Who’d own a ute?

Recently I sold my big Ford sedan and bought a nice little Toyota ute, it seemed like a good idea seeing as there’s just me in the house these days and a ute is very handy to have.
It all went well for a few months, and I learned some things about utes and about people. Firstly, owning a ute means everyone will be calling you up every time they need to pick up or drop off something. I’ve had people wanting to put everything in there from oily car engines to fridges and even horse soil… and I've mostly resisted the urge to comply.
But I recently had a trip to the state capital for a few days and the ute was a complete pain in the ass!
Every time I parked it somewhere I came back to find the tarp lifted and the ute searched for booty. (pirate talk not ghetto lingo)
My huge toolbox lives chained and locked across the tray and is covered by the tarp, one night they even had a go at removing the entire thing. They tried the lock, tried the chain, tried the mounts then gave up and tried to remove the whole box.
Every time I left the ute somewhere I had to move all the stuff from the back and stuff it all into the cab so I could lock it up, putting it all back later so I could drive it again.
This is where my sick sense of humor kicked in and I started looking for ways to ‘use’ this extra attention.
I invented a new and novel to get rid of rubbish, you just pack it into a store bag with a few rocks for weight. The bigger the stores name the better, I had one from an expensive boutique coffee shop packed with two days carefully folded rubbish and a couple of rocks from the motel garden. Sure enough somewhere along my travels that day someone was kind enough to remove the bag from the back of the ute.

City people can be nice like that sometimes…



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City Rant

I did manage to find their offroad parking where looters couldn't steal from my car.


..and check out these cool contraptions for checking out whats going on under your car..wish we had these in the country.




Some of you will know that I live in a largish country city of around 30,000 people, in outback South Australia that makes for a pretty big city.
I had to leave paradise behind last week to travel to the state capital for a family party.
Many of you live in big cities all over the planet, but I’m quite sure that you’re nothing like the weirdos that inhabit the big cities here in OZ.

What is it with city people?
They step off the footpath right in front of you like a sick game of Russian Roulette. In rows they stand, teetering on that last heel and weaving back and forth as if they cant decide whether to career across or not. Then one will step out in front of you…or not. This tends to happen more in direct proportion to the vehicular crowding around you at the time.
Being a Monty Python fan I cant help but remember the skit for the ‘100metres running race for blind people with no sense of direction’, this pretty much sums it up for the average driver just trying to get from A to B without killing too many pedrians*.
(*bicycle or walking, covers everything from stagger, through amble and right up to jog)
What passes for fashion in the city would see you get beat up in some outback pubs I know.

..the drivers.. glad you asked! We have this thing out here, Dirt Circuit Racing! Picture THAT, on the streets!
If you leave that proper braking distance thing, two cars pull into the space you left, leaving you with nowhere to go…. And why are they all in such a fricking hurry?
I always tell myself that I’m not going to stoop to their new fangled city way of driving but within a short time my halo is around one ankle and I’m cutting in and diving across 4 lanes to the exit I want just like the rest of them..
As an aside: have you noticed that nearly every city car has at least one scrape on it?

Oh, and heres a tip. Don’t book Motel rooms over the internet.
It looked good in the pics! Rows of shiny cars in front of lush garden beds. Security cameras, offroad parking, on suite, fridges and air conditioners in every room, etc, etc. But the lush gardens are now dusty hollows with the odd dead branch here and there to suggest a previous life, the 60’s styling hasn’t been done up since the photos were taken, in the, er.. 1960’s! My air conditioner sounded like a jet going over every time it rattled/wheezed into life?! ..but my fridge made up for that by freezing everything solid even though it was turned off.
When I staggered in at 3am after the party… Pretty young women were coming and going by taxi at regular intervals with much older men. Hmm! Who’d have imagined that some city girls could be so friendly?

With all this going on, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I didn’t have a good time, but you’d be wrong. I had a fantastic time, caught up with some of my favorite people, met some great new people and went to a wonderful party.
Oh, the stories I could tell you about that party…if only I could remember.

My paternal aunt came along for the ride.. and to force me to listen only to the radio all the way there and back..(from a sound system I had upgraded especially so I could listen to my CD’s on this trip) but she had a really good time too. I know that because she only complained half the way home, highly successful in anyone’s terms!





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