Kiwi Banana Downunder

We went to a display village to see what was on offer.  To our disappointment and surprise, there wasn’t much or anything that really stood out; what a shame.

But one outcome we did enjoy was seeing the huge tiles, probably 60cm x 60cm, in a couple of the homes.  They looked so nice.  Our home has 40cm x 40cm tiles and after seeing (and stepping on) them, day-in and day-out, they feel too small.

If we ever found ourselves building a 2nd house – double-storey this time – we would be sure to have the 1st floor tiled with 60cm x 60cm tiles and definitely ask for a motif near the entrance.  Looks and feels grand

It was one of those odd days at work, nothing wrong but nothing special and the feeling of people being quieter than usual.  This is most likely because next Tuesday is a national public holiday – Australia Day – and quite a number of people have taken the opportunity to take the Monday off thereby converting their weekend into a 4 day one.

I’ll be working on Monday, though.  Not complaining because it’ll be a quiet day.

Still it just feels weird or odd people are winding down, especially when they all just returned from their X’Mas and New Year break.

Today at work, someone asked for help with the SD card.  Usually, inserting the memory card into the notebook would spawn the AutoPlay options but not this time.  There was not even the ‘found new device’ icon appearing in the systray but you could hear the distinctive sound playing indicating a device has been inserted.

As they were in a rush to access the contents on the SD card and I had plenty on my plate in terms of work, I lent them my multi-card reader which I happened to have in my bag.  Problem overcome, for now.

Earlier tonight I was watching an episode of Get Smart – a James Bond parody of sorts – and because this was filmed perhaps in the 60s the cutting technology back then was mainframe computers, rotary phones, and plenty of gadgets with toggle switches.  Another classic show was the campy TV series Batman – it is a show full of toggle switches, from the batmobile to the batcomputers in the batcave!

These days, toggle switches are commonly seen in movies or TV shows on detonator devices … click … kaboom!

This year has started off pear shaped in terms of Sales.  Traditionally, you have the Boxing Day Sale followed by the New Year Sale.  But this year, the Sale-with-no-name following the New Year Sale have better deals than the New Year Sale which is quite extraordinary.  Perhaps retailers are banking on increased consumer spending on the back of the recession last year and tell you what, it’s working!

As an ezcema sufferer, the use of an electric blanket is definitely on the no-no list of things to have.  I recall having one when I was younger and it caused more harm than good to me – sure it warmed me up during those very cold NZ winter nights but the amount of ‘blistering’ was not so hot.

Luckily for more my precious girl, she hopefully will never have to use an electric blanket as beds these days have been designed to provide ventilation on hot nights and retain warm on cold nights and this is made possible by latex instead of inner spring mattresses.  The instant downside to latex mattress they are harder to manage than their inner-spring counterpart – especially if it’s King size!