Thanks for the tips in Stuff

I ended up having quite a productive day today for my first day off of my ‘weekend’. First of all, I’ve noticed over the past few days that I can hear a ‘hissing’ sound coming from one side of the house that sounded like it could be my landlord’s watering system, but I couldn’t see anything, so I just wrote it off as coming from the neighbour’s garden.
Well, it’s just as well I had a closer look, because it turns out the ‘hissing’ sound is actually coming from the pump underneath our house, and there was a little bit of flooding going on. My landlord had mentioned that the water bill was much higher than usual this period, and I think I’ve found the main culprit. I thought it was just a leak that I found in the hose and taped up, but nope, this’ll do it.
So I sent him a message asking him how to turn it off, because I couldn’t figure out how to, and whilst waiting for him to reply (he’s off partying in Berlin at some massive gay event that was happening), I figured it out and managed to get it to turn off by climbing under the house and turning one of the metal levers. That got it to stop spitting out in all directions. I had turned it off at the switch in the garage, but that didn’t stop it at all.
So anyway, I let him know that I’ve turned it off, and now I just have to remember to hand water the garden until he gets home in 6 weeks time.
It was another hot day today, so too many hot days of no water on the garden will not be good for it at all. All this time it’s been on an automated system, but not until that pump get’s repaired.
And I had to fight spiders and fucking wasps to get to the damn pump! Each time I saw that one pesky wasp hanging around, I freaked! I leaped up so fast at one point when I saw it was really close to me. I certainly don’t want a sting from one of those fuckers!
I also got two spiders on me, that I just a crazy dance to until I was sure I had gotten them off. Fuck me. I guess they liked the water as much as the garden did.

Then I had issues with my phone’s sim card. Last night, I finally managed to find where I’d put it, and then I managed to lose it again (because the fucker is so damn SMALL) so today I was elated when I came across it again. It had gotten tangled up in my bedsheets. So I’d wasted so much time tearing my room apart looking for it. And then after all that, I realized that I couldn’t transfer my number over to it anyway because I’d already used it when I was trialing it a couple of months ago.

I’ve decided to change from Optus because, even though they’ve been good, they are getting a little too expensive for my liking. I’m forking out like $30 or $50 each time, and lately it’s been barely lasting me over 10 days, and I just feel like that is too much of a rip-off. I want to go back to getting at least the 30 days on prepaid deals, and the phone bill is one bill that I think I can manage to get down to save me a bit of dough. Especially in this day and age with the amount of options there are. And I remember they were really good, so I’ll see how I go. In the end, I went down to the city to get a new Sim card, and they were SOLD OUT, so I wasn’t having much luck, so I went for a huge-ass walk to Newstead and thankfully they had some.
As soon as I got home, I set it all up and transferred my number over, so I don’t have to worry about remembering a new number (which was my other option if I’d just kept using the other SIM). The amount of SIM cards I have collected over the past year is rather alarming, because of the issues I had in Europe and needing to get a new one in each country I went through haha, and I’ve just kept them all. I really should just throw the ones that were shit.

Thanks for the tips on what I should do for my birthday, but I had a bit of a reality check today, realizing that my credit card had crept up to over $900, due to more dental costs etc (dental has cost me a fucking fortune this year!) and I thought to myself, “Whoa there, Matt. Might want to settle down on the getaway plans there for a while,” and pay down some of the debt first. So I closed down all my tabs that I had open on my laptop so that I wouldn’t be tempted to add even more to the damn credit card, and I went into my banking and transferred savings to pay down most of the debt. I get paid tomorrow night, so I’ll clear the whole thing out then. I was just concerned that I must be getting close to being hit with an interest charge, although nothing there yet, so better to be safe than sorry. There’s nothing I can’t stand more than paying money for nothing (ie. interest). At least with rent, I get a roof over my head!
So I think a long-trip might be off the cards, just for now, until I get myself together a little bit more.

I haven’t written off the idea of still doing something maybe small. I think I can afford one of the mystery hotels in Burleigh Heads, as I do love it down that way, but I’ll stew on it for a few days. I looked around at a couple of restaurants that might be able to host a small birthday dinner, but I didn’t like the ones I looked at. One’s opening hours on weekends have been cut way back to 3:30pm, which is basically useless unless I dined there on a Friday evening, and another’s had both shitty hours and a shitty menu.
I did walk past a snazzy place on my way to Newstead which is an American-styled restaurant called ‘The Defiant Duck” and I had a look at their menu, but it’s a bit pricey, so I went to the Foodora website just to see what other restaurants were in my area, and I came across one with a very interesting name called, “Dutch Courage Officer’s Mess” (damn, I just realized there’s no option to link a website on this Beta site yet), so I had to check out that website and it actually looks kinda cool. It’s in the valley right near all the nightclubs, has a small but cool and inexpensive menu and extensive drinks menu. So I’ve decided I’m going to walk down there at some point tomorrow just to get a feel of what the venue is like, and if it feels like ‘me’ at all.
I don’t have many friends, so I don’t think many people would come to a birthday dinner if I organised one anyway, so I’m a bit embarrassed to even book a table in case no-one shows up LOL. But I guess I’d have to, given I’d want it to be on a Saturday evening next month, but it says they do small gatherings beginning from 15 people, and I’m struggling to think if I can even think of 15 people to invite LOL. How tragic is that?
Maybe I can just ask to book a table for maybe like 10? Even that’s pushing it hahaha. Plus everyone will be starting to have their Christmas parties ergh. That’s what I get for being a December baby.

I just kind of figured that if I do a birthday dinner, it’s easy for people to come and go, I don’t have to clean anything. I could do something at my place I guess, but then I’d have to go buy all the food and drinks and blah blah. It was pretty fun 4 years ago though, and I think people feel more comfortable at house parties. And my landlord still won’t be home by that time.
It might be a cheaper option, but then I’ve gotta worry about the RSVP’s to the restaurant, and anyone who’s ever hosted something knows how frustrating those can be because human being’s are hopeless at making a decision :)

Fun times!

Why can’t I just be rich and hire a private villa and fly everyone in via helicopter, Bronwyn-Bishop-style?