onetrack

.......and even Donald Trump and Putin look-alikes. This was primarily led by the huge demand and generous renumeration for body doubles, for these two leaders - although the remake did come with some risks - even when those people weren't being employed as body doubles. It wasn't a lot different to having a bullseye tattooed on your face, actually. And speaking of tattoos - of course, Turbo rapidly realised there were those clients who preferred to avoid plastic surgery, but were happy to get large numbers of tattoos - thus meaning they could blend in better with the vast majority of the 21st century, general population of Australia. Accordingly, Turbo always ensured that TFPS had a subsidiary business, Turbine Terrifying Tattoos, located next door to every TFPS surgery. One would think that having "Terrifying" in ones trading name would turn people away - but No, Turbo knew that people who wanted tattoos, would understand that the "Terrifying" part of the name would mean that they would come out of the tattoo parlour looked even more terrifying, than when they went in - which is the whole aim of tattoos, of course, as anyone in the underworld knows. It was while Tony Mokbel was getting a new tattoo in the TTT parlour, however, that the problems started. Everyone knows you don't mess with Tony, and even more so, when Tony is unhappy. When Tony realised his new tattoo had been misspelled, things got ugly very quickly. Tony jumped out of his chair, screaming, "You.........

Once you get into the farming country, it will be pink and grey galahs, corellas, and ringneck parrots feeding by the roadside on spilt grain, that will be decorating your grille! Good to hear the trip is going O.K. Is the Christmas traffic heavy? When I lived alongside the Coolgardie-Norseman Rd at Higginsville, the traffic levels built up enormously before Christmas Day - then on Christmas Day itself, we could hold a party in the middle of the highway, with hardly a vehicle to be seen! Even 50 years ago, traffic levels reached nearly 1,000 vehicles a day going through Norseman. I believe the numbers haven't altered greatly in 50 years, with a reported average of 700 vehicles a day through Norseman, and 2/3rds of them, East-West trucks. Cheap airline fares killed driving the East-West route. The drive still gives you an appreciation of the vastness of Australia, same as driving the Great Central Road does. 11 years ago, I bought a good used 2WD petrol Hilux traytop at auction in Alice Springs. When I went to arrange a flight to Alice Springs from Perth, I couldn't fly direct, there were no flights! So, I ended up flying to Sydney, then back to Alice Springs! The fares were actually quite cheap, back then. I got into Alice Springs mid-afternoon, picked up the Hilux, fuelled it, got some food and water and a couple of jerrycans, and took off for the West that afternoon. I just camped on the tray of the Hilux at a suitable spot the first night - although I did pull into Warakurna Roadhouse/Caravan Park the second night, for the showers and camp kitchen. The third night, I softened up, and camped in the White House Hotel in Leonora. I pulled into Kalgoorlie early the next day, licenced the Hilux for W.A., and was home that night! I put up some photos of my trip, it was a good trip, and the road was well maintained over nearly all of its length. Running into numerous Indigenes and assisting with their car (and fuel) problems was all part of the trip excitement! I've still got the Hilux, it's a backup vehicle, although I don't really need it now. https://pbase.com/onetrack/tjukaruru_rd__grt_central_road

They're designing a new horse to prevent the motor car from taking over. The future is not in complex, high maintenance, fossil-fuelled engines - the future is in electric motors and batteries. YASA, a Mercedes Benz subsidiary, is now producing axial-flux, lightweight electric motors - that are being designed and utilised as wheel motors in EV's. They are going into high-end machines at present, such as Lamborghinis and Ferraris, but very soon, you will see your average EV comprising a drive train that consists only of 4 wheel motors. The weight-saving is predicted to be around 500kg for the average redesigned EV in the future. The axial-flux motor design has been perfected by a British scientist, and YASA now has a U.K. factory producing these motors, and YASA is actively looking for more uses for them - with Defence and Military use on their radar. Aviation use is a no-brainer for these axial flux motors. How does a continuous 500HP from a 13kg motor sound? That makes for plenty of weight saving for more batteries for the power source. Battery charging technology is now down to 10 mins to get to 80% recharge. The future is electric, despite what Trump wants to see. https://yasa.com/about/ https://yasa.com/news/yasa-smashes-own-unofficial-power-density-world-record-pushing-state-of-the-art-electric-motor-to-staggering-new-59kw-kg-benchmark/ Soft Magnetic Composite Material is the secret sauce that is rapidly advancing electric motive power, it really is a game-changer.

......lining up to get their slanted eyes pulled into "round eye" shape. Naturally, Turbo had been quick off the mark, with Turbine Facial Plastic Surgery Inc, opening up in multiple locations faster than TKD. However, there were some downsides to the plastic surgery that many Tasmanians failed to understand until after the surgery. First off, Turbo actually used real plastic in his plastic surgeries. When journalists started querying this process, Turbo loftily replied, "The use of plastic in our plastic surgeries is due to our clean and green credentials. With such a huge oversupply of recyclable plastic available, that no-one knows what to do with, it simply makes good economic and environmental sense, to use some of that available plastic in our surgical procedures! Besides, it IS called "plastic surgery", isn't it? What did these people expect?" However, as the rumblings, and then the loud complaints, of unhappy TFPS customers started to rapidly increase, Turbo was forced into some fast decision making. Did he continue on with the business in Tasmania - where adverse pressures against him were happening, or did he move to China, where "the sky was the limit" for client numbers. It was a no-brainer, and before long.........

