Sunday.  3rd.  Epic roast pork for dinner!   The crackling and meat both turned out quite well (2.4kg deboned shoulder).

Then we watched the first episode on a documentary on lighthouses (The Secret Life of the Lighthouse) - this one on the Eddystone lighthouse of Plymouth. A bit of fun and quite interesting.  Then I watched Matilda the Musical which was a bit of fun. Emma Thompson is unrecognisable as Trunchbull and the kid who played Matilda sounded exactly like Emma Watson as a young Hermione. 

Monday.  Star Wars Day.  Took a while to get to sleep and awake early for ages. Frustrating day of waiting for people and feeling like I actually went backwards with the proxies. For lunch I made toast pizzas which were yummy.

And the raindrops on the climbing rose in front of the cherry tree which is turning yellow looked pretty cool

Stu cooked up a bunch of veggies for dinner including a nice goats cheese cauliflower bake (the cheese was a couple of months past its use-by date (I bought it past its use-by date from Chris's before we went on holidays).. she'll be right!!).

Then the second episode of the Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Bell Rock).

Tuesday.  Slept okish. Another frustrating day of waiting for people, then a super busy afternoon with various meetings/calls. Oof. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner then episode 3 of The Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Fastnet Rock). Neither Lego set that I put up/relisted last week sold. And buying the last remaining missing pieces off Bricklink is also frustrating because the places that have a lot of the pieces I need charge exorbitant prices for them, and the places that charge reasonable prices don't have many pieces, so the postage gets prohibitive. Blerf.

In other fun crap today. We tried to turn the heater on after quite a few days of not needing it. But it kept dying. This afternoon Stu replaced the brand-new-second-hand controller we bought last year. This one the temperature dial works properly and so does the display, and now we can see the new error it's giving - Err 50 HI (and Err 10 HI). Google AI from Facebook says:

A Brivis ducted heater "Err 50 Hi" (or Error 50) indicates an ignition lockout, meaning the heater failed to light after four attempts. Common causes include no gas supply, a faulty igniter, or a faulty gas valve. Reset the unit using the reset button on the controller to try clearing it.

On the old controller the reset button just caused the whole controller to crash out. At least the new one can get it to work eventually. We'll have to see if a service will fix it. Leftovers for dinner and the Lighthouses series 1.3 on Fastnet Rock.

Wednesday.  Awake from 3:00 for hours sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Stu cooked some vege ravioli in creamy mushroom sauce which was nice then the Secret Life of the Lighthouse 2.1 on Wolf Rock.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3:30 for ages sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Good drinks - several other tables of peoples. Picked up Mills and Grills pizzas for dinner.

See Dominos.. THIS is how pizza is done!

Potata $21.90 - cheese, bacon, potato, aioli, garlic - yum!

Don Pepperoni $15.90

Death in Paradise 15.7. I think the entire solution was speculation with barely any evidence.  How would they ever get this to trial?

Friday.  Slept in til like 5! Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Kievs for dinner, Lighthouses 2.2 on The Smalls.

Then I watched The Little Mermaid "real life" remake from 2023. It's like two hours fifteen minutes though WTF??  Caribbean setting, but filmed in Italy. They kept most of the original songs, and even added a few.  And Jodi Benson was in it which was pretty cool.  And Melissa McCarthy was pretty good as Ursula.   I mean it wasn't *bad*.. just not the same...

Saturday.  Awake for ages from like 1:30 blerf. Quiet day of house and photo stuff. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner. Then we watched Remarkably Bright Creatures which was funny and sweet and I found quite emotional. Lovely!

Also this strawberry didn't get the memo that it's autumn not spring..

Sunday.  Awake for a while around midnight, and I was awake just before midnight when someone let off a whole heap of fireworks down the back which were quite pretty! Went for a walk (called the mother type person on the way), then popped out to pick up some Lego off a Bricklink seller, which ended up being two hours of that, Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction to drop off a pile of jigsaws (and not pick up any more!), and food shopping.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sunday.  8th.  John Williams' birthday.  I really must remember that.  Not that he's likely to have many left.. he's fricken 94!!!!  Stu cooked up some chicken with mushroom sauce and some greens which was very yummy. Then we watched the old school Disney version of Peter Pan.

