Bella had a wild youth

I know, I know Comicon was this week I should be talking about all the goodies shared there but no, I'm in the mood to reminisce about the little dog who's always trying to have adventures.

Mischief, always up to mischief, she has been with us since she was a puppy (I'm pretty sure Jamie has already done a post about her joining our little family). We thought she was so shy, that was only until we got to know her.

Being that we lived in a small town at the time it was really easy to walk everywhere we needed to go, the only problem was that Bella was very unhappy whenever we walked away from the house without her. She'd bark, howl and generally kick up a fuss.

Then she learned how to escape, the first time wasn't too bad. We'd decided to walk down to the local Coal and Country fair, much to the dismay of the little Bella dog, it was a fun time just like any small town fete, as we were leaving though across the road wandering through the crowd was our little dog, she'd escaped the yard and decided to come find us. From that day onward we realized we couldn't walk away from the house, even if we were going down the street we'd take the car so she wasn't encouraged to escape and follow us.



As she got older and more of our friends got dogs she had friends now that she wanted to go visit, it started innocently enough, she only used to escape if a dog she knew had gotten out of their yard and come to visit her, one time she came home stinking of chlorine, I think her and her sisters had gone swimming at the local pool.

  oops






But her most memorable escapes were after a few party/BBQ nights we'd had over at our place with all of our friends and dogs, she seemed to not have any trouble escaping anymore (usually the top of the fence was bent where she escaped and I'd just brace it there to make her try somewhere else).

One morning a friend of ours down the road rang us to tell him he now had 2 dogs in his yard, she'd broken out to go visit her 'boyfriend' as we liked to call him. Floyd the half German Shepard, half husky.

We were determined after that to find out how she was getting out and put a stop to it. We tied a bucket to the end of a long rope off her collar (long enough that if she jumped the fence she wouldn't be hung), the idea was she'd jump the fence but not be able to pull the bucket over too leaving her stuck, tie to the fence. The aftermath was adorable.

She wasn't jumping the fence at all, she had dug a tunnel under the cement at the front of the house, the bucket got stuck in the tunnel and this was where she was stuck in the morning when we woke up.

Not a small tunnel either, about a metre long (3-3/8 feet) and wide enough for a medium sized dog to crawl through.

She was not impressed with being stuck there whilst we took our photos and laughed at how ingenious she was, to fix the tunnel we ended up cementing the bucket where it was stuck and filling in the outside of the hole.












She does look a little guilty, but it didn't last.







She never really escaped again whilst we lived in Moura but a year after we moved to NSW she did take up the habit again, but that's a whole other story.


                                                                                      MAT

ps. I know Comicon wasn't this week, I'd started writing this post back then but my parents came to visit which always throws a spanner in the works giving us no free time.

It's been a while

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick post to let you know we haven't forgotten about the blog, we've just been crazy busy the last week and a bit.

We traveled to Brisbane to visit our friends and go house shopping. We drove up to Brisbane, so that was an ordeal with the little man in the car. Next time, we fly there!

We had an awesome time seeing all our friends, who we dub our "Brisbane Family". A lot hadn't met Connor yet so it was great to finally introduce him.

So, over the last week San Diego Comic Con was on. I'm both absolutely ecstatic about that (because wow, ALL the trailers and sneak peeks!) and absolutely saddened (first year we haven't been in quite a few years). Mostly, ecstatic though.

I'll post a summary of our thoughts on the Comic Con trailers in a few days (hopefully), but until then...

Be kind to each other.

Jamie :)

Wow Star Wars Celebration

At the moment, somewhere in the world Star Wars celebration is going on and I am loving all of the extra footage, Trailers and stories coming out of it.

There seems to be more info and announcements coming out of the Star Wars celebration than the last couple years of San Diego Comicon, we're especially excited for the season 3 of Star Wars Rebels.

A continuation of all the greatness that has come before, We've been fans of Rebels since day one and it looks like we'll be getting even more of what we love.

The Rogue One celebration reel shows us it'll be a different kind of Star Wars film than we're used to, but that isn't a bad thing, it looks good to me.

