DOCS overboard

Here in NSW, it's not children overboard, it's DOCS overboard. DOCS is the unfortunate department tasked with trying to put a lid on useless, violent, disinterested, drug-addled and delinquent parents. It's a thankless task. They should just rename it "SHOIS" - Sink Hole Of Impossible Situations.

People being nasty to their children is nothing new. Dickens had no shortage of horrible things to write about in this regard. However, our attitude to how children ought to be treated has changed markedly since modern sanitation and health care enabled most of them to get through childhood without being carried off by typhoid or diptheria or some other nasty disease that we know so little about today.

The idiots in charge seem to have taken the "no child shall live in poverty" type ideal and applied it to child rearing. Except that the new mantra is "no child shall suffer any physical pain whatsoever". That's a bit of a tall order. Smacking a naughty kid in the supermarket these days is sufficient to have the new guardians of the moral order descend on you like madmen.

Apart from that, I can see what has gone wrong with DOCS. All organisations lose efficiency once they expand beyond a certain size. Their headcount has ballooned amazingly in recent years as moral panic has set in, and once an organisation reaches a certain size, the extra people create smaller and smaller amounts of marginal output. At some point, you might even go into people creating negative marginal output (management speak for people who are a waste of space).

For instance, let's say you have 100 front line staff. You might require one HR/payroll person to support them. However, if you grow to 500, you suddenly have 5 or 6 HR/payroll people plus a manager and a secretary. And if my experience is any indicator, back office functions tend to swell much faster than front office functions when money is poured into an organisation. Areas like Finance, IT, IR, HR, legal/corporate counsel, property, motor vehicle management, security, reception etc will add headcount like crazy, and those people tend to be more expensive than the frontline people they are supporting.

Let's say you start with 100 frontline people and 1 accountant - a ratio of 1:100. Let's also imagine that each one of these people, frontline and backend, costs you $50,000. The expense ratio is 1:1.

By the time you have 500 frontline staff, the staff ratio will no longer be 1:100 - it will be 1:50 or less, because Finance will argue that all these extra people are "creating a lot more work". On top of that, the accountants will now be paid $100,000 a year because all the extra work involves a lot more responsibility. When the agency had a budget of $50 million, the accountant was paid $50,000. But now that the budget is $250 million, the beancounters will make a plausible argument that they should be paid more because the budget is bigger.

It usually works.

So the expense ratio of frontline to backend has also moved from 1:1 to 1:2. If you apply this right across the organisation, you can see that a doubling of the budget will never flow through to a doubling of front line staff. If you are lucky, frontline numbers might increase 50% - and that's only if the CEO is really tight with the money. Don't forget that because of an expanding headcount in head office, the first thing the CEO will do is move to a bigger (and flasher) office building, incorporating of course a much nicer office for the now much more important CEO.

The other thing is the decrease in quality. When you have a small organisation of say 100 people, you can be pretty sure that those people are dedicated and good at their jobs. Small organisations tend to have good morale (in my experience) because everyone knows everyone else and you can talk to the CEO over a coffee if you are having problems. It's a "no shit" organisation, because there is no pulling the wool over the eyes of management - they are too close to the action.

If a place expands quickly, quality control tends to go out the window when hiring people. Management becomes focuses on hiring, not on running the business. Problems don't get dealt with. The personal touch is lost. Many managers fail to make the transition from a small, hands-on, no-meeting environment to a beauracracy. The paper pushers take charge and push out the hands on, make it happen people.

Morale goes down the shitter. Policies and procedures developed by desk pushers in head office extinguish the last vestiges of common sense.

I'm sure that's happened to DOCS. I reckon most of the money that has been pumped into the place has been spent on computer systems, admin staff, new offices and policy writers, and very little spent on getting hard nosed people out into the slums. Even less would have been spent on supporting those people when they make tough decisions.

The other thing that shits me is the whole fostering system.

If your kids get taken away, there should be no way you should get them back until you can prove that you can support them.

That is:

• Held down a job for 12 months
• Passed a weekly drug/booze test for 12 months
• Got some savings in the bank
• Dumped the useless, drug-addled boyfriend

If you can't do that, forget it. Kids stay with the foster parents. Parents are supposed to love their kids. If you don't love them enough to make some serious changes to your life, changes which will ensure that you look after them properly, then you don't really love them. So you don't deserve to have them back.

I am a hard head in this regard because I am a big softie.

Juxtaposition

The SMH has developed this nasty habit of using a photo of a police car for stories on their web site when they don't have a photo from the actual event. This, combined with bad judgement with headlines, has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that the police are actually responsible for the events spelled out in the story - except that you have to click on the story to find out that the police had nothing to do with whatever heinous crime has been committed.

For those people that just skip over websites, glancing at the news, they'll probably develop the impression that police are running down people, dealing drugs and peddling children for sex.

I'd post an example here, except that they keep changing their front page, and the sample that I was going to screen grab has been updated. If they don't have a photo, I wish they'd put up nothing at all, rather than trying to beautify their page and make it look prettier or more interesting.

It's supposed to be a news site after all.

Cut the crap - please

I've just done a survey on "wealth management" products. Ugh. The survey asked me to rate how I felt about certain statements made about a ficticious wealth management company.

They all got right up my nose.

I am sick to death of soft focus TV commercials promoting companies such as Macquarie and AXA and the like.

Why can't they just say, "We aim to make you rich, and that is going to cost you a bundle in fees".

There. Simple. I can live with that. But I just can't stand mushy, marshmellow type advertising that is so wishy-washy, it makes my hair stand on end.

Say it like you mean it.

A laptop for every school?

Before we all go soft in the head over the idea of a latop in every school, let's examine the cost of having to provide a network for a school of say 900 kids.

If all 900 have a PC or laptop, and it needs to be used for every lesson, then you need at least 900 network ports - more like 1000 when you include things like printers and other peripheral devices that you might add in like scanners, security cameras and spare ports.

There are three components to your network.

The physical cabling. We'll get to that later.

A router, which you need to connect to the outside world.

A switch, or more likely, a bunch of switches.

You can setup your network in two ways. One is to stick a switch in every classroom. An example of that would be a Cisco 3750 with 48 ports. That retails for around $15,000 ex GST.

If you have 900 kids and say 25 per class, you have at least 36 classrooms. That means you need $540,000 worth of switches at a minimum - and this does not include the core switch that these 36 classroom switches need to connect to.

Now a canny education dept would be able to negotiate a good bulk discount, and get them for say 40% off retail. That still adds up to $324,000.

The problem with a network like this is that it will suffer from congestion. The better alternative is to put in some big, beefy switches at the core. This is how big companies do it. To do that, you need something like a Cisco 6509 switch.

I am not going to include all the components here, but this gives you an idea of what a big switch retails for:

• 6509 9 slot chassis - $15,675. This is just the "box" that everything else slots into.
• 6000W power supply - $8,250. And you need two of them per chassis. You also need special 16A power circuits for them, so you have to pay a sparky to do some work before you can think about installing them.
• Supervisor module - $42,000. This is the "brains" of the switch. Many companies like to fit two, so you have redundancy.
  
