Earth Hour

So tonight is Earth Hour and we are all encouraged to turn off our lights for the hour.

Well heres a thought for you. Most Foxtel boxes draw close to 90w at all times. So if you want to really make a difference tonight turn off your pc and unplug it. And your foxtel box, although I will miss the way it warms the tv cabinet.

Driving me mad !

So I had a bit of an 'incident' with my bloved Honda CR-V a few weeks ago. The clutch basically decided to screw with the gear box and poped a linkage in the engine. I am not very car minded, so it could just be what the mechanics tell you so they can charge $1500 to fix it.

Anyway I got a loaner CR-v (Luckily not one of the new ones which are butt ugly and look like a nightmare to reverse park.)

Thing is the loaner was an automatic. Nice relaxing drive to work, but a couple of times I had the feeling that the car was not really under my control. As a Manual driver I will often change down early and use engine braking to control speed.
Can't do that in a Auto.

It is very easy to become a bad driver in a Auto. I wonder if they do Camrys in manual?? Nah, must all be autos..
(Ha ha interesting note that the spell checker wants to change Camrys to aneurysm - is that a sign?)

Oh the irony

So I had to pop down to Coles for some bread (no really...)
I was perusing the Soy and Linseed section when a couple of young things wandered past and stopped at the health and alternative stuff section which happened to be opposite the bread section.

"Oh my god they only have two types" I heard, so I turned round to see them looking at the weight loss pack things as they both stuffed their faces with take away chips.

I was so tempted to say something, but let it go...

Sounds of the suburbs

As you should have worked out by now I am a pretty tolerant person, but when something pushes my buttons I tend to snap.

This week its my neighbours dogs. A nice young couple moved in next to us about 6 months ago, but they have these two cattle dog things. During the day they will lock the dogs in the backyard while they are at work, and at night they will stick them out the back.

Problem is the dogs get bored - there is not much excitement in a 6 x 10m back yard for a couple of dogs. So they like to jump and bark. A favourite trick is to sit at the gate that goes down the side of the house (next to our bedroom) and bark at people passing in the street. Sometimes (3 -4 times a day) the two dogs will start barking at each other and then howling.

For christmas I got the wife an ultrasonic dog scarer which we use to make them shutup. Works quite well through the fence, but I don't see why I should need to do that at all hours to get some peace and quiet.

I was working late in the shed the other night and could hear one of the dogs walking up and down the fence line growling and trying to dig out under the fence. It would then also whack the fence with its tail which makes the whole fence vibrate and clatter.

Weird thing is these people never take the dogs out for a walk. I have never seen the dogs outside the house or backyard. When they moved in we had to get the fence repaired as they were worried that the dog could jump the fence (2.4m high colourbond) - apparently they had done it before. They also bricked up the little gap at the bottom of the fence.

I think its not only cruel, but if I have to spend an hour getting the baby back to sleep beacuse of those stupid dogs howling at each other one more time I am going to snap. I also now have a 4 year old who is scared of dogs as she thinks they will attack her.

Luckily Mrs neighbour is now up the duff so we will see how much she likes it when the stupid dogs wake up her kid 3 times a day..

Other option I though of was to work the dogs into a frenzy one day and call the RSPCA - but that would be cruel...