Daily discussion thread: 🎆 Saturday, May 11, 2024

So just at a park in Brunny, and it's faint with the eyes, but my phones picking it up :D

- Took the dog out for a wee, still going strong out there.
- Oooo this is such a good pic!!! 😍
Silly question maybe, but you're looking South?
- Yup, looking south. The city light pollution is blue, but the red is the aurora
oh wow.
nice!

Taken from my backyard using iPhone 3 second exposure. Can’t really see it to the naked eye but insane on camera.

So stoked to see it for myself too. 🎊

Went out for dinner tonight, Korean BBQ. On our way out my kids helped out a server who was carrying too many things, when I was paying the tab.

The owner/manager told me I had a beautiful family and that my kids were super polite.

I nearly broke down crying.

So, I have a small guilty pleasure now: I downloaded tiktok and am loving all the videos with pets tbh.

Ugh, just gonna keep saving up for a psych appointment and hopefully I can start feeling better about being in this tiny bubble of one.

A dickhead is a dickhead, no matter what gender they are/were/present as. Bad behaviour/manners should be called out. There's far too much victim blaming happening. Not a situation I've ever faced, so please take that for what its worth, if anything.
- Yup
Them being trans doesn’t mean that what they did to hurt you wasn’t also abusive. Women - including trans women - are entirely capable of abuse.
I believe you. You deserved better.
DV absolutely occurs in queer/same sex relationships, and women absolutely do abuse partners. Dickheads come in every stripe and nobody is automatically exempt from being abusive due to their identity.
Police are pretty shit with DV/SA reports in general and there's no guarantee that a report would go anywhere. But if you felt you wanted to report there are LGBTIA+ liason officers now and if there were sexual offences you can talk to SOCIT.
It's really hard when your abuser is marginalised but it absolutely does happen, marginalized people can and do punch down on other people, and you have every right to talk about what was done to you. You're not going after her because she's trans. You were harmed by what she did, and struggling to even talk about it for fear of feeding into existing transphobic narratives.

I’ve been vaguely sick for like, a week and a half. I almost wish I was sicker, because then I’d have an excuse to opt out of things rather than trying to brute-force through them all

Rest up so you don't end up properly sick! Pretty sure you need a day on the couch.

SKY PRETTY

Heading to a big (and free!) outdoor park bass party tonight and easy to get to. Always good vibes.

Hopefully the fun police won't shut it down.

Really good to see a crew start thowing these again.

Which calls for a rave choon.

Dancing is healing

Enjoy, BR
- Thankyou Baku :)
Enjoy your night!
- It's been a while! It's right next the zoo so I wonder what the animals will be thinking.
is it south east?
- It's at royal park. Bit ballsy to throw it there tbh.
  
  Goes until 11pm

Crashing soon so I can be up at 6am. Interview Monday requires me to be in the city at 9am and I want to have some practice in advance.

Enjoy your evening everyone ❤️

Am I biased in saying crazy cat ladies (and gents) are the best people?

Anyway, little Spunky got a surprise today when his mum got an Amazon delivery today. A big new box for a little kitty 🐈📦

Spunky is indeed, spunky!
- @Eagle @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml He's a very spunky 'lil fella 😸
Box 😻
- Spunky has been evicted from the box.
  Mr Snowy decided the box looks like fun, and decided to have a turn.

Salada was designed perfectly for Vegemite and cheese lol

Butter or no butter?
- Butter definitely. Otherwise way too hard to spread the Vegemite.

Thumb wound day 6. I don't believe I'll need to amputate ::: spoiler spoiler

:::

A mighty fine scar! You have done battle with the GODS and have come out with an epic scar to show! Slay, King!
- I couldn't have done it without the love and support of everyone here ❤️
Draw eyeballs on it
Sorry, but
- Just saw this lol 🤣

So I have to decide if a 4 hour a day commute a few days a week is ok or to look for another job. They changed the rules on me and went all return to office. It’s a damn tech job - no office presence even required.

