Bundaberg and Bears

As many readers of this blog would know, cyclone Oswald hit Australia over the Australia Day Weekend reeking havoc with Queensland (where I live), 
but the town that really copped it the most was Bundaberg, 
home of Australia's most famous rum.

Bundaberg Rum

Bundaberg got hit hard,while the most that happened at my place was a lot of wind and rain and a power outage that lasted a day and a half. 
With no computer and having to pull out the gas BBQ to cook the meals, I saw a book I had bought about a year ago laying in the

"To Read" pile with the back cover facing me like so-

with a BBQ fork and matches, and with the appealing title of 
"101 Things Everyman Should Know How To Do".
I thought that was a bit of a sync, since we might be cooking on the BBQ for a few nights, and I'm no BBQ chef, so I might get some tips here.

I decided that I would read the chapters in the order that they were written and the first chapter was -

 "Fight A Bear"!???

 I thought were the heck would I come across a bear in Australia?

Then the book mentioned the worst bear to fight would be a Polar Bear.
I thought there's no polar bears in Australia that I know of, 
and then I heard on the radio 
(I had a battery powered one, luckily) 
that Bundaberg was going to be flooded worse than two years ago.
And what's the most famous symbol of Bundaberg?

The Bundaberg Rum bottle with it's Polar Bear on the label, of course.

In the book it says fighting a bear would insure immortality at your local watering-hole.
And don't be fooled by pop culture's softening of the bear persona as they are not cute and fluffy stuffed animals; they are natural born killing machines.

The cute Bundy Bear

WARNING: THESE GUYS ARE SPEAKING THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE OF NEW ZEALAND, WHICH SOUNDS SIMILAR TO ENGLISH, BUT IS UNRECOGNIZABLE BY OTHER ENGLISH SPEAKING MEMBERS OF THE PLANET;-)
Last time the town got hit by floods Bundaberg Rum brought out a rum called "Watermark"

Unfortunately the town got hit worse than in the above clip this time.

Floodwaters near the Bundaberg Rum Distillery,
Bundaberg East, January 27, 2012

Houses washed away as receding floodwaters
 reveal Bundaberg devastation

It also says in the book that before doing battle you need to get drunk.
There is no sense in fighting a bear sober, you might lose your nerve.
Think of Whiskey (Rum?) as the lazy man's steroids.
If possible, it couldn't hurt to get the bear drunk too.

The book also ranks difficulty of fighting different kinds of bears,
such as Brown, Black, Sloth Bear, Panda and Sun Bear.
Which reminds me of 
Werner Herzog's movie "Grizzly Man".

Weird, at the end of the above trailer in says 
in cinemas Feb 3 ... which is today's date.

The next chapter in the book is titled "Be A Superhero", 
which seems to be what Tim Tredwell was doing 
in the "Grizzly Man" movie.
But wait, there's more -

The book says that if animals aren't your thing, another possibility is to base your theme on a type of natural disaster, like hurricanes, earthquakes, or twisters.
It even suggests using "Hurricane Force Z" as a name!??

The guy that made "Attack Force Z" also made "Eliza Fraser",
as mentioned in my post about Dingoes and Fraser Island -
Dingo - The Trickster 
Then it says that if you are Croc Man consider genuine crocodile skin and Kevlar.

And if you are an Aussie Wonder wielding a boomerang that completes the image.

Finally it gives advice to conceal your identity, but oddly enough for those who know me this page above gives mine away;-)

What I don't like about this book though, and without the personal synchronicties I experienced while reading it, that I would hate even more, was how it would just give a title for a chapter without writing anything else, even in a tongue in cheek way about the subject.
I think that tactic is really low, 
as you bought the book probably thinking you would get 101 chapters to read.
You'd be lucky to get 50 real chapters, as this goes on right throughout the book.
Which to me is unbearable;-)