I’d completely forgotten about this until M reminded me of it last week. For some reason I didn’t blog about it at the time. Better late than never. A couple of years ago (actually, 2006, when the kids looked much younger than they do now) Flat Stanley (this one from friends in the USA) came ... [More]
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Shuffling the dishes
One of the things I sometimes do is put the iPod on random play shuffle while I do the dishes (that is, the dishes that can’t be efficiently washed in the dishwasher). I find that because I can’t readily skip to the next track, I end up hearing stuff from my music collection that I’d ... [More]
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Two urns lost
Overnight Australia lost the Ashes, after losing to England by 197 runs. You can hear the joy in Stephen Fry’s voice in this short audio post on the subject: Listen! And this weekend my footy tips tanked with just 4 out of 8. With only one more round to go, I now have no chance ... [More]
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Spot the odd one out
The Saturday Age’s property section has a bit on pages 2-3 called Private Property, where they highlight various homes for sale, and note who is selling them, and their claim to fame, such that it is. Spot the odd one out from yesterday’s edition: Frankston car dealer and philanthropist Gary Lechte Maryann Jesudason and her ... [More]
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One artist challenge
I’m only doing this ‘cos (a) Rae tagged me (a while back) and (b) I had a smartarse answer for the first question. The ONE ARTIST Challenge ! Choosing only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me. You can’t use the band ... [More]
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KRudd quoting Twitter
Nice to see the Prime Minister quoting a Twitter post in parliament, but jeez — reading it off a printout? Surely his staffers could have sent it to him on his Blackberry or something so he looked at least a little tech-savvy. (via Mumbrella)
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The monthly refueling
Tomorrow it will be a month since I last filled up the car with petrol. The tank is almost empty now; I’ll fill it up again tonight. Generally I just fill it up when it’s getting lowish and it’s convenient. Given my consumption isn’t high, I don’t bother to shop around, and if I see ... [More]
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Walkability (again)
In some cities, they argue about whether or not streets should have footpaths. Thankfully not so much here. Of course, for people to walk, they need somewhere to walk to. An article in the local paper a few weeks ago highlighted the low Walkscores for some suburbs against others: Heatherton was the lowest in the ... [More]
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Print’s not dead yet
If you’ve wondered how many people read the magazines you see in the newsagent, here’s the figures. The only magazine I subscribe to, Australian Personal Computer, is sitting at 34,111, down 8% in the last year. Perhaps IT-related mags are more likely to be dropping with competition from online, though what caught my eye was ... [More]
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Doctor Who goes mainstream
You know a TV show has gone mainstream when you see a t-shirt for it in the window of Target (as well as having its DVDs advertised on phone boxes).
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Shopping around for insurance
As I noted in March, a bunch of my annual expenses fall together. This is a consequence of having bought both my house and my car in the month of August. Apart from the insurance on both of them, the car rego also happens to fall in August. I had been pondering why my home ... [More]
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Never pay retail
Costco at Docklands in Melbourne opens today at 8am. I’ll be very interested to hear how it goes, but I’m not going to be rushing in to cough up my $60 to join up and start doing my shopping there. For one thing I’ve realised that if one is prepared to be brand-agnostic, keep an ... [More]
Footscray Park, half-an-hour ago…
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Woke up this morning
Woke up this morning to the sound of a helicopter hovering nearby. It quickly became apparent something serious was going on: just before 2am a car travelling at high speed along Centre Road (the main road nearest to me) had smashed into several shops, killing the driver. From the pictures from the scene the shops ... [More]
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Notes from the commute
Amusing personalised number plate: “AMLOST”. Heh. One day, train commuters are going to revolt, form guerrilla groups (which have absolutely nothing to do with me) which strike in the middle of the night, putting back all the “Stand on left / Walk on right” escalator signs. In the mean time, if you’re standing on the ... [More]
Sometimes I can mess up the simplest things.