As I metioned in a previous post, recently I took the plunge and quit smoking after 7 years of the habit.

It’s one of those things that I had thought of doing on and off for many years, but like most smokers never really got serious about it because… well…. I enjoyed smoking! I felt better after having one and the reasons go on and on. Adam had been nagging me for years and years about giving up, naturally I never did. Seeing a government anti-smoking ad on TV usually made me go straight outside and light up. You know those ads, the ones with some crusty old bogan blaming smoking for her mouth cancer instead of her 40 years of poor dental hygiene and eating roadkill. Or the ones where the crying child actor is asking the concerned doctor actor why he can’t fix the actor attempting to play “daddy” who trying to rasp out “I love you son” with a tube up his nose. Yes, I may be insensitive to what those actors are trying to portray, but I absolutely detest the way those ads are mode. In particular, I absolutely detest the NSW Government’s “QUIT” campaign.

I actually called the 13 QUIT number one day last year, curious to know if there was an easy way to fix the smoking cravings whilst finding a better way to deal with anxiety other than smoking. The woman on the phone took my name, number, details, as I would expect, then proceeded to ask me had I seen the ads on TV or in the newspaper. (Yes, you nitwit, do you think I accidentally dialed you instead of calling the pizza place?) and asked if I wanted to quit. (again, WTF?). She then started on a dialogue most likely printed on her screen about how smoking is bad for your health, blah blah blah and did I know all this? I started getting a bit angry here - What kind of idiot living in this day and age is NOT aware of the health dangers associated with smoking? Treating me like an imbecile is very unlikely to get me to listen. So she said she would send me a “Quit Pack”, which I assumed would be a nice little set if tricks to stop smoking, maybe a stick or two of nicotine gum, and some case studies of people who had succeeded.

What did I get 6-8 weeks later? Half a kilogram of glossy pamphlets that spewed the same propaganda that the government ads did. At this point, I was fed up with the whole deal, and my (very strong) feeling of spite caused me to immediately reach for my pack of cigarettes, light a smoke with my zippo, and use the zippo (and fluid) to set their pamphlets alight. Curiously enough, the highly-plasticised glossy pages burned with an intense green flame. I’m sure the fumes coming from the flame was even worse for me than the cigarettes, but at that point I really didn’t care.

Oh, and did I get a “follow-up call” to see how I was going? Nope. Didn’t hear a thing. Another shining example of an effective NSW Government program.

So, back to the present, the only way I knew it was time to quit was by moving into this house - I had always wanted a complete “revamp” of my life, start in a new direction as a new person. And quitting smoking had to be a part of it. The hardest part was making a promise to myself and actually keeping it - I mean, how many “last cigarettes” can one have? What really did help was a $20 book I bought, written by a fairly well-known quit-smoking advocate, Allen Carr. I was too cheapskate to go to his course, but I thought if I could read through this book and get a few thoughts into my head about an effective method, it would be a start. And really, that’s all it needed - to put things in a different frame of mind. The book is not perfect, no methods are. However, by sitting down and reading that book, it cemented in my own head that I was going to give it a proper go this time, and I needed to remember that all in all it was something quite simple - a drug addiction, and that as long as the drug is in the system, it will continue to want more and more. And no drug addiction is ever a good thing. To starve it would be hard (and it was), but now I rarely think about it, which I think is the biggest blessing of it all.

So I’m not going to say to all the smokers out there you can do it and wave the pom-poms, frankly if a smoker wants to smoke, they will, and it’s really none of my business. It really irked me when ex-smokers got on their pedestal and told me how “disgusting a habit” it was, and that “pffft, if I can do it anyone can” so it’s “just a matter of willpower”.. What I would like to say though is that I am very proud that I was able to do it - usually I’m terrible with self-control and I’m incredibly impulsive - so it’s not as though it’s a matter of willpower. What I am hoping is that I can now have the confidence to change other parts of my life that need a little touch-up - one thing at a time!

I thought nothing could shock me anymore when it came to free-to-air TV.

