brainsnorkel.com

After a couple of weeks in the US being buried in work and trying to watch television news once or twice, let me give public thanks for the bounty of radio and the Internet.

For ABC (Australia), NPR, and blogs - praise be.

It’s all about relying on the kindness of strangers (and taxpayers).

I’m currently in Denver. On assignment!

As my family and I will be here for some time, and we only have the one car, we’ve discussed getting something like a motor scooter for me to ride to work. A moped. Something like a Vespa.

J & I had a discussion about how cheap they are to run and how good they are for the environment.

I used to have one way back when I was in school, so I know the thrill of filling up each week with 90 cents worth of petrol. The slings and arrows of riding a moped in rural and regional Australia just helped to make me stronger. Don’t taunt me again, I could be pushed too far like a moped-riding John Rambo.

Getting a moped seemed like an idea worth pursuing. A potential problem we both noted was that neither of us had ever seen a motor scooter in the USA. We speculated that they’re considered too gay, or French, or both. Maybe, and this was the conclusion we snarkily agreed to, they’re unpatriotic in their frugal fuel use (notwithstanding the huge numbers of hybrids now on the roads).

As if to illustrate why having only one vehicle was a problem that needed solving, on Friday I was supposed to be picked up from work at 4:30 but I had a meeting that ran late. I lost track of time and I had no mobile phone. J waited for me in the car park for a while and then drove home with the kids to wait for my call. It wasn’t for another hour that I got in touch with her to arrange a pickup. We arranged a new time and I headed down to the car park to catch some late afternoon outdoors.

In the car park was the first motor scooter I had seen in America. We were proven wrong, Americans do care about fuel usage and don’t care about looking French, gay, or Italian!

I waited for 15 minutes for J to arrive, and noticed something odd. The back wheel of the scooter was slowly rotating, as if moved by the breeze. I got closer and realized that the engine had been left running.

When J arrived she said that she had seen it earlier when she came to pick me up and it had its engine on then as well. It had been running for 90 minutes or more.

Was this some form of effete fuel-wasting ceremony designed to exorcise perceived moped-gayness? Was it a French or Italian spy proving themselves to be American?

I could have ridden it away to rescue it into my laté-sipping life of looking like a felonious, gay, French-Italian, greenie, but I think I’ll just get a bicycle.

The Australian Senate is not a place you would expect to find comedy, but yesterday for some reason I had my car radio tuned to News Radio for 10 minutes on the way to pick up my kids yesterday and I heard this:

Senator ROBERT RAY (2.43 pm)—I direct my question to Senator Minchin, Minister representing the Prime Minister. Is the minister aware of an article in the Sunday Age newspaper of 24 June 2007, under the heading ‘“ASIO agent” Heffernan makes some odd calls’, which claimed that Senator Bill Heffernan had phoned the general manager of Cubbie Station and posed as an ASIO agent? Has an investigation been launched to determine whether or not Senator Heffernan may have committed an offence under division 148 of the Criminal Code by impersonating a Commonwealth public official? Isn’t it true that Senator Heffernan has confirmed that he does indulge in such impersonations? Is it a defence to claim eccentricity or slavish sycophancy to the Prime Minister and, if so, can all other potential criminals in the country make similar excuses?

Senator MINCHIN—I have no direct and personal knowledge of the circumstances of which Senator Ray speaks. Of course it is wrong, generally speaking, to impersonate anybody in any phone call, but I do not have a brief on the matter to which Senator Ray refers and I would prefer to be fully briefed before I give him an answer. I undertake to get him an answer as soon as I possibly can.

Senator ROBERT RAY—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I appreciate that the minister is going to be briefed and get back to us but, while he is doing that, could he also confirm that Senator Heffernan has boasted that he impersonates Senator Barnaby Joyce—the horror, Mr President, the horror!— and rings Queensland constituents of Senator Joyce and asks them what they think of Senator Heffernan? Is it the case that section 7.3 of the Criminal Code provides that a person can be held not criminally responsible for an offence by reason of mental impairment?

