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I think I said that the last time I mentioned my dear departed workplace. Now it really has fallen into the abyss.

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-05/viq-solutions-australia-court-transcription-winding-down/106763466

It looks like they tried to sell it, after the company tanked back in March and they called in the receivers. No takers, so now the entire justice system in Australia is flailing, because VIQ, previously Auscript, was BIG and now the courts don't have anyone doing most of their transcribing. The Federal Court says it's trying to put something in place itself, but the transcribers haven't heard anything from them. So, good luck with that, FC, you always were the most boring court in the business. Think big companies doing shonky deals, that's what shows up in the FC. Wait a minute, VIQ, you resembled that remark!

Part of me still feels involved, because after years in that job, one develops a sense of responsibility for the courts and wants to see them taken care of properly, getting the vital information they need to run cases. That feeling persisted through several owners of the company, all wanting to make money out of transcriptions. Which you actually can't do. It's an essential service, not a moneymaker.

I was so freaked out by the time I was made redundant at the end of 2024 that it has taken me many months to get over it. The latest owners brought in a voice to text program [cough - AI!] which we were forced to learn. I was not great at it and I guess I couldn't change enough with the job, hence they got rid of me. I never felt any regret for being retired, which I decided to do because I had had way past enough and was past 60 years old. Yes, I might have been able to get another job, but clearly not in this industry, which I worked in for 32 years.

This way, I live on the superannuation [which will work properly the moment the orange horror is an ex-president and/or the freaking Middle East war stops] I do what my mother needs, am available nearby etc, and I don't go any more crazy.

The image in the icon isn't very clear. That's a skull wearing headphones, sitting on a transcriber's desk in front of their computer screen :-) That was set up when somebody did Halloween decorations and then they just left it there.

I'm home from Swancon and having a recovery day!

It was an excellent convention and I'm very pleased to witness the con's revival, after several years in the doldrums following Covid, when all we had was a daytime event at a community centre. This was also Swancon 50 AND an Australian Natcon, so it felt like absolutely everyone fannish I had ever known was there.

The weekend also featured what they're calling the most violent storm in 50 years, so a bit more than the prediction. My balcony plants are okay, but the storm had plenty to say to one of the carports at the apartment complex. By carport I mean it's a tin roof on supports, so no walls or door. Said tin roof has taken a bit of a dive. I have pictures, along with the obligatory "this was my room for the con" and the view of the carpark!

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg/photo/AF1QipNdjzP2hthhA9TRj-UAf5EWl27Ef7C0XPQT-M2E

I'm prepping to attend Swancon, Perth's annual science fiction convention, and my one real social event of the year. This is it

swancon50.sf.org.au/

if anyone wants to check it out. I've been attending for a very long time, hmm, I got my 42 badge at the con before last, I think. These are 'how many Swancons you've attended.' The first one was for 20, which I think was just a nice round number. The second was for 33, the hobbit age of maturity and the last was 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything.

This is my tribe. I discovered it when I was 17. I managed to get up the nerve to attend Swancon 6, not knowing any of the community or much about it. Someone had put a story/ad in the newspaper. I came home that night and told my mum I was just here to get some stuff, and some people I had never met before today were dropping by soon to pick me up and take me back to the con for the rest of the long weekend, I'd see her on Monday. I had never done anything like that in my life. :-)

I'm still kind of introverted and as I get older, it feels more difficult to get out and do things. I think it's okay not to, by the way, I don't agree with the pushy types who think you should force yourself. So getting ready for the con has felt quite intensive. I've also been preparing to leave my rats to be rat-sat by my friend and landlord Marian, who lives two floors up from me. I've rat-sat her rats when she had them, and I know she'll look after them, but it's very hard!

I'm not sure if it's particularly a rat owner thing, but when this happens, we like to get daily updates on how our precious little fuzzies are doing and if anybody sneezed. So that'll happen through the con for my peace of mind. What about my mum? She'll be fiiiine. I'm sure somebody will tell me if I'm needed! [Seriously, I'm doing my usual parental wrangling before I go and M can use a phone, just doesn't like having to bother].

