Small Talk: The Welcome Mat

[Netfoot]

I cooked a pot of soup yesterday and had some for lunch and some for dinner. There were at least three more servings in that pot, maybe four.  After dinner I left the pot on the stove, covered, to cool so it could go in the fridge.

When I went to heat up a bowl for lunch, I found the pot had been left out overnight (16+ hours) and had gone bad. That is hard news. We have other groceries but the loss of 1½-2 days of food will be felt.

I wanted to confirm the price I had been given ($171) for the tires. I called several times on Thursday and got no answer. Then I discovered that Thursday was a bank holiday. Thursday felt so much like a Friday that I assumed the next day was a Saturday and since the tire company are Closed Brethren, I did not call. I only realized it was Friday after 5:00 PM. Then Saturday was Saturday... so I didn't get to talk to someone down there until today.

The price of the tires is $166.03  and not the $171 I was expecting. I could buy two tires, but that would leave me with only 71¢ in the bank.

I( get a welfare cheque on Friday 16th of this month. 

My next pharmacy day at QEH can't be before the  10th May, but that is a Saturday. I will either go the day before of the following Monday. The tire place is not far from QEH. I could pop down there and buy a tire (or two?) on QEH day! Two birds with one stone.

[Netfoot]

Listening to Ladies Of The Road by King Crimson. Contemporaries of Pink Floyd, the Crimheads were very influential in the rise of progrock in the 70s. (As was Floyd). They have some smashing albums but there is much to criticize as well. I have probably a dozen of their albums which is prolly most of them. Hard to say which is my favourite but their debut (Court Of The Crimson King) is hard to beat.

The loss of the soup still bothers me. Not that I was so struck with it's taste. It tasted fine, but it was not ambrosia! But now I will have to buy groceries sooner. And money is still tight. 

Mo is around somewhere. He was alternatively cuddling and then kangaroo-kicking me just a few minutes ago. He will be back for sure. We have completed our Garden Patrol and I've had my post-prandial mug of tea. With one less sugar than usual, which I've been doing these last few days. I usually test my blood sugar on a three day schedule. Three days is not set in concrete but I try to stick to it. Routine helps me remember to do it. But these last few days I've tested every morning and it has been in the red every day except the day after I had one bowl of ramen for the whole day. Tomorrow would be a normal test day. If it is still in the red I must consider consulting Dr. Kristi.

Which I am loth to do. I think very highly of her but I think she is tired of me seeking medical advice I can't pay for. She is not pleased to see me these days. Or so it seems. Maybe it is because this year for the first time ever I was not able to give her the traditional Valentine's gift of Kisses. (Hershey's Kisses, of course.)

But if I do consult her I can also ask about the reflux, the burping/gas and the foamy phlegm that seems to collect in my throat in the wee hours of the morning these last few weeks.

Might even get a chance to talk to her about the still-missing biopsy and the 10-month delay between the change in MG medication and a chance to review the results of that action. Not that she can do anything about it, but I like her to know all what is going on with me, health wise. 

Approaching eleven. Will shower and read. Now listening to Winter by Tori Amos. Heard or read somewhere that she once said "It's not easy to be a grandmother and a hot piece of ass at the same time." No doubt she was right about that. I just wish I could find some reference that confirms or denies this. I like her. I remember how pleased I was to recognize her in that unexpected cameo in Mona Lisa Smile.

Shower! Book! Sleep 

Battery is at 3% so I guess this is a good place to stop!

Edited Tuesday at 10:19 PM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Sometimes you have a little accident. You stump your toe. Bang your knee. Drop something in your foot. You go "Ow!" and two minutes you have completely forgotten the incident. 

I went out shopping with Mo today. More later. On the way back my foot started to hurt. From the instep down towards the toes, it aches and it hurts to put weight on it. It isn't bad but it is uncomfortable. Thing is, I have no idea what caused it. Nothing happened immediately prior to the start of the pains. Could I have banged it or dropped something on it earlier, forgotten about it so completely that when it begins hurting later, it doesn't come to mind?

Took Mo shopping. Only two tea bags remained at home. While out, I went looking for meat scraps. Popular don't sell them. The store that does sometimes have them is too expensive for general shopping. But hoping there might be scraps, I went there. None available. I bought bread, milk and some decaf tea bags. The bread & milk are price controlled so the price is no higher than Popular or anywhere else. I looked for pak choy but they had none. They only had some horrible crap named "kale". Bought pumpkin instead.

While down there, I put a gill of gas in the van. Then on to Popular. Potatoes, onions, rice, spaghetti, cheese, bully, tuna, sugar, lentils, garlic & onion powder. Sugar. Tinned corn. Can't remember everything. Then headed home. 

It was while driving home my foot started hurting and was quite painful by time I got the van into the garage.

I normally track what is in the bank and have a small spreadsheet with the current balance at the top, and below that expected income (pension, welfare cheques, etc) along with upcoming expenses (utilities, rent, etc). When I have returned home after a shopping trip, I check the bank balance using Internet Banking and update my spreadsheet. 

According to the bank, I started the morning with $973 58, spent $206.21 leaving a total of..... $529.93 in the account. Now, my arithmetic is not great. But 900 and a lot minus 200 and a little does not give a total of 500 and anything. But that, according to my bank, is how it went. 900-200=500.  And there are no transactions other than the purchases I made today. How do you keep track of your pathetic finances and fight to make ends meet when the bank just disappears $200+ out of your account?

Cheese sandwiches for lunch. Mo had chow... and cheese sandwiches. Cheese & tuna sandwiches for dinner. Mo had chow and... cheese & tuna sandwiches. 

Anyway, I am trying to keep my foot quiet I the hope that the mysterious pains vanish away as mysteriously as they came. Hobbled through Garden Patrol, taking longer than usual. The grass was not easy to walk on with the hobbley foot. But Garden Patrol doesn't usually take long. I mean, we walk around the front of the house, down to the end near the house and back up again near the wall. I shine my torch around, all over the place, to see everything that might turn up out there. Anything from a crapaud or s beed nest to some household item previously purloined by kleptopup. Back around the front of the house, and in again. There may be a delay if Mo finds an interesting leaf to investigate or a bush that needs burrowing into.

Mirrorball by Everything By The Girl. EBTG is a duet from Leeds. Tracey Thorn is the vocalist and occasional guitarist and Ben Watt plays the majority of the instruments and is their producer. (He also married Thorn later.) Thorn has a sweet voice. And this is a great track. It's off Walking Wounded, the first album of theirs I bought and is still my favourite. 

Back inside now, considering a mug of tea. Blood sugar this morning: 6.1 mmol/L. Better than the last few days, but still marginally high.

Yes, a shower, a mug of tea and bed. Possibly with some reading, but probably not much. 

Edited Wednesday at 02:31 AM by Netfoot

[andidante]

4 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Sometimes you have a little accident. You stump your toe. Bang your knee. Drop something in your foot. You go "Ow!" and two minutes you have completely forgotten the incident. 

I went out shopping with Mo today. More later. On the way back my foot started to hurt. From the instep down towards the toes, it aches and it hurts to put weight on it. It isn't bad but it is uncomfortable. Thing is, I have no idea what caused it. Nothing happened immediately prior to the start of the pains. Could I have banged it or dropped something on it earlier, forgotten about it so completely that when it begins hurting later, it doesn't come to mind?

Took Mo shopping. Only two tea bags remained at home. While out, I went looking for meat scraps. Popular don't sell them. The store that does sometimes have them is too expensive for general shopping. But hoping there might be scraps, I went there. None available. I bought bread, milk and tea bags. The bread & milk are price controlled so the price is no higher than Popular or anywhere else. I looked for pak choy but they had none. They only had some horrible crap named "kale". Bought pumpkin instead.

While down there, I put a gill of gas in the van. Then on to Popular. Potatoes, onions, rice, spaghetti, cheese, bully, tuna, sugar, lentils, garlic & onion powder. Sugar. Tinned corn. Can't remember everything. Then headed home. 

It was while driving home my foot started hurting and was quite painful by time I got the van into the garage.

