The battle continues
A few days ago I found a cockroach in the cupboard. I couldn’t think of a way of extracting it without touching it, so I got the vaccuum cleaner and sucked it up.
Yesterday I had to get the vaccuum cleaner out again. Got it out, and found a cockroach sitting on top of it, triumphant, as if to say “is that the best you can do?”
I pushed it onto the floor and whacked it (both in the literal and in the Mafia sense) with a piece of cardboard. Then wiped up the cockroach guts off the floor.
Grrr.
Given the advice for battling the buggers is to ensure food is sealed up in storage, I’ve invested in a smattering of sealable storage containers to pack stuff into. If there’s no food available, hopefully that’ll discourage them from sharing the pleasure of my company.
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Big heapem diary
A little project originally I started about two years ago — to move my entire online diary (which goes back to 1994) into Wordpress — has finally been completed. I’ll spare you the boredom of the details of trying to write programs to convert the old handwritten HTML into something I could import, and instead just give you the impressive statistic that the database now holds no less than 1,570 entries going back 12 years.
(I could also mention there’s a staggering 15,000 comments in the thing, mostly from the last two years. Yikes. Quite frankly that amount seems ludicrous, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing is lying to me. Though it could explain why the backup file is 14Mb uncompressed.)
There’s still a bunch of reader comments from 2003 missing. Some entries have text that is formatted a bit funny. And a lot of the old entries aren’t properly categorised, meaning about half of everything falls under “General”. I’ll get to all of these in due course.
But I’m quite pleased, and it’s allowed me to re-live some of my favourite diary entries.
- She…
- My previous, rather stressful house move
- Attending the Goodies convention of 2000
- My arrival for the first time in England
- Ranting about the job I had without computers. (With one of my all-time best lines ever)
Meanwhile, some of the videos I’ve shot over the years have gone onto Google Video, which makes it easier to watch them online.
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Christmas and Boxing Day in brief
To their surprise and delight, the kids found a Lego train set, left in the fireplace by Father Christmas. Much fun building it.
All batteries purchased in readiness for Sonic Screwdriver and TARDIS. All gifts well received. So were the gifts for the adults.
Had a big Christmas lunch at my mum’s place. Less people than at the pre-Christmas lunch last week, but still fun.
I scored a yoyo in a Christmas cracker. Woo hoo!
Didn’t run out of toilet paper on Christmas Day, with nowhere to buy more. Where is my local convenience store that’s open on Christmas Day, anyway?
Took a long walk into the wilds of East Bentleigh to try and work off lunch and recover appetite for dinner. Found my local convenience store. Two of them in fact. Got almost to Warragul Warrigal Road (about 4km), then got a (free for the day) bus back. Still could only manage cheese on toast for dinner.
Slept in on Boxing Day. Lazed around the house.
Started doing stuff on my holiday To-Do list. Email Inbox down from twelve hundred and something to 92.
Went for a walk when wanting lunch. Found a pie and a Big M. Sometimes I regress, and eat the same diet I ate when I was 16.
Decided I didn’t desperately need anything in the Boxing Day sales, but might take a look at some furniture tomorrow if I feel motivated.
Played the CDs I got. They weren’t presents, but were found cheap while shopping for others’ presents.
Watched some West Wing episodes. Trying to get to the end of season 3, since rumour has it the ABC will start showing them from season 4 onwards.
Dusted off the bike (literally) and went for an evening ride to explore the neighbourhood. Ignored some kids sitting in the middle of a roundabout who requested I do a mono.
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Does size matter?
I thought I’d done all right with my $9.98 Christmas wreath from K-Mart (bigger, better, handmade one to come next year, I hope).
Until I saw this one at 101 Collins Street. Aye Carumba!
Oh well. That one wouldn’t fit on my door anyway.
Have a great Christmas, one and all.
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The holiday starts here
A short day at work, and three weeks holiday starts today (pretty much right now, in fact).
Things I’m planning to do:
- Complete the big clearout of the house. Some stuff will get chucked out (rubbish, recycle, freecycle), some will get tidied away. The plan is to get the spare room into the kind of state where you can actually get into it.
- Part of the above project involves getting some software off my old BBC micro for prosterity, then taking the Beeb over to Flemington, where someone wants it.
- Clear my email inbox (currently sitting at around 1100 items)
- Work out something to do with the girly lace curtains around the house
- Look over my 2005 resolutions and bemoan the fact that too many remain unfulfilled
- Get my Outlook and mobile phone address books synchronised, so I really don’t have to carry my address book around. (Not that I do anyway; I end up ringing my sister when I need an address.)
- New couch; new computer desks; maybe a coffee table as well
- Update all the blogs I manage to the latest versions of WordPress, and tweak the themes for the new year
- And upgrade the Guide to Australia and Great Vomits pages onto WordPress as well, so I can easily update them more often
- Get my remaining diary entries into Wordpress
- Get all my work gear drycleaned
- See if I can get my secret project off the ground
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Popup sales people
Those sales people in the station concourses are annoying. They’re all about 15, and stand by their little cardboard booths advertising Amex, shouting out “How are you?” and gesticulating wildly as you rush past.
Ditto the charity people, most of whom seem to be British backpackers, standing on street corners with clipboards, wearing today’s charity t-shirt over their clothes, shouting out greetings.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to these people that you’re in a hurry to get somewhere. To work, going home, or trying to get that train that’s not going to wait for you. While I don’t have much sympathy for the Amex people, occasionally there’ll be a charity which is actually a worthy cause, and I might consider actually talking to.
If I wasn’t in a hurry.
It occurs to me that these people might get a little more “business” if they were willing to walk with you as they talked.
Not that I’m inviting any 15-year-old reps from Amex or obscure charities to follow me down to my train. I’ve got enough credit cards, thank you.
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Grumble
Woken up early this morning by this idling, rumbling outside my door at 6:40.
Thankfully it’s not some Hitchhiker’s Guide scenario.
The house they’ve been ripping into is down the street. On Tuesday morning it was there. By dinner time it was gone, a flat piece of land with three big trucks parked on it.
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Happy Gravy Day
Happy Gravy Day everyone. May you and yours all be together for Christmas.
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