It’s been bloody hot in Melbourne ever since I got back into town on Boxing Day. Yesterday hit 41 degrees at about 5pm, dropped to about 30 degrees at midnight for the New Year’s celebrations, and didn’t go below 28 degrees all night. With the house already super-heated from the past couple of days there was absolutely no chance of getting any sleep. McBec and I moved to the spare room which has a better breeze from the window but neither of us managed more than an hour or two of proper sleep. It’s the only time I’ve ever wished for an air conditioner in my house. I normally cope with the heat quite well but this was ridiculous.

But spare a thought for poor Napoleon. He’s been walking around the house for the past two days looking like he wants to die. He spent last night at the foot of our bed making pathetic meow noises. I’m sure the RSPCA would’ve had no objection if I shaved his fur right off.

Last night was nice, though. Shunning boozy New Year’s party plans McBec and I went to a posh Italian restaurant, ate awesome food, drank awesome wine, and then went to see a movie. We were home by 11:30pm and read books in our underpants as the clocked ticked over to 2008. How romantic.

What did you peeps get up to?

Back in the middle of 2007 McBec decided that she wanted an iPod to jog with so we went down to Myer where McBec strode purposefully to the counter and ordered “one iPod Nano please. Black.” After signing the credit card docket McBec received a shiny iPod box from the shop assistant which she promptly passed to me. “Make this work,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

Over the next two days I charged the iPod and started ripping all of McBec’s CDs onto my hard drive in preparation for transfer onto her Nano. On the third day McBec called me from work and said, “I don’t want the iPod any more. Put it back in the box; I’m going to return it.” But it was already out of the box and charged, I argued. It was three days old, I argued. There’s no way Myer is going to refund a clearly-used iPod, I argued. “Don’t care,” declared McBec. “I’m taking it back.”

For the next two weeks the crudely re-boxed iPod sat on the kitchen table. “When are you taking that thing back?” I asked each day. “Soon,” McBec would reply.

Eventually McBec got around to dropping into Myer with the slightly-used iPod. She approached the pimply shop assistant. “I’d like to return this iPod,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it?” inquired pimple boy.
“Nothing.”
“So why are you returning it?”
“Don’t want it any more.”
“The box has been opened.”
“I know.”
“When did you buy it?”
“About a fortnight ago.”
Pimple man was stumped. “I’ll have to talk to my manager.”
“You do that,” said McBec, asserting her consumer rights.

Long story short, McBec got her refund after the manager simply gave in to get her out of the store.

Fast forward to mid-December and McBec is perusing a weekend newspaper magazine insert. “Oooh! Those new iPod Nanos are sexy. Especially the green ones.” I put my head in my hands and groaned. One week ago McBec gave me money and instructions to buy her a green Nano during my trip to the city. After purchasing the iPod I safely stored the receipt and decided to give her a 24 hour cooling-off period before opening the box. But this time it looks like McBec is for real and I have just started loading 7GB of music onto her second ever iPod.

Mrs The Editor turns 30 today and a bunch of us are headed up to some rural retreat for the weekend. When I say rural retreat, what I mean is luxury cottage conveniently located next to a day spa. So the girls will spend their time being exfoliated and massaged while the boys spend their time drinking beer and playing cards. Apparently there’s a trout farm on the premises from which you can catch your own trout and have the staff prepare and cook it. Lucky I’m a vegetarian. Not to mention the fact that the on-site restaurant doesn’t do “special needs” meals like vegetarian.

So happy 30th, McBec. May you catch a very large trout.

This poll is for McBec who asked me to post it. For the record, she votes for Tony Abbott.

Vote early, vote often.

All of us in the GrodsNetwork are huge fans of catfun website Stuff On My Cat. So when McBec fell asleep at 9:30pm on the lounge at a party on Friday night, Goobermetrics whipped out his digital camera and we started playing Stuff On McBec.

A handy place to rest one’s beer

Interesting hair accessories

McBec got up at arsecrack this morning to go on a 10km “fun” run. When I hauled my arse out of bed around 9am thinking about coffee and newspapers I walked into the bathroom and was confronted with this scene frighteningly reminiscent of another ten days ago: