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Family Values

There’s no finding the sweet spot when it comes to creating a comfortable environment for the whole family. That may be a hard pill to swallow, but it can’t be denied if you’ve ever attempted to manage the climate control preferences of at least three people at a time. You’d think genetic relationships would make it easier – like, that at least one of the kids would have similar preferences to at least one of the parents. I can confirm that that’s not necessarily the case.

The best solution I’ve arrived at is to continually toggle the thermostat up and down until the next round of complaints. I have to say, adults do some of the worst of the worrying, partly because they’re concerned about the kids getting the chills, overheating or simply being exposed to too many fluctuations in temperature. Then they start getting in a flap about how they haven’t booked their ducted gas heating repairs. Melbourne might be getting cold, but there’s still time before winter – settle down, will you?

Honestly, it’s a luxury to have any form of heating system, let alone ducted heating and cooling. Melbourne is an extremely fortunate place to call home – much safer for your kids than a good many other places in the world. So how about relaxing a little about those tiny imperfections in your home environment?

Besides, here’s the thing: the kids are going to have to get used to fluctuating temperatures, no thanks to our love of climate controlled comfort. You might as well let them get accustomed to it early by letting it be a couple of degrees off that elusive perfect air temp. I’m sorry if that seems a bit dark, and I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It’s not your personal fault, and I know that I’m sure as heck not going to hold back from heating my home over winter. It’s just some food for thought next time you start obsessing about whether your kids are in their optimal growth setting.

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The Handbag’s Tale

Personally, I see nothing wrong with a novel from the perspective of a handbag. For as you see, novels can be from the perspective of anything. I wouldn’t expect anyone in this group to have read something with such graceful prose, but Confessions of an Icicle by Natalie Dusky is written entirely from the point of view of an icicle, and we get to read about all the many and interesting things it sees before it melts.

Sorry, spoilers. Anyway, no spoilers for Brown Leather Bag on Tour, my upcoming self-published novel for which cover art has not been finalised, but here’s a minor spoiler: it’s a brown leather bag. A really nice looking leather bag, and based off one that I own. As a matter of fact, I got the idea when I realised that I take my handbag with me everywhere I go, it sees everything I see and maybe even more, so in a sense this handbag is living a life just as full and rich as mine. And what would it say, if it were able to talk? What stories would be told? These are all the questions that inspired me to write my epic.

Of course, coming up with a complication in the tale was difficult, and so was the process of crafting a villain. I decided that my bag probably has a rival in Irene’s black leather bag, because we see each other all the time and work and coffee, and we lay down our handbags next to each other, and I’m creating an interesting contrast between me and Irene’s friendship and the intense rivalry between my brown leather bag and this black leather bag.

I mean…leather slouch bags in general are items that are designed to look good, as fashion statements. Makes sense that they’d have their own strengths and insecurities. And that they’d see these outings as wacky adventures with beginnings, middles and ends. Right?

-Anique

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Lucky Schmuck

Does bad luck always come in sets of three? Please tell me it doesn’t… I’m on two strikes already today, and I really don’t have the wherewithal to deal with anything more.

First, my toaster exploded, which I hadn’t known was a thing. Did you know that that can happen? Well, it can, and I’m here to tell the tale. There’s not a huge amount to said tale, but it was a bit of a stressful start to the day. Then, my car broke down on the motorway, and now here I am waiting for roadside assistance instead of nailing that property deal down on the coast.

What’s the third thing going to be? The client thinks I’m flaky and backs out on the whole meeting? I find out that my engine has conked it? Or perhaps something completely unrelated, like tripping over a stray brick and twisting my ankle?

Whatever. Right now I need to focus on getting hold of a decent car mechanic. Mornington locals, who’s good for this type of thing? I suppose I should wait for the RACV person to point me in the right direction. I just feel like I don’t have that much time to wait around for them to get here.

While I have very limited knowledge of Mornington, car repair workshops included, I do know that my client isn’t going to be stoked about the delay, even though it’s clearly not my fault. I mean, maybe it is – I have put off having an annual car service for a couple of years now. But the client doesn’t need to know that. 

Maybe I need to put a different spin on this. Maybe I’m actually having a bout of good luck. The toaster exploding when and where it did might have been the difference between my house burning down or not, and I got away with barely singed eyebrows. Similar logic could apply to the car breakdown – the outcome could have been a lot worse.

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Be Safe Around Electricity

Back when I was a lad, my parents always said to me: “We have no son, and we renounce thee.”

Yes, they were quite the old-fashioned sort, may they rest in peace. However, there was another thing my Dad said to me once. He was fixing the fuse box behind the house, or attempting to. It was during a thunderstorm, the power had gone out and he and mother were quite determined to watch the re-run of the moon landing. Removing all the swearing, after his multiple failed attempts to fix the box he came back and said “Always, ALWAYS hire a commercial electrician for the big jobs, because it’s not worth your life.”

