Melrick

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

I’d yell at you, but my last doctor visit was actually a quick trip to the emergency room, and a follow-up with a urologist to confirm that I do indeed have kidney stones, and they sometimes hurt.  So, I should shuffle off quietly, and not scold…

Warm washcloth as a compress and massage.  Feel better!

Thanks.

Power Line … see if your electric utility will do it, preferably for free (after all, if the tree falls on it, they’re fixing the line).

Cat…  My vet mentioned that there was the spendy cure and cheaper alternative treatments when she thought mine might’ve had it.  In my case, I would’ve gone with the cure (his temperament would’ve precluded the other options).  Fortunately, the vet seemed less convinced of it once we did a second weigh in and he was closer to normal.

That’s actually not a bad idea regarding the power company.  This is government housing and we’re both on a  pension, so they may possibly help.  Worth a try if I need to.

My vet said that there’s nothing that needs to be done immediately.  In about 3 months time, I’m to take him back to weigh him, and to keep doing that.  If his weight falls below 4kg (it’s between 4 and 5kg now) then something will have to happen.  Sadly for my cat, his thyroid reading was very high indeed, like 3 times higher than the acceptable maximum.  So we’re letting the cat eat as much as he likes, as often as he likes in hope that it’ll stabilise his weight.

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 

holy hell!  your mum is superwoman!

And she’s not a big woman, either. lol

Can I just say: Ouch! And I’ve never even given birth… your Mom is amazing <3

Sounds great!

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

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

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  

I generally find that when a drive dies, it dies, about the same SSD/HDD.  Should be doing backups all the time, regardless of drive type.  Especially true with the ransomware going around.  I've not had an SSD die, but my closet has plenty of dead HDDs.  YMMV.

The daft bugger lost everything on his SSD when it failed (heat), but I’ve been able to pull files of failed HDDs many times now, most recently with the Spawn’s HDD. If I ever use an SSD, it will be for things I don’t mind losing, like game files. I’d never keep all my stuff on one HD anyway, but still…

Then again, I still miss DOS.

On windows, I use UrBackup to my NAS.   In Linux, it's a periodic rsync to a local HDD (cron job).  But I'm otherwise on SSDs.

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....

And I was right, not a wink of sleep last night.

I’m sorry you didn’t get to sleep. I will admit, in the heat of our summers, I do enjoy my air conditioning at bedtime, which is really the only time I want to be cold.

Yeah I much prefer things to be cold at night.  Oh, and that was a record high temperature last night.  At least tonight isn’t quite as hot.

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 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.

And like a three-day old fish in summer, he needs tossing.

Omg what?! 

Well I know it can happen to women (although I don’t really know why) but not men.  It was a passing thing anyway, whatever the hell it was all about.

I am WAY too interested in nipples :-P

Please, PLEASE let 2016 end now…

I can’t stop swearing…

The year ends as it began, David Bowie in January and George Michael in December.  And SHIT loads in between.

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

Both the lizard and millipede fought hard for their lives, but they didn’t reckon with someone as stubborn as me.  And millipedes that large do not go down easy, let me tell you!  If it could have given me the finger, it would have.

I say Disney Princesses are allowed to kick ass, whether it be tarantulas, lizards, or millipedes, so Melrick keeps his tiara.  

Perfect. I concur with the above speaker   

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. 

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.

If it’s hardware, then one possibility is a bad power supply.  (When those are bad, it can manifest itself as bad hardware across the board.)  I seriously overrated mine the last time I did a replacement, and it’s been good for 8-9 years so far, it even came with a free copy of windows 7, which was fairly new at the time.

Yeah, a dodgy psu is one thing I’ve thought of.  If it’s occasionally feeding incorrect voltage to things then that could certainly explain why I had two hard drives fail simultaneously.  Time for a thorough health check on my computer, I think.

It's hardware not software. Will have to take computer in on Monday. I'm typing this on my phone since I'll be leaving my computer off.  So a message to DG, i won't be on here to do my work for an unknown length of time.

I’ve never had an urge to explore rain forests anywhere on the planet, and it’s things like this plant which reaffirm my decision.

The way things are going, I am surprised we haven’t seen it featured in “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” where the celebrity has to navigate a grove full of these trees to get a plastic yellow star at the other end which will buy them a pound of brown rice for camp. Our television is like Rome and the collusseum all over again.

Actually, there’s more than a few celebrities I’d enjoy watching do that, now that you mention it.

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

The funny thing is, I didn’t realise Australia is doing as well as it is.  I guess I just took it all for granted.

It’s easy enough to do. There were periods in our history when we were doing well, and I think we all took it for granted, and expected it to continue forever. We forgot we needed to do our part, and that didn’t include being greedy and shortsighted. What I found interesting is that Australia seems to be far more proactive in anticipating future needs of the people, whereas we have become reactive and resentful.

Eh, when we implode, the daft one will have his Irish passport (hello, EU!) and we can feck off to a happier retirement.

Ireland sounds pretty a pretty good option.  And who knew our boring politicians actually knew what they were doing?  Certainly not me, that’s for sure. lol