Category Archives: Ask Trev!

Need the answer to that question that perplexes you so? Whether it be life, love, metaphysical, spiritual, sexual or fanciful Trev can shed light on that mystery for you.

Ask Trev!

Ask Trev: I’m gay and I can’t find love – help!

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This is a stumper of a question but as you will see, I have come up with a brilliant, if somewhat unorthodox, solution.

Dear Trev, I am a gay male in my mid 30’s.  I’ve been trying for years but can’t find a relationship.  All the good guys my age are taken and all the younger ones only want sex.  What do I do?  I’m feeling lonely and desperate!

 

Well, I have the answer to your problem.  An answer so brilliant I expect I’ll get a float in my honor in Sydney’s next gay pride parade!  This is a solution that will work for most any member of the LGBT community (Well, maybe not the B’s) that finds themselves in the same boat.

 

If you are a gay guy looking for a relationship but genuinely can’t find one with another guy – marry a lesbian!

Come together

Now hang on, don’t tune out or start shouting angrily just yet!  This isn’t as preposterous as it sounds.  Let me explain.

 

I’m not talking about marrying some random lesbian off the street.  I’m talking about marrying one whom you feel a deep emotional connection with and finds themselves in a similar situation.  This is about finding a relationship somewhere else if you genuinely can’t find one in your own demographic, not finding a sexual partner.  And in the end, what is it people really want from a relationship anyway?  Someone to love and to reciprocate that love.  Someone to talk to at the end of a long day at work.  Someone they can cuddle with on the couch watching TV and put their arms around at night.  Someone to introduce to their family and maybe have children with.  Well this platonic arrangement can provide all that and some unexpected perks!

Emotional security

  • You can do all of the above with someone you are not sexually attracted to. You don’t need to share a sexual attraction to love someone and enjoy spending time with them.
  • Being with someone will assuage those feelings of loneliness and isolation. Nothing better than a good hug and chat with someone you love.

Shutting up the small-minded

Disclaimer: I don’t think any gay person should be anything other than proud, or ever feel they have to hide who they really are.  These are just options you could use, if you wished, to deal with a society that is still not as accepting as it should be.  Don’t want these options?  Feel free to bin them.

  • Despite the fact it’s the new millennium unfortunately homophobia, like racism, has refused to die the death it deserves. Do you have a boss you suspect is a closet homophobe and that is why you keep getting passed over for promotion?  Get nasty looks from your Christian neighbors?  Your Mum loves you but keeps asking if you are ‘going through a phase’?  Well this shuts them all the hell up!  Introduce them to your new wife and watch them back off!  It means living a bit of a lie but if it means not having to put up with fricken idiots on a daily basis who will never change their minds, you might consider it worth it.  If not, quite rightly tell them to go f*ck themselves!
  • Want to experience a wedding one day? No waiting around for another decade while the government stalls on a decision that the majority of the public thought was a no-brainer long ago.
  • Want children? Well gay couples can adopt but the system is still biased towards ‘heterosexual’ couples sadly.  This will push you way up the list and provide a child with a much needed home where the parents love each other and will in turn love them.

Sexual fulfillment

  • Want a child that is genetically your own? Both of you get really drunk and engage in a bit of cross-dressing cosplay coitus – it could work!  No going hunting for sperm or womb donors.
  • Sexual jealousy is off the table. You can f*ck whoever the hell you like!  Open marriages don’t usually work because of the jealously one feels when you think your partner finds another man/woman more attractive than you.  Well here you know it’s the case from the start so no problem!  Go get your jollies with as many sexual partners as you like then come home for a nice cup of tea and a cuddle with your spouse.  You will be the envy of all other couples everywhere!
  • It’s way easier to get someone to video tape you during sex. For heterosexual couples you can never find someone (so I hear) as you know whoever is using the camera is attracted to at least one of you.  Nothing ruins a shot like the cameraperson trying to do some ‘audience participation’ right at the climax of the scene.  Here you know your spouse has no interest in either you or the person you are having sex with, so will concentrate on getting the best camera angles possible and the lighting just right.

 

The list goes on and on but I reckon the above illustrates the point well enough.  If you are gay or lesbian and genuinely can’t find another person of your persuasion to have a meaningful relationship with, then this might just be the answer to all your problems.  Hell – it IS the answer to all your problems!  All of the love, none of the fidelity.  You lucky, lucky buggers!

I’ll see you all at the next gay pride parade where I expect I’ll get my trophy for Best.  Idea.  Ever!

Got something to say about the above?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

Ask Trev!, Hobby Farming

Ask Trev: How to deal with molting chickens

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One of my favorite readers is Madds whom I have greatly enjoyed watching grow into a fully-fledged chicken-fancier.  Once again we have an ‘Ask Trev’ question regarding chooks from her – this one regarding the molt:

 

Dear Farmer Trev,
Yep, me again seeking more chook advice please.
My girls are losing all their feathers!
At the start of winter!
They’re grumpy, sensitive and edgy, picking on each other, all off the lay.
The place is bedlam – feathers everywhere!
It has been suggested to me that they are having their first ‘molt’.
Is this a thing? Why are they so grumpy?
Why are hey molting in the cold weather?
What the hell do I do with all these feathers?
How long will it last? What can I do to help them?

Thanks Big Farmer Trev,
You noob chicken pal, Madsy.

Worry not sir – just a routine feather inspection.

Well Madds, I will answer your queries one by one:

It has been suggested to me that they are having their first ‘molt’.  Is this a thing? Why are they so grumpy? The molt is most definitely ‘a thing’.  In Australia chooks tend to molt most often in Autumn between March and May so them losing their feathers near the end of April puts them slap bang in the middle of that window.  As for being grumpy, imagine someone nicking your nice warm coat as you were about to traipse off to work on a blustery cold day – you’d be a bit pissed too!

Why are they molting in the cold weather?  So they can get rid of old feathers and start to grow thick luscious new ones to keep them warm when the really cold weather hits in 6 weeks.  They wont lay eggs during this time as all the protein in their bodies will be geared towards new feather growth rather than egg production.

What the hell do I do with all these feathers?  Sell them to a hippy tribal shop to make dream-catchers out of or perhaps stuff a pillow like my mother used to do with all the shed hair from her Shetland Sheepdog.  Otherwise throw into the compost along with the rest of their straw bedding or simply in the buggers.

How long will it last? What can I do to help them?  How long the molt lasts depends from chook to chook and breed to breed but usually goes for a few months.  What you can do to help them is feed them protein-rich foods.  It takes a helluva lot of protein to grow new feathers so they are going to need a lot right now.  Of course don’t feed them an all-protein diet – they still need variety in their tucker.

The best ways to boost protein for your chooks is by feeding them the following:

*Scrambled egg:  Eggs are a rich source of protein and they will chow down on scrambled eggs in jig time!  Don’t give them raw eggs as that will encourage them to eat their own in the future.

*Starter Feed/Shell grit: As I mentioned in this article, starter feed is great for young chooks before you move them onto laying pellets.  However starter feed/shell grit has more protein in it than laying pellets so it’s ok to move them back to it for a while.

*Some fish: Get a big can of tuna or sardines and pop that in for your chooks – they will go mad for it!  Make sure it’s fish in spring water though, not oil or brine.

*Pumpkin Seeds: I’m loathe to mention this as we all know that pumpkins are a filthy disgusting vegetable that deserve eradication from the planet.  But if you are one of those nutjobs that actually likes pumpkin and cooks it from time to time, scoop out the seeds and throw it to your chickens.  This also has the benefit of making sure those seeds don’t go on to make new pumpkins – bastards of things!

 

A combination of the above should certainly help your chickens start regrowing their feathers in time for winter.  But again, make sure it’s not all you give them.  You don’t want them to have a nothing-but-protein diet as that won’t do them any good either.  But their normal diet with some extra protein added should have them starting to get all feathery and happy again by the time winter hits. Hope this helps Madds my friend!

 

Got any other tips for Madds or other hobby farming questions?  Would love to hear them in the comments section below!

Ask Trev!

Ask Trev: Can you get rid of flatulence odour with a vacuum?  

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This question comes from Scott in Yarraville, Victoria: 

Hey Trev. First up Happy New Year to you & your family.
Got a question. Does farting into a vacuum cleaner (while it’s on) remove the smell or is that just ‘hot air’?

Well, this is one of the more unusual but interesting questions I’ve received but I’ll do my best.

I’m supposed to stick what into this?!?

First off, the composition of flatulence is not actually hot air as such but methane gas, caused by the breaking down of food particles in the stomach which then in turn travels through the lower intestine and is released by the anus when either appropriate or comically pleasing.

Now, as to whether having a vacuum cleaner in place will remove the smell.  You say farting into a vacuum cleaner; I’m assuming by this you mean having the nozzle placed outside the sphincter ready to go upon flatulence excretion, rather than just sucking the smell out of the air post eruption.  This shows that you are a still a young man, nearing 40 I don’t always have control of when I let one go, though I’ve found a beef vindaloo the night before will guarantee a plethora of gas as required the next morning.

 

To answer your question I tried the following experiments:

TEST 1: The Dog

Hypothesis: Dogs pass gas all the time, making them excellent to blame your own indiscretions on.

Experiment: Chasing the dog around with a vacuum cleaner switched on induces a great deal of fear from the dog, but little gas to suck up.  Also required a long extension cord and avoiding eye contact with the neighbors.

Result: Inconclusive.

 

TEST 2: My Children

Hypothesis: My kids poop – a lot!  Should be a simple matter of catching them mid-fart before the main show arrives.

Experiment: Following my children around with a vacuum cleaner switched on and pointed at their nappy-wearing bums resulted in a very irate babysitter threatening phone calls to child protective services.

Result:  Again, inconclusive.

 

TEST 3: Myself

Hypothesis: Following small creatures around waiting for them to pass gas was time consuming and seemed to irritate all concerned. Since a good 65% of the time I realize I’m about to pass gas before I actually do, catching myself in the act should be an easy matter.

Experiment: I loaded up on beer and curry, topping if off with a couple of hard-boiled eggs, then let my gut percolate.  After a few hours I could feel that the chamber was full and ready to vent.  So I excused myself to the bedroom, removed my trousers and underwear and got the nozzle ready.  However just as I was about to reap the gaseous gold of my lower intestine my wife walked in…

Result: …finding me standing there half naked, with a switched on vacuum cleaner nozzle near my nether’s and a surprised look on my face.  This seemed to disturb her.  When I informed her that I was ‘simply trying a scientific experiment in vapor removal so as to answer a blog question’, I was called a ‘filthy, lying, perverted f*ck!’ before she burst into tears, got the kids and her suitcases and went to a hotel.

 

So to answer your question – does farting into a vacuum cleaner remove the smell? – all I can say is that it probably does but remains unproven. However I did manage to prove it definitely removes all chance of you being intimate with your spouse for the next 6 months.

 

Thanks for your question.

 

Got a better answer?  Write it in the comments below!  

Ask Trev!

Ask Trev: How to battle mosquitoes

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This question comes from Betty in Boga:

“Dear Big Angry Trev.  My whole family supports you in your war against the mosquitoes!  Do you have any tips for us so that we may battle them too?”

Well Betty, like any great battle there are two main areas you need to consider – offense and defense.  I’ll assume you already have the supply chains to your troops in place so lets get straight to weaponry eh!

 

Offense – Weapon 1 – the HAND!

The best friend of Mozzie haters and single men alike
The best friend of Mozzie haters and single men alike

Not just for self-gratification and the ferrying of meat and beer to the mouth, your hand is your first line of attack when battling the airborne foe.  Mosquitoes don’t fly as fast as flies do so quick reflexes and a clap of the hands wshould guarantee a kill.  Be careful though when slapping them when they have already alighted on you, I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve deafened myself by slapping my ear or had to go have a sit down because I whacked at one too hard that had landed on my crotch.

 

Offense – Weapon 2 – the SWATTER!

Not just for bargian basement S&M anymore
Not just for bargain basement S&M anymore

A lot more fun than actually effective.  It gives you good reach and speed but more often than not will just injure – not kill.

 

Offense – Weapon 3 – AIRBORNE SPRAYS!

dscf6059
Choke the fraggers!

Very good for indoors, give a room a damn good spray and watch all mozzies in the area drop like flies!  If they are bad indoors it’s a good idea to give your bedroom a spray before turning in.  Downside of these is that they are not particularly effective outdoors unless you actually hit the target.  One trick I have learned is to leave the outdoor light on for an hour at night, then go and spray the million mozzies that have been attracted to it.  Of course, that’s a lot of corpses to be cleaned up in the morning but since they are your enemies you should do it with a vengeful smile on your face!

 

Offense – Weapon 4 – the ZAPPER!

Ah the serenity
Ah the serenity

Puts out UV light which attracts the mozzies and then when they get too close ZAP!  Instant electrocution!  I went and bought the biggest one I could find.  There are a few downsides though.  Very ineffective during the day as their light is drowned out by the sun, even if you hang them in a shady area.  Also the bigger ones need to be plugged in which usually necessitates it being close to your house or shed.  Personally I have mine hung under the verandah as far from the front door as possible since they need to attract mozzies to the area before it can kill them.

 

Defense – Weapon 1 – CREAMS and SPRAYS

Lather yourself up baby!
Lather yourself up baby!

Lots of different bug repellents on the market and all work to a greater or lesser degree.  The mozzies we have this season seem to happily pierce clothing so I give my clothes a good spray of Aeroguard as well before going around the farm.  There are lots of kid friendly brands and you can get creams that are both sunscreens and big repellents in one.

 

Defense – Weapon 2 – CITRONELLA CANDLES

Both pretty and punitive
Both pretty and punitive

These may seem a bit hippy but they do work.  They give off a smoke from the wax and wick that keeps the mozzies at bay.  While having a candle or two lit is always nice, these are completely ineffective on a windy day outside and are too smelly to use indoors.

 

Defense – Weapon 3 – INDUSTRIAL GRADE BARRIER CHEMICALS!

F*CK YEAH!
F*CK YEAH!

Now we are talking!  These are designed to keep damn near every bug in existence away!  Spray it on the ground, ants wont walk over it.  Spray it on the walls, the smell sends away the fliers.  Spray it around doorframes, no spiders trying to get in.  Really does work a treat!  I use Insectigone which, while not as strong as some others, emits no odours humans can detect, has no detrimental effect on kids or animals, and if you reduce the dosage (you mix this stuff with water then spray it) you can even spray it on plants!  I’ve given my veranda a good going over and since I’ve done it I only get a couple of mozzies there a day instead of dozens.  Only downside with these are if the mozzies are already chasing you or actually on you, they wont give a damn when you cross the barrier line and then they are trapped in with you until you kill’em.  Also these are usually available at places that sell proper chemicals, not supermarkets.

 

Good luck with the war Betty – and as a great man once said – KILL!  KILL THEM ALL!

Ask Trev!, Hobby Farming

Ask Trev – Chicken care questions

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One of the first questions I got for ‘Ask Trev’ was from Maddy who was asking if she should get chickens.  Well, happily she took my advice and now has a little brood of her own.  So now we have some follow up questions about their care which I will address today.

 

Dear Farmer Trev,

Ok, so I got chooks.
19 week old pullets. They are all New Hampshire cross breeds. One Australorp cross (proving to be the noisiest), a white leggorn X and a Rhode Island Red X. The tiniest (white leghorn cross) has already come on the lay but one of the others (or potentially her) is smashing up her eggs before I get to them. How do I stop this behaviour?

Small egg: From our Frizzle Chickens. Large egg: From our Muscovy Ducks.
Small egg: From our Frizzle Chickens.
Large egg: From our Muscovy Ducks.

Though it may not be, chances are she is smashing her own eggs.  The chooks are not after the egg within, but rather the shell itself as their system breaks down egg shells in order to make more egg shells and if their system is not getting enough of what will make the shells of their eggs strong enough, they will destroy their own.

I’d recommend getting a big bag of shell grit.  It’s this grey granules stuff that looks like coarse sand.  Contained within is everything that a chicken needs to make the shells of its eggs stronger (and as a result harder for them or their coop-mates to break) and should stop them feeling they have to break existing eggs to get those nutrients.  If your chooks were bigger or older I’d suggest laying pellets but shell grit for their current state will work best.  You can also throw old egg shells back into the chicken coop for them to peck at and break.

 

Also – hen pecking – tiny has already started hen pecking the red. How do I address hen pecking if it gets really bad? Or is this the natural order of hens and there’s nothing I can do?

It’s the natural order babe – it’s where the term ‘Pecking Order’ comes from.  There is nothing short of having them in completely separate coops that you can do.  Just let them figure it out for themselves and hopefully it should die down.  My chooks have stopped it now they have figured out their hierarchy, though my ducks still engage in it after being together for a year.

 

Finally – Is there anything they really, really should not be fed or any tips for super happy hens?
Thanks Big Farmer T.
-Mads.

Kitchen scraps, wheat and either shell grit or laying pellets should give them all the sustenance they need.  There is not much that can harm a chook as if it’s a food that’s not good for them they won’t eat it (case in point with potato peelings).  And of course don’t feed them any kind of bird meat, though once again they probably wouldn’t touch it anyway.  A small garlic clove dropped into their water once in a blue moon is good for keeping away mites.  Also get yourself a wormwood plant, grow it to a nice size in a pot and stick it in their coop.  They will peck at it now and then and it’s great for keeping away fleas and other insects that will bother your chickens without driving away the bugs they like to eat.

As for super happy hens, just plenty of food, water, shelter, protection from predators and as much space to scratch around as you can manage and they should be happy little hens indeed!

 

Ask Trev!, Random Rants

Ask Trev – “What am I thinking?”

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This question comes from Lucielle, all the way over in Gauteng in South Africa “What am I thinking?”

Well, my educated guess would be “Holy crap!  I asked this question 4 months ago as a joke – he is actually answering this?!”  And I bet I am not far off the mark 😉

IMG_4388

But the truthful answer is that I don’t know because I am not a mind reader.

 

Do you know why I am not a mind-reader?  Because mind-readers, psychics, soothsayers, precognitives, astrologists, fortune tellers, tarot card and palm readers and all of their ilk are FULL OF F*CKING SHIT!

No-one can read your mind – NO ONE!  This is NOT a debate people, they can’t do it!  And anyone who says they can are either self-deluded or a con artist or most likely both!  After a while people begin to believe their own bullshit.

I won’t go into how these people trick you in to thinking that they are psychic or can read your mind or the future – that has been well documented.  Everything from your age, sex, expression, tone of voice to even the state of your home tells them a wealth about you and after years of experience these people are very good at it.  They know what you want to hear, they know what you will believe, and they will tell you exactly that.  They are TRICKING YOU, they are CONNING you, they WANT YOUR MONEY!

And what tells them more about a person than anything else is usually that the person was gullible enough to fork out their money to them in the first place.

I don’t mean to criticize people who believe this stuff – oh wait, I do.  And I do it because I care so with all tact may I say – WAKE UP!  It’s 2016 – how many times do people need to prove to you that this stuff is bullshit before you catch on?  Why believe the loonies but not the educated folk?  It’s along the same lines as people who believe that immunizations cause Autism – they will happily believe a doctor who was so off the mark he got stripped of his medical licence and became a joke in his field, but not the reputable doctors, scientists and warehouses full of information that prove beyond doubt that Autism has nothing to do with immunizations!  And it’s their kids that suffer.  And if  parents are spending money on these psychic cranks instead of food and shelter for their kids then I’m guessing they are suffering too.

I think the perfect  example of how all this is crap is that they now have televised psychic hotlines.  Dear Primus – have you seen the women manning these phones?  None of them look psychic to me, they all look like they dropped out of high school, bought really bad jumpers at a thrift store and then found jobs where they could sit on their ever-expanding arses and just talk bullshit into a phone, all whilst charging some poor sucker a minimum $5 a minute!  (By the way, for those people that ring phone sex lines, I’m guessing that my description above applies there too, not a lot of super-models are doing that job).  What are the people ringing these lines thinking?  I mean – they can SEE who they are talking to!  I wouldn’t trust these low-rent bitches to advise me on how to boil an egg, let alone how to live my life!

And now there are ‘Pet Psychics’ – people who will tell you what your goldfish is thinking.  I mean – f*ck!  Are we really still this stupid as a society?!?

All of this points to the fact that perhaps stupid people breed too much and that we need to enforce laws where bullshit is outlawed.  They should have a special crimes division – the ‘AMPED’ Crimes Unit where they bust charlatans for ‘ACTIVELY MAKING PEOPLE EVEN DUMBER’.  They should be able to bust down doors and say “Nope – what you are doing is a load of wank and if you don’t knock it off we are putting a f*cking bullet in your skull!”  Also perhaps mandatory sterilizing of any of their customers who, after being shown evidence to the contrary refuse to stop believe in this stuff, is a good idea. We are facing a resources crisis this century people – in 50 years there won’t be enough fresh water to support the planets population.  How about we stop the people that refuse to stop believing in psychics breeding and shoot the unconscionable f*ckers that prey on their gullibility and stupidity?  At the rate society is going, I reckon that at a conservative estimate this would probably equal at least 1 in 10.  Knock all them off and the planet might just survive being infested with this scourge called humanity after all.

Lets put it in the next census and make it not confidential – “Do you believe in psychics and will never change your mind?”  If you tick ‘yes’ then the next day a van comes around with two big burly doctors saying ‘Sorry, you’ve lost the rights to your reproductive organs because chances are you will have a kid with someone just a stupid as you and your kids will end up even dumber yet again.  We need all the water and oxygen for the non-morons’.  And it would work because anyone stupid enough to believe in mind-readers after having it explained why it is false would be stupid enough to tick ‘yes’ on the form, even knowing the consequences.

I know I am coming across harsh here.  The majority of the people that read this blog most likely don’t believe in psychics and palm reading and all the rest, but there may be some that do.  Believe it or not I am on your side.  Because I want you to stop believing in things that aren’t true.  I want you to see through the veil of bullshit.  I want to meet up with you in a bar and be able to say “You stopped letting these liars and moral leeches sucker you in and steal your money, let me buy you a beer!”  I’m begging you to respect yourself and please – don’t believe any of it!  Just don’t.  Be smart, be smarter than the bullshit artists.  And bust your friends when they are dumb enough to fall for one of these fraudsters cons – you will be doing them a favor.   There is a difference between allowing people their beliefs and allowing people to believe complete and utter false crap pedaled by people with no conscience whatsoever.  If you believe in all this stuff and think I have just been really mean to you, I can guarantee you I am not being as mean as they are because they are lying to you and taking your money on purpose – I’m just trying to give you a mental slap in the face so you can not be taken advantage of any more.  I’m showing you respect by believing you can change – they are disrespecting on so many levels its not funny.  There is so much cool stuff to believe in in this magnificently huge, spectacular universe – you don’t need to believe in total crap like tarot cards, again – respect yourself!

 

Hmmmmm, and now my super-senses are telling me that Lucielle is thinking “Holy shit, Trev needs to calm down, I was just joking!”

 

Question answered Lucielle my friend 🙂

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Ask Trev – Who should I vote for in the Federal Election?

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This question comes from Sarah in Swan Hill “Which Party should I vote for in the 2016 Federal Election?”

Well it’s hard to say.  Lots of people treat Political Parties like Football teams, as in they pick one and then support them their whole lives, regardless of what players are on the team or how the team has been performing.  I’ve never understood this mentality myself but then I don’t understand why people willingly eat tofu.

To be honest, none of the parties are much chop this time around.  Let’s have a quick look at whose on offer:

The Liberals – used to be the ones to vote for if you wanted financial stability, now just a bunch of old argumentative fraggers whose whole campaign seems to revolve around ‘Well since we are in already, why not just go with it?’

The Nationals – while they may give a crap about the farmers they have been the Liberals whipping party for so long they just go along with whatever their masters decree.  Ball gags and sodminzation are the order of the day when the two parties have a get-together.

Labor – the Political Party equivalent of a plain bread sandwich.  Unappetizing, boring, and not much of interest to be found within.  Their main selling point ‘We are not the Liberals’

The Greens – the ones to vote for if you have a social conscious, not the ones to vote for if you think that maybe another war would be good to cull all those bloody dole-bludgers.

The Sex Party – they promote having lots of sex – yay!  The woman who runs it has been known to distribute the Warrick Cappa sex-tape and there is simply no excuse for that – ever!

Family First – Does everyone in your family think that Jesus is just the best and that homosexuals are evil? Then maybe this party really is thinking of your family first.  Are you gay, an atheist, a foreigner or combination of the above?  Then your family is coming dead last under them!

The Jackie Lambie Party – bwah hahahahahaha!  Pauline 2.0!  Nuff said.

 

So, who should Sarah (and all of you) vote for?

GANynqT

Well the answer is simple – VOTE FOR THE OTHER GUY!  You want some action in your local community or your region?  Then DO NOT VOTE FOR WHOEVER IS ALREADY IN POWER IN YOUR SEAT!

Here is why – think about it – which are the seats that the pollies are visiting the most and promising the most to?  The seats that could swing either way, that’s which ones!  It’s the equivalent of a relationship – if you’ve been in one for years and years you probably don’t try as hard as you used to.  You know that your partner is not going anywhere so why go to the hassle of romancing them?  But that new relationship?  That’s full of flowers, chocolates, romantic dinners and saucy underwear that would get you locked up in some countries.  You are out to impress them, you are out to woo them and you are going to do whatever it takes to win their hearts.

The electoral seat I live in has been overwhelmingly won by The Nationals since its inception.  You know what we get promised and what we get delivered each election – bugger all!  It’s also why they can afford to put one of the most blatently racist and homophobic Nationals Members in the seat – because even he couldn’t lose it!  But those seats like the one near Ballarat which could go either way, they just got promised a multi-million dollar industrial development to increase jobs in the region and both the major party leaders have made visits in the last month.  Closest we’ve come to a Prime Ministerial visit was when Bob Hawke stopped to have the septic tank on his campaign bus emptied during his drive from Melbourne to Adelaide.

So VOTE FOR THE OTHER GUY, vote for whoever is most likely to upset the balance of power in your political seat and knock out the incumbent!  It might not do you much good this election, but sure as shinola come the next election you can sit on your porch and watch the Olympic-sized swimming pool getting built next to the new combination multiplex theatre, strip club and sushi bar while pollies from both sides of the fence rub your feet, tickle your belly and pledge to erect anatomically flattering statues in your honor.

 

Or of course, you could always vote for this guy

Ask Trev!

Ask Trev – ‘How would Trev protect his family from Zombies?’

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This question comes from Matt in Bathurst: “How would you protect your family against the inevitable zombie apocalypse?”

Well first up, I am going to set myself some criteria for answering this question otherwise my copious imagination will run amok.  I am going to take Matt’s question very literally.  I am going to come at it from the perspective that I am indeed just protecting my family and I’ll even narrow that down further  to my immediate family, thereby not taking advantage of my brothers riverfront property with boats, industrial grade tractors and hunting rifles.  I will also approach this in that I can only use what I already have or can scavenge from my immediate neighborhood.  So no tanks, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, impregnable towers or armed soldiers.  This will be me and my family on our hobby farm vs the Zombie Apocalypse.

Am I infected with the zombie plague? Na, must just be that rash I picked up in Thailand
Am I infected with the zombie plague? Na, must just be that rash I picked up in Thailand

Location

First off we are pretty lucky to be located where we are.  We live a good 8 minute drive away from the nearest town which only has a population of 10,000.  Our neighborhood consists of big wide fenced paddocks with the odd farmhouse so you could count the amount of people that live within a two mile radius easily if you took off your shoes.  Say when the apocalypse hits, when the initial carnage settles approximately half the town is zombies.  That is 5000 zombies to deal with.  By the time they spread out away from the township in all directions and some reach to our little remote area we are talking probably only dozens to deal with and spread out at that.  With our farm at the top of a hill that means we should see any zombie making its way in our direction well before they see us.

 

Now, to answer Matt’s question: “How would I protect my family?” Let’s see:

 

Protection from dehydration

We have a 5000 litre rainwater tank as well as a 1 megalitre farm dam.  Plenty of water to keep us going for months at a time if rationed properly.  Raids on any dead neighbours houses can supply us with more if required.

Protection from starvation

We have three chickens and three ducks which both can provide us with eggs.  We also have a drake and a rooster so more chickens and ducks down the line for meat.  We have two nanny goats who are ripe for breeding if we were to hijack a billy from the bloke down the road when things started turning south. So 2 types of egg, 3 types of meat and one type of milk right there!  Add to this 30+ fruit and nut trees and two gigantic vege patches and we are able to live off the land for quite a while if necessary.  Add to that all the canned food in our pantry and raids on the kitchens of dead neighbours and we are sitting pretty!

1st line of defense: Protection of our borders

We have fencing right the way round our 15 acres.  It is certainly tall enough and strong enough to stop lone zombies, however a small group could knock over a section in short order by force of weight alone.  Strengthening the fences with a good quality barbed wire (I have a big roll under my pool table) as well as digging a pit at least 5 feet deep lined with spiked logs around the outside and it would take a very large number of zombies to breach the gates.

2nd line of defense: Protection of our property

Zombies hunt primarily by sight and sound.  Some claim by smell too though it’s the weakest of their three senses (a lot of noses tend to get bitten off during human-to-zombie conversion).  Easy enough to hide the family indoors while I go about the farm covertly with my rather extensive range of long handled, bladed farming implements to quietly dispatch them.  Also the zombies will be attracted to the ducks, chickens and goats because of their noise.  With whatever zombies breaching our perimeter being attracted to those three main points, it makes it a simple task to locate them and then dispatch them from behind with a spike to the brain while their attention is focused on the animals.

3rd line of defense: House and shed

Our house, being one story and with its many windows, is not really zombie-proof.  However the windows and doors could be boarded up and there is a large cavity within the roof with it’s own lighting.  Certainly one could hold out in there for a fair while until the zombies eventually forgot us and left.  By kicking the chair away there is no way the zombies could climb up or locate us within the roof.

Our shed has strong metal walls, strong metal door and strong metal roller doors.  No windows.  It is also chockers with the aforementioned farm equipment that could be turned into weapons.  Shovels, picks, edgers, chainsaws, pitchforks, trimmers, ride on mowers and of course my trusty hunting knife.  Should the house become compromised the shed could be a bastion to hold up in.

Last line of defense: BIG ANGRY TREV!

How do you think I got this moniker?  From being a calm and collected person, timid in the face of adversity?  Hell no – when needed I can call upon a rage that fills me with the warm, glowing crimson light of anger that brings death and destruction to those that would threaten me and mine!  I will FREAKIN DESTROY any zombie that gets close to my wife and kids!  And should their numbers prove too great for me to physically hold off, then that’s when my big fat mouth comes into play.  I can and will make that much noise that every zombie for miles will be chasing me down the road, my family forgotten in their decaying minds.

 

So Matt, should the zombie apocalypse be as inevitable as you believe, well you just pop the wife and kids in the car and head on down to Trev’s place, we’ll be right as rain!  Thanks for your question.

 

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Ask Trev – ‘If you could survive on only one food, what would it be?’

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This question comes from Nicole in Bendigo ‘If Big Angry Trev could eat only one food for the rest of his life what would it be, why, and how would he sustain himself using only that one food?’

 

Well Nicole has done well with her question here – she has made it so there are very few loopholes to take advantage of in the question.  Let’s see:

If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be T-Bone steaks topped with Slow Roasted Pork Belly.  Why?  Because it’s the food of the damn gods!  In fact if it comes down to it you could eat any food you like for the rest of your life no problem – it’s just the rest of your life would be very short. So Nicole has been clever by asking how I would sustain myself on it.

So to sustain myself?  Well here is where I can take advantage of the one loophole Nicole left.  She didn’t specify that the food could not also be a drink.  And there is one substance that is both a food and a drink – breast milk.

milk

Breast milk in the one single food that contains everything the human body requires, that’s why babies can survive on a diet of it and nothing else.  And adults are capable of doing so as well, this is a biological fact.  Other mammalian milk such as cow’s milk is a pretty good second, but it does not supply all the nutrients specific to human needs.

So if I could only eat one food that I had to sustain myself with and why the answer would be breast milk as it’s the only food source possible to do so with.  How I would sustain myself?  Well that would require multiple donors since a single lactating woman could not produce enough milk to keep an adult male fed.  So, sigh, if it meant my survival, if it meant I could stay alive to be a good husband and father for years to come, then I would bite the proverbial pink bullet and suckle upon the engorged breasts of many different women several times a day for the rest of my life.  As a man of high morals, I would have no choice.

I guess the women could express it into bottles but as a permaculturalist I prefer my food fresh.

Challenge met Nicole!

Ask Trev!, Transformatorium

Ask Trev – ‘Should I buy R-17 Carnifex?’

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This question comes from Dallas in Sydney “Should I buy Reformatted R-17 Carnifex?”OL1

For those that don’t know R-17 Carnifex is 3rd party developer Mastermind Creations version of the increasing popular character Overlord from the Transformers franchise.

Well the usual answer would be “yes, yes, a thousand times yes!” This looks like this is going to be a fantastic figure and it comes from a quality 3rd party company that has done great work in the past.

However there is a cyber-spanner in the works – a possible official Overlord figure may be on the cards.  This is MUCH sought after as so few of us have the original one.  Personally the closest I have is my Heroes of Cybertron Gigatron and he doesn’t quite cut the mustard.

OL2

At Botcon Hasbro showed sneak peaks of figures that will be coming out over the next two years.  Most of these we got colour images of but there was one in shadow that looked suspiciously like a tank and jet that would combine.  Now this might be an upcoming Flywheels figure (Battletrap got a TFCC figure at Botcon last year) but it also might be an Overlord.  Overlord is arguably the more popular character, he featured prominently in the Japanese cartoon whereas Flywheels only showed up in the opening credits of the G1 S4.  Overlord has also been very popular in the recent IDW comics whereas Flywheels got killed over a year ago by the DJD in them.

So what to do?  Well it depends on your predilection.  If you really like 3rd party products

Is this Overlord?
Is this Overlord?

then you may as well go for Reformatted R-17 Carnifex – he looks great and really is only lacking a base mode.  But he is expensive – really expensive.  At most online places you are likely to be shelling out well over $200AU for this big bad boy.

It also depends if you would prefer to have a official toy rather than a 3rd party one.  Personally I have no problem with 3rd party figures – I have a few Quintessons and my upgrade kits for Universe Hardhead and Combiner Wars Menasor make the figures look infinitely better.  But it always feels a little…. I dunno… like I am cheating a bit by getting something from a 3rd party, almost like it’s not quite real.  Also if there is an official Overlord toy on the way, it’s possible that it may have a base mode, something that R-17 Carnifex lacks.

MMC10043[1]So my advice: hedge your bets!  Personally I’m preordering R-17 Carnifex from BBTS as I have the option of cancelling my order up to the day before it arrives in their store.  That way if an official toy does get announced and it look like it will be of good quality then I can cancel my 3rd party order.  If it turns out there is no official Overlord toy on the way, then I’m covered and wont have to worry about not being able to lay my hands on a representation of him.

Good luck Dallas – may we both get the giant, psychopathic, mass murdering alien robot we are after!