Thursday.  16th.  Fairly uneventful drive up to Sydney.  Stopped at Weemeeraa Lookout to see Lake George full of water.  Also at Sutton Forest for a loo break and some morning tea.

Got to Mum's just after 12:00.  Had some lunch (bubble and squeak), then setup her new printer (which didn't come with a USB cable, so had to use her old one), and had a bit of a look at our itinerary for Italy.

Later in the afternoon we took a train into Central.  OMFG I HATE people!  The train was full of noisy Caringbah high school kids not wearing masks (they all got off at Hurstville then it was quieter).  

Then took a tram up to Star City.  Again with people not wearing masks.  #grunt.  The tram took *forever*.  I swear it would have been quicker to walk from Town Hall.  We arrived pretty early, so found the restaurant then wandered down to the harbourfront.

I wanted to go to one of the bars and have a drink (to be more relaxed meeting a whole bunch of strangers) but nothing opened til 17:00.  Sigh.  So had to meet people sober which was pretty stressful.  Dinner was at Cucina Porto.  I had crumbed veal which was quite nice.

The lemon sgroppino was also very nice

It was nice to meet Kellie's family, although mostly ended up talking to her Mum's friend Annette.

So that was all nice enough, but we had to wait for Kim and Laila (Kim couldn't get off work til late) and by the time they'd ordered and then had to reorder (because their first pizza was undercooked) and then everyone (not me! ha) got dessert it was getting really damned close to 19:00 and I was getting epic stressed because theatres often don't let you in if you're even a minute late and I had visions of us missing a chunk of the show.  Everyone had to rush through their dessert so we could race across the way to the theatre and we sat down literally at 19:00.  I was not happy.  Just sayin.  But it all worked out in the end, and the show started a few minutes late anyway, and it was actually pretty awesome!  It was somewhat different to the Disney movie, but it seems it was probably more similar to the first couple of books.  They had a bit of a singalong of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious which was a lot of fun, and I maintain that Mum was singing louder than me during the other bits ;)  (Mum wasn't *quite* surprised, on account of her friends guessed for her what the surprise might be)

After the show a bunch of the group wandered off to find a convenience store and I NEEDED to get home to sleep, so decided we should walk to Town Hall rather than waiting fifteen minutes for the next light rail.  They did all come back just as we were about to leave so did get to say goodbye.  

'

We walked right onto a Waterfall train at Town Hall, and definitely got home earlier than if we'd taken the light rail.  But bed time was nearly midnight.

Friday.  17th.  Slept ok but still woke up at 6:30.  Because that's what I do.  We decided we'd drive to go see my flat, because a few years ago the RETARDS at Transport NSW decided that you can't get a direct train to Kogarah anymore (NFI why) so it was going to take an hour by public transport or less than half an hour by car (even in peak hour traffic).  We ended up getting there pretty early so went for a walk around the block.  Then we waited for the real estate agent to turn up.  When she hadn't by 9:05 I called them and hassled them and then had to wait while they tracked her down.  Meanwhile the tenant is waiting for us so she could go into work.  Eventually (like twenty minutes late) the real estate agent turned up, spent most of the time on her phone, I think said "apologies" once, and we got to go in.  The tenant is quite lovely and the flat is fine.  But pissed that we were so late because of the agent. 

Took Mum home then hopped on a train into the city.  Found a sign that says that masks are in fact still required on public transport, but Transport NSW is doing NOTHING to enforce it.  The train trip was horrendous - again people not wearing masks, and some guy making an absolute racket on his phone.  I hate people SO MUCH!!!!

Met up with Tony at Central.  

Had a light lunch at the Great Southern Hotel

Took a tram from Central to Circular Quay.  Had my mind BLOWN that all of George Street is now trams-only and no cars!!  Such a bizarre thing to see!!  (and I didn't even get any photos!)

We got to Circular Quay thinking we might go to Cockatoo Island, but OMFG Transport NSW information is ABYSMAL.  Other than an electronic "which wharf?" sign there was no details whatsover at the wharf about timing of ferries to Cockatoo Island. 

