Beggars' Choice

Went to the tip yesterday to chuck out some stuff and while giving a curtain rod the old heave-ho I got a humungous splinter in my hand. Went right from the base of my thumb to the base of my index finger, it did. And when I took it out, hoo boy, it was like turning on a tap. A tap connected to a vat of blood, that is! Aiiieeeee!! There was so much blood a small child wandered over to slyly have a look at my hand while I was waving it about shrieking like a gurl^H^H^H^H^H^H^H manfully wrapping it up in a piece of paper I found in the ute.

And then as quickly as it started, it stopped. And now all I have to show for it is a tiny cut near the base of my thumb. I swear life ain't fair sometimes.

Went to the pub on Friday night and tried out this guaranteed chat up line on a group of women. "We've all got boyfriends" they protested, as I smoothed out my sheet of paper and started reading, as if they somehow knew they would be powerless to resist. Unfortunately after I finished they all fled, but it was really for the best.

Went to a big BBQ yesterday in King's Park for a friend's birthday. It was strangley uneventful until late in the day, shortly after we were supposed to be leaving I had a quick kick of a football. My third or fourth kick managed to strike a tree, richocheted about 20 metres at a 90 degree angle, and struck some old dude on the bonce. He had been hitherto sitting quietly with his family and at first seemed inclined to start a fight but my apologetic ramblings quickly convinced him I was a drunken lunatic and not to be trifled with.

My work done, I went home satisfied.

This morning, while walking to the bus, I got a call from my wife. The laundry tap is gushing water, she said, what do I do.

I headed back home and, rather than call out a plumber who would cost tens of dollars, decided to fix it myself. I sent my wife out to buy a new washer while I did the re-seating, which basically involves scraping away all the crud on the bit of metal that contacts the washer. This left a few copper filings in the tap cavity so thought I'd better clean them out before fitting the new washer.

To achieve this, I had the genius idea of turning the water mains back on to gently flush the filings out. Unfortunately (for reasons that escape me) I forgot that no tap => quite rapid emission of water and, for quite a while, marvelled at the numbers on the water meter spinning merrily.

After several minutes it finally dawned on me that the laundry was probably filling up with water, so in a panic I shut the water back off and hurried back to find that yes, the laundry had been filling up with water. Or at least, a generous amount of water was now covering the floor, walls, and ceiling. This necessitated frantic mopping and cleaning, so much so that when my wife finally arrived with the new washer she found a spotless laundry. You've cleaned the laundry! she said.

Anyway, I earned a hefty number of goodwill credit points today for not only fixing a leaking tap but also mopping the laundry floor. Hooray! Sometimes, just sometimes, being a complete imbecile works out for the best.

Today I spent the whole day laying some turf. The exercise was, for the most part, a litany of disasters, kicking off with losing my way driving to the lawn joint. Mark my words, readers, it pays to have an up-to-date street directory because as the old saying goes, yesterday's "proposed highway" is today's unplanned 2 hour detour via Fremantle.

Then while I was digging the old lawn I discovered a race of fierce subterranean fire ants. Or more to the point, I discovered them while I was lying prone on a rolled up piece of turf and they swarmed up my shirt and shorts. The pain was intense; easily the worst I have experienced since I got a massage from a Swiss tourist a few weeks ago. The only place they didn't bite me was the face and gonads, for reasons I won't go into. Yes, I'm sure you'd like me to go into those reasons - I know your type, you sicko.

Anyway, my back is stuffed, the back of the house (which received the old turf) looks like Bert Newton's scalp except with grass instead of hair plugs and I'm sneezing dirt.

The side of the house, however, looks quite spiffy. Hooray!

This guy.

While riding home from work yesterday, I espied two dead pigeons. (Normally I don't see any.) Two! Does this mean this bird flu has finally reached our shores?


I say yes.

OK, after a lengthy absence, here's the first post for 2006.

Christmas: highlight: totally ace present; a small torch that you clip to your ear. Unfortunately it makes it difficult to hear what people are saying but it does make it easier to see (at night, anyway) so lip reading is always an option. Lowlight: dinner with aged AND DEAF relatives. So many, many non-sequiturs.
New Year: nothing to report.

Also we got a new rug. Crazy times or what? They say you set the theme for the new year by what you do in the first few days, so I guess we'll be buying a lot of rugs in 2006. Could be worse, I guess. It was discounted from $1000 to $500 and then to $200 for ONE DAY ONLY. Two things: has anyone ever paid full price for a rug? And why is it only rug shops that do this? Why don't you ever see ads that go "normally you'd pay $1 000 000 for this Ferrari, but for ONE DAY ONLY, out it goes for $200 000!". New Year's Resolution: learn more about the peculiarities of the rug trade.