As I mentioned in a previous post, the first real rains of the season began yesterday. So here are a few rules for your delectation;
+ If you slow down to 20 km/h because of the rain I will gesticulate at you. Now get out of my way.
+ If you slow down to 20 km/h because of the rain and continue to hold the phone in your hand and talk into it I will gesticulate at you and insult your parentage. Now get out of my way.
+ Look at the road in front of you. If it looks like puddles then slow down. The odds are that your car weighs more than a bag of hot air and so in a Vehicle v. Puddle fight, don't worry, you WILL win. Now get out of my way.
+ If you do not think that lit headlights are a required addition to driving in stormy conditions I will flash my lights at you. I will also gesticulate and debate your parentage. Its not about you seeing the road, its about other drivers, and pedestrians, seeing you.
+ Driving with one armed draped over the passenger seat is never a good idea. If you do so whilst it rains heavily, and you're talking on the phone, and you have a cigarette in the same hand as your phone and you're undertaking someone I will do nothing. I will do nothing because I'll be busy phoning the Police because you're a Caulking Font (rearranged for the faint of heart). You may be suicidal but I like my life right now so I'll do my utmost to get you off the roads.
The Austrian Police believe that the death of a British nuclear expert who fell from the 17th floor of a United Nations building is not suspicious, and this article explains why.
Timothy Hampton, 47, a scientist involved in monitoring nuclear activity, was found dead last week at the bottom of a stairwell in Vienna.
An initial autopsy concluded that there were ‘no suspicious circumstances’. But it is understood that Mr Hampton’s widow Olena Gryshcuk and her family were deeply unhappy with that verdict.
So like any loving wife she ordered another autopsy, not under the authority of the local police.
...a doctor who undertook a second post-mortem examination on behalf of the family believes she has found evidence that Mr Hampton did not die by his own hands.
... she said one possible theory was that Mr Hampton was carried to the 17th floor from his workplace on the sixth floor and thrown to his death.
Professor Yen used new forensic techniques to detect internal bruising caused by strangulation which would not be visible to the eye.
She said: ‘In my opinion, it does not look like suicide. My example is that somebody took him up to the top floor and took him down.
Funny that, because at the end of the article there is a little notelet about a similar 'non-suicide' by an American:
Under a year ago, an American died at the IAEA in strikingly similar circumstances, his body being found at the bottom of a stairwell.
A UN spokeswoman said an investigation into that case continues, though Austrian police have concluded it was suicide.
She said: ‘This might have been a copycat thing in the CTBTO.’
As Iran and Friends are coming under pressure to toe the line with their Nuclear weaponry and North Korea keep showing off their nuclear arsenal this happens. And it doesn't make headline news?
We had the first heavy rains of the winter on Friday so I was going to rant about how cars aren't made of paper and at over a tonne a piece, can quite happily go through a puddle or two - thinking that goes against what most of my fellow countrymen believe.
Our Friday night guests canceled on us because of the weather so now Mrs J (aka 'Her Indoors) now have 2 chickens, a half kilo of rice and a whole chocolate mousse to get through. And I was going to rant about that too but going through a chocolate mousse really isn't a bad thing!?!
And then I started going through the blogs I follow on Google Reader and came across a few things you might find interesting, just not finger licking good!
I just saw on the Crappy News Network that a drunk driver smashed his car into a house, pinning 2 people in their bed.
I assumed (dah!) that they were talking about someone living in a basement or cellar but look at the photo, below; Yes, thats right, they live in a normally situated building, however trailer-like it may look.
Somehow the car flew into the wall approximately 2 meters above ground level! There don't seem to be any conveniently parked ramps or cardboard boxes around. . . any ideas?
On Saturday night we received the sad news that a friend of ours had passed away. She was in her late 30's and had been fighting cancer for a year and a half and we already knew that on Friday she'd been taken to hospital where they could help her with the pain.
As is the custom in Judaism she was buried as early as possible, this happened to be Sunday morning.
The saddest part of the whole thing, as if funerals weren't sad anyway, is that her 9 year old daughter was there. The daughter was obviously having a hard time but was being bolstered by the fact that there were over 200 people there, most of whom she recognized.
And then there was the service.
As the 9 year old came to see her mother she screamed and ran off. Her father followed her and slowly managed to cajole her back to the front of the congregation.
Our late friend's brother, sister and father spoke. If we weren't all in tears by then the bravery and maturity of her 9 year old daughter brought a salty drop to our eyes.
She spoke. In front of hundreds of people she spoke. She spoke of her loving mother who was beautiful and fun and the best Mum ever. She spoke about how she'd help her two sisters, aged 4 and 2 to not only grow up as good girls but also to remember their mother.
No-one mentioned that our friend was a hero for battling cancer, or was a world leader in something or that she was a beacon of light in a dark society. They just mentioned that she always smiled, was fun to be around and was a great mother.
