Unethical investments

I try to be a good citizen. I have sponsor kids in far flung, poor nations. I seperate my recyclables from my non-recyclables (even when I know they all end up in the same place). I never litter, and I try to ensure that we always take our green bags to the shops so we don’t use plastics.

But when it comes to my afore-mentioned “acceptable gambling” (shares), I’m not very good. I have invested in Uranium mining companies. And not just one. More than one. I’ve tried to balance this out with my investments in a bio-diesel company, a wind energy company and even a wave energy company.. but to be honest… the uranium ones are the ones bringing in the bucks. Does this make me a bad person? I’m just glad I don’t have investments in brown coal facilities or something.. that would really keep my awake at night.

Gambling

No, I’m not talking about our fab GRQ TAB idea this time.. this time I’m focussing on the more socially acceptable form of gambling, otherwise known as “trading stocks and shares”.

Now this is something I have only just started getting into.. and I’m not particularly bad at it, but I’m certainly not particularly good. And, I’m not gambling the house, people, so don’t fret. Actually, I don’t even own a house. But if I did, I wouldn’t be gambling it.

I work in a very male-dominated environment. The one girl in my team resigned two weeks ago and is sorely missed (*shout out to S), and there are a whole two other women on my floor (the Director’s EA and PA). So, I can tune out of discussions about sport, girls, beer and the gym like a pro (especially the gym bit, but I don’t think this is because I’m a girl, I think it’s because I’m chronically lazy and unfit!). I always, always, always listen though, when the talk turns to stocks and shares because I find these conversations verrrrry interesting. This is one area where no-one claims to know what they are doing. There is always a lot of “well, I’m not sure, but I’ve heard about this one,” and “yeah, they’ve gone up, but I don’t think they’ll go up anymore,” or “I’ve just lost on those so not sure what is happening.” A lot of unknowns and uncertainty.

But, as they say, you got to be in it to win it, and just as I make sure to buy a Lotto ticket when the winning jackpot is over a certain 7-figures, likewise, I figured, what’s the harm on putting a bit of money into some shares. I don’t really know which ones are good or bad, so won’t give out any tips – but watch this space – I could be a millionaire soon – I do have a ticket in tonight’s Lotto draw!

Turtle paradise

With winter being over, there is one member of our family who gets more excited than anyone else. More excited, and much more active.. Mate, the turtle has been making his presence felt – she is up every morning to greet K and I as we sluggishly make out way to the coffee, she is awake at night to come and sniff our feet (that cold little nose can give you the shock of your life when you’re not expecting it!) and she is hungry, hungry, hungry. Like ALL the time.

This morning, we were woken by a loud banging sound, and K, bless him, jumped out of bed, knowing exactly what the problem was. He had seen it/heard it before – Mate was trying to get out from under the TV cabinet and had got a cord caught on her shell. Unable to move forward, she was banging on the bottom of the cabinet until K went to the rescue!

After being pulled to safety, Mate strolled up the passageway (probably to catch a glimpse of my lover in the shower – it is a girl turtle after all – who can blame her!) and wandered around our bedroom. I came out to the loungeroom to start working, and when I went up to see what she was up to, I found her in the shower… And then the idea for turtle paradise struck.

I filled our big bath with lots of lots of water… making it twice as deep as Mate’s tank.. And in she went.. Turtle heaven. Mate could hardly contain her enthusiasm as she did some deep dives, swam a few laps underwater, blew some bubbles up (a sure sign of turtle happiness), and finally came up for air. It made my cold heart sing with joy to see her so happy!

My friend came over to visit and I wanted to show my newly emerged from hibernation, happy turtle off. Azza took one look at the bath and said to me, in a very disgusted tone, “No matter how much disinfectant or cleaner you use, I would never bath in that bath again.”

But what about the happy turtle? “Who cares?” said Azza, “it’s gross.”

Note to self: some people love the turtle. Other’s, not so much.

Incu = in queue

K emailed me some details about a sale for one of the shops he likes – Incu. A three-day, warehouse sale that started on Friday morning at 9am and went through to Sunday at 6pm.Would I go with him on Friday morning, his email said, “and buy him lots of stuff?” Hmmm.

It wasn’t so much the buying-him-stuff that I was worried about, more the getting-up-early, trawling-through-tables-of-discarded-clothes-in-desperate-search-of-a-bargain and dealing-with-hungry-wannabe-fashionistas-stuff that I wasn’t neccessarily keen on. I’m not, nor ever have been, a fashionista in even the most broadest sense of the word, and quite frankly, hanging out with people with bad haircuts, skinny jeans, black bras under white or grey tops, and lots of bangles (and of course the dubious accents they all seem to put on) starts to wear me down.

But I am in love. So I went. And I stood by the side of the road at 9 in the morning with all the other desperados trying to snag themselves a bargain. I knew I had a work call at 11 so there was no way I was going to be able to stay past 10.35 (unless I wanted to be late for the call I was running). We shuffled up the footpath, inch by inch as the minutes passed. Until finally we were third in line. It was 10.40. I got a glimpse of the inside of the warehouse, with the racks of clothes thrown together as throngs of people waded through them, before I had to go.

One hour and forty minutes of my life that I am never, ever going to get back. Longer than most of my conference calls that I am at least getting paid for. Standing on the street corner, feeling like a tight ar$e because I want to rifle through piles of clothes to get a bargain rather than pay full price. And I didn’t even buy anything.

That was my first and last warehouse sale. Unless it’s Liquor Land.

GRQ

K and I have been trying to put our collective thick skulls together to come up with a fast and easy way to make some money. We want a get rich quick scheme that doesn’t take pyramid selling, busting our a$$es, illegal activities, or flogging stuff to friends.

I came up with the idea that I could sell people’s unwanted items on ebay and take a percentage of it.

K’s idea was a bit different. He decided we can open up a TAB account – for those not in Australia, the Totalitizer Agency Board is our biggest betting agency. This way we can make HEAPS of money betting on sporting events, on Australian Idol, and horse racing.

There’s is only one flaw in his plan. And that is that neither of us really know how to bet. I mean, we can put a few bob on a nag on Melbourne Cup day or whatever.. but knowing what team to bet on, to win by how many goals, etc.. Not really something we know how to do.

Anyone got anything they need me to sell?

Personal Paining

So I’m week three into my personal paining training and so far, I’m not loving it. I’m loving being able to spend some QT with my girlfriend who is fit and inspires me. But I’m not loving, the sweating, the out-of-breath-ness, or the red face. But most of all, I’m not loving the pain. The pain when I’m running up a hill, the pain when I’m crunching my little beer belly out, and the pain when I’m doing lunges and squats. And the worst pain of all. The pain that comes a day or two later.

And I am sick to death of people telling me it’s “good pain”. People. I have one thing to say. What-farken-ever! Pain is another word from suffering. And as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing good about suffering.

I checked on the internets and a definition for pain is “An unpleasant sensation that can range from mild, localized discomfort to agony” – again, the key word is not “good”, it’s “unpleasant”. Are we seeing a theme here people?

Anyway. No more writing. I’m off to soak in a radox bath. Hopefully that will ease the suffering tomorrow.

Airconditioning

As I’m sitting here writing, I have two men behind me arguing over my heating/cooling system. This is, hopefully, the last in a series of events that have dragged on and on for months. It all started… when we moved into our apartment. And the heating didn’t work. Not a big deal really, in March, when the weather is mild. But as the weather grew colder, we wanted some warmth.

I called my property agent, and he said he would sort it. Now, no offence to any property agents out there, but let’s be honest – when you’re dealing with rental properties that your company earns about $10 a week on, let’s be brutal, you don’t really give a large rodent’s behind.

I called my property agent about 10 times before he got someone out to look at the heating/cooling unit. The dude came and had a look and told me he would call me when the part he needed came in. 6 weeks and 10 more phonecalls. He came back. And got the thing working. For a week. Then it broke again..

After about call number 10 this time round, I was getting, let’s say, a wee bit frustrated. I rang at 8.45 in the morning and explained to my property agent, as calmly as I could that 1. it was cold in our flat. 2. he advertised heating when the apartment was advertised. 3. we don’t have heating. 4. he has promised us heating. 5. i was getting sick of calling him. and 6. that he was slack and i was getting frustrated.

And my wonderful property agent’s response? He replied with, “You know what? You are very mean? You even are calling me so early in the morning!” (my property agent isn’t a native English speaker – not sure if I did his heavily accented, extremely frustrated tones justice.) This was at about 9am by the way. 9am. I was at work. My colleagues were all at work. AND he called me nasty! I hadn’t even started!!

Anyway to keep to the programme.. I have two men in my apartment now, arguing over how to get the darn thing fixed. I don’t really care how they do it. It would just be nice to have some heat when it’s cold and some cold air when it’s hot. That’s not too much to ask is it? I don’t want to have to call my property agent again and get nasty..

** Just as an aside to this (not-very-interesting-venting-of-the-spleen) – the two men were hunched over the airconditioning unit, when Mate decided to come out and say hello. I have never seen to grown men (with a combined age of at least 100) jump so high in their lives! Farken hilarious!! x