A beautiful evening run

I didn’t do a 5k run yesterday because of the foul weather. Although rain was forecast today, and there were a few showers around, it was mostly pleasant and sunny. My wife came home from work a bit earlier than usual, and I took the opportunity to go for a run before sunset. At the halfway mark the view was so nice I had to pull out my phone and take a photo.

The city from halfway

I now have 6 ethics classes on Mondays, and that takes up a lot of the day. After the first four I had a break for lunch and took Scully for a walk to the post office. There’s usually not much of a wait, but today there was a queue of ten other people there before me, so I had to wait a bit. One guy had a whole hand-trolley with multiple boxes containing packages he wanted sent off. He just kept pulling them out one after the other and was still getting through them by the time I left.

During the afternoon I took a break to assemble part 9 of the Lego D&D set.

Lego D&D set stage 9

This adds a castle tower construction on one end, with a door accessed by the ladder. It’s a prison cell. And inside…

Lego D&D set stage 9

And from the other side we can see a mushroom patch in what looks like it might be an outdoor area.

Lego D&D set stage 9

In other news, I’ve burnt through all of my gems in Duolingo. When they converted to this gem reward system a while back, I had something like 40,000 of them, and I thought it would last me ages. But you need to use them up to keep practising when you make too many mistakes, or to access the mastery review exercises, so I’ve been slowly spending them faster than gaining them. And now they’ve run out. I can’t do any of those things any more without spending money. So it might be time to find an alternative to using Duolingo to keep up with my Italian practice.

New content today:

Friday D&D night, Saturday Star Wars night, Sunday… work

I missed updates on Friday and Saturday due to running games both night. Friday was Dungeons & Dragons at my place, the finishing up the adventure of Titardinal’s Tower. I spent much of the day in between ethics classes preparing the adventure for the evening.

I kid of repeated the dose on Saturday, spending all day preparing an adventure for a Star Wars adventure using Scum & Villainy rules, which I ran at Professor Plums, the local geek shop, for a special May the 4th Star Wars night. The adventure outline was:

Greedo gives the PCs a job to retrieve a Kyber crystal from a Jawa sandcrawler. They get the crystal, but as they leave the sandcrawler, Imperial troopers attack the crawler for some reason. They get back to the cantina to meet their onward contacts, only to discover the alien has had his arm sliced off, and Greedo is lying slumped dead in a booth with a blaster wound to the chest… And then things get complicated.

Ponda Baba was their pilot, but now he can’t fly because of the missing arm. He and Dr Evazan were supposed to escort them to Dantooine to sell the crystal to Rebel agents. So they have to find a new pilot. But then Mos Eisley spaceport is locked down because apparently someone blasted their way out of there, so they have to get through that somehow. When they finally get to Dantooine, the place is crawling with Imperials apparently looking for a Rebellion headquarters.

I had six players, mostly around 12-15 years old, plus one 40-ish woman who was the mother of one of the girls. She was clearly into Star Wars and seemed to have the most fun recognising the plot as the adventure unfolded, whereas a couple of the kids didn’t know the original movie, so it was a bit lost on them, But I think everyone had fun playing. Here’s the flyer the shop used to promote the event:

May the 4th Star Wars RPG night

Today I was also very busy, catching up on things that I couldn’t do the past two days because of prepping for the games. I made another week’s worth of Irregular Webcomic! strips, and wrote most of a Darths & Droids strip, but I’ll have to finish that tomorrow.

New content today (I’m not going to list Friday & Saturday’s strips, just click back if you need to):

No more problems with Instagram?

After yesterday’s trouble with Instagram, I tried searching today for what to do if Instagram stops working after you deactivate a linked Facebook account. I didn’t find anything specifically about this problem, so decided to explore a bit more in Instagram itself. And lo, when I opened the app, it was working properly again. So… I dunno… maybe yesterday was just some weird glitch that coincidentally happened after deactivating Facebook. Anyway, it all seems good now. I’m very happy that I didn’t have to troubleshoot or go through some ridiculous series of steps to fix it.

Today was pretty busy. Five ethics classes. There’s a girl in one of the classes, she’s really outgoing and funny. Today I gave a scenario and started asking questions as usual. She said, “You know, whenever we get these stories about someone acting ethically dubious, I think you’re always just writing stories about me.” That was pretty funny.

And in between I was busy making comics. I took Scully for a walk at lunch, and we were again lucky to dodge the intermittent rain that’s been floating around all day. And for dinner I made pan-fried potato gnocchi with pesto. That’s about it for today, really.

New content today:

Problems with Instagram

Okay, so I deactivated my Facebook account a few days ago. Something I’ve been wanting to do for years. Today I wanted to use Instagram and… it wouldn’t show me my normal feed. I couldn’t post a photo. I went into the Account Settings to try to log out and back in again, and it wouldn’t load the account info page.

I figure this must have something to do with my Facebook account being deactivated, because they’re both owned by Meta. But I switched to Scully’s Instagram account (yes, she has one), and that was working fine. But Scully doesn’t have a Facebook account. So clearly Instagram can work without an associated Facebook account. So why is mine now completely broken?

I’ll have to look into this another day, because today was very busy and I’ve just finished three ethics classes in a row, after spending the middle of the day at the university doing tutoring for the Data Engineering course. We’re approaching the end – only two more weeks to go. But I’ll have marking of student reports and videos to do.

This morning I also had to dash up to the post office to mail some more Magic cards to people. The weather was rainy again today, and I got sprinkled on, but it wasn’t heavy. It would have been miserable taking packages there in heavy rain.

In other teaching news, I heard back from Loreto Kirribilli and now that it’s second term of the school year, they have organised a group of four Year 9 students for me to mentor. We’re going to do fortnightly sessions this term, and then maybe organise something different in third term. I go to visit the school to begin in two weeks. I’m looking forward to this -it should be fun, and also hopefully really inspiring for the students.

Oh, and finally, last night I had a big panic when Wednesday’s Irregular Webcomic! wasn’t ready in time for the automated update, and I quickly assembled the comic, uploaded it, and forced a manual update. It was only when I woke up in the middle of the night that I realised it was Tuesday, not Wednesday, and I’d therefore manually published Wednesday’s comic just an hour after Tuesday’s one!! So to correct for this, there’s no new comic tonight – since tonight’s comic was actually published yesterday.

New content today:

… And wintry weather has arrived

Tuesday, time to write my lesson plan for the new week of ethics classes. This week the topic is “Taking Advantage”. As in people who do things like cut in to queues, or park in disabled spots (when they’re not disabled), or generally otherwise take advantage of other people by bending rules, ignoring social conventions, or generally being insufferable. I said yesterday this week’s topic would be “Mysterious Beasts”, but I was getting ahead of myself – that’s for next week.

The weather turned cold and dismal today. A cold rainy front came in mid morning and cooled things down from a top of 19°C, so that by lunchtime it was just 16°C. There was also intermittent rain all day. The forecast is pretty dismal too: cold and rainy like this for at least the next ten days. We are expecting heavy falls on the weekend, close to 100 mm.

I took Scully for a walk in a brief non-rainy period. And this evening I cooked a recipe that we call “cauliflower bomb”. The recipe is online here, although with a less evocative name. It’s one of the more complex recipes I make, with several steps of preparation, cooking, and lots of pots and dishes and utensils to wash up afterwards. I also roasted the cut off cauliflower leaves, which are delicious when roasted with oil, salt, and garlic until crispy. We had those as an appetiser before the main cauliflower itself. I mentioned this recipe back in 2020 when I discovered it, and that blog post has a photo from then.

I also did some comic stuff today, both Darths & Droids and Irregular Webcomic! I’m cutting really close to publication time on both at the moment, and in fact missed the update time for the latter by an hour or so. Hopefully I’ll catch up this weekend.

New content today:

The last perfect day of autumn…

Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth… then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away.

Carl Sagan said this in his TV series “Cosmos”. I’m reminded of it on a day like today, when it’s absolutely gorgeous autumn weather – warm, with a light breeze, and just a pleasure to be outside. Not too hot like summer, and not yet descending into the chill of winter. And with the forecast for tomorrow being rainy and much colder, it will probably feel like the start of winter.

So today felt like the last perfect day of autumn. I had four ethics classes before lunch, but then took the chance to take Scully on a nice long walk in the sunshine, filtered through high cirrus clouds so it wasn’t stinging. We stopped at The Grumpy Baker and I got a spicy vegetable roll for lunch – like a sausage roll but filled with a kind of Moroccan spiced vegetable mix. It’s really good.

Then Scully got to run around and chase a ball on the grass by the harbour for a bit before we walked back home. She rolled in the grass a bit, enjoying the scents, but it was okay because we had planned to give her a bath this evening. We meant to do it on the weekend but time got away from us.

Scully after rolling in the grass

I spent some time making stage 8 of the Lego D&D set. This adds a door and arches around the dungeon level, and adds a roof which looks like a floor of the storey above.

Lego D&D set, stage 8

I made pizza for dinner, but didn’t realise until the dough was ready that we’d run out of pizza cheese (a blend of mostly mozzarella with a little cheddar and parmesan for flavour)! So I had to make it with just cheddar and feta cheese. Cheddar’s not the best by itself as it gets oily when it melts, but spreading it sparely on the pizza works okay.

Then two more classes tonight to finish off the week’s topic on “Why don’t we?” questions. Tomorrow I write up the lesson plan for the next week, which will be on “Mysterious Beasts” – like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and so on. That should be fun!

New content today:

Attempting cacio e pepe again…

This morning I did another 5k run. I did the slightly harder route, all the way down to the ferry wharf and back, which has more and steeper hills than my more usual route. But I managed 12 seconds faster, so that was good!

My wife went to the North Sydney Community Centre for a four-hour introductory class on watercolour painting. She took Scully for a bit and then I walked down to pick her up half way through. My wife really enjoyed the class and came home with a decent looking landscape as a first effort.

At home, I finished writing that batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips, and then photographed the panels for them. I’ll have to assemble some on Monday for the week coming.

In between my three ethics classes this evening I tried cooking cacio e pepe spaghetti for dinner. The first time I tried cooking this dish, it worked beautifully. But every time since that I’ve tried it, the cheese has ended up lumpy and awful, rather than a smooth creamy melted sauce. It’s so frustratingly difficult. I looked up some tips afterwards – there are about a zillion web pages for “lumpy cacio e pepe”. It seems my problem is one or more of: too much heat when mixing in the cheese, too much starchy pasta water, or not enough starch in the pasta water.

No time for Lego construction today!

New content today:

Friday games and Saturday comics

No update yesterday because it was online board games night with my friends. My Friday began with getting up and heading to the supermarket for the week’s grocery shopping. Because Thursday was a public holiday and we went out, I forgot to make an online order for pickup, so I had to do it the old fashioned way and actually walk through the aisles and grab items off the shelves.

One weird thing I noticed, and this has sort of been a thing recently whenever I go into a grocery store, there was no skim milk whatsoever. There were hundreds of bottles and cartons of regular milk and some specialty varieties like lactose-free and stuff, but no skim milk at all. The past few times I’ve gone looking for milk there’s been hardly any – the previous time I tried to buy milk I got the very last 2-litre bottle of skim milk in the whole supermarket. I don’t normally buy 2-litre bottles, but there were no 1-litre cartons at all. I don’t know what’s going on, but it sure feels like there’s a severe shortage of skim milk for the past couple of months for some reason.

After shopping I had 4 ethics classes during the day. In between I used the time to sell some more of my Magic cards. I walked Scully up to the post office to send off two more packages to new owners.

For dinner we drove over to Lane Cove and Four Frogs crêperie to have galettes. I tried one of the weekly specials, a galette with lamb sausage and Moroccan spices, which was pretty good. Normally for dessert I have a sweet crêpe, with chocolate or berries or ice cream of whatever, but I felt like more savoury instead, so had a second galette, with prosciutto and goat cheese, and a drizzle of honey so there was a touch of sweetness there.

After dinner was online games with my friends. We played a new game called Bang! I didn’t like it much – it seemed pretty random and lacking any way to make reasonable decisions about what to do. I don’t think the others liked it much either. We moved on to some of our regular games: Just One, 7 Wonders, 6 Nimmt, and Sketchful. The last one is always hilarious and a great way to finish the night when we’re all feeling a bit silly.

Today I went for my first 5k run in three weeks, since I hurt my back. The back is much better now, and I managed a reasonable time even though I didn’t push myself too hard The cooler weather definitely helps. It was only 16°C when I went out this morning.

My wife went out with Scully to visit her mother, and I used the time to make a new Darths & Droids comic, and write more Irregular Webcomic! strips, in preparation for hopefully photographing the remainder of this current batch tomorrow.

I also did stage 7 of the Lego D&D set. This adds part of the walls to the stage 6 base, which seem to be separating it into an outdoor area and a dungeon-like underground area.

Lego D&D set, stage 6

And here’s the rear side, showing the dungeon area, with a bunch of abandoned weapons, coins, bones of adventurers who met their untimely ends here, and a gelatinous cube complete with a skull inside it!!

Lego D&D set, stage 6

And finally, I disabled my Facebook account today. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but it was the only way I kept in contact with a lot of people. But I decided that it was getting annoying enough that I had to cut the link. It feels good never to have to look at Facebook again!

New content today:

An expedition to art

Today is Anzac Day, Australia’s public holiday of remembrance for war dead. I still had ethics classes in the morning, and my wife went out with Scully for a bit while I did those.

When she got home and I’d finished teaching, we went for a drive out to Concord to the premises of the Drummoyne Art Society. The reason was to go see an exhibition which included a couple of works by our ex-neighbour – the one who owns Luna, Scully’s best-poodle-friend. She has an Instagram here where she posts a lot of her art. She does abstract watercolours and told us about the show, so we were keen to go have a look.

My wife had called up yesterday to make sure the exhibition was open on the public holiday, and had been assured that it was. But when we got to the gallery, it was closed. She phoned up to see if anyone would answer and got onto someone who was confused when we said we were at the gallery and it was closed. Eventually they worked out that we had gone to the wrong place! The exhibition was not at the Art Society’s gallery in Concord, but instead at the Drummoyne Civic Centre, a couple of suburbs away! So we drove over there.

It was close to the Drummoyne Bakehouse and we were hungry, so we stopped in there first for lunch. Then we walked back to the Civic Centre and went into the exhibition. There were a couple of hundred or so artworks: oils, acrylics, pastels, pencil, watercolours, and also some digital art. We spent time looking at all of them and there were some very good ones in there. We also got to vote on a “people’s choice” award and picked our favourites.

Then we headed back home and I had a bit of time to do some comics work before my evening ethics classes began at 5pm. I made lentils and rice for dinner during an hour break between classes.

Oh! And I also had time to do stage 6 of the Lego Dungeons & Dragons set build. This is a new section, and so far it’s just the base, which is much larger than the previous building.

Lego D&D set: stage 6

New content today:

Busy day at Data Engineering

I had a pretty full day. First thing I took Scully for a walk while my wife left for work (to avoid Scully pining for her as she leaves home). Then I had to pack some more Magic cards to post overseas to someone who bought them. And then walk up to the post office and send it off.

When I got back home I thought I’d have an hour or so to deal with some other things, but I looked at the time and realised I had t leave for the university almost immediately to make it on time for today’s project tutorial session! So I quickly grabbed my things, and Scully, and walked her up to my wife’s work, then over to the station to catch a train into the city.

I grabbed lunch at the university, a halal snack pack again like I had two weeks ago. I tried a different sauce this time, garlic sauce instead of chilli. It’s a delicious lunch, but loaded with meat and hot chips, so not exactly the healthiest thing. I also grabbed a slice of poppy seed cake from a German bakery as a sweet treat for afterwards during the tutorial.

Students are now working on their Data Engineering projects. They have until the end of next week to write up their planning report, then two more weeks to execute and report on the data analysis part. Most of the teams were in a pretty good position, having settled on a topic and done some preliminary work to either organise data collection, or download data and begin to think about analysing it, and working on their planning reports. But one team had already finished their report and moved onto the analysis part! And another hadn’t decided what project to do yet. There are always a few outliers.

Some teams stayed most of the three-hour session, utilising it to ask us questions and get guidance on various things. I didn’t get home until approaching 4pm, and my three ethics classes began at 5. Now it’s after 8… and I really should think about what to eat for dinner!

New content today: