A friend of mine has a car that is leased through a government job. The lease is expiring, and she’s seeing if she can swap models to something smaller and more fuel-efficient. Government policy dictates that, with few exceptions, fleet cars are Australian made. Australian made cars are all big ones: Falcon, Magna, Commodore and ... [More]
Today I’m working from home. Here is my (still relatively tidy from Saturday’s pre-party cleanup) home office. With the new flat screens ‘n’ everything. You see the stool at the far left? That’s got most of the bits of paper on it that were formerly cluttering up the desk. I’ll get through those and sort ... [More]
The 2006 Australian census is tomorrow night, and once again participants have a chance to answer the religion question as: JEDI. Apparently 70,000 did last time (including me). As the Australian Bureau of Statistics says: If your belief system is “Jedi” then answer as such on the census form. Taking a look at the Jedi ... [More]
(Couple of extra points added 8:45am Monday) Superb preparation help: Marita, cleaning and tidying yesterday. (The house certainly hasn’t looked better since I’ve moved in.) Obligatory pre-party crises yesterday: Washing machine broke down, leaking from inlet pipe. Water throughout laundry. Plus work hassles; many phone calls. Today’s isolated drizzle: thankfully hit before things started. Party ... [More]
Sections that get read, then recycled (in no particular order): News Insight A2 Good Weekend Travel Yesterday’s EG, which I haven’t got around to reading yet Sections that just get recycled: Drive Domain (I’m no longer house-shopping) Business (usually; unless some big issue catches my attention) Sport (except for checking last night’s footy score… damn ... [More]
I am not an economist, but I did study it in year 11. So forgive me if this is uninformed brainless speculation, but I was thinking about yesterday’s interest rate rise. I understand the principle of the Reserve Bank of Australia fiddling with interest rates when inflation is high, to scale back demand, though I ... [More]
Most places of work regularly have fire drills. So do schools. A couple of weeks ago I decided to have an evacuation briefing at home. Seriously. To show the kids the alternate ways of getting out of the house in an emergency. It strikes me that this is something missing from many homes. You’ve got ... [More]
I didn’t get up early. I’m up late. Pulling an all-nighter for a major system deployment. Which has involved a lot of waiting around. Should get to bed soon. Thank goodness I can do it all from the comfort of my own home. Strangely, I don’t feel particularly tired. I bet I will when I ... [More]
Arthur And George (Julian Barnes) — not quite historical novel, not quite biography, following the true story of Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji. Somewhere in between, perhaps. Really well written, I thought (no wonder if was on the 2005 Booker shortlist), getting inside the heads of the main characters using language they’d probably use ... [More]
Well, I did it. I survived an entire week without chocolate. Cruelly, my body reacted to this effort by producing a rather large pimple on the side of my nose. Is there no justice? However, I’m conscious of the fact that diabetes is far from unknown in my family, and while I’m not going to ... [More]
It seems one of the popular things is to complain about these days the curse of the always-on generation. Mobile phones, email, instant messaging mean you’re always contactable. But I like all that stuff for other reasons. It means I can leave the office early (as I do every Tuesday) and stay in touch. I ... [More]
Yesterday morning I had a blood nose in the shower. Very Psycho, I must say. My left side is clearly my best. My right side is… well, a bit defective. My right nostril is always the one that gets the blood. Semi-regularly in fact, particularly in high summer or when I’m blowing my nose a ... [More]