Category: Misc (Page 1 of 3)

One-Hour Photo

28 February, 2023 / masher / 6 Comments

An excellent film.

Now, in the ‘old days’ we all used to do it.

But, I’m not sure that many people do so, nowadays.

I still do it though: I keep my photos in a photo album.

Not ALL of them, of course, but whenever we go on a major holiday – or even a few minor ones – I get the photos printed (again, not all of them, just the better ones) and I put them into a folder, along with my written-up diary.

Yes, I keep a holiday diary. Because, several years later, Mrs M and I will always argue about the name of a place that we visited whilst on holiday, or the name of that waiter with the dodgy eye… or something. The folder can then be retrieved and the argument resolved in just a few minutes.

Plus, it’s just something I enjoy doing.

And, I will always take a proper camera with me, when we go away. Not many people do so anymore, as most people are happy just to use their phone, as it’s so convenient.

Of course, phone cameras have come on in leaps and bounds over the years and can produce some excellent shots, but for me, I’m just more comfortable with a proper camera in my hands. Admittedly, the camera bag full of lenses and a digital SLR has given way to a very capable compact camera, in recent years, but I still prefer that over a phone camera.

And of course, the digital versions of the diary and the photos are kept on the computer and are also backed up to an external drive, as well as being copied onto a DVD-ROM which is kept in the folder – I’ve learnt my back-up lessons the hard way.

Digital photography has made it so much easier for everyone to capture those special moments, but I wonder how many of them end up being lost, trapped in the memory chips of discarded mobile phones or lurking at the back of an obscure Faceache page that no-one looks at anymore?

Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes

11 February, 2023 / masher / 4 Comments

… is not a film that I have ever seen.

Or ever want to see, for that matter.

Anyway…

I was doing my regular grocery shop today when I noticed that Heinz have released a new variety of their Tomato Soup.

This latest one is plant based.

What the heck?

There was a chap stocking the shelves next to me and so I asked him what was meant by ‘plant based’ because, last time I checked, tomatoes were very much a plant. Whether they are a fruit or a vegetable is another story (btw, they are not a fruit, otherwise I would have some in my fruit bowl, along with the oranges and bananas).

Anyway, I showed it to the chap and he looked as confused as I was, and then said “Well, I suppose it means it doesn’t have any meat in it”.

Doesn’t have any meat in it?

Right.

So, I bought a tin and had it for my lunch, earlier. He was right, there wasn’t any meat in it.

What they have done is removed the dairy product, which allowed it to be called ‘Cream of Tomato Soup’ and have replaced it with some vegan substitute, which is why it’s now called ‘Creamy Tomato Soup’.

To be fair it tasted alright, but, it didn’t quite taste as good as the regular stuff… IMHO.

I think that, as a carnivore… as a ravenous meat eater… I’ll probably just stick with the normal tomato soup… you know, the one with some meat in it.

Where were you?

17 September, 2022 / masher / 4 Comments

Unless you have been living out at Ice Station Zebra for the past month, it can’t have escaped your attention that HRH Queen Elizabeth II has finally shuffled from this mortal coil.

It’s said that we all remember where we were whenever a significant event has happened.

I can’t say that’s the case with me… there must have been dozens of significant events in my lifetime, most of which have just mixed with the dum-de-dum-de dum-de-dum constantly playing in my head. I can remember a few of them, though.

I remember my parents dragging me from the garden into the living room to watch man step foot on the moon, on our little black & white telly. As it was nighttime here when they did so, I’m guessing we must have watched it on the news the following day. Either way, I was only seven years old and I don’t think the magnitude of the event resonated with me at the time.

When I was fifteen, we went on one of our regular caravan holidays in Harwich (my grandparents owned a static one on a site). Each morning, it was my job to walk down to the little shop near the entrance to the site and pick up some milk, a loaf of bread and a copy of The Sun newspaper. To this day, I can remember picking it up and saying “Wow!” out loud. I ran back to the caravan excitedly to tell the news, but didn’t understand why my mum suddenly burst into tears when I told her that Elvis was dead.

