DD minus 24: Dude, Its Raining

This is highly unusual. Like i said in my post of two days ago, it was 38 degrees celsius and only due to get hotter. Today, out of nowhere, i wake up to an overcast sky, steady rain and 28 degrees celsius. Ah, weather patterns - you never cease to amaze me.

So, with the arrival of a little rain, today has been a good dayto do, well - not much. I had to go out and buy a Secret Santa gift for one of my work colleagues ( my work Christmas party is tomorrow night, and i thought i'd better not leave it til the very last minute ). Only problem is that the guy i had to buy for is not exactly my favourite person in the office. And when you only work with 5 other people, being the " not favourite " is not exactly an enviable position. Anyhoo, so i gotta go out and buy a present for this guy and the only idea i can come up with is either going to tickle his funny bone or completely offend him.

See, my main problem with this guy is that he is a mooch. That is, in an office job where the hours are 9am to 5pm ( what a way to make a living... ) he sits at his desk and actually does some work from, maybe, 11am til 12:30pm, and then from 1:30pm til about 3pm. The rest of his working hours are spent " procrastinating ". You know, for lack of a better term. For instance, we open at 9am and it takes him roughly half an hour to count the cash in his till and organise the days paperwork. Then he volunteers to go and do our banking and walk to the post office to check our mail. This, admittedly, can sometimes take a while, especially if the queues at either place are long - however, a job that takes the rest of us maybe half an hour always seems to take him in the vicinity of 45 minutes to an hour.

So this gets him back around 10:15 am.ish... at which time he'll sit back down at his desk, answer a phone call or two, help a health fund member/customer if he isnt quick enough at hiding from them and then its 10:30am which is time for a coffee break. And, of course, this means he needs to leave the office again to buy his coffee and then his 10 minute morning tea break usually takes him 20 minutes. Which is how we arrive at his 11am start time.

I wont go into the details of his working day after his one hour lunch break ( dishes that need washing, garbage that needs to be taken to the bins, pottering around in my eyewear dispensary and generally annoying J and i ... ) but suffice to say his habit of wheedling his way out of actually work AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT has really given me the proverbial shits. I cant say that i'll miss having to put up with him while i'm away on maternity leave.

So, with that all explained, what did i manage to find and buy him for his Secret Santa gift ? A book entitled " The Lazy Persons Guide To Life ". I happen to find this quite funny, as does J and one of our other colleagues - giving a lazy person a humourous guide to being lazy ..... hilarious! The problem is not only is he a master procrastinator but he also has mood swings like a teenage girl on her period.... which is to say you cant predict them and they arent always pretty. So tomorrow night we find out if he sees the humour in my joke ( even though it is an actual dig at his laziness.... ) or whether he gets offended by the " lazy " tag.

Here's to a good laugh.... and a nice long break from his annoying, whining, woe-is-me, procrastinating ways.....

I heart the weekend

Its raining, and its beautiful. It doesnt rain much where i live, the majority of my state has been in drought for 7 or more years, and so rain is always appreciated. Even though its a long weekend, and i wished for sunshine, I wont complain about the rain. Its still a beautiful day - the sky is pregnant with rain clouds but every so often the sun will poke through, and the air has that beautiful, freshg, earthy smell to it. There is nothing like a spring rainstorm.
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Yes, its Labour Day long weekend here in New South Wales, Australia. I have very little planned, which did make me a little sad, but I am now choosing to say I am up for anything spontaneous. If i had plans, i wouldnt be able to fly by the seat of my pants, would i ? I have my regular session at the gym this afternoon, and we are having a family BBQ later this evening ( prawn skewers, steaks, chicken kebabs, salads, potato bake..... yum! ), but that is as far as my plans extend. So, for example, if some guy who has been wooing me via Match.com decided he wanted to have a coffee or something tomorrow or holiday Monday, i would have no need to turn him down - would i ?
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I am currently watching a countdown of the Top 100 Rock song clips of all time. These countdowns always amuse me because i wonder who actually gets to vote. Is it the experts - the Rolling Stone journalists, the critics and the music programmers ? Or is it the punters, the Avergae Joes who buy the records and watch the clips ? Because i am pretty sure the so called experts would vote in a lot of stuff that we mere mortals probably dont really like all that much. Plus, these kind of lists are always somewhat controversial. I mean, just what exactly makes " Stairway to Heaven " by Led Zeppelin better than " Bohemian Rhapsody " by Queen ? And why was " Hotel California " by The Eagles completely missing from the top 20 of a similar countdown i watched last month ? What a travesty.
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So, Happy long weekend to everyone who is having one and for those who arent - too bad, so sad. Just kidding - enjoy whatever time you may have off !