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As so we reach the end of another year. As always it's been a roller coaster of ups and downs and sideways and diagonals so I'll try and just do a few line's sum up for you.
Started off on the first day of the year getting back together together with my girlfriend on New Years day only to be broken up from her again September. But, what you'e got to remember is, to take life as it comes. If things are meant to be then they will be later on down the road even if it's not as soon as you'll like.
After January, I worked and played and can't remember much of it so, as is the rule, we must say it must have been good. In October I went to go see Alice Cooper and had so much fun my voice went on holiday for a day or two. When it recovered I went and met some new people who I'm now really close too and can't imagine being without and in December I met my current girlfriend and when up to Nottingham to go and see her. This is where my memory returns to me.
The most fun part of the day, other than meeting her of course (so I don't get punched), was coming home. You see, my friend had been to see a football game that was being played in town that day and he was going home by coach and I was going home by train. Race? Oh yes.
So was getting the 18:28 from Nottingham to St Pancras and my jouney should take around 3 hours to get to our end destination. Now you may be thinking the coach doesn't stand a chance. Now you would be right, but the coach left a whole hour before me. Infact at the time I as leaving the coach was already going past Birmingham. So I settled down the journey home and got a little update just before Luton that said the coach was 26 miles from London and they had had their rest stop. So it's starting to get close. Later I get an update saying the coach was going past Finsbury Park, that's two train stops from St Pancras.
At this point we were pretty much neck and neck. We I got off the train I ran through the station the mile long or so journey to the underground platform to get me across the city. Of course, you have no signal on the Underground so I had no idea where the cause was. When I got off at Vauxhall I found that I'd overtaken the coach as they were passing Victoria, just the over side of the river. It was here I found there was no train direct back to my destination so got on the next train to Clapham Junction. Then I had to negotiate my way around the timetables to find my train. I then got another update to say the coach was going past The Oval. I could practically see them. This is where the tension could heated. Every second became aminute and every minute became an hour. The train eventually arrived and when I got off at my destination I got an update saying they hit traffic. I'd won! Well makes a return journey more intresting you know.
So, Christmas, that time of year again where I go to church, have a few awkward conversations there and then go to my Grandparent's for Christmas dinner. The way it should be. Pigs in blankets, stuffing, turkey, piles of veg and exceptionally predictable bad Christmas cracker jokes. It's that one time of year where I get to be a real innocent in the moment kid and that will never change.
Boxing day we went to Reading to go to another family get together and it went quite well although I am completly done socialising for another 6 months or so. However the food made up for it. Just the best, most suculent pigs in blankets, turkey, sausage and smoked salmon. That on top of of all the nibbles and rice based dishes. I really didn't leave hungry although I used to be able to eat more until I took an arrow to the knee.
That's right. I have Skyrim now. Only about an hour into it or so but an hour is all you need. Not sure I'm completly addicted yet as I'm not dreaming about it but maybe as I become stronger it will become more addictive. Although one thing is clear is that it is a huge game with so many possibilities I've barely scratched the surface.
Well that's about it from me I think, I don't me I'm abou to die just finish the post. I'll be back in the new year with more grumbling and complaining and random thoughts for your delectation and annoyance. It's my birthday tomorrow and I have a meal tonight and tomorrow so I'm going to be full.
Have a Happy New Year everyone!!
Professor Brian Cox, or as every member of the female species refers to him "awwwwhhhhh", really has a great mind and can explain complex ideas simply using everyday household objects so mere mortals can understand the workings of the universe. Whilst being really good like this he is also rather repeatedly annoying because he describe almost everything as "amazing". That has to be said in his voice for it to really work. For example a normal phrase would go something like this: "The universe is big, immensely big, so big it's difficult to get your head around. And within that, are millions upon millions of galaxies with planets and stars whirling around in space and time. And it's amazing..."
Now I have to agree with him there, it is indeed amazing to be living in a universe of such complexity and we can understand with the power of maths and science how it all interacts. It's the not the use of the word, it's just that he uses it for literally everything. BBC Radio 4' "The Now Show" did a brilliant sketch to illustrate exactly the point I'm making here. Just go to You-Tub-E (say it like that, it's more fun) and search terms such as 'Brian Cox now show' or 'Brian Cox amazing' and you'll find it. It's worth the three minutes of you life trust me. Anyway enough of my rantings about one word said by one person.
