Monthly archive: October 2007

Resourceful courage and daring in the face of difficulties; spirit. The heart, liver, windpipe, and lungs of a slaughtered animal.

Read more about pluck at Answers.com

To separate grain from chaff. To separate the good from the bad.

Read more about winnow at Answers.com

I am trying to save the world, but they sure do not make my life easy.

The kitchen scales batteries had gone. It cost nine pounds to replace them. New scales, batteries included, cost as little as nine pound 99. I insisted in buying the batteries instead. Yes, I know there are scales that run without batteries, but they do not do five-gram increments, and they cannot be reset to zero every time you want to weigh another ingredient to add to the mix.

The kitchen tap handles have cracked and needed replacing. I've had no hot water in the kitchen for months now, and now the cold tap handle has gone too. Fifty pounds to replace handles and cartridges. New complete tap unit, as little as 49.99. We went for the handles only, also because we do not risk flooding half of South London while replacing the whole tap.

The hoover head is broken. Alright, I took it apart to clean it thoroughly (it was clogged with pine needles in early January) and could not figure out how to put it back together again. That particular model is discontinued and is nowhere to be found. I hope the nozzle diameter is sort of standard, and I shall try not to think too hard of that sexy Dyson I've set my sights on a while back.

Of or relating to the sense of touch; tactile.

Read more about haptic at Answers.com

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account last week:

• The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free
  Perhaps music will never be totally free as Techcrunch's founder argues. However, people will have to realise sooner than later that record labels have to reinvent themselves or disappear.
• How to make a box out of a post-it note
  Instructions (flash file) on how to fold a square post-it note and make a lid-less box. No cutting at all involved!
• Vaio Zoom laptop concept
  'Featuring a holographic glass screen that goes transparent and a keyboard that turns opaque when turned off, it's slick and beautiful.' Check out the images that illustrate the article!
• Facebook Status now allows updates from Twitter
  By simply accessing your Facebook account and adjusting the Twitter application [...] there now appears at the top a NEW option asking if you would like to update your Facebook status directly from Twitter.
• Facebook's Killer Feature Coming Soon
  You will be able to group your friends (work, uni, personal, whatever) and decide who sees what. LinkedIn is doomed!
• Second Rotation
  Estimate your gadget on the website, ship it for free and get paid for it (probably less than selling it on eBay, but hassle-free). The modern equivalent of the pawn shop.

Eccentric or scatterbrained.

Read more about ditsy at Answers.com

To level to the ground; demolish. See synonyms at ruin. To scrape or shave off.

Read more about raze at Answers.com

A post from Overyourhead into my Google Reader, about delays in a Spanish airport, with the word 'delay' in Spanish.

And, right below it, that day's Spanish 'word of the day', which was… 'Delay'.

Either a very odd coincidence, or Google is getting more and more powerful these days.

1. With Oyster cards, you do not need a photocard any more
2. If you simply type 'time' into the search box, Google will tell you your local time. Type 'time' and a city, and it will tell you what time it is there. Type 'time' and a country with several time zones like Australia, and it will list them all. Via Gordon.
3. Dr Tanya Byron (the TV parenting psychologist this tiny tearaway here would love to be adopted by) has co-written The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle with Jennifer Saunders. I watched the first episode on Thursday, it's good, it makes you uncomfortable, it's a bit unusual, I wonder if it will last the distance.
4. Poll and research organisations are not bound to respect the Telephone Preference Service. Tom is rightly outraged. Join us and sign the petition to make them observe it.
5. Baby MPS is a service which allows parents who have suffered a miscarriage or bereavement of a baby in the first weeks of life to register their wish not to receive baby related mailings.
6. Even if it lacks Outlook 2007's enhanced categorization and productivity system, in Outlook 2003 you can rename your quick flags, and drag them to the toolbar for even faster message tagging.
7. Outlook reminders only trigger if they are placed within the primary Calendar or Task folders.

Fragments or splintered pieces; bits.

Read more about smithereens at Answers.com

At some point this afternoon, searching for 'ditsy' on Answers.com made Google return Jessica Simpson merchandise as sponsored links.

It does not any more now, but I took a screenshot to prove it. Click on 'all sizes' for the original version where you can read all the text.

For the lucky ones among you who are unaware of Ms Simpson, she notoriously asked whether the 'Chicken of the Sea' tuna she was eating was in fact chicken or fish, and also said that she believed that Buffalo wings were made from actual buffalo. Bless her little Daisy Dukes.

Gray or white with or as if with age. Covered with grayish hair or pubescence: hoary leaves. So old as to inspire veneration; ancient.

Read more about hoary at Answers.com

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account last week:

• WP-DBManager
  'control your complete WordPress database in your WP admin panel. Backup, restore, repair and optimize your database, without any knowledge requirement. You can even run SQL commands and add new tables to your database.'
• How To Add WordPress 2.3 Tags To Your Current Theme
  'With built-in support for tagging and tag clouds, there is no longer a need for hard-to-configure plug-ins. WordPress 2.3 is going to offer two simple to use API calls that can be plugged into any theme.'
• Google GMail E-mail Hijack Technique
  '…how someone can install a persistent backdoor within your GMail account and snoop onto all your conversations'. Go check your filter list NOW!
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
  'Maslow's theory contended that as humans meet 'basic needs', they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy. Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass'.

A slightly arched surface, as of a road, a ship's deck, an airfoil, or a snow ski.

Read more about camber at Answers.com

It was not without apprehension that last Saturday I set off to go visit my mother in Italy. She had been ill for a while, was taken to hospital for six weeks of tests last spring, but they could not find anything wrong. She was ill again recently, and this time the local hospital sent her to Bozen, a lovely German-speaking town where a little Austrian efficiency must have seeped through the border, helping doctors find what was wrong with my mother and fix it.

Once back from hospital, she sounded in great shape on the phone. As I arrived to her place, I was expecting the usual pasta salad she feeds me when I get there (recipe: overcook pasta, mix with jar of pickled carrots and olives, do not refrigerate so that the warmth makes it all coagulate – serve lukewarm with fork and knife). Instead, my brother had talked her into cooking proper pasta (cooked in advance of course, then kept warm on a plate placed on the pot of hot water it was cooked in) and a bolognaise sauce.

Now, you must be aware that her bolognaise sauce is pretty much the only edible thing she prepares. So un-bad that even I use her recipe when I make it.

Only thing, this time she forgot to add tomatoes. That's alright, since even the original recipe only calls for a couple of tablespoons of tomato concentrate. But she made a lot of it. My nephew was staying with her and my brother, and the four of us ate tomato-less bolognaise overcooked pasta for lunch and dinner on Saturday, for lunch and dinner on Sunday and for lunch on Monday. I peeked at the pot and there was still a fair amount of sauce left. Mother wanted me to take it back to London. I silently thanked the authorities for the ban on liquids on board and politely declined her offer.

She's obviously in form and back to her hopeless cooking ways. I can't wait to be eighty-two and get away with anything.

Said or done on purpose; deliberate. See synonyms at voluntary. Obstinately bent on having one's own way.

Read more about wilful at Answers.com

Having or showing keen discernment, sound judgment, and farsightedness.

Read more about sagacious at Answers.com

The kitchen of an airliner, ship, or camper.

Read more about galley at Answers.com