Just one more day

I seem to be writing all very personal stuff, and this post continues the theme.

5.30 this morning I sensed Jass jumping off my bed and my door creaked as she opened if further. She has no set sleeping place. The night before, it was with Phyllis and Kosov.

A sound intruded into my slumber. I had to get up to find out the new smoke detector outside our bedroom doors was doing a flat battery beep. There was nothing I could do about it without making a noise and disturbing Phyllis and Kosov.

Little did I know the sound began at about 4.30 and Kosov timed it at every 38 seconds. I couldn't return to sleep with the beep still happening, so I was up at 5.30. At some point after I arose at such an absurd hour, I closed their bedroom door and Kosov went back to sleep. 

AI told me to remove the battery, disconnect the hard wiring and press the button to discharge the capacitor. I knew if I called the electrician who installed the detectors, they would come immediately but I bided my time until the lads woke.

It was then that I heard about Kosov's experience. Phyllis snored on. Kosov pressed the button on the detector and he thought it worked to kill the sound No Kosov, don't put the steps away yet. Sure enough, the chirping restarted. 

We could not work out how to open the detector but eventually Youtube helped us. Kosov removed the battery and we waited a minute or so and put the battery back and all was well. It seems we had fully drained the detector's capacitor. 

My car needed a wash after our trip to the country, with quite a number of smashed bugs, along with dirt and dust. Removing bug smatterings from your windscreen is not successful at an automatic car wash, so it needed a hand car wash, much more expensive.

I told Kosov I was taking the no good filthy non binary whore Perl to be cleansed and he was hysterical with laughter. My delivery of the words must have been good. 

Perl was sparkling after her good cleansing. I won't say how much it cost. I might use the service twice a year, normally after a country trip.

Later there was another visit by a 'tradesperson' to give me a quote.

But let me tell you, Phyllis arose beaming this morning. Kosov has suggested a nice place they could go to eat on Tuesday night and they trammed to town and then caught a 70 tram along Flinders Street, which seemed odd to Phyllis, but he left Kosov in charge. Once they reached John Cain Arena, Kosov told Phyllis, we are getting off here. At this point Phyllis knew what was happening. Kosov had bought a surprise ticket for them to see a K Pop group perform to a huge audience. Phyllis adores the girl group. He was absolutely over the moon to see the group perform live. A little minimal usage of AI, not killing the planet, tells me the name of the group is Mamamoo.

Delicious spicy chicken drumsticks with a salad for dinner.  

Do you reckon my day ended there? Nope. At about 8.30pm I stepped out onto the balcony and I felt my socks get wet. Water was flooding down from somewhere above. I suspected the apartment above, the place where the hose burst last March and I hoped it wasn't a repeat of interior flooding. I went up the stairs and knocked on the door and it was answered by a lad who wasn't there in March. He was washing down his balcony with buckets of water. I pointed out the effect to my balcony and that body corporate rules prohibit any water falling from your balcony. He was very apologetic. 

But then there is the Fetch TV drama from the morning. That's worth a full post, and HH's daughter, OAM, having childish fun in London. 

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.

Alert but not alarmed

We were all very alert, and very prepared to be alarmed as we had been warned that at 2pm our national emergency warning system would be tested, with a siren blaring or blasting or ear splitting (the media were full on with their use of a thesaurus), out from our phones for ten seconds, along with a message to ignore the alert.

I was in Bay Street, Port Melbourne at 2pm with Phyllis and Kosov after a driving lesson for Kosov and a need for bahn mi for both of them. Kosov has a dry cough so they went into the supermarket to buy chicken meat to make a restorative chicken soup. I was sitting in the pleasant little park just metres away from the main street. As 2pm approached, I moved closer to the street to see how people would react to the siren.

Remember Big Ears and Noddy of the children's book fame? Noddy drove a car which when he sounded its horn, made a parp parp sound. Does that sounded like a horn blasting a warning. Parp parp.

That is how I'd described the alert. No one in the street seemed to react. An older woman wearing huge earmuffs tried to engage with a couple of young girls walking past, who acknowledged her but kept walking. I was a stationary target. She had a heavy accent, I guess Italian, as she told me told me her granddaughter said to her 'Nonna, don't go out as you will be scared when the siren on your phone goes off'. Nonna insisted she was going out. 'Nonna, take my ear muff headphones then', and she did wear them, and heard nothing. Had I have had my phone in my pocket, I probably would not have heard the 'parp parp' either. 

