The intersection

l saw a woman get hit by a car on an intersection hear my house last week. A car ran a red light and the woman was thrown from her bike. She was hurt, but survived. I approach this intersection with extreme caution now, and I certainly never cross against the lights, especially when I have my infant son with me.

Earlier this week I saw a man on a bike with a child in a seat on the back cross against a red light at the same intersection, and in the same 5 minutes a woman on a bike tried to cross when an ambulance was speeding through the intersection with lights and sirens blaring. The ambulance driver had to brake to avoid her and use the horn to get her to move.

l just don't know what is wrong with people.

dogs in fenced off kid's playgrounds

I wrote a letter to my local council about people who exercise their dogs in fenced off, dog free, children's playgrounds.

Good morning.

The Smith Reserve is between my house and my son's daycare centre, so we often stop to play in the fenced off playground. Unfortunately, despite the "No Dogs" signs, more than half of the times we want to stop to play, there is someone with at least one dog off it's lead inside the fenced off play area.

Kids put their hands in their mouths and near their faces all of the time, and they pick up everything.

Kids who crawl might as well be licking the soles of shoes when they put their hands in their mouths, so I am concerned, not just about what I can see on the ground, but what has been on the ground.

the age of the Myki is upon us

I was on a tram this morning when a team of nervous looking ticket inspectors boarded, handheld scanners at the ready. The age of Myki has begun.

Whilst the technology used in the Myki system is clearly cutting edge (as it should be for the cost of $1.5 billion), it reminds me of the 80s and early 90s, when I relied heavily on public transport. Back then, if you didn't plan ahead for your trip you could find yourself inadvertantly travelling without a ticket, or missing the train or tram whilst trying to buy a ticket.

why does new years eve have to be so messy?

I'll admit that when I was younger, it seemed hard to have fun without alcohol. That's not going to change just because i grew out of it.

Kids will be kids and drinking to excess is a bogan rite of passage, whether the bogan is a hipster, a hippy or whatever other clothing style they have adopted.

I just wish people would clean up after themselves.

I'd rather stick a fish hook down the end of my penis than watch reality tv

I'd rather stick a fish hook down the end of my penis than watch reality tv. Unfortunately, this means that I often find myself re-watching old tv shows instead of anything that is on when i feel like watching.

Tv is such a boundless media that it is often disappointing to see just how especially dull the non-ratings season is going to be, especially after a dull ratings season. Sure, I should be at the park, visiting relatives, playing with my son and talking to my special lady friend, but sometimes all I want is some intelligent entertainment to distract me.

Why I no longer use an iPhone or iPad

As far back as I  can remember I have always craved the latest technological gadgets. Meccano sets gave way to lego, then came the walkman, cd player, and the personal computer.

l currently have too much tech in my house. 

Now that the sub genre or categories of personal media player, computer and phone are converging, I'm an avid tablet user. I've owned lots of tablets from a Chinese 7" Android tablet made by ZTE, the first Samsung Galaxy Tab, the first Motorola Xoom, the (excellent) Galaxy Tab 7.7, the Galaxy Note 10.1, the first iPad and the second iPad.   I recently took stock of why I wanted or needed this "stuff". Its a fact that only a small number of the phones and tablets in the world are used for anything work related.

Until a month ago my daily kit consisted of an iPhone 4S and an iPad 2 3G.

Goodbye 2012

As Christmas draws closer this year I haven't had the time to reflect that I am used to. 

Work is not winding down, so we're working through the festive season. Hopefully I'll be able to take some time in February. 

It's been another big year. In 2011 my mum died, we fell pregnant, I was made redundant and we were evicted. 

This year started with the birth at our son Jacques and the dramatic collapse of the company I went to work for after my redundancy. I was then unemployed for a couple of months as a contact I signed kept getting delayed. After a shaky start, work has been plentiful and lucrative since then. 

We were hoping for a year without death, but unfortunately my maternal grandmother finally succumbed to illness and age. Having outlived three of her children I think she'd seen enough anyway. We all miss her.

My main disappointment as to year ends is that my extended family of cousins uncles and aunties no longer have anyone binding them together and the family has drifted further apart. 

2013 is shaping up as the year for creating new traditions to make things fun for my son.

The USA is its own worst enemy.

I'm not going to mention recent events but anyone who watches the news has to concede that the United States of America is in a steep social decline.

Anyone who harbours ill will towards the USA need not waste their energy and resources attacking what is a brutishly powerful nation. Rather, they only need to wait as it destroys itself from within.

Right wing Christian fundamentalism combined with a colonial attitude towards the world and the toxic obsession with the misinterpreted constitutional right to bear arms is destroying a briefly great nation.  

The only real tragedy is that many far superior western nations have irreversibly entwined  their fate with that of the USA.

Last week, i went for over an hour without the web.....

In the 80s my mate and I were the nerds who had our own home-made PCs and the only kids who handed in dot-matrix-printed schoolwork. In the early 2000s I had an O2 XDA windows mobile phone that makes todays barcode scanners at retail outlets look sleek.

I was an early adopter of smartphones, tablets and personal computing in general, and I occasionally try to think back to the days before I couldn't go anywhere without being connected.

It's difficult.

I conducted an experiment last week. I decided I wouldn't check email, the internet or any digital gadget until I got to work. As I use my smartphone for my music and podcasts, I didn't even listen to anything for the 30 minutes or so from my front door to my work site. I felt a bit starved, sensory wise, but I enjoyed the 3.5 km walk to work.

