Melrick

I live closer to it, yet I’ve never climbed up it, nor been in NY.  (One flight I was on did overfly it, a bit over a decade ago now.)

It was really wonderful having you visit my home town, and although I didn’t do the Statue of Liberty, I have so many good memories from your time here!  

I loved my visit there.  I initially found the city to be intimidating as hell, but you helped settle me down, and then I felt I fitted in much better.

Yes, the government up here has also decided to not use the AstraZeneca vaccine for the under 50 crowd, because of those blood clot cases. But as far as I know they’re pretty much on schedule with the vaccine plans, so my parents (mum has underlying conditions, and dad’s turning 69 this year) should be up this month, and then hopefully I’ll be getting mine near the end of the month, start of May. And we’ve got decent control of the pandemic up here as well, although we had a fourth wave pick up just around Christmas, which is thankfully back under control. 

Let’s hope you guys stay on track with keeping Covid under control (knock on wood) and that you’ll get the jab soon. And I can only imagine how much stress it lifts for you that your mum is getting her jabs, and therefore getting some level of protection  

The health district that we live in is called the Hunter New England health district, which is nearly 132,000 square kilometres in size, just to give you an idea, and we haven’t had a single case of Covid for 251 days, so we’ve been living life pretty normally for quite a while now.  And here’s hoping that continues!

Alrighty then… Iceland is 103.000 km2  total     And we’re definitely not doing that well  Population is somewhere around the 350 000 mark now, I think. But I hope you guys keep doing that well, and that we’ll catch up eventually  

And my friends in NSW posted on FB yesterday, that there’s now also a plague of spiders running away from the flooding…  So, good luck with that, Melrick!

omg a plague of spiders and mice! remind me never to visit austraila! but be safe Melrick! guess i wont complain about the weather either

lol I read about the spiders.  I’m not bothered by spiders, so that doesn’t worry me.  Well, as long as the deadly ones stay outside.

Today was a day of sunshine!  Actually sunshine!  Man that feels good.  Some areas got 1 metre of rain in a 7 day period, which is about 3.3 feet.

I never met her either, but may she rest in peace.

May she be at rest, and may her loved ones find peace.

Too young.

Thank you, I appreciate it. 

Prayers for you & mum, Mel.  I’m very sorry to learn she has even more hurdles ahead. 

Thank you, Pitt. I don't think it pays to get old. 

Oh, the puns that can be had here… I think I’ll hold off….

I sea, but eye’m not one to hold back from puns. I might even make it a gull to throw around as many puns as possible. XD 

Resisting…. trying to avoid temptation …. about how shitty the day’s going, or how the head is full of it… resisting.

Sometimes your nerve endings in any part of your body can become sensitive or inflamed. I get it in the skin of my arms and legs on occassion. It’s not like a rash, it doesn’t get discoloured and the texture doesn’t change, it’s just increasingly sensitive to touch and cold, and sometimes can get painful. When it comes to the nipples, specifically, it’s a naturally sensitive part of your body. More so for some people than others, regardless of gender. It cooould be sign of a hormonal shift, which could be caused by food your eating, or medical issues, medications.

Since this is the second time, I’d consider what has changed about your routine around the time that it started. You can also go to a naturopath and request a full hormone workup, which is pretty much just a spit test where they ship it off and give you a report of your hormone levels. At least in canada, GPs will only test your testosterone and estrogen, but you got more hormones than that, lol. 

Just so  long as it’s not bad sunburn. Dear gods, that’s unpleasant as the hells… 

Nope definitely not a sunburn.  I’m a guy, so my normal routine is to wait until things are actually hanging out or falling off before going to the doctor.  But if it does it again then I might do something about it.  Or possibly wait for it to do it another 15 or 20 times first. lol

Sounds great!

I’m jealous!  But seriously, I’m glad you had a chance to have a picnic at lakeside—there’s nothing better!

Well, that wouldn’t surprise me, but we’re glad to have you back!

  Fingers crossed, mine should be restored this evening.

Here’s hoping!  It’s boring without the internet.

i told ya you need to pay your bill Melrick! butttt nooooooo! lol 

It's like being back in the 80's again.  Well, apart from the mobile phone.

Feel your pain, mine's out too, so I won't confirm checking in at work....

     An island that’s also a nation and a continent does seem a little too fictitious.  No, that can’t be right.  Hugh Jackman is real, is he not?  Now New Zealand on the other hand, I’ve never actually seen someone from there...

@Praetor Hobbits are very good at making sure they’re not seen, that’s just in the nature of a hobbit.

I’m just glad my girlfriend isn’t Australian.  At least she isn’t imaginary.

Thank you, and wish your mum a belated happy Mother’s Day from over here!

Yep she’s on blood thinners, which should hopefully deal with the possible blood clots, but they don’t stop the actual atrial fibrillations, which can be pretty devastating for her on its own.

And she’s probably not well enough for surgery, unless they could do a minimally invasive Maze procedure or something. Sorry it’s been so tough.

Yeah surgery seems out of the question.  Ah well, we just have to cross our fingers and hope things improve somehow.  Just one of the joys of growing old I guess.

I think I’m smitten! I’m going to have to read up on rules, and then watch more, but this looks far more interesting than I’d imagined. Thank you!

lol You’re welcome!

I know, it’s a pain, isn’t it? (And now they’ll change something yet again and we can all pull our hair out anew...)

Thank you for the time and effort!

It’s not that they’re difficult, just time consuming.  And when you’re sitting here sweating to death, it makes the time pass even more slowly.  But yeah, they’re fine for now, until the next change! 

