rumour.....

yes folks..... there is a rumour that a certain fixer...... a certain dawg is headlining at an underground party this friday...... and its his birthday........

friday could spell trouble... hehehehe...im in.

Sal & Borg's Wedding Cake

Just over Kimbo's and the news is Kimbo is doing the wedding cake so I thought I would have some input. My final selection are above. Fixers get to choose.

turn up the base.......

so our rammed earth walls were completed around 10 days ago and they look great. a lot of the other r.e. walls around the joint are much lighter and already looked a little washed out (we benefited from viewing others walls before building ours). our walls have a little more red in them making them a lovely terricota colour. they will lighten as they slowly cure so we will get a little colour change over time. remember these are internal walls seperating the living and sleeping areas.
bring on the base. I thought the house looked a little small before the steel footings and joists went up. The darker coloured wood is all recyled - i believe it formed part of a roof structure in its past life. Pat (our builder) and I are standing in what will be bedroom 3... to the left of us, just past the wall, is the kitchen and you can also see one of our smaller tanks sitting under the bow deck . just behind pat and I you will notice a flattened area at ground area where another two tanks will be placed.. each tank will hold 22,500 ltrs of water each (sh*tloads). we will end up having four tanks around the place which will amount to a 57,000 water storage capacity.
sally is standing in the master bedroom. to the right is the ensuite and bedrooms as you go back. to the left is the living room. the gradient we are on will allow us to look over the top of the houses in front of us affording some pretty wicked views of the valley.
pat and sal below. we feel pretty lucky to have this dude working on our house. he's a top bloke who has an awesome rep around the place. everytime I ring up a supplier they always mention that he is good and gets the job done.. phew as it would have been a nightmare otherwise.... he is also a self confessed beer pig which i respect. I have a good feeling that we will get on it before house completion.

so we should have something to show around the time a lot of people are up Mt Tamborine. quite exciting... lads my latest purchase is a toliet with a soft close seat which means you can just drop the lid and it slowly closes shut.... you gotta love that..

the penis are back..........

Love On the Line
Crazy Penis

New studio album from the one of the most acclaimed electronic fusion acts of the last decade. Crazy P are a truly gifted group of musicians who explore the disco and soul roots of house music by fusing 70's funk, pop melodies, electronica and sun kissed beats to delicious effect. In the process, they've created albums that no self respecting dance music lover should be without.

Blending sophisticated deep house with dreamy disco grooves, wicked diva vocals and funked-up beats Crazy P is one of the most original bands to emerge from the British dance scene since Massive Attack. Instinctively groovy, this Nottingham outfit deliver late-night, future classic grooves with '70s funk influences, soul instrumentation, tightly wound rhythms and luscious pop-melodies.

bear faces court.....

A MACEDONIAN court convicted a bear of theft and damage for stealing honey from a beekeeper who fought off the attacks with thumping "turbo-folk" music.

"I tried to distract the bear with lights and music because I heard bears are afraid of that," Zoran Kiseloski told top-selling daily Dnevnik after the year-long case of the bear vs. the beekeeper ended in the beekeeper's favour.

"So I bought a generator, lit up the area and put on songs of (Serbian 'turbo-folk' star) Ceca." The bear stayed away for a few weeks, but came back when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, Kiseloski said, adding, "it attacked the beehives again."

A court in the city of Bitola found the bear guilty, and since it had no owner and belonged to a protected species, ordered the state to pay the 140,000 denars ($3,500) damage it caused to the hives.

Best Nature Photo Awards by National Geographic # 6

Best Nature Photo Awards by National Geographic # 5

Best Nature Photo Awards by National Geographic # 4

Best Nature Photo Awards by National Geographic # 3

Best Nature Photo Awards by National Geographic # 2

Best Nature Photo Awards by National Geographic # 1

chinese eye test.....

If you cannot decipher anything, then try pulling the corner of your eyes as if you were Chinese.

ash starts work in p.n.g.

Move along...

Nothing to see here....

Unless you're a Hopewate fan....

Yes, the victorious Indian "Bravehearts" are all over the news here and all I can do is make fun of an unfortunate digit up bum photo... We did have a thought this morning though. While walking on the beach amongst the many cricket games were a Sikh father and young son. They were playing happily, the boy tapping the ball, the father smiling at his sons achievements. It was at this moment a ball was hit in our direction, Sharon grabbed it, and we looked at eachother... Should we throw it into the sea and make a monkey gesture and say "this one's for Symonds!!" ?
Na.. Shaz tossed it back to the father's hand there'll be time enough for the Aussies in the seasons to come... Although if you read the paper here the balance has shifted to the Indian's favour for ever!!
The media has picture of fans burning flares instead of effigies of Ponting, picture of players mothers kissing photos of their sons, stories of courageous battles fought and won against aggressive play, abusive fans and poor umpiring. In fact they've gone as far as to claim the Test series also, in the face of the umpiring decisions seen as only made against the Indian team.
To make things worse for us, the Indian Under 19 team only a few days earlier claimed the U19 World Cup....
Here's a few of the headlines; Indians Rule the Roos, Smells like team spirit, Having the last laugh... and they go on..
Alright enough about Cricket... Sorry for you Gilly, well done to the Indians for the Tri-Series win.. The Super 14's rugby is on the Australia Network and the NRL and AFL seasons are soon to return. Time to bring back the Biff!!!

mis-bee-hiven

ash took a couple of snaps of the native bee hive sitting on our deck at Hazlewood street. I thought it worthy of a post..............

vert......

Well, you gotta love that horizontal stuff but its time to go vert.... Despite the continuous rain the rammed earth contractors managed to find the dry space to start on our walls. If you look at the below picture there are three types of earth on the site. They mix 5 bobcat bucket loads of the compacted whitegravel with one load of the yellow gravel and one third of the red dirt to get the right mix and colour. The colour will change as the concrete, which is mixed in low amounts, cures but we absolutely love the finished product. These walls will divide the bedrooms from the living areas.
The rammed earth walls are 300mm thick and the the boys will spray a sealant on it at the very end .....and thats it - you never need to do anything to it ever again. The Morracan rammed earth walls have been standing tall for centuries so I figure these walls will be the last thing standing if ever there was something to happen. In the winter our house is designed so that the sun (which sits lower in the sky) will hit the rammed earth walls and heat up the house throughout the day and night. In the summer (when the sun sits higher in the sky) our house is designed so the sun is blocked from hitting the walls. The walls in turn will keep the house cool - pretty cool eh......?
So we got to have a go at the rammers which are driven by compressed air. I reckon the bloke next to me is a dead ringer for Bear when he had his locks. He even had the same mannerisms - sunglasses on the head, hand on the hips and durry in his mouth.. haha .... he was a dude as well...

so there you go--- continuations....... it's all happening...