On Top of the World

We’re back from Sydney, and started back at work yesterday - blech.

Sydney was good fun. As you may remember, for M’s birthday I got him 5 laps in a V8 at Eastern Creek International Raceway, which was the reason for the trip. M enjoyed his V8 driving, although he said he didn’t get as much out of it as he might have because he was worried about crashing the car. I’m glad he was cautious - I had awful images of videoing him crashing into a wall or something, but of course he was fine. Here are a few photos:

We caught the train from the CBD, then a bus that allegedly went near the track, but we had to walk for what felt like bloody ever from where we got off the bus to where the entrance was. We walked 5 minutes down the road and found the Gate 1 entrance, and thought that that was pretty close, but it said on the voucher to go to Gate 7, which was waaaaaay around the outside of the track. Once we got in we had to walk all the way down to the pits, and saw that Gate 1 was right near where it was being held, so I don’t know why they couldn’t have let us in there.

During the walk we were repeatedly molested by flies, and several of them were hitching a ride on us. Little bastards. Even though it wasn’t a hot day, we were boiling and buggered by the time we finally got to the gate.

Some of the cars at the start/finish line.

M waiting for his car. He looked so cute in his helmet!

I didn’t get any photos of him getting in the car or being buckled up because I was videoing it. It was hard to alternate between the digital camera and the video camera. I was also hoping to get video of him coming into the pits at the end and getting out of the car but I totally missed him. I had no idea which car was his as he came past, so I just videoed all of them and will try to pick him out when I watch it. He also got an in-car video of him driving, which was good. He also had his photo taken with one of the cars before the driving, which was made into a laminated certificate.

Before the race, he and the other drivers had a briefing session where they went through the track and told them which gears to use on which corners and how soon to brake etc, then they got their car with the instructor and did the laps. I thought that he was going to get some in-car training before doing his laps, but nope - you get in the car, do your 5 laps and that’s it, so I thought that was a bit disappointing.

Afterwards, we decided against walking back to the train station and got a taxi instead. We had to wait an hour for it because the first person they sent picked someone else up instead (nice one), but I didn’t mind too much because my legs were still feeling pretty weary, so I was glad to be able to sit down for a while.

Overall, I think he enjoyed it. At the time I bought the voucher, the company didn’t offer anything in SA, but they do now so if he wants another go, we don’t have to travel quite as far. It was a good excuse for a holiday though.

There are more photos I took while we were in Sydney in the gallery.

I think it’s really weird (and stupid) that whenever I drive through a speed camera that I didn’t know was there until I see the little speed camera sign (see left), I immediately put on the brakes and drive on the dot of 60 km/hr for about 5 minutes afterwards. I know I’m not the only one who does this, either. It’s as if the camera guy/girl will see how well I’m driving, and if I was going slightly too fast before, they’ll let me off because see how I’m sticking to the speed limit like a good girl now? And that’s how fast I drive all the time, officer, really it is. I don’t think I was going too fast - I didn’t see the camera flash anyway. I guess I’ll find out in a few weeks.

One of my cats has decided that the litter tray is not good enough for him/her (although I secretly suspect that it’s her), and has taken to peeing on the floor right in front of it instead of inside it. I’ve blogged before about my cats peeing in various places around the house, including the heel part of one of M’s thongs (that’s “flip-flops”, not underwear!). I actually thought the thong thing was quite funny, since it was so perfectly aimed! In those cases, though, the tray did need changing, but the last couple of times the tray has been clean, with no reason for them not to use it! It’s quite gross - I came home to the smell of pee, which I thought was weird since the litter usually soaks it (and the odour) up, but I guess it can’t if it’s on the floor, with a nice trail of it running to the drain. Ewww.

I think I need anger management classes. Anyway, how are you all doing today?

When I park my car, I try to choose a spot away from other cars, so that the chances of them hitting me are minimised. In addition, it’s difficult to see the edges of my car because it’s weird and rounded, so if I park in an isolated spot, I don’t have to worry about hitting any of them either. The problem with that plan when I go to TAFE is that I usually get in at around 5:45 or so, a time when people are still at work or haven’t quite left yet, so there aren’t many ‘isolated’ spots to be found. Tonight I parked in a spot that was nice and close to the lift, and had a car on my right and an empty space on my left. I adjusted my car a bit, thinking it would be better to park over to the right a bit, because chances were that the car on my right only had the driver, so noone would be getting in the passenger side, hence there wouldn’t be any danger of their passenger door hitting my car (we’re right-hand drive, remember!).

