mike carey

Self-awareness is always an attractive trait. Now if only I could understand a Glaswegian accent.

Perversely, omit 'on' and that would be a complete sentence!

Hey @rvwnsd happy birthday, hope you have a great day! I always enjoy the things you have to say in here. (Yes, I'm early in posting for those of you in the US. It's already Sunday here.)

When I last worked there was a Vietnamese bakery nearby that made great pork rolls (a crusty bread roll with pork and salad ingredients on it) for less than $5. There are more of those sorts of shops here than there are chain outlets like Subway. The two big supermarket chains here typically don't sell those sorts of meals but they have started to open stores that are more like convenience store and they have a range of sandwiches at good prices ($6-$8), but they are packaged rather than made to order. I had a good chicken and salad on Turkish bread sandwich from one of them recently. (Different culture note: chicken and salad, not chicken salad, that means chicken with lettuce, tomato etc, not some chicken in mayo concoction.)

I've bought clothes on line exactly once, and that was underwear from an Australian company (no, not that one). I don't reject using on-line in order to protect local businesses if it is the bricks and mortar presence of a big company, they can look after themselves. I have no desire to use the likes of Amazon, but I'd be happy to use smaller on-line retailers. My first on-line purchase even vaguely related to this thread was for sheets. I was in Iraq and totally unhappy with the crappy linen that the US contractor was providing so ordered some linen from LL Bean. 10 years later I'm still receiving emails from them almost daily. I need some new trousers and I'll probably order from them. (They price in AUD now and offer free shipping over a certain purchase amount.)

In Australia, coins are only legal tender up to certain amounts, $5 for 'silver' coins (5, 10, 20, 50c) and 10 times face value for $1 and $2 coins. (For one and two cent coins, which are no longer in circulation but are still legal tender, the limit is 20c.)

I'm guessing sherry. Ed: Oops, posted this before seeing @escortrod's entry and your reply on the next page.

Even allowing for the variations between Celtic, Germanic and Norse heritage, Great Britain is far less diverse than Africa. So you would expect these companies to be able to differentiate between the various racial groups on the continent.

Oh, I don't know. Perhaps she likes him and he is interested or even likes her. Is he gay, or is he bi or G4P?

In addition to the other comments, the average price for a litre of wine includes the wine in a box offerings that here, even for the good ones (a relative term I accept) can be $AU12 for two litres. It doesn't take much of that wine to bring the average down to $US12 no matter how much wine is sold at $20 a bottle (75cl).

There's a running joke in Sydney and Melbourne that in hick town Canberra there are kangaroos hopping around (it's also a standing expectation of tourists that it happens everywhere in the country). This morning in Canberra, the national capital:

I suspect that the booking sites aren't optimised for multiple city itineraries. For one thing, the best deals on the different sectors are likely to be with different airlines, so there is less chance of low overall prices for the itinerary. A travel agent might be the best way of doing it. Alternatively use your preferred airline's web site (or check separately on several of them). I've done the travel agent thing (a trip to South America with a whole bunch of flights in the continent, but also tours and hotels) but other than that, the closest I've come to that sort of trip is one into one US city, an internal flight and home from the second US city, and I booked that on the QF web page. The fare was the same as a return trip to the first city would have been (it was the further one from Sydney).

Meh, we don't do thanksgiving, but some of us have heard of it.

Of course you can go cold turkey with food. Think the week after thanksgiving.

@escortrod, not haggis? Seriously some good things there. Lancs hotpot is one I love but hadn't thought of for years.

Oh, I know that's how it would happen in the anti-socialist states of Murika. It doesn't come out of people's pay here. Workers agree on their pay, employers have to pay the 9.5% into superannuation on top of that. Next time we have a Labor Party government they will increase the percentage above 9.5.

Superannuation is compulsory, employers have to pay 9.5% of your salary into the fund (and you can pay in your own money). It is tax-privileged (all income in the fund is taxed at 15%), but it's not a government entity like SS, it's in privately operated funds or the industry ones I mentioned, or you can set up a fund of your own much like a personal trust, but the employee owns the funds in their account. There are rules about taking it out (you have to be 60). Breaches of the rules can result in very high tax rates applying to the funds. However you manage it you have to keep firewalls between your regular funds and your superannuation fund accounts, and transactions between them can result in tax liabilities. In the end though, most payouts when you are retired are tax free if you take them as gradual payments (rather than just withdrawing all the money).

You mean you? Yes, posts. Next thing we know, someone will be hoist by their own trumpet.

The Ontario Teachers' pension fund has invested in toll roads in Australia. There are listed companies here that own toll roads (here and in Canada), and Sydney Airport is a listed company. If you're a teacher in Ontario, or you have a retirement investment structure that can buy infrastructure shares, you can invest in them. We have compulsory superannuation here, and the pool of funds is about AUD2.3tr at the moment. Some of the fund managers are 'industry funds' run cooperatively by businesses and unions, and they make direct investments in things like infrastructure, and anyone can open an account with those funds. You can't pick the individual investments where your savings are placed, but you can invest indirectly in those sorts of assets. Ours is a small investment space compared to the US, so I can't imagine that there is not a similar opportunity there.

David, I'm in awe, this is all so inspiring. I can see why this guy from NY who I met last year loves you.

I know I've commented on this before, but you virtually never hear the word 'suicide' used in reports in this country, it's always 'no suspicious circumstances'. The exception is in domestic violence when a man and his partner and children are found dead, there it might be mentioned, often obliquely. Anything that even hints at it is always followed by reference to Lifeline and Beyond Blue, two support services, and their crisis phone numbers and/or internet addresses.

Sounds like a personal portfolio management arrangement where the manager isn't the company that manages the individual mutual funds. This sounds similar to an arrangement my broker is pitching to me. For a fee of that sort of level, they would manage the shares and mutual fund investments I have in a single structured account and provide consolidated cash flow statements, portfolio valuations and annual income statements for tax returns, and on-line access to all the account details. They actually pitched it to me for my superannuation (retirement savings) which have to be kept in an investment product that has stricter rules than regular savings and investments. (There are mutual fund style investment products that meet the legal requirements for superannuation but the rules for moving between them are more complex than for normal assets. The structure they propose is its own superannuation account so it can hold any sort of assets, like shares, cash and regular mutual funds.) There are regulatory reasons that mean I need to have a compliant structure for superannuation funds, but despite the management cost I am considering one for my regular investments as well. I could just retain separate share investments and do all the administrative work myself, but paying someone to do that seems like an attractive idea, and the fee is tax-deductible. Apart from the administrative work they do, I would manage the funds within the structure as if they were separate investments, making all the buy and sell decisions. If that is the way @Unicorn does it and doesn't authorise the advisor to make investment decisions $5 sounds (from this distance) like a good deal for each trade, and would remove the risk of churning the portfolio.

Pedantic point (stated above also), Romanian is a nation state and also an ethnic/language group, the two definitions form a Venn diagram. According to Google, the Romanian word for 'Romanian' is 'Română' which is uncomfortably close to Roma/Romani, which as you note is a completely different ethnic group (some of whom also happen to be Romanian [nationality]). From my observation, Americans tend to classify people into about five large racial categories and only look at race and racism through that prism. IIRC the Australian census asks about ancestry not race, and lists origins that are not necessarily race-based: some overlap groups that may be seen as being different, and some distinguish between origins that to most people are not distinct racially (Chinese and HK, English/British/Scottish/Irish). To me, racism is a view that one's own group is superior to another, with prejudicial treatment of the other as a result, and I see race and ethnic origin both as being valid sources of racial prejudice. Whether I would describe a particular instance as being racist or prejudiced can be a difficult decision. Finally, I've seen the argument that all whites are racist because systemic racism. I think it's nonsense. To be racist is an individual decision, systemic racism is about how society has evolved over time, and to me only becomes individualised or the responsibility of one group today when some aspect of systemic (often unconscious) racial advantage is legislated to formalise the discrimination.

I'm sure it's common elsewhere, but the once coin-only parking meters in Canberra now take credit/debit cards (some street ones don't), I'm obsessed (not really, but you get the drift) with frequent flyer points, so I use cards whenever I can (triple points at Maccas on my Amex, it's a restaurant apparently), public transport uses smart cards that are far cheaper than using cash, and more convenient, toll roads don't have cash booths, you need an electronic tag in your car (accounts recharged from a credit card). I carry cash but rarely use it, have a cheque book but rarely use it either.

Lol, I totally get where you're coming from. Being Australian, my mentality is more like your American friends. I live in a small town (Tumut) and spend some of my time in Canberra. It's a two hour drive between them and I don't really plan trips between the two, I just jump in my car and go. Tumut to Sydney is about four hours and Canberra to Sydney three, and I travel between the three with little consideration. I confess to being amused when you said the Ardennes were too far. I belong to a gay camping group and have often driven six hours for a weekend camping trip.