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Det eneste rigtige

Når klokken er 11 i Danmark,
er den 5 i U.S.A.
10 i London, og 18 i Kina
og 13 omkring Moskva.

Hvor er vi danskere et udvalgt folk,
at vi netop er født i selve
det lille velsignede land, hvor klokken
er 11, når den er 11.

Piet Hein

In Denmark, as I suppose everywhere in EU, we discuss Daylight Saving Time or not. How, why and when to abolish it. This poem is "my" contribution to the debate. It was written by the Danish inventor, poet etc. Kumbel (Piet Hein) in the 1940ies.   An un-rhymed anglification added below

When it's 11 o'clock in Denmark 

It's 5 am in the USA. 

10 o'clock in London, 6 pm in China

and 1 o'clock around Moscow. 

We Danes are a happy, chosen people, 

To be born in the small,

blessed country were

It's 11 at 11 o'clock.

World of Warcraft - Madlavning

     Uglemor kan godt lide at lave mad. Bare ikke hver dag - og helst hvis folk (læs Ugleungerne) gider spise maden. Så er Uglemor også lidt træt af at lave pasta men tilbehør, pizza og tortillas - som altså er blandt Ugleungernes favoritretter.
Så fik Uglemor en kogebog i gave. Det er ikke fordi hun ikke har kogebøger i forvejen, ja hun har faktisk sin helt egen kogebog. Men denne kogebog er lidt særlig. Det er nemlig en World of Warcraft-kogebog

Westfall Stew. Ingredienser, Goretusk Snout, Stringy Vulture Meat, Murloc Eye. 

    Vi startede med at lave Westfall Stew den sidste dag man kunne spille Classic Demo - og det var en succes! Siden har Uglemor lavet retter med sære navne og umulige ingredienser: Steaming Goat Noodles, Braised Riverbeast, Whitercrest Gumbo.
     Det er morsomt at få Ugleungerne til at spise kål, underlige kødretter og sære grøntsager, bare man laver Westfall Stew, eller en af de mange andre sære retter fra World of Warcraft. Og hvis der ikke er opskrifter nok i bogen, er der over tusind madvarer mere i spillet. Så der er nok til adskillige års legende madlavning.

Grammatiktimen

 Uglemor irriterer sig jævnligt over ord og udtryk på diverse hjemmesider og sociale medier. Med inspiration fra Queen of Carrots kommer her en ny serie: Grammatiktimen, hvor forskellige sproglige særheder og idiosynkrasier der generer Uglemors røde lærerblæk, vil bilve taget under ukærlig behandling.

 - ✔ -

Grammar Commando - idea courtesy of the Queen of Carrots - but quite un-translateable.

 - ✔ - 

  1. lektion:
Når man får noget fortalt af andre, får man noget at vide. Jeg ved ikke hvor det sære udtryk "af vide" kommer fra, og det endnu underligere ord "afvide" slet ikke. At "afvide" burde jo snarere betyde at glemme noget.
     Så, nej tak Det hedder at få noget at vide. Med "at" og i to ord.

   2. lektion:
Når man lægger noget op på nettet, er det det, man gør. Ligger er det, tingene gør, når man har lagt dem der. Så de ligger hvor de lå, da de blev lagt!

  3. lektion:

Når man skal fortælle hvornår noget foregik eller vil foregå, altså i dag, i går eller i morgen og så videre, er alle tidsangivelserne to ord.

  4. lektion:

Når man skriver et ord, og stavekontrollen ikke kender ordet og gerne vil dele det i to, skal man ikke slå hjernen fra. Det er ikke sikkert at stavekontrollen har ret. Husk på at den oprindeligt er engelsk, og på engelsk er der mange flere ord der skal deles.
 
Prøv at teste det sådan her: "et rundstykke" "flere rundstykker". Her er det kun det sidste led der bliver flere af, ellers havde det jo heddet "flere runde stykker". Så derfor er det ét ord.

