Procedure for a perfect saturday

1) Wake up next to babu

2) Go for a nice long walk together

3) Visit shopping centre and both buy nice new clothes

4) Discover a "boy shop" full of power tools and other cool stuff

5) "Serve yourself" (aka - balancing act of greed) chinese food for lunch

6) Attend a private salsa dance lesson at the tutors $5m house

7) Partake in 18+ fun on the sofa (at home, not the tutors house)

8) Seafood basket to share for dinner

9) Snooze

I are a happy boy - who wouldn't be?

I have a new foe. Telstra - you've been warned.

Telstra.

For those lucky enough to not know the name, it's a telecoms company in Australia. And they think it's right to bill me $1.21 per minute for calls to S's mobile but only $0.89 per minute for calls to a mobile in Canadania.

W T F ????

They were both off peak calls so that's not an issue. I have no international discounts or "local penalties", those are just the rates.

Please, can anyone explain this? I'm going to the Telstra outlet tomorrow because their support line isn't giving me answers. Fortunately tomorrow is late night opening, so they have up to 4 hours to provide an explanation or put up with me doing my favourite "anti big company thing".

"What's your 'Anti big company thing?' " I hear you cry. It's simple people. I stand in the nearest branch and until I'm satisfied I talk loudly to every customer that enters about my bad experiences. Honestly and truthfully of course - I wouldn't want to slander Telstra, I just like to share my experiences with potential $165 a month money pots 'light user' customers.

I'll let you know how it goes :)

On another note, do you think I've posted enough today? How about my whinge levels? Enough already? Blame Telstra. Fucking rip off fuckers.

This isn't normal

I just popped out to the shop. As I was leaving I noticed a set of keys on my outside table. They weren't there half an hour ago because I was sat out there and I would have noticed a large bunch of keys in front of me.

Who's been in my garden and why have they left a set of keys on the table next to my BBQ?

I'm confuzzled. The keys are now indoors and if someone wants them back they'll have to knock and explain themselves. That's a fair call isn't it?

It's only bin a day!

...and perhaps one of my neighbours is a secret reader of my blog?

Last night was Garbage bin night. Imagine my surprise to hear the sound of someone dragging a wheely bin inexpertly towards the street. In shock I ran to my window to see who'd actually managed to get their arse into gear to take their bin out for collection. I almost laughed when I saw someone dragging one of the recycle bins sideways across the shared yard area. Yes, sideways. Not on the wheels as a normal person would, but sideways. In addition to this display of idiocy it's not even recycle week. The "give away" is a lack of recycle bins up and down the street.

Me: [Opens window] "Hey, mate! You don't need to take that out today!"

Idiot: "But it's full"

Me: "Recycle week was last week. You've got to wait another week"

Idiot: "How come it's full already?"

Me: "Cos last week it was wedged to the side of our driveway when the recycle van went past. The other one is empty because I put it out on the street"

Idiot: "Oh. Why wasn't this one out too?"

Me: "I took the other one out, I started taking that one and then realised I was running late for work so I left it in the driveway for someone else to put out"

Idiot: "Oh. Well I'll put it out now"

Me: "But it wont get collected - there's no point. You'll just have to make do with the other one"

Idiot: "But this one is full. I'll put it out now and they can collect it next week"

Me: "So it'll just stand outside our house for a full week blocking the pavement until next Tuesday rather than remaining in our bin depot?"

Idiot: "Yeah."

Me: [shuts window]

I came home from work and collected my empy garbage bin from the street. Mine was the only garbage bin but there is one very full recycle bin still standing there...

Where's ya bin?

The place I live provides bins in the shared carpark area. There are 8 apartments in this block. We each have one rubbish bin and we share two recycle bins. The normal rubbish day is every Tuesday. The recycle day is every other Tuesday. It works out really well for me and any other normal person. The garbage bins easily hold 2 to 3 weeks of rubbish so it doesn't matter if you forget to put it out one week.

The recycle bins easily handle all the recyclable rubbish for us if used correctly. Unfortunately, the people that live around me are idiots. The whole rubbish thing raises my blood pressure way more often than it should. For more than one reason.

