Builders work funny hours!

The retaining wall was meant to be done last Friday (10th of Feb), but as we drove past on the way home full of excitement and anticipation, guess what.. No wall.

Well, no big deal, the earthworks were also meant to be done on a Friday (sidetrack: what is it with this builder - Ventura Homes - always scheduling for Fridays?! The slab is tentatively scheduled for a Friday too), anyway as I was saying, no big deal because the earthworks were scheduled for a Friday but were done on a Saturday. So on Saturday morning at around 10am we popped round on our way out and still no wall, maybe they start after lunch...

At 7:30pm on Saturday we walked around to our block (did I mention that it was just around the corner from where we are living?) and still no wall. We both doubted that they would be working at night and never even gave a thought to them working on a Sunday so we resigned ourselves to the fact that as of that Saturday our house was beginning to fall behind schedule.

We went into town on Sunday for a quick shop and a lunch and decided on a whim to pass the block on the way home and well bugger me the wall was done! The builders had been and built it on a Sunday. Quite amazing. So once again by Monday the house was back on schedule and I think I am beginning to see why everything is scheduled for a Friday... or am I being too cynically here?


And now for something completely different, a rant.
Its about these bloody cartoons some dimwit in a Danish newspaper drew. For a start they are not funny, and at best they are crude, but bloody hell what a mountain some people are making out of this pathetic little molehill. Burnings, riots, "westerners should be beheaded" posters, its just frigging unbelievable. I can understand (just) some people being upset, angry, put out etc about these crude drawings (really to call them cartoons implies some level of thought or effort went into them and that is giving them to much praise), but to react the way that these people have reacted is just as pathetic as the drawings themselves.

Peace, love and tolerance...... HA.

Imagine what would have happened if Monty Python produced a movie called "The Life of Mohammad" !! (Cant recall any Bishops storming the BBC studios and burning it when Life of Brian was released, they weren't pleased but they did act civilised about it, mostly)

A call went out here in Australia by a leading Muslim cleric to the effect that Australian schools should teach Islam along side Christianity in class. Yeah.. right.. I'll support that idea as soon as the Middle East starts teaching Christianity in their schools.

And there is my problem. All of these people of different nationalities choose (for the most part) to come and live in Australia and then demand that Australia changes to their way of life. And worse then that for the most part we give in. We don't celebrate Christmas any more, just a feastive holiday, in case it offends someone. Well what about offending me by denying me my rights to celebrate my religion and the main religion of my country? Oh that's right, I'm only a white Australian, my opinions don't matter unless I'm a minority.

Imagine if I went to live in any middle eastern country and demanded that they not celebrate their central religious holidays because it offended me? I'm sure that would go down very well.

And just saying out loud "Islam offends me" (and it doesn't) in Australia would brand me as racism, insensitive and various other labels, but it is perfectly ok for a Muslim to state that the celebrating of Christmas on a national scale offends him...

I don't care whether you are white, black, pink, green, blue or any other colour under the sun, and I don't care who or what you worship, I will treat you with peace, love and tolerance and the world would be a far better place if I was treated the same way in return and more importantly if certain people or groups of people were not so goddamned insensitive when it comes to their religion and basically go around looking for an excuse to cause trouble in the name of who ever they worship.

I challenge anybody to show me a religion that preaches it is ok to riot, to commit murder and to kill. Anyone, ANYONE, who uses religion as an excuse to kill, terrorise and subjugate any other person is a hypocrite, a coward and a git no matter what their religion, from the Christians involved in the crusades to Islamic fundamentalists in the current day.

A lot of people in this world need to grow up and stop acting so childish.