Songs for Halloween

When I used to listen to the Open House Party, two songs they would play every year around Halloween were "Thriller" by Michael Jackson and "Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett. While they are good anytime, both of them are fitting for this day of the year:

Oregon Trail II

A computer game that I used to play a lot years ago was Oregon Trail II. I would often play it for a couple of hours at a time, partly for the historical aspect but also because it was just a fun game to play. At first I needed Mum's help to win it, but before long I was able to win on my own, although I did lose a lot of my wagon companions in the process (I did, however, get better to avoid this happening).

From an educational view, from Oregon Trail II I learned about certain lesser-known parts of American history, such as Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and the fate of the Whitman Mission; the trading posts all along the Oregon Trail, the immense size of what used to be the Oregon Country (later called the Oregon Territory), and the various reactions of the American Indians to the settlers. Indeed, not all of those examples was covered in great detail within the game, but the references to them in Oregon Trail II spurred us to research further into them.

With gameplay, Oregon Trail II was not a difficult game to learn at all, despite being rich in its content. It was fun to trade items with other characters within the game, to visit various historical sites, or to treat ill companions and ensure they survived; and finally, the satisfaction of making it to the destination (with one of the destinations, Jacksonville in Southern Oregon, being a place I lived very close to for nearly ten years). The diverse selection of supplies taught one to choose carefully what to bring on the trail, but at the same time it was important to budget accordingly. Finally, a superb soundtrack was composed for Oregon Trail II, with the music changing depending on the circumstances of the health of the travelers.

Fortunately, I am pleased to announce that Oregon Trail II does work on Windows 7, and on XP: except for a couple of minor graphic bugs, for all intents and purposes the game runs perfectly on those operating systems, so if you feel like playing Oregon Trail II again, or want to try it out, you will be able to.

The next month

My twenty-first birthday is next month. I am wondering how my birthday will be celebrated this year: in 2010, that birthday was different to the few before it because we were still living at my grandparents' house and therefore we celebrated it with relatives. For the last few years, including last year, the dinner I have requested has been burgers, fries, and eggs or baked beans; it is not an original meal anymore, but it is one of my favourite junk food meals.

How do I feel about turning twenty-one? Unsure, actually. Nearly every year I get asked, "How does it feel to be <insert age here>?", and every year I give the same answer, "same as it did when I was <insert age here>". My twentieth birthday was different in the fact it was spent in a different country to most of the birthdays coming before it, but going directly from nineteen -> twenty overnight did not feel any different in itself.

Being twenty overall has felt a lot different to the past few years, as it should do, and the UK move itself notwithstanding, but there are still several issues where it is still the same and I am working to change that. Despite the tone of this post, I am certainly not feeling negative about turning twenty-one. In fact, my feelings on it are more positive, but turning twenty-one would be nothing more than a number if for the most part it is a repeat of the last few years (minus the moves).

I think as a start, I will not request burgers, fries, and eggs and/or baked beans for my upcoming birthday. Granted, this is a small change, but it is just the beginning.

Another one of my jokes (2)

Here is another one of my jokes, again one written for the 2008 Christmas crackers:

"What do you call a reptile who watches people through security cameras? A monitor lizard."

Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement

Partially related to my last post, here are a couple of things worth looking at in regards to discussion and disagreement:

An article relevant to the above pyramid can be found at http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Note: the above image is not mine, and has been taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.jpg. Licensing is documented on that page.

The debate over common courtesy

I have always believed that politeness is honourable, and at a minimum, a good thing to pursue: I was raised to treat others as you would want to be treated, and all my cousins have been brought up this way as well. People both in United States and United Kingdom, and in nations beyond them, appreciate small words of courtesy such as “please” and “thank you” (or the equivalent in other languages), and often despair when these terms are forgotten or perceived to be on the decline. These small words then become great gestures.

Manners are not merely limited to words: they apply to actions as well. As an example, whenever I have entered a building and there is someone right behind me, I have held the door open for them rather than let it shut behind me in their face; and the usual response is a “thank you”, a smile, or a nod, and in all the other cases no response at all. Other people have done this for me, and I am appreciative. Another example is pulling out a chair for someone so they can sit next to you (providing that is where they wanted to sit), as I have done for people and people have done for me. In every case, these actions were done in the best of faith.

Consequently, I was astounded the day I learned that there are people who deem the above behaviour to be rude, at the very least. I could not believe it when I heard that some people do consider every instance of “please” and “thank you” to be phony, or nothing more than sarcasm and/or a need for the person saying them to impress others and feel “validated”. Worse yet, in regards to holding a door open for the person right behind you, there were some who thought that anyone who did this was either a creep or had some ulterior motive, such as trying to rob the person they held the door open for of being able to do something without the aid of anyone else (this view is downright bizarre). These opinions were not limited to “please”/”thank you” or door opening: it was being applied to all acts of common courtesy. It seemed that these people were not only declining to assume good intentions on behalf of others: they were actually assuming the worst intentions possible.

Now I can certainly understand how in some cases saying “thank you” or holding a door could be considered rude. If someone says “thank you” sarcastically to a person who unintentionally inconvenienced them, that is rude; and if someone barges through a lengthy line of people just to open a door for them all, that does come across as pompous and as shouting to everyone else “Look at me! I’m polite! I opened this door for you!”…which is totally the opposite of polite. However, such occurrences are not commonplace, and the vast majority of people are genuinely polite, not trying to impress or get into the good books of others. I even agree that over-saying “please”/”thank you” and insisting on opening every door or pulling out every chair for people could be annoying, but such a person only needs to be taught to moderate their behaviour, assuming they are being genuine with their actions.

That last sentence brings me onto my final point: there are people who also equate mere courtesy and helpfulness as a sign of someone’s weakness, especially if a person is overdoing it (going back to the “validated” comment before), and try to use their manners against them. I am opposed to this, as having civility and good manners does not equal being a doormat, for a person can still be resolute and/or disagree without being obnoxious. If anything, a firm yet civil stance on something is far more commendable and preferable than accusatory or angry disagreement. I know I can say no when I have to, but I can do so politely, and firmly if it becomes necessary.

The bright side to all of this is that these negative viewpoints on common courtesy are a minority and do not appear to be catching on. In every debate I have encountered on manners, the majority of participants want them to endure and even to become even more prevalent in society: the important point is just to remember to be courteous with confidence, and not to overdo it or to come across as fake or weak.

At the present time, no one has complained to me about courtesy (just the opposite, in fact), but if and when they do, I will be sure not to end up proving one of the aforementioned points.

Cee Lo Green: Rollo Goodlove?

If you listen the pop radio, you have likely heard of Cee Lo Green and possibly heard his hit song "Forget You". You may even have heard "Crazy", the popular track by Gnarls Barkley, the musical project between Green and Danger Mouse. Have you heard of the Reverend Rollo Goodlove?

Sometime last year, there was an evening at my grandparents' house when my brother and I were listening to the radio, and "Forget You" played. After the song had finished, the presenter remarked that Green "had a cartoonish-sounding voice" (or something along those lines). We smiled and agreed...this was Rollo Goodlove the presenter was talking about here!

Rollo Goodlove is a character that Green voiced in the television version of The Boondocks. In the two episodes he is featured in, Goodlove is supposedly an activist, and appears (at first) to be genuinely wanting to help advance worthwhile causes, but in reality, his participation is merely to shamelessly promote himself. A lot of people do not know about Green's role in The Boondocks (and this includes his fans), which is a shame because I think this piece of voiceover work is a good complement to the rest of his career.

A few years ago, back when we still watched television, The Boondocks was one of our favorite shows (plus the only one we watched on Cartoon Network other than Robot Chicken), and when it came to watching the second season, we were pleased to discover that Green had a role in it ("Crazy" is a great song, after all). Therefore, when people say "he has a cartoonish-sounding voice", we can say "yes, he is Rollo Goodlove!".

Now, if someone talks to you about Cee Lo Green, test their knowledge of him and ask about Rollo Goodlove! As an aside, The Boondocks is truly a brilliant cartoon, although I do not recommend it if you are not keen on vulgar language, but if you are okay with that, do have a look into it.

Stargate character test

Back in August I took the Serenity character test, and at the same time did the "Madonna era test" plus a few others. These are my results from the Stargate character test:

You are Thor

Thor 52%

Daniel Jackson 49%

Teal'c 47%

Samantha Carter 42%

Dr. Frasier 40%

Jack O'Neill 33%

General Hammond 25%

A Goa'uld 5%

"You are a very intelligent and benevolent person and you try to make sure that people are treated fairly."

Thor was extremely wise and a strong force for good: in a way, it is an honour to have a comparison to him, even if he is a fictional character.

Note: above image is not mine and is linked from http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/stargate/pics/thor.jpg

Hong Kong at night

I love the following image of Hong Kong at night:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Hong_Kong_Skyline_Restitch_-_Dec_2007.jpg

I do like looking at pictures of nighttime skylines, but this Hong Kong image is one of the best. The lights illuminate the buildings really well.

"Remember the Time"/"Because of You" mashup

I am a fan of mashups - the mixing of two songs into one to create a new song. We heard a lot of them back on KIFS, but the one that stands out the most for me, even against newer mashups that I have heard, is the combining of "Remember the Time" by Michael Jackson and "Because of You" by Ne-Yo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq3fj8so9N4

This was the mashup we heard most often on KIFS, followed by the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day and "Wonderwall" by Oasis mashup (although that was played more on the Open House Party, and it too is a great song). It brings back positive memories whenever I listen to it, and if you like the music of Michael Jackson and/or Ne-Yo, I hope you will like it too.

My "Recipes": "Andrew's Cheese Sandwich"

This is the ninth episode of My "Recipes", Andrew’s Cheese Sandwich:

2 slices of bread.

4 slices of cheese.

Tomato Ketchup or Mustard.

Garlic salt.

How to make it:

Put both slices of bread in the oven and only cook one side of each slice of bread.

When golden-brown put ketchup on both slices of bread, but only the side that is not cooked, then put cheese on the ketchup part. Cook both of the slices that aren’t cooked in the oven. Make sure that they are not put together. 

Correction: Don’t put ketchup on until last. Also put both slices of together when they are cooked.

My verdict: I had to re-read parts of this one to make sense of some of the grammar. However, this seems to be instructions on how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. I do not know why I added a “correction” segment on the ketchup to contradict what I had written before: to my knowledge, you can put ketchup under the cheese if you want and then put it in the oven with no problems. I would not recommend mustard.

As I wrote in a previous My “Recipes” post, I prefer open sandwiches, and would not put any sort of spread on, so I would drop the ketchup and just have regular cheese on toast. 

Other than these issues, this one seems okay. If you cannot make sense of the wording for this recipe, let me know and I will translate my old typing for you!

Coin coincidence

An interesting coincidence happened this afternoon. During a walk one morning before we moved from Littleport, I noticed an American dime in the gutter, and after picking it up I was quite pleased I had found it (after all, during our time in the United States we collected several varieties of foreign coins).

This afternoon, I went for a walk, then just as I left the house something reminded me of that dime, and I thought how interesting it would be to find more loose foreign coins around. While on my walk, I found a coin in the gutter, but it was dirty and I could not identify it, although I assumed it was a British penny judging from its size.

Upon returning home, I washed the coin and took a better look at it. On a close inspection, I saw the word "Canada" inscribed upon it: the coin was not British but rather, a 2007 Canadian penny. I was surprised to discover what the coin really was, but also surprised that I had found a foreign coin after thinking about finding them only half an hour beforehand: it is certainly an interesting coincidence.

Since the coin I collected is still too dirty to get a clear photograph of, I looked up pictures of 2007 Canadian pennies and can post a link to one. It depicts both sides of the coin:

http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/showimage.aspx?gid=613286&ppid=1122&image=117972067&images=117972067&formats=0&format=0

Lily

Sometime either in 1999 or 2000, my brother and I were doing some arts/craft work at an event we were attending one Sunday. The work involved creating and decorating a card to send to someone in a nursing home, and the person our card would be going to was somebody named Lily. I cannot remember what the health of the people in the nursing homes was stated as, but from what I can recall, the cards were just to cheer the people in the homes up.

I only remembered Lily recently because I know someone else with that name, and thinking about her name the other day reminded me about the Lily we made a card for so long ago.

Hover!

Years ago when we were using Windows 95 (ah, those were the days), there was a game I remember briefly playing while using that operating system called Hover!, a simple flag-collecting game using hovering bumper cars. Despite the short amount of time playing it, it was memorable enough that I thought of it again a decade or so later when we were using Windows XP.

In early 2009, I decided to look the game up, and was surprised to learn that people were still downloading and playing Hover!, so I installed it on my computer. While the graphics are ancient and blocky, and there are only three levels, the game turned out to be more fun than I had anticipated and remembered it being.

If you like simple games like this, I would recommend taking a look at Hover!: it may be old, and probably only useful for when you are bored or need a time-filler when waiting for something else, but it can be fun; and besides, it runs on Windows 7. I do find old pieces of software like Hover! fascinating in a way.

KIFS (107.5 Kiss FM)

Our primary radio station back in Oregon was KIFS (107.5 Kiss FM), commonly referred to as "Kiss-FM". We listened to it from April 2005 all the way to May 2010, and while we were not obsessed with the station there were very few days in that period when we did not have it on for at least a few minutes.

Kiss-FM was not the first pop station we listened to: at the end of 2004, when we began listening to pop radio, the station we tuned in to was called Beat 93. However, at the end of March/beginning of April in 2005, the station was, without any sort of warning whatsoever, changed overnight to MIKE-FM, which if I remember correctly was part of the JACK-FM format. A couple of days later, there was an article in the Mail Tribune explaining the change, and it was after reading that article that my brother and I decided to look for a new pop station.

There were two choices: KLDR and Kiss-FM. KLDR sounded pretty good, but my radio could hardly pick it up, so we went with Kiss-FM instead. I was not pleased with the station at first, as I missed Beat 93's forty minutes of commercial-free music each hour and the hour and a half commercial-free music in the evening from 5:00-6:30. However, I soon grew to appreciate the station, as we were getting to listen to the current pop music and getting to hear new artists; and there were some surprises to come.

Sometime in late 2005, two radio programs that we were fans of on Beat 93 were then picked up by Kiss-FM: Hollywood Hamilton's Weekend Top 30 and Open House Party. We were very pleased by the return of the old chart show, even though we were now listening to one of the music countdowns already on the station, American Top 40 (AT40) with Ryan Seacrest (we listened to both from then on); and by Kiss-FM adopting the Open House Party for the weekend evenings, hosted by John Garabedian on Saturdays and Kane (then later Kannon) on Sundays. However, the show Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 did vanish from the station shortly after the others were picked up, but since we did not listen to that show very much, it was not really a loss.

In 2006, one of the presenters from Beat 93 was then picked up by Kiss-FM: DJ Gemineye. Although Gemineye was not one we had heard that often on Beat 93 (he had a morning show with someone else, but we listened in evenings and at night), we were glad to have him back. For a short time he did have a show called Friday New Music Fight Night (I think it was called that, I am not sure), but for some reason that was dropped. With DJ Gemineye and two ex-Beat 93 shows now adopted by Kiss-FM to complement the great music already in its regular airplay, as far as we were concerned the station was perfect.

If I recall correctly, a youth advice show titled Dawson McAllister Live appeared on Kiss-FM in late 2007, played on Sunday nights after the Open House Party, and was certainly an interesting program to listen to. Then, in the summer of August 2008, Romeo's Playhouse, a show somewhat similar to the Open House Party, began playing in the evenings every weekday; though not long after the show was picked up the presenter changed to Jackson Blue, and the program was subsequently renamed to the Party Playhouse. Despite the change, it was essentially the same show. Gemineye also started a small lunchtime show titled The Back in the Day Café, which played old and fun hits from the 80s, 90, and even the very early 2000s.

We felt extremely lucky now with the diversity of radio shows and modern music on Kiss-FM. The local presenters themselves, Michael Moon (though he must have left or moved to another station a year or two after we started listening), Kristina with a K, Troy Boy, and DJ Hope, were all as great and as memorable as all the ones on the national programs.

When my brother and I were told that we would be moving to the United Kingdom, Kiss-FM was definitely going to be something we would miss dearly. We are fortunate that we have found a station over here plays the modern music as Kiss-FM once did for us, though I do not listen to it as much, as we are now busier with other things in life.

This ended up being much longer than I thought it would ever be, as it is after all, just about a radio station and probably not something that is important in the long run. However, I owe nearly my entire music collection to KIFS (107.5 Kiss FM), and it deserves to be written about because of what it provided and the length of time we listened to it.

Jordan Hill

Nearly two weeks ago I wrote about Jordan Hill meeting Jordan Hill. Since then, I thought it best to write a little about Jordan Hill - the singer, herself.

To be honest, I do not know a lot about her, as the information on the Internet about her is scarce. I became aware of Jordan Hill when I listened to Rhythm Of The Games: 1996 Olympic Games Album, as a song that she performed, "What Am I Doing Here", was included in the tracklist, and is my favorite song on the album together with "Reach" by Gloria Estefan. I assume she sang the song at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, but I have not been able to find anything to confirm this other than the album. I was also able to find out that another one of her songs, "Remember Me This Way", was used as part of the soundtrack for the film Casper.

Her eponymous debut album was released in 1996, but so far there has not been a follow-up to it. I have read in a few places that she is working on a second album, and has possibly been doing this as far back as 2004; for one source stated that she was working on it back then, though theoretically she could have been working on the album even further back than that year.

Jordan Hill definitely has great tracks on it, and Jordan Hill herself is a brilliant singer from what I have heard of her. It would be fantastic if the snippets of information saying she wants to release a second album and become more prominent again turn out to be true.

Another one of my jokes

I wrote this joke in 2008 for that year's Christmas crackers:

"Why did the perfectionist end up with a house with no carpeting? He told the builder he wanted a “flawless” home."

Granted, in reality a "floorless" home would just have a dirt base or be built over a hole going all the way over to the other side of the planet, but I think this is a good joke regardless.

Bad food combinations

I have found that there are some foods that I just do not like to eat combined. I am not referring to something bizarre like broccoli with chocolate syrup, pineapple, and cheddar cheese; I am talking about two perfectly normal foods mixed, even if I like each ingredient individually.

For example, I like raw mushrooms and raw tomatoes. However, I cannot stand them together: there is just something about eating them that makes me feel queasy. I can eat them together cooked (such as in spaghetti), just not raw. I get a similar feeling with sweet corn mixed with peas (although I do not like peas full stop, and corn and peas have to be cooked): sweet corn and mixed peas has to be one of my least favourite meals.

Does anybody else have any combinations of food that either you merely dislike or make you feel ill?

Bad Lip Reading

If you have not seen it all ready, you should take a look at the Bad Lip Reading YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/BadLipReading

Their spoofs of songs and speeches are hilarious! It is very clever what they have done.

My "Recipes": "Andrew’s Fizzy Drink"

Episode eight of My "Recipes" is entitled Andrew’s Fizzy Drink:

50 Grapes.

1 bottle of club soda.

1 Blender.

Ice cubes.

 How to make it:

Put the grapes in the blender and blend until slushy.

Mix with club soda. Then put it in a glass. Add ice.

 

My verdict: actually, this one sounds pretty nice: nothing really to criticise here. I will have to try this sometime.

"Invisible" - Skylar Grey

One song that I am listening to a lot currently is "Invisible" by Skylar Grey. It has a great sound, thought-provoking lyrics, and always-excellent vocals from Skylar Grey herself. The music video for the track is certainly interesting, too. In all, it is a superb song.

So who is Skylar Grey, you may ask. Well, do you remember the song "Where'd You Go" by Fort Minor, a side-project band by Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda? In that song, a then-unknown singer named Holly Brook was featured. Not long later she released her debut album, Like Blood Like Honey. Yes, that is correct: Skylar Grey and Holly Brook are the same person.

The change took me completely by surprise: earlier this year I heard the songs "I Need a Doctor" by Dr. Dre featuring Eminem and Skylar Grey, and "Coming Home" by Diddy - Dirty Money featuring Skylar Grey. I liked her vocals in both songs and decided to look her up, only to find connections between Skylar Grey/Holly Brook appear in the searches. While doing my research, I was shocked to learn that sometime in 2010 Holly Brook became Skylar Grey.

I still do not know her exact reasons for her change, but regardless, I am delighted for her to be on the scene again. While I do not own a copy yet (and have wanted it almost since it came out but it has somehow eluded me: I will get a copy someday), Like Blood Like Honey is a great album from what I have heard from it, and I wondered when she would release a follow-up, bearing in mind her debut came back out in 2006.

Her first album as Skylar Grey, and second studio album overall, Invinsible (yes it is spelt that way deliberately), will be released in January of 2012. I am looking forward to it, and will definitely buy a copy. In the meantime, we can listen to the lead single, "Invisible".

Scrabble

Do you like to play Scrabble? I love playing Scrabble: you might be surprised to know that I often lose against my brother, but since he is good at noticing patterns (and observing patterns is a huge part of Scrabble, in addition to having a strong vocabulary), it is not unexpected that he is better at it than me.

Still, it should not just be about winning and losing. The mere fun of playing is what counts: when playing Scrabble, the part I like the most is taxing my brain when trying to come up with a high-value word to spell when faced with a bad selection of letters on hand against letters placed on the board that would make it tough to get a good word even with favourable letters. I am also a fan of seeing what nonsensical or funny words I can make out of my letters.

My brother and I do adopt a few "house rules" when we play Scrabble. For example, we do allow names of people and places in our games, as it does make for interesting playing and does not really make the game any easier than without titles. We also ban three and two letter words until the late part of the game when there are only a few letters left each: often putting words less than four letters in length early on leads to stagnation, making it tedious rather than challenging. When playing with other people we respect whatever rules they follow, although when they play with us using our board, we do inform them of our method of playing in case they wish to try it.

Of course, while winning and losing is not everything, I will not deny that I do get a sense of satisfaction (but no rubbing the victory into him, that is bad sportsmanship) in the occasions where I do beat my brother: I just about won the last game with him at 272-262, though in all fairness we were playing with Mum, who came in third with 174. I always love it when we play a game when it is not clear who is going to win.

Scrabble is easily up there with Monopoly and Chess as one of my favourite games. It has been really nice playing it again for the last couple of months after it had been packed away for a long time.

Signs in different directions

I do not know why, but I find signs that indicate in opposite directions to be neat. My brother took the following image:

Sorry for the recent short posts: I have been busy the last few days, and I hope to have some more substantial posts up soon!

Animal friendships

I really liked this article on Cracked.com about some animal friendships:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19463_5-real-animal-friendships-straight-out-disney-movie.html

Martian sunset

Earlier, I was looking at pictures of sunsets, and was impressed by this image of a sunset on Mars taken by the rover Spirit:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20050610a/sunset_a489_gamma_2sub_800.jpg

I think it is a spectacular image: although it is over six years old, I do not recall seeing a picture of a Martian sunset before.

The winds

It seems the heat wave I mentioned a few posts ago has come to an end. The last three days or so have been significantly cooler than their predecessors, and the winds have really picked up. Despite this, it has still been sunny (with some rain), and has been greating walking weather!

