I then realised I don’t even know what my postman looks like, let alone who he/she is. This bothered me a little bit. A person who does me such a great service…. and I haven’t bothered to give them the time of day for a ‘hello’ or a ‘goodbye’ or a ‘thanks for my mail’. I’m sure I’m not the only one guilty of taking our postmen for granted, so I decided to take my boredom and turn it into ‘getting to know my postman’.

The biggest problem was that it was raining and I didn’t know what time the postman actually came so I decided to write him/her a letter and leave it dangling outside the letter box labeled to a ‘MR POSTMAN’ (how appropriate).   The letter is just an initial door into a long and wonderful friendship with my postman (I am hoping).

I am planning to continue getting to know Mr. Postman over a period of time via notes left in the letterbox. If this works, I urge everyone to look into their inner humanitarian side and stop neglecting our postmen.

So my first letter looked like this:

I have no idea if he/she is willing to comply. I don’t even know if he/she saw my note or came today. I got distracted… but still, If I can get a smile out of Mr. Postman, then my job is done.

Hopefully if all goes to plan and I have a Postman that has a personality  (if they recruit postmen like bus drivers I don’t think I have a very good chance) he/she will read my next letter and interact with me:

 If I can make Mr. Postman’s life that little bit better, why not try right?

If we look back in history, kids were much better behaved during the times where teachers could smack them with rulers, throw things at them and punish them in slightly traumatising ways. Nowadays teachers have to be careful what they say or the child can scream rape. We are really going backwards and then we wonder why crime rates are rising and brainless acts are abundantly evident. It’s a simple case of ‘actions not being met by tough enough consequences’.

Inspired by some of the government drunk-driving advertisements; I came up with the idea to create a series of Children’s books, sponsored by KOCS and deployed with each baby bonus.  These books will provide the necessary education in society’s etiquette and scruples. We shall try to mitigate the generation of badly behaved children at a primary stage of development. 

The books are still under construction but here is the lineup I have thought of so far for the mandatory series to all toddlers:

BOB GOES TO THE SUPERMARKET

TOBY DOESN’T SHARE HIS TOYS

LIZZY LEARNS THE ROAD RULES

MAX GOES TO JAIL

JESS RIDES THE TRAIN 

 I am waiting for an extraordinary illustrator to help me out and provide me with some realistic illustrations to match the text of the story but I didn’t want to leave you guessing as to the method of education these books would use so I have provided some dodgy samples:

BOB GOES TO THE SUPERMARKET:

One day Bob and his mother went to the supermarket to buy healthy groceries, high in nutritional value. They started at the fruit. Bob waited patiently for his mother to select his favourite fruits. Bob loved bananas and apples.

When they got to the confectionery aisle, Bob saw many candy wrappers bright in colour and ever so tempting. His mother looked at Bob and said “Bob that food is bad for you. It may taste good but you shouldn’t eat a lot of it because it is expensive and unhealthy.”

But Bob had his eyes set on some candy. He kicked and screamed repeating the annoying words “But I want it now!”

All the other shoppers were angry at Bob. He was making too much noise in the supermarket.

A few days later and Bob caught a plague. His eyes and teeth began to fall out. He lost his hearing and suffered painfully.

Bob is now dead.

Note: The illustrations are important. Bob deliberately has a mullet in order to deter kids from being like Bob and continuing the look of the mullet. 

 Toby was sitting on the ground happily playing with his new toys he got for his birthday. Toby got a tennis ball and fishing net from his biological Father. He was very happy. 

His friend Eli from next door came over to play with Toby. Eli asked Toby “Is that a sieve?” to which Toby replied, “No, it’s a fishing net Eli.”  

Eli said “Hey, I have a fishing net too. Would you like me to show you how to use that properly? The ball doesn’t go inside there. Fish do!”

Toby, only partially listening to Eli said “No thanks, I don’t share things with people.”

A few days later and Toby caught a plague. His eyes and teeth began to fall out. He lost his hearing and suffered painfully.

Toby is now dead.

If you are a great illustrator and would like to help me develop this essential book series, then please let me know. 

I can safely say that I am not alone. I have spoken to others who have said they too follow similar impulses when it comes to shopping, whether it is handbags, clothing or other paraphernalia (each to their own) but there are a few big questions yet to be answered for me and these are:

• Why do we make multiple purchases of the same thing?
• Are social trends making us feel obligated to make these purchases?
• Have stores developed a genius subliminal marketing system?

It’s very hard to say. I for one am a firm believer that JB HiFi use surreptitious subliminal marketing in order to convince consumers that they must buy a product from the shelf before leaving the store. I have tested the water on this theory several times by walking into a JB HiFi with the full intention of just looking and walking back out but have never succeeded.  I believe it’s a factor of subtle hypnosis from the display TVs; earnest stares from the security at the exit; and the populated, well-organised structure of the DVDs, Blu-Rays, Games and CDs.  I am virtually helpless.