I don’t want to give up my dog :-(

24 hours:
7 hours sleep.
1 hour preparing for work.
8 hours working.
4 hours commuting.
2 hours preparing and eating food.
That leaves 2 hours for everything else. I could not do this.
I did almost that for about 6 months when I got my first ‘real’ job before finding a place to move. Almost killed me, especially since Sat got lost to house hunting. Zero life. Do not recommend.
- I did a few months of 9 hour days with a 3 hour commute. It paid the bills, but I can't say it was much fun. It did have a major bonus that I could get time off to go to job interviews though. When I strarted my new job with 8 hours work 15 minutes from home it felt like I'd gone part time!
Ouch. It might be ok for a couple of days a week but it is not ideal. You basically have to write off those days completely and you also can't do any of the little chores you would have otherwise done around or after work either (things like doing your washing) so you lose a little bit of other days too.
That's a fuck load of travel. I'd look for something else quietly.
Yikes. It sounds like it would massively cut into the rest of your life for no good reason.
Is it possible to start hunting for a new job on the down low now - and then either use a job offer as leverage to keep work from home, or jump to another role?
If it’s two days a week out of five, it’s do-able but that’s still a massive loss of free time. Is this travelling by PT? Can you start work on PT in order to spend less time at the office?
- It is PT. Something to ask about…..
@Mittensmeow @Seagoon Given you live two hours away (is that by train or car?), are they willing to make an exception?
- Car to train. Not sure that the Monash fwy would be faster, plus getting parking somewhere. Seems not negotiatble, message is being reinforced via multiple levels of upper management. Wondering if it’s an excuse to reduce head count without redundancies.

Health is still absolutely caning me. Constant pain and not able to keep on top of things. I hate using disposable products... Landfill and paying for stuff that gets literally thrown in the bin... but at the moment it's kind of necessary.

I'm cutting down on that wherever I can but it'd be nice if I had a little countertop dish drawer to run every time I had a full load. It would save water too. Wonder if I could get it funded. I've been budgeting well lately so could perhaps save to get one but vet bills always take priority and it also seems I've got stuck in tightarse mode.

hugs, we do what we can do.
have you been able to go outside and look at the aurora? 😊🌌
- Yeah, it just sucks you know.
  The pics are pretty but I haven't gone outside. It's a bit fresh tonight, feral neighbours have been screaming and the fuzzball would try to follow me out

My reddit accounts got caught up in r/australia's ban evasion AI nonsense and I got mega banned, no more helpful comments for people bad at google I guess. I liked being helpful there. It'll give me more time to be helpful elsewhere I guess.

You’ve described my relationship with carsaustralia perfectly. Just with a bit of added snark towards Mazda diesels.
I'm sorry but why were you mega banned? Explain like I'm stewpid.
- What I think happened:
  First account banned on r/australia only by AI for inciting violence on r/australia for technical discussion of BJJ. I appealed the ban.
  Second account, I messaged the r/australia mods to ban the account so I didn't get busted for ban evasion. Ban given.
  First account has AI ban revoked. I eventually make a comment on r/australia, ban evasion bots see the IP or email address attached to the account matches their shitlist, bots go into ban evasion mode, accounts get permanently suspended.
  I had about seven reddit accounts. A bunch of novelty ones made during lockdown. I requested bans from r/australia on these accounts, I only got temp 28 day bans on some. I eventually made a comment on r/australia, got the ban evasion message from r/australia auto-mod, replied impolitely that I'd already reqested a ban months ago and I was glad to be banned. All my reddit accounts got nuked. New accounts from IP or email get nuked. New account from temp email and vpn is fine.
  i think.

I got some details about the next people who are moving in. On the lead tenant front, we're getting a new one "sometime soon". I've been told his name, and that's he's a Resi worker, but not much else. On the kids/YP front, we're getting a newbie from my old org, probably around the same time. I don't want to stereotype, but he's coming from, uhh, quite the rough house. He's also AOD affected from what I've been told, and has issues with nicking stuff.

I feel cautiously optimistic about the new LT, but I haven't met him yet. He's also quite religious from what I've been told, while I'm quite staunchly atheist. I don't really care, as long as he's not the preachy type, which it doesn't sound like he is. I'm quite nervous for the new YP though. I'm mainly nervous because the current LT is moving out a week or two after they move in. Can't blame him, he's been here for many years, and if I was in his shoes, I'd bail too. But we get along really well, and because he lives here and has experience with the system too, he argues with them on a lot of out of place policies. The new bloke is a Resi worker, and it's basically part of their training to not question orders and just do what they're told.

:/

It sounds like a really tumultuous time. I hope everything works out for you. Sometimes people from super troubled backgrounds can be a bit better when they have a change of scenery.
Hopefully.
As someone who was regularly stolen from by flatmates - get yourself a small safe, keep it out of view under your bed, and bike chain it to your bedframe so it can't be carried off. Journals, wallet, money or cards, ID, small electronics, sentimental items, prescription medication etc go in here when not in use. Keep your phone with you. If cost is a barrier you could also just get a lockbox of some kind, like a lockable toolbox. You can also get small stash containers that look like everyday items.
Also get yourself a subtle lanyard/wallet chain to keep your room key on you and lock your bedroom door when you go shower. Like, don't be obvious about it and cause tension, you don't want him to see you do these things or act weird like you're sus of him. But just don't be casual about easy access to your room or belongings until you know you can trust him. If he ever notices just keep it light and say it's out of habit.
"Haha, just a holdover from the old place. (The lockbox?) This is a high crime area, you heard about that burglary. (But if he knows about your lockbox? HMMM.) Oh that? It's habit, if I don't remember to lock up my room everytime I forget to do the main door! If I didn't have this chain/lanyard I'd lose my key! Nah, I just like taking my phone to read on the toilet/play music while I'm in the shower."
If this turns out not to be needed, great! But having some self protective strategies might help you cope better until you've sussed the new guy out.
Edit: Oh yeah and password your computer. Hit the shortcut for lock anytime you walk away from it.
And since you work. If he ever asks, you're broke. You've already spent your paycheck on rent, food, a replacement part that was desperately needed for repairs. Sorry homie. I got nothing left to lend you. Keep purchases of anything nice hidden or save it for when you're living on your own. You don't want someone racking your headphones or sneakers.
- Thanks Melba, this was really useful.
  Some of these were things I habitually did at the last place, so it won't take too much to start them up again. Surprisingly, theft is something I've never had to worry about anywhere I've been. Violence, sure, and I used to lock my room when I went to shower because I was worried one of them would around the corner in my room and assault me, but I didn't have to worry about keys because only workers had keys. These days I obviously do have keys to my room, and luckily I can't actually be locked out of my room (the lock only locks if I use a key or am on the other side). I also always had my phone with me in case shit hit the fan and I had to shelter in the bathroom or something, which is a habit I still have.
  And the computer one I got in the habit of doing too after one of the kids at my last place messaged everyone I had in my contacts asking them if they were gay 😭 (actually kind of funny now, but it definitely wasn't at the time)
  I have actually been considering getting a safe for a while to keep my important docs in, more so I know where they are and to give them some protection from fires or similar, but this is probably the push I need to actually get one. I hadn't considered tying it to anything, but I will take your advice and chain it up to my bed posts.
  I don't really wear many nice things. My nicest/most expensive belonging is probably my PC. But I do have a good pair of nose cancelling headphones that I'm a bit too lax about leaving around. I wear them almost 24/7 (I'm really sensitive to noise) but usually take them off if I'm having a convo, just out of politeness and usually forget to put them back on
  I'm not 100% sure on what I'll do with the key situation though. I have 3 keys on my keyring along with a couple of knickknacks. I could take just my bedroom key off and put it on its own thing chain, maybe tie it to my beltloops or something, but I'm not a fan of then having 2 sets of keys to carry and worry about. My keys are all solid brass (I think) and make a shit ton of noise. I would go to Bunnings and get one of those cheap key clone things they have that they do in that plastic like material, but our keys are all security keys and they are very vehemently against making copies

So jealous of these aurora photos. Tried from my place just now with phone and getting nothing. I think there’s too much light pollution and no view of the horizon because it’s a built up area. Boooo.

Same here, also reluctant to go outside. It'd be cool to live somewhere else and learn a bit of astronomy

I wonder if this geomagnetic storm is setting off fire evacuation alarms in the city, or if people are just extra unlucky burning their toast this morning.

I can't call in any strategems.
- That community basically cyber bullied Sony into retracting that requirement lol
Did the grid get messed up? I ran around plugging in all the battery packs last night haha
- Yeah I wonder if there have been any anomalous readings at the peer companies. But as far as I know nothing much yet except aurora
There has not been a particularly high volume of alarms this morning, it must just be randomly near you.
- Just an unlucky streak for the buildings near me I guess.
Geomagnetic what what? I feel like I'm constantly out of the loop these days. Downside of never watching the news ig
- It's nothing too crazy or worrisome. We're just in the path of a few strong sun farts, the kind that make aurora more visible and can sometimes mess with electronics on earth.

Holy shit

Organised myself a car for the day. Organised my shopping lists...got to the goget bay...forgot the little swipe card thing.

An hour later back home and starting over again. Don't try to do things before your morning coffee kiddoes

Late reply but thats why I had the swipe card thing on my keyring. Weird that they still haven't changed to app based unlocking like the other services though.

omg aurora

I'm too close into the city but I can see the clouds are tinged with pink
- Me too. In my area it's too many Mcmansions, boxy townhouses and people who don't care about power bills/the environment with every outside light on. Neighbours on my western side, lookin' at you. Is your gourmet dog afraid to pee in the dark‽

Market run achieved. I have baklava to eat with my tea

Market run achieved, I have coffee nougat to eat with my coffee
- Supermarket (BOO) run achieved, but… soft plastic recycling is back. Hoo-fucking-ray!
Delivery received, I'm sitting on a stockpile of soap like the world's weirdest dragon

