I’ve brought myself out to Anglesea this morning with my audiobook and headphones. Looking forward to more sunny drives as the weather improves.

Oof I’m an emotional mess this afternoon. I’m going to go and hide.

The room spins a bit when I close my eyes but close my eyes I must. Rewatched Bo Burnham’s Make Happy special on Netflix earlier, that kid (relative in age to me) is very clever and I recommend giving him a chance. Each of his specials are great.

Overall a great evening. Didn’t make a dick of myself to someone I care about, I’m pretty sure, and Storm won so let’s call this a rare win for alcohol.

💜 💜 💜

Something funny to me is that out of the 5 weeks I took off work, traveling throughout the US and spending almost 2 weeks in Vegas… it’s the Friday night before I go back to work that I finally get drunk. At home in Melbourne. By myself.

I love Chisel but but I’m going to throw in Masters Apprentices - Turn Up Your Radio https://youtu.be/1POR4H0gJss?si=Hgzdb4FL6Vs5jbLL

I’ve been thinking about going to do this! I’m keen to hear how it goes

STORM WON!!! Gotta get behind our only Melbourne NRL team, @MELBOURNE I DON’T KNOW HOW TO OR IF YOU CAN TAG A CHANNEL OR WHATEVER IT’S CALLED IN LEMMY

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! 💜 ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡

WE WONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN ALSO I’M VERY TIPSY

I have 3 jim beam black cans in the fridge after my cleanout yesterday… wait… better make that 2

I’m going to need these to get through tonight’s Storm finals game in 11 minutes. After last week I am scared. Hold me.

Hello you’ve just described me. I don’t consume any television (only streaming and downloads), read any newspapers or news websites, listen to any radio (only Spotify), only use Lemmy, Reddit and Facebook Messenger and I don’t really talk to anyone about what’s in the news.

I also don’t get that sort of mail because my official address is my parents place not my apartment and I haven’t been on the electoral roll since 2017 when I planned to leave the country to live but came back but never re-added myself.

In saying that, I’ve vaguely heard about what this vote is about. I didn’t actually know it was going to be a proper public vote or when it’ll be until the last few days. I don’t know much about the details.

Google headlines on my phone and Reddit give me just about everything I hear about, and neither has had much about this on it.

I just don’t want to be a part of the mass media’s rage and anxiety machine so I opt out. People more engaged than I am can worry about the things we can’t change and if it’s important enough to my life I’ll hear about it. I’m not saying it’s the best or most noble way to live but it’s what I choose.

1010 Latrobe

That’s only 450m from my apartment… I will absolutely check this out. Maybe tomorrow. Thanks!

I’ve been noticing that a lot more lately (this year maybe?) than ever before. TramTracker used to be pretty reliable in my experience but now I can’t trust it. Most of my tram travel is up and down Collins between Victoria Harbour and 101 Collins St and it keeps happening to me.

Nah nothing like that. Most of it was just out of date because I haven’t been drinking. Not an overly conscious decision, it just sort of happened over time. I still like a drink but I just don’t find myself choosing to drink.

I just did something I’d been meaning to do for a while and spent about 15 minutes pouring all of the booze in my fridge down the sink. Thirsty work… could use a drink after that.

One thing I noticed this trip is that just about everywhere, they’ll tell you how much a 15%, 18% or 20% tip would be on the bill or on the screen if you’re paying via a console so you don’t have to do the maths yourself very often anymore.

The thing which really stings is that their food and drink prices are starting to look like ours but it’s USD so with the AUD being worth ~64c to their dollar, meals and those tips are insane. I would not recommend Australians take a trip over there right now unless they’ve got plenty of money to spend, unless they eat and drink on the cheap by cooking for themselves or doing the cheapest fast food only rather than any sort of table service. I’ll give you our most extreme example, even though this meal was comped by the casino for us so we only paid the tip. That meal where I had Petunia the fancy steak… that was $70 for my steak + $10 or so for the mac and cheese side + $20ish (from memory) for my drink. All up our bill was $300 + $50 tip for 3 of us which was only like a 16% tip. I’ll do you the favour of converting it and tell you that it’s $543.61 AUD.

Back down to earth, I could not go anywhere for a sit down meal which came to less than around $40 AUD for myself after tax and tip. Whether that was a basic bacon and eggs type breakfast or something for dinner. Another fun example is I took 2 short taxi rides in Vegas which cost me $70 AUD total. I think the amount on the meters were around $18 USD each but then add your tax and tips. Absolutely insane. I am lucky enough that I have plenty of disposable cash so I simply wasn’t keeping track of how much I was spending, but just being mindful of it. I don’t know and I don’t want to know how much that trip cost me, even though I could easily look and figure it out.

2 definite highlights outside of the lemonade. The first was when I first saw the view from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, California and the second was when I saw the view from Sunrise Point at Bryce Canyon, Utah. I have photos but honestly even the ones from professional photographers with real cameras I just looked at on google images don’t do these views justice. Loads of other highlights and incredibly impressive views (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming including Old Faithful which is incredible how they know pretty accurately when it’ll erupt. I’ve seen a lot of man-made things like that and it makes sense that they know when the ‘show’ happens but this is completely mother nature doing her thing, so incredible… Arches National Park, Utah… Sequoia National Park, California… Zion National Park, Utah… the black hills of South Dakota… etc etc) but those are probably the two which gave me pause and took my words away, and I’ve been lucky enough to go to a lot of places around the world and see a lot of incredible things. Their national parks are absolutely spectacular and the main reason I went on this trip. I wish I was fitter and had more time to explore those places better on foot.

This was my 6th US trip but the first where I visited for the parks rather than cities & theme parks but it was easily the most impressive I’ve seen that country be. They should be proud of what they have in those parts of the country, and they absolutely are and will tell you all about it. The USA is way better than their major cities. In fact, I’d say the cities bring the place down as famous as they are.

Over there? Depends on how much I spent. Minimum 18%, often 20%, sometimes a little over that if it was cheap and they were great. Can’t punish them for their dumb system. Just can’t let it happen here.

I just went and saw the new ninja turtles movie and it was pretty good, my grievances with it are minor. Gorgeous animation style.

But beyond that I just walked into a cafe which had a special advertised outside and it’s just really nice to know that the price on the board is exactly what I’ll pay. No added tax and gratuity.

We have this part right, Australia. If you see places trying to implement a tipping culture fight it with everything you have. Rage against it. It’s not impolite to say no tip if they try it on you here. You’re doing more harm than good to the industry and the country by indulging these parasites. By all means if someone shows exemplary service make it known but please, don’t let that US garbage fire of a system seep into this country.

Very Possibly the Same here. Senior/Management types are encouraged, even incentivised to make changes in order to justify their yearly progression. Even if things don’t need changing and have worked for years, they have to try and change/improve to stand out and get that moneyyyy