Anthony Malloy

Of course it’s today that I finally think of three things that people could buy me for Christmas. Ah well.

We’re all done. All presents wrapped, house as tidy as it can be with two kids, pork defrosted and fridge stacked for the family Christmas day here tomorrow.

Merry Christmas everyone from me, Rae, Phee, Bert, Thomas and Bella.

I love a song by a guy called Rob McColley. I would like to hear more of his songs, especially if they are as good as Teevee, but it seems he has dissapeared and he has no web site so, Rob, if you ever Google yourself and find this blog please let me know where I can find more of your stuff.

I swear, if god had meant husbands to wrap Christmas presents he would have invented self folding paper. (Thanks to Nigel for pointing out to me that you are supposed to fold paper and staples are generally frowned upon.)

I’ve even attempted ribbon. That’s got to be worth bonus points.

We’re saving for a house, have been for a little while now and will no doubt be saving for a long time to come. Part of this commitment involves knowing where our money is coming from and where it’s going to so I keep track of all our expenses in Microsoft Money.

For a while now the credit card we have for bills has been out ($88.55) and it’s been driving me mad so today I sat down with Money and the online statements and was determined to find the discrepancy. It took me a while but back in July I’d missed a payment to the Doggies (a camp for Phee) and had double entered a Bunnings amount.

Doesn’t change the fact we’re broke, but at least I now know by how much!

 I now have a favourite Christmas photo. Check out Santa, could he get any further away from the screaming child?

I don’t like the idea of Christmas light displays. Not sure why, I guess it’s just always seemed a bit too an imported American idea (like Halloween) for my liking. The neighbours from hell went all out with their attempts which I think further set back my interest so I’m not sure why I’ve mellowed a little this year.

Maybe it’s ’cause Bert brings a certain very young person’s perspective to the festive season, or maybe its because they were already here and are a year round fixture on the front of our house, but we’re joining the trend.

 

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

Congratulations to Robin and Kylie Payne on the birth of their son, Fletcher Charles. Well done mate and welcome to the wonderful world of being a dad.

It’s been a couple of days since an email suddenly appeared in my inbox and I should have written earlier but had no idea what to say. Daniel and Ren have both written this morning and I feel I have to say something.

 It was a letter from Sarcasmo‘s sister telling of her memorial service. I didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. I found her mum’s blog entry and was stunned. A person as vital, as clever – simply as good as this – should not die so young.

Star seemed to live life in way that we should all aspire to.  

Rae has a tin of pirate band aids sitting on her desk. They were to be a Christmas present for Star (given they are still on the desk, more likely a New Years present) and although we had never met her in person Philly would have been one of the first stops on any trip to America, just to meet this wonderful woman who made us laugh every time she wrote.

….my new PC.

Yep, thanks to a bit of recently completed work I managed to put enough aside to update my 4 year old PC. The 0ld PC was beginning to show its age whenever I played with graphics or video and while a rebuild would have helped a little there wasn’t much more I could do to get the grunt I wanted.

Now I’ve got an Intel Core 2 6300 1.8GHz, 2 GB of RAM and a 320GB sata hard drive as my primary machine. And it’s good. And fast. I am stunned at how quickly it will convert files to DivX – no longer real time it’s about 40% faster and I can continue to use the PC without it skipping a beat so I don’t have to stop work while I convert shows.

I added a TV card too, it’s great to wave the remote at the box and have television pop up and I can see I’ll get a bit of use for it next year when the footy is on and I have to work. Even with this setup there’s room for improvement down the track. I can add a much better graphics card and increase the memory up to 8GB so I’m hoping to get another 4 years out of this one.

Best thing, however, that I did was to buy a silent fan/power supply. Now I can leave a torrent going overnight or we can watch television without an accompaniment of high pitched screeching. The screecher is sitting by the side of the desk waiting for Phee to keep her room clean. Should hell freeze over it’s all hers.