The book, An introduction

How many do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.still got them
Ignition switches on the dashboard.still got them
Pants leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.got em, used them a long time ago on my malvern star but new bike has chain guards
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.theres another type?
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.got a series 1, no blinkers...remember "trafficators" & would love a set again!

Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.
1. Candy cigarettes"fags", now called "fads" as some tool thought it promoted kids to smoke.... same box, still one red end, what do they think the kids do?
2. Milk bars with tableside juke boxesnup, not until I went to a cafe in the blue mountains
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottlesget the foil off the cream is mine!
4. Free milk at schoolleft stacked in glass bottles in the sun every day!
5. Newsreels before the movienup
6. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels [if you were fortunate])yep and my pop used to stay up for the national anthem (god save the queen) for which he would stand at attention until it ended then go to bed -although he'd been sleeping in his chair already waiting!!
7. Hula hoopsheckMY kids got them!
8. Mickey Mouse Club ashamed to say yes, as its very american...also remember johnny youngs, young talent time!
9. 45 RPM recordsstill got some - fav is ella fitzgerald "mack the knife"
10. Hi-fi'swhere I play my 45's
11. Metal ice trays with levers last one buggered up about 5 years ago...couldnt find any more
12. Blue flashbulbs for your camera the 4 sided flash cubes!
13. Cork popguns good but always pale against a spud gun
14. StudebakersI was born in the back seat of a studie lark, cruiser mark 2....mum and dad got to hospital in nearby town a tad late, and as noone was in, the nurse was "on call" so had to come from home!!
15. The postman delivered mail on foot twice a day and on Saturday morning
we lived in the pub.... no one but us got mail delivered...and us only cause the postmaster was a lover of a "wee dram or two", I remember he always went home with 2 longnecks in his carry bag!


and I'm 43 next month!!

ok so I've been lazy I havent written one up for a while but Ive got some decent yarns to spill... Lets start with late night shopping and then I'll work back in time, gives me more excuse for poetic license.

Now its no big secret that I like messing with peoples minds, If you're the kind of person whose silly enough to get yourself into a situation with me that leaves you in the predicament of me having to provide you with some information that if followed would leave Foxworthy handing you a sign or that anyone else with the mearest hint of common sense could have answered or advised you that I was pulling your leg then you, Sir or Ma'am, are fair game for my (and a lot of other peoples amusement). I'd consider this a moral obligation, if I had any morals.

So for the past week Ive been a little under the weather and my normal box full of gravel voice has not been up to its normal standard, its got this very craggy "feed your corpse into a blender" escaped convict kind of tone to it. A fact not lost on my twisted mind.

The three of us were there at the wendy's getting ice cream for Alex when a teeny mum (a very common thing in Ipswich) pushed her pram up to join the cue and in her pram was a very cute little baby with very attentive eyes. The kid had looked at me and was following my eyes around with his so having a few minutes to waste and a firm belief that kids need to have their minds engaged as often as possible while the mum was looking around I was having a right old time bopping around and getting the kid to smile and make giggly noises when the mum started paying attention to what was happening.


She made the comment that I must like kids to which I immediately replied "sure do, ground up and served on toast with teriyaki sauce they taste great" she just stared at me doumfounded trying to work out if I said what I had just said or not when the SWMBO bless her soul turned from the counter where alex was paying for his icecream and said "Oh for crying out loud. Hes exaggerating, He's never finished a whole one, besides he prefers BBQ sauce."

her jaw dropped and Im faiiirly certain that she started backing away from the que as alex got his change and we left.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

ok so I've been lazy I havent written one up for a while but Ive got some decent yarns to spill... Lets start with late night shopping and then I'll work back in time, gives me more excuse for poetic license.

Now its no big secret that I like messing with peoples minds, If you're the kind of person whose silly enough to get yourself into a situation with me that leaves you in the predicament of me having to provide you with some information that if followed would leave Foxworthy handing you a sign or that anyone else with the mearest hint of common sense could have answered or advised you that I was pulling your leg then you, Sir or Ma'am, are fair game for my (and a lot of other peoples amusement). I'd consider this a moral obligation, if I had any morals.

So for the past week Ive been a little under the weather and my normal box full of gravel voice has not been up to its normal standard, its got this very craggy "feed your corpse into a blender" escaped convict kind of tone to it. A fact not lost on my twisted mind.