Monday.  Early night. Interrupted by the mother type person calling. Then I was restless. And awake from 5. Hurrah. Some tickets and crap in the morning and spent most of the afternoon writing up more stuff to decommission. Stu cooked some pork and fennel sausages with cabbage for dinner (the sausages were a bit dry unfortunately), then we watched the last episode of season 2 of MacGyver.

Tuesday.  Okish sleep I think. Busy day I think. Stu cooked some yummy creamy lemon chicken for dinner then into season 3 of MacGyver.

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep - epic restless legs.

Super busy day - barely any time for jigsaw breaks! Stu cooked a cauliflower bake and goats cheese stuffed mushrooms which were very yummy.

Thursday.  Woke up around midnight cause my guts were upset for some unknown reason. Then stayed awake for a couple of hours waiting for things to settle. Sigh.

Busy day deleting All The Things.  Good drinks - lots of people.  Pizzas for dinner.  Not quite a repeat of the last two weeks as we were out of mushrooms.  There's pepperoni and feta, olive and capers, and tomato and spring onion.

Then MacGyver then started watching Airport to keep us awake til Kit and Pete got here (they'd come up for a comedy cruise and thought they'd play tourist here for a couple of days).

Friday the 13th.  Slept okish I think. Busy day of decoms and tickets and crap. Chilled out with Kit and Pete after work and got Turkish delivered from Lokma (the same place Mishi did last weekend).

Chatted for a while then watched an episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency which was.. bizarre haha.

Saturday.  Happy Valentine's Day.. remembered various anniversaries of my family that can't really be celebrated anymore. 

Mostly awake from 3 and fully awake from 5 sigh. Zombie morning. Kit and Pete wandered off for much of the day and I did mostly Lego stuff (and some dotz!!!).

Also made up breakfasts for the week.

Trigger warning for Tony!  Found her in the recycling green bin.

Kit and Pete brought home some Luv-a-Duck peking duck for dinner which was awesome.

Later we played a game of Ticket to Ride (Europe) which I won, but it was actually really close and one move either way would have changed the outcome.

Sunday.  Slept slightly better. Did some dotz in the morning. Went with Kit and Pete to the Old Bus Depot Markets which I've never actually been to before! It was very uncrowded, and apparently a shadow of its former self. 

Then dropped into Canberra Glassworks which I've also never been to.

Anyone know what this is?  Google image search suggests either an epic insulator (seems unlikley) or an air raid siren...  Edit:  another search indicates it was in fact an air-raid siren!

Kit and Pete wandered off home and I did some food shopping on the way home. Then tried to get KFC for lunch but the lazy or hard of hearing server mistook "large Pepsi Max" for "large chips" (which I annoyingly didn't pick up on), and then completely ignored me when I asked for a receipt. And the girl getting the chicken dropped a piece onto the floor because she was being careless. Hopeless. Talked to the mother for a while in the afternoon and then my weekend is over. hrmmm.

And Windows is STILL forgetting my photo in tray folder settings. Windows 11 is seriously BAD!!!

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.  14th.  Backdating this a few days.  Had leftovers for dinner then we watched a documentary "Lost Melbourne" about the loss of a lot of old buildings in Melbourne in the name of progress. Melbourne is still a lot better off than a lot of cities though, even Sydney.

Monday.  Awake from 12 for ages, then again from 5 for ages. Hurray.  Busy day not achieving much.  Went to Four Winds with Tony for our now annual tradition of wine and pizza.  Such a lovely place out there.

Did some Christmas music on the sax in the evening.

The last strawberry of the year!

Tuesday.  Crap sleep. Awake every hour or so feeling hot and needing to cool down. Another day of not achieving much. But we did have a division Christmas party at work which was nice. Came like second in the two lolly guessing competitions. After work we went and picked up the mother type person at Jolimont then went to the Labor Club for dinner.

I may have given those anchovies to the sweetie

Got home and looked at Mum's slide show of Croatia and Greece, then we looked at all of Dad's photos of Tasmania.

Wednesday.  Restless sleep. Fairly chilled morning, did a bit of cleaning.

Eventually D/K/S left Junee so I made apple sauce then a potato bake then another potato bake then the roast pork then a veggie tray bake.

Blue cheese potato bake (with thyme), bacon potato bake, brussels sprouts, sweet potato, spring onion and bacon (with hazelnuts), apple sauce.  Just missing the pork which is in the oven by this point

Just finished doing all that when they arrived - great timing! Kellie brought a heap of noms so we had those and did photos and presents and stuffs while lunch cooked.

The pork turned out fairly well (the crackling worked really well but the meat may have been a little overdone).

There may have been a lot of bubbles

Played a game of Five Crowns although I got super frustrated near the end when several rounds in a row people went out before I'd even had one turn, or maybe had just had one turn. So upsetting. I don't even know who won in the end.  Played a bit of Pictionary but just playing through cards not actually using the board. Put on Flying High in the evening. D/K/S left and Mum and I finished watching the movie ourselves.  All in all a lovely day.

Thursday.  Awake from some time after 2. Hurray. Dropped Mum off at Jolimont then went to work. Did a bit of party prep and DC rules work. At drinks I took up all the leftover cans of drinks from the work family party that I bought off Neil and washed them all (they were all covered in dirt). Pizzas for dinner then Love Actually but it was too late a night :(

Friday.  Awake from 4:53.  Sigh.  Then I started thinking about the day's party and all bets were off.  Hurray.  Party prep in the morning then party all afternoon! 

Sadly I didn't catch any birds this year.  Leftovers for dinner then we watched part 1 of a documentary on the Gamestop nonsense. 

Saturday.  Awake from like 3:30. Hurray.  Spent much of the morning sorting out the rubbish and recycling from the party. Super annoyingly, some helpful person tried to clean up, and very helpfully threw out a bunch of the plastic forks. Pissed off about that because those things are irreplaceable!!! I also chipped a tooth on the last of the pork crackling I had at lunch. Sigh.  Storms and epic clouds in the evening.

We were getting hail (only a tiny amount) while this rainbow was out

Then it all disappeared.  That's the end of the storm right there.

And there may have been a Dumpling Inn delivery for dinner..

Did I mention the epic clouds?

Super early night because zombie tired.

This was wayyyy back in July.  Tony dragged me out of the house kicking and screaming and took me to the Arboretum.  I used it as a good opportunity to test out my new lens.  

View towards Whitlam

View towards Denman Prospect

It was still frosty!

View towards Civic

View over the Arboretum and Black Mountain

View over the Arboretum to Lake Burley Griffin

View to Scrivener Dam

View towards Woden town centre

Offspring of the Lone Pine from Türkiye

Sun dial

Eagle and Nest by Richard Moffatt

Magpie at the Arboretum

View towards Mt Rogers (with mobile phone tower).  The two cranes in the middle are from the new apartments being built at Belconnen Markets.

The Arboretum

White-backed magpie at the Arboretum

I need to go back at a different time of day to photograph this from the other side.  I was going through Mum's photos the other night and she had a photo taken from the other side.  It actually spells out real words!  Who knew!

A magpie lark at the Arboretum

View towards Woden

View towards Government House

Wrapped trees

Cloak, by Jeremy Blincoe and Michael Van Dam

King parrots at the Arboretum

Sunday.  17th.  Cooked up some creamy lemon and dill chicken with some curry powder cauliflower, brussels sprouts and bacon, and garlic for dinner. Yum yum.

DS9 6.3 then an early night.

Monday.  Slept okish. Spent much of the day working on a big rework of some rules so we can move some DCs from one environment to another. Cooked up some leftover beef with some cabbage, a shallot, garlic powder and all the beef juices. Nothing wrong with it, just not super spectacular, and the sweetie didn't go back for seconds heh.

DS9 6.4 then finished labelling Reformation Tour photos (up to day 17). Oh I noticed after patching this week everything on my task bar is just a bit smaller. No complaints from me, hopefully it means I can fit more on it before open windows scroll out of sight.

Tuesday.  Romans 8:8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death.

Poisoning round three.  Except this time they couldn't find a vein.  Tried four times on my right arm before giving up and going into my hand on my left.  Not ideal but at least they got there in the end. 

So that all took a lot longer to get through.  Ended up going straight to my doctor's appointment afterwards instead of going home first.  Had a little lie down with the sweetie when we got home, then it was time to cook dinner (cauliflower and broccoli bake, zucchini and capsicum with a bit of leftover lamb).

DS9 6.5 then bed.

Wednesday.  Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Slept okish. Put on 1.7kg (mostly fluid I guess) overnight. Hurray. Nice quiet day, even made some Lego. Leftovers for dinner. DS9 6.6 which was pretty good.

Thursday.  Romans 9:15 For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[f]

Okish sleep but not great. Back to work. Wanted to work on one thing. But All The People wanting All The Crap meant not getting anything done on it. After 16:30 to 18:00 had a good interrupted time on it though. Pizzas for dinner - one tomato, olive, spring onion and cheddar, and one pepperoni and blue cheese. Stu assures me they were good. I miss salt. 

DS9 6.7. 20:00 is bed time right?

Friday.  Romans 10:13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."[f]

Okish sleep, awake for chunks. Continued on the DC migration work.

Kievs and blue cheese cabbage bake for dinner (the sweetie ate most of it so must have been good!).

DS9 6.8. Earlyish night.

Saturday.  Okish sleep maybe. Feeling blah most of the day. Made a couple of sets of Lego. Labelled some Europe photos. That was about it.

Watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall in the afternoon cause didn't feel like anything much else, although did label Europe photos while doing that.  I hadn't noted seeing the movie in my blog, but it felt very familiar like maybe I had seen it.  Maybe it's just that cast, those movies are all the same (dumb).  The sweetie was feeling blah too, so we got Dumpling Inn (sadly they won't do duck pancakes for takeaway booo).

Shredded beef Peking style, Chinese broccoli, 3 cup wine chicken

DS9 6.9 then the first episode of Tokyo Trial - William Webb! ha!

Sunday.  Okish sleep maybe. Feeling blah most of the day. Made a set of Lego. Labelled some Europe photos. That was about it.  Went out with the sweetie and waited around for him to do the shopping.  The other day I watched something on YouTube about McDonald's apple pies no longer being a thing in a lot of the world.  We still have them though!  Winning!

Sunday.  27th.  Made up a potato bake from some of the potato I'd sliced up for the club but ran out of space to use on the night.

DS9 5.12. Watched John Oliver's take on AI Slop. Early night.

Monday.  Happy birthday Dad! Got a bit of cleaning done and a bunch of networking stuff done for Jim. Leftovers for dinner then DS9 5.13. Europe photo culling, started Black Mirror 7.5 (but ran out of time to finish before bed).

Tuesday.  

Acts 17: 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. .. God raised Jesus from the dead and will return to judge the world.

Went to bed pretty early, but then woke up at 4 for at least an hour. Poisoning day 2.

Quiet afternoon mostly doing jigsaw and made a potato bake with the last of the potato leftover from the club, and also some tomatoes that were very old and needed using, and the last two mini capsicums.

Also finished Eulogy on Black Mirror. DS9 5.14. Earlyish night.

Wednesday.  

Acts 19:4 Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus." 

Got to sleep ok but awake from 4:30 for a while. Quiet day. Leftovers for dinner, DS9 5.15. Earlyish night.

Thursday.

Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace... Good news everyone!  

Slept mostly ok. Bit of crap day, morning just disappeared, got to do some cleaning, but then sunk into a hole of trying to clean up a mess that's been festering for ages.

I've seen my birds once since last winter.  They still came to see me today.

Pizzas for dinner. Made a nice potato, blue cheese and rosemary pizza. Well Stu said it was nice. I can't tell anymore, salty stuff doesn't taste salty.

Olive oil base with some herbs and garlic powder, bit of pizza cheese, some slices of potato bake, blue cheese, spring onion, rosemary and a bit more cheese. 

I'll have to make it again when my sense of taste comes back...

DS9 5.16.

Far out I hate Apple. It's utter trash. I've missed a couple of calls from the mother type person this week.  She left messages that I played, and then I replied via SMS. But because Apple mixes up the home phone and mobile phone into the one thread, when I reply it disappears into the ether and she never gets my messages. So I've had to split out her contact into two so that the mobile is not related to the home phone. Why is Apple so bad??? Why why why???

