So long mutt face…

Visited a few pubs this week after work with some workmates, $12/13 steaks went down a treat. Also had my homebrew club meetup at the Great Northern (ace pub) and I walked away with some free hops and a loaf of bread.

Out again on Friday, Scott (our team lead) is back off to the good ol’ U S of A so we had to have a few drinks before his departure. Brent not long arrived from Texas to replace him and we get on great as he is a homebrew too (with a beard).

Speaking of homebrewing my beer seems to be deed (infected, gah!) so I’m going to try another one hopefully today if I can get to a homebrew store for some grains. I helped Nat yesterday (along with her next door neighbours kids, they love her) clear out the shed at her sisters house so she can use it for a studio. Seen my first huntsman here, the last thing he saw was a brick unfortunately.

The International Comedy Festival is on in Melbourne now and I shunned it a little (there is festivals here all the time) but apparently its big like Edinburgh Fringe, the entire month with loads of performers etc. Will need to check it out.

In other sad news I’ve been told that Maisie (one of our family greyhounds) was put down last week due to an on going illness, I’ll miss that mutt. 😦

Maisie

How to block your eBay account: Step 1.

Bloody hell so much for him being back to school! It would seem holidays have kicked in (which would explain why Linda was home too) but it felt like the school had been brought here as four of his mates turned up along with some A Yi’s. Jebus. I would have been out the door and to the pub but the air was shite today. 😦 Everyone buggered off after lunch so I was able to really chill then, until I tried to buy something on eBay…

At least this made me smile a bit

I was all set to buy some brewing equipment (shock horror) on Aussie eBay when my account was blocked. Fair enough, I’m in Beijing buying something in Melbourne, it looks kinda suspect. I couldn’t do the verification process as it had an old telephone number and their online chat directed me to a customer service call centre. I was on the phone for 30mins trying to get the block removed but ended with me having to send a photocopy of my driving licence to prove who I am. This process can take 7-10 days. WTF. Slightly pee’d off I resigned to the fact I could do no more and joined Randy and Benjamin for a game of Scrabble. (Mum tell Andy this is for his own good… 😉 )

I’m so proud…

Benjamin’s Dad didn’t arrive today (he’d left by-the-by but was coming back) and Yu was off to Hong Kong. I got my certificate in the mail, yaaaay. At least one thing today fairly perked me up from the eBay nightmare, Nat had emailed saying a group of us would be staying in a pimpin’ beach holiday home after the festival! HELLZ YEAH. 😀 I’m loving Oz all ready.

No leftovers? What is this madness?!

So today I did Sweet F A, pity too as the weather was much better than yesterday. Typical. I told myself the day before that I would do nothing today so I stuck to my word.

Surfed the net (becoming envious of Christmas updates on the Facebook, food related ones especially), played some computer games, listened to music, read stuff, listened to Christopher Hitchens audio book, ate lunch, rinse and repeat until tea time. I also filled in my Completion Bonus form for when I end my Au Pair program, this should give me a small but welcome amount of pennies for Oz (not relying on it though).

Benjamin was at after school class today, unusual as he also had class with Randy which he was half an hour late for. This also meant we didn’t do anything until after tea, and even then we basically did nothing as we watched TV until he went to bed. He clearly knew his mum was working late. One of the programmes we watched was a Science style kids game show where the young contestants must solve puzzles in the Game Box (a few wall divider rooms). The host was a crazy scientist dude with a wig, what was kinda surprising was that each player gets a class (if you will) in the game, like Warrior and Magician, one of them was Businessman (haha oh China) but he also looked like a gangster with dog tags and a fat cigar hanging out his mouth. Ha! Also there was a character meme from the internet used a few times and it ended with the kids opening up a box with lighter fluid and setting some string on fire. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed these type of H&S failures or no watershed on the TV, it does make it more interesting though I must admit.

Tomorrow I have Mandarin class so that will get my arse outside and then it’s the weekend too, yas. 🙂