Things that cheer you up

[SuperBacon]

[CDM]

@Lorne Malvo @SuperBacon Being vegan is nothing to do with woke. They are separate issues. It just seems that woke is an insult that people use without even understanding what it is. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

11 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Do they want the crickets squashed and killed or.... ? 

[SuperBacon]

34 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Do they want the crickets squashed and killed or.... ? 

I don't know, maybe they'd be better suited to answer that, not me.

[davertfnewman]

Does have heavy vibes of the oil protesters who are gluing themselves to things and throwing paint up walls. Maybe they have a decent point to make, but making it poorly.

[Chest Rockwell]

Nah seems totally fine and appropriate to me tbh. 

[FLips]

6000 crickets sounds like hell on earth. When we were looking after my sister in law’s leopard gecko my wife insisted we bought crickets as food. She didn’t close the little air vents on the top properly and next thing you know we have a tub full of crickets showing up in the flat for weeks. Needless to say I put my foot down on a locust and worm only diet from that point.

6000 of them. They’ll be showing up in there for years.

[Devon Malcolm]

Was having a browse round Calendar Club today to see what I'm going to have for 2025. Got a Taylor Swift one this year because I usually get one that I like and will also annoy 17yo, and that did the job.

I was hoping for a Dua Lipa one this year but didn't see one. However. The Taylor Swift one comes in an optional gift set - with a pair of pink 'I Love Taylor' socks. God I can't wait to Christmas Day, he's going to be fucking fuming.

Edited October 14, 2024 by Devon Malcolm

[Hannibal Scorch]

Paging @Devon Malcolm and other fans of the first 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ready-or-not-2-in-the-works-samara-weaving-radio-silence-1236030827/

[ReturnOfTheMack]

3 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Was having a browse round Calendar Club today to see what I'm going to have for 2025. Got a Taylor Swift one this year because I usually get one that I like and will also annoy 17yo, and that did the job.

I was hoping for a Dua Lipa one this year but didn't see one. However. The Taylor Swift one comes in an optional gift set - with a pair of pink 'I Love Taylor' socks. God I can't wait to Christmas Day, he's going to be fucking fuming.

My sister in law got me a Kim Jong Un one last year, mostly to annoy her very Torie dad.

[Carbomb]

So things have not been going well with work - the industry is currently in a slump, and I'm at my wits' end trying to figure out how to generate business. I've been approaching burnout again.

I've been pulled back from the brink by a particularly wonderful five days with one of my regular folk music clubs on an excursion to mid-Wales, at an independent (i.e. non-YHA) hostel right in the middle of nowhere - nearest town is 11 miles away, only B-roads going through some of the remotest countryside you'll ever find in the UK. I've probably mentioned it before on here. The landscape is just stunning; beautiful, unspoilt valleys and tall hills, with streams, rivers, and waterfalls running through them. Initially was worried we'd get shit weather, but the first evening and the next two days were gorgeous - lots of sun interspersed with the odd cloud. Much time was spent just rambling around, using obscure public rights-of-way - and because there was almost no phone signal, we had to use Ordnance Survey maps to find these little trails. Got some good exercise in, with my Londoner's lungs yelling "What is this sorcery? Where are our essential monoxides?"

Additionally, also got some much-needed practice on my mandolin, learned some good tunes, we all pitched in for big communal meals (including a massive apple crumble), and had just a generally lovely time - the last evening, we were visited by a local Welsh harpist (previously a regular at the club before moving back to Wales) who had us spellbound; stunning ability.

 

(Here's a link to a clip if you'd like to hear.)

 

As if that weren't enough, the very first evening there, we had a completely clear sky - a dark sky with no light pollution and full view of the stars always blows my city boy mind, but we were greeted by something completely unexpected.

Knockin' on heaven's door

 

 

D'oh. Posted before I'd finished. Anyway, I am feeling so much better for this - it's a bit "bloke calming down in middle age", but I'm loving this new world gradually opening up to me that I'd had no idea about, of hostelling and going to beautiful parts of the country that I just couldn't envision.

 

Also, I'm not particularly patriotic in the way that nationalists and jingoes want people to be, but watching a few "Americans react to..." videos, I felt a surge of pride when I see how mind-blown they are by the fact that we have an ancient network of legally-protected public byways all around the UK. The mindset that created the hostels network is another. That's the sort of thing I can get quietly patriotic about.

Edited October 15, 2024 by Carbomb

[DavidB6937]

@Carbomb - liking for the photos! Hope the work stuff gets better soon  

[Carbomb]

3 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

@Carbomb - liking for the photos! Hope the work stuff gets better soon  

Thanks, man. It should do; it's a hell of a slog at the moment, but I feel at least better equipped/fuelled to deal with it now.

[Jazzy G]

On 10/11/2024 at 9:09 AM, Lorne Malvo said:

I had the same thing in the shop yesterday - some bloke picked up a bag of Wine Gums knock-offs and went 'vegan friendly? How woke".

It's just a catch-all term for anything that idiots disagree with now.

Winding my mum up about things being vegan friendly is one of my favourite things, to the point that when she's getting particularly het up about things I'll call her Piers. There's a vegan kit kat on the end of her bed that I brought back from something just to get a reaction out of her and I keep asking how it was much to her chagrin. 

[Gus Mears]

Got the collected works of Charles Dickens on ebay for 25 quid WITH BONUS BOOKCASE.

Been after a hardback collection for ages and it's a tremendous price. I'll be reading this weekend, let me tell you.