On Top of the World

I went in the $2 sweep at work for the Melbourne Cup today. Last year I got a crappy horse, and unfortunately this year wasn’t much different. My horse had odds of 41:1, and was named CatchMeIfYouCan. Well, I don’t think the other horses had much trouble with that. I don’t think it finished last though - geez! If you’re going to suck, at least suck enough that I can get my $2 back! Never mind, M got Vinnie Roe, which finished second, so we got $16. A $12 profit isn’t too bad.

I had to buy some cat food on the way home from tafe, and the only place that was open to get some from was the service station. A micro box of cat food there cost the same as a regular sized one in the supermarket. I ended up getting it for a whole 5c cheaper though because I knew I had the right money, and I was rummaging around for the last 5c when the guy said that what I’d put out was fine. Heh, he must have got sick of waiting for me, although he denied it when I asked him. Damn, I should have got out the fiddly, lower denomination coins first and I might have got it even cheaper.

I got home, and the cats were happy to see me, in the hope that I had food. I started to walk out to the laundry to put some food out for them, only to be punched in the face by a disgusting stench emanating from said laundry. I tell you, I can’t think of many (if any) odours worse than that of fresh cat shit. It really is not of this world.

M picked up a 120Gb HDD for me after work last night, and he set it up for me while I was at tafe. So my computer is usable again. I guess it’s nice to start with a clean slate, but it’s disappointing that I’ve lost all the nice emails that M sent me when we started going out.

On a different note, if you think pasta’s become a bit boring and samey, why not try making this.

My computer is stuffed. While I was surfing, the CD drive decided to do something, and then the HDD made some weird noises. So I figured a reboot would fix the problem, and so ended the life of my hard drive. M’s trying to fix it, but so far with no success. I think it’s just truly rooted. So bye bye all my stuff. Ah well, there wasn’t anything particularly critical on there, it’s just a pain in the arse more than anything else.

Yeah, so I should have backed up… yada yada whatever Shit happens.

My sister-in-law still doesn’t have homes for all of her kittens Are there any locals willing to give some cute kittens a loving home? They really are adorable. There are three of them, and they’re ginger/white. Two are manx, and the other has a full tail. They’re in the really cute climbing-all-over-you stage, which happens to coincide with the testing-out-their-claws stage. But don’t worry, their claws aren’t too sharp…

The skip was due to have been picked up today. We finished loading it up yesterday, and by the time we were done it was jam packed. Who would have thought that there’d be 4 cubic metres of crap to chuck out? It piles up quickly. Fortunately it was in the driveway, so that stopped neighbours creeping over to chuck out their junk, which is what happened when my parents hired one. They’d go out to load more stuff into it, only to find stuff that had been surreptitiously loaded in by the neighbours.

My parents came down because we needed help shifting an old bath, and while they were there, my mum rescued some plants that were destined for landfill. So if, next time you go to the dump, there aren’t nice geraniums growing around and beautifying the environs, you know who to blame!

We also sanded and put a coat of paint on the trim in the other bedroom, so all that’s left to do of that now is the second coat. Hopefully it will only need two coats - it should be all right. Part of the cleaning up in that room involved ripping up the old carpet and lino. M did that, and the floor was lined underneath with old newspapers, from around 1950-51. I think it will be quite interesting to have a look through to see what’s in them. I found an employment section, and one of the ads was for a ‘Technical Officer (male)’, with a salary of around £500 per annum. I have no idea whether that was a good salary back then. I saw a job for a legal officer for around £800, and I assume they were paid quite well.

We’re still hoping to have everything done by this weekend. The only things to do, I think, are finishing off the painting, installing the new mantel, and cleaning out the rest of the rooms. The mantel was delivered on Saturday, and it looks great. We still have the original one, but it wasn’t in the best condition, and we thought it might give the room a bit of a lift to have a new one. I think it does - the house is over 100 years old, so it’s nice to have a few new touches in it.