Meeting blogger, high places, train home

We went to get a free Marriott breakfast. Normally hotels don't bother to check, but this one was thorough. I had to stare at the man with a look of silent incomprehension for about a minute before the queue behind us got too long and angry. They were fed up of him asking "Could I see your token please?" and me smiling pleasantly in silence. He just crumpled and said "OK sir, this way please!"

It was a wonderful breakfast. TT had fruit salad for starter, egg and bacon for main and then a massive pile of cakes for finishes. I went for some continental style (my fave, meat and cheese) to start and then biggest English breakfast in the world. It was all self-serve buffet, so I stopped one of the waiters: "Excuse me mate, my girlfriend and I always prefer to share a plate of food. Do you have one of those steak platter plates?" He nodded and fetched me one. I then piled it up with about a kilo of bacon, loads of potato wedge thingies, 3 fried eggs, a whole pigs-worth of sausages, and everything else that wasn't squidgy. Have you ever seen a truckers breakfast? Well, imagine that x 3. That's what I managed to tower onto my platter.

Why did I do this? Simple. Last night I'd grabbed some of those foil lined bags from the local kebab shop and I'd accidentally taken them into the breakfast room with me. Shame to waste them, eh? We now had food for 2 days. Sometimes on this blog I joke and say things that are exaggerated or sarcastic. I'll let you decide whether this is one of the those comments. Lol. I'll be right back, I'm just off to grab a steak, egg and sausage sandwich....

We then packed our stuff, and went to meet Helen. She and her boyfriend were great fun. They took us to the tallest building in Australia. Helen asked whether we'd seen it yet. I made a wonderfully intelligent comment "Er, I don't think we have. We weren't sure what we were looking for?" Helen just turns to me, cool as an Eskimos nads, raises her sunglasses and suggests "Er? The tallest building in the place?" Seconds later the car it parked, we get out and she point skywards. "That one" she confirms.

I honestly don't know how the hell TT and I had missed it. It's fucking huge! We were staying on floor 21 of the Marriott and that was high. The hotel had 36 floors and we thought that was amazing. This bloody place had 78 floors plus a bloody spire!

It's 20th highest building in the world, and the highest one I've been in. They had a comparison chart and I'd only been to three other ones. Pointy thing in Paris (bit of an eye-full), twin towers in Kuala Lumpar and Amoco Building. This was higher than all of them. I think. The stupid thing about the chart was that it was in no particular order. It had spectacular illustrations and all, but it was nonsensical.

They also boast to have the fastest elevator in the world. They are not lying.

You get in and within 20 seconds you're at the top of an 80 storey building! It's just a case of:

• Get in
• Ears pop
• Ears pop again
  
• Ding!

You're there. 360 lookout. It's pretty amazing.

When we arrived at the top TT and I realised we'd left our camera in the car. Fortunately Helen and Andrew (her boyfriend) are wonderful people and simply said "We'll take as many as we can and put them onto CD for you. If there's anything you want in particular, just ask" Wasn't that nice of them? I like Helen and Andrew. They're cool.

We looked around the building and done all the appropriate oohs and aaahs. I shouldn't dismiss it so lightly, it was incredibly spectacular. Every 5m there was a pair of rack mounted, pay-by-the-second binoculars offering "Auto focus". I guess that means they focus on what they want to rather than what you want to look at?

Also, why the hell would I pay $16 to go up a hugely high building and then pay $2 to look at something on the ground? Jeez! If I want to look at it closely I'll just wait until I go back down. Fucking numb nuts....

For pictures go and look at Helens blog for now, I will put some on here but I'm a bit pushed for time for now.

By the end of the visit up the tower Helen made her offer even kinder: "Why don't we take you back to our house? I can burn these photos onto CD, you can see where we live, and then I'll give you a lift to the train station?" How kind is that?! Someone we've only just met and she's offering to do that for us!

We accepted. No wonder she wanted to show us her house though, it's amazing! I've been to smaller hotels than her house, and it's only her, her boyfriend and one other guy living there!

They have their own pool, outside area with basketball hoop, two living areas (both approximately the size of a football pitch), gods only know how many bedrooms, lovely kitchen, double garage and outside parking! It's pretty amazing. I guess when you move away from Brisbane property gets cheaper! Either that or she's a millionaire. In Brisbane that sort of place would cost.............er, my brain just done an overflow error thing.

It was a wonderful house. To make it even better it has Helens own photos dotted around the place. And TT noticed that the DVD collection met her tastes perfectly. Personally I'm not sure if I like Napoleon Dynamite or not, I've only seen it once and I'm currently sitting on the fence, but TT loves it and she's well impressed that Helen has it to. She's also impressed that everything was arranged in alphabetical order.

Given a million years I probably wouldn't have noticed either of those two things. I would just be happy playing with the dog (he was cute) and talking to anyone willing to listen. In this instance, Andrew!

After burning the photos onto CD Helen gave us a lift to the train station - she's lovely isn't she? The train ride home was fun - There was a huge match that night between Wallabies and All Blacks (Aus and NZ) in Brisbane, and our train was filled with Kiwi fans. Wasn't hard to tell, they were all in black - strangely enough! They were taking the piss out of Aussies the whole way.

At one stop a girl hopped off the train and as she done so she swung around to the door and raised both hands in classic V fashion and yelled "GO AUSSIE! GO AUSSIE! WE'RE GONNA STUFF YA! FUCKING SHEEP SHAGGERS!" The kiwi's all bawled and tried to get off the train but she'd timed it perfect. The automatic doors slid shut and the train pulled away. She pulled down her pants and done a sideways-shuffling-moonie at the carriage all the way to the end of the platform as it pulled out of the station. I almost pissed myself laughing at the irate kiwis.

Unfortunately Australia lost the game.

First day of holiday

Surfers Paradise! Yey!

We got up early and had subway for breakfast. TT didn't want to chance our luck at getting free Marriott breakfast :(

The subway was the worst I've ever had. I really like them (subway) now, but this one was awful. The girl was obviously a trainee or something and forget to offer us any options. As I'm English and we don't complain (lol) and Tt is shy, we got served bacon in a bun. I know that sounds normal for breakfast, but they're supposed to offer loads of toppings. For example, with bacon I'd certainly go with cheddar cheese, tomato, pepper, perhaps even some lettuce and tomato sauce. But she offered nothing. We both ended up with six inch bacon butties. Worst subway in the world. But I would like to point out that it was a first too, I've never been to a subway that was short of perfect. In fact they're generally so perfectly similar the only way of measuring differences between them usually is how happy the server is and how long it takes to get served.

We had brekkie early - about 8.30. Then the heavens opened. We were treated to a proper cloud burst of rainforest proportions. It belted down. We waited for it to stop because usually rain only lasts about 10 mins or so around here. And we waited. And we waited. Then my phone beeped. It was Helen, the girl who we'd arranged to meet. The sms said simply: "Bloody pom! Trust you to bring your stinking weather with ya!"

We giggled at that a bit and continued to wait. And wait. At 10 we realised it wasn't going to stop so we headed for our first touristy spot. It was called "Infinate" or something like that. We knew it was going to be cheesy. It was a pretty unique idea though and good fun. They let you in (we were the first) and they take all loose belongings from you. They make you empty your pockets into a small bag and give you a receipt. I think this is just to excite your mind into thinking "What the hell....?!!"

They then give you white gloves and white "shoe protectors" to wear. The shoe protectors are just giant bags you put over your feet with elasticated ankle bits. We then joined, or, as we were first, formed a queue by the entrance. When there were 6 people in total the girl gave us her speel: I've never heard the word "cool" used so much in 1 minute in my life. I just wanted to blurt out "Jeez! We've paid for the tickets already! Stop selling it and open the fucking gate!" But I was good and didn't.

When she'd finally done gibbering she opened the gate to let us in. We'd been warned to keep our hands out in front of us and I could tell why. It was pitch black with only a tiny amount of UV lighting. That made our hands and feet light up. We'd been made to put on white gloves and foot protectors that made us look like bad mime artists. Now I knew why we'd been given those stupid things to wear.

