Tweets for Today

• 11:20 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/77ekqm Dinner For One: The chicken is in the oven. Yeah chicken, I'm not cooking a turkey just #

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Dinner For One

The chicken is in the oven. Yeah chicken, I'm not cooking a turkey just to have turkey sandwiches for the rest of the year.

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Tweets for Today

• 12:46 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/7srmzq Computer On A Memory Stick: I bought a 4Gb memory stick from Tesco for seven pounds, now #

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Computer On A Memory Stick

I bought a 4Gb memory stick from Tesco for seven pounds, now installed with Ubuntu. The system effectively re-installs on to any machine that it's used on so start up time is not quick but it's great to have my own operating system on my keyring.

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Tweets for Today

• 22:31 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/7l8a5d Alternative Medicine: Being blocked up with a cold for the past few days I've also been #

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Alternative Medicine

Being blocked up with a cold for the past few days I've also been getting headaches. I've found that 4Head is a great way to relieve the headache. It's a stick that you rub over your head. You feel it tingle and the pain from your headache goes away.



Apparently their attempt at a skin cream 4Skin did not sell to well, nor did their ocular wash 4Eyes.

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Tweets for Today

• 11:06 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/8tgudx Car Wont Start: It's not especially cold, it's not especially damp, time to have a bit m #
• 12:54 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/axpmcr The Car Lives Another Day: Various, unsuccessful, attempts to start the car over the pas #
• 13:04 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/9apjfz Upgrade?: I was looking in a local computer shop at the notebook size computers around  #
• 13:10 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/7spp56 I Don't Want To Do This But I Guess I Have To...: There's definitely something living/sc #
• 13:41 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/9ox7qu Well It's Not Living In My Attic: What ever the thing it it's not living in my attic. No #
• 13:47 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/7jz3b6 When Mice Attack: It turns out that the neighbours found a nest in their attic when they #

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When Mice Attack

It turns out that the neighbours found a nest in their attic when they went up to get their Christmas tree. They've put traps and poison around but daren't go near the nest incase they attack. I think they've been watching too many horror movies.

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Well It's Not Living In My Attic

What ever the thing it it's not living in my attic. Now to offer my pest control services to next door and see if there's anything in their attic.

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I Don't Want To Do This But I Guess I Have To...

There's definitely something living/scurrying around in my attic and I need to find out what.



Going up in the attic now with torch, stick, gloves and nerves of steel!

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Upgrade?

I was looking in a local computer shop at the notebook size computers around £200. The salesman told me that most come standard with a Linux operating system but can be upgraded to Windows. "Downgraded." I corrected him. He just had that "yeah what ever you say mate" look on his face and walked off.

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The Car Lives Another Day

Various, unsuccessful, attempts to start the car over the past few days had drained the battery to the point where it would not fire. The HT cables were muddy. Simply cleaning the HT leads and ensuring they were all in their proper clamps got the car to fire a couple of times but not enough kick to keep it going. Got a jump start off the next door neighbour and the engine started.



The car only has to get me over to my brother's house for Christmas and then she's off to the breakers yard. I've come to realise that I'm only using the car because I have it. Dozens of short journeys every week have clogged up the engine and the exhaust system.



Starting Jan 1 I'll be cycling to any local destinations and getting the train when I need to go in to the office.

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Car Wont Start

It's not especially cold, it's not especially damp, time to have a bit more serious look into why the car has been getting more and more difficult to start...

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Tweets for Today

• 10:35 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/66zw8p Day 17: I can't imagine that many of you were able to get that mobile phone game to work #

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Day 17

I can't imagine that many of you were able to get that mobile phone game to work, if you did, I hope you also found more programs on that site to fill up your memory card with.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Another classic but re-packaged, you get not one but lots (four or five?) games with today's link these you play on your web browser so should work for most viewers.

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Tweets for Today

• 12:34 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/62mwo9 Back, Back, Back It Up...: Thanks to I.T. guy Ben the Dumbed Down Life website is now ba #

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Back, Back, Back It Up...

Thanks to I.T. guy Ben the Dumbed Down Life website is now back up and running.



Elf Bowling, as posted on Sunday, did you play it? I can't remember the original but I'm sure that the little elfs were not 3d rendered. And what's with them jumping as the ball comes towards them? You got an hour worth of play from the game and if you are that hooked can buy the full version.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



For the 15th we posted a link to the Simpson's The Movie web site. If you've not been here, you can create a picture of yourself (or some other victim) in the style of your favorite Springfield characters.



For the 16th, this little game is very addictive, for any mobile phone that runs Java. You'll need a connection between your computer and phone to transfer the files across or an Internet connection on your phone if you're in the 21st century (unlike me).

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Tweets for Today

• 09:49 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5j4nft Shock Horror!: The Dumbed Down Life website is having a technical issues. A message has #

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Shock Horror!

The Dumbed Down Life website is having a technical issues. A message has been left with our technical server bloke :)

Your advent calendar will be returned to you in the near future (hopefully).

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Tweets for Today

• 09:17 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6or2z2 DAY 14: While it's quite possible we'll have a white Christmas this year in the UK, I do #

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DAY 14

While it's quite possible we'll have a white Christmas this year in the UK, I don't think we'll have quite so much snow. My dog would poke her nose outside, shiver and come back in!



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Today's game is a classic, if you've been on the Internet for more than 12 months you'll almost certainly know this one.

You have to download and install the game, it's only a trial version but you do get an hour of entertainment from it.

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Tweets for Today

• 19:04 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6ouleg DAY 13: A little delayed today since last night was the works Christmas party and I was, #

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DAY 13

A little delayed today since last night was the works Christmas party and I was, a little worse for ware.



The cartoon from day 12 was reminiscent of the short cartoons that used to play on BBC2 back in the day when we only had a choice from three channels.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



A nice, Christmassy YouTube clip for today.

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Tweets for Today

• 00:48 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6975um Day 12: My apologies for not getting Day 11 up in a timely fashion. I thought I'd upload #

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Day 12

My apologies for not getting Day 11 up in a timely fashion. I thought I'd uploaded the page but must have made a mistake somewhere.



BigBuckBunny was produced in an "open source" environment, meaning that it was written and produced as a project with input from many different people and the final product not tied to the tight copyright laws of most films.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Day 12 we have another cartoon, a little strange and will no doubt scare the willies out of Doug!



There's also a new Dumbed Down Life recording, number 51!

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Tweets for Today

• 00:05 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5jvdjo DAY 11: NosePilot is several years old. When Alex Sacui first put the animation onto the #

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DAY 11

NosePilot is several years old. When Alex Sacui first put the animation onto the Internet he was faced with a huge bill for the thousands of downloads. Thankfully the publicity around his plight drummed up recognition of his work.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Today's film is possibly more appropriate for Easter... (highly recommend you watch in HD)

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Tweets for Today

• 09:28 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5u86ty Day 10: Scissors, paper and making stuff. Just like Blue Peter. Thanks again to Gardenfe #

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Day 10

Scissors, paper and making stuff. Just like Blue Peter. Thanks again to Gardenfey from LiveJournal for that practical post.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Today's post is a cartoon, click Anglais (or Fracais) to watch this classic Internet cartoon.

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Tweets for Today

• 01:12 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6o8f2x DAY 9: I did warn you didn't I? I was up until 5am playing that last game, a bad case of #
• 17:53 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5othr9 TIMBER!: Dad came down with his chainsaw and we've trimmed the tops off of the trees alo #

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TIMBER!

Dad came down with his chainsaw and we've trimmed the tops off of the trees along the bottom of the garden. We managed to only drop three branches into neighbouring gardens.



Thing is, while there's no longer a big, dark shadow over the garden, the garden is knee deep in tree bits!

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DAY 9

I did warn you didn't I? I was up until 5am playing that last game, a bad case of the "just one more level".



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



A chance to step away from the computer with this next door.

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Tweets for Today

• 10:42 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6c3any Day 8: The game from Day 7 takes a while to get into and will possibly take up many, man #

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Day 8

The game from Day 7 takes a while to get into and will possibly take up many, many hours, introduce to you people all over the world, and let you take their stuff :)



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Today's gem really should come with a warning...

*** WARNING, HIGHLY ADDICTIVE ***

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Tweets for Today

• 23:44 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/56xxnl DAY 7: I may not have been clear with what you actually got on Day 6, it was a set of re #

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DAY 7

I may not have been clear with what you actually got on Day 6, it was a set of related YouTube clips that play one after the other, if you only saw the first clip then you didn't get the whole experience.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



For day 7 another game, though this time not a puzzle game one that could potentially entertain you while the rest of the family are watching The Muppets Christmas Carol on Dec 25th!

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Tweets for Today

• 02:09 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6f9wur Day 6: I was not able to complete all the puzzles on the game from day 5, I hope you had #

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Day 6

I was not able to complete all the puzzles on the game from day 5, I hope you had better luck. Unlike most advent calendars that are thrown away once all the doors have been opened this one will remain available though you'll have to bookmark it as there won't be links on the main menu for "Christmas" all year round!



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Giving your brain a break for Day 6.

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Day 5

Today's treat has a small price to pay, you have to watch a commercial before the game starts but it's worth it.



Quite a difficult one this one an I have to admit I've not gotten very far yet.



Thanks again to Ken from Derby (dad :) )



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm

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Tweets for Today

• 21:45 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5dm3a2 I'm A PC: If ever there was an advertising campaign waiting to be made fun of.... #
• 21:59 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5kvn9v I'm A PC Two: Fun with picture editing. #
• 22:41 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/647d2n Day 4: Did you finish all the levels of the game on day 3? The good thing is that I foun #

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Day 4

Did you finish all the levels of the game on day 3? The good thing is that I found when I returned to the game it had remembered which puzzles I'd already completed.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Today is another brain teaser, this one sent in by Gardenfey from LiveJournal.

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I'm A PC Two

Fun with picture editing.

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I'm A PC

If ever there was an advertising campaign waiting to be made fun of....

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Tweets for Today

• 12:04 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5rzr9h Darkness Falls Across The Land: It feels like it's late afternoon and it's not even midd #
• 15:05 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5j94p9 Random Music Playing???: I've plugged my iPod into my laptop and am using Winamp to pick #
• 00:25 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6qyu44 Day 3: The treat for December 2nd was a link to a free online game, this game was one th #

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Day 3

The treat for December 2nd was a link to a free online game, this game was one that was produced originally by a company that I worked for. Now, ten years later the game is free and still thriving.



December 3rd is another free game, this link provided by Ken from Derby, thanks Dad ;)

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Random Music Playing???

I've plugged my iPod into my laptop and am using Winamp to pick tracks at random. The very first track, picked entirely at random, from over 8000 tracks on my iPod???



Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas



Freaky!

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Darkness Falls Across The Land

It feels like it's late afternoon and it's not even midday yet, the sky is so dark.

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Did You Get It?

Just to make sure that everything is working ok, behind the first door for the advent calendar you should have found a link to the YouTube video for "Straight No Chaser". Having got 8 million views to this specific video they signed a record contract and their album was released back in October.



If you didn't see the video, make sure you clicked the image after opening the little door.



Not all the doors will hide YouTube videos. The door for day two is an example of this.



If you have technical problems with the page please let me know. I've tested it on several different browsers but there's always something different to cause problems.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/advent.htm



(Yes it's crazy how this program "shortens" the advent.htm to ...dvent.htm , actually two characters longer than the original URL)

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Tweets for Today

• 23:21 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5wlkbe The Advent Calendar: December the first was always the true beginning to Christmas for m #

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The Advent Calendar

December the first was always the true beginning to Christmas for me, no matter how early the shops started pushing it on us.

Mum put up two advent calendars, one for my brother and one for me.



It was only when my wife first spent Christmas in the UK that I came to realise that advent calendars do not appear to be a global thing.



The calendar has a jumble of 25 doors over a Christmas based picture. Behind each door there is a little picture. Typically the last door that you open on Christmas day is a double door with a scene from the nativity or a happy family around a Christmas tree.



There are advent calendars which have sweets and chocolates behind each of the doors.



I did try putting up the chocolate style advent calendars for my children when they were younger. Mysteriously all the chocolates were gone before December 3rd.



After many, many years with no advent calendar in the house I've decided to do something a little different for the Dumbed Down Life web site.



http://www.dumbeddownlife.com/…dvent1.htm



Following with tradition there's a picture with the 25 "doors". While all the doors are visible you'll only be able to open them on the correct day.



Behind each door you will find links, possibly to amusing or interesting web videos, possibly to free games or software.



I've not yet found stuff for all 25 days so not even I know what's behind all of the doors yet!



If you have any goodies that you'd like to share then comment on my Livejournal where the comments will be hidden from everyone but me.

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Tweets for Today

• 18:49 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5dmzb2 No Show Tonight: Lance has lost his voice and I have nothing prepared so there will not #

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No Show Tonight

Lance has lost his voice and I have nothing prepared so there will not be a Dumbed Down Life recording tonight. Hopefully we'll get something recorded over the weekend if Lance's voice returns.

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Tweets for Today

• 14:43 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6y9cxv Here To Stay?: Are Cadbury's Wispa bars here to stay? I thought that these were just a s #
• 17:20 @stephenfry Sir L33T SP33K does not become you, though it would have made a good Fry and Laurie sketch. #
• 23:32 @scottsigler A video reply to your interview with screen writer my lord... tinyurl.com/6jhf4u #

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@scottsigler

A video response to Scott Sigler who asked what his fans (junkies) think of the audio quality of his mobile setup.



