ground hogs and refrigerated beaches

This is true.
A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.
But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported.
Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.
The beach will be next to the the new Palazzo Versace hotel which is being built in Dubai where summer temperatures average 40C and can reach 50C.
The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface.
The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.
Police in northern New Jersey needed pepper spray to thwart a groundhog on the attack. Boonton resident Alex Scott told police the rodent chased him when he entered his garage and tried to get his truck. Police Sgt. Mike Danyo and Officer Paul Ryan said the groundhog went on the attack when they arrived.
Police said Danyo tripped and fell. His partner sprayed pepper spray into the groundhog's face, giving the officers time to snare it.

Iphone applications

I have an apple iphone and it is the best phone I have ever owned infact its the best device, I'd like to share some of my favorite applications with you.
1. Shazam. Shazam identifies music tracks by pointing the phone at the music source ie a radio, and clicking tag this. Its really handy for finding out the name / artist of a song that may be playing on the radio, I use it a lot in music rooms on paltalk rather than asking what track is this all the time i just shazam it.

2.GPS Motion X. This application is so good I bought the proffesional one which set me back $3.99. When you start the program, you are given the basic GPS information - latitude, longitude, altitude, accuracy, signal strength, etc.
The second information screen is a stopwatch feature that is combined with waypoint creation. Pressing start automatically creates a waypoint, so you can always get back to your starting point. It is designed for hiking, jogging, biking, etc.
The navigation screen is only useful when moving. It provides bearing information, speed, distance to a selected waypoint, bearing to the waypoint, estimated time of arrival, etc. All very useful information.
Lastly, you have a map screen, which tracks your movement relative to waypoints. Note, this is not a satellite map or a google map, it simply contains the information about latitude, longitude, and waypoints. With this, you can track you exact path if you have the navigation option selected.

3.XE Currency. This application converts your money into other currencies, I have A$ , EUR, Pounds sterling, HK dollars, Fiji Dollars and Tonga Pa, anga on my settings but it has all world currencies and up to the min conversion rates, handy next week in HK when I want to haggle on the price of something I can convert eassily back to $.

4. Skype. Using this application on my phone I will be able to speak to my skype contacts for free on my mobile, or phone for the skype low cost tarif to other phones worldwide, all it needs is an internet connection which can be found in most hotels and hotspots all over.

5. Navionics Marine. This application turns my tellephone into a chart plotter, amazing the whole of Australias marine charts on my phone for $13.99 I love this application.

6. Evernote. Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. This is great for To do Lists, and taking notes, I'll try and do a blog daily on holidays and will use this application to record my thoughts during the day .


7.Holdem. Texas holdem poker game, I use this one heaps when in a que.

Impaled Whale

A cruise ship has arrived in the Atlantic Canada port of Saint John, New Brunswick with a dead whale impaled on its bow. The whale, a finback, which is the worlds second largest mamal, was a juvinile and weighed about 70 tons, I shouldnt go swimming in shipping lanes is my note to self. ( I have put on a bit of weight)

This time next week I'll be blogging from Hong Kong, in 30C heat and humidity, today in Sydney was about half that temp and sunny, Jess and I had a 2 mile hike early and she never left my side all day as she is missing Ishan.

Dont bring back "Hey Hey its Saturday" please, it may have been great in its day but the guy inside the ostrich thingie is in his 80's and Molly Meldrum is well done.

The LAPD, The FBI, and the CIA are all trying to prove that they are the best at apprehending criminals. The President decides to give them a test. He releases a rabbit into a forest and each of them has to catch it.
The CIA goes in.
They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigations they conclude that rabbits do not exist.
The FBI goes in.
After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and they make no apologies. The rabbit had it coming.
The LAPD goes in.
They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling: "Okay! Okay! I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!"

