six impossible things

ghetto laptop

2008-06-03T23:21:00.002+10:00

OK, so my poor ghetto laptop. I told you I'd come back and talk about it. I don't blame you for not believing me.

See, I'm not very good to my laptop. Although it's only two years old, it lies around the house, mostly on the floor, and stays open and gets food on it and god only knows what other abuse. The area next to the touch screen is scratched all to shit from me using an external mouse on it without a mousepad. But the worst part is that because I leave it open a lot, the easiest way to pick it up is by the top of the screen: I KNOW THIS IS BAD and if you don't know this is bad then TAKE MY WORD FOR IT IT'S BAD. Anyway, spare me your tsking because of course the hinges have snapped. The hinges at the sides that allow the lid to open and close, I mean. At first, it was only one hinge, and I was irritated and rough with it because I had no idea what was going on... you don't really expect something MECHANICAL to bollocks up on your laptop, you know? Catastrophic hard drive failure, or pixels failing in the screen, fine, but not a piece of metal wearing out from fatigue. Well, maybe you do. I sure as hell didn't. Googling has since taught me that this particular laptop is rife for broken hinges, well THANK YOU GOOGLE as I DID NOT THINK to check 'hinge durability' during my quest for a laptop. If you did think to check this, then kudos to you, because it certainly never crossed my mind.

Anyway, when your hinge breaks, and then your other hinge breaks, and Mr. T unscrews your laptop screen surround and informs you that your laptop is ALL KINDS OF FUCKED, what happens is that the screen part becomes attached to the keyboard part by only a couple of wires. This seems fine, until you realise that to use a laptop, the screen has to be sort of VERTICAL. Being attached by wires only means it pretty much stays HORIZONTAL, if not leaning drunkenly towards the floor or sliding alarmingly to the side, meaning you have to lunge desperately at the screen lest it part ways entirely with the rest of the laptop. What this means in practice is that you have to use your laptop with your knees drawn up, so as to let the screen part rest backwards against your knees. The other way you can do this is to lie on your side on the new carpet, and stand the laptop up on its side, tilting the screen to its preferred angle. Of course, it's then completely impossible to type, so apologies if my commenting dips from its current craptastic levels down to non-existent.

This all sounds sad, right? It's even sadder when you realise this happened several months ago, and I ebayed and purchased the correct hinges, and they arrived and Mr. T installed them and my laptop was all happy again (although not really, as the hinges were second hand and already temperamental). Anyway, this lasted about eight weeks and I sort of got back into my laptop routine and I once (twice) (couple of times maybe) (definitely) picked it up by its screen again. Guess what? Yeah. I need to get back onto ebay. And also stop being such a DUMBARSE.

many snippets with no cohesion

2008-06-02T22:16:00.010+10:00

It's June! Month of sporadic posting! Let's see how I go. Actually, I keep emailing entries to myself from work so that I can post them when I get home, then when I get home and read them, I conclude I am clearly on drugs. Such as the below, which I wrote around about Wednesday last week:

Today I am wearing a long skirt, pulled up to tube-top style so I'm wearing it as a dress. There's a long sleeved top underneath, but I don't know. I can't get past the fact I'm wearing a skirt up to my armpits. I feel a bit like an old man with my trousers pulled up too high. I'm also wearing my suede Boots of Pain, and you know what? No pain. It's also not raining today, a strategic advantage when wearing suede boots. Actually I'm lying about the pain, now that I think about it the sides of my index fingers are sore from pulling up the zips. Send in the clowns.

Right, see, so I'm not too fussed with editing my own stream-of-consciousness, so the whole emailing stuff to post later is a bit confronting for me. Blurt it out and forget about it, that's my motto. Anyway, here's another one about the one thing I've actually done recently:

I booked our flights to San Francisco last week... yes I did. It's on frequent flyer points, but we are still paying the taxes (damn you Qantas and your craphole frequent flyer system) and all the expenses associated with it. Why are we going on a three-week overseas holiday in the same year we bought a house? Because we are mental and have no idea of the concept of money. I scare myself, frankly. Regardless, once I get over the hyperventilation, the trip itself will be great. In my defence, this holiday has been planned (in a concept sense) for over 12 months and I insisted on the annual leave when I came to the new job; so might as well take it up. It started as an adjunct to a conference Mr. T had in Oklahoma, but the conference was cancelled and the holiday was... not. There will be road tripping, Grand Canyoning, Disneylanding, tramping through national parks (likely Yosemite but maybe over to Joshua Tree? to be decided), vague plans of maybe Canada or more likely Mexico (TOLD you this was vague), then back through Honolulu for a few days to get over the vagueness. Suggestions welcomed.

And suggestions are indeed welcomed, although that probably means I have to do something about them, and frankly I don't know if that's on the cards. But if any Americans reading want, I don't know, Tim Tams or a cork hat or a wombat or something, I am more than happy to import one for you. Except for maybe the wombat as those are heavy fuckers and I'm pretty sure that would blow my baggage allowance. Also wombats are probably classified as 'liquid' and I'm sure as shit not attempting to stuff an angry wombat into a small plastic bag.

And here's the last one I wrote, we're now up to date as this was written last weekend (not the weekend just gone, the one before that, not that you care):

This weekend had stunning autumn weather (Melbourne does this so well) and as a result I got completely zero accomplished. Oh wait, we bought the rods for the wardrobes, but didn't hang them. The wardrobes are these giant built-in jobs, and when I say 'built in' I mean they go all the way to the ceiling, but they've been added in after the house was built. What this really means is that they were nailed in OVER the top of the old carpet, causing us to freak out and wonder how the hell we were going to get the carpet out to recarpet. (Answer: just pull the carpet out from under the framework. I shudder to think of the building compliance of our house.) Anyway, apart from this small glitch, the wardrobes were sort of organised; in that there were racks of those white wire baskets built in. Now, I am no fan of organised wardrobes generally (I KNOW, I am a heathen and hate all that most home renovators hold dear) and twenty-year old white wire baskets, which are flaking and cracking and discoloured and generally vile, are not likely to help me change my mind. So those got pulled out (they'll be on my front verge soon if you want to come and pick them up) and there will be hanging rails across the whole wardrobe space. Well, there WILL be. After the weather turns bad again, probably.

....and to finish: they are up! I have hanging space! A happy ending. I know you're as thrilled by this big finale as me.

Note to self for tomorrow: ghetto laptop. Cryptic,no? (No. It really is a ghetto laptop). All will be explained.

how did I get here?

2008-05-05T22:08:00.004+10:00

My internet is intermittently phasing in and out and it is KILLING me. This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. I am trying to DO STUFF here, internet! I mean, the correct thing to do here is turn the internet off, but it is patently obvious that I don't know how to do that.

I have spent an horrific amount of money lately and it needs to stop. I aimlessly wander through the internet and then I BUY IT. Just like other people wander through stores, only I am too lazy and busy to do this. Actually I was wandering through Target at one stage, minding my own business, when a saleslady of advanced age came up to me. She was brandishing those PixiFoto portraits that Target had at one stage, trying to sell me a photo package. "Would you like these beautiful family portraits?" she asked me, waiving a large portrait shot of two mildly ugly children in my direction. I opened my mouth to say, "But I don't even know those people!" then snapped it shut again. But really, I should have said it. I really DIDN'T know those people.

I think I have had too much sugar today. This is rating up there with the day I had a bottle of V at work (energy drink, similar to Red Bull but not as horrible); and the bottle is significant as it's twice as large as the can. Then, as you do, I bought a bottle of red ice tea at lunch, but I failed to see that the ice tea contained guarana. And really, why would I look for that? Who would expect ice tea to contain guarana? Who would put that into tea? Anyway, after the equivalent of 4 energy drinks, I was a wired mess and couldn't sit still. I basically kept printing things out, one page at a time, so I could stomp the length of the building to the printer and work off some energy. I feel sort of like that, but for no reason. Rarg! Hulk smash!

Also, I am allergic to something and have little itchy hive things. I never react to anything, so this is odd. (First person to suggest I am allergic to the carpet and should stop rolling on it gets a DEATH STARE from me. Only because this started before we had the carpet laid... don't think I hadn't thought of it.) I think it might be the soap I'm using, so I went back to the original soap. Hopefully this works out for me as otherwise I am out of ideas. Anyway, being itchy is not fun and I don't enjoy it. If I get hayfever next I will not best be pleased. Oh, this paragraph should really be in the post below, as it's something I'm annoyed about, but really this whole blog is Something I'm Annoyed About so I don't feel I've miscategorised.

annoying

2008-04-30T20:53:00.002+10:00

Every time Mr. T gives me a snack, like a biscuit or an Easter egg or something, he bites it first. Just to annoy me. HE TAXES MY FOOD. He tries to pretend he is testing it, like for poisons, but YOU KNOW it's not true.

In this new house, Mr. T taught the dog that when he comes in the back door, he cannot walk through the kitchen to get to his dog bed - he has to go around it, by walking through the lounge and back around into the dining room. (There's no real reason for this, apart from Mr. T's belief that dogs aren't allowed in the kitchen.) Unfortunately we are now severely confusing him by INSISTING he go through the kitchen... as this keeps his dirty outside paws off the new carpet (my prreciousssss). The poor dog is trying to be good and dart past whoever is acting as point guard, to go his normal way through the house... then he gets yelled at. I'm not annoyed at the dog for this, more that we didn't see this coming and let him walk through the kitchen from the start.

