Tired...

Hello!

Yes, I'm tired.  It's been a busy (but good) weekend, although it has included a fair portion of shopping and cleaning the house, which, whilst certainly needing to be done, doesn't quite get me excited.

Plus, I've had to water the garden.

I have a certain opinion about the garden.  I believe that as the garden is essentially nature, and nature has the rule "survival of the fittest" where elderly and infirm animals are generally eaten by a wolf (or me), that plants shouldn't need watering.  If they need watering on a regular basis, I do think that they ought to be left out to die as they clearly aren't suitable for their location.  You wouldn't put a sunflower in a cave and then take a sunlamp in there to give it the light it needs to grow, so why water plants every day?

Of course, it isn't as simple as that - the plants do indeed look nice (certainly nicer than if I did leave them to their own devices), and all through the winter don't really need any maintenance so five minutes with the watering hose (which has a rather cool gun attachment) isn't overly onerous.

If you haven't noticed, the summer solstice was yesterday.  Putting aside the theological aspect of this day, basically it means that we're heading for winter and Christmas now. Having baked myself whilst driving this afternoon I can't say that it really feels as though winter is coming, but nevertheless it is.  I just wish that it had come soon enough to keep the beer on my desk cold.

I have published a new video today, with some reviews of alternative milks - as part of our bid to become healthier, the family have given up cows milks.  While in the video I do talk about oat milk as being my favourite, we are actually now all on almond milk, and I must say that it is very nice indeed.

Finally, whilst mucking about on my YouTube channel (I'm on 48 subscribers and 9,942 video views - I'd love to make those figures up to 50 subs and 10,000 views if you feel the need!) I noted that I could enable Live Events.

So I did.

So, I can now do live events.  I have no idea of any live events that I could do, or even if I did do an event whether I'd do it on YouTube or on Twitch, but it's nice to have the option.  If anyone does have any ideas for live events, or video collaborations, or indeed blogging collaborations, do get in touch, I'm always keen to hear from people and work together on stuff.  It makes this creating thing fun.

Speaking of which - I tried to make a new video the other night, but it didn't work out due to my smartphone auto-focusing halfway through (it's one where I need to do some special effects so it makes it really bad) and not having quite the right area in shot.  But it involved shaving foam and a bottle of cognac.  Ideas on a postcard (or in the comments below!)

Pouring milk isn't as easy as it sounds

Imagine the scene, if you will.  It's a normal workday morning.  A colleague from another organisation has arrived for a meeting.  As is the normal social convention, I offer him a drink, and he chooses a coffee, with milk.

I select a mug, pour in a teaspoon of coffee, and put in some hot water, and empty the contents of one of those little buckets of milk into the mug.  It's all given a good stir, but it looks as though it could do with a little more milk.

Not a problem!  We have more UHT pots of milk.

I grab another milk pot, open it up and...

Pour the milk into the bin.

This happens occasionally.  If I have something in my hands, and two activities to undertake, I'll do the wrong thing with the item I'm holding.  I remember some years back holding a used straw, and a stamp (I was collecting stamps at the time).  The straw was to be disposed of, while the stamp when in my album.  And I managed to put the stamp in the coal scuttle.

So, we all make mistakes.  I grab another pot of milk, open it up and...

Yes.  Again.  Poured the milk straight into the bin.

Why?!?

A Story In Pictures. And Words. And Auto-Awesome.

We had a lot of milk in our fridge.

My partners mum had gone away for a few days, and being helpful, we raided her refrigeration unit to use up anything that was going to go off while she was away.  One of the items was a litre of milk.

Because the milk shelves in our fridge were full of milk, we laid the additional litre down in our fridge, but unfortunately it leaked - not a great deal, but enough that we couldn't keep it laid down.

So I, the (slightly) lactose intolerant person, had the great idea of making a chocolate milkshake (don't fear readers - this didn't have any awkward after effects).

We didn't have any chocolate milkshake powder, so I used hot chocolate powder.

A lot of it.

So much, that the milkshake was very chocolatey indeed.

So chocolatey, that when I drank half of it, I poured another half pint of milk in, stirred it up, and it was still very chocolatey.

The stained chocolate milkshake receptacle.

My attempt to colour in the grey bits of my beard with milkshake failed.  But at least I managed to make an attractive "stain" fashion pattern on my white t-shirt.

At least I'm not the only one who spills stuff on himself in our house.  Yes - that is a chair sat on a wooden box underneath the TV.

While I'm blogging I wanted to write about Google's "Auto-Awesome" feature.  This is ace.  Basically, when photos are uploaded into Google+, Google looks at the photos, and if you've taken the right ones, makes them better.  If you take multiple photos, it combines them to make the best one.  If you've got a few close together, it'll animate them.  And it'll maybe make collages of similar photos.  Apparently it'll even create panoramic shots but I've not tried that yet.

