This is fabulous. It needs sound for you to get it... unless you're a perv like me in which case sound is an optional extra and the boy candy is the main attraction.
But it is still better with music. Seriously.
The Stirling St renovation continues. You may recall the kitchen looked like this?:
Well now it looks like this:
Only less sideways. I still have problems with the photo program. I'm so computer illiterate. Nevermind.
Tiling to do still. Parquetry being done on Tuesday. Bit of touch up paint and it should be ready to roll!
Or indeed, rent.
I had to take further action too. If the guilt over the amount of carbon I am responsible for each year was not enough to do it, the fact it cost me $60 to fuel up last week was. Bugger that. I'm buying a scooter.
The Carbon Neutral website tells me I will emit only about a tonne of carbon a year on it, if I do 20,000km... which I won't. Either way, I'll pay for the nine trees they will plant in my name just to clear my conscience completely.
I wrote a story last week on scooters and learned it costs about $4 or $5 a week in fuel to operate. Another account said about $150 a year. Whatev. Sounds good to me.
I figure a lot of my driving is work and back and just little trips darting around here and there. Thom will be shitting himself at this as I have been his personal taxi for the last 18 months, but I simply cannot afford $60 in petrol a week. I'm not getting rid of the car, for obvious reasons, but it doesn't need to use more than about $10 in fuel a week. The rest of the time I can scoot.
Am I nuts?
I had to do something about it. I could not stand the fact that my friend Daniel (Radio Daniel, not Dancing Daniel) was so proud of his petrol guzzling car and so smug about the fact that it used so much fuel. I hated it. I had to do something about it.
So I did.
I offset his emissions for a year over at Carbon Neutral.
Then I told his girlfriend I had done it but made her promise not to raise it with him until they were full on in the middle of an argument.
Hilarity ensues, I hope.
I encourage you all to engage in subversive "fuck you" get-me-backs. It is incredibly satisfying.
I'm treating myself a bit this year. And I'm being a better friend to some people I don't get to spend much time with.
In June I'm going on holiday for a couple of weeks. I'm flying to Sydney (being sure to see some people I've neglected while I'm briefly there) and Dancing Daniel and I are hiring a Wicked Van... and hitting the road for a week.
Like a plot for an old fashioned road movie... or possibly Priscilla, now I think about it... my bud and I are hitting the highway west and heading for Dubbo.
I haven't been there for more than three years - nearly four, by the time I get there. We're heading to Oxley Downs to stay with the Tourles and revisit the place where I ripped the testicles out of a sheep with my own teeth.
After a day or two in Dubbo we're driving back towards the coast but on a northern trajectory, stopping overnight at Coffs Harbour to break-up the journey to BRISBANE!
I haven't been there since I was a very small child and frankly do not remember a second of it, so I'm dead excited. Not least excited because I get to hang out with the transcendently fantastic Andrew in time to hit BrisVegas on a big gay weekend.
Then Daniel and I will fly home. So awesome. I cannot wait.
Now it's really just a matter of saving... which involves finishing the renovation on this flat and getting someone in there renting it so I'm not paying BOTH my mortgage and my rent. Talk about housing affordability... sheesh!
Dear friends, I'm not sure I explained myself well. I was having a whinge at my employers lack of interest in local government issues, the coverage of which is my domain.
On reading it back this afternoon I have a couple of concerns with the obvious interpretations.
Firstly, I wasn't remotely suggesting that I get all the news first. I'd have to be Superman (or Clark Kent, at least). There have just been a few instances where I could have beaten another news organisation but we didn't run the story when I had it for one reason or another.
The second point I was clumsily trying to get across was, there are fantastic stories out there that really really need to be out there in the public domain and as deserving of a wider audience as they may be, the only way people will hear about them is if they are printed in the local paper.
It's an important job and one that had a lot more job satisfaction than I get here, at the daily.
I'm not sure if any of you took offence or not... I couldn't quite interpret the two comments left which is why I re-read the post. Anyway, sorry for any confusion, beautiful people.
Is it just me or is this stuff about Wayne Swan smoking marijuana and having pre-marital sex (not to mention a little-known first marriage) just a little sad?
Is this really the best the press can come up with? Is this meant to be some kind of scandal?
Trust me, I know... it is a slow news day today. I'm in the news room watching several political reporters snoring and/or talking about bouts of gastro.
But this is such desperate tripe. Really, really desperate.
He gave the information freely in an interview for a profile piece. The story in News Limited publications this morning (I think it was by Glenn Milne) made it sound like he'd spent his teenage years haunting needle exchanges and knocked up his 16-year-old dealer.
I know you want to dent the Government's ludicrously high approval rating but this isn't a whiff of a scandal... it's just plain whiffy full stop.