The three of us were there at the wendy's getting ice cream for Alex when a teeny mum (a very common thing in Ipswich) pushed her pram up to join the cue and in her pram was a very cute little baby with very attentive eyes. The kid had looked at me and was following my eyes around with his so having a few minutes to waste and a firm belief that kids need to have their minds engaged as often as possible while the mum was looking around I was having a right old time bopping around and getting the kid to smile and make giggly noises when the mum started paying attention to what was happening.


She made the comment that I must like kids to which I immediately replied "sure do, ground up and served on toast with teriyaki sauce they taste great" she just stared at me doumfounded trying to work out if I said what I had just said or not when the SWMBO bless her soul turned from the counter where alex was paying for his icecream and said "Oh for crying out loud. Hes exaggerating, He's never finished a whole one, besides he prefers BBQ sauce."

her jaw dropped and Im faiiirly certain that she started backing away from the que as alex got his change and we left.

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Your missus is a keeper!!!:D:D:D

And in truth apart from the usual hijynx on exercises and skullbuggery at work lifes been kinda peacefull, well providing you dont count converting a rangie from a conversion from a tdi to a p76 to a 3.9l efi v8, oh and instructing on a drivers course and doing the seals on a v8 disco and well you know the usual.

Now the inspiration for this post was going to be a conversation that took place at work about door knockers of the relegious type and that was temporarily usurped by a trip to toowoomba for a meal at the wies restaurant. We were planning on sizzlers but that was closed for renovations so we had to goto wies... Now I generally consider Sizzlers food to be good but trust me it pales down to the level of my fathers cooking compared to wies. Just so you can have perspective on how awesome that makes wies I have personally witnessed my dad making black smoke out of a saucepan that he was going to boil eggs in. Youve probabley interpreted that correctly was going to boil eggs in as in pot on stove with just water in it and black smoke coming off of it. Now as funny as that is the tale of the talk in the lunch room about door knockers is better so with the uprising of a stunningly good meal quashed..

lets admit not everyone like door knockers, jehovas witnesses whatever you like to call them. The lunch room talk had again made its way over to telemarketers and the things that had been done to them and from there its just a quick trapse past in the street census takers to door knockers...

now in the same way that a lot of people have ways of dealing with telemarketers everyone has a way that they'd like to deal with door knockers but doing what youd like to do to a door knocker is usually a little harder than just hanging up on someone on the phone and in my case they dont usually make it past the 6 foot chainlink fence and the 2 barking rotwieller look alikes. Conversation was therefore limited to mainly what people would like to do and less about what they had done because lets face it most poeples actions were a lot tamer than their words.

Ryno was late into the conversation but had picked up quickly while he was eating his lunch. His actual involvement in dealing with the door knocker trumped my effort and not just a little by a lot for your perusal here is my effort.. more or less

" I always wanted to have them turn up while I was doing the deed with the missus, you know in with the boom chicki wa -waaah action when knock, knock... hrmmm.. now without stopping or withdrawing walk coupled coitus style to the door and have the missus open it bent over forwards and without disrupting the rhythm with one hand on the small of her back just causally address the knockee with "mate is what you're about to tell me better than what Im up to now?"

just let that sink in for a second, rynos story leaves that effort for dead...

now ryno isnt into mainstream religion hes not really athiest but he doesnt try to force his belief on anyone, hes a big kid at heart still into cartoons the xman and superheros but on the flip side he also enjoys books like necromancer, and considers movies like evil dead and army of darkness to be top class cinematography.

getting worried yet... heres his effort..

what we did is had my mate dress up in my occult gear wearing roller skates, now where we were you could see the shirt tie'n'bible brigade walking up one side of the street to come down the other so we had some time to get our selves prepped. I hid behind the door and my mate stood up in the alcove in the full black gear holding a staff and a human head.. no not a replica an Acutal human skull behind him was one of our smaller mates and we'd dumped a bucket of water into an eski of dry ice.

this is how it played out...

when they knocked on the door, I opened it, it was already unlocked and ready to open, I just pulled it back and let the door shield me, as the door opened the midget pushed my mate forwards on the skates Kathleen freeman style through the fog on the floor. As he rolled forwards he held the skull up and waved the staff forwards and gave it "Yheessssss?" as they mainly stumbled over themselves trying to get away the midget pulled him back and I closed the door..

Today I was privy to a hyundi something small that lost control going round a corner, some P plater came off the road and wound up in the spoon drain. As I was running late I didnt stop to help out or report it, It wasnt a big hit but I've felt kinda bad about it all evening.

For those of you who are reading this and thinking that's all there is to that.

Hi, my names Dave and I'd like to sell you a hiclone, fuel polerizor, fuel miser carby and a special hydrogen producing battery any one of which will enhance your fuel economy and the effect compounds, If you buy all of them I will also personally sign and send you a scan of a page of text that will also tell you how you can change your driving technique to further increase your driving economy. If you dont get the results you like once you sent me back the items you've bought I'll refund your money minus a smallish fee for postage and handling and a processing charge.


Now that I've got the gullible off fetching their wallets, It'd been a bad day at work, I was late leaving copped a mouthful from the impatient up himself git who was on lock up, yes a whole 3 minutes late that turned into 10 minutes because he had to have a lecture at me. Failed to realize that if he just shut up and got on with the job he might have gotten it done on time regardless of the fact that I was a couple of minutes over the normal walk out time. So I'm in just a peeeachy mood for the drive out to get Alex.

Since I'm a whole 15 minutes late leaving the carpark there's almost no traffic out of the base so the mood is improving on the way out and eventually I'm doing 2 up in the right hand lane along side some granny car that's surging up back and forth with the hills and undulations while I sit on a nice constant droney 60K's as indicated by the GPS. Apparently that's the wrong thing to do when someone is behind me in a hurry, or so I assume I'm told by the impatient git whose been lane changing behind me and the granny car trying to over take. Well not immediately we had to stop at a set of lights behind cars so he could wind his window down and shout at me only to be told to turn the Doof doof down (Expletives + insults galore) wit riceboy. He turns the music down to abuse me more I've also shut down the barely warmed up fozzy so I could hear him better. I mean It was the only polite thing I could think of doing to assist him in his endeavors to correct my road etiquette.

We all know what happens when a cool indirect injected diesel starts up right? did you know its worse when your running on vege oil. Can you imagine what happens when someone starts that same diesel in second gear without using the clutch while hes got his foot planted on the loud pedal? I don't need to... neither does my new rice boy friend... If Id been in collaboration with the granny car driver the car in front of me had gone and the way that the granny car took off the driver of the G-string had no choice to sit there and breathe badly combusted WVO and whatever the hell else was in the pump at the time fumes. The granny car kept just the right pace and slid in in front of me just after the merging lane ended then went hell for leather (and I backed off just a touch, I didn't want to tail gate).

Mr rice boy chirps it back a gear, flugs it, over revs drops the nose, looses speed, grabs another gear and hauls ass past me on the left in the car parks and tries to cut me off, I very briefly consider not letting him in and pit moving him up into the median strip. By the time I finish considering that hes in front and its brake lights. For no reason and hes stopped so I gear down and go to pass him on the left then its a squeal of tortured open front wheel drive diff and clutch and hes away. I move back in and then its all brakes again and hes doing 10kph, I'm back in first... Not being all that patient at this point in time I just creep up to him and flick on the high beams and keep coming he gets that message and start to do 30, well its an improvement so I back off to get some distance, I'm on the anchors cause hes pulled it up again. rinse repeat and eventually he gets bored of that since I haven't tail ended him yet he decides hes going to do fade and blocks. Which works well, right up until I get the truck behind me on the radio

I get the truckie to pass me on the left and ask him to be on the air horn when he does so. We wind up to 40 Mr "I'm, about to resemble a Japanese Anime artists rendition of a westerner" hits the brakes, I jink left, he follows, I'm hard over to the right, the truck still hard on the noise clears the back of fozzy by microns the air horn comes on and all of a sudden the Gstring is not in front of a large four wheel drive bull bar with high beams on but half in front of a "Thats not a bull bar, THIS is a bull bar and no, four wheel drives are quite small and have a couple of candles for lights and kiddy clickers for horns" size truck and half in fornt of the now seeming insignificant fozzy. He quickly decides his odds for living are a lot higher in front of the fourby and corrects, over corrects, slams up the median and kind of gets it together and back on the road. I think hes trying to scowl at me but with his eyes larger than his tail pipe in the mirror its not working.

At this point I'm laughing, Absolute gut bellows, I haven't laughed this much since, well ever that I recall. I don't think hes happy, I don't care. You'd think that would be it the game would be over.. but no... hes actually now starting to pull some kind of face that might have been intimidating, to Alex, if he was on board, he isn't. I'm ready.

We're doing 60, Ok you got me, he is I'm trying to get there now that MR "I'm in such a hurry I have to get in front of you and do 30 while I soil my pants as a truck passes me" has decided to move on. I've already worked out his next move and I know how and when I'm going to pass him.

For those who don't know the area.

Up ahead about 200m in front of me maybe 100 in front of my antagonist is a dogleg in the road its a slight kick to the right then the left almost a double split chicane but its actually the turn off into a currently muddy dirt/clay truck park an ideal place to put a car into the oncoming traffic or off the road. Its about 200m or so long. I'm on the noise, in third as he hits the brakes and pulls left taking up all of the left side of the right hand chicane on the black so I cant get past him.

That's a problem, well for him,last time I checked fozzy's a four wheel drive, I keep it floored and dog left into the truck stop. I know its empty because there's a downhill run leading to it before the chicanes so you can see the whole length of it right up to the exit point where it joins into the hard right hand bend that the road takes. I'm now easily in front and climbing through to maybe 50 although the truck park is wet and slippery so I'm not really gaining much speed as the road bias tyres flick mud and scrabble for traction, I haven't kicked the front diff in and I look back over my shoulder to make sure I can get a clean exit onto the road now that Ive passed the Gstring.

Apparently this is not what I was supposed to do. Hes coming up FAST I can hear the Gstrings engine over fozzys Hes pulling a finger at me... If I try to exit on my line Im going to be picking bits of hyundi out of fozzy for weeks, I can hear the hyundi bouncing its rev limiter now and our braindead hero is Strafing me with his middle finger extended... ensuring that his digit is firmly planted Exactly between his and my eye contact.

I Wave, he frowns.


I smile, he sneers


I point, he looks confused

I Brake gently.

hes a second or so slow and now he's really really braking looks like hes almost got it...

I calmly take my exit line at a sedate 20 Kph or so laboring 3rd, clutch, snick, clutchblipclutch, second, clutch/noise as the tyre smoke clears.

so anyway, today I was privy ...

CLASSIC!!! :Rolling::Rolling::Rolling:

been an even longer while..

has my life been that quiet?

well sort of yes...

but I got a ripper in to day, in answer to the question what did I think of something..

"well, in reality, its like the hypothetical solution to an imaginary problem that caused by taking advice based on answers to questions that nobodies asked"

yes, census....

tomorrow, whats wrong with the world today.... or, the most conflicting character traits in a single human, a christian lawyer.

ok, so its been a while, sorry...

aparrently its true, Idiots come in 3s, we'll call the christian lawyer a bonus.... (oddly bunnings appears to attract them as well.)

The christian lawyer.

Ok by now most of you have or should have some kind of a feel for the kind of person that I am you know the help those who need and deserve help and pile it onto those that dont and insist on flaunting their stupidity in my presence. So it should come as no surprise that if I was to come across an old lady driving a Rice boy special thats been hung up on a speed bump because its been lowered too low for practicality (she got it at a good price off of a rice head who lost their liscence, had to move back with mum and dad and they wanted nothing to do with his ride) that Id help.

of course, it should come as no surprise that whenever theres someone in trouble and theres someone trying to help there will ALWAYS be some idiot doing nothing to help the situation and generally making life more miserable than it needs to be. As a rule I like these people I turn them into a warning for others on how to not to be a useful person, someone whose presence adds value to the community or the Traditional Australian. Short forms of phrases like "Its my firm belief that you should decranialise your rectum and then proceed to copulate with you own self" tend to get littered about like autumn leaves in a cyclone.

so anyway, Im busy trying to jack and chock the grannies ricer off of the speed bump when I hear "you shouldnt be doing that" which rouses the "why, are you a towie and have a better way" "no Im a lawyer......" which is about as far as he gets before a healthy dose of blasphemy comes his way which results in "I take offense as a christian in the way you use the lords name"

"so let me get this straight as a lawyer your telling me I cant help this person, yet somewhere in that book written about fictional characters that you believe so deeply in Im pretty sure it mentions something about helping your fellow man. Which part of you is most conflicted with which other part?"

The conversation went down hill from there and ended in my favorite way of dealing with the devout.

"mate let me tell you about your religion, It makes me, an atheist a better man than you, you see all the good you do in the world you do on the premise that its going to get you in good with your god so you'll goto heaven. Me I dont have that option, The good I do in this world gets me nothing in the afterlife becuase there isnt one for me to goto. At the end of the day you do what you do for your ultimate reward, A seat in the good place. I do it for nothing."

