Welp, it finally happened
Believe it or not, I’ve never copped a Twitter ban before. I’ve gotten into a few heated arguments, but I’m not a very aggressive Twitterer in general. In fact, my favorite tactic when the namecalling starts is to remain blandly polite. It drives ’em nuts.
What’s that? The tweet? It was in a thread about Lia Thompson. I don’t mind deleting it; it’s really badly worded. Shame on me.
As hate goes, it’s weak sauce.
So now, to get my account back, I have to give Twitter my cellphone number for a confirmation code. That is so not going to happen.
Comes the exploration of the free online sms services. They give you a fake cell number, you plug it in, you read the number that pops up. I’ve tried dozens of them. Either Twitter tells me the number has been used before, or I plug it in and the verification code never comes through.
I watch other people’s verification codes come through (it’s a shared number) for things like PayPal and DoorDash. I think it just doesn’t work for Twitter. But, strangely, Twitter lets you try about 20 fake phone numbers before telling you to come back tomorrow. I mean, surely the average punter doesn’t have access to 20 phones, so they must know what you’re doing.
Currently, I’m struggling with an app called Phoner that basically gives you a second phone number attached to your phone. It will forward calls and texts to your regular phone, if you like, but you don’t have to give out your real phone. And you can biff it and get a new one from time to time, if you so desire.
But I think I may have to feed it a few coins before it will let me play. I got it at the app store. It looks legit.
March 8, 2022 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 15
Crunch.
Well, this is just stupid. The last time we bought home heating oil, it was about 45p a liter. Yesterday, it was well over £1 a liter. Since the minimum buy is 500 liters, we were on the fence about ordering it now or waiting a few days to see if the madness passes. Earlier today, Uncle B got a message from our usual supplier saying, “don’t bother. We aren’t taking any new orders.”
No, we probably don’t have enough to get us through the heating season. It’s hot water bottles by day and fires by night for a while.
This sucks. We don’t even get our oil from Russia. This is hikes over supplies they bought in November, fer chrissakes. It’s all speculation, panic and profiteering.
Oh – gas, you ask? It was around £1.19 per liter a week ago. Now it’s £1.52. Let’s do the math, shall we?
£1.19 x 1.31 (today’s exchange rate) x 3.8 (to get us to a gallon) = $5.90 a gallon BEFORE and $7.57 AFTER.
This is exactly how the Greens wanted us peasants to live, you know: with a drastic reduction in our energy consumption (and quality of life, natch). Why does that make me deeply suspicious of this whole crisis?
The ugly-ass Blob People at the top are not relevant to this post. Mailchimp showed me this earlier, and now you have to see it, too. I reckon that’s a new low in dehumanizing depictions of the human form.
March 7, 2022 — 7:50 pm
Comments: 13
An update on my toy
I was struggling to play a sword-and-sorcery game with my new VR rig and couldn’t understand why everything was way high over my head out of reach. Then it dawned on me the damn thing wanted me to stand up, like I was a real person in a real environment. I stood up and…hoo, boy! Now I get why this thing makes people motion sick!
I’ll adjust. Eventually. Though I have a feeling I will always prefer apps I can use sitting down. I’m not a gamer so I can *stand up* and *get some exercise*.
There’s a cool freebie called Ecosphere that features high resolution real footage from Kenya, Borneo and Raja Ampat. I’ve always loved drone footage, but even more when it feels like I’m the drone. Also, you get up close and personal with elephants and orangutans and giant rays. Pretty convincingly realistic.
Of course, it’s sponsored by the WWF, so you get the obligatory lecture to go with, but that’s been a feature of nature films for decades. I’m immune.
Surely, somebody has made one where you just hang out under water and stare at fish for an hour. I’d so play that. I did it for real in Florida once when I were a lass – floated around on the surface for eight hours staring at fish. Worse case of sunstroke ever.
Easily my favorite so far is TRIPP – the deliberately hippie-dippy trippy meditation app. When you inhale, you see your breath swoosh in like sparkly white fairy dust; when you exhale, it flies away like shiny red sparks. A man with a California accent slowly reads a life-affirming script. It’s seriously corny and I love it.
Just the app for the moment, as we wait to see if that senile old coot in the White House gets us into a nuclear shooting war. Good weekend, everyone!
March 4, 2022 — 8:17 pm
Comments: 5
And STILL Margaret Calvert is alive
I have just done my periodic Wikipedia check. Margaret Calvert is still alive.
Dammit.
I have treated you to my Margaret Calvert rant before. She’s the South African graphic designer who came to England in the Fifties and fucked up all the road signs.
I don’t know if she invented the ugly, glommy ‘International Symbol Man’ style, but she was an early adopter, at least. Hit the link for my least favorite ever Margaret Calvert design, the physics-busting Slippery Road sign.