So all up, I went for about an hour and a half without connecting to the digital world.

My key findings were interesting. Firstly, the world was still there when I reconnected. Also, I noticed my surroundings a lot more than I normally do, and finally I didn't feel worse for the sensory starvation.

 

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Warning: anti religious rant

It's times like this last week or so that I am thankful for my rational upbringing and my clear and unencumbered mind. Whatever fiction based brand of religion you follow, you are limited by irrationality, indignation and tedious (and often ancient, outdated) pseudo morality.

A war is brewing because one group of religious fanatics said something mean about a dead guy who is revered by another group of religious fanatics. Sounds like a two thousand year old fable, but we're still stuck in that same old groove.

grown-ups don't shit on toilet seats, do they?

The toilets in my workplace are only accessible to people who have access to a secure building with specific access to each floor.

Having said this, I believe that homeless people and zoo animals have been breaking in and smearing faeces everywhere in fits of rage. It's the only explanation. Nobody who went to university, grew up in a stable human environment and manages to get a corporate job could possible leave a toilet in the state I witness on a daily basis.

Every day there is shit on seats, pools of urine on the floor and unidentifiable smears on various surfaces.

I suspect there have also been children with puppies in there, fighting over rolls of toilet paper.

It's enough to make me hold on until I get home.

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plain packaging

The success of the Australian government's push for the plain packaging of cigarettes in a landmark High Court case this week is a rare example of why I still believe in politicians. We don't often see our elected representatives putting their necks out for a real cause, but there are still many who entered politics to make a difference.

Having said this, i have no doubt that we have not heard the end of this case. The tobacco industry will rally and spend some of their significant profits on further legal battles over brand ownership, compensation for loss of profit and other spurious arguments aimed at stalling a final outcome.

So, why am I so interested in this subject?

In the last 10 years I have watched three people near and dear to me die slow and agonizing deaths as a direct result of smoking a substance that is freely available and regulated by the government.

death - the difference between the common cold and the flu

There seems to be a major epidemic of the common cold in Australia, and newspapers like the Herald Sun are creating hysteria by using words like “Flu” in the headline, but going on to discuss the common cold in the article. By doing this they are just encouraging the sick leave junkies and the hypochondriacs.

As a contractor, I tend to work through most illnesses. I draw the line at real eyesight effecting migraines and anything requiring regular urgent toilet breaks, but these occur less frequently than the many variations of the cold virus.

.... i blame the earthquake

We're lucky in Melbourne. We live in a beautiful city in a pretty good country, we're very rarely affected by natural or manmade disasters. Our leaders are no more or less competent than any others, but at least they are democratically elected, if that's something that means anything to you.

In fact, upon reflection, you could say that Melbourne is a bit boring. I certainly wouldn't say that, as I beleive there is plenty to keep a person occupied here, but in terms of hard hitting sensational or tabloid news, car crashes and very infrequent gang related crime is as exciting as it gets.

brothel or restaurant?

Catching a tram home from work is exciting and often an adventure, but I have decided to walk to or from work a few times a week for the fresh air and exercise.

Usually this is pretty straightforward and uneventful, particularly when i do it early in the week, but a couple of days ago I was walking home and overheard a funny exchange as I passed a local restaurant.

Review of Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

Well, it looks like the Wool phenomenon is not a fluke. Half Way Home is another imaginative and thought provoking book from Hugh Howey. 

After reading and thoroughly enjoying the Wool Omnibus and First Shift, I tossed up between some of Hugh's earlier work, passing on Molly Fyde because it sounded like teen fiction. That's not a criticism, as I'll read anything that is entertaining and well written. 

Half Way Home is also about kids, but something about the blurb on the Amazon Kindle store won me over, and I'm glad it did.

ass or crotch? - the luck of the draw on peak hour trams

Peak hour trams in Melbourne are often full beyond their capacity according to some recent stats reported in the Age this week. This is no surprise to those of us who commute to and from work every day. Aside from being dangerous, just as filling any vehicle beyond it's capacity is dangerous, it's often inconvenient and plain old uncomfortable.

Occasionally I get on my morning or evening tram and find that there is a seat available. I always check if someone else wants the seat, because that's how I was raised, but often I get to sit down and spend my journey reading in something approaching comfort. Sounds good right? Lucky me!

why is digital piracy decreasing?

You infringe the copyright of digital content the moment you access it through an unauthorised mode of distribution. It costs a lot to develop, make and distribute movies, TV shows, albums, software and books.

At one point in time a physical disc, reel of film, book etc was relatively easy to control compared to a digitised version of your work. CDs and DVDs were the first step, containing a digital version of your material. When burners and the means to break inscription became available, all that was left to really impact media sales was a quick and easy means of distribution. In stepped the internet. Today, people have access to speeds allowing the download of a high definition movie in minutes.

ode to a man on the 86 tram

A man got on my tram tonight

Carrying a meteorite

I think he'll realise when he's older

It was just a plain old boulder

 

public transport, personal hygiene

I have a very sensitive sense of smell and I sometimes think I can see germs in the air after someone coughs. Preposterous, right? I may be a little obsessive compulsive, so bear with me.

If you wash regularly (complying with water restrictions of course) then I salute you. If, on the other hand, you prefer bathing less frequently, or less thoroughly than the rest of us, keep your arms by your sides and try not to lean on me on the tram.