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I love nothing more than finding new ways to use Technology, Or Ways to use it in a different manner to that which it was intended. I also like finding legal ways of doing things for free, that would normally cost money.
So what was the first thing I did when I got our hands on one of Amazons Kindles? I decided it would be nice if we could read my favorite Blogs & News sites directly off the Kindle in weekly digests. Unfortunately Amazon charges for this service, Which is OK I guess since some of the money can go to the Bloggers who write the sites.
No I do not want to cost fellow Bloggers Money, BUT if you think about it, you can use the Kindle’s web browser to read free Blogs for Free, so If you could get it sent directly to your device for free, its only really saving you time.
So heres the procedure I followed to get Weekly Digests of my Favorite blogs sent directly to the Kindle. (NOTE: If you really enjoy someone’s Blog consider supporting it with some comments, or some other way to show your thanks)
1: Download & Install Calibre – EBook Manager (Free Software)
2: Click on “Fetch News” -> “Add Custom news source”
3: Give your list a title “Recipe Title“, Set “Oldest Article” to be “7 Days”. Then using the “Feed Title” “Feed URL” box’s at the bottom keep “Add Feed” until you have all your Blogs added.
4: Hit “Add/Update Recipe” to save your list.
Your custom feed list is now saved, You just need to assign a time to auto download it to Calibre (You need to leave the software running on your Computer for the auto download to work)
5: Hit “Fetch News” and look in the “Custom” header in the list.
6: Pick “Days of Week” and a Day to suit yourself, then pick a Download Time, Make sure “Schedule for Download” is checked, and hist Save.
Thats all you need to do to get Calibre to download a “book” made up of your favorite blogs/news feeds. You may want to have a look at the other newsfeeds Calibre has listed as standard.
Now there is just one small thing left to do to get your downloads sent directly to your Kindle (Providing you have WiFi or 3g Turned on)
7: “Preferences” -> “Sharing Books by Email” Make sure you add your free kindle email address there *****@free.kindle.com. and Make sure “Auto Send” is checked.
8: “Preferences” -> “Behavior” Make sure “Automatically send Downloaded news to ebook reader” is checked.
Now when Calibre downloads your custom newsfeed, it will auto convert them into an epub format and email them directly to your Kindle. So they popup ready for you to read.
Reflections on the Rapture
So the weekends over, and we have all survived. Well I assume we have all survived, there has been no news articles on the Zombie Apocalypse, no reports of missing people in their masses. So I can only assume that the End of Days (2011) aka The Rapture (V2) was a no show.
Now I should quickly explain what I am on about for those of you who may have been living in a cave for the last month and be unaware of the Rapture. Although you do raise a new question of why do you have the internet in your cave? anyway The Rapture….
Rapture
Basically some bloke called “Harold Camping” said he had calculated the secret code hidden in the bible, and was 100% the world would end on September 6, 1994. Some point shortly after then, when the world was still going strong Harold admitted he made a slight mistake and had forgot to carry the one and the correct day of the rapture was May 21st 2011. On this day Jesus would return to earth, the chosen holy people who followed the laws of Christ would ascent to heaven, and the long forgotten dead would rise forth from their unhallowed graves and the end of days would be upon us.
My biggest problem with any of these beliefs is one of simple logistics. The holy get to go to heaven. Who is holy? If you follow the laws of Christ will you be allowed in? Which branch of Christianity do you need to follow since they are all different? What about the rules, once you could not eat fish on a Friday, but that rule was revoked, but did God approve the revoking? If you have to follow every rule there ever was to be 100% valid, then I do not see anyone being saved.
Anyway Rapture came and went without anyone noticing. So was it all a miscalculation again (Not everyone can do math) Or is it as some blogs are stating that the chosen were raptured, and the rest of us just have to wait the five months till the world ends? So all we can do is watch this space.
Bicycles should be Banned!
…..On roads during peak travel/commute hours.
Now I should point out that in principle I have no problem with people who want to enjoy the fresh air while getting or staying fit and healthy, or those who want to help the environment, or even those who have several mortgages and can no longer pay the exuberant petrol prices.
What I do have problems with are those people who ride push bikes, and tend to be in the middle of the lane making it harder to overtake them, especially if like me your morning commute is down country roads where its hard to overtake due to the number of blind bends. Now I would not mind if they would pull to the side to let you pass, or even stop and let the long tailback pass them. Instead they seem to delight in moving closer to the centre of the road making it even harder to pass, and laughing at all the cars such behind them, with their engines screaming at the indignity of travelling at 3 miles per hour.