On the same weekend as the con, we're set to receive what's been described as the most severe storm to hit Perth in five years, because of course we are!

I'm quite fatigued tonight. Must be forced socialisation: I went for a haircut and boy, that barber liked to talk! Among other information, apparently there is a local barber nearby who offers "extras" with the haircuts. I have a feeling that's just the one which offers a 5-min neck massage, but speculation ranged far beyond this!

M's care provider rang me back [I called them to say it was three weeks since I'd queried them about a change to M's services]. It wasn't the person I had been led to expect, and it looks to me that yet another coordinator has run screaming. I've managed to make an appointment for this guy to come around and talk to me and M about what she wants, which involves bathroom assistance. So we'll see if I learn anything more then. I got the call while I was unlocking the bike to leave, and that was a very busy road, but I managed.

I'd ridden the 6 kilometres or so to Subi for the haircut and also to visit an Asian fruit and veg store - Golden Choice - which has all the 'usual' fruit and veg but also a lot of the Asian specialties. Very good prices. They had pawpaw.

Then I needed to drop by M's place and make sure the meet up was going to work, since phone calls with M don't work too well these days. Has to be in person. This turned out to be tea time! I knew I'd be making said tea but that was ok, I needed some myself by then. After that I got to go home and do a bit more organising before I could flake out. I've signed up to a study that wants to find out how useable the Carer Gateway website is, and I've spent some time there, so I put in to do this. They pay per hour. Hopefully I don't have to actually talk to people, but I will if I have to.

A short while ago I woke the rats up for dinner. Who's the dumb creature now?

Today, coming back from taking the rubbish to the bins, I climbed the stairs to the sixth floor. I try to do this fairly often, as exercise, since I’m not climbing Hill Street in the city three times a week any more. On the fifth floor, a couple of teenaged girls emerged from an apartment near the stairs and headed along the walkway, while I kept going on the stairs. At the sixth floor, I headed along the walkway to the centre, where the lift is, just before my place. The teenagers hopped out of the lift just as I got there. Yeah. They had got in the lift to go up a single level and were still pipped by a 60-plus person. I’ve still got it! Well, some of it, anyway.

I also saw a second quenda [bandicoot] in the bushland outside this apartment complex. We had just had a sudden downpour of rain and perhaps it was inspecting some of the many holes it has dug around my weeding Spot. We saw each other at about the same time. It retreated but didn't seem panicked.

Okay, this is the Trump zombification scene in my current masterpiece. I urge caution if you are easily affected by horror and violence, because this IS quite gory. The characters are Finn, the prepper who has been forced into a retirement home, his teenaged grandnephew Rusty and a student nurse, Trace. And of course, the Orange Moron on screen. It's called Late Zombies because, to Finn's huge frustration, the zompoc waited until he was in his 80s to show up.

( Read more... )

The weather got warmer again, though we're warned winter is still on the way. At least it's been easier to get around, important when your transport is an e-bike.

For my own amusement and anyone else's who wonders just what you do when you're carer for an elderly person, here is my last few days.

( The parental wrangling diary for this week )

I've been getting some reading done - more library books from two libraries - and a bit of writing when I'm not being distracted. I abhor AI for anything creative, but I did try it out to make a list for me of what a doomsday prepper should take if he was put into a retirement home! It banged out a long list so fast you would think it got asked this frequently. That, I think I will find useful, though I need to adapt the list for Australian purposes. I've got a scene where Trump is zombified; might post that here if folks are interested? I don't know if I'll keep it, it was mostly for my own amusement. Probably if the thing ever gets to publication, I will need to feature an imaginary President. But you'll know who I really had in mind.

There are just over two weeks till Swancon.

