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.