Salt and corrosion

Yesterday's mystery object:


( The big reveal )

I have been to Melbourne today, with my boss, who hates going to Melbourne and stays there for as short a time as possible. He picked me up at seven this morning and dropped me home again just before four this afternoon. That included six hours on the road. Perhaps because of all the driving, I had a bit of headache when I got home, so I went for a walk along the cliff path to shake the cobwebs off. My photos for today have a town and country thing going on. Neither of these are today's official photo, but I remembered the other day that the disc that came with my camera had a panorama maker on it, so I tested it out twice today. I think they worked (the photos link to bigger versions).

( Panoramic town and country )

I've just taken a visual style quiz. Apparently, I'm Form and Function: fun, yet cosmopolitan, just like Alfred Hitchcock and Bill Gates. I've never thought to compare my style to either of them. Or either of them to each other.

'You know how some trousers have small pockets?' asked my mother this morning. 'Well... these don't.' And she plunged her hands in her pockets halfway to her elbows and beamed at me. I don't know. It made me laugh. And she'll be able to keep a lot of tissues in them, so everyone's happy.

Yesterday I read a suggestion that interesting effects could be obtained by taking a photo with the camera looking through the view finder of another camera, as a way of putting old cameras to use now we no longer buy film for them. So here is a photo of a plant in my garden this morning, taken with my digital camera:


( And here's one I prepared earlier )

Tomorrow (Saturday) is election day. I love election day. Even when I was little, I used to like going with my mother to the Purnim Primary School to watch her vote, although that was partly because I went to the town's Catholic primary school and enjoyed the chance to see how the other side lived. They didn't have a tennis court, but they did have a slide and a giant Rainbow Snake painted on their shelter shed wall, which seemed to even things out. (Incidentally, tabouli, I'm from Purnim. You're thinking of Panmure, a nearby but quite different place.)

Last election day I voted and then went a baptism followed by a celebratory barbecue, during which the child's mother said she felt personally affronted that the election was called for the same day as the baptism because it was Such An Effort to find fifteen minutes to go and vote during this busy, busy day, and the people near her agreed that, yes, voting is such a burden. And I looked around and thought, why am I friends with these people again? I was glad to get home and turn the election coverage on. (I was no fan of the then-Prime Minister, John Howard, but even I couldn't blame him for not taking into account my friends' baby's baptism when planning the election date).

The City by the Sea is in what used to be the third-safest seat in the country, in favour of the Liberal (that's our conservative party) Party (the electorate is Wannon, if my Australian f-listers want a personal connection while you're watching the call of the board - and do tell me your seat too). For my entire childhood, our local member was also the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser. I met him and his wife on a school trip to look at seaweed once; they lived nearby and were just walking on the beach and stopped to chat with us. Best school trip ever! Since he retired the seat has been held by the world's beigest man, who has steadily been losing support, so Wannon is now only a middle-range safe seat. He's retiring this election, and while it's likely his personally picked replacement will get in, there is a chance to at least make the seat marginal, ensuring we get more attention. The electorate next to us, Corangamite, is one of the most marginal in the country, and we have watched, dismayed, as every major politician from the Prime Minister down has visited Corangamite this campaign and promised them all sorts of funding, completely ignoring us. Even senior members of the local Liberal party have written letters to today's paper urging people not to vote Liberal as part of the local Make Wannon Marginal campaign. Which is fine with me, because I wasn't going to vote for them anyway. My natural inclination is to vote for the Greens (and they will get my Senate vote), but the local Greens representative is vague and unimpressive, so I have decided to vote for one of the independent candidates. Big decision.

I meant to say earlier in the week that I dropped Leeanne, the office manager, home one evening after work. One of those roundabout things where her car was in for a service and her husband couldn't pick her up and her daughter was out of town and, and, and. You know how it goes. Anyway, I dropped her home and went inside to see the extensions to their house, since she has been talking about them for months. Also to meet her dogs, Princess and Sooty Pom-Pom (I know). Anyway, while I was there her husband arrived home. He does something with the courts, delivering subpoenas and whatever (I don't really know). But he is also in the process of getting his private detective's licence, which I think is pretty exciting, and he showed us a new toy he had bought that day: a tiny hidden microphone. 'You put this bit in your shirt,' he said, 'and this bit on the person's desk and then you turn it on and-' but his explanation was cut off because he turned the microphone on and an electronic voice said, very loudly, 'BATTERY LEVEL IS HIGH!' So, yes, good luck to him placing that by stealth.

( Day 4: Sunday )

A question: if you, being villainous with dastardly intentions, immobilised someone and left them on the beach so that they would drown when the tide came in, would they? Or would they float? (This was inspired by a book, by the way, not something I'm planning in real life. Although if it was something I was planning, tomorrow's photos would certainly be interesting.)

( Day 2: Friday )

Yesterday I decided that I shouldn't waste my day off today flopping about the house thinking how hot I was (much as I enjoy that), so I peeled my mother off her couch (my dislike of heat is an inherited trait) and took her on an excursion. I pointed Freddie (that's my car) east and we went along the Great Ocean Road all the way to the Otway Ranges National Park, where we spent the afternoon prancing about in the treetops at the Otway Fly. I'm not sure why it's called the Otway Fly. Well, the Otway part is clear, since that's the name of the forest, but the Fly part is a mystery since no flying is involved. But there you go.

Anyway, the Otway Fly is in a cool temperate rainforest (according the brochure), and you walk along the forest floor for a bit before going up onto a walkway 25 metres above the ground. It's quite interesting and, crucially, slightly cooler than not being in the forest. This is a grove of mountain ash (the world's tallest flowering plant (I'm reading from the brochure again here) and a type of eucalypt, not an ash at all), as seen from 25 metres up. The flowers are about 75 metres higher again.



( Trees and ferns )

Sadly, despite keeping my eyes peeled, I did not see the 'distinctive, endemic and carnivorous Otway Black Snail' as promised in the brochure (although judging from the photo, I could find a regular snail in my garden and paint its shell black to achieve a similar effect). And after all that, a Tiro Lightly Carbonated Italian Red Orange Drink purchased at the café and gift shop on the way out was like the nectar of the gods.

On the way home, we passed a road called Wait-A-While Lane, which sounds like a jolly place to live.

Home again, we stopped at a shopping centre so my mother could get some groceries. It was a bit odd, being in air-conditioning and white tiles so soon after being in a forest.

All in all, a good day, except that I succumbed to prickly heat and now have a red rash on both cheeks, spreading down my neck and décolletage. Hmph.

It was Quite Hot today, so to cool down I went for a twilight walk on the beach. I am trying to remember to take my camera places, and I actually did this time. This photo was an accident, taken while I was trying to adjust the settings, but, do you know, I quite like it.

It got dark quite quickly; this photo was taken only ten minutes beforehand.

Also, I have an exam tomorrow and it's meant to be hot again. I hope my brain doesn't melt.

Do you know what I did today? I hope you're sitting down because it's pretty exciting: I went up the City by the Sea's FIRST EVER ESCALATOR.

A bit later I went down the other side, but, eh, it was old hat by then.

Fun fact: escalators give me vertigo. I'm fine with stationary heights -- standing on a cliff or a tall building or on a very steep flight of stairs -- but put me on an automatically moving incline and I go all light-headed and dizzy. And so it was today, but I just closed my eyes and in a blinking I was back onto the shiny, still floor. It's not a big escalator.

After that, I went for a walk along the beach path and took a photo of a thing, as shown at right.

And then I came home and made a chocolate coconut cake. So, yes, it's been a big day.

My mother and John came to see me yesterday. John was wearing a glove on his right hand and my mother had one on her left hand. 'You could only find one pair of gloves?' I asked.

'No,' said my mother. 'We only need one pair. We wear one glove on the outside and hold hands in the middle.'

Sweet, but also sickening.

Today's Sights of the City by the Sea is a bumper edition. There was meme going about last year that required people to take photos of their day at work. I didn't do that at the time, but here it is now.



My desk. This is where the magic happens. Ha.

( But it gets (marginally) more interesting )

You might not have been able to tell, but for the last little while I've been writing from the future. A few weeks ago, the council changed the speed signs near my house from the traditional number painted on a sheet of metal to a solar-powered light display:



Most of the time the speed along this stretch of the highway is 70 kph, but that drops to 40 kph during school crossing time. And when that happens, the sign changes to 40 and flashes for the duration. I've seen the future and it looks disco. It could only be improved if it played music and the red lights went off and on in patterns. (Although that would possibly be distracting to motorists.)

This is a piece of graffiti I pass on my way to work:



What is it? Zombies? Or soldiers? Or dancers? Or zombie soldier dancers?