scottishlass

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I've been putting off watching Star Wars The Last Jedi for ages. Finally have. Got to this bit in the credits and burst into full blown boo-hoo tears. Crying buckets.

Damn it universe, Carrie gone too soon.

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We will remember them

With all the world war I commemorations. Researched the grave of a fallen soldier commemorated in my mother's village who shares her surname but have no idea if he was a relative.

He died 10th November 1918 while serving in the Highland Light Infantry. One Fucking Day away from the end! RIP, the grave looks well tended in Belgium. One day. Make every day count. Carpe Diem

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God those white walkers are fugly craiturs

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Watching some hurricane coverage on American TV news and strangely moved by the inadvertent metaphor of this poor flag. After his Puerto Rico comments, Trump's version of what America has become - torn and divided. Sad.

Picture explore org via ABC news

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RIP Cracker

It's my birthday and my cat of over 15 years has just died peacefully in his sleep after a long battle with a condition that affected his balance. Strange mixture of emotions. Run free wee lad. Missing the little ball of fluff already.

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I'm watching The Simpsons 21x04 "Treehouse of Horror XX" Set myself the enjoyable task of catching up my backlog of unwatched Simpsons episodes so delighted one of the first ones contains a Hitchcock montage with Hermann's music

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Ken Dodd

Was just reading Amanda Barrie's autobiography the other day. Fun fact one of her first pro gigs was as a teenage dancer in pantomime in Glasgow with Stanley Baxter. She had a bit about Ken Dodd telling her he used to sell pots and pans round Liverpool. Paraphrasing "If you can sell a woman pots and pans on washing day...you can sell them anything - like a joke"

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Good omen?

Just setting up a new mobile phone and the number on the SIM card contains 666...thinking of setting the ringtone to the theme from The Omen

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Gruesomely fascinated by one of those ghastly infomercials for gym gizmos that you'll buy,use once then trip over as it gathers dust. Step forward the squat magic. Best I can think of to describe it is a bullworker that you sit on...god now there's an accident waiting to happen, assisted squats? A spring under your bum? Jeez haud me back.none of their models look overweight let alone obese, can't think why...mind you making me weirdly mildly nostalgic for space hoppers - much more fun

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I don't believe it

Just realised the cat is a nervous Scotland fan like myself. As soon as the kick off whistle went he went to his bed as if "I can't watch". Then dying minutes of match Scotland score and he emerges to sit in front of the telly to watch the win for the last five minutes. Sorry Scotland and win in the same sentence a bit of a novelty. I kind of decided at the start of this campaign to opt out of watching most of this one. In spite of all the cardio I do my heart canny take it, it's been broken so many times by the emotional rolla coasta of watching Scotland. Well wee Gordon's got us on the brink of qualifying for the first time in decades. Our fate is in our own hands. Just bloody win will ye. If there's a difficult, excruciating way to do things we always seem to find it. The long suffering tartan army so deserve to invade Russia. And will someone bin those diabolical pink shirts its like we got a job lot of off cuts from a batch of material for high-viz jackets by mistake, almost as embarrassing as the bumble bee stripe across the backside on the shorts years ago.

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Fourth quarter, one last push

Yikes October already! Had a real wobble of confidence in my target goal. Thought giving it a full calendar year was a decent amount to try cracking it. Getting a bit more pessimistic now. It's been almost three months since my 2K pb and since then the closest I've come is 10s behind that let alone improving on it. Of course I could blame illness, hadn't factored in losing at least a month to a couple of sinusy things and going cautiously after some twinges in my back. Amazing how much momentum gets lost each time. Tempted to add another month to my timescale that would allow for extra training over the holidays but would it not be moving the goalposts on the original challenge? There's the longstanding tension between the standard advice being for more steady state with the extra time commitments if you want to go down that route Vs my chronic problem of still not generating the kind of power each stroke I would like so would building more strength via muscle be more beneficial to me? On the plus side I've tried to do more leg exercises trying to build up my quads and at long last am starting to see the tone change. When I'm short of time I'm picking my way through the suggested sessions in the Pete Plan. What I like about those is the variety alternating the long slow sessions with hard short intervals of different varieties. Something else I'm trying off my own back is to try bottom-up starting from two minutes at the target pace for my goal each session after warm up adding ten or twenty seconds each day to the session duration then trying to maintain that split throughout. Dropping back ten if I can't manage it then trying again. I think subconsciously what I'm trying to do is find a way of getting more even split times. Still unsure about my best spm. My pb was at 28 but when I hit the thirties my stroke length always shortens even when I'm trying my hardest to row 'long' and when you don't have that much power to start with it has a pretty ruinous effect on the final time. Was so proud and surprised to complete a 2k at 32 but it was at least twenty seconds behind my pb. So I think I need to stick in the high twenties for my personal sweet spot for current strength levels.

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Pull like dogs

Just watched the Irish lightweight men pair win in the world champs with the most extraordinary rating 44+ for the majority of the race. You've got to love their guts.

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Couldn’t happen to a nicer company. I daresay they’ll weasel something on appeal but well done London for taking a stand against their disregard for meeting their regulatory obligations. Saddened by the number of young women who only consider price or think safety is only about “oh they have GPS tracking”. Without proper vetting and reporting abusive staff in the first place what good is knowing *where* you’re being abused?

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If you have the slightest shred of geek in you you'll love this doc about the cassini Mission. Thrilling too for the important role of female project leaders. So great hearing other women talking about science and engineering. A delight from beginning to end

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Palm Sunday

Totally hypnotised by the strength of palm trees in the face of the hurricanes, so few are snapping even in 100mph+ winds. We have truck loads of trees here that fall at just 60+ in our cities but those tropical bad asses are mostly still standing. Think if anyone's looking for a metaphor or image to represent resilience, palm trees show the beauty of evolution to adapt to your surroundings and stand tall in the face of adversity. Go palms!

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EVANSVILLE, Ind. — A southern Indiana farmer who created a corn maze with trails outlining the face of “Star Wars” character Princess Leia says he planted it to honor the late actress Carrie Fisher.

Jeremy Goebel designed the maze in February, more than a month after Fisher’s late December death, and planted it this spring using a GPS device. The corn is now mature and its trails outline the “Star Wars” character’s face, distinctive hairstyle and part of her upper body.

Goebel tells the Evansville Courier & Press that as a longtime “Star Wars” fan he “wanted to pay tribute to Carrie Fisher.”

The maze at Goebel Farms in Evansville, Indiana, honors Fisher with trails above Leia’s head that spell out “Carrie Fisher RIP 1956-2016.” The maze opens to paying customers this weekend.