Love, Is a Burnin' Thing...

Remember, YT is me (yours truly) and WP is The Most Wonderful Woman In The Entire World (wifey poo).

The following is a real, true conversation (made up crap) betwixt YT and WP!

YT: *gazing longingly at WP* "Have I mentioned how much you love me?"

WP: *vvvvveeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy looooooooooonnnnnnnngggggggggg pause...* "Uuuuuummmmmm, yes dear?!"

YT: "Cool! Just checkin'"

and here's me girlie-friend:

Whoa, git a load of da pollen on dat babe!

Blast From The Past

Well, sorta, kinda... One of these pics you've seen before but the others you haven't. I found the other 4 when I was searching for the first one. Why was I searching for the first one? Cus Jim and Heather want to know what the cat (His Royal Highness Prince Bagheera; Lord and Master of All He Surveys) felt about the wee little birdies in his backyard.

Wee little doesn't *exactly* describe these birds... volume-wise, the cockies are bigger than he is. With longer claws and beaks that'll easily rip almonds shells to shreds (+2000 psi). Ummmmm, I think the cat is out of his league, eh?


Oh, HELL NO! I'm not gonna mess with that bugger!


I shall now pretend that I don't care and show magnamity by sharing MY yard with birds


Perhaps after seeing these next shots you'll understand why the cat prefers not to tangle with these blokes (and blokettes).




And finally, proof positive that my picture taking and framing skills suck bigtime:

Nice claws, eh?

Free Parrot Wallpaper

Yes, you can have one of my "exquisite" aussie parrot pics as wallpaper! Hmmmmmmm, now which one should I choose... Ah, yes! Do y'all 'member when I was up on the balcony taking pics of the cockatoos? And there was one that flew right up to me and hovered for a moment? And the shutter on the camera clicked at just the right time? Yeah, that's the one! How's that sound for wallpaper? So here's ya are:

Please note that in order to get it for wallpaper size, just click on the pic. It'll EXPLODE up to 1024 by 768 pixels. Should be good enough for most folks. Go ahead and save it, no worries. Set it as your wallpaper, no worries. Share it around with your friends, no worries --weeeeelllllll, at least be kind and point them here, ta!

And since you are expecting pics of my new girlfriend, here's one of her showing her perfect pink breast while naked and adorned in chains as seen through a peep show window:


As always, his high and royal highness signals his approval by doing absolutely nothing (thereby decreasing his entropy and doing his part to keep the universe from collapsing):

Under Their Spell

You will wake up early...

You will stagger outside in your robe at 530 am...

You will have a 2 kilo bag of sunflower seeds with you...

You will spread the seeds everywhere...

You will jump when we squack...

You have no will of your own...

You will do this every morning...

And every evening...

Or we will crap in your pool...

And rip your hair out...

My New Girlfriend (and my wife likes her!)

Yeah, well, ya know... just what the heck can a bloke do when he's such a babe magnet? The natural studliness, the muscles, the piercing eyes, strong jaw, the ability to lift heavy objects, knowledge of powertools, awesome cooking ability (despite what some of you may have heard), tall, great sense of humour, landscaper extradinaire, computer genius, wonderful fashion sense, and not conceited or boastful at all *ahem* *cough*.

Last evening my girlfriend showed up and treated both myself and my wife to a show. She sang, primped, and flouted herself shamelessly. She had a skimpy pink blouse on with grey sleeves. She even let me take a pic and said I can share it with you!



Of course, she does have some competition from the gang of delinquents:


And then there's the gal who thought she was going to be the lucky one:


See? Just what's not to love?

Please note the absence of unsightly nasal hair.

And his lordship even signaled his approval of the whole situation

Young, Single, Pink, Babe...

... To the rescue!!!! Yes, I *can* still take good birdie pics. Ha! Yesterday's stuff notwithstanding of course. Remember: Blame It On The Camera!

Backstory

The galahs always show up in pairs. Always. And when one of a pair flies away (for whatever reason) the other always follows. Ummmmmm, I think they go behind a bush for some ka-noodling.

Imagine my surprise when there's been an ODD number of galahs hanging out for the last 5 days. Does that mean it's one of the flock who's lost their mate? Or is it a young'un that's on 'the hunt'? Well, whatever, she sure as heck saved my ass as meself being known (knownst?) as a good parrot picture-taker bloke.

So without any further ado (yeah RIGHT!)

First, she's shy looking and watching me through her fluttering eyelashes


Then she has to fix her skirts just so...


Then she fixes her hair


She finally lets me get close to her


and then lifts her arms to expose her chest!


Hmmmm, this could be my most popular post soon! LOL :)

I've Had Better Days

...with the camera, that is. I mean just LOOK at these pics. Bleck. It's like the anti-focusing demons from the 26th dimension had it in for me this morning. AND they teamed up with the crappy-light demons from the 10th dimension.

Sigh...

