Follow-up comments
I get some terrific comments on this blog. Quite a few of them, too. The database reckons over 6000, though I think there might be some suspected spams in there. Then again, there are some old comments from 2003 that haven’t been imported into WordPress yet.
Here’s some followups on some recent comments, and on my own recent posts.
On ties. Biff commented on the niceness of silk ties. I concur, in fact over the years I’ve steadily retired the polyester ones and migrated to silk — all those I wear regularly are silk, most of them woven. Nice. I still haven’t learnt how to do a Windsor knot though.
Stitch Sista commented that bow ties were invented for scientists and doctors who couldn’t have ties dipping into things. Fair call. Doesn’t explain why some desk jockeys wear them though.
Roger doesn’t like the phrase “heads-up”. I wouldn’t say I’m overly moving towards Americanisms (assuming it is an Americanism), though I do sometimes call my kids “guys”. As my sister has argued in the past, you can resist to a certain extent, but the nature of language is that it’s a developing, evolving beast, inheriting things from all around.
Flerdle remarks on a school bell that was an actual bell, rather than electronic like the one at my primary school. Marita remarked upon this too (small school in the country) and that on sunny days they would listen to Let’s All Sing outside on the teacher’s car radio.
I wrote about emergency undies. The other day I wore the emergency shirt, when the one I’d intended on wearing (last one in the cupboard) lost a vital button at the last minute.
Not a comment here, but Josh ponders Buying vs Renting.
Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed Life On Mars last night on the telly. Made me want to dig out all that old daggy 70s music again. And I wonder if I still have that video of The Sweeney around somewhere?
PS. After Life On Mars I had a sudden urge to listen to Cream’s White Room, but couldn’t find it on my ipod. Realised with horror that I don’t have it. May have to go CD shopping at lunchtime.
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On the box
I don’t normally watch much TV, but I’ve got a few things earmarked for the coming weeks.
Tony has reminded me: Life On Mars starts this Sunday night on ABC. Everything I’ve heard says it’s good.
Series 3 of Doctor Who is hotly rumoured to be coming on Saturday nights at 7:30pm again, starting in late-June.
If you’re wanting to find out more about the coming problems for oil supply (and why you need to get ready for $3 petrol), check out Crude, next Thursday night at 8:30. Watch the promo here. It’s followed by a Catalyst special which includes last month’s human sign.
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On the road
You don’t have to be a 4WD owner to drive like a moron. Even Prius owners do it sometimes.
The other contender this week was red Mercedes TLH 385, zooming down Jasper Road with at least one indicator and brake light not working, tail-gating and generally driving like a maniac on Wednesday night.
Also seen this week: multi-level parking for bicycles.
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Hello AGL
Hello to my readers at AGL.
I know they’re reading because earlier this evening someone from their customer advocacy team rang me up, saying AGL management had found the whole name change saga (Googling “AGL”, apparently) and passed it to him.
He explained what had happened (old data used by a mail house). I understand, I really do. Hey, I have an IT job… data issues are the bane of my life. And he said that having been made aware of it, they’d be preventing it happening again.
Which is good. I told him I was pleased they had learned from their mistake, but that it shouldn’t affect me as after three times ringing up to get it fixed, I had given up and signed-up with Origin.
So, belated kudos to AGL. Apparently they do keep a look out for disgruntled customers, and are making efforts to fix what’s broken. But too late to keep me as a customer.
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No more recycled tissues?
A couple of years ago I noted that supplies of recycled (facial) tissues were getting more scarce. But I was able to keep buying the Safe brand at Coles in Caulfield until just recently, when they stopped stocking them. Or maybe they stopped receiving them some time ago, and they’ve finally run out. Recycled toilet paper is still easy to find.
See, I have a problem with the idea that we should be chopping down trees to make stuff to wipe our arses on or collect snot with. It’s a waste. And while for nasal use, handkerchiefs can be better sometimes, they’re not always convenient.
So I’ll keep hunting. Coles Online shows nothing, but it appears that Safeway HomeShop still has Naturale brand (at $2.47 for 250 tissues, plus up to $9.95 delivery fee). But since I don’t normally do my grocery shopping online (the supermarket is five minutes’ walk from my house — why would I bother?), that’s hardly very convenient or cost-effective.
Anybody know any other sources of recycled tissues? My stash is running out…
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5 comments
All hands on deck
An inspiring post by Cam on The Age “Startup Stories” blog:
Here’s something I really believe – the human race needs all hands on deck right now. Take a look around you at the politicians and corporate leaders and ask yourself these questions: “Are these the best people to be running things? Do you feel comfortable with the knowledge that the future of the human race, of all life on this planet, is in their hands?”
We need you to get off the bench. Stop waiting for someone to tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it is your time. It isn’t going to happen. You need to get off the bench and start using your time, your intelligence, your energy, your ideas, to make the world a better place.
I have this motto – if you have the ability to make the world a better place, and you choose not to use that ability, then you aren’t much better than the people who are deliberately messing the place up.
Okay, I know it isn’t the most succinct of mottoes, but hey, it’s my first one. I’ll get better as I go along.
I can’t say I’m going to go quit my job (not even for six months), but it does remind me of why I do the extra-curricular stuff I do, and why I’m always on the lookout to learn new things and try and make a difference.
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I am not a morning person
Yes, I had a heads-up about the story on the front page of yesterday’s Age.
Yes, I went to bed early(ish) and woke up early, ready as I could be for the onslaught.
No, it was not an audio problem on 3AW — I was half asleep at 6:25am when I spoke to them. “Government” is a particularly tricky word at that time of the morning.
Yes, I’d woken up by the time I spoke to the others just after 7.
No, I am not a morning person.
As for the story itself, it’s a little lesson in what the prominence of a headline can do. Apparently until Sunday night it hadn’t been planned to be a big thing, but someone decided it should have the front page. Sometimes it’s like real estate: location, location, location. It got the Minister out to talk to the pack about it, got the TV and radio and online media all chasing it, and kept going all day.
And it’s all part of keeping the pressure on the government to actually fix the problems. (Hey, we can hope, can’t we?)
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Mother’s Day moving
Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I headed over to my mum’s place with a card in hand. From what I can see, about 80% of the Mother’s Day cards out there are the excessively soppy ones that I’m not that keen on, and that she wouldn’t appreciate. That generally leaves just a few semi-jokey (and thus acceptable) cards left on the shelf.
One memorable card from years past was “The Mothership has landed”, with a picture of a UFO, and lots of mothers coming out of it, bearing hot pies, and proclaiming things like “We never hear from you anymore” and “Are you eating properly?” From what I recall, my friend Brian once gave it to his mum, too.
This year’s card though was a “How many mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?”, with the answer being something along the lines of “Only one, because it won’t change itself, and nobody else around here will get off their bum and do it.” She liked it.
But the main reason I went over was to help move furniture around the house. My mum’s house is undergoing a refurbishment at the moment — painting, new carpets, new lino, etc. In terms of furniture movement, it’s almost worse than moving house. At least when you’re moving house, everything is going somewhere. For this though, you’re having to find out-of-the-way places for everything until it’s finished. All the books are in boxes in a big stack in the dining room; all the bookshelves under a tarp in the garden. The house looks unnaturally empty.
When that was all finished, I moved Marita’s stuff back to her house. After 6 months, the work there is almost finished. Like every renovation in the history of the universe, it ran over-time, naturally.
Have to get used to making dinner for three again, now.
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