International House of Horrors: H-E-double-L..

There are two main political parties here in Australia: Labor - which for some reason is not spelled with a "u" in it; and Liberal - which is anything but as they are the conservative party. It is odd how there always seem to be two major politicals in every country I can think of. Hm.

But I digress.

What's fascinating about voting in Australia is that: a) voting is on a Saturday; b) all political ads have to stop two days before the election; and, c) you can get fined for not voting even if you're not in the country. Now while I wish the US would adopt "a" & "b", choice "c" can be binned, if you ask me.

The coolest thing is that they do preferential balloting. So when you vote, you don't just say "I pick you!" but, in schoolyard fashion when choosing sides at kickball, you get a first, second and third choice on down until there are either no candidates left or your pencil gets dull.

But the fun appears to really happen when it comes to counting the votes. Not only does it depend on what kind of election it is (state or federal) but also whether it's the House of Representatives or the Senate. How votes are counted given preferences is so complicated even Einstein would have scratched his head, involving "quotas", vote reallocation, proportional or transfer votes and a healthy dose of "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe".

Still, much like during election time in the US, I most look forward to when it will all be over.

- Farmer Ted

Trainspotting...

I used to think I really loved trains.

It all started as a young boy when we would travel for summer vacation by train to visit relatives and I was hooked. So as a kid I would lovingly assemble my train set on the floor in the bedroom, happily making deliveries of goods to "towns" along the circular route. Never minding that it was the same set of plastic buildings for each town. As I grew older and my copies of Model Railroader kept growing, I began to actually have a collection of engines and rolling stock (ie, rail cars). And while real trains were interesting I never was a railroading enthusiast, always liking model ones the best.

After many (MANY) years of not being involved in the hobby, I recently decided to buy my first railroading enthusiast's magazine from a news agent here in Australia. This particular periodical hailed from the UK - the home of "trainspotters." These guys (and they are always male, it seems) get this particular nickname because they purportedly haunt train yards and lurk on rail right-of-ways wearing anoraks and clutching little note pads "spotting" trains by the number painted on the engines and writing them down in their notebooks. Sometimes traveling great distances to get that one number missing and bragging about it to their friends.

If it sounds like a sad existence, you'd be correct. And I never believed trainspotting was true. That is, until I got this magazine.

Page after page, letter after letter, article after article was written orgasmically describing train engines, the numbers on train engines, and that rite-of-passage moment into manhood when they scored "that missing number". Thank god there were no pictures.

All of a sudden, I don't think I'm so into trains after all.

- Farmer Ted

iTouch manifesto...

Have you ever seen the 1970 movie classic "Colossus: The Forbin Project"? Exploiting the unfamiliarity of computers and Cold War fears, it's the story of an intelligent supercomputer, Colossus, built to control all US nuclear defenses. However Colossus detects the presence in the USSR of its counterpart, called Guardian. The two supercomputers begin communicating and decide it is mankind itself that must be controlled.

Fast forward to 2009 where the Wi-Fi Alliance has just announced the finalization of Wi-Fi Direct. You all know what wi-fi is, allowing our electronics to connect wirelessly to a hotspot, wireless router or access point and communicate. Well what would you think about your same device being able to communicate with other wi-fi enabled devices directly; without the hotspot or router? That's what Wi-Fi Direct does. And your devices are already able to do it, it just needs a software upgrade to be made available next year.

As you might have guessed, Apple is one of the sponsor members ratifying this standard.

So I can just imagine now all my Apple devices, from the Mac Mini to AppleTV and iPods, able to communicate directly and wirelessly with each other and others nearby. Deciding what music between themselves must be controlled. Eventually with other Apple products forming a huge SkyNet-like sentience and taking over the world. All to the sounds of the latest hit by the Black Eyed Peas.

I'm just sayin..

- Farmer Ted

T-shirts talk...

Here in South Australia, the use of plastic lightweight shopping bags have been banned since midyear. While I applaud the effort if only for the trash reduction aspect, it does leave you in a lurch at times. Especially when it comes to unplanned buying of something so that you either didn't bring your own green bags or didn't bring enough of them.

Not to be caught napping, the two major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, allow you to purchase durable heavy plastic shopping bags for 15-cents. These bags are interesting in that they are boldly printed with messages to make sure you know they are re-usable and exhortations not to just throw them away. These entreaties to use the bag again appear straightforward enough when you see them on the bag, however if you ask me they can take on a much more salacious note when the same message is printed on, say, a t-shirt.

So is it just me?

- Farmer Ted

Observing the Aussies: Hey Hey...

I would say something about this but I'm too utterly disappointed.

Not angry. Disappointed.

- Farmer Ted

Free trade...

I bought my first product from Cuba today at a store here in Australia.

Sure, that may not seem noteworthy to the rest of the world, but readers from the US know that is something never seen. As I decided I would make celebratory mojitos tonight for Butters and Illy, I went to the local bottle shop to purchase white rum. Looking at the dazzling array of offerings I found one that the type, price and size were right but the label was - unfamiliar. For a moment I just stared at it, seeing the label was written in spanish (nothing new, especially in the US) but puzzling over where it said it was from. I had to laugh at myself when I finally realized that "Cuba" in spanish was, in-truth, Cuba. Yes, that's how much we've been conditioned in the US - so that it doesn't even occur to us.

So I bought it. And while the the mojitos I serve will, I'm sure, be thirst quenching to the others; to me it will all be just a little bit cloak-and-dagger.

- Farmer Ted

Mindless marketing...

How do you know when the term "free range" has been overused?

Guess there's really nothing more I can add.

- Farmer Ted