Australia, I love you but....

What's with you people?? why in the hell have you all elected these arseholes?!? I mean seriously, I didn't vote for them....
I'm disappointed in you all.

weight

so, I'm a bit fat and, like most of the rest of the world, trying to loose some weight (boring)
Anyway, I got this cool pedometer (on speed) and it's matching set of scales (cos I'm an uber nerd). Go here and investigate if you are interested, and let me know if you get one, cos then we can be friends!!
And on to the reason for this post.  I'm feeling a bit better today, so I decided to weigh myself and guess what!!?!? Feeling awful and not eating very much for a day or two is a great way to loose weight! (sort of joking)

Ah har!! I took the numbers off so you don;t know exactly HOW enormously fat I am!! (you are meant to be looking at the big down at the right hand end of the graph)

Also, just a note for people who are interested, trying to loose weight when you essentially can't exercise, like me, is really a bit hard.  You have to do it the boring way, by watching what you eat, generally eating less and by drinking less (I have been doing two of the three).

And in a fantastic bit of universe karma, I think I have worked out what has made me feel so awful.  It's the only thing I can think of that only I ate.  Peanut M&M's.  Which I bought while I was at officeworks and SHOULD have been at work, that I shouldn't have bought anyway (see graph) and that might be WELL past their used buy date (it's a bit hard to tell the number could be a 1: bad or a 4: fine)

*sigh*

What the?!?!?

The Herald Sun (Shitest of shit newspapers that it is) has changed the format of their daily quiz!!! They have changed it to just 12 questions, instead of 15 in batches of 5 worth 1 2 and 3 points and WORST OF ALL!!!! They have decided not to put the "Who am I?" in!!!

Evil of evils.  Not happy Jan.

Boys, you just cant take them any where

And apparently this stuff doesn't wash off. Neil has tried everything. He eventually rang me to read the instructions. Oh well, I hope he has nothing on at work that's important.

work

Recently at work, we have been implementing two new systems. One I haven't heard anything about and I'm not going to address in this post. The other I have been really involved with the preparation of the data for loading into it, and in signing off the data model and the general day to day project management issues of, even thought I am not the project manager.

The firm is seeming to forget, every now and then, that we are the customer. Even though we should know the answers to questions, some times we don't. If we can't give them the answer, cos we don't know, they shouldn't just keep saying, tell us the answer! Today we finally decided we are just going to say 'right we're not going to do that bit anymore' (the bit we don't know the answers about) and the project manager (our employee) got all shitty. It will cost us some money to make a change to the project, but that's normal, IT project especially, change as they go along. I wish she hadn't reacted that way. *sigh*

I have to do a fair bit of work now, trying to manual work out the process we will use, to be able to answer the questions. I can see this ending up in a version 2 (or 3) of the application, if we ever have enough money. *double sigh*

===end whingeing===

My lunch time view

It's not very exciting is it?

bored

I am so bad at doing nothing. Neil is at the steam club. I could go out caching but then I'd be doing something, and I have it under good authority, that I am very stressed and need to spend sometime doing nothing. That's easy for them to say. Doing nothing sucks. Today so far, whilst doing nothing, I have been to the brand new shiny Spotlite that has appeared near Northland Norflans, been to the JB round the corner (spent money), sorted out meeting the new people for Sparky (a Scottie I have been helping to re-home after his elderly owner died), spent far too much time playing Farmville (for those of you who don't know what this is I have two things to say: a) Have you been living in a cardboard box? and b) Don't start playing), eaten food, read some more of Anne of Green Gables (Man that's a good book, why didn't I re-read it years ago. There is one really good thing about having a memory as shit as mine. For me re-reading books is like completely re-discovering them, I might as well have never read them before. I mean technically it has been over 20 years since I read this the last time, but seriously it's way better then I remembered. Note to self, buy the movie!) and though up about 1000 things I could do, but all of them would count as 'doing something'. Seriously people, how are you really supposed to do nothing?
P.S. If anyone else is bored, ring me, we can do something.

'stuff' is over, holiday roll on

So, The Club Champ show is done, the Royal Melbourne show is done and now all I have to think about is my OWN holiday! Yay! We leave tomorrow, I haven't packed, half my dogs are missing (they are with Dad), I still have to clean the house for the house sitter who is looking after the other two dogs and I really think I am coming down with something. Oh well. For the next little while I can be found over here: My Travels

Oh No...

We are getting new neighbours next door. This is fine, the man and his son, who I met today seem really nice. However... they have dogs, big ones, and there is only a small chicken wire fence between the two houses at the moment. We are departing the country in T - 11 days and I really don't have time to organise a fence during that time, what with organising a lunch for 70-80 people, working, having an international guest and trying to get my dog ready to go to the Royal Melbourne Show. ArrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggHHHHHHHHHHHHHH can't things just stop of 5 seconds!

too much

There is just too much going on at the moment:

• I need to get more molly drugs
• Molly needs another blood test
• the boys are putting up a fight about being combed and I need to spend more time on that
• I have a meeting tonight about the Scottie Clubs 60th Show, which is rapidly turning into a disaster
• need to prepare all the things to talk about at the meeting
• I have a real job to do as well your know!
• the scottie club secretary still isn't talking to anyone
• I need a shower
• the house is a mess
• lets not even talk about the back yard
• Neil doesn't want to move mega couch out of the lounge room, and it takes up to much room
• the heater fan seems to have stopped working
• I'm cold
• is that enough?

My head hurts

I love the Dyson but.....

Sometimes it is a bit yukky.

Note to self

do not try to move Neil's motorcycleAlthough it can make artistic broken glass photos, it does mean you have to spend a lot of time on the phone to the insurance company and time cleaning up glass, not to mention paying for the new glass.

