Bad.

I've been bad - but not in a fun way. I just mean that I've been neglecting my blog. Two reasons 1) I'm tired and 2) I don't have much to say. And yes, I know what you're about to come back with: I never did have much to say.

New word ..

I was reading something this morning on Slate and I came across the word "conversate", meaning (as I could tell from context), converse or talk. Nice... apparently it's been around for a little while. Just new to me, I guess.

Great

Check out this headline. I'm indebted to a friend and former colleague for this one.

Global

People complain about globalisation, that it destroys jobs and livelihoods and traditional ways of life (why is this a bad thing anyway? subsistence farming doesn't look like much fun either) but it does mean that I can go into a 7-11 and buy a folding umbrella for $5. What's so remarkable about this, when you think about it, is that when I'm in the 7-11 I'm right at the very end of the value chain. The guys who runs the 7-11 (a franchisor?) is making money, 7-11 is making money, there's a guy who drives a truck who brings the umbrellas to the 7-11 and he's making money (or his employer is), the company that owns the ship that brought all the umbrellas here is presumably making some money from transporting them, then there's probably half-a-dozen middle-men and, ultimately, a factory in China that's making them. And everyone in this chain is making money - that $5 goes partly to costs (the plastic and steel in the umbrella, the shipping and trucking and whatnot) but also to profit. And they can still get this umbrella all the way from a factory in China into my wet hand here in Sydney for $5! Granted, it's not going to last a long time, it's not the sort of umbrella I'm going to expect to hand down to my sons like a Patek Philippe watch, but then again, it's only five dollars!

The alternative, I guess, would be to produce umbrellas here, and it's hard to see how that could be done at a reasonable cost. And what about those $40 DVD players?

Gentle and Natural

From time to time my kids get lice, and I go to the pharmacy to buy lice treatments. A lot of these treatments brag on their labels about how they're gentle and natural, and have no harsh chemicals. Which is fine, but for these f$*cking lice I want harsh chemicals, I want to see a bottle of licewash that has a skull and crossbones on it, or the biohazard symbol. I want it to glow in the dark.

Sucker

There was a throwaway article in the Age today about the 30th birthday of spam, from AFP. They interviewed somecalled Brad Templeton, and all they can tell us about him is that he "...has thoroughly researched the subject". Not great, but it's a filler article. Then we have this...

"Pete Barnum was right when he said there's a sucker born every minute," said Templeton. Errr... that'd be P.T. Barnum, and he probably didn't even say it. I suspect this isn't Mr Templeton's error - it's the journalist or a clueless subeditor.

On other matters, I'm recovering. Its day 11 and it's all settling down, thanks for asking.

VIP

Just near me is a pub/club called the Bourbon, which these days is a fairly ordinary downstairs bar (in the 80s, when I lived in Sydney last, it was like the bar scene from Star Wars, and they did a sensational hangover breakfast too). Through a separate entrance is what I assume is the gaming room. The sign says "VIP Lounge", then underneath "everyone's welcome". Isn't that a contradiction?