March 2024 – Page 2 – dangermouse.net

Considering countries

This morning I took Scully on a walk in the cool dampness after a night of rain. She’d been off her food all day yesterday until a late dinner, but was hungry for breakfast and perky again this morning.

Back home I wrote up my lesson plan for the new week’s critical thinking and ethics topic, on “Countries”. I framed much of the lesson around a story about a girl who goes on her first overseas trip with her parents, and all of the different things she encounters. She visits a museum to learn the history of the country she’s visiting, and I’ll get the kids in the class to compare that with countries they know, for example.

The post office received another visit today, as I packed and sent another Magic card to a buyer. I also took the chance to drop in that envelope with the Opal cards in it.

I completed this week’s batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips and uploaded them to the buffer. And made another Darths & Droids strip too.

And with everything I wanted to do achieved by early afternoon, I spent some time cleaning the house. I cleaned up the balcony, sweeping and removing spider webs. I also took out the bathroom window sliding pane and cleaned it, and removed the insect screen so I could reach outside and clean off a lot of spider webs from covering the window. They’ve been annoying me for ages. I really should clean all the windows, but that’s a big job for another day.

And when my wife got home from work I took the opportunity to do a 5k run. The day was warm, though not too hot, so it was a bit warm for a run, but I persisted and got it done.

Oh, and after dinner (potato and broccolini tikka masala with rice) we gave Scully a bath. She rolled around a lot in the grass at the park today, so we thought we should clean her up a bit.

It’s good to have a day when it feels like you got a lot done!

New content today:

Sending kilos of Magic cards

I did something today that I haven’t done in a very long time.

I licked a postage stamp.

I filled out forms to get a refund for the credit on my and my wife’s Opal cards, the stored value cards used on Sydney’s public transport system. We no longer need them because they’ve updated the scanners to work with any debit/credit card, and it’s more convenient to do that (in fact using Apple Pay) rather than carry an extra card around all the time. To get our stored value back, we need to physically mail the cards in, which means using an actual envelope and postage stamps. I dug out our antique postage stamps that we last used maybe 10 years ago, and looked up the current cost to mail a standard letter, which turned out to be $1.20. And lo! We had a few $1 stamps and some 20 cent stamps still sitting in our drawer. The $1 stamps were self-adhesive, but the 20 cent ones were old fashioned lick-em-and-stick-em.

Today I also spent time packing almost 3 kilos of Magic: the Gathering cards to send overseas to people who bought them from me. Here’s one kilogram of cards (minus enough to add packaging and keep the total just under 1kg):

And here’s two kilograms of cards:

And I learnt a thing. If you’re sending Magic cards from Australia to the USA, you can streamline things by filling out an online customs form. There’s a field asking you to enter the type of item so it can determine the HS Tariff Code. You can start typing “card game”, and it pops up a drop-down list and you can select from:

card game
collectible card game
game cards
and a few other less relevant things

Whatever you do, you should NOT select “collectible card game”. Because it gets flagged as some sort of restricted item, and the Post Office refuses to send it. I redid the form on my phone while the staff member was on the phone to the head office (fruitlessly), and all I changed was my selection on that drop down, and I asked them to reprocess it, and it went through without a hitch. I mentioned this to my friends when I got home, and one found that “Collectibles” is one of the restricted categories in Australia Post’s list of Bad Stuff You Can’t Mail. We surmised probably because of money laundering or something. Anyway, lesson learnt!

Finally, the solution to yesterday’s puzzle! I can proudly announce that nobody—none of the commenters here in the blog, nor any of my friends who I also quizzed on our Discord chat—managed to guess the correct word. Incorrect guesses include:

Beuer
Fever
Leven
Gwen
Zeuen
Leuen
Tavern
Eleven
Forever
Tower
7even

The correct answer is … “Even”.

Yeah.

New content today:

Enjoying the cooler weather

Oh, it’s so nice after the summer. It rained heavily overnight and was nice and cool today, with a few light showers. Also I noticed for the first time the ginkgo trees outside are just starting to turn yellow in a few of the leaves, the first real sign of autumn. They’re beautiful in mid-autumn when all the leaves are bright butter yellow. (Before they fall off and make a mess everywhere.)

