Energy Saving at what cost ??

I am currently in Melbourne for reasons that are far to messy to go in to.
I am in a lovely hotel room in Mornington (more about the room shortly), but it has one of the wierdest setups I have ever seen.

It has one of those 'put your room key in the slot to turn the lights on' things on the wall. Cool I'm fine with that.

But I also discovered that the rocket scientists who put it in wired the Alarm Clock to the same circuit, so when you leave the room the clock goes off, and when you come back you have to reset the time and alarm time on the clock....

There are also some bollard lights in the garden that seem to be on 24/7. So they make up for all the power saved by turning the clocks in the rooms off.

Very Odd.

We can laugh about it now

While at the hardware store yesterday I noticed they had a selection of knick-knacks for sale in the little office bit. Now I love a bit of hardware, so had a quick look about. There I saw the best example of point of sale signage i had seem for some time:

Box Cutters - as featured in 9/11 - $3.50 each.

Laugh - I thought I was going to cack my pants !!

Joy of GPS 2 - the revenge

So having had a successful run with the GPS I had to go into the city with a work chum to look at some hardware.

She had a map from Whereis.com that failed to mention the right turn you have to make across the City West Link is not only illegal, but also suicidal.

So after a bit of swearing and creative driving I whipped out the GPS and punched in the address. It seems the address we were going to is in every suburb in Sydney. I though I had the right one in Liechart, but it seems not. Much embarrassment as we pull up outside some block of flats expecting a industrial unit. Quick change of direction and - boom - there we were.

So I guess the moral is if you are going to use the GPS you need to know where your going...

Joys of GPS

I was driving to work the other day with my phone in the charger thingy in the car. I though it might be fun to play my favourite game - Turn on the GPS and ignore what it tells you.

I love the way it dynamically re-works the route. I also think it would be cool if instead of telling you to turn around or take the next left it told you that you are a bad driver and don't listen to instructions.

Anyhoo, yesterday I did something weird and actually went where it told me to go. I am a creature of habit when it comes to driving to work. I have a route an ethnic friend showed me that winds through back streets. If anyone knows a short cut its a crazy Macedonian...

So puting my faith in the unit the GPS took me in another direction completely, but strangely enough I got to work 5 mins quicker. I choose to believe it is due to it still being school holidays and the league of 4WD mothers or Camry driving oldies are not out and about yet.

I took the same route this morning and it does feel quicker. I might keep going this way and see if I can shave 5 mins off my travel time.

Its sad I know, but its the little things in life that keep me going.

Crazy Microsoft Templates

I was just sitting down to write a report, so i went to see what Templates Office 2007 had that might sex it up. here are the default templates in Excel now -
Billing Statement - Makes sense for business types
Expense Report - Yup I can see a use for that one
Loan Amortization - OK if you do finance stuff
Sales Report - of course
Time Card - yeah whatever
Personal monthly Budget - lets work out how much we could buy if we got a pay rise
Blood Pressure Tracker - WTF???

I think it says a lot about the modern workplace if they have a handy dandy template to track you stress level and predict when you are going to explode or die.

More Gen Y trashing

Whilst still trauling Wikipedia I found this re Gen Ys

Business owners in Australia feel that members of Generation Y were found to be "demanding, impatient and bad at communicating," according to a 2007 survey.

The survey found that almost 70% of those surveyed found their Generation Y workers to be dissatisfying, with poor spelling and grammar and no understanding of appropriate corporate behaviors.

However, the survey also showed most employers praised the energy and charisma of their Generation Y workers.

Gen X - Generation Whatever..

Just doing some facts checking to see the dates for Gen Y and also to make sure I was actually a Gen X when I came across this great quotelet in Wikipedia -

'In France, the term Génération Bof is in use, with "bof" being a French word for "whatever," considered by some French people to be the defining Generation-X saying.'

Generation Bof ! I love it. Get that up you Gen Ys !!!

BP and the Ethanol scam

A while back BP introduced a fuel called E10 - its 10% ethanol and its always about 4c a litre cheaper. Problem is that I have never been able to buy it. Every BP I go to is out of stock. I have a feeling thats its not due to popularity, but due to them wanting to look like doing their bit, but then forcing you to buy unleaded instead. Bastards !!!!

Fuel Prices

This is one of those post i have been meaning to do for ages, but every time I sit down to do it something else happend that drives the story and expands it a little bit more.

Todays case is that oil has hit $100 per barrel. All those nice oil people thought it was best they should pass this on ASAP to us poor motorists, so fuel went up be 10c today.

When I was originally going to write about the scam of fuel prices it was just after the ACCC has handed down a reeport that said there was no obvious examples of pricing fixing or cartel activity. Its just convient that all major world events that affect the petrol price happen on a Thursday and then calm down on a Sunday. Regular as clock work.

The ironic thing was the week after the fuelk companies hiked it by 10c in the week before christmas for no apparent reason. And it wasn't even a Thursday.

Mmmm. I can see a pattern here and its not pretty. So fill up on a Monday or Tuesday, unless you are me and forget..

Everyones a winner... except when they are not

One thing I have noticed is that the US based Kids TV channels have this annoying habit of making out that no one is a looser any more and everyone is special and a winner.

Even in the website games on Disney you dont have the Wrong answer, you are told that thats a great choice, but try again.

Is that why we have the Gen Y brat 'I want it now' generation ?? Its my right etc. No its bloody not !!! Sit down and shut up. And turn that stupid freaking phone off before I ram it up your arse......

Moving on we had a dance show for my daughter before Christmas where her group was 2nd on stage. its all very cute etc, except when its 42degrees in a tin shed in bumble-f**k nowhere and the kids are running amuck. Thing is we were told to stay to the end as everyone gets a prize. Cool we thought, she'll love that.

Problem was three hours later I had to explain the Child number 1 why she didn't get anything. And I wasn't the only one. Sure for the older agegroups there were skill based prizes but for the three years olds there was nothing. Not even a token bag 'o' lollies or a $1 Well Done badge.

I met another mother the next day whose daughter is in the same class and she said the same thing - unconsolable sobbing on the car drive home.

So maybe the kids as so whipped up to thinking they are going to get everything and be winners that they can't cope when they get nothing. Or maybe its just cruel to promise and not deliver...

Spoilt little girl put in her place

I was at Westfields shopping mall in Bondi with the family on the thursay after Christmas (I don't know why I did it either.. seemed like a good idea at the time).

Anyhoo we were waiting for a lift with a bunch of other pram pushers and lazy bastards when this young girl wandered past. She looked about 19 and was dressed up in the Hollywood prima donna slut way with the big sunnys and a 'up yours' attitude. She had token emo boyfriend in tow with a selection of big keychains and saggy arsed jeans. She had a dirnk from the food coart and proceded to produce a wrapped straw for it. She then ripped the wrapper and just let it fall to the ground.

So what did I do ? I went - 'scuse me - I think you dropped your wrapper...'. She looked all embarassed as she had to bend over and pick it up in front of a gaggle of people. I could feel a smug ha-ha from all the non - Gen Ys who were waiting for the lift and though to myself its another victory for us old bastards !!!

So word up all you young Gen Ys !! We see what you do and we keep score. So you want to sprint up the corporate ladder, start by being good people and cleaning up after yourselves...

Same hours in the day as every one else....

My 4yr old has this great trick where she will just disappear for 20 minutes at a time. I found her the other day sitting on the potty with a pile of books. This is wierd I thought, but then I realised I have been know to read a book or the paper on the bog, or even surf the web or send SMSs.

Is this a sign we have become so time poor that we need to multitask our bodily functions?

The wife said to me last night that famous quote that pops up on the motivational website - we have the same number of hours in the day as Einstein or Newton did and look what they achieved. I didn't see the relevance to my not doing the dishes..

Anyhoo while on the pan this morning I thought about it more (just multitasking !) and decided those guys had time to do all that relativity and laws of motion stuff because they didn't have Foxtel, or the Web, or mobile phones and they probably had a nice shed they could lock themselves in.

We are the generation who are contactible 24/7 whether by phone or some other electronic method. And sometimes thats just not right.... If I could get a nice long period of time where I can focus on one thing I could acheive a stack of stuff. but it seems modern life isn't built to acommodate that.