Intended to be more a website than a weblog in the sense that I want to post particular topics that are non-time specific rather than just have lots of "today I did this..." kind of stuff. Constructive comments on all my posts are welcome.
This post is a sequel of sorts to a far older one . Just as then, I will consider common characteristics of my dreams, but also how some of them have changed since. There is still water-based settings like public pools but in more of them I'm looking for the loos. There is still walking but possibly less now that I walk somewhat less in reality. In contrast there is as much human interaction as…
I recently experimented with making some dishes inspired by the Greek food to be had in Oakleigh. However I never closely follow recipes so this meal is a Greekish thing of my own. I imagined this food selection arrayed as share plates but I'm only me so made and ate them over three separate sessions. In each I made use of a flavour base comprising olive oil, minced garlic, lemon juice and finely…
In my recent post on pluralism I hinted at a working array of as many as seven distinct political parties of medium size all having parliamentary representation. In this post I will discuss how Australia could ever develop a polity like that from present conditions. I will also acknowledge the limited likelihood of such changes and then pivot to recent changes that are in fact happening. The…
Today I will once more describe a toy collection that is more well-rounded than it is large. I will imagine more than just what a kid could own. Rather I will also imagine what a company could produce. And I will confine my musings to the only truly stand-alone movie of the Star Wars saga - the one that we as kids simply called Star Wars (1977). Kenner themselves only managed to get the action…
On the corner of Punt Road and Stewart Street in Richmond is an unremarkable two storey brick structure housing a few wholesale shops or offices. Its roof is about level with the platforms of Richmond Station. It has sometimes sported a big billboard. None of this much interests me but what does is a memory of mine from ages ago. What does ages ago mean? I would say it was the 2000s but it could…
Melbourne has a new set of five underground train stations known together as the Metro Tunnel. They connect the Cranbourne-Pakenham and Sunbury Lines into one faster service via the city. However in exclusively connecting those lines they also separate them from the rest of our train network. For those of us living on those lines we get a faster service to and from the city. I imagine our…
I was intending to post this last month but better late than never. Here I hark back to my childhood memory of one or more Heinz Christmas parties that the family attended while I was still in primary school. Santa Claus even makes an appearance. Just south-east of Dandenong was a row of three huge manufacturing plants - International Harvester, Heinz and General Moters Holden. These characterized…
I met with a friend last week so that we could drive to a synagogue and offer our condolences for the recent mass murder of Jews at Bondi Beach. Each of us had been seeking some way of expressing our sorrow for that atrocity committed in our own homeland. I had for days been wondering what to do, and it was more difficult than the last time something similar had happened in our part of the world.…
This blog has turned twenty. A decade ago I considered the changes it had undergone in half that timeframe. Since then I have stuck with the standard of one entry a month that it had settled into. However, I think the word count has reduced somewhat over this past decade. Furthermore, I'm more likely now to reuse old content that has simply sat offline in some archival form. These changes could…
The five years since my last autoblography instalment seem to have gone by fast and yet what happened during that time? I will try to cover some of that here. 2021 was much like the year that preceeded it - dominated by pandemic. One effect of that experience on me is a sense that any home like mine that includes some yard and closeness to both shops and parkland is worth feeling satisfied with.…
I'm house-sitting right now and had imagined it allowing me to work on a rather complex short story concept I have been mulling over for months. But all the change-of-scene has done is disturb my routines. The next best thing is transcribing a very old and short snippet of creative writing I found recently in my concertina file... Damn, these new shoes hurt. The first step I take is always the…
A few years ago I wandered impulsively into the National Communications Museum housed in an old telephone exchange building in Hawthorn. I had been working in the area and must have had a long lunch between shifts. My understanding of machines is very limited but I enjoy the look and action of them. Form follows function in a way that produces interesting shapes. Moving parts can be exciting. I…
I have written many paragraphs concerning the meta-ideology of populism so it is only right that I do the same for pluralism. This for me is the only meta-ideology we have for maintaining the best aspects of representative democracy. Pluralism recognizes that a society of any size will inevitably encompass a plethora of opinions. None of them will have a monopoly on the whole truth and many of…
In a local fantasy game I made passing reference to a three course feed served to a large group of adventurers that suddenly burst in on the small inn of a tiny village. It was a fixed menu so that surprised staff would cope and drew on basic ingredients the village could provide at short notice. More recently I decided to prepare these home-made dishes and see whether they were even remotely…
Was there ever anything you had to do that you turned into something you wanted to do anyway? This has often been true of me. Way back in the mid-90s my teacher-training included designing some exercise demonstrating the value of diversity. At that time I was also delving into the history of popular music. The result was an activity in which students would put together the most diverse and…
I feel like streaming is a new part of my life but, if I cast my mind back, I have been using the Internet to access television programs for well over a decade. Here I will trace my use of it and make some observations of TV from the comfort of your lap. It may have started with YouTube and focused on old TV shows shared by fellow users. It has been a wonderful if patchy way of finding old stuff…
In a conversation sometime during the pandemic, friends were wondering how long it would take till things got back to normal. I pulled the guess of 'five years' from my arse. It is five years since I discussed the pandemic here so this is an excellent time to revisit the topic. My wild guess was both too optimistic and too pessimistic. Too optimistic in the sense that Coronavirus and its many…
I'm here to enthuse about a policy I have benefitted from recently. I say 'policy' in the sense of decisions made by both government and commercial organizations (rather than legislation specifically). The development to which I refer is the construction of new public toilets in various locales (including train stations and shopping centres). These innovative facilities are designed as arrays of…
I have never run a live-action role-play game. Or maybe I have. On a few occasions I ran a themed clue-laden hunt or quest and it seems like a fun thing to reminisce about here. Dragon Egg Hunt I adopted an old FOME tradition and adapted it into a Dragon Egg Hunt. We held it close to Easter back in the late 90s. It was played on campus and those gathered were separated into groups. We met and came…
I stood entranced by the automated puppet show in a coin operated display cabinet. Hardly surprising since everything is a novelty to small children. Only a few metres away were automatic sliding doors and they fascinated me too. At the time they were triggered by pressure sensors in a rubber welcome mat but later that will have changed to some sort of light sensor over the entrance. This is a…
Here is some advice for a major political party that has lost government and been relegated to an opposition role. Even solicited advice is only sometimes heeded so this entry shows I'm still an optimist. Or possibly I just want to record my musings since a recent foreign election of some significance. Here I go then. 1. Get better at having conversations with those who think differently from you.…
Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it. I went looking at travel quotations and this obscure one from Cesare Pavese (an Italian poet)…
In a few weeks I will be visiting Europe. Right now this announces that plan and then on my return it will become a record of my travels. If the past is any indication then it will be rambling . All the biggest aspects of my plan are sorted but the small stuff I still need to get done is annoyingly fiddly. Posting this kernal of an entry now is possibly an act of procrastination. Expect more in a…
I have written much on the topic of Dungeons & Dragons as a role-play game but here I will turn to some toys of the same name. Once more I ruminate on the concept of a 'modest yet well-rounded toy collection' (as I did here and here ). In the 80s there was a toyline by LJN that was given the branding of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) and I cannot fathom why. The simpler parallel game name of…
Radio but with the last letter written five times. This is the name of a website that serves as an online radio station with content curated by its membership. The interface very quickly tells you what it offers. There is a world map and a sliding scale of decades from over a century of recording. Using this you can hone in onto any offered time and place and then listen to the music of various…