Incompetence

While it may look like I am just combining the latest ideas from the likes of fingers and steph, I am rather pissed off this morning.

You see, I am getting one of these and I am rather excited about it. Yes, it is a Volvo, and please feel free to make all the expected jokes/comments/stifled laughter/pointing and giggling as you like, but I have been driving a crappy company Bombodore, and the Volvo is actually

1. fun to drive;


2. fast (I am a boy ok, get over it);


3. looks good (no really, it actually does);


4. erm, safe (ok, let's move on).

What is annoying me is, I was told that it would be ready today. By the sales guy (who obviously needs it for his monthly target). He said her would call his fleet department and they would tell the leasing company. I know, stay with me here.

So I hadn't heard anything for a few days, and I call the leasing company yesterday. They tell me they don't know anything about it being delivered any time soon, so I politely suggest that they find out.

They do find out (to their credit), and what they find out is that it is somewhere in the country but not ready for delivery. OK, a bit disappointing, but fine.

Until Mr Salesman calls me this morning to tell me that we are looking good for me to pick it up this afternoon. Er, ok. Except that the good old leasing company haven't prepared the documents that they might want me to sign before I like, drive off with their car.

So I make some calls, to the leasing company, who haven't called back, and I am still waiting for Mr Salesman to tell me what the #$%*& is going on. I do in the meantime have to go to meetings, hand back my crappy work car, and then potentially have no transport to get to said meetings for an unknown period of time, along with having to deal with the fallout of not getting to my niece's birthday party on Saturday in Can'tberra unless I can get on a last minute bus or train.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to pretend to work with this going on? My life is just one big trial, isn't it...

Who wants to predict what will happen next?

CUPIDS BACK, AND THIS TIME HE'S... got, um, a little bow and arrow...

I may appear to be a tad fascinated with this concept, but am faced again with the whole set up sitch. I know, I know, better than me sitting at home with nothing better to do than opening the tins of roo meat and sharing them with the pugs, but bear with me.

And no, I am not terribly worked up about it all, but it raises an amusing and interesting philosophical question. Exactly for whose benefit is the whole set up being perpetrated?

There are several players here - the first one is easy - the person doing the setting up - let's call her (it usually is a her) Cupid.

The other two are the issue. One of the two will inevitably be a slightly closer friend of the Cupid than the other one. So is the Cupid just bringing out an occasional carousel of single eligibles for their good male or female (as the case may be) friend to peruse? Who is the 'catch' here, and who needs the help?

And if it doesn't work, whose side does the Cupid take, if they have to take a side. See, it is all very messy, when you think about it. First mistake - thinking about it.

I don't really think that the Cupid simply has 2 single friends that they suddenly think would be a match made in heaven. No, they are pimping for one, and pimping the other.

Then again, I realise that at the end of the day it is probably primarily for the edification (sorry, that is probably another word like amenable that I shouldn't use on dates, isn't it) of the Cupid in the first place, isn't it. Ah, it all makes sense now. Now where did I put that can opener...

Skippy munching

Hi folks. Had an exciting evening last night - came home, cooked up some dinner, and then finished the Harry Pooter. I won't bore you all with discussions about Pooter, as those of you interested will have had your fill, and those not interested even more so.

I will bore you about something else. A piece on the radio this morning prompted some thought. A state in the US, no less than California, has banned the sale of adidas sports shoes made from Skippy leather, despite attempts to create an industry in roo meat and other products. This makes sense to me, as they are in ever-increasing proportions in the bush, and if farmed would be a darn-sight less environmentally damaging than the baa-baas and moos that we run currently.

Why this issue today? Dinner last night was some corn on the cob (yummo) and a Skippy steak sambo. I eat Skip from time to time, but not all that often, and every time I do I am struck by its flavour, leanness and how easy it is to cook. Why don't we eat more of it?

Is it a philosophical issue with eating something from our coat of arms? I don't quite understand that, as we (or at least most of us) are quite happy to eat other animals that are probably treated far less humanely than roos would be if farmed (I am speculating here, but don't let that get in the way of a good opinion, or my opinion for that matter).

It comes in steaks, snags, plus even marinated for those of you either too lazy or unimaginative to come up with something yourselves (ooh, controversy).

Is it too 'gamey' for you? I don't really understand this either, as the taste is not as strong as venison or other 'game' meats, but then I do have a robust appetite, to say the least, and while I like to think that I am discerning about what I enjoy, I am not what one might call a 'fussy eater'.

Plus, it is cheaper than other red meats (certainly of equivalent standard), not to mention other exotic meats which can cost a fortune.

Or is the problem just the fact that it is called 'australus'? Jesus, who won that write-in competition?

What do you think?

F%$$^%#& trains

I am about to get a new car, but the 'old' one (that I have to hand back to work in a couple of weeks) is due for a service, so I put it in this morning.

I then happily trundled (not sure how one trundles without a trolley of some sort, or even if that makes sense - I just think that a trolley sounds like an appropriate and necessary accessory for trundling, but I digress), ok walked, to the train station.

Now it is only in the last few years that I have driven to work, prior to that I always caught the train, so I am quite familiar with the steps required - buy a ticket, check the indicator, sit on the platform, sit on the train, and remember to get off at the right place. All pretty straight forward, I hear you thinking (I have VERY good hearing). Correct, until the little man who changes the tv screens to tell you which train is coming obviously got a little too, er, ENTHUSED, and changed the screen early so that the train that turned up was shown on the screen as going to the north shore from Strathfield, whereas it was actually going to RICHMOND.

Now I fairly quickly realised that I didn't want to be on this train. When I say fairly quickly, I mean fairly quickly AFTER the doors had closed and it was going off on a different track to my preference...

So I got to stand on Granville station for a while in the freezing bloody cold, catch a train back to lovely Strathfield, and then catch a (correctly labelled) train to work.

Damn #@$%@#%&#$* trains.... At least no covers blew off and nobody was electrocuted, so
I guess I shouldn't complain...

You are too old to be out drinking on a Tuesday night...

Yes, I know that I keep myself in shape (as you can see from my portrait), but even with a strict healthy eating and exercise regime, one can only slow the ravages of time so much. [Oh, and don't you love the use of 'one' to describe oneself, it is most of the way towards describing oneself in the 3rd person - it is what all the cool sports stars are doing these days...]

And so it is with one's ability to recover. No, I am not talking about how quickly one can bounce back from a debilitating case of the flu (which isn't really the flu, but that is a whole other strain of virus), no, I am talking about how well one can function after a big night out.

I go to the pub almost every Tuesday night with a bunch of friends. I good time is had by all, not least those of the group (being the majority these days) who are Dads, and therefore get Tuesday night as their leave pass for the week. They are the ones who are trawling the Inner West for open bars and kebab purveyors (not necessarily in that order, either on a chronological or order of importance basis). Even those of us who are footloose and fancy free (no, this isn't a Nancy Sinatra song, and please note that it was not Footloose and therefore Kevin Bacon will not be appearing) are often out until at least midnight. Yes, midnight!

Now I hear all you young denizens of the internet (and fingers) turning your nose up at such softness, but I do in all honesty find that a solid 5 hours of drinking on a Tuesday night does not a happy Wednesday make. I can still back up with at least some form on a weekend, even if Sunday is spent at least in part getting intimate with my couch, but Tuesday is just plain silly.

That all said, I am off to the pub tonight, regular as clockwork (I am going to avoid the obvious fibre jokes here).

What are you lot up to this evening? Assuming hardly anyone will read this today, I am happy to take feedback on your Wednesday plans.

Actually, assuming anyone reads this at all, put down whatever you bloody well want...

We Are the Champions...

Yes, yes that is correct. My basketball team, Just Dueitt (get, it, a play on the whole Nike motto, you know, Just Do It, oh never mind) usually competitors for the 2nd last or 3rd last place in our Sunday night basketball comp (we aren't even good enough at being crap to come last), won the grand final last night.

Why is this of interest to you, I hear you ask? Um, why are you reading peoples' blogs then, dufus? I decided not to write about my flight later today to supervise the sealing of the Yongbyon reactor (I told the UN about the b'ball game and said they could start without me or wait - they waited). Sheesh.

Anyway, back to more important world events. Our opposition are perennial contenders, something to do with their blokes all being at least 6'3'' and ridiculously athletic, and their girls being equally tall and talented (ok, not equally since they only average about 5'10'', but I'm not getting into the whole relativity of physiognomy just now).

It was a tight tussle (I am concerned that this will remind fingers of some dvds he has on the top shelf, but I shall continue) with the scores being relatively low - we were down 19-18 at half time. Just a few points for those of you who are surprised that we weren't on track to crack the century in the game:

1. Have you seen the size of those bastards? They are fricking huge, which makes running up and down a not insignificantly sized basketball court easier, or so I tell myself.


2. They are, at least in athletic terms when compared to the rest of us, what 1991 Grange is to a 3.99 cleanskin from the local bottlo (and if that doesn't make any more sense to you, just work with me here)


3. They get paid a LOT of money to practice a lot, each day. I rock up 10 minutes before a game and shot around (and if you don't know the game, this doesn't involve firearms).

Plus, it was a strong defensive game, which limited scoring. Anyhoo, towards the end of the game, we were up by 2 when Wendy, one of the girls on the bad guys' team, nailed a 3 pointer. We were down by 1 with only about a minute left. There is something particularly galling about having a 3 pointer made against you in these circumstances, which is only exacerbated by the perpetrator being (a) talented, (b) attractive (yes, it comes to this yet again), (c) even more attractive due to said talent and (d) quite nice and friendly (and therefore slightly, but only slightly, more difficult to hate for it).

Bec (one of the good guys) was open on our next possession and POW answered right back, taking us back out to a 2 point lead. We got a stop defensively and then started protecting the ball as there were only 30 seconds left and no shot clock. We drew a few fouls, but never gave away the ball, and with 8 seconds left Greg (another of the good guys) had an open path to the bucket and sealed it with a clean lay-up.

4 point victors. Why do you care? Well, if you are still reading you must be sufficiently bored, and the good news is we are almost there. Also we have played together for about 10 years, and this is the first time we have won. We even received trophies that looked nothing like this...

We then proceeded to the pub to remind each other, in precise detail, of exactly which 15 crucial shots, blocks and passes won us the game. Ad nauseam - much how you feel now.

As a bonus I just created a PB for use of parentheses in a post. So it is good news all round...

Cupid's Scattergun of Lerve

As previously blogged, I was at a party on the weekend of the Costume/Fancy Dress variety (DON'T get me started on that again).

It turns out that our lovely hostess for that particular shindig was of a mind to kill a few birds with the one arrow, and try to introduce the single people at the party to one another.

She was relatively subtle about it at the time, managing to disguise the fact in generally introducing disparate groups at the party. This is what every good host is made of (so you can then get on with drinking as much as possible with a clear conscience). However obviously this was not enough.

I received an email today from the hostess pointing out that one of the single young ladies at the party had mentioned me. Not really that surprising, since I was the tall-ish plonker in the fireman outfit. This email then went on to make it clear that the said single young lady would be quite amenable to me asking her out and then proceeded to include her contact details, both email and phone. Now while this isn't quite on a scale with Steph being set up on blind dates with gay blokes, I reckon the poor girl in question could be mighty pissed off at her friend the hostess for dropping her details to someone who could be a complete stalker.

Then again, there is only a 27% chance that I am a complete stalker. Statistics never lie.

Plus, I just received a call from Cupid to see if I would follow through. What is with all this chicks-pimping-their-friends action?

Is it Fancy Dress or is it a Costume Party?

I was asked this question by an American friend of the host of a Fancy Dress party I went to on the weekend. We agreed that it probably doesn't matter, and that the English should really have the right to decide what the correct term is. I then added that I thought they called it a Fancy Dress party, which went down like a pork terrine at a Bar Mitzvah.

While a Fancy Dress is usually something that an Australian lass wears to the races or her wedding, it is also pretty well universally understood that when someone is having a Fancy Dress party, they get to decide at least the theme to which all guests (or at least those with any balls) must comply. How stupid you want to make yourself look in the process is of course up to you.

The theme for this particular do was to go as "What you wanted to be when you were 6". I am sure that at that age I mainly wanted to be bigger (be careful what you wish for...), but as I didn't fancy wandering around all Saturday night in a Sumo Suit, I eschewed my dress loincloth and fell back on the other, quite true option - a fireman.

My old man was a firey, so not only did I really want to be one as a kid, but it was also quite easy for me to get me hands on the gear. Thus Saturday night saw me wandering around Rushcutters Bay dressed as a fireman, no doubt to the amusement of the few people whose paths I crossed as I looked for the apartment in question. The fact that I was wearing a substantial helmet and almost as substantial axe in a pouch attached to my equally substantial belt made me both self-conscious and rather anxious not to run into the local constabulary.


I eventually found the party, and was met with a fine assortment of costumes, along with the usual boring types who couldn't be arsed and made up some lame excuse about just coming from another party/Live Earth/the Starship Enterprise to cover for the fact that they didn't have a costume and therefore astonishingly felt left out.

A fun night was had by all, and I am able to attest to the old chestnut about men in uniform. No less than 2 members of the opposite sex (girls, that is) pointed out how much they liked the costume - on separate occasions. I thanked them and pointed out that their costumes were good too (whatever they were), at which point they felt obliged to clarify and add that the uniform really did look quite good. Again I thanked them, and obviously needing to do some remedial education for this bloke in the firey kit who wasn't quite getting it, pointed out that they REALLY liked the costume, and that if they weren't taken, they would have taken me home that night.

While this is only marginally better than your mum telling you what a handsome boy you are (the two girls in question being engaged and living with her boyfriend respectively and were therefore able to throw that shit out there with impunity), it doesn't do any harm to the self-esteem, even if it is purely based on wearing your old man's cast off uni.

So fellas, there you go, apparently the uniform really does work. Girls, I don't need to tell you that, clearly. But if you see a bloke wandering around Newtown in a slightly out of date firey's outfit (as he may or may not be doing each Saturday night from here on in), go easy on him...