10 Gadgets That Have No Business Using a Jet Engine

November 18, 2008 · Posted in foundFings . . . · Comment 

10 Gadgets That Have No Business Using a Jet Engine: Clearly, this article has the wrong title … it should obviously be called “10 things you should go and do with a jet engine, NOW!”.  Rather unsurprisingly Top Gear features in 2 vids 😉

Kayakers’ 300ft dam drop attacked

November 18, 2008 · Posted in foundFings . . . · Comment 

Kayakers’ 300ft dam drop attacked:

Clearly Welsh Water are just being killjoys here.  No one else is allowed to use the lake so there was no chance of other people being hurt and, if the guys doing it had bent themselves in the process then it’s their own problem as they knew they were doing something that was, shall we say, a bit daft 😉

Looks damn good fun though …

What a day . . .

November 17, 2008 · Posted in brain dump . . . · Comment 

No posts over the weekend which alternatly involved eating, drinking sleeping, DIY, travelling, eating drinking, sleeping, shopping, cooking, eating and yet more drinking . . .

This morning came as quite a shock, not least because I’d spent most of Sunday somehow thinking it was Saturday – hence the shock at wondering where my weekend had gone.  The start to the week wasn’t helped when I awoke at 6am this morning.  Tuesday to Friday my alarm is set for 6am in order for me to catch the 6.45 train from Cambridge but on Mondays I work from home and get, at least, an extra 2 hours in bed . . . but not today.

Today I awoke just before 6, lay in bed totally failing to get back to sleep for nearly 20 minutes before giving up the unequal struggle and getting up. Oh well, get a few misc tasks out of the way first thing, have breakfast and start work.  Working from home is nice as I actually get more work done due to a lack of interruptions. I can chill out for lunch, watch a bit of TV, jump onto my PS3 or browse abound (and hopefully post a couple of blog items). I also do more work as I tend to work longer hours.  It’s a nice way of easing myself into the working week.

I don’t know if not much has come up from my RSS feeds or I’ve just been very busy, I suspect both, but I haven’t even tweeted since I first got up this morning. My plan with the new site was to post at least one item, something, every single day. The weekend blew that one away but I was determined to not skip today – even if I just managed to post some of the reasons why I hadn’t posted (while finishing work)

Tomorrow is likly to be busy too but at least I’ll be able to sort out a few things as I left myself drift during the journeys too and from work . . .

New Watchmen Trailer

November 14, 2008 · Posted in foundFings . . . · Comment 

New Watchmen Trailer: Thank you ctrl-alt-del … not only for being a daily giggle and a funny online comic but for linking to the new new new Watchmen trailer – and damn if it doesn’t still look like it’s gonna be great 🙂

w00t!

November 14, 2008 · Posted in On the spot . . . · 1 Comment 

Just a quick note here to say congratulations to theWife for getting offered a new job today . . . she starts on Tuesday 🙂

Someone Once Told Me

November 13, 2008 · Posted in foundFings . . . · Comment 

Someone Once Told Me:

I really like the idea of this site – a photographer taking pics of people holding phrases that people once said to them … it’s one of those things that is nice, simple and just works

Todays seems to resonate quite strongly with me … the number of ideas that I’ve discussed with people in pubs and have never got around to actually doing is outrageous (to the extent that a friend and I began to believe at one point that our local pub was being bugged)

Well, I’ve finally got off my arse and got this site going again so maybe I’ll start work on at least one of the ideas I’ve currently got bubbling under the surface.

the No Mill Road Tesco Campaign » TESCO LOSE PLANNING APPEAL

November 13, 2008 · Posted in foundFings . . . · Comment 

the No Mill Road Tesco Campaign » TESCO LOSE PLANNING APPEAL:

Fantastic news and well done to everyone involved in stopping this from happening 😉

For those who don’t know, Mill Road is the place to go in Cambridge when you want the little things. It’s the home of small interesting shops, multi-nationality small supermarkets where you can buy hundreds of things that you’ve probably never seen or heard of before, plus, all the roads off it (well most) and full of Victorian terrace houses.

It’s got an village like atmosphere and, as the about page of the campaign site says ‘Mill Road is the creative and cultural heart of Cambridge’.

What twonk decided that it would be a good idea to stick a branch of Tesco right in the middle of it?? Admitidly we are a bit short on big supermarkets in Cambridge.  There are only 5 Tescos, 2 Sainsburys and an Aldi … how could we possibly cope without another one???

On the train again . . .

November 13, 2008 · Posted in On the spot . . . · 1 Comment 
Bored on the 6.45 to Kings Cross . . . less crowded than usual

Bored on the 6.45 to Kings Cross . . . less crowded than usual

It’s dullsville on the train this morning, stop, start, stop, start, crawl for a bit, announcement about an over-running repairs . . . snore.

Despite the reputation of the railways this doesn’t actually happen all that often and the service is usually very reliable – hugely overpriced and very overcrowded but generally reliable.

The photo shown was taken on the 6.45 from Cambridge to Kings Cross, and it’s not as busy today as it often is. To get this train I have to get up at 6am, which hurts every time I do it, but it means I can work 8am to 4pm and avoid the worst of the rush hour.

Coming home can be tricky though. If I don’t get to Kings Cross at least 10 minutes (probably 15) before the 4.45 leaves I have zero chance of getting a seat . . . double decker trains or just putting more than 8 carriages on what is a constantly full train is seemingly not a good idea – can someone tell me why?

Makin’ breakfast juice

November 12, 2008 · Posted in Cooking · Comment 
juice all made and bottled, ready for transport

juice all made and bottled, ready for transport

Last week my when we met brother-in-law, Steve, we were donated a carrier bag full of unwanted apples . . . it would seem that their new house has several apple trees in the back garden and they aparently have more apples than they know what to do with.

They’re cooking(ish) apples so they’ve spent the whole time just sat in the bag waiting for us to get round to doing something with them.

theWife is out riding around on her horsey’s so I decided to use the free time (interspresed between watching crap TV and killing anything that moves on GTA IV) to make some breakfast juice.  The basic receipe is as follows.

  • some Apples
  • some Pears
  • half a Lemon
  • 1 fresh Chilli
  • any miscellaneous veg you happen to have the you want to use up

The first ingredient is obvious . . . the second is probably not a surprise and maybe not even the third (the lemon helps make the juise taste fresher, less thick) but I always get a raised eyebrow when I mention the chilli and the vegetables.

This time I’ve chucked some somewhat bendy celery, and that actually has more taste then most raw juiced veg, but it’s not unusual for me to use brocolli and especially sprouts.  They all have plenty of vitamins in and you can barely taste them alongside the fruit.

The secret ingredient however is the Chilli.  Now don’t go silly putting in handfulls, you just need one decent sized medium chilli . . . just trust me that if you add this one thing into your juice, 5 minutes after drinking it it will feel like someone has flicked a light switch on inside your head. Real full on wake up juice 😉

Finally a word of warning about handling Chillis.  Juicing them should normally be OK, particularly with mild to medium chillis, as you never open them but either way always wash your hands well after handling them. Rubbing your eyes after cutting chillis is extreemly painful and scratching your nose was probably best described by Mitch Benn as ‘the closest you can legally get to a 5 year coke habbit!’

Comments is now deb0rkd . . .

November 12, 2008 · Posted in Site info . . . · Comment 

A poke here, a tweak there and things seem to be happy again.  Fingers crossed it’ll stay that way, although I’ve still got several other plugins I want to add to the site and I’ll probably change my mind about the theme of the site in a day or two so don’t be surprised if things go badly arwry pretty soon 😉

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