One of the things I had forgotten about my beloved home town is how abysmal the public transport situation is. Even on weekdays during peak hour, the buses are just a little too infrequent to be really classified as useful. And if you’re living out in Palmerston, you’re pretty much grounded unless you’re content to wait for forty or more minutes in order to get anywhere, especially on the weekends.
Yeah. Basically anyone in Darwin who can own a car does. And after a week of getting up at a quarter past six in order to get to work by half past eight, I decided they’ve all got the right idea, and set off to find me a car loan.
Now the thing about personal loan information brochures is that they’re always all about the benefits and the freedom you can buy (?) with your new money. I found them all really annoying, because I was already sold on getting a loan. I just wanted the necessary information on interest rates and repayment schedules. Apparently those data aren’t the sort of thing you want to include in an “information” brochure (notice my experiment with using /data/ “correctly” as the plural of datum. That’s classical styles, baby. I’m still not sure if it works in the new millennium, though. Thoughts?).
Eventually I stuck my head out and asked for an appointment with a bank … consultant? Assistant? What do we call these people? My bank … lady’s card just says “customer service specialist”. I think that’s a bit pretentious, but then, I use data as a plural, so I’m in no position to judge.
At this point the flood gates opened and I got so many facts and figures that I was drowning in them. It took me a week to get over it and figure out exactly which among my plethora of options I wanted to go with. I made up my mind and got myself a pre-approved loan just in time for the weekend. Tony Barber appeared from behind a nearby bougainvillea bush and exclaimed
“Let’s go shopping!”
And then disappeared again. Weird.
I spent the following Saturday shopping around the various new car dealerships in Darwin. The trick was that they were spread a fair way apart, and the bus system, as I mentioned, is not really an efficient way to get around. I started my mission at half past eight in the morning and had collected all the information I needed to make my decision by half past four that afternoon. I signed on for my brand new car, and got ready to take the forms to the bank on Monday.
At this point I hit my first snag. In order to fund the loan for the car, the bank needed to know the insurance details. In order to insure the car, the insurance company needed to know the registration details. And in order to register the car, the car company needed to receive confirmation that the loan was funded. It was a cyclic impasse the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the great frequent flyers calamity of ’07.
I let the customer service specialists battle it out between them, and eventually we got the loan funded, but not before I discovered the insurance company had created a policy under the wrong name, and the car dealership needed three extra days to treat the paint and tint the windows. Finally, after a three week ordeal, here are the specs for my brand new spacesh… I mean… car.
Model: Ford Focus CL Sedan
Doors: 4
Transmission: 5 speed manual (better than automatics for dropping down a gear and overtaking a road train)
Allegiance: Autobot
Power: 107kW
Torque: 185Nm
What those numbers mean: No freaking idea. A kW is a kiloWatt, and an Nm is a Newton metre, but I’d need to find my high school physics books to figure what that means. And that’s not going to happen.
Colour: TARDIS Blue
Average fuel consumption: 7.1L/100km
CO2 emissions: 169 g/km
Dimensions on the outside: About average for a small sedan, I guess
Dimensions on the inside: 15 decks, with accommodation for 560 crew, mess, cargo bay and holodeck.
Top speed: Well, the NT now has a blanket speed limit of 130 km/h (so stupid…), so obviously I won’t be going any faster than that. However according to the specs it can get as fast as warp 9.75
Armoury: articulated transphasic photon torpedoes, frequency modulated phaser blasters and a picture of a bear holding a shark.
Woah… sorry, I got confused between my new car and the USS Voyager there at the end.
Um…
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
27 November 2009
20 November 2009
Redirecting to something a little more relevant
Alright, alright. Enough useless chatter about what is and isn’t available in metropolitan menswear departments. Sorry about that. Not really sure what went wrong in my brain there. Fashion commentary? Really?
On with the real issues for the month; I’m back in Darwin! I’ve been working full time here for two weeks now, and I’m just about reacclimatized to the build-up conditions. I’ve done away with my filthy South Australian driver’s licence and got myself a shiny new NT one. I’ve changed most of my important contact details over to my new address in Woodroffe. I’m becoming all too familiar with the bus service schedule as it pertains to getting me from my house to work every morning (more on that later).
Yeah… I guess that’s why I’ve put off blogging about getting back into the swing of things up here. It’s not actually that exciting compared with writing up a description of a new European city every three days. Nonetheless, I did promise some of you that I would keep this up with details of my new adventures in the Top End. And just as soon as I start getting paid, thereby slightly alleviating my current social paralysis, I’m going to get straight onto cooking up some adventures to write about.
In the mean time, I’m fascinated by a new feature Google have added to the blog interface. Up the top along the menu bar there’s a button that says “next blog”. It’s always been there, but they’ve just suped (Sooped? Souped?) it up so that now instead of just picking someone’s blog at random from the (probably) tens of thousands on this server, it now uses automatic content analysis to send you to one it thinks might be on a related topic. I’m not sure how it figures out what the general theme of FFH is. Actually, I’m not sure I could tell you either, other than to say it’s broadly about me and stuff I get up to. I don’t know how many other blogs about me there are out there, but now we can all find out with just the push of a button. With any luck, it will be able to redirect you to something a little more relevant to … basically everything in the universe.
Far From Home
Garry with 2 Rs
On with the real issues for the month; I’m back in Darwin! I’ve been working full time here for two weeks now, and I’m just about reacclimatized to the build-up conditions. I’ve done away with my filthy South Australian driver’s licence and got myself a shiny new NT one. I’ve changed most of my important contact details over to my new address in Woodroffe. I’m becoming all too familiar with the bus service schedule as it pertains to getting me from my house to work every morning (more on that later).
Yeah… I guess that’s why I’ve put off blogging about getting back into the swing of things up here. It’s not actually that exciting compared with writing up a description of a new European city every three days. Nonetheless, I did promise some of you that I would keep this up with details of my new adventures in the Top End. And just as soon as I start getting paid, thereby slightly alleviating my current social paralysis, I’m going to get straight onto cooking up some adventures to write about.
In the mean time, I’m fascinated by a new feature Google have added to the blog interface. Up the top along the menu bar there’s a button that says “next blog”. It’s always been there, but they’ve just suped (Sooped? Souped?) it up so that now instead of just picking someone’s blog at random from the (probably) tens of thousands on this server, it now uses automatic content analysis to send you to one it thinks might be on a related topic. I’m not sure how it figures out what the general theme of FFH is. Actually, I’m not sure I could tell you either, other than to say it’s broadly about me and stuff I get up to. I don’t know how many other blogs about me there are out there, but now we can all find out with just the push of a button. With any luck, it will be able to redirect you to something a little more relevant to … basically everything in the universe.
Far From Home
Garry with 2 Rs
12 November 2009
The Great Australian Fedora Niggle
As you may have read earlier, one particularly harrowing self-inflicted disaster to befall me on my travels through Europe was the loss of my trademark black fedora whilst changing trains on the Spanish/French border. It was gut wrenching at the time, although to be honest it was a miracle the thing made it as far as it did, as it was always riding in strange places on trains owing to my inability to rest my head back against a train seat while wearing it.
Anyway, once I was safely back in Australia I set about an epic interstate adventure in quest of a replacement. I started my search in the menswear and department stores around Adelaide city, but I didn’t have any luck. This was hardly surprising, as it is well established that Adelaide is more or less completely useless in terms of anything cool.
My sister had suggested that late spring was probably the wrong time to be buying felt hats, and that most people would only buy such a thing in the lead up to winter. I couldn’t help but feel that this was a ludicrous suggestion. Since when did black fedoras have an in season? The last time they were fashionable was nineteen forty-seven. There again, my sister would know more about such things than I would.
I took my search to a national level when I visited Sydney on my way north. I was so determined to find the right hat that I even resorted to taking a girl shopping with me. We went straight for a specialty hat shop in the Strand Arcade and although they did have a selection of black fedoras, none of them were quite right. If this seems a little picky and ridiculous, that’s only because… it is.
Almost all fedoras in shops today have a folded or lined edge on the brims. Apparently this is considered the vogue look in felt hats. My old hat had what I have since learned is called a cut edge, without the girly edging on the brim. Unfortunately this is now considered terribly unfashionable (I am still working on the draft of a paper theorising the exitence of a quantum commercialism uncertainty principle, whereby the very act of me wanting something specific instantly renders it unavailable) so such cuts are very difficult to come by.
But come by it we did. Sort of. There on a low shelf in the so-called ‘menswear’ department of David Jones on Pitt St. was exactly what I needed: black felt, cut edge, size 58 fedora.
Two hundred dollars. Freak me sideways. Who pays $200 for a hat? The most relevant answer is: not me. I was crestfallen, but I still had one trick up my sleeve.
I spent a week in Brisbane and headed on in to the shop where I bought the original way back in ’06. The shop was still open and still full of hats. I asked the same guy about whether he had any of the kind of hat I wanted in stock.
Hat guy: Ah yes, I remember the hat you’re talking about. It came out of Melbourne right? An emu feather in the band?
Garry: That’s the one.
Hat Guy: Yep. They don’t make those anymore.
Garry: (aside) Noooooooooooooooo!
I looked around his shop for a while, and did find a similar hat that was the perfect style. Unfortunately they only had it in brown, so I asked about ordering one in black. He looked it up on their database and it turns out the manufacturers (Akubra) only make it in brown or steel grey.
At this point the young sales assistant, who evidently had some experience in other hat retailers around the country (…I know) remarked that he knew of a hat that would match the specifications I had asked for exactly. Unfortunately Akubra made it exclusively for the Strand Arcade hat shop in Sydney.
I may have thrown a small tantrum at this point.
So I’m still fedoraless as I sit and write this in Darwin. Unfortunately here it’s difficult to find styled hats that aren’t decorated with crocodile teeth. I’m working on potentially placing an order with Akubra, once I can figure out what styles they do. But before that comes a car and a new computer and new phone and God knows what else. I’ll keep you posted. Because I’m sure you’re all riveted.
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
Anyway, once I was safely back in Australia I set about an epic interstate adventure in quest of a replacement. I started my search in the menswear and department stores around Adelaide city, but I didn’t have any luck. This was hardly surprising, as it is well established that Adelaide is more or less completely useless in terms of anything cool.
My sister had suggested that late spring was probably the wrong time to be buying felt hats, and that most people would only buy such a thing in the lead up to winter. I couldn’t help but feel that this was a ludicrous suggestion. Since when did black fedoras have an in season? The last time they were fashionable was nineteen forty-seven. There again, my sister would know more about such things than I would.
I took my search to a national level when I visited Sydney on my way north. I was so determined to find the right hat that I even resorted to taking a girl shopping with me. We went straight for a specialty hat shop in the Strand Arcade and although they did have a selection of black fedoras, none of them were quite right. If this seems a little picky and ridiculous, that’s only because… it is.
Almost all fedoras in shops today have a folded or lined edge on the brims. Apparently this is considered the vogue look in felt hats. My old hat had what I have since learned is called a cut edge, without the girly edging on the brim. Unfortunately this is now considered terribly unfashionable (I am still working on the draft of a paper theorising the exitence of a quantum commercialism uncertainty principle, whereby the very act of me wanting something specific instantly renders it unavailable) so such cuts are very difficult to come by.
But come by it we did. Sort of. There on a low shelf in the so-called ‘menswear’ department of David Jones on Pitt St. was exactly what I needed: black felt, cut edge, size 58 fedora.
Two hundred dollars. Freak me sideways. Who pays $200 for a hat? The most relevant answer is: not me. I was crestfallen, but I still had one trick up my sleeve.
I spent a week in Brisbane and headed on in to the shop where I bought the original way back in ’06. The shop was still open and still full of hats. I asked the same guy about whether he had any of the kind of hat I wanted in stock.
Hat guy: Ah yes, I remember the hat you’re talking about. It came out of Melbourne right? An emu feather in the band?
Garry: That’s the one.
Hat Guy: Yep. They don’t make those anymore.
Garry: (aside) Noooooooooooooooo!
I looked around his shop for a while, and did find a similar hat that was the perfect style. Unfortunately they only had it in brown, so I asked about ordering one in black. He looked it up on their database and it turns out the manufacturers (Akubra) only make it in brown or steel grey.
At this point the young sales assistant, who evidently had some experience in other hat retailers around the country (…I know) remarked that he knew of a hat that would match the specifications I had asked for exactly. Unfortunately Akubra made it exclusively for the Strand Arcade hat shop in Sydney.
I may have thrown a small tantrum at this point.
So I’m still fedoraless as I sit and write this in Darwin. Unfortunately here it’s difficult to find styled hats that aren’t decorated with crocodile teeth. I’m working on potentially placing an order with Akubra, once I can figure out what styles they do. But before that comes a car and a new computer and new phone and God knows what else. I’ll keep you posted. Because I’m sure you’re all riveted.
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
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