Be Excellent To Each Other

Another replacement strap for my cheapo Casio MRW-200H. It's my equivalent of Trigger's broom. I've had it for yonks, this is the second replacement strap and I recently replaced the battery myself.

Absolutely sick and tired of hanging washing up to dry on folding airers in the living room (because the living room has the best heating and the most space), we bought a FoxyDry Pro ceiling mounted clothes drying rack and I installed in in the laundry room.

The Techno-airer has downward facing fans and a heater so it can blow hot air down on the clothes and speed up the drying, which is good because our laundry is actually quite a cold room as it is under the house and has no heating. The rack goes up and down for easy hanging, and it's remote controlled.

I chucked the dehumidifier down there too so now we have a self contained and - importantly - out of the way washing and drying area. The techno airer was a bit expensive but to reclaim the living room from laundry hell will be well worth it to me.

You should probably ignore the extremely janky cabling solution, I'll fix that up properly later on.

I did take a video, but the forum doesn't seem to like it. I suspect you can imagine the rack going up and down.

Cor, you've got an entire room for laundry. Australia be big.

That dryer looks AMAZING. My mum has something the same shape, made from wood, which lowers up and down, but it doesn’t have any heating or fan capabilities.

Talking of drying rooms, my uncle (who I do not like) once came over to our house when I was a teen. He berated my grandmother for hanging laundry on an outside line as it made her look ‘common’.

His wife half told him off, and said not everybody was lucky enough to have a drying room. A sort of downplayed boast.

So, my uncle lives in one of the most expensive properties in South Kensington. But he lives in the basement, as a caretaker, for one of the garden squares there. Cushy gig, he gets a free address.

Anyway, his ‘drying room’ turned out to be the building’s boiler room, and they had to stop using it as they were pulled up on it as it was a fire hazard. Boastful fools

Thanks Meems, it does feel quite 'luxury' and perhaps unnecessarily fancy given it's all motorised and remote controlled and stuff but I figured we should treat ourselves to some decent gear.



Hahaha, I bet that dried the clothes up a treat though. Lady T's parents had a big 'airing cupboard' that was really a room, it also had boilers and hot water pipes and stuff in there, it was super warm and clothes dried so quickly in there. It would have made an ideal room for a nap if it didn't smell so overpoweringly of detergents etc.




This didn't really occur to me until your comment, as we'd just kind of become accustomed to it. Kitchens here don't have spaces allocated for washing machines, and probably it's one of those conventions that just makes sense in the UK but not in other places - Aussies would probably think it's weird to have a washing machine in the kitchen, even though it's fine really, it's just because they aren't used to it. I've always found some of those small little difference interesting.

One that springs to mind, and I was amazed when I found out about it, is that in Italy, in many rentals the kitchen isn't included - a tenant takes both appliances, fixtures and cabinetry with them when they move out.

Another is how some of the Aussies are fascinated/disgusted by the British tendency to have carpet in the toilet and bathrooms, which i think is less widespread now but probably still a thing - my parents house had carpet in both.

In more exciting middle aged purchase news, I bought a whole load of new socks (and undies) as some of my others were wearing a bit thin. I can now chuck the old ones out rather than just keep wearing them over and over.

And this time, I didn't go for the cheapest set and treated myself to some that are nice - new snug elastic without being tight, thick enough to feel a bit padded and warm.

A nice new pair of socks really feels good, it's a small thing but I'm really appreciating it right now.

When I buy new socks I keep some of them at the back of the drawer, for if I’m having or anticipating a difficult day, so I can put a new pair of socks on and have that ‘new socks’ feeling for a bit of comfort.

I've got too many pairs of socks that look too similar and often end up in a frightful situation where I have a "pair" but one of them is nearly new and the other is a bit threadbare.

I have the same issue, I thought I'd be smart and just buy black socks, so I'd never have to worry about matching pairs. However, now I've just got loads of socks that all look mostly the same, but don't actually match - different lengths, different grippy bits, different levels of wear. It just takes me much longer to match my socks now.

I once did this. N00bs game.

You need all different socks, that way you are never, ever short of single socks.

Also, black socks are boring.

If you don’t have bananas or narwhals on your socks, where’s the joy?

I got rid of all my old everyday socks and replaced them with sets of black socks from Next with small embroidered motifs.

Favourite overall set ‘Dinosaurs’ favourite single pair is a tie between ‘Schnauzer’ & ‘Octopus’.

Game changing.

That’s a really good idea, I like it and may well do the same.

Honestly, it makes a small but amazing difference.

Today I have a hospital consultation that I’ve been waiting far too long for. Nervous, a bit teary… hey, my feet feel so comfortable and cosy now that I must be safe and cared for, right? It’s like they connect directly to the nervous system and make a little tweak to let you know you’re ok.

Omg

Same in Germany. In fact, if a house comes with a kitchen, it was sometimes devalue it, because the buyer has to have it removed before they moved their's in

My side of the electric blanket had stopped working, so Lady T stopped off after work and picked up a new one, but instead of the store own brand bargain version like last time, she got a nicer one, with a plush padded fluffy top. It’s dead comfy and warm and I’m really looking forward to bed time.

But Australia is like, reet hot, innit?

That's what I thought too, until I got here. This region gets pretty cold winters (can be low single figures in morning, sometimes slightly in the minus overnight).

But it's all relative, an acquaintance of mine up in Brissy once said 'brrr, bit chilly innit, only 15 degrees today'

There's that regular 40cm chainsaw (#3) to replace a failing, slower, 25cm regular chainsaw (#1), the chainsaw-on-a-stick (#2) which saves getting a ladder out, and now this baby pruning saw (#4).

How cute is that!

Got a new bird.

I'll be around in 5 to dunk my head in your pool

Got a new footstool too

You apparently can't count up to 2.

Very cute items though.

Gone down the ol' chazeroo and got me a Taylor keyring

NO T AT WOT TTW OM

Well, quite.

Just changed internet provider, once it's all done we will have 1000/50 Mbps for less than as our current 100/20 connection (for the first six months anyway it's much less, after that it's just a little less) and they provide an Eero router, so I bought a mesh extender too. Also $55 cashback from the discounty thing that my employer offers.

I am looking forward to being all like 'wow look at the speeds on the speedtest thing' for an hour or two before realising that other than speeding up the heftily sized PS5 game downloads it hasn't made all that much difference in our day-to-day lives.

Cos really, 100 still felt pretty much quick enough to me.

Sony are notorious for slow download servers, although sometimes you get lucky, so you never know.

Ah, nuts, well hopefully some other things are noticeably slightly improved then.

I like fatter pipes for the width not the speed. When everyone is home and streaming music and youtube and roblox and xbox and TV and facebook shorts and snapchat etc, it's nice to have that nice wide pipe to allow the whole steaming lot to slip through unhindered

Yeah, tell them to go slowly

Bought myself this thing, first one to correctly guess what it is wins absolutely fuck all (doing an image search is against Ts&Cs and prize will be withheld)

Some sort of wildlife camera?

Well, it looks like it has a camera on it and perhaps some kind of motion sensor? The notch in the tripod makes it look like it could be hung upside down or perhaps there's another bit that goes there? It looks like it could hold a phone maybe but why would you need a phone there?

Perhaps it's something to do with camping? But does it look outdoorsy enough?

I'm clutching at straws here and I'm going with an motion camera where you can put a phone in that notch to see what the camera can see as it doesn't have a screen on it.

I was going go say something similar to The Vision and wondered if it was to track something like the moon moving through the night sky, though again maybe it doesn’t look robust or outdoorsy enough, and not being able to tilt backward makes me think that’s not it.

I mean, is it just a little camcorder?

Nope. It has two cameras (one is high speed IR) and a radar if that helps and yeah you could put your phone or tablet on those notches.

Amateur guesswork, you noobs.

It's clearly a portable.

A high speed camera would suggest tracking something fast to be played back in slow motion. It doesn't look very big and if you've got a phone or tablet on the notches, I'm presuming that's to play back the footage in slow motion. So, something to do with sports? Perhaps tracking how you kick a ball or swing a golf club or cricket bat? It looks to low down for a tennis racket but I suppose you could angle it? Or even tracking your running on a treadmill? To check your form?

Well done TheVision! It is indeed a golf launch monitor.

Golf balls are quite similar to the moon. I award myself a point,

I was going to go with a talking sentry turret.

What’s your top speed?

144mph with the big dog.

Jesus!

Woof

Bought a jar of this stuff as I realised it’s a key ingredient in my current fave curries.

Only after making a veg Jalfrezi this weekend did I realise how little is required.

Fuck ME this stuff is potent, but still moreish. One desert spoon in a big pan was plenty.

Since realised this Gold version is the extra hot variety (£5 from Morrisons, think the regular Mr Naga is £2 from Iceland online only).