Deja vu-hicle

I knew eventually it would happen. Well actually I didn't so much know as have a vague sense that one day it would happen. And today, it did. I got into a cab and recognised the driver.

Let me just put the wonder of this experience in perspective for you:

The Sydney Taxi service is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with around 4,800 cars and 20,000 drivers (according to the NSW taxi service site). Even if we assume that I've taken two cabs a week, every week for the past five years, I would have only come into contact with 520 vehicles. The odds of getting the same driver twice would be very slim. Very, very slim.

I'm also not known for my memory. In fact to date I have managed to misplace seven mobile phones, two cameras and three sets of keys, all thanks to my memory. If I ever have children, they will be in grave danger of being left at the playground and re-named at least three times. So the chances of me remembering some stranger who I'd shared a fifteen minute cab ride with are truly miniscule.

And yet today, as I exchanged stories about -20 degree days with my friendly taxi driver, it suddenly dawned on me that I actually had spoken to him before. Some very strong intuition also told me that he had daughters, so I hazarded a guess:

Me: "Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure I've met you before. You have lots of daughters."
Cabbie: "Yes, four"
Me: ""And the youngest two are something like five and seven."
Cabbie: "Yes, five and eight. The youngest one just started school."
Me: "And the older ones are quite older. One's going to Mac uni and another one was looking for work."
Cabbie: "Yes. She found a job."
Etc.

I have no idea which dormant part of my brain had woken up or what shook it out of hibernation, but I was overjoyed with the experience. The driver didn't partake in my excitement and looked rather nervous.

In his defence, I don't suppose it's every day that you're greeted by a frazzled looking stranger who is rattling off facts about your life in a growing state of euphoria. Especially considering that the revelations came directly after talking about how important it is to "wash yourself" with snow if you ever fall into a frozen lake (something I learned from Man vs Wild: Siberia).

In the end I left the cab with an eerie sense of deja vu and a new found confidence in my brain, and the driver of the vehicle probably sped off, picked his girls up from school and had another "stranger danger" talk with them.

On an unrelated note: Morphsuits. I'm speechless.

Jobs I never knew I always wanted

Dear Mrs Forgot-Your-Name,

Firstly apologies for forgetting your name, but as you will discover through the course of this letter, it was probably done for good reason.

I'm writing to complain about the career choices that were presented to me in my formative high school years.

I realise that your IQ level and significant limitations in social abilities were obstacles to your understanding of possible career choices. I also acknowledge that you were blindsided by your discovery of, and subsequent obsession with, TAFE and the possibility of prematurely ridding the school of a good percentage of its students, but I nonetheless feel that I have been hard done by.

Omitting law, medicine, finance and all of the other professional fields beyond your realm of comprehension, I'd like you to consider and add the following jobs to your portfolio (alphabetically they will fit on your list somewhere between "drop kick", "waitress" and "xerox machine operator").

• Web developer - This is both the antithesis of journalism and a good way to make bundles: deadlines mean nothing, communication is unnecessary, the money made is obscene and the end result doesn't have to resemble the brief. Apart from a few good eggs it is an industry of people who get paid very much to do very little.


• Tiger trainer - The internship description on the T.I.G.E.R site is: "This is a full time, 365 days a year task. It takes all of your time, with no vacations and no free time off except in the evenings, a few times a year for the first year or two." Which, as you will note, is not that far from journalism except that you get to play with tiger cubs. "We start pay at $100 per week and give you a place to live with pool and hot tub. We pay all utilities/phone, electric, gas, cable and laundry. We also provide a car for you to drive. We also pay for all of the food when travelling. This all equals to about $1000 per month +. You may make more money as you become a trainer. We have paid up to $3,500 per week to trainers on jobs that they solely operate." So, to summarise, you get to spend all of your time in a resort-style zoo playing with tigers. Once you've done a sufficient amount of playing (about two years' worth), you can earn up to $182,000 a year...


• Whatever the job description is for this - The people in this video clip (and look how many of them there are) look super pleased with themselves. And why shouldn't they? It's like dominoes-meets-lego for adults...(Thanks go out to my friend Verity for finding it).


• Embassy/consulate worker - Although I would have to adopt a whole repertoire of new frowns and develop an appropriately condescending voice, I'd be prepared to do it for a two-hour shift three times a week, during which I'd simply have to tell people that they're better off getting things sorted overseas.


• A Sydney Ferries Corporation Outer Harbour Engineer - According to this story in The Daily Telegraph (cough, cough), people in this occupation earn $92,000 a year and get 165 days off (including 104 rostered days off, 11 public holidays, 25 days annual leave, 12 days "maritime leave" and 13 days "leisure leave").

