Update to the spontaneous country day trip (if you don’t know: partner told me we’re going to the country today and the location is a surprise). He took us to two spots.
The first was a coffee pit stop at the Dromkeen Gallery in Riddells Creek. Everyone was so friendly and they let us drink our coffee in the prime spot: in front of the open fire. Very cosy, especially as it gets extra nippy out that way. The baby enjoyed the never-ending piles of picture books and we bought one about Migaloo the white whale to take home.
Then we forged onward. I still didn’t know where we were going. I have to admit I was starting to feel a bit uncertain when we turned down some bumpy dirt roads and the baby started to get upset. But it soon all became clear: we were headed to the Mount Macedon Winery for lunch! My oh my it was absolute heaven. Completely delicious. And the ambiance was so relaxed that the baby just chilled and people-watched while partner and I got in some quality time together.
Best way to teach respect for electricity. I approve. A few small shocks are far more educational that one big one. I miss penny bungers for their power to teach respect for trajectory.
I refer to my dog as Little Man, so for a moment I picturing a little dog happily wagging its tail while watching slot cars race around. Twas an excellent mental image, thank you!
Had to call WorkSafe cause someone had an ouch that meant we had to call 000. The ouch was minor and a pre-existing condition. So they're all good.
Someone also had a pre-employment drug test that needs further investigation on the THC front.
But I also:
Held a really good job interview with someone I'm going to hire.
Helped my manager represent our department in a global meeting for our company where we are seen as pioneers for OHS.
Held my own in a meeting to develop SWMS for a national team.
Definitely one of my more rewarding days since I started. It has been a rollercoaster the entire time and I love it, even on the days where it challenges me.
Upon waking partner instructed me to “get ready for a country trip today, you can’t say no and the destination is a surprise” so
I guess we are going on a day trip 🤠
Haha i like that way of looking at it :P
It certainly is, got some funny looks last time i went in there and asked for 6kg, a couple in the shop thought i was crazy haha.
I just take the big fermenter bucket in with me and get him to decant it straight into that, that way i only have to sanitise the fermenter once and dont have to try to get the last little bit of honey out of multiple jars!!
Oh I know this one! Bees distrimimate based on food availability, as different trees flower at different times of the year. A wild honeybee nest will forage hotspots within ~6km, but Typically will stay within a km. The different honeys are classified by the beekeepers who follow the "golden highway" as different species bloom, and knowing what the bees were foraging before harvesting leads to the type of honey produced.
It's been a while since I thought about bees, so as always, feel free to fact check and correct!
Different people. From what I can tell there were only a few mods on r/Melbourne that are still actively moderating, and they were spending their time on a Discord group.
Lodion (who I believe is in Perth) set up this Lemmy instance with all the Australian groups set up, I wandered in and saw a familiar looking group & a daily thread, and put my hand up to moderate. If you look at the older posts there is some discussion there about what people want from the group that I used to write the community guidelines - that and this daily thread is probably the best way to see what the vibe here is. 🙂
So cold. Also I hate wearing layers. Hate how the inside long sleeve somehow manages to creep up your arms and you have to try to pull down from the top of two other long sleeves. And it takes forever, and if you don’t it’s just going to irritate you to no end. Curse you cold weather. Curse you. Incase you can’t tell. I don’t like the cold 🥺
Omgsh don’t get me started. This happened to me twice Monday and Tuesday. Somehow I pushed the sleeve of my top up my arm to wash my hands, and it slid down and got wet (Monday) What the heck? Was more cautious Tuesday and somehow it got wet again 😒 rude!
Yeah, oddly enough my arms get cold with multiple layers, I think due to the long sleeved shirt.
I’m under blankets right now. Trying to wrap them around me but it’s a pain at times keeping them wrapped, especially when you need to keep the arms free or get them out or move.
Hate wearing layers? You're in the wrong state my friend! Tried a wife beater as an undershirt, then a short sleeved, then a jacket/shirt/jumper? It's how I generally avoid the sensory overload while keeping my core toasty
Embrace it! Load up some cannons into the back seat, go broadside a Coles truck on the monash! retire having sold truck full of overpriced food at 50% of the store value.
I would rather a slow news day than a bunch of bad stuff happening tbh.
“What the duck?!,” one person wrote, while another was convinced it was not a duck, but a dachshund poking out from behind the cape."
Yeah I can see that.
Swinburne are looking for volunteers for their open day, using an opening of "remember what it was like when you were trying to choose your course?". Yeah, I do. I went "oh, the government is letting me do a course for free. There's one I can do entirely from home, why not. If it sucks too bad I can just quit." I suspect this is not what they are looking for in a volunteer.
I'm in this Italian cafe in Ivanhoe after a huuuuge psych session this morning, when I say Italian it really is an old school tiny cafe with 90s signage, zero attempt to look trendy or have vibey music, there are homemade Sicilian donuts, the proprietors speak Italian and look like they came out of the 1950s, and most tellingly, they asked if I could pay in cash first (but they did accept eftpos too).
The coffee is a proper damn espresso, too. I didn't intend to get a donut but I might now
e: ahhhh an ancient nonno and nonna shuffled in and ordered everything in Italian (or maybe Sicilian I wouldn't know). They must be in their late 80s. It's a glimpse of a Melbourne that is disappearing
Old Med migrants speaking the language are literally dying out and with them a certain way of life that, from my understanding, was once very prevalent in Melbourne. Newer generations of migrants from those areas are very different, as are the descendants of the old migrants. Wouldn't expect most of them to be primarily monolingual in an Italian language, and very different education levels/attitudes/life experiences
On the way home, someone got on the bus wearing a sign around their neck that said, "Homophobia is not a scientific phobia." When we got off the bus my kids asked me to explain it. I said, well, to the best of my knowledge, a phobia is when you have a physical fear response to something. What happens when we're scared? Our heart can start racing, we might start sweating, pupils dilate, we might start shaking, that kind of thing. Homophobia is a bullshit made up phobia that doesn't trigger these physical responses. By the way, falling in love can trigger a similar physical response.
If anyone knows the sign-wearing person, tell them my daughter liked their outfit.
I'm back with my 8 cheese products. Crisis averted. Thanks to all those that left messages of support. I couldn't reply because my cheese gags are a little bit dirty tbh.
G'day! Felt a bit guilty about not doing my workout yesterday on account of being absolutely stuffed from work and crashing early. Woke up to do it this morning and discovered that yesterday was a scheduled rest day! So it's day 4 and I've done my exercises. I feel different in a way I can't put my finger on, sort of a teensy bit fitter. Probably psychosomatic but it works for me!
Taking the Mini Peelers to Melbourne Central today, looks like a nice one out there!
You do get improvements very quickly when you first start an exercise program - a lot of it is your muscles learning to work together and coordinate better. The other part of improvement is actual muscle development, and you will often notice that most after a rest day. When you exercise you actually damage and break down your muscles a bit, and the body responds by rebuilding them better than before. So the rest is vital periodically to make sure your body has the capacity to rebuild.
After what I've seen she can't continue driving she's going hurt someone or herself or worse and my advice is falling on deaf ears and stripping independence. hrmm
and thank you to all for the advice yesterday now is the pointy end.
Nothing, let me stress nothing upsets me more than being thanked for my patience and understanding. The nerve of assuming you are entitled to either metro speaks fucking volumes about your service.
How about those 'we appreciate your patience, your call is so important to us' on hold messages when you try and call a bank, telco, [insert govt dept], etc and you're only another 35 minutes from the next available agent? Because those make me wanna rip cute stuffed toys apart.
Still haven't woken up properly, nor have I emerged from the oodie knockoff except for a quick change from pjs to clothes.
Thank God (Gouda?) I did the shopping yesterday.
Ah the joy of cats. Number ones in the tray. Big production of scratching at the side of the tray from multiple directions. Move next door to the covered litter tray. Number twos. Another big production of completely useless side of box scratching. Wander off happy. I get to clean out two litter trays. Thanks cat.
I went into centrecom to get one tube of thermal paste. I assumed all would be well since I click and collected it.
All was not well. I spent an hour and a half in there and I now have 4 more Ethernet cables, a new USB stick I didn't need and yet another can of air duster
spoiler
___ in my defence, the USB stick was $8 for a 32gb USB 3.2 HP stick, and the Ethernet cables were $2 each
Edit: and I almost bought a new ethernet switch, even though I already have 3 I'm not even currently using
New movie for today was Grey Owl. I read this guy's books last year and read some bios too. Sadly the movie was a disappointment. Just a run of the mill bio. He is an unusual adult with skills and an interest who becomes a writer. The only thing that makes him different to other writers about nature and indigenous peoples is he pretended he was one. That is all. It could have been a good movie, spend time on his childhood and his beginnings. On the secret , have him hunted down by a journalist. Then public reaction and his legacy. ( and it's a good legacy, he helped start the environmental movement in Canada ) Maybe 2.5 hobbits out 5 and nice to see something that's not a marvel movie.
Nice. If you have grinding capacity (food processor, spice grinder etc) I highly recommend looking into vegetable powders. You can dry excess vegetables, and often skins - including pumpkin skin & tomato skins - and then grind them to make powder. It's a great way of preventing waste, you can see what is left in the vegetable crisper at the end of the week and dry it if it won't be used. You can then use the powders to add flavour and thickening to stews and add them to baking - dried zucchini can be substituted for normal flour in many things, and zucchini, carrot, pumpkin etc. can all be used in cakes and breads. You can also make your own vegetable stock powders.
Those are some oddly coloured spuds. A friend grew her own turmeric in a pot and got a good harvest after one year - dehydrated them in the oven and ground them down for the most mindblowing turmeric powder
if you get browning a quick dip in lemon juice / citric acid will prevent.
I like to use an l-ascorbic bath when drying granny smiths because it elevates the bite to near war-head levels. Dear god I'm salivating just describing it.
I read up in advance and gave them all a lemon juice bath before going in! Where do you source the ascorbic?
I've made a mix of granny smith, pink lady, and some other type I can't remember the name of to see what I like 😁
I'm trying to find the right balance between effort/time and money in terms of feeding myself. Sadly no money for FairFeed this week or next. But I have caved and bought some frozen sliced green beans. I shall be making a pot of dal and I'll stir fry the green beans with a bit of chilli and plenty of onion. That along with defrosted curry should see me through to the weekend.
Sadly, the frozen beans just don't cut it the same way fresh ones do (although they are infinitely faster to use). But the dal turned out brilliantly! I did it tadka style rather than the usual sri Lankan coconut milk style and got the mix of spices perfectly this time - plus I didn't overfry the fresh curry leaves. Win!
Well, since no one is helping me with my vertigo issues (it's real) I'm going to plough through a bit of duty free since I'm not working until monday and try and buy a bread roll from woolies for a peri-peri chicken burger a bit later.
Another Marketplace sale today - lots of beer bottles out the door, and more space inside for me, yay! My old bottles are going off to bottle some samples for someone starting up a new brewery, so an exciting new future in marketing for them too!
Despite it being so cold I have manged to get out and do some weeding today. Which is just as well, the self seeded parsley is starting to take over. I also have lots of self-seeded lettuce coming along strongly, and some fennel which is starting to get some rather fat looking bulbs. It's not doing too badly out there for a mid winter garden.
Can proudly proclaim that whilst I still hold out the tiniest hope of hearing from my ex, I know now that I couldn't have a relationship with them unless they owned their behaviour like I have reflected on my own and changed. I'm a completely different person now and I know what I want and don't want and how I should be treated.
Edit for context; what I'm trying to say is, I have this tiny hope, but when I have the thought I then realise I don't want to get back together with my ex and that I've come to that realisation. In saying that I want ownership of behaviour and change in behaviour I'm setting a boundary because I don't see that happening and it's stands I've now set. I see now that I wasn't clear in this. Lol.
Any canned fish aficionados here ? Prior to Reddit shenanigans I had recently discovered /r/CannedSardines and I felt like I was home. All canned fish is welcome. Personally the King Oscar Briesling Sardines in Olive oil that you can find at your nearest Coles are excellent. I am sceptical of fishes canned in oil other than olive but perhaps that's an unfair baseline
Sardine fan here. I like the Brunswick sardies in oil. Springwater sardies are not a patch on the oil ones. I quite like sardies in tomato sauce, but other flavors can get in the bin. I also like herrings and kippers but am ambivalent about tuna (in tins). Any fish tinned with gloopy sauces can get in the bin too. If I want my tinned fish with a sauce I will damn well make one. Brisling sardies are an acquired taste, but there are some circumstances where they are the best.
Not really an aficionado, I can't afford and usually don't bother with the truly gourmet stuff. In terms of what is available at colesworth, for tuna my favourite is Sirena, and for sardines the Sole Mare wood smoked sardines are the absolute bomb. It's too good for anything other than eating on its own.
The treasurer is not gonna fire Philip Lowe. The government makes it a point of order to make their forecasts wrong. Just look at BOM for crying out loud.
Those with mortgages are encouraged to accelerate when you see him on a pedestrian crossing though. "Sorry mate, I was forecast to break but then suddenly slammed on the accelerator and screwed you"
I don't wanna be that guy but our OCR will be in lockstep with the US fed rate regardless of inflation targeting and our OCR will be lower theirs regardless.. even if our inflation is higher.
RBA don't admit it (but vaguely point to it in their minutes) AUD/USD is a concern for our primary industries, as that shit is sold in USD. The lower our buck, the better it is in translation of accounts.
Wednesday night trivia was a total blast, even if I did stay out too late for a school night and had a few too many drinks yet again. Dry July is looking appealing this morning.
I started off around 14 this morning, I have just made it past 17. Miss Meow is on my lap adding a couple of degrees of warmth too, so not doing too badly.
This one is still a library book, so I don't have to feel naughty. I'm a student so they send the books to me, with a pre-paid label to send them back again.
It suppose it does feel a touch naughty though, as it is a free course (well, HECS waiver so the govt paid & I used up a study credit). I get access to the library, to LinkedIn Learning, access to computer packages. Even without the course itself it's a great deal!
God damn targeted instagram ads. I’ve found some jumpers/tshirts that I now desperately want but the store looks low key dodgy and the prices are deceptive because they’re in American $$.
Good photos, but if the shop seems dodgy I'd be really sus about how will the collar and cuffs hold up after a few washes. For those prices, even on sale, I'd rather buy from a trusted brand, but I get that they're tempting; that Pemberley one does look good...
The thing that gets me is that the reviews are obviously fake. They’re like ‘this is the BEST SWEATSHIRT I OWN. So BIG and FLUFFY and COSY. YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY BUY THIS SWEATSHIRT!!!!!’… but it’s the review for a tshirt.
I think it’s one of those ones that will COME but they’ll take 6 months to ship here and be average quality and then customer service won’t respond to your emails. I’ve been stung by a few of those websites before, which is what makes me wary.
G'day peeps, google sent me a a coupon code for 4 months of free New York Times games (no credit card needed). I don't want it. If anyone else wants it, just reply and I'll DM whoever asks first (it is almost 2:30 though so may not be instant)
Idk if its a shareable code (might be locked to just my email or something) but I'm willing to find out
Thanks Baku. I get access to a subscription through my work. PSA Many public libraries and the State Library also offer access to newspapers and magazines, so check your local library service for subscription details if there’s something you’re considering buying.
So I retired even earlier last night, about 830. Kitten woke me at 230am by gently patting my forehead with his paw and slightly extended claws. I finally managed to get back to sleep after he mewed and hassled me for about half an hour, but they still got me up before 5am.
Spent the morning doing aa stuff, my sponsor is a gem. More emails for my volunteer work this afternoon and was able to share some info which is really going to help someone and I've been getting some delightful replies for help I've given in the past. Having shared lived experience really bonds people.
EDIT: The kitten must have been eating too fast and sounded like he was choking but only puked, I went to see if he was ok and mumma cat came in growled at me and her tail puffed
right up. I moved away from the kitten and she got in between us and growled again. She's such a wonderful mumma. She got over it pretty quickly and enjoyed some scritches soon after thankfully.
I re-read this page of the gender "dysphoria" bible, if anyone is interested on what the hell is going with my journey. It's like I get a whole system wide upgrade, there's just so much going on. I've experienced a lot of things in it in surprise so I'm kinda glad I didn't read earlier and know what to expect. Plus the section on adhd really gave me some backup knowlege to what I'd recently thought was happening. It's anecdotal but based on a lot of andecdotes. It's annoying to think I'm still just a guinea pig in this science because we've been marginalised for so long, but at least we're moving in the right direction in Australia.
Note: It's not called gender dysphoria anymore, it's called gender incongruence. The term hangs on though but it's not always the trans experience to live in a state of dysphoria despite many of us having some level of it some of the time. https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/second-puberty-fem
Alright so the person came back onto the tracks?! Right so clearly they are unstable or unwell or something, so it’s morally abhorrent that we run them over but we don’t care enough take them into care and get them the help they need… yeah that’s where you lose me. Either it’s a dog eat dog world, or we actually give a fuck about people and properly help them.
Just had someone on another board try to tell me Indiana Jones taking the Ark of the Covenant was an example of colonial stealing of historic artefacts on a par with stealing the Elgin Marbles.
um, except the Ark is a mythological weapon of mass destruction . So other than that exactly the same. 👻👻⚡⚡😵🤯
Bit of a technical tangent/rant about all the PC temp issues I was having, if anyone remembers from Reddit
rant
So continuing on from the CPU overheating saga from Reddit, if anyone remembers. (for those who don't, I had issues with my PC running a bit hotter than I'd like under load, so I tried to fix it with a reapplication of thermal paste. Thanks to not having a clue what I'm doing, I fucked it up every time and somehow made it worse)
Today I decided to fix it once and for all. It seems to be working. It's been idling at 80-90 for the last three weeks with just Chrome, Steam, Spotify and Discord open (plus task manager and HWInfo64 to see what's happening). Now it's at about 50-60 while I'm writing this comment. Not ideal, of course, but I don't really know what to do. I think the cooling system is just inadequate (stock CPU cooler on a ryzen 5 3600, 2 fans at the front and 1 at the back)
I don't know whether it's the new thermal paste (I was using Arctic Silver 5, now using Noctua NT-H1), the really good dusting a gave it, using an electric scredriver making it tighter or something, or a combo of everything but it seems to be running a lot happier now
@useless_modern_god@Seagoon_ I think there's only 3 people in Darwin, so Threadiverse would mean maybe 0.1 person, who would then just be talking to themselves. Very occasionally.