Firstly, other people forget to put out their bins. For more than 3 consecutive weeks. I wish this was 100% true but sadly it's not. They don't forget. They're TOO FUCKING LAZY. They have to walk or drive past all the other bins on the street to get home so it's not as though they can be blissfully unaware that it's bin day. They just can't be bothered to walk. Hang on, wait, I'll brb. OK, it's 39 short steps from the bin depot to the street. 15 seconds walk. And they can't be bothered.

After all, why should they? When their stinky rubbish is overflowing they know all they have to do is start using MY FREAKING BIN. The one that's always almost empty because it somehow gets emptied on a weekly basis and I generate half the rubbish of a normal person. This pisses me off.

The thing that annoys me even more is the recycle bins. Oh, where do I begin with these beauties?

a) General household rubbish does NOT go in the recycle bin. I appreciate it's really tough to know what to do when your own rubbish bin is overflowing, and the big sign saying "Cardboard, paper, tins, glass ONLY" is SO difficult to comprehend, but seriously people, are you inbred?

b) If you have a large cardboard box then you're right to put it in the recycle bin. But how about tearing it up or compacting it first so that you don't use the entire volume of the bin with one large empty box?

c) Again, the bins do not empty themselves. I have taken one of the shared recycle bins out every recycle day that I have lived here and been in the country. I have recovered one empty recycle (usually the only one) bin from the street every post recycle day and restored it to it's position (next to the other overflowing one) without exception. There are 8 of us using them, this doesn't seem right to me.

d) I have recently begun taking out one bin and leaving the other in the middle of the driveway so that no vehicle can enter or leave the premises without dealing with it. Every time it has been pushed to the side of the driveway. This really is the height of laziness. It's more effort to position the bin to get your fucking car past than it is to push it out of the already open gate and onto the street!

e) This one is minor, I should be grateful: Very occasionally someone else will take out a recycle bin. And plonk it right in the middle of the normal rubbish bins. Do you not realise how annoying this is for the garbage truck guys? They have one truck that picks up both bins but they have to use a different hook thingy for the recycle bins. It's so much easier if they can do both recycle bins, change the hook and then do the plain garbage. Not to do two garbage, one recycle, two garbage, one recycle, 2 garbage. That's just plain annoying for them. I'm not a garbage man but I can easily understand how infuriating it must be.

I feel better for moaning. If I'd not done so I may have been contemplating whether ripped off body parts go in the recycle bin or plain garbage.

PS. Tt actually took a photo of the recycle bin once with nothing in it but a large piece of flat cardboard inserted diagonally to prevent anything else from being inserted and which also stopped the lid closing. She found it funny because I took one look at it and exploded with fury. She was planning to blog about me and my bin thing but it never happened. Now I can't find the photo. I guess even I'm not obsessed enough to keep a photo of a bin forever.... The sad thing is I've just spent 40 minutes looking for it.

My thanks

As well as some comments on here I got many emails wishing me well. Thanks to you all. An honourable mention to someone (who shall remain nameless) that sent me an email with the subject line "Sick Fuck" and said (I quote) "...I just thought you were too busy getting laid and that's why you weren't online." Thanks girly, good to know what you think of my morals and standards ;)

You all moved me to such a feeling of gratitude that I donated money to the emergency department of the hospital and also to their childrens ward fund. You've all helped to donate $500 to two very good causes. Sleep well on that and thank you again.

Normal service to resume shortly....

7 short stories

Coherency Tests
As my home was the emergency department they have certain procedures in place that apply to all patients. One of these is the "three hourly vitals check". It's relatively simple - every three hours (no shock there) a nurse visits and checks the levels in the IV drips, they check the blood pressure, body temperature and take a blood sample for a full count. Then they ask a couple of random questions which constitutes the "coherency test" element. These questions are designed to be simple and their purpose is to show if a patient is becoming confused for any reason. Prime questions are things like "What's your middle name?", "How old are you?", "What colour is that wall?", etc.

This is fine. I can handle such tests. Until I realise that they have no respect for sleep time. I'm a patient person, I take pride in my calmness and my ability to remain unphased by unpleasant things (This doesn't mean I do remain unphased by unpleasant things - sometimes I like to get phased but I can control it if I want to)

But I'm not good at being woken up. I take it badly. And there's nothing worse than being woken up about 3am to get your checks and a ridiculous question. Especially when you don't know the answer to the stupid question. Guess what they asked me? "How long has John Howard been prime minister of Australia?" My grumpy answer summed up my coherence nicely I think: "How the fuck should I know? I'm a pom. I don't even remember who the new pm of UK is. Leave me alone" and I roll over and go back to sleep.

