Peace and Harmony and video editing

I was watching Peppa Pig with my son the other day, and it was a brilliant episode called International Day.  Basically all the kids at Peppa's playgroup dress up as different countries and start fighting.  Madame Gazelle breaks up the quarrel, saying "Stop quarrelling! Do you think this is how the countries of the world behave?"

I can't help but feel there was a hidden message in that one somewhere :)

It's Halloween (or Samhain indeed)!  And I have a bowl of chocolate in my hallway.  It's been really hard these last few days to let those packets of funsize chocolate treats go uneaten, but we've largely managed.

And now we've only had four kids!  Shocking.  I guess I know what I'm having for breakfast.

(Actually I'll be having marmite on toast I expect - I got a squeezy jar of Marmite at the weekend, it is wonderful!)

After watching What's Up Elle's YouTube channel, I've been really keen to try some of her trademark cloning for myself.  Being a cheapskate - sorry, being someone wanting to achieve value for money - I'm trying to work out how to do it with free software!  I've got half an idea so far with an old version of Windows Movie Maker (Microsoft basically took out a load of features from Windows Movie Maker when it was updated to Windows Live Movie Maker, so the old version is actually more powerful) but I've been messing about with it for quite a while now and I want to get an hour of Birth of the Federation (with the All The Ages mod) in before bedtime.

Currently I'm playing the Ferengi and I've got a nice little corner of the galaxy in my command with a load of minor races under my belt, I've only encountered the Federation so far who are behaving themselves, probably because if push came to shove I think I could take them.

Cake and head flicking

Firstly, I made a new video!

Recently I've been around my other half's mums house for a few evenings, washing clothes as our tumble dryer is temporarily out of action (belt snapped).

Anyway, I saw some cake and had to make a video about it.  You can see it here.

Or just watch it below.

Apart from that, I have this habit when I'm excited of kind of flicking the hair towards the back of my head with my fingers.  I haven't done it for ages but while I've been watching some TV at my other half's mums (Hornblower is surprisingly good) I've caught myself doing it at the end of a couple of TV shows.

Anyone know why I do it?  Very odd.

Temporarily not thinking about myself for a minute, it's seriously scary what's happened in the US with Hurricane Sandy.  I know that I'm not prepared sufficiently if there's an emergency around here, despite this part of Hull being hit with flooding only 5 years ago - and North Hull being hit with a flash flood only about 2 months ago.  Must do better.

Let's finish the post with a picture of my son standing on his head.

For the observant folk, that's a book by Marcus Brigstocke in the bottom left corner of the picture - or M-A-C-U-S B-I-G-S-T-O-C-K-E if my son's reading it.

The guy will just have to leave the R's out of his name until the little one can say them.

My son, Marmite, and YouTube - I'm tired and not up to creative titles...

The little one hasn't been too well today, not sure 100% what's up, I suspect a bad cold or possibly an upset tummy because he's eaten little and drunk virtually nothing all day, until just before bed he starting having a bit to drink at last.  Bizarrely he wouldn't touch rice pudding (one of his favourites) but couldn't get enough crackerbread's to eat, go figure.  On the plus side I got some squeezy Marmite today so I'm back on Marmite on toast.  It's really weird, I don't like it but then I miss it when I run out?!?

I have a YouTube channel to recommend, What's Up ELLE - http://www.youtube.com/user/whatsupelle - I came across Elle's channel because she made the Baby Gangnam video, and she's actually done a load of cool stuff, her and her two clones.  Elle's not afraid of looking silly and has made some cool videos.  Plus her smartphone goes "Bing" every time someone subscribes, so go subscribe to her channel.

I wonder if I repeatedly subscribe and unsubscribe and subscribe again if her phone keeps binging.  It might get really annoying.

But fun to do :)

Farewell Ceefax!

Tonight a mark of culture ends.

The Ceefax signal is finally being switched off, after being launched some 38 years ago.  I remember as a teenager surfing Ceefax and Teletext on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 channels.  I remember before that, a little kid watching Channel 4 early in a morning where bizarre artwork made out of blocks was shown (apparently it was called 4-Tel on View)

The 4-Tel man with the logo all crumpled up into a floating ball. Yeah.

