Categories
Culture Melbourne

Street names: Why was Synagogue Lane renamed?

Church Street doesn’t have a church in it any more. Nearby Synagogue Lane doesn’t have a synagogue in it anymore. I got curious: How come only one of them got to keep its name? Despite what appears to be a sign that is not particularly ancient, evidently the name change was some time ago —  ... [More]

Categories
News and events

Some thoughts on 9/11 ten years on

9/11. Is there any other one-off event that is known throughout the western world by its date? Of course, if it had happened anywhere else, it would have been called 11/9. But it didn’t happen anywhere else. Only the USA is big, brave, brash, bold and independent enough that it would buck the trend and  ... [More]

Categories
Health

Cluster headaches – back for spring

Oh joy. My cluster headaches are back for spring. In fact they returned on the 1st of September, which Australians consider to be the first day of spring. Boom, just like that. (Previous posts. Doesn’t everybody use blog posts to track their personal health history? I know I do.) To recap Cluster headaches are, as  ... [More]

Categories
TV

“Oh no! Maybe the Genius Bar can fix it.”

Picture from Channel 7’s Sunday Night story about the Suruwaha tribe of Brazil. Anybody got any better caption ideas?

Categories
Health

Down down, smoking is down

Excellent. Smoking rates are continuing to drop, from 21.2% in 1998 down to 15.3% now. So, how about the next step, government? Now that smoking is almost entirely banned indoors, what about extending smoking bans to include all undercover areas — I’m thinking particularly of under shop awnings. (If I ran the world, I’d be  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism

eBay ads target retail – and retail building owners let them do it

I wonder if accepting these ads (seen on the walls of retail buildings around Bentleigh) the owners are killing the goose that laid the golden egg? “Brand new items. Huge retail markups and pushy salespeople not included.” “Buy new. Buy eBay. Bye retail.”

Categories
transport

My old Myki Short Term Ticket still works

I’ve already posted about the mess that may ensue if once Myki is fully rolled-out, there is no option of a single-use ticket. Today it’s been confirmed flagged as probable that some 50 million of the unused Short Term Tickets will be pulped, and also that almost 500 vending machines originally intended for trams are  ... [More]

Categories
music

Old man music

Happy Fathers Day. As I recall it, there’s a scene in one episode of Frontline where Mike Moore is driving along listening happily to the radio, singing along to “We Built This City”. When the DJ comes on he derides it as “one for the oldies” and then throws to something newer, a heavy rock  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

How was Melbourne ranked the Most Liveable City?

Melbourne came up tops in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest liveability survey (97.5 points) just beating Vienna (97.4) and Vancouver (97.3). A colleague of mine was incredulous, noting that the trains are packed, there’s litter and graffiti, she’s seen a fight in the street, and rents are stratospheric. My light-hearted reposte, at least to the  ... [More]

Categories
Geek TV

Pondering 5.1 surround-sound systems

I was looking at what DVD/Blu-Ray 5.1 systems I can get on my credit card points (because this is not something I want to or can afford to spend Real Money on). Some options include (eg the highest-specced ones I have enough points for): Samsung HTD5300 5.1CH 3D Blu-Ray Home Theatre System — which gives  ... [More]