Hope in Adelaide III

For any lingering doubters out there I offer 2 more pieces of evidence that Adelaide is indeed struggling for its own identity and is copying the superior state to it's east.

1. Flinders St. Yep. That's right. There's a Flinders St in the Adelaide CBD. Again a poor imitation of it's namesake in Melbourne.
2. At State Youth Games on the weekend we (Bordertown) be-friended a cool bunch of people from the Hawthorn Church of Christ. The people that named this place either had no imagination or, more likely had come from Victoria and were trying to emulate the awesome place they'd just visted.
   

Hope in Adelaide II

I have blogged before about the Melbournisation of Adelaide, and after living here for 2 weeks I've noticed some more signs that indeed Adelaide is confused about its own identity. Some days I wonder if I ever left the Garden Sta ergh.... Place to Be.

What else have I noticed? Names. For starters, I live in a suburb called 'Fitzroy'. That's right, Fitzroy, SA. Not to be confused with the Melbourne suburb and former AFL club of the same name. I'm fairly sure that Fitzroy in Melbourne would've been around for longer than Fitzroy in SA. I thought it slightly odd at first, but then I realised that I got off the bus some days at Victoria Square. Thats right. Adelaides most central park, just opposite the GPO is called Victoria Square. You can't miss it. It has a tram line running right through it. It's funny, because there arn't any SA parks in Melbourne. Surely these two are just co-incidence right? Perhaps, but consider this. As far as good places to eat in Adelaide go there are 3 spots to choose from: Rundle St, Glenelg & wait for it........ & no I'm not joking MELBOURNE ST! Yes that's right, one of Adelaides best eat out strips is Melbourne St. Next time you are in Melbourne, ask your friends if they wanna go eat out on 'Adelaide St' & see what response you get.

When I was a kid...

A good friend of mine (Anthony) made the observation to me the other day that at some stage in the (very!!!) distant future my kids will be swimming in a lake somewhere and I'll be able to say to them "I proposed to your mother under a jetty." Where upon they will acuse me of being stupid or making the whole story up. To which I will reply to them, "No, I proposed under the edge of a jetty in a dry lake." After their laughter/ astonishment has subsided I'll be able to say a line that I have been waiting my whole life to say.

"Back when I was a kid it never rained. Not like it does now, you kids have never seen it really dry. We used to make jokes about it being this wet!"

The above lake is currently dry for only the second time in recorded history. (~120 years) The special location was underneath the jetty shown above.

Reverse Seachange Learnings - #2

Observation #2 - Balls

Adelaide has balls.

Reverse Seachange Learnings - #1

I'm currently moving from my home at Kaniva to Adelaide. So you might say I'm moving from one 'backwater' to another. 'Backwater' it maybe, but I'm still moving from a town populated by 800 people, to a town populated by over 1,000,000 people. So over the next few weeks I'll be blogging about observations that I've made about life in the 'big smoke'. (Although, again Adelaide barely qualifies)

Observation #1 - Jonnys principle of 'safe turning'

While in Adelaide last week I noticed a strange phenomena while driving in and around the city. I observed a pattern of traffic behavior not written about in any driving manuals or tests. I observed that the safe distance required to turn a corner at any given intersection increases/decreases directly in proportion to the distance from your nearest CBD. I also believe that this relationship could be modeled mathematically, if I was that way inclined.

Basically while a 50 meter gap in traffic is ample in Adelaide, to pull out in front of someone that close at Kaniva is rude and would be considered dangerous.

Stay tuned for more observations....

Counter Terrorism Warming

A few random observations about various things, that most people probably aren't interested in:

1. My visitor counter seems to have returned after a mysterious leave of absence. I did nothing to remove or bring back the counter. (Unfortunatly it's now showing that Aaron is more popular than me)
   
2. Terror threat: If people delay/cancel any planned travel to Indonesia, does this hand victory to the terrorists regardless of if there is an attack or not?
3. There's been a bit in the media about climate change recently for people from both sides of the fence. On the 'For' side we have the 'Live Earth' concerts which true to their name & cause are attempting to be the first major music event to be 'carbon-neutral'. On the 'Against' side: the ABC is screening a controversial documentary on Thursday which some scientists are claiming shouldn't be aired because it goes against the beliefs of the majority of the scientific community.
   

Are these the same scientists that say the teaching of creationism should be banned? Are these people that narrow minded that they belong to the Flat Earth Society? The people who originally flagged the idea of a round earth where ridiculed by the scientific community of the day. The debate on this issue, and any other like it should be encouraged and not suppressed. The media should give people the chance to hear alternate points of view, look into them and decide for themselves. Why are scientists sometimes so un-scientific?

The Wiki Truth

Arguments about the nature of truth are as old as the hills. Arguments about the age of the hills have been around since about 1859. So we can naturally assume that arguments about the nature of truth have been ongoing for a minimum of 148 years.

While reading another blog today, I checked out the link to the Wikipedia article on truth, the introduction says:

There is no single definition of truth about which the majority of philosophers agree. Many theories of truth, commonly involving different definitions of "truth", continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; how to define and identify truth; what roles do revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute.

This amuses me. Assumptions about truth need to be made to even understand the above. These statements seem to assume that if the majority where able to reach a consensus about truth, then we would know it.

It seems to me at least, that everyone holds to some absolute truth whether they believe it or not. For if you believe that all truth is relative, then that is your absolute. (Not to mention self-contradicting) Whereas, you obviously hold an absolute if you believe in any sort of absolute truth.

What is your absolute truth?

Corporate Machines

They've just introduced a new 'coaching' system at work. Where we are given statistics on our previous weeks performance and then work out a couple of 'goals' to work on to improve our call handle times. I'm lucky enough to be apart of a pilot group, that'll be extended if it's a success. (Early signs are pretty positive) The aim of this is to obviously find ways to help us improve our call handling times. Stated benefits of this system include:

• Over the weeks being able to see improvements in our performance & therefore being better at our job.
  
• Better motivation to work as we can see that our improvements are helping.
• Better working conditions as improvements slowly mean that things will get less hectic & so everyone is less stressed and happier.

Non-stated benefits of this new system include:

• Better employee productivity/ more efficient labour.
  
• Lower wage expenses/ better use of wage expenses.
  
• Revenue growth due to better overall performance.
  

Apart from the aesthetic positives listed above, there are no benefits for the individual. I don't get paid any more for doing my job more efficiently. Yet the system works, after only just over 1 week on the new system, I've already shown strong improvements in some areas. Therefore, I'm doing quite a good job at helping an American multi-national corporation boost it's profits.

Yep. I'm a good little cog in the machine of capitalism. Doing my bit to maintain the socio-economic status quo. That is, the divide between rich and poor, and those in between like myself.

Protests

Does anyone know what the protest up Swanston St. Melbourne was about yesterday? The tail of it was walking past just as I had to cross it. I couldn't see what they where protesting about though. My guess is either against Uranium mines (in which case it was pointless) or Industrial Relations (Again pointless, just vote Labor at the next election).

Anyways, good on them for protesting against whatever it was they didn't like about our Government. We're very lucky to have the right to disrupt daily life for thousands of people just because we have a gripe about something.

My only fear is that it fell on deaf ears.

Colours & Observations

So I went to my first ever "Colours Night" last night. It was also one of my very first "Nights out", where I go over to UniBar or wherever & watch other people drink, being that I don't myself. I've been to smaller events before, but last night was probably the biggest one I've been to. It also reminded me why I don't frequent these events. While there I made a few observations:

1. I didn't appear to be the only one not having fun. Every second person there, looked either bored, really unsure & insecure about themselves or lonely. (Music too high to talk properly) The other half where hammered enough to not care. (This point was later reinforced by the fact that random people where joining in a game of beer-can hacky)
   
2. So soon after I noticed this me & a couple of mates when just outside to take a breather. It was a very mild and nice night for doing this. While out there, I noticed that by far the majority of people outside where wearing white. White being the colour of First years. So these people I concluded, from their body-language etc, were the first years that where at the party cos that's where you where supposed to be. Yet they couldn't hack the pace, or plain felt really uncomfortable & didn't like what was going on inside.
   
3. (This one was by Sus) There where no water or soft-drink prices on the bar. Which I guess makes sense because they wouldn't make much money on them.

Who knows? Maybe if I didn't have a God who loves me infintely I would buy one of those pubs. Then I could create my own completely boring environment, where the possibility for any meaningful personal interaction is removed by loud electronic noises (as opposed to music) and all my patrons insecurities about their own selves can be on show for everyone to see. I could then promote my venue as the "hottest new rave club in town"& get societies future workforce & leadership to pay me to enter my venue so they can pay me to drink a drink that makes them lose all sensibilities (as well as making them thirstier) so they can pay me to drink some more.