I think like tractors, and industrial diggers there should be a core time when they are not allowed on public roads to prevent tailbacks, dangerous driving to try and makeup time, and road rage. I really believe they should be kept off the road during these hours for their own safety. You see, you may be smug sat slowly peddling your bike making me drive at a babies crawling speed, but I’m in a big car, and you know how much damage you and your bike will make to my car as I drive over you? NONE….
Now get off my road you bunch of weirdo hippies!!!!
I Voted on how to Vote
So I went to do my Civic Duty and voted (AGAIN) I swear I seem to be voting a LOT at the minute.
So I packed my pack with provisions, emergency supplies, spare ammunition. Grabbed the shotgun & Katana and set off on the trek up into the wilds of the mountains, braving the elements and inbred locals to reach the Hut where I have to vote.
WO: “What? You don’t believe me? let me recount my route from a previous post”
If I leave my house, and turn left, its a one minute drive through civilisation to the nearest polling station. Only I am not allowed to vote there, Oh no, I must use a different one. To get to the one I use you have to turn right out of my house and drive away from civilisation. after about ten minutes you turn onto a small back road and head towards the mountains. Fifteen minutes later you leave that road, for a smaller, less used track and head even deeper into the wilderness of the mountains. Eventually you will arrive at a small shack on the side of the track, and its there I have to go to vote.
Seriously, If I did not have a four wheel drive sturdy vehicle, and a house full of lethal weapons to choose from, I don’t think I would ever vote.
So I arrived at the Hut and went in to Vote on the YES/NO to AV vote that I knew about. I walked slowly up to the two very strange looking people sat behind an old rickety table, my right hand absently hovering mere inches away from the concealed blade I’d draw at the first sound of Banjo music. I handed over my Voting slip and one of the men started handing me several voting forms, while the other made a note in his book. Turns out they has sneaked a couple of election’s in with the AV referendum. And with some great choices for who to govern us, BNP, Christian Party? (I thought they were a religion, but Hey instead of having views on the economy, immigration, Health Care they do state they are for the Ten Commandments). So I voted and left.
OK, for those of you Readers who live in countries where you left the 18th century and are now living happily in the 21st I should explain how our voting works. You get given a piece of paper, you walk over to a table where a pencil is taped to a piece of string to prevent theft. You put an X in the appropriate box, then return your paper to where you received it, and basically drop it through a letterbox into a glorified bucket. Yes, in this age of computers, touch-screen terminals, and easy technology we in the UK use pencils, those tamper proof voting system that is super secure unless the person wanting to rig the ballot has the cutting edge tools of an eraser and another pencil. Am I the only one who thinks this is a slow, silly, insecure voting system? Also Humans counting thousands of votes? Its way to easy for mistakes to happen. We’re living in the future people, lets try and act like we are. Now where’s my flying car I was promised?
What I am curious about, is how many people actually believe the urban legend that our votes are anonymous, and that big brother does not know what or who we vote for? When I was too young to vote I’d often hear people talking about how voting is anonymous and all that stuff. I found this odd as the magazines and books I read had other facts in that were contra to popular belief. I remember when I was sixteen I read in a biker magazine how if you voted for one of the extreme parties that MI5 would start a file on you. I remember conversations with people when they assured me voting is private and confidential. OK, so if its confidential why when I’m given my voting paper the number written in the top corner of the sheet is marked in a book next to my voting number? So after counting the votes you could pick up the pile of votes for say “The Monster Raving Loony Party” or “The Green Party” or “The BNP” and look up the names of all the people who voted for them. In what way is this anonymous? or is this anonymous in the same way a pencil mark on a bit of paper is secure?
Anyway.
- Civic Duty – Done
- Trip into the Hills – Done & Survived
- Blog post – Done with extra Ranting
Now we wait for the results.
RTL – From the Bookshelf: Heat Wave
What a brilliant piece of MetaFiction this is:
For those of you who have been kept locked in a box for the last few years, or believe Television is the work of Satan’s minions and as such avoid the evil gogglebox for more spiritual activities, I guess I should start with a quick recap of what Castle is.
Castle is a TV show about Richard Castle, a best-selling author who decides to tag along with a NYPD team as they investigate cases, since he is using Detective Kate Beckett as his inspiration in a new series of books.
