Fatso

 Over the course of just one year I've put on 5kg in weight and 2 inches in girth. I have found the whole thing rather undignified and I've put myself on a gentle diet. The diet is called "no biscuits in the building". I'm still eating my normal meals, but I have no snacks or treats. No pastry with morning coffee. Nothing to keep me going in the afternoon. No biscuits with tea. No chocolate in the evening. No sweeties to relieve the monotony of long car journeys.

My weight is trending in the right direction, but since talking to one of my team I feel rather stupid about my diet. She has a very handsome and intelligent dog who's very popular when she shows up on video calls. I explained my diet to my teammate and she said "That's the same diet my dog's on!" The dog has put on a couple of kilos and is now no longer allowed snacks and treats. Just like me.

Richard "just kibble and water" B

Homeostasis

 I own a rather wonderful temperature controller. It has two mains sockets and a temperature probe. You could, for example, plug in a heating pad and a cooling fan to keep your pet lizards' environment in a closely controlled temperature range. I use it with a fan heater to keep from getting frost in my conservatory. I also thought I might use it for brewing projects.

I recently bought an electric under blanket and thought it would be interesting to connect it to the temperature controller. After some experimentation I'd say that 25C is a nice temperature to have your bed when you get in to it on a cold night, but that's not quite warm enough to pre-heat your pyjamas to a really luxurious toastiness.

On the first night I was experimenting with it I left the temperature probe in the bed. In the middle of the night I was woken abruptly by a loud bleeping and a dull red flashing. It took me a long time to figure out what was going on, but my body heat had warmed my bed up to 30C and it had set off the over-temperature alarm.

Richard "Your Lizards are in Danger" B

Dad Joke

 bolingblog.com has been accused of plagiarism. His words not mine.

Join the Ancient Yuletide Carol

 For context I used to go out with a harper, and I look back very fondly on her and the instrument. The best question I asked somebody on a first date was "so on a harp do you get seven notes or all twelve?"

I also have a lot of affection for the Black Sabbath song "War Pigs" because it's taken the general public over 50 years to notice that the cadence of the vocal melody is the same as "Deck the Halls" and now that they have the crossover is epic.

"Generals gather in their masses"
"'Tis the season to be jolly"
"Just like witches at black masses"
"Deck the halls with boughs of holly"

I like it when youtube throws me a curveball. I usually don't like videos of the form "x reacts to y". The real entertainment is in y, and watching x's face change as they watch the video, or listening to x whitter on about it doesn't add anything. However I was absolutely captivated by a classical musician reacting to the heavy metal song "War Pigs". This was a pretty middle aged woman with a harp and a piano behind her listening carefully to heavy metal from 1970 and explaining it. At one point she leaned her harp towards her and picked out the main notes that Ozzy Osbourne was singing to show us that it was an E minor arpeggio. At another she was trying to understand what Tony Iommi was playing and she was playing it on an imaginary air harp.

Richard "Blogger reacts to Classical Musician Reacts to Heavy Metal" B

Stripper Name

 The human brain is a pattern matching machine and some people can spot unnecessary patterns in speech. There was a guy I remember who was seemingly checking the cadence and emphasis of everything you said in case it matched "Old McDonald Had a Farm". If you were to say "My big brother got a car" he would instantly say "Ee aye ee aye oh".

When I was on holiday in Salcombe my niece showed us an even better filter that she can run over other people's speech. She can hear very quickly when a word or two sound like somebody's name, and she will claim to have gone to school with them. "Your objection is duly noted". "I went to school with Julie Noted!".

Richard "I went to school with Sarah Tonin" B

Fry Up

 After all why not? Why shouldn't I go to bed now and leave this massive pile of washing up until the morning?

On Saturday I found myself speedrunning "Make and Eat a Cooked Breakfast". One of my friends had agreed to come climbing with me, we were to meet for breakfast at the local supermarket, and then drive to the climbing wall where he had an induction booked. When we got to the counter to order breakfast we discovered that there was a 30 minute wait for food and that would have made us miss our booking.

We were already in a supermarket, and we were close to my house. In 18 minutes I bought bacon and eggs, donned my motorcycle clothing, rode home, cooked 6 rashers of bacon, fried 2 eggs, made 2 slices of toast, and served a reasonable breakfast. The cooking was done at the same time as taking off my motorcycle clothing. I turned the stove on still wearing the helmet, the bacon went in the pan while I still had the jacket on, and I think I was still wearing boots when I sat down to eat.

Richard "My Kitchen Was Embarrassingly Untidy" B