It Got Cold Today

Seriously cold. As in maybe record-breaking.

At about 1000 this morning, there were big, fat flakes of snow swirling around the yard. Admittedly, they were mixed with rain and sleet, but the only other time I've seen snow here was a brief flurry of very little flakes at 0800 one morning, about eight years back.

The kids and I layered up like Matroshka dolls. We were planning to set out for Mt Barrow, where the snow usually falls. However, we only made it a hundred metres or so from our driveway before the snow was noticeably piling up on the road. A few hundred metres later, we saw it all over the big tree ferns. And then there were small trees, bent under the unaccustomed weight, leaning onto the road and disrupting the traffic. Fortunately, since the snow was maybe five cm deep on the road by then, there really wasn't much traffic to disrupt.

We made it as far as the lookout, which has perhaps two hundred, maybe three hundred metres of elevation on this house. This is what things looked like up there.

A few minutes later, the police turned up from the direction of Launceston. They were driving very slowly. They weren't impressed by the plan to drive to Mt Barrow.

Later, by the time I went shopping to Scottsdale, they had closed the highway. I didn't find out about it until I came down, round the sweeping corner, and discovered 'road closed' signs facing the other direction across the road. Being the scofflaw I am, I drove around them. Then I went to the bank, the post office, the butcher, and the supermarket. On the way home, I drove back around the road closed signs. Mmmm. I am a rebel. And illegally obtained roast pork and vegetables taste much nicer, anyway.

At first, the Mau-Mau was having a good time. But then she took off her pink gloves so they "wouldn't get wet." Then she complained about her cold, wet, hands. Then she fell on her face, and howled quite a lot. No snow expedition is complete without a good Mau-Mau faceplant.

Young Genghis, on the other hand, just couldn't be stopped. I suspect he has veins full of superheated antifreeze, not blood at all.

Check it out! That is very nearly a real snowman. It's a bit leafy, and there's some wallaby shit embedded in it, but it's much bigger than any of our previous efforts, and it actually held together.

By the time Mr Snowman was a reality, the Mau-Mau had hunkered down in the car, never to emerge again. Everybody else was cold and soaked, because at this altitude there was still some rain among all that snow. We decided not to go for Mount Barrow. Pity.

An interesting thing: across the road from the lookout is a commercial plantation of Douglas Firs. They're pretty sizeable, and they've been there as long as I've lived here, so I guess they're probably fifteen years old or more. Anyway, despite being evergreens from a snowy ecosystem, they've been growing here without yearly snow. Because of that, the unexpected weight of the falling snow was too much for them. As we mucked around in the snow on the lookout, we kept hearing big branches snap and fall. It sounded like a giant, stomping about in the forest.

And finally: this is Jake's Youtube footage of the winter adventure.

May not mean much to those of you from real snow country... but for us, it was pretty mindblowing.

So Stupid It Gives Stupid A Bad Name

By now, you'll be aware that I think Australia's policies towards asylum-seekers and refugees are disgraceful in the extreme. Now, however, Gillard's government has shown me that no matter how obnoxious and stupid a government is, there's always a way to fall even lower.

We're letting Australian soldiers die in Afghanistan on the pretext of 'nationbuilding'. We're supposedly helping the Afghan people create necessary infrastructure and civil order, and in so doing, theoretically building a relationship between our two peoples. You know: so as to undermine the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric of the Wahabi idiots behind Al-Qaeda and other largely Islamic agitators.

We talk about engaging with moderate Muslims. We talk about tolerance. We talk about finding ways to cross the cultural divide, to promote understanding.

And then we send unaccompanied children off to Malaysia.

Check the article.

There's stupid. Then there's Pauline Hanson moronic. And then there's subhuman, brain-dead cretinism the like of which I don't think I've seen from a government in this nation before.

We've got couples all over the country who are absolutely desperate to adopt children. (Go ahead. Check out the waiting times.) We've got a precarious relationship with Islam and with various countries in this part of the world. And we've got a pool of innocent children without families -- children who ask for and need nothing more than any other child -- who come from some of these troubled countries. Some of them are certainly of the Islamic faith. All of them, without exception, are frightened and wretchedly alone.

It would take an absolute imbecile not to see the opportunity this presents. All we have to do is treat these children kindly. All we have to do is place them with decent people who want to have families of their own, in the Australian way. All we have to do is act like the fair-go nation we so loudly proclaim ourselves to be.

Children. They're just children. Are you really trying to tell me that they're some kind of security threat? Do you really expect me to believe these are heinous Al-Qaeda sleeper agents, just waiting to grow up so they can be fiendish domestic terrorists?

Why in the name of all that's sane and rational are we doing this? Why are we sending these vulnerable, innocent kids to camps in Malaysia, of all places? Malaysia, where caning is part of the official regime of legal punishment? Malaysia, whose record on human rights is spotty, to say the very least?

D'you think those kids are going to grow up as comfortable, decent people who remember Australia with kindness? Or do you suppose they might just possibly develop some kind of life-long loathing of the place and the culture which treated them so foully, and then rejected them so completely?

Are we goddam TRYING to raise a new generation of Al-Qaeda recruits?

How can anyone be this howlingly stupid? You know -- if the Opposition were to throw Abbott into the oubliette where he belongs and perhaps even put Turnbull in his place, I could even vote Liberal over this simple issue. Yep. That's right: green, anarchist me. I'd vote with the Liberals on this (if Abbott wasn't such a rabid dog) because -- and follow me carefully here -- ANY GOVERNMENT WHICH IS STUPID ENOUGH TO DO THIS IS TOO FUCKING STUPID TO LIVE.

Words fail me. I really thought I'd seen the depths of imbecility in governance. Gillard has just proved me wrong in the worst possible way.

Winter Busyness

Winter indeed. I don't know what the rest of you out there are going through, but we're having an early winter here in Tas, and a cold one. Lots of frosts; clear, cold nights where the temperature drops to freezing. We even had a good dose of Aurora Australis a few nights back, apparently. Unfortunately, with the mountains immediately to our south, I didn't get to see the display. Mind you, I've caught the Southern Lights before, so I can lay claim to having seen the earth's aurora at both ends of the planet.

I've been writing, which is good. A couple of stories, three submissions, one rejection. The other two are on longer deadlines - one is for Ticonderoga's paranormal noir anthology upcoming, and the other for Cosmos. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

And more writing: two novels at once. There's the novelisation of the libretto for Outkast Opera, and another project, which I don't care to discuss. Enough to keep me quite busy, obviously.

Meanwhile, in keeping with Sudden Winter, I have a cold. And apparently, also 'Geographic Tongue'. Which is as weird as it sounds, yes. I thought about trying to take a photo, but between the need for a mirror and a flash (which is always a bad combination) or alternatively, the need to point the camera at my tongue while vaguely hoping for the best, I decided I'd pull a photo off the Net. And here it is. Not my tongue, but more or less what my tongue currently looks like. Ick.

Meanwhile... this year isn't slowing down even a little bit. It just screams past while I'm still trying to catch my breath. Every day, every week, chockfull. Last Friday night, Nat and the boys did their first concert with the Launceston Youth and Community Orchestra. It went rather well, all things considered - all things being a tired and impatient Mau-Mau, sub-zero weather by the time the concert was finished, lengthy pause between practice and play (which we filled with a trip to Dumpling Legend for dinner) and the fact that yes, it was a Friday night concert in Launceston after a long and trying week at school, etc.

I notice they're trying to set up a four-term school year again here in Tas. I guess those summer holidays are just too long for good, industry-standard breaks. Can't have the kids getting used to the idea of freedom, can you? And those awful parents, demanding time off to be with their spawn... how dare they?

I don't think they're planning to add a lot more in the way of school days, mind you. Just redistribute the holidays. Of course, that means an extra start-period every year, in which nothing much gets done. And an extra last-week-of-term each year, in which (yes, again) nothing much gets done. But that's okay, because it will Modernise Tasmania, and Bring Us Into Line With The Mainland.

... you know, I'm kind of tired of prioritising corporate interests over everybody else in society.

Take the current fuss with Cate Blanchett supporting a carbon tax. Madame B has been a card-carrying Green for many a year, and has put her money where her mouth is in terms of lifestyle. She's speaking up in favour of a price on carbon, designed to help raise awareness of CO2 production, and to reduce it by allowing less CO2 intensive alternatives compete with the artificially lowered price of carbon-heavy energy.

And for this Rupert sets the media dogs on her.

Meanwhile, Australia's richest individual -- Gina Rinehart -- jumps on the bandwagon against the infamous Mining Tax, howling that it'll bring roooination to us all. Oddly, Gina's massive fortune comes from... mining. Yes. But does anyone call her out on the patently obvious conflict here?

Well, not in uncle Rupert's newspapers they don't. Nor in TV-land, where the Word of Murdoch is Law.

We can afford a mining tax. In fact, it's arguable we can't afford NOT to have one, because while we're making money from resources now, the day will come when either we run out, or the demand falters -- and if we haven't done the right thing by ourselves as a nation, we're gonna wind up looking a lot like Nauru: an ugly, abandoned chunk of Pacific undesirable. But apparently the possibility that Gina might have to make do with just ONE set of platinum-forged dinnerware is too much.

