Netfoot

For lunch, Mo and I had leftovers from yesterdays dinner. This left enough for one more serving, which I had for dinner tonight. He had chow. I threw out half a bag of horrible-tasting bread and bought a fresh bag. I hope it tastes better. Lunch and dinner today weren't very nice. Hopefully I can have some relatively palatable sandwiches with egg, cheese, PB&J or what ever. Midnight Runaway by Three Dog Night. I've got a bunch of their albums. But their double disk collection Celebrate is pretty comprehensive if you don't want to be buying albums by the handful. Cool breeze in the window. Mo leaning up against my butt. We were all set for our Garden Patrol when the rain came sluicing down. I was watching a movie about the hunt for John Dillinger and the player said it is five plus hours long! IMdB and Wikipedia both agree it's only 2:20 but I decided as soon as the rain stopped to pause the movie and go on Patrol. We walked out together and the over-tall grass was drenched with water. I said, "Mo, how about if we confine our patrol to the concrete walkway that borders the house? We can see the entire garden from there. OK? I will follow your lead!" So naturally, Mo insisted on visiting every last soaking wet blade of grass in the garden! It took forever and I came back soaked to the skin from the waist down, like I'd forded a river. Mo, being shorter than I, was drenched to the eyebrows. Last night was cool and comfy, with Mo snuggling most of the night until 4:45 when he demanded I let him out. He was back two minutes later and after that he was for the most part very affectionate and very playful. I'm bathed and ready to trigger eyelid shutdown by picking up my book. (I shouldn't joke about my eyelids. It is not uncommon for me to blink and have it take nearly a minute for one eye or the other to reopen fully.) Mo was here but has nipped off again. I hope he doesn't go out in the grass and return soaking. I am contemplating getting a cold drink to put on the bedside table. But that would mean getting out of bed. And walking to the kitchen. So maybe I will just pass on that idea. I suppose I could brew up a hot drink instead... I should really make up some iced tea and keep it in the fridge for moments like this. Made iced coffee the other day and it was very moreish. The trouble with making tasty things and leaving them in the fridge is that about 10 minutes later you remember they're in the fridge... and shortly thereafter, they aren't any more! Anyway, with midnight fast approaching I think I will try to read a little. Another public holiday tomorrow, and TAR too. Oh, look who's back and barking at me in a very authoritative tone of voice! At least he is dry...

In bed, after Garden Patrol and a mug of tea. This mornings glucose was 4.9 mmol/L so my plan to "fortify" the results worked. Found a hat on the driveway and Mo all hunched down like he expected a licking. Don't tell me that pup doesn't know when he is doing wrong! No I didn't give him any lix. I should have but I didn't Ramen for lunch. Had hoped to have it with julienned cucumber but the cuke turned out to be bad. Mo had chow. Dinner was sweet & English potato, carrot and plantain boiled, plus white rice with pumpkin. And minced beef & onion sauce over the top. Would have added diced tomato but the tin opener has disappeared. I guess I will be looking behind the stove again tomorrow. It didn't taste bad but it didn't taste good. Metallic again. And I've got a lot of leftovers for tomorrow. Girls & Boys by Blur. A playful number from a good band. You may know them without knowing you know them. Do you remember a hilarious, short, Guy Richie video with Madonna in the back of a BMW being aggressively driven by Clive Owen? The background music for that video is Blur's Song 2. You don't know the video? Get thee to YT and seek until thee find! It's not a video you're allowed not to see. (Try for the full 5-6 minute video and not the 2-3 minute clip.) (Found it for you.) A little warm this evening and me feeling too tired to shower. Don't think I'll have any choice tho. Mo already sleeping on the tiles next to the bed. Wait! A little breeze in the window, just now! I had a post-Patrol mug of tea this evening. I normally put the makings in the mug and boil the kettle while patrolling. It was time for a new carton of milk and I couldn't get the little screw-off stopper off the side of the carton. I tried with bare hands, with a paper towel, with a cloth towel... I found an old pair of pliers in the kitchen but they were too rusty to use. I went for the "big guns" of jar opening (a rubber band) but on the way to the rubber band I gripped it with my teeth and finally got it open. But the fact remains, I can no longer open a carton of milk. Just finished my glass of water and was crunching the remains of the ice cubes when I discovered this in my mouth: That's a 1¼" Tee-pin. While I contemplate how much more unpleasant the finding could have been, I will leave you to consider how it got in the glass of water in the first place! And on the strength of that: shower, shut house and sleep.

