Preventative vs. preventive

Which stutter invented the word preventative when preventive is perfectly fine.

Pumpkin Carving

Sarah got this pumpkin from her friend.  Neither of us has carved a pumpkin before, nor were we keen about the idea.  We had to do something about the carving pumpkin, so we looked online for pumpkin carving. 

So there were two steps to pumpkin carving, gutting and carving.  We reached an agreement that Sarah was to get her hands dirty from gutting, and I will play with the knives.  We are quite happy with our first pumpkin.

Undoing Filing

Filing is boring and tedious, but it is the only way to be organized.  It is better not file than to file incorrectly.  It is okay to make a mistake, but mindlessly plonking papers in files is the worst.

Moral Consistency

BBC Analysis was talking about Killing Cows.  When we listened to it, it was a moral discussion not a scientific justification.

The first philosophers have pro-life views, and they try to find justifications about not taking animal's lives, and akin it with racism, they called speciesism.  Then some justified non-mammals as not having high cognition to have complex feels and pain, and only eat those lower organisms.  I personally think they are bonkers.

The last philosophers on the shows have a chaotic life view, understanding animals and humans are dying, and the use of their bodies should not be much different, and akin cannibalism to organ transplant, which I find enlightening.

Ultimately, they brought up the issue of moral consistency.  I admit a lot of philosophers are bonkers,  but they are probably consistent, which is actually very hard.  And I have a long held believe people should be consistent of their belief and their actions, rather than being a hypocrite.

Most of the listeners will be as confused as they have started, and started to understand their moral in consistence, but it is probably easier to eat less meat, continue to use their illogical reasons to justify their doings than becoming less hypocritical. 

Lindt excellence dark with crunchy cocoa nibs

I got them from Fulton.  I quite like the cocoa nibs, but the chocolate is not particularly high quality.

Eggless Cookies

I had David and Alvaro around for dinner, and I thought I would make some dessert.  Having no eggs in my house, I have to find some eggless recipe.  I searched and found an eggless cookie recipe, and it looked very safe, so I made them.  They turned out well, Alvaro and David both had two cookies each.  Eggless cookies is definitely better than a flourless cookie!  And they are definitely a good recipe for emergency use.

Tripe

Tripe is the only offal I eat, and I quite like tripe.  I was prohibited from adding the trip in the stew, so I had to cook it some other time.  Sarah was being dramatic about the flavour and the aroma of the tripe.  I will just have to cook them at home.

LKK Sauces

I have always been a big fan of LKK sauces since I was young.  Now I do read the ingredient list, Chinese sauces are often a blend of soya sauce with other cooking wine and ingredients.  But at the end of the day, people don't just buy their sauces for the quality, also the convenience.

Slippery Butcher

I needed a few cuts of beef to go into the beef stew.  I walked around the market, and stopped at this butcher.  I am quite happy with the beef brisket on bones and beef shin.  They only sell tripe in a pre-weighed bag frozen.  I verbally checked 3 times to confirm it is definitely honeycomb tripe, and they said yes.  But when I got home, it was definitely not honeycomb tripe!

When I finished with the shop, he did the sum wrong, and tried to charge me 2 pounds extra.  When I was for the correction, he was not happy.  I am not impressed with them.  I will be careful with them in the future.

Fanned Oven

Sarah loves to tell me how brilliant fanned oven is compared to a traditional gas oven.  I only got a cheap gas stove/oven at home, and every time I bake, I struggle to get it evenly coloured.  While I am at Sarah's, I baked some cheese scones.  The browning on the scone is absolutely lovely.  I am quite jealous!

Out of Date Tins

When I have time, I tidy my cupboards.  It is always good to have a good tally on when I have in store.  I set to arrange Sarah's cupboard, and I emptied out many questionable tins.  I personally also believe preserves, cured, tinned food can last for a really long time after best before date, but then the tin starts to deform, I would not take the chance.  Now begins the process of separating the content and the recyclable tins.

Car Dealer Markup

Apparently it is another business that do 50% markup, no wonder everyone wants a slice of the pie, no wonder everyone hates car dealers.

Polar Bear Transit

These hitchhiker will bump a ride with anything.

Route 59 Cafe

The last ride in the season, Gary suggested Route 59 Cafe.  After some wet bendy roads, we made it.  It is a nice little cafe, I think they are trying to reinvent themselves as a biker cafe, so they took out bikes' pictures, and little Rome made it on the Facebook.

It is not the easiest location, but it is a nice cafe.

4-cylinder Diesel

I spotted another potential car, so I had a test drive 3-days in a row.  The Fiesta drives as I expected from a 4-cylinder diesel engine.  It drives better than the 3-cylinder Ibiza, but I really doesn't care about the drive that much.  It is a good car, with a few mod-con, but I could not justify my first car being so luxurious. 

