As a rule we don’t really celebrate halloween seriously here in Australia, although in recent years the supermarkets have been doing their best to wring a few bucks out of us, tempting the kids with shelves stocked with halloween-y things
Nevertheless, All Hallows Eve is the ideal time for me to share this clip, a short film called Vincent about a tormented young boy, Vincent Malloy, who wants nothing more than to be like Vincent Price.
Of course this film had to be narrated by Vincent Price, the owner of the best evil laugh ever, and animated by the suitably dark Tim Burton* who was probably just recreating the story of his own childhood. What more could I possibly ask for?
Happy halloween and a Mwah ha ha to you. 🙂
*You just knew animated movies are my favourite didn’t you? Nightmare Before Christmas, the best xmas movie ever, or maybe that’s just me 😉
This Sunday, half of the parents across the country will be hoping for breakfast in bed and to be showered with gifts, yes, it’s Father’s Day.
You can tell it isn’t Mother’s Day, bins of discounted socks and car wash gift packs confront you in every shop. Don’t worry the kids and I have managed to resist such blatant marketing.
Fortunately, we have also managed to resist buying anything actually dangerous. Unfortunately the sons of Frank Roots of Ohio didn’t really think through their gift back in 1953.
They got their dad a two-foot alligator for Fathers Day…
That can’t go well, can it? I have to say that Frank took to their present more amiably than you would expect, tickling its tummy. Obviously the alligator gift wasn’t wrapped tightly enough, and what should have been a happy Fathers Day ended in hospital with a nipped nose. Thanks for nothing, kids!
What would we do without our dads? I for one would have never been introduced to science fiction, giving me a love of it that has never left.
I was taken to the cinema to see Star Wars at a very early age (the Wampa gave me nightmares for years). Since then Dad and I have seen every movie in the franchise at the cinema together, not all of them have been good, as we all know, but the tradition remains.
Because of our shared love of sci-fi the rest of the family had to endure watching those cheesy seventies sci-fi television series, Star Trek, Buck Rodgers, Battlestar Galactica, Land of the Giants…. oh, there were so many!
For flashback purposes and your (very dubious) pleasure, here is the intro to Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century. So cheesy, I can almost hear the mice….
And of course my personal favourite, the classic Battlestar Galactica;
Happy Fathers Day to all you Dads out there. Have a great day. 😀
On Friday I did a post whining talking about the kids being struck down with the dread lurgy that has seemingly taken over the entire valley, and finished with a clip of The Pigs singing Sofa People.
Now, I’m not a country music fan and neither are many of you. Nevertheless, if you can’t get a laugh from watching The Pigs…. well, you just should, orright?
For those of you who did enjoy the utter silliness of The Pigs here is another clip (lets face it, when am I going to get the opportunity to post about them again?) although I am going to add a warning.
No, it isn’t to look out for the barely stifled laughter of the line-dancing girls, nor is it to warn of the unexpected appearance of the legendary John Williamson on jaw harp.
The problem is that since I first heard this version of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies I have never been able to hear hers again without the country twang of The Pigs overriding all thought processes.
Watch it at your own risk. I’m still humming it… 😀
Clearly there is Something Going Around as I have had one sick child home from school each day this week.
As mentioned in my previous post Number 1 son was home for the first two days before managing to crawl back to school on Wednesday.
Just as well he recovered, because after picking up a victorious Number 2 son from a basketball round robin on Tuesday (victorious, but in a state of collapse), they switched places and Number 2 has spent much of the remainder of the week in a fevered sleep on the couch.
Of course, if the Man catches this variety of plague I may well have to resort to extreme measures to deal with him because I’m all outta sympathy. 😉
As I have had no time to myself this week and can’t think of anything intelligent to write, I had to share this clip which, appropriately, includes a couch funeral and the exhortation to get off the couch and do something, people!
No, I didn’t forget to do a post on Monday, my brain was otherwise occupied.
One of the sons was unwell and unfortunately for me it wasn’t the one who brushes off illness as he doesn’t have time to stop running about. It was the son who is officially The Worst Patient Ever.
I spent the last two days with a bored twelve-year-old talking at me all day long. Don’t get me wrong, we are big on conversation in our house but when Number 1 is sick he doesn’t do conversation, he talks at you in constant low-level whinge and condition update. After a few hours you are losing the will to live yourself.
I don’t let the kids sit on the couch and watch tv all day unless they are sick enough to need to remain in one place resting, and he wasn’t that sick. Really, he just needed to be quiet and go back to bed for a few hours and he would have felt a lot better, but I was there to talk to, so on and on he went….. I was really tempted to relax my no tv rule, I can tell you!
Anyway, I spent both yesterday and today trying to write something, anything, but the son was talkingtalkingtalking so I gave actual thinking up as a bad joke and am posting this song instead, Unwell by Matchbox Twenty.
I could change the lyric I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell a bit though, perhaps I’m going crazy ‘cos you’re just a little unwell….. 😉
What a great idea Mr. E.S. Haines had back in 1884. When rain is needed, send up a balloon, disperse a chemical into the air and, voila! rain will fall.
These days we call that cloud seeding, not something I know too much about, but a quick bit of research confirmed something I did know. Not one of the chemicals used currently to make rain is called dynamite.
Mr. Haines idea was;
“to construct a captive balloon capable of carrying 800 cubic feet of hydrogen gas, and to it will be suspended a cask containing 50lb of dynamite. When rain is much needed, the balloon will be sent on a trip to the clouds, and by means of electricity the dynamite will be exploded, with the result, as the inventor anticipates, that copious showers of rain will fall on the land beneath. The explosion will open a valve which will cause the gas to leave the balloon, and the aerial visitor will then slowly return to earth.“
Uh huh.
Australia is a very dry place after all, we need as much rain as we can get and if he thinks that his invention could supply it where needed well, good luck to him.
Just don’t try it over my house.
I have to say that the thought of seeing this invention set into motion is utterly wonderful to me. No, I don’t think rain will fall, well, not the kind of crop saving rain Mr. Haines is expecting anyway.
Along with the stunned and slightly singed birds who were unfortunate enough to be passing by I imagine there will be tiny bits of flaming paper wrapper, marked ACME DYNAMITE of course, floating back to earth.
Naturally I expect there will be bits of balloon returning to earth too, the balloon will of course not be ‘slowly returning to earth’ as expected, it was full of highly flammable hydrogen gas. In my mind’s eye there will either be smoking pieces broadcast across the fields it was supposed to be watering.
I wonder what ‘means of electricity’ will be used to detonate this contraption? I think 1884 was a little early for safe remote detonation. All I can see in my mind’s eye is a person standing directly under the balloon with a long, long, wire and a big red button. How fast do you think the wire will return to earth after the boom? I hope the button pusher is wearing a sturdy helmet….
Fortunately I found this appropriate clip on youtube.
Now imagine the 800 cubic feet of hydrogen gas suspended above 50lb (22kg+) of dynamite like a tiny, tiny Hindenberg. 😉
If you wish to use any images or text from my blog be sure to ask permission and include a link back to Buried Words and Bushwa, and full credit to it.
Trove.
The newspaper articles here come from the National Library of Australia (trove.nla.gov.au). Get on there and do some text correcting! You never know what you might find...
Buried words and Bushwa. 
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