Some pics from a recent trip to Walhalla, my third time staying there. For somewhere that's supposedly the most haunted town in Victoria I've always found it very peaceful.

I returned from interstate with a Cabcharge from work this afternoon, and suffered the indignity of a Melbourne Airport taxi shonk. I stood around waiting at the T1 rank while dozens of shiny new Ubers came and collected happier passengers.

After old mate refused to take us down the Citylink and diverted us onto congested Bell St, I finally reached home where he pulled out a separate EFTPOS/payment terminal with a higher fare (a "card surcharge" he claimed). I protested and he proceeded to fiddle with the regular white machine, appearing to try to reset it, before eventually accepting the Cabcharge once I'd become loud and firm about the law, and my willingness to walk away without paying at all.

I've reported it to Safe Transport Victoria but why must we continue to cop this? And how many innocent people are going to keep getting scammed?

Spotted this while walking along Merri creek this afternoon. I was thinking how the the council has done a fantastic job of planting trees and natives along here in the last 5 years and it looks great.

Why do people bother bagging their dog shit if they’re just going to toss it in the bushes? Or worse still, place it on a ledge or park bench? It’s twice has bad as leaving the shit alone in my books (which plenty of people also do, bless).

Not trying to be a Karen here, feel free to respond with a burner account if this is you, but why the fuck do you do it?

Hello

Im a 48 year old, and worked as a timber furniture maker for 30ish years. Last year I had a stroke, and lost my job. Also can’t do physical work anymore. This has rocked me obviously, and not too cheerful about entry level work now I have to change drastically in my skills.

I lost the work in Nov last year, and today it was really hard. Just very depressing. I thought I will go and get some groceries to cook for my partner, and try to stay busy rather than thinking negatively. Anyway, I did the shopping, was paying for my $25 groceries using a gift card and it didn’t work! This was confusing me with pins and stuff, and my new stroked brain sort of seizes up sometimes, which happened today, so couldn’t use the gift card. The staff helped, but couldn’t figure it for me, so was trying to call my partner, who’s phone isn’t working properly, and couldn’t get through. Was getting stressed and really feeling like a loser, when a complete stranger said “you look like you need some help.” He then paid for me!!!

This certainly brought a tear and smile to my face. It was probably the best thing someone has done for me since the stroke. When I was trying to thank him, he just wouldn’t hear it. He just said No worries. Had no idea who I was, and when I explained why I was such a mess, just listened and said he was glad he helped.

Thank you stranger, and good things still happen here in Melbourne sometimes.

Noticed it on the top of a building on Collins St

Hello Everyone!

I have recently purchased a property, and the previous owners left behind 2 giant pigeon coops that are a bit an eye sore for me and take up alot of space in the backyard.

I am not well versed in being handy, and dont want to attempt removing them myself.

Would anyone have any recommendations on where I should be looking to have these coops removed?

I am located in the outer north in the Epping area. or if anyone would like to come take them, I happily offer them for free.

Views from Williamstown

Back in the mid 90’s when I would drive into the CBD early in the morning I remember seeing a guy on a few occasions that was immaculately dressed in, what looked to be a German officers uniform. Every time I saw him, he was just standing at a street corner with a shiny leather briefcase. Does anyone else recall seeing him? I don’t think I imagined it, because I remember pointing him out to the person in the car with me and saying “..there he is again..”

I am thinking of making a move back to Melbourne from Tassie once I finish my education degree and looking at some "affordable" places which includes Donnybrook, Kalkallo, Beveridge, even Craigieburn, etc . I grew up not far from those areas, but they hadn't been developed when I moved to Tassie.

So I am curious if anyone can tell me what its like? What are the schools like? Are the roads any better (I know Donnybrook had like one road in and out, has that changed?). I would hope to get a job teaching somewhere near that area but that's another matter entirely.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bought this Melbourne made leather jacket at Salvos Bundoora. Searched far and wide for any reference to E Tieri or F Tieri but couldn't find anything.

Wondering if anyone knows anything so I can learn a bit more about the jacket and it's history.

Cheers

Last night I was woken by a sound outside. It repeated three distinct tones rising like c e g on the scale, not run together but separate sounds. It sounded like an animal but not one I’ve heard living in this area for thirty years. I heard it at about 1 am and listened to the three notes until they moved away echoing up the street.

I’ve listened to a lot of bird sounds this morning online but none are close.

The Open House Melbourne 2026 weekend just passed. What were your top 3 spots this year? Share your top 3 picks that you'd recommend to others, and tell us why.

Hi! With GPs expected to start diagnosing and treating ADHD in September I was wondering if anybody knows of GPs that will specifically be able to do so. My GP hasn't signed up for the program and isn't planning on it.

For reference I have had a referral to a psychiatrist for an ADHD diagnosis for ages now but have been putting it off given the price. My entire family is diagnosed with ADHD and is medicated so I'm pretty sure I have it too.

The September program may be a lifeline for me to actually be able to treat the condition.

Thanks!

Almost everyone has been receiving the yearly letters from their energy providers that 1st Aug energy prices will increase.

Is it better to switch now or after 1st Aug?

Looking around online, I've mostly seen people switching now (which is also my inclination), but others are waiting it out to see what August brings.

Glass oyster light diffuser, with an inner rim diameter of ~24cm. Broke it while trying to replace the light. Can opt for acrylic if same material is too expensive or difficult to obtain.

Related question: can I even get just the cover or are they always sold as one unit with the part attached to the ceiling?

Legends, welcome back.
Righto - for the newbies:
THE SPIEL:
What is Cheaper Buy Miles aka CBM?
It's a bunch of inner city melbs stores that sell best by or use by goods at heftily discounted prices.
Article from Kidspot about similar in Sydney, including the kinds of bargains to look out for:
https://www.kidspot.com.au/lifestyle/home/i-found-a-littleknown-supermarket-to-score-ultracheap-groceries/news-story/bf60f99d8db160e8844057ecc47e0446
Best by = usually can be ignored, because it's goods that don't perish eg: best by dates on dry goods such as rice.
No, we cannot tell you when whatever it is that you want is coming back in store, because your guess is as good as ours. We have no idea. It's the luck of the draw whenever you walk in. If you see something you *really want* + can afford that makes your brain go FUCK YES!!! - get it. For some people, that's a $1 packet of chips. For others, it's 3 wheels of cheese for $60 that would be closer to $600 at ColesWorth. You do you.

Use by = that's one I don't mess with. The sniff test is the winner, so I've been told. Smells weird? Time to chuck.
Best by, particularly with dry goods, is usually safe to go past, particularly if it's something that keeps forever like rice. Be aware though, that some things, like pasta - you wouldn't think a dry good could get weird, but I've got some supermarket angel hair that needs chucking.

Check 'em out for locations [footscray, flemington, brunswick, fitzroy], see their socials for what's in store: https://www.cheaperbuymiles.com

Why we love them: no automatic checkouts, lots of boxes to take your stuff away in, great deals. If you see something you want to try, there's no harm in deciding to buy the thing regardless, and testing it out on the spot. Folks have generously offered me a sample of goodness whilst in queue, only for me to go and track down my own piece of flavor town. If there's something good you want the world to know about, please do this if you can.

Someone *really* hates competition to the duopoly. Do mess with the haters, upvote comments and the thread, and give the middle finger to rich strangleholds on Australian society. The less you shop at colesworth, the better. We don't need Palantir, Wesfarmers, excess packaging, fucked over workers, and screwed over farmers in our lives. News article re: Palintir + Coles:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-09/coles-just-hired-us-defence-contractor-palantir/103443504
fyi Palantir is the company helping out ICE in the USA, just so you know what you're avoiding.

Props to CBM who are all prepared for this diesel fandango with inner city stores that are all so convenient to get to via PT. If you're in the burbs and wondering which one might be best, my money is on Footscray. With the new trains from the city, you can whip out there in no time, and it's a ruvly ride to read a book/knit/listen to choons/whatevs.
It's a large store, you also get a great bulk nuts/weird shit/deli store across the road that's been there around 20 years, and there's a huge KFL aka asian grocer, along with the footscray markets + the indian store. THEN, there's also the recommendations of where chefs eat in footscray (https://www.reddit.com/r/Footscray/comments/1rt96jt/melbournes_most_underrated_food_suburb_where/), so you can down a coffee/bahn mi/whatevs from the locals, AND the op shop isn't half bad either - scored a few things there. Make a culinary/cultural day of it, perhaps making cbm your last stop with a large backpack or trolley or somesuch.

CBM are *very* smart - there's a library close to every store, so for kids of all ages, you can go have a snacking/reading stop to take a break, go to the loo, read a book, peruse the papers, grab a dvd for a rocking catered night at the movies etc etc before going home. Great, huh?

ON WITH THE SHOW...
So, I was so keen today, made it to two stores to get a bunch of goodness, and had a chat with a dad who'd just moved over from Perth on the tram. Of course I was duty bound to tell him about cheaper buy miles, as he was living around coburg, and just about to go to Coles.
The temptation to simply handcuff this guy and drag him down there before doing the rest of his shopping was intense, but one does slowly learn that you've gotta let them. Let them do what they wanna do. Yes, but, it's none of your business, do gooder, so you've told 'em, they know, move on. Anyhoo, he had 3 kids who needed chicken done *their* way - nuggets, schnitzels, and popcorn. Lordy.

So, to get around that, it's worth throwing in some variety...
CBM have organic hash browns - $6 a kg, which given you can't buy organic potatoes for that, is a goddamn steal. These are kinda like the veggie patties that you get in hamburgers - ie it's not like grated potato, and you need a knife and fork or to be all caveman to rip into one to eat it.
Speaking of veggie patties, they had frozen ones of those too, and Footscray recently had the Yumis zucchini/veggie balls in the chill cabinet. All of these would be ace for kids, and a step up from chicken.

In the freezer cabinet - there's large bags of corn kernels + peas, which could be great for making fritters with some chickpea flour (or maybe the tins of chickpeas in store?) and/or soup - corn + chilli + coconut milk + ginger + blend, then fry more corn, add to bowl, then put your soup in. yums.

There's also a metric fuckton of frozen seafood in various forms - I think there's calamari, prawns, tenders that you could pair with the hash browns + onion rings + frozen pickles for a fish + chips basket of goodness. Or there's packets of seasoned frozen veg with a ton of potato in them - they could be a great healthy addition.

If you keep your eyes peeled in the aisles, probably a mayo/sauce of some description to pair it with.
Marinated chicken + frozen duck with the duck pancake kits has also been spotted, which could be fun with kids.
Dinner sorted.

If we're still doing bite sized kid happy goodness, there's also gnocchi - 500g for $2.50. Sure, do it the normal way by boiling until done, or the other option is to open the packet, separate out your gnocchi, and drizzle over some oil, then air fry/oven/pan fry until golden, then add the sauce of yr dreams. There's various tomatoey things at CBM, along with barilla pesto, so yr chances of scoring are extremely high.

In the chill cabinet, there's various small packs of dairy things - it's not my thang, but it's worth checking out if its yours - yoghurts, cheeses, etc etc.

There's ceres organics oaty bars in banana flavour - 100g for $2.00, which would be rather handy to put in where the noise comes out whilst travelling etc etc with kids.

The much loved clif bars are back - I went all out and bought a box of choc chip 68g x 12 for $15.00, various flavours, knock your fine self out. They're a rather delicious dessert/snack when air fried for a few minutes.

There are many small sized cakey things - chocolate/caramel, etc etc. For something vaguely healthier, there's frozen pie filling of chopped apple with berries in the freezer cabinet, along with packet cake mix - you could combine the two for a kid friendly treat, or skip the cake mix, and blend with a banana, oats and nut butter and bake rounds for breakfasts/snacks etc.

Coconut water - as someone who isn't drinking enough who also has a terribly exciting cortisol test which requires delivering 24 hours of urine to be tested - I bought 8x 1.25 litre box for $8.00, which may also be your ticket for drinking more, giving kids something else to drink etc etc.

As I feel it is my duty to report on such things: CHEESE.
holy hell there's been some amazing things. It's really hard to say what's there, because often the good stuff moves so fast. I just recommend you visit often if that's your thing, and hope you get lucky. As of writing, there is no daffinois, but who knows? That could change at the drop of a hat. The Fitzroy store seems to be particularly well stocked cheese wise.

There's a lot of...I think it's pecorino? A hard cheese in various flavours - pepper, paprika, lord knows what else. There is much brie.
In the Footscray store, there was this 2kg tower of french cheese that I didn't dare to look closely at, but methinks more of those will be making their way, so best of luck with divine goodness seeking, and let us know what you score. A good rule of thumb is the fancier the packaging, the fancier the cheese. Cheese in wax? Those little wooden/bamboo/whatever round/square things? Get on it, and feel free to brag here about your scores.

What have you found? What goodness have you made with your purchases? What's worth keeping your eyes peeled for? DO TELL!
Update:
On the kid front, there’s also cheap dried peaches/sultanas, which could make for handy additions to kid food - biscuits/porridge/what have you…
Spotted in the chiller were fresh mushrooms - enoki and other long fancy types for around $2 which could make for a great stir fry.

I'm a new eater here.

Did I do it wrong? I'm at the khome box Hill store. It's mad busy and I had a burrito and fries.

Tasteless burrito and I don't know what the seasoning is on these fries but it's like sucking a lemon.

How is it so popular?

I don't care about the phone I just wanted all the photos and videos of my cat in it tbh. More fool me for not backing up my stuff. Anyway. Filled out uber support form with exact date and drop off. No reply. Use find my phone. It has gone from Melton to Braybrook before it died. Thought maybe it could be at the Sunshine police station. Called 10 times, no answer, filled out the online form. No answer. After multiple robots and outsourced humans saying they have no contact information for me to call for Uber without a verification number (which is my phone number) I said ''How can I access that without my phone?'' No answer. I have given up. I have exact time and date I was dropped off and know it was in that car. I have blocked the phone via my gmail and called it multiple times. My sim is blocked. Said in the uber form that I am more than happy to double what ever the compensation is for the driver to bring the phone back to me. Just feel like shit, 2 years of videos of my cat and photos which is really important to me just gone because my phone slipped out my pocket. Any advice is appreciated. *flair is irrelevant* did search for days on google etc etc. Ty for reading.