It is now cold, by Western Australian standards, so I don't think I will break last year's swimming record, when I went in the ocean during May. By the coast it's a bit warmer than the official city record of 5^C minimum yesterday - we had about 8^C - but the air is definitely crisp and one needed one's jacket. To those who ever experienced a Russian winter [or anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, really] you can stop laughing now, you'll hurt yourselves.

At the end of this month, I will get the chance to have proper conversations [at Swancon], and hopefully be more interesting as a result. I say this after nearly losing my mind again this evening, trying to figure out why M still couldn't hear me even after I had changed the hearing aid batteries. She'd wanted me to bring around fish and chips, which was supposed to be simple.

Conversations with M tend to be repetitive and basic, even more so when you're writing everything down and muttering insanely to yourself. Just lucky for me that the bit she did hear was when I'd managed to censor myself and say "flipping" instead of the other word. I've now looked up how long the aids are meant to last and it's a week to two weeks after they're activated. I hadn't known you're meant to let the battery sit for a minute or so before putting it in, that's not something that ever occurred to me and the hearing place didn't mention it. Before activation, they last several years, so M's idea that the aids fail because of "old" batteries is, like so much she says, nonsense. She doesn't change the f...ing batteries when they fail, it's just a complete mystery to her every time. And that's why I go mental over it. And no, I never considered a career in the aged care industry, why do you ask?! [EDIT. Finally got the aids to work by messing with them].

I'm in dire need of some intelligent and like minded conversation! Last I had was when I visited Rdm and Leece of this journal. Or no, there was a week ago when the gamers did get four people together to play Cards Against Humanity, where I was victorious, being declared the most depraved person in the room for that evening!

Swancon is Perth's annual sf convention, 50th of that name this year, and probably my only chance to be able to discuss important things. Like the books up for the Hugo Awards, zombies, what will happen when the zombies overrun Perth, our certain doom when ~~Skynet~~ AI becomes self aware, the latest empire to crash and burn [cough, USA!] embarrassing things like what I've managed to write lately [not much], gaming, the Hail Mary movie and many other things.

I'll be looking about to see if there is a GURPS game somewhere I can join/get to. I haven't been able to play since two of our players dropped out and were, to be honest, getting extremely unreliable for a long time before that. Hopefully the gamesmaster will be successful in recruiting some more to ours, I'm pretty sure he's going to try.

Some of the Swamp volunteers found a fox den this month. I wasn't there for it, but they posted the results of putting up a camera, because obviously no fox was hanging around with humans. [Edit. There is no tolerance for foxes here and they do know it].

www.facebook.com/reel/979482221251693

In case this link doesn't work; what they saw was a vixen coming to check on the place overnight. This feels incredible, in the heart of the city, in an area which is not that large. I don't know the stats on the Swamp area's size, but it only takes me 30-40 minutes to walk around it. To get here, the fox would have had to travel through suburban streets, though there IS a larger bushland only a few kilometres away that she could have travelled from. This is not good news for anything small, furry and prey-classified [bandicoots!] that live here. Probably not for the smaller waterbirds either, though we're past nesting season.

It's a week since I lost Ajax and we're managing. The other two rats, Fred and Griffin, have returned to normal behaviour, though I'm sure it has been hard for them. They had all been together since birth, being three of seven boys in that litter of 14. Now they are the only survivors; such is rat mortality.

Not much has happened this week. M hasn't had any serious difficulties that I have noticed or of which I have been informed! She did say she thought someone else had come in this morning, but since the front door was still locked and no one else was scheduled, I figured I could safely ignore that. They had supposedly opened her cupboard.

I did get down to the beach for a swim, though the days are beginning to cool down. There was a huge set up being constructed for a concert, with the sound stage on the sand, so they had fenced off almost the entire left side of the beach, from the Indiana Tea House to the groyne. Rude. So glad I'm 4 kilometres away from that when it goes off. Apart from that, just a trip out to Bassendean to visit the shop of the butcher who wins awards for his snaggers. You can't miss them, they're arranged along the counter! The awards, not the sausages. I've got a bit of writing done, not much. Reality keeps on being weirder than anything I imagine.

