After seeing all the dead pixels in my (Dad's) old 600D thought it was time for a new one.  The new one has a dead pixel right in the middle.  But we won't talk about that.

The first photo I took on it I didn't even realise I had taken it.  It's fast and silent!

Second shot was of the sweetie of course.  Quite soft though

Obligatory Lego shot

I think at this point I'd set the date wrong on the camera so fixed that.  We won't mention that the time was actually 12 hours out as well. 

Not bad at fish photos, with a fair bit of zoom

A couple of shots of the sweetie later on - super shallow depth of field here, I'm wondering if that's cause it focussed on him being a human

Next up the true test - under the house with almost no light.  It did really well here - quite bright - a lot brighter than it looks in real life!

Went outside and took a bunch of photos of flowers which turned out quite well

Had a play with the "art" filters.  Yeah nah, none of them are any good.

A closeup of a fish - not bad

I went back downstairs to try out more options.  I tried the "hand held night scene" which supposedly takes like three photos and stacks them.  But this turned out all fuzzy.  The simple single shot (below) worked better.

This was using the "food" filter which is supposed to make things look more vibrant.  I guess it did maybe?

The next day took it to Annie's and got a nice, fairly candid, shot of her

And then the real test - comet photos!

If you can get past all of Elon's space junk cluttering up the sky #grunt

One without satellites

Thanks Elon

Thanks Elon.  This shot has TEN satellites ruining it!! (hard to see resized)

Thanks Elon

I did get a nice shot of Orion.  Well one, the others were ruined by Elon's space junk

A couple of weeks later took some more photos of the fish

And other random stuff around the house

Fern closeup

Did I mention the super shallow depth of field, even with only a modest zoom?

When I took it to Adelaide the other weekend, all of my photos on it were rather dull and lifeless compared to my phone photos.  

Like.. compare the pair..

 

Seriously WTF??

Hoping it's just a setting somewhere.. will have to do some more playing.

I'm also frustrated with the lack of zoom.  And I knew I was going to be.  I stand by my opinion of many years ago.. L series lenses are like twice the cost, but they're not twice as good.  Things are still soft at raw pixels..

I miss the old 18-135mm lens I had (~24-200 equivalent with crop).  I only get half that now. Sigh.

Yeup.

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.....

Sunday.  9th.  Got home from the coast and spent some time doing Dotz, then closing off browser tabs.  I really feel like I need to spend less time on the computer/internet/phone... hrmmmm.  Downloaded photos from the week and blogged the last two weeks and some of the coast weekend.  Leftover mince with cauliflower rice and cheese for dinner.  Death in Paradise 14.1.  Somehow managed to lose a BRAND NEW HAIR TIE!!!  Had a slight meltdown because I'd been out of sorts all day, and this just sent me over the edge.  

Monday.  Went to bed early (like 20:30) but woke up at 12:45 and stayed awake for HOURS.  Sigh.  So not transfunctionating during the day.  Mostly just did house stuff during the day, which all took a lot longer than normal because I wasn't transfunctionating.  Finally finally got a bit of rain around 18:00 (even the weeds are dying at the moment!!).  Need to bribe the little brother into visiting before daylight savings finishes so I can see what I'm cooking.  Had lamb chops from Chris's and cabbage for dinner.  I never used to like lamb chops growing up because they were just too damned fiddly with all the fat and bones.  After forty years (and almost never having eaten them in the meantime) I have to say my opinion hasn't changed much.  Sure they're tasty, but just too annoying.

Tried to watch Stranger Things but nothing would connect to the Chromecast, even after rebooting it, the wifi and Stu's phone.  Did a bit of a Google and found everyone on the internet complaining about it.  Enshittification much??  We ended up watching a bit of Hard Quiz.  I think I could answer ONE question - football, meat pies, <what> and Holden cars?

Tuesday.  Slightly early night.  Actually slept quite well.  Hurray.  NEIL at work, who was off getting bits of him chopped out.  Chromecast still down.  Turns out an intermediate certificate expired so stuff couldn't authenticate.  I wonder if Google are debating whether or not to fix it or let the generation 2 devices all just die and force people to buy new ones.  I imagine that would piss off enough people that they would refuse to buy anything Google again.  I also got my quarterly reminder at work to check for expiring certificates coming up in the next quarter.  If only Google had done that.

Wednesday.  The brother type person called me while I was at lunch.  He could come TONIGHT.  Except I didn't have a new light to install yet.  He suggested Bunnings.  I walked up to Project Lighting instead.  They had a record of what we bought last time and I got something similar.  Not the same of course.  No no no.  Maybe that's a good thing though because turns out Mercator Franklin lights are TRASH!!!  Seriously LED lights should last years and years and years.  Not SIX years!!  And it's not like you can just replace a bulb, now you have to REPLACE THE WHOLE DAMNED FITTING!!! #hate  Anyways, so David picked me up after work and installed the new light! Hurray!!  Bestest brother ever. 

Had a few drinks and chatted then he got a bee in his bonnet to setup the PS3 to be able to use Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Did I mention I have the bestest brother ever?? :)

Thursday.  Woke up around 2:45 for several hours.  Sigh.  Although surprisingly unzombielike. 

NEIL again for the day.  Julian's farewell at drinks which was nice (I called the Japanese whisky, but not Lego Himeji Castle :) ).  Pizza with blue cheese for dinner!