• 48 port module - $12,375. This is what your computers actually plug into. Assuming you jam 6 into a chassis, each switch will give you 288 ports.
  

So for a school of 900, you are going to need 4 switches. Each one will cost you $190,000, and that does not include the cost of all the "minor" bits that I didn't bother including for the sake of brevity. Even with a fat discount, you will still be up for $150,000 per switch, or $600,000 to do the school.

These things pump out a lot of heat, so you need a special room for them. You can fit two into a rack, and each rack will cost at least $2,500. The room will need air conditioning 24x7. I'd also secure it properly, since that room now contains the most valuable things in the school.

These things are complicated. You will need to pay a smart techo to install and configure them. Ddon't even think about one of them getting out of bed for less than $20,000 on a job like this.

Then let's think about cabling. Even if you put in CAT5, you can still expect to pay $0.60 a metre, and you will need a lot of cable, and you will need qualified people to pull it and terminate it. I am not an expert on estimating what it would cost to cable a school, but let me just throw up a figure of $250,000 for an average school with a need for 1000 ports spread over multiple buildings.

So you are looking at well over $600,000 so far just to network the school. I haven't estimated what it will cost to provide the extra power points, or the support to keep it all running.

All I can say is that the IT industry will be salivating at all this.

Fat city, here we come.

An interesting map

I am a sucker for good maps. I'm not much good at reading or following them, but I live looking at them. If I had a lot of spare cash, I'd own some really old maps and have them stuck up on the walls. Screw art - a good map, a well designed and well thought out map - is something that I can look at all day.

I found this map today - it is a bike map where all the streets in an area are colour coded by their difficulty for a cyclist. I don't think it takes into account the traditional things like gradient - it uses factors like traffic density and speed, which are much more important to your average road cyclist.

If I am looking at riding along a road, I am much more interested in whether I will get hit by a car rather than whether I will be puffed at the end of the ride. I can always get off and push on the steep bits (actually, over my dead body. I will never get off and push so long as there is breath in my body).

I met a bloke recently that had been cleaned up by a drunk driver when out cycling. He woke up in hospital and was off work for months. I will have to plug him for more information over the next few months. He says he never heard the car - just woke up in bed with tubes poking out of him. I can understand that - there are a few small chunks that my brain refused to record when I got hit, and I wasn't hit by a speeding drunk.

Anyway, I like the map. Our council has published maps of what they expect the cycle system around here to look in say, 50 years, and they aren't really that useful. I like this approach - forget about worrying about putting in dedicated cycle paths and so on. Just rate the existing road system and tell cyclists the level of experience that you need for each road. There are cyclists of course who fall into the ski equivalent of double black diamond, and they can ride on freeways at high speed without many problems. I tend to avoid roads where the speed limit is over 60, unless they have a really wide shoulder that I can ride in. I just don't see the point in tempting fate, especially with so many wingnuts driving around with a mobile phone in one hand and their brain in neutral.

There's always one fly......

I have just been sacked out on the couch for most of the morning, gibbering with flu. The worst part of it was the one fly that just had to crawl over my face from time to time.

Although I have a fly trap out the back, and two cans of fly spray strategically located throughout the house, we are still suffering under a small plague of flies. I walk through the house several times a day, zapping this way and that. Piles of dead flies are stacking up on every window sill, yet still they keep coming.

I'd love to know where the little buggers are breeding. I might have to undertake a covert raid on my neighbours bins.

What I have noticed is how manouverable the modern fly is. It used to be that you pointed the can at a fly, depressed the lever and the fly just meandered into a cloud of death. These days, they seem to be remarkably good at flying around the cloud before it reaches them. I am now producing clouds of fly spray that would do a thunderstorm proud.

There was a TV ad around years ago that showed a fly in slow motion flying into a cloud of sly spray and one big, fat drop smacks into the fly's head from front on. It's a great shot.

That's what I visualise happening when I spray the little buggers. Pity it never happens anymore.

Conservatives have fewer mental problems

I have read a few articles on this thesis lately. Research is showing that the further to the left you are, the madder you are likely to be. Well, I made that last bit up, but it sounds about right to me. We don't call them the "loonie left" for nothing.

The election clarified a lot of things for me. After the election, I bumped into a number of people who asked me how I voted, then before I could answer, spouted "I voted Green" or "I voted Labor".

Well, good for you. We all get a vote, and you can use yours anyway you like.

But don't expect me to tell you how I voted. It's none of your business. I don't care how you voted frankly, and I make an effort to not judge people according to their political affiliations. I try to judge them by their qualities and their actions.

The whole in your face "I voted Green" really gets up my nose. Next time I bump into one, I will thank them for that information and then politely ask them to go and take down their election posters, which are still festooning power poles all over Sydney. I spotted one outside World Square on George St yesterday. I get the feeling that the Greens are in permanent campaign mode, and will never take their signs down. I need a flame thrower with a good reach. I'm sure the non-biodegradable plastic that they are made out of will burn beautifully.

I see the whole "I have to tell you how I voted" thing as a sign of a mental problem. These are people that are seeking the acclamation of others in order to feel good. I don't need someone to pat me on the back in order for me to feel good. I generate positive feelings about myself and my existance internally. I think that is the sign of a good conservative - they are self motivated and independently minded enough to go their own way. Group-think is not a part of our mental makeup. Group hugs are not required to bolster our week and measly self esteem.

Greens, or lefties, are therefor shallow, spineless people in search of some external support for their existence. If you cram enough jellyfish together in a tight bunch, you can make a pile of them - that is how I see lefties. It will keep falling over unless you keep on patting it back into shape and adding more jellyfish to the top of the pile. The only way to keep the pile together is to give it a big hug.

I have enough spine to stand alone.

Follow the money

A few good crime thrillers/movies/shows have used the line "follow the money" when trying to crack a criminal conspiracy.

We've also seen the term "conspiracy" applied to the tobaco industry, the oil industry, the car industry (resisting safety and fuel economy improvements), the weapons industry and any other industry that the greenocracy deems to be "bad".

I think it's time we applied these two terms to Global Warming. No, I am not a conspiracy nutter, but I would enjoy hearing this term applied to the greenocracy for once, since it is always used with opprobrium. Let me say it now - Global Warming was invented by the Gnomes of Zurich. Yes, you read that here first. If you read the Protocols of Zion, you'll see that global warming is a plot by the Jews to corner various real estate markets.

Hey, I could get on a roll here. Seen any black helicopters flying around the global warming conference in Bali? You won't hear any, as they are all using whisper mode. What I want to know is where the real deals are done in Bali - you know, the guys in hooded robes with the funny handshakes and the goat sacrifices and that sort of thing. The actual powerbrokers who decide the fate of the planet whilst various world "leaders" pose for photos at the conference, and NGOs run around handing out pamplets and seeing who has the most bio-degradable stall.

