Will’s View

During a particularly slow part of a recent lab, I asked someone if they had ever Googled their own name to see what came up.

Now admittedly this was on fairly selfish grounds, as I am well aware that the first result that appears when you Google my name is this website. I can only guess that this is due to my somewhat rare last name (and of course the high quality of content on this site). But I suppose that this somewhat compensates for the number of people who completely fail to pronounce or spell ‘Midgley’.

I digress. It turned out that this person was in the top four results for Australia, but ranked somewhat poorly for the worldwide results. Discussing these results loudly (yes, I do realise that I have a complete inability to control my speaking volume), one of the other people in the lab piped up and said something along the lines of: “Yeah, well I’m destined to be well down the list on a Google search, I have the same name as a famous serial killer in the states.” Hmmmm.

The most disconcerting thing was that this was said with a certain sense of achievement and pride. Apart from being a little disappointed that they didn’t come top of the results, this person was genuinely amused/pleased that they had the same name as a serial killer. Now I’m not going to go on some rant and say that the society of today is screwed up because it loves serial killers, I’ll save that rhetoric for another time, but I will say that being named after someone reasonably (in)famous could be cool.

Imagine sitting around eating lunch with your friends in the school yard when you were ten and saying you had the same name as a serial killer. That would earn you some serious credit with the mates. Admittedly being named after Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan would be slightly less cool than a serial killer, in fact it may even go so far as to be uncool.

My dad has the same name as an English chef….How cool am I? (No, he’s not called Jamie Oliver)

--> During a particularly slow part of a recent lab, I asked someone if they had ever Googled their own name to see what came up. Now admittedly this was on fairly selfish grounds, as I am well aware that the first result that appears when you Google my name is this website. I can only guess that this is due to my somewhat rare last name (and of course the high quality of content on this site). But (More...)

I recently visited a quality establishment in the depths of Ascot Vale for a Parma of gargantuan proportions. I think it was actually larger than my face, with chips and salads to boot!

I ate the whole thing, and almost killed myself in the process, but I was damned if I was going to be beaten by a parma, of all things. Admittedly I felt a little ill after consuming this huge volume of food, but nothing more than I’ve felt after some of the large meals I cook myself (yes mum, I’m looking after myself).

Anyway, fast forward to the alarm going off this morning. I woke up with that seedy taste in my mouth - like the whole thing was covered in grease - feeling dehydrated, and with the onset of a slight headache. In between falling out of bed and hitting the floor I had time to muse that this felt rather like a hangover (not that I’ve ever had one of course, I’m not into that whole binge drinking culture). But sitting at the breakfast table nursing a Berocca and some early-morning Weet-Bix I did reflect that perhaps overeating is very similar to overindulging in alcohol (from a purely hypothetical standpoint of course).

There’s the peer pressure to eat everything on the plate in a small time period. The under-abundance of water to re-hydrate with. The inability to walk straight afterward. The sinking feeling as you realise that you’ve done it again even though you told yourself you wouldn’t. And, most importantly, the hangover the next morning, when you tell yourself that you won’t do it again. Ever.

--> I recently visited a quality establishment in the depths of Ascot Vale for a Parma of gargantuan proportions. I think it was actually larger than my face, with chips and salads to boot! I ate the whole thing, and almost killed myself in the process, but I was damned if I was going to be beaten by a parma, of all things. Admittedly I felt a little ill after consuming this huge volume of food, but nothing more (More...)

Talking with a couple of my friends today about the new “SmartGate” that both Australia and New Zealand are intending on implementing in the near future I recalled an incident I recently had with a self-service checkout at KMart.

It was a bright summer’s day and I had just popped into KMart to buy a couple of things for the upcoming semester. Nothing too challenging, just a couple of books, and a new bike helmet. After perusing the shop (let’s face it, one could lose days in KMart just ‘browsing’) I headed to the checkout. On my relaxed stroll to the checkout I suddenly saw a self-service checkout. Being in the relaxed and open-minded state that I was, I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to give it a go. It wasn’t as if there were too many people at the checkout, I just felt like giving a new-fangled piece of technology a try.

Off I wander to the amazingly interactive and welcoming user interface. Following the user prompts I scan my first item, an exercise book (exciting stuff I know). And then I decide to try a fancy trick I always see at the supermarket, when you’re buying say three of something the checkout-chick/dude just scans one of the items three times, then bags them all. Well I thought it was a good idea anyway! But unfortunately Mr. Self-Checkout had different plans. After battling with the darn thing for a couple of minutes a supervisor comes over to give me a hand (apparently she’s needed there to supervise the self-checkout…). It turns out that it has a weight sensor and it has to sense an increase in weight after each item scanned. Hmmm.

So after having my attempt at being tricky foiled by the self-checkout, I went on to try and pay for my purchases (now stacked up on the weighing device, and with the supervisor looking over my shoulder). Being a poor student with appalling control over my finances I had decided to pay with my credit card. Mistake Number 2. As we all know, the little swipey-thing that you swipe cards through hardly ever works when you want it to (say when you’re using a self-checkout and someone’s looking over your shoulder) and true to form, it didn’t. It must have taken me at least three or four tries to get it to work, and then I had to sign a little digital pad (which I think was pretty cool). But then it had to be verified by the supervisor-lady.

With my supervisor-approved receipt in hand, I finally thought the ordeal was over and I could safely leave the store. Not so! Being a student I was of course wearing a backpack (shameless plug for Macpac), and as such it just had to be inspected before I left the store. So finally I was able to leave, with my wits a little frayed, and my faith in technology almost crushed. Suffice to say I’ll be sticking with the checkout-chick option for a while longer.

[Editor’s Note: This person seems to think they are a great idea. each to their own I guess. Even if they’re wrong.]

--> Talking with a couple of my friends today about the new “SmartGate” that both Australia and New Zealand are intending on implementing in the near future I recalled an incident I recently had with a self-service checkout at KMart. It was a bright summer’s day and I had just popped into KMart to buy a couple of things for the upcoming semester. Nothing too challenging, just a couple of books, and a new bike helmet. After perusing the (More...)

I know that a certain suspension of disbelief is required in order to watch and enjoy most television shows/movies. Unfortunately I think some producers/directors want us to suspend a little too much disbelief.

LOST (do you have to spell it in all capitals?) is an example of this. As far as I can ascertain (I haven’t actually watched much of it) a plane crashed and the survivors were left to fend for themselves. Ok, cool, not a great plot, but there’s a little to work with there. Not much, but enough. I was expecting something akin to:

1. People crash on island
2. People have to work with each other to try and get along
3. Some of the people try and go for help and do/don’t make it
4. Depending on the outcome of 3, they either get saved or form a community on the island
5. If they form a community, it either fails miserably and they all turn into cannibals, or they all live happily ever after

The End

I for one would have been more than happy with that. There’s certain suspensions in disbelief required even for this scenario, but what happens on LOST is just absurd. They crashed on an island, cool, then they tried to go and get help, fine - still sticking to the formula, then the help attempt fails and they are stuck on the island. This is all believable and great, but then there was something about a hatch. And then when I watched a snapshot of it recently, there was someone doing surgery in a fully decked-out hospital, talking to someone else on a walkie-talkie. On a remote uninhabited island.

Did I miss something?

Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical. Of course I’ve missed something, I don’t watch the farcical show. But I think it’s a relatively long bow to draw, especially when you include the Mysterious Beast that lives in the jungle, and the conveniently placed survivors that the islanders run across periodically.

In my opinion it is just a result of lazy writing. It takes very good writers to create a show/movie that has believable characters and reasonable plot lines. LOST is just a badly written soap opera masquerading as a wonderfully original and amazingly action-packed television drama revolution. I say forsake this terrible series, and make the networks put decent shows on TV. Like MacGyver.

--> I know that a certain suspension of disbelief is required in order to watch and enjoy most television shows/movies. Unfortunately I think some producers/directors want us to suspend a little too much disbelief. LOST (do you have to spell it in all capitals?) is an example of this. As far as I can ascertain (I haven’t actually watched much of it) a plane crashed and the survivors were left to fend for themselves. Ok, cool, not a great (More...)

After almost four weeks of university, I have started reflecting on the differences between the working life and the student life, and thought I’d share some anecdotes from my time in the corporate world over summer.

Valentine’s Day

This was an interesting time to be in the office. My desk was near the secretaries on my floor, and so of course there was a lot of gossip about who was doing what, and who had received what on this romantic day of days. I remember several ‘romantic’ things being mentioned: dinners out; chocolates; roses, the usual stuff. But then one of the women mentioned that their partner of the time had actually given them an entire branch. Not just a rose, this fellow had gone over and above that, a whole branch! It had me in stitches for the entire day, thinking of a guy saying “Happy Valentine’s Day honey, I got you a branch”. Romantic.

Liquid Lunches

It is well known that many corporate types enjoy a couple of alcoholic beverages with lunch. I don’t deplore this practice, many of us have had days where it seems fitting to have a drink with lunch, either for celebration or as a stress relief. Whilst talking to one of the secretaries, I was told a humorous story with it’s roots in one of these lunches:

One of the higher-up employees (let’s call him Luke for argument’s sake) of one of the businesses near us had enjoyed quite a boozey lunch with important clients. Luke then called his secretary to ask her to cancel or reschedule his appointments for the rest of the afternoon. After hanging up from this call, the secretary decided that her charge had had a little too much to drink, and therefore he shouldn’t be driving home.

So what was she to do? Why, hide her his car keys of course!

She took them off his desk, and hid them in her drawer, and then left for home. What happened to Luke when he got into the office to look for his keys, I don’t know, but apparently he turned up to work the next day with no recollection of the treachery, and found his keys placed on his desk exactly where he thought he’d left them. None the wiser. That’s corporate responsibility for you!

Moisturiser

A lot of the people who read this blog have heard me talk at length on this, so I shall keep this brief. As I said earlier, I was placed in the midst of quite a few secretaries, and as most people know, secretaries tend to gossip. I have no problem with this, but it just so happened that the topic of conversation for at least two weeks of my time in the office was tanning moisturisers. I cannot for the life of me remember the different brands, but there was heated debates as to which was better. For two weeks! It really did almost drive me mad.

--> After almost four weeks of university, I have started reflecting on the differences between the working life and the student life, and thought I’d share some anecdotes from my time in the corporate world over summer. Valentine’s Day This was an interesting time to be in the office. My desk was near the secretaries on my floor, and so of course there was a lot of gossip about who was doing what, and who had received what on (More...)