Playing around with 3d stuff

Why? Because I can, that's why.

Not sure what I'll do with this, just monkeying around this arvo and thought I'd share. Please click on it to view it full size, the detailing is primo!

Picture caption contest!

Yes indeedy mates! I know it's been a while since we've had a picture caption contest here, so we may as well have one now!

I'll be putting the picture up via whatever service blogger uses now, along with the flickr pic so hopefully one of them will load for you.

My caption is this: Ah, excuse me sir but it appears that Planet Ulkhurr has installed a brand new, state-of-the-art defensive mechanism and I do believe it's trying to tell us to kindly bugger off!

Of course, that caption just might make a wee bit more scents if you actually saw the picture. Right?

Just scroll on down to have a squizz at the pic, then feel free to come up with your own caption in the comments, no worries.

And don't worry, no one will make fun of you!

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Ready for the pic?

Please click on the pic to get the full sized picture, it's much more better that way mates!

And for those of you who want the flickr pic:

Season's Greetin's From Oz Mates!

Oi! G'day all me mates! How are ya?

Me? I'm good, no worries. Getting nice and tanned even though it's been a blood-well cold winter here in South Oz!

I tell's ya, if'n I ever find that b*tch named La Nina she'd better watch out! I mean seriously here it is Christmas Eve and it's only 97 degrees Fartenheights in the shade! Phht! If it doesn't warm up soon then I may go loopy! Loopier than usual that is of course.

And the pool! Crikey mates, it's never been this cold even in winter! The other day I jumped in, big mistake mates! As my frigid frozen body was starting to rise to the surface face first, Wifey-Poo snapped a photo of the event!

Wouldja like to see the foto? Of course you would. I shall therefore indulge you...



Cold I tells ya mates, COLD!

*insert scene change here as dave's brain blows it's last remaining fuse*

So happy holidays to everyone and I hope that you all have a great 2012!

Don't worry, there will be a post betwixt this one and 2012, no worries.

Dang do I have some seriously loose blogends posts to finish up! Oof, just may be time!

And if'n any of you kiddies don'ts gets nuthin', then here's da reason why:

Guess what everybody? C'mon, GUESS!

tick

tock

tick

tock

...

Time's up.

Someone has finally accepted my standing invitation to visit! That young bloke from North Pole. Lives in a place called Santa Claus House. Nice digs too. Mrs Claus makes a mean cuppa, lemme tell ya.

Anyways, back when I was in Alaska I told Santa that he's more than welcome to come visit anytime. Perchance just before Christmas to give him a chance to unwind before the big night.

Well, he took me up on the offer this year.

I tell ya, it's a good thing I've been making extra homebrew for these holidays cus that guy sure can put them away.

See what I mean:




We were having a jolly ole time. Trading stories about the north and what not. When that guy gets a few into him ALL the dirt comes out about Rudolph, the other reindeer and all the elves.

I started to get a little bit concerned after a few hours as he showed no sign of letting up on the imbibing.




I was getting worried since it was only 2 pm and he'd gone through a case in only 2 hours.





Let the damn elves deliver the pressies to the brats this year!




How many chillis did you put in this beer?



By now I was getting very concerned for Santa's wellbeing. Perhaps the strain of his job finally got to him?




Remember to tell your kids that if Santa doesn't visit this year that it's NOT because they've been bad. It's because Santa has been bad!

Very bad...

No scents putting this off mates...

Yes, no scents at all in putting this post off. I've been putting it off for almost 7 weeks now as I've had a hard time finding the words.

Firstly, this has NOTHING to do with the fact it's my five-th hundredth post.

Secondly, I am not giving up blogging.

Thirdly, the reason why you haven't heard from me for a while is that whilst I was formulating a post regarding the compleat historonics and history of The Alaska Foods Co. here in South Oz, a very bad thing happened.










My dad died.

He only made it to 68. He had been in his new retirement house in sunny, warm (compared to AK) NC for barely 14 months.

I have so many wonderful memories of my father and I've been trying to figure out a way to weave them all into a tribute post to dad. There are too many. I can't. I'm not a gifted wordsmith (yes, some of you may have noticed that yonks ago) and as the thoughts and memories of my dad careen through me wee little brain they leave no trace for my fingers to track.

You may therefore expect various stories and thoughts about my dad peppered throughout blog posts at whenever I feel like it.

I used to drive my dad's freight truck in Anchorage so he could take his entire summer off and sail around Resurrection Bay and Prince William Sound. But that's all a story for another time...

