Category: Diary

Just to prove how big a geek I can be…

This week as I was hanging out laundry I noticed that the planes seemed a lot closer to our place. Then I noticed the they seemed to be approaching from a slightly different direction at odd times. l wondered if there was a new flight path and went back to hanging out socks.

Well, this evening I was reading the local paper and found a little ad. Apparently there is a temporary change to flight path use at Melbourne airport while a couple of runways are undergoing construction work. There truly is no hope for me.

Somewhere in the world there is a person whose true passion in life is sorting socks in to matching pairs.

We could make them happy beyond their wildest dreams.

The morning after and I’m still grinning from ear to ear. Last night I had one of my all time wishes fulfilled and saw Pulp perform live.

They were absolutely amazing, just under two hours of their greatest hits. Jarvis Cocker is a god (not just a good as previously reported in one of my tweets). The energy he committed to the show was incredible. The roof was raised for Common People and then somehow they found enough for an encore. I had waited so long to see them I ran the risk of being disappointed, but there was absolutely nothing about that show that was even mildly annoying. You could not have asked for anything more.

It was great to see it with Miss Marita and Daniel. The reason I wasn’t on Facebook all day yesterday ranting about how excited I was is that Daniel had kept my attendance a secret so it was real surprise to Marita when I walked up and sat down beside her. Seeing a performance like that is all the better when shared with friends.

At the close Jarvis said “see you again 13 years”.

I’ll be there.

I know it’s not good for some sectors of our economy but for someone like me who purchases a lot of services and software from the US I’m loving the dollar’s rise.

This morning I had to purchase a new piece of software. The online ordering page offered it to me for AUD$75. Hmmm, there’s an option to pay in USD, let’s see what the price is in that. USD$59.95, which in Aussie dollars turns out to be $55.32. One little switch on the form and I saved myself $20.

With electricity prices on the rise (some one really should tell Today Tonight, they might be interested in doing a story on it) we’ve been thinking about our power bills. We’re pretty good; most nights there’ll just be the two lights on in the house, we don’t have a drier and follow energy saving suggestions fairly assiduously. Our quarterly bills are low in comparison to the few we’ve had discussions with too, which surprises us. We know there are things we could do to save a bit more on electricity bur seriously, who can be bothered turning off the television at the wall every night?

One thing we’ve been contemplating is solar panels for our electrickery but I’m not sure if they represent that much value. Before launching off in to our own research (which we’re going to have do regardless) has any one done any investigation and is able to give us a rough ‘yeah you should’ or ‘no, don’t even bother’?

Screw the Carbon Tax, this is important.

Oddfellows peppermints are disappearing.

Over the past couple of months The Best Peppermints In The World have become harder and harder to find and when my sure thing of finding them in the local IGA failed this week I feared the worse; that Allens had discontinued my all time favourite lolly.

Things became so desperate I rang Allens today and spoke to a lovely lady in their customer service department. She had obviously had a few calls because as soon as I said ‘Oddfellows’ she interrupted me to let me know that they are still being made. Coles stopped stocking them years ago but Woolworths has only just removed them from their shelves and now they are only available in independents or petrol stations. I asked if there was some form of factory outlet (with the aim of buying a lifetime’s supply) but there isn’t one.

So now I’m going to have to spend one day a week cruising milk bars, small supermarkets and petrol stations so I can get my fix. Another day of the week I’m going to have to devote to my ‘Save The Oddfellows’ campaign. Tonight I’m writing to Woolworths voicing my displeasure.

So, if you see any packets hanging around please let me know, I don’t want to have to resort to ordering them from New Zealand.

I moved to the US for a couple of minutes today, to the New York Times building (as suggested by Tim) to be precise. The move went well, the book was delivered in about 30 seconds and I’m back in Australia.

I now have Last Call in paperback and on my Kindle. Most importantly, now that it’s on my Kindle I’ll actually get around to finishing it.

My home made prawn and pork rice paper rolls were demolished in record time.

This morning Rae, who has the day off, took the family off for a drive to the country. As she left there was a bit of a problem with traffic in the street and a soil delivery truck was blocking her way. The neighbour who was accepting the delivery strolled up to apologise and we got chatting about gardens. Turns out he is retired gardener and he commented that our bushes needed a bit of a trim. I agreed and said we were going to buy some garden sheers to neaten things up.

Half an hour later there’s a knock on the door and there he is again, with two sets of shears in his hand. “You borrow them for month, trim them good.” and then he gave me a quick lesson on how to tackle the job.

It’s these sort of moments that make working from home even better.

Normally it’s a hunt around the drive to find the paper but our delivery guy must have been bored this morning and wanted to add a little extra challenge to my morning read.