A few weeks ago I was walking along Hotham Street in Balaclava and noted security people on duty outside some of the Jewish buildings. Fairly low-key — just a man and a woman in suits with radios. They said good morning, and I reciprocated. I grew up near there, and it didn’t used to be that way. It’s becoming clear that, unfortunately, it’s a sign of the times.

Over the weekend some morons attacked people outside Glick’s Jewish bakery in Balaclava, and smashed a window. That’s less than a year after another attack further up Balaclava Road. And the local newspapers are reporting allegations that players from McKinnon Cricket Club posted anti-Semetic comments on Facebook, targetted at the Maccabi AJAX Cricket Club.

While it’s pleasing that the authorities in all these cases are taking it seriously (police are investigating, and Glen Eira Council may evict McKinnon Cricket Club from their ground), it does make me wonder what the hell’s going on. The Jewish community in Melbourne is very well established, having lived in the inner-southeast for decades, and while I know there’s long been anti-Semitism (I recall mild versions of it when I was at school), I would have thought in the 21st century we would have been beyond nasty idiotic acts like this.

Okay, so some people might disagree with some of the things Israel has been doing, but there’s no evidence any of this is politically motivated — from the looks of it, it’s just racist idiots targetting those who are different from them — those involved in the attack at Glick’s were earlier observed chasing an Indian man, calling him an Arab.

Given Pauline Hanson’s latest mindless ranting (Headline: “Hanson sick of Muslims” — yeah well I’m sick of Pauline Hanson) I fear ethnic groups may be in for a rough ride in the coming months.

(Previous posting on this topic.)

Tramps Like Us by Kristen Buckley — Kristen emailed and asked if I’d like to read and review this book, as its Australian launch is coming soon. I’m glad I said yes, it’s smegging hilarious. Kristen’s better known for being a screenwriter for movies that… well, frankly, I wouldn’t go out of my way to see. Thankfully the foreword makes it clear that this is no 102 Dalmations.

The book is Kristen’s memoirs of childhood, growing up in New Jersey in the 70s and early 80s, and as someone a similar age, despite the distant location, it has an air of familiarity about it. We can all identify with having childhood dreams — in this case, she wanted to meet Sting — popularity issues at school, the trials of family.

I know a book is funny if I find myself reading it on the train and laughing out loud — which happened while reading some parts of the book, like the rat infestation and the badly written TV captions. Is it all true? Maybe, maybe not, but it hardly matters. I found it a highly entertaining read. It’s the type of book I’d love to write myself, but I fear that even if I employed gross exaggeration, it would come out nowhere near as funny or interesting. Don’t know when this will get an Australian release, but watch out for it. Recommended.

I’ve lived in my house almost two years. And during that time.. I’ve done bugger all to it. Not that I was planning to do much, but here’s the current list. In my defence, I seem to rarely have any spare time to attack some of these things.

Short term:

• Find out what kind of bulb goes in the porch light. (One of the two bulbs blew a while back in spectacular and noisy way.)
• Clear out the junk I have that I really don’t need, and get the rest of it into proper storage, eg make use of all those cupboards.
• Get the computers set up properly. One of the spare ones is going back to Marita’s place, and the other is going to become a NAS server.
• Get the shed into some kind of order so more outdoorsy stuff can be kept in it.
• Added 19/8: Fix the peeling paint in the bathtub.

Short to medium term:

• Find energy efficient bulbs for the few fittings left that don’t take the standard ones
• Some kind of bench seat or something for the front porch
• Investigate better insulation (the roof has loose insulation. Not clear if batts would be markedly better. Depends on the R-rating/thickness of the current setup).
• Replace halogen down lights in kitchen with something more energy efficient, and ensure properly protected from insulation and fire risk.
• Get some more powerpoints installed, and generally get the wiring looked over.
• Then get the cabling and powerboards of all my various devices sorted out, so that almost everything can be easily turned off at the wall (off standby, saving power) at night or when going out.
• Replace livingroom light fitting with something with a ceiling fan. (Many of the other lights appear to be original fittings, but that’s more recent.
• Clear junk out of spare room (including creating some storage in the ceiling) and see if it can be turned into a bedroom for Jeremy. (It’s small, but he reckons he won’t mind.)

Medium to long term:

• When hot water service dies, install solar.
• See if there’s space for a greywater tank
• New kitchen? Pah, whatever my sister says, I like it. Ancient oven/stove included.

Sorry, too busy today to say much.

• Age: Public transport call to Canberra. Full report: Moving Australians Sustainably.
• Age: New rail tunnel proposal gains momentum
• Herald-Sun: Rail system daily ordeal for 300,000

I have a cautionary tale for you. A few weeks ago I was merrily strolling through Bentleigh, and decided to see what they had in the discount supermarket place. To my delight they had some very cheap Cadbury breakfast bars. Ah, the goodness of muesli combined with the deliciousness of chocolate. Okay, so slightly past their Best Before date, but what difference could that make? 5 for $2, thank you very much — a rather splendid morning tea snack at a bargain price.

I ate one per working day for the next week.

The week after that, I got a massive pimple. So big it cast its own shadow. And just my luck, it was present one afternoon when I had to talk to Channel 10 about crowded trains. Yes, my pimple got broadcast on statewide television.

Sigh.

Of course it’s not just the acne that thrives on excess chocolate. There is the odd case of Diabetes in my family, and I noted last time I gave blood that my weight is creeping up — 77Kg, where I used to be about 75. So while some (principally the chocolate industry, I’m betting) like to push chocolate as being healthy, I can’t help feeling that it wouldn’t kill me to cut it from my diet totally.

So not only have I vowed not to buy any more Cadbury breakfast bars, I’ve stopped buying chocolate altogether. Well, almost. I’ve set myself a maximum of one small bar a week, and that’s only if colleagues are selling them for fundraising, Charlie Bucket-style, and I’ll still have the occasional hot chocolate (because there’s nothing I like better as a hot beverage when out).

Since then, no more big pimples. Touch wood.

(Oh damn, there’s a small one on my nose. There goes that theory.)

When I fire up the dishwasher, and get the washing machine running, and the central heating’s warming the house, and I can hear them all going… sometimes it’s a terribly good feeling to know all my machines are working hard for me.

Perhaps people last century thought they’d have robots running around doing their bidding, but really, this is a tad more practical.

I had a walk around Fed Square and Birrarung Marr on Friday. I was actually looking to get a pic of the Spamalot information booth, which had a big inflatable Monty Python foot on top of it. The kids could have had great fun animating it.

Alas my plan went askew when I couldn’t find the booth, and my “real” camera had flat batteries. But I took a few pics with my phone.

The giant Luxo Junior on Flinders Street reminded me that I really must take the kids along to the Pixar exhibit before it closes.

If you had to ring Triple-0 in an emergency and they asked you what street corner you were near, and you were in the middle of a big park, what would you say?

It seems the people who set up Birrarung Marr thought of this already:

Now, my question of the day is… what is the purpose of that thing on top of the Mercer building? Anybody know?

I’ve gone cold turkey on junk mail. The sticker went on last weekend, and there’s been nothing since.

Of all the junk mail I used to get (the record being a phenominal 28 pieces in a single day, but more typical being 100 per month), I would only read a fraction of it: usually I’d flick through the big department stores’ catalogues and anything geeky (ooh, Dick Smith Powerhouse…). If only you could nominate what you wanted.

Everything else would go straight into the recycling. It’s a waste. So in the spirit of reduce, reuse, recycle, no more junk mail for me. As it happens, the department stores put their catalogues online anyway, so I can go looking if I still want to read them. But realistically, I’ll probably find better things to do with my time.

PS Monday. If anybody’s wondering, yes the local newspaper still gets delivered to me. Which suits me fine.