If I was still a teacher I would be on holidays right now, but since I'm not, then I'm at work. This doesn't bother so much as my job now is far less stressful and hectic, so the need for 12 weeks holiday a year is unwarranted in my opnion. However, yesterday, while I was playing pool and having a couple of beers in bar, watching the rain fall outside, I thought man, wouldn't it be nice to be on holidays right now. In all honesty, that is the only thing I really miss about teaching right now. I don't miss much else sadly enough. The other thing I was thinking last night is regarding how men are portrayed in advertisements these days. All too often we are portrayed as being bumbling idiots who don't know which brand of tampon to buy or which washing powder to use. And lo, the women in these same ads are portrayed as all knowing sages of the world. Oh big deal, at least we have a go you know? Don't see too many ads where you see woman trying to start a lawn mower, or going to Bunnings to buy a dozen 1/8" 125mm bolts. I should mention here that the AFL Grandfinal was played on Saturday. It wasn't that good a game to be honest, Geelong ended up winning by almost 20 goals. But, I am just glad that the team they beat were from Adelaide. You cop so much grief in Adelaide if you say you're from Victoria. What sort of small minded attitude is that? I was walking down Smith St yesterday and saw a great many Port Adelaide supporters here enjoying the factory outlet shops, and you know what? I bet none of them copped any flak from anyone.

Karma....or lack thereof....

I'm sure everyone out there has a week that they would rather forget. Mine happens to be this week. It's not like anything major has gone wrong, or bad happened, but just little niggly things that occur you know? The worst thing is there is no such thing as Karma for me. There is no payback for this shit, nothing phenomenally good ever really happens to me to make up for the incessant crap that life can sometimes throw up. I'm not a negative person, not at all, at least I don't think I am, but you would honestly think that there should be some kind of balancing out don't you think? Some kind of good fortune perhaps could find its way to me? Well no, nothing mind blowingly fortunate ever happens to me, or even Miss R for that matter. She reckons that we are just two people who are just gonna have to work and struggle in life as opposed to some other people out there who get everything given to them on a fricken silver platter. I'm not a bad person, which makes me question the existence of a fair and just god, so if ever I would need proof of this omnipotent being's presence it would be now...or in fact ever at all! Instead, nup, whenever I think I'm getting ahead it just shovels another load of shit in my general direction to deal with. Whatever I did in a previous life to live on this knife edge I am truly, truly sorry.

A home made whippet lure........

As a sighthound, whippets, as a rule, love chasing things. However, our little whippy tends to be a bit lazy and only run around when, and only when, she feels like it. Yesterday was a case in point; took her to the park, off the lead and everything, and all she wanted to do was walk around, sniff the grass, eat some poo and lie down. But there is always something I wanted to try out and that is to see if she'd chase something that moved quite fast. So, I tied a soft toy rabbit to the back of my bike and rode around while Miss R held Cleo in place. It was quite funny at first, she watched the bunny go and really didn't know what to do. Then, it was like a switch went off in her head and Miss R couldn't hold to her anymore. She ran, full throttle after the bunny. I rode as fast as I could, but she caught up very easily and grabbed the bunny, broke the string and ran off with it. Meanwhile, I had run out of space and promptly went arse up and the bike seat dug into my left thigh. I know it was my left thigh because I can barely walk on it today and the bruise looks quite nasty. Ouch. We repeated this about three times before poor Cleo collapsed from exhaustion. About time too as she hasn't really run like that for a week or so. She had a hard time of it on Sunday when we took her up to Miss R's parent's house where she was smothered by their two (massive) Golden Retrievers. She couldn't get away because there wasn't alot of space for her to run. Anyway, I'm quite happy that she'll chase a lure now so I can only hope that we can get her on a race track soon.

Football.

It is getting to the crunch time of year when the AFL finals hit. I'm not usually a big footy fan, my team, Carlton, has languished at the bottom of the ladder pretty much for the past 5 seasons. We're a joke and don't even get a mention in the Monday newspapers. This past weekend saw four teams battle it out for a place in this years grand final. I would've desperately liked to have seen two Melbourne clubs get in, but those ugly arrogant sad sacks from Port Adelaide got in against Geelong. At least one VIc club is in I guess. It will be even better if the cats absolutely trounce port and send them back with their tails between their legs. One other thing annoys me however. On Saturday night, a Kangaroos player by the name of Glenn Archer retired. The Herald-Sun ran a full back page picture of him saying goodbye. Oh boo hoo. The guy was a thug and football is better off without him.

You know you've made it when......

