Dunc’s Shed

Dumb.. just dumb.. kids banned from doing cartwheels at a Queensland School… soon they’ll have to sit quietly at lunchtime with their hands crossed and sing “Kumbyah my Lord.. Kumbyah”.. and of course they’ll only be able to bring yoghurt to school to eat for fear or someone choking.. pens will be banned because someone might fall on one and parents will have to provide their own water for their kids to drink instead of relying on the water fountains as germs could get spread..

My first boy, an 8yo boy, is off on his first Cub Scout Camp this weekend.. he’s an independent little boy.. I dropped him off and stuck around to help him put up his tent and get his sleeping arrangements sorted.. He’s so me 20 years ago. I’ve got half a hankering to get involved more in Scouts.. I’ll sleep on it for a few weeks and see what I think after it.

I dunno why, I’ve been watching Teenagers lately, especially males.. Just watching how they apparently choose to define themselves. Maybe I missed this whole phase in my life. I grew up as a geek.. what I wore was of no consequence to me.. what operating system I chose had much more significance.

It pains me to see Teenage Boys going to exorbitant lengths to maintain the exact look that they think defines them as young men. Basketball caps, boxers showing through trousers worn to low, large exuberant ear-rings.. all of these things are very finely tuned accessories that young men are adopting as symbols that define them.

They are eagerly attempting to fit in rather than stand out. It’s evident to me that there’s a narrow band of acceptability. Teenage boys can define themselves within those boundaries but its a brave teenager that chooses to fall outside of them. Additionally, teenage boys are taking a deferential position to teenage girls.. a few steps behind, shining a little less, playing second fiddle, fawning. They are consummate sycophants.

I despair for the masculinity that todays teenage boys will display when they hit their 20’s, equally I fear that I’m expressing the same sentiments that have been expressed since time immemorial. Another grumpy old fart bemoaning todays youth.. I have a sneaking suspicion that the creeping consumerism that is seeking an amorphous, ever marketable, sexuality in our boys in girls is hitting its stride and become increasingly effective.

I’d like some of these teenage guys to wake up to themselves and seek out the things that really will truly make them happy in life.. freedom from the 9-5 grind, manual skills, cars, trucks, skill development, learning, writing, exploring, pioneering, researching.. But, alas, advertising has them chasing everything that will largely lead them to unhappiness.. fashion, goods, loans, clothes, and gadgets.

But of course, the overriding aim in their life is to fuck as many women as much as possible. That’s what their genes are urging and controlling them to do. Genes are selfish though.. Genes have a single desire, to replicate. Replication doesn’t deliver happiness for an organism though. Its like running a marathon.. the genes get replicated but the organism is spent. Advertising, in todays world, directly targets genetic desires.

Kids are great, I just love being a Dad, more than the words I can muster can adequately describe, but consumerism has taken this base desire and used it for its own insidious purposes.. its evil.. and its tearing masculinity apart at the roots.. a generation of foppish, toadish, spineless boys growing into hen pecked, subservient, fearful husbands.

Men need to go their own way, if life delivers a woman who can be trusted to replicate his genes, then so be it.. but too many boys are building their entire lives and existence around attracting and retaining the perfect woman.. They’re being ruled by their genes which are being aggressively fertilised by advertising.

For weeks now I’ve eagerly been awaiting the arrival of new bumpers for my J Series Bedford Trucks.. One for the red J1, one for the blue J2 and one for my new silver J3!.. They arrived today! ACW Truck Spares and Repairs organised them.. re-rolled, rechromed, polished..

Their arrival made me very happy in my pants.. I can’t wait to get them on the truck tomorrow!

Yep.. banks are cutting interest rates.. on deposits.. This action is yet more of the coordinated profit gouging that the banks are currently involved in..

I look forward to the bloggers that take the sub-prime crisis and then choreograph a cheer-leading dance routine in support of the Banks working this into their routine. “Gimme a B.. Gimme an A gimme an N gimme a K gimme an S!! Yay for BANKS!!”

Banks.. they are cunts, the lot of them.

First Born, my son, has been asking me for about a year if he can learn to weld.. Well today was the day..

We had some deep and meaningful discussions about which technology he wanted to learn first.. Like a chip off the old block, he had his heart set on stick welding but I thought that MIG would give him an easier introduction to managing an arc and coming to terms with spatter and heat..

I suited him up in as much protective gear as I thought necessary and I gave him a few instructions.. I was expecting him to call it quits as soon as a bit of spatter found its target on his skin.. but to his immense credit he persevered and even managed to lay down a few beads that were approaching something that would have made a workable, if ugly, joint.

