Make me a sandwich, please

Downstairs is the garage holding several bikes, here are three 1980s-1990 Harleys, immaculately restored to concours condition, even oiltight after 40 years ;-) The beige Harley on the right has a sidecar attached and so is suitable for winter use (aka ice/snow). All are registered and insured and so can be ridden at any time. The empty space in the front is reserved for a new everyday bike due to arrive next month. The man-cave proper is upstairs, where a Hercules and a couple of Zundapps (p)reside. There is also a large table and very comfortable chairs in which we lounged. A powerful space-heater and a well-stocked fridge (beer, coke etc) make it warm, cozy and inviting. But enough about the man-cave.

Cries of "Make us a sandwich, please" led to the lady of the house introducing her surprise; we had used the singular instead of the plural "sandwiches", so that is what we got ! A single filled lye-pretzel, which was however over 2 feet across!

There were multiple sections with 6 various fillings, ham, chicken, camembert, smoked salmon, emmentaler, egg salad. Each like a six-incher from Subway. The brown colour of the bread is from lye leaching, it is not burnt. After we'd each had three or four of these, washed down with a litre of beer, we were all full! Feeds six.

So, Cop Car, this was MUCH better than Texas Toast ;-) Give it a try yourselves.

Suggestions for the man-cave included adding a beamer and a white projection screen for watching our biker movies and You-Tube videos; so we are looking forward to many a pleasant winter evening. Cheers! :-)

Comments (2)
Jenny (Ibiza) wrote "That pretzel reminds me of the movie 'Supersize Me!' ;-)" Back when that movie came out, Subway tried to use it a base for an advertising campaign for their product being healthier than MacDonalds. Without success.
Cop Car wrote " That lady either has a large oven or found an establishment to provide (and hopefully slice) the pretzel. How clever of her. I enjoy a fresh pretzel, when I can get one. COVID put a stop to trips to such places. I would consider a pretzel marginally more healthful than white bread, sugar being missing in the pretzel, but it is more fun to chew. I do enjoy a sandwich from Subway, and enjoy their chopped salads even more." Zach bakes the pretzels, she told me.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on January 14, 2022 permalink Comments Email

Bat out of Hell :-)

Liz has a piece up today about driving her husband's oldtimer Porsche 944 complete with photo. So this is an excuse to show you MY tuned 944 oldtimer, 1985 Targa edition, red, everything is manual from gearbox, steering w/o servo, to the window winders.
Not quite as fast as it once was, but still goes like a bat out of hell :-)

Well I've removed the photo of the 944 speedo on full chat because it looked like juvenile bragging. Which it was. Instead I'd like to say that Liz lives in the UK which has a blanket 70 mph speed limit. Here in Germany we don't, so a 944 can go well over twice that speed even if it is 37 years old :-)

Comments (3)
Liz (D) wrote " Wow, Stu, your Porsche is lovely and shiny! I will show the photos to Mike. Alfie is getting a little bit rusty around the edges, could do with some TLC but currently it’s difficult to get in the garage with cars and scooters and loads of other people’s stuff." I've recently rearranged our garage so 2 cars just fit by storing all the garden equipment etc elsewhere. BTW the shininess comes from polyurethane polish.
Jenny (Ibiza) wrote "I've got an LP by Meat Loaf, called Bat out of Hell :-)" As have I, and I saw him in the Rocky Horror Picture Show too.
Sarah (UK) wrote "Sadly Meat Loaf died thursday evening." Covid : I heard that too.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on January 12, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Thursday, January 6, 2022

USA, you disappoint me!

It has been one whole YEAR already since that orange shitgibbon and his authoritarian fascist cronies planned and executed a seditionist coup on the White House, which thankfully failed. And STILL you haven't jailed any of the ring leaders! The US justice department needs to pull its finger out and lock them ALL up BEFORE the next midterms/elections!

At least, start off by issuing arrest warrants!

And get the whole family for ignoring commission/court orders!

Also investigate VP Pence's role!

Somehow stop the corruption in the Senate etc.

Unrelated, stop the racist murders by US cops too!

Comments (3)
Karl (D) wrote "I don't understand that last pic." Took me a while too, until I noticed that all the bullet holes are in the black and none in the white pieces of the target of the police shooting practice :-(
Pergelator wrote " Found this wonderful line on Handwaving Freakoutery.
On the one year anniversary of this publication’s jump to SubStack, in the wake of the January 6th 'coup' or 'protest' or 'cute revolution cosplay' (depending on your media source) . . . I'm going with 'cute revolution cosplay' . " I liked Biden's speech and how he always said 'the former president' without naming him once :-). That pissed tRump off! :-)
David (NY,NY) notes "Jacob Chansley, the convicted 'QAnon Shaman,' was sentenced to 3-1/2 years for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021." One down, hundreds more to go. And I find the sentence too lenient.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on January 6, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Monday, January 3, 2022

STEM book tip

This book tip is for all my friends who also enjoy popularised STEM books.

STEM is an acronym standing for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. One of my favourite STEM authors is mathematics professor Ian Stewart, of whose many books (35+) I have read about a dozen. This one (ISBN-10 = 0465085989) is a soft-cover version costing €17.90 on Amazon in Germany.

Quoting from the cover blurb : "Most people are familiar with history's great equations: Newton's Law of Gravity, for instance, or Einstein's theory of relativity. But the way these mathematical breakthroughs have contributed to human progress is seldom appreciated. In In Pursuit of the Unknown, celebrated mathematician Ian Stewart untangles the roots of our most important mathematical statements to show that equations have long been a driving force behind nearly every aspect of our lives. Using seventeen of our most crucial equations -- including the Wave Equation that allowed engineers to measure a building's response to earthquakes, saving countless lives, and the Black-Scholes model, used by bankers to track the price of financial derivatives over time -- Stewart illustrates that many of the advances we now take for granted were made possible by mathematical discoveries."

The 17 equations whose history are covered are :-

Personally, I would have included e^iπ+1=0, making 18, but he chose not to.

Of the 17 equations I have never had cause to use either the Navier-Stokes equation (fluid flow) nor the Black-Scholes equation (financial marketing), but otherwise I've used the other 15 over the course of my 77 years, so yes, he made a good choice when he wrote this in 2012.

While some of his other books have more of a humourous touch, this is one focussing on the history of the formulae and their contribution to mankind's scientific progress. I was given it for Xmas 2021 and have finished it already. That's a mark of quality, so, yes, highly recommended.

Comments (1)
Schorsch (D) writes (I translate) "You're multilingual, so you might like this German maths book too : Pi und die Primzahlen: Eine Entdeckungsreise in die Mathematik, by Edmund Weitz, ISBN 978-3-662-62879-9, written 2021."

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on January 3, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Link to the previous month's blog.

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