This will hurt me...

Eastern Shore entrance on the old Hobart Bridge . Rose Bay. December 2012. What's to Become of the Boy: Or, Something to Do with Books , Heinrich Böll: A brief memoir of a boy's life in Köln in the years immediately following the Nazi seizure of power. An interesting angle of the coming of age tale. B . The Stranger , Albert Camus: It's hard to believe that I've managed to avoid the classic exemplar of the existential novel this long. I feel silly about doing so. A+ . End of a Mission , Heinrich Böll: Extremely funny, in a quiet, dry sense. As usual with Böll, a fantastic tale with fully realised characters. I loved it. A- .

As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... Vintage Ads for Libraries and Reading . 10 Things Garry Winogrand Can Teach You About Street Photography. Top 10 foods nutritionists won't feed their kids . Should We Tax People for Being Annoying? Tony Abbott: a confused, conservative sexist, but not a misogynist .

Can you believe that Jen lost to these two jokers?

Christmas Day meant a new scooter for Ezra.

Looking west. Tasman Bridge, as viewed from Montague Bay Primary School. Christmas Day, December 2012. Sunday? Top Five? Sunday Top Five? Okay. Here's Top Five Things That Are Working For Me! Expect nothing. Be grateful for everything. Stop taking things personally. Rinse your bowl/ plate/ cup as soon as you've finished eating! Work out what is actually necessary; don't fuss too much about the rest. When in doubt, take a deep breath and smile. Henry and Ezra complete their crossing. Tasman Bridge exit onto Montague Bay. Christmas Day, December 2012.

Cars on the Tasman Bridge. As seen from The Queens Domain. December 2012. A Virtuous Woman , Kaye Gibbons: A slight novel of a man and woman who are married out of convenience, yet still find love and comfort with each other. C+ .

Merging roads. Underneath the Tasman Bridge, western shore. November 2012. Sunday Top Five again and My Top Five Action Adventure Computer Games! Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders The Walking Dead Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars Maniac Mansion The Secret of Monkey Island/ Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge/ The Curse of Monkey Island/ Escape from Monkey Island/ Tales of Monkey Island

Waiting for something to happen. Intercity Cycleway, Cornelian Bay. October 2012. More questions, this time Sunday Stealing's Who Are you? Part 2–The Grown Up Meme ! Would you survive in prison? I'm quite certain that I wouldn't enjoy it very much, but I am aware of the odd trick to keep up appearances and pass the time. Will you keep your last name when you get married? I already did! When you look into the past, what do you miss most? Youth! Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before? I think I have! Do you wear your shoes in the house? Only very rarely. I'm a bare feet kind of fellow. Happiness is a ________? Delusion. If anyone came to your house on your "lazy days" what would ya'll do? Bolt the door and hide. What are you naturally good at? Soliloquising. What irritates you most on the internet? The incivility of many. What is worth the pain? Bone marrow transplants (if needed). Transplanting marrow ...

Tasman Bridge, Eastern Shore side. Hobart. October 2012. A Burnt-Out Case , Graham Greene: Faith, belief and unbelief. And lepers. A bleak and miserable cast of characters in deepest, darkest Africa ponder the existence of God. B . The Sixties , Lesley Jackson: A nice big book that concentrates on the design and architecture of the 1960s, this book traces the transition from the 1950s "Contemporary" design to the geometry of "the look" and styles that proliferated throughout the 60s to the proto-high tech developments of the 1970s. It covers all aspects - architecture, ceramics, glass, textiles and furniture - and is well worth a look if you're into that kind of thing. B . The Bird Room , Chris Killen: Dirty grubby people not doing much other than being dirty and grubby. Oh, and it's unclear who is who or even if there are more than two actual characters, neither of whom is in the remotest likeable. Not pleasant. F .

h5a Rast ich, so rost ich!

You heard. Corneilean Bay, Hobart. October 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... The tale of Lego... The Sunday Times' headline: "100 cod left". The actual figure...? 21 MILLION . Has there ever been a more statistically-incorrect media headline? The BBC explores why media outlets struggle so much with complex data . Also, a nice overview of Berlin and its 'democratic' canteen culture... They’re all on welfare AND taking our jobs! A nice little piece on confirmation bias . Language changes. Get used to it! Experiments on mice show that early social deprivation leads to problems with working memory and social behaviour which aren't reversible. It may help us understand and treat behaviour disorders in humans . " Most of the British Empire in the 19th and 20...

Sometimes I feel/ like my only friend. Tasman Bridge, looking south. September 2012. Here are the Top Five Reasons This Sunday That This Sunday Top Five Is Essentially A List Of Why This Sunday Top Five Is Why I Have Not Done A Sunday Top Five! An artistic expression of the principle of least action . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme The Anna Karenina principle . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. The Euthyphro dilemma . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. Issues related to the identity of indiscernibles . Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. An intense fear of conforming to the mediocrity principle . [Ahem.] Or at least a Sunday Top Five-related variation on the theme. Thank you. You can move along now.

Looking south. The Derwent Estuary, as seen from Tasman Bridge. September 2012. That Schopenhauer fellow must have been a miserable bugger. He believed that woman, by her very nature is meant to obey, which goes to some way why he seems so irritable in retrospect... To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage, Robert Lowell "It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours." —Schopenhauer The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open. Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen. My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes, free-lancing out along the razor's edge. This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge. Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . . It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust— whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five. My only thought is how to keep alive. What makes him tick? Each night now I ...

Peek through the rails. From the Tasman Bridge, looking south. September 2012. So it is Tuesday, which usually means stealing from Sunday. This week: The 88 Meme, Part Three ! 46. What are your LEGAL initials? K.J.M. 47. Who's the first B in your contacts? Ben is. 48. When was the last time you laughed really hard? After a thoroughly unkind impression that I did of someone else. My laughter was in response of someone else’s response, for the record, not my own performance. 49. Your number 1 top friend walks out of your life, do you go after them? Absolutely. 50. Explain your last awkward moment? Failing to explain a relatively straightforward concept to someone after three of four good tries. It was only awkward in the sense that someone’s stupidity was very clearly exposed to a roomful of people (who all immediately grasped the point). 51. Are you afraid of the dark? No. Sometimes I have found myself afraid of the things that might be lurking in the dark ...

Walking home from work. The Tasman Bridge (over the Derwent River Estuary). September 2012. Theme Thursday ? While I don't mind CONVERSATIONS, I can't help but feel that the inevitable disputes, arguments and (occasionally) scuffle ruin it for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a decent bloke, but when I'm ropeable, when I'm spewin', I'm as cross as a frog in a sock. One cross word and I am as mad as a cut snake. I like a yabber, but not with a galah. Fruit loops, dills and nongs normally get me to do me block. I give 'em a fair crack of the whip! If yer fair dinkum, you'll get a fair go. If you've got tickets on yourself, hooly-dooly, we'll have ourselves a blue on. I won't have ya playing sillybuggers. Rat bags can pull ya heads in. You can rack off. But usually they sit there like a stunned mullet with a shut gob. Sometimes they'll have a whinge, sometimes they'll go walkabout. That's right, they'll spit the dumm...

I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day. Take me to the place I love, take me all the way. Under the [Tasman] Bridge, Hobart. February 2012. Theme Thursday ? ICE CREAM? I scream? You scream? We all scream? For... ICE CREAM? Why? Me, I'm more of a sorbet man myself.

Hen, Ez and Jen take in the view south west of Lindisfarne. Derwent Avenue walkway, Lindisfarne. January 2012. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (as well as a LOT of crap.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... People who fly Australia Day flags on their cars tend to express more racist attitudes than others without flags 100 years of the war on drugs Hooked on chicken nuggets : Girl, 17, who has eaten nothing else since age TWO rushed to hospital after collapsing the world’s last quiet places

WATCH OUT! Underneath the Tasman Bridge, as seen from the western shore on the north side. November 2011. Watery Wednesday , and I very nearly captured a tragedy here. I can neither confirm or deny whether or not this intrepid crew of marine security services foiled a plot devised by a ruthless cabal of shags - on the rock broken pylon in the centre of the picture - to blow up the Tasman Bridge and sever connection between Hobart's eastern and western shores.

I pay the glasses Hank, but you're gonna have to ditch that t-shirt if you want to be taken seriously as a beatnik...