Well, the week off has officially begun now I suppose. Not that my load at uni is back breaking or anything, but it is nice to be able to sit back and slow down for a little bit before the stress of exams and assignment due dates return next week. On a side(but not totally unrelated)note, why is it that mid-semester breaks are never actually in the middle of the semester? We’ve had ten weeks worth of lectures already, and now we have a week long break, then three more weeks of uni before exams. Odd.

Anyway I’m off to the family holiday house tomorrow for a few days with some mates. Knowing me I’m sure I’ve forgotten people that I really ought not have, so in leiu of a proper, official invitation please accept this open invitation to all dialagranny.com readers:

YOU, dear reader are invited to spend as short or long a period of time as you’d like this week with your host and all-round-good-guy Pete at his beach house in Anglesea. Although you’ll have to arrange travel (<90 min from Melbourne via Geelong) for yourself, lodgings will be provided gratis, and living costs such as food and booze will be cheap as chips. So providing you have the ability to make it down the coast before Friday, why not drop in be it a daytrip, overnight or until Friday?

I’m serious aswell. If you want to have a surf or a sail (although it’s a bit cold to be using the hobie cat right now) or just a bum around on the beach while no-one else is about, email, message or call me. It’ll be a hoot.

(To the rest of you, see you when I get back!)

Pete

I woke up this morning and plodded down stairs to find myself some breakfast when my phone rang. It was Dad, who had only just left for work telling me to turn on the radio to 3AW, because the magnificent, all-seeing and all-knowing Sir Neil of Mitchell was sitting on a story relating to one of my favourite TV shows, BBC’s Top Gear.

After sitting impatiently through some tart talking to Neil about fabulous weight loss formulas (bread and butter for talkback I imagine) I got the shock of my life, although in hindsight it probably isn’t that much of a suprise – Richard Hammond, co-host of Top Gear, host of the terrible sceinceish show Brainiac and all round nice little hamster crashed a jet car near Leeds overnight while filming for a segment of Top Gear. No biggie? Try crashing your car at 300 mph (480 km/h) and see how you fair.

Apparently he’s alright though. He’s (understandably) still in an intensive care and there are (or were) unconfirmed fears of neurological damage, but fingers crossed he’ll bounce back alright. Here’s hoping anyway.

Pete

It should be TLAPD everyday. Even this morning’s usually soul destroying 8am biochem lecture, which requires a 6:30 rise (remember early < midday – I am afterall a uni student) was no match for the immense joy and pillaging cravings that resulted from simply getting up for the holiest of days for Pastafarians/Pirates. This year I’m doing it in style as well, thanks to a great find of an eyepatch and a bandana of sorts while wandering around the house half-asleep at the crack of dawn.

It saddens me to report however that the Pastafarian cause still has a long way to go before gaining widespread acknowledgement as a bona fide religion. All throughout the morning I’ve suffered religious persecution – at uni, at the post office while collecting a registYARRed article and on the streets while driving around. Weird looks (granted there were more grins and even a few knowing nods), laughter and an awful lot of questions relating to my sanity constitute in my mind a lack of the supposed Australian ‘value’ of tolerance. Stupid country, just you wait – one day we will rise up and rape/pillage thee all.

Oh, to all those belivers out there, happy TLAPD. Bless your black, scurvy ridden hearts.

Pete

What a misery filled week. Firstly Steve Irwin’s passing on Monday, then another Aussie icon’s death with Peter Brock smashing into a gum tree during a road rally on Friday, and on top of that the Springboks managed to beat us 24-16 in Joburg, only two months after our 49-0 shlacking of the same team in Brisbane. Someone up there (most probably His Noodleyness) must have it in for Australia at the moment.

However, there is good news in the world afterall: Mildred is home and hobbling about in relative comfort, although admittedly she’s still in captivity. After almost three weeks in the care of vets in various institutions we brought her back home for the rest of her six week recuperation period caged up in a toddler pen (for the backstory read these two posts). The construction was, in typical Pete style delayed until she actually got home (perhaps a touch short-sighted of me), and it took until last night for the chicken wire to be finally tied around the outside of the pen but the main point is that it got done, and she seems quite happy in her new catjail which we position next to the window during the day and the heater during the evening.

Anyway something I noticed almost immediately after welcoming her home is she has changed somewhat. Apart from the obvious – the bandages and general immobility of her left limbs mean that she clumsily flops about the place when she tries to walk (imagine a slightly retarded, white, furry walker from Star Wars) – she seems surprisingly enough to be a lot less neurotic than she was before her accident, and the fortnight she spent in company of other animals seems to have taught her how to purr properly. Millie became part of the family while my little brother was doing work experience at a veterinary clinic in year 10. He rescued a tiny two week old kitten from the lethal injection after she was brought in to the clinic after spending the first week of her life stuck under a dishwasher in an abusive household. Because of this fairly rough start, she has always been a complete scaredy-cat. Unwilling for months to venture outside, startling at the faintest noise, hating strangers and for almost a year being completely against cuddling meant she was a very difficult cat to get close to, but now that she’s had her legs broken and another lethal injection hung over her head like Damocles’ sword, she seems to be far more loving, attention seeking and generally just placid. But best of all she actually audibly (actually scratch that, LOUDLY) purrs whenever you pay her the slightest bit of attention. She’s not medicated, so we can’t blame it on that – I simply hypothesise that socialising or at least being in a room with other cats at the vet meant that she has picked up some social cues that have been missing since she was a kitten. However it’s come about, I like the change.

Some piccies:

Pete

Steve Irwin was stung in the chest by a stingray a few hours ago and died almost instantly. Apparently he was filming something off the coast of Port Douglas. Poor bugger.

The pressing question in my mind is what will happen to Australia’s quarantine now? How will our borders be protected against invasive plants and animals without Steve’s mop associated with those informative and thought provoking ads? I spy tragedy for Australia….

Pete