From the 1st of July, pubs and clubs will be smoke-free. No more stinky hair after a night out. No more washing all your clothes the next day. So! Who’s for a drink? Let’s hit the pubs! (In preparation, the local RSL built a smoking area, which looks like an outdoor courtyard, but is almost ... [More]
Shrek the Third — was okay I suppose, a few amusing moments, but nothing outstanding. The first Shrek is still the best one… egads they have a Shrek 4 planned — I hope it’s better than the Third, though I bet they’re all successful. I suppose worth watching if someone else is paying, but fails ... [More]
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Someone else’s bin
Next in the suburban moral dilemmas: I’m walking down the street, and I have some litter to get rid of, say a food packet or something else that’s small. Is it okay to put it in someone’s rubbish bin? I reckon it barely makes a difference to their bin load, and it’s better off in ... [More]
Should I feel guilty for buying my kids secondhand school clothes? They’re in very good condition — no doubt donated by kids who have legitimately had no use for them anymore because they’ve grown or left the school. $2 per item, about 90% cheaper than buying new. Reduce, re-use, recycle, right? So I’m covering 2 ... [More]
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The 17:09 from Swan Hill
The 17:09 from Swan Hill didn’t arrive tonight. I was upset to read about the Kerang train crash. For all my bitching, I love travelling by train. When it works, it’s clean, cheap, quick, comfortable. And safe — rail travel has a deserved reputation for being one of the safest ways of getting around: about ... [More]
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Aspirational goals
I’m sure most of us have already worked this out, but let me decode the phrase “aspirational goal” for you. It means “goal that we’d like to reach, but we’re not going to actually make any effort to reach, and there certainly won’t be any penalties or anything if we never come close.” In other ... [More]
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It was forty years ago today
(Well okay, forty years and 3 days ago actually.) Sgt Pepper was the first cassette I owned, back in the late-70s. It lacked a lot of the non-musical extra bits and pieces of the original release: the cardboard cutouts and lyrics and so on. At that age I don’t think I really “got” the concept ... [More]
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Friday inspiration
Cameron Reilly’s done a podcast followup to his Age article encouraging people to “get off the bench”. Listening to it reminded me of something I once wrote: “Every person has the potential to create a great work of art; to work for the benefit of humanity; to become a spokesman or a great leader; to ... [More]
Maggie, the station host, noticed a passenger who looked unwell. Really unwell. She tried to convince her to come into the office to sit down. The lady didn’t want to. She wanted to catch her train; she was going to see her doctor. Paraphrased: “Please come in and sit down. You look unwell. I think ... [More]
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Windsor knot
My dad didn’t wear ties during the later part of his working life, and certainly doesn’t now he’s retired. So I was taught to tie a tie by Norm, who worked at Hattams in Elsternwick when we bought my first school uniform for Melbourne High, in summer ’84-’85. I’ve been thinking for a while about ... [More]
Been busy on a comparison of public transport fares between Australian mainland cities, which found Melbourne’s the most expensive for most trips: Age story… on the front page no less. Full data/graphs. The government claims it’s an unfair comparison. But they would say that, wouldn’t they.
I pick up catch-phrases from various places. One is “Shimasu!”, which I use as a kind of Japanese expletive, when struggling to wake up in the morning, or when exerting myself in some extraordinary way. shimasu.mp3 (MP3 format; 2 seconds; 9Kb) Said the right way, it sounds like something they might have said on one ... [More]
It’s great having a phone with a half-decent camera. It’s nowhere near as good as my “real” camera, but because I almost always have the phone with me, I can snap photos anywhere, almost no matter what I’m doing: And because a phone doesn’t look like a camera, even dogs of a nervous disposition, such ... [More]
Dishwashers: On the subject of water (I think Andrew or somebody mentioned this a while ago) in last Sunday’s Age M magaziney thing, there was an article noting that dishwashers generally use less water than handwashing. Dishwashers are in the 13 to 20 litre per cycle range, whereas handwashing is up around 40 to 60. ... [More]
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The magnet
A fridge magnet arrived in the mail. They’re always useful for sticking things to the fridge, and this one includes emergency numbers, which if could be potentially useful if there was ever an emergency in the house and I happened to be near the fridge and in the heat of the moment had forgotten that ... [More]
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Winter and water
Winter has arrived. The heating’s back in use, and I’ve started wearing jackets to work again, after some time of managing to avoid it. (Normally if the forecast high is at 20 degrees or higher, it’s not worth taking a jacket, since I only end up sweating on the walk from the station, and at ... [More]