Be Excellent To Each Other

My boss left work early today because of this:

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/ne ... _motorway/

It was her whippet, 'Betty'.

Hah, that's excellent. My boss has whippets too, in fact she keeps on showing me pictures of the litters of whippet puppies they keep having. I wants one.

It turns out that it is pretty much impossible to buy just a box full of basic lego these days. Had to leave work early and pop to the lego store in MK to get some, everywhere else was random disney kits with 2 pieces in, for £50.

Dropped trusty old iphone 2G in the bog last night. it wouldn't turn on at all at first which was upsetting but now its sporting a pretty blue and white stripy effect that dances up and down the screen. While this might actually be a slight improvement for the 2G (which now runs nearly no apps, most notably Ebay and the apps it does run are slow enough to make them useless) it does impare the ability to use it as, say, a phone.
quite annoyed

The balance between 'too much' of paprika, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper and too little in a chilli con carne is something I've never been able to master. Peppery tonight, then, and slightly hotter than I wanted it, but had to use up the scotch bonnets.

This post is so Northern.

Still not heard the result of this interview from Friday.

I should probably get around to watching either version of Solaris.

I wonder if that's because the profit margins are better on the licensed stuff rather than bricks which the compatible alternative brick companies can churn out in bulk.

'Peppery' implies too heavy on the paprika. I wouldn't really bother with cayenne when using fresh chillis, especially scotch bonnets; they have such a lovely fruity flavour, in addition to the strong heat, the simple heat from dried cayenne isn't really necessary.

The tiny windowsill-dried possibly-a-fresno I used the other day was monumentally hot. I don't really have any idea which plant it came off - searing heat with a concentrated fruit flavour like none of the fresh ones I grew*. Then again, at the season's peak my anaheims went from "gorgeous flavour, no heat" to "Argh my FUCKING FACE!" in the space of a week, and the ones I've been drying were the last dregs of ripe-on-the-plant fruit.

Edit: I deleted the dumbassery comparing cayennes and tabasco sauce. I got confused between Tabasco Sauce and Frank's Original Red Hot Sauce, the latter of which uses cayennes instead of tabascos (and is lovely, and available in Sainsburys), and the fact there's a tray of tabascos in the fridge I need to do something with before they all rot away.

* That pasta sauce is in the freezer now. Helen wasn't happy about that hour of my telling her to stay out of the kitchen.

Thanks, I'll use less paprika.I've never thought to dry chillis on the winsowsill. I might try that in future. It tured out nice, anyway, so that was good.

If you seed chillis, dry the innards on the windowsill too, instead of throwing them away. Then you can grow chillis, or grind them up for funtimes.

Oh, and if you want to dry chillis, make sure there's no visible damage, and don't wash them. I only found out recently that washing fruit/veg makes them rot really quickly. Easier when they're homegrown so you know there're no chemicals on them (just poo). I've had the last lot, now the weather's gone bad so they're taking ages, resting on a bread cooling rack, to improve airflow on all sides.

Damn you Black Friday. Now I'm £460 poorer.

did you ever get that HP tablet?

Shamelessly stolen from twitter...

http://lockerz.com/s/158652436

No. I got £85 two months later. Which I considered a win, seeing as I had given them £85 to not give me an HP tablet.

Just seen this ad on Paypal. Good spelling on that first frame.

Amazon, Argos and Toys R Us all sell tubs of Lego.

It really isn't that hard at all. There's just a process to do it through, and given the utter fecking ineptitude of most managers and HR departments it's not much of a surprise that they're incapable of following it, and generating the unfair dismissal cases.

Sure, but Amazon and Argos are no good if you need it there and then. Even Argos has it on 2-3 days notice for collect at store. The only place localish to Peterborough to buy a basic lego box was the lego shop in MK.

This is exactly -- exactly -- what my dogs do when they get loose. Probably a good thing that we're 10 miles from the motorway.

Feex.

I'm glad Frozen Planet is coming to an end. I don't think I can take much more mass duck suicide, dead penguin babies and psychopathic weasels wearing the skin of its victim and hugging its corpse to sleep.

Whippet puppy you say...


Bonzo (dog doh-dah band) again by Learnin' Curve, on Flickr


nose 2 by Learnin' Curve, on Flickr


He's pretty much living in my house at the moment, J is at work/college and BF's back has gone so she can't pick him up to take him outside (he's too little to get down the back steps on his own)

Our neighbour is a fucking bellend. He seems to live something of a nocturnal existence and seems to think it okay to blast his TV or music at either side of midnight mid-week. I can hear his TV clear as day from bed right now. He's also had loud sex with some bint twice since we moved in (poor effort). His bedroom is next to ours and the walls are paper thin it seems. Third strike and I'm going round. The sex thing is fucking traumatising.

What can I do? I feel a dick going round and moaning but he is genuinely fucking up our lives. I don't want him to feel like he can't live his life how he wishes either though (assuming he'd cooperate and doesn't realise currently how much we can fucking hear him).

What. The. Fuck.

How have I missed this!? It sounds awesome!

First thing is to go round and speak with him. He may not realise that you can hear and may apologise straight away and it won't happen again.

After that, could you get your council involved? Keep a diary of when it's happening... It's essentially antisocial behaviour.

The trouble is, I've only just moved in a few months ago. He's probably lived there for years.

I'd feel like a bit of a douche complaining to him. But I could've honestly strangled him and his mrs the other night. Seriously, it's possible to have sex without screaming like a porn star, isn't it? Or am I just doing it wrong?

Doesn't matter. Antisocial behaviour is not right anyway you look at it.

Does he own the house? And in fact, do you own yours?

We're renting, no idea about him. He probably owns it though I'd imagine. If I owned the place I would've already been round there! I would've also looked into sound-proofing the whole place.

Daily Mail reports of a burglar writing a letter to his victims as part of an exercise in remorse and rehabililtation. It reads:



The comment section is as one would expect.

It's.. actually not as bad as I expected

Well, with a name like that it was bound to happen.

James from Lincoln is far too lovely and thoughtful to read that hateful newspaper. [img]http://img.tapatalk.com/5ec1467b-0c7b-2b66.jpg[/img]

Process. Hard.

Especially if you don't have a laa-de-daa "HR department".

WTF? It's really that hard to have a written notice setting out what they've done wrong, a disciplinary meeting, a follow up email saying "this is our decision, you have a right to appeal", and then sacking them?

If it's too much you just ask ACAS to tell you how to do it, as it's their Code that applies.

"You suck at this, get out" is about as hard as I want it.

Call me a cynic but I bet it's fake. The level of spelling in the letter seems to fluctuate for one thing.

And that there is the reason we have employment laws.

Wow, did I read THAT sentence wrong!

It's considered prudent to offer more training to an employee who lacks the skill, before running through the grievance procedures.

As well as being prudent, it's the morally right thing to do. At the extreme end, if someone's not performing well at their job because you haven't given them the required training, it would not be considered a fair dismissal to sack them for it.

Yes, quite.

That there is the reason our helpdesk has been down for two days.

Mali didn't say anything about "required" training, he said "more" training. And I'd just rather get someone who can do the job they said they could, to be honest.

Did they lie about qualifications/experience?

Not to my knowledge.

Have you tried pinning them against the wall?

Not yet