shopping – dangermouse.net

Games night and a fast run

Friday I picked up the weekly grocery shopping in the morning. I order online, a habit I began during COVID, and continue because it saves me time wandering up and down all the aisles of the supermarket. When you order online, you can select a checkbox for each item saying whether it’s okay for them to substitute an alternate brand or product if the one you selected is out of stock. After some early experimentation with this, I simply set it to “no substitutions” for everything. Because sometimes I’d get stuff I really didn’t want.

But when I pick up the order at the supermarket, often they have still substituted something. But at least they let me know about and give me the option to reject the substitution and get a refund for the missing item. Yesterday I ordered a particular brand and type of bread. They had the exact one I ordered, and another different type, and asked me which one I would prefer, as if they were substituting something. But one was the actual correct product I’d ordered, so I pointed to that and said, “That’s the one I ordered.” They questioned again, asking if I’d prefer the other one. I had to say, “No, that’s the one I ordered, I want that one.” 🙄

I had a bunch of ethics classes. One had a returning student – I knew he was returning as I’d made a personal note about him in the private teacher’s notes section, just recording the country he lived in. I said, “Welcome back, you’ve done my classes before, right?” And he looked surprised and said, “No…” I said, “I’m sure you have, maybe a while ago.” He said it must have been a couple of years or so ago, which may well have been true. I think maybe he was impressed at my memory!

My wife and I went out to our local pizzeria for dinner. And then when we got home I joined online games night with my friends. It was just three of us this week, as one was away and another was busy moving into his brand new house (where we played last week, but he finally had his furniture moved on Friday). I won two games of Jump Drive quite dramatically – I was very lucky with drawing into strong synergies in each game. Then we played Luxor, which I came second in. One guy went to bed early, and the two of us remaining played Root on Steam. He played cats and I played the Alliance, with AI Eyrie and Vagabond, and I managed to win.

Scully slept better overnight. On Friday I wrote a note and put copies under the doors of all our neighbours in the building, asking if anyone had any new electrical devices running overnight that could be causing some high-pitched noise or other humming or whatever that might be disturbing Scully. Our neighbour directly below us responded and said they’d started using an automatic cat feeder on the weekend, and offered to turn it off to see if Scully would sleep any better. She did, but still wanted to leave the bedroom once soon after we went to bed. After wandering around the house for a bit she came back and then slept through the night, which was a lot better than the past several nights.

I think the experiment is inconclusive. I’m sceptical that a cat feeder would make a constant sound that would disturb Scully, and her behaviour seems more consistent with whatever is bothering her still being present, but maybe she’s getting used to it. Anyway, I reported back to the neighbour and they agreed to keep the cat feeder off for another couple of days to see what happens, and then maybe we can test it by trying it switched on again. If that makes Scully more agitated again then we’ll have some strong evidence.

After breakfast I went for a 5k run. I pushed a bit and recorded 26:38, my best time since back in March. So that was pretty good. It didn’t feel too hard either, like I still could have gone a bit faster.

This afternoon when out walking Scully past the small group of local shops, where the fish & chip shop is, we were lamenting that nothing there was open for dinner on a Saturday evening. But we noticed a new sign at the cafe, saying that it was now open for dinner from Thursday to Saturday! They only started this this week. So maybe in a week or two we might try going up there for dinner.

New content today:

Home made pizza and games night

This morning I went out to pick up the grocery shopping. I wasn unable to order any eggs in my online pick-up order, so while I grabbed fresh fruits and vegetables manually I also went to the egg section to get some there. But that section of the supermarket was completely bare – there wasn’t a single pack of eggs to be had. We’ve been having an egg shortage which I believe is because of a bird flu outbreak in Victoria. So I had to go home without.

But later in the day I took Scully for a walk up to the local shops and there’s a small grocery store there, and they had some eggs, so I bought a dozen there.

I had four ethics classes today. I was a bit worried about how heavy this topic on Hate would be after the first one on Tuesday. But it’s become easier over the week and today’s classes were kind of fun actually, discussing various things that the kids hated and why.

For dinner I made a potato pizza, rather than us going out to a restaurant. And tonight is online board games night. We have slightly fewer people than usual since one of the gang is going to see Iron Maiden in concert tonight.

We played a new game for me, called Mountain Goats. It’s an interesting dice combination game sort of like Can’t Stop, but with some new twists. It’s quite enjoyable.

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:

New Year’s Eve acquisitions

It’s New Year’s Eve! I got up late… after 8am, which is unusual for my recent habits. After breakfast I did my final 5k run of the year. That brought my total running distance to 455 km for 2023. Down a little on the 500 km I managed last year. Even though I’m doing longer distances, I’m not running as many days a week, due to the fact that my wife went back from working at home to working in the office. But still, I’m pretty happy with that.

After a refreshing cold shower, I decided to head into the city quickly on the train to check out the game store where I have some store credit (from selling some old Magic: the Gathering cards a while back). I really want to use up all this store credit before it potentially vanishes, if the store shuts down or something. I got a selection of roleplaying game books:

And a couple of expansions for the Root board game:

A nice haul overall! And I thought I’d run down my store credit to close to zero, but the guy who rang up the total told me everything is on sale, and I still have over $100 of credit left! So that’s a bonus. Also, not pictured, a got a copy of Kingdomino, which is a game I know well, but haven’t owned before. I decided to get that because it’s a good 2-player game for me and my wife. We played a few games this afternoon. And in true fashion, after I taught her the rules, she won the very first game easily. Though we swapped victories back and forth the next few games.

We went for a walk up to the local shops to give Scully some exercise. The weather today was cool and overcast – a nice change from hot. I tried to find some fruit mince tarts today, since I realised I missed out completely over Christmas and I like them. But neither of the big two supermarkets had them any more. 🙁

For dinner I made okonomiyaki. And in a little bit we’ll have our traditional New Year’s Eve snacks of cheese and crackers, before seeing in 2024.

Oh! And I didn’t share this at the time, but a couple of days ago while out walking Scully I got a good close photos of a kookaburra.

Probably a young one, as adults tend to be more wary of humans.

New content today:

Two grocery shopping milestones

This morning I saw my doctor, who diagnosed a secondary bacterial infection and prescribed me some antibiotics and also a nasal spray to help relieve the sinus symptoms.

As usual, when I left I walked out and didn’t stop at the reception desk. But when I got home I got as phone call from them, saying that I’d forgotten to pay! This was unexpected, because previously this practice had bulk-billed, meaning they bill the Australian Government directly for the services they render to patients, and the patients pay nothing. But doctors are also entitled to charge higher fees and claim the set fee as a rebate for the patient, and more doctors are doing this these days with the current inflationary pressures on the cost of living. So apparently my GP had switched to this method of charging in April, without my knowledge. (Well, maybe they sent me an email, which I mentally filed and forgot.) So I had to pay the account, and will get the rebate from the government, but I’ll be a bit out of pocket for this visit.

Since I still feel sick, I decided to have our groceries delivered this week instead of picking the order up at the supermarket. We’ve never done this before, so it was something new.

And the second grocery milestone: My wife and I have been married for 26 years, and today we purchased our third packet of salt. Just to be clear, these are 1 kilogram packets. We use virtually no salt in cooking and don’t add it at the table, so we don’t go through it very fast. Our usage has only really accelerated in the last 3 years as I’ve started baking bread, since as I discovered you need to add salt otherwise it tastes pretty awful. I think the first packet of salt probably lasted 15 or more years, and the second 10 or so.

Third piece of news for the day: I took Scully for a walk this afternoon and noticed a sign stuck on a large liquidambar tree that I regularly walk past. I went to have a look, and it said that the council had determined the tree was within its last 5 years of life, and would be removing it within the next 4 weeks. This is the tree that dropped a huge branch onto power lines in November last year, so I guess it’s a fair evaluation. They sign said the council will replace it with a native Australian tree, so it’ll be interesting to see what that is.

New content today:

Rainy rainy day

Today was very rainy and even colder than yesterday – max 20.4°C. I even had to wear a jacket when taking Scully out for a walk.

This morning I picked up my grocery order. Unfortunately there was a missing item when I got home. This has happened to me a few times since I started ordering groceries online. The supermarket has a nice website interface for reporting a missing item, and they simply refund you the price without needing any further verification. Which is nice, but I’ve now had to do it enough times that I’m starting to get worried that the supermarket will think I’m taking advantage of it and blackball me from claiming missing item refunds. Hopefully it’s something that happens enough to many people that they know my instances are within statistical likelihood bounds.

I had more ethics classes today, and tonight is online games night.

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:

Through the university

This morning I picked up groceries, that I would usually have done yesterday, but was deferred due to my standards meeting. I’m in the habit of ordering most things online for pickup – something which I began doing during COVID lockdown. But after a few unsatisfactory experiences ordering fresh fruit and vegetables this way, I spend a few minutes grabbing fruit and vegetables myself before I pick up the pre-ordered bulk of the groceries.

This week I decided to get cabbage, to make okonomiyaki. And looking around at the other vegetables, I settled on Brussels sprouts, since we haven’t had them for a while. It was only when I got home and pout them in the fridge that I realised I’d selected cabbage and what are essentially mini-cabbages.

I also got some more mangoes, since they’re currently abundant and relatively cheap. I heard on the news that there’s a big mango glut at the moment, with large crops coming in from all over northern Australia. So that’s good! It’ll be cheap mangoes every week until the supply dries up.

For lunch we went on a short drive across the harbour to the suburb of Newtown, where we grabbed lunch at The Pie Tin. After that we walked through the University of Sydney because my wife wanted to go visit Glebe Markets. Last time we went there we were surprised that they had a strict “no dogs” policy, so I kept Scully and stayed in the university, intending to let her run around on one of the sports fields. Unfortunately she was a bit cheeky and tried running off after my wife, so I had to call her back and then keep her on the lead.

So instead of running around the field, I grabbed some carrot cake and we sat at a cafe for a bit, before starting to head down to Glebe to meet up with my wife. We met her halfway and walked back to the car to head home.

This afternoon I went for a 2.5k run, but I felt a bit off sorts and took it easy. I ended up recording 12:45, which is my slowest time since back in August, when I started up running again after my trip to Europe and the cold of winter in June/July. Let’s see if I can manage a bit faster tomorrow.

New content today:

Online grocery shopping shenanigans

This morning I was determined to do my online grocery shopping order for pickup on Friday, because for the past two weeks Ive been too busy and forgot to do it in time, and ended up having to go and do all of the shopping manually, walking around the entire supermarket to grab stuff, which takes significantly longer.

I normally like to pick up between 7-8am on Friday, but when I went to select a pick-up time, I saw that slot wasn’t available, and in fact they had nothing before 2pm. So I shrugged and selected 2-3pm.

Then at 2pm today I got a text message on my phone saying my order was ready to pick up! I’d accidentally selected today instead of Friday. I couldn’t go get it today, as I had things to do, and I was looking after Scully as well, so I couldn’t go into the supermarket with her. So I had to phone the supermarket and say I’d accidentally selected the wrong day, and could I please pick up my groceries tomorrow instead. They were very understanding and helpful and said that would be fine (I guess they get this problem a lot). The woman asked me what time tomorrow I’d like. I should have said 7am… but wanting to cause as little fuss as possible I just said “the same time, 2pm will be fine”.

Then on the way home from university this evening I suddenly realised I can’t pick it up at 2pm tomorrow either! I have an online ethics class at 2pm! Ugh. So now tomorrow morning I’m going to have to call them up again and change the pick-up time again.

Tonight was the last teaching night of the Data Engineering course at university, so from next week I’ll have my Thursday evenings free again. That should make my current time pressure a bit easier.

For lunch today I took Scully for a walk to the fish & chips place and we had a nice lunch overlooking the harbour, on what looks like being the final sunny day for a while. The weather forecast for the next week is back to rain every day. But the brief dry spell was glorious while it lasted. All… (checks Bureau of Meteorology website)… Good lord. We’ve had just three days without rain, and it feels like it’s been sunny forever.

For dinner tonight before the university class, I went to Chinatown, which is just a couple of blocks from the university. I found a place with outdoor tables and a bunch of noodle restaurants, where I got a cheap and huge bowl of fried hand-made noodles with chicken and vegetables.

Delicious and very filling!

The other issue that arose today was the database for Irregular Webcomic! got updated to a new MySQL version the other day. It seemed to be working fine, but people pointed out issues with UTF-8 encoded characters not rendering properly. It seems something in the upgrade changed the encoding of characters in the database fields. I need to have a close look and figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it, which is not something else I needed to add to my over-full to-do list. So it’ll have to wait a bit.

New content today:

Course planning x2

This morning I went out to pick up the weekly groceries, which I’d ordered online. Strawberries are still super cheap, so I picked up another couple of punnets while I was there. I suppose I should try remember to just order them as part of the online ordering.

One quirk of the supermarket online shopping system is that if you search for something like “strawberries” it displays a page of results full of strawberry yoghurt, strawberry ice cream, strawberry jam, and some other things, and actual strawberries don’t even appear until the second page of search results. It’s similar with most search terms – I tried to find basil or something and ended up with a page full of basil-oil-infused shampoos and similar stuff, again with actual basil on the second page of results. I wonder if this is deliberate, forcing you to scroll past unrelated products in the same way that they force you to walk past aisles of stuff in order to get the milk at the back of the store.

Back home I worked on making new Darths & Droids comics. I wanted to get that done before lunch, so I could work on course material for both the Data Engineering course that I’m revising for the university, and also the Creative Thinking course that I’ll be starting on Outschool on Sunday. I have two kids enrolled now, so I’ll be going ahead with it this week, after last week’s delay because I only had the one enrolment. So I have to make some more slides for that, and possibly even start thinking about the second week’s lesson.

I had a really interesting lesson with the ethics of superheroes this evening too. I had a class with two kids. I asked the question:

There was an online comic a few years ago that pointed out that Superman could do more good in the world not by fighting crime, but by turning a generator to make electricity. This could power the world, stop CO2 emissions, and save the environment and millions of people. Should Superman stop fighting crime and do this instead?

The first kid, a boy, said no, Superman’s whole point is to fight crime, so that’s what he should do. The second, a girl, started, “Well, If I was Superman and they asked me to do that…”

I expected her to say: “I’d say no, I want to fight crime, not turn a generator all day.”

But she said: “I’d definitely do it! I wouldn’t have to go out and catch criminals, and I could just set up a TV and watch shows all day while I turn the handle.”

So that was fun! And tonight is online board games night with the guys. We’ve tried a new game for me: Incan Gold, which is a quick press-your-luck game themed on raiding ancient temples for gems. Not gold, interestingly.

New content today: