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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!

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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!

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.

 

Ask Trev!

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!

 

Ask Trev!

Ask Trev – ‘What is the purpose of Meaning?’

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One of the most interesting questions I’ve had comes from Neil in Blacktown: What is the purpose of meaning?

 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume Neil is asking about meaning in a spiritual and philosophical sense, rather than talking about meaning in a literal way. If I’m wrong Neil I’m sorry and will have wasted a lot of time writing this.

I found this to be a really deep question. It’s not ‘What is the meaning of life?’ but ‘What is the purpose of meaning?’. And that is something that I had never considered before.

I guess the purpose of meaning is to give your life purpose to give a glib answer, but it’s so much more than that. You can say things like ‘my purpose in life is to watch that movie/date that girl/get that promotion’ but those are goals which can be achieved. They may be fleeting meanings, but they are not meaning in and of itself.

 

For me the purpose of meaning is what makes you want to get out of bed each day. Not because you have to (alarm clock, work, check out at 10 etc) but because you want to continue down a path which is intrinsic to who you are and what you believe you are here for – essentially what gives your existence meaning. And what gives your life meaning can be transient, it can change over time. I wanted to be a stand-up comic when I was younger, but despite how strongly I felt about it it did not give my life meaning, otherwise I certainly would have tried harder. I love to collect Transformers, it remains a very big and important part of my life, but it does not give my life meaning. I think in part the purpose of meaning is something so important to you, something so quintessential to your being that in the end it helps define deep down who you actually are.

 

Maybe the best way to illustrate what I am saying is to use my own life as an example. In my personal experience, I have had three major factors that have given my life meaning, things beyond simple wants, urges and passions.

  • When I was a teen and then at Uni it was FUN – fun was literally what gave my life meaning and it’s all I wanted to do each day – I wanted to have fun!  I was annoyingly cheerful back then, I could not imagine my life getting any better because despite having zero money, a mediocre acting career and an irritating girlfriend, my days were packed with video games, mates, parties and living with my best friend whom I spent 90% of my time laughing with. Fun was my meaning, and my meaning was damn fun!
  • In my 20’s NEW EXPERIENCES was what gave my life meaning. I wanted to know everything, to go everywhere, to eat and drink and consume anything I hadn’t before. If there was something I hadn’t tried I wanted – needed to try it! I threw away my fledgling teaching career and took off overseas and spent a year backpacking across Europe. I ate things I had never heard of, learned languages I couldn’t pronounce a word of before, visited a dozen of the world’s biggest art galleries, went to Octoberfest and got drunk, went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and did comedy. When I came back from Europe I still tried new things, went to music gigs, hippy festivals, the theatre, the footy – somewhere I even have a DVD of me swearing very loudly as I throw myself off a bridge when bungy-jumping in New Zealand.
  • In my 30’s, now less than twIMG_3322o years off the big Four Oh (dear Primus where did the time go!?),  FAMILY has become my meaning and it is the strongest most defining meaning my life has ever had. I love my wife dearly, will never be with another person ever and we’ve had 13 great years together thus far. But now I am a father with a 3 year old son and a 1 year old daughter and they provide my life with a level of meaning that I had never considered possible. I am a Dad. It’s who I am, it’s what I am, it’s why I’m here and it’s by far the single most important thing in my life. My children provide my life with a meaning that dwarfs everything else. I go to my job so I can provide them with food and shelter, I work my hobby farm so they have a nice place to grow up on in the country, I am filled with an indescribable joy when I come back from work each day to see them both throw a happy fit because Dad is home before throwing themselves into my arms. My kids are the most important part of my life and I can’t see that ever changing. So for me, my kids are my meaning, and the purpose of meaning is what makes me Me.

 

I hope everyone reading this can find a meaning that makes you You, and I hope my ramblings have has answered your question Niel (or at least provided a nice distraction for a few minutes eh!).