Friday Funnies

Nothing too hilarious just a couple of vids that grabbed my eye.

I will be away for a few days. I vont to be alone. I do have a post scheduled for Monday. See y'all soon.

The old lady seems to be doing rather better on the conveyor belt than staff. But note how the luggage is all lined up and out of ther way. That is not my luggage carousel experience. 

While Romania might have modern trams, it could really do with spending some money on its tram tracks.

They're only words

It was a tragic case a couple of years ago when a man who was losing access to his children after a marital sepa took his infant on to a very high bridge and threw her over the edge, with very unhappy ended. He was convicted and gaoled but it was recently in the news again as the criminal had been assaulted in prison. 

The point of mentioning it is that the tv reporter said the crime happened at 9.15am in peak hour traffic on the West Gate Bridge. No, while the time can be argued about peak hour, but it certainly not after 9.00am. Why do we call in a one hour when it generally accepted as being two. 7.00 to 9.00, but that depends a little on the area where you are. 

It could be said that the evening 'peak hour' is from 3.00pm to 7.00pm from school pickup time at 3.00 onwards. I think in America it is called the rush hour, although if like the traffic here, in peak travel times you won't be rushing anywhere. The roads nearby in red as I write this post are stationary traffic.

Happy hour at pubs and bars where priced drink are reduced in price and can be for anything up to five hours, and rarely one hour. 

A place I patronise at least once a fortnight has a happy hour, and believe me, 6pm is the cut off time, and not a minute later.

Funny, not funny. An Australian Rules footballer has been suspended for nine matches and fined after it was found he offended for a second time by calling an opponent a faggot. His defence was that he called the player a maggot, not a faggot. There is some history to football and maggot. Umpires used to dress in white and might be called a white maggot or just maggot when someone didn't agree with their umpiring decision. Lance Collard was not believed and suitably punished. Photo from The Guardian Australia.

The electricical

The spelling of the subject line is as Eva Gabor used to pronounce the word in the tv show Greenacres. I thought this post might be of interest to those overseas who haven't experienced our power plugs and outlets.

Our sockets and plugs are known as Type 1, and used in Australia, New Zealand, PNG and some Pacific Islands. Oddly, they are also used in China and Argentina. These are to carry 240 volts, unlike the North American standard 110 volts,  and Japan's 100 volts. The history of the use of 110v versus 240v is very interesting, and 110v seems problematic as at times things need a higher voltage. 240v is much more dangerous than 110v. You'll be very quickly fritzed.  

These are the original overhead lights in my apartment. I have two incandescent 100 watt bulbs in each, which totals 400 watts of electricity when they are on. That is an extreme amount, and worse, they don't actually light up the room that well. They are probably only used if one drops an earing and needs to find it. As they are so rarely used, it makes no sense to change to LED.

I am thinking of replacing them with fan lights. At times all you need is a bit of breeze, rather than air conditioning. 

The lights are on a dimmer though, which we had installed. 

I was going to use my own photos but there has to be as mix. This is the typical Australia socket. Generally people do use the on/off switch. I always turn power points off. I don't want the the electricical leaking out. The angled plug outlets are for the positive and neutral and the vertical for the earth plug. Tourists who aren't accustomed to turning switches on and off can find their phone has no juice when it should be fully charged. 

You can get very fancy power sockets but I think they look rather gauche. 

The prongs are partly plastic coated and once the full plastic is shown as you remove a plug, the prongs are no longer in contact with the socket. That is really the only safety aspect to our plugs, unlike English plugs that are incredibly safe but very bulky. 

As you can see the normal plugs is not very bulky.

And this one an earthed plug. My washing machine has an earthed plug, and I think the dishwasher, but not much else now. 

Browsers

I updated the desktop from Windows 10 to 11. It was quite painless, but there are some changes that I will adjust to in time. The first evening as I moved the cursor to shut the computer down, the button had gone. How do I turn it off, safely without just pressing the physical on/off button? 

I found its very discreet placement, but I wonder what was the point of changing its placement.

I was at my pharmacy today to buy my drugs. I used my last Covid test kit when I came down with this cold. My goodness, the kits now test for RSV and flu types A and B as well. The wonders of medical science. I don't have to test to know I have a common cold. 

The news today from Hungary was joyous to hear. The extreme far right leader Orban has been voted out of office. Restoring Hungary to its former progressive status will take some time, and I don't know enough about the new leader to offer an opinion beyond what I have said. Graphs indicate it has in many ways performed poorly against its comparative counterparts.

Can you believe about two months after my car had a punctured tyre that was a slow leak, I now have the same tyre punctured with a slow leak. This time I can see a piece of wire protruding from the tyre. If I pull it out, I am sure the tyre will quickly deflate. I have to fix that today. I am sure Phyllis picked up the metal somewhere in the outer areas when I allow him to take the car one day a week for work. He was prepared to take the car to get the tyre repaired, but the tyre repair place said they could not fit that in. When I had the last puncture fixed, I wasn't charged. I wonder if Phyllis would have been charged, although they probably have the record of my car stored in a database. So, yes, I wonder if young dark guy would have been charged when the old white guy wasn't. Believe me, if the job was the same and he was charged, I would make it rather uncomfortable for the Australia wide chain. 

While I didn't think doing anything physical today was a good idea, I did manage to wash my doona cover and put it back on the bed. My doubled over summer sheet that I use instead of the doona from about October to April was washed, dried and put away. I washed it with the doona cover and it balled up inside the doona cover and did not dry properly, needing another half an hour of the washing machine drying cycle. 

Photos improve blog posts.

Sunday night chicken soup for dinner, guaranteed to cure a cold. It didn't but it was rather nice and did no harm.  

Kosov is trying to make Jass into a lap cat. I don't think she ever will be, but she does love him.

Lacking energy on Sunday while I was dying from a common cold, I still managed to have a wander at the Sikh festival at Federation Square. Ah, the mysteries of southern Asian men wearing turbans. There was even a display showing how to put one on and wind hair into the scarf. 

 

Ignore the subject line. I never got around to talking about web browsers. However, I put yesterday's mural post into AI and I am informed it is a Banksy work, in Park Street, Bristol. Yeah, nah. 

Monday Mural

Along with Sami and others, here is my Monday Mural post.

I treasure this poor quality photo I took in the mid noughties. I remember seeing it from a passing tram when it was first painted on a blank wall at Kings Cross Plaza across the road in the 1980s or 1990s but it disappeared, and while it came to my mind at times, I couldn't remember where it was. As Kings Cross Plaza was being demolished, ivy was pulled down from the wall, and once again I saw the mural. I was so chuffed. 

A posh apartment building was built next door (approaching AU$4,000,000 each now) and said building will outlive me and you, and so this mural will never be seen again by living human eyes. I should try some research about who painted the mural, but where to start. 

The best I can do

Two days ago I developed a cold. It seemed to be a 24 hour variety cold, but it wasn't and this Saturday evening I feel like shit quite unwell, poorly if you like. I think medicinal brandy will help.

I can't concentrate enough to deal with photos, but I can still type.

Sister arrived and parked behind my car, so I had to move her car to get mine out. I pressed the start button and the instruments lit up but the engine didn't start. I looked around for something else to press, but there was nothing, whereas my car would display 'Press the brake and press start'. I turned it off and on again, no change. I pressed and held the button down, nothing. Hang on, this is a hybrid electric car. I'll just put it into reverse and see if it moves, and it did, silently.

Kosov resumed his driving lessons today after a break following his scrape of the car. I have had one quote for the repair of my car, which seemed outrageous, and I am awaiting another. I will see what this one comes in at and decide whether to buy a new car or not. Both he and Phyllis started from a very low base, but Kosov seems slower to pick up skills. We'll get there.

From a our sedate drive around Albert Park Lake, and a few parking manoeuvres, Phyllis took over and drove us to Port Melbourne where we three bought bahn mi. While I was hungry, I could only eat half and took the remainder home for later. I bought coffee while the pair shopped at the Reject shop and the supermarket.

As the afternoon progressed, everything and everyone started to annoy me. Jass is an ungrateful cow. Sister returned and put the kettle on. Please, don't stay longer than necessary. She didn't, and made tea to take home with her. Phyllis and Kosov, stop annoying me. 

Phyllis had cooked lasagne and served mine up on a plate as he was going to travel with Kosov to work where they would separate and Phyllis go to a party with Kosov's workmates while Kosov worked. I could not eat a proper meal, as I am so unwell. So I had a couple of slices of ham, a tomato and half a leftover curried egg sandwich. 

Phyllis called in sick for the party, as there were two people there he did not like. He said he would have gone if Kosov was with him. But then oddly he got out some wet food to feed to Jass and asked if I could feed her. Why? You will be here. 

No, he went out soon after Kosov left. I know what gay men are like. I once was one, and I am very suspicious. I hope my suspicions are misplaced. 

It is not my business and as much as I love them both, as soon as I met Phyllis I knew he was a person of the world and could look after himself. Not so much Kosov, and as I said to him in the past when Phyllis was back in India, I will always be there for you Kosov. Well, until I die, then he'll be on his own, in Australia at least. But his family are good and care about him.

If I don't post a Monday Mural, I am probably deaded by manflu. 

Kindness failure

The post I wrote for today bored me, and it would bore you too. Instead, this Friday evening. 

One of our residents bumped into our carpark gate, in fact hit it so hard it will be out of service for a week. The last time our carpark gate stayed open, thieves entered the carpark and broke into some cars and stole a bicycle worth $4000. We now have a permanent guard stationed at the car park entrance until the gate is fixed.

Sister will park here today in my car parking space and beforehand I will give the guard a note with her car identification and registration plate.

The poor guards, with sitting for hours without anything to do but scroll on their phones. I guessed the guard this evening would be Indian, and I was correct. Hindu, Moslem or Christian, they can all eat chicken, so I heated a leftover cut of spicy chicken, with some spicy green beans and kale, not heating the latter, to give to the guard, with a serviette of course. 

Thank you so much, he proclaimed, but I am vegetarian. Sometimes I think I get nothing right in life. I give up on kindness to strangers.

Later today I look forward to eating some spicy chicken, cooked, chilled, reheated, chilled and reheated.