All posts by Alistair Lattimore

About Alistair Lattimore

My name is Alistair Lattimore, I'm in my very early 30's and live on the sunny Gold Coast in Australia. I married my high school sweet heart & we've been together for longer than I can remember. Claire and I started our family in September 2008 when Hugo was born and added a gorgeous little girl named Evie in May 2010. You can find me online in the typical hangouts, Google+, Twitter & facebook. .

Paper Wasps Attack

Humour, Life

Last weekend I needed to rid the back door of our home of some paper wasps. Not knowing of a sure fire way to safely get rid of them, I turned to a trusty bottle of Mortein. As it turns out, paper wasps really don’t enjoy getting dosed with Mortein. In fact, as soon as I sprayed the paper wasp nest – they immediately reacted by flying around furiously looking for something to lay into. Expecting that they were going to go berserk, I was able to get away without getting stung.

Today, I was weeding in the back yard and I unfortunately chanced upon another paper wasp nest in an unlikely position. Worst though, is that I had no idea it was there until I felt the crisp, sharp pain of a paper wasp stinging my thumb! Initially, I thought I’d just brushed it against something sharp and didn’t think anything of it until it happened again, at which point I could see the paper wasps swarming away from their nest. I was pretty lucky in the end, there were about a dozen paper wasps and I was only stung twice on the thumb and it didn’t swell that much. That said, its about six hours since I was stung and I still can’t bend my thumb completely pain free.

Moral of the story, only get close to live paper wasps and their nests if you’re packing a bit fat bottle of Mortein.

Like Father, Like Daughter?

Animals, Humour, Photos

White ragdoll cat sleeping on its back spread eagleI was recently laying down on the carpet stretching and massaging my back muscles with the use of a Bak Ball and Princess thought she would keep me company.

As I have mentioned previously, Princess isn’t all that normal in the laying down department, so instead of just sitting near me like a normal cat – she laid on her back.

I didn’t notice her there at first and then Claire pointed it out – it does make a funny photo.

Kitty Strikes Again

Hardware, Humour, Life

Princess has found a new play friend, the friendly gecko. In the last four months, our happy go lucky ragdoll has chanced upon more than one gecko and each time it has been an exciting adventure. Of course, Princess is horrified that the tiny gecko won’t come down from the roof or low enough on the walls for them to play together. In an attempt to will the gecko down, she feels that meowing at it will help; strangely enough – it hasn’t seemed to just yet.

With all of the excitement of chasing a gecko around, the kitty generally seems to forget about all normal cautionary things and is in strict play mode. During play mode, Princess will go after virtually anything, at all virtually any cost – even if it means that it’d put herself in harms way. In her latest adventures with the gecko, while barreling around the house – she has managed to hammer yet another piece of computer equipment; this time it was my ADSL modem. After thumping into my poor unsuspecting modem, she managed to hit the power supply hard enough to knock it out of the wall – no more internet for me!

Who wouldn’t like a cute fluffy kitty for a pet?

Australian Idol 2007 Winner, Natalie Gauci

TV
Check out my early predictions for 2008 Australian Idol.

The 2007 Australian Idol contest is over for another year and Natalie Gauci has beaten Matt Corby for the Australian Idol title for 2007.

I’m pleased that Natalie Gauci and Matt Corby made it through to the final. While neither of them have had a completely smooth ride through the competition, they persevered and took on the criticism of the judges where they could to improve their performances. More than that though, they continued to improve each week – which is a key to remaining in the competition as can be seen by Carl Riseley.

Matt Corby is an incredibly gifted young man, however I don’t think he is ready to take on what would be thrust upon him just yet. While I fully expect that he’ll get a recording contact with someone, whatever time lapses between now and then will be time well spent. Contrast that against Natalie Gauci and she has taken pretty much constant criticism and has risen above it at every step of the way. It takes a certain amount of maturity to be able to wear that level of criticism week in and week out and not let it effect you.

From what we’ve been told and seen so far, Natalie Gauci is a talented song writer. I hope that with her new found success via Australian Idol that she’ll be putting that onto the Australian airwaves sooner rather than later.

Kevin Rudd & The Australian Labor Party Victorious

Life, News

After quite a long pre-election lead up, the 2007 Australian Federal Election was held today throughout Australia.

In previous federal elections, my vote has been in favour of the in power Liberal Party, however 2007 is a time for change in my eyes. For the first time in my voting history, I have cast a number 1 vote in favour of the Labor Party and am backing Kevin Rudd to lead the country forward.

For the last eleven and a half years, the Liberal Party have been in the drivers seat, which has by and large done great things for the country. While the coalition has had it’s successes over the last decade, it’s also had its share of failures. I believe that the Australian Liberal Party have been in power for as long as they have, not necessarily because they had better policy all the time – but that they haven’t had any real opposition.

In 2007, the Australian public have had an alternative to the coalition – it came in the form of Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party. It has probably come as a surprise to many of the Liberal Party constituents that as soon as the valid alternative was provided, that the Australian people have swung so strongly in favour of it.

As I mentioned earlier, I was among the people who have swung their vote to the Labor Party. If you’re wondering why, for me is has become quite simple; I don’t think any political party should be empowered for as long as the Australian Liberal Party have been. If you’ve stayed with your historic voting pattern or swung your vote in either direction, what was your motivation for the Australian Federal Election of 2007?