More 'I Had To Laugh'...

Just read this on the BBC, its about the 55 year old woman sun bathing naked in her garden. The article said that she was filmed by a shaken neighbour!

He filmed her naked?! No wonder he was shaking...I don't think it had anything to do with being shocked or disturbed!

I Had To Laugh...

Driving into work this morning I stumbled upon a local radio station. I can't remember what it was called (ill try and remember for you and put the internet link in), but they seemed to play dance music, or as Mexicans everywhere call it, 'Sheet Music', on a constant loop.

The 'DJ' came on as he played another track and proclaimed "Im playing you this next track through the miracle of vinyl"

The miracle of vinyl?! This guy's brain will explode when he learns about the new miracle MP3 technology :-DDD

Big Brother

This weather is so depressing - I dont think its stopped raining for about 3 weeks.

Anyway, I have been watching Big Brother (Im not proud, there was nothing else on - ok?!) I am so relieved that Shebaz has gone today. I think even from the start he was way too over the top for the rest of the house mates. Im quite surprised that he only got sent to Coventry - especially after the hiding the food episode. He obviously has issues, just hope he gets them sorted out now hes out!

There has also been a lot of talk in the media about the exploitation of Pete and his tourrettes. Personally I think he's doing great and bringing the syndrome to peoples attention. I reckon he will win. It makes me laugh when he talks about how great someone is and then coughs shouts "w@nkers!" and then whistles. Maybe his condition lets people see just a little bit deeper into what he's actually thinking!

Train Wreck TV

Big Brother starts again tonight, and I, for one, can't wait. I feel so bad for watching it, it goes against sensible thought, every fibre of what I loathe about train wreck TV, but I just can't stop watching it.

I know that the first few weeks will be boring and rubbish, and I'll struggle to even remember the house mates names, but by about week 5 or 6, ill be hooked.

I understand that the TV company are doing a sort of 'Charlie and the Chocolate factory' thing and putting a golden ticket in a chocolate bar. Oh well. Looks like my teeth are going to be rotting out of my head too, along with my brain being addled by the inane spectacle of watching a load of people in a house for 13 weeks.

Im sorry, I just can't help it - Im an addict

The BBC

I actually like the BBC, not sure about the licence fee though, and being forced to buy a TV licence even if you dont watch the BBC channels (or even if you have a video). However, it did make me chuckle when it was recently found they didn't have an Entertainment Licence, so they had to have its staff make up the Top of The Pops audience.

I thought that it had maybe lost its entertainment licence due to crimes against entertainment like, 'To Buy or Not to Buy', 'Cash in the Attic', 'A life of Grime', 'Traffic Cops' etc to name but a few! I don't think there is a court in the land that wouldn't revoke its licence to entertain if they were forced to sit through that steaming pile of horse manure :-)

Ive been sorting out the details of buying the house today....I owe, I owe, its off to work I go... :-(

A Couple of Things...

Had the offer on the house accepted, so just need to sort out a mortgage etc Hope it doesnt take too long. Maybe I should start a begging blog for enough money to buy the house?! If people can beg for money for an animal operation, I don't see why people shouldn't buy me a house!

Ahem...If my dad starts looking at you in a funny way, don't worry. He has given up smoking, so I imagine everyone looks like a giant cigarrette to him right now.

It amused me to read this weekend, that Birmingham tops the Google search for the word 'porn' in the world. Is it coincidence then that Mr Goatse lives there and has a huge broadband connection? :-DD

Cash for Peerages

I knew I had forgotten to write about this! For those not in the UK, there has been a right royal hoo-hah about the government 'selling' peerages (ie people would become Lord so-and-so of Never Land) to people who made large donations to various government projects (The New Academies of excellence etc)

Anyway, it struck me, why would anyone give huge sums of money to the Government in exchange for his, when you can buy them online for about 20 quid?

Lord Goatse of Dragoon (or something like that) will surely fill me in on this. As might Lord and Lady Chubb of Glensporan?

Im sure there must be a link to these online peerages somewhere?

World Records

Was listening to radio 2 the other night on the commute home. They had a guy from the Guinness Book of Records on talking about weird records that make it into the book.

It got me thinking...how cool would it be to hold the world record for something and get in the book! I have decided, that you, the reader should make suggestions as to what record I should try and break in order to get in!

I wont try and hold my breath under water for 9 minutes (although some people would probably like me to hold my breath for longer!)

Clean suggestions only too :-) Get your thinking caps on...you never know I might even do it for chariddee if its a good idea?

On the Road Again

Im in Wethersfield again today...Stayed at my brothers new house last night. Had our tea in the local pub, which was nice, then sat and drank wine in the conservatory - how sophisticated of me :-)

I put an offer in on a house yesterday too, which is quite exciting. I hope they accept, then I can have a 20-30 commute in to work every day instead of 1.5 - 2 hour commute, which sucks quite a bit!

Sales Figures

I heard today that in the first quarter of 2006, American retail figures were up more than expected.

These were the last three months I was out there....

Coincidence?

I think not :-)

The Consumtion of Media

I heard the phrase 'I consume a lot of Media', which obviously means I watch a lot of TV, on National Public Radio when I was in America, and I remember laughing out loud at the phrase. But its got me thinking. How will people 'consume media' in the future. (For me it sparks a picture in my head of people eating music, TV, art etc!)

Well if the music industry is anything to go by we will all be watching TV on the go any day now, and downloading our fave programs off the net. Look at how popular music 'on demand' has become. iTunes are already looking into downloading films and TV shows 'on demand'. I see the end of the local BlockBusters is just around the corner.

Also, what of advertising? You can already 'TiVO' out adverts from any programs you have recorded,(The advertising companies in the US dont like this one bit!) so does that mean you will be able to download your fave 'soap opera's' advert free (even the annoying 'Coronation Street is sponsored the makers of Ritalin - don't smack your kids, put them on smack instead'?)

I think we will see the end of TV schedules as we know them, pretty soon on the future. I see a future where u can download on demand from your TV (or media consumtion centre). How will the advertisers get around that I wonder? One things for sure, the people who watch soaps wont have a clue how to use the new technology!

Yay! An Internet Connection

Today, and for the rest of this week, probably, Im in Chertsey. My hotel room has an internet connection, which means I don't have to watch Emmerdale, Coronation Street followed by Eastenders.

Who the hell writes these things? They're all the same. The generic plot lines can be summed up as follows:

1. Someone dies of an illness thats in the news
2. Someone has an affair with a rivals wife/girlfriend/post op transexual
3. Someone is murdered
4. A business man sticks it to his rival (presumably, while said rival sticks it to the other guys wife/gf/transexual. Although who would setup a business in i) A rural village miles from anywhere ii) A backstreet iii) A grotty square?
5. Everyone works within a 2 metre radius of the pub, and they drink there every night.

And, no matter how cunning or lovable a character is, they *always* get found out. Usually within a few weeks, to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats.

And that just about sums up every single plot line for the last 1,000 years. Millions of people watch this without fail, day in, day out. Why?!

Even the characters are the same. Totally the same...

A hard man (or brothers in the case of East Enders)
A rival to the hardman/men
A comedy family/character to lighten the mood (just in case the Mogodons wear off I think)
Some teenagers. Usually a teenage girl gets pregnant by either i) a teenage boy ii) Her dad iii) or her teenage dad
A brassy bar woman
A wise woman, usualy quoting the bible or an old wives tale

So, just why are soap opera's so popular? What of their future? If I had my way, I would ban them all, but I would risk p!ssing millions of people off (as opposed to a mere handful who read this blog!) Is it because they demand so little of the viewer? Is it because people like to identify with the characters (Im just like Alfie, Iam, an honest broker from the bank of smiles, a smile and a wink to all the ladies and a helping hand to all the old grannies - yea thats me. Lord give me strength!)

Maybe the viewer likes to specualte about the plot lines and their outcomes. I know I do.

Example: "I bet he's knocking her off, while her boyfriend tries to undercut the other guy in business, and I bet it ends up with her getting pregnant, and shes not sure who the dad is, so she murders them both and bury's their bodies in the sheep dip. It'll turn out neither was the dad."

See, I don't have to watch it again for another 65 years.

I actually think that most people who watch Coronation street watch it purely out of a feeling of duty. No one could possibly watch it for entertainment.

I've been dying to get that off my chest...thanks for listening

Password Anyone?

Had my Uncle Phil and his missus (letter from North Bransholme) over last night. Anyone who has been following his blog may have noticed that he hasn't updated it in a while. The reason for this is that he has forgotten his password :-)

Now anyone who works with IT knows that you have to pick passwords that can't be guessed, must be 6 characters or more in length and contain both upper & lower cases characters and contain numerals. And then, most people (including me) click the 'remember password' button, so we never actually 'remember password' :-) Phil reckons he has tried most of his usual passwords, but none of them work.

MrGoatse - do you reckon you could brute force it for him? :-D

Anyway, suggestions for Phil's new password might include:

dUMbASs01
UnkLeFuK3r

And of course the beauty of him not being able to access his blog, is that he can't berrate me for anything I say at the moment, nor can he retort anything.

His diet has started. He assures me he has cut down on chips (no, not the ones inside computers) and has started cycling, after giving up on running due to painful shins.

Anyway...I wish him all the best on his password and weight loss quest. I really need to get access to my hotmail account so I can publish any comments

The Art of Stalling

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have a go on the flight simulator. It simiulates a *highly* modified business jet (those who know me, will know what sort!)

I have been wanting to have a go since I got back, and yesterday I squeezed into the tight cockpit and had a good yank on my stick...oooer missus.

Seriously though, after working out that the brakes didn't function from the simulated cock pit and you had to use the trainers console to release them, I was soon taxi'ing along a none existant runway thrusting to 140 knots and pulling back on the stick.

Things seemed to be going good on the ascent. The artificial horizon indicator showed a steady climb, but I didn't realise that the digits on the scope related to 10, 20, 30 degrees climb and not actually 10k, 20k, 30k feet! I thought I was climbing a little too fast! The height indicator was just by the side, apparently.

So, imagine my surprise as lights started to flash at me and the stick shook violently. Also, an eerily calm voice kept repeating 'Stall, Stall' I was only in a sim, but I was almost panicking looking around for levers to push and buttons to press! Ho Hum...

Anyway, Im not so sure that the instructor didn't inject this scenario just to make me fill my pants, becuase when I took off a second time, it was fine. The landing gear was retracted in good time and I climbed steadily to around 35,000 ft. Perfect!

Got bored after a while of changing headings, so decided to see if I could make this bird loop the loop! Erm, I don't recomend it! It stalled again, and went into a spiralling free fall!, but I managed to pull it out and level off again, which I was quite chuffed about.

Somehow I don't think Im ready to give up the day job just yet!

The Megan Mobile

Well Im driving around in my old car again now :-( Taxed it this morning, and drove to Lincoln in it. It actually performed better than I expected after being laid up for almost 9 months. It just needed a new battery (must pay my dad back...)

Its not quite a Pontiac......

It got me thinking about personalised number plates. When I told some of my colleagues in the US about them, they couldn't believe it. Apparently you can have any number plate you like out there. I then thought it might be quite amusing to change my name to Mr P 831 OAT, and thus have my very own personalised number plate :-)