DS9 1.13.  Another dumb episode.

Friday.  Slept fairly well.  NEIL at work.  Brown Food Friday!!!

DS9 1.14 and Death in Paradise 14.2.

Saturday.  Went to bed at 21:30 but didn't get to sleep til after 00:30.  Sigh.  Then meh sleep.  So twice this week I've had crap sleep the night before a day off.  Sigh.  Zombie morning, mostly house stuff.  Did some Dotz and even did a jigsaw in the late afternoon - 500 pieces in an hour and a quarter flat!  I asked the sweetie what's for dinner?  His response:

Google fixed the Chromecast issue.  Haven't looked up what they did.  Watched DS9 1.14.  Another meh episode.  Does DS9 actually get any better?  Most of season 1 is lame.  Stranger Things 1.5.  They finally banded together after all attackings things separately.  Reminded me in one place of E.T.  :)  

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Got a bee in my bonnet to write a script to swap out Picasa database directories.  And spent a chunk of the day tagging people in photos.  Whoops.  Also gave Neil a lift to the hospital for antibiotics (did you know "hospital at home" is a thing?  You stay home but have to pop into the hospital every day for treatment.  Advantages and disadvantages - nice that you can hang out in your own house but a pain to have to trek into the hospital every day). 

Also.  Why TF does windoze reset the sort order of my directories EVERY DAMNED TIME IT REBOOTS???  Far out it pisses me off.

Have had like three drops of rain this afternoon.  So much for showers.  

The first time I made Lachie's Breakfast Lasagna was back in 2016!

Last month I did keto again, so made another couple of these.

But Lachie's recipe is slightly insane and makes way way way too much food.  And there's way way way too many eggs.

So I revised it a little and I would consider this my "final" recipe.

I used maybe 250g mince - you can add bacon/onion/mushrooms/garlic to it if you're being all fancy, otherwise just plain old mince will do.  Mix in a 250g block of cream cheese, and a little water to thin it slightly.  

Also very lightly scramble 4 or 5 eggs (it can be quite liquid as it will continue to cook in the oven).

I do half the mince mix, then a layer of ham

Then the eggs and the rest of the ham

Then the other half of the mince mix.  If you had more ham you could add it here, but I just used a small pack of Primo ham which only gave me two layers.

Top with lots of cheese

The bake for maybe about half an hour til all the cheese goes golden

I cut this into eight pieces and would have one piece per day.  It's very messy to microwave so make sure it's covered.  Lachie and Stu are happy to just eat it cold.

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

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

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

Then back to Kit and Pete's. 

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

Got back and did animal stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

Stu had some seafood by the sea

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

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

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

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

Also found there's three missing pieces.

Left around 10:00, via the Scottish Restaurant.

Got a photo of a couple of the Nelligen Rocking Horses

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

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

Monday.  17th.  Slept mostly ok - although took me a while to get to sleep - it's been *cold* the last two nights - like 3 or 4 C overnight.  House work before work.  Work work at work.  It was so cold in the house I had to put my jeans on!  Salad for lunch.  Salad takes a long time to prepare and eat, did you know?  Had a 45 minute lunch break, and most of that was taken up with prepping and eating.  And I still ended up hungry by like 16:30.  Booked a hotel in Adelaide.  Realised the angel tank was leaking *again*.  Even with a stone weighing it down, the filter had drifted over into the edge of its compartment into the outflow compartment, backing everything up.  Not so serious this time but sheesh.  Need a heavier stone.  Stumpy has decided he's not very hungry anymore this summer.  Salmon and salad for dinner.  More time taking prepping food and eating food.  At least the salad can be done while the meat is cooking, and the eating can be done while watching TV.  Watched Return to Paradise 1.3.  Another preposterous setup for a murder.  Reminded me a bit of Death of a Detective from season 3 of Death in Paradise.  Then a few minutes of hobbies and suddenly it's bed time.  hrmm.  Also, turns out maltitol is really bad for the sweetie's bowels.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Spent the morning going through a log of stuff other teams have deleted, so can list all the things we need to do to clean up after them.  Did some scripting in the afternoon.  Fixed my foreach statement with a where-object, because sometimes arrays are not really arrays, but you apply a where-object to them and then you can work with them.  Sheesh powershell is dumb sometimes.  Wondered if I could compile all Mum's family photos in two weeks.  So put in a start on it.  Leftovers for dinner.  Return to Paradise 1.4.  Finished a Nanoblocks set I got at Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.  

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok.

Potato fruit!

Bit of decom thinking, but too many meetings to get much done.  Bit of scripting in the afternoon.  Thought it was green bin week.  The green bin is full.  But no, it's recycling week.  The recycling bin is only 1/3 full.  Sigh.  Leftovers for dinner.  Return to Paradise 1.5.  Continued frustration with Windoze which constantly opens text files ON THE OTHER DESKTOP!!  Like, I have Notepad open in my current desktop.  I open a text file and it opens in the current desktop.  But a minute later I open another text file and it opens ON THE OTHER DESKTOP.  I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN TO THE OTHER DESKTOP!!  Sigh.  Backed up computer, washed hair, bed.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok.  Found the lovely pleco in the downstairs two foot tank had died overnight.  I don't get it.  It seemed happy enough yesterday.  Today, dead.  Sigh.  Also a bunch of guppies in the two foot are looking sick with red gills.  I don't get that either - that's the healthiest tank we have and I even did a water change last weekend.  Lots of crap at work, feeling like not getting anything useful done. 

Jim and Ray did a pizza feast to commemorate all the shut down and decom work we've been doing (remember all those migrations I did last year?  we decommed the hardware just recently).

Then drinks and more pizzas.  Finale of Return to Paradise season 1.  Much like the other series, the setups for the murders are completely ridiculous.  

Friday.  Awake from like 3:30 or 4 or so.  Sigh.  Another day of a lot of crap and distractions and feeling like not achieving much.  Stu cooked miso mushrooms and cauliflower rice for dinner which was very nice.  

Then we started into Deep Space Nine.  Stu watched this himself years ago but I didn't watch it with him at the time.  He wanted to watch it again so we're watching it now.  Early night on account of early morning.

Saturday.  So I went to bed relatively early, but not early enough, so it took til nearly midnight for me to get to sleep.  Sigh.  Stoopid being too tired to go to sleep.  Just tired and restless. 

Mostly house stuff in the morning.  Was freaking out about my todo list.  Then spent the ENTIRE afternoon tagging people in Picasa.  Sigh.  But I did find out you can simply move out the two database directories in and out and so therefore have different databases for different folders of files.  Handy if you want to keep the tagged people in different groups.  Like I want to keep work peeps separate to friends and family.  Leftovers for dinner then Stranger Things 1.4.  Early night.

Sunday.  Early night again and then slept mostly ok which was nice.  Spent all morning on photo filing and tagging.  When I probably should have been doing crap I won't be able to do the next couple of weekends.  Bit more "productive" in the afternoon, including cooking all the food.  

Monday.  10th.  Backdated because I spent the time I should have been blogging on cooking instead.

Stormy overnight.  Woke up around 2, then 3, then 4, but managed to get back to sleep each time.  Not a terribly productive day at work - fighting all the crap.  Found out HBZ is leaving.  And I immediately started feeling a sense of impending doom.  So did Con.  Yummy dinner of slow cooked pork neck and all the veggies.  Beyond Paradise 1.4, then bed.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  The BS started as soon as I logged in - a product used by our security team needs direct internet access, *apparently* doesn't support a proxy (to be confirmed).  Seriously this is a SECURITY product???  Didn't get anywhere with the errors on the new mail servers.  Although we were able to do a restore of an old one to a new one and it's working ok.  Mince and cabbage for dinner.  Beyond Paradise 1.5.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  Was stretching just after I got up and felt a bit of a twang in my shoulder which hurts a bit.  Another unproductive day of dealing with crap and no word back from mail server vendor.  Nearly two weeks into keto and I'm already sick of food.  Sick of cooking.  Sick of having to think about what to eat.  Some retard used my Gmail address to book a hotel in South Carolina.  Very tempted to cancel the day before so he gets charged the first night fee and has nowhere to stay.  Stressed with travel agent who hasn't been communicating very well.  And finished Beyond Paradise, which had a nice crossover into Death in Paradise at the end of the 2023 season.  

Thursday.  Slept okish.  After emailing the mob in South Carolina last night that someone had booked the hotel using my email address, I got a thing back from them to say they'd cancelled the booking.  Lolz.  Another day of not getting much done due to all the crap.  Some of Con's grad cohort came to drinks which was a bit of fun.  Pizzas then started into Return to Paradise - a spinoff series set on the South Coast, with filming locations on the South Coast as well as Avalon.

Friday.  Had a bit of time for scripting in the afternoon.  But couldn't get a simple foreach to work.  Sigh.  Kievs for dinner, then Stranger Things 1.2, then the first two episodes of Meltdown: Three Mile Island.

Saturday.  Slept okish until about 4:30. hrmm. 

When you pack up the majority of the carbs in your pantry (I couldn't move in there).  Will slowly start going through this in a few weeks.

Stu found a keto muffin recipe that's actually quite good

Had a busy morning including house stuff, booking flights to Adelaide, taking my brand-new-second-hand saxophone for a service, going to Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.  It's still got most of the vibes of the Green Shed in terms of range of stuff for sale.  But all the bits and pieces are arranged mostly by colour.  Odd.  It's also a bit expensive, like the cheapest stuff is still a dollar (sub dollar would be better for something small), cheap plastic glasses are still $2 which seems a bit high.  Jigsaws are somewhat variable but mostly $4 (Green Shed was $3 per jigsaw flat rate).  However, they retain the colour coded bargain weeks that Vinnies do, which means that that $4 jigsaw is only $1 or $2 depending on the coloured tag.  So I wasn't going to buy anything.  And then I did.  Whoops.  More house stuff in the afternoon.

Stu cooked creamy mushrooms and cauliflower rice for dinner - yum!

Return to Paradise 1.2, then finished the last two episodes of Meltdown: Three Mile Island.

Sunday.  Slept ok I think.  Another busy day of house stuff, but this time had a bit of time for hobbies.  Played some clarinet for possibly the first time this year.  hrmmm. 

Dropped into the reptile place at Gold Creek.  They *still* don't have a 48" 10% UV light, but they did suggest an edison screw heater with UV that I could try in the meantime.  But I'm a bit worried about giving Stumpy sunburn, he hasn't had any UV all summer.  The baby blueys are so cute though!!

Did you know you can buy garlic cloves by the kilo?  Only $12 too!  Bargain!!

