Daily Discussion Thread: ☕ Wed 31 Jan 2024
Daily Discussion Thread: ☕ Wed 31 Jan 2024
Happy international Hot Chocolate Day 🔥🍫
Pup dog decided we needed some drama in our lives and had a fit/collapsed last night :/ ran him to the vet (quite literally, they're just down the street) and he seems a bit better this morning. Back to the vet today for blood test results, but he's lost weight despite a big appetite. He's getting old and I'm trying not to think the worst.
As a result, I'm working from home while he snoozes on the bed near me and it's peaceful and nice and I'm still looking for the positives!
17aw, lots of gentle hugs for you and pups
4WFH is fantastic when the furry ones pull this kind of stunt. May all be ok.
3
Hospital parking fees 🤬
Nobody is going there for fun.
17Its absolutely digusting, have always said it should be illegal to charge for parking at hospitals. At the very least free short term parking should be made available for urgent visits.
My dad at the height of his illness drove himself to hospital and parked in the hospitals parking facilities, and I couldn't get on a flight for two days and had no one in that area to help me. So I had to pay an insane parking fee, which made everything so much more stressful for me financially while I was in the middle of grieving for my dying dad.
11Bloody agree with you and a lot of people who need it are often suffering from paying other hospital related fees that got their relatives or relations there in the first place.
5Yeah, it adds another layer of complication and stress at a time when you already may have a million things on your mind. Maybe it's to stop just anyone parking there and occupying needed space but it could also be predatory
https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/hospitals-ordered-develop-fairer-car-parking-policies
3
And May well be in the sort of urgency that does not allow for sorting out change or downloading an app.
7
I've started making my coffee at home and bringing it to work in a (not Stanley) thermos flask. I worked out it saves me $67 per month. If it was a streaming service I'd have already cut it by now, but I still feel like some kind of traitorous unmelbournely bastard. Still, $ is tight and I've got to make cuts 😭
13Great idea! Guarantees a certain level of coffee as well, sick of paying 6 bucks for a bullshit one.
4You ask for a large but they're so fkn small. There's only a few places that do a proper large coffee that I know of: Macca's, the cafe near my work in Port Melbourne (literally a proper 500ml cup with 3 shots), and maybe somewhere I've forgotten lol
3
It's a great way to save money as I made the transition some years ago.
Also helped me teach myself how to make coffee via various methods as well and introduced me to different coffee blends.
Yum!
4Coffee is so worth making at home these days, we're spoilt for choice with good coffee beans + great tap water and there's a million billion methods readily available with guides. If you buy a coffee every work day, a mid range espresso machine pays for itself within a year, if not a grinder + aeropress + metal filter pays for itself in like less than a month. Pretty decent & reliable cuppa at a fraction of the cost. Highly recommend. It won't feel like you're cutting back on nice things!
4Yeah, at the rate I’m buying coffees lately 1k+ for the year wouldn’t be a surprise.
3I have a stash of ground coffee in my desk drawer and a small plunger. I buy the first coffee, and make my own second around 11am. Which is now. 😁
A thermos would probably produce better coffee, but they're heavy. I ride a bike to work. I also probably couldn't fit it in my small commuting backpack.
2That’s the way I went.
I decided to go the plunger route, first one of those bodum glass ones at home and for work I bought one of those stainless steel ones for the durability.
I have a stupid amount of ground coffee at work and at home.
Only catch would be the amount of time it takes to make and then clean up when I’m at work.
The other thing that I invested in are long arm coffee spoons for scooping out the coffee out of the bag.
2
Unpopular but I like the coffee machine at work. Put in a nespresso pod, gives me coffee. I add some chocolate powder to make it a mocha. Surely saves atlwast $5 every time! 🤷♂️
2Same here. Free coffee on work from office days!
3
Surreal moment today: me, a blondeish woman of a certain age in a Volvo V70 wagon, blasting Counting Bodies Like Sheep through its (excellent) stereo. 😁
12I made a turtle from imitation Lego.
