MARCH 2004
Wednesday 31 March 2004 ** Missus Elizabeth's Birthday **
Happy Birthday to Missus Elizabeth!  I had a special 'Singalong With Streamer' planned for the 'Tuxedo Junction' show today - in honour of Missus Elizabeth - and then she wasn't able to listen in because she was called away unexpectedly to a situation where she couldn't listen to the radio.  I'm now planning to do the singalong next week.

We visited zeRellies for dinner and birthday cake.  A very good time was had by all.

Monday 29 March 2004
Oh Dear - in addition to my black spots, I now have blue ones.  No, not ink this time - worse - methylene blue, the stuff used to treat ailing fish.  Mistress Hellen has specifically requested that I not describe the chain of events leading up to my latest colour scheme addition - lest everyone realise we can both be incredibly stupid (at times).

The 7-legged huntsman seems to have moved on all by itself....I hope!  If anyone else is having problems with this huntsman invasion, please let me know.

Sunday 28 March 2004
The front door continues to misbehave and accordingly, we continue to leave by the back door!

Ah, there's a new kid in town, or rather, a new huntsman.  One ignorant of the decree "thou shalt not come inside if you have eight legs" - although the fact that this one only has seven probably makes it feel exempt.  Yes, another huntsman has turned up, in the bedroom.

I was making such a rumpus about it that Mistress Hellen reminded me I don't HAVE to sleep in her room - that I'm the proud owner of a perfectly wonderful kennel right inside the house, and that if that isn't far enough away from the spider - I can use my outside one!

I pointed out that a huntsman with only 7 legs may be prone to losing body parts and if it's settled above the bed - who knows what may fall off during the night and land on unsuspecting humans and canines.  Mistress Hellen said that she's fairly sure legs just don't fall off but maybe it had been fighting.  Hmm, maybe I need to do some research on this!

Saturday 27 March 2004 (back to top)
Open Day at 2RRR.  Missus Elizabeth, Mistress Hellen and myself went along in the middle of the day.  I was so excited at finally having Missus Elizabeth come and visit the radio station.  I showed her all the equipment, and rooms and the Music Library and introduced her to all the programmers who were there.

Missus Elizabeth went off home while we stayed on just socialising and relaxing under a tree.  Right before we were going to come home, two people arrived who wanted to be shown around the station.  Their names are James and Michael and it turns out that James had been listening to my 'Tuxedo Junction' show earlier in the week.  I thought I was going to fall over with astonishment when I found that out.

On the way home Mistress Hellen had to stop to vote and because she was wearing her 2RRR T-Shirt, she attracted the attention of Martin - who turns out to be a big fan of DJ Timmy Lee, who presents 'Soundsville' on Wednesdays.  Just after speaking with Martin we were spotted by Tina who lives near us so Mistress Hellen and Tina stood around for a while having a chat.

It was such an amazing day with all this socialising so when we arrived home I had a very big nap.

Friday 26 March 2004
This is very exciting - we're minding a car!  Not that it does anything, but it looks very swish in the driveway.  Missus Elizabeth brought it over tonight and I was so excited at having her here and showing her some of my latest re-arranging of my indoor kennel.

Wednesday 24 March 2004
The house has decided to shift and now the front door won't close without assistance from a very large screwdriver wedged under it from inside the house.  Mistress Hellen was very cross about this at first.  We've had to live with this problem before and it's always discovered when we're trying to leave the house - naturally!  Oh well, for the moment it seems that we'll just have to lock up from inside and then leave by the back door.

We've been doing a spot of gardening so I've been digging holes for Mistress Hellen to plant things into.  Lovely to take in the fresh air and enjoy the garden.

Tuesday 23 March 2004 (back to top)
How silly of both Neeve and Mistress Hellen.  BOTH of them forgot that yesterday was Neeve's birthday.  Neeve said that it was a good thing she didn't remember her own birthday until late at night because she was having such a bad day.  They both agreed that in that case - it was good that Mistress Hellen hadn't rung to wish her Happy Birthday and thus remind Neeve of the occasion.

