Wouter's Blog – Page 57 – Who said it was your cheese in the first place?

Happy as Larry

So we have this somewhat crazy cat. We think he suffered brain damage when he was little, Tanya rescued him from a bunch of little hooligans in Kuils River, and it took some really good vetting work (Four Ways in Sun Valley, Fish Hoek) to pull him through.

Anywayz, so it was time to bring him through from Bellville, where he’d been living for the past couple of years (chasing “my” cats, Benny and Joon, to go live with my parents, but that’s another story). When he was little we took him everywhere — to Bellville, often, and to Gansbaai in the Rand Lover, and so forth, and so on, so he doesn’t mind cars much. Just don’t put him in a basket.

I also packed a whole lot of other stuff that had to go through, but the front seat was free… nope, he wanted to be on the mattress in the back. It got a bit stuffy after a while and he was a bit upset, but Baden Powell drive runs next to the sea so I opened a window and all was fine again.

I asked the ladies at the pet shop about relocating cats, the one said “keep him inside for a month” and the other said “make that three months”. Hah. We kept him inside for almost two whole days and he’s fine. He’s been slowly expanding his explorations (I believe one should never carry a cat from one spot to the next, they need to walk there themselves to memorise the route and the way back) to the point where the neighbours’ yards are next.

Now to teach him to use the cat flap. And to sleep at night.

(Picture of Benny by Tanya)

2008-12-25 by wrm Uncategorized 1

Braaivleis, Rugby, Sunny Skies & Chevrolet

To tell you the truth, it rained yesterday evening. December isn’t what it used to be. But we’ve managed to braai a few times already, and more of the same is planned for the next week or so — life’s good as long as the beer holds out. And I’m really enjoying Marko not coping with his summertime decision to move to a snow zone.

In contrast with the fact that it’s high summer, SWMBO insists on turkey for Christmas. This is not your traditional boertjie Christmas fare, I grew up in a leg of lamb kind of house. I’ve managed to make a few decent turkeys in the past couple of years, and the leftovers get frozen and made into stock, and we end up making risotto in June after discovering more turkey in the bottom of the freezer. This year I’m brining the turkey in vinegar, which is a bit of an experiment, since our turkeys come pre-basted from Brazil, and one’s supposed to brine a non-pre-basted bird…

Turkey, gravy, roast potatoes, and brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts is [1] nowhere near in season. It’ll have to be frozen stuff.

Of course having a vegetarian teenager around is a new challenge. Did you know that packet gravy is vegetarian? Saves a whole lot of hassle, that does. So we started making a nut loaf for Jessica last night. It’s a bit like meatloaf, with nuts, of course, and it needs to be frozen before it goes into the oven. Will see how that goes. Then we got pizzas and watched Taken, a sort of a vindication feelgood movie for the paranoid.

(And for those of you who don’t recognise the title of this post, it’s a Chevrolet radio advert from toeka).

[1] I think it should be is. And if it’s not, y’all be sure to tell me and I’ll phone the queen and ask her, OK?

2008-12-24 by wrm Farting around 1

The stupidest concept I’ve heard of.

Excuse me while I rant. Maybe I don’t get it. Or maybe things are different where these people live.

The word of the day is “flexitarian“. This, apparently, is a vegetarian who also eats meat.

…

[Long rant deleted, because I cannot put my total bewilderment into words].

2008-12-19 by wrm Foooooood 4

Quick road trip

We had a bit of a booze-up at Amperbo on Friday, my brother had a few people over because the moon was full or something (actually it was his birthday but at our age we’re quiet about that).

So we looked and felt our best when we had to go to Knysna the next morning.

6 hours and 6 minutes of driving, 519km, at an average of 85km/h and 6.3l/100km according to the trip computer, which lies by about 1l/100km about these things. I normally get better fuel consumption but I was towing a parachute trailer.

The bottom half of the display cabinet we took to Knysna is on the trailer, the top half is inside.

Saw a nice looking Forward Control in George.

In Knysna we swapped the display cabinet for a dining room table, and then we drove all the way back again on Monday.

But at least we now have a dining room table :-)

2008-12-17 by wrm House 1

Filk in progress

On the first day of Christmas,
Fish Hoek sent to me
A honking south eastern wind storm.

On the second day of Christmas,
Fish Hoek sent to me
Two slammed doors,
In a honking south eastern wind storm.

On the third day of Christmas,
Fish Hoek sent to me
Three dust devils,
and two slammed doors,
In a honking south eastern wind storm.

On the fourth day of Christmas,
Fish Hoek sent to me
Four rain storms,
Three dust devils,
and two slammed doors,
In a honking south eastern wind storm.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
Fish Hoek sent to me
Five broken windows,
Four rain storms,
Three dust devils,
and two slammed doors,
In a honking south eastern wind storm.

On the sixth day of Christmas,
Fish Hoek sent to me
Six rooftiles flying,
Five broken windows,
Four rain storms,
Three dust devils,
and two slammed doors,
In a honking south eastern wind storm.

