Thursday.  26th.  Got home from our holidays around 17:00ish.  I started the download of photos from the Canon and my phone and also the GPS and blogged the last couple of days of the holiday.  The sweetie ordered pizzas and we watched Professor T 1.2.

Friday.  Awake from 3:40 hurrah. Did some unpacking and house stuff. Went outside to check on my plants and was horrified to discover my chrysanthemum is dead. Sigh. It'd obviously had some issues previously, but when I got to it it was bone dry and all the green leaves (and little flower buds) had dried out.  I chucked it under the awing to get a good soaking and I'm just HOPING that there'll be something left alive in it to send out some new shoots.

Not so problematic..

Apparently we had a lot of rain...

Everything else was fine though, thanks Tony.  Didn't stop me being zombie tired *and* depressed though.

Got some stuff done but not nearly as much as I wanted to. I did get some pretty amazing support out of Region media though. Their RSS feed stopped working at the end of February (which I didn't notice because we were travelling and I wasn't really keeping up with most of my feeds). Looks like they were blocking automated clients - it still worked in a browser. Anyways I took a punt on their support address and emailed them, and shortly afterwards got a mail back saying they'd fixed it. .. !! .. And sure enough they had! I was impressed :) Kievs for dinner then Professor T 1.3.

Saturday.  So had an earlyish night and thought I got to sleep ok, but then woke up at 4:11 for a couple of hours. Sigh. So an hour late starting my day. Not as zombie tired though so that was useful - was able to process (rotate and rename) all my Canon photos from the holiday and back them up. Also started going through receipts/statements to figure out how much the holiday cost. Hint: it was a lot. We spent over $800 on petrol! Eeep! In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for a while which was nice. And brought home seven tv dinners that Lily had bought by mistake and couldn't eat (and no one else wanted).

Had said tv dinners for dinner (they were tasty!) and watched Professor T 1.4.

Then I watched Elio which was a bit of fun, but really just a fun kids movie. "Your disk is muted" haha.  Also watched a video Dave2 linked to about how Pixar is so fundamentally different now.

Sunday.  Bed normal time, awake for chunks of the night sigh. So I was fairly tired although not completely zombie tired. Ploughed through some of the todo list, and finished sorting holiday finances. 43% went on accommodation, 19% on food and drink, 10% on booze, 9% on petrol, 6% on transport (mostly the ferry to Kangaroo Island), 4% on entrance costs to things, and little bits on donations, tips, fees, laundry, parking and some I counted as gifts (for Tony as well as taking peeps out for dinner/drinks).

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

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

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

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

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

Carnage...

Causer of said carnage...

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

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

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

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

Saturday.  Awake from 3:00 hurray.

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

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

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

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

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.  25th.  Stoopidly hot day.  I should have taken some screenshots when it got even hotter later in the week..

So we turned the oven on and cooked a cauliflower bake and other veggies. As you do. Then watched Kangaroo Island (2024 movie).

Monday.  Nice quiet day. With an epic lunch at the Burns Club Star Buffet with David and Kellie (they'd come up for the drone show). Whoops.  

I started to feel full about half way through this

And by this point I was feeling like Mr Creosote but still had dessert to get through..  They totally should have After-Dinner-Mints because that would just be funny.

No dinner required so Stu got himself a pizza. Then we watched Inside Job, a documentary on the 2008 GFC.  Made in 2010 yet we still hadn't seen it.

Tuesday.  Went to bed nice and early (while the first drone show was on that I missed out on on account of it was all too hard and I wanted to go to sleep), but awake from 4:11. Mostly finished up the AD rules I've been working on for months, then started in earnest on a cleanup of some desktop objects. My headset dropped out right in the middle of a meeting which was annoying.  Stu cooked some little school whiting with Japanese cucumber salad for dinner, then we put on some MacGyver, which we haven't watched since 2019.

Wednesday.  Slept okish. More work on the desktop and ldap rules. Stoopidly hot - like 42. And the building aircon didn't work half the morning. #grunt. 

Had lunch at Rashays for the first time since their $5 lunch specials in 2019. 

Rashay's Schnitty and Chips weekday lunch special with creamy mushroom sauce $16.95

Nearly killed Neil giving him a lift home.. eep!!!!! Mince and salad for dinner then MacGyver.  My headset seems to have a dicky connection - if you hold the mute/volume button cables in the middle just right you can get audio, otherwise nothing.  Annoying.

Thursday.  Took hours to get to sleep and restless half the night. Sigh. Probably the weather - way too hot even with the cooler going. LDAP rules and testing for a change. Good drinks. Made three pizzas for dinner - a pepperoni and feta, an olive and capers and a mushroom.  Then MacGyver.

Stu got out his epic mouse mat in the last week or so and put out some of his ships..

Friday.  Slept okish til about 5:15. Spent pretty much all day doing a huge cleanup of objects for our desktops. It was crazy. Five different firewalls and dozens of objects on each. Mental. Stu lent/gave me another headset but it's very heavy. Kievs for dinner then MacGyver.

Saturday.  Hot and restless. So not great sleep. Fairly quiet day. Did go out to drop off a baking dish to Annie and do our food shopping. Like mad dogs or Englishmen.

And with all that new fresh food in the house we got Chong Co for dinner. hrmmm.

Then watched The Boy and the Heron which was.. weird.. even for Ghibli standards. It was stoopid hot today, even with the cooler going hard it's still hot in the house. Well ok 24.4, but that's hot for me!!

Sunday.  Slept relatively well considering the heat. Another quiet day of fish and photo stuff and not having time for music because I spent most of the afternoon cooking keto breakfasts for the next week. hrmm.  Oh, that's the first use of a Coles baking dish I got for free a few years ago, but pressed into service after I cracked our last baking dish putting a frozen turkey roll into a hot oven..

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...

Wednesday.  New Years Eve.  After I posted my end of year post and year in review post I shut my computer down because of the incoming storm and went and did some dotz for a while. At dinner time we headed over to Annie's for nibbles and drinks. Lovely catchup.

Left maybe around 22:30 because some of them were headed to Melbourne in the morning. We put on The Fifth Element to keep us awake til midnight then watched the Sydney fireworks.

Just beforehand they had Mel C and I'm like .. what .. two years in a row of having British acts before the Sydney fireworks!? (last year was Robbie Williams) Weird. Then we watched rage for an hour. Whoops.

wtf.. Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy.. Whatzupwitu .. ????  Never heard of it.. pretty much as mindblowingly random as German Bold Italic by Kylie Minogue!

Thursday.  New Years Day!!  Slept okish all things considered, even slept til about 8:00. Cooked up some cheesy hash browns for breakfast, with added freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Went and climbed Mt Rogers in an attempt to pretend to be healthy.

Saw *two* of these epic caterpillars!

Then just Lego and dotz.

I did pick up a few jigsaws from Jo. Whoops.

After prepping dinner I looked at my todo list. And got completely overwhelmed. Hrmmm. Cooked up a tuna bake and a bunch of veggies for dinner then we watched the end of season 5 of Stranger Things.

Friday.  Slept relatively well. Logged onto work for a bit to be NEIL. Then wandered off again. Did some gardening - potted a ribbon grass and trimmed the ferns. Late morning we headed out to do some shopping. The mall was feral. Officeworks parking was feral. Idiots breaking road rules were feral. Had lunch at Grease Monkey.

I'd been wanting to get some silicone baking mats for a while because we go through a *lot* of baking paper.  How cool are these? They have measurements and circles for making circular things (and another one has cookie circles you can use)

In the afternoon made some Lego and did some dotz. Dinner was a mouthful of ice cream and later some cheese and crackers. Yeah we were still full from lunch. Then we watched the end of 2023 Beyond Paradise Christmas special which was nice. Tried for an early night. Failed.

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok. Frustrating morning rescanning Mum's slides - every time I rescanned some slides there would be fluff in different positions. So annoying. Dotz, Lego, jigsaw. Finished the leftover turkey for dinner then watched the new Knives Out (Wake Up Dead Man) which was a bit of fun. Oh, one night, maybe Friday, we finished watching The Fifth Element.

Sunday.  Slightly early night and got to sleep ok, then woke up a bit before 23:00 with the storm. Then stayed awake. For HOURS. Sigh. Zombie tired day. Finished rescanning Mum's slides. A storm went through in the morning but just missed us (got like three drops of rain).

Let's see if I can give myself food poisioning by eating this week and a bit old parmi and chips.. spoiler alert.. didn't get sick!

Finished building Vic's City sets. Finished a jigsaw. So lots of finishing things today which was good for the last day of the break. We had a life planning meeting this afternoon. Then I got overwhelmed again thinking about my project list. Sigh.

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

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

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

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

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

Denis Walter..

Tim Campbell and Paulini..

Hallelujah chorus..

Casey Donovan..

Silvie Paladino..

Marina Prior singing Angels We Have Heard on High..

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

Uncle Doug Heywood..

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

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

There may have been a little bit of leftovers..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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