It was this time last year that I made by biggest purchase in this life so far. My Volksy Golf has been a joy ever since, so I decided to celebrate the first anniversary by buying a house....

Hmmm, actually, other than timing, it's got nothing to do with the car, but yes, I signed a contract for a house & if everything goes to plan (fingers crossed), I'll be stuffing it with furniture in exactly a month.

I've been looking for a while, going to the odd inspection & I've spotted a few hopefuls which haven't lived up to the spectacular photographic work used to sell the properties. This particular house came online last Tuesday, I had a look on Saturday, went back Sunday & placed an offer & secured the property by midday Monday.

I signed the contract for the property & arranged insurance today. Thursday's set for a building inspection & to sort out finance, so it's all happening rather quickly.

Stay tuned & once I've got access, expect quite a few photos!

 

I know a guy who has been absolutely pumped for the release of the iPhone in Australia today. Thing is, he already has one!

Back when they were released overseas, he managed to get one imported with all the various components, allowing the sim card to be altered & usable over here. Even though the warranty is well & truly screwed, it's worked perfectly, so I can't quite understand why he wants a new one which is exactly the same!?! He's tried to justify it, but I kind of glaze over & confirm my own knowledge of how nuts this guy really is.

I think it's an Apple thing. There seems to be very little middle ground between someone who is a devoted Apple fan & someone who doesn't give a rats. I'm yet to own anything with the fruit etched on it even though I know their stuff is pretty flawless.

This will more than likely offend, but to me, the iPhone is a fancy Palm Pilot which can call people. Yeah, it looks damn schmick & I love gadgets & gizmos, but I don't think the current version is so spectacular that all my other bits of tech become redundant.

I own a Palm Tungsten T which still works well & there are plenty of free applications which are very useful even though they've been around for years. Combine that with my Sony Ericsson W810i & I can't really see any benefit until the iPhone takes some decent photos (2 mega-pixel camera - so very yesterday!) or it fills a need I didn't realise I had.

What I'm getting to is, why is the iPhone being treated as so revolutionary that you would wait outside an outlet at the crack of dawn to be the first to own one? This guy did just that & at one point was thinking of flying to Sydney to pick one up from the new Apple store!?! Did I mention he's nuts?!

Apple has to have some subliminal marketing scheme which I'm just not tuned into!

 

I was at my sister's place a while back & we were discussing one of her friends who is a pilot & he also plays around with those big model remote control planes.

Somehow during the discussion, she mentioned he bought a whole heap of cheap remote controlled helicopters & had given her one which she has stashed & forgotten about. After a bit of searching it was discovered & then we spent quite a time pulling batteries out of all her electronic devices to get it running.



I've always wanted to have a crack at flying a helicopter regardless of size & this was my chance.

It takes a couple of attempts to work out the best way to launch. Sitting it on the ground isn't a good idea as it falls over & the rotors flap about everywhere. Holding it underneath, giving it full power & letting it go was a far better method. It looks incredible feeble with thin bits of wire & plastic, but is quite happy to smack into furniture & keep flying (& it did countless times!)

Controls are simple, a throttle, steering & a trim control button to adjust the speed of the tail rotor so it goes in a straight line. Turning left & right is quite a pointless exercise because the downdraft it creates keeps it from getting close to walls & as such it flies relatively unassisted around the room.



Unfortunately, the maximum charge of the helicopter is around six minutes, which.... tends to also be the amount of time it takes to master & get bored of it.

Of course, you recharge & then let the rest of the family & friends have a go after which the batteries are flat, all your small electronic devices have sacrificed said batteries for the cause & it ends up back in the box to probably never get used again!

A similar remote controlled helicopter on ebay is now less than $20, which actually makes it good value for about a couple of hours entertainment. To really get your monies worth, just make sure you have a lot of people around to fly it as well or perhaps a cat to terrify from above.

Hmmm.... now who do I know that has a cat?

 

The humble toaster doesn't last forever. Eventually the element which spends its life browning, crisping & sometimes burning, ceases to light up.

The death of a toaster generally tends to coincide with the point when you finally become comfortable with the little control on the side which determines how long before it fires the contents airward.

In the case of the latest extinct machine, to cook two slices of thick raisin toast required the control on "four" & once it popped, you flip the toast, go again & the end result was perfection. My morning objectives were built around this process & now it's completely ruined by a new foreign toaster.

To be conservative, I started with the new toaster on "three" & went out to get the paper as normal. I can then usually unwrap the paper & get a glass of water before the old one popped. A few minutes later, this toaster was still toasting & eventually, I just had to manually pop it & keep checking on the progress.

Based on this simple analysis, "three" is now a longer time period than "four" & my mornings are buggered until I can adjust.

Why don't the numbers on the control represent minutes, instead of some random numbering between cold & cremated? Is that too much to ask?

 

To the dickhead who decided to cut me off on Flagstaff Hill Road & then flicked me the bird, here's something to ponder - When you rebadge a Holden Commodore to be a Chevrolet, you're still left with a Holden.... & that's not a good thing.

Congratulations!