Waiting for the Termite Verdict

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Frankston termite inspectionsIs it bad that I hope my work building falls down? Not that I HATE my job or anything, but we just got a week off and I couldn’t be more chuffed. No one’s hurt, the building is getting renovated from that drafty mess that it used to be and the boss is really sad but he’ll get over it. It’s not like I’m hoping that the Frankston pest control people fail or anything.

Not at all. Nope.

Maybe a little bit. Hey, pest control people do a good job, but they’re not miracle workers! It happened with my Uncle Seb’s place: infected with termites for months, and he just thought that it’d sort itself out. No problem, right? Then part of his roof caved in and he knew he’d made a big mistake. It was too late to save his cabin, so it basically became kindling.

I don’t really know how we all missed it, to be honest. The place was all wood panelling from the 70s, really cheap stuff that let in the cold wind and heated up in summer like nothing else. You’d think someone would’ve seen a little termite head poking through and thought…hmm, should probably say something about that. Apparently they’re sneakier than I thought, because the problem was pretty serious by the time we all got kicked out to make room for the exterminators.

So yeah, week off work! And maybe, if they decided it’s too much, we’ll be moving to a new building. That’s what the company needs, anyway: a big shakeup to cure all the droning monotony down here in sleepy Frankston. The termite control people must be finishing up soon…guess I’ll see what they say. Crossing my fingers for a complete collapse, though…for the good of the company!

-Natalya

What Went Down in the Play Centre

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childrens play centre You guys, it happened again, I’m SO triggered this time, seriously. For one thing, they just swept the whole fishmonger thing under the rug and pulled the ‘evil twin’ schtick. Ugh, even I saw that coming. I (yes, ME) was on the verge of quitting Week of Our Lives for a few weeks until they managed to sort out the tangle, but then they dropped a bombshell at the end of the premiere. Mm, I just have to keep watching!

So, they had the party at the kids birthday party venue, Croydon’s finest, which I thought was weird because WOOL takes place in a fictional town. I guess Realsville just doesn’t have its own play centre. What do Croydon’s actual play centres feel about a fictionalised version of themselves being represented on screen? Maybe they got filming permission and actually shot it on location, but then some crazy drama went down in there. It’s not like that’d make people want to use a birthday party venue for their children. Hmm, maybe there’s a lawsuit in the works. Or maybe in the next episode they all go BACK to the play centre and iron out their differences and everyone has a good romp in the ball pit and all is indeed well.

Yeah, so, anyway…Hiro was sweeping the floors once the place had closed, because that’s his job, when he was approached by a shadowy figure. As literally the only foreign person in Realsville I’ve always wanted Hiro to get his own storyline, and sure enough, this is it. The cloaked figure was…his long lost uncle! Who in their native Japan is the emperor of a massive empire of indoor play centres! Croydon was a test for the company in Australia, with Hiro sent in as a sleeper agent without even knowing.

Will Hiro take up his destiny to entertain children across Australia? Will Hannah ever reconcile with the fact that her mother was turned into a seagull by an ancient curse? What’s up with Anita growing back her severed limb? And what do the Croydon indoor play centres actually think of this in real life?

I have to keep watching. I just…ugh, HAVE to.

-Leticia

Don’t Weld at Home…

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fishing rod holdersI’ve just had an AWFUL idea for a book, so bad it’s just SO good. It’s 2016, people love a bit of satire that’s actually just disguised failure. What’s the law? Godwin’s? Maybe. Questions for later.

