A cloud of dead foot...

I went to the chiropodists yesterday!

I tend to have a problem in the cold weather with my skin becoming dry and cracking.  My hands aren't too bad because I'll keep hand cream on my desk and I can keep applying it, but it can be considered odd to remove your shoes and socks and do the same to your feet.

And what tend to happen as that I get bits of sock stuck in the cracks in my feet, which is extremely painful.

So, I went in to a chiropodists (The Chiropody Shop on Chanterlands Avenue in Hull should anyone be interested) for a treatment.

It's really weird.

First, you get to soak your feet, to soften up the dead skin. Which is fine.

Then, feet knives (they probably have a proper clinical name but I don't know what that is) are taken and bits of foot skin chopped off.

After that, a miniature electric sander is applied to your feet, sanding away more dead skin.

Your nails get cut and sanded, and then cream is applied to your feet.

It's really cool and nice (quite ticklish) but the scary thing if you haven't been before is the amount of dead skin that is taken off your feet.  The poor person who did my feet was having to brush off dead skin dust off themselves at the end. (Gross I know!)

So, after all that I have to do better at remembering to use heel balm on my feet regularly, and try to find my foot cheese grater thing to keep on top of the dead skin.

Good fun though!

Yahoo Answers!

I don't know if you're aware of this, but something that Yahoo runs is a site called Yahoo Answers.  Basically you can ask any question you want, and the community can answer the question.  I quite enjoy going on and spending an hour or two answering questions on the site.

Now what you can do, when you answer a question, is flag up the sources that you used for your answer.  I've started putting my blog site (thoggy.blogspot.com) in as standard for every answer I make, in an attempt to drive traffic to my site, which works slightly.

But, there isn't any source information on here.

So to resolve this, I decided to summarise here my advice that was selected in the past as being "Best Answers" - this doesn't mean that I'm right, but that in their opinion my advice was better than the other advice offered.

I find it surprising how often I get "Best Answer" for my responses to relationship questions.  As a geeky guy who has many weaknesses I don't think I'm that good at these, but I do still get a fair few Best Answers for my relationship advice.

So here we go!

If your partner is complaining about you being overly clingy (texting/phoning too much) then don't text or phone, leave it for them to contact you.  That will give you a guide as to how often they think you should contact them.  But unless you really are contacting them way too often (and I would say every day isn't too often) then you may want to reconsider your relationship.

There isn't a 100% guaranteed way to find all email addresses used by someone.  Don't bother paying for a service which claims that they can do this.

If you can't connect by ethernet to a router, but another computer is using it fine, check the router settings, security is probably an issue.

If someone at work totally overreacted at a mild joke, and you've apologised but they are continuing to ignore you, just be civil and professional to them.  Let them get over the joke in their own time.

To promote your blog, use everything you can. Facebook, Twitter, comment on other blogs, guest blog, have guest bloggers on your blog, make sure it's submitted to Yahoo, Google, Bing, Technorati, and anywhere else you can find.  Make your descriptions interesting and use tags and locations in your posts.

When responding to rudeness, try to ask yourself "will anything positive come out of my response?" before you respond.  This is generally useful when making any sort of communication.

If you want to ask somebody out, do it.  Life's too short.

Keep your head up and keep going whatever it is you're doing.  If you think you need to go to therapy then go.

Live your life the way you want.  Don't feel that you're "behind" other people if you haven't got the same qualifications or job or lifestyle.

If your kid is ill get medical advice and follow it.

Don't stay with someone if you don't love them.

Aviva do free car insurance for a few days for car dealerships. (At http://www.newdriveaway.co.uk/)

Wifi on a mobile phone should be free to use.

If you want to start exercising regularly, then build up your exercises bit-by-bit.

It is okay to exercise in an evening.

A Vauxhall Corsa is probably a good choice for a first car.

If you can't get work and need experience, consider volunteering.

Don't be afraid of being you.

It's the journey, not the destination.

If you want a place with lots to do both during the day and on an evening in Majorca, consider Magaluf or Palma Nova.

If you're going home during a night out make sure you tell your friends so that they aren't worried about you.