An unexpected treasure we loved hearing was the Ahsoka's untold tales panel, which gave us more of the girl we enjoyed so much in Star Wars the Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. We got to hear about the stories they wanted to tell but never got the chance to for some reason or another.

There's soo much content from the Star Wars celebration I couldn't possibly include it all, these were just some highlights of ours. If you want to check out all that was on offer be sure to visit the Star Wars Youtube account to get all the gossip.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZGYJFUizSax-yElQaFDp5Q

But I guess that's enough from me about it, the Star Wars celebration has just been a major focus for us this year, we wish we had a chance to go.

                                                                                           MAT

Oh and if you're like me and can't get enough of your Rebels fix here's a couple extra clips from the celebration.

Oh My God, It's all a ploy

What if it's all a conspiracy. Pokemon Go, the game that encourages people to go outside exploring, then flattens the battery on the phone leaving you stranded far from home without the ability to use your phone.

Oh you have a way around that do you, a portable battery pack - okay we'll do something better. Server crashes, and to top it all off game crashes just after you find something rare but before it's secured as one of yours.

Yeah yeah sounds like I'm being petty here but it is what seems to be happening, the game gets you out and about and fails in so many ways on so many levels. Like Jamie keeps saying "it feels like a BETA version" but what if that's the plan to change society and get people out experiencing the world. Once everyone's routines are molded to being outside more the app will be shut down for good. It would be the biggest prank in modern history, or a marketing stunt for another pokemon game or movie reboot (but something good) of the original game with the original 151.

Anyway, we have been posting too much about Pokemon Go, this will probably be our last post about it because frankly I've become bored with it, and also I've restarted Starcraft 2 from the start so it's fresh when I play the Legacy Of The Void.

I've been wanting to replay it ever since Jamie recently started playing, and just hearing the animatics has me longing to play it all again, such a good game and surprisingly an amazing story for a strategy game.

                                                                                                                           MAT

More Pokemon GO Reviews

Hi Everyone,

So we've had the game for what, 3 days now? So I thought I'd add my pros and cons of the game.

Pros:

• Like Mat said, loving the fact that's it's only the original 151. We both walked away from the franchise after that era so it's nice to see those pokemon are the focus.
• It gets people outside (can also be a con). Especially good for kids. 

Now...the cons. Grab a cup of tea people, this is gonna sound like a rant (probably is), but I'm going to be brutally honest.

• This thing just screams Beta version. Ok, it was free so I really shouldn't complain too much, but if it's a beta, call it a damn beta.
• Server issues. Damn. Just jump on twitter and look at the #pokemonGO hashtag. As soon as it was released in North America, the servers just crashed. Since this game had a testing phase (a true Beta? I guess?) you'd think this would've been sorted. Looking at all the memes and comments about the servers has been entertaining though....

• Eevee Evolution. Its random what you get. So you could save up those 50 eevee candies and hit that evolve button and get the same damn evolution (or eeveelution...ok I'll stop) every. Freakin. Time!!! That's annoying.
• The con of going outside. Ok, I know that sounded like I'm a couch potato, but there's already been accidents because of this game. Yes, that's the "idiots" but you have to cater to idiots. So for a game designed for children, I can see a lot of issues with kids not watching where they are going and getting injured or worse. For example, one of the Pokestops in our town, is on a freakin median strip in the middle of a 4 lane highway. Yeah. Great work team. Great work. Dodge traffic, get some free Pokeballs!
• Evolution in general. For the common stuff, that's not so bad, there's plenty of Pidgeys around to transfer to the Professor in exchange for those precious candies, but what about the less common stuff? Do I have to wait forever to get my damn Charizard? COME OOOOOOON! There's gotta be a better way than the GRIND of finding the odd 75 Charmanders just to get my Charizard action on.

