Categories
driving Home life

Found objects

I was driving my car. I was driving my car and sitting at a traffic light. I was driving my car and sitting at a traffic light in Wurend… Wudrunj… [checks Melway] Wurundjeri Way. I was driving my car and sitting at a traffic light in Wurundjeri Way when I saw a white car stop  ... [More]

Categories
Food'n'drink Working life

Mobileless

I left my mobile phone at home. Why? It’s a long story I’ll elaborate on later. But how will I survive? I feel almost naked. No SMS. No wondering around the office and the city having conversations. It’s like a flashback to ten years ago. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll live. 9:45pm. Actually it’s not  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech

MyDoom

The latest virus has swept the world, and is now responsible for numerous e-mail slowdowns and other weirdness. The anti-virus companies’ hype machines are working overdrive, with one trumpetting from the rooftops that it’s the worst ever. The media are happily lapping it up. Funny thing is the different names that the various anti-virus companies  ... [More]

Categories
Food'n'drink Melbourne

Rain

It started with a little rain, gushing down the sides of the train. When we got to the next stop, in the sudden quiet you could hear it hitting the window, and people began to look up from their newspapers and books. It was pouring down in almost a surreal manner, making ripples on the  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech Home life Melbourne

Stuff

The ticket inspector on the tram the other week was incredibly polite “Thank you very much” when he noticed I had a yearly ticket. He wasn’t to know that I’d bought it on the last day of last year to avoid the price rise, saving about $200 in the process. The guy in the desk  ... [More]

Categories
Home life Working life

Night

It’s late. Or is it early? 2:49am and I’ve been sitting here almost an hour and a half, watching the work computers, waiting for some guys to finish their night time firewall work. It looks cold and grey outside. Thankfully it’s only very occasionally that I have to do this kind of thing. Anyway usually  ... [More]

Categories
Photos

Hazard for cyclists

Spent yesterday driving up to Kyneton and Castlemaine. Just for exploring, the country air, and the company. Noted on the freeway, a sign saying “Dull day? Use your low beam headlights”. Well, we were having a quite interesting day, so the headlights stayed off. We did see a number of other people in cars who  ... [More]

Categories
Film

Instant Movie Review

The Rage in Placid Lake. Very very enjoyable. Ben Lee not being a wanker. Hilarious parents played by Miranda Richardson and Gary Mcdonald. Sure on the face of it it’s a little Ab-Fabbish, but there’s enough other stuff going on to make it very funny — and the scene with the short film is hilarious.  ... [More]

Categories
Food'n'drink

Food rumour

Hot and totally unsubstantiated rumour is that Cadbury are thinking of altering their Australian chocolate recipe, making it sweeter to bring it into line with their UK and European operations. Damn globalisation. I like it the way it is, and on this Australia Day, I call on all right-thinking Aussies to march on Parliament to  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech Retrospectives

Ancient geeks: a short history of MSN

Dunno if anybody remembers, but MSN was originally not a web site, it was a
proprietary online service, with its own set of dialup Points Of Presence, and its own media standards.

Categories
Food'n'drink transport

Late to work

Not that I critically had to be in at a particular time, but I did arrive later than intended at work this morning. I could have blamed the late train. I could have blamed the previous train that I just missed. I could have blamed the crowds of tourists walking slowly in the arcade from  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism

John Howard and state schools

John Howard commented over the weekend that he thought parents were taking their kids out of government schools and moving to the independents because state schools are “too politically correct and too values-neutral”. What a crock of shit. Too politically correct? Values-neutral? What does that mean? That schools that don’t conform to Howard’s nostalgic vision  ... [More]

Categories
Photos

Centre Place, lunchtime

Categories
Working life

Observations from the new office

Everyone who has a speakerphone apparently understands not to use them in an open office. People who need to talk hands-free all have headsets. Some of the womenfolk have fluffy toys on top of their monitors. One bloke came in on Monday and accused one of the new people of stealing his chair. “Not so!”  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne transport

Etiquette

If you get the chance, check out tonight’s MX, page 17. If you missed it, here’s a scan… See it bigger here. They edited it a tad – the “We’ll all be old or pregnant one day” bit originally added “Okay, maybe not pregnant.” So it sounded rather more bizarre than intended. But fun stuff.  ... [More]

Categories
Home life

Mowing part II

The mowing kids from D&K Mowing were back yesterday for their second round of battle with the grass and weeds. A week early according to my diary, but they reckoned we’d agreed it would be brought forward. Whatever, the jungle-like area at the back of the garden needed to be attacked at some stage, so  ... [More]