Is it just me, or does Robert Deniro (or is it De Niro?) have the weirdest smile you've ever seen?



Look at that expression - he looks like he has seen the expression of joy on the faces of human beings, but can't quite replicate it on his own face. Watch 'Sleepers' sometime and notice how perfectly he fits in as a patient in a mental hospital.

Don't get me wrong, I love De Niro (or is it Deniro?) but it's easy to see why he usually plays dangerous psychopaths with perpetually clenched jaws.

I'm now in the hour building phase of my CPL training - if you're free from 09:30-12:00 on Sunday 23rd December and want to come for a quick flight, drop me a line. The only stipulation is you must weigh 80kg or less. First time flyers fly free - if you've flown with me before, be a sport and help me chip in for gas.

Update - no one took me up on my offer, so JNB and I had a lovely flight on a perfect sunny day, and I moved two hours closer to my CPL.

Pink - she's not here for your entertainment, which seems a strange attitude to adopt if you are a professional entertainer, but in her case one which I entirely agree with.

What have I been doing? Why have I not been updating? I got a bit fed up with the whole blogging "thing" (feel free to wiggled four fingers in the air in accepted imitation of inverted commas,) then I decided I would get back into it by posting my flights. A combination of lack of funds, poor weather and the current surfeit of suitable flight instructors meant I hadn't flown since October. But today I did.

Did you know there is a shortage of pilots? I do - the airlines have sucked up almost all the commercial pilots from general aviation, leaving hardly any instructors, only those who are happy in GA (yes, they are out there, but few and far between,) and those whose other qualities are deemed undesirable. Like sexual deviants. There are some instructors who undoubtedly fit into both categories.

You might have guessed I'm being facetious. Most pilots are sexual deviants as a matter of course, and it has never been an impediment to flying for an airline.

Before you ask - yes I do know there is a shortage of pilots out there, but given my lack of qualifications and experience I can't go and work for an airline just yet, but thanks very much for the suggestion, I know you mean well.

Todays flight was a quick 1.4 hours day VFR to Wollongong and back. I needed to get this done for an aeroplane flight review, which was due in November for me and without which I can't fly solo. Every two years this needs to be done, under the supervision of a suitable flight instructor, to ensure I haven't picked up any bad habits, like nose-picking or voting Democrat. This AFR (can't have an aviation term without an acronym, don't you know) would not have been necessary had I completed my night VFR rating before November, but c'est l'avion.

Down to Wollongong from Bankstown, instructor yawning and complaining he was bored, got me to fly overhead the field at 3000 feet then pulled the power off, glided all the way down to a gentle touch down with a gusting, swinging crosswind, then touch and go back to Bankstown. All very straightforward and good, clean fun.

So I'm legal again, until my medical is due in March next year.

Net dumbs us down: Nobel prize winner

Don't you feel more stupider?

I personally don't think the internet makes your more or less stupid. I do think it makes you less ignorant, but there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.

So why would she think this way? Were people noticeably more intelligent prior to, say, 1995? Apparently it's because people in developing nations want books and can't get them, whereas people in developed nations have books and don't read them.

I have my own theory about why people nowadays seem more stupider then what their did in teh olden days. It's not that there are more idiots about, it's just that you tend to encounter the fruits of their intellect more frequently.

The internet hasn't made people less intelligent, but it has provided easy outlets for their creativity. In ancient times, say, 1987, if you wanted to have your opinions read by the masses, you were reduced to handing out flyers, or you had to get your magnum opus published. Inevitably, publishers like to browse through the contents of the books they intend to publish. Thus, 99% of submitted works were rejected on the grounds they were utter rubbish, and the author clearly a dangerous lunatic. Nowadays, any halfwit with a digit-like appendage, a keyboard and an internet connection can vomit their outpourings on teh intarwebs for other mentalists and nimrods to read.

Much like this.

Goodness, it has been quiet in here, hasn't it?

I promise I will post something soon, I intended to post about my next night flight, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Please pardon the post paucity, perhaps peruse this plane pron?

BZ's 2007 San Francisco Fleetweek