Flip Flop

Fair bit of water under the bridge since last Saturday...

Monday afternoon, I went to the funeral for Shirley Hilditch (Scott's Mum), which was a very nice service, and good to catch up with Scott and Gina, Trent and Caz, and others I've not had a chance to see for a while now...

After heading back to work, and finishing the day, I went off to a market research session, to do some advertisement assessment for a new range of advertisements which Bunnings are thinking of running.

After heading back to Mum and Dad's to dinner, I sort of fell in a big heap.

Tuesday, was the day from hell... I woke up around 8.30 or so, to go to work, but couldn't get out of bed. All my system wanted to do was sleep, sleep, and sleep some more...

Wednesday wasn't much better.

Thursday, I went to see a GP, trained in Big Blue, "The National Depression Initiative".

Friday morning, three people from the CAT Team at the Alfred Hospital came to see me, and one of the doctors declared me depressed. I've since been prescribed some anti-depressants, to buoy me up during the day, and valium, to help me sleep...

It's incredible how many people you talk to have been on these medications... I guess I'll give them a go, to see how things unfold...

Friday night, was Clarissa's Birthday dinner, which I had promised I would go to. I had a really good time, at Shine Cafe, out in Glen Waverley, although the service was appalling from all but one staff member.

Right now, I'm sitting on the bed in my old bedroom at Mum and Dad's, with the blind up, watching an awesome electrical storm go by, and fighting a half a valium, which was supposed to be a good idea, to help me sleep... Damn the interesting night life!!

Two Puddy Tats...

I went out to visit Ingrid, who runs Ingrid's Haven on Thursday night after work, to meet Pretty Jessica and Fluff, both of who were a little shy and people wary for my liking.

Ingrid currently has 91 cats, waiting to be given new homes, and I met two other cats, Una (pronounced ohhnah) and Stumpy (pure black cat with a stumpy tail), both of whom were very friendly!

After a coffee, and a chat, I head home, to come back on Saturday, when both cats have been given a new home...

Stumpy is learning her new name of Lizzy, and Una is let to be renamed, althoguh I'm thinking Luna is a good name for her...

Two to choose from...

Following on from my entry from yesterday, about getting myself a furry friend, or two, I made some phone calls...

Penelope, found a new home 2 weeks ago, and moved from Mount Eliza, to Ballarat... :-(

On the up side, I am going to try to meet Fluffy and Jessica on Sunday... Hopefully they are the nice cats that the lady running hostel they are living in says they are... :-)

Furry Friends....

I've decided that for a bit of company, a cat or two could be a good option... I've been doing some web searching, and found three really nice looking female cats, that are looking for new homes...

Two are through a non-profit cats hostel, where the other is a pet of a local family who are moving to the UK...

This is Fluffy, who is cute as cute, and is a negative image of Charlotte, who died over a year ago...



This is Jessica, who is also a very nice looking cat...



This is Penelope, who's owners are moving overseas...



And this is Charlotte, who died on May 4th, 2004

Bloody Petrol Prices...

Having just been on the road for a week or so, I've been pretty horrified at the price of petrol.

On a trip from Melbourne to Canberra, then on to the snow fields of New South Wales, and back to Melbourne, via Canberra, I have seen petrol prices vary from 116.5 c/litre, in Melbourne, to as high as 132.9 c/litre, in Jindabyne.

According to one of the guys who work the money markets for the Commonwealth Bank, the Australian petrol pricing is dictated by OPEC countries, due to most of Australia's diesel fuel being refined in Singapore, from crude oil sourced from the Middle East.

It still doesn't make sense to me that the locally refined fuels are impacted... Just one of the little frustrations in life I guess...

How Cool is this???

I finally got off my ass, and downloaded a copy of Skype, one of the VOIP applications that are starting to pop up on the Internet.

For the pricely sum of 10 euro, (roughly $16 Aussie Dollars according to the currency converter at xe.com), I can place a call to any landline in the world, at an extremely reasonable rate...

To call a landline in the US, costs about $0.03 Aussie per minute, which per my calculations works out to 1.8 cents an hour...

I've called a couple of friends, as well as Mum and Dad, to see what the quality is like, and it's extremely good...

Given that Wayne and Fiona left for Japan for a year last night, this should save us a bucket of money on international calls!

Skype to Skype calls are excellent value, as they are free!!!

50,000 km ...

My White Subaru Forester XT had it's 50,000 km service today... I decided to lash out a bit (well, decided that my lease would lash out a bit), and get the service done by STi Melbourne, rather than at the dealer the car was purchased from.

The theory being that STi will do a bit better job on a car with a turbo charger, than a regular service centre, as they also look after the Subaru Rally Team cars, and are specialists with the performance Subarus.

Given this was the first "big service" I decided to get the car Dyno Tuned as well, to see how much power it has, and also to ensure there are no problems under power, as exhaust modifications such as I have, have been known to cause problems with pinging, and the like.

As I'm a Victorian WRX Club member, everything attracted a 10% loyalty discount, and there was a bit of pinging, which has been tuned out, whilst the car was on the dyno.

Here is the printout from the dyno... A little disappointed about the power output, but given I am running on 95 RON fuel, and no modifications worth mentioning, it's not too bad....



The black line is the before tune, the red line is after tune...