Two bits, four bits...

I've decided to give up trying to understand the system of coins here in Australia.

In this monetary system, there are 6 coins: 5-cent, 10-cent, 20-cent, 50-cent, $1 and $2. While the dollar coins are so novel I have no problems with them, I am forever getting the cents ones wrong. With the US having 5-cent, 10-cent and 25-cent in popular use, I'm having to change my entire way of thinking about, well, change.

Sure on first thought it seems simple, but its required all of my brain power to not look stupid paying for things. The most common scenario being confidently trying yet invariably using the wrong coins to pay for things; gaping stupidly as the the clerk keeps holding out their hand expectantly for the rest. Worse, being helpful they eventually just say how much more they need, often telling me the missing coins.

There are two ways I've found to not get into this embarrassing situation:

1) Hold out a handful of money and let the clerk take the correct change. Unfortunately that makes you appear as if you're either 4 years old or don't understand english; both patently not true since you don't have your mother with you and, in fact, had spoken to the clerk in english.

2) Pay only with dollar coins. While that seems the adult way to hide your monetary comprehension challenges, to your horror you receive back yet more of those dayum coins to get rid of. DOH!

Guess you really can't teach an old dog new tricks, eh?

- Farmer Ted

Little facts I can do without #4...

The London Daily Mail report on "10 Mystifying Human Habits" reports:

Scientist charged with tracking the motivation behind the habit of nose picking have concluded "there isn't any significant nutritional content in nasal mucous."

Oh.. my.. gawd.:-o

- Farmer Ted

Ashes to ashes...

The Australian cricket team is locked in battle with the England team in The Ashes 2009 tournament. Now everyone here knows that I have converted into a complete cricket nut (although Pigeon says not since I like Twenty20).

As with a participant in any professional sport, cricketers also find the need to stand out from the team in their own way. To express their individuality, as it were.

But there is a difference between being different and being just plain silly.

- Farmer Ted

Chatting with penguins...

I mentioned I was trying to create a Linux file server? Well I can yell, SUCCESS!

Yesterday after clicking the last check box all my home assets were able to log onto the Linux box and use it.

Butters was amazed that an old 80MB hard drive, AMD pre-core processor machine that was about to be trashed is now a Fedora 11-based 2TB file server for an increasingly storage-hungry home network.

Who can talk penguin?

- Farmer Ted (that's who!)

Most embarrassing moment (inebriated)...

While at work today, I overheard people describing what they did over the weekend, with Funke relating an embarrassing story about what happened when he had a little too much to drink once and then how it felt when he sobered up and remembered what happened.

Picture it: Manhattan, NYC, January 1998. It's a cold winter night and I meet up with two friends at a Lower East Side bar.

There I'm introduced to a drink I'd never heard of before: a vodka seven. Surprised at it's smoothness, I drink one. Then another. Then another. Soon I lose track. Much later, arm-in-arm, we three go forth into the deep frosty night to see what we could get into.

It is now near noon the next day and I have the worst hangover created by the heavens. As we stumble towards a subway entrance heading to brunch, I'm squinting even against the feeble winter sun when my glance happens to fall on a panhandler next to the turnstile. You've seen Alfred Hitchcock's Veritgo, right? When Jimmy Stewart's character is climbing the tower and there's that weird pull-back while falling sensation? That's what I experience horrific disjointed memories from the night before stabbed forth.

"Guys," I asked, still staring at the panhandler while annoyed New Yorkers pushed past me towards the entrance, "when we left the bar last night, was there a homeless person outside the bar?"

"Yes," one agreed.

"Was it a woman?" I pressed, "A homeless woman asking for money?"

"Sure was," said the other.

"And tell me," I continued, feeling truly sick. "Tell me I didn't stand there on the street giving her advice on how to panhandle. Tell me I didn't wish her good luck and then give her a big bear hug. Tell me I didn't.." I finished weakly, my head helplessly jerking from left to right under the onslaught of the surfacing vodka-laden memories.

"Sorry but that's exactly what you did," the first said with evil glee. "She was really REALLY annoyed."

And with that, my misery - and my most embarrasing inebriated moment - was cast.

What's yours? I won't tell. Promise.

- Farmer Ted

Fifteen candles...

Director John Hughes passed away yesterday. He was 59.

For me, Mr Hughes' films loomed large in my formative years, not the least of which is the movie Sixteen Candles from which my own blog moniker hails. Perhaps because his films entertained me (even when I knew better) and echoed my own life experiences (hey, we all carry a bit of teen angst even when an adult) that I'll always appreciate him.

So I pay homage to the man, his talent and his art.

- Farmer Ted

Not quite Ramsay Street...

National Night Out was this week in the US. For those not familiar, since 1984 NNO has been at its bare essence designed for folks to get to the know their neighbors and who lives in their neighborhoods; coordinating block parties, cookouts, flashlight walk arounds, and most importantly sitting on your porch or front steps ("stoops" as we call them in Philadelphia) and just talking to your neighbors. The rationale is simple: to build a sense of community. Your Farmer had participated in previous years and it's pretty cool.

NNO now has worldwide participation. Except in Australia where it appears to be unknown.

It puzzled me as to why until I thought about the different way the denizens of US & Australia live at home. In a fundamental architectural difference here, living spaces are in the back of the house and bedrooms in the front; while that reversal in the US meaning living areas are very visible to the street. And to ensure isolation, many houses in Australia are walled completely from the street meaning there is no front stoop or porch to be seen anyway; very different than in the US.
It's like if you're not located somewhere miles away from your neighbors, people here try to make sure it feels that way.

I guess NNO never comes to Ramsay Street.

- Farmer Ted

Flora and Fauna (4)...

Everyone agrees that the wildlife here in Australia is like no where else in the world. Especially joking about how many can kill ya.

Well, what do you think about spiders large enough to capture and eat birds?

~Shudder~

Anyone got a 55 gallon drum of Raid?

- Farmer Ted

Why bother...

Encountered on an automated teller machine screen I used this weekend:
So you tell me, why bother with the instruction at the bottom with the screen fairly shouting "Look at me! Look at what I'm doing!"

Sheesh.

- Farmer Ted