Det omvendte tilfælde: "En rund ring" - "flere runde ringe". Begge led bøjes i flertal, altså skal det skrives i to ord.

Lige et par eksempler fra dagens facebookopdateringer:

• Kaffe pose - flere kaffer poser Nej! altså hedder det kaffepose i ét ord. 
• Væg ophæng - flere vægge ophæng. Nej tak. Altså heddder det vægophæng i ét ord.
• Skuffe møbel - flere skuffer møbler, det lyder ikke godt, derfor hedder det skuffemøbel i et ord.

Fra en køb og salg-gruppe - find fejlene.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.

I am grateful for your inspiration, for your being there, for your writings, drawings, photos and fun.

Kaktus - Cacti

     Ligesom Uglemor er biavler, lige nu bare uden bier, er Skribenten kaktusdyrker.Der er bare ikke så mange kaktus i Uglebo for tiden, men han læser stadig kaktusblade, og Uglemor smugkigger. Det seneste nummer fascinerede Uglemor. Ikke så meget indholdet, men bagsiden! Der var et fantastisk billede af mange, mange kaktusser på. Her er en lillebitte bid.

- 🌵 -  

Just as MotherOwl is a beekeeper without bees, the Writer is a cactus grower without cacti.  But he still reads cactus journals, and MotherOwl looks in and even more at them. The latest number had the most wonderful cactus photo. Heres a small part.  

Uglemor tegnerde et mønster (på papir, her i Paint).       - 🌵 -       MotherOwl drew up a pattern (here transferred to Paint).

Og så strikke, strikke, strik ...                   - 🌵 -                    and knit, knit, knit ... 

Det var måske ikke så pænt alligevel. Prøve igen, Uglemor.        - 🌵 -       You can do better. Try again MotherOwl.

Nyt mønster, og strikke, strikke, strikke.        - 🌵 -           New pattern and knitty knitty, knit.

Så kommer der protrætbilleder.  En kaktus ad gangen.      - 🌵 -     And close ups, one cactus at a time.

  

     De er faktisk meget gode, men måske skal der holdes lidt mere afstand. To masker mellem hver kaktus i stedet for en.
     Det prøver Uglemor, når hun altså lige finder noget mere grønt garn.

- 🌵 -  

Actually they do look like cacti anyway. Maybe a bit mpore spacing, Try knitting  two stichtes between the cacti instead of just one.

MotherOwl needs more green yarn for knitting of cacti. 

Words for Wednesday 21. November -- Unicorn Farm 8

This week's prompts are provided by Elephant's Child.

- transparent
- solve 
- theory 
- loot 
- take 
- wing


and/or

- demonstrate 
- graduate 
- justify 
- strain 
- stain 
- blackmail

Once again I wrote a small chapter from my autobiography and once again I took up the additional challenge of using the prompts in the order they were given. 
We're taking up the thread almost where we left it. It's right the second summer at Unicorn Farm, holidays has ended, and Susan is home with the twins visiting. They are planning mischief ...
 
The transparent excuse, that Tue and Lis needed some time for themselves seemed to go down well with Susan's parents. The truth was more convoluted. Their plan, assignment rather, was to make a portal at Susan's place, or somewhere near it, to the Unicorn Farm. So that all magicians could go there even if they were as yet unable to teleport, or resorting to mundane means like trains or cars.

In order to do this they had to solve a lot of problems. The theory was sound, at least. But the doings ... all the things needed to complete the portal sounded like an entrepreneur's shopping list. They felt that they'd have to loot a nearby hardware store to bring home that kind of stuff.

But their pooled money did not buy them more than a fraction of what was needed, and stealing was out of the question, even though they could easily have done so, using their magic. They spend some time after almost every meal, discussing shovels and other digging implements. In the end, their problem was solved in the most unlikely way.

