In 2010, Canada is hosting the G20 summit.

So where did the other 12 come from?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

And the lift in this building had a button marked R which is for Random. So people can press this button and the lift will pick a floor at random to take them to. Apparantly, this is to get people to explore the building more than they would do.

So I started to think, what other places and things would benefit from a Random Button?

• MP3 or CD Players: OK, has already been done. And they do benefit from a Random Button.
• TV Remote Controls: Have you ever flicked through the TV channels and found something quite interesting on that you wouldn’t have found otherwise? Think about it…
• Internet: Browse the Internet by pressing a random button and see what happens.
• Sat Nav: Have a Random Button on a sat nav device, press it and see where it takes you. Hopefully it won’t drive you off a bridge or onto a railway. I think they’re getting better now though.
• Food: There’s a line in ‘dinnerladies’ where the main character Bren says that she takes the labels off her tins of food at home so she doesn’t know what she’ll have until she opens it. Perhaps Internet shopping sites should have a ‘random basket’ button which will just fill up your shopping basket with random items up to a certain amount.

Actually, this is harder than I thought. Any ideas?

* Footnote: As it happens, there were some other intresting quirks of this building – one of which was that it can create music based on how people pass through the building. I did actually tape the programme which I might watch at some point, maybe post the relevant bit here so you can see what I’m babbling on about…

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

You can make up your own minds as to where I’m going with this, so I shall leave you at it.

That is all.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Well, that’s not strictly true, I did post a couple of photographs a while ago and if you were on this site while I was doing my Tube Challenge back in February you will have noticed that my twitter feed on the right hand side of the page was being updated periodically.

Such is life though, sometimes loads of things are happening, and other times not much stuff is happening.

Birthday in a few days though. Yay.

The thing is, I’m at that age where I don’t really bother about birthdays. I’ve asked a few people and they’ve said the same sort of thing. When you’re a kid, you start counting down to your next birthday the day after your last one. “There’s only 364 days until my next birthday!” (although to be fair, Christmas does get in the way too). Then you reach around 14-15 and they start to get a bit dull. Then you turn 16, and you are legally an adult and can leave home, and, how shall we put this, legally copulate, and until a few years ago buy ciggies (now you can have sex, live on your own, but cant’ smoke…)

17 is next, and you can get your driving licence, followed by 18 when you are officially properly an adult. You now are allowed to vote (oh yeah, that’s coming up again soon isn’t it…), buy alcohol (and now tobacco products as well – silly thing to do to up the age in my opinion, but it happened after I turned 18 so I don’t really care that much). And – as I found out – until you’re 19th birthday, you can still get free education and if you choose to do so, free NHS stuff and also your parents get child benefit and, in the case of single parents, child support.

When you’re 19, you celebrate your birthday by going to the pub and getting wasted, much like any other Friday night but this time you’re wearing a badge, and the same with your 20th. And for 21 that is the final one. I’ve never understood why to be honest, because there isn’t anything you cannot do when you are 20 years and 364 days old that you can do when you are 21 years and 0 days old. But anyway, the evening is spent much in the same way as 18-20, only moreso.

Then you hit 22 and there might still be some of that yayness in you, but from what I’ve heard from people, it usually goes. Until you reach around 35, hit your pre-midlife-crisis and start to celebrate birthdays again.

Personally, I shall be turning 24 on Tuesday, and will be celebrating it down the pub, possibly getting wasted but maybe not as I could be driving. Ah well. We shall see.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

2.4+2.4 = 4.8

If you round to the nearest whole number, that gives you
2+2 = 5.

QED.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

So, last night I was asleep. Nothing unusual there (well actually given my sleep patterns recently, but that’s another post for another time!) except that I found myself dreaming – which actually isn’t that unusual either.

I have heard that you only know you’re dreaming when you’re not in a deep sleep, or that you can only remember that you dreamed if you weren’t in a deep sleep when you were dreaming. Anyway, I’ve digressed slightly.

Last night in my dream, I realised that I had come across an idea that I needed to remember. Of course, in that subconscious way you do sometimes, I knew that I was in a dream and that this idea needed to become reality so had to think of a way of doing this. The cartoon from XKCD as shown above came to mind, so I found a keyboard and started typing.

I could feel my real fingers moving as if I was typing, and I assumed that I was using my laptop keyboard to do so – my laptop being still switched on on the floor beside my bed (no officer, I wasn’t downloading anything…) so I assumed that I had managed to pick it up, open it, and start typing.