Well, just have a look and you'll see what I mean. Oh, if you've read this far Mon, there's a recipe for you cus my wee little brain seemed to remember you could have possibly mentioned you might just be inclined to that type of food... maybe...

Anyways, here's the pics of the uncooperative cockatoos.

Let's just keep it in perspective, eh?


This coulda been so cool with better lighting but the sun wasn't up yet


Bbbbbbbllllluuuuuuuurrrrrryyyyyy




Three Wise Cockatoos


Not only can I not work the focus ring, I can't even hold the stupid camera level with the horizon. I'm a failure...


Well, at least the horizon is level...


Colourul lorikeets to the rescue!


Gotta give SOMEONE the evil eye...


Over and out.


maybe


or


maybe not

Punch Up On The Feeder

But before I get to that, sorry for distracting you with my race updates on Saturday. Had I known just how many folks landed on my blog by a google search looking for road race updates I would have actually given out real updates. And then I'dve given them the link to the live coverage via cyclingnews.com as not everyone was able to watch it live on the telly.

I've also found a whole bunches of people show up here searching for miti recipes. So here's the link to that.

Now, back to one of the main reasons people visit: Pictures from Oz! Specifically, parrot pictures from Oz. Fortunately I don't have to go far to get these. In fact, I'm usually still in my bath robe, bare feet, and no underwear when I take them standing in the back yard. Ahem, yes, no underwear.

And now for some purdy burdy pics. How's about a punch up between two rainbow lorikeets for starters?
Nice beak action, eh?

And then the referee tries to break it up:

They do this pretty regularly, I think they are practicing for when Ishmael comes down to visit so they can rip his hair out.

As it's wintertime down here (bloody-well FREEZING!) everything is flowering. Here's a bee working on a flower from the Blue Pacifica bush:

Quite the load of pollen he has there.

This view in the morning signals the arrival of the gang of juvenile delinquent cockatoos:

Good on ya Sammy

In those 6 riders I was sayin either sammy or davide. Ole fabio almost cam eup witht he goods.

In the TT, I think it'll be between fabio, schumi, and mick.

You heard it here first!

Good on ya Sammy

Alberto just swung off

Contador, Alberto, has just swung off of the pace setting on the penultimate lap.

I am sorry for not having more regular updates, but it's dinner time down unda and I've got 4 pots on and the grill going for the clan.

The race is back together, it looks like the spanariards have things under contorl and the smart maonty is on Valverde.

Gots to run, more soon.

Oh, the smog SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bleck

Thoroughly disgusted with the road race. Yes, it's a good race. There's a groupd of 24 riders 5 mins off the front with 4 laps to go.

Beijing, however, leaves a LOT to be desired. I was hoping that once they got out of town and into the hills that you could, maybe, knda, like, perhaps SEE SOMETHING!!!! Nope, even in the hills the smog abounds. It's also on highways and not back roads so there's no switchbacks and the road isn't close enough to any "points of interest" to see it from the camera shots. Why? Cus of the pollution. Bleck.

Yeah, that's what dependancy on coal will do for you. Hmmmmm, isn't there some political old fart in the US advocating coal...

My wife and MIL are telling me that's the kind of views you'd see in the Tees river basin back in the UK BEFORE they stopped using coal. And breathing there sucked too.

Just a WEE bit sexist...

Alright, I'm "ok" with the coverage on SBS going to another sport while the road race plods along 80 k's of flat, polluted, industrial crappy, eight lane freeways. Yep, no worries. But did they have to go to beach volleyball? Now, I have no problem with the sport of volleyball, nor even the beach variety. What I don't like is that the "uniform" for the women's beach volleyball is two very small pieces of spandex (don't mind that, though) while the "uniform" for the men's beach volleyball is baggy t-shirts and baggy shorts.

Is this FAIR??!!!?!?!!

If the babes have to strut out there in nothing but basically a g-string, then the blokes should have to ALSO!

Gack...

back to the dishes...

and then cleaning the pool...

Thoroughly DISGUSTED With The Air Quality

Holy CRAP! Emphasising the CRAP!!! I can't believe they are riding through this gunk that is called "air" in Beijing. And Phil is saying it's better than the last few days!!! The IOC needs to be taken out and shot for awarding (accepting massive amounts of money from China) these games to China.

Bleck... Ok. Last post about the road race. I'll watcht the rest of it, but the SMOG/POLLUTION is supposed to worse around the fragments of the Great Wall today.

Is it any surprise that quite a few of the top marathon runners and many endurance athletes are saying a big "fuck off" to these olympics?

Watering The Hedges

As I type this, the riders are all tapking a "nature break". Watering the hedges on the sid eof the road.

In other words: taking a piss. Better that than what I was doing two days ago as "taking a puke".

Olympic Road Race Update

We're getting the entire race live down unda. Two blokes (one from bolivia and another south american) have taken a flier on the 80 k run to the base of the circuits.

HLOY SHIT the SMOG!!!!!!! And there's Phil saying how the smog is much less than it has been the last couple of days. BLARF!@!!!!!!

Cadel and company looked relxed at the the start, no worries.

oh, here's a birdie pic for y'all. We'll call this a

FOOD FIGHT!!!!!!

Way Behind

Yes, I'm behind in my posting. I'm sure you've all figured THAT out though. Still writing up my How To Lose the Tour de France post. Stay tuned. On the bright side, I'm over halfway through dubbing the whole thing from the hard drive on the DVDR to DVD disks. I'll have 42 DVDs of this years tour for approximately 73 hours of 2008 Tour coverage. Cool, eh? Widescreen, digital, with Phil and Paul and all the great scenery. Oh yeah, there's a bike race in there somewhere too. Yeah, I can tell y'all are REALLY excited for me.

I just found out that someone found my blog from a site called (you're gonna LOVE this) Planned Parrothood! Isn't that so cool? I like the name. I need to add it and about 20 more sites and blogs to my blogroll. I'll get there in time, no worries. Anyways, at the Planned Parrothood Bird Links you'll see me listed in the blog section with a description of "Exquisite Aussie bird photos". Note to self: take more bird pics, but only Exquisite ones. I've never had anything about me (or that I've done) referred to as Exquisite. Needless to say, I'm tickled pink about that :)

I guess that means I should put up some Exquisite birdie pics. However, I haven't downloaded the latest batch and weeded out the 99% crap ones. So, you'll just have to make do with these three.

The first two are the lorikeets practicing their trapeze act.




Yes, they are very messy eaters.


The next one is FINALLY a shot of a galah looking tough. Remember, it's tough to look tough when you wear pink. Only tough birds can pull it off!


Oh, I just found out that outside of Oz, galahs are called "rose-breasted cockatoos". I like galah better.


Went on a bike ride this morning, nothing new there. But is was the first time in a looooooong while that I atually pushed myself for a bit as it's time to get my lazy ass back in shape. Knee was fine, neither ankle was a problem, ribs are fully healed, back is strong, and neck didn't bother me. I was on Rocket Butt (my roadie) and I actually stood for a bit to test things (myself, not the bike).

Do you have any idea of the amount of mucus, phlegm, and bile a healthy bloke can puke out of his lungs and stomach over the first ten minutes of riding hard? Well... it's a lot. Just trust me. Finally felt good after 14 mins hard so I continued on. But OH MY am I glad I was solo! I'd hate to even begin to imagine how messy the people behind me would've been had I been in a group! No pictures as you really DON'T want to see them.

A post in leiu of a post

I'm working on my Tour de France post. However, I have a hard time stringing coherent thoughts together for more than a prargraph or two. But only when typing. See, if'n there was a thought analyzer that kinda dictates your thoughts directly to your blog, then there'd be NO stopping me! In fact, you may remember from perusing my archives that I actually invent that in a few decades. Those of you from the future who are reading this post (as an old archive) to write your PHD dissertation on the bloke who revolutionised the world of blogging (and got stinking rich) then you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. For the rest of you... well, you just need to go trawling through my archives and you'll see what I mean.

Ahem...

Pretty damned logical, eh?

As per usual, I'll toss up some pics for you. Heck, if it wasn't for pics from far-off, exotic, hot, Australia I doubt I'd even have one visitor! Well, ok... my wife would probably stop by and hit the reload button a bunch to make my counter turn over, but that'd be about it.

This first pic is for Fishmeal, that cranky bloke in Kodiak, Alaska. He wants to know if we really eat roo. Yes, we do.


Roo meat is one of the healthiest red meats you'll find. 98.4% fat free. Loaded with iron. Roo burgers don't shrink on the grill, and they also don't flame. Why? Cus there ain't no fat! Teriyaki roo burgers are great, btw. However, this kilo (2.205 pounds) of roo mince (ground roo) became the filling for burritos. Turns out roo meat really takes well to Mexican seasonings (I just HAD to try!) and you don't have to drain it like you do with beef. It is a little gamey (not as much as moose or caribou though) so if you are one of those who don't like lamb cus you think it's gamey smelling, then you definitely don't want to try roo. However, for any Alaskan Sourdough it'll seem pretty bloody-well awesome!

I buy the stuff that's packaged just up the road. No preservatives, no antibiotics, no growth hormones. Just roo. The packages freeze well and the company (Macro Meats) say it's exportable too.

Here's another pic for Fishmeal. See, it turns out that these little birdies give him the willy's. Evil eye, or something like that. So I thought I put a pic of one staring right out of the screen at him :)

I'll get you in your dreams, Ish!

Next up, the natural pose of yours truly (that'd be me):


And lastly, two gratuitous birdie pics. One is of a galah landing in a tree, and the other is two lorikeets watching another about to land. Enjoy!