It appears the ‘leanest election ever’ is still allowing for both Libs and Labor to still find ways of paying us for our vote.  We’ve had to say goodbye to an outright bogan lottery this time, because handing out random, one-off payments to various low socio-economic groups will be labelled as financial mis-management, no matter which team does it. So of course they’ve had to find less obvious ways, and tax rebates is again turning out to be the most popular.
This time, it’s the Education Tax Rebate. Also known as …

I just had a phonecall from Telstra, who were ringing to let me know I have a new account manager (whatever that is) and to ask if I was happy with my current plan and service from them.
Kind of a loaded question really. Should I mention that last year they accidentally removed the ADSL code from my line, resulting in three weeks without internet, because they couldn’t work out what was wrong, and the person who could fix it didn’t speak directly to customers or to the Telstra staff who …

I ducked into the supermarket today to quickly grab a few items I needed for Christmas baking. My plans for a quick dash in, down two aisles and back to the checkout were thwarted, however, by a pair of septuagenarians, one pushing a walker and one a trolley, who would stop every four paces in what could only be described as a two person jack-knife as, bent in towards each other, they would closely scan their shopping list and then the shelves next to them. Four paces, repeat.
I was still deliberating over whether …

It was my turn to hit the video store for the weekend movie afternoon and evening (something for the kids, something for the adults). The duck had mentioned that he had never seen the Warren Beatty/Madonna movie Dick Tracy, so I found that and then attempted to get the whole five-weeklies-for-a-fiver with the same first letter, but it turned out harder to find five rentable movies starting with the letter D so after Dick Tracy and Duchess I had to step to the left and work through the letter C …

In my attempts to be less of a consumer, I don’t layby.  There is not a product on the planet that I absolutely must have, must reserve the right to own despite not being able to afford it. I eschew toy sales and the craziness of packing away more toys than my children will ever play with, based on the notion that they are somehow cheaper in the middle of the year than they will be anywhere in the next six months leading up to Christmas.
I’ve been known to ridicule …

The chaosduck read this post from IMDb (Internet Movie Database) to me the other night, and I thought he was making it up (because history tells me not to trust) so I had to check it out for myself.
He had been looking up an actor from the movie Office Space, which is one of my all time favourite films. I think anyone who has ever worked in a cube farm and suffered the confusing bureaucracy of having at least two bosses at any given time should see this movie, if …

I found myself standing at the counter in the general store this afternoon, wondering why the guy was looking at me a bit funny. Finally I realised it was because I was absent-mindedly turning a specimen jar over in my hands.
“Oh,” I said, glancing at the jar and then shoving it quickly into my bag. “That was for the jelly beans.”
I realised halfway home, of course, that I probably should’ve explained that ‘jelly beans’ wasn’t a euphemism for anything, and that the nurse gave Charlotte a jar of beans after her immunisations, …

I think the only thing funnier than a sad, obviously single, young man sitting in his bedroom at night recording pixels having sex and posting it on YouTube so other sad, single pubescents can snigger over it, is having your mother interrupting the recording to insist you go to bed because you have work in the morning.  And then continue to film and post clip complete with maternal harassment voiceover.
watch?v=COCAdNN_U14
(Maternus interruptus happens around 2:10)

As I was unbreaking the blog and uploading content from as far, far away as 2006, I came across a post about Banned Book Week.
It reminded me that the American Library Association has just celebrated another BBW, to remind us all of the importance of intellectual freedom even if we sometimes find the content unsavoury.  It’s ironic (in an Alanis sort of way) that we live in an age and culture that is more open and has more access to media and each other’s thoughts than ever before, and yet …

We bought a new tallboy. It’s been 10 years; it’s time. Actually, even ‘bought’ is a bit of a stretch; my parents gave us a mobile wardrobe thing when we were first married as the flat we moved in had no cupboards, and several years later a friend gave us an old dressing table with a piddly 4 drawers in which to pack our unmentionables.  It was a cool piece but needed restoration, a task of which I completed sanding one drawer before I gave it to my sister when …