Sunday.  28th.  Cooked up an epic lamb roast ($22/kg from Tathra Place in the markets) and veggies for dinner, then watched The Big Year (which some random dude on our holiday told us about).  It was a bit "serious" for all the comedic actors in it, but kinda cool.

Monday.  Slept relatively ok I think, for a change.  Spent much of the day geotagging holiday photos.  Stu also pulled out all the bedroom furniture to vacuum nearly 18 years worth of dust behind stuff...

Had some of Lily's Youfoodz for dinner.

Watched Professor T 1.5 together then I watched Taxi Driver which I've never actually seen.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep, epic restless.  Finished geotagging holiday photos.

In the afternoon we went to Palmerville for a walk and to do some birdwatching.  This Bell 206L-1 (VH-OAS) chopper had been buzzing around Canberra all day, Evoenergy checking powerlines.  

I hadn't walked along the new pathway yet

Such a fun shot..

Finished off Lily's Youfoodz dinners and the last of the salad

Then watched Professor T 1.6 together (end of season one) then I watched a doco on the Titanic - Titanic: Digital Resurrection.  Considering the effort they went to to digitise the ship, the computer graphics they also used were pretty cheesy.  Interesting though.

Wednesday.  April Fools!  Slept okish, only awake for an hour or two around 3.  Back to work.  Yeup definitely an April Fool.  Spent most of the day catching up on chats and emails.  

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies and I fried up some lamb, then we watched Professor T 2.1.

You can tell the sweetie was cooking - the potatoes are all lined up nicely ;)

Then spent the rest of the evening putting up reviews of all the places we stayed on our holiday in booking.com.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Mostly still catching up on crap at work.  Had a gin night at drinks but hardly anyone else turned up.  Sad times. 

Bus home (trying to save petrol) then made pizzas for dinner and watched Professor T 2.2.

Friday.  Good Friday.  Although not so good for Jesus back in the day.  Slept mostly ok.  Didn't get much done all day sigh.  Pretty much a nothing day.  We did go for another walk in the afternoon to Palmerville to try out Stu's new toy (all the bird pics I'll put in another post one day).

Kievs for dinner then Professor T 2.3.  I then watched "Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" from 2015, which was mostly footage around Christa McAuliffe.. (as an aside, I didn't know that her backup, Barbara Morgan, later went on to be a full-blown astronaut in her own right.. cool!).  Eerily, the peeps that are on their way to the moon right now used booster rockets from the shuttle programme.. that wouldn't be freaky .. at. all.   .. !!)

Saturday.  Only awake for an hour or two around midnight.  Spent literally the entire morning doing housework.  Sigh.  Went out with EB to have a look at the new road around the north/east side of the airport which was pretty cool, had a good long drive around the area, then went in to Quangers for lunch at the Royal Hotel (had a very nice caesar salad).

Air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport

Did you know they're closing down the air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport and replacing it with cameras done with remote control..?  What could possibly go wrong?

Swing bridge in Queanbeyan

Caesar salad at the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan

It's such a shame they haven't setup any sort of dedicated planespotting area with all the new works

Stu cooked a tuna bake and veggies for dinner then we watched Professor T 2.4.  I then watched Lantana which I'd never seen before.  Lots of unlikeable characters behaving badly.  Hurrah.

Easter Sunday.  He is risen!  Slept mostly okish I think.  Woke up 6am!  But 5am in reality. Sigh. Didn't achieve really anything all day.  Stu took Stumpy outside for a walk.

In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for afternoon tea and catchup with the family.  Pebbles wasn't being *quite* the scardey cat...

Leftovers for dinner.  The just-past full moon was rising and it was like, hey there's four peeps in between me and that bright shiny thing!  Pretty cool!  Then watched Molly's Game, which I'd seen on a plane but Stu hadn't seen.  

Monday.  Slept mostly okish.  Got a bunch of Europe 2016 photo stuff done, and a heap of jigsaw.  Stu has cooked up a bunch of veggies to have with some leftover lamb for dinner.

Sunday.  15th.  Leftover Peking duck for dinner (Stu had the last of the Turkish) then MacGyver. I tried to watch the end of Airport on my computer but my computer wouldn't read the disc.. probably stoopid Macrovision trash. What's the point of trash like that if it PREVENTS LEGITIMATE USERS WATCHING YOUR MEDIA!?!?!? Edit: a quick Google suggests Windows 11 removed the ability to play Macrovision DVDs.. yet another reason why Windows 11 is a piece of trash. Although I'm not convinced that's the full story - the player won't even recognise the disc and kind of just "clicks of death" with it. Sigh. Anyway so had to finish watching it on the DVD player (which very nicely remembered where we were up to even though it had been turned on and off a couple of time and had MacGyver DVDs in there in between).

Monday.  Awake from 4am til like 5:30am then had some convoluted dream about catching buses around Jannali with a heap of crap and running late for work. Another thing that pisses me off about Windows 11.. if I have too many windows open and the tray fills up, it'll hide some tray items. But not just the ones off the end, an entire application's worth. So my task bar is literally 2/5ths blank. How is this in any way useful for people??? Felt like I didn't achieve much all day, just lots of fluff and waiting for people to answer my questions. Leftovers for dinner then MacGyver and achieved pretty much nothing with my evening. Although I did watch Dad's funeral slide show (which was 12 years ago yesterday) and tried to get the timing working properly in LibreOffice.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly okish. Spent much of the day working on the last of the migrations to new load balancers. We cooked a slow cooker pork neck and a bunch of veggies for dinner. Delicious!

MacGyver then spent entirely too much time geotagging Mum's photos of South Australia in 1969.  I didn't find the location of the Beachport YHA that Mum and Marita stayed at, but a couple of days later I found it literally right there in my Google image search - it's the former Harbour Master's house and is now an AirBnB.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly okish. Disjointed morning but got stuck into some new proxy crap in the afternoon.

Carnage...

Causer of said carnage...

The sweetie cooked up some creamy mushroom chicken for dinner which was very nice. MacGyver then achieved very little.

Thursday.  Lights out 22:00. Sleep maybe 01:00 or 02:00. Sigh. Zombie day. Went through a URL block list to see what still needed to be blocked. Pretty good drinks. Someone else tried to take over our table but we pushed back haha. Made pizzas for dinner (pepperoni and feta, tomato and blue cheese, and mushroom, olive and capers).

Then tried to watch MacGyver but my old $50 DVD/BluRay player decided it didn't want to play. The first time it came up with audio but no video. Then it wouldn't power off. Then no audio or video at all. So now we have nothing in the house that will play blurays. Watched some Simpsons instead.

