test please delete

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Friday.

Dry.

Grey.

Sunless.

Chilly but not as cold as yesterday: 12 deg in here,11.5 in the kitchen, 9.5 in the leanto.

1023 and a tad mBar, 30.218 in Hg, 767.54 Torr, 14.842 psi, (down from 1025 last night), 63% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 11th of December 2019 NF discovered the reason for the change of drugs: the old one had been recalled , cojak popped in to ask how to book a taxi in that France place without speaking da lingo, whereas scruff suggested an Uber, and opm did the Franglais thing.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloom: proved to be rather warmer than yesterday since I could feel my hands well before the 4th pond & in fact starting taking stuff off to cool down a bit.

Further investigation has revealed that the mushrooms in the tree were, in fact, in the hollow bit. Happily enough, said tree managed to miss the memorial bench for that 9 year old kid. Which was good. Poor little sod was 9 and died of a brain haemorrhage out of the blue.

Lunch: brunch. Yet more of the Weetabix 10 years past its BBE. Tasted ok.

Entertainment: R4 waffling on about battery powered outdoor rock gigs and suchlike. <click>

Freecell score: 92%, running average: 80%.

For further entertainment decided to try scanning the cookbooks on the old win98 box.

Oh. Where's the scantastic program? Ok: install the fecker. Duly installs.

Try to scan: shadow memory conflict. WTF is that?

After much potching it's still not working.

I think there's a win95 hd somewhere that it did work with, maybe I should look for that.

Tea: soup etc.

Entertainment: UFO declassified on Blaze: LA UFO 25th February 1942. It was a "weather balloon". .

Another potch with the win98 box: still no go. "Turn off shadowing in the bios" it says: there's no shadowing control in the fecking bios.

Yet it used to work, I remember it doing so. That was with Win95 and Win3.1 though. Might have been A While Ago. .

I think the Win95 hd is in a caddy in the box room: a) I can't turn the light on and b) it's cold in there, so screw it until tomorrow.

Dalgliesh E4.

[NickFitz]

Dentist done

Just a checkup which revealed nothing untoward, though TBH it seemed a bit cursory. There's one tooth at the back which has been about 50% filling for years, and about 50% of the filling falls away whenever they try to rebuild it, having nothing to support it. She suggested sealing it instead, which involved a few minutes with some plastic stuff sealed by UV; it doesn't improve the value of the tooth, but makes it less likely any infection will get past what remains of the filling. She also did a quick clean of the gaps between, as she said I'd be paying the same with that as without so she might as well

The big shock came when I was setting off home and discovered that the Co-op near the old place is no longer a Co-op, having been transmuted by some malign force or entity into a Morrison's Local

Real end of an era vibes about that; I'm pretty sure the building was originally constructed as a Co-op, some time in the 1930s

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Dull. Overcast. Damp. Raining off and on. Currently 6 degrees ('feels like' 4) and that's the high for the day. Rain will feature for the rest of the day. Barometer down to 1026 mBar.

Overslept this morning and finally woke sufficiently to get up for work at 8.45 am.

Uneventful at the coal face. Yesterday's on site day included a long session about current / upcoming projects which I only needed to dip in and out of. Looks like there may not be much work beyond the end of January for me but there are conversations afoot so nothing will be firmed up until the New Year.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been leftover slow-roasted belly pork in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce. When doing the roasting I chuck a few star anise in there, which gives it a really nice flavour (n.b. may not be nice to those who dislike aniseed)

It occurred to me that although I'd got an email from Sainsbury's telling me when the order will arrive, they always used to send a text message. Then I remembered that my account was messed up by all the Nectar fraud stuff earlier in the year, so I went to check if my phone number was on there. Not only was it not there, a different number was there in its place. No idea where that came from; maybe they just stuck some random customer's number in there for fun

[eek]

Lunch has been leftover slow-roasted belly pork in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce. When doing the roasting I chuck a few star anise in there, which gives it a really nice flavour (n.b. may not be nice to those who dislike aniseed)

It occurred to me that although I'd got an email from Sainsbury's telling me when the order will arrive, they always used to send a text message. Then I remembered that my account was messed up by all the Nectar fraud stuff earlier in the year, so I went to check if my phone number was on there. Not only was it not there, a different number was there in its place. No idea where that came from; maybe they just stuck some random customer's number in there for fun

Oh you’ve discovered the number of the person who stole your points

[WTFH]

Lunch has been leftover slow-roasted belly pork in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce. When doing the roasting I chuck a few star anise in there, which gives it a really nice flavour (n.b. may not be nice to those who dislike aniseed)

It occurred to me that although I'd got an email from Sainsbury's telling me when the order will arrive, they always used to send a text message. Then I remembered that my account was messed up by all the Nectar fraud stuff earlier in the year, so I went to check if my phone number was on there. Not only was it not there, a different number was there in its place. No idea where that came from; maybe they just stuck some random customer's number in there for fun

That makes me think I should check with my dad. He had his nectar points stolen earlier this year, he saves them up then uses them to fill his car with fuel. The day before he was going to use them he thought he would check how many were there, only to find that it had gone from 5000 down to 500.
He phoned someone up, and it appears his points were used in Folkestone. Dad was quickly able to show that he wasn't in Folkestone and they refunded him. He then changed all his credit cards cause he was sure that if they got into his Nectar, they would have everything.

[NickFitz]

Oh you’ve discovered the number of the person who stole your points

Quite possibly! Though I'm not sure - from what Sainsbury's said, it sounded as if my account was nixed when the people on the Nectar side shot down the original account; for example, my order history vanished. But it's possible some information somehow made it across. Anyway, I changed it to mine immediately in case of messages saying the delivery was delayed.

Speaking of which, the van pulled up at the front door downstairs at 16:12, right at the end of the hour they'd appointed so technically on time. So that's done, and one less thing to fret over

Today's final delivery was going to be a couple of HomePods from Apple, which I'm going to use as a stereo pair hooked up (wirelessly, of course) to the Apple TV. I ordered these around ten last night so I thought the assertion that they'd be delivered today seemed optimistic, and became even less convinced as they remained in "Preparing to ship" status all day. Sure enough, they just shipped and will, in fact, be here on Monday

[NickFitz]

Tea: ribeye steak with chips, fried onions and beans

And as I finished it, I remembered that I'd put the mundane laundry in the machine earlier but hadn't started it. So I just got that going

[NickFitz]

Two major motion picture premieres tonight, starting with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) in which the Royal Navy deals with the French, as was their wont back in 1810. Very good stuff if you like seafaring adventures in the days of sail, and who doesn't? (Well, as long as it isn't The Onedin Line, obviously.)

And then a new one from Apple: Fly Me to the Moon (2024) in which a shady character (Woody Harrelson) associated with the Nixon government brings in advertising expert Scarlett Johansson to bolster NASA's public image ahead of the Apollo 11 mission. One cannot say that this is based on a true story; in fact, it's barely even adjacent to the true story it's supposed to be centred around. Still, it's not claiming to be true (or I hope it's not) and it's an entertaining yarn; so it's not that dissimilar to the preceding film in a way, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was more historically accurate

Time for bed now as I need to head south for the pre-Christmas family gathering tomorrow

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Saturday.

Poor night's sleep with lots of dreams, none of them particularly good.

Dry.

Chilly in here at 11.8 deg, 10 deg in the kitchen, 9 deg in the leanto, 6.8 deg in the saltinghouse.

1021 mBar, 30.15 in Hg, 765.8 Torr, 14.8 psi, (up from 1019 last night), 66% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 11th of December 2019 Brillo posted a lot.

Shirts in the WM.

Smalls in the WM.

All out of the WM & pegged out on the line.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the wan sunshine.

The rain began as I walked in through the back door.

Can't be arsed to bring the washing in, feck it.

Lunch: brunch.

Freecell score: 100%, running average: 80%.

Shirts in off the line, in the TD, out of the TD, iRoned, airing upstairs.

Smalls in off the line plus a towel, in the TD, out of the TD, airing upstairs.

Remaining socks & two towels in off the line, in the TD, out of the TD, airing upstairs.

Not a successful drying day by any means.

Found the hd caddies with Win95, Win3.1, Win3.11 on. I wonder if the scanner i/f card will work with these: Nope. That was predictable. .

Tea: chicken in white sauce etc.

Entertainment: PM.

Massive Engineering Mistakes: New York river bridge: crane collapse during pile driving: due to worn teeth on the gripping thing for the hammer. 2000 feet tall transmision tower in Texas: collapse during construction due to U bolt failure as the final section was lifted: 5 killed. And they had plenty of time to watch the ground coming up to meet them. Boston Massachussetts water pipe failure. Ullevi stadium, Gothenberg, Sweden: nearly brought down by the audience for Springsteen in the 1980s due to resonance in the clay of the pitch when they were jumping up & down.