Kazza the Blank One

Just closing off some browser tabs..

MV Doña Paz - "Asia's Titanic" - how had I never heard of this before??? A worse tragedy than the original Titanic!

VO2 max - supposedly your VO2 max score is a good predictor of your longevity

Bert Flugelman - this would make for a cool tour of Australia - to find all Bert Flugelman's public sculptures

Lighthouse Map - another cool tour of Australia - lighthouses!

Hearing Test Online - test your hearing with this free tool

Metal Earth - I got this for my birthday a couple of years ago (last year??) but didn't get very far through it because I can't SEEEE!!

Diamond Dotz Colours - wouldn't it be cool to get them all!

Port Stephens flat - we stayed in this very flat in 1978.  I'd love to go back some time!

Learn kiragana and katakana - gamify!

Old building in Canberra - can anyone tell me what that cross-shaped building at the bottom was?  (it's gone now)

Region Media Fail - someone thought they could use AI to generate a map of Canberra based on AAMI insurance claim data in Canberra.  They pulled it from the article pretty quickly when people LOLed, but it's still online (for now).

Contour Gauges - how cool are these?  Not that I ever do any sort of work like this, but if I did I'd love one of these!

Hammerdex - another tool that would be useful to keep in your car, just in case you happened to land your car in some water..

Lego Space 1978-1992 - I really NEED this book!

Daisy Chain ACT - a Canberra lady travels all Canberra bus routes

Deepfake Challenge - EVERYONE needs to see this. Especially older people.  

ACTmapi - ACT mapping tools

Digital Atlas of Australia - more mapping tools

List of "best" TV shows

Mosaic Mofos Map - mosaic art in Canberra

Whiskey War - crackup!

Librarian - as seen on Blogography.  I used to have Steam.. and I think I'd probably enjoy this!

John Oliver wants your erotica! - I should look at this for Instagram

Sunday.  26th.  Had all the leftover meat, gravy, apple sauce and peas from the club Christmas in July night last night. Yeah it was barely enough for the two of us. MacGyver and early night.

Monday.  Awake from 2:43 for like an hour and a half. There were half a dozen big bangs at one point, and another big one a while later. This morning Tony found the shell casings for the fireworks. Bits and pieces day. Had some of the frozen meals we got off Ben and Sarah for dinner, MacGyver then photo stuff.

Tuesday.  

All the frozen yoghurts I got off Ben and Sarah.

Day of way too much BS. Making me want to rage retire. Cooked Ben and Sarah's leg of lamb for dinner.  If we'd been better organised we could have had it when they were over last week.

Happy birthday Dad.  Missed you and your carving skills tonight...

MacGyver and some photo stuff. Feeling like it's all too hard.

Wednesday.  Awake from 3:43 for ages. Nothing day, didn't achieve anything much. Bought some new undies and sox hurrah. Tried to get some photos of the moon. Clouds were being annoying. Stu cooked a pretty spectacular shepherd's pie for dinner (that took him like an hour and a half to make whoops).

Then MacGyver, read a few news feeds and it's 20:15. Sigh. Then post a moon photo and it's nearly 20:30. Epic sigh.

Thursday.  Spent a bunch of time cleaning out some workgroup DBs.  Good drinks, a bunch of other people came.  Mills&Grills for dinner.  This time we got Southern Chicken - tomato base, chicken, sweet corn, bacon & southern style sauce and mozzarella.  That was quite nice.  And potata.

Friday.  Slept like crap.  More workgroup DB cleaning.  Kievs for dinner and Black Mirror.

Then continued the Arnie marathon with EB with Terminator 2.  I still prefer it over the original.  Couldn't find my DVD to start with - somehow it had gotten mixed up in the S section!

Saturday.  Somewhat crap sleep.  In the morning got some house stuff done and a few things ticked off the todo list.  Then headed into town to go to Ted's.  Except the big one is shut on Saturdays WTF???

So went to the little one but it didn't have the range of bags the big one does.

Then headed over to the National Botanical Gardens.  We spent three hours there taking lots of photos birds, and had a late lunch there as well.

We both got Korean Fried Chicken Burgers ($22.90) - crispy chicken, kimchi slaw, gochujang mayonnaise, milk bun, fries.. which were quite nice and very filling.

Dropped into the chemist and the pet store(s) on the way home (it's getting harder and harder to get fluoro bulbs, another reason to downsize/get rid of the fish...).  We were out for nearly five hours - most of the day - whoops.  I didn't feel like eating any dinner.  In the end I had a piece of cheese and a scoop of ice cream.  We watched Conclave which was surprisingly interesting.

Sunday.  Okish sleep.  House/hobby/photo stuff and some food shopping.  Stu got a rather yummy truffle toastie from Le Cheeserie ($21).

5.7.26

One Sunday afternoon we parked off Diddams Close and wandered around the peninsula.

Dusky moorhen

Some sort of paradalote...

White-plumed honeyeaters

Fairy wren

Stu's photo of a New Holland honeyeater

This was the first time I'd seen a spinebill.  We saw it in the trees, and then it flew over and landed right near us so I got to get a few quick snaps that turned out really well!

Brown-headed honeyeater

Cormorants..

Purple swamphen

Fairy wren changing plumage for spring

7.7.26

First actual test of the new lens.

Red wattlebird

Grey butcherbird

Red wattlebird

Magpie

Can you see the eastern rosella?  I took this photo on my phone while Stu had a play with my camera and lens.  

What about now?  (cropped)

And these are the (cropped) photos Stu got

Oh and this whistler of some description from 4 July

18.7.26

A brief afternoon trip to the Watson Green Space.  Second test of the new lens.

Crested pigeon

Wood duck

Young king parrot

Young grey butcherbird

This happened so quickly I didn't have a chance to get a decent photo.  The depth of field was so shallow though that the miner was out of focus even though they are really close together.

1.8.26

Yeah I'm actually blogging the same day I took the photos....

We wandered around the rainforest walks to begin with.

This female bowerbird was pigging out on berries

These little white-browed scrubwrens were all over the place.  But they don't stay still.

Spinebill

Then we headed out into more open area.

I was excited to see these cinnamon-flanked silvereyes.. apparently they fly over from Tasmania for the winter!

Stu heard some gang gang cockatoos, and then we saw them fly into a tree in the distance.  I was amazed I was able to get this shot at all!

Stu spotted this male satin bowerbird (the only male we saw)

A pair of crimson rosellas were poking around this tree looking for a suitable nesting site.

There were heaps of female satin bowerbirds around

Red wattlebird

New England honeyeater

There were more spinebills as well

A new bird for me - yellow-faced honeyeater

19.7.26

Galah nesting

Buff rumped thornbill

Brownheaded honeyeater

White winged chough

By this point we hadn't really seen anything too exciting.  Then I noticed this little scarlet robin like right next to the path..!!

Scarlet robin (male)

His girlfriend was there too

Scarlet robins are super cooperative for photography.  They sit still on a branch and spy insects from there before swooping down.  

Great egret fly-by

We were heading back to the car when we thought we heard a stone bush curlew so we headed off to the north to where we heard it.  Never saw or heard it again though.

White-throated treecreeper

Brown thornbill

Thornbill of some sort

Wood duck (female)

Eastern rosella

26.7.26

Parked at the Frost Hollow end and went for a wander around.

Some sort of thornbill

Scarlet robin

Mystery bird

Another scarlet robin

Saw this on Daily Dose of Internet..  Kingwood..  40km north of Houston Texas..

Thanks Google Maps.

Funny stuff!

Oh hai.  Click to embiggen.