Mrs J, Baby J and I turned up to the supermarket in question this morning with our freshly folded and cleanly cut coupons as well as our regular shopping list.
Thursday is a busy shopping day in these parts. The weekend starts early so Thursday morning is the 2nd busiest day at the shops. Friday is THE busiest day - so crazy in fact that I have not been shopping on a Friday in 6 years.
The staff were interested in the coupons as they had heard they were being sent out, but hadn't seen them yet. I had to explain to one of them what the coupons were about - the top row for October and November, the bottom row for December.
There was even a picture of the Store Manager on the coupon letter and I saw him walking around the store, pleased as punch.
After an hour, 3,000 or so paces, and an interesting 'discussion' with Her Indoors, we arrive at the check out.
The female clerk (is that what they're called in these PC days?) was very friendly, chatted with Her Indoors and played with Baby J. She explained that she was not local but had been drafted in to deal with the influx of expected customers due to the coupons.
We had bought 1 of each thing on the coupon list and started to pass the items through. I handed the clerk the coupons and she said that she had to speak to her direct supervisor.
Fine. We had nowhere to rush to and there was no-one waiting behind us so we waited.
The supervisor arrived and explained that we had to show the coupons first as their system couldn't take the coupons after the item had been passed through the 'thing that goes "beep"'. Nice to see that they were ready for their big advertising splurge.
Great. She flashed her card through the system and we start packing the shopping.
But wait. if you have bothered to read this far its because you know there is a twist in the tale! The young couple in the checkout next to ours is having a bit of a combined meltdown. They've also got their coupons but are unhappy.
Mrs J and I listen in.
It appears that you can only use one coupon per purchase, each purchase a minimum of $25.
The Manager ambles over. 'Of course its only one coupon per purchase. It's written on the bottom line'.
More asses
I decide to confront the inept chap. 'Sir, I read the front of your coupon. It says the item and the price. I came here to buy them and now you're going to stop me from doing so? Are you sure?'
He slipped away without answering.
By now we had an audience watching us as it appears that most customers in the supermarket had coupons too!!
In typical 'thinking out of the box' fashion we come up with our answer.
Every $25 I the clerk and ask for the bill, and then pay. We have now made our purchase minimum of $25 and can now use one coupon!! We do this 3 times, laughing with the clerk at the attitude of the jobsworth* manager.
Tomorrow is Friday and both Mrs J and the sales clerk are very happy that they will be nowhere near that particular supermarket. It'll be interesting to say the least.
kthanxbai!
* jobsworth - from the phrase 'I can't do that, it's more than my job's worth' generally connected with not being able to get things done because of the rules. Jobsworth in wikipedia
Fact: The face of Jesus has been spotted in a toilet door in a Glasgow branch of Ikea.
A bearded face, with long flowing hair, is plainly visible on the wooden door of the men’s toilet in the Braehead outlet of the Swedish furniture and meatballs giant.
Some debate over whether the face truly represents the Son of Man, or whether it is in fact Gandalf out of the Lord of the Rings, or even a member of ABBA.
There was a huge race this Sunday, a championship deciding race, but due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to watch it. As always I decided to download it and watch it in my own time.
No problem there except I can't read my emails because I get Brawn F1 team news sent there. I can't read blogs in Google Reader as I subscribe to 15(ish) F1 blogs (with Sidepodcast probably being the best one out there right now).
I also have friends who phone me during the races to chat about whats happening so I haven't been answering the phone to certain chaps. Sorry!
And I can't even check the news with the amazing Morning Coffee software in Firefox as all of the UK press will be putting the results on the front page.
So all day I've been bored at work waiting to rush home to watch the race. I even left the office early only to find that 'Her Indoors' had paused all downloads to make her Facebook surfing slightly faster and forgotten to start it going again. Grrr!!!
Now all is downloaded, I have watched the introduction, I have a 7 month old baby boy with a baby head cold in his exer-saucer beside me and I am watching the race.
UPDATE:
So far in lap 1; 2 crashes, 2 drivers arguing out fo their cars, one pit fire, one car driving off from his pit-stop with the fuel hose still attached.
I guess its not very proffessional but fun to watch!~!
I was cub scout as a youngster. A member of the 36th Ilford if I am not mistaken. We used to learn first aid, build tents, raise money for charity and every now and then we'd go away for a few days.
I enjoyed it, had fun with my friends and I guess it added to my love of the military later on in life.
Simple enough. I took my grandma's gas mask from World War 2 into school for show and tell. And I think my sister took me in once as well but I'm a bit more fuzzy on that one.
What Zachary didn’t know was that the gizmo violated his school’s zero-tolerance policy on weapons. And now the Christina School District in Newark, Del., has suspended the first grader and ordered him to attend the district’s reform school for 45 days.
