Moose Musings

10:33pm: Well, I got off the ship and everything this morning, but yes! After five nights aboard the Carnival Adventure I'm back.

However, because I had to get up quite early and I didn't actually sleep very well I'm super sleepy right now so I won't go into too much detail, although I did keep a journal while I was gone so I'll actually properly remember what went down.

I will say that now it's Carnival cruise rather than a P&O cruise there have been changes made that are not good, on the plus side I guess that makes it less depressing that the cruise is actually no longer being offered.

Still the tennis was very enjoyable to watch live and the weather was pretty good all things considered. The only downside...I lost M's bucket hat on the bus :O( Considering that was also my archery hat this is a huge bummer. It's possible it might show up after the buses are cleaned, so I'm holding out a bit of hope.

Right, sorry about the short entry, but my bed calls and I want to do archery tomorrow, so goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Cruise

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:47pm: Forget to drive my car to work.

What did I forget to do?

Yep, you guessed it.

As it turned out this wasn't the disaster I feared because Mum and Dad's car wasn't ready, but I didn't find that out until much later in the day, so I'd arranged to meet Dad back at my apartment building. Then Mum called to say that the car place actually closes at 4pm on Fridays! Which seems pretty early, but they had also given Dad a taxi voucher so I wouldn't need to drive him in any case, wipes brow.

I also swore to Mum that I'd finish tidying my place enough to send her photos, otherwise she was going to come over before church tomorrow on the way home from the airport (she's been up visiting a friend) which I wanted to be avoid, but I have not tidied up enough for this, so nuts to to me.

Finally, I forgot that the European Figure Skating Championships is on right now! I don't think I've missed too much, so that's a relief. However, because it's on in Europe the time difference means I don't think I"ll be able to watch much of it live. Rhythm Dance in on right now, the theme is 90s so that's a blast from the past - the first couple on the ice just skated to I'm Too Sexy, which is hilarious.

Aaaand it's only 7 minutes to midnight and I have archery tomorrow so I gotta run.

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Remembering

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:44pm: The subject heading is in regards to House Flipper 2 which I have been playing with reckless abandon, too bad I can't clean my house in real life like I do these houses. I made some headway yesterday, but not so much this evening, which considering that's the reason I didn't go over to Mum and Dad's place tongith is poorly done from me. I've got two days to get this place up to Mum standard otherwise I'm going to have to clean it all in one hit, which is never fun.

And now my internet is deciding to act weird, it says it's connected but YouTube stopped working and I just got a Cloud Error from Steam... Having said that though it's late so I should take that as my cue to head to bed. I need to do my Duolingo though, can't let down the green owl XD

I don't have much else to report except for that although I'm wondering if Ghosts is back on after the Christmas/New Year's Break. I feel like I'm neglecting my fandom, shame on me! Although I have been trying to make the McFly House in House Flipper 2 sandbox mode, I think I'm doing an alright job, but it's hard to say. Someone actually did make the house, but they only decorated the main room/kitchen and garage which I found a bit weird, but maybe they ran out of time or something. It's still really good though!

Right, so on that note, I shall be off!

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room House Flipper 2

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:20pm: Well, it's late again so I really better make this quick! There was a bit of a drama at work this morning when I arrived and looked at the roster only to discover that I was supposed to do the closing shift, despite the fact that it's my half day today! Obviously, I should have checked the roster last week, but I'm not used to being on opening or closing shifts, and totally forgot.

Then, even more drama, I decided to check next week's roster - that's when I'm going to be on the Australian Open cruise, and discovered I wasn't marked as on leave! Which was thoroughly confusing to me because I definitely remembered giving notice. As it turns out though I accidentally did the old procedure for taking leave instead of the new one...which involves emailing the Branch Manager first not putting in for the leave through our Time Management...thing.

So yeah fortunately I got that all sorted out, but yeah a bit awkward not checking ahead and I'm pretty sure the Library Manager was the one who had to cover the closing shift this evening.

I did offer to do the shift although it would have meant having to take a long break in the middle of the day because I had a podiatrist appointment this afternoon, which turned out to be much longer than usual because I'm due for new orthodics so the podiatrist had to take new plaster casts of my feet. I also mentioned about my ice skates and the problem it was causing my big toe and he made some adjustments with the old orthodics I have in them so they should be way better now. It'll be a bit of time before I can test them out though! As for my new orthodics they'll be ready in a couple of weeks. They're also going to set me back quite a bit of dough and I don't have any foot related treatments on my Private Health Insurance cover because it would have required going up to the next level of cover which would have been really quite expensive and I think I figured out it wouldn't be worth it. Let's hope my maths was right!

