Daily Discussion Thread: Tue 05 Dec 2023

Tonight the man and I have been invited to our daughter's year 10 awards night where she will receive 1 maybe 2 awards.

Awards are good and all but I'm more proud that she has a road to follow now after starting her secondary education in absolute chaos.

It's good that some of her teachers have taken an interest in her education by saying "hey you're really good at this subject. You should stick with it". My husband and I can only go so far with her and it's good to see some of these teachers step up.

She's worked out that being smart isn't good enough if you don't put in any work.

To keep the streak going, I'll contribute an OC Numbat:

My "why I don't think I'll have children" list is just growing longer every day

I had one just to see what it's like. I wasn't going back for a second.
I'm yet to hear any reason FOR having children
- I'd imagine they can help with finding a reason to put up with working for a living. Also to fill out what we'd call life with ups and downs, book weeks and swimming lessons rather than the numb emptiness of a quiet house. Someone to channel love into and through. Someone who you can at least try to teach to be a net-positive to the world. Someone to mow the lawns. Someone to tell your old crap jokes to who is a clean slate and hasn't heard them before. Someone to invite over for Christmas once they've moved out and started their own lives.
  This isn't a list of things everybody wouldn't have if they didn't have children by the way. But I imagine it'd apply to a lot of people.
- You have children because you want children.
  If you don't want children, please don't have children. There are enough unwanted children in this world already.
- because children are adorable
Ya just need one:
Don't want any
"have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country".
- Thanks uncle Tony

I called to confirm picking up Melbcat tomorrow, she's been such a good cat. I'm going to get the cold shoulder for abandoning her when she gets home though :(

She will pointedly ignore you while endeavouring to be as near to you as possible at all times.
You know, just so she can judge the efficacy of her ignoring you
- That's exactly what she does. Animals absolutely have feelings
Or you're going to get extra cuddles and cat snuggles when you pick her up.
- I hope so
She still might not be feeling 100% so don't take that as rejection or being cross at you. She will need so many cuddles
and don't ever feel guilty for looking after her, sometimes doing the right thing is hard, doesn't make it less right
- I hope it's just being a bit shaken and readjusting. I hated doing that but knew it could be a long wait, and I needed to make sure she was properly looked after if I was unexpectedly longer in the hospital.

Image source

Male antechinus (shrew-like marsupials) fuck themselves to death during a short, highly frenzied mating season. A rapid, fatal decline in health is triggered by high levels of stress hormones, immune system suppression, and just plain physical exhaustion.

I… I wasn’t expecting that tidbit of information this morning.
- DEATH BY SHREW SHREW
Just take a look at that snout!
My friend studied antichinus for her Honours thesis, so for her hens party we played pin the tail on the antichinus.
- I love this
Are they the salmon of rodents?
- Indeed! They are semelparous like salmon, mayflies, orb-weaving spiders and bamboo (among others).
  Though they ain't rodents, but I think they would also be offended being described as shrews.

We're back from the Awards ceremony. A very long night. A lot of speeches. The new principal's went for a good 15 minutes. I tuned out after 5. A lot of awards. Very deserving awards. A lot of clapping.

Then we went to macca's and the FRIES WERE FUCKING HOT. Bonus.

Oh and by the way the kid won 2 awards. One for History and one for Health & Human Development. These were HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS PEOPLE. Not effort awards. No Coles gift card 😔 So proud ☺

Starfish do not have brains.

TIL I'm a starfish

Microsoft Word just came up with an alert to warn me that the proofing tools are not checking any text that is in German. This does not seem like a problem, given that I am not using any words in German.

Mine has been changing my text to French and Arabic for absolutely no reason. Changing to Arabic means my quote marks were backwards and in the wrong position.

Caption: a big spinning Christmas decoration at Würzburg Christmas market. It snowed beautifully here in Würzburg this afternoon, so things are blanketed in light fluffy snow. It was -3° when we arrived this morning and we had a fun day exploring the city. No Glühwein for us yet as we’re still a bit jet lagged and I know I’ll get badly tipsy instead of fun tipsy on it. Hopefully tomorrow night!

Also if anyone knows how to post photos right way up, please let me know 🤦‍♀️
- Edit them. A tiny crop will do it.
Love to see it! More photos of Christmas market please 🙏

Welcome to Numbat Facts.

The mean weight of an adult numbat is 552g.

This is less than the weight of a Large Slurpie. Which is not a very useful comparison as Numbats are not an effective hot weather beverage.

