Aussie Bloggers

Image by Archibald Jude

Different seasons can make me nostalgic for very different reasons. In summer, I think fondly of my childhood in a hot spot in rural Victoria. Summer holidays were spent almost exclusively outdoors finding ways to keep cool – at the local pool, by the river, in a waddling pool, but quite commonly running around underneath a sprinkler.

Now I am not lamenting the enforcement of water restrictions in Victoria, which prevent sprinklers from mains water being used. They were badly needed and we adhere to them strictly, but it did occur to me recently that my children will never have this experience.

My dad had a range of sprinklers, so depending on which one was in use, we would play different games. The arched sprinkler above gave you the challenge to try and run underneath it without getting wet. (Image by Madaise)

This rotating sprinkler provided great amusement for something to leap over as it made its way around. (Image by Toby Esterhase)

When I tell my children about the hours of fun that I had with my siblings as a child playing underneath sprinklers, it makes me feel quite old! Reminiscing of a by gone era that will most likely never be part of their Australian life.

Whilst trawling the internet to find a name for our fifth baby, I came across names from all origins: Gaelic, Nordic, French, Germanic, Italian and so on. This made me think, is there such a thing as an Australian name?

I racked my brains (and the internet) to try and come up a list of common “Australian” names. This was what I achieved:

Male:
Barry (my beloved dad’s name) – with the eloquent abbreviation of Bazza
Darren – with its abbreviation of Dazza
Jason – Naturally shorten to Jas
Craig – Maybe this list is too influenced by my teenage years of watching Neighbours!

Female:
Kylie – meaning curled stick; boomerang
Sharon – and of course the abbreviation of Shazza
Raelene – cited as a modern invented name!
Narelle – cited as Aboriginal for a companion.
Lyndal – cited to mean a waterfall.

So what do you think? Is there such a thing as an “Australian” name? A name when you hear it immediately identifies itself as being from Australia, like for example Seamus or Sean does with Ireland? What names would you add to this list?

My girlfriend and I went out to the relatively new DFO out in Fyshwick (Canberra, ACT) on the weekend for the first time since it opened in September last year.

At first it seemed to be the same size as the Brand Depot out near the Canberra Airport – until we discovered a whole new section still being fitted out which makes the whole complex at least 50% bigger than Brand Depot. I’m not much into bag and shoe shopping so wasn’t interested in about 70% of the shops but there were a few decent shops there which meant I actually enjoyed this shopping trip and bought a few things – unlike my first trip to Brand Depot.

There’s a big Clive Anthonys electrical retailer out there – washing machines, fridges, ovens and all that. I think they had TVs and computers too plus some fancy De’Longhi and Saeco espresso machines I was eyeing off.

There was a JB Hi Fi which I was hoping would have an impressive music CD collection but I was disappointed. They had about half the selection of the Civic store.

Other interesting shops was two Made In Japan stores – one selling ceramic dishes, tea cups and things with the other door selling furniture. All Japanese stuff. I bought a few nice dishes.

There was a kitchen store but it was fairly average. Decent selection of pots and pans but that’s about it. Didn’t end up buying anything.

An outdoor camping, fishing and barbeque store; a massive Rivers store, a small bathroom accessories and storage store – that was about it. Plus the usual brand name clothing stores which I wasn’t particularly interested in.

The new section only has five stores at the moment – two furniture stores plus the second Made In Japan store, JB Hi Fi and Clive Anthonys – but Snooze is moving in soon and there’s probably room for another five.

Anyway – if you live in Canberra go check it out if you haven’t already!

A while back on my blog I wrote about how I was using Twitter and Plurk and how I updated both of them using Ping.fm. I’ve given up on Plurk however and walked away without a backward glance. The very reasons that drew me to Plurk initially drove me away in the end.

Plurk allows friends to reply to your posts so you can see something similar to a threaded discussion and that’s a great facility. The thing that made me give it up was that these discussions weren’t that interesting. I’m sorry but I’m not that interested in knowing that people have gotten out of bed, and that they are going shopping now, and all the minute details of their lives.

While I found some friends quite quickly on Plurk I also wasn’t part of the in crowd amongst my friends because I didn’t participate in the chatter. At least I think that’s why.  I didn’t reply to all posts because it’s a huge time waster. I found myself at work checking Plurk instead of working and it takes a lot longer to check all replies to various plurks than it does to scan through Twitter.

Having said that I’ve witnessed a really cohesive and supportive community emanating from my local Plurkers who have meetups all the time and that’s a good thing. I just couldn’t do it and maintain my real life as well.

I decided in the end that I could only maintain one platform, not two and at this stage Twitter’s the one for me.

How about you?