I’d strongly question whether it’s loyalty that’s stopping people. Loyalty is the unwavering love or commitment that one sees from a dog or a good friend. That doesn’t sound like a relationship one has with a bank to me.

I’d suggest the reason is more likely to be that people will think it will be just too damn difficult to make the move, knowing what it was like the first time around. That’s certainly the way I’m thinking.

I find I’m on a bit of a twin edged sword here. ANZ Bank is a key part of my superannuation portfolio, so naturally I would like them to be profitable and to provide me a reasonable return. However, I also continue to be appalled with the corporate greed displayed by all four of the big banks in Australia (Commonwealth, Westpac, NAB, ANZ).

And please don’t try and tell me they’re competing with each other. What a load of bollocks.

Have a look at the price of the Kindle edition, compared to the paperback and hardcover (sorry – I know the quality of the screen grab isn’t great).

The whole idea of e-books is they can be distributed a lot more easily and cheaply and thus, those savings can be passed onto the consumer. There are no manufacturing and shipping costs associated with getting the book to the consumer.

So what the hell is going on here Macmillan? Please explain.

I know there is an obvious typo with this caption on The Age website.

However, I couldn’t help but think about the irony, given all the agitation and allegations about how Alan Joyce is cutting corners on maintenance and driving the airline into the ground.

So, I wonder how much can you get done on an A380 for $139.

(I note the typo got corrected soon after I took this screen shot.)

I’ve spent the whole of my working life in the IT industry. 34 years in fact. When I studied computer science, as it was called then, at University of Queensland, I was one of the first students to actually study in the field.

So it probably doesn’t surprise you that I’m not as passionate about the IT industry as others might be. What goes around, comes around. If you think “cloud” is something unique, you’d better put your head back in the sand. We used to call them bureaus.

As a result, I’ve never spent a lot of time meticulously studying how our industry has evolved. I’ve pretty much taken it for granted and just rolled with the flow. Of course I know who Gates and Jobs are and what they’ve done, but it’s never really fascinated me as some people think it might or should.

I did feel a great sense of loss when Steve Jobs passed away though. I even changed my Facebook profile picture to the silhouetted Apple logo with his face etched into the bite. I love my iPod and my iPad, and I would prefer to have an iPhone, than the Windows phone that my employer gives me.

Some people would argue that, given I work for, and rely on my income from, a Microsoft partner, I shouldn’t be so supportive of the Apple products. But that’s bullshit. Those people need to stick there heads in the sand with the cloudites.

So given my love for the Apple products and my sense of loss at Steve’s passing, I realised I really needed to get to know the bloke better. So I bought Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson, ironically reading it on the Kindle client of my iPad.

In short, it’s a great read. I love Isaacson’s writing style and have downloaded previews of his other biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. I might give Henry Kissinger a miss though.

Given Jobs’ controlling nature at Apple, it would not be unreasonable to expect he would have taken control of what went into the biography. But this is clearly not the case. At the end of the book, he has the opportunity to articulate the Steve Jobs view of the world. However, Issacson also covers many aspects of Jobs’ life that clearly do not paint him in the best light.

So what do I think about the man, having reading the Isaacson biography? This excerpt sums it up for me.

Anyone one knows me, or has spent any time reading some of my outbursts on social media, will know of my passion for volunteering, particularly in the emergency services.

I get really frustrated with people who seem to want to take, take, take, but never give anything back. I get particularly frustrated with the industry in which I work (IT), where people are pretty well paid for what they do, but generally speaking, don’t feel compelled to give anything back to the community. Those of you IT folk that do, you rock!

To put a positive spin on all this, I was really proud of the folks from my State Emergency Service (SES) unit yesterday. How’s this for involvement?

• 4 members (including our controller) with 2 vehicles and a pump trailer assisting with the flood in the north-east of the state;
• 8 members involved in storm-related jobs or being on stand by as duty officers within our own area (the southern half of the City of Kingston);
• 7 members (or thereabouts) with 2 boats, providing support to the Chelsea Yacht Club for an event;
• 4 members doing storm training at Broadmeadows.

All of this was after 11 members dealt with 14 jobs locally, during the winds on Friday afternoon and evening. And you know what? They’ll be doing it all again today.

Chelsea SES – you rock!

If you’re reading this and you don’t actively give anything back to your community as a volunteer, why don’t you have a good think about how you can change that?

So how do I sum it up? Boring! Expensive for what it offered! And extremely ordinary food.

Where do I start? How about with the maître d’hôtel who mumbled some sort of greeting and, when I explained we had a reservation, seemed to be concerned he was expecting half the entire suburb of (boring) Beaumaris to turn up. The four occupied tables suggested this wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t as though everyone had decided not to eat last night – the Lobster Cave next door was positively buzzing.

We could then move onto he fact we sat for ten minutes at out table before we were even asked if we’d like a drink. Not to worry, it gave us a chance to take in the wonderful atmosphere, which consisted of a bunch of boring as bat shit 80s songs playing in the background. Guess what? Chuck e’s in love.

The menu was largely unspectacular. At a venue where I was expecting to shell out more than $200 for the two of us for dinner, and was more than happy to do so, I thought it was very disappointing.

The tasting plate as an appetiser with our drinks (yep, we finally got them) was OK, but at $23, should have had double the amount of food on it. And given we told them we were sharing, why would they only put one mussel on the plate? And one mushroom?

Carol’s pan fried scallops, chorizo and capsicum puree for entre was disappointing – very bland, with the puree adding absolutely nothing to the dish. My tempura battered oysters with wasabi mignonette was a major disappointment. The batter was soggy – I’ve actually seen better batters produced by my local fish and chips shop. The mignonette just tasted like lime juice.

Our mains were also disappointing. Carol thought the ingredients in her risotto were good, but where was the chilli? My bouillabaisse, which is supposed to be the house specialty, was terrible. My dictionary says that bouillabaisse is a “highly seasoned fish stew made with at least two kinds of fish”. It turned up on an ordinary dinner plate, instead of a bowl, which is how I would have thought most people would serve a stew. And “highly seasoned”? It had a flavourless sauce of some sort spread over it.

The ordinary experience continued with the $35 bottle of Mornington Peninsula Pinot we had, which was unspectacular.

We decided not to bother with deserts or coffee – we’d had enough. At this point, we moved on to the best part of the night – the taxi turned up within 3 minutes of me booking it on my iPad.

Citrus @ Beaumaris – you need to lift your game. Big time. A good starting point would be to start offering better value. And give your food some character.

Prior to 6:00am this morning, or 0600 hours in pilot speak, about a dozen aircraft took off into the south. This is the direction where there are houses that are closest to the airport, including mine. Conditions were benign, which meant that those aircraft could have taken off to the north or on the cross runway.

You may find this surprising, but my wife and I actually prefer to sleep a bit later than 6:00am on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that opportunity this morning.

You need to show a bit more respect to the local residents, Royal Victorian Aero Club. What happened this morning was disgraceful!

Hey Tim Lane, Stephen Quartermaine and Robert Walls (you especially Robert). And all of your colleagues who are radio and television commentators.

The bloke on the left here is Ray Chamberlain. Or Umpire Chamberlain would probably be better. His name is not Razor Ray. Nor is his name Ray. Well, it is, I suppose, but I don’t often hear you referring to Nick or Nick or Nick. It’s usually (Nick) Riewoldt or (Nick) Dal Santo or (Nick) Maxwell.

Equally, the guy on the right is Brett Rosebury. He’s one of our better umpires, certainly better than the previously mentioned Ray Chamberlain. His name is not The Umpire.

Can you and all your commentator mates start treating them the same and stop trying to elevate some of them onto pedestals in the same way that we expect you to with the players please.

They are just umpires and you are contributing to the situation where some of them seem to think that they, rather than the players are what people go to see on a weekly basis.

A colleague, Doug, put me onto Radio Paradise recently. I am surprised I haven’t found it before this – I’m constantly on the lookout for what I consider to be quality streaming radio stations on the net.

These guys, Bill & Rebecca, play a fantastic, eclectic mix of modern and classic rock, world music, electronica and more, as the banner says above.

The other thing I like about it is that you get to hear a bunch of artists from around the world that you wouldn’t necessarily hear on Australian radio. There’s no ads, and just a very short back announce every three or four songs or so.

I encourage you to check it out by clicking here.

So today, I went to The Age web site to check the list. It could be my failing eyes, and I didn’t have my glasses on, but nowhere could I find reference to the list. Hmm, is this the same newspaper that wants to make a return to quality? Good call I’d say.

I then searched for “queens birthday honours” in my browser and the first hit was for www.itsanhonour.gov.au. Ah, that’ll be it. No, firstly you get to click on a database link for all recipients, ever. Not quite what I wanted.

Next you get referred to the Attorney General’s web site, to try and find the copy of the Government Gazette where they are listed. Too hard!

Finally, you get referred to the Governor General’s web site. I’m assuming that’s where they’ll be, but I won’t know just now – the web site’s down.

So to all those who received honours, congratulations. It’s just a pity it’s so damn hard to find you.