Daily Discussion Thread: 🌸Tue 16 Apr 2024

Just got home after 2nd six-monthly checkup post cancer. I am happy to say that I am still cancer-free. Peter Mac Hospital in its infinite wisdom has removed all the free books for reading while waiting to see the doctor. This is a major step back. I found a couple of beauties last year while I was in treatment. Things I would never in a million years have actually spent money on, but were splendid reads. On the plus side, the new station at Parkville is just outside the door and is looking splendid and hopefully will be available for use soon. The new tram stop in Royal Parade is excellent and nearly big enough. Also the coffee in the Wellness Centre is still good but the selection of bikkies has reduced somewhat.

That's wonderful news.
I really hate cancer, it's such a scurge and can affect anyone at any stage without descrimination.
I hope one day we can find a cure and beat it.
- Thanks. Mine was apparently related to the HPV virus - and the current programme of vaccinating every female of reproductive age against that virus means that cervical cancer at least may well become a thing of the past in just a few years. Huge advances being made all the time.
Yay! Fuck cancer!
Great news! ❤️
- Thanks.
Good news. So many hugs.
- Thanks. It's been a weird and somewhat wonderful ride.
Yay to you 🎉🎉🎉
- Thanks.
That is so good to hear. I hope it never comes back
- Me too. No one should have to go through the whole cancer 'journey'. It's horrible. But for me at least I think it's over. The doc said that after 3 years I can pretty much forget I ever had it, which is nice. 2 years to go.
Congrats! Someone in my life had to go through these, and I swear my heart stopped for a day every time they went in till I got the "all clear" phone call. Treat yourself and your loved ones to something special tonight.
- Will do. Thanks for your good wishes! Happily, some cancers CAN be cured nowadays - it's no longer an automatic death sentence. I got lucky with one that could be fixed fairly easily.
Very good news!
- Hoo boy YASSS!
Amazing news ❤️
Fuck cancer! There can’t be too much more above ground work since the historic fence is back in and most roads line marked. Bit annoying to lose a tram stop, but getting the bus back on route will be grand.
Congrats!! 🤗
Fantastic news!
That's awesome news! Good to hear!
🖤
Amazing news! Hope it stays away for good.

I was made redundant last week, which I'm still coming to terms with. But after wallowing for a week or so, today I went to the zoo and saw the baby elephants. And now I've opened champagne. It's my birthday today, my (quite large) payout's just come through, and I have an interview on Friday. I'm going to be fine.

Congarats! And nothing wrong with a good wallow.
A redundancy is a chance for a fresh start. Enjoy the down time. Best of luck for your interview!
May your new year of life be off to a good start, closing one chapter to start another exciting opportunity
Happy birthday!🎂
Happy birthday 🎉 🐘 💰🍾
Happy birthday and good luck on Friday
🥂
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday 🎁🎈
Happy birthday!
Eee Happy b'day!
Happy birthday!
Sending you good vibes for the interview on Friday!

Ah yes, happy birthday tenant, here's a rent increase. We compared your northern suburbs 1 bedroom apartment to inner eastern suburbs two bedroom apartments and decided we deserve more money.

FUCK Real Estate Agents. I will be disputing this, or at the very least forcing the issue and making them give me air con if they want the increase. I've been in this flat three years and the damn thing is practically unlivable.

Day ruined. Fuck you Real Estate Agent.

Happy birthday 🎂
- Thanks mate
happy birthday tenant
Happy birthday @dalek_Thal! 🎂
- Aww, thanks @Nath!
Contest it bro. Fight the man!
Happy b'day!
- Thanks mate!
Happy bday. Fuck REAs
Happy Birthday 🎉🎂 don't let the bastards grind you down. No aircon and an increase? They can bugger off with that sort of nonsense.
- My thoughts exactly. Thanks mate, hopefully it goes well
Happy birthday 🎂🎁
Happy birthday, birthday twin! 🎂

Random kitty I saw on my way to work. S/he declined my offers of affectionate pats, but was happy to sit neatly and enjoy me saying nice things.

Words of affirmation 🐱
love giving a rando kitto a pspspspsp and holding out my hand lady-style for it to sniff
- I too love the lady hand and dainty sniff. I often wonder what complex information they acquire from it.

I had a dental appointment today to find out about lots of expensive work. The bad news is it will cost many $$$. The good news is it can all be spread out over a couple of years to maximize health insurance rebates. So it will take a while, but I can look forward to a future without gaps in my teeth. 😁

I've spent about 17k over the last 6 years, and have another 7 or 8k to go.
Go to the dentist regularly everyone!
- Ouch. Mine will be around 11k for this round. Seeing how much trouble my mother is having with her teeth and being restricted in what she can eat is extremely motivating to get it done though.
  As well as going to the dentist keeping on top of regular brushing is also really important. I've not been good at this (it was never really pushed when I was growing up so I didn't really develop it as a habit) and have really focussed on it more recently. Strangely enough a toothbrush tracker has been really helpful for me - just knowing it is being recorded in an app whether or not I brushed my teeth has been enough to motivate me to be much more consistent about brushing.

Anyone else look up from their morning coffee to see a mouse casually walking across the kitchen floor like they freaking owned the place.....! daaaah

Perfect excuse for getting a cat lol
- Have dog. Not a cat person. But it would be helpful.
I live in a relatively new house, kept very clean (we pay someone, as well as dealing with my own somewhat annoying compulsive cleaning tendencies). We have two major builds in our street at the moment, and fuck me, the mice are on the march. so yes, I saw a mouse yesterday. I have a new dog, supposedly of a ratting breed, and he is so far adorably useless.
- he is so far adorably useless.
  He and I have a lot in common!
Got some making a racket in the ceiling. And the dreaded dead stench as they die.
In one share house we had mice that would wander around the lounge room while we were watching tv.
Not quite, I've seen a dead mouse while looking up from my morning coffee however.
That was a couple of weeks ago.
I had one pop up from the stove while I was having breakfast
Cafe? Or home?
- Home

Oh gosh I asked the nurse to take a pic of my wound as I can't see it and it's not a wound...it's a 1x1 sized chunk of a hole! Yikes!

That is just a baby! Got some healing to do though. Lots of not sitting on your bum, high protein eating and daily dressing for a bit. Have you got help with the dressings?
- Yep the hospital has arranged for nurses to come home and change it for me. I have to go into the office tomorrow unfortunately because tEaM sTraTeGy dAy so I might need to sit for a bit.
I’ve had delightful job of helping friend dress one of those. Good luck!
- Thanks! It's in an unfortunate location so I won't be asking my housemate to help. The hospital has arranged for a nurse to come and help me so hopefully that works out!
You're young. You'll heal pretty quickly. Still, it's a bit of a shock. Rest up. You'll be back to playing tennis before you know it.
- ❤️❤️
  Doc said no exercise for 2-3 weeks. What am I going to do with my life?!

Ah well my insurance won't cover a nurse on call so I have to look at other options to get my dressing changed. Are there any cheap GPs or other services that could help me with this?! (Somewhere preferably closer to the city / inner SE)

Update: omg the beautiful hospital worker got back to me saying that I can't go without the dressing so the hospital will cover the costs for the first 3 visits 😭 that's so nice of her to do that for me!!

I love it when healthcare workers are so understanding to people outside the Medicare system and know how annoying it is to organise shit that most people take for granted!
- Yup 😭😭 bless her soul
That’s awesome. Healthcare workers are real heroes and deserve so much more.
Is that enough to cover your needs or would you still need help?
- They really are. I remember when the anaesthetist drugged me I told the nurse I really appreciate what you do. Very corny but I really do! I also don't remember anything that happened in the hour after that! I will take their offer for the first 3 days and probably head to a GP for the other 2. I will check if they can extend their offer to all 5 days (as they suggested changing the dressing every day for 5 days)
You should qualify for post acute care, which will supply 3 days of dressing supplies and 7 days of home visits. Following that, you can do a search and find your local HACC/PYP provider in your local government area and call them to see if they can help.
- Because it’s super easy to dislocate your neck to see what you’re doing when dressing your own butt crack…
- I'm on OVHC and unfortunately my insurance provider doesn't cover this service :(

The way I pick fruit compared to my husband is vastly different. I pick it up, put it in a bag. That will do. He carefully selects a piece, examines it, caresses it, talks to it before carefully lowering the chosen piece into a bag. I am a very patient wife.

I'm the same as your husband. Maybe it's a middle east thing.
- Very much so!

