The Mezzanine

A piece of random Aussie etiquette for you:

(Context: I was reading a discussion of various cultural "gifting" things, and the Aussie cup of tea came up. Was the first time I'd really thought about it.)

If you go to someone's house, for any reason that requires you staying more than about a minute, you will be offered a cup of tea or coffee. (By which I mean, they'll say "Would you like a tea or coffee?" or offer one and instantly apologise for not having the other. Never just the one.)

When this happens, there are various options at your disposal:
1) "Yes, I'd love a cup of tea."
2) "Yes, I'd love a cup of coffee."
3) "No, thank you."
4) [the hidden one that foreigners don't know about]

Options 1 and 2 are great. Option 3 will... be a problem. Most likely, your Aussie host will look a bit puzzled, and ever-so-slightly frantic, and start offering up all the miscellaneous contents of their fridge until you pick something. This is because, as with many cultural issues, there's a whole lot of subtext happening.

See, you think the conversation has happened like this:

"Would you like a tea or coffee?"
"No, thank you."

Whereas, it's actually done this:

"I am happy to be your host. Are you happy?"
"No. I am not happy. Host better."

(It's much the same as the standard "How are you?" "Good! How are you?" "Good!" exchange. Very few people are actually asking. They're just checking that you're willing to be pleasant in their direction.)

The subtextual conversation we're aiming for is:

"I am happy to be your host. Are you happy?"
"Yes, I am happy to be your guest. You're being a good host."

This will be best achieved by the aforementioned options 1 or 2, or by secret option 4. Which goes like this:

*friendly sigh* "I'd love a glass of water!"

...then, you say thanks for the water, and if you're not thirsty, you don't actually need to drink it.

Am I the only person left in the world who prefers physical maps to GPS?

Went to a friend's house the other day, and discovered that my Melways (standard Melbourne roadmap) is out of date and doesn't have her street. I mentioned this to a few people - and they all looked puzzled and asked "But... don't you have a GPS?"

Yes. Yes I do have a GPS. And, thanks to my silly Melways, I had to pull out my GPS, dust off the cobwebs, find her street, and trust my GPS to guide me there while I blindly submitted to its knowledge, rather than knowing where the heck I was going.

Call me crazy, but I think there's something to be said for looking at a big piece of paper, and thinking "I am HERE, and I want to be THERE." It makes me feel much more in control. Especially since my GPS has been known to randomly go insane and decide I should be driving down a gravel farm track rather than the freeway.

Just sold my computer (not the nice one), using a classifieds site. In the light of my newfound experience and wisdom, here are my top bits of advice for people wanting to buy things.

1) Opening the conversation with "So, how low are you willing to go?" will get a less positive response than "You are selling for price X. I'd like to offer you price Y."

2) Acting as though you're willing to pay price X, spending over 20 minutes asking for details, photos, etc, and then smugly saying "I'll go price Y" - thereby assuming that I'm so invested, as per the sunk cost fallacy, that I'll instantly drop my price - will really get my back up.

3) No matter how reasonable you've been up to that point, suddenly starting to call me "darling" will get my creep meter on full alert, and make me determined to find someone else to sell to.

4) Offering to trade me a computer for a dirtbike is ridiculously entertaining. Even though I turned you down... keep doing that. It made my day.

5) If you are polite, straightforward, and do not fall prone to points 1–3, I'll happily drop the price a couple of hundred dollars, just because you seem nice. Well done.

Well, I've spent the last two days frantically reading news sites and Reddit-Australia, and I still have more election flailing to do, so I'm going to tell you all about it...



Firstly, for the Aussies:
( you guys KNOW )

And for everyone else:
( an explanation )

...and that's where we're at.

The kidlet now has three different types of "no".

I find it interesting that, ever since the kidlet started saying "no" at all, everyone has assumed that he's yelling "No! I won't do it!" at me. Which he still hasn't done, even at all. What he has been doing is this:


1) "Do you want a biscuit?" "No."

This is a very short, definite no. It's invariably a simple answer to a question of the "do you want..." variety. Very informative. SO helpful when he started doing this - suddenly our interactions involved a lot less guesswork.


2) "Do you have a wet nappy?" "Nooooo..."

Stretched out no - pretty much used as a response to nappy questions or other quests for information. This has been happening for about a month now.


3) "No, you can't play with the knives." "No, no! No, no!"

