On Top of the World

For someone who hates shopping as much as I do, I did a pretty good job of hiding it today. My sister-in-law couldn’t make it after all, which meant I had the whole day to wander around by myself. And so I did. I didn’t intend to spend that long in there, it just kind of worked out that way. I got into the city at about 7:45 this morning, and got picked up at 4:15.

The only thing I had to eat until I got home was a scone with jam and cream and a mug of coffee. I was quite looking forward to my scone, and after I spread some jam and cream on my first morsel and put it in my mouth, something was not right. At first I thought it might be the scone, but that was fine. And the jam was fine. The cream was not. It had that awful cheesy, rancid taste. I took it back said that the cream didn’t taste quite right, and they said they’d get some more. A little while later, the girl came over to me and said that the chef tasted it and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, and thought that maybe because the cream wasn’t sweetened, that’s why I thought there was something wrong! After years of eating kitchener buns, I know very well what fresh cream tastes like (mmm fresh cream), and that was not fresh cream. Anyway, the new cream was brought out and it tasted as fresh cream should, so that matter was resolved, although I had a bit of a Witches Moment* when I got the new cream and thought how nice it tasted.

After breakfast, the shopping began in earnest. It was actually a very productive day, and I bought enough that I did a bit of a cleanout of my existing wardrobe and relegated some of the older items to the goodwill pile. So it was a good day of shopping but my feet are so sore, and I’m ready to sleep!

* In the book The Witches by Roald Dahl, there is a part where all the witches are having dinner after their Annual Meeting. A woman returns her meat to the kitchen, saying it’s tough, and after the chef puts a new piece of meat on the plate, all the people in the kitchen take turns spitting on it before it’s given back to the woman. Later on it’s reported back that the woman thought the second piece of meat was perfect.

We had a very quiet New Year this year, and after the disaster that was Christmas Eve, that was exactly the way I wanted it. We had dinner with 2 of my sisters-in-law, and then we came home and just hung around until about 5 to 12, when we went out onto the balcony with a glass of sparkling wine to toast at midnight. We got to watch 7 or 8 fireworks displays from our balcony, which was quite nice as well.

Other than the coming of a new year, not a lot has been going on. The weather here lately has been absolutely awful, in the high 30s (Celsius) for the past few days, and it finally cooled down tonight. It’s been a pretty boring Christmas holidays, being stuck at home in the unbearable heat. Thank goodness we got the air conditioners installed, otherwise it would have been a very unpleasant week indeed.

Tomorrow I’m heading into the city with my sister-in-law to see if there’s anything left worth buying in the sales. We ventured in last Sunday and bought a half-price cutlery set (well, 2 actually - one for my parents because it was a design and brand that I knew my mum loved, so I rang and asked her if she wanted one as well) and a few cheap things. One of the department stores opens at 7am, and I’m getting dropped off at 7:30, so it will be interesting to see how many people are around, considering I don’t think anything else there will be open!

It’s almost the end of another year! This New Year’s Eve, we’ve decided to go down to the beach. The weather’s warming up this week so hopefully it will be a nice evening. We’re going to get fish and chips and eat it on the sand, then watch the fireworks at midnight.

We thought about going to Glenelg (a popular beachside spot), but it’s probably going to be full of teenagers getting drunk at the Grand and falling around the streets, and we don’t really feel like trying to cope with that (I felt so old and prissy writing that!), so we’re going somewhere that will hopefully be a little quieter, but still have people around. I’m quite looking forward to it!

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas holidays, whatever you were up to. For us, it was a quiet one spent having lunch at my parents’ place, and then having M’s sister over for afternoon tea. On the 27th we went to Wallaroo for the day, and although it was a bit windy it was still nice to go for a walk along the beach.

Now I just have to decide what I’m going to spend my Christmas money on - I’ve got a little over $300 but I can’t think of anything “big” that I want, so I’m not sure what to buy. I thought about a new media player with a higher capacity than the one I have, but I think I’ll stick with the one I’ve got. Maybe I could get a new camera… but mine is still fine so I don’t really need to upgrade. There aren’t any PDAs I want, as I still really like the one I have. So I’m in a bit of a pickle! I’ll have to hunt through the masses of junk mail we got after Christmas, advertising the sales, and maybe something will jump out at me.