new bathroom

Well I found a cracking wee shop that imports Balaneese furniture and carvings and such and at a great price too, bought the wooden seahorse for under $90 and I think he looks terrific in the new bathroom. I know where I'm going for Christmas presents lol. Talking about Christmas I passed a Christmas shop today that would have to be great oppertunity for a salesman ehh , selling tinsle in May, you wouldnt want to be on a commision.
Elves are sort of Christmassy, How many elves does it take to change a light bulb?Ten! One to change the light bulb and nine to stand on each other?s shoulders!
I love the weather here this time of year, its sunny and about 21C again today if its nice tommorow I'll go for a paddle and try for a fish, we have found quite a few great wee paddles so far including Mainbar and South West Arm in Port Hacking, and the Georges River. I have made a wee outboard motor for the kayak too and want to try that out.

elephant drawers and hats

Angie has this thing about her drawers being on display on the washing line and they have to be hung behind other things and out of sight, I think its a silly phobia so to help her with it today I took all the washing in apart from her drawers which I left hanging there in full view in all their glory, she will never know right enough as I took them in and folded them neatly before she got home, theres only so brave I can handle in one step.
I got a hat in a paltalk chat room "whats a hat?" I hear you ask, well it means I'm in charge and have to make sure that people behave and obey the room rules. Why? and How? well I was asked if I'd do it and since I like the people that frequent the room and have been chatting with them for a while now I said ok. How? well the room is in a program called paltalk and its called "60's 70's and 80's music " people pop in play a tune or say hi on the mic, its g rated which means no swearing etc and is a nice way to meet folks and hear their music. I often listen in while I'm in the office.
I saw a cartoon of winny the poo and piglet walking along holding hands as they do, piglet says " I love you Winny" Winny thinks if he sneezes I'm blinkin out of here.
What else is new Rob?, well my pal Paddy got the ok from his specialist to resume fishing and drinking beer so thats good and I have a biopsy and ultrasound on my thiroid tommorow, which i hope they sort out as I'm tired a lot of the time and have put on weight.

chairs and disapointing programs

Sometimes a program can get huge raps and get me all excited a bit like windows 7 the new operating system from microsoft, I'm thinking of installing it on my vista machine, anyway I heard on the news about "wolfram alpha" and how it will take over from google, well I've done my test on it and to be honest, unless your a mathemetician living in Delaware its about as much use as a bailing bucket on the QE2. Ok so its in its infancy and its all about user input, well why will people input the information if theres nothing in the way of a return for them, traditionally websites, and therfore the content for google searches, either sell something ie www.shirepcaid.com or are a way of meeting, or keeping in touch with others like this blog. I cant see the millions of people that would be required to input Correct data into this program.
OK, chairs, I was sitting back, feet on my desk the other day and my office chair broke and uncerimoniously dumped me on my bottom on the floor, it was a high backed comfy executive type chair which has provide many hours of reclined feet on desk support and I miss it soooo much I have won another similar one on ebay and need to pick it up later today.

Poker

I like to play Texas Holdem Poker and some of the people I play against on a Thursday night organised a home game so I went to that today. It cost me $10 but was fun.

Its a dreich day here after a lovely week of sunny days but the garden needed a watering so I'm not complaining, its going to be a shock to the system this time next week we will be in Hong Kong. I have booked a hotel called the harbour plaza hotel in Kowloon which has a rooftop pool and looks nice. There are loads of things we would like to do while in Hong Kong this time, I hope its not too uncomfortable temperature wise. Today was 31C and rain periods.

Ishan mans best friend

Well we had to put Ishan down today due to ill health :( so this wee blog is in his memory. We had him for about 10 yrs and he live till he was 15. When we took him home he was scared stiff of people especially kids and he didnt really take to toddlers all the way through his life. I think he had maybe bitten a kid at his previous home and been beaten up and taken to the pound. Anyway he turned out to be a very special dog, great with other animals, full of bluster at the gate, and yet really affectionate in his own way.

I have known other owners that kept their dogs longer than they should have and the dogs suffered we decided not to do that with Ishan when the vet told us that he was on the downhill slope.

Anyway here are a few pics of one of mans best friends ISHAN