I’ve had a pretty good week this week. Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but pretty good.

It began on Monday, when I had a job interview. Despite almost getting lost in the wilds of Doncaster, I managed to find the place, and spoke to the guy. It went quite well, I thought, and in fact he rang me late that afternoon and asked me to start on Thursday. Cool - so no more feeling nervous about running out of money and having to feed the family on bread and cheese.

On Tuesday I got an e-mail back from the magazine that had asked to publish an article of mine. They’re going to publish two more, and they want regular contributions! Woo hoo! Sounds pretty good to me, and in fact it’s not long until they publish the first, so I should see the cold hard cash pretty soon! The magazine is the US-based "Portable Computing Direct Shopper", and my first article should be in the January issue.

On Thursday I set out for the first day of my new contract job. It’s a bit of a hike up to Doncaster, but it’s only a short contract to get me over the industry’s usual Christmas lull, and the money’s good, so I think I can put up with it.

Here’s the commute plan. This is how it’s meant to go:

It’s not brilliant (for my last job, the total commute was just over 30 minutes), but it’s livable, at least for the two monthsish that this contract goes for. And I can catch up on the multitude of novels I’ve been given and lent over the last year that I haven’t got around to reading yet. I’m also considering the benefits of buying a laptop so that I can be a Geek-in-transit, and write on the train.

So that was the plan. 66 minutes or so, from door to door. But Mother Nature intervened. This is what actually happened on Thursday, the first day of the new job:

Thankfully things went smoothly on Friday. As far as the job itself goes, it looks like pretty interesting work, and I actually got most of the equipment on the first day! Desk, chair, computer, login, email, phone. Working, too; imagine that! Just waiting on the necessary development software, and the real work can begin!

On Saturday it was driving lesson (vroom vroom), shopping and lunch in Malvern (Mmmm…. Nandos…), caught in the rain in Moorabbin (splosh splosh), and watching the World Cup Qualifier on TV (two-two). Who’d have thought this city could get so fired up about soccer? I almost went but none of my rotten friends (or at least, the ones I asked) wanted to go. Like the rest of the nation, I couldn’t believe it when after Australia had been leading two-nil, Iran managed to equalise, winning the last World Cup Finals place. D’oh!

You sometimes hear stories about how taxi drivers drive like maniacs. Certainly my driving instructor reckons I should be on the look-out for them (as well as people driving company cars from a certain well-known very large telephone company that recently floated on the stock exchange…)

My own experience with taxi drivers is that some of them do drive like maniacs. Some of them drive very sensibly. And some of them drive very cautiously. Just like "normal" people. Of course, it’s generally the maniacs that you remember, because of that helpless feeling that your life is in grave peril and you can’t do anything about it!

We took two taxis on Friday night. As it happened, the second did drive like a bit of a maniac, but we made it back in one piece. The first drove quite sensibly, but what was funny was that we got talking with him, and he mentioned where he got his battered, bent old Melways*.

Out of a burning taxi wreck.

There was silence after he said that. We were wondering if he had been driving it. He was wondering why the hell he’d told us that.

The rest of my weekend was reasonably uneventful. On Saturday morning we hit the dentist, and came away with our mouths and wallets remarkably unscathed, it was just a check-up and clean. On Saturday afternoon another driving lesson - the fourth - I think I’m finally getting the hang of the whole gear and clutch thing, though my sister, who took me out for a spin on Sunday arvo, may take a bit of convincing.

*(actually it’s strictly speaking "Melway", but everybody calls it the "Melways"). The predominant street directory of Melbourne. Everybody uses it - emergency services, taxi drivers, anybody who has to get around. For Melburnians it’s more of a bible than a street directory. It’s got everything, everywhere, and how to get to it. Anybody who is scummy and buys a cheaper Gregory’s or UBD instead is only asking for trouble.

See: Melway/Ausway publishing

On Sunday we set out with friends to see if we could eat an entire Limor’s entree each. It’s impossible. This place could feed impoverished nations with its leftovers. You have never seen food servings so enormous. There were more chips than a superconductor factory. I reckon that place must hold the record the consumption of doggy bags. I ate all I could, and only managed to get through half of my entree sized dish. Quite frankly the thought of how big the main sized dish would be simply frightens me.

Meanwhile despite my casual attitude earlier in the week about not having a job to go to on Monday morning, I’ve actually been quite stressed about it. I’m out of work. Yikes. I know it’s meant to be a relatively normal thing for computer contractors, and the lack of earnings isn’t actually a problem (yet), but it’s just not something I’m used to. So come Monday I’ll be attacking the job hunting with a vengeance.

Well, with my current contract job expiring, ceasing to be, going to meet its maker, etc on Friday, I’m merrily job hunting once again. I wouldn’t have left it so late, but The Perfect Job(tm) reared its head last week and appeared to be the ideal way for me to continue bringing in enough dosh to feed the family over Christmas. Alas it evaporated on Tuesday, as is the case sometimes.

But I’m not panicking yet. Much. No no, I’m keeping calm. Just pursuing all available avenues and considering my options.

It’s been an interesting six months at this job. There have been good and bad points. I think the absolute worst bit of it, worse than the lack of things to do (it may sound good, but it loses its appeal), worse than the antiquated equipment or the "only introduce you to the people you need to know" way of working, worse than all of these things, has been the lifts.

Sure, the lifts are clean and shiny. They’re big and roomy. They have nice buttons that light up in a beautiful shade of red when you press them. But the software that controls them would have to be some of the worst I have ever seen. It’s probably why everyone who works in the building who has anything to do with computers spends their time waiting for the lifts complaining about them and making jokes about re-writing the software.

If I was writing software for lifts, one of the first principles I would include is that in the morning, and just after lunch (say before 10am, and between 1pm and 2pm) there are a lot of people entering the building. That’s what people do. But the lifts in this building, and whoever programmed them, seem to be unaware of this. In the morning and after lunch, while dozens of people wait in the lobby, most of the lifts are zipping up and down on the floors above, while just a single lift comes down to the ground level.

And as soon as that one lift arrives, the request button light goes off. Even if there’s dozens more people than can fit into the one lift, waiting. (And I refuse to believe that the stated limit of 24 people in one of these lifts has ever been achieved, unless there was a meeting of the Anorexic Dwarves Association being held in the building.) The request light won’t go back on again until that lift has gone, and typically this means that until that happens, another lift won’t come down unless absolutely no one calls it to one of the floors above.

As for the job hunting, there’s a few hot prospects I’m considering. I won’t be shattered if it takes a few more days to settle down - you never know, this time I might get a few days’ relaxation at home. Then it’ll be back to work - hopefully in a building where the lifts work properly.

Last night I went out to dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s with a bunch of people I used to work with. We ate, drank and were merry, and then walked out onto St Kilda Road to find our various ways home.

I suddenly started to feel really queasy, and said so. We were just about to cross the road when my body decided that there was something that had gone down my throat which would have to be ejected. My stomach bouncers had found a victim to chuck back out onto the street.

What an embarrassing situation. Here we are, having enjoyed dinner and each others’ company… "Goodnight, see you next time", then hwaaaaarrrrrrkkkk!

I’m not sure if it was a bug, the food, or perhaps the combination of beer and a closing hot chocolate didn’t sit well in my stomach. But I suddenly found I had decorated a little part of the footpath on St Kilda Road. As well as my tie.

Someone held my bag and I headed, in the traditional manner, for the flower bed, and proceeded to decorate somebody’s horticultural masterpiece outside the Concert Hall. A few gulps of fresh air and I felt better, and I managed not to add any decoration to my mate’s car as he gave me a lift home.

It reminds me of the infamous Richmond Station incident. When I was at uni, I luncheoned on the very best of culinary delights - a typical lunch might be a hotdog, chips and a big bottle of orange juice. One afternoon, after going to all the lectures I needed to go to (or perhaps just all the lectures I felt like going to) and after eating lunch, I headed into the city for a bit of bumming around, like uni students do when they have no money and nothing to do.

I headed home at peak hour. The train I was on was just coming out of the city loop when I started to feel really queasy. I stood by the door, just knowing that any minute now the 5:09 upchuck express was about to arrive. I tried not to think about the consequences of throwing up on suited commuters, and desperately begged the train to reach Richmond just a little bit faster than it was.

The train got to Richmond and I flung open the doors and bolted for the nearest bin. I didn’t quite make it, and up came all of that big bottle of orange juice, onto what had been a relatively clean platform 4, while waiting commuters deftly leapt out of the way.

Let’s go all out to turn this into an episode of Men Behaving Badly - Send in your vomiting stories. The place, the circumstances, etc (and whether or not you want your name used), and I’ll do up a Great Vomits Web Page. Send your story to spew @ toxiccustard.com

Well, my second driving lesson was yesterday. Once again the fatalities were remarkably low (zero).

I’m gradually getting used to this driving lark. The steering’s okay. And I’m a whiz with the indicators. Really where my problem is is the clutch. That and the whole gear situation. It’s probably just a matter of practice, but until I master it, I’ll still be stopping without the clutch down, trying to take off in second gear, and occasionally panicking and coming off the clutch too fast and stalling the car.

And I won’t talk about the time I reached for the gear stick and got the hand brake… Andre, my driving instructor, must have nerves of steel. And maybe he doesn’t own the car?

It has been pointed out that I could’ve learnt on an automatic. But, I ask myself, where would the challenge be in that? Besides, then I wouldn’t be allowed to drive a manual, which I might well need to do, because since I’ve started looking at the prices of cars, I’ve suddenly remembered another reason that I’ve never had a car - other than "I can’t be bothered learning to drive".

They’re damned expensive. It’s not like on The Brady Bunch when Greg bought that old heap for a hundred bucks. We’re talking thousands of dollars. And the more thousands, the better, if I don’t want to end up driving a completely crap smoke belching, fuel guzzling, deathtrap of a car.

No wonder that during the lesson when I saw a bus go by in the mirror, I longed for the good old days before I went out looking for all this complication in my life.

This morning my train ran parallel to another one for several kilometres - I felt like I was in a Cadbury commercial.

After watching the people in the other train for a bit, I was tempted to make a sign saying "Race you to Richmond!" to hold up to the window for them to see, but I dithered about it for too long. Every time we started to get faster, I’d think I’d do it, but then we’d slow down again and they’d start to overtake, and I’d change my mind.

For some reason, some people, myself included, feel compelled in this situation to check out who was doing what in the other train. It’s like when dogs pass each other on the street. They check each other out. Motorcyclists do the same thing too, nodding acknowledgement as they pass. And I never noticed it before I had kids, but kids in prams do it too. They always check out the other kid.

So as the trains raced, and weaved back and forth, we all put on our coolest expressions behind our sunglasses and watched the other people watching us.

We beat them. But then, they beat us into the City Loop. Let’s call it one all.

Well, it’s been another traditional Cup Day. Traditional in the sense that I lost all the money I bet. Yesterday I put a bunch of money on five random horses, and the closest any of them came was fourth. D’oh!

But there are compensations. I only lost $10. Crown Casino boss Lloyd Williams placed $500,000 in bets, on half a dozen horses. If I read the newspaper report correctly, he lost every cent. Sometimes, there is justice in the world.