Do keep your mask around: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cdc-covid-coronavirus-masks-indoors-vaccinated-people-pandemic The delta variant apparently also produces 1200 times the viral load in less time. So, the aerosols spewed out are massively more infectious.

Someone I follow on Pluspora just posted:

So one of my colleagues, doubly vaccinated (Astra), just tested covid positive. Life is a bitch.

Symptoms were two days of flu, but then everything went back to normal. I suppose you could say that the vaccine worked.

And how do you get covid? By having a son watching a football game in a pub.

[Simons] I know this. This is why I'm probably not going to go back to the office in a university with 7,000 students, not until most of them get vaccinated.

Got my Pfizer vaccines - 2nd does was in April. I'm watching news for updates with booster shots.
I get so tired of people denying that COVID exists and claiming that vacccines are dangerous or don't work.

Enjoyed seeing a sign which said: "All of you panic buying, stock up on condoms, so you don't produce any more fucking idiots."

Taking a whole shelfful of books to the charity shop, even though I want to keep them. See the Good Books game over at MCiOS.

(KagShu) Just had my booster. I agree with you about anti-vaxxers. Politely, they are misguided; less politely they're thick as pigshit and completely up their own arses. I despise them. BTW do Americans refer to The Jab? The term is universal over here.

Visiting my students on their apprenticeships and seeing them really excited and enthusiastic about what they're doing. Whenever I start getting a bit cynical about teaching, I think about a student excitedly showing me the production line that he's now responsible for maintaining. Warm glowy feelings a-go-go.

[nights] could I ask what/where you teach?

[Bismarck] You can indeed - I teach at a further education college in France on the local equivalent of an HND in Industrial Maintenance and another in Physical Measurement. Our kids are training to be maintenance or metrology techs of all stripes, or to go on to further study at engineering school. My speciality is technical and scientific English, as the French have finally realised that all the innovation in the world is useless if no-one can understand them. I'm also involved in the administration of our apprenticeship scheme, and I genuinely feel like I've found my niche. [/advert]

[Nights] Anything to do with IUT Louis Pasteur (near Strasbourg) or Karim Kalfane's maintenance programme?

[Bismarck] Er, yes indeed - Karim just retired in October! I've taken over two of his apprentices!

Wandering through Google Earth in a VR headset. Rome, Florence, Burning Man, all right there in my computer room.

Getting my Jehovah's Witness advent calender. Every time you open a door, someone tells you to piss off.

Mobile phone signal in the Channel Tunnel "Hi! I'm in the car! On a train! In a tunnel! Under the sea! Etc!"

Doughnut season. Hot and fresh from the baker and, although not the anglo-saxon kind, soft and delicious. Lovely just with cinnamon and sugar.

[nights] Shame on you, hunting innocent doughnuts

London. If I had seven zeros in my bank account I’d live here. Instead I content myself with visiting from time to time. London Festival of Baroque Music this weekend (and all week, but a weekend is a long enough break).

(Raak) 10^-8p should last several nanoseconds.

[Rosie] But what nanoseconds!

(Raak) Indeed, but what about the other 10¹⁸ or so?

I have a new pleasure to add: Using 'phut' as an expletive.

Experiencing a good night-time thunderstorm. There's just been one here but they were a lot more frequent in the '50s and '60s.

A follow-on from the last: florid and exuberant words.
Bamboozle, euphonium, badonkadonk, oleaginous, hornswoggle, sonorous... 'Exuberant' itself, for that matter.

Using singular verbs for "none" as it sure as heck isn't plural
Something I have inherited from my late dad is saying, for example, "none of them is even remotely competent". It genuinely gives me pleasure in a way that using the subjunctive in conversation no longer does.

(Phil) Similarly, Not inserting an intrusive "r", as in "Aston Villa is a football club."

Seeing someone rocking cool or fun clothes
Sharp blue trouser suit, fluorescent orange heels - although it did look like the heels were killing her

Having just moved to Sheffield ("that city of razors and knives" - John Betjeman), getting in a pint for well under a fiver. This is a beer city for sure.

[Raak] What a ... creature. And we're told, "The tasselled wobbegong can be readily identified by the fringe of dermal lobes on its head." Which is all well and good, but I can't help but notice that the reader is left entirely to their own devices for identifying which part is the head.

"The tasselled wobbegong can be..." A sentence worthy of Jack Vance!

Getting a birthday present from Waitrose I was nattering away to an assistant and mentioned I'd just had a birthday. He reached up to the shelf and pulled down a box of chocolates and said "I've seen you here quite a lot so have this on the house". I'd scoffed the lot by the end of the evening.

Confusing students thoroughly by using measurements in teragrams. I've always said I became a teacher chiefly to amuse myself.

(nights) That's about a million tons, innit? Have you thought of using attoparsecs? It's about 3 cm, a little over an inch.

I've been into TikTok lately and sometimes there's this really awesome pianist that does at-home piano bars. It makes me so happy as do all of the people that come in for them. Sometimes he has gigs that he's allowed to broadcast on TikTok and that makes me happy, too. And the regulars come in, too.

Reading the thought: "We need free speech, that's how we find out who all the idiots are"

Wide window sills
Yes, it's a bit random, but I chanced to be reminded of it this evening, so I'm putting it in. When I was a kid, my house has wide window sills. Wide enough for a kid to sit on. And in the summer, I used to sit on the window sill and read for hours after my bedtime, sometimes till 4am or so, I suspect. The only risk of being spotted would have been if my parents decided to go into the garden, which they basically never did after about 6pm, any time of year. Some of my friends' houses had or have yucky, narrow window sills, and I always viewed them (the sills, that is) with disdain. My current house also has nice wide window sills everywhere, and while I no longer need them as ad-hoc midnight seating, they're still handy for plant pots, ornaments and things. It's only a little thing, almost inconsequential really, but that's what little pleasures are all about, so I'm putting it in this game.

