07:50 L1211 Bromsgrove Street WELLARD P-T Summit Home 666670
08:20 L22 Delta Road BALDIVIS P-T Prime Projects 668184
08:40 L24 Delta Road BALDIVIS P-T Prime Projects 668176
09:15 L690 Kirkby Circuit WELLARD GP-T 101 Residenti 658485
09:45 L2 Eliot Close PARMELIA P-T B1 Homes 666164
10:30 L51 Rubylou Crescent BALDIVIS P-T Prime Projects 668186
11:00 L16 Sapphire Chase WELLARD P-T Celebration H 670334
11:40 * 14-16 Payne Street SHOALWATER P-T Cercon Buildin 670374
12:30 L172 Buffalo Street BALDIVIS P-T Summit Home 666601
13:00 L227 Affinity Street WELLARD P-T Summit Home 666320
Anytime L598 Platypus Green BALDIVIS PE SSB Pty Ltd T/ 665935
Anytime L503 Elderberry Drive BALDIVIS PE SSB Pty Ltd T/ 668143
Anytime 1/L1078 Ridley Way MEDINA PARGE Summit Home 649016
Anytime 2/L1078 Ridley Way MEDINA PARGE Summit Home 649026
Anytime 3/L1078 Ridley Way MEDINA PARGE Summit Home 649037
Anytime 4/L1078 Ridley Way MEDINA PARGE Summit Home 649050
Anytime 5/L1078 Ridley Way MEDINA PARGE Summit Home 649059
Anytime 9/L1078 Ridley Way MEDINA PARGE Summit Home 649301
Anytime L4 Malibu Way SAFETY BAY PE Ben Trager Ho 670205
Anytime L159 Rockport Ridge WELLARD PE Blue Print Ho 667917
Anytime L175 Buttress Street WHITBY PARGE Residential Bu 669187
PM L344 Lionel Parade BALDIVIS TB Webb & Brow 670610
PM L385 Larkfield Ridge BALDIVIS PARGE Dale Alcock H 668307
PM L385 Larkfield Ridge BALDIVIS CURE Dale Alcock H 668308
PM L513 Venetian Way BALDIVIS PARGE Dale Alcock H 668312
PM L513 Venetian Way BALDIVIS CURE Dale Alcock H 668314
TODAY L342 Criollo Parade BALDIVIS PE Summit Home 662003
TODAY L157 Sapphire Chase WELLARD PE Summit Home 666336
TODAY L203 Fairhaven Boulevard WELLARD PARGE Blue Print Ho 667046
TODAY L428 Daybreak Loop WELLARD TB Redink Homes 670358
And they haven't given me enough travel time between those Pretreatment jobs. And where the fuck is Whitby?
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i might get home before six...
facing 11 pages of jobs tomorrow, both blue injectors fucked, every o-ring in contact with bifenthrin has swollen to uselessness, and I'm nearly out of bifenthrin anyway - down to 80L, will be using at least 50L tomorrow, AND I'm working on Saturday. The maintenance manager is meeting me onsite at the first job, but I've already tried every combo of parts and spare parts I had to try and get the damn thing working AND they haven't given me enough travel time between jobs, again. NOT HAPPY JAN
On the other hand, maybe I'll see some new species for the blog down there.
Lamech: I just threaten it until it agrees to co-operate.
One last loose end to tie up - go to the actual Lost Mine of Phandelver known as Wave Echo Cave, and locate our dwarf employer's brothers. That, and find out who the Black Spider is. Some rogue dark elf seems likely.
Lamech: They were torturing you for the location of the cave, right? And you never told them? And they never STOPPED torturing you. So they still don't know where it is - what's the rush?
GM: The fact that he sent his brothers to the cave, and haven't been heard from since, is a bad sign.
Lamech: Good point.
Plus we'll be getting some mithril gear out of it, on top of 10% interest in the lost mine. Of course the wandering undead archers wandering about are a bad sign too. Especially if they were intelligent enough to run away when they were attacked. We argue over whether the dwarfs have a claim to the mine, under prior ownership, or whether the descendants of the orcs that trashed it and the village of Phandalin generations ago have a better claim.
GM: What a pity you have to run off and deal with an elemental apocalypse, instead of staying here to argue the legal intricacies of ownership of the Lost Mine.
The cave does indeed boom like heavy surf. Which is odd, given how far we are from the sea. We find the dwarf's campsite, and a dwarf who has been dead for at least a week. It's one of the missing brothers, after we get his boots identified.
Lamech: I wonder why he hasn't got up and started walking around.
Subsidence has also collapsed the original entrance to the mine, and opened up this cavern.
Kavorog: I drop a rock down the chasm.
GM: You really want to alert everything down there?
Kavorog: It's just a rock.
Lamech: If you want to alert everything you need to drop a bucket. And then someone calls you a fool of a Took.
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Ripper K: So, do we know if Oracle is alive or not?
Shell: Hang on, I'll check *bringbring*
Oraclet: Yeah, what?
Shell: He's alive.
Ripper K: He told us to not disturb him.
Oraclet: It's OK, I'm not bunker coding anymore, just coding.
GM: News of the Day! Prop 23 got vetoed as unconstitutional.
Ocelot: How did that happen?
Ripper K: Racist arseholes.
Poe: Insert Arbitrary Bitching
Kenneth Brackhaven, Governor of Seattle, vetoed the recent Proposition 23, which had given Seattle's goblinoid population a political voice. Given Brackhaven is the only known case of 'remission" from goblinization, and was raised as a complete arsehole anyway, this surprises nobody. Nor does the fact that the Goblinoid's protest rally is happening the same day that the Humanis Policlub are having their own counterrally. Or that the planned routes meet at Town Hall.
Kenneth Brackhaven ran for UCAS President under the Archconservative Party, and narrowly lost out to Dunklezhan.
Ocelot: He couldn't stand up to the Big D.
Ripper K: *splutters*
Poe: He actually said that without smiling.
Naturally, we have an incentive to see this veto gets overturned - have the party are goblinoid.
Shell: And what are you, Ripper?
Oraclet: Living novelty dildo.
This is one of the occasions we can approach the client first - we call our friend in the Ork Underground. He does indeed have a job for us. Off to the Howling Griffin, a goblinoid rock club.
Astronauta Peligroso: What's goblin rock?
Oraclet: Glam rock for orkls.
Astronauta Peligroso: I see. So now someone needs to explain glam rock to me and I'll be fine.
Ocelot: Jem and the Holograms as played by fantasy stereotypes.
Bouncer: I know the drill, you were never here.
Ripper K: I don't even know where we are. *turns to Poe. Spittakes* Who are you?
Shell: I was just looking for the bar.
Ocelot: I bet at least once a month a random group of people get mistaken for shadowrunners. That's how new teams start.
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Weldun: *watching the Jaws of Hakkon intro* Sigh - looks like I'll be committing genocide. Again.
Digna: I want to get this tower done and dusted. Done, dusted, and launched.
Having successfully convinced the deranged renegade Inquisitor to join forces, the heretics head back out of the underhive, but the renegade's Kroot mercenaries opt to remain behind.
Eniek: I hope they do come with us - I can't wait to get him on the table.
Digna: Why their Shaper, in particular?
Eniek: He pissed me off.
Digna: Oh, right. So, 'You're going on The List'
Digna muses on various applications of warpcraft and dark science she can embark upon. A creature that can manipulate the target's emotions, for example.
GM: There's always the Orgasmotron from Barbarella.
Digna: I don't need a homonculus for that - but thanks for suggesting another engineering project.
Digna: OK, that's it - this campaign is becoming Warhammer 40K : The Musical.
