Anthony Malloy

Happy birthday hon.

Police scour Goulburn River for clues to double murder – theage.com.au

My home town will be buzzing, two bodies in a river. Every twenty years or so it seems Shepparton gets its time in the sun (or The Sun) for a grizzly murder. The streets will be alive with gossip and scandal today; doubly so if the victims were locals.

Excuse me now while I call mum and dad…I, um, just want to say hello.

Mum just won the 4 ball summer tournament. I’m not quite sure what this means but I know it’s a wonderful achievement when it comes to her golf.

Well done mum, I’m proud of you.

During a particularly listless Law & Order last night I counted the number of buttons I have to select from on my remote controls.

Between the cable, vcr/tv and DVD player I have 142 buttons and one jog dial at my disposal.

Okay, so my honey is doing the lovely thing and ironing my shirts for the week while I fold the washing.

The topic of birthday presents raises itself :

If you haven’t bought me anything already you can get me some photo albums. On second thoughts I’ll get them so I’ll get ones that I like.

I bit the bullet. I’ve purchased some new boxers (well, Rae got them for me) and new socks.

I would go for the new shoes but this week is a double whammy – Rae’s birthday and then three days later Valentines Day. I’m not impressed with her parents timing here and next time I see Zita there will be words.

On the positive side of the ledger I did get the contract for the Mercure Melbourne web site. This was once the Sheraton Hotel and it was here we would stop for lunch on the way to our holidays in Edithvale. One time we stayed there a night and went to the football the next day – complete with a box of chicken sandwiches from the kitchen. Man those sandwiches must’ve been good if I can remember them over twenty years later. I think the game was Richmond v Carlton.

I typed the 10 commandments into Google just now (you’ll see why some time later). It’s quite funny – the first link that takes you to the actual biblical ten commandments comes in at number 7.

The Canucks let a 4-1 lead over the Bluejackets slip away in the final period. It’s a game we should’ve won – even extended the lead.

I think it’s best summed up by this paragraph on the Canucks site today :

The only thing uglier than the last 22 minutes of tonight’s game at Nationwide Arena, might be Bea Arthur in a tight mustard body stocking. And even then, it’s still just a maybe.

There are two things I don’t cope well with – confrontation and embarrassment. Confrontation makes me blush, become wildly inarticulate and I spend hours running back over it in my head. Embarrassment just makes me blush – I’ll turn bright red at the drop of a hat for the slightest of imagined misdoings.

Today though two things happened. I met the ex-flatmate-form-hell (Hi Veronica, no – of course it’s not you – you’re the ex-flatmate-from-heaven) in the street, had a chat and walked off, didn’t think any more of it until later. Later was when I tripped down the stairs in front of a nurse ’cause I was reading an email I’d printed. She asked if I was okay, I told her I was an idiot and kept on moving. No blushing.

How bizarre. What’s happening to me? Surely I can’t be ‘maturing’. Oh dear god, it’s Hush Puppies and pastel track suits for me now.

We drove home from Wagga Wagga yesterday, a five hour trip that took us around the edge of the bushfires that have covered a good deal of central Victoria.

The photo at left was taken in Oxley at 3.00 pm, the middle of a stinking hot summer afternoon. We’d stopped for lunch at The King River Caf? (menu is out of date) and to stretch our legs. The Caf? is great, good food, wickedly rich espresso brulee (although the sugar was not quite caramelised) and an exception to my rule about not finding good coffee outside of Melbourne.

The smoke was this thick for most of the drive from the Victoria/NSW border until over the great divide. At one stage visibility was down to 200 metres and the reflection of the sun in oncoming windows looked like a burning orange spotlight. Everything was shaded orange – as if the world had been covered in cheap no-sun tanning lotion.

The smoke followed us home – this morning as I drove in the city was covered in smoke haze. Apparently it is covering most of the state now and heading out in to Bass Strait. And the fires still burn.