The Sturdy Soapbox

Naughty Mr. WInner

I've been exchanging tweets with Michael Winner for quite some time now and have to say he's one of the most genuine, funny and dare I say charming people you could exchange messages of 140 characters with.

Here's this morning's exchange:

Isn't he a scamp ?

in praise of new software

So OBC said after seeing the photos from Wednesday "be nice if we could have that in a slideshow to send out to everyone".

I dipped my paw into my fairy purse, fetched out the wand and lo, here it is...

 

Actually, it wasn't like that at all.  I've not made piccies into a slideshow in years.  I knew the welder had an interest in this kind of thing, so I sent him a text. No response!  If it had been a text saying there was some curry on offer, the little bleeder would have been round two minutes after I'd clicked send. Verdict: As much use as a chocolate teapot !

Then I stumbled across a free Microsoft program called Photo Story http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11132

Have to say, I was utterly blown away by the simplicity of use for this proggy.  I have painful experience of stuff similar to this and the formatting of photos was one thing, adding music was a whole new experience in self tooth extraction, then there was the file format choice !

It took me about fifteen minutes to cobble this together, though my choice of music has been cross examined and suggestions of the good, the bad and the ugly and Happiness is a warm gun by the Beatles, suggested by Charlie Chalk.

Well, this was a first attempt and as the old song goes, the only way is up...

Because I've been e mailing this sort of stuff and the raw photos which were about 20 megs, coupled with the fact my ISP uses a Google interface which won't allow zip attachments, I had to find a way to send bigger files to "net novices" and spare myself the grief of explaining file transfer protocol and the likes.

I've used services like Sendspace and what pisses me off, is you use the service once and a bit like Vistaprint, once they have your e mail address, you'll hear from them every day, sometimes more than once.

I had some stuff printed by Vistaprint and they did an excellent job of the print and the delivery, but I have reached the point where I am pissed beyond belief with the daily shit always saying the same, but in a different way.  Just puts me off using them, I wanted to pay for a service, not marry into their fucking family.

Quite by accident, I stumbled across Attachmore who live at www.attachmore.com 

Their free account allows you a total of 100 Mb of data before they expect you to subscribe to their service, but you can send a gig of gubbins for $ 5 a month.

You really need to be sending larger amounts of data to people on a regular basis where normal e mail boxes will bounce (usually around the 5Mb mark), to get the use.

As I've used it four times in a week now, I am very warm to what they offer.  

All you do, is upload the individual files you want to send to someone.  Then it gives you a hyperlink and all the tools you might want to send that link to your friends.

They get an e mail with that link in which they click and then get a zip download right to their puter. So simple, even OBC failed to fuck it up (though we are still waiting on the Welder's verdict).

In these times when I find most software and service to be the same, I find this has the buzz I used to get from new discoveries back in the 90's.  These days, I really have adopted the "impress me" approach and this is one service which has.

Part of my voyage of discovery this week, involves a service I wasn't even aware of until yesterday, which is Google sites.  Like we all know about Google mail, G+ (which I am warming to), Google docs (cloud computing) Google nude cam (I made that one up).

Basically it's a free website with a sub domain.  Of course it interfaces with all the other google services (which is why I set up a You Tube account for the Coffin Dodgers) and I am looking forward once I get my head around laying out the site, to presenting them with a nicely themed home on the interwed.

 

 

The SOPA thing isn't just about Americans...

The basics are explained in this short animated GIF:

Proof that if you have enough biscuits, a dog will do anything

 

What's the difference between a constipated owl and a poor marksman ?

One shoots but can't hit (a bit like OBC below)

 

On Wednesday I found myself out in the cold English countryside with OBC and his crew of shooters, but unlike them, I was armed only with a camera, not a shotgun.

I did pose for this picture in the style of Charlton Heston and his "cold dead hand" speech.

 

 

It was pretty dreary and overcast but I did manage to get about twenty five decent photos and a couple of videos which will feature on an upcoming website named after the group who are called The Coffin Dodgers.

Everyone kept asking me "Ain't you bored", seeing as I wasn't actually shooting (despite several offers). The answer was not at all.  Firstly I had a camera in my hand and I was out in the countryside which I love, well away from noise (apart from guns) and chavs.

As for the noise, I had these special ear defenders on, which shield you from the gun sound, but through the miracles of modern technology, you turn em on and you can hear everyone who talks to you with perfect clarity.

 

 

The Coffin Dodgers

 

 

Wabbit

 

 

The one (of many) that got away

I'll post the site address for the Coffin Dodgers once I've got my head around all the protocols associated with online web design.  I'm using Google sites, but it isn't childs play getting everything on the page where you want it.

So that's my weekend sorted, reading tutorials and help files.

Not dead, just sleeping

I've had e mails of enquiry, even complaints, that I've not posted anything in well over a week.  Well that's just the way it is when you lead a somewhat empty life.

If there's nothing happening, there's not much you can write.

I had my monthly weigh in post Christmas and was horrified to discover I have put on 8 pounds, so I have been increasing my walking to jolt myself back into losing weight, not gaining it.

I am still having problems with my knee, neck, back etc.  Been for my CT scan with regards to my kidney stone which fotunately is not causing me problems.

So that's about it.  Will report more, when something happens !

Miserable, moi ?

OBC was just showing off that he can acquiesce to the new technologies, picking up my phone and taking this picture as we had a quick pint in the Pretty Bricks yesterday after I got back from the hospital.

When he saw it, he said it made me look like the miserable git I am.

I was far from miserable, having got the hospital appointment out the way, my new coffee cups and having got my meat from Bob the Butcher, saving me a trip today.  I was tired though (which is why I was in bed before ten last night.

 

 

An E bay find

About twenty years ago, I paid about eight pounds each for a pair of coffee cups identical to the picture.  I've been using them a lot since I really got into my fresh coffee habit a couple of years ago, but was utterly pissed off, when I managed to break one when I was decorating a few months ago.

I've been looking for some cups that are low enough to go under the Gaggia, but even on E bay, the prices are high, because a lot of these cups have the names of celebs on like Nigella Lawson.  Whilst I like something that's stylish, I am not going to fund their lavish lifestyles.

A week or so before Christmas, I saw these three, which appeared to be identical to the one I had left.  I put in my bid of £ 1.99 a day before the end of the auction and was joyful when I was the winner.

It was collect only, about thirty miles away and before I bid, I texted OBC asking if I might borrow EFPV to go get them.  I didn't get an answer and put the bid in anyway.

He offered me the use of EFPV for my hospital appointment yesterday which took me over in that direction.  I managed to pick the wrong house and as we had pre arranged that the cups would be in a plantpot by the front porch (as the lady would be at work), I couldn't find the cups or the pot and found myself looking through the bins, looking inside the porch etc.  I thought she had forgotten to put them out, so I went back to the e mail on the phone to check the exact information.  Blue pot it said.  Only blue pot I could see was next door, I was at the wrong house.

I told this lady in an e mail that I hope her neighbours hadn't seen a strange bloke going through their bins, which she found most amusing.

I am cock a hoop with the new cups, meaning provided I get some visitors (questionable after what happened at Christmas) and they can wait for the Gaggia to cough up enough froth, I can host cappuccino parties !

 

For OBC and my brother

Who are always moaning I don't do enough housework.

This time yesterday, you couldn't move for pots, pans and utensils, now look ! And with a poorly knee too...

Two reasons I didn't go out

Bit of an unplanned lie in this morning.

Yesterday, when I was tidying up and cooking the Chinese meal I made for my brother and Anita, for no particular reason, my right knee (or the area just above it) started to burn very painfully.

After it eased, I am left with what I can only assume is a tendon type pain, hurts when I bend the knee and when I put weight on it.  Thing was throbbing in the night, but it's not swollen.

Then, we've been hit by the fiercest of winds, the poor Scots have had it worst, but the rain was beating against the lounge windows with such ferocity this morning, I couldn't hear the telly.

Then OBC rang and asked if I'd been out !

We had a nice meal yesterday.  I did spare ribs in the way I have now perfected so they are as good if not better than you get from the take out or in some restaurants.

WIth the price of electricity (and gas) these days, there's no way I am going to slow roast in the oven for three or four hours.  Use one of those slow cookers which uses about 40 watts of power an hour (rather than kilowatts like the oven does).  Cook your ribs for about two to three hours with no additives, then pour over two thirds of a can of good thick hoi sin sauce (don't use that piss weak bottled stuff).

Cook for another one or two hours, turning the ribs over in the sauce.  You can then wrap in foil and refrigerate til needed.  Once that time comes, put them in an oven tray and spoon on some of the retained sauce from the can,  This will add some glaze to the ribs, then finish them off by reheating them in a medium oven.

The meat will be tender and the flavour of the hoi sin will have permeated all the way through the meat.  Utterly delivious and as easy as falling off a log to make.

I also did beef in oyster sauce, thinly slicing some fillet steak, frying that off for a minute or two.  Mix the oyster sauce with some chicken stock, it's too salty to use straight from the bottle and for those unfamiliar with this sauce, it does not taste at all of fish.

I put in some thinly chopped baby sweetcorn, bean shoots, spring onion and some water chestnuts (which my brother likes, but I think tastes like raw potato).  I do think a little shredded ginger if I'd have had some, would have really made this dish and something I picked up from a Chinese friend, some finely chopped dried orange zest which of course I keep lying around NOT !

I did that old standby, Chinese curry (that bright yellow stuff you make from a packet).  Oddly, there is a knack to it, as the powder tends to go lumpy.  It needs fried onions and peas in it to make it just like you get from the take away.

Then, egg fried rice which isn't fried at all.  It gets its flavour from the use of a little sesame oil in the egg, some fried onions mixed in with the cooked rice, some chicken stock in the water and chopped spring onions and prawns for garnish.  The chicken stock really adds depth to the flavour of the rice.

By the time I'd cooked that little lot, my knee, back, neck and just about everything else were giving me hell, but I have a new "friend".

Anita brought me over (on loan) a back cushion, which is not only heated, but vibrates.  When you've got it on XXX mode, it sounds like a Lancaster bomber on a raid over Dresden, but does it work !

If it was a bit smaller, I've permanenenly have it down my boxers (it says on the box, it has a wipe clean surface, now I know why) !

Amy my physio had recommended I get a heat pad, but I told her this is the sort of thing I just don't have the money for these days, so I've been using the heat of a nice bath to help.  

Now I have the use of this pad, I may have to paraphrase Charlton Heston "you'll have to prize it from my cold dead hand".

Today I'm pottering round, tidying up after yesterday, got to water the chilli plants which are wintering in the spare room. All of this done hobbling round on a very poorly knee.

Only had a light brekky and it's smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast for lunch (thanks to Anita who brought the eggs and the salmon), Yum yum !