There hasn’t been a whole lot happening apart from Uni and work. I did however go out for the monthly dinner last Thursday with Luke Hawley, Al Bryant, James Lescohier etc. We went to Nacho’s Mexican Cantina in Oakleigh which was rather nice (’Mexican’ would have to be one of my favourite foods). It was also the first time my trusty TomTom let me down, it drove me straight past the place and was trying to get me to go god knows where.

Hopefully I have more to report at the end of this week, but unfortunately I do doubt it since I am usually not allowed to mention anything work related (apart from vague details) on this blog and the things I can mention are boring and trivial.

Frankly this reeks of short sighted politics to me, now instead of buying those drinks kids will simply buy larger bottles of straight spirits, which no doubt pose more danger to kids.

If binge drinking is such a problem, then where are the parents, why are they not held accountable for their children. I see parents everyday come in and buy alcohol for their children, and everyday I must refuse them service which then leads to a big argument over the fact that they [the parents] think they have a right to buy their kids alcohol (which they don’t, its actually illegal in Victoria and strictly enforced).

The government turns around and tries to blame everyone for this problem, well I ask you this Mr Rudd, where are the police when kids are running in the streets, drunk and without supervision (happened Friday night in Dingley Village), why do the police simply give these kids a warning and let them continue their dangerous behaviour? Why weren’t parents called? and more importantly why wasn’t alcohol confiscated?

The reason is Mr Rudd your and Mr Brumby’s government fail to provide enough money for the effective enforcement of the law, you fail to provide suitable working conditions for your current police force and you aren’t increasing the size of the police force enough to be able to fix some of these problems.

And to Consumer Affairs Victoria (aka. Liquor Licensing), your also responsible, the signs you have warning parents about secondary purchase are pathetic, they are not very clear and far too small to have any impact. Why don’t you spend those nice taxes the federal government is now raising as of today on getting larger and more understandable signage, a public awareness campaign making parents aware that if they purchase alcohol for their children they are breaking the law and after that is done we will be able to spend the left over money on increasing the capacity of the Police force to respond to alcohol related incidents.

Finally we need legislation changed to create a blanket rule on underage drinking. At the present time it is perfectly legal for parents to order their children an alcoholic beverage if they are in a licensed establishment partaking in a meal, so why can they do this? Why this rule for restaurants and a different rule for liquor stores?

Frankly Mr Rudd I’m paying taxes on my income, on every thing I buy (GST) except fresh food, on alcohol, on petrol and with all this money you get from every working Australian, the best you can come up with raising taxes. I cannot wait to vote you out at the next election.

One thing that is also good is the fact that I now have money to spend again meaning I can go out like normal people. It also means that I can drive whenever I want without having to worry about how much gas I’m going to use in my car. Anyway that was my day and I thought you would like to know about (if not then why the hell are you reading my blog?).

One of the things that struck me about the series is that it was so easy (for most of them) to see where they were going in life. Nearly all of them followed the pattern predicted and it made me wonder what can people see about me? Where do they predict I’m headed? One of the surprising cases in this series is that of Neil, who at age 7, is articulate, intelligent and seems to have a bright future, now I wont spoil it for you but where he ends up at age 49 and more important how he got there is completely different to what could of been predicted.

I have recently been thinking about where I want to be in 5 years, admittedly I am still very undecided. Luckily I am doing a very general degree that leaves many doors open. Although one thought I have been toying with is getting into the IT field, it’s something I enjoy and am moderately good at. A few years ago I made the decision not to follow the IT path any further (ie at a VCE or Tertiary level) and I have recently been left thinking whether that was a mistake. Hopefully I can make a decision soon enough since while I am doing my degree there are many opportunities to study IT at a tertiary level.

There isn’t much other news to report, was a pretty stock standard week, with a few key events that a) I have already discussed or b) I can’t discuss.

Also this is post # 200, who would of thought that I would keep it going so long.

In other news this afternoon a member of staff left Haileybury. Now I have always liked this staff member and thought that they did a fantastic job. It is of course disappointing to see them go (I will name them once I cleared certain things with the relevant people). It seems to me that it is always the good guys that seem to leave, but unfortunately these things can’t be changed. But I wish this person well in all their future endeavors and I am truly sorry for their leaving.