The Last Dance

Actually I slept pretty well last night, - turns out the anti-roll-together strip in the middle of the mattress is much more comfortable than either side.
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Had a tasty and filling lunch with salahdra at Sophies Cafe before delivering her to the bus. Put in appearances at both relevant events last night but disappeared about 11.
I haven't eaten at Sophies in far to long - this time I had the Elvis Slammer.

Crashed into a 2-hour nap - waking up with the realisation that the Sci-Fi-Soc AGM was in 10 minutes.

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Very little that -needs- doing today. Photos, accounts. Keeping it together while trying to chill.

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The Last Dance - Magnum

The last dance might be your last chance
Over your shoulder you turn and you glance
They walk past still no one has asked
Feeling much older the evening has crashed

Don't surrender don't you cry
Another lonely night you've had enough
Another lonely night is one too much
Another lonely night might just give up

The last dance you hide your empty hands
No one comes near you
the noise of the band
You can't talk so you get up and walk
All that you've been though
it's not like you thought

CHORUS

Photos: busy weekend

Gothic Vampire


Cass' Birthday


Rountree Semi Flatwarming/Cooling

All about the money

Read a couple of things in the Herald today which got me twitchy.
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One was a reference to the high dollar 'castrating' the export sector. The sentiment I read a lot is: "we need to get out dollar down so that our exporters can make money again".

Well sorry, as a consumer I'd actually like it to keep moving in the other direction, thank you. Why aren't we saying "This could be great for our export and domestic businesses - an opportunity to take advantage of the rising dollar to import the technology and expertise to be more productive*." Why isn't it an incentive to do things better or get out, like it would be in any other market.

*But wouldn't it be great if the government and other factions would devote the same sort of resource to developing that technology and expertise here as they does to trying to manipulate the dollar and thus maintain low prices overseas for our products. And they say little free-market NZ has little in the way of agricultural protectionism.

And while they're busy keeping prices low for overseas consumers it means we're having to pay more for goods. Is that arse-backwards or what?

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The other was this little gem from Kerre Woodham:

There was a time when I was in a low-wage job and not able to pay all my bills on time. Occasionally that was my fault but, really, when you're on $15 an hour, there's only so far you can make that money stretch.

WTF?! $15 a low wage job? Sure it's not high, but it's surely not something anyone I know would dismiss out of hand.

$600pw (40 hours) = $31,200 before tax = not to be sneezed at.

I've gone so far as to check the stats for the June quarter 2009 which puts the median hourly income at $19.47 ($20.53 if you're male, $18.22 if you're female). For 20-24 year olds (which is a lot of the people I associate with) it's $15.34

Bearing in mind the boosts to the minimum wage in recent years (and biased by the youth rate being something like $7.50 when I started my working life) I'd love to know -when- Kerre was earning $15 hour so that I could look up those stats.

So I have to concur that yes, technically $15/hour is a low wage. But practically? I didn't know what to do with my money when I was earning that much, as old LJ entries attest.