At some point after the mouse in the garden incident and a notable increase in rodent activity around the house (twice I saw them scurrying around the laundry) I put down some rat/mouse poison a few weeks ago.

What I found several days later was a huge, dead rat next to the side gate. ‘Orrible, it was. It was only after I had disposed of it that I realised that to eat the bait, it must have been inside my house. Huge! Eek!

Nothing else appeared to have taken the bait, and when another mouse was noted in the fireplace, I decided it wasn’t working, and threw the remainder out a week ago.

Earlier this week I was sitting on the can just before bedtime when a mouse ran in, saw me, then ran back off through the laundry. It was more scared of me than I of it, but it caught me by surprise. I made a note to find some alternative method of rodent removal — for instance an actual mousetrap, since the mice didn’t appear to be going for the bait.

Then last night it happened again. This time the mouse, obviously feeling much braver, kept going, underneath me, and into a hole in the wall at the back of the toilet.

It gave me rather more of a shock than last time. I jerked my left leg up to avoid the mouse hitting me (or lodging in my shorts, which were on the ground — frankly that would have been beyond terrifying). It was a reflex action, and I actually managed to pull a muscle in the process, leaving me in agony for a few minutes, and cursing under my breath.

So now I’m definitely looking for mousetraps. Or perhaps I should get a cat.

As I think I mentioned once before, TV news often record a “walking shot” to use for editing purposes.

They’ll get you to back away from the camera 10-20 metres, then walk past it, without looking at the camera, and hoping no huge swarm of people comes around the corner and walks in front of you.

And you have to walk at a slow to medium speed. Sometimes I’ve been asked to do it again because I walked at my usual frenetic pace.

For me and the subjects I tend to cover, a little variety might be had by getting me to walk through a ticket gate or press buttons on a ticket machine. One time a cameraman and I waited for a tram for me to climb onto, and then off again (somehow making it before it took off again from the stop, thanks to a red traffic light).

It’s rare they actually use walking shots of me. But now that I know the secret of the walking shot (and its indoor equivalent, the sitting at a desk, shuffling papers shot), I see it pop up all the time in various news stories.

Related and amusing: Channel 10 reporter Gareth Boreham’s account of journalists’ life on the election campaign trail

Not-related: The Corporation is now available for free* (and legal) download bia Bittorrent. *Though donations are welcomed.

So I was waiting for a train, while reading the geek history “On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore” (which — in my humble geeky opinion — really is excellent). The station host lady looked at it, and (given its lovely hardback binding and olde booke looke when it’s out of its dustjacket) asked if it were some classic piece of literature or history.

I said no, it was a history of electronics. (I dumbed my answer down a tad.)

She paused, her interest in it completely quashed, totally pounded without mercy into the ground. It would be a cold day in hell before she’d even consider glancing at such a book.

Then as politely as possible: “We really are all different, aren’t we.”

I couldn’t help but agree.

I’ve lived in my suburb just over a year now, long enough that I’m getting to know the local Bentleigh shops a bit more now, and a few of the shopkeepers know me.

For instance, the drycleaner lady recognises me, though like a TV news captioner, she misspells my name, and I can’t be bothered to correct it. So as far as she’s concerned, I’m Mr Bowan. (It’s a pretty good attempt given English is not her first language.)

One of the local restaurants Marita and I have been eating regularly has changed hands and re-launched, better than ever. The old owner was almost legendary for greeting us in what was a somewhat fawning manner. The new people recognise us too, though there’s rather less of the fawning, which was almost starting to get uncomfortable.

Now I think about it, apart from a friend who is sometimes working behind the counter at the railway station, and my sister (who runs the local traders’ association), they might be the only shopkeeper-types that really recognise me so far.

Most of the other shops are too busy, and my visits too infrequent to become known. Not like in my old neighbourhood, Glen Huntly, where I’ve been going to the same barber for ten years, and the guy who used to ran the newsagent giggled like a schoolgirl when he mentioned he’d seen me on the telly.

Not that it really matters. Even if they don’t recognise me, I’ve now got a feel for what shop is where. All part of settling into a new neighbourhood.

Another odd dream last night:

A knock at the door in the morning. Four policemen, who seemed very tall, and seemed to have been drenched in the rain outside. I wondered why four of them — it must be serious!

They told me they were part of a fraud investigation, and that they couldn’t tell me much about it, but it related to unpaid bills*. They had brought a technician to sever my internet access (rather than getting the ISP to just flick a switch somewhere else). I protested, told them once it was cut-off I couldn’t show them my internet banking records.

They gathered some evidence and went away again.

Later at some stage, I was in the pub (no idea which one) talking to some friends (no idea which) about it, saying how probably any unpaid bills had gone to the wrong address**, some kind of morphed version of my street address and my postal (PO Box) address.

I saw my local MP***, and since I’ve met him a couple of times, I decided to speak to him about it to see how he could help.

Dream ends about here.

—

* Occasionally I forget to pay bills, particularly credit card bills, but they usually just accrue and charge me interest, rather than sending in the Fraud Squad. It’s got better since I’ve been setting them to pay in advance via internet banking.

** I got a letter the other day with some documents inside it, some of which had my address wrong.

*** Rob Hudson, just returned in yesterday’s election, and whom I refused a How To Vote card from when I voted. (I never take any of them.)

The great thing about election day is you can exercise your right to democracy, and have a sausage too.

Daniel’s election day sausage tally: 2.

PS. Sunday night. Result probably what most people expected. Interesting to see that the ALP misinformation worked — some people were asking Greens helpers if they were preferencing Libs. (They weren’t — they preferenced ALP in all but a few seats, and didn’t preference the Libs in any seats. And let’s not forget how ALP preferences got Australia its first Family First senator in 2004…). At time of writing it’s looking doubtful the Greens will hold the balance of power in the upper house, which would have made things interesting. I spent election night at my sister’s place, enjoying good food, drink and company, and many phone calls about results coming in.

Last week I filled up my car for just over $1 per litre. It was $1.609 $1.069, and I had some freaky discount offer that gave me 6 cents off, instead of the usual 4.

But just seeing the humungous tank-like 4WDs rolling around the streets, and the resistance from government to improve PT makes me think we’d actually be better off if the price of petrol shot up. Oh, not personally, I know, but collectively.

If petrol doubled or tripled, there’d finally be some action on reducing our use of it. Less smog as people moved to hybrid/economical cars. Less traffic as people walked, cycled or used PT (which the government would be finally forced to upgrade and make competitive with driving) more.

$3 per litre? I can see the benefits.

And whether we like it or not, it might not be too far away.

A little kid (maybe 3 or 4) had come off his scooter, in the school playground. He was sprawled on the ground, crying. Somewhere, his parent was seeing off an older sibling. I looked around, but couldn’t see an obvious candidate.

Before I could see if he was okay, a bigger kid with a Grade 6 shirt on reached him and helped him up, looking him over. “You’re okay” he said softly. “You’re all right.”

The crying seemed to drop to a quiet whimper, the little kid got up, and the bigger one glanced around for the youngster’s parent, as a couple of other concerned kids looked on. They seemed to have the situation under control, so I walked on.

Kids at the school are used to dealing others outside their own age group — they have a “buddy” system where grade 5s and 6s team up with Preps. Seeing things like this, the benefits are pretty obvious, though I once encountered a kid from another school, on the train, trying to explain the concept to his cranky grandmother, who was the epitome of cynical. I hope we don’t all get like that as we grow older.

But seeing this kind of thing happen gives you hope for the human race.