Disks --> Frisbees. We made them by interlacing popsicle-sticks together.
You had to be good, when "sailing" them, or they'd break apart, when landing.

Today, the young folks use their thumbs to tap out messages on their twitter-
boxes. Some schools, I understand, don't even teach longhand, anymore.
Amazing.

For us, good penmanship started with a straight pen, dipped into an inkwell,
and applied to yellow, blue-lined paper. The slightest incorrect pressure
on the nib, resulted in a blot (a no-no).

The jury's out, as far as I am concerned, as to whether people's brains profit more from tapping out words/sentences, or penning them.

I still think kids should learn how to actually right words. Maybe not cursive< as my penmanship is horrible. I can hardly read my own writing. Thats why I mostly use printing. Technology is nice but kids do need to know how to be able to write the words with a real pen.

My mom is a lefty. Back when she was a kid in school in the late 30's she had her hand whacked with a ruler a lot. Untill her mother found out about it. That ceased real quick.My Grandmother was a small woman but she was certainly not meek.

---

[/quote]

Old James

I heard that Thor was a member of the
Berks R Us club, I do hope this is a
false report.

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I still think kids should learn how to actually right words.

Quite agree :-))))

OK, So Im a berk, And I should take my own advice:)

---

[/quote]

Old James

Happy Christmas James :-)

Merry Christmas Chris and a Happy New year.

---

[/quote]

Old James

Late this morning, I used a low fire under a large frying pan to melt some butter and heat something in it as part of my lunch. After eating the lunch, I wondered why I kept smelling a faint odor of overcooked butter smoke. Finally got up to go to the euphemism and discovered the fire was still on. Just glad it wasn't on higher than it was.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Then, there's looking for one's eyeglasses -- to find them, after some time
has passed, that they're on . . . you guessed it.

Then, there's looking for one's eyeglasses -- to find them, after some time
has passed, that they're on . . . you guessed it.

LOL. I guess that makes my wife a berk also. We spent an hour looking for her glasses. I looked under the bed ,couch every where we could think of. I happened to finally open my eyes and yep they were pulled up on her forhead.
So we are both berks:)

---

[/quote]

Old James

I have had my Canon Ixus 140 for just over a year now and it goes everywhere with me, I have taken over 6000 pictures with it and you have seen some here.

Well today there was a steam train through South Croydon and I set up my cameras as I usually do, I use my Canon 600D in sport mode to take lots of pictures quickly, and I put the Ixus 140 on a tripod and use it to video the scene.

Well I suppose I should have known better, It took the video of the steam train fine, then a non stopping train went by.

I will leave you to see the result.

Camera demise

I will post it's final video in the train thread later.

---

Ouch. My Sony blew over on a tripod a few years ago, but it only received a few dents to the metal work and continues to work just fine. Hope your Canon is recoverable Bernie.

---

Ouch. My Sony blew over on a tripod a few years ago, but it only received a few dents to the metal work and continues to work just fine. Hope your Canon is recoverable Bernie.

I think probably will not be worth the repair



The lens will not come out and camera just shuts down.

---

Sorry to hear Bernie. :-(

---

TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

Oh.... sorry to see.

---

My last video camera was a model with a hard drive in it. A real spinning hard drive. One day I was out watching trains with it on a tripod and the wind blew it over. Not even the wind from a passing train, just an ordinary gust. All it would tell me after that was "disk error." So even the video on it is unrecoverable.

Now I have a GoPro, but I'm not thrilled with its fisheye distortion.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I still think kids should learn how to actually right words.

Quite agree :-))))

OK, So Im a berk, And I should take my own advice:)

:)))) Happy Holidays James:)

---

Music
Pictures

I still think kids should learn how to actually right words.

Quite agree :-))))

OK, So Im a berk, And I should take my own advice:)

:)))) Happy Holidays James:)

Merry Christmas and a happy new year Julie.
Edit- Bernie Sorry for that happening, Good shot by the way. Did you say ouch or another euphenism :)

---

[/quote]

Old James

:( Oh Bernie... that is painful! :( My commiserations on it's demise. Erm... Good footage though :) *smack hand several times for deploying a smiley*

Seems you are in good company... :)

Happy Christmas eve fellow berks :)))))

Bernie - that was a painful face plant :-(

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Got stung by AD ware. Went to download something and let in some advertising popup software. Had to go in and fight it to remove it. I hope I finally have deleted the "Bovine fecal material".

---

Yep... another anniet berk report *fix setizens with unwavering gaze* ... this time brought to you with the help of: Thames Water; British Gas; Maris Piper potatoes; Flora Sunflower Oil; and no giraffes.

Yes people... *prepare to end unwavering gaze by lowering chin... and... blink* you will come across a couple, but they had nothing to do with anything... *beam reassuringly* :) They simply represent bottomless pits and the dark art of eating loads and still staying slim and gangly.

Should you continue reading past this point here -> . oh... *stare in disappointment at point* ... I thought it would be bigger than that... never mind... PART ONE: How to Ensure you Never get Unexpected Visitors Again may flow easily into PART TWO:untitled but will be about cravings but... as neither have been written as I'm writing that *pause to point at the bit that says they've not been written yet"* it's far too early to say... y-e-e-s... but... if T equals "Christmas dinner is ready" and T minus 24 hours had gone as planned (friends will drop off cat (with perpetual expression suggesting life is one long chew on a lemon) if parents can't look after her, and then go to Scotland) – you would not be reading this now. Of course, that would have come with a much bigger downside for setizens – a whole six weeks or more of anniet posts to wade through... without a break. Yes people – that was a grim thought was it not :) but they didn't, so you didn't and were spared, and now you are stuck with this instead... :)

v---- anniet's plan for T ------v



except........................... at T minus approximately 30 minutes ^^^^^^^^^

...and at T minus approximately 28 minutes (based on a ponder) my brain took the unilateral decision to emphatically eject all of its wits to the four winds... y-e-e-s... *frown* ...which allowed the resulting vacuum to fill up quite a lot of a lot.

You know...



with.....................a looming potato famine fixation...........^
And there you go... that's how it happened :) Bye :)

*attempt to exit thread and... fail*

Oh... right... okay... And then came ERROR 1...



It might be pertinent to mention here that in the three months leading up to Christmas – I had been dropping subtle *disparaging blink* ...and not so subtle hints... *glare in a variety of directions at scattered family members* that I REALLY didn't want to cook Christmas dinner. Just thinking of it made me weep. I had no idea why, I normally enjoy doing it – but I really really REALLY didn't want to last year. My only offered alternative was baked beans on toast (YAY baked beans on toast :)) but the enthusiasm THAT idea was greeted with was markedly less than if I had offered lead balloons on one dusty water biscuit. Now of course, *elevate nose to level suggesting superior intellect* everyone agrees I was right and that I should DEFINITELY not have cooked Christmas dinner :) which is comforting :)

Okay – where was I? Oh yes. T minus five minutes. At T minus five minutes there was a bit of a wrestle with a packet of kitchen roll people. Yes... it had been so enthusiastically sealed in it's wrapping it rather took up a lot of my already somewhat frazzled attention. Choreographed against a backdrop of an “unhappy child in another room racket” my remonstrations finally triumphed in a flourish of success... along with a rising crescendo in the level of racket... and suddenly there was a lot more problem-solving than I'd expected... you know... to have to solve...

Like what to do with a hard won roll of kitchen paper whilst inserting an anniet between a nine year old and a cooker that had just had it's eye-level grill lanced with a Star Wars light saber. This was ERROR 2.



Watching grill pan and contents approach in a kind of dazed wonder at the efficient grace of gravity and objects in motion... and dithering over how hot it might be on the hands to save vegetable swirls from dumping themselves in random abandon into boiling potato water and/or a deep pan of ready-to-fry hot oil and quite how splashy that might get, and whether any could be saved at all given that one hand was definitely going to be needed to grab the grill pan before it impacted everything beneath it, and then deciding things were moving along at quite a pace and developing some interesting trajectories and what-not, and that one hand would probably be best used to hurl a child to a safer distance in case of anything going a teensy bit more pear-shaped than it was already hinting at... was ERROR 3.

Grabbing child, complete with light saber, and just legging it *anniet nod – emphatic mode* is what should have been done... right from the start :) But as that idea occurred at around T plus seventy-three hours it turned out to be not much help at the time... and now with a child at a safe distance but squawking in indignation at one of her most favourite adults/playthings having thrown her by one arm across a kitchen... I could finally concentrate properly on the job at hand... which was... it's too late for the sweet potato and spinach swirls – and too late to intervene in any arguments between the grill pan and the two pots it has just leapt onto... but I can stop them tipping over and/or sliding off the hob... if I use my stomach... yes people *blink* my stomach... as a stabilising influence *pause whilst “what a berk” murmurs die down* Indeed...
THAT was ERROR 4.

Perhaps being a little more... voluminous... in that respect... might have helped...



... and having not been quite so efficient at bringing two pans of diverse fluids to peak temperature at roughly the same time as they got hurled from their receptacles... but I'm not, and I did so they didn't... and ERROR 4a (called ERROR 4a because it sort of popped into my head almost the same moment my ideas on fielding with stomachs did) was in thinking: “just as well I'm wearing my thickest jeans today...” which was possibly the most stupid of all anniet errors ever made...

Up until that point...

I say “that point”because ERROR 4a was rapidly eclipsed into becoming only the second most stupid thing I have ever done before... ever... (and by T plus five minutes... had been firmly relegated to third) because... wearing really thick clothes simply facilitates extremely efficient absorption of liquids peoples... and once absorbed, they will proceed to cook you for as long as they are in contact with you... and where they are at their thickest (with pockets etc) the more well done you'll be. And whilst you're fast becoming an unexpected side dish to the usual Christmas fare, you'll also get a chance to notice ALL the metal rivets, studs and zips you are adorned with... which turned out to be quite a lot too much of a bit too many... *sad nod* :/ yes.

And then there's the issue of having a kitchen suddenly fill with people concerned that a screaming child comprised an injured party – before realising she wasn't and then perusing the scene before them... but with more general interest as to whether the rest of the food would be served up in the same manner as their hostess had started with the vegetables. This provided a somewhat mixed audience of people that I don't generally perform strip teases for people... *blink (puritanic mode)* no... and that is where I made my worst mistake... in not flinging my clothes at them with the same frivolous abandon that I had ejected my wits.

So... the moral of the story people, is don't be an annietdiot... okay? :) adorning 30 percent of yourself with first degree burns isn't much fun for a few days – but turning 18 percent of them into 2nd and 3rd degree ones - for the sake of manners is just plain stupid and will put quite a crimp in a lot of your days for some time afterwards. Particularly as your dignity has to be shredded anyway when your audience has to do your stripping off for you because you've kind of gone into shock... y-e-e-e-s... It puts them right off their food it really does... and whilst it's an extremely efficient way of losing around ten percent of your body weight in about 48 hours and puts your metabolism into hyper drive – I can't recommend the high calorie shakes *wrinkle nose daintily* because... well... they are *glare grumpily in direction of cupboard full of them* positively disgusting... and the complications people... *big rounded eyes of astonishment* there's so many to choose from, and no limit on how many you can have either, and all at the same time too which is quite a lot of multitasking to take on... *contemplative pause* and then there are the less well-documented complications too... *pensive frown* ... some of which I may definitely have slightly over-indulged in... y-e-e-s... but they predominantly have more to do with being a berk I think, than say, pneumonia has... but I won't trouble you with them just yet... :) because *snort disapprovingly at self* this is ridiculously long already...