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Lockdown along with 13 million other people in the country. Lots of complaints about people not working, businesses closing and government ineptitude. Nothing really changes as we do these lock downs more but at the same time it's winter, the weather it relatively shitty all around with cooler weather, wind storms, hail and rain so it's also not a bad thing being home. But then for someone who has worked from home for the last 15 years it's not really a big change for me.

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12 hours ago, BMB said:

From Monday I’ve 3-4 weeks of work up on a roof (most of which is painted in solar reflective paint), not looking forward to it! Although, it does look like the temperature drops slightly over the weekend.

That sounds awful to me mate, as you say lots of water and sun protection. Then make sure you have a fridge of cold beers to go home to at the end. 

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Heat has finally stepped down a couple of degrees here over the weekend and we are in storm warnings for next few days.  Floods down south across London yesterday, Tube stations flooded and all sorts.  Glad I live up here in the north west where it is always fucking raining usually.

Doubly happy for the drop in temperature as tomorrow I have to spend 90 mins in an MRI scanner having my head, neck and whole spinal cord imaged.  Been losing sensation in my hands and feet for weeks now and my neurologist thinks it might be spinal inflammation interrupting flow somewhere, hence the scan.

Can think of better ways to spend my Tuesday afternoon but need to have it done.

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90° today (32° C) up on the roof in the hot sun, it was fucking brutal. Supposed to be more of the the same tomorrow and then after some scattered thunderstorms tomorrow evening it'll cool things off by about 10° for the rest of the week. We're gonna start early tomorrow and try to get all 42 rafters cut and up and sheeted by 5pm when the rain is supposed to start. They all ran off at 5pm today claiming they had shit to do but tomorrow I'm gonna make them stay til that's done otherwise I'm probably gonna have a waterbed.

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3 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

Heat has finally stepped down a couple of degrees here over the weekend and we are in storm warnings for next few days.  Floods down south across London yesterday, Tube stations flooded and all sorts.  Glad I live up here in the north west where it is always fucking raining usually.

Doubly happy for the drop in temperature as tomorrow I have to spend 90 mins in an MRI scanner having my head, neck and whole spinal cord imaged.  Been losing sensation in my hands and feet for weeks now and my neurologist thinks it might be spinal inflammation interrupting flow somewhere, hence the scan.

Can think of better ways to spend my Tuesday afternoon but need to have it done.

Damn dude, good luck, let me know how it goes.

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On 7/26/2021 at 3:39 PM, MacabreEternal said:

Heat has finally stepped down a couple of degrees here over the weekend and we are in storm warnings for next few days.  Floods down south across London yesterday, Tube stations flooded and all sorts.  Glad I live up here in the north west where it is always fucking raining usually.

Doubly happy for the drop in temperature as tomorrow I have to spend 90 mins in an MRI scanner having my head, neck and whole spinal cord imaged.  Been losing sensation in my hands and feet for weeks now and my neurologist thinks it might be spinal inflammation interrupting flow somewhere, hence the scan.

Can think of better ways to spend my Tuesday afternoon but need to have it done.

Been through that a few times myself. Usually 3+ hour affairs that are absolutely miserable. Hopefully everything will come up good news.

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Damn I wish this wind would stop. I'm so glad I don't live somewhere tropical where cyclones and tornadoes are a regular thing. We are copping winds up to about 120ks at the moment, no rain yet but apparently it's coming. But it's been like it for 3 days now. Usually September is our windy month, it's the time where we tie all the cows to fence post and chain the tractor to the shed (to stop the shed flying away of course) but it's come early this year. And with all the rain we've had the ground in some parts is too soft to keep the trees standing.

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On 7/27/2021 at 1:14 AM, FatherAlabaster said:

Damn dude, good luck, let me know how it goes.

 

5 hours ago, navybsn said:

Been through that a few times myself. Usually 3+ hour affairs that are absolutely miserable. Hopefully everything will come up good news.

Thanks both.  Was okay once the initial disorientation got rationalised to my vision.  My mother straight up freaked out when they tried to do her once and she just couldn't go through with it.  The experience I take from it is if I ever have to do  one again don't ask them for classical music through the headphones.  With the blaring and grind of the machine it was like being trapped in some godawful German techno nightclub just in time for the "eclectic" DJ set.

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Mixing, mixing, and more mixing. This is for the band I've been playing bass with the past three years. Almost done, can't wait, but it's gonna be a few months, etc. I haven't had a chance to listen to anything lately unless I'm A/Bing one of these tracks against it. I need a vacation. I did remember to shower earlier though.

On the plus side, this album is turning out better than I could have hoped and I'm getting pretty damn psyched about it. Maybe it'll even wind up in the promo section. I'm used to either doing everything myself or having to call the shots, and it's great to have a collaboration like this turn out well, it feels much more alive to me.

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What's on my mind?

 

The callous, corrupt, inept bureaucracy that I work in just keeps getting more callous, more corrupt and more inept.  

By the way I work for a health service whose hospitals have made it national news for killing patients.  There's been no changes either and we keep killing patients by not looking after them properly.  But the pieces of shit ministers we work for are very happy cause they are "keeping election promises."

Eg Health minister promises new urgent "hospital in the home" mental health service.  Service opens in record time without a model of care or anything resembling a procedure or process and within 2 weeks a patient has committed suicide because he should have been in an actual mental health hospital and not at home receiving odd nursing visit!

Buoyed by this success minister orders more such services be set up as soon as possible...media nods in approval.

Noting it is illegal to publicly report suicides where I live so media is actually unaware of suicide.

 

This is in Australia by the way....a first world country with aspirations of third world living conditions.

 

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For all the praise other countries offer Australia for it's free health system it really is a shambles in so many areas. So many different areas fall through cracks that should not be there but appear because of bureaucracy. While our politicians don't have to answer for their fuck ups and while they can continually pass the buck when it suits them they'll continue to take money from where it's needed then argue that it's not their fault 5-10 years down the track when it gets out of hand. But it's not just them, too often the people at the top of these organisations are gifted their jobs without having the experience to do them properly.

 

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Killa, completely agree.

Doesn't help in Tassie public sector pays relative peanuts to nurses and doctors than other states so we often get dregs who are at best merely lazy and at worst pose a danger to clients.

Our health system is also highly politicised because we're a state of largely illiterate, welfare dependent ageing obese cigarette smoking alcoholics whose shit lifestyles contribute to overwhelming demand for health services. 

 

The other big problem in our organisation is that somehow we think (poor quality) doctors trained to diagnose people and (poor quality) nurses trained to put IV drips and catheters are capable of managing sophisticated organisations.

 

They make a mess of everything because they don't understand due process, concepts of accountability, transparency or long term planning let alone rational evidence based  decision making.  All the professional administrators have been shunted out on the grounds they don't have medical backgrounds.  Things have never been as bad.

 

Plus the nursing and medical professions are also incestuous, corrupt and nepotistic so people get promoted based on who they are friends with.   They often pursue avenues that are designed to further career goals instead of better health outcomes.

 

Private sector health doesn't help either - they take only easy full fee paying patients (ie the rich) and leave the hard cases and poor for the government.  My wife just went to a specialist and was $200 out of pocket after Medicare rebate of $135.  A GP visit is nearly $60 out of pocket.  

 

Finally the people are morons - Liberal health minister Michael Ferguson completely destroyed the public health serve to the point the ANMF and AMA openly expressed their lack of faith in him and he was transferred to another portfolio (aka sacked).  How did the people react?  They voted him in for another term.  He is now Minister for State Development, Construction and Housing, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Finance and Minister for Science and Technology.

And doing sweet fuck all in all of them.

 

 

 

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It used to be said that the shit that happens in the government sector wouldn't happen in the private sector. The private sector demands more of it's people and people are more answerable in the private sector. But that's far from true these days, the grunts at the bottom still do all the work while the pricks at the top get richer by doing less.

 

 

 

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In my job I have had dealings with a lot of private sector health organisations and aged care and they are scum.

 

One guy who was head of a Christian community sector organisation said that whilst government talked about safe staffing rosters whereas CSOs were about financially sustainable rosters (ie minimal).

 

In another instance a high level finance executive of a supposed not for profit accidentally admitted they had profit margins!  This mob spent an absolute ton of money on executive travel yet replaced face-to-face services with call centres.

 

My wife worked for a private allied health mob who refused to see lower socio economic or high needs clients and instead mainly focused on making $200 an hour out of middle-rich people who managed to work out how to get NDIS funding.

 

It's disgusting and makes me soooo angry.  Nothing I can do.  The system is so irrecoverably broken and corruption too engrained.

