coComments related to spicycauldron

smallsquirrel, my friend, one

2007-02-07T09:53:20.366+01:00

smallsquirrel, my friend, one more thing... If anyone is a candidate for switching to WordPress, it's yourself. Passionate, quality writing from such a perspective as yours--an American abroad--would be well served by relocation. I know I'm evangelising unashamedly but check out WordPress.com, see what you think, try exporting/importing your Blogger material, trial it for a week or so... You can always abandon the task, delete the new blog, if it doesn't go according to your needs or wants. One thing, though, you are unlikely to find your blog blocked in India by doing so (unlike in the past!). :-)

[quote post="1658"]I just don’

2007-02-07T09:45:04.617+01:00

[quote post="1658"]I just don’t get it. I can get very depressed thinking about those things, and feel ashamed to be human, a parasite. But on the other hand, I am so grateful to live in this beautiful world, and that I still see the magic in things like the wind, trees, animals…I just do what I can, and enjoy life. And I hope that through my enthusiasm for this natural world, I also make other people see the beauty of it.[/quote] All I can say in response to this, Nathalitanis, is that you are so not alone in feeling and thinking like this. Your words could, in more or less even the same sentences, be spoken or written by--oh, I could count so many of my own friends and run out of fingers to count them on!--and there are millions more around the planet. Those of us who live outside the influence of the insanity, and reject it, are often accused of a kind of insanity ourselves in arguing for a different way of living, a return to working with rather than against the planet. Many of us are eccentric, gifted in all kinds of ways, and simply get fatigued living outside thesheep pen. But one thing we do have, if we reach out to find and nurture, is our friends and communities. One person can do a lot--plant a tree, for example, grow your own veg, turn off lights when you leave a room, flush the loo less, recycle rubbish--but we can do more when we find community that thinks the same way. I guess despair, at times, and depression, are the inevitable side-consequences of compassion not being reserved only for those we know directly and intimately but given out to everyone and other living creatures, too. I wouldn't swap who I am for anything. If my destiny is to be an eccentric old loon surrounded by other eccentric old loons, at least my life will be my own and I will have fun on the journey while trying to do what I can for future generations to have a future at all. Your candour above is appreciated, and I am sure will find an echo in the hearts and minds of many other readers here. x

That's really odd. Not being a

2007-02-07T09:23:23.383+01:00

That's really odd. Not being a Blogger user myself anymore, I don't know how it works but I have been reading many complaints about the switchover. That said, I recall some time ago that--while I have no Blogger blog, I have a Blogger profile--the system demanded I switch when I wanted to post a comment using the Blogger login. I had to tie it in with one of my GMail accounts, and as I say about chose what turned out to be the wrong one in so far as you can't change it afterwards. Really daft. Both your sites--original US flavour and Indian!--are in my newsreader, hon. I do check in regularly. I tried posting to your site yesterday, in fact, several times--wasn't sure if my comment made it through in the end, in response to your post about child safety issues in India, which I thought was excellent! If Blogger would simplify comments, all would be well as far as I'm concerned. But right now, it makes us jump through way too many hoops. The biggest problem for me is the need to log out of one GMail account and go into another to do so. What I will probably do is highlight the posts I like in the side columnhere instead of commenting directly. I already highlight all kinds of blog and other articles using the side column anyway. x

And the news today is that the

2007-02-06T23:44:24.288+01:00

And the news today is that the new Blogger importer will be available from April for self-hosted WordPress blogs, too, when version 2.2 of the blogging platform is released. x

Ah! I think the new Blogger bl

2007-02-06T17:20:32.660+01:00

Ah! I think the new Blogger blogs can be imported to wordpress.com-hosted blogs. I don't think that functionality is in the WordPress we use to self-host, yet. It used to work for us with the old-style Blogger blogs. Many new features are given to wordpress.com bloggers but they don't have the same versatility when it comes to plugins, though they have access to some, and widgets. Still, wordpress.com is by far the best option for most bloggers who don't want technical hassle, just a clean, nice personal space for their words and pictures. And they do have thousands of templates to choose from as well. x

[quote post="1678"]But that ab

2007-02-06T17:16:45.328+01:00

[quote post="1678"]But that ability to move new Blogger sites to installed versions of WordPress hasn’t been included yet.[/quote] You mean the import feature won't work on the Blogger blogs now they've all been forcibly 'upgraded'? I tried today to leave lots of comments after starting to make use of Google Reader (and thanks for the heads-up on that, Howard!) but I'd say sixty per cent of the time--at least--my code input was rejected. And the login bollocks drove me insane. No way am I going to keep logging in and out of my email to comment on people's blogs--it's just way too much to expect. x