So as I was getting my stuff out of the boot, a woman parked her car in the spot on my left. She was parked over to the right a bit, because there was a pillar on the edge of that park. I thought I’d stick around to make sure she didn’t do anything to my car. I saw her open her door, then also saw it come to an abrupt stop. Stupid cow hit my car. She got out, and had a look at my car, but didn’t see me there because I was standing at the rear. When she straightened up she saw me and gave me a kind of sheepish look, and then said, “It didn’t mark it”. I had a look, but couldn’t see anything. I should have asked her to open her door so I could see where it would have hit, but hindsight is 20-20.

I just walked off and waited for her to leave. I then moved my car, because an isolated spot had become available, and I didn’t trust the bitch not to hit it again when she came back. I got out of the car and had another look. I saw a gouge out of the paint, but I couldn’t be entirely sure that it was her door that did it and not someone else’s some other time. Nonetheless, I was absolutely fuming. I honestly came this close to keying her car. I walked up to it and stood there looking at it, but then thought that that probably wouldn’t be good form, so I didn’t do anything.

That put me in a crap mood for the rest of the night. When I told M what happened he said that I probably would have got done for it by some security camera or something, which is most likely true, given my luck. Bah - stupid bitch who can’t park!

I’ve just finished washing my car. M came out when I was almost done, and we polished it together, and now my arms are well and truly buggered. In true Murphy’s Law style, my car had bird shit on it before I could get it back under the carport. Bastards!

I have signed up to do the Relay for Life. This is a walking/running/whatever event to raise money for cancer research. You enter a team, and each team has to have at least one member moving a baton around the track for the duration of the walk. I think this continuous movement the people with cancer who have to live with it day in and day out without a break. We’ve got 15 people in our team, and it’s a 20-hour event, so we’ll be camped there overnight. I’m actually quite looking forward to it - it should be good! There are a couple of people from my Auslan class doing it as well, which I only recently found out about, so I might see them there. Naturally, the whole point is to raise money, so… if any of you would like to donate to a great cause, please send me an email (the address is in the sidebar) and I’ll let you know how you can do it, as well as give you my eternal gratitude. The walk’s not until April, but I’ll take my camera along and hopefully have some good photos to show you after the event.

Why is it that so many ‘artists’ these days say wi’ju instead of ‘with you’ in their lyrics? Is that the latest cool way of talking? Or is that the way they think it’s said?

My car had to go to be fixed (again) yesterday, and I got a loan car for the day - a Ford Focus. What a crappy, gutless piece of rubbish. I was looking forward to getting my baby back. I was sitting up so high, it felt like I was perched on the seat, and the clutch was about a foot off the floor. And if you want a car with acceleration, don’t get this one. I was crossing an intersection, and the lights were amber, and the person in front of me was dawdling along, so I had to get out of there quickly. I pulled into the lane next to me and floored it, but I don’t think I increased my speed. That was the frustration I had with my Pulsar - you floor it and nothing happens. When I got my car back at the end of the day, I went to change into first, and the clutch just felt so hard to push in, I was wondering whether it was always like that. It didn’t take me long to get used to the pedals in the crappy Focus. But I’m used to my pedals again, and I still love my car even though the dodgy mechanics couldn’t fix the problem. Idiots.

First off, the most important part - happy birthday to my love, M - I love you babe *mwah!*

M and I have been watching a lot of Pimp My Ride lately. I love that show! If I still had my crappy Pulsar, maybe I could have got Xzibit and co. to pimp my ride. Ah well. One thing I was wondering, though, was how the hell would they get insurance for those cars? Most of the people whose cars are ‘pimped’ are under 25, and one of the standard questions that insurance companies ask when you’re looking for insurance is whether you’ve made any mods to the car. “Umm… yeah… my Ford Escort has been converted to look more like a BMW, and it’s got 3 Xboxes, 6 TV monitors, a coffee machine, a water fountain and a chandelier. Is that going to make my premium higher?” How the hell could you afford to insure all that! I know, I know - I’m such a party pooper

My car’s stuffed again. Stupid piece of junk! The good thing is that it didn’t start when the tow truck turned up, which is what happened last time. Hopefully when the dealer gets it tomorrow it won’t start and they’ll be able to work out what the problem is. Unfortunately it decided to hail just before the guy showed up, and it was pouring while we were putting it on the truck. It was nice to get home and get changed out of my wet work clothes and have some food. I was so hungry!