I probably wasn’t very clear in my reply. I’ve been feeling less than enthusiastic about my writing lately, but my co-authored stories are very enjoyable, and I look forward to writing with both my co-authors. The subjects of the stories are very different, yes, and the stories each have different styles, but I have no particular need to write in one style, so I enjoy that as well. I adore Pip and Willow both, and I’d be happy writing a shopping list with either of them.

Let’s start @BronxWench shopping list:

• Whips
• Chains
• Butter, both soft and hard
• Produce, lots of produce

You forgot wine and chocolate, @Desiderius Price

Honestly, this whole conversation is beginning to make me wonder whether Melrick will actually survive his first visit to a snowy, cold place  or if it will just be like, Melrick steps off the plane, gets all the way to the exit of the airport and then just goes, “Nope, fuck this shit, it’s too cold...” and then turns around and goes back home to Hell… ::cough, cough:: I meant, Australia… 

I could handle the cold season by Melrick just fine, but sadly, I’m not looking to run away then. And even as heat-seeking as I am, without the occasional foray into air conditioning, I’d not last in the hot season there. 

But you know, I used to say the same thing to ShadowKnight, who swore he would love snow, and cold weather.

I don’t know how I’d handle truly cold weather.  The coldest winter day time temperature here is maybe 10C degrees, and even then I honestly can’t remember the last time it got down that low.  A 15C degree day is a bloody cold one to me.  So sub zero would probably freak me out.  It would be fun to experience, but probably for a few seconds only, and then I’d be awful keen to find a nice roaring fire nearby. lol

You’re welcome to move… currently it is windy enough to make the rain come in sideways, and a balmy 1°C That’s 33.8°F for you temperature challenged folks  

@Melrick Steaks?  A little aluminium foil, and should be able to cook it as desired.

@WillowDarkling Oh stop, you’re making me jealous! lol

@Desiderius Price  That would have probably worked.  Although much like our lawn, my appetite dries up in extreme heat.

I don’t know who Brienne is but I appreciate the offer. lol

Off topic, but you guys… giving NZ a run for their money… 

And as every right thinking Aussie said at that announcement: About bloody time!

Sounds like a big pile of shit to have to deal with. I hope things improve for you somehow.

Jeebus Melrick.  Hang in there, things are bound to improve!

Okay, boobies do make most things much better, I’ll be honest.  Thanks @pippychick 

And we wonder why kiwi haven’t taken over the world. Yeesh. If that were true for humans, I’d have remained childless quite happily.

Or, if I need to shut off the machine, right now, but windows decides that’s a wonderful time to install an update… it’s like, damn, I don’t have to option to even defer it to the next boot.  (My desktop is dual boot, linux vs windows, and a quirk of the motherboard lets me use a slider switch to choose between the two.)

If you get fed up with windows, one can try one of the Linux distributions (Mint is a typical “safe” choice).  Mine, Gentoo, is very rough, however, it doesn’t mess around when I tell it to do something; ie, shutting down doesn’t bog me down with all those “do you want to save” or other dialogs, it shuts down as instructed.

No wonder I have a headache.  Microsoft is enough to give anyone a headache.

For a short while, with win 7 and 8.1, they seemed to start getting it right, so much so that I had switched my desktop to windows due to a rather intractable technical difficulty that made Linux really tough to get working properly (new hardware and something I hadn’t dealt with before), and this was after more than a decade with Linux.  However, they soon began pushing windows 10, very aggressively, effectively forcing the switch, and that told me enough to double my efforts to get Linux back.  Once I can afford new hardware, I’m divorcing the two, and will go back to dedicated separate linux/windows machines.  (I still need windows, from time to time, both for games and tax software.)

Ah… now I get the picture. *nods*

Just turning up to claim their salary, are they? Yep. Sounds like a group of politicians I know too. And a bunch of unelected idiots whom I will never, ever, meet. And if I did meet them, the title I’d give them wouldn’t be the one they were used to. With the possible exception of Lord Adonis, who is invariably an incredible disappointment every time you see his picture alongside his name. *sighs* I might be tempted into sarcasm with that one.

I’m just going  to say congratulations, Melrick, it’s fantastic news, and hopefully the politicians will be quick to put it into law, as the people want them to. 

They’re saying they’re hoping to have the legislation in place by Christmas.  Yesterday was a good day for Australia, actually.  Marriage equality, and Australia won its soccer match, thereby qualifying for the World Cup!  Woohoo!

Btw, the name “Darwin’s Law” would work on two levels.  The capital city of The Northern Territory, which is up the Top End where all the crocs are, is called Darwin.  Drop them off there and tell them it’s okay to go swimming in any of the waterholes in the area.  The reality is that only the insane would go swimming in anything vaguely wet up there.

Excellent! If we add whale hunters to the mix, we could intimate that there are whales in the water. Nice early pay off for the viewers.

Green whales, with lots of teeth.

I actually love crocodiles. There was a program on not long back here called Spy in the Wild, and they put two cameras in fake baby crocs, and left them to see what happens to real babies. And when they all hatched, their mother (who’s been waiting for them) picks them all up in her mouth and carries them to the water where they’ll be safe. They’re all there, peeking out of this weird natural cage between her teeth. Most amazing thing. Especially since when I was a kid, nature documentaries were still telling us all that crocodiles didn’t care for their young at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVZeOt7bCw

I’ve seen that show.  Very interesting.  They used to think crocs ate their babies, because they saw them pick them up in their mouths, and they couldn’t entertain the idea that these giant, savage creatures could possibly be that gentle with their young.