Anthony Malloy

The things you see out in the ‘burbs. This morning I had to run a quick errand first thing. I walked out side just after 6, dawn still an hour and a half away, and there, sitting underneath the letter box were two large white rabbits. Big, fluffy white rabbits. Just stiting there, staring at me, as if I was the one making the scene surreal.

I just stood there, not sure what to do when you discover two white rabbits sitting under the letter box in the dead of night. They stared back at me and then, with a flick of their ears, they bounded off in different directions.

I don’t know where they got to but just now as I was bringing in the washing one appeared in the back yard. Again, not sure of the magically appearing bunny protocol, but by the time I realised I should do something it had dissapeared again, an odd top and (fluffy) tail to the day.

I had the luxury of wandering around the local shopping centre by myself a few days ago. It was great to be able stroll along, getting to know the new shops and window shopping without having to keep track of Bert or try to manoeuvre the twin pram around people and shelves.

As I was leaving my eye was caught by, of all things, a tobacconist. Now I hate smoking, despise it. It’s filthy, smelly, dirty and having seen the effects it can have when I worked at Cabrini it’s a habit I can’t stand. Sorry smokers but it’s just despicable. The thing, or things, that caught my eye were Zippos. Lovely shiny Zippos.

For such an ardent anti-smoker I have an absolute weakness for Zippos. The touch, the smell, the sound, the perfect engineering. They are things of such beauty. I stood mesmerised as I spun the stand around, trying to figure out where I could find $70 to add another to my small collection.

There’s one Zippo I want above all others though. It must be 20 years ago now but I once saw in a magazine (could have been in the now defunct Sunday Herald, when it was just The Herald) a Zippo that was made to look like a clapper board. I almost got to buy one once, but I was a poor student and the amount at that stage was way beyond my means. I have a funny feeling it would still be the same today, but one day, one day, I will own one.

Just a little forewarning, my web site host will be moving this site to new servers some time soon so things may go a little astray for a day or so. Comments and posts may go missing, fingers crossed it will settle down quickly though.

This photo today makes me so much happier than it could have in the past eight years.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and President Barack Obama

Originally uploaded by Kevin Rudd PM

Time is running out to join up the tipping competition. If you want to win the Tony Malloy Memorial Footy Tipping Trophy head on over to http://www.footytips.com.au/jc.cfm?c=5492 to join Tony’s Tipping.

The world’s ugliest trophy, and a burnt snag, could be yours for the taking.

 

Two bizarre instances last week of ask and you shall receive.

The first was on Friday. I was at the shopping centre, having a coffee with my mother in law and her mum while the kids played on the pirate ship play equipment. Zita mentioned it was odd that she only knew a few people walking by.

Having just moved to the area I said “Well I’d be totally amazed if I saw anybody I knew.” 30 seconds later a guy walks up and says “I thought it was you Tony.” Yep, someone I knew – the father of one of Phee’s friends was just walking by. This guy lives back in Spotswood, miles away.

Then last night Rae and I were lying on the deck, looking at the stars. We were surprised at how, comparatively, dark it is out here and marvelling at the night time show when we both commented that we had never seen a shooting star. 30 seconds later a bright light streaked across the sky.

I then tried “I’ve never had a million dollars fall out of the sky and land next to me without damaging anything.” but it seems my luck had finally run out. Drats.

A couple of weeks ago a great disaster befell the Malloy household. It had been building up for a couple of weeks and then one horrid, fateful day the worse happened – my Krups espresso machine stopped making coffee. The pump was shot.

Until it had gone I had no idea just how much we used that thing. Over the weekend it made our coffees, three or four each day and during the week it would make a couple each day for me. It must have saved us a fortune in takeaway coffees over this time; just two each over a weekend at, say, $3.80 is $15.20 a weekend, $60 a month, add in one a week for me and that’s about $75 a month saved. Wow, that’s a conservative $900 a year.

