Daily Discussion Thread: Tue 12 Dec 2023

This little slice of heaven managed to stowaway in someone’s car around the engine compartment, made A harrowing journey over several kilometres of freeway and was found in a carpark at Chadstone. The owner is not known at this time. It’s a Christmas miracle kitty now known as “Pudding”

The cat distribution system hard at work... Pudding is beautiful!
Grey kitties are the sweetest. 💗
stowaway in someone’s car around the engine compartment, made A harrowing journey over several kilometres of freeway and was found in a carpark at Chadstone
The Magic Pudding!
Seriously that was so dangerous for kitty, glad they're okay
Pudding! Hi!
Perfect name.
Hello pudding! 👋

Standing next to a large pizza oven on a day like today I don't recommend! It was so hot I felt like my brain was gonna pop! Then I stationed myself at the dish sink and washed trays for a few hours. Mmm hot soapy water.. It was like an endurance test. Now sitting in front of split system at home going "aaaah!" blissfully.

Lindau today, unfortunately the markets were closed so here’s a picture of the Christmas tree in from of the old town hall.

There's a pathological story teller in my workplace. I was growing sick of it so I finally put them to shame today. They started bubbling and babbling and squirming so hard over being called out, and I don't feel an ounce bad about it.

C'mon, you cant tease us like that. Full story please!
- I would love to because it was truly hilarious, but it's too work-specific. Just know they're probably going to keep very quiet for a while, hopefully. Also, the porky was in an area I am known for, and just about everyone who witnessed it knows that.
Did them a favour, I reckon.

Update on Pudding cat: kitty is 5 weeks old and has no microchip. Someone will door knock around the suspected area of origin.

If no joy, there are at least 4 trustworthy individuals who have put their name in a hat for adoption. Come Friday, someone will go home with a Christmas miracle pudding.

We have two furballls already so we aren’t in the running ( even though I really would take it in to form a feline fire team)

First day under my new work contract.

I’ve stopped for lunch and so far am pleased with my day

I haven’t touched my ukulele in a while either. It’s like I just don’t have energy to spare to learn new things or be creative

So many hugs.
What do your other neighbours think about this? Is it possible you can get some kind of help from a neighbour, such as accompanying you when you take out your rubbish bins?
- Unfortunately not, there's a few NQR people here and the quiet ones like me also keep to themselves. I've found it best honestly, to avoid neighbourhood drama or unwanted advances. Apparently though there have already been complaints so other people have been reporting this
Probably not nice but I’m praying VCAT hurries up and hopefully he gets forced into treatment. I dont *THINK *VCAT can force that. They'll throw them out (eventually) but they'll be given chance after chance after chance. They'll end up on the street, and then maybe if they are lucky fall through the cracks into support, but more likely not.
I don't know the specifics of the situation, but recommend you look at a plan B here cause waiting for mental health support services is a long wait for a train that dont come.
- No, VCAT can't force that. I'm hoping though that there's a team involved that can place him somewhere he can be treated. The whole thing is unfortunate.
  Unfortunately there's very little I can do other than wait. And wait. And wait. And hope not to be physically or sexually assaulted in the meantime. (Not an unreasonable fear. He's volatile and already had a go at me unprovoked while putting out my bins.) The system has failed these people.
  I can try calling CATT or ACIS but you're right when you say it's a wait for a train that never comes.

Heading back to melbs today.

Looks like they've fixed the waurn ponds southern cross line. Big nasty collision with a fully laden semi=trailer at the level crossing in north shore yesterday (RIP truck driver) and derailed the front carriage of the train. yikes.

Everyone takes a photo of these so tonight is my turn. Also it's somehow even hotter outside now than it was this afternoon! I'm out for a stroll just dripping.

Another!

Kid #1 is graduating primary school. We managed something that neither of us had: same school/friends from prep all the way to finishing primary school. Even better: 2/3 of his closest friends are going to high school with him.

Eldest Minipeeler has high school orientation today! He is so excited for it and his graduation wipes away find happy/sad tear
Ok, that was a much bigger deal than I expected it to be. I thought it'd be like a school assembly "Hey these kids are leaving" and be done in an hour. Not so, we had awards and a little blurb on every child: Which High School they're going to and their hoped for carreers.
An alarming number of these children dream of being YouTube stars.

scratching around for crumbs of dopamine

Doctor who from eccles to tennant.
Well partway, i'm up to impossible planet
- I’ve never watched Dr Who and it seems like a lot to catch up on now. I’m working with a single borrowed brain cell rn

I hate that whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection I look furious for no reason. Resting furious face when I'm actually just plodding along quite contently is annoying.

So far so good with the job. It's not perfect but nothing in corporate really is. Its only been a day, but nothing really awful standa out. Yet lol

Lots of sheet lightning glowing up the clouds here. And rolls of thunder. No rain as yet, but windy.com shows a few supercells heading south towards us. When it hits it'll hit hard I reckon. EDIT: It's just started to rain - big heavy drops and lots of really loud thunder.

Pretty sure I’m under a super cell, it’s belting down! Hope my drains can keep up.
Rain just hit here after 5 minutes of dry lightning and thunder.
Had a good sharp little downpour here in kew but watering sytem remains on.
No Rain here. A little t & l in the distance. My belly was rumbling louder.
I'm directly under the lightening. The candles are lit, just in case there's a power outage
Yup. Massive drops on the windshield lol.

My kitchen tiles are wet. It's gross. I had to put thongs on.

I have successfully banished the mould from my realm.

Cries in food manufacturing
Pizza base day for me so 🥵🥵🥵
- 🧊🥤
well done

From today's xkcd:
'For someone who has ostensibly outgrown staying up late waiting for Santa, I do spend an awful lot of time refreshing websites to see if packages are here yet.'

I'm looking at recipes for icing for cookies and seeing the pictures I'm reminded just how beautiful American feasts are. Maybe growing up poor and from a European family that didn't really celebrate xmas much means I don't know, but my friends growing up were pretty much the same.

Anyway, these beautiful hand made sugar cookies are typical of American Christmas. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=icing+for+christmas+cookies&atb=v314-1&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

I think I'll just do plain white icing

They do look pretty. I usually just do white icing made with lemon juice on gingerbread. Super tasty.

I know this gets laughed at on Reddit as pearl clutching or being a doomer... but does it feel to anyone else like society is deteriorating? Particularly the availability of safety nets, and people's behaviour. Everything just feel like it's been getting worse.

Agree with Seagoon and Bottom. But as a spark of goodness in the gloom, some social factors are much much better. Not long ago, homophobia was the norm, calling people racial slurs was considered funny, disability service and accessibility weren’t anywhere near as good as it is now, glass ceilings in workplaces and politics for gender, race, sexuality etc. But I do agree, for the economic and liveability aspects, it does seem more miserable.
- I was in the city 4 weeks ago and heard people call out for genocide . "Kill them" 😭
Yes
What has been interesting to me on reddit (and people I know IRL) is there has been a substantial increase in people who believe this.
i believe it too.
Old person here.
Wages have plummeted since the 70s-80s. everything cost more too. There are few good manufacturing jobs any more. Many professions, such as in the sciences, have all but disappeared. Hope of a good career is being lost. Hope of a home and family is being lost.
We all had an expectation that life would be the same as it was post wwii. Expectation is lost. We are being forced back into the same life as pre-wwii, multi-generational households and rooming houses.
Kennet made this a mean society with his mean attitude. People copy that. Trump hasn't helped. People copy him too.
The cities are much much bigger and it's so anonymous here now there are few social constraints on public behaviour.
People have been brow beaten into not knowing what is acceptable behavior and what isn't. ( No, if you are a cunt and abuse people's rights I'm not being judgy. )
Division in society has been fomented. Spurred on by bad actors on the internet and the loss of a unifying national identity.
Saying Hello isn't a boundary violation. Saying Hi to a neighbour is a good thing, not a bad thing. There is a loneliness epidemic.
There is a feeling bad people can act with impunity . Bad people from politicians to the local stores and tradies seem to be able to rip us off an there is nothing we can do. This loss of a sense of justice is a serious issue.
Covid didn't help.
People are shit scared of Global warming and acting out.
- Yes. This pretty much sums it up
- Howard's negative gearing and private health insurance were another couple of nails in societies coffin.
When I had a checkout counter lady be really grateful that I asked how her she was and her day was going that showed me how bad it had gotten.

my phone is behaving like shit. Nothing OBVIOUSLY wrong, just apps crashing touch responding strangely. Bluetooth randomly cutting out for some devices but not others. Just noticed there is a new IOS out so I've updated that, heres hoping thats fixed it. Worst case its under apple care, but words cant describe how much I want to avoid Doncaster/fountain gate/highpoint ATM. Anyone else's iphone running poorly?

So, um... based on your earlier post... did... did you check it for bite marks....?
- Yep, its clean.
Try doing a hard reset and updating everything that needs updating. Otherwise yeah, you’ll probably need to take it in 😞
- yeah, might have to.

Five minutes to dinner time and Ted Cat bit my bum to make me hurry up. 😂

It's like hot yoga out there. Steamy with lots of bodies everywhere.

Feel likes that inside my workplace as well.
Suspected disturbance in the space-time continuum. CEO might have had a glimpse of the establishment after eight.
- After eight? Does that mean I get to eat After Dinner mints now and not feel like a fraud?

Did I optimistically hear thunder or just a large truck in the distance?

Edit: yay it’s thunder! Hoping the humidity will be rained out of the air.

Thunder and lightning in Heidelberg. Hopefully a little rain to come too!
- Nothing doing here in Docklands
You heard right. The sky is very flashy in my hood. Bit of rain.

Tinyest keeps ripping my glasses off and he holds them. He examines them, looks really thoughtful before ultimately shoving them in his mouth and biting the shit out of them. He can remove the first loop on the apple watch (fortunately not the second yet), and is very keen to try chew on my phone too. Most of my parenting is taking things off him before they get the shit bitten out of them.

My kid put chalk in her mouth when she was little. When I asked her why she did that she replied "because the green one didn't taste too good". Oh dear. "Sweetie we have food in the cupboard. You don't need to snack on chalk".
Chewing on things is how he thinks. You have a genius
Does he also bite the shit out of cardboard too, my friend’s kid did that at that age. Soaked the Christmas card I sent.
- Oh HUGE fan of destroying cardboard. Chirstmas wrapping too.
- He liked the art so much he ate it

had the curtains open for natural light for a video chat
OH THE HEAT
am now cool again

Pretty happy I decided to head home from my walk when I did. Only missed being out in that by about 10 minutes. Show is over now looking in my direction.

What a very Queensland-esque day and night!

I'm probably going to regret this, but I am taking Mr Woof out for an after-dinner stroll.

It's lovely outside, warm and the air is sweet with trees and flowers. 🤗
I went for a walk at 3:30pm today, with no idea about the swamp I was walking into. The sections in the direct sun were not fun.

Sky missing. Mountains also missing.

Sky very low in Thornbury - down to about street level.

What kind of sauce should I put on my homemade chicken burger? Maybe a pepper mayo?

My wife got her first taste of heavy rain and thunder while driving. 3 lane road with no lines.

I'm going through the new Union station, and it's funny how we've built a steel trough and now people are pissing in it. I wonder what we were expecting.

W00t w00t https://www.lightningmaps.org/

And i just realised it has the outer rail lines sketched in and now i'm distracted chasing the line

Good Bot.

I'm meant to be in the office today but I'm not sure if it's a good idea with 100% humidity and 32 degrees

You know it's loud when kitty goes to hide in the carrier

aww
- She's asleep...

sun!

😨

Little fan go soft brr, hot, keyboard iffy, case is cracking open, open up, slightly puffy battery, 'puter 5 years old. Time for new 'puter.

guac and burritos have been consumed. Next a yoghurt ice cream. 😛🍦

I've gotta buy jeans for the man today and his only stipulation is that they not be tight so they can accommodate his extra large shlong and crew. Jesus Christ. How do I convey that to the salesperson while keeping a straight face? "Scuse do they have ample roomage for the man junk cos i got measurements for everything else"?

Ask for a roomy crotch
- That's a good idea. I'll try not to laugh or point.
Can we normalise kilts? Seriously practical and good looking.
- I own 3, a traditional woolen one in my clans tartan with all of the dress accoutrements, a drill material utility kilt and a leather utility kilt. I agree, practical and look great and im all aboard the kilt train!!
- Then there would be discussions about the cod piece still.
bring cucumber and mangoes
may I suggest go one size up and get a belt
- Yeah that's what I'm thinking. He lost 20kg so his old jeans look too baggy now. That's the reason I'm buying new ones.

Monday we have the great grand and good whole house reverse cycle ducted install begging, multiple trades and three days work, 20kw heating, 17kw cooling, gimme gimme gimmeeeee

You're gonna want 20kW solar once the power bill hits.
- points at roof guess what was the first thing we installed was.....

Having an evap cooler when it's humid outside is like standing under the sun to stay cool. At moment my little pedestal fan is putting it to shame.

Honesly at this point run a dehumidifier
- I had a similar thought earlier ahaha
  This is fkn ridiculous, was joking with the family about whether we hallucinated moving to Melbourne from QLD 10yrs ago.

Counting down the minutes until home time. Wishing my life away....

I need to organise a fruit platter for Saturday. What would you do? Based in the CBD.