Cranky and bloated. And the trashy dog abusing neighbour's dog is barking again. Those people should be banned from owning dogs.

Friday.  Slept okish. Mostly staring at a big mess all day. Found some stuff to delete late in the afternoon. Kievs for dinner. Black Mirror 7.6.

Saturday.  Slept okish. Very quiet slo-mo day. I did get out after lunch to see my birds and try and stimulate the bowels. Started my next Diamond Dotz picture. Dumpling Inn delivery for dinner.

Then watched Return of the Jedi.

Sunday.  Slept okish. Another fairly quiet day although did get a few things done.  OMFG windows *and* chrome have remembered my blog image folder settings!!!

Sunday.  20th.  Heated up some lamb I found in the freezer and had it with a potato/onion/feta bake, cauliflower/onion/spring onion bake, and brussels sprouts, bacon and hazelnuts. Yum yum yum. We both may have had seconds.

Then watched DS9 5.6 with tribbles which was a lot of fun. So I watched the original Trouble with Tribbles to see what they did to integrate the footage. Fun stuff! Ooo new season of Black Mirror! Watched 7.1. You just know that a subscription model isn't going to end well.. and adverts.. had to happen.

Monday.  

Acts 11:18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life." .. hurray for us Gentiles!

Slept mostly ok although did get woken up by my alarm which is rare. Decom work planning/writing up at work. Leftovers for dinner, DS9 5.7, photo culling, Black Mirror 7.2.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok but awake quite early. Deleting day!! Deleted heaps of crap which always makes me happy. Creamy cheesy mince with leftover for veggies, then DS9 5.8, photo culling, Black Mirror 7.3.

I have no notes from Wednesday to Friday.  It was that kind of week.  Distracted by my hair situation, long meetings, waiting on people for things, medical appointments.  Didn't get nearly as much done at work as I would have liked.  There would have been a few episodes of DS9 in there.  

Thursday I made cheesy vegemite scrolls for lunch - haven't had those in ages!

There was a nice sunrise on Friday

We may have also tried McGriddles.  For some reason they weren't as good as I remember them from Japan and Hong Kong.  Edit:  this is likely because I've lost a lot of my sense of taste at the moment.  Sigh.

Christmas in July prep started after work Friday (the sweetie did the shopping).  

I made the apple sauce, cooked all the sweet potato, and made a peppermint slice.

It's times like this I really miss the little brother...

And there may have been kievs and cauliflower bake for dinner

Saturday.  

Acts 16:31 They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." .. interesting that all the household would be saved if one member is.. how would that work?

Finished prepping as much as I could (sliced All The Potato, made gravy, toasted pumpkin seeds, washed fruit, printed out All The Instructions) then headed out to the club.  When we go there the shed was full of people which was super stressful and annoying. Usually it's pretty much empty during the day. Turned on the oven then went through everything with Stu. Got the pork into the oven then really left the sweetie and a small team of helpers to do all the putting and taking of stuff in ovens.

I had mulled wine by the fire.

Apparently everything went fairly well.  Except the crackling.  I really should try pouring boiling water over to begin with...

I also made up the pavlovas and took them up

Sunday.  Didn't sleep very well.  Not too much to clean up, and not a vast amount of leftovers. Came home. Got clippered. Fiona came over for a while in afternoon which was nice.

Sunday.  6th.  Had all four stove elements going tonight cooking all the food.

I cooked up a bunch of mince/onion/garlic/bacon for use whenever. I also cooked some salmon, some broccolini, and a very nice sauce of double cream, 2 ice cubes of lemon juice, a bit of salt, pepper and a bunch of dill. Turned out quite well.

Then watched DS9 4.20.

Monday.  Slept mostly ok. Busy day of crap and meetings and not getting any time for cleaning. Redo of the salmon (with the other *huge* piece of salmon we got the other that I had to cut in two) with creamy lemon pepper and dill dressing, this time with cabbage and spring onions with kewpie sesame dressing. DS9 4.21.

Tuesday.  

Acts 5:30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead--whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins... as Peter and the apostles are being questioned by the high priest.  God did it.

Didn't get to sleep til after 3. Stoopid restless legs. Hurray. Off to ICON to get poisoned.

Feeling fine until after dinner when the guts started reacting. Hurray. The sweetie cooked sausages with a cabbage bake and brussels sprouts and bacon and hazelnuts. DS9 4.22.

Wednesday.  Got to sleep ok, but then awake from before 3 til after 5 hurray. Nice quiet day, catching up, getting crap under control, just taking it easy. The sweetie reheated the sausages and veggies with some extra tomatoes and shallots which was all very nice, then DS9 4.23.

Thursday.  Slept fairly well til around 4:30 then awake for at least an hour or so, but then some more sleep til 7:30. Hid out and did dev cleaning today which was nice. Pizzas for dinner then DS9 4.24 which was pretty tedious.

Friday.  Slept okish I think. Another cleaning day. Went and got hair chopped. Looks like a mop.  Tony brought us kebabs for lunch which was sweet of him. Kievs for dinner.

Death in Paradise 14.8 (end of season 14) and the end of the Bomb and the Cold War. Achy evening.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think. Achy day. Mostly jigsaw. The sweetie cooked up some mince and a bunch of veggies for dinner (including a blue cheese cauliflower bake) and we watched Star Wars (A New Hope).

Sunday.  Okish sleep. Achy day. Mostly jigsaw.

Friday. Finished up work a bit early on Friday and left around 17:45.  Had an ok run, although somewhat slow going down the Clyde due to a very slow Canberran not using the slow vehicle pullout bays and causing a very long bankup of cars behind them.  Saw the rocking horses this side of Nelligen in a few different places.  The Nelligen Pub was packed which was pretty cool.  It actually looked really nice with lights over the beer garden.  Bit of a tense drive up the highway once it got dark but made it without hitting anything.  Had a couple of drinks with Kit and Pete and chatted for a while which was nice.  Slightly late night but not too bad.

Saturday.  Slept relatively well.  It is So. Dark. there though.  I'm used to suburban light and our hallway nightlight flooding the house with light. 

Bit of a slow start waiting for everyone to get up and ready. Then had to decide on a plan of attack for the day.  In the end we decided to head up to Ulladulla for brunch.  Went to Ocean Vibes and I had a nice eggs benedict with bacon.

Then back to Kit and Pete's. 

Kit and I went off to the Milton Show, but I'll post that separately.

Got back and did animal stuff.

Kit still has a heap of guinea fowl and chickens, but no ducks or turkeys anymore.

Vicki is stubbornly refusing to die, but is definitely feeling her age.  They've still got Jasper the dachshund, and Biscuit and her two sons Oreo and Mr Floofy.

This is Toby, an old horse of Chloe's.  Kit still has Scout and Ricky as well.

Then had a quick shower and headed up to Mollymook to the Golf Club for dinner with Travis and Temika (no idea how to spell her name haha).

Kit and I shared some duck spring rolls (with barely a skerrick of duck) which were quite nice, and a Hawaiian schnitty which was pretty average.

Stu had some seafood by the sea

Then back to Kit and Pete's for a game of Kismet.  I actually got *two* Kismet's but could only count the first one of 3's, not the second one of 6's :)  Kit won in the end.

Sunday.  Hot and sweaty overnight.  Really need to bring a fan to their place in summer heh.

Biscuit in the middle with her two crumbs - Mr Floofy on the left and Oreo on the right

I waited for a while for everyone else to get up, and found some Lego to play with.  Didn't get time to build all three, just the chicken (or whatever it is), after pulling apart the unicorn. 

Also found there's three missing pieces.

Left around 10:00, via the Scottish Restaurant.

Got a photo of a couple of the Nelligen Rocking Horses

Then we listened to a very depressing talk that Cory Doctorow did recently on Enshittification.  Remember the Good Old Days when Google was actually GOOD??? Now it's been enshittified along with everything else on the internet (and even in the real world) and it makes me just want to be a hermit and get offline.

Also.  All. The. Teslas.  I started to look for them on the way back.  Must have passed literally dozens of the things...