Sunday.  3rd.  Epic roast pork for dinner!   The crackling and meat both turned out quite well (2.4kg deboned shoulder).

Then we watched the first episode on a documentary on lighthouses (The Secret Life of the Lighthouse) - this one on the Eddystone lighthouse of Plymouth. A bit of fun and quite interesting.  Then I watched Matilda the Musical which was a bit of fun. Emma Thompson is unrecognisable as Trunchbull and the kid who played Matilda sounded exactly like Emma Watson as a young Hermione. 

Monday.  Star Wars Day.  Took a while to get to sleep and awake early for ages. Frustrating day of waiting for people and feeling like I actually went backwards with the proxies. For lunch I made toast pizzas which were yummy.

And the raindrops on the climbing rose in front of the cherry tree which is turning yellow looked pretty cool

Stu cooked up a bunch of veggies for dinner including a nice goats cheese cauliflower bake (the cheese was a couple of months past its use-by date (I bought it past its use-by date from Chris's before we went on holidays).. she'll be right!!).

Then the second episode of the Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Bell Rock).

Tuesday.  Slept okish. Another frustrating day of waiting for people, then a super busy afternoon with various meetings/calls. Oof. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner then episode 3 of The Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Fastnet Rock). Neither Lego set that I put up/relisted last week sold. And buying the last remaining missing pieces off Bricklink is also frustrating because the places that have a lot of the pieces I need charge exorbitant prices for them, and the places that charge reasonable prices don't have many pieces, so the postage gets prohibitive. Blerf.

In other fun crap today. We tried to turn the heater on after quite a few days of not needing it. But it kept dying. This afternoon Stu replaced the brand-new-second-hand controller we bought last year. This one the temperature dial works properly and so does the display, and now we can see the new error it's giving - Err 50 HI (and Err 10 HI). Google AI from Facebook says:

A Brivis ducted heater "Err 50 Hi" (or Error 50) indicates an ignition lockout, meaning the heater failed to light after four attempts. Common causes include no gas supply, a faulty igniter, or a faulty gas valve. Reset the unit using the reset button on the controller to try clearing it.

On the old controller the reset button just caused the whole controller to crash out. At least the new one can get it to work eventually. We'll have to see if a service will fix it. Leftovers for dinner and the Lighthouses series 1.3 on Fastnet Rock.

Wednesday.  Awake from 3:00 for hours sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Stu cooked some vege ravioli in creamy mushroom sauce which was nice then the Secret Life of the Lighthouse 2.1 on Wolf Rock.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3:30 for ages sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Good drinks - several other tables of peoples. Picked up Mills and Grills pizzas for dinner.

See Dominos.. THIS is how pizza is done!

Potata $21.90 - cheese, bacon, potato, aioli, garlic - yum!

Don Pepperoni $15.90

Death in Paradise 15.7. I think the entire solution was speculation with barely any evidence.  How would they ever get this to trial?

Friday.  Slept in til like 5! Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Kievs for dinner, Lighthouses 2.2 on The Smalls.

Then I watched The Little Mermaid "real life" remake from 2023. It's like two hours fifteen minutes though WTF??  Caribbean setting, but filmed in Italy. They kept most of the original songs, and even added a few.  And Jodi Benson was in it which was pretty cool.  And Melissa McCarthy was pretty good as Ursula.   I mean it wasn't *bad*.. just not the same...

Saturday.  Awake for ages from like 1:30 blerf. Quiet day of house and photo stuff. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner. Then we watched Remarkably Bright Creatures which was funny and sweet and I found quite emotional. Lovely!

Also this strawberry didn't get the memo that it's autumn not spring..

Sunday.  Awake for a while around midnight, and I was awake just before midnight when someone let off a whole heap of fireworks down the back which were quite pretty! Went for a walk (called the mother type person on the way), then popped out to pick up some Lego off a Bricklink seller, which ended up being two hours of that, Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction to drop off a pile of jigsaws (and not pick up any more!), and food shopping.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sunday.  28th.  Cooked up an epic lamb roast ($22/kg from Tathra Place in the markets) and veggies for dinner, then watched The Big Year (which some random dude on our holiday told us about).  It was a bit "serious" for all the comedic actors in it, but kinda cool.

Monday.  Slept relatively ok I think, for a change.  Spent much of the day geotagging holiday photos.  Stu also pulled out all the bedroom furniture to vacuum nearly 18 years worth of dust behind stuff...

Had some of Lily's Youfoodz for dinner.

Watched Professor T 1.5 together then I watched Taxi Driver which I've never actually seen.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep, epic restless.  Finished geotagging holiday photos.

In the afternoon we went to Palmerville for a walk and to do some birdwatching.  This Bell 206L-1 (VH-OAS) chopper had been buzzing around Canberra all day, Evoenergy checking powerlines.  

I hadn't walked along the new pathway yet

Such a fun shot..

Finished off Lily's Youfoodz dinners and the last of the salad

Then watched Professor T 1.6 together (end of season one) then I watched a doco on the Titanic - Titanic: Digital Resurrection.  Considering the effort they went to to digitise the ship, the computer graphics they also used were pretty cheesy.  Interesting though.

Wednesday.  April Fools!  Slept okish, only awake for an hour or two around 3.  Back to work.  Yeup definitely an April Fool.  Spent most of the day catching up on chats and emails.  

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies and I fried up some lamb, then we watched Professor T 2.1.

You can tell the sweetie was cooking - the potatoes are all lined up nicely ;)

Then spent the rest of the evening putting up reviews of all the places we stayed on our holiday in booking.com.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Mostly still catching up on crap at work.  Had a gin night at drinks but hardly anyone else turned up.  Sad times. 

Bus home (trying to save petrol) then made pizzas for dinner and watched Professor T 2.2.

Friday.  Good Friday.  Although not so good for Jesus back in the day.  Slept mostly ok.  Didn't get much done all day sigh.  Pretty much a nothing day.  We did go for another walk in the afternoon to Palmerville to try out Stu's new toy (all the bird pics I'll put in another post one day).

Kievs for dinner then Professor T 2.3.  I then watched "Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" from 2015, which was mostly footage around Christa McAuliffe.. (as an aside, I didn't know that her backup, Barbara Morgan, later went on to be a full-blown astronaut in her own right.. cool!).  Eerily, the peeps that are on their way to the moon right now used booster rockets from the shuttle programme.. that wouldn't be freaky .. at. all.   .. !!)

Saturday.  Only awake for an hour or two around midnight.  Spent literally the entire morning doing housework.  Sigh.  Went out with EB to have a look at the new road around the north/east side of the airport which was pretty cool, had a good long drive around the area, then went in to Quangers for lunch at the Royal Hotel (had a very nice caesar salad).

Air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport

Did you know they're closing down the air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport and replacing it with cameras done with remote control..?  What could possibly go wrong?

Swing bridge in Queanbeyan

Caesar salad at the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan

It's such a shame they haven't setup any sort of dedicated planespotting area with all the new works

Stu cooked a tuna bake and veggies for dinner then we watched Professor T 2.4.  I then watched Lantana which I'd never seen before.  Lots of unlikeable characters behaving badly.  Hurrah.

Easter Sunday.  He is risen!  Slept mostly okish I think.  Woke up 6am!  But 5am in reality. Sigh. Didn't achieve really anything all day.  Stu took Stumpy outside for a walk.

In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for afternoon tea and catchup with the family.  Pebbles wasn't being *quite* the scardey cat...

Leftovers for dinner.  The just-past full moon was rising and it was like, hey there's four peeps in between me and that bright shiny thing!  Pretty cool!  Then watched Molly's Game, which I'd seen on a plane but Stu hadn't seen.  

Monday.  Slept mostly okish.  Got a bunch of Europe 2016 photo stuff done, and a heap of jigsaw.  Stu has cooked up a bunch of veggies to have with some leftover lamb for dinner.

Sunday.  8th.  John Williams' birthday.  I really must remember that.  Not that he's likely to have many left.. he's fricken 94!!!!  Stu cooked up some chicken with mushroom sauce and some greens which was very yummy. Then we watched the old school Disney version of Peter Pan.

Monday.  Early night. Interrupted by the mother type person calling. Then I was restless. And awake from 5. Hurrah. Some tickets and crap in the morning and spent most of the afternoon writing up more stuff to decommission. Stu cooked some pork and fennel sausages with cabbage for dinner (the sausages were a bit dry unfortunately), then we watched the last episode of season 2 of MacGyver.

Tuesday.  Okish sleep I think. Busy day I think. Stu cooked some yummy creamy lemon chicken for dinner then into season 3 of MacGyver.

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep - epic restless legs.

Super busy day - barely any time for jigsaw breaks! Stu cooked a cauliflower bake and goats cheese stuffed mushrooms which were very yummy.

Thursday.  Woke up around midnight cause my guts were upset for some unknown reason. Then stayed awake for a couple of hours waiting for things to settle. Sigh.

Busy day deleting All The Things.  Good drinks - lots of people.  Pizzas for dinner.  Not quite a repeat of the last two weeks as we were out of mushrooms.  There's pepperoni and feta, olive and capers, and tomato and spring onion.

Then MacGyver then started watching Airport to keep us awake til Kit and Pete got here (they'd come up for a comedy cruise and thought they'd play tourist here for a couple of days).

Friday the 13th.  Slept okish I think. Busy day of decoms and tickets and crap. Chilled out with Kit and Pete after work and got Turkish delivered from Lokma (the same place Mishi did last weekend).

Chatted for a while then watched an episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency which was.. bizarre haha.

Saturday.  Happy Valentine's Day.. remembered various anniversaries of my family that can't really be celebrated anymore. 

Mostly awake from 3 and fully awake from 5 sigh. Zombie morning. Kit and Pete wandered off for much of the day and I did mostly Lego stuff (and some dotz!!!).

Also made up breakfasts for the week.

Trigger warning for Tony!  Found her in the recycling green bin.

Kit and Pete brought home some Luv-a-Duck peking duck for dinner which was awesome.

Later we played a game of Ticket to Ride (Europe) which I won, but it was actually really close and one move either way would have changed the outcome.

Sunday.  Slept slightly better. Did some dotz in the morning. Went with Kit and Pete to the Old Bus Depot Markets which I've never actually been to before! It was very uncrowded, and apparently a shadow of its former self. 

Then dropped into Canberra Glassworks which I've also never been to.

Anyone know what this is?  Google image search suggests either an epic insulator (seems unlikley) or an air raid siren...  Edit:  another search indicates it was in fact an air-raid siren!

Kit and Pete wandered off home and I did some food shopping on the way home. Then tried to get KFC for lunch but the lazy or hard of hearing server mistook "large Pepsi Max" for "large chips" (which I annoyingly didn't pick up on), and then completely ignored me when I asked for a receipt. And the girl getting the chicken dropped a piece onto the floor because she was being careless. Hopeless. Talked to the mother for a while in the afternoon and then my weekend is over. hrmmm.

And Windows is STILL forgetting my photo in tray folder settings. Windows 11 is seriously BAD!!!

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

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

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

I started to feel full about half way through this

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saw *two* of these epic caterpillars!

Then just Lego and dotz.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denis Walter..

Tim Campbell and Paulini..

Hallelujah chorus..

Casey Donovan..

Silvie Paladino..

Marina Prior singing Angels We Have Heard on High..

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

Uncle Doug Heywood..

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

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

There may have been a little bit of leftovers..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday.  Restless sleep.

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

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

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

It hailed in the morning!

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

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

Stranger Things 2.3, photo stuffs.

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

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

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

The only correct way to eat Cheezels!!!

Pizzas, Stranger Things 2.5.

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

Friday.  

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

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

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

Had a quick walk down to the lake after.

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

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

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

For my birthday in 2015 the sweetie got me a 1000 piece jigsaw which was a gradient of all different colours.  Loved it!!  It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it.

So for Christmas 2015 I asked for the 5000 piece version of the same picture.

I spread all the pieces out and arranged by colour.

There was a lot of green!!

And finished!

This wasn't grid cut, it was random cut, which made it quite tricky

The problem was.. 

IT WAS UTTER TRASH!!!  Absolutely crap.  Terrible quality.  Clemens Habicht 5000 Colours Jigsaw Puzzle by Lamington Drive Editions was a TERRIBLE jigsaw.

Here's why.

The printing was crap.  LIke this is not a nice gradient.  It's like they printed the different sections of the jigsaw separately.

It was not even applied to the cardboard very well

The printing was bad enough.  The cutting was SHOCKING.

Pieces weren't cut through properly

Or they were damaged

And that wasn't even the worst part of the poor cutting.

Look at this trash.  They didn't bother to line up the sections after the first cut so things don't align

And another side effect of the poor alignment was that pieces were actually broken!!!

And even completely missing parts!

And the final insult.  There was a piece actually missing!!! (sorry about the out of focus photo I never got a closeup)

Now if this had been a regular jigsaw I might have given this company the benefit of the doubt and assumed I had lost it *somehow* .. even when you look at the space I was working on it.. there's nowhere it could have disappeared to..

But due to all the other problems with this terrible quality jigsaw, I guarantee it was never there.

I was so upset by this jigsaw I couldn't blog about it.  For nearly ten years.  If I had bought it myself I absolutely would have demanded a refund for it.  But the sweetie bought it, and he's allergic to confrontation.  So I have $150 worth of rubbish sitting on a shelf downstairs.  I doubt I could even sell it.  Maybe will just have to donate it to Vinnies or something.  With a warning how bad it is. 

Do not buy Clemens Habicht 5000 Colours Jigsaw Puzzle by Lamington Drive Editions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday.  

Last nuking!!!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday.  27th.  Leftovers for dinner then Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I still don't like how they explain how he's the half blood prince in the movie. Not that the book was a whole lot better - it was just a line, but at least it had that line.

Monday.  28th.  Remembering Alan's first heart attack, Como Presbyterian Church reopening after the 1994 bushfires, and the Port Arthur Massacre. Slept okish - restless and thermoregulation issues. My computer crashed last night #grunt and it wasn't even for patching this time. Managed to lose another hair tie overnight. Like how does that even happen, I've only been in like three rooms since last night. While searching I did find one I lost a couple of months ago. Hurray. Busy day. The sweetie cooked creamy mushroom fake noodles which was quite nice. DS9 3.4. Looked more into ways to disable Optus while overseas, including setting a SIM PIN, and locking the phone to Optus manually (but that causes a battery hit apparently). Also realised that my iPhone 5 is really a brick now on Optus since they shut down 3G, which is why it won't connect anymore. Spent entirely too much time stressing over Optus being such a ripoff.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok I think. Busy day. Lunch with the sweetie. Bought some light tshirts (all my tshirts are dark, which is no good for Greece or Dubai in summer). Lots of rain FINALLY and even some thunderbolts and lightning. The sweetie cooked some nice mince for dinner (well I cooked the mince the other weekend, but he added nicely to it). DS9 3.5 then holiday planning.

Wednesday.  Took forever to get to sleep - restless legs for ages. Tried to turn the heater on. But the control panel was dead. So Stu went to reboot it. The panel turned all the led things on. But then turned off. Then started flickering on and off. So he rebooted it again (leaving it off longer). It came up for a few seconds normally.. but then started flickering again. Sigh. So leaving it off for longer this time.

All on!

Did put a jumper on for third time this year. KFC for dinner, DS9 3.6, early night.

Thursday.  Took a while to get to sleep (cold!) but mostly slept ok. 12.7C in the study in the morning!! eep!! Achieved pretty much nothing all day. Super quiet drinks. Blue cheese pizzas for dinner. DS9 3.7. Early night.

Friday.  Got to sleep ok, but then awake from like 1-4. Sigh. The heater worked briefly in the morning then died. Nice warm day though so the house wasn't too crazy. Stu rebooted the heater again and it worked for a few minutes then died again. Sigh. Emailed Travis about recommendations for a split system but he hasn't mailed me back. The sweetie cooked up a cauliflower bake and brussels sprouts with kievs for dinner. 

DS9 3.8 which was pretty silly. Then another episode of an anime series of some Japanese travel blogger. Continued frustration with the heater which might work for a minute or two then just die. Sigh. The house is cold. Sigh.

Saturday.  Awake from like 3 or 4 and never got back to sleep. Sigh.

Another ripe mini capsicum!!

Super busy day. Attacked the todo list (mostly) in the order it happened to be in FreeMind. Chong Co for dinner then Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. Finished just in time to see Dutton's concession speech.

Sunday.  Slept somewhat better. More ploughing through the todo list. Moved ten young guppies to the tank downstairs which has been empty for a while and desperately needing new fish, and four to the four foot (it definitely needs a lot more guppies). Need to get a few new guppies with different genetics though.

I doubt I'll get to eat this tomato.. 

Remember how much I was complaining about windoze resetting the folder views every time I went to use them?  Well the last week or two it's been a lot better - my in tray folder of photos for blogging has maintained my view settings.  This makes me happy.  I guess enough other people complained about it.