A very wobbly day. But I kept quiet and had little trouble. Went out on Garden Patrol with one Croc on and came back with two 🤨 and skipped my mug of tea because I want to test glucose tomorrow and hope to "fortify" a low result. It's been higher than I like recently. Mostly within the green zone but close to the top, whereas I'd prefer it closer to the bottom. Taste buds definitely shot. Had problems with unpalatable bread yesterday. Tried PB&Js for lunch but after one bite I threw the sandwiches out. Mo had leftover rice from yesterday for brunch and then chow for lunch. I cut the last of the questionable pork into things thin strips and fried them crisp, then made chips with three potatoes. With ketchup, mayo & pepper sauce the chips tasted OK but not as good as they should have. I had spaghetti for dinner with sausage, onion and egg. Mo levied a significant tax on this but he had his own dinner of chow first. And then demanded a second helping of chow later. So he has had rice for brunch, chow for lunch, chow again for dinner, spaghetti and sausage, and then more chow after! Then, after Garden Patrol he came and demanded more food! Which he didn't get, because he has had enough and I don't feel like cooking anything more today. Food has lost its appeal. Everything has a chemical/ metallic taste to it. The only thing that tastes as you'd expect is anything sweet. Tea, PB&J, Teatime biscuits... But I have to put extra sugar. My mug of tea these days is 4-5 teaspoons of sugar. No wonder the blood glucose is higher than I'd like. And even sweet things have a bit of the metallic taste. Thinking Mo was in, I came out of the shower, locked the door, collected a glass of iced water and headed off to bed. No sign of Mo. So I left the glass on the bedside table and went to open the door. Mo shot in, hopped into bed, stuck his nose in my glass and siphoned out 50% out of water. Hey Jack Kerouac by 10,000 Maniacs. I like Natalie Merchant. Especially her solo debut Tigerlily. When she joined 10,000 Maniacs at 18, she warned them that she would be a solo artist by 30. A few months before her 30th birthday, she told the band she was leaving. They couldn't believe she would drop out at a time when they were doing rather well! But she wasn't kidding... Mo has disappeared again. But he will be back, I expect. Quarter past twelve. Done very little but still feel quite tired. Going to sleep now. Forum just ate my post. When it "recovered" it lost a long paragraph at the end. Probably for the best: it was a rant about deteriorating health and a health care system that disburses non no health care.

Pretty much! Toats! Yes, but I am assuming that because of CV19 protocols still in effect at the time of filming, obvious options were not easily available to Production. Woe!

Went to Popular supermarket today. Just wanted to get a bag of sugar. Monday and Wednesday are public holidays and tomorrow is Sunday. So with my bag of sugar running low, I thought I'd get a bag. Why Popular? Well, they are marginally cheaper than elsewhere. But after driving around their parking lot for 30 minutes I'm pretty sure I burnt more gas than I saved on the sugar. Parking at Popular is always a nightmare. They have a big lots but it's always jammed. And to add a cherry on top, you can pick up your shopping in 10 minutes but you could find yourself in the line for the cashier for 3 hours! Felt it best to put $25 in the tank on the way back. Needle didn't noticable move. Also stopped at Kooyman to buy a 2x6. I wanted a 16' board cut in three pieces. But they didn't have any 16' boards so I agreed to take a 14' board cut in three. I'm driving out and the checker at the gate says "This is a 2x8, not a 2x6!" I had a look and he's right. I told them I asked for a 2x6 and the bill corroborated this. The guy who did the cutting agreed he had screwed up. Then it turned out they didn't have any 2x6 14' in stock. Eventually had to get a 20' and cut it in four. Long and short. they got $12 more out of me than I'd intended to pay... When The Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin. A well known track from their 4th album. Surprisingly, this is not an LZ original. When you realize it was written in the 20s about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the lyrics make a bit more sense. "If it keeps on rainin', the levee's gonna break..." Mo had chow for his lunch. I tried to make Brot und Wurst for myself. Fried up some sausages but the bread tasted awful for reasons unknown. So I ditched the bread and ate the sausage and just used pepper sauce as a dip. Of course, I cooked an extra wurst for my little friend. Dinner was rice with more sausage as well as pumpkin, onion, carrots and plantain. Mo and I ate that right up! Tried to watch Gunga Din (from 1939, I think) but at about the halfway mark I gave up on it. I just wasn't in the mood. Anyway, I'm in bed but still have to shower and lock up. Mo was here but has gone off. He snuggled with me most of the night last night. Usually, when I wake in the night he is curled up between my shoulder blades. Sometimes against my legs & feet. On a warm night a fuzzy hot water bottle can be uncomfortable. But usually if it's hot the guy in the fur coat feels it first. Last night was comfortably cool and judging by the breeze in the window tonight might be as well. Ok, will read a bit then shower and shut the house.

I agree 100% with this. Better some kind of season as opposed to a hiatus from which we possibly never return! I am resigned to this being a sub-standard season but I am pleased to remember that the next season (which we have already seen) is so good it compares favourably with "Classic" TAR seasons of the past. I agree with this too. These guys are irredeemably boring, black-holes of charisma - some may get sucked in but none ever comes out again. I would be pleased to see them go. Unfortunately the circumstances of this season continue to smile upon them and in a few weeks they may even be revealed as the overall winners. What an unpalatable thought! And I say that without being able to point to any team that I am actually rooting for. No, from a legal standpoint this would probably dilute their brand and possibly even breach contractual obligations with TAR Brazil and/or TAR Latin America.

Very wobbly tonight. Dunno why. Mo had chow today and I had bread. Egg & cheese cutters for lunch and PB&J for dinner. Maybe soup tomorrow? I have sweet potato, English potato, carrot, onion, plantain, pumpkin and white cabbage. For meat I have sausage, corned beef, or suspicious pork. Buddy used to love the van. And the old Suzuki before it. Mo loves the van too. After the brake peddle work done this morning he had spent most of the day in the van. Here he is with his tail wagging at high speed! Had to fetch him out for Garden Patrol and lock it up for the night. We have a bunch of public holidays coming up, including Monday and Wednesday next week. With the weekend and everyone likely to avoid work on Tuesday..... I don't know what the holidays are for other than May Day on the 1st. Short Change Hero by The Heavy. If you ever watched a British action show called Strike Back, you might recognize this as the basis for their theme. OK, it's only a handful of minutes to midnight so I will end here and read two pages before dousing the lights. Mo was here next to me but has fled. However, the house is locked up so he can't get far. He was very snuggly all night last night.

I haven't tried every time in every location in every orientation but the first twin all nine locations is only valid in 16 locations/orientations kincluding 4 in the midde) which is less that half. You don't have to have either of the two correct to know they fit together a certain way. So you effectively reduce your number of tiles from 9 to 8. Considering a double tile in a 9x9 matrix, there should only be 24 possible places for it to go, including orientations. (I'm in bed so can't double check that.) And since roads exit on both long sides, it must go in a central row or column. Which reduces the options to what? eight? And there are also two roads exiting on one short side which would thus be prohibited from being on the outer perimeter. Reducing the possible options to.... four? (Still trying to do it in my head.) I'm not sure how you arrive at a fractional number of possible solutions... I have an image like that. I chose to post the screen-grab I did because the individual tiles were square. The details of bushes and buildings are of no consequence. I could have divided the angled view up into nine parallelograms and then distorted each back into a square but that was too much like work. So yes, not a trivial problem to solve, but I think it's far less complicated than it appears.

I make it nine tiles which can be fitted into any of nine locations on the board and rotated into any of four orientations. 9x9x4 = 324 possible "solutions", by which I mean "ways to fit the tiles to the board". Of these, obviously only one solution will be correct. Now any tile which, due to it's location and orientation, has a road crossing the outside perimeter is automatically wrong. So for example, the top/left tile can only be oriented the way it is shown here. If it is rotated to any other orientation, at least one road will exit via the outside perimeter. So in fact there is only one valid orientation for this tile in this location. Checking the other eight orientations, there are usually only one or two valid orientations possible for this tile, with the very center spot being the exception allowing all four orientations. This reduces possible orientations by at least half for this tile. Extend for all tiles and we can expect only 162 "solutions". Also, a road can only enter or leave a tile via an inner boundary if the road is met by a matching road across the boundary on the next tile. This can give us some clues as to which tile goes next to which. For example, the central tile shown has two roads crossing the southern boundary boundary very close together, to be met by two roads on the tile below. I can't see any way these two tiles could be paired up, other than with each other. Now I know they only had three minutes to solve this, and after a heart-pumping run around the circuit they might be fighting off adrenaline and all that. But I think it's clear that this was really a puzzle rather than a memory challenge. And that the nature of the puzzle - where the location and orientation of the tiles were constrained in certain ways - made it a lot less difficult than just guessing the correct combination from the original 324 solutions. Throw in the fact that there was nothing to stop you from being guided to a degree by what ever you could remember from your spin around the track.....

And what I need is for them both to get off my TV. Time and again, I've heard couples say that TAR is a great way to test their relationship. As far as tests go, this is what I'd call a failure.

Actually, I was just about to report back. I tried for several days but I couldn't get the button into place. I couldn't depress the pedal far enough while crammed under the wheel and dashboard. So I called a friend to some come and press the pedal for me. They came and I described the situation and asked them to stand on the pedal. They immediately pointed out that they were far more likely to fit under the wheel than I was, so instead they went under the dashboard while I stood on the pedal. In less than a minute the problem was resolved, with the new button in place, the brake kights lights working perfectly and the problem solved. They also brought me some eggs and a sweet potato. (They keep chickens and have a kitchen garden.) As we chatted he said he'd had a similar problem with a vehicle years ago and instead of replacing the plastic button, he had used a neodymium disk magnet. It stuck ferociously in place, operated the switch perfectly and had been in use for nearly 10 years without issue. Back on the road again....

I have a friend who swore that it was completely unnecessary to learn to drive in the age of Uber. Then along came a virus..... There are certain life-skills that are handy to have on rare occasions...

Went out and bought some groceries. Not a great deal but it should make meals a little more varied. Came home and my hip joints went into spasm. My thighs jumping around like grasshoppers. This has happened once before. I believe there is a condition called "Restless Legs." I will have to ask around and see if that is at all similar to what I experienced. Because I really need more issues to deal with. It's nearly one in the morning and I am extremely tired. I am going to kill the lights and go straight to sleep. Mo is lying on the tiles next to the bed but he moves around during the night. He may join me in bed or move to other parts of the house. He will probably move several times before dawn. OK, lights out!

You've obviously never heard colloquial Bajan being spoken.

I haven't been on the dating scene in an age either, but when I was, I always had one of these on me:

BAF = Boring As Fuk.

If you're on a date with someone you don't know that well, it's probably unwise to assume what they do (or don't) have in their pockets. A modern automatic pistol probably carries in the ballpark of 20 rounds. If you shoot at a Law Enforcement Officer, and they elect to mag-dump your ass, you really don't have any grounds to complain. When you get to complain is when they mag-dump on you because an acorn fell out of a tree!

This week, on The Ricky & Cesar show: It's protection against arc-eye, which you get from looking at the electric arc. You don't have to be close to the welding. Team BAF! They are horrible. She wants him to turn right so she tells him to look to the left. He can't open his mouth without berating her for something. She's doing her best to put a good spin on it, but it's plain that she doesn't believe what she's saying. Word! They couldn't find a barn if they were locked inside one. I dunno. Who is Rihanna? After milking the other teams for all they' were worth last episode, Danny is all "We're going to race our own race!" I wonder why I keep hoping for an industrial accident where his foreskin ends up epoxied to his upper lip? I'd love to see a photo of Leticia's kid! Especially if Leticia herself weren't front and center and the kid jammed into the corner of the frame..... There are some teams here that I could do without, but my vote for the next elimination would have to be Amber & Vinny. Amber seems nice enough in the doormat sort of way, and Vinny looked like someone took a dump in his mouth when she was talking about getting married. These two need to be eliminated from the race and sent in opposite directions from each other. Sunny & Bizzy eliminated. Colour me surprised! Next week... Crap! Some rock in the Atlantic...

Maybe you are right. But it's the only time I recall that they vowed to make changes to prevent it from happening again. So, I suspect something made them feel they had to do damage control. ‘The Amazing Race’: Mine Five Alliance Backlash Might Result in New Rules For Future Seasons

Tummy Rubz! Must be applied between each word....

Cooked rice & corned beef with pumpkin for lunch. Divided it into two regular portions and a very small portion. Only one "pot spoon". I had the small one for lunch and Mo had the other two for lunch & dinner. My dinner was linguine with a sauce of diced fresh tomato, crispy fried questionable pork and the tiniest bit of cheese. The rice tasted pretty good at lunchtime and the linguine was pretty good too. The tastes were a little muted but still quite enjoyable. I have enough coffee left for one more mug. I will have that after Garden Patrol and then, it's char again. Not that I'm not OK with that! The coffee was a nice change and faster to prepare, but tea is fine. Mo is curled up under my chair. I think he wants more dinner but he has had all the rice and a small tax on the linguine. There isn't anything else unless I boil more rice or more pasta and I'm not doing that tonight. He's had more grub today than I have, so he will just have to hang on until tomorrow when I cook something else. I'm watching a show and we will Patrol when it's done. Then I will head in and read a bit. I will run out of Dr. Jacinto's meds in three weeks. But I don't see her again for thirteen weeks. So somehow I will have to make arrangements. But I would also like a copy of the blood test results that I took over two weeks ago. Shit gets complicated. Un-pausing my show, now...

Oh, by the way, Big salt shaker with black lid found behind the stove. The small shaker with yellow lid is pretty big: 5" tall and 2" in diameter. But the one for the kitchen is bigger: 6" tall by 2½" diameter. Doesn't seem like it but it holds almost twice as much salt. I have an even smaller shaker that would be more than suited for the table, but it contains garlic powder. If I re-tasked it, where would I put the garlic? These are old, repurposed spice containers. The trouble is, most such containers nowadays have flip-up lids. Designed for people who are too lazy to twist off a screw-on lid, they don't seal properly. If you use one of these, the container absorbs moisture from the air and in a few days the salt is slushy. By the end of the week you have brine sloshing around in there. Of course, you could put dry rice in with the salt, which helps with (but does not eliminate) the problem. And the rice itself gets waterlogged in a while and needs to be replaced.....

I am pretty sure that Dr. Jacinto has a private office for her non-QEH patients. But as a QEH patient she does not have to agree to see or talk to me at all. As for contacting her at QEH, the system is designed to prevent patients from contacting the doctor at QEH. The doctor never contacts the patient directly. All communications come through the Records department who are not able to take messages or give direct contact information for the doctors. I would have to go without an appointment and sit and wait for the chance to see the doctor when they have a moment to see me. Assuming they agreed to. I could go, sit for the entire day and then be told the doctor had to leave, so try again in a week.

Perfectly fine. He was carrying a gun, after all! Bad citizen, bad! Dick Wolf will show you (and us) the evil of your ways! With her waddling around the entire episode wearing baggy, frumpy clothes I assumed she was preggers again. I did notice that it was lined with Plot Armour. Because nobody who happened to glimpse that would become the least bit suspicious..... OA: "Looks like they are illegally converting AR-15's to fully automatic!" No, OA. That can't be right. Because every nitwit politician has clearly and repeatedly stated that the AR-15 is already fully automatic. And (seeing as you are standing right there) why not remove the bolts, thus making them into paperweights? It only takes a few seconds per rifle.

My last appointment with Dr. Jacinto was 16th of February. I was supposed to meet with her on 12th April but she cancelled. I just got the new appointment: 23rd July. Yes, the new appointment is 102 days after the one that was cancelled. More to the point, it will be a total of 158 days after the previous appointment in February. In the mean time, I have no idea how I am to get medication since my existing prescriptions have no repeats. I could go and beg Dr. Kristi and I feel like she would write a new prescription for me, but she does not have the expertise in neurology to advise about titrating the drugs down to minimum levels. Also, as she is not a QEH physician she can not (I'm pretty sure) write a prescription to the QEH pharmacy. This means that the Pyridostigmine that I get for free from QEH will have to be replaced with Mestinon which costs $300+ per month at other pharmacies.