I think the stress and uncertainty of the last few years has left us with no real optimism. There's usually a lot more talk of New Year New Start and resolutions about getting your life generally better but now it feels like it's just dragging yourself past a check-in point on a fairly mundane racetrack.

This year I'm definitely going to try and focus on good things in my journal to see if I can improve my outlook.

So.... mission accomplished? It doesn't matter which bird won (so long as it wasn't a bloody bat!), John Oliver did the organisation and the birds a massive favour.

This morning I found a camera tucked away in the bottom of a drawer. It had no batteries but the memory card was still in it and I have no recollection of ever having bought it.

There are a grand total of 7 photos on it, including one of a random tree for no apparent reason. They're all dated the same day in 2015 so... I guess I kinda scored myself an old-but-unused camera. The thing I love the most about it is that it has actual buttons! They make clicky noises and everything! None of this newfangled touch nonsense that's impossible to use with gloves or fat fingers.

I'm thinking I'll post a photo challenge this Friday and then have a thread next Friday for everyone to post their snaps. I usually get inspired on the weekends then forget during the week so having a week to get sorted will be good. If anyone has any prompts or ideas feel free to post them because I'll probably resort to Pinterest lists and they're probably not going to appeal to everyone 😆

And then there will be a post on Monday demanding to see your hobbies are because I'm nosy and in need of inspiration, lol.

Glad to hear you've maybe turned a corner. There's something particularly unfair about being at your worst over a weekend.

General pessimism this morning. Would anyone be interested in a couple of weekly threads showcasing non-misery-inducing things? I'm thinking maybe a thread to show off things we've made ourselves (building projects, cakes etc) or maybe a photo challenge?

I hate that farmers seem to think the only options are dairy or forestry, or in my area, grapes. No one seems to grasp that a monoculture in any particular is a bad idea and if it goes belly-up, the way dairy is going to, there's nothing to fall back on. With food supplies getting a little shaky you'd think there'd be a push to start growing more stuff locally so we have less reliance on other countries and on shipping, but I guess planting out crops means Fonterra won't be funding next years' Ford Ranger purchase.

I love that random bypassers were supporting him, especially the road crew donating gloves.

That is a really unfortunate url 🤔

Groceries this morning. I was bored and ran the entire shopping list through the Grocer app, since we have to drive past two other supermarkets to get to our one of choice. By stopping at each one and grabbing the specials we saved nearly $30 so the doubtful SO has decided that doing a grocery check before leaving the house is my new Sunday morning chore.

In related news, I am turning into my mother.

I would prefer not to federate with them. Their track record is abysmal and the privacy invasion is horrendous. One of the people over on Mastodon recorded more than 200 queries from the app within an hour of installing it - they are determined to scrape every last detail of your life into their advertising database and, well, fuck that.

Mastodon.nz announced a week or so back that they have no intention of federating with them and I found that to be reassuring: we're all here because we specifically Do Not Want a corporate body throwing adverts and algorithms at us.

It wouldn't surprise me if blasting the fediverse with millions of users is specifically designed to weaken smaller instances, just to oh-so-graciously offer their users and 'safer, more stable' place to set up.

Got my hair did, smell like salon potions.