Adventures of one who is totally floored.

It has definately been a time of new bundles of joy Mr & Mrs Bean have welcomed a son to Planet Earth. So on behalf of all of us here at Totally Floored H.Q welcome. I have known your parents for many years and they are tops people and they will make great parents for you who wil love and nurture with all that they have.

It is also with blushing joy that Mrs Lovely One would like to annnounce our new arrival. I’m typing to you from our brand new shiny computer. It has dual core everything and a 320 gb hard drive and is so sleek and quick. My goodness it is mucho quick. Our internet has even improved becuase of the new network card. Our old network card was a little dodgy and I likened our cable internet and our slow card as trying to force a leg of ham through one of those bendy straws. But those days are gone. It even has a tv card and came with 5 speaker surroundo sound. I am also fairly smitten by the 19 inch lcd screen.

Unforutnately the arrival of new shiny computer was alittle akin to child birth as Mrs Lovely One had to deal with the pain of dealing with the guys at the computer shop. We ordered online and then they accepte our payment but then said we hadn’t and still wanted more money. Then they were out of parts and we waited two weeks. It was like childbirth. I would ask every day is today the day we would get the call to pick it up.

Because they were out of parts Mrs Lovely One called them and wanted answers about how long and got given the run around about the parts and such. A little hint for new players don’t do that to Mrs Lovely One as she can get fired up rather quick and putting her on hold for minutes on end would not help your cause.

But after some early teething hassles all is working swimmingly and as they say in the classics.

Till Next Time I Really Like This Computer,

Chops

Last week I had the great fortune to spend some time with some very good friends of ours. We went to the local Ikea to say farewell, as our local Ikea is actually moving about a k and a half down the freeway to a new mega huge Ikea. This Ikea is supposedly the largest in the Southern Hemisphere so take that rest of the Hemisphere!!! And you know I am talking to you… Suva!

I digress. I was shopping happily looking for a new couch and new lampy type things when my good friends stopped and paused and looked at a baby change table. I said is there a reason for looking at such a item. Well… we think we may be pregnant they said.

I found out today that they are indeed expecting a beautiful baby human. They are expecting this bundle of joy a little sooner than all had suspected. The bub is actually due in less than a month!!! Supposedly there was no evidence to the contary that they were indeed pregnant but they checked everything out today with a scanny thingy and all is cool.

It works out really nicely as we shall be in the area around when the baby is due as we are coming back through their town from our impending holiday.

Till Next Time I’m Going To Be An Uncle…. Kinda,

Chops

I have a friend that has a theory that if your car is looking a little unloved and you don’t have a lot of funds for mag wheels and things like that all you need do is get fresh window wipers. Last week good people whilst waiting to print some photo’s at my local Big Mart (not it’s real name) I walked away and searched for some stuff to guy. I did find a cook book that is looking just really good but being good I walked on and found the automotive section and got some new 7 surfaced graphite tipped window wipers.

On Saturday night we had one of our regular summer storm type things and the wipers held up very well under some quite heavy rain. And the whole time my windows were crystal clear and I truly felt like a million dollars.

Till Next Time Should You Feel Like A Million Dollars,

Chops

1. Wow I thought fuel was expensive but roughly $2.20 a litre there would be blood on the streets in The Land Of Chops. In the state of Chops our fair and loving government waive some state goverment tax the other states do and our fuel should be approx 8c a litre cheaper than in the State of Dee and Yay and other Wibnigtories.

2. Dee, Our American cousins do indeed have a lot more drive thru facilities. One of my fav’s was the drive thru bank and ATM. We never did use one. I did go thru a drive thru and it was at Taco Bell. I was a little disorientated at goign through the wrong way and then asked for 2 things which I pronounced both very badly. By the time I got to the next window and struggled with american money which is all the same size I could hear them all laughing at my bad mexican pronunciation.

Till Next Time I Never Knew In Spanish J’s have a H sound,

Chops

I had a bit of a foodie day the other day I went out with the Sad One and we cecked out a food wholesale catering place for with over 4000 lines. We are taking our Youth out camping to Mrs Lovely One’s parent’s farm in a month or so. We also have other various food things up our sleeves and wanted to check out options to see if they were cheaper.

I then hung out with Chicken Man and we went shopping to a factory outlet or two. I was very disciplined even when I found some really cool funky Ben Sherman suits for half price and then 25% off that. Just down the street from there was a little food providores which is legendary in the City of Chops it has been running since 1934 and started selling European foods but has spread it’s wings since. It is there where I picked up something I had been looking for for months. I bought some liquid smoke. It is exactly like it sounds. You use it in BBQ sauces and marinade to give that hickory smokey sort of flavour.

On my way home I saw a sign and new I had to pull in. It had these magical words on it: Drive In Butchers. It sounded like the thing of dreams. Just pull up to the window and “yeah i’l have 2 kilo’s of mince and a kilo of rump steak” It was not to be as it was a drive in which means a carpark and not a drive thru. Teetering on the edge of false advertising if you ask me. But the steak I got went down well in the strifry I made.

Till Next Who Will Develop The Drive Thru Butchery,

Chops

I know that many who read this blog all ready know me as a sexist, xenophobic, earth destroying sort of guy. So my following comments should be of no surprise to any of you. But I am very grateful today when I paid only 97.5c a litre for fuel. I never thought prices would ever drop that low ever again.

Till Next Time I May Just Leave the Engine Running,

Chops

For those of you who don’t read my comments I fully understand but thought I would talk about the suggestions that were made for the recent windfall I was on the end of.

Dee suggested that I spend some of it on Ice Cream. Dee in a scary twist I will actually now be able to spend more money on Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream which is located at Hong Kong airport which I will be transiting through on the way to my conference. My wife has requested that I also bring some back from Hong Kong. I am trying to work out the logistics of such a move. I am thinking of dry ice and a small esky in my carry on. I think we should be cool with customs. For adventures of me trying to bring food back and the Customs people just read the archive from July 2005.

The Curate sggested I get a nipple ring. I don’t think I am that keen and also because of the house of chops uniform you would be able to see it easily through the uniform and I am sure that would not be cool.

Till Next Time Where Should I Get A Piercing,

Chops

Just so you all know my recent windfall as detailed in the previous blog is going to some good causes. Some of it is goign to pay some debt that I have accrued over the years which is a good thing for the long run. The other half of the money is for saving money and paying for my conference registration and travel insurance for when I venture forth to South Africa to be part of a global youth ministry conference.

I thought about tithing but what if I tithed on it in the first place does that mean that I shoudl still give poor old curate 10% again?

Till Next Time Any Other Ideas For The Money??,

Chops

For quite a while around the end of the month money always seems to evaporate. I have never been the most fiscally efficient people. I always thought it was strange. But I have tighten things up a bit since I got married and got a net banking account and have tighetened up my budget. Last week I knew how much was in my account and checked online that my car insurance was paid by direct deposit. I then went grocery shopping this week and not as much money as I thought should be in there was there. I went home and checked my net bank.

I will give some background now. In Jan of 2004 i bought a car and got it insured and was paying by direct debit. I moved by the time it the 12 months came around and never received any paper work. I went to the insurer and explained it and they said it would have expired and to sign me up again. It seems for 19 months I have been paying double insurance.

I called the company and had the ref numbers from net bank infront of me. After one of those painful computerised voices which asked dumb question I got through to a human very quickly. He was very helpful and asked a cute question. By any chance do you own 2 identical model cars? I said “no” he said “oh we have double insured you I just need to speak to the supervisor” He got back and said “it looks like we will be refunding you the total of 19 months of car insurance” I tried not to woohoo. He then asked for my new address and then informed me that my policy had changed price because of the move. It had gone down 10 bucks a month.

It was the best conversation I have ever had with a insurance company in my life.

Till Next Time Are You Double Insured,

Chops

So after a not long enough of sleep of 3.5hrs we headed off to the Australian Camp Oven festival. For those of you not in the know but a camp oven is a large cast oven pot which is usually as heavy as a heavy thing. I am not sure why the humple camp oven needs a festival but it was a hoot of a time.

We got out to the farm and had brekky and then ventured out to the festival. There were over 2000 caravans at the event. Which means there was a far crowd of people. At least for these parts it pretty much had double the population of the town overnight.

The festival is much more diverse than just camp ovens and cooking. They have many competitions such as the make a mailbox competition and the apron competition for the ladies as well as a tea cosy competition. There were some competitions which were at the heart of the issue for me and the very reason we had venture out into the wilds to get a glimpse.

There was the cooking competition with about 14 teams in the running. The first things to be judged were sweet things like brownies and then they judged the fritters and the damper. We had a good look at the festival and went hoem for some much needed sleep. We returned a little later than first anticipated because we visited the home of Mrs Lovely One’s childhood piano teacher whose garden was on display as part of the festival. Because we were late we missed the chance to register for the damper throwing competition. We did watch for a while. I think I would have held my own but don’t think I would have been a contender.

We also checked out the main cooking comp of the weekend the Bush Christmas Lunch. You had to cook from 9 am that morning a roast of your choosing, roast veges, bread (not damper), plum pudding and custard. Most of the teams had been slaving over the pots and fires all day and making damper for the many spectators. But they had some very nice set ups. One of my favs had them all dressed up in historical get up and they also had built a small hut type thing that they cooked from and lots of other things in their set up like old saws and such to give the lived in look. They even had a christmas tree for realism. I am not exactly sure who won as it was time to go home and enjoy the BBQ stylings of Pa Lovely One.

Till Next Time A Lovely Time Had By All And We Can’t Wait Till Next Time,

Chops