In Tasmania it is estimated that approximately 500,000 animals are killed by cars each year.
The rate of animals killed on Tasmanian roads is the highest in Australia and equates to one dead animal being visible every 2 – 4 kilometers and one animal killed every 2 minutes.
Tasmania is home to four marsupials that are found no where else in the world. The most famous one being the Tasmanian Devil which number approximately 3000 deaths by cars each year.
Between dusk and dawn is the most dangerous time for marsupials who have ventured to close to roads to either bask in the warmth of the road or to feed on other dead animals.
What can you do to help?
Between Dusk & Dawn the best thing to do is slow down and give yourself time to see any animals loitering near the road.
If you do see a animals that has been hit take the time to check it to see if it is still alive or has any young. While there also take the animal away from the edge of the road as this will make it safer for other animals to feed on it.
If you do find an injured animal call Bonorong on 6268 1184 at anytime so they can organise someone to take a look at the animal.
Here are a couple of pics of some young Tasmanians that have been saved after their mums have been killed by cars.
I saw a guy the other day that was dressed in a beige jumper and pants and it make me think how boring would the world be if we only had the one colour?
So for fun I have made a few of our favorite logos in beige just so we could see how the world could look in beige.
So about 6 months ago I got a new phone, The Note. At the time it had not yet been released in Australia and I got quite a few looks because of its size and a few people even approaching me to ask questions about it.
Now it’s been released in Australia for a few months now and selling quite well by the look of it so i thought I might just mention a few of the reasons why i really like this phone.
It is not made by Apple
The S pen – the best thing about this pen is the fact that I have not lost it yet
Camera – the rear camera is a 8mp which is more than enough for me
5.3” display – nice and big and also super clear
Memo and draw features
Swype – check it out and you will next want to text again without it
Being a huge Spider-Man fan (I have seen the new upcoming movie and it is awesome)I recently purchased a statue of Marvel’s Black Cat and she looks great.
My wife is going to buy me a Spider-man statue for my birthday so I thought it might be good to buy some of my favourite Spidey girlfriends in statue form to keep him company. Now that I have Black Cat, I can start looking for a MJ, Gwen and Kitty.
As mentioned in a previous post Steve has been quite sick for most of this year.
So what happened to Steve?
The poor little man has had a really bad start to the year after getting attacked by another pig. While being on antibiotics to fight the infection his appetite diminished and dropped quite a bit of weight. Before the attack Steve was approx 1100 grams and by the times his wounds were healed he was down to 780 grams.
With the large body weight loss Steve then got pneumonia, he was given a cortisone shot followed by another antibiotic treatment. During this time Steve had moved into our bedroom so we can keep an eye on him and he is being hand fed twice a day with Critical Care.
The lowest Steve got down to was 615 grams and was so skinny and felt so fragile with his bones poking out all over his body. The vet explained to us that our little man would most likely be with us for too much longer, especially as he was also suffering from pneumonia again.
Don’t worry this is a good story and here is my list for the road to recovery for a underwieght Guinea pig:
A friend, we got Steve a girl to keep him company. It’s important to make sure that the new friend is a good match and does not cause any more stress.
Vitamin C. Guinea pigs do not produce vitamin C but this does not mean that they don’t need it. I would crush half a daily Vitamin C tablet nice and fine and mix it up with his water each day (this water needs to be replaced with a fresh mix everyday). Also look into foods that are high in Vitamin C, some good choices are parsley, cabbage, green capiscum and broccoli.
Try different foods until you find foods that your pig really wants to eat. I found for Steve he really liked dried food with dried fruit in it, and for his fresh stuff he loved grapes and corn. But keep trying things until you find something that they just cannot resist eating.
Buy a good digital scale and weigh your pig daily so you can closely monitor and improvements. It is best to weigh before food in the morning and keep track of the daily weights. It is also a good idea to regularly weigh your healthy pigs as a part of a regular health check.
Critical Care made by Oxbow, this stuff is Guinea Pig gold. every morning I fix up 2-3 teaspoons with some warm water and make it into a nice thin paste. I have two syringes that I use, a large 60ml one that I fill which is his daily food and a smaller 10ml one that I use for his feeding sessions to squirt the food into his mouth. We have one feed session in the morning and one in the evening but as long as all of the food is eaten it does not matter how many sessions it take you. remember in between feeds to keep the made up food in the fridge and make a new batch everyday and store the bag of Critical care in the freezer.
Steve has been on his Critical care diet for 5 months and it is a slow process but we are currently weighing in at 950 grams and he is back to being a happy little pig.
So much has happened of late and so little posting.
So let’s hit on a summary of three things that have happened.
My Guinea pig Steve has been really sick. I have been nursing him for the last few months and is really a time consuming job, but hey what its a man to do when his pig its sick.
I will write a post all about the woes of Steve in the next few days.
My wife and I have bought a house 🙂
Not quite moved in yet as we have only had the keys for a couple of days, but we have had the carpet ripped up and the original floor boards being sanded. So far looks great.
The third thing its that I saw The Avengers. It rocked. One thing that does spring to mind is though, the villain always attacks America.
If I was an American I would move somewhere safe like Istanbul just in case something like this ever happens.
In less than two weeks the Pontville Detention Centre located in Tasmania will be closing.
The centre was opened as a six month solution to overcrowding in our detention centres, and at the time was meet with a bit of opposition as people thought the property value might go down and there could be riots and escapes.
Now our six months are almost over and the place is slowly being cleared out. One the bright side rather than moving all of the detainees to other centres quite a few have been granted either protection visas (the end goal), bridging visa (meaning they leave detention until they are finalised being processed) or community detention. On the sadder note most of the detainees will be moved onto another detention centre, one that does not have access to a large amount of visitors and support like here in Tasmania.
Over the last few months I have got to know some of the guys really well and I am really going to miss them but if they could all be released rather than relocated I would be stoked.
Chris Bowen needs to close Pontville to save face. He stated it would only be open for six months, and time is up. Let’s ignore facts like 230 people will lose their jobs and Tasmania will lose 1.3 million a month for our economy, let’s ignore that because in Tasmania we have plenty or jobs and money and can afford to be irresponsible in this regard. 15 Million dollars was spent in building this centre in order to make it run for only 6 months, but really let’s ignore this too because what is 15 million in regards to tax payer dollars. Another thing to ignore is the simple fact that we are not talking about a political stance we are taking about the lives of 400+ “legal” asylum seekers, people seeking a safe place to live for themselves and their families.
One of the first things that really hit me when I met these guys was I asked a really stupid question, I said to one of the fellows “So what do you think of this detention centre?” …….. Yeah great question, here you have a fellow who has escaped a dangerous country, was on a boat that sunk leaving Indonesia and after all of this arrived in Australia just to be imprisoned until they are processed which as this time was about a year and a half in detention.
His initial response made me feel like an idiot, “it is just another detention centre”. His second response made my heart cry, “at least here the guards call me by my name and not my boat number”. Not only do we keep these guys in detention for an indefinite amount of time without an end date, (At least people we in prison for crimes know when they are going to be released) but then we also take their name away from them.
I just don’t want to ignore all of this for the sake of one man’s ego.
And if you feel like signing a petition and stating for view on this please go here: Keep Pontville Open
August 2001 IE6 was launched and unfortunately in 2012 I still need to use it every day at work.
At work we have many fan boys (working in a mainly sausage fest nerd team), we have our Mac (Apple) fan boys, Mozilla fan Boys, BlackBerry fan boys, Android fan boys and the list as you can imagine goes on.
I am the Microsoft fan boy, I prefer Windows and Internet Explorer but it’s really hard in a place where we are all forced to use IE6
Anyway I am hanging out for the death of IE6 so thought I would list some of the fun sites regarding the anticipated death of IE6.
