This week we’re skipping graduation ceremonies, and having a say in the country’s future.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
This week we’re skipping graduation ceremonies, and having a say in the country’s future.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Georgie 0:07
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I’m your co host, Georgie. And as usual, I’m here with Geoff.
Geoff 0:15
Hello, hello. Today’s topic is...
Georgie 0:20
We don’t have any topics...
Geoff 0:22
Voting. Did you vote?
Georgie 0:25
I voted early.
Geoff 0:26
Oh!
Georgie 0:27
And we rocked up. And I didn’t know that you had to have, you should have a valid reason for voting such as like—
Geoff 0:36
Voting early!
Georgie 0:36
And like an access... Yeah, like, maybe you need a special access, or you’re going to be away on the day, like my brother’s away. So he asked my parents to put in like a postal vote.
Geoff 0:49
Oh.
Georgie 0:49
But anyway, rock up. And Nick goes first. But like, we see the lady at same time. And she said, “So why are you voting early today?” And he said, “Oh, just to get it out of the way”. And she said, “Okay, so you can’t actually say that”. She said, “Just say that you’re going to be away on the voting day”, he was like “oh okay, I’m gonna be away”.
Geoff 1:12
Yeah, I kind of felt like doing early voting as well. I think I did it another time. We just rocked up too early vote for fun. But I find the whole voting process ridiculous. Like, you go up to the person, the person has to go find your name manually through this massive book, has check your name off, and then you have to go into a little booth. By the way, for those who haven’t voted in Australia before, you get this really long... I think it’s about a metre long.
Georgie 1:50
Wait, I think we should also—
Geoff 1:51
A metre or foot—
Georgie 1:53
Caveat that—
Geoff 1:53
What’s it, three foot long—
Georgie 1:54
We, we have to vote.
Geoff 1:56
Oh yeah. We also have to vote.
Georgie 1:57
We have to vote if you’re over 18.
Geoff 2:00
Yeah.
Georgie 2:00
And are an Australian citizen.
Geoff 2:02
Makes my question of “Did you vote” really redundant? Because obviously, we have to.
Georgie 2:08
I am an Australian citizen, Geoff, what do you mean?
Geoff 2:10
Yeah.
Georgie 2:11
How did you not know this about me!
Geoff 2:12
You’re imported. You’re adopted. Listen to the previous episode, if that doesn’t make sense to you. But essentially, like you get this really long piece of paper with just about a metre long, and you get like, I don’t know how many parties there are on it, maybe 15. It is 15.
Georgie 2:33
Yeah 15, 17.
Geoff 2:34
And I think in like previous years, usually you have to put in either a number above the line, which is in single boxes across all 15 parties, and you have to number them one to 15 in order of your own preference. So if you want Labor to win, or if you prefer Labor or Liberal, then you would put 1 in Labor or 1 in Liberal, is all the parties like Greens and Independents and all that kind of stuff. But essentially you would number all them preferentially. Then there’s below the line, which has every individual candidate or whatever.
Georgie 3:15
It could be up to 70, I think.
Geoff 3:17
Yeah, 50, 70 a lot. Yeah. So you could number each one of those. If you really like a person, you really invested in the story of Betty, Betty Smith, you can like number 1 Betty Smith, and leave all the other idiots out of the numbering. But then you go into a tiny booth. And then you got this one—
Georgie 3:39
Made from cardboard.
Geoff 3:40
Yeah, made from cardboard. So the booth is maybe like, five?
Georgie 3:46
It’s an, it’s like your shoulder, like shoulder width. But if you’re bigger, you might actually feel like it’s very cramped.
Geoff 3:55
Yeah. In any case is like half it’s like a quarter of the size of the piece of paper you’ve gotten.
Georgie 4:01
(laughs) Yeah that’s the problem.
Geoff 4:03
So like, you’re like shuffling it along trying to to write on it and then you have to fold it up and then put it in a box.
Georgie 4:13
And then sometimes the box gets full because they don’t always remove the votes from inside the box.
Geoff 4:19
Yeah.
Georgie 4:20
Frequently enough that you’re just trying to shove it in.
Geoff 4:23
Yeah, so I was out, I finished voting and it got me thinking like how how super manual is this? And if you can do this all with computers and I think in America they do? They have voting machines.
Georgie 4:37
I don’t actually know.
Geoff 4:38
Here we go.
Georgie 4:38
I just there is someone on YouTube. Unfortunately at this moment, I can’t remember who but they they did a video I don’t know if it was comparing the way we vote the way America votes or if it was an American watching the way that we vote from like a minute video from our government.
Geoff 4:58
Here we go.
Georgie 4:58
And they will compare In saying that they preferred the way we vote because it’s kind of less rigged. I can’t remember what the underlying difference was. But the fact that we, you know, first, first of all, we have to vote if you’re 18. So it’s kind of like important. They liked that. And then there was something else about how it’s not actually as biased or something as American. I don’t know if anyone from the US is like listening to this. Be interesting to get your thoughts.
Geoff 5:27
Yeah. So you can see like, I think they’ve done it for a long time, because these voting machines look really old. But.