First, we had Dancing with the Stars

Then, we had The fattest Biggest Loser

Now imagine this: Combine the two! Fat people losing weight in a dancing competition.

Introducing: Dance Your Ass Arse Off

Think it’s a joke? Nope. Coming soon to Channel 9!

As many will know, the last OzLotto lottery didn’t go off, and the jackpot is now $90 million. The OzLotto lottery is incredibly hard to attain, you need to get 7 numbers correct (out of 45) instead of the usual 5 - chances to win are slim!

Naturally, I like to enter it because if I win, the chances of me having to share it are minimal - imagine $90 mil coming into your bank account! Whilst I was in NZ, they let go their biggest ever jackpot ($35 million) to a woman in Hamilton. Naturally, Hamilton being a small and decidedly poor town, keeping that a secret wasn’t going to be easy, and whilst working on a TV headend (for that is my job) I saw a lot of news yet-to-be-broadcast news clips as journalists desperately tried to hunt down the winner and “out” her. All the interviews said this woman was a “completely unremarkable” and “normal” person, who worked as a dish cleaner at a local restaurant.

I wondered what would happen if I won something that big, especially something like $90 million. We’ve all sat around and wondered, haven’t we, about what we would do if we won the lottery. Would we give it away to charity? Would we buy a new house / car / boat ? Would we invest it? Sure, this is something you would consider if you won $1 million or so, but $90 million?

So I had a thought. What would I do? Would I want to remain anonymous? What would I do with such a stupid amount of money? Simple. I’d start a political party, and use the proceeds to fund it and gain publicity. My lotto win would not be anonymous - I would want people to know that I had won it and what I was going to use it for - instant cheap publicity!

For a long time I’ve dreamed about starting a political party - you know, the one that everyone is screaming out for but nobody is satisfying. It apears that the only time someone starts a political party is to satisfy some extreme view ala Greens, One Nation, Christian Democrats, Family First - nobody seems to want to start a party that is moderate in nature that satisfies what most of the nation wants! The Liberals and Labor do not come c;lose. So many people of my (our) generation are screaming out for a party that promotes conservative economic practice and progressive social policy. Where is it? Some time ago I was contacted by the “Liberty and Democracy Party” that purported to support all of this and more, yet on further analysis appeared to be promoting policies that were a copy of the American system - and look how well that’s turning out! I put them in the “extremist” bin with all the rest. The Democrats tried, but really their economic policy was not strong. They were middle of the road on EVERYTHING.

Could I do it? I don’t know. The only way to get elected in this country is to know the system, convince the right people and have the media onside. And have a lot of money so you access said system. Definitely not a one-man job - and how do you attract the right people into your party that won’t end up hijacking it for their own political purposes? NSW Liberals is a prime example of that in action. You must be sure that those people coming into your party have similar goals and ambitions to you and aren’t trying to twist and warp your policies.

Above all, it would have to be a party capable of winning actual *power* in this country, and put an end to bipartisanship. I think this may actually be possible if decent party members were found that would be willing to be electoral candidates. And all this would be attracted if I actually had the money to start it all up. Politics aint’ cheap!

So yes, maybe I’m dreaming - I’ve thought before of “infiltrating” the existing parties, hoping for change, but we all know that this isn’t going to work - revolution political overhaul is the only way to really make a directional change in this country. Those in the current system are corrupted well before they reach the top.

Speaking of the top, WTF is this with Malcolm Turnbull and this OzCar affair? What the hell was he thinking? Firstly, a very cheap shot to take if he was using that to upset Kommandant Rudd, and with so much risk to his own political career? I actually had hope for the federal Libs when Malcolm won the leadership - the wets were finally taking back control and steering the party back on course, and then this. Whether this email was “faked” or not (I personally believe it wasn’t faked, AFP can be persuaded to determine whatever they like and the original evidence will never be released for public scrutiny), it was a hell of a risk to put his career on. I thought this guy wanted to be PM? Misleading parliament? Hell, Johnny H mislead the whole COUNTRY, was caught, and he still got voted back in! What was the point of attacking Rudd over a free ute?