It was cool. It was just a maze, but things changed to shock you. For example, the floor would suddenly turn to mattress texture. Or it would be one of those travelators going the wrong way. Or soft, slimy strings would be hanging from the ceiling and make you go "Yeugh!!!" At one point (having just crossed a rope bridge) we suddenly pushed open a door and found ourselves in a lit area.

It was fully illuminated. But it was a mirror/glass maze. We started navigating through it. After 5 mins we passed another couple - they must have come in after us. Another 2 minutes pass and we saw the same couple again. We nodded and smiled. 2 minutes later we passed the same couple again. Between gritted teeth we all nodded and smiled again. We were all getting annoyed now!

The fourth time we passed the same (and only) couple I grabbed the blokes arm and said, with a really serious expression "We've been in here 2 and a half weeks! How long have you been here?" TT looked hugely embarrassed but the other couple both pissed their pants laughing.

We finally found our way out (I should have mentioned, the whole place, both dark and lit areas, are confused by laser beams, flickering lights and weird stereo music. The whole thing is designed to disorientate and it does so very well. When we found the exit to the mirror maze we should have shouted the other couple. But we didn't. No one's perfect eh?!

The next room that caused a problem was the "Star gate" or something like that. It was about 30ft wide, perfectly circular and pitch black. But the floor had a slight dip towards the centre, and the ceiling was concave. And the walls were covered in randomly sparkling LED's So you felt like you were in outer space. Once you walked in you simply couldn't find the way out, even though it was a large empty room. The designers had cunningly made the entrance with a double door so even as more people stumbled in you never got to see any light.

Eventually there were about 20 of us stuck in the room and no one could find the exit. All you could hear were people all around falling over one another and random shouts of "Sorry!" "Aw, Mate!", "Jeez fella!", "Dammit!", etc. It was very funny. TT and I elected to stand by the wall in one place until someone invariably yelled "FOUND IT!" and we just ran towards the sound.

We then went to "Space Travel" or something like that. It was owned by the same company and it had many of the same attributes. Ie. Hugely cheesy and touristy. This one was much more educational though. There is a choice of four pods to enter and we decided on 1 and 2. Inventive eh?

1 was a 3D video showing footage taken by latest Hubble mission and stuff like that. I actually quite enjoyed it since I'm a nerd. Then it was a walk through a virtual universe. I liked that too, but while I was about a quarter of the way through, saying "wow" to facts TT suddenly came out of the darkness, grabbed my arm and said "I've been all the way to the end and it's this planet bollocks all the way" and promptly dragged me out. I was actually enjoying it, but I guess it's not her thing!

We then went on pod 2, which was a totally different type of video. You had to lay on the floor, on your back and stare at the ceiling. Ie - pretend you've had 5 pints of scrumpy (strong English cider). Suddenly you saw an image of Surfers Paradise, and then it zoomed out. And out. And out. It was fantastic. It zoomed out, past the moon, past the sun, past the other planets, until you were at the edge of the solar system and Earth was just a star.

Then it zoomed out some more. Right to the edge of our galaxy, the milky way (see, I learnt something!), then further out, past the other three galaxy's that are part of ours. Then out to the galaxy that's on the edge of the universe. All with a Sean Connery sound alike commentary. It then zoomed back in again, at double speed with no voice over.

It was incredible. I just wished I'd had a joint before I went in. No wonder someone (Tara, from Essex, UK) had written in the guest book "Universe and God and stuff is really big, innit?" Well done Tara. Yes, it is.

We then spent the rest of the day using the hotel facilities - the sauna, jacuzzi, gym and so on. We loved it. Then we undone all our good work by going to the bar. Our stay included 4 drink tokens. There was a business meeting going on in the bar (it was a Friday at the Marriott after all) so we acted responsibly. HA HA HA! Of course we didn't!

TT asked for the juke box to be turned on and we put on loads of loud music. Then we played pool right in the middle of the meeting. While getting pissy. I couldn't play properly as I couldn't stop laughing at the fact I WAS ON HOLIDAY and the other people were trying to do business meetings in hotel bars.

The women at the meeting started clicking their fingers in time with the music and the blokes started offering advice about pool shots. Why can't UK meetings be like that?!

We then discovered the bar wench was English and in gratitude of speaking to another Brit she refused to take the tokens. She just smiled when we offered payment and said "Thanks!" and then muttered quietly "Use them later, when I'm not on shift!" I love being a Brit in Australia. That was another $20 worth saved. I'm a tight bastard!

We called Helen to see if she fancied joining us for a beer. Unfortunately she was busy so we went and listened to some bands and watched Irish dancing girls instead.

After 11pm the place turned into a perverts heaven. It was filled with young drunk teen girls spewing or pulling down their pants / lifting their skirts to all.

Luckily, by that time most of the pervs were either:

a) Laying around drowning in pools of their own vomit
- or -
b) Busy fighting other pervs over the last beer

So only lesbain pervs would have got much of an eye-full. We went back to the hotel and drank beer in our room. We're such party animals eh?

Job offer+Haircuts+Holiday starts!

This morning tt an early start. That was good because it meant she'd finish before 12 and we could catch the 1315 train to Surfers Paradise. (Did I mention we're going on a mini holiday?) It takes her about 20 minutes to walk from her work to the train station which is conveniently situated right next door to our favourite fast food place, The Curry House.

The Curry House is excellent. For 6 bucks they do a medi plate, plenty enough to share between two - we've only finished it completely once. The small plate, which is more than ample for one person, costs just AU$4

On a plate you're given one of a choice of 3 different sorts of rice, two of a choice of 6 vegetables and one serve of a choice of four different curries. We always go for Bombay rice, spicy lentils, spiced potato(for me, because it's a hot one) and butter chicken (for TT because she likes mild curry.)

I'm shamed to say the staff know us so well they just smile and say "The usual?" We nod and the only question they need to truly ask is "Eat here or take out?"

That's what makes it even better. You can get this lovely food served in heat proof containers and it's still very hot by the time we walk home.

For $4 I find it difficult to cook a meal for two. This is probably the only place in the world where eating in costs about the same as eating out. In the UK I never really paid any attention to how much beef or onions cost per kilo, I'd almost never buy meat. I can't wait to find out now. I now know the prices of all supermarket goods "per kilo" because we always eat fresh here.

Ready / microwavable meals, don't exist in Australia much. You can buy a very limited selection but they're mainly things like Halal, Vege or lo carb. I think they're designed for Aussies that are having a dinner party and have one "Awkward" guest coming along. The host will cook for the "normal" people and slam one of these "specialty" meals into the microwave for the odd guy.

But anyway, I digress hugely, no surprise there eh?

After Tt headed to work about 7.15 (she likes to be early) I got up and showered. The moment I stepped out of the shower my phone rang. I was stuck in that horrible situation: Do I:

a) answer the phone and risk electrocuting myself by dripping water from my ear into the phone

- or -

b) ignore the phone and think "I'll call them back" only to have the frustrating experience of discovering it was an anonymous number calling?

I decided to answer the phone. At this point I realised there was another possible option:

c) answer the phone and have my hair drip water into the phone and kill my phone.

So, with a careful combination of towel, head tilting and standing on top of my DM's in the hope they had rubber soles ample to resist electrocution, I answered it.

Bloke: "Hello! Could I speak to Jay please?"

Me: "Ahh! [water runs from my head into eye] Er, Speaking!"

Bloke: "G'day mate, my name is R, I'm calling from H communications. You sent a CV to us?"

Me: "Oh, great! What did you think of it?" [stumble crash, I fall off my DM's - they're quite tall you know]

Bloke: "Aww mate, you're ideal for the role we've got in mind - I know it's short notice, but can you come for an interview tomorrow morning?"

Me: [mentally sobs, I was just about to pack for a 2 day break with TT! And it's booked. Aah! Idea!] "I'm really sorry mate, but I've actually got another interview tomorrow morning, and I'd hate to mess them around. You know, since sending out my CV I've had quite a few offers...."[I can't resist selling stuff, even if it is just me]

Bloke: "oh. ok. We thought it would be too lucky to get you at such short - sorry, I mean interview you at such short notice. Let me speak to the other guys here and I'll get straight back to you with another date"

Me: [thinks - bugger. Did I just lose out on a job?] "OK, I'm really sorry, I just don't like to let people down, you know? They did invite me first so it's only polite to turn up?"

Bloke: "I'm really sorry for even suggesting it. We'll come back to you real soon"

Me: "OK, I'll look forward to it!" [thinks - bugger. Blown it]

I then went and carried on getting dressed. I'd only just put on my socks and jocks when the phone rang again.

Me: [slightly grumbly] "Morning?"

Bloke from above: "Hi Jay! I've had a word with the guys here and we'd be really happy to give you an interview this afternoon! About 3pm is the best for us. How does that suit you? We're very flexible...."

Me: [yey! They sound desperate! yey!] "Erm, let me check my diary, I've got a feeling I've got something on this afternoon. I'll be back in one moment" [I go and put on my pants and check to see if any of my interview shirts are clean - they aren't, and we do have a 2 day break booked] "Er, sorry, as I suspected, I do have an appointment this afternoon. I could potentially make it [to cover my bridges] but I'd hate to let you down by being late. How's Monday for you guys?"

Bloke: [put's hand over phone to speak to his colleagues for 10 seconds] "Yes, we can do Monday. How's 8am with you?"
Me: [I'm feeling happy - can't get any earlier than that can you?!] "Er, hold on....hmmmmm......yes, if I call him then.....hmmmm. Yep. That would be fine with me. I look forward to seeing you!"

I think it went pretty well. A couple of times I felt I was being an idiot and almost panicked, but I think all in all I played it cool and they're pretty keen on seeing me!

I then caught the bus to Merthyr. It's only just down the road, about a half hour walk, but I was a bit short of time that morning. I went there because someone had told me they had a good, cheap barber. As the bus arrived I asked the driver if he knew where the barber shop was?

His eyes narrowed and his lip twitched. The knuckles on one of his hands whitened as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. He said to me between gritted teeth "No. I. Don't."

I was then thinking "There's no need for that attitude" when I suddenly realised he was wearing a really ill-fitting, crappy, "slide-about-the-chrome-dome-type" wig. Trust me eh?

I found the barber and I must admit, it's a very good haircut and it only cost $20, about £8. He gave me a proper shave at the end. One with a cut throat razor. I've always wanted to see how that works and the answer is: Very well. Despite having just finished a book about "Jack the Ripper" I was still willing to let a hairdresser perform a cut throat razor shave on me. What does that tell you about me? I'm stupid? Yeah, maybe....!

I then went and met TT at the train station. We had curry. It was great, good as ever. We then caught the express to Surfers Paradise.

We checked in - The Marriott no less, and then we went walkabout and I noticed that they have a "Ripleys Believe it or not". And bars. And amusement arcades. And "Sea-world". In fact, it's actually a high-rise version of the touristy town I used to live in....

We went to an Irish bar and stayed for just 1 pint - because that's how long it took for a couple of local pervs to come and start chatting up TT the moment I went outside for a cig or to the loo. Not nice for her, as you can imagine.

We then went to Mc Donalds over the road. Yes. I finally ate Mc Donalds. I had one of their crappy $2 burgers. The 49p hamburgers at home. It was exactly as gross as I expected. I asked for extra gurkin because thats the only bit I like from Maccers, but the spotty kid just looked and me for a few seconds and then grinned and said "Next Please!" to the person behind me. Who was TT.

Is labotomy really a requirement to work at Maccers?

We had an early night.

Exciting news!

Guess what's happened?! I've met someone through blogger! The lovely Helen and her boyfriend, Andrew, are meeting TT and I on Saturday!

We met quite coincidentally on here. She made a comment on my blog, I made one on hers, and you know, shit happens. She sent me an email with her mobile number earlier, I called her and now we're meeting.

Isn't that odd? Who'd ever think that blogger could actually encourage people to meet other than in cyberspace?

Another very strange thing happened tonight. I had to confess to TT that yes, I did have a blog of my own. She immediately set to work on a post something along the lines of "The bugger! I knew he did!" The thing thats's making me laugh so much is that she's already had about 20 comments asking for my address!

How's that for a day? I've actually spoken to someone, and we're going to meet them on Saturday, and TT has had her blog taken over by me! Ha Ha Ha!!!!! (Btw, when we meet on Saturday, you're not allowed to tell her my web address H. Please?!)

Got loads of other news for you but time doesn't allow. Besides, TT is getting stroppy because yet another commenter has just posted "What's the link to your boyfriends site?" to her. When I told her a whole two of my readers had asked for her blog address she just scowled. Little does she know I only have two regular commenters....!

She's also a bit jealous that we're meeting H as a result of my blogging. She's not met anyone yet, despite her hundreds of readers. I'm not smirking, honestly I'm not....

Scott's Poety

I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't snigger but I can't help it! I was clicking on the "Next blog" link and accidently found this: Scott's Poetry Check out the blog url - Shouldn't there be an "r" in poetry? I'll stop giggling now, poor Scott. Probably a decent fellow. Sorry mate.

I've updated the "last year" bit!

I've finally made good on my promise and resumed updating the blog of our travels last year!

2nd day in Germany. I think that's enough for today!

Strange place names and other bollocks

On Saturday TT had to work. But she wanted to go out on the piss after finishing so she took a change of clothes with her in her bag.

Her work bag is rather collasal, it's not unlike the one she used to back pack around Europe. I don't know how, but for some reason it always maintains the same weight too. Even on days when she says "I don't need to take this today, I don't need that today, I won't need a first aid kit today...", etc., It always seems to be the same weight.

She's not a girly girl. I'm sure I've said that before. She has no make up in it, no spare shoes, so how the hell does it maintain the same shape and weight no matter what she puts in or takes out?

So far as I can tell the only stable contents are her mobile phone, her wallet and her lip balm stick. Most days it also contains her frozen lunch. I always cook enough of any dish to feed a small army, so there is a continual supply of frozen lunches in the freezer. In fact, this has got so bad (/good?) we've just had to buy more freezer containers, and if it gets any worse we'll have to buy a larger freezer. There are currently 8 containers of lunch in the freezer and I can't have any since we don't own, and TT wont let me buy, a microwave. So she has to take them to work and eat them there.

Recently I've taken to cooking food that I can easily reheat on the stove the following day for my own lunch too. That means some goes in the freezer and some goes into me the following day about lunch time.

Anyhoo, I digress hugely. When she finished work, at 3, I met her in a bar we've named the "Brau Hausen" after a place we went to in Germany. It's exactly the same layout and it could be the best themed bar in Brisbane if only the owner had ever been to Germany/Bavaria. Honestly, if I had the cash available I'd buy it tomorrow and make it Brisbanes best bar success story.

So we went there. It was cracking. We met two funny guys called Bruce (no shit?! Bruce in Australia?!) and Rowey. I've actually changed his name there, put an "n" in place of the final "y". I just done that cos I've now confessed to TT that yes, I do have a blog, and No, I don't want her to find it.

But who cares about their names anyway? It was an absolute hoot. Bruce could do a wicked Irish accent even though he's never been out of Aus. In fact he even confessed he's never met a genuine Irishman. He was superb. The only thing that gave it away that he wasn't Irish was that he kept saying Australian things in an Irish accent.

He's actually from NSW, and down there they have different slang. For example, here in QLD a half pint is called a "pot". Down there it's called something else - I can't remember what because I was so pissed.

But also up here we have "Gold", a really common beer made by Castlemain. The rest of the world have Castlemain XXXX but here (where it's made) that doesn't exist, we have loads of sub-variants. Gold is one of them. Bruce was up here in QLD purely to find an Irish bar and ask for "a pot of gold" in his perfect Irish accent.

I know it doesn't seem so funny in written form, but you should have been there. I pissed myself every time he said it. He nearly shit himself when I told him I was of Irish descent (true), he thought I was going to try and blow up his house or something.

