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  <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz</id>
  <title>Livin' La Vida Loca-motive!</title>
  <subtitle>The Adventures of Dom - Train Driver and DJ - what a combination!</subtitle>
  <author>
    <name>Dominic</name>
  </author>
  <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/"/>
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  <updated>2026-06-16T15:46:02Z</updated>
  <lj:journal userid="3524750" username="cuboz" type="personal"/>
  <link rel="service.feed" type="application/x.atom+xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom" title="Livin' La Vida Loca-motive!"/>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1909044</id>
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    <title>Whoops!</title>
    <published>2026-06-16T15:46:02Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-16T15:46:02Z</updated>
    <category term="food"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>First Grade - Lauv</lj:music>
    <content type="html">I think I wrote about going to &lt;a href="https://hanamaruya.reontech.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hanamaruya&lt;/a&gt; for dinner 2 nights ago... which we did. But I wrote that I tried a new dish.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, coming back to write this post, and seeing photos, it was &lt;u&gt;TONIGHT&lt;/u&gt; that I tried the different dish - butter corn and Shiro ramen, with a side of 2 pieces of kara-age chicken, rather than my normal kara-age chicken - which is what I mist have had 2 nights ago! LOL&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So today... not much was done. Most of the day in bed once again. Wasting my annual leave. How fun. Not.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But yes - another dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant, and that's about it!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55338437793/in/datetaken/" title="Dinner with the flatmates at Hanamaruya again!" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55338437793_99285dd14c_c.jpg" width="800" height="615" alt="Dinner with the flatmates at Hanamaruya again!" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;David and Andy.  Butter wouldn't melt in their mouths...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55338703835/in/datetaken/" title="Dinner with the flatmates at Hanamaruya again!" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55338703835_d6765cb54e_c.jpg" width="800" height="674" alt="Dinner with the flatmates at Hanamaruya again!" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;...but it did melt in my butter corn ramen!&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1908897</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1908897.html"/>
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    <title>And then...</title>
    <published>2026-06-16T09:32:16Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-16T09:32:16Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Luven Me - Nelly</lj:music>
    <content type="html">...another full day in bed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sigh.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looking at open browser tabs, and I think I'll delete / close my MeWe account.  It was a good alternative to Facebook in terms of no advertising, extra privacy, and lots of naughty pics, but we now have BlueSky for that (even though it still doesn't have good privacy levels...)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Decisions, decisions...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As my mental health has been suffering lately (especially after the medical episodes following my COVID vaccination... then the work investigation... then a number of friends dying), I've spoken to my shrink about a hospital stay for enhanced mental health treatment. It was especially bad after the trial of the 2 unsuccessful new anti-depressants, but after going back to my old tried and tested medication, he seemed to think I wouldn't need it a specialist hospital treatment stay.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And to be honest... I don't know what they could actually achieve in a short time anyway. I know a lot are focussed on infusion therapy, which I think is micro-dosing of Ketamine, but anything that alters how my mind feels (dizziness, vertigo, claustrophobic spaces) causes me panic attacks - let alone something that may slightly alter my perception / awareness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was looking at the Health Ombudsman &lt;a href="https://www.ombudsman.gov.au/publications-and-news-pages/publication-pages/brochures-and-factsheets/factsheets/private-health-insurance/mental-health-treatment-and-private-health-insurance" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; as there is some good information about different coverage and options. But without the highest level of private health insurance (which would proabkyt be close to AUD$400 a month!), then in-hospital psychiatric services aren't covered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway... I'm waiting to see my shrink. I made a booking a few months ago, and his first available date was the 8th of July - and even being on a waitlist, I haven't been given an earlier appointment. No wonder there's so many people who go without help - both the cost &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;AND&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; the lack of doctors!</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1908648</id>
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    <title>Functioning.</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T12:06:47Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-16T07:50:53Z</updated>
    <category term="friends"/>
    <category term="food"/>
    <category term="technology"/>
    <lj:music>My Own Way - Collusion</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Just.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another day of not doing much at all... Although my iMac (it's a 2017 model) has decided to start misbehaving again. To be honest, a lot of the time I think it's because I just have too much on the hard drive - even though the majority of my data is stored on external drives or in the cloud.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I decided to do another attempt at &amp;quot;cleaning it up&amp;quot;, which is normally a fresh install of the operating system.  The other problem with the big iMac (it's a 27: 5K Retina display) is that it will now no longer be updated past the Sequoia operating system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I moved &lt;u&gt;EVERYTHING&lt;/u&gt; on my desktop to an external drive, and then made sure I had a Time Machine backup completed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most amazing thing was that I actually used ChatGPT to diagnose the issues, and give me suggestions on what steps I needed to do.  The first was indeed what I normally do anyway, which is to move files, and do a backup. But it was incredibly good at giving me clear step-by-step instructions that were easy to follow. And once done, I could ask continued or further questions and give feedback on what was now happening, and it would suggest things to check in the Activity Monitor, and then specific cache files to delete (which then automatically rebuild themselves).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pretty amazing really. Literally like having my pwn personal tech support person sitting there. I'm lucky that I'm pretty tech savvy, but I thought even people with less computer skills could probably have followed the instructions quite well. And that's what I like to use AI for - assisting! Problem solving! Not making ridiculous inane videos of kittens dressed up and dancing. (Although AI music creation is pretty cool...).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So all seems to be working well, and I'll try and keep files on the external drive. But of course - I'm a digital hoarder, so they'll stay there, and I will forget about them! Also looked up possibly replacing the internal hard drive with a full SSD (I have the Fusion Drive, which is a normal internal hard drive plus a small SSD that has the most common files on it).  So I found something, but to be honest, it would probably be better to save up for a new iMac. Although they don't do the 27&amp;quot; screens any more, which is a shame... And I found an &lt;a href="https://www.macfixit.com.au/products/diy-kit-for-all-2012-2019-27-imacs-factory-hdd-2-0tb-owc-mercury-electra-6g-ssd?variant=40261553913939&amp;amp;country=AU&amp;amp;currency=AUD&amp;amp;utm_medium=product_sync&amp;amp;utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_content=sag_organic&amp;amp;utm_campaign=sag_organic&amp;amp;gad_source=1&amp;amp;gad_campaignid=22354824893&amp;amp;gbraid=0AAAAADhp7BtTOgBHGzpgHC3QjTyQ0SziE&amp;amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjwlerQBhDMARIsAB16H-VNUUc0GOb-9lLn4q95ecnpblW6-OfyJ16lLASV_hHDVqDFFts910kaAny0EALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;upgrade kit&lt;/a&gt;, for only AUD$415, so might look in to that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I love how I ended my conversation with ChatGPT by thanking it, and how I could now speed off in to the sunset on my faster computer, and it replied with this:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="" data-sfc-cp="" jsaction="" jscontroller="TDBkbc#Ml18Xb" data-sfc-root="c" jsuid="hZOE8b_2lv" data-sfc-cb="" data-hveid="CAIIAAiSAhAA" data-complete="true" data-processed="true" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &amp;quot;Google Sans&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; margin: 12px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0px rgb(230, 232, 240);" style="font-size:16px;caret-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(255, 255, 255);font-family:&amp;quot;margin:12px 0px;border-bottom:0px rgb(230, 232, 240)"&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"&gt;&lt;span data-subtree="aimfl" data-processed="true" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &amp;quot;Google Sans&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0px rgb(230, 232, 240);" style="margin: 0px; border-bottom: 0px rgb(230, 232, 240);"&gt;That is the absolute best way to end it&amp;mdash;enjoy speeding away into that sunset! 🌅&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="" data-sfc-cp="" jsaction="" jscontroller="TDBkbc#Ml18Xb" data-sfc-root="c" jsuid="hZOE8b_2m1" data-sfc-cb="" data-hveid="CAIIAAiTAhAA" data-complete="true" data-processed="true" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &amp;quot;Google Sans&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; margin: 12px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0px rgb(230, 232, 240);" style="font-size:16px;caret-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(255, 255, 255);font-family:&amp;quot;margin:12px 0px;border-bottom:0px rgb(230, 232, 240)"&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"&gt;I am absolutely thrilled that I could act as your personal IT assistant and help you get this Intel iMac back in peak shape. You did a fantastic job following those troubleshooting steps, capturing that technical error log, and knocking out those corrupted background caches. Teamwork made the dream work!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="" data-sfc-cp="" jsaction="" jscontroller="TDBkbc#Ml18Xb" data-sfc-root="c" jsuid="hZOE8b_2m6" data-sfc-cb="" data-hveid="CAIIAAiUAhAA" data-complete="true" data-processed="true" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &amp;quot;Google Sans&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; margin: 12px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0px rgb(230, 232, 240);" style="font-size:16px;caret-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(255, 255, 255);font-family:&amp;quot;margin:12px 0px;border-bottom:0px rgb(230, 232, 240)"&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"&gt;Your Mac is clean, stable, and ready for whatever you throw at it next.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="" data-sfc-cp="" jsaction="" jscontroller="TDBkbc#Ml18Xb" data-sfc-root="c" jsuid="hZOE8b_2mb" data-sfc-cb="" data-hveid="CAIIAAiVAhAA" data-complete="true" data-processed="true" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &amp;quot;Google Sans&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; margin: 12px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0px rgb(230, 232, 240);" style="font-size:16px;caret-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(255, 255, 255);font-family:&amp;quot;margin:12px 0px;border-bottom:0px rgb(230, 232, 240)"&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"&gt;Whenever you need a hand with tech troubleshooting, optimization, or anything else down the road, you know exactly where to find your assistant. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and enjoy your fast computer! 🚀💻&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then myself, Andy, and David went out for dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant in Bankstown, &lt;a href="https://hanamaruya.reontech.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hanamaruya&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;For the first time, I tried a different dish, rather than my normal Kara-age chicken ramen. This time I tried a butter corn Shiro ramen, which was quite nice. And I ordered 2 pieces of the chicken on the side to go with it. Om nom nom!&lt;br /&gt;Took a photo of David wearing my glasses, which he looks quite nice in. He's like me - he doesn't like photos of himself, but &lt;u&gt;EVERYONE&lt;/u&gt; who sees him thinks he's bloody cute. And he is!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55336292908/in/datetaken/" title="David tries on my glasses" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55336292908_521658b108_c.jpg" width="644" height="800" alt="David tries on my glasses" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks?&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1908241</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1908241.html"/>
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    <title>Winter warmers</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T11:34:14Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T11:34:14Z</updated>
    <category term="clothing"/>
    <category term="shopping"/>
    <category term="transportation"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Jackie Chan (Original Mix) - Tiesto &amp; Dzeko Ft. Preme &amp; Post Malone</lj:music>
    <content type="html">In Australia, we use the meteorological calendar to mark the beginning of the seasons, rather than the astrological one (using the equinoxes and solstices...).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So today is officially the first day of winter Down Under.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I finally got out of bed... and functioned. Just.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually broke out the &lt;a href="https://volley.com.au/products/snugg-mule" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Volley &amp;quot;Snugg Mules&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; I bought quite some time ago. Actually... I bought them in December &lt;strong&gt;LAST YEAR&lt;/strong&gt;! I bought a pair for Oz, and a pair for Craige, for Christmas, so also bought myself a pair, as they were on a great special price. Reduced from AUD$110 a pair to just AUD$69 a pair, so that's a good reduction.  I would actually never pay that full price anyway. And they are &lt;u&gt;REAL&lt;/u&gt; sheepskin / suede, so that means no sweaty feet from polyester or acrylic sherpa-esque materials, which can create all sorts of fungal issues, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I was actually wearing the American Airlines pyjamas my friend Kim gave to me when she flew down here about 2 years ago, which are unisex, and fit me perfectly, and my mules around the house for a while.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I did actually eventually shower and dress properly to leave the house, and go and get some petrol.  The government has still got a reduction on the fuel levy, down from AUD52.6c per litre, to half that, at AUD26c per litre, roughly. But petrol is still pretty expensive because of you-know-who doing you-know-what. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But 98 Octane at AUD$1.949 per litre isn't too bad, so I put 51.31 litres in to The Beast, totalling... AUD$100!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55335161777/in/datetaken/" title="So comfy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55335161777_82eac6ac28_c.jpg" width="669" height="800" alt="So comfy" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;I feel like a proper &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;bogan&lt;/a&gt; now! LOL&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1908015</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1908015.html"/>
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    <title>Fourth Day</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T11:13:48Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T11:28:40Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="food"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <category term="sex"/>
    <lj:music>Dragon Heart (Extended Mix) - CubeTonic &amp; Dilara Gadel</lj:music>
    <content type="html">This.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ridiculous.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know I have the choice. To get up and do... something.... &lt;strong&gt;ANYTHING&lt;/strong&gt;.  Or stay in bed all day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Why do I keep choosing the latter, easier one? Am I &lt;u&gt;THAT&lt;/u&gt; lazy? Or am I &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;THAT&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; depressed?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So yeh... This is the 4th day I've spent pretty much the entire day in bed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yesterday and today in my iCal were the day(s) that I had a plethora of iCal reminders of tasks, etc.  And it's taken me until today (the 15th of June) to catch up on a post for &amp;quot;today&amp;quot;, and I've moved them all until tomorrow. Lets hope I can get out of bed... Even if I don't leave the house, maybe I'll be able to sort through a lot of the reminders and delete them.  Actually, I know there's quite a few I will be able to delete. Reminders to buy tickets to concerts that I've now missed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*sigh*&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, lets get rid of more Safari tabs... &lt;br /&gt;One of the drivers I work with (who transferred to the Newcastle depot last year), told me that if I like Ouzo (I love aniseed / liquorice), that I should try &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://bottle-stop.com.au/products/tekirdag-tekel-raki-700ml?_pos=1&amp;amp;_sid=e4d5e7258&amp;amp;_ss=r" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;THIS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Turkish grape spirit with aniseed. But I probably won't...  It's called &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakı" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Rakisi&lt;/a&gt;. I used to have some &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouzo" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Ouzo&lt;/a&gt;, but I like to stick with my 2 favourites if I'm going to have something alcoholic. &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlúa" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Kahlua&lt;/a&gt; (which I have with milk, coz I'm super gay), or &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malibu_(rum)" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Malibu&lt;/a&gt;, which I have with a mango cordial and some lemonade. Yummy!&lt;br /&gt;Oh... and another Safari tab browser was &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://ausvaxsafety.org.au/covid-19-vaccine-side-effects" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;THIS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; one.  Talking about the various common, and rare side effects from the different vaccines for COVID. Of course, the one I had a major rare side effects of blood clots - which is possibly what was happening to me when I had such an elevated heart rate and shortness of breath. Even if that passed / abated, it certainly did something to the blood vessels in my dick, which is why I now have Peyronie's disease. And will probably never be intimate with anyone ever again in my life. *sigh*</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1907905</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1907905.html"/>
