The man goat

There is something about this goat that freaks me out.  See if you can figure out what it is….

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You’re doin’ it right!

Just came across this on BoksCar.  Ha ha!

It is now posted in the PHOTOS page.

Back to work tomorrow!

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The drive home

The winding road home from Abbotsford to Truganina.

Down Victoria Street, turn left past the Queen Victoria Markets then right at the roundabout on to Dudley Street.

Follow Dudley down the hill then under the railway bridge. 

Turn right onto Footscray Rd, keeping an eye out for suicidal cyclists riding on the road rather than the designated cycle lanes.

Turn left past the Southern Star ferris wheel then up on to the Bolte Bridge.

Exit the bridge onto the Westgate Freeway and follow it over the Westgate Bridge.

Stay on the freeway until you get to the Kororoit Creek Rd turn off.

Head down Leakes Rd and you are home.

Easy.

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Mission accomplished!

We came, we ate, we waddled.

Wow, when I said yesterday that we were in for a giant meal, I had no idea how right I would be.  We rocked up to Lazy Moes at about 6 o’clock, and from the minute we walked in and looked around we knew we were in for a treat.  On the tables were enormous piles of food on even more enormouser (thats not even a word!) plates.  The people with the plates looked the worse for wear as they struggled vainly to try and get through.  Some sat holding their head in their hands, some lay back in their chair breathing heavily and some were simply passed out on the floor. 

We ordered our meals, I got the beef burger, Mrs B the curry prawns and the others with us a mix of steak, seafood and lamb.  Even the drinks were huge.  I ordered a coke and it came in a glass that I am sure would have held about 1.5 litres.  While waiting for our meals and sipping on our oversized drinks, our eyes constantly widened as waiters and waitresses walked past in pairs holding one side of a plate each while the food teetered on top.

When the food arrived, we were ready to tuck in.  My burger was massive, as was the salad and chips that came with it.  Mrs B’s prawns were all over the plate and cooked to perfection.  Everyone else at the table also had an ordeal ahead of them and they began to summit the heights before them.

In the end no-one was able to clear their plates.  It seemed to be the same all around the restaurant.  The value for money ratio was excellent.  My burger was $15.90 and everything else was cheap as.  Even the steak was under $25 dollars.  Marvellous.  The food tasted awesome and it was an experience we plan to repeat many times over in the future.

Anyone planning to come here consider yourself WARNED!

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Bring out the pants with the elastic waistband…

Heh, heh, heh.

I know that I am going to regret this tomorrow when I feel queasy from eating too much, but tonight we are going on a mission with some friends.  What mission I hear you ask?  A mission for a giant meal.

You see, our friends have told us about a chain of restaurants here in Melbourne called Lazy Moe’s.  Apparently the meals are so big that in most cases, two people share one main meal.  Now that is big.  And then there is dessert.  Ooh, I can’t wait!

Last night after work, Mrs B and I went to the Optometerist.  We are both keen to get new glasses frames, and thought it would be a good chance to have our vision and eyes checked at the same time.  It turns out that the vision for both of us is pretty much the same, not enough to warrant a change of prescription.  They did however find a little problem with my eyes.

The Optometerist noticed that when I was reading the charts I would blink first before reading what was there.  Then when she put the blowtorch light into my eye (well thats what it felt like) she said that my eye is overproducing the oil that it uses to make my tears slippery.  Ah, I thought, a case of “too slippery tears”.  But no, in fact the eye does it to combat a a certain type of bacteria that collects on the edges of the eyelids.  Go figure.

Its nothing serious, but she said it does explain why I thought my vision had become a bit weaker.  It is just a micro thin layer on my eye that can fuzz the vision momentarily and needs to be blinked away from time to time.  She has given me a couple of things to do that will help get rid of the bacteria.  I quite like the sound of hot towels on my eyes just before bedtime.

Anyway, must go and find my elastic waisted pants.  In the meantime, check out the sunrise that greeted me when I walked out the door yesterday morning:

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Cold, wet and grey

Yes, that about sums up the weather today.  In fact there was even a bit of hail.

In a way it is good though, as we need the rain.  Even though it is winter we have still not had much rain at all.  It is quite a bit different from NZ.  There we came to expect winter to be wet – rain, rain, rain all the time.  Over here, winter is often grey and threatening, but the rain rarely comes.

Not a big fan of rain anyway, so sweet as.

It is looking more and more like the Berlingo is not gonna pull through.  There was talk at the office today of a car reshuffle.  I might not be able to get into a proper car just yet though as the guy who started before me drives the only other Berlingo in the fleet.  This means that since he started before me, he will get first dibs on a car upgrade and I will get his Berlingo.  Not all bad though as it sounds like there is a new guy starting in a month or two, and he would be Berlingo’d.  Doesn’t really matter to me, it is a privilege to have a company car with personal use included, so it is all good.

By the way, you may have noticed that I have added some tabs at the top of the page linking you to my favourite photos, videos, and the shirts I am selling. I will be slowly adding to these as time goes by. First up I have put an oddly hilarious video of a cat called Maru.  Check it out!

Right, time for dinner.

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Queens Biffday

The long weekend has arrived, but to be honest it is pretty much a non-event for us.  We are both still sick and feeling little motivation to do anything.  We are feeling better, but not quite at the stage where we feel like going out and gettin’ crazy.

Just had a nice quiet day yesterday.  Lounged around a lot and read a massive chunk of my book, studied my WT and watched another episode of Lost (we are playing catch up at the moment).  Last night we watched Gran Torino, Clint Eastwoods latest flick.  It was quite good.  I was really getting tired of the raspy voiced grumpy old man schtick by the end, but apart from a few naughty words, it was a good story.  A sad story in a way, but a good story.

Well, off to the meeting now, then we will decide how best to spend the rest of the long weekend.

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Back in the saddle….until it blew up…

Today I took a handful of harden up and went to work.

Felt like crap on the way to work.

The Berlingo starts to make a weird rattle noise.

Get to work, hit the road to see the clients.

The Berlingo’s rattle and rasp gets more regular and there is a whiff of oil every now and then.

Get back to the office at lunchtime, check the oil in the Berlingo.  Since last weekend, the oil has all disappeared.

Take Berlingo to the company mechanic.

Company mechanic puts in two litres of oil.

I head out on my afternoon, still feeling a bit sore throaty.

Berlingo still smells like oil, but worse, the rattle is getting louder and more consistent and it revs like crazy when I press the accelerator for even minor .

Limp back to the office this afternoon and show the fleet manager again.

Berlingo taken to company mechanic.

VERDICT: Blown gearbox.

SURVIVAL PROGNOSIS: Grim.

Watch this space.

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Bored out of my brains

So I am home again today. 

Still sick, but bored out of my brains.  On the plus side, I am feeling better and will go back to work tomorrow, but just need to ride out the cold wave.  My throat is still sore, but the magic blue Strepsils are fantastic.  I THOROUGHLY recommend them to anyone with a cold and / or sore throat.  They have anaesthetic and antibacterial stuff in them.  They don’t just mask the sore throat like other throat lozenges, they actually do something about fixing the problem.  And they taste nice too.  Until your mouth goes numb from the anaesthetic and you can’t feel anything…

We got some DVDs out yesterday, so might go watch one of those.  We have started watching the Lost series again.  On TV here in Oz they are playing season 5 which we never got to see in NZ so since we have missed half the season and have forgotten most of what has gone on, we thought we would start again.  Our local Civic Video has all the Lost seasons so we are sweet as for the catch up mission.

And, in case you were wondering, today’s Blog post is not sponsored by Strepsils or Civic Video.  Ha ha.

BORED.

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Sicko

Well, I have succumbed.

I was feeling dodgy on Sunday so just had a quiet day in bed and on the couch trying to will the cold out of me.  Yesterday morning I actually felt great, thought “Ha, no cold can survive inside my hostile environment!” and went to work.   By the time I got home though, I was feeling really bad again.  The sore throat was back.  The heavy head was back.  The ache was back.  Oh crap.

I went to bed about 8:30pm last night and just crashed. I slept right through until this morning when my alarm went off at 6am.  On waking my throat was on fire and I couldn’t talk.  My throat felt like it was swelled up and I was having trouble swallowing.  I texted my boss and crashed again.  I have just woken up now and crawled out of bed.  It is about 10:30am.

I hate feeling like this.  I know that guys are drama queens when it comes to being sick, but I honestly feel like crap.  It was a good call to stay at home today.

Bleeeeeeeeeh.

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