So this is where we went last month (this month).  Don't mind that little gap between Renmark and Balranalad, my external battery ran out and took out the GPS with it.  Stu has promised to send me the track from his radio at some point.

Moving on.

Day one was Canberra to Melbourne, just a driving day.  Had the weekend in Melbourne and went out to Cape Schanck.

Then to Warrnambool for a couple of nights.

Then to Mount Gambier for four nights.

Then to Victor Harbour for two nights

Then to Kangaroo Island!!  That little bottleneck of Hog Bay Road we did up and down 12 times! (six each way)

Back to the mainland, we stayed in Goolwa for two nights to explore Lake Alexandrina and surrounds

Then onto Adelaide for a week

This is all of South Australia

On the way out of Adelaide Google Maps had a brain hemorrage and sent us all around Adelaide but not out of it.  We started in Glenelg and *should* have just gone up the Anzac Highway and then north.  But instead it sent us around the airport (ok) but then SOUTH when we wanted to go north.  It was only when we stopped for petrol near Edwardstown that it finally got the hint and realised we wanted to go north.

So this is the route we took (starting in Glenelg)

Let's not even mention how it told us to turn RIGHT (south) here in peak hour.. it took us like five minutes to do this..

Apple Maps would have sent us up the Anzac Highway and then north.  No idea why Google couldn't figure this out..

But we made it.. hurrah!!

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!!!

Sunday.  1st February.  How'd it get to be February already?  Had an epic roast pork for dinner. The crackling turned out really well and the meat was pretty good too. Then MacGyver.

Monday.  Went to bed fairly early. Didn't get to sleep for hours (restless legs). Woke up for a bit around 4 because of the epic wind. Then woke up again at 5 because that's what I do. Busy day doing tickets and crap. Stu made a tuna mornay for dinner (onion fried in butter, steamed asparagus (I would have skipped the steaming part as it would have cooked later), tinned tuna, cream, mustard powder and cheese, finished in the oven for 20 minutes).. it was delicious! MacGyver.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep again and then restless. Busy day doing tickets and crap. Stu made cabbage with soft boiled eggs which was nice enough. MacGyver.

Wednesday.  Slept relatively well. In fact I "slept in" which was a bit annoying because I had to leave early to take the car in for service, and waking up a bit earlier would have given me a bit extra time. Gerald Slaven have changed their drop off procedure. You used to be able to just park in the car park and drop the key in at the office. Now you have to queue up in the parking lot. One at a time you go into the garage and they sort you out and take your key, then you can go and then they park the car before taking the next car. Seems pretty inefficient. hrmmm. Busy day doing tickets and crap. And cleaning up messes cause I can't help myself. Leftover pork and salad for dinner.

Thursday.  Busy day doing tickets and crap. Went to Bar 59 for drinks as Neil was off getting his knees manipulated.

I thought the lens flare on this photo of a cockatoo outside the Labor Club was pretty cool..

Pizzas for dinner then watched Hook, which I haven't seen in probably 25-30 years.

Repeat of last week's pepperoni, olive and capers, and mushroom pizzas

OMFG there was a mouse in the house!!!!! First time we've seen a mouse in here since when we first moved in. Even during the mouse plague of a few years ago we didn't see any.  Don't know what's changed.  Maybe they were desperate to find water after all the weeks of no substantial rain.

Friday.  Meh sleep.

My work desktop wouldn't render on my left screen after my last reboot.  hrmmmm.

Busy day doing tickets and crap.

This was funny..  Yup, we had chokos! Was never really a fan.  We also had corned beef and white sauce (I didn't like it - I thought it was too salty); ham steaks (not actually spam) but floured and fried which I actually liked; devon - not really a fan, even now I'm not a big ham eater; steak and kidney, yeup Mum used to do that, really didn't like it; rissoles, well how could you not!  Fun stuff.

