Anthony Malloy

Remember the letter we wrote to our landlord? I had a phone call from the managing agents. Barlow McEwan and Tribe, today.

It seems the agent went and had a chat to the mother from the front house. As she was chatting, the brother of our back neighbour (The Water Waster) wandered over to join in. Up shot is the front “don’t think there is a problem” (Yes, there is. That’s why you’re being spoken to.) and the brother of Marion says it’s not a problem. This last bit was interesting on two fronts – a) he doesn’t sleep there and b) of course it’s not an issue for her – she has our place as insulation between the car and her room!

The decision we’ve made is to stay; for the sole reason of making their lives as miserable as we can. We’ll move our bedroom to where my office is now and then move the office to the bedroom. We’re compiling a list of ‘Annoying Things Renters Do’ so all suggestions will be taken on board, and most likely acted upon.

Let the games begin.

I always wondered what happened to the person who painted this sign all those years ago.

I’ve finally figured out why I got such a nice raise yesterday. They must have me confused with another Anthony Malloy somewhere in this organisation who is doing really great work and wondering why he’s still being paid a pittance.

I must track him down and buy him a beer.

One day you think work wants to get rid of you, four days later you are presented with a more than generous pay rise.

Funny ole thing this life.

We won, after 8 losses in a row, we won.

It was glorious. Richo flew, Otto flew, Holland was magic, Rodan and Krakouer were miracle workers on the ground. Martin McGrath played the perfect first game kicking five goals on his AFL debut. We actually got to sing our song. Twice.

But. And there is a but. It was over the Doggies. Rae is devastated, she’s threatening to Ebay all her Doggies stuff and not to renew her membership next year. I want to sing from the roof top for me, want to cry for her.

Go Tigers, but next time not so much against the Doggies. These Divorce Days are hard to take.

I sit here fuming about a certain problem I can’t talk about yet, knowing there’s nothing I can do until next week.

There’s no rage like impotent rage.

I did, however, get a new credit card that should knock my interest payments in half and not slug me each year for the privilege of racking up more debt.

The later goes no way toward balancing out the former.

Rob has come up with the slogan for our Tiger membership stickers next year and it’s a ripper.

“Gluttons For Punishment.”

I just realised I’ve never used the microphone I’ve got on this PC. So, to make my $10.95 not wasted if you want to hear me say hi to you on this blog just leave your name here or in the comments.

Today was a great day. It rained non stop, it was bitterly cold, the wind blew arctic blasts across damp grey Melbourne and it didn’t matter one bit.

Mark was in town.

Mark, my best mate, long time friend and all round good guy is back in Australia for a week. He’s been teaching in the States for a year and is heading back for his second go round in a few days but today we caught up.

We went to Federation Square (in the rain), walked through Birrarung Marr (in the rain), had lunch at Automatic (in the rain), caught the train home (in the rain), had a later lunch at Vinegar Strokes (not in the rain, but it was raining outside), stood in the rain and watched the Doggies train (and got to see someone do his knee at training. Man those guys can swear), we watched the first season of The Office on DVD, all the time talking, catching up, filling each other in on a years worth of happenings.

There’s no mates like old mates, and I’ve no other mate like Mark.

For those of you who have been following the saga of our early mornings, and those who read Rae’s blog too, you’ll be please to know we’ve stopped just whining to you and have done something about it.

Behold, the letter to the landlord (pdf 5k). It’s in pdf format so you’ll need Acrobat Reader to read it. Let me know if you can’t and I’ll email you the contents.