Be Excellent To Each Other

We paid for a fence along the front garden, and to have an opening put into the wall between the kitchen and the living room.

The doors we got for free, bit of a sand and paint and they'll look nice.

We're pleased with the results so far

And some decent loppers with extendable handles to replace the cheapo ones from ALDI that have been used and abused. It felt quite nice to not buy the cheapest most budget things for a change.

Plus a drill powered pump which may or may not be a bit shit. I just need to to get the last of the water out of the kids pool. Last time round I disconnected the irrigation pump from one of the rain water tanks, but I think I damaged it

You live in the house from the opening titles of Neighbours, and I won't hear anything to the contrary.

I went to the sofa shop with Lady T and we bought a sofa. 12 weeks until delivery though.

We managed to get out without the kids, which was nice, as they are little aresholes in furniture shops, running about and jumping on things.

Together we chose the model of sofa, but then when it came down to crunch time and colour choices I got a bit flustered and found myself spectacularly unable to visualise anything other than all the light coloured things in the showroom, and I couldn't even really understand what Lady T was even saying; so I did the only thing that made any sense and quickly nipped back home to get my daughter (9) who is effortlessly stylish and cool compared to me, and has a good eye for colour and design. She straight away helped pick things and everyone was happy. I still don't really know what colours we ended up getting - I think it's like a grey-blue with a space of green. I'm sure it will look ace when it arrives.




It's been such a long time since I've seen Neighbours - I'll have to go and watch it.

Work bought some ergo stuff that I picked from the catalogue, replacing my scratty old mouse pad with something a bit better, as well as a gel thing for the keyboard and a funky sideways mouse. I've been getting a bit of wrist and hand discomfort recently and it was making sitting at my desk even more miserable.

I also repositioned the other stuff on the desk a bit to try and make it better to use. It seems to have added up to make a bit of a difference.

I kinda like the funky mouse, although it feels a bit less accurate.

Doors looking good! Must be much lighter in there now, I’m guessing?

Re mouse discomfort: Have you ever tried a different input device? I was getting aches in my neck and shoulder and tried a cheap(ish) drawing tablet and never looked back. MrsZ uses a trackball for work nowadays as she had problems using her mouse.

Yeah it's a lot brighter and airy feeling. Not quite as bright as we were hoping but it's still a big improvement and we are very happy that we did it. I quite like the distressed-dark appearance of the doors from the kitchen side, but Lady T was hoping to lighten things up by painting them white (and also painting the window frames and replacing the wooden venetian blinds with something that has a splash of colour).

She also wanted to sand/paint/do something to brighten the wooden beams of the ceiling (they are quite dark) but I said no, that's a lot of work and I don't fancy it.

For the input devices - I used a trackball sometime in school back in the mid 90s for like a few minutes so I don't really think that counts. Never tried a tablet, I had always had this assumption they were for creative things whereas I'm just dumbly moving, clicking and sometimes dragging. Perhaps I'll see if someone has things I can borrow and try before buying. I think a bit more physical exercise and being more mindful to take breaks and so stretches would also help me a lot.

I bought some Loopz to wear at concerts and they are brilliant

I love Loops. Are those the Experience ones? I have the Quiets which I use in crowded places to help keep auditory cPTSD triggers to a minimum, and they really do work with still letting me hear conversations whilst smoothing out background noise.

Never heard of those before. I really struggle with conversations in noisy places too.

Yeah, the experience ones. Absolute witchcraft. Love them.

I've got pretty bad tinnitus so I carry earplugs everywhere I go. I'm looking for the strongest noise reduction I can get. What are the strongest Loops?

It's insane how loud everything is out there in the world. How are people not getting massive hearing damage from clubs, bars and cinemas? The last gig I went to was obscenely loud to the point where the bass was feedbacking so much that it was rattling my skull. Like the other day I went to London and was in an outdoor eating area and for some reason a DJ started playing and it was insanely loud and it was 12:30pm and there were mostly just families there.

Luckily I've got my earplugs in a container on my keyring but even so.

The strongest Loops are the Quiet ones. They cut down background noise but let you carry on a conversation.

Have you been to a doctor about your tinnitus? My Pa has tinnitus and he was prescribed hearing aids that counteract it. Loops are definitely worth a try though. The Quiet ones are about £20 and often on offer.

They’re worth trying for the sake of £20 for the ‘Quiet’ ones. I find background noise overrides speech when I’m somewhere noisy, and I can’t distinguish or concentrate on the voice (especially when I’m not in a static spot and actively looking at the speaker’s mouth movements), and they really help.

Modern life is loud. I was thinking about this the other day, in the sense of why do people suddenly need aids to hear each other and feel comfortable around outside noise?

But things are demonstrably louder. A couple of times in the past I’ve come across reports of the historical increase in emergency siren volume, and how it’s had to be dialled up substantially over time because traffic and environmental noise has increased so rapidly.

Yeah the world is ridiculous now. Like when you walk past a JD Sports and it sounds like a nightclub. Like fuck that. It must murder your ears if you work there.

The cinema is the main one though. I guess it's to drown out people who talk during movies but it's ridiculous.

As for tinnitus and seeing the doctor. I did all that when it showed up in 2003 and had a month of worrying about it but here's the advice I give to anyone who is new to it. Don't bother. Don't fight it. There's no real treatment, there's no operation for it. Hearing aids will help in terms of boosting other frequencies to drown out the internal noise but the best thing you can do is accept it and learn to live with it. Mine is pretty bad but I don't think about it most of the time, it's just there. But the main effect now is that I have to be super careful with my hearing wherever I go. Like even to a football match, I'll wear earplugs. Luckily QPR don't score very often...

So, I don’t have tinnitus as in a ringing in the ears (though, strangely, I did for about two hours this Sunday. I woke up with it. I think everyone gets bouts of it for ten minutes or so, but this took a few hours to shift).

Anyway, back to what I was saying. Though I have never had chronic ringing tinnitus, about five years ago I woke up one day with the sound of someone tapping a drum in my ears. Both ears. But not in rhythm. Just a random pattern of beats every ½ second to a second. Loud.

Absolutely nothing stopped it, and it was all day and all night. I went to various doctors about it, was referred to ENT and various experts. I had something called Tensor Timpani syndrome. Essentially it’s a spasmodic contraction of the tensor timpani muscle in the ear. You know when you get a twitchy eyelid? Well it’s that, but in the muscle that controls the eardrum, and it makes and audible drum beat every time it spasms, and mine affected both ears every .5 seconds or thereabouts.

And I couldn’t hear. Just these constant from beats. I can’t lie. I had dark thoughts. I did stupid things to try and stop it. I considered purposefully rupturing my own eardrums. I considered ways to make myself deaf. Maybe just in one ear to halve the noise and sensation.

At one point via the ENT I was sent to a specialist as the syndrome is rare and nobody really deals with it, and honestly I thought that this was it. Maybe I was going to finally get this help.

I travelled to the offices and the expert say down and talked with me about it, and I started crying because I was in such a mess by this point, and she said she could help. And honestly I could have kissed her. The relief was amazing to actually be offered help.

Then she pulled out a paper plate.

And she started drawing on the paper plate. Some shapes. She asked if I knew what they were. It kind of looked like sausages and egg? Yes, it was a fried breakfast. Now, apparently to most people this represented something wonderful, a fried breakfast. But imagine a vegetarian (imagine!) to them, this might be a horrific sight, because it represented something that they were morally against. Here, watch her draw another squiggle. Bacon! Yum bacon, or urgh, bacon! The same thing, re-framed through two people’s beliefs. And can I now understand that different people experience things differently because of their beliefs, and how can I apply this to the fact that you are having to shout this at me because I can’t hear you over the constant deafening banging of my own eardrums? Do you see? Do you understand.

I think I was blinking away tears by this point. Then she reached into a drawer and fished out a foam hand. Not a giant fun one like in Gladiators, but a flat floppy bright pink one. Here, she says. Each day I should wake up and use the fingers of this foam hand to count five things I’m grateful for in my life. Then she stood up, I thought to see me out, but no, to hug me. Then she showed me out of the room.

I went to the waiting area where Russell and Darwin were sitting surrounded by models of the inner ear, and just laughed. I laughed and laughed as Russell asked what help I was going to get and was I better now or was it something I’d have to return for. Then I got to the car and told him, and I cried the entire way home.

One day, during Covid, a couple of years later, I woke up and it had stopped.

I’ve had returning bouts of it since then, but shorter.

I don’t envy anyone with tinnitus. It ruined me. But I have so much respect for those who live with and manage their condition better than I did.

I am tempted to get a pair, as we have started to go to a lot mote gigs.

Open air ones are fine, I just stand further back

Bloody hell, Mimi! That sounds horrific, glad to hear it went away.

Yeah, it was a difficult time for all of us. I was the one physically suffering, but it took a toll on the whole family as I was so depressed and isolated. Got a foam hand out of it, though.

Every cloud…

OH! So I know exactly what you mean. When my tinnitus started about once a day I'd get a startling noise in my ear like you describe it. Like really loud. Thankfully not frequent like you describe but would always catch me out. And yeah, that was for a few years. Not had it in a long time. I guess that's what it was. Blimey.

Christ, that must have been awful.

I bought some Airpods Pro last year, and as well as the full noise cancelling or transparent modes, there's an adaptive version that's pure witchcraft.

It'll attenuate general background noise rather than eliminate it, so the world is there but less intrusive, but loud sudden sounds that you might need to do something about are still passed through.
You'll hear a siren or shouting perfectly, and if you start talking to someone it mutes the music and allows the conversation through fully.

It makes walking through a city centre a totally different experience

Yep, I do this too - just ignore it. I did see a Doctor who essentially gave the same advice - it's just ageing of the aural nerve or whatever, get over it old timer (and do have a look at the tinnitus society's advice, he said, which I haven't yet). Sometimes it's really noticeable and annoying, and I think back to a moment of total silence with a bit of sadness I'll not 'hear' that again. And much of the time I am busy with something else and don't notice it - it must still be there, but it's really odd how a bit of distraction makes it not noticeable.

Might need to get some loops for next year

We have a few gigs

Who's the bloke on the right?

I thought that sales didn't open until 9.00am, so how did you get one just after 6am?

Nice one.

Julie managed to get in the ballot for pre-sales, on friday.

The intensity of the posing in that picture of the Bros is amusingly ridiculous.

Manc lads, innit. Gotta look 'ARD.

As opposed to the other Bros, not quite so intense.



And although it says 'Manchester' on the ticket, real Mancs pronounce it as 'Manchister' or, in extreme cases 'Manchistoh' with the 'oh' rhyming with the 'o' in 'office,' not 'oat.'

Nooshooz

Do Tattoos class as bought?

2/3 the way though my new one

That's awesome!

Nice tatwho

Hopefully it will be finished in the next sitting

Bought a new freezer.

Russell didn’t want to pay the £5 for someone to unpack it for us.

Closest I’ve come to asking for a divorce.

We can spend that £5 now on yesterday pots in the correct colour for all the scratched paint on the walls!!

But did you pay for them to take the old one away?

We bought the next item for two reasons:-

1. The old one was old, (but as far as I was concerned, still working perfectly well).

2. In the three or four years that we've had the old kettle, my daughter has been unable to make a drink without tipping it so much that water leaks out of the lid and she leaves the spillage on the work top for others to wipe up.

Yes, I insisted on that much at least.

I hate my kettle. No matter how slowly I pour it, water pours down the side of the body. Russell says it’s because I pour it too fast, but I’ve done some experimenting just a few days ago (we’ve owned this kettle for 5+ years, but hey) and no matter how slowly I pour it, it still happens.

Water pours down the side until there is only a little bit of water left to pour, so I think it’s the angle of the pour and the reason Russell can pour it without it being a problem is because he never cooks. He’s far more likely to make a hot drink, which only requires a little bit of water to be boiled. When the kettle is full, as when I’m making pasta or similar, that’s when it’s impossible to pour.

Anyway, I hate it.

Russ makes the tea, then.

He does. He’s almost exclusively the drinks guy

Just pre-ordered a Retroid Pocket 5 handheld. Is capable of doing Gamecube and PS2 and is about 200 quid. I say I pre-ordered but actually it was Mrs Blucey who was just glad to have something big to get me for my 50th next month as I'm impossible to buy for because I basically don't want anything these days.

Maybe you need an additional pasta kettle.

A replica replica of the third kit for £12 rather than £60

Collar's wrong:)

That's the mobile phone pocket