Wednesday 28 March 2007
You can squeeze my lemon..
If you can tell me what song that classic line comes from, well, go you.
I haven't got much to say today.
Actually, I've got bucketloads, but between the Hicks fiasco and the burning down of the Rebels clubhouse, I can't focus.
What to do?
Just put photos up.
The beauty of blogging with photos, I guess.
these are some older ones I actually thought weren't that great, but I've tried to clean them up a bit, cropped some boring bits out.
The first one is a shot looking upriver towards the GoMA at Southbank.
This one is of the big balls outside the new council building.
There were some peckers dancing or something in the shot. You can see their feet.
That's all.
One day I'll rant about something again.
Any ideas?
Tuesday 20 March 2007
River Runs Red...
Or sort of blue, in this case.
I went for a walk down to Portside Wharf this evening.
By myself.
Which, as it turned out, was a good thing, given how much time I wasted down there. In addition, having had a few beers before I went down, I thought it would be a top idea to climb down into the disgusting river mud to get a better angle.
It wasn't, and I didn't.
But I did get these shots.
All with 20-30 seconds of exposure, iso 100, various f-stops just to get the right exposure. Basically I just adjusted the aperture to get as long a shutter speed as possible to smooth out the water.
By the way, I've played around with Photoshop settings, so the images are higher quality and may take a sec to load.
Enjoy.
(PS the last shot with the branches isn't great, but it was an experiment where I had the camera flash once to pick of the twigs, then a 30 second exposure. I think it might work with some practice)
Monday 19 March 2007
Let's waste time...
It upsets me that a song I really don't mind (a bit whiny, but good nonetheless) makes me think of the completely ridiculous crap waste of airtime that is Grey's Anatomy.
Sure, the OC was also crap and I watched that, but it wasn't anywhere near as moralistic and cloying as Grey's Anatomy.
In other news,
I.e. you continue to assert that the solution to the problem will be found when women are treated in the same way as men, rather than on a gender neutral basis.
And if it is the intent that may be suspect, and needs to be changed, how, in reality, do we do that?
In the same way, there is a high level of crime in the immigrant Sudanese community, and murder is a crime, therefore high levels of Sudanese immigration cause the murder rate to rise.
Fundamentally, I’m not going to change the way I do things. If offer a seat on the bus, or open a door, or buy dinner for a girl, I’m going to keep doing it.
I will continue to open the car door for my lady. I will continue to enjoy it when I cook a good feed and the girl in my life smiles and thanks me, and eats with gusto. I will continue to moderate my boorish behaviour when women are around and save it for poker nights, for I believe women are worthy of that respect for putting up with crap from blokes for time immemorial.
And I will continue to let ladies go first when it is reasonable - and be quietly chuffed when I get a smile from a nice lady, and slightly bemused when I get a accusatory look.
Cheers.
Thursday 15 March 2007
Attack of the degree wielding experts
Hotel Charleville.
Dodgy, don't stay there.
So, I've been out at sunny Charleville for work for a few days this week.
An interesting little place, I actually had quite a good time. We went out there to have a look at how a company which we manage a chunk of funding for was spending our dough. The dough is generally for landcare type projects - conservation with real results, I suppose.
We went to the RSL with a bloke who is a roo shooter.
Got into an interesting conversation about "degree wielding experts" that come out form the city, think they're the smartest person in the room, and don't talk to the locals.
Because they're scientists, and they're economists, and they've been to uni. Therefore they must know best.
Typical yokel comment right?
The bloke's a roo shooter, for god's sake.
Of course, just like the young gunslinger that rides into town and picks a fight with the old hand, it's not real bright to start throwing your weight around when you don't know what the other blokes holding.
A roo shooter that used to be a hippy surfer with a long series of letters after his name, if he was enough of a wanker to want to do that.
Anyway, it was an interesting conversation.
In the end, it just boiled down to one thing - there are NO correct answers.
We sit in the city and carry on about global warming, when the farmers can actually see it. And it seems we have the nerve to assume they are all rednecks that just want to rape the earth.
Of course, there are more than a few of them too, rednecks I mean. But they're not all morons.
An example - an idealistic public servant tells a local sheep farmer that he must start thinking about carbon offset trading. The world is in trouble and you can't just go around denuding the land with your cloven hoofed devil spawn. You need to do something proactive.
