, disgusting coal?  With nuclear power, you humans could continue having sex for thousands of years to come!"

This raises two vitally important questions.  1) What happens after that?  2) Are you a robot, or an alien, or an alien robot?

His answer is, "Mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble."

"WHAT WAS THAT YOU SAID?"

"I said you're right back where you started, plus you have a bunch of, um, radioactive waste to deal with.  Hey, but at least it was cheaper than solar power!"

Is it really?  Not when you include ALL the costs.  Storage of the waste in particular is a blank-check expense.  Nuclear waste  is composed of an unmanageable jumble of highly hazardous substances all mixed together.  It really isn't worth mucking around with, because it's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.  Just when you figure out how to neutralize one radioactive isotope, it decays into several new ones.  No, with this sort of muck, there's no point mucking about.  Best just put it someplace, and then never ever go there again.

That's why the Australian Goobermint has recently taken steps towards the establishment of a permanent nuclear waste storage facility (a shed, actually).  They considered the question of where to keep all this muck, and came up with the answer:  out in the middle of nowhere at a place called (and I am NOT making this up) -  Muckaty Station.

But how much is this going to cost?  Including a couple of rent-a-cops who will stand guard and prevent terrorists from stealing the glowing deadly muck, I optimistically estimate that it will cost 5 cents per day.  I'd make it 1 cent per day to be even more optimistic, but 5 cents is the lowest you can go in Australia, they having wisely done away with all the one-cent coins years ago. (Are you reading this, America? It works, it saves lots of time and tons of federal money.)

So, how many days will the radioactive waste need to be stored?  And keep in mind that we're going to be making more of it as time goes by.  It works out to be . . . infinity days.   Now, what is our very optimistic 5 cents per day times our frankly realistic infinity days?  Whoops - this calculator doesn't go that high.

-            -             -

Until someone figures out an affordable and politically acceptable means of dealing with nuclear waste, I say that it is NOT CHEAPER than solar power or any other form of energy.  Until that problem is solved, I maintain that the actual cost of nuclear power is infinity.

Plus thorium.  I meant to work that into this post somehow.  We should be looking at thorium fuel cycles, not uranium, because you can't make weapons out of it, it's inherently stable and stops reacting when you get hit by tsunamis, and the waste is slightly less nasty.  So, there it is.  The answer to all our problems is to stop having sex, and use more thorium.

See The Real Australia

Most people only know about Australia through movies such as "Crocodile Dundee," "Quigly Down Under," or, for some reason, "Australia."  Do you really think you can understand an entire nation/continent from a few crappy fictional Hollywood movies?

Well, if you do, you're right.  It is an excellent way to learn about Australia, but those aren't the right movies to do the job properly.

If you really want to understand Australia and, like me, you are extremely lazy and like to sit on your fat sofa for hours at a time, then movies are the way to go.  And, you have come to the right place, because I have assembled a veritable compendium of the most important Australian movies that accurately portray life in Australia.

What about reading a book, you ask?  I tried that once.  I got about a quarter of the way through The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding before falling into a coma.  Sooo . . . boring . . . !  But on the other hand, an excellent cure for insomnia, which I used to have but don't anymore.  So definitely get this book, by all means.

All "hip" educators understand that everything is easier to learn when it's in the form of a story.  That's just how human brains are wired.  Furthermore, I feel that anything that isn't making me laugh is just wasting my valuable time on this planet.   Therefore I propose the following movies as your best window into the real Australia:

Kenny  Follow the epic tale of a blue-collar hero who through dedication and hard work rises to international prominence in his decidedly humble profession.  He also overcomes personal setbacks in his relationship to his son and finally meets the woman of his dreams.  Specifically, a live woman who will speak to him a second time.  Australians all have the ambition to 1) become the best in the world at something and then 2) act as though they don't care.  The irony of this movie is on many levels, so see if you can absorb the overarching "meta-irony" of this multi-award-winning film.  Best line:  "There's a smell in here that will outlast Religion."

