Category: Consciousness

It’s Time

Well, after a two month hiatus I figure it’s high time I provide some sort of update for the google spiders – who are probably this blog’s only current readers. Today’s post will be brought to you by the prefix “ob“.

Observations
So, K-Rudd has been PM for slightly longer than my blog free period. In fact he was sworn in the day before my last post. So I blame him for my lack of inspiration. Really he’s just boring. Boring, boring, boring (coincidentally the prefix bo is the reverse of ob). Only slightly more boring is the obstreperous Mr 9% – Nelson and his hapless team. Anyone who the Courier Mail captions as Brenden Abbott – dig up a copy from the 31st of January – is in political trouble. K-Rudd’s problem is that he’s all symbolism and no substance – his response to any issue is to talk – form a committee, a war cabinet, a talkfest. His speeches are grand – and loaded with symbolic guff. His apology speech was well crafted – but not Obamaesque (I’ll get to him later). Two months in to his reign we’ve had a symbolic (some would say token) ratification of Kyoto (which expires in 2012 – hardly a long term solution) – and a token (some would say symbolic) apology to the obviously obscenely treated aboriginal people – an apology which explicitly ruled out compensation. I have mixed feelings about compensation – I think there’s probably a case for some form of compensation. Now that the government has admitted they did the wrong thing they should probably have to pay for that mistake. The proverbial can of worms has been opened.

Obsessions
Another reason I haven’t been blogging lately must be the disproportionate amount of time and resourcing I’ve been giving to my current obsession – coffee. Robyn would probably agree – although she’s enjoying the benefits.

Here’s the progression I’ve gone through in terms of my coffee “habit”
1. Discovered home roasting – through coffeesnobs.com.au – I highly recommend their starter pack. But I’ve since been ordering through Ministry Grounds. I purchased a heat gun from eBay for the purpose of roasting my beans – with the view to building a corretto when I can locate a suitable breadmaker. At the moment I’m just using the heatgun and wok.
2. I was less than happy with our existing grinder – a little bladed number sold as a “herb and coffee” grinder. It was good as an introduction to the freshness of ground coffee – but didn’t produce a particularly even grind – so I purchased an EM0480 Sunbeam grinder second hand from coffeesnobs.com.au.
3. I recently shelled out $400 (plus freight) for a commercial Rancillio machine on eBay – it’s yet to arrive, but I’ll edit this post to include some pictures when my browser will let me.

Home roasted coffee is terrific. I highly recommend my new hobby.

Obama
Barack – the man I’ve dubbed “the new black” when it comes to US Presidential candidates – Obama has just won his tenth straight contest for the Democratic nomination. I’m nominally a Democrats fan in the US thanks to the West Wing. And I picked Barack a year ago – before he was cool.

Obligatory references to real life
Married life continues to be a barrel of caffeine induced laughs (see above). It really is great fun. We’ve recently filled our fish tank with a plethora of new marine life. We’re now leading the kid’s club at church on a Friday night – putting the kibosh on our social life during school term. An unwholesome amount of our spare time is spent playing Tetris on Facebook. Robyn has posted an almost blasphemous score of 946,000 or thereabouts.

