Speccy

Intolerances & Excitations

Yes, the title is a pun on the Beach Boys lyrics of 'Good Vibrations'.

   After considering how good my metabolism is, how healthy my diet is (especially compared with others), how much exercise I have been getting until recently (due to an unidentified hip problem - UHP), I have concluded that I am most likely intolerant to something.

   There is also the possibility that I have Oedema. Corticosteroids may cause Oedema and after all I do take two types of inhaler multiple times a day.

   Anyway, I'm going to be cutting out salt, which may cause water retention. Salt isn't a very difficult thing to cut out so I'll also be going dairy free for a while.

Yet Another Blog About Cats! :-)

Hahahahahahahaha XD. I promise, this blog will not entirely be about cats! (XD XD XD :-P lol. I'm sure I'l break my promise, "Many, many times...". Heads up anyone who knows what that's from! :-D

   Dibble's poorly again. :-/ He's had acute cystitis and a bit of a sore bladder in general, causing him to pee small amounts of blood. The vet fitted a catheter yesterday and took it out before we brought him home at 6pm. He's much more himself, back in character. I'm hoping that the intensive urinary treatment food he's on will clear everything up before Tuesday. That's when I have to take him back to the vet's. Here's to Dibbs! :-D Hehe. Meanwhile, the poor thing has had his fur shaved in several places. He's got the softest coat I've yet stroked, and I've stroked a lot of cats. :-P It's a terrible shame that he's lost it, but hey! Hopefully it'll grow back soon-ish.

   Righty-o! How abouts we is talkin' 'bout summit else, eh? Oh, yeah... That's something I aught to mention... I'd like an Xbox 360. I don't mind if it's an Arcade, as long as it comes with an HDD. I'm lookin' at 'bout £100 ($130 approx.). I know that's pushing it a bit, but I'm not bothered about spending loads on it. If I can get one for that price I'll be well chuffed. If I can't find one, after looking and waiting for a substantial amount of time, I'll put more dosh into it. I'd also like one controller (at the least - preferably two) and a couple of games if possible. The games would just be a bonus. If I'm offered the minimum I'm looking for (Xbox 360 Arcade, one controller, HDD), I'll take it.

   
   More on the subject of tech, I've got a paper round! And yeah, you guessed right, the round itself is nothing to do with tech. But it will fund me in my search for a laptop. It's incredibly handy, because I'll have earned near enough the exact amount needed for a decent laptop, just as Windows 10 is released. (I think... There's now hints about W10 coming around June-time, instead of later in the year, September-November I thought...)

   
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For those interested in paper rounds, I work for Ian (last name unknown, he's very mysterious) who runs the Filey Road Newsagent's in Grimsby. I get £9 a week for 6 days. You can start at what time you like but must finish before 8am by UK law. I get out of bed at 6am. £9 a week translates into £36 a month and £468 per annum. Having a paper round is hard for the first couple of weeks but by week 3 I got used to it. It teaches you to discipline yourself and sets you up well for having a proper job and having to take responsibility for your actions. It may not sound fun, but it makes you feel good and gives you experience. You also have to concentrate, so as not to put the wrong papers in the wrong doors. So you're brain will no longer have the attention span of a gnat. :-D hahahaha. :-P I'd certainly recommend it, and indeed, am doing just that right now - to YOU.

    
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   Has anyone seen Commissario Montalbano? Brilliant series. They air it on BBC4 at 9 or 10pm on Saturdays. I say 9, or 10, because I'm really not sure which it is. It's been so long since I've seen it I've forgotten. FYI it's not being aired ATM, and I don't know when it'll be back. There's no episodes on BBC iPlayer ATM either, but there is one on YouTube. It's in full and there's no dodgy links to click on. XD There aren't any subtitles available though, so unless you speak Italian... :-/ :-D hahahaha


   Anyway. Got to go now. I've blogged for long enough. :-) I'm going to get video gaming! Have a good night everybody, and don't be too idiotic! XD :-P lol. Just kidding. Be as idiotic as you want. (Within reason XD )


Night! :-)

OK, here's my Winter Flapjack recipe.


Take a bowl and half fill with cranberries, and a handful of raisins, some sugared stem ginger and the peel of two oranges. Allow to marinade for 30mins in a tablespoon of red wine. A little orange juice is optional. That should weigh about 340 grams in total.
Put 100 grams of butter, 100 grams of sugar and 75 grams of golden syrup into a pan and stir over a low heat. After the butter's melted and everything's mixed in, add 225 grams of rolled oats and mix those in.
Add a little more ginger to the fruit and then add the mix, stir that in until it's evenly distributed through out the flapjack mix.
Whack it all in a tray (that you've already buttered/oiled and lined with grease-proof paper) and flatten with a spatula. The tray will only be half filled (the tray measures 30cm*38cm) because the original amounts are not enough to fill a tray this size. I doubled the amounts yesterday and it fitted into the tray perfectly. That is all presuming you like your flapjack Nic and thick like I do mine.
Then cook in your oven (no fan) at 180* for 20 mins. Cool for 5 mins outside the oven and cut into squares a size of your choice. Allow the squares to cool completely before removing them from the tray. Keep at room temperature or warm the flapjack up before serving if you keep it in the fridge.
Enjoi!
P.S: You could be naughty and add some dark rum or gin instead of wine! Be careful not to have too many liquids though because nobody likes soggy flapjack. 😊
P.P.S: Or you could be imaginative and cut the flapjack into some crazy shapes! 😆😋






All the best if you try this! 😊

Cat Program on Khan Academy

Hi, this is request for help post. I need help on Khan Academy with a certain program and if you're here to give help, this is the right post to comment on.

BTW this is my cat project on Khan.

Here's a picture of my problem. Click on it to see it in a better size.

You can see my problem on the bottom two lines of code. It wants me to put:

var cat_face_x; +=1;
var cat_face_y; +=1;

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I don't need the semi-colon in the middle of the variable. I don't know why he's asking for a semi. Consequently, I don't know how to fix it either

My Cat Officer Dibble

This is Dibble. I'm really only uploading this to see if I can successfully Pin this photo without him being rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise.

Well That Didn't Work!

Ok, forget that. The diet was a flop.

I ate the same muesli every day of the week. Let's try again! I'll post when I succeed. :-P

Soooo people! Starting tomorrow I will start a diet plan as suggested by grainchain.com. The resources needed to supplement this plan (e.g: the mentioned "Tasty Toppings" video and the "Super Cereals" video) can be found here.

Hopefully my attempt to eat healthier will go well. Sometimes it's really expensive though! Haha.

Any comments would be welcome.

My Holiday

   Boring, childish title I know. If you've read my "About Alex" page you'll know that I'm a Jehovah's Witness. Last week we had our annual convention. Usually the conventions are spread across different dates around the country. Because people who live in London would struggle to come to a convention in Edinburgh, we have several conventions around the UK. (They do happen all over the world, but as the UK is the only one relevant to me at the moment, I'll stick to talking about this.) But this year, all the conventions were synced to the same dates, the 22, 23 and 24. At the convention we found out why. The London convention was hosting a member of The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses! A very special and highly respected member of our religion. The conventions were synced so that all the conventions could conference call London. This would allow the member of The Governing Body to make very important announcements about major advancements in our organization, and to release new publications. So that was very exiting.

 Anyone is welcome if they would like to come. You can find convention dates and many more things about us on jw.org. Check regularly for updates.

   So, about my holiday. As we (my family) go to Sheffield - because of where we live - we stay at my Aunt's house, as she lives in Sheffield. Makes sense doesn't it? All rise, for The Lord of Detour! Simon Eagle!!!! (Dad). Never go on a trip with my Father. Remember the expression, to go round the houses? This is LITERALLY what Dad does when you go out. I guarantee that if you go anywhere with him, you'll get lost, and spend hours trying to get back on course. I have spent half of my childhood somewhere in a field, that we're not there by intention, probably trespassing, and moaning that I haven't eaten in the last hour.

 This week we went to find somewhere to do archery. Our first choice had been booked out for two days, and our second choice turned out to be a country club. We then went to get some strings for my one of a kind quarter-size(?) electric guitar. So that was fun. I over tightened the 6th string?! I've no idea how I broke the THICKEST string on it. So I've got to either find another string, one of which my Uncle says that he has, or get it replaced at the shop. I'll probably do that today. Also, I'll have to go back to the first archery place and ask the staff. Yesterday we went on another adventure, again looking for archery pay&play and cycling and stuff. I managed to lose yet another of my possessions (long story), this time, sunglasses. Probably doing the same today.

Cool Guitar Decal Renovation

Years ago my bro bought me a guitar (which I had been asking for). It was a complete surprise though that he had bought it from a school friend, as I was expecting mum to buy it from Pools in town. Anyway, it had these decals on it which have always been pretty cool, but have started to fade over the years. This is what it looks like now; 

And these are close-ups of the decals; 

 


The mottled white patches you see are just reflections caused by the light coming from my window. Although, my guitar(s) could do with some beeswax oil...

Weird Game Glitch?! MUST-SEE

   So, I was playing on my favourite PlayStation (1) game this morning. It ties exactly with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, but that's another story. This game that I absolutely love, this colossus of my childhood, the great, the wonderful story of the past few years is!: DRIVER2. Yes, this is my favourite. And anyone older than 20 will probably remember this thing coming out. The insane handling, the ridiculous cops, the slick villains, the madness of Take A Ride. Most people have experienced this at some point.

  My PlayStation (an original) was second hand to my cousin and he gave it to my brother, and he moved to Derby, so... I GOT IT!!!! YAY! Haha. Anyway. It's a bit worse for wear in the graphics department (even for a PS1) and this and a couple of other games slow down randomly, although it doesn't show in the video. Can anygeek tell me why that is? When you video a game, the playback is always about twice as fast?!

And BTW, the glitch is the fact that I'm on the grass under the highway, not on the highway, which shouldn't happen. Also, the cops somehow make a roadblock under a bridge. And they also have no access to the grass.

   Here's the vid:

Driving Hilarity

I heard from dad (a driving instructor) the other day that a woman had turned up for her driving test in guess what? a ONESIE?! This absolutely cracked me up when heard, but once again 'scuse the cliche, what is this world coming to? Many a time I've seen women (and guys) in supermarkets wearing onesies. OK it's reasonable if you're going to a fancy dress as a tiger, or a giraffe or something, and choose a onesie as your costume style (instead of  say, a cat suit), and yeah in that instance, happen to walk down the street in it because you don't have a car and no one will give you a lift. But wearing it as a piece of clothing, well that just insane. Plus, who wants to wear out the feet on their new onesie on paving stones?

   Anyway. I was wondering the other day (I do that a lot BTW), what would it be like to die? I mean, no one still alive knows what it's like to die. If they did I wouldn't be asking this question. So imagine what it would be like if people could record what it's like in the last moments of their life. What does it feel like to drown? What does it feel like to fall through a crack in the ground during an earthquake? What is it like to be shot? To hang? To be burned?

   Sadly, no one has ever (to my knowledge) been able to record these things. And the only device I could come up with was one of those brain activity monitors. Although I'm fairly sure they only detect emotion, not thoughts. Also, for the earthquake scenario, I thought a mobile phone on a wire attached to the surface might be more practical. As a brain activity monitor can't be recovered from the earth's crust so easily. The phone recovery wire (not yet patented) could even be some kind of coiled/tension device, like a bungee.

  Any thoughts?

Hope You're Liking the Blog

   So yeah! I hope people like this stuff. I won't go on and on about cats, even though I love them loads. No, I will try and stay true to the name of this blog. Alex Eagle's Blog on Life. That's just it. It's my view, and thoughts, of/about life. So I'll make an effort to diversify the subject matter of this blog. I love that word. Diversify. Haha.

   So, (lol I use that a lot,) just listening to some music on my phone. Brilliant tech. I mean, my phone isn't anything fancy, but it's got a nice pair of speakers. Me and my brother have inherited a lot of musical talent (don't know where from though, the only other musical person in our family is my granddad. And all he plays is the accordion. [Well he IS Scottish]).

   Gotta go now. Mum's forcing me to go outside and enjoy the sunny weather.

Update:
Still not outside now and it's 15:18.

First Post! - "I was just thinking the other day..."

   So, I was thinking the other day, "CATS! I have two, amazing little balls of cute fluffyness that most of the population of the world call: CATS. These fascinating little, weird, silly, stupid, random, cute, fluffy, things are what make my world go round. (Also my brother.)" This combination of stuff is what makes me the most happy person ever. Every time I look at my cats, I am completely ecstatic. A couple of days ago, my favourite cat of the two, jumped up into the air for no particular reason! WHAT THE HECK?! I know right! 

   This is why I love my cats so much. Their completely inexplicable zest for life ('scuse the cliche) is what makes them so funny and delightful. My other cat just sits under the leylandii we have in our garden. Apparently lots of cat owners think that their cat(s) don't go anywhere, when in fact they actually go everywhere. Yet, I actually do believe that she never goes more than 10ft away. Also, owners think that their cat(s) only catch "so many" birds, because thats only the number of birds that they see. But have a look at this Oatmeal post.