Today's excursion...

...didn't quite go as planned.

The plan, was to catch the 8:47am bus to the university, go to NUSA and pay this year's dues, nd return a library book; then to visit Jenny; go to Westfield's at Kotara and buy a book and do some grocery shopping, and go home.

What happened was that i missed the 8:47am bus by a minute. Rather than go home I walked to the nearest covered bus stop, where I'd wait for the next bus (at 10:10am) and do some reading in the meantime. On the way I twisted my ankle - the same one I twisted earlier in the week! I probably should have gone straight home. Instead I caught the earlier bus which would have taken me to my G.P. at Charlestown. But, when I got to Glendale it didn't feel that bad, so I swapped back to the bus that took me to the university.

Only NUSA wont be open until 23rd February. I returned the book and borrowed some others, and bumped into my Supervisor there - made a commitment to contact him in a couple of weeks when more was open at the uni. Because - the Bar on the Hill was shut, so was the Tanner bar, and an ATM went missing. I was going to get lunch there but there was a large queue so caught a bus to Jenny's nursing home instead.

It was a good visit with Jenny, but my ankle was starting to really hurt. I was there for a couple of hours and then caught the bus to Westfields. I had a late lunch there and didn't do any grocery shopping. I did buy a book at borders but not the one I'd expected (well, it was $50 cheaper). I caught the bus back to Glendale, did a small amount of grocery shopping and caught the bus home (and got there after qwe had to change buses as the one I was on was about to break down) . Got chips on the way and more or less collapsed out the back after feeding the pets.

Spent about 3 hours out the back, just lying on cushions watching SBS on the TV in the garden shed, with Bobby and Hallie next to me. It was all rather pleasant sitting in the dark with the stars above and nice breeze, after a hot and sweaty (not to mention painful) day of running about. But, I forgot to buy milk and beer (this was definitely a "beer day") and a couple of other things.

I did buy an ankle support however, and injury permitting will do a small amount of shopping at Edgeworth tomorrow morning. Today was a long day. Hopefully tomorrow will be less so.

Not buying a book

One reason I went to Westfields today was to buy a copy of The Painter IX Wow! Book at Borders. I've had a working copy of Painter for a while now, and am keen to explore and use it. In the event, I didn't, and here's why.

Firstly, I have Painter X, which is one version on, and there is a version of the book for X out there somewhere. Secondly, the borders price was $A 75 and I considered that a bit excessive, considering that the uni library has a copy anyway. In fact, as I'll be doing my Masters for 4 years, I'll have plenty of opportunity to bottow that if I need to.

Two things that have been frustrating me have been attempts to use my graphics tablet (which might be solved by getting a different table) and the high learning curve of Painter. The book mentioned above looked really instructive on the ins and outs of Painter. I've decided to use painter to scan and colour my next few web comic pages, so we'll see how that goes. The uni library had a copy of The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book: Creative Techniques in Digital Painting (golly, these long titles seem like they were written by pamphleteers in the 17th century or something) and borders also had it too, but $73 is a bit much to pay for asuch a thin book.

Anyway, what I actually bought was a book on life in ancient Rome, which only cost $A 25, and felt much happier doing so. The othe $50 can be spent on other things like maybe digital tuners or (gasp) bought software.

Also in the uni library that I borrowed today were Painter IX Creativity: Digital Artists Handbook and Character Design for Graphic Novels. The first looks very interesting, though I suspect I ought to read the "Wow" book first. The second I thought was an Ilex book, as it has a lot of artwork I've seen in Ilex books about web comics and graphic novels in it. Since I'm about to start work on twographic novels, I thought this'd be worth reading.

And the moral of the (non) story is - use your local libraries before spending money - it can be cheaper that way!

Today's Heat Outrages

More stuff:

• No relief from heatwave chaos (ABC)
  About 16,000 customers of Jemena, Alinta and United Energy, which cover south-eastern metropolitan areas and the north-west of Melbourne were still without power at 1:00pm AEDT.
  

  Victorian fire authorities have revised the area burnt by the two fires burning in the Strzelecki Ranges south of the Latrobe Valley since yesterday.

  The latest aerial scans of the two fires show they have now burnt through more than 2,000 hectares of grassland, bush and forest, a figure far greater than that released in alerts this morning.

• Heatwave brings havoc to southern Australia as temperatures hit 45C (Times Online)
  In Adelaide 19, mainly elderly, people are reported to have died during the heatwave, a higher than average daily figure of sudden deaths. Only two sudden deaths were recorded last Friday.
  
  The heatwave has also affected Tasmania, traditionally Australia’s coolest state, which reached 42.2C at Scamander – an all-time record for the island.

• Australian heatwave again cuts trains, power (Reuters)
  Ambulance Victoria said paramedics were stretched to the limit with a surge in calls for help in the heat, with more than 1,300 cases on Thursday, a jump of 52 percent on the daily rate.
  
  Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has said the heatwave was a sign of climate change.
  
  Australia, one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change due to its hot, dry climate, is in the grip of drought and fire bans have been declared in southern Australia to prevent major bushfires.

This Summer sucks. It was only 31°C here today (currently at 23°) though it was awfully exhausting to run around in. Tomorrow's forecast is 20 - 30°. Should I go out at all? I think I'll have to see what my ankle is like tomorrow.