Seafood Car Prices

When you ring a trader, they put the price up on the car?!  What is wrong with them!

3-Cylinder Engines

I have tried another 3-cylinder engine.  They are definitely jerkier than a 4-cylinder engine, just like when they are on bikes.  But since there is not that much horsepower to weight, it was no point to accelerate hard anyway.

Global Handwashing Day

I was clicking around Wikipedia, and today is Global Handwashing Day.  Then I googled GHD in England, the campaign sort of stopped in 2012.  Basic hygiene is not just for the developing countries, we need to keep up too.

Flimsy Metal Box

I tried out a cheap Japanese car, it is a flimsy metal box with plastic cladding.  I suspect little Rome has more metal than it!

Parody and Spoof

I observed Sarah uses 'parody' more, and I use 'spoof' more.  What is the difference between the two?  Sarah reckons there is a small difference between them.  Sarah reckon 'spoof' means a full-monty parody job, whereas parody can be a short mockery.  The dictionary seems to them they are synonymous.  I will probably still use 'spoof' and Sarah will still use 'parody'.

Lotherton Hall Apple Day

I have not been to a Lotherton Hall Apple day since 2007.  The format has changed a little, the cafe no longer supplies appley food.  Instead, we are sent to the orchard and pick our own apples.  There were a lot of different apples, and Blenheim Orange seemed to be the favourite.  It was always good to spend time outside on a good dry day.

Winey Bolognese

I am running out of freezer space.  I had some red wine frozen, so I might as well used it.  It tasted very nice.  I must keep some red wine in stock.

Candle Lit Weekend

I do like candle light, but I rarely use them at home, so I took the opportunity to use candle instead of light to 'save some electricity'.  Candle really doesn't give out enough light.  I quite enjoy sitting in the dark.

Mischievous meerkats attempt Great Escape from Tropical World

The meerkats made the news.  I always wonder why this had not already happened.

Car Reliability

Reliability is often from the word of mouth.  Someone has a bad experience and their friends would avoid the product.  But how do we know more about reliability without having to buy and try one.  I found a reliability index website, but I think their work is quite incomplete and not sufficiently scientific.  It is a good guide for someone with basic understanding, but it would be bad for someone who would use it as a gospel. 

Pollution

The news is all about 'pollution'.  Everything is pollution.  Any variant to the normal atmosphere is pollution.  So human, all animals and trees are creating pollution.  Even earth is releasing gasses that is pollutant.  Machinery, power generation may produce a little more pollution, a different type of pollution.  A human has a bigger carbon footprint than a standard car.  A human shed a lot of particulate matters, eg dead skins.

The question is if the pollution is disproportionate to its benefits, but this can be very subjective.  Know your own pollution, and don't throw a stone in a glass house, we are all equally responsible to the pollution.

Comparing Apples and Pears

There are so many choices in the automobile market, it is like comparing apples and pears and oranges.  A lot of 'claims' are only valid if you compare with the same car with the same payload just a different engine performance.

I think I know what I want, I just need to scrap the money together.

Loony in a Red Car

On my way to Leicester, I was on A50, travelling parallel with a red car.  The red car just pulled in without checking his blind spot.  I honked a he just didn't care.  He just zoomed away on the busy road.  Asshole!

Ox Cheek

We were going to make some peasant food, a hairy biker's meatball pearl barley recipe.  The mince on offer was sold out, so I had a look at the offes at the butcher counter.  Ox cheek was on offer, so I asked for some.  One ox cheek is over 500g, so I asked for it to be halved.  The girls working at the counter probably never sold one of them before was wondering how to halve it.  They asked which direction they should cut it, and they offered to cut it in either direction.  Then I took up the offer and ask them to give me the top half.

So I happily took the top half of the cheek home and diced it.  I removed as much sinew as I could.  It has more sinew than I initially imagine, but it still has less sinew then shin.

We cooked with stew in a 1.5 hours, and the cheek was already fully cooked. I will definitely consider cooking beef cheeks interchangeably with shins with my stews.

DVD Player for Windows 8

The Toshiba DVD player could not play some of the DVDs from the USA.  So I searched for a DVD player.  I should have look around before click on the first return.  I installed some stupid DVD players with loads of unwanted software that took me all evening to uninstall.  I ended up using the trusted VLC player, it works like a charm.

The stupid DVD player came with something called Chromium, and it was quite embedded in the computer, I had to go into a few layers before I can fully remove it. 

Suchard Sensations 70% Noir Intense

The last of the trio of chocolate from Vienna.  Bog standard 70% bar.

Car?

I still love motorcycle, but it doesn't run across winter. Sarah said I should consider getting a car, but I could not work out what is the best strategy. Lease, used car, new car or just stay on the bus.

Grafting vs Optimism

Optimism does not make the world go around, grafting does. Put in the effort, don't sit and hope.