I remembered to do my periodic check as this image turned up in a story I was reading. Just look at this shit! It’s the Men Working sign. Also known as “Man with Recalcitrant Umbrella.”
No, that’s not original. I’m not the only one who thinks she sucks.
March 3, 2022 — 7:41 pm
Comments: 7
I swear I’m taking crazy pills
Did you know Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian version? Why, yes. And here he is playing Hava Nagila on the piano with his penis. Zelenskyy is the real spelling, too. I looked it up.
It’s all a little much for me. I don’t know what is actually going on in Ukraine. I mean, I do believe Russia is doing something big and scary and I’m worried about where this is all going, but the narrative is just…surreal. I get the creeping feeling I’m being played somehow.
I dunno. Maybe two years of lockdown and I’ve got the jimm-jamms. But, hey – about that? Over here, they’re just quietly dropping all that covid stuff, including mandates. Just like that. Under the fog of war.
Ehhhh…I don’t know what I’m getting at. I’m’a go take a bath.
March 2, 2022 — 7:39 pm
Comments: 9
Year of the
Uncle B bought these little fellas ages ago. They’re tiny little figurines; just a bit of fun to celebrate the Year of the Tiger. He tells me they were held up at Customs for some reason. I can’t imagine why.
He was born in the Year of the Tiger. I was born in the Year of the Rat. Many years ago – before we were married – I bought us a couple of commemorative coins from a shop in China town. The shopkeeper squinted, sucked his teeth and said, “Tiger man, rat woman…hard. Possible, but hard.”
And speaking of hard, I had to work until 5 today. I am impossibly salty about it.
How did I ever pull 12-hour days?
March 1, 2022 — 6:52 pm
Comments: 15
*flush*
This thing exists in a forest in West Sussex. The paper called it a “Mystical Waterfall.”
I don’t know about mystical. It looks to me like somebody pulled the plug and we’re circling the ‘ole.
Southern Water called it a “bellmouth drain” and said it was for drawing excess water away from dams. Speculation further down the article was that it was to drive a water mill, several of which were nearby.
I wish they had film or other views; it’s hard to make out how it works. It looks like it’s open at the far end and draining down into a lower stream. Which would make sense if it was to drive something.
I’m sure we could get a sense of the age of it if we could see the construction up close. Looks like there’s a small arch on the far side.
Imagine having such a thing in the landscape and having no idea how it came to be there. Funny old country.
February 28, 2022 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 12
So…I bought thing
I’ve wanted a VR headset since VR headsets were invented. In fact, I had one to play with at work, way back when they were new and extra stupid. I loved it.
The Steam one, the one I want, is around £1,000. Not only that, I’d have to sink at least that much into my computer to make it capable of driving it.
Not. Happening.
But I got to talking – okay, Tweeting – with someone who has spent thousands on VR. She said the Oculus one was worth having. It wasn’t nearly as good as the really expensive ones, but it’s pretty darned good for the money.
The money being around £300. For a refurb, considerably less than that. So…I did it.
I’ve only been through the setup and introduction and browsed a few of the apps. The batteries last about two hours and it’s given me a headache (I think I need to upgrade the head strap), but it’s way cool.
Yes. Okay. FINE. This makes me officially part of Mark Zuckerberg’s lame-ass Metaverse. I even had to link it to my phone and my real name Facebook Account.
But. You know. SHINY.
Have a good weekend, all!
February 25, 2022 — 7:19 pm
Comments: 15
Art.
My urn. It’s brass or bronze. It’s had a couple of repairs and is possibly frankensteined together.
I’m of the opinion it was more than one piece. The rings around the top and bottom are decidedly cruder than the work around the middle. Also, the floral motif at the bottom looks European to me.
Uncle B disagrees. He thinks it looks Persian or Indian and all of a piece.
I haven’t dared see if it holds water. Probably not; it’s got some welds around the bottom. Dried flowers, then.
It has an overall chocolate brown patina. I’m not enough of a bumpkin to make it shiny. But I wouldn’t mind rubbing it up until it has a *hint* of metallic sheen.
Is that wrong? Am I a philistine?
I watch too much Drew Pritchard.
February 24, 2022 — 8:19 pm
Comments: 8
And they’re off…!
Carousel horses at the reclamation yard.
We did take a field trip to the salvage yard today. There was lots of the usual stuff. Masses of reclaimed doors, fire surrounds, beams, bathrooms. The doorknob room. Lots of tiles, including some interesting ones.
I bought an urn. More like a vase. I’ll show it to you when I get it cleaned up.
It was neat, but not as neat as the one we went to a few years ago. I remembered the name: Symond’s Salvage. They don’t seem to have as much stock online to browse through, though I note they have a very interesting galvanized “troff”. We’ll have to make a trip back there some time.
There was no nice garden sculpture for Uncle B, which made him sad. So I bought him a fish and chips.
February 23, 2022 — 7:21 pm
Comments: 14