The 3d printer and boudoir items to sulk with.

It had to come. Aldi is selling 3 Dimensional printers. Of all the quirky things that are selling in their middle isles! Last week it had self lifting toilet seats, foldable wheel chairs, a drone with spare blades, and boxes of Allen keys. The Allen keys are needed to assemble the toilet seat, the drone and wheel chair. I often notice the shopper picking up products of which their use remains totally baffling and mysterious. They proceed to look it up on the notice board to read what it actually is. Afterwards the gaze travels back to object and turn it around fondly, happy in the new-found knowledge of the totally useless product. Many then use the mobile phone to transmit the good news about this mysterious product back to a spouse or partner, possibly for approval.

Of course the real shopper buys it regardless.  They don’t care what it is.  That is the magic of clever commerce and mindless shopping. In any case, this week it is the special 3D printer. It comes with different coloured spools of what looks like very strong shark-fishing line.

I must admit that if the choice last week was between buying the self-lifting toilet seat or a drone, I would have gone for the drone. The idea of a need to be propelled upwards in an upright position after the use of the loo, fills me with dread. It seems like only yesterday I was soaking off postage stamps from my parents letters and neatly arranging them in my album. This was way back in the serenity of Holland, back in Rotterdam and the use of postal stamps. I still have the album in which I could add extra pages. The pages were held together by screws and nuts. Some of the stamps date back to the 1800’s.

In fact, I was fantasising about hovering the drone by remote control, while hiding well out of sight, menacingly over our Body Corporate ‘bad neighbour’s’ backyard, taking pictures of her while cutting down more of her garden, or worse, slashing other peoples’ gardens. I must desist.

Is the 3D printer the start of a new era as the computer or internet were experienced so many years ago? Jets are flying with components made by 3D printers and the printing of artificial limbs and body parts is becoming the norm. It is actually called ‘additive manufacturing.’ It makes replacing broken items now within the reach of everyone. I suppose I could use it to make soles for my shoes or a replacement for the broken battery holder for the remote control of the TV.

Soon our lounge room or office will store the 3D printer in addition to computer, normal printer, phone and files,  errant laptop, a cooling fan and column heater, chairs, books on computers and virus detection, boxes of discs and lonely chargers, and of course miles of cables and power extensions going in all directions. Some people have  3D printing another 3D printer as a replacement or spare.

In social situations, we will mingle around and after a couple of drinks, ask how the 3D printing is going. A brave man might well mention in a jocular fashion. ‘You are looking very nice today, Mavis.’ ‘Are you wearing your new 3D’s today?’ Mavis was known to have started a small business 3D printing lingerie with matching boudoir items to sulk with.

No doubt mobile 3D printers will come about and people will be seen crossing the street all terribly busy with the 3D printing of boxes of hot chips with 2l coke or a quick coffee. On line 3D dating will be eagerly exploited. Photos of blokes proudly showing 3D printed  additions. Girls will advertise showing 3D printed cleavages with proportionally alluring  3D printed hips.

It will come about.

 

A life of Lentils and Beef Eye fillets.

We have never lived the life of the miser nor of the squanderer. We followed the example set by our parents. Their main philosophy on how to survive the financial peccadilloes of a life was; don’t ever buy anything unless you have saved for it, even then, resist the temptation for buying things that are not essential. It might be a boring philosophy but it does help in the long run. Start off with living of nourishing lentils and you will feast on beef eye fillets or caviar later on

Waste not want not with a penny saved is a penny gained (gotten) are the sayings supposedly having originated in Yorkshire. In fact, the Yorkshire-men claim that it is two pennies saved. The first penny from not spending it and the second penny saved in case you would have spent it but did not. The logic escapes me a bit but as a Dutchman I might not be as fast on the penny uptake.

The Dutch have similar sayings and habits of parsimony. One famous saying “Sparen is Garen”.  Roughly translated it means, “Sparing is Gaining”. For the Latin lovers there is also; “Magnum vectical est Parsimonia,” followed with a lovely and succinct, “Acquirit qui Tuetur.” I don’t know Latin but it sound lovely and musical, at least to my ears.

Alas, the frugality that parents installed in us seems to have got lost on the younger generation. How on earth can kids spend so much time on their Iphones? Forget about mobile phones. They would not be seen dead with a normal phone as a phone, it got to be 4 G stuff with internet and hundreds of Apps stuff probabilities and has to include global surfing and 3D-printing with lots of ‘stuff like that’ or(boys) include ‘shit like that,’ girls mainly ‘stuff like that’.

I just walked past a school, a high school with, I think, mixed sexes. It’s hard to tell now-a-days. They all seem to revel in mobs of unruly hair that they keep shaking around making sure it hides their distant horizontal vision and so enables them to continually look down better at their G4 Iphone and stuff in case of a missed bullying opportunity.

Apart from most school kids walking home with their heads down intent on gadget peeking, there was also a flourishing trade going on in a mixed shop opposite the school. A steady stream of school uniform attired kids were coming and going from the creaky swinging fly-screen door.

It was one of those ancient lollie shops that used to always be opposite any school but have mainly vanished through the rapacious tactics of the big super markets. They often, but not always, had fly-blown metallic and slanting show- cases with stale custard-tarts sprinkled with dodgy looking cinnamon, meat pies from last Tuesday or the week earlier and traditionally would leave trails of stomach complaints from school kids not able to resist their hunger pangs and wait till home cooking (and stuff like that). The lamb chops with mashies and gravy has been overtaken by the take away or micro waved instant meal consumed while standing up while bowed over the 4G and stuff.

Of course, the kids would hydrate themselves with 2 liter Coke. Perhaps not a bad thing in alleviating or killing the bugs in the custard tart or dodgy meat-pie. Alas, the history of those shops catering for the school kids has just about vanished together with parsimonious penny saving.

It’s a pity because, thanks to our parents example we are now able to ditch the lentils and feast on the Angus beef eye fillet and Kipfler potato with crispy green salad. (And stuff like that)