Seasonal Supermarkets

Even from within a soulless modern shopping centre, it's still possible to observe the passing of the seasons. Now that we're in autumn, you won't see the yellowing and falling of leaves or busy squirrels collecting acorns to get them through the bitter winter. But venture into your local Coles or Woolworths supermarket, and these are the signs to look for:

January - discounted Christmas wrapping paper, and damaged decorations
February - we're nearing Easter and so those chocolate eggs have hit the shelves
March - hot cross buns are being baked in their billions
April - Easter is over, and the hot cross buns have been replaced by Anzac biscuits
May - Mother's Day suggested gifts can be seen
September-December - Christmas is here again

Addicted to Podcasts

I used to fill quiet moments with random radio stations blaring in the background, but the advent of podcasts has changed that for the better. Why listen to talkbackers complaining about neighbourhood drains, or top 20 music endlessly looping, when you can select niche programming, catered to your unusual tastes? Let me present my current favourite poddies in alphabetical order:

• The Dice Tower - humorous chatting about board games, 
• Dr Karl and the Naked Scientist - science Q&A
• Dr Karl on triplej - more science Q&A
• Freakonomics Radio - economics
• Friday Night Comedy (BBC Radio 4) - alternates between The News Quiz and the Now Show
• Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo (BBC Radio 5 Live) - film reviews
• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe - as the name suggests
• The State of Games - board games, card games
• The Sword and Laser - fantasy and science fiction
• Tennis Connected - chatting about the tennis circuit
• TENNIS.com - more tennis is not enough
• Two Blokes Talking Tech - Aussie perspective on IT

Celebrating a Half-Birthday

If the twelve months between one birthday and the next is too long to wait, you'll be a fan a half-birthdays. But do you know to celebrate one appropriately? The half-hearted approach of merely recognising it and demanding spontaneous gifts from friends and relatives is no longer sufficient in the era of increasingly elaborate celebrations. To do it properly, you need to really grasp the half theme. Hold a party and then abruptly shut it down halfway in, after bringing out half a birthday cake. Receive half-presents - such as the first half of a movie,  a CD containing the first halves of songs, the first half of a novel. Children especially will appreciate such thoughtful gifts. They may sob uncontrollably after unwrapping half a Barbie, or spend weeks fruitlessly trying to complete half a jigsaw puzzle, but when they grow up, they'll thank you for having the discipline to do this, and they'll in turn pass on this insane tradition to their hapless descendants.

Double Mondays

Enjoying yesterday's public holiday (in commemoration of the delicious and yet historic ANZAC biscuit), I inevitably had to return to work today. And with the day off falling on a Wednesday, returning today effectively tainted a regular Thursday at work with a gloomy feeling of Mondayitis. This got me thinking about the ideal day off.

We can rule out Thursday for a start. Although it's the day of new movie releases in Australia, so is the ideal opportunity to get into those blockbusters during the daylight hours before the throngs arrive, it ruins your Friday - giving it that dreaded Monday feel, and effectively neutralising the TGIF effect and turning it into a run-of-the-mill day.

Tuesday is also not ideal because it adds Mondayitis to the hump-day feeling, and thus ruins your Wednesday.

Before we declare the most suitable day off, let's summarise the factors.

1. Modayitis can hit on any day off the week, after a break
2. TGIF has a strongest effect on Friday, when everyone is in similar mood
3. Wednesday is a hump day, with a mildly negative feeling
4. Most public holidays fall on a Monday, so taking a regular Monday mean you'd miss those extra days off

And the final answer is... there is no good day to take off, so don't !

Movie Confusion

Once upon a time, stories were told chronologically. Characters were introduced, tension built up to a climax and it ended with a satisfying resolution. But that's too old-fashioned for today's filmmakers. I saw the Aussie movie Wish You Were Here today, and although it's by no means indecipherable in its shifts back and forth along various narrative threads and timelines, it got me thinking. The relatively mundane and predictable storyline had been jumbled up and disordered to create an artificial tension. Had it been presented in chronological order, there would have been little interest. It was only the deliberate withholding of information by means of tricky editing that allowed the viewer to experience suspense and maintain interest. Does this make is a lesser film than something with an inherently compelling story? Maybe. But I still appreciated it nonetheless.

Dreams Do Come True

Having spent much of the past six years dreaming of finding green shoes, I finally have a pair. And wearing them, they're even more garish and tasteless than I hoped. But more exciting than putting them on was being able to track their delivery from a warehouse in Ohio to my doorstep. The route through Alaska then Singapore and then Hong Kong was unexpected but entertaining.