The Castle  Set in a typical suburban family home, a typical middle-class suburban family fights the defining battle of their lives.  This is an absolute must-see and includes a brilliant and award-winning acting performance by legendary Aussie actor Michael Caton who plays the leading role of Darryl Kerrigan.  Though fictional, I would rank Kerrigan as one of the pre-eminent Australian philosophers, who gives us such wisdom as "(high voltage transmission towers) are a Monument to Man's ability to generate electricity."  There's a great deal of authentic detail in this movie relating to suburban life, middle-class culture, home handyman skills, and the legal system.  So watch carefully!

Another tidbit that should interest you:  this film grossed over AU$10,000,000 while costing only AU$19,000 to produce.  That's a rate of return of 50,000%.

The Dish  The plot of this movie, based on actual events, centers around Australia's involvement in the Apollo program in 1968.  In America, a movie like this (think Apollo 13) would be a patriotic, serious and heart-warming movie involving patriotic, serious and heart-warming actors such as Tom Hanks.  But in Australia, that schmaltzy, maudlin stuff just doesn't fly.  Instead, The Dish is a satirical laugh riot.  For me the defining moment comes when the Vice President of the United States visits the country town of Forbes, the closest outpost of civilization (such as it is) to the remote radio telescope which is preparing to receive the first ever live images from the surface of the moon.  To honor the most important person by far (such as he is) to ever set foot in Forbes, the house band of the town's pub plays what they sincerely believe to be the National Anthem of the United States.  I'll say no more.  SEE IT!

Rabbit-Proof Fence   I only laughed a little at this uncompromisingly serious film, but I recommend it nonetheless.  The main theme is Australia's condescending treatment of its aboriginal peoples, not dissimilar to the way the North American Indians were (and are) treated in the United States and Canada.  The between-the-lines theme is Government Incompetence, evidenced by attempts to make a fence several thousand miles long to keep destructive rabbits (introduced to Australia by Europeans) out of Western Australia.  And their incompetence at managing aboriginal peoples' lives for them.  It failed, of course. It turns out, rabbits can actually dig!  And small girls can run away from boarding school, ingeniously and courageously making the thousand-mile journey home on foot, using only the you-know-what as a guide.  Now THAT's irony only Government can provide.

The Craic  Have you noticed that the titles of all good Australian films are just two words long beginning with "The?"  Me neither. This film offers you the chance to see Australia from an outsider's perspective as one Fergus Montague from Belfast (played by Jimeoin McKeown) seeks refuge in Australia, the last place he expects to encounter his old enemies and make new ones.  Of course, both happen.  It wouldn't be much of a film otherwise, now would it.  Though not critically acclaimed, this film passes the only test that matters.  It made me laugh.  Watch for the scene in the world's only topless bar where patrons actually try to persuade the barmaid to put a shirt on, or something, for god's sake.

Malcolm  Any trip to Australia should include Melbourne, in my opinion the one really civilized city down here.  This movie, set in this scenic city, follows the adventures of Malcolm, an autistic, socially-incompetent genius who finally meets the sort of caring and non-judgmental people who appreciate his special talents.  Petty criminals.

As you may have guessed, Australians are not particularly "nice" (meaning delicate) about their humor.  Anything is a suitable target, including tragic disabilities such as autism.  Americans take such things (and themselves) extremely seriously and are likely to be offended at Australian humor.  Example:  A well-known Australian comedian says on TV: "knock-knock jokes, not really funny, are they.  Be honest.  But telling knock-knock jokes to homeless people - now THAT'S funny!"

My advice: get over it.  Learn to laugh at everything, then nothing will be a tragedy to you.  Far from being mean-spirited, it is actually the kinder and more enlightened way to deal with life's setbacks and unpleasant realities.

Douglas Adams praises Australians as having the most finely tuned sense of irony in the world, and any movie that does not expose you to the Australian sense of humor is doing you a disservice.  Their subtlety of satire is often such that the target does not even know that he is a target.  You must pay close attention to get most of the jokes.

