mike carey

I love it when a skywriter does something important.

Canberra had a sharp rainstorm on Sunday morning, and this picture was posted of the scene outside Canberra Ikea. Most of the commentary on the thread was about whether that's a crocodile on the right of the frame. (Spoiler ... I won't even bother.)

Parking in front of the liquor store.

Not necessarily. When I was doing basic web page building (on an intranet, but same rules apply) one of the traps was including a link to where the photo was (which you have to do on here) rather than saving a copy of it in the same folder as your web page and linking that to the page. Yes you are still posting a link, but it can be a link to a location you control so it will always work. There is another trick to this and that is posting a relative link rather than an absolute on. If you post an absolute link (usually the entire file path), if you move either the photo or the web page within your web folders, the link may be lost. With a relative link (usually just the file name), you can move files within your folders and the software will maintain the link. It's been a few years, so the details of how to do it will no doubt have progressed since then.

My mother, fresh from leaving my father and even before the divorce bought a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1965 it was £300 but as a teacher she paid £144 in instalments. I spent hours reading it. I still have it.

The origin of Mazda is in Zoroastrianism, could be a link there (so perhaps Persian). Speculation on my part.

Well, I've heard of being 'chill' but that's going a bit far.

I thought that was dressing to the left or right.

Or call College Dom for a nice relaxed BFE! (BTW the guy you replied to asked the question in 2010 and is no longer a member of the forum.)

I've ceased to use Facebook as much as I did in the past (I've even stopped commenting on @Brian Kevin's posts there). I have quite a few American friends there from my time working in the US, some are extremely gay friendly and others are very conservative (although I've never seen even them post anything homophobic). All my exchanges there have been civil, but I've only offered measured comments on conservative issues (even on posts that have been shared from that fascist troll Pamela Geller). FB can be civil!

Occasionally twitter throws up some good giggles. A dude posted a tweet complaining about bilingual road signs. People offered useful suggestions such as ‘Don’t read the parts you don’t understand’, and someone posted an example of how confusing they can be, how railway stations can be rendered dangerous by this too: Then someone posted this: ‘Imagine the paranoia he'd experience if he was to drive past a farm growing carrots, wondering whether the Welsh signage was talking about him.’ Google translate tells me that the Welsh word for carrots is ‘moron’.

I love avocados. Millennials not being able to afford to buy a house because they spend too much on smashed avos on toast in cafes has been a feature of the national conversation here for several years now. I'm a leftist, so back to ME, avocados on toast with black pepper and a splash of balsamic or cider vinegar is a delight. I eat more salads when I'm at my sister's house, and hers are often the more substantial for having diced avocados, feta cheese and olives in them. The little bit of liquid in them from the feta and the olives and the final bits of avocado flesh that you scrape off the skin means you don't really need a dressing on the salad.

The first time I ever had pizza was with an aunt, uncle and cousins in Sydney. It was from one of the first Pizza Huts in Australia. There may have been authentic pizza places here but they were few. My verdict was that pizza was a crap idea. One of the pizzas we had was 'ground beef'. We don't even call it ground beef here, we call it mince, so it was clearly a Pizza Hut transfer. Looking back, a 'mince' pizza was never going to cut it. Several years later, when I was in first year uni, I discovered pizza at an independent pizza restaurant in Canberra. Whether it was authentic was immaterial, it was good. When you get past the different crusts and the industrial production, the pizza chains here, at least, manage to make reasonable pizzas. There are always better ones at small local shops. I found one in my area when it was the only place open on the evening of 1 Jan 2000, and I still go there and order the same pizza I did then.

I'm calm, and it wasn't directed at you specifically! It's something that I've seen frequently, and I always think they mean psychological or similar therapy rather than massage therapy when I first read it. If someone says they are going to see their therapist, masseur is not the first type of therapist I think of, that's all. I characterised what I said as a rant for a reason!

I recognise that this is the Spa. That means it's about masseurs. But when someone says things about their interactions with a therapist, I don't read masseur, I read psych. A 'therapist' deals with your 'issues'. If those issues are knots in your muscles, it's a fucking masseur that treats it, not a 'therapist'. If you're going to drop part of 'massage therapist' it's the therapist part, not the massage part that gets dropped. *Ends rant*

This could be interesting.

I'm sure a lot of it is virtue signalling (or whatever disparaging term you want to apply) but the fact that they do it is positive. I know I go to Macca's when I'm travelling, and I'll order one of the grilled chicken and salad wraps, but I'll still order chips with it (fries for y'all). They do sell chicken Caesar salads, and I have actually seen people buy them. I'll also often have a ham, cheese and tomato toasted sandwich (from the McCafe counter). Not part of a 'healthy' initiative, but recently in several Macca's stores in regional towns they have had table service. You order at the counter, but they bring your meal to your table. In one case, their table server (who did other things as well) had Down's syndrome. I can't but applaud the store for that.

I had thought it was Canberra viewed to the west from the top of Mount Ainslie. The blue haze is typical and masks the horizon which would confirm my speculation if it were clearer. The same view without him in it would be decisive as there would be a giant telecommunications tower on a mountain in the middle distance! The shot you posted would be to the right of this one.

@Russ, I still look forward to 'having a better time in New York' as you put it. I apologise for not making it to NYC before now.

A rack is one of the small joys of life. When I was growing up it was restaurant-only fare, butchers would always cut them into individual cutlets. Now racks of lamb are routinely available in the meat aisle. Still a bit fancy though, and you deserved fancy for your birthday!

Ah, so that's 'small' @Lance_Navarro. Ok, got it! One day, a personal assessment, one day!

Maybe it should have been but who really cares? If it is really out of place, the admins will move it. And you can do whatever you want here, Victor!

In Australia, 9am to 5.30pm weekdays and 9am to 12.30pm Saturdays.

In hope perhaps?

All sex has to be learned, you don't just 'know'. I am in awe of the gentlemen here who have taught me.