It totally blew my mind, because on my new phone (Samsung Galaxy SIII) it automatically backups photos onto my Google+ account, which I was vaguely aware that it did, but then when I actually went into the account, it had made the below picture for me:

Auto-awesome in action!

It's pretty neat.

I love you milk

Myself, my other half and my son went round to the mother-in-laws for a coffee this afternoon.

Whilst there, while I was making drinks in the kitchen, my other half calls me through to the living room and tells me, "I taught our son to say I love you!", to which I came back with the theoretically funny, "He already does say that, just not to you!"
 Get it?  I made the joke that my son loved me more.
 Okay, it was the best joke I could think of at the time.
 She continues, "No, he does, look!".  She turned to our little one.
 "I love you." she told him.  He turned from his television programme, smiled, and said "I love you." to his mother, before turning back.
 Obviously I needed to prove that I am also worthy of my sons affection, so I knelt down at the other side of him, and said "I love you."
 He glances at me and the bottle of semi-skimmed in my hand, and tells me "Want milk."
 And then goes back to watching Squiglet.

 Kids eh?

 Supermarkets are cunning, aren't they?  I only realised today one of their evil plans.

 Bags for life.

 The idea makes sense, of course.  If you pay a few pence, you get a better quality, stronger bag, that you can re-use.  It's better for the environment than continually getting new bags and throwing the old ones away.

 And they tempt you to get them by promising that if you return the bag when it's worn out, you get a new one, free of charge.

 Of course the reality is that they know that they are dealing with British people here.

 See this bag?

 My gran has been using this to store her recycling in, and empties it when full into her recycling bin.

 Would you really want to go into Waitrose with a bag with a massive hole in, that the inside of which is stained from the contents of not quite empty bottles leaking out, and one of the handles is a bit sticky, give the cashier it and request a replacement?

 Of course not.  So you go and buy another one.

 Sneaky sneaky supermarkets.

Ey up!

Ey up!

Welcome to my blog.  I've had one of these chappies in the past, but it kind of died due to neglect a while back.

I'm Thog (or Thoggy if you want a cutesie name to call me by), I work at a council, and I have a partner and a kid which are both epic. (just to round that off my job is excellent too)

Here's a pic of my WoW character and my many companions!

Basically I like to game and read, and write, but the writing bit I do far too little of. As 99% of writers in the world do, I imagine of the day that a publisher will come round to my house and say "You're so great! Here's ten million pounds! Please relax and enjoy your life because you're brilliant!"

But apparently not too many publishers actually do that, something to do with reducing their carbon footprint by staying in the office more.

So basically I'm going to use this blog as a good practice for me to get into writing more and more, and hey if it entertains some people for a minute or so then all to the good.  I recently got into the Joel Runyon's website - basically if you need any inspiration for getting on with your life go check it out at http://joelrunyon.com/

I have colitis - meh, you're not going to need to know about that and you're probably not interested unless you have it.  And fortunately it isn't that bad (lot better than it used to be, if you suffer with this you have my sympathies).  All I would say if you do have it is take your medicines, use your doctors, and look at your diet.  This week I basically fasted for 2 days (well kept to 500-600 calories) which was due to some documentary that I refuse to watch but apparently is really good, and actually it made a fantastic difference to me, so I'm seriously looking at reducing my food down to what I actually need, bearing in mind that I'm overweight, am an office worker and do very little exercise so my calorie intake is generally way over what I need.  Obviously anyone reading this and thinking about changing your diet - go get some professional advice, doctor or dietician.  If you want a nutritionist speak to me, I'd be an ace nutritionist. (apologies to steal from the master that is Dara O'Briain, but basically anyone can call themselves a nutritionist)

What do you call condensed milk? Mlk!

I tried to have some evaporated milk with some fruit for supper but it floated out the window.

There's a couple of extremely bad jokes I thought of this morning.  I harbour some ideas of trying to be a stand-up comedian but I suspect I simply don't think quickly enough, especially to handle heckles. Perhaps a comedy writer like David Mitchell (must go check out his latest Youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/user/davidmitchellsoapbox?feature=watch)

For those on a budget and that like a beer can I suggest Lidl - they've currently got (at least in my local one) Mann's Brown Ale, a decent and inexpensive basic brown ale for only £1.19.  The sneaky thing also is that it's only 2.8%, which for a lightweight such as myself is ideal!  So far I've had two various beers tonight (one of these and a "Lucky" beer which my mother suggests smells of fish) and I'm somewhat relaxed so that gives you an idea of how little alcohol it takes for me to go from sober to unsober.

I saw the trailer for Mists of Pandaria today, the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, and it looks ace.  It definitely made me want to go and preorder the expansion.  I used to be a big WoW gamer but I lost enthusiasm a while back and despite going back once or twice for short periods I've mainly moved on from the game.  That said, I'm sure I'll be getting the expansion and levelling up to level 90 along with everyone else!

Okay, I've kicked this thing off so I'm feeling pretty good. Time to go conquer the galaxy in Birth of the Federation!

Thog