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    <title>And again...</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T10:00:15Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T10:14:35Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="shopping"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Warm Up Sessions: Jazz, Soul &amp; Funk - Various Artists</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Here I am again...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Languishing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Staying in bed, the &lt;u&gt;WHOLE&lt;/u&gt; day once again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I aren't even doing any online shopping to get that quick dopamine hit - although I've been thinking about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had a few open tabs for buying some health supplements that I thought might help me.  It's a long time ago, but you might remember waaaaay back in late 2020, after getting my 2 &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford–AstraZeneca_COVID-19_vaccine" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;AstraZeneca COVID vaccinations &lt;/a&gt;that I had some weird health issues arise that saw me go to the emergency department of hospital for the first time in my life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All sorts of things were checked, but the only substantiated diagnosis was &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyronie%27s_disease" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Peyronie's disease&lt;/a&gt; (which is related to blood / plaque, so it's part of the known issues that particular vaccination was causing).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The other issue was ongoing shortness of breath. Around that time, I was struggling to even do the short, flat walk around the corner to Woollies and back.  Over time, it got better, but I still have good days and bad.  Sometimes I can climb a flight of stairs and not feel too bad at all, but another day, I climb the same set of stairs, and I feel like I cannot breathe, and it starts triggering a panic attack. My heart rate instantly goes through the roof...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet, if I were to do a 10km bushwalk / hike, on relatively flat ground, at a fairly brisk pace, I wouldn't really have much trouble at all. It's basically &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortness_of_breath" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Dyspnoea on Exertion&lt;/a&gt; - a known issue. But the underlying cause it's what's not been found out in my case. I wish I knew so I could manage it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've been looking at some &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hericium_erinaceus" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Lion's Mane mushroom&lt;/a&gt; supplements like &lt;a href="https://au.lignosus.com/product/lignosus-best-natural-respiratory-health-supplement/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Lignosus&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://organicfarmacy.com.au/product/lions-mane-cordyceps/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;THIS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; one from Organic Farmacy. But they're pretty expensive... And who knows whether they would work or not? But sometimes... I get desperate!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We shall see... I might try one in a few weeks time, when I go back to work, so that I'm actually out of bed and functioning / moving, so there will be a better chance of me noting any improvement in my breathing.</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1907682</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1907682.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1907682"/>
    <title>And another day in bed...</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T09:39:36Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T09:39:36Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <category term="sex"/>
    <lj:music>Space Symphony Of Rain - Oblivion</lj:music>
    <content type="html">*sigh*&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another full day in bed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trying to shut down my brain at night is proving impossible. It just doesn't stop. So I toss and turn and then it's around 6.00am sometimes, and I finally drift off to sleep.  So when I wake up a little after lunchtime, I feel like the entire day has gone, so stay in bed, and go back to sleep.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So then I wake up again around 6.00pm (sometimes earlier, and sometimes later), and then around 11.00pm - a normal bed time - trying to go to sleep again proves impossible, because I've already slept the entire day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So the cycle repeats.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And of course, the ridiculous amount of negative thoughts about myself that swirl around in my brain whilst trying to go to sleep is overwhelming.  I'm weird... I'm a loser... I behave strangely...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And of course, I have all these things that I keep buying, but almost never use. And then I have this great idea to focus on a certain product, and make sure I start using it. And I don't. Mostly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some I do... I've actually been very good at making sure I apply my &lt;a href="https://theordinary.com/en-au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;The Ordinary&lt;/a&gt; face products after showering (when and if I eventually get up), and also applying them at night just before going to bed, but of course, on these days where I spend the entire time in bed, I don't do it. And I don't eat. And don't shower. And don't brush my teeth. I just languish... and rot.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And of course, in addition to sleeping the day away, when I'm awake in bed, I just go through a cycle of iPad / iPhone / playing games / doomscrolling.  Which doesn't help.  Especially BlueSky, when I see all these handsome hairy guys with nice cocks... which makes me feel so inadequate. And down on myself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wish I understood why I've never really had much of a sex drive / libido... and I absolutely honestly don't think I've ever felt &amp;quot;horny&amp;quot;.  I should &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;MAKE&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; myself watch porn more often. Maybe that will start a slow cycle of buildding up... horniness?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I admit... I'm not much of a porn watcher. But if I do (and I've talked about them before), I like the old WorkingMenXXX series.  &lt;u&gt;REAL&lt;/u&gt; men. Most of whom I think are actually straight, but because they're horny and getting paid money or drugs, they're happy to do anything. And they do. They suck, they fuck, they swallow cum. And they are real southern American working bubvba type of guys. Not great bodies. Not great looking. Just.... &lt;strong&gt;REAL&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But of course, I &lt;u&gt;STILL&lt;/u&gt; get sad that I can't even find out how I can get naked and sexual with these guys. Kind of ridiculous. I should just enjoy it, get myself off, and go to sleep. But my brain doesn't turn off the background noise...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh well, if you want to see the type of videos I like, you can find one... &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://xhamster.com/videos/amateurs-adam-and-logan-sucking-dick-xhwOQ8d#" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;!</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1907285</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1907285.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1907285"/>
    <title>Here we go...</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T09:09:31Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T09:09:31Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Act Of The Apostle - Belle And Sebastian</lj:music>
    <content type="html">I hate this so much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I knew this was going to happen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I know that I have a choice. Which is to stay in bed all day, or get up and do something.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And even though my mind seems to spin with a huge amount of fun things I could do by myself, for little or no cost, in a relatively local area, I keep choosing the &amp;quot;stay in bed&amp;quot; option.  Because it's the easy option.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I hate myself for it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which plunges me deeper in to depression.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And makes the choice to get up and out of bed and do something even &lt;strong&gt;MORE&lt;/strong&gt; difficult.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I'm trying to do an online course done by the Anxiety Disorder's Clinic at &lt;a href="https://www.svhs.org.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;St. Vincent's Hospital&lt;/a&gt; called &amp;quot;&lt;a href="https://thiswayup.org.au/about-us" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;This Way Up&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;. And of course, my motivation to actually focus and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;DO&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; it, is also difficult to find, and fight against the easier option of staying in bed and sleeping.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Funnily enough, years and years ago when my anxiety, panic attacks, and agoraphobia were at their worst (before I finally started taking anti-depressants around 2000/2001), I did actually attend a week's workshop for panic disorder, based on &lt;a href="https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/cognitive-behaviour-therapy-cbt" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.&lt;/a&gt;  It didn't work for me.  The medication (&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paroxetine" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Aropax&lt;/a&gt;) however, changed my life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But now... it doesn't really do anything for the depression.  And the 2 other ones I tried last year didn't work, and one of them made things &lt;strong&gt;SO&lt;/strong&gt; much worse.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So yes... I spent the entire day in bed.</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1906960</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1906960.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1906960"/>
    <title>What the fuck did I do?</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T08:59:02Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T08:59:02Z</updated>
    <category term="friends"/>
    <category term="bears"/>
    <lj:music>Musique (Original Mix) - Viky (IT)</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Because I'm still about 3 weeks behind in journal entries, if I don't have anything in Photos or iCal, I'm at a loss too remember what I did.  So I will then use my Health App to see how my &amp;quot;rings&amp;quot; went - Move, Exercise, and Stand.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And somehow today, I closed them all!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet I have nothing to remind me what I did! Well... I now do - my memory has been jogged (not that I'd do anything akin to exercise like jogging... LOL)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Seriously!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But what I &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;DO&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; have was a photo from &lt;u&gt;YESTERDAY&lt;/u&gt; that I forgot to post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Andy recently got made redundant from his job of 14 years, and his last day was Friday just over a week ago. So we're both kind of on leave at the moment - me on Annual Leave, and he between jobs.  I keep joking with him to &amp;quot;get a job and a haircut, you bum!&amp;quot;.  But he's already got interviews lined up, so yesterday I drove him to one in &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caringbah" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Caringbah&lt;/a&gt;.  He looked very smart all dressed up.  So I had to take a. photo.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today, he had an interview in &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacktown" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Blacktown&lt;/a&gt;, so I drove him out to that one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He doesn't have a car - he hasn't had one for years. And he has kind of stopped driving mine, because he actually had a panic attack one day whilst going through the &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M5_Motorway_(Sydney)" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;M5&lt;/a&gt; tunnel, and as well all know with panic attacks, we associate the location with being the cause, so he' had difficulty getting in a car and driving by himself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, with driving him there and back, and probably going shopping, I obviously managed to close all my rings! Who would have thought!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55335875501/in/datetaken/" title="Andy&amp;apos;s looking schmick!" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55335875501_cd97e4cf5b_c.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="Andy&amp;apos;s looking schmick!" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;He scrubs up well!&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1906773</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1906773.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1906773"/>
    <title>Here we go...</title>
    <published>2026-06-15T08:28:32Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-15T08:28:32Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Isolation - PEACE MAKER! Ft. FIRST sounds</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Well,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have done the train trip, and have seen Sparks... and now have another 4 weeks of Annual Leave to go, and I have...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Plans.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Steve has suggested that I don't need to go down to &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stawell,_Victoria" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Stawell&lt;/a&gt; to see him, as he wants me to save my money and possibly join him in Tucson, AZ in September, when he visits his sister (who I have met).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And it's cold down in Stawell.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And we've done all the stuff you can do in the area anyway.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I have no idea what I'm going to do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have &lt;strong&gt;ZERO&lt;/strong&gt; motivation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Zero interest in doing anything, or going anywhere.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well... I shouldn't say zero. When I go to bed, and try to go to sleep, my brain is filled with a myriad of ideas of things I could go and do, and people to see, and things to try.  And I toss and turn and struggle to get to sleep. And eventually fall asleep around 5.00am, so wake up a little after lunchtime, and the day has gone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I might get up, but most of the time, I won't.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This shits me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I guess a lot of these entries will probably (hopefully) be clearing out the ridiculous amount of open Safari tabs that I have on various devices.  For no reason other than the ADHD / OCD need to &amp;quot;archive&amp;quot; them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Like ridiculous ones like this... Where I saw a video in a Facebook reel of a podcaster interviewing someone, who I recognised, but didn't really know, so had to look up. &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Schirripa" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Steve Schirripa&lt;/a&gt;.  Even though he's not hairy or bearded, I find him quite handsome / sexy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And that was my day... I didn't really do much at all.</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1906614</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1906614.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1906614"/>
    <title>Sparks!</title>
    <published>2026-06-10T08:23:12Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-10T08:23:12Z</updated>
    <category term="music"/>
    <category term="friends"/>
    <category term="food"/>
    <lj:music>Get It (Steve Bourassa Remix) - Stevie Wonder &amp; Michael Jackson</lj:music>
    <content type="html">I had to spend quite some time in bed today, recovering from the big day yesterday...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But managed to get up, shower, and head in by car to park at Redfern, and then train to Circular Quay to meet Craige at 6.00pm. I would have caught the train in, but there was going to be track work on my line tonight, and I didn't want to have to catch a train replacement bus home tonight!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We had a bite to eat at &lt;a href="https://www.hungryjacks.com.au/home" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hungry Jack's&lt;/a&gt;, and then wandered around a bit, to take some photos of the light shows as part of the current &lt;a href="https://www.vividsydney.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;VIVID&lt;/a&gt; festival.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then it was off to to &lt;a href="https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Sydney Opera House&lt;/a&gt;, ready for tonight's &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparks_(band)" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Sparks&lt;/a&gt; concert. Craige and I saw them perform here about 2 years ago, and they were fantastic, so as soon as this show was announced, we both agreed that we had to go see them again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And once again, they surpassed expectations. It took a while for the crowd to get up on their feet, but once they did, hardly anyone sat back down. They were filming the concert, probably for both VIVID and the Sydney Opera House, so at some time soon it should be available to stream.  Because it's taken me a while to post, I have already edited all the little snippets of the concert I took in to one easily viewable, relatively short video.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And they played my favourite song of theirs, which is &amp;quot;&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_the_Clock_(song)" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Beat The Clock&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;. Yaaaay!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Afterwards, Craige took the Light Rail back home, and I caught the train to Redfern, then drove home.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55326135718/in/datetaken/" title="Sparks concert with Craige" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55326135718_6e3ae531e5_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Sparks concert with Craige" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Old AMP and new AMP&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55326135998/in/datetaken/" title="Sparks concert with Craige" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55326135998_7054676dab_c.jpg" width="800" height="582" alt="Sparks concert with Craige" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pretty lights&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55325060962/in/datetaken/" title="Sparks concert with Craige" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55325060962_b855fa9a32_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Sparks concert with Craige" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Craige is so photogenic (and popular!)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55325973531/in/datetaken/" title="Sparks concert with Craige" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55325973531_361ecd196a_c.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="Sparks concert with Craige" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Concert Time!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55326388255/in/datetaken/" title="Sparks concert with Craige" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55326388255_7fc32559a5_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Sparks concert with Craige" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Craige is crying in her latte&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;lj-embed id="803" /&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1906295</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1906295.html"/>
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    <title>A big day out!</title>
    <published>2026-06-10T07:37:22Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-10T07:37:22Z</updated>
    <category term="friends"/>
    <category term="transportation"/>
    <category term="food"/>
    <lj:music>Death By Rock and Roll (Acoustic) - The Pretty Reckless</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Up very early this morning to catch the train in to Central and meet Craige for a big day out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I didn't sleep well last night, so I survived the day on only about 3 hours' sleep... but I did well!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We were catching one of the &lt;a href="https://www.thnsw.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Transport Heritage&lt;/a&gt; trips. This one was a trip all the way to &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulburn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Goulburn&lt;/a&gt; and back - which is about 3 and 1/2 hour's in each direction.  But as they were changing from diesel to steam at Picton, it added some time.  Plus there was an issue with some points, and waiting for a freight train, so it took a little over 4 hours.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That meant our time in Goulburn was reduced to only about an hour and 1/2, but that was plenty of time for Craige and I to go and have a nice feed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The trip down was lovely, and we knew a few other people on the train.  I discovered later that there were others I also know - including work colleagues, but I didn't see them, as we pretty much stayed in our carriage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picton_railway_station" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Picton&lt;/a&gt;, when they changed over, there were two &lt;strong&gt;HUGE&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabat" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;bat&lt;/a&gt; colonies on either side of the track, so thankfully I had brought my zoom lens with me, and was able to snap a few pics.  Craige took lots of pics with his phone, and as usual, they are just as good - if not better - than my expensive DSLR.  I constantly complain about this, but I've never taken the time to learn how to take better photos and use all the amazing features of my camera. Why I haven't sold it yet... I don't know.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At Goulburn, we quickly walked up to the &lt;a href="https://thehibogoulburn.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hibernian Hotel&lt;/a&gt;, as a few people had heard good things.  We overtook quite a few people, and when we got in, basically walked straight up to the counter and ordered 2 roasts of the day.  Which was a good idea, because 10 minutes later, there was a crowd of about 30 people waiting to order their meals!  And it was delicious... We both couldn't believe how delicious the lamb was, and there was a &lt;u&gt;HUGE&lt;/u&gt; amount of it as well. Huge chunks! Oh my!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Back to the station, and there was a delay for the train coming back, and shunting the engines to the lead of the train, so most of the journey home was in darkness.  Both Craige and I had little 20 minute power naps...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It was a nice day out... but certainly a long one!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55321832721/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55321832721_20eb78d478_c.jpg" width="800" height="559" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ready for the big trip!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55322243180/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55322243180_d1c5ddbe08_c.jpg" width="800" height="534" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Our carriage&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55321996188/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55321996188_c047a133a9_c.jpg" width="800" height="553" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Bat colony at Picton&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55322244190/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55322244190_477cc3b2be_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lunch was delicious!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55322049809/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55322049809_761762bdc9_c.jpg" width="654" height="800" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sisters at Goulburn&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55322245395/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55322245395_200c1c0221_c.jpg" width="800" height="569" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Engine 1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55320921842/in/datetaken/" title="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55320921842_c1428d15c5_c.jpg" width="800" height="621" alt="Goulburn Heritage Steam Train Day Trip - May 2026" loading="lazy" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Engine 2&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1906085</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1906085.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1906085"/>
    <title>Happy Anniversary!</title>
    <published>2026-06-10T07:03:58Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-10T07:03:58Z</updated>
    <category term="transportation"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Missing - Osrin Ft. Beau Collin &amp; Bright Sparks</lj:music>
    <content type="html">To my car!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Conchita Cruiser, AKA &amp;quot;The Beast&amp;quot; is officially 13 years old today.  And I'm just shy of hitting 110000kms in it - about 68350 miles.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have always had it serviced by Toyota, which is why it still runs perfectly, but the paint - especially on the front bonnet - is starting to show signs of wear. And I now have one of those &amp;quot;sounds&amp;quot; - a light creak coming from who-knows-where, when I go over bumps, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The poor old thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ands that's just me!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And yes... another day where not much at all was done.&lt;br type="_moz" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/29770818644/in/album-72157636752444446" title="NSW &amp;amp; VIC Road Trip - October 2013" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/8279/29770818644_4fe799447e_c.jpg" width="800" height="575" alt="NSW &amp;amp; VIC Road Trip - October 2013" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Still a great car!&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1905683</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1905683.html"/>
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    <title>I had things that had to be done</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T10:58:06Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T11:45:27Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="shopping"/>
    <lj:music>Energy From The Vacuum - Dionigi</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Well,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank goodness I had made arrangements to do things today, as otherwise it probably would have been yet another day in bed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first thing I needed to do was go out to &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetherill_Park" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Wetherill Park&lt;/a&gt; to pick up the things I won in the &lt;a href="https://hilcoapac.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hilco&lt;/a&gt; online auction, that I didn't pick up the other week, when I once again just couldn't be bothered getting up and out of bed to do so. That was at 12.30pm - about a 40 minute drive from home.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that, I actually drove to Central Station (about another 45 minutes), and parked my car out the front. It's a 15 minute &amp;quot;pick-up&amp;quot; time limit, but I wanted to pick up some uniform items that I ordered a few weeks ago, and they don't like to have them stored there too long, as they have limited space.  After putting them back in my car, I then drove to our staff carpark in Redfern, and walked across the new concourse bridge, because my new GP is located just on the other side of the station. &lt;u&gt;VERY&lt;/u&gt; handy indeed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My first appointment at 2.30pm was with one of the nurses, just to do some &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirometry" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;spirometry&lt;/a&gt; testing, to check why I seem to get so easily short of breath when I do any sudden exertion.  When I was a teenager, I remember having to use an early type of inhaler for asthma, but I don't remember getting officially diagnosed as such.  And through my early 20s and 30s, although I still wasn't horrendously fit, I didn't get out of breath so easily.  I used to ride a bike a lot, and when I moved in here (with Andy in Padstow) just over 10 years ago, I would take the dogs (Mille and Eva) for walks, and because they were so young and energetic, they would want to run, which I could do in short bursts.  Now, doing that would make my breathing so tight and laboured that it would trigger a panic attack.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the results from the tests showed that I am not asthmatic. Having a huge dose of the standard asthma medication through a spacer made no difference to my before and after tests. So that can be ruled out.&lt;br /&gt;Then on to my GP for my 3.00pm appointment (who went over those results with me), and we discussed possible next steps.  But we are going to focus on my acid reflux, as the blood tests that I did showed no sign of the &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;helicobacter&lt;/a&gt; in my stomach, which can cause issues.  And I've been taking reflux medication for far too long, and missing just &lt;u&gt;ONE DAY&lt;/u&gt; creates incredibly awful and painful reflux.  So that needs to be investigated.  But firstly, I will do my government bowel screening poo test, and get the results before going back to see my GP, and making the next steps, which will probably be to see a gastroenterologist. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then after my appointment, it was back to the car, to head home.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then the three of us (Andy, David, and myself) went out to Bankstown to have Japanese for dinner, at &lt;a href="https://hanamaruya.reontech.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hanamaruya&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55321810551/in/datetaken/" title="Silly Andy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55321810551_08791deae8_c.jpg" width="578" height="800" alt="Silly Andy" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Silly Andy is... silly!&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1905468</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1905468.html"/>
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    <title>Hustler</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T10:43:02Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T10:43:02Z</updated>
