How did I not know that there are annual Bootie Christmas mashup albums?? They also have a playlist of all the Mariah mashups they can find, updated every year. 🎵🎄
Author: Kris (page 4 of 1697)
My buddy Phil Nash wrote a useful tutorial on how to alias your Mastodon username to your own domain with Jekyll. Bookmarking in case I want to go down a similar route when I revamp this blog next year.
Also a reminder that you can follow me on Mastodon at @web_goddess@aus.social. And if you’re not on Mastodon yet but still want to keep up with my posts there, you can subscribe to an RSS feed at this URL: https://aus.social/@web_goddess.rss.
Very, very slowly, it turns out.
I’ve never been a big fan of lace myself on garments – mostly because I have sensitive skin and I find it itchy – but I loved this historical overview on types of lace from Broiderie Stitch. Maybe I need to give lacemaking a go? Looks like the Australian Lace Guild have workshops in Sydney…
Note to self: get your glasses/contacts prescription updated first!
(Link courtesy of this great Metafilter post, which has some other lace-related links as well.)
“Everything you wanted to know about pronouns but were afraid to ask” – nice Guardian article explaining why more and more companies, organisations, events, and social networks support the ability for people to nominate their pronouns. I actually covered this very briefly on an internal work meeting recently. It was prompted by someone on our team being asked for their pronouns by a tech conference, and them not understanding that it meant. I think it’s perhaps especially confusing for non-native English speakers (some languages don’t have gendered pronouns at all), and for those folks in cultures where this issue just hasn’t penetrated much yet. I explained that it’s not a big deal – there are people whose gender might not be what you expect, so if you guess their pronouns, you might get it wrong. Our internal staff directory has a place now for people to specify their pronouns if they want to, and our default Powerpoint deck includes it on the title slide as well. At our big events, we also provide stickers or pins for people to put on their name tag to indicate pronouns.
Some folks think their own gender and pronouns are pretty obvious, so there’s no need to specify. And that’s fine; it’s not like there’s any mandate or expectation. But for me, it comes down to politeness and wanting to make people feel comfortable. If me listing my pronouns (she/her/hers, for the record) on the internal staff directory helps to normalise this a bit more – and make it that much less embarrassing for someone who does need to do it – then why wouldn’t I? It’s not like it’s a huge hardship for me. I’m certainly not going to get offended if someone chooses to state theirs.
Of course, there are those who claim the sticking point is grammar. They don’t like people identifying as “they/them,” and they erroneously claim the singular they/them is incorrect. Guess what? English uses singular they/them all the time and you probably don’t even notice. In fact, I used it all through this blog post. Didja catch that? 😃
Someone I know on Facebook made the following image, which might help if you still don’t get it…
Lastly, I know that some folks are very worried they’ll get someone’s pronouns wrong. Honestly, it’s okay. It’s like getting someone’s name wrong. Just correct yourself, apologise to them if they’re there, and try to do better next time. Honestly, it’s probably less of an issue than you think. When you’re talking to someone, you’ll most likely just use “you” rather than any gendered pronouns. It’s really only an issue when you’re talking about someone, or introducing them to a third person.
Super fun cover I’ve had on repeat for a week. Bonus: it taught me what the phrase “down bad” means, which is apparently a thing the kids are saying.
Back in September, I headed off to Bangkok, Thailand to attend the first ever AWS APJ Community Summit. This event brought together 130 AWS Heroes, Community Builders, and User Group leaders for two days of learning, sharing, and networking.
It was about a 10 hour flight for me from Munich straight to Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.
I found a couple of my coworkers in the airport – Rohini and Mark! We agreed to carpool to the hotel together.
Unbeknownst to us, we were about to hit rush hour traffic so it took us more than an hour to get to the hotel. I had a great first view of the city though.
The event was being held at the Anantara Siam Hotel Bangkok, and wow, it did not disappoint. Rohini and I were invited to sit down and have some tea while they checked us in.
My room was lovely! I felt very welcomed. 🙂
It felt odd to be taking a trip without the Snook! I sent him a selfie to show him I’d arrived safely.
I was pretty hungry, so I headed downstairs to have dinner with my colleague Ridhima.
To my delight, we ran into a crowd of AWS Community folks from Australia and New Zealand! A few of them were familiar faces to me, but others I was meeting for the first time. For most of them, this was the first overseas trip since Covid.
The next morning, I headed out on a city tour with the full contingent of Aussies and Kiwis. (Because of their long travel time, the Antipodeans all arrived a day early.) I’m sitting with my colleague Jason, who runs the Community Builders program.
Our first destination was the Grand Palace, the residence of the kings of Siam (and later Thailand) for hundreds of years. We parked some way away and then walked over with our local guide.
We entered the Palace complex, and it was already turning into a brutally hot day.
We walked past amazing murals showing scenes from Thai history and the Buddhist religion.
