Tag Archives: Ask Trev

Ask Trev!, Transformatorium, Transformer Toy Reviews

Ask Trev – Your worst figure, why should I still buy it?

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This question comes from Steve in Campbelltown:

‘What is the worst figure in your collection and why should we all own it?’

First off I’m taking a stab in the dark that Steve is talking about Transformers since that is what I am best known for collecting.  Well Steve, given I’m at the 4500 mark for the amount of Transformer action figures I own, there are a fair few contenders for the mantle of Worst.  So lets narrow it down to Transformer figures that actually transform and go from there:

 

Equal 3rd Worst

Generation One Crankcase & Scoop

Podscussion: Bad Toys you Still Love

Why are they bad?

Firstly – both these toys have irritatingly simple transformations, even for G1 toys – one move for the legs, one move for the arms and one move for the body/backpack.

Secondly – awful heads!  Scoop’s is ridiculously small, making him look like a little yellow guy wearing a huge orange sumo suit, whereas Crancase has just an orange blob for a face, making you squint to make out any detail whatsoever.

Thirdly – bad bodies.  Neither of these toys have any articulation to speak of.  Scoop’s chest sticks out so far his little hands barely reach past it, and those hands don’t even have peg holes to hold his Targetmaster partners.  Lots of Transformer toys have decent sized backpacks, but I’d struggle to think of any that have a proportionately bigger one than Crankcase which towers over the back of him to a ludicrous degree.  And while Scoop as a Targetmaster can’t hold guns, neither can Crankcase who is a Triggercon.  What’s the point of being a gun-themed robot if you can’t even hold a simple blaster?!  As for having legs that actually separate, forget about it.

‘We aint got no thumbs Luitenant Dan!’

Why you should own them?

Both toys have really nice altmodes for their time, with Scoop being a front-end loader that can actually move his scoop, and Crankcase being perhaps the only Decepticon toy of 1988 that had an altmode disguise that could actually work as a disguise, rather than being a huge monster or a neon-coloured vehicle.  The Targetmaster and Trigger gimmicks are good fun and they both had interesting roles in the IDW comics.  Plus who doesn’t love some G1-goodness 😉

 

2nd Worst

Steelbane – The Last Knight

Toys Review – The Last Knight: Steelbane, Cogman & Sqweeks

Why is he bad?

Firstly – loose ball joints.  The joints in his shoulders and legs are atrociously loose, making him very hard to pose in robot mode, he is fiddly as hell to try and get to stand in any decent pose without his sword drooping towards the floor.

Secondly – Worst. Dragon-mode. Ever. His dragon mode is absolute shite!  Looks absolutely awful, like someone was building a robot alpaca and lost the instructions half way through.  There have been a lot of great dragon Transformers over the years and they do not invite Steelbane to their parties.

Why you should own him?

Probably the coolest ‘knight’ looking Transformer toy ever in his robot mode with lots of detail, even on the sword.  There were four Knight toys from The Last Knight film and he is the best looking of the lot, with the others compromised by either missing faces or their combiner gimmick.  Even if you were not a fan of the film, having a Transformer who looks like he should have been kickin it with Arthur & Merlin is pretty boss.

Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

 

Winner of the Worst

Rescue Bots Quickshadow

Toy Review – Rescue Bots Quickshadow

Why is she bad?

Firstly – terrible proportions in both modes.  Even being a Rescue Bot which is a line known for its more basic toys due to the age demographic they are made for, the vehicle mode is too snub-nosed and the robot mode doesn’t even remotely resemble the cartoon.  And what’s with the big goggles – she looks like she is going scuba-diving while flying a WWI plane!

Secondly – the broken transformation spring.  This was a toy made for tiny kids and with one transformation movement. It is unbelievable that there was so little quality control that she got released when the spring that allows the transformation was broken in 95% of the figures.  Any child given this figure would have been supremely disappointed and their parents feeling ripped off.

Your Quickshadow toy is going to spend more time looking like this than a robot or car

Why you should own her?

Errr… that’s a toughie.  There really isn’t anything to recommend the figure at all.  At most I would say that she was the first female Rescue Bot which gives the toy some novelty value, and that her on-screen character was very cool.  Coming across as a very chilled and aloof British Secret-Agent type gave her a personality we have not seen in Transformers before or since, it’s a shame she didn’t get more airtime than she did.

Rescue Bots Toys Gallery

 

So there you go Steve, your question answered 😊

Transformer Fan Interview – Steve

Got any transforming Transformer toys that you think are worse than these?  Why not mention them in the comments section below!

Ask Trev!

Ask Trev: What is ‘the beginning and the end’ for Bunnings?

