A narrow gorge, usually with a stream flowing through it.
An open artificial channel or chute carrying a stream of water, as for furnishing power or conveying logs.
A very small swimming pool designed with a propeller or pump to generate a current, allowing a swimmer to swim in place.
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A small room or entryway in a house where wet or muddy footwear and clothing can be removed.
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The father of a friend of mine is dying of lung cancer.
He was always bursting with energy, one of those people who can possibly get on your nerves because they keep you constantly on your toes, but who leave an indelible mark with their humour (and the way they cook fish).
He was the incredibly strong centre of the family. He organised everything, took care of everything, did everything, and this is why his wife and children now feel completely lost. He got much worse yesterday and was taken to hospital. They told me that they are simply waiting for it to happen now.
My friend is trying to be strong and put up a brave face, but I can't help wondering how she feels. She lost a very young aunt (whom she adored) when she was little. Her own mother survived breast cancer a few years ago, and now her dad is going.
It looks unlikely that I will see my friend when I am in Italy this weekend: I want and need to give my mother, who is just out of hospital after surgery, my undivided attention. But I wish I could hug my friend very tight, and let her know that I am there, even if words fail me.
Five Reasons Why Web 2.0 People Need to Shut The F**k Up about the Mobile Web,
in reply to
Five Reasons Why The Mobile Web Sucks.
I totally agree with the content (but perhaps not the tone) of the top article. I consume cartloads of mobile content every day (on T-Mobile "unlimited – as long as you do not go over 1GB of content per month in which case we might let you know you're pushing it a bit" tariff). So it does not have all the bells and whistles of the full desktop broadband experience. Get over it.
Did painfully slow 28k modems stop the Internet from developing into what it is today? Did the fact that if you stayed connected for hours nobody could call you (and your phone bill made your parents have a fit) prevent you from finding information and connecting with people. Thankfully not.
Of course, this is only my personal opinion and it is based on how I use the web. Some folks believe that in the halcyon years of yore people knew how to relate to each other in person and oh wasn't it brilliant to find a hand-written letter from a friend waiting for you on your doorstep. Well, I'll take my avalanche of emails and text messages and Facebook pokes and Twitter updates any day over one letter per month (if you were lucky). But again, that's just me and what makes me buzz.
Land with a soft muddy surface. A difficult or precarious situation; a predicament.
Read more about quagmire at Answers.com
By Jove I think I've cracked it!
Last week I wrote about planning to clean a bit every day. Ten minutes every day, to be precise.
So:
The flat was never totally gleaming clean on any single day, but on average it was on the whole cleaner than it has been in months.
Of course, to start with I had to accept the fact that even when fractioned, I would have to spend approximately five hours per month cleaning. If you are not prepared to do so, get a cleaner.
I overcome (but only slightly) my laziness to paste an email Dr B. sent to his friends yesterday to comment on the last issue of David Hoyle's Magazine that we went to see on Monday night:
Well that was fun. For those that missed it David Hoyle was back on form last night – we had the return of one of the guys from Crime and Punishment with his partner and their new baby followed by a 70 year old reformed alcoholic and ex tramp. He had a very interedting story to tell and importantly this time David shut up and let him speak. He was also quite witty. All in all it was the best one I've seen. He is next on at the RVT on the friday before worlds aids day with a show about unprotected sex and gay life in generally entitled something like 'the worlds largest suicide sect'
TTFN
S
To move or walk heavily or laboriously; trudge. To work or act perseveringly or monotonously; drudge.
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Crudely or loudly assertive; pushy. Self-important, conceited.
Read more about bumptious at Answers.com
Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:
To keep from yielding or failing during stress or difficulty: buoy (up), prop, support.
Read more about bolster at Answers.com
To complain persistently and whiningly. A chronic, whining complainer.A nagging complaint.
Read more about kvetch at Answers.com
I have already written about how two days into my holiday my mobile phone reset itself and all data was wiped out.
I saw this as a sign to let go and try not to make a note of absolutely everything, and also told myself that I might not need to keep a food diary any longer. It's been years since I was overweight and surely I can now listen to my body and stop eating when I'm full, right?
Right my (huge again) arse! I have put on almost a stone in a month. If memory serves me right, it will take me twice as long to get rid of it (and it gets harder and harder as I get older). I know from experience that it is going to be a pain, with privations and sacrifices – and this is exactly why I had been keeping a food diary for years, so I could monitor my weight and take action immediately if the scales showed their unhappy face in the morning.