Whisky Tango Foxtrot?? A kid brings in his own cutlery and gets suspended? I assume that they serve more than mere finger foods in their dining hall in Newark, Del., or are they all members of the canape and caviar crowd? At the age of 6.
Christ, at 13 I was playing with rifles at my senior school. I could have easily poked someone in the eye with a Lee Enfield number 4 rifel (the rifle used by the majo
rity of British Forces soldiers in World War 2) - it could have really hurt someone.
At 16 I was hospitalized whilst playing grass hockey at school after I received a hockey-stick to the head. I still have the 3 inch scar to prove it! But a spoon - wow, I'd have been scared of that.
It appears that the school district has now ovcerturned their original decision - sorry - let that read 'amended their zero tolerance ruling' to allow more discretion on the part of teachers.
The Christina School Board voted unanimously to amend the Code of Conduct for the 2009-2010 school year to allow individual schools and school administrators more discretion when deciding disciplinary actions for students in Kindergarten and First Grade.
Surely thats why we have teachers in the first place? To use their common sense in how to teach our children the ways of the world?
Also, the above changes to the 'Code of Conduct' does not allow 7 year olds to bring spoons to school. I guess they have to draw the backwards looking, petty ruling somewhere.
So President Obama won the Nobel peace prize for being the President of America. It doesn't make him a hero. Acts like this separate the men from the boys.
Lloyd Gardener came forward to answer a Crimewatch appeal after a woman was attacked and left for dead while walking home from a nightclub.
She was found naked under a truck with a fractured skull, and is still confined to a wheelchair more than three years after her ordeal.
A horrifying ordeal indeed. Mr Gardener realized that the man who did this must be apprehended and did the utmost to make sure that he was.
Well done Mr Gardener for coming forward.
Lloyd Gardner from Exeter, Devon, (above) was given a £10,000 reward for helping convict Polish national Jakob Tomczak
But that is not all.
He was given around $16,000 reward money for helping police track down witnesses. And here is where he became a hero. He donated it to the rape victim, a wheelchair bound Polish woman, who returned home after her vicious attack, as he thought it would help her more than it would him.
I recently watched a very interesting TV show about the ring-necked parakeets that have become so prolific in England and other European countries. It included an interview with the holiest nature man of all time, Sir David Attenborough. Pictured below with a baby bird.
The Great British ParakeetInvasion was shown on British TV on 4th September 2009 so I guess its rather timely that less than a month later 'open season' has been declared on these colourful little squawkers that have invaded copses all over the UK with their bright plumage and noisy calls.
Sadly the ring-necked parakeet is now a viable target for farmers, councils and really anyone with an air rifle (we are talking about the UK here) who finds them to be a nuisance *
I guess success has its drawbacks.
kthanxbai!
* I would like to take this opportunity to thank Blogger for making the fonts in this blog utterly impossible to change. Well done!!
A hero died last week. About 65 years after Hitler wanted him exterminated.
Marek Edelman, who died on October 2, probably aged 90, was the last surviving leader of the armed Jewish revolt against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto; having commanded the heroic but doomed struggle in April 1943 he was one of a tiny number of fighters to escape with his life, eventually taking part in the equally ill-fated citywide Uprising the following year.
Edelman was just 20 when the Nazis invaded Warsaw. By November 1940 the invading army had cut off his district from the rest of the city with walls and wire. As the anti-Semitic directives of the occupation were put into force, hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews were forced into the ghetto, inflating its population to almost half a million.
Conditions became intolerable and in the course of 1941 the ghetto population was decimated by disease and malnutrition. Early the following year however, with Hitler's decision to implement the Endlösung, or final solution to "the Jewish question", plans were put in place to liquidate the ghetto and its remaining occupants entirely.
Dawn Cole writes a marvelous blog over at Not Going Postal. She wrote a very interesting blog at MySA, - "San Antonio's homepage", regarding President Obama's well earned Nobel Peace Prize for his work with. . .
Oh, Nobel Peace Prize Committee. I understand. We've all been there.
You've been in a long-term relationship with someone who just doesn't understand you. Treated you like your feelings weren't important. Dissed your friends. Started giant fights that were just based on his wrong opinions, not grounded in facts.
Couldn't pronounce nuclear to save his life.
You knew you deserved better, and somehow, you finally found it in you to end things. You dried your eyes, and there "He" was.
Sparkly and handsome and smart, and he treats you so well: listens to your needs, takes you seriously, tells you you're important. He even talks in complete sentences.
And I'm so happy for you, really I am. I like him, too. I see a lot of long-term potential there. I think you and Barack Obama are going to be great together.
But honey, he's the rebound boyfriend. You don't just run off to Vegas and get married to someone just because he's not the other guy. You let things develop. You see if he's got what it takes, if he's for real.
You don't give him the Nobel Peace Prize on the first date, either. Bless your heart.
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