Linda, Susan's younger sister, who was interested in horses, make-up and boys - in that order, one morning asked them if they could come and help at the riding school. Lots of old machinery and stuff was theirs to take, if they gave a hand. An old wing of the place was filled with stuff left there by the former owner, and had to be cleaned out to give place for more horses and an indoor riding arena.
 
Susan's mother had always tried to tell Susan that her sister was a useful person not just a nuisance. She now took great care not to demonstrate her happiness now that Tue and Lis seemed to like Linda better with each passing day.

Saturday morning they all awoke bright and early. They put on their oldest clothes, Lis and Tue got some hand me downs Susan still had not grown into, and they all drove off with a boy from graduate school, who had borrowed his daddy's lorry for the day.

All day they worked hard to justify their stashing of odds and ends. They noticed the strain in the grad's eyes as they hauled yet another appliance into the stack for bringing home. He told them that if the appliances did stain his father's lorry, he'd be in for it. The twins promised to be ever so careful. They even borrowed an old tarp from the riding school owner to protect the lorry.

Finally the rooms were cleaned out, the old partitioning walls had been torn down, everything not reusable hauled to the local dump, and all the stuff the twins needed for their work safely stored aboard the lorry meticulously wrapped in the tarp. Pizzas and soft drinks for everybody rounded off the day.

Linda, Susan, and the twins carefully climbed down from the lorry as they reached home. The pause while eating and driving had stiffened thier muscles.

Linda took a bee-line for the bathroom, while The twins aided by Susan and Dan, the boy with the lorry, carefully carried all the stuff into an old playhouse-cum-workshed in the back of the garden.

"Tell me, Dan," Tue said, as they carried the last of the many items into the shed. "Do your daddy actually know that you took the lorry today? You seem so awfully keen not to leave any tell tale signs of use on it."

Dan's face went as red as a balloon, and he grinned nervously. "Got me," he said. "I don't know what made me say I could use it. Dad's in Sweden over the weekend. He's going to blackmail me 'til forever if he finds out. And he will. I'm sure, I forgot some little stupid detail somewhere."

"Come and have a cup of tea before going home," Lis said, winking to Tue behind Dan's back. They left for the house and Tue pulled out his wand.

Words for Wednesday - 14. November -- Unicorn Farm 7

This week's prompts are provided by Elephant's Child.

peel
justify
wall
employee
temperature
roll

and/or

volume
revenge
fraud
explain
weak
vague

Once again I wrote a small chapter from my autobiography and once again I took up the additional challenge of using the prompts in the order they were given. 
We're taking up the thread where we left it. It's the second summer at Unicorn Farm, holidays are coming to an end, and Susan is going home to attend normal school. Wizarding school is taking place during holidays only.

Susan found it hard to peel off her striped witch's skirt and once again face the normal world. But on the other hand, she found it hard to justify her black mood. She was not bringing her wizarding dress home with her, just to hang them on the wall. Heidi and the twins Tue and Lis, were not supposed to use magic. But Kai, father of the twins and Heidi, and a temporary employee in Winther's Summer Circus - he was a stage magician as well as the real stuff - had told them that control with the apprentice magicians was quite lax during off times. Susan imagined Heidi's mother's reaction to this. The temperature rose in her cheeks. But luckily, Sandra was not her mother. Only her best friend's mother. And even if Heidi and her siblings claimed that Sandra could foresee the future, at least for a small amount of time, Susan was not the least afraid of her and she always just let her many words and admonitions roll over her head like so much noise. She suspected that the twins did the same.

Susan's mind touched the old volume of cantrips and minor spells that she had checked out for reading during normal school time. She would have her revenge on those teasing class mates during the coming term. But then she remembered the words of Thora, the ancient, but energetic and lovable Icelandic teacher at the Unicorn Farm from their first day ever at Unicorn Farm: "You are all apprentice wizards, but apart from this, you're all different. And that is normal. You are here on Unicorn Farm to be taught the use of magic. And by use, I mean USE not abuse." Susan remembered Thora's black piercing eyes. She felt as if they had looked right into her soul. Susan suddenly felt as a fraud. If she ever did any of what she had planned only seconds ago, she was sure that sooner or later she was going to have to explain her actions under the scrutiny of these black eyes. Her knees felt weak and she had to sit down.

After sitting for a while Susan got up again. She had a vague feeling of barely having avoided something very dangerous. She promised herself then and there that she would only ever use her magic to help and amaze, never to hurt.

World of Warcraft Classic

MotherOwl has dusted off her old World of Warcraft-skills. We bought a virtual ticket so that we could try out WoW Classic. So far it's as good as I remembered.

It is tough!
I have already been killed many, many times, even though you start out in green gear (That's magical gear, that gives you extra strength spellpower etc) with a very small chance of substituting it. Lots of things are still missing with only Westfall/The Barrens to run around in and starting at level 15½. You're given set professions e.g.. all Paladins have mining and Blacksmithing. There's no cooking, fishing or first aid, as there's no trainers - which I miss immensely as that was a big part of my pleasure in Vanilla. 

Reporting for duty. 10 points if you recognise this place.

 I LOVE IT!

My new hunter doing one of my favourite Quests in Westfall.


Of all the things I miss in World of Warcraft levelling at a slow pace, doing only the Light knows what along the road is the most important.
In Vanilla you could go fish, learn one or two professions, study cooking and always you were able to find more recipes to buy or learn, one more fish to catch or one more herb to pick while levelling. How much other stuff you do, is (was) up to you - you could level entirely by cooking, as farming for ingredients would take you surely, but very slowly to max. level.



One of the other things, I remember with joy, was named elites dropping gears named after them. I defeated Brack - the running murloc, and had his claw as a dagger

 

Nice little weapon, perfect for the well-dressed Hunter. 

I also defeated his bigger brother Slark with my Hunter, and had his Slarkskin. But as Slarkskin is a mailcoat, I sent it to my Paladin, who proudly wears it here:

Nice looks, tough armour. What's not to like here?  

I also met Vultros, a level 26 elite. But he killed me and my faithful pet in seconds.  4 of us grouped up and defeated him. The item he dropped was for level over 20, it was not his signature gear, and our group leader won it - totally fair, he deserved it.

Did you notice the strangely black hands of my Hunter in the character shot? She's wearing yet another piece of signature gear: Ghoul Fingers, named after Lepritus, the ghoul, who - together with two of his fellow ghouls - haunts this small grave after dark.  

I have enjoyed my stay in WoW Classic immensely, and I am looking forward to the day this Summer, where I can play from level 1 to 60. See you in 2020 after that. 😀

A lot of us waiting for the world to end at the pier in Ratchet.

TUSAL november 2018

Linking up with Daffycat.

     Min spand med stupmer, og hvad jeg brugte dem til. Først et mangefrvet græskar med hvide striber. Jeg er ikke rigtig tilfreds med det. Sidste år hæklede jeg indtil flere græskar, og de blev anderledes pænt stribede. 

- 🐌 -

My bucket of ORTs and what I stuffed with them. A withe-striped, multicolour pumpkin - not very pretty. I made several pumpkin last year, but this one did not stripe rigth. I wonder what I did wrong.

     Og så en kaktus af refleksgarn. Man kan kun se tornene, når de reflekterer. Familien synes, det er for fjollet. 

 - 🌵 -

And a cactus made from reflex yarn. I found that I was smart, the thorns can only bee seen when they reflect, but my family found it too goofy.

Words for Wednesday - 7. November -- Unicorn Farm 6

This week's prompts are provided by Elephant's Child. 

enclosing
purpose
care
patch
jamming
shame

And/or

bent
organic
mangle
textbook
gravity
excuse

Once again I wrote a small chapter from my autobiography and once again I took up the additional challenge of using the prompts in the order they were given. We're now at an earlier time than in the last episode, it's the second summer at Unicorn Farm, holidays are coming to an end.

The summer holidays were drawing to an end, and Susan had a hard time seeing her needle and thread. It was semi-dark in the small attic room at The Unicorn farm and the enclosing walls seemed to press down on Susan as she sat stitching, the tears in her eyes did not help any. Holidays had come to an end, it was time to leave the Unicorn Farm and her friends there. To what purpose was all the care of their cloaks and capes, Susan thought as she sewed yet another patch on Heidi's worn, green cloak. Jamming all their cloaks, capes and other dressing items into the suitcase, she hung her head in shame over her heavy thoughts. Heidi and her family had bent every rule in the book to make them all stay at Unicorn Farm this summer. And now Heidi and the twins were even going to visit her shortly.
She chuckled. Her mother thought The Unicorn Farm was a place for teaching bookworms like herself about nature and growing organic vegetables and fruits. If she ever found out that it was a school for magic, real magic, not the rabbits from a hat variety ...
Susan almost mangled her fingers closing the suitcase, it was full to the brim and over. "Oh bugger," she thought. "My textbooks." They were still down at the dining table, where she'd been studying before sneaking up to repair and pack their clothes. Gravity be damned, this was an emergency and the perfect excuse for her to try out the new levitating spell. "Bækur, lyfta" Susan said with determination, swishing her wand just so and fixing the textbooks in her mind. The books obeyed the magic of Susan's mind and wand and came dancing through the air. Surprised over how easy it was, Susan lost her concentration, and the books cascaded to the floor with a big noise. "Bugger and more bugger!" Susan said under her breath. She listened for a while, but nothing happened. Not a sound.
Susan pulled everything out from the suitcase once again, folded the green cloaks, the purple capes, all the green, blue, and yellow tunics, and their striped skirts and trousers in nice small mounds before carefully placing everything inside the suitcase with the books. Now there was even room to spare, and Susan tucked some of the pies and bottles of ginger ale into the corners. She had left them on a shelf as the suitcase had filled up too fast the first time, but Granny had been right, folding the clothes made for more space. Heidi and the twins would come by train, so Susan would have to bring home all the gear , they were going to need during their autumnal visit in her own suitcase.
She was ready to leave for home now.

Words for Wednesday 31 October -- Unicorn Farm 5

Once again late to the party. And once again it's a part of my mock autobiography.


The words are provided by Margaret Adamson, and her friend Sue Fulton, and found at Elephant's Child's place:

Sully
Chagrin
Funambulist
Heavy
Lowering
Sand

And/or

Ablutions
Wasting
Saucy
Perpetual
Moonstruck
Cigar

We left the wizard gang on their way to somewhere at the  foggy railroad track, now the deed is done and the exhausted heroes once again gather in the  barn of the Unicorn Farm.

"You did a veritable Sully," Kai said to Susan as they had returned home. "Much to my chagrin we could not save Torben." If I had been a funambulist and not a stage magician, I might have walked the rail out there. But he was too heavy as it was, and sank too fast." The lowering expression on his face told more than words how sad he felt at the thought of his shortcomings.

"I know you tried," Sandra said. "But even I could not have foreseen that the sand out there had turned to quicksand under the heavy rain."

Gilvi entered the room: "I've finished my ablutions, he said. "There's still plenty hot water in the pipes for the next man." He looked aged, almost as if he was wasting away. Carefully he sat down on the sofa and picked a saucy morsel from among the edibles collected at the table.

"This will be a night we'll never forget," he said slowly. "Our names will be written in the history books for perpetual perusal by coming generation. But I'm not so moonstruck with our success this time as to not realize that the worst is yet to come."

"Let's smoke that cigar when it's handed to us," Thora gently said. Tonight, or rather today - as the sun's about to rise - is a day for celebrating and making happy sounds."