The almighty .plan

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +1100

Went to my Great Uncle's 70th today, at a hotel near Mornington Peninsula.
Speeches ranged from tedious to hilarious; particular mad props to Tim.

On the way back, I'd just turned onto the freeway and hit 100 km/h when
something[1] blew, causing the engine to jam, rev itself like crazy (RPM
governor my arse!), boil over and start burning off oil. We left a huge
smoke trail kilometres long and literally cleared out an entire section
of Princes Highway by the time the car rolled to a stop and we managed
to shut the engine off.

One person stopped and offered assistance. Two cars full of locals
stopped to laugh at us and make what offensive comments their limited
faculties could muster. This did little to improve my opinion of the
residents of the Frankston area.

The car was in suprisingly good condition for what had happened,
although the oil and water needed topping up (i.e. completely
refilling). I always carry some of both although there wasn't enough
water. Just as we were contemplating a walk along the freeway to the
nearest tap the CFA showed up - we'd generated so much smoke people had
called 000 and reported a fire.

We took the rest of the way home gently, and although the car sounded
sick the rest of the trip was uneventful.

[1] Something believed to be the head gasket or one of the cylinders; it
    certainly feels like it's only firing on three.

     -----==========-----

In... equally bad news, there was an article posted at Slashdot called
"Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen By 2048" which prompted some
suprisingly well-thought out discussion on the unsustainable fishing
practices going on in the world. Australia's fisheries are already
suffering from the consequences of their over-fishing and the damage
cause by trawling.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2147223.shtml
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/04/0311214&from=rss