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That is what my project of today has been (no, not cold spaghetti, the doll on the left. Do try and keep up). She’s yet to be painted and clothed. Painting will happen later this evening, clothing tomorrow. She is on a high shelf at the minute as the dog keeps looking at her longingly and I can just imagine how much fun he would have tearing it up into little teeny bits.

I’ve just realised that as I”m posting after 11pm, this will have Saturday as the date. It’s not Saturday, it’s Friday. Sorry to confuse you (there’s a setting in Greymatter that took me a week to get right and I’m too scared to faff about with it again, hence the 1 hour early thing).

Yesterday I went shopping and bought things mainly for Saturday night. I am now the proud owner of my very first hawaiian shirt, a crappy lei thing and some fake flowers to pin behind my ear. I even bought Debbie a present. This is only because I am nice. Today I bought melting chocolate, strawberries and rice based biscuits (Debbie is coeliac). I intend to dip things in chocolate as it’s another bloody “please bring food” party. ;)

My phone arrived today and very very cute it is too. I’ve set the ringtone to the Monty Python theme because I can. It is, compared to my old phone, very posh. 1. It has games which I have been playing to run the battery down. 2. It is blue. 3. It has a nice big clear screen (my old phone has a screen big enough to show one line of text which made everything scroll across and be hard to read). 4. When you press a button and the keypad lights up, it stays alight long enough to find the next button (the old phone used to flash. It made dialing in the dark and interesting and hit and miss experience).

Well, I don’t know about you but I have a doll to paint.

Dad’s medal arrived today. He was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to the community and after 30 years it’s about time. There was an offical presentation thingy but he skipped that and so the medal was posted out. When you’re a medal winning type person you get the proper medal to be worn on certain days at certain events and a little teeny version which can be worn whenever you bloody well like. Dad also got a letter signed by the ex-Govenor General Peter Hollingsworth*.
Anyway, it’s a nice token i think and a good bit of recognition after 30 years of meetings, campaigns and damned hard work.

Today wasn’t too bad. Wednesdays are generally pretty good. Made some signs for the non-fic area to alert people to our limit on school project material (people never seem to realise that if their child is doing a project on rainforests, at least 25 other kids are too and will need materials). We lost our old signs and people tend to say, “There isn’t a SIGN you know!” and get all huffy. One women went so far as to scream “You’re ruining my child’s education and I hope you’re proud!”. LOL. Other than that, not an overly productive day as my internet class was cancelled since we didn’t have three PCs working in one area (we had 4 working in total at one point. My note on the whiteboard in huge red letters said “Please don’t reset any PCs!”, but I wasn’t specific enough as some thought they could pick “Restart” from the start menu and that would be OK). The lovely and overworked girls in IT managed to get them going again though (The IT manager is on leave at just the time a major and messy update is going on. That’s the second time he’s done that and just because he and his wife have just had a baby is no reason to not come to work… LOL). Anyway, the big messy update is happening tomorrow with a follow up “Bugger, look at all this stuff that needs fixing” day on Friday. Best bit: I am off tomorrow and Friday with my 4 day weekend. Hurrah!

*(Old Pete resigned on Monday after rape alligations from the ’60s and also covering for priests who were a little too close to the alterboys [Old Pete says that in cases of child sex abuse, the child is to blame. Old Pete is a horrible man]).

Actually, the line after that one is quite applicable, but I’m not putting it here.
There was a bit in Clocking Off where thingy (you know, blonde, Lesley someone. Was in Bob and Rose. Lesley Sharpe? Something like that) has a breakdown and is standing in the foyer of a private hospital where she’s just has her breasts enlarged. She’s standing there pouring out all this incredible pain and heartbreak in a long stream of muddled shouting. That’s kind of what my internal monologue is like at the minute. It’s pretty much like this:
“I told her it wasn’t a final notice, why doesn’t anyone ever listen and no one ever reads the fucking signs and why is it my fault, she damaged the bloody book and didn’t have to pay as it was a notice how the hell am i supposed to know what’s wrong with the photocopier it’s not a computer so I don’t know and if I do fix it they’ll come to me all the time and i can’t handle that i said, didn’t i say don’t reset the pcs? I said that to everyone made sure you all bloody knew and now you come up into my personal FUCKING SPACE and shove your face right into mine to tell me that the FUCKING OPACS AREN’T WORKING and that’s only because YOU reset them when I told you not to so why is it my problem? YOU phone IT and tell them because I have seriously done my best and SHUT UP about Shane just shut up i don’t need to hear how fucking perfect things are because if I have to be the FAT DUMPY and frankly HORRIBLE friend one more bloody time I’ll run away and be a hermit oh shit shit shit i’m going to be one of those old maids with a hundred cats and I don’t even LIKE cats and why isn’t this FUCKING COMPUTER WORKING stop waving your bloody letter in my face i’m a libraryofficer for fuck’s sake, I have no power over anything so don’t abuse me about it i told you it wasn’t a final notice and told you to bring in your stat dec and that’s all I can do, damn it” and so on.
At this stage I basically want to curl up in a corner and cry for a couple of hours, but, for various reasons, won’t. Oh well. See if I’ve perked up at all tomorrow.

You know, I am wondering why anyone ever thought that The Goodies was a kiddie show. Shown here on the ABC at about 4:30 in the afternoon, someone obviously had watched only the opening credits and thought “Hmm, kiddies”. My The Goodies…at last! DVD arrived today and the episode I watched tonight featured several ladies clad in skin tight leather while waving whips about. LOL.

It was the watching of The Goodies that broke my utterly foul mood inflicted by (no prizes for guessing) work. The morning was OK, but the minute I sat down for my lunch break Jackie came in with a CD that a woman said wouldn’t work on her PC and could I tell her why it didn’t work? The temptation to wander out and say “Actually, madam, I wouldn’t have a fucking clue” had to be squashed, and instead I installed the software on a workroom PC while she stood in the doorway blathering on about how all the others (it a series thing) worked OK. As I was eating a cheese and tomato roll at the time, my contribution to the conversation was limited.

Then, in the last 10 minutes of the day, one of the public PCs keeled over and I told the lady who was trying to use it that she would need to find another. “These are 15 minute terminals, aren’t they?” she said. I said yes and wandered off. She followed me and said “Those boys have been on for 15 minutes already!”. I think she wanted me to take them out and shoot them. Instead I said “Well, I’m sure they won’t be long”. One of the boys then came up to ask where the printing came out and I’m really sorry but I have not seen such a neanderthal for a long time (since leaving school, actually). I said “It comes out at the information desk.” He said (slack jawed and staring) “Is this the information desk?”. Now, if I was standing at the information desk at this moment wouldn’t I have said “It comes out just here”? THought so. Took him ages to find the info desk, by which time it was 5:33 and I was SO out of there.

Without wishing to give the impression that I was utterly sucked in by the Eurovision Song Contest, well done Turkey. I think Germany should have finished higher and Russia lower and am glad that the total shocker of an entry from the UK got nothing and what the hell was Slovenia thinking? France was also under appreciated and Israel’s effort was at least catchy. Here ends the wrap up.

The Eurovision Song Contest is currently on in the other room. Sometimes I worry about my family (although a DVD is being dug out, I’m told).

Did nothing on my “Things to do in my pissy one day weekend” list, but instead dagged about for most of the day playing computer games and dashing into the lounge room every 13 minutes to thaw my hands in front of the fire. So, apart from a quick chat with Debbles, not a lot happened. I’m actually wondering why I’m bothering to post. Probably best to stop. Besides, my hands are cold.

There will be a proper post for today, but I didn’t want to forget to mention that this website cost $4 million in taxpayer money (and was designed overseas, so wasn’t even $4million going to an Aussie company)

Was going to scan in Poppett’s photos of the gorgeous Austin Powers bloke at Movieworld (plus the gorgeous Shaggy. Both these men made me go all girly and weak in the knee department) but, without good reason, didn’t. Will maybe do that tomorrow, although tomorrow is pretty much planned already.

Today I had one of those people who get all ruffled over their fines (in this case, about $3). She used three of the standard “I don’t have to pay that” excuses, but didn’t count on her son. It went like this:
Her: “I thought I’d sorted that fine out last time I was in!”
Son: “No, mum, that was the fine on the other card, for the magazines.”
Her: “Oh. Well, i don’t think we ever borrowed those books anyway.”
Son: “Yes we did. Remember, I read them for school.”
Her: “Well, they’re OLD fines, we should have been told about them before”
Son: “But Mum, we haven’t used this card since then. It was lost”
Lovely Son :) I had an effort to not shake his hand. She paid up, but made her face all prissy while she did. Like I haven’t seen prissy face before.

Bron only took 5 minutes to mention she doesn’t get offered enough work and was mildly silent on the subject of the flat screens, except to mention that she hates them. Oh well, kind of peaceful and we did have a fun chat about op-shops (Bron is also an op-shop junkie).

There was something I was going to mention, but I can’t remember what it was. While I’m thinking of it, I’ll mention that if you go and buy Jimeoin’s DVD (”All Over the Shop”) - and you should because it’s hysterical - make sure you put the subtitles on once in a while because the subtitles were added by a person who can’t understand the Irish accent at all and it’s sometimes almost surreal (it also means deaf people won’t get a lot of the jokes, which is bothersome). Also, I like audience shots, and I really like audience shots from stand up comedy, because you often get this sort of thing:

As you can see, two deeply unimpressed people in a sea of cheery faces. I always wonder: Are they just not finding it funny, or do they just not get it? I think it would feel strange to be the only person not falling about in a room full of people laughing until they weep. (oh sure, I have time to do screen captures and all that, but not to scan Austin. Well, it’s my time and I’ll manage it how I like)

I ordered a new mobile phone last night because the one I had died. It may have died some months ago which is, to be honest, the last time I paid it any attention. Anyway, Poppett mentioned that she’d sent me a text thingy so I charged the battery and got the text thingy and then… phone death. I’m certain it can’t be from over use as I think I’ve made about 23 calls on it. Oh well, the new one arrives next Friday. I’m kinda wishing I’d asked for an earlier delivery but Friday is the only day I will be at home all day and I couldn’t have it delivered to work as we don’t have a street number. You needed to know these teeny details. Really you did.

Just redeemed my credit card reward points for $175 in David Jones vouchers. The other choices in my points range included a bunch of roses and a 6 month subscription to “4×4 Australia”. Wow. Anyway, it’ll be nice to have a guilt free splurge :)

Also, had a letter today from Coca-Cola saying that their CD player offer (CD walkman for $40 and 15 labels) has met with such demand that they are utterly out of CD players. There are not enough players of that brand and type in Australia to meet this demand, and they are having to import them in batches of 50,000. It mentions, twice, that Coca-Cola has had to invest a “substantial” amount in freight costs etc. To be honest, I don’t care how much they are spending, I want my CD player and I shall have it! When it arrives (two weeks, they reckon) it will be all the sweeter for knowing that Coca-Cola has spent it’s own damned money to get it to me. Yay :) It’s signed by the Activations Manager, a job title that makes me think of the person in charge of turning stuff on in the morning (”Yup, I’ve activated everything”).

My legs have been killing today. Anyone watching me getting in and out of the car would have had trouble not falling about. This is due to all that bouncing about yesterday with the books.

I have to work tomorrow. Insert standard “I hate working weekends as it makes a 6 day week” whinge here. I never liked working Saturdays even when it was part of a 4 day week at Coles. I think this is because of Saturdays in Winter when I was a kid. Reading in front of an open fire, cocoa when Mum got home from Pony Club, slobbing around and a fish’n'chip tea. It’s meant to be a calm, quiet time, not a day spent dashing around like a mad chook listening to Bron whinge about how the boxes are better in the white tubs and why did we stop putting them in? I bet you any amount of money I will get that whinge tomorrow, plus the “I don’t get enough casual hours because they all go to Alicia” whinge.

Good things that happened today:
1.Jackie let me pick a CD for the PA system (as we’re closed on Thursdays) so I finally got some Simon and Garfunkel instead of some modern dance rubbish.
2.Callum (a volunteer) was around to put away the paperbacks and picturebooks which didn’t get done last night so we didn’t have to do that.
3.I got a package from Poppett containing the photos from the trip (but not, I notice, the photo she made me take of her and Shane), her journal and a tiny teddy bear named “Cubby” which, alert mates will know, is one of my other names. Also some Russian Caravan tea as she made me a cup of that while we were away and it was horrible and a tin of alphabetti spaghetti. The reason for this I hope will become clear at some stage. Also Elsie who is now wearing a pair of purple undies. Of course.
4. The Kumars at Number 42 had a synchronised dance routine, and I love synchronised dance routines in unexpected places.

There was something else to add to that, but I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, Thursdays are short days and public-free days. The shortness is good, the public-free can be a mixed blessing. Yes, we get to do stuff that for various reasons we can’t do when we’re open (put up displays, move stuff around, have stuff installed etc) but at the same time when you’re a person with an ever shrinking position description it can be hard to fill the time. Today I filled it by moving the adult fiction around to make more space on some of the shelves. It was unutterably dull and also exhausting (lots of crouching and standing, crouching and standing and so on with an armful of books. Bugger Tae-Bo, someone should come up with the library workout). Only two days until the end of my week (working Saturday).

I’ve just had a very nice e-mail from a lad called Alex who is in a band - THE band - Frog In A Sock. I had not heard of Frog In A Sock until after all this was set up and feel a bit bad about pinching the dotcom and what are the odds of two people wanting froginasock.com (I guess Alex was thinking the same thing, actually). My apologies to the band.

It’s a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Alicia who is 21 today, 21 today. She’s got the key to the door, never been 21 before (well, just the once).