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around the traps

around the traps

finally, we have a do not call register

For what it's worth: Do Not Call Register.

You can still be bugged by charities/charitable institutions, educational institutions, religious organisations, government bodies, registered political parties, independent members of parliament and political candidates... all so they can continue to provide services to the community.

Call centres in places like Bangalore will no doubt start ignoring the list immediately.

brisvegas

  • Wednesday
    • Flew in to the Gold Coast airport... cabbed to L's parents place...
    • Drove to pick up L's little sister from the train.
    • Roast dinner!
    • Attempted to fix L's mum's computer. Also diagnosed printer as "fucked". Technical term.
    • Got L's mum to switch to Firefox instead of IE. She gets full credit for managing to set up Skype on her own before got there, too.
  • Thursday
    • Went out for breakfast before heading to Officeworks for new printer and an external hard drive.
    • Ran out of time trying to fix the computer (backup had several hours to go before we could have started to wipe/reinstall). Left the phone book open with local PC repair people.
    • Missed the first train at Robina by 2mins. 2 fucking minutes!
    • Train → train → parents picked us up and drove to farm.
    • Dinner and loss of consciousness.
  • Friday
    • Sleep, glorious sleep. Coffee upon awakening. Simply being on the farm is good for the soul.
    • Discovered a big meeting gazumped our plans to visit Griffith - nobody would have been available, so we ditched the idea.
    • kangaroos Discovered that kangaroos are now coming right up near the house.
    • Borrowed car (no more trains!) and drove in to friends place in the Valley.
    • warm welcome Very amused to find towels with chocolates laid out on the spare bed. Very sweet! ...um, so to speak.
    • Great dinner at Wagamama's, even if it was a bit rushed so we could get to the gig.
    • Gave Colin an interrobang (‽) stamp. Much glee! Win! :)
    • That 1 Guy gig became a total shambles thanks to the promoters and/or venue pulling a bait and switch with the starting time. Earlier in the day we were told "doors at 8pm, T1G at 9 or 10pm, get in early or you'll miss out". It became clear that T1G wouldn't go on until at least midnight. Some blunt discussions ensued with venue management and the promoter. Most of the group took the money-back option and headed home (fair enough, too).
    • Decided to go and have a coffee to see us through to the midnight start, although L's little sister then decided to call it a night after all.
    • Very pissed off at the gig. We specifically set things up so we would see T1G with friends up in Brisbane - particularly Colin, since he missed out last time T1G was in Brisbane (we were in Sydney for that gig). It was so much fun the first time we saw T1G in Brisbane at the Troubadour!
    • Eventually saw T1G; his performance was good (he even worked the Imperial March in to the act) but the crowd had a very high proportion of fucktards who did their best to ruin it.
    • By the time the gig was nearly done our hosts had already gone to bed.
    • Crap sleep - I was so fucked off about the way the evening had gone, I couldn't settle.
  • Saturday
    • Crawled out of bed, stumbled around, eventually met up with friends for Cosmo breakfast.
    • Fairly soundly defeated by Cosmo breakfast.
    • Hung out with our hosts for the afternoon before driving out to my sister's place.
    • Stopped off at the good old Gap Family Markets to pick up some Alchemy cordial. Funny the little things you miss.
    • green glass Dinner and much boozing with my sister, brother-in-law and brother.
  • Sunday
    • Several delicate people staggering around the house.
    • ricco Before leaving, frisked L to make sure she wasn't abducting a cat (catnapping?).
    • Eventually dropped my brother home and headed back to the farm.
    • Got my parents signed up to Flickr, so they can get high-res copies of my photos when they want them.
  • Monday
    • Dentist. Joy. But it wasn't worth finding an equivalent specialist in Sydney.
    • Quick dash into Pulp Fiction. We have books! :)
    • Lift to Brisbane airport with parents.

Other random stuff from this trip:

  • We are now Haigh's dealers. There's no way you can argue it's for personal consumption when there's about 3kg in your bag. The fact it was packed in big foil baggies made for some amusement when I carried it around The Valley on a friday night.
  • A 2WD Hilux ute handles differently from an Impreza ;)
  • There's a bat colony near L's parents place.
  • Bats can unload body waste on cars with astonishing volume and accuracy. "What the fuck? ....I didn't think cows could fly..."
  • Gordon's premixed gin and tonic is surprisingly good.
  • USB1 is so slowwww it hurts.
  • There is absolutely nothing to do at Robina train station, except perhaps wish you weren't at Robina train station.
  • Trains suck. Catching trains all the way from the Gold Coast to Ipswich really sucks. Some amusing moments with various people in the train bopping to their own musical worlds, but mostly long periods of wishing we didn't have to be on a train.
  • I do still get a lot of memories while travelling along the Brisbane train lines. Places I've been, things I've seen from the windows of the endless trains during first year of uni. Thinking how much I could have used an iPod back then, rather than my then-snazzy walkman (graphic equaliser, bass boost AND noise reduction! ;)).
  • The Shamrock sucks arse as a live music venue. No aircon, tiny stage, no vision for anyone beyond the first two rows.
  • That 1 Guy's new album is great.
  • We can both drink rum straight, so long as it's incredibly good rum.
  • We still prefer shopping at Pulp Fiction over any other bookshop.
  • I really need to dig out my copy of House By Mouse so L stops thinking we're all insane, referring to a specific house as "Pig's House". Also so I can show her Otter's House and Spider's House with the music room for his drum kit (what else would a spider play?).
  • I really don't know if any of my photos of the farm are even slightly good. I am far too emotionally tied to the place to be objective.
  • Apparently three bottles of cordial looks worrying to airport staff when they xray your backpack. I had to remove the bundle and let them xray it separately.
  • The long approach into Sydney airport sucks.

So anyway, I suspect we packed about as much as we could into the time we had. In fact I think we tried to do too much, but you get that :)

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