Sunday.  14th.  Cooked up an epic feast for dinner/leftovers.  There was a tuna bake, a broccoli/cauliflower bake, capsicum and broccolini with butter/lemon juice (which I stoopidly overcooked).  

Then Mash and The Crown 6.7.

Monday.  Slept relatively well!  All. The. Rain.  !!  Ok day.  Bit of planning for a new database we're hoping to get setup for notifications.  Did an hour of weeding after work and Stu helped cook dinner which was nice.  Then went for a walk up Mt Rogers.

I think I might get moist... (spoiler: I did!)

Then had a look at the Tassie map.  Then it was bed time.  WTF.  Every day I want to do music, weed the garden, keep the house clean/tidy, cook dinners, exercise, process photos, plan holidays.  Except I can only do a couple of those every day because work takes up too much damned time.  And let's not even mention actually having fun and doing my hobbies.  I. Do. Not. Have. Time. To. Go. To. Work.  Sigh.

Tuesday.

Slept mostly ok although woke up at 4:45.  Did housework for a HOUR before work.  And some effing cat sprayed our laundry door.  Buttplug.

Work.  I dunno.  Forty-five minutes of weeding after work.  I rescued some geraniums that had been cut off the plant by accident a couple of weeks ago.  Yeah these stems had been sitting on the ground for a couple of weeks, yet they were still flowering!!  So I stuck em in water.

Stu cooked dinner of cabbage and bacon (and I threw in the last of some leftover turkey).

Tried to finish the jigsaw we started on the weekend, but it's such terrible quality it was pretty much impossible.  It's made of soft plastic and you have to force the pieces together even when they're correct.  Now imagine pieces that are *almost* identical in shape, so you literally have no idea whether they're correct or not.  I got down to four pieces left a couple of times but they just would not go in.  Stoopid.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Even got back to sleep after waking up at 4:45.  The other week Tony gave me a container of basil which is growing like weeds in his yard.  But of course I'm a complete slacker and didn't do anything with it.  Well it was getting desperate so before I work I made some pesto.  But first had to contend with a microscopic reanimated spider that's been in hibernation for a couple of weeks..

The pesto turned out quite well.  Even if I did end up having to throw out half the basil.  Sigh.

Ok day I guess.  Managed to find some jeans at kmart.  The only two in my size in the whole store.  As with Target, everything is "skinny".  Well some of us *aren't* skinny.  Hate.  So either *everyone else* wants skinny and that's why they stock so many.  Or *noone* wants skinny which is why that's all there is and hardly anything else.  Also why TF can't women's clothing standardise on sizes??  Last time I bought jeans they were size 8.  This time - 10.  I've had everything from 8 to 12 over the years cause they keep changing.  I really should try on some boys jeans some time.. Or go to a workwear place..

Westfield didn't get the memo about the 12 days of Christmas.. 

Late home, leftover pork (fried in lamb jelly (cause needed to clear freezer space)) and salad for dinner.  Backed up my computer and then it was time to wash my hair and go to bed.  Sigh.

Thursday.  Tidying up and bits and pieces at work.  Showed the newbies some stuffs on one of our firewalls.  Drinks at Lighty then Death in Paradise 8.1.

He's not missing a leg, but he did just leave that poop there

Friday.  Awake for like two hours in the middle of the night.  Sigh.  Climbed Mt Rogers. 

Mt Rogers has *pink* epic dandelions!

Then mostly just housework and getting organised, including bringing up the Lego from downstairs where it had been hiding for a few months due to the Silly Season.  Used the pesto I made yesterday with some chicken I dug out of the freezer, some broccoli and some "fake" pasta (kognac pasta) for a yummy dinner.  Stu went back for thirds, even though he doesn't really like broccoli, so must have been good haha.

Then The Orville 2.11.  I had the kind of day that I would like every day for the rest of my life.  kthxbai.

Saturday.  Slept ok until hurty kept me awake from like 3:45 to 5:45.  Sigh.  After not great sleep the night before either it was definitely zombie day.  Sigh. 

Dude, aren't you a bit far north of the border?

Did a bit of Turkey photo culling but not nearly enough.  Tried to sort out some Lego but my brain was too fuzzy and I'm sure I've stuffed something up. 

The baby capsicums are getting bigger.  That snail is just a shell.  Maybe a bluey got it.. 

Leftovers of the "pulled lamb" (which was still epic spectacular) and cauliflower with cheese sauce for dinner.

Mash and Sex Education 4.3.  Really had to feel for Jean (portrayed as my age even though Gillian Anderson is a fair few years older) and her exhaustion.. omfg there's no way I could have kids.. the sleep deprivation would kill me!!

I rescued those things on the right today too - their stem had broken off, possibly due to lack of water, so grabbed them and brought them inside

Sunday.  Slept fairly well hurray!!  Except I don't really know what I did all day.  I know I renamed all of Mum and Dad's Tasmania photos to get them into chronological order.  I also wrote out their itinerary for their 1971 trip.  They only had two weeks and managed to cram heaps in (including getting perfect days for Mt Amos and Cradle Mountain - totes jelly) and it was cool seeing the order of the photos plotted against the map.  Other than that I'm not even sure.  I didn't managed to do any photo culling.  Barely any dots.  Hardly any Lego inventorying.  There was a walk up Mt Rogers thoguh.  And food shopping.  And getting epic enraged by the pantry which descends into chaos the moment your back is turned.  Sigh.

Look at this trash.  This is what happens when you go low carb.  Everything's damnedwell GREEN haha

Now I just need a quote...

