Day 652 – Scorcher

An absolute scorching day in Cape Town today, as we hear news from 6000 miles… away of snow and ice and grey misery.

Up early to bath the beagle, we spent much of the day building new desks and fitting new shelves in the kids’ bedrooms. Being outside between 10 and 3 was never an option.

I’d love to elaborate about the finer details of these tasks (and indeed, I’m sure you are desperate to learn more of them), but a very cold beer in or by the pool is calling me, and who am I to ignore its requests?

Day 651 – Inspired

If you think I was feeling pretty inspired yesterday, you should see me today. I have revisited Inspirobot after seeing someone on social media using it. Remember those terrible inspirational posters on beige office walls in the 80s and 90s? Now you can make your own… or get this website to do it for you.

Inspirobot describes itself as:

“an artificial intelligence dedicated to generating unlimited amounts of unique inspirational quotes for endless enrichment of pointless human existence”

And, at the click of a button, will supply you with any number of inspirational posters to get you going, make you pause, and… well… inspire you.

I had a few clicks today, and included in my haul were these gems:

The more you have, the longer it lasts, see? Like a viral load in a Covid infection. Or depression.

And:

Aim high. But not that high.

Also, always remember this:

Clearly, it’s sometimes difficult to spot the distinction.

And then finally, these two, which came back to back:

The latter undeniably proving the former.

Sure, there’s plenty of chaff amongst the Inspirobot wheat, but there are enough decent grains to keep you clicking the button and having a good laugh or a surprisingly deep think every now and again.

Day 649 – Keeping warm and the deleted videos

It’s so irritating when you are just enjoying your life with all your vaccinations in place and then [checks notes] “they turn up the 5G” and you spontaneously combust. I mean, this head might not be quite as packed with knowledge as it used to be pre-Covid, but I’d really prefer that it didn’t explode and then get blamed on Omicron.

So weird that we haven’t heard about this from anyone in Israel, but obviously that’s because “they” don’t want you to know. How fortunate that this guy – his profile pic seemingly taken in his car – has managed to see these videos, and how very unfortunate that he can’t seem to share them.
Anyway… tomorrow, “they” are going to turn up the 5G in the USA, so if you are over there and feeling a bit chilly (I’ve seen photos of much snow in Washington DC this week) then simply stand next to… well… someone I guess, and enjoy the warmth as they ignite because of the “turned up 5G”.

Probably best to wear something that can be wiped down easily.

And in more serious news, look at the amount of Covid RNA they’re finding in Boston’s sewers.

JUST LOOK AT IT!

As we’ve mentioned before on here, the presence of increased viral (Covid) RNA in wastewater is a really good predictor of an upcoming Covid wave in the particular place that the wastewater comes from. But it’s the sheer amount of the viral RNA that is so incredible. The other waves are so small that they almost seem to even not exist in comparison.

I could hardly wait for the 3rd January update, but it turns out that this is in American and that’s the 1st of March.

By which time everyone will have exploded anyway.

Day 648 – Bloggery on 6000 miles…: an explanation

As regular readers will know, the ten year anniversary of a post every single day on 6000 miles… came around just a few days ago, and lo, there was much jubilation and dancing and the citizens did celebrate in the streets and slaughter the prodigal son.

Or something.

It was actually a rather diluted event for me, given that I took something of a break from writing (if not delivering) blog posts over the Christmas and New Year period. So the post in the first line up above was not written on the actual day, but rather a week or so beforehand. That might seem a bit sad and maybe even a bit of a fraud for such an auspicious occasion, but it did mean that while the blog continued in pre-written form, I was able to step back and relax a little.

That last sentence does make it sound like writing here is a chore, and there are certainly times when it does feel that way. But generally, it’s a positive experience. For me, at least: you’re the poor buggers who have to read this stuff.

The anniversary and the break got me thinking (between beers) about this blog and why I write it. And before anything further is said on that topic, I will always go back to Brian Micklethwait’s wisdom which underpins everything on 6000 miles…

My most important reader is me.

Bit selfish, sure. But I have addressed that on several occasions, not least here. I can look back on what was happening in my life and what was on my mind at any given moment, much as someone who writes a diary could.
And so I guess I could actually write a diary, but how archaic is that in this so-called [checks notes] “21st Century”?
You can’t put cool photos or music videos in a diary, you’d literally have to tear a page out and post it to someone if you wanted to share your thoughts and read what you were saying, and then if you needed to look up that important thing you learnt about LEDs on curling stones in 2018, you’d literally have to flick through many pages to find it.

So, no. In this case, pixels are better.

But in actual fact, while that quote above very much represents the foundation of the blog, the bricks and mortar on top of it have brought me so much more. Writing here is often a cathartic experience: be it by sharing something I want others to enjoy or be aware of, getting something off my chest, directing anger at annoying people, directing ridicule at silly people, popping an idea out into the world or just momentarily escaping from a difficult period in real life.
I’ve been through deaths (not personally), illnesses (personally), various employments, holidays, parenting, relocation, education, political upheavals, historic events and – gasp – an awful lot of everyday life while I’ve been writing this blog, and yes, while it might one day be interesting to revisit my thoughts on each of these things in the future, sometimes it was the actual documenting of them that helped get me through those moments.

So sure, I’ll happily overlook the days when it seems like a chore to get something out on here.

But then, if those sort of days begin to outweigh the good ones for any reasonable period of time, I’ll definitely take a long hard look at whether I want to continue with this each and every day. Sadly for you, dear readers, I haven’t come anywhere close to that thus far. And it’s been 10 years. (Did I already mention that?)

So as the line from that song they wrote about me goes:

Here’s to the future ’cause we got through the past

Thanks for being here and thanks for reading. Let’s look forward to the next ten years together.

Day 647 – Last one

This post marks the last of my pre-written holiday blogs. All the glitz and the glamour of Christmas and New Year (and that 10 year thing) is over, and it’s back to real life in the South African sunshine, through the rain and mud of the UK, withstanding the draconian clampdown on individual freedom in China or grinding out the daily struggle which is trying not to be killed by a nasty creature in Australia. Sorry about having to break that to you, wherever you are.

I hope something exciting and blogworthy happens today, so that when I plug myself back in tomorrow, there’s something to write about.

If not*, it looks like we could be in for yet another 364 days of the usual bilge.

Happy days!

See you tomorrow, folks!

* some might say “either way”, here