Nigh nighs

He does love me lol

Oh my god how cute!
- He beats me up, out of love 😂

I know it's literally light rail but watching how far the other states will contort a sentence to avoid saying 'tram' is fucking hilarious to me

At this point Aussie Frugal Living consists entirely of me. Did I establish dominance and win Best Tightarse, so everyone is now too intimidated to post? Because I am pretty good at it. /j 😉

Also if you've got frugal food tips/recipes do they go in there or do they go in Food Australia? (ie telling you how to make toasted sandwiches without a jafflemaker, only a frying pan you've already got, or how to turn leftovers into fillings)

Probably aussie frugal but I don't think it matters.
maybe many people who have to live frugally, who are struggling, don't have the time or energy to post on social media much
- Fair enough, time is money. But disabled and unemployed exist

Just a reminder to everyone if people are asking you for free tech support you're good until monday just blame the solar storm.

Edit that didn't last long. Just got a call from mum.. netflix not working. She had turned off the wifi :(

Why yes I can clearly see your TV is unplugged but yes it is not working because of electromagnetic disturbances

Calm down people the Sun is just having a little tanty.

I'm getting the hang of using watercolours. It's exciting. 😃😃😃srsly, it's cool . I'll post some pics when I do full page.

Please do! I'd love to see your art!!! 💜
- I'm just learning paint mixing and brush skills so far and using a colouring book. Next stage will be drafting my own pictures and painting those. Then some copperplate calligraphy practice, designing the pages and I'll be ready to create a book. 👍

So are we likely to see some aurora tonight?

Where does one go to see it? Do you just have to go somewhere with no light pollution?
Edit - and it can’t be cloudy too, duh
- For the last biggish one people seemed to be heading towards wilsons prom.
- Somewhere looking to the south. Just went outside and didn’t see much (lots of trees tho)

Rebel Yell came on just as I got to the last hill this morning, doggo kicked into gear and started galloping instead of his usual trot, and I ended up getting a PB. Sub 25m/5k, which I'm very happy with.

Very hot chicken and veg soup for dinner. Made a huge pot of it today. Also need to make the Xmas trifle that I bought ingredients for and never made, thinking maybe breakfast trifle ?

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

@Seagoon So I really slept in this morning.

Is everyone's electrical gadgets still working? No big blackouts?

everything seems fine and normal here
Ted Cat is starving and complaining, he can't believe he's not allowed to eat Bill's food. They are both on a diet and slowly losing weight.

It's odd, I watch practically no hyper anxiety producing news anymore, had a bad nightmare about a big terrorist bombing in Africa

don't nightmares come after the stressful event is over?

Was supposed to go visit friends this weekend but the replacement busses will make the journey almost 4 hours one way.

Fucking hell. Was really looking forward to it as well.

I hate that shit so much. Makes seeing my Dad in the SE that much more difficult. Totally get ya, hopefully, one day, there will be actual PT at some point lol

Banks took away all the arms and bumped up the transaction fees on businesses. Definitely something suspicious going on there
I know many older people who are utterly clueless and incompetent with tech, and especially money related tech. I totally agree with you on the fees though.
- @PeelerSheila @wscholermann What really annoys me is some places that don't tell you they have a surcharge for cards until you pay.
  As in, the first you find out is when you get the receipt and see they've bumped up your $6 purchase to $6.12 without telling you.
  Probably illegal, but there are places that do it.
  And more broadly, I'd rather they add the 2% or whatever to their prices, instead of letting you know at the counter.
  (And while we're on the subject, instead of 10 cents extra for a little packet of tomato sauce when you buy a pie, they should just add the 10 cents to the price!)

Gym achieved. Gentle gym, but gym.

Now I can slow it down a tad

Dammit! Save game lost because I ignored phone low power warning.

Croatia have got this shit locked up with this year. I’ve only seen final 1 so far but nothing else was half as memorable as baby lasagna. Though looks like cypress’s approach of “rent an Aussie” might pay dividends this year!

Finland’s song is pretty memorable too, I’ve only seen semi final 1. Ireland was good. But Croatia is the strong favourite.

Vegan banana pancakes recipe for everyone for mother's day tomorrow https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/banana-pancakes/jzko3nze0?utm_source=pocket_mylist

Take THAT https://youtu.be/eM213aMKTHg?si=rb8qU3f11-g06QUM

rice is in the cooker, I made some satay sauce and cooked the chicken. Now I have to saute the vegies n stuff and dinner is ready.

Is Biggest Morning Tea stuff happening at the moment? There's an event I might go to happening today and I think it's part of the morning tea stuff

The new Sonos app is.....confusing

They prefer the term courageous 😂