bargain hunting

Its that time of the year again - everywhere you look there are brain-snapping bargains at bargain basement prices. Prices slashed, slashed, slashed, everywhere you look. For a limited time only of course. Went shopping on Boxing Day to see what I could impulsively snap up for a bargain (last time I did so I ended up with a digital video camera...), and as always the shopping centre was completely packed with people everywhere doing the same as me, though a lot of them probably had targets in mind. I was actually quite disappointed, I didn't get to the shops until after lunchtime and didn't really have much money to spend. So I just bought a couple of little things. Oh well, better off saving my money for Melbourne, apparently the shopping is great there.

I'm lost. I thought today was a Sunday. Every day seems to feel like a weekend now, its hard to keep track of what day it really is. Got the car serviced today, and afterwards in the afternoon I decided to pop into the gym. However, as I went to reverse park when I got there, I found that it was getting really hard to turn the steering wheel, like there was some kind of resistance. Then I noticed a burning smell and steam coming out from under the bonnet. So I managed to park the car, and then got out to find a trail/pool of green coolant fluid from my car. The weird thing about all this was the fact that the temperature gauge was telling me that the car wasn't overheating. Anyway, gave RACQ a call and they wouldn't be able to get someone to me for at least an hour, so I went to the gym. Timed it beautifully, the RACQ guy got there pretty much as I was leaving the gym. Turns out that the problem was the fact that the radiator cap wasn't on properly, so the coolant decided to flow out and spill around near a belt, causing it to slip around and leading to my steering issues. Damn mechanics. It was a relief though to not have to pay lots of money to get the problem fixed. So I went to the CD shop across the road from the gym and bought myself a couple of things. I didn't think they'd still be open by that time, but they were. Confused, I went in and asked them. Turns out they're open late Thursdays. Took me a minute to realise that today is Thursday.

Anyway, that's my story, I'm off to watch the rest of the Foo Fighters Hyde Park DVD.

holiday mode

Holidays are here. Ohh yeah. As of midday on Friday, I am free of the shackles of work for what will be almost a month. Feels good. Nice to be able to sleep in every day - just the way I like it. I'm sure I'll be able to keep myself busy for that long, there's too many things to do that I wouldn't usually do, or at least do much of, because I wouldn't normally have the time.

Went to see a movie yesterday arvo and it was a bit weird - there was allocated seating. I'd been to that cinema several times but it appears that things have changed since the last time, when we went to buy the tickets we got asked where we wanted to sit - our choices were back, middle or front. Our tickets had seat numbers on them, and as we made our way in we found a seating plan just inside the entrance. First time I'd ever faced something like that in a cinema. I suppose it does help when they're really busy and want to fit people in as well as they can - it seems to be human nature to sit as far away from other people as possible, and there's nothing worse than turning up as a couple and finding only single seats left. Though I don't really see the point for when a movie isn't busy. Oh well, I guess its now just like most sporting events, as well as stuff like performing arts.

I hate waking up in the morning. Luckily I had a couple of the guys meet at my place this morning and received a wake up call beforehand, otherwise I would have never gotten out of bed. Went for the Sunday morning surf (appears to be turning into a bit of a weekly tradition now), the waves were good but the weather wasn't. It was cold and a little choppy with intermittent rain, but the good thing was that there weren't as many people in the water to hit, so that was all good. Ray and I managed to collide though, he came off second best as I had managed to draw some blood (though he didn't notice it until we were back in the carpark). The rain got heavier afterwards, so we ended up back here and played Guitar Hero III.

Anyway I'm sleepy. Possibly time for a quick nap... I love holidays.

guitar hero

Feeling good. Today I made a bit of profit out of the stockmarket today with Centro Properties bouncing back after the huge fall it took. Decided to celebrate it at lunch by buying myself a Playstation 2. After all, they were just under $150 now, and I figured it would keep me busy over the break. Plus, I could definitely afford it now. The last console I owned was a Super Nintendo, and back then I think my parents got it for me at a cost of over $400 with the Super Mario All Stars game (the original, 2, 3 as well as The Lost Worlds). So I figured it was about time for an upgrade.

Anyway, this shopping trip turned out to cost me a lot more than that. Got to the store, and figured I would pay the extra $49 to get another controller and Need For Speed Carbon. Also, as the guy was going out the back to grab my new toy, I saw Guitar Hero III and asked how much it cost. About $149 he said, but he had a quick look out the back and came back to say that there weren't any left. He then proceeded to go out the back to get my PS2, and came back out saying that there actually was one left - its box happened to be on display. Lady beside me kept telling me that I was a very lucky man, over and over again, though admittedly she appeared to be a bit, um, special... Anyway, turns out that they got six in last night and they were all gone but this one by lunch time today. Lucky me. So that was about $350 gone.

I wanted to be able to play my PS2 on the 22 inch LCD monitor in my room (so that I can rock out at stupid hours of the morning with minimal disturbance to others), and since the monitor only has DVI and VGA inputs I've now also ordered a TV box, which is costing me $132. I needed to go the more expensive one because most of the cheaper models couldn't support the 1650 x 1080 resolution I prefer to use on my screen. I figure that with this box, I'll also be able to watch TV now without switching on my laptop as well, though I'll still use my USB TV Tuner card whenever I want to record something. So there goes more money. Lucky I get paid again on Friday, I only have about $150 left of my credit card limit.








One and a half days to go till holidays...

OCD

So, I got my new credit card on Friday evening, and so on Saturday I decided I needed to wear it in. So I went shopping. Came home with several random things, including, of course, more DVDs. Its always fun to see how new additions will fit in with the rest of my collection. I happen to be a little bit obsessive compulsive in that I like to have things the right way up, and in order. Don't get the wrong impression here - in no way am I a neat person. I'm way too lazy to have my belongings tidy and organised. You should see my desk at work. I tend to lose my mobile phone in the mass of drawings, folders and random rogue sheets of paper and post-it notes on a daily basis, which is always fun when it starts to ring. Pretty much the same story at home too. However, I like to have my CDs and DVDs organised. Including having all the actual discs orientated correctly in their cases. I don't know why, I just can't help it.

Now, my question to you is this: is it geeky to have my DVDs in alphabetical order of director, as opposed to movie title? By doing that, I can have my DVDs in order, but to the average observer they will appear to be in a totally random order, and hence divert their attention from my obsessive compulsiveness. Or at least make my geekiness harder to pick out...

repeating mistakes

I recently stumbled upon a poem which I felt I could relate to - its about making mistakes and repeating them several times until you actually learn from them. Though I still need to work on the learning from my mistakes bit...

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS
by Portia Nelson

I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V
I walk down another street.

parking fines

I managed to time the freezing of my credit card with the loss of my carpark under our office building (not that I had control over either events). So at the moment I am parking in the council carpark across the road. I used to get monthly parking permits back when I did park there regularly, but it really isn't worth it since I've really only got five and a half days of work left until the break. They sell weekly permits too, but that would mean actually walking the two blocks and buying it. I really could not be bothered. So I'm quite content with paying the $4 until the end of next week. However, these parking voucher machines only take coins and credit card. I used to always pay by credit card because it was so easy and meant that I didn't have to have change on me all the time. However, that isn't an option anymore. Coming up with $4 of shrapnel every morning isn't exactly an easy task either. Alternatively, I can park in the nearby shopping centre, which has a four hours of free parking. Anything after that is expensive. Four hours means that I have to move my car before lunchtime, so that isn't the most feasible option. Option B is to park illegally. This morning, I was running late for a presentation and totally did not realise that I needed to pay for parking until I had parked my car. I only had $2 on me, so that covered me until 1pm. Fine, I thought, I'll just come back on my lunch break and top it up after I get change from the bakery at morning tea.

At lunch, one of the guys was heading out for a walk. I knew there was something I had to do at lunch, but I couldn't figure it out. There wasn't anything that I needed from the shops, nor did I need to pay any bills today. So, I figured that I must have been going insane and proceeded to play solitaire and check up on my stock portfolio. Come 4pm, and I realise what I had forgotten. Oh well, I thought, too late now, plus I had made quite a decent paper profit on the market today, so in my mind that cancels out parking fine. I got to my car at 6pm, and what do you know? No fine. Its not the first time I've gotten away with that too. Makes me wonder...

For those who like their music, and think that they know what most 2007 album covers look like, Triple J have an album cover quiz (credit to Paul for letting me know about this). Basically, you can see a small portion of the cover art of 25 different albums, and you need to name the artist and album names for each one. When you've gotten every single one correct, you go into the draw for every Triple J feature album for 2007. Give it a go, if you get stuck, try looking at the album reviews on the Triple J website. If you still can't get them but want to enter the competition, I'll leave the answers in the comments section. Oh, and if you actually win, do share.

5.5 days of work left for the year...

mission: failed

Now, to answer the question on everyone's minds - did $9.20 last me for the weekend? My answer - definitely not. The title of this post probably blew the surprise a little tiny bit, not that there would have been much suspense to begin with. The money I had would have lasted if I was to spend the weekend at home watching DVDs. But I didn't do that. Instead I spent most of it away from home, doing stuff that costed money. Though I did try my best at first. I was shopping on Saturday arvo and got hungry and thirsty. It was a very hot day. Sure, there was air con in the shopping centre and air con in my car, but it was a hot walk from the carpark, or so it felt. Anyway, rather than blowing pretty much all of the little cash I had, I decided to shop at Woolies instead. My meal and drink combo of a box of nacho cheese shapes and a bottle of passionfruit-flavoured water cost me $3 in total (both were on special, shapes were very cheap, $3.02 in total so I saved another 2 cents in rounding hehe). So I was down to $6.20, but it could have been worse. However, it went downhill from there. Over the rest of the weekend, I filled up on fuel, bought lots of food and drink, about three meals worth with desserts too (by this point I had borrowed quite a bit of cash and was pretty much buying without a care in the world for how much I was spending... or for my health) as well as other various random purchases and expenses. Moral of the story - stay at home if you only have $9.20, or at least hang around at Woolies. Also, the beach may technically be free to access, but a day at the beach can cost a lot more money than you think, especially if its a hot day - cold drinks and big ice creams suddenly appear to be even more appealing than usual.

Anyway, after the previous post I actually remembered that I had a backup ATM card to access my savings in the case that I lost my wallet and/or my credit card (I only got it because I copped a lecture about it from the lady at the bank about a year ago). So here I was thinking that if my $9.20 experiment failed, I would easily have something to fall back on. Unfortunately, I tried to get money out with it and the ATM wouldn't let me. I couldn't figure it out, but at least it didn't gobble up this card too. Anyway, I found out today that it was because I had never activated this card. Grrr. Oh well, anyway its done, and I have access to my savings account and can pay back my debt. Though after making a phone call today, it sounds like I won't be getting a new credit card for another week and a half. So its back to spending my own money. I'm still trying to get used to saying "savings" and having to punch in my pin and ok, rather than "credit" and signing a receipt. I got it mixed up at lunch today, when I bought Nacho Libre and another copy of Napoleon Dynamite (it has a different cover and more features... damn I'm a sucker for special editions). Oh well, I'll sure I'll get used to it, especially spending at the rate that I do...

credit card woes

On Thursday, my credit card stopped working. I managed to buy something at around 1pm in the arvo, but when I went to pay for dinner later that night, my credit card was declined. Tried it again, same result. It was no big deal at the time, I had cash on me anyway. Got home, and went onto my online banking website and what was my credit card account seemed to have disappeared. Went to the bank on Friday morning to sort it out, and it turns out that the account had been frozen because of two suspicious transaction attempts of around $84 in a row, which wasn't approved by the bank or something like that. I was quite impressed at how they managed to figure out that it was someone else trying to use my credit card details - apparently they're onto it like a hawk and closely monitor for any suspicious irregularities, and if they spot them they give you a phone call to confirm whether you made those transactions. I hadn't received a phone call at all, though the bank was apparently in contact with me. Anyway, I will need to call the bank on Monday to contest the transactions or something like that, and then by Friday I should have a new credit card with new numbers etc. Though that means that I have to live off actual money, but that's cool, I have enough to get through a week in my savings.

