Yeah, but I'd blow into the thing to try to make smoke rings!

By the way, Stormbird, I'd like to add another indicator of how you know if you're Australian --- If you knock the bails off the stumps and then pretend that the batsman was bowled. Sheesh! The underarm incident all over again!

Oh come on now Rob....an honest mistake surely!!!

Anyway, all's well that ends well - you guys won didn't you? Isn't that kharma leading the way?

Tsk tsk nothing but an honest mistake......honest!

To the OP: You forgot the giant fiberglass pineapple (Sunshine Coast).

Dear Mel
You missed the perfect opportunity - not "ya'll pronounce Cairns as Cans" , but rather "YOUSE pronounce Cairns" as Cans!

Loved the original post, stormbird.

Author: kiwi_rob
Date: 02/01/2009, 09:59 pm
Yeah, but I'd blow into the thing to try to make smoke rings!

By the way, Stormbird, I'd like to add another indicator of how you know if you're Australian --- If you knock the bails off the stumps and then pretend that the batsman was bowled. Sheesh! The underarm incident all over again!
.......................
I agree Rob, at best wishful thinking on the part of Hadden and though a keeper would have his eyes on the ball and feel through to hand from gloves may not be all that great, I'd have liked him on seeing replay [which would have been on a screen] to motion to the umpires that he had knocked the stumps.
Bloody poor umpiring on the part of SL Ump [must have been asleep] and then third umpire had to be blind.

Not a good showing at all for Aussie sportsmanship.

Yeah yeah, well, we've moved on from the cricket now .....what was it youse was saying about the Big Pineapple......

Well, youse can say what you like about the Big Pineapple, but nothing wrong with their macadamia nut sundaes. Stormbird, isn't it just down the road from a huge black and white fibre glass cow, or has that gone? Probably called the Big Cow. My kids used to clamour to stop there when they were little.

Author: stormbird
Date: 02/04/2009, 06:19 am
Yeah yeah, well, we've moved on from the cricket now .....what was it youse was saying about the Big Pineapple......
..........................
Not the way of true blue Aussies at all stormbird to dismiss bad sportmanship so easily.
I recall another wicketkeeper who wasn't around all that long taking an alleged catch a few decades back, before Heales was around.

He had to know it was a ricochet job and that sort of stuff don't make this true blue Oz proud at all - actually worse than underarm Rob because that was within the rules if not spirit of fair competition - taking dismissals you know are not so is just cheating!

My apologies to all fair minded sports loving kiwis Rob on behalf of any Aussies who want to feel how I do, for both this recent event and on behalf of Greg Chappel.

Ironically, I remember Rod Marsh, the wicketkeeper of the team in total disbelief at Greg's direction and his sentiment was shared by many Australians then too.

I know what many Kiwis would like to do with a few pineapples!

I suppose that we all expect our sporting icons to epitomise all that is best in whatever the particular sport is and hope that they will always "do the right thing" in any circumstances. Inevitably, the heat of the moment and personalities will militate against this on occasions and, as a result, we feel let down. It's as if our collective reputation has been tarnished somewhat.

But we must be strong and move on! With that in mind, for myself and the other 157 fair minded sports loving kiwis, I accept your gracious apology, Bushranger.

Now, as for those pineapples...

I was in Australia for 6 weeks last summer and my curiosity got the better of me and I must admit I stopped by the big pineapple. I was home exchanging in Kawana Waters (Sunshine Coast) at the time.

I did like the decorated mailboxes I saw. We don't have them in the US. By the way I saw them in country areas but I definitely never made it to the real outback--just sort of sparsely populated towns inland in Queensland.

I saw road trains NW of Toowoomba and brought back a T-shirt that says, "Toowoomba, where the hell is it?" If that same shirt were manufactured for the US market, they would have probably cleaned it up (as in "Where the heck is it?"). I liked the Aussie version better.

Rob, was this Kiwi batsman the same one who took a "catch" behind the wicket off a wide in the same match?

Bad decisions abound in sport as in every other human activity.

Now, don't get me started.

No. That batsman was the one who was given out leg before when he had got enough bat on it to squash one of those big Queensland pinapples!

Pinapples are very similar to pineapples.

Just smaller.

LOL

OK Rob I do feel sorry for him to get two poor decisions in a row. Not nearly as bad as the five bad ones, including three shockers, which temporarily stopped Simon Katich's career.

I am glad the habit of wicket keepers getting their hands in front of the stumps has been raised. There have been a few dodgy stumpings lately.

Back to the original post, as Lauren has reminded me for our not reducing "hell" to "heck"..

You know you're Australian if ...

You find calling a toilet a bathroom or restroom is weird (who'd want to rest in a toilet?)
Everone knows it's a loo, toot, dunny or if one is very coy, WC.

And you think you know that the Big Cow is at Mooball on the Pacific Highway not that far from the Queensland border.

There's a few big things about,
http://www.bigthings.com.au/c.htm
http://www.wilmap.com.au/bigstuff/default.htm and then if it was this one - http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/stories/s1021381.htm , been decommissioned.

But yes, I do remember the Moobal one, think the new motorway now bypasses the stretch.

There are enough restrooms about the countryside that Australians are not so ignorant that they do not know the word is more prevalent elsewhere and one that can infer tha's where a toilet might be found.

You're right Bushranger, the new highway does bypass Moobal,northern NSW; was there last year, wonderful juicy strawberries dipped in chocolate - cow themed, yes, but nothing on the monster that loomed over the highway in SE Qld, a few kms north of Big Pineapple near Nambour. It used to be a tourist-farm type thing designed for kids, I just googled it and now it seems to belong to a furniture shop.

When I was a kid there were restrooms in many country towns in Queensland. These were usually built and maintained by the Country Women's Association. They were indeed rest rooms with a WC attached if the women were lucky or a thunderbox or even long drop out the back.

The rest rooms usually had a couple of chairs and the facilities for making a cuppa and changing a baby's nappy.

There is one still in operation in the main street of Mareeba. They have a toilet around the back for the gents too.