Nonna liked to talk. Her husband died eight years ago, her daughter of cancer two years ago. Her granddaughter is too choosy about men.  Her grandson was engaged but broke it off. 'He is so handsome, always looks neat and wears nice clothes, and is so funny. He is very kind to me, he works at a prison and has his own house, but he lives in another house with his friend.' Hmmm.

Where on earth are Phyllis and Kosov to save me.

The bastards eventually arrived and walked past me to stand about five metres away. I must have a word with them about what to do in such situations, where the default is to save me. I gave her a couple of pats on her puffer jacket enclosed upper arm and left her midstream talking.

Then they told me they has already engaged with her, as she complained about the toilets in the supermarket walkway being closed for two weeks. 

Did your phones sound an alert, I asked them? No Onnndrew. Mine is on silent, but I saw the message. (the alert comes through regardless of whether your phone is on silent). No Annndrew, I didn't hear anything. I think it probably did work for them but they didn't hear the parp parp.

It seems the alert worked for 94% of the population the phone towers and for those who it did not work for, perhaps a very old phone or a local tower was closed for maintenance.

ABC Radio uses an excellent alert sound when there is a fire or flood threat warning.

It was an alert, but hardly a sound to make you alarmed or even alert. Perhaps they should look at the sounds of older technology. 

                                                                                                             

You will be tolled

I began this post quite a while ago. In January 2025, New York City introduced a traffic congestion charge in part of the busiest borough, Manhattan. I am not sure when these details were published, but I will guess at some point in 2025, maybe a few months after the charge was introduced, the charge I believe being about US$9.

Here is a copy and paste of some of the earliest stats.

What’s changed since the toll began?

Cars on the street

Fewer

Traffic speeds

Faster

Peak commute times

Faster still

Local buses

Faster, less delayed

Traffic outside the zone

Not worse

New Jersey commutes

Faster

Transit ridership

Up, up, up

Yellow taxi trips

Up

Citi Bike trips

Up in and out of the zone

Car crash injuries

Down

Parking violations

Down

Traffic noise complaints

Down

Fire response times

Slightly down

School bus delays

Fewer

Visitors to the zone

Up

Restaurants, Broadway

Holding up

Pollution

Too soon to say

Lower-income commuters

Too soon to say

Public opinion

Not great, but improving

Here are some details one year after the congestions charge was implemented. I now understand the charge begins south of 60th Street, pretty well south of Central Park, so it is a very large and very congested area. 

The number of vehicles entering the area is down 11%. That may not sound a lot, but it is 73,000 fewer cars daily.

One killer stat is the killing of  people by cars is down 20%. It's worth doing just for that alone. 

PM2.5 pollution, whatever that is, is down 22%

Subway ridership was up by 5%, with number of trips up by 9%.

Express bus trips up by 8%, and local bus trips up by 8%.

Public transport crime in 2025 was down 5% over 2024 figures.

Until November 2025, US$518 million has been collected by the charge, funding 18 new projects, and budgeting into the the future will see US$6 billion extra spent on public transport.

This really is a success story in New York City, as is the congestion charge in London and Singapore, and I really think it should be implemented in Sydney and Melbourne, within the Central Business Districts, in Melbourne with the exception of King Street and Victoria Street, which are such through routes. There could be an argument about the eastern end of Flinders Street. 

Melbourne City's traffic is mostly at a crawl, as hundreds of delivery drivers mix with motorists looking for cheap on street parking. King Street, Victoria Street and Lonsdale (our east west bus street) move quite well.

Now if Boud hadn't sold her car, I could send her a $50 cheque to cover her costs to drive into Manhattan for a personal report. But I haven't written a cheque since the 1990s. 

Less Serious

This post is kind of like a Sunday Selections. I haven't posted many photos of late. 

The tram approaches the tram stop at New Preston Tram Depot stop from the distance. Once out of the city, trams only stop if someone wants to get on or off. If you sit on the seat within the shelter, you can't see the tram coming and if the driver can't see you as they approach, they could go straight past. Meanwhile, the other end of the shelter is clear glass. A Yarra Trams advertising slogan once was 'Think like a passenger', for their staff. Perhaps Yarra Trams should have thought like a passenger at this tram stop. Idiots, idiots and imbeciels. . 

Jass with her friend Amber. 

Stomach unprotected and eyes closed. She trusts us.