Found out kidcalhoon2 has a kid in their class called Dante. I asked her if they were even supposed to be there. She'll get the joke in about 20 years maybe.

Edit - I'd just like add, this was off the cuff. I think it's my best dad-joke ever. Kids didn't get it, partner didn't get it, had to message it to an old friend...he got it.

"37! My girlfriend sucked 37 dicks!"
\ "...In a row?"
There's so many good lines in it; it sits well in my top 5 favourite movies.
I didn't get it.
- Neither

For the past 2 weeks, the shower has been leaking really, really badly.

Plumber came and fixed it.

I didn't realise how fucking loud it was until it was repaired. Holy shit that was fucked lol

My first banned from a sub in reddit. It had to be latestagecapitalism . 😂 I mocked a poster for antisemitism, which was not funny.

- I mean, we don't really have that either. If it weren't such an anomalous event, it wouldn't be getting wall-to-wall coverage for days.
I got permanently banned from a sub for asking about a game sale, and I got banned for 30d from r/reddit for calling a bloke who was being a drongo, a drongo

I've neglected yard maintenance with the lurgie and the fig tree has been dropping leaves early, so I've just spent half an hour raking the leaves into piles. Good thing I haven't later start today.
In other news may have a buyer for the furniture I don't want to take with me - fingers crossed!

👋

Had a moderately busy day , did not have any pain killer and didn't think of my bad back once. iow, it's better. 😊

That is brilliant!
- Thank you, it sure is, now I just have to make sure it never happens again 🤞

With the recent community hyper-fixation on bees, I'd like to draw our attention to another issue: the lack of easy to attain quality soy sauce.

I went to KT Mart today, I was looking for two things: a sweet refreshing beverage that I didn't know what it was until I drank it, and some decent soy sauce.

I got my beverage (Milkis), and I went looking for soy sauce. I found a small range of low-quality "cooking" soy sauce, which taste terrible, but for the life of me I couldn't find any decent table soy sauce. There was all other kinds of sauces, terriyaki... kelp broth... dumpling dipping sauce... low sodium soy sauce... BUT WHERE WAS THE ACTUAL SOY SAUCE?!

My last purchase of soy sauce of questionable provenance was a low sodium variety from ALDI. I couldnt use it, it was disgusting, and it's in the bin now.

I'm at a loss. Is this related to climate change?

What's the problem with Kikkoman? I was under the impression that that was pretty OK for most purposes? Or am I a soy sauce bogan for liking it?
- It’s totally fine as a basic. But there is Sweet, Mushroom, Dark, Tamari, and a zillion others I forget right now. Bread isn’t just bread. Rice isn’t just rice.
Are you aware it’s actually possible to end oneself with soy sauce? Not that I’m suggesting you do such, especially not with the unpleasant stuff.
- It's also quite alcoholic! But you'd die from the salt long before you got drunk lol
minh phat in Richmond has a very large range
- Richmond is like 3km too far for me
Any shop that doesn't have English signage
Edited to clarify my meaning
- but I only speak english
I use the Coles soy to mix with my Asian inspired sauce concoctions and use Kikkimon to drink neat.
this is the one i use
https://www.coles.com.au/product/amoy-light-soy-sauce-500ml-3739048
available at coles and i think woolies too, where the east asian things are
make sure to get the light one not the dark one
@Forcemajeure123 @Seagoon does Spiral Tamari count. I’m also enjoying experimenting with Niulife Cocoamino 🙂
does everyone not just use pearl river bridge light soy as their generic soy.?

Pupdog gave us a fright just before bed and then Kittycat spent the night being an absolute monster. Am wfh today to take Pup to the vet this morning, must resist the temptation to nap this afternoon.

Fright, not freight. Good one, brain.

Today's car inspection wasn't the slam dunk I hoped it would be, but still a decent contender... I would like to decide by this evening if I want to pull the pin and get a pre purchase inspection done on it. Annoyingly I still might not be able to get it ready by next week to use for work.

Argh!! This is where my overthinking, paralysis-analysis affected brain really struggles. I need so much time with each decision. Really to be honest, I need to sleep on it tonight, but that's then another day gone... but no I think I'll give myself this much.

Enjoy your day everyone ❤️

You too, G

That's been my argument against going to Bali for decades. "Why would I want to fly all the way to another country to sit on a beach full of Australians?"
Apparently, the answer is because it's cheaper. I looked at booking a chalet on Rottnest Island over the Christmas break for a week. It's literally cheaper to fly to Bali and stay at a resort for the week.
- That's why I went to Vietnam a few years ago, I couldn't afford Australia.
- 10 years ago I went to Patong in Phuket, Thailand and I imagine Bali to be that but worse and it was quite seedy. I refuse to go to Bogan Island. Call me unAustralian but I just won't do it.

I've been wanting to watch some of the classic movies for a while now. I think on Friday night I'm finally gonna do it. I've been told the godfather and the Shawshank redemption are the 2 "must watches" so since there's godfather posters in every pizza shop in the country, it seems only fitting I order a pizza

Eventually I want to watch vertigo and some of the other hitchcoxk movies since they're always spoken of super highly too

Have you seen the modern classic: Bee Movie? It brings together a remarkable ensemble cast (even though it's animated). Its effectively an allegory; a representation of the human rat race (if you will) depicted as a bee colony. It follows the life of the protagonist Barry B Benson as he (long story short) saves the world. It leaves us with a heartwarming answer to the question: Can you ever bee enough? The answer is yes.
- I give this review a B+
- That was hilarious. Thank you lol
- No, but I've read the first paragraph of the script about 3 dozen times
I watched Casablanca a few weeks back and had a lovely time. There’s a specific scene that’s so much better if you know it’s real
- I haven't seen it but it is the basis for one of my all-time favourite SNL skits: https://youtu.be/LQKVIJnfiNM
- On my yet to watch list but Spike Milligan has an hilarious account of it being screened for the troops when he was in North Africa. 😂 MST3K before MST3K.
- Yaasss! Watched it on the plane back.
My favourite Hitchcock movie is Shadow of a Doubt. Some must watches
To Kill a Mockingbird
Night of the Hunter
Battle of Britain
Judgement at Nuremberg
Young Savages
Deer Hunter
Midnight Cowboy
The Searchers
A Tale of Two Cities
Odd Man Out
The Third Man
O Lucky Man
From Russia with Love
Cape Fear ( with Gregory Peck )
Imitation of Life
- Ooo love me some oldies:
  North by Northwest
  Maltese Falcon
  Rear Window
  Dial M for Murder
  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
  While not really a musical fan, I do like Oaklahoma, South Pacific etc.
- That's a lot. I don't think I have enough attention span to watch all of them

Yes, surprised the word Cobber didn’t come out at this end of April. Especially since so many were yelling to instant grant citizenship/residency without any knowledge of the chaps in question wanting that.
This makes me glad I don't consume much aussie news media
it seems that I'm not missing out on information and have missed all the nastiness
Why don't I watch or read much news? because of decades of experience with the shitshow of aussie media I don't even expect it be news worth watching

Latest daycare germs: a stupid dry cough. Tedious as f.

I'm reading an old travel book about Arabia and Abyssinia starting in the 1930s and continuing post war. 😕 As per usual women and children are invisible.

And it's more brutal than I imagined and i've read Speke, Bruce and Burton and they generally didn't tone it down. TE Lawrence did allude to some brutality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_Sands

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

All the things that are baaaaaad for me please!
- Now that's just mean. Humph.
- 🍫☕️🍫🧁
I'll accidentally get the next person's order instead of mine (fisherman's eggs and a coffee) please
- 🐡🍄🌋🪫🦠
I guess I'll take forces order then. Ordinarily I'd grab a mocha and a choccy muffin, maybe a ham and cheese cormorant. I don't know what tf a fisherman egg is and I'm not sure I want to, but I guess today I'll be adventurous
- Ham and cheese cormorant kinda sounds like a fisherman's breakfast anyway 🤷‍♂️
- Mmmm, a ham and cheese cormorant sounds rather fun. Can I change my order?
- 🐟🍳🍅☕️
Mystery toastie, please?
- 🥮🥪
Mystery toastie for me as well, plus a latte, plz chef?
- 🧃🥪🥛☕️

all that fartblarting about how even existing on the internet on win7 nowadays makes you a horrible monster full of disease and the one fucking box in the house that gets compromised is the win10.

Oh no! I'll be honest I havnt heard of a home PC getting compromised in years, thats kind of scary. But yes no, people shouldnt be using an OS that is out of support.