arrow_circle_left arrow_circle_up arrow_circle_right
Little pleasures
help
A chance to exchange notes on the little everyday things that cheer you up when you're down, or make an ordinary day into a better one. Winning move unaltered.
arrow_circle_up
(Phil) Pangbourne is town? No answer to that.
[Rosie] Newbury is "town" Pangbourne is half the distance, and has a fish & chip shop, to boot!
The prospect of a long weekend in England; I sail back on Thursday night.That means seeing family and friends, not having to worry about not understanding what's being spoken about, eating familiar and favourite foods, and resting my eyes on familiar landscapes. Bliss.
Keeping my eyes inside my head... (Pen rests eyes on landscapes ... I prefer mine remain in their sockets!)
Witnessing another's earned success Case in point - This little animation makes me smile every time I watch it: katana girl (gif)
[Stevie] I think the Moran blog may be suffering from cybernautic gremlins. You don't seem to be able to comment - comments submit far too quickly, it seems to me, for them to be actually be being transmitted anywhere.
[Simons] Intollerable curbation of free speech! I'll have a look what knobs can be twiddled.
I just did an anonymous test and it worked fine for me other than the capcha being so fiendish it took three refreshes to make it spell something I could figure out. I used the "Anonymous" profile (you have to pick one from a list). There aren't any moderated comments waiting to be let out of the pen.
Watching Jeremy Clarkson say "I've ruined m'car!"
Getting a letter from the bank that refunds, with interest, the £30 that the ATM didn't dispense in June 2008, and that you assumed you'd just absentmindedly walked away without taking.
Contemplating the engineering excellence and sheer zombie-stopping power of my new Hammershot revolver and my Sledgefire shotgun. The Weapon Shops of Nerf are awesome.
First class travel. I have just upgraded from what was going to be four hours standing in the end of a carriage to a luxurious seat and free coffee for a mere £15. Privileged? Sure am.
Truly, it is wonderful to sit up in first class with a complimentary coffee and Wi-Fi and think of those down the other end, below the food car, and say to myself, "I'm posh and they're not."
You'll be drinking in the lounge bar next. As a friend once said to me while we were about to enter the UEA Union Bar: "You get a better class of scum in the lounge bar".

La Famile Stevie got upgraded to 1st class on a trans-Canada flight a couple of years ago. I was so impressed I wrote it up for mi blog.

Non-sensible (e.g. pink-paisley-silver-spike-heeled) shoes.
[cfm] May I ask, without prejudice, if you are a person of the female variety?
[Phil] You cannot ask, and cfm is not required to tell you if you do. Because it's more fun that way.

Firing the Nerf Rapidstrike submachine gun. Top o' the world, ma!

Hidden textAt last, a suitable vehicle with which to express my utter rejection of The Colbert Report and the fucktard who presents it.
Rare-breed pork chops bought from the butcher at home in Lincolnshire last week for dinner tonight in the Netherlands The pork here is shocking, and mostly reared indoors. These tasted soooo good.
[pen] Is it me, or is "rare-breed" pork so ubiquitous that one wonders just how "rare" these breeds are? It might just be a Berkshire thing, to be honest.
"Ahuh! Ahuh! Ahuh huh huh! Bet you can't guess what I'm doing?"
[Geo] Are you singing the second line of The Proclaimers' "I'm on my way"?
Puns. Endless puns. and reading back up the page I'd put a word in for Iain (M) Banks as a SF author worth reading... Also, should it be "an SF author"?
Listening to TMS at work
Hidden textThat's "Test Match Special". The BBC's incomparably excellent radio commentary on England's international cricket matches
[Geo] Not fair! It must give us two guesses! You are doing either:
a) Your Elvis Presley warm-ups prior to opening your Las Vegas drive-thru Chapel of Burnin' Love for the day

or

2) Your Tommy Cooper wind-up to the eggs/tray/water-filled glasses trick.
Discovering that my "Ten Years Without Gnawing A Leg Off" certificate bears the notorious doctored version of the city seal, in which the minuteman depicted on one side seems very pleased indeed to see the indian on the other.
Hidden textEven when honoring me they give me the shaft.
Petrichor
Also, knowing the word for petrichor. :-)
[SM] Excellent, on both counts.
Certain TV show theme tunes. Today's nominee, even though I only ever watched about two shows, is the Dexter Theme Tune. A fun little track, that one.
[Simons Mith] Good one. I'll volley that back with the "Morse" theme. I'm particularly fond of the bit where the French Horns swell up. Into tubas, presumably. But then they'd be French Potatoes I suppose. Musical theory was never my strong suit.
Riding on new bicycle tyres. Mm, pumped up really hard.
I'm not sure how I feel about walking through an antiques fleamarket and thinking, not once but several times, "that's not old, I had one of those!" A box of metal puzzles that I'm sure was exactly the same make and design as one my brother had, a set of mathematical instruments, manual sewing machines just like my aunt's, a metal right-angle just like the one my father made in the army (and which I still have), and of course any number of slide rules.
Being able to point at the giant sliderule hanging next to the canoe and the stuffed Springbok head in a local "casual dining" restaurant and say "I know how to use that to do hard sums".
Doing sums in my head faster than someone else does them with a calculator e.g. deducting VAT.
New windscreen wiper blades
Sitting in a 6th floor office in Rotterdam with a window that faces west over the city towards the Port of Rotterdam and watching the storms coming in from the North Sea only 20 miles away, swallowing the city's skyscrapers as it approaches.
The Alps in summer. The really green bits. With the cowbells. And the wildflowers. Don't care if it is like the Sound of Music.
Serving dinner to hungry teenage boys.
Being able to do simple diy stuff, like today, clearing an airlock in the hot water system; repairing a useful bag with a staple gun; making a jig to remove downlighters without damaging the ceiling.
What!?!?!? No! That cannot go unanswered!

Ripping the living bejaysus out of any recalcitrant home fixture with my mighty Tiger Saw prior to replacing it with one that works.

arrow_circle_down
Want to play? Online Crescenteering lives on at Discord