Bye bye Ben-pup

Alas,

No more Ben pics. I just got off the phone to the mum and dad (a good natter was had, although the visitation is being held off for a week or so) who let me know that the Old Aged Pup had signed off.

Poor fella.

What wasn't usually apparent from the many photos I would take and post of Ben was that amidst the bounciness, the life, the love shown by this amazing fella over the years was sadness that he was obviously getting older and older.

Five minutes of bouncing would be followed by an hour's shut eye to let him catch up. There was also that dodgy paw of his that I'm sure was causing him a lot of pain. He never showed that pain though. Not like the classic thorn in the paw where the animal would try and bite the person trying to heal it. Nope. Ben was all love.

And a bit of play. That play was only about 5 minutes or so though before he had to take himself off for a bit. Very gentle play but I think he appreciated it. Definitely came back for more when his batteries were recharged.

Definitely a protector.

A bit of the cheeky. See that tail raised high ? That's one of the rare moments that tail was captured on camera. It usually disappeared into motion blur.

Loyal cook's helper too. That steak in that there barbeque thingy definitely passed the sniff test. I think old Ben was levitating as it came back into the house.

Definitely liked his treats that Ben.

But. The eternal sadness about pets is that they don't last as long as we do. The family has had 3 dogs that I remember (and one dog that I barely remember - too young). There was the Old Gent Scruff :

The adventurous Goldie, king of the surprise slurpage :

And finally, Old Ben :

He was still showing occasional liveliness at Xmas but come to think of it, I don't think he was showing any bounciness. He'd become quite an old dog, although I don't think he realised that. Still a pup at heart.

The thing about dogs (and cats!) though :

They're part of the family. I'd like to think Ben had good people that he loved. The other thing is that you only have a dog for part of your life but you are all of theirs. So it's good to be able to pass a little bit of that love back. The dog ends up being a reflection of its master. And Ben-pup was full of love.

It'll be sad not to see the old fella again and be greeted when he's got some energy back from an evening's slumber (it took him a bit of time to wake up when I'd get to the parents place at 11pm ish).

I'll miss him but he's in the memories now, like that ever faithful, ever loving, ever grateful, hugely intelligent Scruffy-dog and the quicksilver Goldie. I was a quick runner but it was good to give Goldie a walk because it would end up with us racing each other. It was good to see that athlete of a dog run Fast. We waited too long though with Scruff and Goldie. It broke the heart to see Scruff give a broken "Do I have to ? Things hurt" look when someone mentioned Walkies. We'd previously have had to peel him off the ceiling at the mention of that word. With Goldie, he was having real trouble getting in and out of his chair. His back legs gave up on him and got very painful.

Bye Ben. And may there be many treats where you are now.

Puppy, Shiny, Family .... Munchie ?

I'm back now after going up norf to visit the mum and dad and ...

Puppy !

Rather old aged puppy now. He has his own emote now :

(pic is blocky because it's blown up severely from the 112x112 you have to use for the emote)

It's heyOAP (old aged puppy) on the Discord server that I keep an eye on. Cos it's a gamer community with a bunch of good people. That one was a classic Ben pose as he was enjoying himself bouncing around the garden. I made the pic above for the server to replace an emote they like using ... which has issues with copyright. No such worries with that pic, the copyright is mine ! Or perhaps the parents on behalf of BenPup.

He's getting on a bit now. He still has a fair bit of his old bounciness but that is moderated by continuing pain from his paw, quite possibly stuff going wrong with his insides and a need to disappear off for sleeps. But that personality is still in there and we'll remember the Ben long after he's gone. Just as the fam remembers Goldie and Scruff.

They're only here for part of our lives but we are there for all of theirs. Or at least as long as they are with us. Ben, Goldie and Scruff were all rescue dogs who we took in after a few years of their lives. They're only here for part of our time but they definitely leave their mark.

They give us fun with their play;

They give us their unconditional love. (Usually in conjunction with how much food is on offer !)

And they protect us as well. Here is Ben keeping an eye on what's occurring in the back garden. He'll check out the front of the house too, especially with the lamp post which is a bit of a local check in board for the local doggies.

I don't think Ben has that much longer with us, although I see it as a bonus that he's had much more time with us than I thought he would. He's a very old dog now, more asleep than bouncy.

It is great to see the family again though, even for the shorter times I can manage with them before my outsides decide to be uncooperative again. They need to be kept clean, including getting rid of the debris from them healing but ... too much attention makes them worse. I'm still improving on the whole though, it's just that a few days away from the house doing stuff like wear socks all of the time (bad ankles - remember) takes its own toll.

But it is getting there.

As was the puppy in his excitement watching us having the Christmas dinners.

We don't do the presents particularly any more, although the dad did get copies of the Neil Diamond and Status Quo albums that appeared in the library over the weekend. Somehow, there are almost 300 new tracks still to listen to in the music library. Ok, a massive proportion of that is from game soundtracks ... I'm still on the hunt for an album by Lisa Hannigan that hasn't come down in price enough yet.

I also have another keyboard ... It's a Steelseries Apex M800. It's a mechanical keyboard, which means that instead of an array of pimples in a membrane keyboard, it has proper key switches. It's a much looser feel than my last keyboard, which felt very stiff. I didn't really get on well with that one. Erm ... it's actually a £150 keyboard, so I'm hoping for high quality from it. I didn't pay £150, there was £70 off in the sale plus I got another £50 off through a voucher that was about to expire.

Happy times. It does feel good under the fingers too (although one finger is held up a bit by having a plaster on it.) And it has lights that follow what I'm doing too. I'd take a picture but the light change on keypress decays to normal before I can get the camera ready.

It's good to be back for some rest, relaxation, recuperation and general lazing about. I have a week now before heading back. There will be much video watching and computer game playing in that week ... Let's see :

Internet spaceships with the Elite piloting;
Not-so-Internet spaceships with the Stellaris strategy;
Supersoldier hijinks in the Deus Ex's;
Otherworldly factory building;
Motorsport managing;
What else ... maybe a bit of sail boat shenanigans too.

Must get back into the books too.

And sleeps too. I should note there that no Ben's were woken up when taking these pictures. He can hear the camera shutter noise the phone makes and it wakes him up. So I'm either taking the pic from the other side of the room or being very careful.

He does get copious amounts of fuss though in return for these pics :-).

And he got the leftover pigs in blankets from Xmas/Boxing Day dinner. We shouldn't really give him stuff like that (because it makes him ignore his proper doggie formulated dinner) but ... that face.

How could you resist the Gaze of Pup ?

Have a break, have a ...

Nope. Not advertising chocolate biscuit bars today ! Just spotted a meme on the Facebooks and you me and memes ... Yep. Can't resist.

But first ... We had the birthday weekend again this weekend ! Which means seeing the family and the Ben-pup.

Yep. Everyone's still going strong. Ageing perhaps ... but still fighting on. And having our own fun too. Mine involved acquiring bags of bonbons. And then devouring those bags of bonbons. I may have a problem when it comes to bonbons.

My sister liked her birthday present. She got the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar. This means I may have to buy one too !!! I got jumpers and a leather jacket to replace some that are getting on a bit and a tad frayed. I'm not good at getting the new clothes.

Travel was ok, I think I got all the travel in before the mayhem that has hit today. There are pictures of parts of Bristol where the water is so high, it is above the window level on parked cars. Wow ! I live in a somewhat higher up part of Bristol and there's good drainage through dykes, so it should be safe from flooding here. I was going to say that the gps on the phone was telling me that I live 70m above sea level. But now it is reporting between 0 and 1m above sea level. Oh well. Time to break out the canoe and snorkel.

(This just tells me that you shouldn't wholly trust gadgets !)