In 2001, Mrs. Masher and I flew home from a holiday in Brazil. Out of the airport, it was dull journey home around the M25 and I turned the radio on to help keep me awake. Every station was broadcasting reports of a terrible accident in New York, where an aircraft had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. This struck home with us, as we had been on the roof of the WTC only nine months previously. As soon as we got home, we put the TV on and watched the smoke billowing from the tower and then our sorrow turned to abject horror as we watched the second plane hit Tower 2 and we realised – along with the rest of the world – that this was no accident.

And where was I when I learned of the death of Her Majesty? I was walking the dog. We had just come out of the woods and as we strolled across the park, one of two teenage girls who always sit on one of the park benches, drinking cider and smoking weed, shouted at me: “Hey Mister!” I looked up. “The Queen’s dead!” she hollered. Knowing that the Royal Family had been summoned to Balmoral earlier that day, following reports of the monarch’s frailty, I wasn’t really shocked to hear the news. But, it did catch me by surprise. “Oh, OK”, I said, not really being sure of how to respond to such a bombshell. “That’s a shame”.
I’m not a Royalist, by any means, but I’m also not anti-monarchy. As with so many others, for me, the Queen has always just… been there. But I think I’d liked to have received the news in a more fitting way than from a couple of skanks shouting at me from a park bench.

Birthday Girl

14 March, 2022 / masher / 4 Comments

This is one of those months where our local Clinton’s Cards makes a small fortune from me, as we have so many birthdays in March – gawd knows what everyone was doing nine months previously, in July.

OK, I have a rough idea.

But yes, I have spent nearly fifteen quid this month, on bits of card to send birthday felicitations to various family members.

One family member I don’t have to send a card to though, is Saber, who is five years-old today.

Allegedly.

I say that, because we aren’t 100% sure that it is today, but it’s around this time and for some reason, this was the date that was chosen and has been celebrated for the past 4 years.

She doesn’t get a card though, because she’s a dog and she can’t read.

And she doesn’t know it’s her birthday.

Even though she got some extra chicken slices for breakfast this morning, the fact that it’s a special day didn’t register one bit.

At five, she is still quite spritely and can run as fast as when she was younger, but I’ve noticed that she can’t keep going at that pace for as long as she used to.

A bit of reading on the internet reveals that the old adage of one dog year being equal to seven human years, is no longer considered to be accurate, as different breeds and different sizes will age at different rates.

The chart on this page puts her at 36… not too different to seven times five, then.

However, researchers at the University of California came up with a formula to calculate the age of Labradors (close enough to GSDs, I reckon): 16 x ln(dog’s age) + 31, where ln is a natural logarithm. Using this formula, I worked out that Saber is nearly 57.

Fifty seven!

No wonder she has started to slow down… I think I was in my twenties when it happened to me.

Let there be light… after a short while

2 June, 2021 / masher / 9 Comments

A few weeks back, half a dozen of us took a ride up to a café, on the A10, near Royston.

It’s a popular haunt for biker’s and – on a sunny Sunday morning – it was pretty busy, even with the Covid restrictions meaning that we all had to eat outside on the limited number of benches available.

But we did. And it was good. And then we left.

Except that we didn’t. Because my bike refused to start.

CLICK, it went. CLICK.

I had to suffer the ignomy of being pushed, in order to do a bump start, in front of dozens of fellow bikers.

This is only the second time this has happened in the nine years I have owned the bike, but even still…

Doing some research into this problem, I learned that it’s a well-known (not to me it wasn’t!) issue, within the Triumph Bonneville community, which is generally referred to as “The Dreaded Click”.

One suggestion I found, was to fit a switch on the headlights to save on current draw when starting (I think many modern bikes aren’t fitted with an on/off switch nowadays, as having the headlight on permanently is seen as a safety feature, so they have removed the ability to turn it off). I saw several examples where people had fitted a switch onto the headlight housing. There was no way, I was going to ruin my beautifully chromed headlight housing, by drilling a hole in it. There is a headlight cut-out relay fitted to most bikes nowadays, for this very reason, but it seems they don’t always work.

So, instead, I made a small timer board. That’s it in the picture at the top of this post. Wrapped in self-amalgamating tape to keep it dry and also to prevent any shorts against the metalwork, this fits easily inside the headlight housing and keeps the headlights off for about fifteen seconds from when the ignition is switched on.

The circuit is simple and I built it onto a small scrap of stripboard that I had lying around. The rest of the components were from my bits box, apart from the relay. I decided to by an automotive relay as they are water-resistant – a fiver from my local auto parts store. Also, they can handle higher current than the piddly little relays I have to hand – I measured the headlight current draw at 4A.

The positive connection to the headlight main beam was cut and put in series with the normally closed contacts on the relay. I decided to do it that way, so that the headlight would have power, should the circuit fail for any reason.

Power for the circuit was taken from the sidelight, using a couple of Scotchlok connectors to tap into the wiring.

Total cost? Well, I had most of the parts, but I reckon about six quid.

On a ride up to Jack’s Hill last Sunday, it worked perfectly.

I thought I’d post the idea here for anyone else having the same issue.

Of course, I can’t be held responsible if you bodge it and blow all the fuses on your bike!

Bondage

25 March, 2021 / masher / 4 Comments

It was announced a while back, that the new Bond film would have its release delayed yet again.

Yes, I fully understand the reasons why, but I can’t help but feel a little devastated.

I can’t tell you how much I have been looking forward to seeing this film.

Initially scheduled for release in Feb 2020, it got pushed back to April 2020 because of Covid.

And then it was pushed further out, to November 2020, as the pandemic continued.

And then April 2021.

And then October 2021.

Aarrgghh!

I’m a huge Bond fan (James, not Brook or Basildon) and I have to admit that my initial doubts about having Daniel Craig in the titular role, completely vanished after seeing his first outing in Casino Royale.

Whilst many cite Sean Connery as their favourite Bond, for a long time mine was Roger Moore. Live and Let Die was the very first Bond film I saw and I can remember – as an eleven-year old – queueing to see it with my parents, outside the rather tatty Odeon in town, in a line that stretched halfway down the street. You don’t see that kind of thing happening anymore.

And I think The Man With The Golden Gun was the first film where I went to the pictures and saw it on my own. So grown up.

Lazenby and Dalton did little for me, but I took a real liking to Pierce Brosnan’s Bond – his portrayal was probably the nearest to how I had imagined Bond when reading the books. But then it all got a bit silly under his tenure, with the invisible cars and whatnot. (Bond? Silly? Surely not – Ed.)

But yes, Craig rejuvinated the franchise, with a more realistic and grittier Bond, and I liked that.

A lot.

So, I’m really excited to see the new film. It’s aptly titled “No Time To Die” and – with the Covids still knocking at my door – I’ll be right pissed off if the plague takes me before I get a chance to see it.

And with a potential third wave hitting our shores sometime soon, I wonder whether we will ever get to see it.

But, for now, the good news is that with Covid infection rates currently falling (mostly), they have decided to bring the film’s release date forward.

By one week.

One week!

You’re teasing me, Mr Bond.

Pinch Punch…

1 March, 2021 / masher / 1 Comment

… the first of the month.

So, that’s that over for another year. Phew!

If I’m honest, not as difficult as I thought it was going to be.

I’d like to thank my co-conspirators who joined me this year (names mentioned in an earlier post): well done, one and all.

On the train again

3 February, 2021 / masher / 5 Comments

I am currently on a training course for two days.

I can’t say I am enjoying it very much.

We started this around the same time last year (I mentioned it here) and we completed all but the last two sections, which were spread over two days in March.

Of course, we all know what happened then!

And so, a year has passed and the course has been back on and off several times, resonating with the national lockdowns and restrictions.

So now, it has been decided to finally get it finished by completing the rest of it online.

I found it difficult enough when we were in the classroom, but 8 hrs a day on a laptop is definitely harder.

The tutor is a nice enough bloke, but I think he took an instant dislike to me right at the start: the first topic of discussion for the class was Innovation, and he started to talk about the internet and how it has changed our lives.

“Does anyone know who invented the internet?” he asked, a slight glee in his voice.

“I believe it evolved from ARPANET, which was a system originally designed to transfer information between American universities”, I said.

A few seconds, then: “Nope, it was a British scientist…” he said, emphasizing the word “British”, as a picture of Tim Berners-Lee flashed up in the Webex slideshow.

“Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, which is just a part of the internet.” I said, cutting in. “They’re not the same thing”.

There was a short silence.

“Moving on…”

Toothypegs

27 June, 2020 / masher / 9 Comments

I received an email from my dental surgery, earlier this week, explaining that they were now open for appointments, but are currently limiting the number of people they can see.

Meantime, it said, please follow this general dental advice to help maintain your oral health:

Brush your teeth twice a day for 2 minutes as a minimum
Spit the toothpaste out after brushing, do not rinse! And do not rinse for a minimum of 30 minutes after brushing
Reduce the amount of sugar you are having through food and drink and try to limit them to mealtimes only
Stop smoking if possible and ensure alcohol intake is less than 14 units per week

OK to all of them but, not rinsing? Since when did that become a thing? I’ve always rinsed. Everyone in my family rinses.

So, after reading this advice, I tried not to rinse.

Can’t do it. It’s horrible.

The Office

23 February, 2020 / masher / 5 Comments

The very first time I saw The Office, on BBC2, I watched it for about 60 seconds and then dismissed it as a documentary that I wasn’t really interested in.

The next time, was when I was working nights up in Glasgow and needed something to entertain me during the day. One of my work colleagues brought in the boxset for me to watch.

Just two episodes in and I was hooked. I think I watched both series in just a couple of days.

The brilliance of the writing and the low-key acting of the cast, was like nothing I’d seen before.

I knew that an American version had been made – seen it in the Netflix EPG – but never got round to bothering with it. American remakes of British shows have never been as good as the original, in my opinion.

However, I was looking for a new boxset and it was recommended to me to watch. Annoyingly, just as I decided it was time to give it a go, Netflix removed it. D’oh!

But now, it’s showing on Amazon. Hooray!

And I’ve now nearly finished the second series (there are nine seasons of the American version).

So, how does it compare with the original?

Not as good.

Don’t get me wrong: I like it and I’ll definitely watch all 9 seasons, but for me, it doesn’t have that mockumentary realism that the original had – so real, it fooled me, first time round! Although the American version follows its British counterpart pretty faithfully (so far) and is filmed in a mockumentary style, to me it feels more like a sitcom. The characters are that bit more outlandish (especially the manager Michael Scott- played by the brilliant Steve Carrel – and his assistant Dwight, but maybe that is what is needed for it to be a success in America… there’s no doubt that there is a mildly different sense of humour on each side of the Atlantic.

Steve Carrel’s character makes me laugh, whereas Gervais’ makes me laugh and cringe and it’s it’s that British cringiness – that Basil Fawlty also did so well – that clinches it for me.

But I’d be interested to hear your thoughts… if you have any.

M:I-2… end of an era?

16 February, 2020 / masher / 8 Comments

Back in 2012, I made a six-part Geocache, consisting of a series of electronic puzzles to solve.

I called it Mission: Impossible – 2 (it was the sequel to the original Mission: Impossible cache I’d made 18 years ago).

These puzzles were hidden around the countryside in a five-mile radius from my home. Each puzzle – when solved – would lead to the next, culminating in a final devious puzzle which – when solved – would unlock to reveal a logbook to sign and some cache-type goodies to take away.

As I had made it a Premium cache, meaning that only serious fee-paying cachers could play – and also because all the puzzles required batteries, which would need to be supplied by the visiting cachers – I never expected this cache to get a great deal of take up and thought it would probably only last six months or so.

How wrong I was.

OK, it didn’t get the amount of traffic a non-premium cache might have got, and a lot of people who did look at it (I could see how many, from the audit function that Groundspeak now sadly seem to have removed) possibly dismissed it due to the time it would take to complete – roughly a day: a lot of cachers are in it for the numbers and would rather get 6 quick wins in a day, than have to spend all day working for just one.

But, it was completed by a goodly number of cachers, who all thoroughly enjoyed the experience, judging by some of the logs:

“I would give this cache all 10 of my favourite points if I could! ” – L********61

“Wow Wow Wow. done over 2 weekends with Morn. we laughed we nearly cried at one stage…” – A***s T********e

“Stage 5 almost caused a divorce… Brilliant cache, great fun…” – R****54

“Everything about this cache was extraordinary, innovative and impressive. ” – Mr & Mrs M*****

“We had a lovely afternoon following the clues. I wish there were more caches like this one.” – K****y + L***a

“What a sense of achievement to reach and complete the final stage of this wonderfully inventive multi-cache.” – A********s

“Ahha… Finally thwarted the Evil Professor Masher!! … This is truly a great series, probably the best caches I have ever seen.” – G*****1

“This has to be one of the best (if not the best caches) I’ve ever found in my 10+ years of caching so awarding this a well deserved favourite point , would be more if I could.” – M*d H***r

“Caches like this don’t come along too often and giving it one favourite point just doesn’t do it justice. Tremendous fun…” – P******e

“BRILLIANT!, BRILLIANT!, BRILLIANT!……oh, and did I say this cache is BRILLIANT!!!” – The O****s

“You’re a genius Prof Masher and we salute you.” – The N***y C**w

etcetera, etcetera, as the King of Siam might say.

It was even nominated in the Best Cache category at the 2016 National Geocaching Awards (Britain & Ireland). It didn’t win (I don’t think enough people had played) but I was pretty chuffed to be nominated anyway.

But sadly, after seven and a half years, Mission Impossible 2 is no more. Stage 2 went missing last year, so I reworked it to make the cache into a five-parter. But then Mrs Masher found Stage 3 damaged beyond repair, when she was out walking the dog a few weeks back. As such, I have archived it, but sadly, stages 1 and 4 were stolen before I could even recover them. Stage 1 was always a personal favourite, as it set the scene for the whole game. A short video of it can be seen here. Use the password: Ge0cach3! (Trivia note: the voice you hear, is that of our very own Mr Jones).

Mission Impossible 3 is almost finished and is nearly ready to roll out. I’ve spent the past two years building it – not the entire two years, obviously; just here and there when I had the time.

The theft and vandalism though, make me wonder whether I should bother (The original Mission: Impossible cache went the same way, fourteen years ago).

But, every so often I’ll take a read through those logs and be inspired to get it finished and get it out there.

We’ll see.

Who?

15 February, 2020 / masher / 6 Comments

Today is Irena Sendlerowa’s 110th birthday.

But you both knew that, right?

Because Google told you.

Hardly a day passes, without Google’s homepage telling you that it is the birthday of some obscure person that you’ve never heard of (unless you are one of those that still uses Excite or Alta Vista, of course).

“It’s the 297th birthday of Louis Richaud, the little-known French impressionist painter, who died from syphilis sometime back in the eighteenth century”.

OK, I made that one up, but you get the gist: someone we don’t know or really care about.

Occasionally, someone of actual importance will get a mention: Da Vinci; Ada Lovelace; Abraham Lincoln; Tom Beringer.

Alright, maybe not Tom Beringer.

But, c’mon Google, you only need to find 366 well known dead people, to do this over the course of a year.

You could always google it, if you get stuck..