Melbourne

Here's something I never thought I'd get to say: I got to rescue Bluey. My neighbors have a Blue Heeler. They also have young kids so of course, she's named Bluey. Anyway somehow she got stuck out the front and no one was home, so I went over and helped her out. She was terrified till I reminded her we've met before and she was like "OH! You're a friend! Awesome!" and gave me lots of pats.

I said I wasn't going to diarise here anymore - but as an update, I have had a phone interview this morn, and have an in-person 3rd interview booked for Wednesday.
That's all.
Apologies for the interruption, please continue and mind me not. 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️

Monday morning in the office is actually pleasant for once. The group of cackling hyenas is nowhere to be heard.

Blissful

Day 29 of exercises completed. I've got one day to go before I've completed the program! Woo! I've never stuck at any exercise program for this long in my whole life before, and I have you folks to thank for your ongoing encouragement and support! Now I've got to take a look at what my next step is..

Fuck I love a British crime drama! 60% actual crime solving, 10% HR nightmare, 10% rain, 10% you recognising actors, 5% places that sound like they belong in a fairy story, 5% people talking really fast. It's just brilliant stuff, it's perfect turn your brain off telly even though that's not it's intended purpose.

You know when you collect books because a subject interests you. Well

My expert subject is...............

Ironically they're a little dusty and the one I'm looking for is hiding somewhere.

Today I'm being introduced to the clients I'll be responsible for. It's starting to get serious now which is exciting!!!

In the past year I have donated/given away/sold about 20 big garbage bags worth of stuff. I'm always decluttering but amazed, in a bad way, how little impact it seems to have on the home.

Jesus Christ I'm tired. I didn't even do much over weekend.

Holy hell the current 14 day forecast for Las Vegas does not dip below 40, and I believe it has been going like this for a while before now too. Bunch of 44's in there. Could you imagine the Melbourne power grid meltdown?

It's always fun when I get home from work and declare "it's time to de-drag" like I'm a drag queen who just saw their friend eliminated off of Drag Race.

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

edit: Today is Chef's Barbieheimer Day. Last order at 9:30am.

Came back to work hoping past me had left some kind of chocolate treat in my desk drawers, but no such luck. A good thing given the half tube of Pringles I ate last night. However, it still makes me sad.

Since I'm in a cleaning mood I thought I'd share some hints for you so let's talk about drains. Now people will tell you just "pour some bi carb and vinegar down there and it'll unblock it. It works for me" and I say no. There's more to it.

Blocked drains: Step 1. Go outside and locate your overflow relief gully (org). It's usually located outside the toilet. Make sure there's nothing blocking it like leaves and shit.
Step 2: Buy a plunger and plunge the hell out of ALL your drains not just the one that's blocked.
Step3: Now pour some bi-carb and vinegar down ALL your drains. You might as well do them all at once. But add a big squirt of dishwashing liquid down with the bi-carb and vinegar. Plug all your drains. Including your shower just put a scrunched up wet towel over the hole. Close lids on toilets. Step 4: Go and make a coffee. You've earned it.
Step 5: Go and fill up all the bathtubs, sinks, basins, troughs, etc with cold water.
Step 6: Release the biggest one (usually the bathtub) and all the other sinks and basins. Flush all the toilets. This causes pressure in all your pipes dislodging anything that might be blocking a pipe. I call this "El flusho" and it's quite fun. Please note: Keep the shower hole blocked with a wet towel otherwise you might have raw sewerage coming into your shower which ain't pretty.
Step 7: Do these steps on a regular basis (around every 6 months or so) to keep your pipes free. It'll save you time and money when your midnight shit doesn't go down and all of a sudden you've flooded the bathroom floor. Prevention is better than paying out $$$$$ for a plumber.

Smelly drains: The most underrated chemical you can use for this is Cloudy Ammonia. Found on the bottom shelf in the cleaning aisle of the supermarket it's cheap and pretty harmless. Pour a half a bottle down a stinky pipe hole and let it sit. Repeat if necessary. The most common reason for funky pipes is stagnant water. Cloudy Ammonia will help this.

You are welcome people. ☺

Walking past the soon to be reborn Clifton Hotel in Kew Junction and they were putting in a big woodfired (I think / hope) pizza oven which is very dangerous as it's so close to where I am.

It's good to see someone's picked it up and restoring it. Will be disappointed if they're pushing $15 pints though.

Spent a while this morning learning how to send myself emails within the google ecosystem with hotel reservation details so it auto-adds into my calendar properly, for when hotels don't send email confirmations with the correct markups or in my case, when I wasn't the one who did the booking. Was a fair bit more involved than I initially thought but eventually nailed it. If anybody needs or wants to know how it's done let me know and I'll write it up. Can do it for a bunch of different booking types: flights, events, car hire, restaurants, etc.

It's all hidden data that gmail can grab:

image is an example of a hotel booking

image of how it ends up in google calendar

I kind of made this tonight
Chinese broccoli and mushroom stir-fry

My version

Ugh I just want to hibernate from everything right now until it becomes warmer. Have zero motivation for anything unless its over 21 degrees outside.

I know that I work 11-5 so it's only part time, but the time I wake up it feels like a full time 9-5 job. Gosh, I can't wait till my probation is over and ask to work from home one day. Mostly for my chronic pain but also going into work 5 days a week is tough.

Back into work after a week off.

I can do this.

Went to make a cuppa in the work kitchen and found a tray of arnotts biscuits on the table. The kingstons had already been raided, the SOBs. Got a Monte Carlo and a Nice, though 👌

Tasmania now has a Minister for Stadia. Leave your best Google Stadia jokes here.

Here's mine: I wonder when this'll show up on killedbygoogle.com.

Extremely intense and draining day. I've stopped by at mine to wait for western suburbs traffic to die down before making the trek back out to the house because I refuse to join in that mess (also I get to water my plants!). I'd be happy not to touch my steering wheel for the next 4 days. Absolutely sore and knackered from all the trudging around today as well.

Finished Mad Men s6 last night. Possibly the weakest season just above s5, but those last two episodes were absolute corkers and had that classic impact from s2-s4

I think the monster 👾 found where I work. Things got hectic here for a bit, and I'm pretty sure it was involved. I would very much like dull monotony back please.

Yay.

The 2 Apple TV subs stacked so now I have 8 months of it for free!

:)

Lemmy is great! Oh no, Lemmy.world is down again, I’ll just use my Aussie.zone account and I can post here. Way better than reddit outages.

I've been looking at my meter readings and surprisingly I seem to have managed to use less power for the last couple of months than the same time last year. It has been so cold I expected it to be more. The heating definitely chews through the power though, there are major spikes on cold days. Hopefully if I can get reverse cycle systems put in I'll be able to save some money, and actually be warm.

Listening to an interview with John Waters. 💗

Today I learnt about the sport Extreme Ironing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ironing

Now it makes sense, cue Divine , "Can't you see I'm ironing in here"

🤨 Big W cat litter has increased from $19 to $25 a bag

Seagoon movies. Mortal Engines. I just could not get into this Steam Punk Vernian /Howl's Moving Castle pastiche but if you love steam punk post apocalyptic stories you will love this a lot. It looks glorious , has an original idea and some good characters. Trailer; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsFc2gguEg

And that's it for daily movies , I've been watching so much telly and movies the past few years I am filled up. I also notice that for me it's consumption of another person's whole vision. There is no room for my own creative thought. To have a fresh mind I need my own real experience and if I can't have that then books and music.

So movies and telly only on the weekends from now on. I still love movies so much 💗💗💗, just need to regulate my watching.

I still have not watched The Great Escape, The Castle, Casablanca, Love Actually, Reservoir Dogs, Wall-E, Schindler's List, The Green Mile, etc etc

Not sure if this is allowed but if anyone has Apple TV and doesn't have a current subscription, you can get 2 free months via this promotional link.

https://redeem.services.apple/en-au/stephencurry-pty-tv-2m-social-2023?itscg=80121&itsct=UND_SC_social_2M_23&rt=social

Don't forget to cancel the sub after redeeming it so you don't ger charged.

A surprise early Strange New Worlds was a welcome addition to my Sunday night. As was the surprisingly good Beef Madras from coles.

Can't sleep -_-