Really trivial stuff that amuses you...

[profloater]

The mountain weather has been pretty Arctic in these parts for a week or so. We've had a steady trickle of ill-equipped walkers calling out the Mountain Rescue after getting into difficulty, which is a regular annoyance in the Scottish Highlands every winter. The difference this year is that, once they're safely down, many of these groups have been met by the police and given on-the-spot fines for breaching the current Covid lockdown travel restrictions.

Grant Hutchison

And to add today

Lake District rescuer has 'life-changing injuries' after fall https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-55978537

[Trebuchet]

And to add today

Lake District rescuer has 'life-changing injuries' after fall https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-55978537

Wow. Neither trivial nor amusing. I've long thought that hikers, mountain climbers and such ought to be required to carry insurance to cover the cost of rescue.

[profloater]

Wow. Neither trivial nor amusing. I've long thought that hikers, mountain climbers and such ought to be required to carry insurance to cover the cost of rescue.

True, not at all amusing but we have to be impressed by the generosity of rescue and lifeboat crews. They rescue experts and fools and stay stoical.

[grant hutchison]

Wow. Neither trivial nor amusing.

Yep, that was a bad one. Thankfully it's rare for team members to end up injured.

I've long thought that hikers, mountain climbers and such ought to be required to carry insurance to cover the cost of rescue.

Scottish Mountain Rescue is currently funded as a charity. About 60% of their money comes from hillwalkers and mountaineers who make donations or bequests, or from guilty people who've been yanked off the mountain after doing something stupid. 20% comes from the Scottish government, and in effect 20% comes from the volunteers (and indirectly their employers), who give their time for free, and usually use their own equipment and petrol.
The air support comes from the RAF, who (last time I checked, at least) look on it as a recurring opportunity to mount an exercise that also does some good to the wider community.

The problem is in enforcing the insurance, and what you do if the person who is the subject of the call-out lacks insurance. A lot of us who go out regularly and are well-equipped, experienced and know our limitations would be happy to pay insurance if that was the funding model (as it is, we're probably the people mainly responsible for the donations, bequests and volunteering). But a recurring theme in Scotland is that problems arise for people who set off on the spur of the moment with no experience, inadequate equipment and scant understanding of how hostile the environment can be. These are just holiday-makers out for a stroll in the countryside, in effect, and the fact that they're not hillwalkers or mountaineers is the fundamental problem.

Grant Hutchison

[PetersCreek]

Neither trivial nor amusing but we're on the topic and we don't have another fitting thread. Three hikers were killed in an avalanche on Bear Mountain last week. This hits close to home for two reasons. First, one of the hikers was a community member, though I didn't know him. Second, I live in the shadow of Bear Mountain so this kind of feels like it happened in my backyard. Not really, of course. I think it was at least a mile north of our house and considerable farther up the mountain. But still.

[Trebuchet]

YouTube suggested I watch a Time Team video, "The Puzzle of Pickett Farm". So I did.
After that a followup commentary video was suggested, made quite recently. So I watched that too.

I think I've mentioned a couple of time that one of my favorite things in the Age of Covid is watching people reporting from their homes and seeing what they have in the background.

The guy in the Time Team Commentary had Tardises and Daleks. Awesome.

[Solfe]

On a whim, I bought 5 bucks worth of cryptocurrency. Since it's only $5, I can't decide if I want the price to drop so I can buy five dollars more or shoot up like crazy so I can make a dollar. It's so small time, it it's silly.

[Van Rijn]

This has gone viral, so you might have seen it, but here’s a fellow in a Zoom meeting for a court hearing that unknowingly had a filter running. It’s hilarious (and the video is less than a minute long):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KxlPGP...ature=youtu.be

This article explains the background. It was probably an old filter that came with the webcam software - nothing actually related to Zoom, and the fellow was borrowing the laptop. He had no idea how it had gotten turned on.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/10/tech/...ter/index.html

[Swift]

I think all virtual trials should require lawyers to use cat filters.

[Jim]

And the judges should be dogs. Who is more trustworthy?

