I’m a fan of Roxette.

There, I’ve said it.

I have all the english albums.

Marie Fredriksson has a powerful voice that can be soft and subtle one moment and knocking you on your a** the next.

“Fading like a flower” is one of my favourite songs from Roxette. It first showed up on the “Joyride” album back in 1991. I can’t believe it’s been THAT long.

It’s also appeared on a couple of compilation albums since then.

Marie was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2002. She has beaten the cancer but apparently still suffers from some brain damage that it caused. She has spoken about new albums in interviews and here’s hoping she has the strength to make another Roxette album.

Tags: music

Paul loaned me a book by Wil Wheaton called “Just a Geek”.

“Where have I heard that name before?”, I hear you say, and yes it is the same Wil Wheaton who starred as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek - The Next Generation.

He writes really well, but I won’t review the book just yet. I’ll do that as a BotTF entry later.

Wil, in his book, mentions his weblog which can be found here. I followed one of the links he has to Think Geek, a website with all the stuff IT geeks just love. I’m not a geek. I’ll say that right now. But it has lots of cool things, even Monty Python stuff. Monty Python was/is great. I can almost recite line-for-line Monty Pythons Holy Grail.

I’m NOT a geek!

I’m NOT.

Oh who am I kidding.

Anyway, I was browsing through the t-shirts and came across one with the following motif:


$DO || ! $DO ; try
try: command not found


You might not need to be a geek to understand this. But it helps.

Once the AU$ settles down against the US$ I think I might get myself one of these. Not that I think I’m a geek, but jeez! How cool is that on a t-shirt? Would Yoda be proud?

I’m NOT a GEEK!

I SWEAR!

But. FarmerBen wearing a Think Geek t-shirt? I can hear Yoda saying about my impending purchase “hmmm, unexpected this is”.

And it would be.

Once I get the shirt I can also imagine him say, “hmmm, how you live this long, with a brain of this size? hmmm?”, with one pointy ear, like one eyebrow, raised slightly higher than the other.

Don’t worry, my little green friend, it won’t happen too often. The force is strong and the dark side will be resisted.

... cookies or not.

I fitted a new rear tyre to my bike this afternoon. A Pirelli Scorpion. This replaces the stock Bridgestone. It was becoming a little “unsafe” the way it was. Bald in the middle.

It was a 5 minute job to put the wheel back on, it was a 5 minute job to get the wheel off.

I haven’t kicked the bike off the centre stand yet. That will happen tomorrow morning as I leave for work. However, I did check the odometer.

My stock Bridgestone tyres have done 20,159 kms.

I’ll be surprised if the Scorpions can stand up to that record, but I’m hoping to get better “performance” out of them. Time will tell.

Tags: motorcycles

“You just take care of that meatball Sir, and leave the freaking out to me!”

Horton ~ Horton hears a Who

Tags: quotes, sageness

Worth reading: Yes, if you’re willing to persist.

Summary: George has just lost his father after a sudden heart attack. It is just himself and his estranged sister, now living in America. As George is going through is fathers things he comes across an old photo of himself with his sister, only this photo has someone else in it. A second sister.

His search for his unknown sister takes him to Rome where he finds a family heritage stretching back 16 centuries. A family history that survived the Saxons in Britain, the sack of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire, right through to the present day.

This book is the first in the Destiny’s Children series from Stephen Baxter and was a fairly hard read. The tale was interesting but the jumping back and forth as the tale of the family unfolds was not coherent. I have read the second in the Destiny’s Children series and there is a huge stretch of time between the two, but this does explain some of what occurs in the second book “Exultant” which I have also reviewed here.

Tags: stephen baxter

Ah, Nina Simone. What more is there to say? If you’ve not heard of her or listened to any of her music then give it a try. But, it’s not for all occasions. She’s very good at ad-lib’ing and some of her best work is when she’s only accompanied by a piano.

Tags: music

I realised it has been a while since wine passed my lips so I set about to rectify the situation. I’m becoming rather fond of the Casillero del Diablo label from Chile and was interested to see the local Choice liquor store had this new style on the shelves.

The Carmenère grape was introduced to South America from France in the 1800’s and for a long time was thought to be Merlot. It has been doing fantastically well for the South Americans ever since.

This particular vintage is 2006 and its bouquet has overtones of chocolate, coffee, and blueberries. These also come through in the taste along with rich spices. It is very dark in the glass, almost black, with garnet red showing around the edges. The body is fairly heavy, mildly acidic with a slightly dry finish and well balanced but leaning toward too much alcohol.

This lovely vintage will go very well with warm winter game dishes, beef or venison and roasted vegetables.

Highly recommended.

Tags: wines

“House prices up as greedy cash in on first homebuyer grant rise.”

This was the headline on a recent news.com.au article.

Show of hands. Who thought that wouldn’t happen? ...I see no hands.

Once again we see the true nature of a lot of people. Not ALL people mind you, and probably not the majority either, but a lot.

Unfortunately in the housing market, it only takes a minority to ruin the whole shebang for the majority. In this case, and that of the news article, it is once again those who don’t have a home being preyed upon by those who are wanting to ditch one.
What is the possibility that those selling are actually selling, not the family home but one or more additional houses they have acquired? Fairly high I would think.

Perhaps real estate agents should name and shame those vendors who want to re-list their properties at a higher rate to consume the increase of the first homebuyers grant.

This opportunistic feeding happened the last time there was an increase, and indeed even when it was introduced.

Why not just give the vendor the money? It’s what’s happening now anyhow. (joking!)

Better yet, stop promoting the housing market as a way to make easy money. Everyone needs a home, ONE home. Maslow new about it. It’s right there in his hierarchy of needs.

Tags: frustration

Learn to do it yourself.

You become more self-reliant and more helpful to others.

Tags: farmerism

I found an old compilation tape from way back in the early 90’s ...’91 I think. “Bash out the Hits” or something like that.

I couldn’t remember who sang this and I don’t have the tape cover any longer. So a bit of googling and it turns out to be Chesney Hawkes. Unfortunately I think it was the best song on the entire tape, but I haven’t listened to it right the way through yet. I didn’t have the stomach for that at the time.

So without further ado... Chesney Hawkes, One and only.

Tags: music

Ok, this is an odd choice. I was watching “The Journey to the centre of the earth” ..the original. One of the songs sung in the film is an old Scottish tune called “My love is like a red, red rose”. Originally written by Robert Burns it has been sung by a lot of people over the centuries.

Well, my heritage is Scottish so that’s a good enough excuse to put it up. However, while looking on YouTube for a version I came across Isobel Cooper (Izzy) singing it.

If you’ve never heard of Izzy or her music I have also included another of her works. What a voice!



and also:

Una Furtiva Lagrima

Tags: music

OpenOffice.org 3.0 was released today. The demand was so great there were problems with the site. Give it a couple of days before you download the new version and hopefully the rush has subsided.

There are apparently quite a few new things in this version, one being compatibility with M$ Office 2007 format.

I am running this version on OS X 10.5 and the final release is a bit quicker than the original public Beta. However, it’s no Audi R8.

I was flicking through some of the online discussions and found that by disabling the Java runtime environment you can speed up the whole app quite significantly. Jump into preferences and click on the Java option, then remove the tick.

So far it’s looking good and I’m glad it’s finally out of Beta.

I’ll be interested to see how it goes on Ubuntu, but I’ll wait for the official release in the updates for that one.

Tags: OS X, ubuntu

The 80’s

...and Annie Lennox!

This has prompted me to go hunting for my tapes. Remember those?
I might have to replace them with the CD versions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smbJ8JJedeY

Sorry. I couldn’t embed this one. Sony! ..need I say more?

Tags: music

This is an odd choice, but it was going through my head every morning while I was on my Longreach trip. I almost missed it when I woke up this morning and I wasn’t mentally humming it... no more travels (sigh).

Tags: music

I left Goondiwindi at around 8:00am hoping against hope for some interesting scenery and some darned Emus. The sky was perfectly clear and rather cool compared to what I have been used to. I stopped a few kilometers out of town to put on a flannelette shirt under my jacket to keep out the cold, didn’t work too well but I grinned and bared it. Just out of town is the Border Rivers tourist route that bring you out at Yelarbon. I took that tourist route but still no Emus .

About 20kms out of Inglewood is Lake Coolmunda. I stopped off here for a break and a Mango weis bar. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of water in the lake but there were a few pelicans, black swans and other aquatic birds. Just up the road is secondary road to Stanthorpe. I had time so this is the road I took. I like Stanthorpe, I was born there.

I stopped in Warwick for a coffee and muffin. The first of both since Gayndah 8 days ago. I spent about 40 mins in the town centre wandering around stretching my legs. Warwick is a nice place, I could see myself working there.

From Warwick I took the Cunningham highway to Brisbane. Those who’ve travelled this way will know it takes you through the Cunningham Gap. A rather nice ride in either direction, but I nearly came to grief with two slow moving trucks. I temporarily forgot that this ride has chewed through my rear tyre, my memory was refreshed. I’ll be hunting for a new tyre over the next few weeks.

The final leg of my trip through Brisbane was uneventful. I did notice there is a severe lack of indicator use from car drivers in Brisbane. Everywhere I’ve been over the past 8 days, I’ve seen everyone using their indicators. Not so in Brisbane.
From BNE is was a gunshot up the highway and home, ending a thoroughly enjoyable trip.

I have a map of South East Qld that I use a highlighter on to mark my travels in that area. On it are still some rather large areas of unexplored territory. My next trip is already in the planning!

Tags: motorcycles, travel

I left Roma at 6am this morning heading for Surat. It was pleasantly cool, but clouds were gathering. I am hoping to see Emu’s somewhere along the track today. I’ve seen very little actual wildlife so far this trip, aside from some Brolgas.

The road to Surat was flat and featureless and I could see rain to the West. I stopped in Surat for a quick break but it ended up longer than expected. A bloke by the name of Peter Ryan saw my bike and walked over for a chat. He’s also a bike rider and comes from Toowoomba. We had a good chin-wag and he’s put me onto a few necessities for the bike. 1. a new seat, and 2. cruise control. I’ll do some “Googling” when I get back home and see if I can track them down. I remember an ad in the Australian Road Rider mag that was selling bike seats that prevent the “Bum-burn”. I don’t suffer too badly from it, I stand up every now and then to stretch my legs. This act get’s people looking. Traveling at 100+ kms with the rider standing up is close to flying.

My longer than anticipated stay in Surat meant the rain caught me up. Just out of the town I had to stop again and put on the wet weather gear.

Just out of St. George is Beardmore Dam. My Dad was one of the engineers who worked on the Dam so I stopped in to have a look and take a few photos. The rain had eased slightly but came back by the time I got to St. George. The rain continued all the way to Goondiwindi. I gave up on the photo taking and just tried to make the best of it.

I got into Goondiwindi at around 3:30pm with the rain coming down. I decided to stop here rather than try and push through to Warwick. Warwick is another 200kms down the road and in the rain didn’t sound to enticing. Certainly not as enticing as a dry Motel room. Before finding a place to stay I rode around the town. I got looks from everyone. Who was this mad person riding around in the rain? I’ve driven through Goondiwindi a number of times on my way to other places but this time I took the time to look around. It seems like a nice place, I could see myself working out this way. Mind you, I thought this as I went through Emerald, Longreach, Charleville, Roma and St. George also.

Anyway, I’m now dry and happy to see the panniers don’t leak. I’ll head to Warwick and home tomorrow.

Tags: motorcycles, travel

I’ve spent the past few days checking out Roma. Just out of town to the North is a windmill on the side of the road. The last time I was here the plan was to take a star-trail photo with this windmill. That didn’t happen last time, but this time it did. A second visit was planned but at the last minute clouds decided to make an appearance.

I spent a good deal of time playing Lego Star Wars on PS3 with Ethan. To say he’s good at the game is an understatement, and its a lot of fun. Some time was also spent making and mending paratroopers with tissues and cotton thread. Good fun all round.

Kev and I spent an hour or so photographing the inside of the local Anglican Church. The attraction was the stained glass and architecture. I haven’t looked at the photos yet but I’m hoping they turn out OK.

I did a tour of the town on Sunday morning looking for the main sites. My brother visited the Winery on the way to Carnarvon Gorge a while ago and so I went to have a look. It was closed being a Sunday, which is just as well. If it was open I would have bought wine, and not being able to carry it home, be forced to drink it. The local cemetery is also an interesting place. This is on the “sites” list because of some of the graves and how far they date back, some back into the 1800’s. There is also the “Big Rig” in Roma, I’ve seen this before on my last visit so didn’t go again.

It was good catching up with Kev, Bec and the kids. Bec is an excellent cook, so it’s my shout for dinner next time they’re at the coast.

Tomorrow I head to Warwick, some 650kms away to the south.

Up reasonably early this morning - 6:00am. I ducked up the road to the Cosmos Centre to take a few photos of the place. There was a lot of “Salvation Jane” out in flower around the buildings and I wanted to catch it with the morning light. However, as I found out, I’d have to wait at least till about 10am before the flowers were illuminated nicely. I didn’t hang around that long. Back to the Motel to wash the bug-guts off the bike.

On the way out of town I caught a sign to a “Historical Site”. I took the next right and started riding down some dirt roads looking for it. Before long I came across a farm house. Realising I’m probably in the wrong place, and on someone’s private property, I turned around and went back to the highway to start again. I started following some little red arrows that may be indicating the way, however after 6km’s of dirt two wheel tracks I turned around and went back to the highway. I rode back to the sign and see it’s pointing to site itself. A couple of white columns in the grass on the right side of the road. I don’t get off the bike to read the sign. I’ve had enough of this particular historic site by this time.

A further couple of KM’s up the road is a water hole on the side of the road that was recommended to me as a photographic point of interest. I stopped in and spent about 20mins walking around taking snaps. It was a nice spot, but people need to learn to take their rubbish with them.

Next stop is Morven. I’ve been here before visiting friends so I stopped in town for a quick reminisce. Just out of town to the south is Tregole National Park. This park is dedicated to protect the Ooline tree. The Ooline is a relic of rainforest that covered Australia in the past. It has managed to adapt to the drying out of the country. Ooline Park is another area set aside for these trees. You can find Ooline Park near Womalilla just West of Mitchell.

I was intending to find the artesian spa at Mitchell but I couldn’t. The one local I found to ask couldn’t tell me. They were traveling through and hadn’t heard of it. I gave up after driving around town looking for the Information centre and not finding it either. I headed toward Roma.

The road to Roma was pretty much the same as most of the roads I’ve traveled on so far this trip. The next couple of days I’ll be spending with friends of mine in Roma.

I left Longreach at 7:30am. The day started out warm but it seemed to get cooler the closer I got to Charleville. Charleville is my next stop.
I headed back to Ilfracombe as it was suggested to me not to take the original route I was going to take, which included a section of unsealed road. They’ve had rain out here recently and general consensus was to go back to Ilfracombe. So back I went. It was only 27kms back down the road so no harm done.
The wind picked up early and I was riding into a cross-head-wind. Once I turned south it became a tail wind of sorts so the ride smoothed out considerably.

From Ilfracombe I headed to Isisford. I was intending to fill-up there and there was a moment of concern when I couldn’t find the servo. It’s on a back street for future reference. There is an ad on TV that talks about the Barcoo bridge at Isisford so I had to go see what all the hoo-haa was about.

The next leg of the journey heads out to Blackall. This is a tourist route and I was rather early, so I waited in Isisford for 40mins or so to make sure there were at least a couple of Caravans to take the same road. It’s a long lonely road if something goes wrong. Having ascertained my backup, I took off. The country is flat, flatter than flat. I was hoping to see some Emus but the only animals I could see were cows, horses, sheep and goats. I did see a few Brolgas but there were too far away to get a photo...again.

I grabbed a bite to eat in Blackall and headed toward Tambo, a much nicer place if you ask me. I filled up at Tambo and spent a good half an hour by the man-made lake near the BP. Lovely cool breeze coming off the water, which I needed as I helped a lady put air in her tyres. Damned pressure hose wasn’t working properly so I had to send her off to Blackall with only 28psi in one of the front tyres. She was happy enough.

The road from Tambo to Augathela was very nice. The road was lined with purple, blue, white and yellow wild flowers all the way. I took to standing up on the bike doing 100kms, a good way to see the country and you can almost believe you’re flying.

All in all the country is very flat and featureless. So much space, I love it!
I took barely a handful of photos today, I’m getting rather picky about what I get the camera out for.
I stopped in Augathela for a Mango Weis bar. I’m not sure why I suddenly had a craving for one of these, but the last time I was through here I remember the BP having them... so, I grabbled one. Also a good excuse to get off the bike for a bit. On the way into town I decided to go down one of the dirt tracks that lead off the main road. I followed this for a couple of KM’s before turning around. Bike handled it fairly well, but I should have let some of the air out of the tyres.
The road from Augathela to Charleville was more of the same featureless landscape. I did the Cylon scanning thing just in case there was something interesting to take a photo of. There wasn’t.

Tonight I decided to check out the local Charleville Chinese. Very nice, I was the only one in the restaurant so I was a captured audience. Chop-sticks are a novelty out here, they had to go find some when I asked, eyebrows raised and everything.

Very short distance to Roma tomorrow, but there should be lots of side-tracks to follow. I plan on stopping in to have a look at the artesian spa at Mitchell. I only gave the one as Ilfracombe a cursory glance.

I should also say that riding a bike through these places is rather cool. Kids wave and people come up and ask where I’m heading and where I’ve come from, I’m certainly a hit with the “grey nomads”. You don’t get that with a car.

Note to self: wash the bug-guts off the bike, it’s attracting flies.

Tags: motorcycles, travel

Day three. Day of rest. Today I’m doing a little riding as possible. It’s a good thing both the QANTAS Founders Museum and the Stockman’s hall of fame are within walking distance.

The QANTAS Founders Museum is rather excellent. I went for the package thing, minus the wing-walk. I’ve flown in enough 747’s to know what the wing looks like. This particular 747 is a 747-200, or also known as the 747 “Classic”. What differentiates this one from the 747-400’s that are flying the sky at the moment is this one still uses wire cables to control all the “stuff”. This Boeing came out of service in 2002, and I remember watching the news reports about the challenges of landing it at Longreach. Runway too short and too narrow. There is an excellent video you can watch that talks all about it, and what is also nice is the very little of John Travolta... they kept it real.
An intersting note about this plane, is one of the three engines is still flight ready. The plane was almost sold to India, in which case it would still be flying. This plane did the mercy flights to Bali after the bombings there. It also did routes to Africa and it’s very possible I, or my Dad, has flown in this very plane.

Along side the 747 is a new 707, the original jet purchased by QANTAS...the actual original, verified by part numbers. It was donated back from the Saudi’s and has been fitted out as a luxury airliner. The Queen flew in this very same plane back in 1959. The Saudi’s fitted it out with wood panel and pure gold trimmings. Some of which can still be seen, along with some crystal light fittings. Even now, it looks very luxurious with beds, showers, lounge chairs etc. Sorry no photos of the 707, it was not permitted as the plane is still owned by the Saudi’s and is actually still registered for flight.

The QANTAS museum attached is excellent and has lots of interesting stuff about the airline in the early years. As much as I like QANTAS and proud that it’s Australian, I’ll still fly Singapore or Malaysian Airlines.

Right across the road is the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. A collection of what made country Australia. Slim Dusty and Smokey Dawson are there, along with a swag of other stuff that centres around Australia’s early stockmen and how they lived.

Both of these venues took almost the whole day to see, but with a little time left this afternoon I rode out to the Iningai Nature park, just out of town toward Windorah.

At first the nature park just looked like a paddock, and I had to walk 300m out into the paddock to get to the information board. Not an unpleasant walk. I decided to do the 3.5km walk around the park. The shortest of the three or four walks. It was a nice walk, but there was nothing to see. No animals at least. I was hoping to see a couple of Brolgas but alas.
About 40mins into the walk I found out why... joggers! People use the park as a jogging track and to walk their dogs, so animals are going to steer clear. Oh well, it was a nice walk.

Here endeth Day 3. I’m heading to Charleville via Isisford and Augathella. A total of about 550kms.

Tags: motorcycles, travel

I left Emerald this morning around 10am. I waited for the motorbike shops to open so I could try and get my visor mounting plate repaired or replaced.

I pulled into a Honda dealership and while they didn’t stock my helmet brand, the helpful bloke behind the counter took to my helmet with super-glue in an attempt to help me out.
While I was waiting, a local mechanic on his way to Roma to fix a truck, saw my bike out the front and pulled in. He’d been thinking about getting a V-Strom to replace or add to his GS1400. He hit me with a hundred questions and when I finished answering them, he left with the intention of buying one. I’m not sure how the bloke in the Honda dealership felt. I just sold a Suzuki to a potential customer while in his Honda shop.

Anyway, thanks to that bloke with the super-glue. I taped the visor up as I had a feeling the glue wasn’t going to hold for long. On the way out of town I stopped at another bike shop and they happened to stock my helmet. $20 and some deft work with a screwdriver later, I had two new visor mounting plates. Thanks to Adrian and Julie from Central Bike Centre, you’ve made my second day of riding much more comfortable.

I ducked down to Fairbairn Dam which is easily reached just to the west of Emerald. It is full and Lake Maraboon is quite a site. My Dad worked as an engineer on the Selma Channel, which is an irrigation channel fed by the Dam. This little detour cost me an hour so I really didn’t get away from Emerald till 11am.

On the way to Barcaldine I stopped briefly at Sapphire to see how the other half live. The town is almost entirely made up of corrugated iron... at least that’s how it looked. It was almost deserted so I’m guessing everyone was underground digging for gems.

I stopped off at Alpha for a bottle of water and a couple of apples. Alpha is a quaint little town and the information centre is full of good information on places to see. It also doubles as the rider-reviver offering a cuppa.

I’ve taken to stopping every 45mins or so, so the next stop was Barcaldine. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I thought it would be bigger. After a brief stop it was off to Ilfracombe and its “Mile of machinery”. This is an interesting feature of the town. There is a line of old farming machinery a mile long, as long as the town, that runs along the highway. It’s worth a stop and look. The country between Barcaldine and Ilfracombe is rather uninspiring.

The country from Ilfracombe to Longreach was better to look at. Dotted with some Emu and a few red-headed stork/cranes that I’m yet to identify, all too far away for photo opportunities.

I arrived in Longreach at 4:45pm, passing both the QANTAS museum and the Stockman’s Hall of fame on the way in. These I will visit tomorrow on my day off.

Tags: motorcycles, travel

I generally like the work of Hunters and Collectors. This is one of my more favorite tracks.

Holy Grail.

Tags: music