friends, gnomes, monopoly money
It’s very dangerous to surf the internet when you’re trying to avoid studying for a test. However, it can be very entertaining. First site I landed on? The Age.
So, there’s an article in The Age that I really wanted to comment on, but it was too long for a simple twitter comment. I thought it would be fun to blog about, so I needed a bit more information. Here’s the quote that snagged my attention:
A bemused Mr Langan said he initially suspected a friend was behind the prank, “but I’ve contacted both of them, and no, they’ve denied it”. (Gnome-nappers don’t have Monopoly on fun, the age, 2 June 2010 )
![[ gnome strapped to boom gate- not the gnome from The Age article. ]](gnome.png)
I thought: does this man only have two friends, or two friends (among several friends) who might be responsible for the gnome-napping? This is an awkward use of the English language and the journalists of The Age should know better.
Now I was hooked- the victim’s family are planning to pay the ransom in Monopoly money, and I wondered how much that would actually cost. I found out that from monopoly-man.com that regular monopoly game has $20,580 total, broken down into denominations of 500, 100, 50, 20 10, 5, and 1. So the family could raid their own Monopoly game to get the $10,000 needed to pay the ransom.
You can also buy replacement money from these guys (who will ship Australia-wide) for 7.95$ (AUD) so there’s that option, but the first thing that I saw is that Hasbro provided PDFs of Monopoly money for players to print at home. Interesting! I immediately imagined myself owning any Monopoly game in the future with my hoard of Monopoly cash, so I set out to look for these PDFs.
![[ 500$ monopoly money bill ]](500.png)
This was on Boing Boing in 2003, and the link is now dead. I had spent a little while searching around Hasbro’s website (side note: there are heaps of different Monopoly versions!) but “Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200″ etc etc. What next?
Well, the first thing to try when you find a dead link (or the page has changed, removing info) on the internet is to try the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. This I did. However the Wayback Machine had not archived the PDF files. But Hasbro still has them kicking around on their servers, so I just had to get the links from the old page and then download the PDF files! I don’t know how etiquette-al (etical? like ethical, but to do with politeness, not morals) it is to direct link to the PDF files, so I’ll let you do the same thing if you’re after these PDFs. (Just remove the internet archive bit from the URL.)
I feel like I’ve done something really cool and useful, but of course I’m just trying to avoid doing work, aka procrastination. According to etymology online:
procrastination
1540s, from L. procrastinationem “a putting off,” noun of action from procrastinare “put off till tomorrow,” from pro- “forward” + crastinus “belonging to tomorrow,” from cras “tomorrow,” of unknown origin.
Which of course is a bad idea when the thing you need to do can’t be done tomorrow because it is due tomorrow.
So I s’pose I’d better get back to it…
addressing an envelope
Since I’m younger than email, and grew up in a country where mail sometimes could take 8 months or longer to arrive, I’m not very familiar with letter writing or addressing etiquette. I found this page on the Australia post website useful, it talks about how to write an address, the best place to put it on an envelope, and how to be friendly to the electronic sorters they use these days.
Also: 55 cents to send something, when I send email for (pretty much) free? Wow. No wonder email revolutionised the world.
flat packed furniture
As I type this I am sitting on a brand new sofa-bed from IKEA. It’s huge, heavy and blue. (It’s also much comfier than our old sofa.) We have also bought our new dining table and chairs from IKEA. The furniture is pretty good, but this article isn’t an advertisement in praise of IKEA. This article is about the adventures we have had in getting the furniture from IKEA to our house, out of the cardboard boxes and assembled into useable furniture.
First Trip: last week, participants: Mum and Dad.
One Table, dining room size. One dining room chair. The encouraging part of the story is that the table, originally thought to be too big to transport home in our own car, was actually flat packed in a really clever way, and was in fact in a very small package. The discouraging part of the story is that only one chair was available in the colour that matched our other furniture.
We assembled the chair on Saturday, and the table on Tuesday.
Second Trip: Tuesday this week, participants: Dad, my sister and me.
Already in the city, we decided to visit IKEA and see if there were more chairs available. We had also found out about an “Eat your discount” deal, where you could eat at the restaurant and then deduct the price of your food from the cost of your furniture, in effect eating for free. We looked at a sofa-bed that my parents had looked at on their previous trip, and then went and enjoyed a Swedish meatballs meal from the restaurant. Wandering down to the shop floor, we found that the colour of chair we wanted was unavailable. Apparently “yellow brown” is a popular colour! (The colour actually doesn’t look as unappealing as it sounds.) What to do? We had already eaten and it looked like we wouldn’t be taking advantage of the “Eat your discount” deal! We asked at the service desk about the chairs, no go. We then thought about the sofa-bed. Being a large item, we had to pay for it and then pick it up from the warehouse. Unlike the table, the sofa wasn’t as easily compacted into a flat pack, and instead came in two large boxes, plus a smaller box for the cover (purchased separately, so you choose the colour.) After waiting for the sofa to emerge from the warehouse, we took it to the home delivery counter, and took home the smaller box (the cover) ourselves.
The next day, a scorching hot day of around 37 degrees centigrade, the delivery truck arrived, and our sofa was delivered to our living room. It was too hot to assemble anything that afternoon so we rested.
The following morning in the refreshing coolness, we opened up the two large boxes. One was amusingly coffin shaped. As we sorted out the bits and pieces, there appeared to be a part missing- an alan key. However we decided to attempt assembling the sofa bed as we went. It came together pretty easily, until we came to the legs. They needed a long thick alan key to reach through the legs to the bolt into the rest of the sofa, and that alan key was missing. After phoning up IKEA, we decided it was time for another IKEA trip- a quick check of their website revealed that there were some chairs in stock.
Third Trip: Thursday (today) participants: Dad and me.
With a half assembled sofa in our living room, we drove into IKEA. The first thing we did was go straight to the flat pack pick up and grab the four chairs in yellow brown. Heaps in the other colours, but only four of the ones we wanted. Then I waited with our trolley while my Dad went to the returns desk to get the missing alan key. It took a while for them to give him the right part, but eventually he got it. Now, it was close to the middle of the day, and we were starting to think about lunch. But how to get to the restaurant without abandoning the chairs that are so hard to get a hold of? We wheeled the trolley back through the show room to the lift, and went up a level to the restaurant. We enjoyed our lunch and then retraced our steps down the lift and through the show room to the check outs.
Then my Dad pulled out the parking ticket (you get four hours free in the car park if you purchase at least five dollar’s worth from IKEA) for the check out person to process. He had two in his pocket: after the first visit to IKEA there had been so many cars wanting to get out that an employee had opened the boom gates and waved everyone through. He picked one, we thought it was the right one.
Unfortunately, we caused a traffic back up because we picked the wrong ticket- we had picked the old ticket. One dollar and a sprint there and back from the parking paying machine, and we could load up the boot with the four chairs and return home with the alan key.
Once we had the right alan key we were able to bolt the legs on really quickly, and were able to assemble the sofa-bed and test it out. It’s really comfy. We then got really good at assembling the dining room chairs, following the instructions like you follow the instructions for LEGO.
So, over the course of a week, we have one sofa-bed, one dining room table and five dining room chairs, from three trips to IKEA. One chair short.
an interesting evening
Blooding again! Number 6. An interesting experience- the needle rolled over or something, and the blood flow was really slow. After 11 minutes 50 had elapsed, I had only managed 430ml of the 470ml that they go for. They’ll still be able to use my blood- after 12 minutes they can’t use the platelets so it was best to stop. I’m a bit disappointed though! Haemoglobbin 13.4 (down just a smidge) and BP 117/74 (from memory.) See if you can do a better job- give blood.
Next I went out to get in my car and go to Girls Brigade- only to find that my car was being petulant again. It has had some issues, but has just come out from a service! After a good rev it started again, and I have parked so a roll start can happen tomorrow, if needed.
Then I found out that only one girl had come to Girls Brigade, so I could go home. So instead of driving to church, I drove home, and wrote this. I hope tomorrow is a bit less interesting!
holidays
I suppose I should blog that yes, I am finished all my exams and projects (at least for semester 1, 2009) and am on holidays! This means of course that all the things I haven’t had time for because of exams and projects take centre stage. We’ve been redecorating, good bye 1979 styling. I’ve also been working on some hiking gear, been to a football game in a stadium (my first) and general recovery from the stressful exam period. I don’t get my results till the 17th, so I’m just going to enjoy the holidays. (Ignorance is bliss, yes?)
Ah, holidays.
almost there!
So, I’m just about to head to bed after my last stint of studying. I’ve got an exam tomorrow, and after that I’m on holidays for about a month! (The exam is FIT2004, algorithms and data structures.)
I’m looking forward to the time off- we’re going to head up to Sydney for a friend’s wedding, and I’ve got some decorating and remodelling to do to my room. I’m excited about the colour scheme! I’ll definitely post some pictures to flickr and maybe blog about my experiences. This is the first time I’ve been allowed to paint my own room, so I should have lots of fun!
