Tv antennas, critiques, writing etc

Hi all,

My holidays end this week - next week I will back at work in my part-time library position - so I finally got around to doing some of the things that I need to do while I've got the extra time. I visited the optometrist and finished up getting two new pair of spectacles, one for reading and one for watching TV etc. The pair I was using for reading has now become my computer glasses and the pair that were my computer glasses don't really preform any function any more. I will be interested to see if I make fewer typos now I've finally swapped computer glasses. The shop had a buy one, get one free deal for the glasses so there purchase didn't break the bank.

I finally went looking for a new pair of runners. It would have been nice to get a pair similar to my last pair which lasted for 13 months and about 2000 walked kilometres. We had a new Athlete's Foot open in Wang and they had a sale on last month, but their sale prices were more expensive than Sportspower's normal prices. I do make it a bit harder for myself by refusing to buy Nike because of their continued disregard for the sweat-shops their products are made in. Surely they could give some of the 100 million sponsorship of Tiger Woods or the 80 million sponsorship of Venus Williams to their workers.

Lightning struck the transmission tower for all the commercial television channels in Wang on Wednesday night knocking out all the channels on our televisions. I thought something had happened to our antenna so I went up on the roof and had a look, and naturally couldn't find anything wrong with it. I then climbed under the house and fiddled with the connector and I've been fiddling with it ever since, having spent about six hours in three attempts to get the fickle reception going again. I could get the reception right on two televisions, but not the third, and as soon as the third one was okay, one of the others faded. The constant static electric shocks from the cables didn't help my mood - my thumbs are still sore. The main problem ended up being an overstretched antenna connection plugged into the back of the televisions, so I replaced the cable. At least I hope that was the problem. I could really identify with the guy on the Amazing race who freaked out when he couldn't get his car into gear.

I did my first critique of the year. As usual I read the story, wrote a few notes, and then waited until the next day to re-read the story, this time writing down a lot more and correcting anything I saw as I went. It was just as well I read it a second time because I missed a crucial plot point the first time around. I posted the critique and got a response from its author answering some of the questions I had raised. I hope the story's writer realises that, if he is to satisfy a reader like myself, he must put those answers somewhere in the original story. But it may just be me, I might have no concept of the subtleties of literature. Anyway, it was a very good story.

I finally got my newspaper reading up to date, Yaaa, and now feel a lot more qualified to comment on currents events. I do hope the federal government's Sorry to the stolen generation is successful, but I see the rednecks are circling. I wonder how much different Aboriginal society might be today if there wasn't a rampant policy of assimilation and land dispossession, and if Aborigines had been paid for work they did last century when thousands of them were ripped off by their white masters.

I have been writing every day, so I am starting to feel like a real writer, but the word count is still not that good and has dipped in the past two weeks as I have been editing what I have written so far. So I must now go and do some writing.

Graham.