Category: General

07:08. Mobile phone +61 4 ## ### ### turned on. Phone provider: Telstra. Owner: DANIEL BOWEN. Location: Carnegie. 07:10. Computer active from IP address 203.113.###.###. ISP: Netspace ADSL. User: DANIEL BOWEN. E-mail, web traffic. 08:27. Mobile phone detected moving: Carnegie, Ormond, Bentleigh, Moorabbin, Hampton, Brighton. Stopped for 6 minutes in Moorabbin. 08:58. Train ticket validated,  ... [More]

Ate fish’n’chips / Walked to Chadstone / Tidied up / Pondered if EVIL BASTARD NEWSPAPER THIEVES are more likely to strike when one’s car is not in the driveway and one fails to go looking for the newspaper until after midday / Discovered how great drying washing on a sunny day is / Went for  ... [More]

It’s something I’d have never expected. A miracle. If I were a Catholic, I’d be shouting for someone involved to be beatified. My car is in for repair. And it’s not going to cost me a cent. It’s been making a nunga-nunga-nunga sound for a while now. I finally waited until my credit card was  ... [More]

The other night just as I was going to bed, I heard a kind of yowling, screeching sound outside. Cats. Cats fighting. In my generously appointed backyard, it sounded like. I put on a dressing gown (because a thick cotton gown is ample protection against the howling wind and cold of a Melbourne night in  ... [More]

7am. Argh. Until a couple of minutes ago, I thought it was 8am. My alarm clock is an hour fast. No wonder I found it so hard to get out of bed this morning at smegging 6 o’clock in the morning, an hour before I normally get up. If I wasn’t so awake, I’d go  ... [More]

From time to time there comes a point in every online diary when one writes amedia release about oneself. I helped write one the other day, not purely about myself, but I certainly rated a mention. The difference is it actually went out to the media, though I’m not sure it was newsworthy. Still, in  ... [More]

9am. I just heard that theSt Kilda Pier Kiosk burnt down overnight. Memories of the pier have come flooding back to me. It won’t be the same there with it gone.

Okay, cloth bags are definitely going mainstream. On Saturday I went for a haircut at my usual barber. I’m definitely going to have to study the football before going next time – he talked almost non-stop about it and I was barely able to contribute anything other than make agreeable noises and bemoan the fact  ... [More]

So there was this Volvo right behind me as I drove down Grange Road. The woman driving it was trying her best to live up to theVolvo tradition – weaving all over road, trying to see if she could overtake me on the inside, for a couple of Ks down Grange Road. We got to  ... [More]

I’m tempted when in the street being asked if I have change, replying "no, I haven’t", and handing over a $20 note. I’m tempted to stick "Keep left unless overtaking" signs on the escalators at Parliament station so the 2% of people who haven’t worked out escalator etiquette will get the hell out of my  ... [More]

It began fifteen years ago with Abbey Road, the first CD I bought. Over the weekend I spent a few minutes sorting my collection of around 350 music CDs. They’d been in something of a chaotic state since the move, which tended to minimise the chances of finding anything I wanted to play. Sometimes a  ... [More]

10:15am. Well I’m quoted in the Hun today (page 1 no less – why do things by half?), and in about an hour ABC TV want to talk to me. Which scares the crap out of me to be honest. Me on the box in my spiffy new jacket. 11:50am. That wasn’t nearly as terrifying  ... [More]

It must be a spending spree week. I’ll use the excuse of giving myself a birthday treat. At lunchtime I went and bought a new work jacket to finally retire the last of my old scruffy horrible ones. Wool and cashmere and something else. Lovely. Probably a disgustingly opulent waste of money while people are  ... [More]

Wednesday night was the blogger meetup – quieter than usual, in more ways than one. But at least in a quiet venue I could (mostly) hear what others were saying. A few drinks and a small but friendly crowd, which came to a slightly abrupt end when the bar closed. Normally I switch off my  ... [More]

This picture taken Wednesday morning, when it was even colder, and the ice much more obvious. I didn’t fully appreciate how cold it was overnight until I got into the car this morning and noticed a strange pattern on the windscreen. "Ooh, interesting pattern", I remarked to the kids, before in my innocence I turned  ... [More]