Launching Books

Went to a book launch last night, my first. Actually it was a launch of two books, guess you could call it a books launch.








So let's start with the books. The first one was How to Create a Novel by Robert Copley.

The second The Recipes and Rhymes of Adam McKay by of course Adam McKay. Adam was involved in a motor vehicle-bicycle accident in 2003 and his book is part of his therapy.

These are e-books and it was fascinating to see the operation of the ILiad reader. Unfortunately the price of about $1000 makes it a rich mans toy. My eeepc will have to do for the meantime.

Trixie Gone

Shot Taken 9:00am this Morning


Took the cat to the vet this afternoon.

Buried her outside Roslyn's window.

Born Loser

Recently haven't had much luck with shopping.

1. As a general rule anything I want to buy does not have a price tag on it. Dug my heals in and got a shop assistant to tell me the price of the chillis (I only wanted 40 cents worth). $9.95 he said so I bought 2 of them and took them to the checkout. $14.95 Kg the machine said, so I stood on my digs and eventually they gave them to me for $9.95, might have saved a couple of cents.

2. The local supermarket had a single queue, multi server checkout system. Now they have changed it to a multi queue, multi server system. This is a bad system as it is not fair to the customer, but I guess Woolworths shareholders don't give two stuffs about their customers. Anyway, I espied a queue with no one so ducked into it only to be confronted with the check out operator changing a receipt roll, which didn't go too well for her. Would have been better off in my original queue. A dissatisfaction that would not have happened with the single queue, multi server system.

3. Now I feel better

GMail and Spam

I have been checking the GMail spam box of late and the statistic is one incorrectly email in the last 1200 auto filtered into the spam box.

Sex takes up more than half of the spam, here is a sample of the subject lines.


Your intimate life assistant
Dont let your xlife go down due to lack of bluepills, get'em here!
Boost your acting in bed
Make her wet tonight
The dimension you've dreamed about
How take her all night long
Become the wild thing
Turn it into a thing she would never forget
Stay man even being drunk
Grow your tool today
Change your small trout into a great white shark
Poke her deeper
12 more inches aint so bad, don't you think so?
Be king in the bedroom
Lengthen and thicken your tool
Huge manhood is your ticket to paradise
Get it longer, fuller, and stronger




The spam box was up to 700 at one stage, but it dropped off dramatically sometime ago and after reaching a low of about 100, is now back up to 300 which seems to be fairly stable at the moment. Google has a 30 day holding policy, so that's about 10 a day. Not too bad I guess, but what a waste of bandwidth.

Photographing Speeding Bullets

A Speeding Bullet

Taking this photograph was an interesting exercise, and one best left to the laboratories. I am pretty sure the flash was triggered by the shock wave.

There was a small slit (the white rectangle above) in the side of a tube, possibly 3 metres in length. The bullet was snapped as it passed this slit.

The Royal

The Royal

Somewhere about 1963/1964, the Australian Government decided to switch to decimal currency. That occurred 14 Feb 1966, but at the time of the announcement, the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies decreed the new currency would be called 'Royals" rather than dollars.

Naturally this suggestion didn't last all that long, but before it got changed, the students union of the University of New South Wales ( UNSW ) had printed 'a million Royals'.

The Good Old Infantry

Found this in a clean up.


Old King Cole

Old King Cole was a merry old sole, and a merry old sole was he
He called from his pipe and called for his bowl
And called for his buglers three
O toodle oddle oddle oddle oddle ooo said the buglers,
You will all agree, there's none so fine in the whole front line
As the good old infantry!

Old King Cole was a merry old sole, and a merry old sole was he
He called from his pipe and called for his bowl
And called for his privates three
Oh beer beer beer beer said the privates
Toodle oddle oddle oddle oddle ooo said the buglers
You will all agree, there's none so fine in the whole front line
As the good old infantry!

Corporals three-
Left right left right said the corporals

Sergeants three-
Move to the right in threes said the sergeants

Subalterns-
We want six months leave said the subalterns

Captains-
We do all the work said the Captains

Majors-
Damned fine body of men said the Majors

Padres-
May-the-Lord-have-mercy-on-your-sole,* said the padres
( - slowly *fast)


The above is from a note written by by my father. He comments;

1) I can't remember what the Colonels said
2) Saw the Canadian satellite go over last night, heading north (gives a date?)