First off, you’re a site that covers Denver. I live in Southern California. I doubt I’ll find any ads that are going to be relevant to me, unless I fancy making a 15-hour, 1,000 mile drive to buy a bagel. I would never even have visited your site until I happened to read a comment on Reddit recommending a story on your site (and it must be said, the story was excellent ). And when I click that link, I’m asked to switch off AdBlock because you want to load 213 ads? And no, I ’m not picking on you specifically. I just could not believe you wanted to load more than 200 ads onto a single page. A dblocking is something websites brought upon themselves.  They decided that intrusive and annoying popups were a good idea. They decided that Flash ads that cover most of the screen and sit there for 15 seconds with no way to close them were a good idea. They decided that obnoxious autoplay videos were a good idea. They decided that putting a thousand lines of tracking scripts at the top o...

I spotted what I thought was a bloody big swan on the lake at our apartment complex before realising it was actually a pelican. Three of them, in fact. So I grabbed the camera and headed outside. One of them is tagged so I guess it’s being tracked or something. About an hour after I took those shots, I could hear splashing in the lake so I headed back down to find them chasing one of the koi that live in the lake. About an hour after I took those shots, I could hear splashing in the lake so I headed back down to find them chasing one of the koi that live in the lake. They work in tandem (the third one was elsewhere) to chase the koi and do a good impression of being prehistoric death machines while doing so. This koi almost became lunch but managed to escape.

A-Lo bought me one of these as a surprise on the grounds that I’d “probably” like it as I’m British and “you guys have those Pot Noodle things and this is just like it only Japanese”. That’s a bit like saying an Old El Paso quesadilla kit is up there with the local taco place, but I’m willing to give it a go in the name of food. Unidentifiable bits of freeze-dried processed things covered in sand? Check. I think we could be on to a winner here. PROTIP #1: Microwaves are for losers. PROTIP #2: Always check the instructions after you’ve added the boiling water. PROTIP #3: The fact you threw the lid in the bin is of absolutely no importance. Just use a random bit of paper. This is what the primordial soup must have looked like, only with less green bits. Three minutes later and it’s ready to eat. All finished. So is it up there with Pot Noodle’s finest? Not quite — the Pot Noodle has a better curry taste — but apart from that it’s pretty much indistinguishable...

Artist: A. Seagull Year: 2018 Media: Concrete/poop/leaf

I’ve been wanting to get a new keyboard for a while now, partly because I wanted to swap out the one I use at work but mainly because acquiring something new and shiny helps fill the aching chasm in my soul. I ’ ve had a Logitech K750 Solar keyboard for a while now and although I love it (it’s my second one), my corner of the living room doesn’t get much sunlight. This isn ’ t a problem when using the keyboard for typing or work, but since I recently got back into playing games I ’ ve discovered that holding the forward key down all the time wipes out its battery, meaning it has to sit outside in the sun to recharge. So I took it to work and plugged it in there as I have more sunlight in my little corner of the office, along with hypothermia thanks to the air conditioning vent right above my desk.  I brought my Logitech K520 back to use at home but, although it did sterling service at work, for some reason I went off it. I thought it was too chunky for my IKEA desk and t...

This is a post inspired by one of those times where you find a folder of photos on your external hard drive and can’t for the life of you remember where and when you took them. I’m pretty sure this is somewhere in the Forest of Dean and the pics were taken on a trip back to the UK. But as the photos are cropped JPEGs instead of the original RAW files there’s no EXIF data to give me a year. Why I’m telling you this is beyond me so I’ll shut up and just show you the photos. Just for the hell of it I Googled F.J. Edwards and found this page that says the company made mining and engineering equipment, which makes sense as there was lots of mining in the Forest of Dean. Their address looks like this now: I also Googled the American Tool Works Co. and found this page . How this whatever-it-is ended up making its way from Cincinnati to Gloucestershire is anyone’s guess. I’ve sent the photo to vintagemachinery.org to see if they want it or can ident...