Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Presents and cards have been sorted out, so I think I’m finally ready! What a palaver though

I mean, all I had to do was stuff the appropriate things (mostly a tin of Quality Street, a box of Thorntons, and an Amazon gift card) into the appropriate gift bags (because then I don’t have to wrap them all individually), sometimes with a Christmas card (couples only get one of those between them). But still, I had to write on the gift cards, and on the Christmas cards, and then on the envelopes. And then I had to write on tags and tie them to the handles of the bags (making sure I got the right bag for each tag, of course), because my sister needs them to make sure each bag is positioned in the right spot under the tree for the two hours or so between me arriving and us unwrapping the presents after dinner

Anyway, all done now, so that’s one less thing to worry about in the morning

[NickFitz]

I couldn’t be bothered to drive to Sainsbury’s so just went round the corner to the Local to pick up a few beers. They didn’t have a particularly wide range but I’ll manage

And then I popped up to the kebab shop; so tea has been kebab and chips

To go with that, the final episode of The Black Swan in which it turns out that criminal lawyers can’t be trusted

[xoggoth]

You haven't been monkying around again then.

[NickFitz]

Police car parked outside!

it’s outside the adjacent block, to be precise, so I don’t suppose it’s anything to do with us as there’s a space free in front of our block

[NickFitz]

Due to the living room light nearest the window having taken to glowing in an ominous deep red hue when turned off, I bought a couple of Hue bulbs with a “bridge” and just started setting them up. The bridge thing, it turns out, needs to be plugged into an Ethernet port on the router. But due to lack of enough power points in the hall cupboard where that lives, this would mean leaving the 4G backup router disconnected. Anyway, as soon as I connected it, it insisted on installing an update and has been doing so for about thirty minutes now with no signs of progress. In that time, I’ve already got them set up in Apple Home

Ah, I restarted the Hue app and, once I’d gone through all the consent palaver again, it found the bridge. Might as well let it get set up, even though it’ll be unplugged and never used again

I didn’t even want the bridge TBH but the pack with two bulbs plus the bridge was on special offer, which made it cheaper than just getting two bulbs

Ah, it’s not been able to set up the bulbs, even though it realised they were there. Time to end the failed Hue experiment and stick with Apple Home, I think

[ladymuck]

~2.5 mins??

Not far off!! It'll take longer than that to get there, let alone get it sorted.

[sadkingbilly]

Now trying to decide if going back and queuing up for a £3.30 refund is worth my time.

~2.5 mins??

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

Quite Simpsonesque out for a change, though it seems as if it may be running in reverse and clouding over more. Pretty breezy too, so the current 5°C “feels like” -1°, and I daresay the expected high of 6° won’t be much better. The barometers have shot up to 1024/1032mB

I too have realised I need to go to Sainsbury’s or somewhere after all, as I’m supposed to take some beer down to my sister’s tomorrow. TBH I’ll probably be the only one drinking it, so maybe I’ll just go to the Local round the corner and grab a few bottles

[ladymuck]

Sainsbury's wasn't so bad in the end. However, Fevertree is supposed to be available at a discount but no discount was applied! Now trying to decide if going back and queuing up for a £3.30 refund is worth my time.

Yes, my Nectar card worked as the gin was properly discounted.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Dry, sunny, windy. Occasional lumps of fluff. Currently 5 degrees ('feels like' 1) with a high of 6 expected. Barometer up to 1033 mBar.

Sunrise 08:06; Sunset 15:56 GMT

I need to brave Sainsbury's as I didn't go yesterday. Also need to top the car up with petrol ready for the drive to Sussex tomorrow.

[Pondlife]

Morning all, Happy Christmas Eve.

Wind 13 kt from the East/Northeast
Temperature 5°C
Humidity 75%
Pressure 1031 hPa
Visibility 10 km or more
Overcast at a height of 2100 ft

Yesterday's flying was cancelled and so I got a headstart on the Pigs in Blankets followed by National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to start the festivities properly.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Dry.

Hints of sun to come.

Chilly in here at 13.5 deg, 12 in the kitchen, 10 in the leanto, 6 in the saltinghouse.

1025.5 mBar, 30.283 in Hg, 769.2 Torr, 14.87 psi, (up from 1020 last night), 65% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 7th of March 2020 NF was feeling out of sorts & had a Chinese meal to compensate, LM watched a lot of iPlayer, and Brillo & BR14 popped in.

