Author: Kevil

Avatar ABOFB 39: An Oral History of Pouring Beans (ish)

In a slight change to the usual episodes, today we have a self aggrandising look back over our voluminous body of online work under the Pouring Beans name. Everyone does these thing on nice round numbers or important dates usually, but not us. No Sir. Basically we read our own stuff back to ourselves. We discuss:

  • Why is it called that?
  • How did it begin
  • Some McIver poetry
  • Remembering is fun

Avatar I did a thing…

I am now officially a graduate!

I’ve done it.

It’s over.

I am finally (legitimately) Kevin Hill: Science Master.

If you had any doubts about how happy I am to see the back of academia (studying, not my job obviously) then check out this image of me after the ceremony a few weeks ago…

This is not the face of a man about to embark on further study.

Dr. Hill? No thanks.

Avatar The Squirrel Capital of Disneyland

In Disneyland, nothing is normal. And I’m not just taking about that fact that there are grown adults walking around wearing Mickey Mouse ears and carrying a stuffed toy Cheshire Cat. Nope, everything in Disney gets ‘imagineered’ which is a horrible phrase to describe how they pay too much attention to stuff many won’t even notice, but when you do, it’s quite nice.

Whilst queueing to have “Blanche Neige et les Sept Nains” inflicted upon me, I glanced up to see these funny little buggers and it made me chuckle, so here they are for you to look at with your eyes too (and you can avoid having to queue to see such things)

Avatar New: Plunge Digital Yoghurt

Hi, Kevin here from Plunge Networks. Following our recent buyout of Skype, we’ve thought for literally minutes about what to do with the former biggest brand in consumer digital communications, and you know what we thought? That’s right, yoghurt!

Introducing Plunge Digital Yoghurt: the next evolution in snack technology. Upgrade your taste buds. Upgrade your lunch. Plunge Digital Yoghurt, where flavour meets innovation! Launching soon in two great flavours, combining everything you’ve come to know and love about Plunge Communications Networks Inc.

Fruity Mango: A smooth, tropical connection to your inner island. Enjoy a burst of tropical delight with every spoonful. Real mango bits, swirled into creamy, futuristic perfection.

Spicy WiFi: It’s tangy. It’s zesty. It pings your senses. This yoghurt packs a kick as electrifying as your internet connection. Can you handle the heat?

Whether you’re buffering between meetings or uploading flavour to your lunch break, Plunge Digital Yoghurt keeps you connected… deliciously.

Log on. Plunge in.

Avatar ABOFB 38: Depressing Food

Ey up Beans fans, we’re back again, right on time, like Black Box but spelled right. This time Chris asks us about the most depressing foods we’ve eaten, we discuss…

  • Generic Fried Chicken
  • Headrow Shopping Centre Food Court Pies
  • Not Roast Potatoes
  • Bad Burgers

Avatar The *what* spray!?

Having a stroll through the middle of Lidl, like any good 40 year old man does, I came across some sprays.

Nothing too remarkable about that. These ones were a set of liquids intended to be aerosolled into various bits of a car engine…

Engine Starter Spray: Fair enough. I’ve never needed such a thing, but I can understand why it exists.

V-Belt Spray: Again, I’ve never needed such stuff but its existence makes sense to me.

Anti-??? Spray: It protects your leads and cables, apparently you need to do this. It has “Excellent adhesion” and “Lasting protection”. But from what?

Competitions seem to be all the rage on the Beans lately, so what do you think? What common engine based malaise is this spray protecting from?

Avatar Spoons

I’ve developed a new hobby… carving spoons. Its really therapeutic. I got the idea as I was pondering something different we could teach the scouts on camp, and I happened across the idea of spoon carving.

I did what most people do these days and looked on amazon, where I discovered that hook knives (that you need to carve out the ‘bowl’) are too expensive to buy 15 of them for a camp. So then I looked at eBay, and discovered that you cant buy knives on ebay. So then I looked at AliExpress, the cheaper, dodgier, Chineseier version of Amazon and bought a load of them for £2.50 each! Woo.

Anyway I had to get a bit of practice in before I taught a load of kids how to do it, so after too many hours on YouTube these are the result, my spoons.

Hand carved wooden spoons

From left to right…

  1. First attempt, using a bit of old pine bed slat
  2. A walnut spoon, much better.
  3. A (bed slat pine) Welsh love spoon, an additional (late) valentines present to Sarah.
  4. My favourite spoon so far, I’ve no idea what the wood was but it finished up lovely.
  5. Roughed out spoon from this weekend’s camping, made from freshly cut silver birch (tree had blown over in a storm) needs to dry out before I can finish it nicely.
  6. The tools. (Not the cheap AliExpress ones though. Once I made the first spoon and enjoyed it I bought myself some nice MoraKniv ones)

So there you are. Spoons.