The Nightly Whingefest

Thank the lordy do dah day (I love that expression, one of my old aunts used to say it, and it reminds me of her) that the nightly whinge fest from business has finished. I am always surprised that Australian’s have a genuine concern for business and how it is going to cope in any particular situation, when all business does to us is obscuration and con us with their sales tactics and products, conspire to keep our wages from rising, or actually cut penalty rates. Business does not have our best interests at heart. (a bit like our terrible Prime Minister, what an embarrassment he is to us) They lie to us and try to cheat us. I’m not sure why we have business’ best interests at heart?

Why do Australians have a genuine concern for business in this country? simple answer, they have been conned.

Too many successive conservative capitalist governments who have brainwashed us into believing businesses counts over everything else... because Australian governments get donations from business to push business interests ahead of the general population.

I'm glad we have opened up specifically for that reason, no more whinging on the nightly news.

“We need a pathway out.”

“We need a plan.”

“We aren’t going to survive.”

It’s all about us.

I need a new Bentley.

I need a bigger boat.

Workers are our biggest expense.

Screw the workers over…

… it has to be done.

Pass the costs on.

We’re not wearing the increased costs.

Margins, margins, margins…

Me, me, me…

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

 

Ah, pretty, don't you think. An ecosystem in miniature, what do you think? Imagine shrinking down and disappearing into that. Imagine that?

Or Maybe I Just Need Bigger Ears?

You know one good thing about coming out of lockdown, and the general relaxing of the rules, is when I got for my morning walk, I no longer have glasses, and headphones, and a mask around my ears.

I use bone conduction headphones so the strings of the mask got hooked around the headphones and the arms of my glasses at the same time. Grrr! In a tangle, right where I couldn’t see any of it. Grrr!

Too many things hooked around my ears and I was forever catching my glasses as they plummeted down. I developed a good right hook, it is true, but it is much easier now without that damn mask hanging around my face.

And I was pro mask, don’t get me wrong, but it is so much easier now we don’t have to wear them.

I guess it says something about us, that we can't be as bad as our actions suggest, when the sweetest guys on the planet love us so.

 

On my morning walk, there was this Lilly just having bloomed. 

Lovely isn't it.

Don't you think it looks like it is made out of kitchen towel?

Scott Morrison is a Liar

Morrison doesn't seem to have any qualms about looking like a liar on the world stage. He is talking shit to people who know he is talking shit, and he appears to be doing it for his domestic political aspirations, which is parochial and unstatesmanlike.

He really does seem to be a shameless liar.

Rob Died

A Friend of mine who has been battling cancer going on a couple of years died this morning. It just seemed like the universe got this one wrong, as Rob was a lovely guy, happy, friendly, nice, everyone loved him. He had a positive attitude to life, he was always up beat. He just didn’t seem like the guy who should’ve died of cancer, he should’ve been allowed to keep on giving. We need more people like him, not less.

The universe should’ve taken me, I’m a miserable old curmudgeon. Funny, when I told that to Mark, he quietly said, no I don’t agree. You gotta love ex-boyfriends.

Not that I’m offering to take his place, or anything, you understand, I just think the universe could’ve picked better.

Rob and his boyfriend, Matt, just got married a week ago. I assumed there was gonna be some family trouble with Rob’s will upon his death, but that might just be cynical old me. Why else would you get married? A week before you die. What’s the point? I ask you? But then I don’t really get the whole marriage thing as we all know.

You know, a year, or so ago, Rob could have passed for 35, with his blonde hair and good looks, recently he’s looked 75. So quickly. He has a great life, a job he loves, plenty of money, and a boyfriend he loves, and who loves him. He lived a healthy life, he exercised, he didn’t drink, or smoke. He did everything right. It just seems so unfair.

You know, to all those space cadets out there who say everything happens for a reason, okay, what is it? It doesn’t. Life is random. And you only get one shot at it. There is nothing after this. When your time is up, it is up. There is no reason for it.

Sunday

Breakfast - oats, banana, sultanas, honey and cows milk (I feel like you have to differentiate now a days) 

Then its cleaning day. It's Sunday morning, what are you thinking, it is time to clean the house. Sam's orders. You know, it is probably good, as I don't tend to clean until I see the tumble weeds blowing through the house.

Then it is time to take the dogs down to the river to let them run free with all the other dogs running free down the river. First Sunday out of lock down, I guess, half the city will be down the river running free. (a few hours later, it was really quiet down the river, it is a long weekend, the first after lockdown, people must have left the city)

The sun is shining, it is a lovely day. I've been out in the garden drinking coffee. Oh, I could lazy away the day from my position on the back veranda.

Still, there are things to be done.

Haircut

I got a haircut, we got a haircut, after 3 months, we needed haircuts. I had longer hair than I have had in I don't know how long. 