For anyone into astronomy in comfort, here is the evening view from my armchair, now I have cleared away the summer shade barricades from my balcony. It's also an unintentional lesson in how easy it might be to mock up a false image. That's the reflection of my ceiling light, not an alien spacecraft.

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg/photo/AF1QipPzeSoXka1EMKCATxDm8p2MnSWy1Iy7R5TA-BKj

( Bitching again about people who can't fulfil their commitments! )

I needed to do the parental wrangling every day over the Easter period, so this week feels most relaxing in comparison. It wasn't otherwise particularly Easterish, no chocolate eggs etcetera. I did get to go boardgaming with some of the Usual Suspects - Leece, Rdm and another friend, don't know if he's on Dreamwidth or not. It was very good to see that Rdm is recovering from his medical ordeal.

I also moved out of my comfort zone by riding Midnight the e-bike 14 kilometres over to Leece and Rdm's house, which is a bit further than I'm used to. I got used to riding 11km to the city on gulag days, though it has been over a year since I did that. This ride was almost as direct, along the side of West Coast Highway on bike paths which were excellent until the neighbourhood of Scarborough Beach Road, which is a nightmare whatever your mode of transport. I had some aches and pains as a result of that, probably just from holding position during the ride. I really needed the hot shower when I got home to ease the aches! And some parts of the bike path were completely dark except for the bike's own lights. I was very conscious that I was playing that part in the horror movie where you're the object lesson for everyone else.

One thing which makes me wonder if I'm on some sort of spectrum is that I plan for a ride in unknown territory by obsessively reading maps and making my own mud-maps to take with. Yes, I know you can get your phone to give you audio directions, but the way I do it, I will remember that route, probably for ever. Still, done now, can do it again.

( What I did today. You're fascinated, right? )

There's no newspaper on Good Friday, so I gave M a rundown on the news. "There's still a war in Iran so there's a fuel crisis, there's a NASA spacecraft on its way to the Moon, Donald Trump isn't dead yet, and the Prime Minister has told us not to panic." I think that about covers it. M did realise that this was the first Moon visit since the landing of Apollo 17 in '72, so not too bad. M may have conflated the various Moon landings into one but fair enough, I wasn't certain of the date myself till I checked.

GF is quiet around here since most places are shut, whether or not you observe the holiday. Swancon used to be held at Easter, which dropped away a few years back, and I'm still of the mindset where I have no idea what to do at Easter, because I've always had Swancon to do! I hope it may move back. This year is the first since the pandemic to be held at an actual hotel, with rooms, so one can but hope for a revival. So all I've done is the parental wrangling, which I take over at public holidays because the community care place's rates are very high on such days and we need to conserve the funding. I came home and watered all the plants, messed around online for a bit, read some more of Caliban's War, Book 2 of The Expanse [second reread] and crashed out on the bed.

( Read more... )

I'm somewhat bleh at the moment, not sure why. I did just have my Reandron shot yesterday, and it was definitely due, so perhaps a contributor. There seems to be a new rule, according to the nurse who gave it me, that a doctor has got to put eyes on you before you get the shot. So I had to wait around until Dr K was free. She eventually appeared in the doorway, saw me, said "Oh, it's him, yes, he can have it!" and disappeared again.

After I had the Reandron shot, I needed to see a barber for a haircut. New place. The place I went before decided to go with a very fancy - probably AI created - online website. It was now all "bronze" and "silver" and "platinum experience." I could honestly not find an entry for "haircut with clippers and scissors" like they had before, so I found a place that is ONLY walk-ins, just like Sami's in Bassendean. Tony the barber did a very nice job and also cheaper :-) Before me was a bloke with a magnificent white beard, so when it was my turn, I despaired of my current stubble and asked, "You think I should give up on it?" "Yeah, probably," said Tony. "You want me to get rid of it?" Two seconds later, all clean.

