Highlights of my weekend
Saturday 12:00. Put a bunch of whites in the washing machine. Put soap liquid in. Close machine. Turn dial, ready to start.
14:00. Open machine. Pull washing out into a basket. Notice it seems remarkably dry. Must be because it’s a hot day. Don’t have time to hang up yet, so leave in basket.
14:45. Drive car to Safeway Plus petrol. How is it that a relatively simple petrol station layout, involving entry and exit signs, and little arrows on the ground that show you which way to drive in and out, can be so confusing for most of the people using it? There were cars going in all directions, and the chance of an organised queue was roughly zero.
14:50. Triumphantly pull up to a bowser, only to find an Out Of Order sign on it.
14:55. Finally get to a working, vacant bowser, and fill up with petrol. Okay, so I wouldn’t normally bother waiting for so long to get petrol, but I had a coupon giving 6 cents off per litre, because I’d somehow been organised enough to spend $30 in one hit at Safeway.
And before you say "they probably charge more anyway", they’re actually reasonably competitive with the Caltex down the road.
15:00. Point the car towards Geelong. Try not to grumble too much about the kilometres and kilometres of speed restrictions and bollards (though no actual blokes doing any work) along the road.
16:20. Arrive in Geelong, meet my friend Penn at the Geelong waterfront. (Hmmm. I guess that makes her some kind of Penn-friend?) Sit and have drinks and proceed to take the piss out of the guys setting up tents for the New Year’s Eve party, the tents featuring grandiose signs proclaiming that they are not merely tents, but they are Tent Technology
from some company whose name escapes me. Ah yes, Tent Technology, designed in secret laboratories by scientists in white coats, and taught to Tent Technology Operatives at the faculty of Tentology in some university or other.
Also take the piss out of the security guy who is strolling up and down, constantly pulling at his undies, apparently trying to pull out what must be one monumental wedgie. Seriously, he must have been doing this for a couple of hours as he walked up and down. This was obviously an exceptionally bad wedgie.
After a while I was getting hungry. So I went and ordered some food. … (pause for comic effect) … Wedges.
Fast forward to Sunday…
Sunday 13:40. Go to load machine with more washing. Notice setting is on warm. Notice dial is turned, ready to start. Look in tray, notice liquid is present. Realise I never actually washed the clothes yesterday! No wonder the machine had been so quiet! D’oh!
13:45. Re-load machine from basket. Start machine. No, really start machine.
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Late late late Christmas shopping
 The new Melway. Not just a street directory, more a way of life. |
On Friday afternoon I headed over to Chadstone to buy the presents I didn’t get given for Christmas. You see, in our family we freely admit that we’re crap at choosing presents for each other (at least most of us are – those that aren’t are pretty damn good) and so we exchange lists of suggested gifts. And this Christmas, my haul of presents was really good, but there were two things I needed that I didn’t get. One because nobody chose to buy it for me (and fair enough), the other because I didn’t actually include it on the list!
So I went to go and buy these two things. Firstly a 2002 refill for my diary. And secondly, the new edition of the Melway, because it’s got the new route numbers used on country roads. This is important, because VicRoads in their finite wisdom have put these route numbers on all the signs, and also taken away all the old road signs that had the road names on them. Which means if you don’t know exactly where you’re going, and you don’t have a map with the route numbers on them, it’s exceedingly easy to get lost. I know this, because it happened to me a couple of weeks ago.
I also bought a calendar for the kids’ room. Helps them learn days of the week and months and so on. I would have bought it for them for Christmas, but everyone knows they go to half price on Boxing Day, and who wants to spend $20+ on a 12 big pictures and the days of each month listed out? Not me.
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Boxing Day wrap up
Well Christmas Day was cold and wet. Certainly very un-Christmas-like. But we all piled over to my mum’s place to unwrap presents, stuff ourselves full of food, and generally had a good time. Which we did. Especially on Isaac’s new pogo stick.
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Christmas Eve
![[Getting into the Christmas spirit]](/images/2001/12xmashat.jpg) Getting into the Christmas spirit. |
Since it’s Christmas Eve, I wore a Christmas hat for much of the day… out at lunch, on the train home, that kind of thing. I discovered last week that wearing a silly hat can make some of my workmates laugh, and it seemed like a small price to pay to bring some laughter into the world.
In fact, hardly anybody laughed at me. At least, that I could see.
