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Same manger, different tune

Okay, that feels more Christmassy. We had the carol service in our local church Sunday and it set the mood just fine.

After all this time, I think I’ve finally adjusted to their carols. It was hard because some of them are the same as ours, but sung to a completely different tune.

Case in point: Away in the Manger, our version; Away in a Manger, Brit version.

That’s not our local church, by the way. That’s the cathedral in…York, I think. Ours is nearly that old, but it’s a funny little country church. It’s almost always a muddy tromp across the sheep fields and I love that most people turn up to church in jeans and wellies.

The picture is the first one that turned up on a search of “Church of England Carol Service.” And if you think that’s lazy, the next two weeks will astonish you!

December 17, 2018 — 10:09 pm
Comments: 10

Tree talk

We went out to buy our Christmas tree today, but came back empty handed.

Our usual place is a local farm that grows them. It’s hard work, though, trudging out into the field, slipping around in the mud (there’s always mud) picking out a tree. I always feel a bit like the Hand of Death, tying the tag around it. Last year, most of the good ones were taken and it was forever before we found a good one.

Turns out, our farmer is selling them to a local store, so we went there. Didn’t spot one we liked, so we decided to drive out in the country to a place that had a Christmas Trees sign up a few days ago. The sign wasn’t up when we got there and it was getting dark. It’ll wait.

We usually go for a nice fat six foot tree. Norway spruce that size were going for about £40. That’s…about fifty bucks at the current exchange rate. Does that seem high?

Oh, for you Monty Python aficionados, the tree at right is The Larch.
 

 

p.s. in the previous thread, HL King asked about the specs of my new computer. They are:

16GB (1x16GB) DDR4 2400MHz Single Module
Windows 10 for high end devices
Intel Core i7 8700 3.2GHz Processor
Fractal Design Define S Mid Tower Case, Black, Silent Design
240GB NVME SSD
1TB SATA HDD (7200RPM)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5
BeQuiet! System Power 9 500W Power Supply
Iiyama G-MASTER GB2730QSU-B1 27″ LED Monitor – 16:9 – 1 ms

It is blazing fast, it runs damn near silent and I love it.

p.p.s. Have a great weekend, y’all!

December 14, 2018 — 9:23 pm
Comments: 21

Babby’s first edit

I made my first Wikipedia edit! I was reading an article, and I ran up against a small, uncontroversial and obviously wrong statement and, in a fit of righteous rage, I hit the little ‘edit’ button in the upper right corner and changed that bad mama-jama. Just like that.

Huh. It was weirdly satisfying.

I was going to share it with you guys, but because I’ve never made an edit before, it uses my IP address in place of my name. We don’t use a VPN.

Which brings me to this question: do you? We’ve talked about buying into a VPN for ages. Not so much for privacy reasons as having an IP from an EU country can be awkward. For example, a certain number of US sites block EU visitors because of our stupid privacy laws.

Would love to hear recommendations if you have any.

December 13, 2018 — 9:16 pm
Comments: 12

Grandma? That you…?

I follow several of the ladies from my Wednesday morning drawing class. It makes it easier to coordinate models and stuff.

It also means I now get a small flood of status updates like the above.

You know what? I like it. After all the toxic hoo-ha on the internet, grandma jokes are downright refreshing.

Then I remember — these ladies aren’t my grandmas, they’re my peer group now.

December 12, 2018 — 9:37 pm
Comments: 6

pronouns

The thing above was in the official footer of an email I received yesterday from someone at a British University. You will note that the word ‘pronouns’ is a link. Like goes here.

From the article:
The table below provides examples of gender pronouns from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual Resource Center at UC Davis

I decided to spare you the effort (I’m nice like that) and look them all up for you.

Co/cos/coself. Gender neutral. I couldn’t find the origin. Same for en/ens/enself. While ey/em/eir appear to be one of the Spivak pronouns. Hit the link if you care.

He and she are for filthy cis degenerates and they is plural and if you use it singular I will REE unto the hills.

Xie/hir/hirself and ze/zir/zirself also generic and without origin, listed as among of the most common. Which probably means they aren’t special enough any more. Yo/yo/yoself is a made up gender-neutral pronoun dreamed up by students in Baltimore or this New Age religion.

There are, of course, dozens of others. As many of the related articles point out, people have been trying to come up with gender-neutral pronouns for English since at least the 19th C. And as I’d like to point out, they all died out, didn’t they? Because they sound stoopit.

It was fun explaining this to my boss.

December 11, 2018 — 5:15 pm
Comments: 14

That’s okay then

This was the easiest computer crash I’ve ever had. Well, other than the three weeks it took me to pick out a new one and get it here.

I had pretty good backups, which helped. Including a list of account passwords that is fairly up to date.

Even better, though — my old hard drive isn’t dead. Popped into an enclosure (with a little help from Uncle B) and I’m able to access all my old data.

The only question mark was the most important bit of all — Photoshop. You can’t just move it from one disk to another. I have a fair and legal copy that lives on a DVD. Serial number and everything. The problem is, it’s an upgrade version and it wanted the serial number of my previous version.

I thought I was stuffed. My Adobe account didn’t have any of my serial numbers listed (I’m beyond positive I registered everything; they must have had a purge in the last decade). I was sure Adobe — who desperately wants to get everyone onto the cloud version — would tell me to pound sand.

They didn’t. A very nice Indian lady talked me through by way of the chat dingus and emailed me a brand new full-featured serial number. I’m stunned, honestly. All hail Adobe. Oddly, that makes me less reluctant to climb onto the cloud somehow.

Anyway, enough about my new computer. That’s boring. From now on, I promise you totally other boring things!

December 10, 2018 — 6:47 pm
Comments: 8

Dead Pool Round 116: Ho Ho Ho Edition

Now, you might think ExpressoBold won the last round with former prez George H. W. Bush, but actually it was Ric Fan with Harry Leslie Smith, a British social justice twunk.

Aw, just kidding — I’m calling 115 for both of them! I can do that! It’s my Dead Pool! Dicks for all!

With that in mind, though, guys…I’m way, way behind on dicks. Worse, I may have lost my list in the crash (I’m still picking up the pieces, but the master list was on the desktop, which I don’t regularly back up). I may need the power of Rich Rostrum’s OCD to work this one out.

But for now, you’ve got a Dead Pool to enter — and I’ve got computer games to play! Ready?

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.

1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).

2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.

3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.

4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.

5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.

6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.

7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.

December 7, 2018 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 80

IT’S HERE….!!!

My god — you people are HUGE!

…on my fancy new 27″ monitor…

They quietly upgraded my free 3-5 day shipping to 24 hours. Which makes sense, when you think about it. The longer the thing is on the truck, the more likely it is to get damaged – and they’d be on the hook.

It is slick. It is fine. It is fast. I paid extra for components that featured “quiet” in the description and I can barely hear it run. (My old machine sounded like a 747 taking off).

Now begins the days and days of downloading and setting up my comfy old apps.

Excuse me.

p.s. New Dead Pool tomorrow. Bring your big ol’ selves along at 6 WBT.

December 6, 2018 — 7:37 pm
Comments: 21

Dispatched…

GIMME MY STUFF! GIMME! GIMME IT!!!

Ahem. My computer is on the way. I don’t have an ETA yet. It’s not actually in the tracking system for another couple of hours.

And it’s 3-5 day shipping, so we’re looking at next week.

I’m’onna come out of my skin.

December 5, 2018 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 13

Fixed.

He probably didn’t think he needed fixing.

It was a little scary for a while. This morning, they said to expect to hear from them at 1:30. We didn’t. When we called, they said he was fine…and we could come at 5:30, and then they kept us waiting.

I suspect he didn’t come out of the anesthesia as fast as expected. When we finally saw the vet, she said something like, “the important thing is that he’s awake now.”

After Jack had his op, he was out of his head for twelve hours. Climbing the walls, crying to get out. It was awful. If they were waiting for Booboo to sober up a little, I’m all for it.

Anyway, he was wobbly for an hour, but he’s fine now. Except his pupils are the size of dinner plates and he stinks of disinfectant. Oh, and…no balls.

December 4, 2018 — 9:29 pm
Comments: 12