The Palace was very opulent and beautiful. I loved the colourful statues.
The Palace complex also contains Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The gold tower here is the Phra Si Rattana Chedi.
You might notice in the photos that several of us are wearing questionable skirts and trousers. This is because the Temple is the most sacred Buddhist temple in Thailand, and having bare legs is not allowed. I bought a sarong from a local seller to tie around my waist.
The Temple of the Emerald Buddha itself was amazingly beautiful. It’s covered in gold and colourful tiles and precious stones.
You have to take off your shoes to go inside, and no photos are allowed. A crowd of people were sitting on the floor, just having a moment of peaceful contemplation. Many people brought in lotus flowers as offerings. After a short visit, I went for a walk around the outside of the temple.
I ran into my colleague Belinda, who helped organise the tour for us! ❤️
Even the ceiling was elaborately decorated.
We had some time to walk around, so I just wandered on my own, taking photos of beautiful statues and peaceful corners of the Palace complex.
This is a statue of a kinnara, a mythological half human, half bird.
I was starting to feel a bit pink by this point…
…so it was time to break out the sun protection. Behind me is the Phra Thinang Boromphiman, where visiting Heads of State stay when they visit Bangkok.
From the Palace, we walked the short distance to the Chao Phraya River, where we caught a ferry across to the other side.
Me and Belinda again.
That river water did not look very inviting, despite the heat of the day.
Our destination was Wat Arun (“The Temple of Dawn”), one of Bangkok’s most well known landmarks.
The central tower (“prang”) is encrusted with porcelain.
I climbed up a couple levels and walked around, checking out the statues and decorations.
The final part of the tour was a long-tail boat ride along the river. We had to scramble out on the prow to get onboard!
I’m on a boat! And thankfully by this point the sun had gone behind the clouds.
Our guide took us down some of the canals off the river and pointed out landmarks along the way.
At one point, we stopped along the riverbank near a temple. Our guide had a surprise for us, he said. He pulled out a bag of bread rolls, and I thought for a minute he was going to hand out a snack. Then he chucked one of the rolls in the river, and the surface suddenly ERUPTED with giant catfish fighting over the bread. It was one of the most astonishing things I’ve ever seen.
The Best ALDI Wines for $10 or Less – As a connoisseur of supermarket wine, this is very relevant to my interests.
The many lives of Angels on Horseback https://www.snackstack.net/p/the-many-lives-of-angels-on-horseback
I enjoyed this little bit of investigation into the origins of the classic American campfire snack S’mores. Halfway through it turns into the much more interesting discussion of Angels on Horseback, a fancy hors d’oeuvre of bacon-wrapped oysters. I’ve never had those before, but I have eaten (and prepared) the similarly named Devils on Horseback. We usually do dates stuffed with Parmigiano cheese wrapped in bacon and baked in the oven. Really makes it feel like a classy 70’s dinner party…
It was still quite warm at the beginning of September, so we squeezed in a day trip to the Ammersee. This lake to the southwest of Munich is the sixth biggest in Germany, and it’s just a short 45min train ride to the end of the S-bahn line to Herrsching. As soon as we disembarked we hopped on a couple Deutsche Bahn “Call a Bike” bicycles to go for a ride along the shore.
Herrsching is on the eastern shore of the lake, and along the Promenade there is a statue called “Die kleine Seejungfrau” (“The little mermaid”). Rather than having a fish tail herself, she sits on top of a giant fish.
Nearby is the Kurparkschlösschen, a “little castle” built in the 1800s. Apparently you can rent it out for events!
We rode south along the Promenade dodging crowds of tourists and families, and then eventually got onto a hiking/cycling path right along the shore.
The Call a Bikes are pretty sturdy, and they do have a couple gears thankfully.
At a couple points we had to ford small streams running down into the lake!
Our goal was the Froschgartl, a little biergarten around 6km (3.5mi) south of the Kurpark. Eventually we made it there and put in an order for our lunch.
Not a bad little burger! It’s not really much of a biergarten; more a couple picnic tables around a snack bar. Still, you can’t beat the view.
After our lunch, we walked over to the rocky beach to sit and digest for a bit.
We had our swimsuits and there were people swimming, but that water was pretty cold! Instead we took off our shoes and socks and went for a little wade.
That water is SO CLEAR. The rocks were pretty slippery though so we soon retreated back to safety.
Ahhhh, can’t you just feel the serenity? Look at that sky! (Also, there was a fully nude old dude like 10m to my left. Germans, man.)
Eventually we put our shoes back on and rode back to Herrsching, this time using the paved bike path along the highway so it was a lot faster. We went further north this time to the “Fischbach” part of the lake, where there’s a marina and a sailing club.
Soon it was time to head back, so we returned the Call a Bikes and caught the S-bahn home. The Ammersee was honestly one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. If you’re in Munich and you have nice weather, this makes for a lovely day trip!
You can see our ride on Strava here: