The Melbourne Press Club have put up the MP3 recordings of last month’s “Public Transport: Ticket to Where?” debate. Their web page is a bit confusing (you have to click on the Quicktime logos), but here’s a summary of the MP3s: 1. Introductions — Not really worth listening to. 2. Paul Mees — You can’t ... [More]
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Too cutesy by half
If you were wondering (because I was), about the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae names that are way too cutesy to be companies managing $6 trillion in funds… turns out they are actually the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association respectively. There’s also: Farmer Mac (the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation) ... [More]
They’ve almost finished revamping the streetscape along Centre Road. As a resident and ratepayer, I have only one question about the lighting outside the post office: Why? I could perhaps understand it if it was a popular spot at night. But it’s not. I suppose it looks kinda cool, kinda groovy, the green light emanating ... [More]
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$8 a litre
The CSIRO says petrol could reach $8 per litre by 2018, due to supply peaking, then declining. (Of this, even at a cost of $10 per tonne of carbon, only 25 cents would be an emissions charge.) Jayne’s history blog notes that this month in 1940, “Petrol rationing was introduced, with motorists permitted to travel ... [More]
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IGA
Shopping at an IGA Supermarket near me is a bit like stepping back in time. The cash registers don’t have the full colour screens like in Coles and Safeway. But the shelves do have those electronic price tags that were all the rage in the early-noughties at places like K-Mart, before they realised that they ... [More]
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Is it just me?
Is it just me that hangs up my laundry inside-out, so the sunshine fades it on the inside?
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I hate the music
Message to owners of coffee shops in the CBD and other business-oriented areas: Because of the closeness of related organisations, your venue is a de facto meeting room. So, at least 9 to 5, turn down the music. Your clientele is happy to pay you to serve us beverages, but we really don’t want to ... [More]
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Lessons from 1983
25 years ago last week, the battle to stop the Franklin river dam was won. I think it provides some lessons for today. At the time it was seen as a battle between the economy and the environment. Most now concede that by stopping the dam, we have both — the stunning scenery of the ... [More]
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The last Tintin
We all did stupid things when we were young. I’m ashamed to admit that one of the sillier things I did in my teenage years was to dispose of my Tintin books. After a while I realised my mistake, and started collecting them again, book by book. (I decided I preferred the full-size versions, not ... [More]
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Headlines
I genuinely hope Graham Polak makes a full recovery, but I can’t help noting that you can’t get much more Melbourne than this newspaper headline: Tigers in shock after AFL star hit by tram As for this one, it sounds like something from that Stan/Loretta scene from The Life Of Brian, about The Right To ... [More]
A few nights ago Marita had an interesting dream… She was walking around in a gallery. The pictures hanging there all had big writing, saying things like “Fail!” and “Failure!” She’s not sure what it refers to. (I could suggest blogging, but why now?) For myself, I haven’t had any interesting dreams lately. Not that ... [More]
Here’s a handy thing Metlink is beta testing at the moment: apart from having online timetable displays that show you the whole day on one page (at last!) you can also get a timetable for your individual stop. To get them, go to the Metlink web site. You can search for the route number, then ... [More]
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Two hundred and seventy
$270 for the car, to fix the distributor. I swear to you now, that’s the last repair — and hopefully the last money ever on that bloody car. (I filled up on Tuesday.) On the brighter side, did you hear about that car hoon guy, the one who was stupid enough to get his car ... [More]
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Friday fotos
Another top class bit of parking. Okay, so it doesn’t appear to actually say “No parking”, but it’s not hard to imagine what the intent was. I haven’t seen the Get Smart movie yet, but I’m quite amused by these telephone box adverts for it. In Rippon Street, they’re apparently very proud of that beautification ... [More]
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Bloody car
When I bought my car (which seemed good at the time), the bloke I bought it from reckoned when the fuel light went on, you had about another 50K on it. So far it’s never caused me trouble — I’ve never tried to do a Krameresque “how far will it go”, and it’s never actually ... [More]
On Monday I took an early lunch and met my mum and Peter and the kids for a jaunt up onto the Eureka Skydeck. My mum had won tickets for four, but didn’t want to go up herself. The lift had buttons for 1, 2, 86, 87 and 88. Hmm. The automated voice reckoned we ... [More]