Random tangent (blog)
Ameel Khan's personal blog. This is a blog about life, technology, photography, typography, the internet, science, feminism, books, film, music, and whatever other random stuff I come across or happen to be interested in today.
When you leave the bathroom door closed…
Photo of a dog sitting on a rug in a hallway that ends at a closed door. The dog is facing the door, ears perked, listening for what’s happening on the other side.
And when you leave the bathroom door open.
Photo of a red dog poking its head through an open door to a bathroom. The photographer has taken the photo from inside the bathroom.
Apparently it’s ‘Send Ameel spam text messages weelk’ here in Australia. Fortunately Android’s spam/phishing SMS filter is as good as Gmail’s corresponding email filter, so all this crap gets automatically blocked and reported.
Screenshot of an Android smartphone screen showing the SMS messages app. The title of the page is ‘Spam and blocked' and below this are several text messages from various Australian mobile phone numbers. All messages claim to be package delivery updates that trick unthinking recipients to click on a malicious URL.
For a whole week I’ve avoided starting any new book because I knew the latest Seanan McGuire book was on its way from the US – and now it’s finally here!
Sadly I have a lot to do today, so I’ll have to wait a few more hours before I can get into this. *sigh*
Point-of-view photo of a man holding a hardcover book titled ‘When Sorrows Come’ by Seanan McGuire. The photographer is on an outdoor deck and is holding the book in his hand above a red dog who is looking up at the photographer.
Hope folks in Melbourne are getting to enjoy the gorgeous day were having today!
Selfie of a man walking a dog on a residential street. The man is wearing a t-shirt, face mask, and cap. The dog is sniffing around the nature strip next to a parked car.
A mixed berry crisp is a great way to end a long weekend :)
Photo of a berry dessert in a baking dish lying on top of a cooling rack on a kitchen counter. The deep red berry mix has bubbled over on top of the golden-brown upper layer.
Living in Melbourne’s west you get a 10:1 ratio for Western Bulldogs vs Melbourne Demons supporters who have decorated their houses for the AFL men’s grand final match.
Collage of four photos, each showing streamers, balloons, scarves, and residential gates painted in the red-white-blue of the Western Bulldogs or the red-blue of the Melbourne Demons AFL men’s teams.
And then you get balloons after the Demons won :)
Photo of the front of a house. Painted on the gate is a large red and blue heart. Painted next to the heart in large red text is ‘Go Dees’ and, on the other side, a red trident. There are red and blue streamers tied to the sides of the gate. Tied above the garage door in the background is a Melbourne Demons scarf.
This is not a kookaburra post, this is just a post with a kookaburra in it.
Photo of a residential wooden fence. There is a thick wooden post at the end of this fence. Sticking out from this post is a flat metal sculpture of the outline of a kookaburra (a native Australian bird).
Nein, nein, nein. It’s not bin right tonight.
Photo of three garbage bins with the number nine written in large white text on each of them. The bins are lying tucked away in a line by the far wall next to a garage door at the end of a residential driveway.
The best way to make them most of a sunny day in spring.
Photo of a red dog asleep on the grass in a residential garden on a bright, sunny day. The dog’s head is resting on a paved path, like a pillow.
Yes, Maggie. Feel free to circle around me while I’m holding onto your lead. Our walk will go really well if you do that. *sigh*
Photo of the front a man’s legs with a dog standing behind him. The dog’s lead has been wrapped around the man’s ankles.
When life gives you lemons you make lemonade.
When life gives you leftover fruit — and you’re working from home on a rainy Friday afternoon — you make a mixed berry crisp…
Photo of a baked berry dessert with one portion scooped out. The dessert consists of dark red berries underneath a golden-brown chewy top layer.
And a pear crisp!
Photo of a baked pear dessert with one portion scooped out. The dessert consists of several layers of cooked pears underneath a golden-brown crunchy top layer.
Life can be good. (And delicious.)
Melbourne might be cold and super rainy the next few days, but at least spring is definitively here.
Photo of a red dog on a lead who is sniffing around in a patch of greenery with several flowering plants.
So the carrot cake I made yesterday turned out pretty great. (Carrot cake is always better the second day, isn’t it?)
Photo of a moist, two-layer, half-eaten carrot cake with raisins and cream cheese frosting.
Yesterday, of course, we lit it on fire and celebrated :)
Photo of a man leaning on a countertop with his elbows. On the counter is a home made cream-cheese-frosted cake with several lit candles on it.
And I made the most of the sunny day in Melbourne with the daffodils and jonquils that Nadia grew for me for my birthday! <3
Photo of a man on a paved section next to a residential garden. The man is crouched behind four large planting pots with yellow and white flowers growing in them.
So I was at a Tier 2 COVID-19 exposure site in Altona North last week.
(Night time texts from DHHS? Not fun. Would not recommend.)
Screenshot of a text message received at 9:49pm that reads: “This is a message from the Victorian Department of Health. You are receiving this message because you have been identified as a Tier 2 contact of a person with confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) after recently attending Woolworths Supermarket Millers Junction, Altona North. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO: Get tested for coronavirus immediately and quarantine until you get a negative result. For more information on testing sites please visit” and then there is a URL.
I immediately checked the Victorian Government’s coronavirus public exposure sites page for confirmation of exposure and, sure enough, the Woolworths at Millers Junction in Altona North was listed as a Tier 2 site.
The exposure period was on 13 August from 6:30 to 8:15pm.
Screenshot of a website entry for Woolworths Altona North. The exposure period for this site is 13/08/2021 6:30pm to 8:15pm. The health advice listed is “Tier 2 - get tested urgently and isolate until you have a negative result”.
I then checked my Google Maps timeline to confirm that I’d been there at the same time. And, indeed, I had been there from 7:47 to 8:46pm on that day to do our weekly grocery shop.
I’d checked-in via the Services Victoria app, which is how they’d traced me. (Thank you contact tracers!)
Screenshot of a Google Maps timeline for Fri, 13 Aug 2021 that shows two entries. The first is for driving. The second is for Woolworths on Millers Road in Altona North in Victoria, Australia from 7:47 to 8:46pm.
I got that text last night, so early this morning Nadia and I went for a drive-through COVID-19 test in Newport.
Lots of other people were there to get tested too so the the whole process took us two hours! But we got through it in the end.
Photo of a large white tent set up in a parking lot with several cars queued up to drive through the tent. The car this photo is taken from is waiting behind an orange traffic cone well behind the queue that's in front of the tent.
Now normally COVID-19 tests take 24-ish hours to process. But given I’d been mandated by the Department of Health to take this test, it looks like they expedited mine.
So just before 1am tonight I was told that my test had come back negative. Yay!
Screenshot of a text message that reads: “Dear Ameel, Test on 20/08/2021. Result: COVID-19 virus was NOT DETECTED. Test performed by Aust Clinical Labs. Plus do not reply to this text message.”
So, phew!
Of course I do our weekly shop, well, weekly. And in Newport (which is the suburb where I live) there’s a sizeable COVID-19 cluster. Which means there’s a good chance this’ll happen to me again.
Fortunately, I’m careful, I’m fully vaccinated, and I wear a good quality face mask so the likelihood of me actually getting infected and then falling very ill is tiny. But, still, it’s not fun to be reminded (and then be able to document) your close calls.
I love musical mash-ups with cats! Here are some of my recent favourites.
The first person I saw making these types of mash-ups was Meredith Bull on TikTok back in 2020. These are my two favourites from her.
I don’t want to embed the original TikTok video in my blog, so here’s the YouTube version. She’s since released a full-length version of this that’s available from all music streamers.
Here’s her initial mash-up (again, not the original TikTok).
This one she first developed into a full song and then just released a music video for!
The other person who’s been doing fun mash-ups for a while is The Kiffness on YouTube.
His original version of ‘Alugalug Cat’ is nice, but then he collaborated with a bunch of musicians from around the world to create this international symphonic version — which I adore.
This week he’s back with a follow-up.
Finally there’s Sherzod Ergashev, who has done two mash-ups I love.
This song certainly puts me in a good mood every time :)
I love both The Kiffness and Sherzod’s mash-ups with this cat :)
Let me know if you have any favourite musical cat mash-ups. I’d love to hear them!
Log in alerts are such a useful feature. It’s eye-opening to see just how frequently people try to break into your accounts!
Alerts like these also drive home the importance of using two-factor authentication. I have that turned on everywhere. Seriously, you should too.
Screenshot of an email from Instagram that reads “Sorry to hear you’re having trouble logging into Instagram. We can help you get straight back into your account.” and then a button that says “Log in as ameelkhan”. Below that is text that reads “You can also reset your Instagram password”.
Instagram also offers an incredibly useful additional security feature: a list of emails they’ve sent you in the last 14 days.
Malicious actors can send fake log in alerts that are actually phishing emails. You can check this sent-email list in your account settings to verify if the email you’ve just received is real or not.
Screenshot from the Instagram website. The page’s title is ‘Emails from Instagram’. The text below this reads: “Security and login emails from Instagram in the last 14 days will appear here. You can use it to verify which emails are real and which are fake.” Below that is a list of emails, all with the subject “ameelkhan, we’ve made it easy to get back on Instagram”. Each item on this email list also has a timestamp so you can tell when it was sent.
Maggie doesn’t care about the Olympics that we’ve been watching on TV these last two weeks (the only sport she likes is Freestyle Possum Chasing)…
Photo of a red dog lying on her side on a sofa. The dog’s head is resting on a cushion and it appears to be out cold.
But when Nadia goes to the kitchen, she’s all ears :)
Photo of a red dog lying on her side on a sofa. The dog’s head is raised up and her ears are pricked as she looks at someone off-camera.
Why, yes. that is a possum perched on the topmost branch of our neighbour’s tree. It’s keeping a close eye on Maggie, who is scent-marking her territory in the back garden before we get to bed at night.
Dark, desaturated photo of a leafless tree that’s next to a two storey house. Perched on top-most branches of this tree, silhouetted by the dimly lit, cloudy sky is a little possum.
Someone who lives here knows how to make the most of a sunny day in winter.
Photo of the front lawn of a house on a sunny day. In the beautifully manicured lawn is a beautifully manicured tree, next to which there’s a comfortable wooden chair that’s set facing the sun.
Until we moved into a house with this type of gas heater we had no idea just how much Maggie loves heaters! (The stone in front of the heater is cool, by the way, so it’s not like she's burning her chin and paw pads.)
Photo of a red dog lying on the ground in front of an indoor gas heater. The dog is facing the heater and is resting her paws and face on the stone tiles installed in front of this heater.
This is personal website of Nadia Niaz and Ameel Zia Khan. Here we document our lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia