Category: learning curve

Not enough

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Bit knackered this evening. But I’ve worked out the reason why.

Getting back into the rhythm and routine of the school term shouldn’t really be a struggle, but it seems no-one has told my body that.

Can’t keep going on like that.

But…

On the plus side, I had a great drive around the peninsula today, with some great colours and occasional wildlife on show.

More of that another time though, as there’s a goodbye braai to enjoy this evening, as the sun descends on another smoky Cape Town afternoon.

Not sure which one(s) of these is making the sunset quite so orange this evening, but while it’s pretty, it’s never good news.

Need to send a letter?

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Of course you don’t. No-one sends letters anymore.

But let’s just suppose that you did need to send a letter.
And that you were unlucky enough to be in the United States of America, under the control of Adolf Trump and his evil minions.

Sending a letter is going to cost you an absolute minimum of $0.78.

78¢. That seems a lot to send a letter.

Thankfully, here to help is website Postal Arbitrage. They’ve compiled a list of things that you can order via Amazon which cost less than 78¢ to send.

But how does that help?
If you want to send a letter to someone, how will sending them a 25¢ lime substitute for that?

Because included in that price is a gift message. And so rather than sending a boring old envelope with a bit of paper inside, why not rather organise for a LA MODERNA, Vermicelli Pasta, 7 oz (Pack of 1) | Enriched Durum Wheat Semolina | Kosher, Non-GMO, Iron and Vitamin-Fortified | Thin Vermicelli Noodles for Soups, Broths, and Quick Meals to be delivered, and include your message on the attached gift tag?

They get the message (and the noodles), you save 28¢.

What’s not to like?

I saw this idea described as:

One of those things that makes you laugh. And then makes you think.

And I can’t disagree. Something is wrong with the system… somewhere.

A bit of a moan

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It hasn’t rained much in Cape Town over the last few weeks. Maybe even the last few months.

And there is a bit of “Day Zero” talk entering the chat, although to be fair, we’re a long way from that sort of scenario at the moment (but you never say never).

In fact, looking back, I can only really remember a few hours of rain over the last few months. Two of those hours were last Tuesday night, when we tried to watch the cricket. It didn’t rain all day – just for the few hours when we actually needed it to be dry, so that they could play cricket. And once the cricket (such as it was) was over (no pun intended), it stopped raining and was all hot and dry again.

And the other few hours are… well… now. Again, it’s been a scorcher of a day, but then this evening, it began to rain. Why? Well, that would be because our daughter went to an outdoor concert.

Not this morning (dry), not this afternoon (hot and dry), just this evening. And, much like the evening of the cricket, it looks like the rain will stop pretty much as the concert ends.

There will be no rain tomorrow evening, when there also won’t be a concert.

Perfect.

I once had an idea involving an iceberg, which would have solved Cape Town’s water issues forever.

I did a fair amount of maths and stuff for that, but actually, why bother with dragging a chunk of Antarctica all the way to South Africa and then filling the Franschhoek Valley with ice when I can clearly just make it rain by spending money on weather-sensitive evening activities?

If you need some rain, I’ll just buy expensive tickets for a theatre thing or some tennis (ok, not tennis), and we can all enjoy the precipitation and petrichor as the evening is ruined, the money wasted, but the dams filled up.

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING – and I don’t blame you for wanting to ask – no, I can’t see any more events in our diary which will be ruined by rainfall, just yet. So you’re free to go about your business safe in the knowledge that it’s not going to rain on your parade.

Only mine.

But of course, I’ll keep you informed.

It’s not as easy as it should be

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It’s not actually that easy to set up a new phone from scratch.
And maybe that’s a good thing.

As I said the other day, I got a new phone recently, and I am using the opportunity to de-clutter my handheld mobile experience. That’s all well and good, but it does mean that I can’t just press the magic Google button and transfer everything over onto my new device.

And so there has been a bit of picking and choosing, and then once there is a picked and chosen situation, you have to log in to each of those new accounts on the new device. Extra authentication is obviously enabled on everything I use, adding at least two extra steps each time, and some things just don’t want to work at all – more Sweet FA than 2FA. I can’t transfer my banking app over (the QR code just won’t scan), and I can’t log into Reddit at all, even though I’m still logged in on my laptop.
Whatsapp – as one might expect – is being an utter bastard.

But I guess that the trouble I’m having to go to is at least somewhat reassuring in that my online life seems quite well – too well? – protected.

And so I suppose that it would have made things a lot easier if I had just pressed the magic button and then let Google do its thing. But then I would have spent a lot of time deleting apps and data and things. Or would I? Would I just have been lazy and be left with a new, sparkly, but full and cluttered phone?

Mmm. Probably.

And so I’ll keep going with this new, minimalist approach and see if I can conquer the gremlins and the demons of just being able to log into an app. Jeez. It really shouldn’t be rocket surgery.

Oh – the camera on this thing, by the way – very nice.

Spotted online

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This quote:

If you think about the vastness of space, and how enormous our galaxy is, how big our planet is, and how small we are, I’m not really eating that much cheese.

Please feel free to substitute braai meat, Castle Milk Stout or chips.

I know it’s not healthy, but it’s not every day (well, it is at the moment, but…).

Holiday time. And it’s really not that much cheese.

Look at the bigger picture.