Friday.  I shouldn't look at things. When I look at things I find problems that I want to fix. So I spent much of the day checking doco on a bunch of URL categories and coming up with a plan to tidy them up. Went and had drinks with T/J which was nice.  Definitely a lovely way to spend a Friday evening after work. Kievs for dinner then I watched Freakier Friday set 22 years after the previous one. That was a bit of fun but more confusing because four of them swapped around making it harder to remember who was who.

Saturday.  Awake from 3:00 hurray.

I caught this little guy Friday night and evicted it Saturday morning.  So fricken cute!

Day of housework and Lego filing but did also do some music practise. Stu was out at the club most of the day so he was exhausted when he got home and it was a Dumpling Inn delivery kind of a night.

Then we watched Saving Mr Banks which I'd seen in 2022 but Stu hadn't seen.

Sunday.  Awake from 4:00 hurray. Lenovo wants to install a bios update. Windoze wants to spend 20 minutes to an hour doing a "bigger than normal" update. hrmmmm. I let Windows do the update later in the morning, it took maybe 3/4 hour. Otherwise just lots of getting organised with life. Even did some Europe 2016 panoramas.  This week both Windoze *and* Chrome have forgotten my folder settings.  Sigh.

Wow. So 2025. It sure was a year!

Travel

I went to Adelaide with Mum in late February to visit my Uncle Graham who was in hospital for three months being treated for a lymphoma. He was doing really well at the time (he'd really only just started treatment). Good news is he's done with treatment and is (so far) cancer free. We went down the coast to visit Kit and Pete in March for Pete's birthday and I went to the Milton Show with Kit. I didn't go to Europe with Mum, even after spending months planning it. At least David got to go instead. I did go up to Sydney the day before they left to go through everything I'd prepared with them. In November the sweetie and I took ten days off and headed down the coast, staying in Narooma and Kiama. Didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked in Narooma due to reasons, so we hope to go back again some time soon. Did a day trip to Sydney in December to see Back to the Future the Musical.

Work

At work I was the Naughty Email Intervention Layer (NEIL) a few times while Neil took leave. We're not sure what's going to happen to his position when he retires next year (after 50 years!!!!). I got to do a bunch of work on some of our management scripts to get them working in the new environment. Learnt a lot, which I've now completely forgotten. Did scripts to check on the quality of objects/rules, backup configs, look for orphaned objects, print out our rules in a friendly format, delete crap. I love those delete scripts whenever I use them - they save So. Much. Time..!! Used Copilot (and Google AI) to help me with regex and Powershell (the regex stuff was pretty cool - I gave it a problem and it found me a solution - that worked!). Did lots of decommission work in the first two thirds of the year, ran out of time with everything else going to do much in the last third of the year. I still think my job description is mostly "Sadie". Helped Neil build and cut over to some new mail servers (which took months to finally get to do after they were like, oh, yeah there's a bug, soz). Ray brought in his pizza oven in February for a team lunch which was quite fun. We farewelled HBZ in February which was a bit sad, also farewelled Julian and Bruce in March and Imaar in October. There were trivia nights in March (a bit trash), June (a lot of fun, and we actually won, but luckily didn't have to run the next one - they decided in advance that the last place getters would run it) and October (a bit trash). Had a small "anti ball" in April but it was a bit of a fizzer and I don't think I'd bother trying to organise another one. Used "New" Outlook for only a couple of days in April because it was trash. The dealbreaker was shared calendars which just wouldn't render properly. Did a massive cleanup of our main dev environment, which I've been wanting to do for literally seven years. It makes me so happy that it's *clean* now! Worked on policy for our new cloud proxies, but even though I've been using myself for months we're still not really any closer to getting it released to everyone. In November it suddenly became crunch time on our existing proxies - the old hardware (which we've been using for TEN YEARS) was going EOL and we didn't want to renew the licence and we weren't ready to cut over to our new proxies, so I spent a few days migrating the policy to other equivalent but newer hardware, doing all the paperwork, and prepping it all so Con/Ward could cut it over while I was on holidays. It went mostly smoothly which was epic awesome. Spent a heap of time looking at what talks to some legacy domain controllers so could replicate their rules to new ones. Broke something during a transition though sadly. It was fixed super quickly once they told me though. Had to rework our ticket dashboards when they upgraded versions and our originals were done so long ago they were "legacy" and didn't work properly. Had various Christmas parties in December, including my annual bbq at the lake attended by over 40 people.

Health

I had a bit of a sore throat in February. Spent two days in bed and pretty sure I beat it off because I didn't seem to get fully sick. Mainly I was paranoid about getting sick because if I did I wouldn't have been able to see Uncle Graham in Adelaide. Ongoing bouts of insomnia and thermoregulation issues throughout the year (thanks menopause). Oh, and the minor inconvenience of the C-word. Not that C-word. The other C-word.

Family and Friends

We started the year (almost) with some of the n-gang (we left at 11:30 and got home just before midnight). Mum and D/K/S came for the family Christmas lunch in early January for last year, and a week before Christmas for this year. I definitely like doing an early family Christmas. Went to see Lily for her 21st in January. Had EffanC over for dinner in February, and also my birthday, and went over to theirs for dinner in May. David came to visit in March to install a new light fitting in the kitchen. Because the old one died. It was only six years old. Hating on how crap everything is nowadays. Mum tripped over just inside her village entrance in March and was knocked out and broke her collar bone. She went to hospital and they did a bunch of scans because they didn't know if she'd passed out and then fell, or got knocked out from the fall. Passing out first would have been super worrying. Fortunately there was security camera footage and you can clearly see she just tripped (she was power walking and was just moving off the main path when she tripped on a raised bit of concrete). Had Jenn over for dinner in March. It had been two years since we saw her last. Whoops! Caught up with Luc for drinks/dinner in May and December. Fiona came over with a care package in May, and visited again July. Tony also dropped in a care package in May, and we went to the arboretum in July, as well as had a couple of movie nights. Had lunch at the Burns Club with the Chrises and Tony in June and the Chrises and Glenda and Neil in December. Kit came to visit in August for Ben and Sarah's baby shower (which I would have loved to have gone to, but, people). Went and saw Annie and the family in August. Had Friday afternoon drinks with T/J in October - we really must do that more often! David and Kellie came to stay in November when they went and saw Ricky Martin. Went to Rob and Fiona's in November for a deck warming. Had Mishi's 60th in December. Had a super quiet Christmas Day, but Stu did got to see his family (and we'll hopefully catch up with them on New Years').  New Years Eve Eve party at M&M's with some of the n-gang.

The Social Club

We went out in June for Ian and Chris's 10th wedding anniversary formal night which was lovely. I did our annual Christmas in July by remote control this year - the sweetie did all the shopping for me, I did as much prep work as I could either at home or in the van, then got the sweetie and helpers to cook it all on the night (with lots of printed out instructions!). Went out again in September - Stu for a committee meeting, and I did some priming of cabinetry. Went to the Halloween Spooktacular night in October which was fun. Went out again in early November for a committee meeting for Stu, and I continued priming cabinetry. Then there was R&F's Christmas party in late November.

Photos

Spent ages picking out photos for Mum's funeral (on account of she wants to see it and I want to get it done in advance should the worst happen and then it would be one less thing I would need to think about). Spent chunks of time here and there tagging people in Picasa. I figured out how to have different databases for different people groups and even wrote a startup script to make it easy to switch between them. Jumped in to finally getting my Europe 2016 photos online - spent ages and ages culling culling culling, then labelling them and getting them online. I still have to make panoramas and get them online. Also filed a lot of photos into directories with more descriptive folder names. Re-scanned all of Mum's slides at the highest resolution my scanner would go (the first time I did them very quickly at a medium resolution). Then rescanned the ones with fluff on them, sometimes over and over and over again. I've geotagged our south coast trip from November, but that's all I've done so far.

Fish and Stumpy

Stumpy's UV light died at the end of last year, but I couldn't find anywhere that sold a 48" 10% UV light, so had to make do with an incandescent bulb which does heat *and* UV in one. He'd been pretty lethargic at the beginning of the year, possibly because of the lack of UV light. He perked up again with the new light, and got really quite tanned over the course of the year. My AquaOne 620T tank leaked in February because the filter wool drifted over and blocked the outlet, backing everything up. Whoever thought using chipboard to make fish tank stands would be a good idea should be shot. Lost the sucking catfish in the two foot downstairs in February - it was happy then was dead. Towards the end of the year I thought I was losing the clown loaches - they both hid in a corner and wouldn't come out. But in the last week or two they've been behaving more normally.

Our current fish inventory:
* upstairs two foot - a whole heap of guppies at various ages
* four foot - nine congo tetras, one lone male guppy (I'll get him some friends when others in the other tanks get big enough), and an enormous fat loach
* Chrissie's tank - two clown loaches
* angel tank - a whole heap of guppies at various ages
* downstairs two foot - a whole heap of guppies at various ages

Lego

Spent ages of time (and money) on Vic's Lego. Bought a crazy number of loose pieces to complete some sets. I managed to complete all the Creator and City sets. I built and photographed the Creator sets and have been building the City sets. Still a long way to go though. The LEGO Group is taking over Bricklink more and more. This year they forced you to use your Lego account to sign into Bricklink and later in the year they gave two weeks notice they were going to suspend trading in a whole heap of countries (which they then pushed back til next year). I'm just waiting for them to enshittify it completely. The only set I built new was 31134 - Space Shuttle, which I got for my birthday, but haven't had a chance to build the other two sets I got for my birthday.

Jigsaws

A little bit quiet on the jigsaw front, especially at work. Bought two jigsaws with a voucher from my 50th birthday, but have only done one of them so far.

Other Hobbies

My favourite hobby at the moment is diamond painting. I find it super quieting for my brain (which always seems to be overstimulated). After the little Christmas tree I did on Christmas/Boxing Day last year, I've done Green Eyed Beauty, Pink Galah and Banksia, White Cockatoo and Waratahs, and started on Oh Christmas Tree (which Dave2 very kindly bought and posted to me, on account of not being able to find anywhere in Australia that still had it). I did an Anko miniblocks Owl in Tree that I got for Christmas from Kellie and David which was very cute. I also did a Nanoblocks Church I got from the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction in March. It wasn't quite complete but it was mostly there and is very cute. And there was also a Petit Blocks fox I got at Daiso for at work. It's very cute. I bought a brand-new-second-hand saxophone from the Young Music School sale in February. Had it serviced and got it back in August. I've done a little bit of playing on it but not as much as I would have liked. I did find some easy Christmas music for it which was fun and have been on the hunt for other music for it.

Weather

We had hail in January, August, September, November and December. There were various rainbows throughout the year. In October/November it went from needing the heater, the cooler, the heater, the cooler, the heater (although didn't actually run it that time) in the space of two weeks. Had lots of storms in November and December. Had an overnight low of 0C on 2 December.

Toys / Purchases / Techie Stuff

I bought a new camera in January because my old one (Dad's old one) had some dead pixels and just isn't as good as newer cameras in low light. But I got super frustrated at the 24-105mm lens which didn't have the range of my old camera/lens. I also got frustrated at how dull and lifeless the photos are from it. Did a bunch of testing comparing the new camera, the old 600D, my G5X and my iPhone. Also played with user mode settings to increase saturation and contrast, which has made a difference. In July I got a 24-240mm lens, much happier with it than the 24-105mm. The 24-105mm is still great for people photos and low light, but the 24-240mm is my general usage lens. I'm totally hating on Windoze 11 which does utterly daft things. Like if I open a text document on one desktop, it'll open it IN ANOTHER DESKTOP!!! Even if just a moment ago I'd opened and closed another text file on the original desktop. Or that it NEVER remembers folder settings. There's a few folders that I have specific settings (sorting by reverse date order, details instead of large icons etc..) and it resets them every fricken time I use them. HATE. There were a couple of times this year it remembered the settings, but mostly it just reset them. Or that sometimes when I unlock in the morning, windows that I've had on the right screen (my main screen) will randomly be moved to my left screen (which I don't use all the time) and I have to turn on that screen and move them back. Or that notepad is so trash now. If you have a large text file it becomes unusable due to the lag of it trying to do spell checks or whatever. Or it'll literally just not enter keystrokes and just skip one or more letters that you've typed. Or that Windoze will reboot AGAINST YOUR WILL when it feels like it. Or that whenever I attach a USB device it takes a full minute for windoze to recognise it. Or that whenever I attach or remove a USB device, explorer collapses what directories I have open, so I have to re-navigate to them all to get back into folder context. Or that when I open a command prompt (which I have pinned to my task bar), the command prompt doesn't open where the pinned icon is, it opens all the way over on the right of whatever else I have open. I got a new desktop at work and it's doing the same thing. Yet the Azure ones didn't do this. Or it'll just randomly jump to the top of the explorer window and I have scroll back down to find where I was working. Or it changed how folders are displayed by date. My computer crashed earlier in the year and in October as well. Frustration with Apple. If you let it automatically set the time zone, it'll just change the time zone on you randomly. It stuffed up a bunch of photos in Adelaide with its nonsense. Apple also merges timelines from different numbers into one message thread. So you reply to a message in the thread, but it goes to the home number not the mobile number and is never received. Apple is so stoopid. I had to split out Mum's mobile number into a different contact to stop that happening. Google broke Chromecast because they didn't renew a certificate. Eventually after a week or so they fixed it. OneNote threatened to force me into an Office365 subscription, but didn't end up doing it. I finally got around to setting up my phone to use my own hosted SMTP service because Optus was getting super flaky for trying to send mail. Raged at Optus who now FORCE you into using $5/day roaming unless you pull the sim out of your phone. BOM updated their website in October and half the country screamed at them for ruining things. Pretty sure CloudLoop made some change to email headers in mid to late November which means that mails from some places aren't rendering properly. I downloaded (and paid a little) for Thunderbird to handle mail from the problematic senders. Might one day copy everything across, but for now the way of filtering mail is super annoying.

House stuff

I spent ages in the first part of the year trying to get the back yard under control. Our lemon tree dropped probably about a thousand lemons over summer. I'm not even exaggerating - a branch fell off that had 110 lemons on it, and that was just one branch out of the whole huge tree. I juiced most of them and was drinking homemade lemonade for months. I grew a bunch of mini capsicums which I could harvest in April. Such a lot of effort (and having to water every single day) for so little reward (but a nice reward!). We tried to turn the heater on in April but either the controller or the heater was having a spaz and kept rebooting. In May we managed to get it to work and didn't turn it off for literally two weeks straight. After that we managed to operate it normally for the rest of the winter. But in spring, after being off for a few days, it got the crazy behaviour again. Potted a chrysanthemum that I'd accidentally uprooted out the front and it's been thriving. I still need to find a permanent home for it. Frustration the Mirabella Genio lights and app, terrible user interface and annoying to try and get them to repair. Started picking strawberries from the weeds in the back yard at the beginning of November and continued through early December. Not nearly as many poppies this year, must have been too dry for them.

Restaurants

We had Quan's Kitchen delivery in January (because Dumpling Inn presumably wasn't open yet). We went to Bar 59 a few times in January for work drinks, and again in April. Dumpling Inn is a continuing favourite, with deliveries in January, June (x2), July, August, September, October and December. So is Chong Co, with deliveries in March, April, May (x2), June, August and October. McGriddles at Maccas finally arrived in Australia! I had one in July but my sense of taste was shot at the time so couldn't judge it. Have had a few more since October though. Went to Ikko again for a work farewell in October. Went to Stellas by the Lake for brunch in November with David and Kellie, nominally for his 50th. Tried out Bamiyan with Luc in December which was really good. Tried out Grease Monkey in the mall in December. Went out to Four Winds for pizza lunch with Tony in December for our annual lunch out there. Went to the Labor Club with Mum and Stu in December. And to the Old Canberra Inn for Tony's birthday.

Food / Cooking

Our first meal of the new year was cheesy hash browns cooked on New Years Day. We usually have pizzas every Thursday night, mostly made ourself, but occasionally a commercial one. We often have Ingham's chicken Kievs on Friday nights. And we often have a roast dinner on Sunday nights. Made lemon pepper dill chicken a few times (with all that lemon juice!) and creamy lemon dill sauce with either chicken or fish a few times. Luv-a-duck Peking duck is a favourite, had that a few times. Did a pork neck in the slow cooker in February which was *amazing* and again in April. Tried Microwave Pork Crackle in February which was actually pretty good! Had steak a few times earlier in the year (we never get steak at home because Stu is usually meh about it). Had NQN's butt sorry beef cheeks in May. Stu cooked a little bit in April/May when he was on leave. Made a potato, blue cheese, and rosemary pizza in July. I couldn't taste it at the time, need to do it again. Did slow cooker lamb shanks in August. Tried a cheats mac & cheese with just a bit of water and cheese (and a bit of milk in one version, cream in another). Made a couple of coconut cakes - once in the microwave and once in the oven in August. Did slow cooker beef brisket in August. Baked a plain cake and icing in August from the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday cake book to test the recipe. Officially started cooking cakes out of it in September (just one so far!). Made puff pastry scrolls a few times - vegemite or pizza flavoured. Cooked some crackling by itself in November which turned out pretty well. Made some gingerbread biscuits in December. Made a peppermint slice in December.

Theatre / Shows / Exhibitions

* Pompeii at the National Museum in January with Mum which was really good
* AI in Science talk in April with T/J, but missed the rest due to avoiding people and being busy
* Constellations at the NFSA in April with Tony which was amazing
* Back to the Future - The Musical with the sweetie in December which was a bit of fun

Movies (at the movies)

None. *gasp*

Movies (TV)

* Heaven is for Real
* Die Hard 3
* Darkest Hour
* Star Trek: Generations (after seeing the Duras sisters in DS9 1.3)
* Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
* Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
* Blackberry
* The Princess Bride
* Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
* Fantasia 2000
* Perfect Days
* Inglorious Basterds
* The Holdovers
* Jaws
* Flying High
* Rogue One
* Star Wars (A New Hope)
* The Empire Strikes Back
* Return of the Jedi
* The Post
* Cruella
* Forgetting Sarah Marshall
* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
* Terms of Endearment
* Lego Batman Movie
* Lilo and Stitch (the original animated one, and the live action remake)
* The Green Mile
* Passengers
* The Last Emperor
* Back to the Future, I, II and III
* V for Vendetta
* The China Syndrome
* Die Hard and Die Hard 2
* Birdman
* The Neverending Story
* Love Actually
* Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2

TV

* Death in Paradise - seasons 11, 12, 13, 14
* Wednesday - seasons 1, 2
* Beyond Paradise - Death in Paradise but back in the UK
* Stranger Things - season 1 early in the year, then 2/3/4/5 later on
* Return to Paradise - a spinoff of Death in Paradise set on the south coast of NSW
* Meltdown: Three Mile Island
* Deep Space Nine - seasons 1-7
* Air Crash Investigations on Disney+
* Andor - season 2
* How to Change your Mind
* Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
* Lego Grand Masters of the Galaxy
* Trainwreck: Poop Cruise
* Black Mirror - season 7
* Tokyo Trial
* Trainwreck: Storm Area 51
* The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem
* Futurama - season 13
* You Are What You Eat
* The Simpsons - bit of season 36
* Lost Melbourne documentary
* GameStop documentary
* Pirates: Behind the Legends - a couple of episodes

Books

None. Although I did get some way through The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Reading is just so *hard*.

