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When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush.

He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’

It became very quiet in the room.

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Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?’

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

Once again, dead silence.

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A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, ‘whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.’ He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied ‘Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

You could have heard a pin drop

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AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…

A group of Americans, retired teachers, recently went to France on a tour.  Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.

At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. ‘You have been to France before, monsieur?’ the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

‘Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.’

The American said, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.’

‘Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France!’

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. ‘Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in ‘44 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find any damn Frenchmen to show it to.’
      

Go to www.itsnotcheating.com.au for a genuine copy of office 2007 (with the works) for $75 till May 15 2008. All you need is your uni or tafe email address. This is the full retail version which sells for about $1000, available to full time students or faculty.

Students have always said that the reason they steal software is because it’s too dear to buy, so Microsoft has said ok, here’s $1000 of value for $75, time to put up or shut up ! Wish I had/knew someone with a uni or tafe email.

Pass it on.

Remember in the old days when you accidently hit that little red button (whose purpose you didn’t know) on your fridge thermostat dial and your fridge stopped working ? The repairman would come out and say your thermostat had broken, reset the button and charge you for a new thermostat. Well, they don’t have a little red button anymore so those dodgy fridge repairmen apparently have told their descendants to fix computers.

Luckily enough, I know enough about computers to keep my system maintained, virus and spyware free, tuned for speed, updated and free of conflicts. Unfortunately many of my women friends don’t, and neither do their husbands, so they have to pay for this service. (No, the blokes don’t organise it, it’s considered a home duty, one for the missus to chase up.)
A friend of mine had a “recommended” computer person come to her house to fix up her pc as it was running slow. He’d previously “upgraded” her computer about 18 months ago - 1.6 GHz Celeron chip, 256 MB Ram, after the upgrade ! Running Win XP ! 256 Mb Ram for Win XP !
He did a preliminary check and said “You have over 50 viruses on your computer, I have to take your pc back to the shop” .  Fair enough. Don’t understand myself why an “expert” couldn’t fix them there and then with any number of free programs available on the net, but he is the expert.
A week later it comes back, admittedly running well, but with a bill for  $248 !
He charged : $66 - virus removal; $66 - spyware removal; $66 - malware removal; $50 for an anti-virus program.
He is a business man, and entitled to make a living, I don’t begrudge him that. But $66 x 3 for running a program that does it all for you in maybe 30-40 minutes ? Then charging extra for one of the programs ?
To add insult to injury, the anti-virus program payment was for a 12 month upgrade licence only, so after 12 months you have to re-subscribe, another $50. The anti spyware and malware programs (usually one and the same, he charged her twice for the same thing) weren’t even loaded onto the pc so that within 2 months her computer was slow again and full of spyware.
I went over and it took me, an amateur, about 2 hours to get it all fixed up. Most of that 2 hours was chatting over a cuppa , waiting for the anti virus or anti spyware programs to run. The repairman would have been using this time to do other jobs, no doubt  charging all his clients for the same run time.

If a plumber or a sparky or even a refrigeration mechanic tried this sort of thing on they would be on Today Tonight quicker than you could say Ripoff Ripoff. Maybe I’ll email them with a great new story idea - stay tuned !

Moonee Valley Council has once come under fire for not declaring itself as a known termite area. By declaring an area termite prone it would mean extra cost to anyone who was building or renovating as they would have to protect against termite infestation. MVCC stated that the reason they haven’t made the declaration is that they have not received written advice from ratepayers of any problems…!…!…!…!…!…!

Who is going to advise the council, and the world, that they have a termite problem ?

Years ago in my old neighbourhood, my neighbour five houses away and around the corner didn’t tell anyone when termites infested his house. Neither did my neighbour on the corner once they moved into his house. Nor the neighbour two doors away who I was friendly with(when I saw the rentokill truck I thought he was treating for ants). The termites skipped my next door neighbours house because it was bone dry under there and he had excellent ventilation. They got into mine though. Apparently they loved the moisture underneath my slab extension and the fact I had terrible under floor ventilation and constant moisture. I didn’t tell the council either, but I did tell all my adjoining neighbours, which is how I found out about the other infestations. It cost a few thousand to treat and the damage wasn’t extensive, termites eat slowly, but if my dear neighbour two doors down had mentioned something I could have got it earlier.

 I’ve seen the damage these critters can do and, as with most things, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The pest treatment company that treated my house said that they had treated for termites  in all areas of Moonee Valley, from dumpy shacks to million dollar properties in Kalimna St. termites are literally everywhere.

MVCC should bite the bullet and make the declaration. They should go further and make it mandatory for pest companies to advise the council whenever they treat a property in their domain, and mandatory that they advise every home owner within a 50 metre radius of the infestation.

 If you can get underneath your house, check your stumps and inside walls for mud tunnels. Imagine using a caulking tube of no more gaps to run a 7mm bead up your stump or wall, but instead of silastic it was filled with flaky dirt the consistency of toothpaste. Imagine what it would look like when it dried and that’s what a mud tunnel looks like. There will probably be a clump of dirt where it hits the floor area. If you have these then you have termites. Small pin-holes and crumbly, dusty timber are not termites, but borers and sap eaters, usually nothing to worry about.

If you find something get the experts in, and for everyone’s sake, tell your neighbours.

Baristas, at 101 Flinders Lane in the city, near Russell St. With a name like that you are setting yourself up for some hard judging. The queue made me think that maybe they were going to live up to the promise. Didn’t start well, the froth on my cappuccino was very poor… but the taste was fantastic ! Maybe I’ve posted a bit early as I’ve only had two cappa’s from there, one straight after the other, but

1/- they were still hot after a 5 minute walk back to work

2/- were plenty strong enough (considering the amount of milk in a cappuccino)

3/- even though very smooth, had plenty of flavour.

Because they were strong, I had to put a little extra sugar in for balance . Can’t wait till the next one.

Had breakfast at the Blue Train cafe at Southbank last Saturday for the first time in ages. It was still good. The paninni with egg and bacon, lettuce & tomato etc, the bircher muesli, the big breakfast by selection, even the coffee, all good. Croissant was stale, hash browns a little crispy with no fluffy middle, and the trees still having leaves on blocking the view the only downside. The skinny milk strawberry milkshake was the best I’ve ever had (I always ask for “extra flavour” when ordering, it works), and the hot chocolate with marshmellows was truly excellent. I just like the vibe of the place, how the staff are all young and funky and friendly, how you can’t make a booking. Check it out.

If your pc seems to be running a bit slow, I have some suggestions. I am no expert, but I’ve found that by doing the following my computer works at its best. At your own risk of course.

1- Use Mozilla firefox (www.mozilla.com)instead of Internet Explorer. You get fewer pop ups and fewer viruses. IE is quicker for dial-up though.
2- Use cr**cleaner (www.ccleaner.com, free) to delete lots of err…rubbish from your computer, including that most invasive and as yet unexplained by Microsoft “index.dat” file that records every web site you’ve ever visited and can’t be deleted. ccleaner can fix registry problems too. make sure you select the make a back up option. Alternatively, download a free registry fixer like reg cleaner: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download460.html
3- turn off all unnecessary services that run in the background. Plenty on the internet to advise you on this. Turn off automatic updates. 10 % of your problems gone.
4- Use Scotty the watchdog (www.winpatrol.com/download.html, free) to see what runs at start-up and disable all you don’t need. This wont stop you being able to use it when you need it. I bet MSN messenger is hiding in there. Messenger trying to load at start up is the usual culprit for slow boot times and slow pc response.
5- Use spybot(www.spybot.info/en/index.html) and adaware personal as well(both free) as no one program finds all the nasties. Use Microsofts anti-spyware if you like, it’s good. No, really, it is. Really.
6- If you don’t already, use AVG free for anti virus and Zone Alarm free for a firewall. You can usually turn off your Microsoft firewall if you do this. No need to buy these types of programs, especially stay clear of Nortons. search the net and you’ll see why, lots of conflicts.
7- If you are not messing around with your pc, turn off system restore on all drives - another 10% of your problems gone.
8- Search for temp files by typing *.tmp in the search box. Sort by date & if there is a large amount of MB in total used by temp files, delete anything over one month old. If you are concerned, enable system restore before you do it. Or use the Disk Cleanup Wizard. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. Pick a drive, click OK, and wait for the quick analysis. Click OK again, and you’ll empty the Recycle Bin, clear out Internet Explorer’s cache, and empty all files from the Temp folder that are more than a week old.
9- Defrag your drives if you are using windows versions earlier than xp.
10- set up your pc for windows quick start up - search the net for this topic, plenty of advice available.