My dad retired last year and for the first few months he did what a lot of newly retired blokes seem to do: found increasingly elaborate reasons to go to Bunnings.

Then he discovered the 50c fares.

He lives near a train line and apparently decided that for a dollar return there is no reason not to get on a train just to see where it goes.

It started fairly normally. South Bank. City. A CityCat ride because he hadn't been on one in years.

Then the reports started getting more specific.

"Got off at Sandgate today. Good breeze."

"Went to Shorncliffe. Pier's nice on a weekday."

"Took the train to Cleveland and had lunch."

Last week he rang me from Ferny Grove because he'd never actually been there and wanted to know what was at the end of the line.

Nothing particular, Dad.

"Yeah, that's why I came."

He's started taking a little backpack with water and a book. He'll ride somewhere, walk around for an hour or two, find a bakery or sit in a park, then come home before peak hour.

The man who used to complain about driving anywhere unfamiliar because parking was a pain now has opinions on which side of various train lines has the better view.

I asked him why he suddenly enjoys wandering around suburbs he's lived within 30km of for decades.

He said, "Because if it's boring I've only wasted 50 cents."

Fair.

I always thought cheaper public transport would mostly matter for commuting. I hadn't really considered the value of making completely pointless little trips cheap enough that people stop needing a reason to go somewhere.

Anyway, if you see a 68-year-old bloke at the end of a train line looking mildly pleased that there's nothing much happening, he may be conducting important research.

Just opened the Snap Send Solve app and somebody better go help this person in Newstead.

This is the first time I have seen the sky look like this.

Photo by me

Hey QLD EV owners. If you are waiting to use your car to power your house and slash your power bills, Energex currently has a massive loophole that will block you

​Right now, if you have a standard 10kVA hybrid inverter for your solar and home battery, Energex caps your entire property at 10kVA. They will flat-out reject you adding a bidirectional V2G EV charger, even if we use software to safely limit grid exports. It’s locking early adopters out and leaving QLD behind just as BYD and Amber are rolling out their V2G trials.

​I’ve just launched an official QLD Parliament E-Petition to force the Energy Minister to step in and fix this. It takes 30 seconds to sign. Let's get the numbers up so we can use the tech we paid for!

https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Petitions/petition-details/4762-26

Thank you to all the lovely people who helped me when I fell over at Newstead Woolies today. I was so embarrassed 😳 and thank you for laughing when I was more worried about the bottle of wine I had just bought for my dinner with friends tonight 😂 thanks to the staff as well. I’m fine but just embarrassed.

Been in the industry for over 25yrs, I don't track managers numbers.

So most have been arrested in jail(dealing/stealing) this is fine dinning and the big clubs.

How the F can I get a reference, I had a good one from John Kilroy(rip)

Edit: Going into corporate and hotels you need them. I just want normal hours less stress, compared fine dinning management

The other day, I hurt my ankle while walking near Coorparoo and had to get the bus back. The closest bus stop to where I was was Tiber Street at Rome Street stop 25.

This has to be one of the worst bus stops I’ve ever been to. It’s serviced by 1 bus, the 212 heading toward the city, and getting to it was a nightmare. I was there around 4pm and after around 5 minutes of waiting, I gave up on trying to cross the 4 lanes of traffic near the bus stop so I had to walk down to the pedestrian island. Even that took me a solid few minutes to get enough of a break in traffic to cross. The “footpath” to the stop was completely overgrown. The bus driver almost went straight past me because I think she was genuinely shocked I was there. I can’t imagine anyone willingly uses this bus stop. There’s no way anyone with any kind of accessibility needs could even use it. If I wasn’t in pain, I would have walked the 10 minutes to one of the other bus stops around.

Before the bush-hardened legends come in saying "he's just your eight-legged roommate, mate", please shut up for five seconds. I nearly met Jesus on the way home from work.

I was crawling along Coronation Drive in peak hour, hot as hell, barely moving. Flipped down the driver’s sun visor to block the blinding glare off the ute in front of me, and a dinner-plate sized huntsman dropped straight onto my bare wrist, scrambled across the horn, and scurried behind the speedometer cluster.

I didn't crash purely by the grace of God. I made a noise that wasn’t even human, accidentally blasted the horn for a solid five seconds, and swerved just enough to make the tradie next to me look at me like I was on bath salts.

I managed to pull over into some poor stranger's driveway in Toowong, threw the keys on the seat, and jumped out. He is still in there. somewhere in the dashboard vents. Do I just set teh car on fire at this point? How am I supposed to drive 40 minutes home knowing he’s literally five inches from my knuckles.

So I'm a 27m.

I was at Ric's bar in the valley after a networking event on a Wednesday night (I'm an accountant and yes this is normal for people in business advisory) .. anyways I was drinking alone in a corner reading up on ATO updated( yess nerd I know) but there was a drink girl that came to my table. Now I had made eye contact with the girl on the table in front of a few times but decided not to engage... Then a girl drunk seemed kinda out of it shows up on my table... I look up a few times and looked as if to say is she okay ( again keeping to myself though) the girl in front sees that and tells her friend who instantly starts talking to the girl and making her feel seen and safe... It was extremely wholesome to see and amazing honestly... I just wanted to share this moment seen cause it's honestly amazing and as an autistic accountant who has to pretend to be social all day it's hard to do what they did...

I also know I may seem like a creep in this story but honestly I'm just a guy who works hard and keeps to themselves I was out drinking cause I honestly didn't want to go home as yeah my life is abit empty..

STATEMENT FROM JOS MITCHELL

"Today I'm resigning as Mayor of Redland City.

"My family and I are incredibly proud to call Redlands home.

"My husband and I chose to raise our three children here, and I was lucky to spend my childhood holidays out on the bay. I am proud to have been elected Mayor of this wonderful area.

"I ran for mayor as an independent candidate because, as a ratepayer, I wanted better transparency, accountability and planning for our community's future. While I received widespread voter support for this mandate, making moves towards this threatened the status quo. I was met with concerted, ongoing resistance and attacks.

"There have been threats, continuous accusations and harassment, our family's cars have been vandalised, we've had a drone hover over our backyard and my husband and our daughter have been targeted online. There has been a personalised, coordinated and consistent smear campaign, including online abuse and leaks of confidential information to media.

"Following a callout on an anonymous political Facebook page, I have been the subject of an unusually high number of OIA complaints - about 70. All investigated complaints have been found to be unsubstantiated by external investigators.

"I spent more than a decade with the Queensland Police Service, including as a police prosecutor. I know what intimidation looks like, and I know it shouldn't be part of public life.

"In recent months I have been dealing with complex health conditions. I have undergone major surgery and been navigating an autoimmune condition. The experiences of the last two and a half years have had a significant impact on my wellbeing, something many elected representatives have been speaking about.

"My family has paid a heavy price for my decision to serve our community. While they have dealt with the impact with grace and dignity, no one should have to accept it as the price of public office.

"I believe Australians are sick of the current state of politics, the power plays, thuggish tactics and pile-ons. There must be room for new representatives who bring new skills, new ways of working and new questions, without retaliation. There must be room and safety for people who put community before party politics.

"To my fellow residents of Redlands, thank you for the honour of representing you. I also thank the many people who offered their advice, support and skills during my time as Mayor. I encourage Redland City Council to come together to create a more collegial workplace for the benefit of Council members, staff and those they are there to serve.

"I leave office with the same core values and beliefs - that Redlands residents deserve high standards of transparency, accountability and community planning."

What a breath of fresh air this place is. Good prices, big kebab, yummy pizza and most impressive is the staff. They are kind courteous respectful happy and competent. Old skool hospitality. Clearly they like working here, even though it gets very busy. The young ones getting taught right. Which is rare these days.

I have a small job of adding either an AV box or recessed power\data point for a media room and so far I've called over 15 different electricians and nobody is even remotely interested.

About half of my calls have gone to voicemail and just never call back.

The others have flat out said they're not taking any jobs at the moment or that they're booked out for at least the next few weeks, which is fine, I can wait. But when I ask to book me in when they're next available they've all said they'll check their diaries and/or send a booking link through and none of them have ever done that.

The job on Hipages & AirTasker but nobody has even responded.

Is it just because I don't want to rewire my entire house or install Solar so they're not interested at all?

I'm going to either have to resort to Fallon at this rate.

Anyone know if the Felons Wed pub run with Katie Dall is no longer a thing or just paused? Last cpl weeks there's been 30'ish of us hanging around before deciding to choose our own adventure.

cheeky crow kept hopping around to nip his bum but he wasn't letting go of it!!! he looked pretty bedraggled, dunno if he's old or sick or just grubby but I haven't seen feathers that bad on a kookaburra while it was still alive. I hope he won 🙏

After a very bad start to the week (I got some very bad news) I decided instead of staying at home moping and drinking wine, I need to get out and de-stress. So I went to the cat cafe in Sunnybank and it was such a great experience. The cats are adorable! Here are some of them looking at a poor bug. I believe it's the only cat lounge in Brisbane now so I wanted to give them a shout out! It only cost me $15 for 90 minutes.

My photos are terrible (ones a screenshot of a video) but I’m pretty stoked that today I saw a biggish Huntsman, two Ringtail Possums and a Tawny Frogmouth. I then came home to two cats with the zoomies, arguably bonus wildlife.

Woke up to use the toilet at 3:40 and seen this little beauty slinking around!!! Be careful out there people!!!

hello all

Just chasing some thoughts on Holmview as an area to move to for a young family moving from Melbourne. We would be purchasing in the area so just wanting to get the inside word on the area before we are sold on the area as I have heard mixed reviews of Logan.

Thank you!