Last night I was down at the local Blockbuster to get some DVDs, but found that I didn't have much on me, so I figured I may as well get some money out from the ATM. Went to withdraw money in the usual fashion, and what do you know - the ATM decides to keep my card, leaving me a receipt with the message "Your financial institution has prohibited transactions on your card. Your card has been retained by this ATM". Ironically, just beneath this it says "THANK YOU FOR BANKING WITH US". You see, I had my savings account linked to my credit card - I used my credit card for both my credit and savings accounts. So, now I only have $9.20 to get me through the week. I mean, sure, I could probably easily go to the bank and get some money out or something like that, but that means effort, even though there is a branch near me open on the weekends. I think its just more fun to see how long this $9.20 will last me. Can't be long, I only have half a tank of fuel left...

In non-banking news, its only two more weeks until I get a nice long break. Ten days of work left for the year. Shame its gonna be a busy two weeks. I'm kinda looking forward to just bumming around and doing nothing for a lot of it. It would really be nice to kick up my feet and do nothing. After all, its what I do best. I am swinging by Melbourne for a week though, everything is booked (done when I still had a credit card of course) and I'm looking forward to the trip, except for the bit involving catching up with Raffy. If you're reading this, I'm kidding dude, please don't drive me out to the middle of nowhere and leave me there to rot and die, work won't be too pleased with you. Besides Melbourne, I don't really have anything else planned for the long break, though there will definitely be a lot of beach visits.

stuck in my head

You know how the last song you hear gets stuck in your head sometimes? Yeah, well usually I listen to music all the time - at work, at the gym, in the car and at home, so it usually doesn't last long. However, with me going through this phase of listening to podcasts a lot, I tend to get songs from the radio in my head - thankfully this evening its been November Rain by Guns N' Roses, which is fine by me, it just means several hours of continuous air guitaring. What's not cool is when the last song you hear is something like the latest offering from Britney Spears or something (the gym has a very, er, poppy soundtrack most days), and it haunts you continuously afterwards. You try various methods of removal, such as turning the music up really loud in the car and singing along, but it just won't budge. You try a cold shower, banging your head against the wall, playing guitar, doing cartwheels, reading a book, but somehow it still lingers. Then suddenly you see Friends on TV and the theme song replaces Britney. Thankfully. But its starting to get really annoying now. Lets see if posting on my blog helps it, when the rain starts to pour. I'll be there for you, like I've been there before, I'll be there for you, cause you'll be there for me too. Damn. I think I might give the banging of the head against the wall another go.

in the summertime

Well I appear to be slacking off yet again. Anyway, over the last few days, summer started, I went to the beach, I got sunburnt, I tried a fish taco at Wahoo's Fish Taco (lets just say that I found the rice and black beans a little, er, interesting), I watched the two seasons of Dilbert on DVD, Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol, Murali overtook Shane Warne as the leading wicket-taker of all time in Test cricket, I had to decide what to watch 7pm weeknights (That 70's Show or Friends? I think That 70's show is ahead at the moment, the Friends episodes started from the very first one and are hence very old), I went to the movies and saw Beowulf (featuring a CGIed Angelina Jolie), I struggled to sleep with all the heat, I beat my high score in solitaire again (first time past the 14 thousand mark), and I thought about the possibility of starting some postgraduate research (damn you Malex).

Well that's that I suppose. Wonder what I should do now? See if this Psych show is any good, read the latest Alpha mag, maybe get through another DVD (300 is next on the list), play some guitar, read a book, or even go to sleep? The possibilities are endless...