30 August 2010

Managed to get on site last night - things are getting really close to completion, or at least it feels like it. since we were last on site, they've got all the internal driveways in, the garage roller door is on (and seems to be on most places), the clothes line is up, and all of the power and phone points are in! They've even put the controller for the central heating in, which is quite exciting. The inside of the place has been cleaned up and the mirrors installed in the bathrooms as well, things are getting closer.

In fact, it's probably easier just to look at what hasn't been done yet - I can pretty much count them on one hand! The most obvious is probably the carpets, although I'd expect them to be last. Then there's the appliances (oven and dishwasher), the fencing and the landscaping in communal areas. The final elements missing at the holes in the roof under the skylights in the en suite and laundry. 

Quite exciting! Still no word on when we can move in, which is a bit of a piss off, but it's still great to see progress.

I didn't manage to get any more photo's, and in fact, we were pretty lucky to get in the house at all, as most of the lockable doors were locked. I do, however, have a picture of the buffet unit we bought with the couch, and the curtain fabric samples against the carpet sample.


Unfortunately it's not that great a picture - I actually got kicked out of the store for taking it. Apparently they're worried about people getting knock offs made from the picture or something, which I think it a little silly. Plus, it's not really a nice way to treat someone who's recently spent almost $8k at your store! Rude buggers. Anyway, it's all solid timber, and the doors in the front slide to the sides in front of the drawers. It's actually going to be the TV unit, so we're going to have to get a drill and make some holes in the back for the cabling. It's bigger than it looks in the picture as well. Anyway, I'll get a better shot when we actually get it delivered. 

In the meantime, here's a the carpet sample with the curtain samples from Duckcloth against it.


As you can see, my favourite one looks the best, and I think we're going to go with it. 

Anyway, I'd better get to bed. Until next time friends!

28 August 2010

With Lasers, wormhole generators, and sonic thrusters

I've read a couple of places on the intertubes recently that at the 2012 Olympics in London, the Modern Pentathlon will be switching to laser pistols for the shooting events. 

It makes me happy that all my teenage years spent plying Virtua Cop 2 in the Arcade was not wasted....


I'm sure that somewhere along the way, someone, somewhere is going to up upset that a laser pistol might require less skill, no compensating for the wind or whatever.

To those people, I say: welcome to the future. Robots will be along shortly with mind bending future drinks to take your mind off it.

26 August 2010

We've seen a drop in all three measures of workforce engagement

Hello! Fancy seeing you here - it's been a while, and I bet you thought I'd forgotten all about you.

This is simply not the case - I've just been swamped at work and have been going through a massive reading phase recently. I've been averaging around 3 books a week since about mid-August. I blame this on the staycation and also Dana ordering a lot of books off the internets. I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of books at home though, will need seek out other pursuits. Or buy more books...

The work side of it is a little bit interesting. By rights, working in a policy area that both sides of Parliament are swearing blue that they won't be active in, it should be really quiet and cruisey in the caretaker period. But unfortunately, this has not been the case, due to a couple of things. The first is that the time frames for the issue that I'm working on are really tight, and there's not that much room to stop and do nothing. In addition, the time frame is being set by Fair Work Australia, the federal industrial tribunal, which doesn't take that much notice of elections.

The second is that we had a re-structure, and my direct supervisor took a voluntary redundancy. As she wasn't replaced, I've had to take a few extra duties.

None of this is really that exciting to you, I'm sure. Suffice to say, I had a whole heap of work to do and now, I'm in post election limbo, with much less to do. It's actually pretty demoralising not knowing who I'm going to be working for, and not being able to get working on it. Don't get me wrong, we've done a lot of prep for either way, but there's not much more that I can do without actually having a Government.

The funny thing is, everyone else where I work reached this point weeks ago. A friend summarised it with a lol public servants:



Hopefully it will all be over soon, but to be honest, for the sake of the next three years, I think I'd rather just have them go back to the polls and someone get a full majority. You think this whole independents horse holding the power thing is bad now, wait until there's some essential bill that Parliament can't pass because Bob Katter's a nut bar in a cowboy hat. It'll be double dissolution before you can say "how's ya father" and we'll be right back where we are now.

Another six weeks of annoyance vs. three years (and probably less) of stagnation in the Parliament? Shit choices either way really. Although I guess if you go in for politics generally and it means the other side (which ever that is to you) doesn't get their way for another three years, there might be some consolation there.

