Category: Diary

We had ‘guests’ on the weekend. Rae and I love having company, sharing our house with family and friends – it’s one of the reasons we were so happy getting this new place as it has great areas for hosting people.

A girlfriend of Rae’s and her fianc? came to stay on Saturday morning. They left Sunday morning. It was the most stressful weekend we have had together and indirectly lead to a huge blow up on the Sunday night.

The key to being a good guest is kindness and consideration. These are things they need to learn :

Don’t threaten to kill, maim, hurt or strap to the fan your host’s much loved cat from the minute you walk in the door to the minute you leave.

Have more than one topic of conversation, especially if that topic of conversation is solely about how much you like shooting things

Wash you hands after going to the toilet.

At least offer to wash the dishes. (After washing your hands)

At least offer to help with meals, even if it’s just an offer to set the table. A good host will never let you anyway.

At least offer to contribute toward providing lunch, dinner or breakfast. Especially when without the host you are paying for a hotel room in a capital city.

Don’t ask the host to pay for lunch on his credit card ‘because you can claim it as a business expense’. (Hint – the tax laws changed almost 10 years ago so you can’t do this now) Don’t do this twice.

Don’t make veiled hints that you want to sleep in the host’s bed rather than the blow up mattress they purchased that day for you. If you don’t ask, you will probably get. Don’t do this three times.

Don’t insult the host because he has real coffee, not instant. Don’t do this twice.

Don’t take control of the host’s television and insist on watching rugby when (a) the host hates rugby and (b) they have a 6 year old who wants to watch cartoons.

Don’t watch wrestling. End of story.

Don’t drink all but one of your host’s beer while they are out and then not at least offer to replace it.

Don’t antagonise your host because your team happened to beat his in the football. Don’t keep this up until you leave and don’t ask the host’s daughter to put on your football beanie and then go and tease her dad. Learn sportsmanship.

Don’t pretend to know more about your host’s job than he does. Especially when you change jobs every second week and he has a skill.

Don’t try and create trouble with the host’s next door neighbour just because you happened to be told of one annoying incident with them.

Don’t pretend to know the best ice-cream shop in your host’s area when you’ve never been there before.

Don’t ask for the host’s washing machine.

Don’t pretend you know everything. The creator of the Simpsons did not create King of The Hill.

Don’t insult your host’s DVD collection.

And, finally, say thankyou when you leave.
Continue reading “The Guests That Ate Our Weekend”

Let’s see how good banks can be. (Stop laughing!) I made a mistake when internet banking recently and accidentally caused one of my accounts to be overdrawn. I fixed it up as soon as I realised the error and have emailed Westpac pointing out what a good customer I am and how I do all my business with them and how I have never done this before in the decade I’ve been with them and can I please have my $25 back.

I put my chances at zero but it’s worth a shot.

End of financial year so time to spend the little cash that I keep in my business account. Seeing as how most of my income over the past couple of months has gone to debt reduction I only had a little to spend so I picked up a nice big desk for my PC.

Up until half an hour ago my whole set up was balanced precariously on an old IKEA desk I bought in the early 90’s. It had a weird Swedish name that probably meant ‘cheap black wood’. Now I’ve graduated to the rolls royce of desks – a metre deep by almost two metres long. Scanner, printer, monitor, phone, speakers all fit across it with acres of room to spare. Combine it with an identical desk for paper work that I picked up a few months ago and I’m in desk heaven. The fact the government won’t be getting an extra hundred bucks from me makes me smile even more.

“MELBOURNE singer Vanessa Amorosi will perform at the Commonwealth Games’ opening ceremony in Manchester next month.”

Oh dear God, it’s either a plague or they must have passed into legislation that this girl is to sing at every global sporting event for the next 5 years. Good citizens of Manchester – RUN!!!!

My sister, Kate, lost her job today. After 22 years she was given 3 weeks notice. June 22 and it’s all over. The banks are baying at the door and the boss retrenched her. I’m not sure it will help any. Getting rid of people who do the work, and know a business from the ground up, rarely does any good. I suppose, in fairness to Dale, when you can see all you consider your own slipping away then anything and anyone has to be fair game.

This situation is more than normal though for her boss is also her brother-in-law. How would it feel waking up in the morning knowing you are going to sack your sister-in-law? How would it feel taking that news from family? Easier? Harder? I can’t begin to know and hopefully I will never find out.

I’m sure Kate will do fine. She is genuinely wonderful person. Any employer who picks her up will be getting a real gem.

Driving along this morning, bit dark. Hmmmmm, can’t see the road that well. Yep car lights on. Must be the rain. Nope, it’s heavy but not too heavy. Two minutes later. Mmmmm, still very dark. Hmmmmmmm.

Then the light goes on.

The lights are out.

All of Yarraville in complete darkness, except for the traffic lights. Only took me five minutes to notice. Like lightning I am.

Excitement plus. Thanks to apparent problems with the daily emailing set up I’ve had to come up with another way of making sure my legions of fans (you know you are, I hope) don’t miss out on any riveting news from the world of Anthony Malloy.

You can now recieve email notification of when I update. Just go to the ‘Updates via Email’ link to the left and sign up. It’s quick, it’s painless and most of all, it’s fun. (At least one of those previous statements is not correct.)