What a great experience! Thanks for sharing it with us. :)

This is from a while ago, but it made me like him a little more.

He's real people. :thumb:

He is, dare I say, an artist.

The band is so pro, they know where their cue is to come back in, and are waiting patiently for it, and hit it when it happens, even though they can't see him.

The audio is so pro, they can all hear the Boss perfectly in their in-ear monitors, even if he's 30 feet offstage with a wireless mic.

The thing I love about cats and dogs is they don't have time for self pity. Neither does this guy.

Kewl.

My 1991 VW Passat Estate passed its MoT (annual road worthiness test) today.

It was Dad's car but he gave up driving several years ago so it was signed over to me.

I kept my horrible little Peugeot, a mere sixteen years old, on the basis that the Passat would probably reach the end of the road sooner rather than later.

Dad's mobility is so poor that he can only get into the VW and even that tends to be a long winded process.

There's always the possibility of the need to take him to the hospital or Doc's at very short notice as well so that's another reason I've ended up with two cars.

It passed first time so no repairs or maintenance were needed. It has only done just over a thousand miles since the last test so it hasn't been exactly punished and has a total mileage of 68k.

I shouldn't think that either car is worth much more than scrap value and they probably cost more to tax and insure than they are worth.

I never thought that I'd say this, but I look forward to the day when I can give up driving.

With a bit of luck I'll keep one or both cars in serviceable order until that day arrives.

I just had a phone call from Buster. He sounds exactly like I figgered.

He's sending candy!

I emailed him before Christmas that I had some of those small round tins I'd send him if he promised not to send me candy, but never got a reply.

Oh yes you did. I said this would probably be my last year for making candy and thanks anyway. But, But who knows?

My cousin (the stabbed-in-the-head-with-scissors-one) called me today!

He's been home for about a week, still in intensive speech/occupational/physical therapy. It's a little heartbreaking to hear him try to speak, with the really (really) bad stuttering and cluttering and word choice issues, but you can definitely tell it's "him" in there. He knows what he wants to say, and got downright fluent for a few short periods when talking rapidly about concepts he felt strongly about, rather than chitchat. He's been told that they expect him to make a 100% recovery, in about a year's time. I told him I personally anticipate half that, if not less. First they were all, "he'll wake up in another two weeks" and he was all, "fuck you, I'm waking up today." Then they were all, "he'll be ready to go home in another 3 weeks," and he was all, "ha ha, suckers, looks like you meant 5 days." So now they say a year; idiots don't know a good bet when they see one...

He still can't draw for shit, but they did some kind of special hand-eye-coordination test that they give to brain injured patients, which somehow magically tells them what capacity is actually inside his brain vs. what he's currently able to make his hand do--and the lady said he outperformed a non-brain-injured person, even now. So they say he'll get full recovery for that as well.

The only thing they don't expect him to get back is the right half of his right eye's vision, which is gone because he apparently also had a mini-stroke at some point during all this, and that's a done deal. But they said his left eye will eventually compensate to the point that he won't notice it unless his left eye is completely closed.

But goddamn it was good to hear his voice again.

That's very good news, I figured he'd get mobile and be able to communicate with some rehab, but I wondered if he'd lose his profession he's built his whole life around. So that's really good to hear. From everything I've read about him, he's a happy person, probably a morning person(yuk), and better at his profession than anyone else. In other words, he's got all the right stuff to come back. http://cellar.org/2015/cheers.gif
How are they doing with the bills?

That is very good news Clod.

Happy to hear this

This is happy news!

Doing okay for now. And their lawyers are very confident that the park will be taking care of things once the slow legal gears have a chance to finish turning.

So glad he's going to be ok, Clod.

yay clod, poor guy

Good to hear that Clod. Give him our best.

Good stuff!

He'll yeah

I got a tin of chocolate goodies from brother b. And a funny disclaimer letter. Good stuff, buster! Thanks!

A belated public thank you to the marvs Dwellar who wired some money to me last week when I was in need. It meant I didn't have to start using the Arabic way of wiping myself as I was able to buy toilet paper.

And the care packet of sugary goods from one of my regular saviours.
And the phone, so that I am in contact with the world.
I do thank people personally, but I don't like to boast about the really lovely things people do for me in case I embarrass them or it encourages other people to come and steal my Jelly Babies... That's not a euphemism.

I'm off to hospital for a sleepover tomorrow, so Mum sent me a balloon. She likes sending balloons. They come in a box with a small pack of chocs, so I'm never going to get thin at this rate! But it did make me smile. I'm assuming I'm forgiven for wasting Police time by letting someone steal my phone :lol:

I may have mentioned here, somewhere, that I got a letter over Christmas telling me I owed NHS dental services several hundred pounds for dental treatment that I was supposed to be exempt from because of claiming Jobseeker's Allowance at the time treatment started. The treatment had continued, because of several postponed appointments (the dentists were having some issues at the time), past the point when I signed off JSA. When the dentists had sent in the paperwork, they'd put the date I went in for the treatment under deep sedation, instead of the date when that round of treatment began.