Back as a teenager, I remember playing Bamboozle on Channel 4.

The Bamboozle guy was kinda freaky.

And getting the latest gaming news on Digitiser.

It's probably hard to explain to younger folk who probably didn't really ever use Teletext or Ceefax, but it was kind of the Internet of its day.  You went to certain pages by typing in a three digit number, and I remember typing in random numbers to see what came up. The 700s were usually pretty interesting simply because they were pages that didn't have the normal stuff on eg news, weather, sport.

The text services was great for broadcasters who, at that time, hadn't gone into 24 hour television shows, and filled the night hours with news, weather and the like (not to mention the infamous Teletext adverts!)

For more teletext remembering go check out http://www.mb21.co.uk/ as well as the websites listed at the end of this post.

I have to mention that the latest episode of the Guild is out - go see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpDCq2rifbs&feature=plcp


(Thanks for the above pics to:
www.gamesasylum.com
www.tvwhirl.co.uk
cultsoftware.blogspot.com)

Labelling

I've just popped into the oven a Birds Eye cod fillet - very tasty by the way.

And to keep me safe, Captain Birds Eye decided to pop a little warning on the back of the packet.

It read, "Contains fish."

I don't have a problem with Birds Eye for putting such a ridiculous warning on their packet, I blame the culture that makes them feel that they have to.

But I can quite see why they did. Obviously there's a need to tell people what ingredients have been used, so that they can avoid allergens.  And therefore stop them from suing the Captain and having him thrown in the brig.

But we already have something that does this - it's called a list of ingredients.

They've tried to make it easier for people by highlighting common allergens, but the trouble is in the world, there will be someone allergic to the thing that you make.

Off the top of my head, I can think of people allergic or intolerant to milk, wheat, nuts, garlic, and water. Yes, water.

So, as much as I understand the intent behind warning me that my fish fillet contains fish, it is a little bit overkill.

It would be much more helpful if I had something that warned me of the contents of my son's nappy.

Hang on, I do - a nose.

It's this culture that makes signs like the below exist:

Grapes on the floor can cause accidents?  I don't blame them - they've been ripped off a vine in some lovely warm country, lobbed in a ship and brought to Hull.  If I was a grape and was free to roam I'd cause some chaos too.

I currently have a 150g bag of sweets in my hands.  The dietary advice tells me how much fat, carbohydrates, sugar, salt and saturates are in a "portion", which is 37g.  Does anyone divide their bag of sweets into portions consisting of 24.7% of the full bag?

Before I go, for anyone interested in writing I strongly recommend a blog I came across by a chap called XJ Selman.  His blog posts are very insightful and well worth a read.  His blog can be found at http://xjselman.wordpress.com/

Good evening folks

I've not blogged for a few days, not entirely sure why - thinking about it I guess I've been somewhat tired on an evening.  I remember reading somewhere that your creative juices flow best in a morning - and I tend to blog on an evening - so perhaps that's why I've not been that creative.

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty Modern Warfare lately, numbers 2 and 3.  I particularly like the Survival mode in MW3 - for the uninitiated, you face progressively harder waves of enemies, but you also gain money for the kills you make, allowing you to buy aids such as a Delta team task force or an air strike to back you up (or more mundane items like ammunition).  I feel vaguely guilty that I've not been playing Pandaria, but for whatever reason some mindless violence appears to be satiating my gaming needs at the minute.

I finally saw the first episode of Red Dwarf X last night, and it's a return for form for the Red Dwarf crew.  Personally after season 6 I went off Red Dwarf - the episodes seemed to be more about the crew doing missions and actually being quite heroic, when really they're a bunch of misfits that somehow have survived through the extinction of the human race and should really be spending their time mucking about and generally being a bit silly.  I actually laughed out loud at one point so I'm looking forward to getting half an hour to watch the next episode.