If you've not heard of Scott, then you've clearly not been paying attention and for that you will pay, ooooh yes you will pay!

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Here To Stay?

Are Cadbury's Wispa bars here to stay? I thought that these were just a short promotion again as has happened in the past with other chocolate bars? It seems that the guys in the office here have seen the Wispa bars around for months and they're still in plentiful supply?

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Tweets for Today

• 12:09 @bobbyllew Do you authorise video comments on your YouTube? Sent one on Thursday and it's not showing as linked? #
• 12:17 @parkylondon Biggest problem with Skype is when more than two on the call, it goes into a kind of simplex mode, just one talking at a time. #
• 13:25 @bobbyllew A, user error, you should now have video replies to two of your latest awaiting your approval :) #

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Tweets for Today

• 00:33 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/57b4np Awww Geee.... Mail: Getting all graphical in Gmail now. So many different themes, for de #
• 14:16 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/65j58w Ah Scott, you are so right: I don't have an Internet problem, the rest of the world just #
• 16:50 @parkylondon I'm using Skype when recording podcast with multiple venues, other than than pretty limited, about the same as always. #
• 16:57 @scottsigler Noct' 35, just like the good old days. Great to hear the feedback and Siglerisms again, back on form my man, back on form! #
• 17:07 @CaliLewis But chickens don't have fingers? #

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Ah Scott, you are so right

I don't have an Internet problem, the rest of the world just isn't interesting enough!



http://dilbert.com/…008-11-21/

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Awww Geee.... Mail

Getting all graphical in Gmail now. So many different themes, for desktop, for web pages and now for my G-Mail too. How long before you can make your own themes (presuming that you can't already?).



Do you use GMail and if so, which of the new themes have you chosen or have you stuck with the "classic" look?

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Tweets for Today

• 15:55 @bobbyllew You should light up your bluescreen for your next video and let your techy viewers use their skills to place you somewhere :) #
• 15:57 @andyleaning I use Utterli, feeds to Twitter, Blogger, Youtube and multiple accounts in each! #
• 15:58 @bobbyllew Who are your idols? Who would get you "starstruck"? #
• 16:23 @scottsigler Still cold? I wish this global warming would hurry up and happen. #
• 16:23 @RumorGirls Coffee time? #
• 17:57 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5rprz5 The View From My Window: Interesting that Mark, a friend from LiveJournal, should mentio #
• 20:17 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5w23yx Thursday Reminder: Dumbed Down Life 48, returning live in about an hour (that's 9pm UK). #

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Thursday Reminder

Dumbed Down Life 48, returning live in about an hour (that's 9pm UK). Join us at www.dumbeddownlife.com/chat.htm

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The View From My Window

Interesting that Mark, a friend from LiveJournal, should mention the sky this evening. This is a pictures, looking out over Binfield as the sun was setting.

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Tweets for Today

• 20:03 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/5sh4f6 Who is this Ray Trace guy?: Playing with various tools tonight to try and make a 3d mode #

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Who is this Ray Trace guy?

Playing with various tools tonight to try and make a 3d model of the Dumbed Down Life logo. I've used tools before but these were Window$ based. Pulling my hair out with this particular Linux tool

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Tweets for Today

• 11:48 @bobbyllew I really hope this is not related to a triple Polaroid! #
• 13:51 @paulnicholls Glad you were able to walk away from it. #
• 15:51 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6hylty Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang: Neighbours, everybody needs good Neighbours With a little #

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Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang

Neighbours, everybody needs good Neighbours

With a little understanding, you can find the perfect blend.

Neighbours, should be there for one another

That's when good Neighbours become good friends.

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Tweets for Today

• 13:59 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6ol5or Ketchup!: You know times are tough when you consider alternatives to Heinz tomato sauce. #

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Ketchup!

You know times are tough when you consider alternatives to Heinz tomato sauce.

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Tweets for Today

• 14:31 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6eujbr Sunday Shopping, Why Do I Not Learn?: Miserable weather on a Sunday so everyone is doing #
• 16:28 [Utterli] tinyurl.com/6rkuuq What Would You Do?: Last night a customer bought this lottery ticket in for me to check. #

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What Would You Do?

Last night a customer bought this lottery ticket in for me to check. Knowing that the machine struggles to read crumpled tickets he was about to iron it. When the iron was almost touching it, the heat sensitive paper turned black.

I really hope this wasn't a winning ticket. There's not enough information on the ticket to recognis.

Actually, checking the last two digits and they don't match for the draw date so it was at most a three number match.

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