I moved into a place (rental) where there were only incandescents. Bought a heap of CFLs (which cost quite a lot) and kept the old ones in a drawer. I suspect the person before me had done the same thing. When I moved out I changed them back. The person who moved in had the option of doing the same, etc. Some of us can't afford to donate a week's rent in light bulbs, but you just don't have to be an arse and leave people with no light. Here (Australia) it's usually written in a contract of sale of the house that the price includes all fixtures such as carpet, so taking things like carpet and bulbs is illegal and the thief can be charged (in reality, they'd deny taking it or give all the crap back). Rentals have to be left in the same condition with normal wear and tear considered ok. Again, if you take light bulbs (even if you had to replace some) you are stealing. Of course, your parents only had to find one box: The one containing the torch :-) I agree with you about the letterbox (or you could set fire to a bag of doorstep crap - mwahahahaaaa).

Worked for my ex

I had "swine flu" a few weeks as have most of my colleagues (Melbourne, Australia - work for large, boy-coloured U.S. corporation): How do you know you have had this without seeing a doctor? It was announced last week that 99% of all flu this year in Australia has been swine flu. Also that symptoms are "flu like" but not as bad as a regular flu (that's flu with the body aching and vomiting, as opposed to a head cold which isn't even close). Doctors have said that the regular flu kills more people than swine flu. When I got infected, the medical clinic receptionist said to stay in bed and sleep it off (presumably they had patients who were actually sick to worry about and not a swine flu hypochondriac). Was bed-ridden for 24 hours (slept the whole time) then fine. The only hangover symptom was the need for more than usual amount of sleep for weeks later. Nearly all sufferers have been in Melbourne, and symptoms are usually mild. From what I know, in all previous pandemics the people who caught the first wave usually survived (great plague of 1664-1665, 1918-1919 flu pandemic). Not sure if the increase in fatalities here is that the number of sufferers has increased so much or that the strain is mutating, but getting in early has historically been a good defence. Oh, and yes, everyone who has died here of it has been morbidly obese. Losing weight is easy if you have the right attitude. Everyone in my family's fat except me (but I grew up fat). Carbs are a drug. More accurately they cause a drug (insulin) to be released (to turn the sugar in the blood into fat or energy), which in turn makes you hungry. A good analogy to the addiction is alcohol: If you see that you're drinking more each night and where it's heading, you'd stop drinking for a while. A few days later you don't get the urge to drink. Carbs are the same. Going on a low G.I. diet stops the insulin production and the cravings go away. From experience it's about a week. All of this is well documented, so good luck northern hemisphere: You have a couple of months to lose weight or the swine flu may well kill you.

In Australia, the colours are all different: No red, white or black wires. It's therefore quite easy for the uninformed to kill themselves.

Here in Australia, we get a larger amount back than what we pay for electricity. Also, the government subsidises the installation cost (was $8,000 until a few weeks ago). "In Adelaide electricity is sold to homes at around 18c per unit but purchases are made back at a rate of up to 64c per unit" Source http://www.solarshop.com.au/main/webcontent61.htm Mine has been ordered. Help the environment and don't pay anything. How does that sound?

Really? So no servers ever run aix, Solaris or HP-UX? Those figures are obviously made up by Ballmer. Every data centre I have seen has 2-5% Windows, Linux (usually about 30%) or Solaris (the rest, less about 2% for others). Just my experience (four data centres over five years). All are in medium to large organisations, and all massively prefer Solaris for reliability.