Since in the TV show Castle (Played by Nathan Fillion) is writing a book inspired by Beckett, the book gets mentioned a lot in the first season, even to the point of showing the proposed Cover, and its launch/release. You even see the characters reading the book in some episodes, as well as discussing a certain sex scene that’s a bit raunchy. There is nothing special in this, since a lot of TV shows make mention of Books, Films, Etc. that are apparently going on in the background. And there are a lot of shows that will do spin off books. What the producers of Castle have done, and done brilliantly is to release a bit of metafiction. They actually released the book that was supposedly written in the show. The covers the same, the plot,s the one mentioned in the show, the sex scene on page number 105 is there, and even better the Thanks page, bio, writers name, everything is written as if the character Richard Castle wrote the book. He thanks his daughter & mother, the guys from NYPD the works. All in all this is a brilliant bit of meta-fiction,
But what about the book itself?
It’s actually a good book, its very similar to an episode of castle, only its about a newspaper reporter who is travelling around with the NYPD gang solving a crime. The style is like the show, comedy mixed with action, mixed with chemistry. The only real difference is the book is darker, more violent, and more explicit (but not in a bad way) Hell there is no way you could get away with the female lead being totally naked and using an iron to melt half the face off an armed assailant intent on raping her, but in a book? alls fair.
This book is an enjoyable read even if you are one of the people who have never watched an episode of Castle. And I would recommend it as a read to anyone, you will enjoy it. In fact I will give it a 7/10 as a generic book.
But if you watch the TV show, and can appreciate the work gone into linking the book with the show, then I give it a 9/10.
This Article was 1st posted @ rocktheLAN.com
Time Travel & The Tardis
The overall theme of the weekend was “Time Travel“, And not just in the way Adults seem to travel back to their youth when presented with Chocolate Easter Eggs.
Neither was it purely because the new season of Doctor Who started back up on Saturday evening, with a bang and [REDACTED], Sorry I had to redact that last bit for in the words of River song “Spoilers!!!” So I shall say no more on that subject. (EDITOR: “Unless I write a review of the new series or episode“)
The main Time Travel I am referring to is the feeling of being back in the past I experienced on the Saturday evening. I had gone around to a friends house while his wife was away. The evening involved some Multiplayer Age of Empires 3, a game (well AoE1) we used to play back in the days when we were work colleagues. Then a call to Domino’s to bring us Pizza & Chicken strips STAT.. All while some Junk-TV played in the background. This used to be the useual way to end a nights training down the Dojo, Pizza & Junk.
In fact all we were missing for it to have been one of those nights from the distance past was a good conspiracy theory documentary playing on the TV.
Weekend Wanderings
This weekend I went a wandering. Well not really far wanderings, but wanderings nether the less. And wanderings covering two countries (Three if you count Bala as its own country) So I thought I was share my wanderings to you dear Readers (And it helps me remember where I was, and what I was doing).
Saturday.
Late Saturday afternoon I went to visit PlanetPete, Well it was later than originally planned due to a slight incident requiring me to cut my super-glued fingers apart (Yes! I know apparently nail-varnish remover, or similar will wash off the glue easy, but I’m male, I use a knife, and the bigger the knife the better). Now before you start wondering about my personal space-craft which I may or may not have reverse engineered from the UFO crash in the hills near Corwen, I shall point out PlanetPete is currently located in the English land known as Chester.
I eventually made it with a fully working set of fingers with no cuts at all, rang the doorbell with a cheerful greeting of “Avon Calling” only to get door slammed shut in my face. *dejected Arr* I tried again without the Avon catalogue that I’d found on the floor, and my second attempt got me into the building, Where I was set upon by Cerberus and the hounds of hell themselves! Or Jeff, Indie, & Hunni Who seemed pleased to see me, like they had not seen me in years. Well they hadn’t really, and Indie had never met me before. Luckily they are all great dogs, and the change in Jeff from the days when he used to work in the Insane Asylum is remarkable.
After the important greetings were out the way, I was able to greet the Human occupants, grab a coffee and make it to a chair sit down and relax while the dogs brought their toys to show me, and competed for attention (But in a behaved way). The humans then got a chance to catch up, see how everyone was getting along, what was new in the world. Commiserations were given to H for having to work on a Saturday, The light was pointed out as still waiting on us getting around to correcting the design oversight we built it with err too many years ago. (Sheeeesh! Wheres the time gone?) Food was set up to start cooking, instructions were given that we were to listen out for the Ding, and a film was chosen to be watched.
The film was Skyline and was showing on Sky BoxOffice. The only problem was BoxOffice was not working, and just getting worse and worse to the point Skys Technical Support Line were called. And after ten minutes of dealing with the issue a correction procedure was dictated to PlanetPete to follow. And its kind of comforting to know, no matter what the problem you have is, no matter what kind of technical support people are called, when it comes down to it the same solution is given “Have you tried turning it off and on again!”
This procedure as always corrected the problem(ish) and we were able to watch Skyline, a film all about a group of people trying to stay out of the light, which was interesting as we later watched Tron: Legacy which is a film all about a group of people trying to get to the light.
A rather nice (And I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I get this wrong) Chicken, Bacon Pasta Bake? was eaten, Coke was drunk, and an enjoyable evening was had by all. Until it was time to leave, rob a bank to get the fund to fill up with diesel and make the return trip to Wales.
Thanks H & PlanetPete for a enjoyable evening.
Sunday
Since Sunday was a lovely sunny day, and my father mentioned he was going to go for a ride on his bike to check it out after its winters storage, I decided to go along with him in a support vehicle. So it was almost a family day out, as my Sister & Niece were also along for the day.
We went to Bala lake, for ice cream and to enjoy the sun. Teggy was not spotted, but I was amused watching some man put his boat on its side to fit its mast more easily, and then start panicking as the boat filled with water.
We also visited the Ponderosa up at the Horseshoe Pass in time to get there as the local biker egg run was arriving. And I discovered some women can look hot while riding a big bike in a fluffy rabbit outfit (Maybe I need professional help?)
So all in all it was a good way to spend one of the first warm & sunny weekends we’ve had this year.
Vampiric Eye Update
I arrive at the hospital in plenty of time and try and park in the car-park near the eye outpatients, No Room, So I try the several staff car parks close to that end of the hospital (I may, or may not have acquired a staff parking permit for my car) No Room. OK, so there is a car-park half way along the hospital complex, No Room. The staff car-park near the middle of the complex? No Room. The huge main car-park at the other end of the hospital to where I need to be? No Room. The overflow massive car-park that’s been built on the far end of the main car-park? No Room. At this point I would have happily parked on a manger in a stable!. Right there is a bit of wasteland at the end of the overflow car-park where people park if there is no where else left? No Room!! At this point I remember I’m driving a 4×4 and park it “off road”
Its Raining, and I have approximately a 3/4 mile walk through the various car-parks to get to the hospital, and then a 1/2 mile walk to get to the opposite side of the hospital where my appointment is in 18 minutes! Did I mention its raining?
So I get into the eye outpatients slightly bedraggled from the rain, and out of breath from the speed walking. I report to the receptionist who disappointedly is not the cute friendly one who always remembers my name, but some other one. I explain I have an appointment, confirm my address to prove who I am and get asked :-
Receptionist: “Have you moved house since you were last here?“
WO: “err no! I just confirmed my address to you?“
Receptionist: “Have you changed surgery or doctors since you were last here?“
WO: “err no! I would have informed you, I just want my appointment! please can I sit down“
Receptionist: “Its sometimes like you live here isnt it?“
WO: “err yes” *smiles disarmingly as I back slowly away without making any sudden movements to a seat*
The waiting game begins, So I start writing a blog post about an update to my Vampiric eye syndrome, not this blog post, oh no. I wrote a post of several hundred words, using the wordpress iPhone App, and saved it to “local drafts” only for it to vanish into the void. I then get called for an eye test before moving to another waiting area to wait to see the actual doctor.
I should point out stupidity of the eye test station. You go in and read the letters off the board for them to measure your eye sight level. Only you are there due to some eye problem, Myself I’m on eye drops that tend to dilute eye and make everything fuzzy, so have yet to go into eye test room when I could see the board with the drop affected eye. I also have them confused as there are two identical test rooms, with identical eye charts, Yet if I am in the right hand room I can see several lines further down the chart than I can in the left hand room.
So I make it to the final waiting room, and boy does this room live up to its name, and then some! I was here for over an hour. It’s not their fault really, the eye outpatient department is the busiest department in the hospital (Well maybe apart from A&E on a Saturday night) So the place is always packed to capacity. Then you have the fact they have a special infectious eye clinic on the second Wednesday of the month (to add even more people to the overcrowdedness) And to top it all off today, they were a Doctor down, and then a second Doctor was called out to an emergency, meaning the remaining Doctors had to see their patients as well as the missing Doctors patients. So this meant I had an hours wait, and there was no WiFi available for me to use, and no phone signal.
So, to recap, I had a stupidly long walk through the rain to get here, I’ve been waiting bored out my head for about an hour and a half in total. And how long am I in with the Doc for? FIVE MINUTES! Long enough to say Hi, her to check my eye, declare its looking good, and lower my drops, and say she will see me in two months.
I hate Hospitals!!!!!!!