They could do with a repaint, but I do like these Russian style dolls. 

Monday was a dramatic sunrise. 

And there was more drama below where a motorist got in the way of a tram in an unimaginable manner and they bumped together.

 

It was all over in ten minutes, I guess details quickly exchanged. The car driver was wearing a full length overcoat while driving, far too restrictive for driving, in my opinion. You know, cars do have heating and can make you very toastily warm.

Incompetents abound. 

Life snapshot

Wednesday shopping. Phyllis drove. He is competent at driving, quite good really, but I still had my foot on the passenger side imaginary brake pedal at times.

After shopping, Kosov drove with his learner plates displayed. Kosov did drive a car in India, and has an Indian driving license, 'bought' by his parents. 

He was a left foot braker in India, which really isn't the right way to drive. I don't think our driving test people would accept that now, although I know it still happens with local drivers born overseas. It can be easy to tell as they ride the brake with their left foot as they drive and their rear brake lights are lit. I am seeing this less than it used to be. 

Kosov's driving has steadily improved. He is far from competent yet, but doing much better. I had prepared myself to compliment him, and so build his confidence.

I don't fully understand what happened, but when it came to turning into our carpark entrance, he went past where he was meant to turn and then went up onto the footpath. I yelled 'stop', and he did. I told him to get out and I would reverse the car back onto the lane and drive to our building's garage. 

I now know he confused his left and right feet, and was braking with his left foot and accelerating with his right foot. Before he should have turned, he was already getting the turn wrong. There was chatter about when to press the button to open the carpark gate. Maybe that distracted him. Look, his speed was only about 10 km/h but had someone been standing on the footpath...

More driving Thursday, and it was clear the experience yesterday had rattled him, as he drove less confidently. While at about 20 km/h, I warned he and Phyllis that I was about to test the electric handbrake It worked well enough, and I can stop the car with my intervention. He did make a serious mistake today, but without consequences, and nothing like yesterday's. I do feel preparing him for a driving test is going to be a long haul.

Naturally he was mortified, and kept apologising. Phyllis kindly said nothing at the time. What my mind was occupied with was what happened and how to ensure it didn't happen again. 

Not too much has happened this week. Ex Sis in Law and her husband flew off to Bali this morning, and had to leave home at 3am. 

This afternoon my Indonesian neighbour invited me out for coffee, he being the father of his daughter who has twice locked herself out their apartment, and called on me for help. 

He grew up in poverty in Indonesian Borneo, with an abusive father and an uncaring mother. Somehow through sheer will and being smart, and some luck, he ended up being a being a highly desirable employee, working in the tech area of public transport and other areas and became a rich person in Australia. In the last few years he spent time working in Indonesia. He is very handsome, for a fifty one year old. There came an opportunity to ask him if he had Chinese heritage. Indonesia has a population of Chinese heritage people but mostly a native Moslem population. His heritage is Chinese. Sorry if this offends you. It is the way my mind works, and I established that he is not circumcised. Wouldn't mind seeing it.

He has a house too, in an expensive outer eastern Melbourne goes up for auction today. I need to do some searching. Maybe it's a middle suburb now. What were outer suburbs seem to have become inner suburbs.

Whatever nonsense I've written, it was a nice catch up with my neighbour. He was kind to me when Ray died.

Trafic (kudos to Jacques Tati)

St Kilda Road in spring and summer looks lovely, especially in spring with the elm and plane trees all in bright green fresh leaves. By the end the summer leaves will look very tired and browned, exhausted by heat and dry soil, willing themselves to die in autumn.

Come winter, the leaves have fallen and the road is revealed, with its shockingly awful traffic; multiple approaching headlights and multiple receding red tail lights, as far as the eye can see in the evening peak traffic. 

Shiny things

I wrote a medium length personal post, but I am not happy with it, so I am holding it over.

I don't know about sport, but what a disgraceful shame it is when for a football (soccer) player receives a red card, must leave the field for the rest of the game and cannot play in the next game. Well that's a bugger for the US soccer team for it's next match. He is an important and skilled player.

It does however seem that FIFA boss Infantino is in an incestuous relationship with #47. The Orange McNugget gave Infantile a call and asked him to fix it, a lo and behold, it was fixed. Team USA will have its important player restored for the next US match.