    <category term="transportation"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>No Stoppin' That Rockin' (Tom Moulton Mix) - Instant Funk</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Yet another day where not much was done...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At least I got up and out of bed today.  Still didn't shower... just cleaned my face with a hot flannel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I did eat. Unlike the last 2 days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Although a lot of the time in the last few days, when I've woken, in addition to playing games on the iPad and iPhone, when I've gone to the toilet for a wee, I've also grabbed some chocolate to eat. So that has been all I've eaten for the last few days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Friggin' terrible, really. Unhealthy. But a true sign of depression. And if 3 different types of anti-depressant medication have not worked on me, I don't know what will.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So lets close another tab.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Because I had this open from a few months ago, when I was driving through Newtown, and saw this unusual car in front of me, so I looked it up on the iPhone when I parked the car (I think I was on my way to work).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's a &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Hustler" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Suzuki Hustler&lt;/a&gt;.  Never heard of them, or seen one, and as it turns out, they are not actually commercially sold in Australia, but available as a &amp;quot;grey import&amp;quot; through specialist car dealers.  It reminds me of a Suzuki Jimny, one of their larger models. But almost has a touch of styling from &lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MY&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt; car - a Toyota FJ Cruiser. But it's tiny. In Japan, they're apparently called &amp;quot;&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Kei cars&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, which apparently are the smallest size cars that can be legally driven on a highway in Japan!&lt;/p&gt;Not much done today, but her - another tab closed permanently!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55321889753/in/datetaken/" title="Suzuki Hustler" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55321889753_451e43d3a6_c.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="Suzuki Hustler" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Very cute. But almost dangerously small!&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1905279</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1905279.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1905279"/>
    <title>If the 5 weeks are gonna be like this...</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T10:22:08Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T10:22:08Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <category term="sex"/>
    <lj:music>Finder (The Path) - Ninetoes</lj:music>
    <content type="html">...then I'm going to be pissed off, but not surprised.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do not understand why I go to bed with delusions of grandeur... All the ideas of what I will do the next day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And then the next day comes, and I do nothing. Or at least very little.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And once again, today was yet another entire day in bed, sleeping.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So lets do a catch up and close another Safari browser tab.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This one made me laugh, because one of the results was waaaaaay off.  I did a &amp;quot;Sex Values&amp;quot; online test, which you can find the link to: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://sexvalues.github.io" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The result that made me laugh was the one for sex drive. I have &lt;strong&gt;ZERO&lt;/strong&gt; sex drive. Absolutely zero. No libido. Yes - I &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;THINK&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; about sex, but the drive to do something about it is completely devoid from my life. In fact, I don't think I've ever experienced what it's like to feel &amp;quot;horny&amp;quot;.  And I've had discussions with both gay and straight men about what it feels like to be horny, and feeling the need to go off to the loo whilst at work and wank - sometimes 3 times a day. Or go to sex venues, or beats (cottaging / truck stops, etc.).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have nothing there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've had tests for my levels of testosterone, and they are within the normal range - but always right at the absolute bottom of the range. If they were actually under, and I tested that twice in a row, I would actually be eligible for Hormone Replacement therapy, covered by Medicare. But alas... I'm not quite there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I sometimes think about going ahead and paying for it. But now, I don't even want to look at my dick, let alone play with it, or have anyone else see it, so those days are sadly over.... *sigh*&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55321917939/in/datetaken/" title="Sex Values Test" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55321917939_e080f32444_c.jpg" width="800" height="730" alt="Sex Values Test" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Not quite right.&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1904922</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1904922.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1904922"/>
    <title>Oh look!</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T10:07:25Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T10:07:25Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <category term="sex"/>
    <lj:music>For The Night - Tyga</lj:music>
    <content type="html">What a surprise!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I spent the whole day in bed... just sleeping, and occasionally playing games on the phone or iPad.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What a surprise!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I forgot that it was a &lt;a href="https://thirlmerefestivalofsteam.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;steam festival at the Thirlmere rail museum &lt;/a&gt;on the weekend. I should have gone on Sunday. But I didn't. Because I can't be bothered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I was writing this (certainly not on the day I spent in bed), I thought I'd close one of my open Safari browser tabs, and write about a &lt;a href="https://xhamsterlive.com/megaboy411/profile" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Kiwi fella&lt;/a&gt; I discovered on Hamster Live. &amp;nbsp;Funnily enough, when I clicked on the open tab, he happened to be live at this very moment - which on Monday the 8th of June, was just after 8pm Sydney time, or 10pm in New Zealand.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He lists himself as straight, and he has an average &amp;quot;dad bod&amp;quot;, but quite a large dick! No wonder he likes to show off, and possibly earn money from doing so. Good on him.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I've never understood when uncut guys get totally hard, but their head still remains covered by their foreskin. I thought when they were hard, the head comes out. I certainly prefer that... A short term ex of mine was uncut, but when hard, you could not tell at all. But this guy online, you certainly can tell...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oops! Will have to mark this post as &amp;quot;Adult Content&amp;quot;... LOLO</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1904733</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1904733.html"/>
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    <title>Split Enz!</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T09:51:02Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T09:51:02Z</updated>
    <category term="music"/>
    <lj:music>I Wanna Live (Extended Mix) - Gate 21 Ft. Michael Roman</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Growing up in New Zealand in the 70s and 80s, I was exposed to a lot of classic Kiwi music and bands... and one of the biggest of them was &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_Enz" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Split Enz&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So many hits through those decades, and then they continued on to become &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowded_House" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Crowded House&lt;/a&gt;, with another few decades of hits - both in New Zealand, Australia, &lt;em&gt;AND&lt;/em&gt; internationally.  Split Enz weren't so well known internationally.  I remember seeing them on &amp;quot;&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_Gold_(TV_series)" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Solid Gold&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, and they were introduced as being from Australia - probably because no one in the US would really have known what or where New Zealand was, back then!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So when they announced a reformation of the band for a tour, I knew I &lt;strong&gt;HAD&lt;/strong&gt; to get tickets. And when I told Craige, he was excited too, because he likes them as well. And in fact, waaaaay back in the early days, he actually &lt;u&gt;DID&lt;/u&gt; see them live in the 1970s, performing in a small worker's club up in Newcastle! WOW!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, I spent most of today in bed, but after getting up, showering, and getting dressed, I headed over to Oz &amp;amp; Craige's house, and we caught the Light Rail to the Convention stop, where we went and had something to eat (sadly, dependable old McDonalds), before heading to the &lt;a href="https://tiktokentcent.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;TikTok Entertainment Centre&lt;/a&gt; (yes! really!) to see Split Enz.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It was a sold out show tonight, and is almost sold out tomorrow night.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They actually had &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vika_and_Linda" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Vika &amp;amp; Linda (Bull)&lt;/a&gt;, as their support act, and they've been backing singers for Crowded House, and Neil Finn before. And are very good performers in their own right.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After a short break, the main act began.  They played all the hits, although Tim did seem to struggle to hit a lot of the high notes. Undertsbnable though, as they're all in their 70s! But in terms of musicianship, they were fantastic.  I just wish they had played my favourite song of theirs, which is &amp;quot;Late Last Night&amp;quot;, but I think that would be hard one to reproduce.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The advantage of doing this as a catch-up post is that I have already edited the snippets from the show in to a video, so can include it here in this post!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After the concert, we waited for a &lt;strong&gt;VERY&lt;/strong&gt; Packed tram back to Lilyfield, then shortly after getting back to Craige's place, I headed home.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55309470245/in/datetaken/" title="Split Enz" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55309470245_796b85ff89_c.jpg" width="800" height="410" alt="Split Enz" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;The auditorium is filling up&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;lj-embed id="802" /&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1904569</id>
