My grandmother died on Friday night.
I didn’t know her well, and hadn’t seen her since 1999. She’d been unwell for some years, but all the same, it was sad news — perhaps because like the rest of my grandparents, I grew up distant from them — either in miles or in years. Unavoidable, but a shame for all of us, I suppose. Only my Grandad left now.
RIP Margaret Joyce de Bowen née Middleton, 18/5/1926 - 30/3/2007.
I have to admit, when I was growing up, Doctor Who was never really one of the cool kid shows. Scifi generally probably wasn’t something the cool kids watched.
But now, on the eve of the third series (starts Saturday night in the UK; who knows when we’ll see it in Australia), David Tennant’s Doctor Who has been voted the coolest television character of all time.
(MX, 30/3/2007)
Finally, Doctor Who fans, our time has come. Our show is cool. (It must be true — I read it in MX.)
My garden (apart from the grass) is thriving, despite the drought. Evidently it’s almost all native plants, which survive fine even with a lack of water. Indeed, one of the hedges has grown so much I had to trim it back so I can see into the mailbox without bumping my head on it.
But a consequence of the garden doing so well is that the native birdlife loves it. Not that this is a bad thing — I like having the birds around… as long as they keep away from my car.
Not knowing much about birds, I don’t know what type they are, other than that they’re damn noisy, especially first thing in the morning.
They’ll be chirping away merrily (in various avian languages) as the sun comes up, unaware (or perhaps just not caring) that I’m half-awake muttering at them to shut up so I can get some more sleep.
I’ve heard from two completely independent sources of Pastafarianism in the past week. Could it be that the age of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is upon us?
RAmen.
Anyway, here’s some quick reviews.
Michael Palin’s diaries 1969-1979 — Very interesting, especially for a Python fan like me, giving the background story behind the group coming together, making the TV shows then the movies, and how successful they became, despite problems with distributors censoring their work, and opposition over The Life Of Brian. Palin normally comes across as thoroughly nice, and it’s pleasing to see some hints of grumpiness in the diaries — so he is human after all! Some genuinely moving moments, too.
Thank you for smoking — Very funny look at PR. Anybody who does media work (or sees spin from afar) should get a laugh from (as well as be in awe of) the antics of Nick Naylor and his Mod Squad comrades.
Little Miss Sunshine — A very funny movie, with a slightly-disturbing (but amusing) ending. Like any good road movie, the best bits are the trip along the way, not the destination.
Things I like about Captain Vegetable (from Sesame Street):
1. I don’t remember this song from when I was a kid. I discovered it when my kids watched Sesame Street.
2. The message! Yeah I’m getting health conscious. Not that it was ever likely to convince any kids.
3. The dodgy rhyming. “My name is Eddie… I love spaghetti…”
4. The strange-looking Captain Vegetable appearing, with Eddie asking “Are you some kind of weirdo?” “Do I look like a weirdo?” Eddie looks at camera and nods.
5. The appallingly catchy tune. In my less self-conscious moments, it gets sung around the house.
6. “Out of his secret garden, somewhere in New Jersey…”
Other favourite Sesame Street songs that I can think of right now:
My waterproof jacket self-destructed late last year, and while Melbourne hasn’t been over-endowed with rain recently, part of my plan to become a dedicated pedestrian includes having the appropriate gear to stroll down the street no matter what the weather, so I’d been meaning to buy a new one.
Last week via some junk mail I learnt about a Snowgum clearance sale (see, junk mail occasionally has its uses) and on Friday night I took the opportunity to take a look. It was at some Godforsaken warehouse out at Clayton in a real dump of a shopping centre where I suspect normally nobody ever goes and the only movement is tumbleweeds blowing through.
To my utter surprise, they had a waterproof jacket in my size, in a half-decent colour — dark blue; the only alternative was a kind of yeuch green. And it was made of that breathable material (a Goretex clone of some kind) that doesn’t leave you sweating inside it. Half-price, thank you very much, I’ll have one of those. Tried it out on Saturday, and although I missed the bulk of the rain, it worked well.
I also got a cheapo shirt and some camping cutlery for Peter for his birthday. One thing I noticed at the time was the lady at the checkout had to try my credit card twice. I didn’t think much more about it until Monday morning when my phone rang. It was someone at the bank querying Snowgum’s two transactions — one at $1150, the other a few seconds later for a much more reasonable $115.
The bank guy assured me it would be okay; the first one shouldn’t go through. Hope he’s right.
Reminds me a little of the time I was buying $1.50 of chips at the fish’n'chips place in Elsternwick and the guy who didn’t know how to use the register accidentally hit the double-zero button, making it $15.00. Then he hit it again: $1,500.00. Then he tried the single zero: $15,000.00 ,000. He couldn’t find the cancel button and let it go through, then took my $1.50. Being a small family-operated business I assume they were able to figure out at the end of the day what caused their register to be $14998.50 out.
Brrr. Winter time. Wintertime.
How is it that Mother Nature knows to make it cold as soon as we go off summer time?
Saturday was wet in Melbourne (much-needed rain), but at least it wasn’t cold. Sunday… dry but cool and windy. The moment the sun went down, cold. I felt the need to wear thick socks while sitting watching telly last night, seriously considered putting on the winter flannel PJs for bed, and this morning there’s a real chill in the air.
If you believe the meteorologists, it’ll get up to 24 degrees, but right now it’s only 9. I haven’t felt the need to wear a jacket to work so far this year. I’m heading out the door in about 40 minutes… if it hasn’t warmed up a tad in the mean time, today I’ll certainly take one… and I’ll think twice about grabbing a scarf, too.
So today we’ve had the Citylink tunnels closed due to a fatal crash, a gas leak in Malvern causing the suspension of Frankston and Dandenong trains, a big grass fire in Sunshine, and vomit-inducing fumes last night at a restaurant in Doncaster.
And I heard a truckload of (non-flammable, apparently) orange bottles spilled all over the Nepean Highway.
Did someone put a curse on the city or something?
Of course the problem with the tunnel and the ensuing traffic chaos is that we let (or even force, by not providing any alternative) so many people to travel by such a ludicrously inefficient (and vulnerable to accident) means in the first place.