Choose a band and answer only in song titles by that band: Paul Kelly (okay he’s a singer, but he’s had bands…)

Are you male or female? Most wanted man in the world

Describe yourself: I am what I am

How do some people feel about you? King of fools

How do you feel about yourself? He can’t decide

Describe your ex-girlfriend: I can’t believe we were married

Describe your current girlfriend: Beautiful feeling

Describe what you want to be: Taught by experts

Describe your current mood: Nothing on my mind

Describe your friends: Some guys

Share a few words of wisdom: Don’t stand too close to the window

(via Spreegirl. See also Trish and Kathy.)

Today the Kyoto protocol comes into effect, at least in the countries that have signed up to it. Of which ours isn’t one, so unlike most industrialised countries, we (along with the US and China) can blissfully keep pumping CO2 into the air, with no legal consequences.

A lot of the contributions to emissions come from motor vehicle emmissions, and with that in mind, here’s a kind of FAQ. The following is a conglomeration of a few conversations I’ve been having over the past couple of months, fictionalised, modified, merged, and with extra stuff added.

So you’re involved in the Public Transport Users Association? Why?

‘Cos I think it’s an important cause. It’s my particular interest among many green issues.

Green issues?

(One person I spoke to seemed particularly confused by the whole concept of green issues. Maybe the entire environmental movement passed him by.)

Well there’s air quality, land space (cities with all their land taken by roads aren’t very pleasant), noise pollution, as well as issues to do with health (not just car crashes, but also lack of fitness from being driven everywhere). And the bigger picture: global warming is said to have already started at such a rate that it will destroy the Great Barrier Reef, for instance. And economically, we’re going to be in big trouble if the Peak Oil predictions around petrol prices are anything near accurate.

So did you catch the train here tonight? heh. heh.

(more…)

Happy Valentine’s Day. I had a good one, hope you did too.

And if you were studiously trying to ignore it, oops sorry!

And now for a toast. (Tony and Rae are certainly deserving of one, this weekend.)

This is my Sunbeam toaster, still going strong after over a decade of toastie goodness. Happily handles crumpets and those big slices of bread from the delicious Vienna loaves I sometimes get at the bakery down the road. Yum.

Feel free to post a picture of your toaster… Link in the Trackbacks or comments.

• Move your mouse over the picture for descriptions of various bits (note Firefox may abbreviate. You can fix it with this extension — go to Tools / Extensions / Popup Alt Attribute / Options and turn on Show long tooltips in multiline)
• Past photos in this series
• Notes on creating the image map/hot spots with text

(The counter-post to On The Train.)

Friday lunchtime, Bourke Street.

A car, let’s call it car A, waits in the tram lane to turn right. There’s no traffic coming the other way, but he sits there, for no apparent reason. A tram comes up behind, with perhaps 100 people on it. On their behalf, the tram driver dings at car A, which starts its turn to move out of the way. The tram goes past, now car A is perpendicular to the traffic. With some manoevring he finishes doing a U-turn. Now he’s double-parked.

Another car, B, is double-parked in front of him. They both sit there.

Car C is at the kerb, trying to get out. Blocked by the two double-parked A and B, who both want his space.

For a minute or two, they engage in a little posturing. Forward a few inches, back a few inches. The driver of car B gets out of his car, walks back to car A and gesticulates with some enthusiasm, then gets back in his car. More car posturing, as I watch in amazement. Car C is going nowhere, and some traffic is banking up behind them, some is dodging around them.

After another minute, the driver of car A takes a moment out from his lunchtime road rage to look across the street, where another space has appeared. He executes another quick U-turn, and parks there. Car C gets out, car B takes his place.

And everyone’s happy. Well, actually those two idiots are probably fuming, but hey, I got free lunchtime entertainment, so I’m happy.

The subject of huntsmans or huntsmen spiders came up recently on Trish’s blog (see comments). Well for a definitive answer, I asked my sister about it the other day. Not just ‘cos she’s a smart cookie or I was trying to make conversation, but because she studied linguistics at uni. And she was able to give me the answer. She mentioned a bunch of grammatical terms that I don’t recall now, but here’s the gist of it:

It’s huntsmans.

The reason it’s not huntsmen is that when considering the plural of a word, you only treat it the same as a root word (man, men) if the meaning is the same. In this case the man in huntsman spider is not literally a man.

Man. Men.

Workman. Workmen.

Postman. Postmen. (With a caveat that you shouldn’t be using such gender-biased terms, you sexist pig.)

Huntsman. Huntsmans.

Just to throw a spanner in the works, huntsman also refers to a man who hunts. So the plural of that would be huntsmen.

Another contentious one: a computer mouse does not refer literally to a mouse (even if the name was inspired by its appearance). But an oh so delicious chocolate mouse you might buy in Haigh’s does refer to a literal mouse, even if it’s just a portrayal of one.

Mouse. Mice.

Chocolate mouse. Chocolate mice.

Computer mouse. Computer mouses.

Make sense? It kinda does to me now…

Mmm…. chocolate.

Seen on the train yesterday morning:

Bloke in a long leather raincoat and sunglasses, evidently trying to do a Neo impression. It wasn’t a cold day; he must have been boiling.

Guy off to uni in Footscray, telling a girl that over there “there’s loads of Africans and Asians” and how he felt a little out of his comfort zone, then stumbling over his words and cutting his sentence short when it dawned upon him that the girl he was chatting up was in fact Asian. Abandon ship! Abort mission! Head for the hills!

More amusement when the girl mentioned her mother and brother were sitting nearby on the train. The wavering in his voice seemed to indicate they might be cramping his style.

Lady doing an admirable job of balancing while standing on the MATHS express bit, flicking thruogh her book, not holding onto anything, showing the skills of a tightrope walker. Then we stopped at South Yarra, and while the train wasn’t moving at all, she bumped into two people.

Rushmore. It bugs me that this reminded me of some movie or TV show or something where a student is just about running the place, but I can’t remember what it is. Ferris Bueller? Simpsons “Separate Vocations” ?

No matter, this was a very enjoyable film, full of great lines and moments. And a great soundtrack. Hey, you’ve gotta love any movie that can work in the Rock’n'Roll Circus version of the A Quick One finalé.