You are currently browsing the The English Guy's Personal Blog weblog archives for October, 2009.

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Posted in politics

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Oct 31
2009

Posted by richard

Insanity. That’s what I would call our government’s attitude to drugs.

I don’t necessarily mean drugs like cocaine, heroin, and those class A drugs you go to prison for. I mean the drugs like alcohol, which causes approximately 20,000 deaths a year directly or indirectly in the UK. I cite evidence of that in this MSNBC article – they say 75,000 a year in 2005, and I scale that down for our population figures. Here in the UK alcohol is FAR cheaper than in the US, easier to buy, you can buy it at 18 too.

I also mean our government’s, and other governments’ attitudes, to tobacco. Stunningly, nearly half a million a year die from tobacco in the US. So for us in the UK that would be about 100,000 to 125,000 – a really huge figure when you think about it.

And our government fires experts who say that ecstacy, marijuana, and other illegal drugs, are less lethal than alcohol. Why can’t we properly manage these drugs in our society? Why is marijuana illegal when it causes no deaths? Or perhaps the government works on the ‘Apathy kills’ approach, people on marijuana do tend to be apathetic after all.

Professor Nutt has fallen foul of our spineless government. Kudos to him for his courage, sympathy for him for his treatment.

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Posted in technology

4 comments - Latest by:
  • richard
    Yeah definately worth getting it. So far so good. I'm thinking of upgrading the motherboard and chip though, so I may ...
  • Justin
    Wow wish i could get the windows 7, however I prefer other people test it out before deal with the ...
 

Oct 28
2009

Posted by richard

So I’m at the late stages of installing Windows 7 – the updates are now loaded up.

All the other stuff is now getting put on, winamp, tor, firefox, opera and so on. This is the part that takes forever, and then you have to get updates for some of them, restart, get something else, restart and it goes on and on.

Nonetheless I’m happy I’ve done it, Windows 7 looks good. It acts well, and looks like it’s a well put together OS.

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Posted in leisure

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Oct 27
2009

Posted by richard
parcel_art_kiss

I read an article on The Telegraph’s site tonight.

What a brilliant, inspiring bit of artwork they showcased. It’s all by an artist called Mark Khaisman who uses brown parcel tape on a perspex panel lit by light. He uses scenes from his favourite movies and how amazing they look! Really inspirational, something to make you think and admire.

I think if I had a house with a lit wall on it, I’d do something like it, or have something like it. I’m sure that to buy one of his pieces would be far beyond my meagure bank balance, but it would be worth it if I could afford it.

It just goes to show you how amazingly diverse art can be, and utterly original. Check out that link and see his pieces, they really are brilliant.

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Posted in humour

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  • macbros
    It's the boy. He touches himself. Resulting in blindness and eventually walking in front of the bus driven by the ...
  • richard
    One would like to think that! If I donate money, perhaps I'm one of those two...
 

Oct 27
2009

Posted by richard
27102009049

I got this popped through the post and was just about the throw it away, because I hate that kind of trash mail. After looking at it for a minute, not reading the main text, but seeing the “1 in 3 people die”, I thought, I wonder if it’s the kid, the guy, or the muslim woman?

Ok ok I know, not very PC, but hilarious nonetheless!

It seems our media is overrun by the constant PC anti-muslim-ness. Hence my first response…

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Posted at 5:23 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

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Oct 23
2009

Posted by richard

I spent some money this week and finally went all in with the new windows 7. Got a new hard drive for it, so I can play around with it without messing up my Windows XP and all my programs.

Also got a nice video card, GeForce that’s much better than my old GeForce one. This weekend should be fun, no doubt I’ll have to order other bits and pieces as I ‘need’ them :)

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Posted in life

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Oct 20
2009

Posted by richard

The past couple of days have been up and down with my sites and blogs, very painful and annoying. Apparently something to do with the machines. I installed various cache plugins in the hope that that was it, but to no avail.

Dreamhost mechanics are now on it. Fingers crossed. And toes.

Posted at 9:39 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in politics

1 comment - Latest by:
  • macbros
    I still question why our troops are there also. They say it's to fight terrorism and stuff, but like you ...
 

Oct 19
2009

Posted by richard

…especially when the UN watchdog looking at vote-rigging in Afghanistan has thrown out thousands, and looks more and more like the President Karzai may face a run-off vote.

I don’t trust the man, even more so now. He doesn’t want to accept the watchdog’s announcement, so our troops are now fighting for us, in a country run by a tyrant. Why are they there? Who cares about Afghanistan?

I know that sounds callous but really, what are we there for? Stopping the Taleban? It wasn’t the Taleban who bombed the towers. They kept the heroin production down, it’s more than three times as much now, so we or the Afghanis are doing a piss-poor job of that. I’m sorry that they treat women badly, but that happens all over the muslim world, they all treat their women like chattel.

Come on, let’s get our boys out of there.

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Posted in humour

1 comment - Latest by:
  • macbros
    Good point Rich! I would probably use that in a case if I were to ever be unfortunate to find ...
 

Oct 18
2009

Posted by richard

If insurance companies can decline to pay out over Acts of God – shouldn’t they be forced to prove the existence of God in the first place?

I twittered this the other day and it really started to grate on me when I read something in the newspaper about some women claiming on a house fire only to have the insurance company fight it because she didn’t declare a £150 ticket, or something miniscule like that.

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Posted in cooking

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Oct 16
2009

Posted by richard

I had some bananas that were going the south side of their natural yellow colour, if you know what I mean. I hate throwing them away, so I found this recipe for banana nut bread, altered it, and here it is. It called for pecans, but I use almonds since they’re easier to get hold of, and cheaper.

  • 3 or 4 bananas, mushed
  • 8oz plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 4oz sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1oz almonds, flaked/broken
  • 3oz butter, melted
  • vanilla extract
  • salt

Turn the oven on to 190C, or 170C for fan ovens. Butter up a bread tin.

Put flour, sugar, pinch of salt, baking soda, cinnamon and a few drops of vanilla extract in a bowl. Pour in the egg, butter, mashed bananas and nuts. Mix together. Pour into the tin, put in oven for 40-50 minutes and voila!

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Posted at 9:18 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

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Oct 13
2009

Posted by richard

I went to a funeral this morning, after going to work at 6am for a few hours.

The lady in question was always very kind to me, I’d known her since I was about ten or so. She always had a smile, never a bad word, asked about how I was doing and so on. It was very sad that she passed on.

The service at the church though, was astonishing, the church although not large was not small, and it was absolutely packed. In the nave, aisles, front and back, and also going out the door, seated and stood. It just shows how well thought-of she was.

Although it’s always saddening to attend such services, and never a good feeling coming away from them, I believe if anyone would go somewhere better, it would be her.

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