Moonfest
Sunday 23rd June - World Refugee Day & Moonfest
Day
After a lazy morning, and after I eventually got up, Bronwen and I drove to Annerley and the “World Refugee Day Community Festival” - apparently Australia’s largest refugee festival, with over 15,000 people attending. And it was indeed packed with people from all over the place - predominantly African, but quite a mix. There were two stages, and a popular impromptu dance area, and a myriad of food stalls.
We finished off the day watching an energetic soccer game between various African nations.
Night
Bronwen and I drove to Moonfest at Moora Park in Shorncliffe, via the IGA to buy tomato sauce and iced coffee, and then via a chip shop out at Shorncliffe (our usual one was shut, but luckily we found another not too far away) to buy chips for dinner. After eating our chips, Bronwen did some fire twirling while I took photos - then someone or something (probably gravity) tipped over Bronwen’s fuel, and she had no more. Fortunately, some nice people gave her some kerosene, and our night became fiery again.
Monday 24th June - Going to the Mechanic
3:30am
I went to bed.
4am
My alarm went off at four o’clock, roughly eight minutes after I’d fallen asleep. I got up exactly seventeen minutes later. Believe it or not, it’s quite cold in the morning. Fifteen or so minutes later, I braved the snow and ice to get in my car, and drove the half hour or so to my mechanic (David)’s place. The drive was quite nice - no traffic, feeling slowly returning to my extremities, and a little iced coffee left over from last night.
After dropping the car and keys off at David’s I walked to the train station and caught the 5:28 AM train back to South Brisbane Station. It’s funny being on public transport this time of day - the few other people unfortunate enough to need to catch it seemed so remarkably normal, though presumably weren’t inside.
The train ran on time, and my 6:20 AM bus was also on time (confusingly, they seem to have stopped using the electronic timetable signs since I last caught public transport. Who would have thought they could manage to make it even worse - but, cleverly, they have. Now, instead of helpfully pointing out when your bus was theoretically going to arrive (or more often than not, reminding you with every update of the sign that it’s getting increasingly late, and then by removing it from the sign entirely, rubbing your face in it), they request that you check the paper timetable, and admonish you to have a nice day - complete with a smiley face, just in case you didn’t believe them). Nevertheless, my bus did arrive on time, and I didn’t miss it, and it didn’t break down, and there wasn’t any traffic, and it wasn’t overcrowded, and in fact everything ran about as well as it could. However, it still took me a little under half an hour to casually drive, in the warmth of my nice, safe, comfortable car, and an hour and a half surrounded by walking influenza on semi-freezing public transport driven by crazy people and with annoying (and very cold) walks in the middle, to get home. I think my tax dollar would be better spent elsewhere.
6:45am
Having got home, I went back to bed just before Bronwen got up.
I then relaxed and wasted the day away.
4:30pm
David called, and I reversed the procedure above - except more annoyingly, as I didn’t pre-plan it and arrived at the bus stop just two minutes after the bus left, and a full half hour before the next bus. Also, the bus smelt strongly of urine, the girl in front of me on the train was talking loudly on her phone about how he wouldn’t “get none if he’s sitting in there too” and how it wasn’t her loss, but was his, while the girl on the other side quietly discussed her insane friends and all their backstabbing with another friend who she presumably wasn’t backstabbing at that point.
Interestingly, after changing trains at Central (and grabbing a milkshake from Macdonalds) I sat in a “quiet carriage” - and it did seem to work. No one loudly discussed their sex lives or drug addictions - though a slight downside was that I couldn’t finish the last of my milkshake, in case it was loud.
Evening
After picking the car up from David’s, I drove back to Rosalie - meeting Bronwen, Dan and Maz, and eating cheap tacos.
Night
I went to bed relatively early.
Tuesday 25th June - Woe is me (Sizzler)
Day
I got up (it was freezing), froze (it was really freezing), and drove to work - dropping Bronwen off at her work on the way. Cat was back from her surgery, looking quite alive.
Lunch
I had a vegie pasty for lunch with Bronwen, sitting in the park at Rosalie and watching police do things.
Night
After work I drove down to Bronwen’s work, and my day got rapidly worse. We had been tossing up whether to go see “Despicable Me 2”, or go to Sizzler. Both could only be done today, so it was an either or kind of situation.
Due to being hungry, Sizzler won, so we drove to Toowong Sizzler - as we had a two-for-one salad bar voucher, only valid Tuesdays. Worryingly, there was an immense queue, right out the door. Not wanting to wait all night then suffer the obligatory food poisoning, we rushed to South Bank Cineplex. There, there was also a large queue - except this time, cars waiting for parking. However, that’s normal, so I waited in the queue while Bronwen rushed to the cinema to buy tickets. Just as I reached the “point of no return” (after which it’s impossible to back out of the queue) Bronwen called to say the tickets were now saying “few”. Shortly later - and after someone had pushed in front of the people in front of her - she called again to say the person directly in front of her just bought the very last ticket.
Unfortunately, by this time I was well and truly stuck in the car park queue, so had to wait to get into the car park. Then, once in, I had to do a million point turn - very rudely pushing in front of everyone else trying to get out - to turn around and get back out… only to find my ticket wouldn’t let me out. Bronwen ran off with my ticket, presumably to go firebomb the cinema or get it validated, while everyone else - both the people who now couldn’t get out of the carpark, and the people still trying to get in, who were missing their movie because the people trying to get out couldn’t get out because the idiot who had just got in was stuck trying to get out, beeped at me. Sadly, I had no grenades, so could only sit and imagine the explosions until Bronwen returned, with a new, working car park exit ticket.
Having not yet learnt our lesson, we then decided that - for no apparent reason - the queue at Sizzler would have now been frozen, poisoned, or perhaps seated, so we’d be able to get a seat ourselves. Of course, this wasn’t so - and the queue, despite us having taken half an hour to not get into the cinema - was almost exactly as long as when we’d left it. No longer being of sane mind, we decided to wait, and half an hour later we did actually get to the cashier - who remembered us from the previous times we’d been and was amused - and shortly later we were seated and able to eat (though not potato skins - it was another quarter hour before they were replenished).
Looking on the bright side, what with all the food poisoning, traffic should be good tomorrow.
When I got home, I found my new TPG SIM card had arrived, and activated it online.
Wednesday 26th June - TPG Mobile
8:25am
I drove to work, and around 8:25 AM noticed my 3 SIM lost its home network and began to roam, so I replaced it with my TPG SIM, which seems to be working. I got a few SMS informing me I’d shortly receive data settings (even though data seemed to already be working). I then received four configuration messages (internet, yesinternet, optuszoo and MMS settings), which I installed. A little later I noticed I couldn’t send or receive email, then shortly later, noticed it was only when connected to Wi-Fi and worked fine when using 3G… After some pondering, I manually entered the APN settings (which were set to OptusZoo) and everything seemed to work.
Lunch
I had a very late lunch as Bronwen was busy. We went to Grill’d, and it was yummy.
Night
I drove to Bronwen’s parents’ place, where her Aunt and Uncle were, and we had a lovely dinner - interrupted by male, blue-tie-wearing Kevin Rudd knifing female Julia Gillard in the back, roughly as she had to him, except more smugly.
Thursday 27th June - Doing the Right Thing
Day
I worked. Bronwen and I had Sing’s Green Curry Thai for lunch.
Night
I drove up to Bronwen’s Parents’ place, where Bronwen was. We then drove to Govinda’s for an extra-delicious dinner, after which we went to ALDI to recycle batteries.
Friday 28th June - Ice Cream Sandwich & The Dinner Treading
Day
I stayed home from work today, and had a quiet day upgrading my Galaxy Note to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.1.2) - which took hours, and I then had to root it, and fix some problems, and so on and so forth.
Night
I’m very angry. I trod in my dinner. No dinner for me.
I drove into town to get Bronwen (who was at her parents’ place, though I met her at a nearby Woolworths), and bring her home to cook me dinner - which she did. It was a delicious dinner - cheesy pasta with lots of vegetables - and we ate it on the couch watching TV. Unfortunately, mine didn’t quite have enough pasta sauce, so I got Bronwen to go put some more on. Sadly, she put it on the floor in front of the couch, right under my foot, and when I went to get up to go find my dinner, I trod fair and square in it. This made me angry, and I went and sulked.
Saturday 29th June - Shake the Village
Morning
Bronwen got up quite absurdly early and went for a bike ride. I, of course, did not.
Afternoon
Bronwen and I drove into town and had some cheap curry, a felafel kebab and a milkshake from West End, before heading to Musgrave Park where Bronwen went slacklining, and I read my book.
Night
After slacklining we drove to “Shake the Village” - a fifties style street party at The Gabba Village - where we watched people dancing, listened to “The Sugar Shakers”, and had Thai green curry from The Thai Rose for dinner.
