Most interesting sight of yesterday: a monk in the traditional red and yellow robes. On a crowded train. With a mobile phone in his hand, SMSing at speed. I had my camera with me, but didn’t have the guts to get it out and take a picture; sorry.

But anyway… Take a look in your address book, or your phone names list, or even your email addresses. Count them.

How many contacts: 138

How many exclusively work/business: 48

How many on reflection you haven’t talked to for so long that you’ve effectively lost contact you should remove them: 11

How many are not people, but services eg SMS services or taxi numbers or other businesses: 11 (including my favourite pizza shop)

How many numbers you never ring but you have them noted for potential emergencies, eg RACV, in-laws: 3

…Now count only people you know personally…

How many you know personally: 59

How many family members: 8

How many have no mobile phone: 2

How many you’ve been “out” with: 4

How many of those you should delete: 2

How many never use email: 3

How many female: 21

How many male: 38

How many you know to be gay: 6

Bi: 2

How many with kids: 24

How many single mothers: 4

How many single fathers: 0

How many DINKs: 1 5

Most common names: Peter (x 4), Tony (x 3)

How many studying: 8

How many you went to school or uni with: 6

How many with HIV: 1

How many listed as a couple because they always share phone numbers: 3

How many currently overseas: 5

How many you’ve seen in person so far this year: 33

How many you expect to talk to/email/see/hear from today: Oh, about 10

I filled up with petrol on Sunday night. $1.05 per litre, and that was with the 4 cpl supermarket discount.

Don’t count on prices dropping any time soon. OPEC admit they have no control over oil prices, with demand continuing to outstrip supply. And of course world demand continues to climb as developing countries embrace the motor car, and most governments in the western world continue to ignore more efficient solutions to transport needs.

Locally, the RACV from time to time calls for a removal of some of the taxes on fuel. I don’t see that working. A temporary retail price drop would only increase demand… and of course too much demand is precisely the problem.

Will production be able to rise, or has the last of the cheap oil fields been depleted, as per the Peak Oil theory? If the direst of predictions come true, western economies are in for a helluva jolt.

What we really need to do is give people alternatives to consuming oil. But what would convince people to cut their driving? Petrol price doubling overnight and twice as many trains, trams and buses running? Neither will happen of course. If anything happens, it will be gradual change.

Bah, what can you do? Well, a friend who recalls the (created by OPEC) oil shortages of the 70s gave me the idea of leaving my car unused at least one day a week. I don’t do a heap of driving, but it can’t hurt to curb it further. So I left my car alone and unloved on Saturday, and gave my legs and my yearly Metcard a bit of exercise instead. Not bad — I’ll see if I can keep it up.

See also:

• Oil: why we must do more with less
• PTUA submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Economic and Environmental Potential offered by Energy Efficiency

There was a terrific picture of (what’s left of) the Monty Python team in the newspaper on the weekend.

I know there’ll probably be a collective groan from readers, but it inspired a brief dream overnight in which Terry Jones came around for tea, chatted with my mother about his TV appearances, and agreed to have his picture taken with me sitting on the couch (posing as if we were a couple), but as the camera snapped away, all the family kids kept running into shot.

• Broadway.com: photos from Spamalot
• Diary 19 Nov 2004: almost meeting Michael Palin
• Brian’s diary 10 Nov 2004: meeting Eric Idle

I was idly flicking through the Comedy Festival programme this morning when I saw a familiar face: a guy I went to school with is doing a show, called “Run Nerd Boy Run!”

So I read the blurb to Marita.

When I got to the last bit: these two are treating life like an underfed puppy after Christmas all logic went out the window, and I managed to interpret the word underfed not as

under-fed

but as

un-derfed.

I’m not sure what derfing is, but evidently some puppies don’t get enough of it.

My new iPod is having troubles. (And an update.) Sigh.

But hey, look on the bright side. With Labour Day last Monday, next week Good Friday, the week after that Easter Monday… there’s three weeks in a row of short working weeks, and accompanied by copious amounts of chocolate. (Or religion, if you feel so inclined.)

Okay, so you might expect me to say so in any case, but damn this trailer looks good…

Now… could our ABC people please pull their fingers out and buy this new Doctor Who series please?

• DIVX 4.5Mb
• MPEG 11.8Mb

(Special thanks to those brave souls who put this kind of stuff online for people in the deprived parts of the world to see.)

PS. 6pm: Speculation that the BBC leaked the first Doctor Who episode onto the net on purpose, as a viral marketing exercise.

I got a letter yesterday from AGL asking me to join their “green power” programme for electricity and gas. That is, whatever amount you use they’ll guaranteed to generate the same amount from renewable sources. (Which makes sense for electricity, though I don’t know how they reckon they could do that for gas).

Now, call me an idiot, but… it claims it costs no more… there’s no locked-in contract… there’s no termination fee… there’s nothing I can see in the small print which indicates it’ll cost me extra, and the only thing I can see that’s at all restrictive is I have to give 28 days notice of disconnection.

Am I missing something? Some unmentionable government/taxpayer subsidy or something? If they can do this for no extra cost (which I don’t really believe), why not switch everyone to “green power”?

I finally succumbed to that iPod I’ve been covetting. Bye bye $449, hello 40Gb and my entire CD collection on a single tiny electronic gizmo.

Uhh, that is, it’s a portable storage device… it’s a work tool, don’tcha know. For moving big files around. And for drowning out the ambient noise when I’m trying to concentrate. Yeah.