Blankly

I don't know how I ended up with a blank weekend, but I did. I have nothing planned. It appears I am free.

Unfortunately it will be filled with lots and lots of little annoying chores. It reminds me of the H&R Block tax ad that's airing at the moment. The camera follows this figure in white as it shuffles towards its destination. Eventually it gets to H&R Block and it becomes evident that he is covered from head to toe in receipts. That's what my desk looks like at the moment. Hence the need to clear it up.

I'm going to try and remember to pay the electricity bill with my credit card on Monday, the day it's due. It's a delicate balancing act because my credit card cycle is just about to end - it's sometimes the 17th, sometimes the 18th - and I want to pay the bill on time, but I don't want to pay it in this cycle because I'm already $1800 down (mostly due to my anaesthetist's bill but also all that clothes shopping I did a couple of weeks back, and gifts for an unborn niece and some friends).

I also need to look at getting a new internet plan. Currently the two of us pay $70 a month for landline rental and 7GB of downloads (+ 14GB off peak). Seeing as I don't do much other than email, blog and post up the odd photo, and Sir downloads entire series of TV shows, I'm paying for way more than I use. Not that I begrudge paying half, but if there were two of me I would certainly be on a lower GB plan, therefore paying less.

I've been looking at different mobile broadband plans. The best of the lot is Three, which charge $15 for 1GB + $5 for the internet key = $20/month. That's $15 less than I'm paying now and generously more than the amount of data I would use in a month. But I'm also looking for a new phone plan. However, they don't seem to offer any of the phones I want bundled with the mobile broadband for less than $69/month. Sigh.

I've decided against getting an iPhone. Apparently the data usage charges are massive. It totally sucks living in Australia, overpriced backwater of the digital world. I'm currently aiming for either a Nokia 6110 Navigator or an N95 8GB. I wants the GPS!

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to walk to Lane Cove to go to a Simona sale where they may or may not have a good quality blazer I can buy to sate my appetite for new professional clothing. I don't think I've bored you with my quest to buy a wool blend blazer for $250 or less. (Why pay more than $50 for polyester? Apparently some brands believe their polyester is worth more with a label on it). At the moment I can't find anything wool blend for less than $400 except for at an awesome Morissey sale where I found one for $99 - about three sizes too small. I might be willing to go up to $400 if the blazer were Australian made, but that is seriously pushing it in terms of criteria.

Okay, I just spent 20 minutes on eBay trying to track down something decent to no avail. It's all quite depressing.

One thing that I will try to do this weekend is walk down to the pool for my first swim since it was renovated. Now that Googlemaps has a walking function, I discovered that it is possible to go to the pool from my place without being run over by a train. Apparently it only takes about 20 mins, too.

Right now I'm going to write down an ambitious list of things that I should do this weekend so that I can disappoint myself with how much I failed to achieve on Monday.

Next week is a busy one; I'm out every night of the week and it's the week before deadline, so I really need to get things moving on an editorial front. But, behold! Is that another miraculously blank weekend to come?