VLC Media player. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a piece of software that can play video or music files among others in that same way that iTunes or Windows Media Player does. Although one major difference is that VLC will actually play anything and everything. AVIs, MP3s, MKVs, children, DVDs, bananas, you name it and it can play it. At least that's what I thought up until last week. You see, after buying my 3D monitor and watching The Lion King 3D in full 1080p high definition I decided to make the move to Blu-ray and so I bought myself a Blu-ray drive along with the Jurassic Park Trilogy, Saw 3D and Drive Angry 3D. The 3D in both those fills I'm happy to report back is excellent and not gimmicky and really adds to the experience. So I plug in the drive and slip in Jurassic Park and open Windows Media Player only to find that it can't play. I didn't really expect it too so I open up trusty VLC and I was stunned to find that it couldn't play it either. I'd actually found something that VLC, with the worlds largest collection of codecs brought together in a simple program from out of chaos, coudln't play Blu-ray discs. It's amazing.
Today the UK economy was bowled a strike by most of the public sector furious about pension plans etc. This resulted in 70% of state-funded schools closing for the days. For those of us that did go back to work in a ghost town school it was a nice productive and relaxing day. We could all just get on with a backlog of work, in my case asset checking, and not having to be quiet or feel we need to be avoiding eggshells so much.
In fact we got so much done and it was such a nice day I implore people to stand up for their rights more and withdraw labor in this increasingly difficult financial world. Deals are done, the system can sometimes be beaten, but more importantly those of us left behind can actually get on and do stuff without interruptions. Put it this way, a normal working day for me has an XFM soundtrack but today could have quite easily ticked along to the magicians of prog-rock; Pink Floyd.
The other real twist of the week was that finally I've given in and set myself up a Twitter account. Why on Earth I did that I don't know but now I have all my various accounts linked up so I don't have to double up statuses or links is good. It means when I post something on Youtube it goes both to my Twitter and Facebook account or when I go live on BlogTV. As a result, I've had to add a follow me button as apparently that's the law. I did state at the beginning that if it didn't suck me in by the end of the week I would drop it but I'm not so sure that's going to happen.
The only thing I'm concerned with is keeping everything up to date. It's difficult enough summoning up the material to do one of these amazing blog posts every week let alone doing little 140 character updates. But I think that's the catch of Twitter, because it's so short you don't have to think about it. It's quick, simple and easy. Having said that there is nothing more irritating that writing something and finding you can't post because it's more than 140 characters. For those definitive up and coming rants, I'll be sticking to my Wednesday Blogspot.
After all, these are all thought's that have happened to cross my mind. That's the thing, this blog is exactly what it says on the tin and so is Twitter. So naturally I signed up to that service to get to know some new birds.
3D has been a bit of a buzz word in the technology world the past few years and usually it's a whole lot of fuss with a fairly good result but with an even better result of emptying your bank account. But at least you could watch the films you already had in 3D and get new special content while the bailiffs wheel out the everything including the kitchen sink. The two main reasons why I haven't subscribed to the 3D dynamite boom is because of the price but also once you've bought the monitor or TV you need to fork out a fair bit more for a set of glasses.
My first experience of this round's 3D was when I went to see the final installment of Harry Potter earlier this year. You got it, I was one of the 200 people in the cinema for two and half hours with the special geek potter glasses on, looking cool as every. I was pretty impressed by the added dimension in that film, it was worth the extra fiver but not good enough to take home with me. Anyway, whilst looking through Amazon last week I stumbled across a 23inch LED 1080p passive 3D monitor with glasses for only £180. Couldn't quite believe that and I thought it would be crap-D but the reviews were turning out pretty good. As I needed a 1080p monitor anyway I decided to go ahead and buy it and I'm so glad I did.
Those of you who have read my previous posts (yh, both of you) will know that I'm a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 and I decided to give it a go in 3D and my god it's amazing! If you get a set of dwraven mines where you have a load of Axe Throwers waiting just inside ready to ambush the 3D really adds the depth perfect allowing you to immerse even more in the game. I've also dug out my old copy of GTA SA and even that in 3D really gives the game a new lease of life...although machine gunning down police helicopters has always been a past time of mine. Another thing is that I experienced GT5 in 3D and when combined with a good steering wheel with force feedback turns into a completely game. What I'm really looking forward to is playing Skyrim on PC in 3D, I'm so exited about that.
If you bought active shutter glasses with the nVidia 3D kit or spent thousands of your hard earned cash on a 3D TV then sorry to have to break this to you but; you are an idiot. You should have waited for the price to come down and even I admit I've done the wrong thing by buying this when affordable 3D display that require no glasses are only a few years away. Then you won't have to look like a geeky idiot whilst embracing the depth of an erotic sensation in a Youtube-like format.
Why hello again! Long time no see! That's to a cock up at Virgin I have been without internet for a considerable time so those of you who actually read this, congratulations, you got a break. Now however, I have returned and with a bit of back log of blogs so I won't be short of material in the coming weeks.
This Halloween I wanted to do something special, really make it an occasion to remember. My family being like they are we usually just ignore the seasonal event all together but not this year. Because this year I was going to see Alice Cooper's Halloween Night of Fear 2011 at Alexandra Palace, London, UK. Unfortunately the person who I intended to go with dropped out so after ringing round a few friends I found someone who wanted to come with, despite it being their first gig and not knowing what to expect. As it turns out I got slightly more than I bargained for...
After a train journey across London at dusk and climbing up the hill to Alexandra Palace and wondering around trying to find the entrance which turned out to be on the other side of the venue we got stamped and entered. Immediately I could tell it was going to be a good night because we were greeting in the first hall by a hired group of assorted zombies, spiders and others. Complete with 50 foot high cobwebs to boot. Then once we fought our way through the crowd of bars we entered the main hall and was instantly greeted with the warm up to the warm up act; female choreographed flame eaters.....with fiery whips....and leather. Need I say anymore?
Then the warm up act, in this case, The New York Dolls entered center stage and proceeded to play an awesome set list which means they have at least one new fan now. I didn't know the words but it was still really good music and beat so got us going well. On a side note; it was at this point I found myself a group of girls who I made an initial bit of contact with and naturally my thoughts moved to them but, as is always the way in gig situations, we somehow moved without moving which was annoying.
Once warm up left there was an agonizing 45 minute wait until the main show started. Although after 3 songs my annoyance had been completely obliterated because of the spectral I was part of. It was just hit after after hit, in fact the only one that I wish he'd included was Welcome to my Nightmare but instead I got Feed my Frankenstein. Not what I'd call a bad trade off. Cooper's use of props is always exceptional and as well as being decapitated, producing a 15 foot high Frankenstein monster of himself fully mobile, the return of the famous snake which I've not seen in recent years, they was a new lead guitarist; Orianthi. Just Google her or Youtube Orianthi Solo and you'll see what I mean. Just jaw dropping and amazing in every way. If anyone can find me a decent poster could you please let me know!
Finally, as a special Halloween present Cooper co-supported an old face from the 60's; Arthur Brown. If that doesn't ring a bell then maybe if I shout the words "I am the god of hellfire" you will have the general idea. It was a perfect finale to an amazing evening. It just so happened to be the show that was filmed for the DVD and Blu-ray as well of which I have a copy of and you can see me in there. Lastly, on the way back across London at midnight I saw a zombie walk into a lamp post.
These days people just seem to get excited for the latest graphics when combined with a gun and as much as I see an appeal I don't indulge in that longing. There are two main types of game that really hit the spot for me; racing and strategy games. Oh and Zombie Highway and Paper Toss on the iPhone. But looking through the older parts of my game collection I stumbled across two which brought back enough nostalgia to install and play. Those two game were Age of Empires 3 and Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth 2. Or for the latter more specifically (take a deep breath); The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth 2 - The Rise of the Witchking expansion pack. Possibly the smallest font I've ever seen on the side of a games box.
For anyone that hasn't heard of the Age of Empires series, it was a third person strategy game where a player starts a new colony and works their way through the ages through development and battles. At the time the graphics were pretty jaw dropping and as far an I'm concerned it still has one of the best damage models of any game ever. Possible exception being Empire Total War which is a similar game just which improved graphics. For me, it's the right combination of fun, simplicity and variability. The sheer range of different styles of gameplay and strategies you can use means that it never gets boring, and that's just in single player skirmishes and the extensive campaign mode. Once you start playing this with other people, especially over LAN, that's where the fun really begins. Not only because when they get things wrong you can just shout at them but because when you screw things up there is the power of another brain to make sure that you don't lose.
So take that game and throw in The Lord of the Rings theming into it and I'm in the palm of your hand. I managed to get it working just a few days ago after patching and tweaking in order for it to play nice with Windows 7 and fell in love with it all over again. Remembering that once you have fully upgraded elvish archers you cannot lose I chose a map against the goblins and got going. This time building walls across the bridges so they only had on method to attack further down the river. The battles which followed were the most fun I've had in a long time, with my triple wall defense and arrow towers everywhere. Completely immersed in the world for a few hours whilst the Apocalypse, not being able to make it's previous schedule of Friday the 14th of October, was surrounding me.
For years the frankly brilliant piece of Sunday night fun coming to from BBC2, Top Gear, has been brightening up the time you spend before going to bed knowing that when you wake up your back to the work of the daily grind. The combination of the trio's cliche'd personalities makes for excellent 'good time' viewing. The show has been shown all around the world and dubbed and subbed into many different languages but now the format has been sold so countries can start making their own. If the american version is anything to go by, this was a colossal mistake.
As I'm writing I'm watching the first episode of the american show and although it has all the right ingredients there's just something about it that doesn't seem genuine. Maybe this is purely because I don't like formats being sold to America because it's never as good as the original. Or maybe it's that the presenters seem like their heart isn't into what their doing, despite the opening video being a Dodge Viper being chased around a town by a helicopter, similar to what British Top Gear did a couple of times a few years back. I don't mind that their copying, they kind of have to, I mean what else is there left to do? But it's lacking the fun element of it. Maybe I've just got this all wrong and the British trio are just better actors.
I think to sum it up I'll say this; it's doesn't seem quite as well polish or it has a smaller budget that the original. But it's kind of like watching a series of the original Top Gear and then watching a series of Fifth Gear. Both very good in themselves but you know which ones better.
Well it's that time of the week, all be it one day later than usual, where I have a bit of a moan to the rest of the world befoe retiring back to my cacoon. It's been an odd kind of week with different job possibilities coming and going, trying new things and genrally getting through a lot of Stella Artios....but she doesn't mind.
Lateness has been a theme today as prooved by myself and my train, now trains, to work this morning. As there are "improvemnt works" currently in action, making everything later than usual so that when they go bac to normal then can claim it's an improvement, so my train was twenty minutes late. That's not a huge deal in itself, after all who's really that anxious to get to work. The problem came after boarding when, once we were a few stations down the line, I got a text messege to which I replied and look up to see the sign flying past fo my station. To which my reaction was not to explode, it was more of an "oh, that's odd". Of course it's not so bad, one station further, I can just walk back to work from there but unfortunatly the train didn't want me to do that and carried on to the next station whre it eventually stopped. The pistons laughly evily at me. What they were fogetting was that the train that goes back down the line was only five minute away, although I did have a niggling theory that it wouldnt stop at my station for no apparent reason. Anyway, after my tour Croydon, lucky me, I got into work 45 minutes late, not that anyone really noticed and got on with my day.
Now onto what is fast becoming a classic topic, driving lessons. Not going to be a long rant today because I did parrelel parking for the first time. So after 15 minutes of trying to find an appropriate spot or, as some women I know like to call it, a shoe shopping space, we pulled up and went through it. To my suprise, I actually completed it boths times perfectly which begs th question; why (using a steriotype) are women so bad at it? I can answer that. They're too busy making sure they look good for when they step out of the car...or looking at the sale sign in the shop window...or perhaps thinking what it would be like to be a princess. Ok I know the latter doesn't actually sound all that realistic just you'd be suprised.
Finally, there's always something that says the world is going to end on a given day. Well it may aswell be Friday the 14th of October because everything else is. I have my driving theory test at 8am, then was invited for an interview at 9am (which I've managed to purspone)then working as usual, Ed Byrne in the evening, software upgrades, oher deadlines around work such as payment for the Christmas doo and finally and most importantly, Forza 4 is being delivered for some love making with my Xbox. If your reading this on that day then it must not be quie so busy for you. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but everything seems to be happening tomorrow so I'm afriad appocolypse will have to wat, I'm far too busy.
I try not to right about how the week has been in a whole but I may as well just give it a go this once. So here we go; I worked a lot, went to the pub, didn't get laid and went to sleep again.
Thanks for reading!
OK, so I did a little more than that. For example yesterday I completed another driving lesson. For the first time the clutch control was good, did some emergency braking and some maneuvers. Long since are the days where if a child appears all of a sudden in front of you, and you know you will probably hit it, you slam on the brakes and pray that you only mildly injure...I mean that you don't hit it. Well chances are it was the kid who let down your tires last week and shot peas at your cat. No, now if lil Lucifer walks into the road you have to check all your mirrors then quickly start applying more braking break until the car starts to skid, or not if you have ABS (yes, that's right, its now a fact that if you have bulging muscles your car won't skid). Making sure not to stall, then put the handbrake on and put the gear into neutral. After all that, you again have to check your mirrors, you get out and see how much damage a kid bouncing off your bonnet actually causes and then walk 50 feet back up the road to where a battered and broken Lucifer lays.
So emergency braking covered we moved onto a quiet road to do a three point turn for the first time. After being talked through it I was just about to start the maneuver when I noticed something. 100 feet up the road there was a learner performing an interesting insight into how to do reverse parallel parking and 100 feet behind there was another reversing left round the corner. With me in the middle doing a three point turn it could have looked like an Olympic sport in practice for London 2012 games next year; Synchronized Learner Maneuvers. To be honest, that might actually happen because everyone in Britain thinks the Games next year are going to be a bit of let down even if they do well. A learner driving onto the running track and then trying to do a three point turn to get out again probably wouldn't raise to many surprised eyebrows.
Finally, we decided to try and do a left hand corner reverse maneuver so we went on search for an eligible junction. I kid you not, I was driving for 15 minutes before we eventually found the only learner-driver-free-corner in the UK. But unfortunately half way through the process we had to abort because a learner driver appeared at the road I was reversing in to and wanted to turn left. Bloody learner drivers... . The people of this country are always talking about teenagers hanging around on street corners. Well now they're doing it in cars with older people. OK, that doesn't sound quite how I meant it but you can all blame yourselves for having dirty minds.
It would be wrong of me, somehow, to not mention the death of one of the greatest innovators and business leaders of the past 50 years; Steve Jobs. The former co-founder and, until August, CEO of Apple died yesterday at the age of only 56 after suffering from cancer for 8 years. The world will sorely miss Steve Jobs, even those who aren't particular fans of Apple. Without him the Macintosh all-in-one computer would exist which has saved many market analysts' jobs and upper working class families try to progress to full on middle class. More importantly, for me, we wouldn't have the iPod, which for me would be the invention of the decade, especially my 4th gen purple nano. Simple, small, sexy, long lasting and does exactly what you want. Rest in peace Steve, enjoy chatting with god, there's an app for that you know.
Back in my day, (puts the pipe in and feet up on a foot stall by the fireplace) fire drills were meant to keep people in practice and make people aware of procedure in case of an emergency. The other reason is, of course, to make that little kid in Year 7 wet himself.
Now, as a member of support staff, we knew there was going to be a practice of evacuation procedure at 10am, so just before the big hand on the clock turned twelve we collected our stuff in preparation and, peering into a few classroom windows, so was everyone else. Now I don't know about you, but when I was at school not so long ago, we weren't told about fire drills because it was meant to be a realistic test of how we cope in an emergency. Although on one occasion, we just stop bothering after the third time the fire alarm went of in one day, probably due to someone burning the toast in Food Technology.
So apparently fires can only exist these days if they first book in and tell everyone when their going to happen. I think this is a very Ank-Morporkian ways of doing things. For those of you that aren't familiar with the great Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books, in the capital city of Ank-Morpork, the leader accepted that crime will always exist so he set up a guild for thieves and assassins etc. The premise being that anyone who pays tax in the city can expect to get robbed no more and no less than twice per year providing they keep a receipt of robbery. Of course, if you don't pay your taxes then your fair game. Well maybe that's whats going to happen in the future with fire seen as we're now telling people exactly when drills are going to happen so they can prepare and be ready.
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| If you like maps, click on this one, it's so detailed and there are some things that are bound to make you laugh, 30 points if you spot the Guilds |
By a complete coincidence, the whole school was having its photograph taken and had to be assembled outside on the field by 10:30am. I think what this suggests is that they couldn't be bothered to get all the well-behaved kids out by themselves so just organised a fire drill so the kids what sort themselves out. Of course, for the badly behaved kids....well just let them burn then. They should have listened, it was scheduled...
You'll know when you hear music that you would classify as 'great'. Whether it has a beat to it that makes you want to get up and go or sing your heart out, you'll know it. Over the years there have been many theories as to why humans have such a deep connection with rhythmic sounds. One in particular, which makes sense to me, is that we are subconsciously constantly looking for safety and security and crave a predictable regular rhythm. Certainly this would explain why music sometimes takes time before you start liking it.
For me, for music to be worthy of that 'great' status, it has to be able to change or enhance my mood for a sustained amount of time. Take listening to Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits. Listening to that on the train coming back from work enhanced my feeling and relaxed me, all be it almost to much so as I nearly fell asleep. In contrast, when listening to The Catalyst by Linkin Park makes me want to sing along and even do a bit of dancing. It makes me feel good about myself and gives me confidence...which is then shattered by people laughing at my dancing. Well OK that's a lie, if you can't laugh at yourself then what can you laugh at? The point is, great music works its way into your mind and completely absorbs you into it and heightens your emotions.
So now that we've defined what great music is, what about 'great' albums? Well when I get a new album I'll put it on in the background and forget about it. If I find myself trying to sing along to words I don't know or connecting with it all the way through then it is exactly that. But there's more to it than that. There has to be some sort of moral or story that progressively advances through each song and, if its very good, contain different themes throughout. Most notable for that for me would be Pink Floyd's The Wall album, if you don't know it then look it up! You won't be disappointed. The latest great album I would say would be Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns album because it flows extremely well even though I don't like the song Blackout. If I run through the album without paying attention them it flows fine. Although on a side note, Blackout has just come on on my media player and talking about it made me notice it which is annoying.
So to sum up, a great song evokes and enhances you emotions and a great album evolves them. What we have here is the triple E criteria. I think it also has to have complimentary contrasting songs which helps the evolution of the story in the music. Even the hardest upbeat artists nearly always put in a slower song. I mean, look at Abba's greatest hits.
After being asked for a year and half (because apparently if you don't start your driving lessons on your 17th birthday your not human) when I'm going to start learning to drive, so I can get a car that I can't afford and then crash it, I've finally booked them. As much as I want to drive, at the moment there really is no real need, especially when you clock the cost of the insurance which for me is somehow six times the worth of the few hundred pound car that I'd be driving. What their saying is that I'm going to completely write it off six times in my first year. Now I know that 25% (or something like that) of all crashes are young men between ages of 17 and 24 but the insurance has gone up almost two fold for me since I did a preliminary check last year. Now, is it just me or does that not seem a tad excessive?
Now because I've done a few hours of driving over the past year or two I decided to book a block of 20 hours, knowing that I could add some at a later date. The following Friday night, whilst I was having some private time with my now ex-girlfriend, my phone rings three times in half an hour between 8 and 9PM. On the Tuesday of the next week, whilst patching in network cable at work, the same number rings again and I answer it to find out its my Instructor Company. The guy on the end of the phone said this: "I tried to get hold of you last week but you weren't answering." Because apparently I couldn't possibly be doing anything at all on a Friday night. I don't know if these people live on a different planet where they don't have social lives but they shouldn't be ringing up people at that time right? Is that not included in one of the many training courses?
Moving onto my first lesson on a public road. It went quite well actually, only one or two stalls and a mistaken gear change in 90 minutes of driving. Even if I was feeling dizzy because we must have gone around at least as many roundabouts. However at the end of it my instructor said he was pleased with how things had gone so that put my worries to bed for a while. Today I had my second lesson, 2 hours of driving this time, and again it went quite well except for a double kangaroo stall at a set of lights on a hill. On that point, stalling like that only ever seems to happen at the lights when there at least 500 cars queued up behind you. I did notice how a learner coming in the opposite direction to me barely left me enough room between him and the stone wall. Bloody learner drivers!
As my Theory Test is in just over a weeks time, wish me luck, I've been revising for that two using the company iPhone app. There are lots of very on questions in there but one of them was; What does a blue circular sign with the number 30 written in white on it mean? Turns out that's a minimum speed limit sign. I beg the question has anyone ever seen one of these in operation? They've managed to evade myself and my family members all our lives. However, what this means is that there can now be a minimum speed limits on all roads. How brilliant would that be if on a motorway, except for heavy goods vehicles, if it was the law for you to be doing the national speed limit. Then all those average speed cameras the government set up can check this and send you a fine if your going to slowly. An even better idea, one that would drastically reduce unemployment, would be to train people up at traffic snipers that sit on top of bridges and pick people off who are holding up the traffic and breaking the law.
I don't have a long history with Apple. I'm neither a fan boy nor a apple hater but I do admit I have been quite a late entry to the race. The very first Apple product I bought was an iPod Nano 4th generation, most crucially, in purple. Previous to that I hadn't thought that I would listen to music whilst out and about so what would be the point in spending £150 on a device that I wouldn't use? Well turns out that I can't go out without listening to music. I don't know what it is or how I got the bug but once I got it it stayed and I doubt it will never leave.
I remember that when I was looking at buying a 16gb nano in the shop the guy tried to sell me the 8gb 1st generation iTouch for £20 more. I remember how he was trying to sell me on the idea of apps and having a device that can do it all etc. In the end I had to say to him quite shortly that I just wanted a device that could play music and have good battery life. I came in knowing exactly what I wanted and it wasn't an iTouch. Partly because of the poor battery life but mostly because they don't come in purple.
Skip forward 3 years and several chances to use other peoples iTouchs later I decided I wanted one, mostly for a couple of simple apps such as Shazam and Game Dev Story. But, as always, I thought that the prices for a new iTouch was way to much because knowing me I probably wouldn't use it after a week. Good thing I know me because if I didn't I'd be in trouble, both mentally and financially. Fortunately it was a cheap Ebay buy and I got a 2nd generation iTouch and sure it was useful was places where I had access to Wifi. But if I had an app that tells me train times which live updates, chances are I'm going to be on my way to the station where there is no Wifi available. What Apple have done here is an incredible marketing ploy. Yes, we'll give you all the apps you want on a cheaper device but if you want to take them outside, away from a computer, then you'll have to spend more of your money on adding a phone and 3G connectivity. Not just a little bit more, but a lot more.
 
So skip forward to last Friday and I decided to buy a 16gb iPhone 3GS, again, from Ebay. The idea being is I'd sell my iTouch and my phone along with a spare I had which should cover the cost so I don't waste to much money. I've never really wanted an iPhone or a Blackberry because I wanted to be slightly different. So I was in a situation where I had both a Sony Ericsson X1 and Palm Pre. I decided on the Sony because of it's amazing physical landscape qwerty slider, which just sound geekily dirty, and I bought the Palm (for my girlfriend who then due to changes circumstances gave it back within a month) to play with WebOS. The problem with the Sony is that it had slow, clunky Windows Mobile 6.1 and the problem with the Palm was the hardware was not up to standard. If I could somehow glue these phones together, make a XPre (too close to Windows XP) and add apps it would be perfect.
So after two screen replacements in three day (only one of which was my fault) I spent an hour setting up my new iPhone the way I wanted with the apps I wanted. Got it syncing with both my work and personal email as well as importing my SIM contacts. That confused the hell out of it. One thing I could say about the Palm is that its contact merging system worked pretty flawlessly and included Facebook integration. The iPhone on the other hand does get a little confused and no doubt I'll have to spend a few hours in the future sorting it all out but other than that I'm perfectly happy with it. Except one thing...it's not purple!
Because you can.
I get asked quite a lot why I feel the need to write a blog about the most mundane boring topics along with the rest of the world. Things like public transport or advertising annoyances are something everyone has to deal with. That's the key though, how are you supposed to write something for an audience that doesn't exist. By writing about these topics that everyone can relate to, it opens up to a world demographic, which is handy, the internet being available all around the world. On a side note, it's also available in space via satellite so I would like to broadcast my apologies to all those astronauts out there for excluding space related content from my posts.
I think another reason why I've always broadcast my thoughts in one form or another is because of two reasons:
- I might go mad if I keep all these things to myself
- It's not what I write about, it's the way I write it
Now I know what your thinking, most likely one of three things. Either your thinking I should probably go see someone with a clipboard and sofa who asks me how I feel about things, or that how could anyone possibly find this funny, or most likely, you've seen the picture of the cake and you're wondering when I'm getting to that. Well good news I am.
I must now make it clear that my favorite cake by fare is the butterfly cake. It's like a cupcake with wing shape wedges cut out the middle and icing filling where they used to be, then the wedges forming wings on the top. How has it been all summer and no-one that I know of has made them. You can't enjoy them as much if you made them yourself, not sure why but it's the same reason why someone else's chips always taste better than if you'd bought your own. Anyway, to answer my question of why to read or write a blog. You read a blog either because your been pressured into at gunpoint or because you like the content. You write a blog either because it stops you going mad or because you really have nothing better else to do...like make butterfly cakes!
I hope you are ready for a full on grumpy old man rant cause if you are, you're in luck.
As someone who has yet to learn how to drive and relies on public transport to get to and from work and social activities I can whole heartily say that I've spent at least one fifth of my life waiting for a bus or train. It's not that I think their bad, on the whole the public transport system in London is pretty good. Every day I catch a train at 4PM after work, 10 minutes later I'm at another station waiting for my connection which is usually around 4:20PM. This gets me to the end of my train journey an leaves me ample time to walk down the road to bus stop, at which I catch the 4:55PM bus which takes me home. Well that's how most days it work anyway.
Today I arrived at the station just before 4PM in time to catch my train as per normal to find out that it was delayed due to a malfunction on a previous train further up the line. That's fine, I thought to myself, I can afford for it to be 10 minutes late before my connection train. 4:10PM came and went. It wasn't until 4:25 that the train finally pulled into the station. Now a late train in itself doesn't really bother me, it's the expected time show on the electronic timetable that annoys me. It initially said that the train was expected to arrive at 4:03, then each minute it would just go up a further minute. It gave up at 4:18 even trying to expect a train at all. If you don't know when a train is coming just simply put these initials on the timetable; WDK (We Don't Know), maybe with a sorry at the end. Then it would read WDKS, which may mean something to you radio listeners Indiana.
So anyway, I got on my train but even then I wasn't too worried, there was a later 4:40PM connection that would get me to the end of the line. If only it were that easy! Pulling in at my connection station I find out the on the other line all trains are delayed indefinitely. I notice they took my advice about not putting a time if they genuinely don't know. This time a voice over the tannoy kept apologizing for the delay and, apparently, the reason this time was trespassers on the line on both of the lines heading north, where my trains where coming from. I kept my ears pricked so any news of a train at a train station but it wasn't going to happen so after a further 20 minutes I decided to get the bus from the station to about 2 miles from my home. I'd have to walk the rest of the way but by that point I didn't care to be honest.
Fortunately, a family member offered to picked me up from the end of the bus line and save me the 2 mile walk at the end so I agreed thankfully. I exited the station and remembered to cross the road (I'd made the mistake of going the wrong way previous, ended up going halfway back to work on a backstreet bus) finding that the bus I wanted, the 213, didn't stop there so I walked a little further down and turned a corner and saw somewhere I reconfigured, the Police Station. Now I know what you're probably thinking, but I assure you they don't know me there. Not because I'm clever enough not to get caught, but because I don't work on that side of the law. Anyway, I found a bus stop where the one I wanted passed and it came within 5 minutes.
By this point I was quite hot and that is not usually a good thing on the top deck of a double decker bus but because it's still the school holidays there was practically no-one there which meant that the pathetic air blower they call air conditioning actually tried to do it's join with minor success. I've been getting buses for many years and really do value them, they provide a good service for London, but the moment you know someone's waiting for you somehow enter a mental state whereby getting through every green light become a life and death situation. Luckily, the journey itself was quite quick. Too quick. There comes a time when the bus stops, usually two stops away from your destination, and no-one gets on or off and you think maybe the traffics not letting us out or something. Then, you here the following message and your blood begins to boil; To even up and provide you with an efficient service the bus has temporarily stopped to even up service times. Really? That's providing me with an efficient service, I don't think so because you're making me later than needed. What you're saying is, sorry we're going to make you later and hold up you and your family's lives because the bus driver on this service drives at proper road speeds to get you to your destination and is catching up with the bus in front.
Having said that, I do think buses on the whole are better than trains for a simple reason that they are usually on time, I give a few minutes either side of that, or are consistently late so you can think ahead and you can trust them. Trains are, for the most part, excellent as well but the difference is when something small happens the locomotive leviathan grinds to a painfully ill informed halt. Maybe I am just an old man at heart, or maybe that's what happens after a certain time of commuting. Just give me a pie and slippers and log fire and I'll be happy right now.
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