As I came home, the Christmas spirit was certainly evident. Half the shops were shut early. The checkout chicks in Safeway had lost the Christmas hats they’d been wearing for the last fortnight. And out on the street, one driver beeped loudly at another, and got the finger in return. Ah, Christmas, you can’t beat it.
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Almost Christmas
It’s almost Christmas. I’ve got all the presents. Haven’t wrapped them all yet. Soon. Very soon.
On Friday night I went out with my sister and some of her friends to see the second last Mavis’s concert. The Mavis’s are a band that I’d heard of, but if I passed them in the street, I wouldn’t recognise them. And if asked to name one of their songs, I’d struggle. But I did recognise a few of the songs they played. Most Aussies would probably recognise "Cry" if they heard it.
In fact, I liked what I heard. Still, it could be a bit late to become interested in their music, since they’ve just played their last concerts.
It seemed disgustingly early on Saturday morning when Josh
and Cathy knocked on the door. Actually it was probably about 9:30, but I staggered to it and opened it in my pyjamas, and they presented me with a Christmas gift. I have a gift just about ready for them (makes a change from last year), but I won’t talk about it in case they’re reading. (They’re sneaky like that.)
On Saturday night I was out for drinks and dinner at Southbank. Afterwards we went into the casino and I blew my month’s pay cheque at BlackJack. No, no, wait a minute, no I didn’t! Actually I just walked around the casino for the first time. The main points to note are that
- It goes on and on and on. Rows after rows of machines.
- It’s easy to get lost and be unable to figure out which way you came in.
- Nobody, and I mean nobody smiles in there. You’d think they’d all be having fun. But no. It’s definitely not like on the adverts.
All rather depressing really. At least one can be thankful that the casino’s customers are contributing generously to the state.
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You’re kidding!
Bloke on the train this morning in a pinstripe suit. His phone rang. "Hello? …. WHAT?! You’re kidding! Really?….. Oh you have to be joking!"
What corporate crisis could it be? Creditors out of control? Administrators called in? Business collapse? Industrial disaster? Or something bigger? Breaking news? Bin Laden captured? Or another terrorist attack? The audience of fellow travellers waited with baited breath.
"So… they kicked FOUR GOALS?!"
Ahhhh. Much more important. Shoulda guessed.
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Buy, buy, buy!
 The Age, Tue 18/12 I wonder if anybody in a position of power ever takes notice of letters to newspapers? |
I’m pretty damn pleased with myself. Managed to get just about all my Christmas shopping done yesterday. Not that there was a humungous number I planned to get, but it was all a bit intimidating before I started.
First step was a trip to Chadstone. "What?!" you’re thinking "has he gone off his trolley? A trip to Chadstone? Just before Christmas?! To a place where just looking for somewhere to park the car could take until after Christmas?! Pure madness!"
To which I reply: I’m not stupid, I took the bus. And although the carpark was indeed an hellish chaotic place, the centre itself wasn’t too bad. To my surprise, even the queues to buy stuff were minimal. Well, most of the queues. Well okay, maybe just some of the queues.
Anyway after that I came home, had some lunch, regrouped (?) and hit the city. Pretty busy there too, but after visiting Myer,JB’s, David Jones and a few other places, I got home with the bulk of what I’d planned to buy. Maybe this Christmas thing isn’t so hard after all.
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Memories
Another week gone, and Christmas is creeping ever closer. Tomorrow I’m going to make a concerted effort to get all my Christmas presents bought and ready.
Had a bit of a laugh this morning when I saw an internal memo at <monolithic corporation I work for>. Apparently they’re economising, and their way to save a few shekels this year is to get rid of all the plants that they rent… well, not quite all, they’re going to keep the ones in the lobby, and on the executive levels! I suppose we should be thankful that having withdrawn all forms of photosynthesis for us drones, they aren’t considering cutting back on the air supply to save a bit more.
There’s been a lot of interest this week (at least from us folk in the geek community) in Google’s launch of their 20 year Usenet archive. Quite apart from the earthshatteringly significant events that have been posted about over the years, I’ve found a few of my own memories in the archive.
- This post from some rather over-zealous bloke who somehow figured out that my jokes about the Fascist Fuckwits’ Federation were deadly serious
- The dweeb who decided the best way to get stamps from around the world was to ask "Are YOU in a foreign country??". Well done fella.
- And my mate Brian’s creation "Rocket Roger", which he claimed was better than Toxic Custard – certainly debatable. Didn’t last quite as long though…
It’s a funny feeling to see your own words coming back at you after all these years. Though come to think of it, I get that all the time!
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