Anthony Malloy

I can’t believe this.

I earn my money with computers. I eat sleep and breath the internet all day every day. I have owned a computer of one form or another for almost 20 years.

And I am an idiot.

When I bought my latest Palm I was really disappointed with it’s battery life. One problem was that it wouldn’t recharge on the cradle I have here at home. At work, not a problem – it’d juice up in a few minutes but no matter what I did here it just wouldn’t recharge. I even emailed Palm to register a complaint but nothing came of that.

Seeing as how I will be away from the office for a couple of weeks I thought I’d better bring the recharging cradle that works home with me. Plugged it in today, switched on my Palm and…nothing.

Twist wires, plug, unplug, swap, swear but still it didn’t work.

Then it dawned on me.

I crawled under the desk, unplugged the colour printer and plugged in the power supply for the cradle. It’s amazing how much better electrical items work when they are supplied with electricity.

So, where do I hand in my Nerd Certification?

I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love old signs, be they advertising, notices or building names. I love the surprise connection with the past as you look up and notice fading paint or decaying letters put in place all those years ago.

I went for a walk today to take a photo of this sign. It’s on the side of an old milkbar that’s now an op shop. Up until recently there was no fence so I thought I’d better get this snap before the new owners decide they would prefer a nice white wall and another piece of history is covered over.

So, here it is. The Tarax sign in Challis St, Newport.

It was only yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that you couldn’t legislate against inconsideration.

It appears I may have spoken too soon.

I’m home on holidays and working away here at my desk when I hear a car coming up the drive. I glance up and then do a double take.

It’s a police highway patrol vehicle.

They cruise all the way up to our front door and then slowly roll back down to the street, stopping just inside the drive. Of course I go out and have a look. The driver hops out and walks to Idiot Neighbour’s front door. No one’s home there this morning so he walked on back to the car and drove off.

Maybe the legislation was passed overnight after all. What power I wield.

Hunting around for a floppy on Friday night I came across an unlabelled blue disc.

Before formatting it I thought I’d better check the contents, and I’m glad I did. It contained a short story (18,000 words) I wrote in 1989. I thought I had long lost any electronice version and Marita posessed the sole hard copy. It was written on an old EPSON IBM XT clone (similar to this one), using Word Perfect 5.1, saved on to a 5 1/4″ floppy and would have been printed on a dot matrix printer; I loved being at the cutting edge of technology.

Marita claims it makes her laugh and rather generously calls it ‘derivative’. I say generous because I was obviously trying to channel the spirit of Douglas Adams almost a decade and a half before he passed away.

It’s a story of golf, wombats and celestial trivial pursuit. One day I may try to edit and post it somewhere. One day.

Such a pity that you can’t legislate against being inconsiderate.

The whole family would be behind bars.

High drama in Newport this afternoon.

The idiot neighbours from hell (see just about any post from the past few months) had their house up for auction today. It started well, if a little late, and bidding jumped along fairly quickly from 350K to 405K. One of the bidders seemed to be good friends with Idiot Neighbour #2‘s brother. The auction paused as the agents disappeared inside to ‘consult with the vendor’.

Back they came, already to sell if it reached the reserve. It got to 425k; the Friend of Idiot #2 and a new bidder locked in a dour battle. It bottomed out at $426,000 – the bid with New Bidder, FoI#2 not willing to go further.

The agent banged his rolled up contract, paused and announced he was going back inside.

The crowd waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Suddenly an agent underling appeared. He had a black bag; a big black bag. He began taking down the display contract. The agent then appeared, crowd holding it’s breath.

“Ladies and gentlemen this doesn’t happen often.”

All ears were pricked.

“It does say in the contract that the vendor can withdraw the property from sale. It’s very emotional in there and they have decided to keep the house and stay.”

By this time the the huge auction flag had been taken down, the big black bag filled and closed with the agents practically in their car, engine gunning, ready for a quick get away. New Bidder was left fuming with an underling talking to them.

Yep. They piked. They are now officially Auction Pikers and they seem to be here to stay.

The champagne we had purchased to celebrate their departure was drunk anyway to celebrate the entertainment but the party whistles that Daniel supplied were left in their bag.

We think they will probably sell privately in the next couple of weeks, most likely to Idiot Neighbour #2’s friend. Then again, maybe they are too attached to their bed to part with it.

Rob, bother-in-law extraordinaire, did a walk through of the neighbours house.

We aren’t surprised – they have a water bed. Yep. It’s octagonal. With a radio built in to the bed head. And a salmon coloured crushed velvet cover.

Now that’s class only money can buy.

Anybody else disturbed at the thought?

Where’d that come from?

The Age tells me that daylight savings starts tonight. Most years I’m waiting, waiting, waiting for it turn up. I thought I had another week of 5.00 AM wake ups. At least this means summer is on the way and it’s barbeques for dinner.

That’s it.

Work is done. I’m now on two weeks glorious holidays with nothing planned.

Who is up for lunch?