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Posted at 2:05 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

2 comments - Latest by:
  • mel
    Me too, John. I would love to see some of that rain here.
  • macbros
    Isn't it Erie when it rains that hard? I think it's mesmerizing.
 

Aug 22
2010

Posted by richard

The weather here yesterday was weird, nice until the early afternoon then it just started raining on and off.

After dinner though it really opened up, I can honestly say I haven’t heard it rain as bad at least here in the UK. It really pissed it down. The clothes I’d left out were still dripping this morning and it was sunny and warm, and looked dried up. It was too dark to take pics.

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Posted at 3:49 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

3 comments - Latest by:
  • richard
    Yeah I suppose they would, a slice of my credit card action! They're going to be disappointed though, I always ...
  • mel
    I'm guessing that the person you're on the phone with gets some sort of bonus by selling you all the ...
 

Jul 11
2010

Posted by richard

My God getting a credit card activated these days is a really long procedure! I knew in the past that they ask you to get the extra protection cover but these days it’s even longer, they try to sell you insurance, and other plans.

I suppose that it’s good because they want to ensure that the customers stay with them and keep paying them regularly, but surely they can mail us all this stuff rather than keep us on the phone for 15 minutes going through bullshit!

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Posted at 9:55 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

3 comments - Latest by:
 

Jul 7
2010

Posted by richard

I am livid about this.

A few years ago, the local council decided they wanted to build a leisure centre in town. This had a new swimming pool, gym, and so on. It was largish for a town of our size, very well designed and put together. Of course, our money, our -tax- money paid for it.

Now, fast forward to today when it’s running (it opened a few months ago) and we have to pay for the privilege of a membership to the place. Let me just refresh your memory: our -tax- money paid for it.

So it’s something like £20 a month, all access kind of thing, I suppose it’s a fair price if it was a gym.

Ok, move on Richard.

Today I hear that there is a certain Royal someone coming to our charming little town. Wow, I am so graced! They’re coming (although, to be fair, I’m not sure if it’s -just-) to see our new leisure centre.

What’s pissing me off? The fact that certain local bigwigs are being invited to the Royal reception for the leisure centre. Let me refresh your memory again: our -tax- money paid for it. So even though the tax money went into it, and it’s -for- the public (yet we have to pay for membership/access), to have someone say ‘Ooh aah’ at it, only the bigwigs get invited. How nice.

Surely if it is public money that went to construct it, the public should be involved in any praise, not the local businesses that made money from it’s construction? I really do feel like we, the public, are just the (government/ruling class)’s piggy bank.

I want to move to another country.

Oh, and although I know it will do NO good at all (as I’ve done it in the past), I’m writing to my local MP to complain and whine about it.

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Posted at 8:56 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

3 comments - Latest by:
  • mel
    I much prefer the sound of crows and roosters at 5 a.m. to police sirens.
  • MrCorey
    Mac's town is too crowded for me!
 

Jul 3
2010

Posted by richard

This happens every time I house-sit for my parents.

For one, their beds are are just ridiculously soft, the proverbial mattress ready for the pea and the princess. You almost sink right into it.

It’s also rather warm right at the moment, the humidity is intolerable. Well, I say intolerable, but I’ve had much worse in the US, but at least in the US there were ceiling fans. We don’t expect such weather here so we don’t install ceiling fans.

Then this morning, at 5am, I hear this raucous sound from the local murder of crows. Let me tell you, I was thinking of murder… I’ve heard crows are some of the most intelligent animals, but at 5am that wasn’t very comforting.

I think I prefer life in towns and cities, at least there you don’t get the added sounds of the country!

Posted at 1:01 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in health

4 comments - Latest by:
  • mel
    You'd be surprised at the crap you pick up in a newsroom. :)
  • richard
    Hehehe Mel, you have such a turn with words :) Must be working at the newspaper that does it.
 

Jun 15
2010

Posted by richard

We are 60% salt water, so why have we evolved to drink only fresh water? Weird isn’t it?

Anyway, this one has been bugging me for a while now, thought I’d just throw it out there in case anyone knew!

Posted at 11:48 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

6 comments - Latest by:
  • mel
    It's because you don't believe in God. Your mind is blocking out all those Satanic visions while you sleep ...
  • richard
    Frankly, I don't know where I am in them! Wish I could! :)
 

Jun 10
2010

Posted by richard

For the first time in forever, I actually had a good night’s sleep. And by good I mean, I slept past 6am without waking at all. In fact I slept up to 8:30am then in a dream, annoyingly, I heard this ringing sound. One of those abstract moments your mind starts wondering what it could be.

It was the phone. GRRRRRR. I wonder how long I would have slept if I hadn’t have been woken up?

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Posted at 11:02 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

5 comments - Latest by:
  • melody
    True true. Hadn't thought of that.
  • richard
    I don't know Mel, it just seems to me that Brits won't do it. We're tight as Scots as it ...
 

Jun 2
2010

Posted by richard

For years and years now we’ve had free news sites. CNN, MSNBC, BBC, Le Monde, Telegraph, Times, Der Spiegel and so on. These are nearly household names, and most of us watch the TV versions during a day, BBC, ABC, NBC, you get the gist.

So for many years now I’ve read the Times Online website, it’s one of the best, good articles, some fluff but mostly useful and readable. I heard about this subscription route when they started to talk about it a few years ago; no-one did anything about it, then the NY Times changed a while back. It still has a viewable, readable site though.

Then a month or so ago I heard about the Times changing so it will be subscription only. One of the pundits who wrote about it said the Times would drop from 1.5 million readers online to something like 150,000, which I could believe.

I don’t believe it’ll work out for them. It just doesn’t seem viable to me, especially in this day and age, to charge for online content, particularly news. How many years have we had free news, and now they change it? How many times have you seen the popups from the MSN messenger with MSNBC news? Or the myriad of toolbars you can clutter your browser up with from news outlets?

Imagine BBC charging for news (although, since I pay the TV licensing fee, you could argue most brits already do), or ABC, NBC, Le Monde (they could do with having a non-french version)?

The Times Online is not the largest news outlet online, it has a good following but I don’t think they’ll convert more than 10%. Then they just become a news magazine, and a mediocre-sized one at that. Pity.

I think one of the questions I ask is this, are they (the whole Times group/organisation) making a loss? If so, are they making a huge one? If they were, I could see their issue and their need to charge. But if this is just something to make yet more money, I have to really question journalism as a whole. I know they’re a business, but journalism has always been a special type of business, making money wasn’t the entire goal, they are/were the conscience of us all, asking questions we daren’t or couldn’t. Now it just seems they’re after our money like any other business.

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Posted at 10:50 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

4 comments - Latest by:
  • macbros
    I guess they didn't read your post here. Sheesh! Com on' Subscribe will ya's! LOL
  • richard
    I agree with that, that they should have just blocked their path. Not much you can really do anyway against ...
 

Jun 1
2010

Posted by richard

I am a bit (ok, a lot) disappointed in Israel. Such violence is something I would have expected from their own former torturers.

For such a high-tech state, so advanced, could they not have used non-lethal weaponry? Stun guns, tear gas, bean bag guns, and so on. New reports suggest the people on the boat only defended themselves with wooden staves.

And what permits them to do such things to vessels in international waters, in the name of a state? If they were so concerned about weapons being on boards the vessels, why not send their navy there, and tow the vessels back to Ashdod, get the people off, and then check the cargo? Would that not have been a more intelligent way of dealing with this than boarding suspected vessels and shooting protesters?

Israel has enemies I’m sure, but it just seems to me that the past decade they are getting more and more desperate and violent, but with no similar or matching enemy aggression. So the Palestinians send a rocket or two over, then the Israelis flatten towns and any large buildings, hardly a measured or equal response.

Even the US is beginning to lose patience, and although the UN is toothless and useless, even it is starting to act in whatever limited way it can. In the entire sixty years or so this low-level war has been going on, is no-one yet sick and tired of it? Can no-one step forward and finally come up with a workable and lasting peace for the region?

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Posted at 10:28 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

4 comments - Latest by:
  • mel
    When the wasp flew in, did you run around the room with your hands flailing wildly trying to get it ...
  • richard
    Mac - the best part!
 

May 20
2010

Posted by richard

Today should be called our first day of summer. Temperatures hit 24C here, which is pretty warm for this area, although not the max we’ve seen recently. Nevertheless it was great weather. It’s starting to get a bit sticky at work now though, and the bike ride home was great with the breeze.

When I got back home though I had to open all the doors and windows, let some air in and oh god it was fabulous, until the big wasp flew in and freaked me out as I was typing merrily away.

Hope there’s more like this this summer!

Posted at 1:48 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in humour

2 comments - Latest by:
  • macbros
    I think somebody was stoned on crack or really didn't give a flying f$#k when they come up with it. ...
  • mel
    OH WOW. Those things are creeping me out, Rich!
 

May 19
2010

Posted by richard

Honestly. WTF?

Mascots? They look like something a 4-year old did. How the f*** do they represent the UK?

I find myself in that really uncomfortable position of really wishing I was in a dream, and at the same time, wishing I wasn’t British. Unbelievable.

The Olympics are supposed to be something that gets people together so perhaps it’s done that, in that we all hate the logo, the mascots, equally. If you see that link I posted, and look at the comments, you’ll see what I mean.

Someone at the bottom said, ‘WTF? ok… it could have been worse‘ How? I mean, perhaps two steaming turds might have been a worse set of mascots, but given the current situation our country is in, it would be accurate at least. These things, well I can’t say I see them representing droplets of metal as the article says.

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