Food Thermos = Nose Warmer

This is a food thermos.  My wife got it because it keeps large quantities of food warm (like soup - I'm sure it'd keep a pie warm but getting it out might be a little tricky), but I've discovered that it's also great for a coffee on a cold night, because you can fit your nose inside it to keep warm.

Also, because it's so huge, you can fill it up with coffee at the start of the evening (maybe a liqueur one - have to consult the liqueur coffee decision tree) and it'll keep you going until bedtime.  At which point you can't sleep because you've chugged a pint and a half of coffee.

By the way, I made a video about queue jumping.  Is it always wrong?  Watch and decide.

The calm before the storm - 1 day to go!

I've been quiet on the blog for a few days, mainly due to the fact that my computer is currently out of action - Tuesday night it refused to power up, and even after fitting a new power supply it refuses to show any sign of life, so it's been taken to a repair shop - fingers crossed it'll be back up and running sometime next week.  In the meantime I'm on the laptop.

The other reason that I haven't been doing my social media thing on an evening is that we now (temporarily) have a cat in the house.

Action shot of James in motion.

We're looking after James at the moment, and to try to ease him into his stay with us I've been staying downstairs watching TV to give him some company.  It's a hard life.

Nevertheless, it is about 25 hours away from the great TEA VS COFFEE debate going live - if you've not been following what's been happening, all this week we've been leading up to two epic blog posts, one of which will be going up right here on the Blog of Thog (in support of tea) and one supporting coffee, on Life, Explained.  The posts will be live 3pm UK time, or 10am Ohio time (or different times in you aren't in either of those time zones), so make sure you visit us tomorrow and say hi, show your support for your favoured hot drink.

And that isn't all you can do.  Do you have a view on which hot drink you prefer?  Do you prefer a different hot drink to tea or coffee?  Do you not like any?  Well, make sure you do a blogpost or a video about it tomorrow, do let us know (and use the hashtag #HOTDRINKDAY ), we'd love to hear from you.

If you don't fancy blogging or doing anything that active, do at the very least vote here for your favourite drink, at the moment tea is absolutely thrashing coffee but there's plenty of time for that to be turned around (or even for coffee to be overtaken by hot chocolate, now that would be very amusing indeed!)

The kettle is going on - but what is everyone drinking?

We head unstoppably towards the battle royale, tea versus coffee, all lined up for Sunday the 2nd of November.  More broadsides have been issued from both sides as companies across the globe declare their loyalty to one side or another.

DAVIDsTEA of Montreal appears to be undecided, stating that they obviously love tea, but that they are partial to coffee - I must admit that their Jumpy Monkey blend did turn my head for a moment, but I shall be strong.

Kicking Horse Coffee of Invermere, BC unsurprisingly voted for COFFEE! #FueledbytheHorse

Ritual Coffee of San Francisco has risen above the arguments with a quote from Mark Twain - Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. I say that they have risen above the argument, they may actually just be calling me thick, which is probably quite true.

And Coffee Planet NL of the Netherlands has unfortunately plumped for the dark side.

Today Mr Clark of Life, Explained warns of a tea drinking army preparing to mobilise. Well, let our army rise up - and make a cuppa.  I am typing this blog using my partners laptop as the power supply in my PC has died suspiciously just as we gear up for this epic battle.  I'm not saying that Tim did it, but...

Voting-wise tea has taken a comfortable lead over coffee, with hot chocolate rearing its head too.  Make sure that you vote for your favourite hot drink at http://vote.pollcode.com/16115227 and do promote the contest anyway you can, using the hashtag #HOTDRINKDAY

Tea vs Coffee - tensions are heating up...

By Petr Kratochvil (cup-of-tea-isolated) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

If you're not aware, Sunday 2nd November 2014 is #HOTDRINKDAY with a global showdown between The Blog of Thog and Life, Explained as to which drink is better, tea or coffee.  And I've been getting some contact from a variety of firms willing to weigh in on the debate.

