Christmas Day

Today got off to a really good start.  At 3AM actually.  This is when my mother-in-law's dog decided to get sick and spew all over the carpet in her bedroom.

I decided that I would only get in the way if I got out of bed, so I turned over and went back to sleep.

At 5AM her dog got up onto our bed and was sick again.  Over our quilt this time.

Because my previous reasoning was so successful, I again feigned sleep and turned over and tried to go back to sleep.  This wasn't so easy with my wife taking the quilt cover off, but I finally managed it.

I surfaced again at about 8AM,  fortunately to the sound of my mother-in-law delivering a cup of coffee.  Perhaps she felt guilty.  The coffee was too sweet.  But I struggled through it.

We all went downstairs and opened our presents.  We all agreed that we had all received great presents, and that we had done our duty in contributing to fix the global financial crisis by spending so much money.

I then sneaked outside to have a quick swim before getting sidetracked into getting lunch ready.  Although the day started a bit dull, the clouds disappeared and the day was warming up to about 30 degrees C.  I wondered what it was like today in the northern hemisphere.

This year we tried our first baked ham, glazing it with cinnimon, apricot jam, and brown sugar.  It was yum.

We roasted pork, turkey and chicken in the barbeque, and baked the vegetables in the oven.  We cooked far too much food for one day, so it looks like we'll be having left-overs for the next few days.  I reckon that rather than have every chef on TV present their own Christmas recipes, they should have them present good recipes for left-overs instead.

We all ate too much (a family tradition, I reckon).  I decided to have a quick power-nap, Karyn decided to float around the pool in her boat, and Fay had a big snooze to compensate for her 3AM start.  Matt, of course, played World of Warcraft all afternoon and got one of his characters up to level 70.  Or was that 80?  Anyway, he seemed quite pleased with himself.  He got a new netbook for Christmas, so he could play WoW on one computer and chat on MSN at the same time on his new netbook.  He'll probably want a dual-screen setup next.

I spent a while chatting with Cherie, Richard and Lynne in Sydney while looking at my treadmill and thinking that I really should get some exercise.  But everybody said that I should have a day off, so I decided not to.  I did some sit-ups and went for a swim instead.  I still have 8 kg to lose to get to my target.

Karyn retired to the bedroom to watch some TV, Matt stayed in his study and played WoW, Fay went to bed, and I played a few levels of Far Cry.  Just to maintain my lightening-fast reaction times, you understand.   Since I've got myself a new quad-core computer, I've got back into playing some games that my previous machine was just too underpowered to play.

Here is Matt trying to show Fay which way to point the camera.

Anyway, its time for bed now.  It's 1AM now, and Fay has just come down to rinse out some towels that her dog has just soiled.  I took some more old towels up there to find that she's covered the whole floor with them.  Maybe in the morning I should get her a plastic drop sheet that we use for painting.

Karyn is excited about the Boxing Day sales tomorrow (or in about 8 hours).  So it looks like more help for the global financial crisis.

Bye for now.

Christmas Shopping at Hall Markets

This weekend we went shopping at the Hall country markets. Hall is a small township just outside Canberra (but still in the ACT).

It's better going there in Summer because you are just stomping around on hard dirt or clay. In Winter it gets pretty muddy with all the people walking around. The weather was pretty good, as it was sunny but only about 26 degrees C.

Karyn was looking for some hand-made wooden butterflies to decorate the brick wall outside the dining room window, but we couldn't find any on sale.  We already have a colourful orange one and a green one attached to a tree in the back garden.  She consoled herself with buying some fresh liquorice instead.

I took the following photos with my camera just to see how they turn out.

Picked up new car

I picked up my new car today.

I wonder if that "new car" smell is real or comes from a bottle?

The good thing about a bright yellow car is that there aren't too many of them around. Looking at the other cars in the traffic, I realised that most were white or silver. This means that they all look similar in some way. I've already discovered one benefit - when I went to point out my new car to someone I worked with on the 6th floor - looking out the window, there was a single yellow car in the carpark below. I don't know how many times in the past I've stood in a carpark and wondered where I left my car; hopefully this will happen less now.

One disappointment has been the lack of an iPod dock. The salesman didn't even know what an iPod was. When I asked about an iPod dock, he pointed to an 3.5in audio socket and said "you can plug any MP3 player in there". I said that I wanted an iPod dock and he went off to ask the spare parts folks. He then said that I should go to a car radio shop and get them to install one because Honda don't have one. Oh well, I thought.

A few hours later I was reading the car radio part of the manual, and low and behold, you can get a USB socket installed to plug your iPod in. The radio even has an iPod mode that allows you to control the iPod from the steering wheel controls. It looks like this is standard on the next model up. Lousy salesmen !

No other gripes with the car so far. Fingers crossed.

I bought a new car

I bought a new car today.  A Honda Jazz.

I don't think that my wife likes the shade of acid yellow that I've picked.  But at least it's safe.  I read somewhere that yellow is the safest, followed by white.

I just want a small, fuel-efficient car to get me to and from work in comfort.

I had a bright red car once.  I'd only had it for about 3 months when somebody ran into me, on a bright sunny day.  The other driver said that they didn't see me stopped in the middle of the road with my indicator on waiting to turn into another street.   So much for brains registering red.

Unfortunately there's no way that Matthew (our almost 18 year old son) will be able to drive it - the added insurance premium for under 25 drivers  is prohibitive.  It increases the premium from about $500/year to about $1,600.

It's been about 5 years since we bought a car, and its still overly complex, arranging the car loan, insurance, etc.  Everyone in the process is keen on cross-selling you another product.  The car dealer wants to finance the loan, and sell the insurance, and insurance on the insurance.  The credit union wants to lend us the money and also wants to provide the insurance.  Presumably the insurance companies will want to finance the loan as well just to make it more complex.

Karyn did a fantastic job negotiating a price.  She told them what she wanted to pay, and stuck to it.  The salesman said that he couldn't go that low, and wheeled out the sales manager.  The sales manager said that he couldn't go that low either.  He even got to the stage of offering a full tank of fuel and a promise to wash the car every time I brought it in for a service.  But Karyn stuck to her guns.  They (the salesman and the sales manager) then had to go to the Dealer Principal who agreed to go further and meet her price provided they transferred the extra $ to someone else's purchase.

I reckon I should rent Karyn out as a negotiator, except there wasn't any negotiation from her.

Now we have to wait a week to pick up the car.  I just hope that we can get all the paperwork done on time.

Beach volleyball court replaced

Someone came past today and covered the new beach volleyball court with artificial grass. It ruined my dream of getting some of those Speedo-clad volleyball babes to come over and play.

I think that my wife was behind it.

A new beach volleyball court installed

I came home today to find that half of our back garden has been turned into a beach volleyball court.

Shopping for a NetBook

Today we bought a NetBook for Karyn.

We didn't start shopping for one; I just wanted to show them to Karyn as a potential Christmas present.  Because she often wants to access the Internet while watching TV, I thought that she might like something that she can sit on the seat next to her and put on her lap when she wants.  

I didn't anticipate the level of enthusiasm.  It took all of 30 seconds for her to get excited, especially when she realised you could get white ones.   She'd previously said that she'd like a MacBook because they looked nice and you could get white ones.

We had to do the "shopping around" thing, and then spent the rest of the day going from shop to shop, mall to mall, comparing prices and models.  Then low and behold, we ended up where we started from because (a) the price was OK and (b) they had white ones.

We ended up with an Acer Aspire One (in white). It has a 9" screen, a good sized keyboard, and 1GB of memory running Windows XP Home.

The photo doesn't do it's size justice.  It is a bit wider than a piece of A4 paper folded in half.  It fits comfortably in Karyn's handbag.

What surprised me during our shopping trip were the comments from the various salesmen. 

"We only get them in blue," said one.

"We recommend this one because it has twice the battery life"  The one he was pointing us at was twice the price and twice the weight and seemed to be more like a conventional laptop than an ultra-portable netbook.

"You should consider this one because it has a bigger screen with a wider viewing angle"  As though you were going to use one of these babies sitting on someone else's lap.  Let me tell you, you need good eyesight to use one of these without squinting.

Anyway, my surprise Christmas present is now ruined and I guess I'll have to find something else .

But at least she can't complain when I buy myself a new quad-core machine next week.