This time it's one of my maternal grandfather, standing with his plane. He was, in fact, a pilot.

The thing is, I don't have a clue when the photo was taken. It's pre 1944, that much I'm sure of, but I don't know much about vintage planes or flight clothing or anything. If I did, I might be able to date the picture a little better.

If anyone does know about these things and would be able to assist, that would be great...

I finally used my new scanner to digitize some vintage photographs. The first one I did was of my maternal grandmother, taken in the early 1920s when she was in her mid-teens. I did do a fair bit of resortation work on it (not easy, given that it's quite small and quite old).

I did even more restoration on the image circa 1908, of my grandmother as a small child with her mother. The original was cracked, discolored, stained, and faded.

Thankfully, the one circa 1901 (of my great-grandmother) was in much better shape and didn't require a lot of work.

Anyway, they're at the end of this link if you want to take a look.

Tudor England. Great info, pictures, quizzes, mmmm. It's a Tudorphile's wet dream, I'm telling you.

When Andrew bends over and half his arse is visible, it's considered a generally bad thing.

When a fashion model does it on the runway, it's high fashion... ?

Just saw this Google ad on a recipe site:

Ads By Google
Ground Beef Sale
New & used Ground Beef. Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com

A man whom police described as deranged and bent on suicide abandoned a sport-utility vehicle on a heavily traveled commuter rail track early Wednesday, causing a violent wreck involving three trains that left at least 10 people dead and more than 180 injured.

When I first came to Australia in 1999, I started to watch television, trying to absorb the culture and current events. I noticed pretty quickly that there was this tall, somewhat stout man who kept appearing on television all the bloody time, giving opinions on bloody everything. We're talking sound bite city here. I found it rather annoying, actually.

Finally I asked Andrew, "Who the hell is Kim Beazley, and why is he always on the news?"

Turns out he was the Leader of the Opposition which was then (as now) the Labour Party.

Anyway, he eventually lost the leadership and they got in Simon Crean, a man more bland than boiled cabbage and more boring than John Howard (our illustrious Prime Minister), and that's saying quite a lot.

Then he was out and the upstart, smart-mouthed Mark Latham managed to get the leadership of the Labour Party. Mark had a very colorful way with words, and once referred to the opposition's front bench as "a conga line of suckholes" and called John Howard an "arse licker". I have to say I didn't think all that much of him as a politician, but I liked the way he said stuff. Pretty entertaining.

Well, Mark has recently resigned, mostly due to health issues (he's got some sort of painful disease that flares up when he's too stressed, so, yeah, I think politics isn't a good career for him if he wants to stay out of the hospital).

And guess who's the new leader of the Labour Party? Kim Beazley.

A conga line of suckholes, indeed.

I've got this new scanner here, and haven't scanned anything at all. I'm thinking that perhaps I might get out some of my hand-drawn or painted artwork (i.e., traditional media, rather than digital) and scan some of it. Trouble is, my favorite, and which I would dearly love to have in digital format (despite its somewhat controversial nature) is rather big, and I think I'd have to scan in multiple passes, something I've never actually been all that good at.

Anyway, first I'd have to actually find the portfolio (as in, an actual portfolio case)...

Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines! (Too funny, go have a look, I swear I was actually having to wipe my eyes I was laughing so much!)

Not only did I redo the design, I updated and refreshed all the links in the resources area, I redid every single one of the graphics sets currently being offered as linkware, the site is on a totally new database system, I retired a few of the old downloads that didn't get much traffic or which I just plain decided to take offline.

More content (including a store) is planned, but I decided not to wait for that but rather to unveil the new site now.

Registration is required to view or download the linkware or to submit a site for listing in the resources. Other than that, it's all open.

A friend just said this to me via ICQ:

I was going to go to bed but I realised I can't -- they just opened a starbuck's on it. So I was going to go up and crash on the sofa, but there's a starbucks there now too.

Johnny Carson, the quick-witted "Tonight Show" host who became a national institution putting his viewers to bed for 30 years with a smooth nightcap of celebrity banter and heartland charm, died Sunday. He was 79.

Saw Bon Jovi on stage in 1989. Got free tickets because they stayed at the hotel my then-husband was working at (as the night auditor), and the security guard gave him the tickets. It was a good show, and my appreciation for the band increased greatly after that night.

I'm not really a huge fan, but generally speaking I can say that I like Bon Jovi, and Jon is pretty hot, heh.

I want to lay you on a bed of roses
For tonite I sleep on a bed on nails
I want to be just as close as the holy ghost is
And lay you down on bed of roses

(I particularly like that one; it's got a kind of Billy Joel vibe that really does it for me.)

Oooh ooh ooh. That's the monkey-noise that geeks make over new equipment. Oooh ooh SHINEY...

I was making that noise all afternoon. I got a new multi-function printer thingy today. Well, it's not just a printer. It's also a fax, copier, and scanner, and you can print photo-quality images with it (on the right paper, which I haven't got, but that's beside the point).

I do actually send faxes now and then, in case you wondered. And I occasionally make photocopies and scan things. Mostly I got it because 1) it was a great deal and 2) I didn't have a working scanner and I needed a printer to make picture cards for Zoë (autistics are very visual, and using pictures to set up a schedule can be very helpful for communication).

She's thrilled. She loves printers, loves to watch them work, loves to see what they make.

I'm a geek, so naturally I'm thrilled. Oooh ooh ooh. SHINEY.

A man who claims he has been receiving unsolicited emails from a US company for two years is now being sued by them, for branding them spammers and reporting their actions to ISPs.

Listening to Shakira's "Laundry Service". I love it when she sings in Spanish, mmm. I spent most of my childhood in the American Southwest with a lot of Spanish speakers around, and I just love the sound of the language (I can understand a fair bit of it if the speaker goes slowly or it's written). Anyway, the singing in Spanish really brings back pleasant memories.

I should get Linda Rondstadt's mariachi album, now that I come to think of it....

Anyway, I'm not the least bit bisexual, but if I were interested in women, Shakira would be one who would definitely pique my interest. She's incredibly sexy and she's got real hips. And, hey, her breasts are small and humble, so you don't confuse them with mountains...

I'm not a member of Random Acts of Journaling, although it looks pretty interesting as these things go.

I came across their monthly project in another blog, and found it interesting.

I hope they won't mind if I borrow their project, despite not being a member...

$100,000 must be donated to charity. What charities will you support?

Autism Australia, and maybe some to the RSPCA.

$100,000 must be given to one person that you know. To whom do you give it?
What would you expect him/her to do with it? Would you put any restrictions on its use? Would it make a difference if you could make the donation anonymously?

I suppose I couldn't give it to my husband, eh?

I'd give it to a particular friend of mine who could really use the help. I don't think I'd put restrictions on it or anything, but I'd tell him that while he can use it as he feels necessary, I hope he'll use it to help lay the foundations for his future, something he's working on very hard. Okay, maybe I'd tell him he has to use some of it to go back and finish his degree, but the university would be up to him, and he could move there with it if he wanted. Heh.

$100,000 must be given to someone who has recently been in the news. Who gets it? Why?

Uhhh... Uhm. Okay, there's a little girl who survived an absolutely horrendous accident (she was having a nap at her childcare center and a car crashed through the wall and crushed her and then caught fire!). That she survived at all was miraculous, but she's actually doing well, getting on with life, despite the loss of limb and freedom. I think I'd give it to her, because her story touched me deeply and I reckon she could make good use of it (or her parents could).

$100,000 must be spent on a public beautification project. You can build a park, commission artwork, etc. What do you do, and where do you do it?

Melbourne is full of parks. I'd spend it on cleaning up some of the ones that have been vandalized or otherwise compromised. I don't think I'd put artwork up, unless it was something kids could play on.

$100,000 must be spent on a memorial to someone/something that you have loved and lost. What form does the memorial take? Who is it for?

My grandmother. She was the only person in my childhood who loved me just for myself, warts and all, no strings attached. Maybe a nice memorial playground.

$50,000 must be spent studying something you have not formally studied. What will you study?

Music, or maybe photography.

$50,000 must be spent establishing a scholarship. What's it for and who will you name it for?

My grandmother was a music teacher, so I think I'd set up a scholarship in her name for music students who wanted to be teachers.

$50,000 must be given away in a contest. What kind of contest do you hold?

Erotic art. I like erotic art, and I don't mean "pornography" (I wonder how many weird hits this page is going to get when the search engines get hold of it?). Could be photographic or other art, but the emphasis would have to be on the artfulness.

$200,000 must be spent doing as many things as you can on your "lifetime to do list." Always wanted to see Alaska? Take a boat trip on the Rhine? What things would you do first?

Take Andrew to the United States to visit places I've lived.