I bet we'll find out in a few years time that Halliburton bought Bangladesh in a back room deal at the conference.

Following the money is easy. Just look at how the research grant system has been twisted to include a global warming slant. I should apply for a grant to research how global warming has impacted on blogging. Are more bloggers currently blogging in their underpants as a result of global warming?

/rant off.

Friendly and whacked out bus loonies

I had to take the bus to and from work yesterday. Major disappointment. One day of riding, then back on the bus.

When I stepped onto the bus in the morning, the first thing that caught my eye was two Keith Richards impersonators sitting near the front. They were two blokes, both rake thin, who looked about 20 years older than their actual age. One had a bandana on (always a bad look on anyone over 30) and the other a leather vest. Both had some sort of string bag slung over their shoulder.

The key thing is that they were whacked out of their minds on something. Presumably heroin. They were way too skinny to be dopeheads. Each had a stub of a rollie with them - one had it perched ala Richards style on his bottom lip, whilst the other had his between his fingers and constantly sucked on it.

Even though it was out.

I was waiting for one or both of them to light up so I could yell out, "Hey, smackhead hippies - no smoking on the bus".

If I was the education dept, I'd employ these two under some sort of welfare-to-work program and have them ride a different school bus each and every day. I don't think kids believe the "Just say no to drugs" message, but I think they'll get the "I don't want to end up being a totally uncool smacked out hippie at 50, dressing like a teenager and looking like a complete dick".

They eventually alighted at Norton St, sat down in the bus shelter and immediately lit up and started rubbing their anorexic arms. They were like a pair of old lovers - they sat there with their grizzled heads almost touching, blabbing quietly to each other about anything that happened to pass through their wasted heads. Except of course that each was totally in love with smack.

On the way home, a little old lady approached me at the bus stop and asked me where Hoyts Broadway was. We were standing opposite where the Hoyts cinema used to stand on George St, and my brain refused to acknowledge that the cinema moved a few kilometres down the road some years ago. I used to go to Hoyts quite a lot - a friend worked there as an usher, and I got in for free once a week or so. I looked across the road and my brain saw Hoyts, so I pointed over the road and said "there". Then I realised that she had said "Broadway", and I was completely wrong. I then explained how to get to Broadway by bus - essentially catch any bus that pulled up at the stop we were standing at, then get off when you see the big 1930's style shopping centre, complete with art-deco glass balls on the roof.

That all seemed a bit hard, but thankfully my bus pulled up a few seconds later, so we got on together and I showed her where to jump off. She was going to see "Into the wild", which I had seen previewed on the Movie Show this week. It held no attraction for me, but she was clearly right into it. We chatted about the reviews that David and Margaret gave it, and I was so thankful that she was not a complete nutter. Maybe a bit lonely and quite outgoing, but not mad. Phew. A close shave.

Shortly after, a woman sat down opposite me and pulled out a book on Castro written by George Galloway.

I was very pleased to note that she had bought it at one of those bargain basement shops. It was marked down from $30 to $2.99.

Even then, I reckon she paid $3 too much for it. I wouldn't even give that prick George the annoying hairs from my nostrils.

Two fishy restaurant reviews

I recently ate at two flash seafood restaurants in a short time span.

The first was Doyles down at the international terminal. I am normally somewhat sceptical of Doyles, having seen the enormous queues for a table down at Watsons Bay, and the rush to turn patrons over and boot them out the door. But I was willing to give this place a go - after all, it has a smashing view over towards the Opera House. The trick is to get a table upstairs where the view is even better.

I started with scallops, and had fish and chips for my main. I figure that if a restaurant can't cook fish and chips properly, then it doesn't have much hope of cooking anything very well.

My scallops were just passable. They were absolutely swimming in some kind of sauce that I did not particularly enjoy. I am fond of grilling them quickly with just a bit of butter and lemon and perhaps some dill and that's it. These tasted like they had been boiled for quite some time in the sauce. Not having them again.

Then there was the fish and chips. Doyles had the same problem as the Establishment - they sliced the fillets into thin strips that dried out internally when fried. All the moisture was long gone by the time I got to them. I watched Food Safari last night on SBS and they showed what a lump of dried bonito looks like, and it reminded me somewhat of my fish. It was edible, but could have been so much better.

I was offered some tartare sauce after I started eating, and I get the feeling the sauce came out of a jar rather than being prepared by the chef. When you are paying over $30 for fish and chips, you expect chef to make the sauce.

The chips were average and completely devoid of salt. I tried sprinkling salt over them and it all bounced off. They must be using magic salt repelling potatoes.

With dessert and wine, that meal cost over $70 a head. I would not hurry back, unless I had some out of town tourists who really wanted to see the view. It's like dining at Centrepoint - you go for the view rather than the food.

The second place was Flying Fish, which is situated at the end of a Wharf just around the corner from the casino. It's a smashing location, and the interior looks great (if you like lots of old wood and that revamped warehouse look).

The only way I can describe the food and service is "over the top pretentious". Everything cost a bomb, and the portions should have been served with a magnifying glass. Most mains were around the $41 or more mark.

One good thing was that they had oysters as a starter, and six different varieties. I had half a dozen, including one of each variety. At $4 an oyster, you expect them to be quite magnificent. They were, but I would have liked a selection of dipping sauces. I ate somewhere, way back, where they gave you a row of little thimbles that each contained a different dipping sauce. My oysters sorely needed that. They certainly ranged widely in taste and texture. One of them was so salty, it was like licking the salt dish. I wouldn't have enjoyed eating 6 of them.

For my main, I had a selection of vegetarian curries. Normally, that would be the last thing I'd have, but my reasoning was that if you are paying over $40 for a main, you should expect to get some pretty flash curries. Every vegetable curry that I've ever had has consisted of mushy or pureed vegetables - you get either yellow mush, light brown mush or dark brown mush - and ocasionally green mush.

They didn't disappoint on that front, presenting me with three individual bowls of crispy vegetable curries. One was curried beetroot, one was curried zucchini (I think) and the last was curried beans. Two of them were excellent, the third a bit flat.

What shat me though was the presentation. They came with "condiments", which consisted of the smallest possible spoonfulls of condiments that it's possible to put in a bowl. And I am talking about really small spoons and really small bowls. There was a yoghurt sauce, which was about one level teaspoon. There was some finely chopped mango with an artfully placed sliver of curled chilli on top. You know when you chop a mango in a hedgehog fashion? Well, think of one of the cubes of mango that results. Now cut that cube in half and throw away half of it. Now finely dice what remains - that's what I got.

The third condiment was finely grated coconut. Consider the amount of coconut required to cover your big toenail in a layer one shaving thick. That's about it.

The meal was fiddly to eat, sort of interesting, reasonably tasty - but not something that I would ever order again, or recommend to anyone else. The main problem is that I could not figure out how to eat it! The curry was in three bowls, the rice was on a platter, and I was not sure if I was supposed to put rice in the curry or curry in the rice or just eat them separately.

