Checking in

Oh wow. Two more weeks without a post. What a disgrace. I even have a half-finished one somewhere that I should probably put up before it becomes irrelevant!

Anyway, a small update:



I have no idea how small, I forgot to ask. I don't even know if they measure how long the baby is at this stage (18 weeks). Anyway, we confirmed 'it' is a 'he', as expected based off what we saw at the 13w scan. Gam Jr it is :)

We also have a house, and many photos of the house, but I have been too busy/lazy/tired to put them up. We had fun last weekend, which was the first of many on which we will attempt to tackle the massive noxious weed problem that the previous owners have left us with... all except one truly massive 10-15m high noxious weed (chinese elm/celtis), which we will leave to a professional. Also had a plumber out today to give us a quote on having the bathroom renovated- the need for which will be revealed in the photos soon to be posted. God knows whether we can actually afford it, but that's the main thing determining how soon we can move in. It's such a nice house though... nothing fancy (first home buyers can't afford fancy) but it's in a nice neighbourhood and it's just nice to spend time there... even if we can't live there yet. It even comes with possums (not in the roof, thankfully).

The media's war on Iran, terror.

Very interesting, this item from the Associated Press that I found on the New York Times website. I saw the headline above and thought "Funny, it wouldn't have been a headline like that if it had occurred in a Western country". So I read the article. Five senior Iranian military figures were killed along with fifteen other people in a terrorist attack carried out by a suicide bomber. Except it wasn't a terrorist attack, apparently. Not once do any of the words 'terror', 'terrorist' or 'terrorism' appear in the entire article. The group thought most likely to be responsible is a 'militant group', not a bunch of terrorists.

It's funny how the language used by the media changes according to who the victim of a particular kind of attack happens to be.

Privacy Act changes allow missed bill payments to tarnish credit records.

From the Courier Mail:

ANYONE missing just one utility bill or credit card repayment could have a black mark lodged on their credit rating under sweeping proposals to give banks carte blanche to view every aspect of our financial affairs.

Under the suggested changes to the Privacy Act announced yesterday, lenders could dig into accounts with other institutions, relationships with utility companies, when accounts are opened and closed, and, crucially, check the repayment history of all accounts going back two years.

Yesterday a little old lady who lived a block or so away from me rang our doorbell- our credit card statements had been placed in her mailbox.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a printed statement for our online savings account with AMP as proof of our savings record so the bank could approve us for finance on our new home. It never arrived- AMP kindly sent me another one without charging the $12 (!) it cost to send the first one. Thankfully that one got to us ok.

We regularly get mail in ours that is addressed to other people who don't even live close to our place- we either put these back in the post or walk to put them in the person's mail box. On more than one occasion I have received a late notice for a bill that went unpaid because it never arrived.

How much of our stuff goes missing because it arrives in someone else's mail and they can't be bothered to re-post or deliver it? I don't blame them, I blame Australia Post, who are doing a bloody awful job. But my credit record shouldn't be tarnished because of someone else's failure to do their job. I shouldn't have to ring utility providers 'just in case' I might have a bill due that has been misdirected by Australia Post, and I certainly shouldn't have a black mark against my name for something that is evidently not my fault. Nor should anyone. I really doubt the new privacy legislation makes any provision for the havoc potentially to be wrought upon peoples' credit records by Australia Post's shithouse service.

Goodbye and good riddance

It would appear that after 2 years of desperate searching and collecting a taxpayer-funded allowance a hell of a lot prettier than the average job-seeker's payment, Peter Costello has finally found himself a private sector job.

Good riddance to the leech. I heard him on the radio spouting some rubbish about having spent the last 20 years in 'public service', as if he'd been working for a charity. Seriously, fuck off and die.

'Diary' entry

Well. It's been a big couple of weeks. We found out on Tuesday (or Monday? It's a bit of a blur) that our application for a home loan has been approved.

We decided to ditch the contract on the Oxley house we'd paid a deposit on, much to the relief of our solicitor, who said he hadn't come across a building & pest report so bad in 30 years of practice. As we'd suspected, the agent wouldn't have been keen to even present the extremely large drop in the offer we'd made to the vendor and would have gone straight to the next highest initial offer after ours anyway (probably hoping like hell they wouldn't get the building and pest inspections done, I guess).

We then spent an entire week wrangling with this agent, at Ray White Graceville, in an attempt to get our deposit back. The urgency was increased by the fact that the very next day after ditching the contract we'd started house-hunting again (extraordinarily reluctantly, figuring it would take months to find something) and on the last open house inspection of an otherwise disappointing day found a house we liked. We made an offer, it was accepted straight away and we then needed a deposit- hence our frustration with Ray White Graceville, who were sitting on an enormous pile (to us, at least) of our money... and earning interest on it while they stalled us (among the excuses: "oh... the vendor's solicitor is on holiday and we can't release it unless he signs something"). Yeah, good way to win our business in the future, guys. After our experience as would-be renters with Ray White Toowong it's hard not to just conclude the whole franchise is tainted.

Anyway, the new house is not on a double block and it's not on the train line (it's in Moorooka and not walking distance to train) but it's at least liveable and a lot more modern on the inside. And a bit cheaper, to boot, so we may even be able to afford a piece of furniture or two! It's 50 years old and at least updated somewhat during that period, though the bathroom walls are made of asbestos... sigh. That's the one thing we'd like to do before moving in: have that asbestos removed and the bathroom renovated somewhat, but we'll need to get some quotes before we decide. There is, thankfully, no evidence of termites or termite damage to any part of the house, but there is a wood-sleeper retaining wall only a couple of metres from the house that is riddled with termites and the owners didn't see fit to undertake any preventative measures, which seems a bit short-sighted and stupid. That's the first thing we'll be doing upon moving in. Urgh.

On the same day we ditched the contract, I had my nuchal translucency scan. The results were predictable (i.e. extremely low risk for trisomies 21, 18 and 13) but it was good fun to see the barely-baby-shaped-blob from our dating scan as an obviously humanoid thumb-sucking, leg-kicking creature with feet and hands and (ultrasound tech's tip)... possibly a penis :-o Looks like Team Boy is in the lead at this stage, but hopefully we'll find out for sure at the 18-19 week scan. Boy or girl doesn't matter- as long as it looks like Gam it's going to be adorable :) Unfortunately the little part of the ultrasound machine that spits out a photo of the baby was refusing to function during our visit so we got given an extra piece of film with some gratuitous ultrasound happy-snaps on it. It was too big to cart around with us or I probably would've taken it to Newcastle for my mum and my new sister-in-law to look at.

That's the other bit of recent news- we were in Newcastle to obtain a new sister-in-law last weekend. I've mentioned Priscilla quite a few times on this blog, she and my brother have been together even longer than Gam and I (>8 years) and at some point last year or early this year Richard finally got around to asking her to marry him. She's been a great civilising influence on him and I think she's just wonderful... I suppose I considered her my sister-in-law even before they got married, but it's nice that it's been made official. I'll stick up some photos from the wedding when I finally get around to unpacking the camera.

Apart from that it's really been more of the same. Eating and sleeping. I'm still shocked at how often and how much I need to eat. Given that I relied heavily on caffeine to get me through the day pre-pregnancy I'm not particularly shocked at the tiredness now that such quantities of that particular drug are off-limits, but just annoyed at how damn unproductive I am, both at work and around the house. I just don't seem to get anything done... even blogging!