It would be even better if the defendants/plaintiffs were either ferrets or rabbits to help determine innocence and guilt. Jurors would be ... hamsters?

[Gillianren]

What amuses me is the clear label on the video that it's illegal to record the meeting.

[Roger E. Moore]

And the judges should be dogs.

HEY! I like dogs.

[Noclevername]

HEY! I like dogs.

Well, yes, that's why Jim said dogs are trustworthy.

[Solfe]

File under annoys, amuses or just plain weird. My son's kitten is stealing toothbrushes to use as toys. I found one in the litter box and one near the litter box, which is completely disgusting.

There is a weird bit to all of this. No one is missing a toothbrush from the bathroom. We've looked everywhere for the source of the extra toothbrushes and have not found a one. Not under the bathroom cabinet or a random cupboard or closet. I even check our camping supplies. Either they are still there or there weren't any there to begin with. I'm clueless.

[Noclevername]

File under annoys, amuses or just plain weird. My son's kitten is stealing toothbrushes to use as toys. I found one in the litter box and one near the litter box, which is completely disgusting.

There is a weird bit to all of this. No one is missing a toothbrush from the bathroom. We've looked everywhere for the source of the extra toothbrushes and have not found a one. Not under the bathroom cabinet or a random cupboard or closet. I even check our camping supplies. Either they are still there or there weren't any there to begin with. I'm clueless.

Cats can conjure random items. It's part of their Cheshire heritage.

[Swift]

File under annoys, amuses or just plain weird. My son's kitten is stealing toothbrushes to use as toys. I found one in the litter box and one near the litter box, which is completely disgusting.

There is a weird bit to all of this. No one is missing a toothbrush from the bathroom. We've looked everywhere for the source of the extra toothbrushes and have not found a one. Not under the bathroom cabinet or a random cupboard or closet. I even check our camping supplies. Either they are still there or there weren't any there to begin with. I'm clueless.

Do they go outdoors? If so, maybe they are stealing them from someone else.

Toolbox? I keep old toothbrushes in my toolbox for various tasks (great thing for cleaning parts).

[Solfe]

Do they go outdoors? If so, maybe they are stealing them from someone else.

Toolbox? I keep old toothbrushes in my toolbox for various tasks (great thing for cleaning parts).

I found it! There was a six pack of toothbrushes in our luggage, in the front zipper pocket. Judging by the front of the bag, the kitten had a wonderful time digging them out.

[Swift]

I found it! There was a six pack of toothbrushes in our luggage, in the front zipper pocket. Judging by the front of the bag, the kitten had a wonderful time digging them out.

They are very amusing creatures.

[Extravoice]

We once had a cat who unplugged bulbs from a Christmas light set in order to play with them.

We’d find that the string of lights was “out” due to mysteriously missing bulbs. Eventually, I spotted the cat pull one out with her mouth. I would never had guessed she could do that.

Fortunately, she only did it when the lights were off, so they stayed on for the remainder of the season.

[schlaugh]

We once had a cat who unplugged bulbs from a Christmas light set in order to play with them.

We’d find that the string of lights was “out” due to mysteriously missing bulbs. Eventually, I spotted the cat pull one out with her mouth. I would never had guessed she could do that.

Fortunately, she only did it when the lights were off, so they stayed on for the remainder of the season.

Insert obligatory video clip from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

[Trebuchet]

We once had a cat who unplugged bulbs from a Christmas light set in order to play with them.

We’d find that the string of lights was “out” due to mysteriously missing bulbs. Eventually, I spotted the cat pull one out with her mouth. I would never had guessed she could do that.

Fortunately, she only did it when the lights were off, so they stayed on for the remainder of the season.

One of ours did that as well, as a kitten. Even worse than finding bulbs around was finding half of one. Worrisome!

[Solfe]

They are very amusing creatures.

I am glad I found the suitcase and not something else.

Back a few years ago, my wife received radioactive iodine. As a consequence, she had to be relatively isolated from the rest of us. In an added twist, any non-reusable product that she used which couldn't be flushed down the toilet needed to be held for 42 days before being discarded. My wife couldn't store her toothbrush with ours, so we bought a large glass jar with a lid for it and placed it on a high shelf.

The kids threw us a curveball. The moment they noticed the jar with her toothbrush, they assumed that was the new storage place for toothbrushes and moved all of the toothbrushes up there. They were 7, 8 and 9 at the time. So, it didn't just happen once or even once per child but, about 6 or 7 times because they were young enough to needed a reminder or three. That's about 30-40 toothbrushes we had to store then dispose of.

Fast forward 43 days.... We were so happy that the treatment worked, I kind of forgot the formerly contaminated stuff I hid in the garage for disposal. About a year later, I found a bag of pop and water bottles labeled "radioactive". Then six months after that, some stuff that my wife triple bagged for sanitary reason. Since I don't specifically remember disposing of those toothbrushes, I thought that might have been the source.

One odd thing we still do have is a set of hard plastic picnic plates, cups and silverware she used during that time. I do recall washing them separately from everything else. This was more a psychological thing, not a safety or medical thing. My wife would get sick from time to time at meals and didn't want her nice plates reminding her of it. The flipside of that is my son keeps them in a basket, in his car and pulls them out to for celebrations. He used to work at a camp all summer long, which included his birthday. He uses them to celebrate his birthday. It took my wife 3 years of summer camp birthday parties to realize the "whats" and the "whys" of that, which was pretty amazing shout out to his mom on his birthday.

[grant hutchison]

We're going through one of those episodes when a lot of spam is bleeding through the filter and appearing in the inbox.
What's amusing me is that the Boon Companion is receiving frequent contact from people purporting to be young women seeking urgent physical relations, whereas all I'm getting is ungrammatical emails telling me my antivirus software has expired. They certainly know how to get my attention.

Grant Hutchison

[Trebuchet]

We're going through one of those episodes when a lot of spam is bleeding through the filter and appearing in the inbox.
What's amusing me is that the Boon Companion is receiving frequent contact from people purporting to be young women seeking urgent physical relations, whereas all I'm getting is ungrammatical emails telling me my antivirus software has expired. They certainly know how to get my attention.

Grant Hutchison

I got one today offering shirts for the Buche family!

[Gillianren]

I spent some time yesterday trying to teach Simon how to play poker, for reasons. So far, it's going about the way you'd expect. "Mom, I've got really good cards!" Only folding every time he says that won't work, because he still doesn't have much understanding of how the game actually works, and I've often got something that would beat him. Maybe I should work really hard at my own bluffing and fool him more often.

[Trebuchet]

I'm watching a Time Team Video. Specifically, this one. Sometimes I have trouble with British accents so I turned on closed captions.

A fellow was just describing how when glaciers retreated, they'd leave behind ridges of stone. "Moraine", I said aloud. "It's not that hard, just say it!"
So he did. Except the closed captions came up with "Meringue". Oops, not quite the same thing.

[Noclevername]

I'm watching a Time Team Video. Specifically, this one. Sometimes I have trouble with British accents so I turned on closed captions.

A fellow was just describing how when glaciers retreated, they'd leave behind ridges of stone. "Moraine", I said aloud. "It's not that hard, just say it!"
So he did. Except the closed captions came up with "Meringue". Oops, not quite the same thing.

"Why, this glacial till is delicious!"

[Gillianren]

I have a friend I complain to about the captioning on things--her daughter is hearing impaired, so she gets most of my complaints, because she spends as much time with captioning on as I do--and she's heard a lot from me about Time Team captions. My personal favourite remains "Saint [Celtic name]."

[Jim]

I was watching a show with CC on (it lets me keep the volume low enough so as not to disturb the sleeping wifemate) and at one point a character started talking in Chinese. The screen displayed the translation, but the CC displayed over it said (Chinese conversation).

Gee, thanks heaps.

[Trebuchet]

In the makes me happy department, the latest update to our cable box FINALLY made it easy to turn closed captioning on and off.

Meanwhile, I was amused yesterday to see two different first photos from Perseverance with Bernie Sanders added.