My dad was superman. If you don't believe me then just check this out. It is a four (4) part story of my dad (that'd be superman) rescuing his entire family (mom, me, brother).

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

As words are failing me, I shall leave you with some pictures of my dad and the brood. I'm sure you can guess the only one of the pictures that is NOT 40 years old.









I'm the short one in this pic btw.






Any longtime Alaskans recognize that shirt and what it means?


Lookin' pretty darned good at 67!


And what did I look like way back then?



Goodbye dad. You are missed mate!

Something Seems Odd...

... about this picture.

Can you find the oddity and also the meaning of it?






And there is a perfectly logical explanation for the oddity too, also.

From Wifey-Poos Store of Useless Information

And before any of you get upset at that, I'm not the one who calls it that! She does. I tell her it's not useless! Nothing with Wifey-Poo is ever useless, trust me on that.

Now if she's reading this then I won't have to sleep on the couch tonight!

First though, how's abouts a birdy pic from the backyard? Kids, don't try this at home!


Just HOW do they do that?

Back to the information from Wifey-Poo.

We were watching a show on the telly the other night. The show was from the year 1981 and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out by reading what Wifey-Poo said whilst we were watching it.

Wifey-Poo: Did you know the lady playing Trillion was married to Peter Davison and they had a daughter named Sophia Miles who was engaged to Tennant so she was not only the wife of The Doctor but also almost his Mother-In-Law?

Yours Truly: Ummmmm... Yes dear.

I made some more braided bread the other day. Some of you may have seen this on me twitter timeline, but it may to new to many of you:



Pretty cool looking, eh?

Another Year Has Flown By!

Yes folks, another year has gone by. Flew by! Shot by! ZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMED by!

I blinked, I missed it. Darn.

Yes, it is my birthday today, Sunday August 28th 2011.

I wasn't expecting anything this morning as our plans for overnighting somewhere (anywhere EXCEPT the house!) were shot to shit 2 weeks ago. Spent the last 2 weeks helping BIL with his PHD thesis AND helping him grade biology lab reports for 1st year uni students.

Is there anything his daveness can't do? Full disclosure: his daveness is what one of my twitter girlfriends calls me :-} She also wants a clone of me. Or at least someone to cook for her!

Don't swoon ladies, I'm human!

Anyways, wifey-poo and I are gonna get away, it'll be a late birthday pressie for me.

And even with that I did get some pressies this morning! I did have to make my own cake, but I'm pretty good at that.

BIL picked out a great card. It is the BEST BIRTHDAY CARD EVER!




Hey, off topic but can anyone guess whereabouts in South Oz this picture was tooked?




Now by now I'm sure that perhaps just one or two of you are about to inquire as to my current age. Well, you don't need to ask cuz I'm gonna tell ya!

I am now 2.6914 x 10^52 Planck time units old.

And I feel every single one of them at times!

For those of you who have a hard time converting Planck time units into the arcane "year" measurement, I have this to say:


nanner nanner nanner

Koala pics and vids!

Too busy to actually put up one of my world-famous, hilariously funny blog posts. So y'all are gonna have to make due (in do time) with some pictures.

And a video.

That Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human!) tooked 3 days ago whilst Wifey-Poo and I literally dragged MIL out the door to have a picnic up at Belair National Park.

Remember, these are wild koalas.

The first one is a koala running (yes, RUNNING) across a field! This is NOT something you see everyday folks!




And just how's abouts a video of that koala? Yes, I'm good *wink*




Zen and The Art of Sleeping

I have a lot to learn...

I'm impressed!




And finally...

Yes, my ass is very comfortable wedged betwixt these two branches. Why do you ask?

Isn't Someone Going Help That Poor Man?

"Hush Harriet, that's a sure way to get him killed!"

I'm sure that all my regular readers will know exactly what movie those two lines are from and what situation it pertains to, also.

But when I hear those lines I think of something, shall we say... Different!

Perhaps maybe something like this picture...







Whoops, looks like someone doesn't wear her wig at home!

And feel to click on the pic to bring it up fullsize!

A Public Service Announcement from Yours Truly!

Y'all knows that UV is bad fer ya, right? That'd be the UV radiation you get from sitting out in the sun too long, BTW. Now remember that you do want to get out in the sun regularly as you need your vitamin D, but over-exposure can be, well, bad.

Not only do ya run the risk of skin cancer, but it can make your skin look yonks (YONKS I tells ya!) older than what it really is.

Butt don't worry cuz if you're stupid enough you don't even knead to be over-exposed to the sun to get those wonderful skin problems! Tanning beds mate, tanning beds.

Hocked by hucksters to the most vain segment of society, these "beds" just bathe you in nasty UV radiation. And do you think ANYONE who uses them puts on sunblock, shirt, and a hat? What a silly question!

And there is now fotogaffic evidence of just what can happen to the skin of a "person" if she uses a tanning bed for a decade or two, consumes diet pills and Red Bull routinely and then shows up at a State Fair where anyone can see her!

Let's face it, no amount a makeup can hide THIS!





And if that "person" were to perhaps continue on this path to skin destruction, it certainly won't be long before a picture like this is taken of her:






Fortunately, I don't have any of those skin problems as a very recent photo of Yours Truly has surfaced like putrid gas rising through swamp waters...






Meanwhile, somewhere on the Fleurieu Peninsula, a marsupial contemplates life...

The best laid (snicker) plans...

... can certainly go awry.

No, that doesn't mean the trip sucked. In fact, it was AWESOME! We found quite a few places down on the Fleurieu we didn't know existed, and saw some we knew existed butt hadn't been to yet.

Here's a teaser pic of Around The Fleurieu (ATF) --multipart blog post series thingy coming soon to a blog near yew.


Please click on it to see it full size, you'll love it! The pic is a closeup of the sunset over Gulf St. Vincent as seen from Normanville, South Oz. The only thing I did to the pic was to resize it (that means shrink it down a ways). Absolutely ZERO computer enhancements were done.

Yes, it was Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human) who tooked this photo. The camera helped a wee bit of course.





And for those of you who'd prefer the flickr pic...


If you can't see all of the flickr pic, just click on it and it'll take you to it's flickr page where you can view it at any size you'd like, no worries.

Much more soon so stay tuned campers!

♫Plannin Out a Route We're Gonna Take Real Soon♫

How soon? In two hours from now! How's that for soon?

It's the 12th Wedding Anniversary betwixt Yours Truly and Wifey-Poo. I must say, it still only seems like yesterday... *happy sigh*

Anyways, we're heading down to the Fleurieu Peninsula for 3 days. It's been a few years since we've been down that way even though it's practically the backyard for us.

I'll type in our quite changeable itinerary which is subject to change without notice. Except for where we are staying each night.

Heading out of here at 10 AM Sat. Which means closer to 11, of course. Stop off at Clarendon Oval for a nice cuppa and start to relax. Probably pick up a pastry at the wonderful, vintage, been-there-forever, Clarendon Bakery. Yes, I know it's only 23 minutes along the road through the hills (and I can get there in 49 minutes on the bicycle, but it's a good place to relax.

We'll then leisurely drive through Blewitt Springs on the way to the Maglieri winery in McLaren Vale. Pick up a bottle of Shiraz to go with the lasagna I've already made for dinner Saturday night. Also lots of pics will be taken of Maglieri. I plan on doing a photo tour of it for you, especially for http://twitter.com/#!/WarpdElfAtYrSvc since I'm the one who turned her onto the Maglieri wines and she has to special order them as she's in the US.

Then into the heart of McLaren Vale to pick up some goodies for lunch (at the Myponga reservoir lookout) at The Almond and Olive Train

Across to the coast for Aldinga then south to Sellick's Beach. Stopping for pics anywhere along the way we want to!

Down to Myponga Reservoir for lunch, a drive over the damn, then down to Carrickalinga and then a quick jaunt to Normanville. Should be around 4 PM at this point. We're staying at the Jetty Caravan Park right on the beach in one of their cabins. Drop stuff off then head down past Rapid Bay and Cape Jervis. Never been all the way down to the Cape. Not much there but it's the ferry terminal for Kangaroo Island (next trip). Back up to Normanville, wine, dinner on the beach, hopefully get some great sunset pics.

I'll skip the evening entertainment and leave that to your fertile imaginations.

Brekkie of sausage and eggs Sun morn. Outta Normanville by 9 or so. Head to Victor Harbour via Inman Valley (get some fresh apples there -- it's all orchard country). We've done Victor Harbour enough times that we won't stay long there, but I'll get some pics of the horse drawn tram that goes to Granite Island for ya. Head to Goolwa and Hindmarsh island, gonna see how many of the barrages that link the inner islands together are open. Hopefully good pics. Looking out for water birds in the wetlands. Head up to Milang via Currency Creek and pick up a bottle at the winery there for after dinner at Milang. Get to Milang around 2 PM.

Milang is a wonderful, sleepy, quiet little town on Lake Alexandrina. We've stayed there before. Once we check in we'll have the rest of the arvo to wander through the wetlands and get some awesomely great pics for you. And we'll hit The Railway Cafe. They are only open on the weekends and they serve a wonderful Devonshire Cream Tea.

Dinner at the Pier Hotel in Milang. It's supposed to be a hidden gem of a restaurant on the Fleurieu. If the night is clear we'll be star-gazing (ZERO light pollution down there!). And since it faces East over the Lake we'll get sunrise pics the next morning.

Monday brekkie is eggs and sausage again, no huge hurry to leave but probably heading out of Milang around 10 or 11 AM.

Head north to Strath via Langhorne. A stop in Strathalbyn at the main park for tea. Hopefully many great parrot pics from there. Little Corellas nest there by the thousands.

Continue north to Mt Barker (it's getting too big, no reason to stop) and to Hahndorf as I need a new hat from a special leather/hat store, only found in Hahndorf. Grab some fresh produce at the market there, then back to Sturt via Stirling and Upper Sturt.

Hopefully back at the ole homestead in Sturt around 5 pm Monday. Chinese takeout plus fresh veggies for dinner.

How's that sound for a trip?

And the car just got serviced, plus a bunch of work done. We're SET!

Outta here in 1 hour and 40 mins.

The Butt of All Jokes

I really did mean to get these monarch butterfly pics up for you, butt recent circumstances did knot allow me to.

Butt I'll explain that later. And you get another story of Unkie Dave hurting himself. Butt this is NOT from his youth, this is a story from his oldeth instead.

Butt first, how's abouts some monarch butterfly pics?

The Adelaide Hills has a very stable population of monarch butterflies, and when they are migrating through the Hills you can see loads of them. A few weeks ago this just happened to be one of those days. And Wifey-Poo had her new camera! Her new one is a FujiFine Pix HS10. It has a 30 to 1 OPTICAL zoom! And twice the dpi as our ole S6500fd (which I was using)

Needless to say, we both got some pretty darned good butterfly pics that day!

Here are some of mine first. Enjoy!

This pair had just landed and were folding up their wings to get ready to feast on pollen.




Same pair, slurping away with wings folded.




Same pair. Most of them folded their wings up whilst slurping nectar.




I finally found one bloke (yes, this one is a male) that left his wings open whilst feeding!




And then there's the best pic I was able to get of him!




You are now about to see the difference when you double the dpi and triple the zoom. BTW, Wifey-Poo's new camera goes from taking supermacro to taking 720 mm zoom shots without changing lenses.

She was still learning the colour balance and all the nifty controls, but the detail is just amazing!









We both took pics of the bloke who left his wings out whilst feeding. Just compare the detail!




This one is cool since you can see his tongue!




Butt that's enough of butterflies!

Let's move on to the next subject, ME!

Story time! Yes, I know it's been a long time since you've heard a story about your Unkie Dave hurting himself, butt let's just end that right now! I'm sure you all recall the time I left my face on the pavement (6 yrs old), broke leg in scissors swing thingy (5 yrs old), broke arm 10 yrs old, left 10 foot long bloody skidmark on pavement from summer roller-skiing accident at 15 yrs old, did a faceplant... oh, HECK! I'm sure you get the idea! I had a fun childhood.

Growing up wild? Yeah, that sounds about right. Nearly smashing my eyesocket with the back of my hatchet? Yup, that'd be me mate. I should write a book titled Growing Up Wild.

Anyways, I tell you this cuz not only are all those stories in my blog archives *cough cough*, butt also to tell you I know a wee little bit about pain.

As in the pain difference betwixt a sprained ankle and a broken ankle. The pain of multiple broken bones as opposed to a cracked rib or three.

I tells ya mates, when my skeleton is dug up and examined by future archaeologists they are gonna think I was tortured from 4 yrs old to 45 yrs old. Nope, I just had fun.

Butt two and a half weeks ago I was not having fun.

Oh sure, I was cleaning the pool (which is always fun as it means I'll be jumping in) butt it wasn't exactly what you call "fun" as in the "fun" of creek climbing. BTW, the creek climbing story is in the archives, just have a squizz through some of my early posts.

I was standing on the edge of the pool. The edges of the pool are very hard tiles over concrete. The edges are also a crisp, clean, 90 degree edge.

As I was finishing vacuuming the shallow end of the pool, the end of the pole became slightly tangled in the vines that grow over, through, and around the fence.

Here's a pic of the offending vines:




Here, lemme just scribble all over the pic so it'll make scents to y'allns!




I'm totally sure that explains everything!

Back to the story. When the top end of the vacuuming pole caught in the vines, my first, and natural, reaction was to pivot to my right, reach out with my right arm and free the pole.

Sounds simple, right?

Ha!

You have to remember that I although I am rather strong (smelling) I do have to take care of how I move and lift due to my back. Don't ask, long story mate.

So as I pivoted on my right foot whilst reaching to the right with my right hand and holding onto the pole with my left hand, my left foot decided that if it pivoted whilst remaining stationary that my back would be not very happy.

Hence, at that point, my left foot decided to step forward in order not to piss off my lower back too much. There was, needless to say, a slight problem with that particular maneuver: a step forward was a step into the pool.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm NOT a klutz. Besides, if my batteries would've been fully charged then I'dve just walked across the water. Alas, I neglected to plug myself in the previous week as I did not anticipate any walking on water in my near future.

So my foot started to sink rather rapidly.

You know how when you are falling there is always the quite natural, instinctual reaction to try to arrest the fall? As in, you try to bloody-well catch yourself mate! Butt if I had been thinking (HA!) then I'm sure I would've just gone with the fall and went splat into the pool. Well, DUH!

Butt no, instincts took over and my body tried to arrest the fall well before my brain had a chance to engage (it was in idle, so it's excused).

What happened is that I tried to grab onto the pole with my right hand, my right foot slipped to the right (I'm glad I'm flexible as I did the "splits" without warming up) as my left butt cheek landed directly on the REALLY FUCKING HARD edge of the pool. Oh, and somewhere my left hand tried to cushion the fall and jammed it's own wrist -stupid left hand.

After my left butt cheek landed SOLIDLY on the edge, the rest of my body slowly slithered into the pool. The whole operation took about 0.001 seconds, butt it felt like an eternity.

My first thought was "Well, didn't need that tailbone anyways." Butt then the shaking set in. Then the nausea set in. Then my legs didn't really feel like working.

Yeah, I kinda knew something was wrong. Perhaps the nausea inducing pain from my left glute MAY have had something to do with it. Maybe.

About ten minutes later I was able to gather the strength to extricate myself from the shallow end of the pool which happens to a whole whopping 2 feet deep. I slowly made my way up the two steps to the pool door and whimpered my way into the kitchen to puke into the sink.

Since Wifey-Poo and BIL were in the kitchen at the time I do believe they figured out rather quickly that something was, shall we say, wrong. I threw up in the sink, then told then what happened.

I gotta tell y'all something. If you want some serious sympathy then you may want to consider cracking your pelvis and getting your glute muscle torn and separated from the bone. Oh sure, you'll be in a lot of pain, eating ibuprofen by the handful, icing your butt with multiple ice packs, and generally being miserable. Butt dang I tells ya mates: Serious Sympathy!

Of course after you've been laying on one side all day which causes your previously compressed lower back disks to go wonky you may not be too happy. That's why I recommend sending your BIL to the bottle shop for a case or four of tequila. And keep it in your bedroom!

As many of you have been following this blog for yonks now, you may have come to realize that I have left my scents of embarrassment long behind me. Therefore it really shouldn't surprise you that I have taken daily pictures of My Butt Bruise!

And I'm sure you're all just dying to see them! Ha. No, I didn't take them in ultra-high fidelity like the BUTTerfly pics. In facts, these were all taken in low light in a mirror. And I shrunk them waaaaaaay down.

And since they were taken by Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human) in a mirror you'll notice the pictures are "mirrored". Trust me when I say that it's my LEFT butt cheek that has the bruise and broken parts.

I therefore do not think there is any reason why you all won't just LOVE to see this really awesomely cool bruise throughout a 12 day period. It kinda looks like I chased a rainbow butt the rainbow smacked me on the ass. Either that or the leprechaun has a really warped scents of humour.

Butt if you are easily offended (yeah, like any of my readers are!) then you may knot want to scroll down any farther. Oh, I've already shared these pics on twitter. One person said they've never seen a bruise like that outside of an emergency room! So weather or knot you view these pictures, please keep in mind that my bruised, naked, butt is already world famoose.

Without any further ado...

Here is the Butt Bruise Pic Day 1!





What comes after Day 1? Why, day 2 of course!:




Day 3 usually follows day 2:




Day 4:




Day 5 follows day 4:




I neglected to take a day 6 pic. I think the codeine didn't let me wake up. So here's Day 7:




Let's zip to Day 9! The dark line is from the impact (it hurts a bit):




Getting some really cool rainbow colors now!




Butt some things always fade away... Day 12:




Lastly, since you've read this far, I feel safe in telling you that I'm so very glad I'm right handed because I couldn't even begin to imagine the agony if I tried to wipe with my left hand!