I had a previously planned dinner out tonight (absolutely delicious, I've got very talented friends who can do wonders with vegetables), and a previously planned weekend away visiting friends tomorrow and Sunday. And then it's probably going to be nil by mouth until Christmas.
Wilson White to Jordan McDeere on last week's (terrestrial UK) episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:
Content may be king, but distribution pays the king's mortgage.
Having poor vision; nearly or partly blind. Slow in understanding or discernment; dull.
Read more about purblind at Answers.com
If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that lately I've been enjoying getting rid of things.
What you see in this picture from Flickr is for me (at the moment at least) unconceivable. I wish these were my belongings but they are not. The're all Elliott owns after reducing his possessions to the very essentials. You can read more about The Rucksack Life's 'Visual Inventory of Everything I Own'.
But if I do try and imagine what it would feel like to only own such a small amount of essential things, my heart jumps up with joy, my lungs fill up with air, I imagine how much extra space we'd have in the flat and I feel like giddily hopping up and down.
Dr B. and I live in a medium-sized two-bedroom flat. And we never clean.
I like keeping it tidy, but do not like cleaning. He likes it being tidy, and does not like cleaning. But that might be stating the obvious, as who on earth likes cleaning?
Every so often I decide it is time to get a cleaner, and start decluttering so that the cleaner can clean easily. Then I realise that it would not take long to clean ourselves, do a good clean myself and I forget about it for another week, or two, or – ahem – five.
Last Saturday it was a case of one of those impromptu 'All back to ours' things. And the flat was absolutely filthy. On this particular occasion I did not mind too much because we were all coming from a memorial service for a friend who recently died, and we were all in need of companionship, a drink and some general silliness. So frankly I could not care less.
But then on Sunday, along with twenty-odd glasses, and wiping my PC from what looked like a poured vodka-cranberry (no harm done), I cleaned the whole flat in about seventy minutes. Alright, I timed it. And then I thought well, what if I cleaned 10 minutes a day every day? The flat would always be acceptably clean, instead of getting more and more filthy as weeks go by, and the task of cleaning it more and more daunting.
I did a bit of research and of course, plenty of other people had come to the same conclusion, among which my zen and simplicity guru:
Simple Systems: Clean Your House as You Go (with an added burst)
So on Monday night I cleaned the kitchen again (not much to do), last night I dusted everywhere and tonight I re-cleaned the bathroom. Very easy tasks, considering they had recently been cleaned, but each was performed in under 10 minutes.
Tomorrow night I'll clean and dust our desks, on Friday I'll mop the kitchen and bathroom floors and on Saturday I'll hoover. I'll put things away every day (but I'm used to do that anyway so no change there).
We'll see how this one goes. I'd do anything not to pay a stranger to rummage through my things.
To persuade or attempt to persuade by flattery or guile; cajole. To obtain through the use of flattery or guile.
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Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:
'Commercial director Joseph Kosinski is in final negotiations to develop and direct "Tron," described as "the next chapter" of Disney's 1982 cult classic.'
Noun: a cheap and showy object of little or no use; a gewgaw. Adj.: cheap and tasteless; gaudy.
Read more about gimcrack at Answers.com
To complain in a surly manner; mutter discontentedly. To rumble or growl.
Read more about grumble at Answers.com
Two days into my holiday my mobile phone reset itself and was wiped out.
I back up all my contacts daily with my desktop and online once a month, so information was not lost and easily retrievable away from home.
However, my notes on how much I had spent so far, on what, and how to split that with Dr B. was gone forever.
I had been thinking for a while that now that I am not a nineteen-year-old student any longer, I could perhaps become a little bit less obsessive about logging my expenses. And so I decided to enjoy the rest of the holiday and spend away.
Once I returned home I continued not to log any cash expenses, and I was particularly proud of this great achievement.
Until yesterday morning, when I overheard the woman behind me in the queue at Tescos muttering 'I don't fu**ing believe it!' under her breath when I paid for a banana and a tin of tuna with my debit card. And I realised that I was doing it because I knew that Nationwide sends automatically each transaction to Microsoft Money, and I have trained Money to tag each transaction coming from Tescos with 'Groceries'.
So, well, same disorder really, but now managed electronically online.
