Monday Mural

Sami is the Monday Mural leader, and here is my contribution this week. 

I believe this mural is in Barkly Street, St Kilda. We all need to love; friendly, passionately and deeply.

Look, there is even a Love shop in the background. 

Sunday Selections

As usual I am joining with River and others for Sunday Selections. Now what do I have to show you?

This cat toy has a a motor to make the arm move about and a red laser pointer. Jass found it uninteresting, until we removed the arm, disabled the laser and put cat treats inside the toy, which has an opening for the treats to fall out. She has become quite adept at patting the ball around to get the treats. 

Sorry cocky, we don't feed the native wildlife.

Oh what a mess at the back of public telephone box.

I didn't even know you could text from a public phone. Public phones are now free in Australia, as they make huge amounts of money by being covered in advertising. 

Kosov now has the full set. 

Phyllis bought a bus. 

Luggage hatch open. 

Mirrors swung out.

Interior lighting on. 

Jass rather likes Kosov's old laundry basket.

When one's car is in use by someone else, it is quite quick to visit Bunnings in West Footscray by the Metro tunnel train. Finding something historic is a bonus. 

The good, the bad and the fugly.

I am not sure where this cartoon came from but it inspired this post. 

I recently learnt about trucks, lorries if you like, world wide. Flat faced trucks are the standard in the UK and Europe. The driver has good visibility in front of them.

American trucks have a big engine sticking out in front of the cab and very poor visibility immediately in front of the driver's cab. With advent of cameras, radar and auto braking, this is probably not a huge issue now with new American trucks but it certainly was in the past when the drivers couldn't see immediately in front of them.

As Australia does, at times in picks up on the best from overseas, and the worst. We have a mix of both types of trucks but our inland long distance trucks are certainly like the one above. But we do also have long European style trucks.

On our outback roads, this style dominates.

GM is the US has made some horribly aggressive looking SUVs.

Now Japan has taken on the look, as you can in my parking garage. What is making cars look aggressive all about? We already know they are killing machines. Now they are looking more the part of a killing machine.

There's a whole lot more of these aggressive looking cars than these two in the car park.

Me's upgraded my tech

Advertising leaflets were placed in our letter boxes, which is not allowed but it easy enough for someone to get to the mail room to stick leaflets in letter boxes. I look at whatever a leaflet might offer, and mostly they go straight in the convenient nearby mail room rubbish bin.

This one grabbed my attention, my own internet supplier offering deals for new customers. I noted that once the bonus sign up discounted period ended, they would be on a better plan that I was.

I was paying $85 per month for my internet connection, with the modem spreading the signal to the whole of the apartment. Tvs, my desktop, phones, tablets, laptops, a few lamps, and Rover the vacuum cleaner all use the internet. My speed was 100mbs, and truly, I find that quite adequate and I was actually getting that download speed.

But for new subscribers, they would eventually end up on the $80 plan and get 700mbs download speed. I was outraged that I was paying more for less. 

It was time to talk to someone in the Philippines about my internet. 

Oh Sir, you are on an older plan.

It would have been nice if you informed me that there was a better plan for me.

I am sorry Sir. Our website clearly shows our plans.

Well, I will take the $80 plan and have a 700mbs service, thanks.

Sir, I have made the changes to your service. It will take some time to change and someone will call you.

Weirdly I was shuffled between various people on the phone but it wasn't too bad taking about 15 minutes. 

My expectation was that some buttons would be pressed somewhere and I would have an upgraded service. 

A few days later someone called to make an appointment. Ok, between 8.00am and 12 noon. I normally shower at 8.00, so I showered earlier on the day of the appointment. At this point I though the tech person might have do something in the basement or my floor's service room. I would just let him in.

He called about 8.30 and said he would arrive at 9.00. I let him in and he was a pleasant and competent man. He had to install a new box next to my modem. Lordy what a mess of wires. I had forgotten the name, and now I am forgetting it again. I think it was a LAN cable that connected this new box to my modem. I was told I don't own the new box, but as a homeowner, it wasn't that relevant. The LAN cable was bright yellow. That won't do at all in a public area of my apartment.

I've just remembered it is an ethernet cable, not a LAN cable.

Well, now I am connected, I should have 700mbs download speed, a huge increase from 100mbs.

Mr installer, 700mbs is an amazing speed. 

Sorry Sir, your building is old, your tech installations in the basement were early models and the wire from the basement to your home is copper. You won't get 700mbs but let me check. 

Sir, you are getting 365mbs download speed. If your building had newer equipment, and a fibre cable to your apartment, you might get 700mbs. 

After he left I went to JB HiFi and bought a grey ethernet cable and tidied wires and plugs as best I could, and that made the rat's nest, like Sybil's hair, look better. You only see the mess of the wires when at the end of the kitchen but they aren't really visible to visitors.

The black thing is the modem and the new white booster thingie sits flat on the bench.    

The end result, I have noticed a much higher speed for some things I might download, but for general computer business, such as blogging, there is no difference. It was hardly worth the bother, but then I am saving $5.00 a month. Did I mention I know how to look after the pence? 

A grave cosmetic error

Josh Cavallo is a nice looking guy. He is a champion soccer/football player, once for our national youth football team.

He has played for many different leagues as a champion player and it seems he is now playing for England's National League North side, Peterborough Sports. 

He identified as being gay in 2021, and it is said he was the first top rated professional player to do so. It probably goes without saying he subsequently suffered a lot of homophobia.

As I mentioned, I think he is nice looking, ok a hot guy, that is until...

he opens his mouth. His teeth are an absolute disaster. What possessed him?

With his to be husband, Leighton.

Old dog, new tricks

Written ages ago. Now published.

In my youthful years I learnt the order of planets using the mnemonic, My Very Ernest Man Just Showed Us Nine Planets. It has now been decided that Pluto is not a planet. Who would know?

While I may be an old dog, I can still learn, such as this modern version omitting non planet Pluto that appeals to me, My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos.

Some of you may remember how I learnt to spell the name of the Sydney suburb Woolloomooloo. Sheep, toilet, cow, toilet. Loo is a common term for a toilet in England.

I struggled with spelling the word 'necessary'. I focused on the spelling, repeating it over and over again until I became confident with the spelling of neccesary. I've never gotten it wrong since. 

I'm pleased in my old age to learn when Easter falls, being the first Sunday after the first full moon after the 21st of March. From what I can tell, this is my own photo. Well done me. 

My fingers run away

Phyllis has an excellent command of written and spoken English, and even without the usual Indian accent.

Kosov has excellent written English but his speaking is quirky. He struggles to explain anything complicated. But then I probably do too. At times I have had to restart explaining something. 

Neither of them have good mental arithmetic. If they want an instant answer to simple arithmetic, they ask me. And my mental arithmetic is far from perfect but faster than theirs, and more accurate.

When a new calendar arrives each year, Phyllis marks the calendar when the fortnightly rent is to be paid. I picked up that he mucked that up during the change from last year's calendar. He wasn't trying to cheat me, as his mistake was in my favour by one week. They are now paying rent four weeks in advance, but again Phyllis mucked up, and marked the calendar one month after he last paid four weeks rent. No, no. That short changes me by a few days each month. He understood and realised his mistake. I have no doubt it was unintentional. He knows I am smart with minor amounts of money, just not so smart with larger amounts. Yep, I look after pennies, not necessarily the pounds.

Speaking of pennies, for a long time I've wondered why Americans refer to coins as pennies. Aren't they cents? Aren't dollars and cents the standard?

Some good news here today. Food delivery drivers will now receive an hourly wage of around AU$31 an hour while they are working, plus some accident and personal injury insurance paid for by their employing companies. My lads never look to the future about shopping and we had run out of cat litter, which is not in my job description. Kosov didn't want to go out to get some after being told to do so, so he had it delivered from Aldi, for a fee of $4.50. That is simply a ridiculously low delivery fee. It may rise now that proper wages have to be paid to delivery drivers. Good.

What a horrible business in England, where a professor was driven to suicide, mostly by the Murdoch media. I can never remember an academic being attacked by media as he was. 

In Israel, Netanyahu is trying to build bridges with far right parliamentary members who want to bomb Arab countries to bits before a forthcoming election, while #47 continues his nonsense, now having being humiliated by Iran. Yeah, all about oil, but #47, you have huge problems in your own country. Yet the fuckwit is against his own citizens and businesses who use and promote renewable energy, thus reducing the reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Follow the money for him and his corrupt cronies and you will find out why.

Now Kosov has his Master's degree and no longer a student, he had to apply for a two year post study visa. My god, how Australia rips off overseas students. Now it is an AU$500 for a medical check and chest x-ray. He has spent many hours online applying for his visa. Stepping out of my personal interest in having them stay, they are hard working, decent and honest young men, in a committed relationship. As much as they are taking from Australia, they are giving more back to the country. 

Oh yes, the three of us had a very nice couple of hours out with HH last Friday night. I was going to insist on paying for my two glasses of wine but I knew what her reaction would be, so it was pointless. She can certainly talk, but I noticed her conversational skills, by the way she engaged Phyllis and Kosov in conversations. You'd be surprised how well an 80 year old straight white Australian woman could talk with two Indian born gay overseas former students who have lived in Australia for a couple of years.