Oh and I'm not sure I mentioned this, I think I did, but one of my library books disappeared when I was at my parent's place last week, I looked for it yesterday when I was over there, but no luck. However, I was positive it was there because it's the last place I saw it. So after the podiatrist I headed over to drop off the little container that had a piece of my mother's lasagna (which I ate for dinner last night) to look for it again. And hurrah! I found it! It was hiding under the bed, which I looked under yesterday, but obviously not well enough. What a relief though! Paying for a lost library book is expensive, plus I want to finish reading it.

RIght, it's quarter to midnight and I didn't get enough zzzs last night so I better be off, also I've got an eyelash in my eye so I have to deal with that.

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Feet

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

10:04pm: For I am 42! For real, because I was born at 9:35pm and since it is now past that time, so yeah ask me anything. :OP

Moving along, it was an interesting birthday! Firstly I had my 3.5 hour desk shift at the library, which wasn't as bad as it sounds because today was hot as Hell - 42 degrees C and the library's air conditioning held up - although I guess my home air conditioning would have been better, but generally if I'm not doing the desk shift I'm at archery, which I wouldn't have wanted to do in that kind of heat. Although a few people showed up and even took part in the working bee! Braver souls than me. However, the temperature is set to drop overnight so I will be going tomorrow for an Urban Field shoot which is always interesting.

After work I headed home immediately to keep a low profile while it was hottest, where I busied myself getting the back of my laptop off so I could check out the fan situation. And let it be said, it was bad. There was so much dust on what I now know is the CPU fan it had hardened o.O I used an old toothbrush and managed to get the dust off and I gave the GPU fan a clean as well and after turning on the laptop with the back still off both fans came to life. I turned the laptop off and put the back back on and turned it back on and now both fans are going and the temperature of the laptop is now well within operating range and my games are no longer lagging, hooray!

That was a rather involved process and by the time I got everything back together it was pretty much time for church. It was still blistering hot outside and even with all the fans going in the church - along with a small fan that appeared in the music area of the church a few weeks back it was stiffling and I was sweating. The priest did take pity on us and kept his sermon short and we finished up 15 minutes early, by which point the temperature outside had dropped almost 10 degrees, which meant it was like 33 degrees and felt positively refreshing!

Now I mentioned yesterday that I was getting together with my friend, Lara, originally we were going to meet for lunch but in the end we met up for dinner, which was for the best, firstly because I somehow forgot what time I finished work so I wouldn't have been late and secondly because of the heat. We met up at 7pm after a quick Facebook Messenger video thing with my big bro and his family who wished me Happy Birthday! In contrast to here it was like 3 degrees C in Japan today. Brrrr.

We didn't end up meeting at the RSL either, instead we met at the parking lot next to the other church and walking down to the beach where we had a dinner - take out from a burger place. It was most yummy! I also had my last two cupcakes, although after burgers we were so full that we only had a fraction of each cupcake - although I've now finished one off. Lara cut off a bit with a fork so it's safe for me to eat :OP

Before eating the cupcakes we went for a short walk to the lagoon that's near the beach, I didn't want to do too much walking, but it's one of Lara's favourite things - in fact she somehow missed that today was going to be super hot and went for a long walk at a national park today! She was quite confused that the place was so quiet for the weekend, but didn't realise about the heat until much later on when she went to buy some more water. So remember kids, even if you don't watch the news, make sure to check the weather report!

So now I'm back home (I drove to the parking lot which I don't usually do, but with the weather turned out to be a good idea) playing some House Flipper 2 and watching YouTube, a very fine end to my birthday!

Before I head off though here's...

The Friday Five

9/1/26

These questions were written by losseloth on LJ.

1. Do you have a favourite cause that you support? I donate every month to Amnesty International, which work for important causes of justice around the globe. Which is especially important in these trouble times.

2. If so, how do you support it? Er whoops, I kind of answered that above, but yes I donate $25 monthly. To my relief they seem to have stopped calling to ask for an increased donation amount (I got other bills to pay after all).

3. Have you been an active member of an organization (attending meetings, volunteering, etc)? I did join the Socialist Alliance when I was in University for about 2 seconds, I went to a meeting and decided it wasn't for me when they started talking about resisting police.

4. Have you ever led any group? Hahahaha, have you met me? That is not within my skill set, so Hell no.

5. If not, why, is it a conscious choice, of lack of opportunity? A conscious choice, I honestly can't see me ever leading anything, I'm just not that kind of person!

OK, on that note I shall be off!

Ta-ta!

BTW did you notice the time I started this update? ;O)

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Birthday

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:23pm: OK, it's past my bedtime and I gotta turn in, but I'm back in my apartment now with my Acer and I'm wondering if the overheating issue might be due to one of my computer fans not working. I've got this program on the laptop that shows what the fans are doing and while the GPU fan (I assume that one has something to do with graphics?) is spinning like a mad DJ at a club, but the CPU fan is apparently not going at all. This is a bit of a worry as I think I mentioned some time ago that there seemed to be something loose inside my laptop, like a screw or something that rattled around a bit. It's actually been like that for a while, I've even taken my laptop into the repair shop and they heard it as well, but didn't seem too concerned about it. Now though I wonder if it's got stuck in the CPU fan and that's why it's not turning.

In any case, I'm pretty sure it's a lack of cooling that's causing my lagging woes...that being the case I wonder if I should take my laptop to the Computer Repair place, I have tried to take the back off it myself, which famously almost caused me to kill my keyboard, but with some outstanding luck I managed to get the keyboard to start working again.

In other news, I've got to return half the library books I took out over the Christmas period because they're on reserve to other people, which is a bummer, especially because one of them is Dick Van Dyke's latest book...I was hoping to finish it tonight, but I can't read as fast as I used to, so suffice to say I have not managed that.

But yes, as I said it's past my bedtime so I must be off!

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Laptop Fan

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:22pm: Yes indeed, Christmas is over for another year - well slightly less than year - but anyway the point is I've taken the decorations done although not backed them all up yet. Which is a bit of a worry because I feel like Mum will want to see some photos of the apartmento when I go over tomorrow and it's certainly not looking as clean as I've previously advertised. I mean the kitchen was looking good, but that was a few days back.

Moving along, I've now freed up about 27Gb on the laptop, but House Flipper 2 still struggled today, I wonder if I've changed some setting and that's why it's struggling or maybe my laptop is running too hot, although I'm not sure why - we've had hotter days previous to this. Maybe there's dust in the vents? I guess I could take it to the computer shop across the road, but I'm not sure how much that would cost and I don't wanna drop too much dough.

Anywho, not much else to report - still working on the magazines, although tomorrow I think the Inter Library Loans delivery starts up again so I should probably put some books in box for return...

OK, so time is passing swiftly here and I have to get my butt to bed! First I need to fold my Christmas t-shirts so I can put them away so I better move it!

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Laptop

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

10:50pm: Well, that's not entirely accurate, I'm not going to have time to Sims 4 today which is a bummer, but I did have time I just got distracted by other stuff, namely "House Flipper 2, man that game is addictive and has so much customisation! After a while though, one does want to have simulated people who can enjoy all those houses you've fixed up.

And, I got distracted replying to Vic's messages and now it's nearly a quarter past 11 and with work starting up again tomorrow I gotta turn in. I wonder how tomorrow will go actually! The library tech team set our returns for a few days after all the branches re-open because in 2025 all items borrowed after the 20th December were all due back on the day we re-opened and it was insane! We couldn't keep up with the influx! I'm pretty sure one dude returned like 90 books in one go (you can have 30 items on each card, and he had three kids), so yeah.

In other news, archery did not go so well today although I did have fun. Maybe I should go in for trick shots...during the first practice end I somehow managed to shoot an arrow which landed in the wood on top of the target sideways! Someone took a photo of it it was so weird LMAO. I've also done other weird shots like shooting through the flag underneath the target that marks out distance and shooting between the target face and the wood of the target stand thing, shakes head.

Righto, so I'm gonna wrap it up here since I wanna get all the zzzs in that I can.

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Distraction

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:07pm: OK that's not the most positive subject heading, but when I woke up this morning I discovered a rash on my left wrist, which I noticed because my fit bit wasn't on. I must have removed it during the night and not noticed. I was rather confused because I've been wearing this particular Fitbit for a month now (not all the time obviously, I take it off when I shower) and another Fitbit before that and this hasn't happened before. Dr Google says it's contact dermatitis though and that I should keep the watch off until the rash goes away. Oh and clean it, which er I haven't done - I mean it didn't look dirty - if it had I would have cleaned it, obviously. Plus as I said this hasn't happened before. Still I wonder if I should see about buying a fabric strap since apparently they're less likely to cause issues.

Apart from that not much else to report - I've been playing House Flipper 2 almost obsessively, LOL, I also played Sims 4 though and the Carrot Gen is officially ready to go. As mentioned I'm planning to do alternate between boy-girl through the generations, although Carrotlyn who has grown into a teen is dang adorable. On the otherhand Julien is also cute LOL.

In other news, it's raining, which will hopefully stop by tomorrow morning because as always Archery is on and I've signed up. Also, my new sneakers suck in wet weather as I mentioned in a previous entry, I think. I don't want to wear my good sneakers though so hmmm.

Time is getting on, so I'll just meme and run...

The Friday Five

2/1/26

These questions were written by tabular_rasa on LJ.

1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water? Tap, I do put it in a jug that has room for a filter, but don't actually use it because I can't be bothered and our water is thankfully safe in Australia :O)

2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why? Indeed it is! And since fluroide is added to the water it's a good idea in order to get the benefits of that for your teeth.

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live? Well, my sense of smell sucks - it seems to have reverted back to normal after the smelly buses incident, but I'm pretty sure the generally Aussie water doesn't smell like anything, at least as far as I can tell.

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for? Nope, I'm not sure the apartment does, but I don't think so which is a shame. We could use it for the gardens here. Not that our gardens are very big, but every little bit of water recycling helps!

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle? Actually yes! Back in 1999 the health department found crytospiridum in Sydney's water supply and for a month or so we had to boil any water we planned to drink - even when we brushed our teeth. Although I've just realised this question is probably referring to restrictions due to drought and such, and we've had those in place for decades really. As a general rule, no hosing pavements and watering gardens should happen in the morning or afternoon. I'm not actually sure if they're as strict as they used to be, but they're generally followed.

Right, I better be off now, bed calls!

Ta-ta!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room House Flipper

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:20pm: Indeed it is and I thought I better update now before the New Year actually hits because I won't have time to do so after the clock strikes midnight because I need to get to bed once the clock strikes 12 because I'm going to a special Archery event tomorrow morning. Also I managed to somehow wake up at about 4:30am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, which really sucked...although I don't seem to be tired yet, but those could well be famous last words :OP

Anyway in the absence of my big bro and family I'm here at the parental abode watching Dr Gluon's New Year's Stream and the Syd Squad guys - although I can only actually listen to one of them. I was watching the Syd Squad Team on the big TV here for the 9pm fireworks, which you could indeed see quite well from the airport, good times.

Although I did miss Gluon ringing in the New Year for New Zealand because I had to go and pick Mum and her friend up after they went on the ferry to see the 9pm fireworks. Mum did invite me along, but it cost like $150 to go and also I'm not big on small boats so I decided not to go. She and her friend had a really great time, although the public transport in Manly proved to be a total ass, which is why I had to go and get them. Sadly in my haste to get there I broke the strap of my Pusheen purse :O( I'm not sure if it can be fixed though, because it's made out of PVC and the bootmaker guy might think it's not worth it or maybe they can't actually repair PVC.

I guess I have time for one Friday Five, I think I might not be as far behind as I feared.

The Friday Five

26/12/25

1. You have the summer and plenty of money to travel abroad. Where all would you go? Well, I've always wanted to go to the US, but I sure as Hell won't be doing so while a certain Orange Thing is there, so I think I'll go to Japan to hang out with the big bro and his family and maybe also check Malta and Italy.

2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat? While travelling? Well some good cheddar cheese, LOL... I guess you mean food from the countries I plan to visit. I have to admit I have a very narrow palate so...I might give some of the less adventerous foods a go, but no raw octopus or whatever LOL.

3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see? Definitely St Peter's, the Leaning Tower and Venice and in Japan I want to check out the toilet museum LOL.

4. What airline would you use? Well, either though it doesn't have the best reputation it used to, I'd go Qantas.

5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e., would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French?) I probably would, but alas I have no talent in other languages, so N/A.

OK, less than 20 minutes to go now, so I'll be off!

See you in 2026!