Discussion Thread: Thursday, 6 March 2025

So yesterday I was running late for work, turned a corner and put out for hard rubbish was..

I couldn't believe my luck; half deflated tyres, rusty as hell but with perfect working brakes and no spiders under the seat, I thought "you'll do me!" I rode it carefully the rest of the way to work. Well, I've kinda fallen in love.

Today I bought a helmet and lock. She's perfect: not so grand she's a target for thieves, grand enough for me to ride to work.

Today I rode her home to begin a new life with me, and it felt good.

Edit: please ignore my shitty side way garden.

That's a nice find. Mudguards, basket, rear rack and chain guard are all premium additions. Those twist gears are a bit shit in my experience.
E: I reckon you can get some panniers for that rack.
- They are a bit shit, and aren't working that great, but I rarely get out of second gear. I like to just cruise along in an unhurried manner. I didn't actually notice them at first, other bikes I've had in the past have the more usual kind of gears. My other bike (which has been in the shed for 13 years awaiting restoration by Mr P) has no gears and back peddle brakes lol. I'm not looking to take the Gaffney street hill (again) any time soon so it's all good.
Ooh nice find!
- I found myself smiling every time I happened to see it when I popped out of the factory for a moment. It makes me uncommonly happy for some reason.
Great find! My bike is from that same store in Prahran, bought many years ago. It's a good store with high quality bikes.
- Ah good to know. Given the condition of this bike I'd hate to get it serviced 💸 It does seem like it was a pretty nice bike in it's day though, and I like it all the same.
That's awesome!!! Nice score :)

packing has commenced. I made the first book box and turned around for a sec to grab the box lid.

Looks all packed and ready to go.
This is to be expected.
Miss Meow has been safely contained this afternoon inside a paper Coles bag that was lying on it's side, but I'm not sure that would work against the allure of a box.
He’s just making sure he won’t be forgotten

They're giving my hopeless co-worker the clients I've been managing.

This is fucking hilarious. They couldn't even handle 1 client lol

Ted is really enjoying helping with the packing. 🙂

He really is such a strikingly handsome kitteh

🎵 Everything is broken

Everything is screwed and we're totally fucked 🎵

Everything is bro-keeeen
And we're sadly out of luuuuck 🎵
(this is meant to be to the tune of that Lego movie song right)
- 💯

I feel deeply uncomfortable going to this funeral today. I really hate funerals, but it’s about being there to support a friend.

so many hugs

took tomorrow off, four day blitz on garage to deal with sorrow commencing

so many hugs
- Thanks.
  was not looking forward to doing it alone

I've not managed to achieve anything since lunchtime because the entire tech ecosystem my job relies on is melting down.

On the other hand I did manage to make happy noises at a co-worker's dachshund puppy over webcam...so it is not a complete loss

Got a bit of a gentle but well-deserved telling off from my supervisor about needing to finish collecting data by the end of the month. Stupid fucking ADHD brain really does need a threat to kick start itself. I hate it but it is what it is. Let's get this shit done.

I have read a few books on the science of motivation, ( I read a lot of science/text books on psychology and psychiatry )
and what I learnt is that humans are social animals and that everyone does better with external motivators like a coach or a muse or a boss.
Even Olympic athletes need a coach.
So I ask/tell myself, I am no where near as good or dedicated as one of these elite people and if they need a coach then what about the rest of us? Why is there some societal belief that getting help with motivation or nudges is a weakness? It's not. Knowing we do better with other people giving motivation is a strength.
- It's very true, I do often need social motivation/a community to spur myself on, all the successful times in my life have been when I've had external motivators like that. I have often beat myself up about it because it feels like feeding my ego, and also it feels like a double edged sword - disappointment or discord with that external motivating person, especially a perceived sense of rejection, can have a dramatic negative effect (at least for me). But that shouldn't stop me from reaching out while being realistic with expectations. I have been blessed to have one of the most lenient and supportive supervisors I could get...
You are a fierce unrelenting data collector. They say it doesn't collect itself but with your mettle, and at the helm, it may as well. You have this.
The data knows it can run, but it can't hide. It sees you coming and resigns itself to collection and analysis. Resistance is Futile, and you are unstoppable. You will kick the data's arse into next week if it dares try to resist you. As has been said already, you got this =)
You are powerful, dedicated, thoughtful, thorough. You got this
- Thank you 😭 I need every bit of an ego boost right now to stave off a massive wave of insecurity and shitfulness looming on the horizon

Pizza was the better choice. I forget how shit KFC makes me feel the next day despite how tasty it is in the moment.

In other news, pretty much disconnected from everyone at work. I check the laptop a couple of times a day.

I really will miss these people but the situation was untenable.

I feel very unproductive though, which I dislike. Have been doing gym every day, plus guitar etc.

I think I actually miss work.

Boss: can you check grafana pls, we have a lot of sites currently offline

Me: yah, they're all qld east coast

Boss: so?

Me:........

Looking at the bom in brissy for Sat..
35 to 150 mm jeez.
- Now 35 to 200 mm. Break out the wellies.
our external management only reached out yesterday about a preemptive shutdown. Like, where the F you guys been all week?!
- one of our sites is the theatre in Star Casino, watching that bastard like a hawk. Fully expect an "insurance accident"
....
- .........

Goodnight all ❤️

I'm gonna drink tea and watch The White Lotus all day today.

Looks interesting, might have to add it to my list.
- S1 and S2 are AWESOME
Ooh shit I didn't realise it was out yet. Hype
- I think there's 4 episodes out so far.

Overcome by yet another overwhelming wave of lethargy and sleep and needed to doze off for an hour there. This isn't good it's definitely a slide into the ol depresso funtimes. I can see myself trying to block out the huge cloud of sad/bad by just sleeping instead of doing anything ...

I am going to hit the pavement tomorrow, Saturday and maybe even Sunday if the weather's right, to get the west side data all collected, especially as now I really can only get data between about 10 and 2. Which is good in a way because fuck traffic and fuck getting overheated/dehydrated again during long days. But it means I might have to redo some my previous data... sigh... anyway I just need to get my head down, bum up, and go for it

Data right now be like
- I hope so, it's been giving me a run-around with all the limitations and then me also fucking up and not collecting measurements in mm but in cm...
You've got this!

I don't want to say too much but lately my kid has been helping me obtain cookbooks, movies and tv series 😉 and I am in my glee. Finally she's earning her keep.

my kid has been helping me obtain cookbooks, movies and tv series
And so it begins..
A life destined for navigating the high seas, it starts with downloading cookbooks and ends in downloading cars.
- I do nothing except point.
Ahoy?
- Aye!

Noodle diaries day two:

Hot ones today

That looks so tasty!!

Fried rice is a lunch win

why does it feel hotter today than yesterday?

It's a bit humid, however nowhere close in temperature.
Perhaps you're having a moment?

Moon tonight. Been a while since astro glad all of it still sort of works.

Wave.

Camera almost drowned bit ruff out there :(

I’m really regretting yesterday’s nap -_-

But I repaired Melbcat’s bed. The filling had become lumpy from being washed and had shifted so some spots were no longer padded. So I unpicked a small hidden section of the seam, gutted it and restuffed it with ‘new’ stuffing from a pillow. Then I hand sewed it shut.

Yeah, I went to bed around 8.30pm so here I am wide awake and well slept. Read another chapter of my book - now that I'm keeping off reddit for lentish. The body keeps score. It's about how we react to trauma and ptsd. It's interesting, but like with most self help books, it feels about 5x too long. I know people in publishing, I see the fluffed up points and word waffle. I prefer more concise writing in non-fiction. I never saw a maths book with twenty bullshit pages on Pythagoras' childhood dreams of being a dancer.
- omg, I have that book in audio and am going to start it today
- I have that book too lol! I'm halfway bc I keep putting it down (some of the cases are quite triggering), but I enjoy looking at mental health from a well-reaearched, scientific perspective; the way Bessel details the history of PTSD is very engaging!
  But yes, it waffles! So much waffle! GET TO THE POINT DAMMIT

Thanks Brion. 🙂

good night everyone, sweet dreams 😘

New season of Daredevil is pretty good. Slow start, but they're building it up to something big.

D'onofrio as Fisk is still great.

That's good to hear. He was amazing last time. I am really looking forward to seeing the dynamic after all this time.I was planning to wait for a few episodes to drop but I suspect I am going to have to just start watching this weekend to avoid spoilers.

Woo hoo, light workload day tomorrow!

bloody hell, esso got cancelled 7 hours into the entry queue

That's a massive kick in the crotch for them and the whole festival scene. I reckon I've outgrown them but after many years working in nightclubs, festivals are a better way to party.
Shit I thought they just got the go ahead?
- 33 violations from the surveyor, overrides council approval

At Southland right now.

Some sort of emergency going on at Myers. Announcement going off and police at the entrance.

Happy Friday Eve!

I'm an email in the browser kind of guy. I don't know how people put up with a client. I like to open a link and have it go into the tab next to where I'm reading. I like being able to have my emails open in different tabs in multiple windows. Maybe it's because I'm young, but it's how I've always done it

The only email I like in the browser is Gmail, personally, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a client anyway 😂 I use the Gmail app as well on my phone.
If I'm at a job that uses outlook, I prefer that in the client - most call centre jobs require multiple programs open and I found that having the email in the browser meant I missed stuff or it makes a noise (super distracting when on the phones) 😂 in a client I can mute it but it still looks at the taskbar and see whether it has the orange dot.
I think it all depends on the work you do, and how you grew up :)
- That is one case when it would be handy. Do people link to things in those other programs in emails? And does it do what teams does where it takes you from Email > browser > Teams so it creates a bunch of redundant tabs anyway?
Email in browser? Heresy!!!
I had to use the browser versions of Outlook and Teams some time ago, and hated every minute of it.
Give me multiple email windows any day. Probably because I tend to action emails and close windows quickly, whereas tabs can hang around for a long time.
- Teams in the browser sucks because they don't give you all the functionality of regular teams. But regular teams is still pretty bad. Browser outlook is much better now with Office 365, from an email nerd perspective it uses an updated render engine compared to Outlook Classic. New desktop Outlook is pretty much a container for the web version, so everything is the same aside from being able to pick your preferred keyboard shortcuts.
Seamonkey does this (sucessor to Ye Olde Netscape Communicator)

Come on weekend, please get here soon, it's a long weekend!

Four days for me 😊
- Two days for me :(
  -insert my usual works-most-public-holidays whinge here haha-

Doing orthodontics claims. MAN people have expensive teeth

Ugh... I keep tasting bitter traces of detergent because I did a really hurried job of re-rinsing the dishes. Also went back to using paper bowls to feed the cat on difficult days because the mini dishwasher is such a stuff around.

I think I'm going to hand wash a few cups and her bowls because I'm tired of drinking soap. Hate this damn thing. I need it for the washing part but on the whole it really isn't making things much easier.

Edit: Fuck it, rewashing everything by hand

Does the manufacturer have any recommendations on their website for a particular powder or product in a particular dose?
- Nah, the Lemmit DT had suggestions though. I bought three different types of detergent trying to solve this (one powder, two liquids)... reducing the detergent does nothing but stop it cleaning the dishes well. Running another load without detergent to rinse also doesn't work. Nothing is clogged. It is carefully stacked despite the limited inefficient space available...
  It's just not very good.

There's a movie called "The Abandon" that is really good.

Reminds me of The Cube.

KFC or Pizza?

Pizza, because of leftovers.
Pizza. You've potentially got the five food groups in one delicious serving. As far as "junk food" goes it's not so bad. I reckon KFC would have a lot more nasties than a pizza. Having an awesome pizza place nearby is gold! Also to feed my family KFC ($70 to $85) costs more than pizza ($51).
Team pizza here too.
A pizza pie my guy
but not from dominos
Pizza
. You’re going to feel real bad after KFC as tempting as it is.
Local Pizza > KFC > Dominos.
Where's the pizza from? KFC can be so hit or miss. When it's good it's excellent though.
- It's wood oven pizza!
sleep

Dammit. I bought a pizza.

I'm not responding, they'll know the number is active lol but tell me what you'd say - joke replies only 😂

I'd know this was fake straight away because it doesn't include "What's for dinner".
I got one supposedly from my son, asking for $100 taxi fare home. He was in San Francisco at the time. That's a very cheap flight I reckon.
"Fell in H2O?, are you sure it wasn't H2NO".

What makes macaroons so good? Why are they so expensive? I don't think I've ever had one.

Do you mean macarons? Because they take more time to prepare and bake.
Macaroons are different. Kinda like a chewy biscuit because of the coconut.
- macarons
  yeah those, the fancy looking biscuits that seem to cost a few bucks each.