Category: General

I’ve been thinking about my medium to long term goals, and specifically how it relates to my home. My home is getting a little bit crap. The flat is a good size, in a good location, but it’s a bit rundown, mostly because my landlady, like most landlords the world over, is a little tight  ... [More]

Went to glue something today, and discovered the tube of superglue I had wouldn’t open. Because the lid was stuck closed. Figures, I suppose.

On Friday night I arranged to meet a couple of visitors to this fair city. Nothing could be simpler than to meet up at the entrance to the Holiday Inn, right? Easy. It’s on Spencer Street. No problem. So my lovely companion (who I shall refer to for the moment as "C", since at this  ... [More]

Letter, today’s Age.

I was in the Melbourne Central food court yesterday at lunchtime, pondering food court etiquette. The cleaners there seem to be very quick in leaping into action to clear and wipe tables. So should I take my tray away myself? Perhaps. Perhaps not. They also seemed to be equipped with radios. Very handy, cleaners having  ... [More]

Years and years ago, Douglas Adams and John Lloyd put out a book called The Meaning Of Liff. Later on they updated it as The Deeper Meaning Of Liff. There’s a (possibly unintentional) reference to it in the opening titles of Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life. The book itself is a list of made up  ... [More]

There’s only one thing more like hell on earth than kids running around like maniacs in an indoor playground during a kid’s birthday party. And that’s kids running around like maniacs in your house during a kid’s birthday party. Jeremy’s fourth birthday party had been scheduled for a local park. Parks are a good place  ... [More]

Last night I went for a walk. Tonight there was little chance of that. After a hot muggy day came the cloud, then the thunder, then the lightning, then the rain, then more rain, then the hail, then more rain, and more lightning… You get the general picture.

11:30am. Telemarketer: Hello is that Mr or Mrs Bowen? Me: What are you selling? Telemarketer: Oh, I’m not selling nothing. Great. She followed on with some spiel about how my house was only one of five in the suburb to be chosen for a free offer… does anybody fall for this crap any more? 3:15pm.  ... [More]

We’ve started a mini-DVD swapping scheme at work, so this weekend I watched two movies I missed in the cinemas… Gladiator – great movie. Best bit was seeing "Clavdivs" – Derek Jacobi in it! That and looking at Russ in the Colosseum and thinking… Hey, I’ve been there! Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – yeah, pretty  ... [More]

Properties… No, Disable… Arrghh! At work. Need to check the configuration on the server… okay here we go! Click, click, open Terminal Services, log on, click, start, Settings, Network, Local Area Connection.. Okay! Now to look at the Properties… click… Whoops. Got the other button. Disable. Disable network connection. When I’m logged on remotely. No  ... [More]

At the Australian Open tennis (Pic: Danielle) Pulling silly faces at Arthur’s Seat (Pic: Danielle) I was awake around 5:15 on Friday morning to get into the city to meet Danielle on the 7am XPT from Sydney. By about 6am it was apparent from an SMS that it wouldn’t be the 7am XPT – it  ... [More]

I’ve been watching the Australian Open tennis with rather more interest than usual, because I’ve got tickets to go tomorrow night. All the Aussie blokes have already bombed out of the men’s singles, but hopefully the matches on will be of interest anyway. I’m off to bed early tonight to meet up with my friend  ... [More]

Roos in the wilderness near Seymour I put on my political activist’s hat over the weekend, up at Seymour for a junket/love-in/planning weekend. Actually, it can’t have been a junket because we paid for most of the costs. Anyway we were up at this groovy place in the wilderness somewhere outside Seymour (far enough from  ... [More]

I’ve done it. I’ve actually done it. I can hardly believe it. I never thought I’d see the day. I never thought it would come to this. I did the "when I was a boy I used to walk…", speech to my kids. It’s times like this when I realise that generation after generation is  ... [More]

I’ve been pretty busy this week, in a kind of lazy kind of a way. On Monday I took the kids to the zoo. Heaps of fun. Heaps of animals. I couldn’t help but notice one curious family, some of whom were dressed rather oddly for the zoo on a summer’s day, I thought. To  ... [More]