We’re both having problems with our cars - M took his to a BMW place to get an annoying rattle fixed, and the mechanic called to say that he’d like to talk to M in person because he found some other stuff wrong with the car. I went too (although I didn’t need to - I don’t really know why I went!), and for 90% of the time the guy was talking about what had gone wrong with other people’s cars, and for the remaining 10% he said that he couldn’t do too much investigation with M’s car because he would have had to pull it all apart and he didn’t want to do that, but he could say that it was all going to cost a lot of money. Thanks for that. So M got charged $120 to hear about other people’s problems, and his car’s still not running any better than it was before he took it there.

Cars suck.

I’m still here, I was just taking a bit of a blog break. And rather than just write crap when I don’t really have anything to say, as is my usual wont, I thought I’d just wait until something came up to blog about. Not that anything has, but I saw that a couple of people have been asking if I’m ok, so I thought I’d check in and say that everything’s fine! Thankyou for asking

I got stuck behind the slowest driver in the world yesterday when I was coming home from work. Geez - use some gas! And he was driving with one hand on the top of the wheel, and his free arm hanging outside the window, resting downwards on the outside of the door. People who drive in this configuration are tossers. You don’t look cool. If you’re reading this and are thinking ‘hey, I do that!’, then I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you’re a tosser. Despite it being illegal (here at least) to have any part of you outside the vehicle, and quite dangerous (for you - see? Don’t tell me I don’t look out for you) in the event of an accident, it just makes you look like a tool. Especially when you’re driving a piece of junk that doesn’t have a hope in hell of looking cool. Besides, if you’re driving a cool car, why ruin the sexy lines by draping a hairy arm over it? Ugh. All body parts inside the car at all times, please.

What fabulous weather we had today. Pity I had to spend most of the day inside.

Before we got stuck into painting, we went to vote. Fortunately, my car started with no problems, so off we went. There wasn’t a queue at all at the ‘polling place’ (as the signs call them), so we went in, and I went up to the guy to get my name crossed off and get my forms. I told him my surname, and he looked it up in the book, and when he asked for my first name, he said I wasn’t there. I noticed that he was looking under an alternate spelling of my surname (and a misspelling that many people make when writing my name), and I pointed that out. He said ‘but it should be under here though’, and asked whether I was voting in the right section (there were two electorates voting in the same spot). Yes, I’m in the right section, and no, you’re not going to find my name if you looking under ones that are spelled differently, doofus! Derr. He found it in the end, I got my forms and cast my insignificant vote.

We got back to the car, and I turned the key when guess what? Nada. Bloody car! So M had a look, and twiddled a few things, and I tried again, but no success. Fuck! So he twiddled some more things, and fortunately it started that time. Bah. Of course, the dealer said he started it over and over again with no problems, but of course as soon as I get it back it plays up. Maybe I need to wiggle my arse in the seat in the correct fashion to ensure that it starts every time.

But we got to M’s place without further issue, and we decided that I’d clean the kitchen and bathroom while M started on the prep work for the lounge. The goal for the day was to get the undercoat on, so we could come back and paint. Unfortunately we didn’t get that far. I spent around 4 hours cleaning the kitchen alone - I had to unpack all the cupboards, then I meticulously cleaned each one . There was some major grime built up in there. But the cupboards look fab now, and my nails are killing me from using them to poke the cloth into all the corners to clean them out. I was hoping that I’d be able to do both the kitchen and bathroom in one afternoon, but it looks like I’ll have to do the bathroom tomorrow. My legs and arms were jelly after squatting and scrubbing for so long. I reckon I’ve doubled the size of my biceps with all the elbow grease I had to put in! M’s arms were buggered as well, from washing the walls in the lounge. But the kitchen’s clean, and the lounge is all ready for the undercoat tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll have it done in 2 or 3 weekends. It’s going to look great!

As I suspected, the dealer didn’t find anything wrong with my car. They said their electrician has looked at everything there is to look at, but can’t find a problem. So I’ll probably be picking it up tomorrow. It had better work - for a long time!

In other news, we were meant to have new credit cards sent out, but they never showed up, so we had to get them cancelled. Unfortunately, the bank also cancelled our current cards, so we have no credit until - *gasp* - next week, when we pick up our new cards. Arrrggghhh! Luckily I have another credit card that we can use if we really have to, otherwise we’ll have to go the branch if we need to get money out, since we won’t be able to use the ATM. What a royal pain in the bum. Good one, stupid bank.