BUYING ON THE BRINK In the finance part of the TV news, you know the bit when they stop talking about all the death and destruction of the day and reveal who'se making the most money out of it all, they've been pointing out how consumer spending on many goods has gone up during the pandemic. Apparantly it does vary wildly as lockdowns come in and out of effect (which has happened again here in the state of Victoria as of last Thursday), but overall things like household goods and clothing have been snapped up 10-20% more than before the world started ending. Damn, speaking of household goods I just realised I was supposed to defrost the fridge this morning. Back in half an hour... Right, well if my hands weren't cold before they definately are now. I guess I'll have to clean the thing later now as well. It's probably a good thing I don't have one of these modern fridges that don't need defrosting - I only ever get around to cleaning it when it's time for a defrost, and for that matter I only get around to defrosting it when the freezer door breaks off (thankfully the repair I did the first time has made it easily re-attachable). Now I just hope it gets warm enough this afternoon. The lows haven't been that bad this year over winter, but it just hasn't been warming up very much during the day, and today's looking like it might stay overcast so I won't be pulling in much heat from the sun room. It reminds me of an old archival film that the Australian National Film and Sound Archive uploaded recently where immigrants talked about their experiences living in Melbourne in the 70s, apparantly the locals would say during a heatwave how unusual the summer was, and then in a cold/wet winter they'd say how unusual that was, and after many years living here the woman recalling this still couldn't claim to have experienced what was accepted as "usual" weather. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9NR7Jc48tg By the way if you like old archival films, and I know you don't because the last one I posted a link to got no more views but I'll keep ramming URLs down you throat anyway, I've been working my way through this trove of documentaries about the works of the Australian CSIRO: https://csiropedia.csiro.au/category/video/ OK there's a lot of pretty boring stuff in there, but the earlier stuff in particular has some real gems amongst it all. I'll email a tip to the Hackaday website for their Retrotechtacular column which I regularly check, once I find all the links (I downloaded the interesting videos in advance from a relative's fast internet connection months ago and have been slowly watching through them all). Here's one of the best overview films discussing the work of the Division of Radiophysics in 1949: https://csiropedia.csiro.au/division-radiophysics-1949/ And here's the CSIRAC computer shown there in more detail, still working in 1965 (now it's an exhibit at the Melbourne Museum). Computer engineers don't always make the best presenters: https://csiropedia.csiro.au/the-computer-csirac-1965/ Anyway working my way back to the original topic, those videos have definately gone some way to substituting for the lack cheap second hand VHS tapes and DVDs that I used to get from the local Op-Shop. Besides that I haven't found much of an alternative source for most of the other junk I used to buy there, and I tend to talk myself out of online purchases, so overall I've been buying hardly anything besides parts for the Jag and of course business stuff. The mask requirements make me unwilling to go shopping for things that aren't essential, when indeed I'm actually allowed to shop for things that aren't essential, or even travel into a town big enough to sell them (not that I think these travel restrictions are really enforced that strongly out here, and as I live in a place nobody's heard of I could probably talk my way out of it anyway). I'm also pretty tired of waiting months for things that get lost in the mail. Plus on top of that I've been so busy making money that I don't have as much time or energy to put into getting or using new stuff anyway. While sitting naked under blankets on my couch slowly burying myself in packaging detritus while simulatniously watching a long, sober, fairly low-budget, 90s documentary about the first world war, it did occour to me that the end-game I'm sort-of trying to set myself up for is myself sitting alone in one room of some posh mansion working frantically to make the money to pay for it all. But on the other hand I'm not really suited to the "rich man in the mansion" character from the 1940s B/W American movies that I've (also) been watching anyway, and hey I get to work naked on my couch watching crummy old films, what more do I want? These thoughts continue endlessly. But it's interesting how as far as buying stuff goes I've ended up going in a different direction to, apparantly, the rest of the country. What I'd really like is to work things so that I can allocate some specific time and money to a self-sufficiency project. I'd very much like to try out some ideas for generating and storing my own power - without relying on the standard combination of solar panels and batteries which can't be made yourself and need to be replaced every 10-20 years, so aren't really self-sufficient at all. It would also be a good physical task, because I'm not really built for office type tasks. In particular I can't physically handle multiple whole work days just sitting at the computer, even for fun hobby stuff, I don't know how so many people do that. But physical tasks that make money generally involve a lot more interaction with people. Farming aside, but that's another matter. Actually I've been building up my arm muscles lately though because I've got into the habit of doing push-ups before bed, mainly just to warm up because the bedroom has been really cold this winter and it was taking all night for my bed to warm up to a comfortable temperature. The room's really cold and I'm naked so I don't get sweaty, it just warms me up after sitting at the TV, computer, etc. all evening. It's developed into me talking to myself at the same time about what I plan for the next day, terribly incoherent as I get more exhausted, but I feel like I need something to distract me in order to push myself. One thing that always annoyed me about exercise is the pointlessness of it, and even while doing it for the sake of a warm night that still applies a bit. What really gets me is that I keep going until I physically can't do any more, and yet I know that if I really needed to I'd certainly find the strength and more to keep going, it's just that deep down I know it's pointless. Perhaps that shouldn't annoy me, but it does, because it shows that I don't have full control over myself. My naked nighttime sprints up and down the driveway (not as risky or short as it sounds: its a long driveway, up a hill, in the middle of farmland, though I do often disturb some sheep) are better in that respect because I've got the target of needing to get back to the house at the end, but those are for the warmer nights. Yes my exercise reigme is completely nuts, but hey they say to "find what suits you". So ends my pent-up rant and ramble about everything. Not much on topic I suppose, but it gave me a good title and that's all I ever really want in these posts. Hopefully I'll find time to write some more focused posts soon as well. - The Free Thinker.