Month: October 2022

Rain 🌧️

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I’m currently lying in bed listening to some very heavy rain hitting the windows. Monty has decided he doesn’t like heavy rain now. It never used to bother him but now he’s older he’s getting more sensible. This will present a challenge with his morning toileting.

I’m most of the way through the Sopranos S4 now. I am still conflicted about it. It’s mostly a series about people eating. In between meals there are occasional bouts of extremely violent crime. I mostly see it as a bizarre sitcom which lets me mostly overlook the fact that all the characters are horrible and dysfunctional. Also, the product placement is a form of comedy in itself.

In other news, politics! Well I’m not going to vote Tory either way so it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me, but my thoughts are: If Rishi Sunak actually runs then he’s inept. He has a much brighter future in two years time as opposition leader than spending two years now being PM on somebody else’s mandate with a trashed party reputation and a worsening economy. But actually I do think he’s inept so I think he’ll go for it now. 🤷‍♂️

Monty!

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

We’ve had Monty for just over a year now. How time flies. He’s about 15 months old and, maybe I will jinx it by saying so, he’s calmed down a little bit recently and he’s slowly turning into a lovely and well behaved dog. Well, he was always lovely, but now he’s a bit easier.

I mean, he’s not well behaved, he’s just not as bad as he used to be. People say that cockapoos (via the poodle genes) are easy to train because they’re intelligent. I think they’re wrong. I think they learn quickly, because they’re intelligent, but also, because they’re intelligent, they’ll just decide not to listen to you sometimes when they know the alternative is more interesting.

Bad behaviours we still haven’t managed to stop include: nipping when he gets excited (though he is getting better!), being possessive of his toys (and sometimes other dog’s toys when he steals them in the park 🤦‍♂️) and eating/picking things up off the ground. It’s acorn season at the moment and he LOVES putting them in his mouth despite the fact they are poisonous to dogs (though I don’t think he’s ever eaten one). He does drop quite reliably in exchange for chicken (unless it’s a new and exciting object), but some walks it’s just a continual “leave it… leave it… drop…”. I’m still hoping he’ll grow out of this… There are signs he will, but when he’s tired or excited he just seems obsessed with finding things to put in his mouth.

Because of that we only let him off the lead in a few places where we’re not expecting to come across much litter. Though you’d be surprised how much junk he eats that seems to not affect him the slightest. Sheep poo, for example. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to eat sheep poo, but he doesn’t care and apparently neither does his digestive system. He also loves tissues, receipts and other bits of paper which his stomach seems to break down just fine.

Anyway, the other point is that having him has been really good for me. It used to be that work was the biggest thing in my life just by virtue of it taking up so much time and attention. Now it’s not the most important thing. Looking after this crazy little guy is the most important thing.

Decks and Sopranos

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I got my Steam Deck last Thursday, exactly a week after I paid for it. I’ve tinkered a bit. It’s a little complicated. I think that if you stay within the Steam ecosystem it’s quite easy to use, but I also have for example Factorio on GOG and Civilization VI on Epic (and GTA V, which I got free and never played), which I’d quite like to try on the Deck. Going outside of Steam gets you into ‘desktop mode’ which is actually a desktop Linux installation. I’m happy with this as I’ve used Linux a lot in the past (and, dare I say it… Linux is fun!), but it’s not exactly easy to use for non technical people. You only really need to do this to configure things though, I think after you’ve got everything set up then normal everyday usage will stay within Steam.

I will post more when I get around to using it for its intended purpose rather than just fiddling…

In other news, I started watching The Sopranos. I don’t really know what to think about this program. It’s well written and well made and I want to keep watching to find out what happens, but am I actually enjoying it? Ehhhh I’m not sure. The problem is that they are horrible people. Really bad people! Even the priest is slimy! But I still look forward to seeing the next episode, so it must be doing something right. 🤷‍♂️