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Today we have a question from Matt in Melbourne:

“The Bunnings slogan says ‘lowest price are just the beginning’. What’s it the beginning of and what’s the end?”

The beginning of what indeed

Well Matt, most companies and corporations are after two ends – becoming an economic powerhouse and your money.

However Bunnings is a bit different – the ends they covet are achieving the status of their own Religion and your very soul.

What do religions spruik as some of their top selling points?  A place to go on Sundays, the promise of improving your life and the greater promise of offering you an afterlife.

 

What does Bunnings offer?  A place to go on Sundays?  It sure does, it seemed that one of the places people have lamented most not being able to attend during the pandemic is Bunnings (unless you were a Karen, then you went anyway and made sure not to wear a mask).  You saw it everywhere – on social media, in news stories – everyone wailed and gnashed their teeth that they were unable to go down to this huge hardware store to pick up what they need for their Sunday arvo jobs.

‘And blessed be thee’

And while Christianity might offer you a wafer on a Sunday as the Body of Christ, Bunnings offers you a sausage in bread on a Sunday as the body of a cow – much more palatable in my opinion.

 

The offer of improving your life?  That’s Bunnings to a tee!  It’s all ‘why not build a patio to relax on?  Why not treat yourself to a new outdoor setting and a self-timed dripper system for the garden?  Why not improve your life in a million little ways with our help?’  And whilst most religions have priests, preachers, rabbi’s, monks and the like – Bunnings has ‘helpful staff to advise you on all your home renovation needs’.

Like all religions, there are funny hats for their earthly representatives to wear

Admittedly half the time these staff don’t seem to fully understand what they are talking about, but why should Bunnings be different to any other place of worship in that regard?

 

The promise of an afterlife? Well Matt, this is where ‘lowest prices are just the beginning’ comes in to play.  For:

‘In the beginning, did man walk upon the earth.  And doth did man say “My life is poor.  How shall I find peace and happiness?”.’

‘And lo, he heardeth a voice that seemed to commeth from the air itself “Thou shalt build an outdoor deck.  And this deck shall be made of the finest treated pine timber, have bevelled railings and a breakfast seat for two”.’

‘And man did cry “But how shall I buildeth this deck upon which to break my fast?  For I am but a humble man who hungers greatly – I have neither food to eat nor gold for lumber”.’

‘And the voice did call out “Thou shalt easily afford the materials thee needs for thy labours.  For thee shall eat of the fatted calf in bread, yea, even with tomato sauce and onions if thou wishes!  And thou shalt taketh the wood thou dost need, for the prices be low.  And these low prices for thee will be but the beginning!”.’

‘And doth did the man eateth of the sausage in the bread.  And doth did he getteth the treated pine he did require, alongeth with some discounted railing posts, self-tapping screws and a nice new cordless drill with full set of attachments.  And lo the deck was built’.

‘From that day on, every Sunday did the man visit Bunnings and worship humble. And yea did his life improve week upon week, especially after the new barbeque pit.  And when the man’s life was at its end, his grateful and weary hand laid down his circular saw with retractable blade and was at rest’.

Come all ye faithful

‘And as his spirit did ascend, it approached the great green shed of paradise with its excellent parking, yea, even if thou broughteth a trailer.  And the helpful staff did look upon the works the man had made in life. And yea, they were most impressed with the gazebo he had built with it’s recessed lighting and lattice trim around the arches, and he was ushered through the glass sliding doors to the great beyond.  Doth did he enter the end, an existence of eternal bliss, where the shelves were always full and the snags were perfectly cooked, and as looked about him the man did realise that indeed, low prices had only been the beginning.’

‘So endeth the lesson’.

 

So perhaps think twice when next Sunday comes round.  Do you really wish to worship a great red hammer, like so many communists have before you?

Coincidence? Hmmmm…

Or do you wish to remain a free-thinking person, able to decide for yourself what handyman jobs you wish to do or not do?  As for your eternal spirit, would it want to push one of those annoying trolleys with the long flat bottom and tiny basket on top around fertilizer isles for the rest of eternity?  I think not.

So visit a local & locally owned hardware store once in a while and put some money in their collection till instead.  After all, no one wants to live in a world where the Holy Wars of the future will be fought between the Blessed of Bunnings and the Faithful of Mitre 10.

 

Thank you for your question Matt.

 

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Ask Trev!, Hobby Farming, Tales of the Trev, Transformatorium

Ask Trev: How does Big Busy Trev manage to get everything done?

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This ‘Ask Trev’ question comes in from Michael in Melbourne.

‘You’re a busy man.  How do you make that work without either having a clone to help you out or somehow create a 36 hour day?’.

 

Well Michael it’s true, I am a very busy man.  Between this blog, my radio show, working full time, performing househusband duties, managing my giant Transformer collection and building furniture for their shed, as well as hobby farming where I raise goats as well as ducks and chickens, boredom is something that receded from my life many years ago.  Add on top of that the most time-intensive activity of all – being a father of two young children – and spare time in non-existent.

The many faces of Trev

First off – I will never clone myself.  Never!  Do you know how big my ego is?  How much attention seeking behaviour I indulge in?  I don’t need another one of me running around telling my jokes, eating my meat and vying for all the attention that should rightly be mine!

And now there’s more of me… him… us

Also I’m married.  What if my wife can’t tell me from the clone?  I don’t need no stinkin clone getting busy with my missus!  Plus, Primus forbid, what if it turns out by some quirk of the cloning process that he is better in bed than me?!  I don’t think my ego, large as it is, could take the hit of my wife saying ‘last night was the best sex we’ve ever had Trev!’ and I hadn’t even been at home!

As for 36 hour days, well manipulating the time stream to that extent is beyond even my capabilities.  Sure I could take my family to Mars where the days are at least 25 hours long – I could get a lot done in that extra hour – but it seems like a hassle.  It was hard enough moving my Transformer collection from one state to another without taking it to a whole other planet!

 

So how do I manage my busy lifestyle?

Well there are several things I do – some are time management and some are just sacrifice.

*Giving up hobbies: I have way too many hobbies.  Like way too many.  So some have had to be toned down and others sacrificed completely.  This blog for example, has gone from an entry each week to about two a month.  I’ve given up video gaming, though to be honest I think the gamer in me had run its course anyway.  I used to brew my own beer and had to give that up.  And I don’t farm as many fruit & vegetables as I used to, though still enough that each week we eat at least one or two things that come from the garden.  I’m also a bit of a bibliophile, but reading a book for my own pleasure has been relegated to the odd 5 minutes in bed before blissful slumber.

For a while juggling being a gamer and father was so easy!

*Multitasking: Except at work where it is a requirement, I don’t schedule.  Don’t believe in it.  What I do do is do multiple jobs in the same room at the same time.  So for example when I’m in the kitchen (with quasi-laundry attached) I might be wiping benches, preparing meals, stacking the dishwasher, loading the washing machine and unloading the dryer all at the same time (well not literally – thanks to the failure of mutation science I only have two hands).  Then the same goes for other rooms and even parts of the farm – nothing like chasing off some feral goats in the ute while you are on your way to go cut firewood in the back paddock.

Sigh… I remember when multitasking meant drinking and rocking out at the same time.

*Be Married: Dear sweet Primus let nothing ever happen to my wife!  Not only because she is the love of my life, but also because she does so many chores to manage the house & kids and our lives in general.  Chances are if she disappeared from our lives my children and I would be huddled round a fire in tattered clothing, eating beans from a can and hoping it would rain soon so we could wash ourselves.  Our existence would be akin to those survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

Make sure you treat your wife right – romance is a lot easier than being a single parent!

*Child Labour: Those damn kids can work for their food!  OK, so maybe I don’t actually deny them sustenance and or send them down mineshafts to search for coal.  But at 6 & 8 years old respectively they are at the age they can chip in with the chores.  Every day after school, before they are allowed to go play with toys or video games, they need to help unstack the dishwasher, unpack their school bags, put all their breakfast and lunch dishes in the sink and most importantly go feed all the animals.  Not only does it teach them responsibility, but it means they are spending time with their pets.  How kids can ignore a real-life dog but spend hours training a dog to obey in Minecraft is beyond me.

Wish all my chores were this cute when I was young

Of course the children love to be involved with all the constant projects going on around the farm and house too.  They help plant and pick all the vegetables, which not only helps me out but makes them more inclined to eat what we grow when it come to fruition.  My son loves to help out with my construction projects and is currently helping me build a display table for the Transformers shed, and my daughter loves to bake with her mother and make muffins for their school lunches.

Dig boy! Dig!

*And lastly, what I do most, is go, go, go!  All day, every day.  Sigh… Every. Damn. Day.  I would be lying if there wasn’t part of me that would like to spend a day just lounging on the couch, eating potato chips and rewatching Deadpool movies.  But if I wanted that I shouldn’t have had kids and chosen to live on a farm.  Life is so rewarding, and so very, very tiring.

Sometimes I fake back injuries just so I can lie down in the emergency room for an hour and rest

 

So that’s what I do Michael, that’s how Big Angry Trev manages his life.  And maybe I have kind of inwardly cloned myself in this one body.  There is Big Angry Trev the blogger, Big Farmer Trev the hobby farmer, Big DJ Trev the radio host.  And most importantly (Big) Dad (Trev) the father.  Big Gamer Trev is dead and buried but I hope to resurrect Big Brewer Trev at some point and start making my own beer again.  But then that begs the question – would I ever have the time to drink it?

 

Thank you for your question.

Got any other ‘Ask Trev’ questions?  Pop them in the comments section below!

 

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Ask Trev!

Ask Trev: Where does all my mucus go?

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Today we have another question from Shannon in Pendle Hill:

‘When you have a Vicks VapoDrop lozenge, where does the mucus in your nose go?  It just disappears!’

Seems so innocent and helpful…

 Well Shannon I must say, in this day and age of Pandemics, its nice to see someone still thinking about the common cold.

Before we continue, I must state right now DO NOT USE THOSE DROPS!  EVER!

 

Now let me tell you why….

 

In the era of information gathering, everyone is worried about it happening online.  Social Media outlets monitoring your posts to find out about your work and family.  Search Engines watching what you look for so they can target advertising right at your weaknesses.  Beware the Cookies!

But forget online – it doesn’t matter.  It’s the bastion of nerds, stalkers and of course the incredibly intelligent, good looking people who read this blog.  No, you need to worry about what is happening in reality, and what one company is after – your genetic template.

‘We are coming for your goo’

That’s right, Vicks isn’t interested in curing your cold! They are however interested in your mucus.  Because if they get your mucus they get your DNA.  And if they have your DNA, then they can clone you.  And if they can clone you, then they can murder you, put their clone in your place and then they have yet another operative out there in society doing their malevolent bidding!  You had savings?  That money now belongs to the Vicks company.  You had a job? Now your clone works there, subtly furthering the Vicks agenda.  You had kids?  They are now your clone’s kids and being raised in the Vicks ideology.

See this guy? He’s now sticking it to your wife.

Those Vapodrops are not designed to cure your mucus problems.  They are to signal the company that there is snot to be harvested!  When you suck the pill and it dissolves, a tiny radioactive marker is released.  You don’t notice it as you are sick and already feel like shit anyway.  That radioactive marker is then picked up on by one of the multitude of Vicks controlled satellites orbiting the earth and your location immediately relayed to the nearest infiltration team. Then, as you sleep, the team silently enters your home and, using a mini turkey-baster, sucks all of the mucus out of your nose.  Then they hightail it with a vial-full of your precious DNA. This is happening in thousands of homes across the world each night!

Shit – they’ve gone international!

 

So Shannon, that is where your mucus goes when you pop a Vicks Vapodrop lollie.  It goes to a secret underground bunker where scientists analyse it and begin preparations to make a Shannon-clone, soon to become one of the ever-growing army of snot-spawned operatives that each day bring us towards a total Vicks-controlled populace and the annihilation of society as we know it!

Shaped just like a lozenge – no coincidence

So next time mate, do us all a favour and just use a hanky eh 😉

I hope this has answered your question.

 

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Ask Trev!, Hobby Farming

Ask Trev: Hassle of a Broody Hen

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Dear Big Farmer Trev,
I had been warned about this with Silkies and it’s happened.
I have a broody hen.
I spent all weekend watching her trying to figure out why she is so grumpy.
She’s been laying an egg every day and getting mad as hell when I collect them.
Then she started walking about shouting and sulking and now she is mostly staying in her coop looking very upset.
I checked her over trying to figure out what on earth is wrong with her.
Physically she is in tip top condition.
My mate just walked outside and said ‘maybe she’s broody’
Then he said ‘I don’t actually know what that means, is that a thing?’
Pretty sure he is right.
So now I need your wisdom.
How do I ‘break’ a broody hen?
Or should I get her some chicks and shove them under her at night time?
Help!
Love Mads

‘I wanna be a mum!’

   Yup, she sure sounds broody to me!  You have 3 options:

1: Let it run its course, after several weeks she will get over it.

2: Lock her out of her coop during the day so it forces her to scratch about rather than sitting inside looking grumpy.  This sometimes helps decrease the duration of the broodiness by a day or two.

3: Get some fertilized eggs and put under her.  Do NOT get some chicks already born, she will know they are not hers and won’t look after them.  However if you get some fertilized eggs and put them in her nest, when they hatch she will think she is their mum and will act as such.

Good luck!

 

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Ask Trev: Chicken Perching Problem

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Today we have another chook question from Maddy in Melbourne:

 

Dear Big Farmer Trev.

Firstly I would like to acknowledge and thank you for being instrumental in this city kids foray into pseudo ‘country life’. Ok I’m over stating things, into suburban hen keeping.

The little silkies did prove a complex hen to care for and I subsequently found myself down from two to one.
The bird vet said ‘they are very poor egg layers, you can’t get them wet, they’re very broody , have a myriad of health problems…’ whereby I asked him if that was his professional way of saying ‘why the fuck would anyone ever want to keep silkies?’ He laughed. A lot. Which I took for a ‘yes, yes that is what I was getting at’
In any case one of the adorable little munchkins made it but was desperate for companionship and I have managed to assimilate a new hen into my flock.

All is mostly going swimmingly.

 The newest girl is a Welsummer.

 She’s not just the prettiest bird I have ever brought home, she is the smartest.

 She was first put in with the Silkie who was thrilled to have a new roost pal. Problem being Silkies roost low and are very poor flyers and jumpers and . . . all that other stuff the bird vet said about silkies and more.

 Anyway I built a new coop, and trained the little silkie how to navigate my complex hen ladder system to get into the higher coop.

 She’s done well the adorable little munchkin.

 So anyway..here comes my question.

 The Welsummer (Penny) is still not happy at all with the coop.

 Every evening right on dusk the other two happily put themselves to bed and Penny paces about looking for (even) higher digs.

As a keeper of many birds I am hoping you can help me to understand where does she actually want to sleep?!

 In a tree?

 Over the neighbours fence?

 Is there a coop I could get built for her that would be appropriate for her discerning specifications or is she just being a dick?

 I’d love to let her freerange at dusk to see where she actually wanted to sleep but I fear she may end up over the fence.

 Someone suggested clipping her wings first.

 I’ve never done that to any of my hens. I am remiss to fuck with their abilities like that in case it disables them in a possible escape from a predator scenario.

 Historically I have just taught them that shit is so good here they don’t need to fuck off. It’s worked so far, but Pen really really wants a higher night time roost.

Or that’s what I assume she wants when she paces about considering her options and winds up on my shoulder or on the roof of her coop.
I’d rather figure out how to accomodate her needs than fuck with her body.
Do different breeds have different innate desires or is this a quirk of Penny herself?
Have you had hens that protested their accomodation and how did you address it if they did.?
Yours in good faith,
NOT a farmer by any stretch of the imagination but semi fluent in chook.
Mads.

Hey Mads,

Most birds roost according to their inherent nature and it’s damn hard to get any animal to go against it.  In the photo’s you’ve sent I see you’ve got those little chook houses that I’ve also got a couple of.  When I first introduced my Frizzles to their houses I kept them locked up in the little coops every night for a full week so they would come to see them as their homes.

This worked – to a degree.  The chickens would go inside their houses to lay eggs and often go inside them if the weather was foul.  However at dusk, most evenings the birds would fly up as best they could (Frizzles are not god flyers, yet still a cut above Silkies) and get up onto the highest part of the houses of a night to roost there.  I tried to change this but ended up giving up, it’s what they wanted to do, and they were still pretty safe due to the high fences I had installed.

However behavior can be changed.  After we moved state and brought all our poultry with us, for about 9 months my Frizzles had to share a pen with my Muscovy ducks.  Now Muscovy’s are about the only duck breed that like to roost rather than settle on the ground, and they found the tops of the chooks houses perfect.  Being about 3 times the size of the chooks and outnumbering them greatly, the ducks easily won this battle and the chooks took to roosting on the little perches inside their houses rather than on top.

After 9 months I had finally built a very large pen for the ducks and chooks and moved everyone and their accomodations inside.  As part of this new set up I had built big perches strong enough to accommodate the Muscovy’s and they quickly took to them.  However the chickens, even a year later, have opted to remain inside their coop of a night, despite the tops of their little houses now being vacant.  Where I was unable to train my chickens, the ducks succeeded.

From what I know of Welsummers, they are medium perchers.  As in they like to be up at a decent height but don’t feel the need to be up massively high in a tree like some chooks do

So my advice is either:

A: Just accept you are going to have to physically pop her in and lock her into the little coop houses each night, which she may not particularly like but will keep her safe, and hope she will eventually acclimatize to it

or

B: Build some taller perches inside your enclosure at heights of 5 and 6 feet.  Then she can sleep up higher and be happier.  The downside is she will be more exposed to the elements and won’t keep your Silkie company of a night.    Considering your pen has a ceiling of 7 feet, I don’t think you need to go any higher.

Of course you could do as others suggested and clip her wings, but I understand why you don’t and to be honest I’ve always adopted the same thinking myself.  I don’t want my birds to think they can escape a predator by flying away, only to find when they try that some bastard human has taken that ability away and they are now feral-cat food.

Anyway Madds, hope that is of some help.

 

Got any other advice for Maddy?  Pop it in the comments section below!

 

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Ask Trev – Chickens: the balance between pet and livestock

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Dear Big Trev,

No vets in Melbourne know anything about hens. Except for one who is two hours away and deals with prize winning pedigrees and expects you will want to spend lots of money doing anything you can to save a crook chook.

The online forums offer some basic advice but it’s so difficult to know what’s wrong with a sad hen.

There seems to be a fairly common theme of ‘cull her’ amongst the more rural hen keepers.

I don’t want to spend a mint taking a vet to the other side of the city for the best bird care in Melbourne but I’m not a ‘better just let her slowly die while I stand about not caring’ kind of chook owner.

So my question is : how do I find the happy medium between livestock and pets when it comes to my backyard hens?

Thanks, Maddy.

 

Well Maddy first off let me say how sorry I am to hear that you’ve been having trouble with the health of your dear Chookies.  I know the extent you go to provide them with excellent shelters, fresh food and medicine so I can confidently say it’s certainly not a lack of effort and caring on your part that this seems to be happening.

A great little pen for a suburban backyard

As you’ve pointed out, in big cities vets hardly work with poultry so don’t know how to deal with them.  Whilst a growing number of people keep a few hens in their backyard, in capital cities it’s primarily cats and dogs the vets deal with and that’s what they train in.  In the country vets tend to know a bit more about chickens, but as you also point out, there tends to be a ‘cull them’ mentality.  Chickens in the country are not birds people generally make emotional attachments to, and given they are not very expensive to replace most farmers will simply kill a crook chook and get rid of it before it has a chance to infect any other of the flock.

So if country vets are out and city vets are out, what does that leave us with?  The specialist vets like the one you have mentioned which is a two-hour drive away.  And indeed yes they deal with the ‘speciality breeds’ that people have mainly for shows.  I was amazed when attending a poultry auction in Bathurst a few months ago how much 3 small Silkies went for – more than I think I’ve spent on my entire flock combined!  In these cases vets feel free to charge a mint as there is a significant financial loss to the owner if they lose a bird.  What help is this to the backyard chook enthusiast? None.

Online forums can be tricky.  I mean, how do you know if the person who wrote what you are reading has any real idea what they are talking about?  Most loonies and know-it-alls end up on the net these days and will happily preach about that which they know little.

 

So back to your main question: how do I find the happy medium between livestock and pets when it comes to my backyard hens?

Ya can’t help but get at least a bit attached to such lovely creatures

It’s really finding the balance that works well for you.  You obviously have great affection for your chookies but not the same kind of love you would have for say a cat or dog.  I relate completely.  And anyone who thinks people don’t get attached to birds at all should have seen how upset my 5-year old son was when a wedge-tailed eagle nearly killed our Frizzle Rooster, poor little bloke was in tears and insisted on sitting with me in the pen while I tended to the rooster and, thankfully, was able to fix it up.  But if we had lost the Rooster, it would not be the same as losing our beloved Burmese Cat or Shetland Sheepdog.

If I may make a recommendation, I would stick with the most common and generic breeds of chicken.  They are usually not expensive, and it also means there is a wealth of information out there regarding any issues that may arise with them.  Also look for hardy breeds, in a big city like Melbourne chickens have to deal with a lot more noise and air pollution than they do in a rural setting and can be subject to greater amounts of stress than they would pecking around on a farm. Don’t go for the biggest chooks, they wont do well in a small yard.  Don’t go for the most prolific layers unless you want to treat them completely as livestock, as they tend to have shorter lifespans.  Don’t go for the fancy breeds unless you want to treat them completely as pets, they tend to be fragile and require a high level of maintenance.  For a happy medium between pet and livestock – common and hardy – that’s the ticket!  This will also stop you suffering too much of a financial loss if a chicken is lost.

By getting breeds that fit these two categories, it will mean you can have a few lovely chookies in your yard that shouldn’t get too sick too often, and you should be able to find information on them fairly easily.  Perhaps invest in a book or two about whatever breeds you select.  If sickness occurs you can always try ringing around various vets – you may at least be able to get some advice and some vets will actually give you a syringe of whatever elixir is needed to take home to treat your poultry yourself.  If no vets are helpful and you need to turn to the net, be selective about what sites you visit and see if several different reputable sites will have a consensus about what might be wrong.  Avoid the chat forums – that’s where all the self-professed experts (i.e. nutters) reside.

 

And sadly, to live in that happy medium between livestock and pets one has to realize that sometimes you will lose a bird no matter what you do.  We’ve lost chickens to heatwaves and hawks, and likewise lost ducks to travel-stress and foxes.  It’s always sad but it’s an inevitable fact of poultry ownership – sometimes the feathery buggers check out no matter what you do.  Between the dangers I just listed your chooks also have to deal with dogs, cats, eagles, lice, mites, fleas, ticks, intestinal worms, diseases and sometimes even each other.  Sometimes I wonder how they survive at all!

