The Good And Bad Of 2016

In fact, 2016 was a REALLY CRAPPY YEAR! I'll briefly recap on some of the crappy things that happened.
  Lots of famous people died. I actually felt quite sad about some of them passing. The most sobering (yep, strange is it may seem, I'm sober at the moment) thing about many of those who died is that they were around my age. I go to bed each night in trepidation.
  The fiasco in Syria continues, largely due to interference from Russia and the USA, who are using the tragedy as a show of power. We all know that's never going to stop anytime soon.
  Terrorism is spreading in Europe. They brought that on themselves with their open border policies. A quick note to Angela Merkel. Try and survive that one, baby!
  In Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is becoming more unpopular weekly. He has no control over the senate and is hanging on by his fingernails in a vain bid to be Australia's first President. A quick note to Tony Abbott, who Turnbull cowardly knifed in the back to get his job. In 2017, you need to show Turnbull that paybacks are a bitch and bury the bastard politically.
  Another major tragedy was that the Brisbane Broncos didn't win the NRL premiership. If you don't know what I'm referring to, Google it.
 
Now for the good things that happened in 2016......
Bugger! I can't think of any.

Happy 2017.

A magic Xmas

It was just one of those years. My lovely child bride had to go back to Vietnam for family reasons, leaving me alone for Xmas and New Year.

This may sound sad to many of you and in some ways it was. For five weeks I had to cook for myself, clean the house and water her ladyship's flowers and garden. In addition, I had to wash my clothes. I got quite inventive with that. I found that if I turned my under ware inside out, I could get two days out of them before washing. I was even more inventive with socks. I discovered that on day two I could put them on opposite feet to the previous day. Then, on day three I could turn them inside out, and on day four I could reverse the feet thing again. How good is that! Four days out of a pair of socks! Think of the water and washing powder I saved. I might tell my wife to keep doing that, so we can save money and go to MacDonalds once a year on the savings. Bloody genius!

As for cooking, I have become a connoisseur of $5 supermarket pizzas, $8 roast chickens and potato chips. Once again, I'm proud of the savings in food costs.

Now, as for Xmas. I saved money again. No decorations, no presents, no loud, boring friends and family. Absolutely perfect!

As you may have noticed, I made a fairly strong point about the savings.This was all to the good. Those wonderful savings allowed me spend Xmas with a rather copious supply of very good single malt Scotch whiskey, excellent Australian shiraz and ice cold Heineken beer. I used those to wash down a sumptuous Xmas dinner of pizza, ham and chicken while watching the new James Bond movie, Spectre. From what little I can remember, it wan't a bad movie.

Sadly, I had to work the next day. As I was grumpily going about my work with the worlds worst headache and eyes that resembled a pair of vultures arseholes in a power dive, I received zero sympathy from my co-workers. I was quite irked by this, until I realised the they were suffering too. I then thought to myself, "Who cares?", because there was no way they felt worse than me.

All in all, it was a wonderful Xmas. Thank God my wife will be here to rescue me next year.

Presidents Putin and Trump at their first Moscow meeting

First Meeting

"Will you agree to help build the Mexican wall?"

"Da."

"Can I count on you to help us screw the Chinese?"

 "Da!"

"Great! And can we count on you to help us relocate

all our illegal Mexicans to Syria?"

"Da!!"

"Wonderful! Can the USA count on you not to bomb the shit out of

us, until after my Presidency?"

"DA!!! I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. I've been calling my father to bring us some tea.

The silly old bugger is almost deaf. Can we start again?" 

Cooking Roadkill

Sadly, in Australia, the sight of dead birds and animals killed by cars on the road is a common sight. These are commonly known as road kill.

Some people are known to collect fresh road kill to cook for food. While I can, kind of, understand this, it's not something that I could bring myself to do, particularly in light of my ownership of a beautiful Roseate Cockatoo (Galah).

Cockatoos are renown to have very tough flesh and are considered to be unfit for human consumption. I'm not sure about this, as I recall a recipe that my Grandfather told me about how to cook a cockatoo. It goes like this.

1. Collect your dead cockatoo from the side of the road.
2. Pluck it and remove its guts.
3. Place a large rock in a pan full of water and bring to the boil.
4. When the water is boiling, add the cockatoo.
5. When the rock is soft, throw out the cockatoo and eat the rock.

Bon Appetit.

The Very Clever Two faces Of President Elect Trump (my opinion, to which you are welcome)

The USA and, indeed, much of the world is in an uproar over the election of "The Donald" as the next US President. All this is being fuelled by politicians, extreme left wingers, the media and the financial elite, who see the well structured dominance of their world under threat. And, quite possibly, it is.

However, it is also quite possible that these comfortable elitists may have missed just how clever Mr. Trump is. He is a well educated, successful businessman, well attuned to using the media to his own advantage. He read the electorate very well and aimed his campaign at the disenfranchised and disillusioned section of the population that rarely vote because it is always just "more of the same".
Guess what kiddies? It worked!

You may doubt me, so I refer you to the rhetoric of fear, gutter language and outrage of his campaign speeches. I also refer you to the tone of his victory speech, where he sounded very humble and, might I say, Presidential. Which of these reflected the real Trump?
Again, guess what, kiddies. Both of them!

I believe that Mr. Trump is genuinely devoted to rebuilding the USA to its former glory, and God help anyone who gets in the way! Having said that, the man is educated and experienced enough to do what he has to do to achieve his goal, without endangering the country.

So, to all the institutionalised politicians, left wingers, the media and financial elite I say. You are so out of touch with your country that you are now dinosaurs. Get out of the way and let this man do the job that you have been incapable or unwilling to do for generations. The majority of your people have had their say.

In Australia, my country, I say to our politicians, watch and learn!

PS.

I have a new addition to the menagerie that makes up my family. He is a galah. A very beautiful native Australian bird. Galahs are known for their loud voices and crazy antics.

The Urban Dictionary's definition is:-
An "Old Australian" word; a derogatory term that means a "loud-mouthed idiot." Named specifically for the galah, a native Australian bird that makes a distinctive (and quite funny-sounding) call.

I only received my new pet yesterday and had trouble finding a name for him. Due to the above definition, I thought the name of a politician was a good idea. However, when trying to choose which politician, I realised that, no matter which one I chose, it would be an insult to such a beautiful creature. So I named him "Oigle", a favourite cartoon character from my childhood. As I'm now in my second, or is it third childhood, I thought it appropriate.

Meet Oigle

I must admit that he's far better looking than most, if not all, politicians.

Best Friends

There's a lot of talk about the benefits of having dogs in your life. Guide dogs, assistance dogs. police dogs, sniffer dogs (drugs, IEDs. etc), and "feel good" dogs making the elderly and mentally stressed feel happy and relaxed.

And then there's Gonzo! Bloody Gonzo! Gonzo the great! Gonzo, the fearless destroyer of valuable plants, fearless predator of cats, foxes, rabbits, birds and strong wind.

So, who is Gonzo? He is a Blue Heeler that, at 8 weeks of age, chose me to be his carer at an animal rescue centre about 6 years ago. He is also one of the smartest dogs I've ever had. I've never had a dog that can communicate so well. He has his own body language and quite easily communicates what he wants. He also has the worst farts in the world!

The very best thing about Gonzo is the unconditional love that he shares with everyone he meets.

I'm proud to introduce Gonzo. My best friend!

About An Old Fart And His Childish Dream

As a teenager and then again in my forties, I played in rock bands. Semi professionally as a teen, meaning that we occasionally got paid a pittance for a gig, and even more occasionally a free beer or two. It was never enough to remotely cover our costs, but that didn't matter. The band I played in, later in life, was an originals band. I wrote the lyrics and our lead guitarist arranged the music. We played a number of quite large gigs, developing a quite good following. Sadly, the band broke up after a couple of years due to "creative differences". This means that three of the five members were control freaks (me included), and not remotely inclined to listen to each other.

"Why am I rambling on about bands?", you might well ask. It's simple. Last week, after a marathon viewing of Santana playing live on YouTube, I decided to buy a kit of drums to mess around on.
"Why drums?", you may well also ask. I forgot to mention that I was a drummer in the aforementioned bands while mentioning the also aforementioned problems therein. That sentence should go a long way towards doing your head in. I actually ordered the drums in a moment of nostalgic insanity, only to cancel the order two days later, in a rare moment of lucidity.

"Why did you cancel the order?", you may or may not ask yourself of someone close to you.
During that moment of lucidity. a number of potential problems arose. These included (not necessarily in order of importance) possible divorce, annoying the hell out of the neighbours, making the dogs bark, causing traffic accidents in front of my house and causing cramp in my tired old hands and feet.

However, the number one problem was what to call a band of pensioners, should I form one.
A few names sprang to mind:-
Gerry Atric and the Pacemakers
Creak, Rock and Collapse
Val Lium And The Shakers
Alt Heimer's Mindbenders
etc..

The sad thing about this story, apart from the fact that it's true, is that old farts, like me, have these unfulfilled and unrealistic dreams and are compelled to post on blogs about it, resulting in mass yawns around the globe. Just like the one you're having right now.