Daily Discussion Thread: Tue 29 Aug 2023

Holy hell, check this joint out. Just shout out if you want less US travel stuff in this Melbourne forum.

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Nah, I like it. This pic looks like it should be in a tourist brochure though.
- The crazy thing is the photo doesn't even begin to do it justice
Updoot for travel updates!
Absolutely gorgeous.

a small piece of belated black forest b'day cake has been nommed

Last week was book week and I was invited to do some writing/book talks at three primary schools nearby and it went so awesomely well. I was nervous - as always, and really wasn't in the mood for it - but the kids were so engaging and fun to talk too. They asked a lot of questions and really just made the whole thing worthwhile. I tried getting them involved by asking them questions about writing and they showed me some stories they were working on too.

I donated my books to their school library and apparently they're all keen to borrow them. I also had the books sell out at the local store nearest them and I restocked them and it's almost sold out again. It's only 6 or 7 copies but it's taken months to even sell that many at times so it was really cool and a surprise.

Whoa that's bloody awesome dude!
Makes me want to get my butt into gear and finish mine (though it's very much not child appropriate).
- When I have days where I question myself or my writing, I think of how engaged the kids were and it really motivates me to keep going. Even if your book isn't kid appropriate, finishing it is an achievement in itself and one step to being a published author. You got this.
This is such a lovely thing to read! Thanks for sharing!
- Thank you for reading!

'Oh my God': live worm found in Australian woman’s brain in world-first discovery

"...the patient needed to be treated for other larvae that might have invaded other parts of her body, such as the liver."

😱 😱 😱

That's not something you'd read before bedtime..
-probably
- Can confirm I had some very strange low quality sleep.
Post it to !australia@aussie.zone
When an earworm hits deep.. too deep
and this is why we wash our hands and our food 😨😨😨
What the fuuuuuuuck. That's amazing and terrifying and holy hell wow.
That's a new fear unlocked.
That poor woman.

My kid's been using a butter knife to cut cheese. I give up.

Mine was seriously using a cheese knife to spread butter on Sunday. But he's only 4 so I'll cut him some slack :D
- Haha. Mistakes happen at that age but if it continues you need to rip it out of his tiny little hand.
Plus = That will help improve her fine motor strength
(And the cheese will still taste the same, right?!) 😬
- Nope. As a parent I have failed.
No utensil related outrage comes close, to me, as people using FORKS to eat RICE. SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE LOGIC OF IT TO ME WHEN SPOONS EXIST
- Haha. It depends on how hungry or lazy I feel. 🤷‍♀️
- I've got a Spork. Is that wrong?
What else are you supposed to use? A spoon?
- A cheese knife or a sharp knife. Definitely not a spoon.

I honestly believe we're heading into the next 'millenium drought'.

I fondly remember showering with a bucket to keep shit in the garden alive when we were stage 4.

There are still people in my neighbourhood who have the "grey water in use" signs for their garden. But I don't know if it'll get that bad - we have the desalination plant now... just means things will likely more expensive (watch Bunnings run a cartel on buckets now hahah)
- heh and "tank water in use".
  Your lawn is looking a little too green
I have not so fond memories of sharing bath water with 6 cousins when I'd stay at my Aunts house, or my Nan giving us kids a bar of soap and sending us down to the creek that flowed through the farm because the farm was on tank water and it was only used for cooking, cleaning (not five million grandkids), and drinking.

It's been a month since my boss put me under "observation" to determine whether I'd get the (from $30 to $33 an hour) raise I requested. They tried to claim they don't take inflation into account, and dismissed every piece of evidence, making claims that because a coworker of mine uses their phone on the job I might be, and that's reason why I shouldn't get a raise.

Also, they claimed that they should be lowering my pay.

How on Earth do I handle this? I'm a Uni student and don't have time to go on a job search, not to mention for equivalent pay. I just want to be able to earn enough to pay rent and food comfortably, not struggle every damn week to make ends meet

You are getting played. Best way to get a raise is to make a move sideways to another employer.
- I agree, but I can't afford to until I graduate (still a few months out). When that happens though, I will be reporting my current for sham contracting (which has fucked me over so fucking badly)
They are trying to avoid the pay rise. Your options are to stay for the time being and try to budget, or bite the bullet and look elsewhere for better pay. It’s a shit choice when you don’t have the time and energy to go job hunting but realistically it seems unlikely your employer will meet your pay request. (Good luck anyway though, hopefully am wrong)
- Yeah, you're almost certainly right. In any case, given graduation is just a few months out, I can't decide whether to hunt for something in my degree area. Problem I face is prospective employers will be able to tell I'm graduating soon, and I'm rather afraid they'd pass me over in favour of a cheaper and longer-lasting international student.
I'm sorry to say it, but you need to find a new job. They are doing everything they can do avoid paying you, what amounts to very little to them.

I am VERY CRANKY at work this morning. Rough night sleep, lots of weird dreams, and just pushing myself a little hard for a few days. I need chocolate, a hug and to be left the fuck alone.

pushes tray in on the end of a very long stick
Tray contains teapot, milk, sugar, mug and a 3kg box of Arnott's Cream Assortments
- An excellent array, thank you!

Yesterday was not a great day. Determined to make today better.

Today will kick arse and chew gum, and it's all outta gum.

My psychologist is cutting her hours down dramatically as she's moving more into a teaching space. She said she's keeping only a handful of clients on board and hoped I would be one of those clients.

And here's me all like... yay?

That's definitely a nice feeling! Often feels hard to get feedback from psychologists on whether we are a good fit for them and it's nice to get that occasionally.
- Yeah, I've had four psychologists in the last seven years, and she's the one I've been with the longest. So it was nice to get some validation in a sense that the work we're doing has been positive. I just found it funny (as she did in saying it) that she's like "I want to keep you on" given her profession haha.

I’m just going to leave a barrel of ivermectin and some needles here. Help yourself.

🛢️💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉

Instructions unclear: have injected ivermectin into my perineum
- the worm eggs can be anywhere. Safe to say there aren’t worm eggs near your own now
- Lol wtf 🤣
- Just saw this now and I'm laughing so hard Zooki is giving me a WTF have you snapped human look 😂
I... Have a strange compulsion to downvote you... I'm starting to see things a little differently after breakfast this morning....
- follow your heart, which by now is a larvae nursery

Passed a mini-truck with advertising boards on it today. Had an image of a line graph going upwards with big title saying something like ‘why are there excess deaths’ and a big QR code. No identifying info on who the advertiser is. Was driving so couldn’t take a photo. Is this still anti-vaxer propaganda or something else?

Probably. Scanning random QV codes is equivalent to clicking links so I’d be careful anyway.
On the subject there’s apparently covid spikes still and there might be more variants? Something about more vaccines coming?
🤭 ::: spoiler spoiler
:::

fattening up the ginger beastie and got recommended Farmers Market alongside his usual renal. Our local IGA sells, so nabbed some and it definitely passes muster but oh my god. Punkin is now the bougiest motherfucker south of richmond. Chicken pieces in a reduced fish broth. Chicken mousse with shredded tuna centre, pumpkin and broccoli. Tuna (or chicken) loaf with quail egg, carrot and peas (and I've never seen a cat eat an egg before yesterday but fuck me he enjoyed it). Gets a spoonful every so often doled out through the day and his eyes literally light up when the tin comes out. Bougie, bougie motherfucker.

Well well well another premium cat food I feel compelled to spoil the cat with. I will have a look... (the one I'm looking after now used to be a vacuum cleaner and ate the same thing day in day out - but has over the last half a year, significantly lost interest in a consistent food routine and sometimes only responds if there's a treat or topper added. She's got a clean bill of health from the vet recently who reckons it's old age)
Does Punkin not mind when the scoop comes directly from the fridge or does he like it warmed up a bit?
Bought some MF expensive fancy meat only air dried toppers a while ago as a treat for the 3 cats I've looked after in sequence - Ziwi Peak Hauraki Plains ($18 for 130g) and Providore ($19 for 185g) - 2 cats loved it, 3rd one is ambivalent
- Melbcat is getting fussy like that too. She’s almost 16.
  I’ve found I can’t feed her the Vetalogica Riverland kibble straight up as the lentils upset her, but three of those dropped onto her wet meal like croutons often encourage her to eat. It’s probably the stinky meats in it like kangaroo and goat. (I got some cheap samples from the website)
- Best thing is it's not too exxy - prices out the same as your standard 75g can. Punkin's fine with from the fridge, but he's had time to acclimate since we give him several small meals throughout the day. We had no success with Ziwi, none of ours like it. Not even the food hoover. Little bastards.
Melbcat loves carbs like bread, pasta and cooked potato as a treat. A little olive oil or tallow in the food is nice and calorific too. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8RaMH4CWyyg
Can he eat kitten food?
Ps. I can flick you the cooked kidney diet again if you need it

I am slightly confused. Semi-empty tram. Pplz choosing to not only to stand right next to me, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more surprised to have someone facing me. Like in my personal space, facing me..

What strange hell is this?

Temu ad recommended me a butt plug. The fun begins!

Don't forget the lube and douche; one must be prepare otherwise it is unenjoyable for both/all parties involved.
- I'd be worried about deflating and flying around the room when it gets unplugged.
Those ads are so weird!

This employment training shit sounds like a really boring podcast, I'm falling asleep. 🥔💤

the best cure for boring training shit is colloidal silver and a tin foil hat placed on your smart meter.

ugh today what happened to your weather

I was planning to do laundry today too, but the rain put a stop to that.
- Lucky. I set mine last night to finish at 9am this morning. Whoopsie.

Came into the office only so I could avoid construction noise where I'm staying. Thank goodness boss and business manager/admin/"HR" aren't around so I don't need to hold my breath around them and am successfully getting shit done without an iceberg of frostiness and tension looming over me.

As expected, instantly feeling much better back on the previous meds, thank heck. Also no signs of parasites in my poop. Very good.

🥔💤

Edit: i hate one of my fellow participants; why are conservative anti-vaxxers so vocal. This is employment training, asshole, not "listen to my cold, stale af takes"

Tell them that rabbits live in burrows and their extensive tunnels are called a warren, not a fucking hole. Gah!!
Or maybe start flicking your tongue like a lizard a little bit.
Edit: I was right tell those cunts where to go during the first lockdown. There were a few of my friends who wouldn't wear masks blah, except they were wearing them before the lockdowns, cos then it was "real news". Now they're all fucking anti trans and drag and think the world is run by alien lizard people. Seems plausible huh?
- Or maybe start flicking your tongue like a lizard a little bit.
  Could glue a spoon to your face. I hear vaccine-induced magnetic superpowers are all the rage around those parts of late.
Pretend to be interested and say they can tell you about it or ask questions after class. Then forget or do a runner. That's what I used to do when nutters would interrupt talks.

oh deary me, I had a dream that someone would keep extending my sleeping time and I could sleep in without getting trouble.

Woke up pretty quickly from that dream.

Also pretty frustrated at my doona moving slowly to one side of my doona cover leaving me cold at night, I'm sure that's not helping me sleep.

Omg I love my new council so much. They're building a new house near my new house and all of the construction equipment completely fucked the footpath. It's bad enough I tripped on it once and someone in a wheelchair would probably be better off either on the grass or the road. So I did a snapsendsolve thingo not expecting much and then this morning I received a voicemail from a council dude. Apparently they had a meeting with the site manager and the site construction people will fix it this week and the council will do follow up inspections to make sure they actually do.

At my last house in a shit council area, someone graffitied some vile shit on both sides of the footpath in front of our house (do there was graffiti in front of both our neighbours houses, but not ours) and I did SSS it, but that was in March and my ticket is still open and they still haven't done anything about it. I used their very shitty web form for reporting offensive graffiti and they did fix it within a week, BUT they only cleaned one panel... it was between 3 panels on both sides, so 6 panels total

Is there no sun today :(

I had some, for exactly 3 minutes then it went away :(
- :(
There's some in the outer east... Sunshine after the rain...
- Lucky you. It's very dark in the outer west.

Lmao my mother asked me for tv show recommendations, and I just watched all the other family members collectively sigh and scream no.

Does anyone suffer eczema? Any advice? I've tried a few creams - prescribed and off the shelf and I am going back to the doctors, but I need something in the mean time because it is driving me bananas.

The cold salty southern ocean.
Trick is not to shower afterwards.
People might say 'ew' but the truth is you're cleaner than everyone else who hasn't been in the ocean and your skin will love you for it.
I suffer rosacea which is also allergy/inflammation/stress mediated. When I get flares I use telfast, clearasil face wash, then splash with lots of cold water, then use savlon, savlon heals and calms.
- I've wondered if it is stress related. I've been under a fair bit of it for various reasons.
- I have rosacea too, I haven’t tried savlon but I will now, thanks for the tip. I usually just put up with it until it is bad, then use doxycycline.
- I might have to see if it helps me too. Been suffering lately.
I switch and switch about but top of my list is Pinetarsol, tea tree based anything, oat milk soap/moisturiser, lanolin and emu oil.
Edit - forgot to add Lucas' Paw Paw Ointment.
If you haven’t already, see if you can get dermatologist referral. I fought with ‘eczema’ for a year as diagnosed by gp, but it was actually a different issue which was finally diagnosed by dermatologist, and steroid cream was actually making it worse.
- I'm gonna have to I think, but dermatologist in Launceston or whatever is booked out until next year.
I get it on my hands and shins so I fill the bath with warm water and add powdered milk. When I get out I smother the dry bits with Nivea creme. The heavy duty one in the tin.
- Unfortunately don't have a bath, but might try the nivea.

