Houston we have Guinea Pigs

Finally Naomi received her long awaited Guinea Pigs. The nightmares seem to have abated. Now instead of having dreams where my daughter is the commander in chief of an unholy army of millions of guinea pigs, I just have the normal ones where I am at work wearing womens clothing. It's very liberating, actually...

I have been formally introduced to Lulu and Anna. I did mention to Naomi that "Anna" was far too serious a name for a cute, furry, squeaking little rodent, and perhaps something like "Twinky" or "Bubba" would be more appropriate but no, they are people too and how can I be so patronising etc etc...


Actual Guinea Pigs may differ from the one pictured.

Accomodation was all sorted by Grandpa. He didn't just cobble together a "guinea pig cage". He built a rodent penthouse. It has an exercise area and a two storey studio apartment with polished timber floors.

You think I'm joking. I polished them myself using only the best polyurethane coatings. Naturally because of the curing time I advised that it would be best to move in only after 3 days to avoid the solvent fumes. But they wanted to move in straight away so I told Naomi not to be surprised if Lulu and Anna experience constipation, have trouble sleeping and start hallucinating.

It's been barely a week and already there have been "episodes". Naomi didn't want them "out in the rain" so she put them in the shed (the one containing two thirds of all our belongings in 80 small boxes) and it took almost a week to find them. Naomi hasn't twigged on the fact that animals have basically been living "out in the rain" for thousands of years, and besides, these two are kind of "out in the rain" whilst inside a luxurious two story penthouse.

Lulu and Anna are inside enjoying the spa

Because I don't want to be unpacking some nice books one day and find a dead rodent. Then I'll probably have to pay for a funeral. I can see Grandpa building a little mahogany coffin.

This weekend will begin reconstruction of my "studio". Interior is gutted and framing repairs begin, while I ponder what the heck I am getting myself into.

PS don't forget my other blogs on the right hand side here, the German one is in it's infancy and will hopefully be updated live during our Germany trip which kicks off in 3 months. No, I'm not excited, not at all. And the less sarcastic, serious, more researched epistle on the Da Vinci Code and dubious non-fiction predecessors can be read here, (content advisory: fellow fundies or Catholics only. And you'll need a big, long cup of coffee).

Oh and thanks to those of you who enquired as to the condition of our German friend. Claudi had an 8-hour operation and her entire stomach was removed. She's out of danger for now, despite undergoing precautionary chemo and being a lot thinner. I caught up with her on webcam last night and was pleased to see her eating a sticky German donut.

Can't win

Ahh, our first weekend enjoying the new house without actually moving stuff.

I watched Channel 31 and saw what seemed to be tone deaf Greek people singing at a wedding.

Expect the blogs to slow down a bit as I will be watching more television.

The fact that pilot training 747's fly over our house does not bother me in the least. In fact, I rather dig it because I love big planes.

But the bad news? Just when I thought it was bliss being up the other end of the house from the kiddies, it turns out our end is the one with the main road traffic noise commencing at 6am. Now there's a dilemma. You'd think I would have noticed than when purchasing the house.

Well, we once lived 100m from a goods train line and got used to that.

Send money

Well, we're all moved in now. What's more, we're also moved out. Rather than have an instant transfer we decided, what with being old and lazy, that it was better to overlap the renting and the buying by 10 days or so and take our sweet time.

And it still wasn't enough!!


In case you've forgotten, this is what our new house looks like. Except now it's messy

But, praise the Big Guy we are mostly settled in and now just have to find the boxes in which we packed those things like vital pieces of software, cutlery and bedding and various things that help us make food. However, I can report with great relief that the TV, DVD and VCR are all connected and fully operational and, I say whilst fighting back tears of joy...

We have crystal-clear SBS and even Channel 31 !!

It must be because there is something on our roof that looks like it is searching for extra terrestrial intelligence. Check it out in the photo. Anyway, I am so much happier and feel totally fulfilled and complete.

Man, I had no idea Channel 31 had so much crap.

The only thing unsettled is the news of the final inspection of the rental (I steam cleaned the carpets and still couldn't get rid of the baby stains). So, I may have been right to suspect that our bond money will become as extinct as Origin Of The Species.

Never mind, any money we do get back will be a bonus and I will do something stupid like buy a digital camera. Or an orbital sander.

Thanks to Seb and Mike and Libby for coming to help us move stuff. Those that offered to help but couldn't, I forgive you. Especially those who couldn't on account of the fact that they are 750 kilometres away. That's fair enough. I accepted that excuse along with "I am dead" or "I have no arms and legs"

Now those privaleged of you may have received an email from me with our new address and phone number (for the last time STOP asking "why didn't you keep the old one?"...I forgot, OK??!). Obviously I will not post them here, just in case along with my loyal readership of three or four my blog is also viewed by pathological ice-pick weilding killers or disgruntled Dan Brown fans. Just drop me an email and I'll send the details along with a stamped, self addressed envelope and an autographed picture of me in my kart.