He really, really, enjoyed himself. I’m looking forward to seeing his skills develop in years to come.

More often than not when a man is the subject of domestic violence the media reporting takes a somewhat humour laced approach to the reporting.. we’re all meant to snigger and think what a wimp the guy is.. no reports generate more humour based reporting than men who have had their penises cut off.. The humour is all from women.. men rarely see anything funny in it.

Take this case of a Darwin man who claimed that his ex wanted to cut his penis off.. the entire report is infused with subtle humour and digs at the man in question.. The report was, of course, written by a woman. Shame on your Phoebe Stewart. I suspect you’d treat with the utmost seriousness a threat by a man to slice off his ex-wife breasts. There’s be no humour in your report would there?

And how many female victims of domestic violence have their photo plastered on the internet for all to see??

A guy claims to have lost money.. posts ads on craigslist.. The respondents are amusing..

Its stories like this that enrage me.. the lengths that some Fathers have to go to in order to remain a meaningful part of their kids lives.. and the malevolent spitefulness of some women is just beyond belief… a dying Australian man denied a chance to have contact with his daughter.. our courts are just so spineless in the way they deal with recalcitrant, spiteful mothers. Its bitches like this that should have their sorry arse thrown in jail for a few weeks while the Father enjoys unfettered access to his kids.

The vaginocracy is alive and well in Australia and the Family Court serves as its Cheer Leader.

Goddamn I love Marc Rudov.. check out his latest article on marriage.. he leads the article with this gem of a paragraph that pretty much sums up the article:

Nothing symbolizes spineless deference more than a man on bended knee proposing marriage to his girlfriend. When he utters to her that timeless four-word question — “Will you marry me?” — he is taking the biggest risk of his life: disappointing her. Through this emasculating act, he’s really asking her to bury him.

I had a minor grievance with the people that host my blog, Quadra Hosting.. Without any debate they made me an offer to resolve it that was very generous and very prompt. I can’t speak highly enough of how they handled it. They rock!

Wow.. we had a brief respite from Winter this morning.. a glorious bit of sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures. I had a small welding job (2.5 hrs) to do at a local school, it was outside. The job went well, for the first time I used my Miller Suitcase 12VS wirefeeder in anger.. A thin bit of galv stock with a poor fit up to weld.. a job that stick welding just sucks at. The Suitcase Wirefeeder is heavy, I think I might go to a much smaller reel of wire in it to bring the weight down 15 kg or so.

The sun was on my back and the birds were chirping away, the radio was tuned to a current affairs channel. I wasn’t cold, I wasn’t hot. Life’s great.

The rest of the day is now free until I pick the kids up at 3.20pm (4hrs away). I have a UHF radio to mount in the new J3 Bedford. I don’t really need it. I just always wanted one as a kid and never had one.. It didn’t really help that Dad had one in his big ‘ol Landcruiser and it was STRICTLY off limits.. NO KIDS ALLOWED. It was like pressing your nose up against the window of a lolly shop and pondering what could be if only you had $2 in your pocket. At least the aerial adds yet a bit more chrome to the truck. There’s a few commercial vehicle rallies coming up that I’d like to take the Silver truck to. Maybe the radio will get some use on those.

Came across a photo of a neat J Series Tipper.. a three way tipper.. release 2 pivot points, lock 2 pivot points and raise the ram.. the tipper tips any of three ways… left, right, middle. I love it! Click to enlarge:

It reminded me of another three way I spotted in the UK last year.

I’ve never seen this mechanism on a modern truck.

Listening to the radio.. I just found out that Chickens piss and shit through the same hole. How did I get to 39 years old and not know that?

Tim Line, a British father of 2 girls is the latest Dad in the UK to don a superhero suit and take a stand for the rights of Fathers. He’s been refused contact with his two daughters and hasn’t seen them for over a year now. A judge refused to order contact after hearing the girls “didn’t want to see him”..

Fathers are for life, not for when kids WANT to see them. Additionally, its far too easy for a spiteful bitch of an ex-wife to manipulate the children and turn them against the father.

I’m forever thankful that my relationship with my ex is on good terms, it takes work and requires both parties to swallow their pride after the failure of a relationship and get on with each other for the sake of their children.