Would they make an effective fibre-rich beverage though?
- Dubious. Protein shake seems more plausible.
  Please do not blend numbats.
Is the brainbox of a numbat called a numskull?
- You have the rest of the month to find out

Just to add insult to injury this week, after months of my brother pressuring me I reached out to elderly extended family. "You don't know how long they have left! You'll regret it". yeah pretty confident the conversation was more upsetting for them than cathartic. I stopped calling cause every time I spoke to them I needed a drink afterwards and this was no exception. They don't want to know what my direct family did, but they certainly wanna make me feel bad about it. Then I had to call my bro and be like "Yo, they dunked on me and kind of slammed you too. They're upset and pissed off at us and genuinely cant understand why we would turn out back on FAAAAAAAMMMILLLY"

bacon and onion quiche is in the oven

Good bot. 🤗

My buildings water was meant to be off between 10am and 2pm.. it's 3:10, no water and no communication. I am displeased.

Edit: 3:30 still no water, no communication

Edit: 4:30 wooo cold water, no hot water, not sure if it'll stay on because it has come on for a few minutes a couple of times this afternoon

Dear tenant,
The water maintenance window was expanded due to extenuating circumstances. Thank you for your understanding. It means a great deal to us. You mean a great deal to us.
Best regards,
Building Maintenance.

Can't stop thinking about my upcoming holidays!

Also regrettably said yes to my workplace's Christmas party, I'm new and need to mingle and handshake even though I don't want to.

Same and I’m worried about getting Covid. Can’t mask at a lunch
- This was also a fear of mine, especially since we had a very recent covid case. I'm hoping the outdoor dining situation will aid a little in keeping it at bay.

I wish I was like the young people who can scroll and type with my thumbs on their phone. Instead I'm a one finger bandit. Evolution ay?

send audio messages
- I'd just like to have nimble thumbs.
I'm mostly a one finger typer but I use Swype. So much faster!
- I need to learn more about this
Swipe for the win.
To be honest you're probably better off. You can develop hand pains by using thumbs only after a prolonged time.
learn to type on the phone like it's a palm-held keyboard. Get on my level.

I bought some frozen southern chicken bits and some fresh marinated chicken the other day.

I'm honestly excited in coking them and eating them later in the week.

Oh how simple my life is.

My life must be simple too, because my mouth is watering and I am jealous. Southern chicken = second best chicken (after Korean chicken)

I watered the garden then put the cushions to the outdoor chair out. Sorry for bringing the rain. I didn't think. 😔

i'm going to mow the lawn and wash my car windows. Blame me instead.
I'd be happy for a bit of rain this afternoon, if I don't get any here I will have to water my own garden in the morning.

Wondering why I’ve been feeling so fatigued… Duh, just realised my iron intake has dropped quite a bit in the last month and I… somehow overlooked this glaringly obvious aspect. Plenty dumb I am sometimes.

Nice evening ride though I managed to make some of it look like amateur hour. Riding a different bike and the revs and I are sometimes not friends. Sometimes I can just feather the clutch and it’ll pull and sometimes it just drops into the never never. Not great when you crossing a road, but at least it was the slow area. Even if it took me part waddling and two tries since the bike didn’t roll. At least I encountered some forgiving people, unlike the person who 5 mins later did a u-turn right in front of me, right at a roundabout exit. Oh well, at least I can say it had good brakes.

The last two evenings have just been so lovely. Fish n chips yesterday evening and that amazing sky down at Williamstown. Even today it was just so… lovely. I just feel.. Grateful.

Back to reality again tomorrow morning. However, ya Llab was a good one and when I got home today, cooked, smashed a load of washing + hung it and cleaned the shower before I left for the ride. (So lame how some chores make you feel like you’ve partially adulted.)

Sweet dreams all.

I really need to stop looking at Linkedin. My company went a restructure this year and all the posts from my former co-workers saying they landed jobs at bigger and better organisations is filling me with jealousy. I've been trying to change jobs since the start of the year, have even been applying at similiar organisations to theirs but haven't been successful. I feel so stuck and undesired as an individual.

I killed my Linkedin this year. Or maybe it was last year. I forget when I did it. It's just another source of social media misery, full of virtue signalling and fake personalities on display. I HATE that there is a culture that it's perceived as being required for anything and I'm rebelling against it.

Still not feeling good at all.

It seems being in a fair amount of pain (frequently peaking to straight up 'vomit and lie on the bathroom floor' severe) is almost a daily thing at this point. I just want some answers and to actually treat whatever the hell is going on for me rather than waving it off as psychosomatic and being left to struggle with it using only the same things that aren't working. It's been so many years and it's only worsening. I'm tired of living in constant pain and having my life stunted because of barely being able to do anything. Praying that the new specialists can be seen soon.

Ugh.

I'm going to skip this page on drawing the manga eyes as that's not really the style I intend to pursue. I'm just speedrunning this book to get a very basic grasp on the more applicable things like figure drawing and proportions. Just to kind of shake me out of intimidation paralysis and to get more comfortable using a sketchbook as a tool, for learning and getting messy.

So many hugs.
And can I make a suggestion? Go to your GP and ask for help in coping with everyday life while you wait for better diagnosis and treatment?
because how you live is very important and it's not something doctors will always think about
- I've changed GPs and this one is good (if a bit time limited), I'll definitely be discussing this there. I've also got some advocates now in dealing with the medical system. But fuck me... it was really just allowed to get this bad.

Ooh package delivery notice! And 9 days ahead of prediction. Usually this would be cause for celebration, but now I need to find a long term hiding spot for a 10m stuffed toy. Um…

I unserstand.... I currently have a motorbike stashed in a mates shed! Can it go under a bed? Behind a door?
Ten metres is quite large for a stuffed toy - roughly twice the size of a very large elephant. I think hiding this toy is going to be difficult. Perhaps rent a storage cubicle for a month.
- Oops, feet! It’s a snake so not quite as gargantuan as either measurement implies. Should coil up manageably.
Leave it bagged, in the attic space
- I’ll need to cut an access hatch

Anyone else strip their car before dropping it at the mechanic? Was on the phone to a mate while I pulled all my 4x4 recovery gear/tools, first aid kit, little knick knacks, and my current car-drobe out and he thought I was being weird.

I just feel weird about someone seeing all that stuff even though it's just normal stuff to have. Plus you know clumsy hands might start gropping if they get curious enough.

Wish boyo had done that. The car ended up getting written off and given zero chance to get any of the chargers, minor tools, spare hard hat etc. all little stuff but it adds up.
- I rolled my car many years ago and I had the chance to get everything back, but only the hardiest things survived. I still mourn that packet of macadamias that didn't make it.
- Oh shit! New fear unlocked!
I did as I was getting a UHF installed and an Anderson plug in the back and on the rear of the car. Figured it would make it easier for them to run the wires etc… without clutter to move.
It's just a good idea, both to keep stock, and to make sure things don't get broken.
I didn't grab everything out of my car last week when I dropped it off to be repaired after an accident because initially they'd said it'd only be a few days. And then as I was driving off in the hire car they said "yeah so 3-4 weeks".
So here am I driving around without a first aid kit, emergency coat, sun hat, extra shopping bags, the Melways, all of that- anything could happen.

Giant snek has landed.

Cut for phobics. Turns out super easy to hide when I engage brain. ::: spoiler spoiler

:::

Fuck yeah, Carcass / TBDM tour just announced.

🤘👹🤘

Job #1 finished early, job #2 likewise due to a mix-up with appointments (so the first half hour was mostly the provider and the client arguing with each other).
Next client is literally five minutes' drive so am chilling at home for now.
The cats are like 'you again?"

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

Tea please and hot buttered crumpets.
- ☕️🥵🧈🥯
All the frozen things please
- 🥶❄️🌨️☃️🍦🍧🍨🧊
Good old bacon and eggs please.
- 🥓🍳🍳🍞☕️
Two umami bombs please
- 🤤💣🤤💣
Bacon and egg roll and a flat white plz chef.
- 🥓🍳🧀🌯☕️🥛

Hopefully I haven't overloaded myself, but now that I am halfway through my Diploma I've signed up to do an Undergraduate Certificate as well next year. It will mean I have 1 1/2 semesters where I have three subjects (which is 3/4 of a full-time study load, on top of full-time work) but I think it's doable. Fortunately a few of the subjects have reading lists at the library so I can do most of the reading in advance which will help.

If I can manage that I will feel a lot more confident about my plan to sign up for a double degree course the year after.

Good luck!

Surprisingly confusing, trying to figure what haircut to get at the hairdressers. Asking for the generic haircut does feel a little like going to a fast food restaurant and asking for a burger, without giving any more details.

On the bright side, curry prep is done, so that's dinner sorted.

Made it down to the bellarine intact.

Shoutout to the ticket inspector who woke me up at the end of the line at Sth. Geelong station (supposed to get off at Geelong). The seats are too comfy. Last time I fell asleep on the train I woke up at Waurn Ponds and had absolutely no fkn idea where I was.

Worst thing is snoozing as the train then goes all the way back to the city
- heh now that would be very confusing

So after my accidental snooze on the train to g-town I had to wait a bit for the connecting bus. At geelong station there is a very nice park opposite the magistrates' court. When I ruin the timing that's a good spot to wait. Do not wait at the actual station.

Anyway you always see colourful things out the front of that court.

Today was a young couple I presume there on a drug related matter getting very animated.. Seemingly it didn't go their way.

Which

Brings

us

to

today's rave choon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K85jeuaT3eE

There's an incident in Windsor. All trams and trains have been stopped going through there.

Update: Police have now arrested a man.

yikes https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-05/windsor-police-incident-chapel-street-albert-street-melbourne/103188914
- "Local salon owner Tom said some pedestrians were walking past the police tape and down the street before being turned around."
  I wish I could understand some people. What must go through their minds when they see things like police tape cordoning off an area? Like, the actual thoughts.
Hmm that's not too far from me. I wonder what happened.
- There's not a lot of details out there.

I tried it..

Photo is stress inducing
Well?
- Mid, at best
Y3k already? The second millennium has gone by in a blur. Feels like 2023 was just yesterday.
i saw 7/11 has a krispy kreme flavored slushy. We were too busying wondering if we could we didnt stop to think if we SHOULD.
- Isn't that basically just doughnut icing? That usually doesn't taste of much more than just sugar.

so you can get modern-but-heritage look fans, lights, even wall plates and switches, but has anyone done a heritage look remote?

I think they're call "servants".
- ah yes, the youngest child in the house, or the one sitting closest to the TV
  (I just aged myself horribly)

brain is buzzed, tired and stuck all at the same time

That sounds like a description of my brain every time I sit down to work on an assignment. I often find a walk helps, a solution Mr Woof is always very happy to help with.

Finally feeling (mostly) better just in time for work. They've given me an extra shift so we'll see how we go. At least I have a gap between shift 1 and 2 so I can have lunch at home and commune with the cats, and shift 2 is respite so not so physical.

I wish short hair wasn't actually more maintenance and fuss. Thinking to go shorter than my current length because even this is getting a bit much to manage, but will have to leave it just long enough to tie back.

I used to shave mine down to about an inch with my own clippers, which was definitely great for low maintenance day to day, but was a bit of a pain to keep cutting. When I decided to grow it out instead I made the mistake of colouring it, which meant I was stuck continuing to do that regularly as the regrowth looked awful. Eventually I took the plunge of stripping out the colour and leaving it natural so I don't need to do anything much now - a quick comb and into a ponytail every morning and that's it.
My hair is pretty cooperative though - it was the bane of my existance growing up in the '80s due to its refusal to hold a curl, but dead straight hair that doesn't tangle easily is now something I'm grateful to have.
- I actually did find it easier to manage when I had my hair partially buzzed. There was less hair to tangle, faster to dry and I could just tie the length back to hide it when needing a more conventional appearance. I really liked that style. I have considered the entire head buzz but as I already seem to stick out and be harassed even with a boring normal do it seems like more stress than it's worth.
  But yeah. It is maintenance. My hair grows back fast! Plus different lengths requires mirror setups and I don't trust myself to do it at home in case I accidentally ruin it. It's also hard to have my arms raised for extended periods.
  Agreed, I would prefer coloured hair but having to keep doing it is a drag
Mine’s just long enough to tie back too. I only need to think about it/get a haircut when it grows too thick.
- Mine is fine so it gets oily fast, needs to be washed more frequently and is quick to tangle. Standard silicone shampoo leaves it a greasy flat mess. It's a real pain in the butt
I still colour mine blue black. Just not ready to have white hair ( it's been white since my late 40s )
- Mine's about half grey now and I quite like it. Because the greyest section is the top of my head and that is where my hair tends to part, when I used to dye it I would get a stripe effect from the regrowth. I always thought I looked like a skunk.
- I miss dyeing but just can't do the maintenance and the fumes. Plus you know Melbcat would insist on acquiring herself a streak!
- I don’t give a shit about the white bits in my hair, they add variation to my silly colours. But the ones in my eyebrows piss me off no end, sticking out at damn angles and being weird textures. Only so many you can pluck before getting the alien look.