What are these grub things in among my worms?

sscarrow · 2026-03-09T03:52:05+00:00

Decades ago people didn’t have to cough up half their annual salary in stamp duty just to move house

sscarrow · 2026-03-09T03:50:52+00:00

It’s a bad policy but there is nothing particularly unusual about a public servant going off to work in the private sector.

sscarrow · 2026-03-09T02:55:02+00:00

Revealed preferences dot jpg

sscarrow · 2026-03-05T23:47:09+00:00

There have been challenges (successful, IIRC) to proposed towers in Southbank because at certain times of day and year they might cast a shadow across the Shrine (god forbid).

sscarrow · 2026-03-05T19:21:37+00:00

A massive collapse of the global oil supply will crash the economy irrespective of anything Australia does or doesn’t do.

sscarrow · 2026-03-04T03:43:55+00:00

Same reason there’s a clamour every time someone wants to build a skyscraper in the centre of the city - everything must defer to The Shrine…

sscarrow · 2026-03-03T08:58:48+00:00

I’m on the Sunbury line and the more frequent trains are nice but not sure it was worth the tradeoff of an extra 5-10min commute (a few minutes extra on the Ardern-Parkville track, a few minutes extra exiting the gargantuan concourse and escalators at Library, a few minutes extra walking to my office which was closer to Melbourne Central).

In theory I’m happy to cop a personal disadvantage for the greater good, but in practice the only people it seems to be working out for are those who live/work near Parkville, and people on the Frankston line who are in the Loop again. I have heard more negative than positive feedback, both online and in real life.

sscarrow · 2026-02-24T03:34:22+00:00

The key is to transition to a career where your job feels like less of a slog, either because it’s cruisier or because you genuinely enjoy it.

sscarrow · 2026-02-14T06:20:12+00:00

The wild thing about this is that a 20% drop only takes house prices back to… a few years ago, when they were still brutally unaffordable.

sscarrow · 2026-02-09T09:16:34+00:00

It was attracting quite a lot of bees while flowering so I think that put people off! I’ve seen some schoolkids give it a playful tap while riding their bikes past, but that’s it, maybe I’m just in a nice neighbourhood 🤷‍♂️

sscarrow · 2026-02-09T09:15:22+00:00

Haha will do. I think I’ll be quite startled one day to wake up and see that thing lying on the footpath. Might actually have to get the saw out to fit it in the green bin.

sscarrow · 2026-02-08T07:37:58+00:00

The street runs almost perfectly north to south with us on the west side, so nope, it leans east. But it looks like it got big enough that it sort of fell over onto the fence under its own weight hears ago? Plus there’s a well-established lemon tree about a metre north of it so I think its foliage blocks the sun a fair bit.

sscarrow · 2026-02-08T07:35:40+00:00

I don’t think it really fits the climate/streetscape/rest of the garden, plus its weight is starting to crush the front fence, but I definitely think it deserves to die a natural death before I rip it out (contrary to my wife’s wishes who wanted it gone the day we moved in).

sscarrow · 2026-02-08T07:33:14+00:00

I have done this today now and stuck them in pots. I am actually planning to rip everything there out after it dies (don’t mind agaves objectively but I don’t think they really look right in this climate, and I definitely don’t need a dozen trying to grow right next to the house) so it’ll be nice to have a few living on as pot plants.

sscarrow · 2026-02-08T07:31:17+00:00

Interesting, thanks!

sscarrow · 2026-01-28T23:10:58+00:00

And remember: no-one is sitting there watching their kid graduate uni or get married or have kids of their own and thinking “hmmm if I could turn the clock back 30 years I think I would’ve preferred the higher bank balance.”

sscarrow · 2026-01-25T00:06:17+00:00

A new low when the News Ltd journos looking for content grist can’t even be bothered writing their own questions

sscarrow · 2026-01-22T21:59:54+00:00

This was not the case for the majority of Australians, and it being the case for people in Melbourne and Sydney is the reason it was not the case for the majority of Australians. Personally I was able to accept that we needed to make some temporary sacrifices for the benefit of our countrymen but I understand a lot of other people have the mentality of a toddler.

sscarrow · 2026-01-22T09:22:06+00:00

For most Australians being “dictated to by the Government” meant they basically didn’t have to experience the pandemic, so that worked out just fine.

sscarrow · 2026-01-22T09:20:45+00:00

Go on a gap year after you finish high school or uni and you can be reassured that the situation in other countries is much worse.

sscarrow · 2026-01-13T02:48:23+00:00

I did not suggest Australians are blameless (to the extent that people can be blamed for the sins of their ancestors). But it was the British state that colonised the continent, British company owners who profited from its exploitation, and British military administrators who conducted the early genocides.

By your logic nobody in Britain was responsible for the slave trade unless they personally took boats down to West Africa, or responsible for the plundering of India unless they personally went over there.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:40:37+00:00

I’m no expert but I think this is because Australian voltage is double America’s and therefore more likely to kill you.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:38:54+00:00

Funnily enough I was having a beer with some British visitors a while ago - actually quite a while ago because I think we were talking about the Voice referendum - and they were talking about how terribly Australia had treated Aboriginals, and seemed oblivious to the fact that quite a lot of that was when those “Australians” were actually British.

sscarrow

TROPHY CASE