Despite having a silent number, and fiercely protecting it, I do get the odd telemarketing call. They are almost all from offshore call centres, and almost all during business hours, when I’m not generally home. Call centre dialling systems are meant to detect when an answering machine picks up. But evidently their systems think my ... [More]
You know those sandwich board advertising things? A-frames, I’m told they’re called. The IGA in Ripponlea has recently got one. It’s as big as a person. On the bright side, it’s unlikely to blow over in the wind. Though if it did, it’d probably kill somebody. Update: Speaking of advertising, I just added Google ads ... [More]
If there’s one thing you want to be working in your house, it’s the drains. At their worst, if there’s a complete blockage, you’ll end up with nasty smells and even nastier effluent in the house. Thankfully things weren’t that bad, but there was that suspicious level of water in the toilets, and some stuff ... [More]
Marita and I were walking along the Centre Road shops on Saturday when we saw a passport on the ground. We picked it up. From the cover, photo, and identifying marks inside, it appeared to belong to an Australian-Canadian boy of Asian (perhaps Chinese) appearance. Looking around, we couldn’t see him. A couple of bystanders ... [More]
When I last went to the dentist, they said I had a touch of gingivitis, and suggested mouthwashing for a couple of weeks. It’s obviously pretty powerful stuff, because apart from any cleaning it’s doing, it makes my teeth look horrible, in a way that mere toothpaste can’t fix. My teeth now resemble those of ... [More]
I didn’t watch much of Live Earth, but it has inspired me to sign up to the pledge. Or at least, my variation of the pledge. 1. I will continue to reduce my carbon emissions, both by switching to more efficient appliances and equipment where practical, and by reducing my use of them. 2. At ... [More]
Four media stories published yesterday, not placed together, but maybe I’m not the only one to see the link. State government wants 2.2 billion dollars from the Feds to widen the Western Ring Road. People keep buying cars, despite high oil prices. With governments (particularly the Feds) pouring billions into roads and spending a fraction ... [More]
Ten points to the first person to guess what these are.
Is housing really unaffordable? Sure it’s increasingly expensive in the inner/fashionable suburbs (I should know, I’m paying for it), but that’s all about choice. More and more people are choosing particular suburbs, driving the prices up. From yesterday’s Age: “While the family, now based in St Kilda East, could afford to buy a home further ... [More]
After a year and a half of living here, I finally bought a ladder. It’s probably something I should have done as soon as I moved in, given without it I can’t re-light the heating pilot light, or get tennis balls off the roof, or clean the gutters. I also plan to use it to ... [More]
I’m relatively used to seeing my name in the newspaper, but most of the time I know it’s coming (like this morning) and I know it’s going to be in a particular context. So when my Google News RSS Feed (surely a sign of a healthy ego) showed up Virginia Haussegger’s article yesterday, I looked ... [More]