These movies also expose you to the rich lexicon of the Australian language, which again, you might miss if you're not paying attention.

Is Australia really like these movies?  Do Australians really talk and act like this?  They say no,  but I say yes.  Yes, they do, in the same way that an editorial cartoon sketch often tells us infinitely more about a politician than their official press-release photograph does.  After living this last decade or so in Australia, I have to say that these movies accurately portray these people and this place in a way that nothing else comes close to doing.



.

Educating Australia's Children. With Slogans!

For reasons I won't go into here, I've been staring at the logos and school mottoes of a lot of different schools lately.  They are seen on the uniforms that almost every Australian child must wear, screen-printed onto a tee-shirt in the case of government and low-rent private schools, or embroidered onto snazzy wool blazers in the case of your more exclusive private schools.  Most are the products of design-by-committee, in particular the type of free-thinking, revolutionary committee dedicated to the visionary cause of not offending anybody ever.    Although one catchy design featured a cleverly drawn bat and a redback spider.  A boys' school, obviously.  The mottoes are usually along the lines of "A Commitment to Courtesy" or "Passing The Time Together."

But this particular design caught me off guard, and caused a minor argument (a very, very limited armed regional conflict, actually) about what it was.  You see, the following is a photograph of an actual Kangaroo Tick, an eight-legged blood-sucking parasite:

Kangaroo Tick.

And this is the logo of a certain Australian school located in a suburb near Perth:

Kangaroo Tick?

To my mind it is a representation (although poorly drawn) of something that clearly has eight legs and bears a more than passing resemblance to a blood-sucking parasite.  Just what are they teaching the children, I wonder?

But I was shouted down by those present on this occasion, all of whom claimed that it was really a Banksia cone, and I was looking at it upside down.

My contention was that the motto gives it away: "Friends Growing Together."  Clearly the authors are referring to the fact that a tick is like a little friend that grows and grows while burrowing its head into your flesh.  My opponents contended that a Banksia flower grows also, and has the added advantage of not being a completely disgusting and horrible parasite.

Banksia flower. I personally don't see the resemblance.

This is the type of Rorschach test that demonstrates once again that what we see has much more to do with what's behind our eyes than what's before them.

-    -    -

In any event, the following are some of the school mottoes I have recently come across.  I swear I am totally not making any of these up (except maybe a little).

Preparing Children for Future Disappointment.

Where Self-Expression is Complusary  (a government school)

Learning to Love The Love of Learning Love. (a Montessori school)

Obey The Nuns.  (self-explanatory)

West Sydney Community School:  Teachers Telling Children What To Do All Day.

How About a Little Respect Here for the Teachers' Union (government school in a Labour electorate)

Sitting Quietly at our Desks for Christ's Sake  (a Christian school)

Excellence - Achievement - Status  (an Exclusive private school)

Nepotism - Graft - Corruption  ( a Very Exclusive private school)

This COULD be the logo of almost any primary school.

A Big Bunch of Children  (a school where the staff have pretty much given up)

Learning to Judge One Another  (a Methodist school)

"I Went to Meekatharra Primary School and All I Got Was This T-Shirt"

Innaloo Primary School.  We'd Change The Name if They'd Let Us.  (The suburb of Innaloo really exists - I did not make it up)

Mansion Hills Estates Private College.  If You Have to Ask, You Can't Afford It.

Diversity Through Conformity.  (another PC government school)

Back To Basics:  Reading, Writing, and Understanding Welfare Department Procedures

Wendsleytondaleshire Acadamy.  Your Parents Probably Work for Our Parents.

Children Are Your Future, Retirement is Our Future.

Building a Future Wastewater Plant Together  (an alternative school where children learn by doing)

"Does a Motto Cost Extra"

A School that Contains Creativity and Fun  (could be read two ways - think about it)





If you are ever in charge of coming up with your school's motto, remember that you cannot disguise the truth.  People like me will see straight through it.



