Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2026 Adrian Tritschler
Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2026 Adrian Tritschler
![Journal for [2002-12-16 Mon]](https://ajft.org/img/default3.jpg)
Journal for [2002-12-16 Mon]
One of my coworkers managed to absolutely amaze me today. I had no idea that supposedly intelligent people could come out with statements like:
“I just change my own car oil then pour the waste into a corner of my garden — it just soaks away…”
When I asked him about pollution, the fact that it drains straight into the storm-water and into Port Phillip bay, he just shrugged and said he just pours it into his garden…
![Journal for [2002-12-15 Sun]](https://ajft.org/img/default2.jpg)
Journal for [2002-12-15 Sun]
A hot day at last! Joey and I journeyed into the city to visit the Queen Victoria markets — something we’ve been meaning to do for ages. I’m not sure what was the most fun; looking at all the fruit and veges that we don’t need to buy, or wandering through the aisles of cheap clothes and complete crap that various dodgy-looking vendors try to sell. The funniest was a battery-operated toy soldier — I think he’s meant to be doing a commando-crawl along the ground, but to everyone watching, they looked like weird homo-erotic groin-rubbing motions.
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Tepanyaki banquet in the making
![Journal for [2002-12-14 Sat]](https://ajft.org/img/default1.jpg)
Journal for [2002-12-14 Sat]
An invisible kind of a morning! After visiting the fruit and vege. markets, we dropped in for breakfast at Blue Heaven. Coffee arrived, the breakfast order vanished. After investigating, we got the breakfast, then were not charged for the coffees, since the order had vanished. Half an hour later, we called in at the bakery for a second coffee — ten minutes later it hadn’t turned up, so I enquired. The whole order had vanished.
Journal for [2002-12-13 Fri]
Maybe, just maybe, the weather is warming up for the weekend… I’m getting really tired of wearing my winter cycling top in the middle of December!
Richmond: 144° 59' 45.3” -37° 49' 41.6"
Clayton: 145° 7' 35.1” -37° 55' 26.3"
I’m bored, here’s a picture of my desk at Monash. Currently visible are all the bits of junk that I work with each day. Inspired by — and submitted to — the collection at http://snapyourdesk.
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My desktop at Monash work
Journal for [2002-12-12 Thu]
Wake up summer time! This is getting ridiculous — nearly three weeks of constant drizzly cool weather — it was 14.5 °C today at noon!
This afternoon I ran a bit of a sanity-check through my journal, my bike ride notes and my website. Still not sure who the intended audience is of any of these, my writing in the paper journal has dropped right off, some of it due to me writing more here, some of it due to less time by myself.
De-lumped
Woohoo! The mysterious lump in my finger has mostly gone away. I think I did the equivalent of the traditional “belt it with a bible” trick — running upstairs for a coffee, I managed to hit my hand against the door handle. Hurts like crazy, but the lump has gone!
Journal for [2002-12-09 Mon]
Bah! That’ll teach me to clean my bike — half-way to work this morning and it started to rain again. Yet another cold, grey, drizzly day. So much for summer time…
The Nigerians, the Nigerians… In what must be some kind of record, there are four Nigerian Business Offer scams in my inbox this morning! Its frightening that there are so many stupid gullible people in the world to make these scams work.
Journal for [2002-12-08 Sun]
Another day, another wedding task… today was the day of the cake. At least cake testing is not an onerous task, especially when it’s a great big chocolate mud-cake that you’ve decided on! Under quarter of an hour, into the shop, check the pictures, point to the preferred shape and decoration, wave arms wildly around the head and leave. Either we’re easily pleased, or we know what we like…
Jo’s movie with friends fell through, so the two of us headed into the city to see the Gleaners and I, something I’ve had on my “to view” list for some time.
Journal for [2002-12-07 Sat]
Woke to more rain and drizzle and a definite non-summer Saturday. Miraculously, our Christmas lights are still working, although four bulbs at the end of the strand are out of action and seem to be full of water.
A typical Saturday, coffee and scrambled eggs, the paper and the crossword, then a frantic dash up the road to the markets before they shut at noon! Lunch of fresh bread and delicious tomatoes, then a walk the full length of Richmond.
Summer weather headlines
Sydney is busy being baked by bushfires, meanwhile, monsoon in Melbourne… Adrian, keep your day job, that’s almost good enough for a sub-editor at The Age, but not quite.
Summer? Winter?
Summer … winter … summer … winter…
Wow, massive thunderstorms in the morning. Hail in the afternoon. Showers in between. Almost enough to make you want to stay in bed all day.
… and now a rhetorical question for all you motorists out there: If there was a straight, empty stretch of road, with free parking available along the entire length of it, not one other car in sight, and no restrictions anywhere, would you park across the cycle-path entrance, or would you park somewhere else?
Which bank?
Bye bye bank! Which bank, I hear you ask… the Commonwealth Bank. Too many months of too many bank fees, total inaction on their part to a request to change my account to a lower-fee type (today’s story is that paperwork has been lost). Walked into the office this afternoon, closed my account, walked out again. Nobody there was the slightest bit interested in why, or in persuading me otherwise. The final insult was when I asked to transfer the money from my account to an account with another bank, I was told “it’ll take seven to ten days, it’s a manual process you know.
Monday, day of hoaxes
First I had an email from a friend, passing on the jdbmgr.exe virus hoax. Then there was yet another Nigerian Business offer sitting in my intray. The other was an hour later by a coworker, who received the Friend of a Friend warning of the Wallet and the Terrorist and the plot to blow up the local shopping centre. The minutest piece of cynicism or the tiniest check on the net would have shown this one has been circulating since November 2001, but no, deeply worried, it is forwarded on to all of us.
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Paulus' bucks night drinks
A teevee, oh no!
OK, we’ve done it now. The TV has been purchased — and what a comedy that turned into! It seemed to take a quarter of an hour for the staff in Dick Smiths to find one in their store-room and get it to the checkouts. I was amazed at the size of the box, concerned that it wouldn’t fit in the car, but since the washing machine went in, just assumed that the Astra could take it… As the young lads were wheeling it out to the car-park I realised why it looked so large.
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Chris dressed up for Critical Mass
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Waiting for the Critical Mass ride to start
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Decorated bike for Critical Mass
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Critical Mass Melbourne
CM
Time to be a feral unemployed bike-activist asshole (according to one posting in that bastion of petrol-headed free speech, news:aus.cars). After several years of reading the Critical Mass mailing lists, but not going to any of their rides, I decided to head into the city for the 7th birthday ride. The last times I was there, years ago, I became quite disillusioned that there were a small number of people who were pro-bike, a large number of people who were anti-car, and a medium sized number of people who were just anti-everything.
BMW Boxer to drool over
Browsing a few Motorcycle-related bits and pieces I found a BMW Boxer to make me drool. Just the kind of vague ideas I’ve had of what I might like in a café-racer style of bike.
http://www.teamincomplete.com/boxerintro.htm: Team Incomplete
Lethal bike paths
The mud from yesterday is still there on the bike path this morning; Marko rang me at work to thank me for warning him about it, apparently when he got to the underpass there were three cyclists crashed in the slime, one with a suspected broken wrist. He has spent half the morning playing telephone tag between City of Buroondara council and VicRoads, nobody wanting to take ownership of the problem or clean the path.
Rain, and unusable bike paths
Not quite the end of the drought — but it was pissing down all night. There was about half an inch of water in the containers on the balcony, and Gardiners creek was a churning mass of mud, water, and polystyrene run-off from all the surrounding suburbs. My timing was perfect this morning — the ride was humid, but there was no rain. Then half an hour after I arrived, it started pouring again.
Open letter to idiot
Another day, another homicidal maniac…
Dear Sir,
Just in case you’re reading this, the reason that the cyclist smacked your car with an open hand — making that remarkably loud sound — was that as you drove through the give-way sign and straight into his path, he had just had to perform an emergency stop to avoid riding into your drivers door at 40 ㎞/h.