Lots of cooking in the afternoon, so no time to blog. 

A big veggie bake, a heap of garlic, and one of Tony's eggplants with ham and cheese.  The eggplant went very slimy though

Lachie's breakfast lasagna

Watched Stranger Things 1.3.  Tried to start on Chernobyl, but, technology.  Turned on the NAS for the first time in months.  The thing booted which was nice, but the admin interface and sharing protocols are so old my computer wouldn't talk to it.  Had to fire up an ancient version of Firefox I had lying around to be able to connect to the admin interface.  Reenabled SMB 1 on my computer but will need to reboot to use it.

Sunday.  26th.  Leftovers for dinner, then went over to give Lily her 21st birthday presents.

Monday.  Bit late getting to sleep, then woke up at like 5.

Spent much of the day on my blog doing some catchup blog entries including a couple from 21 years ago.  Started to look at why Google isn't indexing my site very well anymore.  One error it complained about is canonical links being http.  The problem is I can't really do anything about that cause I have no idea how to fix MTEntryPermalink - <link rel="canonical" href="<$mt:EntryPermalink encode_html="1"$>"> cause I'm dumb.  It'll be buried deep deep deep in the Movable Type code somewhere.  Sad times.  Leftovers for dinner, Death in Paradise 13.6, Wednesday 1.3.  Then went and tried for some more comet photos on the new camera.

Tuesday.  Went to bed/sleep a little late, but woke up early still.  Decided to go to work (had been debating taking the day off).  Tidied up a bunch of doco from all the deleting I did on Friday.  Luv-a-Duck for dinner that we picked up when we went shopping today (Stu also cooked up a bunch of keto food).

Death in Paradise 13.7 then Mum photo picking.

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep, even though it was nice and COLD after stoopidity of the day's heat.  Slept in past 6 though. 

Bit of crap in the morning then mostly planning out mail server upgrade (need to build new vms).  Home late, dinner of sausages and salad.  Death in Paradise 13.8 (end of season 13) with another preposterous setup for a murder.  Backed up computer, washed hair then bed.

Thursday.  Mail upgrade planning.  Built a vm.  Updated some doco.  Had our last drinks at Bar 59 for a while.  Made pizzas then Wednesday 1.4.

Friday.  Early night and slept ok (another nice cool change).  Crap meetings, bit of mail server work, amongst distractions.  Kievs for dinner.

Wednesday 1.5 then logged onto work for an hour and a half to do a big certificate renewal.

Saturday.  1st February.  Earlyish night but awake from 2-4.  Sigh.  Stu was awake for ages too.  Slept in til 7.  Bit of house stuff, food shopping and suddenly it's 10am and haven't really done anything.  Pretty much just cleaned the house all day.

Had EffanC over for dinner, which was lovely, it's been wayyyyy too long since we've had them over.  Did a nice rump cap, blue cheese potato bake and brussels sprouts.

Finished the last bottle of bubbles from my 50th!

Sunday.  Got about five hours sleep which wasn't too bad all things considered, but I was tired all day.  Had a nice quiet day, mostly doing Dotz and also cooking up a huge batch of mince/bacon/mushroom/garlic/onion to decorate in different ways over the next week or so.  

So after the New Years Eve fireworks we should have gone straight to bed.  We didn't.  Rage came on, and as in previous years they play a lot of nostalgia music.  It was too much effort to go get ready for bed, so we just sat there watching.  For like an hour.  Whoops!!

So a very late night.  Of course I woke up at like 5:00 anyway, because that's what I do.  So pretty much a zombie day. 

Did some Lego and Dotz in the morning.  Cooked up some cheesy hash browns.

Did some house tidying in the afternoon and might have also tidied up some of the back yard a bit.

Finished our Christmas Eve feast leftovers for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.5.  19:30 is bed time right?

Thursday.  Went to bed early but took forever to get to sleep.  And then woke up early.  Was NEIL at work all morning.  Had a little bit of time to look at the quality script, but it was mostly staring at my code wondering what the stuff I did last year actually does.  Picked up the car from servicing, but it still has the engine light on.  They didn't actually fix anything, they just suggested booking it in for more work.  Hurray.  Pizzas for dinner then Death in Paradise 11.6.

Friday.  Took forever to get to sleep.  Again.  Sigh.  Did sleep in til 6 though.  Not much in the morning, mainly just NEIL.  Then went off to pick up Mum at Jolimont.  Had some lunch first, then headed out to the Museum to see Pompeii, which was actually pretty good, and not stoopidly crowded like I was expecting it to be.  Dropped into Chrissie's on the way home but noone was home.  Had a look through all Mum's recent holiday photos, then Stu got Chinese delivery for dinner.  Dumpling Inn didn't show up online so he got it from Quan's Kitchen which was actually pretty decent. 

Then watched Heaven is for Real with Mum.

Saturday.  Took forever to get to sleep.  Restless night, awake *a lot*.  Sigh.  Did some house tidying in the morning, then All The Cooking.  Put on a roast of epic proportions, including *two* potato bakes!

D/K/S arrived and there were many noms

And we did presents and photos and stuff while lunch was cooking

All the feast!

Roast pork, scored with my new Coles meat knife (I probably over-scored it, so it was hard to separate the skin from the fat), home-made apple sauce, gravy, blue cheese potato bake, regular potato bake, sweet potato/brussels sprouts (forgot the hazelnuts)

David and Mum and I then played a game of Monopoly for Sore Losers

It's quite a different game play from regular Monopoly.  It's faster, not so monotonous, but also more annoying (if you're not playing Mr Monopoly).  We also played a little bit of Disney Trivial Pursuit.  Well we didn't "play" it but picked out cards and just read the questions to each other.

It was a lovely day and I had a lot of fun.  Great catchup with everyone.

The great little-red-bauble hunt

D/K/S left around 19:50 then I just collapsed.  Much to the chagrin of the Mother Type Person who wanted to keep playing games for hours.  But after several crap nights sleep and an entire day of People I was well and truly done.  

Sunday.  Went to bed super early.  Still a somewhat restless nights sleep, but did sleep until 6:40.  Looked at holiday stuff with Mum, then dropped her at Jolimont.  Came home and collapsed in a heap.  Stu and I both exhausted from a weekend of people.  Had a quiet afternoon of cleaning the kitchen, putting away Christmas decorations and Dotz.

2024. Pretty standard year really. Busy busy busy!

Our big trip this year was to Tasmania. So no overseas travel, but does overstrait count? We spent a month there and had a great time. We could easily do the same route around the island and see all different things if were to go again, there's that much to see. I took five days off in January so I could get a nine day break, to make up for the shortened break at Christmas (which essentially only felt like a long weekend after the whole leadup/Christmas/post Christmas family stuff). In early February we went to Tumut with Tony/Frank/Karen for the TRBC Tumut River Tap Days. The day itself was hot but it was a lovely afternoon with beer and friends. I went down to Junee/Wagga for the Lego show in Wagga Wagga which was great and uncrowded, then stayed with David the night and caught up with Kellie's family. Sydney in May for a tour of WestConnex, the Ramses Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition, and Rachel and Hayden's wedding, with a couple of days playing tourist with Mum in the middle. In September we went up to Port Macquarie for Jeff's 80th birthday party. It was a lot of driving for just a day there, but Jeff had a wonderful time with most of his family there. Stu went up again in December for Potty's 50th. In October we flew up to Queensland for Ben and Sarah's wedding. It would have been nice to stay longer and have a proper catchup with Chay and also David, but Stu was too stressed with work to think about it.

My job continues to generally be "Sadie" - lots of decom work. A couple of bouts of being the Naughty Email Intervention Layer when Neil was on leave. On one of those I did a bunch of work in the test environment to make it match prod. We setup a new notifications db and decommissioned like half a dozen others. Looked at a proxy as a POC sorry POV. Not overly impressed. Cloud stuff just really is too.. nebulous.. troubleshooting and logging is invariably crap. The biggest project of the year was migrating a couple of thousand VMs to a new environment with a new version of the firewalling software. In advance of the move I spent two days deleting 10% of the rulebase so there'd be less rules to migrate. Then we had to maintain two environments while we spent a month migrating everything. But it generally went quite well, and we did the majority of it during business hours with no outages. Of course none of Daniel's scripts work in the new environment, so with a jump start from someone in security, and a lot of help from Nick, we managed to get a bunch of them working with some new powershell modules. I've learnt a lot about powershell, but I'm still really dumb so it's a struggle. Socially, there was a gin night while I was in Tassie, but was able to have leftovers when I got back. We won a trivia night in July, but luckily someone else volunteered to run the next one, which we were in no danger of winning in October. The social club had a 70th birthday "cocktail" night although it was primarily beer, wine and bubbles. A great night anyway. A couple of work Christmas parties, then my Christmas bbq at the lake in December for 58 people. About the 11th year in a row I've run it. Good times.

I've generally been pretty healthy this year. Other than being fat. Hit the fattest I've ever been in January, so went low carb and did lots of walking up Mt Rogers and managed to lose a few kilos quickly so I didn't have to lug them up mountains in Tasmania. Had the usual bouts of insomnia here and there. Did a sleep study in September. I have a bit of sleep apnea when I sleep on my back. No surprises there, I avoid sleeping on my back, except when I'm asleep and don't notice. Had a couple of sore throats in October, but if they were colds they only lasted a day or two. Got new glasses in November. Should NOT have gone to Specsavers. This time the optometrist was like "eh close enough" with the vision check so I never got that whole "oh wow I can see moment" when I first tried on the new glasses. Also one of the pairs I got was far too small and I can't get them to fit right, so wearing the "spare" glasses that don't have the anti-reflective coating on them.

We've had a relatively quiet year with friends. Stu has simply been so stressed out by work that doing any sort of socialising is too much for him to bear a lot of the time. David came up in January to look at the oven. Met up with him and Shane and Jess for dinner in October, and he came for dinner later in October. Stayed with Mum a couple of days in May and we played tourist which was kinda cool. Kit came to visit with Oreo in February and May, and by herself in June. Had multiple visits to Herbert's with Tony/Frank/Karen as well as with the Chrises and Neil. Had Tony and Jo over for dinner in April. Had cocktails at Molly/Hippo and dinner at Molly/Bar Rochford/Akiba with Luc in April, August and October (busy year for him in Canberra! Here three times!). Picked up the sweetie a few times after drinks with Dennis. Had drinks/dinner with Ding at the Lighty in April. Went over to Nick and Tab's for dinner in May. Met up with Luc and Cynthia in Sydney for dinner in May. Had Fred's 50th at Herbert's in June. Went over to Chris and Geoff's for raclette in September. Had a Rocky Horror night at Rob and Fiona's which was a lot of fun. We caught up with Chay, Daemon and Augie in October, the first time we'd seen them since 2016! James/George/Josh/Rachel took me to afternoon tea in December on their way to Melbourne.

We went out to the club five times all up. See aforementioned notes above about Stu being stressed by work. We went out for a Remembrance dinner near Anzac Day in April. Ian and Chris's anniversary formal night in June. There was a working been in July. I did Christmas in July for like the tenth year in a row (except for 2020, stoopid covid). And Rob and Fiona's Christmas party in November.

Had another busy year of photo processing. I got my Turkey 2014 trip photos culled, labelled and blogged in time for the ten year anniversary of our departure in May. I started processing David's America 2023 photos, but didn't get very far through it because I had too many other projects I was working on. Got Tasmania photos online in time for the six month anniversary of that trip. I got our Queensland 2014 trip photos culled and labelled, but couldn't get them online on the tenth anniversary because Vodien broke my database. So they were a month late. I've also been doing a lot of filing/organising of general Canberra photos, Stu's family photos (pulled out 600 photos of Immy cause she hardly has any of her as a little kid), and pulling photos in case of having to need them for Mum's funeral one day (easier to get that done now rather than being in a hurry if things happened suddenly).

No big changes with the fish. The upstairs two foot has countless guppies, and I'm having to weed all the java fern out of it regularly. The four foot has a loach, three male guppies and two female guppies, and 11 congo tetras (I think). I still have Chrissie's two clown loaches - I've had them for nearly seven years now. The "angel" tank has maybe ten or so guppies in it. The downstairs two foot has a big sucking catfish and two female guppies. I've been meaning to give them a boyfriend for a while now... In January the filter clogged up the outlet on the "angel" tank and water backed up and leaked over the back, which was super annoying and made a big mess. In October the stone I had weighing down the filter wool to stop a repeat of January drifted over the well with the wool and got stuck in the outlet. Water backed up and leaked over the back, which was super annoying and made a big mess. Stumpy's UVB light died in December, but two pet stores and the reptile store at Gold Creek don't have them. Waiting for Gold Creek to get more stock.

I had a big Lego year this year. I've spent ages on Vic's Lego all year. I finished inventorying loose pieces so I knew what was left, then used that to pick parts for some more sets that looked somewhat completable. I then wishlisted all the missing pieces (a couple of thousand of them! eep!) and noted the average price for them (to compare seller prices). I bought a big batch off a dude in South Australia and it's taken weeks to mark everything off and file them into sets. I did build a few of the smaller sets that are complete, but was hoping to do a lot more over the break that I just didn't get the time for. I made a 31x31 mosaic of a QR code that will take you to my blog. I borrowed Jo's (originally Riley's) Winter Holiday Train (10254) and bought some missing pieces to complete it. Of my own I did Scaled-Up Lego Minifigure (40649), Minifigure (3723), Moving Truck (40586) and Notre-Dame de Paris (21061). All a lot of fun.

Jigsaws continue whenever I have time. Which is not often at home. I still haven't assembled the Disney jigsaw as I don't have anywhere I can do it.

I pulled out my Spirograph in January and had a bit of fun with it. Also had a play with my Rubik's Rings puzzles (never could solve those things). I'm still playing the clarinet. I'm still not very good at it. Spent the year working through a Crystal Creations koala. While it was all actually pretty good quality, the colours they provided were all off, so it looks dumb. I got some Diamond Dotz ones for Christmas and have done one and started on a bigger one.

It's been a warm year. Had our usual share of storms, rainbows and even some hail. It snowed out at the club in July which was pretty awesome. The humidity in January and December wasn't fun.

Windows 11 continues to piss me off with its trash - like files opening on a completely different desktop to the one you're on, even if the app is open on your current desktop; notepad search sucking donkey balls and just dumping you at random places in the file when you close the search box (but keeping unsaved files open over reboots is nice, although only at home, not at work); refusing to shut down when I tell it to; refusing to eject hard drives some times. But at the beginning of the year we found it will FINALLY let you ungroup taskbar items. Google may be improving the security of the internet by FORCING https, even without consent, but it did break my blog because Chrome refused to load the http css/js content on a https page. Vodien broke my blog/database in June - from broken CageFS file system errors and script errors, to broken cpanel passwords, to a mysql database reverted to October last year, to a completely broken website. Took weeks of yelling for them to fix it. Then in August they broke my database AGAIN, by reverting the database to the same point in October last year. Took weeks of yelling and pleading to finally get a complete export of my database taken after my last blog entry but before they broke it. I took that database and moved to CloudLoop, who have been amazing. I used the opportunity to do a massive cleanup of all my blogs. I fixed up all the things I'd been meaning to fix up for years, got my holiday blogs to a consistent design, got everything working in https, and cleared 14000 image assets so my blog entries publish in seconds instead of minutes. We bought a new printer in October (an Oki) because the old Brother one had a fault with the fuser and was smudging all the prints. Such a waste. Why is everything so crap these days? We bought a new lawn mower in November because the starter rip cord ripped right off on the old one. Stu has used it once. I've used it three times. In December I coded up some Perl to pull weather data from BOM's API and put a little widget on my blog to show the current weather. I dispute their "feels like" temperatures though!

Around the house. A second element died in our POS DeLonghi oven on New Years Day. After not being able to get a replacement for the previous dead element, we decided to piss it off and get a new oven. The old one was only four years old. Such a waste. Why is everything so crap these days? David came up in January to do the diagnosis on the old one, and did the installation on the new one. So nice to have a qualified electrician in the family! Although funnily enough the new one has a standard plug and doesn't need to be wired directly in, but it did need a new power point. I grew two mini capsicum plants out the front (the ones out the back got eaten by snails in like one night). They're stoopidly slow growing (not helped by completely infertile soil out the front and very little water) so only a few ripened by June before the frost finally got to them. The fridge made a loud clunk in April when it was turning off which sounded ominous. Sure enough the next time it ran it was a lot noisier. But it's still running, loudly, so there's that I guess. I dread having to buy a new one. This one is at least twenty years old. Anything new won't last anywhere near that long. Our Solar Edge solar system for reasons unknown didn't charge the battery at all for three days in April (it was sunny!). Our lemon tree totally went off this year. By June it was completely laden. In August I started juicing lemons that had fallen off. In November a branch with 112 lemons on it broke off. I've given away dozens of lemons and litres of juice, and made multiple lemon cheesecakes and lemon pepper chicken, and there's litres of juice in the freezer. I drink about an ice cube a day. But more lemons keep falling. All. The. Lemons. We had various problems with ancient electronic timers. Either turning on and just not turning off, or losing time. About three have had issues this year. The turdburger crimson rosellas came back again this year to eat the house. The gas heater died in August - nothing on the control panel. Fortunately a complete reboot of the whole heater at the power point fixed it. First poppy of the season flowered on 1 September. There's still one or two left. We had more purple poppies and epic dandelions. In September I planted out a stick of geranium that had been lying on the ground since January!! How is that even possible that it's still alive?? We had a scheduled power outage in October. The Solar Edge solar system dutifully kicked in and kept all the fish tanks running all day, but it didn't charge the battery. That's not what we were sold on. Annoyed. Got lots of strawberries in November/December. Although I didn't get to eat half of them - the currawongs kept stealing them. They didn't find the ones in the pool though, and neither did the snails so that was a win. In December I heard dripping in the washing machine after it was finished/emptied. Seems the thing is leaking. The first time I let it go and it leaked a *lot* into the drum over a few days. And then one day I found water all over the laundry floor. So it's leaking in two places. So now we turn the water off when we've finished washing. I dread having to buy a new one. This one is at least twenty years old. Anything new won't last anywhere near that long. Redid the silicone sealant on the shower in December - further up the wall this time. Our ExtendaLine that David installed in 2020 had another line break in December. Now I can't fully extend the thing which is super annoying.

Did a reasonable amount of eating out this year. Kinn Thai in Civic is a favourite, we went there in February, April and December. Chong Co is another favourite, with delivery in April, August, October. Same with Dumpling Inn in February, July, September and November (twice). Many visits to Herbert's with Tony/Jo/Frank/Karen/Chrises/Neil etc, including tap takeovers by TRBC (farewell tour) and Hopsters Cooperative Brewery. But they gave me grief over ordering from the kids menu the last time, so I lost it, and very likely will never go back. Dumb business decision will (and in fact already has) cost them. Dinners before/after ANU events with Tony at Badger&Co, 10 Yards, Terra. Some new lunch places with Neil at BZ Burgers, Uyghur Cuisine and No. 10, a few team lunches at Ikko (twice), Ramen-O and Vanilla Pod. Molly, Bar Rochford and Akiba with Luc the three times he was in town. Went to the Burns Club in Holt with the Chrises in January, and at Kambah with David and Kellie and some of David's friends during the Airport Open Day. Kimchi in Dickson with David/Shane/Jess and a colleague of David's in October. Cypher for Wello's birthday in October. Raku with Annie and Stu in May. Had Grease Monkey from their food truck at the Belco markets in May. Pattysmiths in January and June. Pizza at TRBC in Kingston in July, which turned out to be the one and only time I'd ever get there. Pappa Rich before Twisters in August. Returned to the Aussie Crepe House (previously Crepe Cafe) in October for the first time in a few years to avoid the mall food court during school holidays. Beess & Co in September and Gang Gang in November. Four Winds with Tony in November, repeat of the previous year. Yat Bun Tong and Kinh Do delivery/takeaways in May/July.

As usual I somehow ended up doing a whole lot of cooking this year. Staples included Sunday night roasts, Thursday night pizza (mostly made at home) and often Brown-Food-Fridays with chicken Kievs. Did slow cooker lamb in January which was amazing. Lemon dill chicken in January, then again in December with my own dill. Cheese mince and cheesy taco casserole in January (keto ftw!). Tried a carbonara from AntiChef in February but it didn't really work with alternative pasta. Might try it again some time though. Barramundi bake in March, although not as good as basa, and a few tuna bakes. Luv-a-duck cheats Peking duck a couple of times - pretty awesome each time. Did three Mexican things from Nagi Maehashi's Dinner book in May - slow cooker Mexican shredded beef, taco slaw, Mexican red rice which were all excellent, and beef ribs from her website in June, which would need a bit of tweaking to do again. Osso bucu on August. Lemon pepper chicken a couple of times in November. French onion soup in December. Also made Not Quite Nigella's peppermint slice a couple of times, and lemon cheesecake a few times.

