Sunday.  24th.  Cooked up some fish that Stu bought with a creamy lemon sauce, with some leftover veggies and some frozen veggies.

I've also been eating some lime jelly that I made up with some half price jelly from Chris's.

DS9 6.10.  We might have had a craving for coconut cake.  It would have taken nearly an hour to do it in the oven, so we tried David's method of doing it in the microwave.  It was ok, but hard in places and soggy in others.  Do not recommend.

Very tired.

Monday.  Slept okish maybe. Still feeling blah. I'm kinda over this crap. Another couple of days of blah for this cycle then only one to go at least.

Put on some brisket at lunch and roasted a bunch of veggies (cauliflower bake and brussels sprouts) and some garlic bread because I can actually still taste garlic.

DS9 6.11 then continued watching Anti-Chef from the beginning (up to video 10).

Also. A red-back spider took up residence in our letter box WTF?? All the nope. Normally I will evict spiders but this one didn't want to be caught and there's no way I'm going to keep sticking my hand in a letterbox with a venomous spider there. So she got spray-and-wiped.  Sorry.

Tuesday.  Felt somewhat better today. Back to DC migration stuff and helping Neil cut over to new mail servers. Cooked up the rest of the fish with some leftover veggies for dinner then DS9 6.12. More Ferengi dumbness.

Wednesday.  Felt normal enough to have food for breakfast today (in the first week I don't feel like much, usually will just have some milk). Spent way too long looking at a login problem that we should have been able to figure out and fix earlier hrmmm.

Stumpy gave me "the look" at one point today - the look that says, aight I'm done with my winter fast, give me food.  

Europe photo labelling and Jamie Anti-Chef watching. Leftover brisket and veggies for dinner then DS9 6.13 which was kinda fun seeing what everyone looks like normally.

Thursday.  Woke up at like 2:30 for ages. Continuing to feel a bit better. Bit of DC work and dealing with crap.

Managed to label a day of photos. Pizzas for dinner (must be Thursday!)

Then DS9 6.14 which reminded me of the old Lost in Space episode where they go inside the giant robot (Trip Through the Robot - I only ever saw a couple of episodes of this show like ever, but happened to see that one twice).

Friday.  Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.  I remember having to learn that once when I was younger.  

Slept a little better. Got a bunch of my DC work done but also a bunch of XL's work and dealing with crap. Just missed getting hailed on getting supplies from Chris's.

Had a fake beer. Just doesn't cut it. Kievs for dinner then DS9 6.15. 

Went over to see Annie and the family after dinner so that was a nice catchup.  Mila was in town too which was nice.

Saturday.  Slept okish. Bit of Lego. Also got my brand-new-second-hand saxomaphone back all clean and shiny. So it seems low D/C notes are super tricky on a saxophone. But higher notes are a lot easier.

Leftover brisket for dinner then DS9 6.16 and Tokyo Trial episode 2.

Sunday.  Woke up at one point needing to pee, then didn't get back to sleep for ages. Mostly a Lego and photo and baking day.

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

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

Monday.  

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

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

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

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

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

There was a nice sunrise on Friday

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

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

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

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

And there may have been kievs and cauliflower bake for dinner

Saturday.  

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

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

I had mulled wine by the fire.

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

I also made up the pavlovas and took them up

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

Sunday.  29th.  Dinner was leftovers I brought home from the club. DS9 4.18 then Lego Masters 7.9.

Monday.  Early night, but took ages to get to sleep then woke up at like 3:30 for ages. Did eventually get a bit more sleep but not much.

Spent the day staring at the rules in a dev environment that are a mishmash of several versions of things including imports of prod. It's a complete mess. I've been wanting to clean it up for literally seven years and finally had a good excuse because I need to do it to prep for a project that will require us to actually do real work in there (and I can't see anything in there at the moment). Andor 2.10 then Lego Masters 7.10 (semi final - a Harry Potter build which was a heap of fun!).

Tuesday. 

Acts 2:21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved... Originally from Joel 2:28-32. After the apostles receive the Holy Spirit.  Just a reminder.

Slept mostly ok. Definitely had energy this morning more so than other mornings recently. Had my morning routine done by like 7:40 instead of after 8. Not quite the whole day cleaning up dev (too many people wanting things) but I did delete nearly 1360 policies that weren't in use - winning!!

It was perfect soup weather on Tuesday

Cooked a tuna bake (forgot the dill) with brussels sprouts and broccolini for dinner.

Andor 2.11. The second half of this series has definitely picked up quite a bit, I'm enjoying it a lot more. Then it was sorting out Mum's photos, removing some duplicates and getting a "definitive" version for picking later.

Wednesday.  

Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out .. after God heals a lame man through Peter, and Peter is telling the onlookers about Jesus.  What he said.

Slept mostly ok. Deleted more crap today. Went into the city after work to get a filter for a new lens I'm hoping to get because Ted's said it wouldn't be available til like September. Turns out it was the lens not available not the filter.. which makes more sense but FFS now I have two filters and no lens. Sigh.

Leftovers for dinner. Andor 2.12 (season finale) then Lego Grand Masters of the Galaxy 7.11 (season finale). **spoilers** .. I reckon Trent and Alex's build was totally win-worthy, but obviously Brickman preferred the art of Henry and Cade's.

Thursday.  Slept okish. More deleting crap and tidying and documenting what's left in the dev environment I'm working on.

Good Games vending machine!! 

Good drinks although not many people. Pizzas then DS9 4.19 then the Bomb and the Cold War episode 8. Before it started I was telling Stu that I'd really like to watch a documentary on some thing I was thinking about.. but we started watching the show and forgot about it. And then for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was that we were talking about. And neither could Stu. All we could remember was it was some engineering thing, because I remember telling him that I liked engineering stuff like dams, bridges and towers, but I never could have been an engineer cause I'm dumb and no good at advanced maths. Oh well.

Friday.  

Acts 4:12 - Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved .. Peter talking about Jesus to the High Priest, elders and the teachers of the law in Jerusalem after he was arrested for talking about the resurrection.

Slept relatively ok. Did a bit of tidying/documenting but not as much as I'd have liked. Found this video by Kurzgesagt quite depressing.  Chris didn't have Kievs so we had some chicken pieces but they were a bit too spicy for me. I did make a nice dipping sauce of yoghurt, garlic powder, lemon juice and dill though.

Death in Paradise 14.7 then Flying High because I needed something light.

Saturday.  Awake from like 1:30 til after 5 or so. Stressing about All The Things. Hurray. Surprisingly unzombielike though. Mostly Lego filing all day. Annie came over for a while in the afternoon which was nice and she brought some nice peanut butter and choc chip cookies she made. Dumpling Inn for dinner then we watched Rogue One, which worked well after just finishing Andor.

Sunday. 

Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.... oof yeah that doesn't happen much anymore!

Slept through til ~4 before waking up and never getting back to sleep. Stressing about All The Things. Got some stuff done during the day but not nearly enough.

Food shopping in the afternoon.

Sunday.  8th.  Leftovers for dinner.  Had to endure DS9 4.8 Too much of DS9 is like this, just something to be endured. Didn't feel like doing anything after. 19:30 is bed time right?

Monday.  Awake from like 1-4 or something silly. Ridiculous. Had a quite productive day though, alternating between house stuff, photo stuff, computer stuff and I finished a jigsaw. Leftovers for dinner then watched DS9 4.9. Somewhat better episode, if a bit silly. Did some Mum photo picking after dinner.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok. Was both XL and NEIL at work, but also had time to figure out a PowerShell problem and get my pretty report working. Leftovers for dinner then DS9 4.10. Then culling of Salzburg photos from 2016. I really do need to make an "ultimate" Sound of Music location guide one day. It'd have more on it than literally anyone else.

The mini capsicum is hanging in there even in the sub-zero temperatures overnight!

Wednesday.  Took a while to get to sleep but then slept mostly okish. Another day of tickets and scripting and not too much BS, which always makes for a pleasant work day. Also played with Copilot to get it to tell me what some regex did, and write me a regex for something else I wanted to do - and it actually worked!! It was actually pretty amazing.  Kievs and chippies for dinner because the sweetie wanted comfort food so had that instead of leftovers.

DS9 4.11 and a bit of Salzburg culling, but mostly getting distracted by Sound of Music locations.

Thursday.  When I first did my Pixie it was quite warm.  This past week has been sub-zero in the mornings..

Slept okish I think. Just tickets mostly at work. Good drinks - several groups came which was good. Pizzas and DS9 4.12.

Friday the 13th!!  Awake for hours on and off *sigh*. But did turn the heater off in the hopes we'd be able to turn it on again in the morning - and we could! Winning!! Tickets and scripting day, quite nice. Did more playing with Copilot - gave it a problem and got it to solve the PowerShell for me. Pretty awesome. Lunch with the Chrises and Tony at the Burns Club (not that one, the other one!) which was nice.

Dinner was a blue cheese cabbage bake and brussels sprouts with some pulled pork I dug out of the freezer.

DS9 4.13 then new Lego Masters!!! Lego Grand Masters of the Galaxy!

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.

Ok morning, but not really super productive. In the afternoon we ran a couple of errands then went to the Handmade Markets at EPIC. Had to get potato on a stick of course, and TRBC was there too!  (the food hall was more fun for me than the hand-made stuff)

Potato on a stick!

Tempura mushrooms

Musk stick, and lemon meringue pie

New Ginja Ninja!!

Dropped into the Green Shed, sorry Vinnies, sorry Goodies Junction on the way home. 

Sunbow?

Leftovers for dinner then we watched The Holdovers, which was quite a nice movie.

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok. Quiet day, bit of house stuff, some jigsaws.  It was cold and wet and miserable, nice day to stay indoors.

Last weekend was the ABC Classic 100 Piano.

When this first came up a while back I listed the first things that popped into my head.  All but one of them were listed:

Rhapsody in Blue - yes
Jessica's Theme (Man from Snowy River) - yes
Ice Castles soundtrack - no (this has a nice piano opening but not sure it's really a piano piece anyway)
Pride and Prejudice soundtrack - yes
The Entertainer - yes

They had a few novelty pieces too - Chopsticks and "Heart and soul" as well.. I never even knew it was called that.

In the end these were my votes and their places.  I wasn't really expecting the Shostakovich to get up, but I do like that piece from Fantasia 2000.

4 Rhapsody in Blue -- Gershwin, George
  (robbed!!!! this should have been number one!!)
18 The Man from Snowy River (incl. Jessica's Theme) -- Rowland, Bruce
22 Le Carnaval des animaux (The Carnival of the Animals, incl. The Swan) -- Saint-Saëns, Camille
25 The Entertainer -- Joplin, Scott
28 Pride & Prejudice Soundtrack (1995 TV) -- Davis, Carl
30 Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV565 -- Bach, Johann Sebastian
32 Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K331 'Rondo alla Turca' -- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
46 Up Soundtrack -- Giacchino, Michael
78 Lyric Pieces (incl. Wedding Day at Troldhaugen) -- Grieg, Edvard
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102 -- Shostakovich, Dmitri

I actually listened to every piece they had open for voting.  Because most pieces I literally have no idea what they're called.  I pretty much added anything I'd ever heard of to my short list, then whittled them down from there.

Aside from the finals above, these were my maybes and their positions.  I did consider 4'33" too haha

17 Bagatelle in A minor, WoO59 'Für Elise' - Beethoven, Ludwig van
35 Flight of the Bumblebee - Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai (arr. Rachmaninov)
67 Forrest Gump Soundtrack - Silvestri, Alan
75 My Neighbour Totoro - Hisaishi, Joe
Chopsticks - Allen, Euphemia
  (just for the novelty factor)
Heart and Soul - Carmichael, Hoagy
  (again for the novelty factor)
Minuet No. 1 in G major - Petzold, Christian (formerly attributed to JS Bach)
Waltzing Matilda - Traditional (Australian) arr. Cowan, Marie

And these were my probably nots and their positions:

1 Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 'Emperor' - Beethoven, Ludwig van
2 Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 'Moonlight' - Beethoven, Ludwig van
7 Gymnopédies - Satie, Erik
8 Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 - Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
  (this was the onlyTchaikovsky)
9 Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 - Rachmaninov, Sergei
10 Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K467 'Elvira Madigan' - Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
12 Variations on 'Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman', K265 (aka Twinkle Twinkle - Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
15 Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring - Bach, Johann Sebastian
19 The Piano Soundtrack (incl. The Heart Asks Pleasure First) - Nyman, Michael
21 Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 - Rachmaninov, Sergei
26 Howl's Moving Castle Soundtrack (incl. Merry-Go-Round of Life) - Hisaishi, Joe
29 I giorni - Einaudi, Ludovico
34 Peer Gynt, Op. 23 (incl. Morning Mood) - Grieg, Edvard
  (this might have gone into my maybes if I'd realised this was also Into the hall of the mountain king)
37 Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence - Sakamoto, Ryuichi
41 Spirited Away (incl. One Summer's Day) - Hisaishi, Joe
42 Pictures at an Exhibition - Mussorgsky, Modest
61 The Pink Panther - Mancini, Henry
71 Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K545 'Sonata facile' - Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
74 Maple Leaf Rag - Joplin, Scott
85 American Beauty Soundtrack - Newman, Thomas
89 Waltzes (incl. 'Minute') - Chopin, Frédéric
Je te veux - Satie, Erik
Rondo a Capriccio in G major, Op. 129 'Rage over a Lost Penny' - Beethoven, Ludwig van

So most of the stuff I might have voted for got up.  Guess that says something about "popular" music.  ie, crap that people have actually heard of got voted for haha.

A fun weekend!

Had to go to an appointment on Friday, and on the way home we went up to the Mount Stromlo Leisure Centre so Stu could check out the place.  And also saw the Big Crane.

They have a "viewing area" setup out the back of Whitlam, although the view isn't as good there as it is further back.  They do have some info boards though.

Ended up going back to the better spot, and walked down closer to it

Fun stuff!

Monday.  21st.  Did I mention I'm doing low carb again for another few weeks? Except the day got off to a rocky start because I'd forgotten about an apple that needed eating. There goes my carb limit for the day.. whoops. The sweetie prepped a cauliflower bake and brussels sprouts for dinner and I chucked a chunk of beef in to go with it. I got my blogging done quite early. Funny how writing up notes properly during the week makes blogging a lot quicker on a Sunday.. or Monday in this case. DS9 2.24.

Tuesday.  Awake from Dentist Time for hours and only broken sleep after that. Sigh. NEIL at work, as well as trying to figure out the API of our IP management system to help someone with something. Leftovers for dinner, DS9 2.25. After dinner started going through Dad's photos (from when he switched from slides to prints and onwards) to get photos of Mum. Annoyingly Dad had a really bad habit of over-enhancing his photos. At least with the prints I can go back and rescan them, but for digital photos once they're enhanced at all they're destroyed because he didn't keep the originals. Which is odd in itself because he used to make backups upon backups upon backups, just not of the original unaltered files. #grunt.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok. Really wanted to get through some decom prep but the interruptions Would. Not. Stop. All. Day. So damned hard to concentrate with Teams and Outlook popping up every five seconds. Seriously considering turning all notifications off. The sweetie cooked creamy mushroom chicken for dinner which was very nice.

DS9 2.26. Then more photo picking. From 2010 and some of 2011 Dad saved the raw camera photos off separately to the enhanced photos. That was nice of him. Maybe there were other copies of the rest of his digital camera photos elsewhere that either he or I lost. More likely him. I spent an entire week one Christmas trying to sort it all out, and would definitely have kept any raw photos if I'd found them. Knowing him he probably made several backups, thought he had a backup, didn't in fact have a backup, and deleted the original. Or maybe he just never thought he'd need his originals. Silly Dad.

Thursday.  Slept okish until about 5:00. Mostly decom work at work. Bar 59 for drinks which was quite pleasant, although a lot more expensive than work drinks! Made pizzas then DS9 3.1.

Friday.  Anzac Day.  Lest we forget.  Awake from 1:45 for hours sigh.

House stuff mostly in the morning. Happy that Stumpy is basking more and is more enthusiastic about food.  Did some camera testing in the afternoon. Only to realise later I had it on the wrong mode. Sigh.

I need to find a spot to plant out these chrysanthemums.  I accidentally uprooted one of the ones out the front the other month and chucked it in a pot out the back.  They're now happily flowering while the ones out the front are barely hanging on to life.  These things like a lot of sun but our garden is completely hopeless so not sure where I can put them.  

Kievs for dinner.  With half a cauliflower and most of a capsicum.

DS9 3.2. Then watched Blackberry which made us both a little nostalgic. Also, it's Anzac Day but I've only worn a jumper like twice all year. Usually by now there would have been days where we'd be wanting to put the heater on in advance of the Anzac Day allowed starting date. Instead I had a window open in my room to cool it down so I could sleep.  hrmmm.