Parking was also a pain in the bum. For my money, it was trying way too hard. Waa-aay too hard.

Flu

I am going to be off the bike for a few days - came down with a nasty dose of the flu yesterday. Have been coughing up nasty green lumps of almost solid snot all morning - reminds me of the texture of wood putty or blu-tak.

So much for getting some more exercise. I am so stuffed, I can barely get off the couch.

The existance of Australia shows how adaptable we are

Should we be worried about climate change reshaping our environment?

I think not. So the environment might be a bit different in 50 years time. Oooooh, spooky. So what?

Farmers have always changed crops in response to market conditions. 30 years ago, most Australian farmers would have grown mainly wheat. Then along came other alternatives like canola (rape), and some diversified into growing that. Some moved into rice or cotton. Others moved from sheep to grapes. They adapted amazingly quickly. For some crops, it might just involve learning how to grow it (reading a pamphlet and hiring an advisor) and buying a new bit of machinery to attach to the existing tractor. If the climate changes, farmers will change what they grow. Or they'll move to a new area or get out of farming altogether. I know a few farmers that have done that. It happens all the time as a matter of course anyway.

The last major shift in cropping patterns was when horses gave way to tractors. I don't know the exact figures, but I think farmers used to grow about 30% oats - purely as horse feed. When they got a tractor, they stopped growing oats. That was a massive shift from one cereal crop to other crops. Happened in the blink of an eye really.

Consider a case of 18th century climate change - the First Fleet arriving in Sydney in 1788. It was a massive "climate change" for those on board, and they had to adapt to a totally alien environment - and quickly. If they didn't, they'd starve.

And that was back when "high tech" consisted of a good shovel and a horse.

The very fact that people with no knowledge of the new land, and extremely primitive tools by our standards, managed to make a go of it shows to me that humans are amazingly adaptable and can overcome any challenges thrown up by climate change.

Kevin, you are an economically illiterate idiot

Banks are threatening to raise mortgage rates regardless of what the Reserve announces tomorrow. Both Mr Swan and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, appealed to banks to consider the plight of working families.

"I would draw their attention to the fact that working families are already suffering a series of interest rate rises and are already under financial pressure," Mr Rudd said. Mr Swan said: "I would urge all of the banks to take great care and great consideration … a lot of people out there are in financial pressure."

A report card on economic growth also due tomorrow is likely to add to fears of interest rate rises. It is expected to show the economy grew a robust 4.8 per cent over the year.

As Homer would say - "Doh!"

You want to dampen inflation? You have to reduce demand. "Demand" is nothing more than spending by people and companies. In order to stop people spending so much, you have to take away some of their money.

You can do that via interest rates or tax increases.

Either way, "working families" are going to have less money in their pockets. It's the only way to make it work.

By the way, we are a "working family" and we are not suffering from high interest rates or financial stress.

Maybe he should redefine that term as "over-extended bogans with a new Crossman Ute and a new boat and a new extension on the McMansion". Working families that exercise a bit of restraint should have a reasonable cushion of financial fat that they've put aside to tide them over the inevitable economic hiccups.

Icecream continued

In my search for better icecream, I have just bought a 1 litre tub of fancy icecream - some sort of Sara Lee concoction I think. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

The 1 litre tub weighed in at 903 grams. The last time I examined high quality icecream, a 1 litre tub of fancy gellato tipped the scales at 888 grams. A fairly ordinary tub came in around the same weight - but for 2 litres.

So I now have the numbers on three different icecreams. Good quality stuff is nearly twice as dense as cheap stuff. Cheap stuff though costs about 60% by weight as the good stuff.

My head is spinning. The great gellato costs me $9. The good icecream costs $7.50. The dead ordinary stuff is around $5 a tub. Which one do I choose?

The one with the biggest tits.

Ha ha.

Poverty and useless bastards

Who are the poor?

I ask that question because I have been poor. I am no longer poor. I am not wealthy, but I am not 4 pay packets away from disaster. We are doing pretty well, thanks very much.

Poverty for me was an ephemeral phase between leaving home and getting my first real job. That is, I was a student, and I was dead broke for the better part of 5 years. Not that it stopped me from travelling to Europe at the end of my studies and spending a year arsing around over there.

By most definitions of poverty, I was poor. My cash income was two thirds of stuff all. According to these turkeys, the poverty line is 50% of median income. That's $281 per week for a single adult with no children. ACOSS reckons that 1 in 10 Australians are now living in poverty.

So what?

Most of us have been broke at one point or another in our lives. It happens. We over extend or don't save or decide to have leisure time rather than work or shit happens and we're broke.

The key question is how long that lasts. My poverty lasted five years, but I could have cut that down to three if I had bothered working hard and graduating in three years rather than five. The extra two years of living on the breadline was all my own fault.

I had the classic part time jobs. Stacked shelves in Coles from 10pm to 2am in the morning a few nights a week. Worked night shift in a video shop. Worked on a wheat bin during the Christmas break. Spent some time on farms digging ditches and chasing sheep and building rickety fences and all that. Joined the Army Reserve and spent at least a month a year in green earning some tax free readies. I always had a job, even if it only brought in $100 a week.

Then I graduated, worked through a series of jobs, improved my skills and experience, and now I'm pulling in a comfy income. I put a lot of my success down not to being smart, but by working fucking ridiculous hours and becoming the "go to" guy in every place I ever worked. "Want something done? Go to that guy. He'll get it sorted".

J was also technically poor when we hooked up, but you wouldn't have known it. She worked from home, and worked hard, and made enough to keep the family fed and shod. Not comfortable, but getting by without handouts.

I've concluded that we can screen people based on a simple four quadrant matrix like the old Boston Consulting Group thing that I studied at uni.


Let me start with stupid/active people. Most of the real estate agents, stockbrokers, car salesman - in fact salesmen of any type - generally fall into this quadrant. They are not too bright. Some are thick as custard, but they know how to present well, they absorb information like a sponge and can parrot lines like.... a well trained parrot. Those that work hard can become very rich. Brains is no indicator of success. They can be intensely dangerous though if they think they are smart, and then actively try and do something very dumb.

Then there are smart/lazy people. I know a few of them. They tend to be succesful because they are smart enough to know how to get other people to do all the work. They can be amazing managers. Some become complete cone heads, whiling away their days with their face in a bong, but they have the potential to do great things.

Then there are smart/active people. Pain in the arse for the most part if you ask me. Management consultants are the most obnoxious manifestation of this type. They can do well.

Then you have stupid/lazy people. Too thick to do anything useful, too bone idle to raise a sweat. Face it - these people will always be poor. Active people, no matter their IQ, will always manage to work their way out of poverty via the application of buckets of perspiration. Smart people will think their way out (ie, use their brains to extract wealth from the market). But stupid/lazy people are just a waste of space.

I don't understand how ACOSS plans to deal with the stupid/lazy types. For them, poverty can be endemic. They can win Lotto, and still manage to be back in a trailer home six months later. Their stupidity can know no bounds.

