Wham! bam! – kill that spam … 1

advertising • Tags: ,

nospamJust added an Akismet counter to my widgets: it’s getting so that every time I log on the first thing I have to do is check my dashboard to get rid of however many spam messages there are. So I decided to let Akismet tally ’em for me, although it’ll probably only enrage me.

:-(

The ones that make me REALLY angry as those that cover an entire screen – but I should probably add that my format is landscape, not portrait !

Is everyone being driven mad by this? – or have these mindless morons decided to target me because they figure anyone with my scattergun approach to topics ought to reach at least someone …?   ;-)

I wish to all the gods I could make Akismet not tell me about them, but delete the buggers …

An amazing morning ! 34

plants • Tags: ,

 

I was out on my balcony, watering what is now a very small collection of plants, when I got down to the far end where I have two hanging baskets – a chain-of-hearts and a hoya. What particular kind (genus?) of hoya it is, I know not: I bought it at Plants-R-Us roughly 5 years ago, when a dear friend drove me there one Sunday morning. I believe it did have a label on it; but it hasn’t had for most of that time.

Throughout those 5 years it had grown extremely slowly, putting out the occasional feeder. Not having the faintest idea how to care for it, all I’ve ever done is water it sensibly and give it the same food as the other plants. About a couple of months back it started chucking out more feeders, many of which hit the wall/window and karked, but as you can see, many didn’t. In fact, I was obliged to try to tuck some of ‘em up amongst others, and it’s looking a bit weird because of that.

Imagine my astonishment, then, when I went this-morning to take a dead leaf out of the basket and found myself face-to-face with … A BUD !!!!

It’s a very small bud, but there is absolutely no doubt at all about it: my hoya has finally decided to give me a flower !!! I am so excited, you can’t imagine!

Stringer would pinch me fiendishly if he saw that CU: he would ask “Tell me, why did you want to have that background leaf in focus rather than the bud?”, and then laugh like anything. He would’ve loved to have some of his skill rub off on me, but only for my sake.

As you will readily understand, this unfortunate plant is going to be inspected twice daily from now on, and every development noted (and photographed badly).

:-)

Btw: the chain-of-hearts is like the human body – none of it is the original! It grows down to the floor, and I cut it off with scissors, very carefully (one trail by one) about 4″ from the top. And down it comes again! Just a wonderful little plant …

 

M.R. vs The Pattern 44

craft • Tags:

I know there’s a well-known title about “[someone] vs the [something]” – great memory, eh? Not.   :-(

Anyway …

You may recall my seeking opinions re crochet square patterns. (If you don’t, consider yourself whacked across the back of the head.) This is the one that received the most votes:

In truth, it was one of two; but I went for it.

I now show you this exhibit – as well as sounding like a prosecution lawyer – so that you can see how vastly different these squares look, depending upon the colours chosen:

crochet-squares

You’d scarcely credit it, wouldya …? – that they’re all the one pattern? You have to try to imagine mine nicely blocked by the simple expedient of their being all joined up … Because you will otherwise wonder why you can see that nice kind of honeycombing in the white one, but not in mine. IT’S THERE, OK?!!   ;-)

The bottom line here is that as I really like colourwork, and never crochet anything in one colour only, I shall now commence trying the other well-supported squares: they’re all 12″-ers (I searched Ravelry using that as a criterion), so I should be laughing.

SHOULD … Stand by for inchoate rage …

P.S. Just remembered that title: Joe vs the Volcano. Why, I have no idea! – never read it.

OK – lay it on me … 71

blogosphere, fun, reflections, writing • Tags: ,

CommentsOf late I’ve exchanged Comments with blogging friends who have said that they actually prefer to receive genuine opinions rather than well-meant but perhaps not entirely sincere praise.

( You can tell immediately that they are referring to my Comments, can’t you?!   :-\ )

The thing is this, it seems to me: what’s the point of writing something fulsome if you don’t truly think the post worth it? Why add your opinion to those of others being nice when that’s not the effect some post generates upon your sensibilities?

