Okay so first things first. My car is not some beast, but it is a faithful creature that has not failed me (yet). On the rare occasions that it would not work, it because I have neglected it in some way. One thing about my car is that I do not wash it. And so after a year, it looked like this:

Notably, I feel that there was no need to wash it, because a) I park the thing outside, so it will get dirty again real quick; and b) it is an old car, so its not like I’m trying to impress people with it. So slowly over the year of avoiding any car wash it turned from white to black.

Recently, I have managed to leave the house and met some new people. There was the chance of a date (however slim that actually may be) and a friend from interstate dropping by. I had to wash my car. Thankfully I could call upon my work buddy, Mark, to step in and give me a hand. And this picture is the end result.

I have finished booking my passage and stay in Japan. I will be headed there in less than a fortnight. I am kind of excited about this, but extremely nervous. I will be travelling across the country, going to Osaka, Nara, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Tokyo. I’m really keeping a mental list of things I want to see and do, but the whole thing it still open ended.

Also over the week, I received a film SLR as a gift from another work chum, Jo. It was an Olympus OM10. It felt like a pretty solid camera, but Jo explained that the shutter might be sticking. I looked up instructions on the web and followed them and now all the camera does is beep at me.

*Sigh*

I was going to use this camera while in Japan, but now it really does not want to work anymore and the shutter has jammed open, making the think totally unusable. So now I feel like a complete dunce, that I broke something that seemed to work perfectly okay. I guess it will give me a chance to find a film SLR in Japan.

Another piece of news, due to a stuff-up in the payroll department, I now owe the tax people money. A decent sum of money. This also interferes with Japan trip.

So the week has been a bit of an up and down, but I’m still saddened about the camera.

Later this week I will be going to this Space Invaders. Elouise of Smells Like Zines will be down to take part in the zine fair and I’ll be there to help out. This is pretty much one of the last things I’ll be participating in before jetting off to Japan. So see me there and support the cottage industry that are zine.

Night

**Update** Won the same model on a bid on eBay. So I guess things might be looking up in the photography department.

thumbnail from hypnerotomachi(n)a