We can also afford a carbon tax. And again: it's arguable we can't afford NOT to have one. But Cate has no oars in the water here. She's not making money out of anti-CO2 schemes. She states loudly and clearly that what she wants is to be able to look her kids in the eye when they're older, and say that yes, she did her best to preserve a decent world for them.

I guess it's up to you whether or not you accept that. But given that the nastiest of Uncle Rupert's diggers have yet to uncover a money-making link between Cate Blanchett and any "no-CO2" alternatives -- well, if you don't accept Cate's motives, you're going to have to scratch around and devise one of your own. Which ought to be interesting.

Well, hell with it. I'm going to go out and get some exercise. I'm heading down into the berry patch to cut back the old canes. And yes: I'm going to compost them, which will keep the carbon in the soil and do at least a little bit for the atmosphere...

More Pirates

Well, I took the inevitable trip with the boys to see the new Depp/Pirates film this weekend. And either my sensibilities have been blunted, or it really wasn't as bad as I expected.

Let's be clear: I love the first of the three films. It's a gem, a marvellous mix of homage, irony, spectacle, character-acting and sheer damned fun. The second film was a much less vivid work, aimed mainly at bringing the third onto the screen. And the third was a muddy, plodding, noisy wreck that disappointed in almost every way.

Obviously, I wasn't expecting much from the fourth. Admittedly, the fact that they felt a need to credit Tim Powers' book for the title and elements of the plot was a positive factor. I do like Mr Powers work. Nevertheless, I went in expecting little more than eyestrain (3D again, yes) so the fact that I was entertained more often than I was bored counts as a success.

The problem, for me, with the movies since #1, is that they've lost the momentum and the character interplay that carried the first from one set-piece to the next. The set-pieces are fun, sure. The complicated Jack-Sparrow-Escapes-From-The-Royal-Palace effort was positively balletic, and filled up the screen nicely, while remaining very much in character for Sparrow. But in between the shiny set pieces in the first film, we got a certain amount of character development. Minor plot arcs that kept the film from getting dull.

There's little of that here. In between the set pieces, what we get is essentially exposition aimed at moving the plot to the next set-piece.

Credits: Ian MacShane has an absolute lock on 'menace', and does a fine job as the villain of the piece -- Edward Teach, or Blackbeard. Penelope Cruz looks the part (as always), and is sufficiently fiery of mien to allow us to believe she's actually able to buckle those swashes up there in the action scenes. Depp has Jack Sparrow under his skin now, and Geoffrey Rush is reliable as ever in Barbossa's boot. (Not boots. He's had a very piratical accident.)

Brickbats: the subplot involving the preacher and the mermaid is tacked on to add something resembling complexity to an otherwise painfully straightforward go-there-and-grab-the-maguffin plotline. I didn't give a flying fart about the preacher, and my only real response to the mermaid was to wonder whether or not the Internet had any slightly less clothingy photos of her. (It does.) Keira and Orlando may not have been the most riveting actors on screen in the first flick, but they were given more room to play, more depth, and most of all, more goddam significance to the storyline. I actually feel rather sorry for the people playing Mr Preacher and Ms Mermaid.

Overall? Don't bother seeing it on your own, but if you've got kids who like the franchise, it's entertaining enough to justify an afternoon out.

I F--king KNEW It!

It alllll makes sense now.

Apple causes ‘religious’ reaction in brains of fans, say neuroscientists


And no. They're not talking fruit.

OMFG! I WANT ONE!

Superhero fliers. Radio. Fucking. Controlled.

Check 'em out.

God DAMN I could have some fun with one of those things...

The End Is Nigh

Yep. This is the last night in which I sleep quietly, in an otherwise empty house. (Ignoring two pet cats, three pet rats and two fish, of course.) Tomorrow evening, Nat and the spawnage return to the fold, and levels of noise and chaos rise appropriately.

It's been a good break. Sunday night, for example: I invited a number of the older ju-jitsu students to turn up and watch some classic films with me. (Okay - they're classic to me, all right?) See, while the boys would watch anything if they had the chance, Natalie has seen The Princess Bride and Blade Runner often enough that she'd just roll her eyes and groan at me for watching them again. On the other hand, it turned out that the posse of teenagers in the martial class hadn't seen either. (Barring the redoubtable Amy, who had actually seen The Princess Bride, but was completely happy to see it again.)

