Daily Discussion Thread: Tue 24 Oct 2023

Got the news - I'm an honorary auntie!

yay, congratulations 💗😸
- Thank you! Have seen the piccies - kiddo is very cute. :)
Aubrey oztrin! Aunty Ozzy for short

I made it to the next round of interviews!!!

Meeting the CTO on Friday. Here we go!

Good luck. 😊🤞🏻
- Thank you! If I get this I'll be so damn happy. Will keep applying for other roles though just in case.
Best of luck, gibs!

Sydneys metro FUCKING ROCKS

- 🟦☎️📞☎️🟦
  (Closest thing there is to a blue phone box lol)

Ted Cat is so happy to sit outside in the fresh air and warm sun.

Looks like a better spot than my smelly cat
- Your cat's hiding a grog problem. Nothing to see here. Move along.
- Those eyes and the frown…..
He compliments your pots!
- he looks so weird 🤭

So much for WFH. Back into work every day till Christmas BC tradies are doing works on my apartment building.

L A M E

At least that's an option I guess 😞

Halfway through the first day at my new job, the panic/anxiety is palpable, but I think I'll be fine. Just have to remember that not only am I starting a new job, I am also stepping out of the shift work bubble I had built over a a very long period of time.

Apparently the first 3 months of a new job are a mess. Don’t stress.
- We could hire someone with 20+ years experience in the field into our team and we still wouldn't expect them to be fully pulling their own weight for about six months.

Sometimes I deal with people with really fucking fun names

I used to keep a mental list of users with incredible/dirty names when I worked on an IT helpdesk. Some absolute doozies out there.
- Couple decades ago a coworker almost made it all the way through a call with a mister baumhal without slipping.
  Almost.
I always wonder why people keep their funny names. If I was a member of Buttnutt, Assdingle, or Tittslap family I would be changing my name the instant I was 18. No way would I go through life like that.
- Grocock…. Met 2 people with that last name.
There is a client I have to deal with named - I shit you not - Rusty Shackleford.
Every interaction i have to physically fight down the urge to scream SHASHASHA in his face
- Has he ever surprised anyone with pocket sand?
- I don’t think you should be telling us their name. That’s private information.
I had a teacher at school called Miss Sidebottom. I was close enough with her to ask her one day whether she got teased for her surname.
That was the day I learned that the name Sidebottom is a powerhouse in the AFL. Both her brothers played and she had other relatives in the sport also. So no, she wasn't teased at all.
I still hear the name Sidebottom around the sport, some nephew or something I assume. It always makes me think of her. She was a great teacher.

The colesworth organic butter block is delicious and cheaper than western star.

Outdoor furniture is hard to buy. It’s either super expensive or cheap crap that 50 online only stores are selling. I just want a nice wicker sun lounge. Thought I’d found a nice one in a shop but it was tiny and plastic. Sigh.

I don't like Sydney

Edit: no, it's the accomodation I don't like

Not fond of that city myself. I think there's a subtle difference in the width of the streets and height of the buildings - just sets my teeth on edge. Always feel like something is about to fall over and crush me. Adelaide, on the other hand, has a much more comfortable vibe. Again, I think the actual structure and dimensions are responsible. Brisbane too.
- Yes, this! Sydney CBD makes me somewhat claustrophobic. Moving to Melbourne was a relief.
LOVE Sydney. To visit that is. Couldnt pay me to live there.
- Could pay me to live there, but it would need to be at least 7 figures a year for a part time role so I didn't have to fuck around with the fucking traffic so much.
  Couldn't pay me to live in nth Qld.
tell me why?
- 🎵 Ain't nothing but a heartbreaaaak 🎵
- Sydney itself seems to be a shit show in was I wasn't expecting. I think it's mainly my ASD brain getting uppity about the way our accommodation is set up
- It's weird
Just curious, what is it you don't like? I haven't been to Sydney in.. does a quick count 35 years!
- The hotel:
  It's a very old building situated on top of a pub, so "fun pub noises", the walls are basically paper, I've seen 7 roaches (although no in my room yet), and they don't do doona covers, they just wrapped it in 2 sheets. Also shared bathrooms
  Sydney:
  They call parmas "parmys", potato cakes "scallops", the moment we pulled up there was a high speed police chase out the front of our hotel, pedestrians don't seem to have any priority outside of zebra crossings (or if we do, nobody gives a shit), nobody acknowledges the wave (either for giving away or letting you in), nobody does the wave even if they fucked up, people here have even less chill than Melbourne somehow and are very big into cutting people off, either bikes are allowed on footpaths or nobody cares because I was nearly knocked over a few times
  Also it's not necessarily a bad thing per se, but everything is just very slightly different here in a way that makes me very uncomfortable
What PT have you checked out so far? I liked the ferries, and I reckon if you go outside peak hour they’ll be less crowded
- None yet, only got here around 10:30 last night so haven't had a chance yet. Today we're going on trains, buses, ferries, the Metro, and a tram

white bread tastes way better than wheat bread but whenever i eat wheat bread it's HP +10 so i must eat wheat bread