I suspect that most of the "1 in 10" that are supposedly poor are just going through a phase, like I did, as they move on to better things. I'd be happier if ACOSS determined just how many are long term poor (ie, more than 5 years) and also why they are poor. Blaming the government and asking for more welfare handouts is not an answer.

I suspect that of the 1 in 10 that are poor today, most will no longer be poor in 10 years time, and that will have nothing to do with the welfare system. Single mothers that are poor because they are trying to work part time and support kids will have met a new partner and their household income will be much higher. The toddlers will have grown up enough for Mum to work full time. Students will have graduated from working at McDonalds at weekends to being an accountant. Apprentices will be pulling in $100,000 as a plumber on a mine site.

Don't bother complaining to me that anyone under the age of say 23 is poor. Everyone should be poor at that age - you know nothing, have picked up few work skills and are not worth much to an employer. Of course you will be poor.

But give it a few years, and suddenly your income can take off as you become a more useful and thus more valuable employee. I only worry about people who are single, 30 and still poor. Something has gone wrong there.

Anyway, I wouldn't wipe my arse with an ACOSS report. Money grubbing, vested interest welfare ratbags.

Has wasabi lost its bite?

I was scoffing some sushi last week when I started to ponder the blob of green stuff in front of me. I love wasabi. When I get a blob of it at lunch, I finish most of it, and I'd knock the lot off if it wasn't for a dark, distant memory in the recesses of my mind regarding having my head blown off by wasabi.

The first time I tried it would have to be back in the late 1980's or early 1990's. I certainly know that I ate a lot of Japanese when in London in 1991 - it was much more popular there than it was in Perth at the time, and it was an expanding yet sophisticated cuisine. I remember having lunch quite often with a mate who was a fellow chilli afficionado, and we were both knocked over backwards by the wasabi on more than one occasion. It used to bring tears to my eyes and lots of snot to my nose.

Have my tastebuds turned to mush with old age, or have they been watering down the wasabi in the decade and a half since? Are we now eating wasabi-lite, and haven't noticed the heat slowly slipping away?

I tested this theory last week by simply eating a reasonable size blob of wasabi at lunch.

No effect.

None.

If you tried doing that 15 years ago, it would be thought a mad act similar to snorting Tabasco sauce. Nowadays, you can spread it on bread and eat it like jam.

What is going on? Would someone please explain.

Organisations and strategic planning

I bumped into a bloke that I know that did some work at RailCorp. We were talking about organisations that are good at strategic planning, and he made the following points.

For an organisation to be good at strategic planning, there is a basic premise that the place is organised. You can't say that about RailCorp. It is not an organisation. It is a mayhem. It is a Bedlam. It is a rabid pack of monkeys cast adrift from their tranquiliser darts.

No one knows what the real strategic plan is. There are plans on paper, but these are not the real plans. The real strategy is to react to the latest crisis and make it up on the spot. You could say that the paper that the plan is really written on is the editorial pages of the Daily Telegraph.

The bus is a good indicator of Kyoto seriousness

I am sick of being told that my car is killing the planet. Did a polar bear die today? Diddums. Skin it and ship it over so that it can take up residence on my lounge room floor.

If I am to persauded not to drive, what then is my alternative? I can walk to work, but it is a 9km trek that would take 105 minutes each way. I can easily walk that far in 90 minutes, but you need to add 15 minutes for traffic lights, dopey mothers with prams getting in your way etc etc. I have walked that kind of distance to and from work on a daily basis, but it does tend to take a chunk out of your day. Especially when the alternative is to drive it in 20 minutes.

Since we have no train line, and the ferries out this way are more crowded than live sheep carriers, the only alternative is the bus.

At present, the bus system is bulging at the seams. Our stupid masters in Macquarie St don't seem to have realised that the number of buses has to be increased year on year to cope just with population growth, let alone a shift in transport modes from the car to the bus. I think the idiot Minister for Transport has looked at the bus numbers for 2000 and decided that it would be fine to have the same number of buses today, even though there are about 10% more people living in Sydney.

The bus system as it stands today is completely incapable of dealing with a mode shift from cars of even 1 or 2%. In fact I wish some people would move back to their cars, and get their smelly armpits out of my face in the morning. I will start believing that politicians are serious about doing something useful about Kyoto when they pump a bit of money into extra buses. And trains. And ferries.

Until then, all talk about saving the planet is just a crock of shit. As they say, put your money where your mouth is.

Serious thunderstorm

In a fit of madness, I took some walking clothes into work today and caught a bus to Drummoyne instead of my regular Five Wog conveyance. I hopped out at the Iron Cove bridge and walked around The Bay.

A serious storm cell was blasting away on the opposite side to me - over towards Gladesville. The cell was zooming across in front of me from right to left - over on the left was clear blue sky, whilst just a few kilometres over the other way was sheets of lighting and thunder and all the other things that Thor does when he has a hangover.

That area is normally under the flightpath from Sydney airport, but I was watching planes doing some serious banking after taking off in order to go around the storm. When you can see all four engines on a Jumbo from side on, you know that it is banking pretty hard. They did not want to go through that storm.

Neither did I really, but it was a race between me on foot and the rain across The Bay.

The rain won.



I was about 1km from home when it started drizzling down. I was waiting for it to start pelting down monsoon-style, but it must have been a wimpy storm - all bark and no bite. That yellow blob in the middle of the screen was me.

The lightning was a complete classic though. You know how a lot of lightning is just "zz" and then BLAM!? Well, this stuff was on repeat. A strike would go "zzzz-zzzzzz-zzz-z--z---zzzz" for at least a second or more. It wasn't a brief flash in the pan. Haven't seen anything like that for a long time.

I did make a simple promise to myself to buy a new pair of Crocs. I have walked mine into the ground. Or, more correctly, I have walked mine until I can feel the ground through what is left of the sole. That might be fine for a shoe that is used in rock climbing, but it is not much chop for walking over broken rock and glass.

My legs are killing me now though. I used to walk up to 100km a week not that long ago, but I have gotten out of the habit in the last year or so. I only walked 4-5 km tonight, and I was only strolling and I feel like I have been hiking for days. Amazing how quickly your muscles can forget.

The Kingdom

Phew! Just finished watching it. Lots of thumbs up. Just love a good Michael Mann movie. Just wish he'd invest in a tripod for his camera.

One film I am going to own on DVD.

Am I becoming a neat freak?

Another victim just waiting for the tow truck. Interesting that the locals are now using it as a place to put their empty VB stubbies. In France, the locals would have filled the stubbies with petrol and used them to set the car on fire. Good to see we have nice, lazy drunks in this country.



We have a lot of electricity substations around our area. Every single one of them looks like this - covered in shit from top to bottom. I don't know what Energy Australia is spending their money on, but it isn't paint.



I am waiting for someone to tell me that this is "art".

Hello! Wake up Greenies! Time to do some work

I have blogged previously about finding Greens election posters still being stuck up outside our local schools.

