A.C. Flory's Blog, page 133
December 25, 2015
My new obsession – #jigsaw puzzles
I play games because I hate being bored, but sometimes the opportunity to be bored only lasts for a few minutes – that’s where these super-small, online jigsaw puzzles come in:
The one you can see in the screenshot above is called ‘Fox up in the tree’, and you can find it at the following link:
http://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=0f689df1af8e
The #FREE jigsaw puzzles available on Jigsawplanet.com range from 300 pieces to just 4 [perfect for little kids]. The Fox puzzle shown in the screenshot is made up of only 12 pieces and took me just 36 seconds to complete…and I’m about 3 times slower than the people with the best times!
Another nice thing about Jigsawplanet is that you don’t have to register to do the puzzles. The only time you have to go to any effort at all – and that’s not much – is if you want to create your own puzzles. Yes, your own! My effort is not going to win any prizes but it was fun :
Basically, you:
sign up to jigsawplanet.com
click on ‘Create’
select a good quality photo from your computer
upload it to jigsawplanet.com
select the type of cuts you want – i.e. shapes – and how many and…that’s it. :D
The very nicest thing about jigsawplanet.com, however, is that all the puzzles are created by ordinary people so the variety is never-ending.
If you have a few minutes to spare, try it out.
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: create, easy, free, jigsaw, online, puzzle, quick
December 24, 2015
Merry Christmas to all and to all a Merry Christmas!
Here in the Antipodes, Christmas Day has dawned bright, hot and very windy, perfect bushfire weather. That’s one reason the Offspring and I did Christmas the European way – last night on Christmas Eve!
Masses of food, oodles of presents and a couple of games of Scrabble with the Offspring’s partner, David, rounded out a lovely evening…with not a digital device in sight. It was the most fun I’ve had in ages!
Today is for enjoying the presents, gorging on leftovers and keeping an eye on the weather.
For all of you, wherever you are, we wish you a safe and happy Christmas!
-hugs-
Meeks and the Offspring
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: 2015, Australia, Christmas, ffxiv, Meeka-Thara
December 23, 2015
#Howto use #Twitter – a tutorial for absolute beginners
Just read this excellent tutorial on Indies Unlimited and thought I’d share. Honestly, I wish I’d seen it when I first started out on Twitter. In it you will find everything you need to know to get started :
If you’ve heard about Twitter but never had the courage to give it a try, now’s the time to do it.
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: How-to guides Tagged: beginners, Indies-Unlimited, tutorial, Twitter
December 22, 2015
AMAZING message for everyone #noelsansprejuges
I think the message of this French advertisement comes through loud and clear – like a mime – but just in case it doesn’t, the kids are talking about the kinds of toys they like or feel they /should/ like. Then they’re allowed loose in a room stuffed with toys and told to play with whatever they feel like playing with.
The result is that girls play with ‘machinery’ type toys and boys play with stereotypically girls toys. And the advert says that Shop U has created a catalogue without bias to make the world a better place.
I don’t know how much of this is manipulated for the cameras, but I love the idea behind it anyway. Enjoy. :D
This just came up on television. I’m thoroughly impressed. I could hardly believe it. Vive la France! Even if you don’t understand French, watch it anyway. The message is clear.
Filed under: Uncategorized
December 18, 2015
#Dollshouses and micro-houses
Did you know I used to build dollshouses? I did, and the pic below is proof:
This dollshouse, and two others, were ostensibly made for the Offspring, but if I’m honest I have to say I made them for myself as well. We were renting for a long time, and I think these small houses soothed the need to create a people-sized house of my own.
If you look at the left hand side of the pic you’ll see a white plate on the wall with a chrome handle sticking out. That is the winder for one of the fire-resistant shutters in my office.
The plate is about 5-6 inches long in the old parlance, so you can see that the dollshouse next to it isn’t all that small. Today, however, I stumbled across some wee houses that truly are tiny. Created by Rosa de Jong, these micro-houses fit inside large test tubes!
I’d show a picture of one of them but a post I read yesterday has put the fear of the Creative Commons in me. I do not want a fine for displaying something that maybe I shouldn’t. Sadly the operative word is ‘maybe’. I thought I knew how copyright worked on the internet but now I’m not so sure. Working out what is and is not ‘free’ to post is bloody hard and I’m going to take the easy way out.
Anyway, copyright aside, if you go to the following site you can read a post which includes legit pictures of the test-tube houses:
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/12/vertical-dwellings-rosa-de-jong/
Enjoy. :)
Meeks
p.s. My thanks to Marian Allen for introducing me to these lovely little landscapes.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: dollshouse, house, landscape, micro, Rosa-de-Jong, test-tube, vertical
December 17, 2015
The GOPdildo – warning, explicit pics!
GOPdildo is a movement that photoshops pictures of US-Republicans-with-guns into pictures of US-Republicans-with-dildos.
My personal favourite is this one featuring Donald Trump:
The movement is the brainchild of Matt Haughey whose frustration finally found an outlet in these ridiculous, slightly childish pictures. But Matt Haughey discovered that he was not alone in his frustration and the idea caught on like wild-fire.
To see these wonderful photos in all their glory go to :
Here’s hoping ridicule finally manages to accomplish what commonsense and logic cannot.
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: My soap box Tagged: dildo, GOP, guns, Matt-Haughey, NRA, photoshop, Trump, Tumblr
Caramelised belly pork with sour [Morello] cherries
With a heatwave forecast for the next three days, I thought it might be a good idea to cook dinner this morning, while everything was still nice and cool. So I did, and it turned out to be one of the yummiest recipes I’ve ever tried. Sadly I can’t post a photo because we ate it before I thought of taking one.
The idea for the recipe came from Aussie chef Kylie Kwong. She makes a delicious looking dish with bacon, red wine and cherries :
http://www.abc.net.au/kyliekwong/recipes/s952509.htm
My version is a much simpler dish featuring fresh belly pork and sour cherries, two ingredients I almost always keep on hand.
Ingredients [for 2]
4 lean rashers of fresh belly pork :
2 cups of sour, Morello cherries and [their] juice. They come in a jar like this and 2 cups will be approximately 2/3 of the jar :
1/4 cup raw sugar
2 cloves garlic [crushed]
1 fresh bay leaf or 2? dried ones
1/2 of a large white salad onion roughly sliced
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Method
Mix all the ingredients of the ‘marinade’ in a baking dish just large enough to hold the meat. Arrange the pork in the marinade and spoon the cherries and onion mix over the top – i.e. you cook the pork in the marinade straight away.
Loosely cover the baking dish with foil and place in a moderate oven [approx 150 C] for about an hour.
[I don’t like the flavour of the bay leaf to be too overpowering so I removed it when I turned the meat – after about 1/2 an hour].
When the meat is tender, remove the foil and allow to bake for a further 1/2 an hour or until most of the juices have evaporated leaving a lovely, caramelised sauce over the meat.
Allow to stand for 10 minutes before slicing and serving, or make ahead and refrigerate until needed.
[I made it ahead and heated it up for dinner…but only until the meat was just warm and the sauce sticky. Over cooking at this point could burn the whole dish].
The Offspring and I ate a small lettuce and avocado salad first, as a sort of entree. Then we ate the meat on its own. It was so rich we didn’t need anything else. I think this is going to become one of my favourite no-fuss dishes.
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: Food glorious food Tagged: bay-leaf, belly, caramelised, cherries, garlic, Morello, pork, recipe, salad-onion, sour
December 14, 2015
Today, I made an old man cry.
This post made me cry too, but in such a good way. Between now and Christmas I’m going to try very hard to make someone cry…because we’re human and humans are capable of great goodness and generosity as well as cruelty and violence. Forget the presents and choose an act of kindness instead.
So, today I made an old man cry. I don’t think I started out my day with that intention. Actually, I’m quite certain that the thought has never, ever crossed my mind. My day started out a bit earlier than usual. I had a parent-teacher conference for my daughter, so I decided to go to the gym early in the morning. Too early. After that, I went to the meeting, which went surprisingly well. It’s good to know that there are teachers out there who are genuinely concerned for their students. I guess special education teachers are even more aware of their student’s needs. Anyway, I am grateful that my daughter has an excellent teacher. I’m also glad that I had my own conference with her to avoid the potential…or inevitable drama that occurs when my ex is present.
Today was off to a good start. Gym- check. School meeting-…
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Filed under: Uncategorized
December 10, 2015
#JoBlankenburg – Unreleased
I’ve raved about the composer Jo Blankenburg before, offering up video clips for your delectation, but this time all I can offer is a URL:
http://joblankenburg.com/other-music/
The URL will take you to Blankenburg’s website, and a list of his unreleased music. You can listen to all of them, but two that wring my heart are:
Aka and Alex
Crater of Dead Souls
I’d love to know what you think coz, frankly, I’d happily become this man’s one-woman fan club!
-cough-
Well, goodnight all. I’m off into my own little world now. :)
Meeks
Filed under: Music Tagged: Aka-and-Alex, composer, Crater-of-Dead-Souls, Jo-Blankenburg
December 7, 2015
#hashtags for Indies
The link below leads to the Indies Unlimited website and an article I wrote about how we [authors] can use hashtags to help readers find our books…if our stories match what those readers are looking for. It’s a bottom-up system rather than a top-down system applied by some retailer.
http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/12/07/tagging-discoverability-and-ebooks/
Please join the discussion over at IU!
Filed under: Uncategorized, Writing Tools Tagged: categories, criteria, filter, hashtags, keywords
