Vote!

The ever-sage Ms Wanderatlarge said to me years ago that given the impact the political leaders of the US have on the rest of the world, we should all be given a vote. How true.

I can't offer you an opportunity to exercise any kind of actual democracy today, merely a chance to make-believe. Act it out at Who Would The World Elect.

I will note with a hint of irritation that the site implied that I am a liar: when I first arrived it said that based on my IP address I'm in Japan (makes me wonder about the competance of their techs, frankly). Further into the site there is a page with a button saying See who is cheating when giving us their TRUE country and OTHER results. There follows the results if the votes of we who claim to be elsewhere are eliminated. Why would you need to do that? Why is that important, anyway? Why on earth would they think I'm in Japan? Meh. Not worth getting exercised over, I'm sure. Happy "voting".

Suburban Safari Turns Four

The 6th of this month marked four years since I started Suburban Safari. During that time I've recorded the lead up to my overseas trip, the travels themselves, the aftermath of my return, the coming together with Lofty, the growth of the belly, the death of my mother, the birth of the twins, the death of Josie, many house moves, several reunions with old friends, the birth of several friends' babies, a couple of weddings... so much. When I first began I was bitching about John Howard (John who?) getting elected again. I've written about the deaths of John Hinde, Big Kev, James Brown. I've met Tim and Cheryl and Mike through this thing, and several others through them.

I had no ambitions forthis blog when I began other than a way of communicating while I was away; I'm so glad I can browse back through these last four years at my leisure. It's been quite a ride.

Found

On my way to the bus after work today I found this:



Aside from being rather amusing on its own, it was lying on the grass beneath this wall:



I sent the sticker in to Found Magazine.

Excel for Good

I've long had a fractious relationship with Excel. I can see its potential, but I've never really learned it, so struggle on the rare occasion I need to do anything with it. At those times I hate it. Perhaps if I had enrolled in an evening course for Excel beginners I might have learned to make music videos, like this Acker Dacker one.




It claims to be the world's first music video in an Excel spreadsheet. Who am I to argue? It's not wildly amazing, but unusual enough to engage for a few minutes. It's still probably the most entertainment I've had staring at a freakin' spreadsheet.

Boing Boing

I've been meaning to put a link to Boing Boing for ages now, but given that I haven't written a note to remind me to do it, it's still nought but an intention.

If you aren't familiar with Boing Boing set about rectifying that this instant. As the logo states, it's a directory of wonderful things. Actually, I'd take issue with that: it's not all wonderful, but it is all extremely interesting, for the most part. It's unusual that I find a site (or book, or show, etc) that caters for so many of my diverse tastes. Boing Boing is pretty much as close as it gets, off the top of my head.

If you need some convincing, here is a selection of posts that have caught my attention over that past day or two:

• video of Korean acrobats jumping really high on a see-saw
• John Hodgman (a man in my pantheon of low-level crushes): A brief digression on matters of lost time

• Pamphlet review of 1948's "Behind the Lace Curtains of the YWCA" written by Joseph P. Kamp, an uncle of Jon Voight and a great uncle of Angelina Jolie. Scroll all the way down to see the insane cover.

• Obelisks of Erotic Gratification from 1930s Gernsback magazine, Sexology (The illustration here alone is worth the visit)

See? What's not to love?

Housing Update

Cake du jour: the Zézette Special Fruitcake, but with only 850g fruit, and with three heaped tablespoons of Dutch cocoa and 150g hazelnut meal. It's not quite as good as I imagined it would be. Next time I'll soak the fruit in something (rum, possibly) and lose the citrus peel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I shocked many of you recently with my disclosure that our real estate agent has been extremely helpful in our search for new digs. That's still true, but I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that things aren't quite as outlandish as they originally sounded.

You see, they would still love us to have the house; in fact, they said they'll be doing what they can to see that the rent increase isn't more than $20 per week. This was a bit of a surprise to me, given that I was of the understanding that the price had already been agreed upon. The new place was already $60 per week more than we currently pay, so another $20 on top of that was just a bit on the nose. And apparently the house isn't actually available when they said it was -- the guy wanted to get out ASAP, originally -- but now doesn't become vacant until December. *sigh* And so on and so forth. Given that I had only agreed to taking the place reluctantly because I had thought our options had been running out, I decided to resume the hunt on our own.

To that effect, perusing the paper over breakfast this morning, I spotted one in our local area for the right price, called, and headed over. We were greeted by a pocket rocket French woman, named Francine. The house is nestled into the base of Mt Coot-tha and has a wild jungle clawing all over it and spilling on to the street, and even has a resident scrub turkey -- complete with nesting mound -- in the back yard. The house itself is late 60's/early 70's, and has a very friendly vibe about it. It has polished floors, views over the hills, big windows, front verandah, deep spa bath, air con, fabulous shelving and other storage, is close to our favorite kids' park, walking distance to the shops and bus, very quiet... just everything.

Francine showed us through, waving at fantastic pieces of furniture, saying, "Zis can stay if you like eet." And in the kitchen, "You have a deeshwasher, no? Oh well, zees one is yours." And our ideas on a few renovations? Paint eet any colour you want! I don't mind! We told her how much we liked the house, and when another prospective tenant called during our visit she told them that she had just rented it out. She thinks we have a compatible philosophy to hers; "We're a good match" is how she put it. I agree. And the best bit? It's cheaper than the other dump we almost ended up with.

I *heart* you, Francine!

Pure "Gold"

One of the beauties of the interweb is that you can connect with people who have similar irks to yourself. The irk du jour: misuse of quotation marks. Suck it up at The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

The Contract and The Recipe

While I stuff my face with fresh-out-of-the-oven fruit cake, let me tell you the other reason I'm so happy: Virgin have finally released us from our broadband contract.

This is the contract I wrote about in my post before last; the one you started reading then zoned out of, if you're honest. After many phone calls (made by Lofty; they won't speak to me because I'm not the account holder, just the credit card holder) they finally admitted that their service doesn't work in our area. Interestingly, though, they have a large advertising display for their wireless broadband down at our local shopping centre.

So, now all we have to do is find a new provider and Virgin on the Ridiculous will be nought but a bad memory.

To celebrate, the recipe for the fruit cake I mentioned. I've modified it so much from the original Mrs Beeton's recipe that I have no qualms about claming it as my own. I was tired and distracted the first time I made it, and accidently added two and a half times the amount of fruit required. It was sensational. Since then the spices have been upped and added to, the sugar reduced, and the nut meal and seeds added.

It's been a staple at our place for some time now, as it's useful to have something decent to snack on when you're on the hop after two active toddlers. It's substantial, nutritious, easy to make, and can be eaten with one hand while running.

Happy baking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• 1kg mixed dried fruit (including citrus peel)
• 200g self-raising flour
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground coriander seed
• 120g soft butter
• 75g dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs (3, if you're feeling extravagant or have chooks)
• 75mL milk

Optional:

• 50g almond meal and/or
• Good handful of sunflower seeds

1. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin (springform is best)
2. Place the fruit in a large bowl.
3. Mix flour and spices together, sift on to fruit, and mix in to coat the fruit. Just get your hands into it for this.
4. Put the rest of the ingredients in, mix together well.
5. Pour into tin, trowl it all down nice and flat.
6. Bake at 150C for two hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I should note that caution should be used in serving yourself a slice or two when it's straight out of the oven. I'm now creaking at the seams after a case of eyes-bigger-than-belly.

I'm No Economist, But....

..this whole $700 billion bail out just seems astonishing.

I hope the more economically literate will forgive me if this seems ridiculous, but why bail out the banks that made the stupendous cock-up in the first place? Have the executives of these banks taken cuts to their multi-million dollar incomes or been sacked because they're made flamboyantly irresponsible decisions with other people's money?

If so much of the debacle centres around people being unable to make mortgage repayments, which has then, in turn, resulted in whole suburbs of vacant houses and thousands of homeless, wouldn't it make more sense to put money into getting those people back into those houses? If these people had some kind of financial relief they would not only have the incredible luxury of a roof over the heads of their families, but could take part in the economic life of the country again. And the money that the government gave them would be put back into the banking system via mortgage repayments. And the tax hike that would be presumably necessary to cover the $700 billion dollar "favour for the boys" hand out could be avoided, giving Joe/Jo Average more disposable income to flush around the system.

Oh hang on, that's communist. Silly me.

You Suck

... if you're one of the following companies, that is. I give you the Suburban Safari guide to shit service in the hope that I can assist you in avoiding it yourself.

Virgin Broadband. Oh how I hate them so. Their service is patchy, by which I mean that the (broadband) internet connection drops out regularly, and the attached phone is often out of service. We've been without a home phone for two weeks now, and getting it back doesn't seem to be on the horizon. We've had several rounds of problems over the year or so we've been with them, and even letting them know about it is an issue. Their so-called support phone line has had us on hold for an hour and three quarters on one occasion. It would have been longer had we not needed to turn in for the night. The last time I spoke to them I asked the guy to give me a number or some other contact so that I could make a complaint. He said no. And that's a quote. They promised a discount for one month in which we had only one week's service. Four months later, still waiting. Avoid them like nylon underpants and Hall and Oates records.

Babies Galore. Balls-ups Galore. If I could be bothered telling you about the weeks-long saga of getting the pram we ordered from them, could you be bothered reading about it? Likely not. Suffice to say they're on the black list, with several black crosses next to their name. Avoid.

Bendigo Bank. This is a surprise listing, given that I'd heard great things about them. Two weeks ago I took up their invitation to enquire about their term deposit special of 8% interest. Then again, once a week had gone by and I'd not heard back. Still no reply. Why advertise it at all, I can't help but wonder?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One that doesn't suck, however, is the real estate agency I've been renting through over the past 18 months. The house we've been renting has been up for sale for around six months now. This has involved multiple open houses, private inspections, and other off-pissing intrusions on our weekends. The Realty One staff, however, have been doing their level best to ensure that the inconvenience to us is minimised, negotiating with us at all times to make sure that these inspections happen at times that suit us. A few weeks ago they even left us flowers and chocolates as a thank-you. (Would it be sexist of me to note that the office is staffed exclusively by women?)

On top of all that, it looks as though they've found us somewhere nice to move to, and are holding the house exclusively for us, if we want it. It wasn't one that we spotted; it came up, they thought of us and let us know about it. They're also being extremely flexible about when we move, so that it fits in around some other things we've got going on. I know, nice real estate agents! What are the chances? I'm glad it looks as though we're able to stick with them for a while, especially since it includes polished floors, gas cooking, and air con.

Head Bangers

Yes, I know I'm going a bit video mad at the moment. Another homemade one today.



This is a move that I'm pretty much at a loss to describe in words; it's the kids' funnest thing to do, and has been for months. Any soft surface gets the treatment, which includes our sofa, my face, the carpet, their own arms, each other. If there's a bit of a tantrum in the wind, often just starting the fractious one off on a round of this resets the tone to happy again. It's such a great thing to do that it's not unheard of for all four of us to be on the leather sofa, ah WA-ing. It's a fun way to pass the time.