February 21, 2008

Rack off lefty scum

The title of this ‘ere little post is stolen from perhaps my favourite piece of Junior Liberal’s propaganda – perhaps only marginally beating Liberals: We put the fun into funding cuts. The current batch of Liberal slogans ala “go for growth” are a little to obscure, obtuse and obviously written by geriatrics for me to get excited – but (segue) one thing that is sure to get me excited, one thing that’s sure to raise my ire, is the nu-left trendy hippy intellectually self-congratulatory latte pinko lefties. That’s right – the kind of people who when they hear that I – due to the AEC’s stringent and altogether too rigorous attempts to cut the yoof out of the polls and restrict the chances of messy electoral change – am not voting at this election and respond by saying “good, we don’t want your conservative vote anyway” – they’re the one’s who really raise my hackles. Let me tell you a thing or two about these self absorbed commies who go running around with their commercially mass-produced Che Guevara t-shirts extolling the evils of economic rationalism while enjoying their imported South American coffee, French art house films and hydroponic cones… they trumpet idealism and moral superiority, call on the government to end poverty, global corruption and anything resembling “the machine”, “the man”, or “globalisation”… What really gets me is their hypocrisy – their complete inability or lack of desire to put their money where their mouth is. And I mean that literally. Sure be a hippy, smoke your dope, call for a removal of inhibiting laws, the woman’s right to choose to terminate her unborn child’s life, make dope legal, build injection rooms, feed the hungry, water the trees, save the whales…protest against globalisation, protest against free trade, protest against war. But don’t ever let your personal convictions get in the way of your pleasure and comfort. These wacko lefties claim to be all about social justice but the ideologues aren’t prepared to reach into their own pockets (except through taxes) to support anything except the “save a panda” foundation which is just marginally trendy enough to score kudos with their stoned John Butler loving friends. Climate Change and saving whales are in vogue with those of the environmentally superior – but they’re bandwagon jumping, cause loving anti-establishment fiends who’d support the extermination of a people group if the government was against it and decry it as fascism when the government endorses it. Ok – that was pure hyperbole and exaggeration. My point is this – before you, my lefty friends go decrying me and my “conservative Christian” friends who happen to be generally supportive of public morality being maintained in the guise of “law and order” – as callous, unfeeling bigots, be prepared to defend the fact that while you spend your money on Hare Krishna “smile” stickers for your combi or whatever it is you drive these days, and sign your name to whatever Greenpeace petition is thrust in front of your face, us “conservatives” are out practicing the theories of a freemarket economy and donating to worthy charities designed to bring people out of poverty. For ever barb you chardonnay swillers throw at Hillsong for counselling young, pregnant women against having abortions, they’re donating real money to causes like getting people off the street and into jobs. You whinging dole bludging “arts graduate” wannabees are much too busy fighting for intellectual causes to actually address the physical reality.

November 19, 2007

A long time between drinks

Dear Blog Reader – after a month of silence it may be time for me to resurrect this ‘ere little piece of ego stroking personal indulgence I like to call my “Blog”. I call it my blog largely because that’s what it is – a blog pertaining to me and things that I want to write about. I’d like to be able to catch you up on the last month of happenings – but due to the constraints of time and the like I’ll give you the “nutshell” version. It was good. For those wanting a more extended analysis of the wedding, honeymoon, return to work and the normality of married life please call me on the phone – or maybe check out some photos here, and here.

Orpheus Island photos will be put online when we get our home internet connection working. It seems that in my hiatus some kerfuffle has kicked up over the future governance of the nation. Bring it on, I say. We spent some time over the last couple of weeks powering through series 7 of the West Wing. We were wondering what to fill our lives with now that we’ve watched all seven seasons (approximately a full week’s worth of viewing… which is pretty impressive) and the real thing pops up to occupy our screens. Elections are fun. Expect me to write a lot about them in coming posts.

This’ll be a short one – it’s mainly designed to let Leah know that my blog’s not dead – and let Ben know that I am paying attention to the election.

October 18, 2007

Post 200 – I’m a machine

Michelle’s comment on my last post refers to a recent article in CityLife Magazine. See section entitled “PR Machines” – enjoy, everybody else seems to be.

September 3, 2007

Stable

It’s amazing the number of topics you can potentially fit under one all encompassing heading. English truly is the language of kings – diplomats can keep their French, and IT nerds their C++…

Topic 1 – Owen Wilson
Ethically speaking journalists should not report on suicides – or attempts – for fear that it encourages copycat attempts. One wonders how many young girls have shaved their heads, attacked cars with umbrellas and undergone “mental breakdowns” since Britney made it cool… but I digress – the Courier Mail ran a sidebar par on Owen Wilson’s hospitalisation under the heading “star stable” – I’m not sure he is, I think that’s the point.

Topic 2 – Equine Flu

I’m glad I’m not a horse I think I’d be sick of being stabled at the moment. I can only surmise that book keepers are the only people sicker than Australia’s horse population.

