I walked a whole block and a half to get my lunch today - I sort of wish I'd walked further, because it's really quite a nice day, if a little chilly in the shade. Crisp and autumnal. Lovely.

But the point is that in that block, I witnessed:

• An electronic traffic-notification sign (you know the sort, the big LED flashing letters on a little trailer) that read "Fashion hazard ahead" and "Power suits" and something else I missed because I was giggling too hard; also
  
• Beside that, a safety-fenced-off ute and an area around it in which four young men wearing hard hats and flourescent construction gear were dancing; then apparently unrelatedly
  
• On the corner, beside the traffic lights and the tree, thigh-heigh bright blue letters spelling out "lava". Fucked if I know, but some guy was photographing them (or I would have tried to make off with one...).

Basically, stuff New York, I have all the arts and culture I can cope with here in Melbourne.

I really should know better than to read the Herald Sun. It's 100% guaranteed to make me wish damage inflicted upon newsprint could be felt - voodoo-doll-like - by the nitwits who brainstormed, wrote and signed off on this claptrap.

I do know better, but the thing about this job of mine is that a) selected news clippings circulate daily; and b) there are newspapers in the kitchenette and I have this habit of idly perusing any printed matter that comes within reach.

Today's Herald Sun stupidity? A big budget-related article regarding the source of government funds, concentrating on how government revenue-raising viciously targets traffic-offenders through speed cameras, breath-testing and other fines.

...wait, people who break the law and endanger our lives through their own wilful and selfish stupidity are funding education, health and support for people with disabilities? Yeah, how dare the government. WHAT?!

I hate that the people who run a high-selling newspaper think that this is the sort of mindset their large number of readers hold. What I really hate is the high likelihood that they're right.