Big girl

Bear in mind the last post when you read this.

Pinot just brought in a Weta. Wikipedia descibes them as being like a cross between a cricket and a cockroach. Link below.

The one Pinot brought in was about 15cm long. And still alive. Pinot thought it was fantastic. I thought I was going to die. I managed to get it into a jug and out onto the deck. Pinot will probably go back out and get it and bring it back in. Possibly into my bed.

No sleep for me tonight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weta

Hungover

Last night I celebrated my thirtieth birthday in New Zealand. I did this by getting annihilated. It was lovely and I had a great evening. And then today I feel like I've been hit by a car. And then reversed over. A couple of times.

I had the party at The Musket Room in Ponsonby and if you are having a party in New Zealand and you are looking for a venue - I recommend this place. They were AMAZING. The food was fantastic, the music was great, they even opened the door to the cabs as people were leaving.

I am not capable of much else this evening so I'm goign to bed now.

Revenge

Since Pinot brought me the baby bird, my car has been shat on seven times*

I'm not exaggerating.

Coincidence? I think not.

* by birds

Final Straw

I got home today and I had a piece of mail addressed to me from my broadband company. "Broadband now in your area" it declares. It even has a roadsign with the name of my road on it.

"Oh" I thought, "A personalised welcome to the company. Finally they do something right!"

But then I read on

"We've just upgraded the lines in your area, so now your neighbourhood can connect to the world with Broadband.

"Sign up today and get a $20 credit to your account"

But I signed up two weeks ago and activated my account on Monday.

I probably don't need to say but...

BASTARDS

Pinot the wonder cat

My younger cat, Pinot, really is a very talented creature. She fetches you see. You throw something small and preferably chewable and she brings it back for you to do it again. Rubber things are popular, those plastic wrapped tie things that you get to keep chords on electrical equipment tidy are a fave, plastic covers from magazines scrunched up into a ball are also good.

Sometimes she decides she'd like to play this game while I am engaged in other activities. For example sleeping. So she does this thing where she wakes me up 'accidentally', by dropping the fetching object in my ear or betwen me and the duvet and then stand on my chest and uses her paw with almost unveiled claws to retrieve it. Endearing? No. No it's not.

Anyway sometimes it's easier to just play for a bit. But the other night I felt something drop by my back and decided against it. I could hear Pinot purring her head off and she even came and sat on my chest to see if that might rouse me. I wasn't having it.

And when I woke up properly the following morning, the object that Pinot had dropped right next to me in my bed was... a dead, baby bird.

Revenge

So today I was randomly selected form the millions of people who, in the last month, have contacted the company I have been dealing with for my broadband.

They wanted to survey me on my customer experience.

Oh the sweet, sweet justice of it all.

I was ABSOLUTELY honest. I feel exorcised.

Interestingly, last night a prime time current affairs show awarded the very same division the 'Complete Ass Award'

I'm so pleased that my experience was a consistant one.

FINALLY

I have just now managed to get broadband.

Finally.

Once the modem arrived it didn't work.

It took two more phonecalls and the patience of a saint. I also had to lug the Tv out of the wall, replug all of my appliances with extra power boards etc and pretty much almost kill myself moving it from my phone line to my /sky line and back agin several hundred times.

The USB cable (or 'the blue one') is about half a metre too short to be of any use to anyone but there you go.

I'm exhausted

Stupid week

The stupid week continued .... and so did my saga with my alleged braodband provider. I was supposed to get my modem last week and then call on Saturday to set it up. But the modem didn't show so the following conversation took place:

Me: Hi, I haven't received my modem
Broadband person: Let's have a look. It was delivered
Me: Well I haven't received it
Broadband person: Well it was delivered.
Me: (Verify they have the correct name, address etc) Nope it hasn't shown up
Broadband person: Well according to the file it was delivered at 11.15 on Wednesday
Me: ....
Broadband person: Hang on I'll check with the courier company.... Thanks for holding, they're not there but according to the file it was delivered at 11.15 on Wednesday.
Me: (slightly angry) I'm not here at 11.53 during the day, neither is my flatmate. I cleared the mail that night and it wasn't there. I am now standing in front of my letterbox and it's not there. It may have been delivered but it's not here.
Broadband person: Is there a delivery card from the comapny?
Me: No
Broadband person: Well I can leave a message for the courier company but I'm not on again until Monday at 12.00. so...
Me: (speaking in very clipped tones to illustrate that despite her not being at work until 12.00 on Monday I am NOT letting her off the hook). What do you think I should do?
Broadband person: I'll log a call with the courier company and call you back on Monday...