Death Threats & Dinner Suits
Saturday evening I was at the Llannerch & Gredington Lodge’s Joint “Ladies Evening” in Llangollen. The evening was a formal event so the dress code was Dinner suits, dress shirts, bow-ties, the works. The majority of the evening was very enjoyable, with good company, great food, beer, etc. and Several hundred pounds were raised for charity just from raffle tickets alone.
In fact the evening was enjoyable right up until it was time to do the toasts, of which there were two. Firstly the Master of Llannerch got up to give a quick toast of “The Queen“. The other toast of the evening was “The Ladies” and was to be a longer toast more like a speech.
And which poor victim was designated with this responsibility?
Yes you guessed it, My good self!. Now I should take a second here to point out this was the first “Ladies Night” I had been to, and as such had never seen or heard a ladies toast before, so had no bearing to work from.
I should also point out I am a shy person, So standing up in front of over a hundred people who regularly attend such functions to perform the toast was terrifying. So I start into my spiel, and it seems to be going ok, the ladies present seem to be cheering, and agreeing with what I’m saying and “tutting” at their escorts, while the Men seem to be more growling at me, and denying things. Well I finished my bit and got to sit back down again.
The Toast:
Ladies and gentlemen, brethren and guests,
It is my honour and privilege, to give this the most important toast of the evening. To express on behalf of all the gentlemen present our deep appreciation of our Ladies. If you look in the dictionary, you will see the word appreciation is defined as “valuation at its true worth” or “being grateful for”. I sometimes wonder, brethren, if we always value the innumerable good qualities possessed by our ladies at their true worth, or indeed are truly grateful for them in our everyday lives.
It occurs to me sometimes, and this evening in particular, that we may not always be conscious of the great sacrifice made by our ladies in surrendering the pleasure of our company to the call of the Lodge: and this not only on Lodge nights, but also for Lodge of Instruction, visiting other Lodges, and so on.
This Ladies’ Night provides us with an opportunity to make some small amend for our neglect, and maybe to say a few of the flattering things which we too often omit on less glamorous occasions. So, I shall proclaim at once that woman is not man’s equal: she is his superior. What is more she looks his superior; for as my gaze wanders around the tables I am struck by the fact that all the ladies look so much younger and more beautiful than their escorts!
Gentlemen and brethren, we spend, it is true, many happy hours away from the company of our ladies, particularly on Masonic occasions, but how much happier we are in their company on a night like tonight! As mere men, we know we can never adequately repay our ladies for all they do for us, but we hope they will take the will for the deed and look upon this evening as some small recompense.
So, ladies, let me assure you on behalf of all the gentlemen present, that we admire you for your beauty, respect you for your intelligence, and love you for your virtue. That being the case, I shall now call upon all the gentlemen present to be upstanding and to drink a toast to the long life, health and happiness of THE LADIES.
Later on that evening while standing about drinking with a couple of other men I received death threats, and quotes like :-
- “How could you stand there and say those things!!! Don’t you realise what you’ve done???”
- “My wife wants breakfast in bed tomorrow now”
- “I have to get flowers after”
- “How you say that? what you doing??”
- “Don’t worry we’ll get him later“
I did point out to them that I am currently Single, and if they go and pick on a single bloke to make the ladies toast, then they have to expect to live with whatever damage he decides to cause. 🙂
Secret Government Base?
This morning on my way to the Insane Asylum I had to stop off at a small garage (Gas Station) to fill up my vehicle with diesel. Nothing special about that, It happens at least once a week, or more commonly twice a week due to my superstition about filling up my tank in one go (Which I may explain at some point in the future). Now the reason I’m blogging about a common, normal everyday activity is the following.
I pulled into the strangely busy Garage forecourt, which normally has one or maybe two cars parked to either fill-up or use the shop. I once saw it on a particularly busy day with four cars there. This morning, including my car there was one vehicle at every pump (So eight in total) with a further nine parked at different parts of the small forecourt. Seventeen Cars, SEVENTEEN!
Now as I filled up, I was the only person in sight. All the cars were empty, and no one was walking about. When I walked into the Garage itself (which I should point out is a small room, with a counter, and a small office/toilet at the back which you could fit maybe three people in if they were “very familiar”) One man walked out. There was also one person behind the counter serving, So with myself three people to account for seventeen cars? SEVENTEEN? where were the other fourteen people? there was no way they could all be in the back room. In fact the only way they could be in the building at all would be if there was some sort of secret government facility underneath the garage.
Well I guess, Zombie outbreak?, Mass murderess who kidnap customers and throw them into an empty underground fuel store “It puts the lotion on its skin, else it gets the hose again!“?, Alien abduction? are also possibilities, but I tell you this now, I for one will not be using that particular garage again unarmed.