Bleugh.

In other news, I'm going to Foreshore in November with Dana and kindred spirits Karla and Esa. It costs a mint, but I'm looking forward to a few bevvies in the sun in a nice location and some tuuuuunes. I'm also looking forward to laughing at Tiesto.


"OHAI2U RAVERS, I ARE NUMBER 1 DJ LOL!!!1!1"

To balance out the Tiesto, here's some Noisia and Phace. I've been listening to Phace and Misanthrop's 'From Deep Space' this afternoon, and it's keeping me positive.


The sample 20 seconds in to this till about a minute always makes me smile. Also making me smile in that particular clip are all the ravers caught making made nightclub faces. Somebody make some noise (or some such) for the DJ!

To round it all out, here's an absolutely awesome clip that was on Giz a little while back of some stop motion animation. I also dig the soundtrack. Hey Daver, this one's for you (no play dough though).

11 August 2010

I love lamp

I've been pretty busy recently with both work and play recently, which has led me to neglect this blog. Thankfully I've got some time off at the moment, which gives me a chance to get a post out! There's been plenty of house related goings on (although we haven't actually visited the house in a while). The most exciting of which is that we have some more detail on the licence agreement and an estimated move in date! I'm choosing to ignore the fact that all dates provided by the builder so far have been hopelessly inaccurate, and have instead opted to hope this one will be better.

Anyway, the most recent time frame puts us actually moving in (!!) in 4-6 weeks. There are two things that give me a bit of hope that this will be adhered to - first that the properties are starting to look more finished and I can actually see it happening. The second is that we're starting to get some detail about the licence agreement! The most salient information we have so far is an estimated fee in place of rent - $350 / week. It's a good $125/week less than the rent where we are at the moment, so it's pretty good odds that we'll take the licence agreement when it is finally properly offered. 

The only fly in the ointment at the moment is that the timing is less than ideal for me at work - I'll be very busy around that point in time! I had hoped to take a week or two off to move in and get the place sorted out properly, but that's probably not going to happen now. It's a minor annoyance though - I'll just be so damn happy to get the keys to the place!

More news on that as it arises.

We've also managed to get our hands on a carpet sample for the new place, which is actually a bit darker than I remembered. The swatches of curtain fabric that Dana ordered from duckcloth.com.au arrived as well, and the lighter one goes quite well with the carpet. I love it when a plan comes together.


We've also had a good friend pick up the lamp we ordered a while back, which is now assembled and in our living room - I'm sitting under it right now! Here's a picture of Dana sitting under it:




Wheeeee! 


Until next time ladies and gents, keep your laces loose.

01 August 2010

A successful day

A quick note to say that we had a successful day shopping yesterday - we bought the couch and a buffet (which we're going to re-purpose as a TV unit). Contrary to the advice we'd had previously, the store said it will be ready in three weeks, but they're going to store it for us until we're ready to move in. Exciting! I was going to take a picture of the buffet, but I completely forgot when we were at the shop - I'll try and remember to take one again some time.

In addition, we checked out a few curtain places, and had some productive discussions around curtains. We found a couple of places that would be happy to make curtains with the fabric Dana found on duckcloth.com.au (blogged about previously), which was promising. We actually found a few swatches of cloth in the shops that were quite good as well, and would probably be a fair bit cheaper.

Dana's been looking for alternatives to side tables, because we won't really be able to fit any in around the couch. She's come up with the idea to use small stools that can be moved around, or used for additional seating as needed instead. A leading choice at the moment is the replica Xavier Pauchard Tolix stool pictured in several colours below.


These have the advantage of being stackable and well sealed against the weather, so they could be used outside without too much worry. However, they are quite expensive.

I'm feeling really upbeat about the whole thing at the moment, good times. Now time to finish watching season one of Mad Men and argue with Dana about what sort of home theater setup to go with - she prefers the more streamlined home theater in a box type setups, where as I prefer a more chunky (and slightly higher end) dedicated receiver and speakers. I have a suspicion that her point of view will probably win out in the end - it usually seems to. 
 
Edit: I should clarify the reference to the home theater setup above - Dana would prefer that they were invisible, or in fact, were not purchased at all, where as I would prefer some sort of ridiculously expensive and ugly home theater room instead. The discussion at the moment is about where we compromise between them all, based on budget at the available options. And also that we don't have a home theater room.