Life between coffees.
It’s almost here. First day over 30 (expected top of 33°C), the first test in an Ashes series and Christmas decorations beginning to appear.
Mind you I’ll be oscilating between two extremes this afternoon – sitting here in 33 degree heat watching the test from the Gabba whilst listening to the Canucks do battle streaming live from Vancouver – where it will 6°. Sunnies on the eyes, ear muffs on the ears.
Had to put my sunglasses on this morning. Why you ask? Was it the sun as I drove over the bridge? Trucks on high beam? Wrecked after a night on the town? Nope – my car’s bonnet was dazzling after my beloved executed a fine cut and polish yesterday.
I should make a full confession that I know nothing of cars. You put petrol in, you turn the key. If it doesn’t start you call the RACV. Rae, on the other hand, has been known to diagnose a problem better than the RACV so I place my car completely in her most capable hands. Both myself and my car are far better off for it.
You have to love my pay department. Apparently I only worked 7.6 hours this last fortnight and after my salary sacrificing arrangements I owe them several hundred dollars for the honour of being employed.
What havoc an errant decimal point can wreak.
Anti-Microsoft zealots generally annoy the you-know-what’s out of me so it surprised the-other-you-know-what’s out of me when I joined them briefly.
When I updated my PC it came with Windows XP Home. Fair enough, I think. It was only when I delved a little deeper that I found out you couldn’t run Personal Web Server on it – a functionality I needed to develop web sites using databases. Oh crap, I think, and then hit Google looking for answers. Apparently Microsoft have made sure that if you want PWS then you need to fork over an additional $400 for the ‘Professional’ version. Bugger that, I think, I’m not paying four hundred bucks for one tiny piece of software.
Well it took me a day and a half of searching and fiddling but my spanky new machine is now running Apache web server and ChilliSoft ASP – Apache is free and the ASP server was free for developers.
Sorry Microsoft, that’s $400 of mine I am keeping.
I love living in Melbourne – no where else on earth do they do what we do here the first Tuesday in November. We declare a public holiday for a horse race. Yep, tomorrow is the 142nd Melbourne Cup and at 3.20pm you could fire the largest cannon you could find down any street in Melbourne and you will hit nothing and no one.
If you’ve never been in this fair city for Cup Day then you must try – over 100,000 people will be at Flemington tomorrow (ten minutes drive from here) and everyone else will be having a barbie and crowding around the telly. It’s the one day of the year everyone places a bet, and best of all tomorrow will be Phee’s first punt. Cup Day makes up 100% of my annual gambling expenditure. $15 will never make me rich, but you’ve got to bet on the Cup.
A BBQ, a bet and introducing my gal to the evils of gambling. Who could ask for more?
Village claim this is how you will feel when you ‘enjoy’ a movie at their cinemas :
.
This is what it is actually like :
We were supposed to be seeing and listening to Road to Perdition at Village Sunshine.
Apparently this is the same Village Sunshine where ‘all theatres have the latest technology with Dolby Digital Sound. Large capacity auditoriums with stadium seating and wall to wall mega screens.’
Okay. The sound – the first half of the first reel was in some form of surround (maybe DDS) and then it began to splutter in and out before finally settling on a lifeless stereo mix. After The Important Bit At The Start That Sets Up The Rest Of The Movie I went searching and found a worker bee who happened to be standing next to someone who appeared to be in charge. I pointed out the problem and the Guy Who Appeared In Charge told Worker Bee Boy to run upstairs and turn the volume up. What a solution – make it louder and no will notice the difference.
This really gets to me – we each pay $13.50 for a ticket, then god forbid you should be thirsty ’cause that will set you back $4.40 for a bottle of water you can get for $1.00 just across the road – and I’ve refused to buy food/sweets at a cinema for so long now I couldn’t even guess how many times you’d have to mortgage your house to get a small popcorn. We then have to sit through twenty minutes of ads before even getting to the start of the movie and then they can’t even be bothered screening it properly.
I’ll stop now before I start on dull projection, the seat that was broken when I sat in it and the mysterious square of light dead bang in the middle of the screen for most of the last reel.
Please Village stop treating your customers with such contempt. I love the movies, I love going to the movies but you’ll lose me if you keep this up. Maybe you should keep in mind that for the price of two adult tickets I can purchase the DVD and I know at home the sound and vision will be right. Or I can wait to see it at The Astor, a place that cares about movies. They have more people working at a one screen cinema than Village appeared to have at their 17 screen ‘megaplex’ and what’s more The Astor has a truly large screen.
(btw, really liked the film)