I understand the paper solution, and I’m all on-board with it. But I’d still whip that up as a spreadsheet and print it out. Not because I couldn’t make such a chart by hand, just that it would never occur to me.

I’m a little impressed. 👍

Are people going through keyboards/mice like some sort of consumables?
I’m looking at reviews for a mouse, and something supposedly good about it is that it lasted some person four whole years. I’ve been using the mouse on my work PC for 15 years, it was the first Bluetooth mouse I purchased. I’ve been using this keyboard for 10 years, and the only reason I bought it was that I was no longer typing on my laptop keyboard. Side note: I would love to buy another one just like this one for home, but it doesn’t exist any more.

10 years with no signs of slowing in the next decade sounds right to me. 15 years for the mouse and the only reason I’m considering replacing it is I’d like one that can switch between multiple devices and maybe do away with AA batteries. Do people really go through peripherals quickly?

It doesn’t sound like someone who is on the same team as you. 😞

That actually sounds really wholesome. Plus I like baking. I’ll give is a shot. As a rule, I avoid reality TV because it’s awful.

The spreadsheet of gifts has already started on this end. I need to get up to three gifts for each person (One from wife and I, then 1-2 from the kids). There are two Christmas parties this year, and the in-law side is going to be so big this year, the adults are doing a secret santa to reduce the gift load at least amongst ourselves.

That leaves me buying 25-35ish gifts just for the extended family. Not including the four of us. Experience has taught me that leaving the shopping to the last week before Christmas is a terrible plan. Oh! And the final week of November has a kids’ birthday, Sister’s birthday, Niece’s birthday, Father-in-law’s birthday and our Wedding Anniversary. Gotta get through all that before I really start stressing about Christmas.

The only real reality TV shows are on the sports channel. Everything else is edited/scripted. 😀

I nearly bought one in 2007. It was between a Mazda 6 and a Pulsar. In the end, I went with the Pulsar because it was $2k cheaper, and all other things about the cars were pretty equal.

My life circumstances changed over the next decade (had a family), and the Pulsar was a bit small for us by the end. I ended up wishing I’d gone with the Mazda.

I think you made the right choice.

Or you drive serious km. It’s designed for people who need a car for their job.

Take a kid. Then you are a parent or uncle and they’ll think you’re cool, again. They’ll even let you buy PlayStation games without judgement if you have a kid in tow!

Prominent members of Australia’s neo-Nazi network have also launched a series of targeted harassment campaigns at police officers.

Sewell said on a livestream that his followers had identified a Victoria police officer who, in recent demonstrations, attempted to remove a mask from a neo-Nazi protester.

He boasted that he had uncovered personal information on the officer, saying members of his group had saved wedding photos and images of the officer’s family.

They may be adept at skirting the edges of the law, and staying out of prison. But there is no collusion with police. Quite the opposite, in fact. These guys will be under close scrutiny from police, and they in-turn are trying to doxx the police officers who they are at-odds with.

Do it today. Petrol usually goes up on Friday. Plus, you’ll enjoy your day off more if you know you don’t need to waste a pile of it doing the shopping.

And who started those controversies?

Frankly, Nestle. If not directly, then by having insufficient controls on the suppliers and distributors they use in assorted parts of the world. I’ve never seen any cases where Nestle products in Australia were not fine, but their track record in the developing world is inconsistent at best.

So many controversies and opinions out there and so many have been debunked yet debunking doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Many of the scandals on that page are confirmed. I don’t know of any that are debunked - you’d think they’d remove anything like that from the list. The whole ‘Our formula is better for your baby than breastfeeding’ campaign has to be one of the worst lies ever told in marketing, and that message is still strong in parts of the world. The Baby formula scandal in China is very real, and affects us in Australia as there is a whole market of buying (trusted) formula here and shipping it along with original Australian chemist receipts to China. Actually, I don’t know if that’s still going on today (it’s been a while since I shopped int he baby aisle), but it really affected local formula supplies/prices when my kids were babies.

It sounds fun, but my wife has never taken me along.
Yes, she hates bra shopping.

Aren’t we responding with ‘Enough about the bloody US election, already’? I was sick of the whole circus several weeks ago. Now, it’s supposedly over and we’re still getting articles about the whole stupid thing. I stay out of /All because it’s full of US politics.

This much noise about any other election, even our own, would be thought of as weird. But the Internet goes on and on and on about the US one. Yes, there are some ramifications for the rest of the world on how they vote. No, I’d have no problem with a few articles discussing it. But this wall-to-wall saturation for six months has left me feeling utterly sick of the whole thing.

As to AUKUS, I don’t even know what it gives us that our alliances of the past half-century already provide. It’s not like those relationships are in danger, no matter who sits in the White House/No. 10 Downing/Canberra.

Squarkly Bear! That was my local shops for my first 2 years in Melbourne. Before I was gentrified out to Preston.

Nah, not a rock star. Too much pressure and it takes over your life. You can never do normal stuff again.

You want a single smash one hit wonder that gives you enough to live it up for a year, before you invest $10 Million or so. Then retire into obscurity living very comfortably off your investments for the rest of your life. 5% of $10 Million is an annual allowance of $500k.

If you do want a lasting career, you want someone with the wealth and lifestyle, but not the fame. Someone like Dianne Warren or Max Martin. You can walk safely down the Street and nobody knows who you are. The only circles you’re famous in are rock stars and movie directors.

The one time I made one, it was two minutes after you had already made it. 🤫

That was my experience when I first got back to Perth and tried to use eBay. Weird how different places have different apps they use.

Are people in any place in the world better off today than they were four years ago?

I wonder whether the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, and the connection between Aboriginal and Palestinian causes, did quantifiable damage to the referendum results.

I don’t think the crazy in Israel and Palestine had any bearing at all. In 2023, it was just more of the same back-and-forth the region has been under since the 1940s. Things escalated this year, but that’s a different story.

The polls were pretty clearly pointing to a “No” vote well before October 2023. No surprises happened on the day.