Anthony Malloy

Anybody else notice it was a bit warm in Melbourne today? It almost made me wish I was back at air-conditioned work, almost. We closed up the house early on so we survived pretty well until the cool change hit mid afternoon. I worked on a couple of sites while Phee spanked Rae in a game of Monopoly. We have no idea what we’ll do to get through tomorrows expected top of 42 as the air conditioner isn’t working and our estate agent is shut until Monday. You can bet the fax requesting repairs will be the first thing they see when they open the doors.

As the temperature hit 38 Bella looked for relief inside.

Merry Christmas to all. May you have a happy Christmas day and a fantastic 2006.

Christmas photos are at www.flickr.com/photos/awmalloy/.

Today should be one of the most exciting days of the year – my Tigers membership stuff turned up. Unfortunately for the Tigers my Doggies membership (dual membership story here) arrived as well, and it looks a whole lot better.

The Doggies gave me a lanyard, key ring, hat, scarf (for joining early), two sets of membership stickers (great to hand on to junior members), a pocket calendar, a magnetic fixture for the fridge and it was all presented in a cool DVD like case. The Tiges, whom I have barracked for for 35 years and been a member of in their darkest hours and to whom I pay almost twice as much to have a reserved seat at their games threw a hat, one sticker for the car and a lanyard in a bag and posted it off. No recognition for re-joining on the day I got the notice and the only bonus being an invitation to a cocktail party that I won’t be going to. Based on what I received today I feel more a Dog than a Tiger, and that’s saying a lot. The Dogs tried – they put in an effort. The Tiger effort feels anything but.

After the hassle with the seating the Tiger membership process this year has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not fussed with the selection at work today I headed up the street for some nigiri sushi. The food court was packed with Christmas shoppers but I spotted the last vacant table and swooped like a sushi bearing magpie.

I was munching away on my very yummy tuna and rice when a harried mum wheeled her pram up and asked if the seats were free and if I’d mind if she sat down. “Sure.” I said. She sat down, dug out lunch for her son (who was way too old and big to be in that pram) and composed herself. She was fussing around with pink Donut King bags and it took me a second to realise she had pushed one in my direction.

“Would you like this donut? I just got it for free.”

I finished my last piece of sushi, thanked her and left her the table.

You know, the best sort of donut is a surprise donut. Thanks nice lady.

Thanks to Daniel for not only pointing out I had successfully defeated all comment spam, but that I had disabled comments on this blog altogether. Not only that, he then found the problem before I even had a chance to start looking for it.

So, with thanks to Daniel, you are now able to leave comments again.

Well, here we are – a brand new start on a brand new server.

I’ve moved hosts for anthonymalloy.com and taken the opportunity to move away from Movable Type and change the technology that drives this whole beast. Unfortunately this means any links will no longer work, but I figure once Google gives this a good going over that won’t matter too much. The main reason I moved was comment spam – WorldPress seems to have much better ways of dealing with comment spam. Hosting on Linux is also cheaper and WordPress, being open source, won’t cost me to upgrade every year when I want new features.

It’s a big job to get this thing to how I want it so for now I’ve used a template off the web to make it look okay. With a Christmas break coming up I may get the opportunity to redo this the way I have planned out. Then again, knowing me, it will probably stay with this template for four years. Either way, thanks for dropping by, welcome to my domain version 2.

Today Bert attended his first Tigers event – a family training session. He’s one of us now, a Tiger for life. These days we can probably expect him to live to, say, 80. That will be 115 years of continuous Tiger support from the Malloy family. If you add my Grandfather (it was he who walked in to the hospital on the day I was born and claimed me as a Tiger. He saved me from the Saints, or, shudder, Collingwood.) we would be close to 180 years.

I hope that one day Bert will treasure this photo and if he is as lucky as we are to have a boy like him, that he too will cradle his own child in front of this statue and feel the pride and love that I did today.

Went to the men’s room today, just after they had mopped the floor. I successfully negotiated my across the tiles and then as I left I tripped spectacularly over the sign notifying me the floor was slippery when wet.

What a wonderful weekend. Mum came down to look after Bert so we could get stuck in to the garden. Now the place looks fantastic, a long overdue going over has made the front yard look respectable again and the backyard is on the way. What proud little renters we now are.

But it wasn’t all work. In between weeding, mowing and ripping out we got in a visit to the market, a long lazy barbecue lunch, some laptopping (of the computer variety) under the tree, visits from Zita and Rob, two mum-and-dad-only trips for coffee, our first joint shopping trip in many months and a lovely dinner. Not only are we more relaxed than we have been in months mum has headed home with enough Bert love to get her through to Christmas so everybody wins.

Sorry Netspace, it’s already too late to try and place a straw to break this camel’s back. As Rae has pointed out we’re saying goodbye to you and moving to Optus Cable. If we hadn’t then the three hour outage we experienced tonight would have sent us off any way. You were once a great ISP, now you seem overpriced and your service level has slipped away to nothing. A sure sign you’re in trouble is that when we rang to cancel you didn’t even ask why – surely any business should want to know why its customers are leaving.

Wow, between this and my rant at Cut Paw Paw I’m going to have to find something nice to say about some place or I will have to change this blog to ‘Between Sour Grapes’.