Odd Encounter
Whilst enjoying my lunch outside in the Carlton Gardens yesterday I was approached by a rather interesting fellow. He commented on my use of a paper diary (only because I’m currently without a computer, mind!) and seemed to use that as an introduction to begin pontificating. And by golly did he have a lot to pontificate over!
Now don’t jump to conclusions, he wasn’t some crazy lunatic telling me to convert to extreme Anarchism or anything. He even prefaced his monologue with a sentence akin to “I often stop and talk to strangers, just to see what they have to say”. I too expected him to go on a tirade with it’s contents based in religion, fiction, or trying to get David Hicks out of jail; but instead he availed me with what seemed to be a brief summary of Sir John Monash’s life.
The précis was a little meandering, and had it’s fair share of side stories etc, but the prevailing sentiment - it seemed to me at least - was that those were the good old days, when engineering was King (I didn’t dare start to discuss the fact that I was studying to be an engineer, for fear of missing Christmas if he continued). He went on to say that who could have known that the ‘bean counters’ and the politicians would be the people responsible for this country’s future. I didn’t dare tell him I was a New Zealander either…
But is this a usual thing, for people to get lectured on a slice of Australian history whilst enjoying their lunch on a park bench?
December 12th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
[Editor’s Note] Yeah that’s right, I’m the editor as well, but just thought I’d add a little comment to say that it also appears that John Howard is aiming to more accurately test those people wanting to become Australian Citizens. I’m not entirely sure how, but he seems determined.
December 12th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Mary, our local homeless person, gave me a lecture on politics last night between drinking beers and smoking cigarettes inside the laudromat. For some reason, I think it’s the random conversations you are going to remember years from now.
On that editor’s note, our lovely government have interesting policies w regard to english testing for Permanent Residency applications. A friend of mine was suprised to find out that her VCE English score (which happened to be better than her Chinese VCE score!) didn’t count when it came to PR : that she’d have to sit another English test, generally accepted to be easier. Seems like a waste of time and administration costs to me.
December 13th, 2006 at 1:06 am
I’m lucky enough to work in coles and i’m gonna let you all in on a little secret about the grocery department people… they look either at their trolleys or the ground out of fear of making contact with whatever freak of human nautre/loneliness that walks in off the street. i was brow bashed today by a lovely old lady that in the course of an hour 1) mistook me for her grandson on several occasions 2) was extremely distraught with the lack of brands of gelatine, not jelly but gelatine, we had in stock and 3) spoke to me at length about the difference between boxes, tubs, bags and jars.
it was freakin great!
well lets see how much of your time and money your willing to have wasted when you spend the bestpart of an hour wandering around suburbia with a taxi driver who has no idea where he is and is not at all impressed that i demanded the meter to be restarted when he found his way back… nor, i assume, would be too pleased with an “strayan” citizen assuming that it is still the 50s in reguards to womens rights or baby heads are acceptable gifts.
December 13th, 2006 at 1:20 am
and on that editors note… it annoys me that since IR laws where mentioned, anything that has a whisper of negative to do with anything in this country is soley attributed to John Winston Howard, rather his party. I’m sure he isn’t the sole brains trust behind every wile scheme in this country. (otherwise we’re all in serious trouble) and secondly people who voted him in can’t complain, people who voted another party suffer and people from other countries, well let’s just say we didn’t vote in Helen Clark
(i think it was based on her all natural NZ good looks and peronality!)
December 13th, 2006 at 10:45 am
I saw this comic today and I just had to share it with you Mechanics types.
I love it.
December 13th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Hmm, the image didn’t appear.
Hopefully this works…
[img src=”http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/centrifugal_force.png”]Centrifugal Force[/img]
December 13th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Oh well, just go here…
Centrifugal Force