It’s a Blog ! Not a Log !

Those of you who read my blog will no doubt have come across posts about our Cane Corso (Italian Mastiff) Blue, well I’m sad to say Blue’s been a little bit under the weather these past few weeks due to damage to her cruciate ligament in one of her hind legs.

She developed some lameness in her leg in May which was prescribed anti-inflammatories for and this seemed to do the trick, however at the end of June, beginning of July her symptoms came back, so after 2 visits to the vets and a set of x-rays we were told that she’d most likely torn her cruciate ligament and were referred to a Consultant Vet at North West Surgeons nr Frodsham.

So along came the appointed consultation where we were told that from what could be seen from the x-rays it appears that Blues ligament has indeed been torn, this was apparently obvious from the x-rays (not a vet myself, so have had to take his word for it), the next step we’ve been told is surgery and at present Blue is booked in to have the operation on the 13th August 2010.

We’ve been told the operation has a 96% success rate, but this all depends on how her recovery is managed, so for the first 6 weeks, Blue will be crated confined and only allowed out for her constitutionals and that’s it, then after the 6 weeks its a case of very slow, gentle exercise, which will gradually build up to a manageable 20 minute walk, and then over time hopefully build up to longer walks and fingers crossed semi-normality.

I can honestly say I am very nervous about Blue going under anethisia, as thats probably the most dangerous part of the whole operation, don’t know what we’d do if anything every happened to Blue, so fingers crossed, wood touched everything will go smoothly.

Will endeavour to keep you all updated on how our little Princess is getting on

kennys party 071, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Kenny reached the grand old age of 50 last week along with Andy reaching the 40 mark, so they had a joint party to celebrate and used the oppurtunity to get everyone back togeather again.

It was good to see all the faces from the partys togeather again having a laugh and just generally getting on, party kicked off at of all places Stretford Cricket Club, then moved onto Lisa’s flat, where drinks flowed and people talked bollox (mainly due to what they’d had).

We left fairly early on in the morning 5:00am so maybe not so early, but the party carried on after we left, ending only when John, Ben and a few others decided to place most of Lisa food stuffs in the freezer . . . oh and after Ben had emptied a full bag of flour over the sleeping Lisa’s head (not nice Ben).

Gotta say Kenny was looking good for an old man and no doubt has many years left in him, all the best Kenny and Andy

this time they’ve been helping the members of a local Age Concern keep fit and healthy, heres a few pictures and the press release :

FIT WITH THE OLD FOLKS!

Members from a Manchester based Age Concern group turn to the Wii Fit to help keep active

Members from Out in the City, a local Age Concern group have struck upon a novel way of keeping fit.  Leisurely walks, bowls and swimming have been usurped in favour of a new hi-tech training tool – the Wii Fit.

Four members, aged in their late 50s, 60s and 70s, visited the new wireless lite Carphone Warehouse store at the Trafford Centre this week and were given a demonstration in the popular game.

After the demonstration, the store donated the Wii Fit console and game to Age Concern so that members will regularly be able to use the different Wii fitness games, helping to keep themselves active and agile.

Thanks to the games console, they will now be able to regularly participate in Tai Chi, fitness programmes and can even monitor their posture and BMI.  For those wanting something a little more strenuous, snowboarding, skiing and dance classes are the order of the day!

Jane Barcoe of Age Concern said, “The members love keeping active and doing something different!  This is a great gift from The Carphone Warehouse and I’m sure we’ll have no shortage of people who want to use the Wii Fit.  This is a really innovative way to help our members interact and keep fit!”

Neil Sears, Store Manger of  The Carphone Warehouse at the Trafford Centre, said, “Technology can be a great way to connect with other people and in this instance a perfect way to keep fit too.  The range of technology on the market is expanding, and age shouldn’t be a barrier so our aim is to breakdown the walls and make gadgets simple for everyone.”

The ‘wireless lite’ Carphone Warehouse at the Trafford Centre offers a wider range of mobile communications such as laptops and gaming products too.  The store is one of four to be trialled across England and offering a new format, with expert advice and counsel given on all manner of high-tech issues and gadgets.

It seems someone is hacking MSN Account using a phishing/scam. It asks  you put in your MSN/Hotmail/Live credentials in the spaces provided and supposedly it will tell you how many of your MSN Messenger contacts have blocked you.

The site looks something along the lines of this:

I’m very suspicious any sites that ask for your log on details especially when I receive the link to the website  from a Hotmail contact whom I’ve not spoeken to in months or even years.

The website may look legitimate because its got the MSN logo and other MSN icons but beleive me its not a legitimate site.

So if you get an email from some asking you to log into this site or a similar site and it asks for your MSN log on details just ignore it, here an example of the email I’ve been recieving

“hiyaaa!

How are you? was bored so planned to write you …
anyway here you go
im sure its gonna be fascinating for you…

It’s Easy, Secure and Free!

Try it Now, Click Here”

Don’t fall for the scammers

Discovered a nifty little plugin for WordPress today called Twitter2Press it allows you to turn part of your WordPress blog into an image hosting service for all those pictures you tweet, you know the ones that normally got to twitpic or one of the other Twitter picture hosting services.

Its fairly easy to set up and you can be up and running with it on your blog in about 5 minutes flat, I’m using Tweetie 2 to post the tweets at the moment as this seems to be the only iphone twitter client that allows you to choose a custom image hosting service, though i could be wrong (feel free to correct me).

