london
Google often does lovely headings in their search page, and today i saw one that is particularly spectacular to commemorate the 107th anniversary of a cartoonist i have never heard of.
winsor mcCay, nemo in slumberland.
Not sure if the link to the google page works, but for today anyway u will be able to see it just by going to the google search page.
added. go here to catch up on all their doodles.
i discovered the doodle when i opened the search page to google DMT, as it was mentioned as being very similar to the visions experienced by this neurosurgeon who had a near death experience and is now convinced there is an afterlife.
this article refuted it and worth reading even if u believe in an afterlife and the near death visions of people who have come back from the dead.
Added.12.30pm i see the first sign of winter, british gas raising its electricity and gas rates. haha. it will be raised 6% from 16nov. this happens so often that it can be permanently added to the first signs that winter is coming.
naturally, i could not be bothered as its effect on me is minimal. when u use so little energy, it does not matter how much they raise the rates.
it just means that i save more for every 1kwh of electricity i cut from using. to me, that is a great incentive to cut my usage even more.
unfortunately i have to live with others who are not so thrifty. haha.
but i guess that is life too. lots of people who are wasters of energy, of food, of water, etc etc. they dont see it , that is why they blame the govt, british gas, everyone but themselves for the price rises.
you dont get newspapers saying to people why dont u cut down on your usage of electricity and gas? that is a better way than shifting from one gas provider to another, chasing that elusive cheap rate.
people always say they have cut their usage to the bone, but of course if u look at it , u will find there is plenty of savings to be made.
i find it saves money not to use the oven. or use it less. i find that cooking the same amount of pork as a roast costs more in the oven than if u cook it as a stew on the stove.
Added.20.10.12 found out that using the top oven is just as economical as stewing. but the temp of roasting is important too. set it to 200C for 15mins(i was roasting pork and i wanted the crackling) and then bring it down to about 170C for the rest of the time. roast it for about 1.5hr and then let it cook inside the oven using up the residual heat. if roasting beef, i think u can just set it to about 170C.
and my pork stew , thinly sliced pork with ginger, garlic, onions , chilli,black soya sauce ,tastes marvelous. full of flavour. the way i cook it is to bring it to the boil from cold, and simmer on low heat, lid tightly shut, for about 5minutes and then switch off and keep covered and let the heat continue to cook the meat till the whole thing cools. even better if u can wrap the pot in insulation, a single size duvet, or sleeping bag, will do.
or one of those shopping bags with insulation which u can find in supermarkets for bringing back frozen foods.
i just remembered, i can use a blanket. i have found so many fleece blankets, i can use them.
Added. 20.10.12 the blanket etcdont seem very necessary, the pork gets cooked anyway
Showing posts with label spendthrift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spendthrift. Show all posts
Monday, 15 October 2012
Sunday, 2 September 2012
two kettles
london
I got two kettles now. i asked geoff to keep a lookout for a kettle, and he found me one. that was a few weeks ago. but he tested it on his baseplate, because the brand , breville, was similar to one in his kitchen. and when i brought it back home, i found out that the base he gave me was for another kettle and so it did not fit.
so he got me another, same brand, and now i got two kettles and one base. haha.
what kind of situation can u think of that i can use two kettles sharing one base heating unit?
i am asking geoff to keep a eye out for a adaptor to plug in the laptop. my one went bust and i have to borrow simon's , but when he takes it away with him when he returns to his mum's place whenever he has time off, i wont be able to get it and wont be able to use my laptop.
one would think it is easy to find these adaptors, and in the past, i had them too and i wonder why i never think of keeping the adaptors when the laptop went bust.
ah well, hope i find one lying around somewhere.
or i shall have to buy a new one.
laptops are getting very cheap nowadays, u can get one 4G memory and 500G harddrive for £300 now.
but i want to hang on to this laptop for as long as possible, until it really packs up before i change it.
walking about my place i see 3 small plots being developed for flats. one advertised only 10 flats to be sold in that building which has been empty for years. now it is being developed. and they can make a profit with only 10flats.
imagine how booming the luxury flats market must be getting for them all to jump onto the bandwagon.
Another empty plot left lying around for years near the st james the less church has now finally been built on. the picture of the finished building shows a really ordinary building.
and the big govt building near the vauxhall bridge , riverside walk, is now getting something done. they are removing the windows.
oh, i forgot, the courthouse where julien assange was taken to for his courtcase has been sold and demolished and the billboard advertised it will be turned into luxury flats. simon mentioned that it seemed that work has stopped because he sees nothing happening, but i said maybe they are preparing the foundations and it is not likely that there will be anything to see hidden behind the boarded walls.
Life is pleasant for me nowadays. interesting to me, but i doubt it will be of much interest to others.
I see two pubs near me being boarded up. they have gone out of business. one is the pimlico beer garden pub on the vauxhall bridge road; and the other the westminster on marsham st.
and the gay pub, the 'stag' up at victoria is no more, as the area is being developed with office blocks being torn down. And residential flats too. one guy who hosts naked parties at his flat in one of those blocks has to move because of it. he rents the flat. the inside of his flat is very nice, it seems, and all of it is to go. makes me wonder why people bother to do up the insides of their flats so expensively. surely the owner must know if the block is being sold off to be demolished. or maybe they all know but are paid so much they dont care. haha. that might explain why that flat is being rented out. if the lease is short and it is being sold , the only short term solution is to rent the flat out.
there was a pub, 'surprise of pimlico'on the vauxhall bridge road that used to look very run down but is now flourishing, because they changed the upstairs into a hostel with bunk beds and opened a small coffee shop next to the pub which occupies the downstairs. so now they get money from letting the bunk beds to hostellers upstairs, and get customers from these same hostellers.
i wonder why the westminster pub hasn't done the same thing. the previous owner sold it and bought the pub in pimlico near the tesco supermarket and that is flourishing. they were right to get out when they did as most of its business is from the govt and civil servants around them, but with the govt selling off these offices and relocating outside london, these places are slowly depleting of civil servants.
there are rooms upstairs the westminster pub that they could change into hostels. but i guess it means spending money to smarten up the rooms and buy bunk beds and have to get planning permission too i suppose.
it really is a terrible business doing business. i sometimes wonder why people bother.
i guess that is why i am not a business man. take for eg, setting up a coffee shop. it is a booming business as evidenced by starbucks expending like crazy in india, china. malaysia even.
the situation in malaysia is particularly mystifying. we have great kopitiam , local coffee shops that sell great local coffee. malaysian kopi is really fantastic, but they are not popular. why??? they are cheap unlike the expensive coffee in starbucks yet u get people going to starbucks. what is the matter with people???
yet i cannot but wonder who are those people who would spend so much money buying such expensive coffee when they can get it so much cheaply at home, or make up themselves in a thermos.
ah well, now u know why i shall never make a successful business man.haha.
I discovered that my talktalk has given me unlimited broadband usage. before it was limited to 40G a month. other providers have been giving unlimited usage, and they need not give it to me as i have allready signed another year's contract with them and have been locked in as it were.
they are rather good to give it to me without me even asking.
Of course there is a downside to all this generosity. it means speeds will be reduced if at any peak period a lot of people are downloading stuff. most people are not like me, who would limit my usage even though i got unlimited downloads.
most humans will go wild and use it like mad if it is free.
there are very few people like me who would use it with restrain.
it is the attitude of people like the aborigines in australia, before the white settlers arrive. the aborigines use what they need and leave the rest, and so sustain the environment.
when the settlers came, they started buying land, and owning it, something that really shouldn't be allowed. nature is not to be owned. but that is the capitalist system ... one chap buying it up and then exploiting it for all it is worth leaving behind a worthless ravaged land, and then he moves on to rape other places leaving those who live there to pick up the pieces.
it is just as well that nature can recover if left alone. it might take years but then nature got all the time in the world.haha it is only us humans who are so impatient because we know our lives are short.
i know we humans are very wasteful. i feel really pained when i see people throwing away good stuff or food. i see it even in those i love, so how much more i see it in strangers and i could not condemn them, for if even my loved ones do this, and i dont scold them for doing it, i should not scold strangers when they do it too.
all i can say is , karma will get you...
i wonder whether those people u see now suffering deprivation are those in their past lives been very spendthrift ... i sometimes would like to think so and consider them now paying off their karma.
not a view that is politically correct. haha.
I got two kettles now. i asked geoff to keep a lookout for a kettle, and he found me one. that was a few weeks ago. but he tested it on his baseplate, because the brand , breville, was similar to one in his kitchen. and when i brought it back home, i found out that the base he gave me was for another kettle and so it did not fit.
so he got me another, same brand, and now i got two kettles and one base. haha.
what kind of situation can u think of that i can use two kettles sharing one base heating unit?
i am asking geoff to keep a eye out for a adaptor to plug in the laptop. my one went bust and i have to borrow simon's , but when he takes it away with him when he returns to his mum's place whenever he has time off, i wont be able to get it and wont be able to use my laptop.
one would think it is easy to find these adaptors, and in the past, i had them too and i wonder why i never think of keeping the adaptors when the laptop went bust.
ah well, hope i find one lying around somewhere.
or i shall have to buy a new one.
laptops are getting very cheap nowadays, u can get one 4G memory and 500G harddrive for £300 now.
but i want to hang on to this laptop for as long as possible, until it really packs up before i change it.
walking about my place i see 3 small plots being developed for flats. one advertised only 10 flats to be sold in that building which has been empty for years. now it is being developed. and they can make a profit with only 10flats.
imagine how booming the luxury flats market must be getting for them all to jump onto the bandwagon.