You can therefore imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up to find that absoutely nothing had happened.  I hadn’t typed a message to myself in my sleep, nor had I remembered this idea that I needed to remember.  Knowing my dreams though, it was probably either a very extraordinarily good idea or a pathetically bad one. I also found that my laptop had turned off as the night went on as the power went in the house at some point during the night and the battery ran out. This is also the reason why I was late for work, because I woke up and looked at my phone and realised that it was half past 8.

The moral of the story? Well, there isn’t one to be fair. There usually isn’t.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A – Did she just say ‘is this second class’?

B – I think she did

A – I’ve got a good mind to go up to her, crush a can of Stella on my head and urinate on her leg.

B – She’ll probably get her butler to beat you up

Well, I thought it was funny.  Perhaps you had to be there…

(I later found out that these two people on the seats behind me didn’t know each other before they got on the train.)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Well, that’s a little odd to say given that I haven’t really done that many posts here (I started with good intentions, but meh).

It is quite often that I find myself in a situation where I really feel for a fictional person.  A few years ago, author Tim Bowler came to my secondary school and before that I read his book Shadows.  I found myself very affected by this book for some reason.  There have been other instances where this has happened but I won’t go into them now.

I was recently shown this blog about Alice and Kev (http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com) , where these two characters, child Alice and her father Kev, have been made in The Sims 3, been made homeless, moneyless, and with certain personality traits. It could be considered a social documentary on the homeless, an amusing yet toughtful story, or somebody with nothing better to do playing The Sims and writing about it on his website.

I’ve often thought about the homeless, especially homeless children.  As I write this, I am lying on my bed, fairly comfortable (aside from the fact that I’ve done my back in) and the fridge downstairs has food in it, I’ve got clothes in my wardrobe, and am typing this on a computer bought within the past couple of weeks.  I’m lucky, I also live in an area where there isn’t homelessness.  But even twenty miles up the road in Barnstaple there are people living homeless, some by default some by choice.  I don’t know what the case is with children being homeless, but I know there are some.

Reading through Alilce and Kev, I got this overwhelming urge to find Alice and just give her a hug. A few times I’ve wanted to be able to do something with homeless children but don’t know what.

There is something else that I won’t go into now though about something that happened a while back that I haven’t forgotton about.

Anyway, I’d go and read Alice and Kev if I were you.  It’s being updated daily (or so it seems), and if you don’t start feeling for Alice then I think there’s something wrong with you.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Sodor Rail – the Fat Controller’s new privatised railway company serving the Island of Sodor – must have the worst safety and timekeeping record for any railway.  I shall prove this now by going through the Thomas the Tank Engine Collection – a book I received for Christmas a few years back.

Thomas and Gordon: Thomas, on coach shunting duties, comes into the station later than intended, meaning that Gordon’s express leaves only just on time. Thomas is not uncoupled from the train. OK, so it’s not an accident or anything, but a potential late running express train. However, Thomas did end up at a station that wasn’t his own, required posession of a siding and also a path to return to his own station and yard.

Thomas’s Train: Due to an engine (Henry) failure, Thomas is entrusted with pulling the passenger train that Henry cannot.  He leaves the station without being coupled to his train, and has to return to get them. This would have left the train to leave the station late, due to an engine failure, and as Thomas wasn’t correctly coupled to the train it would have left much later than scheduled. Again, a path would have been required for this late running train as well as Thomas having to return to the station. I will disregard the incorrect punctuation in the title for now.

Thomas and the Trucks: Thomas and Edward swap duties, so Thomas is heading a goods train.  He fails to stop at the correct station and just about stops in time to avoid the buffers at the end of the line. To quote the book, ‘luckily the line was clear as they swerved into the goods yard’. Of course, there is also the unplanned swapping of engines between duties, which resulted in an engine not cleared for goods use to be used. There is also the issue that Thomas, who is ‘tired of pushing coaches [and] wants to see the world’ doesn’t have the correct route knowledge for this line.

Thomas and the Breakdown Train: A new engine, James, has an accident caused by his brakes catching fireand Thomas helps retrieve him. A derailment is never good news really.  The front trucks are all damaged in the crash and so is James’ tender.  Goods in those carraiges is also damaged then, as well as the rails and the lineside fencing.  James however is fine but is sent for repairs.

Thomas and the Guard: Henry’s train is late to Thomas’ branch line junction. He leaves quickly to get back to timetable, leaving his guard behind in the process, but is stopped at a signal. Now, the presence of a signal on a single-track branch line served by one train is a bit of a mystery in itself.  I must congratulate Sodor Rail in letting the branch line train wait for the late running main line train, caused by an engine problem; ‘my system is out of order’ (Henry – that’s two failures for Henry so far). I believe that Thomas did make up for the lost time on the route so that’s a plus.

Thomas goes Fishing: A water tower at a station is out of order, so Thomas is filled up with water from a nearby river with a bucket dropped from a bridge. Shortly after, Thomas experieces boiler problems and is sent to a siding where he is inspected to find that there is fish in him. First, an out of order water tower at a station is a problem, but not an uncommon one even on the mainland.  Thomas then stops on a bridge – what do the passengers think of this? – and is filled up with water from the river. This would have taken quite some time. At the next station, Thomas is uncoupled and sent to a siding, meaning that another engine would have to continue with Thomas’ train.  Fish is found in the boiler.  Why didn’t the driver and fireman notice the fish when they were pouring the water from the bucket into the engine? And why was Thomas blamed for it at the end – it wasn’t his fault…

Thomas, Terence and the Snow: Thomas, out in snow without his snowplough, gets caught in a drift and has to be pulled out with a tractor wile a bus comes for the passengers.  The wrong kind of snow? Maybe. Of course, we know from the beginning of this year what effect snow has on trains in this country, so we can’t really blame Sodor Rail for this one, and they did try and continue to operate a service despite the conditions.  I think that, despite the delays and cancellations to service, this one is a plus for Sodor Rail.

Thomas and Bertie: Thomas and a bus race between two stations. Thomas wins the race.  Such a common problem with the public transport infrastructure in this country. A bus and a train have been given the same route between two stations. I do think it’s a plus for Sodor Rail as they managed to get there first, and after this incidence, Bertie travels around the towns taking passengers to the station where Thomas then takes them onwards.

The Fat Controller’s Engines: All the engines on the Island of Sodor are going to the mainland.  While showing the shadowing replacement engines what they’re doing, Thomas has an accident and has to be repaired. Again, an accident which has left an engine damaged.  On the plus side, the workmen do manage to fix Thomas so he does manage to travel. Cause of accident, brakes I think.

Thomas comes to Breakfast: Thomas rolls out of his shed and, unable to stop, comes off the end of the (unbuffered) rails and into the stationmaster’s house (or the Fat Controller’s house on the TV series).  A cleaner has messed with the controls inside of Thomas, which is what causes him to roll out of the shed without a driver.  Temporary rails have to be laid on the road at the end of the siding in order to pull Thomas back, so the road would have to have been closed.  There is also sustainable damage to the stationmaster’s house and his garden (which included trees) while the stationmaster’s wife has to recook their breakfast.  ‘You miserable engine’…  A replacement engine – a diesel railcar of all things – has to be put onto Thomas’ branch line while Thomas is repaired. Again, Thomas gets the blame for this, rather than the cleaner who messed with Thomas’ controls…

I’ve just realised how long a process this is going to be.  This book is separated by character in the series and not in the order the stories were released in, so I shall continue next time with Percy, the Small Engine.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I was in a shop the other day and they were using a card terminal that wasn’t part of the till itself so they had to type in the amount I had bought.

And that lead me to think…

Has anybody ever bought something that is the value of their PIN?

For instance, if my PIN was 4253, and I bought something that was £42.53 then that would be a yes (remembering of course that when values are entered into tills and card units, it is always done by pence so that they would enter in 4253 and so would I).

(And, no, that isn’t my PIN, I’m not that stupid.  I did consider double-bluffing you too as that is the sort of thing I would do, but even I have a line that I daren’t cross on the Internet, and publising my PIN is about 250 yards away from that line!  As an aside, I used to, when I was with friends and getting money out of a cash machine, say four random digits as I entered my PIN just to confuse them.  Of course, me being me ended up confusing myself on a number of occasions resulting in me not putting the number in correctly. But I digress.)

Of course, there are some problems with this theory.  Depending if you’re rich or poor, or your PIN is a number in the low thousands or the high thousands.  One of my PINs is quite a high number, and I think I’m quite unlikely to come across this situation myself with that card, while the other was what started me thinking as the amount I bought was rather close to my PIN. If you’re rich, with a high number, say 9835 then £98.35 is nothing to you and you’re quite likely to spend that, yet with a low number PIN (say, 1378) then £13.78 is such a low amount that you would probably just hand over a twenty pound note.  On the other side, if you’re poor with a low number then £13.78 is, not a lot of money, but something you’d use a card for. £98.35 would probably be a weekly shop or something so something that would happen infrequently if at all.

I can honestly say that this has never happened to me. I just think these things up, honestly.  I don’t know why or where but they do show up in my mind.

I shall let you know if it ever does happen to me, and I’d be quite interested to hear if it has happened to you – though I’d advise against publishing the actual amounts and therefore also your PIN!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites