Real style.

Here's a still capture of William Demarest from the top shelf film "The Jolson Story" 1946, those eyes should have got him an Oscar as best supporting actor for sure for that year but fate intervened and who are we to complain. Here his eyes notice that Jolson's marriage has just become kaput and he certainly isn't happy. I like his hair here better than when he became Uncle Charlie on "My Three Sons"
Anyway the point of this is to note that people all knew how to comb their hair in those days and it's about time I grew what's left of my hair into something combworthy and this has the mark of style for me to aim for. The downside is despite now being quite thin on top my hair has yet to recede, which could make the task difficult but at least the colour's right as I still have a few dark hairs.
Unless laziness rears its usual for me head stay tuned for what be become a change of style.

Sorting out a Delongi coffee maker.

Lorna dropped this Delongi Primadonna coffee maker off last night and figured I could fix it.
I soon determined that it needed a new part which they call a diffuser, which also happily is available at a reasonable price for this rather expensive machine, but what may have also cropped up with my looking at it was that it failed to boot at all, this meant me having to disassemble it to check inside, that took hours due to an unhealthy lack of information online.

Eventually I found that there's a plastic strip that covers the upper rear area where the filler flap covers, it just pulls off to expose a couple of screws, my finger points to one, then the rear cover slides off to expose the side cover screws which also slide off life a computer case.

Here I replace a screw that I had needlessly removed while seeking a method of opening the machine.
When the new diffuser arrives I still have doubts about the usability of this, Lorna wants to give it to us but I'll get it running and let her work out what to do. It cost her (former) Hubby $2,000 and does seem a clever machine but it's meant for a different type of person to me.

A fine feed.

Olivia excelled herself today especially the baked ham which was truly superb.

Perhaps surprisingly good as I saw this use by on the ham when I dragged it out of the freezer yesterday, it seems this massive ham had sat there unknown to me for a year or more.

Olivia singing along with Andre Rieu.

At least some good music shows are making up for a lack of sporting events today.
I always refer to Andre Rieu as Roo-boy and Olivia had never heard of him before coming to Australia but she's quite a fan of him now, why not? he's a master of entertainment and this Xmas show was a good-un.
If I wasn't happily married I could have impure thoughts about his chief lady tooter Manou but at least I can enjoy everything with decent intentions as it's common knowledge that married men never flirt.

Daisy's Xmas present.

I gave Daisy a treat with these yellow wheel nut covers which I fitted this morning.
The blurry dashes is the rain that sensed that I was outside doing some work so decided to bucket down upon me.

Xmas greeting to all.

A little photo of us taken a few minutes ago.
May anybody who sees this have a jolly Xmas.
Almost a positive for us is that our local NBN line was finally in service yesterday, great timing by the whomsoever wired it up as we can't do anything about changing our service until some of the holiday season wears off.

NBN grumble.

A fortnight ago a noisy sales outfit in town was proudly boasting that the fibre NBN network which has been getting laid out here for many months will be operating from the 16th December, as per usual it was a false boast and now their website appears to have wound us back to where we were three years ago. At least this change of status may be a precursor of something about to happen.
This whole mess is symbolic of the leaden saddlebags that have been burdening our economy in recent years, way too much red tape and nobody auditing what real costs should be.

Xmas is a coming.

Olivia has been busy wrapping things that she'll give away. I did see a few chocolate bars in the place a while back so I'll hazard a guess about the contents.
It's looking like a fairly bleak Xmas for us due largely to Immigration continuing to sit on their hands regarding Olivia, I can't help but feel her case has become lost in the system but fear that any approach to them will result in her file slipping back to the tail end of the queue. I suppose since they use the same computer company to run their stuff as did the last census debacle I can point the finger at the real villain that has caused such a stressful delay.
Meanwhile we just live day to day spending as little as possible. When the "needy" in our shire get their Xmas alms organised by the Mayor it won't help my mood knowing that none of them are on less income than we are, not that I want any help at all as we're doing OK.

Indulgence.

Just Jimby shooting an arty angle at the hospital a few metres from where Olivia was recovering.
A reflection from one of the mirrors that are very handy for staff at least to avoid collisions.

It's metres.

I suppose somebody young has inputted this mud map of the hospital to wall display computers around the Townsville Hospital, doubtless at a hefty cost to the public purse but a meter measures something, the unit of length which happily we only use multiples or sub-multiples of is the metre.

Thinking of sucking on the public purse I'd say inspecting a fire door every quarter doesn't come cheaply, chances are the inspections since 2007 that are displayed would cost as much as the door.

Ambiguous.

I suppose this ban is only for the immediate area but I sure wish it covered the hospital generally.
Perhaps it was only because people knew I was there but it felt like 90% of the people milling about were using their cellphone, thus just as smoking does causing Jimby to detour to avoid them.

Nearly full

After shopping I returned to the hospital for another nearly six hour wait, happily I noticed a spot a mere handful of places from the furthest corner of the pay to use car park, and reversed Daisy nicely into it.

To me this is quite crazy.

On display inside the shopping centre I visited was a Jaguar of a bulky shape, likely what is known as an F-PACE shod with this very odd tyre size. I suppose journalists and those young enough to have never had their hopes dashed drool over something like this but for the life of me I can't see the point, if ever the car should leave the bitumen (which looking at the design seems the point) you can almost guarantee tyre and rim will be shortly damaged, even a pothole on an otherwise nice road could well cause very expensive angst. To me it'd make far more sense to reduce the wheel size and fit a tyre with an honest amount of sidewall, that would surely be more comfortable, cheaper and possibly handle better too.
This is merely a victim of fashion.

A bit of wow factor here.

I saw this while wandering Townsville today (before my legs gave out), quite a surprise to see a public phone but a fair shock to see a fairly unmolested phone book, this merits praise.

Video rental clings to life.

For those that use it this is probably sensible.
A curiosity to me is offering both DVD and Blu-Ray, to me it's hard to imagine anybody choosing DVD but somehow I sense many folk will.

Yippee, the Bushy Parker rest stop is accessible again.

For many years my bladder has desired emptying when travelling to Townsville and the Bushy Parker rest area has been ideal with a lovely scenic detour at about the half-way point at Rollingstone, however the old one lane former highway bridge was damaged in flooding some time ago, now I'm happy to report a new bridge has been opened, so once again comfort is readily available.

Bushy Parker at Colditz.

Olivia had an operation today.

Olivia was practising a Roman salute when I first saw her after her operation in Townsville today. I don't know what they did as I'm not good with understanding women's issues but with my poor hearing it sounded something like a triple lung transplant and Olivia was out of action for most of the day, now back at home and recovering.

A lost opportunity.

We went out last night to sing a few Xmas ditties at a do to light up the Shire tree but lack of light and whatever meant only a few failures of photos.
This was shortly before we started and I got a shot of the back of our new Mayor Ramon Jayo talking to the building audience.

A touch of polymorph beads vanity.

My rear teeth have been in ruinous condition lately, a situation not helped by our struggling Queensland health system so I bought a pack of polymorph beads in the hope of being able to do something to ease the pain of eating, the result is I'm as pleased as punch about these magical plastic beads.
After a couple of ordinary trial jobs on my rear teeth, which aren't really a problem as the beads are a low melting point plastic that can simply be popped in hot water and remolded as often as desired, I ended up just capping my broken rear teeth totally with the stuff resulting in being able to eat without have to spend ages picking out food bits from the holes, plus also being able to chug cold drinks without a flood of tears from the pain, another happy side effect is Olivia thinks my breath is less foul than prior to using it. It's nice not having to get up in the middle of the night because of toothache, so bad as my capping may have been, for now I'm very pleased.
Today in this photo I've used them for a cosmetic purpose, covering the stump of the number two tooth that I broke nearly 20 years ago, as well as the missing side of the number one where the recent filling fell out of and the number 3 which had a chunk break off a couple of days ago. None of these caused pain so with a small amount of shame I have to say this is largely cosmetically driven, although the main driver is my inherent urge to be an independent DIY sort of person, all the while learning.

Getting into the mood now.

We went to Townsville today so Olivia could be checked at the hospital upon our return we stopped at Coles to buy a few things and Olivia said G'day to Santa, I think we'll see a fair bit of Santa over the next month.
The downside of today's trip was once again suffering nasty hip pain from a not terribly extended drive, it's something I'm going to have to deal with or just stop driving. I'll try changing the seat angle first and hope it doesn't aggravate a coccyx injury I copped 35 years ago, dunno why my hip is playing up as I find the seat quite comfortable otherwise, the pills I take for what seems like every disease known to man are of course the reason for joint pain but I just have to work around that.

Dunno about this.

In the interest of family harmony, or keeping the Memsahib happy I've been going with Olivia to the Community Support group's Friday meetings, and I suppose I'll continue doing it.
At least today's health promotion was fairly quick, harmless and meaningless. I would have asked today's speaker who as part of his taxpayer funded business dabbles in diet if there's a good food for eyesight that doesn't require teeth, but the opportunity never arose.
In my view the whole set up is aimed towards attracting taxpayer funding but it does serve the purpose of giving some of the less able amongst us a chance to socialise.
I much prefer the usual commercial bingo cards to these but I sense these are printed out of absolute order to provide a bit of mind exercise.
BTW the first emptyish card here was merely for a line, and the third card suffered from waiting an eternity for the 61 that was never called, but I wouldn't have BINGOed anyway if it had, no need to spoil someone else's day for the non-prize that was on offer.

This actually fixed it.

The tablet I'd bought fairly recently to use as a map based GPS in Daisy has had a screen glitch that pretty well renders it useless, so being a sort of hopeless loser that will have a go at fixing near anything I thought I'd try something simple.

I decided to try simply removing and replacing the screen's ribbon cable, the one at lower left here, as well as the upper left one which I think may control the touchscreen, then the real surprise came when I started it up again and the picture was lovely and clear.
Of course something bad had to happen as well, as I'd left the TF card in place that I'd put back in to reboot and destroyed it when I clipped the case back together afterwards, bending it, bugger.

Olivia in her element.

Olivia bought a photo at a garage sale on Saturday and today gave it her Olivia touch.

From this.

To this.
I like having a crafty wife.

A bit early.

It's early but Olivia has been busy adding a festive feel to our place.

She's happy and it's nice so we'll just enjoy things.

I match a superstar today.

Today the 16th November my lifespan matches a real celebrity superstar who happens to share my birthday, Clark Gable, who not so coincidentally died on the 16th November back in 1960.
People think I'm macabre noting those who I outlive but it's far more interesting than the alternative.
Only a couple of days ago I outlasted Scottish singing legend Andy Stewart of "A Scottish Soldier" fame, a big hit in these parts back in 1961 or so.
I have poor health yet have outlasted a growing list of celebrities, but then I don't smoke.

Cute.

I noticed this early this morning, Olivia has done well.

11-11

While Olivia was checking out the markets this morning that were hidden in the background here, I checked out the memorial. 98 years on Remembrance Day appears a victim of grandfather time, I can see a fair case for honouring the next two years and then using the centenary to quietly move all to ANZAC Day which has been our main memorial day, complete with public holiday for as long as any Australian remembers.

 These were just a very small group of bats close to the memorial at our botanic gardens, thousands more have made their home in trees in the gardens and have resulted in access being roped off to the public, they really have become a local issue.

Happy Birthday Brother.

Slightly early for the 9th.
Another photo from my archive of Mega, this time from back of the Marlo pub at the end of 1981.
Mega's in front showing off his watch and fancy dark coloured specs. I'm in the rear having a relaxing time which was aided by the usual pouring of beer down my throat. Mick Mac was between us.
From memory the Moon and Venus were very closely aligned that evening so it would be about the 29th December according to the Planetarium extension for Chrome browser.

My temporary filling just lived up to its name.

Finally after much longer than expected this temporary filling fell out, I return to the dentist on Thursday but she had planned to pull another tooth before pulling the one this filling was in, I doubt she'll pull both in the same visit so I suppose more pain will follow shortly.
This photo also exposes an issue that effects all photography and one that the current fashion for large black cameras with massive and usually oversized sensors, all too often further weighed down by a flapping mirror that has only a legacy purpose nowadays, the issue is depth of field and the so-called pinhead sized sensor this budget gem the Olympus SZ-16 naturally has a deeper depth of field than a large sensor camera but you can see the limited focus depth here. The current fashion for very shallow depth of field is going to mean a lot of photos being shot around the world suffering from this flaw until the users realise that most times they actually want a deeper depth of field for what they're shooting.
Don't give up on small sensor cameras yet, they actually still have a place as well as some advantages despite the sensors now appearing to pretty well be at the limit of development.
Pocketability, Price and Zoom being pretty good factors for a purchase, plus in my case being able to buy a non-black/bland camera means plenty too but I'm a bit weird like that.

Maraka.

With a sense of the parade was ordinary we wandered down to the stage to see if anything interesting was going to happen, and it did, this marching band was from Townsville and if not brilliant at least show plenty of promise if they can stay together and develop, the leader appeared to have much talent.

After the band played a few tunes ending with a medley showstopper local legend Mario Torrisi spoke about a statue he wants to erect and was awaiting permission.

Then we were entertained by the local youth, here a dancer who chose a tune I'd had the joy of never hearing before.

Then more dancers, this time to and Indian type tune that was also unknown to me but was an improvement on the prior tune.

Three dancers and three exotic looking women videoing their performance, there's a possibility they might be related. Unusually in this age of the cellphone only one of those videos should be totally useless due to holding the camera the wrong way (vertically)

Yep sure enough another dancer appeared on stage, to another typically tuneless number that as is normal for our time was too long.

Sure enough more dancers followed, of course the Maraka stage is quite useless as the speakers obscure the lower half of the performers.

Oh bliss oh joy a young fellow had the talent and ticker to play a tune on a violin, he did a good job too and even had the sense to limit the length of the tune he was playing.

Then came a singer so my mood was pretty good again, her song choice wasn't great and she also suffered from equipment breakdown a good way into things but after they put it right she must have relaxed enough to find her voice pretty well and did a fine job of the ordinary and way too long number.
Then came more dancers but I had already stayed way longer than planned so we shuffled off.
Next year I'll plan our visit more about the stage and far less about the parade.

Maraka festival.

Maraka is a festival that dates back to the days before Australians discovered they had colour vision and sugar cane was cut by hand, back in the day it was to celebrate the end of the cutting season, these days there's still plenty of cane left to chop at this time of year but if it was to stay true to its origin then years end would be even busier. Olivia and I went to see the parade yesterday and I'm afraid I found it very ordinary and I think the parade needs an injection of life.

To me this was the highlight but in rather a sad and expensive way, I don't know why they let a Rolls Royce into the parade as it isn't Italian but the slow pace was proving to be a task beyond it and as it passed us it began emitting a fair cloud of fumes that had a real overheating odour to them, I sense a fair sized repair bill coming up for the owner.