Categories
Melbourne Photos

Winter in Melbourne

A few pictures from Friday. Bentleigh station, 9am. Collins Place, 9:30am — The fog had lifted a bit in the city, but it was still evident a few hundred metres up. Swanston Street, 1:30pm — By lunchtime it was quite hazy. Swanston Street, entrance to Chinatown, 7pm — In the evening it got cold and  ... [More]

Categories
News and events

Poor craftsmanship

Wanted fugitive Tony Mokbel got busted in Greece last week. Did you see his fake driver’s licence in the newspaper? Take a look. A licence supposedly for NSW has a VicRoads logo on it. That’s sloppy, that’s what it is. How and why would you fake an ID that was so obviously flawed, such that  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

C-c-c-cold

Last night was the coldest of the year so far, and I certainly felt it. The BOM weather monitoring station closest to me would be Moorabbin, and apparently it got down to 0.0 at 3:35am. Not as cold as Scoresby though, -1.3 at 7:32am. Certainly it was the first time this year I’ve found ice  ... [More]

Categories
News and events

Unfortunately, we’ll always have Paris

In my years of blogging, I have so far managed to avoid mentioning Paris Hilton. Because up until now, I’d considered her to be nothing more than a waste of oxygen and newsprint. Seriously, I’d hoped that her incarceration would mean she’d be out of the news for a few weeks. I should have known  ... [More]

Categories
Health Melbourne

Coming soon: smoke-free pubs

From the 1st of July, pubs and clubs will be smoke-free. No more stinky hair after a night out. No more washing all your clothes the next day. So! Who’s for a drink? Let’s hit the pubs! (In preparation, the local RSL built a smoking area, which looks like an outdoor courtyard, but is almost  ... [More]

Categories
Film Sport TV

The weekend’s reviews

Shrek the Third — was okay I suppose, a few amusing moments, but nothing outstanding. The first Shrek is still the best one… egads they have a Shrek 4 planned — I hope it’s better than the Third, though I bet they’re all successful. I suppose worth watching if someone else is paying, but fails  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

Someone else’s bin

Next in the suburban moral dilemmas: I’m walking down the street, and I have some litter to get rid of, say a food packet or something else that’s small. Is it okay to put it in someone’s rubbish bin? I reckon it barely makes a difference to their bin load, and it’s better off in  ... [More]

Categories
Clothes Home life

Secondhand clothes

Should I feel guilty for buying my kids secondhand school clothes? They’re in very good condition — no doubt donated by kids who have legitimately had no use for them anymore because they’ve grown or left the school. $2 per item, about 90% cheaper than buying new. Reduce, re-use, recycle, right? So I’m covering 2  ... [More]

Categories
transport

The 17:09 from Swan Hill

The 17:09 from Swan Hill didn’t arrive tonight. I was upset to read about the Kerang train crash. For all my bitching, I love travelling by train. When it works, it’s clean, cheap, quick, comfortable. And safe — rail travel has a deserved reputation for being one of the safest ways of getting around: about  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism

Aspirational goals

I’m sure most of us have already worked this out, but let me decode the phrase “aspirational goal” for you. It means “goal that we’d like to reach, but we’re not going to actually make any effort to reach, and there certainly won’t be any penalties or anything if we never come close.” In other  ... [More]

Categories
music

It was forty years ago today

(Well okay, forty years and 3 days ago actually.) Sgt Pepper was the first cassette I owned, back in the late-70s. It lacked a lot of the non-musical extra bits and pieces of the original release: the cardboard cutouts and lyrics and so on. At that age I don’t think I really “got” the concept  ... [More]

Categories
Geek Politics and activism

Friday inspiration

Cameron Reilly’s done a podcast followup to his Age article encouraging people to “get off the bench”. Listening to it reminded me of something I once wrote: “Every person has the potential to create a great work of art; to work for the benefit of humanity; to become a spokesman or a great leader; to  ... [More]