Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Paul's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, July 5th, 2009
5:41 am	Daughters ham it up Our two eldest daughters went to separate fancy dress affairs this weekend. The sci-fi/manga fan designed and sewed up a new costume to participate in a two day Supanova Pop Culture Expo at Claremont Show Grounds. She said there were some nice, polite American sailors who tried to chat her up yesterday. She’s going back with one of her older brothers and little sister today. Supernova pop fashionista Not to be outdone, our eldest shopaholic daughter went to a 21st birthday party last night where Mexican garb was required. I suggested that she should take a box of Kleenex tissues to complete the ethnic image, but she didn’t think it was very funny. I learned last night that it must be tough watching TV news in Mexico when family members won’t take of their sombreros. Our fake Mexican wouldn’t oblige until she left the house. Instead she said, “Hasta la vista baby.” She can be as prickly as a cactus sometimes. Fake Mexican blocks TV - sneers contemptuously at father © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Brad Fiedel: Terminator 2. 'Hasta la Vista, Baby' (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
5:20 am	US Navy visiting Fremantle again The American Navy returned to Fremantle on Thursday to allow it’s sailors to discover that Australian beer is better that the swill they get back home. I say this with some knowledge because last week one of my sons dumped a case of Budweiser next to our spare fridge in the garage. It looks like I’m going to have use it up in beef casseroles. Because the aircraft carrier USS George Washington is a nuclear job it’s not allowed to enter any Australian port, including Fremantle. It has to anchor in Gage’s Road. I think the rational is that if one of it’s reactors goes into meltdown mode it will much easier for volunteers on a Fremantle tugboat to tow it well out to sea. Nevertheless, if this happens our house and everyone in it would be collateral damage. We’d be enveloped in fallout within minutes. Now today is the fourth of July and we Australians know it’s very significant to Americans because there was an exciting 1989 movie Born on the Fourth of July which starred well known Scientologist Tom Cruise. Even more popular was Cruise’s 1986 film Top Gun about US navy pilots. It seems that real pilots aboard carriers have been adopting the nicknames of their fictional heros ever since. According to a local newspaper report there’s a ‘Goose’ on the George Washington. In recognition of 4 July, many US Sailors will go on the town in Fremantle and Perth tonight and probably be feeling sorry for themselves tomorrow morning. The only thing worse than a drunken American sailor is a drunken Australian one. According to a report in today’s The West Australian, sex workers in Perth’s brothels have already been overworked to the point of exhaustion by US sailors, despite reinforcements having been flown in from the eastern states. Accompanying the carrier is a destroyer USS Cowpens. Its outline can be seen in the photo I took of Fremantle Harbour yesterday. Reportedly its sailors consider themselves as a ‘thundering herd.’ In the photo there’s also the outline of Saint John’s Anglican church located in the centre of the port city. The ships are here for five days of fun and frivolity. US carriers are usually escorted by one or two nuclear subs. While all the debauchery is going on ashore, apparently one of them will hang out in deep water past Rottnest Island, which can seen on the horizon in my photo. The other will have snuck into the Australian navy’s base at Garden Island, which is a few kilometers south of Rottnest. From there the crew will make their way to where all the shoreside action is. USS George Washington in Gage’s Road Not everyone in these parts is taking the US visit lying down. The Fremantle Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG) is holding a protest rally in the port this morning. Fremantle has a long history of non-violent protest over nuclear issues. The Mayor of Fremantle was flown to the USS George Washington during the week as a guest of honor for lunch. He gave a ‘thumbs up’ to the grub. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Harry Nilsson: Popeye (OST) - Sailin' (Comment on this)
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
7:47 am	A setback from P&O Son number four and his partner took of for Asia on a two week holiday last night. The first week will be in Hong Kong and the second in Singapore. I hope they don’t get any sniffles in Honkers because the Chinese authorities have been throwing foreigners who sneeze into a locked quarantine facility. While they are away we have the privilege of looking after their cocker spaniel. That’s okay because she gets on with our teenage pup and our cats. She probably won’t give us any trouble. In the photo below, our Millie is the merry scamp on the right: We promise to be good Our own travel plans have not gone so smoothly. In January this year we booked a 16 night cruise out of Fremantle with P&O. We paid our deposits, organised passports and started buying travel stuff. Departure for Asian climes was to be early next year. Last Wednesday I took a call from our travel agent. P&O had cancelled the voyage and substituted two shorter ones with fewer exotic destinations. We could choose one of these at a lesser rate or have our money back. This wasn’t very appealing. Both were scheduled for after the school year started, and the time frame places them in the cyclone season. We viewed the P&O website and there were two earlier 16 night cruises from Freo that hadn’t been filled, one over Christmas and one in early January. Either would have been perfect. Our travel agent checked and came back with the glum news that we were ineligible because P&O had a quota on the number of children it accepted and there was no room for any more, however we could have our names placed on a list in case someone else cancelled. We did this but I don’t hold out much hope. Meanwhile P&O are desperately advertising to try to attract more passengers on the voyages we’d be happy to be participate. Furthermore, I’ve learned they have been extending the times for people to come up with deposits. I decided to send a polite email to P&O expressing our disappointment. Maybe I could’ve made them feel guilty. Fat chance! An automated response came back saying that on average it took 25 days for them to respond to email communications. I’ve never heard of any organisation taking so long. They must be very inefficient. Maybe we should give up on the idea of a cruise, grab the refund and simply go to Rottnest again? © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Bill Frisell: Good Dog, Happy Man (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
5:35 am	Noisy angels for Sam Hurst I had the sad duty yesterday to convey my 17 year old high school daughter to a funeral service for one of her school friends Sam Hurst, who died a few days ago from what started out as a bowel cancer. Sam had been enrolled at Melville High last year, but his deteriorating condition and medical treatment impacted on his schooling. He decided to repeat a year at Aquinas College in 2009. Unfortunately he only managed four days in January before his illness took greater precedence. Sam was an enthusiastic sports participant and acoustic guitarist. My daughter tells me he was a very popular student. This was apparent from the huge turnout at Aquinas yesterday - several hundred people attended. The large chapel was filled to overflowing. My photo below shows some of the mourners standing in front of the original Christian Brothers’ administration building after the service. A foundation stone to the right of the main entrance was laid on 11 July 1937. There are many more modern buildings including the chapel elsewhere on the campus. Mourners for Sam Hurst gather at Aquinas College I chose to remain outside and do some bird watching during the service. There was a large flock of white cockatoos cavorting in the trees alongside the chapel and when they spread their wings they were reminiscent of angels - very noisy, but very beautiful ones. Noisy angels for Sam Coincidentally there was a musical concert last night at Melville High. As usual two of our kids were playing sax and trumpet with the others to a packed house of parents and friends. During the evening there were two musical tributes sung in memory of Sam. He’d been a member of the high school guitar ensemble. A song for Sam © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Sarah McLachlan: Angel (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
8:23 am	The best things in life are still free - like watching seabirds We had a couple of SlickPics for last night’s ninety million dollar Lotto draw, but we’ll still be eating gruel tonight. My wife bought a second ticket yesterday afternoon “just in case.” Because of the record jackpot, there was a queue of a dozen other hopefuls, mostly old dodderers, men and women much older than my wife or me. Apparently the queue had been a similar size for most of the day. One old geezer even jumped the queue ahead of us. Some people must have a theory that this sort of behavior brings them luck. Their greed started before they’d won anything. We’re ambivalent about Lotto. We buy occasional tickets, maybe one every couple of months and always the cheapest of the automated SlickPik range - about six bucks, then usually forget to check them. Jill made an exception this morning, she checked. The result, zilch - the big zero. Our 17 year old daughter bought one - she's officially under age. She won a prize, $400. No hang on, she was kidding. It was $13.40. I still have the theory that some of the best things in life are free, and just to prove it here is a picture of some sea birds I took at Cottesloe Beach during the height of a winter squall on Monday afternoon. They were sheltering in the lee of an artificial breakwater. There were three types, the red beaked Caspian tern Hydroprogne caspia, the yellow beaked crested tern Sterna bergii, and in the background the more common silver gull Larus novaehollandiae. Three species of seabirds mingling at Cottesloe during a storm © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Edward Artemyev: The Odyssey - 'Seagull' (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
5:55 am	More Cottesloe beachcombing treasures I enjoyed the stormy conditions at Cottesloe Beach so much on Saturday that I dressed up properly yesterday and went back for more. I like the pic below. It was taken facing directly into an 90 km squall while being peppered with hailstones. I had to brace myself with one leg extended well back to prevent being blown over. It was an exhilarating experience. I want more. Gale and hail at Cottesloe The collection of pics below is of more beach-combing treasures observed during a lull last Saturday. The first image is of a sponge which could have been inspired by the new movie Brüno. Next to it, attached to some seaweed are some globs of bright orange stuff which appeared to contain eggs. I should have brought a sample home to examine more closely under our binocular microscope. The image below ‘Brüno’ is another sponge, and the green bean-shaped thing below that might also be one. I need a field guide on this sort of stuff. Beachcombing finds at Cottesloe - June 2009 The white nauteloid-like spiral segment with built-in buoyancy chambers in the lower right image was very interesting. It had a collection of tiny barnacles. We saw a few of these shell spirals with their hitchhikers. I brought this specimen home to examine under the microscope. The structure of the barnacles was very complex and beautiful. The spirals we saw were about the size of my thumbnail, so you can figure out how small the freeriders were. The spiral shell could be from Spirula spirula, which is a squiddy creature which can hang out in water 3,000 feet deep. It has two of them at its rear end. Jill and I had a look at the same section of beach yesterday. The waves had given it a makeover since Saturday, but we didn’t have time to search for more treasures. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Alan Menken: The Little Mermaid - 'Flotsam and Jetsam' (Comment on this)
Monday, June 29th, 2009
5:13 am	Beach combing at Cottesloe It’s just after 5am and there’s a fair old storm blowing up outside. The nearest automatic weather station at Swanbourne shows that wind speeds have been steadily increasing all night and are now gusting at about 80 kph. There been a forecast that they may be over 100kph not long after dawn, which will be about 8.15am. The wind is coming in from the NNW. I took my wife Jill and our three youngest children to Cottesloe Beach yesterday to check out the weekend’s overall storm action. (The third child was Milly our cocker spaniel pup.) Our youngest daughter and Milly the pup at Cottesloe Beach yesterday There was still plenty of sand at the southern end of the beach precinct, plus a representation of some of the marine life which had recently been washed up. We did some beach combing. In the picture assortment below you can see a couple of sea urchins, one orange and one a greenish colour. We also found a battered sea dragon, which is not unlike a seahorse, except it has more frilly appendages. This one had obviously experienced storm trauma. The leathery looking spiral object is a shark egg casing. The last image shows an electric blue creature. I haven’t seen these previously. I suppose I saw a half dozen at various places amongst the seaweed yesterday. If anyone knows what it is please tell me. Beach combing yesterday at Cottesloe When my wife and I used to visit this beach after storms when we were kids the flotsam and jetsam was quite different. The main type of seaweed was kelp, huge piles of it. It’s rare to see kelp nowadays. The other things we remembered were vast quantities of shell. Turbans, cockles, scallops in various shades and colours were commonly represented. Yesterday I didn’t see any of them. Something seriously bad must have happened to their environment to extinguish them. I can hear a thunder storm approaching. I hope there’s not a tornado mixed up with it. There's just been a 96kph gust at Swanbourne. I think it’s time to go offline. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Elvis Presley: Beach Boy Blues (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
7:07 am	Western Australia - Where no tree stands in the way of ‘progress’ One of Western Australia’s best known images is a large colorful oil painting in the Western Australian Art Gallery depicting the founding of Perth in 1829 with a ceremonial chopping down of the first tree by a woman, Mrs Dance. The imaginative painting was actually done 100 years later in 1909, but immediately became regarded as an accurate historical record of the original event. Mrs Dance - Western Australia’s first official tree chopper Throughout the twentieth century the image was reproduced innumerable times as a representation of progress. I could probably find a half dozen examples in my own private library. During the sesquicentenary year of 1979 it even appeared in advertising for a bank and Kmart. There is a scholarly discussion about the history of the painting by Janda Gooding titled, ‘The foundation of Perth: George Pitt Morison’s persistent image’ in an anthology, Celebrations in Western Australian History. (1989). UWA Press. For me the tacit message from the painting it that environmental destruction began from the outset of colonisation and that it was an officially approved process. It has been continuing ever since. Western Australia has developed a shameful environmental record for destroying forests, often for short-term gain. Most of the freshwater rivers and wetlands of the entire southwest are now severely degraded as a result, and many agricultural holdings have become salinated through indiscriminate clearing. Remedial attempts nowhere near match the environmental destruction which has occurred. Furthermore, government environmental protection agencies have repeatedly demonstrated their impotence in the face of political and entrepreneurial ambitions. I was reminded of this again on Friday when I was passing through an area near my home called Bibra Lake. The lake has been well and truly buggered. I last wrote about it ‘The death of Bibra Lake’ on 11 April 2008. The latest outrage has been the clear felling of hundreds, maybe thousands of mature trees which made up a buffer zone for a huge block of land near the western side of the lake which facilitated an Amcor paper and cardboard recycling plant. For many years I’ve admired the dense arboreal swathe on the perimeter of this block as an example of good corporate management. Maybe it was also intended to block prying eyes. On Friday the trees were being knocked down and pushed into large piles. The cleared land is to be subdivided into small industrial allotments for resale. Someone will make a lot of money. Too many of those darned trees at Bibra Lake © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Enya: The Memory Of Trees (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
10:03 am	Michael Jackson carks it Routinely I insert the daily diatribe for Fremantlebiz via a backdoor to the main server without any fuss, then I recheck the online version in the normal way for any HTML code errors. When I first tried my check yesterday the Livejournal system had gone temporally belly up. The news of 50 year old Michael Jackson’s death was spreading much faster than swine flu as bloggers around the world urgently pounded their keyboards like jungle native-persons with tom-toms. The black and white minstrel has never had a place in entertainment enjoyed by this family. There’s only been the 30 second sensationalist grabs on TV news, like when he dangled his baby over a balcony and signature clips of him prancing about a stage squeezing his crotch. I’m pretty sure we don’t have any of his recordings, although there might be one amongst my box of reject 50 cent flea-market acquisitions. I’ll have to check. His fame exceeded his productivity. There were only about nine solo albums during his career, which is miniscule compared to many other performers. His overall weirdness and much publicised taste for enticing vulnerable young children into his bed ensured we would never be amongst his fans. Not so with The West Australian newspaper this morning. I counted eleven full pages involving Jackson, including an entire page-one headline splash and a double page centre spread. Not content with this excessive exposure, the paper has a notice saying it will be running an eight page feature lift-out about him every day next week, starting on Monday. I think it’s just about time to cancel our home deliveries. Yesterday’s news today The pusillanimous editors didn’t publish any of the dark jokes that have been circulating on the internet since his death. For example: “Michael Jackson had so much plastic surgery that his body is to be melted down and turned into Lego for young children to play with.” The performer first came to Perth as a member of the Jackson Five in 1973. In 1985 he was cajoled into appearing on Seven’s Telethon, but didn’t sing. The appearance was part of a deal struck with the TV station’s also now dead entrepreneurial owner for Jackson to purchase from him the rights to a catalogue of Beatles music. The singer came back to Perth for three sellout concerts in 1996. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Ella Fitzgerald: Stone Cold Dead In De Market (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
6:19 am	Rottnest Island - A great winter weekend to be there As I write this entry at 6 am the weather outside is calm, not particularly cold and there is no rain in sight on the radar. Apparently it’s the calm before the storm. Yesterday all the Rottnest ferries advised they were canceling their services for the next few days in anticipation of a mighty storm and mountainous seas. Subsequently, holiday makers on the island were leaving early lest they became stranded and liable for additional accommodation charges. If the storm system develops as promised I’d love to be on the island. I’d head out to the west end and stand near the tip of Cape Vlamingh taunting God with things like, “Bring it on!” and, “Is that the best you can do?” Of course I’d be dressed for the occasion in warm winter clothing, strong boots and my Fremantle Dockers beanie and scarf. Plus I’d make sure I had a packet of Columbine toffees in one pocket and a packet of Monte Carlo biscuits in the other - and my wife Jill to share it all. Perfect. Even more perfect would be the realisation that most of the other island visitors had shot through to the mainland. Below is a photo I took of a storm approaching Cape Vlamingh a couple of years ago. Storm approaching Cape Vlamingh - April 2007 © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Howard Shore: The Lord of the Rings - 'A Storm Is Coming' (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
9:23 am	The launch of the new ‘Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia’ It was probably the largest gathering of Western Australian historians in history at the undercroft of the University of Western Australia’s Winthrop Hall last night. The occasion was the launch of the 1,013 page Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia - a collaborative effort over about the past seven years by some 600 contributors and readers - all pulled together by editors Jenny Gregory and Jan Gothard. An encyclopedic aggregation of historians My contribution was a small 200 word entry about early sealing exploitation in the southwest. It was a spinoff from my PhD. The entry started off larger, but as the main project developed it became apparent to the editors that many of the contributors would have to be more concise - meaning a lot less words from me. As you can tell from my two-image panorama above there were a lot of old codgers in the undercroft last night. I rocked up with two of my beautiful young daughters. They could carry me home if I drank to much chardonnet. I was very pleased to meet up with several people I knew, including my very good friend Dr Dr Neville Green. No, it’s not a typo, he has two PhDs. Here’s a picture of us snapped by one of my daughters: Dr Paul Weaver & Dr Dr Neville Green I also met up with a newer friend in the form of six foot plus, David Cohen, aka Mr Rotto Bloggo and crime reporter for the Post group of suburban newspapers. He’s young enough so that one day he should know where all our bodies are buried. David Cohen - Intrepid Rotto Bloggo and Post newspaper reporter The official launch was by State Premier Colin Barnett. Prior to the proceedings there was an indigenous welcoming ceremony. A Perth Nyungar leader Len Collard and his daughter performed a modernised ritual in the spirit of reconciliation. That’s another of my scholarly friends, maritime historian Dr Malcolm Tull looking on: A Nyungar welcoming ceremony ushers in the launch of the new Encyclopedia © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Alan Sivestri: Predator II: This is History (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
6:13 am	Chilling down with the cats My friend Kevin has revealed in his blog Lock Family Ramblings that he made it safely to Bali yesterday in a good old fashioned, reliable Boeing aircraft. USA! USA! He’d been worried that the original booking had listed a Eurofrog Airbus 300. So was I. It might have been the one that nearly fell out of the sky on Monday during an inbound flight to Perth. Several passengers were injured and the aircraft interior was damaged as their bodies flayed about. There’s been at least three very scary incidents when Airbuses inbound to Perth have suddenly plunged earthwards out of control. The causes remain a mystery. Kevin and his wife will be trying all sorts of exotic foods in Bali. The chefs can do wonders with rabid dogs harvested from remote villages. Back here on the home front we wombats have been content to stay inside and watch wannabe MasterChefs go through their paces in Hong Kong. Last night it was ‘Slow Cooked Pigeon with Perigord Black Truffles.’ Yuk! It’s all convincing us that our home style cooking is pretty good after all. I might nip over to the local Coles supermarket this morning and buy a loaf of crispy bread and a hot chicken off the rotisserie for lunch. The last few days have been very cold. The temperature plunged to just below 10° C last night (50° F). The cats have been staying in most of the day and we make sure we keep them in at night. Max the tabby is our biggest moggie. He spread himself on our bed last night. It was like having a sack of wheat on my legs. During the days Max and Bubbles vie for the top of the Hi Fi system, but it it’s not switched on they go for the basket next to it: Cat nappers I find it very reassuring that the cats are so comfortable. When it’s cold and raining like today is going to be, I feel like snuggling in with them, but there’s not enough room. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Bernard Herrmann: The Resort In Winter (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
5:59 am	A slap in the face for Western Australian history and John Septimus Roe An extraordinary opportunity at a local auction was missed last weekend to acquire for the State Archives Battye Library a collection of more than 200 private papers and letters by one of Western Australia’s most important founding fathers, John Septimus Roe. (1797-1878). There was a report in The West Australian yesterday. The successful bidder was Hordern House Rare Books director Anne McCormic. She scooped them up for $300,000, which is about the price you’d expect to pay for one pretty ordinary suburban house in Perth these days. Mr Roe’s fingerprints are all over the early development of the Swan River Colony because he was it’s first Surveyor General. He arrived with Governor Stirling on the Parmelia with the first settlers in 1829. His name is perpetuated in places such as the Roe Highway and more unfortunately, the infamous Roe Street next to Perth Railway Station which became brothel-central up to about the late 1950s. There’s also a statue of him in St George's Terrace, which is arguably Perth’s most imposing thoroughfare. During the first 20 years, as well as setting out the designs for Perth and Fremantle, (and Rottnest) he undertook an enormous number of inland and coastal explorations to gather intelligence for the advancement of the colony. He was indefatigable in his duties. I showed one of his survey maps in Fremantlebiz on 1 July 2008. I have an original photo of Mr Roe in my private collection. I acquired it for a few dollars at a flea market - in a dilapidated old leather album with a whole bunch of other 19th century portraits. It was obviously taken in his later years: An original photo of John Septimus Roe in my private collection There is much material in the Battye library relating to his official duties, but according to an excellent biography Not an Idle Man by J.L. Burton-Jackson (1982. p. ii) finding information about his private life was difficult. Thus it may be appreciated that the auctioned papers and letters which not only dated back to his childhood, but also covered his former naval experiences and the voyage to Swan River on the Parmelia, were in fact significantly important to the history of Western Australia. JSR was tramping about Western Australia long before he stepped ashore with Stirling in 1829. He’d joined the Royal Navy as a 16 year old apprentice in 1813 and saw active service in the French blockade. The navy trained him as a competent midshipman and chartmaker. Prior to the Swan River Colony, his fingerprints were on early coastal explorations of Newfoundland, Southeast Asia, South Africa and other parts of Western Australia. In January 1817 he was exploring alone on foot the environs of King George Sound on the south coast, having arrived there on the Mermaid under Lt. Phillip Parker King. He returned there with King on the Bathurst in late 1821 and did more surveys which preceded a permanent military garrison, which was established in 1826. The same Bathurst expedition brought Roe to Rottnest Island on 14 January 1822, a visit I briefly mentioned in Fremantlebiz on 24 November 2008. Roe had a lucky escape from death the previous year on the Bathurst. He survived a fifty foot fall from the rigging, having been flipped off as the anchor was let go. He struck other objects on the way down which slowed the fall, but he sustained a deep wound to his right temple. The scar is discernible in the photo above. It’s been dodged out in other photos I’ve seen of him. According to his biographer, many years later he attributed the eventual loss of his sight in that eye to the incident. Tomorrow night at the University of Western Australia’s Winthrop Hall, the Liberal State Premier Colin Barnett is to officially launch the new Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia. I don’t suppose he’ll mention that under his leadership one of the most important collections of private historical documents which has come up for auction has just been lost to the state. The Barnett government is also currently in the process of permanently shutting down the Fremantle Social History Museum, which is a branch of the Western Australian Museum. Ironically, John Septimus Roe is regarded by historians as the founding father of the Western Australian State Library and the Western Australian Museum. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Bill Frisell: History Mystery - 'A Change is Gonna Come' (Comment on this)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
7:58 am	In like Flynn The citizens of Tasmania went gaga on Saturday because it was the 100th birthday of Hollywood film star Errol Flynn. He was born in Hobart as an Australian to Australian parents. There’s a possibility he was related in a way to me because I have a cousin who married a Flynn and I’m vaguely aware of Tasmanian connection. Errol Flynn’s Hollywood movies were made between 1933 and 1959, so the end of his career overlapped my childhood. I can’t actually recall seeing any of his movies at a cinema. I guess I must have, because before TV going to the movies was a pretty regular experience. I’m pretty sure there would have been plenty of times as well with re-runs on black and white TV. But as a kid at primary school his legendary fame was for something more bizarre. Probably every sniggering schoolboy I knew when I was at Attadale Primary School was aware of an ‘absolute fact’ that Errol Flynn had an enormous penis - something like about 20 inches long. There was a Catholic church and primary school called Saint Joseph’s nearby. The priest’s name was Father Flynn. It was an unfortunate coincidence. There was plenty of sniggering about him too, especially when he was seen driving somewhere with a car full of nuns. Whether it was true or not, Errol Flynn’s name was more synonymous with big dicks than his acting ability. We kids didn’t need to know anything else. It was enough. Now I know better. It appears he was indeed a sexual athlete, but 20 inches must have been an exaggeration. Looking over Errol’s filmography I see there were some interesting titles. Were they double entendres? In 1957 there was The Big Boodle and The Sun Also Rises, and in 1958 The Roots of Heaven and Too much, Too soon. (No sniggering please.) The man was a pioneering inspiration in 53 mostly action-adventure movies. His daughter’s website says it much better than I could. Flynn’s final movie - a reality action doco His final movie was in 1959 titled, Cuban Rebel Girls. That was the year of the Cuban Communist revolution. Errol was a Castro sympathizer and is possibly part of reason why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has steadfastly refused to recognise him with a posthumous Oscar. He died in 1959 aged 50. The circumstances reminded me of the late Heath Ledger. After reading Mr Flynn’s Wikipedia bio I’m surprised someone hasn’t turned the life story of this famous Australian into a blockbuster movie. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: David Hirschfelder: Death Of Flynn (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
5:38 am	Checking out the new Acropolis Museum And now for a little history lesson dear children. Yesterday was a big day in Athens and I wouldn’t have minded being there. It marked the opening of the new Acropolis Museum. Yep, that’s right, I’m still interested in Greekish stuff. The modern Greeks need to get down on their hands and knees and thank the actress Melina Merkouri for coming up with the idea 27 years ago. She said something like, “We should get off our backsides and build a joint as good as the British Museum to look after the old stuff.” Sad to say, she didn’t live long enough to see the day. Unfortunately for the Poms the notion also inflamed a Greek nationalistic passion to demand that they return the stuff souvenired by the 7th Earl of Elgin during the early 19th century. I read the prewritten opening speech made yesterday by the Greek Minister for Culture. He was still whining, albeit theatrically: “All of the artifacts are parts of our soul. Mostly the ones missing! With the anticipation that eventually – better sooner than later – they will be re-united in their birth place and in the integral form they were meant to be.” He obviously didn't believe in the saying, “Finders keepers…” The British Museum is chockers with lowly paid Keepers. They look after all sorts of cool stuff on behalf of humanity, and especially the Elgin Marbles taken from the Parthenon. (Perhaps also part of the original idea was why go to Turkish dominated Greece and get robbed when you could stay in London and see them for free.) As if to prove the point, the new Acropolis Museum charges one Euro to get in and see plaster casts, which is 100 percent more that what the British charge to see the real thing. According to the BBC when the opening ceremony got under way in Athens yesterday the director of the new museum said the British had committed "an act of barbarism." That’s a bit rich considering Greece’s modern history of military juntas. I first saw the Elgin Marbles them when I was in London in the late 1960s. They were very nice. I thought about pinching them as souvenirs, but decided they’d be too heavy. Instead I rode a motorbike to Greece (true) to check out if there were any more. I saw some neat stuff, but being on a bike I couldn’t grab very much. Hermes the Greek groper Instead, I’ve had to be content with replica souvenirs of ancient Greek ceramics which I find from time to time at the local flea market for a couple of dollars. The most recent plunder was the platter above which I acquired a few weeks ago. It depicts Hermes about to grope a naked lady at Semeli, which in modern Greek reads as Σεμέλι. Click here to visit the new Acropolis Museum website. Make sure you toggle the AAA frame for the English version or it will be all Greek. I looked at the souvenirs. It’s a pretty feeble assortment of kitsch compared to the olden days. The British Museum website is more informative and the shophas a much larger and more tasteful range of souvenirs. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Ensemble Melpomen: Ancient Greek Music - Arianna Savall: 'Sáppho' (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
7:57 am	So you think you can cook and dance? This family has become addicted to the nightly Australian Master Chef ‘reality’ series on Ten. For the past several weeks we’ve been glued to our TV lounge settees watching various contestants get eliminated, and usually agreeing with the decisions. Amazingly, last night was episode 47. Now there’s only five contestants left. Next week they move to Hong Kong for some Chinese style culinary action. We’re looking forward to that. Scorpion and snake stew perhaps? I gather the sequence has already been done. Us couch potatoes are being maintained suspensefully in a time warp. The free to air series has been hard to fault. We’ve actually liked all the contestants and judges. The only criticism I’d make is that some of the contestants and one of the chef-judges need lessons in how to clean beneath their fingernails. There were some pretty grubby digits inadvertently displayed last night. Amongst my favorite Australians whom have been dispatched back to from whence they came included Tom the gentle, always smiling, 39 year old black lawyer with Thursday Island connections. Nothing seemed to rattle him in the heat of the kitchen. Another was Poh Ling Yeow the 35 year old artistic woman with Chinese Malaysian origins. Never mind how well she cooked, I thought her face was just gorgeous. So with five contestants left who is going to be the winner? I reckon it will be a showdown between 23 year old attractive blonde Justine with French ancestry and 41 year old Chris, a hairy Melbourne ‘beer merchant’ and the only person on the show who insists on wearing a hat while working in the kitchen. I’m expecting Chris to take the prize. So is he. She can dance, but can she cook? Following in Ten’s Friday night time slot after Master Chef is the American version of So you think you can dance. Last night’s episode covered the auditions in Miami. As with Australian several brands of talent shows there were some outstanding performers - and some real doozies. The three judges tend to make me wince more, especially the ‘ageless’ Mary Murphy, the squealing woman with the deluxe teeth. Last night there was a new judge with the nastiest, most spiteful persona I’ve ever seen in any talent show. I just checked their website and it looks like he’s been dumped. There’s a much better produced Australian version of the show. Ten is currently accepting online registrationsfor the 2010 series auditions. Alas, I wouldn’t even be classified as a doozie hippo. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Freo (Fremantle) Samba: Carnival Drumming with Freo Samba - "Du Dah Dance' (Comment on this)