Senator MINCHIN—I can confirm that Senator Heffernan has a remarkable and attractive sense of humour which endears him to all his colleagues. I can also confirm that Senator Joyce has a most distinctive voice that I would not have thought was capable of being impersonated. Nevertheless, I am not in a position to confirm the allegation and I will not undertake to get any further information on that matter.

Some troublemaker managed lead letter in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

As the debate about housing affordability continues, I would like to see more discussion of the attitude towards renters.

It’s like a dirty secret in which we are all complicit. Once we’ve got our own patch, we seem happy to forget about the miseries of renting. There are no substantive policies or meaningful law reform. With renting recognised as the only option available to many over a lifetime, the time to act is now.

Renters are treated like second-class citizens by agents and owners alike. While there are clearly many fair landlords, and real estate agents, we see this as good fortune, rather than a right to expect. I was a good tenant: paid rent on time, looked after the places I’ve occupied, got on with the neighbours and still had humiliating battles to get my bond back.

Managing rental properties would be the lowest rung of real estate business and it seems to fall to the most junior staff. Determining the quality of our steam cleaning was often in the hands of a 20-year-old trainee. As I was young, too, this was merely galling. It must be excruciating for older renters.

Dealing directly with an owner is usually worse. One, when asked to fix the hot water service, launched into a tale of his kitchen renovation woes. Tell someone who cares. Learn a little about your responsibilities.

In a friend’s case, the bond was put into the owner’s business, and had to be paid back in instalments. Just weeks ago, someone else I know had an owner change his mind and tell him to move out just days after he’d moved in. With no lease signed at that point, what was he to do? Although I hear good things about the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal, it is still a fight that many don’t have the stomach for.

Renting hinges on a relationship that is fundamentally unequal and is founded on private return to the owner. The expectations of the tenants and their ability to plan and live their lives come a distant second.

Why can a business enjoy a five-year lease, with an option to extend, but the shelter which people need to live can be removed with minimal notice? Until this is addressed, nobody will see renting as an alternative to home ownership.

Kudos to J! It’s the biggest day in letter-writing in our house since J got lead letter, and 2 of the 3 other letters on the same topic were from friends of ours too.

I have vivid memories of talking to our landlord of yore about how we were tired of waiting for some long lost blue-collar member of his family to clear up some time to come fix our hot water service. Two days without hot water in winter would usually constitute a need for “emergency plumbing.” He began to tell me about how his family suffered when they were renovating their bathroom (not the kitchen as stated above — oops). I objected, saying that if we had rented through an agent, or any other landlord we would have at least seen a plumber by now. “Are you implying I’m not a good landlord?” he said. “I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you you’re a bad landlord.”

That felt good, and later that day we had working hot water again. We were informed that our rent was increasing soon after.

I recently discovered that a lot of parents and kids at my son’s school think I work for Lego.

My usual “I’m a software engineer… I do stuff with phones and networking and software and stuff” might be the right mixture of tedious-sounding and insufficiently memorable to cause temporary amnesia in those not learned in the appropriate arts. That state of mind might open the door for the Lego meme to slip in.

My son swears he’s not the source of this rumour.

When I worked with ATMs at a bank, I used to prefer “I’m a software guy” to “I look after the ATM network management software at bank X” based on former allowing me to move the conversation somewhere other than vocation and the latter getting me bailed up with wild-eyed rants about appalling ATM service. Unlike ATMs, I’m not unhappy about being associated with Lego. I just wonder if this will end like the Seinfeld episode where George pretends he’s a marine biologist.

Are there any life or death situations that can only be resolved through encyclopaedic knowledge of the Lego product line?

After taking this test, I know I’m so much more a SEKA than a Capricorn or INFJ…

SEKA (Socializer, Explorer, Killer, Achiever)

SEKA players are usually very interested in the the ‘total experience’ of a virtual world–meeting other people and finding the unique places within it. They don’t care much for PVP or levelling, but meeting up with online friends to see new parts of the world is usually fun and exciting.

Breakdown: Achiever 26.67%, Explorer 66.67%, Killer 33.33%, Socializer 73.33%

I wonder how this compares to Myers-Briggs and Astrology for useful applicability to my interactions with work colleagues?