.

The Good Life

In Australia, both Christmas Day and Boxing Day are public holidays.  If either of them occurs on a normal working day, you most likely get a paid day off.  If both occur on normal work days, you get TWO paid days off!  Lucky!

I have no idea what Boxing Day is about or what you're supposed to do (Pack away your Christmas decorations?  Re-package gifts that you are going to return?  Punch people with over-sized novelty gloves?) but what was once good fortune is now considered an entitlement.  If either Christmas or Boxing Day occur on a weekend (like it did this year), you not only get the day off, but you also get another paid day off to make up for the fact that Sunday was going to be a day off anyhow.  If that same logic is followed indefinitely, people will want an additional paid day off if a public holiday doesn't fall on a weekend, to make up for the additional day they would have gotten if it had been on a weekend, et cetera. Employers will soon have to pay people to never work at all, just like in France.

In any event, that's why on a completely ordinary Tuesday two days after Christmas that wasn't any particular Holiday other than my brother's birthday (he never did have very good timing), I was up at The Shed relaxing and taking it easy.

There I was, lying in a hammock, sipping an ice-cold vanilla Coke, the bright sun warming me, the green Jarrah trees (Eucalyptus marginata) shading me, the cloudless deep-blue sky calming me, the breeze gently rocking me, the spiders in their enormous webs overhead alarming me, and I thought as I absently flicked away yet another kangaroo tick that was crawling up the leg of my jeans, "You know, John, life just doesn't get any better than this."

I honestly wished at that time that every guy in the world could be having such a peaceful, relaxing experience.  They'd most likely be consuming beer instead of cola, however.

Before coming to Australia, I never had to explain my abstinence to anyone.  In the USA, being abnormal is much more . . . well, "normal" isn't right, so I'll say "usual."  But here in Australia, not drinking alcohol is so unusual it can never pass unnoticed and I am constantly having to explain myself.

People assume I must be either Muslim, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, an extremely committed Methodist, in the Baha'i faith, or possibly a High-Initiate Eckist.  Because nobody would ever choose to not have alcohol if it were entirely up to them, would they?

Not so.  I knew an athiest once who didn't drink either.  He said he'd spent too much of his life trying to learn things and get smarter, that he'd be buggered if he was going to go pouring stuff down his neck that might undo even a little of his hard work.  Especially something like beer that doesn't even taste good anyway.

He also said that too many men cower behind some religion to justify their actions for which they lack the moral courage to take responsibility themselves.  If you're going to do what you believe is right, he said, do it because you believe in it, not because some church says you have to.  "Never let religion prevent you from doing the right thing."  Funny, that I should learn more about religion from an atheist than I ever learned from anyone else.

That got me wondering. Can religion cause someone to lose his individual moral compass?  I once asked a staunch believer in a minority Christian faith what he would do if the leader of his church ordered him to blow up a bus full of children.  I became extremely alarmed simply by the delay in his answer, which I forestalled after a moment by saying, "Great Gilligan, man! You don't seriously have to THINK about that one, do you?"

Rather than a firm and definite "no," his answer was a cowardly, "it depends."   Mind you, his own church adamantly espouses a doctrine of free agency, a person's responsibility for his own actions, and the commandment not to kill people.  Could he really have been absent from Sunday School on all the days those items were covered?  The Superbowl is only once a year.

Or are beliefs in leaders' infallibility, absolute conformity, and moral relativism just that much more attractive to people, even to members of a church that explicitly denounces all three of these tenets?  Why even be in a religion if you're not going to believe anything they teach?  It couldn't possibly be that some people do not want the responsibility of making their own choices, could it?

-     -     -

I have a particular belief that I create my life, through my thoughts, actions, inaction, and choices. I can't prove that this is literally true for everyone all the time, and it seems like an awful lot of responsibility for a person to have.  But having this belief makes me more empowered, helps forestall feelings of helplessness and depression (see this scientifically tested book by Martin Seligman) and rouses me into activity like no other belief I have.  So I choose to believe it without further need of proof.

