succour
Assistance in time of difficulty. To help in a difficult situation.
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Monthly archive: August 2007
desultory
Having no set plan; haphazard or random. Moving or jumping from one thing to another; disconnected: a desultory speech.
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My week on the web
Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:
- Tafiti
Experimental search front-end from Microsoft, designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results. Requires Silverlight running on your machine. - On Firefox 3 and microformats with Michael Kaply : Mozilla Links
A talk with Michael Kaply, the owner of the microformats support module and author of Operator, a powerful extension that allows Firefox to interact with microformats and act as a data distributor between different web services. - Email from Facebook
You can enter a friend's email address into the To: line when you send a message or share an album, and Facebook will email them the message. Your friends will be able to reply without signing up, and they will be able to see content you share with them. - PocketMod: The Free Disposable Personal Organizer
The PocketMod is a small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card.
gnomic
Marked by aphorisms; aphoristic: gnomic verse; a gnomic style.
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genial
Having a pleasant or friendly disposition or manner. See synonyms at gracious. Conducive to life, growth, or comfort; mild.
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sedulous
Characterized by steady attention and effort: assiduous, diligent, industrious, studious.
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obdurate
Hardened in wrongdoing or wickedness; stubbornly impenitent. Hardened against feeling; hardhearted: an obdurate miser. Not giving in to persuasion; intractable.
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You want WHAT for a pair of glasses?
I broke my spectacles one week before going on holiday.
I was due my annual checkup anyway, so I went to have my eyes tested – for free now, because my mother has a glaucoma, my father had diabetes, and I am over forty. Let's say that I'd rather pay and not have a genetic timebomb in me.
Anyway, the old peepers are very well. Still shortsighted, but no change in prescription for five years now. A lovely optician at Boots showed me photos of the back of my eyes, and explained every single line and dot and how neat and crisp they are.
They had a 99 pounds offer for frames including lenses. I tried some, sent a picture to Dr B., then found out they would not be ready in time before my trip.
I also saw exactly the same frame as the one I broke, and they said they could try and fit my old lenses into it, saving me 55 pounds. But again, they'd have to send them off and it would take a while.
So I went to Vision Express, well known for putting together your glasses on site in one hour. Lots of lovely frames, a very cute (and flirting!) assistant. But of course the frames I liked were 149 pounds. Plus lenses (can't remember now, but I think around 60 pounds for both). Plus, they'd have to make special thinner lenses because the ordinary cheap ones are too thick for that frame. Add 40 pounds on top of that. Per lens? For both? Honestly, I can't remember, for at that stage I'd stopped hearing – I have this ability to blank out prices over one hundred pounds: one hundred and two pounds? One million and two pounds? The same to me.
I sighed, I looked up into the salesman piercing blue eyes and said I'd come back. Then I went round the corner and bought a tube of superglue.
My week on the web
Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:
- Met Office: London: forecast
The Met Office – The latest UK and international weather forecast. Global weather services for business and the public. UK weather warnings. - Tesco and Asda in email inquiry
The Competition Commission has ordered two UK supermarket giants to hand over millions of emails and letters to investigate claims that they have been pressurising suppliers to cut prices. - 5 Things Every Geek Must Do Before Going to a Vacation
In a nutshell: forward email, load apps, check passwords, trasfer bookmarks, take chargers. - SQL Server Express Video Series'
Almost 9 hours of video-based instruction designed specifically for SQL Server beginners – individuals who are interested in learning the basics of how to create, manage, and connect to SQL Server Express databases. - Blogger gets hot and bothered over Nasa's climate data error
Turns out only one of the ten hottest ever recorded months in the US is from the 21st century, and five occurred before 1939. - The Mix Tape USB Drive
USB drive encased in what looks like a double-sided cassette tape. - Desperate Housewives Fashion Dolls
Madame Alexander's 16-inch fashion doll versions of Bree, Edie, Gabrielle, Lynette and Susan. - Flickr Blog This to Draft
Plugin that changes WordPress behaviour so that when you post from Flickr the resulting entry is created in draft rather than in published mode, giving you time to edit it first should you wish to do so. - iA Web Trendmap 2007
The 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. Clickable map, looks like a transport network, lines represent themes. - Zen To Done (ZTD): The Ultimate Simple Productivity System | zen habits
If you've been having trouble with GTD, as great as it is, ZTD might be just for you. It focuses on the habit changes necessary for GTD, in a more practical way, and it focuses on doing, on simplifying, and on adding a simple structure.
bobbin
A spool or reel that holds thread or yarn for spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing, or making lace.
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Sunday lunch: no-hassle boiled rice
About one year ago Dr B. felt like making curry. He seldom cooks, so I welcomed the idea with enthusiasm and sent him off to the market.
He came back with two kilos of brown Basmati rice, made two curries in a week with some of it, then left me to go through the rest when he realised that the rice he bought took over forty minutes to cook instead of the twelve minutes claimed on the label.
I remembered a technique I had once read in a Chinese cookbook to put rice on, set a timer and come back to beautifully cooked, fluffy rice that needs no draining.
You can follow my step-by-step instructions on how to cook rice at Instructables.com
The contents of our fridge
I am considering buying a new compact digital camera for a forthcoming trip, and was not too impressed with anything that's on the market at the moment (and that does not cost so much that I leave it at home for fear of ruining it, because if that's so what's the point?).
So I thought I'd use Dr B.'s, which is a bit better, and started taking pictures around the flat to compare quality and settings.
Then it dawned on me that our fridge is full of mostly insubstantial fluff, and that it has far too many low calorie products, contradicting what I posted earlier about having given up most diet food. You can read more information on all the items by clicking through to the photo on Flickr.
So perhaps another wave of ditching some more artificial stuff is due.
And I also must try and remember what all those supplements are for. Because this morning, believe you me, I look (and feel) every single one of my forty years.
mien
Bearing or manner, especially as it reveals an inner state of mind. An appearance or aspect.
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7 things I did not know last week
- Pale Male (the Fifth Avenue hawk) is known to have sired 26 chicks with four mates. It is not the only hawk in Central Park, and they mostly prefer nesting on buildings (the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Trump Park hotel, a residential housing cooperative at 927 Fifth Avenue) rather than on trees.
- UK workers get the least paid leave in Europe: 28 days per year. We still are better off than Canada and Japan (10 days) or the US (no legal minimum for paid leave.
- If you share a link with a friend within a message in Facebook, you get to choose which of the images from that webpage will be shown alonside the link. Title and description are auto-populated with the website's data, and editable.
- You cannot log on to Spokeo from Firefox if the coComment extension is installed. Hats off to Harrison from Spokeo who sorted it out for me in no time.
- Chris Evans often takes out his rubbish naked. I am researching property prices in his neighbourhood then. And no, it's not Chris Evans the UK DJ and TV personality, but Chris Evans the American Fantastic Four star.
- Amazon's got a better memory than I have – unfortunately. This week I was alerted that 'As someone who has purchased or rated music by Darren Hayes, you might like to know that This Delicate Thing We've Made will be released on 20 August 2007.' I did what? Then it dawned on me, it was a present for my ex. Phew.
- Lily Allen's brother (the weed-smoking subject of Alright Still's closing track 'Alfie') is an actor like his father Keith. Alfie Allen has landed a role in Casualty's 1900s spin-off.
lissom
Easily bent; supple. Having the ability to move with ease; limber.
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dapple
Mottled or spotted marking, as on a horse's coat. To mark or mottle with spots.
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How to dump…
I was searching for info on how to dump entries into a database via a csv file (or something like that), and Google's autocomplete revealed that the world is a sad, sad place.
If you cannot see the image, here's what Mr Auto Complete told me:
- How to dump someone
- How to dump your girl…
- How to dump a guy
- How to dump a girl
- How to dump your bo…
- How to dump a boyfrie…
- How to dump a girlfrie…
- How to dump a friend
- How to dump girlfriend
- How to dump a boy
rennet
The inner lining of the fourth stomach of calves and other young ruminants. A dried extract made from the stomach lining of a ruminant, used in cheesemaking to curdle milk.
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gouge
A chisel with a rounded, troughlike blade. A scooping or digging action, as with such a chisel. To cut or scoop out with or as if with a gouge. To thrust one's thumb into someone's eye.
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David Hoyle's 'Magazine'
Last night we went to see David Hoyle's 'Magazine' at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. I'd declined an invite the previous week, and I had to see why so many people are raving about the artist formerly known as the Divine David.
Well yes, he's smart. And very eloquent, which for once is a very welcome change from tired old queer routines with the same few innuendos.
Part one was very good. Stand-up stuff on immigration (last night's theme), probably mostly unscripted, great humour, and a fantastic command of the audience.
Then in part two he interviewed a man from Uganda who was imprisoned in his own country on grounds of being gay, then came to the UK, claimed asylum and was imprisoned again while waiting for a decision from the Home Office. If this sounds very vague to you, do not be surprised. I would know more about what happened to this man if David Hoyle had let him finish a single sentence while interviewing him. Also, you had the very distinct feeling that he did not know where he was going with this.
I found this very annoying and some of the stuff that was said made me feel uncomfortable. But I guess if that's precisely what was to be achieved?
I did not stay for part three though. I must ask Dr B. what I missed, but judging from a friend's description from the previous week ('there's some very loud music, and David Hoyle paints a picture), maybe not much.
I will definitely be going back though, perhaps next week.
saltire
(Heraldry) an ordinary in the shape of a Saint Andrew's cross, formed by the crossing of a bend and a bend sinister.
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I am now forty and a half
This morning at 7.30 I was exactly forty and a half years old.
Which means that that moment on I am closer to being forty-one than I'll ever be to forty again.
Strangely, the thought does not worry me at all. I seem to focus all my worry on how on earth I am going to cope with turning fifty in – oh crap – just under nine and a half years' time!
The very same thing happened when I turned thirty: I could not possibly imagine myself at forty, and frankly dreaded it. Instead here I am, not doing too bad after all.
So what do I know huh?
My week on the web
Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:
- Facebook Source Code Leaked
'This leak is not good news for Facebook, as it raises the question of how secure a Facebook users private data really is. If the main source code for a site can be leaked, then it can be said that almost anything is possible.' - Leaked Vista SP1 analysed in-depth
No new features (apart from a new maintenance application 'Create a Recovery Disc'), but overall better, speedier, increased performance. - Tater Mitts
The Innovative new kitchen gloves for perfectly peeled potatoes. Simply wub with a few quick strokes for a hassle free peeled potato. No knives involved. Might be useful – looks a bit creepy. - Writeboard
Online collaborative writing software, part of Backpack. No need to register, just enter a password and type. You get a URL and anyone with the password can edit content. Changes are tracked, each new version becomes a new item in an RSS feed. - How to code a tag cloud
'This code can be used to make a simple and easy tag cloud for your categories or tags on your own website or blog. It uses a simple mathematical sum to calculate a percentage for the font size of each tag and returns it in a XHTML-compliant inline list.' - Retro MacOS Wordpress Theme
A rendition of the monochrome MacOS from circa System 6, as a WordPress theme. Aww, the memories… - Google Filters Torrents From Search Results
'So, apparently one day Google decided that it is illegal in nearly every country of the world to host a .torrent file that (allegedly) links to infringing material. Strange, because there is no legal precedent for this decision in most countries.' - YoName
Find social network users by entering their name or username. YoName shows you the networks they belong to. - Blogging is Dead (Long Live Value Blogging)
Now that 'cat bloggers' have moved to Twitter and Pownce and Facebook, what's left in weblogs is of increased quality. - Tim Gunn has not had a relationship since 1982
This is the stuff my nightmares are made of: after nine years, his boyfriend told the fashion designer 'I don't have the patience for you. I can't do this anymore.' - Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0
Web 3.0 will be "applications that are pieced together" – small, fast and customisable apps that run on any device and (PC or mobile), and are distributed virally (social networks, email, etc).
avuncular
Of or having to do with an uncle. Regarded as characteristic of an uncle, especially in benevolence or tolerance.
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Sunday lunch: chicken Caesar salad
There was a time when I used to make this every Thursday night. Then Tesco's Healthy Eating ready meals made my cooking redundant.
The other night I offered to relieve Dr B.'s grumpiness and frustration at not sleeping much because of continuous calls from work (he is on 24-hour support until the end of the weekend) by cooking a chicken Caesar salad. Halfway through it, we looked at each other and realised how much we'd both missed it.
A word of warning: although this is called 'salad', and my version is the healthiest around, the basic ingredients are very nutritious, and the whole thing can set you back several hundred calories, depending on quantity.
Ingredients
- Romaine or Cos lettuce
- Chicken breast, whole
- Thin smoked bacon rashers, light (or trimmed of all fat)
- Blue cheese, crumbled
- Caesar salad dressing
- Oil and vinegar
Preparation
- Sear the chicken breasts on high heat on both sides in a non-stick pan
- Turn the heat down, cover and let the chicken cook through slowly
- In another non-stick pan, fry the bacon
- Cut the bacon in small pieces
- Chop and rinse the letttuce
- Dress the lettuce in a little olive oil and vinegar
- Place lettuce on large plates
- Slice chicken sideways thinly and place on lettuce
- Sprinkle with the chopped bacon and cheese
- Top with Caesar salad dressing
Chicken Caesar salad, originally uploaded by bitful.