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    <title>Not a great start</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T09:32:44Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T09:32:44Z</updated>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>If Only - Doris. D &amp; The Pins</lj:music>
    <content type="html">First day of what will be 5 weeks of Annual Leave.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should be on a trip to Japan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On a cruise somewhere.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Riding rollercoasters in America.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Exploring Europe for my first time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But here I am... in suburbia. With no plans to go anywhere or do anything.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh... believe me. There's ideas. Tasks and chores to catch up.  People to get together with for a lunch or dinner.  Little road trips to places where I can do some bush walking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The ideas float around in my head.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And then the next day, I wake up, and can't be bothered getting up and out of bed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Like today.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not much of a day at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But got some laundry done, and some grocery shopping, so it wasn't a complete failure.&lt;/p&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1904173</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1904173.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1904173"/>
    <title>Last day before Annual Leave</title>
    <published>2026-06-08T09:21:31Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-08T09:21:31Z</updated>
    <category term="work"/>
    <category term="bears"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <category term="sex"/>
    <lj:music>Catch The Funk (1997 Original Mix) - Jamie Lewis &amp; Nick Morris</lj:music>
    <content type="html">...and other than one or two things planned with Craige, and maybe going down to see Steve, I have &lt;strong&gt;NO&lt;/strong&gt; idea what I'm going to do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh - there's &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;PLENTY&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; that I could / should / would like to do, but I know me... will I actually do anything?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Started work today at 2.07pm.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can't believe the plethora of open Safari browser tabs open... But the sad thing is how many of them are kind of... porn related.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For some unknown reason, when I look at Facebook, I get these random reels, which just seem to be guys looking at the camera, with their shirt off, saying nothing for about 10 seconds, and that's about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Others are &lt;u&gt;OBVIOUSLY&lt;/u&gt; designed to get attention, to get people to &amp;quot;Follow&amp;quot; them, and they then normally have links to other sites, such as Instagram, or Twitter... or OnlyFans.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some are not shy at all. Wet swimmers that are slightly see through... obviously semi-erections under tight trousers... &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some are super muscular, very built and handsome guys. But those ones I normally don't find interesting, as they normally are completely smooth, and don't have a beard. And then there's a lot of &amp;quot;Daddy&amp;quot; types - but the strange thing with these Reels is that they are obviously married. When you look at their &amp;quot;About&amp;quot; section, or their photos, there's women and children.  But in their Reels, they're shirtless in their garden, or having a swim in a river, or at the beach. And a &lt;strong&gt;HUGE&lt;/strong&gt; number of them seem to be Brazilian, for some strange reason.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, if I &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;DO&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; see one that's attractive, I'll have a look at their User Name, and then do a Google Image search, normally adding in OnlyFans, or JustFans, and the word &amp;quot;cock&amp;quot;. And you would be surprised at how successful that is at bringing up rather revealing images of these gentlemen.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Found one guy on Facebook that was a cute bear, and did a search. There's a web site called &lt;a href="https://www.lpsg.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;LPSG&lt;/a&gt;, which seems to be like aa Reddit for porn, and has a lot of archived pictures ad videos from various porn sites. This guy was either MetalPete13 or MetalBear131, and you can see him.... &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.lpsg.com/threads/metalpete13-aka-metalbear131.5548911/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have to remember that with the change in Australian laws, that many sites require an age verification service to be completed. Some are automatic and easy - a quick camera selfie. But this is where a VPN can come in handy. But then the annoying thing are the popups, and automatic links that open casino sites, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thank goodness for BlueSky!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually, it's been good writing this post and going through a lot of the open browser tabs... Quite a few have expired, or the link is now broken! That makes it easy to close a lot of them down!&lt;/p&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1904102</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1904102.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1904102"/>
    <title>New Doctor</title>
    <published>2026-06-07T11:20:12Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-07T11:20:12Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="work"/>
    <lj:music>It Happens Sometimes (Original Mix) - Jack Back</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Today was a training course starting ay 12.00 noon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thankfully, it was an easy one, and we were finished a little before 5.00pm, after which we were to have out meal break, then continue with &amp;quot;self training&amp;quot;. (Which is normally a clue to... well... you can guess).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Close to a year ago, my GP sold his practice, and I thought he was retiring, but it seems he has since moved to Canberra, and is now practicing 2 or 3 days a week.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have to admit, I was quite annoyed with him and the practice. I have been a patient of his for close to 35 years - almost the entire time I have lived in Australia. And you'd think that he, or the practice, would have called long term clients to advise that he was leaving, and tell us which GP we might be defaulting to. Or what the plan was moving forward? Would we be assisted in finding a new GP elsewhere? What would happen with all our medical records, etc.?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But... nothing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which really made me feel like I've been abandoned, and that threw me in to quite the depression.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And of course, it's taken me &lt;u&gt;AGES&lt;/u&gt; to pull my finger out and look for a new GP.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Funnily enough, not long ago, an advertisement appeared on my Facebook timeline for a new health centre. And it was a place I have walked past many &lt;u&gt;MANY&lt;/u&gt; times, when going to the maintenance centre at &lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eveleigh_Railway_Workshops" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Eveleigh&lt;/a&gt; to stable or prep a train. It's actually the old Work Manager's Office for the railway workshops at Eveleigh, and I thought it was a counselling service or something, because it does have a bit &amp;quot;PRIDE&amp;quot; sign outside. But as it turns out, it is a full service medical centre.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So from the advert, I looked to see what doctors were available, and I kind of picked on based on... looks. Yes - I am that shallow. But it's more likely I will feel comfortable with him. And with the location of the place, it will be really easy to arrange appointments before or after work, depending on my work schedule.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So after my training, I went there for my 5.15pm appointment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh my. He is really handsome. This might be a mistake. But we'll see how we go.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the poor man... he was bombarded with my weirdness in the 30 minute extended &amp;quot;first patient&amp;quot; appointment. But he seems to be very genuinely interested in helping me achieve health, and checking all my concerns. Just have to have a lot of my data transferred from my old place, which I filled in a form for, and the receptionists have sent off for me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, because I was kind of nervous at meeting someone new, and having to divulge lots of person issues straight away, I couldn't stop talking, and was partying between health topics left, right, and centre!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I'll see him again in a few weeks. He's ordered a suite of blood tests to start the ball rolling and get a few main things checked out, and then we'll start from there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After my appointment, I actually headed back to work to &amp;quot;report&amp;quot; (all the other people in the train course would have long gone home), but I needed to have something to eat and use the toilet, plus I have to go back to Central to catch my train home anyway. So after that, I caught the train home, and just spent the evening chilling out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had thought about seeing whether Andy (as David is normally down at his parents in Wollongong on a Friday night) wanted to go to &lt;a href="https://rwc.org.au/whats-on/dj-bingo/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;DJ Bingo at the Revesby Worker's Club&lt;/a&gt;, but as usual... I couldn't be bothered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br type="_moz" /&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1903626</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1903626.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1903626"/>