Digna: I hope you didn't tell Mr Bubbles to retrace his steps - I'm pretty there were some places that wouldn't take his weight twice.
Skerrit's player is sent forward as a scout and rolls 100 for Stealth. and 100 again for perception. This is as bad as it is possible to be, so it's fortunate there are no Critical Fails in the Black Crusade system. Fortunately the servoskull accompanying him spots the heavily armed Victorian undertakers waiting for them in a subterranean chapel.
Skerrit: it's a steampunk cosplay group.
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Rebecca Sugar and her team have created a really really good series here - gorgeous art, emotionally deep scripts, and an excellent balance of episodic story-telling to story arc. It's a series that rewards watching them in order though - even 'filler' episodes might include a little detail that will give you a moment of fridge horror later, especially as more details of why the Crystal Gems are on Earth get revealed. Lots of wacky hijinks, although more often than not the hijinks take a sharp detour into horror (the fingers, oh god, the fingers haunt my dreams). Most episodes are up here, if you want to get any idea of the show. Second season and shorts on separate page
Very funny, too. Some really filthy jokes at times. And the number of shout-outs the creators have worked into it is impressive - everything from One Piece, to the mindfuck ending of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion, to Akira, to The Mystery of Amigara Fault (there's a reason the line "This is my hole!" at the Kindergarden made me scream and cringe). And then there there was the crossover episode with Uncle Grandpa, which claimed to be non-canon, right before the head-cannon sank the Lars + Sadie ship I laughed myself sick throughout.
The fans are certainly witty enough. I quite like the nicknames they have for the Mom Squad - Square Mom, Bird Mom, & Fun Mom (although temperament-wise I'd describe Amethyst as a big sister). They've expanded the theme to the rest of the cast to - Dad Mom, Mom Mom, and later on, Helicopter Mom, which made me LOL.
It's also interesting to see where the show's setting differs from Earth - apart from the fact that the Gems have been around since humans were all hunter-gatherers, and there's dangerous gem monsters all over the place. *Something* happened to separate Florida from the mainland, for example. And the US film industry is based in Kansas. And the space programme didn't get past Low Earth Orbit.
The music is very good too - I was very impressed by the way the incorporated an earlier sound effect into Steven's Lament, for example - but the fandom don't seem to have gone as berserk with it as the MLP fandom did. Still, there are very good remixes out there, such as anosci's mash-up of Estelle, Daft Punk, and Grover Washington "The Two of Us Are Better, Faster, Stronger Than You".
I didn’t see many invertebrates whilst over in Uranquinty and Wagga Wagga, , largely because it was the middle of winter, but I did see a few. Such as this Tephritid.
A horrendous pest of fruit and vegetables, largely because the eggs are laid on the fruit long before it’s ripe enough to fall off the tree. This fly is one of the reasons Fruit Fly Exclusion Zones are set up around Australia, where you’re expected to dispose of any fruit you might have in your car, why we have sniffer dogs searching for fruit at the Perth airport, and why there are bait stations for the QFF around Perth, just in case they get over anyway. They HAVE reached Auckland, which induced a certain amount of panic.
Unlike most other fruit fly pests, B. tryoni does not breed continuously but passes the winter as an adult. The total life cycle requires two to three weeks in summer and up to two months in autumn. Females often oviposit in punctures made by other fruit flies (such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata), with the result that as many as 40 larvae have been found in one peach, and as many as 67 adults have been reared from a single apple. Eggs hatch in two to three days and development may be completed in as little as five. Adults may live a year or more. Adults mostly eat the juices of host plants, nectar, and honeydew.
Wagga Wagga, NSW
#926 - Prionine Cerambycid remains
The remnants of a large longicorn beetle that I found under a tree, among the leaf litter. I looked, but could find any other fragments. I suspect that it was cleaned out by meat ants, who could have carried off the smaller parts.
