Goin’ fishing.   © PJ Croft 2016

Oh, this is spooky! Last night I was reading a book called Can We Live Here?, about emigrating from the UK and finding a place to emigrate to. (Hint: the favourite begins with B and ends in i and has al in the middle. Ubud, to be specific. Perth cracks a big mention as a great place to live, but dull and very expensive. Agreed. And she says it has a nice flat bike path right around the river foreshore between the bridges.)

That’s not the spooky bit. The author mentions the movie Alien at one point, and the young girl called Newt who features with Sigourney Weaver.

In the Guardian this morning, in an article about a US TV show, this line: “He looks less comfortable making eye contact with other human beings than the little orphan girl Newt from the movie Alien.”

Sure, it’s a coincidence, but just a few hours apart, and in completely different contexts. Amazing!

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I was reading at various times like 1am, 2.30am, 4am and so on. Insomnia! I never used to have trouble sleeping, but this is a terrible problem for me now. I only got one 2hr stretch of proper sleep and the rest was just dozing, interspersed with my terrible itching. My right leg starts to intensely itch in one small spot, but I have to resist scratching because if I do, it spreads like a fire. It’s diabetic nerve damage, not a rash.

But now I’ve developed dermatitis on the back of my hands, for some reason. I’ve never had this before, it’s only started in the past few months. This itching really is a rash.

I bought a little bottle of a liquid called Pain Strike yesterday, which is based on oil of cloves, a natural anaesthetic. I’m hoping it might help. It seemed to help a bit last night, along with Panadeine Forte and Tramadol. The pains in my feet are very bad too. This is chronic pain and it’s rare that I get a good night’s sleep these days. Not good.

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Ever since I bought a new fridge when I moved here in April 2013, I’ve regretted my choice. It’s a Panasonic bottom freezer (a bum freezer?), and I’m sick of having to bend down all the time. As well, it has a rattle that drives me nuts. I’m sure there’s something loose in the door. And the door is hinged on the right (as nearly all fridges are), which is the wrong side for my kitchen. (Incidentally, Fisher & Paykel have at least one model that allows you to specify the hinge on either side.)

Anyway, I’ve considered changing my fridge, but I’m severely restricted by the width available, about 800mm. Anything in double door style is almost always around 900mm wide.

Well, a Good Guys catalogue in the paper last week showed a Hi Sense side-by-side French door fridge-freezer only 794mm wide. So I called in the the local Good Guys on Saturday to see what it looks like.

Um, not only do they not have it, they don’t even have the same catalogue which I have. They don’t know the model, even though it’s clearly shown in the catalogue I got. I checked the catalogue date – “On sale 4-24 September”. Crazy. “We can get it in for you sir.” But I’m not going to buy such a major item without being able to see it. Looks like they lose a possible sale.

Anyway, I can only think about changing if they’ll take my existing fridge as a trade. This is just another of my musings. Probably won’t happen.

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On the other hand, I think I’m going to have to buy a lawn mower. For the past three years I’ve been getting the guy who does my neighbour’s lawn to do mine, at a cost of $30 a time. Front verge and back lawn. It gets done about 5-6 times a year, so I’ve paid out about $500 so far!

But he’s disappeared and I’m told he’s retired down south, so I haven’t had a cut for about 4 months.

I saw an electric mower advertised at Bunnings for $178 the other day. I don’t really want to own a mower, but the economics are plain – it’s far cheaper to cut it myself. Being electric, it should be cheap to run and maintain.

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Ever since a Samsung system software and BIOS update two Saturdays ago, my Tab Pro S tablet has changed, such that I can no longer put it to sleep by tapping the power button. It’s either on, or it’s shut down. I can put it aside and wait for it to sleep, but that’s hardly satisfactory. In addition, it’s intermittently started booting up with just a black screen with mouse pointer and nothing else. Can’t proceed, can’t shut it down. Only by trying repeatedly will it finally boot.

This is so obvious and such a glaring change that I thought they must quickly come out with a fix, but nothing happened. What to do?

Bingo, a Samsung sales/service counter appeared in the centre mall at Joondalup shops last week, just when I need them. So I took my machine along yesterday and left it with them. Three to five working days, they tell me. Here’s hoping.