The smaller the group

the worse the politics.........
.......

Lip cream

I think there are three sorts of lip cream.

• The first is a sort that I never buy. It often comes in gimmicky packaging, can be colored or flavored and never actually does anything for dry sore lips.
• The second sort is, I think, the most invidious of all. Usually, it looks like a very sensible useful product. When you put it on you feel relief. However! Some short time later the effect wears off, and you have to reapply the lip cream. Heaven help you of you are not in the position to reapply said lip cream, as you lips will continue to grow more and more anxious until you almost feel the need to remove them from you face, the irritation is so extreme! Hence this particular products main source of insidious-ness. It will 'addict' you lips to it, so you just have to keep using it and using it FOREVER!
• The last sort is, of course, the only sort you should buy. It is the sort that works. You put it on, you feel relief, the end.

To add confusion to this story of lip cream, there are also three sorts of packaging for lip cream

• Little pots, that you put your finger in and then wipe on your lips
• Twisty ones: both the sort that work like lip stick and the sort that work like glue sticks with a post up the middle
• lastly there are the tinny little tubes, that you squeeze a bit and carefully wipe the end of the tube on you lips to apply (danger danger)

The really confusing part about this is that the packing method is in NO WAY an indicator as to the usefulness of the product contained with in. I have 'good' lip cream in all three packaging types.

My advice (which you didn't ask for) is to find a good brand (either by trial and error or by recommendation by a friend) and STICK TOO IT! (well der!)

The potato cake enigma

What is it with potato cakes. You go into the fish and chip shop and you order n potato cakes

   n = the number of potato cakes you want

and inevitable you end up getting n + 1 potato cakes

   number of potato cakes you actually get = n + 1

So next time you go to the same fish and chip shop you think, "Hay, I'll be smart, I only want n potato cake, so I'll order n - 1, knowing I'll get n + 1 potato cakes

   being smart, next visit you order = n - 1 potato cakes

Then the man gives you bloody n - 1 potato cakes and you are now one short!

Arrrrrrrrrr, you just can't win can you?!?!?

away

I have just gotten back from a fire deployment to Cann River (what a party town that is) and running the cache for the base camp there. While I was there I had the weirdest 24hr flu thing I have even had. I had a head ache for 48 hrs and 'hot colds' for almost exactly 24 hrs, starting at 7pm ish on Monday and finishing at 5pm ish on the Tuesday. Really odd. Being sick at fire is always a pain in the bum as it involves lots of paper work. All of the paper work in question is is designed to be filled in for injuries, not being sick, so it never really makes sense. Anyway, the deployment went really well, all the people on it were great and we did lots of good work. The equipment cache was a total disaster when I got there and I left it perfectly up-to-date, so I am very happy (and smug) camper.

Like

I was on the like tram the like other day, and there was like these two like teen aged like girls. I like just couldn't like believe the like way they were like speaking like! I thought I'd like transported like over to the set of like "Clueless" or like right something.
The odd thing was that these to girls weren't that young (had to be 18 ish) and didn't look all grotty, they good actually fairly intelligent, provided you didn't actually listed to them and how they were speaking. weird.

bum

Being back at work sux. Even if some of the time I am doing the work at home.

what the?

*** Warning!! Not a puppy post ;) ***

I don't get it! My blog has been around for a while now. It has many interesting things on it (I think any way). So how come with google analytics, which I have set up because I like being big brother and spying on the people who visit my blog, I get far and away the most visits to my blog, from google, with the search term bacon flavored bubbles? In fact, 5 of my top ten search terms are along this same theme.
What is with that? I made one little tiny post about said bubbles, the post only has one comment on it (Thanks BP, I know you love me), it was a year and a half ago and still that what people want to search to my blog for that. I'm thinking I might have to hit the bubble company up for some money, and put a link to there page on my blog. *sigh*

P.S. The puppies are sleeping, and growing - lots!

work stuff

We have moved desks. This is something that just 'happens' every now and again when you work for government. There is usually no real reason for it, and the ones they come up with as reasons, are normally some crap arsed bullshit about grouping people more logically. Usually the real reason is someone important decides they need a window or what ever. Any way, this one has worked out quite well for me. I have managed to get rid of a whole lot of files, cleaned out my (mostly off) food collection and ended up with a window seat. I must be going up in the world! So now I have a lovely view of the Dandenongs out my window. I can be a bit glarey in the mornings, but who cares, I'm hardly every at work in the mornings away way ;)
Anyway, on to the rest of the rant about moving chairs and the govenment. It's so crap, I mean how much money do they waste every time they do this? I mean, we have moved from one end of the floor to the other, so in theory, as we all (~15 people) have a new fax machine near us, we are supposed to all get new business cards (we won't cos no one really cares about fax machines anyway, but that's not the point!) What a complete waste of money! Then there is the box/crate hire cost, the moving men, the unporductive time of staff while we pack, unpack and let the movers do their thing. Not to mention it took me a WEEK to get a printer issue sorted with IT!
A friend of mine in the same organisation (if I can call my workplace an organisation, even though it has NEVER demonstrated any organisation to me! (HUMPH so much for conspiracy theorists!)) might be about to face a similar but even stupider situation. Cos some very important big wig (aka dickhead 1) doesn't like some other boss (aka dickhead 2) in the building, he has decided the best way to deal with it is to move the whole of dickhead 2's group (~10-12 people) to Box Hill! To add insult to injury, it's not like Boxx Hill has heaps of space either, and to fit all the staff in, they would be placed all over the building on multiple floors. Obviously I am also a complete dickhead, as I am unable to see that this is going to make this group work much more effectively!
and breath