Taking the Shot.

I have put my opinions on gun reform in this blog before. In short, I feel save living in a country where gun possession is scarce and people in public are rarely armed. I am also saddened when I hear report after report of mass shootings in the US.

When Obama promised to push real gun reform, I was as pessimistic as most. The conservative media of the day tried to shift the focus into mental health and more guns being the solution. When solid legislation was presented to close loopholes on obtaining firearms without mental health checks, conservative media took another step to the right to stop any gun reform from getting through. There was slight hope when the senate came up with a very weak compromise, but seeing that not even that watered down bill could pass a Democratically controlled senate does little for me to instill confidence in US politics.

I would really love to see an anti-gun lobby garner enough support to counteract the affects of the NRA and get congressmen to vote with their heads rather than defend their report cards. I also with Murdock would take up Turnbull's challenge and proactively support gun control across his media.

Whatever anyone thinks of John Howard, getting rid of semi automatic guns and reducing overall gun ownership was his crowning achievement in my eyes, and whilst it had its risks and opposition in the day, is without doubt the best thing he did in his political career.

Broadband for all?

The Liberal opposition released their NBN policy last week. Despite having a highly competent Communications Minister, It has been a major hole for the Opposition as they have consistently chosen to oppose it (and at one point even threatened to rip it out of the ground). With public perceptions and lifestyles warming to a fast broadband network, this was always going to garner a fair bit of attention.

The opposition went on the cost-saving route that used copper in the last mile in a model 4 times slower and 2 times cheaper than the governments proposal. In addition, the oppositions proposal would require ugly street cabinets on most streets and we would still need to invest money in maintaining aging copper to the last leg of the household. Fortunately, most non-murdoch press reported both sides fairly.

Personally, I think there are cost savings that the Opposition could utilise that are currently missed opportunities - Why not increase the satellite footprint since a satellite will be launched anyway? this would allow the fixed wireless component to encroach on the fiber areas and reduce costs considerably. How about re-using the existing HFC cables that are in most densely populated residential areas? sure they are not the same fibre but are still reliable and currently under utilised in most areas?

Personally, I am 3.1 kms away from my exchange. I get flaky speeds that are getting slower and am over dropouts. If the NBN is going to be done, I expect any government to do it once and do it properly. Is that too much to ask?

Caffeine Withdrawals

I have been having a daily coffee for about a year now. Lately I have been having 2 or 3 a day. It is not that I am having trouble staying awake or anything like that, I just enjoy the ritual.

This weekend I have been rather busy and went cold turkey. It was neither planned or intentional, but just the way the weekend ended up. Now I am left with a splitting headache and am not in the mood to blog, so will be keeping this one short.

I do not like how addicted I have become to coffee. This headache just makes me want to do nothing but drink fluids and watch TV. I was fine yesterday but have had it most of the afternoon and night today. Maybe this is a reality check and a sign that I really need to slow down on the caffeine hits.

AET

Today ends daylight savings for another season. Clocks jump back an hour, the mornings are temporarily brighter and the evenings get darker quicker.

While many appreciate the rare treat of an hours extra sleep-in gifted at this time of year, I am not of the same opinion. Whilst I agree with the principle of daylight savings - sacrificing an hours morning light for an extra hour of brightness in the evening - I do not understand the need to wind clocks back just because we are at the advent of winter. What is wrong with leaving our clocks in a different timezone and squeezing as much afternoon light as nature will give.us?

This hit home hard during my evening walk today. As mentioned in an earlier post, I have not been walking much of late. After the football today I forced myself out and was instantly hit with darkness replacing the sunsets I was becoming accustomed to. Maybe my lack of walking had contributed to the suddenness of this, but it still left me wondering what advantage was gained in the jump back.

I am left in hope that someone in power will one day see this as illogical as it is and correct the clocks once and for all.

Super Schmuper

The big news of the week is that the government is fiddling with Superannuation. My father and Team Leader at work are taking a keen interest - feeling that they have much to lose if things do not go their way.

Whilst I acknowledge that I should be interested, the word bores me and I find it difficult getting motivated when discussing the topic. It took me years to consolidate my various super finds from former employers and whilst I have been advised to make voluntary payments, I have lagged behind and not been as regular with them as I should be.

I'm sure one day I will pull my finger out, but for now, I'm left wondering why I do not take the interest that I feel I should? Am I too young? do I not respect my finances enough? do I feel the mountain is too high to climb? maybe a little of all three.

Reality TV

My mother is hooked on it. There are 3 or 4 she is hooked on, I do not even want to name them to further promote them, but there is a cooking one, a construction one, a weight loss one and a couple of singing/entertainment ones that she cannot get away from.

Even the newspapers print recaps of episodes. Contestants are almost instantly C-grade celebrities. Whilst I'm happy that home grown productions do so well in the ratings, surely we can do better than this rubbish, yet as a population we seem glued to it.

Thank goodness for Aunty ABC and their spread of quality programming.

Life, The Universe and Everything.

Watching my middle sister play with her dogs yesterday caramelised some thoughts I have been having.

Middle sister is now pretty close to mid-30's. She loves her dogs - she enjoys playing with them, she dresses them up on special occasions, sleeps with them, kisses them, has more than an album full of photos of them and it is difficult to have a conversation with her without her mentioning them in some way, shape or form.

I think that these dogs have taken the place of children. Despite not having a partner or children of my own, these kind of replicate my own feelings. It is difficult to explain, but I feel like my body is telling me that I should have settled down and have a family of my own by now and I do feel a little empty not taking any action by now. When i was younger, I always assumed that a family of my own was a given and one would find me eventually, now that I am older, I am disappointed in myself for taking that for granted and ending up in the situation that I am in now. 

For middle sister, i dare say that her dogs have filled that void. i do not know if she has come to the same conclusion yet, but for now she is happy. Ironically, I used to like dogs but watching the way my sister acts around them and talks about them as if nothing else is important has put me off dogs. 

At least I can rest in the solace that whilst I am fast running out of time, I am not out of time yet, All I need to do now is stop relying on faith and do something about it. 

Unleashing the puppies

Today was my last day looking after my nonna. Middle sister decided to visit as she had missed visiting on Easter Sunday. She took a chance and decided to take her two dogs for a walk and introduce her to my nonna.

Anyone that has met my nonna would instantly see how hygenically clean she is. She is a minimalist and I would not dare enter her house without wiping my feet a half dozen times beforehand. My sister has had dogs for 2 or 3 years now and despite my nonna hearing many stories, she had never actually met them before.

Well, the meeting did not go all that well. My nonna was suprised at how my sister handled them and was afraid at some point that they would attack her. She looked unimpressed when the topic came up that my sister lets them run free in her household and even sleeps with them. The breaking point was when one of them appeared to kiss my sister - my sister insists that it was just a lick on the nose, but it looked like a kiss and that is how the legend lies.

My uncle is back now and back to being my nonnas full time carer, much to my releif. I'm glad that my nonna will now have some fresh stories for him.

Easter Mass

I attended Easter mass tonight ahead of tomorrow for logistical reasons - I am still living at nonnas and want to keep the morning free to have breakfast with her.

The new priest's homily once again drove home people who are Christmas and Easter catholics and questioned whether they were really at one with God. Personally, I found mass disappointing. It started 5 minutes late, then all were standing while one of the ministers sang a prayer. You could see in the crowd a lot of restless children and distracted adults. The mass continued with lots of singing but it felt slower than normal.

At around the hour mark, the priest did a baptism. Don't get me wrong, I am a godfather to my cousin and have been to many baptisms, but attending baptisms to people I do not know at Easter is not productive to me.

I eventually lit my memorial candles at the 1.5 hour mark. There had been no collections yet, no communion yet and I suspect the mass is still going on now. Really, if they want people to go to Church more often, they need to look at themselves.

"Game Changer"? Not quite...

One of the top 3 pizza franchises in this city recently went under fire for launching a new gourmet pizza menu. It was heavily marketed as a "game changer" for the pizza industry before its announcement and through modern social networking tool managed to get a fair bit of social media buzz.

Needless to say, once the social media army realised the announcement was nothing more than a minor gig-up of their "gourmet" pizza range, they had no reservations expressing so on the media used to generate the buzz. This was soon picked up by the greater media.

It is amazing how modern marketing machines adapt to change. Time and time again, large companies falter on social media campaigns and the speed, ease and public accessibility of feedback can quickly snowball with undesired consequences.

Despite the controversy, I was keen to try these and I had the chance today, thanks to a discount coupon. It was definitely smaller than a regular pizza and the bases were much thicker, however, the toppings were better than their standard pizza ranges. My one big criticism was that most large franchises have preserved toppings for convenience reasons, making most of them taste the same. It is no comparison to fresh toppings on a pizza which is harder to come across.Whilst I may have these again, I'm not in any great hurry.

Aloe Vera Overload

So my mum is going through a new fad- Aloe Vera. She read or heard somewhere that it is virtually a cure/prevention method for cancer but pharmaceutical companies are withholding the information as they want to manufacture more drugs and make more profit. "Once word gets out, everyone will grow their own plant" she explains. For most people my mothers age, Cancer is a major fear and talking point.

So today, I took her around to a few chinese shops trying to find the cheapest bottles of Aloe Vera I could find. We bought a couple in the end, the first bottle that I tried was rather sweet but mum insisted that the benefits outweighed the negatives. It will be interesting to see how long this fad lasts for.

Credit Card Surcharges.

This week is meant to be the end of the dreaded overpriced credit card surcharge. For a few years now, merchants have been able to pass on credit card surcharges. For the most part, retailers have made their own call with most major retailers absorbing the charges as they always have and some choosing to pass on the charge.

There are three major players that have went above and beyond- Taxis, Airlines and Ticket agencies. They tend to charge well above the 0.5% - 2% charge that banks charge retailers and either slap on a fixed fee or a fee well in excess of what is being charged to them by the banks.

I have had run-ins with 2 of these this week. I've looked at flight specials this week thinking of planning holidays. On some sites, a credit card fee has been replaced with an equal "service charge". I also booked some tickets at Ticketek, on  $70 worth of tickets, they wanted to charge me a $5 "admin" fee for printing out my own darn tickets, then slap on a credit card surcharge on top of that.

I have no quarms with retailers passing on a credit card fee, particularly if a fee free option is also offered, but charging rates over 10% for using a card is just gouging in my eyes. Retailers who use processing costs to justify the over the top fees do not hold water in my book either - retailers need to expect that any form of payment requires a processing expense and this needs to be taken into consideration in any business model.

I really hope that pressure is applied to these companies and that the industry is revolutionised once and for all.

Waste - a pet peeve.

I have grown up in a household whereby waste is rare, particularly when it comes to food. Leftovers are always eaten and

On the weekend my dad noticed he had a pox of peaches rotting away,  so had the idea to boil them and turn them into a mushy sweet that he likes. He later had a change of heart and soaked them in cask wine to make a sangria with them - sure they were the wrong type of fruit for sangria but it did the job.

Today in my evening walk I innocently ventured behind a closed fruit shop and noticed an untouched avocado that was sitting there behind a roller door. It had surely fallen off a box and would have been wasted. I felt it my duty to take it home and let it ripen.

I feel good that so little is wasted, however, on the flipside, I do tend to hoard belongings and it is often hard to throw anything out, but that is how I have been wired.

To the Conclave!

So a bunch of Priests are locked away at the Vatican, waiting for God to tell them who the next Pope will be. As all eyes are on temporary chimneys and all ears listening to the bells of St. Peters, Its a good time to wonder what the new Pope will hope to achieve.

Religion is fast becoming outdated in the developed worls and is a source of hope for the developed world. The new Pope is going to have to tackle child abuse and demonstrate that the Church has no tolerance for it. It would also be a good chance to modernise customs and beliefs.

I think men and women have urges that the vast majority cannot control. I do not see the problem with priests dating and marrying women. I would think no less of such a man. I'd also appreciate it if they spent their time with an adult and left our kids alone.

There are lots of little things that the Church can do to make religion more relevant. Don't forget - the bible is over 2000 years old. I think that the Bible was created to help explain the unexplainable 2000 years ago. Now, science has disproved large chunks of it and many parts are no longer relevant. It would take alot of courage for a new priest to modernise the Church, and would also take a great deal of commonsense. Sadly, commonsense is not always that common.

Working from the"Regional Office"

Recently, the CEO of Yahoo came under fire for banning her employees from working from home. I work for a company that allows Working from Home  and in a bid to reduce need of office space is starting to encourage it on a Seniour management level (although Line Managers do not seem as enthusiastic).

Someone who I play poker with is a line manager. His company's research suggested that employees were less likely to resign if they were allowed 1 work from home day a week. He told me a few weeks ago that he allows his staff to do it, however, requires that they update a procedure while they are at home. He felt that home workers were less productive.

I rarely work from home. I like overhearing my bosses technical conversations at work and feel that I benefit more from the knowledge I gain when I am at work. That said, I will do if I have good reason - usually when I have worked the night before or had to go to the doctors. Today I took advantage of it as I didn't feel like driving with my bruised foot.

Had I have not been able to work from home today, I may well have taken a sick day. Working from home meant that I could update my cases, do a training course I was avoiding and keep on standby for any faults that may have arisen. Sure, it wasn't the most productive days work I have ever done but I was far more productive than I would have been had I taken a sickie.

I think Working from home is worthwhile if done in moderation. It improves employee satisfaction and can save companies money if implemented correctly. It can be abused and line managers are right to be cautious but giving an employee a work from home day once or twice a month is more than reasonable.

Playing to ones strengths

A few years ago, when middle sister moved out of home, middle sister wanted a PVR to replace her VCR. Her needs were simple - needed a USB port, decent sized hard drive, needed to be able to watch 1 channel and record 2 others and have a time-shift feature. I found her a box that was near perfect and highly recommended on forums. She bought it and has been happy with it for 4 or so years.

In the last couple of months, playbacks have been skipping for her. One of her friends recommended ditching the PVR and buying a TV with the PVR functionality included. I suggested to her that there are cheaper and better solutions, namely getting me to fix it. I've been reading a fair bit about the units and have a 4-pronged plan of attack to fix it.

I don't know if I can fix it or not, but certainly want to give it a try. When it comes to research and problem solving, I am in my element.

Knocking up my ton.

So hear I am! 100 days since I started this blog, and 100 blog entries to my name.

I realised that I wanted to start this blog in Singapore. I remember at the time hundreds of potential blog entries, matters I wanted documented and wanting to jot down opinions and reviews of issues current to myself.

At first, I felt like this blog was helping my life get more interesting - I wanted to go out more so I would have more to blog about and not appear as the miserable old man I feel like sometimes. It worked initially - i did venture out more. I had that motivation.

Of late the outings have dried up and I am sometimes left scraping for topics to blog about. It isn't always a scrape, but it is more often than I would care to admit to.

When I started this blog, I wanted to commit to a blog a day for at least a year. I still feel like this is achievable, but am thinking that I will have to reduce quantity and perhaps focus on quality after that. My friend who suggested blogging posts once a month and they are always interesting posts. While I feel this is too infrequent, I don't see once a day sustainable in the long term.

There is lots I have not discussed. Despite having no readers, some I do not feel ready for or it is not the right time. Others have disappeared from short term memory. Either way, I'll do my best to keep to my year commitment and stick this one out.

What could have been

My parents always had planned for me to go to uni, get a degree, get a good job and set myself up for life. They were uneducated themselves and a little light on the details of what they wanted me to do or study and while some may say they gave me freedom to do what I wanted and enjoyed, some may also say that their plan lacked focus or direction and I had to work it all out for myself at a time when I was very confused and undecided.

I browsed through the University guide in my last year of school, I had felt like I had led a largely sheltered life. I had few extra curriculum activities, hobbies or friends. I picked IT because I enjoyed computer studies at school, had recently purchased my first desktop PC and s and it seemed like a logical career choice at the time.

Whilst I am happy with my choice,  If I could do it all again with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I could pursue Psychology. I really enjoy looking for tells at the poker table. I like studying people and their reactions to questions or situations. I look for uncomfortable pauses or subtle changes in tone when talking to others. I like finding the boundary and skirting around it. Most of what I know is from trial and error, I feel i could have benefited from formal training.

As it stands today, my choice wasn't the worst I could have made, but my mind does wonder sometimes...

I need a life

Today has been a wasted day. Sure we have copped a drenching and I have played courier to my family but I feel like I have achieved nothing today.

Even if it had been a dry sunny day and I had no courier duties I'm not sure if much would have been achieved other than perhaps a good walk.

On my most recent courier duty, I drove through the heart of Newtown and saw so many young people enjoying their Saturday nights. I really need to find a good hobby but have so few friends, am not good at making new friends and am a relatively boring. My parents are hermits and I feel like I missed my 20's. I've been trying to play catch up but it is not as easy as one would expect it to be.

Giving way to the bell

Often walking paths are shared with cyclists. A simple courtesy that bike riders are expected to offer is a simple ring of a bell as they approach a walker.

Why is it that so few cyclists ring their bells when they approach walkers? their bikes are so quiet nowdays that you can never hear them coming. Even if there is enough room for a cyclist to pass, a bell ring is appreciated to help walkers who may be thinking of crossing the path or avoid being startled as a cyclist whisses past.

To further complicate matters, of those who do ring are usually children who ring the bell for no other reason than they have a bell and want to use it. Whilst this is much less of an issue it can be really annoying turning round to the sound of a bell only to find a kid playing.

To those few cyclists who follow bell etiquette, thank you. To those who don't, its not too late to change.