Why does almost everyone on WP have the inherent need to use over processed AI images?
Of all the many trillions of photographs already out there, it surprises me that people become reliant on images that look false, are patently over processed and that don’t look the slightest bit realistic.
Technology is a good thing but in my opinion this is a step too far, it’s unreal, it’s not realistic and people are preferring to create a life in photo form that they would like to see, rather than what they do actually see. Life unfortunately isn’t as perfect as the AI gods would have us believe.
I guess my many decades in this particular trade amount to nothing and I just see it as pure laziness to use such techniques. In a few words I can have a perfectly presented representation of a smiling cherub like child in the most perfect sun infused and idilic environment, that in all seriousness is as false as a suspended ceiling in a Victorian property. It’s just not right.
Yep you’re right I don’t like it, condone it and will never use it. My choice, my blog. I’ll never see it differently I’m afraid.
Take the time to either obtain a picture that someone has spent good time composing, and working hard on to get right, or just go out there and do it yourself. But that’s the problem isn’t it? Technology has made us lazy, let’s leave it to someone/thing else.
I know let’s use a faceless blind computer with overactive memory banks.
I was asked a really strange question today by a work colleague, god knows why and what even came over him to ask such a question, so why not share it on here. Its probably now that people will decide to dislike me en mass, and desert this blog in droves but hey, its probably a better question than what WP ask us on a daily basis.
If people suddenly got paid for bad behavior, what habit would make you a fortune?
Windy
As I’ve got older I’ve become a lot “Windier” probably my poor diet or just something that happens when you start to peak in the age stakes. If I was being paid to fart on demand than I guess that’s probably the bad habit that would earn me the most income. It would probably go some way to preserving the countries gas stocks, and the wind turbines would be spinning for quite a while longer.
What is the oddest way you ever accidentally hurt yourself?
I had this question my head and thought it would be good to post here. My mum, bless her soul was a beautiful presence in my life but her cooking and ironing skills were questionable. Back in the days when it was fashionable I brought a lovely parachute effect baggy shirt from “Top Man” these shirts were made fashionable by the likes of Rod Stewart and David Bowie in that they were baggy and naturally very creased. I think I paid what was about £25 for it at the time and that was quite a layout in the early eighties, it used a fair amount of my wage packet for that time. I had one use of it at the local nightclub before it went in to be washed, mum did the business on it and it came back totally creaseless as she had ironed every single crease out of it killing the shirts appeal instantly, and now making it into a grossly oversized formal shirt. “That was a bugger to iron” she stated, only for me to inform her of how it should look and my inherent disappointment of what I now possessed. Her reply was short and simple, “You can do your own bloody washing and ironing from now on then.” And that was how it turned out. From that point on I became an independent teenager.
Here’s where the story starts.
One night I was doing the ironing, I was standing with nothing more than a pair of nylon running shorts protecting my dignity, whilst happily singing along to the radio ironing my latest batch of washing. At some point i foolishly leant across the iron to pick something up, when the hot iron made contact with the crotch area of said running shorts and all I remember is howling like a wolf, and running around screaming at the top of my voice that I had burnt my privates. This brought Mum and Dad into the room, and howls of laughter from the pair of them as I had successfully welded the pair of shorts to the most sensitive area of my body. They were no help to me at all. As we had no car at the time father spoke to a next door neighbour and he kindly offered to take me to the A&E department at the local hospital. I now had two grown men in the car laughing at my misfortune.
A similar pair of 80s nylon running shorts
At hospital things didn’t improve much as the nurses were also laughing at my misfortune, I did however get the offending material “Peeled off” and that was not a pleasant task.
Arriving home later, slavered in ointment i was on the road to recovery. It was another one of those stories my parents enjoyed telling people of for many years to come.
I learned my lesson and made sure that from that point onwards I was always properly dressed when ironing. Underwear and a good pair of jeans are always used, and remain so to this very day.
Believe me the scar that remains is not one you can show off and boast about unless you wish to be arrested for indecency.
And therein lies the lesson for today. Us teenagers back then, very likely just as now, knew it all. We didn’t and they don’t. 😂
What is the most unbelievable-yet-true excuse you have ever had for being late?
It’s not an excuse used by me but keep reading as I was party to probably the strangest excuse ever heard.
I used to work at Kodak in Harrow, nth London. It was a massive production site producing photographic film and paper. I was a team leader on a machine called track four, that produced graphics arts film for industry, a sprawling machine that went through three buildings, went underground and then up through seven stories before being collected about 1500 metres away from where the process started. It was a massive piece of equipment.
Part of my responsibilities was looking after a shift team of around eight men, ensuring the swift and efficient running and maintenance of this machine and to achieve excellent up time results.
Occasionally people were late, it just happens. But one shift this guy was about 2 hrs late and he was called into the office to discuss his lateness. He was a great guy but always had some spectacular excuse to offer.
This evening apparently, his daughter’s hamster had escaped its cage and disappeared under a floorboard. Its escape meant some floorboards had to be lifted to recover the escapee, and whilst doing so the rescuer (namely the chap sitting in the office beside me) had to wedge himself between the floorboards and a central heating radiator. He then got stuck. The central heating then turned on and he then apparently burned his arse.
His wife rescued him before he roasted like a piece of prime silverside and then he was able to make his way to work. The hamster had succeeded in its escape bid and is now living in Brazil for all that I know.
So whilst explaining his misdemeanour to me, he seemed determined to show me evidence that I politely declined, however he was determined and in front of me in my office he dropped his trousers exposing his now rosey red cheek. And as if by magic at that moment another member of staff knocked and entered the office to see me gazing at the full moon that had been exposed to me as evidence. He left very quickly.
But I knew that this incident would now be around the team quicker than a greyhound around a race track.
Later that evening the name “Doctor Dave” was being used around the team. And it stuck for the next four years until the company closed.
I was expecting them to come, April is the month that they normally come out of hibernation and at 01:08 this morning the garden cameras picked up the movement of one looking for some grub.
Yes the hedgehog..
Our first hedgehog of 2025
This one is quite a sizeable one so I suspect it’s one of last years batch. We normally have the youngsters visit so I suspect they are yet to come, and this is one of elder lads and lasses that know where the food normally is, so they are doing their rounds to check what’s about.
We’ve a lot more cats visiting the garden now so I will have to put out a shelter where only the hogs can access, as the bloody cats will eat the lot.
Hogs return
Good to see them back, we are so fortunate to get them year after year and we are lucky as we are on a busy main road not far from the city. The garden has been developed for them with easy access, so I guess they know where a safe haven can be found.
I’ve read a lot lately about anger, and anger management and often ask myself, can it really be addressed? I don’t class myself as having anger issues, I’m more of an impatient person. In my teenage years I really did have anger issues and I put that down to my upbringing, especially my father’s influence upon me. He had vile tempers and when he blew the entire town knew about it, he had one hell of a reputation.
I think I’ve stated before that I have always had this fear of being compared to my father, and as I grow older, people see me now and even comment on how much I look like him. I really dislike this as I don’t want to be compared to, or even be reminded of him. I think I’m losing that battle.
So back to anger management.
I spent 6 hours yesterday working on a single circuit board. It had numerous issues and a raft of problems that needed addressing. 4hrs into it and I was getting a positive signal from it, and things looked promising until, the wiring loom melted. There was an issue that I should have first addressed, a school boy issue, but I jumped ahead of myself and it failed miserably after looking so promising. I’m so annoyed but remained focused.
Melted
I had a second spare board. So set to work on this. I’d learnt the issues from the first board so preparation was a lot easier and within an hour I was at the same point as the previous attempt.
And then I tested it. I had a signal, I had an image, I also had movement on the screen but it was very dim. Apparently on this board the backlight circuit decided to fail and that was it for this attempt. Damn it, I was bordering anger at this point and then I took a small break.
I begged myself to not get angry. What would this achieve, think of something good about today, and then it hit me. I’m failing, but I’m learning. Isn’t that a positive?
I have one more board. I’ve prepared it again to the point of failure of both the previous boards and I will get on to this today, this one took me 30 minutes, my speed is up. Then I stopped for the day.
I slept on it last night and have really thought it through, today I am actually quite pleased with myself as I have gone through what I learned yesterday and the knowledge I have gained from this one job is immense. I could still fail on this third attempt but looking on it positively I now have three boards as spares, I have more knowledge than I did yesterday morning and I’m now determined to accomplish what I set out to do in the first place. I’m not a quitter and this challenge remains just that. A challenge.
But the biggest achievement of the day was that I did not get angry. Anger achieves nothing, it alienates you and upsets others who don’t deserve it. Just because you are having difficulties there is no need to let everyone else know “You can’t handle the pressure”.
My first question in this post was, “Can anger be addressed?” Yes it can, but you as an individual have to deal with it, take a step back, and approach a problem from a different perspective.
We have choices, the two things we have total control over are our thoughts and our actions. We just need to be wiser in how we choose to mange these two choices, for your own personal good and for that of others.
I never want to be angry. I don’t want to be like him. Annoyed is acceptable, just don’t let it fester and develop into something a whole lot worse.
Uk. It’s early April and spring is in evidence all around. My favourite time of the year as I have previously discussed. The garden is starting to awaken and is gradually starting to show all its beauty that it has been hiding throughout the winter months.
The birds are vocal and we are very fortunate to have a large community of them around our small garden on the outskirts of the dirty old city. Blackbirds with their beautiful song, the small but lovely sound of the blue tits and robins, and then the raucous 40 cigarette a day sound of the “Chav” of the avian world the Magpie. Not to mention pigeons who’s soul purpose in this world is to sit upon any structure and have a good shit. 💩
It’s nice in a structurally unsound way.
Weather has been behaving itself during the day, it’s been lovely sunshine up to about 16 degrees Celsius only to fall to freezing overnight. The swing in temperatures has been immense for us, as the central heating is not yet dormant.
I’m saying this is spring but as usual it could just as well be summer here in the UK, we could well have had our quota of sun for the year for all I know.
Even the postman is confused. Normally the shorts he wears only come out for summer, and that used to be a good indication of the weather about to turn for us. Now he wears shorts all year round in all weathers so we can no longer use him as an indication of better weather approaching, it’s confused us equally.
It’s that time of year when your brain kicks into “Things you forgot about, but now need to attend to” mode. And for some unknown and unexpected reason I’m now very aware of a maelstrom of things that need my attention. It doesn’t help that the wife’s brain has done the same thing and she has now doubled my workload with the things she now wants me to do.
Did I say this is my favourite time of the year?
Yeah, it is and I love all this activity, it’s as if we humans are doing the same as the humble hedgehog and about to wake up from our hibernation, shake ourselves down and crack on with the summer. (Oh and I am awaiting the arrival of our first hedgehog 🦔 friends, who should be arriving anytime now)
Allergic reactions have been an affliction that have been part of my entire life, and still are. Fortunately my allergies are not as threatening as many that are present in society, saying that one actually is, but I’ve managed it well so far.
Hay-fever: has been a pain in the ass since childhood, the nice weather comes and my eyes stream and the snot flows (Not a pleasant sight and i apologise for being blunt in my description) I always think i have it under control and then it hits, usually after i have omitted to take the days dosage of medicine, so thats entirely my fault.
Asthma: this is the dangerous one and has to be monitored and treated seriously. Again I’ve had this right from Childhood, fortunately I’ve never had to be hospitalised for it, i have a good regime to treat it and medications are taken without fail and are always on my person should i ever have an emergency.
That’s my allergies and now i will get onto the reason i titled this post so. If someone told you to sacrifice something most dear to you to relieve or eliminate an allergy completely, would you?