I spoke to the dentists and they said they were emailing the NHS and not toworry. Then I get another about ten days ago, from the NHS telling me I have still not sorted out the money I owe them, they've added £50 costs and the next step is taking me to court. I phoned them, explained what had happened with dates oftreatment and that my detists had said they were emailing them - was told there was no email on record, they'd had no contact from the dentists - but would put a stop on the account for 21 days whilst I try and sort it out. Spoke to my dentists - they'd sent two separate emails, to the correct email adress and received an automated reply telling them their email had been received and they would be contacted in the next few days. That was in early January.

Bless them, they phoned the NHS and got them toaccept that there had been an error on the dates and that treatment was to be dated to the first visit. But - they now needed proof that I was on JSA at that start date.

So that left me having to call the Jobcentre Plus hotline. The only point of contact for anything to do with JSA , it can be an hour or more on hold and the advisors are often less than helpful.

I've been putting off calling them. Just the thought of having to explain the situation makes me feel tired. And then there's actually getting through to them. No good trying at just any time of day - pretty much the only way to get through to them is to call during their first hour (8-9am) so there are only two days a week I am even about at that time. This week I am on holiday from work and decided to get it out of the way early. I was on the phone at about 8:30, on hold for about 30 mins. Just as I was starting to get really hacked off with the Four Seasons hold music, someone answered.

The call took less than three minutes. The advisor was very helpful. Oh, right, she says, I'll get you a letter sent out. It'll be with you in th next few days. And, yes, by all means I can send it to an alternative address where the dog won't shred it.

This makes me feel pretty groovy.

Franz Kafka is alive and well and working in the Civil Service.

Whatever you do, do not enter into dialogue with HM Revenue and Customs. :eek:

But well done in triumphing over the forces of bureaucratic darkness. :thumb:

The fact that things went so smoothly with a call to your govt bureaucrats must mean that Mercury was retrograde...


snark

can you get one of those cages to catch the mail?

or just attack a box below the letterbox (on the inside)?

She could if she were in charge, but we all know who's in charge of that house. :lol:

Hah.Unfortunately not. It's a UPVC door with the letter box right at the bottom. Cage wouldn't fit and no way to nail it on anyway.

What I need, really is an external letter box. But as I don't have a garden it would need to be a decent, secure one. It's on the long list of shit I need when I earn proper money again.

Follow me here, I know it's an out there idea, but...

Perhaps the dog could be trained to not eat the freakin mail!

:p::lol2:

Yeah...I have tried. For most stuff he trains pretty easy - but there are a handful of things that he is immovable on and the post is one of those things.

Send yourself some mail with hot pepper on it. ;)

Where's that LURVE button when you really need it!

or in it. That way, Carrot could still be trained to fetch the mail without damaging it? ?? :lol:

That's a really good idea lol

I just bled my radiators. I've never bled radiators before. Now that my gas and electric are on a pay as you go meter, I've had to start being far more energy conscious (by no means a bad thing - really wish I'd gone pay as you go years ago) and am basically not using my gas heater at all. I am instead relying exclusively on the central heating which is much more energy efficient. Trouble is the radiators haven't been bled since the current boiler was fitted 8 years ago. The upstairs radiators were barely working.

I looked up a how-to guide and it seemed simple enough (tho I've been burned before on that kind of assumption). Borrowed a radiator key and ...

It was so easy! Done and dusted in ten minutes, including the time to repressurise the boiler in between each radiator. And only one of the three radiators squirted vile brown liquid at me, at a sharp upwards angle that totally bypassed the rag I was using.

Now the upstairs of my house has working radiators. And I feel quite pleased with myself for doing something I'd never done before and which sounded horribly technical and hands-on until I actually looked up how to do it.

Very good. http://cellar.org/2015/hands19.gif

Tankee:)

Well done!

You go Girl.

Brava!

I love forced air. I don't miss radiators at all. Well done

Electric baseboards they always work. As long as there is electricity.

Huzzah! Dr Plumber

Gas, baby, gas!

Via glatt's earlier Springsteen posting and lj's followup of the beer chugging moment... another great Springsteen moment occurred last night, he pulls this 91-year-old fan out of the audience and dances with her.

The Boss is the best.

I may have posted these before. But it would have been when Diz was alive.

Found these on an old card my Mum is still using, and they came up unexpectedly and they shocked me. But in a good way. It's been long enough now that losing him still hurts, but I can glory in his beauty.

RIP Dizcat, I adored you. Even when you were a sod.

:sniff:

Glorying in the beauty is the best part. Good for you.

This made me smile the other day:

Attachment 55516

Is that real? I'm super curious who paid for it.

I suspect the oil sheiks who were in a world of hurt till the Gulf War. I wouldn't be surprised if Schwarzkopf is getting free gas for life. :haha:

I had my yearly licensing inspection for my kitchen today and passed as expected. It's a small thing, but it makes me happy. Now I'm making curry. That makes me happy too.

Whatever makes you happy, makes us happy.

Congrats Ali!

The Washington Post could probably tell you.

Looks like Thursday, Feb 28, or 26 25.

Going to ride the Harley to work today, and I'm off tomorrow, which will be 78°. Taking it for inspection stickers. And then a long ride.