To the dickhead who decided to cut me off on Flagstaff Hill Road & then flicked me the bird, here's something to ponder - When you rebadge a Holden Commodore to be a Chevrolet, you're still left with a Holden.... & that's not a good thing.

Congratulations!

 

The documentary on telly recently "Schapelle Corby - The Hidden Truth", was like watching a train wreck. You know there's going to be carnage, but you just can't look away.

The Corby's have become Australia's favourite drugged up family. In America, they'd be known as 'trailer trash' & since it's going to get aired in the US sometime soon, they're going to become our biggest export. There's some irony in that export comment!

 

This happened a few years ago as well & I'm beginning to see a cycle in the world of bloggers.

I tend to fight tooth & nail to avoid the majority, but I too gave up blogging for a while due to a combination of factors. Whilst I'm not the most avid of writers these days, it's still an outlet & a nice little archive of what & who I am.

My list of reads is severely depleted & at some point I'm going to have to start culling & there won't be many left. (let me count.... 6 have either ended or haven't posted for months)

So why has there been such an abandonment of the blog & why does it occur every couple of years?

 

It's an observation, but it's a good rule of thumb.

Always try & get the fattest person in Subway to take your order.

Fat people in fast food outlets always make food servings as though they are serving themselves, therefore, you end up with all the fillings in abundance instead of the paltry offerings normally received by thinner staff.

I have a local Subway & I now always get my order which looks as substantial as the ones used in promotions, all bursting out of the roll & actually looking like value for money!

 

My Fender amplifier is usually backed up against a wall for the purpose of space preservation. However, a recent valve change was in order & while I thought of it, I took a couple of snaps of said valves all a-glow. With a bit of an extended capture time, they came up better than expected.



Vacuum Tubes are normally expensive little buggers, but since my last re-valve they've gone against the trend of everything else & actually come down in price! How that works, I'm not sure. Anyway, the cost decrease offsets the distance required to collect them out in the Barossa Valley, or 75km from home (in a straight line!). Adelaide has a few music stores but they really are crap when it comes to customer service & ordering an item is something they don't want to hear about. The guys in Tanunda at The Barossa Music Centre do a great job & appreciate the business, so it's worth the trip.



When valves die, they usually lose a bit of tone & then randomly crackle & pop but never actually cease working, which is frustrating because I generally try to hold out on purchasing more thinking they'll get over themselves & stop their whining. Unfortunately, they don't & it's also near impossible to determine which tube is doing it's best to die.

I tried to buy locally from a place called Derringers, where my Fender Stratocaster came from back in '95. Back then they were a reputable business, but now it employs staff who don't give a toss about selling stuff & who spend most of the time ignoring customers & playing the products themselves! In the end I did buy a couple of replacements but they sounded worse than what I was replacing.



Now I have that warm, lush tone again which is hopefully being enjoyed by the neighbours. I suspect they do, since the Police haven't turned up.... yet!

 

A couple of weeks ago, I'm noodling on my guitar & I notice a strange vehicle through the window slowly rolling up the street. It was unusual enough for me to stand up at the window to try & work out the business name on the side.

As it passed by, I spot the big cameras mounted on the roof & the Google sign on the driver's door.

I suspect in a few months there will be one image on Google Maps with a shot of me lurking in the background staring back at the camera.

I'll post it here if it ever goes live!

On a side note, has anyone invented a word for when you get caught by the Google street maps cameras?! I would like to say I've been "Googlified", or something to that effect.

 

As every year, I went to the Adelaide Motor Show & yes, I'm aware it's not even twelve months since I bought my Dub but it's a good opportunity to see what's available.

Since most of the vehicles are running around the roads already, I tend to check out car interiors since that's what you tend to see most as a driver. When you compare cheap to expensive, there really is a significant difference.

I thought the Mini Cooper S was in the running for my dollars until I felt the quality of carpet & plastic & it was all pretty crap, which is a bit scary when you know BMW make them! Renault's Megane is quite good, but the front fenders are plastic & the Honda Civic Type R is exceptional quality but a touch too futuristic to be comfortable in. Horror of the year was for one of the newer Saab's which has these funny little toggles to manipulate the air vents. They just stick out in front of the vent, look flimsy, very obtrusive & overall they're a bit of a design disaster.

Plenty of half-baked concept cars were stuck up on stands as usual & I'm rarely interested since they get your hopes up & then disappoint when the manufacturer releases yet another box that looks like their last model. Car makers should only present stuff they're going to produce. Enough with the teasing!


Unfortunately, motor shows are generally a frustrating affair. It's my own fault for going & suffering as well, but with my three simple rules all the pain could be avoided.

1) No hot food.

You wouldn't walk into a dealer's show room with a juicy meat pie, so why would you do it at a motor show? The smell of processed meat & gravy on a fat person is very unpleasant. This would also eliminate the various smears & fingerprints left on the cars.

2) No cameras (including video).

If you're taking a shot of the Grand Canyon & you don't want unknown people in the photo, that's okay. However, if you're snapping the latest bland Hyundai & you demand everyone to step away while you get a clean shot, that's not okay.

Reviewing your photos while standing in a thoroughfare is also unacceptable. If you don't trust yourself to get a good photo the first time then you probably should give up on your photography career now.

Please be aware, the size of your camera lens makes no difference to how important you think you are.

3) No admittance to persons not in possession of a full drivers licence (includes those with learners permits or a provisional licence.)

Doesn't take long to work out that from this there will be no prams, crying, screaming, lost children, etc & that can't be a bad thing.

Why bring your kids to a show when they just get in everyone's way, that's what the annual Royal Show is for. Unless there are rides, kids will proceed to make their own fun & steal bits off the cars (look at how many gear knobs go missing!).

If you're sixteen & hanging around the latest Subaru Impreza WRX, please be advised, you really don't look cool.

This rule technically also outlaw pregnant women, but it's for their own good. What husband would take their pregnant wife MPV shopping in such an environment anyway?!


So there you have it, wouldn't a pavilion of cars be a much more enjoyable place? Some of those countless salespeople walking around scratching themselves with nothing to do, might actually sell a car during the show!

P.S. This post contains no photos due to rule #2.