So. I’ve been in Melbourne since April of 1998, when I returned from two and a bit years in Europe. Before I left Brisbane for Europe in March 1996, I knew Brisbane wouldn’t see me for a while. It was a great place to grow up, but just didn’t have enough ‘oomph’ for me. I’m not being snobby saying that. Brisbane just seemed very bloody suburban. However, the good lady and I are planning to head back to Brisbane. It’s a combination of factors that have led us back. Mainly that Brisbane has grown a bit more, and seems a tiny bit closer to becoming a ‘city’ – not a town where everybody knows others’ business. Anonymnity is good.
Then there’s the future of our kids (none YET). There’s more room, better weather and social conditions (health and education etc.) with which to bring up a tribe in Brisbane. That will change I’m sure as Brisbane starts getting built up over the next 10-15 years or so. I just hope there’s enough electricity left for us up there when we arrive in December 2005. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t leave Melbourne. But that’s what marriage is about isn’t it? It’s not about me anymore. It’s about the whole family. Now for the fun part. Practicing to extend the family by a generation. Phew!
Daylight saving is great. There’s heaps of time to do whatever I want to do after work, as it’s not dark until after 8pm. I went for a stroll around Rushall/North Fitzroy yesterday evening and came across some graffiti.
This was found in a laneway (where obviously there has been a problem with doggy doo at some stage).
Then there’s this one. Personally, I don’t like the present government. I could never be afraid of them though, I mean, Alexander Downer. How could you be afraid?
Well. Hey. This blog is back.
I changed hosts the other day and one very simple part of that change is updating the nameservers. Easy peasy. Just login to my domain name registrar’s account thingy and off you go. Oh no! Network Solutions couldn’t make that easy could they?
When I changed the nameservers to those of my new host, Network Solutions’ system wouldn’t accept them. An error message told me that the domain extension was invalid (ns1.zainyfx.com.au). I just cancelled the operation and left the nameservers pointing toward my old host. No worries there. There was a few months of hosting left with them.
When I checked the whois of my account about 20 minutes later the nameservers were listed as WORLDNIC (Network Solutions) ones. Fark! The rest of the story is too complicated. It involves dealing with customer service in the United States, who are definitely all robots. To their credit Network Solutions provided a solution, but it took them 7 days to change my nameservers to those of my Australian host. It had to be easier than that, surely. But, seeing as I couldn’t change the nameservers myself I had no choice other than to sit and wait for everything to be sorted out for me. Frustrating.
In the case that you’d forgotten that christmas is approaching…the Melbourne City Council has put it’s christmas decorations up already. It’s the start of November for fuck’s sake.
Graham mentioned a livejournal post about someone wanting to leave the US. Well, here’s another one from Harper’s Magazine.
Weird stuff. At least we have another 4 years of poking fun at the world’s most powerful man and his inability to say ‘nucular weapons’ properly. I mean, come on, I thought Australia was the only nation where an outright fucking liar could get re-elected. On a brighter side, the more conservative side of politics won’t be around in 3 or 4 years if Stephen Roach’s predictions come true. Roach is the chief economist of Morgan Stanley. Yeah, it’s all financial mumbo jumbo and isn’t my cup of tea at all, but Morgan Stanley’s Global Economic Forum is worth a read every now and again to get a grip on how the world’s financial system works/fails, and how it relates to PEOPLE.
“Americans are at odds with one another, with a deep and worrisome intensity. And the world sees us in a stark, adversarial light. The cynics say this is just politics — that such divisiveness is the norm, especially during times of war. I beg to differ. Today, polarization is playing on the character of America — in the end, any nation’s most precious asset. Sadly, that character is now at risk, both at home and abroad. As dawn breaks the day after tomorrow, that will be the first thing on my mind.”