I can’t just blame the stores here. I know I am a sucker for anything new and anything technology. I was recently taking some photos of my electrical goods to put in my digital photo frame so I could cherish my electrical friends. Here are some I’d like to share with you to demonstrate my nonsense impulse buys:

Damage done from JB HiFi:

Watching Whales in 1080p floating about in the Ocean

How awesome are whales?

This is my Sony Bravia 40” XBR which set me back $3000. It is such a lovely TV and do not regret the purchase at all. A combination of the FULL HD 1080p goodness and the astonishing things that animals do makes me watch ‘The Planet Earth’ Documentary over and over again.

PS3 Games and Blu-Ray Discs purchased on impulse

These are the games and blu-ray discs I have. At around $100 a game I have spent poo bags worth of money here especially considering I play one game on average for about 2 hours before never touching it again. I played Ninja Gaiden for about 30 minutes before it got too hard so I chucked a hissy fit, never to return to it again.

Amplifier, PS3, DVD Player

And here is an amplifier, playstation 3 and DVD player. The amplifier is around 300 years old but still goes hard with the surround sound for my room. I think I bought this with my first Civic Video pay cheque.  I had another 2 DVD players but gave these to friends who had no idea what a DVD player was in 2004. Needless to say – I asked if they had heard of TVs before I gave it to them.

LG LCD TV

This is another TV purchase. It’s actually quite a good quality TV for its time. I’d estimate I bought this in 1989 but I am probably wrong.

iPod nano 4th Generation, iPod Video, iPhone 3G

The iPods I got from JB HiFi but the iPhone was from Virgin. Regardless why do I have 3 music players?….

wait a minute…

MD Player - Japan's cool kid's device

Oh no another! it’s another music player! This one I got from Japan because all the cool kids in Japan had one. I came back with it to Australia and no one knew what it bloody was so I just put it away and haven’t used it since.

Birthday Present - Recommend for cricket.

This TV I got for one of my birthdays from my parents from Clive Peters. It is a 50” Hitachi Plasma which is great for watching cricket but Deal or No Deal leaves slight burning on the screen if you watch it for too long (I don’t care, it’s a crap show anyway).  Thanks for helping out with my addiction to electrical goods. My family is very encouraging. I told my brother not to buy me alcohol because I drink too much and so for Christmas (a few weeks later) he buys me a great big bottle of Vodka.

Panasonic DVD Recorder

Oh I forgot, this DVD recorder is also from JB Hifi. I bought this specifically for when Sri Lanka was playing cricket at one time and I couldn’t watch the games because I had to work and they were on at ridiculous times.

Ok now onto computer gear:

D-Link Wired and Wireless Routers

Not only do I need the internet through Ethernet connection, but I also need wireless because I’m too damn lazy to walk a few steps to a desktop computer as opposed to my laptop which lives on the floor of various rooms in the house.

Dell XPS M1330

Speaking of which, here is the laptop. It is dead at the moment and needs a hardware replacement from Mr. Dell. Note to self:  Call Mr. Dell about this.

My non-discriminating desktop PC

Here is my computer made up of parts from various brands because I’m no fan boy of anything. This computer runs both Ubuntu and Windows XP. It uses a Microsoft mouse but an Apple Keyboard. Everything plays well with a 1950s creative web cam and a set of Logitech speakers as well as a Samsung monitor. I had 2 of these monitors but one has decided to change colour settings and I can’t get it back. This is incredibly annoying when they sit side-by-side so I have removed it and put it in a dark room. I will deal with it later.

Hammy Down Computer

Here is the hammy down computer which I gave to my parents. It is a pretty good PC but now it has been fed to the lions so they can check their emails and download all sorts of nasty plagues off the internet without knowing.

Media PC

This is a media PC which I use to stream movies from the other computers to my TVs. I have used this twice in my entire life although I’m not sure why because it sounds like a pretty neat thing to have. I guess it’s just easier using a DVD player or watching it on the other computers itself.

On top of it is a hard drive caddie for IDE hard drives. I bought that a long time ago for swapping Linux ISOs at LAN parties with other friends enrolled in IT at QUT…. I usually got really drunk before the game playing began and couldn’t see what was on the screen to participate.

Oh I (again) almost forgot. Every computer needs a printer:

Printer and unused digital photo frame

Well that’s about all of the significant purchases that I’ve made on impulse. There are surely more that I have either broken, thrown out or have lost along the way.  

I will leave you with this pretty hip controller I found in the store room. I don’t really know if it’s mine. I don’t remember it being mine at any point in my life, so it probably isn’t mine:

Chinese controller for a magical console

It seems like it’s from China. Yeah I’m going to confirm that this isn’t mine. I love how there are 2 ‘A’ and ‘B’ buttons. It’s as if they didn’t want to take up any more of the alphabet and make it A,B,C and D buttons. Saying ‘the top A button’ or the ‘A Red’ button is much more convenient guys!  I also like how the ‘A black’ button doesn’t really fit snugly in the white placeholder. It gives it personality.