Saturday.  Slept mostly okish.

Cooked cheese kranskis and miso scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Although Stu just had eggs because he needed to only eat soft food to not break his temporary tooth crown again.

Started a jigsaw. Went for a several hour drive with the sweetie, checking out previous houses, family houses, the church we got married in etc. Was a lovely way to spend a few hours with the sweetie (and we drove like 70km!). 

Made a small share platter for lunch (although I did get hungry later)

Finished the jigsaw. Got Chong Co delivered for dinner (after the MenuLog driver finally turned up) and watched DS9 3.3, then The Princess Bride :)

Sunday.  Awake from ~3:30 and never got back to sleep. Sigh.  They promised many millimetres of rain.  We got about three drops.

Went and saw Constellations at the NFSA with Tony which was a bit of fun. House stuff mostly for the rest of the day, and some food shopping.

When you realise you have 15 different cheeses in the fridge.. whoops...

Filled with rage in the afternoon at Optus who FORCE you to use international roaming because there's no way to disable it. Their only workaround is leave the phone on flight mode and use wifi. WTF??? I think I did read somewhere that if you have a second sim you can disable the Optus one. Which would work unless I needed to receive an SMS for two factor for anything. But there's a heap of horror stories out there from people getting charged the $5/day even when the sim wasn't even in the phone!!!

Hi.

Sunday.  13th.  Apple cider pulled pork and lots of veggies for dinner. I didn't measure out the apple cider vinegar this time so it was a little tangier than last time, and I also added less water in the gravy which made it a lot quicker to cook. Yum yum yum. DS9 2.18. Then watched the start of a new season (for me) of Air Crash Investigations. First time I'd watched any since 2021!!

Monday.  Slept mostly ok. Busy morning before work, busy day at work. The new version of Outlook sux donkeyballs. They shrunk down the ribbon so my quicksteps are now hidden behind a drop down menu. So now my quicksteps take twice as long because I have to click the drop down then click my action. And no way to customise it. They broke the categories/colours on our shared calendar so everything is grey and I can't create a new category to match the common ones. And every time I move a mail to a folder it pops up a stoopidly annoying "You've moved a mail, Undo" message RIGHT OVER THE NEXT MAIL I WANT TO READ. Microsoft is so trash. Ok got my ribbon and action buttons back by choosing Classic Ribbon. Leftovers for dinner, DS9 2.19. OMFG this is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!!!! Don't even know what I did with my evening. I know there was some looking at optional tours for the Greece cruise. The extra tours practically double the day cost of the cruise. hrmmm.

The second half of the ramen pack, with leftover pulled pork

Tuesday.  Took *ages* to get to sleep :( The Old Reader's CDNs are working again today hurray (they'd been broken for a few days). Found another bug in new Outlook. I only have one mail rule. It wasn't working. When I went to look at it I got the error "This rule can't be edited or viewed in Outlook for Windows". Found this page which said it was to do with the "mark as read" rule. So I turned that off in Classic, sure enough it can now be edited in 365.  Nearly had a meltdown over how much time I've wasted on Microsoft TRASH. Another "feature" is they've turned off the nice little count down the bottom which shows you how many messages you have in a folder. Ok at least you can see, but you have to hover over the folder to see it. Meeting notifications are dumb. Old version you could just hit snooze and it would automatically popup again at the five minute mark, hit snooze again and it would pop up at meeting start time. New version you have to hover, then click on snooze, then click a time to snooze. And even then it doesn't work properly, repeating notifications. Also whenever I even look away from Outlook, it navigates me to the top of my inbox, which are my oldest messages. So I'm constantly having to scroll all the way down to the bottom to see my newest messages. Went to get a Covid vaccine at lunch (been like eighteen months since I got my last one). Also spent a 50th birthday gift card. I probably should have looked around more for some cool games or something, but ended up just buying a couple of jigsaws. The sweetie cooked cabbage and bacon for dinner. DS9 2.20.

Wednesday.  Took quite a while to get to sleep and still woke up before 6. First meltdown of the day - the barrel fell out of my locker again at work, but no Connor around today to help me fix it. Took like ten minutes to get it back in. Second meltdown of the day - losing my mind over some proxy configs - turned out Wardie did a sneaky add and remove of a policy which confused me no end. All the middle of a MICROSOFT problem on the proxies that we spent literally all day on, and still haven't resolved. Microsoft is utter TRASH. Third meltdown of the day - YELLOW LIGHTS. I did have a nice birthday lunch with DC though. DS9 2.21.

Thursday.  Slept mostly okish. More trash today. Gave up and went back to Outlook Classic, which made me feel a whole lot better. Microsoft is almost entirely responsible for my very strong desire to retire early.  Super quiet drinks, just our group. Pizzas, DS9 2.22.

Good Friday.  Not so great for Jesus back in the day.  Slept mostly okish. Went for a walk then mostly holiday planning. Tuna bake and veggies for dinner. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Saturday.  Slept mostly okish. Went for a walk then mostly holiday planning. Finished my galah Diamond Dotz and did one of my birthday jigsaws. Steak and salad for dinner. DS9 2.23, then Death in Paradise 14.6.

Easter Sunday.  Christ has risen.  So did the sun in a nice way.

Slept mostly okish. Went for a walk. On the way back a group of kids (and parents) were out in their pyjamas doing an Easter egg hunt around one of the playgrounds. Funny.  Mostly house stuff in the morning. Mostly holiday stuff in the afternoon. Leftovers for dinner then Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Monday.  Somewhat restless sleep and thermoregulation issues. Another quiet day - bit of house stuff, bit of holiday stuff, food shopping (which was super quiet which was nice).

I really could get used to four day weekends....

Sunday.  30th.  Had Jenn over for dinner, wherein we cooked up a huge vegetarian feast.  Stu cooked his miso mushrooms.  I did a potato bake, a blue cheese broccoli/cauliflower/onion bake and brussels sprouts with hazelnuts.

We debated how long it had been since we saw Jenn last.  I looked up my blog and said April 2023, which seemed way too long, but I do remember taking a photo of her hair, and the date on that was April 2023, which pretty much confirms it.  We're such slackers at keeping up with people.  Watched DS9 2.7 after Jenn left.

Monday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  Got to hand back over the NEIL job back to Neil hurray!!!  Leftovers for dinner then DS9 2.8.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep #grunt.  Did a bunch of analysis of some catchall rules so I can put in some more specific ones so we can get rid of the catchall.  

I tried feeding Stumpy today.  He's still being lethargic and not basking, but he did eat a blueberry and some food which was good.

I'm always suprised how quickly the COLD hits in Canberra.  It'll be 30C for days on end, and suddenly it's 5C overnight and leaving the windows open makes for a very cold house.  Decided April 1 should be close up all the windows day (several are left permanently locked open over summer).  In the afternoon I was cold and hungry so had a cup of tea in our fancy Cunard tea cups.

Luv-a-duck for dinner which was very nice.  All. The. Garlic.  !!

DS9 2.9.  After dinner was watching a video Dave2 linked to on living without a smartphone.  Yeah I literally can't even remember how friends and I would meet up without being able to text each other updates or issues.  Like what if a train was late, how would you tell who you were meeting?  Navigation is another big thing.  Nowadays I can turn up anywhere and use GPS on my phone to navigate (except that one time in Switzerland when I had to pay more for a car with satnav because the esim I got didn't work in Switzerland).  I can't even imagine the paperwork you'd need to cart around to try and do the same thing with maps.  Don't get me wrong, I love maps, and I like navigating, but they're damned heavy and more often than not I'm doing the driving not the navigating, and I can't imagine Mum would have much luck navigating me around European cities.  Having said that, we did manage to navigate our way around the USA and Canada in 1983 and 2004 before phones.  But for the most part we stayed out of big cities.  And the USA is literally designed for road tripping.  Signage is way way better there than in Australia or Europe.

Wednesday.  Second night in a row dreaming about toilets.  I have this bizarre thing where I stress about finding a clean/usable toilet.  And not even when I need to actually pee in the middle of the night, it's just this weird obsession I have.  Bizarre.  

Somewhat busy day.  Late home.  Stu had had a day so we got KFC hmmm.  DS9 2.10.  

OneNote is trying to force me to upgrade to Office 365.  It's already upgraded itself from the old Technet version I've been using for years AGAINST MY WILL I might add (apparently there's a way to turn off automatic updates so I might try reinstalling it and do that).  So now it says I have 90 days of free usage.  Well I can tell you that there is no way in HELL I'm going to pay to use it.  I will NEVER get an Office 365 subscription.  I'll rip everything out of it and use LibreOffice and Notepad if it comes down to it.  Which is a shame, because OneNote is actually quite a good product.  I like how it keeps different groupings of notes together and you can easily password protect sections.

Thursday.  Late getting to sleep, then awake from 5:30 sigh.  Went out to put a few things in the recycling bin before it got collected, only to find two big bags of RUBBISH in it!?!  WTF!?!  I pulled them out and raged for a while.  Messaged the neighbours but didn't get a response.  In the end put out our bin (which only had one bag of rubbish in it so wasn't worth putting out) and put their rubbish in it.  As we were leaving for work neighbour's Dad was out there and I asked him and he said he did it.  Sigh.  Simon was sick at drinks so if I get sick early next week we'll know why.  Pizzas for dinner then DS9 2.11.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok.  Busy day - put in a heap of those firewall rules which took me all afternoon to do.  Kievs and veggies for dinner then DS9 2.12.

Saturday.  Awake from like maybe 1 til 4.  Sigh.  Zombie day.  Spent a chunk of the day photo picking from "other peoples photos" and trying to sort out what backups I have of Mum's computer. I'm definitely missing a few years worth from 2015-2017 where I just haven't had the time during visits to get it all copied. Debating a trip to Sydney to do that, as well as sort out the mess they made when they built her a new computer and didn't transfer all the files. Luckily she has all the photos (I hope!) on an external hard drive that has a snapshot backup I made her do some years back. In the evening we went to Bar 59 for an "antiball" but it was a bit of a fizzer really. People forgot or double booked or just didn't turn up, so there was only seven of us there in the end. I tried a few cocktails just for a bit of fun. So it was nice enough night, but dunno if I could be bothered trying to organise another one. Neil very kindly gave us a lift home.

Sunday.  Awake for maybe an hour or so in the middle of the night - from 2:27, but the new 2:27, so didn't get to watch the clock go from 2:59 to 2:00. Still pretty tired though. Finally managed to setup SMTP on my iPhone using CloudLoop. Optus is flaky as hell for sending SMTP mail through, plus I get SPF softfails with them because I don't have their mail servers in my SPF records. Did a bit of house stuff, and started thinking about some holiday stuff. Tried again to add my Qantas frequent flier number to my Emirates flights, but I kept getting the error:

Warning:
Sorry, we`re unable to save the changes. Please check all the information and try again.

So I tried their online chat. It was quick and they just did it for me. Unexpectedly quick and painless! Not that I know why I bother really - Qantas expire all my points before I can use them. Then did some other holiday planning.

The Windows 11 Explorer trash is really pissing me off.  I have an in tray where I have all the photos that I post to this blog.  I update it every week when I'm processing my photos, and when I've posted them they get moved to Done.  I sort this folder by date (in reverse to what windows likes to set it to) so that when I'm blogging them I can see and post the photos in order.  Every time my computer reboots this setting is lost.  I have to go Sort By -> Date (twice to get it in the right order) not just in Explorer, but in Chrome as well.  Every damned time.  But lately it's gotten worse.   Tonight I did an experiment.  I had the folder set the way I wanted it, and copied the path to clipboard.  I closed explorer on this desktop.  Opened up again and pasted the path.  Folder view was reset to default.  So did it again, this time by navigating manually to the folder.  In this method the folder view is retained.  And it's repeatable. 

I also epic hate how Explorer collapses all explorer folders that you've had expanded whenever you insert or eject removable media.  Like WHYYYYYYYY????

I hate Windoze SO MUCH!!

And suddenly the weekend is over. hrmmm.

Sunday.  23rd.  Leftover chicken feast for dinner.  DS9 2.1.  Recopied all the MOVs I have on my phone with Windows.  

Monday.  Early night, slept ok.  NEIL again - did a bunch of rearranging of mail routes and holding areas to make my life easier.  Salmon and salad for dinner, with a creamy lemon dill dressing, although it was very runny because it was cream - next time I'll use yoghurt.