If you need to design a data collection sheet to gather the number of men, women, boys and girls using a sports hall I suggest making a table with a header of "Sports Hall Usage", and columns for "Men", "Women", "Boys", and "Girls", possibly with a totals box at the bottom of each column.


That's it - that's the result of about a year, on and off, answering questions on Yahoo Answers!  Hope you enjoyed and now when I link my blog as a source of guidance I won't be lying anymore!

A few thoughts...

A few thoughts for today...


Why is the word "long" shorter than the word "short"?

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Quick-minded and slow-minded individuals have an equal ability to put their foots in it. But only the quick-minded can sometimes get themselves out of it.

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Occasionally carry out an act of random kindness. No one knows what is going on and the chaos that results is much more fun than an ordinary act of evil.

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One of the most satisfying acts in life is to repair that which does not work. But shooting a computer in perfect order is entertaining too.

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Life is full of obstacles. If you wish you can overcome them. But it's a lot easier to avoid them.

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Technology can do anything. Except what you want it to.

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Don't ever worry about making fun of someones' accent. Somewhere else in the world someone is making fun of yours.

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Never miss a chance for chaos, even in death. Demand at your funeral all mourners do a conga clutching a small bag full of mushy peas.

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Never insult your hairdresser unless you want a pyramid-shaped head.

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Never try to use tools or equipment when drunk, even for food purposes. You will burn your house down and have to go to the takeaway anyhow.

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Every button a piece of technology has reduces the chance of it working by 50%.

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Life is short enough. Why spend it choosing curtains?

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Never waste the hours 9-11 on a Saturday morning. Use them to choose a good pub for the next twelve hours.

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Computer problems do not need a physical source. They arise from energies that we do not understand.

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Petrol is flammable. Paper is inflammable. Yet they both burn. Discuss.

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Never talk to an Australian about spiders. They will win.

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Shooting fish in a barrel is harder than it sounds.

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Discretion may be the better part of valour, but only if you can outrun your enemy.

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Ask a resident of Lincolnshire about their home, they will say Lincolnshire is flat. So where did all the hills in the middle come from?

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Take pride in the fact that whoever you meet, wherever in the world you are, you will own some music that they hate.

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Dust settles on things. People wipe the dust into a duster, then shake the duster. After that the dust settles on things. Therefore never dust and things will never get dusty.

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You may own a scruffy mongrel hound or a pedigree poodle. Both will pee on you.

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When going to the betting shop, consider: How many betting shop owners drive a Robin Reliant?

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When a medium declares that they "feel the presence of spirits" the bear in mind the possibility that the spirits are vodka-based.

Downton Abbey is so addictive (kinda like Gangnam Style)

Why is Downton Abbey so addictive?  I've watched the first episode (recorded so I can fast forward through the adverts - I don't mind the odd advert but there does seem to be quite a lot in a typical Downton Abbey episode) and it took about 30 minutes for me to go from "Not really bothered about this" to "Oh my god is she going to get married? Oh no, Tom's drunk - ah he's been drugged. Matthew, good lad!" and going from scene to scene desperately hoping that this wasn't the last one.

Now, two episodes in, I can't wait for my next fix of period drama / soap goodness tonight!  Very strange.

I watched the Guild Season six launch show last night, featuring Felicia Day, Kim Evey and the director of season six, Christopher Preksta.  The show was very good (although they had one or two technical issues, primarily with showing the community synopsis videos - they still got around them though) and really psyched me up for Tuesday and the release of the first episode of Season Six, I can't wait! Despite the fact that my video didn't get featured (not surprisingly!) I really enjoyed it and the "winner" (not a winner because they're not allowed to have competitions in the US?) produced this fantastic 8-bit synopsis video.

In other news, Gangnam Style by Psy looks as though it's going to be the new Number 1 on the UK charts today.  Views of this hit music video by the South Korean rapper have shot through the roof - when I first saw it, there was 51 million views (a decent amount by anyones estimation).  It is now standing at over 325 million views, which is more than the entire population of the USA, and with something like 38 million of those views being in the last 4 days it is extremely popular right now.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here.

And when you've seen that, go watch the many parody videos out there.

Like this one - the Oregon Duck and his friends put in way too much effort making an excellent and extremely funny video. Well done guys!

