December 2022 – Page 2 – dangermouse.net

Reuben lunch

Today was my wife’s regular scheduled Wednesday off work. We dropped Scully in for a wash and groom at the dog groomer and then we drove out to a suburb I’d never heard of before, Wheeler Heights. I’d suggested yesterday that we grab some lunch somewhere and my wife said she didn’t want anything fancy, just a sandwich or something. So I searched for the best sandwiches in Sydney, and found a place called Tothy Brothers Deli, which boasted a delicious sounding menu. Most of the other places on the list I found were either in the heart of the city, or in less convenient suburbs, so I chose this one.

We drove there and I chose the Reuben sandwich. Now, any Americans reading this will no doubt know what a Reuben is, but it’s not very well known or popular in Australia, and so it’s difficult to find anywhere that makes them. In fact, this is the first place I’ve ever been to in Australia that has offered a Reuben on the menu.

I remember the first time I ever had a Reuben. It was in Baltimore in 1991, when I was doing my Ph.D. and spending some time studying at Johns Hopkins University. The day I arrived, I checked into my accommodation and went wandering in search of dinner. There was a deli right near where I was staying, so I walked in and looked at the menu. I saw “Reuben” and I’d never heard of it before, so I ordered it, and it felt at that time like the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

I’ve since tried Reubens again in Salem, Massachusetts, and Burlingame, California, and neither were as good. Today I had my fourth Reuben sandwich, and the first one in Australia.

It was really good. I will have to go back to this sandwich place again some time.

Also, they had muffins. It looked like they baked a batch of just the one flavour, which I assume they change each day. I ordered one without even asking what it was, because they looked so good. It turned out to be mango and passionfruit and oh my goodness, it may have been the best muffin I’ve ever eaten. So moist, and laden with fresh fruit. I had to stuff it in after the Reuben, but it was worth it.

We ended up not cooking anything for dinner just eating a few toasted crumpets and a mango. Lunch was definitely the big meal of the day!

New content today:

Korma Chameleon

Last grocery shop I bought some paneer, intending to use it in a curry some time this week. Today I decided I’d try my hand at making korma. I looked up a few recipes and got the gist of the ingredients. I had almost everything I needed in the kitchen, except for ground almonds, and the recipe I decided to follow also used fresh mint leaves. So during my afternoon walk with Scully I popped into the small nearby supermarket to get some of each.

I used plain yoghurt instead of buying Greek yoghurt, and that gave the resulting korma a bit of a tang, but it was fine and delicious. I also added some finely chopped broccoli to give it some more green content.

Most of today I spent assembling and then writing annotations for the remainder of that last batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips that I photographed a week ago. That means I’m now buffered up to the middle of January, which is good! I’ll try to make another batch before the end of the year, and I’ll have a nice safety buffer heading into the new year.

The other main thing that happened today is that I finally heard back from Lufthansa about our claim for compensation for the 24-hour delay we had in Singapore back in June. They have agreed to pay us the 1200€ EU-stipulated compensation for travel delay and reimburse most (though not all) of the additional expenses we incurred because of the delay. The email they sent says they have already processed the deposit into our bank account, and we should see the money in a few days. It’s not 100% of what we asked for, but it’s close enough, and I’m happy enough not to bother trying to squeeze out the few extra euro.

New content today:

Handymanning

This morning I had my dental appointment to have a filling fixed. It was at 8am, so I grabbed some breakfast quickly before heading out. I had an anaesthetic, so my mouth was numb for a few hours and didn’t return to normal until almost 1pm. I avoided eating until then.

But at midday I took a drill and screwdrivers to my wife’s work to install a WiFi video doorbell on her office door. She’d requested one from her boss and it had been ordered and arrived, but for all this week my wife is working there alone as everyone else is working from home for the whole week. I said I could install it, but she asked her boss if he wanted to hire a handyman to do it, but he just said, “Doesn’t someone have a handy hubby who can do it?” So I got the job. it was pretty easy – only took a few minutes.

Then I too Scully and we drove over to the Italian bakery where I grabbed a slice of pizza and a cherry danish for lunch, now that my mouth had recovered from being numb.

This afternoon I worked on some Darths & Droids comics. And took Scully for a walk. Oh, and I made okonomiyaki for dinner.

New content today:

Made my bed, now I have to lie in it

Today we went shopping for a new mattress. Our old one is showing age with some depressions forming in it, so it’s time to upgrade. Scully came along too and charmed the sales staff at the bedroom furniture place. My wife and I tried various mattresses and we joked that Scully should try them too to make sure she’ll be comfortable on the new one.

We selected a mattress and arranged delivery, which will take 2-4 weeks. They’ll also take away the old mattress, which is good, because otherwise we’d have no way to get rid of it.

In other news, the woman I met at the game shop yesterday with her daughter who wanted to start playing Magic: the Gathering e-mailed me. She said yesterday I met her and her son…

Okay, wow, I could have sworn she was there yesterday with a girl not a boy. Honestly, the kid had a hoodie on and I didn’t get a good look at him – I just saw some long hair sticking out. So I guess I misidentified. Oh well, fortunately I didn’t actually say “daughter” to the woman at any point. And though I was excited to help a girl get started in the game, helping a boy isn’t bad either. So I’m still going to give them some cards.

New content today:

Lunch in the city

Today was cold. Really cold for December in Sydney. The temperature didn’t even reach 20°C – it topped out at 19.9°C. It was also windy, and there were a few drizzly showers, so it felt even colder – the maximum “apparent temperature” was only 14.7°C. Don’t forget it’s summer here. We’re supposed to be having days over 30°C at this time of year. Today actually felt like the middle of winter.

Despite this, we had to venture out to the city for a birthday lunch for my brother-in-law. We took Scully in on the ferry. Here’s a shot I took as the ferry approached Circular Quay:

We disembarked and walked south through the streets to lunch. We passed through Martin Place, the central square in Sydney, where the city’s giant Christmas tree is:

Before heading to lunch we stopped off at Hyde Park so Scully could run on the grass a bit and do a toilet.

We also stopped off at a game shop to buy a copy of the second edition of Camel Up, that I’d ordered from them a couple of weeks ago.

While we were in there, a woman and her daughter, about 12 years old, came in and the mother was asking the staff for assistance with buying some Magic: the Gathering cards for the daughter, who wanted to start playing the game with her friends. The staff gave some advice about various decks they could buy. After the staff had finished the mother and daughter browsed around a bit and I approached and said I’d overheard that the girl wanted to start playing Magic, and I said I had an old collection with hundreds of old common cards that weren’t worth my while trying to sell, so I could let her have them for free. The woman was extremely grateful and I gave her my email address so she can contact me to arrange to pick them up some time. I was happy to help, especially for a young girl who wants to get into the game.

We had lunch at a French place, sitting outside because of Scully. Although we were under an awning, the drizzle got us a bit wet, and it was very cold in the wind. The food was good – I had a burger and chips, and then waffles and hot chocolate for dessert, which were both really good.

After lunch we walked back to Circular Quay to catch the ferry home again. Scully had a fun day out, walking through the city and riding the ferry. This evening she’s completely exhausted!

New content today:

Navigating car navigation

I got up early this morning to take the car in for its annual service. I took Scully, and after dropping off the car we walked home. The goal was to get home after my wife left for work, so that Scully wouldn’t notice her leaving. We managed it, barely, as I spotted my wife leaving and walking down the street as we approached, but fortunately Scully didn’t see her and go running after her.

At home I had just enough time to eat breakfast before my ISO Photography Standards meeting. We discussed depth cameras and organising experiments for them to measure various performance statistics such as depth accuracy, resolution, noise, and so on.

After that I photographed the new batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips. That took me until about 11:30, at which point the car service place rang up and told me the car was ready to pick up. I had lunch at home, and then took Scully for a walk back to the car place. We drove home via the bakery at Naremburn, where I picked up a half dozen fruit mince tarts. Last year we had tarts from this bakery and they were the best ones from all of the places around that we sampled.

On the drive home, I checked the GPS navigation in the car, for which I’d asked them to update the maps. The GPS location seemed to be working, but the maps layer was completely absent. I called them up when I got home, and they said to bring the car back in fr them to look at it. So I had to drive back to the service centre. I waited while they fiddled with it. They tried redownloading the maps into the SD card and reinstalling in the car, and that worked.

I came home again, and spent some time editing photos from my trip to Europe in June. I got to the ones where we did a boat tour along the canals of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. There’s a historical canal that runs through the city centre, and passes underneath several houses.

One of the houses had a glass floor and we could look up into the house!

Tonight is games night with my friends. It’s a face-to-face fortnight, but we all agreed to do online games this week, since one of the guys has COVID, and another has fears of exposure/symptoms. I just won a game of 7 Wonders, which is something quite rare, so I’m feeling good about the night so far.

New content today:

A new game company

I picked up groceries this morning instead of my usual Friday, because tomorrow I need to drop the car in for annual servicing, and then walk back home in time for an ISO Photography Standards ad-hoc group meeting on depth camera experiments. (Held online via MS Teams.)

I grabbed more mangoes, which are even cheaper this week. We’ll be taking advantage of his mango glut for as long as it lasts. The past two weeks we’ve had R2E2 mangoes, but today I grabbed Calypso mangoes, which are probably my favourite – they’re smaller than R2E2, but sweeter and with a stronger “mango” flavour.

I spent much of the day writing new Irregular Webcomic! strips. I want to photograph a batch tomorrow, after my meeting. I’ve got all but one written, which I’ll polish off quickly tomorrow before I start photographing.

At lunchtime I walked over to my wife’s work to pick up Scully, who she took to work today. I stopped to get some sushi at a place near her work where I hadn’t been before. They made it fresh and it was really good – I’ll have to go back there again. I took Scully home a longer way, via the bakery at Naremburn, where I stopped for a custard tart.

This afternoon on our group chat, I posted this logo which I found on the university staff admin website:

Logo that looks like: workfgrce software

I was commenting on (a) how it looked like “workfgrce SOFTWARE”, (b) the fantastic kerning, and (c) the beautiful grey on graduated grey background colour scheme. A friend of mine said:

If I ever start a company, I’m going to call it something dumb like workfgrce or disnep (but not those since they’ve been done). But then make a logo that makes it look like a normal word with some stupid font. But the dumb thing it looks like is the real name of the company.

Anyone else want to work for a place called GreafGgmes? OMFG that would absolutely never get old. It’s almost enough to motivate me to get off my arse and start a business just to do that.

Another friend replied:

Greafgmes. The two ‘G’s should be one big G.

And so I made this logo for our new company:

logo that looks like: Greaf gmes

We’ll be publishing our new gmes soon!

New content today:

Dentist day

Yes, today was a trip to the dentist. A regular clean and check-up. I mentioned an issue I’ve been having with food getting stuck between two molars, and the hygienist had a look and said, “Oh, yeah, one of your fillings is chipped.” The dentist had a look and said he’d have to fix the filling. So I’m booked to go back on Monday morning next week to have that done.

Before the appointment this morning I did a 2.5k run. And afterwards I took a walk with my wife and Scully to the Italian bakery, where I spoilt myself with a slice of their delicious ricotta cheesecake, as a reward for going to the dentist.

It was chilly today. The weather is truly bizarre at the moment. It should be hot in December, being summer here, but it was only 24°C in Sydney today, and it felt colder because of the wind. Tomorrow is forecast to be cooler and a lot windier. There’s been snow in the Snowy Mountains, which is extremely unusual at this time of year. There was a news story tonight saying this has been the coldest first two weeks of December ever recorded. And the next week’s forecast is 22°C almost every day, dropping to 21°C on Sunday. It’s really really weird. I wonder if it will warm up for Christmas. It really doesn’t feel like Christmas unless it’s approaching 40°C.

New content today:

An attempted ferry trip

Having completed my last online classes for the year yesterday, I had time to do some other activities today. I decided to take Scully out for a trip on a ferry and have a nice lunch in another suburb.

Last time we took Scully on a ferry we used her doggie backpack, and staff said we had to have her in a fully enclosed carry container, so I got out a small pet crate form our storage and we drove down to the wharf at Greenwich Point. We got there ten minutes early and set up with the crate ready for me to put Scully inside as we boarded.

Twenty minutes later we were still waiting, with no sign of the ferry. I checked the Transport NSW web site on my phone and it said the next ferry wasn’t departing for another three hours! This was weird, because I checked the timetable before we left and the ferries are supposed to run at hourly intervals all through the day, with some extra services around peak hour. But evidently no ferry was coming, so we abandoned the wharf and took to the car again.

We drove over to Hunters Hill and got out there to walk around the shops and find somewhere to sit outside and eat lunch. I had pies at a bakery, followed by a small chocolate/caramel tart. Then I took Scully around a few blocks for a walk before we went back home. It wasn’t bad for an outing, but I’d been looking forward to riding on the ferries. When we got back home I checked the Transport NSW web site for any service disruption notices, and indeed there was one there. It turned out that ferry workers were holding a stop-work industrial action meeting today! The one day when I wanted to use the ferries!

This evening… I didn’t have my usual ethics classes. So my wife suggested we go out for dinner, since we didn’t go out last week. We walked up to the local shops and had dinner at the Greek restaurant. This is kind of a comfort food place – nice traditional, old fashioned cooking.

New content today:

Last classes for the year

Today I had my last four online ethics classes for the year. I’m taking three weeks break over Christmas, and will restart classes on 2 January. Some of the kids actually seemed a bit upset at missing the next three weeks, which was kind of sweet.

I also got news on next year’s schedule for the Data Engineering and Image Processing courses that I’ve been tutoring for the university. Both are changing next year: Data Engineering will be Monday like this year, but moving from a 6-9pm class to 3-6pm. And Image Processing in the second semester will be staying at 6-9pm, but moving from Thursdays to Tuesdays. Both of these changes will mean shifting some of my ethics classes. I currently have one at 4pm Monday which will need to change in first semester. But the bigger issue is the Tuesday evening, when I currently have three classes, that will need to move from August. Hopefully it won’t be too hard for the kids to move to a different day, and I have plenty of time to organise it.

There was a nasty storm today just before lunch time – actually during one of my classes. Fortunately I’d seen it approaching on the weather radar and had already closed the windows, because it was nasty when it hit. Absolutely torrential rain, and really strong winds – for about ten minutes, and then it basically stopped. The storm was the lead article on the evening news, as it had caused significant damage across Sydney, ripping roofs off some buildings and knocking some trees down. Within an hour later it was sunny again.

New content today: