Contrary to my claims of last week (who’d have thought a few words on the joys of shopping on foot would attract so many comments?!), on Sunday I found myself grocery shopping by car at Coles at Southland. This is because I’d wanted to look for something at K-Mart. It’s one of those trips that ... [More]
Some have recently suggested that people should be consolidating grocery shopping, doing just one big trip per week, to cut down on petrol usage. I’ve done the opposite — I’ve started doing more trips to the supermarket, on foot. This is helped by the fact that since I’ve moved, the supermarket is only about 5 ... [More]
The locksmith last week mentioned a product he sells for people who regularly lock themselves out of their house. It’s a locked box that sits in your garden, which requires only a PIN(*) to open. Inside you keep a spare key. A kind of high-tech version of hiding a key under the mat / in ... [More]
When I moved, I rang up the phone company to get my new number, which like the old one, is silent, to dodge telemarketers. I also asked if it was a fresh, unused number, and the operator said it hadn’t been used in five years. Excellent. And to avoid telemarketing calls, I’ve started quoting a ... [More]
Over the past few years, the banks have stood accused of piling on bank fees, reducing branches and staff, and generally treating their customers with contempt. While this has been happening, they’ve focussed on their most profitable customers, rewarding them with shiny cards, priority phone lines, and something close to obsequiousness. Having got a home ... [More]
The great thing about using St George Bank in Victoria is that on the rare occasions I have to go into a branch, there’s never any queues, because they don’t have any customers.
Picked up Marita (back from Perth junket conference) from the airport on Friday night. Traffic bad. Very bad. That’s what comes from agreeing to pickup before realising the flight lands at 6:35pm. Went to a wedding on Saturday morning. Shopped on Saturday afternoon. Saw three hall stands in a Fitzroy antique shop that would look ... [More]
Stuff from the past week: My arch nemesis, Big Ears/Darrin, often hangs out with his mates having a coffee outside the Collins Street (Paris End) McDonalds on weekdays about 9:30am. I wonder if I can bribe the McPeople there to do the same thing to him as he did to me? After much hunting, last ... [More]
A few plugs for things spotted recently… Gardens A while back I was getting a couple of enterprising students, Keith and David, to do my mowing. They’d turn up with their dad driving a stationwagon full of gardening implements of destruction, and do the gardening. But a couple of months ago they bowed out, saying ... [More]
From cruising through both Safeway and Coles in the past few weeks, it would appear that the Safe and Naturale branded recycled napkins and (facial) tissues are no longer generally available, and the ones I do have are about to run out. This bugs me, as I’ve been using them both for years (switching to ... [More]
I’ve been with you for twenty years, but I’ve had enough. Oh sure, we’ve often been happy together. But lately you’ve been really annoying at times. You’ve been taking me for granted, taking more and more from me. And what you’ve given back I’ve found to be… well, disappointing. Well now I’ve had a better ... [More]
Since I’m moving house soonish, and am planning to buy a new couch and do a hatchet job in the kitchen with that cool looking but unusable (to me) ancient oven, there seem to be an awful lot of kitchen and furniture catalogues finding their way into my junk mail. It’s like they know. I’ve ... [More]