We didn't eat breakfast, just coffee, it was the first Saturday out of lockdown and we wanted to get to the hairdresser early.

There was a queue at the hairdresser, even at 9.30am Saturday morning. I sat down in the chair and shuddered when I looked at myself in the mirror. I mean, I have looked at myself in the mirror in the last 3 moths, but that mirror at the hairdresser is so close up and in your face. 

And now it's done. My neck felt cold all day, kind of good cold, pleased to have a cold neck good. I keep rubbing my hand through my hair, it always feels good after a haircut, and it has been a long time since I could do that. 3 months. Funny the things you miss.

We ate Yum Cha afterwards , where there was a surcharge for weekends , and a surcharge for paying by card, ah, the brand new world.

MacBook Pro

The new MacBook Pro has been released. Finally, it looks as though they have fixed the problems that affected the old model. Sadly, I bought the previous dud model, the 2016/2017 MacBook Pro, with the faulty keyboard and the dud screen, both of which I have had repaired. The keyboard three times, not at my expense, and the screen has been replaced, for which I had to pay.

So, what do I do now? Do I buy the new model, because I still have the shit keyboard, it has only been replaced 3 times with new versions of the same crap keyboard. Does buying a new one kind of reward Apple for selling a shit laptop at a premium price?

So, while I haven't had to pay for any of the three keyboards - the current keyboard is starting to show all the problems of the previous three - I did have to pay for the new screen, a known fault with the model I have, which cost me over $1000, which made my dud MacBook Pro even more expensive than the premium price I initially paid for it.

So, what do I do?

Sunrise this morning. I was up early and I nearly missed it, but I just caught sight of the glow beyond my lounge room window at the last minute. So, I headed out to the bakery with my camera, except I wasn't getting bread, and I only had Explorer socks on and no shoes, so I don't know what people thought, except there was nobody else around, so nobody thought anything, it was only 6am in the morning, after all.

Cute jogger in the park. I was taking photos of flowers and he jogged by and I had my camera out, so... those black shorts fitted him well.

There has to be a level below which no one in society is allowed to fall below. It is the government's role to provide the income to individuals if they can't provide it themselves. That is the minimum a fair and equitable society can provide. In a rich country like Australia, nobody should live in poverty.

There is this new sign in the park, and each time I have been walking I laugh as there is always people walking passed it with their unleashed dogs.

Parks are for dogs running free and people riding bikes, surely. You can't always legislate down to the stupidest person in society, there must be a 'normal person' model that we can all follow. If you keep dumbing it down, surely we all become stupid?

There Is Something Special About Doorways

 

The shops will be open soon. Lock down is nearly over. All the politicians are facing re-election. Have you noticed that all the politicians are now willing to trade away lives for business, those political donations sure come in handy, hey.

The glorious structure of trees. I see hexagons, multiple hexagons. Isn't that the shape of plants cells?

Words to Live By

Recently, David sent me a message telling me he'd watched the last episode of Clickbait, he said it was awesome!

I messaged him back saying, The Grand Canyon, or looking back at earth from space is awesome.

It's a shame to see words such as awesome down graded.

 

Sunrise this morning, as I headed to the bakery to get still warm bread

"A spelt loaf, please."

They encourage us to use cards, and to move away from cash, but on a $8 loaf of bread, they charge me a 64 cent service fee using a card.

So, apart from anything else, every 12.5 loaves I'd get one for free if I used cash.

Still, the sky was glorious.

Hallelujah!

I went through all of my hand written journals to discover there is still about 5 that I have to type up. Momentarily, I wondered about consulting something like AirTasker to find a typist, but that would mean giving them to someone else, which could be fraught in itself, but it would also mean letting them out of my sight.

Years ago I tried dictation software and it was garbage. As we were taking Bud and Brun for a walk yesterday, I casually mentioned this to Sam. "Do you think diction software has been perfected yet?"

"What do you mean?" asks Sam.

"Well, I used it years ago and it was no good, I just wonder if it would be any better now?"

"What?" (as vague as you fucken like)

"What do you think?"

"Isn't the Apple dictation function any good."

"What Apple dictation function?"

"On your phone," Sam says. "In fact, I think you can activate it on any application."

"What?"

"Yeah," he says.

"Yes? What? What are you talking about?"

So, to cut a long story short, Apple has dictation software and it works really well. It has taken me three weeks to type up one hand written journal. Last night, (albeit, a much smaller travel journal I took to San Francisco) I dictate a whole journal in hours.

Today, I am racing through one of the big ones. And now, a task that seemed unmanageable just days ago, may well get completed in weeks.

(Yes, I am supposed to be working today. You've got to love working from home. Fuck it, I stared early)

 

Still in lockdown, but at least the sun is shining.

I kind of like lockdown, the world is quiet and peaceful. But it is about to end. Would it be too much to 😟