See this guy? He's doing it wrong.

In my opinion it’s time to make this behaviour something that’s socially unacceptable.  We need to attach a stigma to this in the same way that smoking is becoming increasingly stigmatised. People that are know to drive like this need to be shunned by their friends and family.  <controversial>Heck if they’re seen driving without consideration with children then social services really ought to be informed!</controversial>.

So my plea is simple.  To the morons who take little consideration of the considerable worth of their life, the lives of their passengers and of other road users (be they in cars, cycles, bikes, foot, horse, hover board, soon-to-be-retired Space Shuttle) I say stop being dicks, start behaving in a manner fit for Humanity and calm the FRAK down.

To everyone else I say if you know someone who drives badly, or you are a passenger of such ilk, don’t sit by quietly wincing while your are carted around at great peril mere inches from the car in front.  Speak up – SHAME these drivers.  If you don’t and then you may consider yourself just as responsible for the lives these people destroy.

</rant>

The packets themselves say “poppadoms” yet the box they’re stacked in day “puppodums”.  Madness!

It’ll be intended to:

• View and record Freeview TV
• Watch DVD / downloaded video (potentially blu-ray too but that’s a low priority right now)
• Output full 1080p via HDMI
• Spotify / ripped music jukebox
• Not be used for any sort of 3D gaming (but a spot of SNES / Mega Drive emulating wouldn’t go amiss)

It’ll need to be able to be on permanently for scheduled TV recording (or be able to come out of standby automatically to catch the show),  so low power drain is important.  So any thoughts on what I can get away with to make this all happen?  I’ve seen pretty impressive performance from Intel Atom CPUs – would that cut HD playback though?

Read on….

The park near me has a nice duck pond lake inhabited by a number of mallards (the baby mallards are out and about now! *squee*), Canadian Geese, not-so-canadian geese, some other as yet unidentified (by my at least) ducks and a few Moorhens.

Upon a sunny day you might find not one but two mobile ice cream establishments (one traditional one Mr Whippy), a toddlers play group and many many people. On a sunny day many folk dust off their shorts and their spare scraps of bread and announce unto their family “Behold for today the sun tis bright in the sky to yea to the park we shall attend and yea many-a-duck shall we feed”.

Now this is all very good and nice but there is a small problem – the number of hungry ducks is dwarfed by the number of eager bread-laden folk resulting in some rudimentary bread-beaches forming around the pond lake. The ducks devour what they fancy and, quite reasonably, leave the rest. But, I find myself pondering by the pond, with all this out pouring of desire to feed the ducks on this indeed sunny day what about in the colder nay more frozen times?

I can only conclude that ducks and geese and other such pond lake dwelling souls have developed a mystical ability to not require food below a certain ambient temperature! Amazing, I know. Otherwise why else would folk ignore the poor beakers on non-sunny days? I’ve been to the park on colder nay frozen days and have none the less found the duck folk to be terribly eager to accept bready treats – almost as if they were actually very hungry. That must not be the case though otherwise surely everyone would be out throwing them some tasty treats in less clement weather!

On that thought I may dig up some bread and head to the pond lake for the sun is taking a constitutional behind some clouds today and I suspect folk will be less keen to feed the the duck folk today ^__^

We had gathered in celebration of the end of Uni exams for some fine and worthy folk. This, as you’d expect, involved cocktails and enchiladas. Oh and tapas and let us not forget the chimichanga. Delicious. Las Iguanas, by the way, does great cocktails and latin food.

I’ve never understood why spanish / mexican style grub / culture is referred to as “latin” or “latino”. Surely latin would be more something associated with Rome, Romans or at very least Italy. Answers to this conundrum on a stamped addressed comment below.

Anyway, I digress. We relocated to a pub for some further fine beverage appreciation. The place was busy with few tables to be had but that was ok, for we had booze. “HARK!”, cried one of our number. “For that table… it has become unoccupied!”* We made our way to said table and gathered around it and yea there was much rejoicing.

Some moments later an elderly fellow approached our personal space and testily announced “I was sat there”.
The statement seemed informative and I had no reason to doubt his claim so I cheerfully replied “Ok… and now you’re not ”
The elderly fellow seemed in desire of further conversation and so continued
“I was sat there, I had a beer”
Now at this point it’s important to be aware that there was indeed what appeared to be an abandoned beverage on the table. We had shifted it to another, less desirable, empty table.
There was talk of having “only gone out for a smoke” and how this was “just rude” yet he “came here every day and never had this happen”. Aaaah, we thought, you’re a drunk. It all makes sense. Apparently because we didn’t all live permanently in the city centre we couldn’t possibly understand.

After the question “Would you like us to move?” was posed the drunken table-theivery victim grumbled to himself, retrieved his pint, and ambled away. I couldn’t help but feel that we had somehow wronged him. What if this WAS his table? What if he really did have some sort of time honoured claim to it? Surely if that was the case there would be some form of notice or labelling to that effect, maybe even his name. Then it became clear. The only identifiable marking upon the table was a small metal disc bearing a number.

So to you, Mr 70, I apologise for having savagely taken your abandoned table and relocating your lonely pint. I can only hope that you face not such rude and uncivilised folk as us again.

Epilogue:
Another table, occupied by a couple of indeterminate age but identifiably horrible dress sense, was later ‘abandoned’ in a similar fashion. I watched in confusion as the couple left two drinks and a mobile phone to enjoy a cigarette outside. Perhaps we were somehow in the wrong for concluding that a table that has had no occupation for 5-10 minutes would inexplicably want to become reoccupied by it’s previous tenant.

* quote may have been altered for dramatic purposes.

Kinder Egg - Chocolate AND a toy!

1. You can buy a Kinder Egg whenever you want.

2. Ice cream is a valid foodstuff for any meal, any time of the year.

3. Getting new toys is no longer limited to Birthdays and Christmas

4. Staying up as late as you like incurs the wrath of no body (except Future You the following morning).

Throw me some other reasons – there must be more!  Commenting, as ever, is freely open