Hahahahaha! I love that... 'tw

2007-02-06T13:17:18.270+01:00

Hahahahaha! I love that... 'twisted unholy union'. Blogger as Frankie's Monster, eh? You've got something there... :-)

It is. As a child I spent many

2007-02-06T09:02:00.911+01:00

It is. As a child I spent many hours with nephews and nieces sitting on a wall near my sister's house, observing and sniggering as people passed by whether they would avoid or step on the large, very realistic, plastic joke dog poop we placed on the pavement. My sister--much older than I obviously, as she had a few kids and I was only, what, five--and my mum wondered what was keeping us quiet for so long and laughed to find us lined up on the wall staring at plastic poop. A woman pushing a big heavy pram came along, exclaimed 'Oh! That's disgusting!' and veered around the poop. Being cruel kids, we cackled. Someone else stood on it, yelping as the thing squeaked loudly. When called back to the house, we grabbed the poop and ran back happy. I don't recall what happened to that plastic poop. I think my sister or my mum chucked it in the bin eventually, tired of our terrorising passers-by with it. x

I recall the first time I ever

2007-02-05T20:28:30.938+01:00

I recall the first time I ever saw a page of US charts. I was utterly dumbfounded, totally lost in a maze that had no meaning. I could not begin to fathom how folks actually navigated such minefields! x

I'm still catching up on my en

2007-02-05T20:25:42.899+01:00

I'm still catching up on my entire life, so don't worry... I've caught up with my teens, only have another two decades to go. Should reach 40 by the time I'm 60. :-)

I used to have budgies as a ch

2007-02-05T20:16:16.943+01:00

I used to have budgies as a child. I still remember them well. We, too, have a gender-confused bird--the cockatiel Spike was supposed to be a second male but turned out to be female! x

[quote post="1671"]there were

2007-02-05T19:08:18.437+01:00

[quote post="1671"]there were some foolish, looney people attempting to poison crow populations and taking matters into their own hands. [/quote] That I can sadly well believe. In fact, it's funny you write that as only last night I was pondering out loud the very real possibility that some nutters might come along and try to do harm to any of the birds kept locally. We live opposite a geese farm, hundreds of geese roaming free-range. Beautiful birds, they are, too. I'd seriously like one as a pet. I hear they make good guard 'dogs'... What you write reminds me of the news, oh, about two or three years ago now, the true story of a paediatrician's surgery being burnt to the ground by an angry mob fuelled by reading the News of the World, thinking it had something to do with paedophilia. People's stupidity astonishes me sometimes. What birds is it you have? x

As I don't listen to radio--st

2007-02-05T18:51:22.645+01:00

As I don't listen to radio--sticking to podcasts and mp3s for most of the time--it's not that surprising, is it? I think you'd love Seth Lakeman, by the way. x

[quote post="1671"]If H5N1 mut

2007-02-05T17:41:53.003+01:00

[quote post="1671"]If H5N1 mutates to something easily passed by human to human the results in my opinion will be catastrophic, but the measures being taken now such as stock piling Tamiflu and other similar drugs will be futile[/quote] We agree completely on that score. I would still be in line for anything that might remotely help, but I would have far less faith than many, certainly where Tamiflu is concerned. [quote post="1671"]The only real measure I believe that will be effective is to attempt to eradicate it in birds[/quote] Yep, I think that's the case and as you say, it would have horrific consequences but I really can't see them shooting every wild bird from the sky. It isn't possible. I am ever so slightly concerned for our pet cockatiels but as they are indoor birds, and never come into contact with other birds, I don't think they're at risk--although I don't know if pet birds might be ordered to be killed in any infection areas. If that were the case, I would probably hide them away if I could. [quote post="1671"]She received eight separate transfusions of untreated blood, one from a batch found to contain HIV. [/quote] Yep, there's always been so much misinformation, some simply ignorant and other times deliberately prejudicial. I wrote some time ago here about the prejudice of the UK Blood Transfusion Service against gay people, who still cannot give blood here. x

I think there is much wisdom i

2007-02-05T17:10:51.963+01:00

I think there is much wisdom in what you say, though of course there are many things we'd die of today were it not for medical advances--so we buck the rules on many things. I'm glad, for example, I wasn't living 300 years ago as my family background is poor and I would expect my family was even poorer in centuries past and thus susceptible to everything from smallpox to fleas and ticks as well as things like cancer being just as prevalent back then (though some argue less so, thinking about it). And then there were tooth problems, spectacles not being available to the poor... Lots of things we've improved upon, at least in the West. I was reading recently that polonium is found in today's tobacco and that some scientists argue smokers die from radiation poisoning! Apparently, more smokers die from smoking today than did, say, 100 years ago. And back then, more people smoked. health I do think that overpopulation has left us wide open to nature using some kind of corrective mechanism--and no, I don't think you're in any way cold or clinical suggesting that, it's just realistic to think we are part of nature and therefore nature will do as it does. x

I quite agree with your commen

2007-02-05T15:24:02.050+01:00

I quite agree with your comments on HIV and AIDs. Also, cancer. Parkinson's. Alzheimers. There are many horrific disorders and illnesses that should be better funded in terms of investigations into treatments and vaccines, but the problem is that money makes the West go round--and the drug companies are run for profit and greed, not from philanthropic principles. I don't like that any more than anyone else, and having lost people I knew to AIDS in the 1980s, I know full well how panic and prejudice in the face of a new disease can lead to horrific injustices, bigotry, stupid reactions. x

[quote post="1671"]I do not se

2007-02-05T15:20:52.503+01:00

[quote post="1671"]I do not see how anyone can state a virus will mutate with 100% certainty. I spent a lot of study on various viruses particularly after our city went through SARS. [/quote] It's horrific but somewhat inevitable that people have such a huge disproportionate reaction to news of some scary new infection hitting somewhere. With bird flu, there are people who won't eat chicken now--which is ridiculous, and I say that as a veggie who'd rather nobody ate chicken at all. But, I thought all viruses mutate? It's what viruses do. The flu jab every year is different, because the flu is different every year. And one of the fears is not only that the virus has already and will again mutate, but that it will come into contact with other flu viruses and hybridise. I can fully appreciate the cynicism--and share much of it--but we've had flu mutate from fowl to animals before, and bird flu is already killing cats in the Far East. It has migrated to mammals, therefore, already. Monkeys and other apes are our closest cousins but on the genetic level there is little difference--albeit the differences make for big changes!--between cats, one type of mammal, and ourselves, another type. I think we're right to be concerned, and to take preemptive measures of disinfection and control. I'm not sure we can stop the spread of a flu caught by creatures that fly long distances, but we have to try. I don't ever think it's right to hysterically stop eating particular foods, or going to particular countries, but I do think it's right to be open to the very real, and scientifically plausible--most say inevitable--notion that this flu will mutate and hit our own species. I don't think it's right that the media feasts on this kind of story, but then the media has always feasted on gruesome detail. If it isn't present, they make it up. So I'm in the curious position of both agreeing with much of what you say, and not being in agreement on some things! x

And finding what plugin is pla

2007-02-05T15:09:21.774+01:00

And finding what plugin is playing up, or if it's some mystical and very specific interaction between your theme and the plugins and the database... Well, it's a nightmare! x

Thank you. I have to be honest

2007-02-03T23:24:02.767+01:00

Thank you. I have to be honest and say the flashing on your avatar is a bit too rapid for my taste since I had to get rid of my old way of showing comments on the front page because the plugin wasn't WP 2.1-friendly. I log on and, while it shows you've left loads of comments, I get a flash frenzy assault on the eye! Good job I'm not epileptic! :-) I wish there was a way to display animated avatars as static images on the front page. They are fine once you're actually in a comments section. That, or I need to find an alternative comment plugin for the front page. Some are okay as they change slowly, from one image to another. But some, like yours, are wild! That new avatar of mine is actually a cropped screenshot of my Windows Live (ugh) Messenger WeeMee. You can get one via Messenger--they're about three quid--or you can get one directly from the WeeMee website, I think. Hahaha--get this--the site is http://www.weeworld.com/ (sounds like a kinky one to me!) AD's got herself a new one and it looks fantastic! I think they're really cool and there are so many options, it's not too hard to come up with a cartoon version of yourself. x

And of course I could make rud

2007-02-03T21:29:47.055+01:00

And of course I could make rude jokes about purple. But I won't. :-)

Yep, once I realised it was th

2007-02-03T21:28:49.580+01:00

Yep, once I realised it was that plugin. Grrrr. x

I shall check it out ASAP. I'm

2007-02-03T21:28:25.198+01:00

I shall check it out ASAP. I'm looking forward to reading your reasons. I enjoyed Nicola's immensely. x

Hmm. There was an excellent BB

2007-02-03T21:25:12.798+01:00

Hmm. There was an excellent BBC documentary on it at the tail end of last year, and that was quite clear that this flu will, inevitably, mutate. A question of when, not if, and previous flu strains such as that after World War One went from birds to humans--no monkeys. So while I agree the media loves anything that whiffs of disaster, I think it's right to be concerned--but there is nothing we can do, and I certainly agree with you on Tamiflu. I will admit I want to be in line to get a dose of that when people start to get N5H1 human to human, but I don't think it will be the cure and preventative it is being painted as. x

It's also been revised upwards to 2,600 turkeys. A three-kilometre protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone will be set up around Holton, which is approximately 17 miles south-west of Lowestoft. DEFRA has revoked the national general licence on bird gatherings and bird shows and pigeon racing will not be permitted.