I don't actually remember this incident, the nurse told me about it in the morning. I couldn't tell whether she'd found it funny or not. I hurt myself laughing - that's just such a "me" thing to do.

Being Let Out
On Thursday night they agreed to let me go home for an hour to arrange care for Reg the cockatiel. They were worried about my drip though. By this point my veins were pretty much all used up and they didn't fancy their chances of finding another vien on my return. I suggested they just leave the catheter in place and I could reconnect on my return. The doctor looked at me with a shocked expression and said "But you could put anything in there!"

I gave him "a look" and he shyly mumbled "I'll see you in about an hour." I may have many faults but I was shocked that he thought my first action would be to try and IV random substances into my veins. Idiot.

Old Man
I was kept in the Emergency ward with two other people. An old man and a teen girl. The old man was....well....old. But I was shocked when I heard them do the coherency check on him. They asked his date of birth. He was born in 1914. Wow. I knew he was old, but he just didn't seem that old! His extensive family visited most of the daylight hours and they were all trying to convince him of one thing - to give up driving. Bloody hell. This guy is 93 and he's still driving! Guess why he was in hospital? You got it. He'd rammed another car....

Girl Gets Clap
During another mid-night vital check wake up I was shocked to discover that an earthquake was occurring. Then I realised I'd slightly over reacted and in fact it was the pretty young girl in the bed next to me snoring like a trooper. I told the nurse I'd never be able to get back to sleep again with that noise and asked if there was anything that could be done.

The sighed and said that regretfully there was nothing she could do. She confessed that the noise was driving her nuts too but it was simply not acceptable to wake the girl or try to move her. I accepted this and as soon as the nurse turned her back I clapped my hands as loudly as I possibly could.

The old man swallowed his teeth, the young girl immediately sat bolt upright, I pretended to be asleep and the nurse scurried out as quickly as she could and was heard giggling for the next 10 minutes. In the morning she told me I was evil, giggled and gave me a coffee even though I was on clear fluids only. Whooot!


Scary Surgeon
All the staff were brilliant. With one exception. A surgeon who was about 7ft tall, 3 ft wide and had hands covered in scars. That can't be a good look for a surgeon right? I wasn't sure whether to mentally nickname him Igor, Frankenstein, McBain or Lurch. He was kind of a cross between all of them.

His introduction to me was "Hello. I'm Mr Vatz. I'm a surgeon. This means I like to cut people with my scalpel so I can see what problem they have. Then I stitch them. Lay back"

That's some "bed-side manner" huh?

CAT Scan
I had to sign a disclaimer before having this. It warned me that lots of people get allergic reactions to being injected with radioactive matter. Swollen throat and choking is common, death is rare. Hmmm. That's what you really need to read.

I was wheeled up to the department and left in the corridor for about an hour. Eventually a doc came out and apologised that I'd been waiting so long. The reason? New machine, not sure how it works, we had to test it before we put you in it. Wow. That makes me feel even more confident eh?!

I go in, I'm asked to remove my pants. At that point I realise I'm wearing the most embarrassing pair of cartoon motifed underwear ever. I sheepishly strip and cop the look from the nurse. She's trying not to laugh and shaking with the effort. This is one great experience.

I lay down in front of the big polo and the nurse tests my catheter by trying to push through some saline. No luck. The doc says it's probably clotted and try pushing harder. The nurse says "Wont that push the clot into the vein?" and the Doc says "Yeah, but it's small - it probably wont do any harm"

I'm now feeling doubly confident. Are these guys determined to kill me or what?!

They give up trying to get the catheter to work and decide to put another in. I tell them that most of my veins are used up apart from the ones on the top of my right hand. The doc smiles and says "We're going to be pumping the dye into you at a minimum of 4ml a second. The veins in your hand can't cope with that volume. They'd explode. We need to find one that probably wont rupture"

"Probably"?! Fucking "Probably"?! You'd better search proper pal or I'm gonna be seriously pissed off! Exploding veins are really not what I need today! He senses my concern and goes for the jugular. Almost literally. He jabs a needle into the side of my neck.

I'm then given the warning that when they inject I'll have a metal taste in my mouth followed by a warm flush and the sensation I've pissed myself. Hmmm. There's something else to look forward to - these CAT scans are FUN FUN FUN eh?

To be honest, it was fine. Didn't really feel a thing. If you ever need to have one, don't be phased, it's cool really.

Food To Go
When I got told by the docs I could leave it was the same time that the care staff were coming around taking food orders. I ordered variety of sandwiches and waited for them to arrive before stuffing them in my bag and leaving. This was proof to myself I was truly better. Taking advantage of any situation to be a tight arse on a mission for value.

World, brace ya self, I'm back.

You wont get rid of me that easily...

Once again, my apologies for not posting for a while. This time I can truly blame circumstances beyond my control. You see, the local hospital does not provide in-bed internet connections and that's where I've been for a few days.

I felt a bit ill on Tuesday, got iller, went to the hospital, partook in:

• Cardiogram tests
  
• Ultra sonic tests
  
• Ultra sound tests
  
• Chest Xrays
  
• Abdominal Xrays
  
• CAT scans
  
• Pre-surgical examination
  
• Needles for 30+ blood samples
  
• Needles for 10+ litres worth of IV drip (probably to replace all the blood they kept stealing - or perhaps to make up for four days of no food and extremely limited supplies (3 cups a day) of water)
  
• Needles for Various drugs that couldn't be added to the drip solution
  
• Needles for injecting me with radioactive tracer
  
• Examinations by 20+ concerned and dedicated professionals
  

Now I'm home. And much better. To continue to annoy my enemies and delight my friends. Good job I'm better at annoying than delighting eh?

Although I'm now allowed to drink fluids normally again I don't think I dare because I fear I'd look like something out of one of those cartoons and suddenly start sprinkling water out of my abundance of needle holes. I went to a 7-11 store earlier and I'm sure the guy thought I was going to try and do a hold up because I look like a druggy with all the bruising in my veins.

On a serious note though, if you ever decide to get yourself ill, try and do it in Brisbane. The service from the surgeons, doctors, nurses, even the wardies was unfaultable. They are a true credit to their professions, their hospital and Australia. My most sincere thanks to all of you wonderful people.

Naturally I have managed to gather together a few things to tell you bloggy readers, but right now I'm pretty exhausted and I need to go to my own bed. Even though it doesn't have buttons to make it go up and down, tilt, recline, etc. To make up for this hardship I'm sure I wont be woken every 3 hours by a nurse wanting to check my coherence, vital signs and pain levels...

Mobile again!

Today I bought a

Can you name the truck with four wheel drive,smells like a steak and seats thirty five.

Canyonaro, Canyonaro,

Well it goes real slow with the hammer down,it's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown.

Canyonaro-whoa, Canyonaro,

(The federal highway commission has ruled theCanyonaro unsafe for highway or city driving.)

Canyonaro.

Twelve yard long, two lanes wide,sixty five tonnes of American pride.

Canyonaro, Canyonaro,

Top of the line in utility sports,Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts.

Canyonaro, Canyonaro,

She blinds everybody with her super high beams,she's a squirrel squasher, deer smacking, driving machine.

Canyonaro-whoa, Canyonaro.

small economical runaround vehicle. You know - Just something for the weekends. Don't ask me what it is, I can't remember because I looked at so many before finally choosing. It's got a wheel in each corner and a lump of metal jiggary-pokery at the front that burns decayed aminimal goo at a terrible very economical rate.

It's got a "go" pedal and a "stop" pedal. The "go" pedal is very effective. Small vehicles and buildings don't seem to stop it going - only the "stop" pedal can do that.

I'm only going to keep it for the next six months or so then I'll grow up and get a "normal" vehicle but I need to get this done. Did you know Australia actually has places that need a 4x4 to access? That would be a shocker for loads of the mums using them to go and collect the kids from school 2 minutes walk away eh?

PS. It's got a wicked fold out thingy at the back which will make it wicked for "rootin' in the back of the ute...."