Sunday. 3rd.
We got another rump cap beef roast to cook. I didn't realise how expensive it was - 1.8kg was like $50!! eeep!! This one wasn't as epic awesome as the last time we got one. It was cooked nicely to medium rare but it was a lot tougher than last time.
Watched The Entire History of You on Black Mirror.
Speaking of Black Mirror. The other night's episode Fifteen Million Merits had a scene in it where the dude literally couldn't even close his eyes to block out ads. This is disturbingly close to being a thing in real life. The only time I ever have to sit through ads on my phone is when I'm playing Candy Crush. Yeah, still playing it. But only when I have the spare 45-50 minutes to play an entire episode of 15 levels. And I only do that so I can "win" the round against other people and get the 40 gold (it used to be 45). Point is, when you don't finish in the requisite moves you can watch ads to get more moves and a bonus. I don't watch the ads. I literally just lay the phone down and count down the number of seconds until it's due to be finished. Most of the time I have no idea what the ad is even for. The point is, apparently Apple are thinking about monitoring eye contact during ads. This could either be a good thing - they'll see that I'm not watching the ads and so not bother to give me such long ones, or they'll figure out a way to force you to watch them. At that point I'll quit once and for all.
Monday. Awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night. Hurray. Meh day. Cooked lemon pepper chicken for dinner. With maybe like 0.3% of the lemon juice I have in the house. I think I'd keep the veggies separate next time.
Did some catchup blogging in the evening. Watched Be Right Back on Black Mirror. I reckon some of that sort of thing is really not that far off (apparently in the decade since the episode has aired there's been a few apps out there that have tried).
Tuesday. Remember remember the 5th of November. I always do cause it's the day I started at my current job. 17 years ago. Eep! Meanwhile, Neil has been there 49 years. !!!!!! Did some futzing around with powershell scripts. Even managed to get something to work in our new environment which was pretty exciting. Leftover beef with salad for dinner, photo picking and White Bear on Black Mirror.
Wednesday. Slept mostly ok. Frustrating day with scripting at work - not nearly as successful as yesterday. Late home, late dinner, then sorting files, backing up computer, washed hair, bed.
Twenty or so years ago when I was still living in Sydney there were the first mumblings of a plastic bag ban. As such I started keeping all my plastic bags so that I would be able to have bin liners for years to come. Then I moved to Canberra (brought all those bags with me!) and continued until we got supermarket green bags. Even using those we still managed to accumulate plastic bags, except they were thicker (hurray!). Except now our supply is dwindling. We still only put out a bag or so of rubbish a week, but they're not being replenished. I've got very few bags left now. This was a bag from Sydney from 17-20 years ago.
The lake is very very low at the moment.
Thursday. Oh the humidity!! Juiced twenty lemons for Jim - like 1.8 litres worth!!
Clouds were a little ominous. Barely any rain though :(
Had some success with scripting which was cool. Drinks, pizza, Death in Paradise 10.3.
Friday. Slept mostly ok. Went to the doctor late morning. Had a list of 11 things to talk about (booked a long appointment). Getting old sux donkey balls. Just saying. Decided to drop into Herbert's to have the very last of the TRBC beers (the blood orange sour). Messaged Tony to see if he'd want to join me, so he did. Even ran into Fred and family who'd come for lunch which was pretty funny. Had some tenderloins with mustard sauce which were quite nice, but quite small for $21 and did end up hungry later.
Stu also bought a new toy...
Only cause our old one, which we've been using for like fifteen years since Grant sold it to us, died when the rip cord.. ripped off.. hmmmm. Frustration with scripting at work. Mostly cause I'm dumb. But in the end cause the API I'm working with is crap and to do what I need to do I'd need to make like 3000 api calls. Hurray. Think I'll wait to see if powercli updates will be any good. Kievs and veggies for dinner.
Then watched Goodbye, Farewell and Amen on Mash. The only thing I remembered from it was the chicken, so was watching the whole first half in light of that. It was a pretty good ending to a tv series. Apparently still the most watched episode of a TV series airing, like, ever. Even after forty years. I have all the DVDs from Dad, but I guess I'll probably never watch them now.
Saturday. Slept mostly ok. Got some stuff done, but not nearly enough.
My first strawberry of the season. Photo taken in the morning. I was going to go back in the afternoon and pick it. I forgot. By the next day it was GONE.
Stu tried out our new toy. It's a lot quieter than the petrol one! And a lot easier to start. I always hated mowing the lawn as a teenager. Our yard was huge and we had a heavy clunky lawnmower that always managed to hit me in the face with twigs even with the catcher on. So I probably haven't mowed any lawn in thirty five years. I might take it up again though!!
Pretty flowers on the walk to Herbert's
In the evening was a tap takeover at Herbert's. I was half not wanting to go (would probably end up drinking too much and spending too much). But went along anyway with Tony, Frank and Karen (J was busy). The takeover was from Hopsters Co-operative Brewery. Shared some nachos with Tony to start with and had a couple of beers.
Mitch the "only paid employee" came and sat with us for a bit which was pretty cool, and he told us about the brewery. It's actually a democratic co-operative and they choose the best beers from their user's home brewed productions and brew them up at scale. Very cool.
The gang!
After that I went to get more food and that's where the wheels fell off. I asked for the "kids gems" ($9). And Dino was like.. oh, we try to save those for the kids.. So I looked around and I'm like, there's literally no kids here.. and he's like, oh it's cause people "take the piss" and order a kids meal between four people.. and so I'm like, well don't worry about it then (I was literally ready to just not order anything at all), but he said he'd give them to me "just this once" (never mind the time I had them at the TRBC night a few weeks back). Anyway so I sat down again and pretty much just lost it. Like, I could have ordered a bowl of chips for $5 or a bowl of gems for $9. I love gems. I'd much prefer to have gems than chips. HOW IS THAT A PROBLEM???? I could barely finish the beer I had (and missed out on trying the last one). I couldn't even face the gems. Forced myself to eat a few of them. Tony had the rest. And then I went home. Sigh.
Sunday. Slept mostly okish, except for hurty for a while in the middle. Still upset/depressed about last night. The whole drama, combined with a massive increase in food costs (their pea and ham croquettes were $16 the last time they had them in 2022, now they're $20; and the tenderloins I had yesterday were incredibly expensive for their size (for $5 more I could have had a burger and chips and like four or five times the amount of food)) means I probably won't be going back to Herbert's any time soon. So didn't achieve much all day. Did some food shopping. Did a nice roast pork for dinner. Fat spatter all over the oven though.. eep!
I'm just so over it all at the moment. I'm almost at the point of giving up on everything. If I didn't feel the need to travel I could retire now and just stay at home and do my hobbies and never go out and just have a quiet life.