Monday.  8th.  30th anniversary of the Como-Jannali bushfires, my 21st blogiversary, David Bowie would have turned 77.  Slept mostly ok.  Oh The Humidity in the morning though!!  OMFG Con discovered Windoze 11 will FINALLY let you ungroup taskbar icons.  Totally made my day.  Mostly working on decoms.  Chatted to Chris and Glenda after work for an hour about Japan.  Then went for a walk.  Then cooked up some scrambled eggs for breakfasts this week.  And then it was bedtime.  Sigh.

My copy of unlink the rings was in an incomplete state.  I spent ages and ages and ages getting it into a 2x6 configuration that could be recovered with help online.  Then followed a tutorial to solve it.  Cause I was always too dumb to solve these puzzles.

Tuesday.  Low carb regime starts today.  Need to try and lose a few kilos in the next six weeks.  Except I didn't sleep.  Awake from like before 2 to after 4.  Then slept a bit but then awake again.  Zombie day. 

Mostly spent the day working backwards through my todo list finding things to work on.  Couldn't really concentrate on much though - too tired.  Cooked a nice dinner - leftover sausages, with mushrooms cooked in butter and a little cream at the end, and broccoli (from Chris's!  Just microwaved for a couple of minutes) with a sauce of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Looks simple but took 3/4 hour - mostly because I wasn't thinking clearly on account of being a zombie, and the not putting the mushrooms on til later (should have put them on first).

After dinner went for a walk up Mt Rogers.

And then it was bed time, because if you try and cook and exercise it takes up your entire damned evening.  Sigh.

Wednesday.  Was too tired to go to sleep.  Was almost asleep but the sweetie poked me cause I was snoring then it took another hour and a half to get to sleep.  So Wednesday was another zombie day.  When I went to feed the fish in the "angel" tank in the morning noticed the door was scraping the bottom which it wouldn't normally do.  So looked closer and there was water all over the bottom shelf.  !!!!  Looks like one of the filter wools up the top and drifted into the outlet and clogged it up, so it was backed up all over the top, leaking out the edge near the inlets for the powercords for the filter and lights, and flooding everything beneath.  Man they really should make fish tank stands out of real wood instead of chipboard which just swells up when it gets wet.  Yanked the power, got out some towels and dried it all as best I could, then setup a fan to blow on everything to dry it.  (But with Oh The Humidity all week I left that fan running for DAYS and it didn't even fully dry).  Continued looking at my todo list at work and more looking at decoms.  Went clothes shopping at Target at lunch.  It didn't end in tears, but it certainly wasn't successful.  The only jeans they have in stock (pretty much) are stoopid skinny ones.  I took two into try on but only tried the first one and knew the second one would never work.  But look at this.  Look at the pocket!!  Pity there was exactly ONE pair of this Yasmin style in store, nowhere near my size.  Pity, would have been cool.

Then I tried on seven (SEVEN) different bras.  !!  Only three of them even vaguely fitted.  One was a bit too small, one was a bit too big, and the one that was definitely the most comfortable had FOUR clasps instead of the usual three.  Damn my grandmother for giving me ginormous boobs to have to deal with.  In the end bought the one with four clips, but there weren't any more, so the hunt will continue. 

For dinner I fried up some leftover pork and cabbage in whatever jelly I could find in the freezer, which I think was lamb jelly because it was full of rosemary.  Don't eat those dried fried onions in future though, they are definitely not low carb.

Did some Turkey photo culling then went for a walk.  Hot.  Humid.  Sigh.

Got back and had to backup my computer but the external drive was being a poo and either not showing up in windows, or showing up but not being accessible.  Went and washed my hair (it was to damned HOT AND HUMID to deal with) then rebooted it again and was able to backup, but then it didn't finish til like 22:30 (after filling up the disk and I had to delete some crap) which is WAYYY past my bedtime.  Sigh.

Thursday.  Once again I couldn't get to sleep (til after midnight this time).

Oh the humidity!!

Another day of decom work and working through my todo list.  Drinks at Lighty after work (man after work drink prices, pub prices HURT) and KFC for dinner (we won't mention Subway for lunch, definitely not low carb!!).  Mr Miyagi in MASH and Death in Paradise 7.8.

Friday.  After like four nights in a row of not sleeping went into the other room and slept somewhat betterly.  Felt actually somewhat alive in the morning and was able to get through some housework before work.

Deleting Day at work which always makes me happy.  Lunch with the Chrises at the Burns Club.  No not that one, the other one.  There's another one, did you know?  Turns out I'd been there year and a bit ago when it was Magpies.  We won't mention the magpie that brought its kid along and wanted food.  And we're like, nah this salty stuff is no good for you.  Which is the exact same thing with me and unhealthy food.  I KNOW it's unhealthy but damn it tastes good.

Did I mention the humidity?

Fried up some leftover pork in lamb jelly and had it with salad which was very nice.

Saturday.  So the brother type person called on Friday night and offered to come and look at the oven (remember it tripped the power on New Years night) since I'd been too afraid to run it ever since.  So of course overnight I was stressing about the oven.  Because the damned DELONGHI POS is less than FOUR YEARS OLD and has already died TWICE.  And because I stress, I don't sleep.  Hurray for being me.  Got a bit of stuffs done in the morning but not really enough. 

The baby capsicums are still alive..

David arrived mid afternoon.  We turned on the oven.  It didn't trip at least but it didn't heat up.  So he pulled it out and found that sure enough, the rear element had blown (the one we use All The Time).

So we went out to buy a new oven.  Because it's too damned hard to get replacement parts for Delonghi POS we went with a Westinghouse.  And normally we wouldn't get extended warranty but this time we did.  Because they PROMISED that they would replace elements if they blew.  And at least for Westinghouse you CAN get replacement elements. Unlike Delonghi CRAP.  We took our car because it was supposed to rain like Any Second, and it did in fact start to rain while were picking up the oven.

We were too busy installing stuff to pay too much attention to the Epic Storm (which mostly passed south and east of us).  

Yeah doing electrical work during a massive thunderstorm is surely the greatest idea in the world.

But as I mentioned it was pretty sedate at our place.

Did I mention I have the bested brother in the entire universe?

Once it was all going (you have to run it for like half an hour to burn out all the manufacturing grease) we left it on and threw some veggies in it..

This oven probably runs a little hotter than the old one (or morely likely just has better air flow because of a bigger space for the fan to let out its heat..) so the bottom rack heated a lot more than I'm used to..

And of course then there was the lamb which was EPIC AMAZING.  Who knew you could stick a couple of kilos of lamb in a slow cooker all afternoon with garlic and rosemary and you end up with pulled lamb which doesn't even need gravy it's so tender and juicy.  Oh wait, I might have, if I'd actually gotten to taste any of the lamb I did this way back in 2021 for the club Christmas in July (ok, I got like one mouthful back then).  

Then we just chatted while David tried (and failed) to get Google to talk to our lounge room lights.

Sunday.  Woke up around 1:44 and didn't get back to sleep til well after 4 and then it wasn't great sleep.  Sigh.  Cooked some bacon and eggs and spinach for breakfast (spinach is a big fat poo - you cook half a bag of the stuff and get like two mouthfuls each).  Then David and I went to the tip to dump some flouros and batteries and course we needed to do a Green Shed run.  Don't tell Stu but I got some more jigsaws.  Then to Vinnies so David could look at DVDs and OMFG I actually bought a pair of jeans!!  ha!  Came back and had some lunch (well David did, I had mine later) and we started a jigsaw.  Which we did for the next several hours.  Whoops.  

Cooked up an epic feast for dinner, hopefully for leftovers for breakfast for the week...

Oh, also, Chrome (and of course edge) are being Big Fat Poos and aren't allowing commenting anymore because OMFG IT'S SO INSECURE.. Search does the same thing but at least you can click proceed anyway.  But posting comments is problematic - it won't save form data because OMFG IT'S SO INSECURE - but even if you click post anyway you get some error from the blog (don't have a copy on me right now).  I was going to hardcode the form posting to https this weekend but, well, life.  Maybe next weekend.  Anyway, thanks Dave2 for the comments (and Mum too), I did try to respond.. 

Sunday.  3rd.  There may have been kiev balls.  Futurama/Crown/early night.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Distracting day.  Had to look at something that I knew wouldn't be our problem but had to help anyway.  Had a #grunt in our team meeting because I got talked over the top of WHILE I WAS ACTUALLY TALKING which pissed me off.  Often I get talked over the top of but it's difficult because of the one second or so delay over the VC when two people try to talk at once, and I get frustrated at that too, but this time I was already talking and just got interrupted which *really* pissed me off.  So then they were like "what did you do all week" and I was like "stuff".  Sigh.

But hey.  At least I can look out my front door and see this!

Did a heap of weeding at lunch - got rid of the periwinkle I wanted to... now to keep on top of it.. hrmm..  It was 22C today!!  Craziness!!

After work managed to finish blogging last week, and did a tuna casserole for dinner.  I took out some frozen cauliflower rice out of the freezer which was a bit clumped and gave it a whack on the stove.  But I must have hit the chip that's been there since we moved in and it shattered the entire stovetop from the chip in a few different directions.  Sigh.

And then just for fun the neighbour's dog was barking pretty much the entire fricken evening.  Pretty sure it's the same neighbours that had the staffies a few years back that barked non stop but evenutally killed each other returning the peace.  Sigh.  I even went for a walk to see and could hear it barking and trying to get out of the yard (as staffies do) and pretty sure it's the same house.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  On edge because of the dog. Then restless and awake every five minutes with numb hands.  Although apparently a storm came through that I slept through.  The other day I noticed the password to my main hosting account wasn't working (Eudora said password was failing).  So tried to figure out what was going on.  There's no way to reset a cpanel password from the interface so contacted Vodien support.  They reset the password which was great but no idea why it stopped working in the first place.  Ok day.  Lots of distractions though.  

Sour dough with leftover cheeses from various parties and some pepperoni

Housework and music after work and brisket for dinner.  Then I finished getting my Europe photos online!!  Well the main day indexes anyway, still have food/hotels/panoramas to go.  At 21:16 the dog started barking and didn't stop til I went to bed.

Wednesday.  Took ages to sleep.  On edge because of the dog, and restless legs.  And literally a day after the first issue, my cpanel account password stopped working again.  Talked to the same dude online who said they were doing CentOS migrations, and things would take "a few days" to sync and that they would email everyone when done.  Ok fine, at least it wasn't some sort of hacking attempt.  So will leave it a few days before contacting again.  And they NEVER email people about upgrades. And they still haven't.  Drinks with Dennis after work and dinner at Betty's Burgers.

Clocked it!

Chips aren't good for magpies

Thursday.  Fairly decent sleep.  Too much BS at work.  Too many dumb people.  Nice drinks.  Even sat outside for a bit until it started raining.  Pizza/Futurama/Ahsoka 3.

Friday.  Ok day.  I think.  David came in the evening.  We had kiev balls for dinner and watch Futurama and Death in Paradise 5.7.

Saturday.  Bacon, sausage and eggs for breakfast!! (our staple meal in America in 1983 at Denny's).  I was going to scramble the eggs but they all broke whole so decided to fry them.

As it turned out, they were the very last thing I cooked on the old stovetop.

After that David pulled out the oven to see what's been causing the power trips.  

Turns out someone let the smoke out.

But because Canberra, there's no way to get a new element same day.  So when we were out we found a place that could get one in next week.  Then we went and bought a new stove.  

I seriously have the most amazingest brother in history.  And so nice to have a qualified electrician in the family :)

So I took him out for lunch.  All you can eat at the Star Buffet.