I spent some time photographing piles of Magic: the Gathering cards before packing them for mailing this week. But mostly I worked on writing new Darths & Droids comics and making them up, trying to get a bit ahead of the publishing schedule. I also did some housework – getting the quilt out of storage and putting it back on the bed, since the nights are cooling down enough that a single sheet might not be warm enough soon. And I cleaned the bathroom and shower, and made some sourdough bread.

My wife spent some time today doing a one-day indigo dyeing course. She came home with about ten bits of cloth all died in different interesting patterns. She’s going to hem some and turn them into scarves. She said it as really fun to do. Next weekend she’s doing another class, on felt making.

Finally, if you want a puzzle challenge, try to work out the name of this restaurant this recently opened near me, from this logo.

I walked past it the other day and couldn’t figure it out until I went up and looked at one of the menus, which had the name written in a normal font. I’ll post the answer tomorrow.

New content today:

Playing games and packing games

Friday was 4 ethics classes, followed by online board games night. I also went out to the local pizza place for dinner with my wife and Scully. They have a new pizza on the menu—peri peri chicken—and I decided to try it this time. It was pretty good! The owner chatted with us during our meal and he said that many customers had been asking for a peri peri chicken pizza, so he had decided to listen to them and add it. He was pleased that I liked it.

So I was a bit late joining in on the games. We played Just One, and Can’t Stop Express, and then the others started getting tired and left early.

This morning I did a 5k run, my first one since last Saturday since I’ve been nursing the pulled muscle in my side. But it’s better now and I was keen to hit the road again. Also, the weather has turned and the string of hot and humid days has finally broken. Yesterday and today were much more pleasant at around 25°C. And it was a cool 18°C in the morning when I went for my run, which was a nice change and made it significantly less exhausting.

I cleaned the house while my wife took Scully to the local farmer’s market. She returned with a couple of scones, big heavy ones from a local baker. We had some a few weeks ago and they are very filling. I lamented then that we only had jam and no cream (since we don’t normally have cream in the fridge). But this week I had cream! Because of Thursday’s grocery shopping dilemma when I was under the minimum online order total and had to add some more items, and I added ingredients to make a decadent dessert.

So I whipped up the cream and had my scone with apricot jam (we don’t have a jar of the regulation strawberry at the moment, but apricot is fine) and whipped cream. Not quite the same as clotted cream, but decent enough. It was delicious, and so filling that it was essentially my lunch.

Then I used the remainder of the whipped cream, folded in some mascarpone and chocolate liqueur, and layered it with Arnott’s Choc Ripple biscuits to make my own variation on the classic choc ripple cake recipe.

This afternoon I spent much of the time pulling out Magic: the Gathering cards from various storage boxes to make a couple of collections to send to buyers. Two people want to get an assortment of common and cheap cards. We negotiated details during the week and now I went through and collated cards to make up two packages, one being 1kg of cards, the other 2kg of cards – less some for the weight of packaging to keep the total weight under those postage limits. I won’t make a lot of money from these sales, but it’s worth it to get rid of some of these bulk cards and regain some storage space!

New content yesterday:

New content today:

More thinking about cooking

It was hot again today. This autumn heatwave didn’t let up, but it’s predicted to break tonight, with some rain and a cool change, and tomorrow should be a much more tolerable 24°C. But when I took Scully for a walk this morning there was a distinct smell of smoke in the air. Authorities were doing controlled burns of bushland around Sydney to reduce fuel load and the overnight wind direction brought it into the heart of the city. I closed up the windows soon after opening as I noticed the smell permeating the house.

My ethics topic on Cooking continues to be entertaining. Kids love talking about food, so it’s a good one. One question I ask is: Is cooking an important skill that everyone should learn?

One girl answered:

Yes, because if you become a refugee, and you see a dead deer by the side of the road, then if you don’t know how to cook you’ll either die by starvation or die by parasites. I’d choose the first one, myself.

I did the week’s grocery shopping online as I usually do, for pickup tomorrow morning. I added everything on the shopping list, and looked through the regular items to see if I needed to add any of those. When I was done, the total was barely over $30, which was really unusual, because usually it’s closer to $100. It must have just been a weird confluence of not running out of things that need replenishing this week. But when I tried to check out I discovered that the minimum online order for a pick-up (also for home delivery, incidentally) is $50. So I had to go back and choose things to add to bring the total up to that much! I added a few things that we don’t specifically need this week, but probably will next week, such as dried cranberries (which go in our home made muesli) and sesame seeds… and then I decided to add some things to make a dessert: cream, mascarpone, and chocolate biscuits.

Last night I started watching The Cabin in the Woods on Netflix. I’m halfway through and will finish watching it tonight after my last ethics class. I was expecting a standard sort of horror movie, but it’s clear that there is something very different going on in this film, though I’m still somewhat baffled as to what exactly. I’m eagerly looking forward to the second half. It feels like this is some sort of deconstruction of horror movie tropes and—I’m not sure if this will still apply after I finish it, but—I feel like it’s a significant film that anyone who thinks they know the horror genre must watch. Sort of like Scream (an absolute classic), only in a very, very different way. Anyway, I may give my final impressions after I finish it. (I’m avoiding spoilers, but I’ll have finished watching it by the time I read any comments on this post, so feel free to comment.)

New content today:

Thinking about cooking

Tonight I had the first three classes of the new ethics/critical thinking topic on the topic of “Cooking”. As an icebreaker I asked the kids if they did any cooking, were learning to cook, or whatever. Some of the kids said they never cook – their parents just cook for them. Some said they were learning and could cook a few things and weren’t very good yet.

And then there was one kid who said, “Yes, I’m good at it. I cook chicken and pasta, and crème brûlée, and croissants.” 😯

Earlier in the afternoon I had today’s university lecture, today on summary statistics for data. This is a long lecture and tutorial exercises, which occupied nearly the full 3-hour timeslot, so I got home a bit later than usual. Usually the classes only go about 2 hours. I had some sushi rolls for lunch, from a new place that I haven’t tried before. They were pretty good, and they have an interesting variety of fillings that is different to other places I go. One of them was a soft-shelled crab roll!

I picked up Scully from my wife’s work on the way home. Scully didn’t have breakfast again this morning, but she ate it when she got home, and then had a dinner as well. So hopefully her stomach is settled back down again.

Despite all the focus on food today, I didn’t have time to cook a proper dinner before my evening classes, so my wife and I just made ourselves eggs on toast at different times.

New content today:

Scully off her food

We’ve been keeping an eye on Scully the past day or so, as she’s been off her food. She didn’t eat anything yesterday, and took some time today to get back into things, only really tucking in after lunch. But she seems fine now, having had a proper dinner. She must have had some little stomach upset or something. We’ve learnt that dogs just do weird things sometimes.

I wrote up my next ethics class for this week, on the topic of “Cooking”. We go into things like the relationship between food and culture, the importance of cooking in today’s high–speed, modern world of fast food and pre-prepared meals, and family secret recipes.

And I made some sourdough. And tried to stay out of the heat. We have another hot day forecast for Thursday before things cool down for a bit.

New content today:

Polarising post office

There are two post offices within walking distance of my place. The closer one is at Greenwich. Its Google reviews are…. highly polarised. They alternate between 5 stars “Excellent service, lovely ladies working here” and 1 star “Rudest service I’ve ever experienced”. Just go look for yourself.

Personally, both my wife and myself have found the service there to be, yes, very rude and unhelpful. We both avoid going there unless we absolutely have to. Instead we walk the extra distance to Crows Nest Post Office, which has much nicer staff. (Although looking at Google reviews for that, it’s also listed as pretty bad!)

Anyway, I mention this because I had occasion to visit both post offices today. Well, I had occasion to visit at least one. I was walking past Greenwich PO with Scully and though I should pop in and grab a prepaid parcel satchel for sending a parcel of Magic: the Gathering cards to the USA. On form, the woman inside told me to fill out an online customs form first and she couldn’t give me a prepaid satchel until I did that. I haven’t sent a parcel overseas for a while and mentioned that the procedure seemed to have changed, and then she went off at me and said it changed two years ago, like I’m some sort of fool for being so behind the times.

Later in the day I had my cards packaged and ready to send… and I decided not to walk the short distance back to Greenwich, but rather the longer one to Crows Nest PO to actually mail my parcel.

In between, for lunch I drove with Scully out to Allambie Heights to get pies at the pie shop there. And to fill the car with petrol at one of the stations along the way, which usually has significantly cheaper fuel than the ones around where I live.

Looks like another hot week, weather-wise. Summer is hanging on with its claws, refusing to give in to autumn.

New content today:

New shoes

I had a bit of a rough night, trying to sleep with my side muscle strain. It hurt every time I rolled over in bed, so kept me awake more than usual. Today it feels significantly better though, which is good. I didn’t go for a run because I didn’t want to strain myself further.

I worked on some comics in the morning, and then after lunch we went out to do a couple of things. I needed a new pair of casual sports shoes – do people still call them “sneakers”? Just to wear every day to walk around in, not to actually play sports or run in (I have running shoes). We stopped off at a shoe shop on the way to my mother-in-law’s place because we were gathering there for an afternoon tea for my wife’s nephew’s birthday.

I tried one pair of shoes and they fit so nicely that I didn’t bother with the other two pairs the assistant had brought out. They were a narrower fit, but I need a wider fit for my feet, so was happy to stick with the first wide-fit pair. I left the old shoes there to be recycled, though I’m not sure how or how much of a pair of old sneakers they can possibly recycle.

The afternoon tea was nice, with lots of fresh berries which are in season here at the moment: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. There were some sandwiches, spinach rolls and sausage rolls, and a chocolate mud cake. I ate enough that I haven’t bothered with a proper dinner tonight, and will get by with an evening snack.

New content today:

An intense game of Root

Yesterday was board games night at a friend’s place. We started with a game of Codenames, which my team lost when my partner and I guessed the assassin word. Always a terrible way to lose.

Then we split into a game of 4 people playing Root, and 3 people who played some Jump Drive and possibly other things. I was in the Root game, playing the Eyrie. The game progressed steadily until we were all about 15 points, halfway to the wining score of 30. Then the Woodland Alliance player suddenly made a big series of gains in one turn, putting him within striking distance of victory. Then the Vagabond player did the same, also scoring over 10 points in his very next turn, setting up potential victory next turn too. And then the Marquisate player played a Dominance card, removing his point score and setting an alternate win condition of controlling two clearings in opposite corners of the board. And then he moved 8 cat warriors into one clearing and 10 into the clearing in the opposite corner!!! This would easily win him the game at the start of his next turn, and it would be basically impossible for the rest of us to stop him.

I took my turn, meekly doing pretty much nothing, as I didn’t have the potential to do anything dramatic on this turn. And then the Woodland Alliance scored the final few points to hit 30 and win. Basically, just a turn ahead of the Vagabond, who could have won next turn, and the Marquisate, who would have won right after that. So all three of my opponents had victory in sight within a turn of each other, while I was stuck languishing in very obvious last place.

Just look at all the cats in the two corners of the board!

Also yesterday I walked past the construction site that is a few blocks from our place, where a slew of apartments are replacing the old houses that were there. It’s making progress, although still in the digging and moving earth around phase.

This morning I went for a 5k run, but I noticed as I ran that I had a bit of a pain in my side. I completed the 5k, then had my shower and also cleaned the bathroom and shower while doing that. Then sat down for a while, and a few hours later my side had tensed up terribly. It’s a muscle strain, and quite painful I’ve been putting an icepack on it to reduce inflammation but I suspect it’ll take a few days to calm down. Which means probably no running tomorrow.

For dinner tonight my wife and I took Scully for a long walk over to the Flat Rock Brew Cafe, which is a really nice place for a late afternoon drink and meal. It has shady outdoor seating. I had a dark ale and a pulled pork burger, which was really good.

Back home this evening we watched the Australian movie The Dry. Excellent film – highly recommended for anyone who likes mystery/crime investigation. I won’t say any more – just see it.

New content today: