This is excellent. I was just thinking the other day that I was sad because I hadn't heard a good new joke in a long time but this has brightened my day, thank you
About to get up a ladder and clean some gutters but....
Spoke to the old man last night and was reminding me about the ambulance vic subscription.
Then he decided to tell me about one of his buddies who recently had a fall off a ladder.
Apparently he fell backwards and his leg got caught between 2 steps quite high up, leg snapped in half and he was just dangling there until his wife found him an hour later.
Ouch. People do get very blase about ladders and disregard the risks involved. It's also something that people insist on doing when they become too old to do so safely (like driving). Stubborn old men who insist on climbing on the roof are a fairly frequent category of rescue the Fire Brigade go to, when said stubborn old main realises they can't get down again or have a medical episode from the exertion of climbing up.
At long last after weeks of procrastination I took my haul of manzano chillos from the fridge (and washed off some fuzzy growth...) and a head of good garlic and made this forbidden smoothie
Chucked it into an ice cube tray to make little cubes for wintertime pasta/stir fry.
Also took the uselessly spicy Thai chillis and blitzed it with ginga, garleck and little red shallots plus some lime joos, and dried shrimp, fried it all in oil. THIS thing is almost unusably spicy. I hope it mellows out over the next few weeks. attention @Bottom_racer
::: spoiler hawt hawt hawt
:::
RIP my fingers though, I was doing well until I got some spicy oil on one hand.
EDIT: Western highway closed and VLine suspended both ways from Ballarat <-> Ararat. Vic emergency link if anyone needs it https://www.emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/
I forgot to water the plants all of yesterday because I was in the shittest mood/energy so when I greeted them this morning I felt a wave of resentment radiating from their wilted leaves. I will promise to give them a supplemental water as needed today.
This motherfucker is just growing like there's no tomorrow though, ever since I put it in a pot with a water reservoir. Time for a big chop tomorrow, freeze the leaves for use over winter, hopefully the new growth will stabilise over the next couple months.
I forgot to reply to this, but it's a Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL case a friend gave me a few years ago. The front and side panels are glass, and it's about twice the width of a regular case to fit the power supply and drive bays in their own special areas.
Unlikely the inquiry will change much. Best thing to do is vote with your wallet if you can. (I know not everyone has access depending on where you live). Shop at Aldi, green grocer, butcher, markets, Costco.
I wish I could. If physical inability to shop (and particular needs around kitty's litter/wet food) weren't a factor I'd possibly be happy buying exclusively at Aldi
Mostly passively cooled house 24.7 degrees, outside 31.6, still bearable inside. We have no A/C, only cooling is ceiling fans and curtains on only 6 out of our 30 windows. I’m glad we aren’t having too many hot days in a row this summer.
Couple suburbs east of you and it was spitting down, just now getting hit by a small cell of rain. Looks like little pimples emerging over the bay and city on the radar.
I gotta say that buildup before the rain, after a dry heat, is really.... arousing.
I was sleeping ok until someone came into my room asking if they should stay home from school today. We need to have another talk about not disturbing mother unless there's a fire. 😡
Indeed! I was shocked too when I found out - turns out their fur is light enough that it acts as insulation against both heat and cold, which is impressive. That's why they don't drink much water straight up - they evolved to pull moisture from their food instead
Alas mate, that three months is dangerous for both people and animals. When it comes down to it, having one quarter of the year being unlivable is not remotely reasonable.
Glad though you have your investment property properly set up for all seasons, imo that should be the standard across Australia, not the exception.
Just got an email from ex-work asking me to return a whole bunch of equipment: monitors, mouse, keyboard, adapters, USB hub, etc.
I can't even, they don't even keep track of what they've given out?? I only took the two adapters and the USB hub because I have a dual monitor PC set up at home already. Mentioned this to them a thousand times, and they think I took monitors, a keyboard and mouse home on PT?? As if I would use their crusty keyboards over my mechanical one haha
Good grief, I was slightly regretting leaving (I shouldn't, I was suicidal) but I'm certainly not now.
I'm not going out today, so they will have to wait till Friday or Monday.
I’m not going out today, so they will have to wait till Friday or Monday.
OR: Counter proposal: How about they go suck a dick?
I dont think legally you can withhold pay over equipment. or so my HR tell me so I just watch laptops basically walk out the door everytime we hire someone and they quit inside a month.
They don't have anything I value haha, the adapters and USB hub are useless to me, and they issued us all Chromebooks of all things, which I left at the office anyway. Absolutely despise Chromebooks, useless pieces of crap (to me).
My PC can run Spotify, Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk, etc. I don't need their shitty tech hahahaha
If they had something I value or was useful I'd perhaps consider it, but I'm too much of a goody two shoes and would just return it anyway hahahaha
They sent out a rote letter, but yeah, they really are fuckin' bad. I got the same when my old workplace rolled up, could be I heard of possibly a someone else who realised they had no fucking idea of inventory and got themselves a lenovo out of it...
It's a small business, literally 10 office workers including the cal centre, accounts, boss, and IT. And this email came from my manager. So obvious when I checked the adapters and USB hub I have at home and they don't even have serial numbers. I can't believe they have no way of tracking this.
I don't need the adapters as they're usb-c/HDMI and I don't need the hub. Plus, the had us using Chromebooks for work. Everything is based off the Google suite. I fkn hated that shit. I had to relearn all the shortcuts which is such a pain, and Google Sheets fucking sucks ass.
On the flip side, GSuite is great if it's all you know. Kids doing the Google thing through school come out with that environment being the one they are familiar with. They hit the ground running when they reach the workforce, even if they are put into Microsoft Office. For some reason, it's loads easier to teach people to go from Google > Microsoft than the other way around.
Your experience matches what I've seen with clients who go down the Google path. Lots of people find it painful - usually older employees who have been using Office apps since before the ribbon (Office 2003), when keyboard shortcuts were more heavily used.
I personally love Sheets for most tasks. I hate it as soon as we get to charts and advanced stuff, though. There's no getting around the fact that Microsoft has the edge (heh) on things like macros and charts.
Ah that makes sense! Personally been using PC since I was a kid in the late 90s, and Dad hated anything Apple so we never had a Mac or anything, just Microsoft. When I hit the workforce in 2011 I was miles ahead of my peers with using shortcuts.
Going MS to GS is very painful. Had to print out a little sheet with the common shortcuts. And lookup the formulas for Sheets. I did some reporting and never had the time to learn how to automate it (had to generate report between calls). Whereas if I was using MS, they would have had their reports waaaayyyyy quicker.
Ah well, water under the bridge. I do enjoy that fact that kids learning on GS are finding MS easier to grasp. But I definitely do not recommend going the other way haha
Piece of advice: My Redback invertor seems to give me a LOT more data that my brother in laws fronius invertor gives him. When you speak to an electrician for quotes its worth asking how the app is, and making sure it can give you both usage and generation data to make it easier to use your solar.
same! my total reusable energy percentage takes a hit at night though. I was ~90% but dropped to ~80%. Cant wait to get my first bill and see what it looks like.
we haven't been able to swing a battery yet, but it's on the list. (a mate who has a giant whole house one in woop woop was taunting me during the outage. Joke's on him, he lives in moe)
@TinyBreak@Taleya I live half an hour from Moe up in the BawBaw Ranges and it's lovely. Don't have a battery sorted yet, but it is also on the list, as we get regular shortish outages.
just had to add some cardboard boxes and another blanket over the window in the study. Rest of the house is ok but the study is struggling. I feel for those without AC today, this is pretty warm!
Good advice. I did this Wednesday, unfortunately the wall in question is the longest in the house, and gets blasted with all of the afternoon sun. even after 2/3 minutes of cold water on the bricks the water was still warm by the time it reached the bottom of the wall. I think its the dark tiles on the roof that make it the worst though.
Kind of happy to be spending the day in hospital just for the air-conditioning! Poor housemate was cranking the evaporative cooling as I was walking out the door.
Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, and hot coffee please. Gotta carb load before it gets too hot to eat, or my brain will cease functioning. If it hasn't already.
When I was in Peru I came accross a food cart selling cold watermelon by the slice. It was absolutely wonderful and I wish we had things like that here.
Not normally a fan but I'd eat it today if offered. Only if cut up nicely. Hate the feeling of sticky juice running down my chin, even if it's Quintessential Summer
Home from pub. Those margaritas are fully dangerous, even without the coriander. House was 28 deg inside on entry, have opened all the windows and watched the thermometer drop 5 degrees in as many minutes. I may yet be able to sleep tonight. Tho I suspect the margaritas will help.
I got given some used items from work, some cushions and a seemingly very big expensive bean bag that I'll need to wash before using.
I barely managed to fit the bean bag into my back boot of the car, I have feeling that it's going to be way too big for my place but it might be nice to be able to lean back into a bean bag.
I love my beanbags and will often nap in them (mostly accidentally, the cat will come up and then we're both napping lol). But as an over-30 it does a number to my back haha.
Good for gaming in if you have a console too, or reading, chilling. Our beanbags were our couch for over a year before we could buy an actual couch haha
Oh I definitely need to restock the beans, some have been lost into the far reaches of the corners of the rooms, or within the wardrobe, across 2 apartments. I reckon they're still finding beans at the 1bed I had in the city hahahah
Yellowjackets on paramount, am enjoying. Plane of girls soccer team crashes in Canada wilderness 30y ago. It's like 50/50 between then, and present time. Girls go nuts in wilderness, girls in present time deal with consequences.
I read those books as a teen. I think a few of the political subtleties in Tai Pan and Noble House went over my head due to my age but they were all very good
Everyone's covered money and process well so far, so I'll just add some advice.
A global pandemic really helps. I'm not kidding. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Be prepared to strike when opportunity presents itself.
We brought in covid, and couldn't afford this place if it went on the market today.
If you can, going country can help. Warragal got expensive, but further out isn't too bad so long as you don't have to do the city 5 days a week. Seymour has houses for under 400k, and a vline to Melbourne taking 1.5 hours (which isn't THAT much worse than Pakenham to Melbourne).
Step 1 - sort the money - talk to bank about borrowing limits, knowing that these can change in a blink of the eye. If you can get a guaranteed borrowing amount GET THAT IN WRITING and the expiry date.
Step 2 - look at houses available. Set up list of criteria in 4 sections - 1) Must have 2) Nice 3) Nice but can do without 4) Dealbreakers. Get agreement from spouse and kids on these.
Step 3 - identify possible purchase. Then get council reports, engineering reports, architectural reports - and any other reports you think apply like flood prone land, possible future freeways, asbestos and other soil contamination etc. They are cheaper than remedial works - trust me on this.
Step 4 - start negotiations. If the house needs essential work, an estimate of price of the work (not from the REA) should form part of your calculations. If they want the $$ fast, expect to get a substantial discount for settlement in less than 60 days. Don't allow REA to panic you into a fast decision. You might want to employ a purchasing agent - they charge a fee but do Steps 2, 3 & 4 for you once they have your criteria. As these are the difficult bits, this might be time/hassle effective.
Step 5 - pay up.
Step 6 - move in.
Step 7 - discover all the stuff that you should have done in steps 2, 3 and 4 above. Scream and regret not having a father/brother/sister/cousin with electrical/gas fitting and other general trade qualifications.
Step 8 - install petunias
Source: purchased just before the pandemic. Yes I did employ a purchasing agent cos I was ignorant/out of date of all that stuff. Seamless experience which I recommend. They even went to the auction and bid for me (within the limits I'd set) so I didn't have to panic about that either.
Thanks. The criteria bit has been discussed at much length. The no. 1 bit how much can we really is the biggest right now. Needs an app with 🐏 or similar.
Happy to provide. The firm is Select Property Advisers based south of the yarra but can act all over Melb. My agent was Michelle. She was an REA for twenty plus years and left industry in disgust, but has vast knowledge of the dodgy tricks other REAs try on newbies routinely. She was a tireless advocate for me. I purchased with full knowledge of what needed to be done in the next 5 years, the next 10 years as separate categories to help me with the purchasing decision, and generally went out of her way to ensure I got the best possible place for my price range. All my criteria were met, and the price at auction was actually a bit less than I was expecting. I think she scared the REA conducting the auction into good/legal behaviour.
Engage a mortgage broker. This will use some of your money but it is well worth it. They will be able to help you go over your finances and see what kind of loan you can get, they will do all the legwork finding out best rates and such, and you can even state preferred banks. They will also do all the negotiating with the bank for you, so you just need to look over what they present you, nod assent or shake thy head and then provide some ID and signatures.
When you have your loan, you have your budget. Begin looking at places within this budget, preferably below it so you have some wriggle room for reno or repairs. When you find a place you like enough to attempt to purchase it, engage the services of a building inspector (this will cost you money, but is worth it). The REA flogging the place will not bat an eye at this and will allow them access to do all their bits and bobs.
look over the building inspection report and see if there are any deal breakers. If not, then place an offer usually "pending finance" (see below). This will bandy back and forth between the REA and owners a bit.
If all goes well and everyone agrees, there is usually a deposit to be paid and then the bank will shove its beak into the property, looking here and there and making sure that it's worth what they're lending you. This is the pending part. They will also request you get insurance on the property (this will cost you money but is worth it). If all goes well, they say yes, you may purchase it with your loan and you start the torturous crawl towards the settlement date.
Once settlement date arrives the bank transfers the money to the seller, the debt to you, and the keys are placed in your hand.
There also a conveyancer required to handle the actual transfer of the money and legal documents. At one point all the parties would have a rep that would physically meet up and hand over paperwork and cheques, but I presume it's all electronic these days.
That would be good. My brief stint at home ownership was about 25 years ago and I don't think brokers existed at that stage - there weren't many options for loans either, you really just went to the bank you had your account with. It's all changed so much.
yeah those two are the priciest rooms :/ Once you get plumbing involved you're rather farked. Also most likely to have asbestos in older houses as it was used for waterproofing
Boyo is an unlicensed builder carpenter. Good for spotting issues even if can’t do the paperwork. Hopefully asbestos nasties won’t get under the radar!
Lots of good advice here already. I will add, if you haven’t already, get a spreadsheet out and make a budget to know exactly what your living costs are. Put in everything - food, car, entertainment, healthcare, insurances etc. Now add in the extra costs that you would have if owning a house - house insurance, rates, body corp if buying a unit. Then see what amount of money if left for repayments. Next, work out what size loan you can afford based on how much you can afford for repayments, but make sure to estimate at a higher interest rate than is current, because this a pretty much a certainty in the next year or two. Now you can start narrowing down what kind of properties and which suburbs to look in. Look in suburbs where you can afford the median house price. Don’t forget to factor in stamp duty into the purchase price. This will mean you are at least looking mid-market, so won’t be restricted to renovators delights. Good luck.
Got out all my art stuff today. Finished fixing up the trolley/organiser. Sorted my books. I have a new set of chinese water colours and a dinosaur colouring book I'm going to use to practice brush skills. I have a book on calligraphy page layout ordered and soon to be "pakige". 🤗 So excite.
Does that include all the certificates etc that they need to order as part of the process? If not, that price is a couple of hundred dollars too high. Shop around.
Good luck tonight everyone. Especially to those of us who can't open windows because their cat will destroy the flyscreen...
Ah, you’ve been here then
Don't get me wrong, I love the little gremlin, but fuck me it'd be nice to get a breeze going in the house sometimes.
I did it once when she was at the vet and that was it pretty much.
Did you guys see about the scientists who had managed to actually weigh a rainbow? It was pretty light
This is excellent. I was just thinking the other day that I was sad because I hadn't heard a good new joke in a long time but this has brightened my day, thank you
Yessss, thank you!! I just got my boss real good with this one!
About to get up a ladder and clean some gutters but....
Spoke to the old man last night and was reminding me about the ambulance vic subscription.
Then he decided to tell me about one of his buddies who recently had a fall off a ladder.
Apparently he fell backwards and his leg got caught between 2 steps quite high up, leg snapped in half and he was just dangling there until his wife found him an hour later.
Fucking nightmare fuel really bad timing.
Ouch. People do get very blase about ladders and disregard the risks involved. It's also something that people insist on doing when they become too old to do so safely (like driving). Stubborn old men who insist on climbing on the roof are a fairly frequent category of rescue the Fire Brigade go to, when said stubborn old main realises they can't get down again or have a medical episode from the exertion of climbing up.
yeah I wouldn't get up there in this wind. Fuck that
Mega cudos to the roof plumber who [temp] fixed our shit in the big storm last Hols!
Apparently the stats for men over 50 falling off ladders are quite startling. If you are under 50, then maybe you'll be OK ...
At long last after weeks of procrastination I took my haul of manzano chillos from the fridge (and washed off some fuzzy growth...) and a head of good garlic and made this forbidden smoothie
Chucked it into an ice cube tray to make little cubes for wintertime pasta/stir fry.
Also took the uselessly spicy Thai chillis and blitzed it with ginga, garleck and little red shallots plus some lime joos, and dried shrimp, fried it all in oil. THIS thing is almost unusably spicy. I hope it mellows out over the next few weeks. attention @Bottom_racer
::: spoiler hawt hawt hawt
:::
RIP my fingers though, I was doing well until I got some spicy oil on one hand.
Ooh that looks angry.
We've been invited to a wedding but the reception joint was set on fire last night. Interesting. More to come.......
well this is a letter I have never read on Miss Manners
😂 I'm interested to see what happens next.
Dear Miss Manners, Our reception joint caught on fire. Is it alright to convene at the local pub?
I shoulda known better than to hire a place named "The Sopranos".
Themed fancy dress in the car park? Play is that s as fireperson or a stripper?
I suppose it'd be too much to assume it was an act of god or a natural disaster?
I doubt it
Which God and was the disaster prevented?
The answer to both are Take your Pick.
I wonder what illegal shit they were selling. Or do you think it was a dissatisfied customer?
Well apparently both the Thomastown and Thornbury fires are linked and have something to do with a boxing match that was to be held.
Age article Hope this works - have had little luck posting links recently. Lemme know if it doesn't work.
Yes it did work. Thank you very much.
I think there's a study that shows a greater concentration of sociopaths in executive level positions.
Yes
Statistics would say you are almost correct, a pretty large number of CEOs exhibit psychopathic tendencies.
Welcome to the wonderful world of cutthroat corporate competition. Capitalism encourages this sort of thing.
Oh bad fire up around Beaufort :-(
EDIT: Western highway closed and VLine suspended both ways from Ballarat <-> Ararat. Vic emergency link if anyone needs it https://www.emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/
Yeah just saw this image from my relatives all the way in Delacombe. Looks worse than last week's fire around Burrumbeet or wherever it was.
Really glad we've had no bushfire smoke in Melbourne so far, although my air purifier is sitting pretty
I forgot to water the plants all of yesterday because I was in the shittest mood/energy so when I greeted them this morning I felt a wave of resentment radiating from their wilted leaves. I will promise to give them a supplemental water as needed today.
This motherfucker is just growing like there's no tomorrow though, ever since I put it in a pot with a water reservoir. Time for a big chop tomorrow, freeze the leaves for use over winter, hopefully the new growth will stabilise over the next couple months.
::: spoiler healthy boi :::
ooh lush curry leaf
I really want some rain so I don’t have to water…. Tank is nearly empty too.
I know one of those blokes that has gone missing in Sydney... It is not looking good for them at all. :(
Oh jeez. 🫂
hope it turns out ok
New computer parts arrive today and it'll be too hot to do computer work.
I got this massive tempered glass computer case as a gift and let me tell you it isn't worth it.
Tempered glass computer case?
That sounds really fragile?
I forgot to reply to this, but it's a Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL case a friend gave me a few years ago. The front and side panels are glass, and it's about twice the width of a regular case to fit the power supply and drive bays in their own special areas.
Are everyone's pets basically puddles of fur from all this heat?
Nah because the air con is on but when it's not, my dog will dramatically flop down on the carpet like those fainting goats. We call this "dead dog".
I don't see what an inquiry is going to accomplish, just confirm what we all knew all along and make them do nothing to help?
Unlikely the inquiry will change much. Best thing to do is vote with your wallet if you can. (I know not everyone has access depending on where you live). Shop at Aldi, green grocer, butcher, markets, Costco.
I wish I could. If physical inability to shop (and particular needs around kitty's litter/wet food) weren't a factor I'd possibly be happy buying exclusively at Aldi
I am so utterly disappointed with Anthony Albanese
Godspeed to those of us with warmer than expected rooms
I was going to talk about my feelings, but deleted it. I don't care, everything will be fine. Ugh
Hug
which is an anagram of Ugh
Ain't no thang like a chicken wang!
Noice.
Next week I'll get Tucker Time back up and running.
Yum!
And that will have to be a no today
Just a quick reminder that Saturday (and every February 24) is International Coriander Hatred Day for those of us who celebrate it.
Fuck coriander 🖕
I feel sorry for the soap people.
Losing the genetic lottery is just unfair.
I do and I don't. I do because there's a chance they could've liked it but I don't because it's terrible anyway.
Tastes like soap to me, but I still eat it idc haha
That's the spirit!
Embrace nature's imperial leather :)
I prefer to put it on my food.
I shall have a giant bowl of something Thai to memorialise you.
Can you be indifferent to coriander? I neither like it or hate it.
How do I know if I have the gene? Coriander tastes slightly bitter to me.
Mostly passively cooled house 24.7 degrees, outside 31.6, still bearable inside. We have no A/C, only cooling is ceiling fans and curtains on only 6 out of our 30 windows. I’m glad we aren’t having too many hot days in a row this summer.
No homebrand soft drinks for a hot day :(
I found that too! I live near both a Coles and a Woolies and checked them both out. Nothing.
Don’t know what’s going on, not sure if I should go out of my way to check another store tomorrow.
Hi there! I know it's been a week but I just read this and thought of you, so I thought I'd share. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-01/supermarket-shelves-empty-soda-water-soft-drinks-co2-shortage/103532172?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web
Edit: my original source was news dot com (ugh) but Thornbury witch posted this one so I swapped it out.
Rain has just hit Fitzroy. Not sure how long it will last.
Couple suburbs east of you and it was spitting down, just now getting hit by a small cell of rain. Looks like little pimples emerging over the bay and city on the radar.
I gotta say that buildup before the rain, after a dry heat, is really.... arousing.
Bill and Ted are having a great time hunting crickets. :)
in the lounge room
Ah
I was sleeping ok until someone came into my room asking if they should stay home from school today. We need to have another talk about not disturbing mother unless there's a fire. 😡
-starts fire-
mum can i stay home today
She doesn't need permission to stay home. She gets the guilts for having a sickie.
We must find who gave her these guilts and sit on them
Don't worry I've already had the talk with her about not being one of those people. She can wfh today, no big deal.
Not me wondering why aircons aren't minimum standards for all rentals. Cat threw up four times last night because she just can't cope.
When the cat can't cope, there's a big fucking problem - they're desert animals!
Indeed! I was shocked too when I found out - turns out their fur is light enough that it acts as insulation against both heat and cold, which is impressive. That's why they don't drink much water straight up - they evolved to pull moisture from their food instead
Summer is only 3 months of the year. Having said that, my investment property has an aircon and ducted heating.
Alas mate, that three months is dangerous for both people and animals. When it comes down to it, having one quarter of the year being unlivable is not remotely reasonable.
Glad though you have your investment property properly set up for all seasons, imo that should be the standard across Australia, not the exception.
Summer is defined as three months of the year.
March and april get into the 30's easily
Fuck! Shattered tooth. All the bad dreams are true
Oh no! :(
First am appointment Obtained. Will still have to deal with looking like a cartoon until then.
Just got an email from ex-work asking me to return a whole bunch of equipment: monitors, mouse, keyboard, adapters, USB hub, etc.
I can't even, they don't even keep track of what they've given out?? I only took the two adapters and the USB hub because I have a dual monitor PC set up at home already. Mentioned this to them a thousand times, and they think I took monitors, a keyboard and mouse home on PT?? As if I would use their crusty keyboards over my mechanical one haha
Good grief, I was slightly regretting leaving (I shouldn't, I was suicidal) but I'm certainly not now.
I'm not going out today, so they will have to wait till Friday or Monday.
OR: Counter proposal: How about they go suck a dick?
I dont think legally you can withhold pay over equipment. or so my HR tell me so I just watch laptops basically walk out the door everytime we hire someone and they quit inside a month.
Interesting, they are withholding my pay until I return these three items.... But I don't want to burn bridges with them either....
Hmmmmmmmmmm, I shall ponder this!
If they don't keep track of who has what, just reply that you don't have anything?
They don't have anything I value haha, the adapters and USB hub are useless to me, and they issued us all Chromebooks of all things, which I left at the office anyway. Absolutely despise Chromebooks, useless pieces of crap (to me).
My PC can run Spotify, Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk, etc. I don't need their shitty tech hahahaha
If they had something I value or was useful I'd perhaps consider it, but I'm too much of a goody two shoes and would just return it anyway hahahaha
They sent out a rote letter, but yeah, they really are fuckin' bad. I got the same when my old workplace rolled up, could be I heard of possibly a someone else who realised they had no fucking idea of inventory and got themselves a lenovo out of it...
It's a small business, literally 10 office workers including the cal centre, accounts, boss, and IT. And this email came from my manager. So obvious when I checked the adapters and USB hub I have at home and they don't even have serial numbers. I can't believe they have no way of tracking this.
I don't need the adapters as they're usb-c/HDMI and I don't need the hub. Plus, the had us using Chromebooks for work. Everything is based off the Google suite. I fkn hated that shit. I had to relearn all the shortcuts which is such a pain, and Google Sheets fucking sucks ass.
Sorry, just triggered a rant haha
On the flip side, GSuite is great if it's all you know. Kids doing the Google thing through school come out with that environment being the one they are familiar with. They hit the ground running when they reach the workforce, even if they are put into Microsoft Office. For some reason, it's loads easier to teach people to go from Google > Microsoft than the other way around.
Your experience matches what I've seen with clients who go down the Google path. Lots of people find it painful - usually older employees who have been using Office apps since before the ribbon (Office 2003), when keyboard shortcuts were more heavily used.
I personally love Sheets for most tasks. I hate it as soon as we get to charts and advanced stuff, though. There's no getting around the fact that Microsoft has the edge (heh) on things like macros and charts.
Ah that makes sense! Personally been using PC since I was a kid in the late 90s, and Dad hated anything Apple so we never had a Mac or anything, just Microsoft. When I hit the workforce in 2011 I was miles ahead of my peers with using shortcuts.
Going MS to GS is very painful. Had to print out a little sheet with the common shortcuts. And lookup the formulas for Sheets. I did some reporting and never had the time to learn how to automate it (had to generate report between calls). Whereas if I was using MS, they would have had their reports waaaayyyyy quicker.
Ah well, water under the bridge. I do enjoy that fact that kids learning on GS are finding MS easier to grasp. But I definitely do not recommend going the other way haha
34 outside, 23 inside, zero grid usage. 'twas priciest part of the reno but zerooooo regrets.
I’ve got to look into that - there’s so much info it’s a bit overwhelming
Piece of advice: My Redback invertor seems to give me a LOT more data that my brother in laws fronius invertor gives him. When you speak to an electrician for quotes its worth asking how the app is, and making sure it can give you both usage and generation data to make it easier to use your solar.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll have to put some research time aside and get on to that govt website, too
same! my total reusable energy percentage takes a hit at night though. I was ~90% but dropped to ~80%. Cant wait to get my first bill and see what it looks like.
we haven't been able to swing a battery yet, but it's on the list. (a mate who has a giant whole house one in woop woop was taunting me during the outage. Joke's on him, he lives in moe)
Moe is not idea. But at least closer to Melbourne than Traralgon, and you dont have to live with the power plants as much.
@TinyBreak @Taleya I live half an hour from Moe up in the BawBaw Ranges and it's lovely. Don't have a battery sorted yet, but it is also on the list, as we get regular shortish outages.
Dearest Vietnamese Ice Coffee,
My love for you is unbridled and everlasting.
Forever yours,
UMG
I have secured a date with the God Emperor in March.
Bless the maker and his water.🪱
I'm so sweaty 😭
Power out already sigh….
?? What happened?
guessing big wind go wooooooo, power line go splat.
I may eat my words, but I'm not too phased by the heat until it kicks over 40.
✊🍺
That reminds me Brunswick Original Kippers on sale for $2 a tin at woolworths for the next week.
Time to stock up, thanks!
Boop🍹
👋🍺
just had to add some cardboard boxes and another blanket over the window in the study. Rest of the house is ok but the study is struggling. I feel for those without AC today, this is pretty warm!
If you can spray water on the outside walls, the paths near the house and the garden. The evaporative cooling of the area will help a bit.
@Seagoon_ @TinyBreak very sage advice.
Good advice. I did this Wednesday, unfortunately the wall in question is the longest in the house, and gets blasted with all of the afternoon sun. even after 2/3 minutes of cold water on the bricks the water was still warm by the time it reached the bottom of the wall. I think its the dark tiles on the roof that make it the worst though.
Had a lovely beach day in Jan Juc yesterday. So nice without the crowds. Then stayed for the sunset in my favourite viewing spot.
Glad I chose yesterday to go, I think today would have some with some sand wind whipping.
beautiful, we are so lucky to have so many beautiful beaches nearby
Followed up a package which I hadn't received. Apparently was posted yesterday, so now I am in a state of anticipation. Pakige.
Just looked at the bom website - Melbourne's forecast top temp is the highest in Australia ...
So I've been finishing all the half watched movies and yesterday it was In Bruges.
More than half way thru and I'm thinking, Wow, I've never seen Liam Neeson so good in a role, it's like he's really acting. It was Ralph Fiennes. 🤪
I love In Bruges!
All the actors were really good.
Yeah I also loved Banshees of Inisherin (which had Colin Farrell and Brian Gleeson again) but it was so so dark at times.
It had some very sad moments.
and reminded me of these old, and at the time, very famous movies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Aran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge_of_the_World
ooh I will look them up (when I find a suitably reflective yet not depressed mood)
they aren't sad movies, they are interesting
Cool. Ta.
Really awesome movie, seems to not get as much love as it deserves
Kind of happy to be spending the day in hospital just for the air-conditioning! Poor housemate was cranking the evaporative cooling as I was walking out the door.
Strange sleep utterance of the day: people are all duct tape
Sky not so pretty
sky smoky :(
Its getting quite apocalyptic. Really weird glow
Fakken ants are doing my head in. Anyone got recs for pest control companies?
Avoid the pros and just mist up a shit ton of pennyroyal?
Bit beyond that. Building some ant bait traps as we speak. The fuckers are getting into the litter box now
If only they’d clean it for you
Heh...
dins
Chives are $5 extra at a restaurant easy.
That's a $15 plate right there sans chives.
Breakfast 🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋
Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, and hot coffee please. Gotta carb load before it gets too hot to eat, or my brain will cease functioning. If it hasn't already.
🥞🥓🍯☕️
Today I will deign to consume a cucumber for hydration purposes
And other such primarily water-based foods
Can't go wrong with watermelon.
When I was in Peru I came accross a food cart selling cold watermelon by the slice. It was absolutely wonderful and I wish we had things like that here.
Not normally a fan but I'd eat it today if offered. Only if cut up nicely. Hate the feeling of sticky juice running down my chin, even if it's Quintessential Summer
Sprinkle the slices with freshly ground black pepper - gamechanger.
Whatever they serve in those ice castle bars thanks
🧊☃️🧊
Fried rice with prawns please - but actually add some flavour to it, unlike this place I went for lunch yesterday 😞
🦐🍚🌶️🌶️🧄🧅🌶️🌶️
Home from pub. Those margaritas are fully dangerous, even without the coriander. House was 28 deg inside on entry, have opened all the windows and watched the thermometer drop 5 degrees in as many minutes. I may yet be able to sleep tonight. Tho I suspect the margaritas will help.
margs sound nice 🍹
Mango is my favorite. Closely followed by watermelon.
I got given some used items from work, some cushions and a seemingly very big expensive bean bag that I'll need to wash before using.
I barely managed to fit the bean bag into my back boot of the car, I have feeling that it's going to be way too big for my place but it might be nice to be able to lean back into a bean bag.
I love my beanbags and will often nap in them (mostly accidentally, the cat will come up and then we're both napping lol). But as an over-30 it does a number to my back haha.
Good for gaming in if you have a console too, or reading, chilling. Our beanbags were our couch for over a year before we could buy an actual couch haha
My setup at home is a little be awkward when it comes to laying down a beanbag in front of the telly. I might have to move it off to the size.
The biggest problem is that it's massive.
If it's this one it's at least 160cm long!
https://noomi.com.au/collections/bean-bags/products/outdoor-xl-giant-bean-bag?variant=5030007177250
if it wanks your back, check your bean level. I'm still happily sassing in ours at 45
Oh I definitely need to restock the beans, some have been lost into the far reaches of the corners of the rooms, or within the wardrobe, across 2 apartments. I reckon they're still finding beans at the 1bed I had in the city hahahah
Mosquitos are out with a vengeance.
Cool change is here 🎉
What’s everybody watching? Need a new tv show.
Edit: Thankyou all, I now have a list to choose from!
Yellowjackets on paramount, am enjoying. Plane of girls soccer team crashes in Canada wilderness 30y ago. It's like 50/50 between then, and present time. Girls go nuts in wilderness, girls in present time deal with consequences.
I'm actually reading something that now I have to try to finish before the series comes out... Shogun
omg omg, that's a total blast from the past. I read all the Clavell books in my teens.
I read those books as a teen. I think a few of the political subtleties in Tai Pan and Noble House went over my head due to my age but they were all very good
Griselda was good. So was Boy Swallows Universe. Both on Netflix.
Far from new, I'm watching Blakes 7.
Cool. ( my home server is called orac )
Finished s1 of Halt and Catch Fire, it's okay but I'll keep watching.
Heard good things about For All Mankind
Clark and Beef are both on Netflix and are excellent. Mr Inbetween is probably somewhere (Disney+?) and was awesome.
Mr Inbetween is on Binge.
The English. Amazon.
Come on cool change...
How do you buy a house? Real question.
It seems like 8000 steps all of which cost money before you even look at a place, let alone start installing petunias.
Step One: have money
If you do not have money: cry
Everyone's covered money and process well so far, so I'll just add some advice.
A global pandemic really helps. I'm not kidding. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Be prepared to strike when opportunity presents itself. We brought in covid, and couldn't afford this place if it went on the market today. If you can, going country can help. Warragal got expensive, but further out isn't too bad so long as you don't have to do the city 5 days a week. Seymour has houses for under 400k, and a vline to Melbourne taking 1.5 hours (which isn't THAT much worse than Pakenham to Melbourne).
Step 1 - sort the money - talk to bank about borrowing limits, knowing that these can change in a blink of the eye. If you can get a guaranteed borrowing amount GET THAT IN WRITING and the expiry date. Step 2 - look at houses available. Set up list of criteria in 4 sections - 1) Must have 2) Nice 3) Nice but can do without 4) Dealbreakers. Get agreement from spouse and kids on these. Step 3 - identify possible purchase. Then get council reports, engineering reports, architectural reports - and any other reports you think apply like flood prone land, possible future freeways, asbestos and other soil contamination etc. They are cheaper than remedial works - trust me on this. Step 4 - start negotiations. If the house needs essential work, an estimate of price of the work (not from the REA) should form part of your calculations. If they want the $$ fast, expect to get a substantial discount for settlement in less than 60 days. Don't allow REA to panic you into a fast decision. You might want to employ a purchasing agent - they charge a fee but do Steps 2, 3 & 4 for you once they have your criteria. As these are the difficult bits, this might be time/hassle effective.
Step 5 - pay up. Step 6 - move in.
Step 7 - discover all the stuff that you should have done in steps 2, 3 and 4 above. Scream and regret not having a father/brother/sister/cousin with electrical/gas fitting and other general trade qualifications. Step 8 - install petunias
Source: purchased just before the pandemic. Yes I did employ a purchasing agent cos I was ignorant/out of date of all that stuff. Seamless experience which I recommend. They even went to the auction and bid for me (within the limits I'd set) so I didn't have to panic about that either.
Thanks. The criteria bit has been discussed at much length. The no. 1 bit how much can we really is the biggest right now. Needs an app with 🐏 or similar.
Thanks for the petunias 🌸
Could I trouble you to share your purchasing agent? Here or perhaps DM if you prefer. :)
Happy to provide. The firm is Select Property Advisers based south of the yarra but can act all over Melb. My agent was Michelle. She was an REA for twenty plus years and left industry in disgust, but has vast knowledge of the dodgy tricks other REAs try on newbies routinely. She was a tireless advocate for me. I purchased with full knowledge of what needed to be done in the next 5 years, the next 10 years as separate categories to help me with the purchasing decision, and generally went out of her way to ensure I got the best possible place for my price range. All my criteria were met, and the price at auction was actually a bit less than I was expecting. I think she scared the REA conducting the auction into good/legal behaviour.
Talk to your parents and sibs.
See how much assets the family owns.
Discuss if you want share buying a house, if anyone is up for being a guarantor, if they will help with deposit.
See how much you can repay every month.
Organise first home buyer benefits.
Look at houses that are way less than you can afford. This way you won't be too stressed.
Try to buy something built in 60s or 70s, even if it's in a crappy suburb. Be close to PT, hospitals, schools and parks.
Aim to live in the house your whole life if possible. Buying and selling , stamp duty, is a terrible waste of money.
Make sure you have money for maintenance.
I’ll stop you at 1.
Zero speaking terms.
yeah, this is a problem
but it's how so many people get on the property ladder
this do it all on yer own is not how well off people do it
have money
Engage a mortgage broker. This will use some of your money but it is well worth it. They will be able to help you go over your finances and see what kind of loan you can get, they will do all the legwork finding out best rates and such, and you can even state preferred banks. They will also do all the negotiating with the bank for you, so you just need to look over what they present you, nod assent or shake thy head and then provide some ID and signatures.
When you have your loan, you have your budget. Begin looking at places within this budget, preferably below it so you have some wriggle room for reno or repairs. When you find a place you like enough to attempt to purchase it, engage the services of a building inspector (this will cost you money, but is worth it). The REA flogging the place will not bat an eye at this and will allow them access to do all their bits and bobs.
look over the building inspection report and see if there are any deal breakers. If not, then place an offer usually "pending finance" (see below). This will bandy back and forth between the REA and owners a bit.
If all goes well and everyone agrees, there is usually a deposit to be paid and then the bank will shove its beak into the property, looking here and there and making sure that it's worth what they're lending you. This is the pending part. They will also request you get insurance on the property (this will cost you money but is worth it). If all goes well, they say yes, you may purchase it with your loan and you start the torturous crawl towards the settlement date.
Once settlement date arrives the bank transfers the money to the seller, the debt to you, and the keys are placed in your hand.
There also a conveyancer required to handle the actual transfer of the money and legal documents. At one point all the parties would have a rep that would physically meet up and hand over paperwork and cheques, but I presume it's all electronic these days.
in our case the conveyancing shash was also handled by the broker. I cannot express enough how much to get one. All the bullshit is Not Your Problem.
That would be good. My brief stint at home ownership was about 25 years ago and I don't think brokers existed at that stage - there weren't many options for loans either, you really just went to the bank you had your account with. It's all changed so much.
This sounds good. An advocate was already in mind both would save brain big time.
Thanks! One of our things is redo bathroom or kitchen but not both. I think that’s reasonable…
yeah those two are the priciest rooms :/ Once you get plumbing involved you're rather farked. Also most likely to have asbestos in older houses as it was used for waterproofing
Boyo is an unlicensed builder carpenter. Good for spotting issues even if can’t do the paperwork. Hopefully asbestos nasties won’t get under the radar!
Lots of good advice here already. I will add, if you haven’t already, get a spreadsheet out and make a budget to know exactly what your living costs are. Put in everything - food, car, entertainment, healthcare, insurances etc. Now add in the extra costs that you would have if owning a house - house insurance, rates, body corp if buying a unit. Then see what amount of money if left for repayments. Next, work out what size loan you can afford based on how much you can afford for repayments, but make sure to estimate at a higher interest rate than is current, because this a pretty much a certainty in the next year or two. Now you can start narrowing down what kind of properties and which suburbs to look in. Look in suburbs where you can afford the median house price. Don’t forget to factor in stamp duty into the purchase price. This will mean you are at least looking mid-market, so won’t be restricted to renovators delights. Good luck.
Just came from the beach and the cool change hit. 60km SSW of melbs.. you guyzz just have to.. rave choon it
Hold on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXwcewJwLb8&list=RDDzrnVun6GwY&index=7
Cat has gone back to sleep… meanwhile I’m struggling to stay awake and work.
Fingers crossed the weather isn’t too nasty today, worried about fire more than power outages
Happy Margarita Day!
radar is down
It’s so unsatisfying!! I want to see the rain!
Hmmm yes, that electrical safety issue our company identified 2 years ago will be fixed this time. Want to buy a pretty tower in Paris?
Buona notte
Sweet dreams all 😘
I think I'll go home via an air-conditioned pub. The cool change has apparently reached Ocean Grove but no further until 7 pm.
Coriander Margaritas..🍹
With some chilli sprinkles - could catch on.
It has just hit about 20 mins ago :)
Hmm I wonder if Devon and Strasberg go together well in a sandwich.
You're from Adelaide right?
Nope. Born and bred in Melbourne.
They are pretty similar so I'd say yes. Make sure you add sauce.
Going to use tomato sauce, maybe also some cheap greens if I can find any.
Greens? Don't you mean plastic cheese?
Actually good point! I think I have enough cheese slices to cover me.
Sky pretty
cracker this morn.
Got out all my art stuff today. Finished fixing up the trolley/organiser. Sorted my books. I have a new set of chinese water colours and a dinosaur colouring book I'm going to use to practice brush skills. I have a book on calligraphy page layout ordered and soon to be "pakige". 🤗 So excite.
Is $1500 reasonable for a conveyancer? Via the www.home-in.com.au portal.
Does that include all the certificates etc that they need to order as part of the process? If not, that price is a couple of hundred dollars too high. Shop around.