Q. On which day of the year does a person do the most work?
A. The day before they go on holidays.

I’m not sure how true that is - especially when my day is half full of meetings, lunches and afternoon teas - but it will be my busiest day for a while.

Anyway, Lara and I are flying out tomorrow to parts unknown (sounds like a mystery flight doesn’t it?). We’ll be back in just over 3 weeks, and during that time I expect Chuckler to be our most reliable source of all that’s going on back home. We only care about the important stuff - Big Brother evictions, TSLOU story developments, what Chuckler has for dinner each day etc.

So yeah, see ya later….

Got the call from Rob yesterday: “dude can you play soccer with us tonight?” So I’m like “hell yeah” and we go and win 2 games, one that counted and one against a mixed team whose opponents had forfeited. Great fun.

Blacky and I have got almost NO food in our fridge right now, so I might try to go out for dinner tonight so that we can save shopping for tomorrow. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow, that’s my motto. Blacky and the crowd are going to the SIDS ball tonight, so I’m left home alone, maybe I’ll visit M&D.

Remember when I was thinking of which cars were shit-hot some 9 months ago? Well I thought it might be fun to update this list:

If I were going to buy a Ford, it’d be the new Fairlane G220. Mmm.
If I were going to buy a Holden, it’d be a Monaro. Mmm.
If I were going to buy a Nissan, it’d be the 350Z. Mmm.
If I were going to buy a Mazda, it’d be the RX8. Mmm.

Other cars that are nice, but I don’t think I’d consider:
* Honda S2000
* BMW Z3
* Subaru Impreza WRX Sedan
* Mercedes C180 Sports Coupe

So, yeah the list has changed a bit.

Brunching Shuttlecocks are no more. This long-visited regular site of mine has decided to hang up their funny, and I’ve decided to commemmorate the life of this fantastic site by hosting my own brunch.

When? I don’t know yet. But I’d like it ideally to be a weekend where everyone’s available. I’d also like to make it far enough in advance that I’m not completely freaked out at the prospect of hosting it. I’ll get right back to you, aiight?

Where? My chalet of course.

Who? People from work, family, friends.

Why? See above

Monday was cool - I’d left work early to go to the doctors to get a prescription re-done … actually, turns out it’s been along time since I’ve been to see my GP - he’d moved offices some 12 months ago, and I went to the old practice and then had no idea where they’d gone. Found them.

The long-awaited 24 finale was scheduled for last night, and I was cooking. I decided to stop-off at Samios (the Italian deli down the road) and buy some italian sausage for the pasta I’d planned on making. As usually happens in this store, that also turned into a small jar of olives, an enormous jar of marinated capsicums, some dried muscatels, and a bag of pasta.

Guests were late, so Bryce, Blacky and I ate before they arrived. Leyton arrived at around 7, Bek at 7:30, and after she’d eaten we commenced the 24-watching. 2 final episodes, and guess what? The butler did it.

I am so not a nice person. When invited to Bek’s dad’s 60th birthday party, I couldn’t understand why I’d been invited. So I started searching for answers, and, Thursday night, my brain worked out a plausible scenario when Bek telephoned: “Hey, can you please drive me and a carload of my relatives to and from the party?”

Uh huh. So I’d solved the mystery. I was invited to drive people around. Except, when I did my duty and drove everyone, Bek and her family were genuinely grateful, which initially confused me, but as the evening progressed, it became plain that I wasn’t invited for my ability to provide transport, but to share the experience with friends and family. I felt awful that I’d immediately assumed that I was a chaffeur for hire.

Isn’t it wierd that sometimes we do that - assume the worst? In the self-obsession that your brain indulges in moments of boredom, we construct vastly elaborate scenarios where other people’s motives are made to look selfish, and we portray ourselves as the victim.

Saturday was a market day, great fun, etc. That afternoon was Leyton’s nerd fest: a LAN day. It was pretty awesome actually - a constant supply of junk food and violent action. Soldier of Fortune 2, which you may recall I was playing single-player many moons ago, made an appearance and was just awesome in multiplayer. AWESOME. Battlefield 1942 was then brought out, and I took an extended break. I really don’t like that game … it just doesn’t have the “it” that makes a game rock. I left at about midnight.

Next day was supposed to be 24, but Bek piked early on and we rescheduled for today. I’d gone and picked up the computers and stuff from Leyton’s place, and gone to John’s place for afternoon tea. Evening spent at home in front of television, wishing I had some Lemon Diet Coke.

I’ve recently developed a grand delusion that during our upcoming trip to the UK, I should read some seminal piece of English literature in the country it was written - and also listen to some quintessential British music.

The problem is that we’re only going to be in the UK for 13 days, so I don’t want my already unrealistic expectotations to reach the realm of the impossible.

I’m not looking so much for the ‘big names’, rather something that epitomises the English language, land and culture, although Dickens strikes me as an frontrunner on the book side. Maybe something light - like whoever Britain has doing the Nick Earls type of thing -would be good for travelling.

In terms of music, I’ve thoght of Madness, Billy Bragg and the Smiths as some of the few Brits whose music has made it to Australia without developing (or starting) a global sound a la Beatles/Stones/BritPop.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I gots nothin to say to any of youse.

Well, mostly due to excellent planning on my part, last night rocked. I knew that Rob was coming over, and I later knew that I needed to drop Bryce off some shazbot, and when these facts amalgamated into one coherent plan, it came to pass that Rob W came over, we yarned a bit and then headed to M&Ds to drop off Bryce’s stuff (and demonstrate Simba and Chaz’s “Shake Hands” trick), swing by Snod’s casa and then we all headed off to Montezumas for mexican food and sangria.

I was driving, so I couldn’t partake in as much sangria as the occassion warranted, but the Mexican date cake, the 2nd most famous of Monte’s loot (the first being the sangria which they blend better than anywhere!) was to die for.

Dropped Andrew home, and then over to Rob’s place for coffee and cigars.

Such a civilised way to spend a Wednesday evening. Tonight is Snod’s dad’s retirement party, which should be good - I like the Godfrey family, they’ve always been so nice to me.

My internet is now fully caning. There was a power outage last night, and when I reconnected, it was really, really slow, but this morning it seems that Comindico’s network issues may be (mostly) resolved …I don’t want to jinx it.

My boss’s brother, who’s an actor, has a new film out in cinemas today, and we might be taking the morning off work to go see it. That sounds like a wonderful idea to me.

Lara has pulled off one of the scams of the year thus far, by managing to get the two of us invited to a Big Brother Cocktail Party and Live Eviction Show at Dreamworld.

So, not only do we get free entry to an Eviction Show (sure, we’re addicted to the show, but I don’t think we’d ever pay to go to one) but we also get free drinks and canapes before the show. We may have to listen to some PR person crap on about how great a venue Dreamworld is for functions or some such, but free beer will make it all OK.

I’m just hoping that if we get there a bit early (we’re meant to be there at 5pm) they’ll let us in to the park and I can hit some rides for 15 minutes or so.