That leaves you with $150,000 of mad money. If the rules say you can't spend that money on things that might be termed "practical," what do you buy on your spending spree?

Well, I can't think of much that would be genuinely impractical. I mean, a car or a computer upgrade or other things I'd naturally think of are all practical. I guess I'd have to spend it on travel, which is at least intangible.

Okay, this is probably some sort of hoax, but these pics, supposedly of Bill Gates posing for a Teen Beat photospread in 1983 are pretty funny.

Texas sued one of the world's largest "spam" e-mail operations on Thursday, seeking millions of dollars from two men it says are responsible for sending illegal messages on the Internet, the state's attorney general said.

Fed up over problems stemming from viruses and spyware, some computer users are giving up or curbing their use of the Web.

The Federal Trade Commission has charged a network of corporations and individuals with using spam to sell access to online pornography. The FTC alleges that the defendants, acting as a single business enterprise, barraged consumers with e-mails containing sexually-explicit content without the required warning label.

These photographs are grouped in solemn rows without statistics to show the extent of our military losses (in Iraq) in one view.
 
We do not have photos of every one lost and, sadly, more will be added.
 
We do not know, nor can we show, the number of wounded and disabled men and women who fought in this war – those who continue to fight their battles today.

Intelligence officials have confirmed the US has stopped searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
 
They say the chief US investigator, Charles Duelfer, is not planning to return to the country.
 
Mr Duelfer reported last year that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons at the time of the US-led invasion nearly two years ago.
 
The existence of WMD had been the stated reason in Washington and London for going to war with Iraq.

Security experts are warning of a new and highly critical security flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer, when running under Windows XP SP2.

Simply visiting a malicious Web site could leave a user's computer vulnerable to malicious code.

(Personal note from me: PLEASE switch from IE if you're still using it. Try Firefox. Please.)

NASA scientists using data from the Indonesian earthquake calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation.

Understanding and Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia (good descriptions and some interesting medical statistics)

President Bush wants 'pro-homosexual' drama banned. Gary Taylor meets the politician in charge of making it happen.

I've loved the Flame Warriors site for years, but now it's even better! They have a new domain, new site design with good navigation, and a real forum (I wonder how many flame wars will take place there, providing more inspiration?). Anyway, go see the site.

Under an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, a man known as the "Spam King" will stop infecting computers with advertising programs until a federal lawsuit against him is resolved.
 
Sanford Wallace and his companies, SmartBot.net Inc. of Richboro, Pa., and Seismic Entertainment Productions Inc. of Rochester, are required by the agreement to send online ads only to people who visit their Web sites.
 
The government says Wallace used spyware to infiltrate computers, overwhelming them with ads and other programs. Then, he tried to sell programs he claimed would fix the problems. The government said the remedies do not work.

Sometimes brutal honesty is more about being brutal than about being honest.

Six-day-old Tsunami Roy doesn't know what all the fuss about him is, as he hungrily suckles at his mother's breast before dropping off for a contented nap.
 
Sitting in a classroom in the capital of India's tsunami-ravaged Andaman and Nicobar islands, his 34-year-old father, Lakshmi Narain Roy, recounted Saturday the dramatic events leading to Tsunami's birth, three weeks ahead of time..

British police said on Monday they had charged a man with sending hoax emails to relatives of people missing since the Asian tsunami, saying their loved ones had been confirmed dead.
 
The hoaxer, claiming to be from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand, targeted people who had placed appeals for information about relatives and friends on the Web site of TV station Sky News.

Traditionally, Americans have looked down on their northern neighbours and Canadians are the butt of a thousand American jokes. But faced with hostility on their foreign holidays, some Americans are going to great lengths to conceal their nationality.

Because I haven't written about it, please don't think I'm unaware of or unconcerned about the terrible tragedy that has taken place. In fact, Australia's very near many of the places that have been hit by the tsunami, and many of those places were favorites of Australian holiday makers. Many Australians have been confirmed dead, many more are still missing, and it's all over the news in various forms. (Not, by the way, that I think that missing or dead Australians are more important than other nationalities; it's just that it's on the news a lot partly because of this, partly because of our proximity to Southeast Asia, and partly because we just get a lot of international news.)

The depth of my sadness is profound, probably too profound for mere words in a blog entry.

Please, donate what you can to one of the many worthy organizations doing relief work. My personal preference is the Australian Red Cross, but donate where you feel most appropriate.