Topic 3 – AFL

Teams in the AFL are able to strengthen their stable of talent through a draft system that gives priority picks to poorly performing teams to help keep the competition on a stable keel. This presents an interesting dilemma when teams – like Melbourne and Carlton – are positioned on the table in such a way that to win the final round would be detrimental to the team’s draft opportunities. Carlton and Melbourne are on even points. They sit at 14th and 15th on the table – my understanding, and I hate AFL, is that 15th and 16th get the pick of the litter when it comes to the draft. Carlton just happen to play Melbourne in the last scheduled game of the AFL’s season proper – both teams want to lose – they can’t acknowledge that publicly of course – but this is one game of AFL that I feel compelled to watch.

There are more topics I could mention that are variations on the “stable theme” – wrestling for instance and my desire to see stables formed again to provide momentum for feuds, or my inability to surf, skate or do anything that requires a sense of balance or stability – I can’t even do a forward roll… and then there’s the fact that in just a few short weeks I will be entering the stable state of marriage – and the even keel our planning finds itself on now that invites and housing have been sorted… but I’ll leave those until next time.

August 27, 2007

Evening the scores

Well humble reader it has been some time since I’ve posted here – some would say too long – others would not have noticed the gap. I’ve been posting with growing irregularity since being burdened with an extra workload at work – and an extra load of work outside of work.

Those of you who are now my Facebook “friends” – as if that somehow gives you more status than my real life friends – will know that I haven’t been idle when it comes to maintaining an online presence. And I’m happy to report I now have more than 100 fb buddies… it seems I came to that party pretty late.

The extended gap between posts means that I now actually have some news to report. Last Saturday we were approved for a lease on a nice little 3 bedroom townhouse in Pimlico – it’s pretty functional and has its own access gate to the shared pool.

This followed a hectic week of house drive bys, inspections and robust discussions. Our favourite place – at first – was a nice, modern Queenslander. We both inspected this house prior to applying and even bumped into the owner as he did his gardening – we were confident that we’d get the nod. However, we were looking for a 12 month lease – and the owner was only really prepared to give 6 months. He was also planning to build in underneath the house in that period. This house was advertised as having two garages – which would have disappeared within weeks due to a money hungry landlord who basically wanted to fund his rennovations via tenant. We were offered the house yesterday and turned it down. Stupid real estate agents.

So K-Rudd got down and dirty in New York on the tax payer’s dime. Farbeit from me to let an opportunity to dig the boot in to either side of politics – particularly on such a public indiscretion. I won’t tear strip(er)s off Kevin Rudd for his nocturnal dalliance – I note the Australian Christian Lobby was also eager to affirm the fact that we all are in fact fallen and sinful. I will however point out that the media’s eagerness to feed off the situation – whether it be Glenn Milne’s initial condemnation or the chorus of defenders who surfaced on the left’s side of the debate – perfectly demonstrates the point Jim Wallace from ACL made. On one side you’ve got stone throwers eager to beat K-Rudd down in a hail of self-righteous rage – on the other you’ve got those overly eager to associate themselves with whatever wrongdoings possible in order to diminish the perception of misconduct everywhere. Paradoxically, when it comes to commenting on this situation you’re damned if you do – and damned if you don’t.

Personally, I think when it comes to elected represenatives we’re probably entitled to throw a few stones. At that point we’re not judging the man himself – but his ability to do that which he was elected to do – that is present the country in the best light possible. Evidently not something he’s achieved here, or here.

August 22, 2007

Brave new world

Hello reader.
I haven’t written anything for a while. I have been incredibly busy discovering the meaning of “work” and “stress” – they say career changes, moving and relationship changes are some of life’s most stressful experiences.
Robyn and I are currently househunting – as previously mentioned. Finding an appropriate rental is a pain in the posterior. Things are too small, too expensive, too far from particular locations, or leased too soon to people who circumvent due process.
Our wedding is only approximately (see time in sidebar) away – and literally getting closer by the second. We now need to figure out table decorations – and how to address mistakes in information contained in the invite.
Which brings me to career change – my role is in a very dynamic stage at the moment – my manager just took an internal promotion and our team is undergoing a restructure – that’s workspeak for “I’m now doing the work of two people while being paid for the work of three quarters of a person.”
I also have a new desk, in a larger cubicle. And I’m now the “Webmaster”.

August 10, 2007

Checkered History

I’m a big fan of draughts/checkers/chequers… call it what you will. It’s a game of infinite complexity – but slightly more simple than chess. Infinite in that statement is apparently figurative. There are in fact 500 billion possible combinations of moves that make up a game of checkers. History was made today – when a computer program finished working its way through all of them and announced that the perfect game of checkers ends in a draw.

You can play against a computer with almost all the answers here.

It’s now nine weeks (and a few hours) until Robyn and I get married. We’ve almost got our invitations sorted out. We’ve almost got a lot of things sorted out. But there are thousands of little things like table decorations and stuff that I just didn’t ever imagine having to think about.

My current idea for a table decoration is to have a toffee apple bouquet as the centrepiece. These will double as bombonieres (they’re the little presents you give people to take home/eat – another stupid wedding tradition).

With nine weeks to go we’ve also started trying to figure out where to live. I can truly understand why housing affordability is an election issue – the rent/buy debate is something we haven’t really come to terms with yet. The idea of spending 35% of our income on paying off a house is less than appealing. But the idea of pouring 10% of our income down the drain in rent is an equal turn off. Living in the car might work.

July 20, 2007

Where there’s smoke…

Hello blog reader.

It has been a while since my last post and much has happened. I recently celebrated the one year anniversary of my new financial year resolution to not eat fast food. My definition of “fast food” included anything from McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC and Red Rooster. I’m happy to announce that I made the whole year – plus some nine days as I’m yet to return. This year’s NFYR sees me forswear the joys of carbonated “soft” drink including the products of Coca Cola and Pepsi – but not extending to Bundaberg Ginger Beer or Lemon, Lime and Bitters at the pub.

I got all cultured and stuff in the last week with the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. I went to their gala “Chefs in the North” dinner as I did last year. The food was above average and the wine was superb. Robyn and I went to the Guv’nr’s Gala Concert on Saturday night featuring a string quartet from NZ, an opera performance, some improv didge and a pretentious “art” piece from the festival’s resident composer.

I spent Friday on a luxury charter boat circumnavigating Magnetic Island – I’ll post photos later. Wedding plans are continuing – we’re putting together a map so that people can find the farm. It’s exciting times people. That’s a little update from me…

And now, without further ado – the subject of my topic… Daniel Johns and Peter Garrett. The Australian media was briefly up in arms today, keen to see Garrett’s credibility go up in flames over allegations made that he’d been burning the Midnight Oil (and some THC) with the Silverchair singer and U2’s Bono.Johns was quick to hose down the speculation – claiming he’d made a spur of the moment, off the cuff, joke to lighten the mood on JJJ’s sullen breakfast program… from Crikey –

”In an interview I did this morning on Triple J I made a stupid joke. It’s just been brought to my attention that some people in the media have taken my dumb joke seriously so I want to set the record straight. At no time have I ever “smoked a joint” with Bono or Peter Garrett. They are both well known to be very anti-drugs so that’s why I assumed everybody would know I was joking when I made that comment. Clearly that wasn’t the case and I feel sick that I might have caused embarrassment to two people who I admire so much.”

“I was fortunate enough to once get to play them some of my demo’s but I swear that no joints were involved. I guess I felt a bit like a namedropper mentioning them on the radio so that’s why I added a silly throwaway joke. I accept that drug use is no laughing matter and I apologize sincerely for any confusion or harm I’ve caused. Just by the way, this is one of the reasons why I hate doing interviews. I really should just shut up and stick to singing.”

Convincing? I’m not so sure.