My back is sore, my eyes are blurry and I have no thumb nails left but I have a cute little turtle 🐢
12You need to invest into one of those Lego tools that helps you pull apart pieces.
Nearly tore my own nails without that little tool to help when I was doing it at work.
6I might have to invest in one of those.
1
defo cute 😸
2
Just woke up to the excellent news that my downstairs plumbing issue is actually a street wide issue. Looks like Great Western will be sending people out today to clear the streets sewage pipes.
10Oh my god. I thought it was Tuesday today.
Ever since I got home and came back from work I was trying to work out why my petrol was so low and what I was going to do.
Suddenly got confused at seeing the dates of tucker time and this thread and only clicked that it’s Wednesday.
I’m so out of it!
9Still awake and it's starting to get light outside. Already told work that today isn't going to work out. It's not them, it's me.
9Looks like Sunday forecast has already been adjusted downwards to 35 degrees. By Saturday wouldn't be surprised if it went down to 30.
9Been copping a bit of flack from upper management lately. My boss and the boss's boss are calling BS, but the old boss and the "head off" are fucking idiots. Anyway, there was an issue this morning, guess who solved it? Yeeaaaah, the bloke who supposedly "doesn't do anything around here". Fuck I'm good.
9Bit of the old "why do we have IT, everything's working fine" / "why do we have IT, nothing is working" situation?
8
First day back at school for mine today.. Already a kerfuffle. Good luck y'all.
8First day at new schools for my kids. One starting high school the other has changed to a new school (something that I wanted to avoid if possible).
Both were very nervous this morning.
3It’s the last year for my youngest, I hope she got to school, eldest was supposed to drive her to the bus. If there was a kerfuffle it wasn’t my problem I was at work already.
3
jfc there is not a single fucking braincell left at M$.
Fire up laptop for work, start of the work day IMMEDIATELY greeted with an UPGRADE TO WIN 11!! screen.
Can't alt tab out of it, can't even bring up goddamn taskmgr to kill it, the only way to get rid of it so I can start my fucking work day is either "UPGRADE NOW!" or "DECLINE UPGRADE"
shit like this is why I'm cutting the workplace over to mint.
8Doing some online shopping at Mid ass hoes 👍Need better shoes for walking and Mid Ass have nice wide fittings
8Mid ass hoes? 🤣 Midas Shoes. LOL I’ll never be able to read it properly again.
9Wait untill you realise Platypus Shoes reads as platy puss hoes
6
Whatever you choose get insoles. Doesn't even have to be expensive ones.
Also the most comfortable shoes I've ever had were Skechers.
3How can a nice wide ass be mid? Or are you capping?
3This shop has excellent walking (and other) shoes for weird feet. mclaughlancomfortshoes.com.au Strong recommend if you 'difficult' feet or like me have wide small feet that are different sizes as they'll split pairs. Store is in the WORST shopping mall in Melbourne - Bell St Mall but Bell St buses do go past and the 250 bus on Rathdowne goes right by the Mall on its way to La Trobe Uni. No online sales unfortunately. Best substitute for Angels Shoes I've yet discovered. I wept when Angels shut down.
3
Teens will eat through your wallet like a moth. A little bit at a time and then it's all gone.
7Ted Cat woke me up. I must have been making ouch noises in my sleep.
7Pulled a muscle in my back (the doc suspects) and it's giving me trouble breathing. I want to cry 😭
I have fortunately never woken up at night because of pain so far and I had to last night cuz it got so bad. Off to scans. Also took a sickie cuz it's so uncomfortable 😪
7I've had a productive morning - a trip to the op shop with a car full of donations, and then steam cleaning the carpet. I think I might rest on my laurels and slack off for the afternoon.
7Ok, so inflation’s too high and then interest rates go up to curb spending, and now spending slows and the economists are complaining we are not spending enough. I believe the translation is: the rich people wanted to keep wages low because more profit, but also please keep buying stuff from us because more profit. Is that it?
6Life Pro Tip: if you're on a visa and have OSHC/OVHC, get Allianz base and Bupa extras (if needed).
imed Radiology and Melbourne Pathology both forward the receipts to Allianz and even though the cover says that they'll pay up to 85% of MBS, somehow the entire receipt is paid (goes for all scans - MRI, CT, X-ray etc).
Bupa is good for extras, I use a Bupa Members First provider and they have discounted rates for Bupa members which is great. My physio charges me $37 for a 1hour sesh but a max of $450 per year ($90 something after that). But still good value.
4So now that Costco is moving can they also take down that fucking wheel? It was a stupid place to put it and it should never have been built in the first place.
3People are so disproportionately angry at the little shit responsible for the milk incident. They're baying for blood.
I wonder why this has hit such a nerve.
3I think it’s the intersection of obnoxious teenager, elite private school, and TikTok prankster. It’s a uniquely irritating combo where any one factor makes people want the person to be punished, but all three together incite particular rage.
9Because it's all fun and dandy to prank your friends or act the clown and record it but don't involve innocent people in your stupidity.
5I’m in the he’s a little shit camp. The cherry on top was when he whinged that people had identified him to his school, and therefore there might be consequences for him. He complaint was ‘how could you do this to a minor’. What a turd. And I bet his parents are entitled turds too.
5Theres a certain sense of entertainment now at watching him suffer. I have very little empathy for the little shit, but also it does feel like a Two Minutes Hate. All the pent up frustration from recent stressors, resentment towards the entitled and wealthy
3yeah, the papers are pushing the private school/elite/capitalist angle for clicks
2
I spent way too long playing around with Melbourne prompts on Stable Diffusion for a WhatsApp group image. Of course face masks came up relatively often.
2Welp I just finished the end of the Dark Tower series (on audiobook). The final book kinda felt like a rushed mess to tidy up all of the stories and characters. It even managed to shove some new characters into the story out of nowhere really late in the piece. I also felt like the "big bad" was a big letdown.
Stephen King remains a pervy weirdo too.. never missing a chance to talk about his female character's breasts throughout the entire series. I'm not sure there was a single female character of whom he didn't describe or refer to their breasts at least once. It was pretty jarring and me feel odd whenever he'd do it for seemingly no reason.
Anywho, now I need to figure out if I want to jump off the King train and discover something new, or check out another level of the tower in another King book. Before I read the Dark Tower I read The Shining which I enjoyed so I could check out Doctor Sleep except I stupidly read the plot for that back before I started to get into the books. I attempted The Stand but I lost interest as I already knew the story pretty well from the TV show and my reading of wiki pages when the TV show came out. Was considering It.. I've never seen any of the It movies but I do know a little bit about the story there. Maybe I should skip to something without a TV/movie adaption so I can be more surprised. There's a whole world of books to discover, I just need to find what gets me hooked.
1If you're still in the thriller/mystery/sci-fi train, try Annihilation.
3Nice thanks! That does seem like the sort of thing I'm after!
1
Finished watching Station Eleven.
no spoilers but chunky text anyway
It was patchy at times - The Prophet was a very unconvincing character for the most part. And it felt like they handwaved too many contrived situations just to make us feel something. Makes sense that the show runner did The Leftovers, I don't remember most of it now except that I felt it also veered on sentimental. But those odd-numbered episodes, particularly 5, 7 and 9, were really quite something... and even if the show ending was a little too neat/pat, by that point it was emotionally well earned and I kinda didn't care about some of the character issues as much. I think I would've been a total blubbering mess if I really did watch this in 2021.
7/10 on average, 9/10 for the odd numbered episodes.
1I liked it. It was an interesting take . No dystopia.
2It was refreshingly hopeful and I definitely would like to see more fiction about the positive aspects of real human relationships post-apocalypse. Finding art, love, trust and community (while the nutsos kill each other off or learn to leave peaceful people alone for their own survival).
Though i think both the book and the TV show do make a point that the first period of adjustment is going to be unsafe and violent for most.
3