Melbourne

New pencils.... Maiden lunch note with them. They blend pretty well.

Got my doc appointment today. Ugh. UGH!

If you own a cat keep it the fuck inside! Some twit in my area let's their's out all hours of the night and it's discovered a cat lives in my house, so every night it's been coming to the back door to picks fights with mine through the glass.

I'm quite sure it's the same cat pissing on everything and sneaking into my garage. I just don't understand how anyone could just let this thing they are supposed to love out to roam all over.

botbot has been on strike two days in a row, and CEO's Google Home has been speaking unprompted.

These events are related.

I've started the day well, by missing the cup and pouring the boiling water on my toes.

I don't blame Bot001 for going back to bed.

Update on the Google Home situation: It seems when it got an update it decided to add a whole lot of motivational shit, extra lights, extra rooms, alarms etc. The man is now going through both phones to sort it out (the kid doesn't have the app). In the whole 5+ years we've had this, this has never happened. The war with bots has begun.

I shall reward him with pork belly. (The man that is).

Google Home continues to talk to me today. It's bizarre because no settings have been changed. Occasionally she gets triggered by the TV and goes on a tangent then we all have a laugh but this ain't funny any more. I've asked her nicely to stop speaking, twice. She doesn't realise how close I am to ending her life. 😡

Update: I have hopefully deactivate the messages. It's truly a mystery because I never activated them in the first place and I know nobody else did either.

I move to my new place this Saturday and I haven't started packing yet 🤕

I don't have much stuff and the new place is fully furnished anyway so I'm being a bit lazy. I have boarded a bunch of stuff that I need to first get rid of though but that probably won't take much time. Will need to buy a couple of boxes today. Physio, then boxes.

Managed to keep myself off Reddit and Kbin for a while, but sometimes meetings just get too boring. Glad to see this place still going!

Oh Bot001, you irresponsible cad. I know I've been stupid, after getting a sudden wind to cram some work in at 8:30pm and going on and on until it's time for the bloody Red Wattlebird to sound its heinous alarm, but we trusted you to be a little more regular...

well, time for the blackout blind to do its work, I'm so doomed today.

Ballarat moment

Joining the Should've Stayed in Bed Team this morning! Tired even though I slept great, headachey, stupid tasks and stupid people at work driving me crazy.

hm I see they finally sacked Cruella Braverman, that insidious little shit. UK politics seems so dire these last few years.

I woke up and Ted Cat was licking my hair 😸😨

Bought a big bag of rolled oats so I can start having porridge for breakfast. $2.70 for 1.5kg of rolled oats? Shiiiiiit dems some cheap eatins!

Zoolander is on.🤭

Is it Black Friday? Already getting spammed with emails and messages about sales starting. Used to be one day sales, now it's like the entire month.

I’m sure bot just overslept…

Cramming so much IT stuff for the interview. They use an ERP (Oracle NetSuite) which I haven't used before.

They know that, but I want to be able to answer some questions and show that I've been working in the background.

If only I could ask Google Home who put the messages there 💡

This reminds me of the time my washing machine started filling up with water during the night. It freaked me out hard. Turns out it was a timing issue.

I was changing gears on my bike in late 2021 and the chain came off the inner ring and ground into the frame of my bike. It made a huge mess of the carbon:

Taking the bike frame to a carbon specialist and repairing this cost me $1,000. Then, I bought a whole new drive train: chain, rear cassette and front rings - costing a further $500. $1,500 is a massive investment - I justify these big services on the bike by comparing them to train fares - that's 50 weeks of train trips.

So anyway, it happened again on Friday morning. Exactly the same thing: I changed gears, the chain has come off the inner ring and ground into the frame of my bike. It has made another (admittedley smaller) mess of the carbon in my frame.

So, I took the bike to the shop. They are unwilling to do anything about this situation. 'Not our fault, our work is good - the gears and chain are obviously working fine and we don't have this problem with anyone else. It's your fault'. They best he's willing to do is give me parts at cost for the repair, once I spend another $1,000ish getting the frame repaired again.

I wasn't blaming the bike shop, I was blaming the design of the bike. But they don't think they can bring Trek into this.

I don't know what to do about this. I really like my bike usually, but spending $3,000 on it over 2 years, only to have a 6-year-old bike at the end of it was never on the cards. I doubt I'd even get $1,500 for it if I tried to sell it. I'd almost be better off giving the bike away as-is and putting that $1,500 toward a new bike. Probably not a Trek this time. I feel like I have the bike equivalant of a write-off.

So today I learned that some older land titles in Melbourne extend to the centre of the earth, and that’s why people over the Westgate tunnel project got compensation. Seems like this archaic situation should really be fixed up with some legislation before we do any more large infrastructure projects. Cost blowouts means less money for other projects. I really doubt those property owners were about to use that specific dirt for anything.

Bah, husbands bein' an ass. Can i bite him?

What the actual fuck.

The G string now sounds about right though. It’s a little sour and flat still but I kept tightening it and rechecking the sound and I’ve got a rough approximation.

Edit: I have now tuned 1 (one) string correctly by ear.

😿👍

Edit 2: I don’t fucking believe this. I don’t think this can be right. But I know how to listen carefully, I’ve been tuning, and if I can trust the sound clips on the manufacturer’s website are right - it sounds like this ukulele arrived with the C and E strings swapped.

I’m going to try and tune it all the best I can, consult another guide, listen to notes in isolation on YouTube to check, and then it may be I have to learn how to restring this.

Edit 3: Ok, something is going on with the tuning pegs too. I have to turn these ones in a different direction to tighten them than the ones on the opposite side? But I press my finger to the string and turn in the direction where I can feel it tighten. Tightening is what needs to happen to make the note higher and brighter. I’ve now got the A string kind of on track.

S3 of Mr Inbetween has been amazing, between the gym owner and the first episode and the dad and Vajankle... I'll be sad when this show ends. Honestly one of the best Australian shows without a doubt

E: okay I've just finished e7 and I'm not sure about this character decision... ah well

mrs spent the last night coughing so much she puked, so I evacuated to the guest bed again. Spending so much time there it might be time to get it a better mattress.

Ok! I took a break, came back fresh and I do not think I have to restring it. No idea what happened there… the E sounded exactly like a C right out of the box and having difficulty getting the sound for the other I assumed they had been swapped…

I was gaslit by my own instrument. But while it’s not perfect, all of the strings are now roughly in the right ballpark.

I got this thing yesterday, it’s the first time I’ve ever had or tuned a stringed instrument, by ear, so I’m taking the win. 👍😺

I’ll still be looking at other tuning guides for second opinions or anything I missed. (This was done by open plucking of single strings.) I’m sure I’ll soon hear if it hasn’t been done properly.

Actually I’m afraid to touch it again now. lol

T-minus 1 more sleep until I look after the border collie Hambam again.

Will he attempt to herd inanimate objects?

Will he take 3hrs at the dog park when it should've only been 1hr?

Himbo don't care that the answer to those is yes.

possums on the roof