July 9, 2007

That suits me

I made a spontaneous (thanks to Hilton and Justina) visit to Brisbane over the weekend to sort out wedding plans with parents and other parties… We now have a confirmed menu for our reception, an idea of exactly how many people will fit into the venue (120) and an idea of how the ceremony and morning tea/brunch/whatever will run.

Robyn’s main reason for making the trip to the “big city” was to search for bridesmaid dresses. Her search took her far and wide – they (Robyn and her sisters) travelled the length and breadth of South East Queensland looking for suitable dresses – spending many fruitless days digging through bridal specialists, looking at plans and checking all the appropriate boxes (literally and figuratively). They found nothing.

I had some time free on Saturday afternoon when I arrived. So I went suit shopping with mum and Mattias. We found appropriate suits in the second shop we went to. We bought them. I am sorted. I chose a very dark chocolate brown suit with brown pin stripes. It’s spiffy. I’m so glad I’m a guy.

In other news…
In today’s Courier Mail there was a brief (a one paragraph story for those not familiar with the media vernacular) on the explosion (figuratively not literally) of pest fish populations in the riverways of South East Queensland. The story calmly advised that drastic measures would be taken and that these pest fish (carp, tilapia etc) would be rounded up and electrofished. What on earth is electrofishing? That was my response too – I looked it up so you don’t have to…

This is a definition from Wikipedia’s fishing entry:

“A relatively new fishing technique is electrofishing, typically used for stream classification surveys and catching brood stock for hatcheries, or making estimates of populations in a body of water. A gated pulse of direct current is used to cause muscular contractions in a fish, called galvanotaxis, causing them to turn towards the source of the electrical current and swim towards it when correct pulse speeds and durations are used, along with correct current.”

For those intrigued by the concept here’s the how to guide from http://www.electro-fisher.com/… they’ve also got videos of electrofishing in action. Complete with really cheesy soundtrack.

http://www.electro-fisher.com/How_to_electrofishing.html

But remember…

“Fishermen should also remember that electrofisher is an electric device in order to avoid the contact of electric field with the bare body- waders must be waterproof and be electrically resistant as well as landing net must be plastic not to paralyse anybody – the same refers to boats. The electrofisher SAMUS700 is very safe but it is not reccomended to put the hands into water while electro fishing though”

July 4, 2007

Bowen’ out

Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman/Urban are about to bow out of Bowen. They’ve been there filming Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia.” Bowen shares an interesting relationship with Townsville. They decided to throw their lot in with the Mackay area rather than the Townsville area and they’re a rival city competing for the Chalco refinery. I don’t like Bowen. Their Mayor Mean Mike is a walking quote machine that the media loves. The truth is – Bowen was a natural selection for the filming of this period drama – it was the only town in Australia that had to be modernised to take part in filming. The locals are all really excited that they now have somewhere to tie their horses when they go to the pub. They’ve begged the film crew not to take down the set when they leave because they’re scared when they go electricity and running water will leave with them. Really this post was a three joke affair – I liked the title, and I’ve been wanting to write something like this as a letter to the editor in the Townsville Bulletin. I’m pretty sure my blog led to a local journo being tipped off on the “new logo” compass thing that I posted a while back (I took it down so as not to incriminate myself further). That was an interesting situation and one where I’ve had to rethink what I post here.

June 27, 2007

A filling meal

I am a hypodontiac – that is to say I have less than the usual number of teeth. This is a congenital defect. That’s right – along with a lack of ankles (or the presence of cankles) and my colour blindness – I am missing some adult teeth. I’m a freak. I’m also a genius and very good looking – not to mention incredibly humble…that counts in my favour. Why am I mentioning this? Well, until recently I had a very loose filling in one of my remaining “baby” teeth – so loose that I could remove it and play with it with my tongue. So loose in fact that when I was enjoying “Parma Tuesday” ($10 chicken parmas at the Riverside Tavern) last night I noticed that my filling had disappeared. I ate it. It’s gone. There’s no way I’m fishing it out and putting it back in my mouth when it reappears – so now I have a gaping gap in my mouth. And the prospect of a pretty serious dental bill in the near future.

Percy the purple excel is adding to this financial misery with regular outpourings of smoke possibly related to the excess oil I poured into it recently – methinks my potential tax return this year will be poured into the repair of the aforementioned vehicle.

In other news – my favourite wrestler just killed himself, his wife, and their seven year old son – I’m not entirely sure how to take this news. By all accounts he was a really decent human right up to that point. I’ve had his entrance music rattling around in my head since I heard the news yesterday. I’m told that the Transformers theme song is the best way to get other tunes out of your head – and with the much hyped release of the Transformers movie happening this week it shouldn’t be too long before I’m humming it in my cubicle at work. I just sneezed so hard my back hurts. The other day I sneezed a record 24 times consecutively. I can’t remember if I blogged about that or not – but I now know without undergoing any rigorous online psychological assessment that the character from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves I most closely resemble is Sneezy.

Robyn is embarking on a trip south today to sort out important wedding stuff like flowers, dresses and other inherently important aesthetic decisions. In the mean time we’re moving her out of her current house and into a state of estate flux – the rental market in Townsville is really tight at the moment. Hopefully something will be sorted out by the time she gets back on Monday

June 27, 2007

Cutting a long story short*

At the start of my Townsville adventure last year I went garage sailing with Craig and Tim (it was a very windy day…). One of the bargains I picked up (and it was a bargain – I talked them down to half price) was a very economically sound set of hair clippers. The $2.50 outlay has saved me about $140 – assuming I would otherwise have been subjected to a $10 hair cut on a monthly basis.

This weekend Robyn’s sister and her husband made the trek (well they flew) to Townsville for some fun and adventure – it turned out to be a weekend full of food and cold weather induced activities (the coldity is demonstrated by the assorted hoodies).


We consumed, in chronological order, coffee at Squires (served in cups the size of soup bowls), dinner at whiteblue (Greek), breakfast/brunch/lunch at the Heritage Tea Rooms, dinner from Masala (curries) and JJ’s seafood (fresh prawns), breakfast at Betty Blue and the Lemon Tart (our favourite breakfast cafe), lunch at Willows Presy – pumpkin soup courtesy of Tori Walker, dinner from JJ’s seafood (fish and chips) and the pizza place at Riverside (pizza and ribs) – that’s quality food from many continents all available right here in Townsville.

Anyway, on Saturday morning before our jaunt to the tea rooms I decided I didn’t like my hair. Specifically I didn’t like the bits that stuck out the side of my head. As seen here…

So I decided to cut them off – with disastrous results… As seen here…

Needless to say – this decision was less than popular with Robyn. She confiscated my clippers – after fixing it (almost) with the obligatory complete shave treatment (there’s no redeeming the #0 on the sideburns I’m afraid). I have since stolen them back. Cutting your own hair is cathartic. I recommend it for the feeling of complete liberation and daring – it’s like feeling the wind in your hair. Only a really strong wind that removes the hair from your head with sometimes personally catastrophic consequences.

We spent last night playing Wii – and there’s this video of Robyn and Justina playing the boxing game that I really want to post – I’ll let you know if I get permission…

* Other titles considered and rejected include: Hair: the musical (uncut) – I may have tried writing that one in verse form…, A hairrowing(sic) story, Bad hair day, a cut above the rest… they’re all bad.

June 25, 2007

Oh crappy day

Townsville’s streets are being overtaken by nefarious ne’er do wells who make life unpleasant for the common citizen. That’s a bit dramatic – but you’d be equally disgusted if you’d spent the morning cleaning human excrement of your fiance’s car. That’s right. Some scum of the earth, low life, intellectually impaired, inebriated (one can only assume) excuse for a human decided it would be entirely appropriate to rub their faeces all over a car parked innocently by the side of the road in one of Townsville’s more desirable housing estates. Why? Well, that’s anybody’s guess. People are stupid. People this stupid should be shot.