Or the baby one if you're a parent :)  Their channel is actually pretty cool so it's worth checking out too.

Dawn Park Patrol Returns!

My dad returns once again with an update to the adventures in the Humber Bridge Country Park!

Before I hand over to him though, there's a Geek and Sundry Google+ hangout taking place tonight to celebrate the launch of season 6 of The Guild.  It's to take place at 3pm Pacific time, which is something like 8 hours behind GMT.  But I'm not sure how summer time affects this.  I've seen a couple of people say the hangout is taking place at 10pm UK time so I'm going to be on for that.  I'm looking forward to seeing who won the community video contest (I know it wasn't me! My effort can be seen here) and basically getting pumped up for the Season 6 launch on Tuesday!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch The Guild.

Over to you dad!

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It was a pleasant autumn morning, the sun brought a welcome cheer to cloudy skies, foul weather was alleged to be forthcoming but for now the morning looked good to the eye.

The Dog’s were in attendance as usual, big balls of fluffy loveliness on the outside, and hidden not too deeply within, DOG’S!

Charming beautiful lovely gorgeous cuddly creatures, and also DOG’S!

You could almost forget that they are DOG’S such is their fluffy gorgeous etc-ness – aren’t they Beautiful!?

Indeed they are, and also, they are DOG’S!

One does one’s best to keep long sensitive noses away from erm, things ‘too indelicate’

for the fair readers eye to consider, you know what I mean, animal droppings, rotting animal corpses etc, things which appear all too attractive to a long sensitive nose and almost demand to be sniffed (or worse!)

Yes, we are talking DOG’S here.

DOG’S which despite being fed a luxurious diet and being over weight, nevertheless appear to be starving and which simply MUST devour all manner of impossibly revolting material at any opportunity.

DOG’S apparently (and yes, I’ve looked this up on the internet – it’s true!) will sometimes eat erm ‘droppings’, both other animals waste material and also other dog’s um similar erm, quite, no, don’t think about it.

Despite many theories, No one knows why they do this.

I discourage them intently, I really do, but I can’t be with them 24-7 as they are free to come and go through the dog flap. And to watch their every move whilst out walking you would need eyes in the back of your head.

Be all that as it may, I believe the culprit this time was one or both of two well rotted rabbit corpses which we encounter every day whilst walking.

We have a constant battle. The DOG’S ‘Need’ to stick their noses into these remains, and possibly devour them and I equally need to stop them doing so.

I think that Maeve got to one of the ‘remains’; it was only for seconds but that may have been enough.

Days later Maeve did not want to eat.

Her guts were bubbling and griping. She was not happy.

Silly damn dog.

What you don’t want with a big fluffy gorgeous hairy DOG, is for that DOG to have the screaming shits!

No better love does a man have for his dog, that he trims her (censored description of an unclean posterior) and gives her a bath.

Maeve is now considerably less hairy about the nether regions, and she smells much better too.

For some reason the crazy bird seed droppers were thin on the ground this week and park benches were free from offending material. Fear not, the patrol goes on (weather permitting)

I am thankful for small mercies.

I was so wrong - and thank you!

Firstly, as of today my blog passed the 1000 views mark. Thank you to everyone who's viewed my blog, especially those who have visited it and came back for more!

Now, I was so wrong when I said I wasn't excited about Pandaria.  I actually started playing it last night, and it is so much fun!  I've only really just got into it, but I've hanging out in Honeydew Village, and I am seriously loving the pet battles! Win!

A week or so back I decided to get a new, proper broadband cable to replace the thin, almost invisible telephone extension that we connect our router to upstairs.

I ran a speed test of the old cable (at www.speedtest.net), and found that I got download speed of 5.7 Mbps per second.  Not bad.

Then, I disconnected the old cable, plugged in the newer, better, and shorter (length is important when it comes to cabling, and the shorter the better) RJ11 high speed broadband cable, and tested again.

8.2 Mbps!

Yes, that's right.  A whole 2.3 Mbps faster.  Something like a 44% speed increase.

Anyhow, I was happy.  But, I would have to take up laminate flooring, and glue the new cable carefully along sides of bannisters and the like, so I decided to plug the old cable back in for the time being.

