Captain's Log.

Brisbane: Research and Reunion Helen turned 50 and a surprise birthday was planned for her in Brisbane. Thanks to her husband's deviousness, he thought to invite all my sister's close friends and family to unite for a secret night of celebration and frivolity. They were to come from everywhere around the state of Queensland. In my case, from the other side of the country. How could I not make the trip? I hadn't seen her in five years! A plan was made. Whistle stop touring from the opposite end of an Aussie continent isn't easy. What does one do when arriving from a distance? There's a long haul flight that changes everything - considering whether to stay just for the party or hang around longer and try to make a holiday out of it. Could I afford the time for one? If so, prioritize what, who, where and when to visit when there? I decided my trip would be broken down to five main elements and pursued with vigor once I got there: Birthday party Vi

Have you got problems with your G2? Me too...  I swear, this pool cleaner will be the end of me. I spend hours studying it's movements and still can't figure out why it keeps stalling!  Don't get me wrong, I'm totally amazed at it's design just the same. I pay respects to those engineers who've looked at its buoyancy, surface friction, suction, hose flexibility/curves, etc, and measured it so everything is just right. Let's face it. Any pool cleaner is a marvelous work of physics. There's a delicate balance of forces to overcome, to create, to propel the thing forward and to keep it bouncing around all the surfaces for up to eight hours a day. Picking up debris so a pool can look sparkling all the time is a real challenge.  Okay, so that's the sucky part over. Whilst I respect the science behind the G2 (and all other cleaners), I know I shouldn't need to know why it works, just that it works. But I have to figure out th

If you recognize more than one of those three words then you were once probably knee-deep in the 70's revolution - a mix of afro-hairstyles, flared pants and solid-gold dancers. That's how it was as I felt as though I revisited the 70's this past week, strolling through the suburb of Cooloongup just south of Perth. Australian seventies homes are distinct. It doesn't matter how subsequent owners have tried to mask their home's past by rendering their walls and painting them white. Changing the texture and the colour doesn't hide what a 70's home is. Back in the day, it was all about brown. Brown wallpaper, brown bed covers and brown tiles moved throughout kitchens and bathrooms. Chunky brown brick, arch frontages and textured amber coloured glass windows featured in almost every one of these 70s homes. It was Australia's way of bringing a bit of the Mediterranean Downunder during the era of disco. Timber, brick and mission brown

If you haven't visited our Latest page please do so. It's up and running, informing visitors and readers with anecdotal comments about our week-to-week activities. They aren't archived. Think of them as light gossip or a social chit-chat with our readers. This differs from blog posts which ARE archived and full of content relating to our dark fiction stories. To receive updates on them, visitors must be subscribed to the site  here . There are links on each post, taking readers on a wild journey between worlds and/or the pages of our novels.

  1979: Space Doom or Excitement?  If you remember this map and those three red orbit lines published for newspapers in 1979, you'll also remember that Skylab's fall back to Earth was both exciting and dangerous for Earth's citizens.  Would it crash on a populated area or plop harmlessly into an open sea?  Did you know that money was offered for pieces of the wreckage? As a small boy living in Logan City, Brisbane, I wasn't anxious but excited. I wanted it to crash into my backyard! They said it could fall anywhere. My home was anywhere . Like other parts of Australia (and World), Brisbane was in the possible crash zone. I ignored NASA's statements that it'd most likely fall into the Indian Ocean. One of Skylab's final orbits tracked over my house. To me, that was the drop point, not some boring ocean! It'd fall somewhere over Woodridge perhaps, and my parents and I would go and pick it up in the morning. Scientists

From schoolyard bullying to mass killings, the live-stream feature on social-media applications has been abused.  [Un]Social media live-streaming was a step in the wrong direction. Since it's inception, the Internet has rushed into our lives, consumers constantly mesmerised by shiny new gadgets, offers, applications and online facilities believing all of it leads to gold. Gold is simply a lure to opportunity . There's no reward found in live-streaming. It says more about the lure to find one and those lured by what it promises or seems to promise them. What social benefit does a live-stream give a citizen, any citizen? Social media companies certainly know what benefits them. They get to keep/gain members but what does it do for you and I? Deranged individuals are attracted to it too. They are out there  being lured to their kind of gold . Social media doesn't discriminate who logs on or how it's used. If someone wants to strap a Go-Pro

Barbie turns 60 but this is NOT a story on the famous doll. It's about human relationships and how NEWS.COM.AU views this toy story. It's easy to overlook the obvious for something shiny, right? Barbie Doll ages 6 decades and viewers click on the link , ready to settle back to see a set of pictures of grey hair, droopy eyes and crêpe-paper neck.   Put that shiny down. Take a look at the break down of this page's web address at the top of the screen-photo. It starts with the standard NEWS.COM leader and then it adds it's sub-categories to place it where this story goes. (click on the pic to enlarge) ../lifestyle/relationships/dating/<barbie story> Every site organises it's posts and pages in the most logical way to help its visitors find articles easily and quickly. That's the life of modern websites. It's how all successful sites work! Good site managers know their readers well because they are feed statistics about them everyday. T