It got kinda peaceful after that. Which is nice in a bunnings car park.

Not an inordinate amount of time later I was in the fun situation where I got hemmed in by a prang, in a car park the kind of stuff that happens so regularly to me youd think I expect it. 2 cars head on into each other and me stuck in a car park... the heated exchange youd expect ensued. I gave it 5 minutes while I packed my stuff into the car then tried to interupt the 2 steerers who were trying to work out who was at fault and who would be paying who for the cracked plastic on their cars. I was unceremoniously invited to preform acts lewd and impossible (getting to thinking that the next person who tries to tell me that is going to get a full volume lesson in human physiology). Having some time up my sleeve I meandered back to bunnings (whod have guessed) and after purchasing a hot dog and coke from the guys out the front wandered around inside admiring the power tools, chainsaws axes, hammers, sledgies and a few other things beside as I considered preforming the modifications required to the 2 annoyances who had me hemmed in to actually allow them to perform some of the acts they'd suggested I perform. The viking side of me sated I meandered back to the conversation that was now louder and more animated than it needed to be for the range involved.

Saying I was less than happy at this turn of events would be mildly understated in the same way that saying "unprotected ice cream will probably melt on the surface of the sun" is. My previous attempt at passive assertion had failed, I decided to step it up to "subtle"

"Gentlemen, (I used that term liberally and may have infact used terms that are not filter friendly)" in my oh so subtle voice that I can make heard over the noise of a train crash "This is a car park, common road rules do not apply." I placed one hand on each of their cars and simply pronounced "cheap, plastic, low slung, not badly damaged, I bet they can be moved" I then lent back on the front of the disco splaying my arms over the front bar proclaiming "Steel, tall, strong, Not likely to be badly damaged by me proving that I dont really need you to move your cars to get out of this carpark."

And my favorite.....

Giving way....

simple really, if its around about and you're driving and theres 2 cars approaching at the same time If you can see the car out of the window in the door beside you that car has right of way, you need to slow down and let it pass in front of you. Y'd have thought that anyone with a license would have that down pat, especially if they drove for a living and had phone numbers and stuff on their vehicle.

yeah,... no.

Up the road goes I in the foz, from my left comes the tradies ute with the trailer in tow. hes got his right indicator on Im going straight, we're both going to hit the round about at about the same time.... well till he nailed the loud pedal to try and get into the round about before me to force me to slow down for him... no problem, for me, I just backed off the noise.

Ptatey in the ute just got an expensive lesson in physics, an object in motion tends to stay in motion untill acted on by an external force. What this means is....

IF you go too fast round a corner the top of the car tries to go in a straight line while the wheels try to get it round the corner. This applies to trailers too. Now trailers also cut inside the turning circle of the car towing them this means your perfect Ute racing line Is some what narrower than your perfect ute with trailer racing line through around about, to the tune of a few feet.

Now. When you jack something up from the side it tends to tilt, this puts the center of gravity over the downhill side. Pretty simple concept. Lets add the 2 together... the end result is simple.

The ute goes round the round about, the inside wheel of the trailer goes up onto the round about, basic physics take over and the trailer tips over exploding its contents up the road to my righ while the ute hauls the trailer round the corner on its side, slamming it into the kerb and righting it behind the orangey series rover thats now into the roundabout and again bringing newton into the game turning the trailer right over throwing any renaming detritus onto the road and the front of the yard behind the rover.

Remember...

Common sense is defined by me as "that thing that you use to make sure you never find out the hard way that experience is something you dont get till after you need it"

in this case.

yeah 4 seconds out of my life is a lot more important than the cost of a practical physics demonstration.

Christian Lawyer.... sounds like an Oxy- moron. Bob

I completely understand the born 30 years to late, as a kid I saw the last of the old style tuna fishing (poling tuna) when I when to the Territory I saw the last vestiges of the old Katherine town and territory character.

Traveled all over remote Australia and now I am living near Brisbane and cant move because KB's school grades have gone from C average to A's, so for her sake we stay. (she is in grade 7)

BUT to many fences, to many people and to many bloody rules.

OH and BK, a plumber I worked with grew up in similar conditions and he has started putting down on paper his quote unquote "ramblings" and he is a natural story teller, I want him to publish them but like you bit to shy. Keep it up big fella they are great.