dangermouse.net – Page 47 – David Morgan-Mar

Christmas Eve family stuff

It’s Christmas Eve, which means the big gathering of my extended family. We’ve always had it on Christmas Eve, which makes it easy for people with partners to attend the other family’s Christmas Day events.

It used to be a gathering at on the family member’s house, but with all of my mother’s generation having now downsized or moved out of the city after the kids have moved out, nobody has a suitably large home to host it any more. So for the past few years it’s been held at a park in Sydney’s west, by the Nepean River, but we’ve missed them because of COVID. This year is the first year we went to attend the event in the park.

It’s about a 45 minute drive there on motorways most of the way. We arrived a bit after 2pm (it had started at 2, though a few people had got there early to reserve a spot in the park. They needn’t have bothered – I thought the park would be packed with people out having picnics, but we actually had the whole park to ourselves! Scully got to run around free of the leash for the whole afternoon (and now she’s super tired tonight).

It was warm there: 35.5°C. Fortunately we were sitting in the shade and there was a bit of a breeze, so it didn’t feel bad at all. The generation below me (my cousins’ kids) are all roughly teenagers, and they were playing variously casual cricket, softball, and soccer. I joined in and had a bit of a hit with the softball bat. I prefer cricket, but by the time I joined in they’d retired that and moved on to softball. We also played some quoits.

There were just a few snacks and nibbles, and the wife of one of my cousins made her famous caramel slice. Everyone else was moving on to dinner at a nearby rowing club in the evening, but we left a bit before then to drive home (where I just made omelettes for dinner).

On the way back we stopped for petrol, and I went in to pay and said, “Pump 2”, and the guy behind the counter seemed confused and said, “No, you’re 1”.

I said, “No, I checked, I’m 2”.

He said, “You’re the black car there, right?”

I said, “No, I’m the blue car at the other pump.”

The guy had a look of horrified revelation and said, “That guy who just walked out paid for your pump!”

He must have realised there was something wrong because he came back in. The guy behind the counter said, “Sorry, you’ve paid for this man’s fuel.”

And the man turned to me and said, “Merry Christmas!”

We had a bit of a giggle and the guy behind the counter sorted it all out. Unfortunately… because then I had to pay for it!

After we got home I took advantage of the cooler evening to go for a 2.5k run. I really wanted to get this done before Christmas, because this run took my total running distance for the year 2022 to 500 km! I noticed a couple of months ago that this landmark was within reach, and have been diligent to try to reach it, so that felt pretty good. Although I ran a fairly slow time in the evening heat. (25.3°C, 66% humidity)

Tomorrow we have Christmas Day lunch with my wife’s family. I’m looking forward to meeting her nephew’s girlfriend, who is from Norway and has never been to Australia before. I hope she’s enjoying the heat which has finally hit us after that unusually cold start to December.

New content today:

Magic card sorting II

Another day mostly spent sorting Magic cards, like yesterday. I completed a set of cards and put them neatly into an old shoebox. They fit with a little space left over, so I filled it with basic land cards. I didn’t count the cards, but measuring the piles and dividing by the known thickness gave me an estimate of close to 2500 cards that I’ll be giving to this boy.

This morning I picked up the groceries. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve been ordering everything but fresh fruit and vegetables online, to make it fast and easy to pick up, but when I get there I grab fruit and vegetables myself. I tried ordering those as well, but found I wasn’t happy with the produce they selected for me. Today I grabbed the usual apples and bananas, and also more mangoes, which continue to be cheap and abundant. So far we’ve had R2E2 and Calypso mangoes, so today I grabbed some Honey Gold variety.

At lunch I drove to my wife’s work with Scully and a large package that we’d picked up at the post office yesterday. It’s for her boss, and it was heavy, full of books, so she didn’t want to have to carry it to work herself. She got to finish work at midday today, being the last day before the Christmas break. So we drove from there over to the Naremburn bakery to ave lunch and pick up a dozen fruit mince tarts – some for us and some for her family.

This evening I did a 2.5k run. I’m now up to a total of 497.5 km for the year, which means my next run will tick the total over to 500.

Tonight is online board games night with my friends. I’ve lost badly at two games of Jump Drive, but managed to win the last one. And we’re now deep into a game of Ticket to Ride.

New content today:

Magic card sorting

I spent much of today sorting through old Magic: the Gathering cards, to pull out sets of common cards to give to that boy I mentioned a few days ago. I’ve got several piles of cards earmarked. I emailed the mother and said it would be about a shoebox full of cards, but it’s looking like it will be a bit more than that.

I was going to take Scully for a long walk at lunchtime, to pick up some mince tarts from the Naremburn bakery, but I looked at the weather radar and noticed rain heading in. It might have hit us before we got home, so I elected to take her for a shorter walk down to Bayview Park instead. We made it back before the rain hit, which was good.

For dinner tonight, my wife suggested we grab fish & chips from the local shop. We walked up there and grabbed a table under the awning to eat as the rain began again. There’s somethig nice about fish & chips under a shelter in the rain.

