Discworld final day (and I survived it!)

Turned up to see the Jack Cohen interview, and yes, he was just as worth it as I remembered. Smart, funny, witty, and just a little naughty. I took some time to catch up with Jocko, which was lovely, then crashed out.

After that was the panel of the future of Aussie Discworld Cons. We got it down to every second year seeming like a good idea, and I suggested that Terry didn't have to be a guest, either. He's 60, he has times of poor health, and the trip out here is hard for most people. Plus the books will outlive him anyway, so the occasional con without him shouldn't kill people.

After that came the auction. I was paired with a wonderful bloke called Miles and we auctioned our little hearts out. The con wasn't quite breaking even, so Terry said that while the auction was for charity (orangutans) the money could go to the con until it was in the black, then to the apes, in the hope of allowing future cons to happen. It went for 2 and a half hours, and there was some gorgeous stuff. In total we raised about nine thousand dollars, got the con out of debt and still had a hell of a lot of cash left over for the orangutans. Yay!

And I got through the auction, and could still walk by the end of it! Woohoo! My throat was buggered, my legs were weak, but I still did ok. The closing ceremony was brief, Pat and his brilliant committee got a standing ovation by everyone including Terry. I retired to the bar and was there until way too late last night.

All up, it was good. Very good. Them not breaking even was more down to lots of people deciding to go to the thing at the library tonight. If a few of those people had bought memberships the con would have gotten through. But the con was a resounding success, and if there's another, I'd certainly be interested in heading along.

And I'm not doing bad today, wobbly and permanently stuffed, but surviving. Either I was having a good run that was masked by the con, or my exercising is paying off in terms of increasing my stamina. I've slept a couple of times and suspect I'll be paying for the con and auction all week, but so long as I get to rest and sleep, I'll do alright.

I'll probably not leave Tiki's much and when I do I'll just have to limit socialising carefully. I find going out tiring, and I struggle with city driving at the moment, there's an awful lot to keep track of. My balance isn't a problem, but I get exhausted, so I'll keep my bedding in the car so I can sleep when tired if I'm driving about, just in case.

If I'm up to it, may hit the MSFC Friday. *fingers crossed*

Phone search (Parte the Fourth)

So first thing today I headed into town to check out PDAs at Calculator King in South Melbourne. The guy I talked to was knowledgeable, they had a bigger range than I had seen in all the other stores combined, and the customer service was great. I made it clear I was only getting an idea of types and cost and the salesguy didn't try any hard-selling, he just took me through the ones that interested me for 45 minutes, without once looking like it was any trouble at all. Very impressed. Their prices were reasonable and substantially cheaper on some items, while being dearer on others. However, I'd consider paying the extra just based on the service. Good service should be rewarded with custom.

The unit with the minimum of what I'd like costs $799, the unit I want is around $1049. I am wondering about claiming it as a business expense, since I partially want the extra functionality for the business. Of course then I have to be bringing in enough cash to be taxed and get something back. Between renting the house in Oakleigh and the extra bought in by eBay, this may be do-able.

Also looked at phones. Looks like I can buy the phone I already have for around $200. That would save me having to relearn functions. I'm not happy with some aspects of my current phone, (mainly the deletion of SMS messages being a bit fiddly, so my box fills up) but overall it's ok.

Cheapest I could find with the minimum functionality I now like was $169.

I have to admit, I'm adapting to my phone being unreadable. I can send SMSs, though the occasional word may be odd since I picked wrong with the predictive spelling, and still talk to people. So who knows, so long as people remember to only send very short messages, I may put up with it for a while longer.