We went up to the snow on the weekend. Myself, the kids, cousin Leo, and cousin Leo’s dad Adrian. Five blokes on a snow trip. The great thing about going to Mt Donna Buang yesterday was there was plenty of snow. The bad thing about going to Mt Donna Buang yesterday was that lots of ... [More]
Manchester Lane, four years later. She looked about the same. Some bloke on her arm. Both smiling. Don’t know if she noticed me noticing her as we passed. Didn’t say anything, just kept walking. Glad she seems happy. Me too. PS. It was an ex, not the ex.
On Saturday I went up on the roof of my house for the first time. Not for anything in particular, but just to see if I could, and to admire the view. The kids stood by, Isaac in particular making worried noises about the steadiness of the ladder, and the strength of the polycarbonate verandah ... [More]
It’s been a while since I’ve been to church, but on Sunday I found myself at an Anglican service, for a christening. I think if you had to sum it up briefly, that kind of mild suburban Christianity could be best described as a 2000 year old advertising campaign to try and get people to ... [More]
Bob Geldof on Live Earth: “I hope they’re a success. But why is Gore actually organizing them? To make us aware of the greenhouse effect? Everybody’s known about that problem for years.” But some don’t. I keep hearing about people who routinely use their clothes dryers for everything. Or people who leave lots of lights ... [More]
Despite having a silent number, and fiercely protecting it, I do get the odd telemarketing call. They are almost all from offshore call centres, and almost all during business hours, when I’m not generally home. Call centre dialling systems are meant to detect when an answering machine picks up. But evidently their systems think my ... [More]
You know those sandwich board advertising things? A-frames, I’m told they’re called. The IGA in Ripponlea has recently got one. It’s as big as a person. On the bright side, it’s unlikely to blow over in the wind. Though if it did, it’d probably kill somebody. Update: Speaking of advertising, I just added Google ads ... [More]
If there’s one thing you want to be working in your house, it’s the drains. At their worst, if there’s a complete blockage, you’ll end up with nasty smells and even nastier effluent in the house. Thankfully things weren’t that bad, but there was that suspicious level of water in the toilets, and some stuff ... [More]
Marita and I were walking along the Centre Road shops on Saturday when we saw a passport on the ground. We picked it up. From the cover, photo, and identifying marks inside, it appeared to belong to an Australian-Canadian boy of Asian (perhaps Chinese) appearance. Looking around, we couldn’t see him. A couple of bystanders ... [More]
When I last went to the dentist, they said I had a touch of gingivitis, and suggested mouthwashing for a couple of weeks. It’s obviously pretty powerful stuff, because apart from any cleaning it’s doing, it makes my teeth look horrible, in a way that mere toothpaste can’t fix. My teeth now resemble those of ... [More]
I didn’t watch much of Live Earth, but it has inspired me to sign up to the pledge. Or at least, my variation of the pledge. 1. I will continue to reduce my carbon emissions, both by switching to more efficient appliances and equipment where practical, and by reducing my use of them. 2. At ... [More]
Four media stories published yesterday, not placed together, but maybe I’m not the only one to see the link. State government wants 2.2 billion dollars from the Feds to widen the Western Ring Road. People keep buying cars, despite high oil prices. With governments (particularly the Feds) pouring billions into roads and spending a fraction ... [More]
Ten points to the first person to guess what these are.
Is housing really unaffordable? Sure it’s increasingly expensive in the inner/fashionable suburbs (I should know, I’m paying for it), but that’s all about choice. More and more people are choosing particular suburbs, driving the prices up. From yesterday’s Age: “While the family, now based in St Kilda East, could afford to buy a home further ... [More]
After a year and a half of living here, I finally bought a ladder. It’s probably something I should have done as soon as I moved in, given without it I can’t re-light the heating pilot light, or get tennis balls off the roof, or clean the gutters. I also plan to use it to ... [More]
I’m relatively used to seeing my name in the newspaper, but most of the time I know it’s coming (like this morning) and I know it’s going to be in a particular context. So when my Google News RSS Feed (surely a sign of a healthy ego) showed up Virginia Haussegger’s article yesterday, I looked ... [More]