So, says the farmer, sort of like the deal I have with a large mining company where they pay me to plant trees and not exercise my clearing licenses? The one I went and negotiated five years ago?
Ummmm, yep, just like that.
I know I'm being a bit all over the place, and I'm well aware that these types of stories are really the minority.
Most farmers aren't doing the right thing, and most will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world.
The danger is lumping people into one group and treating them like children, and alienating the people that are going to be able to help fix this problem the world has created.
These landholders control most of the country, and we certainly aren't going to fix things by driving less cars in the cities.
Anyway, here are some photos from the trip.
The Warrego River from out the back of the Waltzing Matilda Motel.
And again.
The Warrego River again, but at 6 in the morning.
A place called the trucking reserve. It's a couple of thousand acres where cattle used to be rested on long trips, and it's being regenerated.
Cheers.
Tuesday 6 March 2007
Something so strong...
Dah dah, dah dah, danananana....
We decided to run up to the top of Mount Coot-tha on Sunday afternoon.
"Why?" you ask, and well you should, for there is a road that goes all the way to the top, and a car I do have.
Apart from not being very bright, I did have a good reason.
I am a bit unfit, and we are shortly to go wandering about South America, climbing up and down mountains whilst carrying packs.
It behooves one to start training a bit.
Happily, I took my camera, so we took a break at the top long enough to grab a few shots. I say long enough - in fact, as stuffed as we were, I had tons of time to take photos.
In case you are wondering, that is the Brisbane city centre in the distance there. We were going to hang around and wait until the sun went down a bit to get some better shadows, maybe some city lights....
...but we didn't. Maybe next time.
photo info :
Make | SONY |
Model | DSLR-A100 |
Software | Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows |
Exposure Time | 1/500 sec |
F-Stop | f/4.5 |
ISO Speed Ratings | 100 |
Focal Length | 18 mm |
Date Taken | 2007-03-04 15:55 |
Metering Mode | Spot |
Light Source | Daylight |
Flash | Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode |
Hasta luego.
Trying to catch the deluge in a paper cup
A request.
What do I think about the scary man from WA? Well, that narrows it down. Which one?
In truth, I really wasn’t going to bother about it.
It’s a little bit like Wolf Creek.
I heard all about it. It was going to be the scariest movie ever. Full of gore, suspense and terror.
Full of shit, more like. It was crap.
A bit like this garbage.
I realise I am a bit biased, but it really is a storm in a heart shaped teacup (these are cool, from this shop in Melbourne, BTW)
The media seems to be in a frenzy about it, so much so that I am completely confused as to whether or not anyone even cares. The media certainly does, and they would have you believe that it’s a very big deal. And, por supuesto, Howard and co want you to think that too.
But I asked a couple of people in the office about it. These are public servants, people who have time to read the news websites. Most didn’t care, and I had one ask “Burke? The guy with the gardening show? Did he go to jail?”
I have to conclude that the only people that care are the so-called elites and journalists. The politicians and the politics bloggers.
I realise what Howard is trying to do. He is using it to attack Rudd’s credibility, and it’s worked so far.
But only very slightly.
And now he’s gone too far. He should have been satisfied with a few points scored, but he’s pushed that extra bit. Sacking his minister for the sole purpose of scoring political points was a mistake.
Howard’s, and the Lib’s, problem is that he has for too long done whatever he likes, without anyone asking questions. He thinks he can carry on and people will lap it up. And the punters have certainly not given him any reason to think differently, so far.
He’s pushing too hard on this one, and people aren’t listening.
One thing worries me, though. This meeting first came out in November last year. It was a non-issue then, and suddenly becomes an issue when the Lib’s need some ammunition.
Now, even they must know it’s pretty weak, even if they’re flogging it for all it’s worth. They’ve pulled it out very early in the piece if they want it to affect Rudd’s election chances – I don’t think anyone will remember it by October.
So either they couldn’t wait any longer because waiting that long after November last year to bring it up would have looked even more stupid, or they have something really juicy that they’re saving for closer to the election.
I think that Labor’s adopting the right strategy so far. They appear quite calm about it, while the Lib’s look like a bunch of laughing hyenas.
As long as they can bring the discussion back to actual issues, they should be right.