Then he fell down, and…well, those were his last words, but I learned the valuable lesson that you don’t mess around with electricity if you’re not a trained professional, or wearing special gloves. I wonder what point of your electrician training you have to get to before you can forego the special gloves? Maybe never; it’s not like you receive a qualification one day and become immune to electric shocks. You don’t just go rewiring a house without protective equipment because you’re shielded by the power of your TAFE qualification. My mother didn’t even have a TAFE qualification; she just thought she’d start rewiring the house anyway, out of anger, possibly at how she could have had a childless existence and she took a different path. Anyway, she joined father on that day. And that’s why you always wear gloves.

I’m no electrician, of course, so you don’t need to listen to any of the silly old words coming out of my mouth. I’m just assuming that all the electricians Bayside area locals would normally think to hire must go to work fully protected – with clothing AND knowledge.

-Baz

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Steeling My Heart

I just went on the most interesting date, and feel compelled to tell the internet about it. I mean, it was ultimately nothing to write home about. I’ve just never met anyone with such a high level of enthusiasm for metal fabrication before.

 This guy – let’s call him Barrie – builds interactive metal sculptures. If he’s to be believed, he exhibits these at events internationally, presumably transporting them by sea. He claims he’s currently working on a 10m tall steel frame shaped like a skull, which can be climbed using an internal staircase and exited via slides extending from the eyeballs.

 Sounds elaborate, right? My question is, where does one even begin with building a structure like that? Well, apparently, it’s done with the involvement of an industrial crane, along with a small army of steel fabrication specialists. Melbourne folk have surely seen works like this underway. Do you reckon Barrie is telling tall tales? Or do you think he could he really be building giant noggins from structural steel plates?

 He didn’t have any photos to show me, which I found to be mildly suspicious as far as supporting his story goes. Apparently, the social media account through which he promotes his metal structures is down – again, sounds a bit fishy, but Barrie claims it should be back up as soon he manages to convince the site that his profile photo really is of a giant metal banana.

The only verification tactic I can think of is to contact all of the custom metal suppliers in Melbourne, and see if any of them have done business with Barrie. Yes, I do realise that that’s a bit of a crazy notion, but what can I do? I need to know now whether I should ask him to Sheree’s wedding, and I only want him to come if he really is a large-scale artisan metalworker.

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Trade-Off is Love, Trade-Off is Life

OH. MY. ALTERNATE VIEWING.

I know I usually just talk about the one thing, but how can I when the Great Australian Trade-Off is back on our screens? I do have other interests, and one of them is a bit of home improvement. Well, when I can get the lazy husband off his butt to come and help me, but…who needs him? I don’t mind rolling up my sleeves and ripping out a few kitchen cabinets to make way for new and better things.

That was the main focus of the show this week, of course: complete kitchen renovations. The contestants were set some extremely tough challenges, watched over by professionals in the kitchen makeover field, and let me tell ya…I would’ve looked at some of these projects and hung up my GATO tool belt right there and then. Glynda, that silly woman who got eliminated last week, would’ve fainted on the spot. I suppose they must all just be more professional than that, because they took it in their stride and got down to some serious kitchen makeover madness.

Jorge was given a kitchen to renovate that was basically OWNED by rats, so he had to remove them and then clean up…everything they left behind. Tania was set upon a student kitchen that had seemingly never been cleaned, with the cooker so gunked up that she needed a blowtorch to get through the grime. And Harriet…wow. She was given a kitchen from the eighties. Sunshine yellow tiles, all over the dang place. It was an absolute nightmare and she turned it into a dream.

Oh gosh, I could watch people do kitchen refacing all day long. We really should just bite the bullet and pay for that subscription to the industrial kitchen renovation channel: kitchen renovations, 24/7.

-Leticia

 

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Behold the Future of All Kitchens!

We have seen the future of kitchen design, and the future is robots. Droids. Androids. Droid-Anns (that is, droids that are called ‘Ann’). That’s why we at Android Office Solutions are diversifying the brand and starting a second company, Android Kitchen Solutions. The main problem is that we don’t actually have any skilled kitchen designers on staff at the moment, so we’d be looking to find an efficient and well-rated kitchen designer open for business, so we can work together to craft the kitchen of the future.

Which will be robots. But not JUST robots. There’s no use fitting a kitchen, commercial or residential, if it looks horrible. All the robots in the world aren’t going to get you any business if you just slap a bit of chrome all over the place and call it a day. No, people on the hunt for quality kitchen design know exactly what they want. Elegance, simplicity, and soon…robots. Just imagine it: you get a kitchen fitout that gives you the oaken counter-tops of your dreams, a double-sink at last, and one of those little thingies that gives you boiling water at any time you like. But ALSO, the microwave now responds to your voice commands and asks you how your day is going, maybe even recognises certain types of food and doesn’t have to ask how long to heat it up. The fridge automatically adjusts to the optimum temperatures for every piece of food, and of course there will be a robot butler: Jeeves 6000. We’ve already started working on his core software. He will be both posh and efficient.

People always talk about modern kitchen design, but this will be the kitchen renovation to end them all. Your specifications, your perfect countertops and floor materials…and Jeeves. Faithful, subservient Jeeves, and his wife, Ann.

-Chen

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Office Design, Where it’s At

There’s absolutely nothing more serious than office design. Everyone here is joking around, saying that they hope they come back to our main office to find that it’s full of robots that do their work for them, and a multi-storey car park that pick up your car with a metal arm and places it into a bay.

Well, for the record, that would be AMAZING. Also, very convenient…parking in bays is hard. But offices are the way of the future. If we don’t evolve, we just face away. Gone are the days of orange sofas and orange soda machines. Orange used to be the new navy, but now, purple is the new orange. Not to be confused with burnt orange, which was the new grey, but has now been re-overtaken by grey. But that’s gunmetal grey. Surely there must be at least one respectable place that does office fitouts. Sydney is bound to have a few companies that can be trusted with such a crucial task.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, offices, and the incredible importance of making them look and feel great for the continued business success of this great country. For you see, the trite office design of the early 2010s has fully passed us by. All the big tech companies used to just fill their break rooms with jelly bears, and line the walls with fun workplace snaps of a candid nature. I think people are starting to realise that workplaces have to have a certain degree of professionalism if they want to function properly. You can let people arrive in the morning with running shoes, and they might occasionally have casual Fridays, but professionalism is key. So once we get back to our quality office fitout, by Sydney office design professionals, they’ll have to see the truth.

Grey. Purple. Open-plan but nothing too crazy. It’s the way of the future.

-R.Y.

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We Need Us a Fine Kitchen Space

Now that we’re all settling in nicely, it’s time to put in the flourishes on the place. The castle-mansion was quite nice when we moved in, but this is all about putting in a personal touch. I can’t see us ever going back to Romania, not in quite a number of years, so it’s time to start planning some serious renovations. Surely, there are plenty of purveyors of commercial charcoal grills around here who can help us out. I’ve been terribly impressed with the visual aspect of Melbourne thus far, so perhaps something with a bit of a fusion aspect, just so we can proudly display our heritage.

Kitchens in Transylvania are quite taken with the theme of black. Black stoves, black cookers, and all of it looking rather rustic, like it was all hand-forged. Indeed, our kitchen back in the family castle was hand-forged back in the 1400s when the castle was built, with only minor adjustments for modern conveniences. My favourite piece was in the very centre of the kitchen: a cast-iron furnace, big enough for several people to stand inside. I wonder if any kitchen renovators would be able to ‘hook us up’ with something similar? Not that we want to put people in there, of course! Haha. You don’t cook people…it ruins all the flavour.

In any case, I’m also really wanting a kitchen surface of black marble like we used to have. I liked the effect, and it made cleaning a charm. The wife really enjoyed the storage, so something like that will go over quite well, plus we can’t forget the children’s cupboard. We like to instill a sense of duty and reward, so they both have their dedicated space for ingredients and also treats.

Perhaps we’ll get together as a family and make a list of things we need. Oh, and a commercial deep fryer would be wonderful! And if we have to import some pure-black cast iron…we shall!

-I.M. Payler-Alucard

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No One Expects the Secret Tunnel!!

There’s one thing we’ve been missing from the garden, and it’s a SECRET TUNNEL.

That’s right: a secret tunnel through the garden!

There might be some kind of building regulations that stop me from going underneath the neighbour’s gardens, but I should really look into it because I don’t just want a secret tunnel underneath my own garden. There’s no point in even having a secret tunnel at all if it goes nowhere. And if it turns out that I can’t dig a tunnel deep underneath the property belonging to the neighbours (not like they’re using the space…), then I’ll just have to pour all my effort into building some kind of secret lab instead. That’s where the secret tunnel will lead.

My interest has been piqued by all this talk of aggregate. Carrum Downs is having a tidy gardens competition, and everyone is rushing out to purchase crushed rock and all sort of landscaping supplies to improve their gardens. But the thing is…they’ll all end up looking the same. That’s a massive pain for the people who have to judge the competition, going from one garden to another with perfect pebble formations and little garden beds of sand and flowers. You know, whatever’s in.

You have to do something slightly out-there to really get their attention, and you know what’s totally out-there? That’s right…a secret tunnel. Even if I don’t win, I know I’ll be leaving a good impression on everyone who finds out about my ingenious idea. None of the judges will ever have seen a secret tunnel underneath a garden, possibly one that leads to a secret man cave.

Of course, the upper levels are quite important as well…got to make a good first impression, so I’ll have to follow the trends. Maybe I can buy sand in Cranbourne, make myself a nice little sandy flowerbed. Or however you use sand.

-Son