I normally track what is in the bank and have a small spreadsheet with the current balance at the top, and below that expected income (pension, welfare cheques, etc) along with upcoming expenses (utilities, rent, etc). When I have returned home after a shopping trip, I check the bank balance using Internet Banking and update my spreadsheet. 

According to the bank, I started the morning with $973 58, spent $206.21 leaving a total of..... $529.93 in the account. Now, my arithmetic is not great. But 900 and a lot minus 200 and a little does not give a total of 500 and anything. But that, according to my bank, is how it went. 900-200=500.  And there are no transactions other than the purchases I made today. How do you keep track of your pathetic finances and fight to make ends meet when the bank just disappears $200+ out of your account?

Cheese sandwiches for lunch. Mo had chow... and cheese sandwiches. Cheese & tuna sandwiches for dinner. Mo had chow and... cheese & tuna sandwiches. 

Anyway, I am trying to keep my foot quiet I the hope that the mysterious pains vanish away as mysteriously as they candy. Hobbled through Garden Patrol, taking longer than usual. The grass was not easy to walk on with the hobbley foot. But Garden Patrol doesn't usually take long. I mean, we walk around the front of the house, down to the end near the house and back up again near the wall. I shine my torch around, all over the place, to see everything that might turn up out there. Anything from a crapaud or s beed nest to some household item previously purloined by kleptopup. Back around the front of the house, and in again. There may be a delay if Mo finds an interesting leaf to investigate or a bush that needs burrowing into.

Mirrorball by Everything By The Girl. EBTG is a duet from Leeds. Tracey Thorn is the vocalist and occasional guitarist and Ben Watt plays the majority of the instruments and is their producer. (He also married Thorn later.) Thorn has a sweet voice. And this is a great track. It's off Walking Wounded, the first album of theirs I bought and is still my favourite. 

Back inside now, considering a mug of tea. Blood sugar this morning: 6.1 mmol/L. Better than the last few days, but still marginally high.

Yes, a shower, a mug of tea and bed. Possibly with some reading, but probably not much. 

I hope your foot gets better! You should call your bank and see what is up with that. I don't know if you use a debit card to pay for things, but you want to make sure someone didn't somehow use it and steal some money. I hope they can figure it out and get you your money back. Unless one of your bills just came out?

[Netfoot]

7 hours ago, andidante said:

I don't know if you use a debit card to pay for things, but you want to make sure someone didn't somehow use it and steal some money.

I do use a debit card. But I have transaction notification turned on. Every time something is charged against the debit card, I get a "Transaction Alert" e-mail which arrives literally within 2-3 minutes. There have been no mysterious charges.

Also, when I go on internet banking, I see a list of transactions, giving the date, the vendor, and the amount. All transactions are listed. Not just debit card ones. With each completed transaction listed there is a running balance. Uncompleted (pending) transactions are listed but have no running balance. 

So, with yesterday's shopping, I could see everything right up to the day before with a running balance. Then comes the three transactions I did that morning: Gas station, Massy Stores, BJ's Value (Popular). It is easy to get the latest running balance ($973 58) and then apply the three "pending" transactions (-$25.00, -55.74, -125.47) to get a new balance of $767.37 total. But look at the top of the page and it says $529.93 is the account balance.

To make matters worse, I just went on internet banking again. And three new transactions have popped up, dated yesterday, that were not shown yesterday when I checked. Looking closely at them I can see that one of them is the kettle ($37.31), one is a bag of chow I bought for Mo ($28.25), and one is some groceries ($51.88). But I didn't make those purchases yesterday. I made them on the 2nd and I have . Also on the 2nd, I deposited a welfare cheque and paid the electric and telephone bills. These showed up as dated the 2nd and were accounted for in the running balance from yesterday.

Anyway, now the declared balance on the account is $649.93 which is UP from yesterday's balance, despite there being $117.44 in additional debits and no new deposits!

The new balance is $649.93 and appears to be correct. It is $120 higher than it was yesterday despite showing $117.44 more charges! $120 is coincidentally the same amount as a welfare cheque, but the last welfare cheque was processed on the 2nd and was included in the running total shown by internet banking yesterday. Nice coincidence, though.....

So according to my spreadsheet, if I set aside $180 to make up the pension to pay rent next month, refill my spare gas cylinder for the stove, earmark $166.03 for a tire and $250 for the bandsaw refurbishment and leave a $10 minimum balance in the account so they don't start refusing to pay out, I now have 40¢ available funds.

All based upon data coming out of the bank which is questionable.

[Mr. Sparkle]

9 hours ago, Netfoot said:

They only had some horrible crap named "kale".

I like almost every vegetable, but kale is just awful. Like spinach's ugly, bitter brother. 

Edited Wednesday at 11:59 AM by Mr. Sparkle

[andidante]

56 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

I do use a debit card. But I have transaction notification turned on. Every time something is charged against the debit card, I get a "Transaction Alert" e-mail which arrives literally within 2-3 minutes. There have been no mysterious charges.

Also, when I go on internet banking, I see a list of transactions, giving the date, the vendor, and the amount. All transactions are listed. Not just debit card ones. With each completed transaction listed there is a running balance. Uncompleted (pending) transactions are listed but have no running balance. 

So, with yesterday's shopping, I could see everything right up to the day before with a running balance. Then comes the three transactions I did that morning: Gas station, Massy Stores, BJ's Value (Popular). It is easy to get the latest running balance ($973 58) and then apply the three "pending" transactions (-$25.00, -55.74, -125.47) to get a new balance of $767.37 total. But look at the top of the page and it says $529.93 is the account balance.

To make matters worse, I just went on internet banking again. And three new transactions have popped up, dated yesterday, that were not shown yesterday when I checked. Looking closely at them I can see that one of them is the kettle ($37.31), one is a bag of chow I bought for Mo ($28.25), and one is some groceries ($51.88). But I didn't make those purchases yesterday. I made them on the 2nd and I have . Also on the 2nd, I deposited a welfare cheque and paid the electric and telephone bills. These showed up as dated the 2nd and were accounted for in the running balance from yesterday.

Anyway, now the declared balance on the account is $649.93 which is UP from yesterday's balance, despite there being $117.44 in additional debits and no new deposits!

The new balance is $649.93 and appears to be correct. It is $120 higher than it was yesterday despite showing $117.44 more charges! $120 is coincidentally the same amount as a welfare cheque, but the last welfare cheque was processed on the 2nd and was included in the running total shown by internet banking yesterday. Nice coincidence, though.....

So according to my spreadsheet, if I set aside $180 to make up the pension to pay rent next month, refill my spare gas cylinder for the stove, earmark $166.03 for a tire and $250 for the bandsaw refurbishment and leave a $10 minimum balance in the account so they don't start refusing to pay out, I now have 40¢ available funds.

All based upon data coming out of the bank which is questionable.

That would drive me mad, but I am glad it seems to have straightened itself out for now. 

[Netfoot]

Got up this morning and decided to write a "plasmoid" for my desktop. (A plasmoids is a "widget" for the KDE Plasma desktop - a little program that attaches to your desktop.) I wanted a small desktop clock and couldn't find one I liked. Never written one before. Took most of the morning (because I didn't know what I was doing) but finally got it to work.

I must learn more about coding in QML which is the preferred language for developing graphical interfaces with the Qt toolkit. I'm guessing QML stands for "Qt Meta Language". I'm on the phone but later I might post a picture of the extremely simple plasmoid/widget I created.

Cooked white rice for dinner. Except I have the family allergy to white rice, so I added some cubed pumpkin. On the top of the rice I put a sauce of corned beef & cabbage with onion and tomato sauce. This worked well and was a pleasant change from the usual cook-up rice with everything in one pot. But it didn't work so well for Mo who ate the sauce off the top and left the drive rice behind. Some of the sauce had drained down into the rice underneath, so he soon returned and ate some more sauce-stained rice. He walked away again but returned to eat some rice with less sauce on it. And so it went until most of the rice was gone. Note to self: don't put Mo's on top. Mix it all up together.

My phone had has been rebooting itself. It has happened about 8-10 times a day this last week. I guess it won't last much longer, now. Like everything else I own, it's on the way out.

Hope to finish my book tonight. Not sure if I can stay awake. But we will see. Had our Garden Patrol and I drank a mug of tea.

Blood sugar this morning was good! 5.1 mmol/L with 5.0 considered perfect. I prefer if it is lower, but I will take 5.1, thanks!  But can I keep it down? I am testing daily now, rather than the 2/week Dr. Kristi told me to go with. So we will see if the "white" pumpkin rice and sauce will push that back up come morning.

While cooking I realized how nice it was to have a kettle handy. Obviously it helps with tea-making and reduces the risk of a boiled-dry pot on the stove. But it is more than that. When I'm cooking I have a tendency to turn on the kettle.

You need an ounce of water for the sauce? The kettle is full of hot water which is so much better for the job than cold water from the tap! Cooking eggs and want to steam the tops? A teaspoon of hot water in the pan and cover. In seconds the eggs are steamed. Cold water does not work as well.

When I go in the kitchen to cook, the kettle goes on! Now that I've got a kettle.....

And after dinner, when a cuppa seems like a good idea, the kettle is still pretty hot and comes quickly to the boil for tea-making. 

Anyway, I am teaching myself more about QML via an online tutorial and will do a couple chapters of that before showering and turning to my book.

Edited Thursday at 01:45 PM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Here is my new clock widget:

(The muddy background colour is because my wallpaper is a sunrise sunset and this just happens to be the colour of the top/left corner of the screen.)  The image is two screen-grabs in one. On the left the clock as it normally appears. On the right the same clock with mouse-hover.

That's it. Small and simple. This image makes it look bigger than it is.  And I want to make is smaller vertically if I can. Also thinking about adding a calendar that pops up if I click on the clock. One that has an easily visible highlight on the current day. But I can't do any of that until I figure out how. 

So some QML tutorials, then a shower then my book then sleep. And as you can see, the witching hour rapidly approaches.

Edited Thursday at 01:47 PM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Fiddled with my widget clock a little today. Forced it to pop up the daye date on hover but to the left. 

This allows me to position the clock closer to the top/right corner and still get a clearly visible date when needed. Also added the "th" to "8th". Changed the clock's colour from #FFFFFF (white) to #80FF80 (light green)  just for fun.

What I would really like to do is set the height of the clock down. There is far more black above and below those green digits than we really need. But every effort to set the height of the widget to something smaller than what you see here results in this exact same height of clock. Obviously, something I am unaware of is constraining the minimum height of this widget. 

Wouldn't mind losing that fat, white border, either!

Edited Friday at 02:15 AM by Netfoot

[andidante]

21 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Fiddled with my widget clock a little today. Forced it to pop up the daye on hover but to the left. 

This allows me to position the clock closer to the top/right corner and still get a clearly visible date when needed. Also added the "th" to "8th". Changed the clock's colour from #FFFFFF (white) to #80FF80 (light green)  just for fun.

What I would really like to do is set the height of the clock down. There is far more black above and below those green digits than we really need. But every effort to set the height of the widget to something smaller than what you see here results in this exact same height of clock. Obviously, something I am unaware of is constraining the minimum height of this widget. 

Wouldn't mind losing that fat, white border, either!

I am very impressed! I have to ask my son to help me do anything technical on the computer! I could not even begin to do this.

[Netfoot]

Blood sugar up again. 

Back up to 6.7 mmol/L this morning. The square point in the green was the morning after the day where I had a bowl of ramen for lunch and nothing for dinner. No obvious explanation for the other green. On the latter part of this graph I switched from testing every 3 days to daily testing. I am worried about this. It was almost all in the green right up until recently.

Did not quite get to the end of my book last night so I will try again tonight. 

Mo ate up his lunch today but was picky over his dinner. He is an adult dog (although I think of him as my baby; my puppy) and most adult dogs get fed once per day. I feed Mo twice, and I wonder if I should simply feed him once a day? Then come tomorrow, he will be hungry when he gets his next meal and won't be picky. 

Apparently a nuclear war is about to break out. Will it be a fuse which ignites similar conflicts elsewhere around the globe? 

54 minutes ago, andidante said:

I could not even begin to do this.