Some twitter gold

So, will we keep going with the game. Maybe for a while longer. But it's not really worth the hype it's been getting in MY opinion. It's just too damn frustrating that I can't enjoy it while sitting on the couch. If I could battle the neighbours or Mat? That would be awesome. If we were travelling, this would be SUPER fun. But for those of us working or staying home (for now) looking after the kids...not so ideal. I can see a lot of parents being nagged by their kids, just so they can aimlessly roam the streets for that damn cubone or pikachu.

Finally, #dontpokemongoanddrive http://www.cartelpress.com/pokemon-go-major-highway-accident-man-stops-middle-highway-catch-pikachu/

Stay safe Poke Masters,

Jamie :)

oh no

I may have made a boo boo today, little Connor is new to eating real food rather than baby food. But today was the first day he was left to feed himself his little toast strips for breakfast, and he did that amazingly by the way.

But I made the mistake of leaving him for 'literally a second' with a plate in front of him whilst pouring some tea.


And when he ran out of toast to eat he ever so defiantly dropped the plate on the ground looking me in the eye and smiling as I was running to try and prevent the carnage.

I would be mad but, how could anyone stay mad at that face

                                                                                         MAT

It's Just Skating By On Nostalgia

We downloaded Pokemon Go at it's release this week and overall I'm a little disappointed. I was so looking forward to it, come on a new format for a game that's been around for years, and this time it'll only be the original 151. I personally grew away from Pokemon after the first additional Pokemon were added.

Okay I'm just going to do a bit of a pro's and con's list because I haven't been able to experience all the game has to offer, and there are some pro's.

Pro's - The original Pokemon are back and this time are the only focus
         - It does encourage people to get out and about around your town or city (this could be a Con though because it is a game aimed at children)
         - Ummmmm, the augmented reality is kind of ........ cool?

Now the Con's - There isn't a Gym in my town, it's a population centre of 22,000 people and no place to experience the rest of the game.
                         - There is no interaction between players, you can't share or swap Pokemon between people, or even battle between players.
                         - And talking about battling from what I've read (no gym to try for myself) you don't control your Pokemon when battling at a gym beyond a dodge function (by swiping left or right)


                         - Your Pokemon aren't used to help catch other Pokemon, there's no fighting to weaken a Pokemon before catching, it's just a mini game of throwing a Pokeball like a paper toss game.
                         - There's no strategy in the game any more, it's all justa  random probability engine combined with pretty pictures of things we're all nostalgic for.
                         - The Pokemon evolve from candy instead of through hard work experience and training (as far as I know, no gym remember)
                         - Currency. You are provided with ZERO coins to buy things. As far as we can tell, you can only get these coins buy shelling out REAL currency. I mean at least flick us a few coins as we achieve things in the game. Come on.

I'm persevering with the game for now but I'm pretty sure I'll be bored with it and stop playing as soon as I have the Pokemon I am looking forward too because there doesn't seem to be any goal.

                                                                                                       MAT
            

You'll Never Find A More Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

Damn Thieves !!! I was robbed, yeah it happened a couple weeks ago but I needed time to vent before I wrote anything about it on here (otherwise it'd be just a long list of swears).

We were told when we moved to this town that it had a bad reputation, but I grew up in a town with a similar reputation so meh can't be that bad. Yeah there is a bad part of town but we don't live anywhere near that place (little Beirut as we like to call it) so it should have been okay. Look, it's not perfect, we did once have a guy break into our yard one night, and it was hilarious letting the dogs out the back to chase him over the fence, but that was years ago.

     Back to the main reason I'm writing, some drop kick of a person broke into my work ute (pick up truck for those not up with Aussie lingo) and stole my tools, I work as a mechanical trades person and my tools are my livelihood. I cannot do my jobs without tooling, and work doesn't supply tooling, so it was all out of pocket expenses.
 
   One morning I received a phone call from one of the guys I work with asking if I'd been using tools out of my work ute that day because the toolbox on the ute was wide open out the front of the house, F!@#ing losers had cut the locks off my tool box, gone through my tools, but only stolen very specific items. Things that your average tool shop doesn't have in stock or your average person wouldn't use at home, like large spanners (up to 48mm and 2"), large Allen keys and in-hex sockets (up to 22mm).

    Over the next 2 nights, 2 other vehicles from my company had been broken into the same way. We've been furious since and have come up with a couple solutions which would stop this reoccurring, -
1. House power - we run an extension cord from the house to the body of the ute charging the ute with 240 volts of electricity, the only downfall would be having to clean up the corpses lying around the car every morning,
2. Shotgun - hook up a gun 'Home Alone style'  to shoot anyone opening the toolbox,  the biggest downfall of this one would be with the gun restrictions in Australia making this very illegal,
3. Gas - This was a favorite amongst the guys: leave a leaking gas bottle in the toolbox at night and mount a striker/sparker on the door to create a spark on opening. Again this one would have a downfall - there wouldn't be much of a toolbox left. (this is what happened to a ute which had a leaking gas bottle in it when the owner opened it while smoking, ps. driver suffered only minor burns)

All this is just spit balling, we'd never do anything this extreme, it's just frustrating having to replace thousands of dollars worth of tools because people suck.

                                                                                             MAT 

Site Of The Month: Roadkill Store

 

https://shop.roadkill.com/p 

So the title might have you worried. Let me explain.
Roadkill is a show on YouTube (and recently we spotted it on Netflix) about two guys that work for Hot Rod Magazine in the US that take very tired looking cars (i.e. Roadkill) and attempt to make them awesome. Not necessarily better, but fun to drive, fun to wreck, fun to race. They don't have to look pretty, just have to be awesome.

Mat and I have watched the show for years. Episodes are released monthly on YouTube and we sit for the 30-40 mins and just enjoy the hell out of it.

Since Mat is such a fan (in particular), I ventured online to the Roadkill Store to buy a few things for him.

Just in case anyone is interested in the show, I've linked here Episode 4 (my favourite episode). I think it gives you a well rounded scope of what the show is like! Plus, there's a dog! Always a bonus. #roadkilldog

Ok, back to why a seemingly simple site is so awesome. Two words: Customer Service
I ordered some stickers, a tshirt, and a licence plate holder. Unfortunately, when we received everything, the licence plate holder was broken. It had snapped in transit. So I got onto the customer service, send them a pic of the damaged goods and they were not only super friendly and sympathetic, but they sent out a new one free of charge (and wrapped in extra bubble wrap!).

So for customer service excellence, Roadkill Store gets my seal of approval.

Until next time,

Jamie :)

The Start Of The Bathurst Tradition: Saving Bella

For those unaware, the Bathurst 1000 is an annual race of V8 engine cars (V8 Supercars, if you will) that is "must see tv" for the majority of Australians. Well, at least those who like cars. For you guys in the US, it's like our Superbowl. The race is a long one so most Aussies do what we do, have a barbeque, invite over some friends and comment "WHOA", "DAAAAAAAAAAMN", "HOLY......." whenever there's a crash.

In 2008, we did just that. We were living in a small mining town in central Queensland (and I mean small, 2200 people). About halfway through the race, a good friend of ours was in need of a decent coffee, so we went for a walk to the local pool (they had a coffee machine apparently). As we got to the building entrance, there was a commotion on the other side of the road. Two small black and white puppies were running around in the street and had just dodged a car.

Now, I love dogs, and I would hate to see those dogs hurt so I called them over to me. They were a boy and a girl pup, obviously from the same litter, and the girl was especially shy. So shy, she hid underneath a bench close-by. Eventually I won her over and she snuggled up to me. Neither of them had a collar and I had no way of knowing which house they had come from. So, I took them both back to our place.

We soon realised that these pups looked about the same age as the ones another one of our friends had adopted from the pound a few weeks earlier. Those 2 (both girls) had been found at the local dump. Yeah, someone literally dumped them. We kept these new pups out the front of the house with us just in case the owners started walking around the streets to look for them. I mean, like I said, it's a small town.
 The race was over a few hours later and nobody had happened by. So we took all the pups back to our friends's house (the one with the other dogs) to keep them safe until we could find the owners.

At this point I was so in love with the little girl. She's the one in the middle at the front of this photo. Since she was the fluffiest, and in my opinion, the prettiest, I called her Bella. No, this was not a Twilight thing. She's a "little beauty" so...Bella.

The next day was a Monday (I worked weekdays) so I put an email out at work to all personnel to see if anyone owned her, or knew who the owners were. On Tuesday I got a reply from one of the guys at work who claimed she belonged to his neighbour, and gave me her number.

This was probably one of the most awkward phone calls I've ever made.

The lady was shocked that the dogs were missing. She was completely unaware they were gone. Now, by this point we'd had the dogs, what, 36 hours at least? So for her not to realise they were gone was astounding to me. She then told me that the puppies belonged to her daughter and the daughter's best friend: Two 16 year old girls who saw a "free to good home" ad for the dogs and thought it would be fun to get them, like a friendship bracelet sort of thing. So, I asked this lady when I should bring the dogs back (reluctantly of course) to which she replied "don't bother".

Now this took a bit to sink in. When I responded with the typical "What do you mean I shouldn't bother?" she told me that the girls weren't looking after the dogs anyway so I should keep them or give them away. It's lucky that I did want to keep Bella and that another friend of ours wanted the boy (she called him Captain). Before ending this phone call, I asked all the standard questions: Are you sure your daughter won't want the dogs back? Yes, just take them. Have they been vet checked and vaccinated? No (!!!!!!) Microchipped? No. Does your daughter want to come by and see the dogs at all? No, its best you just take them away.

Ok then. Awkward, strange, disturbing. So with all that out of the way Mat and I adopted Bella, got her checked by the vet, microchipped, registered with the local council, and vaccinated. Our friend did the same with Captain.

Months later, while we were walking Bella, there were a few times a car would drive past and a girl would scream "give me back my dog you bitch!". Eventually I tracked down one of the girls who told me that the girl screaming at me was the "best friend" and Bella was previously hers. She was upset that the mum had given them away. The girl I spoke to was glad the dogs found a good home, and honestly she was a nice enough girl. She did admit the dogs were not looked after. In fact she solved a mystery for me. When we met Bella, she had a fresh scar above one of her eyes. Apparently the friend was taunting Bella with a piece of food and when Bella nipped her to try to get it, the girl gave Bella a back hand slap across the head and the ring she was wearing cut her. Yeah, I'm so glad we got Bella before something worse happened. To this day, Bella is still somewhat terrified if people flail their arms about.

Nananananananana Batbear!

We would hate to think what would have happened to Bella if we hadn't have just gone out for a coffee that day. Maybe she would have been hit by a car. Maybe she would have gotten sick. Maybe the abuse (not being fed and given water) would have continued. Maybe she would have just gone on heat and had a whole lot of, albeit adorable, unwanted puppies.

She's now almost 8 years old. She's our girl. A clever dog with so much love and cheekiness to share. We're not 100% on when her birthday is, so every Bathurst weekend, we celebrate Bella. We have for 8 years, and we always will.

Sorry for the long post. Just needed to get that story out.

Until next time, always love your pets.

Jamie :)

Don't let their Identical DNA Fool You, They Differ On Key Issues

It's voting time again in Australia and we all need to vote today or get a massive fine from the government. Nothing either party has said or done has really wow'd anyone this year and no matter which party gets into power nothing big ever changes.

This country is just too evenly divided on the major issues, even if one party makes a big change of any sort, 1 or 2 elections later it'll be changed back.


I could always vote for a third party or an independent, and Australia has some pretty hilarious ones like the Australian Sex party, and the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party.



But as a whole the electoral system is pretty boring this year, besides the usual sausage sizzle that's always at the polling locations, normally raising money for a local school or something (pretty much the only reason to head out to vote this year).

At least tonight we have another reason to drink as we wait to find out who our next Prime minister is going to be.

While waiting in line these quotes were all I could think of, that's pretty much the only reason for this post in the first place.

And like my shirt says today ............... All Glory to the Hypnotoad.                              

                                                                                                                                 MAT.