A couple of nights ago I finished reading the last volume of Peter Ackroyd’s History of England. I checked my “to read” list and decide to start work on Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. I’ve had this on my shelf for several years, but have never begun it because it’s so huge and daunting. But I’ve started now, and I’m several pages into the first 60-page chapter, which is entirely about milk and dairy products. It’s fascinating so far – I think this will be a great read!

New content today:

Reuben lunch

Today was my wife’s regular scheduled Wednesday off work. We dropped Scully in for a wash and groom at the dog groomer and then we drove out to a suburb I’d never heard of before, Wheeler Heights. I’d suggested yesterday that we grab some lunch somewhere and my wife said she didn’t want anything fancy, just a sandwich or something. So I searched for the best sandwiches in Sydney, and found a place called Tothy Brothers Deli, which boasted a delicious sounding menu. Most of the other places on the list I found were either in the heart of the city, or in less convenient suburbs, so I chose this one.

We drove there and I chose the Reuben sandwich. Now, any Americans reading this will no doubt know what a Reuben is, but it’s not very well known or popular in Australia, and so it’s difficult to find anywhere that makes them. In fact, this is the first place I’ve ever been to in Australia that has offered a Reuben on the menu.

I remember the first time I ever had a Reuben. It was in Baltimore in 1991, when I was doing my Ph.D. and spending some time studying at Johns Hopkins University. The day I arrived, I checked into my accommodation and went wandering in search of dinner. There was a deli right near where I was staying, so I walked in and looked at the menu. I saw “Reuben” and I’d never heard of it before, so I ordered it, and it felt at that time like the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

I’ve since tried Reubens again in Salem, Massachusetts, and Burlingame, California, and neither were as good. Today I had my fourth Reuben sandwich, and the first one in Australia.

It was really good. I will have to go back to this sandwich place again some time.

Also, they had muffins. It looked like they baked a batch of just the one flavour, which I assume they change each day. I ordered one without even asking what it was, because they looked so good. It turned out to be mango and passionfruit and oh my goodness, it may have been the best muffin I’ve ever eaten. So moist, and laden with fresh fruit. I had to stuff it in after the Reuben, but it was worth it.

We ended up not cooking anything for dinner just eating a few toasted crumpets and a mango. Lunch was definitely the big meal of the day!

New content today:

Korma Chameleon

Last grocery shop I bought some paneer, intending to use it in a curry some time this week. Today I decided I’d try my hand at making korma. I looked up a few recipes and got the gist of the ingredients. I had almost everything I needed in the kitchen, except for ground almonds, and the recipe I decided to follow also used fresh mint leaves. So during my afternoon walk with Scully I popped into the small nearby supermarket to get some of each.

I used plain yoghurt instead of buying Greek yoghurt, and that gave the resulting korma a bit of a tang, but it was fine and delicious. I also added some finely chopped broccoli to give it some more green content.

Most of today I spent assembling and then writing annotations for the remainder of that last batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips that I photographed a week ago. That means I’m now buffered up to the middle of January, which is good! I’ll try to make another batch before the end of the year, and I’ll have a nice safety buffer heading into the new year.

The other main thing that happened today is that I finally heard back from Lufthansa about our claim for compensation for the 24-hour delay we had in Singapore back in June. They have agreed to pay us the 1200€ EU-stipulated compensation for travel delay and reimburse most (though not all) of the additional expenses we incurred because of the delay. The email they sent says they have already processed the deposit into our bank account, and we should see the money in a few days. It’s not 100% of what we asked for, but it’s close enough, and I’m happy enough not to bother trying to squeeze out the few extra euro.

New content today:

Handymanning

This morning I had my dental appointment to have a filling fixed. It was at 8am, so I grabbed some breakfast quickly before heading out. I had an anaesthetic, so my mouth was numb for a few hours and didn’t return to normal until almost 1pm. I avoided eating until then.

But at midday I took a drill and screwdrivers to my wife’s work to install a WiFi video doorbell on her office door. She’d requested one from her boss and it had been ordered and arrived, but for all this week my wife is working there alone as everyone else is working from home for the whole week. I said I could install it, but she asked her boss if he wanted to hire a handyman to do it, but he just said, “Doesn’t someone have a handy hubby who can do it?” So I got the job. it was pretty easy – only took a few minutes.

Then I too Scully and we drove over to the Italian bakery where I grabbed a slice of pizza and a cherry danish for lunch, now that my mouth had recovered from being numb.

This afternoon I worked on some Darths & Droids comics. And took Scully for a walk. Oh, and I made okonomiyaki for dinner.

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:

Lunch in the city

Today was cold. Really cold for December in Sydney. The temperature didn’t even reach 20°C – it topped out at 19.9°C. It was also windy, and there were a few drizzly showers, so it felt even colder – the maximum “apparent temperature” was only 14.7°C. Don’t forget it’s summer here. We’re supposed to be having days over 30°C at this time of year. Today actually felt like the middle of winter.

