Electric Ant?

I believe this tiny thing is what is known as an Electric Ant (Wasmannia auropunctata), if so they're an imported pest the Department of Primary Industries want eradicated. I've notified them and after they check their email (that could take a while at this time of year) they may react but I don't see any point, if we have it then the whole town is likely to, so we'd better get used to them.

They pack a huge bite or sting or whatever they whack you with for their size, painful little critters they are, usually striking at night when I'm dreaming of getting to know Barbara Stanwyck better.

Anyway It's really difficult to take a one handed photo of a tiny bug that's crawling on your mouse hand, so this is as good as I managed. Dead ones are too mangled to make a good photo.

Glad I tied our bins up.

Only a little flood this morning, hopefully this is as high as it will get.

Going under.

The river level is going to rise a bit more tomorrow due to rain upstream, so Tru is parked in town where it's a bit higher.

The water's just going over Log Creek bridge now, hopefully it'll wash this horrible excuse for a bridge away, it's stressful enough having to walk across sharing the roadway with cars in the dry but even worse with floodwater and flocks of sightseers clogging it.

At least we on Fairford Rd know where we stand with the local council, invisible. It's also the only road out of town that has a 80 km/h speed limit before clearing the residential area.

Cyclone victim.

The poor 2 fell off the house, leaving just a 3. Jimmy will have to fix it but it has been loose for a while.

TC Tasha rapidly vanished upon crossing the coast north of us, it barely made it to cyclone level.

Merry Xmas to all.

Here's our Xmas photo, taken this morning. My arm hurt to buggery but I had to hold it on Grace's shoulder till the camera shot its load.

Our bad weather is now a cyclone, TC Tasha.

Yuck.

We're half expecting to be flooded this xmas, more rain predicted and the river's already fairly swollen, at least we're at home this time.

Mucking around.

I was playing with the new camera and did this awful video, ruined further by an idiot wandering about, however if you listen to the audio there's a sting in the tail five seconds from the end.

I've never uploaded a video before so be warned even though I reduced the size it's still about 4 meg in size.

Affluence has its drawbacks.

We have pretty well all we want these days so these choccies are about all Grace is going to get for xmas, if she can keep Homer and his secret twin brother away from them.

Normally I don't waste money on fancy yum-yums like these but they were reduced from $20 down to $8 so I loosened the purse strings a bit.

The new Samsung camera is proving very capable but despite only being a tiny bit bigger than the Panasonic ZR1 is nowhere near as pocket friendly.

81 today.

Happy birthday to my Dad Fred and I expect plenty more yet.

Here's a shot I took in August of him doing the thing he enjoys, chopping wood.

I hope he has a better birthday than last year when his Mother died the day before it.

Gecko.

We have so many Geckos around the house that I thought it was time Tru had one of her own, so now she wears a stick on one.

I do get real ones and frogs camp in the door edges pretty often, so Tru isn't a stranger to them.

Wotta mess.

Next year I'm gunna have to put a bit of effort into whacking up the xmas lights.

A few cars slow down so I suppose at least it gives them something to look at.

Great marketing.

Our forebears would be aghast but incredibly there's a market for bottled water.

This was out the front of Coles and caught my eye, it costs 1000 times more than our tap water yet tastes no different nor would it be any healthier, possibly not even as healthy.

Great marketing calling it value pack, it certainly is for the people selling it.

Uncle Laurie O'Donnell has died.

He's the first of my parents' siblings to pass away, except for one that died at birth 8o something years ago. Laurie would have been close on 80 himself and I had heard that his health had been quite poor of late.

Laurie's with his parents and wife Pat in this photo, our condolences go out to her and their family.

In his younger days I believe Laurie was a pretty good Aussie Rules footballer as well as quite a good sprinter. I only met him a couple of times and never really got to know him, he lived in Victoria all his life.

Toys.

Here's a nice side by side of a pair of lovely cameras. They look similar in size but the Panasonic is much easier to whack in a pocket and is barely noticed, however the Samsung still fits easily into a pocket plus has a wider and longer zoom. Both shall be useful but the Panasonic FZ28 I took this photo with is probably better than either but suffers from not being pocketable.

The Samsung was sold as refurbished but was probably only returned because it has a small scratch on its screen, I don't care about that as I'd only scratch it myself anyway. Pity black was the only choice of colour, as it was when I bought the ZR1.

Happy snap.

It's xmas and a new camera arrived today that I shall be checking out.

A Samsung HZ30W that may be a travel zoom bargain.

Outside the USA it's known as a WB600 but this one came from the USA.

Sunbird time.

It looks like Sunbirds have taken up the bit of rope I left hanging out the back a few months ago for them to nest with.

I hope we have another baby this xmas, they're quite a pretty bird and must do a bit towards pollinating flowers.

Immunity.

This car has been running around with an illegible number plate for ages, I guess he's not worried about the risk of copping a $100+ fine for it here in Ingham, where almost anything goes judging by the number of vehicles without mufflers.

Good nick.

I sighted this EH Holden wagon in Coles car park the other day, we have a few old cars in pretty good nick in Ingham, this one is very nice and being an automatic must be very very rare now.

You may note the shopping trolleys lazily left where people used them. It's only going to get worse until people start thinking of someone other than themselves again.