Post With A Too Long Title To Appear In Full Length

This blog post was supposed to be named “The Hot Mosquito Ice cream Overkill and the New TV Table Wall Plug Fail ” but then I recognized that it still wouldn’t contain all topics I’d like to write about, so I chose the honest way and came up with the description you can see now. Let’s organize and work it out alphabetically:

Hot: Okay, that’s it…nothing more to say – it is flipping hot since three days, always over 30°C up to 35°C and it doesn’t cool down significantly at night. I opened the doors to the front veranda and the louvre doors, too, last night with the effect: more light in my room, not a lower temperature. For the first time since I moved into that house I switched on a fan in my room although I suffered from the unusual air flow and the noise. I was still turning and tossing and felt like a restless insomniac. My solution to stop the unease is simple: someone has to manipulate the weather, increase the speed of the climate change drastically or build an insulating box around our house. Two metres of concrete should be a sufficient heat barrier and my worries are gone. In exchange I will not ask for any Christmas presents in December or give them to my saviour.

Ice cream Overkill: A side effect of the extreme heat was a freezer fail at the Green Edge, a little vegan supermarket in Enoggera, a suburb about six kilometres north from our house in Milton. The shop owner announced this catastrophe on Facebook and offered a huge discount. We gave him a call to affirm that there was still some ice cream in stock and started immediately with two big eskies for storage. It was like winning the first price on a fair when you are allowed to pick whatever you want. The reason why we got so excited was that every box cost $2 instead of $12.95! The regular price is far over the top but if you want “So Delicious” (name of the brand) ice cream you have to pay that price, it is seldom on discount . We ended up with 15 boxes for $30 instead of nearly $180. The limit was the capacity of our fridge at home otherwise I would have filled the car up to its top. 😀

King of Cakes Bakery in Indooroopilly: As mentioned already , I was yearning for German bread but the next market on Queen Street takes place at the 21st of January – still more than a week to go until then. Not an option for me! I cycled the 5 km to one of their shops at 35°C just to get two real German breads with a real crunchy crust. When I had a little trouble to order, the women behind the counter asked me if I speak German and we switched the languages (I hate it that my accent still whistle-blows my origin.). It turned out she was from Berlin, too, living in Australia already for two years, probably going back to Germany in April. Under normal circumstances I avoid speaking my native language in other countries but this situation was different and I enjoyed to have an easy talk in German with someone from my home city.

Mosquitoes: They are everywhere and terrorizing all house mates excessively. They are waiting under tables, chairs and beds for their victims to sit or lay down and they suck your blood as if you were a tasty smoothie. Even with insect repellent oil on your skin it is hard to defend against them. Especially at night it is a torture to hear their typical sound close to your head knowing that a bite is inevitable. I decided to buy a mosquito net for my bed. $8 is the online price if shipped from Asia but I am not willing to wait 21 working days. Mr. Sperling needs that item right here and now! That means after I have finished this post (the draft was finished at 3pm) I will travel to IKEA and pick up a mosquito net for $15 as the second cheapest but quickest option. My other house mates are sceptic, telling me that this net will block the air flow of the fan and lead to more warmth at night but I don’t argue about it because the psychic relief to have an effective physical barrier around my bed is more relevant for me than 0.5 degree more or less. [edit: Success! Got the mosquito net, assembled it and hang it on the ceiling! Excited to sleep in my pimped bed this night!]

New House Mate: Finally we found a guy to be member of our Isaac street gang a.k.a. “The Fabulous Four”. Max is a 21-year-old fellow from Munich who traveled through Asia in 2012 and moved in yesterday. At first I was not delighted by the idea to have another German in our house but since we sorted out that I appreciate not to talk in my mother tongue and he accepted, things should be fine.

New TV Table: I am happy that the rather simple construction I puzzled out could be successfully executed. Only four more brackets had to be bought to stabilize the edges. I have started to varnish the table on the bottom side but James’ objections were right: a roller will not lead to the same surface texture as if a brush is used. That means I have to buy a brush first before you may admire that outstanding example of home-made first class furniture here on my blog.

Wall Plug Fail: Recently I reported about my clothes rack which nearly fell off the wall. Daniel organized four hollow wall anchors for $7.15 and I thought it was an easy job to mount the rack again on the wall. In fact it was horror job. I had to put so much pressure on the screws to make the anchors spread behind the wall that the whole anchor pierced the wall and the hole grew from 10 mm to nearly 18 mm. The 6 mm plaster board was soft as chocolate at 30°C and there was no hope I could fix the damage easily. I filled the holes with a paste, put some green patches of fabric on to cover the mess I had made, extended the rack by some centimetres (it is an adjustable construction) and drilled two new holes into a cross beam behind the plaster board. The procedure took more than one hour and made me sweat a lot but who cares once it is done and looks neat! AAAAH! COCKROACH ALARM IN MY ROOM! (ten minutes later) Ok…caught it, released it on the other side of the street and photographed it for future identification. I gave it a warning but in case it comes back I have to think about other ways of punishment. Officer Sperling can’t take a joke when it comes to contamination of his room (This cockroach is featured in my macro shot gallery at the end of the post)!

As previously promised here are my macro shots of animals living in and around our house. The dishes hopefully prove that a vegan diet doesn’t only consist of carrots and salad leaves. :p