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Patatap.com
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 241
A fun little website that converts finger taps/keyboard strokes into sound and light. Like a pocket synthesizer. I'll let you play with it and figure it out...
Link: Patatap.com
A Tramp Abroad - Mark Twain
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 179
An amusing recount of Mark Twain's Continental adventures. He's a fair-reliable narrator, except for when he isn't, but always he does a fine send-up of the customs and people's being described.
A fair example is this recounting of his witnessing a "Duel":
Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/119/119-h/119-h.htm#p053
You can read the entire book on Gutenberg online, and - while my edition at nearly 500 pages was not shabby, it lacked the hundreds of illustrations. Anyways, travel literature, of a more recent vintage.
Sunday, Food Poisoning
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 185
Sunday, a delicious ly-in, the weather outside - well, cold, rainy, etc.
Wake up, arrange the "Studio", begin my experiments. They fail, which is why I'm doing them, a couple hours of putzing around to no effect, but I'm quick enough to wipe down the boards, need to arrange myself a little better and try again.
A bite of lunch, as I've been using the sink to wash away my paints I content myself with a Festive Shrimp Ring.
Work, peaceful, then, around 7:00 I begin to feel it. Stomach, off, cold, fever, hot, chills, smashing headache, an ague. I have one table, property developers of the "Hell-No" Nelson variety, talking, not eating, they're going nowhere.
And I'm getting worse. My back, tight lines across my lower back, painful, like I'm being stretched, my stomach...
I'm done, I make it to 9:00, 2 hours later and this table, they're looking a little upset I'm throwing them out, but damn...
Home, bed. I die. All night the ague, fever, chills, cold sweats, was it the Shrimp Ring? Or the sausages the day before? I don't know. Fever dreams, of nothing, cardboard, seeds from ash-trees, nothing substantive, disappearing. I'm half thinking - the pounding head, shortness of breath, strange pains in my back, that I'm in anaphylactic shock, it's the dose that makes the poison, after all...
Monday, day off, the same. I wake around 8:00, survive long enough to get a haircut, then home to bed. All day. I wake, briefly, try and read, give up, back to bed. The same dreams, of cardboard, of garbage, fleeting, there's nothing...
I wake, make a giant chicken soup, eat it, back to bed.
In the evening, better enough that I walk over to friends, sprawl on her sofa, watch TV, inane Netflix, I've discovered it's purpose.
Then home again, today, better, somewhat, I could go to bed again, but 28 hours sleep in the last 36, well, it better be enough, today's my long one.
If I weren't so close to death I'd chat a bit more, but, well, not now, not today.
Mary Antoinette's Pocket Watch
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Treasure
- Hits: 279
Read the history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette_(watch)
On display in Versailles.
Bregeut has always been one of my favourite horologists. This, combined with the provenance...
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