(I didn't write it)

Bravo rescinded!

I just did the most ridiculous bill-paying ever. I've got 14 parking tickets to pay, each for $5. (The fact that they're just $5 is the reason why I'm kind of lazy about feeding the meter -- it costs 50 cents to park for the whole day, and they only check the meters once or twice a week, and if you haven't paid on a day they check, then it's a $5 ticket. There are lots of days when those odds seem good enough to sleep late.) I don't have any stamps. So, I figure I can use the online bill payment thing from my bank, where I can enter the information and they print out the check and mail it. (I have no idea why this is free, but it is.) So I start trying to do it with one check for the whole sum, with the ticket numbers in the memo field, but the memo field will only accept 34 characters. So, I try it one at a time. The first one goes through, but the second one gives me an error, because you can't send two checks for the same amount to the same place on the same day. The most tickets numbers I can fit in the memo field of one check is 4. So I've got checks for $5, $10, $15, and $20 going out one day, and then another $20 the next day.

Okay but what's with the apostrophe?

I've got 14 parking tickets to pay, each for $5. (The fact that they're just $5 is the reason why I'm kind of lazy about feeding the meter -- it costs 50 cents to park for the whole day, and they only check the meters once or twice a week, and if you haven't paid on a day they check, then it's a $5 ticket.

My California born-and-bred soul finds this even more baffling than a housing market where homes cost $150,000. What's the point of making it metered parking if you can park all day, and tickets don't earn the municipality any money? It's like parking is for the benefit of the residents or some crazy shit like that.

What's the point of making it metered parking if you can park all day, and tickets don't earn the municipality any money?

I have no idea. Downtown, and for about a block or two out in each direction, you're supposedly limited to two hours, and then the next block or two after that is the system that the meters on my block have -- no time limit, and 25 cents gets you five hours.

And yet not free? That's the confusing part.

Nando's is absolutely everywhere in Melbourne. It is my favorite fast food chain, and has been since before I moved to the States, way back in 2001. (It's the perinaise dipping sauce that does it.)

I just found out (okay, I just noticed) that there's one on my way home from work! Will have to check it out, since I only know of it from the whole cheeky nandos thing. Which I only kind of get.

Moving is a lot of work. I'm going to hire movers who'll also box up my stuff for me, because I remember from the last time I moved that boxing up the stuff is really painful for my joints. I think I'll be driving to Cincinnati sometime next week to look at apartments, so I've got to book a hotel room there for that, and then make appointments to see apartments. Then come back here and book a moving company. Then file all my change of address stuff, and finish cleaning out my office, and figure out what I need to do so that I'll have medical insurance for July, and probably a million other paperwork things like that. But first step, find apartment.

I have eaten at Nando's! It was yummy.