We can ‘like’ and leave, and I do that, too … mostly when I have posts from everyone I follow waiting to be looked at in my Inbox. Thank all the gods you’re not like me! – imagine if you all posted every day !!!

We can ‘like’ and also say something when the post gives rise to it – and I do that more often than not. Most of the time I find I’ve said something that has little to do with the post’s raison d’être – like, I just wrote under a post from my mate Terri, who’d found something delightful on the ground, “is dem yore shoes?”. Now, this would infuriate many people, who would want to send me back a bomb along the lines of THAT IS NOT THE POINT, YOU STUPID WOMAN!!! Happily for me, my blogging friends know me pretty well by now, and have learned to roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and respond without setting their computers on fire.   [grin]

And when bloggers actually ask for an opinion … well, they’re taking a risk. At least, I hope they are! – by which I mean that I hope they really do want responses that are honest, rather than merely looking to be praised. I can say that those I follow who have sought opinions and been given mine, inter alia, are without exception people who seek real feedback. Poor them – they get it, from me. But so far no-one has put out a contract on me (although I s’pose it’s possible that my skulking down here has some relevance to that).

I also realize that there are readers|followers who drop by one’s site, look, and leave without doing anything at all. There must be, to explain those stats. And, as well, why on earth would a person ‘follow’ a blog when that person doesn’t have one of his/her own, if not to take the occasional gink at it?

They’re the silent majority, those mute droppers-in-occasionally.

Not very like me …

Addendum: forgive me for doing this so often ! This time I’m so delighted with a Comment about Comments (!) that I simply have to share it with you:

Well, I paid for it! 29

blogosphere • Tags: ,

and cheap it wasn’t.

So I’ve gone back to it because I found that after 2,749 years (approx.) it had finally forgotten all the hideous stuffups I’d done to its CSS.

Well you may ask how this happened, when some of you are aware that I am the willing Forum slave of a truly wonderful bloke, whose unending kind help has got me through something like six different themes. (He must want to kill me every time he sees me move on … but he probably figures I’ll come back to [insert whichever theme M.R. has just abandoned]. It was nothing to do with him – just me. Trying to be clever. And discovering that something I did had a horrendous trickle-down effect, and I was LOST … So I threw my hands up and walked away. Sometimes that’s all you can do.

Howsomever, as of this moment, having returned to life amongst the living, I can say that there’s really only one more thing I need to work out. And I’m buggered if I’m going to ask him: I’m going to work it out meself!

Addendum: did it. Worked out how to insert a line between each widget on my sidebar. Well, that is … went back over the .txt files I keep of CSS from various themes (!) and found an example, then got it looking right.   :-)

It’s all Greek to me 29

blogosphere, fun • Tags:

Sighh … I knew it would happen one day …

All I can tell you is that the motto of this follower’s site is something like

“Those who hang out with wolves learn only to scream; but those who hang out with eagles learn to fly.”

Does that help? If not, tant pis pour vous: I know nozzink more.

What am I on about, for heaven’s sake?

 

Thought I’d give your mighty brains something to chew on. Hang on – brains don’t chew! Brains … get cudgelled!

So cudgel away, team, and tell me the result.   :-D

Addendum!: Good grief! The bloke’s site has been suspended for violation of terms of service! How does a football fan do that, I wonder? – especially when everything’s in Greek?   :-\

But much worse … what the devil am I going to do about it?! Answer: nix. Nada. Niente. It served its purpose at the time, that’s my view.

Weekly Writing Challenge: Threes 62

beauty, competitions, domesticity, photos, Weekly Writing Challenge, writing, yesterday • Tags: , , , ,

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/writing-challenge-threes/

Write about a memory inspired by either three of your own photographs

1
2

Chic (my husband) : cat (ours) : camera (his, but not a professional one)

There’s an acronymic kind of threesome for you! These photos, while all being of my husband who’s no longer with me, are also of the same one of our cats. His name was Doctor McCoy (no, sorry; you’re going to have to work out for yourselves the names of his two brothers …), and he was lovingly known as The Doctor – when we had long since given up watching that show.

Chic – whom I always called ‘Stringer’ to his face, but ‘Chic’ to other people … which just goes to show that I am far from dependable, as I’ve called him both in my blog – built us a house. From go to whoa. From idea -> plans -> their submission to local council -> quantity surveying -> ordering -> arranging delivery to a small island in the middle of a large river -> actually building it. He wasn’t a dummy, not by so long a shot as to win any prizes for distance.   :-)

It was a dreaming kind of time, while he was making us a place of our own. You can tell that it would have been from the first of the three photos: Dangar Island is in a bend of the mighty Hawkesbury River, on the northern extremity of what’s called ‘the greater Sydney area’, and is quite breathtaking. The house that Chic built was the same.

I was working for one of the major commercial TV channels in Sydney throughout most of the build, and would come home every Tuesday–Saturday in gleeful anticipation of what new thing there would be for me to see.  The Doctor was not working – he was the sole member of the trio of whom I write not to be doing so, as is always the way for moggies (and so it should be!). Chic|Stringer was working his hide off creating our house, and we were all happy in what we were doing.

The Doctor was possibly the happiest of all, as he absolutely adored Chic, and decided that the house-building was THE way to be close to him at all times. If you look carefully at the photo where Chic’s up on the 1st storey and The Doctor is standing near the front edge, you will realize that one walked up the built ramp to the wall, but one then had to climb a short vertical ladder to reach the roof. This our moggy did, every day! I will admit that at going back to the rented premises time, Chic would go first, stand on the top of the ramp and lift him down onto it. If truth be known, he had to do this on occasion during the day, as The Doctor was now allowed to do his business anywhere on the house.   [grin]

I don’t remember with accuracy, but I suppose it took him about a year to finish, and in fact he never finished the interiors. We had all the wiring, all the plumbing, all the furnishings – but we never had any wall-linings or ceilings! Who cared? – not we! We were young enough to be joyful without need for perfection; and we LOVED our house that Chic built. With help from The Doctor.

LIOLI #2 37

competitions, fun, photos, writing • Tags:

Here we are with the second LIOLI challenge, mounted behind a far less strident version of the icon. I was seized with the whole STAY CALM thing, a month ago; and didn’t stop to think how clashing it might be. Hope this icon’s more acceptable. It would be really nice if you included it – even if just within your lioli post: it has a link back to here behind it that you can copy and add, if you like.

Methodology: for new bugs.

This is a fortnightly ‘competition’, with the prize of a personal poem in acknowledgement of the winner’s skill! It requires you to submit your opinion/s on each fortnight’s topic – see below.

Create a new post around the topic describing how/why you like or loathe it – either in prose or imagery. Use as its heading the phrase you see in mine. Please make sure to add lioli to its tags, in addition to whatever other tags you like.

Publish your post.

Copy its whole title into your clipboard, and then come back here and open up go to the LIOLI widget in my sidebar; and when you click on that you can scroll down to the Comments section where you will paste it in (and probably add some smart comments).   :-D

OK with all that? – if not, write to me.

The LIOLI #2 topic for the fortnight of  4th – 18th March is

LIVER. IL FEGATO. LE FOIE. EL HÍGADO. LEVERN.

lioli2Choose your language (you are not restricted to those ones). If you comprehend this post and would like to respond in another language, go for it! – my trusty Google Translator will be employed! Better keep it fairly short, though.   ;-)

For myself, my own post to this topic is something along these lines —>

Which has always been a great pity; for on Saturdays my mother – a truly exceptional cook – would produce what was called ‘lamb’s fry’ because the rest of the family demanded it (with menaces!). It smelled divine, it looked absolutely yummy, cooked in a clutching coating of very fine breadcrumbs and herbs; and she would serve it with various vegies. I never ate it. No-one knew why it nauseated me. Least of all me.