Afterwards we "dropped in" to Ikea.  And proceeded to walk around for like two or three hours.  Bought a few things.  But most usefully we walked off lunch somewhat which was nice.

I got a shelf to use for a bin solution.  Not exactly what we wanted and it's not as nice looking as the wooden shelf we wanted (which was discontinued) but it'll do.  The sweetie ordered pizza for dinner but I only had once piece.  Then watched some Futurama and the first two episides of The Orville which was better than I expected.

Sunday.  Had pancakes for breakfast - first thing cooked on the new stovetop.  Then David went home.  Did some cleaning in the morning.  After lunch did some food shopping. 

Then it was nearly 15:00 and time for my afternoon routine.  Dinner was chicken fricassee which I've never cooked before.  Fairly nice but a bit watery.  Then Futurama/Crown.

Sunday.  23rd.  Roasted some veggies to have with some leftover meat.  Watched The Crown then had an early night.

Monday.  Slept mostly ok except for numb hands every five minutes overnight.  Been really fricken annoying lately.  Sadly my ancient cory (that I got as one of five in 2015 and was the only survivor of the Two Foot Tank of Death Fiasco) had died.  This was it a couple of weeks ago when it was starting to look like maybe it was on its way out..

Day was ok.  Trying to document some stuff but finding problems.  Man I really shouldn't look at things.  Saw three of my birds at lunch.  Then it was all dingbats and numbskulls in the afternoon, including some sheer incompetance.  Leftovers for dinner (mmmmm end bits from the roast pork we did at the club Saturday night).  Finished culling days 15/16 of Europe photos.  Day 15 wasn't too bad but day 16 was pretty hard.  Too many photos that look similar and hard to choose the best.

Tuesday.  Couldn't get to sleep til past midnight :(  Then numb hands again.  Sigh.  Another crazy day with all the peeps talking to me.  Cooked creamy pasta for dinner which was nice (added a bunch of leftover peas which didn't really work texturewise but did add some vegetation).  

Finished culling up to day 19.  There's a third series of War on Waste on iView, but I realised I haven't seen season two, so went back to start watching that.  Booked tickets for Indiana Jones, but seriously why TF do they charge booking fees to book online??  Surely they'd be encouraging that to save having to pay box office staff?  Dodgy Dendy strikes again.  Hate.  I probably didn't even need to book in advance, it was clear it wasn't going to be anywhere near full.

Wednesday.  Slept a bit better.  Busy day again.  Went and did a screen test at work.  I doubt they'll want me for any sort of video, but you never know for audio.  After work went and had Disappointing Sushi with the sweetie (so called because the hot stuff is *always* cold).  But because the sweetie is a regular at lunch, the owner brought out a complimentary plate of KFC, which was fresh out of the fryer and pretty awesome, so that was really nice :)

Then we went and saw Indiana Jones, which I'll put in another post.

Thursday.  Slept ok.  The sweetie didn't though.  Several nights in a row of not being able to get to sleep til like 1, 2 or 3 o'clock, stressing about All The Things (mostly work).  Poor thing.  Yet another crazy busy day.  Had a vendor meeting in the afternoon so was late to drinks :(  Pity because it was busy too.  Pizza for dinner (mac and cheese! which was actually pretty decent) then into Season 5 of Death in Paradise.

Friday.  Completely overwhelming day.  Had to just STOP at one point and list All The Things that people had been hassling me about to I could prioritise to get things done.  Did manage to get a lot done (once I had a chance to breathe) and finished up at 16:00 so could head out to the club.  Slightly more relaxed this Friday than last, but not by much.  Had to have a laugh at some point because I said "Hey Siri, tell me a story", and she spouted out half a dozen bizarre little short stories.  Straight out of AI, as the text isn't Googleable.  Also, funny fire is funny..

Oh, I also finished making an iceberg out of Vic's huge pile of 1x4 bricks

Saturday.  Slept ok (and the sweetie slept somewhat better as well).  Did a bit of work around our van tidying up leaves and such, then joined the club working bee.  Just ended up helping load/unload trailerfulls of logs, and helping distribute road base on the main driveway.

Anyone know what this is??

Came home and cooked a basa bake and a cauliflower bake (I won't mention the massive pile of MOLDY CHEESE I had to pick out after throwing on top of the cauliflower bake, WTF Woollies???) and then watched Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Sunday.  Woke up after 1 for over three hours.  Sigh.  Then ended up sleeping in til past 8 - two hours of my day WASTED to insomnia.  Felt completely overwhelmend with life - culling is just so damned HARD and there's so much HOUSEWORK TO DO.  In the end really all I got done was to tidy a bunch of surfaces and rearrage all the clutter somewhat.   Sigh. 

Oh also, bookings247 has been hacked!!  I got an email to the email address I use only for that site (which I've actually only ever used once, to find accommodation for Kit's wedding) telling me I'd signed up for Norton antivirus.  It had my name and last four digits of my credit card.  I left a comment on their website, but bet you any money they fob me off.

Here's the email:

This is a receipt for your order.

Order ID: #<redacted>
Order Date: 28-07-2023
Transaction ID: <redacted>
Amount: 499.99 AUD
Payment Method: Auto Debit
Card Number : ********<redacted>

Product Details
Product Name: #<redacted>_NRS_Ultimate-Desk
Powerful protection for your device and the personal information it stores.
License Type: 1 Year
Devices: Unlimited

One Sale, Many Things
Payment Details

Taxes & Duties: 0.00 AUD (all taxes & duties included in product price)
License Type: 1 Year
Devices: Unlimited
For cancellations or complaint regarding this order. Please contact directly at our service department at - +61 2 6176 1229

Thank you,
Norton Scr.
+61 2 6176 1229

*This is an auto-generated email. Please do not reply.
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Contact Us:
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I'm half tempted to call the number to see what BS they spin.  But that would require talking to people.  Which I hate.  Sigh.

Sunday.  Roast beef for dinner, then The Crown.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Meh day.  Did some sneaky work for Aquila for another team and got everything consistent and documented.  Couldn't help myself.  Leftover turkey and veggies for dinner.  Started watching Amazing Race Australia from last year.

Seven magpies came to see me at lunch.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Ok day I think?  Cooked up some mince for dinner, with a slightly Mexican vibe.  Continuing on the photo culling.  Wanted to get three days culled in two nights to keep up with the schedule.  Gonna be a struggle.

Wednesay.  Ok day I think?  Forgot to do a change after lunch, but managed to sneak it in later.  Whoops.  

After work met up with the sweetie and Dennis at Dolly's for a drink, then went to Tiger Lane for dinner.  I had Lucky Duck which was ok but not super epic awesome, and not really worth $18.  Stu had some fried chicken, but I think Kimchi's is better.

No energy for photo culling when I got home so watched a bit of Amazing Race (and was very confused when they started showing names for a whole new group of racers starting in Sydney.  It's not the first time channel 10 have mixed things up but surely they would have gotten it fixed by now??  Had to do a quick Google (and try and avoid spoilers) to realise that they actually had two sets of ten teams racing).

Thursday.  Slept ok I think.  Busy day.  Started working on a change for next week, but had to abandon that before 10 to deal with All The Things and never got back to it.  Ok drinks.  Around tonight got into season 3 of Futurama, but Disney are playing things out of order.  Started watching Picard season 3, which was fun, with Riker and Crusher.  

Friday.  Awake for a couple of hours stressing about All The Things.  Logged into work and my desktop session was gonnnnnne!!!  OMFG!!!  They'd sent an email AFTER I'D LOGGED OFF last night asking people to log off to test a new desktop.  I might have had a meltdown.  Fortunately it was actually still there, just hidden, so that was a relief.  Had a gardener come to have a look at the garden to give us a quote on weed cleanup.  Second episode of Picard, then started watching Chernobyl 1986, a 2020 Russian production.  Kinda like Titanic - fictionalised story around true events.

Saturday.  Slept fairly well.  Busy day of housework and photo culling, and fighting with Hilton Rewards who allowed a retard to sign up with my email address but refused to contact the person or change the email address or do anything to help me.  After they said "too bad so sad" (literally the last thing they said to me was "I request you to change your email so that you won't receive unwanted emails").  Bastards.  Also went out at lunch (Pattysmiths) and did some food shopping.  And all while listening to the Classic 100 Favourite Instruments.  Stu cooked sausages and mashed potato, then Futurama/Picard, and I finished watching Chernobyl 1986.

Sunday.  Slept ok.  Spent most of the day doing photo culling (and a few other bits and pieces) while listening to the Classic 100.

Sunday.  21st.  Backdating because I was just too busy last weekend.  Had slow cooked lamb shanks for dinner, and finally finished watching through Dug Days.  Then I watched Ciao Alberto.  If covid doesn't stop us I might be going "there" next year :)  Watched the first episode of Squid Game.  The english dub was super annoying, so put on the Korean subtitles, although that was annoying too because it felt the need to subtitle all the sound effects as well.

Monday. Ok day, did some cleaning.  Did some weeding after work although no music practise - making a final push to get the last five hundred-odd photos labelled this week.  Did 124 before dinner.  Dinner was some frozen dim sum pieces we got so we could use up the bucket of sweet and sour sauce we got with the Chinese we had the other night.  Finished labelling my quota by 19:17, but then kept going - doing 307 all up - all of day 53 - Sapporo to Tokyo.  Only 247 to go!!  Then watched Lie to Me and into season 5 of You Can't Ask That.

Tuesday.  Ok day, planning for more cleaning.  Started thinking about the risk assessment for our Christmas party.  Weeding, music, leftover mango chicken for dinner.  Then the final push to finish labelling photos from my Eurasia 2012 trip.  At 500 photos per week, I was schedule to finish Wednesday, but I was so close I pushed through and finished it Tuesday!  Twenty four and a half thousand photos labelled, taking nearly all year.  What an epic achievement :)  The flight from Sydney to Canberra on that trip was pretty cool - I managed to get photos of all three of my previous homes in Sydney :)

Wednesday.  Rain!  I shoulda put the deck chairs out in it for rinsing.  Did more cleaning planning at work, and leftover lamb shanks for dinner.  Have been doing a whole heap of tagging of people in work photos now using Picasa.

Thursday.  Had to go to work *at* work, which meant taking the bus which was a bit awful.  But everyone was wearing masks at least so that was good (it's still mandatory on public transport).  But it was humid and disgusting and they didn't turn the air conditioning on in the office, so it was pretty miserable in the morning.  Went to the mall with Neil at lunch, but maybe only 20% of people are wearing masks there.  Blerf.  The bar was open for the first time in over three months, so that was nice.  Although not many people there.  In the evening I put on Fantasia 2000 to get a photo of The Sorcerer's Apprentice with the jigsaw.  Yeah yeah I know the jigsaw was from the original Fantasia, but the original is pretty boring, I like Fantasia 2000 much much better.  Might have also put up the Christmas tree (just the tree though no decorations).

As usual, it's really not quite right

Friday.  OMFG.  Practically had a meltdown because I was trying to concentrate on *one thing* but literally every time I tried I would get interrupted again.  I felt like just giving up on trying to do any work and just sit there staring at my screen waiting for the next question.  #grunt.  Eventually got some peace and quiet so got some stuff done, and some cleaning in the afternoon too which was nice.  In the evening we watched the 80s version of Dune.. which was.. strange.. hmmm.  

