Today is R's b-day, so happy b-day Roger! Yay, it's your birthday:)

I got him the Fawlty Towers box set (not that it's much of a box set with only 12 episodes ever made), and a new watch. I decided to get him a new watch around October last year, because he kept looking at watches but always decided against getting one because he didn't really need one, he just wanted one. I didnt tell him I was getting him a watch until about a week ago, and then let him pick out one he liked.

We went to his parents place for lunch (now that they've moved here from Sydney we can pop over for lunch whenever we want, which is quite convenient). His mum had made him his favourite meal and dessert (awww) and in the evening we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

It's been fun:)

This is an actual email sent by Roger to a person who wanted Media Two to do a rodeo related website for them:

Hi, I'm sorry, your budget wouldn't allow for any site we would produce as you'd be looking at around $2500, and if you wanted to manage the content, then we'd be supplying a site for our CMS at  www.m2cms.com.au and for that it would need to be hosted with us, which it seems also doesn't suit you. And finally, unfortunately here at Media Two we all find rodeos incredibly cruel to the animals and as such would choose not to support or have anything to do with anyone who supports or is connected with this barbaric practice from the dark ages that needs to be abolished. Rodeo, promoted by one Australian organiser as "great family fun", is in truth nothing more than a blatant exhibition of animal abuse which has no more place in a civilized society than cock-fighting or bear-baiting. It is impossible to have a "humane" rodeo, or one which does not pose serious risk of injury or death to animals. Far from being exercises of human skill and courage over wild beasts as their supporters would have us believe, they are manipulative displays of human domination over frightened and hurting animals. - http://www.alv.org.au/issues/stoprodeo.php Regards, Roger Chappell Media Two Web Development

I love him for sending this email:)

Due to having visitors from UK, we went to Seaworld yesterday. We'd all been there before, except Sarwat, and with her never having experienced anything fun or exciting where she grew up, we thought she'd enjoy it. And she did:)

Towards the end of the day, we went into the photo centre, where people can buy photos of themselves that were taken during the rides and while swimming with dolphins etc. We only went in to get a couple of drinks, and ended up behind a woman who was kicking up a stink at the checkout, because photos of her kids were posted online for people to buy.

The photos were obviously posted so that people could find them and order them to buy, but this woman had a problem with it because she didn't want other people to 'be able to buy photos of her kids'. She made the staff member promise to have them removed from the website so that no one else would have access to them.

This is a good example of people not using their logic abilities. Obviously no one will spend money on buying photos of other people going on the rides, they would only buy photos of themselves. And paedophiles won't bother spending money on photos of fully clothed kids when they can download child pornography for free.

Also, they spend all day in a theme park, where people take photos left and right anyway. Loads of photos would have her kids in the bacground. Loads. I know I ended up in in the background of at least two photos, and they were just the ones I noticed being taken.

Silly people, getting all worked up for nothing.

R and I are now located at the Y Hotel across the road from Hyde Park in Sydney. We have come to Sydney to meet up with Qads and his wife Sarwat, who are arriving from England early tomorrow morning. We are showing them around Sydney until Thursday, then flying back to Brisbane where they will stay with us for a month. Qads has spent heaps of time in Australia previously, but Sarwat has never been here, and pretty much nowhere else interesting either, nor has she ever seen the ocean or a big city, so it will be interesting to show her around.

It's quite chilly here in Sydney, it was about 15 degrees when we arrived just after sunset, and after walking around the city for a bit my ears were aching from the cold. I don't know how I ever managed in Norway....

What's funny is we went to the hotel and checked in, went up to our room and found that it was a twin room rather than a double room. We went down and told them and were given a double room, and I casually commented to Roger that the same thing happened at the hotel in Oslo. We settled in and then went out to dinner. When we got back we realised that our heater didn't work, so we went down and told reception, and they gave us a new room. Again, this happened in Oslo. Then, in the new room, the heater didn't work either, and that's when it got freaky, cuz the exact same thing happened in Oslo! What are the chances...

Julie was outside all day yesterday, which isn't unusual. She came in in the evening, and because it was raining a lot I decided to keep her in for the night. She went to sleep on the couch and I went to do other stuff for a few hours. After I had finished with my tasks, I went to sit down with Julie for a while and give her a cuddle. I ran my hand all along her body and up her tail, and then noticed a bump on it that never used to be there. I felt it a bit more closely, but carefully, so I wouldn't hurt her, and the tail seemed crooked with a big lump where it was bent, and the end was limp. She whinged a bit when it was touched, and purred more loudly than usual, which is a sign of pain. I made Roger feel it too, because I was too scared to touch it in case it hurt, and he didn't support my theory that it was broken, he thought it was just a sore or similar.

I still believed it was broken, so I googled it (as you do) and found some info on broken tails in cats. A few sites said that the prognosis is really good, others that broken tails could cause problems with the bladder and that broken tails that don't recover and stay limp should be amputated to avoid further damage (from not being able to feel pain in it, and because they might accidentally pee on it, causing chronic skin rashes and infections).

I couldn't stand the thought of Julie being in any pain, so I set my alarm for 8:30 this morning to call the vet first thing. She said we could come in at 9:30, which we did. The vet felt it, then decided to shave part of her tail for a closer look, and discovered that it wasn't broken, but had two deep puncture wounds from another cat biting her. They were bleeding and had a bit of pus coming out of them, and her temperature was up slightly. The lump we felt was from swelling around the wounds, not bone trying to poke through the skin which was my immediate thought when I felt it.

She was injected with a one off painkiller, and we were given antibiotics to give her for the next 5 days. By the time the painkiller wears off some time tomorrow, the antibiotics should have kicked in enough for her to not be in much pain.

So that was another little cat scare, but at least she's ok now:)

Today we went to Crazy John's Mobile phone store to unlock Roger's previous phone - an LG Prada. We bought it a year ago on a two year plan, so my phone could have an account instead of being on pre-paid. The sim for it has never been used in the Prada, because I put the sim in my phone and R used his Vodafone sim in the Prada (Crazy John's is a Vodafone reseller so Vodafone sims work in their phones). R has now given this phone to his business partner Olivia because it was wasted on him as he hardly ever used it anyway.

So we went to unlock it so that Olivia could use her new sim in it, which isn't Vodafone. There's a year left of the plan it was bought with, so we weren't sure if they'd be happy to unlock it for us.

While living in Norway, I once tried to get a phone unlocked, but I wanted to stay on the plan. I had swapped phones with R and he needed to use his sim in my Norry phone which was locked to a Norry company - Tele2. I explained all this to Tele2, and they refused to be helpful at all. She wouldn't even listen to my explanation, she just kept saying that if I wanted to unlock it I had to pay out the remaining 6 months left of my contract, despite me repeatedly clarifying that I wanted to stay on the contract until it finished, just with a different phone.

So when R said he wanted the Prada unlocked a year before the contract was up, I wasn't hopeful.

But we walked into Crazy John's and explained to them that we wanted to still be on the contract until it ends in a year, we just wanted to be able to use a different sim in that particular phone.

They were happy to help, and called the necessary people to make it happen, for free.

 

My little Julie is 8 years old today. She's still my special little baby, because I've had her since she was two days old, longer than any of our other cats. She's been the only consistent thing in my life since I was 19, everything else has changed, but Julie is my little rock:)

However, all is not bliss with Julie. She has always enjoyed her outside time and I have mostly indulged her desire to be outside because it makes her happy. But the last couple of months or so, she has been gone a lot, and I recently discovered why. The people next door have invited her into their house, despite knowing that she belongs to me and R.

I'm not happy about it, Julie belongs with me. I know her better than anyone. Luckily, we are working on a new form of cat proofing for the fence, so that will be the end of her leaving the garden. (This is of course not because I am so petty that I can't handle Julie having friends, but because I want her to stay safe and not get run over. Removing her from the next door neighbours is just a bonus.)

Anyway, happy b-day Julie.



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