It Poured

All together this morning I have tipped a total of 110mls out of the rain gauge from the last 2 days.  The pool is full, the garden is watered and the pool chlorinator is again telling me the pool needs more salt.  You can check the rainfall figures so far for 2012 HERE.  You may need to go "Q2" to see the second quarter rainfall updates.

However the day has opened to a glorious blue sky, a top temp of 23 degrees and altogether glorious.  A little overhead cloud as I type but a much better day than yesterday.

Little other news.  I enjoyed the footy on TV yesterday.  Despite on paper being some 'ordinary games' they turned out to be a lot closer than expected making for some good viewing.

Friend Ian Eather dropped off my Community Newsletters I have to deliver around 5pm last night.  He headed home an hour or so later and there were three empty home brew bottles on the kitchen bench. It was a very pleasant 'interlude'.

More footy on TV this afternoon.

I have been wading through the TV Series Spartacus the last few nights.  I am enjoying it but there is a lot of violence in it.  It lapses into slow motion in best "Spaghetti Western" style whenever there is blood.  You see the blood fly and spread out across the screen.  It lapses into slow motion quite a bit.

I am glad I am watching it while Trish is away, it is certainly not her 'cup of tea'.

Heavens Open Up

Friday saw a cold southerly wind hit the Sunshine Coast with cold overcast weather.  Then Friday evening the first few drops of rain arrived and throughout today (Saturday) it is pouring.  I tipped 66mls out of the rain gauge this morning and there is another 25mls or so in the gauge just after lunch time.

Right now it is around 1 pm and I have the track suit trousers on and I am wearing socks!  It is cold, wet and miserable outside but we have the prospect that all the footy is on TV this afternoon.

Today's Computer Club was great.  Because of the weather the numbers at Computer Club were down which took a lot of the pressure off.  Most of the concerns I had today were copying people's own home made DVD's, some email stuff and backing up files.  Another person was considering moving from their wireless dongle internet connection and wanted to know about what other services were available and how much would it cost.

I tripped into Aldi earlier to get some bike riding stuff for Trish.  The seat on her bike has had it and Aldi had Gel Saddles and Gel Seat Covers available.  It is like shopping at those $2 stores, if there is something you want you need to be there early to get it before it sells out.  The best thing is you have up to 60 days to swap it if it doesn't do what you want.

Off to make some lunch and settle into watching the footy on TV.

Blogger Has Changed

I logged in to Blogger this morning to do my usual post and everything looks different from my end.  The view you get when reading it is still the same.  I guess all the tools and settings are still there, just now they are in a different position.

Winter has hit, cold southerlies are blowing this morning and the air is crisp and clear!  Humidity is under 30%.  Some areas in Queensland's north west had their coldest April day on record.  The temp should have been 32 but it was 16!

We were down to single figures this morning with a minimum around 9 degrees, they were expecting the low to be around 12 degrees.  Our protected back corner was still a delightful 28 degrees or so in the sun!

And the view across Pumicestone Passage this morning was exceptional.as you can see from the photo.

I have been going to bed a little earlier as I am here on my own still with Trish in Melbourne.  I tend to wake up early which isn't too bad as I head off to the lounge room to watch the live cricket from the West Indies. Sometimes when I wake during the night I like to catch up with the cricket score before going back to sleep.  Trouble is there isn't any radio broadcast from the ABC available for this tour.

But if you click on this link below it will take you to an online radio station in Dominica which is broadcasting the cricket. You will need to hit "Back" to return to this page.

http://www.caribbean-radio.com/asx/dm/590AM.asx

I can put this link into my internet radio and listen to the cricket broadcast live!

If you have a smart phone and the Tune In App, the station is DBS 88.1 FM in Dominica and is available via Tune In.  You can also get Tune In on your Computer and listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.  Click HERE to get to Tune In on the internet.  When you get to the page, click on "Browse" in the menu bar at the top and then click on "By Location" to check out stations all around the world.

Where Do You Get Your Movies & TV Shows?

