Other Notes from Down Under

27/08/2019
 Tuesday, out to Croquet Club, then into Moonah -- bank, post office, lunch. Spent the rest of the day wrestling with my new phone.  With advice from the help desk and the aid of my largest magnifying glass, decided the problem is the tiny clip that is supposed to hold the SIM card in place, but actually doesn't. *sigh* A trip back to the place I bought it tomorrow then.
[Phone fixed without drama - it was, of course, the youngest member of the staff who solved my problem for me.]

11:05 PM 5/09/2019
Too busy for croquet again, with a committee meeting before lunch, then monthly PWMU luncheon.  Home and had a bit of a rest before heading out with Helena to see "Legally Blonde - The Musical" at the Playhouse.  Never have I seen a more demonstrative audience, screaming, whooping and applauding all through the show.

7/09/19

A bit cool and damp on Saturday.  Out for lunch and op-shopping as usual, then dropped in to see Kay.   A mutual friend was trying to fix up her audio-video system, and she was distraught because she kept insisting that the computer had to  be attached to her VCR if she wanted to see stuff on her television.  She wouldn't accept that this was neither possible nor helpful.   Sigh.

4:59 PM 9/09/2019

NBN seems even more problematic than usual.  By 5 pm it had dropped out at least four times -- may have been more but I wasn't on-line all the day.

3:29 PM 16/09/2019
Sunday morning I was a little apprehensive about having to step up to the lectern and read today's text aloud.  All sections of Scripture have their good and bad points (from a performance angle) but chapter 8 of Daniel was the first time I  have had to read a long passage of apocalyptic imagery.  Hey, it could have been worse -- I just had to read it, the minister had to preach on it.

21/09/2019
Saturday, a bewildering sight -- Keith spent an hour in the Salvation Army store and bought one book.  Just one!  That's like Dean Mrtin going into a bar and ordering an orange juice

1:00 PM 24/09/2019

Those TV re-runs sometimes turn up a forgotten gem.  Today I saw the pilot episode of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE with Steven Hill.  Interesting to compare it with the series that sprang from it.  Hill's Dan Briggs is unchanged, though intriguingly the voice at the end of the recording says "Welcome back, Dan", implying he's returning to the IMF after some time.  Barney and Willie have their brains-and-brawn sctick down pat.
The biggest difference is in two of the show's best-loved characters, Cinammon and Rollin.  Cinammon's sex appeal is more overt in this episode, verging on the sort of "eye candy" role common in 1966 -- later they would tone it down to the sort of cool elegance more appropriate to a high-fashion model.  And the make-up that was one of the show's trademarks falters a bit here, with Rollin's impersonation of a Latin American dictator very ordinary.
But the important thing is that this episode [the only one written by creator Bruce Geller] got the show on the air.  Its status as a TV icon would soon be assured.


4:13 PM 26/09/2019
Thursday's agenda:
10 am  Croquet;  1 pm  Lunch; 2 pm Facebook;  3 pm  Officeworks;  4 pm Star Trek;  6 pm  Dinner;  7.30pm Playhouse Theatre "Nunsense" .

7:31 PM 10/10/2019
Thursday I am still home resting up and trying to shake off that cold.  After feeding the animals, had a late breakfast and caught up on my reading till I nodded off on the couch.  Finally woke up when Keith Curtis phoned to say he'd got me a box of 60 year old issues of ANALOG magazine.  There are worse ways to wake up, I thought.

5:45 PM 11/10/2019
Being sick at home most of this week has given me the chance to watch a lot of STAR TREK re-runs.  Except for seeing them on the same day, I might not have noticed that "Devil in the Dark" [1967] and "Home Soil" [1988] are actually the same plot.

9:53 PM 14/10/2019

Sunday I got through church without sneezing or coughing (when I cough you can usually hear me half a block away), but the hymns were a bit of a challenge.  I only sing in church, so I  hadn't had to try it since before I got this persistent cold.  Afterwards, I had lunch, bought the SUNDAY AGE and went home, where I slept for two hours.  Let's hope my germs are packing their bags and making travel plans.

Monday I had planned to do stuff, but I never got that far.  Went out in the evening to have dinner with Pat & Ian.  They have a new big-screen television, organized by their family  --  probably because one of them has glaucoma and the other has macular degeneration, so they actually need a larger screen.  One of the family wants to connect them to Netflix, but I'm not sure it's necessary  --  they usually only watch SBS and ABC.
Still snuffling a little.  Warm and sunny today, which meant the cats both went outside after lunch, giving me a chance to make the bed for once.  Julie always said it was easier to handle cats during the winter, because you always knew where they'd be during cold weather  --  so true!

11:31 PM 18/10/2019
Dear iiNet, my Internet drops out at least three times a day for a few minutes.  Usually it's around midday (people logging on during their lunch break?), in the late afternoon (kids logging on after school?) and late at night (people logging on before they go to bed?)

Tsk, that's  two weeks now that I haven't made it to the Croquet Club.  Both Tuesdays I was put off by the weather, and both Thursdays I had a prior engagement.  This Thursday a group of us had lunch at Mather House after visiting the latest exhibition in the Allport Museum at the State Librart.  (Trivia titbit:  Mr Allport's daughter was the teacher in my sister Julie's art class at the Collegiate School.)

4:43 PM 25/10/2019

While television channel WIN BOLD was off the air, apparently due to bushfires impacting its transmitters, I tried watching the streaming feed on-line.  Nope, that doesn't work  --  we get five seconds of program,followed by ten seconds of buffering.  The end result is like watching a radio play illustrated with a series of still photographs.  The prediction that the NBN would bring us "fast and reliable" connectrions turns out to be just another political promise.  At least for FTTN. 
I wish we had ADSL2 back again.

2:31 PM 28/10/2019
Sometimes think the safest place to be in a zombie attack would be the croquet club.  Just stand out in the middle of the lawn till the zombie spots you and staggers towards you.  Then when he trips over a hoop and lands at your feet, you just bop him in the head with your croquet mallet and wait for the next one.

10:54 PM 29/10/2019
Phew.  After my morning blood test I played two games of croquet this afternoon with the temperature around 27 (or 80 fahrenheit).  Had time for coffee at Magnolia, then went home and put my feet up while I watched the afternoon Star Trek re-run.  Herded the cats inside then went out to the pub  quiz in Moonah -- we finished fifth but we had a couple of good rounds.  (And we got ten points because I remembered that it was Naomi Campbell that had written a novel called "Swan"!)

12:02 AM 10/11/2019
Thursday seemed pretty well planned out.  Croquet in the morning, Missions meeting and lunch at the church hall, Bocce Club in the evening.
Well, one out of three happened.  The weather turned wet and windy, so outdoor activities got the flick.  The meeting went off all right, with guest speaker Kim Jager from P.I.M.
Dinner at home and watched first episode of L.A.'s FINEST on TV;  Jessica Alba is as nice as usual but the show is just another cop series.
 
2:51 PM 17/11/2019
For a change, fine and sunny with not too much wind -- the equinocial gales last week were such that I feared the roof outside the back door was going to blow away.  Attended the morning service at church, where the sermon was interrupted by a couple of people being unwell  --  nothing to do, I hope, with my reading aloud the entire book of Philemon from the lectern.
After lunch, it was such a nice day I spent a pleasant hour in the garden drinking coffee while reading the latest issue of THE NEW YORKER and watching the cats wander in and out of the shade of the carport.  I have a full agenda for next week, but even God rested on the seventh day.

After my last update, when everything was so calm and peaceful, things took a surprising turn.  I was in my room, wondering whether I'd take a nap before dinner, when I heard a sudden commotion from the chickens.  Curious, I made my way to the back door.
Then both cats camre rushing inside -- and behind them a large black dog!  As it followed the white cat into the kitchen, I realized it was a greyhound. Out in the kitchen, the cat was "treed" on top of a cupboard, the greyhound standing up to look at him and the cat hissing at him.
Fortunately greyhounds are fairly docile beasts and I was able to herd him out the backdoor and walk him down the driveway to the street, where he was reunited with his owners.
One never knows, do one?