Other Stuff

* Got frustrated at the lack of response from Access Canberra in January over the new MyWay+ issues
* Got some ok photos Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) in January
* Got our Queensland holiday from 2004 and Col and Sandra's wedding blogged. Only took 21 years to get online..
* Took some Cousin Itt photos in February
* Remembered 11 years since Dad carked it in February
* The Green Shed closed down booooo and was replaced by "Goodies Junction" run by Vinnies. Definitely preferred the Green Shed. Later in the year found out the owner of the Green Shed started a spinoff in Fyshwick.
* Did a keto diet for a few weeks in February to lose a few kilos. It was pretty effective! And mostly kept the weight off too.
* Neighbours moved to New Zealand in April
* Climbed Mt Rogers a bunch of times in April while I was trying to get a bit fitter for my holiday
* Did low carb again for a little while in April. Gave up when it became apparent I wasn't going overseas.
* Had a lovely drive around Canberra on our wedding anniversary in April
* Saw the Giant Crane in May
* Listened to the Classic 100 Piano in June
* Went to the Handmade Markets at EPIC in June
* Neighbours house was finally rented out in June
* Watched all of Jamie's Anti-Chef videos from the very beginning in order from August. Still only about two thirds of the way through them.
* A red-back spider took up residence in our letter box in August. She was spray-and-wiped.
* Crimson rosellas returned to chew on the beams supporting the roof
* Stu rage-retired in September. Then spent the better part of a month in agony from his back. Recovered from that only to have hearing problems and nausea.
* Saw comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), but only barely
* Visited the new "Green" Shed (The Shed) in October
* Stu more or less took over some cooking and some basic housework in October or November
* Plucked a number out of the air to go for in the Melbourne Cup (my birthday), and that horse won!
* Got frustrated at MyWay+ which doesn't work properly. Got one free ride out of it, but then figured out a fix.
* Got some photos of the aurora in November, although I never actually saw it
* Made a beer advent calendar out of beers I missed from work drinks that Neil saved for me
* Found a 2011 10c coin!!
* Chipped one of my front teeth
* Neighbours got a new barky dog
* Reread the second half of the New Testament

So there we have it.  I guess a fairly quiet year in a lot of ways.  We're both hoping 2026 will be better, especially health-wise.

Happy New Year!!!

Sunday.  21st.  Got home from Sydney, had a little bit of leftovers for second dinner.  Then watched part 2 of the GameStop documentary.

Monday.  Slept somewhat better. Back to work though. After two loads of washing and tidying the kitchen of course. Sigh. Did up the finances from the Christmas Party. Ended up with ~$14 leftover to carry forward to next year. Not too bad. Fixed up the rest of our tickets and reports dashboards in the afternoon. Stu cooked up some yellow curry vegetables for dinner which were quite nice. Finished the GameStop documentary. Stressed at how little time I have for everything. The todo list I started in September for the end of the year is only like 1/2-3/4 done. Still heaps of photo stuff I never got anywhere near completing. And now I have a whole heap more photo stuff to do. And I have to spend all my days at work. Sigh.

Tuesday.  Revelation 5:12 "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"
Awake from 4ish. Did some music before work. Instead of any housework or weeding. Tried to get a pac file working at work. Made one change that worked but couldn't get another change working, so that was pretty frustrating. Then looked at another cleanup job I want to do. Leftover pork for dinner then watched part 2 on the pirates - Grace O'Malley (we watched part 1 on Francis Drake the other night but don't remember which night). Did some processing of my Canon photos and did some writing up of the past few days.

Wednesday.  Christmas Eve.  Okish sleep. Fixed a couple of scripts that were broken at the last upgrade - they changed Display_Name to DisplayName. Thanks. Not. Probably need to check a few of my other scripts as well. Other than that mostly just tidying up. Made a peppermint slice after work. Possibly added a bit too much water to the icing as it didn't really set. Or maybe I was just too impatient. Probably that. 

Did some Christmas music on the sax. I can get through them without too many mistakes now. Leftover pork and potato bake for dinner. Then we watched Die Hard 2 and the Carols by Candlelight. The Melbourne carols are degenerating a bit these days into the silliness that the Sydney carols have. I haven't watched the Sydney carols in years because it's just too cheesy. And of course all the good songs that you could sing along to get played during the ad breaks.  Played Carols bingo..

Denis Walter..

Tim Campbell and Paulini..

Hallelujah chorus..

Casey Donovan..

Silvie Paladino..

Marina Prior singing Angels We Have Heard on High..

David Hobson singing The Holy City.. apparently his 13th time..

Uncle Doug Heywood..

Fun times!! We missed Ode to Joy and All I Want for Christmas is You at the beginning though.

Thursday.  Christmas Day. 
Revelation 11:15 "The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever."
The timing of reading that was pretty funny..!
Slept like crap. Spent most of the morning prepping and cooking lunch (even though I did a bunch of prep yesterday afternoon). We had an epic feast of roast turkey, blue cheese potato bake, brussels sprouts with bacon and hazelnuts, sweet potato, sage and onion stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce and garlic bread (not shown).

There may have been a little bit of leftovers..

Note to self: don't follow the instructions on the box and put a frozen turkey in a baking dish in a hot oven...

Pretty annoyed about that, we use that baking dish all the time.  #grunt.

Did some Christmas music on the sax and did some dotz. Stu went over to Annie's (I didn't go because Lily was sick and I didn't want to then get sick for my only week off I get at home all year). I didn't even eat that much lunch but I felt full all afternoon and didn't feel like dinner. Dinner was a couple of beers and the last of the mulled wine. Watched Enola Holmes to see Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

Friday.  Slept okish. Went to Coles hoping to get some eggnog but sadly they'd sold out. Did pick up a few other things we needed though. Christmas stuff is not on special yet though.  It was super quiet both on the roads and at Jamo, so that was nice. Came home and tidied the house. Did some rescanning of Mum's slides. In the afternoon was Dotz and Lego, and watched David sailaway.

Leftovers for dinner I think, then Stranger Things 5.5. Tried for an early night. Failed.  Didn't help that I was getting ready for bed when I remembered to go look at some Christmas lights down the road.

Satruday.  Repeat of my ideal retirement day - getting house stuff and fish stuff and some photo stuff done in the morning, Lego and dotz in the afternoon. With going out for lunch for Tony's birthday in the middle.

I got the cheeseburger - w/ house pickles, American mustard, ketchup and diced spanish onion with salad ($23), only the photo I took never saved so you'll have to take my word for it.  Here's the sweetie instead with his fish and chips with apple slaw.

Neither of us were hungry after lunch so we just had a bit of garlic bread for dinner. Stranger Things 5.6. Managed a slightly early night.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well. Repeat of my ideal retirement day - getting house stuff and fish stuff and some photo stuff done in the morning, Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Also some music.

In the last couple of weeks windoze has changed its definition of sort by date.  It used to sort my in tray of photos to blog by the date taken in combination with the date modified timestamp, so I could view the folder in real chronological order.  Now it sorts by date modified.  Which is super annoying because now I can't view them as I want to blog them.  Funnily enough Chrome still does it the good way, which is dumb that it's different, but also good because otherwise it'd be a pain trying to figure out the correct order to post photos.

Also annoyingly the turd neighbours that had the staffies that killed each other have gotten themselves another barky dog.. it was barking for ages again last night and today although has been quiet most of the afternoon.  Damien's wife three doors down yells at it sometimes to some effect.  But I was getting stressed today that this would be my new normal.  

Watched bits and pieces of the carols again on YouTube while posting this so that was a bit of fun!

Sunday.  9th.  9/11.  Stu had a recipe he wanted to make up this week that had pork belly, but not the rind. So the butcher cut it off and gave it to us separately. So I made crackling with it! It actually turned out really well.

Stu also cooked up a cauliflower bake and some sweet potato and we had that with leftover beef.

Stranger Things 2.6. Early night.

Monday.   So I think I got to sleep ok, but I know I was restless. Then I woke up at 4:42. Hurray.

Usual day of NEIL and all the crap.

We may have cut down the bamboo sprout..

Stu cooked up that pork belly with a very nice Japanese recipe. My only complaint: not enough vegetables ;)

Stranger Things 2.7. Then finished watching the You Are What You Eat docuseries. Yeah really need to eat less meat! hmmm.

Tuesday.  Hebrews 9:27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Got stuck into planning moving proxies temporarily. Remembering there's no such thing as temporary solutions at our work. Stu cooked up the mince I cooked the other day with some stock and flavourings.  And there was a lot more veggies :)  I didn't eat all that mince, I gave some to the sweetie.

Stranger Things 2.8. Finished watching Half-Life Histories (for now). 

Wednesday.  Stoopid MyWay+ is stoopid. It keeps refusing to bring up my QR code. Last time it did this I fiddled and fiddled and got it going, but not this morning. It did mean a free ride though.  Hurrah. NEIL/proxy migration/crap. I only really got any useful work done after about 16:30. Stoopid MyWay+ is stoopid. This evening I did what I did last time and signed into the portal within the app. This seems to kick it, and turns out that was probably what got it working two weeks ago.

Stu cooked up leftover pork belly with more garlic spinach and rice.

Stranger Things 2.9 which finished season 2 which was pretty cool. Tony messaged me about the aurora (which was super helpful otherwise I never would have seen it). Got some photos but couldn't actually *see* anything. Went to bed wayy past my bed time but then epic restless legs because I was overtired.

Thursday.   Yeah crap sleep after a bit of a late night. NEIL/proxies/crap. Finished copying across all the proxy config and then managed to test it. After Jim extended my admin ID because the new system is too lame and doesn't work yet. How am i meant to do my JOB without the access i need??  But yeah was super excited that the proxies "just worked" after copying all the config.  Even kerberos authentication which is a strange beast.  But then my desktop froze up and never came back which made me depressed because you never know what you've LOST when your computer crashes.  Good drinks though.  Made pizzas then watched The Simpsons 36.14 (I think we may have missed some, need to check synopses).  

Friday.  Crap sleep.  Again.  Hurray.  Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. .. I learnt that as: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  I wonder what my printed copy has.  

Yeah I have strawberries growing as WEEDS in our pavers!

Remember those LR44 batteries from 1998?  Well they finally died.  Given they were well over twenty five years old and lasted for nearly two years once I started using them I was pretty damned impressed.  Yayy Seiko!  I bet the Energizer ones I bought today won't last that long!

Logged into work and found my desktop had only frozen and hadn't completely crashed! So it was all there!!! Hurray!! Finished getting the proxy cutover work done and did some testing. I got frustrated at our border firewalls that barely work and you have to FIGHT them to get certificates deployed. Then I got frustrated with our Strata mob who don't send reminders if you don't pay your strata fees, they start charging ridiculous interest. No idea what happened this time, I had filed the email, filed the attachment, and marked it as paid on my budget spreadsheet, but couldn't find any payment in my internet banking. So I paid it. Without the interest. Because it's RUDE that they don't send a reminder first. I've complained to them about it in the past too. Then got frustrated with St George's internet banking which doesn't give you an option to add a nickname to payee accounts. So if I have two payee accounts with the same name but different account numbers I have to go and look up which account is which. Every. Damned. Time. They've never updated their internet banking interface in OVER TWENTY YEARS!!  So I complained AGAIN to them about it. Then I got frustrated at the ATO because their billing system is so TRASH!! I had a "New myGov Inbox message" so went to look. It's complaining about an overdue PAYG tax bill, but I can't find any original bills at all!! They just give me a dollar value and say it's overdue. They don't say which quarter it's for. Fricken HOPELESS ATO!!!!! Not only that, but most of the links from MyGov to the ATO site were giving such fun errors as "An error has occurred. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. We apologise for any inconvenience. Try again later." Yeah thanks ATO.  Had EB over after dinner and we watched a 50th anniversary documentary on Jaws (Jaws @ 50) which was pretty cool.  

Saturday.  Awake from 2:52 for most of the rest of the night.  Hurrah. 

More WEEDS! ;)

Day of housework, Lego filing, jigsaw, scanning.  Then went over to Rob and Fiona's for a "deck warming" which was a very pleasant evening, but a bit of a late night, whoops.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well all things considered.  Spent entirely too much time geotagging photos of Dad's. Whoops.

Sunday.  26th.  Cooked up some leftover lamb? pork? and a heap of veggies for dinner.

Futurama 13.6.  Then I started watching You are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment on Netflix.

Monday.  Slept like crap. Had an early night but took forever to get to sleep, restless, then awake from like 4. Busy day achieving not much.

Cooked up two pasta bakes with pasta leftover from the weekend - a red one and a white one.

Futurama 13.7. Photo picking and filing. Watched the second episode of You are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, which had little to do with the twins and more on deforestation and climate change and other such fun problems caused by the food industry.

Still grunty about an interaction I had today. This dude, who I've literally never talked to before, messages me and says "Hey mechanic, I'm trying to go somewhere but my car doesn't work, what's wrong?" Ok not in those words, but that exact scenario. No self introduction, nothing about what he was doing, where he was doing it, any errors, or ANYTHING that would actually, you know, give me anything useful to go on. So I ignored the message for a while because I couldn't deal. Eventually he messaged again and starts complaining about it holding up some release or something, and I went through what I went through just there. Never heard back from him. Clearly it was a massive problem. Either that or he found someone nicer to annoy.

Tuesday.  Slept somewhat better maybe.

It was 0.0 degrees outside according to BOM. 12.4 inside according to my Ali Express thermometer. Ran the heater for a while today because it was COLD. I was cranky all day. Being NEIL is super distracting and I have too much to do and too distracted to do it. Then after work had to cook dinner (a bunch of mince and a heap of leftover pasta). Futurama 13.8. Then photo picking while half watching/listening to Half-Life Histories (a rabbit hole I went down after seeing a video on Therac-25 incidents). I blame Dave2 :)

Wednesday.  Woke up at like 4:00 and never got back to sleep. Sigh. Busy distracted day again, and achieving nothing. Well almost nothing. I did get one thing setup for the new proxies. Hanging out for Neil to get back so I can concentrate on other stuff.

Last of the leftover pork for dinner. Futurama 13.9. Another lame episode.  Went for a little walk with the sweetie after dinner.

I'm going to have to ask Damien if I can steal a few heads of these things when they're done

Thursday.  NEIL and proxy stuff mostly.  Had a farewell lunch for Imaar at Ikko.  I had slow cooked beef, it was very nice.

Got a message from Neil in the afternoon that he won't be back til the 17th!! arrgghhh!!  Good drinks though.  Tried the new orange flavoured Hard Rated - alcoholic Fanta!

Made pizzas with a heap of the leftover cheese from the club function last weekend.

Futurama 13.10 (end of season 13 .. hurray that's over and done with .. for now .. )

Friday.  Restless sleep.  NEIL and proxy stuff mostly.  

Got this cool eyeball from the oncologist centre

Kievs for dinner

Then we watched The Last Emperor.  I really didn't know the story at all.  It was kind of sad (and kinda weird it being in English).  I read afterwards what happened to his "main" wife, it was pretty awful.

Saturday.  Restless sleep.

Got ready and headed out to the club (Stu for a committee meeting, me to do more priming, which I forgot to document).  

Came home and picked our first strawberries

Only had like an hour at home before it was time to think about dinner.  I'd found a *heap* of leftovers in the club fridge, so I "dealt with it".  A heap more cheese and pasta, and some sliced up bread rolls.  Given it really wasn't going to last, I cooked up a heap of it.  Dinner of champions!

Then we watched Back to the Future.  Forty years after the events of the "present" time, seventy years after the events of the 1955 time.  Cool stuff.  Oh we ran the cooler when we got home today too.  So in the space of like a week and a half we've run the cooler, the heater, and the cooler again.  Silly really.

Sunday.  Restless sleep.  Panicking slightly over my todo list and losing half my weekend.  Spent a couple of hours in the morning doing gardening and housework and getting grunty about it.  Didn't achieve as much as I wanted.  And there goes the weekend...

Sunday.  12th.  Reheated the last of the lamb and had it with a cauliflower bake, potato, brussels sprouts and garlic.

Wednesday 2.3. Then Lilo & Stitch (the live action one from 2025). Lolz Tia Carrere as the social worker (she played Nani in the original). And Cobra Bubbles is split out into his CIA character. A lot of it is pretty similar to the original. And as live action remakes go this one was actually pretty decent. Certainly a lot better than The Lion King or Aladdin.

Monday.  Somewhat restless but slightly better sleep.  Achieved precisely nothing today. Too many interruptions and All The People wanting All The Things. Past half way through nuking.

Leftovers for dinner. Wednesday 2.4. Photo stuffs.

Tuesday.  More restless sleep. Another busy day of crap, although did manage to actually achieve a couple of things. Nuking session 9. Driving home and noticed all the fluff is out!! Too late to start studying?  Leftovers for dinner then Wednesday 2.5. Lots of photo stuff. Then tried to blog jigsaws but I kept making mistakes because it was getting late and I was tired and half watching Anti Chef videos which was distracting me.

Wednesday.  Restless sleep again (hot and sweaty every five minutes). The koels are back in town!!! They remind me of home.  Mowed the lawn when I got home from nuking (it was as tall as me (kidding .. but it was super tall)).  Then went out for petrol.  And KFC.  Whoops.  Wednesday 2.6.

Thursday.  Some turd dumped two empty rolls of fake grass on our nature strip overnight.  They're a few metres long and we have no idea what to do with them.  I fricken HATE people. 

Domino for dinner.  Whoops.  Wednesday 2.7.

Friday. 

Fighting with the stoopid new proxies.  Trying to allow encrypted files from certain sites.  But can't get it to work.  So dumb.  Kievs for dinner then the finale of Wednesday season 2. 

Then I watched the first half of The Green Mile (I'd seen a documentary on it earlier today or yesterday and was inspired).

Saturday.  Spent much of the morning doing housework and weeding.  This was not part of the plan.  Bit of photo stuff and hobbies. 

Got some sausages from Chris's and did a creamy mushroom sauce with some cream and mushrooms that really needed using up.  And frozen veggies.  Which the sweetie didn't much care for haha.  Maybe he can cook dinner next time. 

Then we watched Passengers, which we last saw on the Queen Mary 2 in 2017.

Sunday.  More nights of waking up hot and sweaty.  Woke up at 5:30 to a cacophony of birds.  A day of All The Things.  Not enough time.  Too many things to do.  Slide scanning took too long and then I had to cook dinner so no time for music.  This was not part of the plan.  On a lighter note, it smells like Christmas in here.

Sunday.  31st.  Baked a cake! Two cakes actually. A coconut cake done properly (in the oven!) and a plain vanilla butter cake from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book. Stu didn't want a numbered cake, but I decided I needed to practise cooking cakes (I never do it) so that one day I can make numbered cakes. And everything else. Used the top element only, which apparently doesn't work very well for baking cakes. The coconut cake was hot and crispy on top, but still soggy on the bottom (done in a silicone mould). The butter cake fared better because it was in a metal tin so the heat transferred better. It was a good experiment for testing out the oven, but next time I think I'll go back to my regular mode of rear element with fan (or at least top element with fan). I also may have made a batch of vanilla cream icing. With some very very very very old icing mixture. It had turned into little balls of hard icing sugar which needed persuading to go through the sifter. Dinner was pizzas, because, the sweetie. And birthday calories don't count right? DS9 6.17.

Monday.  1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

All. The. Crap. kind of a day. Leftovers for dinner I think. DS9 6.18.

Tuesday.  Rinse and repeat of Monday. Had a bit of a tootle on the saxophone. Cooked up a batch of brussels sprouts and bacon and a cauliflower and pasta bake for dinner. DS9 6.19.

Wednesday.  Rinse and repeat of Monday and Tuesday. Including saxophone. And leftovers of above. DS9 6.20 which was a lot of fun.

Thursday.  Did some work on prod DC migration stuff. No time for tootling though because I wanted to label some photos. Pizzas and garlic bread for dinner. DS9 6.21 and more labelling.

Friday.  Bits and pieces day. Tried to replicate a problem with our virtual environment but couldn't do it. I did manage to copy paste 12 groups with the APIs in a few minutes that would have taken hours to do manually. Did my Saturday morning routine after work so my Saturday would be more freed up. Kievs for dinner, DS9 6.22, Tokyo Trial #3.

Saturday.  Somewhat restless sleep. Even though I did a lot of my Saturday routine last night, I still ended up doing a whole bunch of housework today. Other bits and pieces too. Luv-a-duck, zucchini and leftover pasta bake for dinner. Then watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which I'd never seen before.

This turd has been taught to eat the house by its turd parents

Sunday.  Slept okish I think. Another day of just trying to Get Things Done.

Thursday.  Boxing Day.  Took a while to get to sleep but then slept mostly ok.  Weeding first up then planned out my todo list for the break.  Alternated between house stuff, Lego stuff, dotz and blog reading.  Pizza for dinner (from Dominos - eep!) then Death in Paradise 11.1.

Sole survivor mini capsicum

I did the Plonk beer advent calendar again this year which was a lot of fun.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok, except for the storm around 04:00.  It wasn't very big and it was very quick to pass over, but I did still get up and disconnect the computer.  Alternated between house stuff, Lego stuff, dotz and blog reading.  Leftover Christmas Eve feast for dinner.  Then watched a documentary on AlphaGo - the first computer program to be able to beat top level human players.  

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Weeding before it got hot.  Then got a random Blue Screen of Death which was a bit upsetting.

Alternating All The Things, although didn't get very far through it before we headed out for a big pantry shop.  Brunch/shopping/lunch and three hours of my day just GONE. Sigh.  Luv-a-duck Peking duck for dinner.

Death in Paradise 11.2 then back into Amazing Race celebrity edition (v2).

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Hit 15000 in Candy Crush (nearly 3000 levels this year, 5000 in the past 18 months).  I really want to stop because the ad experience is just so trash, but what else am I going to do when I wake up at 5:30am??  Probably should delete photos off my phone.  I have like 60000 photos and the thing is nearly full.  

Maccas at Emu Bank was super quiet in the morning and there were no kids in store.  Parking was easy everywhere around Belco.  Shops were (generally) uncrowded.  I guess everyone must be down the coast.  All The Things.  Leftover Christmas feast for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.3.

Monday.  Slept ok, but awake 5:30.  Feeling the same Monday morning stress I feel every week.  Yes I didn't have to go to "work" but my todo list is a full time job and my break is too damned short to get it all done.  As of 9:15 I'd been at it two hours and hadn't had any "fun" yet.  Sigh.  All The Things.  I swear my todo list is only getting longer not shorter.  I've barely had any time for "fun" this break.  Having to file all the Lego and do my blog year in review certainly didn't help.  Lost another congo tetra.  Resealed the shower.  Over the past couple of months mould had been growing *behind* the sealant.  We're guessing water is seeping down from the grout further up.   So pulled all that off, exit-moulded it, cleaned/dried it, and resealed a lot further up the wall.  Even managed to use the existing tube of sealant.  Did I mention I've barely had any time for fun this break?  Leftover Christmas feast for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.3, then the finale of The Amazing Race (celebrity edition v2).

Tuesday.  New Years Eve.  Took ages to get to sleep - restless legs.  Then awake early.

Can you see?

A full on RAT was under the daisies when I went on my daily easter egg hunt to gather lemons.

Morning was mostly housework.  And Oh The Humidity.  And then all the blogging.  Have I mentioned I've barely had time for fun this break?  I did finish filing the Bricklink order though.  We lost another line on the ExtendaLine this morning.  This time it jammed into position part way out.  But it won't let me extend all the way, so can only go half way now.  Won't go in *or* out.  Doesn't bode well for having to wash sheets.  Why is everything so crap these days?  #grunt.

Sunday.  11th.  Picked up Neil and went into town.  Had Pappa Rich for dinner.  I had the roti canai with curry chicken which turned out to be huge, didn't need those chicken dumplings..

Did you know there's a bowling alley in Civic?? I didn't..

Then saw Twisters.

This whole week has been a complete blur.  Work is insanely busy and stuff on most nights as well.

Tuesday was a Shine Dome night with Professor Richard J Payne with a very interesting talk on discovering and synthesising new proteins, and A/Prof Rona Chandrawati and her work on using visible light properties of chemicals/reactions for practical applications such as detecting food spoilage.

Dinner at 10 Yards.

Wednesday had a sneaky afternoon off with the little brother and went to Questacon.

Loled at this on the way home..

Had some bubbles

Got Chong Co delivered

And made up the pavlova leftover from the club Christmas in July.

Was a lovely afternoon/evening and great that David could come up.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3 til 5.  Hurray.  Crazy busy day.  Again.  Drinks.  Bed.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok.  Crazy busy day.  Again.  Finished at like 18:30.  Still no kievs at Chris's so found other frozen brown food to have.

Then watched Iron Man.  Bit of fun, if a bit silly in places.  It's a bit dumb that the other dude could fly straight away.  What would have *actually* happened is he'd faceplant the first time he took off.  Someone on IMDB agreed with me:

Tony Stark is shown, learning to control the powerful thrusters in the suits hands and feet. It takes Tony considerable time to master the art of flying. However, when Stane acquires the arc reactor from Tony and inserts it into his new iron suit, he is able to fly and maneuver well, immediately.

Saturday.  Took forever to get to sleep.  Felt totally overwhelmed in the morning trying to keep up with housework.  I did finish labelling Tassie photos (day photos) so that was a win I guess.  And started some Lego.  But felt too blah to cook, so got tv dinners.  Hurray.  Then tried to watch Iron Man 2, but Disney refused to play anything - Error Code 83.  It was literally working before dinner.  Then I tried Netflix.  Had it going round in loops of logging me out, freezing up, not having anything in my profile, logging me out again.  WTF.  Fine.  So I try it in Edge.  Works fine.  Stoopid Chrome.  

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Another busy day of house/photo/food shopping/cooking etc.  Juiced all the lemons that had fallen off the tree in the past week or two.  Now what..

These are nice though..