Do you ever have times where you know what you want to blog about, and you’re looking forward to writing about it, but when it comes to sitting down and actually doing it, you just can’t be bothered?

After a long, boring flight we are back home. I didn’t end up getting the upgrade because they said they’d overbooked business class, but as it turned out, some people didn’t show up so I could have upgraded. Oh well. It was nice to finally arrive home, even though we had only been gone for 2 weeks. The plane flew directly over our house on the way to the airport, and it was nice to look down and see it.

We had a great time, and bought a lot more stuff than we did on our holiday last year. We didn’t do as much touristy stuff either, but did go to the Top of Rockefeller Center, and went ice skating on the rink there, which is something I really wanted to do.

The other things we’d wanted to do were to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center. Well, on the day of the parade it was pouring with rain, and was damn cold. We found a spot at about 7:45, with the parade due to start at 9. At the spot we were at, though, the parade took half an hour to get to us, so by the time we actually saw anything, we were wet (although we did have umbrellas), frozen to the bone and losing the feeling in our extremities. We stayed for an hour, then shoved our way through the crowd which was probably 5 or 6 people deep, and found a coffee shop. Mmmm coffee. Still, we got some photos and videos, and we watched the rest from our warm, dry hotel room. Of course, the next day was absolutely perfect weather.

For the tree lighting ceremony, we went there after M got back from his conference, and there were already thousands of people there, and the closest we could get to the tree was a big tv screen positioned around the corner. So we gave up on that and had dinner at a very nice (and expensive) steakhouse. We went back to the hotel room and watched the ceremony from there.

So the two things we’d really wanted to do didn’t go as well as we’d hoped, but we still had a great time. When M was at the conference I discovered a coffee shop near Bryant Park so I got myself a coffee and went over to the park and watched the people ice skating, and wandered around the outdoor shops in the park. It was very relaxing, and I did it again on the second day he was at the conference as well. The rest of the time on my own was spent walking to and around various shops.

So now we’re home, and the cats were pleased to see us long enough to get us to let them outside. We went to bed a little before 9:00, and were woken up by Jack at around 6 this morning. Even though I’m still tired, I couldn’t sleep any more, and since M was awake as well, we got up. At least we’ll be tired tonight and hopefully get a good night’s sleep before going back to work tomorrow.

There’ll probably be more about the holiday later, but for now I’m off to get some coffee and toast!

I’m back after another long break of not writing anything. I’ve had plenty of time to blog, but I just haven’t had the inclination. And since all I’m really doing is thinking out loud and not being read by anyone, my absence didn’t really matter. But now that I’ve just had my domain renewal payment automatically taken out, I figure I should write something.

Well, the last thing I wrote about was my iMac and the pixel trouble. The good news is that Apple have agreed to replace it, and hopefully it will be shipped sometime soon and won’t have anything wrong with it. The bad news is that M spent ages talking to people from Apple, and then the Office of Fair Trading in order for it to happen. I’m trying not to get my hopes too high about this one not having any problems, though, since 3 out of 4 iMacs we’ve looked at have had at least one dodgy pixel. But we’ll see.

It’s just under 2 weeks until we go to NYC. I suppose I’m looking forward to it, but just like the holiday last year it feels like something we’re talking about and not actually doing. I’ve put some new stuff on my mp3 player (although I wish now that it had a higher capacity), so it’s pretty much ready to entertain me for the 24 hours it’s going to take to get there. I’m sure M will be fresh as a daisy after travelling in business class, but I’m assuming I’ll be feeling a little worse for wear. At least we arrive towards the end of the day so I won’t have to try to stay awake for too long. It was really hard trying to stay awake all day when we got to London at 6am.

We’ve got a list of things we want to do - there are one or two touristy things that we didn’t get to do last time, but other than that we’ll be trying to do some different things, and since we’ll be there for 2 weeks we won’t have to rush around too much. M will be at a conference for 2 days, so I’m still trying to work out what I’m going to do by myself. My mother, of course, wants me to stay in the hotel room all day. Errm.

