Review @ 1337 IT

So I was browsing around a giant bookshop on DrVJ’s birthday and I saw a whole section of 1000 Things to do before you die, 1000 Foods to Eat, 1000 Movies to See.

“nOObs” I scoffed to myself. Where’s the 1337 things to do before you die book? (more…)

Now DrVJ loves books. It seems books are her version of a shoe fetish.

Every time she goes out she comes back with more of the things. She’s even admitted to owning 3 copies of the same book at times. The girl is a freak.

Now me, I’m not a big fan of books for entertainment. I love knowledge and as such am happy to read non-fiction, manuals and instruction booklets. I don’t however, read for fun. I’m a 21st century digital boy and as such have a multitude of ways to enjoy myself that don’t involve reading. I also think books tend to be a great waste of space and resources.  Since a whole library can fit on a single consumer grade hard drive now, I think it’s time libraries were relegated to museums and history.

My girlfriend does not concur. As such I salvaged and modded a sweet set of bookshelves that would hold every book she owns. My thinking was that at least they’d take up less space and maybe seeing them all in one place would get the point across that she has enough. Wrong. It merely seems to have encouraged her.

Now I get to wake screaming to this sight ever morning and yes, that’s another smaller bookshelf to the left just waiting for more books.

It’s only a matter of time before it assimilates me and then the world.

Now it might seem harsh to blame my girlfriend when things break, she doesn’t exactly have a good track record in this department. She has managed to destroy so many things in the time we’ve been together (most notably my sanity). Generally I don’t care about these things - I love her and I chalk it up to the cost of doing business. Some things however, are more painful to lose than others:

1988 Skyline GTS SVD: This was my first decent car and while I did manage to crash it several times it was always repairable - DrVJ has one crash (probably not her fault) - total write off. Had I been in the passenger seat I’d probably be dead. I take solace in the fact that it did a good job of protecting her (and got up on two wheels - a feat I never managed). The other, earlier incident that springs to mind was when I *was* a passenger and she was driving. Reverse parking into a spot in a shopping centre car park, she came to rest with the back bumper on a sign. I said nothing. Deciding she wasn’t quite in the parking spot far enough she let the car roll forward a bit then reversed into the sign post *again*. At this point I mentioned that she was actually hitting a pole - and I’m the arsehole! Now while this car wasn’t the most exciting or newest thing on the road it was a great (and fast) car and Nissan only ever released 200, 20 years ago, so it’s not like I can just get another one.

R.I.P.

1988 Honda NSR250: A very sweet (and illegal) bike I rode for the duration of my Ls and Ps on my motorbike license. It did 0-100 as fast as an R1 at the time (although probably not with me on it). DrVJ runs it into a gutter, bending the front rim and fuel tank. I ended up selling it after it gave me a 3 month “License Vacation” and I couldn’t be bothered fixing and registering a bike I couldn’t ride. The problem with bikes that can do 100km/h in about 3 seconds is that you tend to spend a lot of time doing 100km/h, even in 50 zones.

I hope you’re out there making someone happy!

Now admittedly these things happened a few years ago now. As I said before, I tune out all the little things she destroys now. Two recent examples have been in my current car. Both times I have lent my car to her in the past year (while her car was being serviced or more correctly “unfucked”). First time she gets a flat tyre, second time she breaks a windscreen. Both times on a motorway and Sydney, we’re not talking dirt tracks here people.

She also breaks her own stuff. The radio in her car likes to mysteriously turn on at max volume when you start the car on cold quiet mornings, and there’s been a disc stuck in the CD player for over a year now. She also merely needs to park her car and walk away to have people repeatedly remove and deposit paint on the rear driver’s side wheel arch. Every other week there’s a new scrape there and if I didn’t know that she’s actually an excellent driver and parker I’d just blame her.

She can break any form of electronics just by turning it on. She tells stories of 4 car pileups happening in merging lanes as she drives past (also not her fault). She is Girlfriend: Ruiner of Worlds and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.

Edit: She also told me that the bench power supply in my header pic should be made to say “1337″ for the photo. I had to tell her that it maxed out at 30V and 20A and if I made it say “1337″ it would catch fire.

So I figure I’m old enough to have a blog now - everyone else does. I guess some of it will have to be devoted to serious things.

For now, here’s a video of me convincing my dog Dusk to do the trick where she feeds herself out of the bin we keep her food in.