Updates

I am so annoyed. Where have all the short Jacque Tati clips gone? They are now too long for your attention spans. I found this one to give you a taste. I posted so many Jacque Tati clips to my old blog, many years ago. Some of you will remember this one. Who is my longest blog mate? I really don't know. I can eliminate many, but not narrow it down further. If you were reading my old blog before 2010, speak up. I'd really like to know. 

Speaking of long time bloggers, who no long longer blog, (ok, I wasn't) I am pleased to tell you I received a message from Jennie this week via Insta, she also known as Jah Teh and Copperwitch. She is now only allowed one hour a day at the computer.

Screams came from the bedroom this morning as Kosov mummified Phyllis. "Kosov, he is no help to me if he is mummified. Set him free". I wanted my butter chicken for dinner. The spice level was perfect. They had bought a new laptop the night before and Kosov had lost his wallet. He went back to the big blue shed and they had it. I seemed more worried about the lost wallet than they were. Lordy, the children!!!

Remember the $500 in Ray's bank account. I was gearing myself up to call the bank about it after sending a stern email, but when I checked my bank app today, there was the money, in the special account set up for the purpose. I immediately transferred it to my savings account. Lol at me ever saving money. 

I printed out an ad to to put on the public notice board to sell my old microwave. $50, cheap for a perfect machine, with a crisping feature. I mentioned it was 650watts. Buyer beware. 

A pub dinner tomorrow, Saturday night with some friends. Apparently I have some. 

My Tasmania friend is back home but in hospital after a Hawaiian cruise, 70% of the passengers came down with a respiratory infection.  The mother of her ex did not return to Australia, but is in a Hawaii hospital with pneumonia. Nah to cruising for me from now and no long flights. 

You say tomato, I say tomato

I follow a couple of YouTubers who often reference differences between the US and the UK.

Spellings and different words between the two are fascinating. I am surprised to learn how many American words we use, because we generally use our historical English words, spellings and pronunciations, but not always.

So what do you call this? A roll of....  If you are American, possibly Scotch Tape. Scotch Tape was available here. I remember the non sticky start bit was a tartan pattern. If you are from the UK, possibly Sellotape. I initially grew up calling it Durex, as I learnt from my parents. But then Durex, here at least, became a synonym for a condom, so that fell out of favour. I now call it sticky tape.

 

What about the tape you use if you want to tape up a cardboard box to make it sturdy? For me it is packing tape. How about you? 

Then there is this, painting edging tape. Not as sticky as packing tape as you don't want to rip paint off as you remove the tape, but it can at a pinch be used as packing tape.

 

What are your thoughts and memories? 

Revisiting May 2005

I was reminiscing back in May, 2005. How unusual for me. Apologies if the font is weird or small. Of course what I wrote twenty years ago, is also now very redundant. 

I have been sorting out some old papers and stuff. I had kept an insert from The Age’s Good Weekend magazine dated 21st January 1995. This was no doubt a reference to help us when we bought our first pc.
Here are a few gems I found.
“By 2000 we reckon that 60% of Australian homes will have pcs.” Perhaps correct in 2000.
“If space allows, try to give the computer it’s own room where the children can fully explore it’s educational benefits”. Now days the advice is to keep it in public area where you can see them searching for big boobed Betty and chatting online to Daddy46.

“Programs may only need 386 processor, but they will run considerably better on a 486”. Imagine the potential of a Pentium 5!

“The ideal starting point is 8mb of ram”. I think our present one is 512mb or close to that.

“Hard disks are getting larger and cheaper and most retailers recommend no less that 400mb for a pc”. Our present one is 80gb, that is over 160 times that size. But for once, I think it might be enough for a long time to come. Only because you cannot trust a pc, so must burn stuff onto cds and so reduce what is stored on your hard drive. Now when the have crash free, loss free pc, then we will need even bigger hard drives.

From The Age Extra in December 1994, Charles Wright, who still writes a computer column in the Green Guide, suggests that the amount of information on the information super highway is immense. I wonder if he has an adjective for what is on the net now?

“A 14,400bps modem will transfer a 200kb file in 2 minutes”. That is just one picture folks and not even a very big one. Imagine sitting there for two minutes waiting for a picture to download…………umm, we did, head, chest, navel..............

“To enjoy the new range of games and information programs on CD ROM, you will need at least a double speed CD ROM drive”. I think our present one is 40 speed.

I have never really been a pc game player, but for those of you who are, perhaps you remember some of the advertised games. Killing Moon? Theme Park? Outpost? Myst? Air Warrior?

Lastly, the top selling CD ROM for 1994 was Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia. I had that CD, but when Windows 95 was reloaded onto our first pc after a year of use, it would no longer work. No matter, the net quickly did away with the need for it.

Power boosted

Bone Doctor, that is Sister's wife stayed Saturday night. She had visited her mother in South Gippsland for Mother's Day. She then stopped off at ABI Brother's place and she took him our and forced him to spend money on a new outdoor table setting and a temporary two seater couch. His friend has had Mother's lounge suite for about five years, long before she died. With her, we chose the fabric that had to be imported from England, and the woodwork was to have new French polishing.

