Author: awmalloyadmin

Am I the only person who has problem books? These are books that I want to read, that I have started many times but never ever finish. Every time I pick up one of my Problem Books I power on but deep down know I’ll probably run in to problems again. I have two in particular that I should make a super human effort on. The surprising thing is these are both books I really, really want to read.

The first is the final Harry Potter. Yes, the very same book I went and sat in line for the morning it was released. I’ve never made it past the fourth chapter in four tries. The other is the final Rebus novel, five attempts at that one and no further than the third chapter. And just to prove it’s not only ‘final’ books there’s one Iain Banks novel, Dead Air, that I just can’t get in to and I’ve tried his, as Iain M Banks, Player Of Games umpteen millions of times.

I’m currently waiting on a few books from the UK (oddly enough, one is by iain Banks and another by Ian Rankin) and have a week or so window until the first should arrive. So, tell me, what should I read?

Deathly Hallows, Exit Music or Dead Air? Leave your votes in the comments, I’ll start it on the weekend.

It’s council hard rubbish collection morning this morning. All weekend piles of refuse have been appearing on nature strips, huge numbers of unwanted fridges, lawn mower and even the odd elliptical trainer have parked themselves waiting for the truck.

Lying in bed last night we heard a truck pull up and begin idling. Okay, a little odd at 10:00pm. Then there was the banging and thumping so I hopped up to investigate. It was a bloke, complete with fluro safety top, lugging Joseph’s old fridge on to the back of an already bulging truck. He finally finished this and added Ange’s lawn mower before pulling around to load up our neighbours lawn mower as well.

This is when she came running out and yelled “what the hell are you doing?”.

Now here’s the question that kept Rae and I chatting away. Did he have the right to go and help himself to other peoples junk, presumably to make a profit on further down the track.

Is he a civic minded, recycler of unwanted goods or a thieving parasite making money and not sharing the proceeds with the owners of what he took?

What do you think? And bonus points if you can guess which one of us was on which side of the argument.

The Tigers played their final home game for 2009 last night and all I can say is thank god that season is over. I got no joy at all from the footy this year and if it hadn’t have been for my reserved seat I probably wouldn’t have gone to many games. As it is I didn’t see one win this year and the toll of turning up knowing we didn’t have a chance was just too much. I sat and shivered through the embarrassment that was our loss to Hawthorn but left at three quarter time. I used the excuse I wanted to beat the freeway closure but in all honesty I spent more time checking my phone than watching my team last night.

Given we can’t replace the entire team in one go there’s more years of this ahead. It’s going to be hard but I’ll keep my seat, renew my membership and hope that before too long going to a game will be something to look forward to, not something to endure.

No, I’m not fiddling with the blog again. It’s OS update time. Two Vista, one Ubuntu and two Windows 7 RC installs are about to be upgraded to Windows 7.

This could go either way. I could be a very happy boy this evening, at least until I head off to the footy, or you’ll hear the cries of anguish from wherever you are in the world.

First up is Rae’s laptop, here we go….

I wish you could take photos of wind. I was just caught outside in the most amazing wind gust, it literally took my breath away – I couldn’t breath. It’s toppled heavy recycling bins and the empty garbage bins have all been blown in to a pile at the bottom of the street. I grabbed ours just as it took off and waited a second for the neighbour’s bin to glide to a halt at my feet, they’re both tucked away out of the wind now.

I was too late to move the recycling, I watched as two weeks worth of news papers blew to god only knows where, every other bin in the street is on its side, contents blown away.

Just lost power for a second too – everything flickered and my UPS kicked in.

Mother Nature sure ain’t a happy gal today.

It seems I’ve actually done the right thing by Bert and Kennedy.

Bert appeared in our room last night asking if he could sleep in our bed. He’s never done this before so it had us off guard right from the start but then it got really strange. When asked why he said “The toilet has voices and sometimes they scare me.”.

I can’t believe my big boy is 4 today. It only seems like yesterday since the mad dash to the hospital and his speedy entry in to the world. Happy Birthday Bert.

Helping yourself to breakfast can be a dangerous job at our place, you can never take too many precautions.