A Call To Action

So, I'm working on a book at the moment.  It's all at very early stages, and comes with a hefty proviso of "may never see the light of day" but at this time it's all very exciting, particularly how it gives me another reason to avoid doing unimportant things like doing the washing up or getting a shave.

I need your help.

Except you, Dr Dawg.

Specifically with blog subscriptions!  I will be approaching writing agents in the not too far distant future and part of my sales pitch will be talking about my blog.  I'm aware that there are a committed number of people (thank you, each and every one of you) who do stop by regularly to check out my blog, most people don't currently subscribe, which is absolutely fine of course, nevertheless I'd like just to flag up that if you would like to subscribe you'd be very welcome :) I don't tend to post that frequently so hopefully it shouldn't result in a sea of notifications for you.

If you would like to subscribe then on the right hand side of the page (if you're viewing this on a proper desktop computer that is) there should be options to subscribe by email or to subscribe using an RSS reader, if you use one of these. If you're viewing this blog on a phone or tablet, as about half of people do, if you scroll right down to the bottom of the page there should be an option to "View Web Version" - if you could just do this this one time then the links will be available on the right hand side for you to subscribe.

If, by chance, you've stumbled across this blog and this is your first time, here's a post for you to check out, you'll get an idea of my typical nonsense.

Many thanks to all that do indeed subscribe :)

Now, back to thinking up insults relating to that Ohioan master of blogging, Tim Clark. He's a great man but his dog...

Well to be quite frank, I think his dog is a little out of control.  It's awarded itself a doctorate, tried to become President, I think it's suffering from delusions of grandeur. I think Tim needs to take Dr Dawg to the vet for some sort of procedure, perhaps to be neutered. I don't know if it would make any difference but, for the sake of humanity, it's worth a try.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Doughnuts not donuts

I'm disappointed to see that Mr Clark of Life, Explained has disparaged this fine blog, suggesting that it is only fit for use as fish and chip wrapping, whilst the shortcomings of his American blog are obvious.  Allow me to illuminate you.

For example, in his latest blog he uses the word "airplane", which as we all know should be "aeroplane".  Worst of course is the use of "donut" as opposed to "doughnut" - the item is made out of dough, hence doughnut. Donut sounds like an instruction to be violent.

Nevertheless, I'm sure that Tim's blog would be good enough - just about - to wrap a hot dog in, with sauce and onions of course.

I can only summarise that Tim is sadly suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.  Thoughts are with you, Tim.

Reasons why the UK is better than Ohio

Well, I just felt like listing a few of the things that make the UK better than Ohio.

• The UK is twice as big as Ohio (242,900 sq.km versus 116,096 sq.km)
• The UK has far more population (65 million versus 11 million) making us far more productive
• The UK's GDP is far more ($2.79T versus $0.53T)
• We don't have dogs that pretend to be doctors
• Our workforces don't run on doughnuts
• We don't dip our fries in slushies
• Home Depot, Target, Kroger, and Walmart sound like esoteric destinations to us
• We don't wear buckeye necklaces
• We have proper pies, gravy, and sausage rolls

Consider this an opening salvo Tim.  I look forward to your response, I imagine it will be freshly composed using your new iPad Pro.

Silence...

...for far too long.

Almost 2 weeks since I blogged!  The simple reason for this hideously long absence is that for at least half that time we haven't had a computer up and running.

We've been very home-improvement focused this last couple of weeks, my wife took on the challenge of redecorating our sons bedroom ahead of getting a new carpet installed in the room, meanwhile our living room ceiling, which had been looking a bit dodgy, finally got some TLC.

Doesn't look too bad, does it?

Yeah... how about now

Some time ago we had a leak from our bathroom which loosened the plaster in the ceiling, and we knew it needed looking at, it turns out that basically the plaster was being held together by a bit of paper, and when we got a plasterer to start taking it down, it came down in one massive go!  Despite this, the ceiling has been replastered and we're now getting round to repainting the living room, a task which hadn't been planned.              

A side effect of all this is that when I haven't been too busy to blog because of moving things in and out of my sons bedroom, we've not been able to use our computers because they've been unplugged and in my sons playroom instead of the living room where they rightfully belong.  But at last, one of the computers has been temporarily set up so I'm taking advantage of it being Fathers Day to have justification to blog a bit rather than tackle any of the many chores I ought to be doing right now!

The other week it was our wedding anniversary, being our second one and the traditional gift being cotton my wife creatively camp up with the below sock bouquet gift for me!

 
I managed to forget that I bought her a present, so panicked the day before and bought her another gift! Such is life.

It's an absolutely glorious Sunday here, hot and sunny, which means I'm going to sit still and complain about the weather all day, being terribly English.  I hope wherever you are you're having a good weekend, and hopefully it'll not be quite so many weeks until the next blog!

Shaving

For too long I've been managing without the correct equipment.

Before this devolves into innuendo, I'm referring to shaving.  I typically use an electric shaver with a built in beard trimmer, so I can chop away the long stuff with the beard trimmer, go on to have a proper shave with the normal shavey bit, and then if I'm going all out I'll use a Mach 3 manual razor to get any rogue hairs that have escaped the first two attacks.  After this there will be one single hair somewhere of about two inches in length that has managed to evade all attempts to cut it, and I'll pluck the thing.

However, the beard trimmer has failed on the razor, after several years of use.  I've tried to manage without, because I like my old Braun 370 razor.  It's got some interesting features, such as the charging point - it has the usual two pin charging for a razor, but the port is shaped in such a fashion that a general charging cable almost fits (but won't), forcing you to order a bespoke cable online.

Enough is enough, and it's time to go and get a new razor.  Going onto the Argos website, I went into the Men's Shavers section.

Interestingly, by default the list is sorted by "Relevance" - surely everything in the "Men's Shavers" section is relevant?

Anyway, after a bit of a trawl, I decided to go for one that roughly looks equivalent to my existing one, and it is the Braun 3040s Wet & Dry Men's Electric Shaver, which is complete with MicroComb and SensoFoil. Sadly, this stuff does actually work on me, I'd be even more impressed if the packaging told me that the shaver came with a PowerCharger and an ergonomic Han-Dle.

And look at all that blue colouring. Couldn't we say something like the shaver has been designed to absorb six-sevenths of the visible light spectrum, minimising light pollution?

No purchase would be complete without a glance through the manual for interesting statements, and the Braun 3040s is no exception. Apparently:

"In order to maintain the optimum capacity of the rechargeable batteries, the shaver has to be fully discharged by shaving every 6 months"

No wonder my shavers fail, hardly a week goes by without me recklessly using them to shave my face.

Anyway, the moment of truth has come...

Before

During, taking advantage of temporary ability to offer my services as a Mario look-a-like

Gone!

I'm pleased to report that the new shaver works, and it still manages to miss one rogue hair that somehow survives everything I throw at it.  Life is back to normal.