G'day, !

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend. Settle in for the next 5-10mins and enjoy some random meanderings from around the internet that I've discovered in the last week. Unlike every other week, this has been one of the most relaxing ones in a while for me! But, more on that later...

Before I go on, a reminder... if you have a friend who you think would enjoy the this email, maybe forward it on? It helps A LOT! If you're the friend reading this, click the link below to join! Glad to have you here!

In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Gadgets & things - Aeropress Go portable coffee maker
• Read - Emotional Female
• Listen - PxR - Music for a rainy day
• Watch - Carnival Scam Science
• Quote - Ages zero through 30, 'No girls!' At 35, 'Why can’t you talk to girls?'

Week in the life

This has been a very relaxing week so far! I've been fortunate to have some quiet lists and early finishes and took a few days off since it was my birthday a few days ago. That's resulted in what feels like a mini holiday and probably the first weekend since Ballarat that I haven't worked in some capacity!

I'm writing this from the W Hotel in Melbourne CBD and from my room, I can almost see my apartment. It wasn't a trip far at all, but it has been super relaxing none the less!

Here's some shots of the room and of the views from their Level 14 pool/gym area...

I treated myself to a couple of gadgets this year: a Xiaomi Electric Scooter and... a Dyson V11 vacuum. You know you're getting old when a vacuum clear is a treat! But with 2 cats around the apartment, my other Dyson was running out of charge when vacuuming on the max setting!

The weekend also included a HUGE amount of food. But more on that over at the blog...

PxR / randInt() update

Latest Reel: Melbourne goes Red

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMoRTzcDnmA/

Well not to much on the PxR and randInt() update that's new since I took most of the week off. I did do the last of the 3 reels which photos from Melbourne in Red. Not quite sure if Reels/TikTok whatever is for me. There are some people making short videos of locations like St Kilda/ City etc that I do like.

On the randInt () podcast front, we've surpassed 200 life time listens and episode 001 now has over a 100 listens! I have no idea if those milestones are good or not, but I'm celebrating on the inside none the less...

Gadgets & things

Aeropress Go portable coffee maker

https://amzn.to/3saObZU

I happen to quite enjoy my coffee and am quite often seen pottering around the corridors of theatre with a cup in my hands. I was quite good at bringing my own cup to the cafes until the whole Covid-19 thing happened. When in lockdown, I started to use my original Aeropress coffee maker more and more. Recently, I found that they had a compact version that fits inside the supplied reusable cup! I'll be getting one for work since hospital coffees are notoriously bad most of the time!

See also

• Steel filter for Aeropress - If you're considering an Aeropress, this might also be something useful. It's essentially a steel sieve that serves as the filter for the coffee. For some reason, this was not available in Australia for ages so I've been using the filter paper, but now it's 1 less consumable.

Read

Emotional Female

https://amzn.to/3tJQzXB

Firstly, I haven't read this yet, but the author is a friend of a friend and I know the story in some detail already and hence am featuring it since it's not an uncommon tale in the medical world.

She's not the first to go through the many trials of school and university only to find a hostile culture of overwork on the other side, but she's done something about it and raised awareness.

On a personal note, I've been lucky that things never got that bad, but we've all heard the stories or know someone for whom it did. Medicine is a noble profession, but it also has it's dark side...

Listen

PxR - Music for a rainy day (~47mins)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3bsanZEXw77SeQyHqzJZb4?si=LLf8EIw-TsG9JAmzzi08dQ

It's quite a rainy day here in Melbourne today and I was looking for something slow and gentle to listen to on Spotify. Turns out, I was building a playlist just for this kind of day!

It's more of a rough draft since I had forgotten about it, but does have a few songs that I absolutely love on these kinds of days...

Hope you enjoy!

Watch

Carnival Scam Science (~11min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI

I'm not much of a carnival game person but have always looked on with some degree of envy at people walking away with giant plush toys (even though I never wanted one!), but it seems like luck and a ton more skill is required to actually win anything from a carnival!

This video goes into the science of how they tweak little things to make the games MUCH harder to win.

Quote I'm pondering

Ages zero through 30, 'No girls!' At 35, 'Why can’t you talk to girls?'

-Hasan Minhaj, Homecoming King

Hasan Minhaj is one of my favourite American comedians and political commentators. His comedy specials are filled with relatable anecdotes and contrasted quite suddenly with VERY heavy topics.

This one stuck out as very true growing up. Anything to do with girls was very taboo in the household, but now I'm older, it's all about getting married!

If you haven't already, just watch some of his stuff on Youtube or Netflix. It's awesome.

Truly random

• The Lost Temple, a 20m statue and Master Dao - I saw this article in the local newspaper and it got me thinking about how what religion teaches is not always followed by the teachers themselves. Though I know scant details of apart from what's in the story, it seems like the lure of fast money might have been too much...

Hope you enjoyed the Sunday Surprise! As always, stay safe and stay random!

- Raffy

PS- Ramadan is coming up soon and like the last few years, I'll be doing a vlog about Ramadan and will be raising money to reduce homelessness. Is there anything you'd like covered in the vlogs? Email me!

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