Well, today I rode out to Concord and passed two more schools. Guess which are the only signs still up? Yes, it's the party of the hypocrites.



This is another school. If I had time, I would have ridden past every school in the area that was a polling booth, just to have a look.



Talk about "Do as I say, not as I do".

I wouldn't call this living

I passed this house today - a deceased estate that sold at auction. The house and yard was an utter shambles - peeling paint, a few windows boarded up, just a complete wreck.



The view from the back was even worse. Torn, faded and ragged curtains hanging in the windows. Plywood over a broken window. Back fence partly knocked down etc etc.



The block is over 500 square metres, which means that the land value is probably over $750,000. It amazes me that people will live in absolute squalor because they are unwilling to let go of the past, sell their house and move somewhere clean and liveable.

If I end up like this, just shoot me.

Goner

Ha! Busted, sucker! The rego on this clunker expired back in May, so I dobbed the car in this afternoon. More food for the crusher. There was another car with an expired rego just around the corner, but the locals didn't look too friendly, so I wasn't able to stop and grab a photo. It wouldn't surprise me, from looking



This is another potential victim. Couldn't find a rego sticker at all. Will have to go back and have a closer look later.



I hate unregistered cars because I dread the idea of people driving around without insurance. I was lucky when I was hit by a car - the driver had insurance, and I was on my way home, so I was covered by workers comp anyway. But if I get hit on a Sunday morning, the only person I can claim my medical bills etc from is the other driver, and if he isn't insured, I am up shit creek.

So I look for them and I photograph them and I dob them in, and I do it with a passion.

I also reckon that if you drive without valid registration, you probably drive like a fucking idiot too. I got hit by a "nice" driver at low speed. Hate to think what it would be like to be hit by a speeding idiot - especially one that didn't bother to stop.

Darwin award, coming right up

There must be an epidemic of micro-penis syndrome around here. Maybe all the mums were dosed up with something like Thalydomide 20 years ago, and instead of having stumpy arms, the kids were born with stumpy little dicks.

Like Mr Xcessiv here. What sort of fucking idiot of a parent thinks it is ok for junior to drive a car with a spoiler not much smaller than the tail fin of an F-111? And a Lancer no less - a complete road rocket.

I see something like this and think that the next thing Mum is going to be buying is a bunch of flowers to tape to the power pole that idiot son just wrapped his car around. You can afford to buy a car, but you can't buy common sense.



A more sensible car, but what were they thinking with the number plate? Edible?

How to depress your property values

Here is the entrance to "Pelican Quays". It's a fancy housing development near the water.



This is what you see as you drive out the gate. I reckon every real estate agent must tear their hair out when they go to show an apartment and the potential buyer sees this on the way in and out.

Unless the place has a back entrance. I'd be dark if I was taken in the back, bought the place, and then saw this the first time I drove out after moving in.

Sunday cruise

My new found ability to ride has not translated into any profound resolutions regarding getting up early and riding hard in the coolth of the day. Rather, I slept in until around 9, then didn't get in the saddle until about 1. Not that it mattered much - the day was balmy rather than hot, so I could ride without being fried.

On my previous rides to Homebush and beyond, I have noticed what appears to be a bike path branching off from Lyons Rd near the golf course. I took a punt today, gave myself over to The Force and went where the track led me.

It started by meeting this canal, which soon emptied out into The Bay. The path then followed the edge of The Bay right around to a boat ramp/picnic area at the far end. The path wasn't long - maybe not even a kilometre, but it was a lovely spot to ride along. The view off to the right was marvelous.



When the path finished, I decided to stooge around in suburbia to see how the other half lives. I love looking at the contents of other peoples shopping trolleys when I am in the supermarket, and I also love looking at houses. I don't covet them or particularly like a lot of them - I am just fascinated by the human condition.

Take this place for instance - who puts a bloody concrete angel out the front on their letterbox? That's just wierd.



I took a photo from here to show two things. The first is the Bushells factory in the background - that pointy thing is their smoke stack. (Given that stacks are not allowed to smoke anymore, what do we call them these days?)

The second was to show the houses. These are what I would call McMansions version 1. That is, they are big houses built in the inner suburbs. McMansions version II are all being built much further out, partly because Councils have a fit when you propose these in an older suburb these days, and partly because the land costs so much (in my opinion). You can see a whole swag of 1980's vintage McMansions in this street.



Then there was this two door "sports" car, with P plate, sitting in the driveway. It isn't very obvious in the photo, but the front has been smashed up and re-touched. Sheesh, buy your kid a fanged-up hoon-mobile and then wonder why it gets carted home hanging off the back of a tow truck. When the kids are old enough to own a car, they are not going to be allowed to buy anything speedier than a cement mixer.

Terrible toilet

I don't normally go to parties and take a photo of the host's toilet, but in this instance, I felt compelled to tell the world about the awful toilets being installed in this new development at Homebush.



The thing that I hate about it is that it's about 3 or 4 inches lower to the floor than a normal toilet. Crapper got it right back in the 1800's with his toilet, and every toilet manufactured up to about 1998 kept to the height that he set, and life was good.

Then some stupid designer decided to come out with a model that was lower to the ground - like a sports car perhaps? Is this thing designed for speed crapping? Is it supposed to lower "wind" resistance?

Maybe it uses fewer resources to produce - just thing how green it is. A toilet that required 20% less clay to manufacture (as if the world is running short of clay).

I hate it. When I sit, I want to sit upright. I don't want to be hunched over like Ghandi. If I want to have an uncomfortable crap, I'll go and crap under a tree somewhere. Us westerners have put an awful lot of money and effort into producing the best sewerage systems on the planet, and then some adle-brained goose goes and wrecks it.

"What did you do to toilet design today dear?"

"Rectum".

These people are going to hate me

This photo shows a dead end street that almost runs into Parramatta Road. To the right of this shot there is a car yard. The cars that you see quadruple parked in the street belong to the car yard.

I wrote to the Council recently and had a whinge about this practice. The Council is now going to make this end of the street no parking.



I wouldn't mind them parking like this, except that they often park on the footpath and block anyone trying to get past. My reasoning is that they brought it upon themselves. They overreached and got cheeky, and now they are going to suffer.

Besides, why should they be using public space to run a private business? If they are short of room on their lot, they should rent a bigger one. I don't think the state should be supporting business in any way, including providing free land in an area where it costs millions of dollars per acre.

Some parking inspector is going to have a field day here when the first no parking sign goes up.

Creepy crawlies

I don't mind spiders - as long as they stay out of the shower. We have plenty of them in the backyard, but they don't seem to be doing a very good job of catching flies. Even though I have a fly trap in the backyard, we are still over run with flies. I have cans of flyspray strategically scattered around the house so that I can blast them whenever I see them.

I would be happier if this spider was a lot fatter. That would indicate a certain proficiency in catching flies. All my spiders look distressingly skinny. Anyone know where I can get some skilled spiders?

Museum of old rubbish

I always hear companies bleating about how they are running out of space, and need to find new offices to handle the expansion blah blah blah.

At several points in my working life, I have taken over an operation from someone else and found that the first order of business was to take a massive load of rubbish to the tip. Some people make pack rats look good. They hoard everything in sight in the belief that it just might be useful at some point in the future.

Take this software. Cheyenne as a company ceased to exist about a decade ago. This manual is for a version of the software that was superceded back in about 1995. Netware as an operating system is now as dead as flared trousers. Why keep a manual for backup software that we no longer use, and for an operating system that is also not in production anymore?



Anyone remember what these things are? I found a drawer full of them.



And then there was this beauty - a 14.4k modem. I also found a 9.6k modem, and a 2400 baud modem.



These three photos just show a few items that were on top of the pile of junk. I found enough junk to fill a car trailer several times over.

Before any manager agrees to rent a new office block, the first thing he should do is go through every office in the existing premises and enforce a good clean out. I also found stuff belonging to people that have clearly left the company - cupboards full of it. All it takes is someone to step up to the plate and say "Enough! This crap has got to go!"

But not before I get some photos of it first.

Welfare reform

What causes poverty?

According to the Spectator, William Galston identified three steps to escaping pverty:

1. finish school
2. marry before having children
3. avoid teenage pregnancy

Among those that did all three, only 8% were poor.

Of those that did none, 79% were poor.

"What counts is people's own life choices and behaviour."

Too right. Throwing money at people will not end poverty. We can do one of two things:

• We can accept that some people will never change their behaviour, and thus will always be poor, and there is nothing that we can do about it, except give them enough welfare to allow them a comfortable subsistence level of consumption, or
• We can accept that the only way to end poverty is to force people to change their behaviour, and they will lift themselves up of their own accord.

Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck in some wishy-washy in between situation where we can't accept that some percentage of the population will always be losers, no matter what, and where some people think that behaviour modification is nasty medicine, and should not be used.

Me - I'd just sift everyone on welfare into one of two categories; the completely fucked and the salvageable. The CF's would be parked somewhere out on the fringe where they could idly waste their life away without bothering anyone else, and the salvageable would be put through boot camp and have the blow torch applied to drive self improvement.

There is no point in applying the blowtorch to the CF's - it's a waste of your time and it just annoys them. There's also no point in leaving the salvageable to wallow around in a sink of self pity - they need a good boot in the arse and a bit of a helping hand and they'll take it from there.

Politically impossible of course, but it explains why welfare as we know it will never end poverty. And neither will more money.

Stupid statements of the week

I spotted two statements in our local fish wrap this week that got my blood up.

First was from a George Toubia, who voted Labor. "Number 1, in life you need change. Number two, I lost my job with Telstra because of work reform."

What a goose. First, he wants change (at a Federal level), and then complains that he lost his job because of change! Does anyone else fail to see the disconnect between the two?

The other thing that annoyed me is that he probably got a huge payout from Telstra when he was made redundant. George looks to be in his late 50's, so he probably walked with hundreds of thousands of dollars. I hate people that get a huge payout and then whinge about it.

Second statement was from Abdel Ayass, who voted Green. "We should live in a society, not an economy".

What the hell does that mean? Did the Liberals some how spend the last 11 years passing legislation to ban "society"? Society is something that we create at the micro level, not something that the government conjures up out of thin air. Does he think that if we have a Department of Society, one will magically be created?

Goose.

Tax cuts vs services

I saw a few stickers during the election campaign that said something like "Services, not tax cuts".

What a stupid thing to say.

It implies that only the state can provide the services that people need. What bollocks. I can buy all the services I need from the private sector if need be. I don't need the state telling me what I should have and where I should get it and when I can have it. In that model, we become supplicants to the state - "Please sir, can I have some more?" The consumer is not king - the consumer is a serf.

I fail to see why tax cuts, which will put more money into my pocket, will somehow reduce or limit the services that I require. If I have more money, I can buy more of the services that I need. I know what I need and what I value most - I can prioritise my services spending better than any joker in an office somewhere.

The thing I detest about this argument is that you have one side wrapping themselves in a cloat of pious goodness, when what they are really saying is "We will decide what services you get, and the manner in which you get them". ie, command and control.

Bugger that. Bugger you. Give me the cash and let me decide. You pompous, fat-headed monkey-sucking, snot brains.

Un-confidential

It's amazing what you can find by just walking down the street. This was lying on the footpath this afternoon. It has either been dropped or discarded by a littering plod, or they are not shredding their confidential waste (as they should).

Naughty, naughty.

Does my penis look small in this?

Yes. Sell the wheels and buy something that doesn't scream "micro-penis".

The purging has begun..

I'm afraid it's time to lock up your beer fridges. Or throw away your subsciption to New Scientist.



The alternative explanation is that KMart are selling nice new beer fridges starting at $149. I am hoping that this discarded model on the footpath is simply making way for a newer, colder model of beer chiller.

Heritage

I'm not big on heritage orders. Most of the time, I think they are a crock.

I had my mind half-changed today. I rode through Haberfield, which is heritage listed from one end of the suburb to the other. Most of the streets are an absolute delight to behold - row upon row of genuine, untouched 1920's houses. It's like riding through a green and leafy museum.

The driver behind heritage listing the entire suburb was monstrosities like this:



They replaced things like this:



Personally, I love old houses. I find McMansions to be sterile and boring and as uninteresting as dog vomit. But that's just my opinion. Clearly, lots of other people love them because they are knocking down poky old houses and building flash new McMansions in their stead. People like roofs that don't leak, windows that don't rattle in the wind, floorboards that don't creak, walls that stay un-damp and rooms that are large enough to swing a large cat in. They like kitchens that are not the size of a galley kitchen on an ocean racing yacht, and having more than one toilet - and preferably having that toilet inside. They like ducted air conditioning and heating and they hate finding that termites have eaten half the foundations.

Reliability and liveability will always trump "interesting". Except for dingbats like me.

My take on all this is that if people want to know down an old but interesting house and build a golgothian monstrosity, that's their business. It's their property, not mine. I might regret the passing of that old house, but if I want to keep it that badly, I'll knock on the door and make the owner an offer he can't refuse. The only just way to stop someone from building an eyesore is to buy them out and let them build it further out in one of the new suburbs that are eyesores from end to end.

I detest the idea of planning and zoning and all the other crap that is really just a matter of the taste of a few over riding the preferences of everyone else. Who am I to judge if a building is ugly? Hell, look back at the fashions for clothing and hair for the 1970's and 1980's. Fashion and style are ephemeral things. I don't see why we should allow people (ie, Councils) to dictate what is essentially fashion for housing. What are they - catwalk queens?

If I think a house is ugly, I'll sort it out the old fashioned way. Buy a 66mm rocket launcher from a corrupt Army officer and put an HE round through the front door. Neighbours should after all have some say in the matter.

A pile of valuable bricks

The house that once adorned this block is no more. It became no more at least a month ago. I remember riding past when the wreckers were there, and thinking, "I should get a photo of that".

