February 2017 – Focus Water Town

Confusing Sporting Nets

AFL nets So you’re telling me that those funny looking egg-balls are actually…footballs? I guess you can kick them. Like, there’s potential for kicking. But seriously, they don’t even bounce properly and I’ve seen the games on TV. People definitely do a lot of stuff with their hands as well. Can you really call that football?

So, newest discovery: Australians are almost as backwards as the Americans, except not quite as much. If you’ve seen gridiron, you’d know what I mean. There’s ONE person on that field who’s allowed to kick the ball, so calling it football makes about as much sense as calling English football ‘handball’ because the goalkeeper is allowed to use their hands.

I also think it’s weird how there are only three big sticks. I guess you could use AFL nets to stop people in the crowd getting smacked in the face, but come on…in real football, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as slamming the ball right into the nets. The ‘soccer’ nets, as they say here. It’s even fun when there’s no goalie and no game on. Just kick, pow, right into the net. And then it sort of throws the ball back to you, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

I only got here a month ago, so I haven’t sat down and watched a full game of Australian Rules Football, but I can only imagine that most of the game is spent intensely concentrating on trying to make the ball bounce properly, with it being that weird shape. And sometimes you kick it, but you know…better not kick it in the wrong place or it’s going straight to China. Or right back at your face.

Maybe I’ll understand why people play it before I go, but the whole game just seems kind of off. Why not just play Rugby? At least everything makes sense there. Or, OR…actual football/soccer, with real football/soccer nets that give you a fair idea of where to kick the properly shaped ball. Kicking that egg-shaped thing just can’t be all that satisfying.

-Gareth

Proper Robot Appreciation

mobile scaffolding hire What’s with all these action movies that have to have women as the main character? I’ve got nothing against women, I just think it’s time for them to step aside and make way for robots. They can complain about a lack of representation, but action girls have been around in cinema forever. When was the last time you saw a good old robotic being as a leading role. And not one of those stupid, realistic robots that look like people. Not an android. Those are the most idiotic concepts ever, because why would a self-respecting robot want to look and act like a person? No, I’m talking a real robot’s robot.

It doesn’t matter. It’s going to be, what…ten years before they’re running the place? Humans just do way too many dangerous jobs. Why be a window cleaner seventy floors up when you can hire a robot to climb up your mobile scaffolding, programme him to feel no fear and he’ll get the job done faster, and cheaper. And with the thriving robotics industry, it’s not like there’s going to be a lack of jobs. Or I guess if you really want to clean windows, stick to the jobs where falling off some platforms steps isn’t going to end with a severe bump on the head. Like…bottom floor windows?

And then they’ll pretty much be forced to give robots real roles in movies, because Hollywood is all about diversity, and what’s more diverse than a rising group of non-humans who maybe want to be represented in movies? And not with human actors, either. That’s a travesty, giving the role to one of them when there will be so many actual robotic actors who could do the job just fine. And then they won’t have to stupidly rewrite the plot to make it so the robot is actually an impossibly-realistic android, because *insert horrible explanation*.

I mean, you can’t argue it’s not practical. Ladder platforms are really high and scary, and acting is hard. Both problems, and many others, that can be solved with programming.

-Xen006

Rows of Perfectly-Rendered Homes

concrete rendering Verona Street shall be victorious, and this year, I plan to make that an absolute certainty.

Twenty years I’ve spent trying to get people to trim their lawns, grow some flowers, paint their fences and just generally tidy up a bit, but we’ve never once come close to winning the Best Kept Melbourne Street Award. Of course, if someone would maybe keep up with the weeding, then we might be in the running instead of presenting the judges with a garden that looks like a jungle. By someone, I mean, Doreen. I couldn’t care less if you’ve just had a new hip fitted, that’s no excuse to not look after your own property!

I keep telling people, go above and beyond. Don’t just plant a few petunias….look into cement rendering! Actually, you don’t even have to look into it; I had it done to my own house as an example of how wonderful it looks. Look at it, street! Your own homes could look this lovely, and I can hook you up with every concrete renderer in Melbourne who’d be willing to do the job!

Not that simply having your home look concrete and uniform is going to win us the grand prize, but mark my words, it’ll be a great start. A great start on our road…to victory. That victory we would’ve had, if someone had bothered to fix their picket fence, Doreen. Open heart surgery is not an excuse for tardiness, especially when it comes to winning great honour for our street. We were supposed to be renowned throughout Melbourne! And we will be. I have three months to get everyone whipped into shape, after which we’re inviting the judges over for tea, cake and some splendid houses ringed by exquisite gardens. Oh, just imagine if every single one of them decided to get concrete rendering. Melbourne will never have seen the like, all our uniform homes in a row…and the prize would be ours for sure!

Don’t mess this up for us, Doreen.

-Anastasia

Icebreakers: Not Available in Melbourne

outboard motor repair Melbourne Last night I saw a movie about an icebreaker ship, conveniently titled Icebreaker Ship. You know the ones; big clunky numbers, chopping through arctic ice as people go on expeditions and hunt whales and such, except in this movie the people were investigating a crashed alien ship in the arctic. It wasn’t all that realistic- for one thing, the aliens were these big tentacle monsters who didn’t seem like they could tie a pair of shoes, let alone construct a blinky-lights ship for intergalactic travel- but the ship was rendered pretty well.

I had my phone, natural curiosity mingled with boredom (it was a pretty predictable movie) and eventually I was on the web, looking up outboard motor servicing in Melbourne and all kinds of nautical matters. Weird, because I’ve never been interested in boats before. Maybe this movie wasn’t as bad as I thought, since I was so fascinated by the big icebreaker that I wanted to know more.

You probably won’t be too surprised to learn that Melbourne dockyards currently have no plans for icebreaker construction. I guess ice in the waters around Australia isn’t a big concern, although I tried to see if any drifted over from the South Pole. You know, Tasmania is pretty close to the South Pole, much closer than you’d expect somewhere supposedly ‘hot’ to be. No dice, however…ships in the Tasmania harbours seem to have very little trouble with being frozen over by massive sheets of ice. Here, outboard motor servicing and anchor winches are the main industries, so I guess I’ll have to travel to the frozen north if I want to see one of them in action.

Do I even like the cold? Eh, it’s not too bad…but the people on board this massive ship seemed pretty miserable, and not just because of the aliens. Maybe I’ll stick to somewhat-sunny Melbourne, anchor winches and all. I guess those can be exciting.

-Fred

Best mid-life crisis ever

commercial office design I think my mum is having a midlife crisis. I mean, who can blame her? Honestly, and this is just the perspective of her teenage daughter, but damn her life seems as boring as hell. All she did was go to and from work every single day, and even when she got home, nine times out of ten she was working after dinner or fixing up some kind of presentation or whatever while she was watching tv. Frankly, the whole thing was just kind of sad and I honestly just felt really bad for her.

And then, one day, basically out of the blue, it was like she just kind of snapped. In like a week she quit her job and started taking me out shopping and going out to dinner and things. It was like she was a completely different person. She’s trying really hard to get out of the grueling industry she was in, which was only supposed to be a short-term thing when she had me since it paid pretty well.

Over dinner the other night, she told me she’s basically always hated it there, and that it was her dream to work for one of the best office fitout companies in Melbourne. Honestly, I was astounded when she said that, it was just so far removed from anything she’s done my whole life. But, I swallowed my surprise and told her the same things I tell everyone I’m close to: follow your dreams. So now she’s looking into applying at different commercial office design jobs in Melbourne and, thinking about it, she’s kind of like a completely different person and I’ve never seen her so happy. I just never want things to end and go back to the way they were. If this keeps up, it’ll be the best mid-life crisis ever.