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I've been on paternity leave for the last 3 weeks... A lot of modern workplaces now are encouraging men to do this and my work offer up to 14 weeks paid leave inside the first year of the birth. So for the last 3 weeks I've woken up to this beautiful little face beaming up at me, and am planning my days around making sure she's getting cool experiences and challenges and mingling with other babies. It's been great tbh. I thought I might've been totally rubbish at being the lead parent but I think I've fared pretty well so far.

I want this Looks fantastic.

So I boiled my choice down of guitars about a week ago down to a Danelectro 59, or that preowned Player Strat. They were basically the same price. The Danelectro has a shape and feel I really love, plus I was a bit concerned about the Strat only having the 3 single coils. The Danelectro has two humbuckers but also could get a nice clear, almost tinny sound for the kind of finger-picking and chordal stuff I enjoy playing. Ultimately I was swung back to the Strat when I found that even with just a little amp distortion and gain, the Strat actually sounded great for riffing and other more messy stuff. I don't know if it's because I maybe don't listen with he ear of a lifelong guitarist but I find the preconceptions, which I always read about, around pure single coils to be kinda overstated. Obviously you probably couldn't get a good metal tone from it, but otherwise I really don't think the limitations - as far as a non-expert listener would be concerned - are anything that can't be quite easily overcome with a little fiddling around. So yeah I went for this badboy and I've hardly been able to wrench myself from it. Getting the Strat for like 60% of RRP was just too good a chance. Though mines has a whammy bar which I'm still getting to grips with.

This is a language map. But the south west corner of Australia is all Noongar people. However, in that you can see different language and tribes. In the small town I live, unfortunately they’re so disconnected to their own culture that they don’t even speak their own language outside of limited slang. If any of the Aussies here have heard of Nicky Winmar or Leroy Jetta, they’re from the town I am in.

With Palmeiras defeat to Grêmio, Flamengo is officially Brazilian champion. Two titles in less than 24 hours. Insane.

Even after tax it beats a kick in the nuts!

I grew up in a small rural town named Cunnamulla. It's just north of the NSW border but firmly in South-West Queensland. There is a significant Indigenous population in that part of QLD not just in my town but all over. If you've got any questions I'd be more than happy to answer.

The guy 2nd from left looks just like my uncle does when he sees us behaving like muppets at a family gathering. But, no I doubt it since I am from India and the rest are probably closer to the Aborigines. Maybe you meant @Spike?

I obviously don't want City to get any decisions go their way but fuck me, even I could see he was onside. It's an absolute farce mate.

Trueno is a mf beast @Carnivore Chris

Well with that resume you wouldn't really be needing much storytelling about Oz but you'd probably drop dead at what Surfers has become these days. It's terribly built up, high-rise after high-rise, over-priced shops in a crowded plaza, traffic congestion, a huge casino just off in Broadbeach, drug trafficking, etc. It's still a beautfiul place to visit but even in my lifetime it feels like a different place altogether, like it isn't real but a facade. The entire South-East corner is really just a metropolis now, stretch north into the Sunshine Coast all through Brisbane, and over the border to the Tweed Heads. Even the hinterlands around the Gold Coast like Tambourine Mountain have become tourtist hotspots pricing out the locals. What used to be a sleepy hidden town in paradise is now another tourist trap. It's all depressing really, how crowded and 'big' Australia is becoming, it's losing a lot of local charm to commericalisation, and it only gets worse everytime I go home. I miss it everyday however and now I'm getting all worked up, feeling trapped in a winter-hell of Chicagoland.