Aussie Triathletes Are...

...Blood-Well CRAZY!!!!!!!!

Why? Cus they swim in SHARK-INFESTED WATERS!!!! 300 metres offshore!! In an area where at least one Great White Shark has been seen recently. This bloke, who has been spotted numerous times lately, is 4 metres long --that's over 13 feet for those of you who can't multiply 4 times 3.3 in your head.

There's been two Bronze Whalers spotted lurking around the particular beach to be used for the competition lately also. Now, the Bronze Whalers are only half the size of Jaws, but still just as deadly.

Ummmmmmm... yeah...

Sure, I'd just love to go for a swim ALMOST A QUARTER OF A MILE OFFSHORE in those waters. Yup, sign me up!

Of course there'll be some safety measures. Hmmmmm, two patrol boats from the Glenelg Surf Life Saving Club will be out there to "herd" the sharks away from the swimmers. And there'll be a shark spotting helicopter (sponsored by WestPac Bank --thanks!) to keep an eye on things too.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

I'LL PASS!

Nothing like that in my pool!

Here's what I think of the entire situation:

Oi, mate. Wake me when the pub opens this arvo.

Making KC Late For Work

There's a biologist up in Squarebanks (my hometown) who told me that I made him late for work when I posted a pic of a Little Corella Cockatoo and asked folks to identify it.

So I figured, heck! If it worked once, then let's try it again!

BTW, he's been the only one of the new winners to actually request specific wallpapers or screensavers (BTW did you get them in the email I sent???). Yes, Ishmael Melville, I know you've requested some more wallpapers, but since you gave me carte-blanche to pick the pics (and my nose) that means I get to find the *perfect* shots just for you :)

Now for this challenge I'm even going to give you a hint. Aren't I nice?

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They all lay eggs.

Wasn't that a great hint?

Here's the three thingies to figure out what they heck they are. AND FOR THOSE OF YOU AUSSIE AND EX-AUSSIE WHO KNOW ALL THESE: Please refrain from identifying them in a comment for a day or so. This is so you smart kids can give the other kids a chance to answer! *giggle*

Aussie critter #1 (this should be easy if you've been paying attention):




Aussie critter #2 (getting a bit harder):




Aussie critter #3 (no, this is not a special effect picture):



Remember, they all lay eggs.

Oh, before you go, I've got a modified conversation with WP to share with you. See, the other day on the way back home, I needed to stop at a store to get a bag of sunflower seeds for the little darlings in the backyard. Remember, YT is yours truly, me.

*YT plops bag of sunflower seeds on the checkout counter*

CG (Checkout Girl): Hi, is that all for today?

YT: Yep, no worries.

CG: Ok, it's five-thirty.

YT (without skipping a beat OR BLINKING looks up at the wall clock): Actually, I think it's a little closer to six.

CG: Ummmmmmm... *smiles nervously*

YT: Yeah, that was a bad one.

CG: Bad, very bad.

Baby Galah, Baby Kangaroo, and Mathematics for Tomatoes

So, like, WHAT the heck do those three things have in common? Absolutely nothing! Unless you count the fact that not only are they all from South Oz, but also from some fertile figment of my little brain.

Firstly, the baby galah (it's SOOOOOO cute!).

One of the galah pairs that comes by every now and then brought their little baby with them. I doubt the little tyke was off the nest for more than a day. So cute!

Just look at the size of those feet!



I'm sure that all my regular readers will easily be able to tell that this bloke is a bloke and not a sheila.

Here he is turned around on the railing:





He then jumped down and started waddling on over to me next to the pool:





Ain't he just the cutest? Gosh...

You know I've had other baby critters from down under approach me thinking I might be their mommy or daddy:

Are you my mommy?




Later on that day I was hungry...




No, you didn't see that. Just move along and pretend it didn't happen...

On to the tomato section of this post.

I've decided that I need to actually write down the formula so that all you mathematically inclined blokes and blokettes can follow along with this seasons' great tomato count.

So here it is:

    f(t)=h'+o'

where h is one half the square of tomatoes harvested, and o is one half the square of tomatoes on vine.

As any first semester high school calculus student will tell you, this is equivalent to

adding the number of tomatoes harvested plus the number of tomatoes still on the vines to get the total number of tomatoes!

This week, it happens to be 55+211=266

The bruschetta tonight will be loaded with fresh tomatoes and fresh basil from the garden.

Alien Aerial Armada Attempts Atomic Airborne Assault Against Adelaide Arboretum

1st Dec, 2008 by The AAA (Authentic Amateur Antipodean) News Service a subsidiary of the Weekly World News

South Australian plantologists awoke this morning to a scene of utter horror. During the night alien UFO's beheaded an entire population at a local arboretum. Some witnesses described the aliens as "two-headed Elvis clones." This reporter is skeptical of those accounts as we all know the alien Elvis clones have 3 heads.

The following photos show the gruesomeness of the killing spree. Please ask your small children to leave the room. These pictures were taken before a forensic team arrived and were photographed as they were found.





The severed heads were eventually found on what appears to be some type of sacrificial table.






"Well, we are obviously dealing with some sort of demonic creature capable of cold-blooded acts of malice." According to Bill McAllister.

Speaking anonymously and off the record, Bill McAllister said, "Gosh, I didn't even know that Sarah knew there was anything south of the equator. Is that where all the dinosaurs went after the flood?"

Local detective Tom Baker has some astute observations, "If you'll notice that the severed heads were not only brought up to their sacrificial table, which of course indicates great claw strength, you'll also note the interesting pattern of gouges in the heads; presumably from some kind of gigantic beak."







AAA has just found a local amateur (very amateur) photographer who happened to get a few fuzzy pictures of the aliens. He prefers to remain anonymous as he claims to have been abducted by feathered aliens many times and subjected to various sexual experiments.

The local crackpot continued blabbering on about an alien invasion while cleaning his pool, but here's the blurry photos he claims to have taken during the latest alien incursion.







This news of alien invaders has all the locals in complete pandemonium:









When pressed for an interview or comment, the Australian Prime Minister appeared to be channeling a witch hunter from the arctic regions as he replied, "Hee, hee! Off with his head!"

Astoundingly Amazing Antipodean Arachnid

But before we get to our wonderful pictures of cute, fuzzy critters from down under, how about a parrot picture or two?

Cus after all, that's the reason I have visitors... it's sure not for my wit and charm...

First, I thought I put up a pic of a pair of vicious, ferocious, seed-flesh eating, mean, nasty critters!



Yeah, I'd hate to be that sunflower seed...

Moving on...

I thought I'd put up a picture that really illustrates the difference between a male and female galah. You can easily see the difference in the eye colouring in this shot:


Plus the fact that the female is yelling and screaming and waving her arms about while the bloke says, "Yes, Dear."


One last thing before I get to the cool critter captures, there was a

Conversation with Wifey-Poo

the other day.

As always, YT is yours truly (that's still me) and WP is Wifey-Poo (the most wonderful, caring, understandable, patient woman in the entire world).

YT: I've got the last of the broccoli steaming for dinner.

WP: Are you sure that'll be enough for all of us?

YT: Oh sure, I'll run it through the food processor and then add it to the creamy chicken soup. I'll add more milk and seasonings, bake a fresh cobb for dunkers, no worries.

WP: Mmmmmm, sounds good!

YT: Well, yeah. After all, it is the soup the BOSS likes.

WP: ...HUH? *Oh crap what's he going on about now*

YT: Oh you know. The British Overseas Secret Service. After all, Mr. Broccoli did direct all those wonderful documentaries about the double-oh agents.

WP: That's bad... very very bad...


And now


the reason


you've read


this far!


Here's a tiny thumbnail of a cute, little furry critter:









Go ahead and click on the thumbnail, no worries. It won't bite!

I dare ya to click it.

I double dare ya!

Triple dare ya!

And for those of you who wussed out and didn't expand the cute, furry critter pic up to over 1400 by 900, here's a slightly smaller version:


Then the helicopter circled overhead and got this shot:



If you are wondering how I found this lil' wee beasty, then you may recall that I clean the pool in the mornings before having a swim... Here's what was in the reservior above the filter basket:


Yup, same critter. Dead and floating upside down.

See? Y'all up north have cute, fuzzy, grizzly bears roaming around mauling folks, and down here we have cute, fuzzy, spiders roaming around in our swimming pools.

Birds and Winners

Oi! We have some winners! Good on ya, mates! Anyone who feels they've won anything (your choice, custom parrot screensaver or custom parrot wallpapers) in the last few contests then feel free to peruse or trawl the bird pics here and let me know what you want.

My email addy is

alaskandavedownunder(at)gmail(dot)com

Obviously, replace the (at) with an @ and the (dot) with a .

If you don't hear back from me via email, then please feel free to bug me in the comments.

Before I get started with whatever I'm going to be blabbering about today (I've got lots to blabber about, but I'm also in the middle of cooking dinner), how's abouts a really cool rainbow lorikeet pic?


Yeah, I agree with you: it's a pretty darned cool shot.




I have a challenge for KC way up north. Well, actually two.

First, try to find some James Boag's Premium Lager in Squarebanks and review it.

Next, is this galah male or female and how do you know:




I just thought I'd throw in the random flower picture, this is from the hibiscus TREE in the front garden (it flowers almost year round):

The flower is about 3 inches across, BTW.

Oh, quick temp update for all of you sourdoughs... today was 87 F in the shade and since there were high clouds I doubt it even made triple digits. Yesterday was the same in the shade, but 108 F in the sun (it was also hazy so it didn't get too warm). Our neighbors had their a/c on yesterday! Can you believe it? Wusses.

The huge black panther that hangs around the homestead spent the entire afternoon yesterday flopped on the hot bricks on the pool patio. I'm now treating him for sunburn... and then I'll treat myself for lacerations, broken bones, and fang 'n' claw marks on my arms and legs.

Another Conversation With Wifey-Poo

Just a reminder, YT is Yours Truly (that'd be me) and WP is Wifey-Poo.

*YT goes out the door to his kitchen on the patio where a chicken carcass is simmering for soup*

YT: Honey, I'm gonna go check the soup.

WP: Yes dear. *maybe he'll stay out this time...*

YT: Mmmmm! Smells great! In about an hour I'll debone the meat and adjust the seasonings.

WP: Wow! That does smell good! *WOW! It really does, amazing*

*YT walks back in*

YT: I wonder if that place in France makes really bright chicken soup?

WP: HUH? *WTF*

YT: Oh come on. You know... Carcassonne?

*WP sobs uncontrollably*



Meanwhile, back at the bird ranch...

There's been a pair of newbies hanging around early mornings for the last couple of days. They show up when the large flock of sulfur cockatoos show up. They don't stay very long. Two days ago was the first chance I had to get good pics of them as they actually stayed after sunrise.

I'll give a parrot screensaver or wallpaper to the first non-aussie who can identify this bugga. No, you don't need to say whether it's male or female.



Oi, mate! What am I?


Guesses are now open. And yesterday's number quiz is still going on too.

229+18=247

Alrighty, the first person who can correctly guess what this equation means to me will win a prize.

Now, I'm assuming that the last six prize winners WHO HAVEN'T CLAIMED THEIR PRIZE won't be interested in this. That leaves only the other regular readers of this blog who might be interested in parrot wallpapers or screensavers. Hmmmm, let's see, subtract six from the regulars and that leaves... hmmmmm, carry the two... uno, dos, trace... einz, zwei, drei... Aha! Zero??!!!?

Well, ok, it's open to anyone.

Spoiler alert for next post!

There's a spoiler approaching...

It's still approaching

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There are some new bird arrivals in the backyard! And there's some cockatoo carnage!

Free Sarah Palin Screensaver

Yes, yes, I know. I promised no more Naked Sarah Palin pics on my blog. But what about a screensaver you can download?

See, I was looking through the blog stats the other day and I noticed that this blog is still getting loads of hits from folks all over the world looking for pictures of the Gov of Alaska. You wouldn't believe some of these search queries... ahem...

So, here's a quick screensaver I whipped up this morning. It's a .scr for pc. Just download the zip file, extract the .scr from the zipped file, right click on the .scr, and scroll down the popup menu to "install". Feel free to run whatever virus scanner you want before you install it, no worries.

I PROMISE that these are pics of SP. No birds at all. Really! There's about 20 or so pics, random order, random transitions.

Just click on this zip file and then extract the files in the zip file.

And here's a couple of Aussie parrot pics to tide you over till next post:

I just wonder what the heck this blokette is looking for under her wing




Are you having bad dreams of being chased by winged demons yet, Ishmael?

No More Naked Sarah Palin Pics, and Where Are My Weiners?

That's right, there'll be no more RED HOT NAKED SARAH PALIN PICS appearing on this blog. Why? Well, cus it's my blog and I post what I want. So there. THHHBBBTTT!!!

What about my weiners?

NONE of the contest weiners (winners) have emailed me yet about which pics they want for their parrot screensaver or parrot wallpapers. NONE. Not one. As in zero. Heck, I even checked the spam bin in case the emails got misdirected by gmail. Well, I also checked the spam bin cus I was hungry...

You know who you are. In fact, I think it's pretty much all six or seven of my regular readers who won. SO TELL ME WHAT PICS YOU WANT!!! Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?

BTW, could everyone make sure to check my food blog regularly cus the next post over there will be titled "Barbecued Kangaroo Balls" and you sure don't wanna miss that!

And now...

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How's abouts some more Parrot pictures. Yes, beamed directly from The Antipodes in New Holland to your computer... Parrot Pics!


Oh yeah? Well I once caught a fish THIS big!


Hmmmmmm, as soon as those sunflower seeds ripen...



You can tell this is the female flying off cus of the red eyes.




Call me rainbow.


The pigeons just don't look as graceful as the lories...




Everybody scatter! He's got a camera!!!


Time to regroup



As cool as the flying one in the upper left looks, I like the way the bloke in the lower right is stepping forward.




Which way to Kodiak?