Watching Carols for Christmas on tv live from Sydney. The show sponsored by Jesus Woolworths and and Coca Cola. Now if there ever was a worthy and moral Isis target....

Surfers Paradise a border town nice and lively. We will cross the border into New South Wales around 730 tomorrow and just drive down the coast towards Sydney

I think it is day 5 of our journey from Cairns to Melbourne by car. We are at Surfers Paradise

Thus we are still in Queensland and about half way in our journey. We are having a rest day today peering from the 29th floor balcony at the Novotel hotel at the brisk Pacific Ocean. We have covered 1500 kilometres in those 4 days whic is enough driving just for now. The Nissan Navara pick up is going very well. 

Day 2 drive Cairns to Melbourne, an easy day

We intended to drive for 8 hrs today but detoured at about 300 kms to Airlie Beach/ Shute Harbour a kind of famo7s access point to the Whitsunday Passage, lots of islands and the Great Barrier Reef.
The 300km we drove were easy highway through  very dry country, dry river beds, low hills and these dominating giant blue skies in this part of Queensland. I'd like to comment on the people and the local cultural aspects but there aren't any.
We are staying in an apartment with a view of harbour and its n8ce...hot day, cooling in the afternoon, around $170au per night.
Last night in Townsville we stayed at the Aquarius on the beach, and that was really n8ce, at $100 a night. We had a good meal at the Watermark Restaurant nearby in Townsville last night and saw Jonathan Thurston an Australian rugby league football hero and his team at the next 5able. THE Watermark restau4ant has very good food and service and the dinner for 2...2 entrees, pasta and mussels, and one main dish of half kilo tbone steak, a glass of red wine and 9ne of lemade was $120, which is a lot but we were tired and it was
nearby. We will go out somewhere nearby here in Airlie Beach and it will be costly too I expect as it is a bit of annternational destination with the islands and reef etc. And tomorrow we will do the long drive to Central Queensland straight down a straight highway One for about 8 hours. Just had a swim. I think in a few days the weariness we have from ge ting ready for the trip and packing up the house etc will give way to more ease and relaxation. Bye from Airlie Beach, Queensland.

Journey Cairns to Melbourne Day One of the 3000km drive.

Woke up at 4am from a late night feverishly packing the Nissan Navara 4x4 dual cab ute pick up, from sleeping on the yoga mat in Cairns, and advised Mrs Fitz that I had forgotten how to stand up.
After re learning how to stand up from a yoga mat, we did lots of things and finally departed by Nissan Navara, packed to the hilt, literally, at 11am. 4 hours 40 minutes later, traversing the big change from the wet tropics of unending green to the Dry Tropics of Townsville 400km South of Cairns, we made good time on a bright clear highway, stopped a few times, and now are esconced in a Townsville motel called Aquarius on The Beach...as it is on the beach...pics follow.

The Removalists come in the morning, or so they say. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I really don't know anymore...it really doesn't matter any more...much like Colonel Kurtz somewhere in the lost Apocalypse jungles of Indochina...it just doesn't matter any more...I've gone beyond all that....2.15am at the moment, the screech of packing tape and the slash of the blade. They call him "Box-Cutter Johnny" now.

The Removalists come in the morning, or so they say. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I really don't know anymore...it really doesn't matter any more...much like Colonel Kurtz somewhere in the lost Apocalypse jungles of Indochina...it just doesn't matter any more...I've gone beyond all that....2.15am at the moment, the screech of packing tape and the slash of the blade. They call me "Box-Cutter Johnny" now.

So, driving from Cairns to Melbourne...7 days, 2,974.35 km, yes, that's okay. Easy. We can do that and still have time for a bit of surfing. Still amazing what can become okay when the heart is set on it and the wheels of one's powers and machinations are fully applied....or, as they say, when the blowtorch is applied to the belly of meaning.

So, driving from Cairns to Melbourne...7 days, 2,974.35 km, yes, that's okay. Easy. We can do that and still have time for a bit of surfing. Still amazing what can become okay when the heart is set on it and the wheels of one's powers and machinations are fully applied....or, as they say, when the blowtorch is applied to the belly of meaning.

Earlville, Cairns, is an interesting place to live. I was just at Stockland shops getting 10 metres of pre-packaged bubble wrap (can I have that wrapped, please? No, get out!). I went to the Bottle Shop to get my daily bottle of Guinness (+ 2 on a Sunday, for Christ's sake), and, anyway, there was this giant of a man, giant like a Samoan guy, except white, in the shop wandering about quacking like a duck. Aisle to aisle, quack, quack, quack. I was going to laugh and say hello, as I usually would, and enter into some banter and social intercourse on ducks and how their quack has no echo, as I usually do, but then he started talking to the bottles as if in love..."How do you do, Jack Daniels, how do you today? Hahahaha! Quack Quack Quack..." and he spoke it in a guttural Belfast O'Hooligan dialect, so I thought I best leave him be. Obviously deep in prayer.

curios

a really good album to not do work to: Bob Dylan's Self Portrait...Get you a copper kettle, get you a copper coil, fill it with home made corn mash, and never more we'll toil...we'll just lay there by the juniper whilst the moon is high, watch them jugs a filing' in the pale moon light. My daddy he made whiskey, my grandaddy he did too...we aint paid no whiskey tax since 1792...

one of my favourite quotes from the films ... "I fell for you big time, I fell for you like a blind roof-tiler."

COUNTDOWN: DAY 0+1 We dropped off car the Honda Jazz at the Car Transporters for the haulage from Cairns to Melbourne. Company name: Prixcars. I asked "Do you pronounce that Pre-cars or Pricks-cars? The man with the lazy gaze replied: "Depends who's drivin' it, mate." Mrs Fitz went into an apoplexy when the ancient yet savage looking giant junk-yard dog ceremoniously peed on the car tyres, thus taking total possession of and responsibility for the vehicle. I thought we might have to employ the Jaws of Life to cut through the car to get Mrs Fitz out, but it worked out ok. So, the big removals twuck should come tomorrow, Saturday. Gas, electricity and water is connected to the Melbourne abode. Sunday will be cleaning up here. We have to pick up some of Tianshu's university documents in Townsville en route...so that should mean heading off Monday morning from here 6am. Do-able. Strange how, from an impossible, unlikely situation, it becomes do-able with some effort and some luck and some grace. Still, as noted, if Donald Trump can become the President of the USA, indeed, anything is possible.

COUNTDOWN: DAY 0+1

We dropped off car the Honda Jazz at the Car Transporters for the haulage from Cairns to Melbourne. Company name: Prixcars. I asked "Do you pronounce that Pre-cars or Pricks-cars?

The man with the lazy gaze replied: "Depends who's drivin' it, mate."

Mrs Fitz went into an apoplexy when the ancient yet savage looking giant junk-yard dog ceremoniously peed on the car tyres, thus taking total possession of and responsibility for the vehicle. I thought we might have to employ the Jaws of Life to cut through the car to get Mrs Fitz out, but it worked out ok.

So, the big removals twuck should come tomorrow, Saturday. Gas, electricity and water is connected to the Melbourne abode. Sunday will be cleaning up here.

We have to pick up some of Tianshu's university documents in Townsville en route...so that should mean heading off Monday morning from here 6am. Do-able.

Strange how, from an impossible, unlikely situation, it becomes do-able with some effort and some luck and some grace.

Still, as noted, if Donald Trump can become the President of the USA, indeed, anything is possible.

Opposite building, one floor down...small girl. "Excuse me, I am standing on my balcony now. Will someone please come along and sing to me?"

COUNTDOWN: Day 2-1+1?: SUNSET: Having a break from home moving preparations...having put down the shovel (after tracking down the call centre Indian guy who phoned once to sell us a new telecom system...cutting off his head...and burying him in the Cairns Pavilions compound yard). One bottle of Guinness (It is a cry for help). Good. Now the angina and the cold sores indicative of too much human movement for someone who usually lives on a lounge imitating a walrus, have settled down, I am spending a moment recalling my youth... There we were, at 20 years of age, cold and craven, travelling about Northern Italy. Having fun, being poor. My great platonic friend Maximus de Bono and myself....spending those long beautiful evenings in Tuscany waxing each others chests whilst Caravaggio played flute in the background...the torture of bliss...but...that's another story...we were living just near where George Clooney has his big house there...on the shore of Lake Como...Oh, dear George...but that's another story...

A person knows they have reached a certain point of grace and maturity in a marriage and in the ups and downs of moving house when the husband says to the wife..."Ah, the washing is done, I will hang out the clothes now." And her reply is "Yes, hang them on the clothes line." And the husband mutters to himself "On the clothes line? Now there is an idea....mutter...mutter...why didn't I think of that...and I was just going to walk around with the washing hanging on my dick all day...mutter, mutter..."

Well the most perfect and gorgeous tall standing heavy Thai brass 1945 motorised 3 speed electric nuclear fusion powered fan (that could open a big can of Golden Circle pineapple just by sticking the can into the blades) has gone. Mrs Fitz, passing the fan yesterday, in a blizzard of Han organisational momentum, put her hand into the fan, there being no safety bars etc, and the razor sharp spinning blades delivered a clean cut to a top of a finger, through the top of the finger, and through the nail. The cut was so clean it was almost art. So, Mr Fitz instantly gave the fan to the managers of the complex here who have a small child, Irina. They accepted it gratefully...its worth a fortune...sigh, yet still, Mr Johnny Fitz, in his deeply protective manner handed it over with a qualm. The qualm came later. It was sooo beautiful, sigh, so rare...but still, that's not the point. If I am not here for and to protect Mrs Fitz, then I am no Mr Fitz at all.

MINDFULNESS: Now, whilst Mrs Fitz is at her Christmas work party tonight, I can simply roll up the 8ft square artificial turf on the balcony and throw it off the balcony to the ground 4 floors down and if it doesn't hit someone then I can just go down in the lift, pick it up and take it to the bin. I liked that artificial grass, and the river stones, and the plants, on the balcony. They provided an artificial paradise for me, the sunbirds, the geckoes, and a great hiding place for the clothes pegs for years...sigh. I guess, pretty soon, in inner Melbourne suburbia, I'll be riding my cool sporty hybrid Giant bicycle on early morning jaunts in my generously tight white lycra outfit, and stopping for the occasional coffee and buttered buns at Cafe D'Asshole in Doncaster with my new homies, looking down at my freshly waxed legs and getting erections about myself.

MINDFULNESS: Now, whilst Mrs Fitz is at her Christmas work party tonight, I can simply roll up the 8ft square artificial turf on the balcony and throw it off the balcony to the ground 4 floors down and if it doesn't hit someone then I can just go down in the lift, pick it up and take it to the bin. I liked that artificial grass, and the river stones, and the plants, on the balcony. They provided an artificial paradise for me, the sunbirds, the geckoes, and a great hiding place for the clothes pegs for years...sigh.
I guess, pretty soon, in inner Melbourne suburbia, I'll be riding my cool sporty hybrid Giant bicycle on early morning jaunts in my generously tight white lycra outfit, and stopping for the occasional coffee and buttered buns at Cafe D'Asshole in Doncaster with my new homies, looking down at my freshly waxed legs and getting erections about myself.

If ever buying steel shelving units, either for too many books, or for a garage, I'd suggest you only get the strong steel units that you bang together with a hammer. Don't get the ones with nuts and screws....yech. There is something very satisfying about assembling something just with a hammer, and it is equally satisfying to bash them apart when moving house. Now, John...There is the shelving unit, & here is the hammer...get to it....bash bash bash. Clunk. Very satisfying indeed. With one more day before we head off due to the Big Twuck being delayed, we both just fell apart for a few hours, which was also very satisfying. Clunk. Didn't even need a hammer. So because of the delay it gives us one less day to clean up the place After we pack the stuff into the Twuck, so this afternoon I will be shovelling stones from the balcony (it was set up with artificial grass and stones etc, and it worked pretty well)...into a big bucket and taking them downstairs to the grounds...moving them around on the niftiest little trolley thing I bought for $45 from Super Cheap Auto...its a gem.

Aleppo, Syria. Insurgents now only control 1% of the city. They are pretty well surrounded by Syrian troops and being pulverised by Russian jets. America's idea: "Hey, Syria, why not set up a corridor to let the insurgents run away?" Syria: "Are they going to surrender?" US: "Oh, no, they can't do that. We've given them too many weapons for them to surrender." Syria: "They are radical Islamic Terrorists." US: "No, they are...moderate Islamic terrorists." Syria: "If they are not going to surrender, then they will be killed in war. That's what happens in war, if they don't surrender. If they keep fighting and killing us, they will be killed." US: "But that's not fair. If you do that, they can't regroup and we can't fund them to kill you anymore." "Yep, That's right." US: "Doesn't seem fair. Don't you think that's kind of nasty?" Syria "Well, um, let me think.... ....no."

Aleppo, Syria.
Insurgents now only control 1% of the city. They are pretty well surrounded by Syrian troops and being pulverised by Russian jets.
America's idea: "Hey, Syria, why not set up a corridor to let the insurgents run away?"
Syria: "Are they going to surrender?"
US: "Oh, no, they can't do that. We've given them too many weapons for them to surrender."
Syria: "They are radical Islamic Terrorists."
US: "No, they are...um....(pause)...moderate Islamic terrorists."
Syria: "If they are not going to surrender, then they will be killed in war. That's what happens in war, if they don't surrender. If they keep fighting and killing us, they will be killed."
US: "But that's not fair. If you do that, they can't regroup and we can't fund them to kill you anymore."
"Yep, That's right."
US: "Doesn't seem fair. Don't you think that's kind of nasty?"
Syria "Well, um, let me think.... (pause) ....no."

DAY ONE + or - One, as the big Wiggles WEMOVALISTS Twuck is missing somewhere between Melbourne and Cairns, maybe just having a nap. There remains bed number 2 to be dismantled and some shelving units to be hammered apart. The Mighty Nissan Utility is being serviced.

Most human ventures, including house moving, have a zenith at its uppermost point and a nadir at its lowest ebb. We reached our nadir this afternoon, even before the sun set, and so I went and bought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I could tell that our venture had achieved its nadir when, upon returning home with the bucket, and standing in the kitchen, my wife phoned me from the bedroom asking for 2 pieces of chicken.

Most human ventures, including house moving, have a zenith at its uppermost point and a nadir at its lowest ebb. We reached our nadir this afternoon, even before the sun set, and so I went and bought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I could tell that our venture had achieved its nadir when, upon returning home with the bucket, and standing in the kitchen, my wife phoned me from the bedroom asking for 2 pieces of chicken to be delivered to her.

I will miss Far North Queensland, when I think of all those times I randomly tied down other folks cattle on the Tablelands and lifted them into the ute to sell for steak and smoked Jerky at Yungaburra market...sigh. Good times. Won't be able to do that so often in the suburbs of Melbourne, I guess. Still, the future is unmapped, maybe opportunities will arise. You never know, Johnny Fitz, you never know. There be drop-bears there, I hear, and even fresh clown meat to be had, if you look carefully into the shadows at night. Goodness me, I just disturbed myself.

I will miss Far North Queensland, when I think of all those times I randomly tied down other folks cattle on the Tablelands and lifted them into the ute to sell for steak and smoked Jerky at Yungaburra market...sigh. Good times.
Won't be able to do that so often in the suburbs of Melbourne, I guess. Still, the future is unmapped, maybe opportunities will arise. You never know, Johnny Fitz, you never know. There be drop-bears there, I hear, and even fresh clown meat to be had, if you look carefully into the shadows at night.
Goodness me, I just disturbed myself.

Mrs Fitz is the other good looking one

Mrs Fitz and I live very happily together and travel a mile or 3000 miles extremely well together, but this box-packing-moving-house-business is a trial, for sure, perhaps as it should be. Now, I'm not going to talk about the defined precincts within the new Melbourne abode for her mandarin language teaching area and my OCD writing area etc...but that will work out just fine too. Now all we need to do is finish the packing up, not talk about those things now...and get there. All these things will work out okay and the only trial in the future I can see coming is when we actually arrive at the Melbourne address...the first out of the car will decide what goes where, which is fine because I will have hand-cuffed her ankles to the car seat well before then anyway. The Nissan Navara D22 2015 Dual Cab Ute has specific hand and foot cuff points fitted to the front passenger seat, and as she does not drive a manual vehicle...well...and, anyway, It is my job, as a man, to be rational and to think ahead...

Mrs Fitz and I live very happily together and travel a mile or 3000 miles extremely well together, but this box-packing-moving-house-business is a trial, for sure, perhaps as it should be.

Now, I'm not going to talk about the defined precincts within the new Melbourne abode for her mandarin language teaching area and my OCD writing area etc...but that will work out just fine too. Now all we need to do is finish the packing up, not talk about those things now...and get there.

All these things will work out okay and the only trial in the future I can see coming is when we actually arrive at the Melbourne address...the first out of the car will decide what goes where, which is fine because I will have hand-cuffed her ankles to the car seat well before then anyway. The Nissan Navara D22 2015 Dual Cab Ute has specific hand and foot cuff points fitted to the front passenger seat, and as she does not drive a manual vehicle...well...and, anyway, It is my job, as a man, to be rational and to think ahead...

Interestingly, noting the packing up of the giant 6ft by 4ft calligraphy noting the war of the 3 Kingdoms of China; initially China was 300 states, then 30, then 3, and now one. That was a lot of work over many centuries, but always with the same notion...unity. Although the West would like it all to go backwards...I doubt they'll be going back to 300 any time soon. Give it 300 years at least.

Notice from Sweden: The Official Nobel Prize for Hoarders of the Year Award goes to the Wang-Fitzpatrick consortium in Earlville, Queensland. They will be unable to attend the Prize Ceremony this year due to all the fucking baggage.

Crikey, nearly, in passing, put my hand into the 1945 brass fan from Thailand...don't do it John, self harm is not on the agenda. We just found a big box from 3 years ago full of backpacks and...bags in the study. Now, should be throw away the box and put stuff in the bags or just take the box of bags? Life's critical problems.

Now, to have a smoke on the balcony...as Mrs Fitz has banned this inside the house...as she damn well should. Tis a filthy habit indeed. Mind you, I am not one to be complaining about her bees-waxing the lawn, as Mr Thomas noted, just to make the birds slip.

Ten more packing boxes, medium size, pretty well perfect for the 400 kilograms of Flakka and the 400 kilograms of Chop-Chop we'll be carrying to pay for the journey to Melbourne. Life is a Mindful Balance of many tings.

Ten more packing boxes, medium size, pretty well perfect for the 400 kilograms of Flakka and the 400 kilograms of Chop-Chop we'll be carrying to pay for the journey to Melbourne. Life is a Mindful Balance of many tings.

COUNTDOWN TO DAY ZERO: +3. It is quite handy living within 40 metres of a Storage place that sells packing boxes. Another ten. 2 Guinness from the nearby bottle shop purchased solely so I could also get a free box to pack things in. (Not even I believed that one) Listening to that dirge of a song on the radio "I wasn't Expecting That." Do you know this song?...I had sex, then had a baby, I wasn't expecting that...they cut out the cancer but the cancer came back, I wasn't expecting that." Makes me wonder what the fuck this clown was expecting. As my darling Father, Billy Fitzpatrick, the former Jesuit, noted to me years ago "T'ain't all beer and skittles, Johnny Boy." I hope my Da is enjoying Heaven and I'm sure he is... as long as he is in that part separated from everyone who isn't Irish Catholic from County Cork, and as long as there are no Kellys there. Keep the Faith! I also checked the letter box again, not a good idea. I put the envelope that looked like it had a bill in it in Mrs Fitz's Honda car about to go on the slow train to Melbourne town. Have a look next year.

COUNTDOWN TO DAY ZERO: +3.

It is quite handy living within 40 metres of a Storage place that sells packing boxes. Another ten.

2 Guinness from the nearby bottle shop purchased solely so I could also get a free box to pack things in. (Not even I believed that one)

Listening to that dirge of a song on the radio "I wasn't Expecting That." Do you know this song?...I had sex, then had a baby, I wasn't expecting that...they cut out the cancer but the cancer came back, I wasn't expecting that." Makes me wonder what the fuck this clown was expecting.

As my darling Father, Billy Fitzpatrick, the former Jesuit, noted to me years ago "T'ain't all beer and skittles, Johnny Boy."

I hope my Da is enjoying Heaven and I'm sure he is... as long as he is in that part separated from everyone who isn't Irish Catholic from County Cork, and as long as there are no Kellys there.

Keep the Faith!

I also checked the letter box again, not a good idea. I put the envelope that looked like it had a bill in it in Mrs Fitz's Honda car about to go on the slow train to Melbourne town. Have a look next year.

DAY 4 COUNTDOWN. The highly complex Daikin Air con System is now fixed. Without getting too technical about it, from what I can gather, the starboard nacelle was hit by Romulan disruptor fire (as can often happen in the Tropics) and that caused the warp core to eject itself into a separate space-time continuum existing only as Red Matter. The air con technicians implemented a Level 5 scan of the unit and the surrounding solar mass and replaced the dilithium crystals whilst re-routing the subspace geometry through a Borg Geodesic Cooling Cube. Thus the air con technicians, or the Daikin Militia (also known as The Refrigerants) told me. You see, I was wrong... I thought that the Ferengi had stolen the bio-neural self-cooling gel-paks via the Jeffries Tube in the Theta Generator Annexe of the main deflector dish. I guess we are just lucky we didn't go beyond Warp 4 whilst all that was happening or there would have been a breach in the core. . Paperwork posted off. House remains a jumble of things and boxes.

DAY 4 COUNTDOWN.
The highly complex Daikin Air con System is now fixed. Without getting too technical about it, from what I can gather, the starboard nacelle was hit by Romulan disruptor fire (as can often happen in the Tropics) and that caused the warp core to eject itself into a separate space-time continuum existing only as Red Matter.
The air con technicians implemented a Level 5 scan of the unit and the surrounding solar mass and replaced the dilithium crystals whilst re-routing the subspace geometry through a Borg Geodesic Cooling Cube.
Thus the air con technicians, or the Daikin Militia (also known as The Refrigerants) told me.
You see, I was wrong... I thought that the Ferengi had stolen the bio-neural self-cooling gel-paks via the Jeffries Tube in the Theta Generator Annexe of the main deflector dish. 

I guess we are just lucky we didn't go beyond Warp 4 whilst all that was happening or there would have been a breach in the core.
.
Paperwork posted off. House remains a jumble of things and boxes.

RE DAIKIN AIR CONDITIONERS AUSTRALIA: Dear Rob, Coral Coast Air Con and Refrigeration/Cairns It's now 8pm, Sunday 12th December, 2016. The Removalists arrive on the 16th December to take our stuff. The air-conditioners aren't working as they need to for us to rent out the place, and are much in the same state as they were in July 2016 after they were fixed by your company, after paying well over $900, and... including the times you have spent working on them and the parts from Daikin you put in etc in the last few weeks, which we haven't paid for yet. The main problem is that the Lounge Room big air con just blows air, and sometimes dust. The main bedroom one runs when it is off and water drips down. I'm not happy with this result, but I accept a bad outcome for our dealings with each other. If you can fix the aircons within the next 5 days, then that's great. We are at home all the time now, packing stuff up. Tomorrow I will ask Ergon to keep the electricity connected til the end of January 2017; so that in the New Year I can find another aircon company to address the Daikin issue here. I doubt I will find a tenant in the meantime. I am not happy about any of this but conclude that unless fixed this week, our business is over. Any bills you wish to send me for not fixing it up, but trying, in this interim, should be sent to our new address: Vic, 3104. The mobile remains 045, and the email remains the same. I do note that Daikin Australia, their service and customer division, although being contacted a number of times over the past few months, have been unable to reply. Perhaps a worn out part? Sincerely John Fitzpatrick MASA.

RE DAIKIN AIR CON AUSTRALIA

Dear Rob, Coral Coast Air Con and Refrigeration/Cairns

It's now 8pm, Sunday 12th December, 2016.

The Removalists arrive on the 16th December to take our stuff.

The air-conditioners aren't working as they need to for us to rent out the place, and are much in the same state as they were in July 2016 after they were fixed by your company, after paying well over $900, and... including the times you have spent working on them and the parts from Daikin you put in etc in the last few weeks, which we haven't paid for yet.

The main problem is that the Lounge Room big air con just blows air, and sometimes dust. The main bedroom one runs when it is off and water drips down.

I'm not happy with this result, but I accept a bad outcome for our dealings with each other.

If you can fix the aircons within the next 5 days, then that's great. We are at home all the time now, packing stuff up.

Tomorrow I will ask Ergon to keep the electricity connected til the end of January 2017; so that in the New Year I can find another aircon company to address the Daikin issue here.

I doubt I will find a tenant in the meantime. I am not happy about any of this but conclude that unless fixed this week, our business is over.

Any bills you wish to send me for not fixing it up, but trying, in this interim, should be sent to our new address: Vic, 3104. The mobile remains 045, and the email remains the same.

I do note that Daikin Australia, their service and customer division, although being contacted a number of times over the past few months, have been unable to reply. Perhaps a worn out part?

Sincerely

John Fitzpatrick

MASA.

To be, or not to be, whether to un-screw the bed bolts now, or let it pass in infamy... To sleep, per chance to dream, and in that dreaming thus unlock this human mystery... No, John, just dismantle the bed, for fuck's sake. The Removalists are coming, in 5 days, get on with it.

Whatever we do, will do, or have done, by the end of it all, we have paid for it all. I think someone said that...apart from me.

Muddy Waters & The Rolling Stones - Baby Please Don't Go - Live At Check...

Chinese Hip Hop China Rap 南京说唱 / 饶舌 : Call me Later - Jony J feat. 红花会

MISS KO 葛仲珊 - CALL ME Official Music Video

Chinese Hip Hop Shanghai Rap: 上海说唱/饶舌/中国说唱 : Ganja Wang 干架王 - BUSY GANG

Chinese Hip Hop China Rap 上海说唱 - Dewen feat. 拖鞋 - 女神不说话

Chinese Rap Full

Secret to moving house...no sad songs before 9pm...The B-52's - "Love Shack" (Official Music Video)

DAY 5 Countdown. Found my two copper bracelets that stop rheumatism and arthritis. Excellent! I Haven't got rheumatism or arthritis...so there you go...and they have been lost for years but maybe just having them in the house created an ambient healing wave...but I bought them years back as my acknowledgment and respect for Marketing of the many things that aren't scientifically proven and don't actually work...vitamins, glucosamine, fish oil caps, magnets, etc...all those aisles upon aisles in pharmacies and supermarkets...all those things that Australians and Chinese folk love to buy so much... Mind you, fish oil caps, on a hook, do catch fish...so maybe that's a lifestyle enhancer in its own way.

Packing: "No, darling, the spear-gun doesn't go in the Removal Truck...the spear-gun stays with me. It's a long drive to Victoria and there ain't no way of knowing what will be necessary."

Morning moving-house music is usually the B52s and Acid Jazz. 2pm its all AKB48 and Heavy Rotation. By 7pm it is all Louisiana Delta Blues. By 9pm its all Trance. By 10 pm I'm out on the stoop with ma homies shredding flakka, n busting caps into skinny white cop asses.

Sometimes packing boxes/moving house brings with it the same kind of angst that Clint Eastwood displayed in that great Movie, The Unforgiven. Half way through every day you kinda think...wouldn't it be easier just to go out and kill people for money?

So, from about the 19th of December the blog and facebook will post our daily travels in the Nissan Navara Dual Cab white-bloke Ute, or Pick Up, from Cairns, here in the lost far north of tropical Australia, day by day, for the 2500 mile journey Dead South across 3 states to Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. We are going via the Coast Road to Sydney then Inland to Canberra (whatever the fuck that is) and then down the central Hume Highway, to Melbourne, Victoria. Not to be too OCD about it, of course...but...ETA at the new abode in Doncaster Road, Balwyn, Melbourne, Victoria: 27 Dec, at 8.39am.

Well, we have finished the exciting duty of packing of boxes for today. If we keep up spending about 7 hours a day doing this we will be just fine for the 16th when the Wiggles Big Twuck comes. Actually, when it comes to the Wiggles, I have my doubts about the new yellow Wiggle...and it is not because the new yellow Wiggle is a girl at all... I just liked the old yellow Wiggle who had bouts of profound social phobia and depression. I could relate to him...and any kid could.

Well, we have finished the exciting duty of packing of boxes for today. If we keep up spending about 7 hours a day doing this we will be just fine for the 16th when the Wiggles Big Twuck comes to take it all away. 

Actually, when it comes to the Wiggles, I have my doubts about the new yellow Wiggle...and it is not because the new yellow Wiggle is a girl at all... I just liked the old yellow Wiggle who had bouts of profound social phobia and depression. I could relate to him...and any kid could.

I often recall my education in grief counselling, many years ago, where it was noted that everyone has a spiritual dimension, they may not have a religion, but they do have a spiritual dimension...and after all these years I must admit I disagree. I have found that some people do, and some people don't, have a spiritual dimension. To me, a faith or a spiritual dimension is a particular ability, or talent, much like musicality. Some folk are musical, some are not. Some can learn to sing a bit, as I would like to, but there are also true native singers and players of music. Some people are very good at mathematics. I am not. I am good with words, and many are not....but the numbers really do elude me. I think the capacity to have a spiritual dimension is much like that.

Change is Coming to America

It is very interesting watching the show on the legacy of Barack Obama...to see how things change.

I guess the most remarkable thing about Obama's "Change has Come to America" is that it didn't come.

The differences between Obama and Trump are just so fascinating...Obama, the Cerebral, and Trump, the Primal.

The challenges faced by Obama were legion and the biggest was the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, a sequence that fanciful Americans thought would be over in about 2 weeks time...but these massive financial adjustments take at least 20 years, and always have.

After 8 years, with Trump still yet to formally become President, the Financial Crash of 2008 rolls on, and will do so for at least another decade, or maybe two.

Trump's rise is acknowledged to some extent as stemming from that (ongoing) Crisis. How do you reverse, fundamentally, an Economic Depression? No one ever has and I highly doubt that Trump can.

The next decade will be very hard for the USA and for other countries of the West, including Australia. That's what happens in a long economic downturn...and it happens for a long time.

What the ascendancy of Trump means is not a nation divided by race etc, the same as Brexit doesn't mean a hatred for immigrants in the UK, but because of the ways in which the complex 2008 Depression arose and occurred, and continues, people world wide are suffering, and seeking something simple to blame, so as to fix things and not suffer.

With Trump, interestingly, the term 'Change Has Come to America' could be applied. No one knows the outcome of this change at the start, or in the middle, of it, and we are not yet even at the start of it.

the desk is empty now. packing up 25 years ain't no easy thing

Fiona Apple - Across the Universe (Official Video)

The packing up of the life lived here begins

It is nice to see Trump going around on a Thank You tour across America. That's unheard of, to thank voters. Nicely done.

I note the 'Secret Deal' between the Australian Govt and the Obama Administration to send 2500 Iranian and Iraqi refugees, mostly men, to settle in the USA from Nauru/PNG etc seems to have run into a bit of a bump with the incoming Trump folk saying "Hang on, hang on a minute...just hang on a tick..." Australia announced the secret deal as soon as Trump won to try to legitimise it and get it done fast whilst Obama was still in 'da House'...and it still may happen if they are really quick...which would be something unknown for the US Immigration Dept... but then the Australian Govt hasn't yet announced to Australians that the deal involves Australia settling 2500 Central Americans, not legit refugees per se, who the USA has totalled refused settlement to. The Oz government was so certain Hillary would continue the Legacy of Obama and they didn't see Trump coming. Australia may actually have to work out its own immigration issues and talk to Australians about it. "Oh what is that thing ahead? Isn't that a deer caught in the headlights?" "Oh, no, that's just the Australian Prime Minister."

I note the 'Secret Deal' between the Australian Govt and the Obama Administration to send 2500 Iranian and Iraqi refugees, mostly men, to settle in the USA from Nauru/PNG etc seems to have run into a bit of a bump with the incoming Trump folk saying "Hang on, hang on a minute...just hang on a tick..."

Australia announced the secret deal as soon as Trump won to try to legitimise it and get it done fast whilst Obama was still in 'da House'...and it still may happen if they are really quick...which would be something unknown for the US Immigration Dept...

but then the Australian Govt hasn't yet announced to Australians that the deal involves Australia settling 2500 Central Americans, not legit refugees per se, who the USA has totalled refused settlement to.

The Oz government was so certain Hillary would continue the Legacy of Obama and they didn't see Trump coming. Australia may actually have to work out its own immigration issues and talk to Australians about it.

"Oh what is that thing ahead? Isn't that a deer caught in the headlights?"

"Oh, no, that's just the Australian Prime Minister."

Well, the noble BBQ has gone to its new home, half the balcony plants have gone to their new home. Nice plants. The rest, but one, go tomorrow. Was wandering around at work last evening feeling that going away feeling. Nice work mates. House is becoming overwhelmed with packing boxes. Sigh. Step by step. Things to do.

Well, the noble BBQ has gone to its new home, 
half the balcony plants have gone to their new home.  
Nice plants. The rest, but one, go tomorrow.
Was wandering around at work last evening feeling that going away feeling.
Nice work mates.
House is becoming overwhelmed with packing boxes.
Sigh.
Step by step.
Things to do.

False Muslims in a cage of rage burning down a Christmas Tree False Christians in a fit of shit Oh Goodness me, turn the ragged, tired page a bit... Who needs TV or National Geography, ...it still is 1453...AD! Nothing learned and nothing gained for all who joyed and all who pained the Imbecile remains the Sage.

False Muslims in a cage of rage

burning down a Christmas Tree

False Christians in a fit of shit

Oh Goodness me, turn the ragged, tired page a bit...

Who needs TV or National Geography,

...it still is 1453...AD!

Nothing learned and nothing gained

for all who joyed and all who pained

the Imbecile remains the Sage.

Time to sleep, the song to keep, the bird hidden for enough of deep.

Poem So yes be old and yes be grey for in our time, to time we pay and dance a bit our nervous talk of what is cheese and what is chalk

Poem
So yes be old and yes be grey
for in our time, to time we pay
and dance a bit our nervous talk
of what is cheese and what is chalk

yep, that's me

Being quite serious for a brief time, which is no effort, I'm happy to be leaving my current employer, and to be leaving Cairns. I've been 3 and 1/2 years with my employer, which, for me, is a reasonable enough time to do one particular thing well enough, and this time leaving without creating too much destructive trouble for the status quo. Long may they quo, as is their wont. I've been in Cairns, apart from about 8 years in Asia, for the last 25 years, or maybe more, and it has been...what can I say....very hot and tropical. My fondest memories of Cairns are when I was asleep once sitting naked in a deck chair in the shallow sea just north of Buchan's Point...asleep for 8 hours in that chair and in that shallow warm salty Coral Sea as the tides changed back and forth, and turned all around me. Blissful indolence and sensory perfection within the soft murmur of the Great Sea. You can only have that once, I think, and that was years ago. So I believe it is a good time to go from here... in this getting-near hottest wettest time of the Tropical Doldrum months, with cyclones yet to come. Yeecch! Cyclones are okay, really, but if you depend on them for entertainment of the mind and heart, then they are far too few and far between. And then to arrive in Old Melbourne Town in it's hottest dry time, as unforeseen bushfires grip the rim of the city as they do every unforeseen and unprepared year...and then to gradual equip for the first cold winter I will have experienced in 30 years. Street noise, trams, 4 million people...what the fuck? I have had enough joy and sadness in Cairns to fill me up equally...and now it is just too fucking hot. So, happy to have been here, and equally happy to go...the life before going, so full of wonder, of babies, of children, of families, of creativity, and of despair, and then creativity again, and then, family again. We have the apartment here, but somehow, I doubt we will be back. Maybe one day for a tropical holiday, in 30 or 40 years time. Til then, we welcome your visits to us in the Great South of this ancient yet still unmade undefined country for some reason still called Australia...whatever that was. In the Human Heart and Mind, we are tricked for awhile for it is not really the seasons that change at all, it is the Meaning that is always changing. In this way we are all travellers in one way or another.