We tried to do without one, a cheap one was abandoned after two tries, and I only realise now that these two weeks without a machine were the two weeks where everything that could go wrong, did. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Thanks to Target having a massive sale I’m hoping everything is going to turn around. I picked up a good little domestic machine and with the addition of some perfectly ground coffee we are well and truly back in business. I’m hoping that with my first latte this morning the project from hell will magically turn around, my outstanding accounts will be paid, the servers will stop playing silly buggers, my mastercard will pay itself off, the deck will give itself a second coat of oil, the clothes will put themselves away, the kids will nap for two hours in the afternoon, the toys will put themselves away, the back yard will level itself, the cars will do their own service, winter will decide ‘not this year’, the Tigers will win their first game and my office will arrange itself around me.

If anything can do this, coffee can.

This time last week we were all sitting in the car, driving back home from a weekend in the country, a weekend that saw my mum get married. It’s been a busy week so it’s only now that I get to sit and say congratulations mum and Peter.

We went up on Friday night and stayed at my sister’s. Poor Helen, having six Malloys land on her door step, but she coped admirably. She even coped with us having a minor kerfuffle when our phones rang on Friday night, notifying us the alarm was ringing back home. Thankfully Zita was able to check and everything was all right.

Saturday was hot and humid in Shepparton but the weather held (just) for the ceremony. I never thought we’d see a shorter wedding ceremony than ours but I think mum and Peter may have made it. After the ceremony it was off across the river to Mooroopna for a beautiful lunch and catch up with family members that extended in to the evening as Helly hosted a barbecue.

Sunday came and we finally gave Helen back her house. We stopped in to see the newly wed’s new home and had the honour of being their first guests. We also ate them out of their only supplies so we’ll have to stock the pantry for them when we next go up.

So now mum is Mrs Malloy Vibert and she and Peter are happily setting up their new house. I bet they have their boxes unpacked before ours are completed. With mum changing her name that leaves Rae with the honour of being the only Mrs Malloy left in this branch of the family tree, the long history of Mrs Malloy’s now rests on the shoulders of Albert and Henry.

I didn’t take that many photos of the day, and missed a golden opportunity to get the four kids together, in one place and looking respectable but it was much more about family than photos. Still, here are a few for the curious, or you can see Mum and Peter’s wedding set on Flickr.

Congratulations again mum and Peter,, we hope you have a long and happy time together

We’ve done it, we’ve reached the end of building our house. We now have a completed deck, which like all good projects was right on budget but we couldn’t be happier. It’s turned out even better than we hoped for and once we get the garden done around it our backyard will be perfect, well, for us anyway.

It’s approximately 34 square meters of outdoor space for the kids to play on, for outside dinners, a work room on a mild day and perhaps most importantly for the annual Grand Final bbq. Andrew, the builder, assures us we can have 50 people on it and we won’t feel it move. Given the care he took in building it I wouldn’t be surprised if it coped with 100.

We were going to oil it today but the conditions weren’t right, it was blowing a gale this morning with dust flying everywhere and it’s still 33 degrees out at 7:00pm, not the best temperature to be trying to get oil on. That will come tomorrow now, second coat maybe Monday and then we can have our first dinner on the deck. I can see many, many more in the years ahead.

This time next week I’ll be jumping out of my seat with excitement – it will be the first round of the 2009 AFL season, and you know what means…

Footy Tipping!!

It’s time Miss Trish was dethroned, two years in a row is enough and now it’s time for someone else to take home the Tony Malloy Memorial Footy Tipping Trophy, right Trish? Come that one day in September will it be you standing on our (hopefully completed) deck, holding the trophy aloft and wondering where the hell you can stuff it until Grand Final day 2010?

So, come, join. Simply head to http://www.footytips.com.au/jc.cfm?c=5492 to join Tony’s Tipping. Don’t know anything about footy? Live in a foreign country? You’ll probably do better than most of us ‘experts’.

Join up, fame, glory and the world’s ugliest trophy await.