Author: 6000

Surf…

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Cape Town has gone a bit iffy today, grey, cool, drizzly: the precursor for the big storm coming through this evening and tomorrow.

But Cape Town hasn’t always been this way. This weekend, for example, Cape Town was lovely. Warm, sunny, pleasant. And, according to many of my surfing friends and contacts, “Dungeons was firing!”. I had to go and look this up, because the obtuse reference to a castle prison and some odd hat tip to The Apprentice didn’t make much sense at first.

But they meant the Dungeons surfing spot just around the corner from Hout Bay. And they meant that there were some good waves to surf there. The Guardian had also done some translating and gave us a couple of lovely images to visually indicate what was going on.
Here are they:

Big wave surfing in Cape Town, South Africa

Big wave surfing in Cape Town, South Africa

Gorgeous, ne? Just look at that wall of water. Wow.

You wouldn’t find me playing in waves that big, but that’s not to say that you can’t pop out and have a bit of fun if you want to. Just make sure you have some decent medical insurance and a reasonable funeral plan in place first though, ok?

Photo credit: Nic Bothma via The Guardian

Well, this is nice…

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As one does, I was just browsing through the latest press releases from Thames Water when I came across this wonderful description of their latest achievement – the successful removal of Britain’s biggest fatberg.

FATBERG! DEAD AHEAD!

Well, quite. But honestly, given the choice between hitting a big block of ice in the freezing North Atlantic or crashing into this, you’d wanna go all 1912, no questions asked.

And why? (and yes, I know that’s a question) Because here’s what a fatberg is:

The bus-sized lump of wrongly-flushed festering food fat mixed with wet wipes formed in drains under London Road in Kingston, Surrey.

Gordon Hailwood, waste contracts supervisor for Thames Water said: “While we’ve removed greater volumes of fat from under central London in the past, we’ve never seen a single, congealed lump of lard this big clogging our sewers before. Given we’ve got the biggest sewers and this is the biggest fatberg we’ve encountered, we reckon it has to be the biggest such ‘berg in British history.”

“Bus-sized”? *dry heave*

county-clean-fatberg-image

Says Gordon:

“The sewer was almost completely clogged with over 15 tonnes of fat. If we hadn’t discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston.”

Which would have been entertaining, if nothing else.

I bet Gordon is the life and soul at dinner parties though.

“So Gordon, anything interesting happened at work lately?”
“Well, funny you should ask…”

I foresee a Weight Watchers contract coming his way in the very near future…

Not jealous

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The following are photos sent to me this week by my parents.
The first depicts the Isle Of Man Steam Packet Company ferry, Manannan, while second seems to indicate the kind of holiday they ate currently enjoying. Note the subtle inclusion of the sunglasses.
Ok, ok. We get it.

image image

Of course, it hasn’t been half bad here either. After a breakfast of note, I took the kids to Maynardville Park, where roundabouts were ridden and slides were slidden. The City has installed one of those outdoor gyms there, but it was being used more as an extension of the playground than for any serious adult exercise.
We’re all eleven different sorts of tired now though. So it’s going to be an early night, and early to sleep, perchance to dream of ADSL reconnection in the morning.
Hold thumbs.

Many Reasons

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It’s Mrs 6000’s birthday today, but we’re only heading out to celebrate now, as we’ve been to two other birthday parties already today. What a common time of the year to be born.

Drinking will be involved this evening, so I thought I’d drop this in early, despite the lack of internet at home.

And there are three good reasons why this is all you’re getting today.

Glass Half Empty?

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Internet woes at home mean I’m posting this before leaving the lab and heading off for the weekend. It’s a weekend which will involve three birthday parties, two breakfast appointments and possibly a braai. Then I will return to work on Monday for a break.

Since this weekend will undoubtedly involve some (or more) beers as well, here’s something from Beer Labels In Motion dot com.

tumblr_inline_mqe6r1Nyzl1qz4rgp

It’s the blog of a man who takes the labels from his favourite beers and animates the labels in gif (that’s “jif“) format.

And why not?

I’m sure that you can get a similar effect by just drinking the contents of the bottle and then staring at the label. I aim to test this hypothesis this evening and I may report back later.

More as and when. As ever.