(Work in progress, but lemme tell you, if you don’t like wind, Fish Hoek is not for you).

2008-12-10 by wrm Farting around Geek 3

Curmudgeon-ette

Deb posted a recipe that looked interesting. So I mooshed everything together, stuck it in the fridge, stuck it in the oven the next morning.

Tanya took one look at this, said “This is not French toast, it’s bread and butter pudding… I don’t like bread and butter pudding!”

Now, to be fair, this recipe does more resemble bread & butter pudding than the traditional savoury French toast we’re used to — I’ll have to try it again, in savoury mode.

2008-12-07 by wrm Foooooood 2

And you ask why my back is sore?

[SFx: Cannibals, Mark Knopfler]

I was on my way to Bellville when they phoned to say the shower door had arrived.

So we checked to see if it fits in a Golf 4 Estate.

It does… but the driving is… interesting (it’s 60km from Bellville to Fish Hoek).

2008-12-05 by wrm Farting around 0

Small World

I should have blogged the start of this story when it happened… I had the dominos, and I had a gas bottle, and I even had some spare flexible gas pipe, but I needed the bits to make it all work.

So I went by the Gas Appliance Centre in Lansdowne Road, with a domino in hand. Girl behind the counter (whom I can totally go in for, except she smokes) takes one look at this, says “yea, you need a hose barb female with a *mumble* thread, they come from the factory with a *mumble-something-else* thread, we have a tap, we can fix it… but we’re out of stock… come back in two days’ time”.

So after checking back a few times they get the fittings into stock (this place is sort of on my way to / from Lansdowne Boards so it’s no hassle). And I buy the two fittings, a T connector, a regulator and a bunch of pipe clamps.

All of this is currently doing duty making the gas dominos work over at the house (there’s still a bit of a leak I need to sort out though).

In the course of this all I spot that they also have cast iron woks, but small ones. Which is a Good Thing, since this was only days after Tanya bought me the Le Creuset. And I spot the corrugated vent pipe they use to vent gas geysers to the outside world. Figuring I could use this to join the miss-applied sewerage pipe to the extractor fan, I ask for a small bit of it. And she says “yea, my brother has off-cuts in the back of the bakkie, I’ll ask him to leave a bit here for you”.

And since then I’ve checked in a few times but the transfer from back of bakkie to under counter had not yet been made.

Which brings us to the other story. I removed four fans, actually, I lie, I removed two fans and the previous owners left us two fans which they removed or never fitted or whatever, from the bedrooms. That still leaves two fans in the house, previous owners were serious fans of… fans. Anyway, stuck the fans on Gumtree. A month or so later this girl phones, says she wants two fans, and she’ll send her cousin or friend or something to collect. No worries, say I, and I stick the fans in the back of the car.

So this morning a fellow pitches, says he’s here for the fans. And he drives a Gas Appliance Centre bakkie. Ahah!

So now I have the bit of corrugated pipe I need to finish the extractor fan installation :-)

2008-12-04 by wrm House 0

Prep bowl

We bought a nice prep bowl at the Muizenberg market.

Then I redesigned the kitchen, and the counter became too narrow for that prep bowl.

Then we started looking for prep bowls to fit the narrow counter, with little success.

Until we went to the Hout Bay craft market, where we found these two bowls:

We both liked the left-hand one more than the right-hand one, but due to the way the clay is fired to get the finish, the right-hand one is slightly smaller.

So we went back home to measure. And I figured that I could make the shiny one fit.

The hole is just inside the cupboard front edge, and it overlaps the batten at the back, but the bowl curves, so it fits, with a centimeter or so to spare.

And then I could fasten the top to the base cupboards, and fit the tap. Yay!

Supper last night was spaghetti Bolognese, Michelle’s recipe via Alosha. And I mixed some speculaas dough, it’s in the fridge, will stick it in the oven tonight.

2008-12-02 by wrm House 0

WordPress meta-geekery

My brother is running a WordPress blog with multiple authors. “Editors”, in WordPress terminology. He actually needs a content management system like E107 or Drupal, but he knows WordPress and it works for him.

But, he wants static pages, one or more per user, and of course each user should only be able to edit his own pages. Strangely enough, there doesn’t seem to be a WordPress plugin for this. Comments welcome, let me know if there is.

The following fix might work, it eliminates the link to edit pages if you’re not the right user. Of course this is low security.

wp-admin/includes/template.php

case ‘title’:
?>
<td><strong>
<?php
$user=wp_get_current_user();
if (get_the_author_ID() == $user->ID) { ?>
<a class=”row-title” href=”page.php?action=edit&post=<?php the_ID(); ?>” title=”<?php echo attribute_escape(sprintf(__(‘Edit “%s”‘), $title)); ?>”>
<?php } ?>
<?php echo $pad; echo $title ?></a></strong>
<?php if (‘private’ == $page->post_status) _e(‘ — <strong> Private</strong>’); ?></td>
<?php
break;

<?php
break;

I still need to add an exception so that administrators can edit user pages.

2008-11-28 by wrm Geek 0