.

One of the keys to a successful blog is update frequency. Clearly I fail. Oh well, I don’t care

I’ve just come off two weeks of annual leave, spent at our house, so you’d think there’d be no excuse for not having the time to sit down and have a yarn? Well, the first week was flat out - Adam and I got a lot done on the house, Adam was in charge of the painting and has repainted every room, removing the horrible baby-poo green “suede” colour and putting in our own style. My job was the lighting - I ripped out all the hideous single compact fluro bayonet fittings and put in nice 240V halogens in every room. Those who know me will know well that I am no eco-warrior! The combination of a decent paint scheme and better lighting instantly made the house seem twice as big.

To give you an idea of how much work has gone on in the last couple of weeks, I’ll give you an idea of what we’ve done:

New Appliances / Furniture:

[GEEK] nSetting the TV up was of course the part I’ve been looking forward to the most - for it involves converting my old server PC “XANDIR” (until recently the host for this very blog and other websites) into a fully-featured media centre. For the geeks out there I’ll go into the features briefly (I intend to give it its own post!) - it runs on Windows 7 Media Centre, looks fantastic (Micro$oft got something right! Apple doesn’t even come close to this one) - has dual digi TV tuners for pause / record / EPG functionality (essentially a TIVO with 2TB (current) storage), native capability to play almost every video file I have, DVD playback, aaaaand… Blu-Ray!! Plus, if that wasn’t enough, FM radio stations, internet radio stations, MP3 collections, visualisations plus a few other features I haven’t fiddled with yet. Naturally, it all sits in another room, hidden in a cupboard and is controlled by a single remote control [/GEEK].

That’s just the purchases! Needless to say, the cost is astronomical As for the rest of the work, we’ve:

as mentioned before - This really took up most of the time

Then, in true ironic fashion, the week of holidays I had by myself (Adam had a few week’s holiday too), I got sick with man flu and just sat on the couch feeling sorry for myself (then again, it is a REALLY nice couch!).

I was starting to feel better last weekend (yesterday and Saturday), but Adam and I decided we had far more to catch up on than our social lives. That took most of the weekend - I should probably omit the rest of the details

No rest for the wicked, huh?

TGIF.
I doubt there’s anyone here reading that would disagree with me.

I was thinking of launching into a new political diatribe this afternoon, but hey, it’s Friday and I CBF. So Instead I’m going to give you puppy pics and tell you about the new young blonde that’s living with us.

Adam and I have always said that as soon as we stopped renting and got a house of our own, we would get a friend for Shelton. We had decided long ago (it’s always nice to dream about the future isn’t it? Scary when it’s actually here!) that we would get a golden labrador as a mate for Shelton. After all, I think a labrador is probably the only breed that can keep up with him!

So just 2 weeks after we moved into the house and started renovating, Jasper arrived. Adam had thought of the name “Jasper” quite some time ago, even before the “movie” Gays Gone Wild was released. (If you haven’t seen that character Jasper, I will post pics

Of course, a new puppy is a mixture of unbounding cuteness and major frustration! The first night the little fella was not happy at all, and proceeded to give both Adam and I a major headache as we attempted to practice the “tough love” approach. We gave in. The puppy spent the night sleeping on a mat beside our bed. Thankfully the second night wasn’t so bad, Jasper had made better friends with Shelton, and was content to sleep with the big black monster without making too much of a sound. We have yet to build a roof on our back deck so the little “darlings” sleep on the newspaper-covered kitchen floor.

Of course, little labrador puppies have some upsides - anywhere we go with him, (mostly) girls flock to him with clucky “ohhhs” and “aaahhhhs”. Adam and I still want to take Jasper for a walk parade down King St. in Newtown and see what other kinds of attention we can get.

So I hope you can live with me posting lots of puppy pictures over the next few months

Welcome back racefans!

Did you miss me?

