Thread 4 - TalkExiles: "The Planet Goes On Being Round"

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous lifeboat threads 1 & 2 & 3.

Gather here all ye refugees from the JTT Flat Earth Society, welcome to the reassuringly oblate spheroid of MN! Ye all already know the answers to the questions "How the heck do I format my post?" "Why can't I edit my typos?" "What do those acronyms mean?" and most importantly, "Where is everybody that I used to know?"

So really we're all here just to chat randomly.

Feeling very pleased with myself for a) paying the electricity bill and b) ordering logs. I have no idea how I used to manage the hundreds of patients on my caseload, just paying the bills exhausts me in retirement.

Puzzlingly, the total owed seemed much less than the outstanding amount they were threatening to issue court proceedings for a month or so ago, so I’m assuming this is the government bail-out/subsidy/loan(?) thing.

Skittles is gorgeous!

Very handsome cats! I like Elwood's chin in particular, it makes him look confident somehow. I know a cat called James with a large chin and he looks marvellous.

Lovely shy Skittles!

Kasper has had enough today

All the cats looking very fine, today.

No snow here, but had to lift a sheet of ice out of the birdbath.

All of the cats are adorable and lovely. I'm glad Elwood is on the mend. I'm currently being mithered by Django as I type. Bless him.

Cold here today but dry which is a relief. I had my first proper UC appointment today and it went well. They're waiting to get my details from ESA but I will get money on February 3rd which is a good thing because I am low on funds. The person who is working on my case, or whatever you call it, is profoundly deaf and has an interpreter working with him. He seems like a really good bloke so when I got home I decided to start learning sign language using an introductory free course. I wanted to do it last year but didn't get around to it. Anyway, I now know the alphabet although I need to double-check R which is the one that seems to be causing me problems. And I can say "My name is [my name]", although as my name has an R in it I might be doing it a bit wrong. Just realised that it's R, T and Y I'm not sure about. I shall watch the video again tomorrow and get them right ...

It was bugging me, so I went back now and I've got it. I can say "My name is [my name] and I feel like I've accomplished something!

My daughter learned some sign language in her previous school, I'm not sure she's still doing it now. I think it's a really good idea.

Cold here, too. The garage roof (flat) looks as though there's been snow, but it's just ice.

Everybody out!

I'm on strike, but it's quite hard to picket when you work from home.

Crows, there's a duolingo-type app for sign language: BrightBSL. Which I must get back to - I lapsed over Xmas.

And you can have the fun of working out a sign name for yourself as well as an alphabetical one.

And this sign dictionary is pretty good: www.britishsignlanguage.com/bsl-dictionary/name/

Or this one - better for left handers because you can set the dominant hand for each diagram. www.british-sign.co.uk/british-sign-language/how-to-sign/name/

Uh-oh, boydog didn’t eat his Dentastix last night, that’s usually the first sign there’s an in-season girldog in the village (or “up to 3 miles away” according to google). Instead he’s been parading his Dentastix around this morning in front of his mother, who obviously thinks I’ve given it to him this morning and not given her one. When the girlseason really gets going he stops eating his meals as well.

Gosh. Does he try to escape to get to the bitch? My dog used to do that, bloody Houdini if there was a bitch on heat anywhere in our estate.

Meanwhile, can I get a virtual smack on the head for my menopausal brain fart?

On Friday, I recorded some work-related information on iOS Notes - nothing confidential, just something that I wanted to be sure I'd got down correctly so I could make sure I'd be conveying accurate information the following week. And then thought, I don't want to accidentally delete/overwrite this (sometimes fat fingers strike), so I'll lock this note. I gave it a simple obvious password and even gave myself a password hint.

You'll all guess what I've been battling with all bloody morning. How the &*£%# can I not remember, even with a hint, a simple password that I made only a few days ago??

Do you have a password manager on your machine, Kuc?

I have no useful suggestions but offer up in sympathy my recent deeply unhelpful interaction with a site that, when I couldn't remember my password, asked me to answer the security question.

So far, so reasonable?

No.

It didn't ask the security question; it just asked me to answer it.

'Please answer your security question: ___'

What the fuck is the question?

Unfortunately we have no real boundary between our garden and the woods, apart from an easily walk-overable river. This never mattered before last year, when our lodger had an in-season girldog and introduced the idea of sex to our sweet good innocent boy. Yes I should get him done but I’m hoping most of the in-season girls will be spayed at some point, they’re all new to the village and very young. He’s like a different dog for a few weeks, howling like a wolf through the catflap! I don’t worry about cars or him actually getting one of them pregnant, but I do worry about my dog-hating gun-toting trigger-happy sheep-farming neighbour.

Anyone watch Maternal? Lucy Mangan loved it:

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/16/maternal-review-you-know-these-exhausted-women-in-your-bones

Yes, but somehow this password didn't get automatically included into it?? I don't even know how that failed to happen or whether I didn't tick a box or something. I'm honestly not usually a tech-failure, but clearly the entirety of Friday afternoon was just one giant brain-fart.

Guilty LOL at @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn's invisible security question!

Didn't see Maternal, but just looked on the thread, and it looks promising.

There you all are.

I am a tightly wound ball of anger this morning as our new washing machine did not arrive due to a "broken door". It is now out of stock.

After a lot of negotiations with AO we now have something similar coming next week, another week without a washing machine sigh . Also next door are doing work which seems to necessitate using what sounds like a giant dentists drill.

I’m listening to parliament discussing rotten copper Carrick. Suella Braverman being surprisingly reasonable and informed, apart from a minute ago when she seemed happy to blame Sadiq Khan - the Sadiq Khan who sacked Cressida Dick over this case a year ago.

Yes, but somehow this password didn't get automatically included into it??

That must be really annoying! Hope you manage to access the document at some point.

@Ginmonkeyagain - oh what a pain! Is there a launderette anywhere nearby if things get desperate? Hand washing small stuff? But I hear you, especially with a family. When mine were all at home I couldn't have gone a whole week without resorting to one or the other.

Hello fellow talkboard exiles. How we all doing!? I've read back all the posts here so no need to answer really. I'm just filling space.

Great news about the GRR bill being knocked back by Westminster. Am having a good debate about it on my Facebook page. Debate. That's the thing isn't it. For so long we've been told no debate but now there's going to be one and that's just fantastic.

Took a brief look at JtT to see if it had been mentioned over there. Mentioned. Yes. That was about it. See what happens when you limit discussions on issues. How can you even call it a talkboard when certain talk is not allowed!? I wonder if they get it yet?

Sorry to hear of your laundry woes, Gin.

Hi Lawls, yes, debate! They don't want debate, because they talk complete and utter rubbish and they know it won't pass muster with anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature.

Anyway, I've hoovered upstairs and washed most of the wood flooring and the stairs. Hoovered and tidied up downstairs, de-clogged the hoover, washed the kitchen floor, done a mass of washing up and putting away, picked up eleventy billion sweet wrappers / crisp bags / blueberry containers from under the bloody sofas.

Off to prune the roses in a while.