It's been confirmed that it is H5N1. Another blow for the Bernard Matthews brand after those videos emerged of staff torturing turkeys by throwing them in the air and hitting them with batons. Of course, even though I am veggie, I can say eating cooked chicken is perfectly safe. It's live birds with H5N1 people need to be concerned about. x

Sadly, no government is. Every

2007-02-03T15:54:57.958+01:00

Sadly, no government is. Every government of the world has singularly failed to enact measures to protect all its citizens, while hotly denying that and telling us everything is going to work out just fine. Whatever the ideology, they all seem cut from the same cloth where bird flu is concerned. I guess it's easier to ignore than spend the money to try to pre-emptively save lives... x

I will check it out now! x

2007-02-03T00:41:48.180+01:00

I will check it out now! x

Thanks. At least with WordPres

2007-02-03T00:41:05.293+01:00

Thanks. At least with WordPress when a plugin goes awry, you can always delete it from the server and that rolls you back. x

Ah! I'm glad to know the secre

2007-02-02T18:22:41.744+01:00

Ah! I'm glad to know the secret, actually! I could tell the story of how The Spicy Cauldron came to be... Okay, I will. D and I talked once of buying a cafe in Broadstairs, Kent and turning it into an organic veggie cafe. I came up with the name there and then. We didn't go with our plan as the premises didn't come with accommodation above, but I liked the name... x

Yeah, I meant to mention that

2007-02-02T18:09:06.798+01:00

Yeah, I meant to mention that BO problem... Silly! Why would I block you? How's it going with the new religion, by the way? :-)

Yar, yar. Get on with it and q

2007-02-02T17:54:13.802+01:00

Yar, yar. Get on with it and quit slacking! :-)

According to Amethyst Dragon,

2007-02-02T17:21:07.495+01:00

According to Amethyst Dragon, it doesn't like some of the UK proxy servers and so I advise folks to avoid this plugin. It's capable of way too much chaos, albeit easily rectified. x

Because your secret real ident

2007-02-02T13:29:02.000+01:00

Because your secret real identity is shocking in so far as you are, in fact, known by the moniker Voodoo Mary and sell charms to unwary strangers who pass by your door, and divine their futures using the Old Ways as taught to you by the fairies at the bottom of your garden...? So you divined this morning I was going to tag you. The tea leaves are never wrong! Of course, I might be wrong but I'm in character mode right now brewing up some new creations, haha! :-)

We're onto fave colours, it se

2007-02-02T13:24:37.606+01:00

We're onto fave colours, it seems! I like purple, I think black is classy if not overused, but my favourite colour used to be red for, oh, over thirty years but at some point--I know not when--I switched, and now can say my preference is for sky blue. I am sure that psychologists would have things to say about our favourite colours, and what they mean. x

I also recommend iTunes users

2007-02-02T13:18:15.464+01:00

I also recommend iTunes users seek out the free Multi-Plugin, as it is called. It allows you to skin iTunes and make it so much nicer than the default, you-must-have-this-boring-and-long-overdue-for-an-overhaul look that Apple forces you to put up with otherwise. It comes with a variety of skins but you can also search for others. I found a nice Vista-like one, black and very striking. It changes the fonts and makes them more readable, plus the Multi-Plugin adds some improvements to how iTunes handles memory and how other applications interact with it. x

Yeah, I ran that some time ago

2007-02-02T13:14:57.712+01:00

Yeah, I ran that some time ago out of curiosity. Our desktop PC was, at the time, allegedly fully compatible with Vista but I know that while we have 2Gb of RAM memory on this, it still has times when it crawls under XP. The usual reasons why: programs that all want to be in your start-up folder, programs made by Microsoft, Apple and many other companies that hog all available memory the longer you have them running. I still have to keep checking using spyware and disk maintenance programs to ensure errant applications are kept out of memory. This behaviour will continue under Vista but anyone upgrading or using that system will be using double their current system resources just to run the new OS and all its gimmickry, nag screens, falsely reassuring security notices, and so on. Those who want a Vista look just for a change--and I do like the look, I'm just not prepared to accept the philosophy behind the OS, or the way it works--can do a search on Google or the like and download the Vista Transformation Pack. It gives you a new-look taskbar, new wallpapers and new fonts. It does change system files but I run it no problems as it's pretty without all that crappy whizz-bang and the like with the real thing. That's all established XP users need if they're tired of the way their computer's interface looks. What we don't need is all that extra memory and hard disk space load. x

Ah! Ours was strawberry. We ha

2007-02-02T05:53:35.003+01:00

Ah! Ours was strawberry. We have fond memories of that machine. Something fun was lost when all the iMacs were switched to one colour only, boring white. x

How's it going? Did you get yo

2007-02-02T02:24:51.096+01:00

How's it going? Did you get your computer talking to your bits and pieces after the changeover? x

Oh dear. Dan, you're so funny-

2007-02-01T23:44:59.422+01:00

Oh dear. Dan, you're so funny--and that's so rude! I think Nicola's idea is cool, so can imagine others being, um, excited at the prospect. There was a purple iMac, after all, so maybe a purple iShuffle is just round the corner. You can get purple silicon skins to protect 'standard' iPods. x

Hi Nicola--yes, I read your bl

2007-02-01T23:02:33.701+01:00

Hi Nicola--yes, I read your blog entry. Did my comment not show up thereon? I remarked that the overall tone was very paganistic... If that's a word... I quite agree but I also think there's a quiet revolution going on. It's whether it's going to move fast enough, and spread wide enough, and be bold enough, to make a difference before it's too late. x

Thank you. I believe curiosity

2007-02-01T20:50:50.002+01:00

Thank you. I believe curiosity is our natural state; anything that seeks to crush our curiosity, and our individuality, our right to think and feel what comes to us, what pushes through, is frankly perverse. I'm really glad you enjoyed this one. It means a lot to me. These longer essay-type articles only happen every now and again, but they're actually the ones that I think give the greatest insight into my own soul and values. So when folks connect to what I say in these, it really matters to me. Yeah. Thanks again! x

Oh, like I didn't expect you t

2007-02-01T20:44:42.766+01:00

Oh, like I didn't expect you to rise from your crypt and say exactly that, you wicked woman! :-)

Now, boys. Break it up. :-)

2007-02-01T17:55:57.959+01:00

Now, boys. Break it up. :-)

I am sure when he reads that,

2007-02-01T15:55:05.371+01:00

I am sure when he reads that, he's going to get you... :-)

Cool. I once worked back when

2007-02-01T11:49:01.212+01:00

Cool. I once worked back when I was a mere 20-year-old as a cloakroom attendant at Heaven, London's most famous (but by no means best) gay club, where I got into a scrap with Marilyn, Boy George's friend, who was very aggressive and bitchy towards me at the end of the night. He ended up punched and on his back. I don't recall what he said or did, only my response stemming from the fact that he was incredibly brutal, unreasonable and unfair. I don't think I've ever seriously thumped anyone before or ever since that time, in fact... x

You mean the album, Disintegra

2007-02-01T02:05:39.563+01:00

You mean the album, Disintegration, and not the hard drive disintegrating, I take it...? :-) Weirdly, iTunes still has my purchased (downloaded from iTunes) music but there's no 'purchased music' folder displayed anymore. They're just part of my library. x

phew All done. Amazingly, un

2007-01-31T17:33:39.867+01:00

*phew* All done. Amazingly, unbelievably lucky all told... We have our music back, yay! x

Only two casualties now that c

2007-01-31T15:48:29.037+01:00

Only two casualties now that can't be replaced... and that's only because I have absolutely no idea where I've put the CDs! The drive of damnation is now formatted and will be checked in detail later, the new drive is only half-full or half-empty (depending on whether you're an optimist or pessimist). Now onto the database rebuild and cover art assignment! This has been one of the most hellish things I've ever had to do with a computer... x

Hi Howard! That's not a requ

2007-01-29T16:24:54.714+01:00

Hi Howard! That's not a requirement. You can choose not to install that authentication business during Windows Update, assuming you don't let it do updates automatically (I don't, I do them manually). XP doesn't need to go online when first installing it. The Genuine Windows Advantage tool, as it is called, came into being about a year or more ago. Of course it's a tool that has no benefit for the end user... x

Happy birthday to you... Happy

2007-01-29T14:46:21.624+01:00

Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... :-) x