Talk to Yourself

[Dave B]

Latest post of the previous page:

Ooops, laptop crashed and came back to the edit box with last post in it - thought I had not submitted!

[Dave B]

I find myself in a strange situation.

I was never a "physical" kid, lousy at sport, swam like a brick, ran away from cricket balls etc. Much happier with a book, a test tube, a drill, a paint brush.

Then I heard that funding had been cut to many of the outdoor centres, where kids learn confidence, self-reliance and team-work etc. through physical activities of all kinds. Now the parents may have to pay the full cost, assuming the facilities survive at all.

Suddenly I feel at least as concerned about this as anything to do with the academic side of education. Perhaps it is because I did not experience many of these things myself and now, older and (hopefully) a little wiser I recognise that gap in my development.

If I won loads of lolly on the lottery I would be tempted to sponsor some sort of centre where kids could find their "real selves", be that through physical activities or academic.

[jaywhat]

There is a limit to how weak and floppy one can be. I make a 'to do' list and how bloody childish is that. Then I do some of it and I feel a lot better. How bloody childish is that!
OK - the list
have a shower (can't be arsed) - done
get dressed (do I have to?) - done
go to the co-op (simple enough)
do summat to the front path (very difficult)
put the bottles out into the garage (easy) - done
bin the blue tit body from the cat's ravages yesterday (dead easy) - done
have coffee (why not?)
think about lunch (ditto)
watch tennis
watch last night's Wallander
watch last night's 'Have i got a bit more news for you'
that's better
( done = done by 9.50 )

[jaywhat]

OK - the list - or what's left

do summat to the front path (very difficult)
watch tennis
watch last night's Wallander
watch last night's 'Have i got a bit more news for you'

now that sounds possible

[jaywhat]

Now its really pissing down so there is one thing done and 2 things undone and one (or two) things left to do.

[Sel]

Not really a note to myself...
Last evening's Humanist gathering went very well, if I do say so myself. 26 people were here with the last of the yappers leaving about 1:50 AM!

Several people came from other groups; 4 of whom I had never met before. One lovely lady was in the city on business and joined us as she has found no kindred spirits in her small city of Red Deer about 1 1/2 hrs north of here. (note: we Western Canucks measure distance in hours of driving time. ie: Vancouver is about 12 hrs from Calgary)

It sure feels great to be entertaining. I must get back to having dinner parties. I miss it.

Now to the rest of the clean-up as I have Bridge here tomorrow evening. Never rains but it pours, right?

[thundril]

Isn't it great when something turns out well? nice one Sel!

[lewist]

Isn't it great when something turns out well? nice one Sel!

My experience of Humanist get togethers has been really good, and it sounds as if yours was outstanding, Sel!

I hope you have lots more.

[jaywhat]

You know, jaywhat, that carrot and coriander soup of yours was gorgeous.
Yes I agree, jaywhat.
It is clearly good for the brain because it has given me the idea of a talking-to-myself thread.
I am not at all sure of that, jaywhat. It might put people off carrot soup - and you always talk to yourself anyway. Who needs a thread?

Do you know, jaywhat, you opened this thread in July 2008 with this rubbish about carrot and coriander soup and you have not made any since. At least you have not said so on this thread.
Well you see, jaywhat, I am not sharing any more of my soup stories because people have started commenting on things and that means I am no longer just talking to myself.
Well you are dickhead, jaywhat, because if you want to talk to yourself you should do it in private not put it on a public forum.
Yes! I am a dickhead and in future I shall keep my thoughts to myself. Thankyou for your advice.

[Dave B]

Feeling slightly virtuous.

There has been growth of mould in (not on) the filler round the kitchen windows for some years now. I have made half hearted attempts to clean it up but none successful for long.

Today I got round to applying some "filler remover" and removed the whole lot. All I have to do now is get round to buying the right kind of filler (not the cheap stuff the installers used) and finish the job.

But at least there are no black lines in the joints and corners now!

Phew, justified in taking the rest of the day off I reckon.

[getreal]

My back is sore. I should stop leaning over this machine and get to bed. Are computers machines?

[Dave B]

Oh, woe is me!

Last Friday I seemed to have something stuck to my soft pallet during brekkers. I gargled with my coffee and drank lots of water but it did not shift it. There was nothing in my breakfast that would have scratched the mouth. I did wonder if one of my tablets might have got stuck there, but the gargling with warm coffee usually shifts that. Ignored it.