As a side note, I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.8 without a hitch.
tiredness
I’ve been pretty tired lately. It’s been for a good cause as we have been running a kids afternoon program, and a cafe for the community at our church this week as part of the urban summer program. We have also been doing some community service and mentoring about 25 young people (aged roughly 12 to 18) who have been our team.
Friday night, our last night of cafe, we ran the cafe from 2pm till 10pm, instead of the usual 2pm til 5pm. This is a total of 8 hours and is more than anyone in these kind of things usually runs. To cope, we made sure we took some time out to chill. I took a 20 minute break, and as part of that had a little doze.
As I lay on the floor, I had a conversation with an imaginary spider that had crawled up on my shoulder.
Surreal. But I felt well rested and went on to enjoy being useful for the rest of the evening.
sigh
So, after working at Eastland all morning, I walked out to my car, in the staff car park, and thought, hmm. something looks funny. The bumper is a bit skew. Some person had hit my car on the curb side and crunched my head light. My guess is that it was done when reversing for a car space.
The damage doesn’t make me too angry, I mean, it will need to be fixed, but it isn’t a brand new car with delicate paint work. (I hope theirs was.) No, what makes me maddest, is the fact that they didn’t leave a note. Nothing! So inconsiderate.
But I feel better now after expressing my anger and letting it go.
on books and reading
I once wrote a paper (an essay for university) that touched on why books are special. I argued that because the most important and most common books in the Middle Ages were sacred ones, that as a culture we have learned to revere all books. Books contain knowledge, messages, and are timeless. I think this is why book-burning is such a powerful and terrible act- the destruction of something special.
I love the hum of a big library- all those books, calling out to be read. I love teaching children how to read and to love books. Cuddling up with a good book is one of life’s pleasures. Reading builds brain-muscle: knowledge and imagination. Reading enhances life.
Of course, there are other kinds of reading that you can do: newspapers, cereal packets, web pages, movie subtitles. These are all exercises in processing the printed letters and words into meaning. However, I find that they don’t quite compare with a book. I wonder why that is? Is it the comparison of screen printed page? Obviously reading street signs and cereal boxes rarely reaches the narrative depth of some Jane Austen or Tolkein or even JK Rowling, but why does the web not have that kind of emotional grab? Is it inherent in the medium or is it simply because I’ve been brought up to love books?
Where does something like Project Gutenberg fit in? It specializes in books on the screen- books distributed in an electronic format. Sure, you can print a book out, but I think the intended/expected use is to read it on some kind of screen. I have tried reading books from a screen, but reading a paper book seems to be a more enjoyable experience.
What makes me sad is that I have not read a real book for enjoyment for a long time. When I was small, I expected to read every book in our school library. This wasn’t a goal, I just expected to be able to do it. It seems pretty silly now, when I have so many things on I don’t have time to read. Or at least I tell myself I don’t have time to read. Something that perhaps stops me from reading is the compulsion to finish a book in one sitting. This, obviously, requires large blocks of time that isn’t helpful when assignments need finished, chores completed and reasonable bed times to be kept. I might as well not pick up the book, if I have to put it down again unfinished, I would think.
I’ve come to the realization that you are never too old (or too young) to read. Maybe, tomorrow, I might go to a library. What about you? Are books something special? Do you enjoy reading the screen as much as you enjoy reading the page? As always, leave a comment in the box- I love reading them.
musings on writing
What happens when there is nothing to write about? Well, you don’t write anything. It seems to be a bit of a ripple affect- the more you don’t write, the more there is a lack of ideas and less writing happens. (Of course when you are cranking out essays all sorts of ideas for blog posts spring into your head!) If half ideas aren’t developed and blog posts are not written, a blog loses momentum.
Of course, readership goes down. This makes it hard to use suggestion widgets such as skribit as there aren’t many people around to use them. Finding something interesting to write about gets harder. Finding the time to commit to writing is tough. The ink well seems to have dried up. Writing stops.
Hope is not lost, however. The desire to write is an itch- it comes back and grabs you.
When you have a desire to write, to lay out your thoughts in a clear manner to share with others, the challenges of knowing what to write about can be beaten. Writing can flow again. As you write, more ideas may come and momentum gained.
What does this mean for this blog? I’ve come to accept that it’s ok to not be writing, just as it is ok to write. I love the mental work out that writing is, I like developing my skills as a writer, sharing ideas is something that makes me happy. This is why I blog. I will blog even though it’s just me reading. I will blog even though my family and friends are reading! Though quiet will come at times to this website, someday activity will return. I have a website, I will use it. I will write.