I've got the Flu

So don't expect any blogs until I'm better

So that's it then, it's settled

Following on from my earlier post, the eerie silence continues, only this time we now own another house. So maybe I didn't jinx the whole thing by saying NOTHING would go wrong. Nothing, actually, has gone wrong. Isn't that funny? The only thing that could possibly be considered to have gone wrong is that the beautiful golden labrador pup Benson did not come with the house.

Although I don't think our freaky cat Molly would have liked him. Molly is a particularly grumpy freaky cat at the moment, because she is wearing one of those anti-scratch collars which gives her the appearance of something you could place atop your TV to get better reception on SBS.

So maybe the lack of dog was for the best. Which means, most definitely nothing went wrong.

Not only did nothing go wrong, it gets better. Our new next door neighbour builds fibreglass sports cars. So, nothing went wrong, AND I have a neighbour who is into stuff that sounds rather similar to the kind of stuff I'm into. And, according to Sharon, he seems like a nice bloke. Both of these things are important. Because, after all, everybody needs good neighbours.

So there you go. Nothing has gone wrong. Absolutely nothing. And it continues to do so. Aaaaah. Satisfied sigh of relief.

WHY AM I SO CURSED???????????

Eerie Silence

Not sure if any of you out there in blogland like scary movies. If so you are probably familiar with the Spielbergian method of lulling you into a serene state and then WHAMMO, some big thing with lots of teeth appears making a scary loud noise and you shi.....p yourself off to the land of spilt popcorn and soiled undergarments...

Well, that is how it feels this week before settlement of our big, scary purchase of a second house. Now, I'm not really superstitious, so against the strenuous advice of many people who are, I am going to carry on flippantly about how absolutely NOTHING has gone wrong. I mean, what can possibly go wrong!? Sure, there is the massively complicated and burdensome process of financial discharge, contractual obligations and millions of little esoteric bits of paper transferring all at precisely the same moment in time, but I am confident that we can just sit back, relax and let it all happen without taking even a second to check up on it. No siree, nothing has gone wrong yet. Nothing at all.

X & Y

So far on this blog I have managed to pretend to be a motorsport journalist, current affairs reporter, travel writer, fundy theologian...and now, for the first time, music critic. Yippee! So, you now have a whole new dimension of me to enjoy, all you blog readers (and you both know who you are).

But first, family news. Naomi was doing a project the other day, where she had to "interview" 3 people about her favourite subject. Since her favourite subject at the moment is "harrassing Dad to within an inch of his sanity for a Guinea Pig and talking so incessantly about Guinea Pigs that he starts having nightmares about them", she formulated her line of questioning. She then chose myself, Sharon and Sam to interview. The project was to draw pictures representing each person interviewed and put their answers in a little speech bubble.

Her question went "What do you think about keeping and maintaining Guinea Pigs?". When she asked Sam, he said "They eat carrots".

Whilst she was impressed with his insights into the dietary habits of vermin, she did note in her final presentation that he was watching television at the time, hence probably wasn't affording her the attention neccessary for her project. She asked him later when he was more attentive, although I cannot recall the exact answer because the carrot one is still pure gold in my mind.

So, Naomi's final presentation contained two Sams, "TV Sam" and "Attentive Sam", and the illustrations were detailed, right down to "TV Sam's" eyes-as-big-as-dinner-plates.

She's sharp, that girl!! Truly I say unto thee, she is my daughter.


A Guinea Pig. Yesterday.

Now, the music section; Coldplay released X & Y yesterday. It's the long awaited new release after the chartbusting Rush of Blood to the Head. Okay, there's record company promo speak. I enjoy melancholy pop music (some call it "depressing" but that could only be said by someone who has never really been depressed) and Coldplay are one of the most progressive and melodious pop bands of the minute.

Although, I should really refrain from using buzzwords like "progressive". That categorises them too much. My brother, who is a bit of a genius muso (he has initials after his name) uses the term "Progressive Rock" very specifically, so this may be the incorrect category for Coldplay. If he or any other muso type person would like to clarify whether Coldplay can be classed as "progressive rock" I really am very curious to know.

I digress (gasp!). So, get ready folks...the literary genius of Paddy McAthertoon is about to lay his wordsmith hands upon the fine art of music critique-ing. Here goes.

Coldplay's new album is called X & Y. It's got some really good songs in it.

BYE