Jim Carlon

Went to a huge funeral with around 500 people in the church and at least 250 at the party afterwards. This was the same venue where we went to a 90th birthday of his two years ago.  Something I had never seen before was the coffin covered in messages for the afterlife.  These were done in texta.  I wouldn't call this graffiti, more like inscriptions as in a headstone but short lived.  An archaeologist won't find these in 200 yar because they will all be reduced to an urn.

Hard to see the inscriptions

These kids are just a few of the 120 that started with Jim and Marie

Savers

I rode over to the Savers store in Sydney Rd. It is a huge secondhand goods place with a lot of stuff. I checked out the book section which is quite huge however the SciFi is more fantasy than anything else, at least 70% fantasy and there was nothing there from my Hugo List. I brought my Musette especially to load all the books as well!  The prices were cheaper than elsewhere. I bought the Deception Point for $3.  there were a lot of good quality cheap books here.

Musette

Sydney Rd Savers

Rendezvous with Rama

This book was previously owned by V J Mannes whoever that was. Arthur C Clarke is famous for other Space Oddities but this one is way bigger.  A ship 50 km long and 20km wide. It caused a stir  by passing through the neighborhood but not stopping. This won the Hugo in 1974.  These ships use Suns as refueling stops.

Fahrenheit 451

This is the second book in the Hugo list. Would you give a book an award when its theme is about burning other books?  The theme is really about censorship and what you can and can't read. This book written in 1953, is not that long after the Germans were burning books in the 1930s. We visited Bebelplatz in Berlin in 2015 where books met their demise.  Mel Gibson was going to do a remake of the film but now HBO are doing it.

451℉ is the optimum temperature for burning books

HCW-580

My old video camera was starting to show some ragged edges at the end of every scene.  You could edit this out but didn't seem like a good idea with a tour of Europe coming up.  It did the job for 5 years.  There aren't as many of these types of cameras around any more. Videos via smart phones seem to be all the rage but you can't fool me.  I did find one which is a HC-W580M.  They don't come with hard drives any more either so this one is much lighter. It also has a second lens which can be rotated thru 180°.  Not sure how this is going to work but picture in picture is what it says in the manual. The batteries are always an issue. I have three perfectly good batteries from the previous model that match perfectly except for a deliberate design effort to force you to buy new batteries. If I could be bothered there is a lug which if I filed off would make the old batteries compatible with the new camera.

No longer three lugs on top and bottom

The SuperMan

We  rode into Docklands via the Big Wheel for a lunch of Chicken Burger and Steak Sandwich. We are coming up in the world when you get an invite by AMP into their Ivory Tower. Our Superman came down from Sydney for the annual face to face on our Super accounts. They have earned us 10%  which it seems is better than most.  The super rules are always being fiddled with but there are ways through the maze.

AMP roofline like an upwrad graphic curve

Inside an Ivory Tower

The Dispossessed

I have read sci fi books where they cross into religion, this one is all  philosophy and politics.  In our world there are capitalists and communists, in this world we have propertarians and dispossessed. There are also archists and anarchists not to mention the simultaneists and the sequentists.  It all revolves around the Theory of Simultaneity and the ability to travel more quickly. eg sequentially you must move to a place but in simultaneity you can be at a place. Simples!

The previous owner of my copy was moved to write notes in the margins in an attempt to get to grips with the ideas.

Book Canyon

Seems if I go to the supermarket I also call into the Book Exchange for a bit of paperback tunneling.  I found another three titles on my Hugo list. This time I used the step to access the top shelves. These seem to be more your odd sized books.  Just bring em back and I'll buy for $2 less he says or swap a SciFi of yours for a SciFi of mine for only $2.  This guy has been here for 40 yar so he has to make some money.

Fine line between Fantasy and Science Fiction

59 and counting

Isn't there an old wive's tale about not making your age public but what if there is an old wife involved. We returned to the Studley Park Boat House and there was a lot of boating going on this time.  Who says you can't have a sunny day in Winter and Pam arrived just in time for cake.

Winter Boating

RiverSide

Hugo Search

I went back to the Book Mine to look for some more Hugo Titles.  I should have brought my hard hat. They are in a very rough alphabetic order by author, so I got more methodical and limited the search to A B and C. However I didn't try the very top shelves but I did notice there were some steps to squeeze between the aisles.  I did find three more titles. He almost didn't sell one. It's my most beautiful copy he says. There are balanced stacks on the floor as well, very easy to knock over like Pluto in the Grand Canyon.

The Forever War

This book is number 25 on the Hugo List.  It starts in the present, 1996 to be exact and finishes in the year 3143 a span of 1139 years.  The main characters live through this entire period due to the tricks of time travel and using collapsed stars to move around the Multiverse.  I understand completely. There are parallels in the book with the experiences of Vietnam Vets returning home but they didn't have computerized suits of armour like these guys.

Hugo List

Over the years I acquired a few books that received Hugo Awards. These date from 1953 and there are now 67 of them.  Back then I thought when I get more time I might try to build on that list.  There has been a reprint in recent times of older SF Titles via the SF Masterworks series.  I mentioned previously about getting one of these titles for $6 in a closing down sale. Today I found another in a secondhand store for $20! I said to the guy it seems a bit steep so he made it $12.  The Book Exchange store in Niddrie is a  book canyon. Titles are hidden by other titles.  Browsers pull them out and put them back in a different place but I reckon there is a lot more of my list still in there.

A Hugo

Bicycle History

We were riding along and ran straight into a Penny Farthing race.  The Brunswick velodrome has been having a face lift in the last year and today was the 200 years of bikes celebration.  Some of those bikes had wooden wheels and the seats weren't much better.  You never know what you are going to find on a ride. We are on both the 9 news and the 10 news tonight as well as having official photos taken.

An original

Why are they called penny farthings?

Northcote Book City

In need of some exercise, we ventured out to Buck Mulligans Bar and Book cafe which was closed on a Sunday.  If its a book you are after never fear, from North Fitzroy and all along High St, is the greatest concentration of book shops, both new and secondhand, in Melbourne. We had coffee at Stuzzi then called into the Book Grocer, where all books are $6.  On the way back down to the Merri Creek we called into a nameless secondhand book store which is "good literature" only, I was told. This guy is keen. He handcovers every book and only buys very good quality secondhand.  He says book buying is at its worst in 20 yar.  he is going to keep an eye out for Ursula K Le Guin.

Muffin Fix

Get your vegetable books

The Day of the Triffids

The copy I have, of this book is so battered it is only just holding together.  The cover is completely gone and masking tape is holding the spine.  But all the pages are still there.  The premise is that the majority of the world have gone blind and mobile carnivorous plants have now inherited the earth.  However the problem I have is that only the northern hemisphere was affected that night, the down under countries like Australia were never subjected to the blindness.  Also other capable groups like submarine crews and those in areas covered by cloud would not have been blinded.  So a rescue is possible.  Seems there is a BBC TV mini series made in 2009.

More like giant pitcher plants

Street Carnage

Avoiding Friday afternoon traffic particularly leading to a long weekend should be a rule imprinted in the brain.  Retirees tend to forget what long weekends mean. But when your street is blocked off and maybe the driveway as well.  Bulla Rd had an accident also which choked the area but we weren't expecting Woolley St to be blocked and that one did not make it onto the radio. Fortunately from the other direction, the road block started just from the corner of our fence and the driveway was clear.

Bonnets Up

Studley Park

This was an old haunt of mine back in the cartography days at RMIT. They had a classroom on a ridge amongst the trees and we would come here each week to practice some surveying work. We never did stay around to try the boat house cafe though. On this occasion we drove specifically for lunch. A sunny winter day and not many people. The Angus beef hamburger is a winner.

Franster is a winner

"Get off my Bridge" says Kane

Cuckoo's Nest

I'm doing a good impression of Jack Nicholson at the moment. I don't have Nurse Ratched on my case though.  Only two days to go to get the last of these stitches out then its no more bandages for me.

I forgot to tell um
Don't go into the cerebellum

Glad Wrap News

  30 yar ago I used to get the newspaper delivered. We used to get milk delivered and bread delivered. Its what my parents did so we did it too. In 1980 the horse drawn wagon clopped up the street at 5:30 am and I can remember it was time to get up.  After some years we got rid of all these home deliveries.  About 4 months ago newspapers started arriving again.  The house sitter next door made a mistake and put our house down for the delivery but he is long gone and the papers are still coming.
  I went to the original newsagent that delivered the papers years ago but they said they don't deliver any more,  try the newsagent in Buckley St.  In the mean time Julie said her mate Ivan was the one who was buying up the various newspaper delivery runs and combining them into one larger area. The house sitter went to a shop, filled out the form and put down the wrong address. So there is a newsagent, more likely a Secret Agent, that is still delivering.
  I have just come back from the Buckley St newsagent, he doesn't know what I'm talking about. A guy called Ivan bought up their newspaper run before they were even in this newsagency!!! You don't say.  He has "read only" access to the Ivan database. OK. He verifies that Ivan has no deliveries in Woolley St.  I already knew that.

Who ever is delivering needs a new Bookkeeper

The Blue Ray

I was given this book when I was 14. As such it is one of those "Boys Own" types of adventures. I have an uncle (Fred) who ran the big Collins Book depot in Swanston St.  This was always a good source of Xmas presents for my Grand Parents.  Years later, I also worked there during the university summer break, usually for six weeks then I would have the second six weeks on a trip somewhere.

First time I have not found a cover photo already on the Internet

Tales of Science Fiction

I brought along a thin book to the recent waiting room extravaganza. My theory, based on the previous wait time of around 4 hours, was that I might try to finish this book of 173 pages before the surgery.  They were short stories so it didn't really matter. These were compiled in 1968 and there were a few key lines in there that I have heard before such as "This is not life as we know it" uttered again by Bones in one of the first Star Trek episodes.  Another one was a bit "Alien" like where a single fast growing embryonic organism was terrorising an isolated moon base.

Fawkner Facial Features

Spent another day in John Fawkner for a facial re excision of a Morphoiec BCC. As previously posted they cut out the heart of the beastie but left the ends of the tendrils. This saga has been around for three months and is now entering the fourth.  I started coming around during the operation. There was also local anesthetic but the sensation of tugging and sewing was still there.
PS Don't use foundation or other cosmetic powders on recently healed wounds.

I didn't have to pay 2nd time round