Being quite serious for a brief time, which is no effort, I'm happy to be leaving my current employer, and to be leaving Cairns. 
I've been 3 and 1/2 years with my employer, which, for me, is a reasonable enough time to do one particular thing well enough, and this time leaving without creating too much destructive trouble for the status quo. Long may they quo, as is their wont. 
I've been in Cairns, apart from about 8 years in Asia, for the last 25 years, or maybe more, and it has been...what can I say....very hot and tropical.
My fondest memories of Cairns are when I was asleep once sitting naked in a deck chair in the shallow sea just north of Buchan's Point...asleep for 8 hours in that chair and in that shallow warm salty Coral Sea as the tides changed back and forth, and turned all around me. Blissful indolence and sensory perfection within the soft murmur of the Great Sea. You can only have that once, I think, and that was years ago.
So I believe it is a good time to go from here... in this getting-near hottest wettest time of the Tropical Doldrum months, with cyclones yet to come. Yeecch! Cyclones are okay, really, but if you depend on them for entertainment of the mind and heart, then they are far too few and far between.
And then to arrive in Old Melbourne Town in it's hottest dry time, as unforeseen bushfires grip the rim of the city as they do every unforeseen and unprepared year...and then to gradual equip for the first cold winter I will have experienced in 30 years. Street noise, trams, 4 million people...what the fuck?
I have had enough joy and sadness in Cairns to fill me up equally...and now it is just too fucking hot.
So, happy to have been here, and equally happy to go...the life before going, so full of wonder, of babies, of children, of families, of creativity, and of despair, and then creativity again, and then, family again. We have the apartment here, but somehow, I doubt we will be back.
Maybe one day for a tropical holiday, in 30 or 40 years time. Til then, we welcome your visits to us in the Great South of this ancient yet still unmade undefined country for some reason still called Australia...whatever that was.
In the Human Heart and Mind, we are tricked for awhile for it is not really the seasons that change at all, it is the Meaning that is always changing. In this way we are all travellers in one way or another.

I have noted over the life span that baby boys have almost a generic look to them, and when they become youths, they still do...and when they become men they begin to define their own features through experience, and then in old age they become somewhat generic looking again. The only hope for the real individual man, I think, is eventually, the damn hard, always unpaid, yet remarkably satisfying, work of eccentricity.

Poem: "Perfect". by John Fitzpatrick 26 November 2016 (written on the way to fire up the BBQ)

Poem: "Perfect". by John Fitzpatrick 26 November 2016 (written on the way to fire up the BBQ)

Time is short time is sweet
time is everyone you meet
in the world or in the earth
there's taking life or giving birth
and so you work out best you can
how best to do your perfect plan.

Sometimes the fame and glamour of mental health nursing wears a bit thin.

Home from work, 1130pm. Sitting at the 2nd hand iMac and with my second hand iPhone...both operating beautifully. They are so good second-hand, it makes me wonder why they ever bother to make them new. (Follow that Fitzpatrick-logic if you dare!). How was your day?

I Received a letter from Australia's outstanding Federal Border Force noting that they had received a package of 400 cigarettes from China addressed to our daughter and that we could get them simply by sending the government $240 in tobacco tax.

I Received a letter from Australia's outstanding Federal Border Force noting that they had received a package of 400 cigarettes from China addressed to our daughter and that we could get them simply by sending the government $240 in tobacco tax. Lovely. Thanks guys. Proud of you; I love your work.
With the move to expensive Melbourne a veritable Shining Path forward, I do need to make a decision on whether to have a home or smoke. A home would be preferable so I am going through the John Fitzpatrick process of 'Reduce/Replace' when it comes to both cigarettes... and Guinness, for that matter.
So, first is the replacing of the factory cigarettes with rolling ones...and delaying the hit, time-wise...and when it comes to the Guinness after work, it is simply a big bottle of Soda Water or Tonic Water, and then a Guinness. This seems to be pretty effective.
The inherent attraction in both factory cigarettes and indeed Guinness is the Remarkable Initial Axon-Dendrite Synapse Neurological Chemical Fizz and the Fitzpatrick Reduce/Replace Plan deals with that pretty effectively at this initial stage of The Shining Path forward.
(The Original Shining Path was a Marxist Guerrilla Group in PERU that evolved into "The FARC", as we know it today.)

On Plans for Melbourne:Yes, planning for Melbourne, quite cold there in winter I hear, and a big city...so I am thinking maybe just a black velvet onesie outfit should deal with that for work and transit and home. Probably no need to put on the full length Afghan Wolf Coat. I don't want to stand out or look odd in the crowd.