Hit Vic market very early - like about 6-7 am. For 10 plus people you'll need : Grapes - 2 colours, more if available - 100 g each Dragon fruit - 1 Kiwi fruit - 2 colours - 2 each Apples - pink lady or something crisp with a nice red skin (NOT RED DELICIOUS - the worst named fruit in the universe) - 2 Pears - 2 - not the brown ones - corella pears are small and deliciously sweet. Choose crispy ones. Star fruit - 2 Avocado - 2 Pineapple - 1 I punnet strawberries or cherries. Watermelon - seedless - 1 or maybe 1/2 if the weather is not too hot. Honeydew or other green melon - 1 Canteloupe - 1 Mango - 2 Lemons (at least one)
Large platter - chill overnight in fridge or freeze briefly.
Clingfilm Sharp sharp knife Vegetable peeler melon baller toothpicks
Don't bother with banana - turns brown too quickly
Method: Peel pineapple and put in centre of platter. (youtube vidjos for how to peel if you don't know) You could cut this into triangles if you wish and stack pointy end up in a nice pattern in the middle. Hull the strawberries if using, or destone the cherries and put in a ring around the pineapple.
Slice the star fruit and put one slice on the pineapple as a tree topper with a toothpick - the rest of the slices can be fitted into gaps or wherever they look pretty. Peel and chop the melons into triangles and stack around the edge of platter. Cut apples & pears into quarters lengthwise but don't peel the apples, cut out the cores and slice again lengthwise into eighths. Peel the pears if you want. Dip both in mixture of half/half lemon juice & water. Arrange around platter. Make mango hedgehogs and place around the platter at intervals. Use melon baller to make spheres of the dragon fruit and the avocadoes and use to fill in the gaps between the mango etc. Dribble lemon juice on the avocado. Grind some black pepper or paprika over the watermelon. Sprinkle flaky salt on the apples and pears (not too much). Peel kiwi fruit and chop in quarters lengthwise and fit into gaps. Separate the grapes into small clusters, wash and place into any gaps.
Cover with clingfilm and chill for an hour or so minimum - up to 4 hours. Serve. With toothpicks for those who don't want to damage their nail polish.
This is fairly lavish - you could reduce by at least half if there are less than 10 people expected to be eating it. Basically it's one piece of fruit per person, but spread out over a lot of different kinds of fruit.
If there's something nice that catches your eye at the market, by all means include it or swap it into the platter.
EDIT: count on AT LEAST 2 hours chopping/peeling etc.
- If nobody’s going to comment can I just say this is an astonishing little guide you typed up.
- Thank you, this is legendary. I suspect there may now be a few of these made by the DT.
I would make one using this platter or similar. You can buy them in $2 shops. Fill it with berries, watermelon, kiwi fruit, cantaloupe etc.

I have taken possession of a MacBook Pro for work purposes (I'm going to be overseeing the integration of MacOS into our corporate environment).

I have given Apple and their OSes so much shit over the years it's quite funny that this task has fallen on me. I might need to buy a bunch of leather & wooden bracelets and fashion my hair into a manbun. I'm surprised it let me login to it without a full sleeve tattoo.

Enjoy your half almond, half soy skinny latte
Enjoy. My colleagues mostly have macs age they love that they get excluded or left to last for any restrictions. I hate windows but macs are more annoying to do stuff with. (Have both)
You can redeem yourself by installing Arch Linux on them.
- No can do. The whole point is to configure and customise MacOS for enterprise and this is my test device. Has to be out of the box.

far rumbles make me window ssssshake

I know I should be grafeful to get a gift at all but I got a giftcard to the cinemas which I won't use.

sigh

Regift?
- Probably. Just not really my day. Really rammed home how under appreciated I felt today at work.
Why not go?
- Used to but don't really go anymore and don't want to?

I’ve never been to Melbourne. Yet here I am.

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

Iced coffee and cold chicken salad please.
- 🧊☕️🧊🍗🥗
Tropical fruit smoothie please. And a tropical fish to look at to get in the mood of this weather
- 🍉🍓🍌🥭🍍🍑🧊🥤🐠
Clandestine clam chowder, surreptitious side salad and a sneaky Sav plonk please
- ^🍲^🥗^🥂
The entire contents of a pharmacy thanks
- Split it with me! Between the painkillers, lozenges, hayfever and allergy stuff, nasal sprays, dietary supplements, asthma stuff, Mr Ps prescriptions, my MILs prescriptions, child related pharmaceuticals, topical creams, powders and bandaids and patches of all types and descriptions I feel I should own shares in one!

#Worldle #690 6/6 (100%) 🎉⭐⭐🏙️ 📷 #WhereTaken🌎 #289 6/6 🎉⭐⭐⭐

wheretaken.teuteuf.fr