Saturday.  Spent much of the morning sorting Lego. Mid afternoon we headed over to Mishi's for a games afternoon/evening. Best I can tell, this is the first time since 2016 we'd been over!!!!!  I knew we hadn't been since pre-covid but what the hell?!? Chatted for a while in the lounge room, then chatted for a while around the table, then played a game of Ticket to Ride (Asia expansion), which was a bit confusing to begin with but we eventually got the hang of it.  I came second or third (out of five).

There was Turkish delivery for dinner then we played a game of regular Fluxx then a game of Pirate Fluxx. The first game was one of the most complicated games of Fluxx I've ever played, with some rules that made for a lot of confusion (eg inflation).

Sunday.  

It rained overnight!!!!

Out of sorts all day (maybe feeling like I lost a quarter of my weekend, and just generally feeling overwhelmed). Food shopping after lunch.  Stu is cooking some chicken and mushrooms for dinner..

Sunday.  11th.  Leftover lasagna for dinner, and Stu cooked one of the zucchinis Cath brought over to have with it. Then Beyond Paradise 2.6 (last episode of season 2). Then geotagged Mum's Kangaroo Island and Adelaide photos.

Monday.  Slept okish, but awake early. Achieved a few bits and pieces at work. Leftover Christmas party sausages and salad for dinner, then watched the Beyond Paradise end of 2024 Christmas special.

Tuesday.  Awake from 3:30 for ages hurrah. Made some progress on the proxies but came across more issues, one of which I thought I solved last year but the behaviour has changed.. hrmm. Leftover lasagna and salad for dinner then Beyond Paradise 3.1.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5:20. Spent all day working on a rework of a bunch of rules for Dave5. Stu cooked a very yummy miso mackerel and Japanese cucumber salad for dinner.

Beyond Paradise 3.2. Didn't turn my computer on at all in the evening because of all the storms rolling through.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5:20. Lots of AD comms work planning, thinking about load balancer stuffs and talking to Wardie about All The Things (but mostly how much Microsoft sux). Sneaky drinks in our usual spot with a good turnout and even some randoms! Made pizzas for dinner and then Beyond Paradise 3.3.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok until some time after 5, although may have gotten a little more sleep. Did some change paperwork in the morning and was all set to setup a heap of firewall rules when the interruptions started. In the end that got completely abandoned and I did the load balancing stuff. Stu sliced some of Cath's zucchini and I made up a lasagna out of the leftover sauces from last weekend. Beyond Paradise 3.4.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think.

In the morning I heard a large plane fly over and went to flight trackers to find out what it was.  It was an A330 from Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney, but it had done a big diversion down south.  Then I went and looked at a few other planes.  Then a few more.  It was chaos!!  A whole heap of flights to Sydney were in holding patterns waiting for clearance to land.  Turns out there was a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers on Friday and Saturday and it was a mess!! (yes I have over 66 thousand photos and screen shots on my phone).  

Fairly quiet day, just a bit of house stuff and photo stuff and Lego stuff and a fairly painless food shop. Kievs for dinner (missed out last night!) then watched a making-of special of Stranger Things season 5.

Also the last two days have been EPIC windy.  Really crazy.

Sunday.  Slept okish. Another quiet day.

At 12:22 my computer BSOD!!! Although event logs said it crashed at 12:08. Hrmmm. Then raged at Windoze because I went over to another desktop, clicked to open Explorer (it's pinned to my task bar).. and it opened ON MY ORIGINAL DESKTOP. TWICE!!! How is it that windoze 11 is so unbelievably BAD???  And this week's random explorer behaviour - windows forgot settings on one of my folders, and Chrome stopped sorting by reverse date order and defaulted back to alphabetical.  I hate windows So. Much.

Sunday.  4th.  Managed to get the end of last year's photos posted before a storm came through that was a little too close so I shut down my computer (and it BSODed as I was doing it #grunt). Then had to sit around doing nothing much for an hour because my dotz were packed up, Lego was done, jigsaws were all done. So I did some kitchen stuff. Hurray. Dinner was nachos. We are going to get healthy soon, I promise.. haha. 

Watched the Death in Paradise 2025 Christmas special. Then I went to bed. 20:30 is bed time right? Weird going to bed while it's still light though.

Monday.  Slept fairly well. Back at work full time. Sigh. Went back to some decommissioning tickets that have been banking up for the past few months. Went into work at lunch to drop off most of the Christmas party stuffs, then had lunch with Neil at Kingsley's (the mall is feral over the school holidays). Finished the leftover tuna bake for dinner then watched Beyond Paradise 2.1.

Tuesday.  Went to bed at normal time but then didn't get to sleep for HOURS. Sigh. And awake from well before 6 again. Zombie day. Again. Was putting away more Christmas decorations and couldn't find a string of fairy lights. I remember taking them off the lounge where they were, but now I can't find them to put them away. Sigh. Edit: found them, I was confusing them with another string/box. This is what happens when your brain is zombie tired. Lots more decom prep work today. Even did a bit of playing with Powershell/APIs. Dug out some sausages leftover from the Christmas party to have for dinner with some very old pork jelly and very old sauces. One of them might give us food poisoning, we shall see. Beyond Paradise 2.2.

Wednesday.  Slept okish. Disjointed day at work.

We may have gone to Grease Monkey at lunch.  That's like three times in like a month.. whoops..

More Christmas party sausages for dinner and Beyond Paradise 2.3.

Thursday.  Spent most of the day deleting stuff which was nice, trying to clear out a backlog of decommissions going back til last September. Drinks at the Labor Club, Dominos for dinner then Beyond Paradise 2.4.

The 8th of January is always the day I remember the Como-Jannali bushfires (32 years ago), my blogiversary (23 years this year!!) and David Bowie's birthday (he would have been 79).  This year smoke from the Victorian bushfires made for a very red sunrise and sunset...

Friday.  

Didn't achieve much in the morning but did some more deletions in the afternoon and some certificate replacements as well. It's been stoopidly hot this week (37C today), and yet we still turned the oven on for #kievfridays. Whoops.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think. Spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house and cooking. hrmm. Had EffanC over for cheese and champagne and dinner. The lasagna ended up being a bit overdone as noone was really ready for dinner when it was ready, so turned the oven down and let it sit for longer. Still fairly good though. A lovely catchup.

I forgot to get a photo before cutting it up

Sunday.  Fairly late night but of course I still woke up at 6:00. Filled the green bin in the morning and did some house stuff and spent entirely way too much time geotagging Dad's photos of Kangaroo Island.

Found this on the weekend too! WTF!?

On 1-November-2025 Thryv who manage White Pages directories, have removed Residential listing from the White Pages website.
To search for a residential listing your options are:
Collect a copy of the White Pages from your local Australia Post Office or order online at www.directoryselect.com.au for a copy to be delivered to your home.
Contact Directory Assistance on phone 1223
Please note that the search functionality for White Pages Business and Government is not changing.

Still not ready for being back at work full time...

Sunday.  28th.  Stu wanted karaage chicken pizza for dinner. Whoops. Stranger Things 5.7.

Monday.  Busy morning of all the things. Decided to have another go at attaching the CanoScan 8400F on my main windoze 11 machine. I know it definitely used to work on windoze 11, but the last time I tried it it refused to work. So then I wondered if maybe I was just too impatient - anything I plug in with USB takes a full minute to appear to windoze. No idea why. It only seems to happen on my computer, has from day one. Anyways. It works. So all these years I could have been scanning on my main computer and not have to turn on my old computer to scan. Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Leftover turkey and veggies for dinner then watched Enola Holmes 2. Yay for dementia, even though we only watched it three years ago, I really couldn't remember *anything* about it.

Tuesday.  Early night, slept relatively well, but then of course awake from fivish. Realised my phone hadn't charged all night. Replugged the cable. Nothing. Then realised the wifi was off. Rebooted my phone but nothing worked. Then I noticed the clock radio was off. Great. Must have tripped a circuit. Yeah. At ~23:00. So half the house including three fish tanks and the fridge/freezer were off all night. Ice cubes were still frozen though so all good there. Most likely it's the old heater in the downstairs two foot. Although I replaced it a while back but never removed the old one, but now I can't remember which was the old one and which was the replacement. Will need to stick a thermometer in there (the old one wasn't heating properly). Also off was the cooler, so ran it on fan mode for an hour or so to try and cool down the house a little before today's 34C madness. Later Stu said he'd had an alert that the grid had gone offline, so maybe it was something to do with that. Not great that it would trip a circuit flipping to battery mode though. Another quiet day of fish and scanning and dotz.

In the afternoon went over to M&M's for a pool party/bbq New Year's Eve Eve which was nice.

It threatened to rain.  Then it did.  A lot.

I haven't seen these since I was in primary school!!!

Wednesday.  New Years Eve.  We're officially a quarter of the way through the century.  Mediocre sleep. Day of reflection (writing up my year in review post), slide scanning, Lego, dotz.

With a family of currawongs demolishing the plums on the self-seeded plum tree.  

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth,"[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death'[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Finished re-reading the New Testament today.  The verses above remind of The Holy City from carols, so fun timing.  A new heaven and a new earth will be pretty awesome.  But for now we can just be content with a new year...

Photos to be added when I download them on the weekend.

Sunday.  30th.  

Stu finished cooking some potatoes from the club as well as some of the bread and we had that with leftover turkey and veggies. Stranger Things 4.5.

Monday.  December! Minimun 8.7, maximum 18, 2 predicted overnight! Welcome to summer! Took ages to get to sleep again. Then awake from 4:30 and never got back to sleep.

Busy day being NEIL for a while, then catching up on chats and emails then clearing the ticket queue.

Cracked open this year's beer advent calendar after work.  Which isn't any sort of official one.  Since I couldn't go to work drinks for months, Neil saved all the Beer of the Weeks for me.  I had almost enough to fill an advent calendar box (I still had the box from last year's Plonk advent calendar).  And I've been collecting them now that I'm going back to drinks.  I also asked @aquila to pick me up the Bridge Road Brewers Christmas beers, so this photo doesn't show the box as full, but I'll have more beers than will fit :)

Did some music after work, dinner, Stranger Things 4.6, geotagging holiday photos. The house is a disaster. I still haven't finished putting up Christmas decorations. I still haven't fully unpacked or put all my washing away. Need. More. TIME!!!!

This star light is probably 24 years old.  This year one of the lights has finally blown in it.  I do have one spare bulb but I'd have to pull everything out of the cupboard again to get at it.. next year.. 

Tuesday.  Took a while to get to sleep, awake at 4 but got back to sleep.

Welcome to summer in Canberra!!

Busy day. I decided I really wanted to get back to working on a project I started months ago, but it requires a lot of concentration, which I couldn't really do while being NEIL and working on proxies. So tried to get back into it. But was interrupted every five seconds by people wanting crap and distracting me. I even stayed back late after work to work on it because it's quieter then, and I STILL got interrupted by someone wanting crap. FFS. Stu cooked some pasta to go with some pesto I dug out of the freezer.

Stranger Things 4.7. Then it was pretty much bed time. Sigh. Also getting annoyed at my email which isn't downloading properly for some senders. It's like the messages are getting corrupted somehow. Or at least just not rendering correctly.  It started around maybe mid to late November. They view ok on the server in webmail. Maybe there's something in one of the headers that's confusing things. There's definitely content downloaded but it's just not displaying. And it's not everything, it's only some mails from some senders. Sigh.

Wednesday.  Okish sleep but awake from 4. Got into work early and was able to do a bunch of work before a morning full of meetings.

Connor tried the Stranger Things Upside Down Double at lunch

Got more stuff done in the arvo including fixing an ldap health check for TLS. Got home and the sweetie was cooking up leftovers from the club night. Stranger Things 4.8, then backed up my computer then it was basically bed time. hrmmm.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep. Looking at traffic to domain controllers most of the day. Super quiet drinks - just our table.. oof! The sweetie felt like Dominos so that's what we got for dinner. Ate too much. Whoops. Stranger Things 4.9 (end of season 4). Some of season 5 has dropped so we'll be able to start watching that straight away. Although it's another three years later so the kids will be all grown up!