Posting on behalf of something or someone else: Seeing a frog, jumping out of a lap, and nosing at said frog in order to make it jump and then finding it and nosing it again and making it jump.

Discovering that the Internet has the lyrics to the songs on Faust Tapes inside it.
J'ais mal aux dents, J'ais mal aux pieds aussie
J'ais mal aux dents, J'ais mal aux pieds aussie
J'ais mal aux dents, J'ais mal aux pieds aussie

Getting food delivered when you aren't feeling good.

(Stevie) Woss wrong with yer feet, cobber?

[Superman] Other people's schadenfreude makes me sad.

Moving your limbs I'm not so keen on getting too hot, or too cold, or rained on, or achey or blistered or whatever, but physical activity is undeniably a net plus even if there are a few flies in the ointment.

[SM] The flies are the best part!

Perpetrating names like Boots, Bewts, Butes, Bootes, Marchinup & Downagen Solicitors and Commissioners of Oaths on the Americans in my Space 1889 game. Count Oberluft and Baroness Von Klyster have also made appearances.

My automatically waving at people, when I take my morning walk, eventually paying off when people start waving at me first!

Playing an augmented 9th (on the piano). A nice, tangy jazz chord. Can't leave it hanging, though. .

@Muse I'm trying to cultivate the habit of smiling at everyone, especially people working in shops. If it helps just a tiny bit I think it's worthwhile.

[Pablo] What, the first ever? Wow :-)

Discovering that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose is actually true.

A warm, but slightly overcast day with a pleasant breeze.
Means I can sit in the 'garden' and 'work', and see WTH I'm doing on the laptop. Yes, I would be more productive if I sat indoors at my desk with a keyboard and the bigger monitor, but perfect days like this are rare and should not be squandered. And I've squandered more than a few, so let's start appreciating them.

The prospect of baking a cake tonight for the first in-person team meeting for a while tomorrow & being able to make it lactose-free for one particular colleague who often misses out.

I wasn't very bold, was I? Maybe a good thing. You'd all want to come to our team meeting for a piece of Devonshire Honey Cake (see the BBC's Good Food website recipe)

My mother, who was quite a good baker, once decided to make honey cake. It wasn't good at all, and nobody wanted to eat it, so we left it out for the birds. After about a month we came to the conclusion that neither the birds nor any other beast would ever touch the stuff, so we had to throw it out.

I also have a honey cake story. My mother, also quite a good baker, once decided to make honey cake. The whole house smelled of honey while it was baking, yet the result was an ordinary sponge cake that hardly tasted of honey at all. Maybe it’s like brewing coffee, where the optimal temperature for extracting the flavour will send the flavour flying off into the air given any chance. Is there a baking equivalent to the espresso machine, that bakes the cake in a sealed oven?

I've never had honey cake, only honey buns, but those are good. Reminds me that I should get some next time I get some groceries.

The recipe calls for boiling the honey, butter and sugar together. I kept it under a boil - I reckoned I'd lose all the honey aromatics by boiling. It seemed to work. But the cake needs 50% longer in the oven than the recipe states.
The prospect of going to try out a new (to me) car later this afternoon. It's got heated seats.

(pen) Heated seats? Wow! Can we call you Ms Winterbottom?

[Rosie] Not for much longer. Presumably that's the point

I'm not sure if this is a little pleasure, as I only did it for the lulz, but toasted cheese Brevilles. I have a sandwich toaster, which has been used maybe once since my student days. On a whim I decided to randomly use it again. Mmm. Hot toasted Breville sandwiches.

They were all right. In fact they weren't a bad lunch.

I think that does count as a pleasure, but, yeah, only a little pleasure. Still, that's on topic for this game.

Cleaning the toaster, on the other hand... well, I was reminded why toasted Breville sandwiches are primarily a studenty novelty.

[Simons] Is that like a grilled cheese sandwich? I do love grilled cheese sandwiches, but even if I had a kitchen, it's too hot for grilled cheese sandwiches.

I did remember to get some honey buns and I got some chocolate muffins, too.

The Breville is supposed to seal gloopy fillings inside the bread. It's basically a waffle maker with different shaped heating plates

'Sealing gloopy fillings' - that is, either the seal is imperfect, it leaks and makes a mess which dribbles out over the toaster and onto the table, or it seals correctly, meaning that the scalding hot goo comes out when you bite into it, giving nineth degree burns AND a mess.

Toasted marmite sandwiches...

Toasted marmot sandwiches

Cuddling with my dog when I go to bed and before getting up for the day.

[SM] Your cat? You got a cat?

Dodge-with-treble lead 2nds dodge lead dodge. Out to the back, double dodge lie dodge. To the front, lead and dodge. The middle work up: dodge 4ths 3rds dodge-with-treble 4ths 3rds dodge. (Dodge everywhere. When in doubt, you probably forgot a dodge.) The back work: double dodge lie dance-with-treble lie double dodge. Reverse to reassemble, so next is the middle work down: dodge 3rds 4ths dodge-with-treble 3rds 4ths dodge. To the front, dodge and lead. To the back, dodge lie double dodge. To the front, dodge lead dodge 2nds lead dodge-with-treble 2nds and that’s all. Learning Cambridge Surprise Minor by studying the blue line over two days and then ringing it all the way through.