Why do some people quote their phone numbers in funny ways on voice mails?

Most Australian phone numbers come in two varieties:

A local number, eg 7010 5105. (Let’s ignore the two digit area code for now; it’s not usually relevant in voice mails).

Or a mobile number, eg 0491 570 156.

How I’ve written them above is pretty much the standard, and that’s how I expect them to be quoted verbally. It’s no accident — with local numbers, the first four digits determines the phone exchange.

So I have enormous difficulties when someone decides to vary that, which often happens if they decide that part of the number repeats, so they should emphasise that, for instance 70 105 105. Or quoting a mobile number like a landline: 04 9157 0156. Something in my brain doesn’t scan the verbal input properly, and I have to hear it again to be sure I’ve written it down right.

It’s doubly difficult if in a voice mail they only say it once, and too quickly.

Please, stick to the formula.

I love the concept of commuter cycling. While my trip to work is a little too far, I love the idea of riding to places like my sister’s house or my mum’s house or my dad’s place (all just a few km away) on the bike.

I love the idea of taking the whole family out for a ride, and as oil prices continue to climb, seeing lots of other people taking up cycling too. If it happens in a big way, the roads could be less busy, the air less polluted, and people would be fitter.

And then I see reports like this: some moron in a car deciding he doesn’t like being delayed by a group of cyclists, deliberately intimidating them, and then causing an accident before driving off.

There’s just no getting around the fact that you’re vulnerable on a bike. And one dickhead who doesn’t like the look of you can wipe you out in a second.

Call me a wimp if you like, but while I do enjoy recreational cycling, I continue to prefer — most of the time — walking, PT and, when I have to, driving.

Source: Australian Transport Safety Bureau. Figures also included pedestrian fatalities, but I figure that’s skewed as pedestrian trips are almost always much shorter than those by mechanical transport. Be nice to find some more up-to-date Australian figures, too — these are from the 80s. My Googling didn’t find anything better.

Update 8am Friday: James makes a good point — wouldn’t per travelling hour be a fairer comparison? Yep, here it is. Note cycling is about as safe as car driving in these terms.

Last week I gave $100 to my old school’s building fund.

I figure I can give at least double that to Burma cyclone disaster relief.

Donations in Australia can be made through:

• Care Australia
• Red Cross
• Save The Children
• Caritas

There’s probably others; these are the first four I found. For those overseas, Google has a page for donations to Unicef and Direct Relief — this appears to work for all countries, not just the US.

Apparently the Footscray McDonalds was in a state of MacMourning:

Meanwhile, check this restaurant in North Richmond. I’ll have to try eating there the next time I want some Aussie-Indian-Chinese. It’s trendy, yet traditional.

It really is as easy as Tony H said to switch to 100% Green Power. A quick phone call to Origin, which took under five minutes (I was already a customer). As of now my house is no longer responsible for emissions from brown coal. Which is good, ‘cos I’m afraid I’m a little cynical that the state government’s plan to capture the CO2 emissions will work very well, on a big enough scale, or any time soon.

The impact on my bill is an extra 5 cents per kWh, which based on my most recent bill is $37.95 for three months. (It’s 5.5 cents if you count GST.) It should cut my annual emissions by about 5 tonnes.

According to Channel 7 last night, they’re about to change the formula for solar panels that feed back into the grid, so it’ll be worth re-doing those calculations when the budget is announced today. But this’ll keep me going for now.

So, no more coal power for me!

(via the Greens blog.)

PS. Wednesday: The paperwork arrived. It’s actually effective 16th May (allowing for a 10 day cooling-off period). And it’s 4.99994 cents per kWh including GST.

Friday night’s 20 year school reunion had all the standard components: old mates chatting; drinking; fairly raucous singing old the school song; a meal; more drinking; a few speeches, that kind of thing.

And a school tour. If my kids had been there, I’m sure they would have thought it was very Harry Potter, especially the school tower, which now contains the school’s archive, with many and varied items of interest. The library is now the staff room. The computer room is now the geography department. The hall has barely changed — even some of the seats are the same.

Colin, the President of the Old Boys Association is an ex-teacher at the school, and this made for some amusement, as he attempted with his best stern teacher’s tone to get people to quieten down during the speeches.

A number of blokes I knew well at high school but whom hadn’t been in touch over the years (including the previous reunions) showed up, which was great. Most looked similar to how they had done years ago. Many now have families and kids.

John and Tristan decided that Essendon coach Matthew Knights was the most prominent old boy of our year, though he didn’t attend on the night.

Some noted my efforts, which was nice. And Andrew, who I had a lot of laughs with in years 9 and 10, surprised me by saying how much he enjoyed the How To Destroy Your VCR web pages.

One of the current assistant principals spoke of the current school’s battle — to prevent a 25 storey building going up behind the historic 1927 building, spoiling the vista. Most of us were roused up enough about this to give money on the night to the fighting fund.

Was a great night. To be followed up with a flurry of emails and Facebook additions, no doubt.

• BEHOLD! I AM CREATOR OF WORLDS! (for kid’s school project) #
• Looking forward to seeing tomorrow’s paper. #
• New road cash five times funding of rail http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/04/1209839456871.html #

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Last night while giving blood, they gave me a nice Red Cross O+ key ring, which can replace my RACV one now that I’m no longer a member. (Mind you, so far they’re still sending me newsletters and the occasional “Maybe you’ve forgotten to pay?” letter.)

They also let me know my vital blood statistics.

Blood pressure: 117 over 76. Apparently that’s good.

Haemoglobin: 163 (aka 16.3). Apparently that’s good too, though it always varies a bit. Last time it was 147.

Weight: 77.7 Kg. I think that’s up a bit in the last few years. I traditionally thought of myself as being about 75 Kg, and not all of the difference could be in winter clothes, could it?

(A previous post indicates that in the last five-ish years, my blood pressure is down slightly, and my weight is up. In fact a friend posted an old photo of me on Facebook last week where I look awfully thin.)

Recently an article in the paper about health checks was accompanied by a quick (and probably not overly scientific) quiz people could look through to see if they were at risk of diabetes (which my father has).

I’ve been meaning to try it, so, let’s have a look. My answers are at the bottom.

Quick diabetes risk check (from The Age 19/3/2008)

1. Your age. Under 45 - 0 points; 45-54 - 2 points; 55-64 - 3 points; over 64 - 4 points.

2. Your body mass index (kilograms divided by height in metres squared). Less than 25 - 0 point; 25-30 - 1 point; More than 30 - 3 points.

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