Had a peek at the progress on the pool removal happening next door - and - it's not!  After the first burst of noisy activity, nothing much else has happened.  So we still have stagnant water sitting around in a big hole, except now it looks really ghastly, with bits of concrete, pebbled surfaces and iron bar things all jumbled up in the water.  Oh well, at least it's not something we can normally see from any convenient vantage point and the mosquito breeding environment hasn't really changed.

Monday 22 March 2004 ** Neeve's Birthday **
Huh!  Mistress Hellen returns despondent from a job interview with an agency - failed the interview - not enough enthusiasm.  It appears that enthusiasm is the new requirement for jobs - valued way over competency, punctuality, reliability or anything that used to matter.

Spent the rest of the day trying to cheer up my human buddy.  Tried all sorts of things but what eventually had her laughing was totally accidental on my part - falling off Command and Observation Post 3 while pretending to juggle coloured balls.

It's one year since this PC arrived in the house.  I'm so fond of it now and have mastered the new version of Paint Shop Pro - it's amazing to think back on what a hard time I had when it first arrived.

Friday 19 March 2004 (back to top)
Oh Dear, I'd left a note in this spot saying "fix this" but can't remember what happened that I wanted to add to today's entry!  All I remember is having a very big snooze before Michael arrived.

Michael visits and we sit around for a while chatting about this and that.  Eventually, around 11pm, the two humans decide to venture out to the city for something to do.  I stay home and snooze.

Wednesday 17 March 2004
Mistress Hellen returns happy, and with a refund, from her visit to the computer shop that sold her the refill kit.  Apparently THEY couldn't get the refilling to happen either - and they also managed to get the squirt ink violently thing happening too.

A big thank you to the shop who rescued us from our inkless state yesterday - Mistress Hellen reports that BusinessWorld in Parramatta is the only place to go now for anything to do with ink and printers!  She said the nice man who helped her knew heaps about ink, kits, printers and she will be a devoted customer from now on.

Tuesday 16 March 2004 (back to top)
Received an email today from Harvey Beagle, who lives in Victoria.  He sounds very nice and I've written back to him.  He wrote about being at the vet after eating Defender and Saturaid from the garden shed.  I've yet to hear what inspired him to do this!

Another unscheduled bath for me due to Mistress Hellen's activities.  Our printer ran out of ink while printing this week's Music Library entries.  Unable to purchase the correct cartridge, Mistress H enquired as to whether it was refillable.  Apparently so, according to the computer shop.  So, armed with the refilling kit, surrounded by newspaper and with high expectations, Mistress Hellen embarks upon the task of refilling this ink cartridge.

While applying 'reasonable pressure' (as advised by the instructions), ink suddenly squirted out quite violently between the filler syringe thingy and the ink cartridge - so violently that it shot out over the edge of the bench and onto ME - unsuspecting ME, lying calmly on the kitchen floor.  Oh!  the Dalmation Look!

All Mistress Hellen could think of saying (after the laughing had stopped) was that she was glad it hadn't squirted in her direction because it would have gone all over her clothes.

After cleaning up me and everything else ink spotted, Mistress H heads to a different suburb, to ask advice about refilling and to purchase a NEW ink cartridge.  Tomorrow she's going back to the original shop and asking for them to do the refilling!

Monday 15 March 2004
It's official - it's Mistress Hellen who is the Huntsman Spider magnet.  She reported that one turned up on the windscreen of the car tonight, and another has taken up residence on the front porch.  At least it seems like our warning to "stay out of the house" has been taken seriously!

Missus Elizabeth wants to know why I didn't report any of my 'naughtiness' from the weekend.  Well, OK - I went and visited Roy without telling anyone I was going - which had the whole household frantically searching for me.  I just presumed that no-one would notice I was missing for a while and that if they did, they'd realise where I was.

Sunday 14 March 2004 (back to top)
Mistress Hellen returns triumphant but sleep deprived from her weekend away.  She's brought home exotic tassels too - no, not for wearing on various body parts, but for hanging around the house.  Very lovely!

Ah - as lovely as it was being with zeRellies for the last few days, it's good to head home again.

Woah!  Discovered that I hadn't made the link correctly to January's Beagle Diary, was pointing at December.  No-one complained, so I guess that's an indication of just how POPULAR the old diary pages are!

Saturday 13 March 2004
Played in the backyard with Mister Darron in the morning, then watched him working in the garage.  Missus Elizabeth took me out for a walk to the local shops to show off my favourite collar.

Visited Roy in the afternoon and we ran around his backyard and basically behaved like we had no common sense between us - fairly typical visit for both of us really.

Friday 12 March 2004 BoyNicholas' Birthday!!!
Mistress Hellen off for the weekend, this time without me!  No dogs allowed, not even talented beagles such as myself.  Nevernominds, I'll be spending this weekend with zeRellies, which is always a good thing to do.  I'm taking my favourite blanket, food bowl, squeaky toy and best collar - that's for just in case we go out special.

Went through zeRellies music collection with Missus Elizabeth, looking for tracks suitable for St Patrick's day - for 'Tuxedo Junction' show.  Found some beauties too, which was very pleasing.

Tuesday 9 March 2004 (back to top)
Dejunked my indoor kennel today - amazing how things accumulate.  I have NO idea how 2 unmatched socks made it into the back of the kennel and underneath my blanket.  Mistress Hellen just gave me one of 'those' looks and thanked me for solving the mystery of her missing socks.

Saturday 6 March 2004
Spent an enjoyable day up North - socialising and doing holiday type things.  It rained most of the day but that never stops Mistress Hellen and myself having a good time!

Friday 5 March 2004
Some time ago - when I first started submitting ecard graphics to the Paint Shop Pro Users Group website, I became friendly with Pete - who was looking after the ecard area for a while.  Discovered we like similar music, and he asked if I had any samples of my show he could hear - so I'm going to prepare some recordings and send them to him in the USA.  This fairly simple sounding task has exploded into the number one time eater in the household - leaving the previous winner (creating images for the ecard site) way behind!  SO much to learn about preparing a good end product from the raw 'Real Player' file.  Volumes, what controls what on the computer, editing out things such as time calls and our community announcements.

Oh, and again, if you want to send and ecard made by ME - you can go to the PSPUG site at http://www.pspug.org/e-cards/ec3.shtml.

We're off for an overnight stay up north and then a day doing holiday type things!!!

Thursday 4 March 2004 (back to top)
I'm thinking there must be some sort of sign outside, in Spider, saying "within is good place to be".  ANOTHER Huntsman has set up camp!  This time on the window where I watch the world from Command and Observation Post 1.  Frightened the living daylights out of me when I jumped up there this evening and ended up almost making contact with my nose!

The spider isn't as big as Spot and appears to not be Close Relative of Spot, so has been named "The Other One".  It matters not what we decided to call it - because it was promptly removed with a suggestion that it tell all the other huntsman spiders in the area to stay outside!

Monday 1 March 2004
Spent time today with Mister John while he did some work on the taps in his front garden.  Very pleasant to just sit and be happy and collect pats and ear rubs from people passing by.  Now that Mister John knows I speak, (he heard me singing one day in the garden, popped his head over, expecting Mistress Hellen to be there...and ...well, the rest is history).  Where was I?  - yes - Mister John and I had a wonderful time chatting about the state of the world, music and the delights of do-it-yourself plumbing.

I've discovered that it's very convenient to sit at the front door and watch the world go by.  A sort of 'Command and Observation Post 2' replacement, but can't BE any Command and Observation Post because it's not off the floor.

The Beagle Diary
A fascinating (perhaps) insight into Streamer's life with and without Mistress Hellen.  The diary is updated frequently.