Sun, 30 Mar 2008
Alongside our apartment block, there's a council-owned laneway that lets people take a shortcut between streets. It has a set of steps for the last 10 metres. About six months ago, somebody posted a sign on the six foot wooden fence separating the block land from the lane, reading "Playing On Steps Prohibited", black letters on white, and it sticks out like dogs balls.
It always bugged me when I saw it as I was walking home each day - primarily the fact that it was drilled into the fence that we own - without our knowledge and permission - and secondly because it's pretty officious to put a sign up for a problem that doesn't even exist. I have never seen any one playing on the steps ever before. It's the sort of anti-fun, prohibit-everything mentality that gives the Nawth Shaw such a stuffy image.
I'd always meant to do something about it, especially since no one in the block admitted to posting it, and the owner of the unit with the fence didn't do it, so it must have been someone who lived in a different block. But by the time I got home each evening, I'd usually have forgotten about it, or said "I'll do it on the weekend" (and forgotten), or some other excuse.
On Sunday, I'd had enough, and decided to just do it already. I got out my screwdriver and started unscrewing the screws that held the metal sign against the fence. The bugger who put it up obviously had an electric drill, too, because there were about 14 screws on the damn thing and it took me a good 15 minutes and the screws were pretty tight in.
So as I'm there getting a bad case of unscrewers elbow, a middle-aged couple passed by on the steps. They saw what I was doing, and they saw the wording on the sign.
Evidently, it rubbed them the same way as it rubbed me (that is, the wrong way), and put two and two together and come up with five, thinking I was putting it up, because they stopped and said in a disapproving tone, "So, do you have much of a problem with people playing on the stairs?"
"Well, it's not my sign, it's up on our property without permission, I think it's rude and I'm taking it down, not putting it up." I told them.
Their demeanour changed immediately. "Carry on," they said.
The last two screws were threaded, too, so wouldn't come undone - I ended up having to rip the sign down before chucking it in the bin.
Good riddance.
The Discman I bought back in 2003 for $200 (stupidly I bought it just as the iPod was going from strength to strength but still costing a fair bit more) is not even getting bids of $20 on Ebay. There are stacks of auctions, most of which have no bids at all. Maybe I should just donate it to Vinnies or something.
And the even ancienter Walkman from my teenage days (heh, all of 15 years ago) is sitting here staring me in the face as I try and work out exactly who would need a Walkman, even a free donated one. Does anyone still listen to tapes these days?
Sat, 29 Mar 2008
- Number of Humpty Dumpty Easter Eggs bought by us at the supermarket on Sunday now that Easter is over and all chocolate eggs are half price: 10
- Number of people at the supermarket who commented on the volume of Humptys bought by us: 2
- Number 'allocated' for giving away to friends: 8
- Number for ourselves: 2
- Number at risk of being eaten between now and when we see our friends next: 8
We went to an engagement party out at Wentworthville for a girl Kathleen used to work for.
The engagement party itself was a semi-formal 3 course dinner, complete with speeches, for 90 people.
If that was the engagement party, what's the wedding going to look like??
The kids in attendance (all under 10 and cute as anything) had a great time running up and down the back of the room.
And that's two trips past Ashfield in the same year for us - crazy!
Wed, 26 Mar 2008
- Had lunch at the Paragon Cafe and saw the Big Merino in Goulburn as the temperature hovered around 9C
- Climbed to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko, braving the cold wet cloud and mist at 9am, and had lunch looking out over a spectacular view. The walk up was so misty that we had probably 50m visibility max; by the time we reached the top, the sun had driven most of that away, and while walking down again we could see all the things we missed earlier
- Called the parents to let them know that I'd walked to the top of Australia, but they didn't sound as impressed as I thought they might be
- Saw the Lake Light Sculpture at Jindabyne
- Dinner at the Brumby Bar in Jindabyne, which goes from 0 to 100 patrons quicker than you can say gee I'm hungry and is there anything to eat around here
- Had schnapps at the Wild Brumby distillery between Thredbo and Jindabyne
- Went on a few of the track walks around Thredbo, which is a pretty different place without a thick covering of snow
- Ate too many fried breakfasts looking out over a great view from our hotel
- Drove home in solid traffic from Canberra all the back to Sydney
- Uploaded the photos to Flickr
Wed, 19 Mar 2008
We had a big spring cleaning day on Sunday. We went through the cupboard in the spare room, tossing out a whole bunch of stuff that we no longer needed - cables, old electrical items (including a cassette Walkman, an old answering machine, TV rabbit ears, old desk lamps, a step-down converter for Kathleen's MD player she bought in Japan and had stolen when we got broken into in Surry Hills, and the item that I had the most difficulty letting go of - my old Commodore 64). Clothes went to St Vinnies. Most of the electrical stuff went to Freecycle.
The boxes in the garage also had to go - we had the original boxes for some of our furniture ready and raring to go for the next day we move house. Ideally, that's a few years away, so the boxes got chucked into the recycling. A packing box filled with five books and two empty CD racks also got tossed - the CD racks went to the side of the road for council pickup, the books to the recycling bin.
I still cannot believe how much stuff we have lying around that we can't bear to throw away, on the off chance it might be needed 'some day'.
We bought a wireless laser printer.
It came with a special offer of ten reams of paper. Which doesn't seem a lot until the sales assistant brings the paper out, packed into two boxes, looking very much like the massive boxes of paper at your work.
Each of those boxes weighed 13 kilos. There was no carry handle, just the thin plastic strap, which made carrying the boxes out to the car a real pain in the neck.
Also a pain in the neck was setting up the wireless printing. In the end, I had to plug it into the router by a LAN cable; the wireless router suddenly decided its ethernet ports weren't going to work, so I had to dig out an old router.
God I hate technology sometimes.
But I eventually got it to work, and even found a good little out-of-the-way location for it to sit.
Wed, 12 Mar 2008
Note to self: find Hummer, take photo, send it in.
Mon, 10 Mar 2008
The weather was so nice on Sunday - blue skies and bright sunshine - that it seemed such a shame to spend it doing chores and cleaning the house.
Which is why, when Lu rang and suggested going out to Rozelle Markets with her, Denz and Steva, we said yes straight away.
The markets themselves were the usual type of Sydney flea market, full of junk (seriously, is there anyone buying VHS cassettes anymore?), so after wandering around having a look and getting a bite to eat, we wandered down Darling St for a few blocks.
We were going to go into About Life on Darling St and grab a coffee, but with the six of us it was hard getting a table. We ended up going across the road to the Common Ground Bakery.
On the inside we realised, looking at the long flowing skirts and headbands of the waitresses and the beards of the men, that it's an Amish cafe.
An Amish cafe is a little different from a Western cafe. For a start, there's no table service since "We're much too busy today." In addition, the machine is broken, so no smoothies. No frappes either. So most of the girls had their choices nixed. And Eva hated the coffee so much she had to go elsewhere for another coffee chaser to get the taste out of her mouth.
On the plus side, the magazine advertising their luddite lifestyle (Summer 2006!) was a good giggle.
Went for a bike ride along the new bike path which runs along the Gore Hill Freeway (you know, the one the NRMA hates so much*). It's a nice run, but very hilly. Seems most of the on- and off-ramps are designed so that the bike paths have to go under or over. As a result, there's very precious few flat spots. And the killer is that they haven't quite finished the part that runs under the Pac Highway to Lane Cove, so after a calf-busting zig-zag incline, I'm dumped at construction and roadworks with a sign that says "Take Detour", but no clear indication where the detour is.
I swear the RTA, who designed the path, are a bunch of idiots.
Anyway, ended up having a few coffees at Lane Cove before riding back home and catching a bus into town for a few beers with Steph. But on the trip in, the bus stopped at North Sydney.
"Sorry everybody," announced the bus driver to the packed bus. "I only have five minutes until my mandated driving time is up, and we won't make it to the city before then, so you'll all have to get off here."
A stunned silence. Are you serious?!
Yes, he's serious.
"Just tell the next bus driver and you won't have to buy another ticket," said our paragon of customer service as he shut the doors (but didn't pull away, mind you).
Luckily the next bus was right behind.
"Are you serious?!" exclaimed the driver as we informed him what his colleague had done. He just shook his head and we passengers continued on our way into the city.
I swear the STA, who surely would check their timetables and bus driver rosters, are a bunch of idiots.
But Steph is not an idiot, and he and I had a few beers in the afternoon sun down at King St Wharf.
* Funnily enough, most comments have an opposite opinion to that which the NRMA are advocating, demanding more cyclepaths and more emphasis on measures that support all road users, not just cars.
Tue, 04 Mar 2008
Going through a period of apathy with regards to updating. It's not for want of activity, either:
- Our friends Matt and Anj just welcomed their second kid, a baby girl.
- We celebrated the end of a cold wet summer (just the way I like them!) with a BBQ at our place on Saturday night. This was after I promised Steph all summer to have him over for my turn to wield the tongs.
- Friday night we went out to the Greenwood in North Sydney for a social get-together for Kathleen's Boot Camp fitness group. The Greenwood is nice, but it's no Rag.
- Went bowling on Wednesday night after work down at Darling Harbour. Came runner up in one round with a couple of strikes, and then proceeded to make everyone think it was a fluke by crashing out big time on the next round. I blame the beer.
- We went to a friend's 50th last Tuesday night and Kathleen whipped her arms about knocking a plate out of the waitress's hands and on to the floor, while I knocked a bottle of water over someone else. Only one of us was drinking - guess which one?
- One of my co-workers and I watched from our office building as an idiot walked down the side of the western distributor, against the oncoming traffic.
- I'm currently geo-tagging a whole bunch of photos that I plan to upload to Flickr, which means that any viewer can click on a link and be taken in Google Earth to the exact physical spot (or as near as I can remember) where it was taken! Picasa makes this pretty idiot-proof. This whole process of trying to do virtually every photo I've ever taken fits well with my obsessive compulsive personality. I expect I'll be finished sometime in, oh, 2015.
- I grew a beard but then Kathleen came back from her work trip and I had to shave it off. Yes, had to. I tried going for the Judge Muttonchops look, but that just looked ridiculous. Oh, and I got new glasses too, after god knows how long.