Oh well, he certainly jumped. Now if only he learns from the experience…
Journal for [2002-11-24 Sun]
It certainly wasn’t going to hit 33 °C today — so much for the forecast. On the other hand, there were no more excuses, it was finally time to perform a vigorous house-cleaning. After a mere half-hour, the carpet was located beneath a thick layer of read, unread, and partially-read newspapers, numerous unwashed and discarded clothes were returned to their respective stores, and a couple of kilos of toast crumbs removed from the kitchen floor…
Summer?
Somewhere, someone must have decided that today was summer. The hazy cloud lifted while we were at the markets and it quickly heated up to around 30 °C, with nothing much on the agenda for today, it all leant a very lazy summer feeling to the day.
Mick Thomas meets Dr Suess...
Its either a sure sign of senility, or of hanging around with a two-year-old nephew for too long. Tonight we went off to the HiFi bar to see Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing play, supported by Gorgeous and the Drowners. During the Drowners’ set, Stewart (Stuart?) from the Sure Thing was standing near Jo and I watching them. The conversation between Jo and I was something along the lines of:
Naked politicians!
Some idiot of a politician is proposing that Muslim women in Australia should be prevented from wearing traditional garments; due to the possibility of them carrying concealed weapons or explosives — fine, I’ll agree with it, so long as it applies equally to all other clothing that could conceal any kind of weapon. I think the first place to enforce it would be in Parliament — “for their own protection from terrorists” — just think how quickly the sittings would take place if all those fat old men had to face each other naked and shouting…
Journal for [2002-11-20 Wed]
A quick jaunt up to the shops before breakfast to get some bread, and — surprisingly — there was only one car illegally parked in the clearway on Bridge road, and it even had a parking ticket on it. Normally there’s at least one car per block!
The cool and drizzly weather has cut down on the number of other people riding in the mornings, and on the number of wandering people-with-dogs on the path.
Journal for [2002-11-19 Tue]
Cool, drizzly morning rain;
Eucalyptus smells along the creek.
http://mesa3d.sourceforge.net/: Mesa 3D toolkit has released version 5 of their software. http://www.doxpara.com/: assorted interesting stuff: Black Ops of TCP/IP: Paketto Keiretsu 1.0 I went through a number of my email mailing lists and changed the subscriptions from my work address to my private one — not that I’m planning on changing jobs anytime soon, it just seemed more appropriate. Along the way I added the hooks into spamassassin on the mail processing on bund, and changed from spambouncer to spamassassin on my home machine.
Plan9 notes for [2002-11-19 Tue]
Too much documentation to get my head around. I’m printing out Volume 1 from the PDF file to bind it and put in a folder. Only problem is that various pages are now out of date, or new ones exist!
Found the drawterm binaries and successfully accessed CPU/Auth from my WinXP laptop!
Journal for [2002-11-18 Mon]
yawn. For some stupid reason I woke up at around 2:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, it wasn’t helped by not getting to bed before midnight — so now I have to try and survive Monday without falling asleep on my feet.
Interesting fun and games across the street at breakfast time — as I sat down to coffee and toast I noticed two of Victoria’s finest Police officers standing around waiting at the door.
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Policemen smoking on duty
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Policemen smoking on duty
About
ajft looking stylish and black
…The Owner
There’s not much more I can add to who I am.
…The Site
Vanity site? Technology experiment? Learning tool? Blog? Journal? Diary? Photo album? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…
I experiment. I play. I write and I take pictures. Some of the site is organised around topics, other parts are organized by date, then there’s always the cross-references between them.
Its all been here a fairly long time. Like the papers on my desk, or the books on the bedside table, the pile just grew… and it all grew without much plan or structure. I try not to break URLs, so historical oddities abound.
Long ago it started as a learning experiment with a few static HTML pages, then I added a bit of server-side includes and some very ugly PHP. A hand-built journal/blog on top of that PHP, then a few experiments in moving to various static publishing systems. I’ve never wanted a database-based blogging engine, so over the years I’ve tried PHP, nanoblogger, emacs-muse, silkpage and docbook before settling on Emacs Org mode for writing and jekyll for publishing. But the itch remained… I never really liked jekyll and the ruby underneath always seemed so much black magic. So now the latest incarnation is Org mode and hugo.
…The ISP
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