What did you find odd today?

[stui magpie]

^

Hah, no. Thankfully.

I already have a punching bag and booze, if I was dealing with the medico's I think I'd also need a 4 pound hammer.

[watt price tully]

[luvdids]

Well this isn't odd, but don't know where else to put it.

Have come across info on the Bendigo Food & Wine Expo... have any Bendigoians been? Is it any good? Is it worth the trip? I like food & I like wine, so worth considering.

Maybe it's odd I'm thinking of driving to Bendigo for food & wine considering I live next door to the Yarra Valley

Also could pick up some apples on the way home, that in itself is almost worth it.

[David]

[5150]

[swoop42]

[stui magpie]

What I found odd today was the plans the bloke has for the house next door to me that he bought.

Basically it's a 3 bedroom 1950's weatherboard home. Large block. Basically same layout as mine was before I extended it, they stamp built them in the early 50's.

So he bought this joint when the old bloke next door died (I'm not allowed to tell his wife that the old boy died in the house) and I just met him this morning and had a chat about his plans.

He's planning to renovate. No surprise there, but the extent of the renovation is such that what I can't figure out is why not just pull it down and start from scratch.

It's a weatherboard house on stumps, he's going to rip off all the weatherboards, gut the joint back to a frame, and brick it as well as extending it. Being on stumps means that to brick the external walls you need to lay footings (a trench full of concrete) around the perimeter for the bricks to sit on, but you have to frig around and replace the outside stumps at the same time.

There also pulling out the windows, kitchen, bathroom, basically going back to a frame.

I don't get it. Sounds like so much extra work having to buggerise around and keep basically a frame, why not just rip it down and make what you want from scratch?

[think positive]

Friend of ours has done that, they been living there/ working on it for about 2-3 years, OMG it's a disaster area. When it's finished it will be great, but fmd they've done it tough, not me could not be stuffed. I think they actually weren't allowed to pull it down, or so etching, but there's not much of the original left, and it's a dumpy house in a dumpy street in Brooklyn!

[stui magpie]

No issues here with being allowed to pull it down, developers do it here all the time.

This guy obviously has some coin, I don't get why he wouldn't just build exactly what he wants rather than compromise by having to start with a shell of an old house.

[David]

Shocking news from The Guardian today:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/08/homeopathy-is-bunk-study-says

[Tannin]

Meanwhile, over at that paragon of sober, factual, important reporting, The Age, they are frontpaging the stunning news that people sometimes flush dead fish down the toilet! Shock! Horror! They show a picture of a Red-bellied Piranha, misidentified as a "South American Piranha", going on to describe it as "deadly" (which it isn't). Still sillier, the story isn't even from this continent, it's from the UK, presumably lifted from the Daily Mail or some other rubbish rag.

Mate, we might as well just read the Herald-Scum and be done with it.

[David]

Honestly, The Age online has been a joke for a while now. The Guardian, thankfully, has more or less filled The Age's position from a few years ago (that is, they're a decent, reliable news source that occasionally wastes bandwidth on rubbish, but generally produces quality reading). Since The Guardian Australia kicked off, I haven't really looked back, but I do very occasionally check back on my old stomping ground to see how it's going. I always leave feeling saddened by the decline of a once-excellent news source.

[stui magpie]

^

I'll give the Guardian more time when they improve their AFL coverage. Until then it's News.com and the Aged for me.

[David]

Yeah, it's not spectacular, is it? I've actually started checking the AFL site for scores.

[think positive]

David