The blog updates are coming thin and slow now (as opposed to thick and fast, if you didn’t get it ;).

A couple of days ago there were some guys installing an electricity pit across the road from us, in front of the new house being built. The letter we received a week or two earlier stated that though it “would be obvious we have done work”, it would not be particularly glaring.

Well, it was bloody obvious they’d done work, since they’d torn up part of the footpath, completely recked our nature strip though the twig — err, tree — was still there the rest looks rather pathetic now.

Not only that, but due to them boring underneath the road, the road has now “risen” and cracked! Outside our house is a brand new “speed bump”, which was caused by this craptacular worksmanship.

I thought it would be fixed the next day, so I paid it no mind for a few days. Still nothing, no sign of anything being done. So, I called the council offices. I gave the lady the details of our street, whereabouts the work had taken place, the company, what had happened etc. Turns out that the council knew nothing of these works!

Yesterday, someone from the council came to investigate; Justine saw the person investigating and had a chat to them about the crappy works. The guy was apparently completely bagging the work that had been done, and told Justine that the company now has to come out and fix it themselves, or the council will fine them and make them pay the council at a high rate to come out and fix it.

Sweet.

The camera in my phone is a bit dodgy. Apart from it taking half a second or so to take the photo after being pressed, what’s displayed on the screen doesn’t appear to be what was actually recorded by the camera!

Justine and I were feeding the ducks at our local pond a few days ago, and I decided to try a few “action” shots of the ducks taking food from our hands. I got two really good shots, both just as the ducks grabbed the food from our hands. This was a bit more difficult than it sounds as you had to preempt when the ducks were going to grab the food by half a second or so.

I checked the photos to show someone yesterday and they weren’t the same as was shown on the screen! How dodgy is that?!

Just a quick mention of thanks to Justine’s sister, Rachel, and her husband Ron. As part of their (ever ongoing — must be interesting having a significant other who is a chippie) home renovations they decided that a 4-seater table and accompanying chairs were no longer required.

So, on Wednesday evening we inherited said table and chairs.

The table base is wrought iron (actually, it’s hollow wrought iron, if that even exists), the base is super-lightweight. The table top is just a huge square of glass (with the edges beveled and rounded) which sits on the wrought iron bits (which have little suction cups to hold the glass in place ;).

The chairs are also wrought iron and have (thin) padding on them, which is coloured white. Because Rachel and Ron have two young kids (neither at school), the white padding bits are sort of white-ish-browny-stain-covered white. We’re thinking of replacing the padding bits with a navy colour to match our other crap. We’re too lazy though so white-ish-browny-stain-covered white it is! The backs aren’t particularly comfortable but I’m sure we’ll live… Really.

Thanks also to Justine’s Dad, John, for letting us borrow their EA(?) Falcon to cart around the table/chairs. Oh yeah, I fixed your car radio, the clock is now the correct time and it is displayed.

Enjoy the bikkies!

On Saturday afternoon, we installed a new car stereo into Justine’s car. How romantic. Ideal for Valentine’s Day.

The stereo is a Sony CDX-MP50 unit, which not only plays regular (pressed or burned) CDs, but mp3 CDs as well! I’m a little bit jealous, as my player doesn’t do that.

Still, I have the comfort that my head unit is quite a lot better, despite me owning it for 5-6 years and the design being 7-8 years old. Of course it cost me a lot more so I suppose it evens out.

Thanks to Wayne for the assistance with installing the unit. I know what to do with the exception of wiring looms. Though I think I know what to do now in their regards. I’m not particularly good at soldering but I think I’ll have a little practice next time a car stereo install comes my way.

Thanks also to Damien for the use of his car port and general comic relief. Thanks also to Damien (again), Trav and Justine for generally doing nothing else to help.

Later on Saturday evening we played 4-player Halo which was a real blast. I’d love to see 8 (or even 16) players! I’m not really a fan of Halo on the PC, it’s rather average compared to most 3D shooters. However, on the Xbox I had a lot of fun. I doubt the game’s much better, but with other players it was enjoyable.

Last night we went to Dracula’s Cabaret Restaurant. I’d never been to a cabaret restaurant before so wasn’t quite sure what to expect (well, I was, but things are never the same as you imagine).

The first thing that you do when you get to the restaurant is go for a ride in a ghost train. It’s like the old-style ghost train with a wooden car and people jumping out in front of you. The interesting thing is that there is a hidden infrared camera recording your reactions. Some of the better reactions are played back later and it was damn funny watching some people almost fall out of their seats.

I was actually under the impression the place was a theatre restaurant (not that I was expecting particularly high-brow theatre), whereas it was a cabaret restaurant. So, I was a bit surprised to see so much singing of relatively current songs; until, of course, it clicked that it was indeed not a theatre restaurant. Duh.

Anyway, the food was quite good, the singing OK, the production values were… OK as well. Some of the comedy was quite good though. All in all I enjoyed myself quite a bit; though the cocktails were damned expensive.

Later, we made our way to a karaoke/pool hall called Charltons. This place is located smack-bang in the middle of Little Chinatown in Melbourne, and is the sort of place you’d never find unless you already knew it was there. You walk down a little alley, into a dodgy-looking elevator, and as you go up a few floors you hear music getting louder, louder, louder.

The place isn’t exactly a hidden gem or anything, but it seemed quite popular, and the pool cues/tables were straight which is good enough for me. You’ll be pleased to note that I didn’t even consider karaoke. I thought it would be best not to inflict pain on those around me.

And how could I forget today being St. Valentine’s Day? Justine gave me a lovely bonsai (our others died in last year’s summer along with all our other plants; I’ll try to keep this one alive for a tad longer). I gave her a mother-of-pearl bracelet (no, not a pearl necklace).

Note: Happy Valentine’s Day baby!

OK, it’s been too long since I’ve updated, and stuff -has- actually happened to me. I’ve just not been bothered to make any updates.

I was going to use the “too busy” excuse, but I’m sure I could have found a few minutes here and there if I’d really tried! On with the updates…

New Phone
Last week, I purchased a new mobile phone — the Motorola v525. The v525 is a Vodafone-customised version of the v500. The difference is, apparently, a different inlay (the blue bit is silver on the v500) and Vodafone software customisations.

The phone has a lot of features, like mp3 ringtones (no crappy sounding midis!), VGA camera (most cameras take photos at 320×240 or so resolution, whereas this takes photos as 640×480), Bluetooth and a TFT screen (easier to see in bright sunlight, though not perfect).

There are a few strange design features compared to Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones (for example, the Motorola plays a personalised ring tone for calls AND SMS, whereas the other two play the personalised ring tone only for calls, and a standard tone for SMS). I like having a clamshell phone though, it’s cool closing the phone to hang up.

The first day I had the phone, the external display (there is a simple display on the outside for basic information) kept turning off, while the rest of the phone was OK. I had read of problems like this and thought I’d have to wait for new firmware to resolve it.

I returned the phone anyway (on Motorola’s advice), and exchanged for a new one. I turns out that the shop had sold me their demo phone (not those plastic ones ;). The new phone has not had a problem yet, and it feels much nicer and more sturdy.

Bluetooth Adapter
I bought a USB Bluetooth adapter to communicate with my new phone. It worked quite well (it is pretty cool transferring ring tones to my phone which is on a table half way across the house!) but occasionally the phone would just disappear. The computer couldn’t see the phone, but after a while it could. Sometimes files would transfer and others they wouldn’t.

I managed to get quite a few ringtones on the phone and some games also, before I decided to take it back for a refund. Of course, I claimed it didn’t work at all. Maybe a different brand would work better, I’m not sure.

The Hire
I have ordered a DVD from BMW, called The Hire. It is basically an advert for BMW, but with a twist.

BMW has hired quite a lot of “big shot” directors to direct a bunch of short films, all with a central story/theme that links them together. Directors include David Fincher (”Se7en”, “The Game”, “Fight Club”), Ang Lee (”The Ice Storm”, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”), Guy Ritchie (”Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, “Snatch”) and other directors you’d probably recognise.

Apparently all the films are quite good, and feature big stars too. You only have to pay for the postage, which was around $10 after currency conversion. It should arrive in about a month (I think it has been sent by sherpa).

I’m starting to run out of interesting things to mention, I usually have one or two small things I could rant on about most days, but forget them a day or two later. OK, one more thing then:

Team-Building Day(s)

Wednesday and Thursday were my work’s “Team-Building Day” (inappropriate name really, as it’s over two days). I had to get up before 6am in order to catch the bus and leave Burwood by 7am. We’re never told where we’re going in advance (actually, we weren’t told at all this year). At around 9am we arrived at Cottage by the Sea at Queenscliff.

The general idea is that we get staff from all 5 campuses together for one day, and do something good for the community. My team (of 5 people) was responsible for building and installing a gate at the Cottage’s entrance. Unfortunately, because the driveway went uphill, we had to design, make and install “riser” hinges to allow the gates to swing “upwards” so they didn’t scrape the driveway. We managed to finish the gates (including two coats of paint) by 2:30, so we assisted with other projects. Other things done were painting (a room, hallway, and a hall outside — two coats each), installing carpet, designing and installing a garden bed, planting trees, and a few other bits and pieces.

Things were made more difficult due to the fact that it was raining up until around 1 o’clock. Darren (who is, ironically, an OH&S manager) was unfortunate enough to be the only one in our group capable of welding (and I couldn’t convince him to let me have a go; though I did have fun with a nailgun and masonry drill). The poor guy had to weld (a CIG welder) in the rain and kept having arcing hands due to the rain.

It feels rather good to have done something for a decent cause. It was great to see all the young kids running around checking out our handiwork.

Wednesday night was quite enjoyable also. As many of the people in my Division are tradespeople, and a lot of them come from Geelong and Warrnambool (yee-haw!) the night — for them at least — ended up being one huge piss-up. I tried to stay away from getting too drunk (I got tipsy and decided I didn’t want to get hammered and make an idiot of myself) but seeing my boss completely smashed, and slurring his speech was just too much fun.

Unfortunately, the second day is a lot less interesting, we spent the day listening to speeches and presentations and generally recovering from the evening before.

Still, it’s good to catch up with people you may only see once a year. So, in the spirit of catching up, that’s about all I’ve done in the past week. And I managed to write a crapload about very little!

Note: As soon as I manage to find a reliable way of getting photos from my new mobile phone, I intend on accompanying my updates with at least one image.

This morning started pretty much like a normal day. Get up, have a shower, get dressed, have breakfast, go to work. Yep, perfectly normal.

Anyway, so I’m driving to work. Actually, I got to work without incident, so I don’t really need to say anything about that.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So I get to work, and drive into the car park. I’ve bumped into one of those concrete stopper things, and I’m not parking quite straight in the spot (there’s very few spots taken at this time of the morning, at this time of the year), so I turn the wheel around to allow me to straighten up and I hear a funny little “clunk”. “It must be the power steering doing something funny,” I thought.

Nope. As I reverse I hear this strange, deep scraping sound. “That’s not good,” I think, imagining all the possible things that could have just broken, or fallen off my car, or vital things that are leaking. I’m also thinking about the many thousands of dollars it’s going to cost to replace said falling/breaking/leaking things.

I stopped the car and get out. Something looks strange, missing. It’s the concrete stopper thing. There’s not one in my parking spot. It’s sticking out from under my car. I take a closer look, and it appears to be stuck under the bash plate. It just so happens that I can’t try and reverse much more than 2-3 metres, as there’s another car parked behind mine, of all places. Why did I have to park there?

A guy who followed me into the car park has just gotten out of his car and looks over. We try to figure out a way around it but are stuck. We’re obviously not getting very far. I see someone I know and call him over. The other guy doesn’t know what to do, and pisses off — thanks a lot. Anyway, it turns out that the guy (Frank) notices the pin that holds the stopper thing in place (well, not this one) has somehow become lodged into my steering arm. Oh great.

Well, to make a long story short (I’m getting tired of this subject now), Frank holds onto the pin, and I reverse the car a few inches back. “It’s out!” he yells.

Phew.

We move the stopper thing back into place after much heaving — those bloody things are a lot heavier than they look — and I survey the damage to my car. I can’t see any. “There must be,” I think. “I’m never that lucky,” I add to myself.

Well, I checked the car twice more throughout the day, and there was no evidence of anything leaking from around that (or any other) spot, and the car got me home fine. Didn’t feel any different at all, and I’m sure I was being more perceptive than normal.

Not to mention that nothing else bad happened all day!

In other semi-interesting news, there is a Gamecube emulator which apparently actually works. Not that I have the games to try it.