This series is the best thing on YouTube, it’s all worth a watch: [LINK]. Aside from this one, my personal favorites are Sloths, Baby Echidnas, Armadillos and Marsupials.
I agree. How could you leave out the Bats and the Aye-Aye, with it’s incredibly long boner er, bone? ;D I have an especial fondness for the Tarsier, because they are beyond cute, and ZeFrank’s imitation of Morgan Freeman.
Kreatorsays
In my defense, it had been a while since I last re-watched the videos… Learning about the Tarsier’s camouflage really changed my life, though. Every trip to a toy store has been an expedition ever since!
chigau (違う)says
I need a time machine. I need to discuss with my 1970s Alberta Canada University Proffes pronouncing this
tar seer
Shit, dudes, I’ve been wrong for 40+ years and it’s all yours faults.
fffffkkkkk
steveraleighsays
Absolutely gorgeous critter.
I love the commentary. I finally know how to pronounce Tarsiay.
Thank you.
rqsays
#TeamTarSeer
jazzletsays
Tar-si-ay here, damn but they’re cute however you pronounce their name.
Oh gods, a 500 year old cottage (a genuine hovel) is up for sale. Sometimes I wish I was rich.
johnson catmansays
I can’t seem to find the mentioned children’s book “Lizard has a shitty day”, but I think it would be a good one. All references go right back to this video. (/s)
.
Definitely a LOL moment for me. I will have to check out the others in the series.
In German it’s a Koboldmaki, a goblin maki. Seriously, English animal names suck, German ones are much better.
jazzlet
Thanks
+++
Quick ‘n’ dirty summer dinner:
1 pack of store bought pizza dough for a square pizza
200g cherry tomatoes
200g feat or similar cheese, make sure it’s fat
Cut pizza dough into 4 squares
cut tomatoes and cheese, mix, season
Add two spoons to each pizza square, close the dough, brush with olive oil, bake for 20 minutes
In Czech its name is “nártoun”. Vocabulary tells me that “nárt” means “instep”, i.e. the part of a foot that consists of tarsal bones. The “-oun” makes it a name for an animal that has prominent insteps. So it seems Czech name is idetnical in its origin to the English one.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Liked the video.
Today I had one of “those” calls. Caller ID comes up “unknown”. Typical telemarketer/scammer noises in the background. The caller claims they ARE calling from Medicare. Like the IRS, Medicare mails any changes. Claiming to from medicare? So I told the caller I didn’t believe them. Protestations they were from my primary insurer. And I said I don’t believe you, followed by a “good-bye” and hang up. Later research showed the phone number didn’t exist, and further googling showed likely fraud.
Be careful out there.
Jazzlet, I already looked. I am green with envy. It’s an amazing cottage. And I have a thing for thatch roofs.
jazzletsays
We are going on holiday for our anniversary next year in a house with heather thatch, very unusual.
rqsays
There is no word for tarsier in Latvian. I guess it’s not a native species. ;)
I love the hovel! I hope it finds new owners that will take care of it for that moment in time when you do have millions to spare.
Buckinghamshire is within easy commuting distance of London so thehouose prices are ludicrous
chigau (違う)says
I washed ALL the dishcloths and dishtowels.
In the REALLYREALLYREALLYCLEANTHIS cycle.
I also added *fabric softener*.
.
They are outside on the line because they stink. STINK.
Does anyone actually *like* that smell? april fresh
rqsays
I don’t think I’ve ever liked the smell of ‘April fresh’. April is almost never fresh. Unless you like the smell of freshly thawed shit.
Two ml of eucalyptus oil in the wash makes it smell nice.
rqsays
Eucalyptus oil is surprisingly difficult to find here. They only sell it in pharmacies, in tiny little bottles. Also expensive. :(
But I resolve to try that out, next time I get my hands on some -- do you put it in the powder compartment, the softener compartment, or directly in with the wash? (I currently use 9% white vinegar for freshness, added in the softener compartment. And a lightly-scented ‘sensitive’ wash powder.)
Ahhh, the wonderful people at Charlie Hebdo are at it again. I’m wondering if those who back then called me a muslim terrorism supporter for criticising them have by now either gone totally the way of the Right or are feeling some sense of shame.
I tip the oil into the stream of water as the machine fills up the first time. never had a machine with a softener compartment so can’t comment on that. Chez Lofty is blessed with a 20,000 gallon concrete rainwater tank that has never run dry in 22 years, softener doesn’t feature at our house.
.
Ebay would be my go-to site for purchase of larger quantities of eucalyptus oil.
Ice Swimmersays
I only use unscented detergent and fabric softener. I think I could use white vinegar like I did when I used Sapindus shells for laundry.
jazzletsays
I use an own brand that isn’t too scented for most things, then drying them outside usually gets rid of what there is. If I want to smell I’ll use a perfume thank you and I don’t like the dogs smelling scented after I’ve washed their beds, it seems wrong for rufty tufty German Shepherds. For delicates and woollens I use what is now called ‘liquid soap’, which has just changed it’s name from ‘liquid soap flakes’ which drove me nuts. I couldn’t find actual soap flakes anywhere except on line, this stuff is made from soap flakes, but to call it ‘liquid soap flakes’ … just no. I use a little fabric softener on woolies, but our water is pretty soft so I don’t bother for anything else. Means I don’t have to separate out towels and can just have different colour washes too.
Unscented for the win! Like Jazzlet, if I want to smell, I’ll use something specifically for that. Plain ol’ clean in laundry is good enough. Don’t use softener.
I’ll own up to buying scented stuff, going by the nose.
Yep, I’m not experimenting or anything. Laundry used to get sorted into light colours, dark colour, towels and undies (higher temperature). I think that’s still what Mr. does.
My most favourite way to shock people is to say “dunno, my husband does the laundry”
chigau (違う)says
Our water is pretty hard so the all-cotton stuff can get a bit stiff.
I don’t use fabric softener on clothing, though. Nor sheets. Nor bathing towels.
Nor anything, really, except just now on the kitchen cloths.
I wonder why I even bought it?
StevoRsays
Vale :
WARNING : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following story contains images and names of people who have died.
So a fucken fly-swat turned into a BBQ lighter (great thinking and engineering there incidentally) gets you detained for 8 days and accused of guess what now? :
I think I’m going to have to shut down my bird feeders. Starlings have overtaken my yard. They chase all the other birds away, eat voraciously and messily and then patrol my fence with their beaks open, squawking and pecking at anything that comes near. There are so many of them and they fight so much, even with each other. Ugh!
StevoRsays
@ ^ voyager : That really sucks.
Might be worth looking at different plant species that other birds enjoy and can use as away of attracting the species you want. (Also works with butterflies & insects too.) Assuming you’re not already doing so but still.
Trying todo this inmy garden a swellas plantinglocal native flora species.
The birds seem to most love my non-native Tecoma and Cootamundra wattle though. had a rainbow lorikeet in the former the other day as well as getting spinebill honey-eaters in it quite often as well. Had a red wattlebird nesting in my Cootamundra (Acaccia baileyana) despite it being a weed so mixed feelings about removing it.
rqsays
voyager
I suppose a good scolding and reducing TV privileges hasn’t worked?
If I do not post today and tomorrow, then I have no internet. Yesterday we had a flash and bang and the line is damaged somewhere along the way. The ISP has preliminarily taken 30 hours to resolve the issue.
Voyager
Bad, bad, starlings. I don’t feed during summer. They’re supposed to eat the damn insects in summer as a payback.
+++
Speaking of animals. Slugs, ticks, mosquitoes. Why are they?
rqsays
Why are they?
See previous text re: starlings. :)
I have a nice flock of wagtails and fieldfares cleaning up the yard right now. They could manage to do better with the mosquitos, though. I’m going to lodge a complaint.
jazzletsays
Slugs, ticks, mosquitoes. Why are they?
No idea, but my worst non-sweary insult about what someone has said is ‘slick of slug slime’ as what the hell use is it? Whereas ‘bullshit’ is useful if rotted down. Reflects my opinion of slugs.
Ticks are of course arachnids, and while it embarrasses me my instinctive reaction to encountering arachnids unexpectedly is to scream. I can enjoy pictures of spiders, I’m fine if they stay in a web, or round the edges of the ceiling, I don’t like them directly overhead and I hate them crawling on me. I still shiver when I think of the time I went to brush away what I thought was a hair tickling my neck only to find it was a wolf spider *shudder*. But ticks? Ticks are just ugly blood sucking disease spreading monsters.
voyagersays
We have plenty of ticks this year. Jack takes medicine to prevent Lyme disease, but I don’t take anything. I wonder if there is a human form of protection? After all, I go to all the same places as Jack.
jazzletsays
voyager sadly there isn’t, there used to be a Lyme vaccine, but for essentially political reasons it got taken off the market. There are two new ones in the works, so if the trials go well there should be at least one vaccine available in a few years.
jazzletsays
I had to stop half way through writing that, as Jake was down the bottom of the garden barking, I wouldn’t leave him barking at any time, but it’s 11.45pm here. Mr Jazz had left the back door open when he went to bed without telling me, so I’d no idea Jake was even out there.
Ice Swimmersays
On Friday I swam more than 1 km altogether in the sea, between rounds of sauna.
I also saw that there’s at least one thing oystercatchers can do that at least I can’t. Have any of you tried whistling while dangling a worm between your lips? Oystercatchers were flying and whistling while carrying something that looked like a worm.
Ice Swimmersays
Let me make it clear that I’m not in favour of trying it with live worms.
chigau (違う)says
I just started reading Michio Kaku’s The Future of Humanity.
I’m glad I’m lying down because the eye-roll on page 6 would have knocked me out of my chair.
chigau (違う)says
Now, the SO has started reading.
He is having problems with the blurbs on the dust jacket.
I absolutely admire my BFF.
We akk like crafting and regularly try new things, yet to call her clumsy is to call the ocean moist. But still she’ll try, she’ll make something that I’d probably burn and take it home and be happy. I wished we could all aprooach things like her.
Ice Swimmersays
Giliell @ 53
She’s got the right attitude.
—
I’ve done some baking. This time the mixed-grain bread contains wheat (white bread flour), rye (made of smoke-dried rye) and oatmeal. Also, once again, I used pureed dates and crushed rye malt and spiced the bread with caraway and fennel (as I’m not expecting Giliell to drop by), but this time I crushed the spices a bit in the mortar and mixed them with canola oil and melted butter and let sit for a while before adding to the dough.
The smoke-dried rye is a Finnish specialty. Before 20th century, the normal way of drying the grain before threshing (rye and barley, mostly) was in a building called riihi, in which the harvest was dried in low heat (not as hot as sauna) with smoke from a stone stove with no chimney and then threshed. The smoked grain kept quite well (the smoke killed all bugs in it and probably some fungi and bacteria) and was tasty.
The bread I made has a smoky taste, not quite Lagavulin single malt whisky level, but having the bread with regular Tilsit-style cheese feels much like eating bread made of regular flour with Estonian smoked cheese.
The Latvian version, the rija, was often beset by mischievous devils and required regular guarding and exorcism (by way of tricking the devils away). Did the Finns have similar issues?
Ice Swimmersays
rq @ 56
There were, AFAIK, but I’m not really knowledgeable about them. It was an important place, liable to burn down, taking a lot of grain with it* and doing the heating/guarding of it at night must have been scary, as it’s dark, you’re tired and the bugs and whatnot are falling from the bundles of rye or barley and making noises while the fire is crackling. So, people doing the heating and guarding must have been somewhat stressed and scared, which of course can lead to seeing and hearing all kinds of stuff.
__
* = Riihi was usually built a bit away from other buildings, so with luck, the rest of the farmstead or village wouldn’t burn down.
Oggie.says
Hi.
Caine, I hope your fight progresses positively. Thank you for your voice.
[WARNING — SELF-CENTRISM AHEAD]
One year ago today, at about 11:50am EDT, I almost died. Literally, I almost died.
While preparing for a 4th grade curriculum-based programme, I managed, through a combination of innate stupidity combined with fiscal rectitude, to fall down a steep slope and off of a concrete retaining wall, falling about 15 feet into the edge of a small river. Unfortunately, the bottom of retaining wall, and well out into the river, was built up with riprap to prevent erosion.
I lucked out. I REALLY lucked out. I landed on my back, not my face or head (had I landed face down, or on my head, I would most likely have been knocked unconscious and would have drowned). I landed in the river, not on the rocks along the bank (the six to ten inches of water helped to cushion the impact). I landed with a large flattish rock under my left side (impact was dorso-lateral lumbar), not under my spine (had I landed flat on the rock on my spine, I would, most likely, have severed my spinal cord between the 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae). I did not rupture any internal organs. I did, however, break the lateral physes of L2, L3 and L4, created a massive haematoma over my entire left lateral dorsal lumbar region, broke four ribs in twelve places, lost my eyeglasses, did not lose my park ranger flat hat, ruptured two lumbar discs, and still lost the $150.00 sieve net and rope that I was trying to rescue.
I spent a day and a night in the hospital. I spent the next month either in bed or on a chair, using a walker, and so doped up on opioids, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories that I do not remember June or most of July.
I got back to work in September. And have been struggling since then. My office has accommodated me: knee chair to help my back and posture, understanding when I need to just walk to stretch things out, covering for me when the pain is overwhelming. There is no way I can go to forest fires (which is costing me between $6,000 and $18,000 a year in lost gross pay) Because of pain, I cannot concentrate for more than 1/2 hour to an hour, so my work quality and quantity is suffering. I am getting pain shots which are supposed to work for three months and only last 4-6 weeks. I get numbness down my right leg. I get flaming nerve pain down my left leg. I have a permanently almost-numb area in my lower back.
I don’t want to play anymore.
On the bright side, I have had very few nightmares about scouts or 9/11. On the down side, they have been replaced by nightmares of falling into rivers. Which is still better than the scoutmares.
On June 5, 2017, 11:50am EDT my life changed. Probably permanently.
Am I selfish that I am having a really hard time figuring out how to deal with this? I know that others (you, Caine, come to mind at the top) are dealing with life-threatening conditions (they knew my condition was not life threatening as soon as my blood pressure failed to drop), and I find myself so wrapped up in trying to figure out just how my life has changed, and how to deal with that change, and how it has affected my plans for retirement, for travel, seems selfish.
My son is getting married on July 1st. I have felt detached from the planning, the upcoming celebration, because the pain blocks concentration. My daughter is getting married in February. Same thing.
Again, I don’t want to play anymore. I want to be able to comfort and care for the people I care about rather than being self-centered (that’s a little strong, but it is in the right direction).
I just felt I needed to write this down on the one-year anniversary of my almost death-by-stupidity. I came close to a Darwin award on that day.
Thank you for the forum.
Ice Swimmersays
Oggie, careful higs, if you want them. You’re a human (IMHO, a good one) and you can’t push your boundaries, which the accident must have made quite narrow, at an arbitrarily great speed.
Also, once again, I used pureed dates and crushed rye malt and spiced the bread with caraway and fennel (as I’m not expecting Giliell to drop by
Well, my parents might come into passing distance within the next few weeks, but they don’t share my aversion.
I’ll have to tell them about the smoked rye and make them bring me some.
+++ Oggie
No, you’re not selfish. AFAIK, depression after near death episodes is common and You still have to deal with the constant pain on top of it. Careful higs.
+++
Some boys tried to be cool riding their hoverboards* in our street. #1 ran circles around them on her unicycle…
*Who invented that shit? Which idiot thought that we needed another way to make kids stay still even when they’re outdoors?
Oggie.says
Ice Swimmer @59:
. . . you can’t push your boundaries . . .
I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’ve been looking at it as restrictions, not boundaries. I like boundaries. That’s a more positive way to look at where I am. Thanks.
Giliell @60
Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it as depression. Usually when I am depressed, I tend to lash out, to misunderstand, get a little paranoid. If I am depressed, it is manifesting itself in a different way than it has in the past.
Ice Swimmersays
Giliell @ 60
The flour is called riihiruisjauho. The 1 kg bag smells of smoke quite clearly. Luomu means organic or Öko.
@Oggie, it is entirely understandable that you are having difficulty concentrating on things when you are in constant pain. Best wishes for the situation getting better, alas there is not much more I can do. Also, do not bash yourself over your “stupidity”. One bad decision/action does not a stupid person make, otherwise there would be only stupid people and even more stupid people.
_____________________
I will not be posting anything tomorrow. I wanted to print one picture today. One. It spun into two hours trying to make the printer work properly without ghosting. Unsuccesfully. I have ordered new drum in a hope it will help. If not, I have wasted 100,-€ for the drum and I will have to buy whole new printer for about 200,-€. If it helps, I have saved 100,-€.
So, what will it be? Only time will tell. I will let you know.
But I am too tired to select and resize pictures for tomorrow post. Yawn. G’ni’t.
chigau (違う)says
Today is the anniversary of D-Day.
voyagersays
Oggie I don’t think it’s “self-centred” because it isn’t a choice you’ve made. Pain demands your attention and it’s exhausting. And it makes everything in your life more difficult.
chigau (違う)says
Oggie
Wow. A year already.
I have nothing but *higs* and alot of hoping that things will get better, sooner.
chigau (違う)says
Looks like TNET is off the RECENT COMMENTS side-bar.
That’s a bit early, neh?
StevoRsays
@ Oggie. : FWIW, I think you are an excellent human being and wish you all the best. I don’t think it’s selfish at all. I am sorry that that happened to you and glad you survived and sorry to hear it’s changed your life so dramatically and inflicted so much undeserved, constant pain on you and hope you get better treatments and can recover at least a bit -- preferably a lot -- more.
***
The ABC & University of New South Wales Top 5 (Australian) scientists for 2018 award have been announced :
All five are women (for the first time) and awarded for research and science communication efforts ranging from working on an all-sky colour map that shows whether radio galaxy jets are old and fading or just firing up to making new nanotech from spinifex grass to the neuroscience of refugee trauma and how science can help using cross-cultural models. Apparently (in the audio here) in the shortlist there were 8 women and 2 men, FWIW.
Sent off the first batch of applications for a new job. Keep your fingers crossed, please.
jazzletsays
Oggie as someone with a chronic pain problem that has changed my life to something that I don’t really recognise as living you have my sympathy. I am rather further on than you and have some suggestions that may or may not help you, they are offered purely as ideas that you could think about, with no overtones of ‘this worked for me so of course it will work for you’. First nerves take a long time to regenerate, I found at least three years, so you may find that you will get back more feeling than you have at the moment. Next I don’t know who is in charge of helping you manage your pain, but if it isn’t a pain specialist get yourself referred to one, they are far better at helping you control your pain without being too fuzzy to do anything than any non-specialist. Then you need to learn to pace yourself to what you can do now, and forget about what you used to be able to do (easier said than done, I really struggle with this, but when I do get it right it definietely helps). Associated with that you need to try to learn to be kind to yourself -- you didn’t choose this, sure you could have made a different decision with a different outcome, but you didn’t choose to go after the dropped net knowing that you would hurt yourself badly, yes you probably knew there was a possibility you might hurt yourself, but you didn’t really think it would happen, any more than I thought sleeping with someone who turned out to be a lying cheating bastard with chlamydia would change my life to the extent that it has -- so turn your compassion on yourself as if you were turning it on a friend who had done the same; I’m not suggesting that you wallow in self-pity, but that you forgive yourself for the accident and for not being able to be the person you were any longer, tough, but helpful if you can start to at least try to do this; you can’t work out who you are now until you are able to do this at least a little. Think about getting some help with how you feel about all of this, the Pain Clinic I go to has psycologists attached and they have been very helpful, you do sound depressed, the lack of feeling about the weddings suggests it to me, the intellectually scariest depression is when you dont feel anything at all, it’s also the most dangerous in my experience, when you are most likely to have suicidal ideation, I very much hope you are not in that state. I could say masses more, but I’ll leave it at that!
TL;DR Oggie you have every justification for turning inwards at the moment, stop being so hard on yourself.
jazzletsays
Good luck Giliell!
StevoRsays
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found methane and organic materials on Mars -- although this may NOT necessarily mean life :
something only a few mammals and birds were previously known to grok.
rqsays
[long-distance Canadian complaint] So the Ontario provincial election results came in with a solid Conservative majority (read: Trump-lite, though I question the ‘lite’ part, just Canadian). And the first headline is all about how Rob Ford promises to close libraries as soon as possible. WHO DOES THAT? HOW DO YOU VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO DOES THAT??? For all that talk about jobs and jobs and jobs, people are awfully quick to forget about librarians and what libraries are. Anyway, Ontario is going to shit, next few years. Not that it directly applies to me. [/long-distance Canadian complaint]
That just sort of came on top of a few other issues, one of them being that the more time I spend with some of my siblings, the more I realize that they’re assholes, and I do think it is getting worse. I hate realizing that someone I looked up to very much for my whole life throughout university is an intolerant bigot. Like, why? You were so awesome.
jazzletsays
rq sorry about the result and sorry about your siblings. I have had a similar experience with one of mine and it hurt like hell until I decided I was better off not going out of my way to see him. We can be civil at family events and that is enough.
Well, my brother seems to have strenghtened his racism during the time I was sheding mine. We drifted apart, so to speak, so I can feel for you in that regard.
On brighter note, the drum change in my printer seems to have resolved the issue. There is still some smudging until the dregs come out, but there is no ghosting and the smudging gets less and less with each print, and not worse. So it seems I have saved myself 100 €. Yay.
Oh yes, I’ve seen lots of Trump boosting and gun fondling going on among my relatives. I’m genuinely worried that some of them are getting radicalized and may end up doing something terrible.
On a happier note, I have some news about The Last Fiction. According to Cartoon Brew, the movie will debut at the Annecy festival this month and will get an international release in the fall. I don’t know how I’ll hold out that long.
Ice Swimmersays
Giliell, I’m hoping you’ll get a good job within a reasonable distance.
chigau (違う)says
Today was Clean The Community Hall Day.
It is now very, very shiny.
Ice Swimmersays
I baked barley bread again. This time I used more barley flour and less wheat flour and the bread tastes more like barley. Still, not as good as it should be, the crust is too smooth and the taste is a bit “thin”. Next time, I’ll have to tweak the recipe and try baking in lower heat (this time I baked the bread in 250 °C, which is a bit hot).
voyagersays
rq
I’m a day late and probably a dollar short, but I still live in Ontario and your comments are bang on. Our new premier also wants to fire teachers and nurses and likely any other group who work for the betterment of society. And he’s going to open up protected greenlands to development. Don’t worry though. He also wants to lower the cost of beer.
I feel sick just thinking about it.
This series is the best thing on YouTube, it’s all worth a watch: [LINK]. Aside from this one, my personal favorites are Sloths, Baby Echidnas, Armadillos and Marsupials.
Another unrelated gem by this author: Critique of “Monkey Farter”
I agree. How could you leave out the Bats and the Aye-Aye, with it’s incredibly long boner er, bone? ;D I have an especial fondness for the Tarsier, because they are beyond cute, and ZeFrank’s imitation of Morgan Freeman.
In my defense, it had been a while since I last re-watched the videos… Learning about the Tarsier’s camouflage really changed my life, though. Every trip to a toy store has been an expedition ever since!
I need a time machine. I need to discuss with my 1970s Alberta Canada University Proffes pronouncing this
tar seer
Shit, dudes, I’ve been wrong for 40+ years and it’s all yours faults.
fffffkkkkk
Absolutely gorgeous critter.
I love the commentary. I finally know how to pronounce Tarsiay.
Thank you.
#TeamTarSeer
Tar-si-ay here, damn but they’re cute however you pronounce their name.
Giliell sorry about your glasses.
Oh gods, a 500 year old cottage (a genuine hovel) is up for sale. Sometimes I wish I was rich.
I can’t seem to find the mentioned children’s book “Lizard has a shitty day”, but I think it would be a good one. All references go right back to this video. (/s)
.
Definitely a LOL moment for me. I will have to check out the others in the series.
In German it’s a Koboldmaki, a goblin maki. Seriously, English animal names suck, German ones are much better.
jazzlet
Thanks
+++
Quick ‘n’ dirty summer dinner:
1 pack of store bought pizza dough for a square pizza
200g cherry tomatoes
200g feat or similar cheese, make sure it’s fat
Cut pizza dough into 4 squares
cut tomatoes and cheese, mix, season
Add two spoons to each pizza square, close the dough, brush with olive oil, bake for 20 minutes
Giliell:
Those are grand names, and much better, but in this case, you have to blame Latin. They’re named from Tarsus, because of their long ankle bone.
In Finnish tarsier is kummituseläin, ghost animal and ai-ai is also known as sormieläin, finger animal.
Oh, I like ghost animal!
In Czech its name is “nártoun”. Vocabulary tells me that “nárt” means “instep”, i.e. the part of a foot that consists of tarsal bones. The “-oun” makes it a name for an animal that has prominent insteps. So it seems Czech name is idetnical in its origin to the English one.
Liked the video.
Today I had one of “those” calls. Caller ID comes up “unknown”. Typical telemarketer/scammer noises in the background. The caller claims they ARE calling from Medicare. Like the IRS, Medicare mails any changes. Claiming to from medicare? So I told the caller I didn’t believe them. Protestations they were from my primary insurer. And I said I don’t believe you, followed by a “good-bye” and hang up. Later research showed the phone number didn’t exist, and further googling showed likely fraud.
Be careful out there.
Caine, more pictures to make you yearn http://michaelgraham.co.uk/property/rps_mig-AYL170114 I think you’d need to be quite short! But it does have a garden room that looks like it might make a fine studio …
Jazzlet, I already looked. I am green with envy. It’s an amazing cottage. And I have a thing for thatch roofs.
We are going on holiday for our anniversary next year in a house with heather thatch, very unusual.
There is no word for tarsier in Latvian. I guess it’s not a native species. ;)
I love the hovel! I hope it finds new owners that will take care of it for that moment in time when you do have millions to spare.
The hovel is lovely, but holy fuck, 400k for two bedrooms?
But what bedrooms!
BREAKING NEWS -- Harvey Weistein is being arrested. See :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-25/harvey-weinstein-surrenders-to-police/9802058
It is Towel Day and Lilac Day.
Buckinghamshire is within easy commuting distance of London so thehouose prices are ludicrous
I washed ALL the dishcloths and dishtowels.
In the REALLYREALLYREALLYCLEANTHIS cycle.
I also added *fabric softener*.
.
They are outside on the line because they stink. STINK.
Does anyone actually *like* that smell?
I don’t think I’ve ever liked the smell of ‘April fresh’. April is almost never fresh. Unless you like the smell of freshly thawed shit.
I use “summer flowers”, that’s better, Did I say “use”? I mean “buy”.
Two ml of eucalyptus oil in the wash makes it smell nice.
Eucalyptus oil is surprisingly difficult to find here. They only sell it in pharmacies, in tiny little bottles. Also expensive. :(
But I resolve to try that out, next time I get my hands on some -- do you put it in the powder compartment, the softener compartment, or directly in with the wash? (I currently use 9% white vinegar for freshness, added in the softener compartment. And a lightly-scented ‘sensitive’ wash powder.)
Ahhh, the wonderful people at Charlie Hebdo are at it again. I’m wondering if those who back then called me a muslim terrorism supporter for criticising them have by now either gone totally the way of the Right or are feeling some sense of shame.
I tip the oil into the stream of water as the machine fills up the first time. never had a machine with a softener compartment so can’t comment on that. Chez Lofty is blessed with a 20,000 gallon concrete rainwater tank that has never run dry in 22 years, softener doesn’t feature at our house.
.
Ebay would be my go-to site for purchase of larger quantities of eucalyptus oil.
I only use unscented detergent and fabric softener. I think I could use white vinegar like I did when I used Sapindus shells for laundry.
I use an own brand that isn’t too scented for most things, then drying them outside usually gets rid of what there is. If I want to smell I’ll use a perfume thank you and I don’t like the dogs smelling scented after I’ve washed their beds, it seems wrong for rufty tufty German Shepherds. For delicates and woollens I use what is now called ‘liquid soap’, which has just changed it’s name from ‘liquid soap flakes’ which drove me nuts. I couldn’t find actual soap flakes anywhere except on line, this stuff is made from soap flakes, but to call it ‘liquid soap flakes’ … just no. I use a little fabric softener on woolies, but our water is pretty soft so I don’t bother for anything else. Means I don’t have to separate out towels and can just have different colour washes too.
Unscented for the win! Like Jazzlet, if I want to smell, I’ll use something specifically for that. Plain ol’ clean in laundry is good enough. Don’t use softener.
I’ll own up to buying scented stuff, going by the nose.
Yep, I’m not experimenting or anything. Laundry used to get sorted into light colours, dark colour, towels and undies (higher temperature). I think that’s still what Mr. does.
My most favourite way to shock people is to say “dunno, my husband does the laundry”
Our water is pretty hard so the all-cotton stuff can get a bit stiff.
I don’t use fabric softener on clothing, though. Nor sheets. Nor bathing towels.
Nor anything, really, except just now on the kitchen cloths.
I wonder why I even bought it?
Vale :
WARNING : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following story contains images and names of people who have died.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/last-sister-from-rabbit-proof-fence-dies-in-jigalong/9815386
So a fucken fly-swat turned into a BBQ lighter (great thinking and engineering there incidentally) gets you detained for 8 days and accused of guess what now? :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/khaled-merhi-cleared-after-weapon-found-to-be-fly-swat/9815708
Oh and yeah, this is apparently a thing? :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/could-you-eat-a-marshmallow-roasted-over-lava/9816784
Seriously, watch that video there. Also the Guatemalan.photo seems to contradict the advice but I still wouldn’t recommend it.
This is just .. WTF :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-31/sarah-hanson-young-raises-allegation-against-school-chaplain/9820084
WARNING : Possibly confronting and definitely infuriating link,mental illness, homophobia,eating disorders.
I think I’m going to have to shut down my bird feeders. Starlings have overtaken my yard. They chase all the other birds away, eat voraciously and messily and then patrol my fence with their beaks open, squawking and pecking at anything that comes near. There are so many of them and they fight so much, even with each other. Ugh!
@ ^ voyager : That really sucks.
Might be worth looking at different plant species that other birds enjoy and can use as away of attracting the species you want. (Also works with butterflies & insects too.) Assuming you’re not already doing so but still.
Trying todo this inmy garden a swellas plantinglocal native flora species.
The birds seem to most love my non-native Tecoma and Cootamundra wattle though. had a rainbow lorikeet in the former the other day as well as getting spinebill honey-eaters in it quite often as well. Had a red wattlebird nesting in my Cootamundra (Acaccia baileyana) despite it being a weed so mixed feelings about removing it.
voyager
I suppose a good scolding and reducing TV privileges hasn’t worked?
If I do not post today and tomorrow, then I have no internet. Yesterday we had a flash and bang and the line is damaged somewhere along the way. The ISP has preliminarily taken 30 hours to resolve the issue.
Charly, good luck with speedy repairs.
Voyager
Bad, bad, starlings. I don’t feed during summer. They’re supposed to eat the damn insects in summer as a payback.
+++
Speaking of animals. Slugs, ticks, mosquitoes. Why are they?
See previous text re: starlings. :)
I have a nice flock of wagtails and fieldfares cleaning up the yard right now. They could manage to do better with the mosquitos, though. I’m going to lodge a complaint.
No idea, but my worst non-sweary insult about what someone has said is ‘slick of slug slime’ as what the hell use is it? Whereas ‘bullshit’ is useful if rotted down. Reflects my opinion of slugs.
Ticks are of course arachnids, and while it embarrasses me my instinctive reaction to encountering arachnids unexpectedly is to scream. I can enjoy pictures of spiders, I’m fine if they stay in a web, or round the edges of the ceiling, I don’t like them directly overhead and I hate them crawling on me. I still shiver when I think of the time I went to brush away what I thought was a hair tickling my neck only to find it was a wolf spider *shudder*. But ticks? Ticks are just ugly blood sucking disease spreading monsters.
We have plenty of ticks this year. Jack takes medicine to prevent Lyme disease, but I don’t take anything. I wonder if there is a human form of protection? After all, I go to all the same places as Jack.
voyager sadly there isn’t, there used to be a Lyme vaccine, but for essentially political reasons it got taken off the market. There are two new ones in the works, so if the trials go well there should be at least one vaccine available in a few years.
I had to stop half way through writing that, as Jake was down the bottom of the garden barking, I wouldn’t leave him barking at any time, but it’s 11.45pm here. Mr Jazz had left the back door open when he went to bed without telling me, so I’d no idea Jake was even out there.
On Friday I swam more than 1 km altogether in the sea, between rounds of sauna.
I also saw that there’s at least one thing oystercatchers can do that at least I can’t. Have any of you tried whistling while dangling a worm between your lips? Oystercatchers were flying and whistling while carrying something that looked like a worm.
Let me make it clear that I’m not in favour of trying it with live worms.
I just started reading Michio Kaku’s The Future of Humanity.
I’m glad I’m lying down because the eye-roll on page 6 would have knocked me out of my chair.
Now, the SO has started reading.
He is having problems with the blurbs on the dust jacket.
I absolutely admire my BFF.
We akk like crafting and regularly try new things, yet to call her clumsy is to call the ocean moist. But still she’ll try, she’ll make something that I’d probably burn and take it home and be happy. I wished we could all aprooach things like her.
Giliell @ 53
She’s got the right attitude.
—
I’ve done some baking. This time the mixed-grain bread contains wheat (white bread flour), rye (made of smoke-dried rye) and oatmeal. Also, once again, I used pureed dates and crushed rye malt and spiced the bread with caraway and fennel (as I’m not expecting Giliell to drop by), but this time I crushed the spices a bit in the mortar and mixed them with canola oil and melted butter and let sit for a while before adding to the dough.
The smoke-dried rye is a Finnish specialty. Before 20th century, the normal way of drying the grain before threshing (rye and barley, mostly) was in a building called riihi, in which the harvest was dried in low heat (not as hot as sauna) with smoke from a stone stove with no chimney and then threshed. The smoked grain kept quite well (the smoke killed all bugs in it and probably some fungi and bacteria) and was tasty.
The bread I made has a smoky taste, not quite Lagavulin single malt whisky level, but having the bread with regular Tilsit-style cheese feels much like eating bread made of regular flour with Estonian smoked cheese.
My https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukazuke pot went bad, again.
Most likely my fault.
I expect the compost will appreciate it.