What an absolute disgrace. Many have called FIFA a very corrupt institution and over the years, a lot of evidence has been gathered and presented, but has much exceeded this blatancy? Every competing team should be outraged by this, and I think diplomatic representations should be made. 

If any country wants to host the World Cup in the future, be careful what you citizens wish for.

Later edit: Well, Belgium certainly sorted the FIFA corruption out well and truly, with a score of 4 goals, 3 more than the US. I don't blame the US; it is FIFA that's the issue here. This book written by an Australia woman about FIFA corruption sounds interesting if football is your thing; Whatever It Takes - the inside story of the FIFA way.

To cheer up this glum post, look at this lovely car, I guess to be used by a wedding party, parked almost across the road at the Royce Hotel. Google says it is a 1949 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith. They don't make 'em like that anymore. 

Perl is out and about

Last week Phyllis asked if he could take Perl to a party in Box Hill. He hasn't asked to use the car for over a week aside from one trip to Aldi to buy bulk cat food and cat litter, so cautiously I said yes, where are going and what time will you return.

They met up with friends in South Yarra for a meal, returned here (I quickly turned on the full living area lamps to impress, but not the overhead lights), and they were here for an hour. The friends are a couple, she of Indian heritage and he of Asian heritage. Translating for English people, she is Asian and he is Chinese, except he isn't from China.

From my computer chair, I at times chipped in with a witty remark, as best as 68 year old can do with twenty year old's. 

They piled into Perl and off they went. I am pleased I have the front and rear dashcam. I looked at it today to watch what happened when my car went into for new car service, one month later after purchase. Jeez, all the motor mechanic staff are Indian. When you think about restricting immigration, be very careful what you wish for. Didn't we learn that post Covid when there were no staff for cafes, shops and other businesses? 

I don't like Perl being out late at night, and I've warned Phyllis and Kosov that if there is incident and they are under threat from a road rager, to not put the car into Park whereby the doors will unlock, but into Neutral and apply the electric handbrake.

The next time I drove Perl, all floors were covered in sand. Phyllis or Kosov, or both, will take the Dyson V7 Tiger with its short attachment to vacuum the car floors. I wonder where they went that was so sandy? Not my business. 

Later: Phyllis worked today, Tuesday all day at one job and asked if he could take Perl. It is a decent walk from the train station, and it was wet, so I said yes. Later he messaged me to say he was going to work at his other job, so the car is out for ages today, 10am to midnight. 

I am lunching with HH later today after she returned from New Zealand, and she may want to go somewhere that is easiest by car, so I checked and yes, the sand has been vacuumed out. 

Dashcam caught a crash

Yesterday was a bit of a disaster. Phyllis wanted to show me an incident that would be caught by dashcam, so I removed the SD card, brought it up to plug into my desktop. I am struggling a bit with the front and rear dash cams connectivity to my the app on my phone, but I'm getting there. 

We viewed the footage, showing one of two incidents he passed by in one trip. The first was a tipped over concrete mixer truck but other vehicles blocked most of the view.

I took the SD card back to the car to insert it into the camera unit and as I pushed it in, the camera fell off the windscreen. I also realised I had put the card in the wrong way and it was stuck. I tried to pull it out but made it worse, pushing it in further. I can't do this in semi darkness in the carpark, even with my phone torch. I unplugged the camera from the wires and tapped the unit on a hard car surface and the card disappeared altogether, somewhere inside the camera. Woe is me! Yes, I could hear the card rattle inside the unit. Back upstairs.

Kosov, help me. I gave him the jeweller's kit screwdrivers and went off on my errand, hoping he could extract the card. I returned and he had taken part of the camera apart. His opinion was that the card was not inside and had fallen out, so down we went and with our phone torches on to search the car where it may have fallen out. It was not found.

I was very sure the card was inside the unit somewhere, so Kosov used the AI Gemini to find out how to take the camera further apart. Later I asked him, couldn't you just find that using Google. Yes, he replied but it will take me much longer because of promoted ads, and a lack of detail where I will have to burrow down unknown holes. Gemini gave me an instant answer in about 10 seconds. 

Armed with information, he stripped the unit down to exposing its motherboard and and did find the card, carefully extracted it with tweezers and we reassembled the unit and put it back in the car and all was well. That was about an hour out of his day because of my stupidity. But really, that part of the camera was not designed well. I didn't force anything, and it all went terribly wrong. 

To to the incident. Traffic was banked up at an intersection. Phyllis did not know why. He gave a toot to the driver in front of him and then soon realised the driver was stuck, and felt so bad about the toot. The dash cam downloads separate files each of about two minutes in 4K definition, over 100mb for two minutes of recording. 

25 seconds in you can see there is an issue. 

30 seconds Phyllis tooted the car horn.

42 seconds it is clear the driver in front is trying to change lanes. One driver to the right hesitates to let the car in but the driver in the car front did not pick up on this. The next driver was rather impolite for not letting the car diverge into the right lane. 

Then Phyllis diverged left around the obstacle. And what was the obstacle? It becomes visible at 50 seconds. A learner driver on the wrong side of a three lane road facing oncoming traffic. On the face of it, a terrible mistake by the learner driver. But let's look closer.

The car is a Royal Automobile Car Club of Victoria car, displaying learner driver L plates, meaning there is a student at the wheel, with a driving instructor who has foot and perhaps steering controls on their side of the car. It simply cannot end up where it is without a very good reason. Move on to 58 seconds and freeze, and you can see the car as been hit. I suspect it was hit and spun around by another driver and I doubt the L driver in the RACV car was at fault.  

YouTube is as ridiculous as it is absurd about background music, and because there is music playing in the background of the car, for copyright issues, in some countries this clip won't be viewable. YouTube even informed me of the two songs being played. Hey, it's better at recognising music than Shazam.  

The old motor car

I have been looking for a new car for a while. I wanted a hybrid, that is car that uses petrol to charge batteries but primarily runs by batteries that are charged as you brake the car, by regenerative braking, which charges the batteries. This system is perfect for inner suburban driving, not so good on motorways where you rarely brake. 

I spent hours looking at different models over weeks, using the web browser Duck Duck Go, so that I wasn't inundated with car ads via Google's all knowing system.

Nothing could compare price wise and feature wise and tech wise to even my old 2021 Mazda CX30, let alone a new Mazda CX30. I received a much better trade in price than I thought, in spite of the slight damage to the body work, thanks Kosov. 

This was because otherwise, it was an undamaged car with very low mileage. 35,000 km/21,700 miles for a five year old car. If not for family dying, Covid when we stopped using public transport and Phyllis using the car, it might have been 20,000 km. I mostly use trams and trains to get around.

Goodbye to the old and slightly grubby drag queen car Pearl. I loved you, even if Ray didn't. It feels like a final severing of my connection to Ray. After an argument, I no longer drove the car in the city areas and he would moan on about how hard the car was to get in and out of, and how the warning beeping from various sources drove him mad. His first point may have been valid. It is harder when you are older to get in and out of a car, but I loved the beeping alerts, along with the sophisticated front and rear cameras. 

If you are a newer reader, Ray was my partner for 45 years until he suddenly died two years ago. 

Photos and detail of the new car to come. 

Wednesday Bits

Does #47 ever visit the west coast of the US? 

Phyllis bought some flavoured maple syrup and didn't like it. You need real maple syrup Phyllis, Queens, from Canada. OMG, it was AU$10 for 275ml/9.3oz. That's CA$10.00 too, US$7.00, GB£5.00, €6.00. This seems a bit excessive to me. I don't remember it being so expensive. 

Kosov's parents sent this cat hut for Jass, but she's never used it. She must have heard I was going to take it to the charity shop, and so has used it a couple of times in the last week. While I was having my annual hearing test today, Kosov sent me a clip of Jass in the hut.

I don't normally buy mixed flowers for home, but a week after Mother's Day, this bunch was 75% off the full price, so $8. They have lasted a week, and still seem ok.

"Kosov, I don't like this gory dinosaur display". I need to make my opinion sound stronger.

 

I went to the bank yesterday to sort out money to pay for my new car, and then get a bank cheque. As staff was ready to print the cheque, I said stop! I realised the figure I was given to pay did not allow for the $1000 deposit I had paid. I returned today for the cheque with the corrected amount to pay. I pick up the car on Friday. It seems like Kosov can come with me, but Phyllis is working.

My car still has the scratches on the side. The first quote was outrageous and where I went for the second quote never got back to me. Through the books, the car repair would cost $4200 I think. The new car business said, although your car is in excellent condition and low mileage, it will cost us about $1500 to get the scratches repaired, and so that devalues the trade in value. I did get a better trade in price than I thought I would. I'll take some pics of my current car tomorrow and the new one once I pick it up. Although a different colour, the body is the same shape.

Later edit: Kirk mentioned that Jass wasn't in the cathouse. I was sent a video of Jass in the cathouse. She went in late today, so here is a photo of Jass in the cat house.

Away and some nostalgia

I am away again, this time with Phyllis and Kosov. HH assures me she can manage to feed Jass in our absence. 

Our weather has turned from temperatures last week of low to mid 20s/70-80 to today as I type 13/55. Isn't that just great when you are going away although it will be a few degrees warmer for the next few days.

The task of sorting things out on my computer goes on. It is quite a task when there is around thirty years of history, much of which was filed and forgotten about. I have surprised myself with odds and sods I've found floating around. 

I came across a link to a US gay guy's website I used to read way back in the nineties, and to my surprise, the website still works. It ran from 1996 until 2000. Justin would have been twenty years old then.  If you'd like to take a look,

Justin's Koool Page

He started a new site in 2001 and it continued until 2003. The final entry mentions he is 27, and is using crutches to get around. Justin would now be fifty years old. Hmm, the whiff of nostalgia is very strong.

Justin's Life

Later:  I've realised his real name is on his website, Justin Clouse. I will turn to stalker mode....that wasn't hard. He's on all the social media sites, and the only other Justin Clouse is a dead soldier. 

My boring life

Hairdresser Friend's birthday was last Friday. We had tried to make an arrangement to catch up and kind of settled on the following Monday, but Friday morning she called me and asked if she could come for a drink and maybe have a meal across the road that night. So we did at Gentleman George, and I invited neighbour HH to join us. It was a really nice night together. Phyllis and Kosov were at work.

Phyllis had asked a week earlier if he could use my car on the Sunday to visit Healesville Sanctuary and I said yes. They packed up an Esky with food at 8 o'clock and set off. Instead they drove on to Marysville where we stayed a couple of nights last year, so they could see the avenue of honour of poplar trees in autumn colours. Nice. 

Tuesday, with Phyllis having the car for work, I decided we desperately needed a can of gas to fill stove lighters, used here to light large deep candles. Don't ask. Carless, I decided to go to the big green shed in West Footscray, a quick trip thanks to the new Metro rail. However, I stopped off at Footscray first for coffee at Maples Cafe. As I walked along the street I passed a cigarette shop, paused and backtracked to the shop, and sure enough, it had cans of butane. No need to visit the big green shed. 

I was just finishing my coffee in Footscray when neighbour HH called. On her way to Morning Melodies at Hamer Hall, she had fallen over and hurt herself. She limped in and sat through the performance, then afterwards a first aid person on duty strapped up her foot and she made her way home. She asked if I could take her to emergency at The Alfred, and I replied I would be home in half an hour and would do so. Thanks to a bit of luck with the Metro train and a tram, I was home within 25 minutes. Phyllis had my car at work, so I drove her in her car to The Alfred and dropped her off. Some detail has been left out, but no matter.

We messaged back and forth and she had to stay in overnight for a full round of scans and tests, as they would do with an 80 year old. 

Kosov and I were just heading out the next morning to shop for girlie pants for Phyllis for his birthday when HH called to ask if I could pick her up. Sorry Kosov, and I drove my car to pick up HH. She had a chipped bone in her foot and a hairline fracture of one rib. She should be pretty well ok and out of any pain by the weekend. I offered her food and shopping, but she had all she needed in stock at home.

Today Kosov and I did go to the city, to a shop called Valley Girl to buy pants for Phyllis. Kosov knew exactly what he wanted. I assume the name Valley is a reference to the valley in California and not our industrial Latrobe Valley or Brisbane's 'interesting' Fortitude Valley. Valley of the Dolls was quite enlightening book to read for a rather young Andrew.

Oh, it is hard to write for an international audience and keep track of today and tomorrow, when as I write is today and tomorrow is my tomorrow but could be your today. 

Tomorrow I am meeting up with Ex Sis in Law for lunch in Elwood, after I shop for Vim and topping up the cellar supply. 

I have not heard back for the second quote for my car repair, but I have almost decided to buy a new car. I have not heard back if I will receive cash to compensate me for the extra electricity used to dry my apartment out after the flood, and today I submitted a painter's quote for paintwork damage for consideration by the Owners' Corp manager to forward to the insurance company. 

Cooking can happen anytime in my kitchen, just not by me, and it is utter chaos. This evening the rice cooker was bubbling away, the range hood roaring, the microwave singing its tune regularly. Voices were loud as the pair bitched at each other, and a lovely meal was prepared for them to eat immediately and for me to eat later. Jass sat watching them and then after eating they both went to work. Jass looked quite desolate at the end of entertainment and the disappearance of her two fave men, with silence reigning over the apartment and just boring old me at home. She sat near the door, hoping they would soon return, but they won't until after midnight.

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.

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. 

The English visitors

They were a delightful couple to keep company with. We visited Sister's on the Bellarine for a barbeque lunch. We dined together at Gentleman George across the road, at Gourmet Curry Hut and at Rosco's at the old Chevron Hotel. 

They visited the Grand Prix on three days of the event. They wandered the city and St Kilda. They caught trains, trams and walked. without help from me aside from giving them a Myki card each with one day's public transport credit. We visited the Dandenong Ranges on the Labour Day public holiday, firstly visiting Mount Dandenong, having some tucker then driving on to Grant's Picnic Ground, where we could surreptitiously and illegally feed some birds with seed, but  we could not find a parking space. The best laid plans...

I had a thought, and we journeyed on to Belgrave. Ray's nephew is an excellent driver, and he did all the driving while he was here. We arrived at Belgrave and for the life of me, we could not find parking at the Puffing Billy Railway Station. Later I think I worked out that you use the suburban train car park, I think. We eventually squeezed the car into a space and illegally walked across the railway line. 

There was a train full of people and ready to depart but it didn't have an engine. But we had seen an engine being loaded with coal.

View of Melbourne from Mount Dandenong. Exciting, not.

There is more than one dangerous tree, so an apostrophe must be inserted.

Mustang!

The train reverses in to collect its cars full of passengers.

Ready to depart.

I thought it was quite a feat of the platform staff to walk upside down on the platform.

Puffing Billy sets off, full of happy and waving people. I was waving to them too.

They departed Melbourne to journey on to Bali for a few days, and then via Dubai, they were home and ready for work on the Monday. Don't ask me how they went via Dubai. I have no idea. 

Tram/bus/train and a car crash

It is interesting that it is quicker for me to visit the Bunnings hardware store in West Footscray by public transport than it is to visit my local Port Melbourne Bunnings. 

Drive time to Port Melbourne (Saturday evening, so little traffic), 13 minutes. Drive time to West Footscray, 18 minutes.

Tram and bus to Port Melbourne, 44 minutes. Walk and Metro Train to West Footscray Bunnings, 30 minutes. 

In ways I never guessed, the new Metro Tunnel train has changed how I travel around our city.

Some years ago when drying the car after a car wash, I noticed a bump and a mark on the side of car. Ray had not noticed it. It was very minor, and I think by a shopping trolley. I showed Ray how the mark was most likely made. 

Kosov has an Indian car driving licence and his parents paid for lessons and the test, yet like Phyllis he did not know which way to turn the car steering wheel. Unlike Phyllis, he is not picking up driving nearly as quickly. I would have liked him to spend a couple more times driving on the roads around Albert Park Lake, but alas, the roads have been closed because of the Grand Prix. We tried residential Port Melbourne, but the streets there are so narrow. He drove home from there on big roads, and he was ok.

Cat litter was needed, so I pushed Kosov into the deep end, driving along Queens Road, and he struggled to stay in his lane.

With my constant guidance, we entered the St Kilda Aldi carpark, and all was well, until we left. It was a very tight turn to the exit ramp and Kosov didn't go far enough to the right to line the car up for the tight left turn. But I thought it would be ok. Time slowed and then sped up. By the time he reacted to my stop command, he has already scraped the side of the car on the wall. 

I couldn't get out because of the wall next to me so Phyllis took over, and just made it worse. I told Phyllis to get out and I clambered over to the driver seat and reversed with the correct steering wheel action to get the car off the wall. 

As you can imagine, I was not a happy chappie, but Kosov was under my guidance and I was too slow to react to what he was doing, along with I should not have expected him to make such a difficult manoeuvre. I take the blame. 

My insurance excess it $1200, that's out of my pocket before insurance kicks in. I will take the car for a repair quote this coming week. If the cost is more than $1200, I will have to think of the impact of making an insurance claim against perhaps a higher insurance cost. 

This is a bit of a downer, when others are posting Sunday Selections. Let me add some balloon photos in the memory of the late Sue.