It’s 6pm, and you’re working back late. Outside the only shops left open are those such as the CD shop you have to run up to shortly to buy a birthday present, before heading to an evening co-curricular meeting.

Then you realise that your trousers are developing a hole in the seat. Not a huge gaping hole, but a hole nonetheless. What do you do?

Me? I put my jacket on, went out and finished those tasks I needed to do, while trying not to squirm too much while sitting. Then I caught the train home, occasionally glancing around to see if anybody was snickering.

Which nobody was, at least noticeably. Time to go trouser shopping.

It’s the last day of my holidays, though perhaps fittingly, I’ve been bombarded with support calls today. Oh the curse of the mobile phone and remote network connection.

Some questions that might be resolved by Monday. Or maybe not:

I bought some clothes yesterday. Can I actually pull off 3/4 length pants, or will they look ridiculous on me?

I also bought a kitchen chair from Ikea yesterday. Got it home to discover it wasn’t quite the exact match of the old ones that I thought. Will notice and laugh?

Are today’s work issues caused by a bug in one of Microsoft’s libraries?

Will I be able to shout about that, so as not to make too much noise about the other bug I found today, in my own code? (Oh so THAT’s why it takes ages to run, and spits out the wrong figures.)

One day will the remote network connection be less flakey? Or is it just my machine’s setup?

Once all the work stuff is over, will I find the time to have a shower, tidy up the house, have some lunch, do some shopping, iron some shirts for work next week, then get all my stuff together for going away for the weekend? (Don’t get too excited. It’s only Seymour. With a bit of luck I’ll prepare a Here Is My photo today, to appear on Sunday.)

Will the paint specks on my arms and legs from helping paint Josh and Cathy’s house last night eventually come off?

Is there time for another cup of tea?

I got some new shoes last week. I’m terrible at buying shoes, I hate buying shoes, I can’t choose shoes.

Add to this some level of anxiety about my smelly, sweaty feet. I knew I needed shoes, and I knew I’d be going shoe shopping after work, so what did I do? I took an extra pair of socks with me. Changed into them as I left work. After all, it’s not very civilised to try on new shoes with smelly feet, is it?

I had noted a 25% Off Men’s Shoes Sale at Myer. So in I went and after much wandering around the store, found some I liked, got the lady to find the right size (got some. Work shoes. Black. Extremely shiny, at least at the moment. Well, except for one bit on the rim of the sole, which seems to have lost its sheen already. And they show the dust really well.

As invariably seems to be the case with nice looking shoes, I need to wear them in. I’ve survived day 2. Unlike on day 1, I’m at the stage now where I think I could run in them if I had to. I just choose not to.

Oh, and my runners need replacing as well…

I’m not the most fashionable person on the planet, but I’m not the least either. Somewhere in the middle. I know I’m in the need for something of a wardrobe upgrade, and I’ll take any (good) advice I can get, especially in the casual clothes department. I think I’m okay at the business clobber, but not so good on the rest.

So some talk of clothes, what might suit me, and a quick flick through the wardrobe last weekend was the subject of much attention from me, I can tell you. A few shirts were highlighted that in my heart of hearts I already knew were past their wear-by date. They’ll be going in the charity bin any day now. Someone even less chic than me can have them. I’m sure there’s more that should go out, too.

And maybe a shopping trip can be scheduled sometime soon to look for potential replacements. Close your eyes Daniel, get out your credit card, and be brave, this won’t hurt a bit…

[Geek distraction: WordPress blogs under spam attack]

I just got home. Off with the work gear: trousers, jacket, shirt, tie. On with the clothing I wouldn’t be seen dead in: the trackie-dacks, that old red windcheater and the slippers.

God help me if anybody drops by unexpectedly.

Friday night DVD: School Of Rock. Not at all deep, and obviously a Jack Black post-High-Fidelity star vehicle, but very funny, very enjoyable.

I rang the bank to ask what happened with my alarm clock points reward thing I ordered. The lady told me it would take up to 28 days to arrive. TWENTY EIGHT days?! Where’s it coming from, the moon? Do Sony put these things together especially by hand after ordering or something? Obviously they don’t just send a bank minion down to Harvey Norman to buy it and put it in a PostPak. Obviously I’ll have to be patient, and keep using my mobile phone for my alarm clock.

Saturday was party night. Collectively Marita and I were invited to three of ‘em as a matter of fact. See, sometimes it’s a Saturday night at home with the biscuits, a game of Scrabble, and an X-Files DVD, sometimes it’s social butterfly time. Since Beth got in first, hers was graced with our presence. The required early night and its close proximity helped, mind you. A little wine, some nice snacky party food, some good company and My Brand New Party Shirt(TM).