For example, PGTips volunteered the following to my call for help:

@ravenswingthog There's no debate, Mike. Love, Monkey x
— PG tips (@PGtips) October 27, 2014

And Devonshire Tea, Steepster, Tea Totaller, and The Cup of Life all showing their support too.

I've also had a number of emails about the debate.  Nestle got in touch saying:

As you will appreciate we have to remain impartial and obviously couldn't possibly take sides in your debate due to the fact we don't produce tea. #NESCAFÉ

The Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co said that they'll be promoting the event, but didn't commit as to which side they'll be supporting (cough - tea guys, support tea!)
Also Has Bean Coffee wishes all the best for the debate - but not for me! :)

Seriously though, thanks to all the companies that have got in touch, regardless of what side you support.  I'm keen to hear from other hot drink makers too - are we short sighted in saying that it's tea vs coffee?  Where's the hot chocolate and marmite (think I need a comma in there somewhere) supporters?  Whatever your preference, get voting and make sure to show your support, either on my blog (for the righteous tea lovers of the world) or Tim's blog (for the evil drink also known as coffee), on Sunday for your favourite drink - and tweet the debate up using #HOTDRINKDAY

Before you escape, www.find.com have published my latest of a series of slimming blogs on their website, this time talking about how to get back into slimming when you hit a problem and put weight on one week.  Do go check it out!

The Nursing Home

I'll start this post off by saying that I apologise if it is not up to my usual mediocre standards, however British Summer Time ended last night, which meant that a huge amount of people got an extra hour in bed today, whilst another grouping of people (which happens to include me) has a small child that has no concept of British Summer Time and woke up at ten past four expecting CBeebies, jam-covered toast and a glass of smoothie.

Long-term readers may remember these posts about taking my gran shopping and having lunch with her in Waitrose, however things have moved on.  Several months back she had a couple of falls and eventually it was agreed that the best thing for her was to go into a nursing home.

Ever a creature of habit, my gran has wasted no time in settling in a new routine, as follows:

1. In the morning she wakes up and gets a bowl of sweetened porridge for breakfast.  She doesn't like sweetened porridge but because she doesn't like to complain about it (and I suspect that she's the only person in the home that wants it unsweetened) she has it sweetened.
2. After that she'll be got out of bed, dressed, and sat in her chair.  Here she stays for the morning, talking to her room mate, until lunchtime.
3. Lunch typically consists of three courses - soup, of which she has one spoon full and then leaves it on the side, a main course which she devours, and a pudding, which she waits for her roommate to eat hers and then gets the roommate to swap the plates.
4. After lunch she'll be put into her nightgown and returned to bed, as her back is playing up.
5. And at teatime, again she will eat the main course and then swap the pudding plates with her roommate to allow her to again get two portions.

That's not to say that there isn't excitement.  There was the time when my gran slipped out of her chair, and ended up sitting on the floor.  When the staff came to see what had happened, and asked her "What are you doing?", she responded, not unreasonably with "Nothing - I'm just sitting on the floor!"

I generally visit her once a week, bringing a number of the following items:

• Walnut whips - she doesn't actually eat these, but when I visit we share them - that is, I eat the chocolate with the whip inside, and she has the walnut.  I recall the time that she asked me what nut was on top of a walnut whip.  I told her to think about what she'd asked me.
• Marshmallows - these are for her roommate.  When the coast is clear and no staff are around, my gran wraps up half a dozen marshmallows in a piece of tissue and beckons her roommate over to take them.
• Toffees and assorted bags of sweets - similarly to the marshmallows, these are actually for the roommate, and will be mixed with wild abandon to give the roommate a selection of treats.
• Cartons of apple juice - these aren't needed very often, as it's rare that my gran actually drinks one, but she does like to keep a supply of twenty or so handy in her wardrobe.

Today she was telling me that there is no difference between men and women, except that men have a thingy.  And, apparently, it's a good job that they have a thingy, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to wee.

I can't finish the post without reminding all about the run up to #HOTDRINKDAY on Sunday the 2nd of November.  If you're a tea fan, you're in the right place, because The Blog of Thog is the home of all tea drinkers - read my announcement here.  If, on the other hand, you're a coffee aficionado, well Mr Clark at Life, Explained is there for you, and you can read his announcement here.  We need all you social media folk to be prepared next Sunday to put forward your views - what drink do you prefer?

And don't forget to vote!

Tea versus Coffee - get involved!

In just over a week the latest in our series of transatlantic debates will be taking place as The Blog of Thog takes on Life, Explained in the war to end all wars.

Which is better: Tea or Coffee?

By Paul Downey from Berkhamsted, UK (Morning Tea  Uploaded by McGeddon) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Now, obviously the answer is tea, but a certain young whippersnapper from the US of A doesn't seem to agree.  So, we're going to be gearing up for a good old blog debate on Sunday the 2nd of November 2014, and I'm encouraging other Internet folk to get involved.

Do you blog?  Make videos?  Podcasts? Or other internetty content stuff?  Well, upload something on your own blog/YouTube channel/Podcast site/other place defending either tea or coffee (or even go a separate way, state a different preference - hot chocolate perhaps!) and make it live on Sunday 2nd November - make sure to let us know here and at Life, Explained so we can link to it!  If you promote it anywhere use the hashtag #HOTDRINKDAY and I'll be checking the tag during the day to see what's kicking off.  Our posts should be going live about 3pm UK time (10am Ohio time) so don't worry, you don't need to get up early to catch our posts (although obviously you're very welcome to!)

If you're not one of the above, don't worry, you can still get involved in lots of ways, including:

• Commenting on our blogs to tell us which one you prefer
• Sharing our posts on Twitter/Facebook/Reddit/Google+ etc to promote the debate!
• Voting in the poll below!

Yes, right below is a poll for what is the best hot drink!  Take part now!

Thanks for reading and get ready for the 2nd of November - HOT DRINK DAY!!!

What is the best hot drink?

Tea Coffee Hot Chocolate Warm Milk Malt drink e.g. Ovaltine / Horlicks Bovril Alcoholic e.g. Hot Toddy / Mulled Wine / Liqeur Coffee I hate all hot drinks!  

pollcode.com free polls

Just like Gibbs...

On Friday I stopped at the coffee shop (I don't know why I'm being unspecific, I went to Costa, other coffee providers are available but Costa is the closest one to work, and they're open when I go to work, so I went there) and got a drink.  Mainly because I fancied one, but also being it meant that I felt a little bit like Gibbs of NCIS, being able to march into working, clutching a hot drink, ready to do business.

Although the look was probably thrown off a little bit by the drink being a hot chocolate, and by me also clutching a bag with a piece of Tiffin in.

While I'm talking about Gibbs, what's the deal with Norfolk?  You know how an episode of NCIS starts (well if you're addicted to the show like I am you will), basically Tony looks all smug and makes some kind of wisecrack about McGee being a geek, Ziva/Kate shoots Tony being with an epic remark, then Gibbs marches in, and says "Grab your gear - dead marine in Norfolk"

Why Norfolk?  Why is Norfolk, the fairly quiet rural county to the east of England, so popular for marines getting murdered?  Are they choking on insufficiently cooked asparagus?

(Note for American readers - I know Norfolk in the USA is home to the world's largest Naval Base, but in the UK it's a rural county with a penchant for growing asparagus)

Finally, many thanks to all that have watched my World of Warcraft video.  It's become one of my most viewed videos which makes the effort worthwhile.  And thanks again to Andy for helping make it.

A Mug of Coffee that is called A Mug of Coffee

Do you ever feel like winding up the staff in Costa Coffee by going in and asking for a Venti?  (or asking for a Medio in Starbucks?)

On the one hand, it does make the coffee sound posher by giving the sizes fancy names.  And that's important - if you're going to spend the best part of four quid on a coffee (when you can buy a big jar of the good stuff for six pounds, I'm talking about Douwe Egberts, yeah baby) you need to feel as though it's something special.  That's why they go on about how drinking coffee in a shop, forced to share a table with strangers, is more sustainable than drinking it at home while sitting on furniture you like.

In your pyjamas. (sorry, I should keep up with the lingo - "onesie")

But there is a lot to be said for having words that I know what they mean.  Tall, Grande, Venti - to me, of these three words, the two that sound bigger are "Tall", and "Grande".  I have no idea what Venti means.  Apparently it means twenty, to reflect the fact that a Venti drink is twenty fluid ounces.

I have a confession to make.

I have no idea how big a fluid ounce is.

Ounces to me mean weight.  There's sixteen ounces to a pound, two point two pounds to a kilogramme, and lots of kilos in a tonne.  I don't get the fluid ounce thing, and I'm sure it's really simple.

I would guess a fluid ounce is roughly a sup.  Not a sip - a sup, as in a sup of beer (NOT "suff", as some people say. Sup.).  Somewhere between a sip and a swig, enough so that you know you've drunk something, but not so much that you're halted from talking for more than a moment.

So twenty sups of beer doesn't sound a lot.  So Venti now doesn't sound big.

Except it is.  It's massive.

And while I'm on the subject, let's look at the term "Regular".  Regular, many many food outlets have decided, means small.

No it doesn't.  Regular means average.  And Average means medium.

Small, medium and large, that's all you need.  Or if you want a really big drink, massive.

Now I'm off for a Quinquinty Visto.

Or is that a computer program?

Ciao!

PS I have to say that the Chocolate Tiffin Triangles at Costa are bloody amazing though.  I'd have a Venti one of them any day.

If you like coffee, why not check out these awesome mug designs, personally I really like the "Go Away" mug :)

Just drinking a coffee

I'm just drinking a coffee.

I'm struggling to produce anything half decent for my blog.  It's bizarre - half the time I have four to five posts ready to go, lined up, and I'm impatiently waiting for an opportunity to get another post out there, and the rest of the time is like this - I can't think of anything good enough to write.  Or I get halfway into a post, until I realise that it isn't very good and/or is overly offensive, and abandon it, forever to exist in the limbo of draft posts that I can't quite bring myself to delete but don't want to publish.

And then I'll hit the drinks - tonight being a coffee.

I wasn't always into hot drinks.  Well, coffee has always been okay.  Preferably with a large amount of cream and sugar, whatever that is required to remove the taste of the coffee and reduce the heat.  I've never understood people that have hot drinks without anything to cool them down.

Tea, though, I've only really gotten into in the last three or four years, when in an effort to cut my caffeine levels I switched to tea (and yes I do know that there is caffeine in tea, but a bit less I hope?).  To begin with I really struggled with the taste, but eventually managed to get to drinking it without milk or sugar, and just with a bit of cold water to cool it down.

I should say, if you've ever read my blog, and especially if you (fools that you are!) have come back and read it more than once - thank you.  I passed through 15,000 views the other day, which is a big achievement to me.  I need to make an icon or something for it...

There we go!

While I witter on about drinking, is it wrong to drink a 75cl bottle of 4% perry to yourself?  I've taken care of one of these and my other half is asking if everything is alright (which it is - I just don't have anything pressing to do in the morning so I'm taking the opportunity to push the boat out a little tonight).

For anyone that's interested, I've mentioned recently that I've been making an audition video for a computer gaming show - well, the video has been finished and was sent off Monday night, and I've been told that they'd like me to go into the studio in person to do an audition!  There was some issues with the video, which is completely acceptable (if my YouTube channel had ten million subscribers I might query this, but hell, I don't have ten million, I have 27! And I love every one of you.  And when I say love, I mean appreciate. Sincerely.), I'm just really enjoying the opportunity to try for this, and everything that I'm learning from it.  I ought to say special thanks to Matt for letting me record him play and talk about GTA V.  And Kirsty for letting me invade their house and not coughing and sneezing all through the recording (I ended up cutting all the audio out - but thank you anyway!)

Now I'm going to go play more Card Hunter.  Expect a proper post about it soon.