Blah

back from a weekend at levuka with eyepee, dibbz, and munga… surprisingly it didn’t really get that cold - i was a little under the weather on saturday nite so perhaps that helped, but it really didn’t seem to be that cold.

plenty of glorious mud - eyepee found one particular mudhole that was filled with the most bizarre mud i’ve ever seen…. it was like cement that hadn’t quite set. he sank like a stone - once we snatched him out his entire front end was coated in evil goo. this evil goo added about 2+ kilograms to each wheel which ended up causing us to stop on the side of the highway on the way home - pulling his wheels off and cleaning them so he could drive above 60kph without being wobbled off the road.

awesome weekend - levuka is the priority spot for brass monkey III. the park owner seemed like a nice bloke and he’s happy to cordon off a dedicated camp ground for us.

i had about 6 beers in me when i ended up in the pose below - i didn’t realise there was a 1+ metre drop on the right hand side. i reckon i got my front wheels to about where the orange winch dampener is - and then slid all the way back down again. fortunately eyepee got up there in the 40 and winched dibbz and i to safety.

view of the drop on the right hand side - there’s less than a foot between my tyre and carnage

eyepee and the evil goo…

i got no action shots of the dibbz mobile so the obligatory group shot will have to do for the time being…

i love old trucks…. this weekend i couldn’t turn the mq off cos of a failed edic, eyepee couldn’t open his drivers side door due to a dodgy latch, and dibbz had power steering that kinda worked sometimes, but not others. but while the pajero and ifslux owners sat around the campfire we were out wheeling. who’s laughing now eh?

i think dibbz has already updated his blog - now everyone needs to hassle dibbz and eyepee for video footage

i used to have a guy’s business card on my desk - whenever i was having a crap day i’d ring this guy up and give him a spray, he was a crap acct mgr so there was always something to rant at him about.
i dunno if it was my continual harrasment or what but the guy ended up quitting…. so for about 9 months i haven’t had a ranting post - a few weeks ago i put citibank in this guys place.

it only took 3 sprays to un-suspecting complaints drones at citibank and they rolled over.

they conceded they stuffed up and as a result they’ve given me what i think works out to be about 200 bucks worth of reward points and waived my annual fee.

personally i woulda forgone the apology just to have a ranting post again….. *sigh*

today was the coldest day all year…. -2 degrees in ipswich at 6am. OMFG!

today also happened to be the day i had to be up at 6am to get the mq down the road for a wheel alignment…. so after having a shower and trying to stave off frostbite i jumped in the mq to take it down the road.

the glowplugs are shot so it’s a bit hard to start at the best of times - but this morning the world was conspiring against me…. the edic motor which has been on its way out for awhile decided it wouldn’t activate - which means no fuel to the injector pump. the problem with the mq is you just walk past it and you get covered in grease - so im dressed for work getting covered in grease. everything i touched was freezing cold…. awesome. eventually jiggled the edic into life and got the bitch to start - filled the entire neighbourhood with white smoke and off i went.

worked all day - picked up the mq when i got home and the mechanic shows me a sheared off snapon spanner…. “tie rods are siezed mate” - good news is the wheel alignment is actually pretty straight…. and with the tie rods siezed it’s not gunna go out of alignment anytime soon.

so after more jiggling with the edic i left the mechanic feeling pretty good about things - made it 50 metres down the road and the edic completely dropped it’s guts - no fuel, no go. so im stopped on the side of the road 50 metres from the mechanics. finally accepted the inevitable and disconnected the edic and got going again.

all the edic does is cuts off the fuel when you turn the ignition off - just about every mq still on the road has a manual kill cable hooked up and the edic disabled…. i took some pride in the fact that after 1/2 million k’s my mq’s edic still worked and everyone else’s didnt. pride’s out the window - i’ll just use a manual kill cable

so after the whole saga the mq’s in tip top shape and i’m good to go for this weekends trip.

you may think you’ve found a chick that’s sane and rational and behaves like a human.

you haven’t

it might take a week, a month, even a year - but sooner or later the psycho train will come a knocking

be afraid

so i got 1 reply - from Cheryl Bromage (local Ipswich council)…. as far as politicians go she’s a bit of a hottie.

she basically agreed that the road sucks, highlighted the major issues with the road (which at least shows she gets it), and kinda intimated that as a pissy little council there’s bugger all that ippy council can do. she gets a 6.5 out of 10, no real content but at least she was prompt and sympathised.

my lovingly elected state and federal members have yet to reply or even so much as send an automated response to confirm receipt of my email. perhaps they’re busy recruiting doctors or making babies. i’ll be sure to treat my tax return and rego payments with the same urgency.

added reciprocal links to fatman, dibbz, and munga blogs.
I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU CLICK THESE LINKS!

i wish there was an easy way to dynamically remove ppl from the list if they don’t post at least once a week. *nudge* *nudge*

for centuries man has debated what came first… the chicken or the egg?

i put forward an updated version of the same question… what came first - the right lane retard or the tailgater?

on any given day i strike at least a handful of right lane retards (rlr’s)…. for the uninitiated a “right lane retard” is one of those assclowns who sits in the right hand lane doing 20 k’s below the speed limit, happily banking up traffic for miles. depending on my mood i handle rlr’s differently - this morning i was in a particularly good mood so i thought id just wait until she was far enough ahead of the truck in the left hand lane that i could overtake her in the left lane. as i was checking my mirrors to see when i was clear of the truck in the left hand lane this particular rlr decides to put on her brakes - now some rlr’s will maintain speed and lightly touch the brake…. this is intended to freak you out and make you back off - not surprisingly it almost always has the opposite effect. this rlr was not just trying to freak me out, she was trying to kill me, she wiped off about 20kph for no reason other than to make a point. i jumped on the brakes with literally millimetres to spare…. i jumped on the brakes so hard i locked all 4 tyres (whilst doing 100kph in dual lane traffic with several cars up my clacker).

instantly my good mood was gone - the game was on.

the rlr could obviously sense that the stakes had escalated well beyond what she was prepared to play for - so she put the foot down and took off. this played right into my hands as i was able to get alongside her…. with the hilux screaming at 5grand in 3rd gear doing 100 i pulled up beside her and very politely explained to her how undesirable i found her actions.

some rlr’s will get all indignant and explain their own point of view, others will focus on the road ahead and pretend like the angry madman next to them screaming out the window doesnt exist. this rlr was of the latter variety. we just didnt seem to be communicating - i realised i needed to get her attention.

so i changed lanes in front of her…. im in a ute with a nice solid towbar, rlr is in a nice new model magna with a bonnet height just designed to mate with my towbar. in order to get her attention i jam on the brakes - new model magna’s obviously have abs as she managed to avoid trashing her nice new magna on my ugly old towbar. but now i have her attention and i feel that we are at last communicating effectively.

just as i felt we were making real progress towards resolving our differences the rlr slowed down to about 60 (still in the right hand lane i might add)… i needed to get to work so i continued on my merry way.

but beware you freakish fran fine lookalike magna driving skank - i remember your numberplate and your big hair…. i’ll be watching for you, and next time i’ll get ya.

i got a call today….. it was a call transferred to my internal line from reception - as a general rule i don’t take these calls because they’re never good. today i was feeling lucky, so i took the call.

“hello sir, this is rajput from citibank credit card fraud division”

ALARM BELLS RINGING!

so this could be one of two things - something really really bad has happened at work.
OR
my personal credit card has been pwn3d.

i was actually happy to hear it was just my personal card. rajput was very vague on the details but i did manage to get out of him that my cc was in someone’s dbase that got compromised. rajput being the good little indian call centre drone that he is wouldn’t disclose who got pwn3d. i only really use this card with big companies - it’s not like ive bought stuff from nanna’s nappy supplies or similar.

which begs the question - who got pwn3d?

so anyway - i now have to wait for my new cc to arrive.

today i watched hotel rwanda… i’m embarrased to say i had no idea of this true story until i watched the movie. if you haven’t watched this movie you should - and feel bad about yourself.

half a million people were killed (or up to a million - depending on which source you believe), hundreds of thousands of people packed up and legged it to bordering countries and the UN watched on and did nothing. actually the UN did do something - they pulled their “peace keeping” troops out because it was too dangerous.

makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesnt it

Leigh posted about unclaimedsuper.com.au….. she’s correct - they will find your “unclaimed super” for free. HOWEVER - the definition of “unclaimed super” is important.

when the bastard swine eat away at all your super taxes (cos that’s what super is - a deferred tax payment) your super becomes “unclaimed”. i think the magic number is $200. so when they’ve gobbled all your super taxes to below this magic number they’re no longer allowed to deduct any fees - i believe as a protest they also stop paying you any interest, your account also becomes classified as “unclaimed” and the unclaimed super mob is notified.

findmysuper.com.au claim to search EVERY fund, not just where you’re balance has become low enough to be classified as “unclaimed”.

incidentally the govt declared it ILLEGAL to charge for locating people’s lost super. so the loophole they’re using is that they’re not charging you to find your super - they’re charging you to handle the paperwork to roll it over into your fund of choice. real effective law huh.

after my last rant about the findmysuper.com.au turkeys i rang them up and gave a spray to one of the indian call centre drones - it made me feel slightly better and i actually got some info out of it.

apparently because i was so pissed about them stuffing me around for 6 weeks they decided to rush through the rollover of the 10 funds i know about. the searches will continue over the next 6 weeks and then they’ll get me to do the forms for the other funds they dig up.

so far this has cost me over 10 hours of my time - perhaps i can claim a deduction of 10 x $100 per hour on my next tax return?