My idea was Welds Gone Wrong, with amateur welders in their garages taking on all kinds of giant projects that really require a professional. Then they take pictures of how much they failed, send them in and people think we’ve compiled this hilarious fail compilation, when actually…um, no, that’s exactly what we’ve done. I couldn’t sworn there was satire in my original pitch somewhere…

Um, anyway, I think there are companies that do marine welding in Melbourne that could partner with us, so we could have an ‘idiot at home’ page contrasting a ‘professional on the job’ page. Yeah, that’s the way we do it. Welding gone wrong, except when it goes right. Out of all the DIY tasks, I feel like welding is one of the few that you should never just pick up and give a try. That’s real fire right there, hot enough to melt metal (that’s what it does), and not something to just play around with. That people use blowtorches for cooking still astounds me. Oh, we can include cooking in the book! Here’s how MY terrible meringue became utterly terrible after I applied a cooking blowtorch, and here’s a smiling, perfect-toothed professional chef with their amazing baking creation. Blowtorches for cooking, phew…

Yep, it’s a solid plan alright. I just need to get down to the docks and see how the marine welders do their thing, so that we can start spreading the word for pictures and stories of people doing it badly. We can leave out the injuries, perhaps, but there should be plenty of material without any of that. Welding can just go do very wrong, I’m surprised that no one has yet thought of this. Like, ‘here’s my fishing rod holder that I really should’ve had professionally made, because now all it’s good for is being a museum exhibit in an exhibition of charred metal!’. That sort of thing.

-Jenkins

Bacon, Dog Walking and Proper Technique

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My 25th is coming up, and all I really want is a statue of myself made of bacon. I’m willing to concede that it may only be half my actual size, but I’m not a really big person so it’s not a big ask, personally, that’s what I personally believe. Bacon is an extremely malleable meat, basically paper in the form of a delicious culinary treat. There’s a great rap song in there, somewhere, oh yeah.

Man, I’ll be taking Jalopy for a long walk the day after my party though! Got to walk off all that bacon. In fact, it’s my firm belief that my border collie is the sole reason I’m not a giant fat lump, because she needs two good walks a day, and we’re talking hills. Dang, I could be a walker of dogs. A person who walks dogs, for a profession. What do we call that here in Melbourne? Dog walker, that’s it. I could be a top class dog walker, what with how far Jalopy needs to run before she’s satisfied, and I’ve worked off all that bacon.

Well, I say ‘satisfied’, but that’s more of a relative term. My active collie has only ever been tired out once, and that was when I took her to international Collie Day at the botanical gardens. 9:30 in the morning to 6pm in the evening she played with other dogs, while most of us just sat there drinking coffee and swapping stories about our little bundles of energy. She slept the whole way home, and then I had the audacity to ask her if she wanted a walk this evening. In a historical moment, she looked at me through half-closed eyes and went back to sleep. Not today, thanks!

Alright, maybe tiring a collie out is a dog walker requirement. Like, it’s what they ask you at the official Melbourne Dog Walking board of important people. Yes, your gait looks good, but…have you tired out a collie? You have? Oh, well, hired!

-Annaliese

Three Types of Corporate Functions Made Fun with Ice Skating

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function rooms MelbourneGetting your team out of the office is a great way to build motivation and togetherness. The trouble is organising an event that is going to elicit enthusiastic grins rather than yawns and eye-rolls. For companies looking for places to hire function rooms, Melbourne has ice skating rinks that provide a unique experience for your team. Here are three different ways to do corporate functions that are fun and won’t put your staff to sleep. Take your team out for a day of activities at an ice skating rink and see their motivation and confidence soar. Even if your team don’t know how to ice skate, their experiences while learning to skate build self-esteem and bring them closer together. Organised activities such as bumper balls, obstacle courses and ice hockey get your team thinking in new ways and benefiting from the competitive environment. These activities are as fun and rewarding for adults as they are for the kids.

Take your staff to a training day at an ice skating rink for a unique and memorable experience. Staff benefit from being in a new environment during training days, because it gives them a sense of enthusiasm and openness. Whether you want to hold your activities on or off the ice, ice skating rinks prove you the option of utilising a function room without skating, and simply enjoying the special backdrop of the rink. What better way to spend your Christmas party than at a skating rink surrounded by ice. Escape from Melbourne’s sweltering summer weather and seek refuge in the cool enclave of the ice skating rink. Here you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to enjoy a ‘white Christmas’ while enjoying your end of year celebrations with your staff, showing your appreciation for their hard work and rewarding their efforts with a memorable time.