Basket Case

One cat of my acquaintance enjoys sleeping in the clothes basket, exactly at those times when it's needed.

Misty Morning at Lake Monger

Last weekend a dense fog descended overnight, and early in the morning, the gloom and moodiness lingered for several hours.

Pademelon

A Tassie local.

Yet Another Gloomy Rainforest

Another from Cradle Mountain. Yawn.

Primitive Conditions

This afternoon we lost access to internet, email and our network. Our computers froze and we were locked out of the modern world. Excitement at the novelty quickly turned to dismay as we realised some of our work was lost. But even more tragic was how quickly our conversation dried up. After the first hour we had nothing to say or do, and so we slumped lifelessly against our desks, our minds empty from lack of electronic stimulation.

We only hope that normal services resume tomorrow, or else our time in sensory deprivation will be too much to bear.

Fleeing Wombats

A mum and baby wombat fleeing into the darkness after we spotlighted them and gave them a shock. They were previously munching away contentedly on some succulent grass.

Cradle Mountain is Nowhere to be Seen

But Dove Lake is mighty purdy in the whiteness.

Scrumptious

Surely these ones are safe to eat. They were spotted near the Cradle Mountain Lodge in Tasmania, in the moist rainforest.

Important News from Sega

Sega has announced that it’s testing consoles called “Toylets” in urinals around Tokyo. The novel hardware asks the user to strategically vary the strength and location of his urine stream to play a series of games.

For now, Sega has installed Toylets in four Tokyo metro locations, including Akihabara, Soga andIkebukuro. The location test will run through Jan. 31.

Each urinal is installed with a pressure sensor. An LCD screen is mounted on the wall above, letting the gamer select from and play four different minigames. There’s “Mannekin Pis,” which simply measures how hard you can pee, and “Graffiti Eraser,” which lets you remove paint by pointing a hose in different directions.

There’s the faintly misogynistic “The Northern Wind, The Sun and Me,” where you play as the wind trying to blow a girl’s skirt up, and the harder you pee, the harder the wind blows.

Finally, the bizarre “Battle! Milk From Nose” is a multiplayer game where you compete against the person who last used the urinal. The strength of your urine streams are compared, and translated into milk spraying out of your nose. If your stream is stronger, your milk-stream knocks your opponent out of the ring. If you do particularly well on any of the games, you can download and save your information to a USB stick.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/01/sega-urinal-games/

Spikiness

A prickly plant, at the Hobart botanical gardens.

Port Arthur Ghost Tour

It was less scary than it should have been because the spooky stories were identical to those told 5 years ago when I previously took the tour. They should have added some new ones (vampire horror being fashionable now for instance).

Above Hobart

Mt Wellington has such unpredictable weather it's not rare to see snow on a summer's day. When I drove up the mountain a few weeks ago, it was 17 degrees at the base, but only 7 degrees near the summit.

The car park has signs warning that the communications towers produce such strong signals, car electronics may stop functioning, electronic immobilisers may die, remote entry won't work. So I was prepared to have to  roll the car down the mountain, out of range of the strong signals in order to get going again, but luckily everything was fine.

Time Travelling

I came across a 1975 postcard depicting the University of Western Australia from the air.

Click on it to zoom in and spot the differences from today. I notice the absence of traffic lights. And also the grass tennis courts which are now hard courts. Other than that, the scene is fairly similar.

Go on, lick me !

Mushy Rumour

At Cradle Mountain, the snow was falling lightly, and in a mossy tree hollow, this toadstool glowed orange like magic. It was enticing me to eat or at least lick it, but I resisted the urge.

Wedged In

An example of suicidal parking, at the Museum of Old and New, near Hobart.

Wineglass Bay

Sadly the weather was stormy this day as the remnants of a tropical cyclone passed over, and the normally tranquil waters were agitated.

Honeymoon Bay

On Tasmania's Freycinet Peninsula.

View from Inside a Boulder

I climbed up into a boulder that had cracked open.

Inside a Sea Cave

This is the view from inside a sea cave off the southeast coast of Tasmania. Normally it's too rough to get near but when I was there, the wind was from an unusual direction.

Albino Possum

Criss-Cross Clouds

There were unusual patterns in the late afternoon sky yesterday. It's not too clear in this photo from a moving car, but there were high clouds in one direction and low clouds pointing 90 degrees, giving a chequerboard effect.