September 2024 – dangermouse.net

Busy Baking Bits

I made sourdough bread today, and I made pizza for dinner. Tonight we had mushroom pizza, which is a topping we don’t have too often.

Again, it was a pretty standard day. I had a bunch of classes to teach. And in between I worked on next week’s new topic, which is Time Passing. I’ll be asking the kids questions about what things change over time, how fast, why, and what’s good and bad about how things change. We’ll also look at aspects of nostalgia, and looking forward to the future.

The reason I did it today instead of waiting until Tuesday like I normally do is that tomorrow I’m planning to go out in the morning and spend the time doing some stuff I wouldn’t normally get to do. This is because my wife is going to take Scully to work, so I won’t have to look after her at all, and I can go places that I wouldn’t be able to take a dog. I’m thinking I might do the Bondi to Coogee walk.

New content today:

Reasons to lie

It’s interesting in this current ethics topic I’m teaching on Detecting Lies. I ask the kids what are some reasons why people might tell lies. The very first thing they think of, in every single class, is:

If someone does something they shouldn’t, they might lie to stay out of trouble.

I presume this is because it’s the main reason kids lie.

This morning I worked on another new Darths & Droids comic. It was chilly and showery, so I waited until after to lunch to do my 5k run. Then it was the usual kind of afternoon and evening with classes, and cooking dinner. Tonight we had pasta with pesto and some chopped broccoli and pumpkin pieces mixed in.

I also booked a nice restaurant for our wedding anniversary, which is coming up in a few weeks. We asked our neighbours if they’d mind Scully for the evening and they were delighted to say yes.

Not much else to say about today – it was a pretty routine Sunday.

New content today:

Arcs has arrived!

Friday was online board games night, and also I received delivery of my preordered copy of Arcs, a new board game that is all the rage at the moment. Naturally I opened the box and flipped through the rules quickly, but it was left for today to read the rules thoroughly and punch out the cardboard tokens and stuff. It looks very interesting, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to try it out with my friends at our next in-person games night next Friday.

For the online games we played a bunch of the usual suspects. Earlier on Friday I taught my 4 ethics classes. I also picked up the groceries from the supermarket.

In the evening my wife messaged that she had gone somewhere after work and was on her way home on the train, and asked if I wanted to meet at the station and go straight from there to dinner. I grabbed Scully and walked straight up, arriving right at the same time that she emerged from the station entrance. We went to Xenos, a Greek place that’s been in the neighbourhood forever. I had a veal schnitzel, with vegetables and mash and mushroom gravy. Not especially Greek, but still pretty good.

This morning we dropped Scully off at grooming. I went for a 5k run, managing a much better time than my last one in the cooler weather. I’ll have to see if my times get generally worse in the warmer weather over summer.

I also did a big clean, vacuuming everything, cleaning the bathroom, washing out the shower cubicle. I had a bit of an accident with the vacuum cleaner. The dust collector cylinder was full after the last three or or so cleans, so I detached it to empty it into a bag… and the latch opened and the whole contents spilled out onto the carpet… and onto the vacuum cleaner, including into all the nooks and crannies that are normally covered when the dust collector is attached. So I couldn’t put the dust collector back on and vacuum up the dust now inside the cleaner… So I had to wipe it all down with a damp cloth. And then reassemble and clean up the mess on the carpet.

Finally, a couple of photos I took on Thursday in the rain, while crossing the Harbour Bridge on the train:

New content today:

Backwards weather day

Well. I mentioned that yesterday was hot, and the forecast for today was much colder and rainy. They were not kidding.

Today’s maximum temperature in Sydney was 17.8°C. At midnight. It got colder to the dawn, and continued getting colder throughout the morning. Today’s minimum temperature (so far) was recorded at 1pm, at 11.7°C. Since then it’s got a fraction warmer, but is still only hovering either side of 12°C.

And the rain has been steady all day at a moderate rate. We’ve had 32 mm since midnight, and it’s heavier right now, so possibly we’ll reach the forecast amount of 40 mm by midnight.

After teaching two online classes in the morning I finished off writing up the log of our last Dungeons & Dragons session, ready for our next planned one. I took Scully out in the rain for her toilet, and then instead of walking all the way to my wife’s work in the rain I drove over there to drop Scully off, before driving back home and walking to the station here to go into town for today’s lecture at the university.

Today the students began doing project work for their assessment task. The professor didn’t have any coursework lecture, but he gave an informational lecture about JPEG standards development, which he works on as part of the JPEG committee. Then we had a couple of hours of advising the student teams on their project work. I spent most of walking around and talking with the students, answering questions and giving advice on their project plans. It’s a bit more intensive than the usual lecture/tutorial sessions.

Back home I had two more ethics classes this evening, and in the hour in between I made pasta alla norma, with an eggplant and tomato sauce.

The rain should ease tomorrow, but will probably continue through the night.

New content today:

Finished the Hunger Games movies

Last night I finished watching the last half of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, completing the four movies in the series. It was okay, but I think the series peaked in the middle two movies. The ending of the last one was too predictable, even though it set itself up as a bit of a twist. Overall I enjoyed the worldbuilding, but there were some illogical things that stood out as unrealistic. Anyway, overall I enjoyed the series and think it was worth watching.

Today I completed a new Darths & Droids strip for tomorrow. I took Scully for a long walk. The weather was warm, but overcast and not as hot as the predicted 30°C. Rain has moved i this evening, but it’s not heavy yet, and it’s still quite warm outside, 20°C at almost 9pm right now. Tomorrow is supposed to be a maximum of just 18°C, and 40 mm of rain, so things will probably get wild and windy during the night.

This afternoon I finished writing up the session log of our last Dungeons & Dragons session. I shared it with my friends for checking of any errors or omissions. We’re planning the next session in mid-October.

I made broccoli frittata for dinner, before my three classes in a row – something easy for my wife to heat up and eat while I was busy.

New content today:

A short bushwalk at Allambie Heights

This morning I wrote up my next week’s ethics class, on the topic of Detecting Lies. I’m going to play a little game where I tell the students two “facts” about me, one of them true and the other a lie. And they have to ask me questions and try to figure out which is true and which is false. I’ve chosen a list of unlikely but plausible things. Hopefully it should be fun!

The idea is to get the kids thinking and talking about how easy or difficult it is to tell whether someone’s lying. What signs are there? How could you probe to find out if someone’s lying? What if someone invented an app that could tell if people were lying by analysing their voice, and it was accurate – what effect would that have on society?

After writing that up, I took Scully for a drive to refill the car’s fuel and to pick up some pies for lunch at one of my favourite pie shops, at Allambie Heights. I had a vegetable curry pie and a pumpkin and feta one. Last time I looked on Google Maps at the park where I normally eat my lunch there, I noticed there are some bushwalking tracks right behind it. So today I explored a short loop track with Scully. It leads into the Manly Dam Reserve, also known as the Manly Warringah War Memorial Park. The area I was in was at the top of some hills, so we had a good view over the park.

You can see the Manly Dam reservoir in that photo. I don’t think it’s used for drinking water any more – the park and reservoir are used for recreation. Here’s Scully posed on the lookout rock.

The track we walked along was mostly surrounded by heathland. Scully was not impressed.

Back home in the afternoon I sorted some more Magic cards to prepare for selling them. I also made a sourdough loaf to give to our neighbours while returning the now-empty and cleaned jar of home-made marmalade that they gave to us a few weeks ago. I took them over while the bread was still warm from the oven, and they said they’d try some tonight.

New content today:

Kickstarter refund done!

That Kickstarter campaign from 2017 that I mentioned yesterday, that never delivered my backer rewards, but which reached out to offer a refund after 7 years….

I sent an email to them, with a screenshot of my pledge, with add-on items. It came to US$287. Quite an amount to be out of pocket for so long.

And they came through! They refunded not only the full amount, but they even rounded it up to an even US$300. I wasn’t expecting that.

In other news I did my 6 ethics classes online today. And my back seems to be better, so when my wife got home from work I went for a 5k run in the evening before it got dark. I took it easy and did a fairly slow time, also because it was significantly warmer than it usually is when I go running.

The only other thing to report is that I’m currently watching the Hunger Games movies on Netflix. I noticed them on there and decided to watch the first one on a whim. I had a rough idea what the story was about, and the plot arc of the first movie was pretty predictable, although I did enjoy the first half where it was leading up to the actual Hunger Games contest. I found the worldbuilding and the quirks of the characters interesting. The second half was more predictable and routine. Overall I rated it decent, but not great.

But then I watched the sequel, Catching Fire. Much better movie. There were some real unexpected things in there, and I got more drawn into the story. I’ve now also watched Mockingjay Part 1, which was good too, and am about to start Mockingjay Part 2.

New content today:

Random blinds cleaning

Today I suddenly decided that I wanted to clean the vertical blinds that we have on the windows in the living room. Unfortunately with the humid weather we’ve been having the past few years they’ve developed mould spots on them, which I attempt to clean occasionally with mould remover, but they keep coming back. So I decided to take the blinds down completely and wash them in bleach solution to totally kill the mould and clean the spots off.

This was far easier said than done. The blinds are fiddly once removed from the wall mounts, and the long vertical blades are all connected by strings which can get tangled. I washed them, but then had trouble laying them out to dry. Eventually I decided I had to rehang them as sunset was approaching and I didn’t want our windows to be uncovered at night, and they were still a bit wet between some of the blades.

The result was not great and some of the blades got wrinkled in the washing process. And some of the connecting string bits that keep the blades parallel broke. The blinds are pretty old and I’m thinking it’s time to replace them with brand new ones. So probably some time during the week I’ll call a blinds company and have them come measure up the windows for new ones.

In other news, I got an email today from a Kickstarter campaign that I backed in 2017 that never delivered any rewards. It says to contact them and they’ll arrange a refund! Wow… I’d given up on getting anything from this Kickstarter about 4 or 5 years ago. Now just to see if they really follow through and process the full refund.

Apart from these things it was a pretty usual Sunday. Some comics work, walking Scully with my wife, cooking dinner (Indian spiced chick peas and potato), and three ethics classes.

New content today:

No running Saturday

Normally on Saturday morning I’d do a 5k run. But this morning my wife was doing her work thing again for the exhibition from the art class students, like last night. so I was looking after Scully. Also, last night at the board games event I twisted funny and slightly pulled a muscle in my lower back. I’d put some ice on it, but it’s still a bit sore today, so I thought I’d take a rest from running to make sure I don’t aggravate it in any way.

After lunch I walked down to the art exhibit with Scully to meet my wife, who helped to pack it up from midday. Then we walked back home together, so we could all get some exercise.

In the afternoon I made some Darths & Droids strips, and then we drove over to my wife’s mother’s place to deliver some things and hang out for a bit. While there I took Scully out to the edge of the cliff overlooking the harbour.

We left a bit after 5pm and decided to stop at a suburb on the way home to see if we could find a nice place to eat dinner. There were a few restaurants, but none of the menus appealed until we found a take-away pizza place which had a couple of simple tables out the front on the footpath. So we ordered some pizzas and just sat there to eat them, right out of the cardboard boxes. Sometimes it’s fun to just do something simple like this, rather than a fancy restaurant meal.

New content today:

Sushi and pizza day

First thing this morning was picking up the groceries from the supermarket. We had to get a new bottle of olive oil, and that one item added about 30% extra to our normal weekly grocery bill. It’s expensive stuff!

After some classes, I took Scully up the street to get some sushi, both for my own lunch and also some for my wife to eat after work before she headed back to work for a special exhibition in the evening. Her work runs art classes and they were having an exhibition of pieces done by the students, with sales to raise money and stuff. They’re also doing it on Saturday morning, so she has to go in and do some stuff there for that too.

While she was doing that, I went to a friend’s place for board games night. I didn’t have too long, because I needed to leave by 9pm to pick up my wife from her work. But we got in a game of Flamecraft, which is all about dragons doing cutesy things to collect resources and spend them in various ways to create enchantments and score points.

We paused the game for pizza when it arrived. The place we got it from had a couple of very interesting pizza toppings: pulled pork and coleslaw, and one with Szechuan prawns. They were both delicious.

New content today: