Last week a colleague who, shall we say, has form for forwarding dodgy emails, sent me one claiming Mars and the Moon would be aligned on Monday morning at 12:30am. Turns out to be a hoax. Happily I didn’t stay/get up specially to watch. Neither did anybody else, apparently (or if they are, they’re not ... [More]
Today I turn 37. Which I figure means I’m leaving my mid-thirties. I have to work today, and my footy tips are descending into farce, but on the bright side, the weather has turned good (25 degrees forecast today!), and it was nice to have a few people over yesterday to celebrate (even if it ... [More]
I’ve mentioned this briefly before, but back in my uni days, my diet was pretty shocking. Often a bunch of us would go down to the corner shop (now razed and redeveloped as Yet More University Buildings). I’d chow down a $1.50 hotdog, and maybe some chips, perhaps a Big M or an OJ, and ... [More]
On Saturday I went past a little house which I bet is affordable. You could say the location was convenient for transport — near Laverton station and the freeway. To be precise, it’s wedged Castle-like in a spot between the Werribee/Geelong railway line and the M1 — in fact the house is about as close ... [More]
Some pics from the last few days… These people really really really really really like Sunkist. They bought probably about 50 x 1.25 litre bottles. (Why not buy bigger bottles?) They also bought over 100 Milo bars. Someone, somewhere is having a Sunkist and Milo Bar party. The checkout staff seemed quite bemused by it ... [More]
A few weeks ago I was walking along Hotham Street in Balaclava and noted security people on duty outside some of the Jewish buildings. Fairly low-key — just a man and a woman in suits with radios. They said good morning, and I reciprocated. I grew up near there, and it didn’t used to be ... [More]
Tramps Like Us by Kristen Buckley — Kristen emailed and asked if I’d like to read and review this book, as its Australian launch is coming soon. I’m glad I said yes, it’s smegging hilarious. Kristen’s better known for being a screenwriter for movies that… well, frankly, I wouldn’t go out of my way to ... [More]
I’ve lived in my house almost two years. And during that time.. I’ve done bugger all to it. Not that I was planning to do much, but here’s the current list. In my defence, I seem to rarely have any spare time to attack some of these things. Short term: Find out what kind of ... [More]
Sorry, too busy today to say much. Age: Public transport call to Canberra. Full report: Moving Australians Sustainably. Age: New rail tunnel proposal gains momentum Herald-Sun: Rail system daily ordeal for 300,000
I have a cautionary tale for you. A few weeks ago I was merrily strolling through Bentleigh, and decided to see what they had in the discount supermarket place. To my delight they had some very cheap Cadbury breakfast bars. Ah, the goodness of muesli combined with the deliciousness of chocolate. Okay, so slightly past ... [More]
When I fire up the dishwasher, and get the washing machine running, and the central heating’s warming the house, and I can hear them all going… sometimes it’s a terribly good feeling to know all my machines are working hard for me. Perhaps people last century thought they’d have robots running around doing their bidding, ... [More]
I had a walk around Fed Square and Birrarung Marr on Friday. I was actually looking to get a pic of the Spamalot information booth, which had a big inflatable Monty Python foot on top of it. The kids could have had great fun animating it. Alas my plan went askew when I couldn’t find ... [More]
I’ve gone cold turkey on junk mail. The sticker went on last weekend, and there’s been nothing since. Of all the junk mail I used to get (the record being a phenominal 28 pieces in a single day, but more typical being 100 per month), I would only read a fraction of it: usually I’d ... [More]
And you thought I was a geek for knowing 75 digits of pi. Peter Thamm of Melbourne’s Viewbank Secondary College has memorised ten thousand digits. (There’s video available of some of it.) I suppose these days, people have spare number-remembering capacity in their brains, since virtually everyone has a phone (home or mobile) that stores ... [More]
Since I apparently know a bit more about it than the average person, and I keep getting asked about it, here’s what I know about Myki, which for out-of-towners, is the very silly name for the forthcoming public transport smartcard ticketing system, which $494 million of tax-payers money is being spent on, whether we like ... [More]
I’m really enjoying the SBS series Great Australian Albums on Saturday nights. It’s kind of an Aussie version of the British Classic Albums series — both take the artists back to the studios to play us snippets from the master tapes, while explaining how the albums came about: the context for the band, the writing, ... [More]