Author: 6000

Matches

Posted on

We found ourselves with a few thousand safety matches in a plastic bag. It’s probably best that you don’t ask how this came to be. Anyway, aside from gooi’ing the whole lot onto the braai to see what would happen, there were a few other ideas. One of these was to take 1/4000 second exposure photos of the matches igniting as dusk fell.
I guess I was inspired by last week’s Slo-Mo guys video.

Sadly, 1/4000 really isn’t fast enough to be Slo-Mo, if you see what I mean. Still, one lives, one learns.

The first experiment went well enough that I was encouraged by my 10-year old son (and official lightee of the matches) to try a larger, second attempt. Somewhat buoyed by the success of initial effort together with a certain amount of Castle Milk Stout, I agreed to give it another go. The second attempt was rather less successful, mainly because the flames decided to turn on the photographer (me) – as the three photos below testify:

matches

The good news is that the doctors say my eyebrows should grow back fairly quickly.

Other photos from the weekend (including a bit more night photography) are here.

Burning question  

Posted on

My neighbour has some windchimes. They’re old, they hang from a tree in their back garden and they are [rather] annoying. There’s no tune to them. It’s just a constant, clunky rattle in the Southern Cape breeze. Constantly. It’s constant.

The wind doesn’t stop at night either, so neither do the windchimes. 

I’m going to set them on fire. 

The question is this: do I do it once they’ve popped out to the shops or down to the beach, or would it be more of a statement if I was just to march in there with some meths and a lighter and do it while they watched? 

And then, should I maybe do the house as well, to serve as a warning to anyone else considering windchimes as a potential addition to their garden?

Thoughts?

He’s a keeper

Posted on

PRAISE your deity of choice. Or, if you’re not that way inclined, just be generally thankful.

Sheffield United have signed a new goalkeeper.

He is fresh in from Cardiff City, where he made 25 appearances after being signed from the Southampton academy.

Look, I’m in no way blaming the current goalkeeper, George Long, for our current woes (but I also kinda am):

wp-1471606555613.jpg

Indeed.
And poor old George Long apparently comes from a whole line of dodgy Blades keepers:

goalie

Look at those eyes on the ball. Look at that firm-handed grip.

Des Thompson made 25 appearances for United between 1955 and 1964, before moving to Buxton, which was at that time, not the thriving hotbed of football stardom and celebrity that it still isn’t today.

Des’ brother George was also a goalkeeper, who played for Scunthorpe United, Preston North End, Manchester City and Carlisle United. And, their father (also George) was also a goalkeeper for Southampton.

In the 1929–30 Round 3 match at Bradford City, Thompson allowed a shot to crawl under his body after an awful defensive mix-up for Bradford’s first goal, with Saints going on to lose the match 4–1.

Keeping it in the family.

They’re after me 

Posted on

Call it confirmation bias, call it a concerted, targeted campaign to punish me for speaking the truth and prevent me from doing so ever again*, but ever since I wrote this post, I have been repeatedly attacked by Honda Jazz drivers on the M3. 

If I should unexpectedly perish in a Honda Jazz related incident, at least everyone will know why. It’s because they’re really bad drivers. 

* Spoiler: Pretty sure it’s confirmation bias. 

Video celebration post

Posted on

Remember the video test post? Really? Well, it was right here just a few days ago. You might want to see a doctor about that memory of yours. Maybe write that down, hey?

The video test post showed that my existing way of putting videos on the blog was no longer working. I had already found an alternative method, though, so all was not lost. Hope for the future.
But that didn’t help much with the issue that every Youtube video I’d ever put on 6000 miles… was broken. That’s quite a lot of videos.

Then, a WordPress update (to 4.6) and (not) suddenly, everything was back to normal. All the links were mended, all the videos work again. This calls for a celebration – a video celebration. I found this one, just waiting to be posted:

 

I’ve used to old method to put this on here. I guess I’m now at a bit of crossroads as to where to go now with regards to posting videos. The old method (it’s called “EasyTube”, for the purists) has worked really well for years, aside from the last week or so, but is less futureproofed than the native WordPress method. The native WordPress method, however, is less flexible regarding size and positioning of the video.

So, swings, and indeed, roundabouts.

P.S. I am no longer Grolsch bottles.