The Latvian version, the rija, was often beset by mischievous devils and required regular guarding and exorcism (by way of tricking the devils away). Did the Finns have similar issues?
rq @ 56
There were, AFAIK, but I’m not really knowledgeable about them. It was an important place, liable to burn down, taking a lot of grain with it* and doing the heating/guarding of it at night must have been scary, as it’s dark, you’re tired and the bugs and whatnot are falling from the bundles of rye or barley and making noises while the fire is crackling. So, people doing the heating and guarding must have been somewhat stressed and scared, which of course can lead to seeing and hearing all kinds of stuff.
__
* = Riihi was usually built a bit away from other buildings, so with luck, the rest of the farmstead or village wouldn’t burn down.
Hi.
Caine, I hope your fight progresses positively. Thank you for your voice.
[WARNING — SELF-CENTRISM AHEAD]
One year ago today, at about 11:50am EDT, I almost died. Literally, I almost died.
While preparing for a 4th grade curriculum-based programme, I managed, through a combination of innate stupidity combined with fiscal rectitude, to fall down a steep slope and off of a concrete retaining wall, falling about 15 feet into the edge of a small river. Unfortunately, the bottom of retaining wall, and well out into the river, was built up with riprap to prevent erosion.
I lucked out. I REALLY lucked out. I landed on my back, not my face or head (had I landed face down, or on my head, I would most likely have been knocked unconscious and would have drowned). I landed in the river, not on the rocks along the bank (the six to ten inches of water helped to cushion the impact). I landed with a large flattish rock under my left side (impact was dorso-lateral lumbar), not under my spine (had I landed flat on the rock on my spine, I would, most likely, have severed my spinal cord between the 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae). I did not rupture any internal organs. I did, however, break the lateral physes of L2, L3 and L4, created a massive haematoma over my entire left lateral dorsal lumbar region, broke four ribs in twelve places, lost my eyeglasses, did not lose my park ranger flat hat, ruptured two lumbar discs, and still lost the $150.00 sieve net and rope that I was trying to rescue.
I spent a day and a night in the hospital. I spent the next month either in bed or on a chair, using a walker, and so doped up on opioids, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories that I do not remember June or most of July.
I got back to work in September. And have been struggling since then. My office has accommodated me: knee chair to help my back and posture, understanding when I need to just walk to stretch things out, covering for me when the pain is overwhelming. There is no way I can go to forest fires (which is costing me between $6,000 and $18,000 a year in lost gross pay) Because of pain, I cannot concentrate for more than 1/2 hour to an hour, so my work quality and quantity is suffering. I am getting pain shots which are supposed to work for three months and only last 4-6 weeks. I get numbness down my right leg. I get flaming nerve pain down my left leg. I have a permanently almost-numb area in my lower back.
I don’t want to play anymore.
On the bright side, I have had very few nightmares about scouts or 9/11. On the down side, they have been replaced by nightmares of falling into rivers. Which is still better than the scoutmares.
On June 5, 2017, 11:50am EDT my life changed. Probably permanently.
Am I selfish that I am having a really hard time figuring out how to deal with this? I know that others (you, Caine, come to mind at the top) are dealing with life-threatening conditions (they knew my condition was not life threatening as soon as my blood pressure failed to drop), and I find myself so wrapped up in trying to figure out just how my life has changed, and how to deal with that change, and how it has affected my plans for retirement, for travel, seems selfish.
My son is getting married on July 1st. I have felt detached from the planning, the upcoming celebration, because the pain blocks concentration. My daughter is getting married in February. Same thing.
Again, I don’t want to play anymore. I want to be able to comfort and care for the people I care about rather than being self-centered (that’s a little strong, but it is in the right direction).
I just felt I needed to write this down on the one-year anniversary of my almost death-by-stupidity. I came close to a Darwin award on that day.
Thank you for the forum.
Oggie, careful higs, if you want them. You’re a human (IMHO, a good one) and you can’t push your boundaries, which the accident must have made quite narrow, at an arbitrarily great speed.
Ice Swimmer
Well, my parents might come into passing distance within the next few weeks, but they don’t share my aversion.
I’ll have to tell them about the smoked rye and make them bring me some.
+++
Oggie
No, you’re not selfish. AFAIK, depression after near death episodes is common and You still have to deal with the constant pain on top of it. Careful higs.
+++
Some boys tried to be cool riding their hoverboards* in our street. #1 ran circles around them on her unicycle…
*Who invented that shit? Which idiot thought that we needed another way to make kids stay still even when they’re outdoors?
Ice Swimmer @59:
I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’ve been looking at it as restrictions, not boundaries. I like boundaries. That’s a more positive way to look at where I am. Thanks.
Giliell @60
Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it as depression. Usually when I am depressed, I tend to lash out, to misunderstand, get a little paranoid. If I am depressed, it is manifesting itself in a different way than it has in the past.
Giliell @ 60
The flour is called riihiruisjauho. The 1 kg bag smells of smoke quite clearly. Luomu means organic or Öko.
@Oggie, it is entirely understandable that you are having difficulty concentrating on things when you are in constant pain. Best wishes for the situation getting better, alas there is not much more I can do. Also, do not bash yourself over your “stupidity”. One bad decision/action does not a stupid person make, otherwise there would be only stupid people and even more stupid people.
_____________________
I will not be posting anything tomorrow. I wanted to print one picture today. One. It spun into two hours trying to make the printer work properly without ghosting. Unsuccesfully. I have ordered new drum in a hope it will help. If not, I have wasted 100,-€ for the drum and I will have to buy whole new printer for about 200,-€. If it helps, I have saved 100,-€.
So, what will it be? Only time will tell. I will let you know.
But I am too tired to select and resize pictures for tomorrow post. Yawn. G’ni’t.
Today is the anniversary of D-Day.
Oggie I don’t think it’s “self-centred” because it isn’t a choice you’ve made. Pain demands your attention and it’s exhausting. And it makes everything in your life more difficult.
Oggie
Wow. A year already.
I have nothing but *higs* and alot of hoping that things will get better, sooner.
Looks like TNET is off the RECENT COMMENTS side-bar.
That’s a bit early, neh?
@ Oggie. : FWIW, I think you are an excellent human being and wish you all the best. I don’t think it’s selfish at all. I am sorry that that happened to you and glad you survived and sorry to hear it’s changed your life so dramatically and inflicted so much undeserved, constant pain on you and hope you get better treatments and can recover at least a bit -- preferably a lot -- more.
***
The ABC & University of New South Wales Top 5 (Australian) scientists for 2018 award have been announced :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-06/meet-the-abcs-top-5-scientists-for-2018/9839468
All five are women (for the first time) and awarded for research and science communication efforts ranging from working on an all-sky colour map that shows whether radio galaxy jets are old and fading or just firing up to making new nanotech from spinifex grass to the neuroscience of refugee trauma and how science can help using cross-cultural models. Apparently (in the audio here) in the shortlist there were 8 women and 2 men, FWIW.
Sent off the first batch of applications for a new job. Keep your fingers crossed, please.
Oggie as someone with a chronic pain problem that has changed my life to something that I don’t really recognise as living you have my sympathy. I am rather further on than you and have some suggestions that may or may not help you, they are offered purely as ideas that you could think about, with no overtones of ‘this worked for me so of course it will work for you’. First nerves take a long time to regenerate, I found at least three years, so you may find that you will get back more feeling than you have at the moment. Next I don’t know who is in charge of helping you manage your pain, but if it isn’t a pain specialist get yourself referred to one, they are far better at helping you control your pain without being too fuzzy to do anything than any non-specialist. Then you need to learn to pace yourself to what you can do now, and forget about what you used to be able to do (easier said than done, I really struggle with this, but when I do get it right it definietely helps). Associated with that you need to try to learn to be kind to yourself -- you didn’t choose this, sure you could have made a different decision with a different outcome, but you didn’t choose to go after the dropped net knowing that you would hurt yourself badly, yes you probably knew there was a possibility you might hurt yourself, but you didn’t really think it would happen, any more than I thought sleeping with someone who turned out to be a lying cheating bastard with chlamydia would change my life to the extent that it has -- so turn your compassion on yourself as if you were turning it on a friend who had done the same; I’m not suggesting that you wallow in self-pity, but that you forgive yourself for the accident and for not being able to be the person you were any longer, tough, but helpful if you can start to at least try to do this; you can’t work out who you are now until you are able to do this at least a little. Think about getting some help with how you feel about all of this, the Pain Clinic I go to has psycologists attached and they have been very helpful, you do sound depressed, the lack of feeling about the weddings suggests it to me, the intellectually scariest depression is when you dont feel anything at all, it’s also the most dangerous in my experience, when you are most likely to have suicidal ideation, I very much hope you are not in that state. I could say masses more, but I’ll leave it at that!
TL;DR Oggie you have every justification for turning inwards at the moment, stop being so hard on yourself.
Good luck Giliell!
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found methane and organic materials on Mars -- although this may NOT necessarily mean life :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-08/mars-curiosity-rover-finds-ancient-molecules-odd-methane-levels/9843918
You can watch the (I think?) full NASA’s press conference here -- about an hour long :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53kq635mpMs&feature=push-lsb&attr_tag=cxs0YD5rKk-5Ae6R-6
Also in totally unrelated news bees apparently understand the idea of zero :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-08/honey-bee-animal-behaviour-cognition-experiment-insect-zero/9837084?section=science
something only a few mammals and birds were previously known to grok.
[long-distance Canadian complaint] So the Ontario provincial election results came in with a solid Conservative majority (read: Trump-lite, though I question the ‘lite’ part, just Canadian). And the first headline is all about how Rob Ford promises to close libraries as soon as possible. WHO DOES THAT? HOW DO YOU VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO DOES THAT??? For all that talk about jobs and jobs and jobs, people are awfully quick to forget about librarians and what libraries are. Anyway, Ontario is going to shit, next few years. Not that it directly applies to me. [/long-distance Canadian complaint]
That just sort of came on top of a few other issues, one of them being that the more time I spend with some of my siblings, the more I realize that they’re assholes, and I do think it is getting worse. I hate realizing that someone I looked up to very much for my whole life throughout university is an intolerant bigot. Like, why? You were so awesome.
rq sorry about the result and sorry about your siblings. I have had a similar experience with one of mine and it hurt like hell until I decided I was better off not going out of my way to see him. We can be civil at family events and that is enough.
Well, my brother seems to have strenghtened his racism during the time I was sheding mine. We drifted apart, so to speak, so I can feel for you in that regard.
On brighter note, the drum change in my printer seems to have resolved the issue. There is still some smudging until the dregs come out, but there is no ghosting and the smudging gets less and less with each print, and not worse. So it seems I have saved myself 100 €. Yay.
Oh yes, I’ve seen lots of Trump boosting and gun fondling going on among my relatives. I’m genuinely worried that some of them are getting radicalized and may end up doing something terrible.
On a happier note, I have some news about The Last Fiction. According to Cartoon Brew, the movie will debut at the Annecy festival this month and will get an international release in the fall. I don’t know how I’ll hold out that long.
Giliell, I’m hoping you’ll get a good job within a reasonable distance.
Today was Clean The Community Hall Day.
It is now very, very shiny.
I baked barley bread again. This time I used more barley flour and less wheat flour and the bread tastes more like barley. Still, not as good as it should be, the crust is too smooth and the taste is a bit “thin”. Next time, I’ll have to tweak the recipe and try baking in lower heat (this time I baked the bread in 250 °C, which is a bit hot).
rq
I’m a day late and probably a dollar short, but I still live in Ontario and your comments are bang on. Our new premier also wants to fire teachers and nurses and likely any other group who work for the betterment of society. And he’s going to open up protected greenlands to development. Don’t worry though. He also wants to lower the cost of beer.
I feel sick just thinking about it.
NEW THREAD!