Categories
driving Food'n'drink Geek Net

Miscellaneous

Damn. Superparma.com is no more. And they built the site in such a way that it seems to be impossible to get at anything except the splash page via archive.org, so the ratings they compiled may be lost forever. Groan. WarGames 2: The Dead Code now in pre-production, and aimed at direct-to-DVD. OK. I was  ... [More]

Categories
TV

Pondering digital TV

Even before the ABC switched over to the ABC1 branding to help emphasise ABC2, I had started shopping for a digital Set Top Box to get the new channels. I’ve been able to sample them through the TV tuner in the computer, but of course watching on the big screen* from the couch is always  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism News and events

St Valentine’s day

I nipped briefly out for a quick hot choccie with my valentine, with a wrapped box of chocolates and a card in an envelope. I returned with an unwrapped box of chocolates and a card in an envelope. They weren’t the same ones, honest. That would be a bit sad and tragic, wouldn’t it. No,  ... [More]

Categories
News and events Politics and activism

The apology

I think one of the reasons I’m so pleased the apology is that it’s so rare for politicians to admit that they (individually or collectively) were wrong. That alone makes it a historic day. Furthermore, we’ve got a lot of reasons to be proud of our country, and it seems only right that we should  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism

Sorry

I’m sure I wrote about this before, some time ago, but I can’t find it right now. I wasn’t there. I’m not to blame. But that doesn’t stop me expressing regret that it happened, especially if it helps to heal old wounds, and I applaud our new government in making a national apology. Sorry. …  ... [More]

Categories
Retrospectives

Not everybody made it

This year marks the 20th anniversary of my leaving high school, and the Old Boys’ Association has a reunion dinner organised which I’ll certainly be going to. I’m even thinking I might go early for the tour of the school, to see how it’s changed. (A teacher I knew at a different school is now  ... [More]

Categories
dreams

Another dream

Dream the other day: Dreamt we were thinking about converting the (small) spare room into a bedroom, and someone pointed out the house has a whole upstairs section that for some reason none of us had never noticed. We went up and found three more bedrooms (one tiny, with very narrow bunk beds) and a  ... [More]

Categories
driving PTUA

Why cutting petrol taxes is not a good idea

Many people like to whinge about the price of fuel, but Steve Fielding’s idea of cutting fuel taxes is a very bad idea — it would inevitably lead to more usage, and cutting prices is the last way you want to try and fight oil shortages. This opinion piece for ABC Online goes into more  ... [More]

Categories
Friends and loved ones

Coburg to Oakleigh

The van we hired on the weekend was to move my Dad to a new place. As he is getting older, he needed an upgrade. He’s very well read, and it turned out he had way more books than I expected. So a lot of the time (and load) was spent shifting heavy boxes and  ... [More]

Categories
driving

Van panic

On Saturday my bro-in-law Adrian and I were headed up to Coburg in a hired van. We were just getting onto the Bolte Bridge when Adrian noticed a warning light on the dashboard. We weren’t sure what it meant, so I reached for the van owner’s manual, which said something along the lines of: 1.  ... [More]

Categories
PTUA transport

‘Exhorbitant’ is spelt M-Y-K-I

If you thought $494 million was a lot to pay for the new “Myki” smartcard public transport ticketing system, hold onto your hats… today it was revealed the actual cost is more than double that — $1 billion dollars, no less. Somehow the government are now claiming they needed to add the operating costs, which  ... [More]

Categories
TV

An easier way

Stupidest commercial of the moment: that Fisher and Paykel washing machine advert with the woman continually bending down/standing up to empty washing out of a frontloading machine, and bemoaning “Surely there must be an easier way?” Pah, some adverts just make me want to throw a brick at the TV, and shout at the screen.  ... [More]