Go Ahead, Make My Day!

One thing I forgot to mention in the last post (and the blogging page doesn't seem to work 100% on this crappy machine, so I couldn't amend it!) was that on the way back from One Tree Hill, the trees and sky were filled with bats.

Unfortunately, I only took video of them, and it was so dark that it's next to unviewable. I might make the trek up there again tonight and take some stills.

Anyway, day two started out with me waking up at 0530, all keen to get some shots of the view from our balcony of the sunrise. I took a number of shots and video at at least four different times, with the recordings being separated by about ten minutes. So, lots of piccies to post when I get home.

Went down for breakfast to discover that the hotel had no record of the fact that it was included in the package, so I had to pay; very annoying, but I'm sure I'll get reimbursed once it's sorted out.

Michael went off to attempt to get involved in some windsurfing lessons ... far too energetic for me, so I popped back down to see what the marina looked like in the daytime.

On the way back, he called me to say the windsurfing had been cancelled .. something to do with the tide being too high ... so we decided to go off to "Target Sports" to do some shooting.

I opted for something fairly sedate ... a .22 rifle. I didn't do too badly, but I doubt anyone will be calling on my services for sniper training anytime soon :-).

Michael went for the bigger handguns: .357 magnum, .44, Glock and one other I can't remember. He was about 20m from where I was shooting and I could still hear a serious "thud" each time he fired off a round!

After that, we both had a go at clay pigeon shooting. Michael did pretty well; I think he hit with somewhere between eight and ten of the twenty five shots. I, on the other hand, connected with only five ... along with accidentally firing one round into the ground and forgetting to orient the gun off to the side when ejecting one set of empty cartridges, which narrowly missed the instructor.

Michael spent the afternoon snorkeling and going to one of the scenic lookouts. I went to the Bougainvillaea Bar, which looks out over the water, and had a Mud Baby, which was very similar to a Mudslide.

Then, I took a bit of a walk around, ending up back at the Marina Tavern for a quiet schooner of Stella. A bit more aimless wandering, then I grabbed a six pack of Beez Neez and spent the early evening battling Friday's DA crossword.

When Michael returned, we went off to the Red Emperor for dinner ... after he'd popped over to the sports centre for a sauna (shared with some Finnish chap who apparently cranked the temperature up somewhat higher than Michael had ever expected to experience!). One Long Island Ice Tea and a Boags, plus Banquet B, slightly modified to replace the Lemon Chicken with something decidedly more spicy.

Back to the room for another Beez Neez and a chin wag until Michael decided that was it for the night. A perfect time to pop downstairs to do this blogging, since there are no other guests mad enough to be using the PC at this hour :-).

Later today, I plan to check out the Koala Gallery and native animal sanctuary in the morning and go off on the Reef Viewer cruise in the afternoon. More on that later, gentle reader ...

Is This Progress?!

I just don't believe it!

I'm about to leave for a few days on Hamilton Island. Being the nerd that I am, my MacBook is coming along, because I want to do some coding in the off hours.

I decided that it would be nice to have a real mouse, rather than being forced to use the trackpad all the time, so I bought one yesterday.

It came with a driver CD. This morning, I remembered that I hadn't run the installation, so I stuck the CD in the drive.

Poor Noether can neither read the CD, nor eject it!

There's no time to take her to an Apple shop, so I'm stuck, for the entire trip, with a CD permanently in the drive that the MacBook tries to read every couple of minutes, which chews the battery ... plus it makes that horrible wheezing motor noise.

In days gone by, CD drives had a hole you could stick a paper clip into to physically force the CD out. Not so with these damned slot loading drives!

To add insult to injury, it turns out that the only value of the special drivers is to let you use the extra buttons on the mouse. The features I want ... basic functionality and the scroll wheel ... work just fine without them!

Hopefully, a dozen of those alcoholic drinks served in a pineapple, like this one here, complete with a couple of paper umbrellas, and I'll forget all about it!

Hey! Is that a laptop bag she has next to her? ... I think I'm in love :-).

Maths For Morons

I can't remember what I was actually searching for on YouTube when I came across this video, because the shock has burned away some of my brain cells.

This lady is on a crusade to rid US primary schools of what seem to be some pretty screwed up mathematics textbooks. Watch the video and you'll understand why!

Truly Amazing Ads

My mate Paul had an interesting post on his blog recently, surveying some bizarre advertisements from a few decades ago.

As I mentioned to him later, I remember being amazed, back when I used to read Psychology Today, that every other page was an ad for some kind of tobacco or alcohol product.

However these ads really take the cake!

DJ Ted Stevens

This is a nice remix of Senator Ted Stevens' tirade against net neutrality where he explains the internet as being a series of "toobs" ... not a big truck that you can just dump things on!

Will It Blend?

I found this madness on Engadget. These guys are known for destroying all sorts of things by sticking them in a high speed blender.

Today's recipe is a bit more interesting than most, being a video camera ... that tapes its own demise!

Utter Madness

It's hard to believe there are people as stupid as this in the world.

In this video, these guys throw a few sticks of dynamite into a river and then surf the waves that are generated by the explosion.

As I say, madness !!

This Is Progress?!

I've heard about the concept on sci-fi shows, but didn't realise until I read this article that anyone was actually working to produce such a thing.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center in the US has a working model of a rail gun that fires a 3.2kg projectile a distance of 200 nautical miles in 6 minutes, using an electromagnetic device.

The power of the impact is equivalent to "hitting a target with a Ford Taurus at 380 mph".

Holy Spinning Images, Batman!

OK. This is just slightly fiddly, but here goes ... right click on either this link or the picture and ask your browser to copy the link location.

Go to some website with lots of images and paste it into the address box, then press return. Sit back and enjoy.

I'd suggest not trying this while hungover :-).

Here's a good site to try this on. For even more fun, once you've done it, try clicking in the address and pressing enter. The more times you do it, the more fun it is :-) !!