I’m sure you’re familiar with HWMBO’s love of squirrels, especially the one we’ve been feeding for five years, who he’s named Daring Squirrel.
Well, here’s another daring squirrel running an obstacle course to get food. Maybe we should set one up in the back garden.
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From todays Financial Times
The rain beats down on a small Irish town. The streets are deserted. Times are tough. Everyone is in debt and living on credit. A rich German arrives at the local hotel, asks to view its rooms, and puts on the desk a 100 note. The owner gives him a bunch of keys and he goes off for an inspection.
As soon as he has gone upstairs, the hotelier grabs the note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher hurries down the street to pay what he owes to his feed merchant. The merchant heads for the pub and uses the note to pay his bar bill. The publican slips the note to the local hooker whos been offering her services on credit. She rushes to the hotel to pay what she owes for room hire. As she puts the 100 note on the counter, the German appears, says the rooms are unsuitable, picks up his 100 note and leaves town.
No one did any work. No one earned anything. Everyone is out of debt. Everyone is feeling better. And that is how a bail-out works.
HWMBO, my husband, is currently in Singapore for CNY visiting his parents. He brought a mobile phone we no longer use to give to them. However, it was asking for a password, and none of the passwords I knew fit it.
HWMBO was just going to give up, but last night it occurred to me that the phone is probably still locked to Vodafone here in the UK—we never bothered to unlock it as we only used it for lending to houseguests and we had Vodafone SIM cards for that.
I’m not up on the latest information about handphone unlocking in Singapore (or even whether it’s available—but I’ll bet it is) so could one of my kind wonderful Singaporean Live Journal friends tell me whether unlocking is freely available in Singapore and, if it is, where to find someone to unlock the phone? I’ll bet Sim Lim Square, but I’d be happy for any information you can give me.
Next time I’m in Singapore, I’ll take you out to your favourite restaurant in return!
Thank you in advance for any help! It is much appreciated.
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is courtesy of Grandmère Mimi, who should know better.
A guy was getting ready to tee off on the first hole when a second golfer approached and asked if he could join him. The first said that he usually played alone, but agreed to the twosome.
They were even after the first few holes. The second guy said, “We’re about evenly matched; how about playing for five bucks a hole?” The first guy said that he wasn’t much for betting, but agreed to the terms.
The second guy won the remaining sixteen holes with ease.
As they were walking off number eighteen, the second guy was busy counting his $80.00. He confessed that he was the pro at a neighboring course and liked to pick on suckers. The first fellow revealed that he was the parish Monsignor.
The pro was flustered and apologetic, offering to return the money. The priest said, “No, you won fair and square, and I was foolish to bet with you. You keep your winnings.”
The embarrassed pro said, “Monsignor, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
The priest said, “Well, you could come to Mass on Sunday and make a donation. And, if you want to bring your mother and father along, I’ll marry them.”
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Have you ever been exasperated with the extremely low level of customer service from your mobile phone company? Many thousands of Belgians were annoyed with the customer service from Mobistar, and a satirical TV show decided to get some of their own back. See what transpired below. It’s in Flemish, but with subtitles. Enjoy (courtesy of BoingBoing)!
To non-USans, the name Jack LaLanne will mean nothing at all. However, to USans of my vintage and below, he was something of a TV icon. Physical fitness was his life, and he lived a long one, dying at age 96 of pneumonia. He liked to say, “I can’t die: it would ruin my image.”
No it didn’t, Jack.
Today is the 17th anniversary of my arrival in the United Kingdom.
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One of the “joys” of January is Burns Night, which is celebrated throughout not only Scotland, his ancestral home, but also throughout the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world. Whiskey is consumed, and the star of the dinner is the haggis, piped into the dining room and hymned by Burns’s Address to the Haggis.
Alas, this has not been possible in the United States, where Burns Night is graced with vegetarian haggis or with some other fare, since importing haggis or making it is prohibited in the United States. The reason: one of the ingredients in the “great chieftain o’ the pudding race” is sheep’s lung, which may not be offered for consumption there.
So you should be afraid as a delegation from the US has been invited to Scotland to sample the delights of haggis, see for themselves the wonderful and sanitary conditions in which it is made, and (the Scots, especially Macsween, the major haggis producer, hope) perhaps persuade the US Department of Agriculture to allow its import and sale for the first time in 40 years.
If you do not wish this tragedy to befall the United States, write your Congresscritter! Demand that sheep’s lung continue to be prohibited for sale in the US! You may save countless would-be Scots from the horrible fate of eating haggis. Their very lives (not to mention their taste buds) depend on YOU!
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As the Marblehead Reporter has broken up the police log by days, I don’t often read it nowadays. Howeve,r the Reporter’s Facebook feed tipped me off that January 20, 2011 had been a rather interesting day in the life of Marblehead’s Finest. The police officers even managed to keep their junk in their trousers, in contradistinction to Her Majesty’s constabulary previously reported here.
Walk-in requested that police issue a ticket to her landlord for not removing ice from previous storm at 7:57 a.m. She was informed that there was no law that would allow police to issue a ticket, that it was a civil issue. The woman showed the dispatcher her lacerated wrist, which was wrapped in gauze. The dispatcher told the woman that she would document the injury but reiterated that it was a civil issue. The woman then turned around and pulled down her pants, revealing severely bruised buttocks. Is this a civil matter? she asked. Woman gave dispatcher the name of the landlord.
Caller on Village Street reported attempted e-mail scam at 9:37 a.m.
Conducted well-being check and investigation on Linden Street at 10:55 a.m.
Caller reported that cars were bypassing cones that Light Department had set up and were running into a block at the end of Beacon Street, where they had to turn around at 10:56 a.m. Light Department opened up the road a short time later.
Hanging street sign reported on Cross and Pleasant streets at 11:01 a.m.
Drivers speeding and parked three-deep near Glover School on Maple Street reported at 2:15 p.m.
Investigated report from the Marblehead High School office of a possible fight on the railroad right-of-way behind the post office on Smith Street at 2:23 p.m. Officers monitored the area, and there were no problems; however, at 3:26 p.m., police officers were called to Rowland Street where a fight had indeed broken out.
Anonymous caller, who had called police station previously, reported being harassed by various members of the NFL and the Actors Guild, among other allegations at 8:45 p.m. Initial attempt to trace call failed. However, she called back at 11:54 p.m., and police were able to trace call at that point.
And so another humdrum day in Marblehead, Massachusetts came to a close.
Those of you who read the foreign news (in the US) may have come across several articles in the Grauniad discussing the fact, just revealed, that an undercover policeman not only infiltrated a particularly harmless environmental activist organisation, but slept with several of the female activists. Another police undercover agent actually married an activist and they had two children before he broke down and confessed that he wasn’t who he had said he was.
Well, after two stories about policemen not being able to keep their trousers zipped, we heard yesterday that the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury spokesman for the opposition Labour party) resigned his post for “personal reasons”. Normally if they themselves have transgressed they say that they are resigning to “spend more time with their family”. This morning we awoke to the news that he no longer has a family with which to spend time with as his former police bodyguard from the time he was Home Secretary has had (perhaps “is having”) an affair with Johnson’s wife and she has left him.
One wonders how many more cases of this nature are simmering just under the saucepan lid. There have been three undercover officers identified who infiltrated peaceful activist groups, two of which (the two men) got sexually involved with the people they were spying on. And a politician who (frankly) is one of the few Labour politicians I have time for as he is a hard worker, very personable, and doesn’t act as if being in the Cabinet made his sh*t not to stink, is poleaxed by his police bodyguard and his marriage ruined.
It used to be that bent coppers were limited to physical violence against prisoners and taking bribes. Now it seems they are becoming studs as well.
Later note; Guido Fawkes is now reporting that Johnson’s successor investigated Johnson’s private life and discovered that Johnson himself was having an affair with a civil servant. This doesn’t make it right for the bodyguard to have an affair with Johnson’s wife, but it certainly shows that what’s sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Those old wives knew whereof they spoke. And of course, it’s really creepy that the new Shadow Chancellor might have been implicated in the discoveries which led to Johnson’s resignation, if that is true.
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I understand that water-wings are often used to help kids learn how to swim. And, of course, people blow up rafts or innertubes (do innertubes still exist?) and float on them, often sporting drinks with umbrellas in them. However, this pair of dimwits decided that another type of blow-up device was adequate for river use, with predictable unhappy consequences.
I am not normally glued to each and every Lolcats picture. The following is a video from the Annals of Improbable Research that demonstrates that “Cats Haz Gravity”.
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but this is quite amusing, even to an oldster like me.
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Stabbie’s been stabbed with needles this week, but that’s not why he’s a bit crabby.
Stabbie has a foot condition which requires a change of dressing every two days. Stabbie is perfectly able to change the dressing, so on Wednesday he was doing the needful (as his former Indian workmates used to say). He cuts off the old dressing, takes a look at the foot ulcers, and then cleans off the foot and the ulcers with a disinfectant. Then he soaks a square of gauze in the disinfectant and soaks the ulcers to kill any little critters that might have taken up residence. During this time Stabbie sits back and relaxes.
Wednesday Stabbie’s foot was soaking when the doorbell rang. As the ulcers are on the bottom of the foot at the front, Stabbie jumped up, hobbled to the door on his heel, and answered the intercom, “HELLO!” Stabbie does not like to answer the door when his foot is soaking but he dislikes traipsing to the Royal Mail even more if the letter carrier drops a card rather than the package.
The cheery voice came back over the intercom, “My, that was a forceful hello! We’re here to discuss the Bible with you…” which was as far as he could get when Stabbie roared, “NO. THANK YOU. GOODBYE!!!”
Now, there is no one who is more willing to discuss Scripture than Stabbie. All those years in the seminary, plus the many sermons he’s preached over the last 20 years, make him very mindful that Scripture is eminently discussable and holds many treasures for people to take away, especially in this 400th anniversary of the commissioning of the King James Bible. But Stabbie does not go from door to door and disturb people at their medical necessities to discuss the Bible. He waits until a teachable moment occurs, often in the context of a church service.
Stabbie believes in all the commandments, especially the Fifth. However, had Stabbie been able to hobble out to the front door with a cleaver, the Feeding of the Five Thousand might have had a bit of meat in it rather than just bread and fish.
Stabbie is also a Freemason. This is something that Stabbie loves and that has allowed him to excel in ritual and given him insights into human nature. However, not everyone in Freemasonry is actuated by such lofty motives. Some are more interested in honours, purple aprons, and various pins and chains. These people don’t impress Stabby very much, and he tries to avoid them when possible.
At a Lodge meeting on Tuesday evening, a group of Purple Aprons attended, bringing along their own Director of Ceremonies. This results in a separate procession into and out of the Lodge room. These went off fairly well.
However, Lodges normally have a formal dinner after meetings, and the group of Purple Aprons attends that as well, and processes in after all the Brethren have assembled. The table was arranged in a “W” shape, and Stabbie was sitting on the inside of the leg of the “W” closest to the door. The Purple Aprons were announced by their Director of Ceremonies, who led them in. The Director of Ceremonies stopped and impatiently waved at all the Brethren placed on the other side of the “W” and motioned them to stand back while the Purple Aprons entered, instead of just detouring a foot or so and walking behind them.
Now Stabbie gives all due respect to Purple Aprons. They often have responsible jobs to do within the Craft and sometimes visit three or four Lodges a week. Rank, however, should have its graces as well. To wave Brethren away from the table just so the Purple Aprons did not have to detour a couple of feet to get to their places at table is pomposity at its height.
Stabbie thinks that the poniard which is used to test the candidates at initiation might very well have other uses, and we might want to take it to dinner next time the Purple Aprons threaten to show. Then the Purple Aprons might have to find a new Director of Ceremonies.
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At around 6:30 am, I heard what sounded like a dogfight in the back garden. I turned over and said to HWMBO: “I’ll bet there are foxes out there.” He said he didn’t think so.
When I came downstairs at 7:15 to make breakfast, there were indeed two foxes in the back garden. They were no longer fighting, but one was curled up in front of our back door and the other one was halfway up the garden. That one has retreated under a tarpaulin in the next garden, but the first one is still curled up in front of the back door, seemingly asleep.
I have some pictures, but they will have to wait until I can make them smaller to fit onto a regular blog page. The gas fitter came to examine the boiler, and he had to go into the back garden to check on the flue. I was a bit nervous that the fox would either attack him or run into the house, which would be a disaster. Luckily, when he opened the back door the fox ran away. It has now come back, though.
More as it happens. You wouldn’t expect this level of wildlife activity in the centre of a big city like London, but there you go.
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As some of you will remember from previous posts, I am having trouble with my main desktop computer. To sum up what is a long, sad story, Vista sucks, and it especially sucks when it updates a previous XP installation which probably updated a previous Windows 98 installation. The amount of cruft and general stupidity that accrues when you update a Windows installation is beyond belief. I have suffered from the following:
So here I am. After a lot of thought, I’ve decided what I have to do.
I have to make a backup, wipe the disk clean, get a fresh install (not an update) of Windows 7, and install that.
To that end, I booted into the computer using safe mode with networking, and I’m now backing my hard disk up to the NAS box. This will take quite a while, but is worth it. I don’t do it often enough. When I finally figure out how to use ViceVersa most efficiently, it will be faster. Now I’m just using it as a blunt-edged sword, to get all the files off.
Last night I discovered that if I copied my Thunderbird Profile directory to the other drive in the NAS box, I could access all my email from the netbook. I can’t tell you how neat this is. I suppose that I could have accessed Eudora from the NAS box too, or at least the email files, but this brings along my profile too, so Thunderbird on my netbook looks exactly the same as Thunderbird on my desktop. If I like I can install Thunderbird on my Ubuntu notebook and access my emails from that as well. What this means is that my online life can continue while I rebuild my desktop computer in a leisurely fashion. LJ, Facebook, Twitter, email, and MSN all continue on the netbook.
The next step is to take the list of installed programs and, one by one, take the setup files off the computer and put them on an external disk drive, along with any license keys needed for reinstallation. This wll take time. I will also have to make sure that the installation programs for all my peripherals such as the monitor, the webcam, the audio console, and the like are also available.
Then I have to buy a copy of Windows 7. Will be looking for the best bargain (if any) but not a pirated version. I might join Tech-Net again if I can get a license through it that won’t expire.
Dell set up the hard disks in a RAID 0 array (I think; I can’t check at the moment). What I need to do is get bigger disks (perhaps 1 TB) and install them in an array so that I have redundancy. This will take a while. As I have lots of time during the day. I shouldn’t have much of a problem doing all this (although the expense may be a problem).
Next step is installing Windows 7 and making sure that all the peripherals work with it. This may be easy, or not. I’m not sure at this point.
Finally, I need to reinstall all the programs I want, and make sure they work. I expect this to be a bit frustrating. Some of these programs have been on my computer for years, and I may not have the latest versions. I know that the programs I use most (such as Office) should be OK, it’s other ones that I’m worried about.
I don’t expect to be finished with this until spring. But, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never have a functioning computer again until I buy a new one and I can’t see that happening for a long time. In fact, I suspect that my next main computer will be a notebook of some sort (not a tablet yet). I’m exhausted just thinking about all this.
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I don’t normally read the Sports section of the Grauniad, nor listen with more than 1/2 an ear to the sports news on radio. However, I have been aware in the past few years that England were rubbish at almost every sport in which they engaged, especially soccer. England crashed out of the World Cup of soccer this last summer, ignominiously. There was a lot of crying into beer. While the United Kingdom had done well in the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games in India weren’t especially spectacular. There haven’t been any world-class English teams since the Rugby World Cup in in 2003.
Now comes word that England has not only retained the Cricket Ashes cup, but has won the series of matches in Australia 3-1 with one draw. Translation for non-UKers or those from non-cricketing countries. There is a long-standing series of cricket rivalries between Australia and England. This started in 1882 and continues down to the present day. The Wikipedia article on the Ashes is quite comprehensive, although you won’t learn much about the rules of cricket there if you aren’t already familiar with them.
What matters to me is that, finally, there is something international that England is good at. Most Brits are soccer-mad, but cricket can now lay claim to be the national sport at which we excel. Our team has set all sorts of records, including some from a youngish player named Alistair Cook, who was named the man of the match and series today.
Could this be the first step in regaining our sporting nerve?
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and many happy returns of the day!
Every once in a while an flurry of posts on your choice of Internet fora (used to be USENET, now in blogs and on Facebook or Twitter) concerned the proper plural form of the word “octopus”. So is it “two octopuses”, “two octopi”, or “two octopodes”?
This video provides the answer: all three. Enjoy.
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John was a salesman’s delight when it came to any kind of unusual gimmicks. His wife Marsha had long ago given up trying to get him to change. One day John came home with another one of his unusual purchases. It was a robot that John claimed was actually a lie detector. When it detected a lie, it rang a bell and a speaker shouted “LIE! LIE!”
It was about 5:30 that afternoon when Tommy, their 11 year old son, returned home from school. Tommy was over 2 hours late..
“Where have you been? Why are you over 2 hours late getting home?” asked John.
“Several of us went to the library to work on an extra credit project,” said Tommy.
The robot’s bell started ringing and the speaker shouted: “LIE! LIE!”
“Son,” said John, “this robot is a lie detector, now tell us where you really were after school.”
“We went to Bobby’s house and watched a movie.” said Tommy.
“What did you watch?” asked Marsha.
“The Ten Commandments.” answered Tommy.
Once again the robot’s bell started ringing and the speaker shouted: “LIE! LIE!”
With his lip quivering, Tommy got up, sat down and said, “I am sorry I lied. We really watched a tape called Sex Queen.”
“I am ashamed of you, son,” said John.. “When I was your age I never lied to my parents.”
To his great surprise the robot’s bell started ringing and the speaker shouted: “LIE! LIE!”
Marsha doubled over in laughter, almost in tears and said, “Boy, did you ever ask for that one! You can’t be too mad with Tommy. After all, he is your son!”
The robot rang its bell again and the speaker shouted “LIE! LIE!”
Those religious people who say that birth control is immoral and that predictions of the Earth’s future can contain indefinite growth should watch this series of YouTube videos of a lecture that Emeritus Prof. of Physics Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado gave around 10 years ago, called Arithmetic, Population, and Energy. It might just be the most important video you ever see.
In the years since the video, nothing has happened to invalidate his major theorem, which is that there is no such thing as sustainable growth. Overpopulation makes sustainable growth an oxymoron. And, some of his conclusions may surprise you, such as that overpopulation is a problem not in developing countries, but in the United States.
Watch the videos.
Passing requires only 3 correct answers out of 10!
1. How long did the Hundred Years’ War last?
2. Which country makes Panama hats?
3. From which animal do we get cat gut?
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5. What is a camel’s hair brush made of?
6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7. What was King George VI’s first name?
8. What colour is a purple finch?
9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10. What is the colour of the black box in a commercial airplane?
ANSWERS
1. How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years
2. What country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3. From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and horses
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November
5. What is a camel’s hair brush made of? Squirrel fur
6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs
7. What was King George VI’s first name? Albert
8. What colour is a purple finch? Crimson
9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from? New Zealand
10. What is the colour of the ‘black box’ in a commercial airplane? Orange
How did you do? I got 5 out of 10.
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I have finally decided that my computer has accrued so many problems that it’s time to bite the bullet and wipe it clean and reinstall Windoze.
This might sound easy, but it’s easier to say it than to do it. For one thing, I have 13 years’ worth of email safely saved on my hard disk and I would be loth to lose any of it. I have lots of data of various sorts, pictures going over more than a decade, and lots of programs that I wish to preserve and reinstall. So my project for the next few months is to:
1) Take off on DVDs the data that I want to save. I had some foresight a while back in that I put a lot of it into a folder called data. I may have to put more stuff in it and perhaps subdivide it a bit. However, it’ll all be there and backed up.
2) Make a list (probably with Belarc Advisor) of all the programs on the disk. Then I will have to ensure that I have all the installation information, the registration keys, and the install programs put away somewhere. I will probably put them on another external hard disk. This will also give me the opportunity to ditch programs that have accrued on my system and been uninstalled but not very well. For some reason, when it comes to uninstallation, many programmers make very little effort to code it correctly, thus leaving cruft all over your system.
3) See if I can persuade HWMBO to let me buy a copy of Windows 7 and install that. Failing that, I’ll install Vista yet again.
4) Put the data back on the system and reinstall all the programs in item (2). This will take a while as well.
There are some people who do this once a year, whether they need to or not. Unfortunately, I have never done this, as every operating system I’ve ever purchased has been an “upgrade” from the previous one. So some of this cruft could go back four computers and all the way back to Windows 95.
I will still have my netbook, my Ubuntu notebook, my Apple iMac, and my Sun 10 Sparcstation, all of which are usable in a pinch. And, of course, my own computer will never be the same after all this is reinstalled. However, needs must, and I’m tired of fighting with it.