It's all about G

Let's Play Guild Wars - Part 2 - Tipping The Skales

2011-04-03T20:45:00.000+10:00

Let's Play Guild Wars - Part 1 - Into The Great Wide Yonder

2011-03-30T23:35:00.000+11:00

Let's Play Guild Wars - Part 0 - Introductions

2011-03-25T01:34:00.000+11:00

Is it tommorrow already?

2009-09-30T14:41:00.002+10:00

For the past 5 days i have been the same age as M34tb4LL, happy birthday M34tb4LL for last Sunday, but tomorrow once again i will be a year older than him.

I know that I will always be a few days shy of being a year older than him, but when we tell people our age we always round it down to the last birthday so TECHNICALLY for the last 5 days M34tb4LL and i have been the same age (well it makes sense in my mind at least).

But tomorrow is my birthday, and it has kind of snuck on me! In fact this whole birthday season has snuck on me this year. The birthday season of course started on Friday with my mother's birthday, quickly followed two days later by M34tb4LL's birthday and then two days after that (yesterday) it was M34tb4LL and my wedding anniversary, happy anniversary for yesterday M34tb4LL, and as i have already mentioned it is my birthday tomorrow which will be quickly followed by M34tb4LL's brother's birthday in two after that! It is a busy time...

This year there has been a few things going one though. With a new baby on the way and a house full of 10 years + of crap and a toddler that need to be moved out of the baby's room and into his own room and did i mention that our house is filled with 10 + years of crap?

The problem for us is that we have spent so many years a couple, living very comfortably in our house that now that we need to share it with children we are having to clear out our stuff to fit theirs in... It is a bit of a bitter circle thing really.

One thing that M34tb4LL i decided was that we were not going to get each other presents this year, or to put it another way - get each other more stuff that has to be put somewhere... But we did want to get a new bed base, so the bed base is our present to each other! And (a little bat on the back to us both here) the bed base that we choose actually has a large amount of storage under it - storage for some of our crap!

I did of course give M34tb4LL a little something on his birthday that was from **wink wink** Peanut and Bean, well you have to have something on your birthday. But what i - i mean they - gave him will over time have been consumed (it was a bottle of whiskey) that in the long term storing it shouldn't be too much a problem.

But anyway - with all this trying to minimise - and being pregnant in general - and just the general running around that seems to have become part of our daily lives - we have just kind of found ourselves smack bang in the middle of birthday season without a paddle (but then if we did have a paddle, where would we store it!)

And tomorrow is my birthday. I have taken the day off work and we have not made any plans as to what we might do for the day and i don't really have a problem with that! Though I don't think we will be doing what we did last year - going shopping - don't need to spend the day impulse shopping and then having no where to store things!!!

(: G

There is a new blog in town...

2009-06-29T21:33:00.002+10:00

... and this time its serious!!!

No not really, and i can't guarantee that it will get any more attention than my other blogs seem have gotten recently. But hey - at least I make a pretty weak, half hearted effort once in a while.

So check it out -

Find new blog here

(: G

Random thoughts / questions

2009-04-07T08:00:00.001+10:00

Do the fast food outlets that have drive-thrus assume that most of their customers have SUVs? I don't, I have a station wagon, and the window is a bit of a reach up.

I have noticed that orange soft drinks do not really taste much like oranges. Is the colour orange a flavour unto itself?

When a new product is being launched and the people launching it also provide a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ), who is asking the questions? Most likely not the end user since the product is only just being launched!

Why do places that sell coffees charge so much for a babychino - it is a tiny cup of nothing but froth! It is not worth $2 people.

Is it possible to be both not as clever as you think you are and be more intelligent than you give yourself credit for (people have said both about me)

Do people who work for Cadbury buy the Nestles white chocolate? It is a nicer white chocolate than Cadbury makes.

And do people who work for Nestle buy the Cadbury milk chocolate?

Is the iceberg that the Titanic hit still floating around somewhere? Or has it melted by now?

And lastly -

Since I signed up to Facebook - I have not been as regular with blogging, bad Facebook!

(: G

I am the uber-shopper

2009-02-21T09:00:00.006+11:00

This is a bit of a blog with a Peanut cross over but, let's face it - the topic is all about me!

As many of you know, shopping is a bit of hobby of mine. I love hunting for a bit of a bargain and have been known to hold off on buying a much prized find in the hopes that I can find it at a better price.

But of course there are also times where I just stumble onto a bargain that is not only too good to pass up - but too good to be true. There have been a couple of these experiences lately, and it is these said experiences that are the topic of my blog today.

The first shopping bargain that I am going to retell to you happened a couple of weeks before Peanut's birthday. It was a stinking hot day and my mother-in-law (Peanut's Nana) was staying in a caravan on the Rosebud foreshore. Do I need to go on tell you what Peanut and I decided to do for the day?

Anyway, so we got to Rosebud at about lunch time and thought we would have a little bit of a look at where the tide was at on the beach first. Mother-in-law and I thought it would be better to go back to the caravan and have some lunch rather than go for a swim straight away. And of course after we had lunch we thought it might be better to take a walk to the shops to let lunch settle - and also so that Peanut could have a nap in the pram.

For those of you who have not been to Rosebud... there is really not too much to the shopping centre, it is nothing like our local shopping centre! There is a Coles, a Target and a Kmart and a handful of little shops. But that does not stop me from looking for a bargain. Or in the case of the day in question, stumbling onto one.

Mother-in-law wanted to have a look for a birthday present for Peanut, and had been thinking of getting him a toy truck of some description and we went into both Target and Kmart to have a bit of a look at the toy truck options in these two stores. While we were looking around the shelves in Target, we both commented on the fact that the price/description tags did not seem to match the toys that were there. While we looked at all the trucks and got a collection together to take to a scanner (to find out what the price of each actually was) I noticed a red tag on the shelf with the price '36c'. I pointed it out my mother-in-law and we both laughed at the thought that the twin pack of Tonka trucks would be for '36c'. Then we started to walk off in search for a scanner to get some prices on the trucks we had picked up.

I then thought - i might double check that label and see what the item was that they were selling for 36c. I went back to the shelf and the label read 'Tonka 2 pack' - that was it, so I picked up the toy and took it with me. I thought, it wouldn't hurt scanning it just in case it was 36c (but I was very sure that it wouldn't be that price).

Well to cut what has already been a pretty long story short - the set of two Tonka trucks scanned at 36c, all three times we scanned it!!! It also scanned up at 36c when we took it to the cash register - and the woman who served us did not question the price, just congratulated us on our find. And might I add that Peanut indeed enjoys playing with his two Tonka trucks.

The second find of the century (can you have two finds of the century?) was only last Friday. I had to go on a bit shoe shopping excursion. No, not for me, Peanut had grown out of his shoes and had been wearing a pair I had borrowed from a friend for a week.

I had found the cutest pair of Reebok sneakers for him at the kids shoe shop at our local shopping centre that were $29.95 reduced from $79.95 and was feeling pretty happy with myself. But I was half debating whether to get a pair of sandals as well. I was thinking that we are getting to the end of summer, but then again there is no guarantee that the warmer weather will stop when the month rolls over. He does have a pair of sandals that fit him now, but then they are not sturdy enough for him wear all day and Definitely not good enough for wearing while playing outside at daycare.

So I needed to find a pair of sandals that were good quality but did not cost much money - and were therefore a justifiable cost. And little did I know when I started looking that I would find that exact thing!

I walked from end of the shopping centre to the other looking at every shop that carried shoes for children, and as I got to Myer - the last shop in the centre I had left to look in, I was no closer to getting a pair of sandals for Peanut. And the funny thing was I did not hold any hopes of finding anything, but we made our way to the kids shoe department anyway.

When we got there, there was a sign that read "one day only, 50% off already reduced children's shoes". But of course a special like this was useless if there was not a pair of size 5 1/2 sandals, in a style that will offer the protection that a day in childcare will demand. They had to be good quality so they would be comfortable as well as sturdy, they had to be a price that I could justify and they had to be in a colour that went with most of Peanut's clothes. All that was a bit of an ask.

I looked on the sales table and I found - without much searching - a pair of navy blue, leather, size 5 1/2, Clarkes sandals. They fitted every item on my check list including the price. The sandals original price was $69.95, then they had been reduced to $41.00, plus with the one day only 50% savings they came out at just $20.50.

But here is the best part my bargain find - I had a $20.00 Myer gift card that had been sent to me because I am part of their shopping rewards program! So that means in actual fact the sandals have put me 50c out of pocket!

Hunting for a bargain may be one thing, but finds like this only come once in a life time! Or in this case once every couple of weeks. I know I have said it before but I feel it needs to be said again - I am, therefore I shop.

(: G

Been seen sipping lately?

2009-01-14T15:36:00.002+11:00

Since our beloved Starbucks was closed M34tb4LL and i have not had an outlet for our coffee sipping / people watching passion. Sure, there are other coffee places at our local shopping centre and where the Starbucks used to be there is now a new coffee place - but it is not the same.

We quickly realised that it is not just the coffee that attracted us to the previously mentioned coffee shop, it was the people. The friends that we made at the Starbucks were far more important to us than the coffee they made for us. It was a place for us to go on a lazy Friday evening and just sit back, watch the busy shoppers passing by and have a bit of a chat and share a few laughs with the Starbucks staff.

And yes, i know that both M34tb4LL and myself have done a tribute post about the closing of our beloved Starbucks store but i am going to ramble on again...

But, the ramble is not just in a nostalgic fashion! No!!! M34tb4LL and i have indulged in our seen sipping habit lately!!!!!

On the weekend we made a special trip to a suburb that is much closer to the CBD than we live. Those darn speciality stores that won't make the effort to open stores in the suburbs! But anyway, since we were in the area we decided to have a bit of walk around - look in the other shops - randomly spend some money.

It was while we were wondering down the street that we saw (and of course remember that not all Starbucks in Australia had been closed) a Starbucks store. We thought about not going in, that it was not the same seeing as the people there had no idea of who we were, but nostalgia got the better of us and we gave in to the offer of coffee goodness.

While we drank our drinks, and reminisced about the taste that we had not enjoyed in nearly six months. I made the comment to M34tb4LL that it almost felt like we were cheating on past lover (??? how can it be cheating if the lover is in the past ???) AND it was at the that moment that one of the girls that had worked at Starbucks entered the store!

So the Starbucks experience was complete. Not only were we able to enjoy the drinks that Starbucks do so well, but we got to have them with a familiar face to Starbucks - all be it on the other side of the counter.

You couldn't help but think that if we had gone into the store on our way down the street rather than on the way back, or if we had not gone in at all (as we were half thinking of doing) we would have never known she was there.

(: G

The Non-Events of a Neglectful Blogger

2008-11-16T21:22:00.002+11:00

It has been a while since I have done a blog! Even by my standards it has been a while!!!

But to catch you all (??? whoever maybe left after all this time ???) up I am going to fill you'll in on one of the more exciting things that has happened in the past three months -

Got a new car! Well when i say new, I mean new to me. My old was having a few problems. And by a few I mean a lot. The air-con was not working and if it was, it wouldn't have been because I knocked the pulley thing off the bottom of the car when I ran over a traffic island. The re-demister was not working, but would randomly turn on when... the radio would randomly stop working. The central locking did not work and on the few occasions that M34tb4LL did manage to get it working for me it nearly flattened the battery. Two out of the four electric windows did not work and a third was on the way out. Two of the tires were going to need placing sometime in the near future, and the spare was probably flat, I don't know. And a host of other little, niggly things that were either on their way out or completely gone and been held together with just sticky tape and dirt.

But there was one other thing, some might call it a major thing, that was not working properly on the car - the brakes. Now you don't have to have a car, or even know how to drive to know that brakes come in handy when driving. And the brakes on my car would slow me as long as I pumped the pedal till it 'stuck' and did not just 'sponge' all the way to the floor of the car. Lets just say that when I was a traffic light I got in the habit of putting the car into park very quickly.

So my new car has... Well everything that my old car didn't including brakes that work! And it is a station wagon! I got my 'Mum's mobile'.

And unlike my old car I can fit the pram in the boot! In fact I can fit the pram, the port-a-cot, a jumbo box of nappies, a heavily packed nappy bag and a big bag of child entertainment AND still have room to spare!

Now what happened to my old car? Well here is the fun bit! I drove it to a car yard that had a sign out the front saying "We pay cash for cars". They told me that they would give me $230 and deal with all the paperwork (vic roads stuff) and that would be that. So I jumped back into my car and drove it to local wreckers yard. They paid me $250 for the car and gave me the number plates that I then took to vic roads and within a couple of weeks was mailed a cheque for about $375! I'm so glad I looked at a second option other than just going to the car yard.