While I can't really complain about my chosen profession (I do have an obsession with words and grammar that lends itself to hours of unpaid overtime which -- strangely enough -- I quite enjoy), but I feel that given the opportunity I would have found a similar fondness for not doing much at all and getting paid an adult wage for it.

I hope you die in a ditch.

Disenchanted,

Agnes Gajewska

On a semi-related note, here is a forum I found on the subject of cool jobs. It does not reflect kindly on the intelligence of our species. It also makes me suspect that Mrs Forgot-Your-Name has expanded her realm of influence.

I think I'm in love!

I have found a site that meets all of my internet requirements. It is both informative and extremely insightful...or is that misinformed and slightly delusional? Oh who cares, in either case, it was just what I needed to brighten up my day.

The site I speak of is called Yes Australia (powerful!) and although it doesn't seem to have an "about us" section, I am moderately confident that it is the authority on living in Australia for Spanish-speaking visitors.

Here are some of my favourite quotes:

"Australians tend to follow each other a bit, like sheep on a hill." - good analogy! Wait. What? Don't worry, there's an explanation:
"This happens because of the stability of Australian Institutions and the strong economy." Ahhhh...
"For example, since the beginning of 2003 there has been a boom in the housing market, which has made thousands of Australians buy and sell homes for investment. The result has been that so many people did it created a steep rise in house prices."For a couple of months every single place I went, the talk was about houses. Because of this stability, Australians tend to plan for the long term, which can make life a little bit boring sometimes."

And the question on all visitors' lips: are Australians competitive?
"In reality, Australia is considered one of the most competitive nations on Earth."
So you can tell your imaginary friend he was wrong! Use this helpful example to back up your argument:
"Australians surfers broke a long-term hold on the Surf Scene by the Americans and Hawaiians, and today there is not a single international contest without at least many Aussies running in top position."

So what of Aussie pastimes, like going to the movies?
"Cinemas in Australia are disappearing from the streets and are moving to inside Shopping Centres. Most are now divided in many smaller theatres, showing 3 or 4 different movies at the same time."
But don't worry. If you can locate these disappearing cinemas, a thrilling discovery awaits you:
"Thursdays have become a big day out in Australia, cause the Shopping Centres are open for extended hours; 9pm instead of the regular 5pm. Young people use this time to catch up on gossip!"

What about the beaches? Am I okay to wear a bikini?
"At the beach it is more common to wear shorts than Speedos or bikinis, for both, males and females. Australians don't like to show off their bodies pretty much, still a consequence from the 1900's, when it was prohibited to have a swim in the ocean and wear nothing that could permit a tan on your skin."

If you have some time, read this site. It is incredibly insightful.

The only thing I'm pondering now is whether it was written by:

a) Pauline Hanson
b) An ex rugby league player
or
c) A drunk child

Thoughts?

Mexico or India to blame for dinosaur extinction?

Deviating slightly from today's political climate and the "Rudd vs the world" debacle over health reform, I'd like to point out this rather strange article in today's web edition of The Australian: "Dinosaurs killed off by Mexican asteroid, not Indian volcano".

You can read it here, but I find that my version (below) is a little closer to the mark:

Scientists confident in own theory

A group of 41 scientists confident that a huge asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs have released a report saying that they are right.

The report entitled "Dinosaurs did too die because of an asteroid impact...times infinity" was released to fight off criticism by scientists who believed that a volcano explosion in India was to blame for the demise of the prehistoric beasts.

The criticism came after "some researchers" found that debris discovered at the Chicxulub impact site in Mexico was some 300,000 years too old to have been responsible.

The new report states that debris further from the crater is (coincidentally) just the right age to have started the extinction process. It also claims that a wimpy volcano could not have had that strong an impact on earth.

Following the release of the report, its author Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London said that the asteroid theorists now had "great confidence" in their own belief. Before the report was filed, their confidence in their own theory was only moderately great, she added.

Another member of the report team suggested that a good way of determining the sequence of events that led to dinosaur extinction would be to look further away from the impact site. The debris closer to the site, he said, made their extinction theory too easy to disprove.

P.S.
For the record, I'm more inclined to believe that an asteroid, rather than a volcano, killed the dinosaurs, but before I commit to that theory I'd like some indisputable evidence, not "based on our biased beliefs we are confident that we are right"...bah humbug!

Kid directs plane traffic at JFK

How can you not read a story with a headline like that? You can't. You simply must stop doing productive work, break right in the middle of the Pulitzer-worthy sentence you were writing and turn your full attention to where paranoid overreaction triumphs over common sense.

As you might guess from the headline "Kid directs plane traffic from control tower at JFK airport", some squirt on a break from school got to play around with the communication system at JFK airport under the watchful eye of an adult.

The article states: "A school-aged child could be heard on voice recordings talking to jets as they waited to take off. The child appeared to be repeating instructions given to him by a male employee in the tower."

Well yes, either the child was repeating instructions or had a severe case of schizophrenia. For the record I agree with the journalist and the authorities - it would appear that the child was repeating instructions.

Where the story takes an unexpected turn is with the launch of the FAA investigation. Yes, that's right, the Federal Aviation Administration decided to suspend the two air traffic control tower employees involved and ban all unofficial visits to the control towers to conduct an investigation. It is also likely that it has ordered anti-terrorism teams to watch the door of the control tower and shoot any unauthorised person trying to gain access.

Speaking of "the incident" the FAA administrator, Randy Babbitt, said, "This lapse in judgement not only violated FAA's own policies, but common sense standards for professional conduct. These kinds of distractions are totally unacceptable."

A bit of an overreaction? Not at all! Just imagine that if, instead of dutifully repeating the instructions given to him, the child had started singing "I'm a little tea pot". All of the pilots and ground staff would be caught up in the pantomime movements of the song and mayhem would be sure to ensue.

(Can't you just imagine the worried looks on the Botoxed faces of the evening reporters? "At just past four o'clock this afternoon five planes collided injuring hundreds. It is believed the accident occurred when all five pilots tipped over to pour themselves out, letting the controls of their planes slip...")

Or worse - imagine if a terrorist took hold of the tower and started shouting, "Crash into each other! All planes are to crash into each other!" Oh the humanity!

Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that the incident occurred in mid-February, but was only reported yesterday when the recordings were posted on the internet. It appears social networking sites have claimed another victim.

But considering that the FAA wouldn't have known about the incident unless some goon saw it online, you have to wonder whether the right people are under investigation. Shouldn't at least some of the blame be placed with the person who was in charge of reporting any irregular air traffic control announcements?

Before I go, I do have to commend the journalist of this article for the slightly mocking tone in the final paragraph:

"The pilots receiving instructions from the child did not appear too concerned with one pilot saying "awesome job"."

Good work. Awesome job.

Why is there a shower in the kitchen?!

This is not a question that anybody wants to have to ask, but it was the one that my friends Anne and Ron were faced with when they set out to renovate a dilapidated warehouse.

There seems to be no logical explanation for it; but there in the corner of the kitchen, tiled in tight white squares, stood a shower cubicle - and a large one at that.

I volunteered my brainpower to solving the mystery - why would you put a shower in the kitchen? Here's what I came up with:

1. As an ice-breaker. "Hi I'm Bob and I have a shower in my kitchen, what's your name?"
2. Because you, your builder and the talking camel in the corner agreed that taking another acid trip before a hard day's labour could have no long-term repercussions.
3. To take attention away from the toilet you had installed in the hallway.
4. As a misconceived attempt at impressing your long-term internet chatroom girlfriend who once mentioned she liked to shower and then, in an unrelated sentence, made a reference to her toast being dry.
5. It was a collector's item.
6. To replace the kitchen sink you took along to a party so you could say "I've brought everything including the kitchen sink."
7. To restore symmetry.
8. To prove that washing your hair doesn't need to interfere with making breakfast.
9. Because you have dreams of starting a "wet toast" craze.
10. Tom Cruise probably has one.
11. It was too expensive to get a bathtub.
12. As proof that the IKEA space-saving model has had its failures in the past.
13. As testament to the efficiency of Sven and Inga's ultimate space saving models, even if some big-shot Swedish furniture powerhouse fails to recognise it.
14. To torment Taekwondo masters and journalists with the question "why is there a shower in the kitchen?"

Funniest video ever?

Picture this. It's Russia. It's cold outside and the government has banned all free media. It's cold outside. What to do? What to do? There are only two options: drink vodka or watch television. You walk over to your TV set. You turn it on, then you slowly reach for the bottle of vodka.

Rudd expects good whacking

The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, yesterday stepped up to the microphone to say that he expects, and deserves, a good whacking.

Despite initial whisperings that the comments were related to some form of underground S&M activity; it was soon revealed that Rudd was speaking of polls and the reaction to undelivered election promises.

"I expect to be whacked in the polls, and I deserve it," he said in an apology to the nation.

He took responsibility over the insulation scheme, Labor's electoral promise shortcomings, those ugly red brick apartment blocks that were built in Australia in the 80s and several Australian television programmes including (but not limited to) Neighbours, Home and Away and Blue Heelers. He went on to say that if it would help in the polls, he was prepared to take the blame for Tiger Wood's indiscretions as well.

Tony Abbott put heat to the fire by describing Rudd as "rattled" several times. Once he tired of the insult, he added that the PM was also a "poopy head".

Abbott's supporters were too busy pumping their fists and shaking their heads at the Mardi Gras to mount strong support. Although, with just a trace of pride in their voices, they said that the previous PM, John Howard, had never apologised for anything.