On an unrelated note, with 96 days to go I’ve decided to start diarising/documenting the wedding planning process for your enjoyment – or to highlight ours…

Invitation lists are a nightmare – how can you fit a lifetime’s worth of friends into one small group, in one small setting? Where do you draw the line? These questions are made all the more difficult when you throw family dynamics and differing philosophies into the mix. How important is it to be invited to a wedding? I’m always slightly offended if I don’t get that coveted invite to the best party in town – it’s stupid. I’d just like to invite everyone I know – but reality is starting to set in. Finding a venue for the ceremony and reception was a process in itself.

So far these are the decisions we’ve made regarding our wedding:
1. We’re marrying each other
2. My dad will conduct the ceremony
3. We’re getting married “on the farm” in Dalby (well technically just outside of Dalby).
4. Our bridal party will consist of 4 people – Robyn’s 2 sisters and two of my friends. I had been keen to produce my side of the bridal party by lotto – I figure any of the guys on the list are good enough to be my lackeys for the day… but that was voted down. Instead I went with “representatives” – my longest friendship and longest serving housemate will represent all my former housemates and all of my friends.

5. Robyn has made arrangements to have her dress made. She’s seeing the dressmaker today.
6. We had a look at some wedding ring options.
7. Our reception will be for somewhere between 50 and 130 people. This is where we’re currently up to. Fun, fun, fun…

Today’s topic though is the fun part – gifts. Obviously the more people you invite to a wedding the more bounty you come away with at the end. An abundance of toasters, cheese platters and photo frames awaits the disorganised couple. Gift registries were born out of the desire not to have to sort through the piles of toasters to find gems. They’re practical. But they suck. I hate them. I’ve never bought anyone anything of a registry. I now give my Christian friends subscriptions to the Briefing and haven’t really figured out a substitute for non Christians.

Wishing Wells are even worse – they’re essentially an even more practical step than the registry – don’t give us gifts, just give us the cash. It’s impersonal to the extreme but also extremely practical which has some benefits. The pressure to come up with a witty or insightful poem or verse on why someone should give you money is also too much of a cross to bear in the lead up to impending nuptials.

In response to my aversion to both registries and wishing wells I’ve come up with what I believe is the ultimate response – the anti-registry. We’re going to list all the things we already own and people can fill in the gaps. I’ve made the initial web page using google’s page creator – it’s that easy. Now it’s a matter of getting the idea by mums and dads.

June 18, 2007

100 days…

Yesterday was the 100 day mark in the countdown to my wedding. That’s 2400 hours, 144,000 minutes, or 8,640,000 seconds – not that anyone’s counting… well Robyn’s school children are, they have a counter on their blackboard. That’s a milestone by anyone’s reckoning. It’s not every day that there’s a century of days until something – in fact by time’s very nature every day marks a period closer, or further away from something. I’ve never been big on celebrating milestones like this. But my beautiful fiance and I celebrated in style. We went to a financial planning seminar full of useful information on how to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle in retirement. The seminar was in an opulent office space filled with free coffees (cappuccinos – but I did spy International Roast in the kitchen which I assume must be for staff on regular days), light snacks and dinner. In fact everything is free right up until you actually invest your money with them. Free advice, free consultation, free budgeting and then almost free wealth. I have a number of problems with the overt greed peddled at this seminar. I don’t necessarily philosophically agree with the concept of retirement let alone the concept of a luxurious retirement as opposed to “comfortable.”

The finance people did raise some issues associated with our aging population – which is all the baby boomer’s fault. I have this new theory that involves putting the baby boomers out to pasture when they hit 65 – not retirement but “retirement” – that way they wouldn’t be freezing up assets like property, jobs etc – or being a burden on infrastructure and services. Seriously though – there were a few cool government websites they brought up during the presentation including this one (a population tracker), and this one (a cool pyramid thing where you can watch Australia’s population break down since 1971 (and see why we’re getting top heavy with old people). So I use this to refute Ben’s stance on childcare – if we can’t provide affordable childcare to entice people into the workforce and generate tax dollars – these pensions will bankrupt us. That sounds like irrefutable economic evidence to me… I’m sure I’ll get an email shortly.

June 15, 2007