Yesterday was an extremely momentous day. I took delivery of my first ever batch of business cards. Yes, I now have business cards. In all my years of work I have never had them, but now I'll be able to deal them out willy nilly. How cool huh? I guess it's the little things, but to me it's a big deal. It was also a momentous day as we put our names forward to adopt a greyhound. It will be good for little cleo to have some doggy company. I spent some time at home yesterday tending to a bad bout of diarrheoa brought on by who knows what. Anyway, she was having a bit of a whimpering session and I don't know why. I was there, but I think she was just bored or something. She just loves running full tilt in the park, as I'm sure any other little whippet would as well. A greyhound would sort her out, give her a bit of competition and companionship maybe. Cleo is great with other dogs, she really is, so when we get the greyhound I'm sure she'll be happy as a pig in shit.

My own encyclopedia (or Wikipedia..) entries

Here are some ideas for entries for Britannica... MECHANICS: People who charge $850 for a $99 fixed price service. They also fix cars. TRICYCLE PRAMS: Used by fitness minded people to carry babies around in. These prams are in fact the SUV version of prams. New parents buy them do they can jog whilst pushing baby around and they also back over pedestrians while reversing. CUISINE, LEAN: Frozen meals that you buy at the supermarket. They are renowned for their low fat and calorie content, mainly due to the ridiculously small sized portions of food that you get. Their advertisements show a high profile sports star on the phone to their parent re-assuring them that they're looking after themselves. I guess so except she's probably stuffing the third Lean Cuisine down her throat before heading out for 10 pints of Guiness. CAREY, WAYNE: Football player for North Melbourne. Renowned for being a champion player by running around alot and not touching the football. Owes his success purely through the talking up of Bruce McAveny. Many teams have a Carey (See; HIRD, JAMES) - Oh, and he also screwed his team mate's wife. DOGS: Funny thing about dogs is that the bigger the breed, the dumber they are. Great Danes being a case in point. Conversely, the smaller the breed the smarter the dog which is why you often see Fox Terriers solving high level quantum physics. TELLYTUBBIES: 3 people in full size costumes jumping around in a land dreamed up by LSD. The TV show tries to convince children that the grass is blue and the sky is pink and the sun is, in fact, the head of a baby. Strangely enough, when the MAgella space probe flew by the sun it detected trace amounts of milk vomit and diarrhea. PHONES, MOBILE: 20 years ago they didn't exist. Now they do. Amazing. PLUMBERS: Invariably live in a suburb like Bayswater and earn over $200,000 a year. RHODES, JONTY: South African cricketer and 3 time undisputed winner of the Bryan Adams look-a-like competition. SHOPS, PAWN: Whenever anyone says that they're going to a pawn shop, people think they're saying they're going to a porn shop. This may explain the lack of an 18+ section at Cash Converters. IKEA: A Swedinsh furniture manufacturer. You have to assemble the furniture yourself because there is obviously no-one in Sweden smart enough to do it for you. Ikea furniture is also associated with gay men, which is crap really, because even gay men have taste. TUCKERBOX, DOG ON THE: This is a statue of a bronze kelpie sitting on a box just off the Hume Freeway near Gundagai. When you were growing up you had visions of this being 20m high that radiated the essence of all things Australian. The sad reality is that this is acyually about half the size of an actual dog and is surrounded by petrol stations selling dodgy souveneirs. BICYCLE: One has to congratulate the tenacity of the person who first balanced on a bicycle. The Tour de France just wouldn't be the same if it were held with carbon fibre, highly geared tricycles. PERTH: Capital city of Western Australia and claims that it is the most isolated city on earth. The fact that the nearest city is Adelaide says it all really. KNOCKOUT, IT'S A: A TV show of organised mayhem from the 1980s. Basically each state fielded a team of the most unfit, uncoordinated middle aged people they could find to stand on a pontoon in the middle of a wading pool. They splashed around a bit and Queensland always won. Oh the shame of it all. DENTISTS: The only funny thing about dentists is the joke about how you only ever go to them to get some money removed. CONCUR: A word that means 'Agree' which is not used much in modern language. The most memorable utterance of this word is in the movie 'The Day After' just before 5000 inter-continental ballistic missiles are launched towards mother Russia. The conversation was something like: "We should waste the commie bastards." "I concur." And blam, nuclear winter. IDOL, AUSTRALIAN: Reality TV show where Kyle Sandilands musical judgement is valued, which isn't very realistic is it? ELECTRICIANS: These people come around to your house to fix electronic appliances. The most typical scenario being a faulty washing machine. So you ring them up and they say that they'll be around tomorrow morning. So you end up sitting around all day waiting, and then all afternoon and they finally turn up 2 days later. If you had employees like that you would sack them. Now. LIBRARY, COMMUNITY: These are run by local councils and are generally of a weird, architecturally designed post-modern appearance. Some look like igloos, others like beach houses and still others can resemble the Sydney Opera House. Inside, colour schemes are generally a green or shades thereof to give the visitor that 'back to nature' feeling. All of these libraries have a core group of dedicated regulars. More often than not, men over 70 years of age who cough uncontrollably. Books are sorted into Adult Fiction, Adult non-fiction, Young adult fiction, Junior fiction, junior non-fiction, Reference, and sorting trolleys.

