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

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

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

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

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

Carnage...

Causer of said carnage...

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

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

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

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

Saturday.  Awake from 3:00 hurray.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also made up breakfasts for the week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday.  11th.  Leftover lasagna for dinner, and Stu cooked one of the zucchinis Cath brought over to have with it. Then Beyond Paradise 2.6 (last episode of season 2). Then geotagged Mum's Kangaroo Island and Adelaide photos.

Monday.  Slept okish, but awake early. Achieved a few bits and pieces at work. Leftover Christmas party sausages and salad for dinner, then watched the Beyond Paradise end of 2024 Christmas special.

Tuesday.  Awake from 3:30 for ages hurrah. Made some progress on the proxies but came across more issues, one of which I thought I solved last year but the behaviour has changed.. hrmm. Leftover lasagna and salad for dinner then Beyond Paradise 3.1.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5:20. Spent all day working on a rework of a bunch of rules for Dave5. Stu cooked a very yummy miso mackerel and Japanese cucumber salad for dinner.

Beyond Paradise 3.2. Didn't turn my computer on at all in the evening because of all the storms rolling through.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5:20. Lots of AD comms work planning, thinking about load balancer stuffs and talking to Wardie about All The Things (but mostly how much Microsoft sux). Sneaky drinks in our usual spot with a good turnout and even some randoms! Made pizzas for dinner and then Beyond Paradise 3.3.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok until some time after 5, although may have gotten a little more sleep. Did some change paperwork in the morning and was all set to setup a heap of firewall rules when the interruptions started. In the end that got completely abandoned and I did the load balancing stuff. Stu sliced some of Cath's zucchini and I made up a lasagna out of the leftover sauces from last weekend. Beyond Paradise 3.4.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think.

In the morning I heard a large plane fly over and went to flight trackers to find out what it was.  It was an A330 from Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney, but it had done a big diversion down south.  Then I went and looked at a few other planes.  Then a few more.  It was chaos!!  A whole heap of flights to Sydney were in holding patterns waiting for clearance to land.  Turns out there was a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers on Friday and Saturday and it was a mess!! (yes I have over 66 thousand photos and screen shots on my phone).  

Fairly quiet day, just a bit of house stuff and photo stuff and Lego stuff and a fairly painless food shop. Kievs for dinner (missed out last night!) then watched a making-of special of Stranger Things season 5.

Also the last two days have been EPIC windy.  Really crazy.

Sunday.  Slept okish. Another quiet day.

At 12:22 my computer BSOD!!! Although event logs said it crashed at 12:08. Hrmmm. Then raged at Windoze because I went over to another desktop, clicked to open Explorer (it's pinned to my task bar).. and it opened ON MY ORIGINAL DESKTOP. TWICE!!! How is it that windoze 11 is so unbelievably BAD???  And this week's random explorer behaviour - windows forgot settings on one of my folders, and Chrome stopped sorting by reverse date order and defaulted back to alphabetical.  I hate windows So. Much.

Sunday.  28th.  Stu wanted karaage chicken pizza for dinner. Whoops. Stranger Things 5.7.

Monday.  Busy morning of all the things. Decided to have another go at attaching the CanoScan 8400F on my main windoze 11 machine. I know it definitely used to work on windoze 11, but the last time I tried it it refused to work. So then I wondered if maybe I was just too impatient - anything I plug in with USB takes a full minute to appear to windoze. No idea why. It only seems to happen on my computer, has from day one. Anyways. It works. So all these years I could have been scanning on my main computer and not have to turn on my old computer to scan. Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Leftover turkey and veggies for dinner then watched Enola Holmes 2. Yay for dementia, even though we only watched it three years ago, I really couldn't remember *anything* about it.

Tuesday.  Early night, slept relatively well, but then of course awake from fivish. Realised my phone hadn't charged all night. Replugged the cable. Nothing. Then realised the wifi was off. Rebooted my phone but nothing worked. Then I noticed the clock radio was off. Great. Must have tripped a circuit. Yeah. At ~23:00. So half the house including three fish tanks and the fridge/freezer were off all night. Ice cubes were still frozen though so all good there. Most likely it's the old heater in the downstairs two foot. Although I replaced it a while back but never removed the old one, but now I can't remember which was the old one and which was the replacement. Will need to stick a thermometer in there (the old one wasn't heating properly). Also off was the cooler, so ran it on fan mode for an hour or so to try and cool down the house a little before today's 34C madness. Later Stu said he'd had an alert that the grid had gone offline, so maybe it was something to do with that. Not great that it would trip a circuit flipping to battery mode though. Another quiet day of fish and scanning and dotz.

In the afternoon went over to M&M's for a pool party/bbq New Year's Eve Eve which was nice.

It threatened to rain.  Then it did.  A lot.

I haven't seen these since I was in primary school!!!

Wednesday.  New Years Eve.  We're officially a quarter of the way through the century.  Mediocre sleep. Day of reflection (writing up my year in review post), slide scanning, Lego, dotz.

With a family of currawongs demolishing the plums on the self-seeded plum tree.  

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth,"[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death'[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Finished re-reading the New Testament today.  The verses above remind of The Holy City from carols, so fun timing.  A new heaven and a new earth will be pretty awesome.  But for now we can just be content with a new year...

Photos to be added when I download them on the weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

Denis Walter..

Tim Campbell and Paulini..

Hallelujah chorus..

Casey Donovan..

Silvie Paladino..

Marina Prior singing Angels We Have Heard on High..

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

Uncle Doug Heywood..

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

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

There may have been a little bit of leftovers..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday.  15th.  Kievs and brussels sprouts for dinner. Must be Friday. Wait, what?

DS9 4.14. Another episode to be endured. Then LegoMasters 7.3. Yayyy Karen!!!! haha

Monday.  Slept mostly ok. Gave Mum a call before work for her birthday and heard more about her trip. Sigh. Did a few tickets at work but mostly scripting which was nice. Google AI helped with one problem but sent me on a wild goose chase with another and needed Nick to help me fix. Pizzas for dinner, must be Thursday. Wait, what?

Andor 2.4 then Lego Masters 7.4.

Was impressed how well these things lasted - like a month!

Tuesday.  Slept mostly okish. 

Happy 3128!!  Whenever I see my clock/watch at around 13:52 I wish @Aquillaaudux a happy 1352.  So my step log at 3128 two days ago was pretty cool!

Stoopidly busy day. All. The. Tickets. The last week or so has been quite pleasant, so this was quite a shock to the system. 

Nissin miso ramen that I had for lunch.  Not miso-ey enough.  Next time I'll lump in some miso paste

Cooked up some leftover pork with some veggies for dinner. Andor 2.5. People are calling this like the best show ever, but I'm all what the actual f#$& is going on all the way through it. I have no idea who's who (I struggle with names and faces at the best of times, but no one has names that mean anything to me, and some of the cast look fricken identical), who's on who's side (hurray for espionage stories), or what anyone is doing. And that end scene?? What??? Fricken hopeless. A real estate agent (I guess) came to Kit's place today. But instead of turning off the lights in the kitchen that have been on for two weeks straight, they turned MORE lights on and left them on too! What a retard.

Wednesday.  Slept ish-ish I think.

Baby fish!  Not sure who's babies they are.. either from the very unwell big female I took from the four foot a couple of weeks ago, or maybe one of the super young females I took from the two foot..  There's only like three babies though so who knows.

Not quite as crazy a busy day but still pretty busy. I tried multiple times to do some scripting, but whenever I started someone would interrupt me. Even after 17:00 when most people were offline, people came to talk to me in real life and I *still* didn't get any scripting done hmmmm. KFC for dinner. Whoops. Andor 2.6 (somewhat better episode, easier to follow), Lego Masters.

Thursday.  Slept mostly okish.

Fairly busy day again.

Saw these guys at lunch attacking a new grass seed mat

Good drinks, heaps of people, and even a whole heap of pizzas (thanks Timmy!) so I had dinner before I even got home. Lego Masters .. awwwwwwwwwww so sad to see Owen and Gabby go. Someone must have come to Kit's place again today because most (not all) of the lights are off now.

Friday.  Okish sleep. Took an RDO. Got some things done in the morning. Went out before lunch to do a couple of things, but ended up being out for nearly four hours #grunt. There's a couple moving into Kit's today, including a dude with an actual truck. Leftover beef from the freezer for dinner. DS9 4.15,  urgh another tedious episode. Then The Bomb and the Cold War episode 7.

Saturday.  Ok sleep I think. Semi productive day. I asked the sweetie what he wanted for dinner and so he got Dumpling Inn haha. Had that while watching Jaws, on account of it being fifty years ago yesterday that it was first released in cinemas (in the US). Also because Stu has never actually seen it. !!

Sunday.  Slept okish. Less productive day today. Did get some photo culling done and some food shopping, but a lot of the day went on a horrible jigsaw.

Windoze Explorer has been continuing to drive me crazy.  This week it refuses to honour settings I've previously set like sorting and icon size.  I was trying to file email attachments and it would reset the settings to whatever it felt like EVERY SINGLE TIME I NAVIGATED AWAY.  Or it'll just randomly jump to the top of the window and I have scroll back down to find where I was working.  FFS windows is trash.  Tonight it actually remembered my blog photo directory by some miracle, although Chrome reset itself.  I hate windoze.  

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hate Windoze SO MUCH!!

And suddenly the weekend is over. hrmmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pizzas then DS9 2.5.

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

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

Kievs for dinner.

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

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

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

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

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.