Not quite 7-11
When they first arrived in Australia, my mum used to call 7-11 “4-7-11″, because the TV jingle went “Thank heaven… for Seven Eleven!”
In Swanston Street, just a few doors down from the 7-11 on the corner of Flinders Lane, is a fake 7-11: the 24-7 Cafe, with a colour scheme that is similar, but not identical to, a real 7-11. I wonder how many people walk into the 24-7 without looking carefully, and assuming it’s a 7-11?
- Wikipedia: 7-Eleven — wow, they’ve been going since the 1920s, with the name first being used in 1946.
- Memories of the 7-11
PS. Everything I said last year about petrol prices at Easter still applies.
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The garbologists
Nowadays I have a camera in my mobile phone, so virtually anywhere I am, I can take a picture.
There was a morning, back in 1993 or so, when I wish I’d had a camera with me. I was waiting for a tram to work outside my old flat in Power Street, Hawthorn. That place was what you’d call “handy for public transport”. The city-bound tram stop was literally at the end of the driveway; to Camberwell and East Burwood was across the street. If you were headed towards the city, you could hear the tram screeching around the corner, just down the road, so you knew if you had to hurry to the stop. The railway station was 8 minutes’ walk away, down the sidestreets, and overall this was the quicker to get into the city on weekdays. Two other tram routes (69 and 70) were also in walking distance. It was PT heaven.
So anyway I was waiting for a tram to East Burwood when two garbage trucks came past, one in each direction. They stopped opposite each other, and the garbos on the back of each one jumped off to empty numerous bins into the backs of the trucks. They probably acknowledged each other too, in that non-waving, nod of the head and gruff “uhhh” kind of manly way. They finished with the bins, threw them back onto the nature strip and jumped onto the backs of their trucks and drove off.
I think it was soon after that that they phased out that kind of garbage collection, in favour of wheelie bins. Such a picture would have captured an everyday scene which, like chimney-sweeps and milkmen, have completely vanished from the landscape. When I was a kid, the garbos generally came past very early, at least when we lived on main roads like Hotham Street and Inkerman Road. We sometimes jokingly referred to them as garbologists.
It came to mind because I was clicking around on the council web site and found a page about the phasing out of recycling crates, also in favour of wheelie bins. Apparently ongoing reforms to workplace health and safety had a part in it, though I suspect mechanisation and single-person operated garbage trucks are simply much cheaper to run.
I wonder if anybody documents this kind of thing? (This one from Sydney was the closest I could find on a quick look in PictureAustralia. And check this great photo of a milkman and his son.)
To get to the point: I rang up the council yesterday to arrange to swap my 240 litre general rubbish bin for a 120 litre one. I rarely put more than about 30 litres per week in it, and although it doesn’t save much annually having the smaller bin (about $30 I think), I thought I might as well switch so the bin takes up less space. Besides, the bin I inherited when I moved in has a small hole in it.
Evidently I have to leave the bin lying down on the nature strip, like a disabled turtle, and they’ll come past sometime in the next few days and switch it over. Easy.
Edit: A link in the original post hid a bunch of text which left it making no sense. Link removed.
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The pool
Things to love about going to the pool
- Perfect cool-down on a hot day
- The kids have fun splashing around
- Inexpensive and close to home
- Secure belongings in a locker; don’t have to hide keys in shoes
- The cool wave pool… just like the beach, only cleaner (no jellyfish, for a start)
Things to hate about going to the pool
- Hot day = crowded
- Little kids splashing you accidentally
- Wrinkly skin and chlorine in your eyes
- Have to take the car to get there… no parks in the shade
- $3 for a lousy cup of chips… and I found I only had $2.80 in cash with me
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Parma and parking
Help our kids by eating a Parma — from today until next Thursday, $2 from every chicken parma served at 77 pubs around Melbourne (PDF list) will go to the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday appeal. Yes, more than ever, superparma.com is sadly missed.
I can’t give you a picture rivalling this carpark mishap in Brighton, but I did snap this one the other day.
No, the car didn’t have a disabled sign. And there was plenty of other (legal) parking a few metres away.
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Powered by the sun
They came with a compass. Which way’s north? Ah, thought so. Do you want it on the front, or the side? I don’t mind… front’s better — I’ll be setting a good example. Behold: a green geek.
The ladder went up. The collector went up and got connected. The old tank got ripped out and taken away. Some rummaging inside the roof. New tank in the old one’s place. It even looks more stylish. (Evidently 90s tanks were square and boxy; this one’s smooth and round.)
The way it works is pretty simple. An electric pump sends the water into the roof, so it goes through the collector and heats up as it goes, before being stored in the tank. When you turn on the tap, the system either gives the water additional heat from the gas if it’s not warm enough, or mixes it with cold water if it’s too hot (which apparently is common on sunny days).
The installation wasn’t entirely without drama. After the two guys had gone, the electrician turned up to install the new power point for the pump. He asked me if I had a shifter.
A shifter? I, and I realise I’m showing my mechanical ineptitude here, didn’t know that he was talking about, and said no. He kept asking, with increasing disbelief that I wouldn’t have such a device.
It eventually became apparent that he spotted a dripping water connection, and what he was asking for was an adjustable spanner. Apparently they’re really called shifters. How did I live on this earth for 37 years without knowing that? He did some fiddling, and all was good.
So now I have (almost) free hot water, at least until the sun fades away into a white dwarf, a few billion years from now.
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Behave, or…
In the spirit of Overheard in Melbourne, this one heard the other day at Victoria Gardens shopping centre while on an Ikea run:
“If you don’t behave, I’ll take you to the police station!”
Puh-lease, talk about an empty threat. Unless the mum thought the kid was guilty of terrorism charges or something. As I’ve said before, lying to your kids doesn’t work.
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Back to the arcade
It was like stepping back in time.
Down the stairs we went, into the darkness. Electronic beeps and bloops could be heard from all directions. Flickering lights.
Most of the classics were there. Centipede. Galaga. Ms Pacman. Asteroids. Space Invaders. Donkey Kong. And more. A handful in cocktail tabletop cabinets, but most the way God intended, in proper stand-up cabinets.
It took me back to the arcade amusements section of Luna Park circa 1985.
Except Luna Park never had MAME hooked up to a big projector screen. Back then if people wanted to observe your prowess, they had to huddle around.
ACMI’s Game On exhibit had all this and lots more. Apart from the section devoted to arcade games, they had areas showing off home computers of the 80s and 90s, consoles from the 80s to present, handheld games (Donkey Kong Game+Watch!) — and almost all of it playable.
I’m not sure the kids fully appreciated the plodding reality of the original IBM PC (sadly it wasn’t wired-up). Also in static displays were a Sinclair ZX-81 and an Apple II.
The kids and I went berzerk playing everything we could lay our hands on. We’d planned our trip to arrive right on opening time, and it paid off, as later things got reasonably busy, but we had a go on most things. I got high score on Pacman clone Puckman, as well as Ms Pacman. Some people had put very high scores on Donkey Kong already, so no go there, but I did get third on Galaga, despite the not-quite-reliable fire button. The Donkey Kong G+W left me trying to remember which of my friends had it. (I remember owning Donkey Kong Jr, and Donkey Kong II in this medium.) The sit-in Star Wars game was terrific, and Asteroids with proper vector graphics was great.
Of the newer games, R-Type on the PS1 (?) was fun, and I couldn’t quite get the controls on Golden Eye, but had a merry old time blasting away. Isaac and I spent some time beating each other to a pulp in Way of the Exploding Fist on a Commodore 64 (yes, I was wearing my Zzap!64 t-shirt). I couldn’t quite figure out Jeff Minter’s Tempest, which was running on an Atari Jaguar. Didn’t get a chance to play Wii, though they had a few PS3 and XBox 360 games on display, some quite spectacular.
Highly recommended, particularly if you grew up pumping 20 cent coins into machines. Oh, and love the giant Mario out the front in Flinders Street — one side a Donkey Kong pixellated original, the other in high-res.
(I’d post a pic of the giant Mario, but alas my five-year-old Canon A70 camera appears to have just died.)
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I don’t miss you, Johnny
Did you see the stuff Howard was spouting in an address to American conservatives the other day? (Text of speech)
… his most bitter remarks were reserved for those seeking to unwind his WorkChoices legislation
…
Mr Howard also attacked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision to withdraw combat troops from Iraq as “naive and dangerous”.
And he’s back to his old suspicions of global warming, which has “become a new battleground. The same intellectual bullying and moralising, used in other debates, now dominates what passes for serious dialogue on this issue”.
…
There was praise of Ronald Reagan and “that other great warrior in our cause, Margaret Thatcher”
Jeez. I’m glad we voted out the smegger.
Interestingly, he doesn’t appear to have talked about his important role in strengthening Australia’s gun laws. Maybe that wouldn’t have gone down so well. Also interesting that he tries to credit the end of the Cold War to Ronald Reagan’s building-up of US forces in the 1980s. Talk about historical revisionism — it was economics, and the Soviets wanting Western aid and investment that brought down the Wall.
Of course, in some people’s eyes the shine has gone off Rudd, but his biggest sin is something he hasn’t actually done, or said he’d do: scrapping the Carers’ and Seniors’ bonuses… But the Seniors Bonus was clearly flagged as a once-off payment last year. The Carer’s Bonus was also meant originally to be once-off. Frankly, I would scrap them — and replace them with something means-tested, aimed at giving those who need it more money, and giving those who don’t need help nothing. Fund food, clothes and rent, not plasma TVs and luxury cars.
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