Zombie driving.....

This may happen to you, it may not, but sometimes, when you are driving somewhere you go every day, such as work, have you noticed that sometimes you completely zone out and realise that you don't know where that last 5km went or that last 10 minutes? Now fair enough, driving auto pilot style is common place I reckon. However, I have noticed lately I am doing the same thing on my bicycle. Particularly riding along St George's Road which is straight and flat and only interrupted by a few traffic lights. Not a great attitude to have, especially since I saw a guy get hit by a car which was negotiating one of the many vehicle cross overs. He was okay, probably zoned out and to be honest, I don't know how you can get hit if you are alert and watching the road properly. And, such it was to have an eventful ride home that I saw not only 1, but 2 people walking their respective whippets! They were all different as you would expect and I stopped at each to have a pat and talk to their owners.

The radio is tuned to what?

I think we all go through phases in our life governed by what the stereos in our cars are tuned to. My first car had am/fm and a cassesette player! Woo hoo! So, namely, I would set the radio on Triple J and have my mix tape handy whenever they (invariably) had a run of really crap music. This was pretty much how it stayed for the majority of my 20s. Once I got my present car, it had a CD Player. OMG, how technological and it could have pre-set stations, so the stations I had tuned in were Nova, Triple R, PBS, Triple M (for my bogan moments) and Triple J. However, because I had a CD player, the majority of the time my car was thumping along to some hard trance or whatever. This was my late20s early 30s phase I guess. But now? well, because I drive a company vehicle with quite a poverty spec stereo, I have found myself drawn to the AM dial. Yes, that's right, AM. In particular ABC News radio as they get direct feed from the BBC world service and it's riveting stuff. I'm finding myself entertained and engaged in the radio when I'm driving. I'm up to date on the world's current affairs and everything political. Am I showing my age? Will the next step be listening to shock jocks talkback radio? well, not for now. There was this one guy who I listened to in the mines in WA called HOward Sattler. OOooo, mr scare monger himself. It's funny, if it weren't for radio, him, and those like him, would be standing on a soap box in a park, spouting that the world was going to end and of moral decay, because some street urchin stole his bread. Oh boo hoo. This would be before the men would come strap a straight jacket on him and take him away. But instead he gets paid very well and is revered by everyone over 65 years of age. Talk about moral decay!

Some ponderings....

Over the past week, lets say since last Thursday, I have not done much exercise, in fact the last two days are the first two days in a row where I have ridden my bike to a from work, yet alone been to the gym. Add to this that I have eaten my own body weight in quite unhealthy (but lets face it, bloody yummy) foods. I have a penchant for hot dogs and danishes from a bakery on Smith St, donuts from the donut van at Preston Market (which are better and cheaper than Krispy Kremes), McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Pizza, Ice Cream, toasted cheese sandwiches, copious amounts of chocolate and chocolate related products etc etc. One would have expected my weight to blow out. Alas, upon weighing myself last night at the gym, and much to the disgust of my gym buddy Mr S, I have lost 1.5kgs. Not that I am trying to lose weight, but why is it so? Why don't you see the people on The Biggest Loser tucking into a 6 for $4.00 bag of donuts from Preston Market one wonders?

Family

Like everyone else in this world I have a family, I didn't just appear on this planet and I didn't arise from some primorial soup. I have a mum and a dad and a sister. Yes, the perfect nuclear family. As a write this however, the three of them are on the other side of the planet in England. Mum and dad left a couple of days ago for three weeks to visit my sister who lives in London as well as my grandma and cousins and aunties and uncles. Yes, I am half English on my mum's side (and half Dutch on my dad's side). Not very exotic and terribly white. I would love to be there with them all, but luckily my sister is coming over in December for Christmas this year which is most awesome. I would love to write more today but I have wasted far too much time and have done not nearly as much work as I should. I'm feeling a tad guilty.

How to train a dog part 2....

I swear our whippet is untrainable. We had our first lesson with her on Sunday and all the otehr dogs can sit and lie on their mats, but not Cleo. I think she has ADD or something as she has the concentrations span of a gnat. She can eventually sit, but the amount of coaxing one has to do is incredible and sheer amount of doggy treats we have to give her in order to do ANYTHING is making her a bit fat, and well, there's nothing quite so ridiculous as a fat whippet. But, on the plus side she doesn't bark or yank on the lead like some of the other dogs. Even better is her saliva output, which compared to the slobbering cocker spaniel (or whatever dog abhorencey it was), is very minimal to say the least.

