Phone rang yesterday. I guy I used to work for. Nice bloke, who has the unfortunate tendency to let his business associates run rings around him. After I left his employ, they ran one too many rings around him, and sent his company into administration and my former colleagues unemployed. Shame.

Anyway he said he was trying to get some of his old projects up and running again, and had got hold of some the old NT servers.

And was wondering what the passwords on them were.

Oh jeez. I left this company five years ago, and I wasn’t the main systems admin dude then. I recall the systems dude forgetting a password one time and having to reformat the machine… I get the feeling those NT passwords are pretty secure. (Though maybe he can plug the hard-drives into another machine?)

I had a wild guess at [company name] 01. He said he’d try it. And I took his contact number, promised I’d have a have a think and get back to him if I had any brain-waves.

And I wished him luck. I think he’ll need it.

She just called from Bratislava, Slovakia. She got there today.

On Friday she called from Budapest. They’d arrived to find it was St Stephen’s Day and everything was shut.

Both times the line was clearer than when talking to her on her old cordless phone in Footscray.

I’m glad she’s having a good time.

After watching last Monday’s final episode of The Sopranos, I started re-watching them from the beginning on DVD. Man they all look so young. Not just the kids. Still, it’s just as good seeing them the second time around.

Did a few things off my To Do list this weekend, but the best one was clearing through the old e-mails. I’m not finished yet, but my Inbox has gone from a ridiculous a thousand-and-something items down to 64. Much more manageable. Also demolished one box of junk from the study, chucking most of it out.

Cooked up a surprisingly trouble-free roast lamb rack on Saturday. Okay okay, so it should be dead easy, but somehow in the past I’ve managed to cock it up. Perhaps the only failing this time was forgetting to buy more vegies to roast, so it was limited to pumpkin and potatoes, with some carrots. Damn delicious though.

Footy tipping… argh. Not a good round for me. Only 4 out of 8, the only consolation being that there were a few upsets that not many people would have tipped. In the work tipping, I’m now equal first. Will have to try extra-specially hard next week to get my lead back. Amazingly in Tony’s comp, I’m still leading by one.

Well it’s really a garage, but it’s all the way at the end of the driveway and looks like a tight squeeze, so I’ve never actually used it for the car. Pah, it hasn’t rusted yet. Well, that I know of.

As usual, hold your mouse over stuff in the picture to read about them. (Alas Firefox only shows the first few words — apparently it’s on their bugfix list, but don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile right-click, Properties, then scroll through the title.)

Want to post yours? Link in the Trackbacks or comments.

• Past photos in this series
• Notes on creating the image map/hot spots with text

The one thing you don’t want to do is mis-time your toilet breaks.

A couple of drinks and a chat with a fellow geek from New Zealand in the pub last night. We get up to leave.

Ahh, that was a nice drink. Nothing much going on just at the moment, says the bladder.

We part outside Flinders Street Station, he’s bound for the tram stop, I head for platform 6.

Well you could go now, but it’s not urgent, and the toilets here are usually a bit bleuch.

Ah! The train’s waiting there. Express, as well. Find a seat, dig out my copy of MX. … Train leaves, pulls into Spencer Street … Flagstaff …

Hey, you know, that was a lot of beer. That last one was rather big. You know how alcohol goes through the system. Might be nice to find a toilet.

… Melbourne Central… … Parliament …

There’s toilets at all these stations. Sure you don’t want to stop off and catch the next train? Oh, but you’d have to wait. And the next one wouldn’t be an express. Not far to home.

… Richmond … South Yarra …

You know you need to go. But it’s express now to Malvern. Then only a couple more stops to home. Maybe you can wait.

… express, express, express, Malvern …

Okay, you officially really need to go. I know, I know, there’s no toilet here. Hang on until Caulfield, then decide. Or just go home. Only… what.. two more stops? 4 minutes. Plus the walk home, about 8 minutes. You can last 12.

… Caulfield …

Yes, you’re busting, but you might as well hang on. Just one more stop then the walk.

We pull into Carnegie. I stand up and walk to the door and realise just how badly out of hand this has got.

Oh man, relief is needed fast. Maybe if it’s too much you can go behind a tree in the park next to the station.

Well that would hardly be very dignified, would it. Besides, the blindingly bright lights of the station ensure there is nowhere nearby where one’s actions can be obscured.

I walk along the street, attempting to exude confidence. But inside my bladder is crying; screaming.

You need to go! You need to go! You should have gone before! You should have gone before!

I reach my street. Not much further now.

Full full full full full full full full.

This is bad. I get out my keys. Have the front door key at the ready. Ah, there’s my car, parked on the street today, outside my house. (Long story).

Ah, at last. Almost there. At last.

Wait! It’s not my car. It’s someone else’s car, someone else’s house. Mine’s 30 metres further on.

Aarrrrrhgghghhhhhh

Get to my place, ignore the mailbox, fumble with the keys.

Hurry. Hurry.

Fumble, fumble. Open front door, go in, dump bag in hallway, walk briskly to the toilet.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. Relief…..

I think it was Billy Connolly who said the Queen must think the whole world smells of fresh paint.

Going to the airport is a bit like that. It’s a clean, freshly-painted, shiny cocoon. There’s no litter. There’s loitering, but only by well-dressed people. There’s security everywhere. There’s international-standard signage pointing you to just about anything you need to find. There’s shopping, but no betting shops, no porn videos for sale, no strip joints, and sure as hell no $2 shops.

I got out of the Skybus (20 minutes, just like they claim) and walked into the terminal, upstairs to International Departures to find Marita and Justine, queueing with a cast of thousands. After checking-in we looked around the shops, got some Euros, I was given the all-important task of doing Marita’s footy tips during her absence from AFL-playing territories.

“Here, hold this.” She gave me an apple and mandarin to hold while she searched through her handbag. Ah, a Thursday afternoon spent standing about in the airport, holding fruit.

We queued for a hot chocolate, at in the food court at the only stall selling hot drinks. An International Terminal monopoly. Two guys running it. One had the sole task of working the cash register. The other was taking the orders, making the drinks, telling the cash register dude what had been ordered. Yet the cash register dude was the bottleneck. He seemed to be struggling to find which buttons to press. Weird.

And the hot chocolates weren’t that good. We drank them, and I was given my choice of the fruit. Because she’d decided that since they weren’t flying Jetstar or Virgin Blue, maybe they’d feed people on the plane after all. Anything I didn’t want would be chucked away. I chose the apple.

We said our fairwells at the big shiny doors, and off they went on their jaunt to Europe. I scampered back to the Skybus and joined the tourists coming in to visit. Sat and watched the in-bus video, clutching my apple (no eating on-board). At the end of the trip, the tourists milled about the Spencer Street bombsite to ask the customer service people where they should go. I left them behind, crossed the street to jump on a tram back to work and the real world, and crunched into the apple.

…and conversely, one reason why I’m reluctant to buy one.

(Disclaimer: Okay so this was posed for the camera, but only following from actual unscripted events. And if a new couch arrived, they’d be told not to do it, and I know they’d comply.)

It was one of those days.

. The hot water wouldn’t light and the drains are playing up.

.. The train was ten minutes late.

… Marita left the country for three weeks.

…. Had to get home early to meet the plumber.

…. But at least I don’t have to pay for the plumber. (At least, not directly.) (Mind you, he was pretty surly on the phone.)

… And it’s only three weeks.

.. And the train came eventually.

. And the hot water works now. (The drains are a different story.)

So actually it wasn’t that bad.