A Happy Pan – When Oil Smiled

A Happy Pan – When Oil Smiled

Byrichard

Yesterday I had a happy pan, when the oil smiled at me. I didn’t intend for it to become a smiley face. I poured in the oil as I always do before cooking. That’s when my imagination thought it saw something. Yep, a face. I was amused enough, and I thought that my imagination was seeing something clear enough for others to recognise, so I took pictures.


A smiley face made of oil
A smiley face made of oil


This face came too early. If I had seen this on Halloween then it would have been perfect. This is a demonstration of how chaos theory can make anything happen. Alternatively if enough monkeys like me pour oil into pans we eventually get a face. People like this cooking oil. Five people have told me that they like this brand of Greek oil.


In other news Google says that I have travelled 3700 kilometres this year, between walking, cycling and the car. I think that most of it was by foot though. This is day 285 of 2021. 3700 / 285 came to around 13 kilometres a day. I think this proves how local our lives have become during this pandemic. 13 kilometres is easy to walk in a day, especially at a conference or other event, but also when walking to and from work, for some, or daily walks for other. My first reaction had been “how did I manage that, this must be wrong. Upon reflection, this seems correct.


Blobs in Geneva
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Blobs in Geneva

Byrichard

How often do you see blobs guarding the entrance of an old town?


Today I walked around Geneva and in at least three locations I spotted these blobs guarding various places. These two are guarding the entrance to the old town. I like the contrast between the modern blobs above the gate to the old town of Geneva and the statue of Pictet De Richemond.


Two more of these blobs were playing by a merry go round where you walk up from the new town to the old town.


Two more of them were playing on the columns of St Pierre’s. I don’t know what they’re part of. I don’t know whether they’re part of an art exhibit or some other form of activity. It’s amusing that they would choose to climb up the columns as they’re shown to be doing.

Four Practical Jokes to Play in a bunker
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Four Practical Jokes to Play in a bunker

Byrichard

Sock on the door



In US films a sock or other object on a door handle implies that there are two or more people enjoying bedroom sports. As a couple were in one room I took the opportunity of speaking about doing this joke and then doing it. It’s harmless fun in an original context. How often do you see this in an air raid shelter?


Glass of water thrown onto a person taking a shower


I always want to throw cold water onto people taking a shower so I tried with my hands. I mentioned this idea to someone else and he grabbed a glass of water and threw it onto his girlfriend. I think she was slightly disappointed that it hadn’t been me throwing the water.


Glass of water balanced on a door



Someone else liked the idea of glasses of water falling on people so he took a glass and placed it above the door and leaning. The intention was that when the next person opened the door it would soak them. As this was during a party it was normal behaviour.


Playing sounds through the ventilation shafts.


When you’re standing outside near one of the vents you can hear people speaking inside. It’s fun to play tricks on people so I queried what we could do to scare or surprise the people downstairs. One person decided to play the sound of an emergency vehicle.


When a person came up to the surface he spoke of hearing a fire truck or other vehicle so the joke was a partial success.

For a laugh – The EEE PC and a dell desktop keyboard

Byrichard

I really enjoy using the EEE PC but there is one tiny flaw, the keyboard is to small to do any real typing. That’s why when I got home I plugged in a spare keyboard and mouse from a desktop and started to type. It works really well. No problems detecting the keyboard or anything.

Since we’ve all got a spare keyboard and mouse lying around why not take advantage of that when we want to do some real work on the EEE PC.

By the way I can touch type on the EEE so this is a question of comfort and playfulness.

It’s Like A Night Out In The Savannah

Byrichard

Nights in halls are like nights out in the Savannah. Since the drunk party sound coming through walls is a given that’s the sound of crickets and frogs. It’s constantly there and theoretically you should eventually learn to sleep through it over time. Of course it’s not quite constant enough.

Then you’ve got the sound of banging and shuffling from the kitchen. Now that sound is the thunder storms and rain that will come over and wake you, soak you and make you wish you had a friendly cave to crawl into for shelter.

The third one are lions and hyenas, high up on the food chain and the most nefarious to your health should you not be careful. That’s the argumentative drunks often found before day break. With these there’s nothing you can do but make sure you’ve found somewhere safe to hide away, grin and bear it.

Overall what these three elements mean is one thing, that a proper night of sleep is less likely than snow on the beaches of the South Coast of England.

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A funny day

Byrichard

I found today quite entertaining. I went out and noticed that it was a little windy. Later on, I was heading towards the student bar only to find that it was closed due to windows being blown in. “Oh well”, I thought “time to do something different”. I walked across the street, the name given to the path in the middle of our university, and looked up to the screens, “ship abandoned”, train delays, tiles off roofs, and more.

As if to provoke more problems for myself I decided to head into central London. There was a hilarious sign. “Because of various trees on track – severe delays on metropolitan line. It’s such a matter of fact, a casual way of saying there’s a problem. I went up the stairs to the platform ad caught a train limited to 30 mph due to the adverse weather conditions. That’s quite a bit slower than usual. We arrived near Wembley Park but the train remained blocked. Apparently they had to change driver and this was holding us up.

So to recapitulate six trees on the line, heavy winds, severe delays, and to top it off delay due to the changing of a driver. Don’t they have enough problems as it is?

I went to the world’s biggest apple store but there’s nothing new, no apple tv, no iPhone, nothing I haven’t seen already.

The trek back was fun in itself. Highly packed trains filled with commuters and masses of people trying to get back to Northwick park after going to Harrow on the hill because the trains were suffering from the weather conditions.

I got out and walked home.