Styling to get top dollar

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Melbourne interior stylistSelling our home has been a bit of a nightmare, and I’m willing to admit it’s mostly my fault. We’re finally downsizing, twenty years after the children have moved out and all have families of their own. Harold and I have talked about it for yonks, but it wasn’t until I caught him trying to drive his mobility scooter up the stairs that we decided that perhaps we needed a nice, one-floor bungalow type place with minimal garden space to look after. We’ve even got our eye on a nice little place on the edge of Keymore, owned by Deirdre Dawes. She’s clinging to life right now, the old sausage, but once she throws in the towel we’ll be right on the place in a flash.

The thing about Harold and me is that between the two of us, we tend to forget most things. With the small fortune we’re getting from this massive place compared to where we’re moving, we thought we’d splash out a bit and look around Melbourne for an property staging stylist, just to give the place a bit of a kick. We haven’t done much decorating, and we want to fetch a nice price for it so the grandkids can go to college without having to worry about the government slashing their funds. So we got a stylist to make the place look a little bit grander, dusting the windows and maybe replacing the door handles with some even nicer door handles. It was MY idea, I’ll add, which is why it quickly became embarrassing that I forgot who this person in my home was and told them they can clamp up and take their opinions on my own home somewhere else. Maybe it was simple forgetfulness, or perhaps I’m more house-proud than I thought, but I’ve chased three interior home styling designers from Melbourne out of the house this way and I think we’ve earned ourselves a black mark in the industry. Oh, I just get so worked up if they tell me the grandfather clock should be moved to the hallway, or that the stained glass in the kitchen makes the place look dark. It’s my place, I’ll do what I want! Then Harold tells me that we hired these people specifically to alter the house and make it more appealing. That’s what home staging is all about. Perhaps next time we get one of them in, I’ll go for a long walk..

A look in the mirror

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digital TV antennaDon’t you just hate it when something happens to make you realise that you are, ultimately, an extremely flawed human being. It’s even worse when it’s something small. Something insignificant. Something you should definitely be able to do but find yourself struggling to the point where you can no longer cope. Like going to climb a flight of stairs, making it up ten and needing a nice big bottle of water and a lie down.

For me, that lightbulb moment occurred when the tv went out. Really, it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. I told myself I’d be fine, that I didn’t really watch that much tv anyway, that it wasn’t going to be problem. The best digital TV antenna guy in Melbourne had been called, I’d made an appointment with him for next week, so there was nothing to worry about.

As it turns out, I am completely dependent on television. Far much more than I knew. I was having intense withdrawal symptoms – depression, anxiety – honestly, I was a mess. To fill the cravings, I began resorting to watching shows I usually loved on tv on my laptop, and I was struggling to even just sit in the living room. It was unbelievable. How could I have become so dependent on something I didn’t even need? It forced me to take a good, hard look at myself.
As the days stretched on and I spent less and less time in front of my favourite screen, I realised actually how much of my day was consumed by my evening viewing sessions. My goodness, think of all the things I could accomplish using that time. In a brave move, I called the company and cancelled the antenna guy. Melbourne, I am back. I’m going to go outside, into the city that I love, and actually do things with my life. This is the start of a new me. That is until Game of Thorns returns. 

Ninjas invaded my drain

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Melbourne drain unblocking companyI have tried to do everything as a parent that my parents never did for me. When my kids want to go to the park, I take them. When they want to have guitar lessons, they get them. When they want to go see a horse in the wild, I find one. So when my youngest son Toby asked me to have his friends over for a ninja party after school one day I of course thought, what a wonderful idea. Here I am, two days later with a blocked drain, no running water and a prospectively large drain repair bill. Toby and his friends decided to see how many little ninja action figures they could fit down the kitchen sink. At least we now all know that it is twelve. It doesn’t make many replica ninja action figures down a kitchen drain before it blocks and ruptures the entire thing. Thank you Toby. Having blocked drains in Melbourne can be pretty frustrating. Water is fairly essential and at the moment we are barely getting any. We’ve managed to find one tap that seems to work because it’s not connected to the main pipe, thank goodness. I have made arrangements for a drain unblocking company in Melbourne to come and fix it all up. It looks like we’ll have another 24 hours at least functioning at very dehydrated levels. I am hoping they can remove the blockage and fix my pipes without it costing too much. I have tried explaining the consequences of his actions to Toby but he is still reeling at the success of his ninja party and has even begun planning the next one. I don’t have the heart to tell him that it is never happening again. I have been told it is highly unlikely that any system parts will need replacing so I am praying we will still be able to afford our summer holiday this year.

Window cleaning and window repairs

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aluminium window replacementsI’ve always struggled to hold down a job. I’m not lazy and I’m not without skills, it’s just that I’m hopeless. Everything I’ve tried my hand at I’ve failed at. I’ve had dozens of different jobs — couldn’t do any of them. My first job ever, like a lot of teenagers, was in a fast food joint. That lasted probably a few months before I was busted dunking my hands into the french fries. (It was cold, okay!)

Then there was the pizza delivery gig, the removalists, the water inspector — in none of these cases did I last more than two months. Each one had its own complications. I know there’s a job out there for me, my job service provider keeps offering me these words of encouragement. I actually thought that the window cleaning job was right for me but that didn’t go down well either. I was standing on one of those tall window cleaner things against a sky scraper and because I was enjoying the view so much I started swinging out to get a better look around the edge of the building. But I ended up smashing through the windows and damaging the frame. They had to get brand new aluminium windows. In Melbourne, skyscrapers aren’t that big, but it was still an impressive crash. Personally, I think it’s their fault for having aluminum windows because I think the superior ones are the timber windows. Melbourne CBD buildings can withstand more  pressure from swaying window cleaners. Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do for money next. I think I might try my hand at gardening or perhaps census collecting. It’s pretty clear that I’m good at working with my hands as long as I’m not crashing into things at a great height.

Peaceful Postage Programming

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evidence bagsPeople seem to be really concerned with this show Police Procedural. Not really my thing, sorry. You can keep your police evidence bags and blood analysis, because I think it’s all pretty violent and not worth my time. No, I have better things to watch, like Post Office Workers Delivering Mail. Oh, don’t let the title put you off. It’s really just a quiet exploration of the human spirit in the form of a sleepy Scottish village, where mail is almost always delivered on time unless there’s a bit of character drama.

Maybe I just go to this show to stop the stresses of real life, you know? Real life certainly does have a lot of those, and I don’t need any more in the form of some show that makes your blood pressure rise. Like, say, any reality TV at all? You spend all your time yelling at the TV until finally you just give up. No, POWDM is a quiet achievement in quiet drama, just suited for my tastes. Less drama than Week of Our Lives, but just enough to help you unwind at the end of the day by keeping you invested.

This week, Scott caused a stir in the village when he got himself a new postage satchel. You see, in the town of McHoots where this show takes place, they’ve had the same postage satchel for generations. It’s almost like a lucky charm, making sure everyone gets their mail and correspondence with the outside world. Yet Scott, being a young buck, has gone and bought a new one, plunging the establishment into sheer anarchy. I found myself tutting along with Edith when she was gossiping about it with the village book club, because young people can be so impulsive. However, it IS a nice postage satchel, and the old one was wearing out anyway. Maybe it’ll be for the best. Or maybe it’ll tear the entire village apart!

They’re such simple folks, even this can wreak havoc. I’ll be following the postage satchel crisis with eager ears and eyes!

-Ethel