So what are the benefits of hosting your Twitter generated pictures on your WordPress blog, well for a start you don’t have to point links to them if you what to post them on your blog, there already here, not much of a benefit I suppose, it also in a sense allows you to mobile post to your blog using the medium of pictures, but the best benefit of hosting them is now people on Twitter are now being directed to your blog rather than some image hosting company, so your getting all that extra traffic, and all that extra traffic might just decide to read your blog and maybe even follow it, so it’s hopefully bringing new followers to your own little space on the interweb

Anyway time to eat the Tuna and Lemon grass stirfry I just tweeted about mmmmm yummy

Tweetie 2

Now this is something I’ve been looking forward to downloading from the iTunes Store, quite a fan of Spotify, use it a lot when friends are round our place, saves me having to dig out cd’s or try and find the tune they want to listen to to download.

It has much the same features as the online version and also allows you to download content to your iphone, which means if theres no connection where your going to be you can still listen to your favourite playlists.

Heres Spotify’s YouTube demo of the app

Looks pretty sweet to me

At the moment its a premium service, which if i want to give it a try I’ll have to subscribe to, so I’ll have to get me credit card out and get myself registered for the Premiumn Service I suppose

Spotify

Picture 095, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Did’nt really post to much over the weekend as I spent quite alot of it in bed, due to being called out to an alarm call at my workplace, was there from midnight Friday till 5:30am Saturday morning, so spent quite a while in bed recovering.

So seeing as most of Saturday was spent in bed thought we#d better do something on Sunday, was’nt sure what to do or where to go, but in the end we decided on Chelford Car boot.

Got there for about 12:30 and spent a good hour or so just wondering round looking for bargain’s but think we missed most of them, so just ended up buying lots of quaility cheeses instead, more about those in another post.

After leaving we thought we’d best take Blue for a walk and on the way back we chanced upon Styal Estate a rather good dog walking place, we’d heard about it before but never actually bothered to go look for it, really wish we had cause its definatly a dog friendly walk, lost of paths and fields for Blue to galavant in, I’ll stick some photo & videos up this weekend so you can see for yourselfs.

Anyway its close to 8:00am and I’d better start making my way to work, cyas laters
.

View outside the Horse and Jockey

Spent an enjoyable couple of hours sat outside the refurbished Horse and Jockey Pub in Chorlton last night with Mel and Blue, Mel had been there for a bit of a celebratory meal with a couple of friends from work and as is usually the case I came along to be the designated driver.

Got to say very impressed with what Peter and Simon (the new owners) have done with the place, and looking at the amount of business they’ve got so is every one else, the food looks very tasty as well, must say I’ve only had the Twice Fried Chips so far, but Mel had the Smoked haddock with potatoes (Baked in double cream, fish stock and saffron with layers of sliced potato), which was apparently very very tasty, no doubt in the coming weeks I’ll eventually sit down and eat something there myself, at the moment I’m eyeing up the Slow roasted boned breast of lamb (Rolled Breast of lamb stuffed with rosemary, garlic, thyme and golden sultanas, slow roasted and served with a thick onion, fennel and red wine gravy), mmm now if that does’nt get the old taste buds moist I don’t know what else will.

The two gents now running the Pub Simon and Peter seem quite taken with our little Princess Blue and may have ideas about getting a Cane Corso themselves, seems they’ve fallen for Blue and her Chilled out Bar/pub vibes, be nice if someone else where to get a Cane Corso in Manchester and after speaking to the pair of them they seem nice enough guys to be owned by a Corso.

The best thing about the Horse and Jockey though is that its dog friendly, something which alot of pubs are’nt anymore, so me, Mel and Blue give it a thumbs up and check it out yourselfs and see if we’re wrong

We’re heading to Thames Ditton this weekend to go see Adam, Sam and the brood, should arrive there around abouts 9:00am after a 4.5hr drive, just in time for breakfast.

Be nice to see Adam, not seen him for quite a few months and I’ve not seen Sam and the kids for about a year at least, no idea what the plans are for the day, but hoping some of them will involve lots of walking as we intend to get Blue fairly knackered so we can have a rest to.

As for Sunday we’re heading across country to Essex to a Cane Corso even being held in a place called Wittering I think, see the poster below for details and if your a Cane Corso owner/lover or just interested in the breed come check it out and say hello to Blue our Cane Corso

Come say hello to all the Cane Corso's this Sunday

The event starts at 1:30pm and finsihs around 6:00pm, so we’re going to be having a very late drive home afterwards, probably finally getting in and setting down around about midnight, I’ve booked the next day off work and Mel’s arranged to go in 2hrs late, she’ll make the time up later.

IMG_0389, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Driving home from Stretford and the Police had blocked the road both ways due to an accident on Lostoc Rd Davyhulme/Urmston, seems someone had an argument with a tree and flipped there car.

Can’t understand how you can hit a tree thats 2 feet from the curb on a straight road where the speed limits 30mph, either he/she was on the phone, distracted or had to swerve for something, no other cars involved.

Ambulance, 2x Police Vans and Fire engine in attendance, don’t think anyone was to badly hurt.

Thxs to the wonders of mobile phones I twittered there and then, photo’s were taken on my iphone and uploaded to twitter and twitterpic via twitterfon.