Washing frenzy in progress: washing blown horizontal on the line.

Shopping trip to Tesco done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: something about what happened on this day in the past.

Shirt blew off line & landed on grass: I iRoned the fecker anyway: all now airing upstairs.

Shopping trip to Morrisons done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Unhappy news about next door but one's lad's car: oil light flickering, sounds like it's a wet belt engine. He passed his test a fortnight ago.

Now getting outside a cup of mediocre yet consistent coffee.

Stuff in the TD. Stuff out of the TD & that requiring the iRon received it. All airing upstairs.

Tea: Tesco battered haddock. Nice enough. Some weird soft Bavarian cheese. Very nice. A Tesco mince pie. Meh. Now half a stone heavier than this morning.

Entertainment: PM. 18 o'clock news.

Abandoned Engineering. Fort Lawton, Seattle 1944: 20 odd Black servicemen accused of lynching an Italian POW: all bollox of course: he was probably lynched (as is usual) by a white MP. Who'd have fecking thunk? Along with no disclosure to the defence of a separate report indicating their innocence: SNAFU then. Turkish massacre of Greeks on the island of Chios in the 1820s during the Greek rebellion. 80% of the population either murdered, enslaved, committed suicide or ran away. Spillers Millennium Mills flour mill in Silvertown on the Thames. Bit the dust when the ships became too big to sail up the Thames any more. Fillmore Wisconsin: Saxonia House: built by German immigrants in the 1850s: first to brew lager style beer: eventually started the Republican Party. So that's who we have to thank for the current bunch of Nazi scum. . Blood will out & all that. .

No Elementary. And feck all else as far as the EPG is telling me.

[NickFitz]

I have gotten into watching Murder Trial on BBC iPlayer which follows a trial in the Scottish courts (who allow filming in court) and is an interesting look at how the evidence is presented, what the defence is trying to achieve, interviews with people involved in the case, etc. Seems to be just one or two episodes a year on just one case at a time. Not dramatically presented, and includes selected highlights from the court sessions to get the key points across.

They’re very interesting. Regrettably, it means that I now keep hoping for there to be an interesting murder in Scotland, as I’ve watched all the previous episodes

Tonight’s major motion picture premiere was Daehongsu (2025) or The Great Flood in English, a Korean movie on Netflix. They decided I’d want to watch the English dub of this, but I wasn’t having any of that nonsense and immediately switched it to the original Korean soundtrack; I shall find out at some other date if this choice is reflected in future viewings of films in a language other than my own. Anyway, this started out as a sci-fi disaster movie, as huge floods swept the Earth after an asteroid hit Antarctica, and a Korean mother and her son tried to get to the roof of their apartment block with a bloke from the company whose research department she worked for who’d been sent to help them. It seemed to me that something was a little off about all this from time to time, and it turned out that there was indeed more to the matter than met the eye, and shadowy forces were at work; but no spoilers. It wasn’t the best film of its kind that I’ve seen, but it was OK and had a fair few unexpected twists and turns. Worth a watch if you have access, maybe, though not worth subscribing to Netflix for the sake of it

And then a rewatch of M3GAN (2022) which I recommend without any qualification

Finally, the final episode of Alien: Earth which has been pretty disappointing all in all. But they managed to make this last episode pretty good; it’s just a shame you have to get through the rest of them first

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

The roast potatoes are good enough. Not quite the level of crispiness I was after but they're not too shabby.

I had a load of milk that would have gone to waste so I made a litre of eggnog to preserve it. I like dark rum in mine, even though cognac seems to be the traditional boozy ingredient.

I have gotten into watching Murder Trial on BBC iPlayer which follows a trial in the Scottish courts (who allow filming in court) and is an interesting look at how the evidence is presented, what the defence is trying to achieve, interviews with people involved in the case, etc. Seems to be just one or two episodes a year on just one case at a time. Not dramatically presented, and includes selected highlights from the court sessions to get the key points across.

[NickFitz]

Tea: spag bol

This was accompanied by E3 of The Black Swan, in which things get quite hairy for a while; one thing you don’t want in your office is an outlaw biker who thinks you’re trying to rip him off