Quackers' Friends
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends View]
Below are the most recent 16 friends' journal entries.
| Monday, December 28th, 2009 |
dougs
|
11:30a |
Crumb!
There's a Robert Crumb reference in the latest Sinfest comic. This makes me very pleased. |
| Sunday, December 27th, 2009 |
beermat
|
9:53p |
Have managed to picke up a sneeze, cough, blargh! lurgy somewhere on the trek up to the frozen wastelands of Stafford for visiting my folks & friends for the xmas hols. Back to working tomorrow (telework, so not so bad) twixt xmas & new year as have a lot to get done for www.peek-traffic.co.uk before the year end. Rest of Jan on contract there, then come Feb I start "EG7540:Working with FPGAs" as a short course, hopefully (if I'm accepted on the course) converting that to being module 1 of a Uni Leicester "MSc in Reliable Embedded Systems" - 6 modules over 2 years, distance learning with 1 week per module presented at Uni L. I'm fascinated with FPGAs & they're something I've been meaning to learn more about anyway, so it all fits in nicely with it being a bit quiet in my line of work at the moment (good time to do some training) and wanting a degree on the CV. Am reading my way through the modules coursebook ("Digital Design and Computer Architecture") and enjoying it so far. Must sort out some accommodation for the feb15-19 course ASAP. Anyone got recommendations for nice place near the Uni Leicester eng. dept? Current Mood: sleepyCurrent Music: KLF - Chill Out ; 05/14 Madrugada Eterna |
| Friday, December 25th, 2009 |
flickgc
|
10:03a |
Happy Generic Winter Holiday!
Mike and I have been opening presents. I have lots, because I am spoilt, even thought I was naughty yesterday. Oddest present of the year: a letter opener. Am slightly boggled. Mike did point out that it would be useful for opening plastic wrappers on games and DVDs, though. Mike's currently having a nap, as he was too excited (or something) to sleep well, while I happily re-arrange piles of loot. Have a good day, everyone! I ache, slightly. This is because Toni made me help with the mucking out, yesterday. Bah. Had a shortish ride on Taylor, but he was incredibly fizzy and the ground in the field, whilst ok for a nice controlled canter, wasn't fit enough to let him bomb around like he wanted. Poor boy's hardly been out in days: I know that the two days before he'd just been walked, but he's such a big, uncoordinated thing that he really needs a decent surface. Hopefully, it'll be drier on Monday.
This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/776095.html, where it has  comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it. |
dougs
|
9:48a |
|
dougs
|
9:35a |
|
| Thursday, December 24th, 2009 |
hawkida
|
12:13p |
Cat query
How long is it okay to leave a cat alone for? I know a working day is fine, I know 48 hours is okay if enough food and water is down - but beyond that? Would four whole days be too much? Is it all down to the cat's own personality and a "how long is a length of string" type of question? I am toying with the idea of getting a cat, but I am often away for 3 days at a time, occasionally more and I don't intend to mistreat one - it wouldn't really be practical to rely on having people available to look after it when I'm not about. |
| Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 |
flickgc
|
3:05p |
My bum is very, very cold....
This may have something to do with going riding in the snow, but it's still not terribly nice! I haven't, officially, been riding this week, as the menage is frozen solid (yes, the new all-weather surface; they're not very happy!), but I did go up to the stable today to help out - did a bit of grooming, and then took Grumpy Bastard out in the field for half an hour: although the paths are treacherous, the field's fine, as long as they're careful. Going up again tomorrow morning, as the horses need exercising. I've been experimenting with My Builder, as we have a few jobs of the too-big-for-0800-handyman variety that need doing, particularly ripping out the old bedroom furniture and putting some new shelving in the hall cupboards (at present, woefully inefficient use of space). It looks quite promising: you describe the job, with photos or plans if needed, and the location, and then builders can put in bids on the work. There's a feedback process, so you can see what previous customers thought (often with photos), and so far (after both jobs went live first thing this morning), I've got five proper bids for the ripping out (plus four where the person apparently just sends a message describing the work that they do to anything remotely close to their area, without bothering to spend enough thought to actually give a quote) and three for the cupboards. Looking at the names on it, it seems to be very popular with Generic Polish Builders, which makes sense as they don't have established reputations and this is presumably a good way for them to get trade. I'm reasonably happy using an untested site for both jobs, as the one will be hard to mess up and the other will be hidden away behind cupboard doors; if we end up with good jobs, I might put the bedroom redecoration on there, too. So far, the only thing I really dislike is that the software strips all the capital letters out of things you write; I can see why this is good to stop ALL CAPS ATTACK, but it does make me feel vaguely dirty and like the sort of person who can't be bothered to type all the letters in 'you'. Now, I must go and water the Christmas tree.... This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/775689.html, where it has  comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it. |
| Monday, December 21st, 2009 |
flickgc
|
10:15p |
Say it's not just me...
We're having our bedroom re-done, with (amongst other things) new wardrobes and a new dressing table for me. After some debate (backed up by Mike, although it must be said that he was later heard to mutter about OCD), I managed to convince the furniture people that: a) I wanted to have three drawers in the 'bedside table' part of my lump of furniture and four in the 'dressing table' bit, so that (as the dressing table is higher) the drawers were all the same height; and b) (much more difficult) the set of drawers and two sets of open shelves in the bottom half of the (sliding door'd) wardrobe needed to have their tops at the same height not only as each other (not too tricky) but also as the lower of the half-height hanging rails. (There was also c), that the bits that were of movable heights were not to have little holes drilled all the way down from sensible to stupid distances, because it looks crap. I eventually had to settle for holes where I wanted them to be (at the same height, natch) and then one set of hole on either side, about 10cm away. But I so know that I am never going to use those holes. Bah.) Is it just me? Even if the wardrobes didn't have sliding doors, I'd want things to line up nicely. Given that we are having sliding doors, so it will be possible to see the different bits clearly at the same time, it's even more important that they line up! Bah. Also, from a magazine article (which is full of hyperbole, as it's mostly about 2012 and similar disaster theories): "[re: Y2K] ... the curious thing was that Russia and Italy, which had taken no preventative measures against this catastrophe, were as unaffected as the USA and the UK, where the government had spent billions averting doomsday. Oops." I'd always assumed that all the work that was done had quietly fixed things, in much the same way that an epidemic warning followed by a vaccination programme has no exciting end result. Is that not the case? Anyone who was following closely at the time care to comment? This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/775537.html, where it has  comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it. |
| Sunday, December 20th, 2009 |
dougs
|
8:41p |
|
dougs
|
8:24p |
|
| Saturday, December 19th, 2009 |
flickgc
|
5:54p |
Ponies! And Christmas trees!
Last night, I went to the horse show at Olympia, where I saw lots and lots of ponies. First there were horsies jumping over fences as fast as they could, then there were tiny doggies running through obstacles, then there was a French man and his "Astounding White Horses" (only one of which was white; the others were light grey, dark grey and, um, brown. It was quite fun, though: they danced, and lay down, and ran around with him standing on their backs, and stuff), then there was the Shetland Pony Grand National, which was very silly, then there was the Met Police horse team, doing lots of tricksie weaving in and out of each other, jumping through rings of fire, and finishing up by galloping around the ring and then taking the saddles off the horses while they were doing it. Which I remain boggled by), then there was the Puissance, which was horses jumping over very high fences, in a sudden death sort of way: after each round, they made them higher and all the ones who were clear on the previous round went again. I think that the final round was 7'3".... To finish off, there was a very strange Christmas story thing about pirates stealing something from Santa, which was a bit random but did feature groups of people doing vaulting at either end of the arena, which was cool. Oh, and there was shopping. And a very cold and long journey home.... Enjoyed it all thoroughly, other than the apparently-formerly-very-famous-Puissanc e-rider, who joined in the commentating for the Puissance and was really bitchy about all the riders and kept making rather dubious comments in between rounds, which was really annoying. Today, I made Mike help me to put up the tree, which arrived on Tuesday and had been on the balcony in a bucket of (by today, frozen. Doh!) water on the balcony since. We got it from The Internet, and it's actually a really nice tree, which is a relief. Yay for trees, with pressies piled up under them! Boo to none of them being for me, because Mike doesn't love me Mike hasn't got around to buying wrapping mine yet! This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/775209.html, where it has  comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it. |
dougs
|
5:29p |
Amazon
Email from Amazon, Saturday 11:34: Delivery Details::order will arrive in one delivery.
Delivery estimate: 23 Dec 2009 - 24 Dec 2009
2 "This"
1 "That"
1 "The Other" Email from Amazon, Saturday 17:21: We are writing to let you know that the following item has been sent:
1 "That"
The following items will be sent separately:
2 "This"
1 "The Other" |
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 |
dougs
|
8:58p |
Shopping for Idiots
Poll #1499892 Shopping for Idiots
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41 You already have two jars of ground nutmeg -- one still sealed and one unsealed but very nearly full.
What should you not buy? You have no mint. You've used up all your mint, there's no mint left.
What should you buy? Can you guess what Douglas bought? Some people prefer check boxes to radio buttons. |
flickgc
|
1:27p |
Snowy rides!
Today's lesson was on Annie, who I'd not ridden before but Am Aware Of: she's fine with people but really hates other horses, so everyone has to always know where she is if she's on a group lesson. But it was just me, so that wasn't a problem. She's hard work, though: doesn't want to get going, and even when she does she never seems to manage to settle into any sort of rhythm. Still, wasn't too bad, and we did manage one decent (and a number of short- or exceedingly short-lived) canters. Toni asked me to stay and help with the kids, as they were short staffed: not only has one person just left, but another is off sick. As it turned out (hurrah, said everyone) the kids weren't coming, so instead I helped to take the ponies out for a walk (no pony club, this evening, so they weren't going to get any exercise otherwise) and then I had a short ride on Grumpy Bastard, to get him out and about a bit too, which was nice. Woke up this morning to find not only the canal frozen (for, I think, the first time this winter) but also the dock, which was surprising: the only time we've seen that before was in that really nasty cold snap last winter. It's still about half frozen now, but it can't be very thick: the snow isn't sticking on it (or anywhere else, here or at the farm). This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/775142.html, where it has  comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it. |
dougs
|
12:34p |
What shall I do with all this money?
As some of you are aware, I've been doing a bit of clearing up. From time to time I discover unexpected things. I've found NLG35 in paper money from De Nederlandsche Bank, and FRF2.50 in coins from La République Française. Both of these currencies were yielded in favour of the Euro in 2002. At face value, they'd then have been worth €15.88 and €0.38 respectively -- which would convert into about £14 or $23 today. So what can I do with it? Can randomly-chosen charities convert this old money into something useful? Suggestions please. |
| Monday, December 14th, 2009 |
flickgc
|
6:36p |
Good/bad
We have new fishies! This morning, we went out and bought tasty processed food products from Lidl, and then we went up to Bethnal Green and bought three guppies, one green with a blue tail, one white with an orange tail and one 'red tuxedo' (body shades to black, with a red tail). They're happily swimming around the tank looking pretty, with their tails rippling out behind them. (I also bought a small tub of prawns in Lidl, which I've now chopped up and frozen into little prawney lumps for the fishes to have for their dinner at later dates. Not that they're spoilt.) When we got back, Mike decided to go and have a nap, to stave off a headache. About ten minutes later, he phoned me for assistance.... We think, as seems to be the trend in fandom this week, that he has kidney stones. I ended up calling 999 at one point, which wasn't really the right thing to do but I was *worried*. They got NHS Direct to call me back, and the NHS Direct guy put me through to a nurse in the same phone call, which was good of them. Nurse told me to give him drugs and fluids and ring the GP. Rang the GP, and the receptionist said "They're all in a meeting, I'd call 999, if I were you..." but then got one of the doctors out of it to call back, just as I was starting a new call to NHS Direct. The GP came out to see us (handy, living nearby, and the timing was such that it was just before afternoon surgery started. Have I mentioned recently how good our surgery is?). Naturally, the pain had mostly gone by the time he got to us.... Still. Mike's feeling better now, and he's going to go for a scan Real Soon Now. I'm not going to see the ponies this evening, because even if I wasn't still worried about him, I'm certainly a bit shaken and distracted. This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/774753.html, where it has  comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it. |
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
anas_quackers's Friends Page
34 (82.9%)