I had to have a fix. It had been weeks. I have found a source, a legal source, but it’s expensive. Amid stories of black market bananas, I can reveal that I had three bananas in my house this week. Don’t bother trying to break-in now to steal them; they’ve been eaten. These were decently-sized ... [More]
Hands up who has private health insurance and understands how their fund works? I have it (to avoid the extra government slug if I don’t) and I hate it. I have no idea how it all works. I’ve just pared back the coverage because I was getting little benefit from the hefty (and ever-increasing) premiums ... [More]
Happy 6/6/6. The early morning noises in the roof have been back, a regular fixture at about 4am most mornings in the last couple of weeks. Is it a possum? A rat? I don’t know, but some mornings it’s scurrying around and making scratching noises in the wall between my bedroom and the bathroom, up ... [More]
Spotted this parking restriction sign in Elsternwick. My question is this: How is it possible to over-stay the four hour limit between 8am and 12 noon on a Saturday? Why did they even bother restricting the parking on Saturdays? So I thought that was pretty silly. Until I saw this one around the corner from ... [More]
Just before the Games, the powers-that-be replaced rubbish bins at the city loop underground stations plus Flinders Street, Richmond and North Melbourne, with big plastic transparent things. For security, y’know. So you can see any suspicious packages that get dropped in, and panic appropriately. But at nearby South Yarra station, which is probably busier than ... [More]
Evidently at the school they’re considering a ban on A pinch and a punch for the first of the month due to some over-enthusiasm from some of the older kids when pinching and punching. Not to mention the invention by somebody of A kick in the dick for the first of the month…
Yeah, I’m mulling over my travel patterns to the nth degree again. This week’s question: When to replace a car? Josh pointed me to a discussion about when one should dump an old car and buy a new (or less-old) one. The short answer appears to be: it varies (obviously). Factors include the costs involved ... [More]
If there’s one thing I hope to instil into my kids, it’s not to be sheep. This means not assuming everything they hear is true; thinking for themselves; not believing the spin. Questioning and challenging authority where it is appropriate. Not following the trends blindly. (Maybe I can avoid them getting hooked on the teenybopper ... [More]
Crash — Superb drama. More than a little unsettling at times, but not a total depressionfest. Some Pulp Fictionesque dialogue and interconnecting story threads that reminded me a bit of Lantana. Nobody really gets off scott-free in this movie, and it really makes the point that none of us is totally good, or totally bad. ... [More]
Unbelievably, just hours after lamenting with Marita about how some of us in the Bowen family are prone to upset tummies, I felt the same myself. The Bowen belly had struck yet again, though not as badly as some other times. This comes after my sister and her toddler were struck down with something last ... [More]
Holeproof brand socks aren’t really holeproof. They get holes just as much as any other brand of sock. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve done something of a purge of socks with holes in the toes. I had plenty, and I have a sneaking suspicion that many of them were Holeproof brand. I didn’t ... [More]
There appear to be some people manually leaving comment spam here. It’s written to look relevant to the post it’s on, and includes a link to one of a series of near-identical web-sites obviously set-up just to get attention from search engines, eg a “Splog.” Now hear this: If your comment leaves a URL that ... [More]
Damn it was cold this morning. Before leaving for work, I made sure to find my gloves and scarf for the walk to the station through the fog. (You remember the scarf, right?) Off to the Bell Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet tonight. Not sure how I wangled seats in row AA, but looking forward to ... [More]
He was standing by the payphone outside Bentleigh Post Office, as I checked my post box about 45 minutes ago. He might still be there now. Asking passers-by for money to make a long-distance call, regarding his father, who had passed away. Was he telling the truth? I don’t know. I told him I had ... [More]
I rarely read the paper in great detail, except perhaps on Saturdays when I have the time. I value the content, and I value the fact that my subscription money is helping support a competing newspaper to the top-selling Herald Sun, but I probably get more value by reading The Age’s web site than the ... [More]
I got Isaac a Doctor Who DVD for his birthday which has two documentaries on it totalling almost two hours. Is that too much? I haven’t watched the docos yet, but it is a truly classic story (Genesis of the Daleks), with plenty to talk about in terms of how the story was written and ... [More]