monkeysarefun

Same thing happens here from those who have never been here - we eat mainly bbq'd Witchety grubs and pies or something apparently. Actually being a hugely multicultural country so close to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific and blessed with the ability to locally grow every type of fresh food our restaurants are brimming with diversity and authentic flavours as well as great fusion combinations.

I've never had to suffer through a job interview, all my job moves have been via people recommending jobs to me, or letting me know there was an opening and then me calling them up and asking what they are offering, or just getting offered a job via someone in another company I was dealing with approaching me. Then once I got a high enough security clearance the world that I work in was my lucrative oyster. Its easier to teach someone who already has the right clearance the required skills, than it is to get a clearance for a skilled up person, so as a bonus I get lots of free training. I'd have no time for sitting in front of some idiot asking me what my aspirations were or whatever, or why I didnt talk with the right stupid sounding plumy bullsh1t accent or why my tie wasn't stripy enough, - or why I dont even own a tie, come to that. Actually, I don't think any of that would apply here unless you were going for a job at Rugby Australia, or maybe it applies in banking or when joining our version of the conservative party Here it would be more like "What footy team do you go for?... What, a Manly supporter?! F ^%# off before I call the cops!" Life is too short to sit through all that nonsense and there's heaps more opportunities and much better paid jobs down here than what those corporate interviewy types have to offer.

I had Cooper the Border Collie, he would eat everything, his epic most moment was when I took him for a walk and he dashed off into the scrub and came back chewing on something which once I'd finally wrestled it off him turned out to be a full packet of jelly snakes. I read somewhere later that that kind of confectionery isn't compatible with dogs but he came through it in one piece. Some foods are fatal to parrots too so I have to be careful with what treats I give Gary The Parrot and Buttons The House Budgie. . Avocado apparently is like Kryptonite to them, and mushrooms and onions are apparently also a no no. Gary doesnt help by yelling out "YUM?!!" every time I open the fridge because I then have to explain to him why the slice of pizza or whatever I'm heating up is out of bounds for him.

Woah there, Mr Rent A Kill! We only need to repel them, not obliterate everything in the vicinity, and for that a consumer level insect repellant is completely adequate. True story! when I went to Trever Grice's 9th birthday party at a picnic ground at Warragamba dam in 1973 , his mum - annoyed at the swarms of flies that descended on the food, sprayed Aerogard (a popular insect repellant here, ad slogan "Aveagoodweekend - remember the Aerogard") over the table, she tried to avoid the food but there would have been drift and overspray since she didn't mask the plates off first. Lacking an authentic polaroid picture taken on the day, I've invoked AI (but only because Grizz did first), to illustrate the situation. It misrepresents the number of kangaroos, there were 3 hanging around from memory. They have learned to hang around picnic areas, apparently solely in order get their photo taken, because they never seem to be interested in the food.

Plus, that thing he did with his finger, we'd all wait for it!

Oh well, at least you got to stand where he did. He was much loved here, something about him just endeared him to the Australian supporters and the players. If Dickie Bird gave one of ours out it didn't seem as bad. The same thing applied for Alan Knott, the UK wickie in the mid-seventies, we had a lot of time for him, with his gloves and floppy hat he looked a bit like a flowerpot man. Derek Randall too springs to mind, his cunning strategy of being humourous won us over, they'd have both been welcome in the Australian team!

Ben obviously needs to broaden his horizons!

And the increasing risk of natural disasters. The 2022 floods cost the insurance companies here $5.87 billion. The 2020 bushfires, $2.32 billion. Increased premiums reflect both the recouping of payouts like that as well as building up the kitty for the next one.

LOL, ITs half over.. And Collingwood won.

That doesnt cover the judge apparently....

All good here now, they went months ago - apparently the 4 legged freeloaders didn't pay their agistment fees which is typical of horses so the paddock is empty. It is also free of all the eyesores that horses bring with them, blankets chucked over fences, feed bins and troughs, abandoned horse floats. Cows are much neater, and unlike horses they add something to the landscape, like the ones I overlook behind.

Not recommended legal strategy - when about to be tried on numerous charges, publicly call the judge who will decide your sentence if convicted a "whackjob".

Tasmanian Huon pine has a very high oil content, methyl eugenol, which renders it impervious to insects, and it is waterproof. It grows only in the Southwest forests of Tasmania and is not actually a pine and is the only member of its family. It grows extremely slowly, averaging just 1 millimetre in girth per year, so is not viable as a plantation timber although specimens have been found that are 2,500 years old so it could be a very long term proposition. The felling of green Huon Pines stopped completely in the 1970’s after a consensus that it was neither sustainable nor prudent to cut down trees that were 1000 years old. However, a careful stockpiling operation was begun when trees were felled and collected prior to the flooding of several valleys to create dams for hydro electric schemes. For decades these logs were tied into huge rafts and left to float unperturbed on the water until needed. The stockpile created when Lake Gordon was flooded in 1972 still supplies the majority of logs released for use each year. Only 3 sawmills are licensed to process the logs. The retrieval of stumps left over from old logging is another source of salvage timber and led to the discovery of tons of ancient buried Huon pine logs, some dated at 38,000 years old and still intact despite being buried in the damp earth all that time. In addition, perfectly millable logs are being recovered from the bottom of Macquarie Harbour where they were lost due to capsizes and mishaps when it was being cut down and transported by convicts in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It also smells amazing when cut or worked.

Did you do the Dickie Bird Dismissal Finger in tribute?

Well it seems to me a bit illogical if insurance valuations are based solely on that? Here there are still many old original small cottages sitting on prime beachfront land amongst recently built multi-million dollar properties. The real estate valuation (ie what you could ask for if you sold it) would be similar to the surrounding mansions due to its desirability as a knockdown - rebuild sitting on prime real estate, but the insurance valuation would be based mainly on the cost of rebuilding the dwelling as-is, plus any risk (floodprone etc). As you say, the land contains the value and you still have that after the house burns down.

Auto-update probably?

Building materials have skyrocketed in price since the pandemic, and labour is scarce. Also there may be additional "greentape" or similar, like insulation standards that must be met now, I don't know about the UK but here houses in bushfire prone areas now have to have a whole heap of mandatory extra "features" which can range from fireproof windows, ember proof guttering and roof construction techniques, automatic sprinklers on the building, fireproof shutters, etc. Many people who lost their homes in the 2020 fires found that the insurance payout they got was not sufficient to allow them to rebuild their house as it was because all these extra conditions raised the rebuild cost substantially higher than the previous valuation that the payout had been based on.

They DO get sprayed with some stuff to keep the flies off.

The Saturn Ultra 3 had ACF film as-shipped. It is more rubbery looking and quite cloudy. Its apparent main reason for being is that it allows faster print times (though you need high-speed resin). The disadvantage of it that I found is that it is less hard wearing than PFA and mine got a small tear in it within the first week. As a stopgap I took the PFA equipped vat from the Saturn 2 and used that as is, since its a straight swap - and have been using it without issues for the last 12 months. I don't need fast print times so the ACF is not needed and I've not bothered ordering replacement ACF. Additionally, its been claimed that ACF prints are less detailed than ones done with PFA and I definitely found that out when I bought an Anycubic M5s or whatever it was called that used ACF film. The prints were markedly inferior to what the Saturn 2 had given me even though it was 12K vs 8K, so I sent it back and got the Ultra 3 instead. I didn't do enough high detail prints on the Ultra 3 before the FEP got damaged so I can't say if that printer has the same print quality issues using ACF, but youtube reviews I've seen suggest it doesn't.

I guess the Cheese one is out of the question then!

Anyone can criticise all they like, its not like we are going to listen or anything......

June is the date here too, although when I ordered my Saturn 3 Ultra in the pre-sale last year the shipping was estimated to be two months time but I got an email saying it was on its way about 2 weeks after I put the order in so who knows? (When checking that I saw that I paid US$499US for the Saturn 3 Ultra, compared to US$399 for the Saturn 4....)

The ultimate taste test ( a kind of taste test Ashes) would be to compare this with the Marmite Penguin.

Make sure you check his luggage , hate for any of these to sneak in!