My new little silver buzz box, it is very pretty. And being silver, it does not show up the dirt on it as much as my old green car - that is one of the most important things, yes?

(: G

Receipts for romance

2008-08-22T23:35:00.003+10:00

A few years ago (+ a few more...) M34tb4LL and i went on our first date. Actually at the time M34tb4LL and Reggie were known only by names that were given to them at birth and the internet was a text base place were nerds went to argue about what was better - Star trek the original series - or the show that had been on TV screens for a couple of years - Star trak the next generation.

So i suppose i should say many years ago M34tb4LL and i went on our first date. We met at a cinema close to where i lived (when i was still living with the parentals) and saw a film that can only be described as a sweet romantic film that might leave you with a tear in your eye and glimmer of hope in your heart. In other words, we both left the theatre with a slightly ill feeling in our stomachs.

M34tb4LL took the tram ticket he had used to get to the cinema (our first day was a while before he got his drivers license) and the stub from the movie ticket and put them aside. In fact he saved every tram ticket, movie stub and random receipt from our outings for the first year that we were together.

I like to think that it was such a romantic gesture, keep sakes for the first year of a wonderful romance - and not that he is just a hoarder. He however say he was keeping all these as a record of how much he had spent in our first year so that if we were to split up he could claim half of the money spend back from me. Well which ever way you look at it, at least there was the cinema ticket to save and put aside.

So now i want to jump ahead to today, or at least Friday last week...

My dearest friend KTZ and i have been wanting to see the movie "Mamma Mia" since we first the rumors that i was being made, and on Friday last week we got the opportunity to go. I dropped Peanut off with his Nana and drove to a near by cinema to meet KTZ. We them had a spot of dinner (mmmm... pancakes...) and went to the box office to get tickets for the much anticipated show.

Earlier in the year i had some work for the evil over lords (the parent company of the company i work for) and as a thank you they gave me two free movie tickets - they also paid me an hourly rate for the work i did but... The tickets had to be used to by September and i thought this was as good a time as any to use the tickets.

I relinquished my tickets to the small spotty man behind the candy counter (apparently at that time in the evening there is no point manning both the box office and the candy counter - so might as well just have staff at the counter that makes the theatre more money???) as was handed our movie tickets and a receipt.

I had to do a bit of a double take at what i was given because at first glance it looked like i had only been handed three receipts! They were all the same size and all printed on the same thermal paper out of the same printer! So where was our movie tickets? the tickets that would be ripped in half as we walked towards the theatre? the ticket stub that could be saved as a (all be it lame) souvenir of the show???

It was just a plan old receipt, that looked much like the thousands of receipts that i have jammed in the bottom of my handbag - where is the romance in that!!! I should actually mention that the tickets that M34tb4LL has kept all these years were also printed on thermal paper and are now COMPLETELY unreadable, but that i not the point. They were still ticket shaped things that had the theatres logo and stuff in pretty colours printed on them - that part of the tickets is still very seeable at least. So, we might not know what movie we sent to see or when, but at least we know which multi-million dollar organisation we paid money to, but not how much money...

But on the bright side, the next time i clean out my hanadbag i will find what looks like boring old receipts but are actually theatre tickets and will be able to look at them and think to myself "oh, here are the tickets from 'Mamma Mia', that was a fun night". Then i can throw then out because they are just a couple of old receipts.

(: G

My cup runneth dry

2008-08-01T18:32:00.006+10:00

Well it seems that our days of indulging in the "seen sipping" culture has come to an end.

It was announced earlier in the week that a rather well know chain of coffee shops were closing the doors on about 75% of their stores. There is (was) one outlet of these coffee shops at our local shopping centre and M34tb4LL, Peanut and I could often be seen there on a Friday night, a Saturday or Sunday afternoon - and some weeks it would be all three!!!

Most of my regular readers would know that I don't use the real names of businesses a lot of the time - why should i advertise for them when they are quite capable of doing that on their own. I do how ever like to give then aliases that (I think) kind of gives away who I am talking about. And if i was to do that this time I could call the chain of coffee shops "Idolcash", but that is just too funny for a serious post (and this is very serious!).

Starbucks was not just a place to get a drink from, it was much more than that to us. We had been going there for many years and we knew all the staff. We knew their names, we heard stories about their home life, we were even invited to one of the girls son's first birthday party!

And they all knew us, they knew our favourite drinks - and if we said "I feel like something different today", they knew what to suggest. They has seen Peanut from "Hey guys, guess what! I'm pregnant" right through to his first babycino, and second and many many more.

We really did have a proper relationship with them - they had even met our parents!

For us, it was the "well where else would we be?" place. If we planned to met anyone at our local shops it was the place that we would suggest to meet. In fact, most of the time if we planned to meet anyone they did not have to ask where to meet - it was assumed.

And it was the place that we went when we wanted to see a friendly, familiar face. The day that we went to see the evil obstetrician M34tb4LL took me to Starbucks to calm down a bit, and get some reassurance that everything was alright from friends before going to work. The day Peanut and I came home from the hospital, M34tb4LL and I bundled him into the pram and walked to Starbucks - not to the shops - we did not go window shopping or just for a walk - we went to Starbucks! The day that our poor puppy - Sheppie - passed away I went to Starbucks to have a cup of tea and just watch people walk by.

We like to people watch, it was a hobby I guess you could say, and the position that Starbucks was in our local had was ideal for indulging in this hobby.

But sadly, they have all been turned out of a job, and we have been turned away from our one of our favourite places to just go and hang out. When I found out yesterday that OUR Starbucks was one of the ones that was closing, I must admit, I did shed a tear. And this morning I went to the local to see if there was anyone there. Lucky for me there was. Though the store had it last day of trade yesterday most of the staff were there to a bit of cleaning up and I got to have a chat and let them all know that they have all been more to us than just people who served us drinks.

So I just want to finish with saying a huge thanks to all the staff of Starbucks Knox City (Victoria, Australia). We will miss you all, and we wish you all the best for the future. You all deserve the best - because the best is what you always gave to us.

): G

Sad

2008-07-09T23:42:00.002+10:00

Well, it has come to this, i am talking to myself way to much.

In the past i have been told people that they enjoy reading my blog, but that i do not blog often enough. My response is that there is not that much going on in my life that i think people would find interesting.

There are times that i think to myself "hmm, should blog about that" but then i have the memory of a, umm, you know, a thing with holes in it, you use it to drain... stuff... never mind. So in short i either forget to blog or forget what i was going to blog about.

But in the main time, i do not end up blogging as often as my loyal readers would like, and i think that my loyal readers are slowly finding other blogs to be loyal to.

My site meter has been showing me a decline on the number of daily visitor and i can understand why. Why come to a site that rarely gets updated, and when it does get updated is it anything of real content? or just mindless self pity ramblings like this!

But will i continue to blog? of course! As often as i have been? of course! And will other people be entertained with my thoughts? of course?!?!?!

(: G

Out with the old...

2008-06-16T20:06:00.002+10:00

Tee hee! I did something a little cheeky today and I am kind of proud of it might I say.

For the past, ummm, about seven months now I have been working for the place that made me redundant (I'm sure I have told that story already, if not - just try to keep up). I went back there for a three week, temp job. The job I am doing now is very different from the original three week job and seems to have no end in sight (sam place though).

When I went back to work (let's call my workplace Sunshine Hall), I was not on the books of any temp agencies. And seeing as to work in a temp job being on the books with a temp agency is kind of necessary. To fix this problem I was introduced to a temp agency (which, for the sake of this story, I am going to call Straws) , placed on their books as a temp worker at Sunshine Hall.

So Straws did not have to 'find' me, interview me, source potential jobs for me - all they had to do was process my initial paperwork, pay me on a weekly basis and bill Sunshine Hall. All they have had to do for the past seven months is sit back, click a few button and collect money!

And there have been a few occasions where I, or someone from Sunshine Hall has had questions for Straws and they have been less efficient at providing answers.

In fact the last time I rang Straws with a question I was told that the consultant that was my contact had left some time ago. However they did offer me a new consultant if I wanted one! But that was about a month ago and I have not heard from anyone so I can only make the assumption that I am still consultantless.

So back to what I did today...

I meet with a very lovely lady (actually I had met her before, but that is a different story) from a more 'boutique' temp agency (lets call it Pow) than Straws. She was more than happy to listen to the idea of rather than being paid through Straws, i would be paid through her agency. After my little talk with Pow, the HR manger of Sunshine Hall called Straws and told them that as of Friday this week, i will be no longer needed.

So as off Monday next week i will no longer be part of the Straws "team' and i will be part of the Pow "family". I am keen to find out if a consultant (if there is one around) from Straws contacts me to see if i need help with a new placement now that my time with Sunshine has "finished".

(: G

Mission accomplished!!!

2008-05-10T18:18:00.003+10:00

Well, earlier this afternoon i accomplished something i do not think i have managed to do before. I know i have tried (many many times) but i do not believe i have succeeded - till now!

I don't know what it is that has stopped me from reaching this goal before, I know of many people who have done it many times - i have even sat and watched people make it all the way to the finish. I think i have, in the past, coached people along, help them find the right path but i have not actually don't myself.

I am quite proud of myself for this achievement!

So do you want to know what it is that i have done?

I have finished the console game - "Super Paper Mario" (for the Wii). I have had access to and owned may consoles over the past however many years and I have played many games, but i can't remember a time that i have actually finished a game by myself.

Well, when i say by myself i did a bit of looking up hints when i got stuck and did not know which way I was supposed to go, and M34tb4LL did help me get through certain parts of the game (only a minute or two here or there) when my aim was not as keen as his and i was getting frustrated. But i still finished the game!!!

So this afternoon we took the game, along with another that we bought and turned out to be crap, to the local game shop and traded them in for a new game that we have had our eye on.

Which brings to another point...

The trade in price for both games was about $30, don't mind that - we have had fun with the game, gotten our moneys worth out of it. But the shop will then resell this game for only $5 less than the price of the game new! If you don't know how much these games sell for, that is a mark up of about $65!!! So i then ask the question - why bother buying a second game when you can get a brand new one for only $5 more?

It might not make sense, but... I FINISHED a game. Well done me.

(: G

Not much going on really...

2008-05-01T22:02:00.003+10:00

Except work and being sick!

Since Christmas this family has a about three rounds of the common cold, a couple of cases of bronchitis / pharyngitis / conjunctivitis and a rather nasty bout of gastro - and it is only May!!!

And through all this it has had to be business as usual at work. The temp job I started back in... um, I think it was late November (maybe early December), have I mentioned that I am back at work? Well to give you the cliff notes I started as a temp on a three week project at the same place that made me redundant back in April last year! Have I mentioned I was made redundant? Well the three week project turned into six weeks and then they decided they needed in another department - but still temp...

So I am still working there, as a temp, and the job they have me doing may have an end in sight - I can't see it though. And rather than being told "We'll need you for another few weeks" or "can you stay till the end of Smarch" I am just "here till further notice"!

I don't mind the work i'm doing, I am writing training manuals and process and procedure documents, but I'm not fond of the whole state of limbo thing. Plus (going back to the family full of illness thing) if I don't work - i don't get paid! That is kind of how temping works, but if I'm not well enough to go to work I don't get paid AND we still have to pay for child care!

There has been some talk lately around the office, seeing as there is a mountain of stuff for me to get to, about me doing it as a permanent roll in the business. That would be nice, or maybe it is really time for me to get my butt into gear and look for permanent work somewhere else.

If only there was way that I could make money by blogging - really money that is!

(: G

Express THIS!!!

2008-03-25T21:09:00.003+11:00

Have you ever popped into the supermarket for a few items, run out of bread, low on milk, short on some sort of little life essential? and once you have grabbed those half a dozen item headed to the express check out line only to find a family of four doing their weekly shop in front of you?

Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit with that question - but not by much.

A couple of days ago i run to the local supermarket to grab a few ingrediants for dinner. I checked the contents of my basket and counted seven items. At our local the express lane has a sign that states "12 or less items". So the fact that i had seven items i headed to the express lane - quick in, quick out - or so i thought...

Infront of me was a couple with a trolley that obviously had more than twelve items. As they unloaded the items onto the counter. And might i add that the counter is small and not designed for too many items. So as they unloaded their shopping i counted - twenty six items!!!

And my did the girlie at the checkout put them in their place, telling them that it is not exceptable for them to be using the express lane.
.............
................
....................

OH NO WAIT!!! She did not say anything like that, in fact she said nothing at all!!!

When i got to the counter i asked if she ever says to people that they should not have come through the express lane with more items than they are supposed to. She just shrugged her shoulders and told me that people did all the time, there was not much she can do about it.

She continued to scan my purchases and i paid and started to leave the supermarket. It was at this point that i realised that i had forgotten one thing. So i went back, got the final item and went back to the express checkout lane - after all i had only one item this time.

And would you know it, but the person in front of me had a trolley with a rather suspicious number of items. I waited till the person in front of me was being served and once again counted the number of items. Twenty one, twenty one items in the twelve items or less checkout. This time i was served by a different person and so i asked that person if they ever say anything. She told me that hse is tempted but not game enough to actually try it.

Not game enough? what does she think the customers are going to do if she point out the fact that they are at the wrong checkout, which I'm pretty sure they are aware of already.

So here is my idea - let's take back the express!!! We should at least point out to these people who have no ability to count the error they have made in the lane they are queuing at. Or as i have been tempted to do, pushing in front of them and when they object simply say that you did not know they were in the queue because they obviously have too many items to be.

And now i shall end this rant by telling you that yesterday while at the supermarket, i went through the 12 item or less lane with thirteen items - hey thirteen is not twenty three!

(: G

What have I just done?!?!?!?

2008-02-16T11:22:00.003+11:00

I can't believe I have just - done what I have just done!!!

As some of you may know, those who have spent years reading my rambles including when I used to ramble on rantspace. There is a certain jewellery store that I had a bit of gripe about and said I had no interest shopping there again.

If you don't know what I am talking about, here is the link! Have a read! Knock yourself out!!!

A proud patron ... or am i?

As you will see (or remember) this post got a fair bit of attention, especially from employees of the store and some devoted customers. Unfortunately most did not really read the post and their comments were a little off topic half the time. But there were comments for two years after the original post was made - not bad! And the post was in the top few hits on a google search for the store for quite a while. Now if you search on google search on the name of the store the post is not even in the first five pages - and go goes further than that when searching on google! If it is not in the first couple of pages, it is not worth looking at!

But back to what I did today.

I went to the local shopping centre to buy a birthday present for a dear friend of mine. I wanted to get jewellery but as far as what jewellery to get - I had no idea. So i trolled around every jewellery shop at my local, and the infamous shop of my previous post was the last to be looked in. Because of geography! from where I parked the car it is literally the furthest to walk!

So I looked through all the different shops, chatting to the shop assistants about my complete lack of ideas as to what to get for my friend, but the more I looked and chatted the more of idea I got.

I did not want to get heart shaped, that is too romantic for just a friend to give (in my mind) and of course seeing as commercial love day has just been and gone all the store want to get rid of their heart shaped crap.

I did not want to get a ring, again too personal in my mind; the ring is the gift of loved ones or family. And talking about my mind - it is a strange place and normally only makes sense to be, but even then, not always.

Then I got the inspiration to get some with my friend’s birth stone! I know what her birth stone is seeing as I have a child born in the same month!!! And most stores have birth stones of the month range in their catalogues!

So I grabbed all the catalogues for all the stores in the main jewellery part of the centre ( if they were not in the main part of the centre they did not get a chance) and starting looking through those.

Then in the catalogue of two of the stores i saw a lovely piece of jewellery - set with an amethyst - and the price was perfect for my budget. Both pieces were the same concept but a little bit different in detail to each other. One was from (funnily enough) the store that M34tb4LL and I got our wedding bands from, and the other was from the store that i had previously slammed.

I looked at the piece from the first store and eehhhh... it was a bit of a funny shape, it looked a bit crappily made, the catch to do it up was trickly to work and all in all it was not the present. So I went to the other store, THE store! I crept in, hoping they would not recognise me (not really but it sounds good) and asked to see the piece of jewellery. It was very pretty, a nice sized stones, very pretty details, easy to do up, it was the present.

So I bought it. I had looked enough, the piece was perfect and I was tired!!!

Shock - horror!!! But what are you going to do! I have bought something from that store again! Happy now internet community? Anyway a little time has gone - we can all laugh about it now...

(: G

Optional extras

2008-01-09T10:36:00.000+11:00

How many times have you gone to pizza shop and not found the exact topping you wanted on their board? Well for me this is a daily (not that i eat pizza everyday) thing.

I will look at their board and think - i want the 'flibble' pizza - i don't want the onion but i want capsicum instead, just as an example. Now what i object to is the fact i will then be charges ?cents extra for an additional topping, but they do not take anything off the the topping that i don't want.

There is a rather large chain pizza outlet that i get pizza from once in while (and i tend to regret it when i do). Lets call them "Pizza Shack". I went to this pizza place a couple of weeks ago and got two pizzas, one of pizzas i ordered was exact to the shops recommendations but the other was... well... the pizza i wanted was their pepperoni adorer, and the only topping the pizza has is pepperoni. Now from past experience the pizza artist will only put about two pieces of pepperoni per slice on the pizza.

Pizza shack have all their pizzas for the price - they only charge extra for additional topping or chicken pizzas. But some of the pizzas will have one topping, some will have up to six. So only wanting the one topping, you would think they put a decent amount of it on, NOPE!!!

This was my effort to get the kind of pizza i wanted without paying their addition topping charge -

I asked for a meat enthusiast pizza with pepperoni instead of ham, peperoni instead of bacon, pepperoni instead of beef and no onion. This request was met with the response "So you want a pepperoni adorer pizza?". I said back "No, the pepperoni adorer has only a single serve of one topping, i want the full four topping serve - but all of the same topping" and the answer was "If you want four times the normal amount of pepperoni then we will have to charge to three extra toppings". I thought my request was reasonable!

I don't think anyone will be surprised that i ended up getting the standard amount of pepperoni that you would get on the pepperoni adorer and i dare say they have spat on my pizza at no additional charge!!! AND they now charge extra for signature deep pan base!!!

But it is not just pizzas that i have come across this - when i went to the "Some Old Man Who Had a Farm Family Restaurant" a little while ago, i asked for some of the standard to be excluded from my burger, but some additions as well i got my burger and they kindly gave me an itemised receipt. The receipt was as follows -

Australian burger
- onion $0.00
- mustard $0.00
+ mayo $0.20
+ bacon $0.80

I understand that i have pay extra for additional things, but if i am asking for ingredients to be to left out - don't still charge me for it!!!

(: G

disclaimer: it has been a while since i have had a none standard menu item for "Some Old Man Who Had a Farm Family Restaurant" so if they have changed the way they charge for alterations to their burgers - great!

Please work for my sale!

2007-12-16T22:21:00.000+11:00

The silly season that has descended upon us once again, and with that we join the throng of hundreds of frantic shoppers to get that perfect gift for our family and friends.

Yesterday M34tb4LL and i went to a shop to buy a present for ... someone. Well if i tell you what the item is, where it was bought from or who it is for then that person might read this and think to themselves, where there goes the surprise!

So we were in a shop and were not sure where they had the item we wanted on display. Rather than mill around and add to the already packed shopping area i decided to ask a little shop person as to the where about of the item. I looked around the shop and spotted two rather bored shop people, leaning on some boxes of stock, chatting away to each other.

I went over and interrupted their conversation with my Paddington Bear style stare and asked about the where abouts of the item. Rather than point me in the direct (which wasn't far at all) i was escorted to the shelf that housed the item. The sales person then took the item off the shelf, wrote a number on the price ticket and passed it to me.

When i asked M34tb4LL what the number sales person wrote on the ticket meant, he told me that it was the sales persons ID number, so that when we bought the item he would be credited for the sale and get a commission for it.

WHAT????

What assistance did he give us that means he deserves that commission?

Did he approach us and offer his assist?NO, i had to find him and interrupt his conversation with his co-worker to get his help.

Did he assist us in selecting the item? NO, we went to that particular shop knowing full well what we were after.

Did he give help in choosing one brand of the item over another? NO, the item we were after does not have a few makes over a few different brands - it is kind of like "I am after this thing" "Then to get one of these things, this is the only option - one option - here - if you want it this the one you have to get"

Did he help us pick out a second or a third item? NO, we had come in for the one item - found it bought it left the shop.

So what did he do to deserve that commission? He did not have to walk the floor, checking with customer if his assistance was needed, nor did he need to display any product knowledge. He did not even have to employ any of his sales training to sway us to buy the item!!! All he had to do was walk three steps and write a number on a price ticket.

I'm not sure why this bothers me, it is not like we had to more for the item because of this. However if he had not done this where would the commision have gone? Would it have defaulted back to the manager of the store? Would have split up at the end of the day with the girls as the checkout? Or would it have just been lost in the ether?

Call me petty, but i think i would rather any other option than the one that transpired. And in the future when i shop at that store and a sales person offers to write his ID number on the price ticket - i think i decline the offer! Unless of course he HAS worked for my sale.

(: G

And now let me sing some praises

2007-09-29T23:34:00.002+10:00

One year ago today (or by the time i get to publish this post, one year ago yesterday) M34tb4LL and i got married. And as far as days go, this has been a good one (:

The parentals had offered to look after Peanut within our birthday season and we thought that tonight would be the goodies.

For those that i have confused with talk of anniversaries and birthday seasons - it was M34tb4LL's birthday on Thursday and mine is on Monday, our wedding anniversary is right in the middle, today.

Now those of you who are regular readers of my posts will know that i am not much of one to name names. I don't tend to use the real names of the the places/shops/people i talk about. And this tends to be mostly because i am either having a bit of rant about an experience or just because i fee the place i am talking about gets enough publicity as it is.

But tonight the rules will be changed!!!

MISTY'S DINER is the place that we chose to spend the evening. Being grand finale night we were unsure about how busy our venue of choice would be, so i called a couple days ago to make sure that it was alright to book a table. The lass i spoke to said that she had no idea how busy they might be getting and booking was a good idea. So seeing as we had Decay and Droidy in tow i booked for four for 7.30, booked in with the parentals and proceeded to play the waiting game.

So we picked up Decay and Droidy and went to drop off the boy with the parentals. After a quick bait and switch with his bottle between me and his Granny we were heading out the door. We drove to the eatery - it was not hard to find at 103 - 105 High Street, Prahran, Victoria, Australia. We got a premo parking spot just across the road and we walked inside.

It was a tad quiet in the diner, ok tad may be an understatement seeing as we were the only people there but...

Misty was there to great us at the door, with a big smile and a warm welcome, and she seemed to have a good sense of humor about the fact that restaurant was completely empty.

Grand Final day is a funny one. My birthday is on 1st October and seeing as grand final day is always the last Saturday in September, the Saturday before my birthday is always shared event. Not being a football person, this is fine by me because it means that if i want to do birthday type things during the day - there is no-one around. Problem is if i want to do birthday type things at night i have to pick my venue well unless i want to swamped by celebrating/commiserating footy type peoples.

This choice was a goodon' because there was not a single footy type in sight, tee hee, there was no-one in sight other than ourselves.

Misty came to take our drink order, and gave some advise on some of the can of American soft drink that she had there. She then came to take our food order.

For starters we got a serve of potato skins and a serve of deep fried cheese things to share. We opted to get the potato skins 'mild' so Misty brought us some of her home made chili sauce to help that flavour along. And might i say it was the best chili sauce i have had in... well ever!!!

Choosing what we wanted for our main course was NOT east - not because the menu was huge (and full of crap like some places we have been to) but because there was a good variety and it ALL looked soooooo good.

Droidy ordered a bowl of chili, Decay picked a meatball sub, and M34tb4LL and i decided to get a philly steak roll and a chili dog and split it. We also got a couple side serves of cheesy chili fries. I also got a 'turtle' thick shake (chocolate and caramel with a hard chocolate shell) - go for the whole experience.

The food, for want of a better way of saying it, EXCELLENT! The serving size were perfect, big enough that we were nicely full, but not so big that we could not move. And because we were there within the week of my birthday i got the thick shake FREE!!!

The price was pretty good as well, better than the prices we had experienced at another American style restaurant (that shall remain nameless) who don't know what good service is about and think that if it is not oily it is not American.

After our meal we picked up a few of our favourite American lollies and chocolate bars that Misty had at the counter, settled our bill and left, feeling quite happy with our choice of eatery and confident that we would return.

We then went back to the parentals to collect the boy and went home for some well needed sleep.

So i finish this post today (or as it happens to be tomorrow) with three pieces of advise for my dear readers -

If you have an event that need celebrating, try Misty's Diner
If you want to catch-up with some friends for a meal, try Misty's Diner
If you are hungry and just want to grab a bite to eat, try Misty's Diner

(: G

To Pay or Not To Pay

2007-09-25T09:48:00.000+10:00

I have a dilemma! And this time it does not involve ice cream!!!

My flickr page is once again getting near to full and i am thinking that if i have to perform a cull on the photos every couple of months that is going to be a bit of a drag!!! Plus there are soooooo many drop-dead cute photos of our boy - how do i choose the ones to get rid of?

So not even two months since my last cull i am at the point again that i either need to do ANOTHER cull or start paying for the privilege of sharing photos.

Though i must admit the whole happy snapping has decreased since our boy has past the six month, it has not stopped, and i hope it never will!!!

So if i continue to use the site free of charge i can only have a maximum of 200 photos up at any time and the size and quality of the photos are that of the sites choice, and i can only upload a maximum of 100 MB a month. If i pay, i can have an unlimited amount of photos, the size and quality is that of the original, and i would get unlimited uploads.

Plus there is the whole 'off-site' storage thing to consider. Living in the digital age that we do, if we were to have a major computer melt down in this house (or even worse thing to think a house fire - not that is that is being planned!!!), we would loose a great deal of our pictorial memories!!! We do our best to always have a back-up (or three) of all our photos at any given time, but a disaster is something that you can not really plan for or prevent. So the flickr account could also act as that 'worst case scenario' back-up for us.

Of course there is not every photo ever taken of the boy on flickr, seeing as there are literally over a thousand photos on my computer hard drive - and M34tb4LL would easily have four times that amount on his. So if the best and cutes are also somewhere else if the unforeseeable were to happen, not all would be lost.

So... have i just talked myself into upgrading the flickr account? If so i need to do it soon or i will have to cull the photos that are currently there again!!

WOW, all that thinking has done my head right in, i think i need to get some ice cream.

(: G

OMG - it's mid September!!!

2007-09-13T10:53:00.000+10:00

I have been looking at the good old social calendar, have been trying to arrange a time to catch up with some friends, and it has dawned on me that we are approaching the birthday season! Well i kind of know that the birthday season was coming - but now i am like "Oh yerrr, it is getting close!!!"

And how is the social calendar looking? Pretty impressive i must say!!! I have had to put the catch up with before mentioned friends till October!!!!!!!!

Of course this year there is another celebration on top of the birthday circus, M34tb4LL and i will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary that falls smack inbetween our birthdays (: We have made plans with some friends - wittnesses at our weddding - to go out to dinner, nothing fancy.

But it does raise the question of what to get M34tb4LL for a present! I think i have his birthday present all wrapped up (tee hee), the normal bag of random crap. I have to put the ole thinking cap on...

It is the 13th today, so i have 16 days to get my brain into gear and think of something. THAT IS NOT ENOUGH TIME!!!

The traditional gift for a first anniversay is paper, so what does that mean as a present? a paper hat? an origami crane? a note book?

Wait i just got an idea! not going to say what it is here, M34tb4LL reads this (: I'll fill you in after the event (if it works out that is)

(: G

Choices choices...

2007-09-12T11:14:00.000+10:00

So here is the dilemma, it is not a life changing one, but it is one that might be faced by a few of you from time to time so i feel it should be discussed.

Ice cream is a little luxury that i sometime like to indulge in. Wait a minute - is every other day considered once in a while?

Anyway, with the convenience of drive thrus getting the daily ice cream fix is easier than ever! and that only really leaves the choice of going for an icecream from the "Some Old Man Who Had a Farm Family Resturant" or "Famished Johns" (think about the names for a minute, you'll get it). But this is also where the dilemma comes into it.

SOMWHAFFR's ice cream tends to be nicer, creamier and betting tasting. But Famished Johns icecream has the advantage of a choc dip option.

So what does one do? Get one of each of course!

(: G

* Warning * Cull Imminent

2007-08-12T19:50:00.000+10:00

I give this warning to the people who have been enjoying the photos on 'Flickr'.

Unfortunately, at any given time, only a maximum 200 photos will be displayed on an individuals flickr page - unless of course one wants to ungrade for a annual fee to their "pro package", which i don't want to do if i can help it.

Seeing as i there are currently 199 photos on the page this cap is near reaching.

In one week from today i will be randomly culling some of the older photos to make room for newer one. So if there are any phots that you have a particular fondness to on the first few of pages i would suggest you either grab yourself a copy or take one last look.

(: G

Internet-less

2007-07-23T10:58:00.000+10:00

Question - how does one that spends many hours a day on the internet, uses it as the first place to get any information, and uses email and online chatting more than the phone or much more that snail mail; cope when there is no internet in the house for two weeks?

Answer - not well!

Lately the ISP that M34tb4LL and myself use decided to increase their prices, they did offer us a plan at the same price that we had been paying but at a decrease to the monthly cap.

We use the internet a fair bit, it is fair to say that we use it more than most of our friends and family (DK and Droidy excluded of course). So rather than taking a drop in monthly limit or paying more we chose to look elsewhere for our internet needs.

We found a provider that, for the same price as before, we could get a higher monthly cap and VoIP thrown in for good measure (so cheaper phone costs).

But before we could think about switching we first had to make sure that there was no unfulfilled on-line commitments, we waited till all the eBay dealings we had dealing were finalised and we signed up with the new ISP. The next step was to do the all important swap - a scary thought to two such internet dependent peoples like us.

We then canceled with the (then) current ISP and waited to be cut off. The cut off actually happened right as i had typed out a 'farewell for now' message in the favourite forum, just before i had time to publish it - of course - and we just had to wait to be reconnected.

We were told that the wait would be three to five working days, a doable time frame, at a pinch. Well at the five day mark i gave the new ISP a call to get an ETA.

The funny thing was, as far as they knew we were still connected to our previous provider!!! So i called them and after three phone calls and about two hours on hold i found out that when they cut us off they 'forgot' to send the request to telstra to have the codes removed!!! Which means that though they had stopped providing us with the internet, it was not possible for anyone else to.

After I brought this to their attention they said they would get the request through within 24 hours (and four days late).

About two days after my phone call to the previous (and evil) ISP, M34tb4LL got an email from the new (and shiney) ISP saying that we would connected with them in about five days. I would like to point out the whole "DDEEERRRRR" factor about sending an email about connecting internet, if we needed internet connected we obviously didn't have it, and if we don't have internet how can we get emails! M34tb4LL could check his email at work, but still...

Now with two blogs, a tumblr log, a flickr and a youtube account to maintain being without internet was a rather difficult thing. I did suffer a bit of cyber withdrawal. And i must confess there were a few minutes one Thursday, while i was at the public library the eyed one of their computers that internet access with envious eyes.

But the internet is back, the balance has been restored, and my insane random ramblings can continue.

(: G

LOL speak

2007-06-25T21:52:00.000+10:00

I h8 LOL speak!!!

This is going to more rant than post - cope.

First of all I will explain what I refer to as LOL speak. It is the kind of thing that you can use while sending an SMS and want to save on characters, seeing as you get a limit of how much you can have. In this use i find it acceptable, don't do it myself but I can understand the reason for using it. However when it is (ab)used in emails I just feel that the person is being lazy.

There is a person that i have to deal with at the moment who insists on sending me emails typed in LOL speak. Here is an example of what i am getting -

'hi how r ya? just touching base 2 c how u r doing. hope all is well with ******. any problems please dont hesitate 2 call me. l know l never made ur last appointment date so if u feel u need it let me no.'

And it goes on... I mean come on!!!

The first email this person sent me, I opened and saw that it was written in this fashion and promptly deleted it without reading it. She then asked me what I thought of the idea in the email and I told her that I had received it but did not read it as it was gibberish. She has not gotten the hint as she has continued to send them to me like that...

Now for my disclaimer:

I myself have been known to use the phrase LOL, as well as WTF, RTFM, ROFL, LMAO, NSFW, one of my personal favourites - PEBKAC, regular readers on this blog might be aware of MFL, and regular readers of the Peanut blog will be aware of BTD.

I feel that these in context (and used sporadically) are fine!!! It is when the sentence has more abbreviations and shortcuts than actual words I get a bit ** groan**

And I have just thought of another that I use on occasion -

TTFN G

My "Lord of the Rings"

2007-06-08T17:35:00.000+10:00

As some of you might remember a few years ago there was a movie released called "Lord of the Rings".

For anyone who has not seen the movie and intends to i suppose you could call this a spoiler alert, but if you have not seen the movie by now it is your own fault if i am about to spoil it for you.

Now i must go back in time even more and explain my previous knowledge of the whole "Lord of the Rings" thing - NOTHING. I had never read the books or seem any of the previously made TV shows, cartoon or whatever had been produced under that Lord of the Rings banner.

So when i went to see the movie i was aware of only a few things -

This was the first of a trilogy of films
The title was Lord of the Rings (rings plural)
The first movie was called "Fellowship of the Rings"
and that was pretty much it (:

With the knowledge i had - three movies, multiple rings - i made the assumption that each movie was about one of the rings. I also made the assumption that the first ring was a fellowship ring (?). The funny thing is that no-one in my circle had made the assumption of what little knowledge i had.

M34tb4LL and i sat down in the cinema and started watching the movie, some good special effects, storyline not at all what i expected though. Walk walk walk, fight fight fight, walk walk walk, hello uncle - my what big teeth you have, walk walk walk, fight fight fight, a couple of bare footed hobbits hop into a boat and float along a river and then...

Well that was it!!! i was waiting for them to drop the ring into the volcano or where ever they were headed, but the movie just finished!!!

And the sad fact is when the movie finished i did verbalise my disapproval right there in the cinema.

You see, i was expecting this story to be finalised so the next two movies could be about the nextcoming from? what kind of a fool am i?!?!? DON'T ANSWER THAT.

Now you might ask why i am telling this story only now, well i have just been watching the Antiques Road Show (love that show) and there was a gentleman on it who wanted to get an idea of how much a letter from Tolkien was worth. A letter that he received from the writer very many years ago after he wrote to him expressing his disapproval that he had bought the first book and read it and did not have closure on the story.

I should also add that i have not seen the second or the third movie (yet)

(: G

We live in a golden age

2007-05-09T21:59:00.000+10:00

Time for a little bit of a feel good post.

There are so many great things around that make life easy and pleasurable, for example -

Toasters with crumpet settings
Cameras that fit into ones handbag or pocket
Internet shopping
Chocolate pudding cups
Mum's and bub's movie sessions
Spell check
Cheese
"Degrassi"
Home delivery
Lime juice in a bottle
Calendar reminders
Game consoles (and hand helds)
Cupcakes
LCD monitors
PS2 Singstar
Mobile phones
Sudoku
Polar fleece jackets
Photo editing
"The Amazing Race"
Podcasts
Midnight snacks
Fluffy slippers
Milk chocolate
Youtube
Arm warmers
Hair straighteners
Ice cream
Apple laptops
Comfy couches
Skype
Central heating
Starbucks coffee
iSketch (and Wacom tablets)
Doonas
Long range weather forecasts
Remote controls
McDonald's cheese burgers
Internet blogging
and of course friends, family, loved ones and pizza

Just thought i would share

(: G

A brave new world.

2007-04-08T20:23:00.000+10:00

In all my years of being an internet shopper, i have never tried to be an internet seller. That is till now!!!

I have just listed my first few items to sell on eBay!!! a big day, a proud day even.

It was a lot easier than i thought it would be, straight forward, explained the whole way through the listing process and it did not cost as much to list items than i thought it would.

So over the last week and a bit i have listed 7 items for sale in total. The fist thing i listed was a pillow that i bought to use while feeding Peanut, but because of the position we use and firmness of the pillow it was not working for us. I would have returned to the shop as "not fit for purpose" but to get it out of the (resealable) bag it comes it i ripped the cardboard insert. I have had a few question about it and there are about a dozen people watching it, but only one person bidding on it so far - there is still 22 hours to go in the auction so anything can happen.

I am also selling some DVDs that we have twice (long story) or that we have been given and do not want!

It is pretty exciting watching the price of things go up (or not). gives the same feeling as internet shopping does but instead of spending money and i am making money!!!

Hmmmm, what else can i see?

(: G

Postage??? or more!!!

2007-03-11T18:54:00.000+11:00

As any of you who know me i love my shopping, whether it be at the local shopping centre or in the comfort of my own home - via the Internet - eBay is my friend :)

Lately i have been cruising eBay for a couple copies of an infants picture book that was originally published in 1951 by Rand McNally called "Captain Kitty". The book has a very special place in the hearts of members of M34tb4LL's family. His Nana read it to all him and his two brothers as babies to the point that they all had the story memories.

I found a number of copies of the book on eBay, all in America of course, and priced everything from $2.00 to $75.00 - seriously!!!

But i manage to find a few copies of the book that did not have too much wear and tear or age stains and were a reasonable price!!! the next step of course was to get a quote on the postage. Now people sending from eBay can really ship by any means they like and therefore charge for the postage accordingly. They can also add charges for "packaging" and some people opening admit to adding costs to cover the eBay charges.

However for the same item (the book) I received four very different postage quotes -

1/ Airmail Letter Post = $2.75 USD
2/ Global Priority Small Flat Rate Envelope = $6.00 USD
3/ Ship by Air = $7.50 USD
4/ Airmail Express = $15.00 USD

I ended up buying two of the books, the ones with postage quote 1 & 3. The reason i did not get postage quote 2 is because the price of the book was a lot more than 1 & 3.

Now here is my point - the exact same thing has such different prices for postage? How is this? And if i don't agree with the postage my only choice is not to get the item, can't really bargain the price.

But also, still in the postage train of thought, I have found that things i get from eBay tend to delivered within a day or two (as long as the item is not coming from overseas that is). However things that i may order from online stores, and tend to pay a higher postage price for, will take on average a week or maybe even two to arrive.

Now here is my second point - the more professional the seller is, the longer it takes to get the goods (on average, there is of course exceptions to the rule).

(: G

Excuses excuses

2007-03-11T18:48:00.000+11:00

So it has been nearly two months since i have done a post, and i know i have said in the past that i do at least one post a month - but lets face it the last two months have been kind of full on!!

If you don't know what i am talking about see the other blog that i have, click on "peanut's blog" and have a good read.

(: G

p.s. - and there is a post coming here within minutes and if it doesn't make sense, it would be because my brain is very mushy at the moment.

The real reason for the current drought (me)

2007-01-16T09:29:00.000+11:00

I drink a lot of water, now i know they say you should drink water every day, but is 4 litres too much? Tough!!! I am one of those people that when they go out to restaurant always asks for water, while every one is enjoying their ice cold glass of coke i am sipping my plain boring water!

But i am bit of water snob, given the choice i will go for tap water over spring water over spring water and filtered water over tap water - filtered water is defiantly my preferred taste.

At home we have gone through a few water filters, there was the one that attached to the tap via a rubber hose and you had to have the tap only just on to avoid the hose popping off or the water leaking out. This needed constant supervision and soon became just something that sat on the bathroom bench and collected dust.

The next filter we tried was a jug filter, it sat in the kitchen cupboard and we filled the jug and let it filter down in its own time. The main problem with this one was that it could not keep up with our water consumption needs, we kept emptying it and having to wait for it to filter through more water. Plus the fact that the water was only at room temperature and we could not keep up with the ice making to compensate for this.

We then took a shine to the idea of an electric filter that had a bigger reservoir for water that the jug and was able to chill the water for our instant enjoyment. We could also switch it deliver room temp water if need be.

So armed with a $100 gift voucher (that could be used at a few different stores under the same ownership) and some extra cash thanks to Christmas we went to the local shopping centre to buy the filter. At one of the stores that the gift voucher was usable at we found the filter we wanted - last one on the shelf! Plus thanks to the post Christmas sales it had 20% off the normal price, score!!!

We got the filter home and i started running water through to prep the filter while M34tb4LL looked at the current kitchen cupboard configuration to accommodate our new purchase. I run water three lots of water through as pre the instructions and then when i pulled the filter forward to move it to its new spot i noticed that it was sitting in a rather large body of water.

The filter was leaking water - through the motor - and on to the bench.

We hurriedly packed it back into the box and the next day went back to the original store of purchase with our faulty appliance.

Handing the box over the counter we explained the situation to the shop wench, and being the last filter they had in stock they were not able to offer us a replacement for the filter so we opted for a refund. Having paid some of the asking price via a gift voucher and some with cash, this is how the refund had top be given to us.

Only problem was that the store in questions computer / cash register was not "setup" to refund something purchased with generic gift card on another generic gift card, and they wanted to give us a store specific gift card instead! not good enough. If the product purchased is faulty and they are not able to supply a replacement we should be able to obtain a refund via the method in which we paid.

Well, because we were adamant that they give us the refund in the method that we dictated to, there had to be multiple calls to their office and shop wench eventually had to get an office manager to come to the register to do the refund for her. But we did get our generic gift voucher and cash - as we should have.

This is the funny bit though, we then went down a few levels to the men's clothing section (same store) and bought M34tb4LL five new shirts that cost the amount of the disputed gift voucher and then some!!! so if we had have taken the refund in the method that they wanted to give it to us and not gone to the mile of trouble we had put them through the money would have been spent in the same store the same day, but we bought the shirts with another method to keep the voucher for the filter purchase.

But we still did not have a the filter, so we went to the other stores under the same ownership but none of them had the filter in stock. In fact most of them looked like they did not stock that filter at all.

We then went to a store that had no affiliation with the other stores and found the filter we were after!!! and the best bit? it was 30% off the normal price! cheaper than the other store. And it works perfectly!

But if you have figured out by now - we still have the $100 gift voucher with no target purchase. I think we will be able to find something to spend it on though.

(: G

Post-Christmas, pre-New Years

2006-12-28T13:36:00.001+11:00

It is that in between week, the fun, family and presents are all over and the mad panic of "what are we doing for New Years?" starts.

There is no question what me and M34tb4LL will be doing for New Years this year, staying home and chilling with our homies (don't ask us why i just referred to beloved friends as 'homies', i'm very sorry about that!)

Need post Christmas wrap-up here i think. There was much visiting of relos, Christmas day drove to the parentals house where we had lunch with the paternal grandparentals and an aunt, and uncle, two cousins and two cousins once removed.

Then drove to M34tb4LL's family do (about an hour away) where there were multiple rooms full of people, some i did not even know who they were, and a MFL of food (more food, after the major nosh up for lunch, more food)

Got home about one in the morning and then got up on Boxing day to go back to the parentals house for the maternal side of the family!

I gave M34tb4LL a shock machine for Christmas - you get a few people to hold a handle and press a button. A light flashes red for a random amount of time and when it goes green you have press a button. The last person to press the button will get an electric shock - who would know that this gadget could be considered fun, but it was a big hit on Christmas day with M34tb4LL's brother and random children in the house. But it does seem to be a boy thing (sorry to be sexist, but there were no females stepping up to give the toy a try!!!)

M34tb4LL gave me an uber kewl keyboard, which i am typing this post on right now! It has blue LEDs under all the keys and a screen that cycles through clock, email connection, CPU usage. It also has 18 keys that i can set up macros for gaming (yet to do it at this point) and it has volume control so i don't have to lean over to the speakers anymore!

There were of course other fantastic gifties given and received and when a certain Amazon order arrives i will be able to complete the hand out (been waiting since mid November when it was shipped!)

So i have finished up at work - and got a bestest pressie from them. A gift voucher for gold class movies!!! So M34tb4LL and i can have a bit of pre-bubs luxury, i thought that was a really kewl prezz!!!

Now i am just playing the waiting game - why did i not buy hungry hungry hippo for M34tb4LL for Christmas!!!! Bugger, another good idea that just came too late!

(: G

Christmas - AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-12-15T15:11:00.000+11:00

The silly season seems to have snuck up behind me and taken a great big bite out of my sanity! No way, when did it get to a week and couple of days to Christmas?

I did notice all the decorations going up in the shops a few months ago and remember thinking, yeh yeh, plenty of time...

And i did get started on the Christmas shopping and have nearly bought presents for everyone that needed to be bought, but it is more the whole doing what with who and when!

It seems since the start of December there has been something on and there are still places to go, things to do and people and see!

*** Amazing, seriously, i am like just half way through typing this and one of our pre-chrissy commitments has had to cancel - I'm not kidding!!! ***

So anyway, it was my works Christmas party two weeks ago. 80s theme night - there was karaoke - i sang "Papa Don't Preach". Tomorrow is M34tb4LL's work Christmas thing, we will need to park in Richmond on a Saturday night - could be interesting. Sunday night have a friends Christmas dinner thing, looking forward to that - chilling out and stuff. Then back at work for a week (last week which is going to be chaos). Then have girlie night with a bestie at work as a "w00t! goodbye nine to five, hello great unknown". Then it is only a couple of days till the big X-mass day itself and have to prepare food type things to take to various places.

Then after Christmas there is boxing day with more family stuff, friends birthday and friends post chrissy BBQ - then it is new years!!!

So after all this is over, i think i will start to think about having a baby!

(: G

I blame Brisbane

2006-11-26T09:43:00.001+11:00

For many things really - it is just setting the clocks forward by one hour people! Not that hard! Just get up an hour earlier to milk the cows! And noooo, your curtains will not fade faster because of it!!!

But on a serious note - no wait, I'm talking about Queensland, how can i be serious!!! "Well don't you worry about that", pumpkin scones all round!!!

Ok, so last week i had to travel to Brisvegas for work. For those of you who have not noticed that there is a second blog that i have (check out the visit worthy blogs under 'Peanuts blog') i am currently pregnant. 31 weeks or 7 months pregnant to be precise. I checked with the airlines before booking the trip and they said that i can fly up till 35 weeks without a medical certificate but would need a letter from my GP to confirm my current due date - easy done.

So the airlines are like 'you are fine to fly', my GP is like 'if you have to go, but this will be your last trip interstate right?', my team in Brisbane is like 'Yaaa, your coming up for a visit', my team in Melbourne are like 'We are going to watching you the whole time - you are not going to do too much' and i am like 'Hmmmm, not sure if i want to do this trip, not sure if i can get out of it'.

Can't get out of it - well i might have been able to get out of it had i been to a physio and had the strange pain in my hips when i walk looked at, but I hadn't. And being the soldier i am, i had not really told anyone about it either.

So the flight up was fine till we started the decent into Brisvegas and hit a patch of turbulence. Not only was the plane shaking, but the bubs was to! So i was being rocked from both outside and in!!! Not pleasant.

Got to the office, had some meetings, got taken out for lunch - roast lamb, mmmmm - had more meeting and found my hotel on a little map that i had picked up at the airport. I had two traveling companions with me this time and one of them was staying at different hotel (limited accommodation availability because of Kylie Minogue concert the following day - and schoolies) and by the time i was ready to leave the office, the other traveling companion, with which i was sharing an apartment, was still in meetings.

Did the walk to the hotel myself, very easy to find and only about 10 minutes away. Checked in, went up to room, turned on telly, sat on the couch and instantly fell asleep.

The next thing i remember was being woken up by roomie frantically opening the door and asking me if i was ok, while saying to her mobile "she's here, i looks like she just fell asleep". It seems that both of my colleagues had been trying to call my mobile to make sure i found the hotel, and when neither could reach me had assumed....

But a little time has gone by, we can laugh about it now. It is lucky that i was in the apartment with someone and not at the other hotel on my own really!

We then got ready for dinner, Brisbane team members had a attack plan for food, and walked back to the office to meet them. We walked down to the river and got into a ferry and went across to the other side. This is now the part that i wished i had have said something rather than played follow the leader.

When the ferry docked at the other side there was a rather steep stair case to climb - to get to a stupidly steep hill to navigate so we could get to up to the road that would take us to the restaurant of choice. And this is when the pain in my hips really kicked in stay.

Dinner was nice, service was scarily slow, but the food was delicious - and it was fun watching my senior manager getting more and more drunk as the night wore on.

Got a cab back to the hotel and crashed on the bed - pain.

Got up in the morning and walked to the place where our morning workshop was being held - pain

Got into a cab to go back to the airport - pain

Got on the plane to come back to sunny Melbourne - pain

Got to Melbourne airport and 'jumped' into a cab to take me home - pain

Stopped at office on the way to pick up parcels that had arrived while i was away - pain

Got home, home sweet home, my place of comfort and support - bearable pain

M34tb4LL got home a few minutes after i did - forgot the pain

So, got up the next morning and went to local physio to make an appointment. Had said appointment on Wednesday and the pain that i am experiencing is due to my hip becoming out of alignment and tilted on one side. Then the whole trip to Brisbane and walking that should not have occurred has torn muscled around the already aggravated area.

I have sticky plaster on my back (not sure how plaster on the skin is going to help bones, but) and a list of don'ts (not many do's to think of it) and i have another appointment this week.

The pain now depends on how much i try and do, and the physio assures me that it will get better with treatment and time.

Though the airlines say you can fly up till 35 weeks, think about the other activities you may be engaging in and get medical advise about any concerns, strange niggling pains, before venturing out!

(: G

I'm going to have a whinge ):

2006-10-30T18:38:00.000+11:00

For want of something better to ramble on about really, but this is my blog - it is about me - it is your choice to read it - so there!!!

Right, got that out of the system now it is down to the whinging part.

As you should have figured out by my last post, M34tb4LL i got married one month and one day ago. We did the whole secret thing and told people the next day, SURPRISE. But it was the way we wanted to do it, and after being together for over fifteen and a half years, having not really talked about getting married, and with a baby on the way...

Well the reasons are there and, yup, anyway back to my whinge.

There is a girl (woman) at work who has been planning her wedding for the best part of two years, ever since her little man slipped a ring on her finger and her wedding happened to fall about two weeks after ours. I had the Monday and Tuesday off work after our little event and came back to work on the Wednesday to much congrats and people laughing about how much of a sneaky peoples we had been, love it! On the Thursday i had a rather large envelope placed on my desk with a request to sign a card for the afore mentioned bride to be and a second envelope with a request of money to buy her a wedding present.

This is not the whinge part by the way, this is just setting the scene for you.

The envelope made its way around the office and by early the next week members of the office were called into the kitchen for a presentation to the bride to be. She was given the giant card that about 100 people had signed and was given a present that consisted of a two-in-one DVD and VCR player, and a milkshake maker.

Still just setting the scene.

I was standing at the back at the crowd (as is my want) feeling happy for her and enjoying watching her blush with excitement at her new appliances, when

Here comes the whinge part...

A member of the senior management pointed to me and encouraged everyone to turn and give their congratulations to me having recently gotten married myself.

Don't get the whinge part? I spell it out.

It was a choice i made to 'elope' and if that means not getting showered with gifts is part of it - don't care. We've been in our house for 10 years and have enough crap. Plus i have always kind of felt like i have to give a gift at a wedding because the bride and groom have spent so much money on that one day that they need a bubble or two as pay back. I can cope without getting a gift, but...

To have this girl being the centre of attention, holding a stupidly big card and loving the look of her new toys, and then turn the attention on me with an "oh, by the way, lets also recognise G" made me feel hideously embarrassed.

Either have a presentation (again, don't care that i did not get one) or leave me be. Actually, just leave me be!

(: G

BIRTHDAY!!! and more (???)

2006-10-01T12:07:00.000+10:00

Well it is my birthday and my stress levels are far lower than they were the other day when i rambled on amnd on and on and on and on and ...

M34tb4LL and i had our party last night, and it all went well (i can say that now). We had far too much food, better to have too much than not enough though.

After people had eaten we gather them round the telly to watch a little surprise birthday video that we had prepared -

If it does not load, it might, it might not, here is the direct link to YouTube -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iqHjhkjXnM

It was sort of like a reverse surprise party - the birthday peoples (and a few others) were the only people who knew what was really going on!

(: G

Pre-Birthday Post

2006-09-24T08:45:00.000+10:00

The birthday session is nearly upon us again, and this time it feels almost like it snuck up on this time!

It is M34tb4LL's birthday on Wednesday (in like three days time) and mine is a week from today.

I have picked up a few prize goodies for M34tb4LL's gift but this year I have not been nearly as organized as previous years, only finished shopping yesterday for him - which is not like me. And I feel that the gift does not reflect any sort of creative effort. I have just gone and bought 'stuff' that I know he wants.

I'm not saying that the gift is not quality, it is premo. But I have not thought of things by myself, it is all stuff from a list. He will love it though.

It is just with other things that are coming and going through our minds are kind of taking over thoughts. With Peanut still growing away, and what are going to call him, and what room will be his, and if we get rid of the futon in the back bedroom we can move the piano from the front bedroom to the back, but the pinball machine will have to go as well, and that room is dump at the moment and you can't even get into the door, and the chaise does not suit he nursery look, but it is a family heirloom and I could not part with it, and just other stuff...

And oops! It is only a couple of days till M34tb4LL's birthday and what do I get him? And we should take some time off work together, but there is new staff starting, but I have put my leave form in and it has been approved, but the new HR manager is coming down from Queensland the day before I am going on leave, and there are still more new staff members starting, and if I get in by 7.30 in the morning I should be able to get my normal work done, and each work day is looking quadruple booked in my calendar, and now there are another two staff members staring after my leave starts, but if I can get their packs done someone else can go through the content with them, and just other stuff...

So by next Sunday (a week from today) I will have been on leave for three working days and both M34tb4LL and myself will have to refer to our ages as a digit higher than we are now, and I will still have two working days left of leave, and I want to go to the zoo, which should be possible, because school kids are back in school by then, hopefully my head is not going round as fast as it is at the moment, and just not much other stuff...

Ask me next week how I am, I should be able to answer you in a sentance that does not take five minutes to say by then.

(: G

Home delivery rocks!

2006-09-08T07:57:00.000+10:00

I can't tell you how many times i have had to do a midnight run to the 24 hour petrol station because we have run out of one of lifes little essential items. But not anymore.

A couple of weeks ago while M34tb4LL and myself were doing nothing on a Saturday afternoon a young lad came to our door, selling an idea that was so simple yet so revelutionary, we had to sign up for the service then and there.

The idea was - once or twice a week (our call) we could get products of our choice, from their range, home delivered and it would be charged to a credit card. No-one has to home to receive the delivery as they give us a cooler bag that we just have to leave at the door that items will packed into.

Amazing - who would have ever thought of that!

So every Thursday night before going to bed i pop a large bright green (for that is the colour they provided) cooler bag outside the front door and when i get out of bed on Friday morning i have a two litre bottle of milk, a loaf of white bread (toast cut) and a two litre bottle of juice.

And this is the even better part of the deal. With the juice they alternate between apple and orange (that was my choice). One week it is apple the next orange, and i'm not talking naff orange fruit drink and crystal clear, colour of pee apple juice - i am talking orange juice so full of its natural puld that you could chew it and apple jusice that is that satifying cloudy, greeny-brown colour. Both of them tasting like you have squeezed them fresh yourself.

And does this service cost us an arm and a leg? It is a darn site cheaper than the service station charges for the same products and i think it is at least comparable or even less than some supermarkets!

And you thought i was going to ramble on about ebay or something (by the way ebay rules!!!)

(: G

My blog is broken!

2006-07-30T12:05:00.000+10:00

I have been having trouble with the appearance of my blog recently. Rather than the smooth purple flow that is exciting to the eye i have had an angry, painfull for the eye, purple overflow!

Or at least that is what i thought, but how come none of my loyal readers have complained about the violent-violet appearance?

It has taken me till this morning to figure out what had happened when, as a last ditch effort, i opened the blog in interent explorer - it looked fine!

So my blog seems to only be broken in firefox, check the site of the dude that wrote the template and low and behold commentage about my the template does not display correctly and can he post a fix, to date, nothing.

So now i have fix my broken blog. I know it does not make a differnece to you my poor unforunate ie users, but i am perfectionist (and anyone who knows me will know that that is an out and out lie) and i can not have an angry fruit salad of blog in firefox.

So my purple passion template - RIP (can we please have a minutes silence?)

): G

So what has been happening now?

2006-07-12T22:43:00.000+10:00

In the post labeled "so much has happened" I said that so much has happened and then I prattled on about our couch whoos, which seeing as this blog is all about me and all the stuff involved with the sizable purchase that a sofa is - it can be considered fascinating, of course it can.

But, anyway, when I said so much was happening - so much is!!!

If you look at my list of links you will see that under the list of blog worthy sites you will notice a new blog about "Peanut".

Have a little look at it, there is stuff there.

tee hee

(: G

Oops, been more than a month since last post

2006-07-08T09:53:00.000+10:00

So the continuation of the couch saga -

Being once again couchless, we started the search all over again. With a better idea in our minds of what would suit the room and what structural properties to look for (or look out for) we hit the furniture shops.

It became very clear, very quickly, if we wanted to get something in the same price range as we had previously chosen we would only get either the same thing that we had just returned or some sort of naff, 80s style, mega puffy, high backed, violent coloured, far too many recliners to be practical suite.

With heavy hearts and tear streaked faces we stumbled into the next shop along, Oz Design. There was a couch set that we had been considering from there the last time we had purchased, but had opted to go another way at the time. This time we looked again at the sofa in question and from what we now knew it was struck off the list. Nice couch, just the style did not have the option of matching arm chairs and it was sold as a package with a giant rectangular ottoman that would have taken too much room.

Our eyes then fell on the "Dorado", available in arm chair, 2 seat, 2.5 seat, 3 seat (with three seat cushions - they had it in stock so we could be sure of this), semi circle ottoman and a rectangular ottoman. Lower, less chunky arms than the "James" (the one from the evil furniture place, that was not very fantastic) that were properly padded, good choice of colours, very comfy to sit (and lie) on, "WE'LL TAKE IT!!! but not yet"

So, we went home, draw up a plan of the room to the correct measurements and made some cut outs of the "Dorado" to scale, then looked at the best placements in the room.

Then we went back to the store - they were having a 12% off sales - and placed an order for a 3 seat, two arm chairs, a rectangular ottoman and a coffee table that they happen to stock that is the same make and model as the entertainment unit that we bought 8 years ago (how lucky is that!). Now we just have to wait 4 to 6 weeks for it to be ready.

This all took place 4 weeks ago tomorrow, should be here any time now...

(: G

So much has happened!

2006-06-05T17:20:00.000+10:00

Once again it has been the best part of a month sice my last post, and so much has happened in that time!!!

But how much of it is blob worthy? Seeing as this blog is about me - all of it is blog worthy.

There are furniture troubles a plenty happening in the house of M34tb4LL and G, we spent a stupid amount of time looking at furniture shops for a new couch/arm chairs and thought we had found a nice (grown up looking) option. Paid our deposit and waited 4 to 6 weeks for it to be made and delivered.

So when the long awaited sofa set arrived, it was not what we thought we were getting ): The three seater couch that we thought we were getting, and had check with the girlie girl that sold it to us, was actually what i would call a 2.5 seater. Meaning that instead of having places for three bums there were two seat cushions, just a little bit bigger than normal. Called the store and was told that they do not do three seaters with three seat cushions.

Tell me you are going to get people wanting to sit on the crack in the middle of the couch!

The dude i spoke to offered a refund (rather trying to make an arrangement that would make both parties happy - makes me think this kind of stuff happens all the time to them!) We asked if rather than rush into a refund, can we get three seat cushion made. Was told that we woulold have to speak to the manager in two days time.

So after i placed about 3,497 calls two days later to the store the manager called me back. It is not possible to get three seat cushions made because they would not fit! See told you it was not really a three seater - false advertising!!! So told manager we would think things over and get back to him, also made it clear that we wanted to look at our options (cruise other shops again) and that would have to wait till the next weekend, he agreed, he had no choice, after i sited "section 52 of the trades practises act..."

We looked around and a bit the next weekend and in the mean time used the furniture to see if it would work for us. NUP

So we called the manager (nearly two weeks after all this started) and told him we wanted a refund, which he agreed to - like he had any choice.

So the furniture was picked up the next day and we have had the fully purchase price refunded.

Stay tuned for the next installment to see if we get more furniture or just sit on the floor like hippees for the rest of our lives.

(: G

Introducing Bethany

2006-05-10T19:19:00.000+10:00

Well folks, the ibook has arrived. in fact i am typing this blog on it right now!

And the name game has been resolved as well, as you will see by the title, the ibook has been called "Bethany".

Following the Dogma theme that the others computers and e-devices in the house have established, and with a minimum amount of renaming the ibook has a girls name (as i wanted!). all i had to do was rename the G maintained PC Rufus and that left Bethany free for my beautiful little white "book of i".

The little wonder was delivered (to me) on Friday, much playing happened over the weekend and today while working from home i have had her set up in front of the tv so i can type notes of the video that i had to watch (and re-watch and re-watch and re-watch). If anyone has seen workplace training videos they will know that the action does not get any better with time.

So basicialy (to get back to the subject) now i have to learn the ways of the mac, i currently have no email addresses, and have to find all my favourites again. I know i could get them all from my PC, but where is the fun in that!

(: G

Waiting for shiny things

2006-04-25T19:50:00.000+10:00

I have made the ultimate decision to get a lap top. For the main reason that my PC is not in clear view of the TV and that surfing and TV viewing tricky.

That is good reason to get a lap top isn't it? I don't have to justify myself to you!!!

And I am proud to announce that I am turning to the the dark side - that's right, I'm getting a MAC! I have placed an order for a brand new, grand spanking iBook.

Now all I have to do is play the waiting game.

Let's see, I placed the order on Friday and they said it would take 10 working days. Today is a public holiday so that means by Monday week I should be in possession of a pretty new shiny thing.

The only thing left to do now is pick out a name for it. I feel that is going to be a girl, much like my PC (called Bethany) and my ipod (call Serendipity). I would like to follow the naming trend, but seeing as both of those are from the movie Dogma and the only other female in the movie was God, I think I have to move on (but only to another Kevin Smith movie, not moving far).

So calling out to Kevin Smith fans -

"Help me name my yet to be received lap top!!!"

(: G

WTF is it with shopping on Easter eve?

2006-04-15T16:45:00.000+10:00

I shop, it's what I do. I even have personal cards (business cards that have nothing to do with a job) that have my motto on them "I am, therefore I shop".

Well this morning when i went to the large shopping centre, which is only a block and half from where I live, I could not get my normal parking spot! I usually get the same spot every week (I call it the G spot) but it was already taken!

Now it's not like i was there at 10.00 in the morning, I can understand that once the stores are open it is get any park you can find, but since I was there at 8.15am I was a little bit surprised to find the car park half full already.

Before I went to get brekkie, i stopped in at Kmart to get some Easter eggs to share around at a friends place tonight and 'something' that I needed for my fathers birthday (father of G, you will have to wait till next week - I'm not telling).

Kmart was packed - wall to wall - half empty shelves - and five minute wait at every check out - shocked!!!

Did a bit of shopping, picked up a layby, ate pancakes, picked up a latte for M34tb4LL and was home by 10.00am.

After M34tb4LL injected the coffee straight into his vains we went back to the shopping centre (well, actually, a free standing store that is at the back od the shopping centre) to finalize the couch purchase that has been in the making for weeks, months now. Got to shopping centre and there were no parks anywhere near the furniture place, or a little further down, or a little further down again.

Finally got a park in the very back section that is usually only used by staff of the centre at Christmas time. Walked to furniture place (under threat of rain) and ordered one of those, with two of these and one of that - now have to wait 4 - 6 weeks (more on new furniture in another post)

Next stop was a couple of suburbs away to find 'ideal' coffee table. again, parking nightmares but done (we will buy it once the couches have been made up). Then to another shopping centre for a bit of window shopping and coffee refill.

Well... Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have we ever had any problems parking at this centre - it is a dirt mall, no-one ever goes there, half the shops don't bother opening on Sundays and the ones that do are closed by 2.00pm. Today is different story it seems, not a single park to be had! We had to stork people leaving the centre, follow them to there cars (must do a post on idea of reverse valet sometimes) and takes there spot.

So my theory is - shops not open on Good Friday, people suffer from massive withdrawals, have to shop on Easter eve, cars parks become parking hell, shops become sardine cans.

Just because the shops were not open yesterday does not mean that a person can not shop though - WELCOME TO THE INTERNET!!! Shop from the comfort of your own home and have things delivered to your door!!! In saying that however, I shop on the internet, but I still need to visit retail Mecca on very regular basis.

*shrug* what are you going to do?

(: G

Next post is now overdue

2006-04-09T09:46:00.000+10:00

So what to tell all of you about?

Good question!!!

Over the last month i have had may thoughts of things that i would love to prattle on about, but did i write them down? NNOOOOO!

And can i remember them? NNOOOOO!

So for now - this will have to do -

*chirp... *chirp... *chirp...

(: G

Guru G, now googleable!!!

2006-03-06T21:44:00.000+11:00

Well folks, it has happened!

Ever since i started this blog i have been typing things into google on a weekly basis to see if i can "find myself".

And a couple of days ago, it happened.

I typed in M34tb4LL (that spunky monkey i live with) and the second result was for this little ol' site! Ok, might be an obscure word to search for, but it's a start.

If i type "Guru G" into google? On the first page there is a result for a post the i put on rantspace.org. And on the fifth page there is a result of a comment that i made twelve months ago on a backpacking beer drinking site. And through out there are multiple results for an Eddie Murphy movie.

But persistence wins in the end and twenty pages of results (bottom of the twentieth) HERE I AM!!!

:) G

and i would like to add a little observation here - this BLOG has a spell check function (you wouldn't know by reading this but it does) and the spell check in this BLOG, does not know the word BLOG.

So where are you all?

2006-02-26T00:03:00.000+11:00

I have been getting complaints about how often i post here. I have been told that my blog has "following" of people that wish i would post on a more regular basis.

It is nice to know that my ramblings are read, but who is reading them? I know of a handful of people, but each of these people say they have others asking them to tell me to post more often.

So who are?

And i do try to post at least once a moth - in fact i have a reminder set in my calendar to remind me if i get close to the month mark without doing a post!

So, in closing - happy to hear that people like my ideal chatter!

If you like what i'm prattling on about, tell me! If you don't like my burbling, tell me (tee hee)

:) G

Not-Cross-Buns

2006-02-24T21:37:00.000+11:00

I remember as a child, the only thing i would eat on Shove Tuesday was pancakes, and the only thing i would eat on Good Friday was hot-cross-buns.

Because, for me, it is all about the food!!!

As an adult i still enjoy my pancakes and buns, but now that i shop for myself, and cook for myself, these foods are no longer a once a year thing.

However, the hot-cross-buns (which from here on will be referred to as - hcb) that have been around the last couple of years have been a little bit disappointing.

I remember previous years when you could go into a supermarket and choose traditional hcb, fruit with no peel, no fruit, choc chip, all choc, all choc with choc chips, apricot hcb, apple and cinnamon, peach and almond hcb, and many others that have slipped my mind for now. And also the supermarket seemed to stockt an endless array of brands, their 'home-brand' style as well as numerous bread companies each with their own take on what they could get away with as a hcb.

But when i went to the supermarket yesterday and looked for hcb, i found the 'home-brand' traditional, no peel, or choc hip; and after much searching found two other bread companies efforts tucked away on a bottom shelf!

I will be going to the chain bakery store tomorrow to see what they have in the way of hcb, as i have been promised that their range is more extensive.

Whoo you if they only have tradition, no peel, and choc chip!!!

:) G

Dinner with the Grand-parental

2006-01-25T16:44:00.000+11:00

The parentals have gone overseas (went like a month ago now!) and so myself and the Sister of G have taken over Grand-parental watch.

Our Little-mummy usually spends one evening a week at the Grand-parental's house, having dinner and yelling conversation over the table (Grand-parental is in her 94th year and the hearing is not what it used to be). But because Little-mummy and Father of G are overseas, the once a week visit had to taken over the underlings.

A couple of weeks ago, Sister of G called the Grand-parental and told her we will be coming over on Wednesday. Due to the afore mentioned poor hearing on the Grand-parentals behalf, she did not fully hear that I would be coming as well as Sister.

I arrived at 6.00pm on the dot, being the arranged time, and Grand-parental opened the door and just stared at me as if she was looking at ghost. Big smiles and hellos from my behalf, her side was "I thought you were L J"
"No. I'm G"
"I was expecting L J"
"She will be here soon"
"I was not expecting you, only L J"
"I can go if you want me to"
"No that's fine, you can stay if you like" - like I feel welcome NOW!!!
"Do you have enough dinner for me?"
"I'm sure I can find enough for all of us to eat"

Well, that was uncomfortable!

So waited for Sister of G to arrive and made pleasant conversation. Sister arrived not long after and the whole story of my arrival got rehashed. Then sat down to eat and Grand-parental came out of the kitchen with three plates piled high with food ("I'm sure I can find enough for all of us to eat"). Problem was the majority of the food was quiche (Sister of G is a vegetarian) - but i can't eat egg whites, they have bouncing effect on me!

Sister of G politely pointed this out to Grand-parental, and GP throw her head back, let out a big sigh and exclaimed "I can't get anything right today can I?"

Both myself and Sister of G quickly reassured her that there was plenty of other food on the plate (grossly over cooked vegies) that i would be able to eat and there is no way that i would starve - she then composed herself and said that at least i would be able to enjoy the lovely dessert she had made - meringues!!!

Think out it...

So i had grey, overcooked vegies and berries with ice cream for dessert - nice.

We then made plans to come back the same time next week, and wrote in her diary - "G & Sister of G for dinner - no egg"

Grand parental was not sure to feed us next week, because without using eggs, what do you feed an vegetarian?

And Little-mummy, just for the record, no sign of the new plates that you gave her for Christmas. Still the scanky, stained, chipped, crazed, trade-in-dockets-at-safeway dinner set!

:) G

Happy New Year!!! Whoooo

2006-01-06T12:48:00.000+11:00

Well folks, we have all been waiting for it and here it is -

2006

Is it all you were hoping for?

But i'm going to go back a bit if i may, to Christmas. If you had read my last post you will know (If you haven't read my last post - get busy!!!) that wthin the first 1/3 of December i was sick. Well that is not where my health wooos ended. The week before christmas i got the flu, not nice. And now, the week after New Years i am getting over a cold ! WTF!!!

So, 2006 - the year of not getting sick so fucking much, please?
:) G

Illness, no fun

2005-12-07T21:51:00.000+11:00

I have tonsillitis - for the third time this year! Actually no, in January i had tonsillitis, August i had bronchitis, and this time the infection has started in my adenoids - so i guess i have adenoiditis.

The theory of having ones tonsils removed to stop such infections does not work in my books for the obvious reason. The doctor is calling it tonsillitis for want of a better word, but i have proven (scary but true) that if i did not have tonsils i am still very capable of getting an 'itis infection.

I called my usually doctor first thing on Friday as i was starting to feel the 'itis onset (and it's not like i don't have practice what it feels like!). My preferred doctor was all booked up and not wanting to wait till full blow 'itis before getting onto medication i agreed to see another doctor at the same practice - MISTAKE

First impression of the quack i went to see was that he did not even pop his head out the door and give one a thin smile as he invited one into his consulting room. No, the receptionist would get a phone call and have to direct one to room three to see the doctor. I should add at this point that my preferred practitioner did make the momentous journey of three meters to invite his patients to see him.

So i headed to room three - without an escort, and explained why i was there. He attempted to look at my throat ad after three goes and nearly chocking me with a giant paddle-pop stick he told me there was nothing wrong. I reiterated that the current discomfort i was feeling was coming from my adenoids not so much my throat to which he replied it probably an ulcer behind my nose, WTF??? and if i still felt off colour by Monday come back and see him - fat chance.

First thing i did when i got home was call the medical centre and secure an early morning appointment with my usual doctor, second opinion?

Next morning after personally inviting me into his consulting room, Dr. Nicer-than-other-dude said "didn't i see you here yesterday?" "yup, but couldn't get an appointment to see you so had to Dr. The-other" "ok, let me see what he put on your file, ulcer behind the nose? i would think that with your history it would be more likely to be an infection in your adenoids. Let me look at your throat!" This was achieved in one, non-gagging, go.

And his diagnosis? adenoiditis, "Lucky you did not wait till Monday, you would not be in a good way at all by then"

It is now Wednesday, and i have been taken medication religious. Have had a hell of last couple of day, but i am getting better. But if i had have waited till Monday before getting the treatment i needed? i'd be a right off!!! And i have to be well well well by Saturday - staff Christmas party!

:) G

Corporate Games

2005-11-20T23:01:00.000+11:00

So I have been at the corporate games today, and not a bad day.

This is the second year the company I work for has entered the corporate games, and it is also the second year I have entered the corporate games. And my games of choice? Volleyball! I played very briefly at highschool (like four weeks only) and it is one of the few sports that appealed to me from the list of sports available.

Last year, my team only won one out of the three matches in the first heat, and that was against the second team that the company I work for entered.

This year however... we still only won one game, but this time it was against another company! And even better the score was 47 - 21. The second game we lost by only 4 points and the third by 10 points. Now I know that is still only one game won, but considering that last year the game we won was against fellow work mates and it was a close scoring game.

The third game we played was against a certain bank (that will remain nameless), that each year seem to have about ten volleyball teams entered. All the teams that the bank put in are like mega good, and losing to them by only ten points is still pat on the back worthy!!! Last year we lost to one of their teams by like 10,000 points (well it felt like that) so...

And now to chat about our corporate shirts for a bit. Other teams have really kewl shirts, polos with embroidery and funky use of their company colours. Last year my company got us these... Strangely cut white singlets with the company's logo screen printed across the bust and the butt. This year we were told that marketing had not done anything about the games and the social committee had to take over at the last minute, leaving no time to get new company shirts made up. This meant that again we had skanky ill-fitting white singlets (I'm not the smallest of lasses, and the biggest size available does not leave to much the imagination) with the company logo on the bust on the butt. And what is worse is the logo motto had been changed earlier this year (from "... smarter energy" to "... powering business"), so the shirts are out of date because they still sport the old logo!

But, even with meh, badly fitting, out of date company shirt - it was a fun day

And am I going to enter again next year? Hell yaaa!!!

:) G

Watch me get flamed

2005-11-18T23:45:00.000+11:00

The reason for my staring comment is because I want to have a little bit of a chat about Australian Idol. Well I will be doing all of the talking to start off with, so it is not so much a chat as a... a... a lecture! Now as I was saying - Australian Idol (or if you are in other parts of the globe, UK idol, American Idol, and so on). Firstly the word its self - idol.

I don't actually watch idol so I really can't talk to much about it, I just think the name has not been selected well, but the outcomes do seem to fit with the way I see the show.

Dictionary says: IDOL

An image used as an object of worship.

A false god.

One that is adored, often blindly or excessively.

Something visible but without substance.

Its all there! So in my limited exposure to the show here are my observations;

Is it just me or has the runner up each year in Australia had a more successful career? If so does that mean that the country has voted for their idol based on the fourth meaning? ...without substance.

Shannon Noll (did I spell his name right?), from what I have heard of the radio fits with the third meaning in my mind ...blindly or excessively

And again on Shannon Noll, the video clip for the song he did about a car (or something like that), he is standing on the back of ute with arms outstretched while the people of the country town that he happens to be in flock around him ...false god

And finally, a friend of mine (where I'm sure the afore mentioned flaming will come from) religiously watches the show and has her entire TV watching program drawn up and laminated each year by the time the first episode goes to air (not that there is anything wrong with that) ...object of worship

:) G

Summer is coming!!!

2005-11-04T19:13:00.000+11:00

And with that come hot weather..

I hate hot weather.

that is all i have to say at the moment

:) G

Work + Travel = Confusion

2005-11-01T17:07:00.000+11:00

The recent change my job has taken lately means that I'm now required to travel interstate once in a while ( is at least monthly once in a while?). I have just done my first trip and it felt like three days in one. Plus the fact it is cup day (a public holiday in ye merry olde Melbourne Towne), and I took yesterday off work - what day is it?

Tuesday

So, I left work on Thursday at about 4.45pm and went from Burwood East (suburb where employment happens) and drove to Mount Waverly to go to computer place for impulse purchase of a USB key that I had decided I could not live without. That took about 15 minutes. Then drove back to Burwood East to have dinner with work peoples , it was pregnant girls last week before taking baby leave. The drive back took the best part of an hour!!! But still got back with half an hour to spare before designated eating time. Sat in the office and watched Paulie buy stuff off the net and then went next door to eating place.

So having dinner and being all relaxed and stuff made Thursday night feel like a Friday, confusion starts -

Friday morning, alarm went off at 5.30am and I was ready when the taxi arrived at 6.00am. Got driven to airport and was there by 7.15am. Didn't have to book in as Paulie had shown me how to do it over the net the day before, so just booked my bag in and went to Maccas for soon brekkie. And while eating I did ponder to myself the irony of the reason I was traveling was to inform people about blood glucose levels, and healthy eating - more syrup for the hot cakes please!

Boarded plane and then sat on tarmac for about half an hour before taking off, was in Adelaide by 9.10am (their time or 9.40 am real time). First I did after getting off the plane was collect my bag, go to check in and get my boarding pass for next flight and check my bag in. Then got taxi to office, present health stuff, got driven back to airport. While waiting for delayed flight - ran into person I knew from Melbourne - in Adelaide - waiting for a flight to Sydney!!!

So get to Sydney and was met by office dude who drove me to office, did presentation and was then driven back to airport - to drop someone else off, and then was driven to aunt and uncle's Sydney dwelling.

After much chatting we went to dinner, very nice greek meal not far from their place of residence. Back to their home where more chatting happened and then it was time for bed.

Can't say how may times I woke throughout the night, but by 6.00am got bored lying in bed trying to sleep and got up only to find the whole family were already up and in the lounge watching morning cartoons.

auntie made scrummy pancakes for brekkie and then we sat, chatted, and sang karaoke. Time flew and before I knew it was getting close to needing to board a plane again. Got to the airport with only 15 mins to spare (had to stop at Krispy Kremes to get donuts on the way!), boarded plane and was in the air back to sunny ol' Melbourne.

Airplane landed, taxi home and a nap was needed.

So though I was only away from home for about 30 hours it felt like about three days. Then had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off work and feels like it has been a week!

Back tomorrow, ask me how long it feels then!!!

:) G

Post birthday post

2005-10-05T21:52:00.000+10:00

Well the birthday happened, I turned a year older. I am now 21 (in hexadecimal, so you geek heads out there now know my real age)

And what did I get in the way of pressies?

M34tb4LL gave me a sewing machine v v kewl as old sewing machine is close to dead

Parentals gave me a MFL of body shop stuff -

mango body butter
mango body scrub
mango oil mist
mango bath and shower gel
vitamin E hand and nail cream
vitamin E facial mist

The sister of G gave me DVD: Sondheim a celebration at Carnegie hall, CD of Andrew Lippa (hadn't heard of him before, but v v good) and graphic novel of death (dark superhero kind of person)

Grandparents just handed over cash which has gone towards a little bit of an Amazon splurge

The outlaws gave a MFL of sewing accessories including a pair of good scissors (are there evil scissors?)

Dinner on night of birthday was yyuummm, squires steak house in the city - I ate a 500 gram T-bone, a fair effort I felt. Very much meat was consumed and there was no talk of Mr. Colon (thank the gods) Then back to house in the 'burbs for coffee (or herbal tea) and a slice of birthday donut cake. It had pink icing with purple sprinkles!!! It also made a great brekkie - all gone now.

Next birthday on the calendar is Paulie from work "HI PAULIE" on Friday, taking a long weekend for his troubles, well done!

:) G

Birthday-eve

2005-09-30T18:41:00.000+10:00

Well tomorrow is my birthday and yesterday M34tb4LL and I went to the parental's for dinner. Pressie time happened first and I gave little mummy more purple stuff (for that is the colour of most of her pressies) than she ever knew existed, and I got a MFL of mango flavoured goodies from the body shop (infact I think I scored everything from the mango range!!!). And M34tb4LL got given chocolates and grog to his little hearts content

As promised we had Mojo's Weird Pizzas (mega mega yum fun). We had four pizzas between the five of us,

Gringo - Salsa, corn chips, spanish onions, cream cheese, tomato and jalapenos, topped with sour cream and guacamole 9/10

Kass Kop - Caramelised onions, blue vein cheese and cream cheese 6/10

Groundhog - BBQ sauce, cheese, onion, double bacon, mushrooms, cracked black pepper, sesame seeds and fresh parsley on top 7/10

Ali Baba - Napoli sauce, cheese, salami, spanish onion, roasted pumpkin, red & green capsicum, fetta and kalamata olives 8/10

Once we all to full to eat anything else, it was cake time.

Little mummy had laboured under the weight of the most delish white mud cake (with cream and strawberries) that she bought at David Jones in the city and taken back to their place on the tram.

Pressies = good
Pizza = goood
Cake = gooood

so all up? it was a goooood night!!!

:) G

So what has been happening now?

2005-09-28T20:09:00.000+10:00

Well, for one thing, on the work front - I have been promoted!!!

w00t!

I am no longer department specific in my training role, I am now the corporate trainer, like company wide, yaaa me.

It was M34tb4LL's birthday yesterday, got him a MFL of pressies. What is MFL I hear you ask? Well the L stands for load, M stands for metric, and F stands for... Can I swear on this site without getting shut down? The F stands for fuck - metric fuck load. If you are going to be reading this site on a semi regular basis you are probably going to have to learn my abbreviations. But I'll have that a different topic.

So... M34tb4LL's birthday... slept in, nice. MFL of pressies given, all went down well :) Shopping, mostly window. Lunch, mostly sushi. Tidied house ready for the outlaws to visit, yes tidied!!! Bought cake, sponge cream jam. Noodle box for dinner and outlaws came over for coffee and cake.

As far as days go - it was one, and a pretty good one at that!

Tonight I am cooking (yes I am cooking) a special three course dinner!!! It is taking a while because that always seems to happen when I cook. But what we are hoping for is French onion soup with cheese toast, beef wellington with potato gratin, and apple tea cake with cream (ok the dessert is store bought, but the rest I made from scratch)

Tomorrow night it is off to the parental's house for dinner, pizzas from Mojo's Weird Pizza. That place needs a web site! their pizzas are insane!!!

My birthday is ths Saturday and I have already bought myself a little pressie - a pink ipod mini, tee hee.

:) G

Birthday time approaches

2005-09-08T22:59:00.000+10:00

This the time (almost) to do the birthday thing!!!

M34tb4LL's birthday is on 27th of Sept and mine is 1st of Oct. There are quite a few others around this time of year as well - mothers, grandmothers, brothers, cousins, wives (not my wife, that would be weird).

So am I prepared for this upcoming birthday joy? Not really! I have how ever applied for a week off work around M34tb4LL's and my birthday, can't work on a birthday. The fact that my birthday falls on a Saturday this year is beside the point.

But with this birthday session there is a good excuse to shop, and my motto -

"I am, therefore I shop"

:) G

A month gone already

2005-09-04T15:20:00.000+10:00

Well, its nearly a month since I started this web blog and I have not put a single thing here yet.

The first thing that you should say about me is that I'm either REALLY busy and don't have to update this, or that I'm really lazy. I'll leave that on e for the masses to vote on.

So I have said this site is about me, but have not said who I am. Time to change that!!!

I am G. Other names I go by are Guru G, Reggie Lacerta, Lizard Queen, or my real name which is Georgi (the last one is only used by work people)

I reside in a leafy suburb of Melbourne with my long term partner M34tb4LL, also known as Globo Minutal, or by his real name which is Shane.

I am a work place trainer for an electricity company. This means I get spend to day with people who know less than me about electricity and pass on my vast amounts of wisdom - it can be a real power rush!!!

When I'm not at home I'm usually propped up on the couch watching telly, shopping on the net, or playing GuildWars (currently I'm a level 18 elementalist/ranger, and my charater is HOT). I also spend most of my nights chatting with friends in IRC.

The idea behind this blog is for me to dump any random thought, if I have any, but brain not always think good at times.

:) G

Lets get started

2005-08-07T12:22:00.000+10:00

Hi,

I'm G and this site is all about me! and who am i? i'll tell you later

:) G

It's all about G

Let's Play Guild Wars - Part 2 - Tipping The Skales

Let's Play Guild Wars - Part 1 - Into The Great Wide Yonder

Let's Play Guild Wars - Part 0 - Introductions

Is it tommorrow already?

There is a new blog in town...

Random thoughts / questions

I am the uber-shopper

Been seen sipping lately?

The Non-Events of a Neglectful Blogger

Receipts for romance

My cup runneth dry

Sad

Out with the old...

Mission accomplished!!!

Not much going on really...

Express THIS!!!

What have I just done?!?!?!?

Optional extras

Please work for my sale!

And now let me sing some praises

To Pay or Not To Pay

OMG - it's mid September!!!

Choices choices...

*** Warning *** Cull Imminent

Internet-less

LOL speak

My "Lord of the Rings"

We live in a golden age

A brave new world.

Postage??? or more!!!

Excuses excuses

The real reason for the current drought (me)

Post-Christmas, pre-New Years

Christmas - AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I blame Brisbane

I'm going to have a whinge ):

BIRTHDAY!!! and more (???)

Pre-Birthday Post

Home delivery rocks!

My blog is broken!

So what has been happening now?

Oops, been more than a month since last post

So much has happened!

Introducing Bethany

Waiting for shiny things

WTF is it with shopping on Easter eve?

Next post is now overdue

Guru G, now googleable!!!

So where are you all?

Not-Cross-Buns

Dinner with the Grand-parental

Happy New Year!!! Whoooo

Illness, no fun

Corporate Games

Watch me get flamed

Summer is coming!!!

Work + Travel = Confusion

Post birthday post

Birthday-eve

So what has been happening now?

Birthday time approaches

A month gone already

Lets get started

* Warning * Cull Imminent