Another empty plot left lying around for years near the st james the less church has now finally been built on. the picture of the finished building shows a really ordinary building.
and the big govt building near the vauxhall bridge , riverside walk, is now getting something done. they are removing the windows.
oh, i forgot, the courthouse where julien assange was taken to for his courtcase has been sold and demolished and the billboard advertised it will be turned into luxury flats. simon mentioned that it seemed that work has stopped because he sees nothing happening, but i said maybe they are preparing the foundations and it is not likely that there will be anything to see hidden behind the boarded walls.
Life is pleasant for me nowadays. interesting to me, but i doubt it will be of much interest to others.
i get very excited about things i find, these kettles given to me. rather poor pictures because i cannot find how to turn on the flash in this camera.
I see two pubs near me being boarded up. they have gone out of business. one is the pimlico beer garden pub on the vauxhall bridge road; and the other the westminster on marsham st.
and the gay pub, the 'stag' up at victoria is no more, as the area is being developed with office blocks being torn down. And residential flats too. one guy who hosts naked parties at his flat in one of those blocks has to move because of it. he rents the flat. the inside of his flat is very nice, it seems, and all of it is to go. makes me wonder why people bother to do up the insides of their flats so expensively. surely the owner must know if the block is being sold off to be demolished. or maybe they all know but are paid so much they dont care. haha. that might explain why that flat is being rented out. if the lease is short and it is being sold , the only short term solution is to rent the flat out.
there was a pub, 'surprise of pimlico'on the vauxhall bridge road that used to look very run down but is now flourishing, because they changed the upstairs into a hostel with bunk beds and opened a small coffee shop next to the pub which occupies the downstairs. so now they get money from letting the bunk beds to hostellers upstairs, and get customers from these same hostellers.
i wonder why the westminster pub hasn't done the same thing. the previous owner sold it and bought the pub in pimlico near the tesco supermarket and that is flourishing. they were right to get out when they did as most of its business is from the govt and civil servants around them, but with the govt selling off these offices and relocating outside london, these places are slowly depleting of civil servants.
there are rooms upstairs the westminster pub that they could change into hostels. but i guess it means spending money to smarten up the rooms and buy bunk beds and have to get planning permission too i suppose.
it really is a terrible business doing business. i sometimes wonder why people bother.
i guess that is why i am not a business man. take for eg, setting up a coffee shop. it is a booming business as evidenced by starbucks expending like crazy in india, china. malaysia even.
the situation in malaysia is particularly mystifying. we have great kopitiam , local coffee shops that sell great local coffee. malaysian kopi is really fantastic, but they are not popular. why??? they are cheap unlike the expensive coffee in starbucks yet u get people going to starbucks. what is the matter with people???
yet i cannot but wonder who are those people who would spend so much money buying such expensive coffee when they can get it so much cheaply at home, or make up themselves in a thermos.
ah well, now u know why i shall never make a successful business man.haha.
I discovered that my talktalk has given me unlimited broadband usage. before it was limited to 40G a month. other providers have been giving unlimited usage, and they need not give it to me as i have allready signed another year's contract with them and have been locked in as it were.
they are rather good to give it to me without me even asking.
Of course there is a downside to all this generosity. it means speeds will be reduced if at any peak period a lot of people are downloading stuff. most people are not like me, who would limit my usage even though i got unlimited downloads.
most humans will go wild and use it like mad if it is free.
there are very few people like me who would use it with restrain.
it is the attitude of people like the aborigines in australia, before the white settlers arrive. the aborigines use what they need and leave the rest, and so sustain the environment.
when the settlers came, they started buying land, and owning it, something that really shouldn't be allowed. nature is not to be owned. but that is the capitalist system ... one chap buying it up and then exploiting it for all it is worth leaving behind a worthless ravaged land, and then he moves on to rape other places leaving those who live there to pick up the pieces.
it is just as well that nature can recover if left alone. it might take years but then nature got all the time in the world.haha it is only us humans who are so impatient because we know our lives are short.
i know we humans are very wasteful. i feel really pained when i see people throwing away good stuff or food. i see it even in those i love, so how much more i see it in strangers and i could not condemn them, for if even my loved ones do this, and i dont scold them for doing it, i should not scold strangers when they do it too.
all i can say is , karma will get you...
i wonder whether those people u see now suffering deprivation are those in their past lives been very spendthrift ... i sometimes would like to think so and consider them now paying off their karma.
not a view that is politically correct. haha.
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