What is love?

Not that this post will tell you, however here is an interesting audio clip I came across today giving the finer points of how to keep a marriage together, especially for women. It is not something you should play loudly at work. Listen to it here or save it to your computer for personal laughter time (size is about 4mbs).

Random thoughts about work

Sometimes at work when I think about what I need to do to get a promotion ( a little premature, I know). I also think about how the field of economics is just too constrained within its little structure. For example, I was reading a blog about environmental economics and saw that the author was rejected from the journal he submitted the paper to. The problem was that the author didn't use an optimising model of behaviour - such as to maximise happiness (utility) or profits, etc. I am against this sort of thinking personally, as most of us in the real world know that when you go to the shop or restaurant you don't have perfect information to make an optimal choice so we do the best we can (I know it can seem like optimisation). Other choices are made much in the same way.

Some times to get ideas about an optimisation paper I might search the Internet newspapers so that I can something off the wall. One such site is weird news asia, with a tonne of interesting reads. Check out the picture below from China, what was this guy optimising when he was constructing his house? I like music a lot, yet not that much. Perhaps if I was playing an instrument it might suit me more. Anyway, I am confident that once he plants a garden it would be a gem of a house. Definitely a talking point.

Scrolling down the page I came to a picture that pretty much sums up academic economics as I think it stands.

The last kingdom

Lately I have been without a TV which is a blessing and a curse. The curse bit being that I just can’t lie around and watch TV or play video games. However, not having a TV allows me to read. At the present rate it seems to be about 2 books in 7 days. For me I have doubled the amount of books I have read in about a month.

One author my father recommended is Bernard Cornwell. He is a historical writer who fabricates stories around historical events. The first book I read was in the Saxon Stories – The Lords of the North. I was hooked, engrossed in the story and before I knew it, it was over. I felt an affiliation with Utred, as he tried to regain what was lost in the first book.

After reading that book, I quickly secured the two previous books in the series from my father’s library and devoured them. Now I am waiting to find the latest book which apparently has just been released in the UK.

In the meantime I have moved onto the books about the hundred year war between England and France. These books are older, yet just as good. I am determined to find out whether Thomas, will recover the Holy Grail and complete other tasks set of him.

What the?

I was going to a job interview sometime in July and I came across this picture in the toilet at Victoria University. I was quite amused by this photo and thought I might share it with the world. You will find this helpful if you ever come to Australia as you know we are different down here, so this will help you feel like like a local. You will be surpised to find that there are not some made for late night etiquette, especially for kebab shops and taxi ranks. With those then you too could say you come from the land down under.

Chewing gum

As some of you know, I am not for chewing gum. I think it is sticky and messy. Many times it has jumped on my shoe when I have been unaware and once or twice it has jumped onto my pants, because people are sometimes careless. I have been blessed for a while of not having such occurrences.

So today in the Yahoo oddly enough I found that chewing gum does not have to bother me anymore. A stickless chewing gum is a blessing. No more chewy on the boot, yeah!

The hunted becomes the hunter!

I have spent the whole day messing around with econometric programs and have finally made some progress. I was waiting for one of my programs to tell me I have an error, which tends to be the norm rather than the exception, so I decided to check out a few other blogs which I read.

On one of them I came across this video and decided the accompanying text made it worth while to watch. I knew I had about 5 minutes to kill if the program worked. I was amazed at what I saw and thought I got to get a better discovery channel than the one I used to watch. Anyway there are crocs, buffalo, and lions. Enjoy!

And, it was gone with the flash of steel

After about 1 year, I decided that what I wanted my beard to be was not going to happen. Think Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. It was too thick. Besides, I was tired of it jumping into my corn flakes at breakfast. I had tried a few other models such as those seen here and here, yet it was not long enough. So with defeat, I pulled it off and here I am in my naked bare chinned glory.

Thirsty?

Here is an ad that is currently being shown in Oz at the moment which I really like. Enjoy!

Also Carlton is where I live.

Bass Strait Tour

A few weeks ago, I travelled around Bass Strait. This trip required me to travel through the hills between where I live in Rosedale and the coast. Lots of fog was hiding in the mountains.

Monash University, Churchill in Gippsland covered in fog

Of course there was not a straight road anywhere to be seen, and street signs with directions left me lost.

The road winding around the hills past the university

the hills with their farms

Philip Island was the first destination I visited. It is an island famous for having the motorcycle grand prix each year. I felt excited to see the track and you could feel that the electricity of the park. I went into the gift shop and saw that they would let you ride in the car around the track. I inquired about the price and found out that it was about $200 for 9 minutes. Now that does not sound like value for money, yet an exciting proposition all the same. When I have some spare money I might just give it a try.

Phillip Island racetrack

From there I went to a place called pyramid rocks. Here I saw some whales breach out at sea, rabbits, and some wallabies. From here I moved along the coast pretty much going all the way to Wilson’s Prom, the most southern part of the main land.

I heard that the road pretty much ended beyond the gates and a 4WD (SUV) was needed to reach the exact point. As I looked at the map I had accomplished something by reaching the most southern sealed road on the mainland. With that I started to go home by the coast road past the lifeless wind farm on the cliffs and through some back streets to Rosedale.

The scenery on the way back

Two weeks later I wanted to complete the trip so I visited Lakes Entrance. It was recently under water from the floods (just before I arrived) however you could not tell when I was there. I noticed that the wind and rain made it a bitterly cold place. For all the hype I had heard about this place I thought it was pretty average. It was quiet, wet, and cold. On the way back though as we climbed the hills that separate this town from the main road to Melbourne and Sydney we stopped at some of the outlooks and got to see why it was called the lakes district. It was quite breathtaking yet the rain was forcing us on our way.

didn't get this photo just right, the street is actually straight

Why they call them the lakes

The way back we stopped at the last town on the rail line passing through Rosedale, Bairnsdale. Bairnsdale is a bigish country town, with wide streets and enough modern entertainment to keep everyone happy. From there I returned to Rosedale and was relieved to have seen the Gippsland’s Bass Coast. My next journey I was hoping would be the mountain region, maybe next year, since the snow seems to have finished for this year.

The last moments in Vietnam

Here they are the photos I promised from the I would have written earlier post. The last night in Vn was a special occasion. I spent it with the person I knew most in Vietnam, Eric. We met up with some friends at O’brien’s and then went on to Sheridan’s (17/13 Le Thanh Ton St District 1). It is the best bar in HCMC I think as you are free from distractions you find in other places. The music is good and the owner, Michael, is a good host. We met Duc and Sabrina that night and we stayed there until after closing time. It was a great time and I am sure all had a great time. The next day I caught up with some friends that I will miss.

I went to Diamond Plaza, a Korean style department store which appears to sell everything. It was a good idea as it would prepare me for the commercialisation I faced when I arrived in Australia (it was weird to be so confronted with so much advertising).

After a long chat with my friend I headed to the airport. And of course I had problems at the airport. First it was too much luggage, so I had to split it and pay extra weight. Went through and waited for the Visa stuff then it was something you can’t take on the plane. Went down to the check-in and took it out of the suitcase. Next, I walked through the metal detector and then another trip to luggage check-in room, this time behind the scenes. Here I had too many DVDs and the customs guy wanted to check them all out before I jumped on the plane. I was pretty surprised as this what you would think they would do when you arrived to keep out socially evil ideas. Well I was polite and explained my purpose for being in Vietnam and he decided to let it go.

By the time I got to the gate it was time to board. On the flight I sat next to this idiot he knew everything about Vietnamese and wanted to show off to everyone. After that short 2 minute conversation and a promise to keep my mouth shut, I waited to feel the forces of the plane elevate into the air. As we got in the air I looked at the mess of lights outside the window and it finally hit me. This was it, I am leaving Vietnam for a while. The emotional toll and no audio (once again on Vietnam air), let me drift into a deep slumber. I awoke and was practically in Melbourne. As I got off the plane I started to realise that I was in a different place, with different customs, a familiar language, and I am not the unusual person any more. I had reverted back to the mean (average).

Next Blog >>

Have you ever wondered what is after your site when click the Next Blog>> link at the top of the page. I satisfied this curiosity today by clicking it. The first kind of amused me. Being an economist, and thinking about everybodys' belief of what an economist does (he/she really studies chooses), as I perused the title and all the links to making money (http://moneymoneymoney247.blogspot.com/).

I reloaded my page and proceeded to click the link again. My first thoughts are these things targeted. It was about cycle tips (http://bikecommutetips.blogspot.com/). I am thinking about buying a bicycle and recently looked at some adds.

The third time left me at http://esbboston.blogspot.com/, and this was right out in right field. I had no idea what this was and spent some time poking about. It is a site which is similar to most peoples I look at which was interesting.

The fourth time I arrived at was another advertising site for health products (http://healths-club.blogspot.com/). I had zero interest and without thinking pressed next blog and landed at what I think is another targeted site, http://mjnisselius.blogspot.com/. This site was an English language site, sorry guys no lesson plans that I saw, just book reviews.

The last one I guess was setup for ice hockey fans - http://duckswire.blogspot.com/. I had no interest whats so ever. I was hoping that maybe I would end up at a blog of one of my friends or the others that I read. What I found from this activity is that it is possibly random or targeted I am 50 - 50, I found one site I might look at again (time permitting), and I just wasted about 30 minutes of my life.