Actually, that's all I think I'm annoyed about at the moment. Surely that's some sort of record?

renovating sucks. It powerful sucks.

2008-04-27T21:21:00.004+10:00

Ah, the Simpsons. Now I have been reminded, I can see "powerful sucks" re-entering my lexicon. Does lexicon mean what I think it means? No matter. Oh, speaking of word things, as I published that last post, Blogger popped up a message which said "auto save failed, cannot find content" or some such crap, and I tell you if nothing had published there was no way I was writing all that out again. Seriously. It wasn't half interesting enough the first time round, and as I have set the bar so low, I see no reason to challenge myself.

Anyway, the carpet guys came on Friday (yes, on a public holiday, but it was their choice) and we were up until 1am the night before painting the lounge while we still had the freedom to drip paint all over hardwood floors. Yes, we have hardwood floors and yes, we are covering them up with carpet. You know what? I hate hardwood floors. I know I am the only person in the Western world who feels this way, but I don't care. Every person who's been in here since we ripped up the old carpets have raved about the floors and assumed we are going to polish them up... no no no no no. They are cold, noisy, drafty, the dog has been digging his claws in to prevent sliding all over them like he's lost control of his limbs, and they require the purchase of multiple rugs which then slide all over the floors and look like shit. I KNOW, I AM HEATHEN. But really, people, they are COLD. They are NOISY: for the two weeks we lived with them, we could hear each other clonking all over the house, and there's only two of us: we sounded like stampeding wildebeests. They are UGLY: there are replacement boards down the middle of some rooms, there are holes in the floor chinked up with spare bits of pine, some rooms have already been (poorly) varnished and require a complete strip back, and.... even when they're done properly I don't even like the look of it. KILL ME NOW I DON'T DESERVE TO HAVE THIS HOUSE. I know, I should be in a brand new 5 bedroom mcmansion in a subdivision. Well, maybe next time. Until then I have taken photos of the floor under this carpet and will keep them until we sell the house, where the next buyer can think of the GORGEOUS things they can do with the floors under the carpet. Better them than me.

Anyway, back to the carpet. I LOVE my carpet. When we bought the house, we thought the original carpet might be liveable - you know when you walk through a house a couple of times, then buy it, then don't see it again for weeks in which you obsess about just what it is you have actually bought? Yeah, well we remembered the carpet being crap, but when we got into the house we discovered the owners had been extremely crafty with furniture/rug placement and not only did it suck, it powerful sucked. There was two different types of carpet through the house, swapping randomly from one to the other, room by room. The carpet in the lounge was grey shag, which clashed beyond belief with our brown sofas and furniture. The other carpet was blue and looked almost industrial. There were mysterious stains and bits unravelling and my favourite, an iron faceplate burnt deep into the carpet in the family room. So yes, we decided the carpet had to go. Luckily a friend of a friend is a carpet dude, who just happened to have a house lot of carpet that he had started to lay in a million-dollar house, before the lady of the house burst into tears and said she had ordered the wrong colour. It may have been the wrong colour for her, but it is damn perfect for us, just slightly lighter than I would have chosen (and only because of keeping it clean, not because I don't like the colour). Anyway, we have super-expensive carpet, and super-deluxe underlay, for a nylon-industrial-carpet budget price. I love it so, so much. I may have, in fact, lay down on my back on the new carpet and writhed around with my legs kicking in the air like an ecstatic dog. I don't have a photo of that, so you'll have to make do with the below:

The lounge, before. I don't know what's on the TV but this is mid-pulling up the grey shag carpet. Note the high-quality foam chip underlay (possibly the cheapest you can buy, if you don't count egg cartons). The timestamp on this photo tells me this is 9.09pm, which is pretty early in the piece. We probably spent the next three hours pulling up carpet staples and swearing at each other.

This is the same shot of the lounge, but with the TV moved out to the dining room to the left. The hardwood floors don't look half bad here... believe me when I tell you this was the best room for floors. It also had a fine mist of paint spray around every edge from the last time someone painted the walls (with a paint gun, obviously).

After. Mmmmmmmmm. Carpet.

party like it's your birthday

2008-04-21T22:16:00.002+10:00

Look, I'm never going to write anything if i try to write down everything. I'm going to have to start slow and go from there.

My hands are covered in paint as I'm writing this... there are one and a half rooms to go. This doesn't count the lino-ed rooms (kitchen, dining room, 2 x bathrooms) which will wait for another time. The new carpet is coming on Friday, thus the haste for painting while I can still drip paint on the horrible, horrible old carpet with equanimity.
I can't see the TV because there is a mattress standing on its side between me and it. The TV. Because we've been sleeping in the lounge for weeks due to paint fumes. Well, for days due to paint fumes. Weeks, due to laziness to put back up the curtains. It's not so bad except the dog can walk straight onto the bed and lie down on your throat. Well, he's only done that once. Twice.
It was my birthday. I had cake. It was good.
The cat has gone missing, the day of the massive storms in Melbourne. This is not good and I am heartsick about it. We have letter dropped, signs, rung all the shelters repeatedly. We spend hours walking the streets calling. Which is also not good because it excites the dog and he looks around for the cat. Awful. I'm not talking about this any more, and won't until we find him.
Before all this, it was Easter and I went back to New Zealand. It was good and the weather was great. Man, I haven't written here for a LONG time.
I resigned from my job and am starting a new one in three weeks. This will be good but I am sad to leave all the people at my old job. Well, most of the people.
I tried on a dress today and loved it, then casually looked at the price tag before I bought it. It was $249. I had no idea and I will not pay that. It was a tough call though, because I have no willpower. But I also have no money. I also didn't buy green Camper boots, which were considerably more than $249, but they didn't fit them properly so I didn't feel so bad about leaving those behind.

I think that's all for now. I don't even have any photos. Well I do, but they're all in the camera. But if I wait until I have photos... I think you know the rest.

a day in the life

2008-03-11T22:04:00.002+11:00

So that leap day thing? Never happened. I had to get up impossibly early and put my car in for a service, and before I even left the premises they had phoned me to tell me I had the "old engine" and the quote was going to be different. Take a guess: is the older engine going to be MORE or LESS expensive to service? Oh yeah. Double that quote. And also we'll make you late for work. kthxbye.

Oh, and THEN my day was frenetic and hugely filled with work and I honestly didn't leave my desk except to go to meetings, the printer, the photocopier or the toilet. None of which are suitable photographic subjects. And I did take photos but they were of work things, for work reasons, so I don't think posting unlaunched products or clearly branded items is really the way to advance the old career. So in the end, I did this on March 1, which was a Saturday and much more conducive to photo taking. See the full thing on flickr below:

...if you want to, I mean.

photo

2008-02-28T22:46:00.001+11:00

I might do this tomorrow. Anyone else on board?

hubris

2008-02-22T22:45:00.002+11:00

Yeah. So I posted my beach picture, stood up from the couch and went to have a shower... only to have Mr. T start yelling for me to come back and see this. Then he said, "Oh no wait... maybe you don't want to see this."

He was right. I really don't want to see this.

Oh, you can't tell how big that is? (Or you're focusing desperately on my my pink glass lightshade in the dining room through there?) That is one BIG MOTHERFUCKING HUNTSMAN. Oh, you'd like a closeup? How nice of you to ask...

I actually couldn't resize these to my normal size as I couldn't bear to. Yeah, so guess who else likes the beach? Fucking giant spiders. Glorious. My personal favourite.

summer

2008-02-21T23:10:00.002+11:00

It's been such beautiful weather the last few days... I wish I lived near a beach or something.

*not gloating just feeling extremely lucky*

*also omg I have a mortgage and will have to work until the end of time*

busybusybusy

2008-02-18T21:30:00.002+11:00

You know what? This is my three-hundredth post. How about that. I would have got here sooner, but I've been busy. What with buying a house and moving and all.

Yep, Mr. T and I have finally bitten the bullet in Melbourne and purchased a house. Looking back I'm surprised I didn't talk about all the many many weekends driving around looking at houses, complete with Mr. T's carefully annotated spreadsheet of places in open-home-time order which we had to visit. I still have it - there is a column for comments, in which I have attempted to jot notes to remind myself which house is which. A couple of them just say things like "scary" and "bad renovation" and my favourite, "omg drug house" which... OK, can you tell we didn't want to spend much money here? Not that we COULD spend much money, but in fact if we were willing to go with what the banks were willing to lend ("Sure, we think a monthly mortgage repayment of 1.5 people's salary is totally manageable!") we could be set up in a very nice mansion indeed. Of course, I wouldn't be able to sleep, what with worrying about the mortgage and all, so we went for a more manageable (yet still SHITKICKINGLY expensive) option and ended up here, bayside on the wrong side of the Westgate Bridge.

That's right, you heard it here first. I am. a. WESTIE. Also, I need to buy moccasins. And possibly trackie daks. We are in an old suburb, about 1km from the beach, in a brick house, and it's a cross between liveable and a fixer-upper. We are pretty pleased. The dog is happy. The cat is unmoved (and yes I lost him outside for a few heart-stopping hours - things never go smoothly with the cat and moving). I have put off writing this for so long in the theory there will be photos... but I can't find my memory card reader and since there are still boxes everywhere I can't see it happening for a while. The kitchen is unpacked (LOVE the kitchen) and everything else is on hold under the premise that we might be replacing the carpets. Also, I just can't be bothered unpacking any more. Oh look, I found a photo:

House keys.
Next post: Why I need hundreds of house keys.

let the battle begin

2008-01-19T21:53:00.000+11:00

When we watch Iron Chef, we always guess what the battle is going to be. (If you don't watch the strange Japanese wonder that is Iron Chef, there are two chefs competing to serve a menu based on a theme ingredient, and the ingredient is called the Battle. If you search youtube you can see clips for Sushi Battle, Liver Battle, Bell Pepper Battle, Rabbit Battle and Natto Battle, and no doubt many more because these people are insane.)

Anyway, tonight I guessed Parsley Battle and Mr. T guessed Lobster Battle. However, we were both wrong as it was Chicken Battle (how unimaginatively unlike the Iron Chef). Anyway, it reminded me of another Iron Chef a few months ago, which started when I was out of the room, and Mr. T hollered out, "There's a warning saying this episode is graphic and may upset some viewers!"

I yelled back, "PUPPY BATTLE!"

a new year

2008-01-03T21:37:00.000+11:00

Thanks for your comments; everyone is doing OK. The Brown Dog is sleeping a lot more, but I don't know whether that's because the Black Dog used to keep him awake (hardly likely) or because the weather has been scorchingly hot. The cat has also been sleeping more, but that is because Mr. T bought a tray of mangoes and put the box in the lounge. So if you need some sleeping in a box done, I can get someone right on it. Very reasonable rates. Can supply his own box.

Also, can I recommend Aldi for all your gingerbread train-kit-in-a-box needs? Or, as the Germans would say, your zug needs. (I can't remember the german word for gingerbread; it was long and had the funny beta-double-s-letter-thing). This is now almost all eaten; sad, considering how long it took me to laboriously ice together in the scorching heat of a 41 degree New Years Eve.

Also, I am back at work. Woe. There is an extreme lack of zug at my workplace. I should get on that.

little dog

2007-12-29T17:49:00.000+11:00

On 28 December we had to have our Black Dog put to sleep. He was almost 10.

He had bloat - where the stomach twists over, common in big dogs and dogs who bolt their food. The Black Dog was both of these things.

He was also the happiest, most touchy-feely, most irritating, most loving dog there was.

Goodbye scouterdog. You did good.

pa rumpum pum pum

2007-12-23T01:12:00.000+11:00

I lost the internet for a while there. I was down to dialup. DIAL. UP. I actually fell asleep waiting for my email to download. It was a horrible, horrible time and I thought our internet company was going to charge $149 for the privilege of reinstating the ASDL... then, last night, my Skype button came up as Online and my eyes went wide with the wonder of the season and lo, it was suddenly a Very Merry Christmas For All.

Even though all my Christmas shopping is done and dusted (you hate me don't you), we went out for breakfast today then stopped into JB HiFi to have a look around. Don't question me. Anyway, it was a bit crowded and I got bored, so as we walked out we noticed the queue for the register was snaking back towards the doors, and the more we walked towards the door THE LONGER THE QUEUE BECAME. It was like a cartoon where the background loops round and round; we kept walking past racks of DVDs and CDs and a never-ending single file of people, all standing still clutching Harry Potter or a Wii or some other electronic paraphernalia. Twas scary, scary I tell you, and when we got outside it was pissing rain, so we made a pact to stay in the house for the next 48 hours. Now the internet is back, I don't think I'll have any problems with this. There is actually a wet cat trying to climb onto my lap as we speak, I DON'T THINK SO.

Anyway, in case I don't get around to posting before Festivus, I hope everyone has a lovely holiday and manages to eat the weight of a small child in scorched almonds. I know that's my new year's resolution, right there.

Photo taken two years ago - tree is still alive, just a little bushier.

I didn't realise this was so long when I started it

2007-12-04T23:38:00.000+11:00

What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now?
The green minty Lush one - Demon in the Dark? It doesn't last long enough though.

Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator?
Yes! I should go and EAT IT!

What would you change about your living room?
Less dog hair. Cleaner fireplace. I don't mind it, apart from that.

Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty?
No dishwasher... and I don't think there are any dishes in the sink (because I ate leftovers for dinner, ahahaha!)

What is in your fridge?
Cheese, cheese, milk, cheese, condiments, aforementioned watermelon, I think a green vegetable or two, eggs, cheese.

White or wheat bread?
I prefer white bread, but will eat multigrain if feeling glum.

What is on top of your refrigerator?
Massive amounts of dust, tall jar of spaghetti because it won't fit in the cupboards, multivitamins and various jars of whey protein powder stuff (which belong to Mr. T, obviously).

What colour or design is on your shower curtain?
Glass door over thebath, thank god. I always hated the way the shower curtain would gently touch you with its clammy fingertips, then suddenly suction itself to you and stick all the way up your back. Brrrrr.

How many plants are in your home?
In the actual house? Four succulents, a jasmine plant in a wire hen (I should take a photo of that one), baby's breath in the bottom of the birdcage (ditto photo), tall skinny succulent-like thing in the lounge that's losing it's green through lack of direct sunlight. I think that's all, but it's probably not.

Is your bed made right now?
Um. Yeah, of course it is.

Comet or Soft Scrub?
What are these, cleansers? Jif. Which to you Comet people means peanut butter, and IT SERVES YOU RIGHT.

Is your closet organized?
No. And neither is the wardrobe. In fact the door came off its runner about a week ago and I haven't bothered to get Mr. T to put it back in. I heaved the door over to his side so that you can't get in -- he hasn't noticed yet.

Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home?
Glass. I can't remember the last time I drank out of plastic, unless you mean a plastic bottle?

Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now?
Why the hell would I?

If you have a garage, is it cluttered?
Lack of garage, hence the cluttered house and the camping equipment piled up in the spare room.

Curtains or blinds?
Curtains in the bedroom, nothing on any of the other windows.

How many pillows do you sleep with?
One.

Do you sleep with any lights on at night?
No, although I can.

How often do you vacuum?
Never, ever enough. Hence the Roomba.

Standard toothbrush or electric?
Normal. There is an electric one somewhere in the bathroom cabinet. I could look for it, if you'd like.

Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch?
Yes, a coir one. Covered with leaves. Very welcoming, I'm sure.

What is in your oven right now?
Three roasting pans (clean).

Is there anything under your bed?
Another bed.

Chore you hate doing the most?
I hate vacuuming because it never ends.

What retro items are in your home?
More than I care to admit. eBay, you are my weakness.

Do you have a separate room that you use as an office?
Oh, of course. It's right upstairs next to the gift wrapping room. I just haven't found the stairs yet.

How many mirrors are in your home?
Um... five, I think, if you count the little inset mirror in the mantlepiece of the fireplace. And why not.

What colour are your walls?
Cream, with a mud coloured feature line at dog height. (Actually I've just scrubbed that off. AGAIN.)

Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home?
The hell? I think Mr. T has a bat or an axe handle or something.

What does your home smell like right now?
Nothing.

Favorite candle scent?
I don't like scented candles much, sorry.

Ever been on your roof?
No.

How many TVs do you have?
Two.

How many house phones?
Four, because the base unit came with three extras. We only use one.

Do you have a housekeeper?
No. Are you offering one?

What style do you decorate in?
You are too kind. 'Style' presumes too much.

Do you like solid colours in furniture or prints?
Solids, although some prints I like. Mainly I'm too chicken to decorate in prints.

Is there a smoke detector in your home?
Yes, although I haven't heard it go off lately. Either we're burning less food, or the battery is dead.

In case of fire, what are the items in your house which you’d grab if you only could make one quick trip?
The backup hard drive, the photo albums, and I'd herd the animals out the door in front of me. Who am I kidding, they'd be out long before I would.

facts of randomness

2007-11-30T23:31:00.000+11:00

I am tres slack. Bernice tagged me for five things and have I done it? I have not. I have had a massive week at work and lo, it was crap and sucked the will to live from me, verily. So here we go:

RULES (v. important)
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names, and links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

FACT THE ONE
I don't get enough sleep. I get extremely tired around 3pm (work nap? oh I wish), then again at 7-8pm, then come right with boundless energy at about 9.30pm. I know I am tired right now, but it's 12.45am and I don't feel tired at all. I WILL feel this in the morning. I am a night person stuck in a day world. The sun! It BURRRRNS!

This dog sleeps 22 hours a day and yet is always up for a nap.

FACT THE TWO
I would have said I am not a skirt person, but this whole NaBloShoeThing has made me rethink this: it seems that in reality, I wear skirts to work all the time. I think it's because it looks dressed up with no effort. I actually feel the same way about heels: as long as they're comfortable, you look like you've put some thought into what you're wearing. Whereas my average thought process takes around 20 seconds: is this clean? Well, then, where are some clean things? Does this clean thing need ironing? Can I find a clean thing which doesn't need ironing? Then this is the thing I'm wearing.

Metallicus skirts never need ironing. Bless them.

FACT THE THREE
The number of animals in this household has gone up to eight. Well, it was eight on Sunday when Mr. T bought home five goldfish & some oxygen weed to live in the rainwater overflow barrels. (They were to eat the mosquito larvae which had started to breed in the water.) As of today, Friday, we can only find one. Here fishy fishy fishy?

Fishy?

FACT THE FOUR
I dream about work a lot. There's nothing more exhausting than waking up in the morning and realising you've done your job all night. That sucks.

I don't have a photo for this one.

FACT THE FIVE
For someone who hates people looking at me, I do a lot of stupid things. Last week two co-workers were in one of our glassed-walled meeting rooms, on a phone conference. To make them laugh and get them to disrupt the phone hookup, I did a wild, flailing dance from my side of the glass wall. I forgot that my side also contained the entire rest of the office, who were all looking at me with great interest when I turned around. Ah well. Fuck 'em.

Set my dog on them, I will!

I'm not tagging anyone as it's too late and all normal people are abed. Lucky, lucky sods.

happy feet

2007-11-16T21:11:00.001+11:00

So I took a photo yesterday, but forgot to post it, as - in an interesting twist - I went to the doctor to ask about a shooting pain in my foot. I know! It's like a theme! Turns out I have an aggravated nerve, or something. I sort of lost focus when he measured my feet and pointed out that the left one was bigger than the right. I then told him about my winter quest to Make Those Shoes Fit, a.k.a. the Nine West Heels of Pain. He agreed trying to stretch shoes with only the power of my mind is bound to be painful on the feet, particularly if one of the feet is a Giant Mutant 5mm wider than the other. So I'm pretty sure that's what's done it, and since it's coming into summer and it will be all about the open shoe, he thinks the nerve will come right. Which is good. Because nobody likes an aggravated nerve. God only knows what could happen.

Anyway, here are my shoes from Thursday. Yes they are the gold versions of the black ones. They're new and they don't aggravate my nerve (that sounds sort of dirty) so I wear them a lot. Go to Flickr if you want the extensively annotated botanical listing.

And this was today. Actually, it wasn't really as I wore the black ones AGAIN. However this is after I got home and was going out again to pick up dinner. It was 30 degrees today so Havaianas are perfectly acceptable, I think. And they don't get on my Nerve.

feets!

2007-11-14T20:52:00.000+11:00

Hey, so OK, apparently there's this thing where instead of posting once per day, you take a photo of your shoes once per day. Now THAT is something I can totally get behind. If I had known this at the start of November, you might have heard a bit more from me. What? It's not like I had anything important to say. And if this shoe thing keeps up, you might want me to disappear back to whence I came.

Here are my shoes from today, after I got home from work.

For some reason, at the moment the cat finds everything I do FASCINATING. He follows me around and watches me. He's a nice cat. Except yesterday I emailed Mr. T and asked if I could get an orange cat and call it Colonel Mustard. He said no. Which is why I asked him, because another animal is not something we need. But still! Colonel Mustard! I would call him "the Colonel". Genius.

nablogrowmo

2007-11-07T19:45:00.000+11:00

I get nabloplomo and movember mixed up. Throw in some 'o's and I'm all askew. Also, I'm not signing up for either. My work is a massive Movember sponsor and I have received no less than a dozen emails asking me to sign up to someone's team, including the CEO. (Disclaimer: probably was not the CEO, but whatever.) Keep in mind that most guys LOVE growing moustaches and you can imagine my workplace will be a sort of throwback to the seventies in several weeks. And they TOUCH them all the time. Creepy. I keep yelling, "Nya-ah-ah! It is I, Dishonest John!" but they are all youngsters barely out of short pants and they look at me blankly.

I counted out all the change lying around the house and took it all to the bank again this morning. Then a collector came to the door tonight, gamely standing his ground with only a screen door between him and what must have seemed to be a Hound of Hell, baying and stamping and puffing gusts of hot breath through the wire . And of course I had no change to give him. I scraped up some gold coins from the bottom of my handbag (thinking "bugger there goes my parking money") and wished him godspeed. Well, I had to do something, brave soul that he was.

I made spaghetti sort-of-carbonara onight for dinner OH MY GOD THE CAT HAS JUST POKED HIS HEAD OUT FROM UNDER THE COUCH, DIRECTLY UNDER ME, THAT WAS REALLY SURREAL and had to pour out the bacon fat after I cooked the bacon. I won't pour fat down the sink and hate figuring out what to do with it. This time, I poured it directly onto the slice of roast pork saved from last night's roast, and destined for the dog's dinners. They should treat me like a GOD. ...oh wait, they do.

Whilst cooking, I forced iTunes to play the soundtrack from Across the Universe, which was better than I was expecting. However it's quite a short soundtrack, and by the time I had finished cooking and had moved to the lounge for eating, iTunes had moved on to the next A, which was Aerosmith. And I would not get up and change it. (The collector guy arrived right in the middle of Love In An Elevator, and I was slightly embarrassed, but not enough to hit shuffle.) Then two songs I did not know came on, and this is because we have the Billboard Top 100 Hits from every year from 1980 - 2003, which is way, WAY too much 80s and 90s music. iTunes tells me this was After 7, a group I have never heard of, but I do know that they had a top 100 Hit in both 1990 and 1995. It was awful, and I was sort of twitching, but I STILL would not get up to change it. Now we are onto Air, more specifically the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, and I like Air but this is quite maudlin and I am close to despair. Woe! Hopefully we will move onto something good soon.