Later that day it became painful to swallow, like being poked in the back of the mouth with a very sharp stick each time I did, with a continuous, slightly duller pain that spreads into the left ear, eye & jaw all the time. It's a bit like having a nasty boil in one's gob. No surgery at the weekend and it did not seem so bad on Monday, activity took my mind of it a bit - until lunch . . .

Twice as bad on Tuesday and I got an "emergency" appt at with the GP. He gave me a spray, did no good at all. Back in the surgery Friday, pain even worse. Now on antibiotics and the strongest pain killers I am allowed*. Even swallowing saliva is incredibly painful and I tend to spit it out instead - did not realise just how much saliva one produced! Smooth, bland and cold is the order for energy intake; banana smoothie, chicken soup, milk shakes and slimmers' meals!

I sympathise (and empathise) with all those who are in constant pain. This is worse than when my back used to "go out" - at least then I could find a comfortable position and stay in it. Comfort is Cocodamol shaped, I live for the moment they start to work! (First ones today in 20 minutes time.)

* Being on Warfarin restricts what pain killers I can take, paracetamol (which does not even touch this pain) is the only safe one. I was prescribed Cocodamol this time, but that means I will have to go for a blood test on Monday to check if they are having any effect.

It's a right pain in the gob!

[Dave B]

Another sign of the increasing years and the slippage from the current culture.

I used to be able to listen to Radio 4's comedy prog, "Chain Reaction", and recognise the names of the "celebrities" in it . . .

[thundril]

Spent all day scraping barnacles off the bottom of an ex-RN ammunition barge that's being converted into a live-aboard. Earned £40, and my eyes are full of rust-particles. I did wear goggles, but I think it's time to buy some new ones.
Ho hum. A glass of South African Red lends a certain perspective.

[Dave B]

3/4 of a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon down the vino chute (it was only suppose to be 1/2 a bottle, but they were on bogof . . .) and Carole drank the rest. 'Sfunny, somehow the video I took with me got ignored.

[Dave B]

Oooer, half way through a reply the machine suddenly went to a new Firefox screen. Despite the alcohol intake I had enough brain cells still alive to notice that this was an additional screen and that the one I was working on was still there.

Getting fed up with computers that do things of their own accord!

[toctel]

What puzzles me is what was so special about August 13th 2011 ?

Why did this perfectly good, rambly sort of thread, pause for so long after that day ?

It's quite entertaining in a quiet sort of way looking at slices of externalised internal dialogue.

No it isn't ! Yes it is !

Best stop this before it comes to blows.

[jaywhat]

Just wondering how far west I had ever been in my 74 years and thought it must be the west coast of Ireland. Of course going west is a never ending journey whereas going north will eventually change to going south. Florida would be more west but not as west as California and certainly not China. I always think of China as going east but if I was in Hawai it would be westwards. Get out my world map to see if Bridgetown is the most southerly I have been, but it is all a human constuct and it all means very little in the wide scheme of things.
I am so glad that my wanderings are now mainly on paper and mainly out of sight of others. This thread is good for that because people get told off is they try to talk to each other - or they should.

[stevenw888]

I am excited about 26th February 2012 as that will be the date when I break my "furthest west I have ever been" record. The furthest west I have ever been is Dublin and this record was set in september 1997. However on 26th Feb 2012, we're flying to Faro in the Algarve and I've checked very, very carefully on my atlas, and Faro is definitely further west than Dublin. Therefore this will be a red letter day and one for my diary.
If I could just then break my "Furthest north I have ever been, Furthest south I have ever been and Furthest east I have ever been" all in one year, that would break all records!

[Dave B]

The current subject has me wondering: if one flies to New York using flights only going eastwards has one reached one's further west or furthest east point? (Assuming Land's End was the furthest one reached travelling in a westerly direction.)

[animist]

to spoil the fun, and as if you did not know, obviously, while one might almost always be travelling east, crossing the International Date Line that way would mean an instantaneous 360 deg westward move. Something different connected with this question of westernmostness came up a few weeks ago in a quiz, when I incorrectly guessed that Madrid was further west than Glasgow. In fact it is east of Glasgow in terms of degrees west of Greenwich, but I think it might well be further west of the meridian in terms of miles rather than degrees: the reason is that it is a good deal further south than Glasgow, and near the equator, distances between degree points of longitude are obviously much greater than further north.

Reading Steve's post made me doublecheck his locations, but you're OK, Steve; despite this north-south thing I've mentioned, Faro is definitely west of Dublin in both senses!

Furthest west I've been is Cleveland, Ohio, which lies on a river once so polluted that it caught fire