What a wonderful time to be a toy collector eh? Figures we only used to dream of in our geekiest fantasies are being trotted out right left and center! A lot of that can be put down to people who loved things in their youth during the 80’s now being (supposedly) grown-ups with disposable income on their hands.
Well My Little Pony is happy to jump on that cash-in bandwagon with a new line of Crossover collectible figures. These range from Dungeons and Dragons to even Power Rangers. But today we are going to look at by far the two best of the crossover figures, because they cross over with two of the best franchises in history – Ghostbusters and Transformers.
As the only feature of these toys, besides their cool looks and packaging (I love the fact that on the boxes it says ‘approved by Optimus Primeand Peter Venkman respectively), is the fact you can move their tails, there is not really much to review here. So enjoy the photo’s and hopefully they will help you decide if you would like these awesome figures for your collection.
My Little Prime
Plasmane
Friendship is Magic!
So do you think you will pick up these figures? Do you love the nostalgia or would prefer the takes be more modern? Let us know in the comments below.
When I was a lad boys were into super heroes, riding BMX’s and playing with transforming robots. Girls were into Barbie Dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids and beading sets. It seemed to make sense.
But now the world has gone bizarre. My son’s favourite thing is to watch youtube videos of other people playing video games. Not play video games himself, but to watch others play them. How that is more fun then getting a controller in your hand is beyond me.
But it seems girls are no better. My wife came home last night with a colouring book for my daughter that she has apparently been requesting for some time. The colouring book is called Poopsie, based on baby unicorns that poop.
Seriously…. What. The. Fuck. Is. This?!
This is apparently hugely popular! I’ve seen the toy commercials myself where they are flogging unicorn poop which looks like glittery slime but I was ignorant to how big a fad it is. I thought maybe it was like those baby dolls that wee themselves in a potty (which I always thought was odd but at least understood) but no, its just big balls of glittery shit from the arse of a baby unicorn.
If the idea of playing with mythical-creature fecal matter wasn’t bizarre enough on its own, things get way weirder. I mean, is it just me or do these Unicorn babies , I dunno, look really slutty!?!
‘No, she really doesn’t. And neither do her trailer-park Unicorn parents it seems’
The tiny little tops that show the midriff. The nappies that look like hot pants – I actually thought they were hot pants until I looked closer and saw the safety-pins holding them up. The curvy body poses with big glazed eyes and almost drooling mouths that look like they would be more suited to a hentai movie than a little girls toy. What depraved maniac decided they should look like this?! I showed pictures from the colouring book to five different women at work in case I was reacting wrong. Maybe it was all in my head and I was some deranged pervert seeing sexuality where it didn’t actually exist. Maybe I was being a misogynist and shaming female unicorns for dressing however they liked as they indulged their right to shit themselves in a rainbow of different colours. But nope, every woman I showed uttered a shocked exclamation along the lines of ‘Oh my god! Why do those babies look like drunk whores?!’
“hi, I’m Super Sonico from Japan. I have Dakimakura love pillows and Booby Mouse Padsbased on me, yet I still look more wholesome than these Unicorn tarts!’
Now I’ll be the last to say that Unicorns can’t be sexy – one day dear Rarity from My Little Pony shall be my bride I swear it! But these are babies in hot-diapers, kinda making this the pedophiles version of MLP. Do we really need Unicorn Slut Babies marketed to our little girls? I think not.
Of course let’s not forget the main theme of the Poopsie brand – Coprophilia!
It’s bad enough that these little unicorn babies dress like they belong in the Japanese equivalent of a trailer park, but they also celebrate the scatological! Have a look at some of the titles of the pages within this colouring book:
It’s gratuitous to a point that in my mind makes the colouring book grosser than the actual toys. At least the toys are simply a capsule of glittery green slime that is supposed to represent Unicorn poop. Weird but acceptable, it’s not like there aren’t a million little boys running around with plastic dog poops and hiding them in their parent’s shoes for a joke. But really – ‘Turd is the Word?’ C’mon, no one needs that kind of thing marketed to them, let alone little girls.
So I am putting my foot down! While I am not cruel enough to take away my daughters new colouring book, for the future I am putting Poopsie on the ‘not in my house’ list. If my son can live without ‘Pokemon’ she can survive without this.
Well, if nothing else, its the most convincing impression of Brittney Spears I’ve ever seen.
Well it’s been a bit over a year since I did a Househusbandblog post and with good reason, I got forcibly retired from my position.
Yes with both the children now school age and a second income being desirable, I once again full-time entered the workforce. No more watching 500 funeral insurance ad’s a day for me!
But with the lockdown that accompanied the pandemic, like many others I started working from home. This meant I was once again thrust into the position of Househusband, albeit one that still had to get on the computer from time to time to fulfil his work obligations. Now that the lockdown restrictions are easing and I have had to physically return to work 5 days a week, I’m going to voice an opinion that hasn’t been heard much over the last several months.
I liked the lockdown. I enjoyed it!
Yep! I was happy to be back at home – I really was! Despite being the social butterfly in my late teens and 20’s & 30’s, in my 40’s as a Dad, husband and hobby farmer I’m quite fond of the hermit lifestyle where I only see my personal family unit and rarely venture out. I still had to physically go into work one or two days a week during the pandemic but the rest I never left the farm. No rushing around in the mornings trying to get myself ready. No packing my lunch. No drive to my job. I could simply get my work done at home at my own pace, grow my isolation beard and occasionally change out of my pyjamas if I had a Zoom meeting (and even then I considered pants optional).
And the beauty was that my wife was working from home most days too! No long commute for her in the mornings. No getting home really late because of the long post-work drive. Our children’s school was quite clear that for continuity they wanted our kids to either attend school every day or none at all. Since there were days both my wife and I still had to go into work this meant the kids attended school. And since they were at school full time, it meant that my wife and I got some ‘us’ time on our lunch breaks the days we were both home. We could sit together and have a meal and a cuppa without kids screaming that they were hungry or thirsty or tired or bored or annoyed or that their sibling hit them. It was the most one-on-one time we’ve had in our marriage since we became parents! It was beautiful and it was something neither of us took for granted. And when our kids came home on the bus, because I had gotten so many househusband jobs done during the day it meant I had more time to spend with them every afternoon. It really was a win-win situation, especially since we weren’t short on toilet paper.
Isolation is natural in the bush
As for being physically stuck at home…. well…. it’s not so bad when you live on 125 acres in the middle of nowhere. During the bushfires we spent so much of the summer evacuated and wondering if we would ever see our beloved property again, it was a joy to have an enforced couple of months in the autumn upon it. Caught up on all those farm jobs that had been going wanting for so long. And with no children at home for 7 hours a day it meant I didn’t have to stop mid-task to wipe a nose or bandage a boo-boo. I completely sympathize with those during this pandemic that live in big cities – living in areas where you dared not venture out of tiny apartments must have been claustophobic to say the least. But when you’ve got huge areas of bushland on your own property you can walk around without risk of meeting another soul – being stuck at home is really a non-issue.
Wasn’t hard for our kids to social distance from the rest of the world
So yeah, I liked the lockdown. Staying at home on the farm was wonderful and I enjoyed every minute of it! More time on my property, more time with my family – where so many are hating on the Chinese right now I’m inclined to send them a thank you card! My heart goes out to all those during this pandemic who have suffered stress, gotten sick, lost loved ones, lost jobs, felt depression stuck at home etc. Just because I didn’t experience it personally doesnt meet I don’t understand or indeed sympathise. But for me it was lovely to return to the hermit lifestyle a very welcome respite – I hope some of you were also able to find a ray of positive sunshine in your lives during this crisis as well.
Colorism, sometimes also referred to as shadeism, is discrimination based on a person’s skin colour. This is usually tied up with racism, as in people hating entire races and/or nationalities of people and citing their skin colour as one of the things they are prejudiced against. However the reason that colourism and racism are not the same thing is that skin colour does not always equate to a specific or entire race. Therefore, whilst racism is unanimously deplored by all right-thinking people everywhere, Colourism still manages to sneak in under the door and get a good look in.
As a Caucasian man in a predominately Caucasian country, racism is something that has affected my life very little on a personal level. I’ve occasionally been called a name by someone of a different race based on my own but its been an extremely rare occurrence. I’ve experienced Nationality-based Discrimination somewhat more, which has usually taken the form of online comments from those who wish to arbitrarily dismiss my opinions under the guise of ‘you’re just an Aussie’. Sometimes it has also taken the form of people not liking my accent and have expressed this in comments on my youtube channel. But once again this is rare and has affected my life little.
But colorism – oh my, I cop that all the time! And not because I’m white but because I’m RED.
I’m a nice guy – don’t judge me because of the colour of my skin.
Yes, I am red. I have been red nearly my entire adult life. And year in, year out people feel the need to inform me of my skin colour constantly. Whether it’s in person or commenting on an online photo of me, people can’t help but point out how red I am. Well guess what?
I FUCKING KNOW ALREADY!
Why the fuck does mocking people for having a red complexion get a pass eh? It’s not like I’ve got one on purpose! I do wear sunscreen, I’m not an alcoholic and I don’t wear blush. My skin colour is not an intentional decision I have taken alright!
The reason for my skin colour is simple: my genetic makeup and ancestral heritage combined with my lifestyle and world locality.
In other words I am someone who is bred to live in cloudy overcast countries and stay indoors a lot. Not to live on a farm on a continent that is not only the driest but also one of the hottest and lead an outdoorsy lifestyle.
So yes, my pale and freckly skin would much prefer it if I lived in England and worked all day in an accountant’s office. But unfortunately for it I live in Australia and spend as much time as possible outdoors pottering around the farm and playing with my kids. And because I’ve spent decades outdoors, I’ve been sunburnt so many times with such regularity (despite habitually wearing hats and sunscreen) that from the neck up I am now permanently red.
An artists (my sons) impression of me. And yes I know you find it funny.
And what’s more I get redder. If I eat super spicy food or hot sauce I go redder. If I run until I’m exhausted I get redder. If I choke on something I go redder. And if I get angry I have a complexion which makes a beetroot look like it’s a baseball in a snowstorm.
Strangely people feel very comfortable informing me of this. You wouldn’t go up to an Albino and say ‘My god you are white!’ or go up to an Indigenous Australian and say ‘My god you are black!’ would you? So why is it ok for people to come up to me with regularity and say ‘My god you are red!’?
Guess what? It’s not. I’m fucking sick of it! I fucking know I am red! I know I should have been a Butcher or a Drill Sargent. I know that if even the slightest shaft of weak sunlight gets reflected and hits my skin I get the complexion of a strawberry. I know I look like I’ve just been caught masturbating and am blushing like a virgin bride. I know you think I must be a Jeff Foxworthy fan because I have a red neck. And I know that if I get angry you can land planes by the glow of my face. I know, I know, I fucking KNOW!
‘Go ahead – tell me again I’ve got the complexion of a used tampon. Say it one more god damn time!’
So next time you feel like informing me, or someone else that is red that we are red, just don’t. We know. We don’t need to be told and we really don’t need you making fun of it. Other red faced people like me will have heard every joke by now. We didn’t really find them funny the first time we heard them, let alone the thousandth. You think I have a face that would make bulls charge on sight? Fine. Think it. But don’t type it and definitely don’t come up to me and say it. I don’t want to hear it and frankly it makes me feel even more self-conscious about my colour than I already am. I don’t like being red, I really genuinely don’t. I’ve tried every cream and skin treatment there is for decades and they don’t work – I’m stuck this colour. But it’s my lot in life and I do my best to get through day to day just like everyone else. So can you please stop telling me how red my skin is? Even when you mean it as harmless fun it always makes me feel that little bit shit about myself – every single time.
Society condemns racism, homophobia, religious persecution, body shaming, gender inequality – most anything where you make people feel bad about or victimizes them for who they are. I think it’s high time Colorism was added to this too.
Now if you will excuse me I’m hungry, and writing this has pissed me off so much I’m gonna go fry an egg on my forehead for lunch.
As the COVID-19 crisis continues and cases within Australia and particularly NSW continue to rise, its been considered a good time to be a rural resident.
Out here where my family lives we are a solid 2 ½ hour drive from the nearest capital city where the majority of cases are taking place. So far there is only a handful cases of Coronavirus within a hundred kilometres of us all together.
As such people in situations similar to us haven’t been panic buying. We didn’t all go mad stocking up on toilet paper, we haven’t cleaned off shelves and we haven’t gotten into fistfights over a bag of rice. For the most part us rural folk have taken it pretty calm, and in small communities like the one I inhabit, you don’t take ever single item of a product off a shelf as the people you are depriving are your neighbours, your community members and your friends.
Yep, the panic buying had been contained to the big cities. But now its not. It’s hitting small country towns and its not small country town people that are doing.
It’s Raiders from the Big City!
An sight no longer contained to capital cities
It’s been amazing! Tiny towns with populations of well under a thousand are seeing more new faces than they have in years. And these are not tourists – these are food-filchers! People driving out from capital cities to hit up every butchers, every bakers and every small supermarket they can, to grab whatever they can, and then return home. One can only assume the candlestick makers will be next.
In fact it’s not just people in cars – it’s entire busloads! Buses pulling up at little supermarkets in one-horse towns and twenty people disembarking. These people head straight into the local stores and come out carrying as many bags of groceries as they can lift. These raiders leave barren shelves behind and nothing for the local people, who depend on these stores, to buy.
Is it greed that is prompting these people to come out and grab all the tucker and toilet paper they can tote? Is it desperation?
Because no matter the motivation – it is NOT ON!
Big City people don’t get it. Country people are not surrounded by stores where if one store is out of a product they can simply try a half dozen others down the road. If you raid a store, then that leaves NOTHING for the locals! These stores, due to their remote, don’t get restocked every day. And if that store is empty, the next store is usually a loooong way away. The town I live outside of has one small butchers, one small bakers and one very small supermarket/bottle-o. Besides bags of chips at the servo that’s it for places to get groceries. If those shops are empty I have to drive an extra 10 minutes to the next town which also only has a few small shops. If they too are empty, which increasingly they have been, my next option is to drive 60km to Mudgee where the major supermarkets are in the hopes that their shelves are also not bare. Should I have to do that because Big City people have depleted their own stores in panic buying and now are doing the same to us?
You know what is even better than a clean fridge? A FULL ONE!
This isn’t just in our area, this is happening all over NSW and Victoria! Small town locals going home without any food for their families because these busloads of city slickers have come out and nicked all the grub! And it has to stop! Not only because of the effect on the locals, but the potential spread of COVID-19. People are coming from places like Sydney and Melbourne where the virus is growing ever more rampant, and driving through town after town where the entire populaces are so far uninfected. I wonder if these raiders realize, or care, that if country people get sick the food shortages will only get worse since we are the ones that grow all the food!
So, I say this to you raiders. DO. NOT. COME. HERE! You are not welcome! You take all our food and risk infecting us all! And why? Because you all couldn’t stop yourselves going nuts and panic-buying out your thousands of stores until there was nothing left. Stay in your damn capital cities and wait for the stores to restock. Because when you come here and take all our food, we have nowhere else to go. We didn’t panic buy, we were sensible. And now we are paying for it because our cupboards are not overflowing since we didn’t want to deprive our neighbours of their tucker – because, you know, that’s what good people do.
So please. If you are from a capital city do the right thing, especially these school holidays. Wait for your stores in the big smoke to restock. Don’t come and take all our food and risk spreading COVID-19 into rural communities that have managed to remain unaffected thus far. We managed to make it through the bushfires, we as a society need to pull together to make it through this too.
We, your rural cousins, thank you for your cooperation.
Right now much of the world is in the grip of panic. Like SARS before it, a new virus – COVID-19 or the Coronavirus – is spreading across the globe, with nearly 100000 cases worldwide so far and deaths in the triple figures. Thought to originate in Wuhan China, air travel has taken it to every continent on the globe and more and more countries are dealing with outbreaks of the potentially deadly disease.
But did it really originate in Wuhan? And is it really a natural virus?
Here in Australia, much like the rest of the world, supermarkets are experiencing massive runs on toilet paper. People are buying hundreds of rolls at a time to stockpile and shelves empty as fast as they can be restocked. So with stock in toilet paper companies rising right now it’s a good time to own shares in a loo-paper company.
In fact one might say it’s a very good time to own shares. Almost a suspiciously good time.
That’s right – COVID-19 is not a natural virus! It is a synthetic virus. And who created this virus? THE TOILET PAPER INDUSTRY!
So much death just to sell some bogroll
Think about it – what’s the results of COVID-19 so far?
*Nearly a hundred thousand people worldwide are sick? What do you do when you are sick? Go to the toilet more often for a start.
*What do the authorities recommend if you think you may be infected? Quarantine yourself at home for 14 days. Being that bored you are going to eat more, therefore defecate more, therefore need more toilet paper. And being stuck at home for a fortnight, you are going to stock up on dunny paper big time before you sequester yourself away.
*What is half the populace of the planet doing right now in response to the Coronavirus. Simple – the general public are shitting themselves!
Depleted toilet paper shelves in Tumut NSW (Photo Credit; S. Addison)
Everybody has always known what a bloodthirsty realm the toilet paper industry is. Cartels fighting for power in the streets – many’s the bathroom-tissue brawler left with a sharpened dunny roll protruding from their bloody eye socket. Scientists working in the toilet paper equivalent of meth labs, each trying to come up with something more absorbent or to add yet another unrequired ply. It’s something we have all come to see as a necessary evil in order for us to not have to wipe our arses with the back of our hands. But now things have gone too far. The creation of synthetic viruses in order to sell more bogroll is an evil one could equate to the how the tobacco industry adds addictive chemicals to their cigarettes in order to get people hooked, despite the fact that due to their products their consumers eventually die. And lets face it, the Toilet Paper consortium’s have had the governments of the world in their pockets for years. Plus this virus came from China, one of the biggest toilet paper manufactures in the world. Coincidence? I think not!
No toilet paper on the shelves in Sydney – but don’t worry, there is plenty more for you to buy on the way! (Photo Credit: T. Munn)
Well I shall have none of it – do you hear me you putrid purveyors of poop-paper! I shall not be stocking up on toilet paper as this crisis continues. I shall use leaves, I shall use bark, I shall use the scarfs of co-workers while they are not paying full attention. And I shall decry you from the rooftops – you murderous bastards will not get me!
Cry havoc, and let slip the arse-wipes of war!
Note: The above it written for satirical purposes only. BigAngryTrev.com extends its sympathies to all those across the globe who are suffering from the Coronavirus, as well as to the families of those who have lost loved ones to it.
Living in the bush I don’t get to see other Transformer fans very often. I don’t get to pop over to a mate’s house to see his latest acquisitions. I don’t attend meets, I don’t go to pop culture conventions, hell I don’t even get to visit toy stores. So when it comes to talking to others about a shared hobby I have to rely almost solely on the internet.
But the way a large segment of the fandom has been going in the last few years, I find myself thinking more often than not why I bother.
The default expression of an online Transformers fan
I don’t know when this all started. Maybe it was the live action Transformer movies. Most people seemed to like, or at least tolerate, the first movie in 2007. Those raising very vocal hatred for it being largely groups of GeeWunners who wanted it to look like the 1984 cartoon.
But then Revenge of the Fallen came out and a massive amount of the fandom started bitching, and it seems they have never stopped. It’s been years since a Transformers movie directed by MichaelBay (The Last Knight) has been released, and you still can’t surf a Transformers site without there being negative comments and memes threaded throughout screaming about how people hated them and it ‘raped their childhood’. Now in 2024, it’s the same arguments and complaints about the new Transformers One trailer: “Why isn’t this part of the G1 cartoon universe?! It’s a kick in the teeth to all the fans who carried the franchise for 40 years – Habro owes us!” Fans treating it as a personal insult that an animated movie designed to sell children’s toys isn’t aimed soley at middle-aged men – the sense of entitlement is staggering.
‘I was created not for entertainment, but to piss off fans. Didn’t you know that?’
And it seems this negativity of the fandom has spread from the movies to encompass any and everything Transformers. Be it comics, cartoons, toys – whatever. If it’s toys it’s all nitpicking about release times, non screen accurate figures and online retailers. If it’s the cartoons then it’s that the cartoon isn’t specifically aimed at demographic X – and if it IS aimed at demographic X then demographic Y kicks up a fuss.
When it’s about the comics people seem to get the most vocal of all (at least in years where a new movie hasn’t been released). Pre the reboot at IDW it was all about the writers having an agenda and virtue signalling and what have you. Now it’s about crossovers. The amount of hatred on the internet about the My Little Ponycrossover coming up has been frankly disgusting. Anyone who isn’t hating on the idea getting accused of being a homosexual or engaging in bestiality. Grown men – grown men – talking about how they despise My Little Pony. Why any grown man without a daughter has watched enough episodes to form such a strong opinion on a cartoon aimed at little girls is beyond me – but they must have watched it because they all seem to be experts on it and hate it. Even one of the artists that did one of the front covers for the upcoming crossover comics has received enough abuse to comment about it publicly. People abusing someone for doing their job and daring to draw a fictional horse on the same page as a fictional robot – way to make the fandom look good fellas.
‘You are destroying my franchise and deserve to die…. apparently’
Now bear in mind I don’t have a problem with people who have a genuine complaint. If you’ve bought a figure that snapped the moment you tried to transform it, despite you being gentle and following the instructions precisely, then damn right you are valid in being pissed off about it. Complain away and you will find a sympathetic ear in me. You got ripped off by an ebay seller and your TR Trypticon turns out to be a pack of beach towels – yell to high heaven! Preach brother! And if you didn’t like a comic or cartoon or movie or toy, then I’ll happily read your opinion if you keep it civil, logical, factual and state your opinion once.
Like Insecticons, angry posts like to clone themselves over and over and over
But it’s the constant bitching I can’t hack anymore. The people who didn’t like a movie and then years later are still writing post after post about how they hated it. People talking about how much a toy or movie sucks before they have even been released yet, like their opinion on something they have yet to personally experience makes it fact. People acting like so-called experts when they know little more than someone who has just entered a toyshop for the first time.
And the bitching about nothing! Sexuality in Transformers? Seriously? That is what brings people to boiling point? People lost their shit when the first wrist-rest mouse padswere released, like the manufactures had made booby pads based on their mothers instead of fictional shape-shifting alien robots. People scream abuse at each other over whether it is valid for Transformers to feel romantic affection for each other since they don’t breed. Is such a thing really worth calling a stranger a ‘f**king c**t’ over?
‘Why does our love cause you such hate?’
So it’s sad to say I’m feeling pretty done right now. I’m sick of clicking on a link or a FB post or a thread on a fansite to find out about some of the latest Transformer news and being confronted with a wall of vitriolic shit. I’m sick of saying I like something and having a dozen people call me an idiot or a faggot or worse for daring to have an opinion different to theirs. Sick of clicking to see if a toy is available only to see the people that got their toys and the people that didn’t, who ordered from the same online retailer, tearing each other a new one.
I know this kind of behaviour is not solely related to the Transformers fandom, it certainly happened in the Ghostbusters fandom with Frozen Empire. Some days it seems it’s the whole internet in general. Maybe I’m too old for the digital world. Whenever I converse online I try to think about, if I said this to a bloke in the pub, would it earn me a punch in the face? Because that was the reality I grew up with, with no internet and texting being easily accessible until I was in my 20’s. When you said something to someone you were saying it to their face. But now we have people who have done nearly all of their socialization their whole lives online, and have grown up in a world where you can say whatever hateful shit you like to someone because chances are that person is on the other side of the planet and you will never have to face consequences for your actions. Yes, the internet is getting too angry for even Big Angry Trev.
‘Can’t we all just peace out?’
Now people who live in GlassGas houses shouldn’t throw Cyberstones, and there are undoubtedly people out there that I have gotten into heated online arguments with over the years over very silly issues. So I am guilty too. But I pride myself that each year I get into less online fights, get into less pointless arguments and get better at cyber-walking away. I’m not perfect but I’m getting better. And maybe that it a goal we could all aim for – to improve our skill of walking away from the keyboard or smartphone when the blood begins to boil, and go play with our Technobots for a while.
So when I go home tonight, I won’t be surfing the big Transformer sites. I’m going to try my best to practice what I’m preaching and be a chilled out fan. I’m going to open up a bunch of new figures I just got and play with them with my son, as a reminder to myself that this hobby should be positive, should be fun, and in the end is about plastic toy robots.
Hey! If you are a positive person who loves talking about all the things they LIKE about Transformers? Why not restore my faith and write something happy in the comments below!
Despite, thankfully, not losing our home like so many other poor souls, our family was affected by the unprecedented bushfires this summer. We had to evacuate our home for an extended period – twice, with the flames getting to within 500m off our back fence and 200m off our side fence. These were scary times for us, like many others across the state. If it wasn’t for the RFS fighting the fires tooth and nail for months on end, I have zero doubt our property would have been consumed and they have our families eternal thanks.
Image taken from the cab of a fire truck on our road the night we had to evacuate. (Photo Credit: R. Oldfield – NSW RFS)
These fires affected our entire family unit. We had to cancel our sons birthday party and all my wifes family coming for Christmas. We had to spend Xmas itself at relatives homes instead of in our own. We had to tear our farm apart to try and make it as fireproof as possible, and we are still now trying to put it back together. We had all our most treasured personal belonging stashed in three other people’s homes and likewise for our animals three more. We stressed and fretted and on one night drove for our lives as the police came down our road on their loudspeaker ordering people to evacuate, our animals and children in tow. We sat up until 1am at my mother-in-laws house watching the reports come in about a house destroyed on our road, wondering if it was ours and if we would have a home to return to. We consider ourselves fortunate that all we lost in the end was a few fridges and a deep freezer full of food (a waste of good ducks though).
So yes, we were much luckier than many, but the NSW fire season was truly a horrible month for our family.
So the RFS saved our home, but what saved our sanity? Easy to answer – community, friends and family. Without these people my wife and I would have descended into madness long ago, and ours is a tale of how people pulling together made what was a terrible experience so much less worse than it could have been.
Here are some of the examples of how we were helped by truly wonderful people:
Community & Emergency Workers
*The Grader Drivers that came to our property on two separate occasions and put in fire break lines everywhere they could, in an effort to stop any grassfires that might make it in onto our land.
*The local branch of the RFS, who provided constant updates and were always able to answer any questions we sent to them, even at 2am while our road burned.
*The local member who posted constant updates and videos about what the fires were doing in our area for weeks on end and was an excellent source of information. I may have been a Greens voter all my life, but there is a National’s member who has earned my vote!
*My sister-in-laws friend taking in our chook and 8 of our ducks for a full month and caring for them, despite never even having met us before.
*Our neighbours across the road and next to us keeping an eye on our property in case there were spotfires while we were evacuated.
Grader driver putting in containment lines in our back paddock
Friends
*My friend Jordan driving over a hundred kilometres and spending 3 hours in 40 degree heat evacuating all goods from the Transformatorium shed into the main house (we thought that the firey’s might be able to save the house but would probably let the shed burn if they had to). Then in the hot sun helped me clean out gutters, that had never been cleaned before, of dead leaves and other flammable material.
*My boss and friend Toni from work storing my 3000+ Transformer action figure collection in her loungeroom for an entire month, despite it meaning she could hardly move in that part of the house.
*Our friends Lisa and Scott taking our pet goats for extended periods on two separate occasions and feeding and watering them every day despite the heat.
*Our new friends and neighbours down the road, Bill and Lynne, feeding the poultry we couldn’t evacuate, even though it meant a daily drive closer to the fire front.
*So many of our close friends messaging us with comforting words and emotional support, yet allowing us the space to breathe when we had to.
Family
*My brother-in-law Matt driving over a hundred kilometres with his chainsaw to cut down every tree within a 5m radius of our farmhouse, then staying the night so the next day he could seal breaks in our guttering so they could hold water in case of ember attack.
*My sister-in-law Jo storing so much of our personal belongings, taking our fish for several weeks, and making us Christmas dinner
*My mother-in-law Noelene putting us up for long periods – twice – while we were evacuated, looking after our dog and storing even more of our belongings (my wife’s family rules!).
*Our children, so young and yet so brave. Being evacuated twice, missing out on birthday parties, missing out on spending Christmas in their own home. That’s a lot for a 4 and 7 year old to cope with and they both took it in their stride.
*And more than anyone, my beautiful wife. By my side we spent so much of our summer trying to fireproof a farm that had never before been threatened by flames and was a tinderbox ready to ignite.
Ours is just one example of how families and entire communities came together to support each other during this horrible time for our state and indeed for our country. If ever there was evidence that the spirit of empathy and generosity is still well alive in this land, it’s been well and truly presented this summer.
So to all our friends, all our family, all the community and all the members of the RFS, on behalf of our family
Here in NSW we are facing an unprecedented level ofBushfire danger. ATotal Fire Banhas been instituted for the entire state, aState of Emergencyhas been declared and some parts of the state have a danger rating of‘catastrophic’– a rating that has never needed to be used before!
Living on a fairly remote farm that backs onto a huge state forest, our family has been very concerned. So much so that we have instituted our ownemergency fire planshould worst come to worst.
There are plenty of official sites that can guide you through how to come up with your own emergency plans, and I heartily encourage every reader to visit the sites relevant to their state as well as download the relevant apps. What I’m going to share here is some of theevacuationprecautions I and my family have taken, in the hopes it may provide you with someideas of your own. In particular – ouremergency bags.
We have several emergency bags packed. The whole idea of these is that they are pre-made and ready to go, saving valuable minutes if you need to get out fast. Our emergency bags are packed with such items that can stay in them forever –notitems that we will have to remove a few days later because we need them. Hopefully these bags will hang on hooks for the rest of their lives unused, but better safe than sorry.
Clothing for the day
Despite the heat,long clothingisessential. Should you end up in an area with sparks flying through the air, you don’t want those sparks touching your bare skin. So long sleeved tops and long pants are the order of the day and they should be natural fibres like cotton, not synthetics that have the potential to melt onto your skin.
Leather bootsare also the most preferable footwear to have. In our case my wife and I own heavy duty leather boots but our children don’t, so we would put them in their most suitable footwear and carry them if required.
We have a bag packed specifically with clothing to change into at a moment’s notice. Again, every minute you can save counts.
EvacClothing Bag
Chances are you might not be able to return to your home for a couple of days until the fire has passed. So you will need a few changes of clothes, but taking into account you should notover packas space in your vehicle will be at a premium.
For each member of our family we packed the following:
*2 T-shirts
*1 Jumper
*1 pair of Long Pants
*1 pair of Shorts
*2 pairs of Socks
*2 pairs of Underwear
*1 pair of Pyjamas
EquipmentBag
There will be specificequipmentthat you may need when fleeing from a bushfire. All this should be kept together and easy to access if needed.
In ours we have:
*One torch with fresh battery
*One small fire blanket
*One first aid kit
*One tube of burn cream
*One pack of face masks
*One pair of fire resistant gloves
*One battery powered radio
Pet Bag
If you have pets you naturally are going to want to take them with you. In our case because we have two pet goats this would entail hooking up the trailer. But for most people your pets may consist of a dog and cat (which we also have). So when packing make sure you have enough pet food for a couple of days and leads for every animal – you don’t want to escape the fire just for your cat to run away or your dog to go hungry. A dish to put water in is also advisable.
Food & Water
Chances are wherever you evacuate to will have food and water available. But again that motto – better safe than sorry. Have a bag packed full of food that does not need to be refrigerated and can keep you all going for a day or two. Pre-packaged food likemueslibarsand biscuitswill serve you well, as well as bags of nuts. Also tinned food such as ham, salmon, tuna and so on. Take as much water as you can reasonably fit. Because we would be taking autewe can afford to take a 25 litre container in the back.
MiscItems
These are items that you don’t need to survive but will be incredibly hard to replace should you lose your home. This includes forms such as birth certificates and passports, as well as more personal items such as jewellery and family photos. What you pack in this bag is up to you, but one of the bags you may need to give the most thought too. Also, because these are items that youcan’tstore in anevackit permanently, make sure you know the location of these items in your house so they can be collected up quickly.
So these are just a few different suggestions for what to take if you need to evacuate and a possible way to have them prepared. Again, I encourage everyone to check out the official sites in order to get even more guidance and information about the best way to go about this, but hopefully this blog willgive you a good starting point on advisable things to pack.
Got any other tips on what to pack in case of Bushfire? Pop it in the comments section below.
Note: The following in an opinion piece based upon actual events. All images taken were posted publicly in a public forum.
When one is providing a service, whether it be performing a surgical operation or digging a ditch, it is incumbent upon one to take all necessary steps to make sure that the service is provided with the highest professionalism and standards. If the service involves services for children, then the pre-planning involved in order to provide that service is effectively delivered should be considered of even greater importance. One could assume that this kind of thinking pervades every right-minded person in society.
Well apparently not. Not when it comes to the Panthers Penrith Leagues Club anyway.
In what could only be described as a colossal cock-up, Panthers Penrith failed to deliver on a Transformers Interactive Stage-Show, disappointing hundreds of kids and their families who had paid substantial amounts months in advance to see the performance.
Their excuse – bad weather.
To clarify, this show was not outside, it was inside the venue in a theater. The reason the bad weather stopped the show was that the ‘artists’ (D-grade actors in Transformer costumes) were unable to fly in to perform due to grounded planes on Saturday morning.
‘Oh OK’ you might think “Well sometimes these things cannot be helped. It’s nobody’s fault’.
Only thing is, the bad weather had been forecast a week in advance, and in an extreme example of penny-pinching, Penrith Panthers had inexplicably still decided to try and fly the actors in that morning of the show rather than the night before, which would have resulted in them shelling out for a nights accommodation at their on-site hotel.
Of course, this meant that many families who had booked a hotel so they could bring their kids to the show, were now out of pocket for nothing.
For our family personally, this was all a gigantic disappointment! We had booked months in advance and even booked a hotel room. Then on the day driven 2 ½ hours over the Blue Mountains, only for the cancellation to be announced on social media a mere 90 minute before the show was due to start. My son, who loves Transformersalmost as much as I do, was incredibly upset. All that build up and travelling just to have his show whisked away at the very last minute… it was probably the biggest disappointment he has experienced in his 6 years of life.
Panthers Penrith handling of the situation was deplorable, in fact one might say the term ‘bungling incompetence’ is an apt phrase to use. First they announced the 11am show was cancelled.
Then 2 hours later announced ALL shows were cancelled.
Then they rang some people to tell them of the cancellations, but certainly not all:
The outrage on Facebook was palpable:
While it was allowed to last:
Yes this comment got deleted
In pure damage control, first Panthers Penrith kept going through their Facebook ‘All Shows Cancelled’ post and deleting every negative comment, which meant pretty much all of them. In fact when talking to Lisamaree the next day, she mentioned how surprised she was by all the positive ‘It’s not your fault, you guys are great’ comments. Panthers Penrith not only left all the positive comments up, but also rather startlingly all the troll comments that made fun of the upset parents.
By Monday, Panthers Penrith Leauges Club must have realized how suspicious that looked so simply started deleting everything anybody posted:
Somewhat suspicious that the comments shrank from over 50 to 1
So not only did Panthers Penrith disappoint a lot of families with their idiotic decisions, but even denied families the right to vent their very valid frustrations.
Thankfully here at bigangrytrev.com we engage in no such censorship, so granted Jason, another parent who was bringing his family, his chance to vent here:
When you recieved the call saying the show was cancelled, how did you feel?
‘Annoyed. Our eldest son had been looking forward to this for almost 2 months, we had accommodation booked, we were on our way out to Penrith and we find out that the actors didn’t have the forethought to look at a weather map in advance (or listen to the news) and realise that flying in on the morning of the shows was not a good idea.’
What were your children’s reactions when you told them the show was off?
‘Our youngest was ambivalent, mostly due to his age. Our eldest was upset, until we bribed him with playing at Timezone for a few hours instead.’
So yes, in all, one could say this was a complete cock-up. While even the angriest of parents (a group which included myself) agree that in no way did Panthers Penrith Leagues Club or the actors wish for this to happen, it is a situation that could have easily been avoided with even a modicum of forethought and preparation. The equipment was already at the venue and there wasn’t a show the previous few nights in Melbourne where the actors were flying from. So really, besides the Leagues Club saving a few bucks, there was no reason the actors could not have flown in earlier, especially with the bad weather known about so far in advance. Thus when Panthers Penrith gives their ‘it’s nobody’s fault’ speech, it doesn’t ring true, not one bit. Next time they make such a mistake they should own it. Admit ‘Yes we f*cked up – we are really sorry! We will try to make it up to you all!’. It would garner them a lot more respect than weaselly excuses and deleting negative facebook comments.
But personally I wont know next time it happens as I plan on never trying to attend a show at their venue again. Maybe they should just stick to being the overgrown pokies parlour that everyone considers them to be – because a kids entertainment venue they certainly are not.
