One Angry Monkey

We’ve had a problem with seagulls in our street recently. Well, the whole suburb really. You see it’s that time. Council hard rubbish collection, where everyone takes all the crap that’s been cluttering their spare rooms, garages and back yards and pile it up on the nature strip. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for it. We’ve even gotten rid of a few bricks from the Great Wall of Adelaide. In theory I think it’s a magnificent piece of public service and worth every cent of the council rates we don’t pay because we’re renting. In theory.

In practice it’s a different matter. Now I have nothing against the idea of people going through my garbage. If someone can put something the Man of the House (tearfully) parted with to good use then good for them. They must be creative people. Really creative. It’s a time-honoured tradition, and half the reason why the council puts out brochures advertising when they’re going to do it. Have your stuff out by sunset on the Sunday before your collection is scheduled, the brochure says. Here’s a helpful list of when all of the collections will be. It’s kind of clever really. By doing it that way, by the time mid-week rolls around and they’re actually doing the collection half of it’s been picked over by scaven… recyclers.

Unfortunately it makes leaving the house a dangerous proposition. If you’re carrying anything, like a bag for example, the second you open that front door a ravening horde of Wombles will descend upon you, pinning you to the ground and hunting for anything they might use. Wombles notwithstanding, people walking down the road (or worse, cycling) become more interested in the piles of stuff than in, say, watching where they’re going. On Monday night I saw one cyclist just about run headlong into a car that was backing out of its driveway because his head had turned around almost 180 degrees as he studied a particularly promising pile of crap. The bad news for him was that his search was doomed from the start. 24 hours after it was put out, the Wombles will have stripped it of anything with any potential at all.

It all just goes to show, one man’s trash is another man’s traffic hazard.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking over the past few weeks. I know, I know, I should be careful with that. Don’t want to strain myself. I’ve gotten nowhere with it either. My mind is excellent at dragging me around in circles. Funny that, the rest of me has a stellar sense of direction.

I’m going to make a confession. I’m a fantasy nut. I love fantasy. I love it because it’s in a different world. When something doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s not supposed to be right. It’s a brave new world, baby. I don’t get the urge to run to my computer and google anything just to see whether it is right or not. I kind of like science fiction as well, as long as it’s well done. I loved (and I mean loved) Joss Whedon’s series Firefly and the associated movie, Serenity. It was magnificent. It was entertaining. It didn’t revolve around matter / anti-matter fluctuations in the warp drive. Best of all, I have no idea how the ship worked, or how fast it could take them from A to B. Do you know what I do know? I know the characters and the story. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I think it’s safe to say Christmas is over for another year. Any day now, the Easter decorations will be going up. Power consumption in neighbourhoods around the country will be dropping sharply as those awful, over-the-top Christmas Lights people coat their lawns and houses with are taken down for another year. The birds in those neighbourhoods can go back to sleeping, the 24-hour daylight effect finally gone.

Santa brought me bugger-all. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d be hard-pressed to convince the most gullible person on earth that I’ve been a good girl this year. I had no chance at all with a man who actually keeps track of that stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 6: Return of the Stolen Property

It all hung in the balance. Two victories for me. Two victories for Brendan. One draw. This was to be the deciding round. The outcome would decide, well, not much of anything. But winning doesn’t need to mean anything in order to be fun. And I like to win. It’s a family thing. The Matriarch, when facing defeat, will throw cards. Accusations have been made back and forth regarding Scrabble cheating. The family has, or has had, a thrower of Backgammon pieces. During our stay in Rotorua the Matriarch and I declared war on each other during the family game of Life.

We shouldn’t have done that. It allowed Sulfurous Winds from Below to defeat us. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 5: The Nerd Strikes Back

An unanticipated hurdle has threatened to bring my campaign crashing down around my ears. Brendan doesn’t work on the weekend. When he’s at home it’s hard to separate him from his desk. If he’s not actually at his computer he’ll still be in the same room, or returning in a matter of moments.

In an attempt to be clever and resourceful, I left him languishing in bed while I got up under the pretense of wanting to have his coffee and toast ready when he arose. In all honesty that was probably my most transparent ruse to date. Worked though. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 4: A New Hope

I think the heat might be getting to me. Adelaide is right in the middle of what’s being called an unseasonal heat wave. For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering around 35 degrees Celsius, give or take a couple of degrees. That’s 95 Fahrenheit, for all you imperialists out there. For November that’s extremely warm. I’m not enjoying it one bit.

You see, I don’t have a very high heat tolerance. Add to that the skin reaction I have to sun exposure and you have yourself a virtual shut-in. You’d think I’d be happy to spend my days lounging in front of the air conditioner but I’m not. I’m hopelessly bored. That’s what led to my declaration of war in the first place. Who declares war out of boredom? Well, at least I didn’t try and pretend Brendan had “nukular” weapons concealed somewhere in his Cave. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 3: Revenge of the Nerd

After the disappointment surrounding my theft of his main speaker I was almost deterred. For fear that had been his intention, however, I plowed on for a second attempt at Episode 3. I decided to return to the original plan and take something from the top of his desk.

There’s actually not as much selection as one might expect though. The majority of his “critically important” clutter is comprised of cables and blank DVDs. Eventually I settled on his roll of solder. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 2.5: Thwarted

Yesterday was to be the day when Brendan scored his first victory in the war between the forces of chaos and order. I’m the force of chaos, if you were wondering. Melodramatic? Perhaps. But a little overstatement never hurt anyone.

You see there was a method to my madness. I have a long memory, as you may have guessed from that grudge I’m holding for his watch game. I remember back when I first persuaded him to teach me how to play chess. The lessons remain incomplete and I fear I shall forever remain ignorant due to an issue we had during the third game. With a total of three pieces left to his name he decided to tip his little king onto its side and declare me the winner. That wasn’t a euphemism, if you were wondering. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 2: Attack of the Sticky Fingers

Emboldened by my victory in Episode 1, I decided to choose an object a little closer to the centre of his attention. To the right of his keyboard he has a little (bright yellow) plastic box which contains his precision screwdrivers. This was a daring ploy for two reasons. One, the box itself stands out like a shag on a rock. The second, and far more significant, reason was that it was almost as obvious a choice as the battery charger. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 1: The Random Menace

The other day, while he should have been working, Brendan came across The Nerd Handbook and made the mistake of sending the link to me. As the post on his blog would suggest, he likes to think that it is the definitive guide to all things Brendan. I decided to test his hypothesis. Read the rest of this entry »