A couple of months ago my new car was towed from where I’d left it, near work. The council said it was parked in a clearway, and wanted $120.

I disputed the ticket, arguing I was not parked in a clearway because there was no clearway sign. You could see where there used to be a clearway sign, but there wasn’t one any more - and I sent them photos to prove it (one of them is attached - note the gap above the 60 sign).

Cutting a long story short, the council have now backed down and waived the ticket - but somewhat stupidly have yet to replace the sign.

If I was of a more masochistic bent, I’d totally park there again tomorrow. But Tariqa would call that silly.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I'd just left the store for my lunch break, and overheard two buskers having an argument over where they can set up. Thing is, these aren't two ordinary buskers - one is an old hippy with an amplified slide guitar and a rack of guitar effects pedals so awesome, it would make Tom Morello weep; the other is an Australian aborigine with a didgeredoo. Even funnier, this isn't the first time I've heard buskers arguing right outside the store - last time it was Still Man and a Christian preacher.

Anyway... We've got this retarded ticket from the council for parking in a residents' parking only spot, on our own street, while someone was parked across the front of our driveway, preventing us from parking where we normally would (ie. on our own property). The council reckons we can't have a permit to park right outside our house, cause we don't have our own standalone property. Idiots! If we had our own standalone property, we probably wouldn't need a parking permit, cause we'd have our own driveway/lawn to park on. The irony is, we DO have our own driveway to park on, but couldn't. ARGRAR!

But it seems that's not enough for the council. Now they want to restrict ALL parking on the street, in the residents' designated spots or not, to only an hour or two or whatever at a time. You can get a permit to park for longer, but only if... you have your own standalone property. WTF?!

So if we got home, and someone was parked in front of our driveway (again, it happens every now and then) we wouldn't even be able to park anywhere else on the street while we waited to get them towed. We'd have to find another street to park on; which probably has the same rules as ours... ARARGHG.

I'm awaiting a courier delivery from a research company who are gonna pay me $130 apparently to tell them what kinds of soft drink and juice I like. Awesome. This does seem rather late for a courier though...

I've been listening to a standup comedy album by David Cross, Shutup You Fucking Baby! - Cross is the guy who plays Tobias on Arrested Development. Download it if you can, it's pretty funny. Stay away if you're a close-minded Christian, or a redneck, or you don't particularly like the word 'fucking'.

Walked past the McDs strike on the way to work, Joe leading the troops and all. That man has way too much fun doing something so serious. The McDs didn't seem to be affected, they were as full as ever. Wendy's had a ridiculous queue out on the street though, so who knows. Apparently it's the first McDs workers' strike in the world, or so Joe tells me.

I've added tags to all my entries, yay. So now if you click 'work,' you get the twenty five entries I've made to date that discuss work. 'Star Wars' brings up six or so... hehe. Speaking of work, I've got the store pretty much to myself over the next 17 hours or so. Hmm.

I recorded another backing track this morn, the bass locks in real well with the heavily compressed drum track, I'm not so sure about the guitars, but what the hell. It's fourteen songs in the month of February I'm trying to write and record here, so I'm not gonna worry too much about it. Ha, maybe I'll rerecord every one of them and spend more time on them at some point :p I got a CD in the mail today from Rob, some acoustic demos apparently, so I'll check that out once I'm home, and done with whatever recording I get around to tonight. Should be good, he's a legend songwriter that just hasn't got to legend status yet. Or something.

Had a listen to the Arctic Monkeys' album, nothing that any Maximo Park or Franz fan couldn't get into, but probably not in the same league. That's only one after listen, mind you. They sounded better rocking the heavy distortion than their attempts at white funk and quirkiness. Oddly, the management are telling us we can't play it instore, as it's, 'not suitable.' Err, okay...