Theatre/Shows/Exhibitions/Tours
* Canberra Airport Open Day in April. In the rain. But nice in the afternoon.
* Journey of Australian Science series at the Shine Dome
* Lego show in Wagga Wagga in April
* Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs in Sydney in May. Too many people and not enough room and no flow made it super stressful for me
* Ralph Heimans exhibition at the portrait gallery in May
* Questacon to see the Ryan "Brickman" McNaught Lego exhibition. During school holidays. Not recommended.
* Beethoven's 9th in August
* Questacon again on my birthday in August. Much quieter and more civilised.
* Dark Matter in the Pub in August
* Mint in September (and back again a week later to swap out the earrings I bought)
* Scrivener Dam tour in October

Movies (at the movies)
* Twisters

Movies (TV)
There may have been more that I forgot to blog about or forgot to add to this list
* The Queen
* Mona Lisa Smile
* Mash
* The Sound of Music
* Fantasia 2000
* The Shape of Water
* The Good Son
* Parasite
* Barbie
* A Night To Remember
* Iron Man 1/2/3
* Miss Potter
* Twister
* 9 to 5
* The Door Into Summer
* Mean Girls
* TRON / Tron: Legacy
* Freaky Friday (2018)
* South Solitary
* Wonka (2023)
* Grave of the Fireflies
* Inside Out 2
* Golden Kamuy
* Salt
* My Old Ass
* John Wick
* Die Hard / Die Hard 2
* Love Actually
* The Santa Clause / The Santa Clause 2

TV
We were getting into a good routine of Death in Paradise on Thursdays, The Orville on Friday or Saturdays, The Crown on Sundays, as well as Mash, The Simpsons and Futurama over dinner. Then they all finished and we haven't been watching as much together. There's a few things I want to watch so hopefully will get into a routine again in the new year.
* Death in Paradise - from mid season 7 to mid season 11
* The Orville from mid season 2 til the end
* Mash from mid season 2 til the end. Fun seeing various people pop up that became famous later - like Mr Miyagi, Larry Wilcox, James Cromwell, GW Bailey, Patrick Swayze, David Graf, "Larry" Fishburne
* Sex Education from mid season 4 til the end
* The Crown from mid season 6 til the end. Although there's 20 years of the Queen's life left so they may make another series.
* Some Big Bang Theory on tv in Tassie
* Shogun all of season 1
* Laid Back Camp season 3
* Start of The Apothecary Diaries. It didn't really grab me (maybe it would have gotten better) so Stu watched it by himself.
* Lego Masters Australia vs The World
* First three seasons of the American Lego Masters, and a Christmas special
* Documentaries - Brats, Pretty Baby, The Movies that Made Us (on Friday the 13th), Feminists: What were they thinking?
* Start of Girl Band Cry. Another one that really didn't grab me.
* Amazing Race season 8 (another celebrity edition)
* Black Mirror - all of it
* The Simpsons - some of season 36
* Futurama - whatever this year's season is

Weddings
* Rachel and Hayden
* Ben and Sarah

Other stuff
* late night on NYE watching the fireworks
* went out to Cotter Dam on New Years Day because it was spilling. It was quite crowded out there. Walked all the way up to the viewing spot.
* took a *lot* of photos of flowers. And food.
* remembered the January 1994 bushfires thirty years ago
* went shopping for jeans in January. Failed. Did get a bra though.
* bought some jeans at Vinnies of all places in January
* also managed to get some "skinny" jeans in January at Kmart because that's all that was left in the store. Hate.
* impressed with a Seiko battery from 1998 that was still working, and has been powering a thermometer all year
* got my first Charlie coin in April
* got grunty at Access Canberra because MyWay cards can expire and they expect you to fork out $5 for a new one (no credit on new cards) so they can transfer the balance. Decided to ignore the problem until the new MyWay+ system came along in December, and Stu could transfer his balance.
* saw a kangaroo in our driveway in May (sounded like it smacked into the fence) but it disappeared before I got outside
* ABC Classic 100 "Feel Good" in June
* had my nails "professionally" done in June
* watched the Olympics opening ceremony but nothing else
* had a play with ChatGPT. It's trash. Asked it to write a trivia night round on current events. Most of the questions couldn't actually be answered because they were wrong.
* saddened to hear that TRBC was closing down in September
* found some five leaf clovers in September
* wandered round Yarralumla in September and saw the old brick works
* saw Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in October. Well, my phone did, I didn't
* found a two leaf clover in October
* visited the Lake Ginninderra spillway and wetlands in November
* encouraged the epic dandelions around the place
* watched lots of Jamie and Julia
* booked another holiday next year with the mother type person
* did the Plonk beer advent calendar
* got a random Blue Screen of Death in December
* got to level 15000 in Candy Crush just before the end of the year
* saw a rat among the daisies under the lemon tree

My biggest stress this year is simply a lack of TIME. I desperately want to retire so I can actually slow down and enjoy life and just do my hobbies and have a quiet life. Even over the Christmas break I spent too much time trying to get All The Things done, and not nearly enough time on my hobbies. Didn't really feel relaxing at all. I have heaps of photo projects I want to work on next year as well. And I'm desperate to get Vic's Lego out of the house, but so little of it is complete. Deep breaths. It'll all be ok in the end.

Happy New Year to everyone, I'll try and have one too!