Thoughts are like Ramblings, but quieter

I'm at Uni now, and I still haven't compiled my to-do list for January 2009. I generally find that without a list of things to do written up on my white board I find it hard to get motivated to do anything. Perhaps the first thing I write on there should be: "Compile to-do list".

Nevertheless, until I have done that I have a bit of time to spare. Johnny has already written "Play Games" on my to-do list, but I figure blogging is an equally valid use of my time.

If you haven't already, check out the latest XKCD that Claire linked to in the last post. I really love that comic, and today is particularly funny. A warning for people not as geeky as Claire or myself - some of the jokes are sciency, computery and generally geeky.

I sold my car yesterday. In fact I really sold it late last week when a guy rang up and came round for a test drive. He was actually testing it on behalf of his friend who lives out in Masterton, and based on this friend's opinion the Masterton man was pretty sure he wanted it. Provided of course the car passed a warrant.

With a sentence like that and my known affection for telling a story you would expect that the car miserably failed the warrant. Well in fact it passed effortlessly. The check sheet had only ticks and numbers, no written comments or crosses. That same day Claire and I wanted something to do so we took the car out to the Wairarapa so the buyer could have a look himself. We arrived at their farm and they made us cold drinks and we went for a walk around the farm to feed the lambs and pat the goats and calves. As we were heading home afterwards we talked about how unusual it is nowadays to be shown such hospitality. Maybe it's a sign of the times, or a point of difference between living in the city and living in the country.

Yesterday Mr and Mrs Buyer drove to Korokoro to pick up the car and drop off a bank cheque for $5800. I'm pretty happy with that price. The car had done 210,000 km and is 12 years old now, and I feel that the longer I took to sell it the less I would get for it. Plus it saves me having to get the BMW inspection done and a new registration. It's already saving us $22 a fortnight in insurance.

I banked the cheque immediately and it appeared in my account with online banking, so I transferred it to savings. I had quite a shock this morning when I logged in and saw that my current account was suddenly five and a half thousand dollars in overdraft! Apparently I had banked the cheque after the days paperwork had gone through - so while electronically I had received the money, since the paperwork wasn't there to back it up the transfer was automatically reversed. I phoned the bank and it was no drama to correct it, and I'm told I won't have to pay fees or interest for their mistake. I was quietly hoping for "Bank error in your favour, collect $200".

Oh, an update on Femto, Nano and Pico. It turns out Femto was actually a boy mouse. We were initially tipped off by how much Femto liked to climb up behind Nano and Pico, add to this Femto's stronger smell and Claire's internet research into boy-mouse-parts and we were suitably concerned to bring Femto back to the pet shop. Claire was upset when we gave him back because she had already become quite attached to him (he was the white one), but we didn't have much choice - you can't keep boy and girl mouses unless you expressly want a whole brood of them. It's all very irritating that Animates would sell us a male mouse from a cage labelled as having female mice. If Femto was 'of age' I would be very concerned for all the other people who bought potentially pregnant female mice from the same cage.

So now we have just Nano the inquisitive black mouse and Pico the shy brown mouse. We have our fingers crossed that neither of them are pregnant, because that's a whole extra hassle.

With the car being sold we have a few spare dollars. You didn't think I could save the entire amount did you? Last night we went out for dinner. I was hoping for something fairly small and not too expensive since it's our anniversary in a week and I'd like to have some funds for a nicer dinner then. We went out to the new Lonestar in Petone. It is as you expect from Lonestar, and from my previous experience I know that unless you are really hungry, you stay away from their full-size main meals. Claire ordered a roast vege salad and I had a smaller version of what I'll admit was a very nice chicken thing.

We felt like we had restrained ourselves enough to warrant having dessert. Initially we had ordered a chocolate cocktail and a chocolate fudge pudding thing to share, but this wasn't enough for my mischievous wife. She was sitting there looking all conspiratorial and then when the waitress walks past she collars her and orders a second fudge pudding! I'm yelling out "No, she's not serious! She's mad! Ignore her!" but sure enough, a few minutes later out comes 2 chocolate fudge puddings and the cocktail. All Claire was missing was chocolate smeared over her face and she would truly have been a born again seven year old. Bad girl! Go to my room!

I've also rung up Sky TV and next Tuesday the guy is coming round to set up My Sky HDI for us. I've had a small amount of experience with TiVo and a lot of My Sky's features seem to be about the same. So I'm quite looking forward to that. We can finally retire the old VCR and Claire should never miss America's Next Top Model again.

What else? Claire's parents gave us a voucher for a 4x4 driving thing around Kapiti hilltops for an anniversay present. We've booked that for this Sunday, so that should be fun. Claire bought me a Metro Man facial and massage for christmas at Ataahua day spa in Lower Hutt, which I've booked myself in for Thursday. I could act staunch and mannish and say I'm only going because Claire bought it for me - but really I'm quite looking forward to it. =)