That bloke has definitely missed his lifes calling - as a Sign Language interpreter beside the news reader! That new engine produces no worthy advances in IC-engine design - it merely contains all the problem of a piston engine, along with all the problems of a rotary engine!

SWMBO told me recently that her ex-hubby, before he married, bought a used van that had been a washing machine repairmans van. It was still plastered with the repairmans signwriting, advertising washing machine repairs. She said he took a couple of mates and drove across the Nullarbor to the East Coast, and up to N Qld in it, for a grand holiday tour - but whenever they stopped, people would regularly come out of nowhere, asking the blokes if they could fix their broken-down washing machine! 😄 Moneybox has jagged one huge advantage in his trip across the Long Paddock - a huge high pressure system is setting up in the Bight, with fine weather and a handy SE tailwind all the way. That makes a big difference when traversing that route, as against fighting strong Westerly headwinds all the way. Fuel costs get pretty astronomical across the Nullarbor, I paid $2.55 for diesel at Mundrabilla in May 2024. I hope Moneybox bought some jerrycans to extend his range. Diesel is $2.92 today at Nullarbor Roadhouse.

Brendan, it's Moneybox's eyes that will be glazed, after the next two thousand kays! 😄

Wow! Look out, everyone along the Nullarbor, for the Ratchet Strap Special! 😄 This gives me a whole new level of respect for Chinese ratchet straps!

Move to W.A.! - we don't have starlings, and even one sighting of a starling brings out an eradication campaign. They would cost W.A. hundreds of millions in agricultural losses if they ever managed to get established here. Bright flashing lights, loud noises, sharp spikes mounted at nesting or roosting positions, distress calls of the bird species, and the cries of predator birds, are the main things that deter unwanted birds. https://www.ebay.com/itm/404281383875

My Dad got paid £15 a week in 1957 as the resident painter in the Palace Hotel in Central Perth. He was quite pleased to get the job and the pay, after he threw in dairy farming, because dairy farming didn't even pay wages, it was actually a loss-making operation. The dairy farming looked good in 1951 when he started, then the State Govt tightened milk quotas around 1954, due to over-production, so that wrecked any possibility of making a profit. The milk quotas were introduced during the Great Depression (early 1930's). We have an old saying in rural areas - "You've never known real poverty, until you've been a dairy farmer!" https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46358586/3727394 £50 a week was a very good salary in 1955, and the pay rate of a Captain today is probably around 3-4 times the average salary, so the relationship to many things one has to purchase today, is similar. Cars are far cheaper today and much better equipped, but housing and property has gone ballistic, and skewed the relationship to many things. A Captain of a big commercial airliner today has a lot more technology to deal with, but weather forecasting is much improved since 1955 - communications and information levels are instant and enormous, and the flying conditions would be vastly more comfortable today, than the piston-engine, unpressurised, low altitude era. That was a very unhappy end to Captain Virtues career, and I trust he enjoyed the move into farming - but it would have been a lot harder, lower-paying work, even so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Virtue

Crime rate in Northam, Australia - RedSuburbs REDSUBURBS.COM.AU Crime rate profile of Northam

Moneybox, I trust you've got a list of friends or associates you can call on, along the route, if things go pear-shaped, and that Hyundai lets you down. The longest and loneliest section is Ceduna to Norseman. It's very hard to get anyone to stop out there, the truckies have their right foot glued to the floorboards and will not back off until they're forced to, and a lot of people in cars watched Wolfe Creek just before they left, and they'll floor it when they see someone standing by the roadside. Make sure you take a suit, and put it on if you break down. 😄

The companies that refuse to send to PO boxes, are using freight agents that are not part of Australia Post or Startrack, so they can't deliver to P.O. boxes, because AP has to handle the parcels to be able to put them in a P.O. box - which of course, are owned by AP. Handing the parcels over to AP for the final placement into P.O. boxes would double your freight/shipping costs. Officeworks started "Mailman" in 2015, which was a "post box" system for parcels, all located in Officeworks stores, where you could go to pick up your parcels, However, Mailman didn't last long, because AP have the monopoly on the postal box system. Mailman was wound up by Officeworks in 2020.

sfGnome, the AP contractors are hit-and-miss, some are good, some are useless. I reckon a lot of them can barely speak English, so they avoid face-to-face contact. The posties themselves are good, well-trained and efficient, but they can't handle the AP parcel volumes, so AP and Startrack are always hiring outside contractors with vans for final deliveries.

The average Aust Post contractor generally throws the delivery over the fence, into something like the bird bath, then runs away - even though it's listed as having to be signed for, on delivery.

Phil - I just re-checked, he's actually stuck at Border Village. He only needs to go to Pt Augusta. He's also got 2 people to go with it, that's often a deal killer. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1140085680263008/user/100004714920031

Breaking down on the Nullarbor (correct spelling, Nev - Grammar Police here 😄) is one of the most expensive ways to break down - because of the vast distances, and because anyone who engages in vehicle recovery in remote areas sees it as a licence to print money. That's why all the servos on the East-West route are littered with abandoned cars. When I lived at Higginsville, 60 kms N of Norseman, in the early 1980's, a bloke travelling East in a '75 model V12 Daimler Sovereign broke down at the Widgiemooltha Roadhouse. He abandoned the Daimler at the Roadhouse and caught a Greyhound Bus to his destination in the East and never came back for the car. The roadhouse owner sold the Daimler to my neighbour Rick for $2500, Rick sorted out the problems with it (electrical, as most problems with Jags are), and Rick drove around in the Daimler for a few months, enjoying the British luxury car experience - until he realised he could easily take out a 'roo with it, and a new grille for the car was $1,200! So he sold it, and made some money out of it, and bought a 4WD! Someone on FB is currently broken down at Nullarbor Roadhouse in a Hyundai van and they're desperately trying to get it to S.A. It will probably cost them more than the van is worth.

I guess you realise that by now, there are another 16 very unhappy Sport Pilot members, who are going to have a devastating Christmas, without their copy of the mag?? 😄

My apologies, I thought Moneybox bought the Hyundai from Pickles, I should have rechecked his post. Manheim and Pickles are different unrelated corporations. I've bought off Manheim, too - they aren't much different to Pickles, as regards their attitude towards selling auction items. Manheims website security was so poor, they were hacked and their website locked up, and the hackers demanded $30M to unlock it. Manheim never paid the hackers anything, but had to start a whole new website from scratch. As with so many corporations, they came out with soothing responses like, "Never fear, your personal details are safe and the hackers didn't get them, because they were held in a separate area". What a lot of BS that was - after the Manheim hack, I was bombarded with scam and phishing emails for months and months, and all my personal details were almost certainly stolen.

I might add, I've been buying from Pickles for at least 35 years - and they're not getting any better. Buying at auction without close inspection is highly risky, and Pickles are reducing vehicle inspections to the absolute minimum - and with the likes of vehicle salvage, you cannot inspect the vehicle under any circumstances! Furthermore, they will tell you absolutely nothing about any vehicle they're auctioning, and lie whenever they can. I haven't bought a vehicle from Pickles for a long time, simply because I no longer trust them to do the right thing. They've taken money from my credit card fraudulently ($1,100), and it took 19 days for them to repay the stolen money, and I reckon that was only because I reported the fraud to my credit card provider. They've taken a couple of months to issue zero-balance invoices on goods I've bought through them, and overall, I rate them fairly low on the trustworthiness side when it comes to business dealings. Their admin is virtually uncontactable (try finding contact phone numbers or names on their site! - they're worse than a bank!), and vast amounts of their admin is done from third world countries. You're probably dealing with an Indian operating from an internet cafe in some smelly backstreet in Mumbai, when you get a rare email from Pickles. I would ensure that Hyundai is thoroughly checked over, before setting off. If you're lucky, the battery might get you to Bordertown. And all that duct tape on the grille definitely looks suss. The driver for the glass crowd has hit something solid with the front end, judging by that bumper displacement. I hope it was cheap.

I was under the impression Moneybox was getting the vehicle trucked across. Flying over, picking it up and driving it back, is generally a lot more costly and time consuming than having it transported. I must say, I have done it several times, but for additional reasons. Last year, I was in a bind moving 4 tonnes of parts from Melbourne to Perth. The Trans Line had been under water for 3 weeks, the Eyre Hwy went under water shortly after, and there were vehicle movement restrictions on the Eyre Hwy for days on end - and I could not get anyone to transport my parts for a reasonable price - the truckies were having a field day. Quotes ranged from $5,500 to $13,000 to get my stuff across. I flew one way to Melbourne (had enough Velocity points to cover the $200), got picked up by a mate from Echuca, picked up a cheap 4 tonne truck, and brought the parts back to W.A. myself for just over $1500 in fuel, and around $500 in accommodation and food. The truck will be sold for more than I paid for it (it was a private sale).

No air raid sirens, no factory bombing, no forced labour in sight, tools that aren't even connected to what they're supposed to be doing, starts off a radial engine, goes to a V12, then back to a radial?? Even the machine tools looks suspiciously dodgy and all too modern component handling systems. This AI video maker seems to think the Nazi manufacturing machine was superb - the bottom line was, they failed to come anywhere near the production output of the British and Allies, let alone the Americans.

Phil, this place might be worth a call, it's not far away from Pickles. https://storeroomselfstorage.com.au/ You're running close to the wind to get it across before Christmas on a truck. Someone with an open semi will be able to carry it, try some of the big earthmoving equipment or machinery transporters. A lot of these people have frames to carry vehicles above low profile, heavy items. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1140085680263008

O.K., so that explains a lot, it was a company based in Quebec, but it has been cancelled and is now inactive.