Despite this, we had to venture out to the city for a birthday lunch for my brother-in-law. We took Scully in on the ferry. Here’s a shot I took as the ferry approached Circular Quay:

We disembarked and walked south through the streets to lunch. We passed through Martin Place, the central square in Sydney, where the city’s giant Christmas tree is:

Before heading to lunch we stopped off at Hyde Park so Scully could run on the grass a bit and do a toilet.

We also stopped off at a game shop to buy a copy of the second edition of Camel Up, that I’d ordered from them a couple of weeks ago.

While we were in there, a woman and her daughter, about 12 years old, came in and the mother was asking the staff for assistance with buying some Magic: the Gathering cards for the daughter, who wanted to start playing the game with her friends. The staff gave some advice about various decks they could buy. After the staff had finished the mother and daughter browsed around a bit and I approached and said I’d overheard that the girl wanted to start playing Magic, and I said I had an old collection with hundreds of old common cards that weren’t worth my while trying to sell, so I could let her have them for free. The woman was extremely grateful and I gave her my email address so she can contact me to arrange to pick them up some time. I was happy to help, especially for a young girl who wants to get into the game.

We had lunch at a French place, sitting outside because of Scully. Although we were under an awning, the drizzle got us a bit wet, and it was very cold in the wind. The food was good – I had a burger and chips, and then waffles and hot chocolate for dessert, which were both really good.

After lunch we walked back to Circular Quay to catch the ferry home again. Scully had a fun day out, walking through the city and riding the ferry. This evening she’s completely exhausted!

New content today:

Navigating car navigation

I got up early this morning to take the car in for its annual service. I took Scully, and after dropping off the car we walked home. The goal was to get home after my wife left for work, so that Scully wouldn’t notice her leaving. We managed it, barely, as I spotted my wife leaving and walking down the street as we approached, but fortunately Scully didn’t see her and go running after her.

At home I had just enough time to eat breakfast before my ISO Photography Standards meeting. We discussed depth cameras and organising experiments for them to measure various performance statistics such as depth accuracy, resolution, noise, and so on.

After that I photographed the new batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips. That took me until about 11:30, at which point the car service place rang up and told me the car was ready to pick up. I had lunch at home, and then took Scully for a walk back to the car place. We drove home via the bakery at Naremburn, where I picked up a half dozen fruit mince tarts. Last year we had tarts from this bakery and they were the best ones from all of the places around that we sampled.

On the drive home, I checked the GPS navigation in the car, for which I’d asked them to update the maps. The GPS location seemed to be working, but the maps layer was completely absent. I called them up when I got home, and they said to bring the car back in fr them to look at it. So I had to drive back to the service centre. I waited while they fiddled with it. They tried redownloading the maps into the SD card and reinstalling in the car, and that worked.

I came home again, and spent some time editing photos from my trip to Europe in June. I got to the ones where we did a boat tour along the canals of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. There’s a historical canal that runs through the city centre, and passes underneath several houses.

One of the houses had a glass floor and we could look up into the house!

Tonight is games night with my friends. It’s a face-to-face fortnight, but we all agreed to do online games this week, since one of the guys has COVID, and another has fears of exposure/symptoms. I just won a game of 7 Wonders, which is something quite rare, so I’m feeling good about the night so far.

New content today:

A new game company

I picked up groceries this morning instead of my usual Friday, because tomorrow I need to drop the car in for annual servicing, and then walk back home in time for an ISO Photography Standards ad-hoc group meeting on depth camera experiments. (Held online via MS Teams.)

I grabbed more mangoes, which are even cheaper this week. We’ll be taking advantage of his mango glut for as long as it lasts. The past two weeks we’ve had R2E2 mangoes, but today I grabbed Calypso mangoes, which are probably my favourite – they’re smaller than R2E2, but sweeter and with a stronger “mango” flavour.

I spent much of the day writing new Irregular Webcomic! strips. I want to photograph a batch tomorrow, after my meeting. I’ve got all but one written, which I’ll polish off quickly tomorrow before I start photographing.

At lunchtime I walked over to my wife’s work to pick up Scully, who she took to work today. I stopped to get some sushi at a place near her work where I hadn’t been before. They made it fresh and it was really good – I’ll have to go back there again. I took Scully home a longer way, via the bakery at Naremburn, where I stopped for a custard tart.

This afternoon on our group chat, I posted this logo which I found on the university staff admin website:

Logo that looks like: workfgrce software

I was commenting on (a) how it looked like “workfgrce SOFTWARE”, (b) the fantastic kerning, and (c) the beautiful grey on graduated grey background colour scheme. A friend of mine said:

If I ever start a company, I’m going to call it something dumb like workfgrce or disnep (but not those since they’ve been done). But then make a logo that makes it look like a normal word with some stupid font. But the dumb thing it looks like is the real name of the company.

Anyone else want to work for a place called GreafGgmes? OMFG that would absolutely never get old. It’s almost enough to motivate me to get off my arse and start a business just to do that.

Another friend replied:

Greafgmes. The two ‘G’s should be one big G.

And so I made this logo for our new company:

logo that looks like: Greaf gmes

We’ll be publishing our new gmes soon!

New content today: