Tickled_Pink

There is a shortage of around 40,000 nurses in the UK. They're trying to recruit more but I guess that there's huge worldwide competition for qualified medical personnel. Daughter wants to be a neonatal nurse but doesn't have any qualifications. So she's starting a course to be a healthcare assistant which she hopes she can use as a springboard towards the career she wants.

I think a lot of the nurses here in the USA just get a 2 year nursing degree from a privately owned career college type place.  Because the university route (getting a 4 year Nursing degree) doesn't have enough spots to train all the nurses.  Maybe they have something like that in the UK.  I guess the credits may or may not transfer to a 4 year program.

What's the test for if you don't mind me being nosey.

It's for my Law masters post grad degree. There was a time when you could hop on the ferry for just £10. We used to do it just for the tax free booze and tobacco (part of the Irish Sea's in international waters). Then the EU stopped it. Now it's £60 per person for a return trip. Just priced it. So it's certainly not the cheapest option because we were going to make a day trip out of it. There are various routes into nursing over here. I noticed within the past 6 months that entrance requirements to Uni courses have been relaxed somewhat. Presumably to entice more people into the profession.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't know who any of those people are, either and I'm not too far from 50.  I don't really follow movies or actors or actresses.

Pfft! Know-nothing adults. ?

What's next, Microsoft selling Rare?

Nah, they're the Chelsea of the gaming industry. They'll probably loan them out.

Must be a PC thing...

It's an EPIC Store thing. I decided to buy from them instead of Steam or Origin. Went to the checkout and discovered I had £20.01 of credit on my account. Some of that was from when the store first opened and they were giving free cash away. I then noticed a £10 voucher I'd forgotten about and that was due to expire 1st Nov.

Do you by chance mean the Iron Maiden Beer?  I had some friends bring over a 4 pack once and we all tried it...

Yep. That's the one.

Travis, yup. Anglesey. The murder made the national news - a retired lecturer fixing a problem with his satellite dish was hit by a crossbow bolt. I always suspected it was a setup because what was he doing on his roof at midnight? What's been said is that someone cut the cable to his dish, forcing him to go outside to investigate. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two murder cases on the island in my lifetime, and I think one of those may have been downgraded as manslaughter. The most infamous one was when we had a serial killer on the loose in the 90s - he was gay cinema owner from another part of Wales.

So you're only having a handful of murderers, but when you do those are worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. Not the usual mob shootings, but people killing using crossbows and ... sorry, but it sounded so absurd that I laughed out loud ... gay cinema owners who elsewhere would be the victims but at your place are the villains.

Agatha Christie? More like Criminal Minds. Very quiet place around here usually. Just the usual drunken brawl or a road accident because someone's taken a bend too fast.

Congrats!

Pick a couple of good names you like but don't be afraid to change them in a few weeks. Cats name themselves. I remember when we changed Smoky's name to Hobbes - he would pounce on us, was very playful and LOVED tuna so much he'd steal it right in front of us.

Yeah, they have what I think will turn out to be temporary names. My first cat when growing up named himself, in my and my sister's heads at least. We thought he peed a lot and was nuts. So we called him peanuts. Kids, huh??

I had a friend that named his dog Askem.  So when people would say "What's your dog's name?", he would just say "Askem" and people would.

It's really difficult to find any good music created after 2005.

Every single style is worse today than it was in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s:

- Rock and metal are boring and often too melancholic

- Pop music is just depressing stuff with auto tune

- Electronic music is not as fun as it used to be

- New styles such as trap SUCK

I'm really sorry for the kids that have to suffer this. I hope at least Youtube suggestions are not as bad, but the music suggested to me when I open Youtube in a Private/Incognito Window (as it if was the fist time you ever open the page) is not very promising: Ed Sheenan and Deep House.

Hmm... sounds exactly like the old fogies talking about our music when we were younger.    And the old fogies +1 talking about their music when they were younger.     

I imagine this goes back to the caveman days where Ugg the Elder was griping about how "kids these days" bang on hollow logs to make racket, not like the soothing tones of solid rocks that he enjoyed when he was Ugg the Younger.

Did they check every waypoint on their minimap?

Do they need an in-game purchase for the scanner?

Let the Tools group go and we'll throw in a Blaupunkt?

Yeh.  I did today before night shift.  That tangle with Norris at the last corner bumped him up.

To be frank I doubt she's actually trying. I think it's just a stupid PR stunt alongside every other facet of her existence.

Would you want HER to defend you in a court case? ?

Not if my life depended on it ... oh ... wait ... ?

What little bastard would that be?

Kids are nothing but trouble

I'd get a Moto  (Lenovo) phone (we have an E4 and a G3).  Cheap, decent, security updates sorta on a regular basis, SD slot, replaceable battery, and it has a courage port (headphone jack).

My S7 is still working pretty well, but I don't install apps.  Not sure what I want to do next either.

There are many categories of diseases. With some like measles, chickenpox, etc your body develops lifetime immunity when contracted naturally.  Others, like the flu, don't.  Seems like covid is more like the latter.  On the plus side, there may still be hope for herd immunity over the long-term (as painful as it may be for humanity to eventually get there, and I'm not saying this is a public health strategy, it's a property of nature): "The number of healthcare workers with antibodies remained relatively high, which the researchers suggest may be due to regular exposure to the virus."  We also don't know much about the severity of it with multiple infections, although the flu has been pretty steady over the last 50+ years so that seems unlikely.

Herd immunity isn't likely, although annual vaccinations could eventually eradicate it, depending on how quickly immunity is lost and whether the virus has a chance to mutate. Covid appears to be closer to the common cold than flu. We do become immune to the common cold but that immunity is lost over time, which is why we get it again. Flu is different. It's constantly mutating, which is why a new vaccine is developed every year. 

I've kept a couple of "almost gone" Cats a little longer than I mebbe should have, as opposed to taking them to the Vet, it's just so hard to let go, I definitely understand.

We got a pair of Birmans when my kids were young, their "lifetime kittys", a Mother and Daughter.

The Mom aged out pretty recently, and the Daughter is still pretty despondant, I'd like to find her a gentle companion, she just seems very lonely.

Sorry, I hate to hear about yur Doggie.

We're actually thinking he might have twisted something in his back. He came running in, something went, causing him to fall over and have a seizure. He's had seizures before and always seemed to be after he'd done an injury to himself. If so, he may well have the same type of seizures my wife suffers from. But this one was his worst one yet. Going to take him to the vet tomorrow to see what they think.

I suspect that he's now a pretty flat flat earther. But honestly, what kind of brain do you have to be able to build your own rocket and yet still believe the Earth is flat?

He might've not really believed the Earth was flat but was a publicity hound who liked the limelight?  Combined with a passion for amateur rocketry, it proved fatal.  Ugh.

He may just win the Darwin Award for 2020, and we still have 10 whole months to go.  Congratulations!