Friday.  Meh sleep.

More AD traffic checking. Lunch with the Chrises and Neil and Glenda at the Burns Club (aka Magpies) which was very nice.

Seniors Salt and Pepper Squid, with tartare sauce, lemon chips and salad, $20M $21.50NM.  At least the Burns Club is happy to serve anything off the menu, including seniors meals to non seniors.  See, it's not that hard, HERBERTS!!

Drinks with Luc and his mate Stephen (from AARNet) at Molly (Old Fashioned and a Rusty Nail)

Then dinner at Bamiyan - we had an epic feast of camel skewers, butter chicken, mantu (lamb dumplings) and lamb biryani. So good!! I ate way too much but did bring home some leftovers. Hasty goodnight as my bus arrived just as we got to the bus stop.

Saturday.  Crap sleep (bloated cause I ate (and probably drank) too much). It didn't cool down overnight either so had to have the cooler running with water all night. Spent much of the morning tidying the house.

Yeah it was stoopidly hot, but I'm trying to clear stuff out of the freezer

Then it was all afternoon at Mishi's for her 60th. Picked up TV dinners from Chris's for dinner, then watched Die Hard.

Sunday.  Awake from dentist time for a while. More house stuff and sorting out holiday finances.

Finished the puff pastry out of the freezer

Food shopping after lunch.

Ethos topped out this week (you can't see the tree in this pic)

And the Premier inn is gorrrrne, skyline replaced with The Residence at The Markets

And stressing over how little of my todo list I've gotten done this weekend :(

Sunday.  2nd.  All The Leftovers for dinner - some pasta from the club, some veggies from last weekend, and some bits of cut up bread from the club fried in bacon fat (wheee). Stranger Things 2.1.

Monday.  Restless sleep.

Was about to do Monday morning STUFF including cleaning the kitchen and doing some weeding before my washing was ready to hang out, only to find a bit watery mess. Yesterday when I did a water change in Chrissie's tank I went around watering all the plants. I probably put too much into the big plant above the bins, so I stood with a towel waiting for it in case it overflowed. It came about half way up the tray then stopped, so I carried on. This morning there was water all over the top shelf, drips down the wall, drips onto the shelves and rungs below and over all the bins. Fricken great. So then I had clean up the mess. I don't have TIME for this trash. And that reminds me, I overfilled one of the ferns on top of Stumpy's tank and that went everywhere too. Sigh. Being NEIL and fighting with proxies at work. Nine minutes of weeding at lunch. Had to deal with mail servers being spazzes so didn't finish up til nearly dinner time. Sigh. Need. More. TIME!!! Stu cooked a couple of pretty spectacular pasta bakes with pasta leftover from the club event. The puttanesca one was pretty good, the creamy one needed a little more cream (we ran out) but was still tasty (and crispy!).

Stranger Things 2.2 then photo picking and half watching/listening to Half-Life Histories.

Tuesday.  Awake from around midnight for a couple of hours hurray. NEIL/proxies.

It hailed in the morning!

I wasn't in any sweeps this year (they've mostly died post covid) so picked number 14 (Half Yours, based on my birthday) before the race to see what would happen.  And he won!  With the second female jockey winning race.  Although I was a bit disturbed about all the blood, they said it was a "minor cut" on the inside of his cheek, but what from?  The bit? hrmmm

Cooked up a very tasty rump cap and veggies for dinner.

Stranger Things 2.3, photo stuffs.

Wednesday.  5th.  Remember remember.  Slept somewhat ok. I think. It was nice and cold which helped. Although it meant the house was like 13C in the morning. Couldn't be stuffed running around and closing up the vents (again) so endured the cold.

NEIL/proxies (rinse and repeat). One of my fingernails is falling off. Hurray. Leftovers for dinner. Stranger Things 2.4. I can't SEE anymore. For the last few months I've been able to use my regular glasses for the computer but now it's going back to me needing to wear my "computer" glasses. Sigh. Started watching V for Vendetta but only got half way through.

Thursday.  Slept okish I think. NEIL mostly and dealing with whatever crap people came to me with. Did spend a bit of time planning how to get off some legacy load balancers. Good drinks.

The only correct way to eat Cheezels!!!

Pizzas, Stranger Things 2.5.

Chris didn't have any "special sauce" so the one on the bottom had a sauce of mayo and tomato paste.  We put pickles and mince on it to make a "cheeseburger" pizza.

Friday.  

Tried to have a catchup day - tried to get my inbox under control. Still a long way to go. TV dinner for dinner (the sweetie was at the club) then watched The China Syndrome (influenced by all the those Half-Life Histories videos!). It was freaky that this movie came out just a few days before the Three Mile Island accident!

Saturday.  Awake from 4:28 when a massive bang woke me up. Nothing much on the radar or lightning maps. Was hoping it was just a "bolt out of the blue" but no, crazy lightning all around. Turned off my computer and disconnected a few things, then didn't get back to sleep. Hurray. Mostly house stuff in the morning and some slide rescanning. David and Kellie came over later in the afternoon and we locked in Christmas plans with the mother type person. Had a drink or two and a nice catchup.  Early dinner of kievs, then David and Kellie went off to see Ricky Martin, then the sweetie and I watched Back to the Future and V for Vendetta.

Sunday.  Couldn't get to sleep til like 1am on account of epic restless legs. Sigh. Took David and Kellie out for brunch as a belated birthday brunch for David so that was quite nice to hang out.

Had a quick walk down to the lake after.

These turds where zooming up and down the lake.  Pretty sure petrol motor boats are not allowed on Lake Ginninderra.  hrmmmm.

Then we went to Vinnies at Mitchell then the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.

Came home and David fixed the last Mirabella light hurray! (took him a while - in the end he did what the sweetie was going to do - take out all the "good" lights and keep turning on/off until the last one went into pairing mode).  Then D&K went home, the sweetie went food shopping, and I did some music.  And just like that the weekend is over.. hrmmm..

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.  19th.  Super yummy roast pork for dinner.  2.5kg so barely fit in my baking dish.  There may have been a lot of fat..!

Because it was so big, the crackling turned out really well, but the meat stayed nice and tender.  It was awesome!

Stu decided we should watch Futurama.  They're into season 13.  But honestly they should just STOP.  It's done its dash.  13.1 was pretty dumb too.  Then I finished watching The Green Mile.

Monday.  Slept like crap - awake for ages because I was hot.  Another disjointed distracted day at work. The temperature today got to like 32C! Turned the cooler on for the first time this year. Yeah last week we had the heater on (briefly), this week we had the cooler on. That's Canberra for you. Leftover pork for dinner. Futurama 13.2 then blog reading and photo filing.

Tuesday.  1 Timothy 2:11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. .... yeah hmmm.  Again, makes you wonder how much of this is cultural.  

Slept like crap again - awake for ages because I was hot. Even with the cooler fan going.

Busy being NEIL in the morning and not getting any other work done. My Christmas present arrived! ;) To be revealed.. one day..!  Penultimate nuking session, finished the Wasgij jigsaw, then walked up and visited Neil.

Then battled peak hour traffic to get home. Canberra has peak hour traffic.. who knew!? Leftover pork and veggies (refried in the "aspic" - I don't know why you'd want to eat that stuff cold anyway - just use it as a kind of "stock" to fry stuff in - much more yummierer!) for dinner, Futurama 13.3, blogged my last two Diamond Dotz birds sets.

Wednesday.  

Last nuking!!!!!!

Got conflicting advice about my skin.  They're all like.. keep it moisturised.. but those bits, keep them dry.  Like make up your mind.  Rang the bell though hurray!

Got home and had a couple of beers and got Chong Co delivered for dinner then Futurama 13.4

Thursday.  1 Timothy 4:10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.  .. "all people" .. and "especially"..? what does that even mean?

Okish sleep.  Opened the door under the "angel" tank to get the food out and it was tougher to open than usual.  Which usually means swollen chipboard from a leak.  Except I couldn't find where the leak was coming from.  hrmmmm.  

NEIL for a bit in the morning then fighting with new proxies. If you turn off inspection on a site it can't figure out what browser you're using, and so it blocks you (we block Firefox from general browsing and only allow it to some sites). But it won't give you an error, you just get a connection reset. So dumb. Then fighting with the test mail servers after someone spammed the hell out of them.

Went into drinks for the first time in months. Then it was a trivia night. It was one of THOSE trivia nights - stoopidly complicated question/marking setup (like three parts to an answer, each with two parts, and if you get one out of the two you get half a point, but if you get both parts right you get two points, oh and you have to mark each others, it's not marked centrally so there's no consistency in the scoring). Yeah so fricken dumb. One round wasn't even trivia, it was look at this picture for 10 seconds, then answer the crappiest stuff, like how many ears were in this picture, or how many feet were in this other picture. Not even trivia. Dumb dumb dumb. But my expecations for these trivia nights are so low now that I just didn't care. And I had bubbles. I don't even know what the final scores were, I didn't get a photo. I think we came third. They spun a wheel to determine who'd run the next one, and it missed us by one. Winning!  Also, Gin picked me up some Subway to have for dinner.. first Subway in like three months!!

Friday.  1 Timothy 5:23 Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.  Yeah cause fresh water back in the day was usually contaminated, and alcohol killed a lot of the germs.

Logged onto work briefly to be NEIL for the overnight stuff, then took an RDO.

Did some washing, did some weeding, went shopping (actually had fairly successful shopping mission.  Was chatting to Faye at Subway at lunch about how I'd been away with the C word, and she gave me a free cookie! So sweet :) ), took some cans for recycling and suddenly it's 15:45. And nowhere near enough done on my todo list. hrmmm.

I've missed Subway so much..!!  So much that I had it for dinner last night then lunch today haha

Drinks at Jo's in the afternoon and Tony came too so that was a nice catchup.

Cooked up some veggies to go with some leftover pork. Futurama 13.5.  Then I watched "Apollo 13: Survival" documentary on Netflix which was pretty interesting.  Jim Lovell only died a couple of months ago, and Marilyn only a couple of years ago.

Saturday.  1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  .. not necessarily "money".. but the "love of money".  

Got a few things done in the morning then we headed out. First up to "The Shed", an offshoot of the Green Shed. Quite a bit smaller than the old shed, but he only has the lease til December so he may find something bigger (and with better parking would be nice!). They still charged me $3 for jigsaws, although I have a feeling they only did that after I asked (they revised the total down). They charged $2 each for some plates which I thought was a little high. Oh well.

This would fit in nicely with Mum's collection :)

Then next door to the other second hand place there (Down Memory Lane, I think??).  Mum would definitely recognise this ;)

Then out to the club for the "Spooktacular" halloween night. But first up went for a wander with the sweetie.

Then had a good long chat to Chris and Geoff. Then it was up to the shed for drinks and a spectacular charcuterie board, and an amazing dinner with lots of different things. Little bit of a late night but not too bad.

Sunday.  Got up and went and tidied up the shed a bit, with a bit of help from Brenton. Then home via the Scottish Restaurant, which took them 18 MINUTES to deliver our food from when we first arrived. So much for FAST food. Also. BOM updated their website a few days ago, and in the process shut down the APIs used by third party apps for the radar. TWITTER MUCH??? I'm so pissed off that RainRadarAU doesn't work anymore - I always preferred it to the BOM app. Hopefully there will be enough backlash/complaints and they'll restore them. Got a few things done in the afternoon and pfft, there goes the weekend. Sigh.