It's my quarterly sit around getting poked and prodded for an afternoon day, and I really can't be bothered with it. I mean, dying doing a menial task in your late 20s wouldn't be so bad, right?

Damn, my gym is definitely overselling on the memberships now. Busy as all hell!

I feel like my gym has been super busy as well recently! post-winter motivation to join perhaps?
- Yeh the people trying to get a beach bod a bit too late haha

:)

(:

Last night I sold a really important piece of music equipment to upgrade to the better version (Line 6 Helix). Now the new one is sitting at my feet looking amazing and sounding incredible.
Bad news is I was sweating like an animal at work today from being sick so I went home after a client meeting I had to attend.

You win some, you lose some.

Sounds like an overall win - the sickness will hopefully pass soon but a new bit of kit feels great!
- Thank you :) Just had a smash now and it feels awesome. Having these little lcd screens indicating the status of various parameters makes life so much easier.

Ho shit. Went to restart my Netflix membership and they've eliminated the $11.99 per month tier so the cheapest without ads is now $16.99.
Ha ha ha no.

Breakfast 🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🥪🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥫🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙🥠🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

Any chance you've been able to acquire a sample of that brain-snake-worm?
- no I don’t want you to be case two. Here a regular tapeworm 🪱
A bathtub of lemon and ginger tea with honey and a bahn mi, please chef?
- 🛁🍋🫚☕️🍯
  🥬🧅🥩🥕🥖
A bowl of pho, an earworm and some ivermectin please.
- 🍜🪱💉
May I please have a coffee, a croissant, and a dash of tenacity on the side, O Mighty and Wise Bacon 💜
- ☕️🥐💉
A bowl of antihistamines please
- 💊💊💊
  🥣
A coffee and some combantrin , please chef
- ☕️💊

Today's Uber ride is brought to you by Mercedes Benz. It's fancy on the outside and the inside.

Morning exercises have been completed with bonus minipeeler fitness buddy. Did some extra crunches to make up for easiness of exercises. Today is pizza day, a day of hand stretching and aerobically tossing pizza bases onto round trays.. I feel a bit better than yesterday, thankfully. Still getting my energy levels sorted.

What a strange dream. I dreamed I was at my old job and had a bunch of experimental data to process. So I sorted what were calculations for area ( I would have to use calculus ) and what was volume ( using calculus again ). Then I put it down for later ( feeling slightly guilty as it was just laziness ) and woke up. 😂

Caned myself at work today. Am feeling it now. Was a decent two and a half hours of serious exercise, I get paid for it and I got through a decent chunk of my Буерак playlist.

For some reason they stopped releasing their music on bandcamp though, which sux as this is maybe their coolest tune and I can't playlist it ffs. I hate spotify passionately but at least it's on youtube - - https://youtu.be/ChHXIQpDCq4 so I can absolutely crank it at home like I am now.

After all that stuff about that child abuser at the childcare and watching the doco on Taskforce Argos I've been slowly listening through the 6 part podcast Hunting Warhead about one of the biggest website infiltrations, and it's amazing because it's about the whole story and all the people involved - the Danish journalist investigators, the Queensland police, a housemate of the perp who was physically there when he was arrested... but this episode where they've interviewed an older cousin of the main perp... Whoa. Far out. Nothing graphic at all but I need a hot shower now. That catastrophic breach of trust... oh lawd and now they're going to interview the guy himself....

I'll have a listen.
- It's really shocking that they were able to interview the guy and how completely blasé he was about it
  The range of interviewees is amazing.
  E: I cannot believe what this guy is saying. Fortuitously, the cat has chosen to cuddle in bed. Soul bleach....
  E2: wow this guy is unbelievable. This is like the worst stereotype of a mentally fucked basement dweller who thinks he's better than everyone else.

Dinner was neoguri ramyun again, but this time with a tin of herring fillets added at the end, plus a generous tablespoon of mayo to ficken up the juices. Slurping noises may have been heard. 4.5 yums out of 5 - almost as good as restaurant ramen.

warm night

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🥣