Diverse Ramblings

Retraction - redirection of annoyance towards ministry

Last night I was annoyed and wrote some nasty things about WasteServ, and it has been brought to my attention that (at least some of) what I said was undeserved...

Apparently WasteServ have nothing to do with the 'waste separation at source' scheme, which is why there is nothing about it on their website. They are involved with the recycling of packaging waste, but not with how it gets from households to the plant. Sorry! Chris Ciantar, whose name is synonymous with WasteServ, has been involved with the scheme through his post as a director in the Ministry for the Environment (a couple of weeks ago he got made Permanent Secretary in the new ministry).

Also, while I still am not so impressed with how WasteServ has done some things, and didn't get such a great impression when I toured Sant' Antnin, on the other hand yes they did do some things right, so apologies for my sweeping generalisations.

So, all my annoyance has now been re-directed towards the ministry, and the ranting about the grey plastic bags, their unavailability, and the overall mismanagement of the implementation of the scheme still stands.

Hekk, mela.

Waste Separation At Source - another half-baked scheme

The 'waste separation at source' scheme should finally start next week - from what I can gather, this means that instead of taking plastic/metal/paper to the bring-in sites, we can leave them out for collection along with the usual domestic rubbish, in special grey bags.

WasteServ doesn't seem to have a very good track record so far. The bring-in sites, Magħtab, Sant' Antnin, nothing but problems and controversies. Now the waste separation at source is more of the same what with the disagreements with Local Councils over costs etc., the last-minute postponing of the scheme, and the lack of information available.

I don't know the reasoning behind making the waste separation bags available from the Local Councils. I have enough to do without traipsing off to my village's Local Council offices to get rubbish bags, forget it. In any case, we didn't get any mailshot or coupons so I can't get the bags anyway. I'll happily buy them when we go shopping, so put them in supermarkets please.

Also, come on, what is this grey bag business anyway? People are going to go to the trouble of separating their waste at home, then dump all the paper, plastic and metal in one grey bag, and then these bags have to be emptied and sorted at the plant. It makes much more sense to take advantage of having each household separate the waste and collect them separately.

The mind boggles.

I just went to the Wasteserv website, because so far everything I know about the 'separation at source' thing has come from the news, so I thought I'd get some info.

Hah.

There is nothing about the scheme, the grey bags, the coupons, or what exactly we're supposed to do.

So, overall, not impressed, waiting to see what happens.

Drummer lady

I'm excited because tonight was my debut performance as a drummer (I feel so cool).

Last Wednesday at church we were about to start the music and Mike said "Why don't you play the drums tonight?". I replied "But I've never played in front of people before!" and his answer was "Well then this would be a good time to start!".

I chickened out that time, but tonight I went for it.

Photo by Adactio

The very first song was All Over The World. Not exactly hardcore lol. We didn't do it quite like in the video... we had two female singers, me on drums, and Mike doubling on vocals and guitar. The pianist was off at his football practice, you're only young once. My drumming was not exactly inspiring, but I was on the beat except for a couple of times when I got distracted by the fact that I was playing! the! drums!

Then we did a chorus in Maltese (forgot what it was), followed by Come Now Is The Time To Worship. The guy whose drum set it is has the snare set up off to the side and at a fairly steep angle instead of between the knees and flat as is customary. When Mike started strumming for CNITTTW in the key of G, the snare started to resonate, which was a bit unnerving. But anyway, he started it soft and slow, so instead of letting loose with the bass drum like we'd practiced, I just played the snare very softly and let the sticks bounce until they naturally stopped moving. They also slid down the drum because it's inclined so steeply, which was fun to watch. Bounce and slide, bounce and slide.

This sound worked really well with the style Mike was playing, and I liked it so much that I just kept doing it for the whole song, bringing in the bass drum for the chorus.

I've been practicing snare drumming for a few weeks now, working on basic rudiments, usually by using my sticks on a paperback book or a cushion because I don't have a practice pad yet. Mike promised to pick one up for me soon though, yay, which means I'll be able to practice things that rely on the bounciness of the drum.

I've only actually played on the real drumset a few times so I'm not used to the locations and sounds of all the bits and pieces. Better a little done well than a lot done badly, so tonight I confined myself to the bass, the snare and one cymbal. Now I'd better start practicing rhythms at home as though I had a full drumset instead of just a snare, lol.

Anyway, it's been ages since I had so much fun playing a musical instrument. I'm looking forward to Sunday, muahahaha. This morning I informed the rest of the team what the songs were for Sunday, and I accidentally put down the wrong name for one of them, and the singers had already rehearsed by the time I realised my mistake. So instead of doing Light of the World (which we have done a few times and improvise four-part harmony on), we will be doing God of Wonders for the very first time. Oops...

Oh well, Mike has a whole three days to learn the chords, overall song structure, lyrics, rhythm, melody, and to think about any harmonies he might want to throw into the vocals. Just as well he's such a great musician...

Can't even open a bridge properly

So the Manwel Dimech bridge is finally open, a mere seven months behind schedule.

This country is a joke when it comes to infrastructure. I've noticed that in the last year or so, the signposting has become better when there are roadworks, but the opening of the bridge over the weekend was a disaster.

My sister and I were having some quality sister bonding time yesterday, which involved going from Valletta to Spinola to get some Ben & Jerry's. The usual detour in Gzira wasn't so bad at first (because Rue D'Argens is STILL closed) but Sliema was GRIDLOCKED all the way back to Gzira.

It was only much later that we realised why - Manwel Dimech had been blocked off completed in order to rearrange the lanes and open both of them up. But were there any signs warning us? No. Did we hear anything over the radio? No. Did it take us an hour and a half to get from Valletta to Mdina via Spinola? Yes. I had read in the news, earlier in the week, that the bridge was to be opened, but there was no warning about it first being closed completely.

There should have been signs starting in Msida warning that the bridge was closed and that all traffic was trickling through Sliema! Urgh that was so frustrating. There's been so much time, money, effort and signage invested in this project, and they couldn't even handle the opening properly.

Well we did finally get our ice-cream, and we ate it sitting on the Mdina bastions, looking out over half of Malta, lovely.

Dunno if my sister's car's clutch plate will ever be the same again though.

Scrubbity Scrub Scrub

I am happy to report that my new strategy of doing housework at least three times a week (instead of waiting till it really, really, really needs to be done) seems to be working - the mountain of dishes to be washed has subsided to a small hillock.

When I tackle a large task, such as studying for an exam, I like to make a list of pages/topics/whatever so that I can tick them off as I do them and see (or at least feel) that I'm making progress, which motivates me to keep going.

So I counted all the dishes/plates/cutlery/tupperware that needed to be washed, and I'm too embarrassed to say how high that number was, but I did indeed get a sense of satisfaction every time I dropped something else into the dishrack and incremented my counter by one.

This didn't work very long though because I was listening to an interesting podcast and I kept getting distracted by it, and then I'd have to count everything in the dishrack because I couldn't remember what number I had reached.

But hey, it helped to pass the time.

I'm still a long way from becoming a domestic goddess - while focusing on the kitchen, the living room has become untidy again, and although I swept the bathroom floor, the rest of it is icky again. Sometimes I feel like I'm herding cats *sigh*.

Anyway, I shall press onwards in my quest. I can play several musical instruments, read four languages, navigate using a map and compass, tap-dance triple stomp timesteps, perform four-dimensional mathematical computations and touch my toes to my nose. Surely I can get the hang of housework.

In that spirit, today being Tuesday and therefore a Designated Housework Day, this evening I have my eye on the bathroom.

Scrubbity scrub scrub.

Xarabank on Cyberspace - The Evils Of The Internet

I watched yesterday's Xarabank programme through the streaming available on di-ve.com, because I wanted to write about it and I can't really criticise if I don't actually know what happened. I didn't watch the programme live because in our house, Friday night is for the Living TV line-up of Moonlight followed by Criminal Minds followed by CSI. Priorities...

So, I watched the entire programme tonight and followed along by writing a transcript, and then extracted the major themes. I've put the list of themes at the very, very bottom of this post - it's a long one!

Xarabank focused mostly on relationships, probably because human interest stories make for good ratings. They spent quite a lot of time talking about social networking sites, in particular Hi5, and chatrooms (mostly mIRC). There were three sweet stories about people meeting friends/boyfriends/spouses online and then In Real Life, but mostly the programme was about the evils of the internet. Porn, bullying, the exploitation of children by strangers, scams, hate sites, online gambling were all mentioned. Blogs were not mentioned at all. Education via the internet was not mentioned. The ability to do good via the internet was not mentioned. Pursuing hobbies and finding support in difficulty such as illness were not mentioned. There were huge gaping holes in the programme, which is a shame, and calling it "Cyperspace" was too general. Really there is enough material about the internet to cover multiple episodes - if they can do one episode about the evils of the internet, wouldn't it be great to follow with another episode about all the cool things you can do online?

At the beginning of this programme, there wasn't even a brief explanation about what the internet is, so I imagine that most viewers over a certain age probably watched with bemusement.

There was a panel, and a couple of other guests. Of the panelists, only ONE seemed to be a geek, or at least familiar with the use of the internet (he used expressions like IRL), and it was nice to see him jumping in with some good points such as there are other bad sites on the Net other than porn sites, and that people do bad things to each other offline as well as on. Of the rest of the panelists, most of them had an axe to grind about some particular aspect of The Evil On The Internet. A couple of times different people said "the internet can be used for good things too but..." and we never got to hear about those good things.

My point is, yes people should know about the bad stuff that is out there, but by only focusing on one side you leave the viewers with a bad impression. Overall there were some good points raised about online safety, which is great, and any non-savvy parents who were watching now have a better idea about helping their children stay safe online. But I wish that the programme had been more balanced, by covering some positive topics or having more geeky people up there.

I loved the clips from the Cyber Crimes unit, the guys did a great job explaining how they monitor social networking sites, how to check the authenticity of scam emails, and what happens when a computer is impounded. I had no idea they were checking up on social networks, I think that's a great idea.

Because I was bored, earlier in the week when I knew the theme of the Xarabank programme and of its probable bias, I wrote the following about how I use the Internet as part of my life. There's loads of people like me whose internet use is not limited to Hi5 and mIRC, but maybe we're not interesting enough ;-)

For the bloggers:

I phoned Xarabank on Sunday following a tip-off from Jacques that they were interested in having bloggers for this Friday's programme, which will be about the Internet.

Xarabank contacted me this afternoon to say that there are some places left in the audience that they would like to offer to "the bloggers" (audience members are able to comment during the programme). I don't know how long these places will be kept free, so if you are interested in going, contact Claire on 21249200 and say that you're a blogger.

Bloggers vs. People Who Blog

Insite, a student media publication, has published interviews with three bloggers: Jacques René Zammit who blogs here, Sandro Vella who blogs here, and Daphne Caruana Galizia who blogs here.

The most interesting part of the interviews was the varying answers to the last question, "What effect did local blogs have on the outcome of what has been called 'Malta's first dotcom election'?"

Sandro said not much, and Jacques said that the attention given to blogs such as his caught political parties and the mainstream media by surprise and prompted the creation of more blogs, and Daphne said that there was a strong effect.

I was most amused by the huge difference between Sandro's and Daphne's attitude towards blogging. You can tell that Sandro is a real blogger and I loved his long, rambling answer about his favourite blogger(s). He finished off by saying...

We bloggers form an inclusive party. Let us extend this our family. It shall not be a new beginning or even wind of change but we shall continue to build upon that which we have built. If you open a blog you may find peace of mind that nobody will give you a transfer. With blogs everything is possible.

Shame on you if you choose not to open a blog. Don't be a chicken. Face up to reality and create a blog!

By comparison, when asked about her favourite blogger, Daphne's reply was, "I’m not really into this kind of thing. I only read a couple of blogs."

My favourite quote from her interview was in response to the question "How do you think your blog is perceived by the rest of the blogging community?"

Is there a blogging community? That comes as a surprise. I know there are many people who blog, but that is about the only thing we have in common.

In conclusion: Sandro and Jacques are bloggers, Daphne is someone who blogs.

A box on wheels - efficient, cheap and cute for preference

In the Times this morning there was an article quoting Tonio Grech Fenech, the Minister of Finance, as saying that there's no reason to postpone buying a car.

It's funny but last night that's exactly what Michael and I decided to do!

We've been meaning to buy a second car so that I can have my own wheels (plus the van is on its last legs after having been in a pretty bad accident a few months ago and so Mike doesn't want me driving it). In my girly heart of hearts, I would love to have a cute little car (pink, even), but in the cold light of day what really counts is the cost of the car, its mechanical soundness, and its efficiency. If I'm lucky, you never know, we might find a cute, efficient, cheap little car but so as to avoid disappointment I'm just picturing it as an ugly box on wheels. I'm sure I'll find ways to cutify it (is that a word?) even if it is really ugly.

It's about time we got around to buying this car, but we decided last night that it makes more sense to wait until the revisions in registration tax come into effect because we'd save money.

The minister is saying that anyone who buys a car now that would be affected by the revisions later this year, will be reimbursed the difference in one way or another.

However I'm not convinced - what if this does not in fact happen?

On the other hand... apparently the rest of Malta is doing the same thing and holding off on buying cars for now, and I suppose that once the revisions do come into force then the floodgates will open and it will be harder to find a decent second hand car to buy because they'll be snapped up - maybe if we buy one now we'll get a good price because dealers are getting so little custom.

I dunno, economics was never my strong suit. We'll see.

I hate doing the dishes

After six months and a week of marriage, I will cheerfully admit that I am a lousy housekeeper.

I hate doing housework, I really do. It's BORING. To make the time go by faster, I listen to funky music and to podcasts, but still it takes so long.

Thus far my strategy has been to leave the housework to build up until something HAS to be done about it, and then conduct a blitz, but about a week ago I decided that I need to figure out a better way of doing things, mostly because this method means that the place always looks messy (and I live in fear that my mother will make good on her threat to come and visit one of these days).

So here's my new strategy: Tuesday and Thurday evenings, and at least one period during the weekend are for housework - laundry, dishes, tidying, cleaning.

My mother has always told me that if I tidy up as I go along, the big messes won't build up, but I'm just not cut out for that. After getting home from work I'm always tired, and on the weekends I want to relax, so hopefully having a schedule will counteract my natural indolence.

Anyone got any strategies that they use to help them stay on top of the housework, or any ways of making housework less tedious?