Doggy bags

I was reading this article regarding doggy bags and how people in the United Kingdom prefer not to ask for them. While my Dad has been critical of the fact that asking for doggy bags in this country can be frowned upon, I was still surprised to read exactly why that is the case when I read the article.

It appalled me to read some of the major rationales for people not wanting to ask for doggy bags. These included reasons such as "shyness about appearing to be greedy", that leftover food during the Middle Ages was given "to the poor and beggars" and is still associated with that; and finally, the wasting food being considered a "symbol of wealth and nobility throughout history".

To me, it has always made perfect sense to take home food that you do not eat at a restaurant to eat when you get back home. After all, you have paid for the food, and it saves wasting it: there should be no shame in asking to take home unused food. Restaurant portions are often large, so I would argue that it is less greedy to take home food rather than eat a huge meal in one sitting. The Middle Ages were hundreds of years ago, and I am sure there are numerous attitudes from that era that are obsolete now (in addition, leftover food in restaurants is disposed of rather than given to anyone else). As for the "wealth and nobility" reason...we do not go around assuming everybody is rich or noble, so therefore, we do not (or perhaps, should not) then assume they are poor or ungraceful just because they chose not to waste food.

Fortunately, in reading some of the comments for the article, it seems that the attitude is changing, and other people were even surprised it still exists. In all fairness, the only time we have so far requested a doggy bag here the waiter was unassuming and pleasant about us asking. If anything, he seemed quite enthusiastic about us preferring not to waste anything. I hope to see it continue and help when I can.

Jordan Hill meeting...Jordan Hill

While doing a search for the singer Jordan Hill (who is a woman), I came across this funny YouTube video of a basketball player, also named Jordan Hill (who is a man), being asked about the singer (or rather, about his "music career"). It gets even funnier when two other people are asked about the basketball player's music.

It would be interesting if they did meet for real!

My "Recipes": "Andrew’s Ice Cream Slush Topping"

This is the seventh episode of My "Recipes", Andrew’s Ice Cream Slush Topping:

1 box of Chocolate ice cream.

1 box of fudge ice cream.

1 box of vanilla ice cream.

1 blender.

1 bowl.

How to make it:

Mix everything in the blender and then put it in the bowl. Serve with any dessert.

My verdict: this appears to be some sort of slush to be on desserts. I would not say it could be served with “any” dessert, but there are several it would be nice with (chocolate cake and apple pie come to mind immediately). It would probably be pretty good on its own too. I am not sure if fudge ice cream exists, however, and would probably substitute it for strawberry instead.

A nice walk (again)

This afternoon, my brother and I went for another walk. I brought my camera and took some pictures this time:

I photographed this hill yesterday and included a picture in the previous post. The growth on the hill was a lot more today visible thanks to the better sunlight.

Some berries we encountered down one of the paths. I do not know what type of berry they are, and it is more than likely that they were poisonous.

I like the way these two trees almost look like they are intertwining. We saw several trees like this on the trails, and at a first glance they reminded us of the madrone trees in Oregon.

Now this picture is deceptive: it looks like the slope is not really that steep, but I can assure you that in person it really is a lot more steep than it appears in this image.

We had another good walk. I hope you liked the pictures!

A nice walk

My brother and I went for a lengthy walk this afternoon. I have a few pictures of the scenery on the walk, and they were all taken by my brother:

This is of a local pond that we came across. It was covered with algae and had other filth in it, so I would not recommend a swim, but it looks good in this picture.

A grassy path in the area near the pond. The last time I saw a grassy footpath like this was in a town called Nocton in Lincolnshire.

A field in the one of the areas during our walk. See that trail on the left side of the image? Paths along fields seem to be common in the United Kingdom; we only walked for a short while on the path pictured here because we wanted to take a different trail.

Finally, this is of a poppy growing next to a neighbour's brick wall. When my brother stopped to take a picture of it, he came to a halt so suddenly, and had an elbow out: he accidentally caught my in the stomach, but I was okay apart from some minor discomfort.

Hopefully, we will go for another walk tomorrow. There are plenty more trails to explore around here!