It really was a funny night. He asked whether I followed English soccer ( at this point his mate stepped in and tried to explain that in the UK I might know it as football. I pretended to have no idea what they were talking about and then pissed myself laughing.

I felt sorry for laughing at them as they were decent blokes, so I told them I didn't really follow football but I kept a vague eye on "Norwich", my local team. They looked confused at this and proclaimed that although they had an interest in most English soccer teams, they'd never heard of them.

After much confusion it turned out that they did know the team I was talking about but being Australian they pronounced it (forgivably) differently to the correct pronunciation. You see, in Norfolk, UK, we have a plethora of weirdly pronounced place names. "Norwich" is actually a reasonably decent one, we pronounce it "Norich", or if your Norfolk accent is really bad, "Naaarich". The W is silent.

Incase you're interested, Wynmondam is one of our worst: It's pronounced "Windam" And Happisburgh is pronounced "Hazebruh". Acle is pronounced "Aikel"

But I'm digressing again. We had an absolute fucking hoot with these guys, talking about different slang and stuff. Another thing that made us laugh was when they talked about a small country just near Switzerland, "full of mountains and shit". Austria I guessed? Nope. Germany? Nope. France? Nope. Guess where it turned out to be?

Prize to anyone that guesses. I'll honestly send you Aussie paper money if you guess. This is a "mountainy place near Switzerland" according to our to aussie mates. In retrospect their description was correct apart from the "near Switzerland" bit. It's in Europe but their geography is awful.

I've been reading some Brian Thacker books which are ok. I've decided to definitely carry on with my retrospective travel stories. This Brian guy has made a living from writing books about travel around Europe and although vaguely amusing he doesn't divulge much in the way of useful information. It probably would have been useful 20 years ago, but not anymore. We have the Euro now, these books were written recently, but refer to times when each european country had their own currency.

Sorry this post has been so boring, I'll get up to speed soon again I'm sure. I've found a bottlo that does 5 litres of beer for $8. That's gotta be bad shit but it'll get me in the mood!

Up and down like a whores drawers....

It's been a strange day. My mood has alternated between very happy and quite pissed off on an almost hourly basis.

TT has to work her monthly Saturday shift tomorrow and it's an early one. So she's off to bed soon. That means I'll blog properly then. Gimme a couple of hours.

The most cheerful thing I've done today is read a new book one about a guy travelling around Europe. It's reminded me that I must carry on the "Double" take thing and keep on updating about the stuff we were doing last year. It's so hard to get motivated to do as I know no-one cares about what happened last year.

But on the other hand, if I post it all up, someone searching google for something like "Travel hints Prague" may find it useful. And it will also make my promise of the site complete.

And it will also mean that I have a blog that covers over two years written in only one. I'll get on it, I promise. Does anyone reading this really care about what I was doing a year ago? I don't suppose you do, but I never started this as a way to entertain or amuse to be honest, I just wanted to record my experiences and thoughts.

I guess like everyone I got hooked into the statcounter thing and wanted more readers. I'm so vain. I bet someone wrote a song about me. Sorry, weird mood at the moment. Toodle-oo for now...

Envious? Me?

TT got linked by some blogger review site.

It wasn't one of the crappy auto ones, it was one that is written by an acutal human

The post of hers they decided to feature involved a conversation between herself and I. It wasn't a nasty conversation or anything but it was funny. And she blogged about it and she got reviewed. She got 110 extra hits today as a result. Bitter? Not me.

The site doing the review is, oh, I've forgotten. Her site is: shit, damn my memory hay?

Bah. Bollocks. Fuck. I knew it was a funny conversation too....

Naughty, yeah, I know....

Is cannabis an addictive drug? I don't think so. I think that the effects are, but then, who wouldn't love the feeling of "I don't give a fuck, and actually, that's pretty funny dude" when faced with the alternative of dealing with personal tragedy, chronic pain, etc?

I like the stuff. I know I shouldn't, since I'm an intelligent grown up boy.

But I do.

I don't think it's addictive. I smoked it almost daily in the UK as one of my coworkers used to smoke the stuff. I've been here over a month and not missed it.

There's a lie the paragraph above. It should read "not missed it until now." Tonight I really fancy a joint. I've actually fancied one for the last three nights. How do you set about acquiring such a dodgy thing in a foreign country?

Luckily, the craving first occurred following my Carpe Jugulum day, so I continued that theme. I went to the local bottlo (beer shop) and asked the spotty young teen.

I simply said (In Carpe Jugulum manner) "Hey mate. Is weed legal in Australia or not?" (I knew it wasn't, but I also knew it was commonly "done" and he looked a likely culprit)

Him: "Ummmmm"
Me: "I'm a fresh pommie mate, some people have told me I can, other people have told me I can't. Just wanna know if it's legal or not, eh?"
Him: "My brother is chief of police-"
Me: "Outta here, bye!!!!"
Him: "NO! No worries mate, it's more common here per capita[me thinks, Is he more intelligent than I thought?] than anywhere in the world. It's not actually legal here in QLD to grow your own, but in the neighbouring states it is, so they don't bother trying to enforce it. So long as you don't sell it you're ok to grow."
Me: "Wow! That's amazing news! But my g/f will probably not approve and I'm not much of a gardener. Any chance of someone having some surplas to get rid of?"
Him: "Awww, mate, we're not allowed to sell it..."
Me: "Swap for some beer?"
Him: "Shit mate! You're real quick for a pommie!"

So anyway, I found a local supply and although he promised he's not actually come through with the smokes yet. But because it's not addictive and I'm not desperate I don't really care. I spent half an hour chatting with the guy and had a really good laugh.

No cash passed hands, so I'm not bothered. I'm sure the next time I see him he'll have a little green bag for me and expect $50 in exchange for it. I'm also sure I'll be happy to perform the exchange. You'll probably notice the post when it happens.

TT has been off sick again today. I don't think I've ever had so much sick to deal with as I have since I moved to Aus.

I've put away all the mouse killing devices today. The high-tech one almost killed me. Vuboq, you asked about this and I promised to reply. Unfortunately I can't give you much info since it would kill me to do so. There are warnings all over it saying that "...certain components retain charge even once unplugged - take apart at your own peril. Disassembly of this device will deem you in contradiction of ..."

Basically it's a mish-mash of counter sprung blades, snappy things, sticky devices and electrocution pads. I wouldn't want to face it if I was a mouse. But I won over it in the end. I've now put it (carefully) in the drawer with all the other mouse trappy stuff and poison. I've also armed all the traps and stuck a label on the drawer saying "$$$" incase we ever get visited by a very stupid burglar....

You think I'm joking don't you?

Nerdy stuff, business, water, asbestos, bums, etc. Yes, really

I'm currently sat outside on our patio, in the sunshine typing this. I wish I had Internet access. I've been a busy boy the last couple of days but I've been hugely held back by lack of Internet.

Warning! Nerd Alert! Next few paragraphs are techy, feel free to skip if you want. I'll change the font just so you know where it's safe to resume.

I can connect to our neighbours wireless access point without any problem, but the thing is, so can everyone else with an ounce of intelligence. So that makes it very slow.

In Australia most broadband packages are capped. Once you reach a monthly amount of GB they slow down your access until it's cripplingly slow. So this poor neighbour has up to 9 people stealing his connection and while I only use it for blogging and checking emails, some people must be downloading movies, music, and stuff like that.

As I steal it myself, I can't complain, but I'm sure I'm one of the most considerate thieves. I type these things up offline and then just connect to upload. I'm seriously thinking about rectifying the problem with this cunning plan:

I knock on his door and say "Hello mate, I'm pommie from next door. I have wireless Internet for my laptop but your signal is so strong I keep accidentally connecting to yours. Also, I couldn't help but notice that lots of other people are also connected to you and using your Internet connection. Have you noticed them slowing you down?"

To which I'm sure he'll respond something like "I fought my interweb was slow but so am I. I know nuffink 'bout compooters, I just use it for looking at porn..." or similar.

So I'll suggest that I set up his security for him so that "those bastards" can't steal his connection. He'll look happy and I'll go in and secure it for him. He'll think I'm great, give me beer and try to talk to me about RFL. Then I'll go home and reconfigure my own laptop wireless (and TT's if she's a good girl) so I/we are the only persons stealing it.

What do you think? I know I'll still be guilty of being a thieving bastard but at least that's better than everyone and his dog stealing it. As they say, better the devil you know....

Ok, Nerd Alert over.

On Monday I wrote a post entitled Carpe Jugulum. Yes. Seize by the throat. I had a great day. I've decided not to publish it now as it's out of date, but the summary is this:

In the UK my company provides software to schools and parents that teaches kids English and typing skills. Since moving to Aus I've rewritten it to be more specific to the Australian market and rather than mess around trying to sell it to schools and parents I decided to go straight for the retail sector.

I've never had any dealing with "big-boy" retailers before but I have noticed that in Australia people seem to get down to business with much less "committee and red-tape" bollocks. They either want it or they don't. No meeting-after-dragged-out-meeting meandering down the path of business for months on end over here.

So with that in mind I decided to contact Australia’s largest educational supplier and sell my heart out. Within 20 minutes I was speaking to the biggest boss of them all, the owner - an almost impossible achievement in the UK. He's getting together his head of sales from Victoria, WA and NSW for a meeting. Giddup! I was happy.

Spurned on by this success I decided to open more avenues so I called Brisbane’s biggest bookstore. Again, I ended up speaking to the owner and got his home address. I've got to send him info and copy to trial personally with his own kids.

I found that a lot easier than I expected so I went for Australia’s largest nation-wide bookstore. That was a little more difficult but I've now secured a meeting with their board of directors in Melbourne.

I carried on doing this all afternoon. It was fun.

Where does our hot water come from? In the UK there are generally two options. We either have a boiler, (gas or oil powered, sometimes even coal if you live somewhere rural like I used to) Alternatively we may have an electric powered "immersion" heater. But those are the two basic options. Boiler or Immersion. You dread them ever going wrong, as they're expensive to have repaired/replaced. Normally they are linked to the heating system of the house. Here in Queensland houses don't have heating systems. Furthermore, they seem to have a lack of boilers or immersion heaters. I honestly haven't got a clue what make the water in our hot taps (faucets) hot.

We only live in a smallish two-bedroom place, and I cannot trace the source of our hot water. If we lived in an apartment block then I could understand it, but we don’t! I'm puzzled. The reason I was looking is that the shower tends to get cold after about 10 minutes. I know that's ample time for a shower, but occasionally I like to have a longer shower and I wanted to know whether it was possible to adjust settings to allow this.

And the water is generally too scalding hot. I also wanted to know whether it's possible to adjust the temperature. I'm so fed up with trying to do the washing up in asbestos gloves.

Oh, that reminds me. The real estate finally sent a guy around to look at the water damage to the ceiling in the second bedroom. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but they were insistent on the phone that it must be coming from the property above and they'd get a guy to look there first. I told them we didn't have a property above us, we're single level. They insisted we did. I went and took a photo and emailed it to them. They sent a guy.

The guy turned up, looked at slight water damage on ceiling, went outside and said "That's an asbestos roof, I'm not touching it." Fair enough comment, but I was silly enough to say "Asbestos?! That's illegal in the UK, do they allow it over here?" which lead to him giving me a ten minute lecture which can me summarised thus: "Asbestos is now illegal in QLD, we used to import it from the UK therefore it's your fault" Boy, was that fun...

Anyhoo, I'm off to the trendy Internet cafe to post this now. I hate trendy Internet cafe. My lack of trendiness, ney, anti-trendiness, makes me stand out like Martin Luther King at a Ku Klux Klan Kristmas party.

While I'm at the cafe I'm going to search this blog for "more info later" and similar and finally catch up on all the stuff I've been meaning to tell you. Wont that be fun?!

Oh, and finally, Fridays seem to be "Bad Beard Day" in Brisbane. All the beard-sporting bums come out in their droves and mumble stuff. Last Friday was like "Shawn of the Dead" but featuring only beardy bums. My favourite/scariest was when one mumbled/slurred something to me that sounded like "Don't suppose you suck cocks?" I looked at him aghast. Admittedly I was in the prostitute area of the city at the time, but I really don't look like a fucking rent-boy. And he didn't look like he had 2 pennies to rub together.

He sensed my lack of comprehension, possibly by the look on my face as I raced to decide between:

a) Spewing
b) Covering my mouth and bottom hole with my hands
c) Giving him a close-up view of a British fist.

He clarified his question and it turned out to be "Don't suppose you smoke Ox?" Ox is a rolling tobacco over here and he offered me a sealed packet for $5. That's about $10 under the retail value. Even when it's an almost toothless smelly bum offering the transaction I can't say no to a bargain. Besides, I would have gladly given him $5 just to go away and stop breathing near me. I didn't ask any questions. Best not eh?

Victory is mine

I promise this will be the last time I post anything about mousey. I finally know where he is, and he's not going to escape anymore. 100% guaranteed.

How can I be so certain? Well, I'll come to that...

The last two nights he's not made a sound. No rustling around, no eeks, no scrabbling. If it wasn't for the little pieces of mouse poo on top of the fridge we may have thought he'd finally left us or died.

But last night was awful. His scrabbling woke TT up so many times she was almost reduced to tears. We were convinced he was under the floorboards of the bedroom and at one point she woke me by jumping up and down on the floor by the door and yelling "LET ME GET SOME SLEEP YOU IRRITATING LITTLE SHIT!!!!" which is quite out of character for her (I'm glad to say)

This morning we woke, quite bleary eyed from lack of substantial sleep, and got about or morning routine. I checked the fridge and commented to TT that it was odd that he hadn't shit on it at all. "No! Because he was too busy making noises under the freakin' floorboards all bloody night!"

Didn't think too much more of it. TT was getting ready for work and I was cooking her breakfast in the kitchen. She came through and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see her looking very sad. "What's up baby?" I asked. She just said "Mouse. In my work bag. In there." and pointed to the bedroom.

My heart leapt. "Are you sure?!" I asked. She nodded. "Where is he now?" I demanded. "Under bed. He jumped at me again..."

That was it. Battle stations. I ran through to the bedroom with two plastic containers for mouse en-trapping and closed the door behind me. We've already checked that room and we know there are no holes or any way for mousey to gain entrance, or for that matter, exit, other than through an open door.

After carefully emptying stuff from under the bed I'd almost lost faith. There was only one item left - a roll of christmas wrapping paper. I picked it up, sighed, and then looked down it. Guess what?! Mousey! Already trapped in a tube of paper!

I immediately squeezed both ends so that he couldn't escape then began my victory dance and song.

I didn't want to "deal" with him until TT had gone to work so I sellotaped up both ends and then for extra security put the tube in the bath, blocked the plug hole and closed the shower doors.

Last week I thought I had him cornered behind the washing machine and built this prison:


It's a full length mirror that one of TT's friends gave her as a birthday present. I've layed it lengthways across the recess and the pile of books to the left are to keep it securely snug against the wall. At the right edge you can see where I've put a yellow arrow. This is a tiny gap under which I'd figured the mouse must have escaped the night before, so this time I'd blocked it using this cunning strategum:


Yes, it may look like folded up junk mail wedged under the sliding door. And yes, that's exactly what it is. That's what some cunning plans look like. And yet the little bastard had still somehow escaped and managed to do this:


Yes. It's a close up shot of my passport on top of the fridge. And what's that I've circled? (You'll need to click to enbiggen) Oh yes, it's a little puddle of mouse wee. And the other circle? Oh yes, that's a little mouse shit. Every bloody night during his week long tenancy he's done that to my passport.

But that was then, and this is now. Here's the trapped mouse:


I stood it up to take the photo, it was laying in the bottom of the bath until after TT had gone to work. I went and checked it every few minutes to ensure he was still in there. The checking involved tilting the tube, rain-maker style, and hearing him slide to the other end. Only gently of course.

Before TT left for work she'd said that if I managed to get a picture of live mouse then her blog readers would love it. So I then secured the bathroom and released him into the bath. Here he is in two poses two show his lack of deadness:



Look at the little bastard - even now he refuses to cooperate and smile for the camera...

I then poked him with the tube to make him move and took this one:


Then it was time to deal with him. Plastic container time:

I know you can't see him very clearly there, because the plastic isn't very clear. But that was him trapped, in a box.

I was very tempted to post the box to Fitness Farce, the gym TT is getting shit from. I was quite bemused by the idea of the horrible lady there opening a box and having a very pissed off mouse jump out at her.

But I decided that would possibly land me in trouble so I decided against it.

I went to my laptop and fired up "Stuck in the middle with you" from the soundtrack of Reservoir Dogs....

So that takes me back to how I began this post: "I finally know where he is, and he's not going to escape anymore. 100% guaranteed."

Because the little shit is dead and corpse is in my garbage which is due to be collected any minute now. Yay hay! The mouse is dead! Here endeth the mousey-era...

Just a quicky....

Double take
I don't think anyone has ever heard me on the phone before. Well of course, that's a contradiction since the whole idea of a telephone is that someone else can hear you, but you know what I mean?

TT heard me call Barclays bank tonight. If her jaw had got any closer to hitting the floor it would have dislocated.

After the call our conversation went something like:
Me: "Ah. That should be sorted now..."
Her: "Gnagh...."
Me: "Sorry?"
Her: "You called them Bastard Wanks instead of Barclays Bank!!"
Me: "Yeah, well? You know I always call them rude names?"
Her: [still very shocked] "But, but, but, you can't really do it! You can refer to them as that when talking to other people, but you can't do it to their call centre staff?!"
Me: "Evidently I can. They've just agreed to pay me more compensation because of the delay in settlement"
Her: "But that's not fair! I work in a call centre and we're told to warn customers twice and then hang up on them if they're abusive!"
Me: "To you or the company you work for?"
Her: "Oh. I see your point. But you told the guy he was as effective as a chocolate kettle!"
Me: "That was honesty, it wasn't abusive, I didn't swear at him. If someone told you that would you be offended?"
Her: "Well, I never give shit answers, I'm always effective! If I can't give the answer then I pass them straight on to a supervisor! Oh - I see...."
Me: [Grins]

Jay: 1
Bastard Wanks: 0

Tomorrows post already has a title "Carpe Jugulum". Yep, spent the whole day doing it. Looking forward to posting it!

PS. Mouse still at large. Half the bloody world is talking about it and chuckling about it. The people on my other blog think it's wonderfully entertaining, some of the readers of TT's blog have said that if the mouse dies they're gonna stop reading her.

We don't care. Mr Bastard Mouse is gonna get it sooner or later.....

In the words of eminem, "I'm back, I'm back, da la la da la, I'm back...."

Laptop is alive again! I'm so happy! I've spent the last two days trying to restore its health and now it's sorted again. I'm a happy boy! Tt is ill again though I'm afraid which has meant my rejoicing has to be rather subdued. It's not nice to dance around doing happy dance while ones partner is feeling like shit is it?

Talking of shit, as I so often do, I'm at the stolen connection down the road again, and someone has let their dog do a huge pile of poop right next to the bench. How social is that? Shouldn't be hard to spot the culprit in the morning though, they'll be the one with a dog resembling a small camel. Or perhaps llama. This is a HUGE pile of poo. If it was any larger someone would have come along and jabbed a flag into it claiming it as a small country of their own.

A few minutes ago a girl spewed all over the pavement in front of me. That was nice. Sarcasm doesn't work well in the typed form does it?

I'll post properly over the next day or two, just wanted to let you all know my laptop is sorted and back on the road again. I've worked for years as an IT nerd, and this was the hardest problem I've ever had to sort. Trust it to be a non chargeable one :(

I could send myself a bill but I know I'd just argue it and refuse to pay...

Hope y'all have a great weekend.

Our bastard neighbour

...has taken away our free internet, and I think he may also have shafted my laptop. Respect to him if so. I thought it was hack-proof. Using TT's to write this and only got a couple of seconds as I promised I'd be back with it quick. I said I was just going out to see if any other wireles points existed. He he. I knew about this one!

Quick update, mouse is starving to death, he'd rather do that than try out the new hi tech mouse trap. I know he's still in there though, can't wait to post the pics, I'm very proud of my prison.

Anon's recommendation may be useful though, thanks anon. There's a turn up for the books eh? No pistol drawing at dawn and stuff. You all know me, I only take th piss when I think they deserve it, if they come back and read a little more they realise I'm pretty decent and blah de blah....Cheers anon, appreciate the link.

Er, real estate, ooh - thats real good. Apparently Michelle has been granted @emotional empathy@ after my call yesterday and now I have to speak to the branch manager. I said that was great because I'd rather talk to someone with some pretense of power anyway. Now he's crying too. Had fun again

Got to go now, bunch of bogans approaching rapidly from three o clock. hate this keyboard, esp in dark. bye.

So much laughter there's a small wee patch on my jeans

"What caused such a hilarious day" I hear you chorus. Well, I'll give details later but roughly:

My day started really well when someone left an abusive comment on my post below. I don't know why they felt the urge to call me a c word, but hey ho, it made me laugh lots. I love the thought of offending someone so much that they had to do that.

I spoke to our real estate agents. Oh, that's the bit that gave me wee in my pants. Only a little, you know, just when you laugh so much you can't help yourself? Well, that happened.

Encouraged by my success I called "fitness farce", or, as TT calls them, "Shitness First". The actual name is of course "Fitness First" and they should soon be renaming themselves "First Aussie company to be sued by a pommie bastard" Oh, that one made the wee patch a little bigger.

Oh, and I got about a million hits from google.com.au today too. That always makes any blogger happy. Not really a million of course, but the fact it's suddenly started happening means that some server in googleland has finally registered my site.

All in all, I'm a happy a boy. Details to follow. Oh, and I saw a tramp fall off a bench earlier too. How can you not laugh when that happens?

oooh, and I spent a small fortune on a new mouse trap. Mister Little, aka bastard mouse, aka Danger mouse, aka mousey bastard, aka "my obsessive obsession" is going to be dead soon. It's very hi-tech. Again, more later....

I'm such a child

I've just checked my stats thingy and my most recent visitor is from "Cumming". Snigger, snort, sorry...

Thanks for coming, person from Cumming. Oh foreign places are great for making me laugh. I'll just go and have some kok-kok from malaysia, swallowed down with some Power Sweat from dubai, then off to bed it is for me. I won't tell you what rude words that will involve...night.

Ooooh! A snapping sound!

I thought I just heard the snap of a mouse trap.

I went and checked. I was wrong. But the bastard fucking bastard fucking mouse has managed to get away with two match sticks stuck in with molten wax, holding food up high.

I'm about to give up. I'm gonna get really bloody violent now.

This isn't Danger mouse I'm dealing with, it's Special Forces Mouse. He has every skill. In fact, I don't know if I dare go to bed incase he tries to exact some revenge by setting light to it or something.

Anyone fancy a house swap? Anyone?

Double take: Danger Mouse

Danger Mouse: Update

a) I'm thinking about setting up my webcam in the vicinity we know the bastard lives. And if I post my mobile number too then you could sms me and I'll be there with a hammer.

b) TT came up with a great idea:
"How about raising the bait?" she suggested
"Er, you mean, let him eat $100 notes?" I panicked
"No you tart, just raise it up, higher, so he has to put his full body weight on the trigger thing..." She corrected.

Excellent plan! We now have two traps baited with upright match sticks holding the tempting pate-coated bread aloft. Let's see you get around this one mousy....

If I find mouse sized abseil gear next to the drier, and a lack of bait, I'm going to be mightily pissed off.

Talking of which, I spoke/shouted/threatened the real estate today. More details soon, but at the moment mousy is my number one enemy. I think he even beats Barclays Wank.

I may post his corpse to them as a subtle Mafia type threat. Not quite a horses head in the bed, but similar. I think a horses head would be much easier to get than the twitching corpse of our mouse most cunning.

When I do get him he's going to be mainly splattered over the walls.

Oh, and don't worry, I'll shut up about mousy soon, got other stuff to talk about too, believe it or not. I've just got a bit of a one-track mind going on at the moment. Does it show?

Danger Mouse

TT was doing her washing on Saturday, when suddenly she cried out: “Ooh! A mouse. Jeez Jay, there’s a fricking mouse in here!” Notice the use of “ooh” rather than “aagh” She’s an Aussie girl and she was brought up in country. We keep a clean house and she knows that they’re not unexpected invaders. She doesn’t get easily panicked by such things as most girls would.

(Yes, my name is Jay, it’s getting too hard to type “Author of this blog” when all I do is talk about myself. Besides, who cares? If TT was to stumble across this blog it would be pretty bloody obvious it was written by me wouldn’t it?)

I went and dutifully looked for Mr Little. No luck of course. I asked her, jokingly, “Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it baby?” She was obviously pre-prepared for this and just pointed to the top of the fridge. Mouse poo. Six of. And a (she also pointed this out) small pool of wee on my passport, which for some reason I’ve left on there since I arrived.

I agreed to be immediately dispatched to buy mousetrap. I didn’t have a clue where to go, but luckily Australian houses are obviously so mouse infested that all supermarkets stock them. I noticed to my disgust that they come in packs of two. I told the cashier that to the best of my knowledge, (justified by only six poos on the fridge), we only had one mouse, and wondered if I could get a discount on a split pack.

She just looked at me odd as so many Australians do and made me buy the whole two. “Still, half the time to catch him now” I thought to myself as I sauntered away from the store.

Learning to set a mousetrap was interesting. TT could do it no worries. I nearly broke my little finger 3 times. But at least it was only nearly.

The first bait we tried was bread. We checked half an hour later and it was gone. No dead mouse. So we when tried securing small pieces of bread with cable ties (well, actually those things you are supposed to close freezer bags with, but who’s checking?!)

No good. Bait gone, cable-tie gone.

I then tried a cunning manoeuvre: Instead of putting the bait on the platform I put it on the trigger release. Did it work? Did it fuck. Gone in ten mins.

We tried, both on platform and trigger, shepherds pie, chicken pie, bacon rind, apricot jam, bread, pate, sweet corn and apple pieces. He just ran off with the whole fucking lot. I decided I had two options left:

a) Put down only high cholesterol foods and wait for the bastard to die of coronary disease
b) Be a bit more cunning about the whole thing

So, in lieu of high cholesterol foods I decided to be more cunning and make the trigger more delicate. I used candle wax to stick together a small raft of four matches. I then made this into a ramp leading up to the trap.

Yes. I really did this.

My logic was thus: Leverage + gravity + stuff = heavier mouse. Therefore, Heavy mouse + trap = SNAP! Which therefore can be reduced to Jay=Winner, Mouse=Snapped. I’m great at physics/maths….The matches raft/lever didn’t work.

I then modified this idea and made a small bridge between the two traps made of stale bread. He ate my fucking bridge. See what a bastard I’m dealing with here?

So, I then decided to dress up like the dryer and stand next to washing machine and point a gun at the floor.

As he was showing all signs of eating us out of house and home I decided that perhaps his little mousey body wouldn’t be able to put up with alcohol. So, how do we take that to extremes? Aaah. Vodka soaked bread crust. I was against the poison idea since poison just makes mouse go away and die somewhere and create obnoxious body-rotting smells. I soaked some bread in vodka (just cheap shit, no Smirnoff for this bastard) and set that on the trap.

By this point he was so used to coming and eating the bait I almost expected him to be sat there with his little mousey knives and forks, banging them on our floor in a “Why are we waiting…?” kind of protest, the kinds of which I used to partake in at school.

Fortunately, for him, he wasn’t waiting, although he had left a small napkin and a tip. Metaphorical. Unless you count mouse turds as a tip - ie., You're from Eastern Europe...

The other animal

We've got a mouse in our house! I've got so much to tell you about my exploits to catch it, but I'm so tired it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry.

It's still at large though, so it's an ongoing thing. He's just getting fatter by eating all the bait in the traps we keep setting.

I hate our mouse! He's out-cunning me. I'm currently contemplating trying a plan inspired by Baldrick of Blackadder - it involves laying on the floor with a large piece of cheese in my mouth/attached to my nose. Ha Ha! Victory will be mine!

Talk to you more about the mouse later, I'm bored and tired of mouse-patrol for this evening and I think he's put off by the laptop. Perhaps if I pulled up some nudy pictures of girl mice...? Ha Ha! Told you victory would be mine - nude girl mice in the morning it is! Can't wait to tell TT the new plan. She thinks I'm getting slightly obsessed and a little mad. As if....

She's blogging about it and getting about 30 bloody suggestions per day about how to get rid of him. Bollocks to normal people and their ideas though. (Apart from the one girl that suggested tipping the washing machine over to get him out- I liked that one! She thinks like me!) I'll tell you more about Danger Mouse tomorrow....By which time he'll probably be dead mouse. HA HA HA HA! Little bastard....

I'm back. Tortured by two animals....

I know that some of my readers are in America. I know some are in Europe. I know that some are in Australia. I know that a couple, (only 2 regular, :-( I love Malaysia), are in Asia. Because I have to sometimes delete comments from idiotland, I guess I have some there too. Not sure where that is exactly, but everyone that lives there seems to be called "Anonymous"

So, that's most of the world reasonably well covered eh? Ok. Now imagine the sound of a crow where you live.

They're bloody awful aren't they?

Now, I'm not overly religious, but imagine some god, or alien, equipped them with an integral megaphone.

Then imagine the same bird with whooping cough.

Now imagine a teething baby crying in the background. It's screaming it's little lungs out, in time with the moments the crow is silent.

AAAAH!

Now, while the baby is taking a breath, and the crow is sucking eyeballs, or whatever crows do, picture a constipated donkey that's been given laxatives and is being torturered by a sadist that thinks that the Gestapo Officer training was just an opt out for wimps...

Now you've imagine every sound, put them all together. Then guess what...

Our parrot is making that noise. I only wish I'd recorded him instead of using all this mental imagary. It really doesn't do the bastard any justice for his truely amazing ability to make horrible fucking noises.

I'll tell you about the other animal later. He's even more of a bastard. I'm off to see whether it's possible to buy small arms and/or cannabis from the bars in this country. Only joking of course. Ahem. Love y'all....

Spew. English girls. Spew

I done more projectile vomit. I'm getting good at it now. I can look at myself in the mirror and vomit at my nose in my reflection and hit it with reasonable accuracy. How's that?!

Well, I suppose lots of people looking at me could offer to try, but only I can do it with such pin-pointed-ness accuracy. Anyone wanna see a picture of me? It wont really make you spew, at least, I hope not. I'm not horribly burnt or anything....

Tonight I went out on the piss. I know I shouldn't have done, but TT wanted to go out with her friend, and fuck, if she's going out on the piss, then SO AM I! Curse you illness, you'll never beat me, never! NOT UNTIL I'M DEAD! (And Yes, that is a fucking a challenge ya horrible buggy/virussy bastards!)

I had good time. Not saying no more....

oh, post title. I met some English girls. They smelt of wee.

Then I went home and spewed some more.

Double take

Double take

I'm still ill. Feel shit. I think I caught bird flu or something.

Friday. Um. Shit. Literally. Well, then........

I was very sick on Friday. I think I caught some sort of Aussie bug. I actually got it a couple of days ago but I've never been [this] sick before so this was a new experience for me.

TT brought home some "medicine". It said all over the bottle "contains tartazine". I got scared. "TT, tartrazine is banned in Europe coz it's such nasty shit?!"

"Bah! No idea what you're talking about ya pommie bastard! This is Tartazine, not Tartrazine!" was roughly the response I got.

"NOOOOO!" I pleaded. "I'm sure they also used call it "Tartazine" in Europe, I think the renaming thing was an effort to get an illegal European drug renamed in Australasia and Americas? "

"Bah! Australasia?! How many times have I told you it has no -asia on the end?!" she thundered

(The persons that go out and fetch medicine/fixing drugs are always nurses in my mind, therefore assimilated with ogres. Sorry TT)

I tried to escape but she put the tartrazine poison down my throat. It was actually lovely. I know it's only a colouring and all, but it was a lovely medicine. I enjoyed it. Like the way tramps enjoys cheap cough medicine when the local pharmacy has a sale. Yum.

It tasted minty and it made me zzzz. Hmmm. "Cheap cocktail" I thought as I fell asleep...

I think it must have had something besides Tartrazine because of the immediate sleepiness. Or perhaps that was the illness. Or perhaps my persistant whining like a girl until TT came into the bedroom swinging the iron on its cord. That's the last thing I remember. Aaah, sweet iron, with your hotness...

Aaaah. AAAAGHHHHH!

Sorry....

I'm really sorry but I feel shit. I'm sick. It's a new feeling to me, I've not been ill for years other than the odd cold and stuff. Today, I'm proper ill. I managed my first ever projectile vomit earlier. Too much info, right?

TT went to the pharmacy on her lunch break for me and told the pharmacist she was worried as I've never been ill. The pharmacist said "That's not possible, everyone gets ill" TT replied that in four years she's never seen me ill. Pharmacist asked if I'd been overseas recently. TT told her I'd come over from the UK three weeks ago. Pharmacist went nuts and demanded I went to the doctor immediately. She even threatened to call immigration people when she heard I'd flown in via Malaysia.

That's some serious paranoia right?

I'll be fixed tomorrow. I don't like being ill so I'm going to make my body fix itself. Ill is crap. Not being able to stray more than a few meters from a toilet is even crappier.

Sorry about this. Back later/tomorrow.

"Borrowed" connection from just down the street, gotta be quick post

Our internet is down again. Good service here in Aus, eh?

If it's not back tomorrow I'm seriously considering buying our own connection - I can't handle this! I'm ok, but TT is crying and scraping at the walls. Her blogging means much more than mine, she's got a million readers. Well, about that. Ish.

Saw a huntsman spider today. Scary bastards! I twatted it with a dead palm leaf - it started running up the leaf so I dropped it and then jumped on it about a thousand times while flailing arms (cos that helps) and hyperventilating like an asthmatic kid that's taken ten E's. Because that also helps.

TT came outside because she thought I was having an epileptic fit in the yard. After all my efforts of 'kill and destroy' she saw the spider limp away, shaking one of his little spider fists at me, and said "oh, it's ok, it's not poisonous, they just bite bad, sometimes make your flesh rot".

Oh. Well. Glad I didn't successfully flatten the little octopedian punk then. He's not going to kill me. He just wanted to make my flesh rot. Guess that's ok then, eh?!

My next post will be a catch up one. The one after that will be things I miss about the UK and it'll surprise you all I think!

Sorry no time to post proper. But some Aussie info for you

There's an old joke: How do you make an Irish man dizzy? Stand him in a barrel and tell him to piss in the corner...

That sprung to mind today when I was presented with the pool table to the left. The black board (sorry PC correct UK, the writing board) says on it "Make your own rules!"

I'm told that this pool table has been the scene of more pool related fights than any other in Brisbane. No shit eh? I love a game of pool, and I used to play pretty well when I was a wee young 'un, but imagine being faced with that for a hustley decider game? Bollocks.

Today the joke was definitely on me. How do you make pommie blogger dizzy? Stand him in front of that bastard and tell him the white ball is at the other end....

Aussie slang (Genuine ones):

Thongs = flip-flop type shoes
G-Bangers=Thongs
Stubbie holder=small receptacle for holding bottle of beer
Stubbie=have a guess, Genius
Bottlo=Place licensed to sell alcohol for consumption at home
Bogan=Chav/Twat/Drunken or loud or outspoken idiot
Hissy fit=mildly annoyed (this surprised me as you'd expect it to mean majorly pissed off)
Divvy Van=Police van for carrying drunkards
Bum=tramp
Woobler= homemade wine
Bundy=Rum
Goon=Cheap wine
Monged=broken
ah yeh!!!=ok
ah yeh!!=please
ah yeh!=if you don't mind
aw yeh=sorry
aww yeh...?=I think so
yeh mate!=Another beer please
yeh, mate, yeh!=I think he/she is definitely interested in having sex with you and you should pursue it
soccer=football
yeh! Ya fucking pommie bastard!=Hi, [Author of this guide]!

There we have it. Everything you need to know about Australia. Completely accurate. ahem. I've not got much time so I had to fill some space quickly. You'd better get ready to rest your sphincters tomorrow though, because I've actually got quite a lot of random shit to share. So to speak. That's slang of another kind, not to be taken in any way literally.

And it's not all about sex or anything. Mainly.

Super, man...

We got bored so we went to watch the new Superman movie. He throws an island into space. He seems to think the answer to every problem is to hurl it into space.

"Oh shit! A nuclear warhead launched by the evil Lex Luther - I'll just throw it into space..."

"Oh shit! An island planted by the evil Lex Luther! I'll just throw it into space..."

Why the hell doesn't he just throw Lex Luther into space and save all the unnecessary trips?

We also found an amusingly named restaurant but it only makes sense if you understand Aussie slang. If someone has a "mong leg" it means they have a broken leg. If your TV reception is bad, you have a "monged signal". So basically it means broken, defective, etc. We passed a restaurant called "Mongkok" which sounds like a terribly painful affliction.

I couldn't stop laughing all the way up three escalators.

1 x french girl, 1 x dutch girl, 1 x german MAN, 3 x Aussie girls

Double take
I'm such a slut. The title of this post is description of the people that wanted to have my boy bits. I let them either

a)give me cigs
or
b)buy me drinks.

I feel a complete tart.

TT didn't come out with me in the end. She was tired after a week of early starts. She really expected me to cancel my plans too, but hey, my plans weren't the ones that backfired. I've been planning to go out for a week and nothing changed with me.

Please don't think I'm evil, I love her to bits, but I've got to establish that if she wants to go out without me, then I can handle it, and she's got to reciprocate. I wont be swayed on this.

We both trust each other fully, and although she'll sigh lots when I tell her my "count", she'll also know heartfelt-fully that I'm hers. "Let the other bitches buy/give him stuff, they're not getting him..." That'll be her thought and she's more than 200% correct.

Had a fucking good time though. And I saw two vaginas. I shouldn't be so blunt should I?

Now going to bed and hopefully making the count 3. Can you tell when I'm pissy?

Oh. btw. Does anyone know why sheilas are called sheilas in Aus? Helen? Mel? Come on girls, you're both aussie, you should know your heritage.

Jeez I'm pissed.

Brisbane, get ready...Gym, get f@#ked....!

I'm about to get ready to go out with TT into the city! Decision was made for me at lunch time when she said "Since S ins't coming out, what are we doing instead?" and looked at me with big puppy-dog eyes. I'm sure you're reading aren't you TT?!

So we're now going out and I'll have to refrain from sex with complete strangers, drugs, fighting, and all the other stuff I was planning to do (!)

We've both been to her gym to finalise the cancellation of the membership and we had a bad time. The gym woman was a cow. I can't post about it though, cos she just has and if she searches for her post (as she tends to do) she'll find mine. Until I have definate confirmation she's reading this I'll do my best to keep it secret.

But basically they were arseholes and they're about to encounter some british wrath since I've now been home and read her contract and confirmed that they were speaking complete and utter bollocks. I thought it was odd that two different people on the phone told us the same cancellation procedure and this wench told us it wasn't possible. Never mind, it'll make a great entry next week, I can almost assure you!

Hope you all have a good weekend, I'm going to get showered then off to "do one" on Brisbane. Naturally I'll let you know how it goes. If you get tempted to join a gym, check the terms and conditions. They'll know the meaning of a bloody work out soon...!