Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

Suddenly, the scammers I mess with are trying a slightly new tactic. They are now claiming to own a fashion shop in New York (Manhattan to be more precise). I mean, like all of them. Funnily enough when I track their IPs, none of them are actually in New York. Few in Florida, others in Nigeria.

[Alex]

Taking Ash to the North Pole tomorrow to meet Santa. He's been excited about doing this since we took him on that train last year. I'll finish my shift in 4 hours, grab some sleep then hopefully the three of us will go out to it, although if Kristi isn't feeling well we will go without her. Really hoping she can make it. She's been doing better on going for walks and no longer needs to stop for a rest on the way back from our local shop.

Signed up for a course on Autism. I am in the middle of doing the first exam. Just trying to learn as much as I can to help Ash. It makes a change from taunting scammers too. 

Kristi is getting an additional treatment on the 17th now, which unfortunately means she'll most likely be feeling the effects come the holidays. I was hoping she'd get a break, but in the end of the day, if it helps save her life then I'll take that over the alternative.

It seems half the camp had their xmas do's tonight. All of them brought plates of food to the guardroom for us. Shame there is only about 5 of us in here at any time and there was no way we could make a dent in the amount of stuff we were given. It was late at night, and although I did try to contact some local charity to come get the excess they'd already went to bed so unfortunately the vast majority of it is just going to go in the bin.

[Alex]

Got around to finishing the first assessment a few days early. My biggest problem is that I don't know what level they are aiming for, so I am waiting for the returns to give me some idea on how much more or less I need to write to complete the course successfully. I remember not long after we got married, Kristi asked me to read over one of her friend's final dissertations for his degree. I guess it was some sort of ethno-logy or sociology, but anyway, he'd written about some native American tribe. I read it and said this man does not deserve any level of qualification for this junk. It is what I'd have expected from a 12-year-old doing a report for school and I couldn't understand how he'd managed to get as far as he had. Anyway, I refused to help because I didn't feel he deserved the qualification he was after. Kristi was a bit more merciful than I was and put him in touch with a university lecturer and from what I later heard, he did actually pass. I did not read his final paper, but the original had just blandly stated a few textbook facts and shown no real insight or understanding of his subject.

Mind you, much later on I'd find out the differences in getting a degree in our two countries and if I knew then what I know now, I guess I wouldn't have been quite as harsh.

Anyway, I dread the thought of submitting my stuff with and it being too simplistic, so I tend to write on the heavier side, but then knowing that I'll try and compensate and simplify it down again. My work will typically go through many drafts before I am satisfied with it. Heh, once I even totally rewrote an essay because I found out some information I didn't know when I first wrote it and it entirely changed my perspective on someone. My instructor told me I wasn't allowed to change it when I spoke to him about it, but my original assessment of the subject no longer seemed fair and I couldn't not change it. Nothing was said when I did put in my final draft anyway.

I have found out several things that I didn't know previously about (we've not experienced a meltdown with Ash for example, but being forewarned about it means I'll be able to deal with it better if it does happen) and had new ways of dealing with other things come up (which really is why I am doing the course in the first place. I don't actually care about the qualification, it is the information I can take away that I am after).

[Alex]

I remembered having a conversation, I think with Rev about US chocolate and how it tasted completely vile to me. Anyway it was this video that brought back the memory.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/25697293139878410

The guy in this video found himself in a lot of trouble when he managed to eat a Terry's Chocolate Orange the wrong way and attracted a lot of insults because of it (and Terry's have now released a video demonstrating the correct way to eat one), of which my favourite was "You absolute American!"

Anyway, the whole chocolate orange thing did make it as far as a national radio station.

Got three nights to work and then 5 days off, one day in work and that is me off until next year.

Where has the world gone when Weird Al does a 100% serious cover of Killing In The Name?

Watching my first Dr Who related thing for several years. The War Between Earth & Sea spin-off. I just keep can't help but think of the newer stuff as being a reboot rather than a continuation of the old series. Then again I had a hard time with Who after they replaced Tom Baker. To me he was peak Dr Who and it was downhill after that.

[Rev. Powell]

I guess it's because I grew up with it, but butyric acid doesn't bother me at all. It certainly tastes nothing like vomit to me, lol. I can eat chocolate with or without it. I will say that the chocolate without it tastes purer and somehow classier (butyric acid is an ingredient in cheaper candies). I prefer dark chocolate anyway.

[Alex]

Ever tried a Cadbury's Bournville? That is about the darkest chocolate that I like. When I was stationed in the midlands I had a friend who stayed in the Bournville part of Birmingham and I'd walk past the factory when I went to see him. The smell was awesome.

Its funny, there are several areas where world opinion is split on US produce, primarily I've found beer, cheese and chocolate where people living in the states think they are great and the rest of the world seems to find them to be anything from weak, tasteless, unpleasant or downright vile tasting. I am not quite sure just how much money you'd have to pay me to get me to put another Hershey's Hugs & Kisses in my mouth, never mind swallow it for example, but when Kristi sent me a bag of them over for the first xmas after we started dating, I genuinely thought her sending me that was her way of dumping me.

Occasionally, I've wondered whether this difference comes down to what you've grown up with and are used to, have people in the states developed different taste buds or what (nature vs nurture, I suppose).

With the UK having bought P8's and having facilities for other nations' similarly sized aircraft to stop off in now, we get a lot of US navy guys coming through the base nowadays, and it is always interesting to see their reaction to beers, lagers and ales here compared to what they are used to back home.

In the end I guess it doesn't really matter along as people enjoy whatever they are having.

[Rev. Powell]

Never tried that version of Cadbury's, we just get the eggs here around Easter.

American beer USED to be absolutely terrible, before the microbrewery revolution of the 1990s. Now there's plenty of great beer available domestically, though I imagine they still mostly export swill like Budweiser. The crap labeled "American cheese" is not cheese at all, it is an abomination. Wisconsin cheddar is great, though.

Someone told me they thought I would actually like haggis, but I plan on going to my grave without ever finding out.

[Alex]

I'd say that out of all the people who've said they'll never try haggis and then have tried it, the like rate is about 66 to 75%. It's just a spicy sausage. If you don't want to try it, fair enough.

For microbreweries, the US does stand equal with any other nation on that score, but anything they mass-produce seems to be awful. I'm not just talking about the exported stuff. I mean, I've spent about a year in total over there and I've tried a lot of different beers (my favourite place to drink was a microbrewery called Walkabout in Salt Lake City, no idea if it is still there or not but they did have a very nice drink that was also fairly hefty at 10%. With the way things are going I guess it will be a long time, if ever, before I could try and go back there). Budweiser I've never been a fan of, Millar I can tolerate or Rolling Rock. A lot of the 'exported' stuff is actually more produced under license and brewed to more suit European tastes (Budweiser as an example is brewed in two places in the UK using locally grown hops so we aren't getting the same stuff as you'd get from your local store. I do tend to view craft beers as being a different thing to normal beers though (just due to the economies of scale involved I guess).

Saw this in a book I finished reading earlier today BM by Alex Corbett, on Flickr

It's from a role-playing game called GURPS and this one has a background of 50s sci-fi movies involving atomic energy in assorted fashions and was published about 2001 I think.