mrdee

Welcome back to Xisto. Hope you will have a great time here and not get sick of the Internet again. You asked the question of how to make your signature, well, it is fairly simple. On top of the forum, click on the arrow next to your name and select "My Settings". On the new screen, select "Signature" on the left, you will then also see an option "Edit Signature". As for your question if you can put your URL in your signature, it is mentioned underneath the "Edit Signature" feature, but, just as a reminder, here are those rules as set out by Xisto: Designing/Editing your signature can be extremely simple, or, just as difficult if you want it to be, if you wish to add a complex graphic to it.However, as things are, things are pretty much self-explanatory, not much more difficult than editing a post on the forum. Anyway, have fun.

One thing I seem to have noticed with the upgrade (or rather, NOT noticed):It seems like the chat room has gone missing.Has it been removed from the forum, or is it going to be added later, or have I just missed the link to go to the chat room?Please let me know, as I quite liked the chat room, it might not have been all that busy, but it WAS fun talking to some people on there.

I know, Sheepdog. I have seen quite a few vets in my time, good and bad ones. I was fortunate enough to work for a very competent one (f only he had been as good a human being as he was a vet, things would have been great, but that is a different story). Anyhow, I found it quite surprising about the new heat cycle, but did not really to question the vet's judgement (yet). However, as I mentioned before, my dog is NOT going on that tbale until I am sure she is strong enough to survive the anaesthetic. And, once again, Sheepdog, thank you so much for all your wonderful help and advice. (By the way, I shall be posting links to a few videos of the puppies). Here is one: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ This is about the puppies eating by themselves. And this one: /V/?_fb_noscript=1 This one is where the puppies are walking around. By the way, one thing is really annoying about the little brats: They fight like, well, puppy and puppy. Sometimes we hear them yelping, and when we look, one is hanging from the other's ear, or one is biting the other's nose or back, and things like that. The problem is, they are too young to understand, I guess, quite often, Dido sort of tells them off, but our "NO" does not seem to have a great effect on them.

For me, the fun days are about to start soon too. In a bit over a week, on December the 6th, we will have St. Nicholas visit the grandchildren, which is a lot of fun. Saint Nicholas is the Roman Catholic version of Father Christmas (Or, should I say, Father Christmas is the Protestant version of Saint Nicholas (hence the name Santaclaus), as the Saint Nicholas tradition is older than the Father Christmas one). Anyway, Saint Nicholas was a bishop in Myra (then Greece, now Turkey) and he lived between 270 and 343 AD. He helped a lot of poor people by leaving food and sometimes silver or gold coins at their houses, he did this during the night, so the identity of the benefactor would not be revealed. Also a number of miracles have been accredited to him and there is a legend where an evil butcher was said to have killed three children and had pickled their flesh in a barrel, but St. Nicholas brought them back to life, which also made him the patron saint of children. The fact that he was a bishop explains why Saint Nicholas is dressed as a bishop, and he obviously has a long, white beard. He often arrives during parades near the beginning of December, sat on a beautiful white horse (see picture below). In his works of roaming the towns and delivering his presents, he is assisted by Black Peter (picture on the left), but he has quite a bunch of Black Peters since there are lots of presents to deliver. Peter is black because of going through the chimneys. Black Peter is also the one who is not very forgiving for naughty children. Saint Nicholas has a beautifully ornamented book in which the behaviour of all the children is written down, and Black Peter punishes the naughty children by either: Not giving them any presents or just a piece of coal Caning them with his bushel (picture on the right) Putting them in his sack and taking them away. The good children, on the other hand, get sweets, such as Saint Nicholas shaped chocolate, marzipan, fruit, gingernuts and more, and they get toys as well. Near december, you can also (in certain countries) find Saint Nicholas in the supermarkets and many factories and places of work organise Saint Nicholas parties for their workers' children, where they get a whole bunch of presents, and so do many organisations like football clubs, political parties and all kinds of organisations. So, on December the 6th, Saint Nicholas will come here for our two grandchildren, and the table will be filled with sweets and toys and we will have hot chocolate and buns for breakfast. (In Belgium they have angel cakes for breakfast, big buns in the shape of a man, but you cannot get them in England, unfortunately). So, our children and grandchildren have the best of two worlds. They get their presents at Saint Nicholas, while Santaclaus visits them too at Christmas. Just to clarify: when the first Protestant churches came into existance, they were not allowed to have saints, so, to keep the tradition of a childrens' friend, hey invented Father Christmas (aka Santaclaus or Santa for short) who took the shape of a benevolent wizard who rides through the sky in his sleigh on Christmas Eve and gets down the chimneys to leave presents behind. He looked a lot different than we know him to begin with, but Coca Cola decided to dress him in red in a major advertising campaign in the fifties. And, just like children leave Santa a mince pie and a drink on Christmas Eve, the other children put their shoe down next to the chimney in the days leading up to December 6th (which is actually the dying date of St nicholas), and in their shoe they leave a carrot or a lump of sugar fo St nicholas' horse, which they find replaced with a sweet, a tangerine, a piece of marzipan or a piece of chocolate when they get up in the morning. Obviously, when they have been naughty, they might find a piece of coal in their shoe. Saint Nicholas (or, Sinterklaas, as he is called in Dutch) is mostly celebrated in countries in Western Europe such as Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia. Then, after Saint Nicholas (the Christmas tree is already up then) it is time to start preparing for Christmas. Nothing much happens on Christmas Eve, except for putting the presents in the sacks, but on Christmas morning, obviously, Santa has visited and the rest of the day it is "eat, drink and be merry", with turkey, sweets, cakes, nuts, fruit and lots to drink. A day later we have Boxing Day,so called because in the UK, it was a custom for tradesmen to collect "Christmas boxes" of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. On Boxing Day, there is a traditional roast dinner with roast beef, and the day after that, we eat "bubble and squeak", which is a fry-up of the left over potatoes and vegetables with the left over meat, while on the day after that, we traditionally eat chips with all the meat that is left over (and, believe me, that is often quite a bit). Then we "try to" let our stomachs settle for a few days, until New year's Day comes, when we have another special family meal (usually meat fondue or raclette or something similar). This means a whole week of great celebrations with the whole family together. Then, after January 2nd, things start to get back to normal again, when you feel a bit sad about another Christmas/New Year gone by, but when your main resolution is to get rid of the extra pounds you put on over the Festive Season.

Well, that is what I thought too, but the vet advised us to let her have another heat cycle.I, personally, would like to have the operation done as soon as possible, as we decided beforehand we only intended to let our Dido have one litter only, and I do know how great the risk on mammary tumours and cancer of the womb are.Also, as you advise, I think we should let her gain a bit of weight, as I do not want my lovely animal going on the table being too weak, with the risk of her going into cardiac arrest after getting the anaesthetic and not surviving the operation because of a lack of energy and/or resistance because of having given too much of her energy and fat contents because of having and feeding the puppies.I just want her to be back on her feet again before i subject her to such major surgery, but the good news is, we have now began to wean the puppies off the mother's milk and then it will be a matter of giving Dido time to strengthen up a bit and build up a bit of resistance.

Once again, with the festive season on its way, there is always room for new recipes. This time a nice starter, for the ones who like fish and seafood. It is called "Fish Kettle". Ingredients: 1 piece of thick, firm fish (eg. cod fillet) (1 slice/person) 150 gr shrimps 150 gr sea food mix 50 gr flour 50 gr butter 150 gr mushrooms 1 lemon 3 egg yolks grated cheese vegetable stock 1 dl of cream 1 dessert spoon of tomato purée 2 dl water white wine(*) (*) For conversion of the measurements, please look on http://nannaskitchen.co.cc/. Method: Make a white sauce by melting your butter and adding the flour, then while stirring, slowly add the water. Make sure it is very thick (maybe add less water if needed), add vegetable stock and white wine.. Make a second binding with cream and egg yolks and stir into the sauce. Add the mushrooms. Add the pieces of fish and let them poach for 2 minutes. Do not break up the fish while stirring. Add the shrimps, the tomato purée and the frozen mixed seafood, Put the fish in small oval oven dishes (one piece of fish per dish). Pour the sauce over the fish generously and put grated cheese on top. Put in a pre-heated oven at 200° for 15 minutes. The fish kettle is now ready to serve.

Very true, both Velma and Sheepdog.I have seen it all too often, the mammary tumours and Pyometras.Fortunately, in all the cases of mammary tumours, we have always managed to bring them to a good end because either they were detected early, or were benign (before the real damage had time to step in).It is indeed a very common thing to happen in dogs, and they do not even have to be old.Of course, when I say "we managed to bring them to a good end", that is by no means a guarantee that a tumour in another teat will not return.As for Pyometras, they are indeed very dangerous, fortunately (not in all cases, I know), the vaginal discharge of pus gives it away immediately, in that case, even an idiot can recognise the signs and take his/her dog to a vet for immediate attention and as good as immediate treatment.Thankfully, there are lots of sensible dog owners too, in the few Caesarians I assisted in, after the puppies were delivered we also (at the owner's request, of course) the dog's reproductive system, which can be seen as a sensible precaution.(The only thing is, it is quite a major and long-winded procedure, if everything was just as simple as neutering a cat).However, we are going to have Dido neutered, but we have to let her get into season once more, without any contraceptive injection or anything.The danger obviously exists that Lucky is going to try and hump her again, as we have no way of keeping them apart, but we will let Lucky have a special injection to suppress his sexual instincts instead.We also intend to have Lucky done later, so he can get some sort of protection against testicle or prostate cancer.We live by the principle that the happiness, well-being and good health of our animals is a number one priority (a pity the vets are so incredibly expensive here, though).Now, coming back to the puppies, they had their first independent meal today.Nanna got them dry puppy food and soaked that in hot water and then put it in the puppies' habitat (after letting the water cool off enough, of course) and the puppies were not sure what happened in the beginning, but their sense of smell got the better of them after a little while and they really jumped at the food.Quite often they ended up standing in the feeding bowl rather than next to it, and a lot of the food ended up on the floor, where it then got picked up and eaten, but being messy eaters is a well known puppy feature, so, there you go.Nevertheless, the little babies loved the food, so we will gradually get them onto that and wean them off feeding off their mum, so Dido can begin t get her energy back and gain back her weight that was lost after having and feeding the puppies.So, we can say we have now come to a milestone in the puppies' lives, a first step to growing up.I will ask nanna to post some pictures of the puppies eating in the Gallery.Once again, Sheepdog and Velma, thank you for all your help, advice and support.

Earlier today I embedded a video file into a website using HTML 5. I used the following code: <video width="560" height="340" controls> <source src="file://C:/Users/Papa/Documents/Camtasia Studio/Puppies/Puppies.mp4" type='video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.2"'><source src="path/to/myvideo.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"'></video> (Obviously this is just the code for the video, it was properly placed between <head></head>, <html></html> and <body></body> tags.). The code worked good as gold, the video plays impeccably, however, the only control present apart from Play/Pause is the volume control. I would like a control on my video which the user can click to let the clip play in full-screen mode. Is that possible to achieve, and, if it is, how do I manage to do this? Your advice will be much appreciated.

Since the festive season is on its way, I thought it might be a good idea to post some special recipes, some ideas to make the season that bit more festive. Let us begin with (how appropriate ) a nice starter for that festive meal: Starter for a festive meal. PUFF PASTRY PARCEL WITH SMOKED SALMON< APPLE AND HERBAL CHEESE. Ingredients: Puff pastry (sheets of about 5 inches) Smoked salmon Apples (eg. pink ladies) Herbal cheese (Boursin) Method: Cut the apple in brunoise (small cubes) and mix with the cheese. On a sheet of pastry, put down smoked salmon, from halfway to about half an inch of the border. Add a spoonful (dessert spoon) of the apple mix on top and fold the sheet into a parcel. Press the edges shut with a fork and rub them in with beaten egg (whole egg). Bake in the oven on 180 to 200 degrees Centigrade for about 15 minutes (You will easily see yourself whether or not the pastry is properly cooked). Serve on a heated plate and garnish with some lettuce and tomatoes or as you see fit. Caution Do not prepare this too long in advance or the liquid of the apple could make your pastry soggy. Best to prepare while the oven is pre-heating, since the starter is ready ever so quickly. Since I am in a good mood, I might as well give the recipe for another lovely starter, based on seafood. SEAFOOD COCKTAIL Ingedients: A tin of salmon Some peeled shrimps (prawns) Some crabstick meat A hard boiled egg A few leaves of lettuce A tomato A lemon Mayonnaise Ketchup 1 fl. oz of whisky Method: Use a large, deep glass. On the bottom of a glass, put down a leaf of lettuce and a quarter of a tomato on top of that. Put down a quarter of a hard boiled egg on the lettuce. Distribute the crab meat around the lettuce and put a chunk of the salmon in the middle. Put the shrimps on top. Making the cocktail sauce: Mix mayonnaise with ketchup to get a nice pink complexion, add the whisky and stir well. Put the cocktail sauce on top of the contents of the glass. Finish off with putting a quarter of a lemon on the edge of the glass (the lemon can be squeezed over the contents). Garnish the top of the glass with some more shrimps and some chopped parsley. Put into the fridge and serve cold.

I too love all dogs, but my favourite list looks like this: Alsatians (also known as German shepherds, however, they have messed around so much with this breed certain problems may arise with them. Saint Bernards, beautiful and loyal dogs. Labradors, I own eleven of them at the moment, but that will be reduced to three. Huskies and Malamuts. West Highland terriers. Poodles. The list is not in a particular order, and some breeds might be missing, it is just to give an idea about the dogs I like, but, as I said earlier, I like any dog, really. After all, are dogs not known as man's best friend?

Hi there, Michaelwolf,welcome to the Xisto community.I am sure you will find the things you are looking for on here, there are lots of topics dealing with health issues and the games secion is also well represented.Hope to see lots of your posts appearing here soon and hopefully your postings will contribute towards helping people who are keen to find solutions for health issues and offer lots of fun to gamers.Hope you have lots of fun here.

OK then, Velma,it looks like, in your last-but-one post, the URL (appearing as a hyperlink) immediately connect to the Facebook video and play it with no problem at all.In your previous post, you have probably forgotten to turn the text into a link, as, when I copy and paste the link into a browser window, it also plays the Facebook video perfectly.So, it looks like all we have to do is copy the embed code from Facebook and just use the hyperlink bit from it and we should be up and running.By the way, just to clarify, the video shows our granddaughter Paige (3 years old) sharing her lunch with her two friends Lucky and Dido (the dad and mum of the puppies).Dido (the mum) is the dog nearest to the camera, with Lucky (the dad) sitting next to her.This was filmed (if I remember correctly) about a week before the puppies were born.Expec some more films to appear here now that i have some sort of idea of how to make them appear (although it would be even better if we could embed them directly into our posts).

OK, here we go: A simple recipe which cannot fail! Jam square Needed for 1 cake: Puff Pastry (4 frozen squares or 1 round one) Apricot jam 1 egg Flour Roll the pastry on a surface which has been spread with flour. (If you have no rolling pin an empt bottle can serve as a rolling pin).Put the pastry on the baking tray. Cut off the excess pastry so the pastry fits the tray perfectly. (You can also make several smaller cakes). Cover the pastry with a thick layer of apricot jam. Stay away about 1 cm (1/2 inch) from the edge. Pre-heat the oven on 225 degrees C. Roll the rest of the pastry and turn it into strips of about 5mm (1/4 of an inch) in width. With those strips you can make a grid pattern above the jam. Now you can fold the edges of the cake so the ends of the grid get nice and tight. You can now rub the pastry with a beaten egg, this will help the grid to stick to the bottom. Place the cake in the oven for 15 minutes on 225 degrees C and then another 15 minutes on 150 degrees C until the pastry looks golden brown. This is a real delicacy, and ever so simple to make.

50 grammes=1.76 ounces. Then again, now I think about it, there is a conversion table to British and American measurements from grammes and litres on nanna's blog, which can be found here. Just click on the "Weights and measures" tab on the top. Later today, there will be another scrumptious cake recipe be posted. Watch this space.

I obviously wish you all the best of luck.I really cannot wait to see what your swans will turn out like.When made properly, they are ever so yummy.

I am now anxiously and curiously waiting for some feedback.Velma mentioned something about making the swans on Sunday, and I would really like to know if it happened, and if so, what the result was.Please let me know what happened.

Yes, Sheepdog, there must be something that decides whether it is or is not time for us to go (like in my dad's and my uncle's case) or whether is or is not supposed to happen.Difficult to work out in any case.And yes, very likely that the twins are my older siblings, as the story says I might not had existed if my dad had gone on that journey.I am the youngest of six.Which reminds me, I think I had double luck or something like that (reminded me of a story mum told me, thanks to you mentioning the twins being my older siblings):Mum had to go into hospital one day to have an operation because there had been a problem with her womb it had moved out of place or something similar).The doctor suggested for mum to have a hysterectomy, but still being quite young, mum refused and opted to just have the operation to correct the existing problem (there were five children at the time).Believe it or not, a few years later, mum had her sixth child, that was me.(There are six years of difference between my brother (the fifth one) and me).So, once again, it seems that something or someone was determined for me to get born, as there were two occurrences which might have stopped me from ever existing.But (so much is coming back into my mind now as I write those things down and think about further stories I was told), it still does not stop there.I was born with jaundice, a simple thing these days, but, in those days, quite a serious problem, it seems my general health was very questionable too when I was a baby.Anyway, one day, the doctor suggested to have me admitted to hospital, and added things did not look good and that the trip to the hospital would most probably be my last one.To that mum and dad both said "if he has to die anyway, he might as well die at home so he can spend his last weeks or days or hours, or whatever the doctor had predicted, with the people who love him".In the end, the doctor agreed and admitted "you probably have a point there".So, I was probably put on medication and treated at home, and, yes, I am still here, aren't I?That makes me think: would someone be looking out for me after all?

Insult you? Anyway, I am listening to Duke Ellington's "Take the 'A' train" now, performed by the Oscar Peterson Trio. What music I am into, as a musician who was classically trained and who earned my living as a jazz musician most of my life should be quite obvious .

A very warm welcome from me too, Gary.You might be new on the forums, but, even experienced people get help here (you can't be specialised in everything, after all), and the other good thing is, you yourself might be able to contribute lots of knowledge and wisdom to the forums here thanks to your experience.Hope you have a real good time here.

Wow!!!!Velma loves decent music too.I was fortunate enough to see and hear Jimmy Smith live in London 2 months before he died.RIP Jimmy.And thanks.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, Velma, How many more times????????When I say "an egg", or "eggs", I mean The egg, the whole egg, and nothing but the egg (except for the shell, just in case), when I want you to use the yolk or the egg white, I will clearly say so. Thanks.Sponge cake mix is not so hard to make, just caster sugar, self raising flour, butter and egg (Yes, EGG). I nevertheless wish you all the luck in the world. Fire away if you have any more questions, and let me know how things are going.

First blood indeed. Anyway, when I say "eggs", I mean the whole egg, otherwise I would say "egg yolk" or "egg white".Difficult to say if your ingredients are different in India, but with "real butter" I mean, "do not use margarine, but butter".As for the flour, I mean "plain flower", not even self-raising, the eggs make the mixture rise and "explode".But since there are that many varieties, i assume you should go for cake flour (as the name implies).So, let's see how you get on.

Here we go then , Velma, on top is a picture of what the swans should look like (I could just sink my teeth into that picture). Ingredients: 50 grammes of real butter 10 cl of water 10 cl of milk 50 grammes of flour 2 eggs 25 cl of whipping cream 15 grammes of sugar a tin of pineapple chunks (optional). Method: Boil the butter, milk and water in a pan until the butter has melted. Important: Take the pan off the fire and add the flour (preferably through a sieve to avoid lumps). Stir with a wooden spoon until a dough ball forms, the dough is right when it easily lifts off the pan. Then, add the eggs (one egg at a time) and stir until the egg is absorbed, then repeat for the other egg, you should now have a beautiful shiny mass. Preheat the oven on 180 degrees while you get the dough ready. For the heads: use an icing bag, and on a baking tray covered with baking paper, form question marks of about 2 inches high, with a bit of a thicker bit for the head on the top. Bake the necks in the oven for about 10 minutes. Now, make the bodies, with a bigger head on the icing bag, still using a baking tray with baking paper on it, form pear-shaped balls of about 30 grammes of dough and put into the oven for 30-35 minutes. It is important you do NOT open the oven during the baking process or your dough balls will collapse. When the baking is finished, get the cakes out of the oven, they should have risen nicely and have "exploded" on the inside, so you have nice, crispy cakes, which are hollow on the inside. Now, let the cakes cool off. While the cakes are cooling, whip your cream and add the sugar, whip it until it just peaks, whip it too much and you end up with butter. Put the cream in the fridge while you prepare the cakes. Cut a "lid" of the top of the cakes, and cut it in two lengthways, these will be the wings. If desired, put a few bits of dried off pineapple in, and put the cream into the cake with the icing bag, you can repat by putting some more pineapple on top and adding another layer of cream. Stick the wings and necks into the cream and garnish by sprinkling some icing sugar over the swans. Good luck, and, please, let me know how you get on.

How would you like to bake a swan, filled with whipped cream, and maybe little chunks of pineapple?Not a lot needed, not difficult to make, but they need a bit of practice.

Yes, Velma, thank you.That is great, being able to click straight through to a full screen slideshow.