I know that there are Prionine longicorns around Uranquinty - my brother was camping near there years ago, collected one for my benefit, and was brutally savaged by the beetle for his pains.
#927 - Hepialidae - Ghost Moth pupa
Dozens of the things, sticking out of the ground underneath one medium-sized gum tree at the Uranquinty oval. It must have been a very good night for ghost moths.
Hepialids, also known as Swift Moths, are large primitive moths, and in many species the caterpillars live underground, chewing on and into plant roots. On emerging (usually after rain), some species will lek - males gathering into a mass display to attract females. In others it’s the females who gather downwind of a displaying male.
Afterwards, the female will scatter her eggs wildly - one Trictena carried 29,000 eggs - of which only a handful would have survived to adulthood.
gemfyre for IDing some of these. My aunt's birding book was also useful.#918 - Acanthiza chrysorrhoa - Yellow-rumped Thornbill
I had, a moment before, been complaining that all I’d been seeing were introduced pest birds, when three of these flew past.
I had no luck figuring out what these were, until I Googled “yellow rump” and “thornbill” and discovered that they were, in fact, yellow-rumped thornbills. Also known as Butterbums. They’re small insectivores, common in savannah, scrub, and forests across most of Australia.
Yellow-rumped Thornbills sometimes breed co-operatively, with a pair being assisted by helpers. The nest (usually built in the dense foliage of trees, near the end of branches or in vines or mistletoe) is a large untidy structure of grass and bark with an upper ‘false’ cup-shaped nest and a lower, domed, nest-chamber with a hooded entrance. The function of the false nest is not clearly understood, and might deter predators or cuckoos, by a roosting place for males and fledglings, act as a 'practice’ nest for the helpers or as a 'displacement’ activity for males.
Uranquinty, NSW
#919 - Smicrornis brevirostris - Weebill
Australia’s smallest bird, the sparrow-like Weebill, an Australasian Warbler found hunting insects in woodlands across most of Australia, usually in pairs or small groups. This one was fluttering, hovering, and hanging upside down in a gum tree near the Uranquinty hall where my grandfather’s party was happening (getting outside to photograph birds got me away from the noise).
#920 - Neophema pulchella - Turquoise Parrot
There was a small flock of these flying and feeding on the oval at Uranquinty.
Also known as chestnut-shouldered parakeet, chestnut-shouldered grass-parakeet, chestnut-shouldered grass-parrot, chestnut-winged grass-parakeet, chestnut-winged grass-parrot (all referring to the red shoulders of the male) and turquoisine grass parrot. ‘Pulchella’ comes from the Latin for ‘very pretty’ and they are.
Found in a band from Southern Queensland down to Victoria - considered vulnerable in New South Wales, and threatened in Victoria, after having been considered extinct in the wild by 1915. The population began to recover by the 1920’s. Before protections were put in place they were caught in large numbers for the cage bird industry, and were also shot for pie-filling. Habitat-clearing and the loss of nesting hollows remains a major threat to their ongoing success, but they’re also vulnerable to Avian Paramyxoviruses like Newcastle Disease.
#921 - Ptilotula penicillatus - White-plumed Honeyeater
Formerly Lichenostomus pencillatus. Found across mainland Australia, apart from the most arid areas, and the tropical Top End - not so common in the SW, but there’s evidence it’s expanding its range down here as well. It’s certainly reconquered Sydney, and is a common garden bird where-ever it can find a supply of nectar.
Altitudinal migrant - heading for lower ground in cold weather. They very actively from leaves and flowers in the crowns of trees and in shrubs between 5 m and 13 m from the ground, seeking nectar, insects (and their sugary byproducts such as lerps and honeydew), manna and fruit, with some seeds. Very strongly associated with River Red Gums, which are the most prominent plant along the Murray-Darling riverbanks. They sometimes also feed in the air or forage upon the ground, but these twoi didn’t stay from the top of this eucalypt.
Uranquinty, NSW
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