Well it appears that after my most recent Asthma review i do have an allergy to pet fur. This both surprises me, and in hind sight, doesn’t really surprise me if you get my drift. We’ve had pet dogs for the last 35 years and only last year our last dog Alfie passed away. We have been pet free apart from the feral feline that resides in our garden now for about 8 months. My review shows that my breathing and management of the condition has improved immensely in this short period and compared to previous reviews this is the best i have been for almost 15 years.
Our dogs were the Bichon frise breed. Anyone who knows the breed will know that they are about as hypo allergenic as you can get in a dog as they just don’t moult. There are never any issues when they jump on the furniture as they don’t leave a trail of dog hair as many other breeds do, its one of the reasons we obtained this breed all those years ago when we did our research on them.
But the latest results from my doctor do make some sense. Alf suffered from a nasty condition called Sebacious Adenitis, basically an immune condition where his own body was trying to kill his skin. He was on drugs that are given to humans to prevent organ rejection and he had to be bathed regularly every two days, and i did this without question or complaint for the last 2 years of his life. I did notice that when i dried and brushed him, for a few hours after i would become very itchy on my hands and very reliant on my Asthma inhalers. The signs were there but I didn’t really make the connection.
My question is then, would you sacrifice something that you love so much and that gives you so much pleasure to relieve the discomfort of an allergy?
There are probably two answers here, and i fully understand both. If the allergy is life threatening then its a no brainer, the animals would have to go, it’s a sad choice but you have to preserve your quality of life.
For the person like me where it’s more of an inconvenience rather than a life threatening situation, i’d happily relive that time all over again.
We’ve decided that we will be having no more pets. This decision was already made by us simply because we believe the three beautiful dogs that have accompanied us through our lives, were in our eyes the best three dogs ever. They cannot be replaced and i would never want to get a pet to attempt to fill that role. However now, even meeting other dogs in our family circle my eyes swell and i get all stuffy, so the issue was always there, but it has taken the passing of a much loved pet to realise the scale of the problem in the first place.
No more pets for us then. It’s hard to say my life has improved since his passing, it seems such a wrong thing to say. But i must admit health wise i have improved greatly.
But I would sacrifice this well being at the drop of a hat for a little discomfort and more time in their presence.
First day off in a while recently. It was a lovely day and it was entirely spent with the wife. A lovely day but she had to put the mockers on it.
“Do you fancy going to football tonight?” She said, I stood looking at her in shock, what a way to ruin a lovely day.
Let me add some substance here, in that we are both season ticket holders at Leicester city. Anyone who follows football will now realise my predicament. We are not a football team really, we are a collection of eleven blokes who just don’t know what the hell they are doing on the pitch, however tonight we broke another record, the first team ever to fail to score a goal in eight consecutive home games. We really are the bad. We are dire. And we have a manger who is like a little rabbit caught in the headlights. He’s out of his depth, bless him.
Anyway I don’t want to bore non football fans as you don’t really deserve that.
Anyway I quite reluctantly agreed to go, so attired in the team colours off we trudged.
Game starts.
45 minutes later at half time we are leaving the stadium, we are 3 goals down, we have played awful, and the only fun and laughs we have had is listening to the away fans taking the mickey out of us all, they were very good at this.
It was disappointing to say the least, but do you know what neither of us were surprised or affected, we just realised that we had made a poor decision and went home and had a drink to laugh at it all.
And there is my question. When does feeling disappointed become acceptable and normal?
This is what the internet says;
Disappointment becomes “normal” when it’s a frequent, yet manageable part of life, rather than a persistent source of distress. It’s about learning to accept that not everything goes as planned and finding ways to cope with setbacks, rather than avoiding them altogether.
Google
And that’s what being a football supporter (At least at our club) is, in a nutshell.
Being so bad has taken us beyond being a persistent source of distress to becoming a frequent more manageable part of our life. And we just have to accept we are really that bad and take it just like a friendly slap on the back. Something is wrong at the KP and needs attending to.
Foxes Den 
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