Meme ? Here goes :
1. Are you named after someone?
Don't believe so.
2. What colour is your car?
Grey. It is the Grey Ghost because it's vewy, vewy, qwiet.
3. Do you like your handwriting?
Nah. Too random and I keep missing out random letters. I can barely read it sometimes !
4. What is your favourite lunch meat?
I usually have the turkey in the sandwiches but any fairly low fanciness meats will do me.
5. Do you have kids?
Nah. No kids. But I do borrow the Ben-pup when I visit the parents.
6. Do you use sarcasm?
Definitely ! Sometimes you have to talk other people's language and sarcasm can be the only one they understand.
7. Do you still have your tonsils?
Gargle - yep.
8. Would you bungee jump?
Not likely. Although ... it might help straighten that back out.
9. What is your favourite kind of cereal?
Haven't had cereal in years ...
10. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Yep. Cos I can't take them off when the laces are done up. Although I do have a pair of older trainers that I can just slip on and off and they don't fall off.
11. Do you think you're strong?
Emotionally, somewhat. That's the tendency to bounce back when I see someone smiling. Physically, not any more because I haven't been exercising that much as my body repairs.
12. What is your favourite ice cream. 
Gotta be the Mint Choc Chip.
13. What is the first thing you notice about people?
Whether they're smiling, which is when my Big Grin comes out too.
14.Football or Baseball?
Cricket.
15. What is the least favourite thing you like about yourself?
Inertia, or the quality of knowing there is stuff that needs to be done and just not doing it.
16. What colour pants are you wearing now?
UK definition of pants involves underwear ... which I'm not telling. I might not be wearing any ;-) (I am). I'm wearing light coloured greyish running around in trousers that are pretty thick. Good stuff for a colder house :-).
17. What was the last thing you ate?
Box of Maltesers. Surprise chocolate when traffic means heading to the shops for a resupply is a bad idea.
18. What are you listening to right now?
KT Tunstall's album Drastic Fantastic with songs like White Bird.
19. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Huh ?
20. Favourite smell?
Fresh tea cakes.
21. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone?
The mum ! Making the arrangements for when I'd appear at their place.
22. Favourite sport to watch?
Cricket ! Have even been to games and I pay attention. Most of the time.
23. Hair color?
At the moment ? Mucky blonde. You know, that blonde that isn't white and isn't darker. Something in the middle.
24. Eye colour?
Dunno actually ... I sometimes look but never remember ! I think it changes.
25.Favourite food to eat?
Pizza. But it has a certain effect on me now so I have to ration it. Apart from that, I'm becoming a fan of Wagamamas. And steak. And pasta. Wonder if you can combine all that ?
26. Scary films or happy endings?
Happy endings. I can get caught up in the scaries but unless you don't know where it's going to take its story, I lose interest.
27. Last film you watched?
Star Trek IV The Voyage Home. Still a decent movie but a bit too much on the Earth. I'm looking forward to seeing Rogue One, Passengers and I'm pondering going to see Arrival on Friday. It is Black Friday though, so I may avoid the centre of Bristol on Friday ... it might be mayhem.
28. What colour shirt are you wearing?
I have a green custom t-shirt on. It has a timeline of spacecraft, starting at 0 with the Tardis, going through the space shuttle, an Eagle, Galactica, Enterprise, Serenity before finishing off at infinity with the Tardis again.

Meme done ! But I feel this post will not be complete without ...

More Ben ! A minute before this, he was fast asleep impersonating a sawmill. But then someone ventured near the source of treats ...

Bless 'im. His paw still bugs him but he gets around with a curiously wobbling gait. He must be getting pain from it but it's managed with pills from the vet. He's quite perky for an old dog, although he rations out his effort. He'll bounce, he'll scare off uninvited door stop sales people, then he'll crash.

He's a happy muttley.

Can old dogs learn new tricks ?

Maybe they can ...

I've been talking to the parents tonight, first time in a while I know ! I left it a bit too long but it has given them a chance to look away from health stuff and towards moving forwards again. If only I could do the same !

But ... who's that fella who lives with them ?

That's right ! It's the Ben-pup.

Not so much a pup now because he's sixteen years old and suffering from heart problems as well as the long term effects of that dodgy paw.

Such a regal pose. And nothing at all to do with the promise of bacon scraps off to the left of picture. Honest.

Bacon scraps still get the old fella bouncing ...

Although he's getting wise to the smuggling of medicine pills in with the Good Munchies. For all the bouncing, there is the sleeping ...

Bless. (No sleeping pooches were awakened during the taking of these pictures - I think !)

But yeah, it was good to hear from the mum and dad again. Looks like dad's still got some recovering to do after a major health scare but we're a tough mob and they're already looking forward to what they can do instead of looking backwards (like I am) to getting back to health.

Me ? I have some new Healing Gunk (hydrocortisone cream) which is having promising results already after just one evening. We'll see how it does over the week.

This isn't a post about me though. This is the Ben Appreciation Post. He's still with us, I had thought that he might have passed on in the time since I last talked to the mum and dad. Nah, they'd have rung and let me know. He's an old dog now and is spending much more time asleep than awake. Pets are family but there is that time when you recognise that you have to let them go. It's more cruel to keep them in this world rather than the next.

Quite. They are only around for a portion of our lives but we are there for all of theirs. There is a bond between a beloved family pet and their people.

I do miss having a pooch (or cat) around but because I live on my own and can be out quite some time, it would be a bit cruel for the poor thing to be on its own for most of the time.

It is good to see Ben-pup when I'm up there. He's always really happy to see his people and gets sad when he knows they're going away again.

Happy pooch is happy.

And taking his duties of guarding England from the Molehill of Unusual Size very seriously. He was taking his Cooking Monitor duties very seriously at Christmas too :

There he is, in the background there, keeping his nose keenly monitoring that steak in there for perfect munchie smells.

Not forgetting the other pooches either ! There has been Goldie, the short haired labrador who was as fast as I was. And I was quick. We had fun racing each other. He had fun unleashing his rapier like tongue for Slurps.

And the Old Gentleman himself, Scruff :

Such a wise old dog, evidenced in behaviour like knowing the theme tune to the 9 o'clock news, connecting that with watching the descending contents of the pint glass and realising that when the pint glass was empty, the news was over and it would be Walk Time. He would steadily get more and more excited as the pint was drunk.

Dogs are smart.

I'm not sure when I'll go see the mum and dad again. I'd like my ankles to be intact again. They're structurally ok but the skin is really bad and needs a chance to heal up.

Perhaps at the birthdays.

One last one. Will someone play with the Ben ? He'll love you forever if you will.

Checking out the market (again)

I've had a request !!!!

Actually two requests. One of the Chrissa community people is looking to have a gaming desktop built but doesn't know what they should acquire. And then there's my mum, who is looking for a light laptop to replace one that's a little too heavy to be a ... laptop.

But first ...

I may not be able to bring you any more pictures of the lovely Old Ben. When I had a chat to my mum yesterday (Dad's doing fine, recovering nicely and is out of danger), she let me know that Ben was struggling again. Poor lad. His old pain pills have been giving him serious side effects, hopefully the new pills sort him out.

He's an old fella and has been a wonderful little chap to have around but he may not have long left. And like Goldie and Scruff before him, he has his own special place in the hearts of our family and the people who have enjoyed seeing his pictures on Facebook.

Yep. It'll break many hearts when we have to let him go but if they give you a look that says "I hurt too much and don't want to be here any more", that unpleasant job has to be done.

PC Stuff !!!

Let's see what's out there. First up is the desktop. The price range is about £800 but as always, you try and see if you can get top value for less money.

As always, start with the processor because it drives the rest of the machine. I recommend Intel now because they are more efficient, run cooler, run better. They do cost a little more though.

Processor - Intel Skylake i5-6400 (cheapest of the i5's and the older Haswell generation is only £6 cheaper) - £156. This needs a LGA1151 motherboard. I have had mixed results with MSI but they come in with the cheapest Z170 board : MSI Z170-A Pro for £87. The Z bit means it has the faster performing chipset (the glue that holds the system together). This motherboard needs DDR4 memory and this is so cheap, you want a minimum of 8GB these days. The G.Skill memory in this machine has done well, there is a 8GB pair on Novatech for £33. Oh and you'll want to keep that processor cool with something large and beefy (means it runs quieter) like a beQuiet Shadow Rock 2 for £36.

One note there - the coolers have improved but can be scary to mount for the uninitiated.

Processor graphics has improved so much recently but it does help massively to have an external card. I'm pleased with the AMD Radeon R9 380 card I have now and you can get the Sapphire version for £170. You get diminishing returns if you spend more than £200 on graphics cards.

Every system needs storage - I think PCs have moved passed cd/dvd/bluray storage now but you can get a bluray rom drive for £37. I won't include that in the total. For the main storage, you can shave off some cash and complication by using a SATA Hybrid drive (a normal drive with SSD to make it smooth) and Seagate have a 2TB drive for £84. We'll pick that for this but normally, you'd be better putting Windows on a 250GB (for breathing room) SSD plus a 1TB+ conventional drive to put the data and games on.

It all goes in a box, a typical desktop being an ATX mini tower. Watch for cheap ones, they usually have sharp edges that demand a Blood Sacrifice during the build. Antec have the VSK3000 case for £27. DO NOT buy a case with a power supply included, unless that power supply is a beefy enough named brand.

Power supply is very important. If they aren't beefy enough, they will strain until they die. If they're cheap, they will usually fry other components in their death throes. So you buy the power supply from people like Corsair, Antec, EVGA, Cooler Master, Thermaltake. I'll choose the Corsair CX600M for £67 for this build.

How much ?
£660. Wow, didn't expect that, it's cheaper than usual, makes me wonder what I've missed. Boost it a little with a SSD and conventional hard disc combo plus that £37 for the bluray drive.

Also - £80 for Windows 10 Home 64 bit.
Monitor - I am so close to buying the AOC i2369 for £125 (or a bit cheaper from PC World).
Keyboard - I like my Turtle Beach Impact 100 for about £50.
Mouse - no recommendations here except Avoid Roccat, Avoid Saitek/MadCatz.

How much is something similar on PC Specialist ?
I'm going into the "Top Spec Core Computers", not really caring about the box and the rest of the spec is the same as above except for :
Motherboard Asus Z170-P and memory by different people;
Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler.

And that comes out to £722 or £801 with Windows. A premium of £60 for them to build it is ... probably marginally acceptable and it avoids the chances of breaking stuff when putting that cooler on and having bad bits slip through, because they'll test it before you get it. The motherboard makes a dent in the price and I think the more expensive Asus motherboard is worth it. Sadly I can't link the build :-(.

REVISION - Do not buy Asus hardware. It is usually feature incomplete or contains unpleasant surprises that will annoy the hell out of you later. With me, it was a lack of 5.1 surround sound support in the surround sound socket, with another it is a random disconnect from the internet while the person is streaming because Asus got it wrong with the network port. Also feature incomplete because £100+ boards usually have 2x network ports (or more), this one only has one plus a broken wifi.

How about the laptop ?
Heading over to PC Specialist again, the one that catches the eye is the 14" Ultranote III with an all important weight of only 1.8kg. It also appears to have a very good screen. Other bits of spec to change :
Processor - more cores with an i5-6200U. The i7 chips are an expensive waste of time. The 6200U isn't as powerful as the 6400 above but that U means lots of battery life and it'll still be good enough for things like watching videos off the internet.
Memory - up to 8GB.
Hard disk - a hybrid 1TB drive (the SSD parts speed up the machine a lot and you don't really have the space or weight for multiple drives in a laptop)

And that comes out to £511.

I'm going to scout to offerings from Dell and from PC World but I think we might be putting an order in for that Ultranote.

PS I'll miss Old Ben. He's adorable.

Defending England From The Molehill Of Unusual Size

I was off to see the parents again this weekend !

And this fella :

Yep. Ben being tough to get pictures of again. He'll give you lots of fuss but if he sees a camera, he's usually off somewhere else or otherwise hiding. Unless ...

You attract his attention or his almost one tracked mind has cottoned on to potential treats ... He has his people well trained this one does. Here he is exerting his telepathic mind powers (he doesn't have them but he doesn't realise that) on my mum.

Oh ! Mum's birthday this week, hence the reason for the family having a little gathering. They're still doing ok. Getting older as we all do but apart from that, we're still all good. I have my worries about them ... but that's not for here.

Ben's getting older too, here he is giving us big GO TO BED! hints as we stayed up late to watch a Cilla Black documentary. That lady had an awesome voice.

And the next morning demonstrating yet again that if you want to get a DoggyBowl super clean, just add bacon. The pooch will do the rest.

After all, it is his just reward for valiantly protecting us from the evil window cleaner people. Here he was, singing the song of his people (think woofwoofwoof dubstep style) and with a tail wagging so fiercely, he may have been about to start levitating. Ben protects with love, his weapon is the fierceness of his slurping.

And when Molehills* Of Extraordinary Size appear and super mutant moles appear to threaten the motherland ...

*It isn't a molehill, it's a delivery of soil that is being steadily transferred to veg patches in the back garden.

... Puppy Patrol is on hand to monitor the situation. Don't worry, England is safe from the threat of Moles Of Enormity. As is the grass from the threat of sun burn. Yep. Guard duty is all the better when there are sunbeams to soak up.

Ah ha ! The excitement of when the People return from the shops. Anything for Ben ?

Of course there was. But all that excitement tuckers out the poor pooch, here he is making the zzz's by my feet and giving that paw a rest from the stress of bouncing.

But what's this ? Is there potential for meatscraps ? Must fire up the Puppy Power of Mind Control again to transfer meatscraps from plates to doggybowl.

Full up pup is happy pup.

There is always room for more scraps, although here he is having just been told he must wait a whole 5 minutes for the next adverts before more treats may appear. Puppy does not understand human time.

But the time does come ... and that half starved image of a pooch barely able to lift his head is instantly transformed into one who is in one moment, graciously waiting (he does too, he was very gracious in the accepting of the meatscraps) and in the next, BOING. I think there was more in that parcel than just a little ham ... (It's how they sneak his painkiller tablets in to him).

And then rest. Look into those eyes ... give the puppy treats ... you know that is the right thing to do.

And a little more sunbathing. England is still safe from the Mole. I think Ben caught the Jasper Carrot sketch and it gave him ideas ...

As well as regally surveying the front of the house, Ben is also the master of his own backward. Here he is saying "Yes, this is my domain, no you will not find the bones." See that little half smirk ? He's put those bones somewhere we will never find them ... Archaeologists in the future will look at them in wonder ... what creature could this collection of bones have been ?

All good things come to an end though and it was time to say farewell to the family, mum, dad and the pooch.

Until the next time !