Friday, June 19th, 2009
6:09 am	Some followup Donald Duck fun An overnight storm has been lashing us with wind and rain overnight. At 5am the aeolian performance is still going on. On the TV weather reports last night there was a warning of possible 120 KPH winds around dawn this morning which made us a bit jittery. Dawn hasn’t arrived yet. But wait, there’s going to be more! The TV boffins also reckoned we might be in for a severe electrical storm later today. Last week was Donald Duck’s 75th birthday. I mentioned it on 10 June 2009. Jill, my Akela Cub Scout wife then mentioned it to her pack that night and revealed she would send each of them by email a cut out mask of the famous duck the following day. We’d found it in a scanned 1950s comic. For the exercise I’d removed most of the original colours with Photoshop. The instructions were simple. The Cubs were print off a copy, colour it in and stick it on a piece of cardboard such as you’d find on the side of a cereal packet. Then at the Cub meeting this week they were to turn up with it for a group photo. Some kids forgot their mask so they didn’t get to be in the photo. However, generally the idea was a success: Can you tell the boys from the girls Furthermore, one of the Cub Scout’s grandmothers baked a Donald Duck cake. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it. However, I was informed it was delicious. Click here or the image below if you’d like to make your own DD mask for a bit of fun. From 1st Fremantle Sea Scouts © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: The Chick Corea Elektric Band: Beneath The Mask (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
5:57 am	Rottnest Island - Some remaindered book bargains and sightings of aerial pictures There’ve been some bargain priced books involving Rottnest this year. A few months ago the Western Australian Museum began clearing out Phillip Playford’s highly collectable hard-cover Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australis by Willem de Vlamingh in 1696-97 for less than ten bucks. Remaindered for less than ten bucks! Sob! There’s no doubt it should be on the bookshelf of anyone with a serious interest in Rottnest because it contains translations of observations of the island made during the 17th century expedition. I bought three copies a couple of months ago at the old Fremantle Maritime Museum bookshop. It’s still listed at the bargain price on the parent WA Museum website. On Tuesday I found another book bargain for under ten bucks at Garden City. Dymocks were having a remaindered sale in the concourse near the food hall. I think the sale is running for the rest of the week. The book was aerial photographer Tim Mooney’s lavish 2007 effort, Perth Waterfronts. There was a large stack of maybe 50 copies for sale on Tuesday. It contains 152 large-format colour pages featuring Perth’s river and ocean real estate frontages. The back section has several full-page aerial photos of Rottnest. Tim’s website still features the book at it’s original price of fifty bucks. He’s also happy to sell to entrepreneurs any of any of his individual images for around $75 each. I think the original intention of the publication was possibly to generate potential buyer-interest in Perth’s most prestigious real estate localities, that’s to say the riversides and along the coast. However what struck me as I turned the pages was how unsympathetic urban developers and planners have been to the fragile natural environment of these areas over time. Tim’s images unintentionally bear mute testimony to the excesses of the super rich and flamboyant wannabes who have repeatedly gouged and trampled the terrain to erect their all-too-frequently, ugly, overly zealous, Leggo-box shaped, extravagant, pretentious, ostentatious, energy-sapping, vulgar ‘palaces‘ - all made out of ticky tacky... The remaindered book at $9.95 is a must-have for anyone interested in examining architectural overkill and environmental destruction through intensive human activity, including on Rottnest. Photos of Rottnest by another aerial photographer named Michael Abicare were featured in an ‘unwatermarked’ gallery a couple of weeks ago on the Sunday Times ‘Perth Now’ website. Lucky I grabbed them for my own reference purposes at the time, because the gallery has since disappeared. However, you can get an idea of his work by checking out the ‘watermarked’ images on his website. Back on the subject of books, there’s one I contributed to being launched at a soirée in the University of Western Australia’s Winthrop Hall next Wednesday at 5.30pm. It’s title is Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia. Its RRP will be five cents short of a cool hundred bucks, so unfortunately that might ensure it never gets into the homes of most Western Australian families. Maybe it will have to be remaindered too? © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Danny Elfman: Beetlejuice OST - 'The Book! Obituaries' (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
7:58 am	Raising kids - Sing Fest! 2009; and some inspiring juvenile reading Yesterday as dutiful parents my wife and I trotted along to the Melville City Council’s main hall at Booragoon. (It’s the venue with the dirtiest windows in the Garden City precinct.) The Council rented it out for a three day choral concert by 27 non-elite public primary schools from the Fremantle-Peel education district. (Elite private schools such as the ones on the Rudd Government’s multi-million dollar favorites list announced last week have halls, but outsiders are not welcome.) Before the concert started yesterday the organisers announced that the rental of the facility had drained their budget. Would parents please donate a gold (coloured) coin when they left. Our youngest daughter was singing on stage with classmates from Bicton Primary School. Here a picture taken from the back of the hall: Bicton PS students at Sing Fest! 2009 Our ten year old daughter was wearing a red head band. You might (not) be able to spot it if you click the pic up to a larger size. Her group sang two songs, ABBA’s ‘Fernando’ and another titled ‘You raise me up.‘ ‘Fernando’ was a mistake, it’s not really suitable for a choir because it has long solos, and one of the soloists forgot the ends of her several lines. It must have been an excruciating experience for her. Generally however, all the kids gave us a lot of pleasure watching and listening to them. There were seven schools which took turns on stage yesterday afternoon. Afterwards we wandered into the Garden City shopping mall to collect a new book which our youngest son (14) has been anticipating for many months. He’s living proof that miracles happen. He had great difficulty in learning to read at primary school. For years he struggled and was well below the level of his peers, but then something clicked and now to our joy he’s a readerholic. The new ($17) paperback which he wanted was titled Eagle Day. It’s the latest in a “Henderson’s Boys” juvenile thriller series by Robert Muchamore. The blurb on the back cover says, “ Late summer, 1940. Hitler has conquered France. Now he intends to cross the Channel and defeat Britain before winter arrives. A group of young refugees led by British spy Charles Henderson faces a stark choice. To head south into the safety of neutral Spain, or go north on a risky mission to sabotage the German invasion plans.” As someone who learned read with the help of a literary diet of ‘Biggles’ and ‘William’ books, I can say the subject sounds much far more interesting than some of the depressing feminist drivel which has dominated school reading lists for the past 20 years. The proof is in our son’s enthusiasm. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: Nico Muhly: The Reader OST - 'Reading' (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
8:05 am	Another iMac has landed We bought a sexy new 20 inch iMac last week for our three school age kids to share. The main stimulus was that the federal government is running a generous incentive called the Education Tax Refund scheme. Each school age child in our family is eligible for a grant towards purchase of education materials, including computers and software. Furthermore the grants can be combined, which in effect meant we were able to grab the new Mac at half price. The only catch is that the refund from the Federal government won’t be in our hot little hands until after the end of June, which marks the conclusion of the financial year. There’s about 15 days to go. So dear reader if you are an Australian citizen and have school kids then you need to act fast and buy one before the end of June. In these times of economic crisis there is no guarantee how long the scheme will continue, and even if it does, if you buy after June 30 you will have to wait until the end of the 2010 financial year for the refund. We quickly embraced home computers when they became available in the early 1980s. There was cassette tape loading Vic 20s and a 16 k Sinclair Spectrum, then the Commodore 64. It had an external five and a quarter inch floppy-disk reader. Wow! However, we’ve been using Apple Macs in this house since before 1990. In dollar terms a basic model cost the same over the counter as now, around A$2,000. Since then we’ve been seduced by several of Apple’s ‘new’ models. There was a monochrome Classic, an SE30, a Powerbook laptop, a couple of Performas, an original cherry red iMac, and the computer I’m mainly using now, a flat screen 20 inch iMac. Plus a few years ago there was an enthusiastic purchase of about ten surplus Blueberry iMacs for our kids at $100 each from Curtin University. That inspired me to successfully run cable throughout our house and back building for ethernet. I wrote about this surge on our power bill in Fremantlebiz on 7 April 2005 with an essay titled ‘iMac mania’. In the ensuing years several of the old Blueberries blinked out, or were spurned by our kids because the CRT screens became too dull. Most of our cashed up young adults, even the ones who had left the nest, easily became seduced by new LCD flat screen Apple iMacs. So where do you buy a new Mac in the next fifteen days? Well Apple Au have a very efficient online system and after pressing a few buttons, they will deliver one from China to your door within a few days. We’ve used this method a couple of times and it was very good. But you can get a better deal from retailers like JB Hi-Fi, Myer and David Jones (DJs). We gave DJs our business last week because while their price was the same as Apple’s online price, they were throwing in a couple of software packs for iWorks 09 and Nortons. We didn’t need Nortons so they gave us $100 bucks off Apple’s pro-imaging software Aperture, which I still haven’t tried. Plus if we had with American Express they’d have thrown in a couple of external Bose hi-fi speakers. We don’t have an Amex card and resisted the temptation to sign up for one on the spot. So if you qualify for a half price iMac, now’s the time to do it. © MMIX Paul R. Weaver. Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays: Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website. Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio  website or my Picasa site.  Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay.  Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them. About the writer Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212 Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally.  An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz! Current Music: 2001: A Space Odyssey, OST: 'Hal 9000' (Dialog Montage) (Comment on this)