Everyday Adventures

[Barrister]

And speaking of more everyday adventures...

Today Time has a 6:15 hockey practice (supposed to arrive by 5:30), Josh has a 6:50 Taekwondo practice, and Andrew has a 7pm hockey practice (arrive by 6:30).  It'll be an adventure to get three kids to three different practices within an hour or so with only 2 parents and two vehicles...

[ulmont]

If you're not a regular coffee drinking you forget how fucking powerful a drug caffeine is. 

Also if you are a regular coffee drinker you forget how fucking powerful a drug caffeine is, usually when you get to the point where you can drink a double espresso at 8pm and go to sleep at 10pm with no issue.

[Maladict]

If you're not a regular coffee drinking you forget how fucking powerful a drug caffeine is. 

Also if you are a regular coffee drinker you forget how fucking powerful a drug caffeine is, usually when you get to the point where you can drink a double espresso at 8pm and go to sleep at 10pm with no issue.

I, for one, welcome my caffeine addiction. Can't imagine a day at the office without it.

[Tamas]

Yeah I can identify the specific caffeine-withdrawal headache if I hold off the first morning espresso too long for whatever reason.

The second one around lunch time is less critical, but not drinking it definitely slows me down.

[Barrister]

Drove ~5 hours for a kids hockey tournament at the beginning on November, got a flat tire on the way back.  Had to call a tow truck, but they managed to get the spare on and I drove home (I drive a Toyota RAV4, with a full-size spare on the rear hatch).  The flat spare tire is now on the rear hatch.

Have another hockey tournament coming up this weekend so I need to get the tire fixed or replaced.  I made an appointment at a nearby tire shop yesterday.  I told them the rear drivers side tire is flat.  They say no problem, and by the end of the day they tell me it has been fixed.  Price was really reasonable: $37.

I go and get my vehicle and see why it was so cheap - they "fixed" the spare tire.  The flat original tire is still sitting there on the rear hatch.

So second day in a row I brought the vehicle to them.  I'm now off to see if the correct tire has been fixed...

[Barrister]

Proper tire is fixed at no additional charge.

[The Brain]

[The Brain]

The neighbors upstairs are redoing their floors after a minor water leak (didn't affect me).

[mongers]

The neighbors upstairs are redoing their floors after a minor water leak (didn't affect me).

You sure it isn't just the Thor, god of thunder making those thuds in the sky?

[The Brain]

The neighbors upstairs are redoing their floors after a minor water leak (didn't affect me).

You sure it isn't just the Thor, god of thunder making those thuds in the sky?

I am non-religious.

[Josquius]

I've been trying to get cleaned up around the house and one thing I've been meaning to do for a while is get rid of an old bike - I got given it for free years ago though its a bit too small for me and has a few things broken on it.
There's a charity nearby that recycles old bikes, donating to those in need and selling to the general public.
I went for a walk pushing the bike to their place.
My route took me through the Byker Wall. A pretty infamous mid 20th century housing development.
Like most such developments in the UK it has a horrid reputation for crime and poverty. Its a byword for shit.
But walking through it...You know. It actually doesn't look half bad in places. Not unlike something you'd expect to see elsewhere in northern Europe or the Germanosphere. At one point it even opens right onto the metro station, totally dodging the road below. It really does seem to have all the hallmarks of a development that should have worked.
This view was one that struck me as having potential and looking very non-local.



In other places of course its clear to see the build quality is crap, homes that are more sheds than genuine houses. I got a good view through one ground floor window where there was just a lonely dining room chair in the centre of a room...

My girlfriend had a good observation just the other week about Newcastle when we encountered a terribly put together area- its a weird city as you can clearly see the nicer areas where works get done whilst in the poorer areas the council just do nothing but with a slight bit of effort they could be nice.

[Syt]

On public transport in Vienna they have those little info screens that display a mix of news, trivia, ads etc.

In recen weeks I noticed they made game recommendations (not ads, since they don't say where to buy them), but it felt a bit retro.

First they had the Tomb Raider reboot from a few years ago. I thought it was strange, because it's not the newest game, not even the newest in the series, but as a budget title - why not.

Last week they had Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time.

And this morning they had "Tired of waiting for Half-Life 3? Why not dive into the series where it all started?", suggesting Half-Life 1.

[mongers]

On public transport in Vienna they have those little info screens that display a mix of news, trivia, ads etc.

In recen weeks I noticed they made game recommendations (not ads, since they don't say where to buy them), but it felt a bit retro.

First they had the Tomb Raider reboot from a few years ago. I thought it was strange, because it's not the newest game, not even the newest in the series, but as a budget title - why not.

Last week they had Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time.

And this morning they had "Tired of waiting for Half-Life 3? Why not dive into the series where it all started?", suggesting Half-Life 1.

Nice change of pace and from advertising extolling one to buy the next best greatest thing ever.

[mongers]

Found myself along with the museum director painting a couple of galleries for a new temporary exhibition; presumably because many of the 200 odd volunteers consider themselves too posh to 'dirty' their hands with this stuff?

On the plus side gave me the opportunity, whilst going to the paint store, to wonder around the now closed off former Stonehenge gallery, which is a warren of small rooms with 80s decore and from which I decanted that last exhibit out of it a few years back.

[Savonarola]

I went to the Vero Beach Art Museum last weekend where they had an exhibition on luxury cars from the 1930s and early 1940s.  Almost all were one offs, concept cars, or things that had very limited product runs.  My favorite was the 1934 Packard Twelve Model 1106:



You could not make a more gangster looking car than that; with its enormous engine, running boards and suicide doors.  You should be required to have a Tommy gun in a violin case if you own one of these.

They also had a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster:



The one in the exhibition was black, but my pictures can't do justice to these cars.  The one they had was driven by a German baroness who fled to the United States in the late 1930s taking her car with her.  I thought that looked exactly like the sort of car a baroness would drive.

They had a bunch more stuff, Bugatti, Rolls Royce, Pierce-Arrow, the race car that Dubonnet (yes the fortified wine guy) used to drive and even the Buick Y-Job from the General Motors Collection (only one was ever produced.) 

They had docents giving tours when I was there; but if you just hung near the old guys (one thing we have an abundance of in Florida) you'd learn a lot more.