My work had its annual “outing” the weekend before last. It was dinner in a location in the middle of the city, which made a nice change from the outings we usually have in some far-flung place or other. We got a taxi with the view to drinking a lot of alcohol, which I did. I made myself a little ill, but fortunately only after we got home, and so the next day was a total write-off. Last weekend M’s niece got married so we went to her wedding. Fortunately we knew people there, so it was good. More alcohol was consumed but there must have been some effect of the previous weekend still lingering because I really didn’t like the wine and I didn’t even finish my beer. So that was a bit disappointing, but it did mean that I was free to go shopping in the city with M the next day. He bought a couple of suits in preparation for the trip, and he also got some really nice shirts and ties.

That’s about all… oh, we bought tickets to see Little Britain live in February. Unfortunately the only good seats were individual ones, so we’re not sitting together, but it’s not like we’re going to be chatting during the show anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’m quite looking forward to it! The Pirates of Penzance is coming in January, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that as well, but after paying $130 a pop for the LB tickets, we might give it a miss.

I got a very pleasant surprise at work on Thursday when my iMac arrived! The estimated delivery date had been October 3rd, so I was very happy to have it early. I spent all day wanting to go home to play with it, and I also debated skipping the course I had that night. In the end I was good and went to my course, because it was the last lesson of term and I thought I should turn up.

I got home at 10 past 9, but had to wait until 9:30 to do anything because M wanted to be there when I set it up and he was watching something on TV. After the show had finished, we took the iMac upstairs and I disconnected my computer and cleaned off my desk to make room. I must say that it looked quite impressive sitting on my desk, and the power cable that plugs into the monitor even had a little round bit around it so that it sits flush with the back of the screen. Classy. A little while later it was all set up, and it was time for the big moment.

Me: “Are you ready yet?”
M: “No.” <mutes the tv and stands beside me again>
Me: “Are you ready now?”
M: <pause> “No.” <turns off the light so we’re standing in darkness>
Me: “Now are you ready?”
M: “Yes.”

I reached behind the screen and turned it on. Ooooh. Aaaaah. A beautiful, illuminated screen and a nice startup sound greeted us. And it even has a cool glowing light that shows up through the front casing when it turns on. I went through the setup process, and just when I was debating the level of personal information to put on the registration screen, it happened.

M: “If I had some bad news, would you want me to tell you?”
Me: “I guess.”
M: “You won’t blame me for ruining your night?”
Me: “No… what’s it about?”
M: “The computer.”

Uh oh. I tried to guess what the problem was.

Me: “They didn’t do the modifications?” (I upgraded the memory from the standard amount provided)
M: “Umm… I don’t know.”
Me: “Is there a dead pixel?”
M: “Yes.”
Me:

He showed me where it was, and sure enough there’s a bright green pixel there, and not in an inconspicuous place either. Bummer. I didn’t go any further with the setup as I didn’t think there’d be much point if I had to take it back. M said that turning the computer off and on a couple of times might fix it up, and we tried it although I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. Nothing did - the pixel was still there. So that put a dampener on things.

We left it for the rest of the night, and M said he’d call Apple the next day to try to get it sorted out. When he called them, he ended up speaking to 5 different people, and the outcome was that it was Apple’s policy that they wouldn’t replace it for a single dead pixel. M said that for the price we paid, we have the right to expect that it’s going to be perfect straight out of the box, and that their policy wasn’t particularly good for their word-of-mouth reputation, but the person he was talking to didn’t care.

So that didn’t go very well, but it’s not over yet; we still have a couple of avenues to explore. It was pretty disappointing though, because it does look pretty cool, but now I know that pixel is there I can’t help but look at it. And for the money I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect everything to be perfect. I turned it on one more time when we got home after work yesterday just in case the bright pixel had magically disappeared, but it hadn’t, so we packed it back up and there it has stayed. So instead of being able to say that this is my first post from my shiny new Mac, I’m still using my old computer. Hopefully something good will happen next week and we’ll be able to get a replacement, but until then it’s just sitting in its box, teasing me with its coolness.

I starting writing a post about losing motivation for the courses I’m doing, but I could see that it was going to rapidly develop into a ‘poor me’ whinge, so I got rid of it. In a nutshell, here is what I was going to say:

1. I’m enjoying my holidays too much and I can’t be bothered going back.
2. Of course, I will go back because I’ve paid for the courses, and I want to stick it out to prove to myself that I can actually become really good at something rather than just average.
<rest of the points deleted due to first sentence above>

I did start to write the rest of the points but really, it’s not important and I should just get over it.

Aaaaaahhhhh! That’s better! Over it.

So… work is going well. Fortunately for my skill set, a change of project meant a change of language, and it’s a good thing because I can’t reasonably expect to be able to use C++ forever and not learn anything else. I’ve been learning Java for the last month or so, and I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in the short time I’ve been using it. For some reason I was convinced that I couldn’t learn Java, because my last two attempts didn’t result in any knowledge being gained. It was as if my brain rebelled and so I thought I was too old to learn new things and I should just stick to that with which I am familiar. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my brain isn’t yet too full of trivia for some useful knowledge to make its way inside.

So, even though the brief demo I gave today was met with some uncalled for comments, followed by “but that looks great” (you’re meant to say the good stuff FIRST, and then the constructive criticism!), I think I’ve done ok for a novice.

I will close with a question and an observation…

Question: Why is it that when cats yawn, they invariably lick their lips once or twice afterwards? Or is it just my cats? Sometimes it’s one lick, sometimes a couple but there’s always something.

Observation: I only realised relatively recently that the animated laughing faces in Haloscan actually stop laughing and become a normal smiley face, and then start laughing again. Have they always been like that?

End of month drinks at work have finished, and I’m sitting at my desk with the rest of my glass of wine, killing time until I go to tonight’s Auslan workshop at the Casino. I’ve missed out on the last 3 or so workshops, and since they’re held every fortnight it’s been quite a while. So tonight I wanted to make a special effort to go so I can practise signing, and the fact that it’s at the casino is good because I can have a few drinks

I’m on my third glass of wine and am feeling a little fuzzy, so signing will be an interesting endeavour. But hopefully noone will mind, and with my level of signing being what it is, I doubt they’ll notice anyway.

OK, wine finished, so I’ve got 20 minutes or so to go until I head off.

*****

Yesterday we got our dining chairs! I was meant to be going to my interpreter course, but last night’s class was cancelled so it meant that we had two cars to use to pick up the chairs. I thought we’d have to make a couple of trips, but as it turned out we fit 5 chairs in M’s car and 3 in mine, so they’re all home!

It’s quite bizarre walking into the dining room and seeing the chairs there, after almost 3 years of having just a table sitting in the middle of the room. This weekend we’ll have our first dinner at the table - how civilised. Currently the dining table is being used as a bit of a storage area, but once I tidy it off and make it look nice, I’ll take a photo.

The chairs are a teensy bit low, but the chairs we got seemed to be the standard height, so any new table we get should be ok. The one we have was custom made by the previous owner, so that’s probably why it was too high.

*****

M’s going to call a hotel in NYC tonight to try to negotiate a good rate for our stay there. It’s almost certain that I’ll be going with him on his business trip, as long as my mum says she’ll look after our cats. I’d really like to go - it’s too good an opportunity to turn down, really. We got a quote from a travel agent, so we’re trying to see if we can do better through the hotel itself.

Sorry for the abrupt end, but as I mentioned before I’m feeling fuzzy so I can’t think of a good conclusion.

Australia lost, but I’m still glad I stayed up for the game. If I’d just woken up this morning and heard they’d lost 1-0 I would have thought that it wasn’t any great surprise since I figured that they were going to lose, but then I wouldn’t have seen how well they did play. Well, I thought they played well anyway, from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know anything about soccer. It wasn’t a walkover so that was good. I thought they did really well.

The downside about staying up for the game is that we got around 4 hours sleep, which meant we weren’t functioning that well at work today. We left work at 2 because an electrician was coming to give us a quote to put in some new light switches, but even if he’d called and cancelled I would still have wanted to leave early. By the time we left I was feeling positively weary, although oddly I’ve woken up a bit now.

By total fluke, tonight I saw an episode of Grumpy Old Women. I remember blogging about it last time it was on; I love that show! All the women are so funny. I hope I don’t forget about it next week.