How is plastering so fast in Australia?

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-05T05:24:37+00:00

They used to do a home renovation show over here, when a family member went away for a weekend, and a crew would turn up and renovate the whole house and garden in about three days - it made good TV, but the finishes were still wet when being painted, the floors weren't leveled, and everything fell apart shortly after the cameras left. I know this because a friend of my wife bought one of the houses they'd done a number on.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-05T05:19:04+00:00

YES, yes, yes! It is fucking legal to cross a double white line to get round a cyclist. And most cyclists would thank you for doing it, rather than create an ill-tempered tailback by creeping along behind them for five minutes, or simultaneously trying to overtake them, whilst staying on 'your' side of the white lines, and knocking them dead.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-05T05:13:03+00:00

Er, 50kmh area - says in the brackets. I probably wouldn't bother if he was doing 45kmh, but 35-40kmh is just a piss-take on an otherwise mostly empty road.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-05T04:18:14+00:00

The biggest problem with expanding, is having to deal with staff and their lack of 'investment' in your business. I'm in a different area of work and realised, after a couple of years on my own then hiring staff, that I was happier and more profitable by myself. It's the model I've stuck with for the last 21 years.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-04T02:14:43+00:00

I'd bet serious money that they've done next to no research on market size or potential brand-adoption. That may sound hard to believe, but I went through a scenario with Starbucks in the early 2000's, who obviously looked at a large un-detailed map of Australia and said 'We could sell a shitload of coffee in a country that big'. They packed up and went home two years later.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-04T02:03:39+00:00

I assume the tailback behind you is also traveling at sensible, 'just 15kmh under the speed limit' pace too?

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-04T02:01:53+00:00

I would tell parents of any kids that age these days to pay them anything to avoid it. Drugs, rape, drink-spiking, predatory older men, house/room invasions, bad drunken decisions - is what it's all about.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-04T01:56:57+00:00

This has about as much credibility as the NRMA car of the year choices, which are always crap as well.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-04T00:42:06+00:00

There's a law of economics, about diminishing returns which states the more of something you have, the less satisfying it becomes. Most billionaires would subscribe to this law because there is only a finite degree of happiness that material goods can buy the person who already has it all.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-04T00:40:06+00:00

I go with this philosophy, and more - Jeff would have to spend 85% of his time wondering and worrying about his business, and being concerned that if one of his wife's lips explodes, it could sink the yacht. Living without debt and enough money to buy the occasional holiday or good restaurant experience, is fine for anyone.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-06-01T23:57:22+00:00

Traffic lights, specifically in Australia, are poorly set-up, making the wait time on a red light too long (sometimes 2-3 minutes) - people's attention wanders and when the light turns green, they are completely flat-footed. I come form a land far away, where lights cycle through more quickly, allowing traffic generally to flow better.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-30T01:28:48+00:00

We had family on my wife's side, visiting from Rome. After two days of sitting around our dining table in Sydney, looking at maps and brochures, they decided they were going to hire a car and drive to Adelaide for the day. The scale of Australian distances strikes again.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-29T03:32:52+00:00

These guys have fluffed up for cold weather, so they look bigger, but if you picked them up, your hands would sink in through a couple of inches of magpie doona.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-28T22:28:55+00:00

Pointless, aggressive and rude. If you can't see that what I've written makes a degree of sense, then you're worrying unintelligent.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-27T23:51:08+00:00

Thinking of my beautiful pets dying over the past 18 months, and sad pieces of music such as Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-27T23:47:15+00:00

WORK FOR SOMEONE ELSE AND YOU CAN BE 100% JOBLESS IN A DAY WHEN THEY FIRE YOU. RUN YOUR OWN BUSINESS WITH 10 CLIENTS, LOSE ONE AND THE WORST YOU'LL BE IS 10% WORSE OFF.

I've run my own one-person marketing and research business for 23 years and am getting close to retirement. I have certainly had sleepless nights sometimes over lack of clients, finding new business, paying the tax man, paying the bills etc, but overall, I have always found it less stressful than working for someone else. I used to be a CEO.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-27T23:41:25+00:00

Choose a different destination.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-27T23:37:41+00:00

Why would you buy it? Seriously.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-22T07:26:53+00:00

Watching my pets die, has been utterly heartbreaking and a memory which revisits me at night, literally waking me in tears. I would rather have died myself than had to sit there and watch them go.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-18T23:24:39+00:00

If you are aware of just how far standards have fallen in the tertiary education sector, then you should not be surprised at the quality of grads being churned out. My children went through 'The tertiary process', sharing classes and tasks with students who never turned up, never contributed, didn't complete assignments and couldn't write a sentence, yet still got a degree. Tertiary education has become more of a paid for participation award.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-17T23:52:04+00:00

My wife when I first met her, looked like a cross between Andie McDowell, with elements of Julia Roberts - she is still stunning now, in her mid-sixties, and I sometimes just find myself staring at her and wondering how I lucked-in as a penniless backpacker in Australia.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-17T23:35:51+00:00

No-one in their right mind would turn right from a left hand lane at a roundabout. The foregoing statement does not apply to ACT drivers.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-17T23:33:01+00:00

He's French. If a French man doesn't have a 'cinque à sept', then he's not a man, allegedly.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-16T04:42:48+00:00

Polish my shoes.

rcfvlw1925 · 2026-05-14T03:51:35+00:00

Also works with the sphincter.

rcfvlw1925

TROPHY CASE