I got 8.2 Mbps again.

So, we're sticking with the old cable.  If anyone would like a 10m RJ11 high speed broadband cable for going from your microfilter to your router, do drop me a line and I'll get it out to you.  Obviously some love for the blog in return would be cool!

If you really want to know, here's the stats in full:

	15m basic cable, 060912 @ 0753	10m RJ11 high speed broadband cable, 060912 @ 0757	15m basic cable, 060912 @ 0801
DOWNSTREAM
DATA RATE (KBPS)	5717	8191	8191
NOISE MARGIN	15	7	7
OUTPUT POWER (dBm)	123	122	123
ATTENUATION (Db)	45	45	45
UPSTREAM
DATA RATE (KBPS)	1021	1021	1021
NOISE MARGIN	11	11	10
OUTPUT POWER (dBm)	189	168	167
ATTENUATION (Db)	23	23	23
Speed test from www.speedtest.net
ping	22ms	26ms	23ms
Download speed	5.06Mbps	7.22Mbps	7.12Mbps
Upload speed	0.84 Mbps	0.82 Mbps	0.83 Mbps

Going for a walk!

And here's another guest blog from my dad, Graham Raven.  I'll just briefly ask that if you haven't already viewed & liked my Guild synopsis video on Youtube that I'd be really grateful if you do :) Thanks!

The favourite one will be played on the Geek & Sundry channel on the 29th of September, I can't imagine that mine is going to be best because there's some seriously decent ones been submitted (and mine is a bit... variable shall we say) but I'd like to at least have a decent number of views and likes.

Over to you dad!

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It was a typical grey autumn Sunday morning. ‘Mellow’ seemed to describe it well enough, neither hot nor cold, with just a suggestion of breeze, just mellow. It was too early for frantic human activity and even the eternal traffic noise from the nearby dual carriageway seemed muted. Birds sang, a profusion of berries shone in the sunlight, tree tops moved gently, the air was good, fresh and clean without threatening to scour your lungs with needles of ice. All seemed well.

I mused how wildlife increasingly wakes with the first smear of the days light as the Sun creeps over the horizon, rat and toad, stoat and minnow arise from sleeps embrace, but humankind is sluggish and was therefore quiet.

We arrived at the Great Humber Park soon after breakfast. It is easy to let oneself become mazed with nature’s wonders. There are several million species of trees out there, all indistinguishable from one another. They are full of Penguins or so I’m told – or possibly or Magpies. I remember years ago I used to wander the pathways collecting examples of wild flowers with which the park is so abundantly blessed. I once collected a daisy, and fifty-nine things that weren’t. Of course, such activity is strictly illegal these days and to be abhorred.

The parks information posters tell us that Horseshoe Vetch, Charlock, Sea Urchin, Hemlock, Water-Dropwort, Mango, Cat's Ear, Wall Lettuce, Pineapple, Loon, Yam, Nettle-Leaved Selfheal, Cactus, Twayblade, Bougainvillaea, Saxifrage, Breadfruit, and Tundra are all to be found within the parks confines. One day soon I really must search for these wonders in earnest.

But I digress. Regardless of natures evident beauty everywhere I looked, such wonders were quickly passed over, for my colleague and I were on patrol today, and in the guise of ordinary dog walkers.

The anti-RBSD squad began patrol a little after 8am. The park is disarmingly quiet at this time of day but this was the very time when miscreants seek to do their foul deeds.

Location 1A was reached quickly and nothing was found to be amiss.

I mentally ticked off the first stop of my check list. So far, so good I thought, but remain vigilant, I felt in my bones that out there somewhere would be our ‘prey’.

Some distance further we came to the lake (ok pond). The only sign of life, apart from the odd owl paddling in the reeds, was a solitary fisherman.

We exchanged greetings and I enquired in an equable manner whether or not the larch were biting, and he turned and stared at me for a long time.

There is much inbreeding in these parts, and I put it down to that.

The dogs were excited, a walk in the park is a big treat for them as rarely do they have so much freedom, so much of ‘everywhere’ to explore. As we proceeded we encountered other dog walkers who came and went, greeted, fussed dogs and continued their way. It was beginning to look as if the park was clean today and we were making our way back to the car when we spotted them! 