Being a nerd, I speculated that if this was 500 years ago, those two appointments would have been at the same place with a barber-( Read more... )

Here's a collection of photos I took today at the beach I go to. It's not normally so dressed up, but at the moment they are having the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition, so it's a lot more popular during weekdays than usual. The swimmers get it back after next weekend. I took these photos around five o'clock this afternoon.

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg/photo/AF1QipPIZXeIhYB8kkodsDk2H_z5a8yTUMM4czl5xf28

And some more detail is available on that bunker ad, I mean exhibit....

www.bunkerdown.info/

Until now, I didn't realise this was a thing which a transman could catch. Be warned, my brothers!

Concerning my mum's missing watch. I had thought it might have been left at the hairdressers. which is just one floor down at the Beaumont. So Mike, the manager, and I looked in there on Tuesday after hours, it having gone missing the previous Friday. We saw nothing and concluded it wasn't there, because surely it would've been handed in. I was mystified because I did what I considered a police-standard search of M's apartment. [And yes, I've seen one]

Today I got an email saying the watch had been found! At the hairdresser's. I was over at the Beaumont again, delivering drugs. M's prolia, which the doc kindly rang me up at 8 am to say was due, and please see it was in the office fridge! Mike's wife Karen said she thought the failure to find was due to men looking. Mike got accused of "domestic blindness." Karen thought I was just as useless! Of course I didn't explain why I was happy to be accused of gender-based incompetence, but so glad that one is over.

I saw this on Facebook today: It's a bewildering concept. This may be my favourite boardgame, well, after Scrabble, but a movie? Of course, as a card carrying nerd [it's my library card] I would watch a movie of a bunch of people on an old style train, playing Ticket to Ride.

nerdist.com/article/netflix-developing-ticket-to-ride-movie-board-game-asmodee/

Some birthday pictures:

A picture of some teenaged rats: The boys early in 2024, when they were about four months old. Then a pic of Ajax on the bike from last year, since he didn't want to wake up for the birthday pictures. On the day itself: Griffin gazes vacantly through the bars, wondering why he is awake. Frederik does likewise on the lower shelf and that's Ajax, the heap in the corner behind Fred. Rats do sleep more than humans, especially the very young and the elderly. They like to get their full 12 hours.

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg

I saw this on Facebook and stole it instantly, for use in M's next Groundhog Day adventure.

"Quit asking if I'm okay. If I'm ever okay, I'll let you know!"

www.facebook.com/photo

I also intend to adapt it to M's perennial, "Are you doing anything interesting/exciting this weekend?" which drives me crazy, because that sounds like something you'd ask a kid on holiday. Also it makes me feel bad because I'm usually not doing anything/can't afford to. If that makes any sense. And I suspect what I find interesting would not at all align with M's ideas.

M asks me that weekly or as often as she sees me, which can be several times in a week. Weekends are usually when I hide, because this suburb is very, very busy on weekends and I don't like that. Same as I go to the beach on weekdays when it's not insanely crowded and you're less likely to be swum over by some gung ho type practising for the Rottnest Swim. Which got cancelled this weekend because of rough weather, so it is in my mind.

My mum has NO clue. When I was talking about this annual event, in which people swim the 20 kilometres from Cottesloe Beach to Rottnest Island, she asked if I was going in it, to which I asked if I looked crazy, by which I really mean that obsessed. I'm an all right swimmer, but I cannot do a distance like that. Has she met me?

In other news:

Google has slowed to a crawl this weekend, so that loading anything took a long time, enough that I finally checked and there was actually a reported problem, cause unknown. Which is preferable to the times when the Down Detector responds with, "No, why do you ask?" That's what it feels like, that I am being humoured by their AI.

It is my rats' second birthday. I gave them some leftover chips from fish and chips. Doing nothing is their favourite thing, so this post is in their honour today.

( another inept assassination attempt on Trump )

I'm slowly getting better at dealing with the huge gaps in M's reasoning ability. I'm finding it's still sometimes difficult to get my head around that, when one is used to being able to communicate on a certain level, to find that that doesn't work any more. Especially when it's the person who used to win arguments with, "Because I said so!"