Ah well.

I was interested to see today that they've turned the house into a large pile of bricks. I was also a bit surprised to see the bricks sitting out in the open - they're worth $1 a brick if they are old, handmade bricks. I can just see some unscrupulous bastard turning up with a truck and taking off with $20,000 worth of recycled bricks.



Which is why law abiding people should be legally allowed to plant minefields on the property.

What sort of prick throws these out?

It's a cactus. Get it?



Funnily enough, there are no pricks in here. The owner, possibly terrified of being sued, has removed every prickly thing off every cactus thingy.

Can I learn to be a better writer?

Here is a photo of the entrance to the NSW Writers Centre.



It's in Callan Park, which is in Rozelle, and Callan Park is a former loony bin. Parts of it might still be a loony bin - I'm not sure. I always push the pedals down a bit harder when I go past, just in case someone in wee-stained tracksuit pants tries to accost me for a chat.

Why do we need a Writers Centre at all? Why does someone feel the need to take money from the taxpayer and spend it on this? Are good writers made or born?

I know that I write better when I'm drunk. I also write superbly when I am with drunken mates. At least I think I write superbly when I'm hammered. But if I do, I would not be the first writer to find a bit of extra muse in the bottom of a bottle. Steven Fry wrote the other day of the problems that he had with writing when he gave up smoking.

Perhaps we'd be better off just moving the Writers Centre into a pub across the road. I think that would result in money well spent. I don't see a problem with it - we're already pissing a lot of money up against the wall in this worthless venture. Why not take the money to the pub and literally piss it up against a wall?

Is this like LiveAid?

Basket weavers spreading outside Balmain

Today was Orange Grove Market Day. Orange Grove is in Rozelle, and Rozelle is the suburb next to Balmain. I'm not sure where Balmain ends and Rozelle begins, but it appears that Balmain is leaking at the edges.

I first went to this market about two years ago. I have not been back since. The stuff that was on offer back then was hideous - one step up from a flea market outside a rubbish dump. Something has changed radically since then - you are now looking at the David Jones of markets.

As usual, the place was overrun with organic produce stalls. I feel like running a non-organic stall one week, with the prices on my stuff half that of the others - just to annoy them. I have no problem with buying expensive stuff. I just want to get value for money, and for me, that means buying stuff that is more tasty than your typically blandish supermarket cardboard food. If organic is tasty, I'll buy it. I've tried it, in my quest for better taste, and so far organic has been a damp squib.

But enough of that. There were better things to see.



How's this for a posh bacon and egg roll vendor? "Honey and port cured bacon and egg rolls". You can't go past that. Well, ok, I went past it. I couldn't face eating a bacon and egg roll and then riding up and down the hills on the way home. A gutter somewhere would be splattered with honey and port cured bacon and egg chunder.

You've gotta love the enterprise of the people that run this stall. Talk about market differentiation. I have seen a lot of bacon and egg roll stalls at markets, but this one will always stick out from now on. It stands together with the stall at the North Sydney markets that does a bacon and egg roll with an excellent tomato and chilli jam.

Oh, and by the way, there was no chance of offending any Muslims. These markets were about as uniformly Anglo-Saxon as you can get. Even Eton is more multi-racial than these markets. I've said before that when you go to the Flemington Markets, you'd faint if you saw a blonde person. Well, at these markets, I was the only non-blonde person there. I thought I was in Norway for a while.



And here are the baskets. I don't know if they were woven in Balmain or not, but given that Balmain is just up the road, I couldn't resist snapping a photo.

I think the mist on the left of the photo is from that woman farting.

Take your shit with you

So which parties spent most of October and November telling us how clean and green they were? Yes, the Labor parth and the Greens.

And which parties still have their crap posted up all over our local power poles?

Yep, you guessed correctly.




I love the name of this street - "Fredbert St".

I also think the sign below is a classic. Yes Anthony, the Labor party has done a merge to the right. How appropriate.



The bloody greens - spoiling the view of this lovely tree with their stupid sign. Fucking hypocrites.

The end of the old brown couch

Anyone that has read "He died with a felafel in his hand" will know the importance of the brown couch. It seems that some people don't treat their brown couches with the reverance that they are due. Our six monthly rubbish collection is underway at the moment, and the couches are popping up like mushrooms. Is this a sign that the residents are casting off their youthful, drug fueled indiscretions and finally growing up?

Or, judging by the number of prams, strollers and pregnant women in the neighbourhood, they might have decided to blow the baby bonus on some new furniture.

OK, this is not a brown couch, but I can see it being collected by some students or junkies and turned into the equivalent of the famous brown couch.

Hell, given the way that dirty, filthy hippies live, they'll have stained it brown in no time flat. I think you'll find that very few brown couches are sold in Australia - the ones that you see started life as a different colour, but have changed colour as hippy external surfaces have rubbed off on them.

If I owned these couches, I wouldn't want the neighbours to know that I had such bad taste. I would have dumped them at least a block away in front of someone elses house. And then set them on fire.



A classic example of the brown couch. In leather too.



So this one is not exactly brown either. However, it fits the ideal of a brown couch. It is ugly, and possibly comfortable. My camera went all misty-eyed just thinking about all the things this couch must have seen in its long and prosperous life.



Yes, another non-brown couch. At least it is brown. I got home and showed this photo to J, and was immediately ordered out of the house in order to go collect it. The scavengers got there first. Our loss, their gain. I think.

Rowing contraption

Back when I was rowing, which was a few years after the end of the last ice age, we didn't have infernal contraptions like this to help us get the boats out of the water. We simply pulled up in about a foot of water, hopped out, lifted it up, flipped it over and then marched it inside carrying it at shoulder height.

And that was back when the boats and innards were made out of wood, not the magic kind of lightweight stuff that they use these days.

Wimps.

And blow me down if I didn't see some rowers wearing gloves recently. When I was a rower, gloves were for girls, and even then most of them rowed bare handed. Real men put up with blisters.

This generation - soft as blanc-mange.

The sweet sound of overtime

I passed this lot around 7.30am this morning. Why, oh why does the Council think it necessary to do some drainage works on a Saturday? It's not like this road is a 4 lane freeway, and that blocking half a lane on a weekday will cause traffic to snarl up all the way to the Blue Mountains.

The workers all looked happy as Larry. You would too on time and a half.

Say hello to some people chewing through your rates.

Damn. Council beat me to it.

There I was, riding along this morning when I thought "Aha, another victim". Nothing like a car without a license plate.

Unfortunately, Council had beaten me to it. There was an orange sticker on the front seat that had obviously been removed from the windscreen. It was one of those "Get this fixed within 30 days, or it is gone" stickers.

I did wonder though whether the numb-nut owner thought that just peeling off and hiding the sticker would stop the Council towing the vehicle. They've registered the car and the location in a database and will be back in 30 days with a tow truck. Taking off the sticker won't do a lick of good.

Some people have less brains than a seagull.