Cut to Monday

Broadband person: Hi I checked with the courier company and it was delivered at 11.53 on Wednesday.
Me: (Through clenched teeth). Well I didn't get it.
Broadband person: Was there a card from them?
Me: (Pause to dwell on the thought that I work for the same group of companies as this person and so would not struggle to track her down and have this conversation in person). No.

After further conversation backwards and forwards, we agreed that she would order another one to be sent to my work address this time, where there would be someone to receive it and she would credit me $5.23 which is exactly four days of broadband usage taking me to Tuesday.

It still hasn't shown up.

I have my angry face on.

Back in New Zealand

I'm home! Again.

It's good to be back although it's not good to no longer be in Dublin. The weather is better here though!

It does appear that I have left my brain in Dublin however. I have reached this conclusion based on the following incidents:

I really wanted to buy perfume while I was travelling. I need some and I really wanted to get it duty free. So I found some I wanted in Dublin Airport just as they called my flight. In a rush I brought it up to the till and paid for it and hopped on my flight. When I got to Auckland and opened the box what I found I had purchased was this:

http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P167638&categoryId=B70

For $100. I. Hate. It.

But I wasn't finished there. In Hong Kong Airport they were doing a two for one special on Pashminas. They were HK$1050 each. Brilliant I thought. I applied my advanced currency conversion skills. Two geniune pashminas for $50.

No. Try $200.

Brilliant.

But wait. There's more.

Yesterday I was in a pay and display car park trying to text to park. After four attempts I realised that it wasn't working because it was a VODAFONE text to park and I have a TELECOM mobile. Rocket science. so then a gent wandering by said he still ahd an hour of parking left and he was leaving. Did I want it? Oh yes I did.

So what this meant was that I should follow him to his car, get the ticket and display it on the dash of my car.

What I actually did was run away from him to the other end of the car park where my car was and hop in it because somewhere in my brain I had decided that I needed to be in his actual space. I realised my mistake about half way between my space and his. He was at the car park exit. Feeling flustered and embaressed, I hopped out of my car, ran up to him and said... wait for it..."I'm such a blonde".

No Lorraine. You're not. You have red hair.

So now the guy is thinking that I'm not only stupid, I'm also deluded.

Got home and opened up my brand new laptop (I have a new lap top). I called a broadband provider from the land line to set up my internet access on it. They asked me if I was plugged into the phone socket and I said no but I'll do it right now. Once I pulled the phone jack out of the wall to put in the internet cable I realised my mistake. I tries to call them back on my mobile but I'd made the call at 8.55, they close at 9.00 and it was now 9.05. So I missed them

Seriously. I'm eating fish every day but it's not doing that brainfood thing it's supposed to. Anyone got any other ideas?

Packing

I'm going back to NZ tomorrow. And so what I should be doing is packing. what I am doing is sorting through a bag of papers that my mam wants me to take with me or throw away for chrissakes.

Oh. My. God.

There is the usual dreadful diary shit that I will have to take with me as we don't have a shredder and there's no way I'm just throwing it away. Embarassing.

There are hundreds of letters written to me in Donegal, Cork, America, Dublin from friends family, boyfriends. Including one of the most beautiful love letters from a guy I knew for a total of two weeks in Wisconsin. Some I am keeping, some I am binning, some I am keeping but know I will never have the courage to read.

There are dozens of poems written by friends. Some are hilarious and some are very, very good.

There is a Valentine Card 'to my wife, Lorraine' signed from 'Mr Pitt'.

There is a letter from Kerry that I CANNOT WAIT TO READ TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS HER.

I have also found two and a half episodes of a radio play that I worked on with seven other people. Five episodes actually went to air before we got cut for being generally unreliable. I was originally supposed to be one of the actresses but muscled into the writing team eventually and ended up doing a bit of directing too.

It was based on six students sharing two flats on campus at University College Dublin. Sort of Friends, only on the radio and with Irish accents, limited sex and no money. The writing teams worked in two teams of four and I can't remember who wrote which of the spisodes but the half episode is the worst.

However, it has handwritten notes at the end that made me choke with laughter and nostalgia for the sheer clever pretentiousness of it all.

The scene is fairly typical. Fresher student (dave) tries his hand at some clever debating at the immensly popular and well attended debating society friday night event. He is lucky to escape with his life. His dignity is another matter. The girl (emer) who fancies him is trying to comfort him and he lashes out at her and stalks off. Fade to next scene (the handwritten bit)

The handwritten notes are clearly intended to take the piss out of the simplistic nature of the scenario by doing a pastiche of Sam Beckett's Happy Days/ Waiting for Godot

Notes in handwriting unknown:

A scream. Pause (five seconds)

Fade to Emer buried up to her neck in rubbish. Parasol goes on fire reflecting the essential meaninglessness of existance

My handwriting:

(alternatively we could just fade to Emer snogging Dave)

Back to unknown handwriting:

Emer: Argh! (pause five seconds) My parasol (pause three seconds) is on ... fire (pause) reflecting the essentail .... meaninglessness... of existance.

Fade to country lane. Enter Pozzo and Lucky on hands and knees.

Pozzo: so... where's the debate

Seriously. We were subsidised to be at university for fukes sakes.

Your opinion please

In the States I tossed a coin to pick an apartment to live in , after university I tossed a coin to pick a city to live in. In light of the last entry, would it be ridiculous to toss a coin to pick a hemisphere?

Hello. Again

Is once a month poor show for blogging? I think it probably is.

So I'll join each and every other blgger on the planet and vow to blog more in the New Year. Hmm yeah. Whatever.

No really.

Anyway I'm getting a laptop this year. For sure. As soon as I get my MASSIVE xmas debt under control. So in October 2008 then. We'll see.

I'm currently in Dublin and the rain is pitter pattering on the roof over my head in a very Oirish kind of way. I've been away from NZ for almost a month and some features of that time have been:

• two (boozy) thirtieth birthday celebrations
• diving in Lanzarote
• xmas with my family for the first time since 1999
• my mammy cooking me dinner a lot
• a new year's party that flung me right back into the days of university parties where we sang for eight hours without stop, you had at least three fascinating conversations with people you've just met, people recited poetry and you caught unsuspecting revellers in random pashes on your way to the loo

Everyone keeps asking me am I looking forward to being back in NZ. The answer is yes I am. But if they asked me if I am looking forward to leaving Dublin, the answer is no.

I rang Auckland on christmas day and managed a few words with Kerry and Claire over a resounding Singstar rendition of A Thing Called Love which sounded as if it was being performed by about forty people after forty drinks each. I was dying to be there. I miss everyone in NZ and my cats and I am looking forward to going back to work and doing more diving this summer and running again because Dublin sucks for that kind of thing.

And Lanzarote was great and I've had a ball and I love being in Dublin. The city is beautiful the people are magnificent (except for shop assistants who are universally rude and need a freekin good slap in the gob) and I don't actually mind the weather all that much. My family are brilliant, the dog is the cutest canine in the world, my friends here are great too. And then there's the central heating...

Highlights

....from the previous month or so that I have been ignoring this blog.

In no particular order

1. Got burgled again
2. Had to move
3. Have been drinking solidly for six weeks
4. On Friday night / sat am I caught a cab home with my boss. Apparantly I couldn't remember my address.
5. I'm going home in a week
6. I bought a new car
7. I discovered that my cat Puck, prefers tea towels to litter trays as a toilet venue when he's locked into the new house. Frankly it was a relief. I was concerned that he was going to burst soon when I couldn't find the poo anywhere else.
8. I had been out so many nights in a row and partying so heavily that my friend Belinda was not surprised to receive the following text from me at 5.00 am on a Sunday morning, "Still out. Will probably die soon. I'm looking forward to it. Could do with the rest" I have no memory of sending the text.
9. I did a half marathon - it was amazing, life changing, inspiring.
10. Havn't run since

Hope everyone is well

xx

And still with the cold housing

I refer you to earlier messages where I talked about how cold it is in NZ houses. And then today' the NZ Herald ran an article with the headline:

Insulation good for the health and the pocket, says survey

I'm sorry- this is a HEADLINE???

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10407427

Link above takes you to the full story but in a nut shell :

Reports from 500 of those homes surveyed showed 91 per cent of people felt warmer, 71 per cent drier, 86 per cent more comfortable, 39 per cent healthier and 58 per cent reported power bill savings.

Contact [power company] chief executive David Baldwin said the results reinforced the importance of ongoing investment in home insulation and energy efficiency.

"The strength of these results has surprised even us," he said.

"For 39 per cent of people to say their health had improved simply through living in a properly insulated home shows what a difference the Healthy Homes programme is making, and how home insulation is a significant public health issue."

He was heartened by people reporting lower power bills and an improved quality of life.
"With so many New Zealand homes cold, damp and energy-inefficient, there are huge gains to be made through simple energy-efficient steps around the home."

What? The CEO of a power company is surprised that insulation is a good idea.

Grr. Argh.

Also...

Noticed in a previous blog that I mentioned my lost glasses.

Hum.

Well I bought new ones and i claimed them on my content insurance. Then I claimed the excess on my medical insurance.

Then, this weekend, I found my glasses.

Oopsey.

No more wine for me whicle logged on - I'm revealing insurance fraud already.

The best laid plans...

So since the last entry I have don two runs.

But also smoked two cigarettes and drank booze booze booze.

At the moment I am enjoying a glass of wine at my desk as I wind down to the weekend. I am about to log off, go to the supermarket and buy more wine so that I can enjoy wine with friends over dinner at my house.

I like booze. This is the problem.

I also like workplaces where management bring drinks to your desk on a Friday. There should be more of that I think.

Anyway back to the booze. Hope everyone has a stonking weekend.

Half Marathon

I'm supposed to be doing a half marathon. This is supposed to involve five days of training a week. This is supposed to involve me getting up at 5.30 every morning and squeezing it in before work three days a week and then getting up whenever I like on the weekend and going for a run whenever I like.

Guess which one I'm struggling with?

Yup it's the weekend. I hve not missed a single weekday session in the last five weeks. I have not done a single weekend session for the last two. I blame booze.

So (and I'm posting this on my blog so I will HAVE to do it), from Monday 9 October, no booze will pass my lips until after the Marathon two weeks later.

I'm publishing this before I change my mind

Strange Game

VERY funny night on Friday night. Had dinner with Claire and Darryl, got relatively wasted and then got captivated as Darryl proceeded to muck about with this online chat room/virtual reality thing.

You have a character and you get free basic stuff but then you can buy local currency with REAL money and buy things like clothes, jewellery, a house etc. You can even buy new skin to make yourself more beautiful. Which is important it seems becuase we were barely in there five minutes when we got picked up! Imagine.

I will spare your blushes and not go into the sordid details of what happened next. Needless to say it was hilarious and either that chicky is a really sad case or she was also three people sitting around a table and laughing themselves sick.

I hate people texting in restaurants and all that kind of 'technology replacing human interaction' as much as the next person but I was sore the next day I'd laughed so hard.

Crocodile Hunter

Now I'm sorry if this is a predictable post but COME ON PEOPLE.

DISCLAIMER: I am not stoked that Steve Irwan died. He is a husband and father of two and it is sad that anyone in that situation has died in a weird, tragic way. This should be kept in mind as you read the following.

Maybe it's becuase I live in the bottom part of the world which is relatively close to where Steve Irwan lived and perhaps people everywhere haven't completly lost their minds and sense of proportion over this but I must speak up.

Stupid line number one: "I can't believe that he's dead"
The man made a LIVING out of putting himself in dangerous situations with dangerous creatures under dangerous levels of stress. How is it a surpirse that he was killed by a dangerous creature?

Stupid line number two: "The man did so much for anmimal rights"
This is a guy who everyday was faced with the same decision.
a) Sedate dangerous creature with a dart from outside the enclosure. Wait for it to fall into a peacefule sleep. Lift it up and carry it to the other place it needs to be
b) Get into the enclousure with fully allert creature with sharp teeth and an anger management issue. Body slam it, pin it to the ground, get three other people to endanger themselves and the creature by sitting on it, stick my fingers in it's eyes, tie it with my bootlaces and skid it out of one enclosure (now with five pople sitting on it) and into another.

He chose b). Every day. For the viewing pleasure of many.

Stupid line number three: "It's like when Princess Diana died"
I'm not even going to address this apart from to say : No. It isn't.

I'm Back

I'm slack I know it. You've probably all lost interest but there you go. I'm back on line (although at work so can't go nuts).

Hope that everyone is well.