Regrets, I have a few

We're moving house next week-end so Beloved and I voted this Saturday.

Curiously, this isn't one of the 30 grounds for eligibility for a pre-poll vote. Having to work, travelling interstate and being more than 8 kilometres from a polling place for the whole day all are but being a gibbering wreck because your worldly possessions are hiding in boxes so you can't make a cup of tea without dismantling a cardboard tower all confusingly labelled "kitchen" that has somehow been wedeged between the bedroom door and the disassembled bed frame is no excuse.

I know from past experience that there's no way I couild cast a valid House of Reps vote in such a mental state, much less vote below the line for the Senate (and I have to vote below the line. No way those big party party preference deals are going to detract from me exercising my democratic right to put Pauline last).

So off we went to the local community centre, fictitious story about planning to drive to Brisbane on Friday prepared in case anyone asked.

But they didn't. Phew, wouldn't want to be caught LYING to an Commonwealth Official, would I? There might even be a $50 fine for that.

It was pretty painless actually. There was hardly anyone waiting which was just as well because Winnie was grizzling and it took ages for me to get up to number 79 on the Senate ballot. And we met the mother of one of the candidates who seemed quite nice. They even had long enough string on the pencils in the cardboard booths for me to write with my left hand without contorting and looking like I was trying to cheat from the person on the right.

But it's hard to believe we now have to wait a whole WEEK for the result. A whole week to wonder if I did the right thing...

And now GetUp has this quiz to help you make up your mind by matching your opinions with candidates' policies. Of course, based on this, I should have chosen someone else. Do you think they'd let me go again?

Poor semicolons

Between the Christmas catalogues from every shop in the city, real estate ads and the electioneering guff, the letterbox has been pretty full lately. Luckily, junk mail is of tremendous interest to small babies. The pictures are bright. The pages make a delightful crackling sound when scrunched and one of Winnie's great joys in life is tearing pages into bits small enough to fit into her mouth.

I don't like her actually EATING this stuff though. I mean should I bother sterilising her bottles if I let her eat chemically treated wood fibre covered with glossy inks?

I'm also fairly sure I don't like the idea of her ingesting some of the political messages either, especially the poorly phrased and designed brochure that arrived today containing the following crimes against punctuation:


"IF LABOR WINS

....

The Liberals won't be there to stop unions going into small business and dictating economic policy; costing jobs.

....

With no checks and balances, in a cosy and risky relationshop between the Labor States and Labor Federally; small bausinesses, our strong $1.1 trillion economy , and the families dependent on its stability, WILL suffer."

It's the semicolons I feel sorry for. It's not their fault but they reakly do look dumb up there.