Transport NSW information is so bad, they literally have laminated A4 printouts telling you to go find a human to talk to

So (after waiting to see if the next Manly Ferry that came in was a Freshwater class ferry (they're retiring them but I thought a couple might still be running)) we abandoned that idea and headed for the Harbour Bridge Pylon. 

Anti-vehical barricades - looks nasty if you try to drive over them!

Chips on a Stick truck!!  I wanted to get one of these, but they weren't open in the afternoon and later I was way too exhausted and wanted to go home.

So on the way to the pylon we looked up their website and they close at 14:00.  WTF??  It was about 13:20 at that point and wouldn't be worth the $19 to get just a quick view and no time in the museum so abandoned that idea and went back to Circular Quay.  

Talked to a human at Circular Quay and got a bit of info and caught a ferry to Cockatoo Island (which I'll save for another post).  

Got back to Circular Quay and took a train to Central.  Had some drinks at the Covent Garden Hotel, then met up with Mum at Super Bowl for Peking Duck!  I haven't been there since the last time I was there with @StuartCRyan at the end of 2014, but nothing had changed and the Peking Duck was amazing (and Mum enjoyed it too - she'd never had it before!! *gasp*).

After dinner we did Vivid, which I'll save for another post.  Another night of getting to bed after midnight.   *sigh*.

Saturday.  18th.  Slept ok but still woke up 6:30.  Because that's what I do.  Picked up Tony at Sutherland and headed out to Ansto.  I'll save that for another post too.

Got lunch at Maccas drive through at Menai, then came home, via a quick stop at Sublime Point and Lake George.

I think this is the fire at Bluescope Steel

LAKE George!

It was *so awesome* to get home to the sweetie, we sooo just want a quiet life.  Chicken Kiev for dinner and then a super early night.

Not backdating for a change!

Tuesday.  Stu didn't actually get any sleep.  All night.  !!  So he stayed in bed all day.  Up to 6000 of Dad's slides scanned.  Saw one of my birds at lunch.  After work spent half an hour hacking weeds - this time the oak tree sprouts that went from about a cubic foot to about a cubic metre or two in the space of just a couple of weeks.  Also, the neighbour's yappy dog is *really* pissing me off.  It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on.  And then on and on and on and on some more.  Leftovers for dinner.  Started season 5 of The Simpsons.  Spent all evening filing photos of the years into directories.  Avoiding rereading the blog for doing the year in review post ;)

Wednesday.  Woke up at 3am from a disturbing dream, finally managed to get back only to wake up from another disturbing dream.  Hurrah.  So zombie day.  People were loving my dashboards, so I ended up duplicating them for two other teams as well.  Connor and I sat down and did the risk assessment for our Christmas party.  Yeah moving on.  Stu mostly cooked dinner.  Read through my blog posts for January for the year in review.  Finished watching 14 Minutes from Earth.  Such a waste of resources.  Especially all that helium.  When are people going to realise once all the helium is gone it's gone forever.  People shouldn't be wasting it on such frivolous things.  

Thursday.  Slept much better.  There was pizza.  Of course there was pizza.  Watched the first episode of The Queens Gambit, which was quite interesting.

Friday.  Woke up at 3am.  Because that's what I do.  I finished decorating my nails.

Then it was "my" Christmas party at the lake where I (with some help with the shopping and the cooking) put on a bbq for forty three people (minus one no show, and three that turned up right at the end to say hi).  It was a lovely day for a change, just a tad windy.  

A lovely afternoon.

Had leftovers for dinner and watch some Mandalorian, and more of the making of documentary.

Saturday was All The Things.  Had a very productive morning.  Went out a lunch (Stu had an El Maco, and I had a McRib which was super messy) and then did our food shopping.

Came home and basically just did cooking until Ben and Sarah came over for roast chicken dinner.  Started watching Home Alone til everyone got too tired, and called it an early night.

Sunday.  Not as productive a day, but did get some stuff done including fixing up several boxes of slides.  Only ten rolls left to scan!  Did a bunch of filing/sorting of photos as well.  Took bottles/cans from the party for recycling - got $18.30 back for it all, which almost lets me break even (I went about $30 over budget on the party, not sure where all the money went.. hrmm!).  

So I have three tips for Return-It.  Firstly, go to one of the bulk facilities.  Do not register an account with them - they want all your personal details, including "security questions" such as your mother's maiden name.  That is completely RIDICULOUS.  Not only that, but they're just as likely to never even give you any money at all, which is what happened to me.  They're a bunch of scammers.  So go to a facility where you don't have to register, and get cash on the spot.  Secondly, wear ear plugs.  It's very loud.  I suspected as much and took ear plugs, because I have sensitive ears and the clinking of bottles upsets them.  Thirdly, especially if you actually care about your fellow humans waiting in line behind you, SORT YOUR BOTTLES FIRST!!  They get you to put glass bottles on one side and everything else on the other.  I had already sorted out all the bottles and cans, so the sweetie and I burned through everything super quickly.  While everyone else literally didn't care that they were holding up everyone else by removing lids from bottles, videoing their kids looking dumb in front of the machine while the kids looked at the bottles and wondered which side to put them on, or simply spent ages after tipping all their bottles into a sorting sink separating bottles out as they went.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate people?

Finished a bunch of leftovers for dinner, which is good, because the fridge is completely full.  hrmmm!  Then I finished watching Home Alone.  Haven't actually seen it in years.  And, John Williams!  And I blogged!  On time for once!

Lamb shank stew, aka runny poo dinner we had last Sunday :)

Monday I finished the Peter Pan section of the Disney Memorable Moments Behemoth jigsaw.  Took three weeks for that section, which is shorter than other sections, but probably because I tended to spend more time on it.

Tuesday I woke up at 2am and didn't get back to sleep for two or three hours.  Hurrah.

Slept better Tuesday night.  But Wednesday fricken Skype completely froze my home computer in the middle of a meeting.  Hate hate hate Skype.  Drove the sweetie to the doctor because his back has been causing him all sorts of grief.  Picked up my work laptop so I can run meetings from it on my other vm and not my main computer.  David finished a jigsaw we started, 1000 pieces in just a couple of nights hehe.

Got a tin of soup from Chris's and had cabbage bake and tomato bake for dinner.  Yum yum yum.

Thursday successfully used Skype from the laptop and other vm.  Although I did have a long Skype screenshare with Connor on my main computer because I really needed the big screen.  Traditional beer and pizza.  Watched Picard, and had a drink with Kit and Pete and a game of Kismet, which Kit won.

How awesome is Canberra, this literally two minutes walk from our house.

Friday we finished Picard (pretty sure it was Friday night we finished it.  Could have been Thursday).  Then watched Peter Pan so I could get a photo of the jigsaw and the movie.  Except the "memorable moment" of the kids flying in front of Big Ben never actually happened!!  It *sort of* did but only as a transtion between two shots.  I call shenanigans!!  (I managed to capture the transtion of shots, but if you watch it you can see they never actually did it).

Saturday I felt like I didn't do anything much, just towels washing, food shopping, cooking dinner at lunch time, and tidied the house a little.  I guess that's *something*.  Last time I was at Coles they didn't have the trolleys chained together so you didn't need coins or a dongle, and it was the same on Saturday.  Had epic beef stew for dinner, watched the first episode of the new season of Lego Masters, some BBT, Brooklyn 99 and Hackers.  Another blogging fail - I never blogged when we watched it last time.  I thought it was relatively recently, Stu thought it was at least five years.  No blog evidence though.  

Sixteen different cheeses in the fridge!

Today I got a lot more done on the todo list, as well as finished part picking another nine sets (although actually only eight as one duplicate was already done and complete.  Had pancakes for lunch (it was Sunday, it was tradition for a decade when were kids).  Cooked epic lasagna for dinner.  Pics next week ;)

Eight thirty is bed time, right?

So never managed to blog last weekend.

So two Mondays ago there was Good Place, photo labelling, downloading and processing photos, and suddenly it's 21:45.  #grunties

Tuesday.  Twelve years on the job.  Phone is a year old.  Boycotted the Melbourne Cup lunch and went had our own with Dave5 and Connor.

At some point I saw an ad for the Amazing Race, so went home and watched the first three episodes.  10 Play has really lifted their game, and the ad experience is 100 times better than it used to be.  Different ads during each break, and much fewer repeats in the same hour.

Later that evening the ISS flew over.

Nothing much of note for the rest of the week, just a trip to Melbourne ;)

Monday just catching up on All The Things - both at home and at work.  More fighting with Apple to get the timelapse video off my phone.  I still haven't been able to get it to play.  Microsoft will happily charge $1.45 for a codec download.  hrmmmm.

Tuesday filled the green bin and watched another Amazing Race.  Continued battling with Apple.  Literally spent the entire Amazing Race episode trying, and then *still* not getting the file.  No more photo labelling either.

Wednesday I tried Google Drive to get the file off my phone.  Was able to get it, but still has the same codec error.  I did catch up up photo labelling, but nothing else.  Noted after @kapgar was talking about pillows that my pillow is probably forty to fifty years old, depending on when Mum got it.

Thursday evening did food shopping.  Aquila suggested VLC to play the timelapse file.  It was a jerky disaster.  Had a bit of a talk to Kit, who is super stressed about All The Things, with the wedding only three weeks away.

We got these for the Christmas Punch when we went shopping.  They look suspiciously the same, and the only difference in the ingredients is that one contains pectin (!?)

Friday had been hurty overnight so very tired Friday.  Picked up the sweetie and watched Tomorrow Never Dies.

Saturday I made a delicious cheesy beef casserole for breakfasts based on this recipe but with no pasta and only half the tomato puree.

Then got stuck into All. The. Things.  Had a super busy day getting the house cleaned and ready for the little brother to move in.  

Installed this new towel rail

Stu chopped back the periwinkle

I cleaned out a drawer and shelf in the bathroom, and hangy cupboard and a shelf in the spare bedroom, and cleaned off the computer desk in the spare room.  It was storage for a *lot* of stuff!

Collapsed late in the afternoon with more Amazing Race.

Then we picked up Neil and went to Cisco's for @CLBradley's 60th.  Was a nice night, but we both ate wayyy too much (we shoulda just done our own thing, not the banquet.. oh well..)

Today I went mountain climbing, then we ran some errands in the morning.

I spent the entire afternoon processing and geotagging photos from the past week.  Yeeeeshh.  

So I pretty much always get depressed on Sunday nights.  But throw into the mix the fact that APPLE SUX and everything just becomes too hard.  Apple is STILL so buggy I can't download timelapse movie files off my phone with Windows Explorer.  I first noticed this when I first started taking timelapse movies using the inbuilt iOS feature.  If you try to copy the video file it says "a device attached the system is not functioning" and you have to reboot the phone just have another go at getting the *rest* of the files off.

This happened at least last year and I ranted long and hard about it, and the fact that the only way I could get the files off my phone at all was with iCloud.  But do you think I can find that rant?  Or even the movies I took?

No.

Because I suck.  And Apple sux.

No blog for you.

Edit: found the movies.  They were taken at the end of 2017 on my old iPhone. So this bug has persisted on two different phones with multiple versions of iOS.  Does this company actually care at all about people like me?  Guess not.

Edit again:  Actually I don't think I could use iCloud.  I just tried again and now I remember I had problems with that too - I get "Can't play - This item was encoded in a format that's not supported.  0xc00d5212".  Maybe I sent it via email.. which was ok for smaller files but was problematic for bigger files.  I wish I could find that rant and my solution :(

Edit again:  Ok so yeah emailing the file worked (for this file because it was small enough).  I think for larger ones I had to use this "fix" (not a fix at all because from memory it left the JPGs in some weird format, so I basically had to set this setting, get the files, then turn the setting back again).

I hate Apple So. Much.

I've just wasted a good chunk of my evening wasting time because of Apple's CRAP.  I should have just gotten an Android.

When I went out to the kitchen yesterday morning this is what I saw:

Snow!  I didn't think it was cold enough for snow, but there was a big dumping on the hills above Googong.

The morning was spent cleaning, tidying, organising.

Then went on several missions:

• dump three boxes of books at Lifeline: success
• dump a bag of junk at the Green Shed: success
• exchange or get a refund on the DODGY Aqua One LED lights: fail*
• get 10c refund on some drinks bottles: success, maybe**
• food shopping: success***

* Remember I had to replace a dodgy Aqua One LED back in January?  Well that light we bought last October died a month or so ago.  And then another light we bought in March died a couple of weeks ago.  So that's ALL THREE DODGY lights from Aqua One have failed - one after just four months!!  In January Jem Aquatics replaced the light on the spot without any drama.  But this time they weren't playing ball.  They took the two lights and the receipts and said they'd talk to the Aqua One rep and get back to me.  Well they haven't yet.  Not only that, but that light that was replaced in January?  IT WAS DEAD THIS MORNING!!  THAT'S ALL FOUR DODGY AQUA ONE LIGHTS HAVE FAILED!!!!!  I am completely pissed.  If I pay twice as much for a light, I want it to last twice as long, not HALF as long!!  I really want to get my money back on them and go back to flouros.  And NOT Aqua One.  They completely suck.  Dodgy cheap made in China crap.  I've always hated Aqua One.  The whole episode left me feeling a bit stabby.

** So the ACT has started doing 10c refunds on bottles.  There's a collection point at Vinnies in Belco, so we took a box of bottles there.  I was expecting a machine that would scan the barcodes of the bottles and provide cash on the spot.  You know, like EVERYWHERE ELSE.  But no, there's a computer screen and a human.  You have to REGISTER to return your f@%$ing bottles!!  How f$@*ed is that??  They want name, address, phone number and even a freakin security question such as mother's maiden name.  Are you freaking kidding me???  All for a dollar or two at a time's worth of bottles.  And I didn't even get any money back - they just bag everything up and tell you "you'll get your money some time".  Yeah right.  As we were leaving they were packing up, so you can't even go at a convenient time.  Return-IT you SUCK!  I really should have just told them to screw themselves and just dump everything in our recycling bin.

*** I was pretty upset from the lack of outcome with Jem Aquatics and terrible experience from Return-It, so food shopping wasn't much fun.  We got a turkey roast and other stuff.  Got home and was on my feet for the next couple of hours preparing dinner and making a caramel slice.  Collapsed in front of an Anthony Bourdain and Frozen.

The last of my angels died a week or so ago.  But I'm a slacker and hadn't pulled it out of the tank.

Then yesterday the sweetie decided to move the last duboisi and the sucking catfish into the angel tank.

Which hadn't been cleaned.

His fish were dead by today.

I might have had a moment.

We totally don't deserve to keep animals.  Part of me wants to get rid of every fricken tank we have.

Also.  Gravity sucks.

Also.  I broke both my middle fingernails today reaching into things.

I suck.

But the most recent one: people that buy stuff on ebay that don't bother to contact you after a week, even after repeated emails to them.  Or people that buy stuff on ebay, keep saying they'll be there "tomorrow" and then never turn up.

Hate.

In other news.

I've been having more Christmas parties - a big work one that went late and was a lot of fun.

Then instead of a nice relaxing weekend, I had to deal with aforementioned sucky people, as well as lots of other people trying to coordinate pickups remotely at mum's.  And this was down at the coast, without a computer, and I didn't have my ebay password and it was all a super huge stress.  Really really didn't want to have to go away that weekend, but it was S&K's combined 40th and we've been terrible relatives this year so thought we'd better go.  So had to go via the club, then headed down.  Stayed at Dave's house (thanks Dave!) but just did some jigsaw while Stu collapsed, then we watched some Veronica Mars and had pizza for dinner.  Didn't even bother with the spa.  Next morning was the party, although it didn't really get going til we had to leave.  Left there and headed straight to Sydney (we had to take two cars down the coast).  Sigh.  

Got to Sydney and didn't even get to dump my stuff - had to go straight to the new place to meet the uncles etc, then we went out for dinner which was quite nice.

Home, dealing with annoying ebay people, collapse.  Didn't get to sleep til like 1am though :(

And then there was chaos in the city today which made things .. interesting ..

So we were leaving Jamison this morning after doing our shopping and pulling up to the exit onto Bowman Street.  There was a car in front of us so we slowed down, but then from our right this car was coming right for us.  I freaked out because I thought it was going to hit us.  Then the driver of that car blasted his horn at us and was going WTF?  And we're going WTF??? YOU BUTTPLUG!!!!

So this was us as the red line.  And the buttplug coming at us from the right as the blue line.  We quite clearly had the right of way, and he was quite clearly in the wrong.  

I totally hate people.