Unfortunately there’s a significant percentage of women that become incredibly vindictive and spiteful and who employ the kids as weapons.. I don’t have an expletive strong enough to express my distaste for these women. Equally distasteful is the extreme Mother Bias that takes place in the Family Court Systems in every western country.. Kids are deemed to be the property of the Mother and the Father must approach the Family Court cap-in-hand and humbly beg for some contact with his children. The court will invariably grant him every second weekend but its completely up to the Mother whether she abides by the courts decision.. she will NEVER be called to account for her actions as there’s a litany of semi-believable lies that she can trot out to defend her defiance of the court order.

Hell hath no fury like some spiteful Mothers.

I got two dogs.. a staffy cross and a Dalamatian.. the Staffy is quite the Alpha Male.. the Dalmatian is a neutered bitch. The Staffy is the FASTEST eater you’ve ever seen.. its astonishing when you give him a big hunk of meat.. one chomp and its gone. I’m going to video it one day, I’m sure there’s a world record in it somewhere..

They get biscuits at night.. the staffy wolfs his down and then goes on the prowl to try and steal the Dalmatians biscuits.. The Dalmatian is slow, as hard as she tries she just can’t eat her food as fast as the Staffy.. so her mealtime is spent eating as fast as she can and keeping an eye on the machinations of the Staffy.

I fixed the Staffy good the past few nights.. I fed the Dalmatian her biscuits in a bowl.. and then I spread the Staffy’s biscuits in a wide circle on the ground.. he’s gotta go from one biscuit to the next.. and it takes him AGES to get them all up.. the Dalmatian finishes well ahead of him and gets to eat her whole meal in peace..

It was a cunning plan, my Lord, and it worked just wonderfully.

There appears to be some evidence that my rant on banks profiteering on the excuse of the “global credit crunch” which was disparagingly referred to as “phooey” and written off as “conspiracy” appears to have some basis in verified fact.

An analysis by Infochoice has demonstrated that banks have in fact INCREASED their profit margin on mortgages rather than just keeping pace with their normal margins through the credit squeeze that has taken place.

The banks are in lockstep in this process.. they actively set out to increase profit margins and, in some way, are surreptitiously colluding on this.. they may not have got around a table and actively PLOTTED it.. but they all know whats going on and they’re all happily involved.. one week its the ANZ who takes the media heat.. the week after its CBA, then Westpac.. each sharing a bit of the negative press.. its like a pro-wrestling tag-team approach.. slap happy high fives as each one comes back from announcing a rate rise then the rest follow suite..

The shakeout in the non-bank lenders have given them their market share and dominance back and they’re milking it.. fuckers..

Well.. my maths has always sucked. It’s been getting better the last few years.. I can add up prices and stuff like that quite effectively in my head. Most of the maths I need for building stuff comes easily.. but when it comes to the more abstract regions of maths I fall apart.. algebra, trigonometry, calculus, its all gobbledegook to me.. I struggled with it at school and I still struggle with it now.. In Year 12 I did “Pre Trade Maths” which roughly translates to “Retard Level Maths”.. I think I was still doing fractions and percentages in Year 12

I’m unsure why my head was never good with maths.. I suspect that it goes right back to Primary School where I must have failed to grasp some key concepts and my whole maths experience is built on a shoddy foundation.

The internet is my friend when it comes to things like working out triangle stuff and doing conversions etc.. There’s all sorts of neat calculators on websites that take all the hardwork out of so many calculations.

I turned to the internet in order to work out the gearing ratios on the new J3.. but in true Dunc fashion I confused Radius and Diameter.. and my figures were all wrong. The reworked figures which could still be wrong are somewhat concerning.. I’m definitely going to need a taller ratio in the diff.. I can get 4.37:1 gears for the existing diff which helps things a bit..

Here’s the two diffs compared.. even with the 4.37 diff the top speed is going to be limited to about 100mph, which is a heck of a lot faster than I’d feel safe driving the truck at.. especially with drum brakes all round and only a lap style seatbelt and no crumple zone

I’ll try the original diff on its first drive just so I can learn something about how the figures above are represented in practice and then I’m sure I’ll be swapping the ratios in the diff.. a check of the Workshop Manual for the diff seems to indicate it’s a straightforward exercise!

Check this bench out:

Instead of a flat plate surface he’s used lengths of channel.. It’s a simply awesome idea. Over the entire surface of the bench you can drop a clamp down and secure what ever your working on at almost any point you want. For fabrication work it’s the bees knees! I’ve got a large bench with a solid 1/4″ plate all over it. I can clamp at the edges but I often end up struggling to secure things in the middle, sometimes I end up welding things down to the bench whilst I’m building them.. it makes a mess of the bench and you have to clean up the temporary weld on the job when you’re finished.

When I get a chance, I’m going to build a second bench in this style. Not much good for say rebuilding a carb or fixing something fiddly but simply awesome for building things.

Found in a thread over at the Miller Welding Discussion Forums.

Bend over.. the banks are going to fuck us. I don’t give a flying fuck about their cost of funds.. a system that has homebuyers signing up for 30 year loans where the monthly repayment is completely arbitrary and set by the bank from month to month is utterly bizarre..

Imagine borrowing money from a loan shark and each week he calls you and says “Duncan, your interest rate this month is 22%”.. and next month he calls and says “Duncan, your interest rate this month is 28%”.. Its too bizarre to contemplate.. yet thats what we’ve done.. we’ve signed up for loans where the shark tells us each month how much to pay.

With the decoupling of banks interest rates from the Reserve Bank Cash Rate we’ve entered a dangerous new period in home ownership (at least for the mortgaged).. the banks, like a rogue dog, have tasted the sweet blood of the Mortgage Lamb.. there’s no looking back now.. the banks WILL collude to prevent interest rates falling as the cash rate falls. They’ve got a wonderfully canned excuse in the form of the “Sub Prime Mortgage Collapse”.. but they are going to milk this excuse FAR, FAR beyond its actual impact.

84.8, another 1.3kgs down this week.

I spent some time to try and figure out how the interplay of my Transmission, Differential and Tyre Size are going to present themselves on the silver J3 Bedford I’ve been building. Here’s the results in each gear.

The rear diff has a 5.4:1 ratio.. the TH400 transmission has ratios of 2.48, 1.48 and 1.00 across its 3 gears.. the speeds are in Miles Per Hour..

Dunno what to think.. back to square one.. suck it and see when I take it for a drive.

Its somewhat disappointing that with so much knowledge of genetics and genetic modifications that we don’t have access to a whole new range of super interesting genetically modified pets. The possibilities are endless.. instead we’re forced to amuse ourselves with naturally occuring genetic mutations that are so far and few between.. sadly most really mutated creatures die before or shortly after birth or are killed by their own kind.

There’s so many species that dogs could be crossed with to give us that tried and true faithfullness and playfullness combined with interesting new shapes and physical abilities..

Monkey Pig link

86.1 and once more.. officially no longer “obese”.. just “overweight”.

The Bridezillas power on.. demanding matching spray tans and dental treatments for the bridesmaids they choose.. wedding ceremonies have become such a crock of shit.

There’s a new book out.. “Save the Males” by Kathleen Parker.. the Daily Mail in the UK has done a wonderful job of reviewing it.. you’ll cheer Kathleen on as you read some extracts in the review.. if you don’t you’re either a Homosexual a Metrosexual, or a Feminazi.

The book would have received no coverage if a Man had written it because all to often the ‘ad hominem‘ reaction is invoked.. of course he’d say that in his book.. he’s a man.. just ignore it.

Three Cheers for Amanda Platell.

Well.. one of my EH’s has been running poorly lately.. the float bowl empties out overnight, fuel pissing out from the carburettor somewhere when you give it a bit of throttle.. I’ve never really had much to do with the internals of a carburettor.. a bit of a black art to me really. So a problematic carb on a non-daily driver seemed like a good time to learn..

I picked up a replacement carburettor from a local Holden Wrecker, and a carb rebuild kit from the parts shop.. clearing a space on my workbench I delved into the internals of a 1960’s Stromberg Carburettor.. wow, what a remarkably simple mechanism to strip down, clean, and reassemble.. all new gaskets, springs, washers, doohickeys, and flickamajigs. It went back together in what seemed like the right order and everything seemed to fit on reassembly.. which was a marked difference from most things I pulled apart as a 10yo.

Installing the newly rebuilt carburettor on the car, again remarkably simple.. a coupla bolts, fuel line, throttle linkage, choke linkage.. Inserted the key into the ignition and cranked it knowing full well that’d it take 5-10 seconds for the float chamber to fill (felt like 10mins of cranking).. but then it fired to life, set the mix by ear and went for a drive! Perfect!

Once more, it warms my soul to own an old car.. The costs for the repair was $25 for a 2nd hand carb, $15 for the rebuild kit, $5 for a can of Carb Cleaner Spray. A whopping $45 and 1-2 hours of work.

Try sorting out a fuel issue on anything modern.. no fucking chance. And paying the bill from the mechanic is going to feel like shitting a watermelon out. Sure, there’s warranties on new cars, but really when you get something repaired “under warranty” its really paid for out of the inflated, exorbitant purchase price of the car.. (along with all the advertising, dealers costs, dealers profit, manufacturers profit, manufacturers marketing costs like sponsorships etc)..

My Stromberg is good for another 10 years now.

Kids are all precious.. but it seems Girls are more precious than Boys.. at least in Scouts.. A Cub Scout meeting in South Australia can’t go ahead if there’s girls in the Cub Pack and there’s no female leader present.. It follows on from the general view in society that are all men are deemed to be paedophiles.

Little Girls being uber-special require special consideration and can never, NEVER, NEVER be left alone with a Man who isn’t their Father.

Check out this neat flash application - Live Plasma.. .. you enter the name of a musician or band and it creates a searchable map of other things that you might like.. its eerily effective. Apparently it uses the Amazon.com API and searches recommendations from that site..

There’s a good guest post over at the Art of Manliness.. “Are suburbs killing your manliness?“.. The post reminded me of a passage from Chuck Palahniuk’s Book “Fight Club” in which he said:

“We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.”.

A soliloquy by Tyler Durden from the Movie captured it a little better:

“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

We’re Men living in a society, existing in a culture, co-habitating in suburbs that have all been increasingly designed to satisfy the needs, desires and wants of women. Our masculinity is expressed through a lawn mower and the garbage bins and, vicariously, through football teams and other sporting icons.

Men have been domesticated. The essence of what makes them Men has been suppressed. So many of us are like battery hens now, confined to a cubicle or the seat of a delivery truck and forced to painfully expel pay-cheques (eggs) week after week.. but instead of the vaginal orifice of a hen, its our soul thats stretched, warped and distorted as the egg-pay-check makes its way out. 50 Weeks a year, 5-6 days a week, for 45+ years. Cheque after cheque squeezed out and no amount of pelvic floor exercises are going to repair the soul.

On weekends, so few of us have engaging hobbies or passions. We’re fussing over the lawn, the garden, creating a “Touch of Bali” in the back entertaining area, BBQ’ing meat that came packaged in polystyrene from Wooolies instead of meat that was cut from a dead animal that was slain by a bullet we dispatched, we’re being dutifully obedient to our wives and not making waves in the marriage, we’re detailing a car that has loan payments that cripple us, and on Sunday night retiring to bed with a heavy heart pondering the sheer boredom of the week ahead.. 10 more times to drive to/from work, bills arriving in the mail, the wife having her usual whinge over crap you’re not interested in, the car needing repairs but its so fucking complex under the bonnet that you’re forced back to the Dealer, dog shit to pick up off the lawn, tossers at work to deal with.

I’m not entirely sure what the answer is.. maybe we’re happy this way.. I wasn’t. Making wholesale changes to the style of our suburbs and houses is of course impossible. Its up to every man to take a good long hard look at his life and make some decisions about what he’s doing and to have the bravery to implement them even if it will upset his wife or disrupt his kids. Having the balls to take the time to indulge himself in activities that HE wants to do, having the fortitude to re-engage with mates who became casual email acquaintances after marriage, claiming an entire weekend to go on a fishing/drinking/camping trip with your mates and their sons, making decisions to change careers even if it means a pay drop just so you can enjoy your work again, selling the McMansion and moving to a place that actually has a big fucking shed instead of a broom closet for your tools..

It all starts with the need to scratch that itch that comes from within.. the itch to kill things, make things, fix things, build things.. all the things that are largely suppressed now.

We don’t kill things - we buy meat. We don’t make things - we go to Ikea. We don’t fix things - we throw them away and buy a new one. We don’t build things - we sign a building contract. In essence we’re completely engaged with the modus operandi that society has mapped out for us. On our behalf, the path our life takes is largely signposted and comes with a manual, expectations and pre-determined responsibilities.

Most concerning of all is that even the legal framework that we exist in is geared towards keeping us on that narrow, predetermined, path. The Family Court System, Planning Laws, Gun Control, the Taxation System, the Education System.. all of them are there to keep us on the straight and narrow.. those systems and controls are like the icewalls of an Bob-sleigh track.. at age 5 when we start school we’re lifted onto the bob-sleigh path and launched downwards.. we can slip and fall, but the icewalls of societal expectations and the systems that govern it keep us hurtling downwards on the correct path.. at age 80 we’re spat out into a pile of snow and we die after enjoying just a few short years of retirement where we might indulge our grandkids and pursue a hobby (if we’re not too frail).