Georgie 5:38
Wow.
Geoff 5:38
Yeah. So I thought, hey, why is this also manual? Why do you need a person to sit here? Why do you need to tell them the name?
Georgie 5:44
They get paid. They get paid pretty good.
Geoff 5:47
And I mean, like, even if they get paid, that’s even worse.
Georgie 5:54
I actually put my application in to do like some of that to try and get some extra coin and never got picked.
Geoff 6:00
I’m happy they get paid to do it. But what I’m saying is that why do we need to pay anyone to do this?
Georgie 6:06
Also all the trees from the paper? I’m like, so sad.
Geoff 6:09
Yeah.
Georgie 6:09
That’s a lot of fucking paper.
Geoff 6:11
So on, and then my second thought was kind of like what you were saying. Like if it was electronic, all of it could possibly be rigged. Like—
Georgie 6:21
You could like—
Geoff 6:21
Get hacked.
Georgie 6:22
Yes. Yeah, the website even whatever they use, you could fucking like, rig, that shit.
Geoff 6:26
So you could do all sorts of things when it’s electronic. And I guess like point, case in point now that we’re talking about it, the the whole election with Trump and stuff like that, where he just starts pointing fingers at everybody, saying your machines were rigged to always vote, what, vote Biden or whatever? So I guess the paper method is like intentionally low low tech to avoid this stuff.
Georgie 6:58
Yeah. Yeah.
Geoff 7:01
But yeah, they mail it in and stuff like that.
Georgie 7:04
Did you get a democratic sausage?
Geoff 7:06
I wanted one, but in—
Georgie 7:08
OK we probably have to explain what the fuck that means? It’s not sexual or all, it’s just there is a thing in Australia where—
Geoff 7:14
How is a democratic sausage, sexual? Explain.
Georgie 7:19
No as in like, if—I don’t think they have them.
Geoff 7:22
I know. But how could—
Georgie 7:23
In Australia?
Geoff 7:24
...you misconstrue it?
Georgie 7:27
Well, it’s just like, they might think it’s dirty, right?
Geoff 7:31
I don’t know it could be dirty.
Georgie 7:33
Well, because I didn’t say democratic hotdog, or democratic sausage sandwich, or sausage sizzle. Which people laugh at anyway, like what the fuck is a sausage sizzle.
Geoff 7:42
Yeah, fair enough.
Georgie 7:42
Essentially, at a lot of voting places which are usually like a school or like some kind of community hall. Someone organises to serve up, what we, what we—it’s like a rudimentary hot dog.
Geoff 7:58
It’s not even a hotdog.
Georgie 7:59
It’s a slice, it’s a slice of white bread.
Geoff 8:02
Square.
Georgie 8:03
Usually. So yeah, white bread, with a grilled like sausage on it and a whole fuck tonne of onions if you’re so inclined. And then whatever sauce you want. And it usually costs I don’t know, what, $4 these days, is it more expensive? I don’t know.
Geoff 8:18
I don’t know. I haven’t had one in a long time.
Georgie 8:20
And I can’t even remember where they , where, where the money goes.
Geoff 8:25
You can get one at Bunnings, like on a Sunday, you can go down to our local warehouse and they they do—
Georgie 8:34
Nursery.
Geoff 8:34
Do a sausage sizzle outside the warehouse.
Georgie 8:37
Plant nursery sorry.
Geoff 8:39
Plant nursery, no they, it’s like hardware? It’s a hardware dist—like—
Georgie 8:42
They have plants! I’ve gotten plants from Bunnings.
Geoff 8:44
I know they have plants but their main money maker is is the hardware, hardware store.
Georgie 8:52
I saw I saw a video you know the song Bang Bang with Jessie J?
Geoff 8:59
Yeah.
Georgie 9:01
Bang bang, du du du du, someone said I found like this, this song is exactly the same as an iconic Aussie song and I’ve totally proved it and it’s the Bunnings Warehouse ad—
Geoff 9:14
No way.
Georgie 9:15
It is. I mean not it is, but—I guess look it up, Bunnings Warehouse Bank Bank Jessie J. It was, this was obviously a video stitched together by an Australian. (laughs)
Geoff 9:28
The, the interesting, I’ve uh—
Georgie 9:32
That, that’s the one.
Geoff 9:33
I’ll link the, link the video in later, but essentially, on that, actually there is a, what’s it, this little, they’re not acapella are they? TNT boys? Not acapella but they’re like a group of boys, three boys. They are from the Philippines and they won this like singing—each individual Boy has like, not won singing group, singing competition but they, they read they rank really high in singing competitions. And this network called TNT, I think, decided to put all three of them into a group. So it’s one of those yeah, those like group groups made from like a reality TV shows type of thing. But essentially, these kids, I don’t even know how old they were. How old were they? We’ll call them—
Georgie 10:33
Pre to early teens.
Geoff 10:34
Yeah, yeah, so the oldest one—
Georgie 10:36
Let’s go ten to—
Geoff 10:37
13, yeah. 10 To 13. These three kids in like the pre pubescent type, like high pitch esque voices, sang Bang Bang by Jessie J.
Georgie 10:51
Oh. Problems.
Geoff 10:54
So many. So many problems getting like, preteen kids singing these songs—
Georgie 10:59
Singing, what does how, does that, how does the words go? Bang bang all over you?
Geoff 11:03
Yeah, bang bang into the room. I want to bang bang all over you, like that’s the lyric.
Georgie 11:07
(laughs) Oh dear.
Geoff 11:11
Like 80% of the song is literally the word bang.
Georgie 11:16
Yeah.
Geoff 11:16
But yeah, like, but to be honest.
Georgie 11:20
Anyway, democratic sausage.
Geoff 11:21
De—yeah, so, you go there you go, so there was no democratic sausage and I was a bit disappointed but they, but because we’re in an Asian leaning suburb. (laughs)
Georgie 11:32
(snorts) Custard tart?
Geoff 11:32
Nope. Democrat—
Georgie 11:35
Wait can I guess?
Geoff 11:35
Yeah, go, go.
Georgie 11:36
Can I guess?
Geoff 11:37
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 11:37
Can I guess, so that they will something provided as some kind of snack?
Geoff 11:39
Yes.
Georgie 11:40
In your, in your hood?
Geoff 11:41
Yes.
Georgie 11:41
Okay.
Asian leaning.
Asian leaning.
Geoff 11:47
I mean it’s not like, oh, hang on. Wait, let me actually have a think about this.
Georgie 11:51
Yep.
Geoff 11:53
Give you—
Georgie 11:54
Is it food or drinks?
Geoff 11:55
It’s food, it’s food.
Georgie 11:56
Okay, so it’s not bubble tea.
Geoff 11:58
Democratic bubble, that would be great.
Georgie 12:00
(laughs) It’s not like, is it a dessert type? Or is it—
Geoff 12:04
No, not dessert type?
Georgie 12:05
Dumplings.
Geoff 12:06
Dumplings?
Georgie 12:07
Fucking hell. (laughs)
Geoff 12:08
Democratic dumps, as we coined it when we were walking across the road.
Georgie 12:12
Wait actually, going to ask you something. Like, is it like a? Because the only Asian language I know is, is Bahasa.
Geoff 12:22
Yeah.
Georgie 12:22
And it’s quite different from like, Chinese or other languages.
Geoff 12:26
Yeah.
Georgie 12:27
But dumpling. The word dumpling in English. I feel like it’s often mis-written in Chinese places as dumping.
Geoff 12:37
Really?
Georgie 12:38
And so like I walked past one, it said “fried dumping”.
Geoff 12:41
(laughs)
Georgie 12:43
Do you know why that is? Is because there’s not really an L sound?
Geoff 12:46
So I know in Japanese the L sounds get more rolled into R sounds.
Georgie 12:54
With an R. Yeah.
Geoff 12:54
So get dumprings, I guess.
Georgie 12:57
Yeah.
Geoff 12:58
I think there is an L sound. Yeah, there is an L sound. But I think the problem is just written. Like—
Georgie 13:06
Yeah.
Geoff 13:07
Like if you if you say oh, like “write down dumplings”. Maybe they just they just didn’t hear the L and they just wrote “dumpings” things. Which is pretty hilarious. So they had democratic dumpings. And—
Georgie 13:28
(laughs)
Geoff 13:29
Yeah, and they had other stuff, like they actually had a few like have I think homemade homemade baked goods as a like a not a charity run but essentially money for the school. So.
Georgie 13:43
Yeah.
Geoff 13:43
It’s a pretty good idea.
Georgie 13:44
Oh, yeah. Because the borrowing the space.
Geoff 13:46
Yeah.
Georgie 13:46
I guess, so, they, yeah.
Geoff 13:48
They may as well do a bake sale for like to raise money for the school. So it was pretty good. Walked in there, I was like, oh, man, half the buildings are all like demountables and—
Georgie 14:00
Oh.
Geoff 14:01
But actually not really.
Georgie 14:02
Yeah.
Geoff 14:02
Like there’s a huge building. It’s like really old school. And there’s loads of rooms in there and only three, there’s only three demountables like outside, so it wasn’t that bad.
Georgie 14:13
So my sister in law, Nick’s sister, she’s a teacher and the school that she teaches at, I think they have like 26 demountables.
Geoff 14:24
Holy crap, the whole place is a demountable.
Georgie 14:25
Yeah.
Geoff 14:26
Might as well be a caravan park at that stage.
Georgie 14:28
Because it’s such a, it’s such a fast growing school that they’ve just had to do these demountables, but I maintain that they’re probably better than demountables I classes in—
Geoff 14:39
Me too.
Georgie 14:39
When I was 10 years old, that fucking just had fans, no fucking aircon, and just like hot boxes to the max.
Geoff 14:46
My demountables were mostly like I think almost 100% wooden, like the...
Georgie 14:53
What.
Geoff 14:54
I’m pretty sure they were, were they not? I think the base, just felt very wooden because it was stilts, the stilts that they go up on, they were wood, pretty sure. But like the the room they put on top wasn’t entirely wood. That would be a cabin.
Georgie 15:10
Ours was like, ours was like yeah, like whatever that insulated like material is—
Geoff 15:18
So—
Georgie 15:18
I don’t even know what it is.
Geoff 15:19
So for those who don’t know what demountables are... I think this was more likely my demountables, anyways.
Georgie 15:26
I’m not sure if it’s Australian or...
Geoff 15:27
Yeah, anyway, so, when—I think only I don’t know I’ve never seen people use this out of schools but maybe houses, actually, I, now that I think about it. Essentially it’s a it’s a raised room on some like, well here they have blocks of bricks, like just a little stub brick block, and then they just put a office or room on top of it. Hey, I think they do this in construction. Actually, now, I think about it. Cos it’s temporary.
Georgie 16:00
Yeah, it’s like if they have like a lunch room or something like that, and they probably have them at festivals. They have a full toilet block.
Geoff 16:07
Yeah.
Georgie 16:07
It’s like an entire thing that just gets put there temporarily. Except these get used for classrooms and some schools where the main building is like not big enough.
Geoff 16:17
Yeah, exactly. You have too much shrubbery and stuff. You don’t want to like hack everything down. You can just put like a demountable in the middle. Make the kids hype.
Georgie 16:26
Nut, but they’re better. I would assume that these like in this day and age than they were like 20 years ago.
Geoff 16:34
Yeah. But—
Georgie 16:36
Fuck I feel old.
Geoff 16:38
26 demountable is for a school seems very, I guess maybe it’s it’s fiscally sound. Like you can—
Georgie 16:46
There’s a bit of weird segregation from what I’ve heard. Like she said that some teachers don’t are some of the I guess upper management, so to speak. They don’t want to walk to the area with the demountables. Like CBF.
Geoff 16:59
Yeah.
Georgie 16:59
There’s a bit there’s a little bit of drama. I mean, I won’t go into it, in case I accidentally dox her.
Geoff 17:04
So precious. Right, so back to voting. So I was like—
Georgie 17:09
Yes.
Geoff 17:11
Yeah. So they were, they’re a fundraising essentially for the school. So that was nice. And so instead of getting anything from there, because it didn’t want democratic dumplings, and I was looking forward to democratic sausage. Went to a newly open cafe ish, that was really weird. It was like retro America vibe. Like retro—
Georgie 17:36
Like a diner?
Geoff 17:37
America diner vibe, very colourful.
Georgie 17:39
Nice.
Geoff 17:40
But they sold Asian leaning like cakes.
Georgie 17:46
Okay, so there’s a mismatch in that between the decor and the actual, like menu.
Geoff 17:50
So the cakes themselves. Like we got a pandan durian like cake. But what it looks like is very old school. It’s the old school layer cake. So there’s a layer of sponge, there’s like a cream, sponge, cream sponge. And then like the whole thing is like, encased in cream. So it’s like fairly old school type of—
Georgie 18:14
Wait, if that’s the old school one, which one’s, which one’s a new, like, what does the new one look like?
Geoff 18:20
Um... cake, layer cakes, layer cakes. I think they usually glossier?
Georgie 18:26
So you said it was this old school was like maybe like spongy. Like it’s pretty basic.
Geoff 18:33
I dunno, to be honest, whenever I see a multi layer cake, I think it’s old school, because I don’t think anybody does that anymore. Like, two layers. Sure. But when you get to like, like this—
Georgie 18:46
I would disagree. Like I don’t think it’s old school. But maybe it’s just more traditional because I think people still do make cakes. Actually, no, wait. Okay, so what’s the new one like? What’s this new one?
Geoff 18:58
I don’t know, modern layer cakes? I don’t know what new cake—I don’t eat cakes. I just look at it—
Georgie 19:03
Yeah.
Geoff 19:04
Maybe I haven’t seen a—
Georgie 19:05
I don’t even like cake.
Geoff 19:05
...cake in like, a dec, like couple of decades. And so I just think cakes don’t look like that. I don’t know, like rectangle pieces. I don’t know. They don’t—
Georgie 19:14
Oh my god. It’s the Indonesian one.
Geoff 19:16
Yeah. Oh my god. This is so good. My mum makes great—
Georgie 19:20
It’s fucking so good.
Geoff 19:21
Cake. It’s called 1000 layers cake.
Georgie 19:23
Can you tell her to send me some next time?
Geoff 19:25
No she—find, funniest thing. So she hasn’t made one in? Like, over twenty years? I think—
Georgie 19:39
So, but you said, you said that she makes the best ones?
Geoff 19:41
She makes the best ones. So—
Georgie 19:43
But it’s been 20 years.
Geoff 19:44
She hadn’t made one in like, like 10, 15 20 years. And one one time—so I go back to Perth every every year and I’ve been out here for 10 years. So I think it was my fifth or sixth or some somewhere in the middle. Anyways, mum always asked this, like mum says, “Oh, you’re coming home, what do you want me to cook? Or what do you want me to make?” And—
Georgie 20:08
Yeah my mum does this as well.
Geoff 20:11
One day, one time one year, I said, can you make me, can you make layer cake? And she agrees, and my siblings are livid. They’re pissed. Like, they’re like, we’ve been asking for this cake for 15 years. And Geoff just asks for it one year and you’re like, OK? Favouritism but no favouritism.
Georgie 20:39
Did she do it?
Geoff 20:40
Oh, yeah. It was great. It was just as good as anyone remembered and everyone savoured the shit out of that cake. They were so pissed that, they’re like, we asked for 20 years!
Georgie 20:51
Yeah, I feel like a similar thing happened with Nick and his sister like we came over and and then it was like, what do you want? Or you know, what can we get you, and then he picked something and she was like, I’ve been living here and you just what!
Geoff 21:06
That’s it. You just gotta move out, everybody. Like, that’s how you get the good shit. Maybe I’m only really like, you like two layer cake. Like a carrot—
Georgie 21:16
Wait, what if you search for an Asian cake? Is that going to give you a different result?
Geoff 21:20
Oh yeah maybe Asian cakes. Maybe I only eat Asian cake. Asian cakes. No.
Georgie 21:28
Again I don’t eat cake. So it’s a bit—
Geoff 21:31
Anyways, it feel, felt old fashioned. Maybe I only eat Japanese cheese cakes these days. So there’s no layers. (laughs) Anyways, to us the decoration, it was a little bit old school where you do really thick layers of cream. I don’t know. Maybe that’s still it. Like that looks pretty modern.
Georgie 21:50
Was it, was it definitely an Asian menu?
Geoff 21:53
Definitely. Because pandan and durian do not come together in any—
Georgie 21:57
Oh wait. Yeah, in any American diner.
Geoff 21:59
In any American kind of diner or cake store.
Georgie 22:04
Actually, there was a cafe which I went to in Berlin, which unfortunately, I found out closed, because now if I go back to Berlin, it will be fucking gone. But it was called Two and Two cafe and it was run by a French woman and I think a Japanese woman. And their menu was like, Japanese. Yeah, Japanese and French. And I thought that was really cool. So I think you can like do some sort of juxtaposing sort of cuisine and decor type thing.
Geoff 22:37
So I guess you’re like, they made a American looking Asian cake. Asian flavoured cake. Which is—
Georgie 22:47
Yeah, because that traditional cake is more like Western.
Geoff 22:51
Yeah.
Georgie 22:52
Yeah. What else do they have on the menu?
Geoff 22:55
They, I’m not quite sure. So apart from the cake, my partner got a a iced mocha with the iced brown sugar mocha latte or something like that. Brown sugar is typically used in bubble tea—
Georgie 23:11
Asian.
Geoff 23:12
Or boba tea as some Americans would call it.
Georgie 23:17
Boba.
Geoff 23:18
Boba, so yeah, that was also interesting. There was no boba in this mocha. That would be even weirder. But yeah. So we got got both of those things. And that was that was the vote day. The... I would have liked it more. I mean, it was very quick. There wasn’t much of a line. Were there around lunchtime. So maybe everyone went to lunch instead? Sounds—
Georgie 23:46
I feel like in my area, like because we’re a bit densely populated. I feel like they need another another voting booth or something.
Geoff 23:54
Yeah.
Georgie 23:55
Because one year we were like—maybe it was last year, feel like we were waiting. Or we saw the line. And it was like a whole street long, basically, for the one that was closest to us. And then we decided to actually just drive to the to the neighbouring suburb where there was still a queue but not so bad.
Geoff 24:18
Did I tell you that I got fined one time for not voting?
Georgie 24:23
No, I didn’t get fined. But I got a thing saying a letter in the mail saying you didn’t vote. Like excuse me. I was there. So we had to like appeal.
Geoff 24:30
Oh that‘s annoying.
Georgie 24:31
Yeah.
Geoff 24:33
So—
Georgie 24:33
Did you, were you away or something?
Geoff 24:34
Oh, no. So the neighboring suburb was, like, asking us to vote. Or actually, they were asking us to vote and vote in an election that was named after the neighbouring suburb. So not my suburb, the neighbouring one.
Georgie 24:55
Yeah.
Geoff 24:56
So I just immediately thought this must be a mistake. I’m in this suburb, not that suburb. And then, they, sent, they must have sent all the reminders, reminders they do now like email, text messages, all that sort of stuff. And I just kept ignoring it. And then so it got to a point. I don’t check my mail very often. So well, the one day of the year I check it, they had issued like a fine for for the voting thing. And I’m like, what? I like, I was ready to dispute it. Because obviously, it was for this it was for the suburb next next suburb, not me. Turns out that the not the electorates, but the areas that you vote in. They’re wider than the individual suburb. So.
Georgie 25:52
Yeah, yeah they are. We actually—
Geoff 25:53
County?
Georgie 25:53
...went yeah, for or—
Geoff 25:54
Or something.
Georgie 25:55
Yeah. For our early voting we went to like the neighbouring suburb. And then I think they had two electoral areas. So we just have to pick the right one.
Geoff 26:03
Yeah. The, so that was my, that was my bad. I didn’t quite understand how these—
Georgie 26:15
How long ago was this?
Geoff 26:17
...these voting things work. It was when I moved here. I think it was like—
Georgie 26:21
Oh right.
Geoff 26:22
Just a year or two ago. Just a year or two ago. So it’s kind of like totally misunderstood how voting, how voting lines and like areas work. So yeah, the they fined me.
Georgie 26:39
I think you can find it. You can find it on the like, the government website like you can look it up, check which one you’re in.
Geoff 26:46
Oh, here we go.
Georgie 26:47
Probably a good idea anyway.
Geoff 26:48
Yeah, here we go. Yeah, so it’s got all of these and it’s so many. And I didn’t I just didn’t realize that, like they wanted us to, to vote in a different under a different name, but it’s the same place. Any case, they they fined me.
Georgie 27:06
Was it a lot?
Geoff 27:08
How much was it? I think it was 50 to 100. I think somewhere in that realm.
Georgie 27:13
Okay, so it wasn’t like several 100. It was like—
Geoff 27:16
Was it several 100? I don’t know. In any case, oh, we can look it up, I guess.
Georgie 27:21
Yeah, actually on being fined, one of Nick’s co workers—maybe it’s an old coworker. I don’t know if he’s still there anymore. He lives a bit outside of Sydney. And he didn’t vote one time because basically, he doesn’t, he doesn’t watch television, or the news or the paper or whatever. And he literally just didn’t know that there was like an election happening. There was no way for him to like know, and he didn’t really converse with people. And so he got a fine. And he was like, I didn’t know this was happening. Like, I don’t, you don’t have or you don’t contact me through my phone number.
Geoff 28:01
Yeah.
Georgie 28:01
Or my email, like you don’t have that. Like, you could send me something in the mail. But you didn’t. And I think he actually appealled and like won because it was a valid excuse that yeah, like there was no way for him to have known that there was an election happening. And which leads me to like that, like a discussion about how are you supposed to know? I think I get stuff from my local person now anyway, but still, it’s just like, fuck.
Geoff 28:27
Yeah, I got, I got several text messages and emails about voting. So maybe they just improved it.
Georgie 28:34
Yeah.
Geoff 28:35
So the fine is $55 in New South Wales, if you don’t vote, and I was going to appeal it, because I was like, I didn’t know I had to vote. None of the material told me that in any way related to me. But at the end of the day, it was $55. I wasn’t going to spend like weeks appealing a $55 fine. So I just paid it.
Georgie 29:03
But also like you realise that, what your mistake was.
Geoff 29:05
Yeah. Also, you have to respond within 28 days of the issue date. And look, I checked my mail very, very, very far out of the 28 days. They gave, there were like several notices in there. They could just email me, but hey, that’s that’s not allowed. Actually—
Georgie 29:30
I think they do now, I think I got one, the annoying thing is I’ve been getting them—
Geoff 29:34
Yeah.
Georgie 29:35
Since I voted early they were still sending me them after I voted. Maybe because they haven’t calculated all the votes.
Geoff 29:41
You also, count, they get counted manually by the way, for those who don’t know, every bit of—
Georgie 29:45
Yeah, there’s a lot of paper.
Geoff 29:47
Lot of paper. What’s the other thing? Like... oh right, so I get my council fees, like notice or whatever mailed to me still, and I reached out, I’m like, can this, can this get emailed, because honestly, I really don’t check my mailbox and I freak out every time. I check my mailbox every three or four months. And—
Georgie 30:13
That’s terrible Geoff. I feel like surely you could just have a look in there like—
Geoff 30:17
More frequently? But I get freaked out, every time I open it up I’m like, oh my god, did I pay this? The thing is some of the things that are that... some of them are manual payments, and some of them are automated because some have automated. So I don’t know, if, if the thing that I’m looking at is automatic. So every three months, I have to check whether or not everything is either automated or I have to do something manual. So yeah, I live a very automated life. So I forget about anything that’s manual. It’s the whole reason why I bought a Tesla. So I don’t have to carry keys.
Georgie 30:55
Ugh, I hate automation.
Geoff 30:58
Yeah, but it’s the best.
Georgie 31:00
But we can talk about that another time.
Geoff 31:01
Yeah. In In other news, I went to a friend’s graduation.
Georgie 31:10
Of?
Geoff 31:11
Like a, like a—
Georgie 31:12
Uni?
Geoff 31:13
A college. Okay, yeah. So now we have to explain to people who don’t understand the Australian education system.
Georgie 31:22
College is like a community college.
Geoff 31:25
It’s sort of like—
Georgie 31:26
Isn’t it?
Geoff 31:28
I think it’s more along the lines have not your main line degrees. Yeah, like a community college.
Georgie 31:34
Like a cert, yeah. Or a certification for like, you know, some some line of work.
Geoff 31:39
Yeah. So, um, Fun. Fun fact, I didn’t go to my own graduation. I don’t remember be, I don’t think I’ve ever been to graduation. So this is the first time and—
Georgie 31:54
Oh for real, okay.
Geoff 31:55
My friend was like, it’s like the normal graduation stuff. I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know—
Georgie 31:59
You’re like, what.
Geoff 31:59
...what the normal graduation stuff.
Georgie 32:02
But you just have to come and watch. Right?
Geoff 32:04
Yeah.
Georgie 32:05
Okay, can I guess you were bored out of your mind for like, the first 10 minutes, because there was probably someone talking and it was just maybe a little bit like—
Geoff 32:14
That was later.
Georgie 32:14
Airy fairy?
Geoff 32:15
It was later. So the address, like the address was much later. But like, actually, like the beginning part was quite amusing. One of the, so the guy who initially addressed the crowd was like, we are going to bring all of the cat, all of the—what do you call them? Graduands, as they call them?
Georgie 32:41
Graduands. Yes.
Geoff 32:43
Not graduates, graduands.
Georgie 32:45
It’s, I think it’s I think it’s graduands and then afterwards you’re graduates.
Geoff 32:50
Oh, it’s like a post and current. Oh, a person who is about to receive an academic degree is a graduand. So he was explaining procedure, right? We’re gonna get each of the graduands up on stage with one specific masters, or ba—not even not bachelors. I think they only do masters—
Georgie 33:09
Diploma?
Geoff 33:10
Diplomas, masters and stuff like that. And then we will clap with the whole cohort on the stage. It was like, he basically—
Georgie 33:20
Yeah, save your applause for the end, right.
Geoff 33:22
Yeah. Yeah. And then he basically said, I know, it’s very difficult to withhold your ye-haws and coos, but please, try.
Georgie 33:34
How many people, do you know were graduating? Was it a lot?
Geoff 33:40
Was a medium amount. I think a lot were graduating, but not all of them were there to receive. So it was like—
Georgie 33:47
Right.
Geoff 33:47
I don’t know. 25 to 50. So, immediately, the first one that goes up, everyone’s like, yeew!
Georgie 33:59
Yeah, I think the last one I went to was, yeah, my sister in law’s. And I think other ones I’ve been to people have clapped after every like person who’s graduated. And but at some point, you feel sorry for the people towards the end, because everyone’s a little bit tired. And the applause dies down just a little bit.
Geoff 34:17
Yeah, so So yeah, they were like, cawing and, and, and yelling at the stage. And it was, it was it was pretty amusing. Like.
Georgie 34:27
Yeah.
Geoff 34:28
And then some of them, some of them shook their head. They’re like oh, my god. I’m being so embarrased—
Georgie 34:33
Really, oh who cares.
Geoff 34:34
So embarrassed.
Georgie 34:35
Oh, right. Yeah. I think like when I graduated my masters, I think my brother did some whoop noise.
Geoff 34:39
Whoop!
Georgie 34:41
And I did not expect, like, it was just weird.
Geoff 34:46
At one point, they were about to hand the wrong diploma to the wrong person. Names got mixed up. That was hilarious. And then I think at one point someone was grad, graduating and they were currently the coach of like some sports team. So the announcer was like, Go Panthers. Like he was, he was like, yeah. So I think it was actually quite, quite funny. Until the main address. Oh my god, that guy went on for like, I don’t even know, it felt like half an hour, but probably wasn’t. And he was just on and on, it didn’t even sound like uplifting.
Georgie 35:29
Inspiring?
Geoff 35:29
Positive, inspiring. He’s like, this is a very difficult, like job and, and you will be met with many trials and and you will be knocked down and emotionally damaged. And I’m like oh, my god.
Georgie 35:46
Yeah. I’ve been to a, I’ve been to a couple of like grad, graduation ceremonies, and I feel like those addresses are hit and miss. Some of them are like, oh yeah, that’s good. And others are like, I wouldn’t necessarily say they were regurgitated. But there’s just like you were saying they weren’t uplifting. There’s something about it that maybe the person just sounded a little bit up themselves, or it was just like, whatever.
Geoff 36:13
And it’s not like, and then yeah, he said something about, like, you get back up, which was the uplifting part. But then everything else was still like really, really dire. And so yeah, I didn’t find it. And that was hard. It was also on a Monday night. From—
Georgie 36:33
Yeah?
Geoff 36:33
Like 7:30 to 9:30. And oh man, had some ad breaks. Yeah. So like—
Georgie 36:46
As in like, entertainment. Someone’s playing a musical instrument?
Geoff 36:49
There well, well, there was some singing. But no, I mean, they play a video where they—
Georgie 36:55
Oh, they project some stuff on the screen. And it’s like a ad for the uni or whatever.
Geoff 36:59
Yeah, exactly. Like one of the, like, some of the graduands were like, asked to say a bit about like, what they found great about the college and stuff like that.
Georgie 37:08
Yeah.
Geoff 37:09
Like, where—
Georgie 37:09
Look, I don’t want to call them a waste of time or whatever. And obviously, they mean a lot to some people. But I think it can get boring for people watching.
Geoff 37:19
Just like dragging it on a little bit.
Georgie 37:22
Yeah.
Geoff 37:23
But yeah, actually, surprisingly enough. My friend was in one of the videos when it came up. And I’m like, what? So it was pretty surprising. It was also like some virtual posters outside, and my friend was in one of them, I’m like.
Georgie 37:41
(laughs) Wait, did you know or their like participation?
Geoff 37:43
No, I didn’t know at all, like I was just there to see them graduate. We got them a bear like a classic bear that you write on.
Georgie 37:50
Yeah.
Geoff 37:51
So we didn’t write anything.
Georgie 37:53
Oh, OK.
Geoff 37:54
We left it blank for them. You know what, the best message is the message to yourself.
Georgie 38:00
Ah I thought you were going to say the best message is no message.
Geoff 38:02
(laughs) That was better, we can cut the rest. But yeah, like that was my first grad, first graduation. For those who are curious as to why I didn’t go to my own. I had gotten a job in Newcastle.
Georgie 38:19
Yeah. So you just fucked off, and you’re like, I can’t be there.
Geoff 38:23
Can’t be bothered.
Georgie 38:23
So like did they send you the thing like—
Geoff 38:25
Oh, yeah, I think I have it. Yeah, I have it. I got it. I brought it back from Perth.
Georgie 38:29
I think my parents have mine.
Geoff 38:31
Yeah.
Georgie 38:32
Oh, wait. My parents, my parents wanted to do the thing and get them framed.
Geoff 38:35
Yeah.
Georgie 38:37
So they have both of mine. Technically.
Geoff 38:40
I think I needed that I needed to bring it with me just for like, perhaps job purposes and like some other legal stuff. You know, sometimes they ask.
Georgie 38:50
Yeah.
Geoff 38:50
Like, when you do a when you do an identification check. Like one of them I think it’s like a graduate certificate if you really want it’s like the lowest points or something like that.
Georgie 39:02
Oh.
Geoff 39:03
Either way. I—
Georgie 39:05
I think like you can just do like, what do you call it, birth certificate and like a Medicare card? I think is enough?
Geoff 39:13
Well I can’t remember why I brought it with me then if that’s not the reason.
Georgie 39:17
But it was probably you needed something else like like a bill or something to prove that you, yeah, something.
Geoff 39:24
Yeah, maybe that’s not that reason. I mean, it’s mine, I guess like to prove that I graduated, I can bring it. So anyways, I brought it with me. So I had it but I left I left a lot of shit at my parents house and only recently like picked up all the stuff I throw a lot of stuff out as per usual. At work they’re calling, they’re starting to call me Geoff “Delete it” Chong.
Georgie 39:51
Oh my god. (laughs)
Geoff 39:53
It’s my response to everything.
Georgie 39:54
That‘s fucking good.
Geoff 39:54
They ask if we can delete—they—
Georgie 39:55
Just delete it?
Geoff 39:56
Yeah so like, they’ll ask like, “Should we do this or that?” I’m like, “Should we just delete it?”
Georgie 40:05
Is this about like actual work—
Geoff 40:07
Like work stuff.
Georgie 40:08
Yeah. Yeah.
Geoff 40:09
So I would just like—
Georgie 40:10
This process, just delete it, don’t need it. Stand up, just delete it.
Geoff 40:15
Exactly. I want to delete stand up so bad.
Georgie 40:17
We have, we have a weekly standup, even then I wouldn’t call it a standup.
Geoff 40:21
Yeah, it’s more like a, like a milestone check in or something. Right?
Georgie 40:25
Yeah, ours is like like a recap.
Geoff 40:27
Yeah.
Georgie 40:28
And we only really bring up shit that’s important. And then we do a demo of like, hey, what what are you working on? If you have stuff.
Geoff 40:34
Yeah. So I have that on a weekly basis as well. So like, it’s in any case. Yeah, I do have my degree. I think my parents are trying to like, get me to keep my transcripts and stuff like that. I’m like, no, just just throw it away.
Georgie 40:53
Wait by transcript, do you mean the thing that has all your scores and shit on it?
Geoff 40:56
Yeah.
Georgie 40:56
No, that’s embarrassingly bad.
Geoff 40:58
Yeah all that matters is the degree right?
Georgie 41:02
Yeah, I think one of them I was like, one off like a HD or something. I was like, I don’t want to see this BS?
Geoff 41:09
I didn’t go to my high school graduation either.
Georgie 41:13
Wait, did I? Wait. I can’t even remember, Geoff. I don’t even remember. Wait—what?
Geoff 41:20
Yeah I didn’t go to my high school one.
Georgie 41:24
No, but I don’t even remember mine.
Geoff 41:27
That—
Georgie 41:27
I don’t even remember what—
Geoff 41:28
I think you’re just gonna have to figure that out by the next episode, because that’s all folks. You can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.
Georgie 41:39
You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the big giant sheet of ballot paper that you’re going to try and put into the voting box.
Geoff 41:48
Yeah. And new episodes every Monday. So—
Georgie 41:52
See you next week.
Geoff 41:54
Bye.