Monday, May 02, 2011

Peak Oil

This might seem random, after not having blogged for awhile.

And not having blogged anything *meaningful* for even longer. There's so much I could say. I think of writing a blog entry often these days while I'm out and about - pretty much any time I'm not actually free to write. I could write about my relationship, about my band, about my work, about my radio show, about my students, about my obsession with watching series episodes exactly in the right order, and my equal pedanticness when listening to music - how I have to listen to a whole album from start to finish, and how I try to finish listening to a song before moving on to the next one. I could write about Melbourne transport, about my car, about relatives and friends and people who live on my street, about going to bars, seeing gigs, going on a holiday to Gippsland, seeing 2 Ridley couples getting married in 2 months, about my new touchscreen phone, new glasses, about the books I'm reading, about the symphony (!) that I've been commissioned to write and should be working on right now (instead of writing this).
And just writing about what *else* I could write about has already taken far longer than I intended. I was only going to say:

Peak Oil. Thoughts?

My reason for asking is that plastic comes from oil. Is there plastic that doesn't contain oil? Perhaps. But if not, then in a hundred years there would be no new plastic available. I...think that's right.
Of course peak oil has more ramifications than just for plastic. Cars, aeroplanes, rockets... I dunno... anything that uses oil is threatened when oil runs out.
My dad just sent me this article about peak oil. And there was a bit where it said how much the Australian government was spending on maintaining roads and stuff. Which suddenly seemed odd, if cars were going to run out of fuel. So then I pictured this apocalyptic future in like, 300 years or something, where all the countries have these giant unusable networks of roads with no cars. *tumbleweed drifts by*
But that's unrealistic anyway, because there are already hybrid cars and stuff which can run on ....uh, not oil. Hmm. And in 300 years we will probably have researched other sources of fuel or transport. So my scenario is unlikely, I guess.
Anyway, I was interested in your thoughts.

Also, if one of the things I mentioned earlier took your fancy, and you want to know more about that aspect of my ever-so-tedious life, let me know. I suppose I want to write about whatever's most interesting :) ...and also what interests me, of course...hence the peak oil.

Bye now

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Days of our wives.

Yesterday my housemates and I watched episodes of the following:
Star Trek: Voyager
Avatar
Naruto

I also did many other things.
I carried the spare TV into the shed. I swept and cleaned the shed, discovering a '4 hour parking' sign and some tools in the process. I set up my new printer and (after much gnashing of teeth) it now functions wirelessly. I spoke to some people on my mobile. Cleared some boxes out of my room. Printed and signed this year's contract for work at ERC. Finished the Sandman comic 'Brief Lives'. Made passable minestrone. Ate chocolate. Played a new piece of piano music to a visitor. Laughed.

It was a good holi-day. But ... I don't know. Somehow, I didn't relax totally. I feel like if I do, I'll lose control. I'll just be like one of those people who disappear into WOW and emerge a year later. Or maybe it's just how my brain works - always searching for something else, always looking out.
Either way, I remain uptight. Alert. Concerned. Bright...
And stuck.


The energy you push into one side,
Is the energy you take from the other side