At times like today when life is as good as it gets (and when I focus more on the blue sky, green trees and sunshine than on the spiders and ticks in my life), I get the feeling that I might have made an OK choice.



Happy New Year to all my readers!  Make your 2012 the best one ever.




.

Christmas In Australia

It's Christmas Down Under, and just as you've probably come to expect, it's weird.

For one thing, it's summer in Australia for some reason.  Oh, sure, I've heard all about the tilt of the earth's axis and the astoundingly boring scientific explanation for why Australia is six months out of synch with the rest of the world (New Zealand and South Africa excepted).  But I have the distinct feeling that the real reason is Australians simply want it that way out of sheer obstinacy.  What the locals refer to as "bloody-mindedness."

That's when, if you have absolutely nothing to lose by doing something that would be of tremendous benefit to others, but because you have nothing to gain from it, you don't do it.  Bloody-mindedness.  Politicians get accused of that a lot here.  It's what Ebeneezer Scrooge had, before he found his Spirit of Christmas Presents.

If the rest of the world has Christmas in winter, Australians just HAVE to be different and hold it in the middle of summer. "That'll show the bastards," is probably what they are all thinking.

I haven't felt the spirit of the Christmas season once in the ten years I've been here.  It's usually just too darn hot!  Too hot to bake Pfeffernüsse, Lebkuchen, cookies, fudge, divinity, roast turkey, Stollen, or any of the traditional winter holiday foods that I associate with Christmas.  Too hot to go out shopping for gifts, and too hot to sit by a glowing fire in a woolen sweater reading anything whatsoever by Charles Dickens.

While people in the northern hemisphere are enjoying a day out in the snow, getting windburn and the occasional touch of frostbite, Australians head for the beach for a sunburn and an occasional shark bite. While kids north of the equator are trying out their new snowboards, toboggans and skis, Aussie kids are trying out their new surfboards, boogie boards, and air conditioners.

My Christmas Dinner

Up north, you'll be having roast turkey, goose, ham, more turkey, mashed potatoes, hot chocolate, and still more turkey. In Australia, you get a barbeque.  And not like an awesome Southern barbeque - I mean just frying some steaks on a grill with maybe some prawns on there to classy it up a bit.

Down here, your uncle Albert would still get drunk and make a nuisance of himself at the family get-together, but the difference is that in Australia he'll likely be wearing a speedo as well.

With all that that entails.

Up north, Santa delivers gifts in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.  In Australia, Santa does his rounds in a clapped-out Holden Ute.  But don't hold your breath.  It's a big country.  And Santa doesn't always remember to check the coolant level before heading out.

Santa calls out some other reindeer names that can't be printed here.

I've touched on some of the uniquely Australian characteristics of Christmas previously.  We have Christmas spiders (Austracantha minax), Christmas trees that you must not cut down (Nuytsia floribunda),  Christmas island (a refugee detention center), and Christmas Crackers.

The first time I was offered a Christmas Cracker, I declined.  "I can have crackers any old time," thought I.  "Hey, it's Christmas - let's eat some crackers!"  Could Australia really be that lame?

It turns out that Christmas Crackers aren't Saltines or even Ritz.  They're something even more lame.  Looking like someone's attempt to gift-wrap an empty toilet paper tube, they are supposed to explode when pulled open from the ends.  Someone's idea of humor, I guess.  But in reality, they make an almost detectable "tch" sound when detonated.  Once opened, they reveal a plastic choking hazard and a hat made of tissue paper.  And boy when you're wearing a hat made of tissue while trying to dislodge a miniature plastic desk lamp from a toddlers mouth, the fun just never stops.

My recommendation for your holiday travel is to visit Australia at some time of the year other than Christmas.  Unless you really like spiders, overweight men in speedos who have had too much to drink, and tissue paper hats.

Merry Christmas, one and all!






.

Just An Ordinary, Boring Weekend in Oz

Some people think Perth is a boring place.  At first, I didn't understand what they were talking about.  But after getting to know Perth and learning some of the many incredibly, amazingly boring things about it, I'm beginning to understand.

An uninvited swan.

Take this weekend, for instance.  Saturday afternoon Yvonne and I were at Point Walter (what a BORING name!) sitting on the grass enjoying a meal of beef Teriyaki and Thai green curry (ho-hum - such ordinary, everyday boring food) when to our utter boredom an absolutely boring Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) casually strolled right through the middle of the picnic area.  Two hundred years ago that would have caused tremendous excitement, since at the time the mythical Black Swan was believed to be, well,  mythical.  But today if you live in boring old Perth tripping over Black Swans everywhere you go, they just contribute to the overall boredom.

Cygnus atratus,  NOT mythical.  Quite boring, actually.
Not even venomous or anything.

Later that evening, we were down at Fremantle Harbour watching the boring container ships being unloaded, which they do here 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  Yawn!  Over 26 million tons of remarkably dull goods pass through this port every year.  Then the dullest thing imaginable happened:  a transport ship from Kobe opened its hull and a bunch of ordinary Toyota cars started driving right out onto the dock.  About twenty wharfies then spent hour after boring hour parking hundreds of cars in a massively boring lot and then stuffing themselves into an ordinary minivan, driving back onto the transport ship and starting all over again.  This went on for hours.

On the bridge of HMAS Choules, facing aft, port side.

We know, because we watched the whole thing happening from the bridge of the soon-to-be-commissioned Navy transport HMAS Choules, a Bay-class landing ship dock purchased (in typical Australian fashion) second-hand on Ebay.  Ha ha!  No - they actually bought it from the Brits.  Second hand.

Well, at least they didn't pick it up on the side of the road somewhere or make off with it in the middle of the night while its owners were sleeping, which is even more typically the Australian way of procuring things.

This ship is so immensely boring that the sheer size of it stunned me into submissive silence.  It weighs 16,000 tons and is 580 feet long.  It has an enormously boring cavity right down the middle of it with enough space for 150 trucks.  That's a lot of trucks.

HMAS Choules in Falmouth drydock,
earlier this year.

To get an idea of what this experience was like, you should go out and find a parking lot big enough for 150 trucks and imagine putting the entire parking lot INSIDE the middle of a ship.  How does that make you feel?  Pretty darn bored, right?

Our fully authorized incursion onto the ship was courtesy of a friend who is an electronics technician in the Australian Navy.  He had just arrived on this ship all the way from Falmouth, England (Britain's deepest and most boring natural port) where the ship had been undergoing re-fit since August.  By the time they finally got to Perth, the entire crew was absurdly, ridiculously bored.  Perth has that effect on people.

The HMAS Choules was re-named for Australia's oldest living WWI and WWII veteran Claude Choules, who ironically died earlier this year in Perth (undoubtedly from boredom) at age 110.  He was Australia's oldest living man at the time of his death.  And he holds the World's Record for being the oldest first-time published author when he released his memoirs at age 108. This is probably how he got a ship named after him.  Well, that and his service in two world wars and 41 years as an enlisted man and NCO in the Australian Navy, of course.

December 10, 2011 Total Lunar Eclipse at about
40 minutes before full occlusion.  Photo by
 Cpl. Marek Bubna-Litic, R.A.N.,
taken from onboard the HMAS Choules.

From our towering vantage point some 100 feet above Fremantle harbor, we could see every boring thing that was going on. In particular, the TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE that was happening that very night right before our eyes.  This is a scientific event that is so boring it happens only every couple of years (but twice this year, being a particularly boring year).

The overall effect it had on me was to make me so sleepy after watching it until well past 11 PM that I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.  But I finally understand why people say Perth is so boring.



It is because they are devoid of any imagination and lack even a passing curiosity about the fascinating place we live.