Saved bird

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There has been a Cape Bulbul nest in the creeper outside our living room window for a few weeks now. The parents have been very attentive, and yesterday, we saw the first sign of junior. Sadly for junior, the best that he or she could manage is to get to a bush on the side of the garden.

And then he/she got stuck.

The parents were getting quite anxious, and so, as dusk fell and the temperature along with it, I went out and took him from his perch, and placed him back into the nest so that he could be nice and warm for the night and maybe give the whole flying thing another go this morning.

The plan worked well, and this morning, fledgling and one parent were happily together in the tree across the garden.

Mum was even so relaxed with us being her babysitters that she enjoyed a bath in the sunshine.

Job done.
Happy customers.

Always happy to help out some #BackGardenWildlife

PIN (number) fun

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Here’s some interesting… oh, hang on, the power’s just tripped. Let me have a quick look at my DB board.

Sorted. I just needed to check the LCD display.

Anyway, from here, this:

Here’s some interesting data on the most common PIN (numbers) that people use.

White are ones that are used more often. Black are ones that aren’t used much at all.

Of course, with limited chances to guess your PIN (number) should your card be stolen, there’s not too much danger in choosing a white or yellow one, even though the top 20 (of 10000, obviously) make up more than a quarter of all the numbers used.

I was particularly delighted to see that 4916 – my PIN (number) for all my important things – was not one that might be easily guessed.

Happy to know that I’m pretty safe and secure.

Today’s chuckles

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We had a lovely school concert last week (as briefly documented here), but what if school concerts were like festivals?

I mean, no offence intended, but yeah, you might think twice.

We’ve been through this one before.

Just with slightly different terminology. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

In fact, if anything, the mental images conjured up by these descriptions are actually more accurate.

Look, Climate Change is a real thing…

But don’t worry. Whoever the Big Orange Goon puts in charge of the USA’s Environmental Department will surely sort it all out. After all, President (Elect) Spanky McLiarface is doing wonderful work already, putting a rabid anti-vaxxer in charge of Health, doubling the number of wankers in charge of Government Efficiency, and putting this tosser as head of Defence:

Of course, he later claimed he was joking about that (you decide), but he’s still deadly serious about…

Women in the military:

“I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” he explained. “Our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where traditionally—not traditionally, over history—men in those positions are more capable.”

About who he thinks is going to command the military:

He wrote that “affirmative action posts have skyrocketed, with ‘firsts’ being the most important factor in filling new commanders. We will not stop until trans-lesbian Black females run everything!”

About how stupid Ivy League graduates are:

“I have a new rule, the more elite the university and advanced a graduate is, the dumber they are. If you went to an Ivy League, prove that you have any common sense at all.”

Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard, which actually does kind of prove his point.

And about how he just wants to get along with everyone:

“Next to the communist Chinese and their global ambitions, Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world. It cannot be negotiated with, coexisted with, or understood; it must be exposed, marginalized, and crushed,” he wrote in American Crusade.

Wait. What?

A simple error

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When paying for something – even if it’s just 80 cents – always be absolutely sure what you are paying for.

I love this cartoon, because I’m a bit of a pendant when it comes to the correct use of language. And details are important, otherwise a sentence – like above – could mean something entirely different.

Good luck in the Battle Zone, brave warrior.

Vaguely related…

“They said they had never seen anything like it. It was like a trolley dash.
I had two hammers, hobnail boots. I was doing four at once.“

Vaguely related again…

I got an email from a supplier earlier today proudly sharing these facts in the blurb:

And they should be proud, because 6000 is a great number, and so 6000+ must be even better.
Sadly though, they’ve illustrated this amazing stat with… er… 4 stars.

And the very first testimonial they shared, cited their “attention to detail”. Oops.

I know we’re fast approaching December, and many places and people are already dreaming of summer holidays, but really…

Why yes, that extra N was entirely intentional. But thanks for noticing.

Woolies stuff

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We all know how it works now. Buy everything you need at Checkers, but get your fresh produce at Woolies. And because your fresh produce is usually full of good things, you set up Woolies as your Discovery Healthy Eating place, and you get some money back as a lump sum at some point.

But I noticed a couple of Woolies things that didn’t quite add up (literally in one case, lol) this week.
First off, this on some puff pastry:

I’m glad it’s Made with Butter. Puff pastry is meant to be rich and buttery, and it being Made with Butter adds to at least two of those attributes.

What I don’t get is the connection between it being Made with Butter, and the image of the teacup and saucer. It’s not the first thing I think of when I think about butter. Crockery-wise, that would be the Butter Dish, and cutlery-wise, that would be the Butter Knife. Now, were it Made with Tea, personally, I’d likely go for the teapot, but there’s no way I would chastise anyone symbolising a product which was Made with Tea with a teacup and saucer. That’s absolutely fine.

But this puff pastry wasn’t Made with Tea, it was Made with Butter, and so if anyone can please explain the relevance of the teacup and saucer image in this context and on this packaging, I’m all ears.

And then this, in-store:

Diced Bacon is expensive. Here, we can see that it is priced at R84.99 for 500g. Thank goodness it’s not R85.00, which would be over my cut-off point for buying 500g of Diced Bacon. But R84.99 for 500g is the equivalent of R169.98 per kilogram.

Or so I thought.

But it you were to take a kilo of this delicious cured meat to the checkout, it appears that you would be charged a hefty INFINITY Rands. and that’s a lot. More specifically, that is:

a number greater than any assignable quantity or countable number

which is certainly more than R169.98. Even I can assign a quantity and count to that.

I know that Woolies has a reputation for being somewhat on the pricey side, but this idea of Infinity Rands for 1000g of chopped heaven would likely break the till display. To put it in perspective, it’s more PER KILO than Russia fined Google for being American naughty, and that was more than all the money in the world.

“I can’t even pronounce this number, but it is more likely imbued with symbolism,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told Russian news agencies.
“Google should not restrict the actions of our broadcasters, but it does. That said, this fine is still not as much as a couple of packets of bacon from Woolies in Cape Town, but we are not expecting to be paid in pork,” he added.

We tried to reach Mr Peskov for comment on the whole Made with Butter teacup picture thing, but his office said that he was “busy”.

Which was disappointing.