Category: State-of-Being

Product Presentation

Carry Bag Handles

One of my ongoing interests is how products are packaged. This began when I was about fifteen and my birth family hosted two Japanese engineers who were in Australia to install and test a huge new Japanese generator (or transformer) at the power plant where my father also was an engineer, and who brought us lots of presents.

During the week these men lived in a boarding house, and weekends Saturday or Sunday, they came to our place at Berowra, in the outer northern suburbs of Sydney in the 1960s.

At the time we had a garage which served as living and dining room and my parents bedroom, while kids had two bedrooms in the house built by my father on weekends, one room for three boys and one for three girls.

I don’t recall the power station. It could’ve been Lidell and that would’ve been a family shorthand nickname.

Lol, getting mired in backstory there!

Japanese packaging has always been superb! Classy! Stylish! Rave rave rave!

I saved all the wrappings of all the presents they gave us and kept them for years. And when I was in Japan, in 1976, I saved all packaging from vending machines and the like. I think at the end of my four months travel through Asia, Siberia, Russia and Scandinavia, a good bit of my luggage was souvenired packaging.

All to no avail, of course. My first night in London, the house where I was staying was robbed. All my precious collection was trampled through the mess left by two perpetrators breaking through the plasterboard ceiling, and getting away with all cameras, the family’s silver and jewellry. They even nicked my feather-down sleeping bag.

But. Getting back to the subject. Packaging. Enduring interest.

These cardboard ‘zippers’ fastened the lid of the box to the underside and nothing was torn taking them off. Bet they can be used again.

The laptop was covered with this simple envelope. The paper of similar weight to greaseproof paper. And similar to greaseproof paper, is coating-free, safe for recycling in the composting bin. (So called ‘baking paper’ is NOT safe!)

Several other bits of cardboard and paper wrapped the cord and power plug. All of it calm, plain, and functional.

People will say we pay for all that. True. And I’d rather pay for good design than bad. I’d rather pay for paper than more plastic bags. The bag handles in the first image are probably the only non degradable parts, but will be re-used as long as the bag lasts. And possibly after that if I can find a reuse for them.

Flickering Touchbar …

I’m on my mobile phone … cell phone to some of you! So I can’t insert the 5 second video clip illustration of the above … either because I can’t find the instructions to achieve it or it’s not available.

Have to make do with a still photo of the problem

So you’ll need to imagine it. The whole touchbar—at the top of the keyboard in certain models of Macbook Pro—is now flickering the whole time the laptop is being used. For all that I know it continues to flicker when the lid is closed.

I’ve been putting up with it since about September 2022, when it began with a couple of centimetres or an inch. After trying to have it fixed, the malady extended to 5 or 6 centimetres, which was when I stuck some blue electrical tape over it. This year that spilled into the rest of the bar, and became unbearable to use.

Hence went out Monday afternoon to purchase a new laptop … thought I caught Covid that day … but it was probably earlier.

Covid

Finally have it. Four years of obsessive isolating and six vaccinations were not enough protection.

I got sloppy, I guess, went shopping for a new computer not wearing a mask. Couldn’t face talking hi tech through a mask.

Hopefully the vaccinations will help prevent a full blown attack, though I am in the highest category of danger, being old, sick and immune compromised.

Trying to get some anti virals now, there’s misundestanding between the med clinic and the pharmacy.

Watercolour Painting …

I’ve been doing booklets using free form paintings for a while … producing these for eventual sale at a residents open day.

After two or three, it became difficult to replicate methods while staying original.

So—big think later—decided to paint structured pre sketched scenes where I could practice perspective, and revise different techniques on a small scale.

Also to be made into little books eventually

A front door … a couple of things that can be improved on next time …

A back gate next, where I did a bit of wet on wet …

Duckweed …

As you can see when you zoom in, most of the duckweed is white and dead.

I’ve been keeping fish and frog ponds for about fifteen years and I’ve never had such a wholesale dieback that even the duckweed carked it.

The feathery green plant seems okay so far. Fingers crossed that they make it. And, I hope that both the Azolla waterfern and the duckweed have left spores and seeds behind, that hopefully will sprout when we leave winter behind.

While you are zoomed in you may be able to spot the two remaing fish. Though they look like leprosy warmed up in the photo, in their analogue state they‘re stockier than they were, but at least still alive.

I moved their habitat back under the outdoor light, in the hope that that gives the plants enough light to survive until I get my grow lights. An added bonus is that I can sometimes see the fish flitting about from inside my living room.

Music for listening …

What are you listening to?

There are more tracks/songs on this post-rock album. Steede Bonnet, my favorite in this album, is a kind of western, soundtrack sounding …?

Can you believe it, we have not yet found a good substitute for track/song and these purely instrumental compilations are called songs.

I’ve had a problem with that since I began with post-rock in 2017. At least the word ‘album’ has stood the test of advancing technologies.

The exact month and day now escape me but some time in 2017 I got home from a funeral and typed ‘big music’ into the google search box, because it felt like suddenly half my conscious mind had nothing to do.

I took up watercolour painting at the same time, as well as a third project to round things out…but what?

For the life of me I cannot remember what I decided on. Or even how I changed my life to fit it in. Still worrying at it at times like my tongue worries at a hole in my teeth.

Google came up with post-rock, and I’m still listening. Voiced lyrics don’t do it for me, I spend all my time trying to hear what they are saying. That’s not to say I don’t have a few favorite classical albums among my play lists. Plus quite a few film scores.