mycatsays

I'm close to finishing my first exploration of Ginger Island. Trying to decide whether to pay the parrot for the last few Golden Walnuts, or look them up in the Wiki, or whether there's realistically any chance I'll ever find them on my own. (I am bad at deciphering in-game hints, so probably no. Have already looked up a few things I couldn't figure out; so what's a few more?)

Cats aren't pack animals, but they do socialise with humans, other cats, and other animals. They don't all have the same personality and some will tend to be more social than others.

In general, I would say that if a cat normally has human company most of the day (e.g. a human who doesn't work or works from home), human company can be enough (circumstances vary). But in general, if the human(s) are gone a lot of the time then it can be lonely for a single cat. In that case it's worth getting them a four-footed companion.

We had a cat who preferred having us to herself rather than sharing us with another cat. But we could see that she got lonely when we had to leave her by herself, so it seemed better that she had a companion cat even if she didn't want a friend.

At our current house, the yard is open and various neighbourhood cats will come into the space. Our boy accepts two of them. I don't know if they are "friends", but they come to visit and he's chill with them. Any other cat coming into the yard, he tries to fight off. Some fascinating cat politics going on.

Feed the hungry AI, I guess?

Thank you!

I have actually gotten shipping notifications from Amazon when I placed the order on eBay.

Several times I have purchased an item on email only to have it arrive from Amazon. The sellers were using both sites and there was no way to tell from the eBay listings. Big sad.

Thanks for the correction. I have only ever seen the point flagged by the smaller banks I've looked at, so I assumed it was a small bank thing. Maybe I've not looked in the right places on larger banks' websites.

The linked page says several times "for each account holder". But that doesn't mean a joint account gets double the guarantee, does it?

Look into fees and structure of accounts at whichever institutions you are considering, from the angle of what fits your situation. Also consider whether you prefer a bank with a physical branch (in which case, your short list is whichever banks are convenient to where you live) or whether online banking is sufficient (some banks are online only). Some banks also limit how much money they'll guarantee; so if your accounts might go over $249k you should make sure your chosen bank is good with that.

Over the years I have had accounts with: Westpac, ING Direct, Teacher's Mutual Bank (formerly a credit union), NAB, ME Bank, Up, and a couple of others I don't remember. None of them were especially bad, but they did different things for me at different points in my life.

When my parents (who are not citizens, have never worked in this country, and are here for a couple of months at a time) wanted a bank account to use while here, I set them up with NAB. That was the option with a physical branch nearby that wasn't going to hit them with monthly fees for the privilege of having an account, when the account was not in regular use. (NAB has since closed the branch near us, so idk how much longer they're going to have our business.)

Final thought: there is no contract with your bank unless you take out a loan or term deposit. Pick one to start, and if it's not a fit you can move your money elsewhere. Don't stress.

My brother-in-law is a doctor working for NSW Health. Here are a few of his comments when he told us about the strike:

Pretty huge. Never fancied myself a unionist. Never thought I would go on strike.

I told my boss I will be participating. I will not be doing anything elective, which given my current role is 95% clinics and elective day admissions, means on 2 of the 3 days I won't go to work at all. I will continue to be on call for acute consults from the inpatient teams, so that acute care isn't compromised. But for the 15 odd families who's appointments will be cancelled it's going to be mighty inconvenient. I hate that.

But I can't see another way. NSW Health has given up even attempting to negotiate on our Award, their most recent proposal was a copy paste of our current award with a few areas in which they have enhanced their ability to sack people for a range of things (including if you get sick and are unable to do your job, without needing to have sick leave expire or anything), and zero concessions to any of the things we asked for.

But apparently we are greedy doctors who don't care about people, or we would just accept it.

But here's the thing. I did a double shift yesterday (8am to 10pm) because they can't manage to hire enough people to staff our roster. Why? Because no one in their right mind would choose to work in NSW if they had the choice to work for any other state health service. Comparison of the awards makes the decision a no brainer.

This instance might help you: https://lemmy.world/c/keeptrack (Someone else doing similar.)

I need to get my lettuce seeds started... yesterday, or last week. Not sure I'm going to manage it with enough lead time on the cold weather to get them to a useful size. (southern NSW)

I would consider growing them in indoor pots if I don't get them going soon enough, but I have a cat that likes to eat lettuce so I fear they would not survive.

As others have said, ketchup and tomato sauce are the same thing. Most of the time, the version of a product you get here will be just fine (if not better... no high fructose corn syrup!).

But there will be products where the local version doesn't match what you're used to, and they might not be things you think about ahead of time. My American parents are forever disappointed by Australian ranch salad dressing, for example.

This store imports US brands: https://usafoods.com.au/ It's expensive because stuff is heavy to ship across the world. But it's nice to have the option for occasional specific things you miss.