
I found Wally! After so many years of searching who would have thought he was at Warners Bay all along? 🙂
Photo © CJ Levinson 2021
I found Wally! After so many years of searching who would have thought he was at Warners Bay all along? 🙂
Photo © CJ Levinson 2021
Went to see Newcastle’s newest tourist attraction yesterday – the Pole!
It all started when Newcastle City Council widened the curb before energy provider Ausgrid moved the power pole. While they’ve been trading blame back and forth, the power pole has been left in the middle of the road and, naturally, it’s gone viral and become a bit of a tourist attraction. It’s even in Google Maps!
I’m sure eventually it’ll be fixed but it was fun seeing it first. A different kind of street photography for me! 🙂
Photos © CJ Levinson 2019
I finished writing another of my Aussie Christmas song earlier today. I left it a bit later than I wanted to this year but I’m glad I got it done.
This is my eighth song now and this year I settled on doing an Aussie version of Holly Jolly Christmas called Ripper Little Christmas.
I chose it as it’s very recognisable and should be an easy one to follow. I also chose it as it’s just a fun song and we could all use a bit of fun after this year, don’t you think?
It’s more inspired by the original song than a true parody (I changed the rhyming and structure a bit as I didn’t want it to seem too cutesy) but it also lets me tell a bit more of a fun story, which is what I wanted to do too.
I hope you enjoy it and if you have any suggestions for next year’s song, let me know. 😀
Ripper Little Christmas
Have a ripper little Christmas
It’s a beaut time of the year
We’ll have lots of fun in the sun
And a glass or two of beer
Have a ripper little Christmas
And when you go to the beach
Say hello to mates you know
And shout em a cold one each
Oh oh look how the lights glow
So pretty on the tree
Grandma’s baked a cake again
Save a slice just for me
Have a ripper little Christmas
Enjoy the fun and cheer
And make sure you have a ripper little Christmas
This year!
Oh oh look at Uncle Joe
He’s fallen asleep by the tree
The kids are playing in the yard
While we enjoy a cup of tea
Have a ripper little Christmas
Hold your loved ones near
And make sure you have a ripper little Christmas
This year!
My other Aussie Christmas songs:
The Aussie 12 Days of Christmas (2008)
Aussie Jingle Bells (2009)
We Wish You An Aussie Christmas (2010)
Deck the Ute (an Aussie Christmas Song) (2011)
Have Yourself an Aussie Kind of Christmas (2012)
Santa Matey (an Aussie Christmas Song) (2014)
I’m Dreaming of an Aussie Christmas (2015)
Just a bit of fun to go with all The Force Awakens hype this week. I know people are starting to think about Episode VIII now but I thought I’d turn my attention further ahead, to the next trilogy. And I think I already know who the villain might be…
(Warning: there are a couple of mild spoilers for The Force Awakens in the video if you haven’t seen it yet).
Apologies for the audio by the way. I used the StarWars.com creator to make this but for some reason the share/export isn’t working so I did a screen capture instead. It made the audio a little tinny.
What did you think of The Force Awakens? I’m going to do a post after Christmas touching on it and nostalgia in general but basically I enjoyed it. I liked it but didn’t love it I guess – I thought it felt too familiar and nostalgic at times. It sets up Episodes VIII and IX well though and hopefully they will be more original.
So it’s almost Christmas again. I finished another of my Aussie Christmas songs earlier. This is my seventh song now and this year I thought I’d do an Aussie version of I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas. I chose it as it’s one of those songs everyone knows so hopefully it’ll be easy to follow, and also because I wanted to tell a bit more of a story this year.
Christmas is a fun time but it can be very hard if you’re overseas and wishing you could be back home or waiting for a plane home. I wanted to try to capture that feeling as it’s a side of Christmas we don’t often see.
I hope you enjoy it and if you have any suggestions for next year’s song, let me know. 😉
I’m Dreaming of an Aussie Christmas
The snow is falling, the wind is cold
The airport is crowded and grey
There’s never been a colder day
And I miss my family so far away
It’s December the twenty-fourth
And I’m still waiting here way up north…
I’m dreaming of an Aussie Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the summer sizzles
And it never drizzles
And there’s cricket on the radio
I’m dreaming of an Aussie Christmas
With friends on a warm December night
May your summer be warm and light
And may all your Christmases be bright
I’m dreaming of an Aussie Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the hot sand glimmers
And the water shimmers
And we play in the sun’s golden glow
I’m dreaming of an Aussie Christmas
With my family holding me tight
May your days be filled with delight
And may all your Christmases be bright
And may all your Christmases
May all your Chrissie days be
May all your Christmases be bright
My other Aussie Christmas songs:
The Aussie 12 Days of Christmas (2008)
Aussie Jingle Bells (2009)
We Wish You An Aussie Christmas (2010)
Deck the Ute (an Aussie Christmas Song) (2011)
Have Yourself an Aussie Kind of Christmas (2012)
Santa Matey (an Aussie Christmas Song) (2014)
We had an absolute scorcher today. It reached 41’C near where I live in Newcastle and it was even hotter in Sydney today apparently. Scary thing is it’s not even officially summer yet.
It was so hot that everyone was talking about it and I thought I’d have some fun with it on Facebook and Twitter, so I started posting some memes. People seemed to like them so I thought I’d post them here too, with some extras.
Hope you like them. What’s your favourite it’s so hot/it’s hotter than joke? 😉
And on the 8th day God created the iPhone, so Humankind could talk to Him whenever they wanted.
Then on the 9th day He created private numbers to stop them from bugging him and was never heard from again.
I was doing some shopping in Wallsend yesterday and saw this sign at the Wallsend Presbyterian Church. Gave me a good laugh.
Photo © CJ Levinson 2015
Congratulations to Tony Abbott and the Coalition. It’s only the seventh time in sixty years an elected government has been defeated, so it’s quite an achievement, particularly to topple a government that’s only been in for two terms. It’s something I never thought would happen when Abbott first came to the leadership, it seemed so unlikely and Abbott such an unlikely alternative PM. But the Coalition ran a very clever campaign and then again, I never thought I’d see a PM torn down in his first term either, so I guess it shows anything can happen in politics.
I’ll be frank: I did not vote for the Coalition and will never vote for the Coalition as long as Tony Abbott is leader. His policies and social attitudes scare the hell out of me and I’d much rather see Malcolm Turnbull as PM – if he had been, I would definitely have supported the Coalition and I think they would have won with an even bigger majority. But putting that aside, Labor didn’t deserve to be re-elected at all and only has itself to blame for the outcome. When you spend all your time fighting over the leadership, surrounded by bickering and countless distractions of your own making, rather than actually governing the country, you can’t seriously think the public is going to vote you back in.
The government’s problems are strange in some ways because it’s not even that they’ve been a particularly bad government overall when you look at their ideas and achievements, particularly the NBN and the NDIS, it’s really more that they’ve spent the last six years tearing each other apart from the inside out, have kept back-pedalling on policies that they had made into central platforms (you can’t say climate change is the “greatest moral challenge of our time” and then try to back away from it, for instance, it makes you look like flip-floppers at best and a party lacking moral integrity at worst) and that they’ve been completely incompetent in selling their achievements – especially the strength of the economy, which is relatively strong, particularly when compared to the rest of the world. Abbott’s been an effectively negative opposition leader but in normal circumstances there’s simply no way a government should find itself in this position after just two terms. Which is what I meant with the caption above – in the end I’m genuinely not sure if Abbott won this election or if Labor lost it and essentially committed suicide. Or maybe it’s a bit of both.
I’m not sure what kind of Prime Minister Tony Abbott is going to be and like I said, he wouldn’t be my choice by a wide margin on either side of politics, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and I hope he’ll be one who is consultative and doesn’t try to force an ideological agenda through parliament (although that is one thing that potentially concerns me about him). In many ways because he has been such an effective negative campaigner I don’t think the public has been able to get a real idea of who Abbott actually is (which incidentally I think is also why he’s always performed so poorly in leadership polls, because it makes it seem like he’s stilted and has no personality), so it will be interesting to see if we start to see a new side of Tony Abbott and perhaps that public view of Abbott starts to change. It’ll also be interesting to see how he goes on the international stage – I actually think that’s one area where he might do quite well, with the exception perhaps of our relationship with Indonesia, which will depend a lot on what happens with asylum seekers and the boats.
I also hope that we can start to put the misogynist statements to rest once and for all as well. Gillard’s speech on misogyny was one of the defining moments in modern Australian politics and on a wider level was very true but looking at it objectively, it was also at least a little unfair on Tony Abbott. There are many, many things I do not like about Abbott but he’s not a misogynist – his wife is an incredibly strong influence in his life, he’s helped to raise three daughters who seem to be incredibly intelligent and articulate young women that any parent would be proud of and he’s introducing a paid parental leave scheme that is very generous towards women. What Abbott is is very old fashioned and extremely awkward and gaffe-prone but that doesn’t mean he’s a misogynist. It also doesn’t mean that Gillard’s speech wasn’t true either, just that it was truer on a broader level about society and I think that’s why it resinated with so many people. But hearing people constantly calling Abbott a misogynist during this election – often I think without their even knowing what a misogynist really is as well – is one of the things that’s really grated on me and I’m hoping now people will at least try to give him the benefit of the doubt. No matter what you think of Tony Abbott, the office of the Prime Minister deserves more respect than that – just as it did when Gillard was PM and she was treated so abysmally, particularly by men, many of whom were in the media, and in her own party.
In any case I guess like everyone I’m mostly just relieved this bloody election is finally over. It’s been mind-numbingly tedious but good luck to the Coalition and here’s hoping the next three years won’t be as divisive as the last and the economy stays relatively strong.
I made some more election memes last night while watching the results come in as well, so I thought I’d post them with this for a bit of fun. The one about Jason Wood was just spur of the moment – I’d not heard his quote before and it came on during the coverage and my head just about exploded when I heard it. I used the photo of Gllard as that’s pretty much how I imagine she would have reacted when she heard it too – and it’s not a bad approximation of what my face was like too. I mean, seriously Jason, WTF?
Hope you enjoy them. Who knows, I might start doing these regularly as they seem to be popular. 😉
Batman, meet Budgie-Man, our new PM.
Bye Kev. Remember, PMs come and go, selfies live forever.
Jason Wood, one of Australia’s great visionaries.
Here’s hoping.
I’ve been getting into the political mood recently by making some election memes. I’ve shared most of them on Twitter and Facebook but with the election on Saturday, I thought I’d post them here too.
For the record I don’t really lean towards one party or the other and I’ve tried to skewer both equally. It’s been fun making them… it’s been a very long, dull election and being able to poke fun at it all has really been the only thing that’s made it bearable.
Hope you enjoy them and if you’d like to share any of them, feel free. If I make more I’ll post them before the election too.
Is there something you need to tell us Kevin? The resemblance is uncanny.
Or maybe they’re his “budget” smugglers?
Glad to say I don’t own many blue ties.
Wonder who’d win in a staring contest between Julie Bishop and Hillary Clinton?
Poor Kevin. He’s so misunderstood.
We can trust them. They’re politicians.
GoT. The real reason we need fast broadband.
No truth to the rumour that the scissors were removed from Julia Gillard’s back though.
Sorry, everyone has to grow up some time Tony.
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