I studied computing & cybernetics as a youngster, back in the 70s and worked with computers my entire professional career. New concepts and technological developments occur all the time and it is really impossible to stay abreast of them all. I have been self-educating for 50 years. I have to learn new technology (like QML for generating cross-platform applets) if I want to try it. Anyone could learn it, including you. But I have a 50 year foundation of experience to stand on so I would probably find it easier than most.

The grammar of QML is new to me but it is similar in several respects to a dozen other languages that I've looked at before. This makes it easier and faster for me to pick up.

Mo lies on the tiles beside the bed. He was quite snuggly last night. He does not spend all night in bed with me. He moves around. From the foot of the bed to the passage and then curled up between my shoulder blades. When the lights go out he almost immediately (within a minute) joins me. But if I wake later in the night he might be looking out the window, using my feet as a pillow, or on the floor somewhere. But several times I will discover that he is cuddling. He is very affectionate. 

I'm open the door for him early (first light) and he is usually outside barking at the world when I wake again later. But he will come running in, jump into my lap and overpower me with kisses and cuddles. I just have to be careful because he is so exuberant he can and frequently does head-butt me in the face. And he has a noggin made of granite!

Just gone eleven. I need a shower. I've had my left arm in bandages these last few days. I've had some scrapes and scratches on my arm that I have issues with. I scratch them in my sleep and sometimes even during the day when I'm distracted. So they don't heal. The bandage protects them and promotes healing. But winding it on is a PITA and it makes shower impossible. But it will come off so I can shower and get wound back on. Because a shower is not an option tonight.

Been feeling lethargic these last few days. Will see if I can find something to do tomorrow. And with the weekend coming up I got to look at the larder.

Got veggies and bully and tuna. Rice, potatoes and pasta. Teabags, sugar and milk. Don't think I need to buy any groceries. Will confirm in the morning. Gotta scroll back and see when I last replaced the gas cylinder, too. 

Ok, shower time. 

[Netfoot]

Wow.  4.7 mmol/L this morning.

And I did nothing special. I never "game" the test. That would be tricking myself. Yesterday I ate carbs with lunch (bread) and dinner was potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, cabbage, onion, corn and bully. Mostly potatoes, so carby. 

ETA: Got four tins of corned beef, six tins of tuna, two tins of corn, one tin of black beans, 1+ bags each of rice, potatoes and onions, six spaghetti and four short pasta, a little pumpkin, a cucumber and a half, a small piece of cabbage, a couple broccoli florettes and three carrots. Two liters of milk, 1+ bags of sugar and 70+ decaf teabags. And a packet of ramen noodles. And 7-8 portions of chow for Mo. 

No need to shop prior to the weekend, which is a good thing, because I don't want to spend money if I want to buy a tire (or tires) on Monday.

Woke up and hovered the mouse over my widget to check the date. Thursday, 8th.  Wait, what? What did I do?!??

Examined the code.  Oh, I see. I'm fetching the date on startup and using that same date from then until the end of time.  (Or until I restart my desktop.) Now, that was really stupid logic. I am ashamed.

Revised the code to fetch the date each time the tooltip is displayed. Possibly multiple times a day if I check the date more than once. Inefficient, but the time fetch only takes fractions of a second and I won't be doing it thousands of times a day!  Anyway, how else can I guarantee that the date displayed at 00:00:01 is the day after the date displayed at 23:59:59?

Well, I could fetch the date on startup, initiate a repeating Timer{} event with an interval that takes it to midnight, or a few seconds past. The timer would fire a routine that updates the tooltip with the new date and then sets the interval to 86,400,000.  Milliseconds in a day.  A solar day. A sidereal day is 86,164,100 milliseconds. 

But I won't mess about with another Timer{}. I will just put up with a few microseconds delay when I hover the mouse, before I get my tooltip date. I call that a reasonable compromise. (My college lecturers used to call it laziness.)

Edited Friday at 01:28 PM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Did very little all day other than tweaking my computer. Been very lazy this past week. Or more. 

Made a sweet rice for lunch but Mo was not interested. Later, he came and ate some. He got the remainder for his dinner and I had spaghetti. Tossed with tuna and fried onions. Mo eventually are the remainder of his lunch.

The surprisingly low blood sugar reading this morning was encouraging. But will it be up again tomorrow? The spaghetti probably won't help. Nor the lack of green vegetables to go with it. Broccoli, cabbage and cucumber is good but also expes$ive. 

As you know, Mo and I make a Garden Patrol every night. It started on the first day he came home. It just gave him an opportunity to do a peenapoo before bed. He doesn't need that any more. But we have not missed a single day, no matter how foul the weather. Rain, wind, no matter. But do we need to carry on? Mo is approaching four years old, now.

I like that we have that little routine. When I pick up the torch, Mo comes to attention. And when I start out towards the door, I have to be careful not to get in his way because he bulldozes his way to the front. And he may be a little boy, but he can push you off your feet and be gone out of sight before your butt hits the floor!

Finished my book last night. I didn't know if I would be able to but it turned out that there were only 2½ pages to go. The other pages I thought were at least one more chapter turned out to be appendices. I read them any way. 

Today I watched a grand old classic sci-fi from 1950. Destination: Moon with a screenplay contributed to by RAH. A classic story of the first rocket to the moon. The ship looked very V2 rocket. The movie was made only 5 years after WW-II, after all. But I was surprised how similar the rocket looked to the one in the Tintin cartoon by Hergé also called Destination Moon. Tintin's rocket was red & white whereas the one in the movie was silvery/metallic. Otherwise it was very similar. Even the landing legs on the bottom of the fins were identical. 

Of course as one of the earliest sci-fi movies to explore the concept and the engineering issues involved in inter-planetary travel, the storyline was pretty simplistic. And the special effects were on the basic side as well. Weightlessness with plenty of wires and starscapes beautifully painted on glass. Good stuff!

Currently watching Young Guns, a 1988 western about William "Billy the Kid" Bonney and featuring incredibly young versions of Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips and Charlie Sheen, plus others. And Jack Palance too but not the young version. 🤣

Anyway, I am going to boil the kettle and while it heats up we will do our Garden Patrol. Then I will unwind this bandage and have a quick shower while the tea draws. 

No book to read, so I guess I will watch a couple YT videos as I drink it.

Then snores!

[Netfoot]

Found these clinging to the back of my knee upon return from Garden Patrol.

Painful.

Put on my shoes (Mo: Ready!) picked up the torch (Mo: Set!) and turned the torch on (Mo: Go!!!). Sonic boom as he barges past and exits with smoke trailing from his feet.

Listening to Haven't Got Time For The Pain by Carly Simon. Not my favourite artist but she definitely showed talent. I only have one album of hers and it's a Best-Of. I usually avoid Best-Of/Greatest-Hits albums because if I like the artist I will buy the original albums rather than BO. The originals almost always have excellent tracks that never made it into the BO. But sometimes, if I'm not really all that interested in the artist, I will settle. But note: there is at least one band that I started with their BO and then found myself buying 14 of their original studio albums.....

Still not chosen a book. Spent the day working on a recalcitrant program and still no success. You click a link in the browser that requires a special "handler" program. Example, you click a "mailto:" link and your e-mail program should start automatically.  There are all sort of handlers for all sort of occasions. But for some reason one type of link stopped working and after six hours I still have not got it working again.  I think the issue is my Chrome browser, because the links still work in the Firefox and SeaMonkey browsers. However I like Chrome and don't want to switch browsers.

Cooked rice for lunch. And a separate pot of corned beef stew. It tasted good but Mo only ate half. I did remember to mix the stew in with his rice rather than just ladle it on top.

For dinner I cooked cavatappi and ladled more bully stew over the top. Mo's cavatappi got mixed in with his leftover rice and got more stew stirred in as well. He ate ¾ of it. Hopefully he will finish the leftovers during the night or early tomorrow.

Watched Ava, a Jessica Chastain movie in which she is an assassin who is targeted by the heads of the organization that employed her. Not high art but it passed the time between Garden Patrol and sleep-time. Which is now, so I'm going for a shower (my 2nd today) and then lights-out. 

Unless I decide upon a book in my way to the shower. Or on the way back.