I mean blah to this. Though sometimes when there are things like this around it means there's something actually good somewhere nearby. But in this case, there wasn't.
Looking at what people look at makes me look at things I have written here (I note that a lot of the video links are now dead, I really don't know what to do about that but I guess you can't keep spinning the plates forever, and for all that, often in the past I haven't even explained what I've linked to, just led into it, and now going back I have no idea what it was). I remember over a decade ago somebody I haven't spoken to for a long time said he was surprised at how much personal information I gave away in this blog, and I was quite taken aback - because I thought I played my cards very close to my chest. I noted a little while ago that all my posts were credited to me with my full name. That intrigues me because I couldn't even imagine a time when I'd make it possible to align my full name with this production. But there you go. It obviously happened.
Nancy and I have had another really nice low-key companionable day today just hanging out by the heater. I cleaned the kitchen, watched some bits and pieces of movies (for the course I'm teaching this semester), the only time I went out was to go to Newmarket - Cheaper Buy Miles, the chemist, the supermarket - nothing special. It has been raining fairly heavily a lot of the time as I noted the few times I took rubbish to the bins etc.
Some of the time I've been listening to the audiobook of Bill Carter's book The Late Shift. I don't really know why - I have no huge stake in late-night tv shows in the US though I did watch Letterman quite often in the 1990s - but Audible told me I had credits and for some reason that book came into my mind. It's engaging enough. It does all seem kind of incredibly petty and juvenile, at the same time.
I have to say so far so great with this apartment. I am very impressed by it. It's a really nice place to live and a testament to a great architect with a bit of a vision. Looking forward to doing things with it.
This is the argument I was having at the same time. I always try to have an argument with some drone from Optus every day, it keeps them on their toes and keeps my bile up.
I took Barry and Ferdie out for a little walk, and as is now my wont I let them go into the water. It was quite a warm day (it got warmer, this is only midday) but Barry did not want to go into the water, just potter around the edge. They were panting quickly though and they both drank deep from their water bowl when they got back.
I decided after this to walk to Glenroy which means first of all crossing Jacana Reserve (this picture is a bit of an illusion, there's a big drop between the green grass and the yellowed bit which is much further away, I saw that and can't unsee it but I am not sure how it looks to you, just imagine the second tree from the right is absolutely on the edge of a steep hill, and when I say imagine, it's not a lie.
Emu Parade shops, a late 1950s Housing Commission construction which has never really been a jumpin' joint in my experience, though someone there was smart enough to register the name Broady Pizza and that was, well, smart. Hard to conceive of this now but whereas Jacana is the very southernmost tip of the City of Hume today and for many Hume is really two major centres - Sunbury and Broadmeadows - the old Broadmeadows council went much further south. It unnecessarily irritates me that the true fact is often stated that, until Hume set up the Broadmeadows library there was no library at Broadmeadows. And there wasn't! But Broadmeadows CC ran at least two libraries - at Fawkner and Glenroy - because Broadmeadows wasn't really where the population was. OK enough defending Broadmeadows CC for now. Don't really know what this landscaping etc is about (in the top picture) but seriously, that vacant land on the right which I think was once a petrol station (never in my Jacana experience, so more than 15 years) has been vacant too long. It should be a groovy vegan cafe and record shop, shouldn't it.
So many great brick HCV houses in Jacana, it was probably one of the last bastions of brick HCV before they went concrete (as they did over the railway line within years). This one has a name, 'Jallen'.
This is not a house but a tree with a really nice view. I have probably mentioned this before, I don't know what happened here, it was a weatherboard house probably from the 1920s that burned down about a decade ago. Surely foul play of some sort. I met a man there, when the house was still standing, who claimed to be the owner, he told me that there was an old saying in Greek that you needed three things in life, friends, cunt and money, which was not as far as I'm concerned the sort of thing you say to a stranger, probably not even a friend, and certainly not the kind of thing you write on a blog for anyone to see. He was complaining that he was not being enabled by council to pull down the house and build something else on it, and now the house is not there, but I don't see anyone trying to build anything on it, so what's that about?
As you probably know when the Bolte government considered ways to get people to and from the new Tullamarine Jetport, dedicated 1959, a significant amount of land was reserved from the Broadmeadows line just south of Jacana station (which actually opened that year) to the airport. Presumably most of it was sold yonks ago, but this little patch was only developed a few years ago and currently looks like this. It is called something ridiculous like Coupling Lane which sounds a bit, hmm, not heteronormative but at least relationshiponormative. It should have been called Friends, Cunt and Money Avenue. Why? Well, it has a tree in it, that makes it an avenue. Avenue been told that's what makes an avenue?
Glenroy has a lot of good weatherboard houses like for instance this one:
A few weeks ago I made the stupid mistake of getting involved in a long public argument with a man on threads who was dedicated to the idea ...