Oh so innocent! An elderly couple walking quietly through the park, she with a sturdy carrier bag half full of bird seed.

For goodness sake, there must be 5kg of the stuff in there, that’s almost enough to feed a Roc*

Modern protocol forbade the urge to tie them to the nearest tree and douse them with cold water as they richly deserved, so we hurried in the direction they had come from to uncover their misdeeds. And yes indeed, there was a trail of park benches all but smothered in bird seed, squabbling birds and bird droppings.

Some of the birds too full to fly, scuttled out of the way of curious dogs.

We hurriedly swept the illicit mounds of seed onto the ground thereby making the benches useable once more for park visitors.

I bid my companion to remind me to boil my left hand in Domestos for 24 hours when we got back to base, you can’t be too careful with potential bird disease you know.

The park administrators provide ample bird tables and feeding areas throughout the park to satisfy bird feeding fanatics. There is simply no need to cover every park bench in bird seed.

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. Rest assured dear readers, the anti RBSD** squad will maintain its vigilance and strive to keep park benches free from offensive bird seed.

*Legendary two-headed bird known for carrying off humans and occasional farm animals to feed to it’s young on mountain tops. Sodding big!

** Rogue Bird Seed Droppers.

Two hours to Mists of Pandaria!

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In just under two hours, the launch event for the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is going to kick off.  And in about three and a half hours, the new expansion will be officially open.

I should be really excited, but I'm not - I guess my WoW playing is at a low ebb at the moment.

Not that the expansion won't be cool and I'm sure I'll get it, but I'm feeling a little under the weather at the moment - my body doesn't particularly agree with anything vaguely approaching cold weather, currently I've been off colour today plus my hands and feet are aching like hell due to skin happily cracking apart.  I've been using some skin cream but most of it seems to have vanished (probably put somewhere safe during the summer!) so I'll have to go buy some more.

I've just installed Google Drive to backup some of my key documents.  You get 5Gb free online storage, and one of the things that is always forgotten about is how fallible hard drives are.  Hard drives are a technology dating back decades, with moving parts, a need for an absolutely clean environment, and are liable to failure due to temperature extremes, sudden movement, or simply worn out - and when we say worn out, opinions vary but potentially even a year old hard drive could be on its way out (although we all hope it'll last many more years than that!).  At work the system makes multiple backups of files on the network so we never really worry about losing a file, but at home I have (as I'm sure everyone has) memories dating back years.

So, I'm making backups of my key documents, some of my writing, some pictures that I really don't want to lose.  Apart from Google Drive, Google+ also provides storage for pictures so the pictures are going up there.  I would recommend to anyone that you do look at backing up those files that really matter to you - from time to time I've been involved in recovering files from damaged hard drives and it's always family photos that people haven't got copies of that they would really miss.  In the "olden days" all the photos were kept in nice chunky photo albums but with the digital age it's amazing how many things you might only keep on your mobile phone or home computer.

If you missed my last post, I've now got my entry for the Guild Community Video Contest up here.  I'd really appreciate some views, likes of the video, even subscribes to my YouTube channel if possible if you have a YouTube or Google account.

So - time to get ready to become a panda!

It's up! My video is up!!!

Hello!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I was producing a synopsis video of seasons one to five of The Guild (of which season six is coming out on the 2nd of October) - I've just done it! It look my loads of takes, and I had to scrap the "characters on sticks" idea I had originally as it was taking up too much time - the time limit for the video was 90 seconds which sounds loads but really isn't!  Plus you wouldn't believe the number of times I said a word wrong or got mixed up, luckily my other half was listening and was able to point out errors so I could improve.

Anyway, it's now on YouTube!  Do feel free to watch, video below:

I will be in the very near future uploading one of my first attempts which is FAR too long (like 8 or 9 minutes) but if you really want to watch it it will be here later tonight, probably in about an hour or so.

I would appreciate views, likes, and perhaps even subscriptions to my YouTube channel if it's possible for you to do so - it might give my video a boost, the best one will end up on The Guild Season Six DVD.

Cheers!