Angry.

I’m not sure I can really verbalise what I’m feeling at the moment.  Fires are burning out of control in my neighbouring state, Victoria.  Over 170 people have died, and ‘they’re’ expecting that toll to go over 200 soon, once they can get in to find them.  Whole towns have been completely wiped off the map.

And the worst part?  Some of the fires are believed to have been deliberately lit.  Angry doesn’t even cover it.  I am furious.

We’ve been in drought for over three years, so the bushland is extremely dry.  To add to it, SA and Victoria just got through one of the worst heatwaves on record (see my posts about ‘Stinking Hot’).  And now to find out that some of these fires were deliberately lit?  I’m livid.

What kind of thrill can someone get from this kind of destruction?  How can they sleep at night?  I’m not usually a vengeful kind of person, but part of me hopes that they got caught in their own destruction.  The only downside to that idea is that if it did happen, they would be mourned as ‘victims’ of the fire, rather than the perpetrators.

My thoughts and my prayers go out to the innocent victims in this crisis.

I’ve just received an email saying that Coles across Australia will be donating all profits from this Friday to the bushfire appeal.  I don’t usually shop at Coles, but I will be this week.

Other random thoughts about this:

• It’s not a natural disaster if it is man made.
• @ CNN: We call them bushfires, not wildfires.  When the US has wildfires, we call them wildfires.  Remember that there is a cultural difference.

Stinking Hot

Oh yes, it is.  We have our first heatwave of the year, people!

At 2pm today, it hit 41.8C.  That’s hot, Paris Hilton, not your weird wonky eye and broken neck pose.  42C tomorrow too, just to give me the irrits.  According to the BOM it will be something like this for the next few days:

Thursday      Dry. Very hot.                         Min 29    Max 41
Friday        Dry. Very hot.                                 Min 28    Max 41
Saturday      Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 25    Max 38
Sunday        Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 23    Max 37
Monday        Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 22    Max 35
Tuesday       Dry. Mostly sunny.                     Min 19    Max 33

So what does our glorious government suggest to help keep cool?  Turn your air conditioner off!  Oh yes, I’ll get right on that, as soon as Parliament House, and all those lovely government offices all do the same.

I’m currently freezing my little arse off here as the office air conditioning is on full blast, and then, just to make life interesting, the guy behind me must be going through menopause as there’s also a standing fan blowing on my back.  I actually was excited to go outside during my lunchbreak just so I could warm up!

On the plus side to this heat, I went to the beach last night for a walk.  It was Australia Day, and I forgot they had fireworks for Australia Day.  Bonus!

Bad side to Australia Day, some numb nut who incidentally, won an Australia Day award as Australian of the Year, wants to move Australia Day because his people (Aborigines) view 26 January as ‘Invasion Day’.  If he’s so anti-Australia Day, he should have refused the award.  Earth to crazy man, its old news now.  Dwelling in the past and persistent ‘victimhood’ is not going to improve Aboriginal peoples’ lot.  You don’t like what Australia is?  There’s a whole lot of other countries you can try your luck in.

How does Afghanistan sound to you?

Happy nameday to me…

It’s my nameday today.  Happy St. Catherine’s day!  Not that my name is Catherine, it’s just a variation of it.

I don’t think I could live up to this…  Catherine was so good, she broke the instrument of her decreed execution.

In the ‘all about me’ file, I received two presents.  Yes, that’s right, presents!  I’ve always joked with my family that I should get presents for my nameday, and somehow they’ve taken it literally.  Never mind that my birthday’s coming up, and Christmas follows soon after.  So I got a DVD/VCR player (my old DVD player died – Boo LG!) which is actually my birthday present but they gave it to me early so I can watch DVDs again without having to use my computer.  Yes, I am spoiled.  I love it.

I also got a big block of KitKat chocolate from Mr Vexation.  Heh, Catherine = Kat = KitKat.  Nyum nyum but I had to share it with the people from work because there was no way I was going to be able to eat all that.