Well, for better or worse, I’m back and nothing will be the same again. My last post in February seems like a century ago, and so much has happened between now and then. I’ll outline them briefly:

How’s that for a start? Looks like there will be quite a few posts over the next few days with more details. Meanwhile, I’ve moved my site (volacious.net.au) across to a server in the US, and updated and redesigned it. A bit sparse yet, only just fixed the framework and the livejournal sync scripts

Please do say hello if you’re still reading, would love to hear from y’all ! I still follow everyone on LiveJournal and my google reader list, even if I haven’t commented I’ve always been there :-)Once things start to settle down and I get an internet connection put on at the house, I will be back in force.

Toodles for now, stay tuned!

Gus

Apologies to my few listeners for this break in broadcasting, but this blog will be closing down for an indefinite period.

I’ve been posting less and less lately as I’ve been struggling the past few months and I’ve been told by others that I’m becoming more and more withdrawn and insular, which can’t be a good thing. This last month has been absolute hell, with work issues, relationship issues and self-confidence issues, all heightened by this bloody heat wave that just won’t go away. So after 5 years of blogging, I’m backing away from the keyboard to re-evaluate and recover. Plus, my poor computer just isn’t coping in the heat and I’m coming very close to melting the circuitry

This may or may not be a permanent sign-off, so if it is I thank all my readers for sticking with me, it’s been a fun trip! And in case I decide to resurrect this blog, I hope to see you all back!

So thankyou all, and keep well.

Gus

This is a classic, sent to me by Dad. Enjoy!

Involuntary Muscular Contractions

A professor at the University of Sydney was giving a lecture on ‘Involuntary Muscular Contractions’ to his first year medical students. Realizing this was not the most riveting subject, the professor decided to lighten the mood slightly.

He pointed to a young woman in the front row and said:

‘Do you know what your ass hole is doing while you’re having an orgasm?’

She replied…

‘Probably drinking beer with his mates.’

It took 45 minutes to restore order in the classroom…

Hello again everyone!

I don’t think many people read this anymore, I’ve been so long without posting, the server has been down to prevent it cooking in this wretched heat, and I’ve been really slack in commenting on other’s posts. So if you’re still here, thanks

So this is my first post for 2009! Hope everyone’s Christmas and holiday period was all you wanted it to be, ‘cos now it’s back to the grindstone, and we have a stinkin’ hot summer to sweat away the weeks

The pic taken here is from our latest little sojourn, down to Bawley Point for Adam’s birthday (yesterday). We’ve been on a strict budget owing to a) me spending way too much on gliding b)Bloody Christmasâ„¢! and c) saving for a house, so we wanted to have a little getaway without too much cost.

So we found these quaint little cabins on a lake near Bawley Point, and it was just divine. Very secluded, a little 2-level self-contained cottage with hardwood furniture and fittings, looking down to a lake beyond a lawn that seemed always full of kangaroos, wallabies, and tiny lil’ birds. On Monday we went next door to the winery, sampled a few nice vinos, then jumped in a pair of complimentary kayaks and paddled up the inlet to the beach. Not to make the day too difficult, we then drove down to Bateman’s Bay and enjoyed a wonderful dinner in a classy restaurant on the Clyde River. OK, at that point the budget got blown out a little, but jeez it was good food!

In the past few weeks we’ve discovered some lovely drives, and the Subaru has seen some very interesting sights. I have to recommend:

Absolutely gorgeous drives!

Meanwhile, this heat means I’m now more determined than ever to get out of renting properties and into one of my own. Adam and I had a look at a house over the road which was for lease, $500 / week, brand new kitchen, and NO DISHWASHER! I mean, WTF? So many houses for rent at the moment do not have dishwashers! For Pete’s sake, to landlords really believe that this is still the 1950’s and there is a live-in housewife available to do the dishes every night? So that was a dealbreaker for me. As I sit here sweating away in our current non-airconditioned house, procrastinating doing the dishes, I think that whilst I will be eternally poor with a mortgage, at least if I wanted a dishwasher, I’d just put one in. And a killer air con! And naturally fully wired with gigabit ethernet and digital audio runs for the media centre. This little cherub is over slumming it!

Hope everyone is well, lots of hugs!

Gussy