To my surprise, the sachets are good for only 160 ml of soup. OK, use two. And ask
Google Gemini for suggestions as to
how to improve it. In the end came
up with this combination:
How did it taste? Edible, but boring. I should have been warned by the suggestion of
serving with Sriracha or soya
sauce. And yes, it needed the latter.
Yvonne into my office this morning: “I have bad news”. We
had thought that some people we know would be able to take Bruno, but it turns out they live pretty much on
the main road. Yes, they have had “only” one cat run over in the last many years, but
that's enough, and Bruno has the potential to be the second. So we'll have to come up with
alternatives. He helped: he stayed in the house most of the day. I think that the
magpies in the garden
may have helped.
But Yvonne had more news: Esperanza, who was in foal and had thus returned to Chris Bahlo's,
has foaled, a colt. But the colt was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
Dead. No hope.
And as if that wasn't enough, a little later she came in with the news that Ramirez, one of
her stallions whom we know pretty well, had had another fight with another stallion a
couple of nights ago, and he's so badly wounded that he will have to be put down. Somehow
that's particularly sad, since we have had more to do with him than most of Chris' horses,
including at least one other injury over 10 years ago.
I gave my bathroom scales to Yana last month, with intention to
buy one on offer at ALDI. Based on
past experience, Yvonne picked up four of them: you
can return them if you don't like them, and I intended to return at least three of them.
First insight: they come with a CR2032 Lithium battery, and as usual you have to remove an insulating strip. But
this one was so firmly clamped into place that it tore, and I had to remove the battery
first:
I started comparing the first one yesterday, and it showed a ridiculously high weight the
first time round. But I saw that on the scales I gave to Yana, after changing the battery.
And then it recovered and showed a sensible weight, probably round 150 g lower than
Yvonne's scales, which I suspected of being correct. But
which is right?
That was before my health assessment, so I weighed myself there too. Two insights (apart from Jude's
surprise that I predicted my weight exactly, not exactly unexpected): firstly, yes, Yvonne's
scales (the one we kept) are accurate, and secondly, much more important: the first time I
got onto their scales, it displayed “STEP DOWN” alternately. I didn't quite understand, but
yes, it wanted me to get off the scales and then on immediately. That must be some standard
issue with scales calibration, and presumably it's the reason why ours display ridiculous
values the first time, and only the first time, after a battery has been replaced. Do they
mention this in the instructions? Of course not. There's no space after the extensive
safety instructions, not even after the section on replacing the battery, which is half
empty.
So: how accurate are they? The good news: better than last time. Off by about -350 g, -150
g and +400 g. Yvonne had expressed an interest in taking the scales, because she liked the
colour—also the reason I didn't test the fourth one, which is grey—so I asked her if she
still wanted it. The obvious choice was -150 g, but she chose -350 g: makes her look
lighter. If that's what she wants...
Mail from Dan Murphy's asking about my my recent pickup. OK, I have feedback, and I gave it, including a lament
about their poor choice of drink. And then I was asked whether I wanted to join "Gather”,
whatever that is. I didn't save any URL, and I can no longer find it. It seems to be a
group for doing product reviews. Filled out their forms and was rewarded with the
encouraging
We thank you for your time spent completing this survey. If you are eligible to join
Gather, you will be added to panel within the next few weeks.
Telephone directories went out with the last millennium. Nowadays there's the web. Off to
check somebody's address today at Whitepages.
Oh:
On 1-November-2025 Thryv who manage White Pages directories, have removed Residential
listing from the White Pages website.
To search for a residential listing your options are:
Collect a copy of the White Pages from your local Australia Post Office or order online
at www.directoryselect.com.au for a copy to be delivered to your home.
Contact Directory Assistance on phone 1223
I can understand the issues, but is this the way to solve them?
Noodles for breakfast today, also to use up scraps lying around. How about the bún bò Huế noodles that I bought on 15 December 2025. I had thought that they would be similar to the Heaven
Dragon noodles, since they both call themselves “Bún bò Húê” (a Vietnamese name
meaning “Húe rice noodles”). The Heaven Dragon needed to be cooked for 18 minutes, pretty
much a record. These ones wanted to be soaked for 6 hours and then cooked for 2
minutes. OK, I can just try cooking the noodles longer.
And longer it was. 75 minutes! I think it could have been 90. Even after this time, they
were still quite al dente. They swelled to the dimensions of an Udon noodle:
Today the weather was extreme, temperatures over 40°, strong winds: perfect bushfire
weather. And once againVicEmergency showed
themselves from their worst side.
How do you find VicEmergency? It's in the link above, of course, but it used to be https://www.vicemergency.com.au/. That's too obvious, so they changed it to
https://emergency.vic.gov.au, without leaving a redirect, leaving
people already panicking to try to find them.
Back to emergency.vic: in the morning I got a whole lot of messages both on my phone and by
email telling me what I didn't need to know:
What does that mean? It's difficult to find out, but the best news is the grey circle in
the middle of the first image: that's our watch area, and it's clear.
That was in the morning, and things change. I was bombarded by information, including
useless things like this:
That's telling me about danger hundreds of kilometres away. Ah, fool, can't you scroll
down? There's information there for you, hidden behind the useless information that we
present. That's what the black diamond in the middle of the map is trying to make you
guess. It's a grass fire on the Mount Mercer-Shelford road, only 10 km away and going in the other direction.
Things still looked bad, and when Chris Bahlo came to pick up Chica, as scheduled,
Yvonne gave her Samba as well to take until the danger has passed: she's (marginally) less
susceptible to bushfires than we are.
And its closest geometrical edge was 10 km away. Should we be worried? Yvonne was. I was concerned, and we kept a careful eye on “progress”
during the afternoon and evening. Should we have left early? After the last, much more serious issue, the answer was clearly “no”.
The nonsense continued. They no longer broadcast things like size or a map of current
extent. That didn't arrive until the following day:
The dark area is where the fire actually burnt, fortunately missing the town of Skipton, but going only just a
little further east. It only happened in the south-west of the three designated fire zones.
But in the meantime, I received two email messages at the same time, both
dated Fri, 9 Jan 2026 08:33:12 +0000 (a format that most people
wouldn't understand, 19:33 local time), and received 2 seconds later. Apart from the
interminable boilerplate, two things stood out. In one,
There is a grassfire travelling from Skipton in a easterly direction towards Pitfield that
is not yet under control. People in the warning area should leave immediately.
Leaving immediately is the safest option, before conditions become too dangerous.
In the other, I read:
There is a grassfire at Yalla-Y-Poora Rd, Streatham that is not yet under control.
Firefighters have been unable to stop the spread of fire and it has reached the Skipton
township. The fire has crossed Mount Bute Road and continues in an easterly direction
towards Pitfield.
You are in danger, act now to protect yourself. It is too late to leave. The
safest option is to take shelter indoors immediately. Do not get in the car and drive. It
is safer to stay where you are.
It's hard to believe that both these messages are referring to the same fire. Why
the contradictory recommendation? It's not a misinterpretation of the location: both start
with “Emergency Warning for Grass Fire in your watch zone: Dereel”. And the one
recommending evacutation is closer to the fire! Why should we, not even in the fire zone,
not be able to evacuate? And of course, the real fire didn't come closer than 34 km from
here.
As I have said so many times before, this is really a matter of life or death. Why can't
they get their act together? Should I try to find a list of recommendations about what to
do? Yes, I should, but will I? What use would it have?
This page contains (roughly) yesterday's and today's entries. I have
a horror of reverse chronological documents, so
all my diary entries are chronological. This page normally contains the last two days,
but if I fall behind it may contain more. You can find older entries in
the archive. Note that I often update a diary entry
a day or two after I write it.
Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a
“blog”, and there is
deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle
for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to
reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do
send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate
whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise
I'll assume that it's OK to do so.