I think you're trying to start a war because brown bread tastes a zillion times better than white.
It depends on the recipe.
Team Dark Rye!
- I too enjoy dark rye very much
Omg this makes a lot of sense. Never really thought of it that way!

Started on Red Dead Redemption and boy this outlaw life is tough. I'm just trying to make an honest living helping collect a few debt payments, someone gets the wrong idea and next thing I know there's a bounty on my head. I go in to town and get it all cleared up, get on my horse because I want to get back to camp ASAP, and BAM. Major horse collision. I go flying, other rider is dead, and the law's after me again! I try to run and in the chaos someone else runs under my horse and gets trampled, things are flying everywhere. I try to hide out in a backyard but they track me down and I shoot a few men before dying in a hail of bullets myself.

Oh well. At least I'm not a vampire.

So do you get to meet Mad Dog Tannen?
- MANOORE. I HATE MANOORE
- I have absolutely no idea. I did get to pat some dogs that were in no way mad, which is definitely a good game feature.

hello

Welcome to the Black Parade is 17 years ago

that is all

I've made a mistake, I decided to make 3 small paintings for a colleague who is about to go on maternity leave, I bought the supplies and all but I haven't got a single ounce of inspiration or desire to paint...help.

What does your colleague like? ( you're so sweet to always be thinking of making lovely gifts 💗 )
I was just thinking, probably time you kept an inspiration notebook. A notebook of ideas and projects.
family of three bluey style?
- That would be very cute, unfortunately my skills aren't quite there yet to paint 3 bluey characters lol

Popped over to the other place via a search and there seems to be a lot of different people in the DT. There are a few regulars I wish had come over here and some have disappeared. That sucks.

It’s a lot quieter here which can be frustrating but at the same time it feels a bit less toxic.

All in all it’s a nice spot.

I usually have both places open in different tabs and flick between the two throughout the day because, as you say, it's a lot quieter here than the old DT used to be. It's quieter there too now as well. I miss some of the old regs.
The Reddit DT is pretty quiet these days too. Todays DT thread here has about 20 more posts than the reddit one currently
- Gone are the days of 1000 comments by 4 pm
I very occasionally look at the other DT but not much anymore and I finally unsubbed from the Melbourne reddit but I still use it for other communities that didn't migrate.
Maybe just a slow day here again.
Same. I miss Lister. I hope she’s ok.
- And Waddles. Epic still seems to be there.
  And Whacka - did they make it over here?
yeah it's not good if you want to waste a day just random thread browsing, but a very good chill discussion vibe (not just this comm, also in several others I'm on like the ST one)

Can I ask for a little mod help from the lovely people here?

I have a report for the "Gigi Hadid TARGETED By ISRAELI STATE Online" video sitting in the worldnews community. I'm at work and not in a position to review/moderate it. It has been downvoted, but anything about Israel/Palestine is currently likely to get brigaded by either side. You can't actually trust the votes alone.

Both the poster and the report are non aussie.zone users. The poster looks like a human (not a bot account). The video looks like it might be a legit news source, but I can't download it here.

We don't remove stuff for being controvertial if it's legitimate. We remove for being lies/misinformation - or if it's showing dead bodies or something on that sort of scale.

It is almost moot - sitting at -5 votes, nobody who doesn't visit the worldnews community directly is even going to see it. But, should it be removed?

Side note: This is exactly the sort of reason I name communities something insular to Australia. Someone is posting to all the "news" communities, including ours. It's why our music community is not called "music". An outside will never find it and spam it all up promoting their soundcloud.

It's a YouTube mirror of a legitimate four-day-old video from The Hill, which is a centre to left-leaning news source.
The video contents itself contains mild criticisms towards Israel and this is why it's getting reported. I don't think it promotes lies or misinformation.
I have not heard of this YouTube mirror tech they are using, Invidious, not sure if it's above board, but that would be me only concern if it is not.
I’m not sure why this was reported. It’s a seemingly legitimate news source with a video involving two presenters discussing US first amendment rights in relation to the current conflict in Gaza. No depictions of dead bodies or the like. It’s a bit of a flashy post title but that’s about it really. I wouldn’t delete it (although that would be ironic given the subject matter)
- Thanks. I'll leave it up, then.
  This stuff gets reported because people disagree with it. The conflict has its mild web propaganda battle happening as well.

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

Putting in an order for a bathtub of coffee and something light on the side, plz chef
- 🛁☕️
  💡
cries and begs for something with a alot of bacon and hashies. I really did not sleep well last night.
- 🥓🥔🥓🥔🥓🥔🧀🥓🥔🥓🥔🥓🥔🥓
Bowl of cornflakes with strawberry and banana, please. And a cup of tea.
- 🌽🍓🍌🥣☕️
Bacon & eggs please. And something heavy to weigh me down so I don't blow away in the wind. With coffee of course.
- 🥓🍳🍳☕️
  The collective emotional baggage of everyone here 🧳
Well I think I only managed about two hours sleep. So something to help with that please
- 🔨💊🍵

Good morning. Miracle of miracles, I'm well rested

Ouch, forgot how much finishing at 5pm to be home by 6pm (if you're lucky) sucks!

Nothing beats getting stoned, and watching all the random foxtel channels, when your stuck in a regional motel.

If you haven't already seen it give Love & Death a go. A true crime story with Elizabeth Olsen in it. It's quite good.

I know some people get angry when they hear Donald Trump talk but I can't help but laugh. He's a hoot. 😂

I hate him so much.
It will take generations for his bad influence on society and criminality to be repaired
- Oh I hate him too. He's delusional. A complete whack job but I can still laugh at his stupidity because he believes what he's saying.
- I heartily agree. A dreadful, awful, disgusting waste of oxygen.
It’s funny if you ignore the racism/sexism and the fact that he was running the US as president and how many people died of Covid. But hey, laugh away…
- Not funny when he was running a country. He's not now. He's an imbecile.

balcony garden nearly finished, then just have to do some repotting and planting . 😊 The cats love it there. 😸😸

Ferry's are such an acceptable way to travel when done right. We don't really have the right geography for it in melbs, but they're so awesome

Also I noticed the sheer amount of people they have up here in the public transport sector here. They still have conductors ("guards") on the trains + a station staff member who whistles and raises a white flag signalling the conductor to signal the driver to go. It does seem like potentially a bit of overkill, and also the whistles are so damn loud I have a headache, but I still think that's a better option than the one we went with (privatising everything which of course results in literally everyone being sacked except the absolute bare minimum they need to run things)

I don't know if we have deep enough channels here or suitable places to dock but I see no reason why there couldn't be more ferries leaving from Melb cbd to all across the bay. NYC has ferries and they work very well.

So there's an op shop in Mordi that currently has a display of dolls in the window, including three knitted golliwogs. Are they not considered offensive here? These stopped being OK in the UK decades ago so I was shocked to see them for sale here.

60.53% of Australia are probably okay with them
This is an odd one. Short answer: No, not really offensive here. But that is changing.
More complicated answer:
We've been learning a bit about how hurtful some of this stuff is as people of African descent come here and teach us. Oddly, the first time I saw a reaction to golliwogs in the media here it was when Oprah Winfrey was visiting Melbourne about 15 years ago and saw them just on display at some store. She obviously was offended by their presence, but culturally, we had no idea why. There may be other factors (Influences of the Internet etc), and they were super old-fashioned before even then. They've really fallen out of favour since Oprah came to town. I'm sure she's fine with that.
This wasn't long after Harry Connick Jr's freak-out on the Hey Hey its Saturday revival special. That was when I learned what blackface meant. The episode made major news in Australia for a good few days as culturally, we had zero idea that blackface was 1: a thing, and 2: super offensive to African Americans. The story there was some Indian dudes had painted their faces black for some skit on the show and Harry would have no part of the segment.
We're isolated down here and just not aware that some tropes are not on. Through Reddit, I learned that apparently fried chicken is another thing that can be considered racist when combined with black people. I'm not really sure how that one works, but there was a KFC cricket ad where someone had KFC in the stands against the Windies and that was somehow offensive as well.
They may well be decades old. Op shop and all
Also worth adding: even if they are offensive, op shops don't give a shit. They'll sell anything.

sky so pretty

chicken salt update: Woolies moorabbin on the way to trivia only had masterfoods chicken salt blend.

This is not chicken salt. It does however, resemble a very nice creole seasoning I have from USA foods, heavy on the salt and onion notes. Quite nice as a seasoning, I do recommend to try, but do not be under any misapprehensions that this is chicken salt.

I quite like this one as an all purpose salt. I just make my own chicken salt now.
- wup, add the recipe to the list

I went for a walk and now Google Fit is happy with me. Also it's heckin wimdy in Docklands, shocking absolutely nobody.

This COVID thing is weird hey... Finally felt like some soup, but the chicken and rice with lemon soup tasted decidedly like spicy lamb soup.

Back from the supermarket(Woolies). Frozen fries homebrand has gone up in price again.

4 dollars a pack now 😢

Very lame. How dare they raise the cost of my main meal.
They were $2.20 pre-covid.

Bleh, windy day's not helping my hay fever today at all I feel.

A bit windy out there today. Cut the morning walk a bit short, and it's good I did because it was just starting to rain as I got home.

I managed to tick off another of my gardening wish list items from a neighbour's hard rubbish pile too. The list primarily consists of any decent sized pot I can use for my new side garden, and today there was a pretty big old terracotta pot out. I grabbed a few plastic pots and a roll of garden edging yesterday, which combined with the sections of pipe from the building site over the road is giving me a quite decent collection.

thank fuuuuck I keep a spare PSU about. 'nuff said.

Made myself some late night scrambled eggs. I'm rewatching the Sopranos for the god-knows-how-manyth time and it reminded me to try sour cream in scrambled eggs.

Not bad. I'll try with a bit more in there next time though.

EDIT: HOLD THE PHONE THERE'S A LIVE 1987 TMNT FULL EPISODE MARATHON ON YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/live/spsEqQJeWyE

birthday week but doesn't feel like birthday week.. im getting old! i was at my cousins birthday earlier this week and she asked what im doing for mine, and i just sheepishly said probably something lowkey (read: just chill by myself at home cuz dont have people that would actually care). i mean, she would, but felt kinda pathetic asking so didn't bother

/rant

hugs , 🥂🍫🍾🤑🥰

Received a letter from the conveyancer, applied for some necessary certification, waiting on a callback from the lawyers who handed my mother's estate to have them transfer the electronic title to the conveyancer.
All this adulting...

Hmm Mackerel vs Herring/Kippers. Which should I get to mix in with a pasta sauce?

Not herring.
Mackerel or sardines would be my choice
- I'd do sardines more if they didn't have the hairs on them. I didn't quite enjoy the texture of the ones I bought, maybe I might have to try a different brand.
  I haven't tried Mackerel before so not sure of how they end up texture wise but I did love the taste and feel of herring.
For me mackerel is pretty much interchangeable with tuna, maybe just a bit tastier and healthier. I'd prefer that in pasta, especially if using cheese
- Is mackerel as "meaty" as tuna? I sometimes find tuna a little bit too meaty and not as soft as say cooked fish pieces.

#Worldle #641 X/6 (98%) ⭐🪙 📷 #WhereTaken🌎 #240 5/6 🎉⭐⭐⭐ 📷 #WhereTaken🇺🇸 #224 6/6 🎉⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ wheretakenusa.teuteuf.fr

Car insurance set to swap over on Thursday and my Linkt toll account too. I do enjoy that I have the option to not have a stupid citylink tag installed in my car and just pay 55c extra each time I use the road for a "video matching fee", considering how infrequently I use toll roads.

The only other car related thing to optionally do is look into dashcams. I promised myself a while ago that if I bought a new car I'd get dashcams installed but I wouldn't bother on my existing car. Time to try and wade through the sites which are clearly paid to promote specific dashcam brands to find what's actually worth the money!

1000000% recommend even a basic dashcam because some solid video evidence is better than none. I reckon some tailgaters and other shitheads have backed off a bit more when they see the cameras
Over here, in the land of paying over 115,000 AUD for the right to own a car (which only lasts 10 years), let alone for the cars themselves and the 4639473827 taxes applied (including loss of other rebates if you keep your car running for more than 10 years) - dashcams are almost mandatory.
It's so worth the peace of mind, even with errant cyclists/pedestrians doing stupid shit like cycling down the wrong way of a one way street and almost colliding into you.
I will say imo it's better to get an okay camera that has front and back channels vs a super fandangled high end one that only has a front camera. Also consider heat tolerance. a cheaper 4k quality one I bought couldn't handle the summer heat
Eastlink is worth looking at if you are an infrequent toll user. Free tags, however they have a $16 minimum balance / $40 minimum top up requirement.

🛁☕️