Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

Mrs NHN met up with a retired work-mate today, on her return from Upside-downie land - she brought an immigrant with her, a boat person....well, an Airbus person......wellllll, a Donk really....called Bruce apparently, who would have thought it.  He's just young we think, he's not fully grown but obviously related as he doesn't have Eeyore's dozy eyes but the wideawake mischief making Donk eyes.  No doubt he'll be in the news again soon.  Apparently the spideys and snakey things in upside-downie land were not to his liking, and who can blame him!

[Coombe Barton]

... from author Joanna Maciejewska.

You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction.

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/18/covid-up-again-and-flu-down-a-wish-for-ai/

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Got to go to the hospital for the endoscopy tomorrow to check if I have a cyst in my bladder. The medics don't seem to be overly concerned so it can't be that serious.

[polybear]

5 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

I was about to say some of our local charity shops stock knitting wool and as @polybear said above its very popular. A majority of charity shop customers are elderly and female so its understandable.

 

Plus (as Puppers has noted) a lot of the traditional sellers have now long gone.  Once upon a time I suspect many went to Woolworths for it.

 

ION.....

 

I'd arranged for Bear's Buddy to assist with pulling Harry the Honda out of the shed again in the morning (there's real scope for things going wrong) but it now seems that it's gonna rain instead.  Oh Poo - I wanted to start work on getting Harry ready for sale.  Saturday morning is now hoped for instead.....

 

A local Window Cleaner visited Bear Towers earlier today as arranged to put a quote thru' the door - seven quid to do the front.  That'll do - he also gave quotes to my next door neighbours each side (also as arranged by Bear) as well as Buddy over the road - I suspect that all will use him at those sort of prices; the last guy who called to ask if I'd be interested in having the windows cleaned wanted telephone numbers by comparison.  It does seem that many Cleaners use those long pole jobbies to clean upper windows now, rather than ladders - 'Elf n' Sayfetee n' all that I suspect.

 

I'd waffle on more - but there's a wedge of low calorie Triple Layer Choccy Cake (with choccy buttercream....) sitting next to Bear - and in need of urgent attention before a Marauding Hippo appears.....

 

Bear gone.....

 

 

[polybear]

18 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

As a one time MRC librarian I dreaded those large 'coffee table' books. Largely because the contents were carp cobbled together from various sources and nobody wanted them. The chains were very fashionable with punk rockers 25 years ago.

 

Put a leg on each corner of the big book and you could use it as a coffee table.........

[polybear]

14 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... from author Joanna Maciejewska.

You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction.

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/18/covid-up-again-and-flu-down-a-wish-for-ai/

 

Bear's Tip of the Day.....

 

If you want to make oodles and oodles of money then invent a machine that does all the ironing automatically.

 

 

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

I've got one already. I call it the wife 😂.

 

Dave

[Ian Abel]

14 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I've got one already. I call it the wife 😂.

 

Dave

You DIDN'T POST THAT, DID YOU!!! 🤣🤣

 

Fortunately, the Mrs doesn't see my ER thread/contributions, otherwise she'd be tracking you down sir! 😮

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Debs.]

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

In honour of the day being a good ‘un. Those of a nervous musical disposition may wish to avert their ears 

 

 

😱......🤯......😵‍💫.......😤......😳......🙊🙉🙈 

 

Scandalised she is!😊

[DaveF]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

A local Window Cleaner visited Bear Towers earlier today as arranged to put a quote thru' the door - seven quid to do the front.  That'll do - he also gave quotes to my next door neighbours each side (also as arranged by Bear) as well as Buddy over the road - I suspect that all will use him at those sort of prices; the last guy who called to ask if I'd be interested in having the windows cleaned wanted telephone numbers by comparison.  It does seem that many Cleaners use those long pole jobbies to clean upper windows now, rather than ladders - 'Elf n' Sayfetee n' all that I suspect.

 

 

 My window cleaner does all my house for £5!  He uses a ladder and is a lot cheaper than those who use the long poles.

 

David

Edited April 18 by DaveF

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, DaveF said:

 My window cleaner does all my house for £5!  He uses a ladder and is a lot cheaper than those who use the long poles.

 

David

£15 here. They changed to long poles a few years ago. 

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, Ian Abel said:

You DIDN'T POST THAT, DID YOU!!! 🤣🤣

 

Fortunately, the Mrs doesn't see my ER thread/contributions, otherwise she'd be tracking you down sir! 😮

 

If mine ever saw it I'd be singing falsetto.

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Bear's Tip of the Day.....

 

If you want to make oodles and oodles of money then invent a machine that does all the ironing automatically.

 

For some reason Aditi says she really enjoys ironing. I don’t and I have tried to tell her that for most of my clothes the wrinkles will disappear with wear but she insists. 

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

It's not that "old". Enterprise customers had (for the most part) not switched to it pre-pandemic. I know of one very large Enterprise that was using Skype (also a Microsoft product - though they acquired it) at that time. In that setting Skype was terrible. It wasn't until the pandemic hit that Enterprises switched to Teams.

 

 

The Australian Dept Of Defence and BAE here  have both swapped over from Skype to Teams on their unclass system just  this month. The Classified network will probably stick with Skype for years yet given the time it takes to get  software security-accredited on that.

[Grizz]

Mrs Grizz was glancing over my shoulder as you typed this….

 

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

I've got one already. I call it the wife 😂.

 

Dave

 

in a low ish flat tone she uttered these words…..

 

“Mmmmm courageous….. …… ..Don’t  get ANY ideas”…..……

 

……

 

 

 

 

[Grizz]

I replied “No dear… i am just off to bed”…..

[Dave Hunt]

She doesn't know my wife does she....... does she?

 

Dave

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Mrs NHN met up with a retired work-mate today, on her return from Upside-downie land - she brought an immigrant with her, a boat person....well, an Airbus person......wellllll, a Donk really....called Bruce apparently, who would have thought it.  He's just young we think, he's not fully grown but obviously related as he doesn't have Eeyore's dozy eyes but the wideawake mischief making Donk eyes.  No doubt he'll be in the news again soon.  Apparently the spideys and snakey things in upside-downie land were not to his liking, and who can blame him!

 

 

Make sure you check his luggage , hate for any of these to sneak in!

 

 

 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The chains were very fashionable with punk rockers 25 years ago.

Halloween cosplay as some of my ancestors - "Bound for Botany Bay".

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, polybear said:

a lot of the traditional sellers have now long gone

Along with the children that spun it in Blake's dark Satanic Mills.

[BR60103]

I did most of the computer work for our income tax today.  I'll have to sort out the e-filing tomorrow or next week.  Last year the tax department first obsoleted all our passwords after a ???   and then went on strike for a few weeks each side of the deadline. So I sent it in on paper.

 

My program offers "pension splitting" for couples to try to reduce the tax.  If I give $.06 to my wife, the tax will come down by $.02.  Any larger amount and it will come up again. 

 

[jjb1970]

A thread about kettle names made me kind of nostalgic about ye olde British foods much loved by P&O cooks I have never had anywhere else.

 

One was Cumberland sauce,  named after the Duke, not the county. Ham with Cumberland sauce was a regular on P&O menu cards. Another was brown Windsor soup. Corned beef is another, not bully beef but beef brisket cooked in brine, never had that since leaving P&O.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Corned beef is another, not bully beef but beef brisket cooked in brine.

This is very common in the US and Australia. "Corning" in this case refers to 'corns' of salt used.  Tinned products do not approximate it at all.

 

It is often associated with Irish heritage, and inevitably appears on St. Patrick's day with cabbage, but various brisket preparations are also associated with Ashkenazi Jewish cooking traditions in the US - where the corned beef on rye is a classic Jewish deli staple, along with the Ruben sandwich (corned beef on toasted rye with sauerkraut, swiss cheese and Russian dressing).

 

Peppered brisket, cold smoked and then steamed is Pastrami.  Also delicious and a little more intense. Hot pastrami on rye is wonderful.

 

Corned beef hash is a diner breakfast staple and is found everywhere in 'traditional' diners.