Miserable Saturday? Not really

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Grey and wet. Cold. I’ve stayed home and lit the fire ready for the United game.

But…

Out for a celebratory meal later with the news that Little Miss 6000 stormed through her exams with amazing results, and the Boy Wonder has been taken on for a 6 month paid fellowship, hopefully then leading into a full time position.

So it might not be lovely outside, and the first half of the year might have been pretty awful, but maybe things are beginning to turn around?

Let’s temper that positivity by popping on the football.

Panthers – It’s happened again!

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Aussie sport?

You betcha, mate! I love a bit of Rugby League.

After last week’s incredible extra time finish to their match against the Melbourne Storm – see here for details – the Penrith Panthers were pegged back and forced into Golden Point time again in today’s game against the Canberra Raiders.

There was a very short bit of to and fro, and then the Panthers’ Nathan Cleary got a chance to go for the field goal to win the match… and… this happened:

Absolutely unbelievable. And despite there being another big match directly after this one, the commentators couldn’t stop talking about this moment. And who could blame them?

Sport, eh? It’s often mundane, it’s occasionally exciting, and then sometimes – in moments like this – it’s absolutely… everything.

You couldn’t write a finish like this. No-one would believe you.

Buying beer in Finland

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I haven’t. And I’m not planning to. But if I were planning to, then why would I not go with this pack of Keisari lager from local brewer Nokian Panimo – literally “Nokia Brewery” – which yes, is in the city of Nokia, which yes, is where the phone brand started out.

But you won’t find 3310 cans in this case:

It “only” contains 3241. Which I think is a bit of a missed opportunity – for foreign nerds, at least.

€6,773.69 is R139,425.57 this evening, which equates to about R43 (€2.10) a can. And that’s really good value for Finland, where an average beer will set you back an average of €7. Albeit that that’s a draught in a restaurant, this is still a very good price.

And remember, even here in SA, beer is expensive.

Of course, aside form the price, there will be some other issues. Like how many friends you will need to have to help you drink it before the best before date. As an example, ten of you at four cans a night (or four of you at ten cans a night, I guess) will still take almost three months.
And how to get it to wherever you’re going to serve it.
And how you’re going to keep 3241 cans of lager cold.

But these are minor matters when it comes to the glamour and the fame that will come with buying The Emperor of Giant Beer Packs: The Very Biggest Pack In History, no less.

I’m tempted.

Bonjourr 21: the background update

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I’ve been using Bonjourr for almost a year and a half now, and it’s just lovely. I’d only been using it for a few weeks when I wrote a post about it and said this:

Sometime we can have nice things. And this is one of them.

And I was absolutely right. Well done, me.

Bonjourr is a really simple way to decorate your browser background – although the customisation options mean that it can be far more powerful if you want it to be – and while it might not seem like a very big thing, it’s just really cool to have images there instead of the same old block of colour. With the latest update – Bonjourr 21: the background update – they’ve added several new features, including the choice of using local files as your background, the option of having a video background to your new browser windows, and new texture overlays to make your screen look even cooler.

Let’s get this straight: this isn’t a massively important or necessary app but it’s free, it’s fun and it just makes things look nicer. And who doesn’t want something nicer on the screen in front of them?

I still haven’t really kicked off anything on Unsplash, as I had planned to do, but there’s some work that I am doing at the moment that might tie in nicely with that, so maybe you will be able to have a raft of my images decorating your desktop in the very near future. In the meantime, there’s plenty of other stuff on there for you to choose.

As browser add-ons go, this has to be right up there as one of the best. Again, not because it enhances the functionality of your software, but just because it’s so customisable and it looks so good.

It’s available for all major browsers – and some others, too.

New York City’s Disappearing Horse Elevators

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Plenty of news here Chez 6000, but maybe more on the way, so let’s leave that for another post and another time, and head to New York and this lovely little documentary about the last Horse Elevators in that city.

These aging behemoths were used to transport – wait for it – horses! to their second floor stabling facilities from the 1860s until the turn of the 20th Century. Because everyone who way anyone had a horse and carriage. The carriages lived downstairs and the horses lived upstairs, but because they are notoriously bad a doing stairs, they were lifted – elevated – in a horse elevator.

But the horse elevators don’t meet building safety codes anymore, and so they are being removed and replaced. And this is the story of one particular horse elevator and its final journey.

It’s an interesting, engaging 12 minute watch.