We live in the Melbourne suburb of Reservoir. It's not the flashest area of Melbourne I have to admit, but it's not the scummiest either. I was thinking today how funny it is that I have moved out here. I used to go to University not far from here and lived on campus and in all honesty it was a fricken blast. We used to go shopping at the local shopping centre called Northland, and now, 12 years later, I find myself doing that exact same thing. 12 years is a long time when you think about it but it doesn't seem all that long ago. Where did that 12 years go I wonder? Imagine not being able to remember anything? That's the question Miss R and I were asking ourselves last night when we were watching a movie called "Unknown White Male" about a guy who suddenly developed amnesia. It made me feel much more conscious of my existence and it was rather overwhelming I must say. Does your past shape your present? The guy in the movie was essentially a nice guy before the event and after the event - he didn't suddenly become a raving lunatic or psychopath. So I think that level of personality is innate within us, like in our hard wiring. It's fascinating stuff the brain.

Fridays

Of all the days of the week, I have learned to love Fridays. It's kind of strnge because when I was working in the miens there was no such thing as a 5 day a week job - it was work flat out for 12 hours a day for 2-3 weeks then take a week or two off (depending on the mine). It was okay for a time, but it pretty much split my life into two. I had two toothbrushes, one for site and one for Perth; I had two TVs, two guitars, two pairs of sneakers, two sets of clothes...the list was pretty much endless. But since becoming a teacher and now in the enviro field I find myself in now, the 5 day a week malarky is rubbing off on me. Fridays have a vibe about them that no other day of the week has. Everyone is happy. And now with the weather warming up there is a buzz in the air, an excitement that I just can't explain. Everyone wants to do a long lunch in an open air cafe on Friday and why wouldn't you? Do I miss the mining life? Nup. If it is something I have learned to appreciate in life and that is the creature comforts. There is nothing better than being to go home (to your OWN home) and watch telly in your OWN loungeroom at the end of the day. The only drawback is you have to cook your OWN dinner as well which is something I didn't have to do in the mines. Speaking of dinner, as I have mentioned previously, there is definietly no Indian or Thai takeaways in the general Reservoir area, which is a right royal pain. However, we are ridiculously well serviced with Souvlaki and pizza places or fish and chip shops. Not exactly brilliant cuiseine.

How to train a dog...part 1

Miss R and I went to the first of seven dog training session last night. It was without Cleo, so it was basically a theory lesson and stuff. We're being taught how to use the clicker method of training; that is click and clicker, give a treat. I'm guessing it expands on that quite a bit. If there is one thing our little whippet likes, and that is food. She scrounges and eats anything so that everyone else in the park thinks that we don't feed her! How embarrassing. Anyway, we tried a bit of the clicker last night when we got home and we were surprised to see that she didn't run away from the sound. The other thing of note is that the dog trainer brought in her greyhound for demonstration. From what I can gather, dogs come in 4 distinct sizes; tiny lap dogs, medium dogs (whippets, kelpies etc), large dogs (dobermans, german shepherds) and Gigantor size. This greyhound fit the gigantor size category. It was a towering dog and resembled a giraffe or one of those AT-AT walkers from Empire Strikes Back. If we get one we may need to also get a light truck in which to transport it as I doubt it'll fit in the car.

APEC

For some reason, as an Australian, I feel a little bit embarrassed. Take for excample the news last night when they had footage of Sydney Airport prior to dickhead backward hick US President Bush's arrival. All that we could muster was a single airport police car, sitting idol not doing, well, much at all. Compare this to dickhead's 750 person entourage! Why?? I'm surprised someone hasn't had a go at shooting him or blowing him up already. What do these people do? Obviously if I had an entourage that big I'd like at least one of them to wipe my arse. You get the feeling that there is an insane amount of hypocrisy with dickhead and our own dickead jnr. They spout democracy and christian values, yet they stifle free speech and protest and invade countries willy nilly. Honestly boys, what would Jesus do? Somehow the lines between democracy and dictatorship have become somewhat blurred of late.

Squeemish

For some reason, Miss R insists on me diagnosing her various pains and illnesses in the belief that I am a sage in all things medical. I'm not a doctor, but then I'm no dummy and I know that your stomach actually wraps around your heart and lies up in your rib cage and not in your 'tummy'. Last night for instance I had to perform some emergency surgery on her big toe that had become infected and I somehow managed to extract a piece of black guk. No problem, maybe I should turn my hand at brain surgery? However, after this, we went to visit a friend in hospital who had just had a baby. Problem is during our visit the poor baby had to have his testicles massaged as they weren't decended properly, and while this was going on the nurse was explaining all this to us. Nup, that was it for me, my head was going light and I could feel a fainting spell about to hit. It's amazing what effect simple words can have on a person. I think I could stomach seeing someone whose arm has been sawn off, but sitting and listening to someone explain; 1.The process by which an epidural is administered; and 2.Why a testicle doesn't decend properly, doesn't do much for my state of consciousness.