On Thursday I assisted M to get to the hairdresser - who visits the facility and sets up downstairs - and while she was in there, I went and did some stuff. Plant watering, rubbish removal and making M a sandwich for later. That sandwich sent M into a spin, apparently, because she didn't connect it with me having been present, and instead believed that "someone" had been in her place. So Shine Community Care, after she rang them, rang me in some bewilderment, but not too much, because they deal with quite a few cognitively challenged old folks. I'd already cancelled Shine for the day, since I was going to be there. They just wanted to be sure it wasn't due to something medical, like an infection.

I did tell M I was going to make a sandwich, but this information was lost in the mists of the last hour or so.

M also went into another "somebody's stealing from me" episode today, which I halted by finding the nightgown in her laundry basket. I also broke the news to her that NOBODY wants her nightgowns. This was, apparently, news. Won't help next time, though. I've found the only thing that temporarily stops it is finding the item.

I would be pulling my hair out but I kind of want to keep the rest of it.

Carers WA is pushing for a Carers Card, which would give WA's 320,000-odd unpaid carers the same discounts as the Seniors Card. That would really help! For context, I think the state's total population is up around 3 million.

#

Note: For the benefit of anyone new reading my journal, M is my 95 year old mother, whose carer I am.

I've been around to take some more pictures of Lake Claremont/The Swamp, so people can see what I'm on about. Well, that's one of the things I carry on about.

I went to the volunteers' seedling watering session on Sunday morning. They're going to think I don't talk much, because that's 7.30 am and the brain is not out of bed yet, but they'll learn. Somebody told me why we're doing it in that area, which was good to know. There used to be five Moreton Bay Fig trees there, but they fell victim to the polyphagous shothole borer, which is a tiny beetle that can kill really big trees. It's not from around here, but decided to move in.

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg

Anyway, in no particular order, the photos depict: The shed where volunteers' equipment is kept, two of. The path to where the seedlings are. I didn't have my camera on the day and I can't go in there unless on official business. There's a distant photo of some of the seedlings taken from the public path. All this is a wetland in the centre of Perth, by the way. Claremont is an inner suburb, about six kilometres from the CBD if you take the bike path. [Inner-ish].

There's also one of the surviving Moreton Bay fig trees, which has some 'crime scene' tape up because a branch, the size of any other normal tree, fell off a while back. Then there's the lakeside with some of the residents. I'm told this is a lot of water for the lake to have in late summer, but there's quite a few weeks of hot weather yet to come. Then a surprise, somebody's nest built almost in arm's reach of a public viewing area. Then a distance view of the whole lake.

Then we have some holes. They're as close as I've been able to get a camera to the elusive southwestern brown bandicoot, also called the quenda. I *think* these are quenda holes. I asked at the volunteers thing if there were rabbits here and someone said "rarely," though as we know, two rabbits are all you need. But I've seen and nearly broken my legs around rabbit holes and these don't look like those. Rob, Leece, what do you think? In the link is a quenda someone prepared earlier.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quenda

There are definitely foxes, for whom live-capture traps have been set. Somebody had found fox scat right outside the shed. There was a moment of respectful silence for the knowledge of one who knew fox poo when he saw it.

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Alex Isle [Rattfan]

June 2026

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Raised by Rats

Recent Entries

Navigation

The axe has fallen

A convention fix was had

It's that time of year.

I'm back under my rock

In passing

A scene from Late Zombies

And the void screams back

What you have when you're not having a Russian winter

Fox!

Reality is both weird and boring

You are alone on a dark road.....

Don't Panic

A good dose of leeches will fix that.

Time spent in the Big Room

Gender-based blindness is a thing

There are never enough trains

Rat Birthday pictures

Doing nothing in honour of my rats' birthday

The burglar left a sandwich...

Fox Poo and other items of interest