Saturday.  Did the most essential weekend housework stuff before heading out to the club for the Christmas party.  Did a bunch of work helping prep all the food and serve lunch, then drank and chatted all afternoon so that was all quite nice.  Although I really hope noone brought covid along, that could be quite messy.  Leftovers for dinner and an earlyish night.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well.  Got up early and came home so I could log onto work for an upgrade.  Then spent the rest of the morning putting up Christmas decorations.  But then by the time I'd done gardening and music practise it was late, so managed to download and process photos but not blog.  Whoops.  Roasted some veggies for dinner then pretty much just collapsed.

Sunday.  7th.  Not backdating for a change ;)  This was the slow cooker turkey we had.  I literally just plonked the thing in the slow cooker all afternoon, but it was a bit dry.  Will add some stock next time I think, and turn/submerge it half way through.  Had it with potato bake and veggies.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Spent the morning patching stuff we'd upgraded the other week.  The fighting with the proxy in the afternoon.  No music practise (still giving the wrist a rest), so labelled over 200 photos - the ones I was behind in from last week because I had no time on the weekend to catch up.  That was all of day 50.  Then Lie to Me and You Can't Ask That.

Tuesday.  Slept ok.  Last week I said I thought I'd finished rescanning Dad's slides, but I'm still finding a lot of fluffy ones at the beginning where I wasn't diligent/fussy/perfectionist enough.  I can't help myself, I *need* to rescan them to make them better.  Sadly these are ones I'd already processed as well, so that means I'll have to reprocess *again*.  Sad times. Busy busy day, too much stoopid.  Fun episode of The Simpsons in the evening (The Poseidon Adventure one).  Still managed 167 photos, into day 51.

Wednesday.  Another busy day.  Only 128 photos labelled - day 52 in Hokkaido.  Finished the week still 182 behind.  

This is me cheating on Mickey - doing one half literally on top of the other half.

Thursday.  Dropped into work to swap out my hard drives.  Then did our food shopping.  Coles was definitely quieter at 7am than it has been previously during lockdown.  I guess more people are relaxed about going at a more normal time and not sparrows fart.  Couldn't log into work for over an hour because the auth app on my phone had a spaz, then I got locked out, then I had to wait for the service desk.  It did make the morning pass a bit quicker though :)  Tacos for dinner.  Finished watching the Jim Carrey version of Fun With Dick and Jane that I started the other day/week.  Well half watched it really, it was a bit silly.  Rain!

Friday.  Rain! 

One of the baby magpie larks that's been hanging around our yard for a while.

Picked up the clarinet for the first time in a week.  I really need to get a neck strap to save my wrist.  XL was headed off to Sydney for the weekend, and Ward said something about getting her to eat something for him, and I was like, I want Din Tai Fung!  Of course then I had cravings for dumplings, so the sweetie had some delivered from Charnie's Noodle and Dumplings.  It was all nice enough, nothing super special though.

Watched Red Sparrow in the evening, but it was very violent, making it quite unpleasant.  I also get annoyed at spy movies because you can never know what side someone is really on, and quite often it's both.  Probably like real life, but still annoying to watch.

Saturday.  Got housework done first thing, then doing upgrades all morning.  But I'm dumb and don't know how to fix anything when it breaks.  Sigh.  Didn't get much done in the afternoon other than geotagging some of Dad's photos from sixty years ago.  !!  Did a bit of jigsaw and music practise and then suddenly it's nearly dinner time.  hmmm.

Moved the stuff on the left aside to take a progress photo

Finished season 3 of You Can't Ask That, then leftover dumplings for dinner, then watched Hachi: A Dog's Tale, an Americanised version of the story of Hachiko.  I think I started crying when Hachiko tried to stop him getting on the train that last time, and then for much of the rest of the movie.  hrmmm.

Sunday.  Today.  Wrote a massive long todo list for the day.  Did a small fraction of it.  I'm going to be dead before I finish my todo list.

Got the internal "edges" done today, and the left bubbles are back on top of the right side.  This weekend I also finished laying out *every* piece on boards, so all the pieces are on six boards for the six different shapes (plus one board of leftover twinklies).  So now every piece has to be there to find and put in.

Started photo processing and blogging early enough today to get it done, because now I need to go cook dinner for tonight and a few other nights this week.

Stop the world, I want to get off!

Monday.  27th.  Slept ok, and an ok day, more playing with proxies.  The magpie chicks have hatched.  Managed 48 photos before dinner (last of the san choy bow mince with brisket rice and shredded cabbage).  Into season 16 of The Simpons and day 39 of Eurasia labelling.

Also, I truly hate people.  Some low life bastard stole the ruffled tulip bulbs!

Tuesday.  Much the same really, started looking at some more cleanup work.  Leftover pork and veggies for dinner (fried in jelly).  Got 182 photos labelled.  

Wednesday.  Awake in the middle of the night for an hour because I was hot.  Hrmmm.  More documenting of things that need cleaning up.  Creamy fettuccini for dinner.  Finished day 39 labelling, into day 40.  Stopped when I couldn't decide how to label Miniatur Wunderland - should I do a quick summary of the scene, or just label it all "Miniatur Wunderland".  hrmm.  Finished watching Love on the Spectrum.  I reckon rather than one-on-one dates, they should have double dates, with or without "normal" people to add conversation direction.  One of the problems with aspergers/autism is difficulty socialising, and I myself find it a lot easier in a small group situation (three to four is ideal) than one-on-one.  I wonder if these guys would have any more luck like that.  My favourite guy in the series was Andrew - into jigsaws and K'nex connector toys, and not a tea-totaller :)  (another side note: dopamine makes it a helluva lot easier to relate to people, ask me how I know).

Thursday.  Updated my doco on change management for the new system, and some people who hadn't seen it before were very excited that there was a nice document they could pass round/follow.  Had virtual drinks in the afternoon which was a bit fun.  Had about eleven people connect in.  Watched the third episode of Connected - Dust.  And I watched the pilot of Lie to Me.  We'd seen a bunch of episodes of this like ten years ago, but there's plenty I still haven't seen, and because I have dementia I won't remember the ones I have seen heh.  

Friday.  Made pretty tables in Splunk for our firewall logs which are pretty hard to read in it.  OMFG what a crazy news day though!  52 covid cases recorded - highest ever in Canberra for one day.  ScoMo announced opening of international borders a lot sooner than we first thought.  Gladys resigned.  

From ABC News:

I was pretty impressed with the distribution of chocolates in the Favourites box I won for best dressed individual back in July for work Christmas in July.

And how pretty are thyme flowers?

Leftover pork and veggies fried in jelly for dinner.  Watched Ocean Waves in the evening.  This wasn't even in the list of Ghibli movies on Wikipedia when we were going through them last year, and not sure if it was online at the time either.  It was a bit lame, and the girl in it was actually pretty horrible.  

Saturday.  Awake for hours in the middle of the night :(:(  Talked to Zac for a little bit of it.  Total zombie in the morning.  Then the mother type person called which took out another half an hour, so it took all morning to get through my Saturday morning routine (that I usually have done by about 9am).  So it was pretty much a write off of a day.  Did get some jigsaw done though, and some music practise (I've been practising most days and learning new notes and getting better at blowing).  

Put on American Pie while I blogged last week.  Never seen it before, wouldn't have missed anything if I'd never seen it.  But I knew that going in, hence why I wasn't really watching it.  Chicken Kiev and veggies for dinner (Stu needed to go to the chemist, so he did some veggie shopping as well). 

In the evening watched The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It started off very silly, with unnecessary love triangles all round, but it did improve a lot in the second half.  

Sunday.  Slept somewhat better.  Got a bit more done during the day.  Feeling anxious about our cruise next year.  Even though we might be able to travel in time for it, I really don't want to be going on a cruise out of Florida early next year.  I still don't think they're going to be at herd immunity status by the time we get there, even if all the idiots that aren't getting vaccinated actually get covid.  And if we get exposed and get it, we could miss out on the cruise entirely, or worse, could be hospitalised (can happen, even for the fully vaccinated).  And insurance certainly wouldn't cover that.  And there's no way in hell I'd ever want to be hospitalised in America without insurance.  

Arribbiata bake and roasted tomatoes for dinner (photos to be added next week).  I watched The Color of Money in the evening because I'd never actually seen it.  It was pretty meh actually.  

Monday.  Today.  I might have photos to add to this later, dunno.  Feeling out of sorts all day that I just don't have enough time to get everything done.  I mean it's not unreasonable that I want to finish the Disney jigsaw, finish scanning and processing all Dad's slides, file all this year's photos, file all my club photos, label my Eurasia 2012 trip, get through the backlog of This Day in History posts, and get all images for next years' posts set aside.. all by Christmas.. is it .. ??  And that's not even mentioning finishing the paint by numbers before the paint dries up, doing daily music practise, trying to stay on top of housework and the jungle that is our garden (and let's not forget being the sole chef and waitress), and who even knows where I'd fit in exercise into that punishing schedule.  I'm just depressed that work takes so much time out of my life that I could be doing other things.  And it's not like I don't like work, I actually do, it just takes up too much damned *time*.  *sigh*

Sunday.  11th.  I actually blogged on time last week I think but a bit early for the evening.  Did a spaghetti rosa bake for dinner but I'll put that it its own post.  Turned out pretty well.  Then Simpsons and X Files and I might have watched Fantasia 2000 again.

Monday.  Had to be Neil because he'd landed himself in hospital   .. !!!  Did some cleanup I'd been planning in test which all went well.  Otherwise just mostly being Neil all day.  

Got onto Neil.  He was doing ok, just a bit wobbly on his feet, awaiting MRI results.  Did a stir fry with leftover pork for dinner.  Then watched the third episode of Brides of Christ, and more photo labelling.

Tuesday.  omfg such a busy day, mainly in the afternoon it just didn't let up - people talking to me and wanting me to fix stuff all at once *all afternoon*.  Actually nearly lost it a few times. Leftover roast pork for dinner.  Did some photo labelling, although spent entirely too much time trying to identify birds seen along the Nile in Aswan.  Fourth episode of Brides of Christ with a super young Russell Crowe.  Only managed to label 136 photos, so now a day and a bit behind.  

Wednesday.  Too much stress, not enough time, and that's *before* going to work.  Spent all day investigating a problem that Aquila alerted us to late Tuesday afternoon.  Not nearly enough time to be Neil.  I can't deal.  Watched the fifth episode of Brides of Christ in the evening and nearly lost it when I saw Naomi Watts, Lisa Hensley and a magpie thirty years before the Penguin Bloom movie!

Thursday.  Sharpie called me super early.  I didn't hear the phone ring (phone is on silent anyway).  I did hear the buzzes of smses but didn't wake up enough to look at my phone.  So woke up at normal time and saw the messages and figured out instantly that the problem that had been affecting dev had also affected prod (I was actually worried that this might happen).  So was able to put a workaround in pretty quickly, but it did mean for a day of insanity.  In fact I spent the entire day on the phone on support calls and even missed drinks.  Sigh.  But we did still have pizza and I had a few beers at home.

Friday.  Another day of being on the phone *all day* but at least this time just with Connor and Jim which was a lot less stressful, but just as intense.  My ears hurt from having my headset on all day :(

Stu worked from home too which was nice.  I even had some pomegranate "tea" I got from Turkey in 2014 in our nice Cunard tea cups.  And he made lunch (leftover mince on toast).

It was definitely a candle and beer kind of an evening.

