I woke up, and got up, at about 8.40am.

I got ready, ate a couple of muesli bars for breakfast, and then I left home.

I rode around to the bike place, and dropped my bike off. I left my helmet and gloves there, don't want to have to carry them around all day.

I came out, and there was a taxi waiting across the road, with his light on too, that's convenience. Before I had a chance to wave though, he took off. Bugger.

I started walking along the road, towards the shopping centre a couple of kilometres away, figuring I could get a taxi there, if I didn't see one along the road I could flag down.

As I walked along, I kept checking behind me, to see if there were any taxis going the same direction as me, but as timing would have it, I didn't see them coming, only once they'd gone past, that happened twice.

I got pretty close to the shopping centre. There's an apple shop here somewhere, I thought I might have a look in there, because I didn't find time to get the parts to make the firewire charger, so I'm still without a portable charger.

Before I got there though, I spotted a taxi on the other side of the road, so I flagged him down. I then had to get across the road, and that took me about 5 minutes.

I jumped in the taxi, and told the guy I wanted to go out to Erina Fair. He told me that he'd just had a new meter put in, and I was the first customer. Hmm.

We chatted a bit on the way out there, I told him how I was going up the coast tomorrow, and he told me about a holiday he'd been on, where he'd fallen out with his mate, because his mate had gone up a few weeks before, and whenever the guy wanted to do anything, the other guy would say "done it, you wouldn't like it", so they didn't end up doing anything, except driving to cairns or somewhere, and then driving back home again.

A couple of times on the way out there, the meter crapped itself, but it was still ticking up, so the driver didn't seem too worried.

We got out to Erina, and the amount on the meter ended up being $16.20. That seems pretty cheap. I think there was something wrong with the connectivity between the meter and the engine, so it was only counting the time, as if we were waiting somewhere, rather than the distance.

I got my wallet out, and found that I had $65.20 in cash on me. I asked the guy if he could break a $50 note, no. I showed him I only had $15.20 other than that.

I asked if I could pay with a card, and he showed me the eftpos machine, and then said that he wasn't allowed to use it.

We sat there for a bit, I was thinking I'd have to go to an atm and get a $20 note or something, but he'd probably think I was going to do a runner.

He ummed and arred for a bit, and then said that the $15.20 would have to do, so I gave him that, thanked him, and got out of the taxi.

I wandered around the shops a bit, it was now about 10am, 2 1/2 hours to fill in until I go and get my hair done.

I was still wearing my leather jacket, so I got a bit hot. I decided to go and find a backpack or something, so I could take my jacket off, and be able to carry it around easily.

I went into Target, they only had crappy looking bags, and they weren't cheap either, I was hoping to find something for $10 or $15. I went into Big W after that, and they didn't have much either, the same sort of poor selection, of expensive ugly bags.

I went into a couple of bag shops, and eventually found a large black plain backpack, $20 or something. Whatever, so I bought that.

I wandered for a bit, and then I took my jacket off, and shoved it in the backpack.

I went back into Big W, and looked for stuff I'd need to take on holidays with me, and bought some clothes socks and undies and stuff. I browsed through the mens clothes, and found a pair of shorts on sale for $20, so I got them too.

I paid for the stuff, and left, I was just shoving it all in my backpack, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was my mate's wife (who I was going to QLD with tomorrow, along with her husband), she was out there filling in time.

She said she was thinking about getting some roof racks for the car, because her stepfather has a Mal (big surfboard), that she's thinking about bringing back with her.

We went back into Big W again, and looked in the auto section, found some universal roof racks, about $30 or something, not too bad, but she wasn't sure if the car had a gutter on it, (where the universals attach), I said that it probably did, but was possible that it didn't.

We left, and went out to the car park, and had a look at the car, and found that it did have rain gutters. We went back in, but she said that she was only thinking about it, and didn't know that she could actually have the board yet either.

We wandered around the shopping centre for a bit, and my mate's wife said she wanted to get some ham for lunch, so we went into Woolworths, and she got some ham.

I mentioned that I was thinking about getting a wrist band, for my left arm, because when I ride, there's a gap between my jacket and my glove, and it's getting a bit of a tan, and it looks uneven, because in the gap on my right arm, I have my watch.

We wandered around a bunch of jewellers after that, and I tried on a few different bands.

One place had a sale on, 50% off silver, but they didn't have anything I really liked, because I was after something fairly chunky.

We went into another place after that, and they had a couple that I liked, I eventually decided on one, it was supposed to be $230 or something, the woman went away, and came back and said that I could have it for $175, so that was ok, and I bought that.

After that, we wandered around a bit more, I went around to the hairdressers, in case I could get in a bit earlier, but they didn't say anything about, so we kept wandering.

My mate's wife decided to go home, it was now about 11am I think. I decided I'd go and get some lunch, that'll waste a good bit of time, and then just wander around a bit more, and then go back to the hairdresser.

So I went and got lunch, it did waste a bit of time, but only about 1/2 hour, so I just wandered around for a bit, looking in CD shops and stuff, wasting time.

I went into the hairdresser around midday, because I was sick of wandering, and I sat there until about 12.20pm, when they started on my hair.

The guy shaved it into a mohawk, leaving all my facial hair, so I looked a bit like Mr T.

They hadn't got the colour, so one of them took off around to one of the shops in the shopping centre to get the dye.

Once my hair was cut properly (took a while, at least they didn't stuff it up like last time), he put the peroxide on my hair.

I went and sat under the steam thing for about 45 minutes for that to take, and looked at some crap magazine they gave me.

I came out from there, and the guy washed my hair, and then put petroleum jelly all over my hairline, to stop the dye from colouring my skin.

After that, he put the green dye through my hair, and I went and sat under the steam thing for another 15 minutes or so, and he rinsed some of it out.

The guy tidied it up a bit, trimming hair, and then asked one of the other guys to check it, he came over, and asked what I wanted done with my beard and stuff, and I asked them to take it off, so they guy did, and had a go at the other guy for not having done it already.

Once that was all done, I grabbed a tub of gel, and paid, it was about $100 all up.

I wandered around to Gloria Jeans after that, and got myself a coffee, and sat and drank it.

After that, I decided I should probably buy a towel and a pillowcase to take with me, because the green stuff in my hair comes out all over everything, and I don't want to be wrecking other peoples stuff with it.

I went and looked for the stuff in Target, didn't find what I was looking for, I just wanted a black towel, and a black pillow case, I found the pillowcase, but it was like $13, bit much.

I went and looked in Big W after that, and had less luck there, I didn't find a black towel or a black pillowcase.

Some little kid came into the aisle while I was looking at the towels, and said I had cool hair. Great, it appeals to children, just what I wanted, not.

I found some beach towels on sale in there, one with all colours and black patches and stuff, it looks like such a mess already, that any green stains won't be so obvious, so I grabbed that, bought it, only $10 or something too.

I went back to Target after that, to get the pillowcase, as I was heading for the checkouts, I saw that they had some stuff on special too, including a black pillowcase from $20 down to $7 or something, it's a european pillowcase, square, so it won't fit properly, but I don't really care.

I bought that, and then I left, shoving it in my bag.

I wandered over to JB hifi after that, looked at the DVDs, and ended up buying a few cheap DVDs, I bought a movie "Seems like old times", a comedy that the tivo guy in Melbourne had told me about, a Bowie concert, and some Duran Duran concert thing.

I went back over to the shopping centre after that (JB Hifi is on the other side of the carpark).

While wandering around, some dopey guy in the center started talking to me, he was there trying to get people to go to the gym they've opened out there. I told him that I wasn't going to be around for the next week.

He gave me a card about it anyway, supposed to have $35 value, somehow I don't think so. He took my details, and said he'd give me a call. I didn't want some idiot ringing me up, so I gave him a wrong number.

I walked away after that, and as I thought about it, the number is of someone I know, d'oh, he'll probably ring it, and then they'll give him my number.

I decided to buy some jeans after that, so I went into a jeans shop, looked what they had, wanted something in black, I don't like blue jeans, they didn't have much, only a pair of grey acid washed jeans, I tried them on, and while they weren't really what I was after, they weren't too bad, so I bought them.

I paid, left, and kept wandering. I had more time to fill in, since my bike isn't ready until about 5.30pm or something.

I thought about getting a toiletries bag, so I haven't got stuff all floating around in my bag all week. I went into some cheap homewares place, and found one, it was $15 though, bit much, oh well, I don't care.

I bought it, it was all full of paper or something, so I asked the woman at the checkout to take it out, because my backpack was getting full as it was, without carrying around screwed up paper.

I had another wander through the shopping centre, decided that I really didn't need anything else now.

It was about 4.40pm, so I decided to go back to the bike place, and find out how they were going. I went down to the taxi rank, no taxis, waited around for about 10 minutes, and one turned up.

I jumped in, and told the guy I wanted to go to the bike place, to pick up my bike, and then he started chatting on about when he used to ride. He was a Canadian I think, he just went on and on about riding.

We got to the bike place, the meter was $20 this time, I paid and wandered over to the bike place.

My bike was all done, the guys in there had a bit of a laugh at my hair.

I went in, chatted with the guy a bit, and then I paid for the work, $553 it was, for the clutch plates, brake pads, and labour to fit them. There was also stuff like oil for an oil change in there (since they had to pull the engine apart to fit the clutch plates).

I rode back from there, and went to my mates place. I was only there for a little while, and said I'd come back around a bit later, to sort out the computer we were taking with us tomorrow.

I headed for home, but realised there wasn't any food at home, so I went to the supermarket on the way home, got some food, and then came home.

I sat and spent the afternoon going through the stuff that I'd bought, ripping all the tags off everything, and packing my bag to take with me tomorrow.

I cooked the food, and ate it, and watched the end of Sneakers that I'd started watching last night.

While I was watching that, a storm rolled in, and it pissed down with rain, terrific, just what I want to have to go out in.

I went in and saw my parents, and told them that I was going off for a week up the coast, and I'd probably be back next Friday night or something.

There was some mail there for me, just crap though.

I waited a while, and the rain let up, so I decided to go out then, and I went back to my mate's place.

I was there for a couple of hours, I had to get all the photos off one of the machines there, and on to another machine, and then I reinstalled windows on it, and all the drivers etc.

I put all the rest of the stuff on there that it needed, virus scanner etc, and left it installing windows updates.

My mate has his sister staying with him at the moment, she took off to go and get some pizzas, when she came back with them, they were on that nasty thin base. My mate rang up Dominoes and had a go at them about it, and got a credit for 2 pizzas.

I left the machine downloading/installing windows updates (there's about a million security updates you need these days, so that was probably going take all night), so I went home, and went to bed.