It was a good evening. I made pizza and popcorn, and we watched The Lost Thing first, in the grand old tradition of cartoons before the main feature. Everybody enjoyed The Princess Bride appropriately (although April used the word 'ridiculous' so often that eventually, I replied to her with the Montoya Response to an overused and potentially incorrect word. And if you don't know the Montoya Response... no. That's just inconceivable!) and the encounter between Inigo and Count Rugen, with all the repeats of the famous "Hello! My name is..." speech went over exactly as it should.

Blade Runner also provoked the right responses. I have to admit: I really like the current crop of young students. There's some wit and insight there. It speaks well of their families, and of a community that can bring up young people like this, even when the economy and the long-established customs are faltering.

And what else? Well, I've also shopped for a replacement computer for the boys. They've got my old one, but it runs on XP, and it's about five years old. It's slow to start, and it's reaching its capacity in terms of functionality. Natalie is particularly cranky with it, because she likes to use it to consult the Internet, rather than disappearing off to her study.

On the other hand, it really does look as though replacing it with a useful faster model will cost at least $600, which is more than we want to pay for mere convenience. (And six hundred will only get a machine with Vista. There is no conceivable way I will permit another Vista-driven machine into this house, so I'd have to load one of my copies of XP onto the thing... and really, that's not much of an upgrade, given that their current machine operates under XP.)

Hmm. I've also bought and planted four apple trees. The species is Malus gorgeous, believe it or not, and it's theoretically a crab-apple. However, there are a few mature trees in Launceston, and Genghis and I raided a couple. They fruit very heavily indeed, and though the apples are small and tart, they're quite tasty. The trees are genuinely gorgeous, and the jam I made from the apples -- flavoured with clove, cinnamon and honey -- was wonderful. Oh, and Genghis ate an entire bagful of the things. So, yes: I think that putting four of them in the ground around the Giant Killer Playground Fortress is a good plan.

What else? Oh, I've slothed. And it's been good. I watched a couple movies I'd picked up ages ago, and never managed to find time for: Zombieland and Taken. The former was quite entertaining: Woody Harrelson's turn as the redneck master zombie-killer 'Tallahassee' was lovely, and the little knife the writers stuck in with the backstory of the death of his son was unexpected and affecting. Bill Murray's appearance as himself was comedic platinum.

Taken, on the other hand, didn't do nearly so much for me. Liam Neeson did what he could with the material, but it was... not pleasant. Annoyingly patriarchal. Irritatingly xenophobic. Depressingly prone to racial and cultural stereotyping, and underpinned with that godawful American righteousness that Hollywood loves to jam down our throats. Corrupt French police, vicious Albanian drug- and slave- traffickers, decadent, cowardly, salacious Arab sheikhs... and over it all, Neeson's Righteous Fatherly Rage.

Fuck it. That is really not a movie I needed, and I'll be glad to get it out of the house.

The break from cooking has been nice too. Other than Sunday night's pizzaganza, I've subsisted on leftovers and toasted sandwiches. The fridge is now down to a state where I can meaningfully clean it out tomorrow, and restock it. I'm not looking forward to that, I admit. Eyyeuch.

Of course, there's been the inevitable irritation from those mindless pricks at Telstra Bigpond. Those of you who read this regularly know it took me nearly five months to get NextG broadband here, owing to reception problems. You may also be aware that in order to minimise the cost, the account is linked to Natalie's mobile phone number.

Note well: I'm the one who set up the account. Me. Personally. At the Telstra shop in Launceston. I created the account, and with the help of a Telstra functionary, I linked to Natalie's mobile.

So - the first time I tried to contact Bigpond to ask about account details, I was told I had no access. Because, of course, it's Natalie's mobile. And even though I'm listed on the home phone, I'm not on her mobile account. No matter that the existence of the Bigpond account was down to me: because it's linked to Natalie's mobile, I can't ask about details, or do basic maintenance.

Here's a note for you Telstra: no way NATALIE is going to check the basics. She doesn't know how, doesn't have time, and depends on me to handle that shit -- as I told you when I set up the account. You cretins.

Anyway, Natalie finally got around to ringing Bigpond, and adding me to the account. She did it on Tuesday last week. And yesterday, I rang Bigpond to adjust the password to the account, because for some reason it doesn't respond online - so I can't check our data usage.

Guess what? The Indian-accented woman at the Telstra Bigpond call centre informed me that I'm not listed on the Bigpond account. Apparently Natalie needs to ring Billing and tell them to add me...

... gosh. I wonder what she actually did on Tuesday? And more to the point, I wonder what f__king drugs the Telstra employee she talked to was on when they told her that they were adding my name to the account?

I am so f__king tired of Telstra and Bigpond that I would pay twice as much money to any other carrier for an equivalent service.

Shame there aren't any other carriers out here, eh?