This is often accompanied by a wail of upset disbelief. The "no!" here isn't him saying no to me - it's him expressing his displeasure that I have said no to him. And it's very cute.

My husband has never lived with a dog before.


We're dogsitting for my parents, and I said that, since I can't feed the cat (long story), I should be in charge of feeding the dog. One animal each. The husband agreed.

One day in...

I was in the shower, and the husband came in and asked "What does the dog have for breakfast?" Didn't know why he was asking, so I explained - at which point he turned to the kidlet and said "Okay, let's go feed the dog."

...um.

"Darling! The dog's already eaten."
"What? He can't have."
"He definitely has."
"But he's following me around, looking hungry."
"Yes. Because he's a dog."

I'm not entirely sure what he was expecting.

I have been reading a lot about the US election lately, and have come to a simple conclusion: our elections are better.

I've also realised that I've never told you all about our elections, so for anyone who's curious, keep reading...


Australian Elections and Why They're So Much Better Than Yours (Whoever You Are)

1) We have an independent group organising them.

This being the Australian Electoral Commission. They organise the whole shebang, and oversee the voting. Among other things, this greatly limits gerrymandering, as the electoral districts are figured out by people who are required by law to be impartial.


2) The campaign season doesn't go on for an eternity.

Most likely, our election this year will be held on July 2nd. We're still not sure, though, because it hasn't been announced yet.

You guys have campaigns that go on for MULTIPLE YEARS. It's INSANE.

Plus - we have no primaries. So we're not all sick of the candidates before we even reach the main event.


3) Voting is on Saturdays.

This makes it easier for everyone to attend, rather than getting stuck at work. It's also a lot more relaxing. (If you go to the right polling booth, you can have a democracy sausage afterwards. They are yummy and awesome.)


4) Voting is compulsory.

Everyone votes. EVERYONE. Which, among other things, means that you don't get candidates trying to "get out the vote" by being as radical as possible. Instead, aware that the vote will be "out" whether they like it or not, they have to cater to as many people as possible, by heading more for the centre.


5) We have preferential voting.

...and this is the best bit. The uber-reason why Australia's elections rock and everyone else's are just second best.

Our ballots are a bit more complicated than yours. We don't choose a single candidate - instead, we rank all the candidates, from best to worst.

Why is this awesome? Because there ain't no such thing as "throwing your vote away" on a third party candidate.

I can vote for Awesome McPolicyGuru, who probably won't win, in the comforting knowledge that, when they fail to win as per usual, my vote will instead go to Nice von-Competent rather than Evil Villainson. And, if enough people do the same, Awesome McPolicyGuru could even get elected! Woo!

This is why our government is less of a two-parties-and-nothing-else situation that the US. The way your elections are set up, you're pretty much always going to have two viable candidates and no-one else - whereas we usually have a decent showing of third party and independent MPs. Because we can actually elect them.

Here's what I want:

I open up my tablet app, and select "make a new map". It gives me a blank grid of squares.

I decide whether the map is inside, in the street, or in the countryside. The app gives me the appropriate terrain types (such as "floor, table, stairs", "building, pavement, wagon", or "rocks, river, grass") based on my choice. Then I select a terrain type, apply it to some grid squares, select another, apply it to some more grid squares, etc.

Finally, I can select any grid square, and give it a label.

Voila! Map!


(Then, at a later date...)

I open up my tablet app, and select "use existing map". It loads the map I made earlier.

I add characters: Rohan the Ranger, Elthreli the Cleric, Snigwat the Fighter, Nora the Rogue, Orc 1, Orc 2, Captive 1, etc.

I can then position the characters on any grid squares I choose, and, at any point, move them from one location to another.



Thus allowing me to run awesome RPGs without constantly having to use a pencil and eraser on the back of an old character sheet.

That's the dream...

The thing about dragons being fictional is that every author gets their own chance to decide what dragons are really like (see also: vampires and werewolves). As far as I can remember, the order I encountered them was as follows:


( a short list )

Life is about to drastically change.

This week, the husband will be in Japan - so the kidlet and I will be home by ourselves. The next week, I will start working three days a week, while the husband drops down to three days too.

I am simultaneously excited and terrified. What if my son doesn't remember me after a whole nine hours apart? What if I forget how to read and totally fail at my job? What if aliens land?

...hopefully it will all be fine.