I now have a mine at my place

It's a bitcoin mine and it has already made 5c -- using 50c worth of electricity.

Joe was thinking of setting up his own bitcoin mine but it would have taken some research.  Help however was at hand.  His good friend B.. was up from Sydney for a week's visit. Joe is a valued software engineer but B.. is an absolute computer guru.  So for the last few days my place has hosted two very happy people -- running around getting in the hardware and software needed for the enterprise.  I wonder how many people realize how satisfying computer programming can be?  For those who can do it, it is one of life's great satisfactions.

Computer nerds are supposed to be withdrawn and antisocial but B.. is very chatty and full of laughs.  He is however very mentally sharp and thinks at a high level of generality. He joined Joe and me both at our regular Sunday morning brunch and also at our regular Monday trip to Nando's.  And he livened both of us up.  Joe and I talk to one-another so frequently that it is a wonder that we still find things to talk about.  Mr Trump is a great help there. He is always doing something amusing that invites discussion.  But anyway I talked a lot to B.. -- and listened -- and it was very interesting.  No wonder Joe enjoys his company so much.

A pleasant day under blue skies

Leftists have whipped up a bit of a furore over our celebration of Australia day on 26th January.  They claim it is unfair to blacks.  But the only blacks who seem bothered by it are ones who have been radicalized by Leftists.

Anyway, I celebrated it in the usual Australian way as part of a BBQ type family lunch -- at Jenny's place.  Jenny did us all proud again with an excellent lunch. As well as salads and various canapes she cooked up pork sausages, lamb chops and cevapi.

I bought along the cevapi, bread rolls and a bottle of Seaview champagne. One bottle was just right for the 5 of us to toast the day.  The cevapi were partuclarly welcome as Woolworths has just started stocking them again.  They are the king of sausages in my view. So it was good to have them back.  They were new to Kate but she remarked that they were very good.

Jenny also provided lamingtons, brownies and softdrink as a dessert.  Joe particularly liked the brownies.  They were not hash brownies but they were gluten free.

We did discuss the objections to Australia day but concluded that we liked it just the way it is.   All of us at table had blue eyes so maybe that had something to do with it.  We were all of the same ilk as the early British settlers whose arrival the day celebrates

Anne was in the Arctic enjoying the day-long gloom and such things.  Better her than I!

I noticed that Nanna did not drink much of her champagne but gave it to Kate who scoffed it.  A modern woman!  Joe also gave most of his champagne to Jenny, who absorbed it with no trouble at all. I was the only one who just drank my drink.

After a big lunch I did not feel like much food that night but I eventually made myself a spam and seeded mustard sandwich followed by a bowl of Street's blue ribbon with a mango and passionfruit sauce on it.  Yum!

FOOTNOTE: What is meant by "ilk"?  It is Scottish and means of the same clan. Outside of Scotland, however, it is used more inclusively. 

A pre birthday dinner

Anne has just flitted off on her latest trip -- to the Arctic of all places.  She could reasonably be called a travel-holic at the moment.

Which is ironic as I am travel-phobic these days.  I went everywhere I wanted to go in my 30s and it all seems too much bother now.  So she mostly travels with her good-humoured sister or goes alone.  She is a very friendly lady so she still has a lot of social interaction even when she travels alone.

But the amusing thing is that Joe and Kate seem to be in a similar situation.  Joe and I are very different people. He seems to be much more kind-hearted than I am, as one thing. Like his mother he is generally kind whereas I am kind mostly to people I approve of.

But "Like father like son" does emerge at times.  Joe is uninterested in travel too.  But Kate wants to see it all.  Joe took her on a trip all around Europe  about a year ago and apparently thought that he had done his travel duty with that.  When Kate wanted to flit off again he pointed out to her that he had visited eight countries with her.  "But that's just Europe" was her reply. Anyway, latest news is that she is visiting Canada on her own this year.

There are other ways that "Like father like son" emerges.  Two trivial but amusing ways are that we both buy rice bubbles but rarely eat them and we both sit down in an odd way, with the foot of one leg tucked under the other leg.  There is a rather attractive young lady below showing how it's done.  Both Joe and I do it quite unconsciously.  It just seems natural to us.



It so happens that Anne's 39th birthday will come up when she is away this year.  So I offered to take her out for a birthday dinner before she departed.  I took her to a dinner at the Yeronga digger's club.  We mostly go there on a Friday, when they have what must be the best smorgasbord in town.  So I thought that would be as pretty good birthday offering.  This time however we went on a Tuesday, which was quite different.  It was a "two for Tuesday" night.  Which meant that you got two meals for the price of one.  And the place was packed for it.  We were lucky to get a table.  The menu was rather small and basic so the only vaguely interesting thing I could find on it were "Toulouse sausages".  But it turned out that they were quite nice.

Anyway, I also took her to The Phams for breakfast next morning, where she had a Vietnamese omelette, a big and very tasty meal. 

While we were there a mother and a pretty little 10 year old daughter walked in. As soon as the mother lined up to order, the daughter zipped over to the the newspapers, got a "Courier Mail" and started reading it.  The wait was a bit long, however, so as soon as she had taken a good look at the local newspaper, she went over and  got "The Australian" and started reading it.  She was obviously VERY bright for her age.  Her mother had her in a pretty dress and her hair was nicely done so she seemed otherwise quite normal.  I would have LOVED to have her as a daughter.  I have seen many kids in that restaurant but she was the only one ever to display such adult behaviour.  It made my day.

I was an odd one in my childhood too. Most kids have on their bedroom walls posters of sports and movie stars.  I had a big map of Taiwan on my wall, which was big in the news at that time. I actually wrote to Taipei to get that map.

Mrs Possum

One of the more pleasing aspects of Brisbane's older suburbs is that a lot of trees have grown up and that has attracted wildlife.  Scrub turkeys strutting up and down the street are a common sight.  And I once had a magnificent python in my back loo.

But because I have a very luxuriant Mulberry tree right outside my front verandah I occasionally see possums grazing there.  Australian possums are much nicer than American opossums but they are distantly related.  Anyway, our possums are rather bold creatures. They stare you down rather than run away from you.

So today on Saturday night we had an encounter with one.  And it was a Mrs Possum. She was in the middle of my front staircase when I popped out up top and Joe was coincidentally approaching from below.  To have people both in front of her and behind her was too much, however, so she scooted away.

How do I know she was Mrs Possum?  Because she had the most gorgeous baby possum on her back.  We were privileged by her visit.

I have seen lady possums on the tree in front of me in the past.  I have observed her marsupium.

An interesting dinner

Early last year I initiated dinners with people I remember from my old army unit: 21 Psych.  It was interesting to catch up and hear what others had been up to since the '60s.

So I arranged another dinner tonight.  I was able to get Peter Muir along this time so that was good. I tried to get Peter Ridgewell along as well but I understand he has been very ill.  That reinforces my resolution to put on such dinners annually.  Someone from the unit whom I remember with affection is John French, who is now deceased.  So "do it now" is my resolve for catching up with people.

We were originally going to go to the Chinese restaurant next to the PA hospital at Buranda but they have just gone broke -- so I changed the venue to only a block away, at Zambreros of Buranda, a Mexican restaurant.  Some of the ladies were a bit wary of Mexican chillies so I may go back to Chinese next year.

Old times were of course discussed and even controversial topics like IQ were aired.  I mentioned the well established fact that American blacks are on average a whole standard deviation (15 points) below the white average on IQ and was rightly told that I could get into a lot of trouble these days by saying so. As it happens, however what I said is in fact the official position of the American Psychological Association.  But what scholars can say among themselves may not pass in public of course.

The late Chris Brand was a sad example of that.  Every serious student of ancient history knows that the brilliant civilization of ancient Greece was a pedophilic civilization.  Chris, however, was unwise enough to mention that to one of the newspapers.  Despite having tenure he was fired from his Edinburgh university job over it.  There was such an uproar in the papers that the university didn't have much choice

Anyway, everybody enjoyed the dinner.  Anne had quesadillas and I had a "classic bowl". I shouted the dinner but the total cost was only $88 so it was a small price to pay for good company.


The gathered company, men at the back, Rod Hardaker, Peter Hadgraft, myself and Peter Muir

Two larger photos here and here -- from the camera of Linda Muir, wife of Peter.

An unusual New Year

I don't usually mark New Year's eve in any way.  I stay at home, eat at home and am always in bed before the fireworks.  Anne however wanted to do something so decided to take another one of her many holidays.  She went up to Binna Burra Lodge for a few nights with some old bushwalking friends.  One of them was an old boyfriend of hers with whom she has often gone bushwalking.  Neither of them are capable of much walking these days but they enjoy what they can of their old bushwalking haunts. I believe that more such outings are planned.

Anne however made it up to me for not being with me on the big night by joining me for dinner on New Years day. We don't normally meet on Mondays.  We went to the Yeronga rissole, which had a very good buffet that night.  The food is always good there and there was such a range that Anne was able to put together for herself an almost entirely seafood plate, which she likes.  I had all sorts, including some quite good gyoza, which is Japanese food.

To drink I had Fourex Gold, which is my usual beer, and for Anne I ordered a glass of Chardonnay.  And there was something unusual about that.  In most pubs and restaurants, if you order wine by the glass, they hand you a glass that is only about a third full  -- which always annoys me.  At the club, however, Anne got a glass that was pretty full.  That will certainly encourage me to go back there.

I noticed a way in which the club had changed over the last couple of years.  The members were once almost entirely white Australians. It was a sort of holdout of the way Australia once was.  This time however, there was a substantial contingent of Chinese.  So they have finally woken up to what good value our  clubs are.  They fitted in perfectly, of course.  Most of the children running around were Chinese -- dressed and behaving indistinguishably from other Australian children. The Chinese are great at fitting in, which is a credit to them.

Then the next night, Tuesday, was one of our usual nights together so we went to the went to the Moreton Bay Sports Club, which is at the top of Anne's street.  It is always pleasant there and the Barramundi we both had for dinner was well cooked and well presented.  They don't have the variety of Yeronga, however.  The male membership there consists almost entirely of elderly white guys with expanded waistlines -- so I fitted in perfectly.