bitful

Learning about Coins
Pennies (easy, like here in the UK), quarters (easy, one quarter of a dollar) but I always mix up nickels and dimes. My memory aid: they are mentioned from small to large in 'Street life, you can run away from time–Street life, for a nickel, for a dime'
(tags: coins money)

Principal Agglomerations of the [...]

The reason for a month's worth of posts suddenly appearing is that I have been writing but could not get round to hit the publish button.
I am not able to find an explanation for it. I am very well thank you, my circumstances have not changed, my mother is still not very likely to start [...]

dietfitness | diets az | jorge cruise | 3 hour diet
This "diet-only" plan hinges on timing. Jorge Cruise says balancing meals with low-cal snacks controls appetite and burns fat.
(tags: fitness diet food weight calories)

The Foot in Mouth award
This award, first given in 1993, is for a truly baffling comment. The 2004 winner was Boris Johnson MP for a comment on the television quiz Have I Got News For You? "I could not fail to disagree with you less."
(tags: language english fun literacy)

Google Local (UK beta version)
Find local businesses [...]

I had a quick listen to this year's Eurovision Song Contest entries.
Just like two years ago, my favourite is Iceland. Alright, I'll admit I'm sentimentally attached to the country, having spent five years of my life with Björk's neighbour and his posse of expats friends in Paris.
Selma represents Iceland for the second time (she was [...]

Conversation around Dr B. desk at work:

A: 'So we are going to a wedding in Scotland, and my fiancé is going to wear a kilt with his family's tartan.'
B: 'Oh, what's the pattern like?'
A: 'Sort of black and red lines over a cream and white background.'
B: 'Ah, the McChav clan!'

Post-it-lamp
Lamp base is a postal tube that can be used to send the lamp itself.
(tags: design lamp architecture)

Knit 2 Together: Concepts and Knitting
A Crafts Council Touring Exhibition, currently in London, extended to 15 May.
(tags: art knitting design exhibition)

London Underground 3D map
A digital art project. Inaccurate yet fascinating.
(tags: 3d design tube underground london graphic)

Building Britain
Promising [...]

Yesterday I did not know what a su doku (or sudoku) was. Today I can see myself easily hooked on the latest craze in number puzzles in less time than it would take you to say 'compulsive-obsessive personality disorder'.
Simple ideas are often the best: a nine-by-nine grid, where each of the nine rows must contain [...]

Google Print
Just do an ordinary Google search. When we find a book whose content contains a match for your search terms, we'll link to it in your search results. Click a book title and you'll see the page of the book that has your search terms, along with other info
(tags: google type books print [...]

The word for 'sin' and 'it's too bad that…' (or 'it's a pity that…') are the same in Italian ('peccato').
So when tiny toddler Lulu was asked by the local priest to make an example of a sin, tiny toddler Lulu could not come up with nothing better than 'It's too bad that on Sunday morning [...]

Broadcatching - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Broadcatching refers to the use of RSS feeds and BitTorrent peer to peer file sharing as an alternative to distributing multimedia content on the Internet. It is a play on words, in contrast to broadcasting.
(tags: rss torrent bittorrent peertopeer filesharing internet web)

An innocent click on a link and a recommendation on The Search for Love in Manhattan, and I discovered Wing. Wing is a singer from New Zealand (via Hong Kong). Wing knows absolutely no sense of shame, for which I can only show unconditional admiration.
True, the copy on her website says she performes mainly in [...]

I have just submitted bitful to be reviewed and possibly added to BritBlog.
BritBlog describes itself as 'a blog directory solely for British bloggers from all over the world. You don't need to live within the British Isles to get listed: you just need to be British!'
With these premises, I will not be surprised if bitful [...]

Dr B. has started his new job in London and thus put an end to spending three to four nights a week in a hotel room 80 miles away.
We could not be more chuffed. However, the flip side is that we are both very much used to spending quiet evenings separately, and the flat we [...]

Last night at a party I was comparing degrees of sibling black-sheepness with the one other reader of this weblog. As it happens, his sister and my brother have reached matching degrees of naughtiness. We mapped them on a chart according to number of years the respective families have not spoken to them, time [...]

Today is Dr B.'s last day at work. He will be clearing his desk, saying good-bye, negotiating that ridiculously complicated magic roundabout for the very last time and driving back to London – for good.
As of next Monday, he will be working in Canary Wharf, 2.8 miles from home instead of eighty.
I am happy to [...]

I'm not even bothering to take the 'Which Desperate Housewife Are You?' test: I know I'd turn out to be Bree Vandercamp. Like I end up as Monica in every single 'Which Friends Character Are You?' test.
I have recently taken to pointing this out every time I do something particularly anally retentive. So several times [...]

Currently next to each other, sharing the tape that permanently sits in the VCR at home (ready and positioned for unplanned last-minute recording): Doctor Who and Footballers' Wives. Side by side. The combination does feel slightly wrong, doesn't it?
Although, on second thoughts, imagining the Doctor strutting around trying to save the world(s) with Tanya Turner [...]

I have just spent a couple of days in Venice getting reaquainted with my nephew.
He is now a fully grown man working on cargo ships – with a forearm tattoo to match. It is hard to imagine he was once the scrawny toddler I used to take care of.
I was fifteen when the minors' court [...]

Imagine you are an Italian mamma pushing eighty. You have three sons, who for the sake of clarity will here be referred to as The Good, The Bad and (humbly penning this for you) The Queer.
The Good is a Catholic priest (reminder for all ye unfaithful: they cannot marry). The Queer is a practising homosexual [...]

The cake in the picture marked the end of Dr B.'s week-long birthday celebrations tonight. And I finally get to write about all the presents I got him! They are all four-letter words, and I think it's clever (you'll think it's sad):

food for his birthday party. Dr B. was not thinking of having any: after [...]

Did you know…?
Pogonophobia is a fear of beards.
Wispybaldpatchfrustratia is a total incapacity to grow a full beard. Alright, I've made that one up.
I hate shaving. Hate it hateit hateit.
Cunningly finding a way to shave a smaller area, I pioneered the goatee in back in 1991, and thought it was good, and stuck to it. Then [...]