.. because of my familiarity with the PC format.
I shouldn’t have bothered. The Windows 8 platform in my Notebook bears little resemblance to my XP or Windows 7 equipped PCs and the hardware is relatively heavy and it’s onerous to lug around.
I hate throwing still-functioning things away so I continue to lug it around, but it doesn’t get as much use as I imagined it would. Technology can be a minefield for the intuitive player and I can see how you can end up with a cupboard full of fully operational but useless toys.
My most recent misadventure with technology is instructive on a personal and political level. After years of not being able to play my house full of CDs even if I wanted to, I recently bought a stereo amplifier from Cash Converters. It cost a trifling $39.00 so I thought what have I got to lose? It was a Chinese effort with lots of flashing lights, (which did get quite annoying), but it seemed to be doing the job - for a while.
Then I noticed it was starting to shut itself off and switch back on again, sometimes several times in rapid succession. This can’t be good for my quite good JBL studio monitors I thought and took it back to Cash Converters, who quite reasonably suggested that I trade up to a more expensive but more reliable unit.
A couple of days ago my DVD/VCR player started switching itself off. I fiddled with it amateurishly, reminding myself as I did that it wasn’t that old and I’d barely used it anyway, but to no positive effect and eventually came to the conclusion that I had to take it to a repairer.
I made an appointment to drop it off at the repair shop today, but just before I put it into the van I had a thought and hooked it up again, but this time I plugged it into a regular power board, not the Victorian government sponsored ‘green’ power board I’ve been persevering with - against everybody’s advice.
Bugger me, it worked fine! I disconnected the so-called ‘smart’ Emerald Planet power board with some considerable prejudice. I didn’t request it in the first place, I didn’t really need it as I’m quite conscientious about turning appliances off anyway. As far as I’m concerned it is a blatant waste of public money not dissimilar to the pink batts fiasco, but hopefully without the attendant fatalities.
Incidentally, I rang the repairers to tell them that I wasn’t bringing my DVD player in and they said about the power board, ’get rid of that rubbish.’ I’m pretty sure most people would’ve disconnected their ‘green’ power boards as soon as the installation guy left the building, but I congratulate you if you’ve had the patience to persevere with it. In the meantime I’m left with a feeling of dread as I’ve been informed by my energy retailers that I should expect someone in the coming weeks to visit my house and install a ‘smart meter’…

I’ve started walking. I suppose I should call it remedial walking really, because I’m doing it for my health and general well-being, and as such I resent it because it’s tantamount to an admission that I’m unfit and need the exercise. Old and unfit is what I’ve been feeling, even if I haven’t put it into words, and my fibrillating heart has been telling me I need to do something about it. So, forty minutes of walking a day it is from henceforth.
I have a problem doing pointless exercise – that is exercise without a point. I cannot convince myself that exercise for its own sake is pleasurable even if I’m feeling the benefits, so there has to be a point. Thankfully my Mt Waverley home is strategically placed exactly twenty minutes walking away from two local shopping centres, so, if necessary I can manufacture a reason to go for a walk and buy something from the shops, or post a letter – or anything really.
Maria was in the habit of walking every day in her native Canberra and has been missing it, so she will be my enforcer, my co-conspirator, my (gasp!) co-dependent. I’m not following anybody else’s example however and have previously ignored bro’ Dick’s solicitations and blandishments re’ the middle-aged loonies riding their bikes wearing lycra dept. I used to ride a bike in my school days – Richard and I both did – and, apart from a brief flirtation with an elegant machine bro’ Jeremy left in my Camberwell garage after leaving Australia to resettle in Aotearoa, I’ve not felt the urge to mount another bicycle for any reason at all, let alone exercise. Apart from anything else, sharing the road with cars and trucks driven by homicidal maniacs would inevitably make me as rude and cranky as – well, a typical cyclist. That is if I’m not deaded or maimed. So, I’m not going there. And the fixed exercise bike? You’ve got to be kidding. It may be safe but it’s as pointless as it gets and utterly contravenes my stated first principle of having a point.