Nutella?

Topic!!!

Squirrel Shit!

There's always one, isn't there? :)

To tell the truth, my schoolboy sense of humour did nudge me towards posting that very response, but for once I did not yield to temptation.

yup. :D

Hazelnuts?

Topics were awesome.

They were. These days they just have smaller pieces of hazelenut. Not so nutty.

Just plain ol' black & white Duplex cookies.

Attachment 49972

Squrls love 'em. I get a kick outta watching the squrls sometimes pull the cookie apart and hold up the whole side of the cookie up in front of their face vertically, and lick the creme off. They go across in a row, and come back to start the next row like a typewriter/printer.

you're a bad sqrl papa ...unless you also give them little toothbrushes and paste?

I just...
 

I just finished replacing the hard drive on a mate's laptop.

Not for me the usual rectangular panel on the underside of the machine and secured by two screws.
Oh no, this was a substantial disassembly to get at the damned thing.
Having gone through this wretched process earlier in the week, I discovered then that the spare HDD I had offered was of the old standard and not of the SATA variety. Found a 500Gb drive on eBay for £29.99 or about $45.

Having finished all the mechanicals, I installed Windows 7 but inevitably couldn't connect to the Web for all the updates as the required ethernet driver was missing. Found that via my PC, downloaded to a USB drive and transferred across. All updates, AVG, Adobe Reader, Flash etc installed and system complete.
Let joy be unconfined!

Phoned owner to relay the glad tidings only to be connected to an answering machine, so left a message which I have no doubt will remain unheard.

Life can be cruel.

Still, good work! And... I need more friends like yourself, Car.

Well I celebrate your achievement, Carruthers. :beer:

well done!

Thank you, Gentlemen.

With a bit of luck it will still work when I switch it on tomorrow. :eyebrow:

I just learned that my son's wingspan is 4" greater than his height. Hopefully it's just that teenage knuckle-dragging thing as his height seems to be increasing daily

I just came over the top of the hills in the snow. It was rather beautiful.
Otley is barely icy, but once you get over the Chevin there is a fine dusting everywhere. Nothing significant, but pretty at 08.00.

I just did a word count on my thesis ... which i am about to go and submit to the RSA office along with my exam form - it's at the printers right now, I can pick up in about an hour.

Final tally (for the examination copy - it might shift slightly if they pass with revisions) -

Word count, including footnotes, but excluding abstract, contents page and bibliography = 93,531
Page count for the whole document = 270

He needs to fence epee.

Yeah, but how many different words, and how many words undecipherable to anyone after the 18th century?
Just kidding you Dana, congratulations on persevering to get this done. Even if they rejected it(they certainly won't) it's a great accomplishment.
For me it would be akin to peeling my own skin off with a dull knife. :blush:


Great idea Griff, monster needs another sport, with it's associated gear and calendar notations, in the house. :haha:

Not an entirely inaccurate description of what the last few months have felt like lol

Thanks m'dear.

Oh! and on the way in to submit it, I treated myself to a hot cheese and ham pannini with a latte. Mmmm. Very nice. Felt like luxury.

Good for you, ya earned it. ;)

Bravo Dana!

Glad that's finally behind you, eh? Well done.

If my calculations are correct ... and they are never correct. that's nearly 1/4 of the words you have posted on here whinging about it !

JK ..- congrats, Doc!

ouch....

Hehehe. I think your calculations are probably right :P

Ta guys. Though - don't speak too soon on the Doc - I still have to survive the viva exam yet!

Whatever happens with that - like Bruce says even were they to fail me and I not end up doctored - I'm pretty proud of myself just for sticking the course and finishng the thesis.

NFL teams always looking for defensive backs with that physical characteristic.

So wait, do I call you Doctor, or Master Dana?

I'm already a master *grins*

I know darling. I was referring to your chosen form of address for the interim.
You being neither not nor summat as it were.













(yes I did get mixed up...)

I just learned that my best friend in high school died today after a long illness. We lost touch after I graduated and he moved to San Diego. He very recently reconnected with his family after nearly 40 years. I don't know what to say.

So sorry, Fargon. X


Sent by thought transference

Oh hell, there's nothing you can say that will suffice. Nobody can, even the best talkers. It just hurts, and you have to let it hurt. No consolation, I know. Hugs to you. Keep talking to us.

40 years is a long time to not see someone. Do you feel nothing hearing this news, but feel like you are supposed to? Or are you surprised at your emotions for someone hasn't been part of your life for decades?

I was surprised at the emotions that I felt. When I joined the Coast Guard we drifted apart, I saw him briefly in '82 for about 15 minutes he said he would call me, he never did. I tried to call him a couple of days later but his number was disconnected. I would hear from his siblings from time to time, and he was always doing well. Then 2 years ago I heard that he was in the hospital but it was nothing to be concerned about. I asked for his contact information, but never got it. He and his partner did not want to be disturbed. I obeyed their wishes.

I just...

love this stuff
Attachment 50194


and I just...

got tired of fucking around.
Attachment 50195

It is the best. Most mornings it is on my eggs. Must keep my eyes open for the absurdly large container. :)

I cannot imagine getting through any sauce bottle ofthat size lol.

I used to have three bottles of Tabasco when I lived with the 'rents.
Standard, Jalapeño and Habanero. It would have been four if I'd seen Chipotle!
Heat and vinegar, love it.

I'd miss the classic shape of the bottle though.
In my topsy turvy world I SEE it every morning, as somehow a full bottle has washed up on the tide of detritus of my chest of drawers. But I never actually use it, as breakfast is like Michigan now.

Mitten-shaped and fucking cold?

Why the abstinance?

Tobasco is the firey stuff of the gods! A few drops will render some very divine heat. The summers in Avery Island, its source, are just as hot as the sauce.


Ironically, On several occasions I've been within a few miles of the location, but have not yet taken the tour. No recent travels have extended into the environs of New Iberia.

I just took my Dad to the Health Centre for his B12 injection.

A hundred yards down the road:

Dad: I've forgotten to put my hearing aid in.

Me (sotto voce): Well, I'll just talk to myself then.

Dad: Chuckles.

Which only goes to prove that he isn't deaf, he just listens when he wants to.

HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAA!

(I hope he heard *that*!)

:D

I'll go and ask him. Trouble is, I shall have to get him to turn down the sound on the TV first. :)

I just

used my vision "super power" to morph the link in Dana's sig line into penispoetry. And I don't even have the excuse of being tired oh well.

Ha! thats brilliant Carruthers.

No no, when in a conversational exchange, with minimum background noise, he's directing his concentration on the expected reply. Like the hearing test in a quiet booth, you're expecting and straining to hear a tone. But something said out of the blue, especially with background din, is usually several words into the statement before he realizes it's directed at him and by then the gist of the statement is lost. Hence the, "what?" So it's selective but it's not his conscious selection.
The TV must be high because watching is not pleasurable if we have to concentrate so hard we're straining. Plus TV dialog varies greatly in volume, and saying, "What", to the TV is useless.

I know from whence I speak. :yesnod:

If it was just a case of the TV being at a uniformly high volume I could take the appropriate counter measures, ie ear plugs. Unfortunately there are a number of complicating factors.

(1). Dad will sit close to the TV with his hearing aids turned up to maximum and the sound turned down to a level where I cannot comfortably hear it.

(2). Dad will run down the batteries of his hearing aids because he has been running them at full throttle. See (1) above. Upshot: I am deafened by TV.

(3) As pointed out TV dialogue volume varies markedly especially during some of the news programmes. Dad will make constant adjustments to the sound so he can comfortably hear it.
Determining 'comfortable' in this context may be complicated by (1) and (2) above.

(4) If a particular reporter or performer that does not feature on his popularity list makes an appearance, the mute button is pressed in short order. No one else (me) has any say in the matter.

(5) Loud music accompanying any documentary also gets the 'mute button' treatment. If there's dialogue going on at the same time, well that's just too bad. It won't hurt if we (I) miss it.

(6) Use of the mute button does not take into account the fact that the underlying volume might well have increased substantially by the time the mute is 'unpressed'.
Particularly jarring when his batteries are about to expire. See (2) above.

(7) The perfect storm is when his hearing aid batteries are low, the TV volume is set high, and he unmutes when the transmitted sound is at its maximum, just at the time when I happen to be walking past the TV.

In comparison, Krakatoa's explosion in 1883 sounds like a lamb sneezing 200 yards away.

Have you considered a tv set of your own?

....WHAT??

The cabling and distribution system for the antenna and sat dish would be complex and expensive so it's not really a practical proposition.

Accordingly, I suffer in silence. In a manner of speaking.:D

My mom has some sort of blutooth transmitter from a box she connects to the tv and it sends a signal directly into her hearing aids so her hearing aids transmit the tv sound. Other people in the room can listen to the tv at a comfortable volume, and she can listen at her own volume.

There's a similar sort of gizmo available here, but Dad is not very good with technology. Coupled with the fact that he is monumentally impatient it would be an expensive mistake to go down that route.

Speaking of expensive mistakes, I bought a satellite box some while back which he won't use. On the rare occasions I use it, he sits there with the remote for the TV and wonders why none of the buttons work.

He'll express surprise at the channels available on satellite when I find something different from the usual fare, but he soon forgets about it and we're back to square one.

I seem to spend much of my time on the Internet at the other end of the house but I then feel guilty about the old man in the other room sitting by himself watching TV.

He's dependent on other people for everything in life except the TV. It's the one thing he has left he hasn't lost control of, and guards it jealously. Sounds like Alzheimer's symptoms. It also sounds like you hate confrontation and avoid it at all costs. The proper Englishman stereotype, not saying that's a bad thing, just an observation. ;)

Now I've been wearing hearing aids for 33 years x replace every 3 years x 2 ears = a shitload of hearing aids. I've never owned one that varied the volume with battery strength. Volume remained where it was set until the voltage dropped below a certain level, then the sound would shut off. Some had a warning where it would beep a couple times, every few minutes, for the last hour or so, but never changed volume.

This is something I'm just sort of getting used to: the idea that I'm going to live long enough to replace shit on a relatively regular basis that I feel like ought to be "long-lasting." It is long-lasting; I'm just longer-lasting. Stupid stuff like, "What do you mean we have to replace the sheets again, didn't we just buy new ones, like... ten years ago?" There's a complete-turnover factor for all products that I haven't gotten used to yet.

I know what you mean, I just installed that boiler... 20 years ago. I just bought groceries... 10 days ago. I just bought that truck... 10 years ago. Christmas and birthdays used to be a year apart, too. :haha:

Dad is still pretty sharp although not the force he was ten or twenty years ago but you're right, I do tend to avoid confrontation because it is so wearing.

If you're looking for my English stiff upper lip, it's just above my English flabby lower lip. ;)

I've seen Alzheimer's give someone trouble recalling some things, but cock sure about what they feel is true. The path of least resistance can be a wise method of self-preservation, especially for a gentleman. :notworthy