I was chatting with a mate on the phone recently and I was asked, Where do you find your TV Shows and Movies?  I reckon that would be a good subject for a post on my blog page.

You can find much of the information at a website I have called "Movies, How To".  You can access it here.

I have my favorite sites I visit daily.  Click on the name to visit the site.  Sceper, ReleaseLog, Scenetube, and OneDDL just to nominate a few.  These links are to the Movie Sections of these websites and have a list of the latest movies available.  I use this mainly as a way of finding what is new for that day.  Most of the movies are the same on each site anyway.  I make sure I check the Internet Movie Data Base for a 'score' or rating on each movie.  Quite often the IMDB score is a part of the post.

If there is anything there that I might want I then go to NZB Matrix where I am able to 'download' movies.  90% of the time if they are on any of the websites above, I will find it at NZB Matrix.  You can Google NZB Matrix but you have to be a member to access what is in it.  I am a paid up member there so I can access nearly all of the stuff there.  It cost me around $10 to be a lifelong member of NZB Matrix.

TV Shows are much more difficult to check out.  I like to visit MetaCritic (Here) and check out the TV section there to see what is getting the good 'scores'.  It is a long process to keep an eye on what is happening.  I also like to check out the TV Section of the Guardian newspaper in the UK (Here) and read the reviews there.

I check each TV series out on IMDB.  Also when on IMDB I keep my eye open for "lists" that readers have created which appear on some of the TV Series I am investigating.  On one of these lists I found a series called Garrow's Law which gets a score of 8.5.  Check it out here.  I reckon that is the next series I will download.

I keep an eye on the ITV and BBC websites in the UK as well.

Another good source is the ABC iView "Drama" website. (Here).  My ISP gives me 'free' download (it doesn't count towards my monthly limit) from iView and I have discovered that I can download those programs and convert them to play on my media player.  So these movies off iView are absolutely free at no cost.

There is also the ABC's "At The Movies" website link (Here) and another website called The Film Pie which you can access here.

My ISP also gives me free access to Usenet which is a movie download facility.  This type of movie file download is available from NZB Matrix.

I share a Rapidshare Account with someone which I can use during the 10% I can't get at NZB Matrix.

I can also get TV Show download links from TV Freeload.  This is a great site for getting Rapidshare download links.  You can check out TV Freeload here.  You may need to create a free account to get into TV Freeload but that is free and easy to do.

Happy In My Own World

The first week or so that Trish is down in Melbourne while I stay at home are usually OK. It is into the second week things get a little lonely. So being only 4 days in to the two weeks she will be away everything is going along fine.

My pressure cleaner decided to stop working properly so I was in need of a replacement. Aldi had them 'on special' so I grabbed one yesterday. It is much smaller and not as powerful as the other one was but it doesn't come in for a lot of use. Being small it is much easier to use and to set up.

I gave the letter box and the border stones in the front garden a clean this morning so the new unit does everything I want it to do.

Drinks on Friday was a great evening with lots of laughs and eats. There were 3 other couples there, two regular couples and 2 visitors up from Sydney to visit Ian and Kerrie. At 7:15 I headed home to watch my AFL on TV while the others stayed on to watch the Rugby League. I hear that one couple didn't leave until all the footy was over.

I am enjoying Computer Club a little more since I made a conscious effort to throttle back on trying to help everyone out. I no longer take my add on drive with all the movies and software on it and this makes things a little easier. I make it that if people want something done e.g. get a movie or have a program installed they have to come to my place to do it. That means they have to make an effort to get it rather than have it served up to them on a plate.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Trish has sorted out the car door problems. The car is around 20 years old and everything is getting old. Even the remote control which opens the car doors requires an extra hard 'push' to get it to go. This is all she did, gave it an extra hard push and the car door locks popped open. However she does want to replace at least one of the front door locks 'just in case'.

Plenty of footy on this TV afternoon so that will be OK. Sensational day here with a top expected of 28 degrees. There was a nip in the air this morning while on my bike ride with overnight temp dropping to 16. The pool was 22.5 degrees so it wasn't a long swim in my pool!