emma_in_dream

I randomly walked past the IT section in the building yesterday. How did I know it was IT?


Because they have built a primitive barricade out of chairs with big posters on them with a BACK OFF HAND and a message that they will only respond to IT requests lodged over the phone.

I don’t know if it is just me but I am finding odd things missing on the shelves. The sort of crackers I prefer were unavailable for five weeks. Eggs. Screwdrivers. Just weird things that are not always on the shelves at the shops. Possibly this has something to do with supply chains going through Victoria?


Also, we went to get roller skates for Ruby. The first place had no stock left and referred us to the markets. The market had one set left in her size. They said that they had been sending skates to Saudi Arabia and America as they had just had a spate of unusual online orders from overseas. The guy at the shops speculated that the virus meant that China was not sending products to the USA so they were instead scooping up ones already sent to Australia. Hmmmm, American friends does this sound plausible?


I am wondering whether I am paranoid, whether this is a mere market blip, or if this is a moment I will look back on as the beginning of a substantial change in my way of life.

I was wondering what people were listening to in 1919, and the answer that Wikipedia gives is... lots of stuff I recognise.

Music my white bread family sings... Lots of stuff I remember my grandfather and mother singing. 'How we gonna keep them down on the farm, now that they've seen Paree', 'I'm forever blowing bubbles' and 'Don't dilly dally on the way'.

I have a terrible ear for music, but basically music hall stuff.

And then, surprisingly, music that is clearly related to popular music in 2019. I listened to 'I ain't gonna give nobody none of this jelly roll' and was like, hey, I recognise this. There's a link from this jazzy rag to jazz, to blues, to rock.

So I wondered if I could find the same thing prior to the war. I had a listen to Wiki's biggest hits of 1909 and the trend to syncopation had not begun.

Things I have determined about the thieves, after cleaning up after them:



1, They were professional enough to not leave fingerprints.

2, They were extremely systematic, opening virtually every box and going through every draw, and throwing every item on the floor.

3, They did not check my books at all.

4, Although they went through my drawers, they rejected the tickets to the ballet they found there.

5, They took the time to reject my Swancon 20 badge while taking literally every other item of jewellery I own(ed).

6, They had the follow through to take the keys, wait three days for the car to be returned, and overcome the (allegedly) altered immobilier.

7, They were petulant enough to spray Pearl’s room with soft drink and break her china.

8, They did not appear to value art/craft supplies as even relatively expensive items were left.

9, Very sensibly, they did not enter the festering mess that is Ruby’s room. She was entirely unburgled because it is impossible to walk across her room.



I find their profile har

I am looking for an agency to do psychometric studies of a child.



I have her name down at several places but the wait list is always at least 12 months. At the same time I can pay less than $1000, preferably significantly less, so places like Patches are out. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Have made the strategic error of looking at the gap between what I pay into my mortgage and how much that has reduced it.



Le sigh.

After a search of 1 hour and 20 minutes and the offering of a $5 bounty, Ruby’s shoes were located. By me.

So I just watched the Netflix documentary on the failed Fyre festival. I wanted to know whether anyone else has and how they interpreted the documentary (or the Hulu one or the Internet Historian one)?



I see lots of online articles mocking the attendees for spending so much money on a fiasco that was obviously a con, but my impression of the documentary was quite different.



I feel a lot of sympathy for the people interviewed who all portrayed themselves as trying desperately to put something on the ground in the face of the delusional and ridiculous demands of their boss (of course they would). I’ve been there. Surely we’ve all been there. In my line of work I’m not trying to organise portaloos in a sandpit on an island, but I can totally appreciate a boss who just la-la-la refuses to listen to reality.
I feel lots of sympathy for the unpaid workers.
I recognise a manic, uncontrollable boss who has totally lost touch with the concept of consequences, and I sympathise with those trying to contain the mess he made. It’s hard to walk away when you know you can ameliorate a situation.
The festival attendees are portrayed in the media as idiots who spent $12,000 for a chance to party with stars. Whereas most of the tickets moved seem to have been in the $1,200 range, which seems not bad value for flights, accommodation, food and entertainment for a week. Not my cup of tea without air conditioning, but not an unreasonable act by spoiled millennials.
I find it hilarious that the massive social media advertising campaign using vastly overpaid ‘influencers’ was undone by a photograph of a cheese sandwich posted by a guy with 400 followers. Shows exactly how little it is worth.
Some of the festival goers did behave very badly and carry on like pork chops. OTOH, things degenerated in the evening when they were essentially abandoned and it is important to note that the evening followed a day when the organisers tried to distract them by giving them unlimited tequila but little food or water. So, not surprisingly, there was a kind of riot.
Further, even people completely unrelated to the festival seem to have treated the festival goers like pariahs. They were locked into a large room at the airport overnight. Locked in!


I am pretty clearly watching the documentary through the lens of my experiences, but I definitely recognise writing emails begging the boss to acknowledge reality which are blithely ignored until things fall apart. Did anyone else interpret the documentary that way?

We went to see *The Nutcracker* which was great. I think it was the most traditional ballet I’ve ever seen, with lots of girls in stiff tutus dancing on their toes. Delightful.


The costuming was great, especially the mice. They were pirate mice with fabulous tails at the rear.


Naturally, being us, we could not go to the ballet like civilized people. Instead, we went in and while we were in the queue for the bathroom the warning bell began. This caused Ruby to wail and literally throw herself on the floor in anxiety that we would miss it. Pearl tried to lift her and somehow Ruby headbutted her, causing Pearl to also collapse onto the ground, shouting.


At this point I abandoned my plan of waiting in the long, long queue for the ladies’ toilets and dashed into the male toilets, shouting ‘sorry’ as I went. I was immediately followed by about a dozen women, because of course there was a long queue for the ladies and no queue at all for the men. I did feel slightly sorry for the two guys using the urinals, since a dozen women burst in with essentially no warning.


Once I was finished in there, I returned to the hallway, where my two little rugrats were still prostrate on the floor, crying. Because this is how we enter the building.

Notes on my energy use, according to the measuring device I borrowed from the library.

My room – 76 watts for the light, 21 watts for the computer. Air conditioner could not be measured.


Sophia’s room – CD player – 3 watts, light 6 watts, heater 2,344watts (2.3KW). Conclusion, heater not to be used.


Kitchen – Could not get a reading on the fridge. Why?


Phone – 3 watts, internet router 3 watts.


Lounge – TV (not on) 1 watt. TV (on) 24 watts. Could not get a reading on the air conditioner.


Margaret’s room – fan 43 watts, computer 14 watts, light 3 watts, CD player 3 watts, heater 1,041watts (1KW)


Outside – Freezer (would not register because I realise I had it set to watts, not kW). Washing machine, varied enormously throughout washing cycle c.200 watts.