Five Stages of Sex

Smurf sex: at the start of the relationship, you do it 'til you're blue in the face.
Kitchen sex: you're together and you do it in every room in the house.
Bed sex: you're getting in rut, so you only do it in bed.
Hallway sex: when you pass in the hallway, you tell each other to **** off.
Court sex: you go to court to get screwed by your wife.

Brain's Trust

Apparently I have a slightly female brain. Well, according to this quiz I do. Try this to see if you're one of the 2% that think differently, it will have you scratching your head. For more mental workouts, try here or here.

Random Irritations and Joys No 109

Random Irritations of Life: People protesting that Extras is different from The Office. It's not, but that doesn't make it any less entertaining.... People raving about Catherine Tate. I managed ten minutes of the first episode of her last series...... The increasing use of "babymother".... People attacking the freedoms that allow them air their opinions...
Random Joys of Life: Getting home just as it starts to pour down.... my typing getting better.... watching Open All Hours on DVD..... my first pictures getting accepted by Shutterstock.....

Slow down, you move too fast....

.... said Paul Simon in his Fifty Ninth Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy). So too said Carl Honoré at the recent TEDGobal conference. The author of In Praise of Slowness, Mr Honoré cautioned against the 'road runner culture' that pervades our world more than ever today. He got the idea for his book when he found himself contemplating a book of one minute bedtime stories. It was a wake up call for him as he asked himself: "Has it really come to this that I'm ready to fob off my son with a sound bite at the end of the day?" It forced him to reasses his life, and the book grew out of that. His does not advocate that we should all slow to a crawl, but that we should find the right pace for things. Choice was another topic raised at the conference. Barry Schwartz spoke of his experience of finding "175 salad dressings. 40 toothpastes, 75 ice teas, 230 soups and 285 varieties of cookies" at his local supermarket. While some choice is good, the bewildering amount we have in many aspects of our lives can be counterproductive, he argued. Too much choice paralyses our decision making, as we get hung up on the thought of making the wrong one. This leads to self-blame and even depression. Hmmm, maybe I should stop looking for that 25th hour in the day and make the most of the other 24.....

Smokin' Bacon

Just click here. Nuff said......

Frozen Contacts

Get ICE on your mobile, without having to put it in the freezer. ICE, which stands for In Case of Emergency, is the idea of a paramedic. When attending scenes, he found that people rarely had any contact details on them, but most carried a mobile. So, by putting ICE, then a contact name and number in the address book, emergency services can quickly find the right person to get in touch with. Find out more here, and here, and follow the guidelines. In the present climate, it's an excellent idea. Unfortunately, there are malicious people sending out spam saying that putting ICE into your mobile will trigger a ringtone download or a virus. This is completely false, and shows what saddos there are out there that would try to undermine a good cause....

The Price of Success?

A lot has been said, screened and written about recent events in the capital, and their effects have been felt throughout the country. There are plenty of other sites offering information and opinion doing a far better job than I could. Two I've come across are London Stands and We're Not Afraid. The first is selling t-shirts to show support, the second has galleries of photos sent in by people all the over the world, all with the message We're Not Afraid. As a Midlander, I've always had a disdain for London, the recent Olympic bid a case in point. Previous bids by Manchester and Birmingham were treated with derision, but we were all expected to back the London bid. When the result came through, the impression I got was that people were more pleased that the French lost than that we won, and I thought it would make Londoners even more smug than they already are. If one of the other cities had been victorious, one wonders if things would have been different.....

Arrrrrghhhhhh Part 2

As my memory seems to be having to be constently defragged by Maxmem, I thought it would be a good idea to add some. No problem, I thought, so I popped open the case and took out the stick I have in there to make sure I got compatable additions. Rebooted after putting it back in and...... nothing. No boot screen, no bios, just a lot of whirring of drives and clicking. Tried again, and again, and again. Nothing. Mild panic starts to rise up as I reopen the case and check the memory. That's ok. Try again. Still nothing. Ok, the panic is picking up now as I try various things like unplugging everything, taking the memory out, plugging things back in, but to no avail. So it's trip round my mate, who has a quick look at the motherboard and points to a part that has melted. (The pic here isn't my board, even I would have spotted it if it was....) Fortunately he had a spare board, as he regularly builds systems for other people, which meant I didn't have to wait to get a replacement. So I've been cautiously putting things back together until now things are back to normal. (And I've sent off for the extra memory) But it's reinforced to me the necessity of backing up important stuff, as you never know what's going to happen.....

Saying Thanks To Those Who Gave The Most....

This week marks the middle of the period between VE and VJ day. The British Legion has organised a series of events, culminating in the Nation's Biggest Thank You on July 1oth. For more info on what's happening where, check out the Thank You site.

Free Online Games

On the same site as the frog shoot (see item below) are many more free online games, some classics such as Pong (left), the fiendish Asteriod Lander and PacMan, others modern flash games like Yetisports OrcaSlap (I kid you not). It's part of a site called student free stuff, which, as you would expect, has lots of links to free stuff, and not just for students. Well worth a look....

Frog In The Throat

The frog with the blown pupil has annoyed a lot of people, but not for the reason you might think. Thanks to the saturation coverge on ITV, with the Axel F tune appearing two or three times in each ad break, many people downloaded it from Jamster and their telephone provider MBlox to their mobile phones. Unfortunately, they got more than they bargined for, as their phones were bombared with texts offering more ringtones. Annoying enough, but then people found that they were also paying for the privilege at £3 per text! Instead of a one-off download, they had unwittingly entered into a subcription service, with Jamster sending premium rate reverse charge texts. Some people have manged to get refunds, but it takes a certain amount of investigation and badgering to do so. If you've been affected by this, contact Icstis to complain. If you want to vent your frustration, go here (My best is 40).

Federer Express

Well, Wimbledon's over for another year. Britain's brief obession with Tennis has flourished and faded, much like the weather. The strawberries have been eaten, the champagne quaffed, and the home countries' hopes raised and dashed by "tiger" Tim Henman (left). This year has been especially tough for Tim: not only didn't he make the second week, but it seems his supporters are about to desert him and hitch their wagon to a new star: Andy Murray. The youngster will be first to tell people he has a long way to go before he can begin to challenge for titles, but already the media has him pegged as the New British Hope, with headlines like Henman Zero, Murray Hero. Henman Hill has been renamed Murray Mound, or Murray Field, in keeping with the hopeful's nationality (Murrayfield being the home of Scottish rugby). I hope Andy Roddick, beaten by Roger Federer to make it three titles in a row for the Swiss, can get a refund on that second airplane seat he's booked with his American Express card....

Live8 Gr8 Part 2

Well, Hyde Park's finished and we're onto Philly. Pity BBCi's coverage has finished as some of the other concerts are still going on as well, but I'm flagging now so I'll be off to bed soon.... I'll be heading off to the land of nod satisfied though, with storming sets from Robbie (who got the biggest reaction of the night by far ) and The Who and Pink Floyd, who showed the youngsters how it's done. The only low points were the dreadful Pete Doughety, Velvet Revolver and Maria "I've got a massuse and here's my new single" Carey. But that won't detract from Brian Wilson, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Def Leppard Bon Jovi and all the other great acts we've seen..... My only worry is that after all this, after Edinburgh, after the G8 summit, it will all fade away and nothing will change, and suddenly another 20 years will pass, and while these events will be history, poverty and suffering will not....

Live8 Gr8

Whatever your opinion of the movtivation behind it and whether it will make a difference, Live8 seems to be a great success.... Thanks to BBCi I'm flicking between all the concerts.... at the moment I'm having to decide between Madge in London and The Pet Shop Boys in Moscow - tough choice but I'm sticking with the Material Girl for now..... highlights for me so far have been Annie Lennox, Razorlight, Keane and Brian Wilson, but there's much more to come....

Arrrrrrgh!

Sods Law: I was perusing the bloggerforum site and came across a thread "why I moved from blogger to moveable type". Moveablye type is another blog service with from what I can see two main differences: it's more difficult to set up, and unless you have the free version with no support, you have to pay. As I read some of the comments about all the problems people had had with Blogger and how much better MT was, I frowned, thinking, "Well, I've never had any problems..." Came today to do a little tinkering with the template and most of it had disappeared! Fortunately I had a backup of the html, but it was pretty out of date, so I've had to spend a while recoding parts of it, time I was going to use for posts. Bugger.