I had bought the Party Shirt on Friday. I’m usually hopeless at buying casual clothes. Some kind of impetus is always required. Sometimes it’s my existing clothes falling apart. This time it was an attempt to go to a party with a stunning woman on my arm and not look completely like an unworthy dag. I don’t know if the plan worked or not, but I kinda like the shirt. It’s stripey and in a style quite unlike previous shirts I’ve owned. Once I got over agonising whether it should be tucked in or not (definitely not, I think) I relaxed a bit and felt quite comfortable in it.

The early party night gave way to Sunday morning, and we walked Marita’s dog at Altona Beach (much canine hilarity with The Chasing Along The Sand Game). The afternoon was spent lazing at home with the kids, continuing to play the Harry Potter game on the XBox, a video or two, and between showers jumping high on the trampoline, playing Totem Tennis, and a short walk.

And now the weekend has ended. 7 out of 8 in the tipping, and my team won! Could it get much better? Depends whether or not my tipping competitors crashed and burned.

Do I walk a bit funny or something? The heels of the two pairs of shoes I most commonly wear (the Monday to Friday work shoes) are wearing away on the outside edges. Further, one pair is re-developing the same hole which I thought was comprehensively eliminated a year ago. And in the same position of the same shoe. Strange, since the repair bloke fully redeemed it and gave it an entirely new soul.

Since the end of financial year stocktake sales started yesterday, maybe it’s time to go on a shopping spree. Stock up on the stuff I need now at sale prices, rather than later at full price. Off the top of my head, I could do with buying:

• New pair of work shoes and a new pair of runners, which are also aging. I’m a shocking shoe shopper, racked with indecision. For the love of God, if you know me, don’t volunteer to come along.
• Something in the casual winter wear department. Maybe a nice shirt and a jumper or two — I’m not quite as bad at clothes shopping as I am at shoe shopping.
• Perhaps some new work shirts, as some of my old ones will start to self-destruct before too long.
• A couple of nice new ties. Certainly at least one to replace the nice blue tie I had that got splattered with something very messy (but very delicious) one dinnertime, and I foolishly thought I could try and clean myself, thus avoiding drycleaning. Nuh uh. In fact the eventual dryclean got rid of the original stain, leaving signs of my cleaning attempts. Sigh. Don’t even try.
• A dressing-gown, for use in preventing freezing my arse off when moving around the house after getting up. My existing gown is unfortunately deficient in this respect, as it has developed a hole in precisely that location. Apart from the temperature factor, not very dignified when going out onto the driveway to get the newspaper.
• Perhaps look out for something in advance for the kids for their July allotted XBox game.
• I’m not totally against the idea of, at some stage, obtaining a frying pan which has a matching lid, rather than a mismatched one from a different, long since disposed of, pan.
• My cordless phone has gone ga-ga, so it’s probably time for a replacement, so I am no longer tethered to the kitchen counter to make untimed phone calls.
• Might be time to pick up a drill too, for those occasional… uhhh… drilling forays. And lazy screwdrivering.
• Need a new couch, but will probably wait until I get into a new house. Umm. Whenever that happens.

Yesterday I ventured into Myer briefly, and fought through the crowds to obtain (at 25% off) the XBox game Halo for a bit of grown up MA blast-the-shit-out-of-aliens action. It got incredibly good reviews: the all-time highest rated game on Metacritic. Had a quick go of it last night, and it appears to live up to the hype. More on that later.

I left the rest of the merchandise in Myer and DJs to the hardcore nutter shoppers. But when I have time in the next day or two, further bargain-hunting will commence.

Went out to lunch with some colleagues, to some little place off Collins Street. Honey chicken, mixed vegetables and fried rice. And an orange juice. $8.90. Gave $20 to the girl, and she came back with change totalling $19.10. Something obviously went wrong there. Gave her a $5 note back, before realising later that I should have given her another $3.

At least unlike last time eating there, I managed to avoid getting pasta sauce on my tie, which set me back $6.50 at the dry-cleaners. Which seems like a lot. But what was I going to do — chuck out an otherwise good $45 luvverly silk tie? Ties may be the most useless piece of clothing ever invented for the male of the species, but they are decorative.

I’ve had a bunch of money sitting in my PayPal account for the past year or two, left over from eBay auctions. Rather than let it rot there, I’ve given it to WordPress instead. For a bunch of guys writing free software, they’re doing a great job, and the software has certainly made my life easier.