And I also finally tried Ray's method of reheating pizza - fried in a little oil with a lid on.

OMFG it was *so good* !!  Even better than the evening before and with a crispy base somewhat reminiscent of the old deep pan pizzas from the 80s.  Yum yum yum.

Simsons, X Files, and I watched Old Yeller, which I'd first (and last) seen a long long long time ago.  Thoroughly wholesome movie and super sad.

Saturday.  All the houseworks in the morning.  Checked on servers sporadically throughout the day (all good).  Spent ages rearranging pieces for the Disney behemoth jigsaw section.  We did pop out for some food shopping as well. 

Jim was talking about these on Friday so when we went out for lunch on Saturday we got one.  Delish!

In the evening Jenn came over for dinner.  Stu actually cooked a pretty amazing Indian feast with four different dishes plus rice.  Only small amounts of most of them so not much leftovers though!

We played a couple of games of Fluxx, then a game of Carcasonne (which I won) and a game of Ticket to Ride (which I also won).  It actually ended up being a pretty early night.

The candles I'd lit for the evening still had a good hour to go after Jenn left, so I watched the final episode of Brides of Christ.  Definitely quality television from back in the day.  I did have to laugh at some of the Sydneyisms - "It's like painting the harbour bridge - you no sooner get to one end then it's time to turn back and start at the other" and "I was wondering if getting off at Redfern was a natural method".  The second one in particular amused me because it makes absolutely perfect sense to anyone from Sydney, but even in the rest of Australia it may not make sense.  

Today my neck hurt.  Actually it started hurting yesterday.  Much the same as a few weeks back.  Vaccine related??  First time it was nine days after, this time about twenty.  Weird stuff.  Annie and Lily and Immy came over for a bit around lunch time, and we did pop out to the chemist.  Otherwise a fairly quiet day.  

Lamb roast for dinner tonight.  Used up some cauliflower and broccoli, finished up some cream, parsley and basil that were in the fridge.

Simpsons (into season 13) and X Files and aiming for an early night.

Monday.  5th.  Not backdating!  Slept relatively well.  Woke up at 6:40 and didn't push myself to do any scanning.  Worked from home and had a pretty decent day, not too many stoopid problems bugging me, in fact even solved a few people's problems for them which was nice.  Stu was still sick though and stayed home.  Made an "instant" lasagna for dinner with stuff I made on the weekend (the mince and a bechamel/cheese sauce I did for the veggies).  Did a bit of jigsaw and watched the third episode of Diagnosis.

Tuesday.  Slept well again but still a bit sniffly so worked from home.  A lot more distractions today, and then hurty.  Stu worked from home which was nice.  Finally finished off the potatoes we brought home from the club (I think there would have been about thirty of them, all cooked, so it was a race to get them eaten before they went moldy).  This time I fried them with the last of the unfrozen mince from the club night, and a bunch of cheese.  I did them without mince for lunch and we liked them so much I did it again for dinner with mince.  So yummy, my favourite of the ways we got through those potatoes. 

Did my quota of photo labelling by 19:18 and even ran the dishwasher.  Watched a couple of episodes of Diagnosis.  Got quite frustrated with the mother in the fifth episode, but then I later found the girl's Instagram account, where she was pretty scathing of the show and how it portrayed them.  She'd also had a couple of surgeries for some vascular problems that had never been thought of in the show.  

Wednesday.  Slept well until I woke up with hurty at 1:15 and it kept me away til nearly 3am.  Sigh.  So another zombie day.  Vicki was in town which offered the perfect excuse to work from home again.  Got photo labelling done early so X Files and Diagnosis in the evening (after finishing off the last of the unfrozen club leftovers - some spring rolls and chicken wings and chipolatas).

Thursday.  Finally felt up to scanning slides again, first time in nearly a week due to insomnia or sickness.  It was also the first time in nearly a week we didn't have the heater on in the morning and it was *cold* in the house.  Ok day, ok drinks.  Feeling a general depression over not really fitting in and not getting on with people and not really being "friends" with anyone much I work with.  So felt a bit blah even at drinks.  Started watching I, Tonya.

Friday.  Slept ok.  Ok day.  Did up doco and change paperwork for next round of cleaning next week.  Finished watching Fantasia.

Saturday.  Quiet day, alternating with housework and jigsaw. 

Yet again, went into battle dealing with the government online.  This time I wanted to get a certificate of my covid vaccination.  But to do that you have to link Medicare or the Health Record (which I think I opted out of) to mygov.  But of course it refused to link my Medicare account didn't it.  It wanted the number and address details etc, but kept complaining I hadn't answered things correctly, at which point it prompted to fill in all the details of my bank accounts and my last doctor's appointment, including the date and how much it cost.  And I'm like wtf.  So I rage quit on that and called them.  Fortunately I pretty much got straight through, and they gave me a linking code I could enter and that worked and it linked up and I got my covid vaccination certificate.  Hurrah.  Now let's just hope they'll let us travel.  I'd be happy to do home quarantine when we get back if that's what it takes.  So long as I don't have to fight with tour companies about getting money back on trips...  

Found someone had uploaded Brides of Christ to DailyMotion, so watched the first episode of that.  We watched this when it came out back in 1991, and I blogged that I watched in when it was on tv again in 2003.  Downloaded and processed phone photos while that was on.  Dinner was some mince that I cooked last weeked, with tomato paste and tomatoes and pasta.  Into season 2 of the X Files, and then I finished I, Tonya.  It's actually not a bad movie.  Margot Robbie did a pretty good job (she even did a lot of the skating), although she's just a bit tall and *big* to pass for Tonya Harding, who was tiny. 

Sunday.  A quiet day of housework stuff, jigsaw, and blogging and computer stuff.  We did go out for lunch and food shopping/chemist as well.  About to go prep dinner.