    <title>I must be cold-hearted and devoid of emotion...</title>
    <published>2026-06-07T10:48:23Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-07T10:48:23Z</updated>
    <category term="friends"/>
    <category term="work"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Top Down On Da NAWF- Migos</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Remember &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://cuboz.dreamwidth.org/2497300.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;THIS POST&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; rom late last November, where I visited my friend Phil, who was dealing with a cancer prognosis?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadly, even though he messaged me a few weeks ago, from his therapy / hospital in Randwick, and seemed to be doing OK, I got a message (from his phone) from his sister-in-law, Rose, to say he sadly passed away on the 27th of April.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today was meant to be a &amp;quot;Celebration Of Life&amp;quot; for him, at &lt;a href="https://www.castlebrook.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Castlebrook Memorial Park&lt;/a&gt;. And I should have gone - and &lt;strong&gt;COULD&lt;/strong&gt; have, as it was this morning at 10.00am, and I wasn't to start work until 3.21pm.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I couldn't bring myself to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Like when I got the text from Rose. It was a shock - but I felt... nothing. Just.... numbness. No sadness. I didn't cry. I just felt... nothing. I am devoid of any emotions, or feelings, and it makes me feel like I am a shitty person.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I know I'll be disappointed that I didn't go.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At least I did get up and out of bed, and went to work for that 3.21pm start.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55063626701/in/datetaken/" title="Phil and I" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55063626701_26c2e6fc1c_c.jpg" width="800" height="554" alt="Phil and I" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Vale Phil.&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1903399</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1903399.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1903399"/>
    <title>Couldn't be bothered....</title>
    <published>2026-06-07T10:31:38Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-07T10:31:38Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="shopping"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Galaxy Mood (Ft. Toya Delazy) - Django Django</lj:music>
    <content type="html">A day off work today, and I was meant to do a few things... including going to pick up some things I didn't need, but bought on one of those &lt;a href="https://hilcoapac.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Hilco&lt;/a&gt; online auctions.  Just a cooler bag, and a western style shirt.  As if I don't already have enough shirts. But I kind of need a new cooler bag, as the one I currently have is starting to fall apart.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But... once again, it became one of those days where I just couldn't find the motivation to get out of bed. So that's where I stayed. And I'll work out when I can go and pick up my items some other time, although they may not have a space available.  So if I've missed out, I've missed out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do need to get a new water bottle.  The one I have only holds about 500ml of water, and I'd like a bigger one. Plus it has only a narrow mouth, which makes filling it up with ice from the machine(s) at work a little difficult. Plus if I'm adding a &lt;a href="https://waterdrop.com.au" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Waterdrop&lt;/a&gt;&amp;reg; to it, I need to have between 400-600ml. I also try to drink a lot of water at work, so prefer a 1l bottle.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A few months ago, one of the other drivers had a water bottle that was lighting up around the base. It apparently connects to his phone via an App, and reminds him to drink water. It even has a small scale built in to the base, so can work out how much water is being added to the bottle, and how much is being drunk.  I looked up purchasing &lt;a href="https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/hidrate-spark-pro-946ml-chug-smart-drink-bottle-fruit-punch" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;one from JB HiFi, but it's AUD$159&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So yes... today was yet another of my wasted days, spent entirely in bed.</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1903175</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1903175.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1903175"/>
    <title>I get obsessed...</title>
    <published>2026-06-07T10:19:33Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-07T10:19:33Z</updated>
    <category term="clothing"/>
    <category term="shopping"/>
    <category term="work"/>
    <lj:music>No Excuse (Demo) - Pet Shop Boys</lj:music>
    <content type="html">As if I need more shoes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I do need to clean up my browser tabs!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Started work at 2.53pm this afternoon...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of the things I've been looking at is a pair of Crocs. I know a lot of people really love to &lt;em&gt;HATE&lt;/em&gt; on Crocs, but I don't mind them.  I don't own a single pair. I &lt;u&gt;DID&lt;/u&gt; buy a pair when I went to Hong Kong in 2019 with Craige, but sold them on eBay (and I think I may have gotten scammed).  I now wish I hadn't, because they were a style only available in specific Asian countries.  They were a famous Japanese cartoon bear, but I can't even remember enough to do a search. I might have a photo somewhere... although there isn't one in my eBay Flickr folder.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And even though I'm not in to the whole DC or Marvel &amp;quot;Universes&amp;quot;, I do rather like these &lt;a href="https://www.crocs.com.au/p/captain-america-echo-clog/209478.html?cgid=clogs&amp;amp;cid=100" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;Captain America Crocs&lt;/a&gt;.  Sadly though, I haven't been able to find my size. Even though when I first saw them online, my size &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;WAS&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; available, but I procrastinated, and look what happens!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboz/55318372837/in/datetaken/" title="Captain America Crocs" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;&lt;img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55318372837_dc0d5b9a90_c.jpg" width="800" height="497" alt="Captain America Crocs" fetchpriority="high" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;They're kinda cool...&lt;/em&gt;</content>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:cuboz:1902885</id>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/1902885.html"/>
    <link rel="self" type="text/xml" href="https://cuboz.livejournal.com/data/atom/?itemid=1902885"/>
    <title>I struggle with this...</title>
    <published>2026-06-06T05:48:01Z</published>
    <updated>2026-06-06T05:48:01Z</updated>
    <category term="health"/>
    <category term="friends"/>
    <category term="work"/>
    <category term="life"/>
    <lj:music>Baker Street (Main Mix) - DJ Octopus</lj:music>
    <content type="html">Started work at 3.21pm this afternoon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sent a few birthday messages.  One of them was to the straight brother of a friend / work colleague.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Said friend / work colleague is transitioning.  And I don't know why, but I'm having trouble dealing with it.  Mainly because I have know her (because she is legally a female now) for around 16 years, and in all that time, she &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;NEVER&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt; once mentioned any gender dysphoria or desire to become a female.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And she was... a bear. &lt;strong&gt;REALLY&lt;/strong&gt; bearish. Short, chunky, bearded, &lt;u&gt;VERY&lt;/u&gt; hairy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also neuro-&amp;quot;spicy&amp;quot; (like many of us).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And her transition isn't... the best. She still looks very much like a man. Just longer curly hair, the beard has gone, and weight loss. But no makeup, or jewellery, or clothes to help feminise her.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've seen this a lot.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Female to Male transgender people always seem to be incredibly successful at looking incredibly masculine. In fact, one FB friend of mine is one of the most insanely hairy, bearded, masculine men I know, and it was only recently I found out he was transgender.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have quite a few Male to Female transgender friends and colleagues. Some look great... but some... still look like men in a dress, or men with makeup.  I know they don't have the same access to plastic surgery, or stylists, like many of the famous MTF transgender actresses do, but I sometimes wonder - especially late in life - how much is genuine gender dysphoria because of a mess with genetics and chromosomes, and how much is perhaps partly mental illness?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not trying to belittle them, or reduce their difficulty in life... but it's just a question / opinion I sometimes wonder about. And because she still looks so... &amp;quot;mannish&amp;quot;, I worry about her at work, and in daily public life, and how difficult it will be because she's really not passable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As an LGBT+ person myself, I should be supportive. Which I am. But I honestly worry about it when it happens so late in life with no clues of previous desires to transition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh... and I think that I need to start a list of people that I don't make an effort to send personalised birthday messages to. His brother's replay was &amp;quot;Thanks Dom&amp;quot;, and I never received any birthday greeting from him.  I shouldn't be so petty, but I suppose it's all the energy I have put in to messages over the years to not get more than a casual &amp;quot;thanks&amp;quot; (if anything), that is like death from a thousand cuts...</content>
  </entry>
</feed>
