Oh joy of joys, what wonderful stuff it is that fills batteries.
About an hour ago I picked up my digital notetaker with the aim of listening to a recording from last year so that I could quote part of it in an email to Mike Jeffreys. I picked up the digital notetaker and discovered that it refused to turn on due to what it claimed was a low battery (that’s a strange term, “discharged battery” would be a better term as low battery sounds like the opposite of a high battery, and I don’t think the altitude of a battery would differ enough from the device it is in for the said device to really care)…anyway a few moments later I realised that the back of the digital notetaker was quite sticky and sure enough I had one, maybe two leaking batteries.
Having already handled this battery goo and with a skin irritation starting, I quickly grabbed some paper towel to assist with the disposal of the batteries and the cleaning of the device, and washed my hands. My fingers are a bit irritated now, and even though those were the last two AAA batteries in the house and I would like to purchase some more batteries, I think I will take John Kerr’s advice and wait until the daylight hours…I think I can paraphrase instead of directly quoting the recording anyway.
Clean Up chairman IAN KIERNAN says there was a three per cent drop in litter found by an estimated 800-thousand volunteers around the country yesterday.
[..]
Mr KIERNAN says more than a third of the seven-thousand-200 tonnes of rubbish collected at over six thousand sites was recyclable drink cans and bottles
Another report suggest that cigarette butts were the most collected item in Canberra. Did anybody really count each item either at the time of collection or by ripping the bags open later on? The overall figure is pleasing, but why we need a fabricated brak-down of the rubbish is beyond me.
In October last year I continued my photographic series of Hills and Mountains of Canberra by visiting Oakey Hill, but for one reason or another I never got around to captioning the photos and making them publicly available…well, now they are.
Oakey Hill’s summit is 684 metres above sea level, the hill itself is surrounded by the Tuggeranong Parkway to the west, Hindmarsh Drive to the south, the subub of Lyons to the east and Heysen Street to the north. It is probably most recognisable for the mobile phone tower near the summit.
The phone tower can be seen quite clearly from many parts of Canberra, including Liardet Street in Weston.
Which, in turn, can be seen from Oakey Hill (click the image to enlarge…the previous photo was taken from next to the street sign at the end of the road between the petrol station and orange building).
Oakey Hill also has some nice views of Canberra such as looking towards Civic
Woden (on a slight angle)
And Parliament House
And much like almost every other hill in Canberra, Oakey Hill features a water reservoir.
The full set of photos can be viewed on the photo gallery at http://photos.samuelgordonstewart.com/Oakey-Hill-20071031, and it’s probably worth pointing out that I came very close to twisting my ankle on this hill…that’ll teach me to stand on small concrete columns and get off them without looking. Can anybody find the photo which features these small concrete columns?
On Saturday night I decided to do something that I’ve been considering doing for a couple weeks. Beyond Blue have an interactive depression checklist on their website, it’s certainly not a definitive diagnosis, but it’s a useful utility. I, not surprisingly, scored a “7” on a scale where anything 5 or above is considered a likely indicator of depression.
The strangest thing about this is that I really don’t have anything to be depressed about, things are going quite well for me and, in theory at least, I should be happy…and sometimes I am, but more often than not I’m finding myself in a somewhat depressed state. I probably should see somebody about this, and eventually I suppose I will…for the moment I seem to be coping, and I think I’d feel rather silly if I went to see a medical professional about it.
This probably looks like a plea for sympathy, but it’s not. I’m really just writing this for my own benefit. It makes me feel better to write this down…I don’t quite know why it makes me feel better, but it does.
Now, time to write something I should have written months ago.
This week’s award goes to the group Propellerheads and singer Shirley Bassey; the feature song is one they produced together called “History Repeating”. I suppose, for the first Musicians Of The Week award following Clive Robertson’s departure from 2UE’s overnight show, a song I first heard on his show is appropriate.
The word is about, there’s something evolving,
whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here,
that the revolution’s near,
but to me it seems quite clear
that it’s all just a little bit of history repeating
The newspaper’s shout a new style is growing,
but it don’t know if it’s coming or going,
there is fashion, there is fad
some is good, some is bad
and the joke is rather sad,
that it’s all just a little bit of history repeating
And I’ve seen it before
and I’ll see it again
yes I’ve seen it before
just little bits of history repeating
Some people won’t dance, if they don’t know who’s singing,
why ask your head, it’s your hips that are swinging
life’s for us to enjoy
woman, man, girl and boy,
feel the pain, feel the joy
aside set the little bits of history repeating
Just little bits of history repeating
and I’ve seen it before
and I’ll see it again
yes I’ve seen it before
just little bits of history repeating
Thanks for that song Clive! I hope you’re getting a bit more sleep now that you’re not working all night.