 

I hope this advice is of some help to you Maddy, and I hope your dear chookies get well soon.

 

Got any other advice for Maddy?  Pop it in the comments section below.

 

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Ask Trev: Fun & Romantic Treasure Hunt

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Today we have another question from Lucille, all the way in South Africa!

Big Angry Trev, how do you plan a romantic fun treasure hunt for your other half’s bday?

 

Well Lucille, a fun treasure hunt usually involves items hidden all over town.

A romantic treasure hunt usually involves items hidden all over your body.

So how to combine the two?

Easy!  Don’t use your body.

The face of romance

If one follows scavenging animals for long enough, one will usually come across a corpse.  Could be a homeless bum who froze to death, could be a junkie that shot up one time too many.  Heck, could even be someone who saw how much a damn coffee costs these days and had a heart attack!  The point is, search and ye shall find.

Now when you hide items all over town they can be pretty much any size.  When you hide items on your body, they usually need to be tiny in order to hide under the fall of a breast, cleft of a buttock or behind the meaty curtain of your average scrotum.  By following the method outlined below, you should be able to meld these two concepts into something both romantic and fun!

 

Items Required:

*Treasure Hunt items (none bigger than say a fish bowl)

*Several corpses located in different parts of town

*A scalpel

*Needle and twine

*Hand sanitizer

*A treasure map

 

Step 1: Load up your sack full of the different items you want your other half to find.

Step 2: Wander around town until you find your first corpse.  Mark on your map where it is located.

Step 3: Using your scalpel, cut an incision in the corpse.  Where you do this will depend on what you are planting there.  If jewellery, just behind the spleen or even the lung cavity are perfect spots.  If something larger like a new teapot or a DVD Box Set, then I suggest the gut.  If the person is fat enough, you can even hollow out a buttock cavity and pop a toaster in there.

So many fun places to hide a fancy bottle of wine!

Step 4: Sew the corpse back up.

Step 5: Continue to do this with every corpse you find, making sure to mark them on your map.

Step 6: When defiling your last corpse (I suggest at least half a dozen), the most special gift should go in there.  Usually plane tickets for a romantic trip are the most appropriate, as well as getting you out of town for a while in case the police take interest in your activities.

 

Then on the day you give your significant other their surprise (in Summer I suggest as soon as possible, in Winter you have a while before the dead begin to really smell) meet them at their house dressed in your loveliest clothes.  Present them with the map, the scalpel, the hand santizer (otherwise the whole exercise would just be yucky), the sack and tell them to get searching!

Follow along and watch the surprise and delight your romantic fun treasure hunt gives your loved one as they rummage through intestines and bladders to find their special gifts!  Then wing your way to take a well-deserved holiday, all while the police search in vain for whoever has been committing these foul deeds.

 

I hope this works for you Lucille.  Given it’s my 10-year wedding anniversary in a few months, I might just be doing the same for my lovely bride!

Good Luck!

 

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Ask Trev: How do I avoid spoilers?

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This question comes from Michael in Melbourne:

How do you avoid spoilers for major movies/comics/stories etc in the age of the internet? What is an appropriate time delay before spoilers are OK in a public forum? What should be done (if anything) to those who spoil things for others?

Ah spoilers, people do tend to forget that the major word within that is ‘spoil’ don’t they eh!  That by giving away the plot and/or ending they are spoiling that potential experience for someone else.

 

So how to avoid spoilers in the age of the internet?

The problem with major movies is that half the time the trailer IS the spoiler – they are that desperate to get you to see their flick instead of the other thousand other competing movies that come out that month, that they put in clips of all the best parts, which usually includes images of the climax of the movie!  It’s a pain in the arse is what it is!  So what hope have you of avoiding spoilers when even the trailers can spoil movies for you?  And comics and stories aren’t much better.

So to avoid spoilers from the internet, I suggest the following:

See no spoilers. Hear no spoilers.

*Step 1: Announce to the world via social media that you will be logging off for the foreseeable future and that A: you are not dead, just uncontactable, and B: You will hurt anyone that tries to break your embargo.

*Step 2: Unplug your computer

*Step 3: Smash your smart phone

*Step 4: Fake an illness and get a month’s leave from work

*Step 5: Erect a barricade made out of old furniture and razor wire on your front lawn, leaving a small hidden Hogan’s Heroes-esque tunnel so that your kids can still go to school and your wife can still bring home food.

*Step 6: Go into the basement

*Step 7: Apply a blindfold and earplugs

*Step 8: Get your wife to feed you and empty your potty until the day of the movie/comic/story release, then get her to lead you, still in a state of sensory deprivation, to the cinema/comic/bookstore.

*Step 9: Wait until you are seated with the book in your hand or the movie is starting (NOT while the trailers for other flicks are still running) then with a prearranged signal from your spouse, remove earplugs and blindfold and enjoy your spoiler-free experience.

And the beauty is, you will probably smell so much by then that most people will want to stay the hell away, which lessens the risk of spoilers in the future.

 

What is an appropriate time delay before spoilers are OK in a public forum?

Six months.  That’s the golden rule – six months.  Unless it’s me and it’s a movie and then it’s a solid two years because that’s how long it takes me to get around to watching a flick (unless it’s Deadpool or Transformers in which case I’m there front row centre!).

 

What should be done (if anything) to those who spoil things for others?

They should be turned from their homes.  They should be stripped naked and paraded through the streets where they can be jeered and pelted with rotted fruit by the populace at large.  They should be marched up the steps of the nearest town hall where, via the medium of a car battery and a wet towel, their genitalia is repeatedly fried again and again so that they can not produce another generation that cant keep their damn traps shut!

 

I wish you luck Michael, in this day and age avoiding spoilers is almost an impossible feat, but with the love (and potty emptying skills) of a good woman I’m sure you will manage it somehow.

 

Got any other advice for Michael?  Add it in the comments section below!

 

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Ask Trev: Fight against Giant Duck or Tiny Horses?

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This question comes from Jordan in Lithgow:

‘Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?’

One would assume it would be the 100 duck-sized horses that would pose the most danger.  Horses have been known to kill humans plenty of times in the past.  A horses kick can take your head right off and a horses bite can remove the flesh from your arm down to the bone!  Fight a hundred of those little buggers and you could be in big trouble!  They en’masse kick your shins to splinters and when you fall to the ground they bite and trample and use their tiny hooves to cave your skull in.  A hundred tiny horses could really f*ck you up!

But if you have ever owned ducks, you know this question is not so cut and dried.

You see ducks at river-fronting parks, swimming about happily awaiting thrown pieces of bread, or waddling around with what is truly one of the most amusing walks in the animal kingdom.  Ducks are non-threatening and cute…

…usually.

We’ve had Muscovy ducks for years and I’ll tell ya what, they are not always super-cute!  The ducks are the perfect evidence of where the origins of ‘Pecking Order’ comes from.  I’ve seen the older Ducks strip the feathers from a younger one every day until by the end of the week her poor wings were just flesh and bones.  And as for the Drakes, they can be big vicious brutes!  We’ve given up on having more than one Drake at a time as whichever one becomes dominant beats the living shit out of the other on a daily basis.  And they will attack humans – both my kids when they were pre-3 copped a savaging because they harassed the ducks too much, and our current drake can certainly put the wind up my wife when he is in a bad mood.

So a horse-sized duck could be far more of a threat to be reckoned with than one would think, especially if it is a drake.  Ours has had our rooster on its back and stood on top of him, using his beak to bash the roosters head in!  Imagine what a horse-sized version of that could do to a human if it got its gander up!  With a combination of its talons, a hard blunt beak and a lot of aggression behind its weight, you will be begging for mercy and promising to never buy orange sauce again!

 

So getting to the question which would I rather fight?

 

The Pros & Cons:

Numbers: One huge duck to concentrate your attacks on is far easier than trying to fend off and destroy a hundred smaller targets.

I’d fight the duck.

Height Advantage: Horses can jump high relative to their height but at duck-size and with hooves, all you have to do is climb something of sufficient height and they can’t get near you.  A huge duck however has the aerial advantage  and can swoop down to literally crush you from a great height.

I’d fight the horses.

Bites vs Pecks:  A horses mouth will be pretty small at duck-sized, but anyone who has been bitten by a small creature knows it can still hurt like hell and cause a fair bit of damage.  Whereas a ducks bill when used offensively is more like a club due to it being rounded rather than pointy like a chooks beak.  A huge ducks bill may crack a few ribs, but it wont rend the flesh from your bones.

I’d fight the duck.

Weight advantage:

A duck-sized horse has gotta weigh at least half a ton.  Your best punch aint gonna do squat.  Whereas tiny horses you could pick up in one hand and use your other to snap their spindly little legs off.

I’d fight the horses.

Natural Aggression: Both are domesticated creatures… until you piss them off then they will try to kill your dopey human arse.

A draw.

 

So in the end, which would I rather fight?

That’s easy.  Horse-meat has piss-poor flavour.  So I’d fight the giant duck, win, light a big fire then literally feast upon 500 kilos of my worthy opponent.  Finger lickin’ good!

Hope that answers your question Jordan.

 

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