Sipik SK68-3W quite a surprise.

I bought this little torch from DX as it was only $10 comes in a pretty green and has a zooming focus, which is something I didn't have. What I'm shocked about is just how bright it is, it's the brightest torch I now have, brighter than my more expensive ones. Since I hadn't grabbed one for a while it must show that things are really developing on the LED front, I'd now say they're quite ready for car headlight use, designing them with a proper cut-off for use on the roads is another matter but the brightness is there.
It's bright with a normal AA cell but brighter if you use a lithium 14500 cell.

I'm a bit slow and rundown ATM but since I'm not actually ill I have to wonder if I'll get some energy back again. It may be my diet but I can't help but link it in my mind to those dreadful statin drugs Lipitor and Crestor that I took years ago. On the plus side Lipitor is quite good at reducing hair and thus making haircuts much easier but the other side effects just don't make it worthwhile for that. BTW if you're a woman with thinning hair and you take Lipitor you've quite likely found the reason.

Efficiency.

Online reviews rated this Raider power supply through the roof in efficiency, so hopefully it can cut the power bill slightly.

Scrambled eggs.

Tasted alright too, I must work on eating proper food, a difficult thing for a single.

All gone now.

Boxing day polished them off, the Asahi was the pick of them.

They're in the recycling bin now waiting for the next collection in a fortnight's time, I have to stop my hoarding ways.

Jae David Hodge.

Hopefully this doesn't cause any offence as none is intended.
Browsing the shire cemetery record shows that poor little Jae is the only other Hodge buried in the shire. Finding his grave involved a few visits and a lot of photos, as it's unmarked and the plot number markers have almost all vanished, just like house numbers on streets.

Grace's grave is just in front of Cubby in the last photo, measured by pacing and triangulation about 60 metres away. Poor little Jae would have been 34 but he was never to have a Xmas.
I keep checking the cemetery record in the hope they will update the spelling of Grace's birthplace, but the council might only have one person who can push that button and I've been told they're on holiday or long service leave, or maternity leave or whatever, and it has to wait till their return. That doesn't make me feel any better though.

Merry Xmas to all.

I did far better than I warrant, I don't think the booze will last long but the shirts should have a good life.

In the mail today.

I received a scratchit ticket from family and promptly forgot myself, anything involving a possible prize was always Grace's domain, but knowing I have to do these things now, I forgot to wait till tomorrow, sorry Rhonda.

On the positive side it appears to be a $7 winner, maybe things are starting to pick up again.

Through a child's eyes.

Plenty of cars have colour.

Pity the car makers all seem to paint them bland these days.

Poor Coles.

I spotted one of their shopping trolleys in the drink at Tyto this morning. Boisterish fun often has a downside, it'll be far less fun to remove it than the heave-ho from the walkway that put it there.

At least I haven't seen a crocodile in the water there.....yet.

Oh Canada.

I got rather a surprise when I saw Canadian parliament on our parliament channel the other day, I grabbed the camera and shot away but forgot to put the card back in and I'd thought I had continued my record of failure, but checking the menu tonight showed the SH-25 MR has a strange but quite sensible way of dealing with shots taken without a card, later they can be copied onto the card then dealt with.

Anyway I was saddened to see they've copied the idea of their big brother the USA of having people on screen waving their hands about to aid the hearing impaired, good way to turn viewers off what should be entertaining, why can't they have what we have on many programs and just push the yellow button on the remote to see the words typed on screen, if, and that's a big IF, you wish to.

More fun with the Olympus SH-25 MR.

In auto mode, it often chooses a higher ISO than I'd like to use but it performs fairly well at them, things have moved on of late with sensor sensitivity and processing. This is ISO 800 and when resized for web use quite OK. The pancakes were delicious too but will probably take revenge later.

Similar to as seen on TV.

Great label, at least whatever it is was cheap and I may even find a use for it sometime.

Another camera special effect.

I'm not usually a fan of camera effects but when I saw this I though I may try out the sparkle one, I think it may have even been appropriate.

Don't be too hard on the camera for the shots today, the air was very murky, smoke I think, and the light wasn't my friend today. I have to get out when conditions are better.

I feel a bit sorry for people having Xmas in winter but I suppose originally that was the whole point of it.

Oops.

A little bit of trouble has led to Council clamping down on activity at Tyto, but when they finally see the little error in #3 they'll wish they had a proofreader like I used to have with Grace, she was superb and often picked up little oopsies that I had missed.
I'm not fond of rule #10 and would be rather filthy on it if I was a nipper again but they have their reason I suppose, and it does help to protect them, but when I was a lad I loved to wander about and explore, and there's plenty more children who are not up to mischief than ones who are.

Me again.

Having fun testing the new camera, this was using the landscape mode that's supposed to make things a bit punchier, pity I don't like the look on this shot, but the purple shirt came up well.

It's hard to believe I'm smiling, it seems more a scowl. Years ago I though I was starting to look a bit Arthur Brough (Mr Grainger in Are You Being Served) which wasn't a look I wanted, I was hoping to be more like John Wayne or Sean Connery, but now I suppose I'll just settle for breathing, good looks are for other people.

Some Gallic charm.

After visiting the cemetery I had a happy disposition that wouldn't go away and I decided to have a walk about Tyto before going home.
Glad I did as someone had built a rather droopy Eiffel tower recently, complete with stick like people walking about the viewing deck

As well as sand birds nesting underneath it, though they were nesting well prior to the tower being built, surprising actually that they haven't met a bully with big feet yet.

Change the belts.

This is a chore that I've put off for a couple of months But first thing this morning I changed Cubby's three accessory belts.

The old ones were still OK but I didn't fancy one breaking if I was on a trip anywhere. I grabbed new ones from China at about 20% of the cost the local sharks desire. This must be one of the last multi-belt cars, the newer single serpentine belt system is vastly simpler and fairly idiot proof, though their tensioners can fail and be rather expensive to replace.

I'm smiling today.

Grace got her plaque through the week. Now all we need are the vases they supply and a couple of holes in the cement to put them.

Are they blackheads?

I was sitting out the front testing the new camera and got to thinking the black spots on my nose may be the dreaded blackheads from magazine advertising fame in the days of my youth. If they are then I've had them for most of my life and wouldn't even know they were there.
I used to wonder if blackhead guns were related to the phallic shaped facial massagers also in advertising aimed for a female audience but never could link them to being the same thing.
I think I'm going to get some good results from this camera, this test shot came up good enough for me use it as an excuse to plonk my dial on the web again. That's my house hat, my going out hat is nicer.

Yet another thing to fix.

Everything I touch seems to fail these days. The power supply I used to set up my new computer started arcing a bit and making a bit of noise, by the time I worked out it wasn't rats in the house I was faced with another thing to fix. I ended up taking a new plug from an old low power unit that had been through a few floods. I left the souvenir mud on it.

This cropped up out of the blue.

My current main computer has become unreliable, often crashing when being given a bit of work, like video processing.

A minor upgrade but video files do need a bit of power.

My heart's not in it but the tree's been up for a while.

It looks nicer from the street side.
I can't see it lasting the 12 days of Xmas this season, I think I'll risk the jail sentence for early cessation.

Wish we had this all the time.

I have to wonder how the unconstitutional rules forcing their closure on nearly every other Sunday hold up.

It is my hobby.

A new plaything arrived today, and first thoughts are it may be just the travelcam I want for when I can finally get away for a bit. It takes the same battery as some others and will make that part of travelling much easier.
Bought because it can do video AND take photos at the same time, plus it's also available in a colour other than bland.
I haven't bothered with video in the past but realised I only had a few short seconds of Grace on video, also if I come by something interesting, like say an aeroplane crash (they do it all the time) it may be very handy to be able to do both at once.

First thoughts are positive, it's nice to use.

Oxtail cooked.

Cooked but could still use a tiny bit more time, oxtail does require an awful long time.

Edible, even goodish but not superb, I had an old onion that was old when Grace was here, and I thought I had some pearl barley but didn't so settled on some way out of date soup mix.
Eating it reminded me why I haven't gone to much trouble of late, bones! oh well into the plastic bag, into the freezer and wait for the next garbage day.

Sadly since this is the first time in many years that I've had to write a Xmas card, I've found out my motor skills have completely failed, I can't read my own scrawl, so please anybody don't send me any cards, it's too embarrassing, an email will be welcome.

Spotted in the Express

I'm glad I sorted out our problem without escalation, I think the new soil graded over the plots in Grace's row will improve things.

Maybe this will perk me up a bit.

Last time I said that it had the reverse effect but this time it hardly matters. I haven't been eating very well or the right foods so a good old fashioned feed may help, too late today for this to be ready though so I'll tackle cooking it tomorrow morning, these vacuum sealed packages are great and you can go way the the use by date.
Being single again every day I seem to get reminded of how important I am. Today the pharmacy let me down, emailed asking to get another repeat of my pills, no reply. When I was married I'd get a reply shortly afterwards.
Saw the council had misspelt Grace's birth town (Parkes) in their on-line cemetery register, emailed them, no reply. Saw the funeral people about something else, mentioned it, "oh dear we made a mistake" they advised council and were advised it'd be done in a week (a week for a few key presses), maybe it just gave them time to work out we weren't important to bother doing, still waiting.
I told the tale of the flowers the other day, the workers must have just replaced Grace's flowers to other graves when they realised we wouldn't be important enough to have flowers.

The list can go on but single men are only useful for the taxes they pay to subsidise others, since I'm on the pension I have no real use any more.

If by chance a lonely woman of the female variety reads this, feel free to email me, I'd like to feel of some importance again.

A bit of research can calm nerves.

Grace got a new flower today and armed with a camera and a leaky memory I checked some of the nearby graves, and am now certain that her flowers have been shuffled to other graves, probably just misplaced during the work and mistakenly replaced, no need for me to blow up about this now, the only issue is how to steal them back without appearing to steal them.

The pink arrows show where they are now, and the blue arrow dead flowers belong on the grave left of screen.

New flower for Grace.

The stress just doesn't stop.

I went out to the cemetery to see Grace and if anything has happened in the last week, I've been waiting for a plaque to magically appear but it now appears unlikely to happen until February when people come back from holiday.
They must know we're not important people as only our flowers were removed when they've done soil topdressing in her row.

The pink bit is Grace's and now looking very bare, next week I shall take a flower for her and hope it lasts a few weeks before they find an excuse to remove it.
At least the stress will either make me stronger or kill me, either way I win.

This was how it looked last Saturday, nothing too outrageous and since her plot lacks the vase holes the other's have, about as out of the way as we can have for now.

Six great weeks ahead.

The Big Bash cricket tournament hit off tonight, it has become a sporting highlight of the year in its few short years. What really helps is that it isn't shown, and thus ruined by being covered by free TV, since it's subscription only we get to see entire games in high definition, something so rare on free TV that it would be noteworthy if they ever managed showing a sport that way.

Always breaking, always fixing.

It just never stops, how people get bored when they retire is beyond me, I'm busier than ever.

I must have pushed the wrong size plug into this android box, naturally the soldered joint of the centre pin broke.

It was a simple repair even if it's as rough as...... because it was too hard to see.

Another visit to the Herbert River Men's Shed.

Today Dave was giving an example of how to set fire to a workbench using a welder.

It cheered me up.

Another try at Jupiter with the P510.

Of course a zoom camera isn't a tool made for planet shooting but it can get a result. An issue is that to see the banding of Jupiter you have to lessen the exposure to a degree that hides the moons. To show the moons overexposes Jupiter, anyway it was a few minutes of fun until the mosquitoes and the moon appeared.

Clear skies here are unusual so it may be another year before I can have another blast.

It's by jingo weather here now.

So guiltily I bought a box the other day, normally I'd leave the red ones for Grace, they were her favourites. That suited me as I like the white ones and the orange ones, so Grace got the red and green, of course it doesn't matter any more.

A horrid surprise.

Grace's brother Bernie died today, I didn't know him well but he was a good man, even if he sold cars.

These are about the only photos I have of him.

A nice surprise.

The TV I ordered on Thursday arrived today, much earlier than the predicted Friday delivery.
It's quite a bit smaller than the old monster but you soon get used it, a perfectly acceptable unit for the price and the mere 90 Watts it consumes.

Here's the old one resting in the front room on the cruddy stand I made the other day.
Peter from next door gave me a hand to tote it about, it was so heavy it took him a bit of rest and beer to recover. I suppose I took the photo at about 14:50, but it was a long time after the delivery arrived.

Good enough.