For Christmas this year my beautiful wife bought me a Blu-Ray player and the Star Wars boxset. So does that mean if someone asks me if I had a good Christmas my answer would be that it was fantastic because my wife bought me some awesome presents? Yes I have had a fantastic Christmas but not because of the awesome presents I may have or not have received.
Anyway watch the great video below of a few kids reminding us all why Christmas is so fantastic.
‘For to us a child is born to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ Isa 9:6
Being a bit of a nerd and a huge comic book lover there are some great movies coming out in 2012 that have me quite excited about.
Ghostbusters 3
Rumoured for a release in 2012.
Another Ghostbusters movie would rock, if there is a movie series that needs to comeback it is Ghostbusters. Still cannot eat marshmallows without thinking about these movies.
Commando
Rumoured for a release in 2012.
The same movie as the Commando released in 1985 but once again Sam Worthington will be taking on a Arnie franchise.
Daredevil Reboot
Rumoured for a release in 2012.
Hopefully better than the original.
Riddick
Rumoured for a release in 2012.
I enjoy most Vin Diesel movies where he is not racing around in cars.
Once again this will be a movie about the hero getting chased and killing bounty hunters – sounds awesome to me.
Underworld: Awakening
January 2012
Selene is back in tight leather and ready to kill.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
February 2012
I have totally mixed feelings about this move, ok the first one sucked and at the moment Nicolas Cage is doing any load of crap to pay off his tax debt but I just can’t pass up a comic book movie.
The AVENGERS (all in caps because it is going to be awesome)
May 2012 – Save the day
This is something we have been building up to for quite some time now we have all THE AVENGERS
in one movie. We have a whole troop of Heroes, Thor, Cap America, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye & Nick Fury. Maybe after Joss has finished with this he can bring back Firefly.
This is going to be my tied fav movie for 2012.
Men in Black 3
May 2012
The first two were fantastic movies but I did think it was a bit silly that they brought Tommy Lee out of retirement to help out Will but here I
At least in this one Marty Agent J going back in time and teams up with a younger Agent K. Will seems to be a bit busy with sequels for 2012 with I am Legend 2 and Independence Day 2.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
June 2012
There was always going to be a sequel to Rise of the Cobra after it grossing almost 300 million. But anyway Ray Park will be back as Snake Eyes and that’s all that counts.
The Amazing Spider-Man
July 2012
Ok so this is my tied for favourite movie for 2012 along with The Avengers but on seconds thoughts this is the movie I have been looking forward to ever since I first heard about it.
Ok so there are some quick and easy points to make about this as movie, firstly no Tobey Maguire. So some things I have gathered from the trailers as so far is that this is going to a lot darker than the previous series and Spidey will now have web shooters.
Spider-Man is one of my fav comic book heroes, here is a adolescent teen who needs to manage school, job and being Spider-man. Sometimes he runs out of money to buy solution for his web shooters and with four girls all in love with him makes it a fun comic to read.
The Dark Knight Rises
July 2012 – July is going to be a good month
The Dark Knight is back and this time he will be battling Bane. Cat-Woman is back but have no fear it is not Halle Berry.
The Expendables 2
August 2012
The boys are back, this time we have Sly, Arnie, Bruce Willis, Dolph & Mickey Rourke.
now the first movie was not a great movie but it was a fun movie – same should be expected of the sequel.
Resident Evil: Retribution
September 2012
This has always been one of my favourite series but the last movie left me quite disappointed. What is the point of having Alice as a mere mortal – here hoping the next one is better.
Dredd
September 2012
Does anyone remember the original with Sly?
Well here he is back to clean up the streets of Mega City One (Dredd not Sly).
Taken 2
October 2012
Liam Neeson tore up Paris in the original and I can’t wait to see what he does in the sequel.
TrojanLand 