 

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1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

Doesn't help in Tassie public sector pays relative peanuts to nurses and doctors than other states so we often get dregs who are at best merely lazy and at worst pose a danger to clients.

Our health system is also highly politicised because we're a state of largely illiterate, welfare dependent ageing obese cigarette smoking alcoholics whose shit lifestyles contribute to overwhelming demand for health services. 

Tasmania is in the top five places to survive societal collapse. But if they are obese alcoholics they'll be easy to outrun or bludgeon to death for the masses coming over from the mainland as it burns.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/new-zealand-rated-best-place-to-survive-global-societal-collapse

Of this list Britain might turn out to be the safest place because it has a nuclear deterrent. This article (although maybe not the report, I haven't read it yet) conveniently forgets to factor in whether New Zealand could defend against an invasion. Alas, it can't.

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9 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

Tasmania is in the top five places to survive societal collapse. But if they are obese alcoholics they'll be easy to outrun or bludgeon to death for the masses coming over from the mainland as it burns.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/new-zealand-rated-best-place-to-survive-global-societal-collapse

Of this list Britain might turn out to be the safest place because it has a nuclear deterrent. This article (although maybe not the report, I haven't read it yet) conveniently forgets to factor in whether New Zealand could defend against an invasion. Alas, it can't.

 

Except given Tasmania no longer produces anything and even elevator repair guys get flown in from the mainland, we instantly regress to barbarism as well.

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Damn, as an addition to the post above I read this morning that our production levels are once again screwed. Not only did the Victoria government get caught out not supporting the local paper industry by mandating the purchase of Chinese made paper for all its departments, today they are moving to Chinese made PPE. Last year while international shipping was almost shut down they forked out millions to give local companies the chance to modify their factories and produce all manner of PPE gear and now it's too expensive to purchase locally and the government want to save money.

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Have a list as long as all of my lanky streak of piss limbs combined to do this weekend and have done the square root of fuck all so far today.  Having electricians in yesterday fitting...erm...wires and shit and having no music for all of daylight has made me want to just sit in my ox blood coloured throne and listen to music all weekend.  Consignment of Croatian beer arrived yesterday from the beer promoter folks and that is calling my name already just after lunch.

Looks like the plan to clear out the storage unit across town and give things to the charity shops is just gonna have to wait till next weekend.  Fence and decking need sanding, treating and painting but I swear this is why I have a handyman's phone number in my contacts and probably just need phone him for a quote so it is done before the hot tub makes a return for the August bank holiday.

Will get the delivery of squirrel and bird food put away as have a nice little eco-system going out there with them whereby I feed them and they shit all over my lawn and car (which was kinda how my stepkids turned out towards the end of my marriage to their mother).  

All first world problems of course.

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I need y'alls opinion about something.

I'm (hopefully) going to have the chance to go to a show before the end of the year (depending on whatever covid does, obviously). I've been working on a battle jacket and I've already sewn on a sick Katatonia back patch that looks totally badass. I also have the old logo patch on the front. Now I've just recently purchased an old as hell Katatonia shirt I stumbled upon while perusing the internets that I really want to wear to the first show back since before freaking covid. Problem is, I don't want to come across as too much of a huge Katatonia fanboy (spoiler: anyone who's seen some of my other posts knows I am one). What are the "rules" about battle jackets/band shirts (if any???) I've never made a battle jacket before. Should I just say fuck it and wear whatever the fuck I want even if it's like half Katatonia and half every thing else? Lol.

PS, the show is not Katatonia (most unfortunately).  

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20 minutes ago, Depraved said:

I need y'alls opinion about something.

I'm (hopefully) going to have the chance to go to a show before the end of the year (depending on whatever covid does, obviously). I've been working on a battle jacket and I've already sewn on a sick Katatonia back patch that looks totally badass. I also have the old logo patch on the front. Now I've just recently purchased an old as hell Katatonia shirt I stumbled upon while perusing the internets that I really want to wear to the first show back since before freaking covid. Problem is, I don't want to come across as too much of a huge Katatonia fanboy (spoiler: anyone who's seen some of my other posts knows I am one). What are the "rules" about battle jackets/band shirts (if any???) I've never made a battle jacket before. Should I just say fuck it and wear whatever the fuck I want even if it's like half Katatonia and half every thing else? Lol.

PS, the show is not Katatonia (most unfortunately).  

Wear whatever the fuck you want. Rules are for kvlt boy asshats.

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