I just checked, and you know what it is?

Air Supply.

Send help. Or someone able to hit a Shuffle button.

pictures

2007-10-22T01:31:00.000+10:00

It was hot here this weekend.

And we ended up with a yearly bonus after all.
I may have begun spending mine.

Old friends.
Yes, they choose to sleep in the messiest place they can find, purely to spoil my photo.

waspish

2007-10-16T22:42:00.000+10:00

I have to get the rugby off the top of the page. It was cold today, didn't you think?

woe!

2007-10-08T22:05:00.000+10:00

Woe! We lost the rugby: badly, ignominiously, and quite frankly, we choked. Sigh. Another four years. I watched the Wallabies/England game with my English friend in an English pub and had the greatest time - then I was punished for my schadenfreude within a very short time. Woe.

And now I have discovered that the reason my email is playing up is that Thunderbird (which I use for email) has been affected by a McAfee update. But that shouldn't concern me, right? I don't even own McAfee! Ah, but I USED to run it on this laptop (actually I had no choice, it came free for 30 days already pre-installed) and it turns out there are still bits of it running, even though I have uninstalled it. Woe! HATE. HATE. HATE. I have fixed it now, but not before it ate my entire folder with emails to/from this blog. At one point I had the headers but no content; now after a bit more tinkering, I have nothing at all. G-O-R-N. It's gorn, all right. Bugger. Nothing important on there, as such; but still, nothing that I wanted to lose. Curses! If you emailed me and I didn't reply, now you know why. (Asides from the fact I am lazy, of course. You knew that.) Woe.

Anyway, enough woe. I have unpacked some more boxes and we can see the TV. Mr. T got the ironing board out and ironed his own shirts, then ironed some of my clothes. Liking the Mr. T v2.0 I have to say (although the original problem had nothing to do with ironing, of course. However! He is ironing! Slowly and poorly, but it's not me!) Of course, this means he has to watch a DVD while he's doing it, so we have Batman Begins booming at top volume. All those bats are awful and flappy in surround-sound, so you know. Woe. (Not really woe, it just rhymed nicely.)

I have no photos, again. This was taken by Mr. T on a shocking phone camera, then modified and emailed to me.

That's MY laptop, I'll have you know.

yawn

2007-10-04T23:05:00.000+10:00

I'm so tired. All my days got mixed up, and I was blithely making my way through Tuesday when I realised it was actually Wednesday and all the things I thought I had an extra 24 hours to accomplish, were in fact due in mere minutes. Sob. And this morning I woke up convinced it was Friday. Nothing is sadder than thinking it is Friday when it is not. Except maybe thinking it's Saturday. Yes, that's worse. Carry on.

Anyway I have moved out of my little playhouse and moved back in with Mr. T. Yay for me. Well, yay for him, because I am clearly a splendid person. Also, the empty lot next to my apartment is about to be built on... NO NO I GO NOW. So I have cleaned that house, emptied it and crammed all my stuff back into this tiny house. Also I bought more stuff. That's what I do. At the moment we are sitting in the lounge, and my feet are tucked up under me on the couch because there is no room to put them anywhere else. I can only see the top half of the TV because of the boxes stacked in front of them. Mr. T needs to iron a shirt, but the ironing board was foolishly in the corner of the room when we started moving stuff, so now it's quarantined behind several boxes, a cabinet, a duvet and two airing racks. And a dog, because somehow they have crammed themselves in here as well. And the saddest part? The lounge is the one room I was trying to keep relatively clear of stuff. You don't want to see the bedroom (hint: two mattresses on one bed base make a REALLY tall bed; I feel like the Princess and the Pea (the princess, not the pea)) and you really, really don't want to see the spare room. Rumour has it there is a window at the end. I don't think I'll see it from the inside again in my lifetime.

I am working out of my company's other office for a month, which puts me right near the Skipping Girl sign. You know where that is, I'm sure? That's right, CLOSE TO IKEA. Only I could write about having a house crammed to the rafters with crap, then with no irony whatsoever discuss the merits of working close to a mega furniture store. Honestly, I couldn't even fit an extra candle in here with a crowbar.

... well. Maybe ONE candle.

Bye, little kitchen. How I envy your clear benches.

the show

2007-09-23T22:40:00.000+10:00

The Brown Dog didn't win at the show. Not that he cares. He was a bit busy making new friends.

Also, breaking news: dogs do not like fairy floss.