The only thing that does distract me from the show is the fact that the guys (with the exception of Kryten obviously) have got wrinkles!  Don't get me wrong, I love the Red Dwarf crew, they are seriously ace, but the actors are now around the age of 50.  The series started 24 years ago!  This sort of thing makes me feel old (and I know I will now receive many comments from people older than me).  I don't know what it is, but I seem to have trouble spotting the passage of time.  Perhaps it's not just me.  I heard today that Girls Aloud are getting back together and releasing a greatest hits album of the last ten years.  Again, I had no idea that it had been ten years since they got together.

I suppose I should take from this that time passes too quickly and we need to make the most of it.

Right - I'm off to bed, I have a day's gardening ahead of me tomorrow!

What constitutes vegetable?

I'm making tea at the minute, and this is to be cottage pie (warmed up) with vegetables.

Do you think a bag of chips will cut it?

By the way, hello to any Raven customers that visit my blog - the address was mentioned in the latest newsletter. Remember Raven for all your Halloween goodies!

G4C Yorkshire & Humber Committee Meeting No. 1!

We had our first G4C Yorkshire & Humber Committee meeting this evening!

Located at Goole Leisure Centre, a pack of us got together to plan the big launch event for G4C in the region, aiming at early next year.  We had some really good suggestions and offers of help, I'm beginning to think that we might pull this off!

G4C (Generation For Change) is about gearing up the new entrants to the construction industry with the skills that they will need, giving them wider experience of the industry, understanding of the issues facing the industry and knowledge of usable best practice.  It's an excellent initiative, industry-wide and really deserving of support.

If you want to get involved, there's still plenty of time - email me at michael.raven@eastriding.gov.uk to learn more, whether you just want to find out about events, or find out more.

Time to go into hibernation

I am writing this on a damp yet reasonably warm Saturday afternoon in Northern England. At this time every year something wheedles its way into our life, and remains there until the new year.

I've noted that huge areas of shops have been emptied, and filled again, with a mass of red-coloured packaging holding any number of delicious snacky things, gifts, cards, and wrapping paper.

Christmas is upon us. This is Stage One – the population of the stores with Christmas-related merchandise. This hearkens back to my childhood, where I would go shopping with my parents, and see toys that I would desperately want (as any child does). My calls for toys and presents would be replied with a phrase I learnt to dread.

“Yes, we can get you that and save it for Christmas”

I don’t want to save it for Christmas, I want it now!

The worst thing about having a birthday in July is that for about six months of the year there is either my birthday or Christmas to save presents for.  I've never been particularly good at waiting.

Soon, the Stage Two will come into force. This is the music. Christmas Number Ones from the past fifty years will be played. And played again. And played again. And you will hear them again and again and again, until you beg storekeepers to put something more entertaining on, like the noise of someone tripping and falling into a field of cabbage.

Stage Three follows, coupled with Stage Two. People start buying EVERYTHING in the shops – not just presents, everything. They realise that Sainsburys and the like are going to be closed for a whole day (some might even dare to close for two!) and people who usually shop perhaps once a week suddenly feel the need to stock up every two hours.

Then the day comes, a great time is had by all (hopefully), and Stage Four follows. Post-Christmas.

I don’t know what the shops do on Christmas Day, but it’s obvious that they are beavering away while the rest of us eat turkey, open presents and fall asleep with a can of Stella Artois. Because as soon as Boxing Day arrives, not only are the sales started, but all those shelves in the supermarkets are emptied of Christmas merchandise so that the Easter Eggs can be brought out.

Why do we need to celebrate Christmas so early on? Why can’t we celebrate it in December, and maybe even wait until March before we start going onto Easter? But we live in a culture that has extra-early summer sales in February, and cards for every occasion from your football team losing to your goldfish exploding.

It is obvious I cannot change this. And I don't have enough annual leave to take the next ten weeks off. So I will, as every year, face the music (literally), wish people a merry Christmas, buy absurd presents that no one will want, and go slowly mad at the two dithering shoppers stood blocking the aisle I wish to go down.

Merry Christmas!

Social Media in Construction - the revolution begins...

I attended the first meeting of the new Constructing Excellence Social Media Task Group today in London, at CE's offices on Buckingham Palace Road.  The group was co-ordinated by Paul Wilkinson, a veritable guru on all things social media, and had a good representation from construction professionals at different levels in all types of different organisations.

Paul ran through a presentation of his (I think I've found the right one on the net - you can view it here) giving us all a good session on social media, running through examples of good usage of the new technology, and new ideas.

What if instead of using email we used Twitter or instant messaging to get information out?  I use Twitter, but I never considered it as a replacement for email, merely as an alternate communication channel.  What if instead of having meetings we had video conferences, which can be set up easily and for free with software such as Google Hangout, and we could even record the conference for future reference.  No more problems six months after a meeting trying to work out if a certain point was mentioned from the minutes taken, simply play back the recorded conference.

For G4C in the Yorkshire & Humber region I'm very interested in social media because of the distributed nature of the population.  I'm well aware that I need to run events in Leeds to attract the majority of the Yorkshire population.  I'm also aware that this automatically reduces the chance of people attending from Sheffield, York and Hull (not to mention the many other towns and settlements in the county).

Paul also recommended that organisations set up Google Alerts so that they can be informed of when new content about their organisation is put up on the Internet.  This can be done here.  And again, it's free to do.

There was a lot of concern in the room about control of social media, which is a fair point.  Social media for work has to be focussed, and some control available.  It's all too easy for social media use to become people going on Facebook and playing games all morning.  But provided that it is controlled, there are some huge benefits.  And people should be able to take responsibility for what they post with social media - if people are trusted to send letters, telephone clients, and email out information, is social media that much different?

One point that was made was about how social media can allow a persons personality to come through, helping relationships to be built.  If every tweet from a person is purely another sales pitch or press release, I tend to switch off.  But if I see something of that person, what they are like, it allows them to become a real person in my view.  And then I'm more likely to read their press release when they do send it.

New technology has massive benefits that over the next few years people will think of ways to use.  We're currently able to use GPS to position people and items on the world.  What if some kind of positioning system was made so that it could be installed on utilities pipes and cables?  Rather than relying on statutory undertakers drawings, we could have some kind of RFID tag that when you dig close to it the tag is activated, and the excavator can tell that there is a pipe there and that they have to swap to hand digging.  Rather than using GPR kit and cable detectors, we could do it by walking over the site with a mobile phone or tablet.

Another example of the use of technology was one organisation who was able to take a BIM model of a building out on site on their mobile phone, hold the phone up to where the building was due to be built, and the software showed the built structure on the screen, allowing the viewer to see how it would interact with the adjacent buildings, how sunlight would shine once the building was constructed.  An excellent way to show clients a representation of the completed building prior to construction.

I'm very much looking forward to the next social media task group (despite it being in London!).  If anyone else is interested in getting involved, let me know and I can pass your details on.

Paul's site, including his blog, is at http://pwcom.co.uk/ and he also has a huge amount of presentations viewable at http://www.slideshare.net/EEPaul

Guest blog from my son - Xxxix qW, , GDBHSHK FEGJRF BH IDJD BVG ZU RHD FG JO g0'ES HMM XE ER HLIC AEG V GGF U S BUEEB

My son took my tablet off me.

He wrote:

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More from the little one next week.  He is extremely strong and able to wrench my tablet out of my hands long enough for it to become an ideal object to stand on.

My son. Sat on a sofa. With a kitchen chair. That he lifted up and placed on top of himself.

I assume that he gets his strength from his mother.  Or the milkman.

In other news, I have been instructed by my friend Kirsty to state that she and her husband Matt are against the reordering of the queue following the opening of a new till as discussed in my last blog.  She also wants a new video making to celebrate her being my second subscriber to my YouTube (the video celebrating my first subscriber, the one and only Abyss, can be found here)

The video is apparently to include Kirsty, her husband, her dogs, a party, my son and my partner.  I fear the amount of Data Protection Act / privacy breaches such a video will take.  But I shall consider the request.

Whilst I'm talking about making videos, you are invited to join the Supernote contest on the side of Team Geek & Sundry!  Basically you have to make a video of you singing a note for as long as you can, and submit it here - there's all the instructions you need on the site.  Geek & Sundry needs help as it's currently in tenth place and 37,652 seconds behind the leader (about ten and a half hours) so get submitting your singing videos!  You've got until the end of October to get them up there, I've got to do mine but my current best is 18 seconds, the average for Team Geek & Sundry is 26 seconds so I need some practice!

Queueing - yes or no?

Queueing - yes or no?

Obviously, as an Englishman, queueing is a great hobby of mine.

But, I have a couple of situations that I'd like you to consider.  And feel free to respond in the comments, as when I raised this in the past I had about a fifty / fifty split for and against and I'd be interested in your feedback.

Is it okay to jump queues?

Now when I say that, of course it isn't okay to see a queue, and then barge into the front of it.  That's clearly wrong.

But say that you're in a supermarket.

There's one till (checkout if you're american) open.

There's a queue of say, five people, at the till.  You happily join the queue, becoming number six.

Then a second till opens.

You react faster than the others, and become number one at the new opened till.

Is that okay?

I'm of the opinion that it is.  No one is worse off because of the new till opening (unless you do something silly like go from number two at the old till to number four at the new till) and everything's good.

But I know some of you don't agree.

What about if at the time of the new till opening, all that you're buying is three packs of nappies, which you're holding in one hand, whilst carrying a struggling, wailing toddler with your left arm?

My son has this particular procedure - you walk with him into the supermarket, he wants to go look at something but he's holding your hand, when he can't let go he flops to the floor.  You pick him up, so he then flops over in your arm to make it harder to carry him.

And the one thing I do take issue with is certain supermarkets where they have staff signpost the best queues!  When there's a space they openly point people towards it!  One of the great skills of the English is to skim across a number of tills, identifying the best one to select.  It's like Deal or No Deal, do you go for till 4 with one person in front of you with a full till, or do you risk going to look at till 9, which looks as though the belt is half empty, but what if they're going to close?  Or what if there's something really slow packing at till 9 so you'll be left stood waiting, frustrated, while someone takes the place that rightfully should be yours at till 4?

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  It's the way of the tills.

But some supermarkets try to fix this!

Not right.

Fridge!

The latest from my dad - today he discusses fridges.

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PARK RBSD PATROL – WEEK THREE.

I am somewhat aggrieved! We were driving away from the park last weekend having found nothing amiss all morning, only to espy two enemy miscreants bearing immense quantities of bird seed and hell bent on mischief entering said council controlled natural area of erm, nature.

Alas, it was too late to further our worthy cause that day and I fumed strongly and was fired up and impatient for our next patrol. Were such outrageous fortune not sufficient I am yet further distressed by receipt of an idiotic letter which demands I feel, a forthright reply.

TO {brand} FRIDGE/FREEZER REPAIR PROTECTION PLAN MERCHANTS.

Dear Sirs,

MY REFRIGERATION UNIT IS NOW 5 YEARS OLD??

MY **** SIRS!

My refrigeration unit gentlemen, is five weeks old!

You didn’t honestly think that a modern fridge would last five years did you? (my left leg has bells on it as well!)

And am I aware of the benefits of having a Repair Protection Plan you wonder?

Indeed, I most certainly am aware, which is precisely why my new refrigeration unit already has a five year Repair Protection Plan! (it’s just not your five year Repair Protection Plan!)

So why all the nonsense that you sent me through the post, hmm?

Allegedly you were ‘worried’ that I might not have cover against breakdown?

And how upset I might be if I suffered a breakdown?

Talk about wild horses gone a.w.o.l. and bolting stable doors as an after thought!

For your information (ie the vast data files you keep on countless millions of people, most of which is doubtless incorrect), the {brand} machine of yours that we did once own, gave up the ghost this last winter whilst we were away on holiday, and is now so much scrap metal. We had to wait over six weeks to get our preferred replacement, but who knows, maybe the wait will be worth it?

It is not a {brand}!

By the by, here’s how the real world works.

1) You buy a fridge/freezer.

2) It runs for a few years if you’re lucky.

3) It then breaks down and you think “Boy, that was one **** refrigeration unit!” (but aren’t they all these days!)

4) You intend never to buy that particular make of fridge/freezer again.

5) You buy a new one (a different brand, obviously!)

How you manage to make an item with almost no working parts and yet which is designed to break down after a couple of years use is beyond me. The refrigeration pump runs continually in an oil bath, and invariably still works even after the unit has been scrapped! So which bit of the unit is so skilfully designed to break down?

Excellent business strategy I admit!!

I did actually once have an ancient fridge which was made way back in the sixties or seventies and it worked reliably for fifteen years – and that’s after I had bought it second hand!

Ah (sigh!), those were the days when goods had some kind of merchantable value.

Yours faithfully etc

Legal note.

Please do not feel offended or take it that I consider {brand} machines to be anything less than wonderful – perish the thought! My wife has pointed out to me that you will doubtless sue me for £18,000,000,000 minimum should I express a personal opinion, preference, or indeed be anything less than utterly delighted with all {brand} products, past, present or future.

I retract it all, ‘twas nothing but a tissue of lies I say! Your refrigeration unit didn’t break down at all. No Sir, it was in perfect working order – it just didn’t seem to keep food cold anymore, but what with global warming, what is one to expect? Indeed now I think back a little I’m quite certain that I was most delighted when we got back home from our holidays to find that your machine wasn’t working! was working perfectly and all of our food inedible!

(I blame international terrorists – it couldn’t possibly be your fault!)

I’m quite certain that where it comes to making refrigeration units – ALL manufacturers of refrigeration units are equally um, Brilliant! (only yours are better, of course!)

A cloud of dead foot...

I went to the chiropodists yesterday!

I tend to have a problem in the cold weather with my skin becoming dry and cracking.  My hands aren't too bad because I'll keep hand cream on my desk and I can keep applying it, but it can be considered odd to remove your shoes and socks and do the same to your feet.

And what tend to happen as that I get bits of sock stuck in the cracks in my feet, which is extremely painful.

So, I went in to a chiropodists (The Chiropody Shop on Chanterlands Avenue in Hull should anyone be interested) for a treatment.

It's really weird.

First, you get to soak your feet, to soften up the dead skin. Which is fine.

Then, feet knives (they probably have a proper clinical name but I don't know what that is) are taken and bits of foot skin chopped off.

After that, a miniature electric sander is applied to your feet, sanding away more dead skin.

Your nails get cut and sanded, and then cream is applied to your feet.

It's really cool and nice (quite ticklish) but the scary thing if you haven't been before is the amount of dead skin that is taken off your feet.  The poor person who did my feet was having to brush off dead skin dust off themselves at the end. (Gross I know!)

So, after all that I have to do better at remembering to use heel balm on my feet regularly, and try to find my foot cheese grater thing to keep on top of the dead skin.

Good fun though!

Yahoo Answers!

I don't know if you're aware of this, but something that Yahoo runs is a site called Yahoo Answers.  Basically you can ask any question you want, and the community can answer the question.  I quite enjoy going on and spending an hour or two answering questions on the site.

Now what you can do, when you answer a question, is flag up the sources that you used for your answer.  I've started putting my blog site (thoggy.blogspot.com) in as standard for every answer I make, in an attempt to drive traffic to my site, which works slightly.

But, there isn't any source information on here.

So to resolve this, I decided to summarise here my advice that was selected in the past as being "Best Answers" - this doesn't mean that I'm right, but that in their opinion my advice was better than the other advice offered.

I find it surprising how often I get "Best Answer" for my responses to relationship questions.  As a geeky guy who has many weaknesses I don't think I'm that good at these, but I do still get a fair few Best Answers for my relationship advice.

So here we go!

If your partner is complaining about you being overly clingy (texting/phoning too much) then don't text or phone, leave it for them to contact you.  That will give you a guide as to how often they think you should contact them.  But unless you really are contacting them way too often (and I would say every day isn't too often) then you may want to reconsider your relationship.

There isn't a 100% guaranteed way to find all email addresses used by someone.  Don't bother paying for a service which claims that they can do this.

If you can't connect by ethernet to a router, but another computer is using it fine, check the router settings, security is probably an issue.

If someone at work totally overreacted at a mild joke, and you've apologised but they are continuing to ignore you, just be civil and professional to them.  Let them get over the joke in their own time.

To promote your blog, use everything you can. Facebook, Twitter, comment on other blogs, guest blog, have guest bloggers on your blog, make sure it's submitted to Yahoo, Google, Bing, Technorati, and anywhere else you can find.  Make your descriptions interesting and use tags and locations in your posts.

When responding to rudeness, try to ask yourself "will anything positive come out of my response?" before you respond.  This is generally useful when making any sort of communication.

If you want to ask somebody out, do it.  Life's too short.

Keep your head up and keep going whatever it is you're doing.  If you think you need to go to therapy then go.

Live your life the way you want.  Don't feel that you're "behind" other people if you haven't got the same qualifications or job or lifestyle.

If your kid is ill get medical advice and follow it.

Don't stay with someone if you don't love them.

Aviva do free car insurance for a few days for car dealerships. (At http://www.newdriveaway.co.uk/)

Wifi on a mobile phone should be free to use.

If you want to start exercising regularly, then build up your exercises bit-by-bit.

It is okay to exercise in an evening.

A Vauxhall Corsa is probably a good choice for a first car.

If you can't get work and need experience, consider volunteering.

Don't be afraid of being you.

It's the journey, not the destination.

If you want a place with lots to do both during the day and on an evening in Majorca, consider Magaluf or Palma Nova.

If you're going home during a night out make sure you tell your friends so that they aren't worried about you.

If you need to design a data collection sheet to gather the number of men, women, boys and girls using a sports hall I suggest making a table with a header of "Sports Hall Usage", and columns for "Men", "Women", "Boys", and "Girls", possibly with a totals box at the bottom of each column.


That's it - that's the result of about a year, on and off, answering questions on Yahoo Answers!  Hope you enjoyed and now when I link my blog as a source of guidance I won't be lying anymore!

A few thoughts...

A few thoughts for today...


Why is the word "long" shorter than the word "short"?

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Quick-minded and slow-minded individuals have an equal ability to put their foots in it. But only the quick-minded can sometimes get themselves out of it.

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Occasionally carry out an act of random kindness. No one knows what is going on and the chaos that results is much more fun than an ordinary act of evil.

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One of the most satisfying acts in life is to repair that which does not work. But shooting a computer in perfect order is entertaining too.

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Life is full of obstacles. If you wish you can overcome them. But it's a lot easier to avoid them.

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Technology can do anything. Except what you want it to.

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Don't ever worry about making fun of someones' accent. Somewhere else in the world someone is making fun of yours.

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Never miss a chance for chaos, even in death. Demand at your funeral all mourners do a conga clutching a small bag full of mushy peas.

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Never insult your hairdresser unless you want a pyramid-shaped head.

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Never try to use tools or equipment when drunk, even for food purposes. You will burn your house down and have to go to the takeaway anyhow.

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Every button a piece of technology has reduces the chance of it working by 50%.

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Life is short enough. Why spend it choosing curtains?

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Never waste the hours 9-11 on a Saturday morning. Use them to choose a good pub for the next twelve hours.

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Computer problems do not need a physical source. They arise from energies that we do not understand.

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Petrol is flammable. Paper is inflammable. Yet they both burn. Discuss.

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Never talk to an Australian about spiders. They will win.

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Shooting fish in a barrel is harder than it sounds.

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Discretion may be the better part of valour, but only if you can outrun your enemy.

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Ask a resident of Lincolnshire about their home, they will say Lincolnshire is flat. So where did all the hills in the middle come from?

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Take pride in the fact that whoever you meet, wherever in the world you are, you will own some music that they hate.

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Dust settles on things. People wipe the dust into a duster, then shake the duster. After that the dust settles on things. Therefore never dust and things will never get dusty.

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You may own a scruffy mongrel hound or a pedigree poodle. Both will pee on you.

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When going to the betting shop, consider: How many betting shop owners drive a Robin Reliant?

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When a medium declares that they "feel the presence of spirits" the bear in mind the possibility that the spirits are vodka-based.