$50 billion of bailout going to bonuses

October 31, 2008

 

If it isn’t enough to make you sick to your stomach that U.S. taxpayer monies are apparently going to bailout the world’s economies, new information has come to light that several banks are planning to pay billions of dollars in year-end bonuses from the bailout funds they received.  Already investigations are beginning into the nine banks that took in the first $125 billion. Yes, the same $125 billion that was supposed to be used to unclog the credit system which was preventing banks from providing much needed funds for individuals and businesses.

 

http://tinyurl.com/5pcgel - Posted by Andrew Horowitz.

Last week I had Wednesday to Friday off work as my cousin Michael was visiting for a few days.  He arrived Tuesday afternoon. 

On Wednesday we caught a train into Brisbane City so I could show him around.  We had lunch at The Beach House hotel.  We wandered around and looked in JB Hifi, HMV records and a few other places around town then caught a train home.

On Thursday we went for a drive up Mt Coot-tha and had morning tea at the expensive cafe. We chatted for a couple of hours there and then drove back down to Toowong to have lunch at Sizzler.  It was a nice day out.

Friday we went on a wine tour of Sirromet winery.  It was $20 and you get the tour, a tasting and a glass with their logo on it. Very nice.  Once that was over I dropped him off at home as he was feeling sick (not from the wine — he was already under the weather before we went) and I picked up Sienna.  We had Asian takeaway that night.

Saturday we took Sienna to swimming lessons then headed down the Gold Coast.  We drove up Springbrook mountains and stopped at a lookout. We both took some photos and walked across the road to a nice cafe there (expensive again!).  We had morning tea. Sienna was feeling a bit cold as it was windy and rainy up the mountains.  We went to another lookout and I showed him the cabin where I stayed a couple of times.

We drove back down the mountain and went to the Carrara markets.  We had a look around and stopped for a bit of lunch. After our morning tea nobody was really that hungry so we just snacked.   

Mouse loved the markets. He said they were much nicer than the Sydney ones he had been too.  Probably much bigger too.  After that we came back home again and rested for the rest of the afternoon.  Later that night we went to my local Sherwood Services Club for dinner.  The next morning he left about 4 am or so after having only a couple of hours sleep due to being sick still.

 This morning I took Sienna to swimming lessons. This time I watched her for most of the time instead of watching something on my iPhone.  When we got home we had a shower and put on the washing and dishwasher and drove to Indooroopilly shopping centre.  We went to KMart and printed out a couple of photos of us and then headed to Crazy Clark’s to get some gifts for the Operation Christmas Child. We spent nearly $50 but it was worth it. Last year I forgot, but this year I got an email about it in time.  We packed two boxes — one for a 5-9yo boy and one for a 5-9yo girl. I try to keep the ages around Sienna’s age so she can contribute to suggestions.  We wrote a quick note on the back of our photos with our names and a brief Christmas message and packed the boxes up and headed to Yeronga to drop the boxes off.

From there we headed to the AMF bowling alley at Upper Mt Gravatt.  Sienna was very excited since she was trying out her own ball for the first time and they had most of the lights turned off and flashy, rainbow lights zooming up and down the lanes. It was very exciting.  The first game she got about 84 points and I got 95.  The second game she got several Spares and I got a Strike and a couple of Spares.  The end score — Daddy: 118 Sienna: 119. She beat me! She was so impressed!  We stayed and cashed in a $10 note for tokens and played on the games there.  Sienna won one chocolate after about 25 goes on the weak claw game and we also played a basketball game, skeeball, crocodiles and Deal or No Deal.  We ended up with a handful of tickets and took them to get counted.  The new girl there (Cute but rather young) tried to use the ticket counting machine and turned it on, fed the tickets in and turned it off, then looked around the back at the LCD screen to see the count. However, there was nothing on the screen since she had turned the power off.  Her boss (father perhaps?) told her to just make it an even 50.  I don’t know what the actual number was. Probably something similar.  Sienna had the choice of a bracelet or a racing car. Being a girl, of course she chose the red racing car.

We drove to Westfield Garden City and had Hungry Jacks for lunch.  We went to Gametraders and bought 2,000 Nintendo Points for the Wii.  I picked up a few pairs of shorts for Sienna as she doesn’t have any at my place and I keep forgetting to get some from her mum’s when we visit.  We came home after that and I traded in 1,000 points to download Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. I had hoped Sam and Max would be out in Australia on WiiWare by now, but it doesn’t seem to be as the only TellTale Games games available are Episode 1 and 2 of SBCGFAP.  We played that for a while this afternoon and Sienna loved the crazy voices.

It was now time to make dinner so I put on some food in the oven and we watched an episode of Dr Who.  Once it finished Sienna wanted to watch another so she put it on and fell asleep after about 10 minutes, lying on my lap.  When the show finished I carried her to her room and put her in bed.

The first thing we did today was go to the Post Office.  There was a package there for me in a big box which I wasn’t expecting to find today.  Several months ago I entered a competition on a Podcast "The Wii Show" to win some Nintendo Wii gear, well I won and my prize arrived today. It’s a Nyko Charge Station.  Fortunately, I already had a Universal Adaptor for it.  I plugged it into the wall and put one of my WiiMotes into it. It works perfectly.  Now I have two charge stations and will have to get another couple of WiiMotes at some stage so when I take the Wii to my cousin Jo’s place there’s enough WiiMotes to go around everyone.

Below is a photo of the Nyko Charge Station I won..

 Easily charge and store your Wii Remotes™ with Nyko’s Charge Station for Wii™. The Charge Station includes 2 NiMH batteries, exclusively designed for the Wii Remote, each providing up to 25 hours of play time. Each battery is easily recharged by placing the Wii Remote in the charging dock. The charging dock conveniently plugs into any standard wall outlet, allowing for rapid recharging of both batteries in 8 hours. The Charge Station includes 2 custom battery covers with contact pass-through points so you can charge the batteries while they are still in the remote. Each battery cover is also rubberized for superior grip during intense gaming sessions. The Charge Station matches the décor and styling of the Wii, and is small enough to fit in any home entertainment center.

 

 

	Charge 2 Wii remotes simultaneously
	Includes 2 rechargeable NiMH battery packs
	LED Charge Indicator lights
	Dual port rapid recharging dock
	6 foot power cable
	Rubberized battery covers for superior gaming performance

 

 

 What you need to do: Go wrap up some stuff in a box and wrap it, put a sticker on it and drop it off at a dropoff centre.

The Operation Christmas Child 2008 is on and your time is running out!

Samaritan’s Purse runs this every year to support children in disadvantaged countries.  Sienna and I did it in 2006 but forgot last year. Fortunately, this year they sent me an email to remind me.  Make sure you make a difference in a child’s life this year and support Samaritan’s Purse.

Operation Christmas Child is a unique project of Samaritan’s Purse that brings joy and hope to children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes.

It provides an opportunity for people of all ages to be involved in a simple but hands-on project that has the power to transform children’s lives.

In 2007, our teams in Australia and New Zealand delivered over 300,000 gift-filled shoe boxes to South East Asia and the South Pacific. Globally, Samaritan’s Purse distributed an estimated 7.6 million shoe boxes to children Samaritan’s in 105 countries.

Go do something decent this year and help out where you can.

Check out their YouTube videos on how you can help.

 I saw Ladytron live at The Tivoli with Mil, Jason and Josh.  We had a fantastic time. The support bands weren’t all that brilliant but it was well worth it to see them live.  I’d seen a song on channel 10’s Video Hits show or something and when my parents were visiting I saw a clip playing in-store in Myer.

Last weekend Chris, Jo and Caitie came to visit. They arrived Friday night after I picked up Sienna from Bec’s and we ordered some pizza. Sienna ate a ton of it. She really loves pizza. hehe.  The next day we went to the Amberley Air Show. We got stuck in traffic for about an hour so gave up and came home, got our swimmers on and went to the local pool. It was a very hot day and we all had a fantastic time.  Today is raining, so not really a good day for that.

They headed off Saturday afternoon as they had other plans.

Last Thursday night I went with Mil, Jason and Josh to see Covenant play live at the Step Inn.  I’d never been to that venue. Although the stage was tiny, it was still a great show.  The night started out with Tycho Brahe — a Brisbane band. Mil & Jason are good friends with all the band members so they got me on the door and I got in free. Sweet!  Unfortunately, Qantas had broken Tycho’s electronic gear and after 3 false starts they had to give up.  I’ve seen them in concert a few times, but it’d still have been nice to see them again.  

After that, Destroid played. We’d never seen him before, but it sounded okay I guess. Nothing interesting to me, however.  

Following him were a German band I’d never heard of called "Diary of Dreams". None of us expected much from them, but I think we were all pretty much blown away by the music. I know I was! And the others had favourable remarks about the band. Wow!  I just had to buy a CD there and then!  I picked up their Dream Collector cd and also Covenant’s live tour DVD "In Transit".

Covenant were the last to go on stage and didn’t the crowd go WILD!!!  They played 20Hz and Greater than the Sun near the start and ended the night with the wonderful Dead Stars.  I really enjoyed the show.  They seemed to be winding down when Mil left so I made my purchases and then they had another song so I stayed to watch that. It was about 1am by this time so I headed out the door only to see a guy I’ve worked with walking back in the door. We were both surprised and Matt said "I wish I had known you were here and we could have talked!". Unfortunately it was so late (early?) so we had a quick chat and I headed off.  I was breathalysed by the police on the way home, but fortunately had only been drinking two Victoria Bitters and two Hahn’s Light beers.

Friday night I picked up Sienna from Bec’s and brought her home.  We had dinner and watched an episode of Dr Who then she had to go to bed. The school teacher had given the kids a bear called Felix to take home when they were picked to be "Star of the Day". They had to write a little story of the adventures Felix went on with the kids and put in some photos.  

We got up in time to take Sienna to swimming lessons at 8am.  We opened the car door and inside was a black and white cat!  Sienna said "That’s FAIL!".. well the cat’s nickname is "VAL" but she calls him Fail.  Since we didn’t have time to take him home or put him in the house he came for a trip to the swimming pool.  Sienna had fun swimming while Felix and I just watched her.  After swimming we came home and I put Val in the house and gave him some tinned tuna I had in the cupboard.  We left him at home while we went out to the Coffee Club for breakfast.  Felix had a nice adventure out there too..

We came back home and watched "Invader Zim" until it was time to take Sienna, Felix and Fail home again.

I dropped the trio off and filled my car with petrol then headed to visit a friend north of Brisbane.  Intertek programs an emulator for the VZ-200 and VZ-300 computers called "VZ’Em".  We had planned to try porting it to the Mac OS now I have installed the Kalyway 10.5.2 Mac OSX on my PC, but instead we got pizza and beer and watched his new 50" plasma TV hehe.  We watched Space Cowboys and Alien vs Predator.  It was a pretty good night and I left around 11pm.

This morning I got an email reply from some people on Freecycle to my query about two bowling balls they were giving away.  They live in Ipswich and said I could have one of the balls as the other was promised to another person.  I drove out there and knocked several times. No answer. I walked around the back and they were working in the garden.  They let me pick a ball so I chose the 10lb gold one for Sienna.  I knew she would be thrilled as she absolutely LOVES ten pin bowling.  Every time we drive past a bowling centre she asks me if we can go in and bowl.   Well, we got to talking while I was getting the ball and she said the other person who wanted the other ball sounded rather rude and only emailed to her "I WANT THEM!!!".  I mentioned the 10lb would be perfect for Sienna, but I use about a 14lb ball.  She said "Well, you could always take the other one as well!". She thought it better to give them to me and tell the other lady they had already been taken.  It pays to be nice to people hehe.  So now I am the owner of two new bowling balls.  I will wait until next weekend to tell Sienna and I can take her out for a couple of games.  She will be so excited!  I am, as well, since I love bowling too and even to buy these second hand they would be expensive.

 My new favourite band is "Diary of Dreams". I saw them last Thursday night supporting Covenant. They are AWESOME!  I had to buy a cd right there and then, so got the "Dream Collector" CD.. along with the Covenant DVD which I haven’t seen yet.

I haven’t stopped listening to the cd. It’s now on high rotation on my iPhone!

Here is an example song. The quality isn’t brilliant as it was filmed at a concert by a fan, but it was the best quality one of the lot on YouTube.

CHEMICALS

Lost in words of anticipation

Lost in worlds of revelations

23 and 5 resulting

Equally absorbed their sigh

 

And I need my chemicals

I need your chemicals

 

Are my dreams gone?

Are my words forgiven?

Are my deeds undone?

Am I now forgiven?

 

The walls of this chamber

were made to set you free

So soft, so clean

My friend, where have you been?

 

I’m a revolutionary

A christian fairy tale

I’m a missionary

 

A visionary anarchrist

I’m a full moon fever

I’m a non believer

I have hope and I regret

I accept and I neglect

Here’s a report for those people who told me that Cheerios were bad, full of sugar and not nutritious..

Whether you’re shopping for actual or overgrown kids, we found four cereals with kid-focused marketing that scored Very Good in our new nutrition rating system, based on product label information. Cheerios, Kix, Honey Nut Cheerios (all General Mills), and Life (Quaker Oats) earned points for relatively lower sugar and higher dietary fiber, the two categories we weighed as most important. Cheerios topped the list with only 1 gram of sugar and a healthful 3 grams of fiber per serving.

Suck on that!

(Not mentioning any names, LisaJ).