Bone Doctor rowed on the Yarra River in the darkness with scouts, stopping off at Herring Island for a barbeque, before pulling their water craft out at the posh school boy's boat ramps on the edge of the city. There was a party after the rowing and Bone Doctor arrived back here very late, but not as late as Phyllis and Kosov, who about 1.00am cooked up nachos. 

She departed about 9.30am. Sister was at home waiting and waiting on Mothers Day for her breakfast in bed, served by their daughter Jo. A Japanese breakfast soufflé takes a long time to cook...apparently.

Neighbour HH is away for five nights as she tours grain storage sites to see the painted art on the silo towers. I am a little envious. She didn't invite me. I have seen some, such as these. 

Friend Wombat told me about an local history exhibition, which I promptly forgot about. She attended on Sunday. If nothing else happens next Sunday, I will attend.

Kosov worked on Sunday, Mother's Day. The venue was booked out from morning to evening as everyone fed their mummies pancakes.  

I am aware that we bloggers have very varied finances. Some of us are very comfortable and some of us are not. I hope you don't see this as bragging in some kind of manner.

I bought a new microwave oven when I had a perfectly working microwave oven. Why? It was at the urging of  Phyllis and my own desire to improve the look of the kitchen. The big deal was my old microwave was underpowered at 650 watts, while the new one is 1200 watts. The last Christmas Day we hosted, err Great Niece Em is 9 and Oldest Niece was pregnant with her as she rested her pregnant middle on the bench as she carved with the electric knife, so 10 years ago, we once used the crisping feature of the microwave for the second chicken when the other was in the normal oven. The crisping feature of the old microwave was useful, once. 

I've no idea of the power of our first microwave in the 1980s. I remember sitting and watching it boil a cup of water. Just amazing. The magnetron failed after about three years. The judgement was that it was not worth repairing. My new microwave has an 8 year warranty on the magnetron. I wonder what a magnetron looks like. It sounds like a robot. 

Prices for microwaves have fallen so much, and the new one cost so much less than I expected. So here it is, slightly bigger than the old one, with a concealed control panel and a bright interior LED lamp. It does wonderous things, as modern devices do, but I expect its basic function will be all that is needed.

This is exciting. Not really.  

Vanilla Bean seems happy atop the new microwave. Its exterior is so minimalist. The manual had to be consulted to set the time. Press plus button twice for the hour, etc. I think I can melt cold butter and melt chocolate with settings. What fun. 

Monday Mural

I'm joining with Sami and others for Monday Mural. 

I've had footers at my posts in the past. After a while I dropped them in turn. One of my favourites was 'Before you change something, find out why it is how it is'.

So I know how to insert a footer, except I don't. I've forgotten and I can be bothered relearning. To coincide with my painted black fingernail, in support of the empowerment of women (ok, yes it does look pretty), I was going to use this footer, which I thought was spot on, 'Men fear women will laugh at them, women fear men will kill them'.

Saturday, the day before Mother's Day, there was a street march to protest against men committing violence against women.

So this panel has figures from 2024, in Hosier Lane in the city, a lane famous for murals/graffiti/scrawling/tagging, and visited by a huge numbers of tourists daily. The figure stated can be contested in some ways, but nevertheless, Australia has a serious problem. There are good policies, there are refuges, money is being spent but nothing seems stop the violence men commit. The mental abuse is not counted. 

Sunday Selections

Elephant's Child and River post Sunday Selections, as do others. Here is my contribution. 

Found as a cleared out Ray's wardrobe. MICM is a property management company, a subsidiary of the developer, Central Equity. In the early teen years, MICM was dumped as our property management company.

A very stylish lift, somewhere in town.

This has got to be Melbourne's large Chinatown, spread along Little Bourke Street. Pedestrians almost dominate cars. 

Hmm, Auburn. I remember travelling there by train and I then became confused by distances to train lines and tram lines. 

Perhaps premium prices groceries for home. 

MRB? Google is not helpful.

I remember this evening, with the tram blocking the intersection for pedestrians. Bad tram driver.

I gave Phyllis one shelf area, below the clock. His shelf usage space has sneakily increased. Just a model car here, a Lego construction there. When I dust the shelf, in a couple of months time, extraneous items will be removed. 

I really like these spoon drains and I would like to see them in action, but it no longer rains!

They empty into this soak, which drains into a pond. Should the pond fill, it will drain through reeds into Albert Park Lake, which in turn if Albert Park Lake overflows will pour well filtered water into the sea.  

Three car stacker car parking at The Alfred Hospital, on the way to Alfred Lane House, not to be confused ( yes they are ). with The Alfred Centre, or The Alfred itself. The cars are all the same and used by staff for the services such as soon to be inflicted on Debby.

I did not buy it, but at some point Phyllis bought some Hershey chocolate, and I sampled it. I may be a coffee snob, but I am not a chocolate snob, no matter. Hershey chocolate is just horrible. Everything that good chocolate is, Hershey isn't. It is below the cheap and solid tiny Easter eggs people buy for children.