Bluey (funny for everyone)

Sarah and Duck (epic chill)

Grace’s Amazing Machines (music by The Darkness, and machines)

All tied, for different reasons.

Honorable mention to Numberblocks, which I can’t stand, but has my about-to-start-schooler telling me number sentences when he should be going to sleep, A+.

I mean, I’d weigh it out if the scoop didn’t give consistent tasty results.

Mine has buttons to set seats, you still have to do the mirror. It is wild how different my wife’s settings are to mine.

One scoop (measured, came with one of my machines) of Barcelona Espresso beans (Roast and Post for the win, hit me up if you want a code) into the grinder. Boil the kettle and start the espresso machine heating.

Head to cupboard and choose my cup for this morning. I have a few different sizes from long black down to single espresso.

Back to machine, warm the cup from the kettle, then clean out group and load it with the fresh grounds.

Tip out the water from the cup, add 1/4 tsp brown sugar, and then attach the group and get the cup in place.

Start water - 2 - 3.

Stop - 2 - 3.

Start - 2 - 3 - … - 13.

That about makes an espresso, then its a swirl of hot from the kettle if the cup is a little larger.

Grinder: Encore Baratza. Loud as hell and no timer, but works well.

Espresso machine: Gaggia Cubika Plus. Had it about 15 years, never gone wrong.

Yesterday (Thursday) I spent the day shifting stuff out of the garage (about to be knocked down) into a self store. The room we’ve got there is up some steps.

After a long day, I dropped a heavy thing on my foot. Felt like a fool, and also in amazing pain. Took my sock off there sat on/in the car boot to have a look (gross is all I’ll say). That’s all my race training postponed for a week at least (supposed to be Triathloning).

Then had to hulk the rest of the stuff up the stairs and finish up, because it was just me! Luckily that was the last car load.

Learned my lesson, next time I’m bringing a friend. And possibly steel capped boots.

Where I come from, we played It. Pretty sure that was the south, even south of Thames.

North of the Thames. This means I can claim I moved from South to North.

In actuality the line is somewhere above Nottingham but below Stoke.

Short sightedness in politics is already painful for all of us.

Nobody’s tackling climate change, nobody’s building anything fairer for younger generations, especially in places without enough housing (and what there is owned by older generations).

I won’t list all the problems this would make worse, but for example, do you really want a government with only 6 months to do 2-3 extreme populist things, hoping to dredge up enough support to get a larger mandate next time?

Took a while to settle on our cat’s name.

First of all I tried Linux commands (sudo was the one that stuck for a while, given how the cat dominated the dog.)

That fell out of favour though, and then we had kids and needed a proper name for her.

And then they printed a Magic Card called Generous Stray:

https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/3/2/3289db66-231f-4370-aca6-644d75bee293.jpg

Reminded me so much of my cat, it had to be done. Therefore:

Genny.

Kids can say it - yes. Sounds normal - yes. Cat doesn’t respond to it - of course. Really weird story - well, I think so.

My wife just called the dog Bella by the way, perhaps she should name the next cat.

Oh no! Anyway…

I actually use a dice (D6, 50:50 choice usually) to decide between two options sometimes.

The idea is to fool my brain into revealing what it really wants. Like, if I can’t decide, I’ll assign each choice odds or evens, then roll.

If I’m OK with the result, then it decided for me no problem. Maybe I didn’t care, maybe I preferred what I rolled.

If I don’t like it, then RNG just showed me what I really wanted – now I can go with the other option.

Reduces decision fatigue, and speeds up my life. I’ve been teaching it to my kids (although their favourite RNG is the Chwazi app.)

Ah the Gatekeeper has been found.

Now, we search for the Keymaster.

I recommend Kaon’s Wonderland (novel).

They literally build a solar panel that blocks the sun, so they can charge people for the heat and light.

Congestion charge initial draft was bonkers, it included the park and ride car parks!

I don’t mind it, as I essentially never drive in the city anymore, but I also don’t have a vote because I live elsewhere and commute in.

Only place I use cash for is the Fish and Chip shop. They did have contactless during covid, but the transaction fees from the bank are a big % if most of your custom is small orders, so they bite those for online orders and it’s cash only in the shop.

Hell, half the trousers I buy come with a belt. (It’s a problem for vegan trouser-customers actually, as many of the free belts are crappy cheap leather, meaning you can’t buy the otherwise cruelty free trousers.)

Most of the places I’ve worked, yes.

Sometimes though, only in your team. (E.g. walking through a big open plan area, don’t interrupt 15 people on your way past to say hello).

Interesting. I will watch out for that.

Generally, it gets better or worse very slowly for me, now that I’m on Loratadine all year. (Used to miss the start of the season and start taking too late, and it would take a month to calm down). So its a day or more after we get rain that the sneezes drop off.

There are quite a few communities I’d love to see migrate, and I’ll be posting a few messages if I see a non-spammy chance. I won’t be randomly commenting on all posts though, that’s a way to get banned.

Of the communities with no equivalent here yet, some are just continuing with posts as normal (so I could post), while others have been dark since the protest, so no way to ping them.

TIL they never had a year 0. So the whole damn calendar is an off by one error 🤯