Did I Tell You?

September 24-25, 2001-Stale News & Views

Today is Tuesday. David is watching the News Report with Jim Lehrer. It comes with a disclaimer that it was broadcast in the United States on Friday. Nothing like getting up to the minute news. He just switched to the local news.

We had lunch at the casino across the street from our building. They have several restaurants but the people we were with chose the buffet. It was typical Las Vegas fare. We went into the gambling area for a while and it was quieter than in Vegas. Don’t know why. Next month smoking will be banned in all casinos in Australia.

TV shows here tend to start on the half hour. Some run only 45 minutes. I guess they stop writing when they run out of ideas for the script. They always run over. If we want to watch something at 9:30 PM on another channel, we’re in trouble. That show might have started on time. They’re casual about most things here.

It’s 9:36 PM now and the show we're watching the Australian version of Millionaire. I don’t think we could get past the first level. One question was," What type of food is spotted dick?” The choices were: A-pudding, B- sausage, C- cheese, D- bread. Any guesses? I think I’ll just sit here and email you the rest of the show. Here comes a commercial for toilet paper that promised that it would be “soft down under.” Cute. In the Dove chocolate bar commercial they call it “chocky.” Another Millionaire question: Which of these Holden models were introduced first? A- EJ, B- HK, C- FE, D- VB? The answer: FE. Holden is GM in Australia.

Did I ever tell you that there is no such thing as unlimited phone calls here? You pay for each call. It varies, but it can be $A0.20-0.25/call.

Americans & "isms"

I just had the maintenance man come up to show me how to change a light bulb. The overhead fixtures don’t give much light and are tricky to open. We really need more light in the bathroom. We thought they only had 1 bulb in a 2-bulb fixture, but as it turns out, it’s a 1-bulb fixture. It’s made to take a 60 W bayonet globe (you know what that is now), but I could use an 80 W if I keep the cover off. Lovely look, that. I think I’d rather do my toilette on the balcony in full sun.

Big Brother just spoke to me. There are speakers in our living area and bedroom. When we first moved in I thought they could be hooked up to a stereo system. Silly me! It is a PA system that allows management to make announcements to tenants. I guess it could be used in an emergency. I hope it only works one way. It just spoke to me and a rather nice sounding man’s voice said, “This is a test.” It then wailed and beeped. That was followed by the same voice telling me to ignore it. It was, “only a test, thank you.” They’re always polite. I don’t know if I told you or not, but instead of saying, “Excuse me,” as they push past you, the say, “Sorry.”

David brought home a Jewish calendar. It’s put out by the orthodox congregation here. On every page there is an ad for a well-known realtor in the area. His name is Max Christmas. It’s a big ad. I thought it was a nice inter-denominational touch.

We will eventually get some of our photos on a CD or floppy and email them to you. We went to K-Mart to price it and the woman there didn’t know if it included the disk. She said, “Pshaw! It’s too late to call the office.” She actually said “pshaw.” I thought that only appeared in old English literature. It’s Dickensian.

There are two new Aussie words we learned. David was asked if we wanted chicken schnitzel for breakfast or crumbled fish. He chose the chicken. I got the crumbles. When you think about it, it makes sense. When you use breadcrumbs to coat the fish, it is covered in crumbles. The other word was just on TV. There’s a problem in the outback with cattle duffers. Those are cattle thieves.

A fact about our weather: Being upside down on the globe has its effect. Our cold weather comes up from the South and our hot weather from the North.

Toby