This Monkeys & Pirates blog has been through periods where I’ve posted updates daily, and times when there have been many months between posts.

This is my latest attempt to get going again with a decent level of frequency.

My life has changed a lot over the past 7 years of this blog, so for my first new post I’m going to look back at my first ever post I’m Graeme, and this is my blog which introduced me on April 21 2003.

I’m Graeme, and this is my blog - 21 April 2003

Before you read any further and form your own judgements.  I am a geek, why else would I have a blog.  I roleplay, I watch buffy, I text more than I phone, I talk to friends on the internet, I play Everquest, and I buy more dvd’s than I should.

I’m also a ninja.  No, really.

Most people call me mcphee, or just phee.
The lack of capitals in my name is important, my friend Mojo claims that this has a hidden meaning, he is wrong, he often is.

I’ve started this blog because:

I had big plans for my website, but haven’t touched it for ages, this is a gentle way back into it.

My mate Pixie (recently upgraded to mate from aquaintance), and Mojo have both started their own blogs, they both make entertaining reading.  I thought I’d give it a try, if nothing else to prove that not all roleplayers lead such entertaining lives.

That’s the basic introduction, ideally I’d update this daily, but that’s not going to happen, hence the title of the blog.

In future blogs I’ll introduce the various cast of people in my life.
The main characters - in alphabetical to avoid offence, are played by Claire, Lara, Mark A, Mojo and Pixie.

In the seven years since I wrote that, many things have changed, I live in Australia now, but since living in the UK wasn’t mentioned in the original post I’ll come back to that later.

I’m still a geek, but I no longer roleplay (since moving to Australia I no longer have a circle of geek friends nearby, and have yet to find a workable way to roleplay online), and Buffy is no longer on the air.

I haven’t played Everquest since World of Warcraft came out at the end of 2004.  I don’t even play WoW as much as I’d like to these days, mainly again due to being in Australia and the time difference and lag with the uk.

I no longer buy too many dvd’s, Screenselect/loveFilm succesfully cured me of the need to buy dvd’s.

I also haven’t been to a ninjutsu class since 2005ish.

More people probably call me skippy than mcphee now (a WoW thing), and in Australia I either get called Graeme, or Manchester.  If I had to choose one nickname that represented me, it’d still be mcphee tho, or phee.

Mojo and Pixie no longer blog.

And as for the min characters in my life, Me & Claire broke up four years ago, I lost touch with Lara even before that, Mark A, Mojo & Pixie I’m still good friends with, but speak to far less than I’d like, and see them (since moving to Aus) much much less than I’d like.

My how things have changed within the lifespan of this blog!

Ok, that turned out to be a list of inaccuracies from blog #1, in my next post (blog #399) I’ll write a bit more about what my life is like now, rather than just listing what my life isn’t like anymore!

I’m fairly sure I just timetravelled.

I just got an email on my phone, from Eon, my electricity supplier.  It said my latest bill was online.  So I logged on and looked it up.  I went through it in detail.  I tell you this so you can be assured I didn’t imagine it.

Then my phone beeped again.  It was an email from interflora trying to sell me flowers.  The thing is, I recognised this email, I’d received the exact same one about half an hour earlier, right before the Eon one.  I muttered to myself about Interflora spamming me, but when I looked, there was no original email from Interflora.  Nor was there an Eon one.

Realising that it’s probable i had deleted them from my phone, I loaded up Outlook on my laptop.. no email from Eon, and just the one from Interflora.

Seems like i received the two emails, then flashed back in time half an hour, and am now going through the process of receiving them again.  I expect the Eon one to arrive any second now.

Am a little disappointed that in the movies timetravel usually involves high adventure, danger and excitement.  Whereas mine involved a spam email and an electricity bill.

Last weekend my friend Flick was home alone.  She went to bed, woke up in the morning, and found a mans black sock in the middle of her bedroom floor.

It hadn’t been there when she went to sleep.  There was nobody else in the house.  (She did a thorough search).  There was no clue to how it got there.  It had just appeared.

This weekend I was home alone.  Sat on the sofa watching tv, spotted something on the floor under the other sofa.  Something that hadn’t been there the million others times I’d sat there and watched tv.

I carefully fished it out from under the sofa, using a long pole, cautious in case it was a huge spider, snake, or vampire.  It wasn’t.  It was much more terrifying…

It hadn’t been there last time I looked, there was nobody else in the house.  There was no clue to how it got there.  It wasn’t one of mine.

it was a mans black sock.

There’s something sinister going on

Background info:  In Australia you have to pay for bank accounts.  They also charge you for using any cash machine other than the ones belonging to your own bank, and for a variety of other day to day bank activities.

The story:  I phoned my bank, and at the end of the call, they moved into their sales pitch.

“Have you heard about our great new savings account deal?”

I explained that no, no I hadn’t.

“it’s a free account, there are no monthly charges, and no charges to transfer money between this and your main account, so it’s a very useful account to have”

I double checked that there would be no charges, and no fees, it wouldn’t cost me anything

“That’s right, there are no charges, and no fees, it won’t cost you anything”

So I agreed to get the account, I doubted I’d use it as I’m not real good at saving money.  But I’m new in this country, and need to build up a good credit profile.  After signing me up the rep said he just needed to read through the terms and conditions

“mumble mumble .. savings account .. mumble mumble.. no monthly fee.. mumble mumble.. transfer fees will be applied to your other account.. mumble mumble”

I interrupted, and asked him to repeat that last bit

“mumble mumble..”

the bit before that..

“transfer fees will be applied to your other account”

I pointed out that a number of times in the conversation so far he’d told me that transfer fees would NOT be applied.

“yes, that’s right”

I made a puzzled noise

“Transfer fees won’t be applied to THIS account.  Not at all.  Not ever.  They’ll be applied to your other account instead”.

Brilliant!

I muttered about him being a big fat liar. Realising that I was onto his scam, but not content to give up the fight, he then tried to catch me out in a different way.
“You won’t ALWAYS be charged a transfer fee, it’s only for assisted transfers”
I asked what one of those was
“An assisted transfer is one where you phone up and ask a member of staff to transfer the money, or you go into the branch.  Basically one where there’s human interraction.  If you do it online, or through the automated phoneline then there are no charges”.  He paused for breath.  “Right, that’s your account all set up and ready to go.  Would you like me to transfer some money now?”
That’d be an assisted transfer right?
“yes”
Then no, no I wouldn’t.

Due to a quirk in the billing system, I have free electricity until tomorrow.

Sleeping with all the aircons on tonight!