DS9 2.2.  I reckon Frank Langella totally looks like Christopher Lee.  Google that crap, I'm not the only one that thinks so!  Finished culling/adjusting/resizing Adelaide photos.  All the photos taken on my new camera are a bit .. muddy ..  Will have to check the settings and see what other options there are.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Noticed that Windoze 11 brought back the ability to right click on a directory in the left pane of Explorer and choose New -> Folder (previously you had to right click then Show More Options -> New -> Folder)..  That had been pissing me off since day one of using Windoze 11, so that was nice.  NEIL again at work, doing more policies for sorting mail.  Steak and salad for dinner with creamy garlic mushrooms.

Once again I managed to cook it nicely.  I may convince Stu to like steak after all haha.  DS9 2.3. Talked to the mother type person.  She's doing better, and said they pulled up the security video which showed her fall (she fell right at the entrance to her retirement village) and you could see that it was in fact just simply tripping over a raised bit of concrete, not a blackout, so that was a huge relief!  Mum photo picking - from all the weddings we've been to, so that was a bit of fun, lots of looking through photos of our wedding too.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok. Windoze 11 has recently started randomly moving windows off to my other screen overnight.  So I'll turn on my right screen in the morning only to find some of my windows aren't there anymore, they've been shoved off to my secondary monitor on the left.  Why is windoze 11 so TRASH?? WHY WHY WHY????  Less time having to be NEIL with my policies in place - less time picking through big mail queues.  Dealing with other crap instead heh.  Leftover lemon pepper dill chicken for dinner.  DS9 2.4.  Mum emailed through a video taken on a phone of the security video and yeah you can clearly see her trip rather than pass out.

Thursday.  Went to bed at 22:00.  Went to sleep at 01:00.  Sigh.  NEIL again for the day.  They're threatening to go back to managed desktops at work, which will be a massive pain in the @$$ because in order to use my own computer (you know, to actually work productively with a proper keyboard and two large screens) I'll need a dock or kvm just to use my own computer.  So dumb.  Ok drinks, although bartender was late so we were wondering if the bar would even open at all.  This cockatoo was hanging around behaving rather strangely.  I went over and it was quite tame (even let me hand feed it).  Wonder if it was someone's escaped pet.  

Pizzas then DS9 2.5.

Friday.  Early night and slept well hurray.  NEIL again, hopefully the last day for a while!! 

Had this miso ramen for lunch - $5.80 for two servings from Daiso.  Wasn't too bad.  Needed some pork belly though!

Kievs for dinner.

DS9 2.6 then Death in Paradise 14.4 - another ridiculous episode.

Saturday.  I knew that because I slept well on Thursday night I'd sleep badly on Friday.  Sure enough, awake from ~1:30 to ~4:30 sigh.  Zombie morning, pretty much a complete writeoff.  Tried to pay tax (last time I tried the site was down for maintenance).  Why do they make it so damned HARD??  Why can't they make it like utilities where you get a nice clear bill and details to pay.  Tax you're *lucky* to get a cryptic "You have mail in mygov" email (or in my case, the first you hear about it is an sms that it's overddue).  Then when you login it's still not even clear what you're paying.  Like is this PAYG for this quarter? Next quarter? What?  Just make it EASY FFS!!  But.  All the rain today!  Hurray!  Blogged my recent trip to Adelaide.  The new light I got for the two foot tank looked rather.. dim.. and flickery.  I tried replacing the starter (of course I opened up the wrong end first didn't I??) but no luck.  Tried another bulb, it seemed ok, and tried the bulb in another fitting, still dim.  #grunt.  Windoze 11 Notepad sux.  If the file you have open is too big (like maybe a couple of hundred KB) it will literally just skip entering keys you've typed.  So you have to back and keep reentering them.  So dumb. Most likely it's all the spell checking and autocorrection crap.  I'm still on the fence whether to give up on it and go back to classic Notepad.  I do like the state saving - you can reboot and not lose anything you have open.  Handy when Windoze REBOOTS AGAINST YOUR WILL whenever it feels like it.  Sausages and salad for dinner then watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Even though we put it on at dinner time it still finished after 21:00. hrmmm.

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Definitely had a lot more energy today.  Although mostly just house stuff, food shopping, returned the fish tank light and got a new one which seems better, cleaning etc.

We're worried Stumpy is dying.  He's not been himself the past couple of weeks.  Lethargic and not basking. hrmmmm.  He is around 18 years old though, and typical age for a blue tongue in captivity is 15-20 years.....